Jocko Podcast - 250: Giving Up VS Holding On Just a Little Longer. Lessons Under Stress. NO F**KING SLACK. "About Face" pt.2

Episode Date: October 7, 2020

0:00:00 - Opening 0:01:46 - More lessons from "About Face", by Hackworth. 1:59:32 - Making The Path a routine. 2:15:30 - How to stay on THE PATH. 2:34:25 - Closing gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 250 with Echo Charles and me Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. So on the last podcast number 249, we were reading the newest edition of the book about Faced by Colonel David Hackworth, which has a written forward in it written by me. And if you haven't listened to 249 yet, just go back right now and listen to that one first. And we ended up reading some of the book, but we just started to scratch the search. And look, I was prepping for this podcast and saying, you know what, we should read a little bit more.

Read a little bit more from the book. Talk about it a little bit more. And just as things start to pick up in the Korean War, we just start to learn these incredible lessons. So we're going to take one more look at about phase today picking up. It actually picks up, you know that when you write a book, they want you to have like the big action scene in the beginning. I did not know that, but I understand. Right, right.

So they want, you know, the reader to not, you know, to pick up the book and invest something into the book. So this book starts off with a big time action scene that we actually read last time. So this is a later chapter, but it actually predates the big action scene of February 6th, which is this battle where he gets wounded and you get shot in the head. David Hackworth gets shot in the head and all this mayhem happens. So this actually predates that with him kind of showing up in Korea. And so that's what we're going to do.

We're going to talk through some of these things. I'm going to try and slow it down and talk about some of the things that I pull out of this book. So here we go. Back to the book. The course of the Korean War had changed dramatically since its lightning fast beginning. At the start, U.S. forces hopelessly outnumbered, outgunned, and undertrained, had been driven back by the North Koreans into the tiniest corner of South. Korea beyond the Naktong River. There the 8th Army dug in its heels, determinedly holding what was known as the

Pusan perimeter until September when MacArthur's daring amphibious invasion at Inchon severed the North Korean Army's lines of communications and chopped its legs out from under it. No longer was the enemy in effective fighting force and our certain defeat along the lines of Dunkirk in 1940 suddenly appeared to be surefire victory. of the 8th Army smashed out of Naktong perimeter, spirits were high as we raised north, beyond the 38th parallel, beyond the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, two within spitting distance of the Yalu River, the dividing line between North Korea and Manchuria.

Fighting was sporadic, but as units moved further north, the weather worsened, and enemy resistance increased. It was like a, it was like compressing a spring. The night the Chinese came, I was in a foxhole in the center of my scout section's defensive position. Now, let's think about that. The night the Chinese came. That's a scary thing. And, you know, every time I read about the Korean War, which we've covered several Korean War memoirs on this podcast,

what a savage scenario that was. And it's called the Forgotten War. and I did that piece, I did a piece on Memorial Day and talked about the forgotten war and just about how anyone that was there could never forget what those guys went through in any way. And if you pay any attention to it whatsoever, you realize that we should always remember

what sacrifices were made in the Korean War. And a lot of it, this sentence right here, the night the Chinese came. So here we go. The night the Chinese came, I was in a foxhole in the center of my scout section's defensive position.

The sector was densely covered with screw pines and scrub oaks. My foxhole buddy and I were sitting on the edges of our hole when we saw, and it was like right out of a cartoon, a row of small trees moving toward us. We chopped them down

along with a little Chinaman creeping along behind each one with hand grenades, but that was, just the beginning the next thing I saw was what I could only describe as a wave a human wave of Chinese crashing over us for the next three hours they came wall to wall Chinaman many of whom did not even have rifles only long lances tipped with bayonets others were armed with US Thompson submachine guns or Russian drum fed assault

rifles for the main they were sorry shots with no understanding of basic infantry tactics but what the chinese lacked in proficiency they made up foreign numbers and their presence heralded the start of the largest and most bitter retreat in u.s army history so that's crazy right you've got these these chinese coming and they've got spears and can you imagine imagine people coming at you for 10 minutes, right? Like, can you imagine enough people that they can come at you for 10 minutes? Now imagine 30 minutes.

And imagine how many people that is. Now imagine three hours of people coming at you. Upon my arrival in Korea, I'd been assigned the 25th Recon Company as a replacement scout section leader. It was an army mistake. My military occupational specialty was infantry, not armored, recon,

and it had upset me to no end because 25th recon guys were not eligible for the CIB, regardless of how much infantry combat they saw. So the CIB is the combat infantryman badge, and that's what you get when you're in direct combat in the army. And it's a, let's say that's like a serious mark of pride in the army, because that means you've been in the shit. So you can see a little bit of ego creeping out from David Hackworth,

because he's like, what are you kidding me? We're just recon and we're not even eligible for getting the CIB. This is garbage. Continuing. Add to that, MacArthur's brilliant stroke at Inshan, the war had seemed over, saved for the victory parade. And I'd been sick that after all I'd gone through to get here, I'd missed the guts of the whole damn show. This is just, once again, this is typical. Be careful what you wish for.

He's thinking after Inchon, Americans had such a leg up that, ah, I missed it. I missed the war. I hadn't wanted to show up in another occupation force. So in the army, when he joined the army, he went to Europe. And World War II was over. And so he showed up there and he was just, you know, standing around and starting standing guard duty and stuff like that. They were training, but whatever.

He wasn't getting the combat that he wanted. So he's afraid when he shows up in Korea, oh, they did this big move at Incheon. We're not going to get any combat. I hadn't wanted to end up in another occupation force. Still Sergeant Combat, and that's the nickname that he earned himself, even when there was no combat when he was in Europe, but he was just so fired up. They called him Sergeant Combat.

Only in a new theater, in my heart, I'd secretly wish the war would continue long enough to let me get involved in at least one good fight. My wish came true only too well. My first real firefight. This is good, Steve. It's always good to hear this, right? Because there's such a huge amount of difference between your first firefight and your next one.

Just like anything that we do, anything that you do as a human being, the learning curve when you see something for the first time is the steepest learning curve you're going to get. So it's always good to think about these things. My first real firefight had occurred just before the Chinese came on a dull overcast day. The scout section had set up near a secondary road. We spotted a squad of North Korean soldiers, weapons at sling arms coming out of the tree line. They were good-looking troops but asleep at the switch. They didn't see us. It was an amazing sense of power I felt, ultimate power, I suppose, just watching them come and holding that weapon in my hands.

We let them get within about 30 yards before we cut loose. I dropped four guys point blank with my M1, each dead with a six o'clock sight picture in the chest, just like the good book said. I felt no guilt few of us did I'd been trained too well and besides the enemy had been utterly dehumanized throughout my training they aren't men they're just gooks I thought as the four enemy fell and a fierce firefight began we'd knocked off the point element of a much larger enemy force and stirred up a hornet's nest okay note on gooks the term and this is this is in the book It's an a it's an asterisk the term gook is derived from the Korean word Han gook which means Korean person So I know that it's a insensitive term. It's in the book

What does six o'clock site picture mean just where he's lining up his his weapon the site on his weapon six o'clock site picture Basically a point of aim point of impact so he's just aiming I guess like towards the bottom of his he's lining up the bottom of his site on their chest so he's simply saying like i like made good shots essentially like everything lined up perfect yeah and like the good book says i'm sure he's referring to you know the army marksmanship manual which says you know once you get this you you set the six o'clock of your sight onto the point of impact you want to hit and i'm i could be wrong about this because i'm not i'm not 100% sure but it's something meaning hey he

He took the good solid site picture that he's supposed to get. The one that he was taught. Boom. Hit him in the chest. But here's what sketchy is. These were just the point element. There were a bunch of people behind him. Following the lead of a lot of the older veterans earlier in the day,

I'd placed several clips of ammo on my rifle sling. I liked the look. It was kind of John Wayneish. And it seemed to make sense. A new clip only seconds away. but when I'd taken up my prone firing position, the sling had flopped on the rain-soaked ground. Now, as the firefight got going,

I grabbed for a clip only to discover that it and the rest of them were clogged with mud. Bullets were flying and my brain stalled out. I vaguely remembered an old tale about how well the M-1 worked under any battlefield condition. Quickly knocking off the bigger pieces of muz, mud, I oozed the clip up into my rifle. I got one round off.

The weapon jammed, and for the next few minutes, I sat in the ditch, field stripping cleaning and reassembling the thing while my first real combat went on without me our field our artillery fire took the starch out of the north korean advance and we were able to scoot ass with no friendly casualties other that is than sergeant combat's bruised pride my first firefight had been my first screw up i didn't know until much later that you generally don't walk away from that one what does that say be prepared so here is in his first fire fight

He's got the cool guy bandolier scenario going on with his weapon and his mags and it doesn't work out well That's why you got to rehearse things how they're gonna actually be You can't just do something for the first time in combat and be like oh this will be fine No a few days later five of us had been out on a reconnaissance patrol It had it was a very black night saved for the US flares that hung eerily over the battlefield Very quiet but for the occasional of artillery fire in the odd burst of an automatic weapon we had moved about a mile into enemy territory when we heard motors leaving the patrol I crawled to a mound near the

edge of the road for a firsthand looked look through the darkness silhouetted by the artillery flares I could see four enemy vehicles a file of infantry was walking on each side of the motor column with more infantry walking in front they were so close that I was sure the vehicles engines prevented them from hearing my pounding heart. They passed by. I was about to return to the patrol when I saw a lone North Korean soldier, his weapon slung tracing a telephone wire. As he passed my position, I parted his hair with a submachine gun magazine and dragged him back to the patrol. So he knocked this dude out. Think about that. Like a massive patrol goes by. You find one lone guy. Take a magazine out of your gear, hit him on the

head with it, knock him out, and then drag him back to your patrol. Daylight wasn't far off when we headed home. Progress was slow. Initially, we had to pack our zonked out prize. We later he awoke, stumbled along belligerently, but at least under his own steam. When we thought we had made it, we ran into a large enemy force moving down the road in formation. They were jabbering excitedly and dragging machine guns behind them on squeaky wheels. We were about six yards from the road I lay on top of the prisoner covered his mouth with my hand and pressed my trench knife hard against his throat I thought the cold steel would be enough to convince him to be good but it wasn't old habits die hard he started

squirming around my hand was muffling his cries to his comrades when he tried to bite it I had no choice I slid his throat and lay there on top of them for what seemed like a bloody eternity until the road was clear and we could hot foot it back to the U.S. lines. There you go. Welcome to combat. I hadn't wanted to kill him. I would have rather to capture the guy. A live prisoner is worth a thousand dead hombres.

But I was probably as scared as he was. And in a millionth of a second, I had to decide. And it was either him or my patrol. You know when people talk about the split seconds decisions you have to make in combat? There you go. What am I going to do? I'm going to kill this guy. Killing that guy and one other incident probably hammered home most of that Korea was not some training maneuver that I was really in war, boots and all.

The other occurred when we were digging in on a small knob overlooking a main north-south road. Digging in was a task of a front-line trooper performed at least once a day. When on the move usually spent the time cursing your commander for always choosing that hardest ground in the town and then moving the line just when you'd finished your hole Some of us thought it was an army plot to keep us in shape for myself I'd rather have done a million push-ups But on this particular occasion we'd gotten some great dirt. It was soft and loose a breeze to dig and I was about two feet down in no time Then my shovel hit something mushy a few quick scrapes revealed an olive drab green material.

A few more uncovered a decaying corpse of a man with bright red hair and a 24th division patch on his moldy fatigue jacket. The soldier's hands had been tied behind him with communication wire and he'd been shot in the back of the head. Three more bodies were found by other troopers on our little knob, all killed and buried the same way. Company was notified. They said the men had probably been killed at the beginning of the war.

war that was when the 24th division had fought along this road we were instructed to dig out the dog tags and provide eight digit grid coordinates where each body was found the atrocity did little for morale but a lot for fighting spirit there would be no love lost for an enemy as savage as the North Korean Reds so much for the Korean police action I and my friends thought this was all out war with no quarter given. Yeah, he talked about dehumanizing the troops and I've talked about dehumanizing the enemy

and that is something that absolutely the military will try and do. And it's a very crazy fine line to walk because as you dehumanize the enemy, you're also possibly dehumanizing the civilians that are in that area. And so you have a very sketchy scenario that can unfold. But they still have to do it to some level

because otherwise you've got people, the U.S. military, that in their mind, you know, it's a sin to kill or whatever beliefs they have. They don't want to do it. And you're trying to convince them that it's okay because these aren't even people. They're not even humans. That's dehumanizing. And I've said before, and this is the type of thing that makes it very clear, you know, I've said that the we didn't really, in Iraq, we didn't really have to dehumanize the enemy because the enemy dehumanize themselves with the things that they did to the local populace torture, murder, rape, just complete and utter savagery. And that's the same thing that's happening right here. You know, you're finding Americans that have been bound and executed in the back of the head and buried in shallow graves. Continuing on, now that the Chinese were in the conflict, the recon company's mission was to provide a reconnaissance screen in front of the 25th infantry.

Divisions withdrawal in other words to delay deceive and disorganize the undeniable Communist advance so the Chinese are coming now they've got the numbers they've got the masses They've got America on its heels get the 25th ID Tropic lightning by the way Station in Hawaii I went out and spoke had the honor of speaking to the 25th ID just a historic group of soldiers. The Chinese had struck the 8th Army like a giant steamroller, crushing many units and mauling most others. Eighth Army's commander, Lieutenant General Walton Walker, who had said

in July of 1950 as the first real southward began, quote, there will be no Dunkirk, there will be no baton. A retreat to Busan would be the greatest butcheries in history. We must fight until the end. End quote. Now found himself directing yet another brave but bloody withdrawal to the south. Only seven years before General Eisenhower's forces were similarly surprised and smashed. But that time, we'd had Patton to save the day. In my heart of hearts, I kind of wished someone would get the idea to use our recon company

to be the spearhead to Bastone for the Korean conflict. But it was not to be in just as well. Unlike the 750 second recon, which had 17 M24 light tanks, we were a light skin force with only six M24s in the whole company. Divide these up amongst three identical platoons. And it wasn't exactly the punch, Lieutenant Colonel Creighton Abrams had in 1944. Still, we had plenty to do to keep us occupied. Exchanging ground for time, the drill went that we would hold. a position until the enemy was breathing hot and heavy down our necks and we would break

contact and run like hell leapfrogging through another recon platoon or rifle unit that was set up behind us in the same way so they're doing a cover and move as they're retreating trading ground for time it was a dangerous game with no room for error and we found ourselves playing it day after day after day they were strange dudes the chinese seemingly with no sense of personal peril. That's a bold statement. Seemingly with no sense of personal peril. That's a human instinct of self-preservation,

and they didn't seem to have it. You know, when Seth Stone went into Sauter City, you know, that was in 2008. We had fought in Ramadi in 2006. And I was talking to him while he was there, you know, after the first couple operations that they ran. And he said something similar. I don't remember the again.

exact quote of what he said, but what he was trying to explain to me was the fighters in Ramadi were perhaps better fighters, more tactically skilled. He said, but he's like, these guys in Sodder City, they don't care. They don't care if they die. And they are just coming. And it's a different type of threat. It's a different scenario that you're under. It was not unusual to see them jump on a U.S. tank, holding grenades, and then scramble

around looking for some opening to toss them in. Of course if the tank was buttoned up, it was impossible, and the tank commander inside would simply call another tank nearby to, quote, scratch my back, which at which point the second tank would spray the first tank with 30 caliber coaxal machine gunfire and wash the hitchhikers off. But there were always other Chinaman to take the dead ones places. It was a grim fact, and we were constantly reminded of as we were moving south. Morale dropped with every rear word step of the humiliating retreat. That is just important to remember that when things aren't going right, when you're in a leadership position and things aren't going right and you have to retreat or you have to

take a tactical withdrawal or you have to undo some of the progress that you've made or you have to abandon some of the work that you've done, which I'm not just talking about war. I'm talking about any scenario, business, life. You've got when you have to retreat, you have to pay attention to the morale of the troops because it sucks. It sucks. And what it sucks is it sucks the morale right away from the troops. They've put forth this effort.

They fought and bled or they've worked really hard to get to a certain point. And now you're leaving. We kept falling back away from the Yalu beyond Pyong King until we'd refocused the 38th parallel. And we were back in South Korea. The only thing I think running faster than the 8th armor were the rumors. The Marines were cut off at a place called the Chosen Reservoir in the north and were being zeroed out. The U.S. Army 10 Corps had surrendered. Boats were waiting at Pusan Harbor to take us to Japan.

These are all just crazy rumors that are going around, partially true, partially untrue. Maybe. Meanwhile, winter had arrived, but winter gear had not. MacArthur had said we'd be home before Christmas. I guess his supply people believed him because the Chinese and the Chinese had arrived. had caught us with our pants down, and they were summer trousers. Feet and leather boots froze. Gloves and mittens were scarce as good-looking girls.

Our field jackets were as thin and protective as page one of the newspaper. We were slowly freezing to death in the bitter below zero weather, while the Chinese, like Genghis Khan's mighty hordes marched on seemingly unstoppable. Logistics wins wars. And here you are. crazy to think about this compared to either Napoleon's march into Russia, which we've covered on this podcast, with the memories of a Napoleonic foot soldier and how everyone, oh, we'll be, we don't need winter stuff. We should be done by winter. And then same thing

with the Nazis going into Russia in Stalingrad, freezing. How come we don't learn these lessons? How come? You know, this has something to do with I was talking about the other day. when you come up with a freaking plan, you need to have a negative attitude. You need to have a negative attitude. Your attitude can't be, we're going to be home by Christmas. That's just wrong.

Your attitude has to be, this could take five years or more. We need to be ready for the worst case scenario. Going in there and thinking, we'll be home by Christmas, like let's, if that, if,

if MacArthur uttered that one time, which he did, Think of the effect and impact that has on the rest of the chain of command. Think of the impact that that has on the whole supply logistics chain. When they go, you know, it's going to be over by Christmas. I guess it's not really that important that we get good boots for the men. I guess it's really not that important that we get good warm jackets for the men. Just a little hint of that.

Yeah, I feel like I kind of fall into that trap. a lot of times, you know, when you're going somewhere. And you know what that is? That is an extreme form of decentralized command. It's an extreme form of commander's intent, right? So lately I've been talking about the fact that culture is, culture is like the most premier highest form of decentralized command and commander's intent. Because if our culture is, for a,

instance, hey, we always take care of the customer. Yeah. Right. Then you, Echo Charles, as a front line guy working at a cash register, you can make a decision on what to do with a customer because you know that our customer is the most important thing. If you know that, listen, we always, we always treat civilians with the utmost respect. That's our culture.

When you get into a situation where there's a wounded, you know, a wounded mom in a house with a building, you make that a priority and you take care of and you. you get medevac and casualty care for that individual, right? Because that's our culture. So culture is like the highest form of decentralized command. Well, what happens when you give commanders intent just by saying something as innocent as will be home by Christmas? Think of how that reverberates throughout the organization. Everybody goes, ah, we're good.

Because can you think about the Herkulean efforts that it takes to get, you know, 200,000 warm jackets and pairs of boots and specific sizes? That's no, no joke. You can't just snap your fingers and that happens. It's going to take effort. It's going to take effort at every level. People stepping up to make things happen. You know, like in a communist country, I remember when the Polish were kind of striking against the communist regime. gene there. They would just make little small mistakes in factories. You can prevent things from

happening by just doing a little bit, just by just dragging your feet just a little bit. Because Echo, if you drag your feet just a little bit, hey, maybe it's not that big of a deal. But if there's a hundred people and you're all dragging your feet, we're not making progress anymore. So you picture an entire supply chain that hears, eh, it'll be over by Christmas, how much efforts being put forth? You know sure do you have some really great people in there somewhere that are going to get after it? Yeah, you do. Does that overcome the other 94% of the people that are dragging their feet?

And it's not that big of a deal. And hey, I'm going to still head home at 4 o'clock today. Yeah. Yeah, the jacket thing. But you know how like when you go somewhere, I don't know, to the park, carnival, whatever. And you kind of don't account for the weather or, you know, like when the sun goes down. No, you do account for the weather. But I know where you're going with this.

Yeah, like to me, the weather is I look outside and boom, there's your weather. Yeah. But meanwhile, my wife is like, oh, bring the jacket, bring the water just in case they get thirsty and you get there, you know, whatever, all this stuff. She's bringing these bags. I was like, bro, I don't need bags. You know, I don't need all this stuff. I'm going on the park. All I need is me, really.

And so does she let you learn your lesson each and every time? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. You go there. And here's the thing that in my particular case. case, which, you know, maybe this applies to others as well, where I won't learn the lesson every single time because sometimes I'm like, fine. You know, sometimes I do make it home before Christmas. You reinforce the lesson of being a slacker. Yes, exactly right. So, but, this is not a easy lesson

to learn. Okay, so we live. Collectively, you and I at this time, we live in San Diego, California. And what's interesting about San Diego, California is if you go out to dinner, let's see, say right now, what is it? October 2020. If you go out for dinner at 6 o'clock at night, the sun is still up and it's, it's warm outside. It's 80 degrees. There's no need for a jacket isn't even conceivable. But if you're going to eat outside and the sun's going to go down, it is going to get chilly.

It's going to get chilly. It's going to get 50 degrees. That's going to happen in, you know, three, four hours. So, yes. When you're used to that scenario being the case, it like gets easier or whatever. But man, yeah, it does kind of take this weird mindset. I had that exact scenario happen, by the way, like the, like a week ago or whatever, my wife's birthday. We go to this.

It's called like C level. I don't know. One of these, you know. I've been there. Yeah, I know. Actually. Yes. Some of the guys there said that you've been there at the restaurant.

So I was like, all right, cool. But one of our people works there. Yeah. Yeah. One of our jih Tzu people. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, fully. So, yeah, so I go there. So we go and, you know, it's more, it's kind of high.

It's been hot. So I'm like, all right, same tactics, right? Look outside. What's the weather? Like, oh, we're sitting outside. Cool. I look outside, weather, hot, sunny, whatever. Cool.

And here's the thing. My wife kind of felt, she didn't fall for it, but she kind of was like, kind of. kind of was feeling the same thing. So it was like, whatever. No jackets. Didn't bring jackets for the kids. Nothing like that.

So we go in there and our seats are, yes, outside but covered. So a little bit of an ocean breeze going through there. And here's the thing, it wasn't cold. I wouldn't call it cold, but it was something. Like you had, like, chicken skin every once in a while. Maybe you wanted that lightweight. Lightweight. Lightway.

It would have been perfect. It would have been perfect. And here the thing is it wasn't about me. It was about the kids, everybody else. You get a four-year-old and a seven-year-old that's just slightly uncomfortable in chili. They might not throw a tantrum, but you're going to hear about it. You can learn this lesson. It's a good lesson.

You seem to have to learn it over and over again. Some of my kids know it. They think, you know, they're bringing. I was going to meet my family. Like I think we were recording one day, and I was going to meet my family somewhere eating outside. COVID, you got to eat outside and whatnot, right? So, but my son actually just showed up with a sweatshirt for me. Credit, right?

Full credit. Yep. It's full credit on that one. Yeah. Because that's like, and really the whole reason is like, bro, why do I want to, why am I going to wear myself down carrying this jacket when I probably won't need it? Why am I going to carry this, you know, bag of additional clothing when we're not going to need all this stuff?

What is big bottle of water? You know? Yeah, there's water there. You know, like, but why are you bringing all this stuff? Like, stop load, like, you know. Anyway, so yeah, but again, like you have that mindset, you're going to get jammed up or potentially get jammed up in the,

you know, in the future. You got to plan for that kind of stuff. Which I think my wife is like, that's her whole jam. It's like, what do we need? She'll overdo it, you know? Yeah. But I'll underdo it. I think, like, the answer, the solution is right there in the middle.

Hope you guys can find a balance. Responsibly evaluate future scenarios, yes. They were not only short on cold weather gear, continuing on. Back to the book, food was in short supply. All spare time was spent scrounging. One of the most modern armies in the world became an army of days past, foraging and living off the land. We kicked in the walls of houses, searching for rice and kimchi,

hidden in false walls and secret caches. We cooked what we found. in our steel pots when nothing else was available we take the sea ration packets of sugar powdered coffee powdered milk and chocolate we'd stored for days like squirrels in the pockets of our fatigues mashed it all together with snow on our helmets and trick ourselves into believing it was ice cream trying to beat the elements became a war in itself it was so bitterly cold you couldn't sleep you had to keep moving stomping feet and flexing fingers 24 hours a day those who didn't were saying goodbye to their hands and feet and in some cases their lives.

For a while every day a couple men were evacuated because of frostbite. Black toes and fingers to be cut off at the hospital. Grenades, knives, and ammo would freeze fast to the foxhole brim. Weapons froze too. You'd have to kick the bolts of the M1 and browning automatic rifles to get them back. We seldom had rifle patches to clean our weapons. Most of us cut little squares out of our shirts or trousers to do the best we could. Gun oil was a luxury, usually beyond our reach.

We lubricated our weapons with motor oil or the frozen lard of sea rations and took to keeping them with us in our fart sacks at night. Staying alive became our only concern, and we did. Man is most adaptable. When we passed through villages, if a house had a lot of wood, doors, window frame, even the most beautiful hand-carved furniture, we'd burn it one piece at a time, finishing off the by throwing a thermite grenade on the thatch roof and standing by until the whole structure was burned to the ground.

Our orders were to destroy anything the enemy could use. Gladly, we thought to ourselves, and we could stay warm while we did it. At night, we would carefully obsessively bundle stack and restack kindling wood while waiting for daybreak when we could light our fires. The thought of those friendly flames allowed us to make it through the night. Instantaneously at first light thousands of tiny fires would spring up across the front and around each Huddled a cluster of shivering men. It was probably as bad in the Chinese camp except that at least the chinks were prepared with winter gear Down trousers and jackets long overcoats that blended in with the snow and down mittens that we liberated in war until our own supply people came through

It was a frigid brutal soul-destroying time I knew then how the Wehrmark must have felt during World War II or how Napoleon's army must have suffered years and years before that when each made their horrible winter retreat from Russia. Like I said, this just savage. Frid, brutal, soul-destroying time. And this is coming from the perspective of a guy that served multiple combat tours in Vietnam as well. By the the time we reached Seoul, the North Korean capital, once a bustling city of millions, was virtually deserted an empty gray tomb. Most of its inhabitants and those of the northern villages on its outskirts had left and headed south with the few possessions they could carry,

clogging the roads with wall-to-wall human misery. On one occasion, American fighter planes must have concluded that the hordes of desperate civilians were Chinese columns moving south. P-51's had strafed the refugees, and for at least a mile there were dead littered across the road. Retreating vehicles had to push the bodies out of the way. It was here that I realized it was only the guys on the ground who saw and understood the real horrors of war. To Air Force pilots, war is a remote thing. They make their kills from hundreds or thousands of feet in the air. even the guys who fly on the deck do so in a flash dropping their loads and flying

away without seeing the results the way homes and people are blown to smithereens or the effects of napal at night they don't didn't have to listen as we did in the winter of 1950 to the wail of the gooks cries of civilian refugees begging to be let through American lines or see in the morning when they were allowed to pass through the dead they left behind those who frozen to death in open rice patties overnight. The pilot, when he finishes his day's work, flies back to his base, lands, goes to the club, has a big stake, and if he wants to forget the day's combat, he can drink himself into a stupor. The front-line fighter can't do that. He lives with

death and the horror of the battlefield every day and every night. It is his cross to bear. We continue to Retreating gray rotting bodies the unforgettable smell of death rats feasting on the dead and growing boulder by the day This the flotsam jetsam of war led us through soul our unit's mission was to fight a rear guard action in the center of the city the scout section rifle squad set up at a downtown intersection we took over a bank a drugstore and two other corner buildings for my command post I'd use used the bank's manager's plush office, which was a welcome diversion from the cold and snow. The bank vault was locked tight. As the self-appointed new bank manager, I authorized the guys to open it with their 3.5 anti-tank bazooka. Two rounds later, the door swung open as easy as a sea ration can in the hands of a hungry trooper. The vault contained thousands of dollars in small Korean notes.

All the big stuff was gone. I told everyone to cash in. No withdrawal forms needed, I said, and they did. We had to laugh at the propaganda leaflets that the Chinese mortared down upon us from the hills. They occupied on the high ground around Seoul. Quote, American capitalists running dogs of Wall Street, they accused. How right they are, I thought, as we stuffed our pockets and packs and even made hobo sacks to carry our spoils of war. It was strange watching the Chinese brazenly looking down from those hills.

about six or eight hundred yards away. Our infantry weapons were out of range preventing a little selective sniping, but we were able to put some effective fire on them with the M24's main gun and had the great fun of taking pot shots with the turret's 50-Cal. The Chinese went to ground

and shy of a cheerless Christmas, we slipped out of the sad, near-deserted soul. My section's newfound wealth was the first thing to be tossed on the side of the road. B bulky dollars meant not. Nothing meant little to worn out troopers and it had been just a game anyway. South of Seoul, we found ourselves caught in a friendly battle zone. A railway yard being blasted to Kingdom Come by demolition toting engineers and air force bombers,

railroad flat cars complete with brand new vehicles and tanks, which would have been distributed to the front lines had it not collapsed, were being blown sky high to keep them out of enemy lines to us in the middle the challenge of this army obstacle course was not only to avoid our own flying debris but also the enemy incoming which was pouring in throughout the operation yeah that's that's a scary site so you've got and it shows you that i guess it shows not scary it's the desperation of the situation that you're in that you've got however many numbers of vehicles that were going to be shipped up to the front time and now we're just blowing them in place so that the enemy does capture them you want to talk about a moral

morale crusher we came upon the number of freight cars with sealed doors one of the guys pride one open to reveal an entire carload of PX supplies soap cigarette aftershave lotion obviously goodies needed by our rear echelon comrades and we decided to help ourselves someone drove a brand new three quarter ton truck off a nearby flat car so we had a way to get away with had a way to get to carry out our loot it fell about four feet and crashed to the ground springs breaking fenders collapsing but it still ran that's a comic scene right you've got this vehicle on a flat pit on a flat freight train and just drive it off dukes a hazard style we loaded our spoils onto the truck even as telephone poles and large chunks of steel rain down around us then we jumped aboard ourselves and unasked to the place eight recon men bouncing along and light in a in a truck right out of the grapes of wrath We motored by a battalion infantry hiking south down the road. Hey, how you fix for cigarettes, we called.

And aqua velva anyone, as we threw all the troopers a little something. We ran out of goodies about the same time. Our mobile pack PX ran out of gas and we reluctantly turned to the backs of our tanks with the rest of our platoon. We were young. Sometimes the war was great fun, like a game of cops and robbers or cowboy and Indians. That you played as kids. You know, it's from a maturity level, right? That's something that's just so,

it's important to remember, man, that you're dealing with people that are 19, 20 years old, 21 years old. I mean, hack horse, one of the older guys. But most of these guys, a lot of these guys, when you go into the military, it's young kids. When I went in, I was 18 years old.

Like, I'm a, you know, my judgment, you know, when you talk about the, What is it? The development of the prefrontal cortex, right? Which as a man doesn't develop until you're something like 25. Yes, sir. So you got to find your way through seven years of military service where your freaking decision-making process is not fully developed yet.

That's how dumb shit happens. Yeah, makes sense. You do dumb shit. That's why leadership is so important in the military. But the thing is, sometimes the military leaders are only 23. They're still not even there yet. Continuing on. The politics or purpose of the war was not our concern.

We didn't understand or care about the big picture anymore than we really understood the risks of combat of being killed or going home without a leg. After a while, you stop worrying if the next minute you were going to get it. Instead, you just prayed for a clean wound so you could get out of there. A million dollar wound to get you home. You know, it was crazy when we had Dean Ladd on,

and he was going into talk. Harawa, where the Japanese had a freaking island fortress. And I asked him, I was like, were you worried about getting wounded or anything? And he's like, no, that would be someone else. That's the deal, man. It's not going to happen to me. After we retreated across the Han River, my platoon was given the mission to outpost a long, lonely stretch of the South Bank. It was Christmas Day.

and although there were no Chinese in sight, it wasn't a particularly jolly time. General Walker had been killed two days before in a freak Jeep truck accident, very similar to the one that had killed his former World War II boss General Patton. Still, paratroop General Matt Ridgeway had taken over as the new commander of the 8th Army, and word was we would retreat no further. It was a good word, but my platoon had a more immediate concern. We were starving. A personal recon of the area revealed a village nearby

Whose only occupants were a half a dozen scroungy-looking chickens. One long burst from my borrowed M2 carbine gave us Christmas dinner In the form of three decisively dead birds that we plucked and threw on an open fire. We ate them unseasoned and undercooked. They were very, very raw, in fact, but wonderful to us. And we gobbled them down and huddled closer to the fire thinking how lucky we were. No sooner had we finished then a recon company Jeep and trailer bounced across the field to our positions. Christmas dinner, turkey, cranberry sauce, and all the trimmings had arrived.

Only the American army could do that. Unfortunately, our chicken appetizer had left all of us with roaring gut aches. But we wolfed it down anyways because it was good, because it was there, and because none of us knew if this meal would be the last. The enemy took Seoul just after the new year. The bridge across the Han had been blown, but a few days later the chinks got a bridge head across, and we once again headed south in zero-degree weather with our tails between our legs, so much for no more retreats. I began to think about all the generals' proclamations concerning this war.

That we'd be home before Christmas, that the Chinese would not intervene, that we'd hold here, we'd hold there. All of it was bullshit. And I started to wonder how they could possibly make so many dumb statements when each invariably fell apart when put to the test. Then I thought, well, maybe they just don't know. We never saw a general on the front. We seldom saw a colonel, a lieutenant colonel, or a major either.

And at the squad level, we only on the rarest occasion saw, captain. So how could the brass know how defeated its army was if it wasn't there to see, or if they weren't there to see an exhausted guy lie down on a road and just give up? How could they know how cold and ill-equipped we were if they weren't there to see blue gloveless hands stick to the frozen metal of weapons? How could they know how steep and rugged the terrain was if they never. climbed a hill. Little leadership lesson there, massive leadership lesson there. You have to find out what's going on with the frontline troops. And you can't rely on reports. And you know, I was reading

some other sections of this book. And the temptation to just listen to the reports of frontline troops in any organization is a, it's a massive temptation and it's the wrong thing to do. Because of course, when you're in charge, of course your subordinates are going to polish that. thing up for you. Make it look all good. Make it look all good. That's what they're going to do. You can't rely on that. You have to go down there. And the other thing you have to do is you have to be able to admit when you don't know something. So the front when you say the frontline troops, like they'll polish like their report. Yeah, absolutely. Why do they do just to show like, hey, we're doing a good job down here kind of thing or or they don't want to get anyone in trouble or like

Not to go super philosophically deep on you right now, but a lack of moral courage. Gotcha. A lack of moral courage to report to your boss, my men are frozen, starving, and they're ready to give up. Because what you're doing is, look, you're the leader. And so you're putting yourself on report for not being a good leader. Right?

Because, you know, there's no bad teams, only bad leaders. Oh, like the leader of the front line guys. Yeah, so if I'm a leader on the front, if you're General Echo and my guys haven't eaten and their morale is breaking, I don't want to tell you that because then you'll be like, well, what's wrong with you, Jock? Right, right. Because guess what? Fred over there, he's like, my men are doing great. Right. Because he has no moral courage to actually tell the truth about what's happening.

Yeah, yeah. And then that puts pressure on me where now I'm thinking, uh-oh, I mean, Fred's doing well. Maybe my guys can do better. and okay, you know what, General Echo, we're fine. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. So it's a lack of moral courage. Yeah, it seems natural too now, now that I'm kind of thinking of it like that,

especially, yeah, if you're in charge of the guys over there, you don't want to be like, yeah, we're not doing good. Yeah. Even like, it kind of seems like even in like social scenarios, you know, for sure. We'll do that. Like, we're like, hey, so how's, how's married life? for the, I don't know, whatever, whatever the situation is.

And you don't want to be like, I'm struggling through this married life kind of thing. Like it's like you don't want to say that if in fact you're struggling through married life. I'm just saying, yeah, it seems like, yeah, that seems a lot more natural now that I'm thinking. Yeah. Obviously it happened in the business world too because, you know, the, oh, Echo, how's your sales going with your sales team down there? Yeah, you know, you don't want to say, well, it's not going very well.

Because you're putting yourself on report for, for failing. Yeah. Because you are the leader. But if there's stuff, what you should say, what you should say is, hey, boss, here's what's going on. My troops, they're over-fatigued right now. We need food and we need some warm weather gear because, look, there's some motivated, there's some motivated guys that want to make it happen. But when they can't even load their weapon because their skin is freezing to the bullets,

that is a problem, a problem that no amount of motivation can cure. We need gloves like that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. You have to be able to frame it correctly Yeah back to the book still we kept retreating exchanging ground for time We were always cold always hungry always tired we were also filthy it was too cold to even consider washing so when we got to Sue Wan and found ourselves with a few days to rest we decided to take that Abandon City by storm as in Seoul everyone had left Sue Wan in a great hurry so we could pretty well help us help ourselves to whatever we needed my section took over a house we scrounge around and found an old-fashioned korean bath one of those stand-up jobs about chest high with a wood furnace beneath it

we filled the tub built a roaring fire and one by one jumped in each of us skimming the other guys dirt off the top of the water i was last the water was almost black by then with all kinds of crud floating around but i didn't care i might not have gotten clean but for the first time in weeks i was warm. Just after we left Sioux-Wan, my platoon was ordered to establish a night blocking position astride, a north-south road that paralleled a railroad track. The scout section and rifle squad were set up in a defensive line that ran from the road through a rice paddy and onto a railroad trestle. Our machine gun was set up on the trestle pointing straight down the tracks, a little high ground, where it could put plunging fire directly in front of deployed troops and flanking fire on

the road 50 yards away. Our platoon leader stayed with the two M24 tanks on the road. Behind him was the 81mm mortar squad. It was late at night. All was quiet. We were locked and cocked and pros at this deadly delaying game now. I moved between positions having whispered conversations with the guys. It was a habit I had to keep myself awake and make sure the men stayed awake too. I was at the machine gun which was manned by a stud of a Hawaiian trooper named Sheldon when we saw the enemy coming There was at least a company and maybe more behind four abreast double timing quietly down the railroad track When they were no more than 50 yards from the machine gun Sheldon let loose a long burst that cut a wide swath into their unsuspecting ranks a burst of machine gun fire was the signal for the infantry tanks and mortars to join the fray

The scout section of rifle squad immediately poured fire into the enemy formation. The enemy panicked. They did not fire one round and return. Instead, they broke ranks and high-tailed it to the rice paddy, running right into the rifle squad's grazing fire. It was great to see. We were cleaning the clock of an enemy force at least ten times our size. Like young Rommel did, I thought. In 1914, when he ambushed and destroyed almost a complete British rifle company with a handful of soldiers simply by using

initiative and surprise, two of the key elements in battle. The mortar was plopping rounds of high explosives right on top of the confused reds. Meanwhile, our tank's main guns, which were loaded with anti-personnel grape shot, hadn't fired anything at all. A white star cluster flare popped and hovered over our positions. This was our signal to beat feet in retreat, and we didn't need a second invitation. We scrambled to waiting vehicles and quickly moved to and through U.S. lines. We'd taken no casualties, but I still couldn't understand why the tank's guns hadn't fired.

The enemy had been hurt badly, but not destroyed. If those tank guns had been employed, we'd have completely wiped them out. The sun was coming up as the platoon pulled into the abandoned Chonan schoolyard that served as the base for recon company. I went over to our platoon sergeant and asked him why the tanks hadn't been used. He looked away and sort of bowed his head as if he was embarrassed, which was very strange behavior for this rugged, highly decorated warrior. Better see the lieutenant, young sergeant. Why didn't the tanks fire?

I asked my regular army platoon leader moments later. I didn't want to give our positions away, he replied. I couldn't believe it. Give your positions away. Bullshit, I cried. Sargent didn't talk to officers like that, but I didn't care. We had the closest thing to a glorious victory that I'd seen the chinks stuck their noses into this goddamn war, that I'd seen since the chinks stuck their noses into this goddamn war.

And now this pissant weak lieutenant, you were just too yellow to do your job, I shouted, and stormed back into my scout section in a rage. I grabbed my pack and rifle. I'm leaving this outfit right now, I told my platoon sergeant. I'm not waiting for orders. I'm going AWOL. I came here to fight, not play hide and seek. And where I come from, officers like you've got here

would have been drummed right out of the officer's corps. And with that, I headed for the road. So that's just mayhem, right? They don't actively assault the enemy with all the firepower that they had, Hackworth gets pissed off. So he goes AWOL. Now normally, absent without leave,

what someone's trying to do is they're trying to shirk responsibility. You know, they're a hippie or they're a bum and they're trying to get out of there. They're for whatever reason. They're trying to leave. They're trying to get away from the army. He's going AWOL because he wants to fight more. There was a expression in there.

And I've heard it before. They're ranks. Like he referred to like we shot bullets into their ranks and then they broke rank. Yeah. Like what? Assembled in a formation type thing. Okay. Like lined up.

Yeah. Which is crazy to think about. It's crazy to think about in modern war a group of individuals being in ranks. So in ranks like, you know, four across and whatever, 30 deep. That's in ranks. It's a specific formation assemblance or is it just sort of just them over there in that whatever assembly? I mean, the fact that he's saying in ranks means that they're in a legitimate formation. Yeah.

You know, they're probably moving down this road. They don't think there's any Americans there to interfere with them. So they're just in ranks walking because it's an efficient way to walk. Yeah. But it's not an efficient way to fight. Yeah, it doesn't seem like you look. It's an efficient way to get mowed down by machine gun, which is exactly what happened. Yes.

Yeah, I could see that. Well, yeah. And so when they broke ranks, they all ran in different directions. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, let me ask you this as far as just in the spirit of understanding what that means, because it sounds real cool, in my opinion. Like I could just be throwing out that expression from time to time.

Not in a military sense, but, you know, I don't know. Well, they do use it in a non-military sense. Let's say there's 20 people and we come up with a plan and we're going to go forward with this new plan and then Echo decides it's going to do something different. There's an expression. Oh, Echo just broke ranks. Okay, yes, exactly right. And that's kind of what I was sort of trying to figure out, like, could I use it in that way?

Yes, you can. Because it sounds really cool. When instead of like, oh, yeah, I just started shooting at all of them, you know, I shot into their ranks. You know, like that sounds way cooler. But so could it be even loosely used in an official, on an official situation of just a group of people there, you know? Yeah. Right? Like they weren't necessarily in a specific formation, but they weren't necessarily in a specific formation,

but they were over there deliberately. I would say that was a bunch of people. Yeah. I would say that was a crowd of people. Right, right. If you say there's a bunch of people in ranks, they're organized. Yeah. Well, could they be interpreted as organized?

You know, like the kind where those two guys, let's say not military, maybe like, I don't know, your friends in the neighborhood and you don't like them, you know, a bunch of cousins or whatever, you don't like them. And they're over there on the corner, right? And you have maybe you and your brother, whatever. Right. You guys don't like them. They don't like you.

Whatever. And then you see them over there on the corner, assembled, not for any specific reason, but they're together, you know? Could you, in theory, refer to them as on the corner in ranks? In theory, yes, you could, but it wouldn't be accurate. Two people is not going to equivalent. No, the cousins. Let's say there's five cousins. Even five, you're, it's going to have a hard time getting, you know, being in ranks with five people.

Nope. To me, they're in ranks. So you're asking me for permission to use this word and then you're just, what I tell you, no. just doing it anyways. Yes, sir. Cool. Say whatever you want to say. It's you're the one that's going to look.

You're the one that's going to look dumb. And I didn't want to say it, but like this is where we're at. You sounded like you really did want to say it. But if, look, if, if, if, if, if those five. Is this the right thing to do? Call my friend dumb. Well, I guess it is. My friend wants to act dumb.

He's going to get called dumb. You can't just decide what you're going to call something. Look, if there's five cousins on the corner, altogether cruising. and me and my brother start running at them aggressively and they scatter, they broke ranks. Okay, I'll give you that. There you go. So then now I guess I'm dumb

because they would have had to been in some form of ranks. Yeah, so I look at this as like an understanding process. Okay. Do you understand? Yes, sir, I do. Thank you. I'm not even sure I understand it. So Hackworth goes AWOL because he wants to fight more.

Back to the book. Any man who's wild enough to go AWOL to fight is just the kind of man we want in our outfit, said Captain John Paul Vann when I stopped at his eighth Ranger camp fresh from my breakfast out of the 25th Recon Company. The Eighth Rangers was a great spirited outfit recently rebuilt after being decimated the night the Chinese entered the war. After I'd explained my situation, the whole outfit accepted me with open arms. The Rangers were elite troops, forerunners of the Special Force. Their mission was raids, long reconnaissance patrols, ambushes, and other special jobs that conventional troops were not trained to handle. Their history went back to Rogers Rangers before the Revolutionary War. During World War II, there had been six Ranger battalions whose brave and daring feats are unmatched to this day.

Historically, such all volunteers specially trained units had been misused, tasked either with impossible missions for organizations their size, or placed with palace guard combat duties well beneath their skill and ability. When I arrived at the 8th Ranger camp, the unit was chasing guerrillas behind the main lines. Moral was high and the guys were spoiling for a good fight, but during the time I was there, there was nothing much to my way of thinking anyway that seemed to be happening. I was impatient to get in the thick of it, and as proud as I was to be a ranger, guerrilla hunting was not my idea of infantry combat. Little did I know.

Then the starring roles that guerrilla hunting and ranger CEO John Paul Van would have later in my life. Besides, the word was that the Eighth Rangers was going to be broken up soon and something in me said to move on. So I did until I saw a sign by a road that proclaimed wolfhound white rear. Well, if that's not a guarantee for a good fight, I don't know what is, I thought, and high-tailed it to the battalion CP. The 27th Infantry Wolfhound Regiment was a colorful unit itself. The outfit had gotten its name during a stint in fighting the communists in Siberia during the Russian Revolution. In Korea, the wolfhounds were known as the Fire Brigade because whenever there was trouble, they were sent into Save the Day. They weren't a special unit, just a group of guys who thought they were good, so they were good.

I had to highlight that because that just teaches you something about leadership and about morale and about attitude and about a spree decor. You get guys and you convince them that they're good and they think they're good, they get good. They become good. I'd see members of the outfit regularly over the last months. whenever the 25th recon had sent their portion of the division was sent, had been sent their portion of the divisional front. And I'd always been knocked out by the, because these guys acted more like pirates on the high seas than as a regular army regiment.

To begin with, the wolfhounds wore their regimental crest on their fatigues like their metal of honor. Their spirit was just incredible. They were so totally non-military in terms of what I was accustomed to. They seldom wore steel pots. They modified their gear to make it more functional and simply got rid of things that weighed them down unnecessarily. The long wooden handle of the entrenching tool, for example, was cut off so it wouldn't rub against your leg. The packs were thrown away and you carried a tramps roll, which was quickly grounded when you got into a fight.

BARs were stripped of bipods and carrying handles, and scabbards were tossed with the bayonet living permanently at the end of the rifle. Grenades were carried in canteen covers. You could fit five. And if you wanted to carry a captured weapon, go for it. So these guys got a little bit of rebellion in them. Got a little rebellious attitude, which is a good thing. Got to be balanced, but it's a good thing. This renegade kind of soldiering was not only sanctioned,

but encouraged by the 27th regimental commander and fire chief, World War II paratrooper, Colonel John Iron Mike, Michaelis. Michaelis, who would go on to four stars, understood what made men fight. He was known for morale-boasting slogans like, you're lean, you're mean, you're rough, you're tough, you're professional killers, and pre-battle pep talks like, you're not here to die for your country, you're here to make those other so-and-so's die for theirs. The Wolfhound's proud combat record showed that they believed him. And they had eagerly adopted their commanders' no-nonsense brand of soldiering.

I was more than ready to do the same. The 2nd Battalion's XO pointed the way up the road to where the rifle companies were deployed. The first unit I came to was Company G, where I reported to First Sergeant Edwin Rager. I can always use another sergeant, this giant of a... The top kick roared. Then and there he assigned me to third platoon. Finally, with the assurance that I'd be picked up on the morning report, so I wouldn't be considered AWOL or MIA, I joined my new family.

At first, it was not the happiest of unions. I should have realized it wouldn't be easy. It's always a bitch to join a unit, particularly one as tight as the wolfounds as an individual replacement. And for some reason, it's even worse when you're an NCO. or an officer, you don't know anyone. And no one trusts you until you've proved yourself in battle. You get all the lousy details and only the worst battlefield horror stories.

You're just the new guy. You're just fresh meat. And add insult to injury, though I'd been a squad leader and acting platoon sergeant in Italy and a section leader in the 25th recon, now in the third of the G, I found myself an assistant squad leader. I was damned unhappy with the demotion. I probably had more non-com experience than any of the squad leaders in the platoon, but the fact was that in their eyes, I was untried and all protests to the

contrary fell on deaf ears. Doesn't matter who you are. Hackworth checking into a new unit. Got to prove yourself. It didn't help. I didn't help my cause any that evening soon after my arrival. When just at dusk, I got caught in a rice paddy, right smack dab in the middle of a blistering chink mortar attack. I started a run but slipped and fell in the paddy.

When I finally got back to my foxhole, I discovered that my water repellent outer trousers were covered with human shit, which the Koreans used for fertilizer. Unsurprisingly, the guy sharing my hole was unhappy about this as I was. I took off the trousers and made due for the night with two pairs of long johns and two pairs of long johns and two pairs of. of OD trousers I had on underneath. Then I sacked out until it was my turn to go on guard, leaving my foxhole partner to contend with the lingering aroma of my accident. Guard was a grueling ritual, mainly because everyone was so tired. Each squad had its own sector, normally four foxholes, each about four yards apart. The two guys shared a hole and took turns throughout the night searching into the darkness.

You'd look until you got tired, then glance at your buddy sacked out at the bottom of the hole. Then you'd look a little longer until while you thought, should I wake him now? Has he had enough sleep? Few guys had watches. To own a watch in an infantry squad during the first Korean winter was a luxury beyond imagination. So you spelled each other based on the honor system. And you only asked for relief when it was impossible to keep your eyes open any longer. Then your buddy would ask for a sit rep and that was it.

You'd be asleep almost before you'd zipped up your feather down fart sack. That's what they call the sleeping bags if you didn't pick that up the last time I used it. Guys didn't even have watches. What's happening? I asked when my foxhole partner woke me for my turn. Not a thing. He replied and he was out like a light. Still inside my sack.

I sat in the darkness in the edge of the hole. got my eyeballs unglued and tried to remember where I was. I was fantasizing about smoking a cigarette, drinking a hot cup of coffee, eating a charcoal black, rare steak, and getting a squad of my own when, to my amazement, I saw a man lying prone immediately to my immediate left rear. I woke up my buddy. There's a goddamn cheek almost on top of us.

We whispered through our options. We could toss a grenade, blast him with a rifle, or crawl out and get him with a knife. We decided on the third alternative because the guy was right in the middle of our squad position and rifle fire or a grenade could easily start a firefight among our own guys. The chink wasn't moving and his back was to us. My buddy covered me while I crawled out of the foxhole with my trusty M1 and 10-inch razor-sharp bayonet attached. I crouched in a crouched position.

I silently slipped up behind the enemy soldier. When I got within sticking distance, I drew my rifle and threw my rifle and threw. Thrust it with full force. Branches crackled and it was over. I'd bayoneted my own frozen stiff trousers, which I had earlier hung over a bush behind our foxhole to dry. The next morning I had to put the shitty things back on again, now with a hole in the ass as well.

And for some reason, the fresh meat was the only one in the squad who didn't think this was very funny. So that's how he, that's the impression he makes his freaking stabbing his own pants and its own shit covered pants in the middle of the night. Being a new guy is hard. Yeah, it seems like it.

Being a new guy is hard. Being a new guy is very hard. You cannot do these kind of things. It sucks when you do. Everyone's watching you. Yeah. You know, kind of when you're a new guy, kind of back off a little bit. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. Like just take a wrap off. Yeah, that whole first impression thing just in general. Yeah, because like the new guy, you don't have any evaluation criteria. Like there's no, like you didn't, you're not judged on anything because you don't have anything, you know. And then you start doing these weirdo things, stabbing your pants. You're like, okay, well, that's how this guy is. He stabs his own pants in the dark sometimes, I guess.

So yeah, you're weird. You're weird. And then so now you've got to kind of make up for all that stuff by doing a bunch of awesome stuff, you know. But I guess even beyond that look, okay, so let's admit that it's hard. but I guess what I'm saying is air on the side of not doing dumb shit. You know what I'm saying? Like if there's something, I could maybe do this and it might make me look good. But just think about, you know, once again, be negative when you plan.

Be negative when you plan. Think to yourself, you know, that might make me look cool. But also, if this goes sideways, it's going to look real dumb. Have you ever seen like fail things? videos. Yes, sir. It's, yes, sir. Right? Yes, very often. I mean, those are a legitimate thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's an addiction, by the way. So how many of those people in the five seconds before they attempt their whatever they're attempting? Yeah. How many of those people are actually thinking this is going to look really cool. Yeah. Yeah. So there's two of them. There's one girl, one guy. And they're the same thing. So it's like, oh, yeah, I'm going to jump in this icy pond. You know, with my, the guy. I, obviously. The C has his swimsuit on. The girl has her swimsuit or whatever. They're two separate videos, is what I'm saying,

but the same thing. So they go, you know, the girls like, this is why I come to you for this type of expertise, bro. This is where the whole world wins right now. This is the ultimate fail video. Yeah. So one of them, for sure. They're endless and I love them.

But, you know, great lessons in these videos. So. Now we're talking about freaking philosophical lessons we get from fail videos. Yes. Yes. I brought it up. They go deep. I brought it up.

Yes, sir. Yeah. I'm guilty. Yeah. So, you know, the girl's like, hey, okay, ready? The guy in the camera may or may not be in on it, whatever, says, okay, one, two, three, go. The girl jumps off this little pier, which is, you know, maybe two, three, three feet down into the water, the icy water, right? And the ice is just so thick that it doesn't even break.

So she just like, like, slams onto the ice. You could get really badly hurt. Oh, yeah. That's the thing. It's like, that's the genius. You can break. your neck. Yeah, or your back or your tailbone and all yeah. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. You can jammed up. People break their neck a lot diving into shallow pools or shallow you know water, pond water or whatever. Yeah, luckily they weren't trying to dive in. They were just, you know, regular jump. Oh, okay, cool, cool, go. Yeah. I feel a little better about it now. Yeah, I don't think

that wouldn't be a good idea even if it was thin ice to like dive. That's like some next level like not smart. That's the next level fail. Yes, sir. But no, you can still get hurt Imagine jumping off this table onto concrete Slippery concrete

That's essentially what it is, you know? So you mean ice? Yeah Slippery concrete doesn't break, doesn't crack And here's the thing I'm assuming they didn't get injured I'm sure it hurt for sure on a couple levels But when you watch it, it's real funny

Because you think they're going to like do like a cannonball or whatever And it's like it's real funny But yeah man It's that thing If you're the new guy and that's what you do, it's like, man, yeah, you're the guy who jumped on that ice and, like, jammed yourself up, you know? Yeah, just kind of reassess in those five seconds

before you're about to do something, just think, and look, I'm not saying you don't have to have courage and you've got to try things, you know? But just think maybe this isn't going to quite turn out the way I wanted it to. Yeah. A chance that this goes a little bit wrong. It's possible, yeah.

And if you're a new guy, you don't have that much leadership capital to spend on. recovering from this. Yeah. So just you got to be curious. Risks and stuff. Makes sense. Back to the book.

The war seemed lost. At best, it was hopelessly confused. I'd thought wars, at least American wars, had happy endings. Like capturing Berlin and Tokyo. All we were doing was yo-yoing

back and forth across the Korean Peninsula. Defeat, then victory, then defeat, and defeat. With G-Company 2, We were retreating, shuffling along, heading south, colder. Sometimes the temperatures were 20 degrees below zero and more tired than we'd ever been in our lives.

One day a snap thaw had us wading through mud on both sides of a mire that had once been a road. Jeeps and trucks slashed through it too. Each vehicle trying in vain to miss the rut of the vehicle in front so it's to not become bogged down. One jeep stalled and would not restart just as our column was passing by. The driver and lieutenant passenger Unasked the thing the lieutenant called for help to push it over to the side But before we could slosh through the quagmire and give him a hand He whipped out his pistol and aimed at one of the tires

I figured his daddy must have been an old horse soldier and had this guy was going to follow through with the Cav tradition of shooting his disabled mount and for sure pow Pau Pau But the last shot missed the tire it glanced off to the rim and boomerang back to strike the lieutenant right between the eyes we pushed the jeep and the warm still body off the road and then return to our column soon the temperature dropped the road turned to ice and we just kept heading south it hadn't meant anything the lieutenant's death for

openers what he'd done was dumb but more than that we'd become immune fighting a war on the ground is like a working in a slaughterhouse at first the blood the gore gorge to you but after a while you don't see it you don't smell it you don't feel it so what's another dead body it's almost as if you don't care in this case we just leaned forward kept walking and tried to ignore the song in our heads the ones the troops called the bugout blues so this is the life of a ground pounder I'd often think the risks were higher in the recon company but life in George was far more harsh at least in recon we frequently rode on the backs of our tanks and thus kept warm in the infantry it was just a plotting grind one foot after the other until the column stopped and we'd flop down the sound sound asleep before our heads touched the ground in recon we were seldom hungry because we stashed rations on the tanks in the infantry growling bellies were our constant companions in the infantry many men lost their will to live frequently guys would just quit

drop out of the moving column and plunk down on the side of the road sometimes with the Chinese within sight. You'd say, come on, buddy, get up. Let's go. You're going to be captured. And he'd say, I don't care. I can't go another step. A day felt like a week. And the more tired in infantry man became, the more he wanted to lighten his load. First would go the souvenirs. Then his extra ammo. Next would be the bulky gear, the field coat, the pile jackets. and the down sleeping bags, even though he knew he'd freeze that night. In the infantry I found, you live for right now. You don't give a damn about tomorrow because you don't even know if there'll be one.

It's weird. I know you like to talk about the long game versus the short game versus the strategic moves versus the tactical moves. But it's interesting when you think about what's happening right now with a human being and with human beings in general, as we encounter stress, as we encounter pain and suffering, we start to focus on just a short term, just a short term wind. And think about that from a life perspective. I mean, here you are, you know it's going to be freezing tonight. You know it's going to be freezing, but you don't want to carry this down sleeping bag anymore. So you just leave

it. Think about how crazy that is. But we make decisions all the time that, that we make decisions all the time that are that stupid but we want that short-term gratification well in a lot of cases relief like short-term relief which I guess as far as the game goes same thing so it's like relief gratification you know whatever yeah like there's a difference

but in the game as far as the game's concern that's what you're going for you know and like like a craving right craving like that's a relief that's the craving throwing away your down sleeping back. That's what it is. It's going to feel good right now.

Like you just got rid of three pounds. Yep. And by the way, back in the day, like these down sleeping bags, you know, like nowadays things are feather light. You know,

this is probably four or five pounds, which is a big difference when you're hauling that thing. But think about what that does. Think about, you're right, man. It's a craving, right? It's when you say,

oh, I really want to eat those Cheetos. You know, it's just not going away. I just want to, oh, I just, Those Cheetos are going to be good. Yep. And then even when, after you eat your, I don't know, chicken salad or whatever, Cheetos still sound kind of good, you know. It's still like a little, little thing that needs relief, you know.

Just like dumping this, my down parka. Yeah. That could keep me warm. Yep. But I think what it has to do with, see, there's a difference. What it has to do with is like one is caused by suffering. And you just get into this mode of just, basically surrender.

Maybe that is what happens in life. Maybe you get to a point we just kind of surrender to where you're at. Just kind of accept like, hey, this is just me. Yeah. And now, you know, Cheetos, no Cheetos, whatever. Donut. No donut.

I don't have the donut. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it, accepting where you're at. Yeah. And it's like, because where you're at is a place in your mind too. You know how like, even if you're making progress,

but you're used to not making progress, you know, when you're really used to it, it can happen like with my, Like if you have like a certain amount of money in your bank account when you're a kid or young man, whatever, if you're used to having like, you know, $20 in there, like just constantly, that's sort of the baseline or whatever. And then you're like, finally you get 100 or 500, 900. Ooh.

But you're used to having 20. It's like, yeah, like I'm making progress. I'm saving money. I'm saving. But you're used to having 20. Then you go out by that big screen TV. There's a chance that that'll happen. that back down to 20.

Exactly right. Because you accept where you're, you accept your place. Accept it. You can't do that basically. It's a bad idea. Yeah, like you have to like actively maybe like raise your,

for real, raise your standard. Now when you get the 900 in there, now the new standard is, I don't know, make it realistic, I guess, but 8, 800 should be the standard. Like the baseline now, you know?

So sure you got some wiggle room. Maybe you're not perfect. Maybe it's new to you. Okay, but the standard is eight. Like you start going below. eight, that's the same thing as having negative kind of attitude. But you got to really establish it in your head, you know? It's hard, though.

Very, very, very, because people are where they are and they kind of get used to it. That's why they, that's why they are where they are, because they're literally used to it, you know? Not like, like, pretend used to it. Is it good to get, well, never mind, is it? It's good to get that new standard and actually stay there long enough that you feel it. Yeah. That you get used to the new standard. That's the tricky part.

Yeah. You feel good. But then you're like, oh, and then you go back to your normal ways. Yep. First craving that comes about. Satisfying the craving. Relief from the crave, however you want to put it. Like, even like when you say suffering, it's kind of like, what does that really mean, you know?

I mean, there's certain levels of suffering for sure. Like, you can go deep into human suffering for sure. But really, to some people, like, not having a drink, suffering, you know, when they're like, or have a craving for ice cream or something like this, it's like to, it's kind of like, it's suffering. God, that's really a horrible stretch, isn't it? I mean, really, to think, like, I can't have ice cream. I'm suffering. Well, any kind of addiction, I'm assuming, you know, like, I've, the only addiction I've really dealt with as far as, like, seeing people is, like, a cigarette scenario where

they're, like, craving a cigarette so much. And it's like, man, it kind of seems like you're kind of suffering. I guess. I, my contention here is that not having ice cream, we cannot, uh, equivocal. that to suffer. I understand, yes. Bottom line is, let's be careful that we aren't thinking short term. Let's hang on to our sleeping back.

Let's carry the extra weight because in the long run it's going to pay off. Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. That seems like obvious suffering where you're like, hey, I'm going to need that tonight. You know, I'm going to literally need that to stay alive possibly. Yeah, not the kind where, oh, that'll serve nice tonight. That'd be cool tonight. It's not that. I'm going to need that tonight.

Or I risk death. And yet right now my suffering is so bad. I got to get rid of it to not have it tonight. Oh, yeah, man. That is. Back to the book. Now and then, if we were really lucky, we'd stop in a village and commandeer an abandoned house for 10 or 20 winks.

A Korean home had hard adobe mud floors under which lay an oven. The purpose of which was to provide central heating for the entire house. Of course, American soldiers had no idea how these things worked. And the first time around, we built the biggest fire we could and went to sleep shivering and bitching that the gooks didn't know how to do anything right. It turned out, though, that the previous occupants of our temporary abode had the last laugh. Throughout the night, the floors got hotter and hotter until some of the guy's jackets spontaneously combusted. And the ammo we laid on the floor blew up. Snow never looked so good.

So you're going one extreme to the other. On most nights, though, to stave off the cold, we'd employed the old soldiers' tricks from the bleak frozen days of Valley Forge. One was to stuff hay in a poncho and wrap it so tightly around two guys to keep in the body heat. Another was to fill your steel pot with coals

and embrace it all night long, a practice that continued despite a number of tired soldiers who died this way from asphyxiation. Another was to put a slug through your foot. In other words, shoot yourself in the foot. I'd thought about that one. Most of us did, but it always seemed too risky. You might blow your foot off, you might get caught and court-martialed, but one bitterly

cold night, when I would have done anything to get out of that place, I came up with a perfect solution. If I emptied most of the powder out of a grenade, I could toss it into my foxhole and blame it on a sneaky Chinaman. Better yet, if I chip the trench on the side of the foxhole with my bayonet I could contain the damage to my leg only all I'd have to do would be lay my body in the trench and stick my leg in the hole toss in a frag grenade and bang million dollar wound it was a wonderful idea somehow a lot better than the one I'd often saw during a firefight when a guy would stay in his hole and wave his arms or kick his legs like a chorus dancer hoping to catch a slug and the first boat back to the states and I spent all night digging

away working on the trench and thinking how warm I'd be back in sand Anamanica, the war vet who got it in the leg. I chipped and chipped away on the frozen ground, completely forgetting about the cold, the time, the fact that I needed some sleep, or that my buddy who was sleeping behind the hole may have had enough. Finally, it was ready. I hoisted myself into the trench, prepared the grenade, and dangled my leg in the hole. And I was just about to pull that pin when I saw the most beautiful sight, a site that every infantry man in Korea dreamed of seeing. It was the sun slowly rising. It meant the terrible night was over.

It meant I could light my fire and be warm again. So I forgot my little trench. And for a moment, forgot the other thing the sun meant, the beginning of yet another long day, another step south, the never ending a bitter taste of defeat in all our mouths. So this is hack. This is freaking Hackworth, who just went AWOL. to go because he didn't think his troops were fighting hard enough. He gets to the front lines. He is where he wants to be.

And even hack is thinking about either shooting himself or in the foot. And then beyond thinking about it, he comes up with a scheme with a grenade. And he actually executes the entire plan other than the actual event itself. And the only thing that stops him is that the sun's coming up. That's freaking insane. And I'll tell you, you know what I take away from that? Hold on a little bit longer.

the sun's going to come up. Hold on a little bit longer. The sun's going to come up. I posted something about that the other day because I was watching the sun go down and going through seal training. When the sun's going down and, you know, the instructors will be,

they line you up and they say, good night. Say good night to the sun, gents. It's going to be a long, cold, wet night. And they're just trying to make people think, hey, you got whatever, however many hours is going to be dark full. 12, eight, nine, it's going to suck.

It's going to suck. And that's what they want you to think about, how much it's going to suck. But if in the back of your mind, you go, eh, some will come up in the morning. They can't stop that from happening. Yeah. So you get in that tough situation.

Remember, the sun's going to come up. I don't know, man. You can get through it, man. Yeah, you got to admit, though, man. I kind of felt them for a little bit when he's like, digging the thing and thinking about how warm he's going to be. In Santa Monica, he had his full fantasy outstretched in front of him.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. And then, I mean, and then the standard starts to get shifted, kind of like,

oh, yeah, you're almost kind of used to, like, the warmth that you can imagine, you know? And to have that warmth kind of just taken away, meaning you've got to shift your plan back to, like, the reality or whatever.

And I can see how that could be hard. He's even got the fantasy of like, hey, the war vet. Yeah, yeah. You know, Happy guy got got hit in the leg.

He's got his whole fantasy planned out. He's ready to execute on this thing. And this guy is like born for combat. And that's how shitty this situation gets. Yeah. And that's like another thing. It says like how like how shitty it gets. Imagine what the other people are thinking.

Oh, yeah. Imagine what somebody that doesn't really want to be there. Oh, yeah. Imagine what's going through their freaking minds. Yeah. Back to the book. and then as if overnight everything changed. It turned out that despite the fact that I never saw a general on the battlefield,

apparently one lieutenant general Matthew Ridgeway had been all over the 8th Army front, assessing the situation and making his plans. I rode in an open Jeep, he would later write in his memoirs, and would permit no Jeep with the top up to operate in the combat zone, riding in a closed vehicle in a battle area puts a man in the wrong frame of mind it gives him an erroneous sense of warmth of safety his mental attitude is that of an ostrich poking his head in the sand also i held the old-fashioned idea that it helped spirits of the men to see the old man up there in the snow and sleet in the mud sharing the same cold miserable existence that they had to endure as a consequence i damn near fruit rose." End quote. Nevertheless, Ridgeway persevered.

With no quarter given, he banned the word retreat from the English language, at least insofar as correspondence could describe our miserable truck to the south. Quote, I'm more interested in your plans for attack, he told a staff officer when the latter offered up those for another withdrawal. He recognized even before we did that. Chinese offensive was running out of steam and sought to take advantage of it with deep patrols to the north to find out exactly how stretched the enemy was. Operation Wolfhound was the first of these and the fire brigade under the command of Colonel Mike Alice or Mike Ellis. One of General Ridgeways World War II airborne protégés was on the attack once more.

So now you have a totally different situation. The guy goes to the front line and he actually sees what's happening. And not only he see what his troops are going through, but he also sees what's happening with the Chinese. He sees them start to get thinned out. He sees maybe there's not as much pressure as he originally saw. So he can say, look, all right, we're done retreating. Here we go. Back to the book, two platoons of G Company and elements of the 89th Tank Battalion made up one of the task forces.

Name for and commanded by our own company commander, Jack Michael Lee. Task Force Mike Lee was given the mission of taking Sue Wan. And on the 16th of January, it did just that. The enemy was totally unprepared for the daring daylight assault. George was outside of artillery range. Captain Michael Lee, an old horse-calf man approached Sue Wan in the only way possible, frontally, down a road, never probed for mines and fast. My platoon, the third, was not involved in the Blitzkraig operation at all.

But when the other guys came back, having killed 150 enemy without a casualty of their own, in high spirits and with stories of Captain, Michael Lee sauntering across the streets of Sioux-Wan while enemy machine gun slugs thudded all around him our morale went sky high we were ready to take on the world meanwhile I got my squad and immediately set about instilling it with the trust standards and beliefs about the way things should be done so so he is now given a squad because he just showed up there and even though he's a new guy and even though he stabbed his own pair of shit covered pants with a bayonet in the middle of the night, he is still given

a squad. So I have to back up a little bit. So he talks about this trust, capital, capital, capital, capital, capital, capital, capital, capital, capital, capital, capital, capital, capital, capital, capital, when he first got in the army, as I mentioned, he went to Europe. When he went to Europe, he was not in combat because the war was over, but there was these old timers there. And he explains, I'm going to abbreviate a little bit,

but he kind of talks about what it was like and where he developed his, I want to say his personality, really. And, you know, like I was, I always tell people, when you go on the SEAL teams, your first platoon leaves a big mark on you and definitely your first two platoons. And the teams have become a lot more similar. than they used to be, all the different seal teams.

They're a lot more similar than they used to be. They used to have much more of their own personalities. Team one, the nickname for Team One, which is where I was, was Stalog Team One, because it was, you know, you had uniforms, inspections, and you had, everyone had short hair, and they inspected your haircuts and all this stuff. Team 5 was kind of, you know, they were kind of wild,

kind of just do, you know, they had no inspections. And they were just kind of, they had the image of being more wild. Then Team 3 was sort of a little bit in between, but they were also sort of, they seemed like shy, for lack of a better word. Like Team 3 was just kind of like they were just doing over there doing their thing. They were also disconnected because they were deploying to Southwest Asia back then. And Team 1 and Team 2 were deploying to Southeast days. So they were a little bit disconnected, which made him seem a little bit more shy. I guess I don't know if that's the right word, but they were just a little bit more,

they were kind of on their own program. Team one on one end of the spectrum, Stalach, Team 1, Team 5, kind of wild, team three, somewhere in the middle. Everyone had their own personalities. And the East Coast had their own personalities too. And they kind of lined up a little bit, except for the fact that Team 2 and Team 1 were sort of the traditional old school ones. That's why when I went from Team 1 to the East Coast, I tried to go to the East Coast. I tried to go to Team 2 and I did. Team 4 was more like the wild one.

Team 8 was kind of in the middle. That's back in the day. Now the teams are very similar because they all kind of are on the same rotation. You're going the same types of deployments. So they're much more similar. But wherever you spend your early days leaves an impression on you.

And that's kind of what happened to hack. He shows up into this environment. And I'm going to go into it here. Back to the book, gradually. So now we're going back in time. It's the end of World War II. The fighting's over, but he's deployed and he's in Europe. Back to the book, gradually, most of the World War II warriors

that went back to the States and the post-war Wild West feeling of lawlessness went too. It had been great fun for a kid to be part of the hell for leather spirit that made up the 752nd, the 75 deuce. But like the tightening of a screw, one turn at a time, each day the unit became more military. The who gives a damn attitude of the remaining 752nd combat leaders and troopers replaced by the exacting discipline of the peacetime army. For the next four years, I learned my trade. One year with the recon company of the tank battalion in the Po Valley and three more months with Treesed United States troops. And that's where an acronym Trust comes from.

Treesed United States troops. The illustrious unit whose 5,000. handpicked members, Walter Winchell called, quote, the chrome-plated soldiers of Europe. We worked hard during those years, long, merciless days of training, repeating, training, repeating, repeating until we got it right. Our transformation into soldiers inspired and monitored by those battle-savied NCOs who well knew that discipline and tactical proficiency on the battlefield were the direct, results of discipline and combat skills instilled on the parade and training grounds.

At night, it was down on our hands and knees, all of us, hand-waxing the barracks floors until we had enough money to chip in and buy a buffer. You could eat off those floors, just as you could almost be blinded by the brass belt buckles and brown boots that each of us wore, polished every night to a dazzling finish. The only way out of these activities was sick call but rarely was it used as an excuse it took as much effort to see the dock you had to strip your bed cram all your perfectly pressed clothes into a duffel bag see the supply sergeant and then the first sergeant not to mention the lion's share of a month's pay you'd spend having your clothes repressed when you came back as it did to continue with a normal routine punishment was meted out by a process

known as nCO justice i love saying that for crimes such such a as a uniform of less than starched perfection, a bed that didn't bounce a quarter, or even a mildly insubordinate smirk. The sentence could range from 50 push-ups to double timing around the parade field, holding a 9.5 pound M1 rifle over your head, yelling, I'm a shithead, I'm a shithead until you collapsed. We rarely saw an officer above our platoon leader, and he was seldom with the truth because of administrative duties, but no one seemed too concerned about it.

and below the chain of command it was well recognized that as fathers teachers older brothers and chief tormentors entreates the nCO core had no equal so that's what he's talking about when he's talking about this trust attitude of discipline and training hard that's where it comes from so so now we're back to korea we're back to him getting a squad and here's what he does meanwhile i got my squad and and immediately set about instilling it with my trust, standards, and beliefs about the way things should be done. I got out a notebook and wrote down each man's name, rank, and serial number, his blood type, weapon number next of kin, and whatever training and combat experience he had. I started demanding that rifles be cleaned and that shoulders shape up.

If I saw a soldier walking around without his weapon, the next thing he knew he'd be on the deck crawling to it. While I stood by kicking him and telling him that with each kick was that he was being hit with a slug, Brutal stuff. I'd learned it in basic training with Lieutenant Kramer at the Fort Knox rifle range kicked my arm until I positioned it correctly under my weapon. But that's how a guy learns. Besides, better my foot and a mythical slug than an enemy slug and a goodbye friendly foot arm or life. That's how a guy learned.

you want to talk about a politically incorrect unpopular thing to say yeah I remember when I was a new guy I remember some of the older guys saying to me you know sometimes people need to get beaten so that they learn and you know what I said that's correct it's actually accurate I hate to say it because everyone hate I don't hate to say it.

It's the truth. Like sometimes you need to learn a lesson the hard way. And if you don't think it's a big deal, oh, whatever. It's a big deal. Yeah. So that's what he's saying. That's how a guy learns. Once again, what do we have?

We have 18, 19, 17, 21-year-old men who's, what, is it the frontal cortex what is it the frontal lobes they're not fully developed yet yeah yeah they understand physicalness physicality yeah yeah that's one of those things that it's kind of universally like understood you know pain is not good you know yeah some people can take more pain than others for sure but after a while it's like we all kind of don't like pain of course of course, there's weirdos or whatever, but for the most part, they're like these things that if you start to threaten, it's like, you know, it's valuable to people. Here's the other thing.

This is a fucking harsh environment, right? This is war. You're getting people ready for war. You're getting people ready to kill. You're getting people ready to freeze. You're getting people ready to suffer. You're getting people ready to have to march for miles and miles and miles with no food, with no sleep.

Like, this is what the job entails. And if you think you can pamper someone and that's going to effectively prepare them for those type of situations, I don't think that's accurate. Yeah, I think you're right about that. Back to the book, my guys thought I was crazy and a prick to boot. They still didn't believe I paid my battlefield dues. Little did they know that they were doing the paying in spades for me. making me get that sergeant combat feeling all over again. Then came 6th February, which we talked about on the last podcast.

Part of another reconnaissance in force mission, code named Operation Thunderbolt, which turned into a full-scale attack, and I never got to complain again. So after his performance, which we talked about on 249, what he did to lead that day, back to the book. In fact, the reaction was the direct opposite. No longer was I the hard-ass sergeant who arrived out of the book. blew with strange ideas of discipline and training. Now I was just hack, hack, the great fighter who'd gotten shot in the head, courageously saving lives and inflicting punishment on the

enemy. It was a great relief, knowing I would not have to prove myself to anyone anymore. But what I didn't know at the time was that the name I made for myself on 6 February 1951 was one I'd have to live up to for the next 20 years. So he and this is a story that gets repeated throughout his life He kind of shows up somewhere He has the hardcore mentality people kind of question it But then they see how it enables them and and and protects them in combat and then they're kind of they're there they're down for the cause Back to the book it seemed ironic that the thing that saved my life on that day was the very thing I hated most in Korea the cold the blood kept pumping and this is when he's referring back to when he got shot in the head

The blood kept pumping, but it froze almost as soon as it came out of my head. After the dock patched me up with the Carlisle bandage, I radioed Captain Michaelie and gave him a sit rep. I'd already appointed another NCO to skip for the platoon. Michael Lee told me that to head for the road behind which Gilchrest platoon was fighting. He would send a litter jeep there to pick me up. The platoon dock always worried about his flock, wanted to tag along. I told him I'd make it. policed up one of our deads M1s and headed off. I kept low using the rice paddy walls and irrigation

ditches for cover. I probably wouldn't have felt it if I'd gotten hit again anyways because during my run back down the drainage ditch, I'd fallen through the ice and been soaked from the waist down. The water and zero degree weather turned my lower torso into a block of ice. My head was spinning and my balls were frozen and I wasn't sure which one worried me more. Then I came upon PFC Charles. the guy had earlier tasked to take the two North Korean POWs we'd captured during that morning to the old man for interrogation. Charles was sitting in a drainage ditch by the road eating a can of sea rations. At his feet were the prisoners stretched out in the ditch, dead, each from a single bullet in the back of the head.

I was outraged. Why'd you kill them? They tried to escape, he said simply, but I didn't believe him. Besides, he continued, I wasn't going to read. risk my ass to get two gooks out of here. There wasn't much I could do. I told him to report back to the platoon. Gilcrest later told me that Charles had received word only days before that his brother

had been killed in action over in the second division. Not too good a choice for an escort. Hack, he'd remark drawing on his pipe. I continued on. Small arms and machine gun fire was skipping down the road. I gave it all a big miss and kept to my little ditch. I headed south until I met Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Murch, our old battalion CO, who was controlling the battle from his tactical CP behind a roadside knoll a few hundred yards from the front.

There I was placed on a litter in a medical Jeep, and as we bumped down the road, all I could think was, hallelujah, got it made, I'm leaving this goddamn place. Or so I thought, because just then the jeeps radio crackled on. First platoon, George Company, got a serious wound, real bad. Get there fast. He'll be on the side of the road. I couldn't believe it. Let me out.

I'll wait here. So he's getting out of it on this Jeep. And all of a sudden over the radio says, hey, we need that Jeep back here. And hack we're thinking, let me out, bro. Let me out. I'll wait here, I thought. But I was too weak, too tired, too cold to get the words out. The Jeep spun around and headed back up that fire swept road.

Pass Colonel Merch right into the jaws, the whole goddamn communist army. We stopped. The medics calmly sauntered out to pick up the other casualty. They took all the time in the world or so it seemed while the enemy used the large red cross markings on the Jeep for target practice. The jeep's canvas sides were being ventilated. The slugs were passing above and below my litter. I felt totally helpless and swore that whoever the wounded guy was, I would hate him for life, which from the way things were going was not going to be long. It turned out he was a buddy through the Hawaiian Mafia connection, a handsome six-weigh.

footer named Ray Mendez. I almost kept my kept to my word though when I found out his critical wound to be a slug in the thigh. When he'd been hit, he'd rolled up in a ball, blood had squirted out of his leg all over the front of his jacket and someone had concluded that he had taken it in the gut, oblivious to the fight raging on all signs of our thin-skinned ambulance, Jeep. Mendez became chirpier and chirpier as we headed out of the battle area. He sang praises of his million-dollar wound and spun dreams about his in imminent return.

to the islands me one big war hero bra he said the regimental collection collecting station was jammed with casualties the surgeon who bent over my litter was covered with blood like a butcher we're going to bypass division clearing and send you straight to mash at Sioux Wan he said you're on your way home the next stop was quick Mash was near the emergency runway at Sue Wan the doc there wrote on my wounded leg My wounded tag emergency air evac which somehow scared me and before I knew it I was strapped down to the deck of a C-47 We took off just at dark Why don't they close the goddamn door? I thought

It had to be open because I'd never been colder I was shaking like a jackhammer I couldn't feel my hands or feet a flight nurse stayed right with me another onomous sign ominous sign. So he's getting like, they put airy vac immediately. He's like, oh, God, that means I must be really wounded bad. He's got this flight nurse staying right with him. She piled on blanket after blanket with no effect. Just as I was reaching the point where I didn't know if I could take it anymore, we landed in Pusan and it was another world. Paradise, in fact, a heated ambulance was waiting. As they loaded me in, I felt like that old bull weevil who lived in the red hot fire, Mighty warm, but nice. I'd found a home. I fell asleep and didn't wake up again until I was being winched aboard the hospital ship USS Haven in Pusan Harbor. I opened my eyes and everything I saw was white, clean, and oh so warm. Medics were starched. The nurses all looked like Doris Day. I was stripped, placed in crisp white sheets with soft blue blankets. I was safe and suddenly starving.

A medic came down to the immediate rescue with a delicious hot meal. I wolfed it down just in time for the next wonder of wonders, a beautiful young nurse in a tight little white outfit who came to clean me up. Why didn't I join the Navy, I thought? Except for my bath in the Korean tub, I hadn't washed in more than two months. I was caked with dry blood, Korean mud, and God only knew what else. Each time the nurse scraped off one filthy layer, she'd have to change the sheets and start again it took four sheet changes with no help from me because as a head

wound I wasn't allowed to move at all next the poor girl had to shave off my ratty beard bad hygiene and ingrown hairs had covered my face with boil like pimples it was too terrible to be funny watching the nurse bobbing and weaving all over the place to avoid flying debris every time that razor hit one of the anti personnel minds buried in my cheeks the next few days were a haze sleep Really hard sleep people standing over me having whispered consultations blood IV x-ray after x-ray Doctors probing asking questions how many fingers do you see I slowly regained my strength Someone somebody commandeered my Waltham watch I never saw it again the sleep was good I caught up on months of it lost

But then I started getting restless The ward though spotlessly clean and staffed with talented dedicated dedicated prose was an extremely depressing place we were all head wounds most either terminal or vegetable cases it was amazing that many it was amazing that many young boys all of them were still sucking in air one guy had tubes running out of everywhere he'd caught a slug right between the eyes I wanted out I'd had my little vacation I told the docs I'm ready to return to my platoon, there's nothing wrong with me.

The doctors probably thought that the bullet had done some pretty serious damage to my brain. Nobody wanted to go back to the front. They didn't realize that the guys in third platoon were my brothers, my family, and I loved them. I'd only been with them three weeks. It was true. But in combat, that's a lifetime. And I didn't want to leave them out there alone. if by being there I could help keep them alive,

keep them out of a head wound ward. I want to go back. I kept telling them. Well, he did go back. He healed up. He healed up pretty quickly and went back to his platoon by mid-March. So he was out for maybe a month and a half. and you know

this book is just incredibly good by the way that's page 69 of an 800 page book that's where we're at page 69 of an 800 page book just in Korea he's going to get two more purple hearts

he's going to get battlefield commissioned he's going to take command of a new raider unit he's going to go on offense against the enemy he's going to get awarded three silver stars then he's going to go back to America he's going to volunteer for another tour with the 40th infantry division and then that war is going to end and he's going to stay in the army and he's going to go through all the political things that you have to go through to move up the chain of command and then he's going

to eventually deploy to Vietnam as a battalion operations officer as a battalion commander he's going to go there with with SLA Marshall and then he's going to go and he's going to be a battalion commander for the 439th infantry And eventually he conducts his famous or his infamous interview, depending on how you look at it, with the issues and answers where he disparages a lot of the senior army and a lot of the civilian leadership, after which he is drummed out of the army rapidly. And all the, I mean, these events that take place, They're all documented with such detail.

And it just gives so much information about leadership, about human nature, about the way people act, about why people do what they do. There's so much to learn from this book. So we're almost at two hours right now. What an honor it was for me to have written the forward to this thing, this book that had such a huge impact on me. Check it out.

Check out the book. Well, one thing that's cool about it is you don't have to, look, it's 800 pages long. You don't have to read the whole book in one sitting. You know the story. I just told you the story. The story is about a guy that's, that freaking loves his troops throughout his career, and you pick it up anywhere and you read what he's going through for two or three pages. I guarantee you'll get a lesson out of it.

It's that good. And you don't have, you don't have to read the whole thing at once. You will. You'll want to because you'll want to know what's going to happen. Like I said, we're on page 69 right now. And by the way, we skipped a bunch. I skipped a whole section because he kind of talks about the opening action scene that I talked about. Then he kind of goes into how he ended up in the Army and he goes through the World War II and he goes through the trust troops and all that.

Then he picks back up with Korea. So we didn't even cover, we probably covered 40 pages out of an 800 page book. So check out the book. It will teach you. valuable leadership lessons and it will teach you how to become smarter as leader and it will teach you how to become a better person about face Colonel David Hackworth speaking of being better echo Charles yes sir do you have any let's say recommendations sure recommendations well actually back to the Hawaiian guy me one

big war hero bro yeah it's not me he didn't say me what do you say I because in Pigeon. No, well, I'm sure Hackworth, I'm sure Hackworth maybe remembered it incorrectly. Hackworth was wrong is what I'm hearing. Okay. I'm just saying in Pigeon, you don't say me. I might have read it wrong. No, that's what he says.

Yeah, he says, me one big war hero bra. Yeah. So he used incorrect pigeon. I won big war hero. Yeah. Okay. Also, it kind of reminded me like, this just totally never thought about this, but when I'm realizing in pigeon, you say one instead of a, like a, like, hey, toss me a beer, whatever.

Toss me one beer. One beer, yeah. It's weird. It's like a subtle difference right there. Toss my one beer? No, not, no, no, no. I, you say I. Like, for I.

But one is like, you know, like in non-Pigeon, we'll say, for like a better term, you say, you say one, you say one, only when the option of more than one is considered in the scenario. you know but in pigeon you just say one just means a whether two or more or whatever is considered or not got it's what I'm saying toss me one beer huh I won big war hero as opposed to I'm two big war heroes they see what I'm saying I'm a big war you see you see the translation right I'm right that's why you're here man yeah one of the if need be yes yes all right so okay becoming better so thinking about this the other day you know my neighbors are over and they ask hey do you work out every day I was like yeah well I try to you know the whole deal you work out every day right

jocco yes every day like seven days a week I mean that's kind of the the plan the here's the deal I will try and work out every single day sometimes you have a travel day you know the flight's at 615 I got to bed at 11 do I am I going to get up at 315 Or no, even earlier than that, three. No, my body could probably use the extra sleep more than it could use the workout. Yeah, exactly. But I know that there are days like that out there. So therefore, I don't voluntarily take days off.

Yeah. Yeah. So. And kind of, yeah, I dig it. Same deal, more or less, you know. But why, like, why do you work out every day? I'm not saying you shouldn't. I'm just saying you ever think about, like, why do you work out?

every day, you know? And then, like, how do you work out every day? Like, what? Like, why? Why? I work out every day so I can stay in shape, bro. Yeah, but you don't have to work out every day to stay in shape. Okay. That's the thing. There has to be more to it than that. I think it's good for you.

Mentally and physically. See, there you go. Mentally, right? Mentally, that's such a broad thing to say, though, too. And I mean that in a good way. I don't mean it, like, whoa, that's a cop. I'm not saying that. I'm saying like that's, yeah, mentally, man, that's a big deal mentally where that's part of like essentially like your life. You know, it's part of like who you are.

Yeah. That's the discipline. Yeah. And there's a lot of things like that, but they seem like real small because so many people do it. You know how like, you know, some people they make their bed every single day, right? There's that. And then there's like, okay. Then you get all the way down the spectrum, like obvious things like, oh, I brush my teeth every day or whatever.

you know but man you're essentially if you want to call it the path like working out every day beyond the physical benefits and you know whatever being stronger whatever working out every day is like

it's one of those things where if you can adjust your standard to that in that way that's a good thing that it that'll yeah that'll keep you that'll keep you in a place that's like, I guess that's why we call it the path.

It'll keep you on the path. Yeah, I think that developing a pattern is very positive. Right. So in a way. And sticking to the pattern. Yeah. Once you deviate, let's face it, you lose momentum. And that's a good way to develop a pattern as far as staying in shape, working out.

Because let's face it, like working out a lot of times, like we can consider that as like kind of low on the priority list for a lot of reasons. and I understand. But if you're a whole thing is like, no, I work out every day the same way I freaking brush my teeth every day, you know? It's like part of the day. I floss my teeth every day. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's like one of those things too. That started when I joined the Navy. What flossing? They said floss your teeth every day. I was like, okay. And I started doing it every day. Cool, man.

Yeah, see. And that's good. The reason I laugh is because it's funny how it's like that simple for you. Yeah. You know? Like, the dentist tells you to floss. Oh, yeah. You get told that your whole life.

But then they're like, okay, they say, hey, fostered you every day. Okay, Roger that. So, yeah. Hey, how about this? Work out every day, every single day. Good move. Well, but it is a good way to get on the path. I feel like there's some place where you're going with this.

I feel like this is a building up to some statement. Yeah, and here's it's not building up to a statement. Okay. Well, that's kind of a big letdown. Because I was thinking you had some kind of philosophical eureka moment. Yeah. I mean. But basically what you're saying is work out every day.

day. I have a philosophical moment. It'll take you that long to say it. It's kind of making me wonder. I'm telling you why you should work out every day. Because let's face it, like if you just say, hey, work out every day, there's a lot of pushback. You can get. Like, no, you need rest days. No, you need, you know, like there's a big philosophy to it. But working out every day, just like how you said, which I'm glad you did, by the way, it's a, it's a mental thing. Yes. Of course, physical, but that's obvious. Yeah. It's a mental thing. So, and then you, additionally, you said, to, you know, make it a, what, a routine or whatever, like, it's just part of your day.

Develop a pattern. Develop a pattern. Yes, exactly right. That's a good way to develop the pattern is you just automatically assume and do it every day, just automatic. That's part of the day, you know, not like, oh, I want to try to get a workout in today. You know, it's not that. It's like, it's more of a given, you know, kind of thing.

It's a weird thing that I'll say to people. You're like, how do you die? Yeah, sure. Yeah. Or they're like, what do you say to yourself? I don't say anything. Yeah. I don't even, it's a weird thing to say.

I don't even think about it. Yeah. I don't sit there and be like, well, you know, I have worked out for five days straight. So I really probably don't actually need to work out today. I could you, you know, it's like, you know, I actually read once four years ago in a muscle and fitness magazine that, you know, five days in a row is a bit too much to work out. You should take that whatever day off. You always can find 80 million ways to rationalize. You should know what the Bulgarians actually on their periodization cycle.

They only, you know, like there's a million different. I was reading about Michael Phelps. And even though he trained hard, there was always one day a week that he would just rest. Like everyone's got a million different rationalizing things that you can put in your head. Yeah. Yeah, even though they're not Michael Phelps. That's the rationalizing thing. There's a, there's a TV show that it's called Alone.

And it's a TV show called Alone. They put people out in the wilderness. I heard about it on Joe Rogan because he had one of the winners on the show. And I didn't even hear that. I just heard Joe Rogan mention it. He was like, yeah, this show was crazy. They put them out. And so I was with my wife and my youngest daughter,

and they were looking for something to watch. And I go, I go, well, hey, there's a show called Alone. It's about being alone in the wilderness. Long story short, everyone quits. And the show goes on until only one person is left. Everyone else quits. So. They're in different places.

They're alone in the wilderness. Okay. They're alone in the wilderness. Oh, with each other though? No. They're alone. Isolated? Yeah, yeah, got you.

Alone. So as you watch this, you see people and they're, they have cameras with them, so they're talking to themselves. Yeah. And it's been funny to watch because you can see people when they're going to quit. And you're like, oh, they're rational. So now, now I've got my youngest daughter who's 11. When someone starts rationalizing, she says, oh, he's rationalizing.

Because, you know, someone will say, you know, I could stay out here for a long time, but you know, I really miss my family. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're like, oh, he's rationalizing. Or I just don't know if it's worth, you know, what this is doing to my body. I've done some stuff to start stuff to my body,

and I'm starting to think about, even though the money would be nice, but. So we start rationalizing. And the reason that, I mean, you'd see that in seal training. In seal training, you'd see someone say, you know, I don't know if, you know, I've actually probably going to get married and I don't know if it's the right thing to do to put my girlfriend through this. And you're like, okay. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Definitely don't want to put your wife through this. Go quit. Yeah. Go quit. That's so true. So it's so easy to rationalize things. Rationalization is the enemy. And that brings me back to where I started this, which was I'm not thinking about it because I know that my, I know that my, I know that my, I know that my.

my rationalization, my powers of rationalization can win. I can convince myself 48 times. I just quoted a muscle and fitness magazine from 1987 that said that the Bulgarians ensure that they get at least one complete day of rest for every five days of working out. You can support any crap that you want to support if you just want to rationalize with yourself. Be irrational. Be irrational.

Shut up. do what you're supposed to do. Yeah. That rationalizing is, I'm very successful person in regards to rationalizing stuff. Everyone is. Everyone is. You also know your own,

you know what to say. You know how to, like you're into being healthy, right? And you're like, yeah, you know, I did see that, I did watch, just watch that YouTube video and they talked about the value of rest. It actually is more important.

It's actually more important than diet and lifting the most important thing is rest and I think I've been really I don't think I think I think I actually in order to truly have discipline I need to have the discipline just to not work out today. That's going to take discipline. These are all lies. They're all just lies. They're all just rationalization. I like today. I was lifting today. But But I was rationalizing prior to lifting, I was rationalizing. I'm sitting there like observing myself rationalizing. And what I had to do is actually I was feeling a little tweak in my leg, in my knee. No, very minor. But I was like, well, you know, maybe a day, you know, just let that thing heal up. Don't want it.

And it's like, no, actually shut up. Yeah. And I lifted lighter. Yeah. But I didn't rationalize. Yeah. I was like, okay, cool. But hurt leg, good.

You know, it's a good thing to combat rationalizing. And I will all just think. Yeah, shut up and do what you're supposed to do. That's one thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. But what I do or sometimes if I have the strength is all imagine like, you know how like it all come with you with an excuse or something?

And you always have some work around for the excuse every single time like somewhere. And it's like, man. if you can just imagine kind of what jocco would say right now you know because you could legitimately have a tweak in your knee you could and in varying levels it could be like almost like hey if you start doing this squat routine that you have planned like you will make it worse for sure you know but you can also just use your other leg yeah some other stuff use pistols oh yeah some other stuff about that how's that sound oh yeah and a lot of times like that other stuff's like man I'd rather battle through the pain to be honest okay so when you go surfing

Sometimes it's like cold, miserable. Maybe the waves aren't that great. But you know you should go. So Stoner and I, we had this rule for a little while. When we got to our surf spot, we could either go surfing or if you don't want to go surfing, that's fine. But now you have to swim around the pier. So it's like that's the deal. So guess what you do?

You go surfing. And you know you should go surfing anyways. Even if you get two good waves, it's worth it. And you got to work out. You know you got to paddle but you're either going to so you should have an alternative like hey you can either work out today Or you can whatever whatever so miserable thing is that sucks worse than working out Yeah right yeah I'm gonna come up with that thing Yeah so and actually I actually do that but it's still working out so it's like a version of that

It's it's a perfect it's analogous to your surfing thing it's either do the workout plan yeah Or do this Metcon. It's a specific Metcon. There's two of them. If I did this one, the last time I did Metcon, I'd do this other one. That's it. They're just two. So it's like either do the full workout or do the Metcon.

So if it's like, man, if you think your knee is tweaked or whatever, you can do the Metcon. That's cool. Yeah, I like it. There you go. And it's like it's right on the borderline of the workout and the Metcon suck the same. Equally. But you know how sometimes you're just not in the mood to do that workout?

Yeah. And then sometimes you're really not in the mood to do the METCon. It's weird how sometimes you want to do, sometimes you would prefer to do a METCon and sometimes you would prefer to lift heavy. Yep. Right? It's okay. It's okay.

What's not okay is I don't feel like lifting heavy, so I'm just not going to do anything. Or I don't feel like doing a METCon, so I'm just not going to do anything. Yeah, exactly. What you want to do. I like that option. You can either do this or that. And I do that to a certain level. You know, if I, if I just, whatever, I don't feel like doing anything that's going to be a MECCon.

scenario I'm gonna lift heavy you know and I'm gonna grind it out too not like I'm gonna say oh well I'm just gonna you know yeah no I'm gonna get some that's why I like the MECON because the MECON is very specific like you either did it or you just didn't do it correctly you know kind of thing like it has the the rest in between each race it's basically circuit training yeah essentially and I got to do a certain weight a certain amount of reps per thing so it's there it's not like oh I'm gonna go light or I'm gonna slack it's kind of hard to slack because it's like real glaring if you do. So yeah, you're choosing one or the other.

I don't care what you're in the mood for or not in the mood for. Like, you got to do one, you know. But if you, so I always have that in play. Always. Yeah. And it works. Yeah, it's good to give yourself a shitty alternative. Yes.

Yes, sir it is. In these cases, for sure. Yeah. Well, anyway, hopefully we are on the path. Whether you're working out every day or not, I'd say, I recommend. Work out every day. Here's the thing. If you're hurting yourself or something like that, don't do that workout.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Don't do something that's going to injure you. Yeah. But don't do nothing. Don't do nothing. Do a very deliberate workout every day. And the point is there too is like that after a while it does just become normal. Like just like making coffee or maybe, you know, like every day.

It's just, oh, that's sort of just what you do every single day. It's like, right, it becomes that, you know? And boom, you're a new person. Boom. Just like that. Just like that. Anyway, we're all on the path. We're working out of it every day.

Hey, look, your joints get sore. I get it. Right? My knees actually sore. Actually sore. But I did squats super hard the other day. You know the kind where mentally you go into like getting, getting more reps or whatever in squats too.

And so mentally you kind of, it's almost like a, you turn off a certain part of your mind, you know. So, and your body just has to like basically facilitate their ass. But then when you're done, when your mind switches back on, you're like just in pain. You know how you got to basically pay the price mentally afterwards? You're on the road to recovery, which is cool. But anyway, it was one of those scenarios. And yeah, my knees were weird, strangely sore on the inside. I don't know.

Oddly. It's fully healed now, too. By the way, that was two days ago. Nonetheless, point is sometimes your joints get sore. mine too jocco's too when you get older we're all getting older I know no matter how old you are nah we're not getting older no but like

everyone goes oh it's because you're getting older no because you're not taking care you're taking care less yeah and also like when I was younger you have sore yeah it's not worse yeah mine's not really worse I feel like my capacity maybe my enthusiasm sometimes less

but that might be just because I got more stuff going on as an adult you see what I don't know. Nonetheless, if your joints are sore, don't worry. Jocco is. When did you become an adult? How old were you? I want to say like mid-30s.

I think it was mid-never, to be honest with you. But I don't know. I think it's a slowly, slow gradual. We're still heading there. We're working hard. Kids, kids move that forward when you have kids. You start to become an adult pretty quickly. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Certain elements switch. I mean, you've got like humans. that now rely on you for your food for their food so kind of for everything and everything else yeah like and roof yeah like and health health fucking development life yeah their whole freaking existence bunch of things we're talking about yeah so that can that can switch on the adult circuits for sure for sure how old your how old your oldest seven yeah so I was probably right probably mid 30s you

started kind of moving in the direction of yeah I think so too nonetheless I don't have sore joints at the moment. And that is because what I was trying to tell, are everyone, the people, our people, Jocko has supplementation called Jocko fuel. The joint stuff is joint warfare.

There is also super krill oil, which has other health benefits, by the way. But anyway, in combination, this will keep your joints in the game working out seven days a week, working out five days a week,

whatever. Working out nine days a week. Nine days a week. All of that stuff. These will keep them together the whole time. You're going to be worried about your gains, not your joints. Dang. Check them out.

I'm just saying that these are. Hey, also, vitamin D. Now we're in the midst of the pandemic. And everybody is saying take vitamin D. Thankfully, we make vitamin D. Vitamin D3. Get some of that. You can also get Cold War, which is immune health, which, again, these are products

that we've had. And it's pretty cool that a lot of people are recommending them right now so you can stay healthy. And then on top of all this working out that you're doing, you're probably going to need some what Echo likes to call additional protein. Yes, additional. Well, because, you know, there's a debate, if you will, depending on your lifestyle, of how much protein you should have. Is it what I'm saying? So if you want a supplement protein, I recommend. How many people are listening to this right now?

Yeah, about six. Zero. There's four people. Nonetheless, it doesn't even matter. It doesn't even matter because for those six people, they're going to hear this. They're going to hear fire. Yes, exactly. They're going to hear fire.

As far as fire goes, yes. Nonetheless, if you're going to supplement protein, you might as well have it in the form of dessert. That's what smoke is. I know, strange name. I get it. Nonetheless, supplement your protein like a dessert. Do it that way. We've got some kids protein, too, warrior kid protein.

Because why would you feed your kid something that's actual poison? You wouldn't do it. You'd get them more your kid milk. They will love it. You will love that they're having it. They will be healthier, stronger, smarter, better. They're going to have a massive deadlift for sure, just 100%. White tea.

We got that. And we also got these cans of what we call discipline go. Isn't it an energy drink? You know what? It is because it gives you energy, but it gives you real. Energy not a lie not just a not just a massive hit of caffeine 300 milligrams of caffeine Look, you you inject 300 milligrams of caffeine into a piece of wood and it starts to get excited But after a little while it's like very quickly it's back to just being wood you put a bunch of sugar into

Into a rat and it gets all excited That's fake energy. Yeah, man. There's a real energy. It's got it's not got no sugar in it but it still tastes good sweet with Montfort. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, well, here's the thing, the blah, blah. And I get it. I understand why you said blah, blah, blah, because it's like, yeah, these are all these numbers and all this stuff,

but man, I kind of looked into it. I did look into it, by the way. And so preservatives, sweeteners, like these things that... These are the things that make normal energy drinks bad for you. Yeah, the ones that are bad for you. And, you know, there's a bunch of energy drinks, so I can't use. So it's hard for me, in the spirit of accuracy to say, oh, all energy drinks or all this or all that.

But the preservatives and artificial sweeteners are are straight up poison, straight up. But they do sweeten or they do preserve or do it. And there's these lists of very specific things that they put in. The only reason they're in there is not to help you. Yes. To help the drink. It helps the drink. It helps the drink.

Yes. So what I was trying to say is we don't have any of those things in here. In order to not put chemicals in there to preserve it. it, we pasteurize it like what you do with milk. Yes. So, and in order to sweeten it, we've only got monk fruit, which is good for you. Monk fruit is good for you. So anyways, all these different items, you can get it, you can get origin main.com.

You can also get them at the vitamin shop and we're a little, we're about to enter a new market in the world. You know when people say, oh, I really wish this stuff was available here. or there. We're moving in that direction. It's starting, started with vitamin shop. Next thing we're going into is a place called Wawa, which is a convenience store,

mostly East Coast. We're starting in Florida and Virginia, if you live in those areas, be on the lookout because you'll be able to walk into a Wawa and clean out the shelf. Clean out the shelf, get yourself some discipline go, try the different flavors.

And yeah, you'll get that little, you'll get that little mid-morning. hitter. And you won't get a post-drink crash where you're like, yeah, no. Yeah, and being in the store is like, especially like a convenience store scenario, whatever, it makes it, it does, this is a big deal in this sense where right now, and I get it, like you order your shipment, you know, you get it, whether it be online or whatever, or find

a vitamin shop for sure. But when it's out the store, you can just sort of stop in and get one kind of thing on the way here, on the way there, whatever. It makes it a whole different process. Way more convenient, if you were, probably why they call it convenience stores, by the way. Yeah. Unless that's a good news right there. Yeah, so Discipline Go is what it's called in the Canada. I don't know if you mentioned that for those who may not have known that.

Got it. Thank you. So anyway, yes. Or origin, origin, me, dot com. You can get it there. Also, other stuff at Origin Main is Jiu Jitsu Gis, if you don't have one. Get one from there.

American Made, all good. What are we doing without a Jiu Jitsugee at this point? I have no idea. We should definitely be having a Jiu Jitsugee. Yes, sir. That's for sure. Also, jeans, American denim. Also, some hoodie, some other clothing items on there.

American made boots. Works of art. I've heard them be referred to as works of art made in America. Oh, you just made Pete Roberts. It's so happy. Well, it's accurate. I agree with the stink. Yeah, they are, this is works of art and also the preservation of a culture of creation and manufacturing.

That's what's happening. This is a loss, this is a dying art, a dying capability that is now being preserved, whether it's the manufacturing of the cloth to make the geese, whether it's the manufacturing. the manufacturing of the boots, whether it's the sewing and fabrication of the jeans, all of it is a preservation of a manufacturing, a manufacturing thread that ties America together. So we're not going to let it die, by the way, and we appreciate you all helping us keep it alive. So yes, or jameen.com so we can get this stuff. Also, jaco store, jocco store.com. I just made like kind of a statement.

And then you go, yeah, that's where you can get this stuff. But it's true. Okay. There you go. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You can get these pieces of art. You started it.

Man, that was so freaking deep, bro. It was deep. And, man, thank you so much for saying that. You're welcome. You're welcome. Anyway, I'm glad that my services have been fully appreciated. How epic my speech was. Yes, sir.

It was. Jockstore.com. We can get our shirts. Discipline equals freedom. Def Corps, to the core, by the way. Good. Good.

Get out. All these shit. If you want to represent while you're on the path, jocco store. Back to the book. Back to the book all day. That's a shirt. Oh, yeah.

Also, hoodies on there, some tank tops. Other items. So we're adding, we got a hardcore recondos on there. Back in stock, by the way. Yeah, speaking of David. And we didn't even get to this part of about face. Oh, well.

But I think we all know the, what do you call the legend or the, what do you call it? One, one sort of the, the canon. Is that what it's called? The canon is like a big book or a big work of art. I mean a big work of writing. The part of the story that's like, you know, they became the crux of the story, perhaps? No, it's like legendary, a legendary kind of part of the story. Like one of them, yeah.

Anyway, why they're called called the hardcore rather than the hopeless, is it? Yeah. Hardcore condos. Yes, sir. No slack. Yes, so we got that sure. We got some cool stuff continuously adding items on there. Maybe like once a month, once every two months.

Maybe. So anyway, check in there if you like. We do have an email list if you want to get emailed for new stuff. Basically just new stuff. That's it, pretty much. Warrior Kid Soaps on there too. Yes, sir. Which is legit.

Yes. That's all we use now. And here, you know what's weird? the compliments that I hear personally and online is that it smells real good. There you go. It doesn't seem like that was like one of the things that we're or that ate in and them we're like trying to like push. Just a byproduct of excellence.

Just. That's a good way to put it. Yeah. Yeah. And that is the case for sure. Yes. And but even though it smells good, which I agree with, but even more important, it can help you.

It can help your family. Stay clean. Stay clean. Subscribe to the. Podcasts don't just subscribe to this podcast we got some other podcasts we got the jockel unraveling podcast we got the grounded podcast we got the grounded podcast we got the warrior kid podcast we got a YouTube videos that he makes where he makes everything explode and blow up and catch on fire sometimes except if it's a long video in which case he'll just let you be bored with that which he's fine with we got an album called psychological warfare which is me talking about moments of weakness that that we may need to overcome you might need a little help overcoming that when you should irrational You might be trying to rationalize. We can fight through that together.

Press play. You press play. You have it on there. You have a little MP3 on there. You press play on your phone. That's true. And then all of a sudden you stop rationalizing and you start doing. Flipside canvas.

If you want to not rationalize visually, get yourself some, get yourself some things to represent. I know that Laif just told me that he hooked up the echelon front. HQ building in Texas with some flipside canvas works for the walls. We also have some books. Hey, first of all, this book right here, about face, written by Colonel David Hackworth. I wrote the forward. Want an honor. Check it out.

This is a book you can refer back to forever. I'm still reading it. I have been reading this book for approximately, I would say approximately 20 years. Approximately 20 years. and I'm still reading it. We also have the code, the evaluation, the protocol, written by myself, Dave Burke, Sarah Armstrong, in the mix on that one. Leadership strategy and tactics field manual. All the answers are in there.

All the answers are in there. They really are. Get that book. You can look up. Oh, you got a problem with your employees acting a certain way. Cool. Go to leadership strategy. Oh, your boss.

You're having a hard time leading up the chain. Cool. Go in there. Check it out. Oh, your morale is down for your troops. Okay. there check it out all the answers are in there leadership strategy and tactics field manual we got way of the warrior kid one two three we got four on the way be checking out for it

we'll have it to pre-order as ASAP it's uh it's it's it's the final version is with the printers at this time oh okay yeah so we're there yeah we also want to know you know sometimes we collectively cause shortages of certain books. So if you want to get Way the Warrior Kid for, please pre-order it so that you don't get caught at Christmas time with no book for your little warrior kid. Don't forget about Mikey and the Dragons. Speaking of Warrior Kids,

don't forget about the Discipline Equal Freedom Field Manual. There is a new edition out. The new edition. I wrote a bunch more for it. We added it in there. It's got a new cover. It's got a photograph by Echo Charles on the cover. The photograph is of my head.

Which you took of me. Yes. You'd think that there was there a big like setting up or the lighting and all this stuff? No. I was standing in Echo Charles's hallway. We just got done recording the podcast in his living room. And he goes, hold on a second. Turn around.

And he's holding a camera and he goes, click, click. And one of those two shots. is Echo's iconic picture that is on the cover. It's bigger. Have I shown you the new one yet? I have one. It's not a completed one. It's actually blank.

Oh, you have a fake one. On the inside. Okay. I'll bring you the real one. I'll bring you the real one. So they made it look a little bit more. And, you know, I'm an old school, hardcore kid from. And so things had a certain look to them.

And this one kind of moved in that direction a little bit, being a little bit like my old school hardcore days DIY make things happen you got a good track record with covers I can say yeah they look solid well thank you I appreciate it so there's all those books plus there's extreme ownership plus the economy of leadership which I wrote with my brother laf babin we have echelon front which is a leadership consultancy we've solved problems through leadership that's what we do go to echelonfront.com if you need help in your business we have EF Online, where we are providing leadership instruction through an online platform, answering questions. There's all kinds of things to do on there.

There's courses to take. There is EF. Overwatch, where we are taking people from the military and putting them into civilian companies in leadership positions, people that understand the principles that we talk about here. And finally, if you want to help, if you want to help. if you want to help out our military members, active members, retired members, their families, gold star families. If you want to support, then check out Mark Lee's mom.

That's Mark Lee from Tasking to Bruiser, his mom, Mama Lee. She has a charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to America's mighty warriors.org. and if you if you feel the need if you just feel the need to hear more of my unbearable bellowing

or you maybe you just need a little hitter a little dose of echoes muddled meanderings which we certainly got plenty of today you can find us on the interwebs on Twitter on

Instagram which echo Just so he knows what I'm talking about, he refers to Instagram as the Graham. Facebook, Echo is at Equit Charles, and I am at Jocco Willink. And thanks once again to my mentor, Colonel David Hackworth, for everything he did for me, for his soldiers, for the Army, and for America. And thanks to all the military personnel out there right now. right now right at this moment while you're sitting there listen to this podcast while we're sitting here making this podcast there are military personnel out there right now holding the line against evil and protecting

our way of life and the same thing to police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and emts and dispatchers and correctional officers border patrol secret service all other first responders Thank you for holding the line and protecting us here at home and everyone else. You know, we have to remember that in life, most of the time, we don't have the luxury. We don't have the luxury of a colonel or a captain or a lieutenant or a sergeant hackworth in our lives. We don't have someone there to keep us in line to make us do purpose. push-ups and give us a good swift kick in the ass when we slack off. What we have to do is we have to be our own Sergeant Hackworth.

We have to be our own Mr. Infantry. We have to be our own hardcore ricondo to hold the highest standards and allow no fucking slack is our charge as leaders, as people, human beings so go out there and get after it until next time this is echo and jaco out