Jocko Podcast - 232: Do Not Fail To Learn. Adapt to New Environments. The Boer War.

Episode Date: June 3, 2020

0:00:00 - Opening 0:15:25 - The Boer War. By Jay Stone and Erwin Schmidl 1:23:29 - Final Thoughts and take-aways. 1:24:51 - How to stay on THE PATH. 1:50:43 - Closing gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 232 with Echo Charles and me Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. From Colonel Grosby, commanding fifth Manchester regiment. Dear Madam, your letter of the 20th of August reached me safely. Your poor son died a heroic soldier's death and all belonging to the fifth Manchester Regiment from myself downwards are proud of having been comrades of so brave and honorable a lad. I am glad to be able to inform you he did not suffer any great pain. He died saying he hoped if he

ever got over his wounds he would soon be able to return to his duty. I am informed by those who were present with him in the blockhouse at the time that he was. He passed away happily and willing to meet his God. You have every reason to be proud of his memory. And may God help and comfort you in your great sorrow. I will inquire if he has left any keepsake that could be either sent to or kept for you. I've asked my wife to call and see you the next time she is in Manchester. Believe me, yours faithfully.

H. Grosby Colonel. And that right there is a letter of condolence written back to a grieving mother in England during the second Boomer War

in Africa, South Africa. And of course the letter paints the picture of a well let's just say a kind of perfect heroic death, which I guess is what any mother would want to hear, but make no mistake about any war, including the Boer War in South Africa, that this scene was awful.

So the Boer War in South Africa, you know, it's a war that people consider to be one of the first modern wars and there's there's you know you there's a bunch of wars you could throw in there that that are also called that i mean the american civil war was in some ways considered a modern war um you know you had some some wars that were right around there that that weren't a modern war they were kind of a mixing you know there was there's one battle that the british fought against the modest Sudanese. It was in 1898, in September of 1898. And during this battle, you know, it was British soldiers,

and actually Egyptian soldiers as well, versus these Sudanese. And during the battle, there was 48 of the British and Egyptians who were killed 382 wounded. and on the Sudanese side there was 12,000 dead and 13,000 wounded. So that was kind of a lopsided battle. And if you stand up against the British and try and fight them in that manner of, hey, we'll go toe to toe, we have machine guns or we don't have machine guns, but we have, we have repeating rifles, we have a massive advantage over you and you're going to continue to charge it us. we're going to mow you down and that's what happened there.

So what happens in the second Boer War is an early example of asymmetric warfare, meaning you have a small group, in this case, the Boorers, which is an Afrikaans term that means farmers. And there's between 20 and 60,000 of them, and they're going up against the British Empire, which at the time was a massive powerhouse, obviously. they end up with 500,000 troops. So 350,000 Brits, 150,000 Colonials, and 100,000 Africans that are fighting on the British side. It's the second Boor War.

The first one took place in 1880, but it was much, much smaller. It started with a farmer that refused to pay taxes. you know, that seems to be a common thread. We don't like to pay taxes. And the government confiscated his farm and his equipment and they were going to have an auction. And then these other farmers got together and they attacked the auction. And this is the original term, the term commando, which we use, well, we usually use it to talk about an individual person.

but the original term meant a group of people. It was called a Commando meant, you know, whatever, 30, 40, 100 guys, banned together, kind of like a militia group. And the way, and they kind of acted in the way we think commandos act, which means they, you know, they would use mobility and speed and violence of action, surprise, and set ambushes,

and those kind of behaviors. And meanwhile, the Brits are still, in that, in that, in that first Boer War, the Brits are still wearing red uniforms. You see what I'm saying? This is a, this is a strange world. This is as, you know, this is during the evolution of war. And they're still firing, you know, they're still setting up in lines and firing volleys together as a group and on command, you know, ready, aim, fire, that type of thing.

And meanwhile, the, the Boer commandos are hiding behind trees and, The first battle that they have, there's 120 Brits dead or wounded, and there's two Boers dead and five wounded. So, you know, this war lasted 10 weeks, the first one. And like I said, it was less of a war, light action, then eventually they kind of go into this uneasy piece. And then this second Boer War comes along. And, you know, I'm just trying to give some high level. I'm absolutely no expert on these things, and I'm sure some people will let me know some things that I've gotten wrong.

But the second Boer War is a fight between these allies, these new Boer allies, there's two new states that are formed. One of them is called, I think it's officially called the South African Republic, but I usually see it referred to as transvaal. And then there's another state or country called the Orange Free State. And so here's the basis of these. These are a little bit for, you know, the shape of Africa, you get the bottom of Africa, where South Africa is today.

You go inland a little bit. And what happened was the Brits at one point, they stopped slavery, like no more slavery. and the booers, they still wanted slavery because they were farmers and they, well, that was part of their economy and, well, they just thought that they deserved to have slaves. And then on top of that, when they got told, hey, you can't have slaves anymore, there was no kind of deal set up for them to be compensated to say, look, if you want us to change the way we're running this economy, we need to, you know, we need money. You know, we need money to hire people. And so they look for some kind of compensation. The Brits were like, no, this is an immoral activity and we're not having slavery anymore. It's all it's over. So the booers or a large portion of booers, which again, now these are these are different groups of people. I want to say mainly Dutch. The booers were mainly Dutch settlers, which is why they speak Afrikaans, which is like a version of. Dutch. So they, about 15,000 of them leave and they march north. And so now they set up these two states where slavery is still allowed. And they, and they kind of exist for a while in a, in a relatively, I guess in a relatively peaceful way, at least in terms with the British. Well,

guess what they find in this land that they end up settling in? They find gold. They find diamonds. And this starts to well now you now you gold diamonds war that's where it leaves to The there's kind of three phases that this war goes through in the first one the Brits are unprepared They're not ready for this in the second phase the Brits bring in massive numbers of people and supplies and they kind of just war of attrition overpower the boers and then the booers go into like full guerrilla warfare mode insurgency mode and then the brits go hardcore scorched earth we're going to win war of attrition first ever concentration camps i'm pretty sure that the term concentration camps comes from this war because what the British ended up doing is saying, okay, we don't want to,

we don't want to harm the women and children. So they took the, the booer women and children and put them in these camps. Well, the camps were a total disaster and 25 plus thousand women and children died of starvation and disease in those camps. And eventually, just through just harsh brutality, the booers were broken and they surrendered in 1902. But from a perspective, from just a strategic perspective, if you think about this, it took three long, bloody and expensive years for the mighty British Empire to defeat these kind of ad hoc commando units. from the Boomer side. And that's what they actually were.

They would assemble, you know, hey, all of us are going to get together. They would kind of elect who's going to run it. And then they would decide what they were going to do sort of by consensus. That's what these original commando units were. Winston Churchill, he worked as a reporter during this war. And he was captured, I think he was captured on a train. He was put into a prisoner of work. camp. He escaped. I mean, that's kind of

one of his, that's one of the things that made Winston Churchill, Winston Churchill. And that's also where he got this name, commando that they started using, in World War II. I'm pretty sure he derived the name for the British commandos because their activities, their

methodologies were going to be based on what the, what the South African booers did, what the South African commando units did. And he applied that name to the kind of the early special operation types troops in World War II. And there's another thing that I think about when I think about the booers.

And the, I think this kind of captures certainly an attitude that is prevalent in special operations forces and really in the military. And it's a saying, it's kind of wrapped up in a saying that the South African booers had And the saying is, and I'm not going to do this right because, you know, it's a foreign language. But the saying is, an buer makum plan. And what it means is a booer makes a plan. And it's a pretty cool saying because what do you do when something goes wrong. What are you, you know, what's our, what are we going to do?

When something goes wrong, you know what we're going to do, a boo is going to make a plan. We're going to figure it out. We're going to do something about it. We're not going to sit back and just let things unfold. That was their attitude. That's still their attitude. And of course, look, South Africa has been a place of a lot of turmoil. Apartheid.

It's been, you know, financially just a disaster at some points. It's just a tough place. And I've been there. I've actually been lucky enough to have been down there. It's an awesome country. It's an epic country. The nature there is just unbelievable. shout out to the troopers down there in South Africa.

Paul Slade, his South African crew at his company. They have legit jujitsu. Shout out to fight fit militia down there. And, you know, that was interesting. Awesome guys. Awesome, Jim. A guy named Chef. Sure, Chef.

Yeah, Chef, who's legit. And his buddy Rich. They run this gym down there and we went there and trained when I was in South Africa. I had like a, it seemed like about a 14-hour death roll with chef, who's a total beast. Penny Thomas, also from South Africa. Penny Thomas, shout out to Penny Thomas. But incredible place, incredible place. And, you know, that gym was amazing, what they were doing in that gym.

And one thing that kind of surprised me is it was totally wide open. Like every different type of person was in there. Rich kids, poor kids, black kids, white kids just wide open. There's incredible atmosphere. And everybody freaking fine and hard. So if you ever are in South Africa, go check that place out. It's awesome. But, you know, ever since I went down there and even before that, I mean,

It's just a war, you know, if you know the root word of the word, Commando, you always think about what this was all about. And so there's, you know, I'm always looking for lessons learned. There's a book called The Boer War and Military Reforms. And it's written by a guy named Jay Stone and another guy named Irwin Schmiddle. And it's a very interesting book the way it analyzes what happened and what lessons were learned. And I'm going to focus on the lessons learned that they pull. from it and I'm sure at some point there's I've got a I've got quite a few good books of

you know the normal jaco podcast first person account of a guy that was on the battlefield which look some of these battles were just insane especially because you get to see the well we'll we'll just we'll just jump into it um so a couple things to kick this thing off here we go going to the book Britain was unique among European great powers in retaining a voluntary army so at this time A lot of Europe had conscripts still. So you were just, you were just going to do your service. You were getting drafted.

In order to maintain a flow of recruits, equipment had to be of above average quality, making the British Army the most expensive in the world per soldier. So they're spending a lot of money. With government preoccupied by the budget, there was little room for innovation much of the 19th century. Not a lot of, not a lot of innovation happening.

One of the things that they talk about is, of all the specialized departments, It was intelligence where the dual British deficiencies of organization and budgetary restrictions are best illustrated. In 1890, the Germans spent an equivalent of $270,000 for an intelligence staff of 300 officers. Great Britain only spent 11,000. So they're not spending much on Intel. And where this comes to play is perhaps the war's most glaring intelligence failure was the lack of adequate maps of South Africa. and in particular of the Boer republics.

The Boers, for their part, published no maps and would allow no British subject into their countries to draw them. So they kind of knew what was going on. It's also interesting because for them to make that, for them to proactively do that, it meant they knew the importance of maps. And a lot of people don't understand the importance of terrain when it comes to combat.

If you don't understand the terrain, you're in trouble. here's a little cut of what the officers were like. A dandified, non-professional polo-playing officer corps recruited from a narrow social base resulted from a system which was itself dependent on private funding for an officer's expenses. The army was suited to recreational life. In the 1890s, an officer could absent himself from regimental duties for as much as 250 days annually in the name of sport. I mean, I'm going to tell you right now, you get 30 days leave in the U.S. military.

These guys are getting 250 days. Even when on duty, recreation was facilitated by making an officer's time his own after the completion of regular duties, usually about 9.30 a.m. While the ideal of sport may have been carried to an extreme, it perhaps helped develop the trait most often associated with British officers. their conspicuous courage. That virtue was to be indispensable for the attainment of rank. And the large numbers of Victoria Crosses won by senior officers attest to this fact.

The officers calm courage tended to radiate throughout the ranks. So this idea of these just totally brave British officers that are sort of, well, that's what they count on. They count on, hey, we're brave. That's how we're going to win. Continuing on courage alone however did not produce a good officers for professional education and attitude were often lacking Few officers were acquainted with foreign languages and the writing of technical military studies was frowned upon Think about that you're a You're the officer that's going to lead the military and it's frowned upon to write about military subjects

Crowning proof of this is the fact that in 1900 Germany produced 50% of the world's military literature France 25% and Great Britain one percent if the raw material of the officer corps was somewhat lacking only owing to poor training this system served only to compound its errors so you can see what you're dealing with doesn't this paint the most stereotypical picture of you know these officer guys that are like hey I'm smart I'm a great athlete you know you know I don't need to study this stuff I'm brave and you also think about Germany. Germany has a Militaristic nature, right? And and obviously even more so before World War II and before World War I even more so Think about one country's producing 50% of the world's military literature That's insane and the Brits are producing less than one percent A couple other things here about what we're dealing with long term 12 year enlisting

created a professional rank and file in order to attract manpower Britain had to pay in both relative and absolute terms During prosperous times Pat pay had to go up or the army it was feared would be left with only the dregs of society To deal with his perceived problem the English army had always maintained a high proportion of officers and NCOs supervision was omnipresent and individuality was systematically stamped out of the recruit So it's a super top heavy organization and all their like Everything's just being over-supervised and you're always being told what to do. It's always amazing in the Army or the Marine Corps. There'll be a guy that's 20 years old and he'll be in charge of like a legit number of guys.

Whereas this is the opposite. This is where, hey, I've been in the Army for nine years and I'm not in charge of anyone because I'm getting directed on how to do everything. The natural outgrowth of such closely ordered system. was a soldier bred to deference and lacking an initiative. You can see where this is going. How much of this was due to process and how much was due to raw material was open to question in 1890,

only 18% of the enlisted men could be considered illiterate. So got a bunch of guys that can't even read. Reserve components, I've got to talk about this just to let you know that they're out. The reserve components known as militia reserves, militia volunteers, or yeomanry, had several distinct roles and they played the national defense system.

so they're going to get called up as well, kind of the reservists. The army was totally directed toward home and colonial defense. In examining battlefield effectiveness, one must go beyond questions of organization and numbers to matters of tactical doctrine. For the British, this was most often equated with overwhelming firepower. That's what their doctrine is, we're going to overwhelm you with firepower. Every soldier received an issue of 200 rounds annually for target practice. That's a joke. All training and practice fire was carried out from kneeling and standing positions. I'm going to promise you you don't want to be standing on the battlefield Muscatry practiced and this is a quote consisted of firing a limited number of rounds at stationary bull's eye targets at fixed known ranges progressing from 100 to 1,000 yards the distance is gradually

increasing instead of decreasing as they normally do in war once a year there was a field fire when the battalion would spend a glorious morning, lazing away at the number of screens set up in conspicuous positions, which in no sane enemy would ever think of occupying. So that's what they're doing. They're lining up. 150 rounds were to be used solely for practicing collective fire. So out of your 200 rounds, 150 of them are going to be, hey, we're all standing up in line,

and we're practicing shooting together. On the battlefield regulation stated that infantry fire was to be open at 450 meters. as opposed to 600 to 1,000 meters for the Germans. While the British continued to place undue emphasis upon volley fire, the Germans preferred individual skirmish fire. Large sections of training manuals dealt with close order battalion formations, such as the square or echelon, which deemed especially useful in savage warfare.

So what they're talking about there is the Zulu wars. Like, hey, you're getting attacked. We're going to stay in line. And as these people attack us with spears, we're going to gun them down. And it's important that we stay tight and put up big volleys of fire. Meanwhile, the Germans are over there going, hey, skirmish line, you know, cover and move. Make a little bowing forward.

Sir Frederick Maurice, the famed military historian of the period, lent his prestige to a volume that taught the advance is to be made as rapidly as possible. The main object being the attack with the bayonet. Independent firing is generally advisable only at short range. So did you hear that? Firing is only advisable at short range, but if an especially favorable target presents itself, it may be ordered also at the middle of extreme ranges. Whilst the attack is being developed, follies only are to be fired by section or subsections till the order is given for independent firing. That's what they're doing. More sophisticated solutions involving fired movement, covered move, could not be developed as long as heavy reliance was placed upon the best.

bayonet, which in turn was the most, which in turn was most effective in massed formations and proved a psychological weapon par excellence. Faith in the bayonet enabled troops to advance with the intent to use it. It was feared that if this principle was ever called into question, then the troops would not approach the enemy close enough to be of any use whatsoever. So they are, they're using the bayonet charge as sort of the foundational culmination of their movement these guys have guns you know the enemy is going to have guns

tactical flexibility was extremely limited since the drill book of 1896 did not include any instructions for the movement of troops in extended order extended order means you're spread apart they're all that closed order they're all basically shoulder to shoulder Oral commands tended to be extremely formal to the point of awkwardness. For instance, one said, that blank face, the blank being filled by some objects, such as a building, rather than right face. Similarly, one had to say, advance, right incline, halt rather than take cover behind those rocks.

The British tactical scheme supposed that once units were engaged, they would function mechanically. It was not considered that morale might falter under adversity. Think about that. They just think when they give the order to go, guys are going to go. Moral will not falter. During the years immediately preceding the Boer War, the Army had two opportunities to test the effectiveness of its organization and doctrine.

1898 British Britain stage its largest peacetime maneuvers in more than a generation. Some 50,000 men organized in two corps and two cavalry brigades took part over a period of three months. The maneuvers, in fact, went on only from breakfast to dinner, as officers felt the need to be free in the evenings to attend to the London theater and socialized with the country gentry. It's horrible. This exercise was held on familiar grounds of Aldershot, which was unfortunate, such an encouraged and neglect of reconnaissance.

So you already know, so we're not going to do any reconnaissance. We already walk around here all the time. Perhaps the greatest revelation in the ineptness of the high command and dealing with more troops than most of its members had ever seen in one place. Their flaws noted in the officer's failure to mount secondary attacks and a continued lack of coordination with artillery. When forced to dismount, cavalry showed considerable firepower in the defense, if supported by machine guns on offense, however, it still proved inadequate in reconnaissance. The second phase which took place at Aldershot was even less successful than the first. Infantry advanced without the use of cover. This is a nightmare.

Reconnaissance was poor. No digging in of trenches was permitted, allegedly for fear of damaging the downs, the fields that they're on. General Sir Butler, not having commanded troops for 12 years, ended maneuvers with a disastrous one-to-one assault after. marching his command 14 miles. So you can kind of see what we're dealing with. Are you getting a picture of what we're dealing with?

Yes, sir, I am. It's not a good picture. No. It's not a good picture. It's a peacetime scenario. And look, they were in wars during these time frames. I mean, I talked about what they did. They were in wars.

This was England, man. They were all over the world fighting skirmishes. But they weren't getting in it in this kind of, These tactics that they were using were working because they're going against people that aren't armed properly. So here we go. At the outbreak of hostilities, the army could muster only 27,000. So now we're getting into this war. It could only muster 27,000 men in the theater of operations, whereas the booers fielded 45,000.

Clearly, the situation differed from colonial wars in which the opponents lacked the ability to monitor a gradual buildup of British strength, requesting troops and knowing what to do with them are two separate matters. Even after the outbreak of the war, no effort was made immediately to increase the intelligence staff or drop plans for troop utilization. It was the army after all that was responsible for the request that the colonials send only infantry and no cavalry. General Buller, and this is the guy initially kicking off this war, the theater commander was to complain of the last minute plans.

Here's what he had to say. The details were arranged by a committee sitting at the war office. So we already don't like that. Like there's a war. You're in South Africa and there's people up in England. There's no internet. There's no video teleconferencing. They're coming up with plans of how you're going to fight this thing.

They're not even there. I was not invited to attend its meetings or furnished with the minutes of its deliberations. I pressed for the employment of General French with the cavalry and for Colonel Miles on the staff. I had no voice in the appointment of the commanders or of the senior staff officers selected. This is a good old boy network. This is guys going, oh, Sounds like we got a war in South Africa I'd like to participate in that

Can you put me on Put me on for a Jant Down to the colonies To characterize British military Establishment of 1899 Much should be made of its apathetic Snobbish and non-professional

Officer Corps It's highly disciplined ranks And you're going to hear this a lot Let me say this also I've worked with the Brits before they are outstanding. They're an outstanding military. And they obviously transformed from what we're talking about right now.

And this is why, though. This is why. And I was going to say they use the word disciplined. And many times when they use the word discipline, they use it both as a negative and a positive throughout this book. Because when they talk about the extreme discipline, like, hey, these guys weren't going to make decisions on their own. They were just going to follow orders.

So they used that term there. And they'll also talk about how it was a positive in some situations as well, because they were disciplined soldiers that would make things happen. So here we go. Like I said, apathetic, snobbish and non-professional officers corps, highly disciplined ranks and conservative anti-militaristic malou in which it functioned. How else to explain the Queen's regulations of 1890, which found space for, 71 regulations dealing with dress and only four for musketry and one for field training

while still noting that the troops should wear old clothes to maneuvers since the troops would not be anxious to buy new ones you see what we're dealing with and here we go despite these deficiencies the world as a whole held the British Army in high regard in light of its long string of victories dating back to 1815 You know, they beat Napoleon. They beat Napoleon, right? They beat the world champ, you know? And so now they're the champ.

The British themselves believed that the army was never in better condition, either as regards to the zeal and skill of its officers from the highest to the lowest, the training and discipline of the men, and the organizations of all branch of the service. That's their attitude. Can we say arrogance and ego? Yes, we can. Thus, expiration of the boor ultimatum on a,

October 11th, 1899, regarding a cessation of all British military preparations held no major threat, despite the fact that the army would be facing a relatively modern foe for the first time. If men and material, obviously not reading the whole book, there's the caveat. If men and material proved to be in short supply in the early stages of the war, such was not the case with shipping. Great Britain, as the premier maritime power had long been accustomed to the movement of troops by sea. The massive commitment transported 188,000 men, 36,000 horses, 409 pieces of artillery, and 1,951 vehicles over 6,000 miles without any serious consequences on the level of British commerce. That's amazing.

So logistically, they can get it on. The British Navy, the Royal Navy. Oh, you want us to deliver some goods? We're going to deliver some goods. supplemented by reserves, militia yeomanry volunteers, and eventually colonials, the army grew to four times its original size. By the spring of 1900,

the forces in the field actually outnumbered the combined population of Transvaal and of Free Orange State. Can you imagine you're going to a war with more soldiers than they have people? And it's still going to take you three years to get this thing sorted out. It's crazy.

Manpower of any sort was increasingly welcome in the later stages of the conflict. Free use of the empire's entire manpower could not be considered due to certain philosophical constraints which Captain A.E. Oppenheim voiced. We must never, this is just such a, I just, I read this and I was like, wow. This is not, this is very interesting.

Here's what this guy says, this captain. We must never depart from the cardinal imperial principle that the imperial army alone is privileged to meet any enemy at any time under any circumstances. We must never resort to free use of native armies of the empire. The white man, the ruling race, must bear the burden in the appeal to arms, must assert its superior. and must do it willingly and sacrificingly for therein lies the vital principle of empire The day that sees the white man shrinking from his responsibility that sees him shifting the burden complacently from his own shoulders to those of his subject races We'll also see the doom of his imperial dominion now that's something that I

That definitely was interesting to me because you know you think of these imperialists you know you think of the British Empire going in well we got a bunch of whatever we got a bunch of black guys down here in Africa let's let let's make them fight and here was this attitude of no that's not right that's kind of crazy right it's interesting for sure fast forward in a little bit in retrospect one cannot help but be impressed by the wars impact upon the army service corps increased in numbers redesigned for a lighter and more durable enlarged system of animals. Furthermore, special bulk-oriented, faster supply columns were developed for cavalry support.

For the first time, limits instituted on officers' kits, as well highlighted this part. And the notorious cast iron kitchen and wagon load of champagne associated with General Buller became a thing of the past. This is like some of the things that they figured out during. this war is that it's not smart to bring a cast iron kitchen and wagging loads of champagne. I think it's safe to say

to put this into modern parlance is that this is the war where shit got real. I mean, think about the difference. You're going to war and you're thinking, hey, let's make sure we got our champagne loaded up. Yeah, so it's what is it? I mean, where does the attitude come from

just the sheer numbers and history and what history man they'd been running around you know kicking ass for well since since they said they're 1815 you know they were the british were just kind of dominating yeah and we know what happens when you get that disease of victory yeah champagne all day yeah hey i guarantee you some of these officers that they're talking about were thinking oh i'd like to go to south africa it's a little war going on i'll go and get you know go and get my adventure done yeah yeah And the thing is, here's the bottom line. I have this in the notes later, but imagine you're used to boxing, right?

And you're going to box someone, and you roll in there and you've trained a box, which means you're going to stand up and you're going to throw punches and you're not going to kick or elbow or do a takedown. or you're definitely not going to do anything like eye gouge or, you know, uh, uh, maybe have something in your glove and shank someone, right? You're, you're definitely not doing that stuff. Correct.

Yeah. And, and by the way, so now you've been fighting under those rules. Yeah. For, what is it? 85 years. Yeah.

So for 85 years, you've been fighting. And by the way. And winning. And winning. Because, because, guess what? Everyone you're fighting. I mean, if we try to, if we try to figure out what, what this looked like.

I bet you this looks like a 300-pound boxer that's going up against a 100-pound boxer. That's kind of what all these wars have been like up to at this point, right? Hey, we're going to roll in there. And this person's going to be small and weak, and we're going to do the boxing thing. And they're going to throw up. Their punches don't even hurt us. They don't even hurt us. And eventually you just knock this human out.

And then one day, not only do you, not only do you, go come up against someone that's going to do double-leg takedowns and nose chokes and arm locks but that'll also shank you you know they they don't have any rules it's not just it's not just no rules m-ma it's no rules i'm gonna i'm gonna have a shiv and i'm gonna cut your throat while you know ding ding round starts you know i come out with a k bar and stick it into your spine that's what we're talking about yeah so why did they have this attitude because for all these years they were the heavyweight champ and they hey I'm I got a fight tonight cool make sure you bring the you know make sure you bring the shots for when we're done yeah it's because it's going to

take about three minutes yeah and then I want you know I want to have an after party like the old UFC does I'm sure they still do it but I haven't been to an after party a while but that's what it was yeah yeah like it was so much like that that they would bring the champagne it's like they'd bring their trophy with them yeah exactly you know Exactly. This is disease of victory to the nth degree. Yeah. It's crazy, man. It's crazy. During the course of the Boer War, the Afrikaner armies numbered about 40,000 men.

No more of 20,000 whom were ever on the field at one time. So most people they ever had out in the field was 20,000. The question then is how could such a motley force of farmers defy the British Empire for so long? One answer is as a French observer phrased it was simply the rifle the rifle of small caliber Rapid firing flat trajectory and smokeless powder. That's another big advance you had guns that the gun the gun powder didn't make smoke anymore Which meant you could shoot and you could hide and you could continue to attack and you wouldn't get have the battlefield filled up with smoke Mm hmm But then this is a little bit

it goes a little bit further than that. The booer's true strength was not at long ranges. Because they talk about how everyone thinks, oh, the booers were hunters, they were farmers, and they would get really good shots at long ranges. But this is kind of just, in addition to that, their true strength was not in long ranges, but rather in sharp shooting at under 300 yards.

Boer's skill in that regard was demonstrated in the later stages of the war when their arms were mostly captured from the British and they still maintained their mastery in small unit firefights. Rifles alone could not. a sure survival in the face of the vastly superior British numbers and cumulative power firepower from the beginning even when they were overly attached to their wagons the booers were able to outmarch their opponents when freed from their baggage so

they eventually they they carried wagons in the beginning and then they finally were like hey we don't not even bring in these things when freed of their baggage train and camp followers the difference in rate of movement increased rapidly booers mounted on ponies could on occasion travel 60 miles a day for several days on end and when called upon their sturdy little horses could go for three days without food. Such marches, however, could only be considered on the basis of a ready supply of remounts. An additional factor was the booer's pony lighter load weight and its distribution. The booer's saddle weighed half that of the British. A rider carried only a little food, his rifle, his ammunition, and a blanket.

Everything else was transported on a spare amount. Consequently, a boor pony carried 250 pounds as compared to the British chargers nearly 400 pounds. So they're lightweight. Lightweight means going back to the heavyweight versus the 100-pound guy. That 100-pound guy's got some mobility and he's got some endurance. They used their artillery very well, talking about that a little bit. Concealment and protection where their cardinal principle, this is for their artillery. They were frequently outnumbered.

In the field, several alternative protection protected positions were developed for each gun, thus permitting rapid replacement when a piece came under fire. Speed of movement was the essence of the booer gunners. And the British were constantly amazed by their ability to bring heavy ordinance rapidly into action at unexpected locations. So they would predigig positions. So as soon as they started taking fire, because eventually when you're shooting, the enemy is going to see where you're at. Or they're going to judge where you're at. They're going to start shooting at you.

They would immediately move their gun into a pre-determined position. The booer's use of single guns rather than battery, they're talking about big artillery guns, was the focus of considerable amount of contemporary interest. A single piece could keep an entire army awake for a night, firing at six miles range. The booers realized the morale effect of unreturned fire and the sense of security provided

when one is assured of covering fire from one's own guns under any withdrawal. they realized that psychological warfare just dropping bombs from six miles away from one gun and how powerful that was. The machine gun proved more deadly and was considered an equivalent of 25 men. Thanks to the masterly use of terrain and smokeless powder in battle the boers were often able to give the impression of greater numbers than in fact existed. Captain Slocum, the American observer, noted. that at the Battle of Kalesno, and we'll get into that, not a single booer was to be seen from the beginning of the battle to the end. On occasion, the booers would deliberately expose themselves

in order to further confuse the enemy. So in this one of the opening battles, 14,000 Brits versus 4,500 boers. The Brits had 143 killed, 755 wounded. The boers had eight killed. The 30 wounded. Use of dummy guns, black powder to attract fire, and command detonated diversionary charges further confuse the Brits.

And the attacks at Spying Cop and Nicholson's neck. The booers advanced in small, mutually supporting groups rather than long lines. Generally, they try to deploy their younger men forward, their older men to the rear, and foreign volunteers still further back. So we have cover and move going on. Totally different. Mutually supporting elements. You know what the basis of maneuvering on the,

you know what the basis of fired move and cover move and fire maneuver is? Mutually supporting elements. In fact, the minute that you get too far away from another element that you can't mutually support each other, you are going to die. Pushing forward. By largely avoiding concentration and attack, the booers forfeited the initiative and allowed British,

time to deploy. So this is something that the booers didn't do well, is they didn't go on the attack. They didn't press. I shouldn't say they didn't go on the, they didn't press the attack. So they'd get an advantage, and they wouldn't take advantage of the advantage that they had.

When they could no longer extend their lines beyond the British, the British flanks conventional fighting ended. Inevitably, the advance of the British and ceaseless Afrikaner retreats took their toll on the booer morale, and with the fall of Komadi port and the war seemed over. Unable to contend frontally with massive British armies after the fall of Bloemfentine, the boers resorted increasingly to raids in order to divert forces,

threatened communications and supply, gain information, alarm the countryside, disrupt mobilization and concentrations, devastate enemy held lands and release prisoners. So that's the mode that they went into. That's straight up guerrilla warfare. For the Brits, war soon degenerated into a ceaseless pursuit of an elusive foe. They were all too frequently caught unawares by Buer Commandos, doubling back and attacking. Favorite Boer ploys were setting grass fires to slow pursuit or riding parallel to supposed pursuers,

dismounting, firing, and falling back. Boer organization and war plans are also subjects of importance upon call. Every male citizen was responsible to present himself with 10 days rations, a horse, a rifle, and 30 rounds of ammunition. So this is how the booers were set up. Men were organized into commandos based on electoral districts, although they were free to change units at will. This is a total decentralized command. A commando would have anywhere from 300 to 3,000 men. Command was vested in field cornets, elected one per ward.

Since command was election, most new actions were undertaken by consensus. Such a system could not long survive in warfare. And we're going to, this is massive decentralized command, and it's actually decentralized command to an extreme that becomes ineffective. And oftentimes they end up not being able to. That's one of the reasons why they couldn't coordinate attacks to work together and be like, okay, the enemy's on the ropes, let's go, coordinate and crush them, they wouldn't quite be able to pull that off.

You know, they would deal with consensus. Like, hey, I don't agree with that idea. Well, we should wait a little longer and so they don't take action. So there's the dichotomy of leadership. Decentralized command is great, but you can take it too far. If the three, this is where I was talking about earlier, if the three capabilities of any army are its marching, marksmanship, and discipline, then it is obvious where the booer's fatal flaw lay

in its lack of discipline. For without discipline, there can be no coherent attack. The booers so valued their own lives and increased power of the defense that they tended to forsake the tactical offense. This lack of aggressiveness was evidenced in their proclivity for sieges.

At Maffa King, they outnumbered Baden Powell's force 10,000 men to 700, but they didn't attack. They had 10,000 against 700. Hey, we're just going to hold. Siege warfare. We're just going to sit here and wait, wait you out.

I mean, if I have 10,000 against 700, we're coming to get you. Such unwillingness to launch attacks consistently hurt the booer cause tactically and strategically. Even in the field, the booers, had the booers been more aggressive, the British would not have had the time to maneuver around to their flank. Lack of discipline was not only a drawback to booer attacks, but all. also had peculiar ramifications for the process of surrender. White flags had never been used during the Native Wars, and thus it was not understood that everyone must stop firing when the flags were raised by either side.

The British frequently complained that while some boers raised their hands, others would continue firing, and that caused problems. Much to British chagrin, Lord Roberts wrote, the boers have been the first to introduce into war, the theory that every individual has the right to ask quarter for himself at any moment in an action, a theory which our own soldiers seem to have almost invariably accepted.

So you'd have a couple people surrendered, a couple people don't. That's confusing. And this is interesting. The Europeans never understood the Boer philosophy of inflicting damage and then escaping into the belt, which is like the open field,

into the bush, basically. To a burger, and the term burger in this case, case, it's basically the white citizens down there that were in control. To a burger, no position was worth dying for. If he could not retreat, he would surrender. Naturally, some might feel that horses only complicated the booer's position. When kept to the rear and out of artillery range, the burger was capable of neither escape nor pursuit. The booers seemed insecure without their horses and yet were incapable of dealing with

with cavalry when mounted. So this is something that comes up a lot. You know, you had these Brits where they look at, you know, the code of honor and they are they're not going to surrender and they're going to fight to the death and they're going to hold positions if ordered. And the booers

are kind of like, hey, why would I stay here? And if I I'm not just going to die on this hill if we're going to lose the hill, I'm going to stay alive. I'm going to surrender. So what you end up with is a really fluid element and you end up with a really rigid element. As commander-in-chief, Buller violated one of the cardinal rules of warfare, and this is kicking off the war by dividing an inferior force faced with a more mobile enemy operating on interior lines.

So one of the first things that this guy, Buller does, and interesting, it's not in this book, but I read it in some of the other literature about this. this guy, Buller, was like an old guy. I think he was 59 years old, and he was kind of not in the best of health. And the booers called him the Red Bull. Because his name was Buller. They called him Red Bull, because his face was all.

I'm imagining, like, you know, the alcoholic kind of sunburned, you know, guy, stereotypical guy, that's what he was. And so they kind of made fun of him. They called him Red Bull. And he had some issues. And this whole thing kicks off in this thing that they call in the British military the black week because they took massive losses Not just in personnel, but in on the battlefield

And even when they would might win a battle they're losing so many people because they're doing their winning battles at a massive Casualty rate so now it's it's starting to talk about the problem The British Army problems at the beginning of the war and it says you just need to look at how the various major commands were set up in the early part of the war. It says by the Battle of Graspin November 25th 1899 the British had a four to one superiority but it'd come to respect Boer firepower in this case an attempt was made to pin the enemy frontally with infantry while a well-spaced column of the Naval Brigade was to attack the Boer Right. The tactically flexible booers advanced to delay the pinning forces

while converging their fire on the Blue Jackets as they bunched up to ascend the slope. Despite suffering 50% casualties, the sailors broke through, supported somewhat belatedly by overwhelming numbers of infantry. Again, the Berger's evaded pursuit. the British still believed in their system's superiority and overlooked then in flexibility of their open order tactics. The disproportionate nature of losses was still unclear. So they win this battle, but they take 50% casualties. And one of the things that they say is to cover up the low number of boer casualties, stories circulated that the boers had run away carrying their dead and wounded.

In reality, men rarely stopped to pick up their dead when they're being overrun. So the British kind of patted themselves on the back and said, well, you know, the booers just took their dead with them. That's why there's no, that's why there's not many dead bodies here, even though we have a ton. I apologize to everyone in South Africa for my annihilation of all these words. Paul Slade, I apologize. At the Battle of Mauder River, the British once again fell victim to poor reconnaissance, Methuen, so this is, there's one of the major players here, this guy named Mathieu, a British guy. Expected that the Boer positions would be on the far side of the river, utilizing the high ground and a village as a defensive line.

Instead, Delairee elected to place his man on the forward bank of the river in well-camifaged positions. Emphasis was placed on grazing fire over the flat belt, while artillery ranging was aided, aided by strategically placed white stones. Oh, that's mean. So they set up visual targets that they could see and know the ranges of. Oh, that's nasty. From trenches, the burghers could see three miles into Methuen's rear. As the British troops approached the river, the booers opened fire, pinning them to the ground. Uncoordinated advances increased the slaughter.

Boer gunners concealed 200 yards forward of some buildings suspected of harboring them, wreaked havoc on the defrauded. on the dense British artillery formations whose batteries had been withdrawn to 1,400 yards to escape the murderous rifle fire and artillery fire. Charges were impossible when men had to crawl at 1,200 yards, and no one could safely ride horseback within 2,000 yards of the front. So what happened here, let me break this out a little bit. You had the British advancing in an open field.

The booers let them get close enough so that they could start killing them with rifle fire. When they get close enough and start killing with rifle fire, which is probably 400, 500, 600 meters away, they start running away. As they're out of range of the rifle fire, what comes in artillery, predetermined artillery positions by white stones that they've laid out there. This is crafty.

However, persistent pressure on the left flank finally carried the river line and bought the British another victory at a disproportionate loss. So eventually they get it done, right? They have enough people to get around to a flank and they get it done. The British Army of 1890 had, in reality, stumbled into World War I type of battlefield. The question remained as to whether it was to be treated as an aberration or as something new. It seemed easy to blame the near disaster on faulty maps, poor reconnaissance,

disregarded information on Boer reinforcements, and general misunderstanding of their intentions. So isn't that interesting? Do we say, hey, that didn't seem to work out too well? Or do we say, you know, we didn't have good maps and our reconnaissance wasn't very good. And we didn't expect this from the booers. That's not taking extreme ownership. That's blaming everything else. Not us, not us as leaders.

Methuen hope to cover his advance by means of heavy preliminary bombardment of the heights. So now I'm fast forward in a little bit, but it. the booers would set up this is just, it seems so obvious right now but instead of setting up in the perfect position maybe on the crest of a hill where you like have total high ground dominance they'd put a little distraction up there

and they'd set up in a different position maybe lower on the hill or in the military crest you know maybe a two thirds of a third of the way down the hill or whatever so as the Brits attack and they start bombing the top of the hill because that's where they think they're going to be they're not there.

under a driving rainstorm, the Highland Brigade Quarter Column set off for Boer positions only to be discovered a few hundred yards from the Boer's real positions. Within six minutes, an estimated 650 men lay dead or wounded on the belt. For the rest of the day, the survivors suffered horribly as they were pinned down by fire, baked by the sun, and ceaselessly attacked by the ants behind whose neck. Many of them hid my mid-afternoon the brigade was in a route Defeat was clear-cut had Matthewan waited another day for the weather to clear he could have used his balloon to explore Boer positions Too much faith had been placed in shrapnel They another thing I didn't talk about this but the booers would dig really good positions They would dig in they would set up on these hills and they would dig in and they kind of described

What they would dig in they would dig in really deep foxholes that actually had a little kind of roofs on them as well. And the Brits thought, hey, if we're hucking bombs at these guys, they're all going to get blown up, but they were was having almost zero effect. Because if you're in a hole and artillery shell hits near you, you're going to be okay. Unless it goes in the hole, you're going to be okay. So too much faith have been placed in trap, on which have been proven ineffective against the trenches, poor reconnaissance, ineffective artillery preparation, and a complicated,

night attack. Are we doing things complicated? No. We're keeping it simple. And poor economy of force were hardly the ingredients of success. So we have

complicated attacks, so we're not obeying the law of keeping things simple, law of combat, and also poor economy of force. What that means is you're not prioritizing and executing. You're not focusing your efforts on one thing. and this is a common mistake that these guys made.

Fast forward a little bit. While Methuen may be accused of being unimaginative in his approach, such could not be said about General Sir William Gadacre, who had actually ushered in the Black Week at Stormberg on December 12th. He proposed to achieve both strategic and tactical surprise by means of a long rail move, followed by a 10-mile night march up the enemy positions before they were even new, he was in the area. He's got a pretty dynamic plan.

Almost from the first, his plan went awry. After 17 hours in open-top railway cars under the midsummer sun, his command became lost in its night march. Fearing discovery, Gadacre sent out no scouts or flanking columns as his men stumbled through the night. Unclear as to his location, he decided, on a flank approach to Stormberg rather than on the original direct attack, but failed to communicate to his entire command.

Poor March Discipline alerted the local commando, and the entire column was soon under attack. Artillerymen with a sun in their eyes managed only to shell their own troops, forcing them from a ridgeline. They were on the point of taking. As mishap followed confusion, Gadacre ordered a withdrawal, only later to discover he had abandoned the Fusilier Regiment. So, I mean, this is just every horrible thing that can happen. You got a blue-on-blue.

You got the teams lost. You got them leaving an element in the field. The final defeat of Black Week was suffered by General Buller at Colenso, just 12 miles from Lady Smith. A mere 6,000 buers repelled 21,000 British troops from behind a thinly held river line. The booer position was by no means a strong. one for a front of over 15 miles they had to hold two bridges and several fjords the southern

fjords they had I'm sorry fords the southern fords were particularly vulnerable as they were situated barely within rifle range to their rear which formed a natural line of defense as usual the boers ignored preliminary bombardment and fired only when the british advanced at once it became apparent that the Boer medium and heavy guns far outrange to British comparable British pieces. So this is the way this thing kicks off. Hildyard's attack went off first and it was supposed to be closely supported by Colonel Long's field artillery. The 1889 drill book recommended that unsupported artillery not move closer than 1700 yards

from the enemy without notifying anyone. Long advanced within 700 yards. yards and unlimbered in close order. Unlimbered is when you detach your weapons from their, like your big guns, you have them on wheels, you detach them. That's unlimbered. Unlimbered in close order. Although this tactic worked in Egypt in 1881, here his gunners were shot to pieces by Boer Rifleman.

Later, Long would claim he had intended to unlimbered over 2,000 yards, but he'd been deceived by the night, so he's making excuses. Buller was one of the most popular and personally brave commanders in the Army. He was actually a recipient of the Victoria's Cross of the highest award. His care for men was legendary and closely entwined with his reforms in the Army Service Corps. However, his preparations were overly meticulous. And in the midst of the South African summer, his wagons carried great coats for the infantry. Got to keep these guys worn in South Africa, in the summer.

Despite his concern for his men, Buller had proved a poor troop commander who attacked with little knowledge of terrain or enemy dispositions. His command control was inadequate, orders imprecise, and the withholding of two brigades in the face of a vastly outnumbered enemy was unprofessional. This guy's making all kinds of mistakes. The defeats of the Black Week collectively had a greater impact than Dunkirk. Britain at the peak of her powers had been mauled by a nation of farming. The insularity of decades was shattered, latent foreign animosity revealed itself in the international press, yet the nation rallied

to meet its moment of crisis head-on as thousands volunteered for service. Lord Roberts had been appointed to supersede Buller when the latter in a fit of post-defeat depression had signaled General Wright that he might consider surrender. Shaken by his demotion, Bola resolved to attack anew before Robert's arrival by means of turning the boor right flank.

So this is just like, I mean, can you imagine what this, the whole scenario is like? This guy's, he's saying I'm going to surrender and then he flies off the handle because, no, I'm going to attack. I mean, we're just talking disaster.

Emotional disaster. The whole world knows that you just got beat by a bunch of farmers. I mean, you're that heavyweight champ. And you just had a guy show, up in a whatever he's weighing in a hundred and twenty five you're three hundred pounds wearing basketball shorts yeah he showed up wearing basketball shorts barefoot and he kicked your ass so he goes to try and make this happen some seventeen hundred men were to assault a hill one thousand seven hundred and forty feet high in the

center of the boer position the rest of bullers 20,000 men were to look on and do nothing. This is where you got to prioritize and execute. You understand that? Prioritize and execute means you're going to take your resources that you have and you're going to focus them on getting something done. Instead of saying, well, I'm going to keep reserves over here. I'm going to keep reserves over here.

I'm going to send 1,700 people to take up 1,700 foot tall hill. I got 20,000 people. This is a no-brainer. You want me to take that hill? That's my number one priority? Cool. Watch this. The booers had neglected to occupy much of its key position,

but the British failed to make the most of the opportunity inaccurately exploring or enhancing it. So they get the hill incorrectly cited shallow trenches were dug by 20 sappers while over a thousand men lay idle. So they get this hilltop. And I got to continue with it. Normally a battalion was allocated 70 spades. But they had been left behind in the ascent.

Colonel Maurice complained. Somehow our soldiers, by dint of perverse training, have imbibed the idea that there is something cowardly and sneakish about sitting behind cover in the field. Or at any rate, if they have to get into trenches and works, it is the Royal Engineers province to provide these defenses. So these guys got up on top of the hill and we're like, hey, there's a thousand soldiers on top of the hill.

there's 20 people, 20 engineers to dig and they sit back and watch. A, because they think it's cowardly and B, they think that's not my job. Yeah. This is, what's weird about this is happening? Right? Like, we're looking back and up,

but can you imagine you're sitting there as thousands of people? You know you could be attacked and you're thinking, I'm not picking up a shovel. And by the way, we didn't even bring shovels. And by the way, we only have 70 shovels for our whole battalion.

Yeah. I mean, you'd think that in that situation, that's just kind of the leftover attitude or the straight up prevalent attitude of not having to really fight, fight, fight, fight, you know? Yeah, because you've never had your ass kicked. Yeah. So like you took a shot and now you're like,

uh, I'm not going to worry about that. Yeah. It's going to be okay. Yeah. You get taken down like after the first round. In the first round, you get taken down and then your coach, you know, in between rounds. the cornerman says, you're doing great.

Yeah. No, you're not. Yeah, and he's like, man, I remember, so back long time ago, right, before people knew about jiu-jitsu, so this guy, it was actually my friend told me this story about when he got in a fight and he just learned jiu-jitsu. And I'm trying to remember the exact situation. But basically this is a story where he got in a fight with a guy. And then the guy, you know, they got in the fight or whatever they, and he choked.

him out right and when he woke back up he wanted to fight again of course so before they fought again he was like yeah I'm gonna he's like yeah you keep you give me with that sneak attack stuff right almost like they're not fighting or something yeah almost like that's just doesn't count yeah it's kind of cowardly or whatever you know it's like yeah they start or the guy who gets taken down right here and you see this actually even now he gets taken down oh he wants to just wrestle me wants to just wrestle me He's looking at the ref, like, ref, stand us up kind of thing, like almost complaining about certain situations in the middle of the fight.

So it's kind of like that's that situation right there. Like, oh, I'm not digging nothing. Yeah, we don't do that. Yeah, probably your fight, you're in a war, by the way. So they just don't realize it almost, you know. Continuing on, while virtually the entire British army stood idle, the Boer Army was free to focus his attention and artillery on the hilltop position. Lacking shelter, proper equipment,

lines, clear lines of authority, or knowledge that artillery was finally on the way up, the British abandoned the position as untenable. This is farmers. The superiority of the individual Boer Marksman and the inadequacy of the British small unit tactics was never more in evidence. Throughout the day, one brigade had carried the fighting.

One demonstrated and three stayed in reserve of further testament to poor tactful. you had three other brigades. 5,000. I'm guessing as you know, normal brigade might be like 5,000 people. That's insane. Buller's qualities as a commander were in many ways indicative of the army. He did not know when to draw the line with his subordinates.

This is interesting. Hart was still, so one of his subordinates, Hart was still marching his men in quarter columns at the second battle of Colenso, despite being told. not to. Another guy named Warren was allowed inordinate freedom despite compromising the entire battle. At other times, Buller interfered with poor results, such as at Twin Peaks. He lacked a sense of terrain. Insufficient perseverance time and time again robbed him a victory, as did his hoarding of

reserves, as if his troops were 18th century professionals. At the first battle of Colenso, only 4,800 men out of a force of 21,000 were engaged at any one time. And at spying cop, 3,000 men out of 24,000. Staff problems bedeviled his battles. Chain of commands were unclear, and artillery was frequently misplaced or uncoordinated. In addition, strong-willed and ambitious subordinates such as Warner Long and Hart were difficult to control. Buller became, Buller came to appreciate

the value of cover, rushes, and creeping barrages. And according to Marisa's official history, was the originator of curtain fire at the second Battle of Colenso. He now used, so these are some things, you know, he started catching on a little bit. He now used mounted troops

as a maneuver element on the flanks of infantry. That's a good idea. The new battlefield involved protracted firefighters along extensive front coordinated with precise artillery support and an incessant creeping forward of the infantry. Whereas Buller had taken several months

and three major engagements to develop a counter to the booer methods of warfare, Roberts, so a guy gets sent down to take his place. Roberts arrived in South Africa with his own strong preconceptions. An old India hand, he placed his faith in cavalry in cavalry and mobility rather than firepower. Roberts had arrived in Cape early in January

to find the army everywhere in retreat. Rather than create, this is interesting, rather than create immediate political problems, he allowed both Buller and Mathieuan to stay in command, although with limited forces, this is like a little, this is a little play in the game. So instead of just coming down there and firing these guys, he knew that that would be very disrupted. So he kept them there. He just gave him like really small elements to control. Robert would always remain careful with generals associated with Wolseley ring, with the Wolseley ring. So there was a guy named General Wolsey who is like a war hero and a general, and he had like his crew.

And these guys were part of his crew. And he, you know, this guy, General Wolsey, Garrett Wolsey was a war hero and a general and a powerful guy. And so he had a crew and these guys were part of that crew. And so he was also, that's another reason why he kind of played in the long game, you know. Not just going to come down there and fire these guys because Wolsey's got a lot of power. The entire army was suffused with pettiness. Hamilton and Littleton lost no opportunity to betray Butler and clearly and Cleary constantly fought Warren and Littleson. So you just have like babies, right?

Roberts funneled all reinforcements to the Cape rather than Natal, despite an increasing. numeric predominance, he lulled the booers into the belief that he was tied to the railways. So the Brits, and I haven't really talked about, the Brits were using the railways to run their supplies and stuff like that. And so he's kind of letting the booers think that we're addicted to the railways. When ready in late January, Roberts' massive army struck far to the east, threatening Boer supply lines as the Boers withdrew from their earlier blocking positions. French's, this is one of the Brit generals, French's entire cavalry division. The largest such British unit in history was launched around their flank for the relief of Kimberly. With victory so close, fast forward in a little bit, they continue to kind of do well.

The Brits now under Roberts. With victory so close, nature now intervened for Roberts was incapacitated by a cold. He got sick. And Kitchener, his chief of staff, assumed command. Kitchener launched an immediate concentric assault against the booers which now, which most veterans realized had little chance of success. More than a core was thrown into the fruitless

and uncoordinated attack. So this is ridiculous. So this guy, Roberts is doing pretty well. Kitchener takes over because Roberts literally gets a cold. When this guy takes over, man, he just goes, he goes hard. he's trying to get a name for himself and he starts all these attacks

trying to basically surround the boers more than a corps was thrown into the fruitless and uncoordinated attack commanders were ignored Kitchener wrote about the field directing battalions and raising havoc frustration mountain is mounted as battle dazed men began to trickle back from the front line and wander about for lack of orders to entrench

as Kitchener attempted to launch yet another attack, he stripped troops from a key terrain feature. This guy is just a micromanager, just trying to make things happen. It's horrible to read. Once back in command, Robert ceased further assaults and resorted to 10 days of bombardment and a final night attack.

So isn't it, you know, we always talk about how leadership's the most important thing on the battlefield, and I skipped a whole chunk of where everything's just falling apart. Kitchner suffered 1,200,000. hundred casualties. He almost lost one of the major cities. Ridiculous. So Roberts comes back in and just stop. And then he kind of starts these more methodical attacks and continues that. The start and stop offenses of Roberts had but one objective, the capture of the Boer capitals,

and with that the presumed end of the war, despite continued guerrilla attacks. Pretoria the second Brewer Capital fell on June 4th. The link up with General Buller on July 4th signaled the end to all conventional resistance. By mid-December, Roberts had departed, and Kitchener was left in charge of mopping up operations. So that's kind of the overview of how it went down, at least up until that point. The most general examination of the British Army's performance in South Africa reveals flaws on, virtually every level of command. Lord Woolsey, this is the guy I just talked about,

the commander-in-chief had been excluded as the field commander on account of his age. Army and royal politics, along with anti-India prejudice, served to eliminate various other candidates for the post, and General Buller rose to the top of the list, despite his recent poor showing in maneuvers and lack of independent command experience.

Although an able staff officer, like most British officers, he confused personal bravery with the ability to lead an army. This is just a common theme, and I'm not hitting as much of it as I should in the book, but this idea of the Brits that personal bravery was going to be enough to win the day, it's so strange to badmouth that, right?

Because courage is, you know, one of the most powerful characteristics that we can envision a human being with, right? This ultimate level of courage and sacrifice. But in many ways, it was a negative quality because they thought if they had that, they're good to go. You know, and this, you want to take it back to the MMA metaphor is like, you know, you see that one guy that's all kinds of fired up and he's yelling and screaming for a fight and he's highly motivated. And he might even be training really hard in his strength and conditioning. Yeah.

And he might be ready to go the distance. He might be ready to die when he goes in the ring. And it doesn't matter. When you get in there against someone that has better skill than you and that outmaneuvers you, all that courage and bravery doesn't do a damn thing, but get you killed. So I guess it's not that crazy to look at that characteristic

from a different angle. If you're putting your whole... Now look, if you have a fighter that's a wimp, right, that lacks any kind of courage, that lacks bravery, right? They're not even going to get in the cage. Or they're going to be scared to get hit, and they're going to run away, and they're going to lose. But you have to have both.

You have to have courage. You have to have skill. Yeah, and kind of, I mean, to add to that, too, you know, you get a guy, MMA, again, a guy who's like, you know, he's a great wrestler, great grappler, good submission guy or whatever. And then the other guys may be a really good striker, and he talks a lot of trash and interviews and stuff.

So he gets under the guy's skin, the guy goes in, super mad, super fired up, super motivated. I'm going to basically beat him at his own game. I'm going to knock him out. I'm going to strike, you know, rather than strategically go for, you know, make yourself in a better position as far as like tactically, strategically, whatever. And then he starts to stand while him and he gets knocked out. Of course. Like you can be motivated, but, bro, that guys would just way better than you, bro.

You got to be smarter than that, you know, kind of thing. Yeah, it feels like that's what they're doing too. Yeah. Now, so that kind of wraps up some overviews of what happened on the ground. And look, like I said, there's, there's, I got some books that are first person perspective on the ground, boo or war. And we can go into those. I'm sure we will at some point.

But where this book goes next is how they took the lessons learned. and what they did with those lessons learned, positive and negative. But as I sit here and look at my notes, it's not short. There's a lot of things that got learned and there's a lot of lessons that they incorporated and there's a lot of lessons that they didn't.

Or there's lessons that they made progress towards and then backed away from. So rather than do it right now, I want to leave enough time for that. So let's call. it and we'll pick up the Boer War military reforms on episode 233. So in the meantime, Echo Charles, since we are trying to learn, well, yeah, since we are trying to make progress.

Yes. How can we continue to make progress as individual humans? Well, first off, making progress. making progress isn't always comfortable. It's not always painless. But the good news about that is we have help. So speaking of pain and growing, growing pains, if you will. So joints get a little sore when you lift.

Indeed. And I've got to be honest, I've been out of the supplementation situation for a little bit. This was a little while ago, a few weeks ago. but I got the replenishment of supplements. And what I'm talking about is... That's bad planning. Yeah. Yeah.

You sound like the British Army on that one. I know, I'm going to look around for things to blame. You know, I got busy, caught up. Nonetheless, anyway, what I'm saying is, look, when we're on the path, we go hard. Most of the time. I'm not saying go hard into the ground. I'm saying you go hard that, you know, you got to be progress demands. Hard work.

We got to push the envelope. Got to push the envelope. I heard a quote from Denzel Washington. He said ease is a greater threat to progress than a hardship is. I was like, ooh, that was pretty good. Concur. Because it's true. Very true.

But through that hardship, you get joint paint sometimes. That's what I'm saying. For Denzel Washington. He worked his whole life to achieve this level of skill. And you just took his quote. and turn it into your little personal advertisement for joint warfare. Well, that's what just happened.

I'm more turned it into my personal. You know what? I apologize to you, Mr. Denzel, Washington. Well, we're going to let that go roll. He'd be happy because I'm incorporating that into,

how should I say, my daily, my life, my approach to life. How about that? Don't seek ease. Don't seek the rest between sets. Oh,

you got to take the rest between sets, but don't seek the rest in between sets. In between cents. Unless. Anyway, basically when your joints get sore, take joint warfare because it actually works. You could have said that like four minutes ago. Well, you know, yeah, like, yeah, you're probably right about that. You know what I saw a video of?

Somebody posted. Somebody posted the support section, but they were just listening to talk and listen to you and I go back and forth. But they were laughing hysterically. And I was like, that's a good thing to see. Well, yeah. It's a good thing to see. Yeah. Because most of the time I'm figuring this is the number of people.

listening right now is zero like when they when they hear me say okay echo and they go oh yeah podcast over podcast is over fast forward to you think they're missing any if they did that they just missed a Denzel Washington quote well yeah tell it to me one more time ease is a greater threat to hardship then or sorry ease is a greater threat to progress than comfort than hardship is easy okay got it yeah good we'll give some props to Denzel Washington it was good I like But anybody that pressed stop a little early, they didn't get to hear that. Oh, they missed it from you slash Denzel.

Denzel. All right. Well, there you go. And like I said, joint warfare, if you don't have joint warfare, get joint warfare. Get joint warfare. That's your whole point. That is the point. That's why Denzel Washington said what he said.

Yeah, one of the reasons. His basic message was get joint warfare and krill oil. That was what he was trying to say. Yeah, essentially. At its core, that's what it meant for sure. Don't forget about the discipline. The discipline go in cans. The discipline powder form, Jocko Palmer.

My recommended scenario. Why? Because it tastes like an Arnold Palmer iced tea with the perfect amount of lemonade in there. It has a little bit of sweetness to it. But it's sweetened with monk fruit. That's not sugar. You're all good.

You're not getting any insulin spike. No, you're going smooth, flatline that thing. Easy money. And you'll get a little bit of, a little bit of hype. A little bit of a, you know, you have that noise that you use for a sound effect. It's like that high pitched like thing

that's being prepared. What's the noise? There's a name for it. Oh, well, there's two of them, but the one you're talking about is like, it's basically like, you know, the old school flash for my camera. It kind of feels like things are about to prep.

Yeah. Things are about to go off. So we need to, you can edit this and you can put in when I say you get that little And you can put it right. So I'm going to do it. So I'm going to leave you a little spot.

When you get that little, boom, there you go. There you go. And that's the discipline goal. Imagine if you did all your, all your CGI into the actual podcast. And I was talking about covering fire and there was machine guns going off. That'd be the most popular podcast of all time. Tracers. Tracers coming between us.

Yeah. That could be something. There'd be horses getting killed. You know how many horses got killed in the Boer War? it's crazy. Crazy. Yeah, I would think so. I would think that'd be kind of the strategy in a way, right?

Or kill horses? Yeah, get the horses. I think you're trying to kill the people. But yeah, but we're trying to kill the enemy. The enemy horses, I guess, are right in there. Yeah. Stop their mobility. Right.

Like, and it's a big target. You know, I don't know. Hey man, I don't know. I've never tried to kill a horse. So, you know, I don't have that experience. So what else we got? On the last, Moke. So, speaking of Moke, I made a moch shake last night.

Details. So I mixed them, dark. dark chocolate and the peanut butter chocolate right whatever you know not much of a deviation it's not like a mixed strawberry with you know with it anyway and so the thing is I haven't had a

milk chicken a while in front of the kids and they don't know they think I'm making like I don't know some dessert thing you know and so they're like yeah I want some some like cool and I give them some they drink the whole thing and this is regular milk too can you imagine like you can just give your kids

something that makes them so strong and healthy and they think that they're that you're just a great dad like this score that that's that's literally what I thought they're looking at me kind of like like can we actually have that because it was big and you know there are two kids you're like drinking it thing no I wasn't taking it back I wanted to because you know it was mine but at the same time I was like I'm and have it at it because it was just so it brought so much happiness did you see your your did you see your son starting to get a little bit jacked When he got done was he just like, oh, yeah.

Yep, that's just the way his body is. Drink one milk shake, boom, jacked. That's a guarantee. That's actually, well, now we can, it's guaranteed now. Now we know it's been tested. Yeah, yeah. Your son is now jacked. Yes, sir.

How old is he? Three. Three years of, jacked. Get some milk, get some warrior kid milk. Get some jaco white tea. You can get all the stuff at the vitamin shop if your vitamin shop opens up. Chaco fuel. Yep.

That's what it's called. It's what it's called. Apparently. Yes. Also, what we're doing is jujitsu. Okay, look, varying levels of participation in jiu jitsu. I understand. And I think it's going to slowly by slowly.

There's tournaments going on. Yeah, yeah. So, hey, that's something. Some people are making it happen. Yeah. It's good. So, anyway, so we're doing jiu jitsu. We're starting jiu jitsu.

We're continuing jiu jih Tzoo. So when we do jih Tzzi, we get an origin ghi. We already know that 100% because they're the best geese. Straight up. That's the number, the primary situation. factually as you like to say and they happen to be made in America

actually they don't happen to be made in America is there a problem the fact that these geese are so comfortable that Denzel is sort of you know at parade rest over in the corner shaking his head saying boys what's up that's a good

that's a good question because when you put the Rift Ghee on you you're You're in a different world of Jiu-Jitsu. You're in a different world of Jiu-Jitsu when you put the Rift Ghee on. Yeah, fully. And the thing is you feel it.

And here's the thing I think about most of us is like we get used to nice stuff. We just get used to it. You could not go back. It's like if you ever flew in an airplane first class, economy sucks forever. I know, man. When you put on a Rift Ghee,

every other Gie that you put on for the rest of your life is economy class. That's what's happening. It's a visceral insult to my sense. Yeah. Do you, in the old days, man, I had some geese that I felt like I was putting on something that was made out of concrete. That's what I was feeling. This is as good as it's not concrete at all.

It's luxurious. I'm going to say it. It's luxurious straight up. And they happen to be. So I actually do say happen to be made in America, but they're not, they don't happen to be made in America. That didn't just happen. It's kind of one of the purposes. behind them.

Yeah. And also, speaking of just next level, first class, sorry Denzel, comfort, get yourself some Delta 68 jeans, which are,

we need to, it's like another category of clothing. Yes. Because you're not, you're not feeling like you're wearing jeans, right? You're not feeling like,

oh, I got to put these jeans on. I'm going to feel constricted and hot. No, you're putting on the Delta the 68's, you're ready just to do a straight up, you know, maneuver. Yeah. You're ready to do a go-go plata in those things.

Yeah. So you kind of think of it and not to go too deep into a tangent, far be it for me, but. You just say far be it for you to go through it to a dance? You know, from, okay, yes. But, you know, okay, so there's a difference between ease and comfort and functionality. So if you're maximizing your functionality and because of comfort. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. Yes. So yeah. And even saying comfort is kind of misleading. So look, if I have a sword, I'm fighting in a battle with a sword. And this sword is ergonomically designed for my hand. ergonomically. Right?

Performance will increase and it's a benefit. Even though it's comfortable. Yes. You're doing better. You're more, whether it be efficient, more functional, more everything, comfortable. Yes. But more. See what I'm saying?

So that's the Delta 68 scenario. That will work good. Like when you go into battle, let's say you go into battle and you have that sword that ergonomically fits your hand, that is going to work really good until I cut your freaking arm off because that's what I'm going to do. All right, man. See, yeah, you took it in an interesting direction, you know, as far as the point. But, you know, I dig it and you're probably right.

But number last. You're sitting over there saying that you get this ergonomically correct sword and that's going to be the difference. I'm saying, bring it. I'll cut your damn arm off. Yeah. You realize you just assumed that I was going into battle against you. Well, yeah, I'm here. You're the only guy here. All right. Hey, you're right. And you do make a good point on top of my original point for sure. And I haven't even really trained much sword, but I will start training. Yeah, you're down. You have a lot of, what do you call, bravery? And I don't care if my, you know what, it doesn't even matter. E ergonomically correct or not. I'm taking your arm off. Strategically, that's the move.

That's what we're doing. Yeah, and you can get jeans, you can get boots, you can get T-shirts, you can get whatever you want from origin, main.com, M-A-I-N-E, OriginMain.com. Yes, also, we have our own store. If you're interested in representing while on the path, discipline equals freedom, good. Take the high ground where the high ground will take you.

That was a little sleeper one. That was good. We got some designs coming. Yes. And by the way, we're not going to talk. about it now but the last design you submitted to me yes it's almost for full approval I had to do a couple historical researches make sure we're 100% but we're there okay well we'll do one little maybe two little things to it just to

clean it up but we're we're real happy about that one design by Jocko yeah yeah it was good I'm fired up about as far as being fired up about a design goes sure but yes so you go to jocco store dot com that's I like this whole thing about design by Jocco, that's kind of weird. Yeah, maybe not push that. Yeah. But factually, it's true.

Let's move on. Fashion designer. Yes. Anyway, yes, jocco store.com. Yeah, we got a lot of stuff on there. Hats, hoodies, shirts, obviously. Very accessories. Good stuff.

I think it's good stuff. Anyway. Yeah. And by the way, if you want to, if you like that, if you listen this podcast and you want to support the podcast, this is a way to do it. You don't, you know, you don't, we're not over here. saying like uh first of all we're not saying hey you need to listen to the next six minutes of us reading about some random thing that we don't actually care about or know about right

we're not doing that we're not saying hey donate money to whatever because whatever we're not doing that we're saying hey listen to this if you happen to feel like oh let's throw some support we don't even want your support we want you to have a t-shirt you know that's what we want Yes. That way we can PID you in the wild. Yes, that's positively ID you. There's no, there's, you know, you're looking over a little glance. I see a little, I see a little, I see a little whatever shirt.

We know what's up. You know what you're going to get head nod. Yeah. We're all good. I know if something goes down, you got my back. Yes, sir. Right? Oh, yeah.

Tell me this. You're looking at your, something's going down. Whatever. Call it whatever you want. There's nine people that you can go. Hey, come with me. One of them is wearing a Jocko podcast t-shirt. Who's going with you?

He's going with you. 100%. 100%. I don't care what the other people are wearing, actually. They could be wearing, I don't even know it. They could be wearing a sports team. What else do people wear on a t-shirt? A rock and roll band?

Yeah. Like, look, there's some categories that are going to be, you know what I mean? Like, hey, you know, but if a guy's got a Jocko podcast t-shirt on, he's coming with. Automatic admission. Hey, he might even be, there might be a, like, let's see you see with a guy. guy with a jihitsu t-shirt on. Let's say it's that kind of situation that's going down. Well, he's coming too.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. He's coming too. Yeah. Yeah, very slimmer. So you might as well just prep for that moment. And represent. And by the way, look, it might not be me. It might be some other trooper out there.

Yeah. That's going to, that's going to detach. That's going to look around. That's going to make the right decision at the right time. Yeah. That's going to understand what you say. When you say, cover me. Yeah.

They're going to go, got it. Boom. We're already in action. Yeah. We got a militia. We got a commando. It's true. Put,

if you have a choice between someone you know is on the path versus someone who you don't know. I'm not saying they're not. I'm saying you don't know. And if they're on the path, you kind of know them, right? They didn't get it. They didn't just get that t-shirt, right?

Right. They listen to the podcast. They know where we're coming from. They understand there's going to be some, some suffering that might unfold in the next 13 seconds while this situation's happening. We got it. So anyways, I want to get yourself a jocco podcast t-shirt.

Yep. Jocco store.com. We appreciate it. Yes, sir. Also, subscribe to the podcast on your favorite or your preferred podcast listening app application. Whatever. Anyway, yeah, so subscribe if you haven't already and, you know, leave a review if you're in the mood, I think. Yeah, it's good.

It's good to, if you want to throw a little communication our way, we, we, I read, the reviews. Yeah. I haven't highlighted one a while. I've got to read a funny review. I'm going to go on there, pull up a good review. For a while,

I was copy and pasting some of them because they were really good. Right. They had something that we like to refer to as layers. Oh, yeah. What else we got? Don't forget about some other podcasts. We got a podcast.

We had a podcast. It was called The Thread. We'll be re-releasing it soon. I said we're coming up with a new name, and we are. But that's what we're doing. So that'll be out soon. And episode eight, yes, everyone's been asked me for it.

I'm sorry, it's been taking a while. We got the grounded podcast where we talk about jujitsu. Somebody just asked for a podcast about women's jujitsu for a jocco podcast. And we already had it. We had it on a grounded podcast. So check out grounded podcast if you want to hear about jujitsu and life. Warrior Kid Podcast. Just get your kids on the path.

Set them up to have an awesome life. Get them on the Warrior Kid podcast. asks if you also want to support a warrior kid you can go to irishoaks ranch.com and you can get aiden who is making soap which allows you your family your friends everyone you know if you get this soap you can all stay clean yep speaking to which uh if i'm not mistaken hey I didn't look deep into it, but I saw, I saw hints of a new warrior kid soap. Yeah, yeah. You saw that too.

Oh. Yeah. So, you want your children to. Stay. Staying. Yeah. Also, YouTube channel. We do have a new YouTube channel for video, video version of this podcast.

Excerpts on there. If there's anyone that would like to see, CGI special effects during the podcast, let's get echo freaking working harder. Because right now he just cut, what do you? How hard is this? You show me, you show you. You show me, you show you. This podcast, you didn't say anything.

So it's just basically me, me, me, me, me. You're not doing any work. But that's where the idea is. Can we get some horses trampling across? I mean, how cool would that be? What do they call it when they hide something in like a video game or a movie? They hide something that you got to look for. Easter egg.

Yes. People should go on to YouTube and they see when I mentioned something. Yeah. You know all of a sudden there's a Zulu warrior over my shoulder or whatever. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, that's a very good idea. Why is it that you claim to be the creative guy and I'm over here coming up with all the ideas? Have you noticed that? No. Where are you at? I don't think you are. Why am I covering the moving? All right. All right. How about this? We'll look into it. Cool. If you don't put a special effect at least one thing that happens during the podcast, you're disappointing. everybody that's here. I'm sure that's factually correct. Oh, I guarantee that's factually correct. You know, when we did the audiobooks for extreme ownership and the dichotomy

leadership, extreme ownership. So if you listen to the extreme ownership audio book, I don't want to try and make it sound crazy, but there's audio effects in there. Yes. There's machine gun fire. There's the call to prayer. There's some explosions. And when we decided to do that, well, first, the main reason, as Laif and I, we've

like words written in there like pop pop pop pop pop right like machine gun fire and I don't want to start off the chapter going you know for instance this one chapter six simple starts off with the word whom right it's trying to tell you an explosion just happened I didn't want to have to say that right so I said so you know we decided what a bunch of these chapters start like that here's one enemy trace around zipping overhead right I don't want to have to make that noise So what we did was they put special effects in there and the the company the the publisher was kind of acting they were cool, but they were kind of acting like this was Like it was crazy like it was a little bit of a crazy idea. So anyways they did it and that's a lot of people are stoked on it But you got to be ready for it because if you're driving in your car and you're an explosion or machine gun fire

Especially if you've been in the game you know like for real you might get a little bit of a little bit of the adrenaline flow no big deal all good So, yeah, maybe. So I think that the same way that that would enhance the audio books for the dichotomy leadership and extreme ownership, if someone had their requisite skills to actually make something cool in here, it'd be good. All right. Well, I'll keep it in mind. Okay. We also have psychological warfare. If you need a little psychological hitter when you need to go overcome a little moment of weakness, you can just.

Check out psychological warfare. It's on all the MP3 platforms. Flipside Canvas. If you want a visual representation of the path, check it out. Flipsidecanvas.com to Cota Meyer. Putting cool graphic representations of things that you can hang on your wall.

We got some books. We actually, it seems like we have a bunch of books. Yes. For some reason. We've got the code, which just came out. Which is a real good way just to step up and just go for it. That's the code.

We got leadership strategy and tactics field manual. We got Wade the Warrior Kid one, two, and three. We got Mikey and the Dragons. We got discipline equals freedom field manual. We got extreme ownership and then I got to make out all those books if you want to. Good information and I'll tell you what's cool. I hear this all the time. You read the book once and you're like, oh cool.

You know, I grabbed, you know, you took a page of notes. You can take a page of notes on that book. If you read it 50 times in a row, you'll take a page of notes every time on any of these books that I'm talking about. Even the kids' books. Yeah, I believe it fully. So check those out. We got Echelon Front, which is leadership,

my leadership consultancy, where we solve problems through leadership. If you need help with the leadership in your organization, then go to Eschelon Front, For details. We also have an online platform called eFonline.com where we Train, coach, mentor, discuss, guide people through preexisting volumes that are on there and through live webinars that we're doing all the time. So if you actually have a question for me, go to EFonline.com, come to one of our live webinars and ask me your question. That's

What's happening. So we also have the muster and I'm I you know look this is going back and forth. We got the virus this and that we had to cancel Orlando I'm making the call right now Phoenix is on we're going to Phoenix we're going to Phoenix we're going to Phoenix Phoenix Arizona September 16th and 17th I actually just got off the phone with Jamie I'm like can we do this Jamie says we can do this and I said all right rock and roll look and if we get to that point in September and we still have do some kind of social distancing scenario. Whatever we got to do, we got to do it. But we're going to make it happen. So it's going to sell out. Everything we do sells out if you want to come. And look, here's the deal. Depending on the social distancing mandates, we may have to limit the seating

more than we normally would, which means if you want to come, buy your tickets now so you don't get cut off because you thought there was going to be more seats. So that's it. It's, September 16th and 17th in Arizona, it's December 3rd and 4th in Texas, Dallas, Texas. People have been saying we should have gone to Dallas day one, and we probably should have. And I'll tell you another thing. We went to Austin, and it was awesome. We did it kind of last minute. And when we were in Austin, people like, hey, come to Dallas.

So we're coming to Dallas. That's December 3rd and 4th. We're going to do that one, too, by the way. Who wants to get some? And, of course, we have E.F. Overwatch. If you need executive leadership at your team, if you need senior leadership at your team and you want somebody that's experienced,

that's been tested, then go to eFoverwatch.com. It's military leaders from special operations, from combat aviation, that understand the principles we talk about here and can employ them in your company. And if you're a vet and you have those kind of experiences, go there as well so we can connect the dots.

also America's mighty warriors.org. Mama Lee, Mark Lee's mom. And she is put together an organization that helps service members, it helps their families, it helps Gold Star families all over the world, guys that are on deployment, guys that are home from deployment, guys that are active duty, guys that are retired.

She is just unbelievable with what she does. So go to America's Mighty Warrior. at dot org to either donate or get involved if you want to get involved and at this point if you haven't had enough of my horrible horrible inexcusable pronunciations of various languages or you want to hear more of echoes sort of bewildered stream of consciousness thoughts that you can find us on the interwebs as Twitter, Instagram, and, of course, Facebook, Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jockel Willink. And thanks to our military men and women out there around the world in uniform who stand and face the darkness and evil every day.

And thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, who stand and face darkness and evil here at home. And to everyone else out there, do not fail to learn. Do not fail to learn. Adapt to new environments. Change the way you operate. Don't get stuck in the past.

Get better. Get better and improve. And the way you do that is by going, out there and getting after it and until next time this is echo and jaco out