Jocko Podcast - 363: The Principle Weapon Is The Mind. Read, Study, Learn, with JD Baker.

Episode Date: December 7, 2022

JD Baker with OMNA International. OMNA International provides support services for leaders with vision and good moral character. If you are such a leader, we invite you to explore our website to learn what we can offer your organization.  Our specialty is in designing and delivering experiential leadership development events -- especially leadership and decision-making staff rides. We thank you for your interest, and hope that we can be of service to you and the organization you lead.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 363 with Echo Charles and me Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. All commanders should consider the professional development of their subordinates a principal responsibility of command. Commanders should foster a personal teacher-student relationship with their subordinates. Commanders are expected to conduct a continuing professional education program for their subordinates, which includes developing military judgment and decision-making and teaches general professional subjects

and specific technical subjects pertinent to occupational specialties. Useful tools for general professional development include supervised reading programs, map exercises, war games, battle studies, and terrain studies. Commanders should see the development of their subordinates as a direct. reflection of themselves finally every Marine has a basic responsibility to study the profession of arms on his own a leader without either interest in or knowledge of the history the theory of warfare and the intellectual content of his profession is a leader in appearance only self-study in the art and science of war is at least equal in importance

and should receive equal time to maintaining physical condition. This is particularly true among officers. After all, an officer's principal weapon is his mind. That right there, there's a little excerpt from the Fleet Marine Force Manual 1, war fighting, a book that was commissioned by General Al Gray, the 29th Commandant of the Marine Corps, and one of the most iconic commandants of the Marine Corps. It's one of the first manuals that we covered on this podcast.

And what that excerpt describes is an approach that I have tried to take to study war, to study history, the theory of war, the history of war, the profession of war. And I've met some folks. along the way who are also enthralled by the study of history and warfare and one of the most knowledgeable that I've met is here with us tonight his name is J.D. Judd J.D. Baker he served in the Marine Corps for 21 years as an infantryman a sniper drill instructor senior

enlisted advisor in a bunch of different billets deployed to war zones around the world and he's here with us tonight to share his experiences and lessons learned with us. J.D. Thanks for coming by, man. Thanks for having me on. Let's get into it, man. You've got so much knowledge that I want to squeeze out of you. And we'll get to the end where we'll talk about how I plan to squeeze knowledge out of you.

I got a whole campaign plan on how to do that. But let's talk about you where you came from, how you grew up. So when were you born? 69, March 8, 1969. And where? Huntington, West Virginia, right on the Ohio River down on the south-eastern side, so you could basically swim to Ohio and walk to Kentucky. That's a pretty good triathlon right there, huh?

Yeah, yeah. The three-state triathlon. So what's your mom and dad do? My mom was a stay at home. My dad, he worked for a nickel plant, a big industrial kind of area. down there on the river, you know, West Virginia, coal, nickel, all that kind of stuff. And my dad hated his job. You know, he had a suit and tie, go into work every day, same kind of deal.

And as he wanted to do was scout Major League Baseball. So he put applications out all over the place, got picked up by the Pittsburgh Pirates, and got to live out the rest of his life, scouting baseball. Did he quit his job at the nickel plant? He just put in enough time to get retirement, like as soon as early retirement. So it's kind of like in the military, you just do the 20 years. What is he putting on his application to become a major league scout? I mean, don't you have to spend like time looking at high schools?

Then maybe you get a community college, then you go to a regular college. Then you get to go to be a scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates. That's a big jump out of the gate, isn't it? Yeah, it's a pretty big jump. My dad played college ball at Marshall. So he played a little bit of college ball. and in our household, if it wasn't white with little red stitches on it, my dad didn't give two shits about it. So basically we were raised in a dugout, which was super cool for kids growing up with me and my older brother.

So it was strictly baseball. He coached baseball. Never coached us while we were playing Little League. My dad coached Babe Ruth. He coached some of the travel teams, stuff like that. Was he smart enough to realize that he's? shouldn't coach you? He didn't like little kids.

Okay. That'll do it too. You know what I mean? Like he didn't want to be the one out there like, you know, clapping for little Johnny and Susie telling them they're doing a great job. You know what I mean? He wanted like to elevate, you know, kids that are, you know, 13 and above, they kind of know that they know the basics of the game.

Was he doing like weird subliminal stuff to you when you were little to like, was he like throwing the apple to you? like oh hey hey judd you want an apple like tosses you real quick where you got to catch it to work on your hand ice I feel like I did that with my kids I was doing all this weird kind of like things well the funny thing is is like both myself and my brother we we throw right but we bat left and I don't remember ever like it's kind of like learning to swim like I don't remember when I learned to swim and I don't remember learning how to swing a bat but both my brother and I both bat left-handed because in baseball you have an advantage. You're already facing first when you get done swinging. So you've got to drop. You can get the

first base faster. So it was like, that's the kind of thing right there. I bet your dad was like, no, no, no. You need to stand over here, buddy. Stand over here. Right. So yeah, it was all that with baseball. And of course, as a kid, we loved the game. You know, we played other sports as well. but baseball was... What other sports did you play? We played soccer, we played basketball, we'd play a little bit of football, but not as much. It was mainly...

It was baseball. Now, you played the other sports all the way through high school, or at some point did we focus and just go, like, it's baseball, baseball, and baseball? It was pretty much like, you know, soccer was mainly for the running aspect to be prepared for baseball season. Like, everything came off of baseball.

You know, basketball. My brother wrestled because he wasn't coordinated enough to play basketball. So he wrestled. You know, I played basketball. Love the game. Just a little thing here for the wrestlers out there. I got to say this. Jeremy Stevens, you know, he's a M.MA fighter and a great dude.

But he wrestled in Iowa, you know, in high school and stuff. And one of their insults, they would say if someone came into, if they wrestled against a guy or someone that was in the wrestling room, they'd be like, oh, how was that guy? He said, oh, he felt like a basketball player, meaning just like a week. So when you say, I was going to throw that out there for the wrestlers because I can't let it go unchecked

that you're like too, not coordinated enough to play basketball. So we wrestled and said, so I got to give some prompts to my wrestlers out there. Yeah, my brother on the wrestling team, you know, of course, my older brother, and, of course, his wrestling friends would all come over to the house and want to, you know, put the back. basketball player into a pretzel in the middle of the family room on a daily basis.

The only thing I liked about it was when we sat at the dinner table, you know, I didn't have to cut weight. Oh, yeah. And my brother is over there just like lettuce, you know, just shaking the water off. And I've got like a big thing, a pasta and just, you know, just wolfing it down. So I always felt bad, you know, for my brother in those aspects. But, you know, wrestling was was huge in West Virginia, you know, at Huntington High where we went to school, Coach Archer, legendary All-American wrestler coming out of there. We had some other Ken Zeffalado guys, you know, wrestled Pan-Anne game. I mean, wrestling was huge, so it was a real big deal.

But I was just thankful enough that I didn't have to, like, cut weight. And, you know, and the wrestling practices were just brutal. My brother would come back. I mean, basketball practice, he'd go shoot some hoop, man, play a little. one-on-one. You know what I mean? It was like nothing demanding. You wear a little, you know, back then in the 70s, those, you know, tube socks all the way up, little cute shorts, man. Yeah, little short shorts put on a tag top, man. That's what we're doing. Yeah, you know, watch Larry Bird, Magic Johnson kind of stuff. And yeah, you play basketball. So, yeah, I always,

yeah, the wrestlers, that was, that was next level, you know. So did you, so did you, did you play three sports in high school then? Or did you at some point just play baseball? It ended up just being baseball. Your dad's plan came together. Yeah. What position did you play? I was a pitcher. How tall are you?

Six foot three. I went and talked to the Padres a few years ago. And, you know, I don't really follow baseball super close. When I was growing up, it seemed like everyone that played baseball was like a little Dominican dude or a little Puerto Rican dude, you know, like little guys. And I went and talked to the Padres. Every one of those guys was a freaking giant human. giant. And I was like, oh, I guess it's a huge advantage. I guess it's coming back now where

they got some smaller players, but it's a huge advantage, right, to be a pitcher and be six three. Oh, yeah. And, you know, I started out as a kid. I think I was eight years old for my birthday. You know, we didn't make a big deal out of birthdays. We just, you know, run in a mom and dad's room on your birthday and they'd have a present for you. And my boss of catchers met because they thought, you know, my dad was like, okay, he's going to be the short one. So he'll be the catcher. You know what I mean? my older brother Tommy. He's going to be the tall one, so he'll be the pitcher. My dad was a pitcher. He's six-foot-three. He was a big guy. I mean, not like big unit kind of guy that big. You know, six, seven, six-nine. But then at like 10 years old, my brother quit growing and

I kept growing. So then we reversed. We just traded Mitz. So then my brother became a catcher, which I was thankful for, because again, as you can kind of see with like, you know, the basketball aspect, a catcher is a, that's a brutal, brutal job. You know, I mean, but you control the field. You're the leader. You're the only one that can see all eight players at one time. But, you know, being a catcher, just, you know, hot, sweaty behind the plate, you're engaged in every play out there. And my brother was really good. My brother was a really good baseball player. as a catcher. And then for me, being a pitcher, you're kind of like the, you know, like a basketball player compared to a wrestler.

You're the, you know, you got to take care of the pitcher. And, you know what I mean? He's, you know, he's special kind of aspect of it. So I didn't get beat up as much as my brother did. And how about school? Are you doing all right in school as far as, like, grades and everything? Do you care? Is it like no big deal?

Are you getting into trouble? What's going on with just your youth? Yeah. School pretty much, yeah, terrible. Just terrible. The coolest thing in school was in the first grade. My first grade teacher was Mrs. Gohain. And Ms. Gohien, cool thing about it is I'm friends with her on Facebook, even still today,

which is like super cool with social media to be friends with Ms. Gohine. And she made us do a book report. And probably the biggest impact she had on me was she, you pick whatever book. She didn't like assign a book to make us read something specific. You got to pick whatever you wanted. Me, I did my first book report on Babe Ruth, the New York Yankees. Obviously, we had a lot of baseball books in the house, just laying around everywhere. So she allowed me to write my first book report. And then just to have a love of reading. It doesn't matter what you read, just read.

So after that, I always enjoyed reading as a kid, but I love gym class. I like recess. I like to play. You know what I mean? Whatever the game is, it doesn't matter. I enjoyed playing a game. And my dad was always pretty, you know, he was pretty liberal with the aspects of, you know, boys will be boys kind of aspect.

But my dad was a mathematician. So he loved math. So, and I'm the complete opposite. I don't like math. I'd rather the liberal arts, the history, the reading, the books and stuff. So, you know, we kept enough to play sports. You've got to have a 2.0 to play ball. So as long as you were above a 2.0, my dad was like, well, I'm good with that.

You know what I mean? You know, I wasn't an honor of society or holding candles, having photos taken in school. But I had a lot of fun. Great childhood. You got an A in recess, lunch, gym class, and fun. Yeah, I knocked it out the park in all those areas. And then, you know, where I grew up, probably another big aspect of my life was at eight years old, my dad sent me to camp. Now, this is a camp.

It's called Camp Walla, Wittula, and it's in Millboro Springs, Virginia, Bath County on the Cow Paster River. My dad went to this camp. And it's kind of like Hogsworth, you know, like the Harry Potter stuff, where they would take us to the train station in Huntington. You'd have your big luggage, and you'd get on a train, and we would take the train to Clifton Forge, Virginia, and the counselors would pick us up from the train, throw it all of our luggage in there,

and take us out to Camp Wallow-A-Tool on the Cal Pasture River for seven weeks living in. tents and it was like I loved camp hunting you know you shot 22 rifles you shot bow and arrow canoeing swimming horsebacking you know orienteering leaf identifications not tying all these kind of things and it was you know at camp wallow at tula and you know I had to beg my parents to go at eight years old because normally you had to go when you were nine but my older brother went and when we went to go pick up my brother and I got to see this camp I was like oh this is this is it like so we would spend seven weeks every summer on the calpastry river at camp which had a huge effect

on the rest of my life I mean you know going into the Marine Corps was like going to camp you know what I mean you join the infantry going to camp you know you got activities so you did that every year for like until you were how old until I was 14 And then Don Sutton, the family that owned the camp that had, like I said, my dad went to that camp. He had two sons and nobody wanted to take the camp over. So they basically shut the camp down. But every June, we have a reunion with all the guys at Camp Walla Tula. The sad thing is, is like, I'm one of the youngest of the reunion guys.

And we go back every June. but being at camp with the counselors and they had a big effect on me as a kid growing up of like I mean you sat at tables they taught you you know manners how to eat you know how to take care of yourself basically how to be a Virginia and every at the three and at the three week mark they would take us into Lexington Virginia you know VMI's there and then they've got the Robert E Lee Tomb is there, so we would go visit Robert Lee. So like at the first time at eight years old, I remember seeing the Robert E. Lee, you know, Stonewall Jackson, Virginia, all that, Washington. You know, Virginia in history is huge. And at camp, you know, we had, you know, mandatory like nap time.

You know, after lunch you'd come back. And it was like reading, reading, laying in Iraq kind of an event. So, you know, you could bring a book. You could write letters home. the letter writing really didn't go very well. I think my mom still has the first letter I wrote, and it was like, dear mom and dad, having a good Judd, and that was it. You know what I mean? But yeah, that aspect of growing up

and seeing mentorship of like the counselors that came into the camp and they mentored us at a very early age and seeing kind of like what Wright looked like for growing into becoming a man was a huge, huge aspect. That was an all-boy camp on. All boys. Yep.

There was an all-girls camp right down the river called Camp Mont Chanoa still exists today. And, you know, we would do like a dance with them and stuff. We'd go up river and go there and, you know, it was nice to see young girls in a camp. So it was fun. But, yeah, I mean, the Cow Pasture River is a part of my life. I mean, I've got, when I die, I want to be cremated, my ashes dumped in the cow pasture. We go every year. I mean, I love the plate.

My wife and I, Tracy, we were married in the cow pasture river, like standing in the river. Yeah, that's a huge tie to me is that river in that part of my life. How far is that river from where you grew up? Probably about three and a half hours, three and a half hours, four hours, just over the Appalachia. It's on the Virginia, West Virginia border in Bath County, Virginia, up in the mountains up there. Beautiful part. So were you on track to, like, go to college and play baseball?

Were you good enough? Were you, like, what was going on with that? Well, you know, the good thing is I had my older brother. And so I could kind of, like, watch what he did and see his mistakes and try not to repeat. You know, because you've got to go home with deal with my dad. So my brother went to the WVU. You know what I mean? He was going to try the college thing.

And my brother was a lot smarter than I was. And but still, he couldn't figure out that you have to go to class that like get a grade. Did he get recruited for baseball? Was he playing baseball there? No, no, no. He just went. Yeah, he was just, you know, going to college. So despite the efforts of your dad to turn you guys into baseball players that could play,

in college, he didn't play in college? No. And with my dad's aspect of, he more or less looked at it on the aspects of try to go straight farm league. Like, you know, I would say that my dad, he kind of looked at it like, you can always go to college. You can be 60 years old, man, you can go to college. You get one shot to play pro ball.

And you know what I mean? and you try to get in, you know, if you can get minor league kind of aspects. He always worried about like a college coach, you know what I mean, of their pedigree. I mean, they can ruin a guy because in college, college coach, he's there to win. He's going to throw you. He's going to work you as much as possible because that's his job. And, you know, college baseball isn't necessarily like a big thing like college football. I mean, to play pro football, you got to go to college.

you got to play college ball. You're not going to go direct to where like baseball is more of a direct, you know, the Derek Jeter's, the Griffies, those kind of guys. You don't go to college. You go straight to the minor leagues and then you work your way through the minors. So that was more of, I would say, my dad's kind of take on things was. But your brother decided to go to college. Yeah, he was going to go to college. Again, my brother was, he was good in school.

My brother was a lot smarter than I was. He paid attention a lot more than I was. I did. So he went to WVU, but like I said, he didn't go to class much. You know, college football games were great on Saturday kind of thing. I'd go up and hang out with my brother. And then he ended up, you know, not making the grades. And they're like, yeah, you can't stay at school here anymore. So my brother, he joined the Air Force. He's like, yeah, well, you know, dad's like, not, not, you know, don't want to hang out in the house here. Let's let's come back. So my brother joined the Air Force, and when he joined the Air Force, he worked on C-130s, crew chief stuff with C-130s.

He was out in Dias, Texas. I mean, it seemed like a pretty good gig for what he was doing. And then for me, you know, when I was 17, I played on a couple of travel teams. And we were playing in Cincinnati. And, you know, regardless of my dad, I mean, I love my dad to death. but his nickname between like me and my brother and then we called him the dick and love him to death

but I mean all my friends were like dude it must be so cool having like because my dad's nickname was T-bone so they were like dude it's like so cool like your dad T-bone because everybody thought my dad was great you know what I mean like he was at all the games whether it was football basketball

you name it I mean why they call him T-Bode just because he's named Tom Baker and he was six foot three you know, hundred and, you know, 555 pounds. It looked like just a T-bone coming off of a steak. And so they called him T-bone, and everybody thought it was like the coolest thing. Well, it's like, well, dude, you didn't live with my dad. Like, of course he's cool outside of the house.

But step into the house and live with this guy. I mean, and again, it was still, it was great. But, you know, my dad was, I mean, he was funny, humorous, you know, but yeah, I loved him to death. But we came back from playing in Cincinnati, Ohio. And, you know, I was throwing in a game. You know, my dad and I kind of got into it a little bit at the game. And I was like, I'm done. You know what I mean?

I'm done. I came back. I went straight up 17. Went to the Marine Corps recruiting office. How did you hear about the Marine Corps? I had a buddy of mine. Actually, I had quite a few friends of mine. Of our class, it was a lot that went in the Marines.

Marine Corps. Rick Shank was one of them. His dad was a Korean Vietnam vet. He was an Army Ranger guy. But, you know, there was a lot of us that had looked at the military in a in a blue-collar town like Huntington. It's a way out. You know what I mean? So you get a lot of folks that join the military to get out. You know what I mean? Like there's something bigger out there. And again, like I said, I loved camp. And, you know, I don't have to like... Those recruiters, man, they were licking their chops when you showed up. They were like, oh, you like camp?

We got camp for you. Oh, yeah. I mean, boot camp. Yeah. Yeah. And they've got activities. Tents. They got tents.

Yeah. Give you all this free stuff. You get a gun. You know, so yeah, I mean, I was like, oh, you know, when I came in there, I was like, you know, telling them a recruiter, I was like, hey, I've got to be infantry. And he's giving us the look like, oh, that's going to be a difficult one to get. You know what I mean? Because we didn't really know a lot.

And, of course, I can get you, you know, guaranteed, you know, infantry. You know what I mean? If you score high enough. He's taking care of you. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm thinking like, this guy's the heat. Like, he's hooking us up until I go to boot camp. You know what I mean?

But then I'm 17, so I got to get a signature. So you're 17. You're 17. Are you done with high school? No, no, no, no, I still have my senior year to go. So I was like delayed entry. Okay. But I had to get my mom to sign.

Uh-huh. And what mama say? Mom was all about it. She's, get out of here. Just give me that paper. Let me get out of here. Yeah. Yeah.

Why even waste your time? Yeah. Which was, you know, when you look back at like at life of like a decision that you made that was probably the smartest decision I ever made. Because I would have been a shit show. For sure. Oh, guarantee. I'm right there with you.

Thanks to my recruiter. I don't even remember anything about my recruiter, but I just would like to thank him, even though he probably screwed me over. He's like, oh, yeah, you're going to go in the SEAL team, sure, buddy. Yeah, you look. Oh, yeah, you're going to make a great seal, right? That's such bullshit.

Like, there's no way any recruiter knows if anyone has the remotest chance to make it. Oh, yeah, seal teams. You seem like the kind of guy that's going to do great there. Like, yep, just sign this piece of paper. Sounds great. You know, recruiter, sir. So those guys are definitely hooking you up.

But like that's the same with me. That the greatest thing, probably like you said, the single pivot point of the trajectory of my life was signing that piece of paper and saying, yep, I'm in. And I remember, I signed up for six years. It was six years to get a seal,

to get a Bud's contract where you go to Buds. Actually, all it was, actually all it was was you signed up for six years and that gives you a chance to take the screening test to possibly pass to possibly go to Buds. That's what it was. And, and, you know, you're thinking you're 18 years old, like six years is a long, that's one third of your life. And I remember just thinking, well, whatever, rock and roll, let's do this.

But definitely a pivot point. That's interesting because they got me on the six year. But they gave you infantry? Yeah. I mean, guaranteed. Guaranteed infantry. Guarete. I wonder how many bonus points he got for that, that were recruited.

So you roll in there, you enlist. now you're in, you have to go to debt meetings, your whole senior year of high school or something like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We kind of like meet on the weekends and, you know, and go for runs and stuff like that. So basically, you know, my senior year was, I mean, I think I took like four gym classes, you know,

because I was like, I'm okay, I'm done. Like this is what I'm going to do. So why do I need to? And of course, did you even play baseball your senior year? No, I quit everything. I mean, my dad was not happy. I was going to say.

Yeah, it was, but, you know, he looked at it as, I don't think my dad was like a big fan of me making that decision of going in the Marines. But, you know, I mean, when I remember he took me down there to the recruiting office and dropped me off, because I shipped like three days after graduation. Like the recruiter was standing at the graduation. So when I walked across and I got the piece of paper, yeah, they got a lot. like take it to make copies. Yeah, he's there. Oh, he's there. But yeah.

We get this in the Xerox machine, son. Well, the funny thing is there's like six other of my classmates that are just as stupid as me. And we're all going to boot camp together. That's awesome. Kind of made it fun. Yeah. Yeah.

So I had like Ricky Shank and Carrie Nestle are like literally in the same recruit platoon as me. No kidding. Yeah. So it was kind of fun to where when you're seeing the drill instructor kind of, you know, give them a ration and you're over there trying not to laugh, but like what's going to going on and then they're doing the same thing to use. So it was it was kind of nice. Like I said, it was kind of like going to camp. You know what I mean? I had some of my friends there that I'd known since, you know, I grew up with them. And there was a, you know, so it was, it was cool

to have, you know, a couple of guys that I went to school with and ran around with a lot in my recruit platoon. But I didn't realize, like, and we were all guaranteed infantry, by the way. I mean, you know, they don't make them smart coming out in Huntington, West Virginia. And, uh, And the recruiter is probably just, you know, he's loving it. So until we, like, they're announcing, like, your military MOS at the end, you know, the senior drill shark standing up there. He's like, you know, Baker, infantry, you know what I mean? He's like, guaranteed.

Boy, you're some kind of stupid. You know what I mean? But, you know, back then, like, I didn't really know that, like, there was other jobs, like, in the Marines. Because I knew, like, you know, Navy dock, you know, we get a lot of our stuff. from the Navy. You know, I thought like everybody

went in the Marine Corps to be infantry. And, you know, and then you got cooked. Every marina rifleman to you was the facts. Yeah. I mean,

is it everybody? How was boot camp when you showed up? Was it like a shocker? Were you like, holy shit? Or were you just like, hey, camp, let's do this.

Yeah. Of course, you know, the shock and all of, you know, when they bring in, I went to Paris Island. When I flew out of,

out of the Huntington, it's the tri-state airport of what they call it. And that was the first time I had ever been to an airport. And I don't know, you know, the history of Huntington of Marshall University, you might have seen the We Are Marshall, the 1970 plane crash, the NCAA history, you know, most fatalities. And that was at that airport. So where I grew up, the whole Marshall University in that plane crash, November 14th, 1970, you know, every year in Huntington.

I mean, it is a, it's a big deal for that Marshall plane crash. I had, you know, kids that I went to school with that, you know, their parents were on that plane. You know, it devastated the community in Huntington. And then here I am going to the airport, you know, and I was like, why can't we just, like, take a bus? It's South Carolina, man. what I mean? Like can we just, so it was one of those props that's got like the, the little curtain that the, you know, the pilot like puts luggage on and then he takes the curtain and whips it over there to the side and you know what I mean? And we're to, and that almost stopped me from

going to boot camp. I mean, I was like, this is ridiculous, man. Why are we flying? And so I got down there and then they bring in at night, you know, so you don't really know, like, where you're going and it's, you know, coming on to Paris Island. And of course, you hear all the mystique. of Paris Island. And of course, you remember full metal jacket. It just came out when you and I were in high school.

So, of course, you know, that dude's like a stammer up comic. You know what I mean? That movie was hilarious. You know what I mean? And I'd probably say that with the drill instructors are,

they're stand-up comics. I mean, some of the stuff that they do is just, it's Saturday Night Live. But it's like 18 hours of Saturday Night Live a day. And you're getting the end,

the end of the job. You're the butt of all the jokes. But it was still, yeah, it was a, it was, you know, the shock and all. But then once we kind of got into the rhythm of boot camp, then, you know, with the drill instructors. What years is this? Is this 87? 87.

87. Yep. June. So, you know, could wait until the wintertime to make it a little bit more pleasant down there. But, yeah, so we ended up there in June, graduated in August, you know, three months down there. and then went straight off to Camp Lejeune, went up to Camp Geiger's where the infantry school was at the time

and went through infantry training school of 0-3-11, you made it. O'3-Eleven, you made it. How was that infantry school? Again, you know, kind of looking back on, I mean, it's so many, like, new Marines coming in that you don't really, like, get a lot of that individual education. How long was the school? I think it was like 10 weeks, maybe. Did you have Vietnam guys teaching you or not really?

Some of the older, like the E7s and E8s that were there were Vietnam Air guys. But, you know, like what you would call, like, you know, the troop handlers. are more like the corporals and the sergeants kind of. So those guys had, you know, coming in like the early 80s and were there. But the senior folks, yeah, they were, they were Vietnam era guys. Did you think you were going to war at some point?

Yeah, no. I mean, it never really even like crossed my mind, you know, at the point. You know, when, like I remember, I listened to you, when you had, like, when you and Dave, when you had Dave Burke on, and you were talking about like the top gun when like we grew up. I was more of the John Jay Rambo kind of like being John Jay kind of turned me on more than like Tom Cruise. Oh yeah for sure.

You know, I mean. I couldn't relate to Tom Cruise. Yeah, I wanted like the green, Odie green jacket, wear jeans, boots, get a big knife with like a compass on the top of it. You know what I mean? With matches in it. You know, yeah, I wanted to be, you know, John Jay. So, you know, those eyes. aspects of it were pretty interesting.

Did you have like a global perspective of the world and think, well, you know, it's the, you know, the, the, uh, cold wars going on. You know, this could kick off. Did you, did you have any thoughts like that? Yeah, no. Yeah. I was going to say, because I, you know, I joined in 1990. Now, what changed for me was that the Gulf War was starting, right? So when I came in, it was like, oh, we're going on. And I remember watching CNN and CNN is saying there's going to be something like. 30,000 casualties in the first 48 hours on our side and I was like oh bro we're going like I was thinking it's all I'm gonna get some for sure and then once that was over it seemed like I just seemed like well I'm gonna be doing some kind of secret shit's going on you know like the seal teams come on we're doing stuff worldwide all the time there's secret missions going on I'm obviously going to Vietnam and fighting whatever John J. Rambo style that stuff but But going to the Marine Corps at 1987, the world was pretty peaceful at that time. Yeah, you know, in the Marines, we had one of the corporals that was there that was at the infantry school.

He was a Beirut guy. So, you know, like back then, like, Beirut was like, which was huge for the Marine Corps, you know, that incident. And so that was kind of, you know, Beirut and Granada were pretty much like the only two things. And if you weren't with like a specific one battalion, then everybody else in the Marine Corps, you know, they just had the overseas deployment ribbon with the good conduct. And that's it.

You know what I mean? There wasn't any like solids hanging out, except for the, you know, the Beirut guys. And then I would say that my first battalion I got sent to was second battalion, eighth Marines, and it was on Camp Geiger. And all as I did was was put my C bag on my back and face to the right, and we just walked down to the 8th Marines barracks,

and it was Open Squad Bay. That's where your first assignment was? Yeah, the second-upon-eighth Marines. That was on Camp Geiger. It was the 8th Marine Regiment was on Geiger. Everybody else was on Mainside Camp Lejeune, and Geiger was Open Squad Bay. So it was, and a lot of people talk about, like, being in open squad. I loved Open Squad.

It was camp. Yeah. I mean, it was more camp. You know what I mean? I got up there. You really get the know, like, the guys in the platoon because of the open squad bay. I mean, there's no hiding from anybody. It's not like at the end of the day you go to your barracks room and you shut the door

and it's just you and one other guy in the open squad bay. People can walk through at any time. It's all your stuff is exposed. You get a foot locker and a wall locker and that's it. So you didn't really, you know, like nowadays, like kids move into their rooms and they got TVs, they got Xbox, they got all this kind of stuff. You couldn't have that stuff. you know, because you had one TV and the duty NCO controlled what channel it was on. But yeah, so it was, it was pretty cool on those aspects.

And then, you know, as soon as I got the Second Battalion, Eighth Marines, my first, my first training op was cold weather training up of Bridgeport, California. Oh, that's cool. Which was banging. Yeah. You know, I mean, they got ski lifts up there. We're skiing. Of course, that was the first time, like, you ski uphill, like, with a power.

which that suck. Not as cool. You know what I mean? Like I wanted to go to like Tahoe and do some downhill. And of course, you know, Marine Corps with our mountaineering skis are low as bitter. So it's like two by four strapped with a, you know what I mean, with a boot band wrapped around your Mickey Mouse boots. And you're going to head downhill with a 90 pound ruck on and a rifle hanging off the front of you.

That was the only point that I was really excited that I wasn't a machine gunter. You know what I mean? like skiing with a with a machine gun there's a whole other level and how long were you at two eight for I was at uh two eight for I stayed from just at the end of 87 right into 89 oh so you did years there this is your first assignment yeah yeah this is my first battalion what do you do did you go on deployment from there yep so we did like the bridgeport thing you know you do like your workup but did you do you do a workup but did you do a workup but did you go like get on a boat and go on deployment to the med or something like that?

Well, we actually did Westpac because we came in, flew over to Oakey, and then my first boat ride was on the USS Fort McKenry. Right on. Which, you know, as a kid in camp, like I read, like, I enjoy reading and books on adventure, you know what I mean? And I always thought like when I look at like a Navy ship, It's kind of like being in Huntington, West Virginia.

It's a blue collar community afloat. So these are like all the guys like in the Navy, like they got guys that like have jobs. Like they do stuff. Diesel mechanic. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? And like we're in the Pacific.

You know what I mean? And it's just like it you get to see how small you actually are. But you know, being with the Navy, Marines don't have a job on the boat. You know what I mean? We get up. We are point of place of duty is. in the rack. We stand in Chow Line a lot. You know what I mean? It's like get done with breakfast. What are you going to do? I'm going to go wait for lunch. Stand in line and sit there with a book.

And when the Navy gets pissed off that the Marines are laying around all over their stuff, they call General Quarters and we go to the rack. And, you know, and they go to work. But, I was always intrigued with the Navy. Like, you know, and then just the global of travel and like a Navy ship captain. always seemed like a super cool job to have being aboard a ship. And it's so blue collar. I mean, the guys in the Navy aboard the ships, you know, we floated Gator Navy. But they were like super great guys. They all had skill sets from, you know, electricians to the laundry, the cooks. I mean, it just, it was like, you know, being in Pittsburgh. Yeah. Except everybody doesn't have a mullet. You know what I mean? They got a haircut. And it's like you're a floor.

with a blue-collar town, and it was super cool. We went to Korea, you know what I mean? And that was one of the things that intrigued me about just joining the Marines was I was going to get to travel and get paid. Like, you know what I mean? I get to go to cool places. And, you know, so, you know, going to Korea, going to Japan, Philippines, you know, those kind of aspects.

And I'm getting a paycheck at the same time. Are you guys doing exercises there? Yeah, you know, like Team Spirit, you know, all those little names that they have for stuff because, you know, we're fighting Ivan. So everything's in Ivan. Yeah. And, you know, we just, we go out. We go to the field. We run exercises. We come back. And then we get like, you know, like four or five days off. And in 88, the Olympics were in Seoul, Korea. So that was. So you were there for that? Yeah. Like, did you guys work security or anything or no? No. No. No. Yeah. Would the Marines stay down in Pohang, right outside of Pohang? And it was called Camp Moonchuck.

We call it Mudchuck. You were still burning shitters there. I mean, it was primitive, primitive camp. This is where you guys, when the ship pulled in, that's where you went? Yep, the Navy would kick us off. You know what I mean? And we'd go into camp Mudchuck and we'd go into there. But, you know, and then they had ranges.

We would, you know, do company exercises, battalion exercises, grenade range. And you're a straight rifleman in a platoon. Straight riflemen. Just that's it. Rifleman. Got the best job in a rifleman? I loved it. I mean, it's like being a rifle, but you just, you get a rifle.

Yeah. It was, it was super, yeah, it was super cool. The guys in the platoon, you know, you got all these different characters just from all over. That just make things like so interesting of just, you know, of hearing the stories and their background where they grew up. You know, and, you know, back then we didn't really intermix a lot with like the platoon commander. you know what I mean? Like our biggest is usually like your squad leader because he controls your life.

And then the platoon sergeant is a big role. And, you know, like the lieutenant, you'd like see him at like formation or something. You know what I mean? Because like you didn't stay in the same, you know, officers are segregated out. You know, and then you just, you know, they're not in cell block.

You know what I mean? Like where we're hanging out. Back when the Marines had, didn't even have name tag. on their uniforms. It was just like, what's your name? My name is corporal. Yeah, that's it.

You can call me Marine if you want. Yeah. I remember deploying on ships because I did a few deployments, or I did three deployments on ships with Marines and one with the carrier strike group. But yeah, the Marines were just another, I have to tell the story. We, you know, it was a pain to get off the ship

when you pulled in, when you hit the pier because as soon as they rang the Liberty Bell, everyone was in line to get out. And it would take like an hour or more to get to get through that line. So we used to ship pulls in, gets Peerside. As soon as they call for Liberty, we'd go to the gym and get a good workout because the ship's not moving. And there's no one in there because everyone's trying to go on Liberty.

So this one time we do that, you know, get done, go work out, get done, take a shower, put on our Liberty clothes. It's been like an hour and a half and we go up to the quarter deck to leave. And they're carrying a freaking Marine back. It was so wasted. He got wasted in an hour to half. He was unconscious drunk, bro. That's how hard he was going in the paint. So that's, you know, good times with Marine Corps.

That's usually every port call. I mean, somebody's going to ruin it. And, you know, the thing I always tell the Marine, I mean, it's almost like being in jail. Like, if you go to the first port call and you're done training in the first hour and a half and then you get restricted to the boat for six months of restriction, I mean, that's prison. Yeah. That's a sentence.

Yeah. You know, everybody else is like, you know, hitting it. And, you know, but it's, you know, when you, when you, when you, when you keep everybody, you know, caged up down there and cell block and you're crossing the pond. And then, you know, you hit this Liberty Port and you're like, I mean, you're, you're 18, 19 years old. And you're, you're legal drinking age everywhere in the world, but here. You know what I mean? And, and, and, of course, you know, and, but you've been in, like, training.

So, you know, through boot camp and infantry. infantry school. So it's not like, and you can't have beer in a barracks because I lived in an open squad bay. So it wasn't like we even had refrigerators. Yeah. So any chance you got for that. So you spent like two and a half, three years living in an open bay barracks. Yeah. Oh yeah. It was, uh, loved it. I mean, we used to like take the wall lockers, those old gray wall lock and put them up against the walls. And, you know, and we would play hardball baseball. Like, like, because you couldn't break anything. I mean, it was like, you know, just the answer. that went on and you know the only bad you know like back then you could still smoke in the government

areas and even on ship i mean i could remember being on the boats and just like you'd go into the to the cell block area where the Marines are down there and there's just like that haze of smoke across the top but you know guys just laying around with like coke can flicking ashes in it you know it was uh it was a different different world did you did you know you're like you found your place when you got in the Marine Corps? Were you like, oh, this is, I'm good. I've got my job forever. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was like, I'm going to just go to camp for the rest of my life. You know, and the funny thing was is, you know, you, you know, when you talked about Al Gray. So this is 87. He became the commandant while I was in boot camp. So, I mean, you talk about just a different kind of guy of Al Gray. I mean,

is what a lot of us consider the second enlightenment of the Marine Corps. And this guy is all about education. He's all about, he wants a university. I mean, I give him probably the coolest story of Al Gray. I met him in 89. First Battalion, six Marines were looking for folks to do contingency operations in Panama. Noriega was running the joint down there. So I left 28, joined one six, to be able to go do.

contingency operations in Panama. You know what I mean? I thought one, Panama, triple canopy jungle, it's got to be cool. You know, I mean, and it was just another experience to be able to. So I went to one-six and I was down there and we stayed at the Rodman Naval Air Force,

naval base down there right on the canal. They had the Howard Air Force Base that's down there. And then the Marines operated out of what was called the Aeron Tank Force Base. farm. It kind of looked like if you flew over top of it, it looked like a golf course cut in the middle of the jungle. Well, it was all like the tanks for refueling coming through the canal. And just seeing the Panama Canal was like the greatest engineering like I had ever seen like before, because it used to be the Panama path. You know, they used to just walk across

because it was the skinniest point and to watch the locks and the ships come through the canal was just amazing. See, you know, for a 19-year-old kid, like seeing the Panama Canal and, you know, reading about it, it was just, it was an amazing experience. But we would go out, and you were on like a six-day rotation. And, you know, you did two days in the fob, which was just out in the middle of the jungle. It was the Ford operating base. And then you would do two days on patrol, and then they'd bring you back for two days in the rear. And you were just on this rotation. And there was just a company of Marines down there. And there was just a company of Marines down there. I was the Navy Navy SEALs were down there. You know, they had army folks down

there. But that was our assignment. And I remember Al Gray, it was the Commodon, and I was in the Fobb. And I'm sitting in the fighting position. We had fighting positions around there. So I was, you know, man in the fighting positions, me and me and one other guy, and the heat tabs going down. It's getting dark. And we kind of can see like this entourage of people milling about the area. And it just not it's not making too much sense of like like who is this well next thing you know this older guy i mean it's dark out i really don't know who it is hops down in the in the in the fighting position with me and he's like hey who are you i was like man's corporal jd baker you know what i mean and he's like oh hey how's things going i was like who who are you i was like al gray and

hmm name sounds familiar you know what i mean because like you know how old Gray was just Al Gray Marine. I mean, that's just how he went by. And he was a prior enlisted, you know, infantry, made it all the way to Sergeant. And they thought he'd make a good officer. So they sent him to OCS and made his way up through the ranks from New Jersey. He was a baseball player. So he started asking me, just, I mean, of anything going on, just ask me, like, who are my parents?

Like, what's my dad do? What's my mom do? Kind of like the stuff how you and I, when we first got on, just started asking. me those personal questions. And when I told me about my dad with baseball, he was like, you know, he, like, lit up. Like, because he was like, you know, I played semi-pro baseball up in New Jersey. They called, he was called the Pelican Pounder. He was a hell of an ant-Lican Pounder.

Yeah, he played for the Pelicans. It was a semi-pro team up there. And he literally, years later, I was up at his house in Alexandria, and he's showing me the front page picture. He had the clipping, you know, the Pelican Pounder, Al Gray, which was pretty. cool to see so he was a big baseball guy and uh and for me being an e3 i was the last corporal at that time with the common island marine corps i have now had a relationship with that guy for 35 years which was just the main he was just a different how did you stay in touch with him after

that he just only reconnect with him later he's always been around the marine corps like you know al gray has oh for sure yeah i mean he's just one of those guys like we could be sitting in here doing this podcast. And next thing, you know, he'd just show up. I mean, because that's how he was, is like a Commodont. He didn't tell people when he was going places. I mean, he just, his career, you know, he was the first one to just take his official photo and Camys.

You know, the kind of guy that he was, that really had a big effect on me was when he was the Commandant of the Marine Corps, on the weekend, he was out front of his Commandant's house at 8th and I. down in Southeast D.C. And he's out doing the gardening at the front of the house. And this elderly black woman that lived down the street was walking by. And she stopped and said hello. And Al Gray was like, hey, how you doing?

Didn't say who he was. She just thought he was the gardener. And she's like, man, I've lived here in South D.C. My entire life. And I've always wondered what it looks like on the inside of that house. So Al Gray was kind of like, interesting. So goes to a staff meeting on Monday and he's like, I'm having a garden party and I'm inviting all my neighbors. So they send out invitations to block radiuses all around, you know, Ath and I, and he's inviting.

Of course, he's got staff guys going, okay, we're going to put a rope here. Let's take this thing down. I mean, because they got a lot of like a chesty pullers underwear in there or something. I don't want somebody to take. You know what I mean? And Al Gray's like, no, man. These are my neighbors. Like, do you, like when your neighbors come over, do you put stuff away?

Do you put ropes up and they're only allowed in certain sections of your house? These are my neighbors. And sure enough, man, he has his party and the neighbors are all coming in. And here's that elderly black woman comes in and who she made at the door? Al Gray, she thought he was the gardener. There he is. I mean, when they got done with the end of the event, not one thing was stolen, nothing broken. You know what I mean?

And the Marines up at 8th and I weren't having any. more problems out in town anymore with the neighbors in around southeast DC. It was just an extended hand of these are our neighbors. And that's kind of sums up of like who Al Gray is. So he had a huge effect on the Marine Corps just in that four year period of time. And I just got lucky enough to to meet him in Panama in 89 and just stayed in contact of it. And his memories just like he could remember, like exact dates, names. The guy's got a phenomenal memory, and he was self-educated. You know what I mean?

He was number one thing was the library. You know what I mean? Get a book, read it. And, you know, now Marine Corps has the reading list, which is kind of cool. We got a lot of cool books on there, you know what I mean? So you go through the different grade levels and, you know, you can get books. And the Marine Corps was always really big into their history. and big into the reading, which one that fell in line with me, love history, love the,

love the reading aspect of it. And, you know, reading if this is going to be your trade, if this is what you're going to do, then you need to read a lot of books. And, you know, I had some other officers, you know, one Eric Carlson, he told me to cast my net widely. Like, don't just pigeonhole. Like, just don't read all military. You know what I mean?

So cast your net widely. so you get a different perspective on different things. And so that was pretty cool with Eric and cast of mine out. So I mean, I read from Danielle Steele anything that I could get my hands on just to be able to read in the imagination. Rudyard Kipling, you know, Henry David Thoreau. I even read some theoretical physicists, the cork and the juremberg and the joc. Jaguar, which was like, that'd be a cool job to be like a theoretical fit, just like sit in a room like this. And I just thank for eight hours of stuff and, you know, go back. But that was,

that was, that was pretty cool. Were you, where were you in the invasion went down in Panama? We were, uh, the invasion, we were back, uh, stay side because we were rotated in. You, you went down on a 90 day tour. Uh, you did a 90 day and then rotated. back. So that was in in 89. But that was also I was a that was a fire team leader. So that was like my first go around being a fire team leader. And and that was probably my first realization, even though like nothing, nothing happened. Like we didn't get any gun fights while we were down there. There was events that were taking place just me personally. I didn't have any events. But when you get issued live, you know, issued live ammo and you take the BFA off, the,

You know what I mean? It got real. Like then I was kind of like, okay, this isn't like camp anymore. Like, you know what I mean? But being in triple canopy down there, and, you know, we went, they used to have Fort Sherman, the Army base that was down there. And you'd go through jungle warfare and jungle survival. A phenomenal place.

You know, when they take you down there, they got like this little zoo that, like, show you the animals that you can encounter while you're there. Dude, it wasn't the band of Mainean defense force. that we were scared of. It was the creatures in that jungle. We're like seeing like the anaconda. You know what I mean? I was like that that's a big that's a big snake.

I was I was lucky when I was at SEAL Team 1, we were like the designated Southeast Asia team. And so we were supposed to be ready for the jungle. And in our platoon workup getting ready to deploy. We went did like a month in Panama. We went to that zoo, all that stuff. Went to that army jungle survival tree. I don't if we went through like a full school was like a couple like a day and a half or something like this

They're to you know showing you what to watch out for and all that kind of stuff, but it was awesome You know, then we went we just went out and lived in the jungle for like a month and we had a little base camp set up and we go out and do our Training throughout the day we would do we would do occasionally we'd try and do night immediate action drills which is like completely black because no night vision days, you know just completely black running through the jungle sending up a loom you know hit and trees with your loom by accident because I was a radiumist. I was always, I was always firing a loom. It was freaking awesome.

You get, you get good. When you spend that much time in the field, you get good at it. Yeah, and doing the three months down there, that's where I would say that I got good at being an infantryman. But it was, yeah, that's amazing. You're talking about, like, you know, because when it got dark, I mean, you remember that. It's black.

Dude, do you remember those NVGs we had back then to where, like the starlight scope to where okay well one it requires star light yeah we didn't even use those down there and then you'd be in the radio operators I don't know what you got remember we had the 77s uh the prick 77s the 104s you know what I mean to wear like you had to be good oh yeah you had to have skills yeah yeah I mean it's a skill set yeah to run com like like when I look at the communications that these folks have nowadays it's like wow like trying to get a comm shot with a 77 or a 104 uh was Because that's when the communicators had some serious skill sets to be able to manipulate

and operate calm, especially down there. That was the first time as being a team leader. I had to do like, you know, patrol overlays. So I had to get good at my job. And I would say that that probably was the pinnacle of like those three months spent down there. That's when I became an infantryman, you know, as what we would call it. Because in 03-11, you're a scout, is basically, is pretty much what you are.

And then that had a big effect on me as being a Marine of what's important. As far as like training and education-wise, of becoming a professional infantryman was really big. So it's not too long after that that the Gulf War starts heating up, the first Gulf War. Yes. And so how do you slot into that? You're at one-six now? Yeah, same battalion I was in Panama with. We got a new platoon sergeant when we came back.

That guy, his name was Eli Tucker. His nickname was Eli Tucker, the big motherfucker, because that dude was jacked, you know what I mean, and just ruthless, but a hell of an, he had a huge impact on me. He was a sergeant E5, but that guy, when you, like if you look up Marine Infantryman in the dictionary, it's Eli Tucker is in that book. He's just a phenomenal guy, both up and down the ladder.

He pulled respect from the officers as well as any enlisted in that battalion. And so he was my platoon star. We were on deployment again over in the Far East, and we hopped in. We were in the Philippines, and Noriega decided to add on to his southern property. Oh, you mean Saddam? Yeah, Saddam, I mean. Yeah, so he takes over, he goes over. snatches up Kuwait.

We're in the Philippines. They throw us on the USS Brokinawa, the Okinawa. And we steam around and they kick us off the boat and we're in country. Right there coming in September. So it went down in August. They had us in. We were one of the first Marine battalions. They hit the ground in Saudi Arabia.

And then it was just. So did you stay there the whole time? Yes. How long were you there for? Like seven and a half months. Yeah, it was terrible. It was living in a tent in the desert, basically? We didn't even have the tents.

Yeah, we had those radar scattering nets kind of things. So you just, you know, and poncho. Yeah, we were just for how long did you live like that? We were out there for like over seven months. Yeah, it was terrible. And you had to have a cot, you know, those little green cots because the desert sand was just so hot. But the cool thing was about the battalion, you know, we kind of talked about. out earlier. My battalion commander was

Lieutenant Colonel Jones. And his initials were T-C. So we called him too cool. And Jones was a phenomenal battalion commander. Jones with, he was the kind of guy that he like knew everybody in the battalion.

He knew where you were from. He knew a little bit about he was very personable. So, you know, and that was almost like every Marine Battalion. their leadership were all Vietnam vets. So they knew what was important of what we needed to know. There wasn't, you know, and then you go up to the regimental level, and then you've got Al Gray as the commandant, you know,

you got Storm and Norman Schwarzschoff, you know what I mean, Army commander, and then Joint Chiefs, you got Cole and Powell kind of run. So it's almost like the stars have aligned. You know, so when folks are like, yeah, Desert Storm was like, what, like 96 hours? There's a reason for that. Because of those guys are like, yeah, we're not doing this one again. And I mean, when we were, it was a long wait. That was a.

And what are you doing while you're waiting? Just training every day, prepping, getting ready. Trying on your gas mask. Trying on your gas mask again. Trying on your gas mask again. Did you got, were you guys hearing this casualty thing that I saw on CNN? Like, hey, there's going to be mass casualties. Were you expecting that?

were they briefing you on that? Yeah, they actually flew in a whole bunch of replacements, you know, right prior to the ground war kicking off. And we're like, what are these dudes doing here? You know what I mean? And they're like, oh, these are the replacement guys. You know what I mean? Of coming in.

So, you know, I would probably say, like, I got really sick of the gas mask. But when they show you, like, photos and stuff of, like, what people look like with blister agent. And like, that was like a, that was a real threat. Like, everybody was, like, scared. for those aspects of the chemical mines. And our battalion, we had the mine belts of blowing the mind belts that were out there, which was interesting within itself. So that was your mission?

Yeah, well, we had to get through those mine belts first. So there was two big mind belts. So we got the, we're all, everybody's mecked up. And you got the lines that can shoot over the back of the Amtraks. detonate and then it give you a kind of a lane kind of a thing to go through. Some of them worked. Some of them didn't. So we had that, you know, we had tanks that were there with us. The tanks that were attached to us, I remember their call sign because it was public enemy, which was like a super, like you're going to be like a tank guy. That's like a cool.

That's a great call. That's a great call. That's a great call sign. Like public enemy. And, you know, those guys would come through and push the plows. And just the, the, the, the air power, the amount of support and being in 0-3-11 like on the ground, I felt like I didn't even need a gun. I mean, the kitchen sink was being thrown at these folks. I mean, they were just, it was all on. It was like a live fire exercise. So when it kicked off, what was your, what was your platoon's mission?

Breaching, getting through. And then they had, like on the other side of the mind belts was defensive positions for the Iraqis. So we all had certain objectives that we were. we kind of had to hit. And, you know, just to get through the mind belts, they thought it would take, like, days for us to get through the mind belts, not a couple of hours.

And then we had the Army's Tiger Brigade that was following up. They were the ones that were going to do the big left, the big left hook going up into Iraq with, I mean, I'd never seen so many Bradley's, M1 Abrams, because remember, that's when the M1 came out, the Abram, which that thing is, that's a badass piece of gear. And just, so, We did the mind belts.

They broke left. They start heading up to Iraq. And when we hit the objectives for our company objectives. And so these are like little Iraqi positions. These were your company objectives. It was like little pill boxes or whatever. Yeah. If even that, I mean, they had been sitting out there for so.

Like we had these extravagant like what we thought we were going to encounter. And then what we actually encountered were not the same. Like some couple sandbags. do to the naked. Yeah. I mean, and they were like in living quarters. Like they had been out there so long just like us. Like you're just trying to make your life comfortable. So get some plywood, you know what I mean? Dig a hole. Put it over top of it. You know what I mean? Make a nice little area. You know, you can brew up ramen, you got your coffee, that kind of stuff. They're just basically out there living. And the frontline troops like weren't the Republican Guard guys. They had those

guys behind them to make sure that they didn't run, run away. And so, you know, as soon as you start coming through is basically we hit them and just white flags. Oh, yeah. I mean, because they were like, oh my God, they're here already. You know, like their coffee pot was like still warm. You know what I mean? When we rolled in and then it was just, it was just a Rolex. I mean, once we went through the, of course, you know, everybody, you're scared. I mean, you know, on the other side of the mind belts and they're dropping artillery and those sorts of things are coming on. So you can hear the explosions, you know, they set the oil fields on fire. So you've just got like that oil fields and the black smoke and all that kind of.

So it's like... Were you freaking stoked? Like, yeah, to be there and just like, hell yeah. Yeah, and then let's get the hell out of here. So how long did it take before you got your objective secured? And then what you do? And we load it up straight to Kuwait. I mean, and it was just game on.

I mean, we, we rolled it. That air war and that campaign that those folks did, unbelievable. I mean, it wasn't like a window pane left intact in Kuwait. I mean, they, like I said, they threw the kitchen sink at them. I mean, the air power above us, even with our, with our helicopter support, with Cobras, the Army, with their Apaches, and then all the fast movers and stuff over there. I mean, they just, there was a lot of craters. That mile of death, because I remember years later, probably like, I think it was 93 or 94,

I went to Kuwait and we were doing like training and we drove up the mile of death. And there's still vehicles all over the place that we just blasted. Oh, yeah. And then, you know, then they want to make it look like the Kuwaitis, like, had a part in it. So then they're going to let them come back in and, you know, shoot into the air. And yeah, we took our country back and all that kind of stuff. but yeah, that place was a wreck. It's amazing what it looks like now compared to, yeah, I mean, they took the wood to it.

But it was, you know, of seeing that in 91 and just seeing the amount of power the United States has is just unimaginable of what we can bring to bear. But I look at the commanders that were those senior command. You know, a few years later after that, I read Colin Powell's autobiography. phenomenal individual phenomenal career but I look at those guys in the in the leadership positions of where they were and their careers of what they had gone through coming out of Vietnam and seeing that kind of stuff so when you know now it's their turn to go I was very thankful for that but even the battalion commanders you know them having combat experience you know I mean was it was it was

it was a game changer for us to have somebody that directly looking out for you that's been there, done that has the T-shirt and hat kind of aspect. And they know what Wright looks like. And the way they were as leaders, like I said, I mean, Two Cool Jones was as the battalion commander. He was just phenomenal as a leader because he was personal. Like you felt like you had a relationship with the guy. And of course, you know, he always had, he loved sports. You know, it was big and with activities. So, you know, we had softball bats.

I played third base for his, you know, for his battalion team. You know what I mean? So third base and, you know, I got an arm. You know what I mean? Love playing. You know, so it was like camp. But, you know what I mean? Again, but we're in the middle of the desert.

Yeah, it's, it's, you know, you mentioned that you had these guys who were running the show. And, you know, when we just had this Afghanistan pull out, which is this a big disaster, and you look at the entire, the entire Afghanistan campaign and the Iraq campaign that took place when I was in. And, you know, did these people learn anything from Vietnam? And then you look at how those guys handled the first Gulf War. It's like, you know they learned something from Vietnam. I'm like, we're not going to do it like that.

We're going to go in there with overwhelming force. I mean overwhelming times five. Like there's nothing's going to stop us. And we're going to end up doing this in three days. That's what's going to happen. And like you said, people go, it was only 96 hours. It's like, yes, exactly. Yeah, I'm thankful for that, you know.

And that was a huge turn to point. Of course, by then, you know, then I had known when I came back that, you know, the Marine Corps, this is what I'm going to do. I've got, you know, three deployments. And then, you know, then they're looking at now you got to kind of diversify yourself a little bit. So when I came back and I was a corporal. Did you guys come back on a ship? How did you guys get back?

How did you guys get back to America? Because we were the first in, we got to be the first out. And there was a call of all airlines worldwide to come in to pick up troops to get them home. We flew Hawaiian Airlines, which was pretty banging, you know what I mean, being out, being gone for over nine months, you know, total because we were already on deployment and got Taguer It. And, you know, getting on the big freedom birds. And we landed in, we flew over, we landed in Ireland to refuel, and then we landed in Maine. and when we landed in Maine they let us get off the planes and we all came back in and we were like the first

like troops back to hit U.S. soil in Maine and man the airport was the walls were lined with just it seemed like the whole state of Maine was at the airport you know what I mean flags they had tables out food and you know the battalion commander you know he's like meet me at the bar and And we go to the bar here. It's probably not the smartest thing to do when, you know, you've been sober for nine months

and now we're all going to go to the bar. But, I mean, the people in Maine for them coming out was huge. The support that we got coming back after that was amazing. So we're there. They refueled. They put us back on the bird. And, you know, the stewardess just had to lock themselves away because you got a bunch of stupid Marines that have had a lot to drink.

You know, they got the little no smoking lamps coming on. Dudes are burning cigarette. You know, there's no shit's given. We get down to Cherry Point and the bands down there. I mean, they're throwing 12 packs and beer on the back of the five tons. We're going back down to Lajune. I mean, it was a great, great homecoming to be able to come back. And it was phenomenal for that experience.

And then I had to decide of what I'm going to do next. And I had one of my best friends, Doug Barry, he lives just up the road here in San Diego. We were together in First Battalion, six Marines. And we both went over to await orders to go to the drill field to become a drill instructor. And just because, you know, I mean the Marine Corps, like the D.I. is a very iconic figure. figure. But the bigger reason is, is back then, you only had to do two years on the drill field. But if you went recruiting, you had to do three. Well, the only thing I knew was I did not

want to be a recruiter. Like that, you know, God bless them. You know what I mean? We've got the school right here at MCRD for Marine Corps recruiting. And the guys are great at their job. You know, the Marines put on the, you know, the uniform, the way they look, the way. way they recruit. I mean, we can propaganda with the best of them out there. And so I wanted to go do the DIY thing, get the funny hat. Plus, it, you know, it would be fun. And it was. It was how long, so how long is drill instructor's school? It's like three months. It's kind of like you're going through boot camp, but you got rank. I imagine, though, they must be like even harder than boot camp in some ways because you've got to be so, like, perfect with everything.

Yeah, and it's learning like the drill manual verbatim. It's the from the mannerisms to just the command presence. They teach you that? Oh, can they take a guy that doesn't have any command presence and they teach it to him? Oh, yeah. I mean, you're going to stand out there and yell at a lot of trees. You know what I mean?

Just like, if you ever go down there and you like watch D.I. School and they're going through D.I. School, you'll see dudes like, what is he doing yelling? and then he's just what at a tree. Well, he's doing what, like, it's called a teachback where you have to verbatim, you know what I mean, like go back through for the different moves of drill. And then, you know, from your mannerisms, how you dress, how you look, your professionalism of coming in is, it is, it's a difficult school.

The uniforms are just, I mean, that's next level, you know, because I wasn't like the best uniform guy. You know, I mean, yeah, I wasn't, like, I didn't even own dress blues. Like, because you had to buy him back then if you wanted them, but I was like, well, I don't want to buy them. You know what I mean? I like the alphas, the greens. So I just had alphas. I never had the blues. They didn't issue them to me. And, you know what I mean? I'm cool with that. I didn't join to get dressed blues. I joined for the camis and the rifle, free ammo, that kind of stuff, travel the world. So when I got there, the uniforms were difficult. The PT was really good, but it was more of the structure of everything that they do to you at

the I school. You can use it when you become a drill instructor. So they're going to do stuff to you that then you can turn around and like on the training schedule of like of, you know, probably the biggest misconception of Marine Corps and boot camp is everybody thinks it's like hands on. Like, you know, oh, you're going to get beat. They're going to put their hands on. I mean like physically. physically, yeah, what I mean? And you learn there that you don't have to hit them to hurt them. You know what I mean? It's a one-arms distance. Nothing has changed. If you need to put your hands on somebody, then you've lost leadership. You know what I mean? If you have to go to the physical force. But, you know, just in your mannerism and the shock and awe of just the voice can just intimidate people is mainly is your voice, the smoky, brings a lot to bear

and then just your physical fitness level you know what I mean? Because as a recruit you're like, does this guy like sweat? Like this guy doesn't get tired. I mean, these guys are just animals. And it is. It's a lot of hard work.

It's a lot of long hours. But it is very rewarding. When you get the recruits of coming in, and it's fun. Because now you're like a live character on Saturday Night Live. I mean, some of the stuff, that's why you got the big smoky,

so you can drop it so they can't see you laughing. Because, I mean, some of the stuff that you see that recruits do, you know, I was like, yeah, I'd be with some of the other hats because that's what you call a DIY hat. And you'd be with one other hats was like, dude, there's no way I was this stupid when I was here and you're like, yeah, you were.

You were just as dumb as these kids are that are coming in, and they just do funny, they do funny stuff. And then as a drill instructor, when you get these kids on the yellow footprints and then in a three-month period when their parents come down for graduation and you're marching them up there and it's Parents Day Thursday afternoon at Paris Island and all the parents are excited to see their kids, excuse me. And when the parents have to come over and ask you like which one's mine? you know what I mean you're kind of looking at him like dude you've had that kid for like 18 years and you don't know which one's yours you know the transformation when they get to go out with their parents the drill instructors get to meet the parents that night when they bring the kids back to the squad bay and the parents are just like how did you do this in three months he's saying yes sir yes ma'am he's holding doors open like he's sitting up straight at the table you know what I mean like what you all did to this to our son is just incredible. It's a great weight loss program. You know what I mean?

Like folks show up, you know what I mean? They look like a sea bag with lips, chewed up bubble gum. And, you know what I mean? Three months later, they're fighting lava monsters. I mean, they look like they're, you know, straight out of 300. And so that's very rewarding of seeing some of those kids just, and, you know, in the Marine Corps, man, then we're going to put that emblem on them for the rest of their life. I mean, they've joined a great institution.

You know, once a Marine, always a Marine. You know, we're going to bring the families in. We're going to mom, dad, they're going to buy the T-shirts, the hats. They're going to fly the flags. The Marine Corps does a, in my opinion, we do a really good job of bringing in the entire family. Like, you know what I mean? You'll see the stickers on the backs of cars. My son's a U.S. Marine.

My daughter's a U.S. Marine. I mean, we've got my grandson. son. I mean, we bring in the whole family to support that kid while he's, you know, service to country, which is huge. When you're a drill instructor, when you're a drill instructor school, are they talking you through sort of like the psychological why behind this aspect of training or this aspect of treatment? For instance, when I went to OCS, you know, I had Marine Corps drill instructor, awesome guy, awesome drill instructor. But at some point, he told us, stuff at the end you know and it was I honestly I think I was asking a lot of

questions because I wanted to understand better but for instance when you get to OCS you can't look at your food you you you have to think called it squaring your meals and I was like hey what why are we doing that and he goes well that comes from when we treat when we used to just train pilots they had to learn to use their peripheral vision so they could see their instruments while they're looking around okay that makes sense hey why do we got to yell if you because you got to speak in a ballistic tone which means you got to yell everything I'm like, what's a reason behind that?

He says, well, you know, we get these young ensigns in here that are going to go on be on board a ship. They're going to be on the bridge. And they're going to have to give orders on the bridge in a simple, clear, concise manner. They can't be hesitant. They got to think before they say, but then they got to say it with a commanding voice so that people actually hear them and then can execute.

So there's things going on that there's a pragmatic reason behind. But did they ever break that down for you? For instance, you know, you can go watch on YouTube. You can go watch like the welcome aboard. Not like first night, but maybe it's the second day where the Marines, they have a very pre-planned script that they're saying about, you know, this is the Marine Corps, this is what we're doing. Do they break stuff down at a psychological level for you?

Because what you just said about the Marine Corps doing it very well. I mean, I don't know if there's anyone that does it better than the Marine Corps. I mean, in the world. I don't know if there's any group that has a stronger culture than the Marine Corps that takes normal human beings from literally everywhere and every strata of the United States of America and sometimes other parts of the world and turns them into this cohesive unit. I don't know if there's anybody that does it better. But do they break it down?

Do they say, hey, here's the reason why we do this right here? Like even basic seal training, you know, they're like, oh, What is Hell Week for? What is it for? And there's people that can answer that question. Well, here's what's going to happen. You're going to have guys that are going to quit on the second day. And those are the people that blah, blah, blah.

And they've done all this sort of psychological background on it. Is there anything like that when you become a Marine Corps drill instructor that you understand the why? Or is it just this is what we know works? Yeah, a lot of it has to do with this is what, this is what we. works, but at the same thing, like everything is done, like you said, that you have squaring your meals. Like everything is for a reason. And it's also, you know, when we hand this recruit over to this, you know, commissioned officer, it's instant obedience to orders. Like, I mean, these guys they are, I mean, they do it better than anybody, for instance, obedience. But when you're talking about

like, the psychological aspects, I was also, I was a swim hat. So I was Marine combat instructor water survival. So I was a swim instructor basically for the Marine Corps. And, you know, because of the kids that we recruit like myself, they can't put that Marine has something to do with aquatics in it for some reason. You know what I mean? Like the recruiters don't like let them know that, hey, when you get down there, you got to swim. I mean, we get, like you said, I mean, we get kids from all over the planet that have never, the largest body of water they've ever seen is the, pool tank at Paris Island, South Carolina. I mean, they've never been in a body of water that big. And we don't ask them if they can swim. Like nobody's, you know, the drill instructor doesn't come out.

Hey, anybody not swim? You can stand over here to the side. We just, you know, strap their gear on them. You know what I mean? So give them a rifle, put a helmet on them. They're wearing their boots. And they're all like, you know, A to B, right next to the 10 foot tower. And we're going to give them the swim brief. And we're going to take them up on the 10 foot tower. and ask them to take a 30-inch step into the deep end and swim 25 meters. And when you're sitting there, you know who the recruits are that can't swim. Because they're probably looking around going, is anybody going to ask? Like, nobody there is not going to ask.

And when you look at it, we just want to see if they're going to step. If they can overcome fear, you know, if an individual can't overcome the fear or try. I mean, there's a drill instructor in there. the water waiting for you, like no one has drowned in this trend. Like it's, you know, it's the instructors that are there, very professional, very well run. And when you see this, this young man or young woman, you know what I mean, that mounts the tower that knows that they can't swim a day in their life. And, but they're going to trust the instructors and, and the Marine Corps that we're going to take care of you. They just have to step. 30 inch step. They hit the water. They come up, you know,

They're throwing up stuff from the third grade. They got snot coming out. They're straight to the, they don't even make it even close to swimming at all. They're just a rock in the water. We take them over to the side. We strip them all the way down until their, you know, their PT shorts. And we take them down to the, to the shallow end, and we teach them how to swim. You know what I mean?

It's a life skill. And, you know, there's nothing greater than when you're, you know, because it's not necessarily, you know, maybe their parents just, we don't know their background how they were raised. Like for me, I don't remember learning how to swim. I could just swim. You know, a lot of those kids just don't have that advantage. And we take them down there to the shallow end of the pool and we teach them the survival strokes.

And in a couple of weeks, you know, like if they've got different training, they've got to come back to the pool and do remediation until we can get them to pass and they can swim. When you see the confidence level in a kid, now that he can like swim and he pass that, I mean, this guy's going to go through brick walls. His fear is gone.

You know, there's nothing this kid cannot accomplish now. I mean, it's just amazing. You can see it in them. I mean, you know, if you've ever, like, seen someone, they accomplish something just of a small task of, like, swimming 25 meters. Like, it's really not that big of a deal. But to that kid, huge, life-changing event. How often, what's the attrition rate of Marine Corps boot camp? How many guys would you lose in a, what are you in charge of there?

A platoon? Yeah, so you got a platoon. So, you know, depending on the time of the year, you might have, you know, between 50 to 70 kids that are in a platoon and you might lose 15 to 20 of them. But a lot of them, you know, it's injuries. So they're going to get recycled out. Yeah, they're just going to get recycled and rolled. They go to what, like if you come in, like, you know, when you first get down there, you know, and it's no offense to. recruiters or anything like that. But, you know, the kids are supposed to be able to have completed

somewhat of a physical test prior to coming so they can at least like pull themselves up out of a wet paper bag at least like once before they get there. You know, it's that whole preparation thing. And some of the kids, you know, we send them to PCP physical conditioning platoon because some of them show up. And they're just not not really prepared. And when you kind of look at that, it's not really the kid. You know, the kid just read a pamphlet. You know what I mean? He wants to to come in and that's somebody's son or daughter, you know what I mean, that they think that's the greatest thing since sliced bread. And, you know, to be a Marine, I mean, you only got to do three pull-ups. I mean, you only got to run three miles and 28 minutes. I mean, it's not like we're

banging it, you know what I mean, of like something that's just like incredibly difficult. But to some people, three pull-ups is, that's the most they've ever done in their life. And so, you know, we've got those, we've got medical rehabilitation platoon. So if, the guys get rolled back. It's very rare. You know what I mean? Like you can try to drop. I mean,

we do drop kids that get sent off the island. And it's just because they're just not conforming. What about just straight quitters? Like it's cold or it's hot or it's too far. You're going to send them down. Everybody's got like a series commander. So you have an officer to kind of keep a look over what's happening and sell block. You know what I mean?

And they have to go down and they'll get an interview with that. you know, a Marine captain. He's a series commander and he's going to try to talk that kid into stay in. Like, hey, you know what, man? The drone structure really aren't that bad. You know what I mean? Because it's all a numbers game.

You know what I mean? Like in the end, the Marine Corps needs a certain amount of numbers. So he's going to try to talk the kid back in. And that's like a lot of times with the platoon commander or the series commanders that you have down there, you're like, you got to be shitting me, sir. You're going to send this kid back, man. Like, God.

You know, this guy is just this kid's incredible. And he's just like, you just work with him, you know what I mean? Just, you know, leadership challenge. I hate that. You know what I mean? Like, that's the last thing I need in the middle of boot camp was my leadership challenge. But in the end, I mean, you know, for the most part, one, when you look at it, they're joining the United States Marine Corps. So you look across America, like, who else is joining?

You know what I mean? So at least the kid signed on a dotted line and he's going to come and provide service to his country, which is, that's pretty. pretty incredible just in that aspect. But some of them just, you know, psychologically, they just, they're not mentally tough enough and they're going to do whatever it takes to get off of that island. And we're going to do whatever it takes to help them get off of that island. You know, it's a, it's a lot of fun. But, you know, the rifle range is usually a pretty big deal, you know, ever brings a rifleman,

but we're just looking, you know, marksmen, how many can get across the qualification lines, that kind of thing. So the marksmanship package, you know, it means a two-week package down there. I think it's pretty good. It's a pretty good marksmanship package that the Marine Corps puts on, you know, for us shooting them back at 500 with, you know, green tip, 556, that's not great ammo. It's a pretty big accomplishment.

And then, you know, just the aspects of when those kids graduate from Paris Island, you know, I mean, they look like they're ready to just strap. on the world. In a three-month period, you know, they're really not any tougher than they were three months before when they got there. But their mindset is different. I would say that that's probably the biggest thing. We just, we changed their mindset.

And hopefully we're making a better product for America. When the kids go back home, if they get out, hopefully we're putting a better product back into society after serving in the Marines. And, you know, I would say the majority we're doing a pretty good job. But I would say that for pretty much all the armed services. The instant obedience to orders, when you get in the Marine Corps, you know, Marine Corps was like we already talked about, gray in the Enlightenment or Second Enlightenment of the Marine Corps, which is, hey, we want people to think. We want to have, you know, mission-type orders and those kind of things.

At what point do you go from, all right, I'm a role. I'm going to obey the orders that are given to me to hold on a second boss. Here's what my thoughts are. Yeah, usually when you're getting the non-commissioned officer, when you step into that team leader role, you know what I mean? And then you're, you know, you're reading a sign. I mean, usually I don't know if it's still to this day. But, you know, reading message to Garcia, you know what I mean?

Just getting them on those little inches of starting to think on their own. You know what I mean? And not necessarily like everything has to come from a book. Like everything very set in stone. You know what I mean? So when Al Gray, you know, brings in these, you know, the war fighting publications, yeah, it's starting to, it's, it's kind of liberating that you can now, there's not a problem with like questioning authority.

It's basically you're not really, you're just asking why. Like, what's the why in it? Like, why are we here? Why are we doing it this way? Is it just because you're telling me to, you know what I mean? or is there actually some, you know, method to the madness? So I would say, you know, once you get into that team leader kind of role, an NCO, you know, the non-commission officer, you know, that's when, you know, we're going to start,

you need to start thinking on your own. You need to start taking charge. It's not that instant obedience to orders. And, you know, if you see something that's not right, then, you know, bring that up. And you shouldn't be worried about the repercussions of questioning. Now there are some that don't like to be questioned. So of course, there's that aspect of it. But that's in any organization.

Any organization, you guys, those kind of jerks. So you get done with what happens when you get done with your time at drill instructor where you go back to one sex? Yep, go right back first. It didn't want to have to buy new T-shirts and stuff. So I figured, hey, man, yeah, I called the monitor. Let's go right back to First Battalion, Six Marines. went back there

and now I'm stepping into that like platoon sergeant kind of thing the Eli Tucker of my career and that you mentioned to me one time we were talking and you were like oh some guys had a hard time taking off their DIY hat meaning they come from the drill field where they're yelling and screaming

and expect to be treated basically like a god and now they're back in a platoon and it's like they keep acting like that and it could be a problem. Yeah, I mean, no, I don't want, you know, the fellow drill instructors out there to take offense. But, you know, Marine drill instructors, you're just the lowest paid actor. I mean, it is an acting job. You know, I mean, you know, you're putting on a, it's a show.

And someone would be like, you know, oh, they don't agree with that. Well, if I'm like the third hat, you know, I have a certain way that they want me to act as the third hat. If I'm the heavy. you know what I mean that the second hat the J of what's the third hat the third hat you're like nick the new hat you just graduated from school literally you might as well just get a laundry number and stand with the recruits because you don't know what you're doing uh you know what I mean it's you just run around and they're like hey you know they'd be like hey dog you need to get louder and you need

to get faster yeah everything that you're doing is not fast enough it's not loud enough it's not you know what I mean so yeah so you're running around and you're trying to be that that sandflea to where you're just never letting these kids get a break. The heavy, like the, he's the senior green belt in the platoon. And he's teaching him everything. Drill, teaching him squad bay procedures, you know what I mean? He's very firm. Like the heavy is the guy that's the most experienced drill instructor.

He's the one as a recruit you don't mess with. This guy, he knows the drill. He's very good at his job. And then you got like the senior drill instructor that wears the black belt. he's like dad you know what i mean like he comes in he hands out mail he's nicer to you and these are all stated roles yeah i mean it's you know if if you're like the third hat like the new guy and you're in there like big daddy and the recruits and handing out candy to them yeah you're not going to go over well with your peers you know what i mean they're they're gonna you know it's

that peer pressure of how you're kind of of what role you play uh in the platoon um so So, you know, some of the folks, when you leave the drill field and you go back to the fleet Marine Force, some of the folks, they wear that smoky. They want to, they want to wear it in the fleet. And a lot of folks are like, look, dude, we're not in boot camp anymore. And, you know what I mean? You need to leave that hat on the island. But, you know, when you do come back and, you know, especially with the officers and the senior enlisted, as a drill instructor, you know what I mean?

I mean, you're bringing a lot of experience, you know what I mean, and work ethic back to the battalion. You know, my oldest daughter, she's married to a Marine, he's infantry. He just finished his, he was a D.I. You know, of course, he calls me, what should I do next? Drill instructor, man, you know what I mean? And he knocked it out to park. And now he's back at Camp Lejeune.

And that's the first thing I told him, leave the smoky, you know, at Paris Island. You know what I mean? There's just no place for it. That's not a, that's not a leadership style. You know, nobody really responds well to that. Other than Marine Corps recruits in, you know, at Paris Island. Right.

That's it. That's it, you know. But then the funny thing is, is like, you know, after you've been on the drill field, and you can't really remember all the recruits that you've had, just because there's just a whole bunch of them. So it's kind of hard to keep up. But some of them you end up, like, finding out that, like, that kid was in your platoon and you go over to him.

And it's like, hey, man, how come he didn't come over and say anything? You were on a tune? They're like, dude, I wasn't going to come over. I didn't talk to you, man. Like, are you shitting me? Like, dude, I'm scared to death at you. And it's just like, just a regular guy. You know what I mean?

But it's that whole perception. And, you know, everybody still remembers their Marine drill instructors. It's even me. My Sergeant Williams was my senior drill. I'll never forget that guy. Yeah. And he was motor tea. Oddly enough, my drill instructor, I still remember in officer candidate school and his last

name, he was gunnery sergeant seals, which is an interesting coincidence, right? Yeah. Yeah. Awesome guy. Awesome guy. So you get back to one six and now you're a platoon sergeant. Is that right? Yeah.

Yeah. I'm back. I was still a sergeant. So I was an E5. Technically, you're supposed to be a E6 to get a platoon. But they were short on those guys. So I got a platoon. And this is what, like 1997 or something like that?

96, yeah. I finished on the drill field in 95 and came over and right back into 1-6 in 96. And I was very excited to be back at Camp Lejeune. Not that I didn't have like a good time at Parasota. I had a little bit, you know, as a D.I had a little run in with one of the battalion commanders that was down there. And he thought it was a little overly aggressive. And, you know, it was, you know, he told me that, you know, let me tell you what it's like to be a drill instructor. And I was like, when were you a drill instructor, sir?

That went over like a fart in church. You know what I mean? He didn't like that aspect of it. And so me and him didn't necessarily see eye to eye. So when I left Paris Island, they were like, you know, please. don't come back. But it was a lot of fun. And then when I got back to the fleet, there was a lot of other guys that, you know, the drill instructor community is very small. And it's pretty tight. And if you get back in, one of the company Gunnies, his name was Clifford Happy. He was a hat.

So when I came in, you know, I just got more opportunities just because I had that experience of being a drill instructor. So they gave me a platoon, which I was super. stoked with. And they gave me a platoon commander. His name Buck Rollins. His dad was Wayne Rollins, two-star general, Navy Cross winner, Vietnam. Great guy just attended his funeral a few months back. He was buried in Arlington. Buck Rollins and I, you know, somebody there got, Doug Zembeck, was there at the time. I mean, that battalion for some odd reason, man, we had some like amazing second lieutenants like that were just, like you didn't really see that many great guys that were all in that battalion from

Pascoli to, you know, there was just a bunch of them. Fredo was in there as a platoon commanders. That was my first experience of where, you know, when you become up as a platoon sergeant, you get to spend more time with platoon commanders. You know, before that, you don't really hang out with the officers, like, at all. You know what I mean? but then you become like you're a partner. You know what I mean?

You're going to work this platoon together. And I had, you know, I was very fortunate that I had Buck Rollins. I had Doug Zembeck and I had Doug Olson. These guys were your platoon commanders? Yeah, and I worked with them. They were the platoon commander, but it's my platoon. Yeah. Yeah, they just get to hang out.

Yeah. They say in the office about the officers and the SEAL teams, It's like, they rent, we own. Yeah. The officers rent, we own. It's like the chief, you know, the e-dogs, it's their platoon. The officer's just, you know, he's going to be here for a little while, but this is our platoon. Yeah, that's pretty much the exact same thing it is in an infantry battalion.

And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, like I said, I mean, you know, Eli Tucker had a huge effect on me as a, as a platoon sergeant. And, you know, coming in from the kids that were in that platoon, uh, and, you know, I've stayed in in 1-6 for like three and a half years in the battalion, did a couple of pumps. I was going to say, so you do a workup, the training cycle, and then go on deployment. Were you riding ships on those deployments?

Yeah, riding ships doing a work-up. We did a med float, which was super cool. We kind of got deployed early. I ended up over in Albania, Toronto, Albania, if you remember in like the 97 time frame, they were kind of blowing embassies up around the, So we got the call. I was with the 24th, yeah, 24th Mew.

And we just finished up doing workup. And we needed to, they wanted us to go into Toronto, Albania. So, you know, I got the call. At that time, I had the sniper platoon. So I had the snipers. I took 12 guys. And, you know, we jumped on C-130s up in Cherry Point with an infantry rifle company. and they flew us over.

We did a refuel. I think it's Singapore, landed in Italy, got on a 53, flew out on the USS Ipan, with the 22nd Mew, got briefed in, and we were in country in Toronto, Albania, after they had evacuated the embassies out of there.

And that was, we stayed over there for a couple of months. And so what were you doing? What was your mission? Just basically running, the embassy was evacuated. waited so we were empty yeah it's empty i mean and so you guys are basically doing security on the embassy yep to make sure it doesn't get trashed or whatever or no one comes in steel shit or yep uh and they

i mean they had a lot of a lot of other agencies that were over there running around uh you know uh there was some navy seals were over there uh there was a lot of stuff going on you know i mean the overarching was bosnia you know i mean that whole region at the time uh it was a it was a really good experience, you know, especially for the younger guys that were in the platoon. The guys that I had in that platoon, even still to this day, I'm still in contact with. You know, from those guys, that was a very special time, those three years at 1-6 being in that platoon sergeant or what you would call like Chief Scout kind of role was just huge. I learned more about myself then, you know, with those folks.

And just, you know, they're relying on me. You know what I mean? To train, educate them, take care of them. It was a really a really special time in a Marine Corps for that time in service. When you went over there, were you the senior guy or did you have an officer? We had an officer, company commander. Company commander, we had a, and then, of course, the MU had some of their Mew staff that was over there. Sean Pascoly was a captain that was over there.

I'm still friends with Sean. Those guys, they had a company kind of reinforced. So we had some guys that were at the embassy. We had some guys that kind of stayed back, and they were at the housing complex. You still had State Department folks that were milling about the area. And, you know, they're just looking for bad guys. We did a lot of time, like, watching.

We were basically the snipers. We were Overwatch. So, you know, we had Albanians. working gates, stuff like that. You know, we would hire them, and then we would do the Overwatch for them. Over at the embassy, it was right next to the University of Toronto.

So it was just a lot of observing, a lot of time observing, but it was the same experience for those guys that I got when I was and went to Panama. You know, when they issue out the live ammo, it's just a different game. You know, even though nothing eventful, which I'm thankful for,

took place while we were over there. Because, you know, the only thing that would come in the back of my mind when I think of like being in an embassy is Beirut. You know, when you're just blowing stuff up, that's not necessarily warfare anymore. You know, it's terrorist activities. That's a, you know, and, you know, when you think of the events of an infantry company, you know, in a barracks, you know, you can't help but think of Beirut.

So, but luckily, we learned from that. The company commander was there, like we were very well dispersed. nobody was going to be in one single point of failure, the Overwatch on the gates, the guards. I mean, it was, there wasn't, you know, the rules of engagement, you know, of what they had to deal with at Beirut, completely different. So obviously, you know, we were a learning organization of we're not going to let this kind of happen again, which was really cool for those guys to kind of go through that experience. And then, you know, once everything was over and the, you know, the threats were pretty much eliminated and gone,

They brought the embassy back. Ambassador comes back in. I mean, people go to Toronto, Albania on vacation, I mean, which is kind of funny. You know, even like, you know, people go to Panama now. It's a great vacation spot. You know, when I was there, I never thought that, like, who would want to come to Toronto, Albania? You know what I mean?

But they were super nice people, you know, a beautiful part of the world, but just different than us. Then what came after that? after that I got, when I attended, up at Quantico, I attended the advanced, they used to have an advanced sniper school up at Quantico. So I went through the Advanced Sniper School prior to that deployment. And the staff in CIC that was up there, Bill Norton is the name. We call him Max.

Max is, he asked me if I wanted to come back up to be an instructor at Quantico after that next deployment. And of course, you know, I was like, yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, going up to Quantico, so he brought me up there as an instructor when I got done. So I was an instructor at Quantico. I took over as the chief instructor for the schoolhouse up at Quantico, which was, I mean, it was tons of fun. Just, I mean, you know, everybody that shows up, I mean, sniper school, because they do the, we do the basic course. You do the advanced course, and then you do what's called the sniper employment officer course. So the guys that are going to be like in charge of sniper platoons,

we put them through like a sniper employment package, two week course kind of the thing at Quantico. I mean, it was just a lot of fun. Just every day, I mean, the instructors, the students, it's just a lot of fun. It's a great package. You know, I mean, the stalking exercises is like fun. You know, I mean, that's like people should pay money to go do that.

And then just, you know, bury your ass in brass. I mean, you're going to shoot a lot of ammo, you know, so. And as an instructor at that level, you know, I was the chief instructor. I expected that all the instructors on the cadre should be able to perform any of the skill sets at any given time. 365 days, you know, when the kids would come in to run the physical fitness test, I expected the instructors out there running right along with the students. You know, that kind of an aspect of, you know, even though we've got mine, you know, a lot of times people, I got mine.

Let's make it harder for the next guy. You know what I mean? The training schedule alone is hard enough. You don't have to. How long is the sniper course? It's like 12 weeks. Oh, that's freaking no joke. Yeah.

I mean, it's, Is that the sniper course for the whole Marine Corps? That's it. Well, we've got Quantico, then you got Camp Lejeune, you got Pendleton. So right up here, Pendleton, they run the basic course four times a year.

And how long is the basic course? It's the 12 week. Okay. And then they got rid of the advanced course. As a matter of fact, they got rid of the basic. It's all, and I'm sure it's better, like better now than whatever we were doing, you know, because we were still back in the, probably in the Hathcock days, you know what I mean, of the,

the white feather, you know, the Chuck Mulhaney, you know, we're going to, you know, this stalking and, which stocking is a, I would say stalking is, it's patrolling. It's just on the ground. It's a different perspective. You know, stalking, you learn. so much from just laying with your face sucking the earth of what we call skull dragon. You might be the first person that I've heard say stalking was fun. Like most guys that go through the seal sniper course, they're like, stalking is not fun.

I would say, because it's kind of, it's a game. You know, you're going up against a guy that's a trained observer and they're on glass and the ability for you to be able to come in to, you know, 200 yards, you know what I mean, get two rounds off, undetected, and stalk out. Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, it's just, it's amazing of the ability to hide, blend, and deceive is pretty cool. And if you understand how that all works, I mean, you don't even need a gilly suit. You could be literally naked and stalk if you understand how, you know, the stalking of blending,

backdrop, you know, the cover. So it was, it was a lot of fun. Plus, you just get a lot of really good Marines. We used to get advanced courts. We'd have Navy SEALs come through. We'd have Army Rangers come through up there. British Royal Commando. We actually have a British role on the staff at Quantico.

We have a really good relationship with the Brits. So it's just a, you know, it's a fun time when you've got like 24 great Americans that just want to shoot bolt guns, you know what I mean, and look through glass. It's just a fun time. everybody's there with a purpose. Like there's not, you know, the leadership aspect is kind of gone. You don't necessarily, you lead by example. You know what I mean?

Like when I'm looking at an instructor, you know, if I walk in on training day one and the instructor looks like a seabag with lips and the first thing he's going to tell me how he used to be a badass, you know what I mean? Dude, you're 33 years old. You know what I mean? Like nobody's old here. You know what I mean? You know, but in that military, you think of, man, a guy's a guy's a lot.

old man, you know what I mean? He's 34, brother. You know what I mean? Like, you should be in the prime in your 30s. So, you know, I always like that about the snipers and even the reconnaissance school that's up the road up here. I'm sure it's the same with buds. I mean, the instructors that are there, you know, you're just looking at them. And I mean, they just, they look the part. They better. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and they can do anything that they're asking the student to do, which is a super cool way of that. That, leadership and then holding yourself accountable to be to being able to to perform at any given time yeah so where are you when September 11th happens is this where you're at is

this where your station when September 11th happens yep I'm up at Quantico that's what I call the world changed in nine miles we got the students off and I went there's a loop up at Quantico over where sniper school is you can run over by when you say you got the students off What do you mean? You cut a moose? No, no, no. Like they're just, you know, they get them in in the morning. They're going to go to the rains.

They're going to do an observation exercise. They're going to do, you know what I mean? There's another instructor that has them. Because, you know, on the instructor cadre, you kind of have to manage your time of, you know, obviously I had to be there when the students are there as a chief instructor. And then we've got to get the day going. If I'm on the platform first or if I'm, so. And I always enjoy getting a run in, you know, throughout the day.

Get a chance to work out, go to the pool, do something. So that day on September 11th, we got, you know, we got, you know, we got to That students on deck. We get them off and going, and I take off over towards the FBI Academy. So I'm right over there by the FBI Academy and the basic school, and there's a nine-mile loop that goes around. And I take off. I let the guys know, hey, man, I'm going to go for a run. I'm going to run the loop.

And they know exactly where I'm going. And so I'm off and running. And as I'm making my way in and around over by what they have called Lake Lunga that's over at Quantico next to the FBI Academy, And I'm coming in and I'm seeing like a lot of aircraft like flying around. Yeah, the FBI always has like stuff going on. They got the hostage rescue team that's there as well. But then it's just like. Aircraft like helos.

Yeah, helos and stuff. Like it's a lot of activity, which is that. But then all the black vehicles are just leaving the FBI compound. And, you know, because you got it. That's the funny thing about like at Quantico that day before. We used to not have gates. You could literally drive up I-95 and pull off the exit and drive straight on to range four

with the sniper students laying right there on the range and you didn't go through a gate, you didn't nobody checked your ID card, nothing. There was just no gates. And so I'm running back and I'm seeing all these vehicles fly out. And by the time I get back to the schoolhouse, it's kind of like, you know, I'm like, what the hell is going on?

And that's when, you know, the Pentagon's being hit, you know, New York, 9-11s being hit. And it's just like, it's game on. And the world changed in nine miles. I mean, within a nine-mile run, man, the world completely changed. We had sandbags, barracks. I mean, they're manning gates. They're making gates. I mean, it was total anarchy in Quantico.

And as you can imagine, I mean, being so close to the Pentagon. of them hitting the Pentagon, they got guys that are coming in. They're wanting to know, like, how can Marines support? And that kind of was odd to me that, like, we didn't have authorization to go out to, like, help.

You know what I mean? Like, you got all these Marines, you got all these folks. Like, why aren't Marines? Like, you know what I mean? Bring the Marines in. But then you have to look at it as, like, the event's over.

Like, you know, I mean, they flew them into the buildings. You know, we're all thinking, like, what's kind of next? That was it. That was the big. event. And, you know, after that, then everybody knew at that point in time, it's go time. We're, you know, and the Marines are, you know, Army, I'm sure, with you guys, with the teams,

like everybody's watching thinking, you know, when are we going to deploy? When's the first action is going to start coming in? But yeah, I was at, I was at Quantico. So then what, what happens after that? Well, I had met a couple of guys through being up there at a sniper school. And there was a certain unit. And I was hoping to get selection into that. It's kind of, you know, one of the guys recommended me. So I went in.

I went through recommendations. And with that, they needed a place for me to kind of hang out and await selection, like in the national capital region. And so John Allen was the common on midshipman at the Naval Academy. And I had known him from down in the Six Marines. And, you know, John Allen was like, yeah, hey, I'll take JD, bring him up to the Naval Academy. And, of course, I was like, you know, I'm going to the Naval Academy. Like, I'd never been to Annapolis, Maryland a day of my life. I didn't, I mean, I knew the Academy.

But, like, my perception of a Naval Academy graduate was Doug Zem. Beck. Like, that's what I expected. And then my other guy that I worked with at sniper school was John Bradley. John Bradley was a three-time national boxing champ at the academy. His call sign was big people. You know, half black, half German. I mean, the dude was like Rambo.

You know what I mean? I'm still really good friends with John Brad. He's a great human being. But, you know, I used to make fun of them, like, you know, because he worked. like Navy boxing and you know and of course Doug was a Navy wrestler and I was like dude I want my taxpayer dollars back my guy there's no way you guys went to the Naval Academy but that's my perception of the Naval Academy you know the officers that that I had dealt with were they come out of the Naval Academy they were they were top notch so that was that was my perception going in

I can remember when I when I went up to check into the Naval Academy again I didn't know where it was. I just knew it was in Annapolis. So I'm driving around Annapolis. I get over top of the Severn Bridge and I'm looking down, but I think it's like it looks like the state capital. And there's like two women that are walking across the bridge. And I'm like, excuse me ladies, do you guys like know where the Naval Academy is? And they're laughing like, dude, that's it. I was like, wow. Like that's next level. Like, I mean, it's impressive. So I went down and and checked in to the academy and, you know, John Allen, and at first I really didn't have a job for me to do because, like,

the midshipment had already started. And I really didn't know, like, what I was getting into. Like, I didn't know, like, what they do at the Naval Academy. And your anticipation is that you're waiting to go to selection for a special mission unit and you're going to be there for six months or something, and then you'll roll out. Yep. That's my mindset. And, you know, and John Allen, you know, great guy, wicked smart.

I was super excited because the library at the Naval Academy is off the chain. I mean, like, it's off the chain. And I, you know what I mean? I love a library. You know what I mean? I get to, so, I mean, there's a lot of history up there. I mean, Ticompsa court, you know what I mean? Like, they got Ticompsa, you know what I mean?

And so it was a bit of a rude of awakening. Like, so the first morning, kind of like, you know, this morning, I got. up you know, man, I'm going to go for a run. So that's how I like to like get myself like situational awareness of like get orientated is run. So I'll run around. So I'm running around Annapolis looking at the town and stuff and I make my way back in and I'm on Tecumse court. And as I'm in Tecumse court, I'm standing there and I'm looking. I mean, they got like monuments like all over the place. I mean the chapels there. It's pretty banging. They got like a bunch of different poles and they got tocumse.

And I'm looking at the cumsia next thing you know, like there's this Navy officer. He's like, hey, excuse you know, hey, what are you doing? I wasn't wearing anything. It said Marines on it. And he's like, hey, you're not allowed to be out here in PT gear. I was like, am I not on a military installation? Like, but the Navy, we don't like to PT and you don't want us to say. Like it was like it was odd, like the rules that they had there.

at the academy. And, you know, John Allen sent me over with the football team. Where couldn't you be with PT uniform on? I don't know. They didn't like PT gear being out there in Tecumse Cork, like where they do like. So specifically to Cucson court? Yeah, it's like a, I guess it's a ceremonial area. Like you're supposed to be like in the Marine Corps, like everywhere is a PT area.

You know what I mean? Like you can Pt wherever you want. You know what I mean? Like I'd never been told, don't be out in front of people in this area. PT gear. So that was kind of odd. And then, you know, so I went over with the football team because at first I was like, oh, you know, college football. And I asked the coaches like, hey, is this like open practice? Is it cool if I watch? You know what I mean? And they were like, yeah, dude. You know what I mean? You can come over and watch. And it was coach Paul Johnson at the time

and the strength coach and stuff. And I went over there. And, you know, the kids on the football team, I would say, you know, I felt. out of place at the Naval Academy. Like I didn't belong. Like there's no Marines in the brochure. And there's definitely no Marine gunnies in the brochure. There were other gunnies that were there. But like you said, I mean, I was there.

I just come from sniper school. I had a different outlook than a lot of the other folks. And so when I was over there, like the midshipment on the football team, like they immediately came over and started talking to me, asking me, you know, like, hey, who are you, what are you doing? Because I wasn't in uniform. And I was like, yeah, hey, I'm gunny. And that's how I introduced myself to, like, coach Paul Johnson and I'm, and I think, like, because the coaches aren't military. So I think they thought, like, my first name was Gunny. And still to this day, they call me Gunny, you know, which I don't

care. You know what I mean? It's, and the football players and I got to stand out there and watch some of these kids that are going to compete on Division I level. And they join the, the academy with not really a lot of hopes of going to the NFL. But the kids on the team and the athletes that are there at the academy. The midshipmen are, I mean, they're just, they are really good people. You know, I look at them just like they joined them. They just read a different brochure than I did and obviously scored like way higher on the SAT because I never took that test. You know what I mean? But they were like really, really good kids at the Academy. And I just had a phenomenal experience being there with the midshipman. They, they,

they welcomed me with open arms. The midship, I had more fun. So what job did you actually get assigned? I ended up being a senior enlisted advisor for 30th company. So there's how many companies are there? There's 30. Okay. Yeah. And obviously 30th company had like a bad rap before I got there, you know what I mean? So they had them living on zero deck right next to the batto, the battalion officer. Well, the battalion officer was a guy named Alan Eschbach. And Alan Eschbach, great guy, went to Millersville State up in Pennsylvania, ran cross country, and he was a Navy captain. And I had never really been around a Navy captain. You know what I mean? Not a lot of them, you know, I didn't interact with the ship's captain when I was a boy. He didn't come down

to sell block and hang out and slap spades. You know, so Alan Eschbach, he'd see me up running, you know what I mean? And he ran across country. He was a surface warfare officer. He had to Arleigh Burke. You know, he ended up taking over the San Jacinto. And, you know, I already kind of mentioned my kind of like being a ship's captain has got to be like a cool job well so allan started come and running with me in the morning and and he lived right there on the yard and like these these battalion officers the houses that they get on the naval academy are pretty banging and he would have me over for dinner and stuff i got to know his wife his kids i mean he was just a super nice guy and uh and so i ended up having this relationship with this this navy come this navy captain and he was just a

great guy. We've been really good friends. And we're still friends to this day. And he was about ready to roll out to go take over the USS San Jack. And as he was leaving, we were getting a new battalion officer coming in. And he's like, hey, he's like, JD, is there? Which was kind of cool. The captain would call me JD. And he was like, hey, he's like, is there anything I can do for you like before I leave? And I was like, yeah, can you move 30th company up to 8-4? So it's the highest point at the Navy nobody goes to 8-4 plus the midshipmen that have to walk the class every day they're going to have to walk all the way to 8-4 like every single day and the you have the midshipmen have to chop they call that chopping where they like run and say go navy beat army and did you see him

when you were up there speaking like they do this is that punishment or is that just standard operating procedures like I didn't know what they were doing like wait just when you're going from class to class every time you square a corner or something you got to say like go on me go Navy Beat Army, something like that. Yeah. And they call it chopping. So it's like they're running and they're in dress shoes, which makes absolutely no sense. But sense is kind of thrown out the window.

Yeah, sense is throwing out the windows on. Watch are these kids like, and they're calling it chopping. And I'm like, interesting. You know what I mean? Go Navy, beat Army. Okay, I got it. So that's a lot of chopping to get up to the top of 8-4. You know what I mean?

So, and then I knew nobody would come visit me. People are just lazy. You know what I mean? Like nobody's going to come up to 8-4. I'm going to live up on 8-4. It's going to be great. So 8-4 is a building? Yeah, 8-4.

It's like Bancroft Hall. Like when you saw Bancroft, I was all the way in the very back. So I was the farthest away from Tecumse Court as possible. And I was the closest to the football locker as possible. And, you know, I mean, the athletes and being assigned up there, it was a great place to be. as a senior enlisted. Because, like, I'm not teaching these kids. Like, if you're an officer and you got to get, like, I was there with Randall.

Lieutenant Randall was there. You know what I mean? He was a company officer. And like company officers have to like teach stuff. Like they got to go over to academia and teach double E or they got to like do stuff. I'm not teaching double E. You know what I mean? And you know, they're not going to.

I was like, just hang out. Like a full-time mentor. Yeah. And hang out and just be there. for the kids if they need anything. And I work with a Navy lieutenant, great guy. It was a lot of fun. But I mean, so when the kids go to class, it's like, you got nothing to do,

but you've got an Olympic pool, you've got batting cages, you got football cages, you got an indoor track, you got a sailing center, you got soccer fields, you got a rifle team. You got like, dude, I didn't, it was camp. I mean, I literally, I was back at camp, except, like, they have, like, the best facilities. like known to man. I'd go out and throw BP for the baseball. I'd go out and do batting practice. And I'd just get to know the kids.

You know, they were going through. And if they had questions about, you know, joining the Marine Corps and stuff like that. And then especially with the football team. The one thing that I learned there is like, you know, the football players don't have to do like the Friday parades and they get out of a lot of other stuff. They do their own meals and stuff.

And I think that, you know, there's a lot of folks that don't understand what it takes to compete at division one level football. You know what I mean? Do other athletes get out of that stuff too? No. Not like football gets out. And I wouldn't really say.

What about the wrestlers? No. Soccer players? No. So it's just football. Yeah. I mean the other like the other sports teams if they've got a game,

they'll get out of something. But like football is is looked at, I mean, is looked at different at the academy. And then you're hiring a coach, like coach Paul Johnson. I mean, he came from Georgia Tech. Great guy. He's the highest paid guy in the Navy. Like this dude makes more than the C&O. This is like the head coach at Army makes more than the chief of staff of the Army, which kind of puts stuff into perspective. You know what I mean? Like, wait a minute, man. Like I can make more money

being the head coach at Navy than the C&O. You know what I mean? Like this dude's driving a nuclear submarine. You know what I mean? But the football coach, and it's just like, you know, Ken Neumott that's there right now. Great guy. He was an O-line coach when I was there. And the coaches just doing a job. They get hired to do a job. Compete at the Division I level, pack the stands.

And the football team, because of the amount of money that they make, you know, at stadiums, ticket sales, stuff like that, pays for a lot of the other sports programs to be able to take place. Yeah. It's got to be recruiting, too. They probably take recruiting budgets, probably paying that coach's salary. Yeah. So, and the coaches are great. And the kids that they get on that football team, I mean, you know, people are like,

oh, they get out of the Friday afternoon herd across the grass. You know what I mean? Like, really? They're up at 5 o'clock in the morning. They got to watch films. They got tapes. They got practice. They got weights.

I mean, they have to perform, you know what I mean? On Saturday, you know, their weekends, their thanksgivings, if they get a bowl game, you know, what they sacrifice to be able to play Division I football and then go serve their country. just like everybody else. So they're just there on a different aspect. I think some of the folks just don't, they don't look at it that way. But the student athletes at the academy are phenomenal.

They're just, one, the team players, you know what I mean? Like if you leave a team sport from the academy and join the Marine Corps, it's a very easy transition. Because you're just leaving one team, and you're just joining another team. And the athletes transition really well into the Marine Corps.

And, you know, I just think that the kids that were on the team, I mean, I had like a lot of fun with those kids. And then, you know, some of them when they select Marines at the end of the year, you got like O-line guys, you got defensive line guys that have never run farther than 100 yards in their life. And now it's the end of football season. And, oh, hey, by the way, you got to meet heightened weight standards by May. Yeah, that's hard for some of the guys that go to buds.

You know, they got to, like, totally change their physique. Like, they got to become a different kind of human being. Like, I got one friend that was at the Naval Academy, he played football. And I don't want to say his nickname, but he's a big guy. And even when I know him, he's a big guy, like a big guy. But apparently, I didn't know him when he played football, but he had to, like, change who he was as a human being to get from playing whatever freaking linemen at the Naval Academy.

to go and run, you know, 12 miles and four miles and six miles and, you know, like all that running. It's just a totally, you're a different human. Yeah. So that's a challenge. Yeah. And then you've got to teach them how to run. Like, you know, it's some of them just they don't, I mean, there's a big difference between sprinting 100 yards and running three miles. And then, oh, by the way, you're going to go to TBS. You know what I mean? Especially if you go to Marines. But even if they're, if they're going, you know, surface warfare or going there. I mean, that's a big transition for a lot of those guys that are out there. And, you know, and I would run them in a mile and a half.

The only thing that I could do, my biggest shock when I was at the academy was, like, I was talking to some of the midship. One of them was Jason Copeland. He's a Marine Lieutenant Colonel now. He's an infantry battalion commander. Great human being. So Jason, I was like, hey, what do you guys got going on tomorrow morning? like you guys got your physical fitness test I heard because I didn't know like what these kids did

and he's like yeah we'll meet out by the by the faraget and you know the PT department takes care of of the physical fitness test and they run the PRT and I was like oh yeah what is it you know what I mean okay well we do you know push-ups set-ups and then we do a mile and a half run I was like okay that's cool what time do you go I'd like to come out well most of the staff they're like why it's early in the morning like why are you gunny why are you you don't have to go I was like, well, I know I don't have to go, but I should go and run with the kids. So I showed up and they do each battalion. So there's six battalions and each battalion gets a day and they show up and there's, you know, five battalions or five companies in each battalion.

They're going to run five physical readiness tests. So I show up and, you know, they're only going to run a mile and a half. So for me, I was like, well, I asked the PE guy, like, do you care if I, like, run with them? Am I allowed to run with them? You know what I mean? Like, I'll do with 10.30 pace and just run along and, you know what I mean? Kind of give the kids an earmark of like where I'm at. Because I used to do that at sniper school.

Like, if I'd run the three mile and I'm like, hey, I'm going to run right at a of what is a 2030 pace. So for three miles, I'm going to run it in 20 minutes and 30 seconds because that's worth 85 points. So if you see JD, he's worth 85 points. If you're in front of me, you know what I mean? Because it's all the numbers game. If you're not good at pull up, you better bank it on the run. If you're not, you know what I mean? So it's your strength and weaknesses. So I was like, you know, and I was like, okay, this is the Naval Academy. Like it's only a mile and a half. You got to do it in 1030. That's a seven minute pace, man. It's pretty easy. So as I'm out there and I'm watching the kids and I'm running along with them,

you know, kind of going along. And I'm like, hey, where are these guys going? Like, they're falling out. like where it's only a mile and a half and they're falling out. And I was just like, well, they failed. Like they didn't pass the run. So I go over to the PE department and I'm kind of like, so what happens to these kids, man? They like pack their shit. They're done?

And they're like, no. Remediate. You know what I mean? They're going to remediate the hell out of them. And I always thought like, well, this is something that I could help out. You know, I can come out and run with these kids. And so I used to go run when they do the PRTs for the, for the brigade of midshipman,

I would run 30 of them back to back at a 10.30 pace. And I was like, you know, only five a day, though. Oh, okay. So, you know what I mean? It's really not that hard. It's only like eight and a half miles. You know what I mean? And for me, I'm not a runner.

I just have a running problem. You know what I mean? So for me, like that seven minute pace was, you know, it's a pretty good workout for me. I'd come out. And I would run with the kids and kind of, you know what I mean? and kind of help them and push them. Like if they're going to fall back,

this is something that I can actually help out with the Naval Academy. If there's a kid struggling with a mile and a half, I can help him out and get him to pass so that, because once he goes to the fleet and he's in the Navy, that's not a requirement. 1030 is not a requirement in the fleet. It's just a Naval Academy requirement for officers. So, but hopefully, so I used to do that with the kids,

and I would get excited, you know what I mean, to go out and run the PRTs with the midshipman because, I mean, it was hysterical. Just, you know, watching them for that mile and a half. How is the psychological molding of the guys or their people or the kids that are going to the Naval Academy compared to what you saw at boot camp? Well, it's, yeah, it's the country club. Yeah, I would say it's kind of like being a Catholic school. and you're just a nun.

You know what I mean? You're a nun. Yeah, it's night and day. You know, they do plebe summer that's there, but it's the, it's the upper class are kind of running plebe summer. And they do a, I mean, they do a pretty good job. Right. But they're not drill instructors.

You know what I mean? They're not smoking it out. They're not, you know, the shock in awe isn't as much. But they do a, they do a pretty good job with them at a plebe summer. And, you know, and being a plie instructor. plebe at the Naval Academy to me was like, dude, that just does not look like fun. Yeah, it looks awful. Like at all.

One, I got to say, go Navy beat Army and chop around the place in my dress shoes. You know, no liberty. I don't get to really do anything. The knowledge that they push on those kids there, though, and the education level is phenomenal. And then I would say, like, the camaraderie of each class is just, it's outstanding with the Naval Academy of bringing those kids together, you know, sharing and in the suffering together all four years at the Academy. But it is a, it's a great institution and they put out a great product, in my opinion. Probably the best to watch was the ones that wanted to go special

warfare, Navy Seals. That was the most while I was there, you know, Randall was a lieutenant and he kind of ran that pre-bud's kind of selection process there. It's a tight selection. Oh, it is the most, I mean, he's got like a couple hundred kids that want to be, I mean, there's only a thousand of them. Yeah. And a couple hundred of them want to become a seal. Yeah. And there's like 15 billets. Yeah. Yeah. It's been, it's always been cool. I've done, during COVID, I did some, um, some virtual training with the, with the midshipmen. I've gone there alive. It's been awesome to go up there live and just talk about leadership

from my perspective and they're definitely stoked on it. Very cool. But yeah, that competitiveness for the seal billets in any, whether you're ROTs, in any officer seal billets is, it's very, very difficult. Probably well, because the recruiting, because

so many people want to go into to that job. And it's a rough job to get into. Yeah, I would say, yeah. But what those kids would, you know, the thing that I learned while I was there was kind of disappointing for me being a Marine was the Marine selection. So you would have like, you know, I mean, let's say you got 100 kids that put, they want to go Navy SEALs as their number one choice. And then Marine Ground is their second. And you would have Marines that were up on the yard going, that's bullshit.

You know what I mean? If they're not Marine first, we don't want. I'm like, these kids are going after. Like if JD was there. Yeah. Who wouldn't? It's the Naval Academy, man. Like, I mean, they want to go Navy SEAL.

They're going to compete for the hardest billet going. Yeah. You know, at least physically. Yeah, that's actually another way to look at it is, hey, these guys want the hardest possible job. And they're trying to get in the most selective thing. So they're taking the most selective thing. That's the seal billet. If they don't get that.

Yeah, because that is horrible. And I've had a bunch of friends, you know, that graduated from the Naval Academy that had to make that call. and it's so hard. I mean, Laif didn't get selected out of the Naval Academy. Seth didn't get sacked out of the, and they both went to, you know, a ship. And that's a different personality type that is going to be a ship, a swell.

There's a different, it's a different type of mindset than someone that's going to be some kind of a land soldier, you know, whether it's a Marine or a special operations guy. It's a different type of mindset you have to have. And so both, I forget, I have to ask, Lave again, but he got told the same thing. He's like, hey, it's a waste to put Marine Corps after SEALs because you're just

not going to get taken. And Laf, you know, would have loved if he didn't make it in the SEALs, but, you know, he probably would have gotten picked up for the Marine Corps and probably would have never joined the SEAL teams. And the Marine Corps would have had a cool officer. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of, like, I knew a lot of these kids. Like, they would come out and like, because I would run every morning at 5. You know what I mean? So I'd go run and, And I ran a lot.

Like they had a marathon team that was there at the academy. So I became like the O rep for them. So like the Naval Academy would like fly us around. So I mean we're doing Chicago. We're doing Boston. We're doing Disney. You know what I mean? Like with the midshipman.

And you know, and if they knew that like midshipman can't leave the yard. But if they're running with me, then they're allowed to just say, I'm with Gunny. You know what I mean? And they'd right out the gate. We'd go run through town. So they're not just doing like outers around the academy and stuff.

And you would see just the commitment that those kids had that are trying to compete for those billets, to include the EOD billets as well that are coming out as a naval officer to get those bullets are very hard to get. And for us to like miss out on some of those guys and gals that, okay, that's great that they put Navy SEAL or whatever for the first choice. They want Marines second choice. Like they're going to be good. Like, you know what I mean? like that did and they let me sit in on one of these selection boards which was very I'd never been on an officer selection board no no no Marines okay and everybody's got like these little hidden buttons you know what I mean of whether or not like you want to vote like yes or no which I kind of

thought was bullshit that we're kind of hiding the button like dude you could put my button right out in front of everybody you know what I mean like nope don't like that one everybody can see you know what I mean that oh JD doesn't like him nope don't like him uh and you know we had this uh this one kid and he's a nice. He was a nice kid. But there's a lot of nice kids that shouldn't be a Marine officer. And this, this guy, like, we're in there. And Colonel Enman was the senior Marine on the yard at the time. And Colonel Limon, great guy. Went to the University of Oklahoma, just a phenomenal guy. And he's the one that had me in there. He's like, yeah, hey, J.D., he would like your input. You know a lot of these kids. You know what I mean? I was like,

okay, yeah, cool. I've never been in here before. So I'm sitting there, looking and they got to show a picture and somebody's going to brief their package kind of thing. And then you do the little hidden vote. And then, you know, they see on the board, okay, yeah, this guy got enough votes. He's going to go in the go pile. So he's just going to go in a go pile. They got this one kid that they put up on there. And I'm like, oh, this guy, nice kid, seabagged with lips, man. Like, TBS is going to crush him. You know what I mean? Like he's the, the heart's there is just, you know, he's just, he's not going to work out as a Marine officer. You know what I mean? He doesn't.

put the, he doesn't have the self-discipline. So, of course, I hit the no. And he goes to the go-pile. So I'm a little shocked. So I was like, you know, excuse me, sir, like, who voted for that guy? It's like, does anybody here, like, know him? Like, no shit, like, you know the guy. Like, I've seen him out there on the remedial physical fitness field. You know what I mean? Trying to pass a 10.30. Like, I looked at it as if we're going to stamp a kid, with the little N Star from the Naval Academy, we're going to send him down to TBS, then all of my peers that know that I'm at the Naval Academy are like, oh, this is J.D.'s guys.

You know what I mean? I don't want J.D.'s name on this guy, because he's not going to fare well when they do the physical fitness aspects. And he's like, well, I mean, it's a, you know, we don't disclose who's voting. I was just like, I mean, I'm being serious. Like, does anybody know this kid? Like, I know this kid.

Like, we're setting him up for failure. And basically, Colonel Eman says, well, J.D., he's legacy. And I'm like, okay, well, that's a new one. What's legacy? Well, his dad was a Marine officer. So then I was like, okay, so we're getting flounder. Remember an animal house when, you know, they took flounder because he was legacy? I was like, so we're going to get flounder in the Marine Corps because of legacy.

I thought that was kind of, I mean, my dad scout had a major. League Baseball. Do I get in just because of legacy? You know what I mean? Like that shouldn't, that was a, that was a little bit disappointing to see that, I mean, I should not play a role. It shouldn't play a role. If anything, they should be harder on him. You would think. Yeah. So, but other than that, you know, I got the coolest, coolest thing happened to me while I was there. I was coming out, football practice. It was a class of 2000, a year of 2005. And a couple of the football players were like, hey, they were like, Gunny. Hey, man, you're going to graduate with us. I was like, what do you mean?

I'm having me to graduate in like physical fitness, you know what I mean? Like they're giving me a PE award and stuff. He's like, nope. We voted you to be our honorary graduate and graduate with the class 2005. And it's voted by the midshipman, which was like that's the coolest, that's the coolest thing I've ever. What kind of people do they normally vote for that? Not gunnies. You know what I mean?

Like I did a little bit, like it's normally like some professor or some other officer. you know what I mean kind of of a thing you know what I mean class of 2005 got class of 05 level yeah I just went to a Marine Corps ball with a lieutenant colonel Adam horn he's got a 53 squadron down at cherry point and when he became the squadron CEO he called me and he's like hey you know hey J.D I want you to be the guest speaker at our ball I'm like you know what I mean he goes I'm finally in charge and I get to pick the guy coming and I was like dude I was never like in the airway don't give two shits, you're coming. And when I was down there with him, I mean, it came for,

he's like, I joined the Marines because of this guy. And it was great for, one, for the enlisted Marines that were in his squadron to see an enlisted Marine having a relationship with their CO. That we could be friends, man. Like, we're on the same team. Like, you know, it's a great organization and great to be a part of. And then after that, I got accepted into the alumni.

with the Naval Academy. They allowed me in the alumni. So I'm an alumnus with the Quantico chapter. Yeah, which is, it was like a ring knocker. Did you get a ring? No, I didn't. Well, I got three of them. I got three bow rings with the football team. Yeah, I did that. I'm really not a ring guy. I had thought about it. You know, some of the folks at the academy were like, yeah, man, we got to get Gunny a ring. You know what I mean? And, but I tell you what? That experience at the Naval Academy, I mean, was phenomenal. I can't say enough. I mean, every organization has problems. But for what those midshipmen do and for what they give, they're getting a four-year education and the service that they give back and what the some of the shit they got to put up with up there.

They make them pay for that for education, don't they? Yeah, they're paying for it. But they're like, I mean, they are quality Americans. And that's all the service academies, I would say. I mean, they're just a great group of individuals. And I mean, I had a complete ball at the academy. Yeah, no, it's it. I've gone to West Point and talked to them.

I've gone to the Air Force Academy and talked to them. It's just, yeah, very cool, very cool thing to look at. What happened with the special mission unit you were going to select for? Well, that in 2003. So they have what they call. It's a leatherneck program where they take the midshipmen that want to select Marine Corps. Their junior year, and they take them to Quantico because... Give it a little taste?

Yeah, because they're the only, like the Naval Academy doesn't have to go to OCS, which call it what you see, but that is a little bit of contention. I mean, you know, OCS, I think they met... You know, they say, oh, well, we went to PLEB summer. Well, guess what? PLEB summer is not Marine Corps officer candidate school. You know, as you know, it's not even Naval Officer Candid School. I don't know.

I mean, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. You said I know, I don't know. I know that Marine Corps OCS, or sorry, Navy OCS was cool and good indoctrination for me. I don't know how it compares to PLEB summer or whatever. I don't know. But I'll take your word for it if you say it's not quite the same thing.

Yeah, it's, it's... I can tell you, I'd rather go through OCS than for... years the Naval Academy as far as the way. Any day of the week. Yeah, any day of the week. You know, so like the Marine OCS, so, you know, it's just like with anything else, they're going to show up at TBS and, you know, oh, I had to go through OCS and you guys didn't have to go through OCS. There was a lot of midshipmen that wanted to go through OCS because they had heard, you know what I mean? And I was just like, look, guys, you know what I mean?

So you don't go through OCS. We'll do shit. You know what I mean? You've had four years at the academy. Some of the folks that do go to OCS, they went to a regular college. They didn't have to put up with a lot of the crap. that you guys are having to put up with while you're here. You know, you had to do summer cruises.

You're competing for the ability to be a Marine officer, which is pretty cool. So we take them down to TBS and they call it Leatherneck. We call it purging the squid. Just because, you know, I mean, the Naval Academy is set up as a surface warfare officer school. I mean, that's what it is. You're making surface warfare officers. And there's no Marines in the brochure. So we take them down there and we, you know, put them through a little bit of, you know,

the land navigation, a little bit of the field skills stuff, a little bit of the fire team and squad patrolling kind of thing. And then they've got, you know, Marine officers and they've got second lieutenants that just graduated TBS that work with the midshipman. And they do evaluations on some of these kids to see how well they play with others. You know what I mean? How serious they are? How long is leatherneck program? Leatherneck is, man, that's a good question. It might be like four to six weeks. It's really not that long. But neither is OCS.

So they come down and they run through the Leatherneck Program. And I got set down to Quantico. At first, there was a lot of contents because people were like, oh, you got to do plebe summer. Everybody comes here, you got to do plebe summer. And I was like, well, General Allen said I didn't have to do plebe summer. And I'm going down to Quantico. What, just go watch, please.

summer basically or monitor it yeah like monitor it work it as a senior enlisted you know what I mean it's kind of like you know indoctrination of being a senior enlisted you know there was there was some cool guys that were up there at the academy but I really wasn't into the whole chief's mess kind of thing like I didn't want to go downtown Annapolis and do a pub crawl and you know that kind of stuff so I didn't mix well with somebody else I got along with a lot of the folks fine that just I didn't mix as well with a lot of the others. Some of them had that us versus them mentality. Us. Like us, the commandant staff versus the midshipment. Like, let's sit around and see how

much we can like make is miserable. Like, dude, these kids got it miserable enough, man. And they're here. And just because they're coming to the academy. And yeah, it's a good gig. I mean, they get a lot of cool stuff at the academy. They got like a silver spoon coming out of every orifice of their body. I mean, you know, who else gets to go on, like, summer camping trips, and you get to go with, like, an air wing unit, you get to fly over. I mean, they do some cool stuff at the academy. And I think it's just jealousy of, you know, there's a lot of chiefs, gunnies,

or, you know, they didn't get that opportunity, and they just want to stick it to the midshipment as much as they can. And, you know, like what they call, like, fry in them, like basically like an NJP but not NJP, if they call it a fry, well, all that's going to do to that kid? I mean, so the kid did something stupid. I mean, they're kids. That's going to hurt their order of merit.

You know what I mean? Like, unless they're doing something like grievous, you know what I mean? Like, like, come on, man. Like, you know, the kid was, you know, he's a kid. A lot of times I think some of the folks forget that, that, you know, they didn't want to see J.D. when he was 18 and 19. And so, you know, those kind of fucks, those us versus them mentality of with the midshipman. I tell you what, the midshipman, they made my experience at the academy enjoyable.

If it wasn't for them, it wouldn't have been as fun. Like I had a ball. So I ended up down at Leatherneck for the summer, and they were going out to do some munitions. And, you know, CQB stuff, you know, coming in doing Mout at the Mout facility there. And, you know, a couple of the guys, the XO that was in charge of the major that was down there. His call sign was Pedro. He was a pilot. Great guy.

Major Brown, and he's like, hey, why don't you come out, man, and play some munitions with the midshipman, while they're kind of taking them through the mouth zone. I was like, yeah, I'm there. Like, I love doing some munitions and mouth. I mean, it's fun. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so we're up there, and I ended up getting up in the third story, and one of the rafters, and one of the buildings, and I'm making my way through the rafters, having a ball, shooting midshipman. Yeah, I mean, just, and I'm slick. So I got, no helmet on. Yeah, I got nothing. I'm just, I'm having a ball. It's a great day. And then beams break. I came out of the, out of the third story, fell three stories and

just hit like a sack of the seamers break of the rafters that you're in. Yeah, you know how like the rafters are, when you, when you go back and look at the, they were, you know, it's government. They were just put in with like long staples. So the rafters weren't. But necessarily like for me to get they were kind of like how did he even get in the rafters because like when you went to the third story there was just like a cutout like you know you got like a like a fake ceiling like a fake ceiling with the little cutout like you have in some people's garages you know what I mean and you can push up and put a ladder in and put storage so I just ran and hit the wall jumped up grab pulled myself up and got up into the rafters you know what I mean so

yeah I got up there and then once I was up in there I was coming out and turkey peak trying to figure out where the midshipmen were moving around in the town and I put my hand down and boom gone rafters came out and I came down three stories uh how come you went down three stories and not just falling from because you know how like the mount has like a building that looks like it's blown off yeah yeah so there was nothing there okay so I I'm out and uh yeah hit went down the hit with the left shoulder and then just down the left side of the body uh So just, and the bad thing was I didn't knock myself out. So, I mean, you know, like when you go see the dock and they're like, so on a pain scale of one to ten, like, I was like, dude, yeah, this is a 10.

Like, just it hurt. And they, they medevacque me out and took me in and, yeah, I shattered my left shoulder, broke a couple of ribs on the left side, broke my pelvis in three spots, and the left ankle. And, yeah, it was going from 100 mile an hour to zero in an instant. And it ended up in a wheelchair, which was that put a lot of stuff. Like, being in a wheelchair, like, man, that was terrible. I mean, I was coming unglued. Yeah, it was just a bad, a bad time. You know, I didn't want to hear the whole, oh, everything happens for a reason kind of thing.

Like, that wasn't flying with me at the time. Just because I thought that, you know, something that I was hoping to do that fall was now gone. And then, you know, the Navy docs that are taking care of me, you know, they were kind of great guys. But one of the Navy doctors, commander, you know, he was like, yeah, I don't know if you're running and, like, you know, you're running. and that kind of thing, if that's going to be happening. And I didn't like that of telling me that that's not going to happen. So I went in and at Walter Reed, they redid my shoulder the first time and I had to get like a bone graph and stuff put in and some screws.

So I get that done at Walter Reed, which that was back then when it was like a dungeon, you know, before it hit the news of how stuff went down. I come out of there and this happened in the summer of 2003 in January of 2004. I signed up and went with the Navy team to run the Disney marathon because I was like, yeah, I'm running.

I had already been running. Being at the Naval Academy with their athletic department and the trainers and stuff that they had, man, they had me like aqua jogging and resistance stuff, you know what I mean? And the elliptical. And there was some, you know, some of the guys would come in

because, like, aqua jogging is boring as shit. You know what I mean? Like, it's boring. But I'd have guys come in and get in the pool with me because I'm just trying to get back. I'm still focused like, hey, I still got a shot. You know what I mean? I can get better.

So, you know, that happened in June, the summer, in January. I went down and I ran a 319. Disney. Not my best time, but I was pretty stoked with a 319, and I came back with that big stupid Disney medal that they give you. I threw it on the commander's desk, and I was like, there's your fucking Ph.D. Don't tell me I can't run. And, of course, that's going against doctor's orders kind of a thing. They got me a new doc. The new doc that I got, he was great. He was like, yeah, push your body. The human body is an amazing machine. You can get yourself back. You get yourself fit. So I started next back in the pool, swimming. I was over there. You know, the men's swim team was phenomenal.

Navy, they got a really good swim program there. And the coach was great. So I used to like to go in and swim with the team. And I was in there swimming. I got out of the shower one day. And I was, as I was like showering on my shoulder, like something was coming out the back of my shoulder. So I'd go over to the football locker.

They put the x-ray on. I got screws coming out. back to the hospital. You know, me, my body was refusing some of the screws coming in. I went through rehab with that for the second shoulder operation. And General Allen, he was kind of my sponsor. He had been moved on. He was up at the Pentagon.

He's a one star up to Pentagon. And finally, you know, John Allen called me up to the Pentagon. And he's like, because they put me up on a Navy board med. and I went up and you know John was like where do you want to go because you're not you're done like you're not

they're not going to pass you on any kind of jump physical nothing you know McMap you know even the shoulder had gotten bad enough to wear they were like dude you keep monkeying around like you're going to lose mobility so that that kind of got the realism

in there and with him I was hang out at the academy and then next thing you know I got a call from the monitor Medi Knox called me and I was actually at a bowl game in San Diego here with the Navy football and he called me and he's like hey JD we'd like you to come back down to Quantico

and oversee the schools because they had a sniper school HRP high-rest personnel it's basically pistol shooting and Savannah tire small arms weapon instructor course and breach your school. So I asked me if I'd, you know, come back down. And I was literally sitting right downtown San Diego.

And I'm like, dude, I'm in a bowl game with Navy football right now. You want me to come back? Like, I don't want to come back. So I was like, hey, I'll call you when I get done out here. I came back. And Medi Knox, it gave me my sergeant, promoted me, gave me a pin up and pinned me on February 1st. And I went back down to Quantico and gave them a couple more years back down at the schoolhouse.

as a mass sergeant and then left it at 21. And I think it was good for me to be down there. The colonel that I was working for is Mike Mulligan's gray guy. And Mike trying to get me ready for transition. Like I didn't know this was not the plan. Yeah, I wanted to stay at camp as long as possible until I get like 30 years and, you know, then retire or, you know, make all the way to E9 because I was an E8. And, yeah, it wasn't a, it wasn't a plan.

So I really, I didn't know, like, what I was going to do. And probably the biggest aspect of it is, you know, my wife, Tracy, you know, at the time, she's like, you can do stuff. I mean, it's one thing she'll give me. She's like, you'll work. you know, you're going to show up, you're going to work. And, you know, one of the guys that had taught me back in the day to cast my net widely, Eric Carlson, he called me and was like, hey, man, do you want to do some contract work with infantry weapons, you know, special weapons, sniper rifle, stuff like that, you know, working for L3 communications. So he called me and I was like, yeah, do I have to, like, you know, what do I have to do? He goes, well, you know, we got to have like a panel interview kind of thing.

And so I go out to see Eric and everybody that's on the panel, I served with all of them in the Marine Corps. It was like a going home kind of thing. It was like all these dudes are there. And it's just like this is preliminary. And so Eric, you know, brought me in. And I mean, he took care of me. It gave me a job. Because again, I didn't really know what I was going to do.

So how long did you do that contracting job for? A couple years. And then what, how did you end up? forming OMNA, which is your OMNA international, which is your leadership company. Is that the right thing to call it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's experiential. Experiential learning. And so it was at L3. and, you know, in the Marine Corps, you know, I had the opportunity because of some of the officers that I served with that let me tag along and go on some staff rides historically, which was like super, I mean, you know, going to over and study in Okinawa, the battle over there and seeing the reverse slope defense of the Japanese, like what we kind of went through, the Philippines, you know, the Korea, you know what I mean? And so just reading and then getting to go to these places and actually stand on the exact spot where folks had been. And like I said, I had read quite a bit.

You know, I remember reading, you know, Hackworth back in the day. You know, those kind of guys were just very influential on me in leadership. And it was just, you know, it was kind of like an experience to where, you know, it's not in a classroom. It's not you're actually on the field. It's very hands-on kind of of learning and learning how to lead. And so I started with Omna of it started to realize that we could do staff rides outside of the Murray Corps. Like there's other organizations that are out there. You know, like at the Naval Academy, we used to take the kids to Antietam.

You know what I mean? They could do it as a weekend trip. We could take them to Antietam. You know, John Allen, he was a big history guy, Marine officer. Of course, he loved staff rides. You know, Gettysburg is another big one. Corporal Seamus Garrity used to live up in Gettysburg up there. We called it Marine Barracks, Gettysburg.

You know what I mean? So there was, you know, going to Gettysburg, the experiential stuff of overseas. You know, the Marine Corps was always big on this. with doing staff rides. And they were a lot of fun. So again, this same guy, Eric Carlson, had been dealing with the wildland firefighters. The guys, hot shots, smoke jumpers, engine crew, kind of guys. And I guess they had had a couple of fatality fires.

So they did a tri-data study, and they earmarked and went around and looked at different organizations of how they teach leaders. ship and they ended up at Marine Corps University and Eric Carlson was the operations officer and Eric and they called over and Craig Huddleston who's with Omna as well Craig is another one of my great mentors Craig was over at command and staff and they were like hey do you mind if some firefighter guys come tag along go to Gettysburg sure bring them along so they went up to Gettysburg and when they saw how the Marine Corps just took a pile of dirt of what we call a terrain model, they were like, wow, this is pretty cheap. We've got a lot of dirt. And there

were so many similarities between wildland firefighting and the Marine Corps. You know, a hot shot is an infantry, infantry platoon. You know, an engine is like artillery. They've got aviation, they've got logistics, they've got, you know, incident commanders, and they were putting people in harm's way. They're making plans. They're using trains. They're using terrain models and they're sending folks out just like on a military operation. So they really bought into this staff ride concept as well as the Naval Academy. So the Naval Academy with Joe Thomas, who's still up there with the leadership and ethics, great guy, retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel, Pennsylvania guy, Joe and them, I mean,

we've taken the Naval Academy up to Gettysburg because the team captains with the football, And all the sports that were up there were like, hey, we got a guy that can take the team captains and take them to Gettysburg. So, you know, through N-Tri-A, I took the team captains up there because, you know, I knew a lot of the coaches because obviously I spent a lot of time at their facilities. You know what I mean? Kind of playing around. And I just started, like, at first it was kind of a kind of something fun to do. but I didn't know how to run a business. So I basically went online because you can find everything online and like,

how do you start a business.com? And then, you know, okay, where you got to pick a name. You got to get a Duns number. You got to get a 10. You know, so there was a lot of reading involved because I had no clue. Like, how do you get a business license? I mean, it's just amazing. Like I became so more educated, you know what I mean, of just starting a business and getting

quickbooks. Like how do you do taxes? How do you run payroll? Like how do you know what I mean? Yeah, you want to learn a lot of stuff, start some businesses. Start a lot of business. Start with just one. You're going to learn a lot.

Yeah. I've just got one. Yeah. I know. Yeah. I mean. But even like I think, well, I know, the first business that I started was this gym. that we're in today and just the amount of learning that you do.

And then, you know, your next business, you already have some of those lessons learning. You can apply them and then the next business after that one, you can apply some more. And yeah, but if you're a young person or you just got out of, you know, the service, you start a business. I don't care if you do, you know,

you sell clothespins or something, painted clothespins. If you start a business to sell painted clothespins, you're gonna learn a ton. You're gonna learn a ton. And you might make some money along the way, You might lose some money, but you're going to learn a lot. That's for sure. And this is how you and I eventually linked up because at Eshlam Front,

we wanted to do what we call EF Battlefield, and we wanted to have an expert that has more knowledge about the battles than we do. And that's how we linked up for the first time, which was awesome. Yeah. So we started out. So I've had the company since 2010. and Omna stands for one-man national asset. And I learned from Al Gray that before you decide what you're going to do, decide who you're doing it with.

And, you know, Eric Carlson, the same guy. I mean, he's, of course, I'm going to do everything with Eric Carl. I live three quarters of a mile from Eric Carlson still to this day. I run past his house in the morning. I mean, he is a huge impact. And Craig Huddleston, Craig Huddleston is the most interesting man in the world. He went from E1 to E7 to 01 to 06.

A little over 33. It was a drill instructor. I mean, he's just like, he's like one of those guys that just did everything. You know what I mean? He did a tour with the British World Commandos over in Europe. I mean, he's just the most interesting man in the world. And, you know, he's still a downhill ski instructor at Angel Fire, New Mexico. He's in his 70s.

I mean, you wouldn't know it. The guy is just, he doesn't stop. Huge impact on me in my life. And then all the other guys that work with Omit. You know, of course, you know, we start out with Marines. And then we started expanding to where, like in wildland fire, they were like, can we develop staff rides for wildland fire. So you got like South Canyon fatality fires. The the dude fire down in Arizona. You've got what the movie came out with. Only the Brave was about the Yarnel Hill fire.

We developed that staff ride. That's why I was just out last week doing those. Because like I said, I mean, it's experiential leadership. And it's not necessarily it's armchair quarterbacking the events, but you're not there to refight the fire or refight the battle. You're there to to take a step back and look at the leadership decisions that were made. And how could we learn from that? How could we move forward? And then, like, teaming up with you guys, you know what I mean? Like, I can remember when I first, like, Steve and Jason, who I love, because they are just class act characters.

Like, when we got done with the first staff ride, you know, a few years back, and we're sitting in the, in the room and they're like, dude, this was so much fun. Like the interaction with the participants that are there, the people that you get to meet, I mean, you remember, I mean, some of the folks, I mean, they even came back and did a little big hornets. You know, and just the experience on the leadership aspect of experiencing it that they're, to me, you just can't get it from a classroom. You can't get it from a book.

you know, when you're standing, you know, in the peach orchard at Gettysburg, and the discussions that you're having of, I mean, everybody has a Dan Sickles in their organization. Everybody's just for 10,000 years, we've been trying to figure out how to deal with people. And delivering of a staff ride, it's so memorable, like, of being there. And, you know, it's just so we basically developed a business around experiential, staff rides. And, you know, and we do it for, you know, fish and wildlife, U.S. Forest Service, FDN.Y, you know, San Diego lifeguards.

I took the San Diego lifeguards to Gettysburg, which was like super cool. Like, those are a great bunch of guys. And I learned more from them than they probably did for me. Like, I didn't know they were sworn officers and could write tickets, but they don't get a gun. Talk about the ability to use your, you know, your communication skills. you better be pretty good. You know what I mean? And bringing them to Gettysburg.

Everybody's like, you know, in Gettysburg of like, who are these? It's like they're lifeguards like from San Diego. Like, I mean, the whole Baywatch. I mean, the guys were just phenomenal people. And then we do a lot, Orange County. Like I know you've done stuff with Orange County. Fire Authority up the road. But then when you meet like the smoke jumpers and the hot shots,

that's like kind of like these people like if we would have had Discovery Channel, like when you and I were kids in the 80s and I would have seen like, wait a minute, I can get paid money to get a chainsaw, which are always fun to operate. And you're going to let me jump out of an aircraft in the middle of nowhere and fight fire. And I'm going to get paid. Like, that's badass. And just like with the hot shots, I mean, we're going to put me in a buggy. We're going to ride around with like 20 to 30 other men and women that just want to get after it, you know what I mean, with a Pulaski.

You know what I mean? and fight wildland fire. You know, I mean, what, I mean, they're just great people. They provide a great service to the country. But, you know, growing up in Virginia, West Virginia, we don't have wildland fire. Like here. I mean, like everybody out here, you all in Cali know what wildland fire is. It's a West Coast thing.

Yeah. But yeah, that would be such a cool job. And they're just great people. Yeah, that's a freaking hard job, man. You know, you and I were talking earlier today. And just when you've been in the military and you look at a hill and you know what it takes to walk up a hill, you appreciate hills.

And those wild-end fire guys, man, they just actually, I have a guy that guided me a couple hunts and he's a wild-and-fire guy. And I mean, you want to talk about a dude that could hoof out some miles, bro? I mean, this dude was just like, okay. I mean, with no expression on his face, you know, other than like,

where are we going now? No factor. Like no factor. These guys put some miles in, man. These are like mountain goats. They're like mountain goats. Yeah. I mean, with like gas cans and they got like chainsaws.

And they do a, I mean, it's a, and they're just a great community of people. So I had the experience. I do, I do a lot with those folks. And they've expanded to where now with Omna, now we've got former, I got former hot shots, former wildland firefighters. They got former Forest Ranger. You know what I mean? She works with us.

I mean, just the people that I've had the opportunity to meet over the past, you know, 12 years of doing this, I mean, it's just, it's amazing. And of course, like, I enjoy the hell out of it, which makes it even better. You know, what I don't have to go to a cubicle. And, you know what I mean? We get the, and, you know, it's like, what are you doing over there? I'm working. Allegedly. No, you're reading a book.

That's my job. I get to read. Well, you know, we were lucky enough to link up and and we, you know, we bring a lot of corporate people in. We bring everyone in, a lot of corporate people, a lot of business people in that go through these staff rides and pass on these lessons learned. And there's so much to learn from these events and the leadership and the personalities and the people that undergo them. And I was talking to you and I always feel kind of selfish because I get to hang out with you and I was and learn from these battlefields and from these battles and I thought to myself, hey, maybe we should try and extend this knowledge to more people. So I came up with an idea of doing a series of podcasts about the Civil War battles and just so everybody knows we're, that's what we're doing. We're going to put together a series of podcasts about the Civil War where it's going to be on this it's going to be on this podcast feed

It's going to be Jocko podcast Civil War Excursion Because it's gonna you know there's some people that make I don't really feel like listen to civil war And if you don't want to listen to it. That's fine. You probably will It's sitting here talking to you It's like trying to I can't wait I can't wait to pull the string on your back where you just start talking about Civil War and battles and personalities holidays man it's awesome and yeah you'll be hearing a bunch from jd on this feed um yeah what do we miss we miss anything else no that's uh that that's uh that's that's that's that's pretty much it uh i i will i remember when i talked to you like it's one of the first times i when your book came out extreme

ownership and of course i'd read it uh and i had uh some of the folks that i deal with that that was like a pre-read uh you know because a lot of the people that we deal with, you know, we encourage reading lists in any organization, like everybody should read. And that was one of the books, extreme ownership prior to us going to Little Big Horn. So, and when you actually look at it after the fact and being with you and all with the guys with an echelon front and do it now when you look at like the battlefield, you could be like, well, that dude definitely did not show any extreme ownership. You know what I mean? It's crazy to go out and, you know, I used to tell the platoons when I was taking a platoon to land warfare or urban training, I'd say, look, I know the mistakes you're going to make.

I already know the mistakes you're going to make. And, you know, you're not going to cover and move. You're going to make things too complicated. You're not, you're going to have trying to do too many things at once. You're going to have centralized command. Everything's going to fall apart. If you follow these simple rules, you're going to do good. And it's so crazy to look back at history and look back at Gettysburg or Little Big Hornet.

And you can see, oh, no cover and move right here. Everything falls apart. Oh, they're too complicated. Everything falls apart. Oh, trying to do too many things at once. Everything falls apart. Oh, the commander's trying to direct every single person. Everything falls apart.

The same mistakes get made in the Civil War and World War II, Korea, Vietnam, any war, pretty much. The same mistakes get made. The same leadership mistakes get made. And what's crazy is they're the same leadership mistakes that get made in any organization, in any organization. It's they don't support each other. They make things too complicated. They don't figure out their priorities. They don't focus their efforts.

And they try and centralize and control everything. And all those things are bad. And when you come out and the next thing we're doing with you, let me look at the dates here. It's, what do we got? Next battlefield is March 21st through the 23rd. On the hollowed grounds of Gettysburg. You know, there is a whole,

I said this with Jason, you know, when Jason was on, there's like a spiritual side to this. There's a leadership side, sure, but you go on to that battlefield and you, you feel the sacrifice that was made. And it's very powerful, both at Gettysburg and Little Big Horn, and I'm sure we're going to do a bunch of other battlefields in the future.

But if anybody wants to come to walk the battlefield with us, Eshlamfront.com, check out the next. EF Battlefield, it's March 21st through 23rd. For your company, for Omna, it's theomna.com. So you do stuff all over the place. You run a bunch of these events. Your people run a bunch of these events.

You're on Instagram, Omna underscore International. You're on Facebook. Omna International LLC. That's if people want to find you, that's where they can find you. and that's where they can find some of the courses that you guys are running, which is awesome. What else? Echo, you got anything? You got any questions?

What year again were you at Navy? I was at Navy 2003 and left 2006. Oh, damn. Because we'd play them a lot. I played at Universe Hawaii so that we're in the same conference. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's where the head coach at Navy, Ken, Nehomad,

he quarterbacked at Hawaii. Did you play in the Naval Academy? me you played against them we I didn't play the game no but we played that me the other team did but I personally did not you on the bench kind of I was on the I was red shirting sure um but yeah but that was a little bit before that time though 95 to 98 oh okay yeah yeah did you get special treatment at university of Hawaii being on the football team yes yeah they do and that may and that makes sense too because a lot of time football brings in a lot of the money you know so you know you have that dynamic for sure yeah when it you

You know, when you look at the football division one to compete, and I can remember, like, I had a lot of cool opportunities. Like, I got to travel with the team. So, like, we go play Notre Dame. I mean, it's big, big school, man. That's a big program, you know what I mean? And so I'm over, because I'm a gunny, I can just go wherever I want. So I go over to their locker room.

The size of those dudes, like compared to the Naval Academy of the shit. You know what I mean? They were tree trunks, man. I mean, these dudes were huge. I walked back over one of the quarterbacks in Navy, Craig Candido. I went over to Craig and I was like, dude, I'm glad I'm not you today, brother. Because you're running triple option football. JD's pep talk.

I'm glad I'm not you. I mean. They set you back to the back to Annapolis after that pep talk, bro. I mean, those dudes, I mean, that's where, you know, when you're talking about like having these kids there compete at that level, like you at Hawaii. I mean, it's a different, that's just a different level of competition playing those folks, man.

There's just some big, and those guys, that's all they do is play football. They're not doing double E and worried about height, weight requirements and service selection. They're there to play football and go pro. Yeah, that's interesting how you talk about a guy will be on the O line or the D line, then he has to go, change his whole body.

I was like, bro, that's true. You can't be 6'4, 290, over 300 pounds, and then want to run, you know, all these mountain bats it's not like that you got to become a different human yeah you got to become a different human being like get and change your DNA yeah is what it boils down to yeah that's true even I mean I played a skill position but even like running three miles you're talking about eight miles marathons all that I couldn't do that I could sprint pretty fast but man that the long distance is like a different kind of running yeah they're they used to do something called fourth quarters and the

getting ready. So it was kind of like they'd show up in the morning out on the field and they would have stations. Yeah, like fourth quarter circuit kind of stuff. Well, you know what I mean? So I go in, of course, I've got cleats. I've got everything like I've got everything the kids have. Like I love going to practice. You know what I mean? And so I'm going to go do fourth quarters with the team. So first day I go out and I pick skills players to go with wrong move. They're these guys, they're fast twitch muscles, man. They're making me look silly. You know what I mean? And I think They weigh twice as much as you. Oh, yeah.

So the next day, I'm going with O-Line. I went to one of my seal buddies was friends with a bunch of San Diego Chargers, and I went to his wedding. And, dude, these guys are just not, they're like a different species. It's like when you look at a Chihuahua versus like a Great Dane and you think, how are these the same kind of animal? I'm standing around looking at these dudes going, how are these guys the same kind of animals to me? Because I don't like this at all. Yeah. Yeah, I remember there was like one of the, I think it was one of the chargers here training with Sarge.

And he was just teaching him some little bit of jiu-jitsu stuff. And I looked at him. He was like, I forget, it might have been a fullback or something. And I remember looking at him. I said, man, I forget, I forgot how big football players are. And even thinking back, I know the numbers. Like I know like my friend Jeff, he was, he actually ended up playing for the 49ers. Jeff Olberg.

He was 6-1-25 and he ran a 4-5. And I remember at the time, I'm thinking like, oh, man, he's, pretty fast for like being a big you know guy but he's not big compared to like the D line or the O line or whatever but man me thinking about that right now bro I'm not used to that kind of size anymore usually that's a normal and running a four or five at two 555 like when that guy hits you oh yeah that's that's not that's not cool bro you're going down like there's you're going down you're going down that's just pure power oh yeah yeah these big someone guys too 6 5 330 340 and still fast.

Oh yeah. Yeah. These pulling guards that come they're just like this big mass of a human. Oh man. Yeah, I forget how big they are. Yeah,

that's why we invented gun power. Oh, yeah. Worse than that. Awesome. Anything else? Anything else, J.D. We're going to get a big dose of you on the podcast here.

Anything else from you? Let's talk about how to support this podcast, how to support America, right? And of course, we want to support ourselves. Speaking of being jacked, good tool for being jacked, creatine. Yes. We just came out with creatine. That's good.

How long were you thinking about doing that? Because I remember the idea came up a long time. Yeah, yeah. Just the idea. It was one of those things where we had to be able to do it at a scale where it made sense. because because we I don't just want to be like oh we'll just throw our name in the hat with everybody else right make it good and all that stuff but yeah it's been it's been a it's probably been a few years that we were had that in the in the queue it makes sense because it is one of those

supplements that's like reliably good kind of across the board you know all right it's crazy but on that little video you made when you're like yeah in the 90s and it's weird that's one I really heard about it no what's yeah what's cool is that that that's I remember when it came out. It came out and I remember it. And everyone's like, dude, creatine, creatine. And I got on creatine. I was on deployment on the USS Cleveland, the Steaming Cleve.

And I brought cruise boxes with this protein powder that had creatine in it. And this is the one that I talk about where it's vanilla. I don't even like vanilla to this day because I drank vanilla protein shanks for six straight months. And I would hold my nose like it was bad tequila. and just like, oh, gut it down. You don't have to do that anymore. You can get jankofuel.com, get your creatine. Get jacked.

The other cool thing is they've done so much research on it now. It just doesn't only help you get stronger. Helps your athletic performance. Helps your cognitive function. Like, it's just straight good for you. So if you want to get some of that, joccofuel.com. And that's not to mention resistance training, all the studies that they have been putting into that,

all the benefits of resistance training. So now you got the creatine supporting the resistance training, supporting all the other functions of your body. Yeah, resistance training. Resisting training, no offense, J.D, because I know you're a runner. Do you jacked steel at all? No, I just. Calisthenics?

Yeah, I do pull-ups. I got pull-up bar. Yeah, pull-ups calisthenics. Right. That's just old school Marine Corps. Yeah, no jacking of steel. Jacking of steel. You jacked your shoulder.

Now you're not jacked steel. No. What else? Discipline go. Yeah. Energy drink. Redefined. healthy all good stuff no bad stuff can you imagine just having something that's got no

downside how legit is that's very legit that's the legit here no downside there's no there's no cost three bucks or whatever oh yeah yeah like everything else to pay for sure physically yeah health wise same thing with a ready drink milk did you get a shipment yet yes I did yeah it's a game my kids are my kids are stealing it's gonna be gone yeah it's gonna be gone there's no way you can have ready to drink milk in the house with children I had to make a rule Straight up rule like you're not allowed to have these kind of off limits. Yeah, off limits. Oh yeah. I open one they drink it all Straight up. That's why I made the rule. Well, we're making as much as we can. We're gonna we we got it on the web. So yeah, the ready to drink milk. It's freaking awesome. It's a game. It's kind of a game changer. It is kind of a game changer. You know why I think it's a game changer? Because man, there's no reason to eat anything else like you know, maybe you're walking by no, you know what I'm saying like you're walking. Like you know what I'm saying like you're walking. You know what I'm saying? Like you're walking. You know, you're walking. by the fridge and you're like,

well, what could I have right now? And you're kind of, everything's an effort or it's got downside. You know, with a milk, ready to drink. There's no, there's zero, once again,

no downside. You don't have to make it. You just twist the freaking cap off, bro. You're in. You're correct about that. That's real. Gets yourself some ready to drink milk. Get yourself some creatine.

Go, discipline, go. Joccofuel.com at Wawa. You're in Virginia. You're rolling into Wawa. Yep. Just get you cleaning the shells. out they're cleaned out like all the time right on yeah we'll send more so if you're east coast wah-wah you can get stuff at the vitamin shop military commissaries we're working the

exchange we should be in the exchanges soon hanaford's dash stores wakefern shop right circle k hey hb tejas you know we got you murphy's down in the southeast mire in the midwest so go go get yourself some jocco feel get no downside that's a thing not too many things in this world not too many things in this world no downside origin USA.com jeans boots geese hunt gear rash guards t-shirts beanies beanie's bea how long is this gonna go this could go a while here's the thing all made in America right now you know you're seeing some stuff on the news right now you're seen in China there's a practical revolution happening right now there they got

workers rebelling slave labor rebelling it's about time well that's China that's where your clothes are getting made if you're not buying from origin USA.com you're you're enabling slave labor to happen so don't do it get the best quality stuff get the best quality stuff made in America don't support slave labor that's what I got for you origin USA.com it's true also Jacques was a store called Jocco Did I say geish tis? Did I say jiu jih Tzu geos? Yeah, I was talking to.

Who's I talking to? Someone was like, bruh. When you put an origin jih Tugi on, it's a, it's, it's totally, it's a totally different thing. It's a different thing. It's like you were, it's like you were driving in a Camry. Sure. No offense against Camry's, right? Apparently.

But then you got put into like a Cadillac. You know what I'm saying? I know what you're saying. Next level. It's a different thing. It's a different experience. Yeah, that's a good Hey, your brother used to have a Prius

Yeah, right? Yeah. Does he still have it? No. See, he had that Prius. I didn't know what to think of a Prius, right? Because I've never been in one. Sure. I got in his Prius.

Bro, that thing was... You didn't like that? No, that thing was foolish, man. Foolish. I know it gets good mileage and whatnot. No, but I mean, it felt like, it felt like economy class. Yes.

It was very economy class. I'm sure there's different levels of interior of Prius. I'm sure that's my assumption. I don't know. I don't know how many priests I've ever been in besides his, but you know, I think...

Like you hit the bump and you feel it. Oh, that whole... The whole deal? Yeah, yeah, you're right. It's economy class. Yeah, yeah, it's different. So don't do that, man. Don't get an economy class gie.

No. Get a first class key. Yeah. Yeah, you're going to feel the difference for sure. Especially when you got to roll around in that thing, too, people trying to choke you with it. You will not. It's going to make a difference.

Hey, if you travel first class and then you go back to economy, you hate it. It's the same thing here. Work you put on origin geese you're in first class then you go back into an economy You're gonna hate it's gonna be pretty and once again you're also gonna know in your subconscious mind that Like a 14 year old girl in a slavery position was forced to make your gie at gunpoint 14 hours a day 14 hours a day yeah So just keep that in mind origin USA.com

Yeah on that. Also Jockel store if you want to represent from the past did the discipline equals freedom shirts and hats merch if you will this is quality though it's not like the cheap free I made it very wearable we made it very wearable actually a lot of people say it's their favorite fitting shirt shirt locker

shirt locker is a different thing custom shirts kind of custom sure yeah they are custom but yes this subscription get a new one every month cool designs a lot of people seem to like that one as well yeah this is all on jocco there's a couple coming that are I'm pretty I'm pretty on board with the

for some of the t-shirts in the shirt locker that are coming out yeah subscribe to that subscribe to the podcast go to jocco underground dot com look there's stuff going on with the platforms right now it's actually crazy to watch what's going on social media big tech companies freedom of speech there's all kinds of mayhem going on look we got to have a contingency plan we meaning you listening us sitting here contingency plan jocco underground dot com if everything falls apart will be there it's $8.18 a month if you can't afford it that's okay we got you email assistance at underground at jocco underground.com but listen we don't know what's going to happen with these platforms and we can't just look you can't put your trust

you can't put complete trust into something you have no control over you have to control your destiny you have to take ownership of your future so look if everything Look, if we can stay on this path, cool. Hey, we're down. Yeah, it's fine. If they want to let us keep talking and we'll keep talking and we're all good, hey, we got no problem with that. But I can't just rely on that. We all can't just rely on the benevolence of these people that have no vested interest in what we're doing.

In fact, sometimes it could be conceived that they have a vested interest in not supporting what we're doing. I'm just saying, that's where we have this, dark on the ground.com. Check that out. YouTube. Subscribe to Jocko Podcasts. Subscribe to Origin USA. Psychological Warfare, Flipside Canvas.com.

Got a bunch of books. You know what they are. Check them out. Eshlamfront. If you want to come to one of these events with J.D. and I. Go to Eshlamfront.com. We got a leadership consultancy. This is one of the things that we do there is these battlefield tours, E.F.

Battlefield. The next one is March 21st through 23rd. It's up in Gettysburg. It's it is going to impact the way you think and it's going to impact your understanding of the world if you come out to that It impacts me every time So echelonfront.com that's our leadership consultancy We also have the academy online online training extreme ownership.com This is where we teach these lessons of life

To everyone through the interwebs which years ago the same This wasn't even conceivable thing. It would just seem like, oh, how can you, how can you learn something over the internet? But Echo Charles, you know those videos that you make? Yeah, I do. Where'd you learn how to do that? Mostly the internet. Mostly?

A lot of on the job training as well. Well, you. On the field, sorry, in the field. Where'd the knowledge come from? Yeah, the internet. So there you go. So check that our extreme ownership.com. If you want to learn to live your life better, you want to learn to lead.

you want to learn to maneuver around the battlefield of humans, which is what we're all doing. Go to Extreme Ownership.com. And if you want to help service members, you want to be active and retired, their families, gold star families. Check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization.

If you want to donate, you want to get involved, America's mighty warriors.org. And also don't forget about Mike of Fink's organizationheroes.org. If you want to connect with JD on the end, Interwebs, the Omna, OMNA, the OMNA.com on Instagram. OMNA underscore, underscore. International. Facebook, OMNA.

You just called Omna, huh? Yeah. You made it into a word. Yeah, it's Omna. One man national asset. Everybody is a national asset. This starts as like a tongue-in-cheek thing, though, right? Like, hey, that guy thinks he's a one-man national asset.

He's the omna. But then it becomes on the battlefield and business and life, everyone's job is critical to a team success. Yeah, everybody. So there you go. As far as Echo and I were also on Twitter, Twitter's hot right now. You know that? Hey, Echo Charles lost all of his Twitter followers because he got stolen.

How did somebody steal that from you? Did you did you get fished or something? Yeah, probably clicked on something. It happened that quick, huh? Yeah, well, I was, I didn't really go on Twitter that much. So maybe I clicked on one of these lists. What kind of list? You know, like 10 things you should avoid when you go to, I don't know, Russia or something.

You know, they have those lists. I always click on it. Okay, so these are clickbait. You're on the internet. You're surfing the interweb. Yeah, and then it's like, is it inside of Twitter? This is what it'll do. Here's a heads up.

It'll be something along the lines of this. And it's totally my fault where they'll be like, oh, go back to Twitter. You know, like you'll go on the website. It'll be all messy website or whatever. I'm usually pretty good at navigating it. But then it'll be like, oh, navigate back to Twitter. So you go back. Wait, you clicked on 10 things to avoid in Russia.

Yeah, I'll read it. It comes up. There's 19 pop-up ads. There's a bunch of weird shit going on that thing. You maybe even got a little flag warning that came. up that this is a corrupt scenario. Probably yeah. You just ignored all that.

You read the 10 things. Maybe we should do an underground podcast about the 10 things to avoid in Russia since we did get the knowledge we paid for it. I don't know. Yeah, there's a list of some sort. So then it says do you want to return to Twitter? Yeah, navigate back to Twitter and then you go and then like if I'm not mistaken, it'll say like, oh, you're like logged out or something like that.

So you log back. Oh, bro. I if I remember it was something along those lines bro so you're saying it'll be like confirm or I don't know something like that bro you yeah you messed up yeah I walked right into it and then my account is just gone they go and then they change your username your pastor everything so your email doesn't even show up in there as the account so I'm like whatever it's just Twitter and then like

maybe a week or two later people were like messaging me like hey someone hacked your Twitter so I'm like you know whatever and then that day with me and you I went and looked for it. It was just gone. Everything was gone. So I just signed up under my original name. It was available. So what, how many followers did you have? Do you know how many followers did you have? Well, like, I don't know, 70 something,000. 70,000. And now how many do you have 70? Yeah, something like that. Yeah. But you're bummed out. You're sad because the rock, didn't the rock follow you? No, no, no, Joe Rogan.

Joe Rogan followed you on Twitter. And now he's gone. Yeah, brutal. But you still follow me now, so that's cool. I think I was in, I think I might have been your first. Oh, I was your first follower. Yeah, you were literally. There you go. Anyways, if you want to follow Echo Charles on the Twitter, on the Graham on the Facebook, I'm on there too. At Echo Charles and at Jocko Willink.

Watch out. Watch out for the algorithm, number one. Number two, watch out for the hackers, you know, that stuff. JD, anything else? No, I'm good. Right, all, man. Well, thanks for coming down. Appreciate it.

More important, thanks for your service. Corps teaching Marines how to fight teach them how to lead it's been an honor working with you past few years and I look forward to doing more in the future thanks to all our military and tonight especially to our Marines thank you for holding the line around the world to protect and preserve our way of life and the same goes for all our police and law enforcement firefighters paramedics EMTs dispatchers correctional officers border patrol Secret Service all first responders we're only able to live the way we do because you live your life and

sacrifice the way you do so thank you and everyone else out there remember what the Marine Corps says that while physical health and strength and well-being is important and it certainly is it certainly is but remember that the principal weapon is the mind So read, study, learn, and of course, keep getting after it. And until next time, this is J.D. and Echo and Jocko. Out.