Jocko Podcast - 474: Building More United Communities. With Force Recon Marine, Jake Harriman

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

>Join Jocko Underground<Jake graduated with distinction from the United States Naval Academy and served seven and a half years in the U.S. Marine Corps as a Platoon Commander in both the Infantry and Force Recon. Following his service, Jake enrolled at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. While at Stanford, he founded Nuru International to eradicate extreme poverty in the world’s most unstable, vulnerable regions to help end violent extremism. Jake played a vital role in drafting, introducing, and passing groundbreaking new legislation called the Global Fragility Act of 2019 that equips America with new authorities and resources to prevent conflict and stabilize some of the most fragile regions of the world.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko Podcast number 474 with Echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echow. Good evening. It is early morning April 2003. The fog is lifting along Highway 7 in southern Iraq. A small car blazes up the road. Jake Harriman, the platoon commander, fires a warning shot. The driver of the car immediately bolts from it, frantically waving his hands and starts

sprinting towards Harriman's position. Harriman's face and those of his men are as drawn and depleted as the vast rock desert that surrounds them. Taking the man for yet another suicide bomber, they train their sights on him. As they do, another vehicle. A black truck roars up weapons shredding the man's car like Sunny Corleone's Lincoln Continental and the godfather. The man screams and turns back. Harriman orders his men to open fire on the truck. The six Fedayeen members of Saddam's brutal special forces have no chance against the overwhelming American firepower.

But it's too late. At the car, the man who is trying to flee across American lines sobs uncontrollably. There is blood everywhere. In the passenger seat, his wife is dead, shot through the hands. head. In the backseat, their six-year-old daughter bleeds from the stomach. Her baby sister is already dead, a mangled bloody stump where her arm once was. A few feet from the car, Harriman stops running. The Marine Corps officer and the Iraqi father embrace and begin crying. There are no words. There never will be any words. And that right there is an excerpt for.

from an article written by Robert Strauss for Stanford magazine. And the article is about a graduate from the Stanford School of Business, who previous to that attended the Naval Academy and was commissioned as a Marine Corps officer, an individual that did four tours, including two combat deployments to Iraq as an infantry platoon commander

and force recon platoon commander. And following his service in the Marine Corps, He created a successful organization, Nauru International, which sought to eradicate extreme poverty in the world's most unstable regions in order to help end violent extremism. And in doing so, he lived overseas in impoverished areas for over a decade while spearheading that organization. And he eventually turned it over and returned to America,

where he's involved in a new project called More Perfect Union, whose goal is to help unify our country. And he's learned a lot of lessons along the way, and it's an honor to have him with us here tonight to share his experiences and those lessons learned. Jake Harriman, thanks for joining us, man. I'm a humble brother.

Thanks for the opportunity. Yeah, I guess I'm thinking that the last time you and I saw each other was at Laif Babin's wedding. Yes. That's where I met you and last saw you. It's a good time, I believe. Yeah, Leif Babin's wedding. So you were, were you out at that time?

I was out. I was living in Africa at that time. And I came home for Leif's wedding. Right on, right on. Awesome. All right. Well, let's just get some background on you. Where are you born and raised, that kind of thing.

Yeah, I grew up a little farm mountain top in West Virginia, a place called the Wetzel settlement. The Wetzel. So give me some history on that. Just all farmers, bro. There was a very small community. Obviously, no zip code, no post office. It was fantastic, though. About 40 families living up on a mountain in the middle of nowhere.

And so were your parents' farmers? So we farmed to live. We grew up in technical poverty. I never say we were poor. I didn't feel like we were poor. We lived off the land, grew up all of our own food, hunted for meat. And my mother always told us, hey, look, there's always somebody worse off situation than we are. And our job is to help those folks.

So we did a lot around the community, kind of bringing folks food, chopping wood for them, make sure they had enough food or wood in the winter. We try to do a lot in the community like that. And it was really tight-knit community. People helped each other. We had folks who helped us as well. And I grew up in this kind of really tight tribe of folks up on this little mountain in West Virginia. who, by American definitions, we're all in poverty.

But like I said, poverty is kind of a mindset. It's a condition of the mind. And I think we really worked hard to help one another so that we could have those choices and help our kids grow up. I was one of those kids to grow up and kind of achieve our dreams. So that was really a grounding upbringing for me. So did your parents have jobs outside of farming? Yeah.

So my dad drove a school bus for the county. He also on the side, worked at the local feed store. I apologize to all school bus. drivers at this time. I was that kid in the back. You know what I mean? Sorry, school bus drivers. That was back in the day when corporal punishment was still okay. My dad had a big paddle that he administered the punishment for the kids like you in the back of the bus. But my dad was awesome. Yeah, he was one of my heroes growing up. He was in the Navy himself. What'd he do in the Navy? He was a signalman on the Midway during Vietnam. They were in the Gulf of Tonkin.

He was in four years. Didn't really talk about it a lot. And he was really my only connection to the military. And what did your mom do? My mom was a trained school teacher. That's what she went to school for. But once I was born, she became full-time mom. I was the oldest of four.

Brothers or sisters? So one brother, two sisters. Yeah, there's. Damn, that good 50-50 split. Yeah, that two and two. It was great. It was great. Yeah.

And we had an amazing. amazing childhood, like, you know, lots of woods, fields to play, and building forts, having a good time. It was a great, great childhood. How big was the school that you went to? So we had one school in the whole county in Preston County. And there was about 350 people in my class. Okay. Yeah. So it was pretty sizable. When I first went into the school system, there were a lot of really tiny schools around the country or around the county, but they consolidated everybody in a one big school. one big high school. And what were you into in high school?

Well, when I was growing up, I was a little runt. I was tiny. I got beat up by all the bullies. I was not athletic at the time. I was grown into my body. But I was really fast. So I was able to run away from a lot of those guys. But over time, as I kind of hit adolescence, I really grew.

And my dad had been an athlete. He was a three sport letterman kind of growing up. Did he grow up in the same hood? He did, yeah. Check. Yeah, he grew up in the same hood. My dad was kind of a legend, you know, and so I was trying to fill his shoes. But by the time I had high school, I'd started growing a lot, and the kind of coach that kind of took me under his wing, put me in the weight room, and started playing football, loved it.

And that kind of came into my own as an athlete at that time. Any other sports besides football? I played basketball a little bit, but football was my main sport. Any wrestling? No, I did not wrestle. My best friend wrestled. And he wrestled with me a lot. Involuntary wrestling?

Yes, basically beating the crap out of me. And so you're in the school, were you like maintaining good behavior? Were you getting good grades? Were you, what were you doing? Yeah. So because I was a runt and I was really not athletic growing up, I kind of dove into books. I was the little nerd, you know. And if you see pictures of me at that time, it's really awkward.

Full nerds, little suspenders, little pot belly, glasses, braces, feathered hair parted in the middle. I was, you've seen Napoleon Dynamite. Yeah, okay. It's pretty much, that was me. But then when you got in high school, did you grow out of that? Yeah, I grew out of it, but I still had a passion for learning. You know, I still got pretty good grades.

Did you have some kind of a plan when you're going through, what are you thinking military? No, I wasn't at all. In fact, I was pretty good at math and science. I thought I was going to be an engineer. My uncle had been, oh, my mom's side had been an engineer. My goal was to become an engineer. That was kind of the path out of poverty in West Virginia. But my best friend, actually, the one that wrestled, had a dream to go to the Naval Academy since he was like six.

I didn't even know what it was. He's talking about it all the time. And, you know, we played football together. And he's like, he's like, bro, you got to do this with me. We got to sign up together. and so we both applied to the Naval Academy, and I got in, he didn't. Dang.

Yeah, it was kind of crazy. Ouch. Yeah, yeah. He ended up going to the Coast Guard Academy, got into that. And I, when I got in, it's kind of like the dog that caught the bus. Like, I had no idea what I was getting into. And they sent the packet of materials, and they're like, yeah, you're going to have to, I found out you got to wear a tie every day.

And you got to, like, you know, you're going to be in the service for six years. I'm like, yeah, I don't. I don't think that's for me. And I actually turned it down. No kidding. Yeah, I wasn't, I was a real idiot. And, you know, what'd your dad say about that? You know, at first, he was not happy.

But my dad has always been a pretty gracious guy with me and my decisions, you know. And he's always, they're super dumb. He kind of had the mentality of like, I got to learn life. I got to, I got to like take my lumps, you know. and he was great. And he and my mom were both supportive about it. And I think my mom secretly just wanted me to be closer to home. So all my buddies were going to a WVU, West Virginia University, to party.

And so at the time, WVU was known as like this big party school. And so I, you know, how you are in high school. I'm like, we're going to be buddies for life. And, you know, I'm going to go with them and do the thing. I go to college and instantly realize I've made a really big mistake. I wanted to see the world. You know, growing up in West Virginia, in really technical poverty, we never went anywhere. Never went on vacation.

I never been out of the side of the state. One trip, my grandparents took my brother and I to the beach at Oce City, Maryland, which was huge for me. But that's it. And so I never, I got kind of the adventure bug. I wanted to see the world. And I also had this kind of growing, weird pull that I needed to serve. I had this, like, crazy pull kind of kind of cultural.

of duty or whatever you want to call it, but from my dad. And he never said anything. But I remember like we were kids, we'd watch this little black and white TV. And you remember they used to have parades for the 4th of July, right? So we had this little black and white TV and we'd sit and he'd make us watch these parades. And my dad would like tear up, you know. And when I was a kid, I'd be like, you know, has he got something in his eye? What's going on?

Because he was a pretty tough guy. I never seen him cry. And over the years, I began to realize, as I learned more about it, him, he had really close friends who were Marines in Vietnam that he lost. And my dad understood the cost of freedom. And as we, as I began to grow up, I began to feel like, you know, my dad had served and there were so many things that opportunities I was experiencing that I realized I could not experience in other countries. And I really felt like it was time for me to serve. My mom had been someone who served other people her whole life. And so I really felt like I needed to serve.

So once I got to WVU, realized I'm a total idiot. I got to try to get back in. And I worked my butt off for a, it took me a year, almost a year and a half to get back in. But I somehow was able to finagle a nomination from Senator Byrd. I mean, I just don't take no very well, man. I just like hustled and tried to like, you know, wheezel my way back in. Did you have to write a letter explaining? I mean, you had to have, I imagine, write a letter explaining why you made this decision before and why it changed your mind.

Interviews. I mean, the whole nine yards. And to this day, I actually, I don't really know why they let me back in, you know, but they did. And it actually gave me an edge, man. Yeah, because you've been in the real world, you kind of understood the opportunity that you had. Right. And you're a little older. A little older than the other guys.

Especially those years. Going 17, 18, 19, 19. You can. It's possible to gain some. level of maturity. It's also impossible than that. I don't know how much I matured in those years. I was just an idiot. Okay, so now you end up getting back into the Naval Academy and now you show up for Plebe Summer, like it's on. Plebe Summer, where I met folks like Leif, Donnie Fall. Donnie and I were in the same company, actually. He's been another guest for you. Right on. And Leif and Donnie and I

started playing rugby together. That's when I learned about rugby. Got it. Yeah, I was too small for for football. I lost insane amounts of weight during PLEB summer. You know, I went down to like 175 and I'd played outside lineback, quarterback in high school. I was not about to be able to play that

in college football. And so I was kind of depressed about it, but I heard about rugby and some of the guys who, you know, had played a lot of football, decided they wanted to go out and try it out and I had some upperclassmen of my company who were really into and they were good. And so they kind of invited me out.

So you went for it. Went for it. And since you played football, it's kind of... Yeah, it's a lot of similarities. I actually really grew to love the sport. It was really awesome. There was a lot of strategy. Of course, my first week on the pitch,

I just got the crap kicked out of me. I got knocked out. I mean, because you don't know how to hit people, you know, without a helmet. You know, when you're coming straight from football, I'd knocked myself out. I, you know, I just felt like a fool running around out there, not knowing I was doing.

But I'd just work my butt off and really worked out. at it and had a little bit of natural talent. And coach started kind of noticing. And Don and I were able to make the travel squad, you know, when we were PLEBs, which was a lifesaver. But it got us out of a bunch of the stupid shenanigans you have as a freshman at the academy. How was the shock to your system showing up for Pleebs summer?

Was it, did you like instantly regret this horrible decision you made? Or were you like, oh, this is what I signed up for? No, definitely. Definitely not what I signed up for. I knew nothing about the military. So my dad, like I said, my dad had been in. I knew nothing about it, though. He never talked about it.

They send you this little book to prepare. It's called Reef Points. And it's got all the stuff that you're supposed to memorize before you go. I mean, it's a book. And every other kid, like Don, my buddy, he had memorized the entire thing front to back. Nerd. Yeah, yeah. So when you show up, that's what they do.

They quiz you on this stuff, you know. I mean, stupid stuff like weapons four to aft on an Arlie Burke destroy, whatever it is. And I didn't, I basically got the book. I'm like, I'm actually working a job this summer. I don't have time for this stuff. So I just threw it in the trash. So I show up and it's like I'm getting blasted every day, you know. And they were trying to weed me out because they felt like this guy's a complete gorilla.

He's an idiot. He doesn't know anything. It doesn't really want to be here if you didn't. Doesn't want to be here, didn't put an effort in. And so my classmates were getting, you know, they called getting rated, you know, asked these questions, they knew everything. They would just focus on me. I did a lot of push-ups that summer and a lot of extra burpees.

But it may be strong. And I also was not going to quit. I knew for a fact. Like I said, I had a little bit of an edge. The other guys, a lot of the kids didn't know if they really wanted this or not. I didn't have any other choice. You know, I'd been on the other side. We didn't have money.

I got nothing else. I got nothing else. I mean, that's what it was like, man. And I knew, like, I had to make this work, you know, so I was really determined. So what did you major in? When do you pick your major at the Naval Academy? I mean, you go in kind of having a general idea. Most...

Did you have a general idea? What you wanted to do? Did you still want to be engineering? I had studied in engineering at WVU, so it was just natural to kind of want to do the same thing. But when I got to the academy, everybody kind of takes courses that lead to engineering, it's kind of weird. Even if you study political science, you get a bachelor in science degree of political science, which is weird. And everybody's got to take engineering courses. So I decided to take this path called systems engineering, which sounded kind of cool,

is different to me, but it was the hardest major at the school. So quickly, again, realize another dumb decision. But the good thing for me was I'd already taken classes at WVU. And my kind of secret weapon was, you know, when you transfer, there is no transfer when you go to the Naval Academy. And it's not like you go two years at WVU. They need you two years at the Academy. You got to start over. And you're supposed to be able to test out of some of those classes. But what they do is it's plebs.

They take you into these testing rooms. And they turn the lights down a little bit. It's warm. No one's yelling at you. So what does everybody do? The Proctor's leave the room. You just put your head down and go to sleep. And I just slept through all those tests.

So I think I tested out like one course, you know. So I kind of had a little bit of a leg up because I'd taken a lot of the courses before. I felt pretty strong about it. So the first couple years weren't that bad. And then at what point did you start looking at like, okay, I'm going to this college. I'm going to be in the freaking military for six years. What are the job options? At what point did you start thinking about that?

Yeah. So I went in thinking I was going to be a top gun pilot. I was, it's the most cheesy possible thing you can imagine. I saw the movie, thought it was cool, that's what I'm going to do. Right when I get in, though, they're like, your eyes aren't good. You've got like, I think I had 2040, 20, 50, something like that. You know, I was never going to be able to be a pilot. So then I have no idea now what I want to do.

So I'm looking around. And there was a seal who was a company officer there. And I thought, you know, I was super competitive. And I thought, you know, well, this guy seems like a badass. Like I want to try to like do what he does. I didn't know anything about the SEALs, other than, you know, the movie stuff. And I tried to learn more about it. And over time, I'm like, that's what I want.

And as a competitive, I was really competitive. And I never, you know, growing up a little rural community, I never really, quote unquote, fail at anything I'd tried for. I was always able to achieve what I wanted to achieve. And I thought, we had 15 billets, 15 spots for SEAL candidates to come out and go to Buds. and I think there were like 250, 300 guys that wanted those in my class. Out of a class of about 950, something like that. And so I was like, I'm going to work my ass off.

I'm going to get this. And I went for it. And I failed. You know, I did everything possible. I got up super early, you know, did all the workouts, did all the interviews, made the relationships. And I remember our senior year. You go home for Thanksgiving. And they told all of us that were going for a bud slot.

They were like, okay, guys, we're down to about 20 guys. And you go home. When you come back, we're going to call everybody while you're home, and we're going to let you know if you made the cut for the last 15. And I thought I had it locked up. And I go home, and I got the phone call. And they're like, hey, look, we're really sorry. You didn't make the cut.

And I didn't understand. It's like it almost didn't register. I'm like, wait, what? And I didn't make the cut. And I'll tell you what, it's probably the best thing that ever happened to me up to that point in my life. I was really humbled. And that was my first big lesson in humility, which was a gift.

It was a gift from God, man, because it really helped me a lot. Leif Babin didn't make the cut either. That's right? Because you guys are the same year group, right? We were roommates. We were roommates. Yeah. Both going for it.

He says the same thing, surprisingly enough. And he didn't go in the Marine Corps. He went to the fleet. Yep. And when you talk to him about it, he was, he learned so much in the fleet and it was humbling. And he learned, like, how awesome an opportunity. If he gets to go to Buds, like, it's such an awesome opportunity. So he is very appreciative of the few years he spent on the ships after not getting selected.

I forget if he told me this or not, but did guys that got selected when you didn't, did any of them quit? I think he told me there's like a couple quitters from buds, yeah, like guys that they put. There might have been one or two. I remember hearing about a couple guys. But the Naval Academy, generally speaking, does well go into Buds because they're so freaking down-selected and trained. And there's a couple guys in that class who ended up being rock stars. I mean, they crushed it. They ended up over Dev Groo. Yeah, there's a bunch of studs in that year group for sure. All right. So now do you get, did you fill out your?

like, because you pick what you want to do. Did you have buds number one? Buds are number one. And then number two, you had Marine Corps? Marine Corps grounds. I heard that was a big no-no. Like I heard that if the Marine Marines look at you like, oh, you want to be a seal? You don't want to be a Marine Corps.

See you later. It is a big no-no. You're exactly correct. And I got a lot of, a lot of shit about that. But my philosophy was like I don't want to mess around here. If I'm going to do this and look, none of us knew anything about comments. combat then. But I'm like, you know, if I'm going to do this, I want to be on the front lines. I want to be making a difference. And if I can't do it at a buds, you know, the Marines are in my

mind at the time, hey, that's the next best thing. I didn't want to, I didn't want to be on a sub. I didn't want to be on a ship. I, you know, I wanted to focus on being a ground pounder kind of hooking and jabbing. And after I didn't make the cut for buds, that was also the beginning of my education about the culture and legacy of the Marine Corps. and I became so enamored with the Marine Corps. I began to feel very lucky that I had been picked to be a Marine. And to this day, if I was them, I probably would not have picked me because of my attitude after I didn't make the cut for buds.

And thank God they did. And one of the guys there, one of the other company officers was a recon officer, was a former force recon. And I didn't know anything about what that was. I mean, because Marines didn't talk about it at the time or whatever. And, you know, Marines are Marine. And, but he kind of took me under his wing at that point. It was kind of helping me learn a lot about the Marine Corps.

And I just really got excited about it. And he helped me train. And I really learned a lot more. And he started telling me more about the recon community. And when you get Marine Corps, when you get selected for Marine Corps at the Naval Academy, you don't know what job you're going to get, right? Like, you're not going to get that. So you could be anything.

You go marine ground or marine air. Okay. So if you're marine ground, if you're marine ground, I mean, there are tons of MLSs. You can end up like a supply guy. You can end up a finance guy, infantry and intel, artillery, tank, you know, all kind of tracks. So you only know coming out of the Naval Academy and you're going to go to the basic school is your next stop. Right. And when you go to the basic school, you only know you're either going to be air or ground.

Yep. It's going to be air or ground. And that's all you know. And in fact, and you have air and ground guys together going through the basic school. The philosophy of the Marine Corps is every Marine Corps officer is trained to be a rifleman, just like every Marine is. Whether you're in the cockpit or on the ground. And that really helps us later on down the road, obviously in relationships.

I'm calling Cass. I know a lot of the guys in cockpit, right? So, but that's the philosophy. So you show up to a basic school. How's the basic school for you? Coming out of the Naval Academy, it's not a shock to your. system because you're used to all this crap. Yeah, I kind of enjoyed it. It was six months. I'd learned a lot. I had a really good crew and it was Echo Company. Actually, it was the name of.

So there's a tribute to you. And we had really good tight-knit group of folks that I went through with. I really enjoyed it, learned a lot. But I was I was pretty stressed and nervous about selection for the different MOSs, MOS selection. Because I don't know if you know much about how they do it. Oh, I do. Yeah. They break the class up in thirds. Yes. Number one guy gets the first pick, but then the number one guy of the second tier, the second third gets the second pick, and then the number one guy of the third. And they do that so that they can balance out. So not, you know, the, the Marine Corps gets an equal distribution of the quality of people coming in, if you're going to base the quality, look, if you can't base a quality of a human being on how

well they're performing the basic school. But it is a level of judgment that they're making. And so that's what they do. And so you're a little bit nervous because, If you graduate, you know, I don't know what you'd have to graduate, but you could be pretty low. You could be last in the top third. Yeah. You know, top third of the class and get like your worst, your last MOS that you pick. I mean, that's, it was scary, man. Yeah.

So I worked really, really hard because I wanted to make sure I was at the top because I wanted to go infantry. Mm-hmm. You know, I found, I thought that was my calling. I really felt drawn to the other infantry officers that were there who were a, kind of our cadre, the guy that it was at the Naval Academy, same thing. And I really wanted to, and you can't go, you can't go Force Recon unless you go through the infantry, at least at the time. You could also go ground Intel at the time, but it was mostly infantry guys.

And this is still like 1999. So there's no war going on. So it's all peacetime 90s activities going on. Yep. Any challenges at the basics school for you? Anything hard for you? Yeah, I mean, there were lots of things that I there's always suckfest, right? And, you know, whether, it doesn't matter what level of school you go to, you know,

whether it's the hard stuff, the soft schools, or whether it's the basic schools that everybody goes through. There's always moments where you're kind of like, oh, this is just, you really hate it. And there's a little bit of the bureaucracy of the Marine Corps that kind of seeps into some of the schools where you're kind of like, you start to get a taste for, you know, some of the, All services struggle with that. How does that? And it's not really a meritocracy, you know, and sometimes some of the knuckleheads get through, and you're just like, how did that even happen? And so, yeah, there was some bad moments.

But for the most part, I really enjoyed it. I most enjoyed, though, infantry officer's course, which came next. What did you graduate? What number did you graduate from the basic school? I was the honor grad. Okay. So you were number one, so you got your number one pick, which was infantry?

And infantry. Yeah. And so then you go to the infantry officer course. Yep. And that's an epic course. Yeah, I loved it, man. I loved it. It was one of my favorite courses I ever went to.

It was 12 or 13 weeks. And I remember thinking becoming super comfortable at night. You know, they worked us. Well, you guys were not on nods, I'm assuming. Not on Nause. We did a 90s, bro. No nod 90s. No nod 90s.

No non-90s and no GPS. Yeah. All compass. and map, you know, and so we really, they really drilled it into us. We got really good at night, moving, you know, long distances at night, being really comfortable with the terrain, comfortable with, you know, nav, and also just every possible weapon system that we, you know, in the Marine Corps inventory. So it was a, it was a good time. I got really tight with my buddies, and it was a tough course. It was, it was a really physically demanding course.

Yeah, I always say the Marine Corps freaking outstanding. My kids, always every time they always go we know dad the Marine Corps's freaking outstanding I went to a Marine Corps boot camp graduation the other day and it's just like you know I'm sitting there just thinking of myself the Marine Corps is freaking outstanding but one of the you know that's kind of my own belief but one of the things that really shored that up a lot was I had James Webb on the podcast and he was talking about you know he's like graduated from the Naval Academy went to the basic school went to officer infantry course had seven days of leave or something flew to Vietnam yeah got put out in the field like they pointed at a ridge line they're

like hey that's your platoon up there he walks up to that ridge line and you know the sergeant that's running it because their other platoon commander had been wounded or killed and he was not there they said yep I've been running it you got it now sir and that night they get into a massive like firefight he's calling calling for fire and cast and everything else and I said oh did you feel prepared he was like yes and that's that's just awesome like to have a uh uh a school that you can go to that can prepare you day one to be ready to lead troops in combat like that. You feel confident coming out of there.

Pretty awesome. Yeah. So you get done with that. And then what's next? You get assigned to a battalion? I guess that's assigned to third battalion first Marines based out of camp. Pendleton. Check.

Yeah. And it was incredible unit. Love the guys. I learned so much from our Marines there. You know, you check in, you know, boot, second. lieutenant thinking you know everything and instantly got humbled. I think I as a leader, my whole doll life has been about leadership, which basically means I've made every possible mistake out there. Yeah, welcome to the club. Yeah. And I think my time as a young second lieutenant,

luckily I had a really good section leader who was, who helped me grow, the staff sergeant. He taught me a lot. And I went there full of piss and vinegar. I'll never first. forget, I really wanted to go to Force Recon. That was my goal. That was my target. And, you know, I'd heard a lot of kind of about the legends of these guys. And I thought that's where I wouldn't end up. But you just don't go there, you know. The way it works in the Marine Corps is you've got to kind of earn your stripes. You build a reputation. You do, you do well. And then you get invited to selection, even to try out, right? Well, I didn't want to, I don't want to wait. So I remember, I show up, I show up to 3-1.

I check in my unit. I've got like a week or two with my guys. And I found a gear list for a force recon selection that was going to be happening the next week. And I remember thinking, I'm just going to go over there and show them that I'm ready. I mean, I'm embarrassed even saying this. So I pulled together the kit. And I've been training. I've been working my ass off, like working out, you know, what I thought the selection would be.

And I took leave. and I went over and I show up at 4 a.m. at the pull-up bars. And it's just chaos. There's like 30, it's dark. There's 30 guys there, 30 other guys that we've all got our 50-pound rucks. And the gunnies are just screaming and no one's checking ideas or anything. And so I just start taking the selection. And about halfway through the day, we get into pool phase.

I'm dying, by the way. I'm literally dying. I'm flopping around, you know, but just. just embarrassing myself in every event. We get into the pool phase. And finally, the captain running the selection, looking into the pool, and I'm drowning. And he looks over the gunny. He's like, hey, who the hell is that guy drowning in the pool?

Gunny looks at those lists and he's looking through stuff. He's like, I don't know who that is, sir. Rando. Get that guy out of the pool. So they yank me out, pull me over to the captain. And he starts dressing me down. Who are you? I said, well, sir, I'm a second lieutenant.

He's like, second lieutenant. He's like, what the hell are you doing here? I'm like, well, sir, I just really want to be here. I really wanted to take selection. They all just start laughing. And I'll never forget. He looked at me, he said, listen, kid, go back to your unit, come back over here when you got some hair on your balls, right?

And I was just mortified. I was embarrassed. You know, my hands were bloodied from like, we had to do. like, you know, double, triple O-core stuff sliding down the rope because I couldn't hold on to it. You know, I was just completely beat up going back to my unit. That was my second really big humbling moment where I'm like, I am not a badass. I am not super tough.

I got to, I got to earn this, you know. And I remember just coming back to my unit and beginning to develop a new appreciation for the fire team leaders and the squad leaders that I worked with, the section leaders that I worked with, who they're the real heart of the core. know, and I began to learn a lot about that. I did a couple ARG deployments out here on the West Coast when I was a young seal. And so we, you know, we like did the whole workup package with the Marine Corps, with Force Recon. And I had a bunch of good friends with from Force Recon.

And they eventually became, what was it, that one. And so I saw like those guys. It was kind of, it was kind of awesome. But yeah, that's one of the reasons why I always held the Marine Corps in such high regard, because I worked so closely with them and just had kick. cast time with those guys. So you end up doing your workup with, what was it, did you say, 3-1? So you end up doing your work-up with 3-1 and then any challenges during the work-up?

Oh, yeah. Every day. Every day was a challenge. I mean, trying to understand. So I learned the most about leadership, I think, from my infantry unit in the beginning about servant leadership. I've become super passionate about servant leadership. I think it's the most powerful form of leadership out there.

and I learned most about that while I was in the infantry. And I learned from the corporals and, you know, the sergeants that worked with me. And they taught me a lot about, you know, just basics, leading from the front, leading with authenticity, being humble, being able to, you know, listen well. And just because you're wearing the bars doesn't mean you know everything, you know. And, I mean, basic stuff that we know. In fact, it's a real indicator that you might not know anything. Yeah, right?

Yeah, cake eaters, right? Yeah, we are, yeah, I developed a really deep appreciation for the enlisted men that I got a chance, the fortune to work with. They taught me a lot. And those guys and then the guys at the unit over the forest, they made me the leader I am today. And then you did some landings at Red Beach, I'm assuming. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, we had lots of time on Red Beach.

It was good to go, man. Right on. And how was that? So, where did you go on deployment? So first one, we did a West Pack. What ship were you on? Gosh, I was on the Tarlow one time, Bellowood. Yeah, so the ship time was not my favorite time

for a lot of reasons. But yeah, we did a Westpac. That first one was when the coal got hit. Okay. And that was the first time I had experienced anything close to, you know, combat. I remember those sailors that lost their lives in that attack. The coal had been ruptured and it was in danger of sinking. So we were running security patrols around the coal

because there were little dinghies that were trying to do a re-attack to sink the coal. So we were trying to keep them at bay. But I remember those guys that lost their lives carrying the body bags out and just thinking having a sobering moment of like, you know, this is war. this is not, you know, everything that you think you're prepared for, you're not really prepared for.

You know, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. So you get done with that deployment, come home, and it's right into another workup, or what happened next? Another workup, yeah, we get home. And usually you have about a, I don't know, four weeks, three to four week time where everybody goes and leave. You know, you got Marines who have been there forever transitioning out to another unit. They go to their schools phase, whatever might be. And then you get the new guys in. You retrain.

And then you have an official, you get locked on to another Mew. You do another workup. Then you deploy again. By the way, that's the same. At least it can vary. But that's very much what the SEAL teams did. And it's because we used to be tied to the Big Navy, just like the Marine Corps is tied to Big Navy.

So like when I was doing those ARG platoons and I did a strike platoon on board aircraft carrier, like you're just in their cycle. So that's why we've done the same type of deployments as, as the Marine Corps for a long time. As opposed to the Army that was doing, you know, in the height of the war, was doing 14 and 16 month-long deployments. And the SEAL teams and the Marine Corps's like,

yeah, we're doing six months and then go back. But okay. Yeah, so we did. So then we did another one, the second one. On the second one, it was after 9-11. So 9-11 had happened. Where were you when 9-11 happened? I was training out of 20-on-poms with my guys.

And we were actually running a convoy operators. And what was your position now? What was your job? Because you got done with your platoon, Commander Toro as an infantry guy. Well, at that time, when 9-11 happened, I was still a platoon commander. Okay. I was 81mm more a platoon commander. Got it. And so we

were on a convoy operations, don't immediate action drills out in the desert. And I remember we were in convoy and a couple of trucks back, there was a lot, one of the kids had a radio. PFC had a radio. And I thought he was like listening to, I don't know, whatever the

the latest fad was of artists, but I was pissed so I stopped the convoy and I went back to like confiscate the radio and the kid was listening in the news and they were all all their faces were like white you know and I was like what's going on guys what's happening and so I started listening and we were listening in real time it's like as as you know the planes were hitting um hitting the skyscrapers and I right after that I got a call on the radio saying hey bass is locked down get you guys back to headquarters immediately we of course we didn't know what's going to happen at the time we thought

we were going to war immediately and all this kind of stuff. But of course, that didn't happen. For some folks it did, but we were in the stack for much later. So we went back, continued training. You know, the world kicked off. We continued training. We then did a deployment. We were deployed.

We were doing, we helped stand up. You know Camp Leminié at CJTF HOA? Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. In Djibouti. So we, yeah, that's not a fun place to be, by the way. So we did a little help stand up. up that base. We're training for some counterterrorism. Did you deploy on a ship over there? Yeah. Okay. Pulling a ship over there. There was some activity there in Yemen at the time.

We were looking to do some operations. And so we helped stand all that stuff up. And then after we were finished there, we did a couple of other things. And then we were transitioning home again. So I'm thinking, okay, after this time, you know, Afghanistan had been going for a little while at this point. people have been talking about Iraq but it's just been a lot of talk nobody thought we were actually going to invade and we get our guys home and everything off the ships

which you know is a huge ordeal just getting all that stuff done right and I remember moving into my new apartment that I was renting you know some up an ocean side somewhere yeah that's exactly right you should have bought that thing because it's worth $3 million oh my gosh I can tell you it was not worth $3 million at the time

but yeah just just moved in And my X-O called, battalion X-O calls me back in after about a week after we got home. He's like, hey, I hate to tell you this, but get all you guys, we got to get back on the ships. And I'm like, what do you mean? We're getting back on the ships. Said, you know, we're the most, at this point, we were the most senior infantry battalion in the Marine Corps because we had just gotten back. Oh, yeah. Right?

So nobody left the unit yet. And guys had just started going to leave. So we had to recall everybody. getting briefed on the war plan kind of in real time and then they were waiting for us so everybody was up on the line in Kuwait up on the border there on the berm and they had left a spot

RCT1 left a spot for us to move us up there and I just remember I can't believe this is happening because I was so angry I'm like we're not going to no one's we're not going to invade Iraq this is another drill they're yanking these guys out from their families I didn't have a family. I was like, okay, whatever, but they had families. And over there, and I remember we're sitting on the berm, you know, dug in.

Of course, we're digging fighting holes and we're dug in, and we're in mop four running drills and mop four, you know, over and over and over again. And I'm just getting more and more pissed. I mean, how long is it going to be before they pull us off the line? And then one day we hear this brevity coming over the radio, lightning, lightning, lightning, and that's the call for incoming scud missiles. and I'm thinking, oh, that's an odd drill. We haven't run that one recently.

So I'm like, hey, guys. I'm like yelling at him to grab their gas mask, and then I start hearing stuff and whistling. This guy, I look up, man, no shit, scud's flying overhead. And a couple of them blowing up, you know, pretty far behind us. But we're diving in our holes, grabbing our stuff, and the company commander is freaking out.

He's running down the line, yelling at us to get in our trucks. said, hey, the president just said, go, get in your trucks right now. So everybody scrambling to get their gear, getting in the trucks. And I ran down the line to our sister company. And a buddy of mine who was in my class in the Naval Academy was a platoon commander over there. And I looked at him and we traded letters. You write these letters to your family, just in case, you know, gave each other big hug.

I was like, man, I was like, man, I don't know if we're going to see this guy again. And go back over. and I remember they got back in the trucks, waited a couple hours, then they blew the berm. We're waiting for nightfall, blew the berm, went through the berm, Tom Hawk missiles flying overhead.

So even like the day of, you didn't think it was really going to go down. Not until it actually happened. Jack. Yeah. And General Mattis had come and given this amazing talk to our NCOs, which was, I mean, that guy is a legend.

I don't know if you've ever met him, but he's incredible. And he gave this really inspiring talk to the NCOs. And I'm like, wow, you know, it'd be really amazing if something was actually going to happen because, you know, these guys are just cynical. I'm just super cynical and jaded, you know, which is just a terrible attitude. But yeah, man, it kicked off and we went through the breach. And then you guys are rolling up and how's that? So it was spotty, you know, as a, as a,

I'm sure you've heard in the early days of the war. So RCT1's job was to go straight up the gut through southern Iraq. And RCT5 was supposed to take the oil fields, the Romali oil fields. You had the seals in Basra. There's a force element in Basra as well doing some stuff. And of course the Army, their job was to seize the airfield, the Baghdad airport. And so we're moving through southern Iraq. And I remember thinking, you know, southern Iraq at the time is a really,

really, really poor place. It was desperately poor. You could see it all around you. There was a terrible food problem. We found out later that it was a real, real hunger problem. And what we encountered later was that Saddam, the regular Iraqi army, they were kind of retreating a lot as we would advance to kind of make a final stand of Baghdad. But Saddam had been pushing his Fedain guys, these special forces guys were his special force, south into these villages. And coercing these poor farmers to fight us. You know, they would drop off food, you know, threaten them, coerce them, you know, have them pick up weapons.

These guys didn't even know how he used his weapons, right? And we were fighting these farmers by the hundreds of thousands and a lot of these early engagements because we were just rolling through cities, you know, as we move through the South. The first major contact was Nasaria, so the Battle of Nasirio. Task Force Tarawa was right in front of us. They got hit hard. people calling in Medivac's stuff

and our job was to move in to provide them relief and secure the corridor for the entire division to go through so we had to fight the guys back the Intel had said that it was basically that the city had been surrendered

well the Intel was bad that they were there waiting for us and I remember there were a bunch of you know guys there with the white flags you know saying they were surrendering but when task force taro rolled up they pulled out

weapons and mowed a lot of those guys down and that was the first that was the first real engagement uh and i remember we had to we had to secure the corridor and then fight through the city and then we set up a defensive perimeter north of the city where we had to dig in because we were low on ammo uh we were going on no sleep uh and uh low on food and supply change we're we're having trouble keeping up do you guys have to lock down like a route through nausea yeah so we We had, we basically had to fight them back to lock in this corridor so that, the supply route could, well, it wasn't just, it wasn't even the supply. It was actually the combat units moving through the city.

We had to secure the corridor. And so that was our, that was our prime mission in the beginning. And then after the main element was able to move through and set a position, then we'd move through. And we moved through the north, and that's when we dug in to wait. And once we were dug in, I remember that's when this kind of event happened that you opened up with. And the guy whose family was slaughtered by the Fed Aene, he was one of these farmers who was, they were starving, but he didn't want to fight us.

He was trying to escape across our lines of safety. And that was one of the most powerful moments of my life. That event changed the entire trajectory of my life. And it took me a while to get into the new type of work that I was going to be doing eventually. But it opened my eyes to this connection between the desperation and lack of choices that people around the world and other countries have. I mean, we have so many choices in this country. We have so many freedoms that we take, I took for granted.

And encountering folks like this farmer and his family who just got slaughtered, they had no choices. This guy, he couldn't even feed his family. I mean, I have so many choices about where I want my kids to grow up, what I want them to eat. This guy had nothing, you know. And when I stood there with him in that moment, it was an incredibly human moment. And up to that point in the war, it was just kind of like training and execution. You know, we'd been trained for this. We were just executing, executing, executing, I wasn't really thinking a lot other than just thinking on the –

and shooting and moving on the battlefield. But in this moment, for whatever reason, it's like my eyes – the scales dropped from my eyes and I could see this man for the first time and I put myself in his shoes and I thought man this isn't fair you know it's not fair that the GPS coordinates of a person's birthplace dictate what choices they have in this world and the freedoms that we enjoy here every human being should be able to enjoy those freedoms and those choices and I just felt like in that moment, God gave me this awakening and I wanted to dedicate my life so that I could try to ensure I never saw that look of absolute hopelessness in another human being's eyes again like I saw

in that man that day. My heart broke for him, man. And, you know, we all do things in combat. We all remember things. And I had to did a lot of things after that, a lot of things before that. But for whatever reason, that moment, God seared that in my mind. And for years after, after I would see his eyes every time I closed my eyes and I'd go to sleep. It was like this thing that burned inside of me that would not go away. And that's what drove me eventually to do other things.

And yet like three minutes later, you probably had to get back at your vehicle, man the line and start checking stuff and you gotta kind of carry on. Did you think about it, did it hit you in that moment that profound in that moment? No. Or did you have to look back and go, you know,

Well, I'll tell you what, there was probably, I don't know how long it was, it felt like forever. It was probably realistically like 45 seconds, 50 minutes or something like that, where I felt this deep human connection with this guy. And I started having all this like emotions coming out. And I'm like, okay, I got to shut this off now. Because I mean, all of my guys were back. I knew that they were waiting for the sun to come up to start shooting at us again. And it wasn't those six guys. There was a lot of guys behind them.

So I just switched that off. got him and his daughter back through our lines. And I actually found out later they evacked her back and she made it. I found that out actually a long time after that. You were able to track her down? I've never been able to find her or him for that matter. But yeah, I mean, I continued to push and we continue to take the fight to them all the way to Baghdad. Baghdad fell, as you know.

And they then pulled us off the front lines, you know, mission accomplished. we thought the war was over. And the pull us off the front lines and we did a relief in place. We were in DeWanilla waiting for retrograde. And then they sent us back. And on my way back home after that kind of initial phase in the war, I got the call to come take selection of force,

which was like I just couldn't believe it. And I'm like, I finally made it. And I kind of forgot about that moment temporarily, you know. But that moment we restart. later on when I was in combat with my guys of force kind of over and over again in different encounters we had. I don't I don't know if I have like well I was just thinking like what moments do I have it I remember this one we it was like the first uh we did an op in Fallujah and this was in 2003 we rolled in the Fallujah we were going there was a bad guy in some

it was like a hotel it was a hotel actually not like a hotel it was a hotel using this thing and so we rolled in there at night and boom and there's uh like wounded people, wounded people on the breach. There's like blood everywhere and smoke everywhere. And it's just chaos. And we end up, we just take all military age males off target. And we get them back to, we actually get them back to, I think it was Camp Fallujah, where the Marines were. And, or might have even been, actually, I think it was an army unit at the time.

Because they had brads. Anyways, when we got back there, so we now, I think we pulled like 10, 15 guys off target. And we're walking down the line. And I'm like, oh, this guy looks normal, looks normal, looks normal. And then there was this dude. And I looked at him and I'm like, oh, this guy fucking hates me. And he wants to kill me. And he wants to kill all of us.

And I was like, oh, this is the enemy right here. Like this guy is the enemy. And sure enough, that guy was the bad guy that we were looking for. Really? And it was, but it was the first time that I saw, you know, like eye to eye. with the enemy that we had heard about and talked about and read about it's like oh yeah and this guy he it's this guy it's on like this guy wants to kill us and we're gonna we're to be we're to be at each other's throat it's not this particular guy but this group of people they they want us dead and these other people they're they don't want anything to do with that guy like they're their their body language didn't want anything to do with them yeah but so learning that early on that even as a you know a howley Like even as an American, you know, Howley guy, we, you can look in and you can look and go, okay, this guy fucking hates us.

Yeah. And I don't use that term loosely. Like, you could see this guy hates us. So that's just like a little moment that I remember going, oh, yeah, it's a little, a little switch in my mind where I learned something new. Yeah. Not only learning like, well, these civilians, like they, they have no beef with us. But this guy, he has beef with us. And it's deeply rooted.

Mm-hmm. It wasn't like, oh, this guy is. you know, later you'd learn like, oh, there's a kid that's 17 years old and he's planning an IED because he's going to get paid. Right. That guy doesn't really hate me. He's just trying to make money for his family.

So we've got to figure out a way to address that. Yep. But this guy? He hates me. He hates me. And he's trying to destroy us. And he's trying to destroy us. Yeah.

So that's a good thing to keep in mind. That's a good point, too, is there's evil people in this world, you know? And I was honored to serve with just amazing leaders who we work together to destroy the enemy of the freedoms and the people we love and our way of life and frankly, you know, the better side of humanity all over the world. But sometimes in war, there are those who are exploited

by those individuals just because they're in a desperate situation. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And over the years, I just began to see as a military, we didn't have a very good solution for those folks. and that in these broken, fragmented communities that were so desperate, because they were in these conflict areas, ISIS and Al-Qaeda and their affiliates, they can exploit those fragments. You know, where those weak vulnerable, those guys, like they attack weak targets.

They don't attack strong points. And the access points were in these vulnerable communities. And if we do something about that in a more comprehensive way, then our kinetic strikes can be combine with that kind of work to actually start to make some sustainable gains. So it's not whackamble, right? Yeah, I had that. I had such a lucky career, but, you know, part of it, the Battle of Armadi, right? Yeah, right.

And what the, the different lines of operations that the coalition forces were working was like going out and, you know, hiring this guy, this Iraqi guy to put in, you know, an irrigation pipe and we're going to pay him some ridiculous amount of money, like a thousand U.S. dollars. right, which might as well be $50,000 to dig a trench for them. But then what's he do? He takes that $1,000 and he hires two of the kids that otherwise would have been trying to get $50 to plan an IED. Well, now they're digging a ditch to put an irrigation thing in.

And this was the kind of thing where when you got to see this counterinsurgency effort in action. And look, there's bad guys that need to be killed. That guy that I just was talking about. Right. That guy's there too. And he's going to come out and he's going to try and kill Americans. He's going to kill Iraqi civilians.

He doesn't care. we got to kill that guy but at the same time if you can get that civilian like commerce kind of you can get the commerce start to move a little bit you can get people working towards some sort of normal stable existence

they start to see that and go I don't want this freaking out kind of guy over here and so this was you know colonel then colonel now general Sean McFarland who was just exquisite in the ability for him to to press forward with these various lines of operations in the heat of horrific battles be like oh yeah oh we just had you know

four Marines wounded or two two soldiers killed and we're gonna go back in there tomorrow into that exact same neighborhood and we're gonna you know rebuild a wall that one of our tanks knocked down yeah and that takes some serious discipline and an understanding of what the overall effort of the war is so that's right it was pretty awesome to see that and and I was very lucky to be a part of it. So you, you get done with that deployment. And now you're coming back and you find out you got to bill it to go to force recon. And you're pumped.

I'm super pumped. Yeah. And now the hard work starts because I got to pass the selection that just crushed me last time. And then I got to get through school phase. So in a similar way, I think for you guys, we got a series of schools we have to pass through as well before we even get to our platoon. So you take selection, then you go through your schools. If you get through that, then you pick up your platoon and you start a new workup with them. And at the time, for force, we did what's called a green side workup and then a black side workup.

The green side workup is the classic kind of reconnaissance mission, right? Deep reconnaissance, you know, jump, dive, various insert methods to be able to collect and tell the enemy, send that back, you know, classic reconnaissance, but way deep behind enemy lines kind of stuff. And then the other side, the black side workup is all about direct action. hostage rescue, VBSS, a lot of the same stuff that you guys trained for. And so I remember selection. I trained so hard for selection

because I was not about to. How long did you have when you got home to get ready for selection? Not long. I had about two months because... That's got to suck coming back from freaking sitting on the berm. Because you know what that's like.

I mean, you're sitting over there. I mean... Eating MREs. And I would try, you know, you try to run around the perimeter. to try to stay, I mean, you can't, you know, lifting sandbags and all this kind of stuff. But so I was, I had to work really, really hard when I got back, training with the guys at the unit who were in the kind of like selection platoon. And a lot of those guys ended up, I ended up

serving with the incredible guys that to this day I just look up to. And I remember taking, showing up for selection that time, and it was a very different feeling. And I felt like I was very humble. I'm like, I just, I hope I can show them. show well, show well for my unit that I came from from 3-1, represent them well, not let those guys down. You know, it was more about other people this time and then just like this cocky kid who just thought he was the shit. And so because of that, I, you know, throughout the day, I did pretty well, you know,

and so by the end it was, I think probably there were 20, 25 guys that showed up that day for selection that had gotten orders. By the end, it was me and one of the guy. on the beach who did the final run, which is this crazy rock run. Similar, I'm sure a lot of stuff you guys do. And that guy I made it with at the very end ended up being in the platoon with me.

You form these relationships and friendships with guys like that. As you're going through selection, schools phase that are just these really deep bonds. These are your brothers that you go through stuff with. And then, of course, then you do real combat together, and those bonds go even deeper, as you know. That's the way it works.

I felt really, really fortunate both to serve with the guys in the infantry and it also at force. So the selection for force is basically a day? It's just a day. It's a day. It's a day. It's a day. It's a day. And then you're going to get, and then you go to a bunch of schools.

Yeah. So our first school that everybody goes to is either called ARS or BRC, depending on what coast you were in at the time. BRC is out here in Coronado, right? Yeah, right. It's in Coronado. It's like our kind of buds. it's similar, a similar kind of time frame, a lot of the similar training, a lot of the water work,

a lot of the suck fest and patrolling, all that kind of stuff. And so BRC's where, especially as a platoon commander come in, you really have to do well. Because unlike the infantry side, what I found out in the Force Recon side is you really only got one shot. And if you mess up early, you get a stain on your reputation

that kind of follows you through the community the rest of your time. So I was pretty nervous, man, in the beginning. I did not want to let my guys down. I did not want to let my unit down. I came from. So I worked really hard to try to, like, do well at BRC, do well at the schools.

And I, you know, I failed a lot of things along the way. But I think my, I tried to maintain this humble attitude, learning attitude, both from the instructors, but also from the other guys, you know, in the schools. I think that helped me a lot as, as I went through. And then from there, you get assigned to, unit when you get done with all those schools all the schools so you do jump school dive school do both those jump school dive school sear school get the back in the day we called it the double trouble

because they had the dive pin and the that's right the parachute pin yeah that's what the that's what the marines call double trouble yeah we're not as cool as the try to yeah and so what unit you get assigned to uh first force recon so west coast and then first platoon was my platoon. Right on. And now do you get basically tasked out to like a battalion that's going on deployment? How does that work? Or you get. So it was different ways. So I worked, we worked for what's called the MEP. So the Marine Expeditionary Force. Under the MF, you have, MEPA would deploy Mews, right? So you're familiar with the Mews, Marine Expeditionary Units. And every Mew that goes out, you have an infantry battalion and it would have a force recon platoon as well. And in PEOCISO, and PACE,

time before 9-11, you would have the muse go out. And they were like the Marines ready for us. If anything happened, you know, around the world, kind of first responders. That was what the muse purpose was. And the special... That's why I volunteered to be on the ARG platoons back in the 90s because there was guys that were on the MU that went to Somalia. Yeah, right.

Meanwhile, in my first deployment, I was sitting in Guam. And I'm like, yo, put me... But there's a ship that's going to war. Yeah. Cool. Put me on that thing. Yeah. Because that used to be, yeah, like the emergency response.

That's right. From the Marine Corps was like, oh, we've got freaking a battalion of Marines and all the other assets that you have. We're going to send them you and we'll make it happen. Let's get it on. So that's why I did two of those freaking things in the 90s, chasing war. You didn't have to chase anymore after a while. Didn't have to chase for very long.

Only 13 years. 13 years, man. 13 years. You know what's funny, actually, when I first got to selection, when I finally got over there and I'm taking selection. the guys remembered me from that first time when I came through and they completely busted my balls like the whole time and stuff you know but what I learned later was you know they kind of thought I was crazy yeah yeah liked it they kind of liked it a

little bit and probably a sick twisted way but it kind of helped me get at my footing when I was over there and I really tried to adopt the kind of mindset of like I'm here to learn I got to earn these guys respect you know I was coming in with my little four years of experience and I had team leaders that had been in it for 16, 18 years. Some of them seen, you know, a lot of combat. And here I was supposed to lead them, right? So I took on this kind of philosophy of like, I got to earn the right to lead here. I got to earn the right to have their respect.

And I worked hard to do that. And a lot of that was through. Of course, you know, I'm the leader. I'm going to make the call. I'm going to make the decision. But it was a lot about listening, a lot about owning my mistake. when I made them when there were many and trying to learn never do that again. And also really trying to make each guy understand and know that he's valued on the team

that his input's important if we're going to win, you know, and to really help us to work together as a tribe, his family. I was really, really passionate about that. Yeah, I know it's awesome. And even like the idea of making the decision, I would try not to make the decision. because if the boys make a decision, cool. Unless they're doing something that just doesn't make any sense at all, I might have to say, hey, bro, you sure want to go on that?

But most of the time, it's like, hey, sounds good, Chief. It sounds good, you know, Fred or whoever my LPO is or whoever's making a call. I'm totally good with it. And that also means that when you do speak up, everyone's like, oh, he's saying something for a reason. He's not a guy that's just running his suck for no reason. I got to, you know, there's something going on. I'm missing something. If Jocko S is coming here and talk, there's something going on.

So, yeah. Now, that doesn't excuse you from the responsibility to call. And, you know, I tell that to the young officers like, hey, if you, if something goes wrong, no one is going to ask you what your chief's input was. And that's why you made the decision. It's the chief's fault. That doesn't happen. It's not, don't even think about that.

You own that decision 100%. You own what your platoon does 100%. That's the way it goes down. So, yeah, you got that attitude. Sounds like you nailed it. Well, no, I didn't. I didn't know. I used to tell them, though,

look, 90% of the time, we're going to go with what you guys want because I trust you. You guys are the experts here. You got way more experience. But what I, in return, all I'm asking is in the 10% of the times where I'm listening and hearing you

and I say, guys, I hear you. But we got to go this other way. I'm asking you to trust me. I'm asking you to trust me. And it's like earning that trust, right? And it wasn't often, but it was like rare occasions. You gave them trust over and over and over again.

Yeah. And when you give people trust, they're going to give it back to you. Exactly. I never had a conversation like that with, really with anyone I've ever worked with, of like, hey, listen, I'm going to listen to you most of that. I just did. Yeah.

And they pretty much figured out, okay, yeah, he's going to let me do whatever I want. And if I start doing something stupid, Jock was going to come and go, hey, bro, you might not want to go over there. And everyone kind of understood that. I never really had any issues with it. And so you get done. So you go through a full workup again, the green side, the black side, all good. Any major challenges there? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So I remember, so part of the black style workup, we have to, so in the Mew, the special operations capability is the force recombatoon. So you have to pass what's called a sock wall. And we have a series of missions you got to pass. And you got to, we had a group that used to call special operations training group that would be the evaluators. SOTG. SOTG, yeah. I bet I know like a bunch of these things that we're talking about.

Yeah. Because I knew some legends. I knew some force recon legends because, and the reason I knew that they were kind of leg because when debt one formed up, a lot of those guys were there. And they were like, oh, yeah, we got so and so and so and so and so and so. And I was like, oh, yeah, I know that guy. I know that guy. That was pretty awesome.

Yeah. Yeah, those guys, I mean, there were a lot of really good legends there. And so the SOTG crew would roll in. And they got to evaluate you. And, you know, you got to do a hostage rescue. You got to do the, you know, taking out the terrorist leader in this camp. You got to do a VBSS, right? So all these different missions.

And I remember the VBSS mission that we decided to train on one time is a classic example of how I was still an idiot after all this time, all this time of learning these lessons. So, you know, we had the mission was briefed. The C state was too high. So we had subject matter experts coming in, you know, our weather guys coming in telling us their job is to brief you on the conditions. If the conditions are no-go, you don't do the mission. but I was cocky and I'm like, no, we got this. We're going to go forward. And the guy looks at me, is, are you sure you going to?

I mean, I can't remember what it was. C-State 5, right? I don't remember the numbers at this point, but it was bad. And I said, no, no, we're going to do it. My guys, we're good. We've done this 100 times. Like, we're good. So I remember briefing the guys, they're like, you said, what, sir?

I'm like, guys, we got this. You know, we got this. And so we go out there and we pull up the little cricks. next to the target ship. And you remember those little ladders, right? You got to throw that thing up there, and it's this little tiny thing. And, dude, the sea state is insane.

So, I mean, like, the little rubber boats are, like, going like this next to this thing, right? None of my got, they're got, like, I'm not getting up that fucking thing. I'm not going first. So finally, I'm like, oh, get out of the way. I'm going to lead, show the way here, right? I stand up in that thing.

The boat pitches hard. like this toward the boat. I went like a lawn dart out of the boat, head first into the side of that vessel. I mean, smashed my head, knocked me out, and I went between the rubber boat and the ship, crush me.

And next thing I know, I'm 12 feet underwater sinking. I'm waking up, 12 feet underwater sinking fast because I got all my gear on me, you know. I got probably 80 pounds of gear on. And we got these, you know, those old horse collars. Yep.

They used to, you know, with the little two things, you got to pull. So I'm like, oh, shit, I got to pull. So I pull and only one side inflates. It's like faulty, right? So now I'm still sinking. So I'm desperately like trying to get to the surface, right? Luckily, it's not a real mission. We got rescue divers, you know, in boats there who are ready to go.

They pull my ass up out of the water. I was able to get near the surface. They pulled me up out of the water into the boat. I'm just completely embarrassed. devastated. So what did I do? Of course, the radio on my back, I had not waterproofed. I fried the radio. Just a total debauchery, total complete mission fail. And I remember going into the guy, so the guy that was in charge of the force platoon in a mu is called the MSPF commander. He was my boss, some colonel. And so I remember I went into his stateroom on the boat thinking I'm done.

You know, you got, this doesn't happen. You know, a platoon commander goes to this, they get shit can, they bring up the next guy. I'm like, everything I've worked for so hard, I've just blown it because I was an arrogant idiot. And I walk in there and I'll never forget what he said. He said, do you understand what you did? And I said, yes, sir, I, I'm so sorry. I understand this is it.

I started telling him who should take over and all this kind of stuff. He said, no, no, no, do you understand what you did wrong? And I said, yeah, I guess I didn't listen to the guys I should have listened to. He's like, and I'm like, I kind of had a cocky attitude about it. He's like, he's like, yeah, listen, this is your one buy. He said, if I don't let people fail, you're not going to take chances sometimes when you need to take chances. But you need to do them in a smart way. You've got to take risks, but they've got to be informed risks.

Okay, if you got experts telling you information that you need for the battle, you can't wait for 100% of information, but you better use the information you have to make good decisions. This is your one shot. Okay, we're going to reset the mission for next week. You're going to do it again. If you fail that, you're done. Okay, but you got one more shot. I couldn't believe it, man.

I knew no precedent for this, but the guy let me through. And he taught me so much about the ability to let your people fail sometimes when not everything's on the line. so they can learn from that. And I did learn from that a lot. And after that, I had to took on a whole new mindset when I was doing mission prep and preparation and all that kind of stuff. And my guys especially benefited from that lesson

that I learned. Make sure you have positive buoyancy if you're doing shipboarding. Make sure you're waterproof your radios. That's real. Those were other lessons. I used to tell guys all the time, like, if you're working with the water,

it's a real world mission. because the water will kill you as fast as anything else. That's right. If you're not paying attention or if you don't have, you know, I got very, again, I had a very lucky career. Like when we, when we started doing VBSS from the water, I was like in the first platoon that did it, you know, on the, on the, in the regular seal teams.

And my platoon commander was like had a bunch of experience doing it. And we would have to go out over the horizon. horizon to practice it because they didn't want to want to see what we're doing. That's awesome. Yeah. But what, you know, he just instilled in us these basic like, hey, make sure you have positive buoyancy. Like he just had a whole list of things to make sure we did.

And those things always stuck with me. So yeah, you young Marines out there and people in, you know, if you're in the Navy and you're doing what if you're doing boardings over in the Persian goal for wherever, man, just make sure you have positive buoyancy. Amen. So you get done with workup. Where are you guys going on to point? So they put us into a little area, basically southeast of Baghdad called North Babiol province.

Okay. And at the time, they were trying to stand up the new parliament and they were getting some of the new... So what year is this now? This was 2004, 2004 going into 2005. Okay. Check. And the problem was a lot of those guys were being assassinated. So there was this area called North Babiol where a lot of insurgent activity was happening.

Is this like, this is south of Baghdad? Yeah, on the Tigris. Maybe like a half an hour south or is it further? It's probably a little further, probably 45 minutes south. But it was on the Tigris right in a massive bend in the Tigers. I remember even the maps as I'm looking at it. But it was a little known area. We didn't have coalition forces in there.

They hadn't been in there for about six months. So because of that, it'd become kind of a hive of insurgent activity. There wasn't a lot of intel coming out of there. So they wanted to put us in there to do some R&S, number one, and then to do some DAs to start taking us on these targets. So we were getting target after target after target. It was a pretty good set of missions that we were starting to get. And I were you working out of.

Did you have like a forward operating piece number in the North VAPL? It was, yeah, it was closer to Baghdad. But it was called Fob Falcon at the time. and I remember one mission in particular, another great lesson learned in this mission, but remember the deck of cards? Yep. We actually got one of the deck of cards one.

So we're all super excited, or one of the cards in the deck. And we're doing the mission brief. I bring my team leaders in. We're kind of figuring out how we want to do it. We want to do a helo hard hit on this target. So on the Tigers, suspected 20 tangos. And our job was to bring this guy.

guy back. And so we briefed the guys. My job is to go brief the pilots and I go into the ready room. And you know how these missions are. Normally you get these old crusty pilots who've been doing this shit forever. I go in, it's a busy night and I got this kind of, I'm looking across the table and it looks like a bunch of high school kids. These are like brand new pilots, man. And I'm like, I'll start you guys in the wrong room. I got to leave the night. No, no, you Captain Herman, you're here to get so and so. I'm like, yeah, who are you guys? Like, we're your pilots. And I said, you're not my pilots.

There's no way. And they're like, no, no, no. And of course, they're indignant, right? They're pilots, not short confidence. Tell me all their qualifications. So finally, they convinced me, you know, we can do it. A brief one of the brief. We go out and do the test fire, get in the birds about 1 a.m.

Take off. There's four birds, four sticks. And the goal was to do basically a simultaneous multi-point breach. to enter the building, get the sky and come out for a hard hit. And as we're coming in into this area in South Baghdad, we start taking small arms fire, which happens a lot of these things, right? But the pilots were not used to that.

They had not. They were pretty inexperienced. So in this year, I've got my team leaders kind of reviewing the mission plan. Pretty calm. This year sounds like you take a squirrels in a bunch of cage and just start shaking them. These guys are like screaming, right? They start banking those helicopters everywhere all over creation.

And they set us down probably over a kilometer radius all over South Baghdad, kicked us out of the birds and took off. And we had no idea where we were. And I remember one of my team leaders to this day, this guy's a legend. He's over there kind of position the guy's security perimeter. And I'm ashamed to say in all of our real world missions and training and all this kind of stuff. I stood there looking like a dummy, didn't know what to do. and he runs over and he punches me in the face as hard as he can.

And he's like, hey, sir, you got to wake the fuck up and start shaking me. I'm like, hey, man, I don't know what's going on. Because I can hear one of the team leaders had landed on the target and they were pinned down. And I'm like, I don't know how we're going to, I have no idea where we are. He's like, listen, you got to take a moment, take a few deep breaths and you got to calm down. Everybody's looking at you. you've got to make a call here. Check.

Think about the assets you have at your disposal. We got a lot of assets out there. You're going to figure this out. But you've got to figure it out. So calm down. So I went back to the guys. Damn. So I took a couple deep breaths and started thinking about it.

And I did start calming down. And I remember we had a specter gun ship on station. And those guys had, we used to call it the finger of God, which is the laser indicator for calling in targets or calling in bombs. And obviously on us, on a foggy night with nods, you can watch that beam all the way down to the ground. So I told the pilots light the target up

with the finger of God because it was foggy. And I got on the radio, I said, it's all the two meters, hey guys, throw your nods on, look up in the sky, follow that down to the ground. That's the target, move on the target. And so we all started moving through the alleys, made it to the target. By some miracle God, that knucklehead was still there.

We did the breach, grabbed him, pull him out. Those idiot pilots landed coming in again, got on the birds, got out right as the reinforcements were coming in. And good ending to the story, but it never would have happened had it not been for the calm decisiveness of that team leader who's basically like, look, sir, in these moments of chaos, you can't freeze, right? You got to make a call.

You got to calm yourself down, think about the information that you have available to you. So that was a real important lesson for me. Jack, that's a good one. How, you said, what was your opt-tempo like? Were you getting like a hit every night, every other night? every few nights. Every two to three days. Nice.

We would get a hit. Yeah. And then after that, we, it was, we were there for about six months. Then we got, you know, pulled out of the rotation and started on our way home. And this is now 05 that you're getting pulled out. And now what's your next plan? So you got two combat deployments, two non-combat deployments. You're pretty experienced, freaking young Marine officer with a, that's, that's set yourself up

for a really good career, you know, like, this is looking good. I was feeling, you know, it was interesting. So I had a lot of mentors of mine at the time who were like, hey, look, a lot of good options here. You know, if Debt One was standing up, my buddy, this guy, Steve Fiscus, had been there kind of before me. I had an opportunity to maybe I could go over to Debt One, be with those guys. There was the guy I actually passed selection with who was in my platoon. We had been training for CAG selection as an option.

And then I've been talking to the guys over at the agency about the special activity stuff. So I was looking at these, you know, we're competitive. You know, we want to take the next step. But I could not shake, even after all this time, I could not shake that first experience I had with that farmer. I still was having dreams about him. And I felt as I had more operational experience, I began to see that I felt we had a critical gap international security strategy to fight these violent extremist organizations. We need to do the kinetic strikes, but we also need an element that can work in these

fragile environments for long periods of time and empower people with choices, eradicate poverty, to create a barrier, a corridor that is a barrier to spread of these groups. and aid groups couldn't do it because it's too unstable and it's too unsafe. So we had this idea like, hey, what if we could, we started hatching this idea

on the way back from this appointment. What if we could take... Who's we? Well, I would kick it around with the guys in my platoon. Like, what if we could make a hybrid? Like take former operators, no combat,

combine them with like these aid folks that know how to create sustainable solutions to poverty. And we could make these composite teams that could embed in these gray zones and we could live there for like five to seven years and work with these local leaders

to eradicate poverty and scale that and to create a resistance corridor that could stop the spread of what eventually became ISIS but at the time were elements of al-Qaeda. So that was the idea that we had come up with and the closer I got to home, I'm like, man, somebody should do this

and I just felt really compelled by, again, sometimes one person in your life you have an experience with them it shapes you forever and that experience of that farmer really really impacted me. And as much as the hardest thing, one of the hardest things in my life up to that point was to leave the guys in the mission

and the track that I was on, because you know how hard that pool is, you know, to stay. But I really felt compelled that if somebody needed to do something about this. And so on the way back, I made the decision that I was going to transition out. My time was up. you know, I was, I could renew and go take selection for one of these groups, but I really felt compelled to go take on this new mission.

So, so what's your like game plan? Did you have a bunch of money saved up? Like, how are you going to survive? Yeah, so that's an excellent question. Money, no. Plan, no. And ideas for how to form this thing, no. So I, oh for three.

Oh, for three. And, but I'm very stubborn, you know, and I was really determined to do this. So I get out, fast track out of the, they used to do what's called Tap Tamps class, which is like a horrible excuse for transition planning for people going out. It's much better now. Yeah, right, exactly. We all felt the same. So I'm coming out and all of a sudden I'm out.

I'm missing the guys horribly. They had my paddle party. You guys, I think I have the same thing. with your, do you do that same thing? Yeah, they give paddles or plaques or stuff like that. I don't think it's, the, the seal teams can be very low on ceremonial, even like informal ceremonial. The seal teams is like, yeah, later.

You know, like, that's that. Yeah. We're a little less. For us, like, I mean, one of the, the most prize possession that I own still is my paddle. I got for my guys. And they do, it's pretty awesome. They do a big, huge bonfire on the beach. All the guys you care about show up.

And they pass the paddle around the circle. And of course, everybody tells the story. about how you're an idiot and then sometimes they'll say something nice about you too but then you get this paddle that they've handcrafted for you so it's it's an amazing experience and i missed my guys a lot and i was struggling i started now now everything is slowed down i began to experience a lot of nightmares a lot of anger a lot of stuff you know we all experience as we begin to transition out and uh this mission that i thought i was going to do i'm like what was i thinking you know how am going to take on extreme poverty.

What do I know about that? You can't even get your shit. Don't dumb ass out of poverty right now. I was trying to pay my rent, man. I was running out of money. Because, you know, on the Plymits, I was a young guy, single guy, blowing money. I get home. I got to get a job.

I don't know what to do. I'm feeling really lost. So I remember I was living in Carlsbad. It's a little tiny apartment. My neighbor was out there one day. I'm like, hey man, I'm trying to find a job. He's like, well, my dad has a seafood business down the coast here in Carlsbad. We're looking for a truck driver.

So I actually got a job driving a seafood delivery truck. For a while. I was delivered in, I had a route in San Diego, Orange County, and L.A. One of the best jobs I ever had, by the way. Because I actually used that time to help kind of decompress the war a little bit. Think about what my next step would be. And the guys in the kitchens of these restaurants give me sick food every time I stop. into which is awesome.

But as I was trying to figure out what to do, I knew I had to build an organization. I literally bought this book, which is the equivalent of nonprofits for dummies, which had a little workbook of how you kind of like try to put something together. And I was failing miserably. I didn't know what I was doing. So I had a friend who was at business school, Don. And he's like, hey man, look, if you want to build something, you should probably go to business school because you don't know what you're doing.

And I'm like, I don't know, how am I going to get to business school? I had an engineering degree from the Naval Academy, which, by the way, I didn't use a single day after I graduated. And so I just decided to apply, man. And so I was like, I remember making a bargain with God. I was like, hey, I've heard of Stanford and Harvard. Like, I'm going to apply these schools.

If you really want me to go to business school, you don't get me in one of these schools. And I applied and kind of forgot about it. I didn't seriously think I was going to get in. And I remember dropping the truck off at the seafood farm one day and kind of hoof it. at home and they're on my doorstep, man, acceptance letters.

I couldn't believe it. From both. Yeah. And so I decided. There must be a good essay writer or something, dude. I had a lot of help. I had a lot of help, man. I think they had a quota for a kid from West Virginia or something.

Yeah, I mean, so it got in and was on this kind of mission. I felt compelled to. How long is that school? Two years. You had to move up there to San Francisco? Move up to the Bay Area. Did you get the GI Bill if you went to the Naval Academy? Yes, you do, but I didn't know about that.

And so I missed out on that. So did you borrow money? Like, how are you eating? Huge student loans. Yeah. How do you like them apples? I'm still paying those apples right now. It's insane.

You had the GI Bill. Yeah. You just didn't know about it. I mean, anybody out there listening right now, do not do most of the things I've done in my life. You'd be okay. Yeah. No, I didn't even, I didn't know. I qualified for the GI Bill, but I did.

And I just, of course, wasted it. But yeah, got to stay up for man. And it was a strange experience because I was thinking, hey, here's this kind of like liberal school. They're going to put me in a box as a Marine. There weren't many vets there. There was probably two or three guys that I knew of that were there out of a class of like 250, 260. And I remember thinking they're going to hate me. So I didn't tell them really what I was there for or what I'd done.

and so you get these mixers, you know, the first week, and everybody's kind of like wearing their resume on their sleeves. Like, oh, I work at Kleiner Perkins or I already don't like this. Yeah, dude, I'm telling you, I work here, I worked to Google, I worked here, you know, these kind of big shot guys. And they're like, hey, man, what did you do? I said, well, I hunted down insurgents. No, it's even worse.

I was like, I drove a seafood truck in San Diego. And they kind of laugh, and I'm like, no, no, I'm serious. I drove a Seafet truck in San Diego. That's awesome. And it was super awkward. But over time, I made some good buddies there who didn't care what I did. And then I kind of slowly let them know what I had done and why I was there. And they became this incredible group of classmates who really helped me build this thing.

I had totally judged them the wrong way. They really appreciated my service. And they really wanted to get behind me. They volunteered tons of hours helped me build out the model for. for how to build this thing. They helped introduce me to potential donors. I was going to class and then, you know, leaving class to go pitch guys on Silicon Valley

about, you know, to give money and all this kind of stuff and getting like one maybe for 20 meetings of nose. But over time, man, we raised about $350,000 to get started. And that's how you kicked this thing off. Yeah. Packed my bags, moved to Africa. What's Nuru mean? Newroo means light or hope in Swahili.

Check. Yeah, I wanted to be relevant for the people I was working with. So then it was what's like the first trip to Africa? When you go there, are you like a one-way ticket? Yeah. I had in between your first and second year of business school, you do an internship. And I had, was fortunate enough to, there was a nonprofit working in Africa. I was trying to figure out of scale their business in the middle of nowhere in the wilderness.

And they were looking for somebody crazy to kind of figure to put out there. And I volunteered and went out there. and for 10 weeks, learned the language, worked with a bunch of farmers, built a program, started growing it. Where were you?

I was out in western Kenya. So, out of the bush. And, yeah, started kind of laying the groundwork for what I was going to do. And I had no idea what I was doing at all. And I remember graduating after that internship.

I graduated, packed my bags, moved to the, place we wanted to start the project. It was in a village. And week one, I got jumped by a pack of thieves. Black widow spiders and safari ants swarmed our hut. We had an earthquake. I got malaria. And then the last day of the week, which was also my birthday, I got struck by lightning. I mean, you can't make this stuff up, right? I mean, it was a bad week. You got struck by lightning. struck by lightning bro.

Yeah. Did you get knocked out? Yeah. So I was trying to set up a little SACCOM unit so we get internet so I could maintain comms with people back in the States. And I was sitting on this stump inside the hut. Is there thunder and lightning? Is it raining?

Oh yeah, dude. I mean, I'm talking like. And you're just out there holding that freaking sack com antenna. No, no, no. I'm in the hut. Also known as a lightning rod. I'm in the hut on a stump with my laptop up trying to get this network up. and the SACCOM antenna's outside

with the cable running into my laptop. My buddy's in the hut with me. He's like, dude, this is a powerful storm. And I was like, yeah, yeah, whatever. And the next thing I know, I'm on the other side of the HUD against the wall laying on the ground. I thought my legs were on fire.

And I'm opening my eyes. My buddy's over me, shaking me. And he's terrified. And I said, dude, my legs are on fire. He's like, no, you're all right. He's like, what happened? Of course, then when he realizes I'm okay, what does he do

makes fun of you yeah starts laughing yeah he starts laughing he's like dude you just got struck by lightning and he's just dying laughing so that was quite an experience I felt like I could handle thieves

I could handle some of those social stuff how much did the thieves get from you oh they didn't get anything oh really no they did you fight them yeah you had to I mean because they were trying by the way this is how you get like stabbed and like get your throat slid but but you had I mean I had to

establish a presence there was three of them but the first two were small they like ran away the second the last guy was not small and um and we had a security guard who was working down the road who came up after that and uh at the end so let's go let's hear it so that you're walking down the street where are you no so it's outside we're in the hut i'm with the rest of my team so there was four of us three civilians that I had hired um and myself and i hear something outside so i go outside

the hut and I'm hearing some wrestling and there's this guard down the road and he starts yelling. He's like screaming. I run down and there's three guys on him. They turn on me and start, they jump me, right? Because they were sneaking across the border from Tanzania. They'd heard that these Westerns ran here with, you know, they thought we'd have all this money and all this kind of stuff that they were trying to take. and I thought we were a soft target

and so they just jummy man and the first guy I threw off me and was able to hit him pretty hard in the face wasn't hard he was smaller he just took off running they didn't sign up for this

they thought it was going to be in and out steal some stuff second guy just ran the third guy though was a pretty big guy and got up and started throwing haymakers and we're like wrestling on the ground and I'm trying to put him in a chokehold,

finally get him in a chokehold, and then the security guard who'd been bashed in the head by this guy with a stick is bleeding. He runs over and starts beating the shit this guy with a stick. And I'm trying to get him off. I don't want him to kill a guy.

We call him hearts and minds Jake. And so I get him off, and I'm like, this guy's like submitted at this point. And so we tie him up and call the local, like, cops who are, you know, not really cops, but they come in a truck and take this guy away. But we had to kind of establish a presence.

And then I went back into the hut, and the team was like, hey, what was that? I was like, I don't know, these neighbors are having some problems out there. I don't know what. Because I couldn't let them know. They would have been terrified, and this is not what they signed up for.

They're like regular people, good people. How long did malaria knock you out for? I was out for about a week. And I got the medicine, which was key but a lot of the folks worked with couldn't afford the medicine

their kids would die from this stuff man it's nasty but yeah I ended up getting it two or three times but that first time is the worst

we pulled in I was on one of those ARG deployments and we pulled into Kenya this is in like 1993 maybe maybe 1994

and you know I'm young a single dude I don't care about anything and as we're pulling in on the Navy ships back And they'd say like, oh, we're doing tours. Like you could go do a tour.

And, you know, some people would go do a tour. I'm not doing a tour. Like, I'm going to go be a frog man and go, you know, drink and party and everything else. And we have no idea. There's no internet. I can't tell you where Kenya is on a map or Mombasa. We're pulling in Mabasa. I don't care about any of that.

Like a, but one of my other buddies is like, hey, you know, I'm going to go climb Mount Kilimanjaro. There's two tours. Okay, cool. And he's like, you know, he's. working out getting in shape for it and he's and so then they're like hey start taking your malaria pills and so he's like taking the malaria pills long story short like at one point i ended up like i woke up in the morning outside on the beach there's i'm near like a low level swamp there's mosquitoes just feasting on my body and you know i'm just hung over passed out outside and i did that

for like four days or however long we're there for. And then, so then we all come back to the ship. And, you know, the guy that climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, who's like one of my best friends, you know, I'm like, how was it? He's like, oh, it's great, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, how was it your time? Like, oh, it's great.

And then two days later, whatever, he's down hard with malaria. He got malaria. I never took a single pill. That's insane. And I was like getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. So I have a feeling that the alcohol killed the malaria I wouldn't enter my system. It was just like, no, get out of here.

Highly. He was down hard. Yeah. And you have that forever, right? Don't you have malaria forever, kind of? You have an element of it in you. Yeah, forever. But yeah.

Check. All right. So at what point did you start to like feel like you could make, you're making a difference. Like how did this go? Yeah. So I, it was really about my team.

So I make a lot of mistakes to the leader, but I'm pretty good to build good teams. And my philosophy is you always want to, bring in people, hire people smarter, faster, better, stronger than you are. And that was the case with my team at Nuru. I hired some really incredible people. And we started having a great impact. So we were increasing crop yields from like, you know, three bags of corn on an acre to like 18.

So you hire in like agricultural wizards and stuff like that. Right. And folks who really knew how to build sustainable models because our whole philosophy was about you got to, the local leaders were working with, they got to own it, right? They need to own it. They need to be able to scale on their own. They need to, this needs to be theirs so that it will last. And then we're just there to, as scaffolding, to build out an organization they can run, and then we leave. We exit, leaving behind a model that continue to grow on its own. And the key are the local leaders, you know, seeing them as the solution, seeing them as like, here's the folks we need to empower. It's not about us and our

ideas. They're usually dumb. But it's about building this, like, great camaraderie with the leaders there and unlocking the potential they have to solve their own problems. But building an economic model there to fuel the growth of the organization on its own independent of us after we leave. And so, yeah. And then how long do you have to stay, you know, in order to mentor a leader? Yeah. And, well, first, you got to identify that leader.

You've got to make sure that they're not corrupt and crazy, which can take a couple of years in its own right. And then get them trained up and then get some support team around them. So you mentioned earlier like five to seven years. Is that what kind of a timeline you're talking about? First project was seven years until exit. But after that, progressively we got faster to the point where we had a project in northeast Nigeria in like Boko Haram and ISIS, West Africa Territory.

We exited after four years. We were able to lead behind a really strong organization that's still scaling to this day. And I think the key in a lot of these areas is just it's restoring agency. You know, when people feel like they don't have a voice. We started the conversation about me growing up and it's about mindset. When people don't feel like they have a voice or an opportunity to lift themselves out, they're just filled with hopelessness. And that's when you get into this trap, this cycle of poverty. But we were just restoring agency, dignity, giving them the tools they need to do it themselves so they could believe in themselves again.

So when you look at, is there like a community that grows around this? Yeah, this what you start. So what it ends up being is when we first go into an area, there's a lot of fragmented villages, right? And they're all just trying to survive. They're not connected. They're just trying to keep their own family alive, frankly. But, and then you've usually got like a negative violent extremist organization out there

that's trying to infiltrate. So what we do is we unite that community together. And many times within the community, within the villages, there's war. warring tribes. And that divisiveness actually makes it more of a target for these groups. So our goal is to bring these two warring groups together and unite them around a common goal of improving their lives together, improving their communities. The prosperity is going to bring peace. Exactly, dude. Yeah, prosperity brings peace. It actually creates a really solid front and a barrier to these extremists moving in. So the extremists go elsewhere. And so you build that to thousands

families over time, and it creates a really strong component or strong element for people who are actually making their own choices. You know, and it's a new freedom for that region. So that's what you get to see is you get to see sort of this expanding community. And then they, do they sort of absorb smaller villages around them? Like, hey, we got a good way to do this. Do you want to learn it too? Yeah.

And usually the way it works, we work in remote rural areas. So it's all mostly through farming and livelihoods or, you know, work with animals for, for pastoralists, but we work, the vehicle is through we form farming cooperatives. So other villages, other farmers will join the cooperatives. And then the cooperatives form unions. And there's power in all these cooperatives working together. They can offload all of their grain into real markets and capture that value to continue funding the program.

It's pretty cool to watch it happen, man. Like, especially when it takes off totally independent of you or of me. and it's funny to look back and think of how wrong I did it in the beginning and how it's operating now independent of me entirely. There's a new CEO running it, and they're scaling. They're now in their fifth country and in really tough places that other NGOs can't go to be able to do work kind of on the front lines, helping stop the spread of these groups.

So how many years total did you do? Nuru. in Africa or with Nuru before we turned it over. I lived in these villages about seven and a half, almost eight years. I was with Nuru from founding until transition, about 12 total. So my time in the field, though, was about seven and a half, almost eight. You must feel very comfortable in the bush at this point. Yeah, man, I loved it.

Did you learn any skills down there? Did you learn any like hunting skills or anything like that? Did you go in the field and hunt? No, I grew up hunting. I learned a lot about farming, which was ironic. I thought I was a farmer coming from West Virginia, but those guys taught me farming, bro. Yeah, I learned a lot about,

I learned how to make bricks out of mud, which is fascinating. I learned a lot about defense with different types of weapons that are not guns, which was cool. Yeah, we lived in a lot of really, I actually learned some interesting things about building out of,

what really is a huge thing. HUMET network, but doing it through different types of activities than what I was trained in before. Because we needed that to be able to detect when like Boko Ram or ISIS group was targeting us so we could move or, you know, get out of that situation. So I learned a lot about that. You know, I learned a lot about myself and about people, how people work. I also learned the power of like, this was a really molding time for me also in leadership,

because I learned that people are people, bro, everywhere. Doesn't matter what language you speak, you know, what you look like, how much money you have. People are people. And you're driven by a lot of the same things. And so leadership is leadership. A lot of the same lessons apply. It doesn't matter where you are. That's 100% accurate.

What eventually, I'd say inspired you, but what made you decide, okay, I'm going to turn this over. It's on the right path. I like the trajectory. I see where it's going. It's going to be solid. What made you decide to move on? Well, I actually thought I was going to be doing that forever. I thought that was my, I'm not like a serial entrepreneur. I'm not one of these guys that goes and start something like, I mean, you're a great serial entrepreneur. Both you guys, I don't, that's not me. I was like, I have a mission. I do one thing, try to get really good at it. But the turning point for me was I came back for a program, to a leadership program in the States.

I had a friend who was helping get this thing off the ground. President Bush and Clinton were doing this new thing called the Presidential Leadership Scholars Program. And they were looking for a group of like emerging leaders working on domestic or international issues to help them take their models to the next level. And I got invited to participate, but to do that, I had to move back to the States.

Was it like a course? It has a six-month program. Okay. where every month you would do five days on site at one of the presidential libraries, where the living presidents would be there with a lot of people from their administration, talk to you about lessons they learned in leadership from their administration. And then there was a team from Bush and Clinton that did kind of the overall curriculum and stuff like that, brought in the speakers, brought in the presidents.

It was a really cool experience. And I was, again, kind of odd man out. I was literally coming from the bush for this program and I'll never forget like, you know, everybody, you're wearing suits and all this kind of stuff to do this program. I didn't know a suit. And I remember trying to, there was a friend of mine that knew something about fashion and style,

which I knew nothing about. I mean, I had insane hair. I wore cargo pants and t-shirts every day all day. And this dude wrote this amazing, he was a Marine II, wrote this amazing email ripping me, telling me the basics of fashion of how to like wear button-up shirts and wear shoes that don't make you look like an ass clown and like how to have a right belt and a suit and all this kind of stuff. So it was a little bit of a culture shock for me to this

program. But I remember coming home and I'd been living overseas for I felt like 15 years, you know, I came home for business school, but that's a bubble. You know, I just lived there in school as a school environment. But basically 15 years down range, first as a marine all these deployments and now live in these villages. And I came home for this program. to do this program with the president's where I was like living here in the stage for six months. What year is this? 2015. Okay.

And I just remember, man, I was shocked like when I got home. And I did not recognize the country that I left to fight for in 2000. There was this crazy hatred and fear among Americans, hating other Americans. And this didn't make any sense to me. You know, you had these politicians that were just running for office to, like, become famous, you know, and have, like, power. There's all this money in politics, just like Americans, all that lack of agency I'd seen in that farm or many others when I was overseas and these people I worked with in Africa. I started to see that in Americans' eyes here at home. They didn't feel like they had any choices here.

They couldn't change the situation. They were getting desperate. And I got really sad, man. I'm like, all of us have been downrange for the last couple decades trying to fight for the idea of America and protect us against our enemies, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, you name it. Only to come home here and see, it's not going to be those guys that defeats us. It's going to be us. We're going to tear ourselves apart. And then I got really pissed off, man.

I was like, I didn't now watch a lot of my buddies pay the ultimate sacrifice to come home here and watch us tear ourselves apart while China, Russia, Iran sit on the same. sidelines just like stoke the fire and laugh at us you know wait for wait to wait to attack and I felt compelled to do something and so compelled that I was like okay well you know I got I got I got to build something to try to help heal this divide you know and and and but I didn't know what to do I didn't nothing about politics I was completely underqualified but again I was very passionate about this problem and so I started kind of kicking around some ideas I had some mentors like you know what, you should run for office. And I thought that was a terrible idea.

I said there's got to be a better way that I can get involved here to help out. And so I met with some of my donors who have been back in this for a long time. And they were like, hey, man, we're shifting all of our philanthropy out of this space that we've been backing you in and fighting poverty overseas. And we're trying to shift at home here to figure out a way to build more of a center in American politics and help heal the divide in the country. And we've been looking around. There's a lot of good organizations out there, but not a lot of systemic change happening. And you know, you were this crazy outsider. You were a Marine that knew nothing about aid, and you kind of built this thing that had

global impact and disrupted the industry. Would you take a look at the politics industry? Is there a way to disrupt it and build something that could actually have some real systemic change? And if there's a market gap, we'll put together some capital, get you off the ground. And so I was fascinated by the problem, so I spent about four months and kind of studied other organizations that are doing stuff. And at this point, are you turning over? No, no, not yet.

You made the decision yet? Not yet. I wanted to do something. I'm still exploring. Yeah. So I'm like reading stuff and I'm trying to like meet other people to try and understand what they're doing. And I thought I saw a real gap.

And so I put together this 40 page strategy, you know. What was the gap that you saw? So I began to see that there were two main problems the way I dissected the problem. One of it was the political system, which has been hijacked by extremists, and the incentives are all wrong. And we got to fix that system, and it's about leadership. We got to get the right leaders in. And there's a whole way around doing that. But the way that I felt like I could attack the second problem that I felt like attack more immediately was this horrible divisiveness and isolation that we were seeing in communities all over the country.

rural urban, periurban like you know Americans were no longer coming out to meet each other anymore

you know there was this guy named Robert Putnam wrote this book called Bowling Alone a long time ago it was about people aren't

joining clubs anymore they're not going to church and meeting other people like them anymore I mean if you think about it

in your own lives like how often do you actually encounter people who don't think the way that you think or watch the same channels

that you're watching or have the same background that you do We got, I'm honest with you, we got that jih Tjitsu boy. Well, I love it. Like, we're in there all day. Like, there's just, you're right. It's everyone's on the mats and it's all different.

Yes. People from everywhere. So think about that. You got that little special thing over here. Think about that, right? Where else do we see that? In the military. Yeah.

Right? In the military, like, you don't choose your platoon mates, right? They're there. And they're coming from all over the place, right? So what I found was, but in America itself, across the country, we've become more and more isolated. And we've sorted ourselves into these echo chambers where we don't actually connect with other Americans anymore and we've lost sense of what it means to be Americans.

We've lost our common ground. And I saw that as a critical gap that we need to repair. So when I started thinking about like how do we start addressing this, I saw what I believe to be this incredibly untapped strategic asset for the country, which is our brave men and women coming home from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, you know, and they're plugging into American society and they're building careers and they're doing good things in the world. But you know what a lot of them are kind of missing the mission. They're missing that purpose. You know, they need a new hill to take, man. You know, as vets, like, we need a hill to take.

We need that purpose and meaning. And I believe there's no greater hill to take right now than to help save American democracy. We, you know, we're a government of by and for the people, and we the people have to solve this problem. We can't wait for people in Washington to try to figure this shit out. We need to do this ourselves. We need to reclaim our own agency. And that starts with really small things at the community level.

The reason veterans are unique is because we still hold a unique place in American society, both folks on the left and the right trust veterans still. and we have kind of earned the right to speak into those communities. So we can be powerful conveners. So what we do, this model I created was, hey, what if we could like train the best and brightest veterans to go into communities all over the country and launch chapters where they're bringing folks together from the left and right around common activities that bring us together, community service projects, fun social connection activities like fitness challenges, potluck dinners, concerts, you know, civic engagement stuff that we can do together. But these activities that bond us together to find common ground. And even go beyond common ground to find higher ground, what does it mean to be Americans again? How do we actually come back together around that common

identity? What are those common values that we all share? So I began to see this and I thought, we got to do this. We got to launch this. There was a hunger in the country. I thought it was a real gap. I put together the strategy, sent that around a bunch of my mentors and a, it like Jim Madison, John Allen, President Bush, it's like, hey, you should do this. So I put about a 12-month transition plan in place for Nuru, my organization, because I'm still very passionate about that mission, but I knew I needed to start this.

And I handed off the reins in June of 2020 to the new CEO. And I didn't have to worry about it. They're crushing it. I think they just had to get rid of May. And then in July of 2020, I stood up this new thing called More Perfect Union. And since that time, man, there's a hunger in the country for this.

We've scaled to over 35,000 people now, members in all 50 states. We've got 31 strong locations. We call brickyards. Brickyards are our name for our chapters. It's building the country back brick by brick. And

what our veterans do, we train and equip these veterans. We find top veterans from around the country. We train them at a program at the University of Montana. We partner with those guys to equip these veterans with the skills they need to launch these brickyard operations in their home state. And we're using counterinsurgency tactics. I mean, if you think about it, we're doing human terrain mapping to map out

the power dynamics in the community. You know, it's not just the people who are holding titles in the community, but who has the real power and influence on both the left and the right. How do we actually build trust in those communities, do the three cups of tea and the key leader meetings to be able to actually gain that trust and then bring them together in these common areas to do good things for the community. Our first activities are these social connection activities to create understanding. Then we do community service to build trust. And then we do civic engagement programs to create ownership in our democracy. And, you know, if you're swinging a hammer, building a house for somebody in the community with this guy next to you, it's really hard to

hate that person. You know, and you're talking about your kids and you're talking about what your hopes are for them. And we're trying to bring Americans back together in this moment because if we don't, we're going to lose what we all love and what we all fought so hard for. And so the expansion plan, you said we're in 31 states right now or 35 states? We're in all 50 states our members are, but we've got 31 main locations where our, what we call brickyard centers of activity. Like, this is where we've begun to scale operations, 35,000 members from all different states, you know, and it's growing so quickly.

In fact, we went from 10,000 to 35,000. in the last two months of last year because there's just a real hunger for people right now. You know, people were really fed up. And do you sort of piggyback on other things like building homes for heroes or home, what's that, habitat for humanity? Do you piggyback on those things? Absolutely, man.

We're not trying to recreate it, you know, we're not trying to reinvent the wheel or duplicate effort. We build partnerships with other great organizations out there. and we pull those partners in and run activities. So we partnered with Habitat for Humanity to do a house built in Atlanta at the Atlanta brickyard. And we brought the folks in from both sides. Habitat brought the programming and the equipment. And we built these houses together.

It was an incredible event. And we tap into other, like you talk about your judicious clubs, right? We tap into groups like that also all over the country. We do fitness challenges. You might have heard of Go Ruck. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So Go Ruck is one of our big parts.

partners. They've got, you know, 500 rucking clubs around the country. He's been on this podcast twice. Yeah. Oh, Jason McCarthy? Yeah, yeah. Jason. Yeah, great dude. Yeah, so they're one of our big partners. But we partner with other groups who have some either great infrastructure or a ready member base. And then we work with them to enroll their folks into our programming to, again, it's all about uniting people.

It's all about bringing people together across the political divide. Yeah, so interestingly so I have a leadership consultant company called Eschleafront and sometimes I'll be talking to companies and when we'll talk about like team building events

right and I'll kind of tongue in cheek a little bit but talk about the best team building event that you have is what you do every day like you know how many times I took my seal platoon out to do a team building event? Never because what we did was we you know planned a mission went and built our boats

to go and drop them out of airplanes and everyone had to get along with each other and work together and figure things out. And so when you're in a company, when you're in a business and you're making a product, you have to get together and make that product.

And that right there, if you frame it correctly, can be a team building event. That's why I kind of was wondering if you were picking backing off of other organizations. You know, like right now and it, well,

there's fires in California right now, which I'm sure there's going to need some help. But it would be great. It was almost like a manpower. team where you go, oh, we've got fires that just took place in California. Someone's going to need to go help clean that up. The hurricane that swept through North Carolina, really bad, terrible situation. Probably needs some manpower out there.

So that's just, and it sounds like kind of that's what you're doing. That's exactly right. I mean, the vision for this is that we want more perfect union to be the new meeting place for America. So it's a vision of a new civic organization for the country. So take the... What's an old civic organization? Great organizations that are declining.

So Rotary, Lions Club, Quana's Club. That's what I need to know. I just need to know what you were talking about. Yeah, yeah. So it's community associations. My father-in-law's Rotary Club, England. My mom, too, by the way.

That's some junction. So I don't know. Am I pulling rank on you? A little bit, yeah. But yeah, you're right. Like that's a huge part of his life. Yeah. Like Rotary Club.

They're getting having dinner. They're doing like little awards to each other. and stuff like that. And those societies, those organizations are important for our communities. The problem for our civic fabric, but the problem is the next generation are, they're not joining anymore, right? We've gotten way more isolated because of social media and a lot of different things, a lot of different phenomena for the newer generation.

So we need that new meeting place, that gathering place. We need that new mobilization of Americans to come together to do good things. So, for instance, the wildfires of California, it'd be great to say, hey, let's actually activate the more perfect union brickyard in Malibu and have them out there working with teams and disaster relief organizations to be able to clean stuff up and help people, help evacuate people, right? And we got veterans on board who are driving it, so they're used to doing an emergency crisis management type situations, right? So it's about reactivating the American spirit, right? Like we're in a unique moment in this country, and we have to act in this moment. And I think people

get inspired by that. You know, if you, I've talked to so many Americans that feel like they, what are we going to do? There's nothing we can do. Then there's a sense of hopelessness. And they're reaching out to desperate figures to lead them in these times, right? But if you're looking around to see who's the leader going to lead us out, you need to look in the mirror. Like, we're the leader who's going to lead us out of the situation. We have to take ownership. America's so amazing because we have all these freedoms and rights, but those freedoms and rights come with responsibility and duty. You know, if you're going to wear the American identity, there's a responsibility that comes

with that. And that means you've got to own your country. That means you've got to lead. I don't care who you are. We all have our leadership roles in this moment. So how's the expansion look like? How can we help out? Well, we're trying to spread the words as much as we can about this movement.

You can go to our website, mp.u. dot us and learn more. We can train you up to start a brickyard. We have an annual fellowship for our top veterans that we bring to Montana. Fifteen folks get selected. How do you get ranked as a top veteran? You're on the selection committee. No, but we recruit folks who have been doing pretty incredible things in their lives already, right?

These are folks who have really kicked ass, come back from overseas, built great careers, who were kind of like, again, looking for that next hill to take. So we recruit them and we make them a fellow in our program and we take them through the training package and then we send them back and then they launch programming in their home state. But you don't have to go through that program either. That's just for the folks that actually get into the fellowship. There's a lot of other ways to onboard and start a brickyard now. A lot of the folks that get into the fellowship are our top brickyard leaders around the country who have been doing great things already. Where does a brickyard take place?

In a community. Like physically like, is it at the YMCA? A community building. YMCA, we've partnered with YMCA for meeting spaces. We partner with the VFW, the American Legion. Like there are physical churches, right? It's another place we meet a lot, movie theaters.

The key is the leader who's running it, the brickyard captain, this person who's trained and equipped, they've done their community mapping, they understand the assets and the people and the power dynamics. They've built those relationships. They've built the trust. They get people to donate stuff.

They get people to provide meeting spaces for free. They get folks, you know, to come up with activities. They get other partner organizations to come in and work with them. There's been some really cool stuff like around this last election. We had folks,

there's a group called SISA, which is responsible for our election security, an incredible group led by an amazing woman named Jen Easterly. And so we partner with Sissna to come out and educate folks in the community about how our elections work. How can we as Americans be a part of

making sure that our elections are safe? How can you train to be a poll worker, you know, at your local election office, you know, how can you help on election day? Those kinds of things. Again, it's back to the responsibilities and duties. And we partner with these organizations to come in and educate our members and activate them so that if you have a problem in your community, you have the skills and talents and experience and network you need to solve the problem.

You don't have to wait for some random guy in Washington, D.C. to pass a law in Congress. You can start to make changes now. Yeah. Another little angle, which you may or may not have thought of. I'm coming at it from a different angle because I have a different type of mindset, I guess. But when I hear this, right, so I speak with a lot of companies and talk a lot of companies. And I also talk with a lot of organizations. And there's a bunch of different types of organizations, but they're like they're basically business people that get together.

and they do, they do like, they do charity things, they do social things, they get speakers, like all those kind of things. But one of the main reasons that people go to this is because it's an opportunity for them to, for lack of a better word,

Echo Charles. Network. Network, right? Because if you are a contractor, you're a builder and, you know, you're at your meeting and you've got your little construction company and you meet,

you know, I meet Jake. And Jake's like, hey, dude, I pour concrete. And I'm like, dude, really? Okay, cool. Like, I got a big project coming. Oh, you do? Okay, great.

Let's work together. Yeah. And, you know, now we can form friendships and we can help each other grow our businesses. But usually those groups have some sort of a charity element to them, too. You know, they're always, I go to a bunch of these things. And they're always doing some charity drive, some fundraiser. So they're trying to help out. But I would just like, you know, maybe think about that as well as an angle of

like, hey, if you're in business, if you own a restaurant. Yeah. And, you know, you want to let people know about your restaurant so people can come in on Thursdays and we have these meetings on Thursday nights and everyone's going to come by, you know, a piece of pizza at what Charles. Damn, it's a middle of death reset right now. There's no pizza going down. We're doing a little thing, a little like New Year's thing.

And it's called Def Reset Discipline Equal Freedom Reset. And so one of the things is eating clean for January. And how's that going? It's going great. Really? Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, we're only what, what's today? That's good. You're eight days in?

Yeah, eight days in. But you start thinking about pizza. I do. But, you know, you got a restaurant, you got whatever. So it just seems like another thing to think about if you're hearing what we're saying right now. And you think, well, geez, I'd really like a group, but, you know, I only have so much time. Well, you probably have a return on investment, not just the return on investment of the, of the helping your country. Unite not just the return on investment of helping people that are going through a hard time, whatever that might be,

but also the investment, like, oh, I'm going to get an actual ROI. Yeah. And being out there meeting someone and going, hey, dude, wait, you pour concrete? I'm a, I have a construction company. I could use some help. Oh, okay, boom. We shake hands. We meet each other.

Now we're moving forward with a business. So I think there's a little opportunity for that as well. And the reason I think I thought of that's because my father-in-law, you know, like at Rotary, it was like, you know, all his little business connections were all these you know, friends from rotary. Yep. And, oh, yeah, I do trucking and I can ship your stuff. Oh, you can. Okay, great.

So that's another little angle to think about. You can only do so much through your phone looking at profiles of other alleged human beings. You know what? You said something really powerful there, which is we got to get together physically. You got to meet people face to face again. We've lost that art, man. You know, and if you're bringing people together, face-to-face having conversations, doing good shit together, it's really hard to dislike that person. It doesn't matter where they're coming from.

Yeah. Right. And you're learning from that other person, too. And you're doing business together. You're doing it for the community together. You're helping your kids. Right. So, I mean, there's nothing to lose.

You know, we're in this moment where we could really do some good stuff together. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome, man. I like it. Is that get us up to speed? Yeah. Yeah.

No. Thanks a lot for the opportunity. this. I mean, I would just say, you know, maybe a call to all your listeners. You know, if you, if you're finding yourself in a place where you're kind of fed up with the divisiveness and toxicity in the country right now, but you still believe in the idea of America, I just want to challenge you do something about it, you know? I am nobody. I came from nothing. And if somebody like me can have any kind of impact, you can, for sure. You know, it's just we got to, we got to believe again in what America can be, number one, and we have to believe in each other again.

And I think that's got to start today. Yeah, and I got a friend that's a veteran that's a great guy, but, you know, he's had some definite struggles. And one of his biggest struggles is he wants to help every veteran. Yeah. Like today, you know, he'll send me texts about how messed up the government is, how messed up the VA is, how messed up the politicians are. and and I'm like, how can, you know, he wants to help everyone. And I'm like, bro, help like the veteran that you know. Yeah. That's like having a hard time right now.

Just start with that person. And so, you know, what I like about this is is like, what can you do? Hey, you don't need to eat the entire elephant. No. You can help out in your community and bring people together. Bro, here's a simple thing you can do. Here's a suggestion. People tell me, what can I do?

Right. I give these talks at the end of the talk. well, okay, give me one concrete thing. Okay, you want one concrete thing? Go find someone not like you with a different background and buy that person a cup of coffee or a beer or whatever. Sit down with them and just have a real conversation about life. Get to know who they are.

You know, that's how we start. And imagine if you can scale that, right? You don't have to create some crazy program or raise all this money. Just do small acts of kindness will go a long way. Yes, indeed. Where can people find it? So it's more perfect union. It's MPU.

Dot US. Correct. Is the deal. On Instagram, it's at more perfect union. Dot us. And then on Twitter X, it's at MPU underscore US. This is like a little test, a little quiz. You've got a bunch of different things you've got to figure out.

And then Facebook, more perfect union. And then YouTube. More Perfect Union 9788. You probably didn't even know that, but I did not know that. Hey, just so you know there's another more perfect union. Yeah, that's not us. Yeah, and it's like a super partisan kind of, uh, uh,

thank you for clarifying. Yeah, they self-described as a left-wing answer to Prager you. So this is not that. This is, that's a, that's a very partisan thing. This is a non-partisan thing.

That is a divisive thing. This is a unity thing. Correct. So, and I think they started out. after you. They did. Don't get me started on them, but, but,

yeah, MPU. You will find the truth there. That's the real one. That's right. And you personally, you're on TwitterX at Jake MPU, you're on Instagram at Ryan dot, or sorry, Jake.rion. And you're on LinkedIn and Facebook at Jack, Jake Harriman.

So there we go. Echo, Charles, any questions? I don't have a question, but I do have a comment. So, you know, back in the day when you're in that scenario where you kind of, I guess, for lack of a better way of putting it, weren't invited, but you're starting to get after it. There was like, who's this guy or whatever?

Right. So you ever watch the movie Major League? Yeah. Remember old school? Right. You ever watched that? Yeah. That's too bad.

Anyway. So Jake, Major League, remember the part? Willie Mays Hayes. And they're like, oh, yeah, cool. He's doing this. And then they go in the middle when he's sleeping in his bunk. they just put him outside. But then he jumps back in and he runs like a quick,

the sprints or whatever, he's super fast. So they let them in. They didn't let you back in though, apparently. They didn't. Not so much later. It's too bad. But I noticed that parallel. That's good, man.

Good to meet you. Good to meet you, brother. Right on. Jake, any closing thoughts? No, thanks for the opportunity. Humble to be here and hoping you all do good things for the country, man. Thanks. And thanks for joining us and thanks for sharing your lessons learned.

we probably could have used a little bit more lightning strike prevention because that's not good but more important thanks your service in the Marine Corps and for what you continue to do to help people in other countries break out of that poverty cycle and for what you're doing right now to help unify our country here at home appreciate it all bro thank you brother appreciate you and with that Jake Harriman has left the building a lot of a lot of things to fix in the world. Yep. A lot of things to try and square away.

Square away. Improve. Can be a little bit overwhelming. Let's say we were to look at the globe. Yeah. And think about all the things that we need to fix. Sure. Can be overwhelming.

It's a lot of stuff. And it's going to be very difficult to be strong for the rest of the world. If you're not strong for yourself a little bit, you know what I mean? So that's why we're on the path. That's why we're working out. That's why we're getting after it. That's why we need clean fuel. Check out joccofuel.com.

We have, we got protein, energy, recovery. We got joint supplements. We got everything that you need. If you go to joccofuel.com, you can get what you need. The supplementation that will help you stay on the path, help you be strong, help you be healthy. What we make is healthy. Isn't that weird? People make food and that's not good for you to eat.

Yeah. That's crazy, right? Straight up food. That seems crazy. Well, yeah. I don't want to go into it. a long thing, I might, but I don't want to. I don't know.

I feel like I opened up something I shouldn't have, maybe, perhaps. Like I said with our boy Thomas DeLauer. If you're literate, it's an expression, if you're literate in health, fitness, or whatever, you're right. It doesn't, it starts to not add up. Why, like, you're eating food, but if you're literate with food and nutrition, it's like, why would you eat a freaking pizza pocket for lunch or dinner or whatever? And then have everyone, it doesn't make sense.

See what you're saying? So yes, exactly what you're saying. It makes as much sense as putting Dr. Pepper into your car. Like for gas. Yeah, kind of. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. It's just doesn't work. It's like, Brad, that's not what that's for. Yeah. It's not going to help anybody. Yeah. I'm not going anywhere with this.

Exactly right. Don't do that. Don't do it. Put the good stuff in there. The clean stuff. Jaco Fuel. You can get at joccofuel. Walmart, Wawa,

vitamin shop, GnC, the military commissaries and exchanges. Go check that out. We just, we're talking the Marine Corps. You can get on the Marine Corps bases. I know that. Marines be sending me pictures.

They're in the game. Where else? Dash stores, Hanifords, Wakefern, Shoprite, H.E.B. down in Tehawks. Meyer and the Midwest. Wegmans out on the East Coast.

Harris Teeter East Coast. Publix. Just running the Publix. Publish is a big deal. Down in Florida. It's kind of a cultural thing down in the southeast. Yeah, yeah.

And people have been asked. for Publix for a while. So check that out. Lifetime Fitness, shields, small gyms, you guys know the deal. You guys got a gym.

You guys got a power lifting gym. You got a boxing gym. You got a, I don't care. You got a yoga gym. Yoga studio. Got a jihitsu place. MMA place.

They should have Jocko Field there. The clean stuff, the good stuff. If you want it there, email JFCS at joccoField.com and get it there. Stay clean. Also, OriginUSA.com.

American-made products. American-made support the country. You got to support the country. Just like you're in a little village in Africa, you've got to support your other villagers. That's what we need to do here. Support the American villagers.

Support the American economy. Support our technology. Support America. So at origin USA, we make everything in America from American made materials. So whatever you need. What do you need? You need to work out.

Okay, we got workout gear. You need to go to the store. We got jeans. We got pants. We got hoodies. If it's cold out, we got jackets. We got rain jackets if it's raining. We got to go to jihitsu.

Guess what? We got you covered. We got shorts. We got rash cards. We got jih Tis. Of course. If your head is cold, we got hats or beanies. If it's too bright for you, we got hats.

And for your feet, if you're on doing jiu-jitsu, we got you covered for feet because you don't need anything. But if you're working, we got boots. So we got what you need. And socks, by the way. We've got socks. So everything that you need, 100% American made. Oh, if you're going hunting too, by the way, we got you covered. And maybe you're not, maybe you're going hunting, but maybe you're just going on a tackle mission.

Yeah, sure. Recon. Hell yeah. Right. So yeah, check it out. Origin USA. The best gear in the world made right here in the best country in the world. Get some.

What was the expression? You said a peace through prosperity. Yeah. You know, you come in and you like you kind of basically do the opposite of divide people. You know, bring them together. If he can be successful doing this, contributing to a little economy, right? And everyone can be prosperous.

Yep. It's way less likely someone's going to come in and offer him some criminal activity for money scenario. I think probably there's a whole bunch of stories. That and a whole bunch of lessons learned that Jake could put together from seeing these things happen because I guarantee in some of these situations because you you introduce and if everyone's getting prosperous that's where you get a good situation what where you have a bad situation where someone's getting prosperous and someone's not and then all of some people start getting Yeah. Yeah people start getting killed right like yeah you're taking all my money. Cool. I'm gonna kill you like that's what wars are about resources. Yeah and even even even before that it doesn't actually doesn't even have to go that extreme which of course yeah yeah but

even if you get a lack of prosperity then you get a rise of desperation yeah for sure that's what he was talking about exactly right yeah that's the whole point so yeah if you're like hey i don't i don't have a job because there's no jobs there's no money coming in whatever it's like shoot that you're going to start lowering the bar more and more as far as ways to get money so i'm saying and then you know from there you know you know where it goes so yeah so there you go also jaco store called jaco store if you want to represent on this path with shirts, T-shirts mainly. Got a lot of cool T-shirts on there.

Discipline equals freedom. Good. All this stuff. This hat's on there as well. Hoodies on there as well. Some good stuff. Some shorts on there as well. All-purpose shorts.

Like it. Yep. Shoot, what else? We got a lot of stuff on there. Check it out. Jocco store.com. Also on there is what we call the short locker. Subscription shirt scenario.

Different designs every month, one every month. People seem to like that one. A little bit more creative, fun. You don't call them fun yet. We're having fun on this thing 100%. We're representing hard for sure, but we're having fun.

Good designs. Anyway, go on there jocococor.com, and yeah, if you like something, get something. Also, you got your Colorado Craftbeef.com and primal beef.com. The good steaks. Very good. The good beef jerky. The good beef tallow. Like just the goods, man, the goods from good people.

So if you need steak or you need sausages or you, or you need hot dogs or you need ground beef, like whatever you need, if it comes from a beef, we got you. We got you. So check out primalbeef.com, Coloradocraftbeef.com. Get yourself some of the good stuff.

That's where we're at. Also, subscribe to the podcast. Also, jaco underground.com. Also, we got a bunch of YouTube channels somehow. We got official Jocko podcast. We got Jocko Podcast. We got Jock Fuel. And we got Origin USA.

Check out all those if you want to know what's happening If you know what's happening behind the scenes and whatnot Psychological Warfare flipside canvas.com Dakota Meyer making cool stuff to hang on your wall books and a bunch of books I've written a bunch of books if you want to get kind of the Distilled details of the leadership principles that we talk about here get the books Also got some fiction books one called Final Spin got some kids books got a bunch of those actually So

If you want to get those books, check them out. You can get them anywhere you get books. Also, Eschlam Front, you heard me mentioned a little bit today. We solved problems through leadership. Go to eslamfront.com. If you want to get assistance inside your organization or with yourself, we can help you. You can come to one of our events or you can bring us into your organization. We also have online training for leadership.

Very helpful to human beings. It doesn't matter. Oh, I'm not really in a leadership position. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. You interact with other. are humans, yep, you're in a leadership position. If you want to learn those skills, go to Extreme Ownership.com.

You can sit on your computer, you can interact with us, you can watch pre-recorded courses. They're that have tests. They're interactive. They're pre-recorded, but they're interactive. And then we also have live sessions. You want to see me? You want to talk to me? You want to ask me a question?

Go Extreme Ownership.com. Get in the game. Also, if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families. You want to help Gold Star families. Check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got an incredible. charity organization helps so many of our veterans and if you want to donate or you want to get involved go to america's mighty warriors dot org also micah think heroes and horses dot

dot org and then jimmy may's organization beyond the brotherhood dot org and then of course more perfect union mp u.u dot us not the other more perfect union this is the more perfect union mpu dot us also on Instagram at more perfect union. US also on TwitterX at MPU underscore US this is a little cryptic getting a little crazy and Facebook more perfect

YouTube more perfect union 9788 all right and then Jake if you want to connect with Jake he's on TwitterX at Jake MPU he's on Instagram at jake dot Ryan Harriman he's on LinkedIn and Facebook at Jake Harriman for us I'm at jocco.com

I'm also on social media echoes on social media but we're I'm not on social media right now you're not on social media right now we're not going to be on it like a lot but we you know you can get in there just watch out because there's an algorithm there that can be a problem you know where we are we're on deaf reset app get the deaf reset app for daily discipline in your life things outstanding so check that out I'm on there your brother's on there oh he's on there yeah in full of fact kind of made it yeah so there you go all right thanks once again to Jake for joining us tonight thanks for your your service bro in the Marine Corps

and what you've done to help needy people around the world help square away their economy and their agriculture and of course thanks for what you're doing right now in America to help make us a more perfect union and thanks to all the men and women currently in the ranks of our military and those veterans who've served in the past thank you for what you do to protect our union and also thanks to our police law enforcement firefighters paramedics EMTs dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service as well as all other first responders thank you for keeping our country safe and to everyone else out there you know there's plenty of division in the world it can be in your home

it can be your job it could be in community it can be in our country make a conscience effort to not broaden the gap instead listen be humble find common ground and remember that together we are stronger and until next time there's echo and jocco out