Jocko Podcast - 26: Omaha Beach and Beyond, Surfing, Relax during BJJ, Flanking, Manipulation

Episode Date: June 8, 2016

0:00:00 - Opening 0:04:09 - "Omaha Beach and Beyond" Book Review 1:10:28: - Internet, Onnit Stuff 1:13:39 - Jocko Surfing 1:23:37 - Relax During Jiu Jitsu 1:31:36 - Tactics that deviate from The Art of War 1:35:49 - How do SEALS reconcile facing death? 1:46:34 - Taking Suggestions as a Leader 1:53:51 - More on Flanking 2:00:00 - Turning off "Manipulation" 2:09:25 - How do you stay Motivated?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 26 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. O for a voice like thunder and a tongue to drown the throat of war. When the senses are shaken and the soul is driven to madness, who can stand? When the souls of the oppressed fight in the troubled air that rages, who can stand? When the whirlwind of fury comes from the throne of God, when the frowns of his countenance drive the nations together, who can stand? When sin claps his broad wings over the battle and sails, rejoicing in the flood of death.

When souls are torn to everlasting fire and fiends of hell rejoice upon the slain. Oh, who can stand. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. That right there is a little excerpt of a poem by a guy named William Blake. And it paints war as something so powerful. So evil. Something is superhuman.

And the full poem is really a statement. Against war as it goes on and it's not that much longer, but it blames war on the politicians and on the kings and on the nobles and it blames war on the religious leaders But he asked that question over and over again who can stand and I can actually answer that question and I've seen who can stand I've seen people break, but I have seen many brave men and women on the battlefield stand, stand against fear and death and stand against evil. Stand as sin claps his broad wings over the battle and sails rejoicing in the flood of death. And that's William Blake. Those are his words, but he's writing that in the late 1700s and early 1800s. He had no idea how bad war would get.

and I'm not saying war is worse in terms of individual horror, but in terms of scale, it can't be denied. I mean, World War I and World War II, the scale of horror, it would be incomprehensible to a man from Blake's time. He just couldn't understand it. So let's go to June 6, 1944, as the demon spread his wings over the beaches of Normandy, and men stood against his evil.

The English coxswain tried to drop the ramp a couple hundred feet from the shore when the sergeant ordered, Take us all the way in! Just then, machine guns opened up and bullets tore through the wooden sides of the landing craft, wounding four or five men. men began screaming, Open the damn doors. Just as the ramp went down,

there was a pause in the incoming fire. We exited fast, diving into the water and holding on. Sergeant Trona was lying next to me when he was shot through the wrist. I crawled over to him and gave him first aid. We just let the tide wash over the lower portion of our bodies, using our fingernails to pull forward, inch by inch to keep from drowning. I looked back at our assault craft.

and both English sailors were dead. They were heroes and paid the price for getting us in. They risked their safety to get us closer to shore. Private Thomas MacArthur was the first fatality in our sector. His cries to me for help still haunt me. Waded down and possibly wounded, he frantically struggled in the water as he cried my name, but I couldn't get to him.

It was drilled into us that we must push forward to the objective and to let the medics take care of the wounded. We were subjected to grazing fire from criss-causing fire from machine guns. I believed at the time that it would be better for me to push forward since Tom was quite far away. These machine guns kept firing until we got to the seawall. Tom was my friend, and I should have tried to save him. It took individual riflemen using grenades, satchel charges, and bayonets to neutralize the almost impregnable concrete bunkers. I didn't see any rangers until later. In my opinion, the Air Force and Navy made it possible for us to hang on until reinforcements and more equipment arrived.

They also kept the Germans from mounting an armored counterattack. But, you know, it boils down to the blood. foot soldier and his rifle to hold on to the real estate. And that right there was private first class Randolph A. Ginman. Company D. 116th Infantry. 27 years old on D-Day, a mortar gunner. Now we're going to hear from private first class, George A. Kobe.

Company D. 116th Infantry. 600 yards from the shore, the English coxswain lost his nerve and slowed the engine. This improved the Germans' opportunity to hit our boat. Captain Schilling was looking through the vision slit, looked back at the sailor and said, you're not going to drop that ramp here. Technical Sergeant Stinnett was standing next to the captain. Suddenly, an 88 millimeter hit the ramp directly, blowing Captain Schilling Blackward, killing him instantly.

Part of the ramp caught Stennis left eye, knocking it out. With John Sefco, Vic Cremone, and Eugene Adrian, we finally made it to the seawall. How I'll never know. It was the worst fire I was ever subjected to in all of my combat. Now we've got private first class Robert L. Sales, Company B, 116th Infantry. joined the Virginia National Guard at age 15. About 100 yards from the shore, the English coxswain said he couldn't get us in any closer.

As the ramp lowered, enemy machine guns opened up, firing directly into our boat. Like all great leaders, Captain Zapp was the first off the boat and the first one to get hit. Staff Sergeant Dick Wright was second and also hit. falling into the water.

A medic was third and I didn't see what happened to him. I was fourth. I caught my heel in the ramp and fell sideways out of the path of that MG-42, undoubtedly saving my life. All of the men that followed were either killed by Germans or drowned. No one from my craft was ever found alive. The captain screamed, I'm hit. I tried to get to him, but he was lost in the surf. men were all around me

in the water bleeding from wounds and screaming for help I knew the boat was the target so I got away from it as fast as I could one of the first things I did was shed my SCR 300 radio and my assault jacket that radio was heavy and I suppose it is still at the bottom of the channel mortar and artillery shells were landing all around and one hit so close that it knocked me groggy

luckily a log floated by with an unexploded teller mine still attached i grabbed hold of it until my head cleared a bit i remained behind that log pushing it in front of me using it as a shield as i reached dry until i reached dry land the first person i saw on the beach that i recognized was dick right he hollered over to me that he was badly hit i watched him trying to raise his arms but a sniper spotted him and shot him through the head. His face fell into the sand, never to move again. I didn't try to go to him because I knew he was dead. While pinned down on that beach, I watched incoming landing craft being shot at. One of them carried the battalion surgeon, Captain Robert B. Ware, a man I knew from my hometown of Madison Heights, Virginia.

The doctor had flaming red hair. I watched him as he disembarked the last. landing craft and that machine gun opened up cutting him down what i will never forget was seeing his helmet fly off his head and showing all that red hair i crawled on my belly using the dead and wounded as a shield sometime later i saw max smith from shepherd to shepherd town west virginia and some other bee company men taking shelter behind a seawall some of them were badly wounded i banded smiths eye that was lying out of his face. I kept crawling back to the water's edge, dragging men out if they were still living. I didn't bother if they were dead. I pulled quite a few to safety.

One of the medics helped to give first aid and comfort to the wounded. The first enemy soldier I saw was a prisoner. Interrogators had him on his knees, and his hands were locked behind his head. He didn't look so tough to me, but those guys up on the cliffs, were plenty tough. You can't imagine how helpless it was to be lying on that beach and those machine guns and snipers shooting anything that moved. At this point, we were not sure the invasion would succeed. Our company was shot up so badly

that there was no organization or communication from other sectors to tell us how they were doing. If all the landing zones were as helpless as we were, the invasion was in jeopardy. We felt helpless and alone. We had many acts of heroism from B Company, men, with many of them unreported. Lieutenant William B. Williams single-handedly with hand grenades and a rifle charged and subdued a pillbox. Sergeant William Pierce and Odell Padgett survived the landing better than we did and were able to take a few men up to those rocks and cliffs and fight it out with the Germans.

It was touch and go for quite some time in our sector. Not until St. Low fell in July did we know for sure that the invasion was a success. D-Day was indeed the longest day, but there were many, many long days after that. Day after bloody day, it was jumping over those hedgerows and men getting killed. We lost some very good men every single day. St. Lowe was about 25 months. miles from the beach and it was liberated on July 18th. When St. Lowe fell, we felt confident that we were in France to stay.

Surviving the war was another story. So those were some excerpts right there from a book by John Robert Slaughter. The book is called Omaha Beach and Beyond, the long march of Sergeant Bob Slaughter. And those excerpts that I just read, they weren't Bob Slaughter. They were various other people that worked with him, that he went back and interviewed. This is another guy born in Tennessee, grew up in Rowanoke, Virginia, enlisted in the Army Reserves at age 15. And as he's given an intro to the book here, this is what he says. I remember buddies with whom I spent passes to London.

Men I played cards with a couple of days before the landing who saw, signed their autographs on my Eisenhower D-Day missive, who shook hands with me on the javelins deck. Young men, as I was, all killed during the largest air, land, and sea battle ever fought. Many more were maimed and never seen again. How could I forget this epic event, even if I failed to recall the proper names and faces? memoirs are not history, but history is someone's recorded memory. Most of us remember noble and heroic deeds, but conveniently forget or fail to record the less than noble. I am no different.

Many times I did and saw things that are best forgotten or left unwritten. War brings out the best and the worst in most of us. The Nazis were accused of killing, raping, pillaging, and burning. A few on our side were also guilty of these crimes. Soldiers on both sides looted for souvenirs, as did I. And yet, cruel treatment of the enemy was an unusual occurrence. I myself am proud to say that I once saved an enemy soldier's life. This book will attempt to show that ordinary men in a enemy soldier's life.

women can do extraordinary feats if they believe the cause is great. Many GIs have said that they were merely fighting for each other. True. But I maintain another factor played in a more important role. And it can be summed up with one word, pride. Regardless of their motives, I saw very few cowards in the 116th Infantry Regiment. may God bless the many, many more heroes. Yeah, this is one of those books where I'm

don't have a lot to add in some of these situations. Now, Bob Slaughter was his nickname Bob Slaughter, and when he got to England, they actually took him and a bunch of other soldiers, and they formed him into a new unit called the 29th Rangers. And they trained these guys ultra hard. They did all kinds of stuff for 11 months getting ready for the invasion, these 29th Rangers. They did marching and mountain climbing in a crazy obstacle course.

They trained in unarmed combat. They did log PT, cold weather training. I mean, just grueling training. And at the end of all that harsh training, for a number of reasons, they actually disbanded this group, and they sent them all back with their regular units. So they had a group of guys that got trained super hard, you know, like what we would consider a modern sort of special operation selection course.

They went through that, but then when they got done with this training and they were getting ready for the actual invasion, they took them, dispersed them amongst the regular troops. And the guy that ran this training, for the 29th Rangers was a guy named Major Mill Holland

and he sent a letter to his daughter and this is what he wrote and this is after these guys got disbanded he said every boy should be made to play football and box and participate in all kinds of athletics

and above all the American should be taught discipline and decent living then he should be given a year of the toughest kind of military training. Not the kind that we know, but the kind I gave my rangers. God, I wish I had those boys now.

We would tear the German stringy. I hear of those boys now and then, and although they are almost all gone now, they have done unbelievable things and are spoken of almost in a tone of reverence by officers and men alike who have fought with them. They were men.

train and train hard and learn about discipline. You parents out there, get your kids training, sports, decent living. That's how you make men. Now, fast forwarding because they went back to their regular army units and they continue to train and prepare for the invasion. and Bob Slaughter is assigned to D Company, 116th Infantry, 29th Infantry Division. And I'm fast forwarding right now, straight to D-Day, straight to his perception of D-Day and what it was like for him.

You know, this is all that training that these guys have been through, and none of them had been to combat before. So this is it. Their first operation is D-Day, and this is what it's like. Back to the book. About 150 yards from the shore, despite the warning from someone behind me to keep your head down, I cautiously peeped up. I could see that craft, that the craft about 25 yards to our right and a couple of hundred yards ahead were targeted by small arms.

Fiery tracer bullets skipped off, skipped and bounced off the ramp and said. as they zeroed in before the ramps fell. I said to anyone close enough to hear above the bedlam, men, we are going to catch hell. Be ready. Then it began to happen. Enemy artillery and mortar shells sent great plumes of water spouting skyward as they exploded in the water.

Near Misses rained us with seawater. I suddenly became very worried about what Jerry would do to us. How in the hell did those sons of bitches survive what we thought was a carpet bombing and unshelling of the beach? At Slapton Sands, we trained with live explosions, but these were far more frightening. This time, they were shooting to kill every one of us. The craft slowed as we scraped a submerged sandbar, which kept us from a dry landing. Everyone wanted to get the hell off that rocking boat. but the coxon had trouble dropping the steel ramp.

When it finally slammed and splashed down, the front of the boat began to buck like a wild stallion, raising six or seven feet, turning slightly sideways, and then slamming down again. The first man went to exit off about mid-ramp. The craft surged forward and crushed the poor fellow to death. So I jumped off and moved away from the crazy erratic landing craft.

Luckily, I didn't see anyone else get hit by the ramp. I was now struggling in water up to my armpits. Luckily for me at 6 foot 5, most of the time my head was above water. Later, as I crossed to the beach, my height would be a detriment, making me a larger target. Meanwhile, as I tried to get to shore, shorter men grabbed my clothing to keep their heads above water. Suddenly, as fear replaced seasickness, I was no longer cold. Most of all, I feared I would drown after being shot. Snipers hiding in the bluffs hit quite a few men, but most of the damage came from rapid firing automatic weapons.

In every war since gunpowder was invented, soldiers have experienced the dreaded feeling of being under live enemy fire for the first time. It was demoralizing to hear good men scream as bullets ripped into soft flesh and others scream as the fierce flooding tide dragged the non-swimmers under. I remember helping private Ernest McCandless, who was struggling to get closer in. He still had one of the precious boxes of 30-caliber machine gun ammo. I remember him shouting to me, Slaughter, are we going to get through all of this? I didn't know how to answer him, so I didn't say anything. To tell the truth, I thought we were all going to die. A body with its life preserver inflated, floated by.

The face had already turned a dark purple. At first I thought it was private Richard Gomez who had a dark complexion, but I later found out that Gomez had survived the day. The fellow I saw was just one of thousands who died. There was no way to be sure if I had known him. Many of our company were hit in the water and drowned, good swimmers or not. I came ashore, surrounded by the screams of men who had been hit and were drowning under their ponderous loads.

All around me, dead men floated in the water, along with live men who acted as if they were dead. The Germans couldn't tell which was which. The flooding tide washed everyone in. Lying at the edge of the high watermark, I watched a GI trying to cross the beach. He had a hard time running. I believe he was from the craft to our right. An enemy gunner cut him down, and he staggered and fell to the sand.

I can still hear the screaming. A well-marked medical corpsman moved quickly to help him. He was also shot. I'll never forget seeing that medic lying next to that dying soldier, both screaming for help. Within minutes, as I watched, both men fell silent and mercifully died. I saw men vomit at the sickening sights and others cry openly and unashamedly. all of us had to find it within ourselves to get across that sandy no man's land this is where the army's strict discipline and rigorous training took over individual pride had a lot to do with it

too what an unbelievable first combat experience for these guys and i want you to think about that that image of you're in a boat you're a couple hundred meters offshore maybe two or three hundred meters offshore and you're looking 200 meters ahead of you and you're starting to see tracers impact on this boat that you know you're next you know you're next

there's no turning back there's the only thing you can do there's nothing's going to stop it did you saw saving private rain right? Yes. That movie. So, I mean, to me, they, they did a good job in capturing that moment where everyone's like, it's like real tense and you can slowly start to hear the boom, boom, boom. And the way it kind of builds and builds and how chaotic it gets, man.

It's like the most, especially at that time, is one of the most real feeling movies, you know, involving more than. They did an outstanding job. They did an outstanding job in that opening scene. It's just so crazy. hear the real account. Right. And then kind of compare it. And, you know, when you watch the movie, you're like, dang, that's crazy.

That's because you're kind of involved in the movie. But when you think more and you're like, dang, this really happened. This is what really happened. Yeah. And also, I mean, obviously the actors do a good job of portraying what's going on in their minds. But this is what was going on in this point. This is what he was thinking and seeing.

they um Steven Spielberg put those guys through these harsh conditions during that you know so they'd kind of some little Hollywood boot camp yeah but even while they were filming it you know to kind of help capture I mean obviously it's yeah

you can't compare it to the real deal they did an outstanding job they did and the first time I saw that scene I was I was impacted yeah I was I was definitely impacted and I remember I wasn't With my guys in Ramadi, they were on and off.

They were in a really hellacious situation. And they were in a Bradley fighting vehicle. And as they were going on to Target, they were hearing rounds hit the outside of the Bradley as they were getting, as the ramp was about to go down. Yeah. And actually, I think, I can't remember this 100%, but I'm pretty sure that the young officer in that vehicle,

I remember him telling me I remember him telling me about he was like damn But he said he was screaming Don't put the ramp down Like just leave it up Don't we're getting shot at And they couldn't hear him So they just put the ramp down anyways

And then what do you do? You just go Yeah So Back to the book After I fired my M1 It jammed To clean it

I slipped out of my assault jacket And spread my raincoat only to discover bullet holes in my pack and coat. Suddenly overwhelmed with fear, I became weak in the knees. My hands shook as I tried to wipe sand from my weapon. I had to catch my breath and compose myself. By mid-morning, we had worked our way to the base of the hill. Men from other units began to gather.

The regimental commander, Colonel Charles D.W. W. Canem appeared from Down Beach with his right arm in a sling and clutching a Colt 45 semi-automatic pistol in his bony left hand. Canem didn't look like a soldier, but he sirs hell was one. He was tall and thin, wore wire-rimmed glasses, and had a pencil-thin mustache. He yelled for the officers and non-coms to help him get the men across the beach and up the hill. get these men the hell off this goddamn beach and go kill some goddamn crouts in a nearby pillbox a young lieutenant colonel taking refuge from the enemy mortar barrage yelled out to canham

colonel you better take cover you're going to get killed colonel canam screamed his reply get your ass out of there and help me get these men off this beach the officer did what canam ordered so now we got somebody leading serious leader. And in the book, Slaughter put the memorandum from Canem that Canem wrote to the troops prior to D-Day. So I'm going to read that. 29 May, 1944, Memorandum. Two, the members of CT-116 reinforced to be read by commanders to all personnel prior to embarkation.

one the long-awaited day is near and prior to embarkation I want to wish each of you the best of luck in your forthcoming adventure there is one certain way to get the enemy out of action and that is to kill him war is not child's play and requires hatred for the enemy at this time we don't have it I hope you get it when you see your friends wounded and killed two Learn to take care of yourself from the start. Remember the hunt is a crafty, intelligent fighter and will not have mercy on you. Don't have it on him. He will try to outwit you. Be on the alert. Three, fighting a war is the same as any athletic event. Only war is for keeps.

It is you or the enemy. Teamwork is the essence of success. We have the tools. the best in the world and is up to you to see that they are used properly. Four. Remember when you run into the enemy, contain him with the minimum to stop him, then move around him and strike him in the flank or the rear.

In all your contacts with him be ruthless. Always drive hard. The hunt doesn't like Yankee drive and guts. Show him that you have plenty. If you close with him, use your bayonet. show them you can take it and dish it out Don't be caught napping Don't let your Yankee curiosity get you blown up by a booby trap or a mine

Five take care of your arms and equipment Conserve your ammunition make every shot count Keep your weapons cleaned and oiled Their proper functioning at the right time may mean your life Every soldier must realize the importance of supply discipline and see that he himself does his part in conserving supplies. More than one battle has been lost because munitions and other supplies were not available. Six, do not eat your K and D rations prior to D day, D plus one day.

You won't get any more until D plus two. Seven, the Navy and Air will give us plenty of support. General Montgomery was very optimistic in his talk to the officers yesterday. At this time, no one knows how much resistance we will meet on D-Day. We may be able to walk in without trouble. We may have to fight for your life to meet the worst and make up your minds now that you're going forward regardless, and it is a one-way ticket. We are not giving any ground at any time, and we are not leaving until the job is done. to each one of you

Happy landings and come off those craft Fight like hell Canem Lays it out Definitely lays it out I think those guys I think those guys Couldn't have heard any better

Information Keep clean Keep discipline Be ready Flank the enemy Always hear that the enemy. So now these guys are in kind of in a holding position.

They've kind of secured some chunks of the beach and it's a little bit of the high ground. And now going back to the book, we began to think about defending against the expected counterattack that we were told would take place in less than 24 hours. To bolster our defenses, we took turns making special trips back to the still dangerous beach

in order to find more automatic weapons, ammo, and supplies. when it was my turn to go down, I was horrified at what I saw. The debris-strewn beach was a disaster area. The incoming flooding tide brought with it the bodies of hundreds of our proud regiment. Scores of our men with blood-stained shirts rolled in the surf among helmets, assault jackets, gas masks, and M-1 rifles. At the edge of the water, I saw a burning landing. craft that had been trying to deposit a Sherman tank down its ramp. The tank was also burning and abandoned.

From our perspective, the battle looked hopeless. You know, that's something that he said that a couple times. He didn't think they were going to win. You know, despite what Canem said, hey, we're not going to give up any ground. Well, guess what? I don't know if we're going to be able to hold this ground. We might all die here. And yet all these men pressed on.

here's a little look at the German attitude right here I saw a regimental intelligence officer armed with a carbine interrogating a German prisoner the prisoner was on his knees with his hands behind his head he was rather small and frail looking I was surprised to see he was not wearing the usual square shaped a battle helmet instead he wore a gray billed cap the lieutenant asked the prisoner among other things where the minefields were. The soldier answered only with the accepted Geneva Convention requirement of name, rank, and serial number. We had been instructed not to take prisoners for the first two or three days,

so I expected the officer to eventually shoot the prisoner. Again, the interrogator screamed, Where are the damn minefields? Again, he received the same reply, name, rank, and serial number. The lieutenant's car being barked, but the bullet was aimed at the ground between the prisoner's knees. The arrogant German looked straight at the officer and said with a smirk, Neeked here. Not here.

He pointed between his knees. Here, he pointed to his head. This told me something about our adversary. So you had, I mean, we, we know that people. will fight to the death. We know that they get brainwashed. I mean, you look at any history.

This sounds like a young kid probably raised from the young, very young age as a Nazi, as a loyal Nazi. Just like the Japanese that fought to the death, that's what we have here in many cases. Back to the book.

Combat deaths are ugly and sickening. A bullet or piece of red, red-hot shrapnel tears flesh, gristle, and bone into gruesome wounds. A few hours in the sun causes a body to swell grotesquely and turn dark purple. The stench is unbearable. Such deaths were tragic insults to all those handsome young G.I.s just beginning their lives who would not fulfill their dreams. Many of those killed were, like me, barely teenagers when they enlisted.

just starting to grow to maturity in the army. Those comrades and I spent many happy weekends and furloughs together, soaking up culture and drinking bitters. We shared living quarters, read each other's mail, and more significantly, shared the misery of training in the most extreme of elements. The 116th infantry lost from 800 to 1,000 men on D-Day, and D Company lost at least 70. of the dead

20 of them were from my hometown of Roanoke 5 of 9 of our officers were killed including Captain Walter Schilling Lieutenant William Gardner Lieutenant Merle Cummings

Lieutenant Vincent Vincent Labowitz and Lieutenant Alton Ashley There were 12 non-coms killed including these Roanokers Sergeant James Oben Shane

Staff Sergeant James L. Wright Sergeant Russell Jack Ingram and Sergeant George D. Johnson Corporal Jack Sims Add to the list of the dead

23 privates and another 32 wounded, many of them severely. And yet our nightmare had just begun. Absolutely brutal. And I wanted to rattle off those names of all those people from the hometown. You know, when we see a soldier or a Marine or a sailor get killed now, you see what it does to a town.

You see how it impacts a town. Imagine 20 from one little hometown. They move past the initial D-Day, and now they start to head to St. Lowe. and this is where you've heard about before, if you know anything about history, you know anything about this part of the war. This is when they get into hedgerow country. And they're fighting from hedgerow to hedgeron.

These hedgerows are, you know, these ancient, I guess they're not structures, they're hedges, but they're completely difficult to get through. You have to cut through them or drive through them with tanks or whatever, and they hold up. And every one of these hedgeros becomes like a mini battle. and their brutal battles. Back to the book.

The sight of another terrible death that occurred at this time haunts my dreams to this day. My squad and I were digging a machine gun emplacement behind a scrubby hedgerow. We had just finished fixing the camouflage when I happened to see a junior officer with field glasses scanning the front. I could tell he was a newly arrived replacement. His uniform and equipment were relatively new and unworn. The sharp report of an 88mm fired from somewhere nearby and sent me diving. At the same time, the high-explosive missile hit the lieutenant's upper torso. The second squad and I were splattered with gore as the spotter was blown backward, minus his head.

Number two, Gunner, Private First Class Sal Argery, vomited. And I nearly did, too. The dreaded German sniper was almost as highly respected as the 88. Sharper shooters gave no warning, taking careful aim with sniper-scoped Mousers. The receiving end would hear the sharp crack and instantaneous wind of the bullet. If you heard the report of the bullet leaving the muzzle, it wasn't for you. German snipers nearly always aimed for the head if it was visible and in range. Most infantrymen never removed their helmets

Except when they shaved And I confess that I slept in mine The 8mm bullet could easily pass through the helmet Through the head and out the other side With enough energy left to do more damage I saw men get hit between the eyes Or just above the ears which killed them instantly If the bullet missed the helmet

The entry hole was usually neat And showed only a small trickle of blood But after the steel jacket bullet hit the helmet or the skull, the bullet flattened, causing the wound to shatter the other side of the head away. They start receiving more fire. He jumps for cover and then back to the book. I climbed back on the path, shaken but unscathed. Within minutes, I had another surprise. As I approached an opening on the right side of the hedgerow, I heard someone moaning.

crawling carefully through the opening I came face to face with a young German paratrooper who had been hit by a large chunk of shrapnel. He had a very serious upper thigh wound and his left trouser leg was bloody and torn. This was my first encounter with the enemy up close. The German paratrooper is a fierce and fanatical warrior easily distinguishable by his round helmet and baggy smock.

My first reaction was to put him out of his misery and keep going. I believe he knew what I was thinking. He begged tearfully, Comrade Bitter, which means friend, please. He was an impressive-looking young soldier about 19 years old, my age.

He was as filthy as I was with long, brown, stringy hair. I'd always thought most German soldiers had short blonde hair. He had an athletic build, about five feet ten inches tall, about 180 pounds, and a handsome face. I suspended the promise I had made at the beach about not taking any prisoners. I thought that was then and this is now.

I just couldn't shoot a wounded human being at point-blank range. I made sure he didn't have a weapon hidden on him. Then I tied his belt around his upper thigh, which stopped the blood from gushing. I gently swabbed the dirt from his wound and applied sulfa powder. His wince turned to a forced grin. He was in pain, so I gave him a shot of morphine and a drink of water from my canteen. Then I let him have one of my lucky strike cigarettes and lit it for him. As I left, he smiled weakly and said in guttural broken English,

Danka, God bless, good luck. that changed my thinking about taking prisoners. I still hated the enemy, but I couldn't kill one at close range, especially if his hands were up. I sent one of our medics to finish what I had started. I hope the German would recover, and that his war was over.

That's a compassionate human being right there. Yeah, doesn't it kind of, in a way, put it into perspective, but more shed light on potentially the overall attitude where you're fighting a war and the enemy is more this entity of an enemy. You know, it's not like, I'm going to kick this guy's down. I mean, I'm sure it's like that's not personal. Yeah, yeah. And the U.S. and the military, and we still do this,

they're going to dehumanize the enemy as much as they can to make it easier for you to kill them. Yes. That's why you call them crouts. That's why you call them dinks. That's why you call them whatever the slang, you know, which would now be all be considered racial terms or or politically incorrect terms. There's a reason they're trying to dehumanize these other people. They're trying to dehumanize the enemy so that you can more easily kill them and when you come face to face with them all of a sudden they become human. Yeah. Isn't that crazy though? Like this whole crazy thing. It's probably the craziest thing imaginable for

this guy. He comes face to face with the guy that that, you know, kind of in between the bullets, so to speak. And he's face to face with this person and then really what the whole experience was reduced to. In that moment, it was just one person helping another person,

you know? And then even, and it impacted both of them, obviously, you know, where the guy was like, hey, God bless. Almost like, hey, man, we're in this war. I dig, almost like a football game or something. Like, hey, man, I dig it. You know, we're on different teams. A good luck. He told him good luck in a war.

So, man, that whole human factor when you're exposed to it, even with the enemy, dang, that's got to be strong, huh? Yeah, definitely, definitely can be. I mean, in World War I, I mean, there was times where, and this is really famous,

there was times where they got out of the trenches and played soccer on Christmas Day against each other. And then the next day go back to slaughtering each other. You know crazy? That must feel in in this weird way that must feel so good, you know, to be like, like, you know, like, you ever got, like, when you're a kid or even as an adult when you get in a, like, an argument with someone real bad, maybe your friend or, or not, whatever, you get a real bad argument

with them. And I don't know, it lasts a day or two or a week. I don't know, whatever. It's real bad. And at the end, you guys make up and you guys are like, back friends again. It's almost like, man, it's such a good feeling. Maybe because of the contrast or, I don't know, maybe. because I don't know, but it's like, it has to have like that kind of feeling.

When you're in this crazy war, you're like, I hate this so much hatred and just aggression and opposition. And also you got to remember this is, there's plenty of guys and there's plenty of Germans that got smoked right there without a second thought. Yeah. And he just had that moment and maybe if that guy would have looked a little bit different or acted a little bit different or something happened more quick, like faster or something, you know, it just slowed down just for that second and sucked them right. fucking both right in. Who knows what happened later? The next people that came in. The medic might have gone over and said,

wait, you sent me over here to work on a German? Yeah. That could have happened to you. You just never know. Now, we're going to start getting crushed with some artillery. Back to the book. Jerry pounded the 116th all day and two nights

with Blockbuster 155 millimeter and 105 millimeter artillery. Near misses caused enough concussion to make our ears ring and our heads ache. The pounding rounds of salvo after salvo of earth-shaking artillery were relentless and frightening. During the bombardment, I shared a long, shallow slit trance with one of my first D-company replacements, Private Lewis Cass from Chevy Chase, Maryland. We nicknamed him Jr. early on because of his boyish looks and demeanor. Junior was from an affluent family and had volunteered into the army upon graduation from high school.

He didn't look like the type that could last very long in brutal combat. Our slit trench was covered with wooden sheathing and topped with a roof of piled dirt. Like thousands of other infantry soldiers subjected to such heavy bombardment, Junior and I were a pitiful sight. fine yellow dust sifted through the cracks and the roof and stuck to our sweaty skin and eyes. If the dust had been black, we would have looked like very tired coal miners. The yellow dust turned to mud around our swollen bloodshot eyes. When nature called, we had to answer in the safety of our slit trench, lying down.

All the training and experience in the world could not have prepared us for this kind of harassment. Those boxed car size shells sounded like they were flip-flopping end over end and screeching straight for our hole. This went on hour after hour all day and through the night. Many good soldiers cracked and who could blame them. The long bouts of duty had been taking their toll. It was extremely rare for an infantryman to go unscathed for very long. many 29ers were wounded two three or four times fighting through the hedgerows of normandy all of us were praying for the million dollar wound which missed vital organs bone and nerves but would give us a long stay in an english hospital sleeping under clean white sheets and at least in fantasy in the care of a beautiful nurse meanwhile battle fatigue and self-inflicted wounds had become serious problems. At least once, nearly all combat soldiers, if they are honest, consider shooting themselves

in order to get out of the hell of battle. Self-inflicted wounds, however, are considered disgraceful and, if proven in a court-martial offense. Nevertheless, many respectable KIA and wounded in action were, in reality, self-inflicted or friendly fire accidents. so we have some massive stress stress that's driving men to shoot themselves yeah and another mention of the million dollar wound

yes like the ticket out you know and he's saying at least once nearly all combat soldiers if they are honest consider shooting themselves in order to get out of the hell of battle back to the book landmines and booby traps were also common

ways to be wounded or killed. Hearing the news of who had gotten hit was always hard and every day new faces replaced seasoned infantry men. It was easy to distinguish a new arrival from a veteran. The old timer could be 18 or 19 years old, but if he had survived a week on the front he was considered old. And we all looked it. On a diet of K-rations, we all lost weight.

Our ribs, shoulder blades, and Adam's apples stuck out, and our filthy, ragged uniforms hung like worn out drapes. Our eyes were blood red and sunken, and we had bleeding sores on our exposed skin. Ordinarily, these would be telltale signs that a man needs a month's rest. But we all knew there would be no rest until St. Lowe was taken. knowing that there was no immediate end in sight drove some fellas over the edge. A few good soldiers who couldn't take the pounding day after day committed suicide. This was the case of Stanley Corsiak, a 19-year-old private born and raised in Chicago. He was a tough athletic little soldier.

He made the D-Day landings and had fought well through the hedgerows. but everyone has a breaking point. His squad reported that Stan, who had seen many of his close friends killed or severely wounded, had begun to act strangely, strangely. He cried often, especially during incoming artillery barrages, and sometimes his crying reached the point of hysteria. Instead of the usual disciplinary action for similar behavior, he was sent back to the kitchen area for a break from the action.

Many of us thought that a few days rest, a couple of hot meals, and a warm bath might rehabilitate him. But he was in more pain than any of us had realized. Why couldn't we see that he had reached his limit? Private Korsiak found a Cook's Springfield O3 rifle, removed his shoe so he could pull the trigger. and blew the top of his head off. One of the cooks heard the shot and ran to his tent. Stanley Corsiak had had enough of the constant fear, the filthy grime, the ear-shattering explosions,

the putrid smells, the extrustiating pain, and the maiming and deaths of his close friends. Stan Corsiak died on July 2nd. The record book shows he was killed, a non-battle casualty. In my book, Private Corsiac died. an American hero. So we got to know that this demon that we're dealing with now

has been around for a long time. And, you know, that's a classic situation where his death, Stan Corsiac's death, is reported as a non-battle casualty. Which means no one labeled him a suicide, which means how many people did that happen to? And it was never captured.

It wasn't reported And so now We never dealt with it And if you don't deal with things You don't capture the lessons learned If you don't recognize these things How you get to fix them As Bob Slaughter pointed out

It was almost impossible For one of these guys to go day after day After day and not get wounded And he ended up getting wounded Got Shrapnel frag in his back gets pulled off the battlefield, luckily, and sent to an English hospital. And here's what he says about that.

It is one thing to visit a wartime army hospital, but something quite different and much worse to be a patient in one. Lawmakers would consider armed conflicts more carefully before rattling the proverbial saber if they were forced to visit an amputee, abdominal, burn, or plastic surgery ward. You hear that? Lawmakers. Before you send

boys off to war, you need to go and spend some time in a hospital with wounded vets. And make damn sure your decision that you're making. Back to the book. I recovered an award

dedicated to abdominal wound. Abdominal wound patients. A bullet or a piece of metal shrapnel puncturing the stomach can cause a lifetime of embarrassment and misery. The aftermath of a gut wound is either death or eternal marriage to a colostomy sack. The stench in that ward was predictable.

It was tough to share quarters with seriously wounded patients. At night, the moaning and groaning and sometimes screaming made it hard to sleep. Many of the men there died. I remember one particularly sad boss Swarthy Tony from Brooklyn was the third floor clown The shift nurses fell in love with him Because he kept the ward laughing

With his teasing and practical jokes But one night his cherished laughter came to an awful end On a Saturday night with a skeleton crew on duty Tony began to complain of a sharp pain to the gut A floor nurse was paged and after several tries she arrived. By that time, Tony was screaming as two orderlies quickly wheeled them into the emergency room.

Two hours later, Tony was dead of gangrene poisoning. Facial disfigurement was terrible and more devastating to the patient than any other kind of wound. A few men had lost arms or legs, either partly or completely. And as a result, some of them became, came so-called basket cases. Even so, and it's sad to say, some severely maimed men were actually happy about their condition

because they were going home. Their combat days were over. So the war ends, and actually Bob Slaughter does go back, he recovers from his wounds, he goes back, he's there for the Allied victory. And that's another just fantastic story. of how that all happens. And then he was out of the army.

And this is what that feels like. Back to the book. On July 13th, 1945, I was suddenly separated from the service, discharged at Fort Meade, Maryland, with a few dollars in my pocket and the khaki uniform on my back. I was suffering mental as well as physical wounds,

but there was no one to counsel me. I was a civilian again, but I was not comfortable socializing with other civilian. I was 20 years old with an 11th grade education and no skills other than soldiering. I was left alone to find my way home to Roanoke, Virginia. There was no treatment for post-traumatic stress syndrome. It was simply called battle fatigue.

Those of us who had returned from the war were left to tough it out. The years rolled by, our hair grayed and thinned, waistlines grew, and many of us, our company associates developed health problems. Our generation smoked cigarettes and drank hard liquor. Many of our men who had hiked halfway around the world became sedentary. We didn't like to exercise. We traveled to the beach and went to swimming pools thinking that sunshine was good for the skin. Many were disabled by wounds, drank and smoked too much and died prematurely.

The war still took its toll, long after. it was over. Rarely did anyone talk about the war. The media were silent, our children uninterested, and we ourselves sought to forget. I got married, raised two sons, and went to work for a mid-sized newspaper in a mid-sized community. I found time to acquire a modicum of education, coached little league baseball and was grateful to live a normal American life. Too many of my army buddies failed to reach their 25th birthday. And many of those who did were never the same.

After what they had been through, they just couldn't adjust to the real world. Many of them fell prey to alcohol, loose women, radical religion, or isolation, anything to help them get through each day, month, and year. seven of our D company men committed suicide compared to those and thousands more I have been blessed. In some ways writing this book a process that has taken me almost 15 years has been the last leg of the journey. I realize that I speak for many who never had the chance to speak for themselves and I have done my best to pay them tribute. My hope is that this memoir

In however small a way Will perpetuate their memory And stand as a witness to their sacrifices It saddens and worries me That so much of the world Including America itself refuses to learn The hard lessons of the past Now that I am in my 80s

I am well aware that the long march That began so many years ago Is about to come to a halt I am proud to say that my generation helps save the world from tyranny, prevent the extinction of an entire group of people, and preserve the democratic freedoms of our wonderful American way of life.

I wouldn't change a thing except to wish that my dear army buddies could be here too. And John Robert Bob Slaughter died on May 29th, 2012. And William Blake, the poet, you asked,

who can stand? And I will tell you it is men like Bob Slaughter that stand. And it's men like him that encourage me and tell me in no uncertain terms that we are capable of more. We can do more. We can be more, can stand. Not much to say after that one, Echo.

No, sir. Not much to say. Yeah, obviously I can't help but agree fully, you know. And a lot of these, you know, when we go through these books, it just, man, it's crazy how much it puts into perspective. You know, everyone knows about World War II. Everyone knows, you know, most people we know about World War II. We know about the wars, but that's. we don't really know about the wars.

You know, we don't know about the details that we don't know about individual experiences, which really is that's, that's what makes the wars. Yes. And we don't know anything about that.

And what's interesting, this book was recommended to me from Twitter, from one of the troopers out there. And so we have Band of Brothers, right? And everybody knows Band of Brothers. Not everybody,

but most people, more people know Band of Brothers. Because it was a book, and then it was a big HBO movie and it was awesome. This book is less well known. But what you have to know is that there's thousands and thousands

of stories that we don't know and we will never know. Some of them we'll try to know, but there's so many stories that we will never know. That moment in combat when this guy tried to save that guy and they both did something

completely heroic and they both died and we never will know. So we have to cherish what we can find out, what we can learn, but there's just so much there and so much sacrifice that was made. And as I always say, what are we doing right now to honor that sacrifice? More. That's what we need to do. More. And with that, let's make a, let's make the hard transition once again.

Rough transition. The rough transition to the interweb for some questions. Speaking of interwebs onet.com slash jocco is where you can get 10% off of the spectacular supplements. Namely, krill oil. And strum tech. What about alpha brainy? That's good that you remember that. You must have been on alpha brain.

And also, I want to just do yourself that favor and get some of those warrior bars. What else? If you're in the mood to support this podcast, before you shop on Amazon, click on the Amazon link on jacoopodcast.com or jocco store.com. Sometimes people have been saying, hey, there's a problem. with the link, like, you know, it's not working or whatever. Some browsers have ad blocker, or has ad blockers activated on it. Got it. So disable the ad blocker for that page, and you can do it.

And I'm still working on the Canada one. I don't know if we can even do the Canada one and the UK one. Anyway, click through the Jocko store or joccopodcast.com, and before you do your Amazon shopping, and you can support that way. or get a shirt or a coffee mug or a bumper sticker from jocco store.com. And we weren't keeping it a secret or nothing, but we do have a new shirt out. Oh, we do. Know the darkness.

You know the darkness. You know the saying. Well, I know that this podcast can get a little bit dark from time to time. Yeah, because you know how like your original, one of your original things was, you know, you go through. life and certain people all they see is is the good things so they get kind of desensitized to like the the just small little good things in life you know so when you when you and that's really everything anyway where you know when you there's no tall people if everyone's the same size so you kind of got to know both you know yeah both short and tall no i've said it many times and uh i think i

originally i think i originally said it on the tim ferris show and he said he said he said something along the lines of like, hey, Jocko, I've struggled with depression. How close should you get to the darkness? Right, right, right. Because I was talking about some dark things, and I said, well, Tim, if you really want to know the light, then you've got to know the darkness. Right. So Echo made a t-shirt about the darkness. Yeah, just as no other.

And here's the thing, I kind of added another dimension to it. It's all black. It's black on black. So you can't, you know. It's all dark. You can kind of see it. Anyway. Cool, cool.

New shirt out. If you want that one. Yeah, there it is. Let's get to some questions from the interwebs. First question. Jocko, what is your relationship to surfing? Could you surf on active duty? And what does surfing do for you?

Okay, so my relationship with surfing. Number one, I was lucky to have a guy that when I was a kid up in Maine that said, hey, I'm going to teach you how to surf. This guy was a lifeguard. He was a outstanding surfer. And he said, I'm going to teach you how to surf. And I was a 10-year-old kid. The ice water? In the freezing cold water.

And I said, yeah, awesome. And so he gave me an old surfboard and put me out there and taught me how to surf when I was 10 years old. And it definitely, you know, surfing up in Maine is a little bit different. Because it's dark and it's cold and you got to do a little bit of suffering if you want to enjoy the benefits of it. You got to know the darkness, as they say. I don't know anything about the darkness of surfing. Kauai, it's not very cool. Yeah, Kauai, you didn't have to deal with that.

So that's how I got into surfing. And surfing, a lot of people will tell you when you do it, it's somewhat addictive because it's a very, you know, kind of paradoxical thing because it's very relaxing at the same time. It's very kind of exciting, I guess is the word. You get a little adrenaline, but you get a little mellowed out too. So it's a very fun thing to do. Good for you. It's good for your brain. It's good for the soul.

And when I was on active duty, if you're on active duty in the SEAL teams, yeah, you can surf. And I definitely surf. Sometimes I was more focused on surfing than others. When I really went BJJ crazy, I wasn't doing anything else. with any free time other than Jiu-Jitsu. So that's, but yeah, there's guys in the SEAL teams that actually manipulate their career around surfing because you can get stationed and you can go on trips to great surf spots and all that. And there's some pretty amazing surfers in the SEAL teams in the military as well. But, I mean, I only know about guys in SEAL teams.

There's a good guy named Ivan Trent, whose dad was Buzzy, Trent, a famous old pioneer surfer in Hawaii. And Ivan Trent, there was a picture. When I first got in the SEAL teams, there was a picture of Ivan Trent dropping in on a giant wave at Wamea Bay, the famous Wemia Bay. So there's some great surfers. It's definitely a little subculture inside the teams, and you can definitely surf a lot. I mean, you're living in San Diego or Virginia Beach. I mean, Virginia Beach has waves sometimes. San Diego has waves a lot of the times.

And what does it do for me? well one thing is it gets you outside gets me outside and gets you out into nature and what i like about nature nature what i like about nature is nature makes you feel small that's what nature to me that's what's good about nature that's what that's why nature puts things in perspective because nature makes you feel small makes you realize you know what look at the ocean i'm nothing look at the giant wilderness i'm in i'm nothing. So it just keeps you in check and keeps you in perspective. That's actually one of the things that the, probably the only thing I don't like about Jiu-Jitsu is pretty much the most part.

It's inside. It's inside the gym on the mat. And so, you know, you can do it outside, but it's, it's hard to do outside. The mats get super hot. Yeah. It's just not, it's just a thousand times more efficient and convenient to do inside. It's novel outside. It's novel. Exactly. It's cool to do sometimes.

And at my old house, I had like a full outdoor jujitsu area, which was cool. And I had a shade structure over it. It was good. It was good. But you have to have something to that extent before. It's not like you can just do jiu-jitsu outside. And you can do it, but it's novel. And you know if you do it in grass, you get the grass itches. Yeah, yeah. For some reason, I don't know what it is.

When you do jiu-jitsu in grass, you're all itchy. Yeah, yeah. But even that's kind of not, you know how like, this is more when you're younger you know when you first learn jujitsu oh yeah when you first learn you're doing you're doing jih Tijuana and you're at the party and everything's a mat

when you're a blue belt you're just looking at everything like it's a mat and you know so I think I think with other people um you know some people obviously you're not by the ocean but you know anything outside running hiking biking swimming even playing outdoor

sports like soccer and shooting basketball outside just whatever just get outside just get outside get out in the air feel it and I'll tell you one more thing about Jiu-Jitsu and surfing

there's a little connection there there's a little connection between Jiu-Jitsu and surfing I don't know what it is I know what it is well I'll talk about later well you know you got like even Kelly Slater who's you know 11 time 12 time

champion of the world in surfing he does J-Jitsu you got guys like Joel Tudor JT if you don't know who Joel Tudor is. He's just legendary longboard surfer. Actually,

he's from San Diego, so we kick it with J.T. from time to time. And actually, I see him on a regular basis at the longboard surfing contest, because both his kid and my kid surf on the long boards. But Joel Tudor, who's literally one of the most,

many people consider him to be the best long board surfer of all time. Oh, dang. Of all time. Yeah. You didn't even know he was that good, did you? I knew he, of all time, I didn't know that, but I believe it. And I'm not going to make that declaration because then a million people will say, no, it should be this guy.

But there are many people in the world who consider Joel Tudor to be the best long board surfer of all time. I met Joel Tudor in Jiu Jitsu. He just started coming and Shannon was like, hey, roll with him. He's good at Jiu Jitsu. So I was like, oh, cool. He was like a brown belt at the time. I'm in a row and he's really good at jujitsu and it's like okay cool jill and i see him during the day it was like mellow group and he'd come to the day i'd roll with joe sometimes yeah

be like cool joel tudor he's this kind of guy who's smaller than me will say and he's better than me cool cool one day you know who told me joel tooter was a badass longboarder who cake nuts uh cake hey is that joel tooter in that picture right there with joan i was like yeah yeah yeah how you know he's bro that's a longboater he's so badass that's funny yeah yeah and and and not is he so awesome at surfing. He's jiu-jitsu, is sick, too. Very, yes. So, Joel Tudor's won, and then you get, then once you go, once you go Brazilian

in this scenario, then there's all kinds of surfing going on, because that's a culture down there, you know, my first instructor, Fabio Santos, he's a, he's a badass surfer, Hoyler, Hickson, even Kid Pallegro. He's, yeah. So there's definitely, and when you just meet guys surfing, there's like a decent chance that they train the Jiu-Jits. So you said you know what the connection is? I know of some connections, yes.

Which major ones? Speak. Educate. Okay, so. Me. It's one of these things where, kind of on the surface, it feels like you against this big wash of a challenge, right? Both of them.

But really, it's not. It's not like this challenge that you take on. It's more of a challenge that you kind of just ride with. And it's more you yourself. And on top of it, and that could be any, that could be mountain climbing, whatever. But this is jiu-jitsu and surfing. It always changes. It's not different.

It may seem same in one way or another. It's same. But every single experience is different. And it's not something you can just take control of. You know, it's not one of those things. It's you have to ride the wave. And in surfing, it's literally in jiu-jitsu, it's, you got to go with it. You can't fight it.

Just like you can't fight a wave, you got to, and it's, and they're both that. Yes. So, of course, yeah, they take balance, but those are just little small physical action. Right, right. Because others force take balance, too. Yeah. But, yeah, it's, it's you. I mean, it's kind of a spiritual type thing to say.

It's you against yourself. Right. But that's really what it is. It's like you have to improve yourself. You don't, it's not about conquering this, you know, maybe psychologically it is, but it's still within yourself in it. And it's constantly. changing.

That's getting philosophical. But I like it. Yeah. That's good. And my last comment on that was both of them, both surfing and jujitsu, empty your brain. They empty my brain out. They empty my brain out. And they give me a nice clean slate to do other things with.

So that's that. All right. For the record, it come from Kauai, but sorry to say I don't surf. Yeah. But, bro, I used to shred. Bodyboarding and body surroger. Yeah, total sponger. Oh, and by the way, it's Waimea, not Waimia.

Oh. I'm not, I'm correcting you because you're my friend, but I don't want to be a corrector. That's no, correct. Correct. Correct me? Yeah, absolutely. Well, it could be Waimia, I guess, right? It's just pronunciation.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm a gringo. What can I say? Why mea, Hawaiian. If you be a corrector too much, you become the guy that people are tolerating. So you don't want to be the guy at the party that people are tolerating. You don't want to be that guy.

No matter how smart you want them to think you are. Well, you just proved your intelligence there. You gave me permission. All right. Next question. Started jiu jitsu this week and love it. I'm a former boxer and was thrilled that they let me spar on my first day. Is sparring on the first day too soon, in your opinion?

I was repeatedly told to tone it down by the higher belts. I thought I was toning it down. Is Jiu-Jitsu more like a dance or a street tussle? Am I supposed to relax and let these green and blue belts destroy me? I'm confused. This is such a great question. Because you see this all the time in Jiu-J-Zen. And I know from the podcast and from Twitter that there's so many people that are starting Jiu-Jitsu

Yes. Because of the podcast, and that's definitely why I wanted to answer this one, because this is how everybody feels when they start. And you're always going to get the senior belts or the more experienced people telling you, hey, man, you got to relax. By the way, if he's rolling with green belts, that means he's rolling with people under the age of 16 years old. Yeah, you know, I actually had a little discussion. I've heard that there's some academy. that give out green belts as an intermediate belt between white and blue. That there's adults.

I have never heard of it, but I was told that the other day, so that might be the situation here. Yep, I dig it. And by the way, I'll just go on record as saying, I disagree with it. Yeah. You don't have a green belt as an adult. You should be white belt and then blue belt. That's the way it was and that's the way it should remain.

Yeah, if I were an instructor, that's how I would do. But to me, hey man, do what you dig? and he's doing jujitsu and this green belt, if in fact he's an adult, he's doing jujitsu, apparently long enough to get a green belt. So I say, hey, no, no, he's not a green belt yet. Right, right, but these guys are some guy. In the event of this green belt that he's mentioned being an adult.

Okay. Either way I say, I say go do it. So, yeah, now the reason that people are telling you to relax, they're trying to be helpful because you're going to learn more if you relax and you actually concentrate on the techniques that you've been told. The couple techniques that you've learned, try them. I'm not saying don't fight it because you don't know what else to do. So you just use your horrible instincts to try and just muscle out of stuff and you get beat anyways.

And that's why you're just beating your head against the wall. So they're trying to get you to relax and use the technique that you learn and pay attention to what the other person is doing and think of it. about where they're positioning their body and what they're doing and how that's working. So you can actually ask them and say, hey, when you were holding me here, I couldn't move my arm. How are you holding that? So you can learn. If all you're trying to do is muscle out of it, you're not thinking about what's happening.

And that's not a good sign. Yeah. I think it's funny because relax, you know, when you hear relax as a white, I don't know if you even remember when you're a white belt. But when they say relax, more accurately, put, they should say, not they should say, but they're saying, try to relax. We know, everyone knows. The guy's not going to relax. He's over here rolling with a guy.

He doesn't know anything. Of course, he's in Mount, which is like, you know, super uncomfortable to be in. Of course, he's going to be trying to flip out, try to get out of there. He doesn't know the moves. So he can't be like, you know, hey, I'm going to relax and do all the moves I know. He knows two moves. He's, it's his first day or whatever. So, so, yeah, try to relax.

I think that's a good point where don't be going so hard and spazzing out so hard that nothing's going through your mind as far as what position is this guy on me. I remember not my first first day, but early on where side control, I barely even realized the difference between a side control and a half guard situation. And that's one of the things that as time went on, I wish I would have known, you know, like, okay, this is side control. And if you would have been more aware. and less fighting.

Right. You would have said, oh, wait, he's got my leg trap. That's what feels different right now. Exactly, right.

That's a game. You got to switch your game to this side control game. You know? Yep. And what's telling someone, am I supposed to let these green and blue belts destroy you?

No. But you got to remember, you can't look at it like a fight. Right. It's not a fight. It's not a fight. You know what it is? Don't let them destroy you.

Let them educate you. Right. That's what, when you're rolling with a higher belt, especially when you don't know very much at all, they're educating you. You should be trying to pay attention. And let's just take this off the mats and into life.

Because when you get into a situation, an unknown situation, what are you going to do? Are you going to fight and struggle against when someone has more knowledge than you about some topic? Are you going to fight against them? No, just be quiet and listen and learn. when you're in a new scenario

something you've never done before are you going to try and compete and win at this thing you've never done before are you going to try and learn and be educated my recommendation is to learn to be educated because you're not going to win lest it's a miracle but most

situations don't allow for miracles so when you're in life relax try and learn when you're on the mat relax try and learn Try to relax.

Try to relax. Got to try to relax. It's true. And when, I don't know, maybe this is just me, but when I think of the whole spectrum when I first started versus just even right now, and of course I don't have it all figured out. But when I kind of reflect on that whole learning process, I like the fact that I couldn't really relax at the beginning. Because you start to realize, oh, I see how I learned that right there. You know, I see how I see the difference now in the time where I didn't really know how to relax versus even like the time where I thought I knew how to relax. But after, you know, eight, 10 minutes, you're like, oh, dying.

Versus, you know, now where you can go 10, 20, hard, you know, and find place where you can relax and be able to basically control the scenarios where you can't relax. I like that. I like that the beginning, you can't relax. Just like in the beginning, you didn't know certain moves. Relaxing is yet another move. Yeah, there you go. I rolled with Dean tonight, Dean Lister, and he was all fired up because he'd been on a trip. And so he's like, hey, let's roll.

So we rolled and he got the mount position. And I just was down there relaxing. Speaking of relaxing, I was just down there relaxing. And I'm relaxing, but I'm just doing a little bit of off balancing of him so he can't really relax. 100% and it took me a few minutes like about five but I got out of the mouth and got back to another position got back to guard so it's you're right relaxing is actually a technique in jiu jitsu yeah yeah so and and a big part of it um not the whole thing but a big part of it is just being conscious of it it you know maybe I'm spazzing too much of something of course with everything it's going to come

with wraps it's going to come with experience and stuff like that but And by the way, Dean would tell you, and I would tend to agree with him, not only is relaxing a technique, spazing is also a technique. And sometimes, you know, Dean will get some position on me and I will spaz to get out of it. Now, I'm not encouraging the person that wrote this question to start working on their spas technique. Don't start working on that until later. Save that right now. Start with your relaxed technique. Yeah, yeah.

All right. Next question. In regards to podcast number two. 23 in the art of war. Many of the rules seem very simplistic in black and white. Take this one, for example. When the enemy occupies high ground, do not confront him. If he attacks, downhill, do not oppose him.

Where does that leave us with battles like Normandy, where troops had to get up those cliffs? What about the IDF conquering the Golan? Golan Heights. Golan Heights. In the Six Day War. There are many other examples I could give. It's obviously not ideal to do such things as fighting a well-entrenched enemy uphill,

but dealing with less than ideal situations is a part of war. We should all be so lucky as to only be able to choose battles that fit the art of war. But from my experience, it's often not an option in real life. And you have to somehow get it done anyway. So, yeah, this is a pretty simple question with a pretty simple question. simple answer to don't forget that the laws or the the the art of war and the and the laws in the art of war the rules the simplistic back and white rules in the in the art of war are governed by other rules that say to break the rules themselves so so just to pull out a couple quotes i

went and pulled these out sun sue says he who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning may be called a heaven-born captain. So if you can adapt to the situation and adapt your tactics and modify your tactics, so attacking uphill is a modification of a tactic, right? Yes. The next one I pulled out, Sun Su says, do not repeat tactics that have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances. That answers the question in its own right.

Let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances. And the last little quote I pulled up from Sun Su, according as circumstances are favorable, one should modify one's plans. So there's three rules. from the art of war that tell you to change the rules of the art of war when you have to. So, yeah, you're told to avoid these situations, but sometimes you have to. Now, it's also important to remember that the philosophy of the art of war generally

espouses an indirect methodology of combat, where oftentimes you're trying to keep yourself safe and inflict damage when you can. That implies that maybe I have less physical strength or size than my opponent. So I have less soldiers or less equipment than my opponent. And from that perspective, let me ask us, would it be smart to attack Normandy if you actually didn't have the numbers to carry out the attack? you didn't have the overwhelming force that we had amassed on England to go and assault France, it wouldn't make sense.

Then it would make sense to continue to obey the principles and the art of war, which is, you know what, we're not going to attack head on. We're going to figure out another way to do it. So, like I said, these are rules, but these are rules like all rules that are meant to be broken when the time calls for it. So good question, but it's a, it's a, the, the art of war answers that question in itself. Jockle. How do the seals reconcile themselves with the fact they face death on every operation they undertake,

more so than the conventional forces? Is this something that is learned? Well, first of all, let me make it perfect. clearly clear that this is not true. What is it? Well, first of all, the part that you face death on every operation, there's always a chance. But furthermore and more importantly, this idea that the SEALs or special operations unit face death more so than conventional forces, not true. In fact, in many cases, SEALs are safer than the conventional forces.

the conventional forces are out there doing very difficult operations that are oftentimes more dangerous. I mean, even just something as simple as going on a logistics convoy. You are, I mean, in Iraq and Afghanistan, you are extremely exposed in those situations. You're on the defensive because you're in a convoy. You're just waiting to get blown up. And so that situation is you're facing, you're more. you're much you're much more exposed

in that situation doing a daytime convoy run down IED roads than you would be if you were doing a night patrol through the same area that's just the way it is I mean there's other operations too

I mean presence patrols and census operations there's all kinds of operations that the conventional units do that are extremely dangerous they also often oftentimes have less support. So, for instance, there's, there's an aircraft called an AC 130 that is just a miraculous

piece of equipment, just an incredible weapon system. And it's an airplane that flies around at 10,000 feet, and it can see everything, because it has these incredible, incredible imagery systems on it. So they can see everything that's happening. They can track. And then they can shoot and destroy anything they want. So a lot of times the special operations unit will have, for instance, something like an AC130 supporting them. You know, on top of that, special operations, they get really good training.

So you've got this outs and all the conventional forces often have great training as well. But sometimes they don't have the best training in the world. Then you're in a seal platoon or you're in a special operations, you know, in a, in a special forces ODA, you're going to have some good training under your belt that you've been going through for many, many years so that training makes you safer as well. And, you know, you're going to get, oftentimes, again,

you're going to get better gear in special operations because they have a big budget for a smaller number of people. The logistical support, the flexibility that you have in special operations is usually, it's usually better. And I mean, like, the logistics and the Army of the Marine Corps awesome. And it definitely is

better than special operations, but special operations is always supporting a much smaller unit. So even though the logistics, people, or systems might not be as good, they're overwhelmingly good for the small number of people that are in special operations.

So I'll just go one step further. A lot of times, you know, in Ramadi, the conventional guys, they were living out in the city. They were living out in the city of Ramadi after we put combat outposts in place. We, seals, would

return to base after a few days out in the field. These guys stayed out there. So we'd return back and get a shower and get some good food and relax. We had permanent guards that kind of guarded our base with a really big perimeter. So we were in a good

spot to stand down for the most part. Whereas the conventional guys, they're out in Ramadi they're standing watch you know oh we you know we go back and can take a break and go on the internet when they take a break they're going into a watchtower so

I just don't I just want to make sure I make it perfectly clear that you know the the the conventionals are by no means doing anything less risky than the special operations in fact most of the time they're doing things that are more risky tougher missions higher

risk you know that's just way it is. So that's why, you know, we have just the utmost respect and admiration for the conventional units that we work with in Ramadi

and I'll tell you the guys, that's how we feel. So now the question becomes how do we any service member? Face death is the question. And again, it's any service member. Anybody that's

going to war has to realize that there's a possibility that they could get killed. And so how do you get over that? For me, it was acceptance. And saying to myself, you know what? Okay, I could get killed. And it could happen tonight. It could happen tomorrow.

It could happen a week. I don't know when it's going to happen, but it could happen. And you know what? I'm not afraid of it. So if I'm afraid of it, that's going to be hard to deal with every single day. The other piece of it is you deal with it by mitigating as much risk as you possibly can. Okay, what can we do? How can I make sure that I'm safe as safe as possible?

I train hard. I make sure my guys are training hard. I make sure my guys are dialed in. I make sure that they know what the plan is when we go out on the battlefield. That's what you do. You mitigate as much risk as you can. And then there's areas where you can't mitigate risk. There's areas where you could catch us.

You could find an IED. You could find a bullet. You could find a bomb. And that's it. And you can't, in my mind, you can't worry about things that you can't control. So the things that you can't control, accept them. And let's focus on mitigating what we can control. And I think that's probably, that's what I did.

when I was in those situations and I would tell you that that's what most of the guys that I was with had something along those lines in their brains. Yeah. That acceptance is such a powerful thing.

Like if you just accept something like, okay, I'm at risk of this or I'm like this is going to be a terrible, crude example, comparatively speaking. Compared to what? Compared to accepting the risk of death. Let's hear it.

Let's say you messed up. Is it a long example? Let's say you go to work. The fans wanted me to say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Let's say you go to work. And right when you walk in one of your coworkers say, hey, man, John, your boss is looking for you.

He's going to, and you know you did something. You messed up. You blew up some meeting. I don't know, whatever. You messed up with the client. You're like, hey, man, the boss is looking for you. And you're like, yeah. So you're going to avoid the boss at all costs.

Oh, that's going to make for a long day. Yeah, so let's say you avoid them one day. The whole day, boom, you clocked out, you're out. Next day, same thing. Oh, shoot, he's looking for you even more, even more, even more. After a while, it's going to weigh on you. And once you just feel like, I'm going to get chewed out, let me just accept it. And then, you know, you can go through with it.

Stress is gone. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Analogy accepted. Yeah. Or, like, for example, I'm just kidding. Oh, thank God.

Well, if, like, a bully is looking for you. Yeah, go up and get him. Yeah, like, you know, well, I don't know if you've ever been bullied in school, but, like, if someone's looking for you, they're mad at you or whatever. And you know they're looking for you, the bully. And you're like, man, you're avoiding them. You're avoiding them. After a while, you just, all right, I accept it.

You know, something's going to have to go down. I'm going to have to experience this confrontation. Yeah, and really the acceptance point would be to say, you know what? What's the worst thing that could happen? The worst thing could happen, he beats me up. I get a bloody, no. I don't care anymore. Right.

I'm going to go get it. Yeah. Because what you're talking about really is facing the problem, which I also support. You know what? You got a problem, whether it's meeting with your boss or what you're going to get bullied. I'm going to face that problem. So that's one piece. But one thing that will help you to face the problem is saying, okay, what's the worst thing that happens?

You know what? I go into my boss. He might fire me. Okay, if he fires me, I'm going to have to go get a new job. But that's the worst thing that's going to happen. Right. What's the worst thing that happens if I get in a fight with a bully? Worst thing it happens, I'm going to get a bloody nose, I'm going to get beat up.

But you know what? I can handle that. So I'm going to go face this issue. And it's the same thing in combat. What's the worst thing that happens? Worst thing it happens, I'm going to get killed. Okay. That happens.

It's over. I'm good with it. Let's go out and face it. And, you know, honestly, I say it's the worst thing, but honestly, the thing that guys are usually the most afraid of is having their friends get hurt or their guys get hurt. That's the worst thing. Yeah. fully and then even how you said the training helps and that seems obvious you know but I think even that is is that's like kind of an understated I think under appreciated thing because you know like remember when USC came out and I remember looking at pro these guys are nuts to go in there to do that but once you learn even just some jiu jiu jitsu just some jiu jih Tzu that what you see like them fighting the USC and stuff like that's I could do Yeah.

Yeah, and actually that's one of the reasons why I started. I started Jiu-Too. I didn't start J-Jitsu. I wanted to be a fighter. So I trained in MMA first. And before training that, I would have thought you're completely insane to do that. Like, you've got to be, like, kind of crazy person. But once you have the train, you see, oh, okay, you know, it kind of just turns on the lights.

You see, like, okay, I see all this stuff. You have just a vast understanding rather than all you see is knuckles in blood and arms breaking and stuff. So, all right, next question. Jaku, good evening. In a leadership position, is it okay to take or ask for suggestions on solving a task? Or is it okay to take suggestions that stray from my initial plan? Yes. Yes.

And I hope that this, that made you decide to ask this question is because you just, found out about the podcast or the book or whatever because this is this is something that absolutely anybody that kind of listens will would say yes absolutely you're in a leadership position you should definitely ask for suggestions take suggestions share the planning let other people let many brains be smarter than your one brain that's what you're want you want to utilize the brain power of your team now the reason you're asking this question a little bit scary a little bit of a red flag the reason you're asking this question because you're afraid of what it'll look like if you have to ask hey guys i'm not sure how to do this or you're

afraid of of what it means that you're going to look that you're going to look weak you're going to look like a weak leader yeah and that's that's that's yeah you're an experience that's yeah you're an experience that's your insecurity that's making that happen don't be insecure don't be insecure because the open mind and the asking for suggestions and the taking suggestions, it actually makes you look like a better leader. I know that sounds crazy. It actually makes you look like a better leader when you say, hey, you know what? Echo, we got this problem to solve. Not 100% sure how to tackle this one. Can you give me a hand? Can you give me some suggestions here? That doesn't make you say, oh, Jocco doesn't know his game. He's an idiot. No, it goes, oh man, Jocco's humble.

He's looking for input. He wants to work together as a team. So, yes, absolutely. Ask for suggestions, take suggestions, have an open mind. Disregard your plan if your plan wasn't good. I'm not just going to hold fast to a plan because I'm the one that thought of it. That's not good leadership at all.

Don't do that. Open your mind. Yeah. Yeah, and asking for, asking for suggestions. And it's kind of what you said already is it helps with making everyone feel even more involved. Oh, you mean it spreads the ownership throughout the team? Yes, indeed. Echo Charles.

Yeah. Yes, indeed. That improves. I know as like if, you know, you're the leader, whatever. And the leader was asking me for my input. And I gave it to him. And, you know, and he entered, man, I would feel. just that much more valuable and part of the team,

I'd be more enthusiastic now. Right. Now, who's going to work harder in a project? You, when I come in and say, hey, can you give me a hand? How do you think we should do this? And then you come up with a suggestion and you start working on that plan, you're going to go a lot harder than if I come in and say, hey, here's what I want you to do. Follow my instructions.

As soon as you come up to an obstacle, and all I've told you do is follow my instructions. As soon as you come to an obstacle, you're going to be like, ah, you know what, hey, I need, this isn't working. Right, right. Whereas if it was your plan, you come up to an obstacle, you tackle that thing. You get after it.

That's what happens. You know, you're saying like sometimes where, you know, as a leader you might be reluctant to ask for suggestions because you might come off like inexperience or something like that. If you need a suggestion and you're like, oh, I don't want to sound like that or whatever, and you say, you know, whatever, I'm just going to go ahead and move forward anyway, you know, and not know the best way to do it. Man, you're going to look dumb. And you know how, like, we talked about this before where if you don't know what you're doing, but you're acting like you know what you're doing, probably. That's transparent, man. You're way more transparent than you think.

And that goes pretty much with everything you do. It's like name droppers, you know, when people like drop names. They don't really think that people are going to pick up on it. But, oh, my gosh, you smell that thing from a mile away. Is that like tonight, I was like, well, you know, Joe Lister. We're kicking it. Exactly. We see what you're doing.

Hey, it's been 26 podcasts, and I haven't talked about. I haven't done much name-dropping. J.T. Joe, you're the first one. Name-dropping. You should say Joel Tudor, because you could be talking about J-T-Torres. Oh, no, I'm talking about Joel Tudor. Another J-Too-Glover's name.

But those guys, we drop Greg Train's name, too. You know what I mean? We drop everybody, like, everybody that we train with, we drop their names, but just no one knows who they are. Right. Yes. Like Andy or Big Eric. I mean, we talk about these guys. Well, technically, that wouldn't be name dropping, though.

Technically. Like, name dropping. Well, then, again. But what if I said, hey, I was training with Big Eric tonight and he did such and such. Yeah, see, if it's... But I actually was training with Dean Lister tonight. Well, yeah. It depends on the context you're trying to add.

If you're trying to add into the story the fact that I know this guy, that therefore makes me hip or cool like this guy or on his level or whatever or associated with him, so I'm cool, whatever. That's name dropping. But if you're just trying to paint a more accurate picture of your experience or your story or whatever. But the fact of the matter is, like I was training with Dean tonight. Right. You know?

Yeah. See, so it added context to the story. But you said Dean and then you went, you kind of reversed and came back to and said, Dean Lister. That's name. Nonetheless, the point is if you start carrying on, you know you don't know that. Yeah. You need suggestions and you say, you know, whatever.

I'm just going to move forward. They're going to smell that on you, that you're black like that. Yeah. I'm laughing because I'm thinking of name dropping right now. It's true. The point there is you're a lot more transparent than you think. Like a lot of people,

and some people that do stuff automatically. You keep using transparent in its, in its, the way that the business community uses transparent right now, they use it in a positive way. Like, hey, look, we're just going to be completely transparent on how we're doing this.

You're using it in a little bit of a negative way. Like, hey, I can see through your crap here. Yeah. Yeah. And I tend to use it in both. Yeah, you use it in both. Bipartisan kind of thing. Bipartisan. I like that. I read that.

I learned it. I actually got a fine film. Nonetheless, yeah, they'll see right through that if you need suggestions. And that's on top to add to the fact that all this other stuff, that it makes the team feel more valuable. It's a better overall way to be. There's no doubt about it.

No doubt. By the way, in case you're wondering, the best military planning units, whether it's the SEAL teams, whether it's the Army that I work with, or whether it's the Marine Corps, the more open they are in their planning, taking suggestions from throughout the chain of command, the better off they do, period, end of story. I should have just answered with that, and we're going to move on. That's the way it works.

Next question. This is a question slash clarification. Could you elaborate on flanking? My impression was that it meant to move around to attack from the side instead of head-on. But as often as it comes up on your podcast, I get the impression there must be more to it, or at least some interesting nuances.

I guess there's not that much more to it. I mean, a little piece of it was you want to distract them a little bit to the front and then you want to flank them. That's about the only additional information that's needed to understand what flank is. Flank is, yes, you instead of attacking head-on, you attack from the side or sometimes the rear. And I'll tell you, just to point this out for anyone out there that's either in the military and law enforcement and you're going to flank and you're going to go to the rear, just

remember that on a large scale it works because you have distance where your weaponry won't impact friendly lines. But if you surround someone or you come from the rear of, let's say, a small target building or a situation with open environment, but you're surrounding an enemy, just don't forget that when you surround an enemy, now you're cutting off your own fields of fire. So that's why you shouldn't do that. You should just stick with the flank where that way you can still keep shooting and keep your fields of fire as open as possible.

I just wanted to throw that in there. But that's what it is. Military terms, it means you know, you're attacking the side. You're attacking the weak point, which is generally. generally the sides. Now, it's the same thing. Obviously in Jiu-Jitsu, you don't attack what they're defending. You know, you attack their neck, attack their neck, attack their neck, they forget about their neck, and boom, you flank them and get their arm. Greg Train said that to me tonight. He was like, oh, that was a little flank. He says to me, Greg Train. So, did I just name drop?

What if I said Dean Lister said it, that it would have been a name drop? If you said Greg Train told me that today while I was hanging out with Dean Liston. That would have been a name job. All right. I won't do that. So, but then you get, so now you get Flank, and we've talked about this before, when you, when you were talking about dealing with

people, then yes, you don't want to attack where people are dug in. You, you don't want to attack what they are defending. When someone has a strong point of view that they're married to, don't attack that. if someone has a big giant ego,

don't attack that flank it. Maybe even just give a little bit of massage to that ego to distract them and then sneak in from the flank with your idea and you put it in there. If someone's got a plan that they're defending hardcore, don't attack the plan.

Come up with a little way to all, augment the plan, a little twist on the plan that they already have. So you're accepting their plan, but you're putting your spin on it. And that way, they accept it because it's part of what, it's part of their plan. So it works. So once again, don't beat your head against the wall 47 times. Just flank. Real simple.

That's all it is. Yeah. So, and a lot of times it's a figurative thing. Yes, well, obviously. And there's like all these little sayings, he who flanks first wins. And flank or be flanked. There's one more. There's a million of them.

But when in doubt, flank. Yeah, there's all these little things. But the great thing about it is also just mentally, okay? If we're trying to solve a problem and we're just thinking one way of the problem, When you get stuck in that way, flank. When you come up to an obstacle, flank. When you get a resistance and you can't figure something out, flank. That's what I'm talking about.

Just always have that in your head. I'm always doing that. Emotionally dealing with relationship scenarios. You got your relationship, your wife, she's dug in on something. don't us tack that thing flank is that kind of like um you want to go to train jiu jitsu but you'd gone like a bunch of no no no you want to go to taco tuesday or something i don't know wherever you go and you know it's her birthday i go to steak saturday yeah steak saturday so you buy your wife flowers the day or two days before right yeah instead of being like i'm gonna i'm the man i'm going

Because I said so you buy her the flowers. You flank them. And then when that day comes, you have the quote-unquote opportunity to see some friends. Just a quick one one night. She'll remember those flowers because she's on the, on the, you know, the distractions, so to speak. You distract her a little bit. You flank. You flanked her with it.

Or like on Jurassic Park, you know, those raptors? You ever seen Jurassic Park? I have. It was quite some time ago. So, okay. It was about dinosaurs. Yeah, yeah. So the T-Rex.

The T-Rex can't really see you that good. So you just remain still If you remain real still He can't really see you because he sees movement But the raptors, they're these like They're little mini T-Rexes They flank though, don't they? They flank, so one of them's like messing with you

Like engaging you and you think, okay, I'm not gonna move Or maybe I'll move or whatever And then the other two get you And then they enjoy you as their meal That's a flank It's a prehistoric When in doubt, flank Get that mindset

It's a good mindset to have I think you're right. The flank. Next question. At what point do you turn off the manipulation tactics with people that you work with? Or don't you? So this question, this question, I actually pulled this from a friend of mine. Not a good, not someone I've known for a long time, but someone that's a guy that I know.

He doesn't know me well enough, but he knows well enough to ask me this question. Sure. Right. And he actually sent me a text. He's like, you know, I've been thinking. to listen to your podcast. Are you just manipulating people all the time? Yeah.

And it's a legit question, right? I have that question, sure. Yeah, even Echo has that question. So I obviously have talked about leadership and influence as manipulation, because that's what they are, right? If I'm trying to get you to do something, you could say I'm leading you, but you can also say I'm manipulating you, okay? And the difference to me, and I've pointed out this difference before,

The difference to me is that if I'm trying to do something that's going to benefit you or benefit the team, then that's leadership or that's influence. If I'm trying to get you to do something and it's going to benefit me, then that's manipulation. I've talked about that before. So that being said, I am not running around in full manipulation mode all the time. I'm not. I'm not constantly sitting there trying to. to plot and make people do things. I will say this, though,

I am generally conscious or aware or detached enough that I can see my interactions with other people from a good enough distance to see how I'm affecting the situation. So it's there. You know, I'm aware of it. I do have a couple friends, not many,

where I'm just like completely unfiltered. Some of the times. Some, maybe even most of the time. But with most people, like I said, I'm at least aware of what I'm saying and what I'm doing

and how it's being received. It's modulated though. And I'm not, like I said, I'm not sitting there manipulating everyone that I meet. And the fact of the matter is, the reason is most of the time I don't care.

Not that I don't care about them, but I don't, I'm not, I have no reason. I am not trying to do something with this person. I'm just interacting with the person, and I like to interact with different people, and I get along well with a lot of different types of people

from straight-laced, like, religious people, to freaking outlaw bikers, to surfers, to alcoholics, to fitness freaks. I mean, I'm friends with a bunch of different people, and I'm definitely not sitting around. trying to manipulate them. I'm trying to enjoy, and I enjoy the various personalities and sort of decisions and lives that people had.

I learn from them. Not trying to manipulate. I'm actually trying to learn from people most of the time. Not manipulate. But, you know, when I do get in a team setting or a business setting or a relationship setting where now what we're doing is an interaction of humans, then I definitely will be thinking about how my actions and reactions are affecting the situation. And I will tell you this. I'm generally only doing it for good. I'm not trying to get things from people. I think you would be one to

say like, yeah, I'm pretty generous with what I'm trying to do with my life and with helping people. Not that I find myself to be like some healer or some benevolent person that's running around. I'm not trying to say that. But I'm generally, if I'm interacting with someone enough that I'm in this mode, I am trying to help them. I'm trying to help us. That's what I'm trying to do. So if this is manipulation to try and help people and try and help whatever it is I'm doing with other people to move in the right direction, if that's manipulation, I'm guilty. Right.

Yeah. And you kind of mentioned that too where you're using the word manipulation. Yeah, I use it where most people don't like to say it. Right, right. Most people say, you know what? I really like to influence my friends and move them in the right direction. Yeah. Well, what is that doing?

Yes. That's manipulating. Yeah. So if you look up the definition, it's to handle cunningly, that's what manipulation is. Oh, nice. Well, there's another definition in there, too. But I think that's a more general broad definition. Yeah, but I think the generally accepted meaning of the word manipulate has a negative connotation for sure.

And it is rightfully so, because it generally, when you say it, you're talking about, oh, Jocko is really manipulating Echo. So what does that mean? Oh, Jock was trying to get stuff from Echo. he's trying to do stuff for his own benefit. Whereas if I were to say, you know, Jocko, he's been hanging out with Echo a lot, man, he's really having a good influence on. Well, guess what? That's cool.

Oh, everyone's happy now. But what did I really do? I really manipulated you. Right. I really made you act a certain way. I led you. I manipulated you. Yeah.

So, again, I mean, maybe I need to stop using the word manipulation. But I always, the reason I like to use it because I know it, I know it makes people think. Yeah. I know it makes people see leadership for what. it is with leadership you're trying to get other human beings to do what you want them to do that's what you're trying to do now in the the best form of leadership you're trying to get them to want to do what you want them to do and in even in better form of leadership you're trying to get them to do what they want to do and it happens to be what you want them to be to do too to do like

sure that's the goal yeah but all of those means i'm trying to get you to do something. Yeah. And whether we want to call it leadership or we want to call it influence or we want to call it inspiration or we want to call it manipulation, it's the same thing. The only difference being in my mind, when I manipulate something, I'm trying to help myself. And I don't do that. Right.

I'm not trying to help myself. Yeah. Manipulation. Through other people. Yeah, it sounds like that it's helping yourself at their expense. Exactly. That's manipulation. And influence is even more broad.

I think even goes outside of manipul. Just because influence, you can passively influence someone. You can just hang around someone. But you can passively manipulate people too. Yeah. Yes, you can. You can absolutely passively manipulate people.

Like, and not know you're doing it. Well, no. You can do it by not doing something. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's like passive aggressive manipulation. Yes. But like influence, let's say we're just cruising and we're hanging out. not telling me or asking me or whatever to do something you're just being you and I'm like fuck

jaco so cool man let me let me let me roll up my sense like jacco does you know that's influence that's influence yeah but i wouldn't call that money people but that wouldn't be manipulation yeah but what if i intentionally was like you know what i really need to get i really echo to do i really yeah yeah and here's what i'm to do i'm going to show him i'm going to lead yeah yeah so and and really isn't so that being said isn't Just being polite. Isn't that a low form of manipulation? Absolutely.

If I say, hey, would it be possible for you to grab that chair for me? What do you mean, would it be possible? We know that's possible. Yes, it is possible. We know it's possible. I know what possible means. Why did you say, if possible, why did I say that? Because I want you to not be defensive.

You want to feel good. You want to feel, you know, that's like the level of manipulation. Absolutely is. It's interacting with other people. Right. So you have to show some. form of if we want to use the word manipulation, which we do obviously. Yeah, you're always doing it. So in a way, it's pretty rare you're going to turn it off.

Yeah, really. Yeah, really. And so I guess to answer the question once again, do I ever turn it off? Not really. Am I walking around trying to manipulate people and get them to fall under my spell of destruction? Hell no. I'm just a normal guy that's interacting with people on a regular way and when I'm dealing with people in an interactive situation, I'm aware of the way I'm acting and how it affects the situation. That's it. And you happen to be pretty affected. In a positive way though, how you turn out, like if it's for the goal of the collective, it's not a malevolent regulation. Yes, it is not. All right. So really, the answer to the question is, not really. That's the question.

I like the way you put that. All right. We got what? One more. Yeah, we got time for one more. Jocko, how do you stay motivated and how do you motivate people when they start to slack? Now, motivation is, it's kind of a strange word, because it doesn't really mean what we think it means. we think it means that we're fired up to do something.

We think that it means we're eager and passionate to make something happen. And we think that somehow we should just be able to turn on that eagerness and turn on that passion. But we can't. Because you just can't turn on passion. You can't just turn on the desire. to execute a task. It just doesn't work that way.

And honestly, that isn't even what motivate means. Motivate doesn't mean to yell and scream and encourage. No. To motivate actually means to provide a motive, a reason why. So to motivate someone is to explain to them why they're doing what they're doing, how it will help them, where it'll take them, why they should continue to work and to struggle and to fight. And when you need motivation yourself, don't look for someone to scream and yell. Don't look for someone else to give you motivation.

Look at yourself. Look at yourself and remind yourself why. Why you are doing what you are doing. Remind yourself that this struggle, this temporary pain, this fight, this fight that you're in, this is what will make you stronger and faster and smarter and better. And then with that motivation, go forward into the fray, into the storm, into the heat, into the heat of the bad. battle is forged. I think that's all I've got for tonight. So thanks to everyone for listening and supporting.

And if you want to continue this conversation or ask questions or give us feedback, you can find us out on the interwebs. On Twitter, Echo Charles is Echo Charles. And I am at Jocko Willink. We're also out there on the Facebook. and even Instagram. It's true.

And thanks to everybody that makes this podcast happen. And who is that, Echo? Aside from you. On it, of course. And if you've been living under a rock, as they say, and don't know what on it is, it's where we get Alpha Brain, which helps you think and memorize stuff and whatnot.

nutrients for your brain. Anyway, was it Jody saying that he takes Shroom Tech? Yes, I think it was. It was the cake nuts. I think I already said this. He was texting me, said, I want that shroom tech.

I guess he used it, it. Cake nuts. Getting a Shroom Tech on. High intensity stuff for a long period of time. Anyway, Onet is the supplement company. So you go to onet.com slash jocco and you get 10% off. All supplements. That's the only ones I would recommend, really.

well yeah and I've tried some other ones before anyway and then before you do Amazon shopping if you want to

click through the link on joccopodcast.com you can support that way or jaccosstore.com right or jacocco store. And speaking to jacco store before you shop on Amazon if you go to jacco store

you can shop on jacco store if you like the shirt we have shirts we have a new one out too but yeah if you think those are cool shirts get one of those the new and outs know the darkness see no one's even going to know what these things mean unless you're one of us right you're not going to know people are just going to be asking you what are you doing why are you wearing that i can barely read it you say don't worry about it yeah and i'll say this where where i don't know if i

told you this before but um like the ideas behind the shirts they're not just like random who that looks cool on a shirt or whatever they do have like inside meaning you know, like discipline equals freedom, right? So that was your thing, like, originally, before you even started a podcast, you were like, when you said that, I was like, ah, that doesn't make any sense. And that's what you said. You said, at first it doesn't make any sense. And I was like, yeah, it doesn't make it.

Thinking in my head, but then when you explained it, it was like, dang, that's kind of, that's deep. It does make sense. Yeah, it does make sense. It makes perfect sense, actually. Indeed. But it is one of those things, you know, that's kind of where. So, okay, so that makes sense.

If you don't know what it means, all it is is yet another shirt with a little saying on it. That's all it is, if you don't know what it means. Same thing with your head that says good, and the good is backwards. All these shirts are for you. They're not for like, hey, everyone, look at my cool shirt, even though it can have that effect. But that's not what they're made for you. Pretty cool. Yeah, yeah.

So when you're looking in the mirror, it says good, then you can see that you can read it. It's backwards, you know? So the darkness shirt, if you look at it's black on a black shirt, you can barely see it. But that's what darkness is, man. barely see it, but you know that that darkness there. But it's there. Look at the design on the back. Yeah.

If you look at the design of the back, we'll just say it's a dark scene. I'm just going to say that, but it's black on black. So you can't, unless you kind of know and you really look at it, you know, if the shirt means something to you, you know, then it's going to mean something. So you're making shirts that actually, you got to be one of us. Yeah, you got to be on the inside, you know. It'll have that extra layer. To know what's up. But hey, man, if you just think it just looks cool, hey, do you, man.

Do you. Anyway, there you go. That's so you can support if you want. Awesome. So that's everyone that makes the podcast happen and the actual people that make the podcast happen. It's you all listening to this podcast. You're the ones that make it happen,

that ask the questions, that write reviews, that give us feedback and let us know that you're getting something out of it. So thank you for listening. and for going out into your part of the world and motivating yourself and those around you to get up and get after it. Until next time, this is Jocko and Echo.

Out.