Jocko Podcast - 134: With Mike Sarraille. LIFE is a Gift But Not Free. Don't Waste It.

Episode Date: July 18, 2018

0:00:00 - Opening 0:09:06 - Navy Seal, Mike Sarraille 1:18:34 - The Op: Mikey Monsoor saves Mike's life. 2:35:15 - Support 3:08:17 - Closing Thoughts and Gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 134 with Echo Charles and me Jocker Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Maybe I was always in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can see where someone could get that idea. But I actually don't think that. I don't think that at all. It's in fact quite the opposite.

Now, looking back, Of course, there were some tough times. There were some awful times. I'd even go so far as to say there were some wretched times. There were nights filled with discomfort and stress and fear. And there was pressure. And sometimes that pressure was... so great that I thought my mind just might fracture but fortunately I could tell you

that I didn't break there were times there were times when I saw the cracks I saw the cracks starting to split open and I had to work hard to keep it together the way it was in my old line of work line of work had some definite downsides on top of all that pressure and stress and fear and discomfort there was death even during peacetime even during peacetime I lost friends and I lost teammates it goes with the personality profile they would say risk takers so even peace provided little peace and then once the war started it just escalated not just for me not by any stretch whatsoever every military member has dealt with death in some way over the past 17 years of war some more than others

there've also been life-changing wounds of which I was spared I was lucky many others were not so lucky because the bombs and the bullets and the IEDs and the mortars and the rockets they do not care who you are at all for whatever reason i made it through i was lucky now and maybe i'm a little more paranoid than the next person and maybe i don't always sleep that well and maybe there's times when some thought or some memory catches me off guard and i end up reliving a moment from the past a moment from the past that I wish I could change. You might think, wouldn't I just want to change it all?

I want to go back and erase all that pain and replace it with relief, replace it with ease and with comfort. And the answer to that question is no. In fact, it's not just no, it's hell no. Because wrapped up in that pain and wrapped up in that discomfort and wrapped up in that stress and anxiety wrapped up in all that is the polar opposites of all those feelings inside all that turmoil there was relief there was certainty there was happiness there was focus and security and there was peace of mind in knowing that no matter what no matter what

befell me things would be okay and that is because I knew that my brothers would take care of me no matter what my old job allowed me to work with some of the best guys in the world not all of them you've heard me talk about that before there's substandard people in every organization in the world there's a bell curve and the bottom of the bell curve is filled with the same deficient people you'll find anywhere lazy scamming irresponsible self-centered whatever but at the high end of that bell curve the guys I worked with were righteous and noble and hard-working and it was humbling to be around them now were they perfect no no none of us are flaws yes absolutely all of us fall short but could I count on them could I count on

them without question and without hesitation 100% through all the horror and the fear and the pressure there were always some guys that I knew without a shred of doubt would stand beside me and hold the line no matter what they would never let me down ever as fate would have it I'm lucky enough to have one of those few men that I knew I could always count on no matter what here with me tonight he's done more for me and for the teams and for our great nation in the world is ever going to know his name is Mike Sorrelli he's a former recon Marine the very recently retired SEAL officer

and he's someone that's never let me down. So Mike, welcome to the podcast, and thanks for coming on, brother. Hey, Jocko, happy to be here, Neco. Thank you for having me. So you retired how long ago? March 1st. March 1st.

And so no one knows anything about you, which is the way it is. And so let's get to know a little bit about you, starting with the beginning. Let's start NorCal. NorCal. That's where you were born, right? NorCal, Palo Alto, California, just about 30 minutes south of San Francisco.

Entire family born and raised in San Francisco. They're all still back there, except for my brother, Whitefish, Montana. But you know what? Nothing to really lack in terms of growing up. Had a great family. You know, sometimes I described growing up in this Sirelli household is being in 1960s, 1950s, Germany, Berlin,

except I was on the wrong side of the wall. I grew up in a very Catholic family, loving parents, very strict, stern parents, but I got the benefit of being the last child. And by that point, I have an older brother and sister. They'd worn down your parents a little bit? They'd worn down my parents a little bit.

And so I got away with bloody murder to a point. But, you know, standard, you know, upbringing of a seal. I had my share of trouble that I cost. And that's probably why I went the path that I went. At what point did you, at what point did you realize that you were going to go in the military? So, you know, I can't pinpoint a specific moment. But everything was driving that, you know, driving me that way.

I did have a grandfather that was first of the 501st in World War II. Actually, he had trained with Patton out in... Oh, at the lake after training center. Yes. So they actually trained at the lake. Oh, okay. Near Nileland. Oh, Salt and Sea.

Salt and Sea. And so he'd actually hit the very early part of Africa and then came back to the states when airborne and he was a quartermaster for the first of the 501st. I'm sorry, first of the 501st. Nonetheless, he still went through airborne training and he would jump in with him. And so he was actually a third day of Normandy drop.

Dang. And then fought in the battle of the bulge in the Black Forest. And so that humble confidence that he never spoke about and so my mom would naturally tell me stories. and it wasn't until I became a Marine that he actually, you know, really revealed a lot of the stories from World War II. And then, you know, as he got older, it was the same stories. But I would sit there and listen for the 15th time as if it was the first time I was, you know, hearing it out of respect. You know, it's interesting.

I was talking to Dave Burke once again today. Good deal, dude. Yeah, good deal, Dave. We were talking about reading about face. and I was saying, hey, you know, when you read about the older I got, the more it meant to me. And there's a quote from Musashi that I talked about on the podcast, which is it's something like this, and I'm not going to get it perfectly right, but it's something like this. When you know the way, then you see the way in all things. So about face is not a leadership book at all.

But when you read it and you are thinking about leadership, it's just all. about leadership it's a hundred percent about leadership but it reminds me of what you're saying like when you're a little when you're a kid and you don't know the way yet and your grandfather could be telling you these stories and it sounds kind of cool or whatever but compared to when you actually know and one understand war and you it's just a totally different story and as a matter of fact speaking to that when you were running the Jotsie course I was I came in and I was gonna do like the brief that I would do to the Jottsy course and you

you know you were there it was like the 10th time you were gonna watch it and I was like hey are you gonna hang out watch this or you're just gonna leave and go do like work out or something and you're like no I'm gonna stick around and I was like why are you for what and you're like I learn something new every time I was like dang so that's pretty uh definitely when you get older you can appreciate some of these things from um when you know the way well let's look at extreme ownership I mean this is why you hear people that are like hey I'm reading it for the seventh time yeah because they they will get 10 new things or their perspective has changed that's the big thing that's the part that I didn't

account for and I don't know who told me this is somebody told me this like it was someone that had come to multiple musters and I said well you know how'd you like this one and all the musters are a little bit different but the first three were not that different the first three were the same almost the same and someone said well it's only been a year but my perspective is totally different now because I've been promoted one time and I got different situations going on so it's I'm seeing it differently so that's that's another thing that happens as you get again older.

So back to you, how did you pick the Marine Corps? Or did the Marine Corps pick you? A little bit of both. Out of options. No, hey, so you know, standard, again, high school sports, loved running, loved wrestling. The grades, not so much. It wasn't for a lack of aptitude. It was a lack of complete effort.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, you know, loved to party if it didn't have to do with parties or girls. I wasn't involved. Yeah. And so I actually was the only one in my high school class not to graduate. Yes. So you got that going for you. My mom is a little Italian woman.

And, you know, she really is the rock of the family. And you have to know how to play her. My dad is just the disciplinarian. And you feared him. Yeah, you just feared him, bottom line. But, you know, my mom was a nurturer and a disciplinarian. You just had to play both sides because once you put her onto the disciplinary side, you just had no safe house whatsoever anywhere in the Sorrelia household.

So they did, you know, my dad had served in Vietnam in the reserves. He did not have to go to Vietnam because he had a very unique skill. He was very good at football. And back in the day, he was stationed in Fort Polk, Louisiana. he got assigned to the football team. And that's what he did in the Army. But very different Army. Wasn't a fan in the military.

We were different in those regards, but we're very much alike. So I went off to the University of Colorado, Boulder. Wait, how did you do this if you didn't graduate high school? Did you get your GED? No, no. So I went back for the summer school, summer session and finished the requirement. And I had already been accepted into the University of Colorado and Boulder. That's good.

The early stage of my life is not, you just, parents can't say there's a whole lot of pride there from the end of high school until about the first year of college. So I did not pick up a ROTC and Naval ROTC scholarship at Boulder, but you can enroll as a volunteer in hopes of picking up a scholarship. So I joined the Naval ROTC at University of Colorado, Boulder, and shortly got kicked out. just for getting in trouble. And I remember the battalion midshipman commander pulled me in for my counseling and said you will never become a Navy SEAL. Oh, so at that time you wanted to be in the SEAL theories. So I was going between the SEALs and Force Recon.

And lo and behold, we had this guy, Ben, I won't use his last name, who was a Force Recon Marine, fifth force at the University of Colorado Boulder as a MESET, Marine Enlisted Commission Education Program. Marine. It was just impressive. Built like a little tank. Everything about him, articulate, smart, confident, not the loudest guy in the room. And so he sort of took me under his wings. I said, hey, don't worry about it. College is not going to work out for you this go-round. Why don't you do what you want to do? And, you know, walk me down to the recruiting office in Boulder, Colorado. Signed up. And when I signed up, I came back to, you know,

northern California for a few months while I was waiting for my my boot camp date enjoyed myself and then when it was time to go you know I sort of dropped the last minute information on my parents mom having a father that was in the military she accepted it pretty well and for my father he was he was not happy given his you know everything is about our perceptions right in life and his perception his experience with the army was not a favorable one and so he was livid and we had a few words and he did not see me off to the airport. My brother and my mother did.

And then fast forward to boot camp. Ben, again, had given me some good advice. Like, you can turn this around. And the Marine Corps will give you every opportunity to do that. And so I crushed it in boot camp, graduated honor man out of like, you know, 300 kids. And on graduation day or the day prior, You know, the parents can come out and see you, and they line up the entire recruit battalion, and lo and behold, who's in front carrying the guide on me.

And that's the one time, you know, me and my father did not get along in high school, because, again, not his fault. You just see him doing this and shaking his head. And, you know, ever since that time, my father and I see each other in a different light, we still clash because we were so alike. But we've got a common understanding and he's just a good man my parents are good folks like I could not you know I was never in want for love for discipline In the sororly household was a great household

It's weird too because as a parent you're always thinking if you try and impose too much on your kids You're just gonna you're just gonna push him in the other direction you know what I'm saying? So You know for you like for instance your dad could have been like no you're not doing it and you would have been so rebellious probably would have joined anyways and done, you know, then you would just not gone along even more. But he had to just be like, okay, I'm not going to see you off, but I'll be there at graduation. Dude, I'll put it to you this way. I love the Marine Corps. Best run service, albeit they're the small service, best run service in the U.S. military. You just can't debate that. And I think what he saw was he sent a boy off, and like within three months he saw.

at the beginning of a man. Yeah. And, I mean, he loved it. He took it on wholesale. He loved it so much that he would pass by a recruiting office. He'd stop, get some donuts and bring him into the office and shake your hands. I mean, he loved the military at this point. He sought from a different, I mean, we literally changed his experience in Vietnam to a favorable one.

Yeah. Yeah, the Marine Corps has really just mastered that whole thing of taking a recruit and turning them into a Marine. They are really good at that. They are really good. It's awesome. The thing I always said about the Marine Corps is there's, you know, in the SEAL teams, you'll get these totally great guys at the high end of the spectrum,

and you'll get much worse guys at the lower end of the spectrum. The Marine Corps, it just keeps it all in a much tighter group. Like, you know what you're getting. It's going to be a Marine, and it's going to be good to go. You're talking about, like, their minute of angle. Yeah, their minute of angles much shot. It's a tight shot group. The SEAL teams, you know, we get some, we get some,

awesome guys for sure but then you get a couple scattered rounds out there a couple stray rounds that are off paper don't don't worry about that little guy yeah check so so then what year was this now is this like 1998 it was it was 98 98 so so glad I came in before 9-11 because I got to see the pre-war military and then you know became what I call the the G-watt babies that were absolutely spoiled and this sounds you know contradictory is spoiled by war. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what did you do?

What was your MOS? So went in as a, Jesus, I'm even forgetting it, 0-311 Rifleman. Check. But so when I was at the school of imagery, these recon Marines show up. And you could always tell the recon Marines. They have the dual cool, the double trouble.

And the hair is a little longer, and they stand a little taller. And so unbeknownst to me, they literally had to try out that day. And so that was my opportunity to get into recon early. And I did extremely well. Finished first within that class. And they're like, okay, do you want to go recon? I said, yes, absolutely.

And so out of the school of infantry, when I graduated from there, it was straight to the basic reconnaissance course right next to Buds in Coronado for three months. How do you guys get to go straight through that pipeline like that? So, you know, it ebbed and flowed. Usually you had to do some infantry time before you tried out, but I think, you know, similar to the demands of post-9-11 when we started opening, or the Green Beret community started opening up the 18X program for guys straight off the street into the special forces. Recon would occasionally do the same thing. And so very few, and I just happened to hit at an opportune time, past the screening. And I'll tell you what, BRC was tough.

and I have nothing but respect for those guys. It's, you know, it's not, they don't have a hell week, but it is, it is man town in every respect. Yeah, no, I should see those guys. Obviously, we see them all the time going through classes. And then, so, and then you show up, where'd you go? Where'd you go after that? So first recombatalion at Camp Pendleton.

Check. And it was quickly thrown into schools. It was awesome. So got dive school right off the bat, which is the Marine Combatant Dive course in Panama City, Florida, which was, I'll tell you what, and most deals don't like to hear this, it was as tough as second phase, if not tougher. And even academically, they dove in a lot deeper to the dive physics, the dive medicine. So you had guys getting dropped for academics. And then after that, it was shortly off to sniper school, which I was ill-prepared for, loved. I remember my mom,

I went back to San Francisco because I had a weekend off and you had to build your own gilly suits. And I built the worst gilly suit that you probably have ever seen. I still have the thing in storage. It looks like Chubaca lying on the ground. But past that school by the skin of my teeth. And I think we started with 40 and we graduated 12 and it literally came down to the last dock. And a guy named Brian from Idaho who had been with a stay of platoon in the Marines. Corps, which is more or less a sniper platoon, and literally helped me get in my last position

and sacrificed himself because he didn't need to score a perfect score on that run and passed. But I made up for it in that, you know, the shooting. Yeah, the shooting. The shooting was not a problem. It was just stalking since I had no real preparatory work going in and those guys had. It was tough. How was your patience level during stalking? Was it good?

It was, you know, it was decent. The problem was we went to sniper school in January in California, which is cold. And so we were out there all the time, sometimes rain. And so, you know, the patience was fine. It was just the pain of sitting there, which you had to contend with. And then do you go on deployment? No. So did a entire workout and actually shifted over to another platoon because I was at first recomb battalion.

And it was a company at the time, and we turned into a battalion when I was there. So I transferred from 7th platoon to a new platoon and continued a workup and had a great officer pulled me aside. And he's like, hey, man, I want to put you in for the MESA program, which again is the Marine enlisted commissioning education program. For the listeners, that's where they send an active duty Marine, usually a corporal sergeant or staff sergeant, to go back and get their college degree on the Marine Corps done. and then come back as an officer. It's because you've shown some promise. What I say is I'd only been in two alcohol-related incidents in the Marine Corps. And so they said, hey, you're an officer material.

You were a front-runner. I'm joking. But so the officer put me in. I filled out the package and got selected as a corporal very early in my career. And so when they asked me where I wanted to go, I wanted to go to the University of Texas. did not get in because let's track back. They looked at high school records.

They were like, uh, no. And so, uh, believe it or not, I'd been to a wedding in Austin, one of my recon buddies and love the town. And, uh, the same guy looked at me. He's like, hey, man, why don't you try Texas A&M? He's like, it's like the next best thing. It's only about an hour and a half outside of Austin. I'm like, okay, all right.

And of course, I'm a corporal at the time. I don't have the money to go visit Texas A&M. internet was not exactly booming at that time. And so I just submitted an application actually some Marines that were there called me, and they made it sound like a great place. And so when I went out there, drove out there with my three boxes of household goods, and it is just a country town with 50,000 college students. And it was a great opportunity, but college station was not for me.

and the war had kicked off. And so I finished school in three years and got out of there. And then how did you go from, at what point did you tell them you wanted to join the Navy? So, you know, going out there, I had about a 75% that had already made my decision that I wanted to switch over to the seals. Even if you looked at it from a time perspective,

had I gone to TBS and then, you know, officer infantry course, it would have taken me the same amount of time to get to a SEAL team and so it just made common sense I'd worked with a few seals during the workups and new workups at first recombatine you know they were older

statistically more highly educated more physically fit and the biggest part they were part of SOGone and they had the money I was still carrying the M16A2 as a reconarine

a sniper we just didn't have the money we didn't have the gear And so you never see SEAL switch from the SEAL teams to recon, but you see a lot of recon Marines switch over to SOCOM units. They either go SEAL, Green Beret, and a lot of them went PJ, which for the listeners is a Air Force Parer Rescue Jumper. So I did go to Marine OCS, and I got to tell you again, that was a challenge.

I lost, I think I went in around probably 185 and lost about 20,000. 20 pounds that he didn't need to lose. So that was a summer in Quantico, and I was impressed. And you talk about maintaining that standard, that quality spread that the Marine Corps does so well, especially within their officer ranks. That's the reason. Yeah, yeah. How long is Marine Corps OCS?

Three months. And how did, if you knew you wanted to go in the Navy, how come they sent you to Marine Corps OCS? So the MESP program, you actually go to OCS after the, or during the first summer, after your freshman year. Got it. You still come back as a sergeant. I was a sergeant in that time. Continue towards your degree and once you finish your degree.

Then you get your commission. You get commission. One year prior, and here's the funny thing. So one year prior to graduating and said, hey, went to my Marine officer instructor who was a major, who's a prior enlisted guy himself, great guy. I'm like, hey, I think I want to go to Seals. He's like, okay, let's put a package in.

I was like, hey, the military's going to get there pound a flash from me either way. Do what you want to do. the commanding officer was a Marine colonel. Did not see it that way. I was disloyal. So during the process, you have betrayed the Marine Corps.

Pretty much. I literally hate you. The major prep me again, he's like, hey, just listen to what he has to say. Nod your head and just step out of the room. I got you. And so the inter-service transfer was almost immediately approved. It was that easy of a process.

But then they told me I needed to attend something called out minibuds that summer of my junior year. And so when I show up, you have about 35 midshipmen from Naval ROTC units, the Naval Academy, and then one sergeant in his Marine Charlie's. And it is, you know, khakis, khaki top with blue bottoms with the red stripe. and I'm amongst 34 guys in white, and I just took out, and it was Gondie Highway. So, Gunny Highway is in our course. And I was still very much a sergeant. So they did love me towards the end because, like, they said, hey, we need this done.

I would step up, you know, hey, fellas, let's get this done! And the guy sort of rallied around me, and, you know, lo and behold, at the end of that, I had a spot waiting for me when I graduated. And it didn't hurt that the CEO of Buds was a former Marine himself. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. It's a good way to get that in there.

The prior Marines that come in the teams are always got a little extra squared awayness inside them in their brain. And Buds, any factor of buds? Does anyone go through Buzz and say it's a non-factor? What was the biggest factor you had? Patience. It was patience. That's why I asked you about patients in sniper school. What were you in facie with?

So, you know, in sniper school, I was still a new guy. Oh, yeah, that's right. So, you know, stepping into a community that I highly admired that I want to be a part of was the easy party. It was some of the instructors had a very, they were, they were very artistic in getting under your skin. Oh, yeah. So what year is it now? Now when is it? Oh, three.

Oh, yeah. Oh, three. So it's game time. In fact, I think you, you were, you were. deployed right around that time. Yeah. Well, I was deployed in 2003, 2004, my first deployment to Iraq. Yeah.

Because your counterpart, your sister-patun commander visited me. Oh, okay. In Buds. Cool. And it was right before you guys went. Oh, right on. And which I have a funny story about Jotsie when you came to speak to us. So, you know, just the patients are going through the process again.

I came to speak to you and you went through Jotzi? You did. Oh, okay. I did not remember that. That's weird. So you had you were a little bit impatient of going through buds like basically you're saying oh man I'm ready to get in the game and they're like okay take this sweep this grinder and do all this dumb stuff that you have to do. Yeah a hundred percent When people ask me because people ask me all the time hey I'm 33 years old. I want to go into military. Do you think it's a good idea? I'm always like here's the problem the problem is you're 34 years old. There's some real benefits to that in that you're mature and you are smart and you have. have knowledge about the world here's the bad part you're mature you're smart you have

knowledge about the world because when they're like hey we want you to do this completely ridiculous task that makes no sense whatsoever you're not going to feel like doing it and you're going to have to do it and that's going to grade on you even more when I was 18 years old and I joined the Navy it literally didn't matter what they made me do I would like well like what you just said when you when you join the Marine Corps and when when Ben said you hey look you can you just just do what they tell you to do and and life's going to good. You, like, I didn't, no one told me that, but when I got to boot camp, I was like, oh,

I do what they tell me to do in life, it's going to be good. That's what's going to happen. So it's like, oh, you can fold my underwear, whatever, clean the toilets, hey, let's do this. And that's a lot easier when you're 18 than it is when you're 34. A lot easier. It is. And, you know, it's not so much what they tell you to do. They tell you what to do, but they want to see if you perform.

It's not that we're trying to create robots. And, you know, a lot of people, you have to demystify that about the military. But Buds is just a long process. And then while we're going through it, they're telling us. They're telling us stories about what you guys are doing overseas. Or, you know, we had one seal pass away in Afghanistan at that time. Someone received a Navy Cross in front of us. And the whole time, you want to be those guys.

Not the medals or any of that, but you want to be the gladiator in the arena. And you know you have 12 more months of training before you can even show up to a seal team. The other big thing, and you knew this because you'd been in the brink. The other big thing that people don't understand is the fear of, That we all had that this thing was gonna end and we weren't gonna do anything That was the biggest fear I had was this war's gonna happen. It's gonna be over in in three months and I won't have deployed and I'll have to do the rest of my Navy career never have go never never going into combat which was the the next the biggest nightmare I can imagine total nightmare That would have been it's the same for the guys that were in the Gulf War You know that certain platoons got to go over there yeah and they sat behind thinking they were gonna backfill him

And the war was going to be a long war. And then it's over in what, six days? Yeah. I had a Master Chief friend that was on the last plane to the last platoon going to Vietnam. And the plane got shut down and they didn't go. It's like a total nightmare for them. But it's hard for people to understand that mentality of how bad you want to go. And it's just the way it is, man.

I wish there was some nice thing to say about it or some psychological way to explain it away like, hey, it's just, no, it's like, I'm just going to say the way. It is when you're young and you're in the military you want to go to war. That's all there is to it. I'm sorry. That's the way it is But you believe you believe in what you are doing. There's a sense of purpose and again it is counterintuitive that anyone would want to go to combat I'm super stoked that you feel that way. I'm here to tell you and admit to you that like I just wanted to go to war I just wanted to go to war. I actually another old Vietnam guy he when he left SEAL Team One He goes, I joined the Navy in 1970 so I could kill people from my country. And I was like, oh, yeah, I know what he's talking about. You know, the funny thing is you start to love it.

You start to love more. Oh, yeah. That's not a bad thing. Funny enough, I took a job right when I retired at Texas A&M system. I was the director of veteran services for all 12 campuses. But there was this sort of old hen that, a mother hen that just didn't really like me. And, you know, she leans in, she's like, what is the worst part about war? And I look at her and say that it has to end.

And just walked right off. And you could hear the... It's the classic line that they got right in apocalypse now is when Colonel Kilgore's like, he's distraught. He's talking about napalm in the morning. And that smell, that gasoline smell, the whole hill smelled like... Victory. And someday this war is going to end. And that's the worst thing he can think of.

Because, hey, man, he's a battalion commander of the cavalry unit in Vietnam. He's God. He's on top of the world. He's on top of the world. There's nothing more important in the world to him. Ever. He can't even imagine it. And he's depressed that someday the war is going to end.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So where were we? So you get done with buds. Buds, the biggest thing you... People always ask about the physical part of Buds. You're in good shape. No factor. Yes, is it physically exhausting? Of course. What do you want to be saying?

But you know what it is? Also, it's an opportunity to actually start cementing your reputation. And again, I was very much still a sergeant and the instructors love me because I would rally the boys. Even, you know, what I like to call a healthy appetite or healthy disrespect for authority is to get the guys fired up against him a little bit. And they get paid a little bit, you know, you seem to smirking to be like, all right. It's really worth the price. So, and again, you know, got the fire in the gut. The boys love me. They rallied around me.

Your officer, you got the fire of the gut? Yeah. I haven't heard that too much. Have you heard that too much? You know, I don't know. I haven't heard that too much. A caveat, or what is it called. I don't forget what it's called, but I had one of my buddies text me the day, oh, you're

making it sound like Buds is super easy. It's not easy. And I was like, no, no, no, no. Let me correct myself. I'm not saying Buds is easy. Like you said, buds is hard. It's physically hard. The hardest thing to me I think physically is that it goes on day after day after day after day after day

And so when you're doing a four mile time run which should be pretty easy because in first phase you've got 32 minutes to do that That's a long that's a slow pace even for a grown man. That's a slow pace even for a big guy that's a slow pace But when you've done whatever 8,000 eight count bodybuilders the day before and then you got up at three in the morning and you did eight million flutter kicks and then you go out and get on the beach and you do a time run and soft sand with boots on It's not easy and that's what That's what trips people up, I think, the grind. The one thing, too, for me, that was a driver is there was no way that I was going to disrespect the Marine reconnaissance community. No way.

There are some warriors. I mean, there's a lot of warriors within that community, and so that was always over my head. No way was I going to ring that bell. That would just be a complete, you know, complete utter lack of respect for the community I came from. The quitting in buds is really hard to understand. And I had like a midlife crisis several months ago about because some people that I knew about and that I talked to had quit. And like I didn't get it. And there's been guys from the Marine Corps that have gone through that I've been like, oh, that's awesome.

And then they quit. And you're thinking yourself, how does this even happen? So I'm a hundred percent on board with the thought that no one knows who's going to make it through No one knows like you can't say this guy's gonna make it he's a stud or this person's not gonna make it because they're weak You you literally don't know now could I bat 60% maybe 70% maybe but there's no way you could make a sure thing There's not one person in the world that you could say this guy is going to make it through buds a hundred percent There's no person in the world you can say that about that I've that I've that I

know of. The most humbling lesson I learned in Buds, and you're going to find this funny, was I went through buds with a guy named Ryan Job. Sound familiar? And again, remember, I was a really fired up Marine sergeant that just pinned on bars. And from judging a book by its cover, you look at Ryan, you're like, you're not going to make it. Everything was sloppy about him. And I even told him at one point, I'm like, hey, man, you're not going to make it. You should quit now. And just to watch him, and the instructor zeroed in on him. And the kid had no quit.

And even at the end of the hell week, having been beat more than anyone in that class, the instructors actually pulled him aside, and they said, hey, you're good to go. Like, we've thrown everything at you in the kitchen sink, and you stood strong. You're going to be a great seal. And I watch that, and I'm like, Oh man. Yeah. I, who am I to judge who's going to make it and who's not?

And that was a life lesson I still remember. It wasn't until Ramadi that I apologize to Ryan. He sort of giggling. He's like, yeah, I know. He's like you all thought I wasn't going to make it. Yeah, like you said, though, no, zero quit. Zero quit. And it doesn't matter what you do to me.

I'm going to be right here. So then you get done, you get done with buds. So I came and talked to your Jotzi class. What did I talk to you guys about? You said you and your task unit commander came and talked about the deployment as a whole. Okay. Awesome. But there's a narrow, it's on the second deck, the classroom for junior officer training course, which I eventually took over for Laif later on.

There's a narrow passageway. And this task unit commander for Jocko and Jocko coming off as Patoon Commander tour had this, we're standing like this and they created a little lane. And as each of us walked through, Jock would lean in and basically make you shimmy through and you're like what the hell is up with this guy right off the bat this guy is an a hole

like screw this guy now you want us to listen to you and I mean naturally he's a physically intimidating dude but like you really like screw that guy man I don't remember that at all

I'm sorry bro I always had fun with new guys though it didn't stop there and we'll get to the next encounter and then you showed up you went right to T, you You went, did you go right to team three after that? I did.

Showed up in November of 2004. And there was three slots open for J.O.'s immediately. And they went to All Naval Academy guys. And I got stuck in ops working with a great guy. Right on. That we both know. And I absolutely looked out for me. And so sent me to free fall right away.

And then when I finished that up, he's like, hey, do you want to go join the boys overseas because team three was deployed at the time. I'm like, yeah. So, it was, you know, shortly after December, found myself on a plane and arrived in Baghdad and bawling. I was finally

in the game. I was there. That's half the battle, and I loved it. Yeah. And then what were you doing? Just tagging along with the boys? So, yes. Or did they give you some strange job description, but it just meant hang out and wait to go on all this? So working in the job.

naturally as an assistant operations officer. But there was another SEAL team that was there. Remember, they were due to deploy alongside SEAL Team 3. And fell in with the platoon commander quickly. And he's like, hey, jump on the Humvees. You're a 50-cow gunner. When we go out, just watch us do our thing, you know, set up cordon with the vehicles and slowly learn.

And so every time they would go out, I would jump in the Humvee as a 50-Cow gunner. and I was in heaven. Yeah. I was in absolutely heaven. It doesn't get any better. You're just freaking stoked. Yeah.

And then you came back so you come home from that deployment and then you get put into, did you get a platoon the next time where you like, did you get stuck being ops again in that task unit? So I get, yeah, I got stuck. This is like good deals for good seals. Yeah. Got stuck as T.U. Charlie Opso. Oh, get some.

And so, again, the other slots were full. I'd have to wait for an AIC. It would mean I still get to deploy. I actually, it's a double benefit. When you look at it at the end of the day, I actually get two deployments. Those guys, after they're done with their assistant platoon commander tour, have to go elsewhere.

And so it actually was a blessing in disguise. And then, okay, so you're in that task unit. And interestingly, that task unit is in the book, Extreme Ownership in a very short passage. And I was looking at it to think about what we said about it. But there was a task unit at Steel Team three at the time and the task unit commander and one of the platoon commanders they didn't get along they had issues with each other and they couldn't they couldn't get they couldn't put it aside

they just couldn't put it aside and even the commanding officer again this is in the book and the commanding officer said hey look I'll tell you what I know you two have issues because they had both come to him separately and I'm probably screwing up the story but it was something like this they both came to him and said hey look I can't work with this guy and the other guy says I can't work with this guy and he brings him together and says look it's Friday by Monday come in here and tell me how you two are going to work together understand and they're like yeah I got it sir they come in Monday and what do they say I can't work with him I can't work with him and he goes okay you guys can't work together guess what you're fired and he

fired of both of them which was a which was a great move actually I but I think it was a good move you know if you've got two people that can't figure out how to work together under the threat of being fired from your job that's a really problem especially if you can't substantiate it I mean if you can't go in there and say listen here's the reasons why I can't work with this guy it's this this and this because obviously had the opportunity to do that and there's situations where you say look I can't work with this guy his immoral or he's unethical or he treats everyone horribly and I can't sit there and watch this happen like

there's reasonable arguments that you could make where you literally can't work with someone but when you can't even substantiate an argument as to why you can't work with someone and then you get told okay I get it and I don't hear any real reasons so you two go figure it out and you two go figure it out and You come back and say no, it's not happening. Seems to me like a good move is, okay, neither one of these guys I trust to go overseas and form relationships with other military units and foreign military units and do their job properly. And he fired them both.

You somehow, they said, okay, you know what, collateral damage, we're going to take Sorrelli, and we're going to move them into task unit bruiser. That's what they did. And I was stoked because I wanted more people always, you know, because you get another 50-Cal gunner, You get another officer you get another shooter you get it it's another person. It's awesome and I was stoked to have you coming on board and there was there was there was drama because You know inside inside bruiser was like no drama like we don't we don't play drama like we we solve problems we keep our mouths shut we do what we're supposed to do We if we got problems we figure them out we straighten them out and we move on and we could see all this Drama unfolding in that other tasking it which is is not cool I mean you don't like seeing that at a seal team you want the whole seal team to be kick ass

And so you see a task unit that's in turmoil. It's like not fun to watch, especially because I knew. I basically knew every player in there. I knew every one of those guys. And you watch them just falling apart and eagles are flaring up and it's just a nightmare, man. It was a nightmare. And anyways, you get basically out of that whole catastrophe out comes Mike Sorrelli into tasking a bruiser. And the best worst deal I've ever been dealt.

Best worst deal I've ever been dealt. So you check in. And I remember, I was thinking to myself. Okay, I didn't know you I've looked at your record. I knew you were in the Marine Corps I like I knew that you were gonna be squared away That was my that was my as much as you can predict you know I was thinking okay this guy was in the Marine Corps This guy's gonna be awesome you seem like you were serious and you want to do good job and and so I was My assumption was you're gonna kick ass

However I had to be a little bit you know had to do a little precautionary Take some precautionary measures to make sure that you understood where I was coming from you know I wanted to make sure You knew where I was coming from while I having a little fun with me just a little just a smidge Yeah, so that's why that's why we so introducing you into the task bringing you in I wanted to let you know like hey this is where I'm at You know we don't have any job here. That's why so that's why we did the whole the whole briefing so in the mechanical So in the mechanical room so at seal team three at the time there was no ceilings in any they were doing this big remodel and there was no seal There was no ceilings in any of the platoon spaces or task unit spaces. There was all just there was a wall with no ceiling.

So you could hear everything that was being said. And so whenever I had something legitimate, like an issue to bring up with someone, and it was almost, it was, in fact, it wasn't even almost always. It was always my, my J.O's. It was either Leif or Seth or one of the other JOs, and I'd bring them in there and I'd be like, hey, here's what's going on. Because in the mechanical room, there's a loud noise and no one can hear you. And that's the only room that still had a ceiling. For privacy. For privacy.

It was like the cone of silence. Yeah, yeah. It was the cone of silence. So whenever someone was doing something that I really need to tighten up, someone was getting out of line and I really needed to talk to him on the secret level. And by secret, I mean, I didn't want anyone gossiping about what I was about to say. So I'd bring him in the mechanical room and tell him what was up. And so that's how I welcomed Mike into the task unit.

Go ahead. Now you can get in your perspective. What happened? What happened? So having come out of it, incident. where I was wrapped up in a lot of a little bit of drama and being shifted. That incident though, you were just sort of like in that group or were you, you know. So since I was close, the operations officer, which is basically the guy that handles the

day-to-day affairs for the troop commander, I was naturally close to him. And if you want to step back to that task unit, because it was one of the, again, many great leadership lessons across the course of my career for a new guy watching that in the SEAL teams, it was you know I was question maybe this community is not from me if this is the norm

because this is my first experience so this means this is normal to me it just seemed like backstabbing and egos one of the platoons they performed and they stayed out of the drama

for the most part between this platoon commander and the task unit commander it was from day one it was just like watching a train derail you just saw it coming and the fact that the boss

laid down the rule and they come back on Monday morning and paint him into a corner, I don't know what they expected. Yeah, yeah. And they both got fired and it both affected their career. But it was a, you know, I actually, I can say as a new guy, it was a great thing to see in retrospect, because you learn what not to do. Yeah. But when I was told to report into Jocko, you know, I'm not in the best of spirits.

Sure. and knocking the door to task you to bruiser and say, hey, Mike's Raleigh, Jocko, I'm here to report in. And he said, Roger, come with me. And he had a sheet of paper in his hand. Principles office. I'm like, what's going on here?

And so I follow him into, everyone knows what the mechanical room is, but nobody goes in. And, I mean, you just want to picture like cogs turning. Yeah, yeah. It's loud. There's steam coming out. Nightmare on Elm Street.

That's where Frady Cougar did most of his work. You actually told me to pop two. And so I popped two, and you basically laid down the law of, hey, I heard what happens. You have a clean slate here, but do not bring drama into my task unit. Here's your counseling sheet. You've been formally counseled and pretty much left the room. And I think I sat in the room for maybe like 30 seconds to a minute. And I'm just staring at the wall like, what the?

My career in the SEAL teams is going to be extremely short. I'm getting it from all directions. And what he did was you lay down the law. And I understood there was just one thing to do at that point. And that was just perform. Yeah. It was performed. Yeah.

The other backstory here is the platoon that you're talking about that performed well inside that task unit. The platoon chief in that because he was, he was one of my good friends from way back. And because there's all this stray voltage going around about whose fault this was. And he came up to me and he goes, hey, you're getting Sorrelli? And I was like, yeah. And he goes, he's fucking good to go. I was like, check, and that's literally all I needed to hear. Because when he told me that, I knew, like, I respect his opinion.

And so I actually knew you were going to be good to go a little bit stronger than I gave note to. Now, he was, in terms of first people you meet in the SEAL teams, was absolutely welcoming to every new guy. No hazing whatsoever. You can perform as a new guy. You're a part of this platoon. You have a voice. And once he found out, because he's a sniper, found out, I was a. a sniper in the Marine Corps. He's like, go, hey, I'm making a call to the Army right now. Go check out a suite

of guns. And I was shocked. And, you know, I trained up as a sniper, as an officer for the entire workup. And it was because of that one guy who welcomed me with open arms. And, you know, despite his long history in the teams, I mean, no ego whatsoever. He's humble, awesome guy. So you giving him that paper, the formal counseling? That's like, isn't that something you normally do if you get in trouble some officially scolding you or reprim this so you just did it to make a straight up impression like hey you're in by the way I probably wrote in my entire naval career less than five I might have written three maybe so he didn't even do anything yeah I know I know I had to give one to Leif

one time like my my I Laif Leif did something and the XO Was like you need to write him up and I was like definitely sir and so I wrote him up and then I shredded it later or whatever You know it's like not but there's a very few times that I actually did that But again we were getting you late. It was pretty late. We were going on deployment soon and so I was like okay Let's let's get some get to set the you know set the expectations out there in the front you know We're not playing around and then we go on deployment We go to Ramadi we well we guess before we did that we did surdex and all that kind of the last a little bit of training and then we went on deployment to Romani.

No, I did not. I joined you after Surdex. I literally joined you three weeks before we deploy. Good God. So I was that fresh to task you to Bruiser. No relationships with a few guys that I'd gone to Bud's with. Actually, so remember Mark Lee and I transferred over the same time. Yeah. Yeah.

That was after Surdex? Wow. Are you sure? Mark might have been before. I was after. Okay. Yeah, I think Mark was before. Yeah, yeah.

Because oh, that's right, because everything fell apart in surdex for you guys. But your surdex was before ours. That's right. We come back from Panama. Yeah. That's when the proverbial shit hit the fan within that task unit. So then, Jay, we're getting ready to go to Ramadi. And what did you, you became, what did you become?

Like, like, because I had a guy that was the task unit ops. Did I make you task unit assistant ops? Constantly demoted. That was the beginning of my self career. I was sure I was the A-OPS, but quickly became the... Let me tell you something. This is a great, a great point, because all that, like, basically, you know what that is? Really?

It's like a test. Like, hey, I'm going to write you up. Let's see what your attitude is. You know what his attitude was like, Roger. I'm no drama. Don't worry about it. Then it's like, okay, you're going to work for this other guy that's probably lower and rank than you that has been in the military for a year and you're going to work for him.

How do you take that? And you know what Mike's attitude is like, Roger that. I'm here to work. Those things like when you when those things happen because people ask me this like that kind of question all the time Well you know someone else got promoter someone else got this. It's like what do you do? Oh, you work hard That's and that's exactly what you did and you know it took a matter of days before I was thinking okay He's all give him a little bit more. I'll give him a little bit more. I'll give him a little bit more and then Very shortly thereafter. It's like okay. Guess what? You are ops now which is not like this huge great

job, but it's it's it's pretty significant once we're on the ground in Ramadi. There's a lot of responsibility there had to count on you for a lot of stuff and And because you were freaking squared away and we're like, okay, Roger that. No attitude. No, never did you like I gave you and then we got overseas. I remember I gave you the worst job, which was I sent you to the TG, right? So the TG, for those of you that don't know too much about the military, there's a, there's a headquarters above the task unit, which is called, it's the seal team. But when you're on deployment, it's called the task group. And they have all kinds of administrative stuff that they got to handle.

and we we we had a great team with great support from our head shed but they needed people to work they need people to drive paperwork is basically what they needed and so they needed on officer to go over there for 30 days for 30 days and get you know work do all this paperwork and I had to submit an officer and I I sent you and there's two reasons why I did it well number one the number one reason why did it was because I knew that you'd get there and figure things out and help us grease the skids for everything that we were doing whereas if if I sent someone else they might be able to pull that off as well and two because I knew when I get you back I could do something awesome with you like get you in the field which is what I did so yeah if you're in those situations where you feel like you're you deserve better yeah just be quiet suck it up do a good job and if you're the other part that people get paranoid about is they think well they won't notice me yeah they think I I should tell Jocco how awesome I am I should tell Jocco that I was in the Marine Corps I should

tell Jocko that I I'm a sniper I should tell like hey how I got a better idea how about you just be humble and just work and if you do that then Jocco says oh hey man this guy scored away I wonder why he's so squared away let me look at his record oh he's in the Marine Corps oh let me look at his record oh he's a sniper oh he was in recon oh okay I've got a pipe hitter here cool I can use him and he's humble on top of all that as opposed to, hey, look at me. Because believe me, there's plenty of people that come in

and they want to bow up and act like they're the baddest guy on the planet. It's like, that's a real problem. That's a real problem because they have a big ego. It was to the point where I knew I'd burn my personal capital. And so it was time to rebuild. And even before he sent me to the disaster group, you know, running ops quickly,

it came apparent that the other guy that was ahead of me just wasn't going to cut the bill. But Laif had asked me if I wanted to go out. And I'm like, yeah, man, And everything in me wanted to go out on a mission with them. Because these guys are already starting to kill, you know, a lot of combatants. But I had work to do in terms of ops that Jocko had passed down. And I knew if I had went out, it wouldn't have gotten done.

And you would have let me make that call. Yeah, you would have let me go. But, you know, I passed. And Laif, you know, we were talking about that yesterday. I was with Laf in Texas. And he's like, I remember that one thing. And we knew that was a sign that you were going to get your stuff done. And he actually made the right call.

and you still brings that up to that. You know what you were doing? You were looking out for the task unit instead of looking out for yourself. That's what that is. You were looking out for the task unit instead of looking out for yourself. You were taking care of what your actual job was

instead of taking care of yourself. And that's, again, for everyone that's wondering like how to act, that's how you act. You take care of the team before you take care of yourself. You stay humble. You don't think that you deserve more than you're going to get. When you get handed a shit sandwich, take a bite, chew it,

and put a smile on your face and ask for another one and make that one squared away too. And that's how you're going to get where you want to go, which for you eventually meant going to join Delta platoon. Awesome. Best experience I've ever had, and again, with a platoon that is humble. And if there is a personification of that, that is JP to know. And those guys welcomed me with open arms,

and I was taken back by the humility. They're just, they're sort of, you know, the way I described Delta Portunes is they were like the little guy. they were the little guy in task unit bruiser in the sense that they were just quiet with what they did. It's just different personalities between Charlie and Delta, and you love both platoons, but they had a very different style of leadership. And, you know, I can't name any of the names because most of them are still on active duty, but it felt like home.

And then being with Seth was educational, given the experience they had gotten within those like two months that I wasn't there, two and a half three months and um you know there was a a steep learning curve uh after three months of combat for them and i'm stepping in because i had to like speed up to the basically the speed of war because they were already there yeah and they they had a ton of experience at that point i mean it was it was an insane amount of experience the the the first at one point they did 24 straight patrols into the mollab and got contacted every single time And then one they didn't get contacted they were like way up in the northeast section They didn't get contacted and then the next time they went out which was a day later they were right back in it again

So the amount of experience that they had was just was was was ridiculous it was ridiculous I remember so I was briefing the siege of soda And I made that quote right there and I was like these guys have been in contact on their last 23 Their last 23 operations and the the talk watch officer comes walking in and he's like sir I was like yes and he goes I just want to let you know a debt Gregor is in a in a tick right now and I was like Roger that and I looked at the colonel I said make that 24 bro Yeah, that was that was that was that was that was pretty awesome we used to when those big big wigs would come to visit us in Ramadi we would we would we would we would attempt to Make it all nice but what that looked like was so obviously wretched That like we would we would say hey you know

We've got we'd we'd lay out the the MRE coffee for them So like hey if you want a cup coffee here's the MRE coffee We and we make it like we were doing our best to give them like the best treatment But like the treatment that you're gonna get just sucks because we're out here in the middle of nowhere and there's some fly chains not as good as it could be And hey if you want hey we really want you have coffee if you have it so here's an MRE coffee you can mix it up here Get some And then when they left we cleared out the S blackcloth put the coffee machines back up.

You know, the funny thing is, you're talking about the task group, and during my time there, is for those big ways that come in, it was such a deviation from what Soft was doing in Iraq prior to that. And, you know, I like to, you know, use Colonel McFarlane, who you need to have on this show. Yeah. As soon as possible, he's retired now, Lieutenant General, former commander of the 1-1 Brigade Combat Team. is that he realized we weren't winning. We are not winning. And to continue operations as we have been doing is the wrong call and things need to change.

And even at the task group, loved the commander over us because it was a deviation from what every other SEAL team had done. You could see him struggling with whether it was the right call. And I remember a few times he called me in to ask my opinion about what was going on. But he wasn't really looking for an answer. he was using me just as a springboard for his own thought process and so I would talk very little and he would just sort of keep on talking and I mean he had a very solid sort of thought process along the lines of how he justified it and ultimately you know he looked out for you and the rest of the task units yeah and they allowed us to look out for all the conventional forces that we were

working with the one one AD and the first the five or six and the one thing 37 and 3-8 Marines and all those guys that were on the ground with us there who we were able to help out as much as as possible only because we got clearance to do those operations which as you said was a was outside the norm norm daytime operations staying out in the city supporting conventional forces which freaks some people out like why would you be supporting them they should be supporting you it's like well no they've got whatever a thousand soldiers and they're taking down a giant part of the city and we can help protect them so we are a supporting element but it's going to be it's going to be it's going to be have big impact.

So it was, it was awesome. So when you got, when you got out to Corregador, with the first of the 506, how awesome is first of the 506? The first of the 506 from the top down, were hardcore warriors.

Some of the strongest leadership. So now, Major General, Ron Clark, I'm sorry, Ron Clark, was the battalion commander at the time, Lieutenant Colonel, Dave Womack. I mean, I've never seen in my 20 years a stronger, soft conventional force relationship other than Ramadi. I mean, it was a textbook case of unity of effort.

Nobody worked for the other, but they all worked in unity towards the same and state. And it was beautiful. And Ron Clark, of course, Seth and all the boys had set that relationship up. They had done a wonderful job. And the fact that, you know, I got out there before he bestowed the first of the 506 spade on them. And, you know, I was there when it got bestowed upon us. It just, I mean, you know, I need to qualify this. Getting the Trident was one of the biggest things, one of the biggest accomplishments of my life.

But it was just like a different sense of pride that almost rates up there. that this badass lieutenant colonel that had been you know in the suck for so long bestowed a infamous you know a symbol on our shoulders and said hey you wear this in comment and that was I mean there's very few words to describe how that felt that was um like you said there were the relationship between between everyone between us between everyone at the 1 1d it was just freaking awesome and I don't know if we'll ever be able to capture that and describe it But man, it was it was awesome and and what they did for us and we did whatever we could for them and what they did for us man was just

The the sacrifices that they made and the and the effort that they put forth to support what we were doing It was it was It was awesome. It was just awesome Talk about Just give like hey this is what we were doing and so people can hear from your perspective. Like, again, you know, you don't need to get into tactics that, but just, hey, just a general, this is what we were doing.

We were covering and moving with the first of the five or six. That's how I put it. We're recovering and moving. Again, all in pursuit of the same goal is win Ramadi. And we could have stuck with the status quo with the nightly direct action raids, but it just had a little impact compared to what the conventionals were doing. And they were going to go out. So we really utilized the skill set that was unique to the SEAL teams, and that was the sniper overwatch.

And, you know, those positions, those sniper positions, because we would, again, we defied sort of traditional tactics of those two to four guys that went out, maybe six guys in a sniper hide, and we went out in force. Yeah, fighting positions. Fighting positions. Because shortly, you know, after the first few kills from our snipers, it quickly turned into a battle position because they can sort of triangulate. where you're at based off the bodies lying on the ground. And they had become very good at it. But we would move out ahead of the front line trace of the 506, set up sniper overwatch, mutually supporting sniper overwatch,

to really protect the conventionals doing major clearances throughout the Lob District. And it was highly successful. Yes, did it mean we operated during the days? Sometimes, it did. Most often we would infiltrate at night prior to, you know, use the advantage of night to your unit set up prior to the conventionals coming in the early morning and starting the clearance operations and then we either pull out during the day or stay until night just to give ourselves, you know, mitigate risk as best as possible. But, you know,

you cannot argue the numbers don't lie. You cannot argue with the numbers that the CIG-X were going down. Enemy combatants were, you know, killed were stacking up and slowly, you know, You know, taking one bite at a time of that elephant, we moved further and further into central Ramadi, which was enemy-held territory up until 2006. And then from the other side, Charlie Petun was coming in from the western side of Ramadi, and it was like eventually we just all met the middle and called it good. So when you got over to Corregador, I mean, obviously you're working for Stoner when you first show up there.

How was that? Stoner's great. Stoner is a very I don't know if the word eclectic is a good way to describe them so for the audience I mean Sestone is a Naval Academy graduate

highly intelligent you knew it the guy almost had a photographic memory ended up you know getting his his master's from Princeton so clearly the guy is intelligent what are you saying about

6-2-6-3 I mean yeah something like that he was a big dude he was overly aggressive sort of had some extra tissue above his his eyebrows that sort of made him look like a caveman but Stoner had a reputation of

being you know just that aggressive and that's what was needed in that position but he wasn't reckless and let me say that he was he was very methodical and diligent out most of the decisions he made and you know for any leader that the bird in the command is a lonely place.

You're attacking the commander, even though you're close with Laf and Jocko, Laf and Seth, you're also alone. And for Seth out there, all by himself, because, you know, Andrew had taken off. He was by himself and really had nobody

to commensurate. And so I think when I get out there, you know, he was relieved to have an officer that was a little more aggressive and confided in me. And so I went everywhere with Seth, every meeting for the first of the 506. I think he was, in a sense, relieved. One of my strengths, and it sucks to say this, was I was actually a very good planner, a very good planner. You know, I took a lot of pride in the fact that it was a sniper.

And so I could do a lot of analysis, mission analysis, going in, mitigate risk. And then I was very good at knocking out the products, almost to my own demise. And I'll get to that. It's a funny story. But Seth knew he could rely on me for the little things to get that done to clear the way for him to focus on the more strategic picture. What he had had the battle of money. And so, you know, because I respected him for what he had done up to that point, like very much in a sense, as a young seal, I was trying to earn his respect as well. And I think I did that towards the end, as he knew he could rely on me. and I think quickly out in the field I proved my worth to remember I'm an officer with a sniper rifle now

and so I'm finally in the game as well but we grew extremely extremely close to the point where he started to bounce off you know bounce matters off me for for my opinion before he weighed weighed in with some final decisions and he became a brother quite frankly and you know when the the deployment it was over, you know, led the way and making sure that he was sent off out of Delta Patoon in a fine fashion. You know, we got him a, forget the pistol, but it was a nice pistol. It was like a $2,000 pistol. The boys were happy to chip in, so we made sure that we sent Seth off with as much love

as he showed the boys. And let me finish with Seth in that regard. He loved, love the guys. He would hold them accountable. By all means, you know, he was close with guys, but he did not. getting the way of him making a decision a right decision not what was best for the guys but what was right for the guys and he would make those hard decisions and he didn't mind being unpopular if he did yeah i oh uh at some point i'll be talking a lot about him so now we're almost done with

deployment and uh you guys had a matter of i don't know what to call it in terms of number of left might be zero might be one might be two but it was almost time for everyone to start packing up and and heading home and that didn't mean that the first of five of six was going home because they weren't didn't mean the one one ad was going home because they weren't didn't mean that they were going to stop doing operations because they weren't it didn't mean that the enemy wasn't going to stop trying to kill americans And so that meant that we couldn't stop doing what we had to do until the next SEAL team came in to relieve us and take our place. So there was no, there was no stopping.

There was no stopping until it was time to go home, close as we were. And I remember consciously, I said to myself, I'm not going to say, hey, this day will do our last mission. because I think that's like a call me superstitious but that to me is like a bad luck thing like hey okay guys this is the last mission and even in my own mind I said okay well we'll see how this one goes and if another mission comes up and so I never said to myself okay this day or this something we're gonna stop and I just knew that at some point we'd have enough of the of the new group over the new team would be here and we could say I could say okay you know what we're good now and we're going home and I didn't want to make that I didn't want to make that like a set date you know or a set time or a set number of missions I just said when when we're ready to be relieved we'll stop and we'll just stop and we'll pack up because I don't want guys out in the field thinking hey if I can just make it through this because that's bad or I don't want guys in the field thinking this is the last one I got to do

and I don't want that or anyone's mind not even mine and so I even tricked myself and just said okay we're going to keep going until we've got enough strength from the other team then we'll just stop that when when that day comes So you guys kept operating and everyone did kept operate kept going and despite the significant impact there had been on the enemy the enemy was still bringing it and they were starting to get a little bit more desperate And because we had really shut down a lot of their movements and they were starting to really Try and strike back significantly when they could So basically

almost every time that we went out into into Ramada it was on at this point so September 29th 2006 you guys were doing another another operation in support of the first the 506th operation Kentucky jumper in the heart of the Malab district right by the stadium We had inserted the other night before. Again, in an area we had operated multiple times before. We knew it like the back of our hand. We had taken multiple positions in that area. And on this specific one, we had taken a very dominant building.

When I say dominant in terms of height of eyes. We had the height over any other building. And we were as diligent and methodical as we were with any other mission. And shortly after sunrise, we were engaged with enemy. First of the 506 had come in to clear several sectors of the Malab District. And I think by noon, myself on another seal sniper, had eliminated four guys. And you two had sort of laid down to get some rest because we'd been up for close to 24 hours. And Mikey and I were holding the security.

And Mikey actually jumped on my sniper rifle to get some gun time. And there was a seal to his left, three feet. And that was three feet to his right. And of course, one of the things as a young guy, and I realize now is I just always pushed to the edge. And sometimes to take care of the guys, you have to take care of yourself. And I just didn't learn that early on. So I always try to stay awake, and I try to sleep as little as possible,

because I thought I had to be there, you know, in case they needed me to make a decision in reality, they didn't need me there to make a decision. They had it, and I was very replaceable. But when you're young, you don't always realize that. And so I was in and out of sleep, you know, bobbing sitting on the ground. Mikey was sitting in a chair, and Mikey and I were in conversation basically about going home because we knew that was one of the last missions. And Mikey was excited because he was going to sniper school.

I don't know if you remember that. You guys had lined that up. He had been a machine gunner. Most of the, well, all the deployment located right next to JP, who was the Pointman. And so that was Mikey's job, was to overwatch,

like St. Michael, overwatch JP in case they ran into enemy contact. They would be the first ones, and Mikey would lay it down. And Mikey had laid it down on multiple, multiple occasions before. And then the other thing we were talking about is he was dating a girl. And we were talking about that.

He knew I was excited because my daughter at the time was two years old. And, you know, I don't think I'd talk to my family much on that deployment because we were just so busy. And that's sort of my style too, is once I'm deployed, is it was easier for me not to talk to my family because it was actually a distraction because it would mess with my mind. So you knew the mission was to get home to your family as quickly. as possible and the best way for me to do that. I'm not saying it was the right way, was to focus on what I needed to do, and it had 100% of my attention, because I would not, you know, for the life of me, I would not allow one of my guys to get killed. But unfortunately, that's out of our control. It's war. And war's not clean. But midday, you know,

contacted, died down. There was still movement out there. But during the conversation, a grenade had come over the roof. And again, I was in and out of sleep, but what really sort of snapped me to and heart was racing right away was Mikey snapped up. Remember, he was in a seat. The grenade had come over the roof and hit him in the chest

and bounced on the ground right in front of him. And now there's a lot of accounts out there that are wrong. I saw some other seal speaking to a crowd about this, You know, there was a entrance to the rooftop, you know, a stairwell that would go down in the main building. And that wasn't true. We were actually like 15 meters from that stairwell at the very edge of the roof closest to the street. When Mikey, I say Mikey had the greatest chance of getting their way is that all he had to do was dive in the other direction. And he'd most likely take a little strap metal to the bottom of the feet into the calves, but he would have gone home.

And the thing that amazes me is, you know, I'm not the dullest tool in the shed, nor am I the sharpest, but the cognitive ability to assess what just did happen and the potential outcomes, that if he chose self-preservation, which is not a wrong call, that the seal to his left and myself would have just ate in the grenade in the face, completely, just done. and the other seal to his left head kids as well and um you know you you play this over in your head and trust me i play it every day and the first thing i think about when i wake up is is mikey and my kids and the last thing i think about when i go to sleep is mikey and my kids and the reason i say that is there's a picture of uh of mikey on my wall and you know it's the iconic picture of mike

with set and another seal in the background with the yellow smoke and he's carrying the the machine gun and he yelled grenade and then he dove down on it and not to add humor to the situation

but it's almost like that scene from snatch where you know the guys are frozen as the shotgun's going off and they say you sit there with a stupid look in your face I probably sat there with a stupid look on my face

because one we you know we're in the heat midday, we've been up for 24 hours, we're exhausted, and it just happened so fast, and Mikey just took action in a matter of milliseconds. I mean, he assessed the situation, he knew the outcomes, and he made the most selfless decision that anyone can ever make. There's no walking away from that, and I know there's some people that have walked away from jumping on a grenade, but those are statistically. statistical anomalies.

And it went off, and by him smothered in it, it funnelized the grenade blast to the sides towards the seal to his left, to myself. And we almost had mere wounds, like through and throes in both legs. And I'd never been that close to an explosive. We work with explosives all the time within the seal teams, but we are very, diligent about mitigating risk and the parameters that you have to be so far from the explosives. The thing actually picked me up and flip me over. And I just, I could feel the pain. People talk about if you're shot or you're wounded, like you don't feel it, the adrenaline

takes over. That ain't the case. It was immediate hot metal burning inside my my legs or through and through wounds just bleeding. So at the time, I didn't know if I had legs. I couldn't even, I didn't even want to look. So I put my head, sort of forehead on the dusty rooftop and just took that big sort of bite, ate the pain. And a third or fourth seal was already moving towards our direction. He'd been affected by the blast as well.

It didn't take any shrap metal, but it rattled all of us. us and looked at Mikey, whose head was turned towards me, and I yelled Mikey, Mikey, and it was just lifeless. And so the next decision, the next thing that happened is we start to get lit up by enemy machine gun fire. All chaos is breaking out. It's pure chaos, pure hell. The Iraqi soldiers on the roof with us, except for one who's close to us, but he was

actually stricken and fair in the fetal position. They all ran off the roof and left us. So you've got one critically, mortally wounded, two, somewhat out of the fight that can't stand up, and then the third is dealing with Mikey. And so we were left pretty much, you could say left to die by the Iraqi soldiers. And so I immediately went to my embitter to call for Seth, who was in a mutually supporting Overwatch's position about 500 meters away. And the blast had knocked out my embitter. And so I'm calling finally, you know, I pulled the embitter out and it's just clear screen. And I turned it back on, reset it.

But the embitter has to go through a, it loads the program and it takes a minute. Let's say tops. I didn't have a minute. And so still haven't looked at my legs. I'm looking around. I see the Iraqi soldier. And remember, his name is Mahan. Actually spoke English.

And he's in the field position. I mean, he's just stricken by fare. And so I get up to run over to him. And as I stand up to run, I just go right down literally on my face. The legs just wouldn't work. And again, sort of eat the pain. Which glad to do, given what Mikey's going through right now and what he did for us. And I crawl over there and the Iraqi soldiers used Motorola's.

And Seth had Iraqis with him as well. and so I actually called out to Seth. Seth eventually got on that Motorola. And then I said, hey, we're hit bad. Mikey's down hard. We need you now. And they knew something was going on because the fire is just, you know, hitting our building.

But you, as a commander, you have to wait. You know, let the situation develop, find out, let your assistant platoon commander call back and give you a sit rebel what's going on. he's probably here on the radio trying to find out. But I got back to him probably within a minute after the whole grenade blasted. It had gone off. And Seth said, hold on, we're coming. And so I crawl back to where Mikey's at.

The four seals dragging him away from the wall. And then he's trying to work on him. And I told that guy, I'm like, hey, get on the machine gun. Because remember, Mikey carries the machine gun. It was right there. And he starts to lay down and return fire. And it seemed like ages before Seth got there. But finally some Iraqi soldiers had come up and they're starting to return fire.

But, you know, it probably only took Seth five minutes. But you got to remember Seth and all those guys were set up within their position. They weren't ready to move. So they had to leave a lot of stuff behind. Sometimes you're not wearing your kit because it's so hot. You're there for, it was what, a 48-hour operation. You just, you're not always wearing your kit. So they have to throw on their kit probably and get.

get to us. And then when they move into the street, what happens? The enemy shifts fire. They're under fire. And, um, you know, um, we didn't have our morphine kits. And this was a problem with sort of the process of how that worked. If you remember, we had sent home the guy who was signed for him about a week earlier. And so I remember, uh, I finally had the courage to look at my legs. And I didn't expect to see anything there. And there was two, two legs, very bloody. Uh, ACU pants, but they were there and have a sort of a relief in a sense. Okay, my legs are there. They're just not working right now.

And I went to grab for my morphine and it was gone. And so the other seal and I are, you know, we're in pain. But okay, no morphine. Moving on. Seth eventually gets there and they start working on Mikey. They didn't know the building we were in. And apparently, again, got to love the, I think you actually activated the, the Bradley's that met us on the backside of the building, a completely different street.

I don't know there again. There was some confusion about where to go, and I did my best to clear that up from what I remember, which I don't remember very well. Well, two of the guys from Seth's element grabbed me, and I led them through the stairwell down. There was an adjacent door to a building behind them in the backyard. So we went through that building to the road that was on the other side, a parallel road from the road we were operating on. It was a main road.

And they throw the other wooded seal on myself in there. And then the guy who was carrying Mikey, brings Mikey into the Bradley-fighting vehicle. And we take off. And that guy, the look on his face was pure exhaustion. Now, within the military, we always, you know, we train to the buddy carry and we do it as part of, like, physical training.

But you're also rigid when you're carrying your buddy, and he's got his hand in your back. And Mikey was not a small boy, easily, probably 210. He's about 6-2, 6-3. And this guy who carried him was, I mean, he's a fiscal stud, and he was exhausted. And we talked about it years later because he sort of put Mikey down in the Bradley vehicle, and he sat down and just sort of was exhausted and sat there. And I yelled at him like, hey, what are you doing? and, you know, start CPR.

And he sort of snapped too and started CPR. You know, he actually came to me years late. And he's like, man, I'm really sorry about that. I'm like, brother, you don't have to apologize. You would just carry him, you know, probably 100 meters with combat equipment on. And you just, you know, you weren't with it. You took a second to recover. It's not your fault.

But everyone finds fault in that day and everyone feels bad. JP, who should have been there, but had cut his finger. if you remember, wasn't there. And, yeah, it was, you know, you talk about the relationship with the 506. Again, it seemed like ages from the Bradley to get from our position in central Romani, Malab, to the Crigador Aid Station. And I do remember when I got there, the medic gave me a little shot of morphine, and like three minutes go by and talk about losing your composure.

I'm in freaking pain. And I regret saying this. It was just like the stupid things you say, one of the things are going wrong, and I grab them by the collar, I'm like, I'm a Navy SEAL. You've got to ramp that shit up. And, you know, I can tell the look of sort of frustration as eye comes back and sticks me and finally, like, the morphine hits and the pain subsided. But what I remember vividly is one, they had very little capability for surgery.

In fact, none at all. And they had a preface. And two 406s were inbound to get us. And who shows up? Dave Womack, Colonel McFarlane, I'm sorry, Colonel Ron Clark, and the senior leadership from the first of the Vivo 6. In fact, there was probably 100 soldiers out there. And so they bring us out on the stretchers.

We're strapped down. And Dave Womack has some Oakleys, because remember it's still midday, and he puts them on me. laying on the stretcher and I flew off with those Oakley's and if you know the army they don't get good gear especially in the infantry that guy just gave me his like eye protection that I flew off with but they saw us off and next thing I know I end up in Alta CQTQ for surgery and again who's waiting for me um Rob your counterpart and all the boys and so the uh

you know, before they rush into surgery and put us under, Rob was there. But they thought, and in retrospect, you know, I still struggle with this because I was almost upset with it at the time. It was almost like rubbing a dog's face in its own feces for taking a crap on the carpet is they thought we would want to see Mikey. And so they laid both of us right by Mikey, who was declared deceased by this point. It was just almost like a point of shame, a point of utter shame. And I just couldn't even look.

You know, the other seals in tears, I'm in tears, but I just couldn't look. And I know they had nothing but the best intent. But at the time, it was just, it was like, I don't want to see this. I know what I did. I know what happened. So they did that. They give us about five minutes and then rest us into surgery. And, you know, next thing I know I wake up in.

Baghdad and go through another procedure and then prep to get the Medevac to Germany to go through another procedure. And the great thing is, you know, that other seal and I were together the entire time. They gave us two seals to escort us. And, you know, Germany were there for, I think, three days. And just people kept visiting and visiting. And at the time, It's just I didn't want to talk to anyone. I did want to talk to you and Seth. That's where I talked to you for the first time is when you got to Germany. And it's because I had my sit rep to pass, and I don't know how.

I'm sure because the other seal, the fourth seal on that rooftop state was Seth. Seth was aware of what had happened. But I needed to talk to you guys to be like, hey, he jumped on that thing. And in the military, when somebody jumps on a grenade, you know what that means. It is the most selfless act of valor that there is. And it needs to be reported because usually if the medical records check out, the due diligence is done and it shows that it is truth. It is a medal of honor.

And I think that is where I started the citation to get to you. And then after the three days there, we we're back in San Diego just FYI the only thing you told me which I asked you I was trying to ask you questions about hey man are you doing okay

how's the other seal that's wounded and you just swear like that's all you were telling me it was about Mikey that's all you were telling me morphine is a hell of a drug no man it's because you you wanted to make sure I knew what was going on you wanted to make sure that

what happened you want to make sure that I knew that you didn't care about anything else that you were just like he this is what he did this is what he did I'm telling you this is what he did I'm like I know man I got it I'm like are you okay he's like you're like don't care this is what he did he saved me he saved this guy he saved all three of us up there that was the only thing you cared about and so then you got home and uh yeah I remember you know people asked me about like you know the the funerals of my guys but I wasn't never there

because we were still deployed but I know at this point you were though that's imagine for you what that process was like it was shame the the way Mikey passed it's one of the most intimate ways

like brothers can pass with one another it's you know we're out there in the conduct of a fight a guy gets shot laying down fire it's selfless but when somebody makes a sacrifice by jumping off a grenade,

that is a message of, hey, this is my gift to you. Keep my memory alive and live well. But to the guy that is saved, all you feel is shame. And I know you felt these same sort of feelings as ultimately you're responsible for these guys. And I think we all conducted our career

with God help me. If there isn't anything I could have done in the planning and risk mitigation and preparation for this mission or during the conduct of the mission that brings my guys home then I am wrong and that is on me and so to come home even though everyone was was so welcoming and gracious and and caring it's just you feel this this like just blanket of shame and funny enough when uh They had these buses waiting for us at some San Diego airport because I remember it was it was some private jet that took us from Bethesda to San Diego. And so they loaded us up on a bus and then straight to Balboa.

And my ex-wife and my daughter were waiting there. And, you know, my daughter's two at the time. But she would not come to me. Maybe they had a little sign, welcome home, daddy. And, you know, my ex-wife kept trying to, because I'm still on a stretcher. tried tried to keep giving my daughter to me and she just would she was clinging on to my ex would not come to me and it was just even that like I remember that so vividly and I think in a subtle way like I held that against my daughter for for a short while um is like it was just

like it was almost like a shunning like she knew what happened she was like shunning me uh bottom line she was scared yeah yeah bottom line she's a two year old yeah yeah in six months and See him come home. Like, hey, I'm used to being with mom. But just being at the funeral and everything and just looking at all, you know, watching all the seals there to, you know, to celebrate Mikey's life. It just, it felt like the eyes were on me too. And that's a selfish feeling. Hey, this isn't about you whatsoever.

But it was just this like, how could I let that happen? And why didn't you jump on the grenade? Like, how could you not get there in time? Are you slow? Could you not assess? Were you stupid? And I still don't have. have a good answer for that, you know. Um, but what really just, you know, we talked about this is like,

somebody needs to hold me accountable. That's how I found. I'm like, somebody needs to hold me accountable. And, uh, you know, the boys pick me up for the funeral. Of course, me and the other guy pack up the wheelchairs, throw them in the back of the suburban. And, uh, when we get to the, um, the mass prior to the, uh, the funeral, uh, Miss Monsour is, is, waiting and you know I'm ready to to own what had happened and before you know I could even get the words out she wraps her arms around the other seal and I and says I'm so happy you are home thank you for being with my son and at that point you're like okay I have no idea what to say you just totally threw me off my game like you should be upset you just you just

lost your son and you are thanking me for being with your son and you're telling me you are so happy that I'm home I can talk about like it felt like the ultimate mind mind came but that is just a testament of the family that Mikey came from and for the audience um Mikey was a southern California kid again pretty big kid about 6-2 probably about 210 dry sense of humor and was a devout Catholic. And the family's still fun. I don't want you to think of this straight religious family. They are a fun family.

But they're resolute in their beliefs. And they're from Southern California. And they're the most selfless family I've ever met. When you meet them and you spend time with them, you quickly realize where Mikey got it. And he went to every mass at Corrigador. When I say mass, it's in a bombed out building with some military priest. and about five people, one of which is Mikey, passing out communion.

And he had faith. And getting to know the family was actually very easy after that. But with time, as time went on, you know, you begin to feel like you're a reminder of their son and not the best light. And so I think over time, I pulled away from the family to give them their rest because at some point they have to put. it down and move on with their lives. And I don't know if that's a right call. And I still struggle with that today. But I mean, I love the family. Even there was a sense of guilt for my parents when they met their parents just how good of people they are. And you feel like why their son and not ours. My parents are thankful. Don't get me wrong. They are extremely grateful.

But there was a sense of guilt throughout our entire family that we get to move on and their family lives with this burden, much like we do for the rest of that. their lives well I can tell you that uh when you said it's a reminder not in a good way I would actually dispute that with you and I promise you that it's it's a man they they love they love hearing from you and talking to you and anyone same same with Mark same with Ryan same with same with all of our friends that have fallen if you can go go and tell a story that they haven't heard before or tell a story that they've heard a hundred times before it's it's it's worth it it's worth it

At what point did you realize that you were going to heal quick enough to go back into another platoon? Actually, they told me to take a take a knee, and they wanted to give me orders out of Team 3, and to take a easy tour and relax, which is the strangest thing I would ever think to hear from a bunch of seals, seal leaders. It was actually, okay, man, you need to heal and you need to get back in the game as quickly as possible because that's what's best for you. So talked to them out of the fact that you're not sending me away from SEAL Team 3. So what do they do in response to that, they align me into another platoon that is heading to PACOM for the listeners. Paycom means Pacific Command. That means we're going over to the Philippines to work with the Philippine SEALs and you

will not be in combat. And you are doing host nation building. And funny enough, when they align the platoons, there's these little placards with your face and your name. And in the Master Chiefs... It's a big magnet board. We call it the Ouija board, because that's how they stack up who's going where. And so the Master Chief's office, this is a no-kitting story, was open and they've got the three task units with each of the batons underneath them, the two patoons, and all the pictures of who's in what platoon. And I'm in this platoon going to paycom. So what I do is take my magnet, take some junior officer that's an AOC in a sentcom platoon going back to Iraq, put my picture there, put his picture in the Paycom platoon, literally go up to the platoon space and again, won't say the guy's

name, say, hey, so-and-so, you've just been a re-signed to this platoon, go report in. And I'm not kidding you that is how that happened. And no one ever said a thing. Either one, they didn't recognize that it had happened or two, they're just like, okay, we're not talking about it at this point. And I screwed over a kid by sending him to Paycom for a split for the, first platoon. I don't feel all that bad about it. Yeah.

So you knew. How long to take you to heal up? So it was about four months of debreedment. So, you know, I had some holes that were as deep as half a golf ball. and if you don't pick the scab off, then it'll heal in a concave manner. So this little doctor, female doctor, I had to go in every day, and she would pick at the scab to keep the wound fresh so that it heals out. I called her Dr. Payne, but did that for about four months.

Then I had to get the legs working and actually start to walk and then run. But overall four months, because remember, when a team comes back from a deployment that go into a six-month individual training cycle, so guys can go to sniper school, and so I had time to heal. But there's still a lot of shrap metal in my legs. We form up with the platoon. I'd put on some bad weight. And then, you know, throughout that entire two-year training cycle,

in fact, a guy named Derek Benson, we both know, and Derek was killed on extortion 17, would cut into my legs, the shrap metal that was pushing towards the skin. He would remove it. So I had a little jar of shrap metal throughout that two-year period that he would take out and he loved it. You loved the medicine side. And then you roll back, back to Iraq. Yeah.

Do you remember anything in Workup? Any spectacular? You give me that look. Most people that I put through Workup give me that look. So, hey, having working for Jocko, you know eyes were going to be on me. Naturally, I put it on myself, one of those self-inflicted pressures that he's going to expect me to perform at a higher level, given the amount of combat experience I had had. And you had, by that point, drastically changed how the West Coast SEAL teams were prepared for war. And it was, you know, it was good pressure.

I like pressure. I like when somebody holds me accountable. And, you know, I think Echo and I were talking about this. You have a very uncanny way of having a conversation. without saying a word. And you sort of, you know, the eyebrows come down lower and you just stare. And what I've said is like, you would do that and look at me during the train and be like, hey, here's the standard for everyone else. Here's your standard.

Get it done. Good talk. And so, you know, there were probably runs where I was harder on myself than you were. But I do remember Mount, military operations urban terrain, specifically in Kentucky. and that was some of the best training we'd gone through and again that was drastically different than the prior workout

and prior to Ramadi and for the guys that had not seen combat given what happened on the next deployment that absolutely prepared us for what happened yeah I mean coming back that was so ideal for me

to go back and run training I mean there's no better job I could and that's you know I was really lucky that I had good relationship with the admiral and he said like where do you want to go and I said I want to go run trade at because I need to get these guys ready because when we got back Romadi wasn't done yet it ended up finishing up pretty quickly thereafter but I was just thinking hey everyone's going back and doing the same thing for another the average counterinsurgency last seven years this started six months ago we got like many years worth of fighting and these guys need to be ready for that

specific thing that I know how to do and so I need to go run that training and that and that's what I did and I was definitely it's funny because like when you're talking about like like I there was a lot of buddy carrying going on when I was running training and the reason is because I I got the debrief you know like it's I knew it's like this is going to be if you get in this situation it's not it's not what you think it is it's going to be hell and how do you prepare for it you prepare for it you do as close you make this as close to combat as you can possibly make it then that was my goal and it was freaking hard training and I I had so many guys come back over the years after that when I was running training that were like

Hey, you know, I just got back from Afghanistan. Thank you and the firefights were literally easier than going through a block of land warfare They would be so stoked and it was awesome that's like the best compliments I've ever gotten in my life was having those guys come back and And also I was just talking to as a matter of fact I was talking to the guy that Told me that you were good to go the other day and he's he's like oh we would have so many blue on blues if we didn't go through that We were so much better. We were so prepared and they had a they had a freaking hardcore deployment to Afghanistan and they kicked ass and he's like yeah, we were totally good to go because that training set us up. And so that was a real honor for me to be able to get to do that. But yeah, I was a little bit, I was also a little bit still like I remember, I remember, and I've

talked about this before on the podcast, but like I'd be in Mount like it watching urban training going on and I'd see like a new guy or something like standing in the middle of street and I would literally feel like a sickness in my stomach like a pit like just like when I was in Ramadi if you'd see someone in the street you'd like dude get out of the street I would have that feeling and so when I'd go over and talk to him it would you generally be like like pretty hostile like bro what the hell are you doing you're in the middle of the street get out of here you're gonna get freaking killed and so yeah it was good and it was good that we put you guys through that because you guys

went right back into the fire right back into the fire on on that next deployment. And, you know, leading into that the last month, I have my son who I named after Mikey. So his name is Michael Anthony Sorrelli. It was Michael Anthony Monsor. He knows he's not named after me. So I get to see him born less than two weeks after that. We all end up in D.C. to see Mikey posthumously recognized with the Medal of Honor. And then from Washington, in D.C. I fly directly to the Middle East and then into Iraq.

I mean, it literally butted up when we were deploying again. And so we end up back in Al-Anbar province, Iraq. I end up specifically in Ramadi, which is completely different, completely pacified. And

part of you just can't even believe it. You're just like, no, no, it's wait, just wait, it's coming. They're going to attack. And no, it's not that way. At the same time we were arriving in Iraq, the Sadr militia backed by Iran, Iranian special groups, they're what we call the Quds forces. They're special forces had kicked off a major spring offensive. And this is spring of 2008. And so the army is getting hammered inside of Sadr City. Soldiers are dying. And they request sniper support from the U.S. Special Operations Command, specifically Siege of SOTO, AP. And that siege of SOTO, knowing that SEAL Team 3 had run that similar mission in support of the 1-1 Ready Combat Brigade, the deployment prior said, hey, can you guys run this mission? So our commander at the time, Ambassador Chief, were faced with a decision. We had commitments in Al-Aambar province.

You just couldn't shut down a location and send that entire unit to Sauter City. that that wasn't going to work. So he had to make a decision of taking seals from all the particular outstations in Alianbar and throwing them into sort of this hodgepodge unit. So you had seals from two different seal teams thrown together. And we loaded up a bunch of RGs, I think eight in all, and 40 of us drove out to the Baghdad International Airport and set up a new unit called Debt Defender, detachment. Naval Special Warfare Detachment Baghdad, and we named it Defender, St. Michael, the Archangel,

the Defender, after Mikey. And we created this badass patch that had the Archangel on there, and we all knew. And some of Mikey's boys that had gone through buds were in this new unit. Good, good friends of mine that weren't in Iraq at that time. They had deployed to the Philippines. And so we are located in Baghdad, but Sauter City is like an hour and 15 minutes away from Baghdad International Airport. And so, you know, they are screaming for us to get in. And again, this unit has never worked together. Some of them had like these three guys came from this buttoon.

They had worked together, but they hadn't worked with these guys in the SEAL teams. And both the conventional and seizure soda were screaming for us to get in there. And so we did the best we could, rehearsals, the planning. we had never operated in the area. Maybe some people had, but those were the very senior seals. And we get thrust into Sauter City primarily around this route called Rout Gold. They were trying to, at that point, the strategy was to cordon off or enclose Sotter City

with these large T barriers so that we can control the entry points into the city and hence cut off supplies or enemy troops coming into the city. And ultimately, the strategy worked. But the first night in, all 40 of us go in. And again, remember, we had this young intel officer who had just come from, first time in Iraq had come from Al-Anbar, where you're dealing with now the remnants of a Sunni enemy. And we're now operating in Shia territory against Shia enemy. Completely two different styles of fighting, two different purposes.

one will get their jihad on to the point where they die. Others are not necessarily going to give their lives. They're going to fight and then pull back and then fight another day. And he didn't understand really the difference. And so the intel wasn't exactly aligning. Again, we hadn't been in the area. We go in the first night and all hell breaks loose. I remember Chris Kyle's with us.

He's our lead sniper. We're trying to get into a position. And, I mean, we had EFPs detonated, on our patrol for the listeners. An EFP is an explosive forming projectile. Again, if you remember, these were Iranian-made. And what it is is a concave plate of copper with a lot of explosives behind it.

When you detonate it, it turns it into a molten projectile. Molten... Like a giant bullet. Yes. And this thing could cut through Bradley, an R.G., an Abram's tank. Cut right through like a hot knife through uh their butter these things were nasty and they were killing troops we had that detonated on us

and then they owned the rooftops and they had what we were trying to do to them and so we are just like fish in a fish bowl and they are shooting chris took one round in the helmet mounts off um and uh you know set had now taken your position as the and it really is the the band got back together task you to brouser And so Seth is back with the striker company that ensured us doing his job of deconfliction and making sure we had the support we needed. And shortly after, we called for hot extract. I mean, guys are getting low on ammo, the enemy's maneuvering, RPGs, P-Camp fire on the rooftops down into us. How we did not lose a guy, I will never know.

And what I like to say is that Mark, Ryan, and Mikey were looking after us. Hey, you got this one. We're going to give this one to you. and reset. But we called Seth in, and lo and behold, I do remember this about Seth as the strikers come in. Strikers are, it's like an armored version of a Humvee with wheels that can carry more troops than Humvee, larger. And they have some pretty good armament and weapon systems. And the ramp lowers, and Seth runs off and starts firing into a building.

And of course, in Sestell, he's like, let's go! Get on the strikers! And the guys start loading up, and the strikers are getting after it to the point where they went Winchester getting us out of there. And one of the striker operators says, hey, give me your gun. And I hand him my SR-25, and he just starts going at it. And I hand on my last Maggie reloads, and he's just getting after it. Well, I'll tell you what, humbling experience put us back into the same position, like a new guy in Ramadi. okay hey we've got some great experience we got to reset and we we said hey give us like 36 hours we

need you do some serious planning we need to do some serious rehearsals we did that and then we inserted shortly after that but you know the funny thing is the only time like I really felt um vulnerable and I remember I called my brother before we inserted the next time I said hey I don't think uh things are going to work out here. Let my kids know I love him. A, and make sure, you know, my daughter grows up to be a personal character and make sure my grand, my son grows up to be a man. And me and my brother don't talk all that much, but for me to make that call was probably a bad choice. And for him to hear that, probably put a lot more concern on his plate. But we inserted and we got into position and the guy started to knock it out of the park. And then mission after mission, they just kept

eliminating combatants Sigax started to dive. We had one 72 hour operation where the guys eliminated 50 fighters and within three weeks I think they want eliminated and I don't want to hyperbole here or plus up numbers

I think it was like 125 to 150 within three weeks the guys eliminated and Sigax went to almost zero and then there was not much to do for the rest of the deployment. Well ultimately insignific activities It's enemy attacks basically, but what's also interesting is that at the tail end of that the shakes inside Sauter City came out and said, hey, look, we're good. We're here to make friends now. We're done with this. And what was really awesome was Sotter City had been a complete nightmare for five straight years. I mean, Sotter City was completely uncontrollable. And then in a six-week period, give or take, that those operations took place, it was like done. It was like they, the shakes came out and said, yep, we'll, we'll, we'll.

We'll keep this under control. We want to make peace. And that's what happened. That was an, that was an unbelievable set of circumstances. Dude, you know, the one thing on that deployment, I remember, and, you know, it showed I'd earn Seth's trust. Because of the distance between the Baghdad International Airport in Sauter City, the conventional unit that was supporting us when we go into Sauter was in outside of Sauter City. So he's like, hey, Mike, and I think I spent all three weeks there. He's like, hey, stay there, plan the missions.

If you need to do a reckey of the site, go out with the conventionals. And so for three weeks, like, I wasn't with the boys. They would move to me, and then we would execute the mission. But, you know, learning what we had about unity of effort and putting your ego aside and building personal capital through relationships. We built a great relationship with the 10th Mountain. And they gave us anything we needed. And there was a lot of lessons learned from Ramadi that we took in that.

We actually stepped up in terms of the mission planning and preparation with some of the assets that the 10th Mountain had. But I was going out with the conventionals by myself if I needed to get to another outstation or a cop. They would have a convoy of Bradley's waiting for me, just for me. And I loved it. But Seth realized I was probably getting a little off the reservation at one point. We conducted a mission. We got back to that larger base and he said, hey, go get your stuff for coming back. And I'm like, I actually think I barked a little of them.

And he's like, go get yourself coming back. I was pissed because I was I was Colonel Kurtz in it in the sense loving it he you know he made the right call so yeah I know you guys did an outstanding job there and again it wasn't obviously it wasn't just you guys the 10th

Mountain did freaking unbelievable job the some of the images that were coming back at that time of those guys putting that T barrier up right in the middle or right at the what side of Sauter City was at the eastern side of Sauter City then you could see those guys out there putting that barrier putting those barriers up the conventional army guys

It was freaking awesome, man. What awesome. Awesome guys. Then you come back from that deployment. You'd think maybe you had enough yet? Not really. You know, in that vein, I sat down with that commanding officer of Team 3 at the time. And, you know, I had gotten orders to an East Coast team.

And, you know, he was doing my final fit rep and sent him off. We had a pretty good relationship. and he said, Mike, the last thing I want to leave you with is at some point it becomes about family. And I'm looking at them and I pause for about 10 seconds. I say, Roger that, sir. But within the hamster wheel turning in my head was, are you freaking kidding me? I'm going to deploy as much and as often as I can because this thing is not going to last forever. And I'm going to another command with a bunch of warriors. And I want to get right in stride. and to pull as much as possible.

But in retrospect, towards the end, I realized what he was trying to tell me at some point. You got to pull back. Yeah. So it only took you another, what? Seven years? Seven years to figure that out. So you get out to the East Coast,

and now you're doing just more deployments. Yeah. First one was to Afghanistan with a great group of guys, man. You know, I loved, love these guys. Different feel to them. but my first mission out was probably one of the toughest missions I've ever been on in terms of just

like terrain because we're in Konar province now and then how I would describe Konar province is Mantown take you know some of the worst areas of the Colorado Rockies and then maybe multiply it by two and the enemy I mean they were this was

their territory they had prepared positions it was a dangerous area and to put it in your perspective a little more for for the listeners You know, of all the medals of honor within Afghanistan, I think the majority, all of them were in that Konar-Nuristan area to include Dakota Myers. And on the first mission, yeah, it just was like an eight-hour suck fest. And actually, so Adam Brown was killed on that operation, and that was my sort of, baptism to fire to that new unit.

And I remember I looked at a good friend, Jonas was killed on extortion 17 and said, Hey, bro, are all the missions like that? He was like, no, that was the toughest one I've ever been on. And I'm like, oh, okay, good. I just want to make sure I need to get my head right. A little sanity chat. You're like, oh, no, what did I get myself into?

But it was good to work with that team and get that experience and then I got a lot of time with the maritime side as well, the boats. But did in all with them, what was that, seven more deployments with great guys and

lost some more brothers, namely extortion 17, which was the largest loss of life in Afghanistan. Just, you know, it's a travesty when we lose one soldier, Marine, sailor, airmen, but when you lose 31,

that is just, you know, that hits the military. To the listeners, they may say, well, 31, you know, soldiers, you know, you guys can easily recover from that. You can't. All the man hours that go into training those guys, the level of proficiency they had crewed over years, like that is like, that is a catastrophic failure,

or, you know, detriment to the military. That is a loss of a lot of capability, yet alone the pain for those 31 families, the children, not the orphans, but the kids that are left behind, the wives that are left behind. I mean, that will never have any solace other than that their loved ones were doing what they believed in

for them defending them. But overall, I mean, great seven years, And just nothing but lessons learned and leadership lessons in terms of being a troop commander. And quite frankly, you know, my last experience I learned a lot, which was not my best leadership experience. You know, you look at extreme ownership and there's ways I could have handled certain situations better. And I think I reflect on my entire military career just on, man, I could have done that better. That's what we all do sit back and think man we could have done that better It goes back to what I was saying earlier about like if you know the way then the way appears everywhere

But when you don't know it you're seeing like little like I even I remember when I was young man young and I do something that was like partially right But then I do something that wasn't and I think of myself if I would have known If I would have gotten some reinforcement if I would have figured it out better, you know like figured it out better and you just don't and that's one of the hardest things about about the hardest things about it's not just the SEAL teams it's the military when you complete a job you don't get to do it anymore you you get done with your assistant platoon commander and you're like okay I got this figured out I'm ready to do it again they're like no now you're gonna be a platoon commander and then you get done with your platoon commander you go okay I got this figured out I'm ready to do

again they go no you're gonna be a task duty commander then you as soon as you get you figure something out you're done with that job and you can't go back and very seldom do you get to go back and do it yes so we all sit around and look back and and there's another the weird thing about this whole deal this whole deal is that it's so hard to someone's got to have a real open mind to be able to teach it to people you know someone's got to be when someone's just got to have an open mind like I would say when I was running trade at I would say like 30 or 40% of the people would be

like listening and absorbing and at which is a pretty good it's actually pretty good but there was like 30% of the people that you know I would try and explain something to him and it just wouldn't they just wouldn't like you're putting the way in front of them but but they don't recognize it they can't see it and so it's easy now that you know the way when you look back at your own experiences you go the way appears everywhere but you didn't see it back I didn't see it back then I'm just looking at it going burn why didn't I want to figure that out it's one of those things and I think that's

one of the things that that makes what I'm doing now what you're doing what we're doing now as a team is to be able to try and pass these lessons on to leaders everywhere and you know leaders in the military leaders in police leaders in fire leader in business egg everyone to be able to say look hey this is it over here I know this is hard to see but look at this and and it's awesome to be doing what we're doing now and say oh and have people again a certain percentage of people that go I got it I got it I can take that and what's interesting about our business now is when people are raising their hand and they're

asking for it that means their mind is open to they're open to it they want it whereas with and this does happen occasionally when we work with companies that we're getting imposed on you know like the board of directors saying hey go fix this company this company screwed up you got to go fix them those people don't have open minds so they're looking when you're talking to them they're looking for reasons that what you're saying is wrong that that's a their goal is to say no that doesn't apply to me it doesn't apply to this market it doesn't know we actually work with eight companies in your exact industry

your competitors and they have the same problem this is how they fix it but no it's different for us okay it's different for you it's different for you leadership is different in your specific company leadership is different than it is everywhere else no that's actually not true not true at all so it's an unfortunate you know it's I've been thinking about this too because you know I got a son you know I got three daughters and a son and and and the fact of the matter is you don't see yourself as much in your daughters as you do in your son right your son is a he's a he's a boy a small man and man what I wouldn't give to be able to just like put the knowledge in there you know because you see him doing stuff and you go and you could you know this is my own flesh and blood by the way that I say hey that's not a good way to handle that here's a good way to handle it and he

looks at me like I'm an idiot, right? Like, how would you ever know what it's like to deal with a school teacher, you know, or to deal with a coach? How would you know what that's like to deal with another person? You know what? You're right. I'm sure you have this. You're 15 now.

So I'm sure you got it all figured out. This is the one thing I leave kids with. And I got to tell you, my old man was probably right 95% of the time, but did I listen? No. Oh, no. No. Dork. You know, fathers will come up to me and be like, hey, can you talk to my son?

He loves. He wants to be a seal. What can you leave him with? Listen to your old man. He may not know what the right decision is or right path is on certain things, but he will tell you what the wrong path is. Sometimes knowing what not to do is as valuable as knowing what to do. You know what else I tell when fathers ask me to talk to their sons? I tell the sons.

I say, listen, your dad. actually cares about you more than you do he he wants an outcome for you a good outcome for you more than you do I know that doesn't seem possible but for him to come and ask me to like talk to you means that what he wants more than anything in the world is for you to be in a good place in the future that's what he wants he doesn't want to screw you over this isn't a plot to get you to fail in life he actually wants you to win more than anything so you may want to listen to him So at this point, you do, so what are you at?

You did nine deployments overseas total? Ten? Nine? Ten deployments overseas. And finally, the little voice in your head says, you know what? I need to look at something else. Probably the toughest decision I had to make. I mean, a lot of guys thought you were a 30-year vet.

Easy. He's going to do 30, probably more. And they usually said the same about me. And Echo and I were talking about this. It just came over with me like a, like a wave just crushed me. It was just like, yep, it's it. Like I'm tapping out in a sense. At the end of the day, you always ring the bell at the end.

To the community, they're like, oh, you're quitting. Quitter. And, you know, I'd had one last good deployment with a different group, and it was awesome to work with these guys. And, you know, there was a lot of things going on. One, I finally felt the fatigue. And the hardest thing to do for any seal is to tap out. But it's because you know that you're no longer like the best guy to push that unit forward.

And I also was going through a divorce at the time. And things were just, you know, things were out of balance. And even though I wanted to take the XO of the squadron, I knew I was not the best option for the guys. And even though I could probably maintain the job, that's not the right answer. If I could not keep them uncomfortable and moving forward, then I wasn't the right guy. And so, you know, we talk about brutal self-assessments. That was the most brutal self-assessment because I had to admit that all, you know, however good I thought I was at what we did, what we did, it just, I'd come to a point

where things were degrading. And so, you know, overseas I actually called back to, you know, my CEO at the time I said, I'm done. I'm done. And they said, okay, we understand that that's a mature decision. He wanted me to stay. He's like, I want you to be my ex-o man. He actually referred to or referred to me the captain from the raid in the Philippines, the Ranger, the one that did all the planning. I'm forgetting the name now, but he used to call me that. And he said, I understand what do you want to do. It's like, do you want to go to Memphis and, like, working the detail shop? I said, no, hey, get me orders to Texas. My ex is probably moving back to Texas. That's where she's from,

and I want to be close to my kids. I need to repair that relationship. And you've talked about it, you know, families come second. The bottom of the line, when you're at war, you have so many responsibilities on you, one, bringing your guys on that the families come second. And so that That was my new priority. And so, you know, testament to the seal community, they made things happen. They realigned things. And they got me a billet at the University of Texas, Naval ROTC, where one Admiral William McRaven was sitting as the UT chancellor. Boom.

Yeah. And then so did you go to school? So you got down there and was it to get your degree? No, it was to be an ROTC instructor. Oh, okay. And they'd also prep the battlefield and say, hey, the guy wants to get a master's degree. Okay. So that was the collateral thing was to get your degree.

And so literally I had one week to apply for the full-time NBA program at UT. Took the instead of the GMAT, I took the AC, no way, I'm trying to think of the ACT. ACT. And, or GRI, the GRI, thank you. And the scores were not so hot. and I've paid some phone calls and I got in. And, you know, that was a humbling experience as well to start, you know, we, in a sense, I don't want to say master, but we become very good at being seals at the art of war,

which takes years and years to hone. And even then, you're never as good as you think you are. But you've put time in, you've built some level of mastery. And then to step into accounting and finance with a bunch of 27-year-old. and you're the 39-year-old in the course, and you have this puzzled look on your face because one, you've been blown up a couple times and actually I went to some training

where they're like, hey, you've suffered cognitive degradation to the amount of 50%. What? Can you make that Excel spread? Move slower then? So I was grabbing these younger kids like, hey, show me how to do that, man. I have no clue what you guys are talking about.

And he's like, okay. And they all love me. They knew there were something different about me. And I remember it came time for the first 10. and one of the younger kids, he was actually one of the youngers in the class, he was 26. He was like, sir, when's the last time you took a test? I'm like, 14 years ago, so shut up.

But so it was hard stepping back into an academic environment. People are like, well, dude, you've been to combat. This is going to be easy for you. It's like a different type of stress, brother. And, like, you know, one, we all drive ourselves to do well. And the first few tests did not come back favorable. in Mike Sorelli's, uh, calling. And so I buckled down and, um, actually did quite well.

Um, but after the first semester, the, the basics of business, it gave me a good grounding. And I'm like, hey, I, I think I can do something. I actually think I can do something good, uh, payback to the community. They hooked me up to be here where there's no military base. Um, I'm supposed to go back to the community. And I know there's, there's a problem with vets getting out, especially. seals. They're not getting jobs commensurate with their abilities. And companies should be

swallowing these guys up. Leaders. I mean, the one thing you can't deny is the military is the preeminent leadership training platform in the nation. No debating it. I'm not saying it might be the world. It might be the world. I'm not

saying there's not great leaders out there that have not been the military. Actually, there are more than people would like to think. There's a lot of great leaders that never had military training. But as a whole, and as you said about the Marine Corps, they tend to turn out this standard product, which is a cut above in the same thing with the military general.

And so, you know, talking to Adamel McCraven and a great guy named, who was his vice chancellor, Major General, Tony Cuccolo, and this guy's become a real big matter to me. Love him. We talked about this and basically walked myself into a project, which we got approved by the McCombs Business School, 20 vets.

we did a analysis into the systemic challenges facing veterans when they get out in terms of employment. And it was a 60-page paper which was met with quite a bit of reception and then again walking myself into more work. Everyone's like, hey dude

we think you guys have a business concept of this or out of this paper. You need to take it one step further. We'll approve another project the next semester and hence something called vetted was formed. And to give a quick brief on vetted. So vetted, having done all the gap analysis of current programs out there and all the

research we did, we feel we found a solution. And actually Huffington Post hailed vetted as revolutionizing the way that veterans exit the military. So it is bar none the most comprehensive program out there. And it's still building itself up. So a partnership between Wharton, University of Texas McComb's MBA program and the Texas A&MAs business program, NBA program, We developed something called the Veteran Accelerated Management Program. It's optional five months of online education through the Wharton Business Foundation's course as a preparatory to a two-month in-house residence program that basically gives them a very strong business acumen within that two months over the course of those seven months.

They've received more career development, which is almost as important as acquiring the business skills than an MBA student gets in two years. And that's how to interview, how to refine your resume, optimize your resume and LinkedIn, mock interviews. But they hit all the basic verticals and business. Even entrepreneurs, if they have a business idea, they came in, they have a executable business plan on the back end. And for those that want to go into industry,

actually every Thursday, Friday, they're working on a industry capstone embedded in a company. So during that eight weeks, every Thursday, Friday, working a project inside a company, which means industry experience that can go on their resume. And then two organizations offer their placement services free charge at the end. Echon for Un-Overwatch and Bradley Morris, Inc., which the two happen to be strategic partners, which I'm sure we'll get into. But of the first pilot program at the University of Texas McCombs, of the 25 veterans,

all are placed except for one. Yeah. So you just kind of start talking about the next thing. Obviously we need to talk about is, you know, at some point, well, you were doing this. And here, Laif and I were with Eschelon Front and we work with companies all the time. And every company we work with, guess what they need? They need people. They need good people.

They need leaders. That's what they need. And, you know, as you and I discussed this and talked about it. and I don't know if I don't know who made the connection mentally I think it was you who made the connection mentally like oh wait you you you need people and we're making people let's figure that out and that's sort of where we got into this idea of echelon front Overwatch we did it was combining chocolate peanut butter Reese's pieces. It was magical. It was a moment. There was a moment that was magical.

Sorry, Liv. So, no, no, there was a lot of lessons learned from vetted. And, you know, when I started that, there was a lot of business mentors of mine, very successful business matters that are like, dude, you need to capitalize this thing. And at the time, I couldn't see it. Like, my altruism sort of drove. Like, no, it needs to be non-profit. We're not going to charge people for this. And now I recognize that in a capitalistic market, you can do more good.

on the for-profit side, then you came to the nonprofit side. We live in a free society, a free enterprise. And I remember sitting down in Austin with you guys, I'm like, hey, I remember you telling me that every company you talked to is like, where can I get like five of you? And that just wasn't your game at the time. Yeah. But at the end of the day, you know, talent is all about leadership.

Becoming a talent magnet or having a talent mindset within your organization is about leadership. Yeah. And so, you know, knowing our communities, the special operations, community in combat aviators, Dave Burke, you know, our resident fighter pilot, the badass. Good deal, Dave. We knew we could start something. And so we created echelon front, Overwatch, what we call EF Overwatch, Overwatch being the term that the mission we ran in Ramadi. And I think, like, it has a little appeal in the sense that now we're overwatching our brothers,

Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Air Force PJs, CCTs, Marsok guys getting out, and the direct support personnel, we're overwatching them and helping with their transition. We're overwatching the companies that are in a war for talent. And that's the thing that people don't understand. Even the SEALs are always hunting for the best talent. Somebody asked me, you know, funny enough, what the most important job in the SEAL teams is, and they thought it was going to say a troop commander on the front lines. And that is important.

At the end of the day, that's what we do. But I said, no, it's actually being a Buds instructor. That is like being a hiring manager. You are the filter of the talent coming through, which ultimately will end up in that troop commander in that troop chief's hands. And there has to be a standard. We need to put some of our best guys at buds

to make sure that only the best are passing through. Well, the same thing applies to business. You are constantly in this war for talent. And we couldn't think of a better talent pool than combat aviators, Cobra pilots, fighter pilots, again, all the special operations guys and the direct support personnel that come out of SOCOM

that have the subcom that have the soft skills, the leadership skills that you want. They may lack the hard skills. You look at their resume and it may not scream right fit. But once you get these guys in an interview and you see that one day, they're leaders, that they're humble, that they're willing to roll their sleeves up and get after it and actually listen and learn, that is the perfect employee. And if you can get more of these guys into your business, I guarantee you, you will create your own army that will dominate your battlefield in whatever.

Industry that you're in. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's awesome because people every every single time I go talk to a company They'll they'll say man. It seems like you just it seems like you know did you do a bunch of research to figure out? Did you have you been working with us and we didn't know about it and I'd be like no Well, how do you know what problems we have? It's like, oh, because you're a company because you're a group of individual, your group of human beings are trying to make something happen and guess what? There's dynamics there that happen with all different organizations that to get together and guess what if you take these leaders because they're amazed that I can understand their business. It's like no, I don't understand your business. I understand leadership. That's what that's what. We understand leadership. So we can go in and look at what's going on and say, oh, you've got a leadership problem here and here's how we fix it. And so to take that and say, you know what? We can actually get. You people that understand leadership and they can help you solve these problems That is like you said Reese's peanut butter cup peanut butter and chocolate That's what it is so it's been on speaking of bringing on talent Like when this whole thing was going down I was like oh how about we get a little Mike Sorrelli at echelon front Because guess what that's what we did. Yeah, bring bring the band back together and you know that's why that's just been it's been awesome and it

Anyone that's coming to the muster You know Mike's Mike's putting on a great Talk about leadership Inside the muster Frigan everyone loved it I myself included And going out working with companies

Again now we just have Someone else on the team That can get out there that understands leadership That sees solutions We've been bringing you out on a bunch of stuff now So you see other companies and you see You're starting to take even what you learned in school Put that on top of the practical

applications that we see now, you know the way, so you see it everywhere you look. So that's, that's another benefit. So that's where you're at now. Talk about getting out. I mean, you talk about what gets you out of the bed in the morning in every company. He's like, do you love what you do? I'm like, the fact that Jock, Lave, myself, JP, Dave, Flynn are on a phone call talking about leadership. I'm like, there's nothing that gets us out of the bed more than that. Like we actually, we love to solve these problems because we've seen them before. Yeah. And, you know, people often say, like, well, how are the SEALs like synonymous with business? I'm like, you just said it.

You're a unit. You're a company. You're dealing with people. We deal with the same issues. And it has been great. I mean, how long have I been on now? Three months? Yeah, something like that.

And I just love it. And you know what my fiance sees a different person because for the listeners, I took a, you know, a high-level job in higher education, the executive director of veteran services for the Texas A&M system. And it just, you know, even though the work was. rewarding it just wasn't the same as being part of that shalon front and like Jordan has seen she's like you're you're actually like happy to get out of bed in the morning now I'm like yeah I'm with the boys yeah yeah that that makes a big difference and like you said you can't even shut us up like we will have like we we got this thing called the tank where we'll get together

and talk about like a leader like for working with three companies and there'll be leadership issues at each one of the companies and so we'll talk about about the leadership issue and then how that problem should be approached and these calls that are scheduled for an hour will end up on the phone for you know two and a half hours or we'll end up in the in the tank for three hours sitting there going by and because we're learning from it we're also learning how we can apply what we're talking about it's just it's just an awesome it's awesome to be part of the organization and and like you said to be with people that are just into it into it and you know the funny thing is having gotten

my MBA the one thing that is not addressed in any MBA program is leadership. Yeah. And they know it. And right now you're seeing a lot of MBA programs set up or stand-up centers of leadership within their MBA programs. And, you know, I've had some great discussions. I mean, great professors there.

And so, I mean, strong leaders because they were private sector leaders before they came back and spoke. But, I mean, you can, and they turn out highly successful business practitioners. But at the end of the day, like, it's not a recipe for, for leadership training whatsoever. Yeah, no, it's been awesome. That's why the business has gone so great because there's no one that's offering what we're doing.

There's people say, well, who's your competition? I'm like, we don't, I don't mean this in a negative way, but because I'm sure there's companies out there that are trying to do something, but there's no one that's saying, hey, this is what you do, this is how you lead, this is the way, this will apply to your business. These are the principles that you can use and you can make happen.

So yeah, that's been, we've been pretty lucky in the fact that we saw the correlations between these two things and saw them pretty clearly. So it's been good. And I've got to say, so the muster in D.C. 0.05 was my first muster. And naturally, these guys know me, I'm filled with hate. It's just sort of what drives me. One of my nicknames was grumpy.

But, you know, I was definitely on board because it's you guys. You guys are my brothers. I'm like, yeah, dude, I want in a love discussing leadership. But naturally, you know, I always have a. You hold back a little. I'm like, okay, let me see what this muster is about. And the fact that you guys are changing lives. And people are coming up to me off of one speech.

I'm just like, dude, what is going on? Like, I gave one speech. And people are like, dude, that actually, your perspective has already changed my life. I'm like, well, I'm glad to hear that. I'm excited. I didn't realize the impact that it has. No, it's an awesome thing to be a part of. And when I say a thing to be a part of,

it's awesome to be at the muster with the people that are at the muster. Not just like, oh, we're a part of it and you're not. No, it's like everyone that's there is a part of it and everyone that there is there is contributing to the knowledge that's being distributed and increased. So yeah, it's awesome.

Yes. It's a good time. It is. And that's where you're at now. It's probably a pretty good place to yeah probably we're touching three hours almost right now or two and a half or something like that

probably a good place to call it and I'm sure we'll do this multiple times again in the future of course obviously thanks for coming on thanks for your service in the Marine Corps in the teams and now

at echelon front at Eschelon Front Overwatch clearly Mike is out here doing his job he's done his job he's done his job And now maybe we could get Echo to do his job And talk about how we can all do our job better in some way

Mm-hmm somehow sure could you help us with that one yeah sure be happy to we're on the path Right yeah I'm on the path you're on the path all right jocko jocko is the path Oh that's not crazy at the very least you're all up on the path I am trying to be on the path is I'm at good need to get crazy all right so that being said we're all trying to stay on the path the best we can So here here are the ways to do this some ways some ways yeah yeah So just some suggestions like you're the authority like this is the way yeah you're right you're right you're right Some ideas some good ideas yeah proven prove most of these are all proven yeah through experience true you know It's affirmative origin origin origin

Main.com's called origin our company origin American made stuff Geese Rashgar for Jiu Jitsu Other stuff as well apparel Why does apparel get like a like a tone? You know because you know how you get you know, you know with the whole like apparel like a You're not a fashion person Well then again apparel and fashion is different. Okay. Yeah, yeah, that's what you wear as a human. Yeah, yeah And fashion is something else. Yeah, that you're trying to

to look a certain way. Yes. Or give a certain flavor to your vibe. Yes. Which I'm not a fan of. You're not a fan of flavor to your vibe. Yes. You just, your goal.

I went to, when I went to college, there was this woman who was a Buddhist monk. Sure. And as I was learning about Buddhists, sure. They, one of the things that they said was like, you're not supposed to stand out. Like, just don't stand out. Yeah. Just fit in, right? That's part of the program.

Yeah, technically it's not fit in. It's just don't stand out. Okay, maybe one of those two and if you're a practicing Buddhist, you can come on and brief brief me on this. I'm sure I need help. This is how I read it. Don't, you know, just don't stand out. You're just trying to be, it's like an ego thing, right? It's like, don't look at me. Don't look at me. Because I'm just, I just wear a black t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Don't look at me. I'm just a normal dude over here. Nothing special. I'm not wearing bling, as they call it. Sure. Nope. So, but there was a, there was a person there that was a Buddhist monk. And the Buddhist monk wore all the Buddhist garb. Mm. Like the robe and the stuff, which I don't care. Hey, I was, when I was in Thailand, it's awesome. It's actually awesome seeing the Buddhist monks walk around and they come and gather rice from you in the morning.

And it's, it's like awesome. It seems to be the most really chill and religion out there, right? Sure. And so I'm down with the Buddhists. But if you're not in Thailand with other Buddhist monks where it's normal, well then you guess what happens when you put on the robe? You stand out and you're saying look at me. And that's what I gathered from. And I was like, hey, don't look at me. In fact, my goal is like, don't look at me. That's the goal. Don't look at me. Yeah. Oh, so, okay, so I think, and not to go too far deep into this whole concept. Apparently, we're just going, because I'm talking about, we're here. Hey, you brought it up. True, true. So it's less about, because when the Buddhist puts on his garb, regardless of where he or she is,

when they put on the garb, that's just how. That's just the garb kind of thing. He's there that same. It's not regardless of where he or she is. Because check it out. If you're in Thailand and you put on the normal monk outfit, Sure you look normal. Yes if you're in a university where everyone's dressed in Western clothing shorts t-shirts and you put on the garb then guess what you don't look

normal right you stand out yeah and it almost says look at me yeah because the true in my opinion like a like if you really wanted to to attain that level of ego less enlightened Enlightenment, then you'd just be dressing like the normal people dress nothing more, nothing less, just right down the middle. Right. Don't look at me. Right. I'm just over here doing what I'm doing.

But I think, and I don't know, but I think it's possible that it's less about the result of them standing out and more about the effort or lack of effort or no effort made to stand out because that's what it is. Buddhist is like you can't be attached to like your personal. It's like you. That's what I'm saying, though. So if you're used to putting on this the garb every day, that's just how. Oh, I see what you're saying. I put this on. You guys, I can stand out or not stand out.

I'm focused on my way. Yeah, it has to do with the intention. Okay, well, that's cool. I'll change my attitude towards the monk that I went to college with. See, that's why he's the, what do you call it, the leader seemingly? Because he just opened mine, man. See that? Anyway, how can Origin Maine help us stay on the map?

That's why. If you order something from origin main, you could order something that is neon green that Pete Roberts designed Yeah, those spats are or have neon green or you could order something that's just black or black and gray which is Yeah, very low profile low profile. The joggers are low profile looking as far as the colors and whatnot But they're joggers. It's it's kind of hip. That's the thing right now. Joggers I got a few of them most comfortable joggers in the world by the way Proven by experts Expert Anyway how can it keep us on the path? Okay, you do Jiu Jitsu you want to stick with Jiu Jitsu you need a new ghi

Boom best key made in America by the way see same thing this is another question that comes up all the time is Is should I wear the white ghee the black key or the blue key in my Buddhist mind it was always look the white ghee is just the plain ghee. That's it You just wear the plain white guy that's the way it is I always only wore the white geese Guess what I got now black key? I got a black key Guess what? It doesn't matter anymore because everybody wears all kinds of different colored geese Well, they wear white blue or black right there's no it no longer is a thing to wear it used to be like if you wore a black You're like hey look at everyone was look at me right now no one cares what color because there's

A lot of those different colors in circulation so whereas a year ago I'm saying only a year ago I would have been like hey listen you need to just stick with the white ye that's just how Right now the mind has been open if you want to get a black key if that's the one that's the one that that is is you know what you're into yeah yeah get a black one yeah or the blue one or the green or the not bright green not neon green the neon green just for clarification purposes neon green was one of the colors that are in the spats which are compression pants yeah for so anyway anyway stay on the path get a new ghee continue or start jiu jih Tzu boom path that's right on the path right in the middle of the path too by

the way it's not you're not very enough jiu jiu jitsu is part of the path also jiu jiu jr. When I say joggers, sure, yes, they're comfortable. I get it. There's no growth in the comfort zone, whatever. But when you're jogging, getting after it, running, doing these things, you want to put on sweatpants, right, so to speak. And you put on some comfortable Made in America origin joggers. Bray, you're still on the path big time. Okay.

Huge time, actually. Fair enough. There you go. There you go. Boom. So there is growth in the comfort zone in a certain small, exceptional capacity. If we talk any more about clothing, I will be like entering the outside of his comfort zone. I'll be entering the fashion area.

Like, well, I'll have to be like, okay, wait, if we talk about clothing. See, even by me saying like, wear this and don't wear that, that's me getting in the zone and I shouldn't be in. Which is, I'm not going to go there. I'm done. Talk about supplements. I agree. Cool. Supplements.

Okay. So, Mike, remember supplements? Right? When you're young. Take them all. Yeah, right? Whatever's going to throw on the muscle. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. You're right. See, Russ. See, I'm glad Mike's here. We can talk about this stuff. We can get, we can talk about it even more. So, me too. Yeah, what?

Give me the, what? The protein butter. The faster, stronger. Better. In every single way. Lift more waist, be more big. Bigger muscles and what? Less working out.

And then smaller T-shirts. Yeah, see. Yeah, see, you understand. Exactly. So, but we never thought about, hey, what about joint supplements? You know? Like, you know, when you're young, you're like, eh, how cool. Maybe for, like, older folks.

something like this and I get it but now man give me the protein powder give me the B CAAs right you got it so current you know things always evolving new information better information accurate information joint supplements are more important than protein powder supplements I would agree I would agree because look if your joints aren't working well in lifting heavy you don't need protein supplements because you can't lift the weights to get to need the recovery for the protein and for growth and gains seem saying that is a valid point before you know it you end up you're 40 and you can barely get out of your car after driving for one hour yeah and here's

the thing that that is funny but it's not funny bro no it's real and which brings me to my other my other point which actually all joking aside is a big deal this is the biggest deal that I've actually found when you when you get more healthy joints your everyday activity is like way different almost still the point where you didn't realize that you had jammed up joints. You're saying. You're like, dang, all this freedom was waiting for me on the other side of healthy joints. Decision making. Anyway, point is, jockless and some supplements. Joints. That was a long point. Well, Mike's here. I figured we'd talk about it. He's got to educate me.

Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, and get educated as well. Anyway, joint warfare. Creel oil, super cruel oil. These are things that go directly to your joints. Other benefits, by the way, we can talk about. if you want somebody asked on Twitter I have my knees hurt how does joint warfare know which need to go to yeah yeah here's how it knows yeah I had the answer to that joint joint warfare knows that it goes to both knees okay so it's like hey cover and move yeah it was like hey we got a bunch of guys right we got a bunch of guys they're all they've been working out they have some issues I was gonna say like no it knows yeah you just tell it before you eat it before you take it

Joint warfare say, hey, left knee. Yeah. He'll heal it up. Well, you think it feels like that, but this is what it really is. The joint warfare doesn't know, the knees know. So it's like, hey, look, we're all working out. We're all doing, you know, various, we're moving. We're cleaning the yard.

That's what we're doing. Are we moving the lawn? Are we moving our bodies through space? Anyway, we're doing yard work, right? Me, Mike, Jocco, some other folks that we know, right? After a while, it's hot outside. Yeah. And then, boom, one of our, my wife comes outside with a,

Big bucket of ice with waters in it, right? Jocco's a little bit bigger. He may have worked a little bit harder than us. He's gonna he might he might need some more water Mike worked a little bit he might need a certain amount of water, but we all need varying amounts of water Some of the least water, you know, I've just said let's just call it what it is Let's say I've been in the shade maybe not working that much. I may need a half bottle of water You're assessing. Yeah, so my wife is the joint warfare with all the omega-3s and all the all the stuff the nutrients you guys are the knee jocco's the bad knee obviously I'm the good knee I need less of that stuff

so we are the knees choose what much water we need this is saying and this is the what's cool about this is this is also this is all scientifically proven a hundred percent that the knee will draw in the joint he knows the joint warfare doesn't know the knee knows you know check dr. echo that's literally how it works yeah also yeah but yeah very important supplement You'll know. Just take it. You'll know.

And, yeah, discipline. You can take that. You might have seen the video that Echo Charles made about discipline. That I was taking three scoops of discipline and that it put me into a, let's just call it the zone. The zone. Jiu-Jitsu excellence. The zone of J-Jitsu excellence. Yeah.

And you spliced up that video. You spliced it up. I got to say thank you. You spliced up to make me look pretty good. I was all grinding on Dean. And I just all had Andy's arm and I was like, dang, I look good. I think that was Eric's arm. Just so everyone knows,

yeah, the rules don't always look like that. You got some good little clips of me. You want to hear something actually really funny about that. The funny you bring that up. Okay, so all that foot, remember when I came and just filmed or whatever, right? And you're rolling with Dean for a lot of that time. And, you know, when you roll with Dean,

you're not just dominated. Dean is good. So he was kind of getting you for a little bit. So Dean, Eric, like literally that night, he's texting me, hey, send me that footage. Hey, send me that footage. I want to see the footage. I want to see the footage.

I want to, you know, this and that. And I was like, ah, you know, I don't know you know I'm kind of and he's like hey I won't put something in there just send me the footage and I was like okay Didn't send it to him I forgot I wanted to but then I was like shoot should I send him this footage? You know what like what if you post on the internet or whatever That's what I'm thinking but I'm like okay Here's the thing as Andy said something like that like you were filming and Andy's all Oh hey do you want a roll even though he's here filming I was like dude I don't care Yeah okay people shoot oh oh oh jiu jizzo doesn't work on jocco he's not gonna tap out no no actually

Jujitsu works on jocco and jocco taps out with your freaking jocco gets caught damn arm lock yeah yeah so so Dean wants this this footage so I go kind of look through the footage and there's one of him he takes you down it was like funny he's sitting on his butt he takes you down while he's sitting down by the way and then he like mounts you and he's like grinding his elbow in you I was like horrible torture let me not put that part in it yeah yeah so I made you look good and what sucks is like I was doing good because I was kind of getting after it yep that's a part and then yeah yeah exactly he made me look good so everyone

Me I thank you Dean Lister does not thank you sorry Dean Oh Also you know you talked about protein not being important and I actually think you're wrong Well You need protein and you might as well get your protein from the what's commonly known as the only real source of protein that's good Which is mulk Yes Mulk is Mulk is

I've seen it yeah he heard he heard oh you haven't tried it yet I've not tried it oh man sorry dude We'll give you some milk immediately. We'll get spoon up here. Yeah. Yeah, you're, you don't even know what you're missing. Yeah. So, yeah, you get milk. Peanut butter milk will be out.

Peanut butter, peanut butter chocolate milk will be out. We'll call it. We'll call it very soon. Within a week. I'm going to call it. Within a week of peanut butter. I've had it and it's. Yeah, see, which kind of goes to you'd think.

It's counterintuitive to his whole thing. You know, it's like, hey, let's make. something that's like you know healthy good protein clean all this stuff but you know what it has to taste delicious you see I'm saying it kind of goes against this whole hardcore toughness thing right just like the discipline you made sure it tasted good seems saying isn't that kind of funny it's funny it's funny it's funny anyway yeah milk good good one replace your dessert with milk and boom no sugar protein it's weird that there's a substance on earth that you can

replace your steak and your dessert with one item and I'm not necessary but I'm not saying you got to do that but take sometimes you know cooking a steak is a pain sometimes it takes eight minutes you know we don't have eight minutes sometimes boom yeah makes up the malk you're good come to the immersion camp we'll have mulk the immersion camp in Maine August 26th through September 2nd Jiu-jitsu immersion camp yeah either way Jiu-jitsu immersion camp not Italian immersion camp because we won't be spoke speaking Italian there no or any other languages most likely maybe a couple

No, there'll be some Portuguese there. Yeah, there'll be some Spanish. Maybe some Espanual. Sure. Yeah. Any other, anyone else that wants to come and speak other languages. All the stuff that Echo just talked about, origin, main.com. You can get it there.

Yep, it's true. Also, good way to support yourself, and this podcast, if you want, is the fact or knowing that Jocko has a store, and it's called Jocko Store. Okay. How do you support yourself with Jocco Store? If you want to represent, if you're on the path, you want to represent, if you're on the path, you want to represent, You can get a shirt says discipline equals freedom to now new designs on there if you care about that sort of thing Are you still offering the old one? Yes, that's an interesting decision What I don't know because they're different they're slightly different yeah they're just you know hey

Okay, so I have discipline equals freedom shirts I have the green one the you know the regular hell what do you call the Heather gray Right yeah and what's the other one like a charcoal yeah all same design so I'm like hey you know if you care about this kind of thing hey I'm gonna go I don't know wherever the post office got the post office like hey that's a cool shirt you know your charcoal discipline extreme cool I go the post office the next day I'm wearing the heather one there he's like pro like what up you just like that same design so much you get it in all colors I say yes but it's I'm still left with the thought like man maybe I should

get a different design but I like discipline equals freedom see what I'm saying yeah okay I get the new design. I come back to the post office. The guy's like, hey, I like discipline equals room, too. That's dope. But he still has the sense like, okay, he has more than just that one design. See what I'm saying? You see what I'm saying, though, right?

I do. Yeah. I mean, I know I'm kind of overstating it, but it's still, it's a thing. It's not nothing. Okay. So on Jocco store, you can get rash cards, t-shirts, trucker hats. You can get other hats. Hoodies.

You can get hoodies. You can get legit hoodies. and Hawaiian hoodies. Hawaiian hoodies. If you don't know what Hawaiian hoodies means, which we don't, because Jocko made that up, it's just a lightweight hoodie.

You know, it could be called Southern California hoodie too. No? Yeah, it could. No. Sure it could. Sometimes it gets to be 38 degrees in Southern California.

The Hawaiian hoodie ain't gonna cut it. Yeah, I think you're right about that. So, all right. Nonetheless, lightweight, they look nice. Yeah. And anyway, if you want to represent jocco store.com, if you like something, get something. Also, also.

Also subscribe to the podcast if you haven't you can subscribe to it iTunes Google Play Stitcher If you leave reviews I read them sometimes they make me laugh yes that is good Yes because they can be rough but then you read it a good review that makes you laugh that's positive So make that happen also YouTube by the way if you like the video version of this podcast and a warrior kid podcast if you haven't been listening to the warrior kid podcast Check it out sure it's for for kids ask Uncle Jake questions there's some good questions in there if you got kids definitely check it out YouTube you can see echoes legit

supposedly legit videos oh yeah the excerpts yeah yeah cool but also the ones you do your little fancy stuff too yeah yeah man again you're super sensitive about video making everyone should know that no I'm not okay no I'm not cool cool Anyway, um, yeah, someone you made it you made the muster video. Yeah, and someone this is an interesting point Someone put someone I posted it to my face. I post it there and there's some, you know people commenting and then someone wrote no credit to echo That's it. That's it. I about echo just did he's doing his job and he's proud of it. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's it. I don't want that kind of credit. Yeah. No credit. Um, I actually I think echo made the video. Yeah. The truth. The truth. The truth. You did your job. Yeah, I know.

You did what you're supposed to do. Good. Congratulations. Well, I think technically, too, in, I mean, in the spirit of just accuracy, I think most people kind of know that I made the video. Yeah. Like, because I just make the video. That's like the routine, right?

That's what it seems like anyway. Anyway. Check. All right. Yeah. We're a kid podcast is dope. That's on YouTube as well, by the way. Also, if you want to vary up your workout, which I think is important thing, but, you know,

Hey, people are people, and people are different. But if you want to vary up your workout, try some new stuff. Go to onit.com slash jocco, you get some new gear. Gear in all capacities, but all the way down to socks. We have the club. It's a club. It's heavy club, huh? I'm going to have to check this out.

Yeah. No, no, the club that you picked up earlier. You were like, hey, are you going to do some juggling? This is for juggling? And you're like, oh, no, that's not for juggling. You'll kill somebody, probably yourself. But you see that backs up the point that I said before about those those are like oh yeah You know like cool it's a club it looks like one of those clubs that they juggle

You know the little pins or whatever die yeah and you pick it up you're like bro I can't juggle that That's like something you work out with and here's a thing yeah there's full workouts with that club and there's varying weights or whatever anyway You go to the website you can see you know what workouts to do a lot of good info on there you know switch up your workout man iTunes, Google Play, MP3, you can get Psychological Warfare. It's an album. And yes, it has tracks. And it's just me telling Echo and you, if you're listening, not to be weak at that moment in time. No.

It helps. It helps you not be weak. We're working on the second album. Well, I should say, I'm compiling the thoughts for the second album, which seems like we've determined the working title at this point is, all of your excuse. Uses are lies. Yeah. Because that one seems to be hit home with me, with everyone. Jocka white tea, you can get it on Amazon in Canada and in America.

You can get dry tea, little tea bags that you brew, or you can get the can, which we're going to put all the big unhealthy energy drinks. We're going to put them out of business. Yeah. Yep, that's the prediction. Sure. Because why would you not drink joccal white tea? Why would you drink something that's going to kill you when you can drink something that's

It's gonna make you more healthy. Yeah, that's good. And it tastes better, and it makes you feel better. Do you have any answer to that? I don't know that's right, because I'm right. And your attitude is wrong. Yeah. And books, if you're on Amazon anyways,

weigh the warrior kid and Mark's mission, and discipline equals freedom field manual. If you want that on audio, it's not an audible book. It's MP3, iTunes, Google Play, all that other stuff. Extreme ownership, which was written by me and my brother Laif Babin. It's about leadership. And we have a follow-on book to that called The Dicotomy of Leadership, which is coming out September 25th. And we're getting some feedback on it right now.

And people are really stoked. Laif and I are definitely stoked on it. It's cool, cool book to write. It's the little problem that, it's the area that people have the most problems with. How do you balance between being too much of a micromanager and being too much of a micromanager and being too loose. How do you manage the being, communicating too much

with the group and too little? How do you manage being too close to your people or too distant from your people? So all those little things, all those little balances that you have to figure out as a leader, they're in that book. Check it out. You can pre-order it anywhere.

If you pre-order it, it's helpful because that way, our publisher who is, you know, just not Aware. They're not in the game. They're not listening this. Actually, some of them are listening. If they're listening to this podcast, they should be thinking, you know what? We need to print a bunch of these books. Don't miss out on the first a dish. You don't want the second a dish. You might end up with it if you don't order it, but and speaking of which for leadership training if you've read the book, you need a little bit more inside your organization. Eschlon front. We solve problems through leadership. It's me. Laif Babin. J.P. Danel. Dave Burke. Flynn Cochran. And now, as you have heard, my brother Mike Sorrelli,

muster, zero, six. Muster zero six in San Francisco, October 17th and 18th. Mike, you kind of talked about this, but you're feeling like the muster had, will have good impact on people. It's, it most definitely is going to have impact on people. It's been shown. And just the two days I attended, I walked away.

I came right back to Jordan. I'm like, I call her, I'm like, dude. Just like, don't call me dude. I'm blown away. In fact, the funny thing is you remember there was a green marais that came. And for the listeners, hey, there's strife. Rivalry between the communities, all for fun. But even he looked at me and he's like, dude, this is amazing.

These guys are having an impact. And we are going to a very unique place, Silicon Valley. That is, without a doubt, one of the most. innovative places sometimes lacks leadership as innovative products but lacks leadership so this is gonna be magical well well that's one of the things one of the reasons is because the companies we work with up in Silicon Valley a lot of times they have the technical capacity they're smart they even have the business understanding but the only thing that they need especially once they

start to grow is they need they need better leadership And so that's why the companies we work up with that we work with up there We know that they need this and so that's why we're doing this one in San Francisco October 17th Come on out you can register extreme ownership dot com You'll see that on this one you'll see like a lot of people from the last one Because they'll like keep coming you know I mean because not only the updates or whatever But just like how you're saying earlier where the more okay you learn something then you go to

to the field. You know, you practice, you know, practice. You perform. Then you're like, oh, wait, okay, now other problems arise. What did I do wrong? Oh, yeah, I saw this problem. Now this other problem popped up. Yeah, because I see it differently now. I see it more fast. So, boom, I'm going back to the muster. Yeah. See what I'm saying? And then boom, back to the field. So you'll see people there every time. Boom, there was it updated. And I'm going to tell you this. So out of zero five, this police officer came up to me, or I should say Mouti from Nova Scotia. I said, I wanted you to come talking to my department. And then when he saw that, I spoke with the Louisville, Kentucky, which are my boys, police department, metro police department.

He's like, hey, you need to come out. So we're coordinating. I get to go out to Nova Scotia because of zero, five. That's awesome. How awesome. Hey, you know, speaking of law enforcement is we, because of the. Because of the popularity of the muster and because there's usually law enforcement military border patrol firefighters paramedics all first responders basically people in uniform

They've they've been coming to all the musters, but we wanted to do one that's a little bit cheaper Focused on those types of jobs so we're doing something in Dallas Texas September 21st It's called the roll call if you want it's the same register registered extreme ownership.com you got to be one of those you got to be one of those jobs to come to that but that's going to be focused on that sort of dynamic leadership that you get into in those situations. So that's the roll call, 0-0-1, September 21st. Of course, now, one more thing to talk about, Echon Front, Overwatch, EF, Overwatch.

So check it out. Real simple to put this out, if you're a veteran and you're either in the military and you're getting ready to transition out of the military, soft support, combat pilots if you're in that situation go to eFoverwatch.com or if you're a business that wants to bring this type of leadership into your team then go to EF overwatch and you see there's real simple instruction to follow and will proceed to move down the path of putting the best people in the best positions and on top of that if you want to

Hang out with us a little bit more virtually until we see you in San Francisco at the monster or until we see you at the roll call or until we see you at the immersion camp in Maine Then we're on the interwebs Fully on the interwebs on Twitter Instagram and dasha face that ball key Mike is m. J. Sorrelli it's m J S a a R R a I L L E that's him on Twitter He's Mike Sorrelly on Instagram he's Mike Sorrelly on Instagram. He's Mike Sorrelly on Instagram and and he's Michael Sorrelli on that Jaffe, he's a bookie

and of course, Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocka Willink. Echo, anything else? Yeah. Here we go. Actually, so going back, you did mention,

you said mini-buds. Did you say mini-buds? That's what you went through? Not buds, mini-buds, what's the difference? So I think it's called something different now. And I can't recall.

So basically, there is a vast pool of kids in college and at the Naval Academy that want to try out to be officers in the SEAL teams. Yes. Because the competition is so fierce. The summer before they graduate and actually become commissioned as officers in the Navy, they actually have to compete for the few billets that exist for Bud's officers. And so you've got, I think, anywhere from 100, 200, actually probably more than that, trying to get into many buds. And there's only so many, I think like there's 30 per class.

They run too many buds every summer of about 30 candidates each, so 60 total. And there's probably like 500 kids competing for those slots. And then amongst those 60, they're only going to select, I think, like 50%, 30, that actually can step into buds as Navy Ensigns and try to become Navy SEAL officers. So, you know, it goes back to that talent. Everyone is always in a war for talent looking for the best candidates. So you go to mini buds, you. Pass then you go to buds?

Yeah Yeah, typically if you're lucky if they select you got you okay Perform well at mini buds okay so again this is just for the officer pipeline if you're Enlisted guy you enlisted guy you enlist in the Navy and you go to buds there's no many buds for you got you they do have a prep course now up in uh Chicago After boot camp you you you stay and you try they try and get you ready for buds But but it's different obviously yeah it's different okay I don't think that's even a selection It's not a selection. No it's just that's just like sure they could deselect you but the purpose

This isn't deselection. No, I think the purpose was to see if we could statistically increase the number of people that make it through buds. And actually, I think it hasn't proven effective. At the end of the day, it's one thing. For whatever reason, it's an 80% attrition rate, like, almost all the time, or 70 to 80%. One of my friends said this about buds, about passing buds, that this is a factor. It's not the telltale, but this is a factor where if you're in a group that, and this is going to go back to leadership, I kind of interestingly

If you're in a group where people are real negative And then you know when you're negative You want to blame other people Right just if you're a negative person Whatever you don't want to take on shit So if if a guy is seemingly Getting ganged up on you know like if everyone's like hey You're not pulling your way you know everyone's getting frustrated

And then they everyone's like Harpid on one guy That makes them quit way quicker than if like everyone's like Yeah it's okay we can do this you know how like you like if you have a leader who's like hey it's all good guys come on we got this we got this kind of cheering everybody on and saying like hey we're all we're all a team here kind of thing but if you're like hey you're holding us back and everyone's ganging up on that guy he'll quit way quicker that's what you're saying check there's only one exception i think that's probably

accurate to yeah for the most part there's only one person that i think that i've seen uh sort of defy that and that was ryan joe yeah you would not get in that guy's head man yeah and yeah tough as nails yeah seems like that would be a factor but yeah you get brother there's just guys like that and we're like nope i'm all die before i quit you know where it's just simply not option no matter how deep you go it's crazy but yeah don't quit people ask me what to do how to get through buds don't quit that's it's crazy mike any uh closing thoughts yeah well yeah few just people to thank um one you know to you know to you you and all the boys that I served with across all the commands I served in, man.

It is a brotherhood while I might not have gotten along with all of you, definitely learn something from everyone. And it is a brotherhood that you will never replace. And that was an honor to serve alongside those guys. And then I think the last two is one, my kids, Cameron and Caden. I mean, that is any man's legacy, is how you raise your kids. And they mean the world to me. And then the last person who's changed my life is my fiancé, which I hope you guys are reserving the date. Jordan, who's changed my perspective on a lot of things and, you know, help me through what is not easy for any veteran.

And that is transitioning out of the military. And I'll tell you what, her positivity is infectious. And she calls me out on my, you know what, all the damn time. She's younger than me, and it's a hit to the ego. So thanks to that entire group. And love you guys. Awesome, man. Well, like I said, of course, thanks for coming on.

And also, like I already said, of which I can never say enough, thanks for your service in the defense of our freedom. You're talking about all those deployments over and over and over again, man. Keep going back into the fray. It's freaking awesome. And thank you for doing it. And congrats on your retirement. I don't know if I ever even said that to you when you retired, but it's I'm glad that you got to be able to retire, and it's awesome to be freaking working with you again.

So, thanks, Mike. I'm looking forward to many more years. Thanks, brother. And everyone else in the military that's still out there holding the line doing those deployments over and over again, thank you. And to the police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and Border Patrol. And the rest of you that are holding the line here at home. Thanks for what you're doing and to your families as well. Thank you for supporting those that support us.

And to the rest of you, I know life isn't perfect. And I know life can be hard, but it is still life. And it's your life. And there are those that have given their lives so that we can have ours. So for them, for those heroes, live a good life. Live the best life you can by going out there every single day and getting after it. And until next time, this is Mike and Echo and Jocko. Out.