Jocko Podcast - 305: The Worst Mistakes are The Ones We Don't See. On The Psychology of Military Incompetence Pt.3

Episode Date: October 27, 2021

0:00:00 - Opening0:01:41 - On The Psychology of Military Incompetence Pt.31:40:51 - How to stay on THE PATH.1:55:34 - Closing gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 305 with Echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Also joining us again tonight. Dave Burke. Good evening, Dave. Good evening. We are going to continue the review of the book, the Psychology of Military Incompetence,

which we started on podcast 303, continued to 304. We're going to continue it more now. And we got through some example. in the last podcast, some of the wartime examples. We'll get through the rest of these examples to the night. And this is a big setup. This is an arduous setup for part two of the book. I don't know if we'll get into part two of the book tonight,

which actually starts to dive into the psychology of military incompetence. But like I said before, those explorations continuously refer back to the examples from the beginning part one of this book, which is what makes the book powerful because it's not just theory. It gives you examples that connects the theory to reality. So that's what we're doing. If you haven't ordered this book, order it. It's called On the Psychology of Military Incompetence written by Dr. Dixon, who is a combat vet himself. If you haven't listened to Podcast 303 and 304 yet, can go back and listen to those first.

We're going through these military examples. And you can see them starting to tune in, starting to call out some of these psychological pathology that ends up with bad leadership. And with that, we're going to go into the book. This chapter is called Between War. So we end World War I. and this chapter is called Between the Wars

because what should be happening between the wars? What should we be doing? We should be assessing what we did wrong, assessing what we did right, seeing what improvements we could make, seeing what new technology we could bring to bear. And let's face it, you fight a war like World War I,

and there should be an insane amount of lessons learned. Unfortunately, this quote starts off with, this chapter starts off the quote from George Bernard Shaw. And he says, the British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office. What a horrible statement that is. Going to the book.

Military stock is never lower than at the end of a costly war. With a million dead, society's appetite for aggression has been assuaged. People were wary of the war and tired of soldiering for the military.

The truth was rubbed in by swinging cuts in men and material. We're done. World War I's done. You only think about being over it, they're over it. From being the most important members of the community, they were now relegated to a very minor role. That's the military.

This thinly veiled in gratitude had three effects upon the military with the hoarse yet self-consoling cry. Now we can get back to some real soldiering. They withdrew into cocoons of professional impotence. And that's strange. You get done with the war. He said, all right, now we can get back to soldiering, which for them, what does that mean? In accordance with the principle that more florid aspects of militarism are defenses against threat to self-esteem, there was a falling back upon the rights of the barrack square.

Renewed attention to spit and polish helped to expunge the last traces of the mud of Flanders. At higher levels of military hierarchy, service thinking was now embodied in an extract from a paper on imperman. Defense dated June 22nd, 1926. Quote, the size of the forces of the crown maintained by Great Britain is governed by various conditions peculiar to each service and is not arrived at by any calculations of the requirements of foreign policy, nor is it possible that they should ever be so calculated. That's the most insane thing I've read in quite some time. Well, I guess since I read the last chapter of this book.

Hey, we're just going to, the, we're building our military, the size of our military is just based on kind of what they think it should be. It had nothing to do with what's going on foreign policy. No calculations. That's not what we're doing. In the period between the wars, the shape and the equipment, if not the size of the armed forces, were partly determined by a number of curious military attitudes. These centered particularly around three instruments of warfare, tanks, planes, and horses. describing a tank attack, which he had witnessed in 1916, General Sir Richard Gale tells how the British command tried to exploit it with cavalry.

Apparently they failed as it was borne out by the grim sight of riderless horses returning whence they had come. Man, that's an eerie image, isn't it? Of this experience, he writes, I was impressed by the potential of the tank as I was unimpressed by the employment of horse cavalry in modern warfare conditions. Yet after all our experience in that war, it took us further 20 years to mechanize our cavalry. The lesson was as clear in 1916 as in 1936. In truth, it was not 1936, but 1941 before the British began to implement lessons of 1916.

What happened between these wars shows the alarming extent to which reactionary elements can draw the wrong conclusion from what to most people, would seem quite unambiguous facts. Rather than recognize the potential of the tank, they drew the conclusion that innovation and progress are inherently dangerous and therefore to be eschewed. The symptom is not without precedent nor confined to the army. While on naval maneuvers in 1893, Admiral Tryon wished to about face two parallel columns of battleships.

From his flagship, he ordered that the two columns should reverse course by turning inwards. Unfortunately, the combined turning radius of the ships was greater than the distance between them. With mathematical inevitability, HMS Victoria was rammed by HMS camperdown and sank with great loss of life. Other officers had seen what was going to happen but dared not question. The lesson from this disaster seemed fairly clear. Admirals should base their decisions upon information supplied by their staffs and junior officers should not be afraid of speaking up when their knowledge for example the turning circle of naval craft and their special abilities for example superior eyesight and greater capacity for mental arithmetic led them to believe that a given

order would end in calamity the argument seems sound enough indeed even the most junior charlady which is a cleaning woman at the admiralty, had she pondered the facts could hardly have failed to draw the same conclusion. But this was not the conclusion reached by her lords and masters. For them, Tryon's laps just went to show

that it never pays to try anything new. There was the lesson learned. Don't do inward. Don't do, that's the lesson learned. Don't do inward turns in a column. To return to the tank, the successive chiefs of the imperial General Staff between 1918 and 1939 with the support of other senior officers did not exert themselves to mechanize the army

Some were actively obstructionist Against these reactionary elements stood a handful of progressive army officers and a few like-minded civilians the progressives who had assimilated The incontrovertible evidence from the preceding war with Germany and were only too well aware of Hitler's preparations for the next made their views known through books as lectures and by word of mouth these moves were countered by the military establishment in two ways so you got this whole group of people that are saying hey bro and bros we need to make tanks a lot of them we need to mechanize our cavalry look what happened and that's what they're doing books word of mouth lectures essays these moves were countered by the military establishment two ways

firstly they resisted the dissemination of progressive literature Hey, stifle that paper. Secondly, they did their best to curtail the careers of those who questioned their own obsolete ideas. That's like, that's like evil as far as I concerned. Guys got a good new idea. Curtale their career. For example, when Fuller, an early protagonist of mechanization won the RUSI gold medal for his essay on tanks and later produced a book on the topic he was castigated by successive chiefs of staff and remained unemployed in the

rank of manger general for three years and then was forcibly retired in 1933 in the course of these events CIGS Lord Kevin whose ideas according to Fuller were about 800 years out of date opined that no officer should be allowed to write a book it's like insane you can't make this up you can't make this up you can't make this up If you're ever in a situation where your subordinates are coming up with ideas that you don't agree with and your reaction is to shut them down, question yourself. Not to be outdone, his successor field, Marshall Montgomery, delivered himself of a diatribe against Foller's books while admitting that he had never read them because it would make him so angry if he did. Equally unambiguous was the treatment met it out to Liddell Hart, a man described by the press as, quote,

the most important military thinker of the age of mechanization in any country. This is the guy that we covered on the podcast. I don't know how many episodes we did, but it's a lot of them. B.H. Liddell Hart. Over the years, Liddell Hart produced a number of articles and books on mechanization, on new infantry tactics, and on the strategic and tactical use of armor. His efforts encountered extreme hostility and resistance from the British general staff. when he submitted his essay mechanization of the army for military competition it was rejected in favor of an entry

on quote limitations of the tank the judges were a field marshal and a general and a colonel unfortunately Liddell hart's entry was not entirely lost to view why could that possibly be unfortunate well it's because along with other products of his pen it was enthusiastically studied by hitler's panzer general Gwardian and became required reading of the German general staff. You can't make this up. You can't make this up. Like those of his fellow protagonists, Liddell Hart's army career was prematurely cut short by the military establishment.

The case is germane to the thesis of this book. Here was a man who was cultured, fluent, lucid, highly intelligent, and that rare combination, a soldier who is also a first-class military historian, one whose advice on military matters was frequently sought by such civilian leaders as Horbelicia and Winston Churchill, who in due course became the military correspondent of the Daily Telegraph and subsequently the Times, chosen by these papers in preference to a number of retired generals who applied for the same job. And Horbelicia, by the way, was the Secretary of War, prominent figure.

Here's a man whose views and writings were eagerly studied and acted upon by many foreign powers, including Germany, Russia, France, and Israel, whose prophecies in the military sphere were born out time and time again, and who lived to see his ideas on mechanization and tanks, tactics used against us by Germany in 1940. But here was a man so deplored by the British establishment, by the British military establishment, that Lord Gort, chief of the imperial general staff at the outbreak of the war felt moved to say during a lecture to 400 officers of the territorial army quote kindly remember that Liddell Hart does not occupy a room at the war office so not only do these people that can kind of play the game get advanced people that have trouble playing the

game like Liddell Hart get pushed out do I wish he could have played the game a little bit better absolutely do I wish he would have been a little bit more indirect you know in his book when he talks about if you become a prophet you get crucified he became a prophet and he got crucified it was this same lord gort the army's top man at the outbreak of the war whom horbilisha described as a quote utterly brainless and unable to grasp the simplest problem these are the people that are trying to get rid of ladell heart lardt remarked if a soldier advocates here's here's exactly what happens if a soldier advocates any new idea of real importance he builds up such a wall of obstruction

obstruction compounded of resentment suspicion and inertia that the idea only succeeds at the sacrifice of himself as the wall finally yields to the pressure of the new idea it falls and crushes him and that's what happened to him some military leaders even in democracies have become adept at manipulating their civilian bosses such was the case over the issue of war minister horbilisha it seems he was not appreciated by military establishment five reasons relevant to our general theory of military incompetence may be advanced for this for this antipathy firstly he was probably brighter than some of the

senior officers with whom he had to deal secondly his ideas for the army were progressive thirdly he made no bones about using Liddell Hart as his as his military advisor fourthly he was with every justification critical of generals whose job it was to prepare the British Army in France against the German assault on the West in 1940. Fifthly, he was a Jew. It was for a mixture of these reasons that the general staff persuaded Chamberlain to sack the man who had probably done more for the army and defense than any other single person during Hitler's rise to power. It's weird how generals, I mean, it's not weird.

It's so prevalent how generals become untouchables, right? How could you dare say anything about this general? He served his, and that's what's happening here. And look, just because someone served their country, just because someone served their country and did a good job as a platoon commander, as a company commander, as a battalion commander,

it doesn't mean they're going to be awesome as a general. In fact, there's some things might indicate that those aren't very different jobs, especially when they did good as a company commander. or a platoon commander during World War I when doing a good job was not disobeying orders and doing what you were told to do. And freaking scurrying to a position where you don't get killed.

Right? Because what happened to the brave soldiers? Most of them got freaking killed. We've talked about this. Thinking tactically and thinking strategically are really, really different. And it's actually really hard to evolve from a tactician to a strategist.

And in the military, there's kind of a very clear delineation. Like you're sort of a tactician as a junior officer. In the middle officers, you're sort of like an operational guy which sits between him. And then the generals are the strategic thinkers. But that evolution is really hard. It's really hard. You talked about Peter's principle, I think, on the last podcast. Yeah.

Where you get promoted to your level of incompetence. That barrier between tactical thinking and strategic thinking is hard to overcome. Yeah. Well, you run into it with companies as well, where you get some dynamic person in a startup and they're the CEO of the company, but there's only 48 employees and they can make things happen and they kind of impose their will and they can they can kind of win the market and talk to people and they're good salesmen and it works out awesome. And then all of a sudden they got you know 500 employees and they've got a board and they've got regulatory environment that they

don't know how to handle and they turn into a disaster. It doesn't always happen. But what we fail to do is we don't really do a good job of training people and at least making them aware of the situation that they're facing. Yeah. And the other thing I wrote down was you're talking about this is and I saw this as I got a little more senior in the officer ranks and kind of to get a little more observation of that that general officer tier or that flag officer tier for the Navy is what gets them there is a bunch of success. A bunch of success. And with that success, if you're not careful what that success can do, and it's not just true in the military, it's true everywhere, is that success is this equals validation.

And if you kind of start to get to this validation, like, hey, what I'm doing is working. You know what I should do? I should keep doing the same thing. And that flies against what you just talked about, which is the training and the evolution to think differently from what you did. And one of the simplest things we see this is, hey, if I'm a really good at a frontline task, good at that particular task, I'm going to get promoted. and I'll be the foreman of this other team.

And why I'm the formant is because I'm really good at the task. But my job isn't to do that task anymore. My job is to think strategically and lead this team. And I have no skills and no training to do that because the criteria for getting promoted is being good at the task. And that success and that validation sometimes, not always sometimes leads them to a level

that they're not capable of doing, but the system doesn't allow you to give them any feedback. Because when you're a general officer, guess what? I'm a general officer. There's something that you said that requires a little bit more exploring. And that is you said that when someone gets advanced to, you know, a general officer or a CEO, in many cases, it's based on their successes. There's something else it's based on.

Their lack of failures. So, you know, Dave and I go on deployment. Dave does four operations. They all go, okay. He gets the job done. Jocko goes, we're on the same deployment. You're a task unit commander. I'm a task unit.

My task unit does 170 operations. 168 of them go really well and have a huge impact. Two of them are jacked up. Who gets promoted? Who gets promoted? This is not like a theoretical question. Who gets promoted? Yeah, I'm getting promoted.

Dave's getting promoted. Because I didn't make any headlines for this screw up. I didn't cause all this equipment. And God forbid somebody, Not heard or killed. We're not talking conversation with Dave. Yeah. Dave, no friction, no resistance. No problem for me.

No additional paperwork. I don't have to send an investigation out for what happened. So. And it's not even that extreme. It's really not even that extreme. Like you're you're you're making it really obvious. But it's like, hey, you know, Dave did four operations. They went well.

Good job. Jocko did a hundred operations. They had a vehicle rollover, right? They lost a radio and they had a guy get wounded the guy get wounded It's like people understand that but oh you know the vehicle roll over what kind of Wasn't this is was this really necessary and all of a sudden it's like well you know Dave kind of keeps his nose clean He did a good job who's getting promoted Davis so That's disturbing the other thing is you took it these these generals

Who made it who's getting promoted the ones that freaking lived how did they live they said oh you know sir maybe I could go back to the rear and and help you with your strategic planning you know here's another cup of tea I really like Dave you know he's I want to bring him back with me makes my ego feel good so you're a little brown noser and then you end up getting living through World War I and now I put you under my wing and along you go yeah and I'm I'm sticking around the army too after World War I can stomach that whole thing as opposed to all the guys I'm like, don't ever call me again.

Yeah. Don't ever call me again. Yeah, and not to mention, I come back and I'm like, hey, look, I did my time. Cool, I'm going to go out and be an entrepreneur and make money and build a business. You're like, hey, I'm going to come. I'm kind of scared to get out. I'm going to just stay in here. I'll be getting a paycheck.

Three hots and a cot. You know, I get the uniform. People treat me with respect. I'm good. Back to the book. To understand the psychology of these reactionary elements in the military establishment of men who choose to make the army their career painstakingly work their way up the hierarchy to the highest positions but then behave in such a manner to ensure that if they are remembered at all

it will be only for their conservatism we needs must have recourse to ego psychology thus it seems in that in the present instance military leaders like deverell Montgomery Milne Ironside and Gort displayed behavior symptomatic of extremely weak egos in this light their behavior typifies the neurotic paradox in which the individuals need to be loved breeds on the one hand an insatiable desire for admiration with avoidance of criticism and on the other hand and equally devouring urge for power and positions of dominance that's weird the paradox is that these needs inevitably result in behavior so unreal

As to earn for the victim the very criticism which he has been striving so hard to avoid Consider a few concrete examples of this syndrome for those who had despaired of anyone ever learning anything from the events of the first world war 1933 bought brought a belated gleam of hope with the publication of the Kirk committee report Which was not uncritical of the high command it could hardly have been otherwise But there were those for whom preservation of personal reputations counted for more than the need to avoid the repetition of senseless slaughter to which their direction had given rise. This is evil.

I'm going to say that word. This is evil. We have a report that comes out that explains what we did wrong. And some people, they wanted to preserve their own reputation instead of trying to save future lives from lessons learned. One such was Field Marshall Montgomery, whose immediate response to the report was to block its dissemination throughout the army. While one can wonder at a system

which would make it possible for one man to operate such censorship, the precise reason for his behavior is by no means obscure. Montgomery, as he then was, happened to be the chief of staff in the 4th Division during the Battle of the Somme.

So he's getting ratted out in this report and he's like hides the report. That'd be like if I, We had the blue on blue and Ramadi and I was like, hide that. Let's stifle it. Our second example is rather more complex concerning,

as it does, that major obstacle to military development, the horse. As a noble, if uncomprehending factor in military incompetence, this animal was much in evidence between the wars. This is very interesting if you know anything about horses. Upon reflection,

it's hardly surprising that the horse became the sine qua non. of military life for a thousand years medd had found it in it enormous advantages there was nothing better for transportation and load hauling horses raised morale and enhanced egos horses took the weight off the feet and enabled people to go to war sitting down when they lay down you could hide behind them when it was cold you could borrow their warmth and when they died you could eat them because of the traditionally rural origins of so many army officers and military families horsemanship in the context of sports like hunting became one of the preferred leisure activities

since such sports as polo, pig sticking, and an earlier age jelsting not only act out symbolic aspects of real warfare but are also associated with a higher social class. There's little wonder that they should find so much favor with those who choose the army as a career. All in all is not surprising

that the cavalry became the branch of the army with the highest status, nor is it surprising that they should have become the most vehement in the denunciation of the tank which was seen as an intrusis. junior rather than the Aaron Hare apparent. So they had this long fascination with the horse. They love the horse.

The people that rode horses in the cavalry ended up with a bunch of, you know, prestigious positions and high-ranking positions. And they saw the tank not as like, hey, this is what's going to take over the horse. It's trying to, to, it's juniors of the horse. It's not as good as the horse. Nor is it surprising that the desire of the war office to placate the cavalry was stronger a lot than logic. Not only did they veto any expansion of the tank core, but under the direction of Montgomery

ruled that the new tank brigade should never be reassembled. And this in the mid-1930s with Hitler arming to the teeth. That's, you can't, you just, you have to have, you have to be kind of like a psychopath to do. There's a level of insanity in there. It's like, how do you look at a horse and a tank? And look at him go, well. Yeah. You know, I was thinking like the bolt action rifle or the automatic machine gun.

Hey, fire that one. I think we're actually talking sword versus automatic machine gun. I'm just trying to come up with something. Yeah. You got to go for you got to go harder, though. Yeah. It's a fair point. It's just the depths of craziness.

And look at that. And Carrie was talking about this after the last podcast. K dog was talking about this was the culture of the of the, um, the cavalry. And you just said in there, was it a thousand years? People were using horses in combat? Like there's a culture inside there that's going to be kind of hard to break into. The tank? Come on, man.

And it evokes kind of the same frustration that I articulated in the very first podcast about the machine. No, it was before then. And when I talked about the machine gun, how long does it take for me to watch a machine gun mowed down some of my guys where I go, time out. Stop. Stop. I got this one wrong. We need to come up with another plan as opposed to like, no, just keep sending them in. And do that for four years.

For four years. At the risk of literally, I mean, millions of people, but the horse and the tank. And even like old pictures of the world, the crazy thing about World War I tank, so like the previous era of tanks that they'd be leveraging them, they're these giant massive things. They're like almost like comedically too big. Yeah. But if you would have just put those two side by side, like you said, there's a level of psychopathic, a level of crazy, you've got to go, no, the horse.

Yeah. Give me the horse. Give me the horse. Dude. There was a little bit of, maybe even a little bit more than a little. When we started using night vision, night vision goggles, yeah.

Dude, you've talked about that, man. We had guys that were like, we'd be wearing night vision on patrol guys, but we shouldn't wear night vision. Like, what? Are you insane? lets you see in the dark. Yeah.

You get to fight an enemy that's blind to you. Yeah. Well, I've said this and I mean, in aviation, I got to fly stealth airplanes, like very modern stealth airplanes. And to this day, despite the insane advantage, the insane advantage, there is still an ongoing debate over as to whether or not we should have non-stealth. This is not, this is like in fighters. There's reasons that have non-sat cargo planes and attack planes.

But in this world of like airplane fighting against another airplane or using airplanes to get into a contested space, there's still an ongoing debate of, hey, we should just retrofit like really nice legacy airplanes with cool, cool missiles and cool engines and stuff like that. My airplane is invisible. My airplane is invisible. You will not see it. It doesn't matter how fast you can go or how much gas you can carry or how cool your weapon is. You're going to lose. How much longer till pilots are not? not doing this job, fighter pilots?

I think we are one generation away. My opinion is that the next generation, which what's scary is like it's much sooner, it's not like 40 years from now. The next generation of airplane is going to come out in the next 15, 20 years. And there are going to be no pilots. No, no.

I think this general, like, they're building this now. They're designing and building it now. Really? Yeah. And so technology, one of the drawbacks of airplanes, like from conception to development and building,

it takes a long time. So this plane has been on the drawing board for 10 years. This is what happens when you got the military industrial complex because if we gave this to Elon Mosque, you like, I got your fighter pilot. It's electric. And to his dismay, he probably wants and thinks and understands that we should be a generation head. But be that as it may. Even with that, I think we've got one more airplane in us with a person inside. That's my opinion.

And, you know, even with that, it is met with so much resistance, so much institutional resistance. That's which is crazy, right? Because you take the pilot out of the plane. And the other thing is you can, you don't have to fight a plane with a plane. You can fight a plane with 19 unmanned drones that have, that cost a fraction of the price and can maneuver and don't have to worry about the stupid human in there from screwing things up. And that's why that story of the naval officer going, you should buy all these tanks. Because he's got no, he has no personal vested interest in the tank. He's not inside that whole thing.

He's not a cavalry guy riding horses. He's like, I'm over here in a boat. I'm just telling you from my vantage point, it's not even close by this thing, buy them all right now. Because he's detached. He's just like, oh, no, I'm not, this is not for my personal game. I'm not going to be in that tanker on that horse. I'm just telling you from from over here, it's not even close. Just do this because he sees it from a perspective.

And that's what I think, that's where that is, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. level of frustration of hearing this is really hard. It's because, hey, you're, there, I said bolt acting rifle and machine going to like, go harder, dude. Go harder. So, you know, which is like a slingshot and a heavy machine gun, automatic heavy machine gun. That's how big the gap is. And the only way to not see the machine gun is to be so invested and so committed to your point of view that, just like we said last time, you will dismiss the truth because it doesn't align with your preconceived outcome that you've created in your head. Which is probably to some degree the definition of being a psychotic, a psychopath.

By the way, they weren't just anti-tank, and this gets into Dave Burke territory. They were anti-aircraft, too. Here we go. For once the usual rivalry between the two older arms sank beneath their mutual dislike of the new upstart. If anything, the admirals waxed more, rather more negative about aeroplanes than they did. then did the generals whose minds, as we have seen, were already discomforted by the issue of tanks. As mechanization threatened horses, so aircraft threatened battleships. But unlike horses and military minds, battleships were only the last secession of obstacles to

progressive naval thinking. Before battleships, it had been wood and before that sail. Each relinquishment and transition had been bitterly resented, heavily opposed, and productive of such irrational thinking as tends to occur. when dearly loved objects have been renounced. I've been referencing this a lot when I talk to people. When there was talk of iron replacing wood in the construction of ship, one admiral was heard to remark that the idea was preposterous,

since iron was heavier than water, the ships would be bound to sink. On this issue has been calculated that, and this is fascinating, of the 20 major technological developments, which lie between the first marine engine and the Polaris submarine, the Admiralty machine has discouraged, delayed, obstructed, or positively rejected 17. 17 out of 20. The essential and necessary incorporation of these developments in the structure of modernization has been achieved by individual

and sometimes undisciplined officers by political and industrial pressures or and most frequently by their successful adoption in rival navies. So if you think I'm going to figure out some kind of, I'm going to figure out what that list is. It's like iron to wood, well, iron to wood, and then getting rid of sales for steam and then from steam to what, you know, diesel. And there was people resisted every single, 17 out of 20 of those advancements.

Yeah, there was resistance. We're going to put a nuclear reactor on a boat. Imagine the, that's the dumbest thing you've ever heard, right? And we're doing it on a submarine. Are you insane? Yeah, can't be done. Can't be done. As for battleships whose future usefulness and indeed very existence was threatened by the advent of aircraft

Quote, to most admirals, the respective value of battleships and aircraft was not basically a technological issue, but more in the nature of a spiritual issue. Totally. They cherished the battle fleet with a religious fervor as an article of belief defying all scientific examination, the blindness of hard-headed sailors to realities that were obvious to a dispassionate observer. is the only explicable through, is only explicable through the, through understanding the place that, quote, ships of the line filled their hearts.

A battleship had long been to an admiral, what a cathedral is to a bishop. And you can't walk. I don't know if there is an equivalent in the teams. If there is, let me know. But that description is, is beautiful.

Because in aviation, you've literally fall in love with your airport. like it's a person, like it's a human being. And the degree to which you cannot see the truth is, I would say on par to the degree that you can't see the flaws in your own children. Hey, hey, Jocko, you got an ugly baby? No, I don't. That baby is perfect from head to toe.

Everything about this thing is unique and perfect and special. And I can't go and go, hey man, your kid's got some flaws here. Because that is, and the degree to which pilots fall in love with the equipment matches what he described or like the cathedral. That's not an exaggeration. And you will see people make these decisions

based on an irrational physical attachment to a piece of equipment. Thank God I flew a bunch of different airplane so I kind of like sort of fell out of love with my first girlfriend,

that first airplane. But I still kind of look back fondly and go, man, I really love that airplane. And to be told, hey, this thing that you have is flawed, like deeply, deeply flawed. and generationally behind where it's supposed to be.

And rather than sort of an objective go, yeah, you're right, there's some things about this that aren't very good. Oftentimes you get just this hyper irrational emotional response like you're talking about a, like I'm not trying to be critical of your, this is a machine, right? We're not in love with the machine, are we? Well, it's pretty spot on. Yeah. That's like when you come up with a plan and you fall in love with your own plan and I'm like, hey, Dave, not quite sure about your plan. And this thing, what are you talking about? Speaking of emotional detach attachments, it was such strong.

emotional attachment that led admirals to deceive their political masters. It doesn't get any more horrible than this. I guess it does. But the practical issue was whether or not battleships could defend themselves against aircraft. Having formed the opinion that they could, the admiralty decided to prove its point. In 1936, while aircraft production by the Axis Powers was getting into top gear, the king was invited to a demonstration in which naval ships would attempt to shoot down a radio. controlled Queen B target aircraft. Unfortunately, the demonstration did not go well.

Despite the fact that the plane was limited to flying 80 miles an hour and flew up and down without jinking while the ships were given a running start on a parallel course, thereby reducing the speed differential to something approaching 50 miles an hour, not a hit was scored. Dismayed but resourceful, the admirals played their last car. deliberately crashing the radio-controlled plane into the sea, thereby proving at considerable cost to the British taxpayer that planes are no match for the battleship

when these are in the right hands. That's like an act of treason. That's an act of treason. I hate imagining the actual scene where you're like the remote control guy and I'm over your shoulder. Do we hit it yet? No. Hey, put that thing in the water.

And the guy's like, uh, uh, seriously? It's like put it in the water now. You know, like that event had to occur. Like in real time where there's something like, hey, this isn't going the way we planned. Let's sabotage your own experiment to prove our point that we've already predetermined, which is planes aren't as good as ships.

Crash that drone. Well, like, Roger, that's her. And whatever you do, you put that thing in the water and go, see, look what happened. So that's just essentially on a big scale, like what you always say, you risk, like some people will sabotage.

your plan because they want their plan to be they want to prove you know the buck or you know you guys role player whatever yeah if you approach the guy in the wrong way he'll be like yeah i'll do your plan if you shut the plan down the guy's throw right and then they're like okay i'll carry out your plan and then they might intentionally sabotage it to prove to you that hey your plan sucks therefore we should have went with my plan yeah i yeah parallel sort of but um this is actually just like like treasonous right to just Straight up why because you want to protect your little fiefdom and you are putting the security of your nation in complete jeopardy because you're so arrogant and stuck in your old ways and in love with your piece of equipment That's like that's treason. That's treason. Yeah, it's and it's it's also going to result in your people your people

dying because the test is actually designed to go, hey, let's see if we can learn some stuff here. Hey, it turns out this airplane thing is a good thing. We should. And rather than get to the outcome, you will sabotage the outcome to get what you want, which is I want to show you my battleship is still supreme. And the result is you're killing your own people. It's not going to happen for five years or whatever the timing of that was, but it's going to happen. And we're going to kill hundreds of thousands of people as a result of that.

That's treason. I'm trying to remember I had something happen one time where I was testing some GPS and it was supposed to be waterproof they're like hey this GPS is waterproof you don't need to waterproof it and I was like trust me how is it

like an E4 and E5 and the SEAL team's going over the beach all the time I was a freaking expert on what was waterproof and what wasn't and I looked at this thing and I was like you're saying this thing is waterproof like that's what you're saying and they're like yep and I said no but how do you how should I prepare it they're like you don't need to and I was like you want me to test this thing and

they're like yeah it's waterproof and I said okay cool shit was not waterproof you know like not even close and brought gave them back there flooded out crappy GPS but there was there was sort of like indications of like you know what did you do you know did you open it well and I was like none and open any of these things. It's not waterproof. But you can see, that's the kind of test where someone goes, hey, put it in a plastic bag

and then say it's waterproof. You know, you got some contractor that's going to sell all these GPSs to naval special warfare. Not on my freaking watch. You're not. This shit is a joke.

Well, to quell any potential concern, just that scenario of like that pre-World War II you know, battleship airplane British thing where it was just like, hey, we're just going to sabotage and just falsify the results. I never saw anything to that degree.

I saw some resistance for sure, but I never saw anybody or ever heard anybody, hey, falsify the report, sabotage the plan. So just so people realize, like, I, in my experience, and I had some interesting things happen in my career. I never saw that. I'm trying. I don't think I have either. Yeah, I'll have to think on that one. But I probably would have stood out so much. I mean, somebody over my shoulder saying, hey, put that thing in a waterproof bag and call it good.

Like, what do you tell? I would have never done that. Thousand years. Yeah. I love the image. Willing put that drone in the water. Sir, what do you mean?

Crash it immediately and tell everybody it got shot down. What's funny is we crashed some drones. As a matter of fact, we were going through through urban combat training and tasking a bruiser.

And we're supposed to be using these drones and everything. AOC. It was one of the lace AICs was like a drone pilot. And whatever he was doing, like he's like, all right, I'm going, you know, we're flying it, going to go look at the target.

And he tries to bring it back. And this thing came in at like, well, I don't know how fast those things go. What would be a realistic speed for a drone? 50 knots. This thing comes in at 50 knots. It just way lays into a tree. And of course, they're like, hey, you know, how's that drone working out? And I'd be like, that drone sucks.

And the advancement on drones between that time frame, 2005 and now is like night and day. But if I would have been sending up the reporter, whoever would have been, been something yeah these things are great no we'd be like this thing sucks this thing sucks make it better and that's what they did so thankfully we also didn't like uh falsify stuff all right those are the that's that that's now we're moving into the uh second world war the pre the the in-between war period is over nothing learned nothing figured out no no one taking blame responsibility for anything Second World War. There's a quote in here from Liddell Hart.

The German success in May 1940 could easily have been prevented, but for the opportunities presented to them by the Allied blunders, blunders that were largely due to the prevalence of out-of-date ideas. After an appalling start in which the allies were outfought, outmaneuvered, and outstripped in the quality of their military thinking and equipment, the Second World War produced the biggest transition of military competence since though of days of Wellington, it was born of necessity and may be said to have dated from Dunkirk. This jolt to 100 years of military monitoring and 20 years of blind complacency achieved three ends.

Within a space of days, it shattered many long-held, dearly loved illusions about the nature of modern war. It hastened the eclipse of the old, the reactionary, and the untalented. Finally, by rendering the armory, temporary impotent, Dunkirk put the most junior service in the center of the stage. Dave Burke is excited. Now the first time the continued existence of the Army and Navy became totally dependent upon their protection by the RAF.

Look at the smile on this guy over here. As for the bad start, this was a legacy of factors that touched on in the previous chapters. Rigidity of thinking, overconfidence resulting from a pathetic belief in antiquated methods of warfare and refusal to accept that

enemy intentions may confound the armchair profits. The following examples from Lebel Hart's history of the Second War illustrate these shortcomings. On January 10th, 1940, a German aircraft carrying the liaison officer of the second air fleet lost its way and crashed landed in Belgium. By an extraordinary chance, the officer was in possession of the complete operational plan for Germany's attack on the West. Did you hear what I just said?

By extraordinary chance, the officer was in possession of the complete operational plan for Germany's attack on the West. He tried to burn the plan but failed to complete this task before he was captured. In this way, its contents became known to the Allies. Hitler's response was to devise a new plan which involved attacking France through the Ardennes rather than through Belgium as originally intended. This episode was damaging to the Allies for two reasons. First, firstly, in the belief that the captured plan was a deliberate deception, they failed to modify their own plans. Secondly, contrary to advice received years earlier, they clung to the belief that the wooded area of the Ardennes was impassable to tanks. As a result, the strongest Allied force remained poised for attack through Belgium, while the Germans suffered little resistance to their outflanking drive through the Ardennes.

Here's another one. The French, though possessing many tanks, which were as good as, if not better than, Those of the Germans were steadfast in their belief that horse cavalry could destroy German armor in the Ardennes. For this reason, they refused to accept the suggestion that felled trees might be used to delay the German advance. Like the Poles, they were sadly disillusioned about the outcome of a conflict between horse and tanks. That's the Poles and the French, both making the assessment that, hey, you got tanks, but we got horses. The British retreat from the Gazala line in 1942, which resulted in the loss of two, Tobrook, followed by a headlong flight back into Egypt, was the second worst disaster of the war after Dunkirk.

Tobrook cost Britain 35,000 casualties and an enormous loss in ground and material. Why did it happen? Inadequate generalship, the Army commander, Major General Ritchie, a fine-looking man, has been described by his contemporaries in ways strikingly resemblance of Elphinstone, Raglan, and Buller. Here's here's what his contemporaries had to say about him. Richie was all haywire by then, all for counterattacking in this direction one day and another, the next optimistic and not and trying not to believe we had taken a knock. When I reported the state of the first armored division to him at a time when I was planning to use it for a counterattack, he flew to see me and almost took the view that I was being subversive.

Another one. General Richie had a great air of decisiveness. It was really rather indecisive. according to the same core commander, he, quote, had a tendency to ask your advice and having received it acted in the opposite way. Here's another one. Richie is not sufficiently quick-witted or imaginative. Another one.

A fine, robust-looking man with charm and manner, but no aura. And finally, confident and decisive in his speech. But one did not always feel he was quite so confident and decisive in his mind. That's another thing. I talked about that, I think, on the first one. This act that you learn.

You learn to kind of raise your voice a little bit. You learn to project. You learn to furrow your eyebrows a little bit. And you say, hey, listen, Burke. I love doing that, right? Because it's something that we experience so much in the military. Listen up, Burke. Hey, I don't need your input right now.

Look, we need to make a move, Burke. You know, like that thing. People learn that in the military. You learn how to act like that. And eventually you can learn how to hide behind that. See that all the time. So and people get fooled by civilians get fooled like by that but like it's going out of style I mean that's what they're looking for they're looking for the type cast colonel the type cast general

That furze his brow sits up straight with a good posture and then speaks in a clear Effective manner that people are going to listen to and the politicians love to take that guy and put him out there to put out the word You know well you know what I'm saying they do they take that guy they put him out there Hey, you know what? We got Willink, Willink. Willink put on an act. No one's going to mess with Willink. Put Willink on the stand.

Put Willink on the stand. Willink gets and he puts his uniform on, freaking puts his shoulders back, chest out, and then says, I'm going to tell you this one time. Here's how it is going to happen. Boom. People aren't questioning that. Fast forward a little bit.

Under the ineffectual leadership of this big, kindly, courteous, unimaginative, apparently complacent, yet occasionally. touchy general the army suffered a decline in organization discipline and drive it became flabby instead of taught sluggish instead of agile once again that fatal amalgam of overconfidence and underestimation of the enemy produced a dulling of military endeavor ramel himself in his diary ascribed his success to the british predilection for frontal assaults brave but costly charges by small groups in which the attackers banged their heads time and

time again against the hold down German pansers. Hold down. Yeah. Let's do a frontal assault against a tank. Yep. That's, yeah. That's hold down. Meaning,

meaning they've positioned themselves where the hole is, you can't see the tank. You can only see the turret. That's hauled down, Echo Charles. Hold down defile. You parked that thing in a little berm, in a little ravine,

and you can't see it. The only thing you see is this, like, the gun. Yeah. And guess when you see the turret. Yeah. About five seconds before it lights you up and you're just walking right up on that thing. Dude, it's hard to picture that because you know, you know the story of the, hey, the French are going to dig this.

Hey, you know what we should do? A deeper, longer, wider trench and a forest that's impassable by armor. Like, that's their plan. Hey, what do we learn? Hey, I got an idea. Hey, remember the trenches that didn't order one? Not good enough. Let's dig a deeper trench.

And they're 100% sure that the armor can't go through this forest. So we're good. And we all know that story. So you're just waiting to hear this, this be revealed, which is the idea of, hey, the horses, you know, this, this, this forest is impassable by equipment. So you know, you're going to need some horses. Yeah, you know what?

When I had, when I had some trees. When I had Ben Milligan on from his book, um, by water beneath the walls, one of the interesting things, the, like the Marines had issues at Tarawa and their solution. Like, hey, we, Our tracks didn't make it through and some of our Marines didn't make to the beach because they hit, you know, hit the reef 800 meters out. Marine solution was, okay, guess what?

Real simple. We need more Marines and more tracks. We need, you know, 80 tracks to make it through and half them don't make it. Cool. 160 is the number. And the Navy was like, how about we go and, you know, try and figure out where those reefs. are hence UDTs if you didn't listen to that podcast I think it's two ninety eight with Ben Milligan and get that book get that book that freaking book is outstanding by

water beneath the waves talk about a going into depth and figuring out an understanding why things are the way they are it's an outstanding book from the standpoint of human behavior human feelings leadership and decision making the events of of 1942 in North Africa exemplify in microcosm, the major causes of military incompetence underneath his robust exterior, Richie, like Buller, before him, and Elphinstone before him, lacked self-confidence and seemed more concerned with proving himself to himself than with prosecuting the war. The presiding over interminable committee meetings through which the army was run the seeking of advice and then not taking it and the disingenuous way in which he managed to convince

the commander in chief that he was protecting Tobruk while in reality leaving it to the mercy of the Germans are the actions of a man beset by inner doubts these doubts were skillfully but not perfectly concealed by his often inappropriate facade of monumental complacency now we go to Singapore chapter 11 one can sum up by saying that those responsible for the conduct of the land campaigned in Malaya committed every conceivable blunder major general woodburn Kirby Singapore the chain of disaster in the nine weeks between early December 1941 and mid-February 1942 the impregnable fortress of Singapore Europe's gateway to the east with its thriving city huge naval dockyard and strategic vital airfields fell lockstock and barrel into the hands of the Japanese The invasion of this island stronghold, the complete defeat of the combined British and Australian garrison with its army, navy, and air force units was the ultimate unconditional surrender of the whole area was so rapid that even the Japanese were staggered. Indeed, one almost might say nonplussed by the ease, speed, and enormity of their success. In the long run, the results of this disaster may be deemed incalculable. The myth of European supremacy over Asiatic peoples was exploded forever and the prestige of

competence of the British military endeavor in the eyes of the world in general, and America in particular were damaged beyond repair. In the short run, Britain lost her last and strongest foothold in the Far East and appalling setback for the global war effort. We lost thousands of lives, both military and civilian, but worse, perhaps than the loss of life. The military debacle condemned thousands more to three and a half years of misery in Japanese internment camps. Finally, the economic loss ran into hundreds of millions of pounds.

We forfeited elaborate and expensive dock installations, naval and other engineering facilities, military stores, fuel, the major port for exporting, urgently needed rubber, and two new first-class battleships. Most of these material assets fell virtually intact into the United States. the hands of the enemy thus in effect doubling their value the value of their loss to the allies like other cases we have discussed that of Singapore is essentially a human problem a product of human behavior human intellect human character and human error no explanation in terms of geography climate broad political or military considerations can possibly do justice to the facts at bottom and at the top we are confronted with issues that are primarily psychological and which only a reduction to psychological principles can possibly explain so this freaking disaster unfolds in Singapore a disaster and as you're gonna see it's not about who is smart and it's not about like the military situation it's the freaking psycho pathology of the the leaders let us state the problem in terms of a number

of questions why was the impregnable fortress planned and serviced in such a way that while presenting apparently formidable defenses on its southern side, its back, and northern sure was no more of a resistance than would-be invader than the back of Bournemouth. Why was there an almost total lack of coordination and cooperation between those who had been entrusted with the job of defending the island? Why was it clear that the Japanese could and would assault the island from its northern side was nothing done to erect defenses in their path? Why did the general officer commanding Singapore, Lieutenant General Percival, ignore the urgent advice of his subordinate Brigadier Simpson and of his superior General Wavel to implement these defenses? Why, on the one hand, was so little done to protect the civilian population against air raids and on the other so much done to prevent their knowing the true facts of the situation as these unfolded?

Why did General Percival persist in believing the Japanese would attack from the northeast when confronted with overworked? Evilderwhelming evidence that their assault would come from the northwest. Why did the officer commanding the Australian forces on the island forbid his troops to escape while secretly plotting his own getaway from the island? Finally, and perhaps of greatest interest, how did the men who could perpetrate such colossal errors of judgment ever reach a position where this was possible? It's quite the setup. In 1925, there was a protracted and acrimonious argument between the Army-Navian Air Force. Force chiefs as to how Singapore should be defended. While the older services pressed for fortifications and heavy-fixed guns to

repel an attack from seaward, trenchered for the RAF advocated for a large force of aircraft to repel any attack before it could become within range of the island. Needless to say, the Army and the Navy won their case at the expense of more junior service. Heavy fixed armaments became the order of the day. This debate in which the RAF had to concede defeat had three unfortunate consequences. Firstly, the island was left exposed and unresolved. undefended on its northern side. Secondly, senior army commanders from that time on stubbornly clung to the dogma that no Japanese would ever advance on Singapore down the Malay Peninsula.

Finally, the bitter inner service quarrel, which ensued, resulted in an almost total lack of coordination between the three services for future reference. Let me say this. Dave, you have a platoon. In your platoon, there's two different, let's call them, clicks. and they have two different ideas of what you should be focused on and how you should operate. And what you do is you sort of negotiate a piece between these two clicks and you sort of compromise and you figure out, hey, like, we'll do a little bit of this click and a little bit of that click. And you kind of bring these forces to a compromise. You get them working together.

You get them to like take these things that they could be arguing about. You give one here and give the other side one here. And so you end up with a team that although they're not perfectly in sync, they're at least sort of working together. My platoon, I have two clicks. And what I do is I get mad at them because they don't get along. And then I agree with one of the clicks actually a little bit more. And so I give them favoritism. And now we end up with this, you know, head budding.

Who's got a better platoon? right so if you think about this in a large strategic view and you look at a place called the united states of america right now and you look at how miraculously or strangely we've become super divisive about all kinds of things to the point where we are banging against each other's heads and we don't get along and we've got people that sit so far apart in their beliefs not only do they sit so far apart in their beliefs they can't find common ground on anything on anything and we've got known known actors in the world that make moves to increase the division between the sides of people that we have in America.

And the people in America don't even recognize that all of this fighting is making our platoon weak. It's very interesting, isn't it? It's very interesting that we know that there are actors that are state actors that are creating divisiveness in our own country and yet instead of saying,

hey, you know what, actually, we shouldn't argue about that stuff. Hey, you know what, Dave, You got your opinion on that. I got my opinion, but you know what? There's a bunch of stuff we agree on. Let's focus on that. Okay.

You know what? That makes sense. We can go execute the mission now. Instead, no, you know what, Dave? You don't agree with me on this? Well, screw you. I don't even want to work with you. Now we can't operate.

We can't get anything done. So obvious. Yeah. It's so obvious. It's hard to look at too. Because not only you're going to disagree with me, you're going to actively, actively sabotage my efforts.

100%. And the hardest part about that is that the reality is we are on the same team. Those two platoons in your task unit, they're on the same team. Very disturbing. I've got to think a way to articulate that a little bit more clearly and present it in a way that people can see it. But it's very difficult because when you present it, if I present it to the platoon and say, hey, guys, I think it looks like we're actually, Looks like we're actually not Helping here. We're not moving this thing forward

You know what one side says? Oh, so you're trying to take their side, are you? Yeah, that's exactly what happens That's and that's the point I was thinking when you said that when you you know you you were sort of overt like I show a little bias towards this one team Which is all the other side needs to go oh I see what side you're on Oh yeah I see what you're I don't try you're one of them yeah I see what you're getting at So I've got to think of a way to articulate this process Properly people because right now, but we don't understand it as Americans. We are in this sort of trap where there's a total lack of coordination between the different sides. Our government can't even get anything done. They're they're they're losers. They're just not not making any progress and all they're doing is fighting with each other and not realizing that while we're fighting each other number one, there's other state actors that are that are Feeding this fight and while they're feeding our fight and we're having these infights

Guess what these other state actors are doing? Growing their economy Unifying their people growing their military strength Growing the will of their people and we are being divided I'll think of a way to try and communicate this so people will hopefully start to understand it I haven't done a good job thus far Meanwhile back on Singapore there's a total lack of coordination between the three services the reason

this is such a fitting thing is because you're gonna see what happens in Singapore when you don't work together and when your ego oh yeah by the way Dave I think I know everything and so therefore how can you possibly be right on anything at all yeah you certainly know you're right oh I definitely know I'm right the RAF began constructing airfields without consultation with the army who would have to defend them so there's a great move uh Japanese military machine was oh yeah this was the belief was look the Japanese they're primitive they're not going to be able to we should even take them seriously

thus and now fast forward a little bit thus when the Malay Tribune published the news that Japanese transports had been cited off the southern tip of Indochina the editor was immediately castigated by the commander-in-chief of the Far East Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke Panam who said I consider it most improper to print such alarmist views at a time like the present the position isn't half so serious as the Tribune makes out and this is such a great little section he says this form of complaint is not without interest firstly he did not deny the truth of the press release he hardly could since it had originated in a report by Reuters which had been passed by the censor and which

undoubtedly was true secondly he managed to imply all in one breath that the situation was both not serious and yet likely to cause alarm. Like, why are you causing an alarm like this, Dave? And by the way, there's nothing to be panicked about. His words exemplified a tendency seen all too often to talk down to a civilian population as a group through some weakness of intellect or lack of moral fiber. Oh, sorry, who through some weakness of intellect or lack of moral fiber could not be trusted with information held by their elders and bedders. Meaning the military's like you don't really know what's going on here You need to worry about that

The Guardians of Singapore were prime exemplars of this motivation After a long history of wrong thinking they could not afford to be found mistaken The more events prove them to be wrong the stronger their defenses became against admitting this to be the case And this is very important as Hitler's administration Demonstrated in its starkest form Man this is important Suppression of the truth involves two procedures on the one hand censorship and on the other hand official communicates the high command in

Singapore employed both measures take the order of the day released to the melee tribune a bare two months before Singapore capitulated it reads we are ready we have had plenty of warning and our preparations are made and tested we are confident our defenses are strong and our weapons efficient whatever our race We have one aim and one only. It is to defend these shores to destroy such of our enemies as may set foot on our soil. What of our enemy? We have seen before us Japan drained for years by exhausting claims of her wanton onslaught of China.

Let us all remember that we here in the Far East form part of the great campaign in the world of truth and justice and freedom. As the editor of the Tribune said, it was hard to believe that anybody could deliberately tell so many lies. on Monday the 18th, 1941, General headquarters issued its first war communique. It stated that the Japanese had failed in their attempt to land at Kota Baru. This was followed shortly after by a second communique, which stated all surface craft are retiring at high speed

and the few troops left on the beach are being heavily machine-gunned. In fact, the communique was essentially untrue and deliberately misleading within a space of a few hours from the time of the Japanese landing, Cota Baru was firmly in enemy hands. There's a couple battleships. As a desperate measure, two battleships, the Prince of Wales and the repulse were sent to Singapore to create an 11th hour presence.

They were under the command of Admiral Sir Tom Phillips in the words of one who met him, quote, a real old sea dog bluff and tough. Unfortunately, he lacks sufficient vision, despite strong warnings that he could not expect adequate air-com. cover. He was soon off with his two ships in search of trouble. At first all went well as the ship steamed reassuringly up the east coast. And he heard that there was weather, so he thought he'd be

okay. His ships, the weather lifted. His ships were spotted by Japanese Air Force torpedoed and sunk with a total loss of 840 officers and men. By all accounts, Phillips was a brave and conscientious officer, but his braveness bordered on foolhardiness and his errors of judgment not only had a devastating effect on that much cherished commodity, but the morale of the Singapore civilians also sealed the fate of their city. So much for the Navy in their chosen field, the senior command of the RAF acquitted themselves a little better. It has already been seen how Air Chief Marshal Brooke Popham underestimated Japan's air strength in comparison with his own ill-assorted group of obsolete aircraft. The same 63-year-old officer whose most notable

characteristic was a tendency to fall asleep on the slightest pretext showed such disastrous hesitancy and indecision in his capacity as commander-in-chief that as the official history was moved to state quote it is possible that he did not fully realize the importance of speed the need for quick decision was not apparently realized at headquarters Malaya command and this is something i talked about earlier the first night raid they get a they get a warning 30 minutes early that there's Japanese inbound and they didn't do anything. It seems the Japanese had committed the unforgivenal foe Pov attacking at night, unforgivable because it conflicted with the official dogma that the Japanese were unable to fly their planes during the hours of darkness.

This idea cost Singapore, 61 dead and 133 injured, but the recklessness of the admirals and the dithering of the air marshals were nothing as to the uncompably. of the generals it seemed that nothing could move them not even pleading of their fellow officers as Noah Barber says in his book Sinister Twilight quote when big Brigadier General Simpson and you remember this is like the good guy when Brigadier General Simpson the chief engineer went to see major General Gordon Bennett commanding the eighth Australian division he found it impossible to make him realize that there was an urgent need for anti-take defenses at first he did not want to discuss the matter at all Simpson noted after the meeting. Simpson was horrified.

Could not the Australian general understand that there was nothing on the long road to prevent the enemy from reaching them? Apparently Gordon Bennett could not. For in his diary, that night he wrote, Malay command sent Brigadier Simpson to discuss with me the creation of anti-tank obstacles for use on the road.

Personally, I have little time for these obstacles preferring to stop and destroy tanks with anti-tank weapons. No wonder that the Japanese never slowed down. that time after time, troops were annihilated by skillful Japanese enveloping tactics. On the British side, wrong decisions were made. Communications broke down. Whole pockets of troops were cut off. First, Japanese tanks appeared and came as a great surprise to the British who had not one single tank in Malaya. In a jungle country where the British had insisted that tanks could never operate, the Japanese tanks moved easily between spacious rows of rubber tree.

End quote. Major General Gordon Bennett was not to use the appropriate vernacular and isolated pocket of resistance, nor did he hold the record of obstinacy. In Barber's words, attempts by Brigadier Simpson to move and add to the defenses had been balked at at every turn, largely by General Percival, who seemed to have had a fixation against such measures. Nothing had been done. Nothing was being done despite previous pleas, a hazard of belonging to any rigidity, any rigidly authoritarian hierarchical organization is that from time to time, the

individual out of dire necessity or from strong personal conviction feels compelled to apply pressures to those above him. It is a hazard because the ethos of the organization, whether it be a Victorian family, an English boarding school or the British Army demands that pressure always moves only in one way, downwards rather than upwards, to buck the system by prodding those above can have unpleasant consequences. You're in a totally freaking rigid situation. And Simpson is trying.

Simpson is trying. I'm going to fast for a little bit. It seems that Simpson was past taking no for an answer for he said to the general, sir, I must emphasize the urgency of doing everything to help our troops. They're often only partially trained. They're tired and dispirited. They've been retreating for hundreds of miles. And please remember, sir, the Japanese are better trained, better equipped,

and they're inspired by an unbroken run of victories. And it has to be done now, sir. once the area comes under fire civilian labor will vanish he's wanting to get these just just get freaking obstacles set up the plea was forceful respectful and logical but amazingly the general remained unmoved Simpson in his rising anger said look here general I've raised this question time after time you've always refused what more you've always refused to give me any reasons at least tell me one thing why on earth are you taking this stand who he's like well hey what the hell don't you want me to build obstacles what's wrong with

you why not at long last the general officer commanding malaya gave his answer quote i believe the defenses of the sort you want to throw up are bad for the morale of the troops and civilians end quote simpson was quote frankly horrified and remember standing there in the room suddenly feeling quite cold and realizing that except for a miracle Singapore was as good as lost as he put on is Sam Brown, Simpson could not for beer to make one last remark, quote, Sir, it is going to be much worse for morale if the Japanese start running all over the island. You can't make it.

Dude, that is so hard to listen to. And for whatever sense of validation in my head of as soon as he said it's bad for morale, my first thought was, you know what's worse for morale? And of course, you know, I don't know he's going to say, but I understand that that's what this guy is seeing or thinking. And you saying that doesn't make me feel any better because it's just, I mean, I I'm just getting repetitive at this point. It's just a, you have to be crazy to not accept,

to not accept the facts that don't align with the worldview you've created in your head. Yeah. And I'm only reading chunks of the book. It's even worse than, it's worse than I'm making it sound. And I have the distinct disadvantage of seeing how much of this book you've been gone through and go, wow, there's chunk, I mean, big, big chunks, which I can only assume. Just reinforced over and over. Yes, another example, another example, another example, another example.

And this dude is a good writer. And he's a good writer. And I'm glad that in the very beginning you set this up. This isn't a researcher. This isn't like a theorist or a, you know, an academic. He has all those pedigrees. This guy fought. This guy fought.

He was a warrior. He was wounded. Yes, yes. By his own incompetence. Through his own admission by our own accomplice. Which is like, and he's humble. Yeah, which is awesome. So, yeah, this is, this is rough.

And I think what I'm still adding to this is just, I think it's at a point of repetition of just, it's really hard to accept that these are real stories from real people in real leadership positions leading up to what was just people getting slaughtered. You know, like you said, he was a soldier, but he's also a psychologist. And so he gives these psychological assessments, So here's one of them in the case of Percival and Gordon Bennett to erect defenses would have been to admit to themselves the danger in which they stood in other words their professional anxiety about civilian morale was really displaced anxiety about their own morale

looking further into the story of Singapore one is struck by the compulsive element in this refusal of the military to defend itself Such compulsive behavior is typical of many who present an authoritarian personality and are reared in an organization which traditionally deals with fear and danger by ritualistic means, i.e. bullshit, chicken shit, drill and parades, etc. Or is what I think he referred to earlier is the real business of soldiering. We're going to get back to drilling ceremonies. So there's a there's a admiral that comes along or yeah, who was it? Supreme Commander of Allied forces in the Far East, this guy Archibald Wavell. And he shows up and it's kind of like, what the hell's going on, bro? So then next thing it happens is a director from Churchill giving detailed instructions on how to defend the North Shore.

The measures listed were precisely those which had been advocated by Simpson. but despite these pressures Percival still did nothing when he eventually issued a plan it was already too late for the necessary civilian labor was no longer available just as Simpson said it was going to be on the disposition of his forces

Percival's thinking seemed no less deranged rather than hold a force in reserve that could be rushed quickly to wherever the Japanese eventually chose to land he decided to spread his troops thinly over a long front in other words he decided He decided now because it would be good for morale just exactly what he had refused to do early because it would be bad for morale in this battle of Singapore and they put that in quotes order of the day

Percival made it made great play of phrases like the enemy within our gates loose talk and rumor mongering all calculated to alarm civilians and this from the man who had laid such stress on the importance of civilian morale of this period, Barbara writes, in all the catalog of ineffectual leadership, nothing is quite so puzzling as the virtual absence of any deterrent action during the last precious hours of daylight before the Japanese attacked. It is hard to believe that a modern general could so easily ignore what was happening around him. I've never heard quite as bold of a statement as in all the catalog of ineffectual leadership. That's a bold one. Yeah, that's a big catalog. says for the allies, it was a week of chaos and confusion unrelieved by any vestiges of competent

leadership or generalship. Thanks to the absence of defenses, including a failure to use searchlights, which had been assembled to blind and make targets of the attackers as they paddled their way across the Johor Straits, the Japanese landed almost unmolested. Despite a devastating barrage from Japanese artillery, British guns. Instead of pounding the enemy's point of embarkation remained mute awaiting orders that never came Despite weeks of warning allied ground forces were speedily outflanked and circled cut off or routed in the event 138 thousand seven hundred and eight British Indian and Australian soldiers either died or went into captivity

This is the beginning if you've listened to podcast and Number 12, Alastair, Urquhart, the Forgotten Highlander. This is where he starts his captivity. I think he'd been in the Army for like two or three months at this point, 19 years old. 138,000 in one event. Of all the instances of military incompetence considered in this book is the fall of Singapore, which most clearly gives the lie to the so-called bloody fool theory of military ineptitude. Percival was in fact highly intelligent and had shown himself in previous years to be a brilliant staff officer

What he shared with other earlier military incompetence were passivity The opposite of default aggressive by the way and courtesy Rigidity and obstinacy procrastination gentleness and dogmatism 138,000 Two battleships by the way insane the next chapter is about arnhem this is one we covered we covered so we've covered part of Singapore obviously when we covered Alexander Urquhart Arden we covered podcast 94 the the book was called men at arnhem written by geoffrey powell who was there who fought there and i

think you know when you read reading this assessment really puts a really puts that book into perspective. It starts off with those couple quotes. All the accumulated evidence confirms that, like Gallipoli, this was a British disaster where naked courage lacked the bodyguard of competent planning, competent intelligence, competent technology. Yet war's object is victory, not the Victoria Cross. And it was shameful that by autumn of 1944, we could still be so amateur.

The object is victory, not the Victoria Cross. That's the equivalent of the Medal of Honor in England. Here's a private soldier's comments. It began to seem to me that the generals had got us into something they had no business doing. If it achieved nothing else, Operation Market Garden, Montgomery's plan to capture and hold a bridgehead across the Rhine in Northern Holland at least demolishes the myth that military incompetence stems from stupidity. For sheer initiative, quickness of mind, fortitude, and selfless heroism, the conduct of those who actually fought the battle has never been surpassed. By the same token, the men who planned and administered the operation were probably as intellectually gifted, well trained, professionally competent, dedicated, and conscientious as any military planners have ever been.

And yet the unfolding of Market Garden revealed all the symptoms of high. level military incompetence that's like in correct how would you feel if someone said you know what Dave you're intellectually gifted well-trained professionally competent dedicated and conscientious but that's what we're looking for in our leaders and yet this thing is a disaster the failure of the operation resulted from a a linked together of the following factors one as a result of his neglect to open up the port of Antwerp by clearing the shelled estuary Montgomery allowed the German 15th Army to escape north into Holland where it was available to defend the approaches

to Arnhem. Two, the arrival at Arnhem of 30 Corps depended upon the advancing across 64 miles of enemy held territory on a one tank front along elevated unprotected highways flanked by a soft and tank and sodden tank-proof landscape interspersed with waterways any delay a blown bridge an enemy ambush a blocked road and the entire column would be stopped any delay and the germans would have more time to bring up reinforcements in the event it is hardly surprising that 30 court never did reach arnhem that they could not achieve it even in nine days what had been scheduled to take 48 hours now I'm going to say, I know I gave credit to your 12-year-old daughter, and I'm going to say your 12-year-old daughter might not be able to figure this one out.

Look, you've got to go 60, what is it, 64 miles, 67 miles, 64 miles. But pretty much any Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps sees a channelized 64-mile road that's completely exposed to the enemy and doesn't like this plan. Yeah. If I'm hearing it correctly, what you're describing is a one, essentially a one,

it's a, he called it a single tank approach, a one lane highway, which on either side is impassable. Yeah. Due to, you know, canals and the terrain, whatever it is,

it's impassable. You have a one lane highway and your entire formation is going to be single file. Yeah, is how this is going to work. And he mentions we might get ambushed, right?

Or we might get, Blown bridge how about this a broken down tank How about how about we have a freaking crash? Number three as might have been expected from what is known of English autumns the mists if not the mellow fruitfulness of the of the English late September Delayed the departure of subsequent gliders and paratroopers for the reinforcement of the first armored division Like we didn't think there might be fog in the morning where in England England market garden perhaps more than most military operations necessitated good communication between the various units and commanders of the attacking force but here technology failed them

though it was now 50 years since marconi had succeeded in sending messages by wireless the radio sets carried by the invasion force proved useless unless with an earshot of each other no one knew what anyone else was doing and look you can say technology failed them if i'm a freaking military planner and I'm relying on the communications in 1944. That's what's going to make us successful. You're an idiot. We can barely rely on communications 10 years ago. We can rely on a lot more now.

Maybe, okay, not 10 years ago, sorry, 20 years ago. 20 years ago, you're barely, you're barely like the year 2000, you're barely, you're barely saying, oh yeah, we don't we, we'll get comms. We had backup comms all the time. Backup communication plans. We had all the time. And you know what? We had them in Ramadi as well, of course.

Yeah. So to think that your comms are going to be good to go in 1944, that's not technology failure. That's a freaking lack of planning. Yeah. A single point of failure of probably the most critical thing you're able to do is talk. Yeah. More than employ your weapons, even more than moving your ability to talk is probably

the most critical thing that you have to coordinate all these different assets, all these different things going on. I can't imagine. I mean, we had, I remember when I was in Ramadi because as an Anglico Marine, comms was my, was really the number one thing. It was secondary to the utilization of the aircraft. Number one was comms. We had this incredible comm suite and every brief was, hey, let's hire, let's create the

prioritization of how we're going to communicate. And it was based on where we were, how far away we're going to be, what assets were available. If I have a Humvee, cool. I got a vehicle. It's powered. I got this high-powered antenna. I've got these cool powered radios. And if I got to get out of that Humvee and start walking,

I don't have that thing anymore. So I can have a backup plan. And every single mission I went on, me and my radio operator talked about, if this doesn't work, what are we going to do? And guess what? Stuff, the nicest, best highest tech stuff,

didn't work routinely. Yep. And by the way, what are you doing then? You're getting out your signal panel. Right? We're marking our position with a big orange panel. Number five, since the airborne assault was to take place in daylight, and because it was vital that 30 core should complete their journey within 48 hours, 64 miles and 48 hours on the single track, the whole enterprise depended upon the absence of strong German forces, both in Arnhem area and on the approach route from the south. Hence it came of something as a jolt when they received reports from the Dutch underground that two SS Panzer divisions which had mysteriously disappeared sometime previously had now reappeared

almost alongside the dropping zone this information passed on to Montgomery received support from the British aerial photography of German tanks in the Arnhem area Meanwhile forward troops of the British Second Army reported a buildup of German forces along their intended line of advance hmm might want to reconsider this is the moment to reassess the risks involved but since these ugly facts did not accord with what they had planned they fell upon a succession of deaf ears taking the lead from Montgomery who described the report as ridiculous British second army headquarters were quick to discount it also when one of his intelligence officers showed him the aerial photographs of German armor, General Browning at first British Airborne headquarters retorted,

I wouldn't trouble myself about these if I were you. They are probably not serviceable at any rate. Is there any stronger form of just straight like denial and idiocy than that right there? You get shown the first you get intel reports and then you get shown photographs of the armor tanks, the German tanks on the ground and you're like they're probably not serviceable. You can't make this shit up. You also know that there was two divisions there that are gone. It's it's it didn't appear out of nowhere.

You know these divisions existed. Yeah, that's the intelligence officer was then visited by the core medical officer who suggested he should take some leave because he was so obviously exhausted and at first Allied Army Headquarters the chief intelligence officer British Lieutenant Colonel decided there was no direct evidence that the Arnhem area contained quote much more than the considerable flack defense. is already known to exist. As Ryan puts it, quote, all down the allied line of command, the evaluation of intelligence on the Panzers in Arnhem area was magnificently bungled. Finally, just in case there were any residual doubts, the intelligence staff of the Second Army came up with the reassuring opinion that any German forces in the Arnhem area were, quote, weak, demoralized, and likely to collapse if confronted with a large airborne

an attack. That's insane. The freaking Nazis, the Nazis are trying to defend their Reich. They're fighting for their lives. They're fighting for their country. They know what happens if they lose. They're some of the finest fighting forces in the world. And yet we're just going to go ahead and catalog them as weak, demoralized, and likely

to collapse. And by the way, randomly, it just, if they're confronted with a large airborne attack, like that's the thing. Because, hey, when you're an airborne attack, because that means you, do you even have anti-tank weapons? Barely. You've got no armor. This is ridiculous. Market Garden went ahead,

but not so quite as planned. Instead of encountering a few old men who collapsed or ran away, first airborne division fell upon a hornet's nest of German armor. Far from being demoralized. The enemy fought like Tigers to defend the gateway of their homeland. And far from sweeping across Holland to aid the hard-pressed paratroops, the tanks of the

Second Army's 30-court were reduced to a crawl by the combination of unsuitable terrain and determined opposition. And this is going to finish out this section of the book. Defeat was absolute and terrible. Short on everything but courage, the men of First Airborne Division held on until their numbers had been reduced from 10,05 to less than a quarter of that figure. Total allied losses and killed, wounded, and missing exceeded 17,000, some 5,000 more than those who became casualties on D-Day.

There you have it. Defeat was absolute and terrible. And that despite the fact that for the beginning of this section, sheer initiative, quickness of mind, fortitude, and selfless heroism. the conduct of those who actually fought the battle has never been surpassed. And this, you want to talk about disturbing. Field Marshal Montgomery described the mission as a 90% success. That's how he presented it.

90% success. I think to be clear of my understanding we're saying, in the aftermath. In the aftermath of everything that happened. Yes, he considered it. Yeah. He reported, considered. told people that this was a 90% success

um actually there's a little quote in there I got to read based on that there's this the he so he says this is a 90% success and um there's a prince bernard of the Netherlands said my country can never again afford the luxury of a montgomery success.

So that's what we've got. It's insane. It's weird how you and I are a loss for words over and over and over again. If you know, if you're listening to this and you've got some free time, I think I mentioned it last time. We're talking about some of the characters, but Band and Brothers covers this and

Market Garden from the American you know, airborne troopers and NRNM, there's a cool replaying and retelling of this and what we saw and the combination of that, but this is revealed there. It's, it's, it's very well done. But it does not, it does not, um, expose the depths of the why behind it. It looks at it, looks like it looks at it from a tactical point of view.

And it's, it's very good to see. It's really, you should watch it. It's not, Banner Brothers is awesome. But this takes it and reveals it on a level that, that for me, the reason I can't, I don't know what to say is, it's really hard to just, it's, this is, this is 1944. Yeah, we aren't new. We are not. We're experienced combat.

Yes. Indeed is behind us. Like this isn't figuring out, hey, how do we get our footing here? Things are not going, though. This isn't Singapore. This isn't Pearl Harbor. This isn't the invasion of Poland. This isn't even the Battle of Britain.

This is 1944. It's crazy. You know, you can see, I guess the British generals, but they have a different little kids. character that they play, you know, when they get up and they need to convince people, you can see like Monty, right? You know, getting up. Well, gents, it's a rough fight, but we've got 90% success, right? You know, you can, like, they're doing a different thing, but it's the same, it's a different accent, but it's the same bullshit, chest out, furled

eyebrows, a little bit more, a little bit more haughty from the Brits from Montgomery, but he's playing that same role and you got to ask yourself why does this happen why is this happening why are we going through these historical examples it's not from technology it's not from lack of fighting spirit it's not the terrain um it's bad leadership and where does this bad leadership come from where is it rooted well it is rooted in the psychological the psychological minds of these leaders. And there's plenty of great ones. And we're not talking about them on this podcast.

We're talking about the psychopaths. And we will dive into that on the next podcast. Until then, Echo Charles. Yes, sir. You know, we're trying to not be psychopathic types of leaders. We're trying to be better than that. We're trying to be better in all ways, you know. Yeah.

Got any recommendations for us? How to get better? We're trying not to have monumental complacency. That's definitely we're trying not to do that. I think that was a thing. Yeah. So yeah, let's not do that. How about that?

Okay, well, let's start with ourselves, right? You start with yourself. I'm not going to put your oxygen mask on before my own. Okay. Otherwise, I cannot breathe and then I cannot, you know, function. Well, I guess technically speaking, if I was in charge of a group of soldiers, and I was I had gout

I was overweight I was unhealthy I was mentally unstable I don't think I'm going to do a good job leading my soldiers It's going to be very hard It's going to be difficult Yeah So let's to your point

Let's make sure we got our shit together Yes sir I agree and yeah here's some ways to do it look We're working out we're reading We're reading We're definitely reading We're listening That's what I do

do. Yeah. I listen. Work out and read. Yeah. I work out and I listen. You know? And I'll read it here and there.

Either way, when we work out, when we do things, we got to put our bodies through little something so they can adapt to be ready for a big something. Hopefully. Hopefully. On this path, we're going to take some beatings. It's okay. We got some supplementation.

Okay. Let's talk about energy drinks first. Energy drinks, the good energy drinks. Actually, now. I think nowadays when we talk about energy drinks, we're not even talking about the other ones anymore. Well, unless we indicate so. We need to make sure that we tell people that when we talk about energy drinks,

we're talking about a certain type of energy drink, that's good for you in all aspects. That's what I'm saying. Exactly. Okay. There are energies that are horrible for you. Yes, sir, but now, for now, from now on, we're going to indicate that we're talking about that kind.

Either way, I got you. Okay. Jocco, discipline, go. Energy drinks. If you didn't know, that's the, that's a healthy energy drink. Got a little bit of caffeine in that one. 95 milligrams, like a cup of coffee. Yes, sir.

A bunch of other healthy stuff. It's an energy drink that is literally healthy for you. Nutropics, vitamins. Boom, there you go. Yeah, it's basically everything that you've come to energy drinks for without the backside, what it called tab. You've got to pay with your health. Have you ever, do you like the taste of any fast food?

Well, you know, depends on like and fast and food. Let me clear the path for you. Yes, sir. I'm going to clear the path for you. If you bring me to a Wendy's, which I used to work at, I'm going ham in Wendy's. Right? I understand. Like I really enjoy the taste of Wendy's.

Probably two years ago, I think one of my kids went and got McDonald's. You familiar with this place? I hear things, yeah. I had a couple fries. Yeah. And let's face it, dude. I mean, these things are engineered by doctors and physicists. and chemists to satisfy your taste buds and your dopamine's firing right all this stuff is going on so now imagine this all that goodness

imagine if you had all that goodness and there was zero downside right we know it's funny i had this mental extras because that's what you get with with with the go yeah you get all that you get all that goodness everything you signed up for yeah exactly no downside you just go just go hair you get all that goodness you get all that goodness everything you're I'm literally drink four of them. You're not going to sleep today, by the way. No, actually, I probably am. Well, maybe. I don't know.

Either way, I signed up for all that. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, the McDonald's thing. I talked to my kids before they go to bed. McDonald's Wendy's Burger King. What's your go to? Well, I don't have a go to. I haven't legitimately had fast food in years.

Like, I haven't, okay, like I had a few fries. Wait a second, Chick-fil-A. Well, during wrestling season, during wrestling season. Well, Chick-Cillet is not like as greasy. Let's face, okay, so we talked about this actually briefly. I went when I was on my way to Greg Jane's house and I had some McDonald's straight up. And I went kind of hard too. I didn't eat anything all day.

It was weak. It was very, very weak. Oh, that's the time you got like taunted by. It was right on the side of the road. It was right on the side of like literally like not even out of the way. It was almost easier to get to Greg's house if you went through the McDonald's drive-throof. That's what you convince yourself of. That is what it felt like, yes.

Well, you know, there's that Wendy's right by Victory MMA and fitness. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's another one. That's another one. But I fell for the trap of Wendy's one time. I told you this. I think I told you this where after training, I was like, I was in mood for Wendy's for like 48 hours. And I was like, okay, man, look, there's the Wendy's on the way to training.

I'm like, there's the Wendy's. Today's a day. I can't deal with this feeling anymore. I go train, like kind of hard. After training, I go, boom, right into the Wendy's, right out of the Wendy's. Right out of the Wendy's. drive through boom go eat it and I felt completely like shit after oh completely after training Wendy's boy it like it jams you up oh yeah you shouldn't do that

from then on Wendy's is easier to resist check this out imagine if you could go to Wendy's and you ate it and was delicious and made you feel great yeah yeah help you recover that's what this drink is yeah that's what this drink is oh yeah it's a miracle it's a miracle it's a miracle that you can have all upside and no downside that's a miracle right yep am I wrong You were not. Am I wrong, dude? You were correct, actually.

All right. Well, so there you go. You might want to try some of that. Yeah, yeah. So now everyone's fired up. I get it. Hey, similar vein, mulk. Yeah.

Similar vein, milk. Yeah. Because the same thing. You're fired up to have something that tastes really good. You're fired up for a milkshake. Yeah. But you can, you know, if you go gut bomb a milkshake, bro, like you feel like insulin coming out of your eyes. It's a disaster.

Yeah. But you go get a mulk. Yeah. Easy money. You're, your insulin. The insulin level is freaking flatlined. Yeah. Yeah.

There are no spikes, sweeten with monk fruit. No, no reason to go kill yourself. No reason to drink poison. No, no reason to drink poison. It's another miracle.

It's true. So two for two miracles scenarios. Brought to you by Jocco Fuel. While you're at it, take care of your joints. You've got joint warfare, super cruel oil. Why you got to take care of your immunity,

cold war and vitamin D3. Sometimes we don't get out in the sun as much as we need to. That's bad. You know, that is bad. But the sun provides vitamin D. But if you don't get it from the sun, boom, vitamin D3. You don't have to go out in the sun if you don't want to.

Dude, my dog goes out in my, on a lounge chair, like a chair. What is it called? Like a deck chair. He just goes out there and he just gets vitamin D all day. He goes sunbathing dog. Oh, for sure. The sunbathing dog. Okay.

All right. That's good. Well, yeah, so he might not need this. But for those of us who may not hit the sun as often as your dog or whatever, yeah, vitamin D3, all good. Good. Where are we to get these miracles? Joccofield.com.

Yeah. Also at the vitamin shop. Vitamin shop. Also for the energy drinks. Wawa. Wawa. Wawa. Oh,

yeah. You know what we're working on? Ready to drink milk. Oh. You just roll in and you just pull it off the shelf and you're slamming a milkshake that's good for you. Oh, yeah. This is like another miracle. Dishing out miracles.

It's good. But yeah. So, yeah. Also, you can get. a subscription to this stuff if you don't know that you get free shipping and you get it you're gonna remember to order it because sometimes when you order it takes one two three four I don't know how everyone I don't know where you live so I don't know how long it's gonna take to get to your house but sometimes there will be that lag time that you

don't want especially with the joint stuff actually pretty much with all the stuff so you get on the subscript boom you get it reliably boom free shipping by the way also origin USA oh yeah you're gonna want to get all that yep you want some American made stuff, especially the denim and the boots. And then again, I guess, you know, depends on what you're like, what you're into. Well, denim and boots aren't going to do you any good if you're looking to train geogis. But boom, we got some geese. Uh, geese American made the riff gey, by the way. Women talking about the riff gey. But that's one that's like, depends on who you are. But you can sleep in that thing like pajamas. For sure. If we made a long one, like a long jacket, you could be straight up

in a robe. You'd be straight up in a robe, right. I might even exercise. size my right to wear that rope too from time to time looks good but yeah a lot of good stuff all made in America yeah like from from the beginnings of the materials probably even from the thoughts of the beginnings of the materials all made in America so yeah you want to support American economy yes one of the ways you want and you do want to support the American economy yes sir you do want to do that yeah it's true again origin USA dot com if you like something on there yeah get something you support a you support a lot actually

Also, speaking of supporting a lot, Jocko's door is called Jocco store. You're going to represent. Support yourself. Support the cause. Support the path. Represent of the path. Get a shirt.

Get a jacket. Get a hat. Something like this. We have a subscription situation too called the shirt locker. If you're interested in creative, artistic, yet representative design shirt lockers for you. Good feedback on that one. I'm telling you. But yeah, look into that.

If you're subscribing to stuff, subscribe to this podcast. Subscribe to Jocko Unravelling with Daryl Cooper. Grounded Podcast, Warrior Kid Podcast. Also, you can subscribe. Is that the right word? Yes. For the underground? Yes.

Jocko Underground.com. You can subscribe, sure, but more importantly, you can support a methodology that we can turn to should there be problems. What kind of problems? Banning, shadow banning, censoring. Censorship, those kind of things. We're not saying that that's going to happen, but what kind of preparation would it be

if we didn't have a contingency scenario? So we got that. Jocko Underground.com. It costs $8.18 a month if you want to be a part of that. We do another little podcast called Jocko Underground where we talk about different topics. We answer your questions. We bring up some adjacent things.

Complimentary. What's the word that? Contemplate? Contemplate? Contemplation? Yeah. No, contemplative. If.

Okay. Thoughts of Joccos. That's what I've kind of discerned from it. You'd be like, hey, I was thinking about this. And you're like, this is this. It gives me a little outlet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A little outlet for a little deeper dive in a various subjects.

Little discussions. Yeah. Some good Q&A on that one, too. So there you go. We also have a YouTube channel where we put up the videos of this podcast. We've been putting up the. unraveling podcast slowly but surely yeah maybe some more of those could get up there yeah if we are not too busy we're working hard on that one for sure uh some other clips that echo

charles puts together what do you think dave what's your favorite uh jaco podcast youtube channel video not the one of him talking trash to me i'm assuming i think the framing one's my favorite one. Wait, was that on YouTube? Yeah, I think so. For sure. Framing up, yeah. The framing up. Yeah, yeah. Wait, do you think it's just on the ground?

No. No, yeah, the longer, the longer ones are on YouTube. Yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right, you're right. If you want to see, so what's that called? Behind the scenes. Yeah. Which is basically me talking shit. Yes.

Yeah. Hard. Deserved. Well, many cases. You know. Not always. Sometimes it go a little too hard. Maybe your black guy is deserved.

I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. Also, speaking of YouTube. channels Origin USA They have a good YouTube channel

Origin HD You want to see how the inner workings of an American factory Resurrection manufacturing By the way You want to see how that works Man that's a good

That's a good outlet right there American factories We got multiple factories now We're growing We're going to bring it back Manufacturing to America Yeah That's a good one

Also psychological warfare Is an album With tracks Jocko tracks Of him telling you How to get Through moments of weakness These are weaknesses that I experience.

Literally, I experience. I told Jock will make this little thing. It's recording. You listen to it, boom. No more moment of weakness. A moment of strength, really. At the end of the day. Flipside Canvas,

if you want something to hang on your wall, that's cool. Dakota Myers making it for you. Go to Flipside Canvas.com. Got a bunch of books. You know what they are. Final spin. Look, final spin.

Coming out, November 9th. What are you shaking your head at, Dave? I cannot wait for it to come out. I'm just, it's freaking, it's rad. Super stoked on it and looking forward to that coming out. Then everything else, you know, leadership strategy and tactics, code evaluation protocol, discipline equals freedom field manual. Way the Warrior Kid, one, two, three, and four. Mikey and the Dragons.

About faced by Hackworth, extreme ownership and the dichotomy of leadership. Eschelom Front is our leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. That's what we do. Leadership is the solution. Go to Eshlamfront.com. If you want details on that. We have live events.

We also have an online training academy because leadership isn't something you learn in one shot. It's something you have to work on, just like going to the gym, just like Jiu-Jitsu. So there's a bunch of courses on there you can take. There's live sessions that we're doing two, three times a week where you want to ask me a question? You want to ask Dave a question?

You can ask Dave. Go to Extreme Ownership.com if you want to get involved in that. And also if you want to help service members active and retired, Do you want to help their families, go to our family. Check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization helping out in so many different ways. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to America's mighty warriors.org. And if you want more of my repetitious reciting, or you need more of Echo's unattached assertions or Dave's exploratory explanations.

You can find us on the interwebs on Twitter, on the gram, on Facebook. Dave is at David R. Burke. Echo is at Echo Charles. I'm at Jocco Willink. And thanks to everyone out there in the armed services who step up and execute and get the job done even when leadership is lacking. And also thanks to our police and law enforcement,

firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, and all first responders. Thank you for standing duty here on the home front and keeping us all safe. And everyone else out there, there's a common theme in this book that like I said, it's really not in this book,

and that is a failure to detach. And as we read these blunders and errors and catastrophes, it's so easy to see these mistakes being made, but they're not obvious to the people that are caught up in making these mistakes. They can't see the tactical errors. They can't see their emotions. They can't see their ego.

And it wrecks them. And it causes these desires. Disasters so don't allow that to happen to you the worst mistakes we make are the ones we don't see And we don't see them because we're too close so step back Detach see what you're supposed to see and That will allow you to do what you are supposed to do and until next time This is Dave and Echo and Jocko out