Jocko Podcast - 387: You Don't Inherit Self Confidence and Discipline. You Must Choose. With General Michael Ferriter.

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

Michael Ferriter is a retired United States Army Lieutenant General. He served as commanding general of the United States Army Installation Management Command/U.S. Army Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation Management from 2011 until 2014. During his career he has participated in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, and served three tours of duty in Iraq. On June 19, 2018, he was named president and CEO of the National Veterans Memorial and MuseumSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 387 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, echo. Good evening. Combatives, the art of hand-to-hand combat, bridges the gap between physical training and tactics. The products of a good physical training plan, strength, endurance, and flexibility must be directed toward the mission, and soldiers must be prepared to use different levels of force in an environment where the intensity of a conflict changes quickly. Many military operations such as peacekeeping missions or non-combatant evacuation may restrict the use of lethal force. Combatives training prepares the soldier to use the appropriate amount of force for any situation. Combatives training includes arduous physical training that is mentally demanding and carries over to other military pursuits.

This training produces soldiers who understand controlled aggression and remain focused while under duress, possess the skills requisite to the mission at all levels in the spectrum of force, have the attributes that make up the warrior ethos, personal courage, self-confidence, self-discipline, and a spree to core. And that right there is a quote from the, U.S. Army's technical circular TC3TEC-25.150 combatives. And the Army has made huge advancements in the past several decades in their combatives capability and ability. They incorporated elements of grappling and striking and weapons into a comprehensive

system that has become a solid foundation for soldiers that are in any military occupation. But as the manual states, combatives doesn't only help soldiers with hand-to-hand combat. It helps with improving all their attributes as soldiers and as human beings. And it's an honor to have one of those soldiers with us here tonight who has led at all levels as an officer who not only trains in combatives but helped establish the combatives program in the army. his name is General Michael Faradur. He's a retired Army General. He served in Somalia. He served in Iraq.

He's a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. And he's here to share his experiences and lessons learned with us. General, thank you for joining us. That's my pleasure. Good to see you. I always have a good time diving into the history of combatives in the Army, in the Marine Corps. Even the SEAL teams has a little history of combatants. has a little history of combatives.

We have an old, I have an old field manual from years and years ago, and it's pretty neat to see. And there's been some vast improvements in combatives over the years. I'm sure we'll get into that. But I was like to start at the beginning. Let's talk about where you came from, what made you you. Well, I came, grew up in an Army family. My dad joined the Army during World War II at the beginning.

in World War II. He's a private. He went to Officer Candidate School and served in the Pacific. He was put in for a Medal of Honor. They received the Distinguished Service Cross. And as he raised, my brothers and sisters, he always told us, you've got to take care of the men. You've got to take care of your troops. And then things will work out for you. And so also being an officer candidate, we had to roll our socks and put them in the drawer, smiles facing up and answer the phone, you know, Colonel Faraders, Quarters, Mikey speaking, this line is unsecure, you know, back in the 60s. So, so how long did your dad stay in for? 27 years. You're tired as a colonel. Yeah. And were you just old school moving all the time

growing up? Yeah. We, we moved, I lived in 18 houses by the time I was 18 years old, and then raised a family and probably moved them just as many times. And this, we just came out a month of the military child. And there's a lot of truth to the resiliency and flexibility and adaptability of military kids and their ability to start over. You know, my mom is to throw us out in the yard and say, go explore, find out who lives in this neighborhood, see where the other kids are. So your dad was put in for the Medal of Honor and ends up getting the Distinguished Service Cross. What did you, growing up, what did that mean? to you, what did you know about what happened?

You know, did you, did you have the citation hanging on the wall? Did you hear the story from him, from his buddies or what was that? Like, that's pretty amazing. Yeah, that, you know, that generation, you know, my dad had, I think, a silver star, a couple of brown stars, a couple of Purple Hearts. And they were in the garage on the wall. They didn't have an I Love Me Room like my generation, right? So, um, but I went back to Guadalcanal with him when I came out of Ranger company command

in 1989 and we walked his battlefields and we went and dug out canoes with islanders and we walked up on you know we saw where chesty puller and then Marines went and Red Beach and inland and then all the way up to almost to New Caledonia it was amazing so your dad did like the full Pacific campaign he did yeah I mean talk about casting a shadow you must have always felt I mean, to this day. I mean, how do you ever feel like, you know, when your dad's that guy? That's amazing. Well, you don't want to disappoint them.

You could take a weapon, but if you get the D word, you know, I'm disappointed. That just kills you. So he was a great athlete. He played before the NBA, he played professional basketball. And he played up to AAA baseball. He came out of World War II, went back to play baseball, and you'd lost a lot of steps. and a lot of speed.

And so he went back in the Army and then continued on. And then did he go to Korea as well? He did not fight in Korea. He went probably in 53 or 54, 58, about 58. I was always interested in that part of Dick Winters book where Dick Winters fought World War II of the entire European campaign. They recall him for Korea.

He gets to, I think it was San Francisco. They're about to get on the boat and they said hey anyone that was that fought in World War II You don't have to go and he goes cool I'm out he he he had enough combat you know done and he said him go back to my farm in Pennsylvania Amazing and so so you're growing up you're going to different schools all the time what what schools were oh sorry what sports were you playing I play baseball and basketball were you any good I was pretty good or were you disappointing your dad the whole No no my I did not. You know, going back to that military child, different kids, you know, could get after better than others.

My older brother didn't like it, and he didn't play sports. And, you know, he would get the D word more than me. But we moved to Germany, and we lived in Hattelberg and then Berlin. So, you know, a lot of my deeper thoughts about. where American strength and power and the investment in our young men and women, you know, when we had the footprint in Berlin, the Russians did not. You know, and so now in the Middle East, when we get sent over there, there's some validity to when we're there, then the Persians are not.

And so pretty, you know, there were a couple incidents when everyone mounted up on the Berlin Wall, you know, machine guns and tanks up. And so I kind of gives you, as a 12, 13, 14, 14-year-old. a good taste of, there's a real world out here. And so, you know, if you're going to do something, do something that makes a difference and be ready when it's time. So how old were you when you decided you were probably going to go into the Army? It was pretty funny because here I'm in San Diego and we retired.

My dad retired and we went up to Lake Tahoe for a couple years and then so in my high school. And then my last year was down in Montereyade and in Pebble Beach at the school. And so I applied to West Point and did not get in and applied to ROTC. And back then, if you got an ROTC scholarship, every school that has ROTC rights you. So I felt like, you know, Tom Brady, everyone wanted me. And so I said to my dad, hey, Dad, University of California, Santa Barbara, I can play baseball down there. There's all kinds of, you know, good-looking girls down there. And he said, hey, I want you to take a look at this school in Charleston, South Carolina.

at Charleston. Yeah, it's a military school. I said, I got shoulder-linked there, man, I'm playing baseball. He said, you need to take a look at this. And so I said, nah, I'm going to go to UCSB, and he said, take a look at it again. And so didn't want to disappoint him, right? And so, and I said, you know, I loved it. In fact, when I was in Berlin, back then in Vietnam, if you were a great athlete, you were playing on the commanding general's football, full pad football, above the rim basketball and fast pitch baseball. And so I would talk to these 18, 19, 20 year old guys and say, shit, really? You don't ever put a uniform on except for sports?

And I said, Dad, I want to join the Army. I want to do that. So that was kind of in the back of my head knowing that that really wouldn't be that way. Though a lot of people who've known me for the 35 years that I served think that that's probably what I did anyways, a lot of time in the gym and a lot of time on the playing fields. but so I said okay I'll go to this military school for one year if I you know if it works out fine so what year what year was it that you graduated high school 75 75 so you had long hair and your dad was okay with that he was not uh what kind of music were you listening to just like the typical

70s rock yeah probably beach boys and eagles and and uh doobber brothers uh and and and he He convinces you to give one year shot at the Citadel. Yeah. Did you have any, when you went there, you know, a lot of times young men are impressed by the whole, the uniforms and the discipline, and they get a little bit excited about that thing. Did you have any of that, or were you just doing it to gratify the old man? You know, there's a lot of physical challenge there, too.

So I enjoyed, you know, the running and the obstacle courses and working out. and then some elite, you know, drill teams or other kind of teams trying out for those things. But what's funny is two years later, my brother goes to University of California, Santa Barbara. Oh, yeah, with a little brother. But the president of the Citadel was a guy named Cygnus, Lieutenant General, retired, and he had been the commanding general in Berlin. So they had me booked, you know, six years earlier that I was going to end up going to that school. Dang.

Yeah. And it worked out pretty good. You show up there, they shave your head the whole nine yards. Yeah. At the end of the first day, I'm rubbing a shaved head thing. And Dad won, Mike Zero. Let's see where this goes from here. Were you, you know, I was talking to people about the shock of boot camp and it's,

did you get that little shock of saying, what hell am I doing here? Not really. You were down. You were ready. Yeah. And then you go, what are you studying when you're in at the Citadel? I studied business, and, you know, mostly the management, leadership management side of it, it interested me, accounting. I didn't like that.

Not so much. And what about sports? Are you playing any sports? Ended up trying out for the baseball team and got a call back, and that was the first day we were allowed to go downtown Charleston. So, you know, the young women were like five for every cadet. And so I got this workout for the baseball career. Yeah, it became a huge intramural player. So they had sports all year around.

So I got to still get the bug. And you had a good experience overall at the Citadelho? Yeah, real good. Then what year did you get commissioned? 79. And did you, so when you're getting commissioned in 1979, what this is Jimmy Carter's president, what's the outlook?

on the military as you're going in. Low funding, probably recruiting trouble. I guess recruiting might not have been too bad because the economy was bad. Post-Fietnam, all the good NCOs and good officers, many, many had left service.

They've seen what combat is, like you said, about winners. So in the first couple years, most of the NCOs that I had were alcoholics and so all volunteer force just started and so that and the I ended up at a mechanized infantry in Fort Riley, Kansas and the Army back then had tiered readiness and so if you know 96 days get on a train go to Germany but if you're in the 82nd so you're level four so you're unfunded.

We had a rifle company with three platoons authorized, but only men for two platoons. So it was pretty bad until President Reagan came in and really, you know, resourced us. A couple big things happened in those first six years. When you, when you got commissioned, do you go straight to, do you go to the infantry officer's basic course? Is that what the pipeline was? It was, yeah. And how long was that school?

14 weeks. Are you feeling like you got a good education in that? I mean, I had James Webb on here who was in the Marine Corps Navy Cross recipient. And he was, went to the basic school, went to the Marine Corps infantry school, infantry leader school, got on a, had 12 days of leave, got on a plane, went to Vietnam, went out, they walked him out into the middle field, pointed up a ridge line and said, there's your platoon. He walked up there.

He said, who am I relieving? A sergeant said, I've been the platoon commander for the last, whatever it was. Our other platoon commander got wounded or killed. You're in charge. And that night they got in a big gunfight, and he was calling in air support. And I said, were you ready for that? And he said, yes. So at that time, you know, in the middle of Vietnam War, the Marine Corps was squared away at getting those guys ready.

You know, I've often looked at some of the training that I went through in the 90s. And thankfully, we didn't get thrown into war because we wouldn't have been ready for it. How did you feel that course prepared you? Then I think we would all say it prepared us to do a squad leader's job, not command of platoon in combat. Yeah. And that was going to be taught when you got to your first unit.

And if you had a squared away captain, you know, 03, then you was taught. And if you didn't, you're sorry. sergeants would probably bring you along if you're smart enough as an officer to listen then that's what happened to me like my captain was was horrible you show up your captain's hardable so now it's on the NCOs that are going to get you trained up we just kind of said hey we're in this one together let's you know let's get me get me trained I'll bring leadership and energy you know but what does bad leadership look for look like for a captain just for informational educational purposes when you say your captain was a bad leader

What was up with him? So I always tell everyone, Jocko, that, you know, you enter the service with your faith and your friends and your family and your integrity. And you should leave the service when someone tries to take that from you. And so my first captain was a liar and a cheater, and he would steal things. And he said, hey, take this truck to Topeka and trade everything that. that's in the back of the truck to the guy, and he's going to give you some stuff and put it in a truck and bring it back on Sunday.

I said, I'm not going. And he said, your career's going to end right here. I said, I'm ready for that. I'm ready for that, you know. There's nothing that you can do. There's nowhere I'm going to end up that doing this for you is going to, you know, make it right. So he said, get out, get out of here.

He called in another lieutenant. That guy took the truck. And it was a truck full of stolen goods or something? Yeah, yeah, you know, he would end up getting excess. He'd trade internally to get stuff. And then, you know, he stole a trailer. It was parked in the field. And he sent his supply guy, hey, go hook that up to our supply truck, bring him back.

Because he could trade that for someone who needed a trailer who had lost one. He's just a scumbag. Okay. So you're first. Yeah. What makes you decide you're going to stay in? I guess you had the family tradition, so there was no getting out. Well, you know, my mom was really strong, elegant woman from Boston.

And she would say, hey, if you don't like something, then, you know, get to the top and change it. And, you know, either. And then my father would probably add to that. If you walk out, who do you think is going to take care of those soldiers? So, you know, he would have supported me leaving at the end of the. the first four years. My high school best friend at about year 16 said, you've served 16 years for four years of college. You're a fool. I said, no, John, I stayed in because I like it. So that's your first job out there in Fort Riley, Kansas. Sounds like you're learning some lessons

of at least how not to act. Where do you go from there? Well, as you said, I went from the basic course to Fort Riley. They didn't allow my class to go to Ranger School. So here I am a lieutenant with no Ranger tab, and every, you know, payday breakfast, some general says, if you're an infantry guy and you don't got a Ranger tab, then you're not worth it. So I lived four years, and, you know, sort of a theme is wanted to go to West Point, didn't get in, went to second string, the Citadel, which none of my classmates would agree.

with that but but you know when you're 18 you're like oh gosh yeah damn it and then go to the basic course you know your dad is a paratrooper and and a distinguished soldier it's like okay I get my ranger tab and then get ready to go to combat no no ranger tab so so I came back to in 1983 went to and I'd been offered a bunch of company commands as a lieutenant you know stay here it's a captain's job but you got what it takes and I'd have I had to tell the battalion commander, I got to move on. It's a big army. You know, I got some things I got to fulfill.

So I went back and about eight captains and, again, the same number, 200. Lieutenant and young sergeants started Ranger School after the captain's career course. And only one graduate. Because it's too easy for them to say, hey, I've already, I've been out there. I've already led. I got good reports. You know, I can get what I need. Were you a captain yet when you went through range?

Ranger School that was yeah so you went through Ranger School as a captain what year was at like 1983 now we're talking 1984 something like that October 83 to January or December like did you prepare for Ranger School like nowadays people when they're going to some kind of selection they they go through a pretty they if they're smart they'll go through a pretty hardcore training regiment to get ready did you prepare training prepare for Ranger school I did and and I do you know Columbus Georgia you know August and July August June carrying a 80-pound rucksack sweating like you know and I was probably a whopping you know 138 pounder he'd be 142 you know and but other guys run a golf course and they're laughing and joking and you know

holding the beer up and they see me and my big black dog walking in Atlanta half you know I'd shoot an azimuth I'd say you know Hey, Kelly, go out there. Go, go, go, go, go. Sit. And then I'd walk to him and then send him again. Sit and all that. But then nightland navigation, you know, all the things, not time,

all the things that were going to come up. You know, you spend the time, you know. And so you were ready for it. What were the numbers that you just threw out there? You had how many people start this? Let's say probably 228. 228. And these were captains.

Only eight were captains. So only eight captains. So only eight captains had to. courage to try it again or try it because they already were comfortable, you know, complacency is a killer. Yeah, it is. And so in this case, we started and only I graduated, a guy named Danny Green was recycled. He later graduated, and all the others quit along the way.

And then of the 220 young officers, lieutenants and young sergeants, probably about 48 made it. So we probably had a graduation around 50 starting 228. What was the hardest part or the biggest challenge for you in Ranger School? I mean, if you were 138 pounds, I'm surprised you even lived through that once they cut your food off. Everyone was 138 at the end. So I didn't have, I lost probably about four pounds. And I saw big men lose, you know, lots. Part of it was, you know, I've been deployed with the unit from Fort Riley around the country.

and overseas, and I had done a lot of training. We ran a basic and AIT, advanced individual training. The Army had an idea, send them to the unit, and you train them up. So when I was going to Rainer School, I kept thinking, they got to have a safety net around here. We're going down this river. It's going pretty fast. So, you know, they got to have a first aid tent around here, you know, for hypothermia. So I had already been to support platoon leader and a battalion, you know, logistics officer.

So I was just kind of, and my Ranger buddy was Ed Ruiz, he was a staff sergeant from the 82nd Airborne, and he thought he was going to die. He's like, we're going to die. That was stuff. You know, and to me, I thought it was like, you know, Disney World. If you're taller than Mickey, you can get on this ride here. And so, man, I'm going to get five extra jumps. This is great.

And I literally would, you know, he would eat everything they gave them. They give you two meals for a day. three meals for two days. And I ended up just, my work was getting heavy with the, their sea rations. So my rock was getting heavy with extra chow. And then, you know, when he'd start whimper and I'd go, here you go, take this, here's, here's spaghetti, here's, you know, all that.

So, you know, everyone has a day or two that are bad days in ranger school. And if you have your ranger buddies, then they carry you through. And likewise, you do it for them. So, you know, to me, it was a leadership, you know, opportunity and just put one foot in that in front of the other. What was the most significant leadership lesson you took away from major school? You know, I think if you're not building teams, they're falling apart. That's a life lesson.

And so you're constantly trying to make the team stronger. You're going around and probably learned it because I thought that's probably the right way to do it. and then when you see it come together and you see that we can get through this together kind of thing, then you know. I serve with a lot of, those enlisted guys all went to

the Ranger battalions. So then when I started serving in the Rangers, there's all my Ranger buddies who are now, NCOs that know Captain Faraders, you know, he's legit. When you get done with that, what's your next duty station? I went up to Alaska and

and took it in Fairbanks, north of the Arctic Circle, ended up taking command of the parachute infantry company, Charlie Airborne. And we had 50 guys at a reunion. So from 1985, 50 guys still get together. In Fairbanks, Alaska and the Arctic, the Uke, they call it, it makes men. You know, they all come in, the skinny little legs and buck teeth and big ears and no neck. And if they carry their rucksack through the winter on snow shoes, they're tight, their tight group in hair studs.

They end up with a thick neck, big legs and smaller ears. Yeah, that's right. Exactly. It's all moving in the right directions. So now you're a company commander you said at that point. I am. And what was your, you know, what was your premise, you know, from a leadership perspective when you took company command, how did you, what was your first sit down with the troops?

What did you tell them? What was your kind of your principles of leadership? Somewhere along that time, I coined the idea, you know, or the motto, you know, we win together. And so it's pretty simple, but it's we and it's together. And it's about outcomes. And they all wore a maroon bray, you know, fancy hat. And they thought they were invincible. And I told them, you guys, you know, we don't live fire.

No one in the Army does. But I don't really care about that. I care about us. So first it was, you know, applied marksmanship. Basic Markmanship, then applied marketmanship. And I would challenge the NCOs, and the reason I think we're still together is, okay, let's figure it out. There are great shots in this world, and everyone in this company needs to do that. And we will walk everywhere.

So we'll parachute in, and we'll walk to the front gate. There's no buses coming to their drop zone. All right, we're going to be hard, you know, not full of ourselves, but, you know. And so that we challenged my best friend. company to a wrestling match. And so he got the NCO club, it was all kidded up. And when the first paratrooper got pinned by a non-airborne guy,

they couldn't believe it. It was like, wait a minute, we're Superman. We're airborne. It's okay, so now the hype and the reality, let's work on this here. So we got to maneuver live fire level. And they're just great. So the whole thing is, I think in life,

if you treat everyone like they're really wicked smart. And, you know, there were guys at the Citadel that we walk around like, you know, dumb privates, and then you'd see them on a basketball floor, and they are natural leaders. And those kind of observations taught me, you have no idea the fierceness in a platoon or a company, and you have no idea of the talent that's around you unless you let it come out. And so that's the way that I've done it my whole life. So then I get a call from the Department of the Army. Hey, you've been up there for three and a half years.

We got something for you. And I said, what do you mean? They said, we got a recruiting job down in San Jose. It's real close to your home. Or recruiting or reserve duty. And I said, the phone lines up here in Alaska are not that good. And I hung up. So I called down to the second Ranger battalion,

and I talked to a friend of mine named Bernie Champo. I didn't know him at the time, but he became a long friend. And I said, hey, I'm coming out of company command, and I'd like to come compete, trying to try out for a rangers. You're supposed to be the best, the best. And he said, man, you should have called a year ago. You know, we're booked way out. And I said, look, I'll fly down there.

I'll give it a try, whatever you want. He said, I can't help you. Then a guy quit. And so he had my name right there. So, you know, what is it? Wayne Gretzky says you miss every shot you never take. And so he calls up and says, hey, Mike, this is Bernie. If you can be down here and he's like, I'm standing next to him.

Here I am. So that worked out really well. Did you have to go through some kind of selection to be an officer in the Ranger regiment? Yeah, yeah. We called it rope back then, Ranger orientation program. Now they use RASP. Yeah, now they use RASP. Okay. Selection program. And how long was this selection program? Probably three weeks. And you were ready for that thing, even though you hadn't been preparing. You've been preparing just by being an infantry company commander up in Alaska, hump in a rock and doing what you're doing. And wrestling against the legs. Yeah, that's right. Exactly. And again, I'm the basketball player and the baseball player, not a, not a lot of.

grappler yet. So that's what's really unique about. So yeah, so it, you know, combat water survival test, which is, you know, simple. I grew up water skiing and playing around. And then shoot and then 12 mile foot march, five-mile run in 35 minutes. And so you the idea was one, it was an orientation program because they wanted you to know how to tie your gear down, where it goes, see all the weapons that you're going to see when you get there. But also to know that if you take that, the day you arrive, they go on a 20 foot march, you can do it.

And first of it's just an investment and good, you know, people management. You don't want to waste time bringing someone in and then have them to flop out because they're just not fit. So you get a sign that. you get assigned to the Ranger Regiment. I do. As far as I can tell, and I was in the Navy, obviously,

and I worked with the Marines a lot. I worked with the Army on deployment. I work with the Marines on deployment. But, and, you know, I work with Special Forces. I work with Marsoc. I've worked with kind of a bunch of different units. I've worked with Rangers before. I lived next Rangers.

But from what I could tell on the outside looking in, it seems like Ranger Regiment is kind of the most Spartan of the units out there in terms of the day-to-day life of being a Ranger. And I've also been told this by friends that were in Rangers at Ranger Battalion. The life that you lead there is like you're a Ranger, that's it, nothing else. And what we're going to do is be in the field and we're going to train. And there's a lot of young kids there. It's a very young group, you know, because you can go right out of high school, the training. You didn't have to go to a ranger school to go to ranger battalion. Right.

You can just go through that two or three week thing and boom, you're now at a ranger, in a ranger battalion. What was, tell me a little bit about the day-to-day life of being in a ranger battalion. Yeah, I was, it's, so the day-to-day lifestyle. started on Sunday where you got a high and tight haircut every Sunday. And so, you know, you either had a flat top or you had, it looks like a divot from a golf course landed on top of your head. And so everybody starts right there. Everybody carried a range of coin. If you didn't have your coin, you get smoked, you know, or you buy beer for somebody.

So getting smoked is you're actually like doing pushups and PT like you're in boot camp. Yeah. So that kind of thing doesn't happen in it doesn't happen in the SEAL teams. That's for sure. Like no one's going to make you do pushups when you're in the SEAL teams though you might if you do something really stupid, you might get slapped around you you might get actual duty assignments, but you're not you're not walking around this. There's no there's no feeling of boot camp whatsoever when you're at a SEAL team. Yeah. Yeah. Ranger Regiment is not like that. You there definitely is a boot camp feeling. Yeah, you don't want it. So I ended up commanding a company, being a battalion S3, being the regimental S3, commanding a Ranger battalion. You've seen it at every level. Yeah, except for the regimental commander. Jack. But there's a rites of passage. You know, every officer who serves in the Ranger Regiment has already done the job.

So I commanded the Parachute Company. I come back and command a Ranger Company. The commanded a parachute battalion in the 82nd, came back and commanded. Oh, God. That's smart. Italian S-3 in the 9th Infantry Division, and then battalion S-3 for third-range battalion. In the platoon, there are echelons. I joke about, you know, you just love it when a new private comes in because he gets the green scrub pad and you get the buffer, right?

And so you're no longer sticking your hand in the toilet cleaning it, right? But until the Ranger gets to Ranger school, he's a lesser. Now, they'll fight, you know, in a bar together, they'll take care of them. They'll fight in combat together. But there's, you know, I have gone to Ranger School. I'm a corporal E4 or I'm a Sergeant E5, and you have not. And you're a specialist that came from Korea, and we're the same E4. You're not the same.

So it starts there in terms of the Spartan life. The, you know, the officer is supposed to eat last, you know, make sure the troops the Rangers got their chow and that kind of thing. But everyone has to meet that standard. And so if a guy falls out of a run, falls out of a foot march, then the Army gave summary release authority to the Ranger Battalion. And so you get dropped. And they send down to legland or send down to ninth infantry division

or 24th infantry division back in those days. and so you had to stay on it and you had to learn to play hurt and so you're jumping and walking through the night and falling in things and you know if you got hurt and the wounded wildebeest kind of syndrome you know

the lion see the one that's limping and you know they'll go after the NCOs or someone will go after someone that's can't keep up and so it's a good it's a good tough life yeah so you get you get a hair cut on Sunday you get a high and tight

on Sunday night Monday morning aren't you going in the field all the time don't they spend a ton of time in the field? Yeah and they'll go so first

of all there's no other than combat prep there's no picking up trash that's what the divisions you know on the same post we'll do a rotation of stocking the shelves in the commissary

being the gate guards and all that rangers don't Don't do that. And so instead it's probably in a raffle company, probably Tuesday morning out, Thursday evening back, or through the two weeks, a Thursday back, weapons cleaning then late into that night, weapons cleaning the next day,

hang your boots to dry somewhere, and then get a haircut. Yeah, and most guys don't spend more than one tour at Ranger Battalion. Is that accurate or inaccurate? No, the, the, I was at, where was I? I think I was at either Bragg or Benning. And there was a guy who looked like he was made of, you know,

leather and freaking muscle. He looked like he might have been 45 or 50 years old. He's in the commissary. And he's wearing like his ranger panties and like a ranger t-shirt. And I'm like, this guy is, 100% Ranger. You know, he's, and I've always, I've always heard that most guys they do like, maybe,

maybe four years hitch there, maybe they'll do one more, but then they move on because the lifestyle is just so Spartan. The senior NCOs will stay. And a lot of guys will go from private to platoon sergeant, the same platoon, you know, 15 years. That's awesome. Yeah. And then some leave. If someone messes up, then like I said, they'll get dropped from rules.

A release for standards, RFS. And you can tell them, hey, you can come back. You know, six months, you can come back to this unit and never do. Once they get to the soft life, they're not coming back. They're not. But it's very close and tight. Because, you know, you've got this kind of caste system, but it's also, it's a brotherhood like none other. Yeah, no.

Salute the Rangers. Every time I work with the Ranger, you know what you're going to get. You're going to get a 100% professional soldier that's ready to do the job anytime, anywhere. Outstanding. What was, from a leadership perspective, what did you take away from the Rangers as a leader? So it probably came out of there with what I would call my command philosophy. which is funny because my son Patty commanded the same Ranger company that I did

and the only time in history that a father's son command the same Ranger company and he wrote me and said many years later some 2006 he wrote hey dad I've written my command philosophy at six pages would you read it and tell me what you think I said no I won't read it

and no one else will either I was going to read six pages I said he's well what's yours I said it's easy I've had it since Bravo Company 275 one is do your best do what's right improve daily

build teams take care of a little guy or show that you care and never quit and so I kind of came out of there with if you're not doing that then you're probably falling behind and as an older guy that's an older officer

or as a general you know I would tell everyone do your best means don't try to be the best because the team suffers when you try to advantage yourself. You know this. And then do what's right. Be true to your wife and leave everyone else's alone. And they all look at that.

And I said, this is not a religious thing, man. This is you're going to ask them to go up that hill. You're going to ask them to leave the airplane in combat. They trust you. And too many senior officers and senior NGOs, you know, they cheat on their wives. They think it's no big deal. And now the truth goes, you guys fake, you know. he lies to her then can allow to anybody right and then the rest is about the building of the team and and when I was in Alaska this guy

finance officer I pulled him through the cage in the finance building because this private from Charlie airborne got a no pay due so I'd hear him in the first earn's office saying Jones says no pay due all right send him over to finance next morning. No pay due means he's not going to get any money. Yeah. Okay. And so the next day I hear Jones's voice first sergeant, I know, you know, June's starting in there. So I'm listening. Well, he didn't have enough copies when he went over there for finance. I kicked him back. So now he's got four copies. Okay. So then the next day I hear his voice, he signed the copies in blue ink. And at that point I said, that's enough. So I said first word, I said, no.

This guy's wife thinks he's an idiot because he's working for free. So I go into financing the captain there. What's my next door neighbor? His name's Art. I said, hey, Art, my private's no pay due. He's been in here. This is a fourth day in a row. And he said, oh, gosh, we can fix that.

What was the problem? Well, you didn't have enough copies. Yeah, you got out four copies. You've got a copy machine right there. Number two, he signed it in blue. Yeah, we got 100%. You know, no deficiencies noted in our inspection. At that point, I grabbed it.

I'm going to kick your butt in front of all your troops right here. Are you going to pay this kid right now? You know that. That word gets through that the boss is going to stand up for us. And I think that's what we're supposed to do. So that's what I really learned in those first two company commands. When you were at Ranger Battalion, are you going on deployment anywhere? Or do you just, were you just staying in Fort Lewis?

Yeah, we traveled the world. Okay. Yeah. Back then, we had jungle training in Fort Sherman, Panama. So every year you go there, you'd go up into the Arctic, Fairbanks, or Fort Richardson, or Norway or something like that. And then we do a long-in-flight rig, parachute rig, and then parachute into Germany and move for three days and nights. And then attack bad tolls as was an Army airfield. there, went up to Boise, Idaho, jumped in the desert.

We would go quite a bit. So you'd just go on big training operations and get back, square your gear away, get ready, go do it again. Go to the field. And then once every eight weeks, you take two weeks stand down, and then twice a year you take two weeks of block leave. The whole unit shuts and goes. Squared away.

Rangers don't play around. So what'd you do when you got done with this tour of the Rangers? I had to go next door and be in the motorized infantry, and then Desert Shield, Desert Storm kicked off. And then I went to Command General Staff College. And then when I was in Commander General Staff College in 91, 92, but the regimental commander came to interview, and we had about 20 Ranger Company, former company commanders in the course.

And the word out was, these guys, this guy and this guy were going back to the regiment as majors. And so I thought, well, if they've already picked. But I stopped by to see the Colonel and General Buckermanian. What's the regimental commander? He said, oh, God, glad to see. I heard you were going to go to the 101st, but I got a spot for you. said, shit. I'm here, sir, let's go.

When the Gulf War went down, where were you? Were you in the command and general staff college? Yeah, how pissed off were you during that time? Me and whatever it was, 600, you know, pissed off captain promotables or majors. Yeah. People tried to call back, tried to go back to their unit. And, you know, back in those days, a war lasted, you know, a weekend. Yeah, that one did last, what, 72 hours or 97?

six hours or something like that. Yeah. Grenada was that way. Trust cause was out. Oh yeah, Grenada too. Did you go to, did you go to Grenada? No, I was in Ranger school during Grenada. And then what about Panama? I gave up the Ranger Company and six months later Panama.

Oh, man. Yeah. So one of the things that I would say to you and for this podcast is there's, there's a lot of times that you don't get what you think is supposed to happen in life, you know? And like the Lord is your assignment officer, you know. And, you know, I should have been. It's not a good way of look at life. It's, you know, look through the windshield and not the rearview mirror

and make something of what's in front of you. It's kind of what I would tell people. So didn't get West Point, went to Cotech, didn't get Ranger School, got the weapons puttoon. Didn't get a rifle platoon. So when I went to Ranger School, I was like a blank disc. You know, so many teach me how to maneuver because I've been shooting mortars, you know, then got up to Alaska, got the airborne company, got Bravo company in the Rangers. And it didn't get to go.

But in each case, you got to, you know, go with purpose. Do your best. Do it try. Take care of somebody. And things will start to work out. Yeah. Well, in those days, it was just a. roll the dice whether you're going to get to go to war or not.

And in those days, you might be in a unit where you know you are not going to go. And so you still had to motivate the troops or some of them didn't want to be motivated. There in those days, we invented something called the urinalysis. They didn't have it prior to 83. And so, you know, had drug use and stuff like that. And suddenly now you know who is and then you could punish them or correct them and all that. So the Army changed a lot from 79 to, you know, 94. So after college, and what did you learn there?

I mean, what were you learning? What was your main takeaways that you got out of going to the two years of command and general staff college? It's one year. Okay, one year. Yeah. Someone told me that the next 10 to 15 years of service will be with this group. So knowing that there are people who are not infantry and they're squared away, they're smart, you know. And up until then, you've kind of been sequestered into all-male infantry units.

And one thing, I never left the infantry battalion until I made colonel. And that's pretty rare. And so I was always finding a way, you know, to get back and different kind of infantry maybe, and then back to the Rangers. and then 82nd Airborne and then back to the Rangers. So then that's what happens. They had a slot for you back at the regiment?

Yeah, first at regiment. And then General Grange or Colonel Grange made me the battalion or the regimental S5, which could be civil military affairs, but actually it was, I want you to create the Ranger monument at Fort Benning. I want you to create the Ranger monument at Fort Benning. I want you to create the,

James Dietz Prince. I want you to create the pavers and all that stuff. And so he went to go worldwide because we'd been left out of Desert Shield Desert Storm except for one Ranger company from First Ranger. Schwarzkopf didn't like the Rangers. And he had been at Fort Stewart. And so he probably felt that they were cremedanhas. and so for whatever reason the rangers didn't get a lot of action

and so General Grange's then Colonel Grange's view was I'm going to go to each of the combatant commands and then arrange for an exercise so we'll be used and then he came he would come back and he asked the communication officer there's these kind of radios Delta Force has these kind of radios and he'd come back said what's the word on the radios and the guy go I can't I didn't make any progress and then go to this guy you know, this kind of supply stuff, we needed this kind of rapid deployable parachute

thrown out from a helicopter, no action. Then he came to me, and I said, here's the print, you know, this print is that here's the sketch, and met with these guys from Florida and that. And so in 69 days at the regimental level, I was then sent down the third battalion where everyone wants to be in a battalion. So it's the shortest. I think I was hailed in farewell to the same social level. it. And so now you get into the battalion and what are you doing? Offs there? Yeah, we have an extra

field grade in the range battalions who does the special ops liaison and coordination. So for one, and you're really schooling yourself on on what the other S3, what the S3 is going to do and you're probably the error apparent. So I saw as the L&O and after year I moved into the S3 job. And then my battalion commander and another range of battalion commander were killed in a helicopter crash in the Great Salt Lake on October 29th in 1992. So then Danny McKnight came and took over 3rd Ranger Battalion. And he led third into Mogadishu with Bravo Company. And they worked with the Joint Special Operation Task Force there. he was not half the man of Colonel Conelli.

And I think it had a lot to do with a lot of problems in the street there. And, you know, when you think about the lieutenant colonel, they're still pretty young. But when you're a captain and a major, you expect a lot from them. And if he's a ranger, commander, you expect a lot. So I was asked to be the chief of staff of the Army's aid to camp. And so where were you when did you deploy to Somalia then? I did, but I deployed after the big fight. Got it.

So I brought Alpha Company and A Squadron forward from Delta Force. And we had trained. We were going to be the replacement in October 3rd had the big fight. And we arrived October 4th at about 6 at night. And then we did patrols, got Mike Durant back. And then, and then the president, President Clinton struck a deal with ID and we thought we just lost six of our buddies. Gordon Shugart lost, you know, Sergeant Cleveland, who was a pretty good friend. I did a lot of missions with a task force 160 and he was dragged through the streets.

And then you see, you know, just giving up. So I'm very proud of the Rangers. I think Ranger Scotty Miller, who retired as a four-star, was the captain on the ground for the Delta Force, and a great friend and a great, great, great officer, person. I think any other unit in the Army that day would have been killed to the man. And what Bravo Company and elements of Task Force Ranger did was amazing, remarkable, and, you know, courageous beyond description.

What was the, when you, so you land on four October. What was the atmosphere when you get there? Yeah, it's really, really eerie, sullen. We got mortared that night, and we, one guy killed, and Dr. Marsh, task force doctor, wounded badly, gris Martin was killed. He had been a second-range battalion guy and did a long walk and joined the guys of brag.

But it was eerie. There was sort of this rationalization that had occurred that the Ranger standard didn't have to be followed because we're hanging out with these cool guys. And I felt we sent my colonel there ill-equipped to command because he didn't have his staff. And so I felt when I got there that, I assume that role of leadership again to get the rating standard back up to speed.

And I mean, I hadn't even sandbagged, you know, the place they were living in. And they were just kind of playing volleyball and hanging out and then going on missions and stuff. And then, you know, we lost six guys. And it means a lot to all these guys and to me. Yeah, it was obviously just Just horrible I was I was in the SEAL teams at that time and we were all just Why didn't have it? We had to rant on on the podcast and it was so

So So surreal to be sitting across talking to him when you know like I said I was in the SEAL teams and we're watching you know seeing the videos of him and watching him get dragged through the streets and watching the videos that got posted or that were on the news and and you just think this guy, you want to do everything you can't help him. And obviously I'm like in, I was in San Diego. You know, I mean, we're not going to get to do anything to help him out. But yeah, what a, what a tough fight in a tough situation.

And so when you get done with that, what's your next job after that? When I became the regimental operations officer, we planned Haiti. and I got ready to go into Haiti and then I think General Powell and a few others went down there and brokered a piece. So we were rigged on the airplane. Clamshel.

We were three hours from jumping into combat. Clam shell. And then actually that night, my mom passed away. So she had cancer. And so an Air Force tactical air control guy drove me from Savannah to a Ford bedding room. I met my wife and Margaret

linked up with Margie and then she put a man to play out to Monterey to settle the estate. So the whole time period was from Kenile Dine, Mogadishu, Haiti, my mom passing and then one month later I take battalion command at Fort Bragg.

And it probably was kind of numb for about six months. Someone told me once. And you know, you got that smile back. You got that sparkle back. I didn't know it was gone. Yeah. You must have been quite focused when you showed up. Where did you do your first battalion command?

It was Ford Bragg and 2nd Battalion 504th parachute infantry. And with the 82nd? With the 82nd. First brigade commander was John Abizaid. really great officer. And the second one is the famous Dave Petraeus. So, General Petraeus and I would race each other. And so the other battalion commanders, when then Colonel Petraeus would come out in the morning and look around, we'd all be stretching and they'd run and hide behind the bushes or their barracks. And so he would say, white devil six, let's go for a run.

And I said, all right, sir. So then we'd go two miles out and then come back. And at the beginning of the fourth mile, we'd race. And so I think he's probably got me by about three. But I say, hey, sir, if you want to play one-on-one basketball first, you know, you want to wrestle? You want to do anything else? So we had a lot of fun when he would come to Iraq later. I would tell my, we're going to get a call tomorrow night at 2,300 to meet with General Petraeus at 04.

He's like, sir. You know, so we learned to take a day off before the race the next day because he would try to sneak in there and know you probably smoked yourself the day before. So when you're doing the battalion command now at the 82nd, are you guys doing a workup cycle where you're training? and then you're moving to a higher state of readiness? Is that what you do in the Army? I'm in the Navy, so our cycle was always, and it's the same with the ships, and the Marine Corps falls into this too.

They do kind of what the Navy does, which is get ready to go on deployment, and then you board ships and you go on deployment. And the SEAL teams, you get ready to go on deployment. Sometimes we board ships. Sometimes we just fly to another place, and we stay on deployment for six months. That's sort of the methodology of the Navy

and methodology of the Marine Corps, too. When you're at 82nd and there's no war going on, What do you do? Yeah, you have three cycles. Division, ready force one, two, and three. If you're in two, that's the intensive training cycle. And if you're good at it, then before you enter two, you've done your basic marksmanship of all weapons.

So now you can go straight into collective training. And then at the conclusion of that eight-week cycle, really field time, then you become ready force one. on and all your vehicles are rigged up to be para dropped all your ammo is ready to go so you're basically on standby at that point yeah and then um if you're on three you can take your block leave or you're picking up trash and you know stashing shelves into commissary and stuff you legit do that soldiers legit do that stock shells in the commissary mm-hmm I did not know that I don't think anyone in the Navy stock shelves in the in the commissary in the Navy.

I don't think so. Yeah. I could be wrong. Yeah. But at least in the SEAL teams, we didn't. I don't know. Yeah, when you try, you know, when you're a new officer, the first time in the 82nd, and you try to tell a Sard Major, my guy shouldn't be stocking shells.

That dog doesn't hunt very long in the 80 seconds. What did you take away from General Abizaid and Colonel Petraeus at that time? Well, so attributes were, they're very focused. One intensely focused, General Petraeus, the other focused and very cordial, very friendly. One very good listener, one a pretty good listener. And so what I, in seeing as... Who was the very good listener? Who was the pretty good listener? General Abizaid was a very good listener. He's just curious as heck.

And General Petraeus was prone to, I think he, if he knew what he wanted, then he didn't need to listen as much. you know, you just had to be a little smoother at bringing up, you know, sort of be helpful and useful if maybe, you know, those kind of discussions. I have great relationship with both of them, really great, but they're a little different leaders. When, as a battalion commander, what did you take away as a leader? Did you make any big mistakes? Did you have any huge lessons learned as a battalion commander?

So the first was understanding really, you know, who did you need to own their heart? What level did you need to own their heart to know that the unit would do anything for you? So at a company level, you know all 180 guys, 160 or whatever, you know. And if you get the E4 Mafia kind of with you, then the companies can do anything. And at the Staff Sergeant and Sergeant and Sergeant E5, right in the

in the middle of that was where the battalion commander. So how do you get that? Well, you got to run PT with them. You know, you got to roll with them. You know, you got to be on that foot march when they step off for the expert infantry badge. You know, not only do you step off, but you beat everybody on a 12-mile foot march. So they know. They know he can do it.

You stand up to the brigade eight commander when they, you know, somebody's ragging on. your guys you go, sir, it's not your job. You run a brigade, I'll run a battalion. And I got this. So you got to earn their trust. So I think I learned that when you can do that, then you can do anything. Then what was the, so you just were telling me that the, you do in Rangers, you already did the job somewhere else. So now did you go? Is this when you did Battalion Commander at Rangers after that? Yeah, I went down to Ford Benning from Bragg at that time and took third range battalion. And this is what, 1996, 1997 timeframe? Yeah, it's 96 to 98. And this is where you get your introduction to Jiu-Jitsu, am I correct? It is. And what was that introduction like?

It happened this way, what it was like, it was awesome, but it happened this way. Then-Curnell, McChrystal, Stan McChrystal, asked me, hey, what do you think about bringing these guys Hoist Gracie and Horian Gracie? And in training year sergeants, this idea of hand-to-hand or combatants. And I said, well, sir, what's that going to cost me? And he said, it's $40,000 for two weeks. Well, we didn't even have night scopes on all of our machine guns in 96. I said, sir, I'd rather to take the money and put it in the scopes, you know.

And he said, okay, good, good. You're going to do it. I just want to know how you felt about it. So that's all right. So then within a week or two, I walk into the Range of Nine facility, and there's these two guys sitting at the table, somebody introduces them to me. And, you know, I'm looking at a horse creek this close.

I'm thinking, I wonder what do you do if I slapped him right now? I didn't slap them. I was going to say, I actually do know what he did. And now we all know that. But they introduced ground fighting in the form of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. And I asked him, you know, why are you winning? And he said, you know, our father took a Japanese style of fighting and put the Brazilian side on it. And we can win and we will win.

So our recurring theme is to trust and super backup your non-commissioned officers. And so we set up the training and then we purefleated it. And right as I started to understand it, then the Army sent me to Boston. So went up there, went into Kenny Florian's place once or twice. and I trained with his brother Keith about two months ago. It was a pretty good, pretty awesome time. So third-range battalion is where combatants was introduced. I went to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Tufts University.

As I was joking, I said, I was a senior national defense fellow, so let's show a little respect around here with the title. But then when I came back, there's another one that was example. there's a lot to talk about Third Range Battalion and Lerns and live fires and guys getting killed and hurt and training.

Is that during live fire evolutions? Guys getting killed? At a demo range we had someone put P for plenty. You know, just trying to, let's get rid of it all. They do a dirt cloud of clay in the air that was a size of a piano or something

and landed on guys that were behind them. Yeah. But, you know, you learn when you're doing these things, that it's dangerous. And if you do what's right, go back to that one, you're going to be okay. If you're with the right people, you're going to be okay. But when you do something wrong. What did the investigation on that look like?

I mean, what was the, if you're talking to a young soldier right now, a young ranger right now, what would they take away from that? there was negligence and you know the master breacher was found was court marshaled and departed the army and what was he what was his thought process just uh bigger boom not not trying to be show off you but more like look if we continue to do this we're going to be here till 10 at night so then let's put it all in the hole just get out of here no kidding how much explosives uh i don't you know i let me make the one correction. I was that that happened when I was the S3 and and I was in Mogadishu when it happened. So, um, so I got investigated for having signed off on the, uh, the range request and then deployed.

And so then the OIC and the NCOIC were the ones that were found responsible. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then what other, what other major takeaways did you have from battalion command at Ranger Regiment. You guys, you talked about live fire. Yeah. What was, how much live fire would you guys do?

Live fire maneuver. Well, we did a lot. We did, we did company live fires. So in that train-up for the Rangers to take the mission in a similar way as in the 82nd, we would always do a joint readiness exercise, which meant we had helicopter assets

from the 160th and from Air Force. were special ops and you had gunships. And then, you know, sometimes it would be, there's a special forces location in Copa, Peru. So we rebuilt it to seize it back should, was a shining path or whatever. If they had taken it, then we would live fire take it back. So it's always built around some kind of ongoing.

actual objective out there. Yeah, yeah. And then again, you want range of platoons to be the best platoon size element that can overwatch, support by fire, breach, assault, consolidate, you know, can breach any kind of fence door, whatever. And so you string a lot of the blocking and tackling and then you put it into a concept.

Which is interesting because, A lot, in a 20-year war, which we call this one, we're just finishing up, we're still working on. A lot of our officers are sort of like latch, you know, latch key kids, they, everything's been given to them. They haven't had to conceptualize, visualize, conceptualize, put it together, and understand angles and, you know, moving force, stable. force. So I think we learned a lot about that. Also, in range of battalion command, now you one, you have to know things about three levels up. When you're a company commander, you've got to sort of know what the battalion commander thinks. As soon as you get to battalion, then suddenly it's J-Soc and all the assets. It's, you know, combatant command and their SIF forces,

counterterrorist forces, host nation, and partner nations. So there's a lot of that. I think the biggest thing is just how smart the ranger officers and the senior NCOs are. That's when you realize, oh, my goodness. I had four company commanders, one of whom is Eric Corella now a four-star. They were all West Point classmates, and they're great guys. but they're so smart

and they would vote as a block so they'd come walking in the office and now here we go all right but if I needed to do anything I would say to to Jeff Martindale is Eric doing okay

seems going to droopy these days and a minute later Eric being my door sir I'm good to go so I think you know you learn that that they're not as experienced

but they're you find out that wow these guys are really smart and the senior NCOs you know, probably all NCOs, but you get to see it at the senior level. You know, really smart. You know, from a training perspective in the,

I grew up in the 90s in the SEAL teams, and we did live fire everything. I mean, we did live fire everything. In fact, that was pretty much the only way we trained was live fire. We did live fire Iads. We did live fire Iads at night. We did live fire CQC all the time.

That's what we did. Blanks kind of wasn't even a thing. And I would, you know, hear about the Army, hear about the Marine Corps, and they'd be talking about using blanks. I mean, I would personally, my own ego would be like, well, you know, it's so lame that they're doing blanks. And we just did live fire everything.

Everything, everything was live fire. Didn't even think about it. It wasn't even a question what we were doing. We were doing live fire. But in the 2000s, we started actually using both sim munition and we had a better form of miles gear that was very high speed and very, very realistic. And we started using that and all of a sudden it made us so much better.

Both those things made us so much better. And we do less live fire than we used to, but we're a lot better because now we go against an enemy that's maneuvering and shooting back at us and killing us and we're having down men and all that stuff. And then when I ran training, I was really focused on that force on force training. Did you guys see that? Did you see that kind of transition as well? We did. And especially going back and forth from big army to the Rangers, you would see. and the advent of the combat training centers,

Joint Readiness, National Training Center, and the CMTC over in Germany, now you had a world-class opt-for. And that's what took the army out of the doldrums of post-Vietnam to suddenly everyone's getting their ass kick. You got to fight. You got to know what you're doing. Yeah.

And so then it's like, and then you have world-class observer controllers that are saying, you know, you're the 14th iteration that I've seen, you're not that good. Yeah. And not publicly, but off the side. And it's, you know, someone's the same rank,

they're saying, you know, your planning's not that good, your communication's not that good. Your actions on the director aren't that good. So, you know, here's your take-home packet, or you get better. And then you got a mission in two days. You know, you didn't rehearse anything.

Get you guys out and rehearse. When did they stand up that in TC? see. And was it in the 2000s? No, no, no, no. It was, it was, it, it was, 80. Oh, okay. So they've had it for a while.

Yeah. The Army brought in the combat training center, the Black Hawk, the M1 tank, and the Bradley, all within a five-year span. That's a big transition. Yeah. All right. So you get done with school, you're up there, and then you come. Where do you go back? When you get done with that, where do you go?

Yeah. So, you know, God had decided that I was a ranger with a capital R, so I should probably command the 75th Ranger Regiment. Didn't happen. So they sent me to the 11th Infantry, which is the school brigade. And, you know, talk about humility, you know, having to suck it up. And, like, oh, my God, you know. Command a Ranger Company, Parachute Company, Parachship Battalion, Ranger Battalion, Ops.

And then a training regiment. And then training. And so I had officer candidate school, infantry officer, basic course, jump school, the captain's advanced course or career course, and then a battalion of dogs and cats. Now, if you're, we had a little issue with this in the seal. We used to have an issue with this in the SEAL teams where no one wanted to go to training. And especially the advanced training, what we now call training detachment, but it used to be called training cell, where you're actually training the platoons that are going to go,

Work and You learn so much there number one, but number two It's real it seems real obvious that you would want to take your best guys and put them where they're training the other guys as opposed to taking the turds And putting them in charge of training So did you were you able to make that mind shift after you got assigned to the training and realize you're gonna have an impact on a bunch of people that are coming through training including the basic infantry officers course? Yeah, yeah right away And probably in July of 99, I was, you know, moping around. And my wife would normally say, okay, moping time's over. You know, what are we going to do with this?

And so the entire generation that fought in Iraq and Afghanistan started underneath me, started the captains. I wouldn't allow the captains to stay more than 11 months in any job. so they had to go back to their divisions. Otherwise, they were going to be dead into water. They wouldn't make major. And so all these guys that learned how to train, had first sergeants were running training companies. They were in the first wave of captains,

and many of them are two and three star generals now and all that. So big impact. And then also I got called up to a four-star's office, Trey-Dak commanding general's office, and he said that, okay, you got the lieutenant, course they're too soft the lieutenants are a bunch of wimps you know all they do is powerpoint they that you know once you do a quick study come back here in three weeks and tell me how you're going to change the training for all the officers in the army so um so we found out we did analysis real

quick and found out that of the 16 basic branches only four qualified with the basic with a rifle uh were out of how many out of 16 branches which is, I think it was artillery, infantry. Engineers? Engineers and armor. And everyone else might fire a weapon, might not. Right. And so this is before 9-11.

So I designed the course with a couple of the sergeants and a couple of officers. And we did the same thing we did in the Rangers. It's like, okay, Monday, you're going to the field. And then you're going to shoot. every week that you're in the basic course. We purefleated that, and then the cultures of the other branches,

about three years after I left, you know, went to their generals of quartermaster or generals of finance or whatever and got away. But I also saw the opportunity to insert combatives into every course. And I had to fight, you know, the big organization, they're like,

you can't do combatives you don't have. The manual says you, you should have a fair brain knife and, you know, fight like the Brits did in World War II. So we rewrote the T.C. that you talked about. And the credit goes to Matt Larson and Troy Thomas. Troy just retired us with Tenne Colonel. Matt, Longfran, and Black Belt under Chauquay. They did the hard work. I did the review and all that. And then they said, you can't do it because you don't have any master trainers. master training course. You can't do it because you don't have a facility. I traded two pallets of MREs for the book warehouse. And this guy was a deer hunter who was the post-ops guy, the military

post. And I said, hey, Colonel Jordan, I give you, what do I have to give you to get the book warehouse? He says, well, a bunch of MREs would be helpful because I'm out on. So in OCS, when they finished their last training exercise, they just throw MREs into the basement. It's a big room. So we bundled them up and traded. And then we went to two different high schools and got the first wrestling mats. We piece it together. So, you know, again, the lesson learned is reject rejection. And if you know it's right.

And then even several of the course directors didn't want their lieutenants, captains, or officer candidates rolling around on the mats. Who says that? What kind of human being? What kind of soldier says, hey, I don't want my troops to learn combatives? That seems insane to me. It was. It was.

And so you just play through them. And the captains would sneak down there. And again, all of them ended up being combat commanders as captains and majors and battalion commanders in combat. And they all got it. And our NCOs got it right away. It's at the staff sergeant level. They got it right away. And those were all command serge majors and, you know, division and sergeant, the Army level.

And what years is this? This is like around 2000 that all this is happening? Yeah. How long did it take you to get that manual? The first combatants. I think we published it by, I took over July of 99, probably by July of 2000. Then where are you at when September 11th happens? I was standing outside Admiral Natter's office at Joint Forces Command in North Fork, Virginia.

And we were about to go to up to I. Iceland to do there we had an air base up there that we were responsible for and we were just he was just going to go do a European tour or something sort so I was in the brief from on the trip and he and boom we see the first plane on his TV boom the next and I'd been assigned there four weeks maybe came out of brigade command again supposed to go to the Pentagon supposed to go to joint staff ended up in Norfolk what's the mission of joint forces command it was the idea of Secretary Rumsfeld that we needed an honest broker to select to use the Navy's global force present posture presence to use the idea of the MU rotation to division rotations brigades aviation he sort of saw that's some that we were we needed some broad coordination between all the services and the whole supply chain and all that It was a big time disruptive innovation.

Nobody liked Joint Forces Command. Nobody. And so, you know, so you go down. Everyone wants to stay in their silo. They do. Yeah. We're happy. No one bothers us.

We called Norfolk the colonies. We'd go up to the Pentagon and say, we're going back down to the colonies. You know, so. But so I was there and then, and I'm sitting there thinking, I'm going to miss another damn war. I cannot believe this. How can I be in the Army all this time? And everyone's deploying.

And then I'm the deputy, J3. preparing the deployment order for every unit in the military. And I'm thinking, oh, shit. And then, so I'm there until 2004. So from 9-11 to 2004, watching everyone go to war. And then someone said, you know, you'll make general if you can get your boots dirty. And, you know, everything's good except for you. So then General Honor and General Vines, J.R. Vines, pulled me out of there and sent me to be the assistant division commander.

And I had in Iraq, I had all the MPs, all the aviation, all Pops, Civil Affairs, and Army's Hoff. And so I went everywhere. On the road, a street that I didn't drive on. What year was that? 2005. Okay. And what was your, explain what your job was? They had these separate brigades that would rotate in.

And there wasn't a division headquarters on top of them a two star and there wasn't a one star. And so they were kind of just running their own thing. What each brigade combat team was? They were aviation brigades. Okay. And military police brigades. Got it. Got it.

Okay. And so I became the sugar daddy for them. And how long was that first deployed? women over there that was just under six months one night long and then what was your what was your what were you what was your what was your what was your what was your view point of the war look you watch the thing happened you're kind of detached the first three years of the war actually first four years of the war you're seeing the direction that it's going you know actually I was just talking

about on this podcast yesterday with a guy who was with me in the Battle of Vermont Leif and I was saying we're not winning. We're losing this war. This was now in 2006. A lot of people weren't saying that. A lot of people were like, oh, yeah, we're winning. Well, my battalion did this many missions.

That must mean we're winning. And my brigade did this many missions. That must mean we're winning. And we caught this many bad guys. That must mean we're winning. And so we're winning. And there was a lot of that going on. Were you seeing that when you headed over there?

Did it look any different when you got on the ground? Were you starting to question whether we were winning or not? Yeah, I'd agree with you. I think, first of all, you saw a lot of transactional leadership. In other words, we've got this units in. We own this piece of ground, and we're out of here on July 4th. We know that. And so you saw good, hard work, you know, the surge, the next time I went was at the tail end of the surge.

And I went three times. And so I would have, people would ask me a question like you just said, and I would say, well, when I play golf with my friend Chuck and I hit the ball over the hill and there's water down there, I'll say, Chuck, do you think I went into water? And he goes, sir, too close to call. And I felt that way about Iraq the whole time when someone say, how's I going to end up? And I'd go, is too close to call. I think that the Kurds and the Iraqis could screw up anything. And, you know, I hope that doesn't get me in trouble. But culturally, they can't take the win, you know. And I think it's the Arab culture that, you know, they grew all the way back to, you know, coming out of the Far East or these camels and everything, and they have to trade. And they say, hey, can we have, I'm the shake, can I have six camels and all those rugs? And the guy goes, no, no, no, no.

But the shake was powerful. he'd go back to his village and say, I asked them. They heard what I wanted. We gave him water. They gave me one rug and all that. So they're traders. They do trading. They also have multiple wives,

and the wives promote their child. And the one who becomes, you know, when you say Abu Mosh, that's the father of Mosh. So that tells the tribe Mosh or, you know, Abu Zaid or Abizade. So Abu Zaid is the father of Zaid

and so they There's maneuvering always. Yeah and so they you know they know that new brigade's coming in New brigade commander and they can get another suburban when that guy shows up and all that so they I think

I think that's the problem and you know my third job there, third tour I ran advising and training. So my team trained all the national police, the police, the Army, Navy, though it was small.

What year was this? 2010. What'd you do on the second deployment? I was DCG for operations, Deputy Commander General for operations for the three-star headquarters under General Lloyd Austin.

I ran the Army Special ops. We had a C.J. Sotom, that you know all about over there, but within the Corps area of operations, it was a, the C.J. Sotif really was Arabian Peninsula. And then inside Iraq itself was, would be the brigade commander or joint special operation task force. And General Austin gave them to me. He said, you, you speak their language. And what year was this? 2000, it was 15 months. It was a long tour, 2008, 2009. So, The surge was 2008, right?

Six, I think. Six or seven. Yeah, maybe seven, I guess. Because it didn't. I was in, my last appointment over there was 2006. The surge wasn't happening yet. Okay, yeah. I'm just trying to figure out when, you know,

what was going on when you were there. So you were, you had oversight of the siege of SOTIF in Iraq during that tour. The brigade commander, everyone's got a thousand fathers, you know, you're calling back to brag, but the brigade commander, direct reported to me. I approved the nightly missions. We went into whatever it was, Hillier, whatever

it was. Hallah? Yeah. That was Prime Minister Maliki's hometown. We shot up his nephew or something who shot at our SF guys first, and they shot and killed him. So I'd meet you're the guy. General Austin with the photos and with the tape,

show it, then I'd go to the Prime Minister and show him. here's what happened we'd like to pay the family or we're not paying the family they shot at our guys first and he's dead did a lot of

EFP hunting as the makers or the deliverers coming out of Iran and then we had a Iraqi special force

this version of they would live in this camp, take all the uniform off, go home once a month, and then come back, and nobody knew who they were. But we went in a solder city. I went in with them a couple times. And then I ran big high-level psychological operations and influencing operations. Now 2008 when that surge happened And it sounds like you were there

You started to You know this was something I was tracking on You know with General Petraeus And no more drive-by counterinsurgency We had to get out and and this is what we did in Ramadi The Battle of Ramadi We went into the city You know and we is the 1-1 AD

Who's going into the city And setting up combat outposts and whatnot You got to see that take place Throughout the whole country And then did you start to think maybe we can actually, for lack of a better word, win? I think you feel that way. First of all, commanders are optimists, and it's a good thing to be. It's a bad thing to not be a realist, but you could be optimistic. And so, and then you'd see the gains being made.

And from my role at that time, you know, I'd roll into a battle space, see one of those lieutenant colonels. I might have been a captain underneath me previously during those days. See how much they've grown up. See the cohesion of their organization. See what traps they were running against the Al Qaeda or whoever. So I think you still got to characterize it as optimistic, but also knowing that at some point we can't sustain, you know, 80,000 men and women here,

or we can't sustain this budget or we can't, if they can't take it over from us, then it's not going to work. Yeah, that was the big thing I had to tell my guys, because we had to start working with Iraqi troops, and of course all my guys are like, you kidding me, these guys are terrible, they're not trained, they're not trustworthy, they don't have any equipment,

but what I had to tell them was, hey, if we don't get these guys trained up where they can actually go out and control the level of violence in their city, then we're going to be here forever. Our sons are going to be here. That's what it's going to be. And that's a losing. That's a losing proposition.

And the guys understood that and move forward. And certainly we were absolutely successful in Ramadi. And that was based on what General McMaster did up in Talafar. And then General McFarland went and relieved him. And then since it had been pacified, they took General McFarland and sent him down to Ramadi, who relieved General Gronsky, who went home with his troops. And that's what they did.

They implemented that strategy inside the city of Vermont, go in, set up combat outposts in the neighborhood, start to get to know the local populace and all that. So we, and we left, and when we left, within months after we left, Ramadi was like a completely different place. There was, the level of violence was almost went down to nothing. You know, you had Sheikh Satar, Bazillo was out there. They were forming up there. We had, there was like 30 police, 30 Iraqi police.

least that we're pretty much collecting a paycheck and not doing anything when we showed up in Ramadi now there was 2,000 of these guys so there was a massive transition and it did look hopeful from from our perspective back here looking at the transition that had happened in Ramadi we started seeing in other cities and you were there for that what did that what did that look like on the ground for you yeah that the other big task I had was to convert the sons of Iraq so So what we had was 104,000 Sunni men that Sean McFarland started getting the Sawah or the awakening going. And so the thought was, hey, if we can get them on every street corner, then we could get out of there. I ended up having to brief Maliki about every other week on a Wednesday and showing him.

we went around to every province. There was an Iraqi Special Forces two-star General Mooth there, who was sort of their god, you know, their warrior god. So he and I would go, we'd bring the Shakes, we'd bring the U.S. Brigade Commander or the Coalition Brigade Commander, the police. We'd get them paid $300 a month, and then after six months, then the Iraqis would,

during that time the Iraqis would learn to pay them and then after that the Iraqis money would pay them and so we converted it all and then about a year after I left the Shia started killing the Sunnis and then that drove them into the arms of ISIS and that drove you know that search again

is there anything that we could have done different in that transitional period you know we ran in all those problems you know we had the Shia army coming into Ramadi the obviously Ramadi's filled with a bunch of Sunni we had the Sunni police like I said there wasn't very many of them but there was definitely some some antagonistic relationships there but we did see a unification of the Shia army and the Sunni populace against al-Qaeda like we absolutely saw that they neither one of those people neither one of those groups wanted

al-Qaeda insurgents inside the city and so there was a brief time of unity But it seems like where we drop the ball is not nurturing that relationship to continue to be positive. Maybe it's impossible. I don't know. But do you think there's anything we could have done better? I think understanding them better is the first step. In other words, because of that brother thing, so it's me against my brother. And then it's me and my brother against another family.

And then it's our tribe against another tribe. and then it's all the way up to the Muslims against the world. And so there are a culture of self-interest, and so you have to, there's no, the loyalty is very low. And so when you say we're going to leave and now you got this, there's got to be something in it form. And if you, so what could we do better is fine, that's whatever that was. Yeah. I was rooting for Walmarts.

I thought if there was more Walmarts and you could employ people and they could have a place to go get a job and they would have a place to go and get burgers and get, you know, Cheetos. We'd made some progress, you know, but when we left, we just expected things to work themselves out and what you end up with is a rift. There's no Walmart to get to go and work together at. That's what I'm saying. Like you want to give them something, give them some kind of commerce, give them some kind of positive. because it takes generations to get rid of, and look, maybe they never get rid of those things, but eventually you're living right next to each other,

eventually you say, you know what, this is a little bit easier if we all are doing, if we're all working together instead of working against each other, but we just, I don't think we recognize the depth of the rift between the Sunnis and the Shia, which is completely pathetic, not to recognize that. It's pathetic not to understand that.

I mean, to say that we didn't understand it, everybody knew it. I mean, look, I knew that at my levels. My platoon commanders knew it. My senior NCOs were like, oh, yeah, we've got Sunnis, we've got she is, we've got to make sure they get along. So we, on the ground, knew it. But, boy, we didn't end up at a higher level figured out on a solution of that stuff. No, no, we didn't. And, you know, creating, you know, within the parliament and then within the parliament and then within

and provincial, you know, get equal representation. And you could even say, I mean, Maliki, so when we got to Ramadi, we thought we actually had the op plan. We were going to do left Fallujah style just complete smash of Ramadi. We're going to go in there massive kinetics and kill all the bad guys and get rid of them. Maliki said, you know, Maliki's a Shia. And he said, if we do that, if I, if I send my Shia army into Ramadi, you know, we're was filled as soon as it's going to look like it's going to look like extermination

it's going to look like genocide can't do that until we took a different approach so Maliki understood that he knew that he couldn't do that yeah we we just didn't it's like we it's like we just dropped that ball you know we're heading towards the ensign we just drop the freaking ball yeah you think about the you know 50 or 60 years of peace in occupied Germany in Korea, in Japan, and because we remained the presence there. Like I said, learning that as a kid in Berlin. And I think when we went back behind the wall of the embassy,

then we were telling, first we moved our footprint out to Al-Assad. In the middle of nowhere. Yeah. And so now, you know, there's some Americans here, but they're not to you know they don't got skin into game anymore yeah and it's amazing what the american presence brings to peace i mean it really does uh you know when we left i don't think there's a one single military person when we left in 2010 2011 that thought oh this is going to go this is this is going to work smooth now i don't think there's anybody that thought that and i don't think it

would have taken a huge American presence to keep things, you know, it's like the, the school teacher in a room, right? The school teacher's in the room. The kids are pretty much doing what they're supposed to do. That school teacher leaves the room. It's mayhem. It's mayhem. That's what happens.

And it's not like the school teacher has equal force to whatever, a 25 high school students. They can't, they could easily overpower that high school teacher. But the presence, the understanding of consequences, even the understanding that you're being observed like all those things make a difference and when we when we just walked away everybody i mean i was sick everyone was saying this is there's this is going to be this going to be a disaster and sure enough it was yeah we we asked for 14 000 troops and uh and well it was like a permanent presence on the ground yeah and that would have been enough to absolutely you know to have a mosul

presence and a you know up by spiker and then in bagdad and uh out in the belt It would have been enough because now the school teacher size has the Shakes and the Iraqi generals to hold them accountable and to continue to ride around with them and all of that. But that was denied and it went from 4,014 to 4 to 3 to 2 to over the horizon, Kuwait. And we just saw how it played out in Afghanistan as well. And we also got to see how it played out to have what was it, 3,000 troops on the ground that were in Afghanistan for 8.000. There was really low levels of violence and you just were gonna let that wound heal. You got to let these wounds heal over and let these relationships start to form and it might like you said take a generation or two generations 50 60 years and in the meantime okay

It's great it's good it's good it's good training for our guys to be over there and working with these understanding these different cultures and And just this this lack of any kind of presence and then there was the you know, people were calling Afghanistan like this forever war. It hadn't been a war. It hadn't been a war for the last 18 months before we pulled out. It had been a peacekeeping observation of what was happening and maintaining some presence that we could continue down the path that we were on. And now, I mean, it's just been a complete disaster.

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, whenever I hear on the news where someone says, you know, the troops are tired of this, whoever's saying that isn't a true, you know. And tired of picking up trash in Fort Riley, and when you're, you know, Division Ready 3 or not having sufficient bullets to do life fires, that's when troops get tired. And troops get tired.

Look, you put them into strenuous combat where they're losing their friends. Yeah, you're going to get tired. But when you say, hey, you're going to go, your friends and your brothers and sisters in arms have gone and sacrificed so much and we're going to go but we've gotten to a place we can maintain this that's what you're going to go and do you're doing something positive and productive in the world troops say roger that i got it let's go yeah you're right there's no there's no fatigue for troops

that are going on to play going on deployment anyways let's go do something that counts so we definitely drop the ball on that and this is what you saw in your last deployment so your last deployment was in what year? It was all of 2011. So you were there for the shutdown? Yeah, I was asked to stand up the Office of Security Cooperation, which we have around the world different names, Mill Groups, Office of Security Cooperation, Office of Defense Cooperation. So this was called Security, and I worked for Ambassador Jeffers and General Austin at the same time, and knowing that my replacement who was going to be Bobby Castling, General Castling, that he would be working for the ambassador out of the embassy. And so we downsized to 10 locations where we would have mostly

contractors who would just maintain the helicopters, maintain the M1 tanks that we gave them, maintain the MRAPs and teach them the maintenance. And so that that was, General Austin was a four star. I was a three star. And this was your second time working for General Austin? It was. And how was your relationship with General Austin? It was great.

And his attitude about all this, did he have the right focus? Did you feel like comfortable with the decisions he was making? I did, yeah. And he's a really, really great leader. I don't know what's going on in his current job. And I haven't spoken to him in a couple of years, but, you know, fight for the troops, take care of the troops, you know, will go after someone when they're bad, bad guys. He's going to let loose the dogs of war. He's a very thoughtful, big thinker in that regard. Understood, you know, his role was setting

conditions and being out here and then being in the street where the trips can see them and then letting his layers of two stars and brigade commanders or squadron commanders do their part so and then so are you there when the actual pullout happens when we're finally done no i left november 2nd and um i think they went out um two months later or something like that am i accurate when i say that people that everyone that was in the military, looked at it and thought it was going to be a disaster. Did you think that too, or did you have hope? When we're resourced, I had hope and going down to 2000, not having a presence, then that would be hopeless.

And in your circles, you know, with General Austin, is there pushback going back up the chain of commander people saying, hey, you know, Mr. President, this is, look, we got a bunch of people that are saying this isn't going to work out well. Is that what's happening? It is, yeah. And do you think it's political pressure on President Obama that makes him say, you know what, we're out?

I think, you know, and it's really Officer Tommy once. The first rule of the regime is to remain the regime and the second rule of the regime is to remain the regime. And so, yeah, I think, I think, the polling or anything else, the news cycles, they were playing that more than the national strategic and defense. Which is strange because Obama's an articulate guy that I think could do a good job of selling,

what's the selling snow to an Eskimo? He seems like that type of guy that could say, hey, here's the situation, we thought we're going to be able to leave, looks like that. That's not going to be the best plan. here's our adjustment. Does that make sense? I think so. I think so. I, you know, I think politics drove it. Why they did, I don't know, you know, why he would choose this that way versus another. I don't know. And it's just a complete, create a complete vacuum over there. Yeah. Again, I go back to 1968, Berlin, you know, the, if we had, if we pulled out of Berlin, leaving a German

force there, the Russians would have gone that day and taken it. There's a book. I haven't covered it on the podcast yet. It's called The Donkeys. And it's written by a guy that kind of observed, he wasn't in World War I, but he observed what the generals did and the military government leadership in World War I.

And he wrote this book. He wrote a long time ago, but it's called the Donkeys. And it comes from, from that quote that everyone's heard. Usually they say lions led by lambs or something along that. That's what they would say about the British or that some German said that about the British.

The actual quote was lions led by donkeys. That's what the Germans said about the Brits. And this guy wrote this book just talking about what, you know, what terrible leadership it was. And I don't know, I'm thinking of, I think of a lot of these leaders that we have nowadays as being donkeys,

especially when you see these collective decisions where it's like everybody knows everybody can see same thing with Afghanistan there's not one military person that thought that was going to go well none none and yet the the leadership is executing on these terrible plans okay so you get done with that and I think what we I think we skipped when you were when you were at the what, 18th Airborne Corps? We skipped as a two-star commanding Ford Benning. Okay. Got it.

Again, so Benning as a lieutenant, Benning as a captain in the careers course, Benning as a major in third-range battalion, Benning as a battalion commander, the tenant colonel, Benning as a brigade commander, and then back for two stars. So we would tell the housing office, we're coming back.

So you better take it. care of these families. You better square these people away, these young soldiers and their families. So another transformation job, you know, I had a lot of them in each of these that we've talked about transforming the sons of Iraq to be neighborhood watch instead of al-Qaeda, transforming the way soldiers fight hand-to-hand. That story about transforming the sons of Iraq before they were sons of Iraq. before they were sons of Iraq,

they were called something else, and I can't think of it right now. But it started out in Al-Qaedaeim. Yeah. And they had, the Marines had said, hey, these locals are telling us what's going on. Desert Protector, that's what they called them. And they formed this program called Desert Protector.

And so the first meeting that we had, my information operations officer had with Sheikh Satar Bazia, he said, we want to be Desert Protectors. and so I got that information and I kind of started I tried to figure out what the desert protectors were desert protectors had been shut down because Maliki didn't want a bunch of Sunni tribal rebels running around that were armed by Americans so I had to tell Sheikh Bazea hey it it's not desert protectors anymore it's now called Iraqi police and we can get you trained and then he was said that sounds good and then the the 1-1 AD came in and colonel dean and

Sean McFarland and they took over and ran with it and it was great but that the way those things happened was and then after that came the sons of Iraq that's when they we actually my my guy came back with the document that they had created like the first one and he showed it to me and I was like what is we had the translator go through it and it was pretty neat to see that stuff unfold like that yeah it was and you know a common theme on all of this is kind of this sparkle in the eye of a young soldier, a Marine or a seal, you know, that they realize, you know, we're doing something now.

This is pretty squared away. At Fort Benning, General Dempsey told me, I want you, he was the Trey-Dak commander, I want you to bring the armor school from Fort Knox, Kentucky to Ford Benning and change the infantry center into the maneuver center of excellence. They're walking the streets together anyway Tankers and artillery. Everyone's doing it.

So trying to bring the infantry and the armor and the cavalry together is the Shia and the Sunni and the Kurds. So I was trained in many ways. And then always having the old shake. So all the retired generals I had to go to and I'd say, you know, retired four-star armor guy. Look, I didn't make this stuff up. We're bringing the armor school.

You need to be. You know, an ambassador for it to get a good idea. And by the way, doesn't everyone agree that it's better when we all work together? Right, right. Well, doesn't, is there anyone that thinks we're going to go and, you know, branch off and become our own country? No, we're going to work together as the United States of America. This is what makes sense. We all have supported each other on the battlefield.

Wouldn't it be better if we actually train that way? Yeah. But then rice bowls, those silos. Exactly. Exactly. And, and the platform of the tank, um, is really important to the armor guys. And so they will always maneuver jobs and positions

where they can protect the budget line for that. I'll get a call on that one, but that's all right. Well, I'm a huge supporter of tanks myself. Yeah. I actually love tanks, and I love tankers, and God bless them. You know, we fight as a team. You know, we deploy as a team. When you need help, you shift assets, and they show up,

and you love them, you know, stack the planes, you know, to the moon over the head of a seal platoon or a ranger platoon and that's all good you know but that that took a lot of leadership um two years to to to uh pull actually about 14 months of command and then i went back to rack as the three star and then i came out of there and took command of all the army bases around the world so i ran 75 cities in 17 time zones with with 123,000 employees delivering about 300 services every single day from child development centers to at that point 70 golf courses,

which I thought I should inspect myself. But also then I realized, hey, guess what? I have every gym. Maybe we'll have mats in most of those gyms. That's a good spot. Yeah. Before we jump into the gyms and the jiu-jitsu and the mats and the gyms of the however many gym,

gyms you own now that you were in this in this position before we were before we hit record today and since we were talking about donkeys uh you mentioned that your father-in-law actually worked with colonel david hackworth in vietnam correct give me some give me some stories come on what was the situation so that they were uh it's probably 1967 ishish Let's just say that. And so my father-in-law then was Lieutenant Colonel Promotable John Hemphill, Class 51, West Point. And David Hackworth was, I'm pretty sure a brigade commander. I'm pretty sure.

Anyways, there were orders that came out of the 101st Division headquarters telling Colonel Hackworth to do this or that, or the word came out late, or helicopters didn't show up, for whatever reason. and he, Colonel Hackworth stormed up into division headcourse, a bunch of tents in the jungle, and started telling everyone that they'd really screwed up, and they were a bunch of jerks and unprofessional. And so my father-in-law stepped in between Colonel Hackworth and his people and said, let's take this outside and talk it through.

And Colonel Hackworth allegedly reportedly said, no, you know, I'm not going anywhere. And so then they got it on right there. Started to fight in the tent and rolled out into the darkness. But they remained great friends until my father-in-law passed away about two years ago. But they were fond of each other. They knew that each was a warrior. And that, you know, you're going to have disagreements, get it on, and then get over it.

Now, when I was kind of becoming a disciple, I guess, I don't know if there's such a thing. But kind of when I started really getting interested in Hackworth and I was reading his books and reading them again and starting to see a lot of good leadership in there, he was absolutely hated in the entire Navy because he had done a report. He had done some reporting on the chief of naval operations at the time. Admiral Borda, who was a beloved guy, who was a prior enlisted guy that had come up through the ranks to become the chief of naval operations. and Colonel Hackworth had done a report on him that he was wearing some unauthorized and unearned awards on his uniform. And Admiral Borda killed himself. So he wasn't popular there. He wasn't popular in the Navy at all.

The army, I pretty much got mostly the same thing from the army that, you know, Hackworth was just bad. Now, recently I've talked to, I actually went out to West Point. And when I was at West Point,

they they I would I asked the question hey how does everybody view hackworth now and they pretty much say I mean a paraphrase is hackworth was right what did you did you did you know about hackworth from your from your dad or anything like that just just just especially when about face first came out and general hemp handed me the book told me to read it and and um and then told the story so but he would What did your father-in-law think of the book? Well, you thought it was good enough to give it to me. Okay, that's a good point. It's interesting because, you know, you read the book,

and as you read the book, you can go, and I actually had these thoughts, and I thought, you know, what was he? I mean, you know, you write a book about yourself. Of course, you're going to put yourself in the good light. You're going to make yourself look good. You're going to pull the quotes that make you look good. You're going to tell the story that makes you look good. And I had a guy named General Jim Mukayama on the podcast,

who was one of Hackworth's company commanders in Vietnam, and I was really excited. I'm like, now I'm going to get the real story on what Hackworth was really like, what they really thought of him, what was he like for a commander? And, you know, so I asked General Mukayama, and he couldn't have given Hackworth any higher praise.

I mean, he absolutely just loved Hackworth. And he told me that everybody in the Army knew who he was. He said when he checked in at Fort Lewis, when Hackworth checked in, Mukayama was working like the the desk the admin desk or personnel desk or he was an aid or something But he was the kind of the young lieutenant checking him in and I said did you know who he was and he said Everybody knew who he was mr infantry everybody knew him everybody knew his reputation so I thought that that was very reassuring to me So this is now more reassuring that getting word via your father-in-law that Hackworth was the real deal

it both of them you know, back in those days that body count was a measure of success or effectiveness. And so both Hackworth and Margie's dad, later General Hemphill, turned people in who doctored the books. And so Margie's dad was the first West Point guy of his class to make 06. and he was the last West Point guy of his class to make one star. And all the generals that he reported had falsified the number of Vietnamese being killed or North Vietnamese or Viet Cong, you know, he rendered a report. That is not true.

And it went all the way back to the Pentagon. And all those guys that were three and four, five years ahead of him that sat the promotion boards, cut them out. And when the last one retired, the next day he made, or the next board he made. So I think that's, you know, that's a, the lesson of leadership is, is can you stand strong when others won't? And can you stand strong when it's personally and professionally, not in your interest and, and do the right thing? And we need, we need a lot of that. We need more of that. and we need to celebrate it when we see it. Do you remember, because it's 1989 when this book came out,

do you remember when it came out? Was it a big deal in the Army? Were people passing it around? Were people saying it was a bunch of crap? Yeah, there were lovers and haters. 89, I was in Second Range Battan out at Fort Lewis. My father-in-law had retired in 85 out in Fort Lewis. And so like it or not, every Sunday we were over at their house,

you know, for Sunday afternoon dinner and I became, I loved my father-in-law and liked them, but it would be, you know, come over, have a beer, we're going to watch football. Absolutely. Mandatory fun. But when the book came out,

that's why it was so easy for him to say, hey, read this now. And there were some that, you know, another thing for our generation, we sort of looked at, if the person wasn't charismatic in a big way, we didn't want to hear about back in Vietnam. So in many camps, the book that describes a warrior leading in time of combat, was probably a little bit overcast or overshaded by the context of it was Vietnam.

Well, what gave you guys that opinion? Was it like, hey, Vietnam, we know all. about Vietnam was it hey Vietnam was your it was a different different situation that doesn't convey to what we have to deal with now a little bit of a little bit of that that doesn't convey doesn't match up but the other was the the context of arriving in your first units and your captain screwed up and your sergeants have two or three DUIs and you know they're the carryovers and then they start telling you you know you have to be squared away like we are and you're looking you know young and

full of life and going I'm not sure I I agree that you're squared away, you know. And so then when we're in the basic course or the captain's course and someone said, well, back in Nam, you're like, oh, please. Yeah, kind of look at you now. Yeah. And then we, you know, in time they sunset and, you know, the new non-commissioned officer, the more professional on purpose, using those words literal,

a plan to make them professional, came in. We called the, you know, the sergeants in Vietnam shake and bake. Right? And so nowadays, people don't know what shake and bake is, but back in those days, it was a pouch of breadcrumbs, and you put the chicken in it, and you shake it up, and then you bake it, and you have Kentucky Fried Chicken. Well, they made sergeants shake and bake. In other words, after about a month or two in the combat zone, they put pinned rank on them and said, you're now an NCO. And many of them, they didn't have basic NCO course, advanced NCO course, you know, primary leader development course. They didn't have a non-commission officer school like we do today like we did in the 90s and 2000s. So anyway's point is when his book came out, probably half the people were like, you know, I'm not sure of the lessons of Vietnam are going to be relevant. relative to me or pertinent when in fact you know leadership was transcendent yeah and the other thing is

it seemed like like i came in in 1990 1990 it didn't seem like we were going to have another big long prolonged war you know look there was we all thought we do one mission you know do one big mission and that would be that the big mish there was no look and then and then the first gulf war was over in 72 hours okay well that's what war is now you maybe we'll fight for you know maybe we'll do one big mission in a 72 hour war, but that's what war is gonna be like from now on. It wasn't gonna be this 10 year thing like Vietnam where you got all this experience

and you're gonna be out doing all these operations night after night after night. And boy, we're we wrong about that. Yeah, yeah. So, all right, so I just wanted to get some, get your perspective on Hackworth, I appreciate that. Now, you were just saying you took over all the bases in the world, that's right?

The army bases, yeah. All the army bases in the world. world, which means you're in charge of the golf courses. I'm not a golfer, but it means you're in charge of the gyms. And inside gyms, you can put mats. Now, at this point, I think 2012, I saw an article that you got your brown belt from Jacques-Are. Not the Jacques-Are that you know from UFC out there, everybody.

The old-school Jacques-Are who's a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt from the previous generation. an old school. I went there and trained in his school when I went from officer candidate school in Pensacola, Florida. And I was going to a SEAL Team 2 at Virginia Beach. And I stopped in Atlanta and trained for seven days. Just went and trained every day all day.

That was in 1998. So you're a brown belt at this time. You kept training Jiu-Jitsu, which is awesome. And now you have the opportunity to start putting some combatives training areas and all these different gyms. how was that? Well, like anything else,

it took, you know, one, two, three cups of tea. So go to the location, meet with the two-star general. And you know where you have your guys. So you already know Sergeant So-and-so there, major so-and-so's there. And so you go to the general and say,

resources are tight in the Army, they always are, but I can square you away. And so we can build. a world-class facility here, which gym would you want to put it in? So rather than saying, I own the gym and have the truck show up in the middle of the night with Mats, for the program to stay alive,

that general needed and his sergeant major needed to want it. And for the most part, they did. And so we went to Fort Drum, then to Fort Campbell, then to Fort Lewis, and some of them now have huge train facilities that they spawned off of the original gym idea. And so the strategy was take away any excuses for people not training their people. And, oh, you know, we've got basketball intermurals.

You'll get, you'll be okay. You're going to be, you'll have enough, you have 12 gyms at 4 practice. You're going to be okay. And then, oh, people get hurt. No, more people get hurt playing racquetball in Army facilities than training Jiu-Jitsu. or combatants. And then mostly, you know, I just don't want a generation to be asked by their grandson, you know, did you ever get in a fight dad, a granddad?

And he said, no, but I can put a PowerPoint presentation together like he'd never seen, you know. It's just, that's not the warrior ethos. And you said it early, if there was a place where the eternal flame of warrior ethos should burn, it should be Ford Manning in front of the main building there. and as Ford Benning and the infantry goes, so goes the Army, and as the warriors of each service go, so goes their warrior ethos. So, you know, no one likes change but a baby with a wet diaper, right? And so when you show up and tell the guy who's in charge of all the gyms,

who works for you that we're going to do this, and he says, no, sir, you know, that's mission money, not morale money. And you tell them, you know, do you think, you, taking that stance is worth your job because one of my guys said just unencumbered their future. I said, this program is going to happen, so let's all be for something that's going to happen. And that's what Stammer Crystal told me. We're going to do this. So be for it big time because you'll love your life much more than if you drag your heels.

So that guy, three years later, was two thumbs up. And he had been a wrestler. So he was in the Department of Army Civilian. He'd been a wrestler. He was just reading the, you know, he was, he wasn't doing what's right. He was doing it right. And I said, let's do what's right instead. Change the manual.

I had to do it to get there. If your MWR manual says, the gyms are solely for the use of, you know, after our, you know, basketball, volleyball, and intermurals, change it. And for use by, you know, soldiers and training. Go for it. Too easy. Yeah, exactly. And it really is impressive the Army combatives. They have the combatives tournaments, which are pretty awesome.

Is that just coming from Matt Larson? Did they come up with that idea? Yeah. And Troy? Yeah. Yeah. I have a picture on my wall in the museum of about 28 people. We're all in the Army Green, woodland BDUs.

Matt's in the picture. boys in the picture, a young Colonel Faradders in the picture. That was the first Army Combatives tournament. And I kind of just closed my eyes as you started talking because just last week was the 20th. Okay. And I got too busy and I couldn't go down there. They invited me and all that. Matt is the father of Army Combatives and I'm the godfather.

Okay. I was going to guess grandfather, but maybe that would have been a bit much for you. Well, no, I take that too. Grandfathers have unconditional love for their grandkids. But when someone messes with the program, then I'll show up again and just close the door with whoever it is and say, you know, if I say to you, you want to shoot a sniper rifle, you want to go shoot a bear it?

Oh, yeah. You want to drop a mortar around? Oh, yeah. You know, you want to shoot the machine gun? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, you know, pull a lanyard on an artillery piece. Yeah. You want to go down to the mats?

Oh, well, my back is. You know, and I told, I tell them the senior officials, just don't say no. You don't have to, you know, if you're not into it, that's fine. I think you should be into it. I think you should try it enough, you know, do jiu-jitsu or any other martial art enough that you understand what it is. And if that doesn't move you, then don't be moved. That's fine.

But don't make it, you wouldn't make that decision on anything else as a leader. But on this one, there's so much ego and, or lack of humility. I came up with a protocol. for how long you need to train jih Tzu for? Because I get asked this question a lot by by people that don't really like it. For whatever reason, it's sweaty, is hot. Their ego is getting crushed. And I said, my protocol now I tell people is you train Jiu-Jitsu until you tap someone out.

And then if you say, if you get that feeling of tapping someone out and you don't say, yes, it's pretty cool, then maybe J-Jitsu isn't for you. But you at least need to train that long. I like it. Yeah. So then you, 2014, you actually get promoted to Black Belt, once again from Jaka, right? Mm-hmm. When you were training, when you were overseas, when you were on deployment, were you training?

Did you guys, did you have enough guys to train with? Yes. Yeah. You always found people to train. Thinking that or understanding that I started training as a full colonel. How old were you when you started training? probably 43

44 jack so I we took 18th Airborne into Iraq in 2008 January 2008

we stayed until June roughly June of 2009 15 months is the second plane had the mats and I brought I just sent a picture

to enter, I'm sorry, Tehran and Guy Valenti in Miami, the Valenti brothers. And I brought them over, and they gave seminars at 28 different operating bases. Nice. Yeah. And so over there, yes, when deployed, keep doing it. We built a gym next to the embassy, and Union 3 across the street from the embassy. and part of it was probably something like 70 feet by 70 feet of mat.

Beautiful. And then someone went to the IG and said that, you know, I misused the gym. I built it for my personal, you know. And it's like, look, we built it for everybody, and we want everybody training. You know, you would want a squad leader or our young NCO with a team of four or five to come in there three times a week and go through situations. Okay, we're in a room. They grab you.

Now what, now what, now what. So, yeah, so I continued to train and then was, graduated to Black Belt by Jacqueray and Matt. Awesome. Yeah. Is Matt, did Matt get his black belt from Jacqueray? He did. Okay.

Yeah. That's awesome. And now 2014, this is, was that, was that your last tour? It was. Yeah, I retired in June of 2014. And then what would you do once you retired? So I went up to Fort Lewis, took Margie back to the hometown where her mom and dad and four of her sisters were. And I told her when you're sick and tired of your four sisters will go somewhere else.

So we were there about two years and she looked over and said, I'm ready. And then Dan was deploying to. And how many kids do you have? Four. Yeah, two boys and two girls. Megan, age 42, Dan, age 40, Patty, 38. and Mary Whitney about 35. How old are you?

66. Nice. And you still train? I do. That's outstanding. Echo has spoken. I'm getting better, I'm getting better all the time.

You get on a match. You know. Do you do, what do you do for a workout besides jiu-jitsu? Do you lift weights every day? Do you calisthenics every day? Do you do nothing at all except jiu-tzu? No, I'll get about 10 workouts in a week.

And I stopped running. I'm about to restart, but in, When COVID hit, we got locked down into Monterey and it wasn't too bad. Good place to be locked down. And three of my grandkids were there. And we started just getting a cup of coffee and walking them. And so we would walk, you know, eight miles, walk out into the valley and back.

But then I'll do weights. I do the Peloton bike. I'm now sort of into build the quads, work in the quads, and lower legs quite a bit. and then golf I'll play golf about and I'm in this

you know skills and drills I'm not in the score and you're never going to get me pissed off on a golf course you know with all the stuff that we've seen in our life it's like look it's just you know it's mechanical you can't hustle you can't try harder you can't motivate yourself you got to strike the ball

you know but so that's what I do yeah and then and then currently you've got the National Veterans Memorial and Museum. And tell us how that came about. Yeah. So when I retired, I started the Farader Group,

and we decided that we would help transitioning veterans, help find employment and all. And like I said, in our store now at the museum, every, you know, something like 48 different companies, all veteran owners have their merchandise and product. We have books in there. we should take yours as well. We have

and then when we bring an exhibit in there, so anyways, so I set out in 2014 to help. I also started hands-on inspired leadership, which really is using Jiu-Jitsu as a metaphor for life to close the distance, establish the domicist position and finish, and then giving that to high schoolers, did all the medics and nurses

in the hospital at Fort Lewis, did the freshman class at the Citadel three years in a row. And basically, you know, telling young girls, it's like women empowered, you know, your body is your body. You can say, stop right there, take two steps back. You can tell alcohol, stop right there, get back. We can defeat suicide.

We can defeat depression. We can defeat clock. And so I'm still on that mission. Right now I'm working with the Columbus. police department to set up a Hoyle, hands-on inspired leadership with them, because they do have jiu-jitsu instructors, but that's the sports side or the, or the, I love it side. But how do you decompress someone? You know, I've got a picture of a ball. My executive assistant puts the rubber band on the next one on next one. And so it's about the size of a baseball. And I took a picture of it,

and I said to someone, that's what PTSD is. That's what PTSD is right there. And you got to take that apart one by one by one until the tension's gone. But you can best do that through healthy activities through sports, through jitsu, through the connection that comes in the gym when all those guys that we just walk by. You can just feel it, right? So then I started helping companies. If you tell someone that you ran all the Army bases around the world, you had a $12 billion year budget, you took it down to nine,

that you have more than 200 parachute jumps and four combat tours, they say, you know, thanks for your service, you know. But you tell them that those bases, you were dispersing the checks, then people say, oh, now you're a consultant. So Mike Ferreter helps companies connect wherever they need to be connected. So into the military or Army Air Force Exchange service. we do that. And we do it for the right reason. We do it because there's someone out there making goodness happen, and we want your grandkids to say, granddad, whoever thought of helping you

out to get that product, and Big Lots is another friend of ours. Pretty big. West Point graduate is their CEO, Bruce Thorne, and he wants to help veterans too. So then, so I got this call first I went to three things happened Senator Isaacson and I said I will fix the VA I just fixed the biggest part of the Army and so I interviewed with the president team eight lawyers

and the Wall Street Journal announced that I was a finalist to be the secretary of the VA and the next day President Trump went in and said to the secretary will just keep it you're doing great in the team so then I interviewed to be the president and CEO of the Wounded Warrior project. And my good friend Mike Lenington got the job.

He's done a fantastic job. So then I got a call to come and interview to be the president of the Citadel, which is when you figure out how I ended up at the Citadel, that's kind of comical to think about that. And then my classmate and friend, Marine, retired four-star, Glenn Walters, got that. So I turned to Margaret. I said, man, I'm not too good at getting jobs. for three. And she said, you know, we know we're unencumbered, we're free to do whatever we want.

And then I got a call from a lady in Corn Ferry in Atlanta. And her secretary said, can you take a call on Friday with Jane? And I said, of course. And so then I said, hey, wait a minute, your your phone number, your prefix is 706. Are you in Atlanta? Yeah. I said, well, I'm going to be in Atlanta on Friday. Can I just see her face to face? And she said, I said, if that's breaking the rules, no problem. But she said, yeah, yeah, come on. So I went in. I interviewed with this headhunter, and we hit it off pretty good. And when I was leaving, she said, who else are you going to see in Atlanta today? I said, no one. Just came up here to see you. He said, have you ever hired anyone on the phone? No. So, so then they took me to Columbus, Ohio, living in Columbus, Georgia. And

interviewed me and they said what do you think of this national veterans memorial museum or national vmm.org for the listeners and it is john glenn was the senator the astronaut the fighter pilot the test pilot and he would look down on the old vets and then he would call the titans of industry in columbus ohio and say that that is not a fitting it's not good for for our vets it's an old raggedy looking thing so they knocked it down and they built this beautiful facility and when they walked me in what year was that built uh 2017 2017 again it looks like it's brand new yeah it's beautiful so I'm the founding CEO and president of it they said what do you think you know general ferder and I and I said it's insufficient to our need and they

said oh my God we put 62 million dollars in there what we forget I said you you forgot that there's veterans in San Diego there's veterans in Tampa there's veterans in Fort Lewis in Iowa. And they're not coming to Ohio. So we're going to need, so they said, so what's that, you know, smartly pants? What are you going to do? So, well, we'll have virtual tours and we'll have a veteran or store and we'll bring product in and help veterans that are small business owners. I said, we'll go to Ohio State University and we'll have a leader certification course for veterans. And so when you get asked that question as a veteran, you don't have any continuum education. what you've been doing at night? And the answer is, yeah, patrols in Ramadi. That's what I was doing, you know. And so we've run four semesters of leader certification. They get six hours of master's credit.

You can take it from right here, right? And so we're growing that program. This was like off the cuff, you know, and, you know, it's nice meeting you, anything you want to say. And I told them that we would probably, have a wellness and resilience program with things like jiu-jitsu and and yoga, which we have, and we've had for two years. And I told them that we'd have young inner-city youth, especially as youth ambassadors, and we run summer camps on them. There's a big giant field

right there. And so now, and when we run the summer camp, the coach will be a policeman, another first responder and a veteran. And these kids that are throwing water bottles at cops and vilifying cops and all this, they'll get to know that these are men and women of character, give a shit about people and our leaders. So the National Veterans Memorial Museum, one of our mottoes is more than a museum. And I'm an Army Ranger more than a history guy.

And we can build teams. And then we don't need to own anything. We started an employment service now. We call a veteran concierge, so we connect big companies and little companies to veterans. We have an IT solution that called OpLine, and it'll, you just fill out a checklist. Went to boot camp, went to Buds, went to here, deployed here, got this college, this, this. I have a driver's license, you know, I'm a sniper, and then it'll say, you're fully qualified, and here's the kicker. You're fully qualified for these 14 jobs in these seven companies in these different parts of the nation.

And so when the veterans going through that now, instead of going all the way through the employment thing, and then they say, you're just not a perfect fit, and he's got to start over, start over. So we're in our pilot year, probably the best way to say it. And all of those were the original vision of what we could do, and much, much, much. more so we're getting after it and you got your bride away from her four sisters I did the bonus program yeah the other thing that's interesting in that regard is we bought a house in Ohio and Columbus Ohio and that is the first house that I've ever purchased wow because I've always been on army bases or whatever yeah so life is good well that does that get us up to speed is that is that

pretty much where we're at. This gets us to today. It does. And where can people find you? They can find me at national vm.org or M. Ferreter at national vm.org or Mike at the Ferreter group. Okay. And you got the ferriter group.com, I'm assuming as well. And then you're on social media? I am. I'm on LinkedIn and Facebook. Instagram and and and then the social media of our museum is Iwatering it's just fantastic okay what's the what's the social media of the that's the one I don't have I have I have you on Instagram at Mike Ferreter on Twitter Mike underscore Ferreter and I have Facebook at Michael Ferretter what's the what's the social media of the National

Yeah I would go to national VMM. I would go to national vmm.org which would give you the landing page and you just scroll down and then just hit it yeah okay awesome and what do you what do you guys post on there that on the social media side our podcasts are on our Facebook okay awesome and then uh one of the one of the things in that same discussion interview I said you know we'll do these podcasts and in essence um we'll have a virtual a museum hall so whether it's short stories or whether it's a you know 30 minute to 50 minute um You can be able to query and say, I'm interested in Vietnam era guys. I'm interested in more to I'm interested in lessons learning leadership.

And so it's like we have 35,000 square feet of a museum. We've got about nearly 4,000 square feet of mats, just saying. But we can have 350,000 square feet of virtual museum hall. Yeah, you can. And we'll never run, you know, like, what did I hear, 386? Yeah, this is podcast number 386. Yeah, see? I mean, you got, you got your own, you know, virtual museum, storytelling opportunity here.

People can go and they can hear about Hackworth directly. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. It's awesome. Echo Charles, any questions? Yeah. What are the rules for that combative story? tournament? I mean, how do they differ from, like, you know, your general

jiu-tzu tournament rules? Yeah, the beginning, so I think there are three levels now. One is, one is it's straight combatants. They're wearing the Army battle dress uniform or fatigues. Level two, as you advance, then kicking and striking the torso, and then in the finals, kicking and striking in a, just like an MMA scenario. So the first level is essentially like general jiu-jitsu rules. You got points for, you know, passing guard, side mount, that kind of stuff. And then only if you don't tap them. Yes, yes.

Of course, of course. And then you go essentially to like a pancreation scenario. Yep, yeah, no head stray. And then to MMA. Okay, right on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's legit right there. They just had, like I said, they just had the tournament and I didn't get to go. But all of the beginners, all of the founders were there.

They're all older men, beers. Do they escalate through all the bases and have like an all-army combatives tournament? That thing needs to be televised. I think Jocco Fuel needs to sponsor that. Yeah, that'd be, I see them. Everyone, you can catch everyone. Wait, where do you see them on YouTube or something? Yeah, on YouTube or something like that.

But they're not on like a big channel. It's not like the event show. It's like a clip. Like someone recorded it or something like that. Yeah. They were ready this year. If we had this four months ago, if you and I were sitting here four months ago, you would have been, you would have been a.

sponsor. Yeah, well next year we'll be doing it. And yeah, Tim Kennedy, who's a friend of mine and how would you like to be like an army dude and you show up and you, Tim, you have to fight Tim Kennedy. He's like an actual UFC dude. You're like, hold on a minute, man. I think we've got our blue belt the same day. Oh, you and Tim? From horse. Yeah. Oh, right. And Tim was at had Ford Brag and with the Special Force of guys and I would go in there once in a while and I see you. So, If I'm holding you like this, then what? Yeah, that works. Okay.

Yeah, that's awesome. Now, anything else, Echo Charleston? No, that's it. Thank you. Great to meet you. My pleasure. General, any closing thoughts? Well, I just appreciate the chance to be here.

I'm really humbled to be sitting with you. I hope that any message that I send out there to someone can help somebody. Secondly, so there's a guy in Columbus wild named Zach. He said if I had let Zach sit there, he would let me have food and beer at his dad's restaurant for the rest of my life.

But you should have brought him down. I know. He would definitely made that happen. That's cool. Well, send him out to visit something. Does he train jiu-jitsu? No. Okay.

We'll send him out to visit and he can train some jiu-jitsu. We'll make it happen. That way you can eat for free. There we go. Take care of the general. To the rest of, the audience, there's a friend out there that needs to hear from you.

So give a call, send a text, check on your battle buddy, your shipmate, your fellow team member. Check on somebody because you don't know if that's the one that's going to make a difference. Sometimes they just come in and they'll start working out again and all that. Other times they say, hey, I had a gun right here in front of me. So we can all make a difference in that stuff. And then if I could get you to sign something for those guys, then that would be great. But I'm really honored to meet you for the person and people that you guys are and the difference that you make for a lot of people. Well, obviously, thanks for joining us today.

Thanks for sharing your experiences and your lesson learned over your career of 35 years. And more important, thanks for your service in those 35 years in Somalia and Iraq. Countless other places around the world. Static line jumping into God knows where to do. God knows what. And thank you for what you are continuing to do today to preserve and memorialize our veterans and our history. It is much appreciated.

Thank you, sir. All right. Sounds good. Thank you. And with that, General Mike Farreter has left the building and we just walked out. He was definitely excited about the Jiu-Jitsu mats. he's definitely into jiu jitsu and jiu jitsu helping in all aspects of life if you're not training jiu jitsu

go train jiu jitsu i think it's pretty straightforward it's a good way to add value and that's not a popular that's not something i like to say yeah because you know why because in the military that turns into a thing like oh right we're really going to add value here right so it's it's corporate buzzword, right? And it's in the military as a corporate, in the military as a buzzword. Add value or value added, either one of those two.

We could go either direction. But Jiu-Jitsu is going to add value to every part of your life. Now, I would say, unfortunately, or fortunately, it is secondary to what you claimed on one of our earliest podcasts, that physical exercise is across the board. going to help out every aspect of your life. Yeah. I would prioritize that as number one.

From physical activities, I would put jiu-jitsu as number two. Mm-hmm. That's where I'm putting it. I agree. Yeah. So, and it was interesting that recently, I forget what? I even forget what you said. But it was along the lines.

Oh, oh, you said something along the lines of, I was talking about lifting weights. We were talking about lifting weights. how that that'll help every aspect of your life, right? Exercise, whatever, we'll just say lifting weights. And then you're like, well, even though you don't use it all the time, because it's not like every day you're going to be like, you know, power lifting, something along those lines, you said.

And I remember thinking later on, I was like, wait a second, because that's not really the benefits of the weight lifting. Benefits of the weight lifting is, let's say you're like strong, like notably strong in all lifts and all things or whatever. it does translate to everyday stuff. Like if you're changing, you ever change one of those water bottles, those five gallon water bottles in the cooler?

It's way easier when you're strong. For sure. You know what I'm saying? So there's tons of little things that you can do day to day. I thought what you were going to say. I thought you were going to say something that was meaningful. That is meaningful.

That is meaningful. It is impactful. It meant something to people. I thought you were saying like, hey, when you lift every day, it creates discipline in your life. It makes you overcome a challenge every day.

It makes you just go down there. I think you're going to talk about five. gallon water bottles but that's true that's all real it's all part of it that's what I'm saying that's how beneficial it is because we can go deep like you or just go not so deep like me and everywhere in between and boom the lifting is gonna you know it's gonna add value so jihitsu it's gonna help you with your confidence I mean look the physical things you're gonna be more flexible you're gonna get good cardio you're gonna get good grip strength strength in general you're gonna get the appropriate reception's gonna be improved so there's a

bunch of physical things that you're gonna get but man the mental aspect the release of aggression, the confidence built. Like you got a kid that lacks confidence, put him in jiu-jitsu. Put him in jiu-jitsu. You have a 22-year-old that lacks confidence, get him in a jiu-jitsu. You've got a 38-year-old that lacks confidence. Get him in a jiu-jitsu.

So it's going to be beneficial in so many different. And yes, you know what else that gives you? Gives you the power to overcome, gives you the power to fight through things, gives you a sense of community, introduces you to new people. There's all kinds of beneficial things when it comes to jih Tzu.

Is it secondary to health and fitness, strength training, cardiovascular training, mobility training? It's secondary to those things. It's also complimentary. There's some people, wait,

do you lift and jiu jih Tzu on the same day? Everyone's wrong, yeah. But it's not planned. It's, no. If you set up your perfect schedule, would you do both things on the same day? One day.

Yeah. One day a week? Yeah. One day a week would have two days, yes. But only one day a week. Okay. They're essentially, Jiu-Jitsu and fitness. We'll talk about a workout or whatever would overlap on one day.

Okay, only one day. But they are complimentary. You can do that. You can do Jiu-Jitsu one day, lift or work out the next day. J-Jitsu the next day, work out the next day. You could do that or you could do, like I do, I do J-Jit-Too-N workout the same day all the time. I do that. Well, let me put it this.

way every time I trained jiu-jitsu I lifted that day. We're batting 100%. Yeah, man. And, you know, some days I went for a run as well. Some days I went for a surf as well. In fact, most days I went for a run as well. So we got into controversy about this, remember? Yes.

On more plates, more dates. Oh, yeah, the steroid. Yeah, that's one of the things that he said, which was my fault because I said, yeah, I'll work out three or four times a day. To me, that was like, Oh, lift, jiu-jitsu, run, surf. This isn't me going in and doing, you know, super squats. Right.

And so he took that as, oh, if this guy's lifting four to three to four times a day, he's doing steroids. So my fault for not clarifying that. But I do do that. I do that as often as I can, as a matter of fact. Now, am I tired when I get done that? Dude, I was tired. We got home from training on Sunday, this Sunday.

I was training? You, you weren't there actually. No, no, and you weren't there on Saturday either. No, no, no,

I never go on Saturday. I don't think I've ever been there. Okay, so I go on Saturday all the time. Right off. Man, I was tired on Saturday. No,

no, sorry on Sunday. That's the good training. You get it out, man, you leave nothing on the mat. That's good training. Yeah. Feeling good about that.

But it doesn't inhibit me. I might feel a little bit tight. But I'll still serve. I'll still go for whatever. I'll still go for run. I'll still do other stuff. I won't let it stop me. Yeah.

That's what I'm saying. Hard training is not going to stop me from doing more training. I might not be the best run I've ever done. Yeah. But I'm going to get some. Get some. If you know what I'm saying. So let's do Jiu Jitsu.

That's my recommendation. Work out do Jiu Jitsu. I mean, look at the, look at the general here. 66 years old, right? Yeah. He's still training. Yeah, started at 43. He said.

43. So that's one of those men, 43, that was like a couple of years ago for me just starting and has a black belt, by the way. Yeah. So it's like, you know, those things. Come on. Let's face it. That's a common question where it's like, hey, I'm 40. Shit. Is it too late for me to start? Because a lot of times you see these tournaments and these guys, you know, you see Gordon Ryan, you know, excelling in Jiu-Jitsu and all these other guys where you look at him. You're like, bro, I'm 40 right now. That's not me. Yeah, that's somebody else, you know, kind of thing. But it's right. It's not necessarily like that, you know. Even actually as a competitor, you can still start at 40. Oh, yeah, for sure. You can do the masters. Yeah, the divisions. Yeah, they got weight and age divisions and belt divisions.

Across the board. So let's go train some jiu-jitsu. Train jiu-jitsu. Guess what? You're going to need some fuel. You know what you're going to need joint warfare? You're going to need joint warfare 100%. Yeah, that's going to help.

Go get some joint warfare from joccofuel.com. Get some drinks. Get yourself some. Oh, man. I went two I went two on the discipline glow Get yourself some discipline glow Get yourself some milk

Your post training milk Maybe that's why you can just keep getting after it You got that mulk hitter Get that protein going That's all good for you You know we got hydration coming Yep I'm drinking one right now

It's right over here It's freaking awesome Electrolite beverage Yeah it's so good Yeah So good You know once again Natural

That's what we're doing We're making it literally good for you. So we got that coming online. If you want this stuff, check out joccofield.com. Or go to Wawa, go to vitamin shop, go to the military commissaries. And I just got word today from Joe Moss. You know Joe Moss? Yeah.

I've got word from Joe Moss. We're pending going into the military exchanges. So those of you in the military, you know what I'm talking about. We're in Hanifords. We're in dash stores. We're in Wakeford, shop right. H.E.B. Down in Tejas.

By the way, if you're in Texas, your support is appreciated of the cause. Because at H.E.B., H.E.B. is like, this is our front lines. So when you're out there in H.E.B., we appreciate your support on the front lines of the battle. We're in Meyer. We're in Harris Teeter. Just rolled into Harris Teeter. So you got a Harris Teeter by you. Check that out. Lifetime Fitness. Big gems. You've been to Lifetime Fitness before? Yes. They're big. Go.

They got the drinks. They got the supplements. So go check that out, joccofuel.com. Make yourself better. Also, origin USA. American made. They started with the geese. You know, we're doing jiu-tzee.

When you start jiu-tzee, if you haven't already, you're going to need a ghee. You want to make sure it's American-made, probably the best quality ghee, no matter who made it. Yep. Yep. You know, okay, you just mentioned American-made.

I'm starting to get more and more. fired up because I see other companies out there and what pisses me off is not that the other companies are out there that doesn't make me mad it doesn't make me mad that they're out there it makes me mad when they they're they are sending a virtuous message about themselves about their company and how they're doing good and they're actually lying they're actually lying about this they're not doing good they're they have slave labor for one thing instantly if you have slave labor, you're done.

You're not doing anything good. You can't do anything virtuous. Hey, if you want to go and you want to make your stuff in China and you want to sell it here, you want to keep your mouth shut and make money, okay, you're bad, but I have beef with you, but it's a contained beef. When you start telling people about how virtuous you are, when you literally have slave labor and you're dumping chemicals into the water and you're pouring chemicals into the air, That's what you're doing.

And then you're talking to the American people as if you're virtuous. You're a liar. You're a scum. So don't be a part of that. Don't be a part of that. Get American made. Get American made. I don't care who it is.

Look, look, origin's American made. Good. You can get that. You need that. Cool. But whatever you're getting, get yourself something that's American made. And especially this is especially true with clothing. Especially true with clothing.

because those are sweatshops over there. So go to origin, USA.com. We're taking care of the workers. We're taking care of the environment. And we're taking care of you. Because we're giving you the best damn jeans, the best ghee, the best hoodie, the best t-shirt. We're giving you the best.

And you don't have to have the karma of slavery and ecological disaster on your soul. It's freaking terrible. OriginUSA.com. Go get it. Get it. Yeah, those jeans are extra legit. Black jeans available right now. Yep, Delta 68.

So the total, what are the different models of the genes? I know the Delta 68, the many washes, of course. Then there's the factory. Factory. Yeah, and that's more like the thicker one, right? Not as stretchy. Still a little bit stretchy. Oh, it's definitely stretchy.

But more heavy. Yes, it's just thicker. Yeah, yeah. Like if you're in Minnesota, you might want those factory jeans. Winter time. If you're in Montana, wintertime, you want those factory jeans. Even though I'll be honest with you, I wear the Delta jeans. I wear Delta 68's year round.

But my legs don't, do your legs ever get cold? No. I'm surprised your legs don't get a little chilly being that they're kind of skinny. They have the capability to get cold. Yes. Thank you for asking. To your knees ever get cold? Generally speaking, we're pretty warm over here.

Okay. Generally speaking. Thank you, though, Jocko, for asking. But yeah, the Delta 68, oh, yeah, all year, all year, all day. That's my, what do you call my formal wear? Check. Yep, me too. All right.

What else? Also, Jock's store called Jocko store. If you want to represent on the path, dismaline equals freedom, because it does, by the way. The idea of good, right, good, something, if you're faced with something bad, There's some good to come from it. You want to represent, but I'm telling you. Shirts, hats, hoodies, whatever you need, jocco store.com.

Also, we have a, it's called the Short Locker subscription scenario, get a new shirt every month, different designs, creative, we'll say. Did you see Leif and Dave on the airplane together? Yep. Did that Dave wrote, planned or not? What do you think? I don't think it was planned. I don't think it was planned either.

Because I can't really see them, like, calling each other. I'll be like, hey, I'm going to wear the freaking again shirt, you know? So, yeah, not politely. That's a good shirt, though. And I understand that kind of coincidence. And it's not even that much of coincidence because it's like, hey, if you're going to choose one, I can see why someone will choose that one.

You got two people doing it. So I get it, man. That was the January shirt for 2002. Again. Check. So you understand the layer behind that, right? Oh, yeah. You know, New Year, New Mean, though.

We're going to do the same good stuff we've been doing again. And actually, I got it from you. Well, yeah. There you go. Jocco store. No, that's because sometimes I like wake up in the morning and I'm posting. Yeah. And guess what I'm doing?

Everything that I did yesterday? Again. Again. I'm getting up early again. Going to work out again. That's what's happening. Again. That's where I got it.

So there you go. Get yourself some of that jocco store.com. Go to subscribe to this podcast. Subscribe to Jocco Underground. Subscribe to YouTube page. The Origin USA YouTube. page, the Jocco Fuel YouTube page, the Escalon Front YouTube page, go check those things out. We got some information on there for you.

Check out flipsidecanvus.com, Dakota Meyer. Badass. Yeah, he's a badass. He's a Marine. He's just a guy that can make things happen and he makes things for your wall too. You can hang on your wall. Flipsidecanvus.com. Check that out.

We got a bunch of books, written a bunch of books. You know what they are. If you don't have them, go get them. And listen. The most critical of these, Look, you're 38 years old or you're 42 years old and you want to get, you want to get leadership strategy and tactics and become better yourself. Cool.

But more important, actually, if you know a kid, any kid in your neighborhood, the kid across the street, he seems to be freaking constantly like sitting out in the yard not doing anything. Maybe he's digging the holes for no reason, you know, hucking rocks at things. No direction. Get that kid the way of the warrior kid. books. Get them all five. Just literally get them and bring them over to that kid. Oh, it's a girl. No, it doesn't matter. Girl, boy, it doesn't matter. So many girls read Way the Warrior Kid.

It doesn't matter. No factor. And then you know what? Go to Home Depot and spend $12 on a piece of pipe and hang it from a tree in their yard so they can start doing pull-ups. And then just watch their entire life get better. Change the trajectory of their life. Way of the Warrior Kid. Go get it. Also we got Miking the Dragons. So that's what you need for kids. We talked about Hackworth today. I wrote the forward to the re-release of David Hackworth's book about face. Go pick that thing up.

It's an 800-page leadership lesson. It wasn't written for a leadership lesson. It was just written about a dude's life. But when you read it from a leadership perspective, you're going to see what's in there, power. So check that one out. Also, we have Eschonfront, which is leadership consultancy, where we solve.

Problems through leadership. We have Eshalomfront.com. That's where you get those leadership solutions. We have live events. We have online events. The online academy is at extreme ownership.com. It's called the academy. Extreme ownership academy.

Go to extreme ownership.com. If you want to learn the magic. The magic. We talk about jihitsu like it's magic. Guess what else is magic? Knowing how to communicate with other people. Knowing how to interact with other people. that's magic.

So learn it. You don't know it. If you know Jiu-Jitsu, cool. You know what a power it is. If you don't know what Jiu-Jitsu is and you've ever rolled to somebody, you realize that you get destroyed. I'm telling you right now,

that is one aspect of life. It's being able to fight. There's another aspect of life. It's called being able to interact with other people and it's magic if you know how to do it. And if you don't know what I'm talking about right now, If you don't understand what I'm saying right now, you should go to extreme ownership.com right now,

and you should check out one of the free classes and see, go, oh, that makes sense. And then you go try it and it works. So check that out. And if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families, Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mamma Lee. She's got a charity organization.

And if you want to donate or do you want to get involved, go to America's Mighty Warriors. And also don't forget about Micah Fink, who is, I guess, last report is wearing a bear skin. And he is scaling a 14,000 foot mountain in the Rockies with no water. And he's helping other veterans do that kind of stuff. Heroes and Horses.org, go someday I'm going to go out there. When I'm older, I'm going to do that, whatever it is, 45 day, program learn how to ride a horse go out in the mountains sit in cold water eat you know bear or

whatever they're eating you know how to ride a horse no no little bit no no not at all i've ridden a horse up at we have a thing called the council at eshlam front and it's up at an off-site location where we have horses so they put me on what's called a trail horse do you know what trail horses trail horse is just an old horse that just walks on it It doesn't, it knows exactly what to do. Yeah, yeah. It's like, I'm trying to think if another situation like this, it's just a horse that's going to kind of be compliant and it knows just to walk on

the trail. Yeah. It's called the trail horse. Okay. It's not, you're not riding, you're not riding a horse. You're on the horse and it's walking, but you, you're hitting a ride. You're kind of, you're kind of just there. Okay.

Yeah. And it's well tamed. But, yeah, so I don't know how to ride a horse, no. I've been on a horse, but I don't know how to ride one very well. At all. Like, I know if you pull the rain this way, you pull the rain that way. I know how to stop it in an emergency. Yeah, yeah.

But right now, I would just be empathetic. I'm with you. Now, Iris, you know, Iris Gardner? Yeah. Oh, yeah. She was, she's like, she was a horse wrangler. My wife, too. Yeah.

My wife's grew up on horses. Yeah. So she'll just jump on a horse and jump over stuff and run, gallop, and I'll do all this other stuff. Sweet. You know, she's like a cowgirl. Yeah. In a sense.

I understand. Her and Iris. Yeah. She's from England. So is that a cowgirl? Mm. From England? I don't know what they...

Can you be a cowgirl from England? English, British cowgirl? I don't know. We have to check with the... Check with my wife. Okay. I don't think so, though. I think cowboys are American.

I think they might be American. No, but there's cowboys in like South America too. There's like cowboys in Mexico. There's like down in South America. Well, in Hawaii, Cowboys. Oh, and there's, I think there's also in, like, in New Zealand and stuff. Oh, fro. Yeah.

Maybe. So anybody that's basically a rancher. Yeah. Yeah. I guess so. In Hawaii, they call them Paniolos. Are they wearing cowboy hats? Yes.

See, there you go. And cowboy boots. And they know how to lasso and do the whole gig. Yeah. In fact, they have like shows and stuff too. It's pretty cool. Yeah. It's impressive.

It's pretty cool. Like I said, at some point when I have time, I'm going to go get with Mike Afink and I'm going to learn all this stuff. Mikeofank did it? Yeah. He grew up in what? New York and Long Island or something? there you go

Micah Fink and then he's just like no I'm gonna actually gonna be a cowboy in the wilderness in the wilderness and he straight up is so good on you there you go um if you want to connect with us first of all with uh general ferriter you can go to the ferriter group com you can go to national vmm.org and then there you can find the the social media for the national uh veterans memorial museum you can also us find him on Mike Ferreter on Instagram, Mike underscore Ferreter on Twitter and Michael Ferreter on Facebook. And Echo and I are also on the social media, reluctantly kind of, a little bit. We're there.

We're there. Look, we're not trying to waste your brain cells. We're trying to connect. Maybe you've got a question. Maybe you want to see what's happening. You can go on there. I'm just saying that there's an algorithm on there. And I hate to tell you this, there's a decent chance, the algorithm.

is stronger than you are. There's a decent chance that the algorithm is stronger than you are. Don't let it be. It's not because it's more physically powerful. It's because you're allowing it to be stronger than you. And I'm just saying don't, don't allow the algorithm to be stronger than your willpower.

It's a bad move. And it will make the rest of your life worse. It will make the rest of your life worse. So don't let that happen. And thanks again to General Mike Ferrer. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for the lessons that you passed on to us today. Thank you for spreading the word of Jiu-Jitsu and starting combatives in the army. It's awesome

One man a lot of impact and also thanks to the rest of our warriors out there in the military Who are making sacrifices right now? So that we can remain free also thanks to our police law enforcement firefighters paramedics EMTs dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service and all first responders Thank you for what you do every day and the sacrifices that you make every day so that we can be safe here and to everyone else out there. Let's think about those attributes that a warrior is supposed to have from the Army combatives manual. Here's something to think about personal courage, self-confidence, self-discipline. What's interesting about those attributes?

is they're not inherited. They're not passed down in your genes. You don't get personal courage from your mom and dad. You don't get self-confidence from your genetic gene pool. And you damn sure don't get self-discipline in your bloodstream. These are choices that you make. You choose to be courageous. You choose to have confidence.

and most important, you choose. You make the choice to be disciplined, to have self-disciplined. So make the right choice by getting up every day and getting after it. I think that's all we've got for tonight. So until next time, this is Echo and Jock.

Out.