Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: My Career Choice is Haunting Me

Episode Date: August 11, 2025

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This is the Jocko Underground podcast number 177. Sitting here with Echo Charles, 177 was my basic underwater demolition seal class, just FYI, 177. What was your number in the back of your head helmet, whatever? There's no number. You have your name, Willink. But the number on my helmet is 117.

So everyone, is that how it is now? Yeah. So everyone has a same number. That's how it's been. Well, I don't know, I didn't go to butt. Actually, you know, you might be right that way back in the day. at airborne school you had like a number

that was your assigned specific number but no in buds you for the whole time that I've known you put your buds class number on your helmet mine was one seven so when they talk about like JV's talking about you know

her and Flannard like doing something cleaning the helmet over the weekend and making sure that that number is just the class number and everyone has the same number Yep, everyone has the number. Same number. Mine was one, seven, seven. 17, seven.

There you go. Willink on the back. Yeah. I still got, you know, some bros from one seven, seven that still hit. And they'll, like, sign off a text like sevens. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. That's kind of hard.

Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty dope. So that's pretty funny. But right on. Let's get into it. Let's answer some questions. Let's try to give some people some guidance, some direct. some advice what do we got first question first question I served in the army for

seven years including a deployment to the Alambar province 2006 2007 where the three dash five oh nine mm-hmm Rieck on Akiz a QI Z a QI Z okay Al Qaeda in Iraq okay well I'm proud of my time in the military however towards the beginning of my service I failed special forces selection later my enlistment I trained up to return to SFAS but but then at the last minute decided to ETS was it get out okay um SFAS special forces assessment selection what does the ETS like stand for I don't know okay left soon time service and tour service something like that okay so he decided ETS and marry my girlfriend who I'm married to today

I have a good career, solid marriage, four kids, great friends, and still get after it daily. That being said, I'm occasionally haunted by the green beret. I never earned. Have you ever had something that you did not achieve that lives in your mind and distracts you? What is a good mental model to deal with this and keep it from taking me off the path? Well, first of all, thanks for your service. In the third of the 509th, man. What a story unit, Geronimo.

And during that deployment, That 06,07 deployment, working in Fallujah, working in karma, additional work in Babel. You guys upheld, you guys completely upheld the outstanding reputation, the historical reputation that your forefathers built. And I know you guys fought hard. I know you faced IEDs, mortar snipers, the whole nine yards. I know that you in your battalion took significant casualties. You lost some heroic soldiers. I know that your unit received the valorous unit award.

I mean, the citation for that. Here's a little quote from the citation from your valorous unit award. Operating outside the wire, the paratroopers encountered many obstacles, including firefights with insurgents, improvised explosive devices, car bombs, and explosively formed projectiles. They also captured numerous suspects, extremists, and terrorists considered to be high-value targets, performing countless operations day and night on the ground and by air assault throughout their deployment many of the paratroopers received decorations for valor achievement and combat

wounds brother you you may not have earned the green beret but trust me you earned your place as a warrior as a patriot and as a man you did everything that we did as seals and i that's like that's like at a minimum like there's green berets and seals and rangers that have never even seen combat there's green berets rangers and seals that definitely didn't see as much as you did and you should be damn proud of what you were able to do and you were lucky be able to do it you were able to do it and it sounds like you came home uh in one piece thank god and just be proud of that man and look the special forces is an outstanding community and they're standing at their job at their specific job you know this is something I explained when like for in a

seal platoon there's officers and there's enlisted guys and the officer's job he look he's in a leadership position but his job is to like help oversee the briefing help make the calls in the situation help do risk assessments well the radio man's job he has a job too it's help get the communications plan ready help prep all the radios make communications when it's time to talk to somebody and the medic has a job. Hey, make sure you know what the Casavac plan. Like everyone has a job. And all those jobs are important.

And no job is more important than the other job. And so special forces, a special forces, Green Brays are outstanding at their job. It's an outstanding community. And guess what? The third of the 509th is an outstanding unit. And you're outstanding at their job. So you did your job in an outstanding unit,

in an outstanding way you performed outstanding. So, you know, you ask something like, is there anything, what was it? I don't know if it was regret or anything I didn't achieve. Dude, of course, we all look back and wish we did more, right? Always. You know, always. You always wish back, wish you could go back and do more. And I've said before in similar situations to the topic that you're bringing up is like,

you know when I would have felt like I did enough when I was dead on the battlefield? You know what I mean? Like you only did enough if I would only feel like I did enough if I was dead. You know what I'm saying? And that's a, I'm being facetious, but that's the feeling, right? So do I wish I could have done more? Absolutely. But I did what I could.

And you did what the nation needed you to do. and above and beyond what the nation needed you to do. So be proud. Keep living an awesome life as a husband, as a dad, and as an upstanding member of society who earned this freedom, who fought for this freedom and paid for this freedom through selfless service. That's what you've done. Be proud of that.

It's awesome. The fact that you weren't a green beret, I mean, Hackworth wasn't a green beret. Chesty Puller wasn't a green beret. Lewis Puller wasn't a green break. Like doesn't, it's no factor. It's no factor at all, man. You done good. Be proud.

That's what I got. Yeah, it's, I understand this. But, and so I used to play football. Mm-hmm. I know this. And I, in a lot of ways, playing football on a football team is like a good analogy for this kind of stuff. Like, anytime you have a group of people trying to, like, achieve something because everyone on the football, like each position has a very specific job.

And it's for a specific reason. And those positions are based on people's specific like capabilities and attributes. Right. So you get receivers on the outside. They're usually fast and can catch and all this stuff, right? And down the line. So here's the thing that we can kind of run into. Let's, okay.

So you know what you know football, right? So you know what a lion man is, right? You know, you know what offensive lion man is. Okay. So you compare an O line, right? We'll say a guard or a tackle. We'll say a guard, actually a tackle, right? O tackle.

And then you compare that to a wide receiver or a quarterback. Joe Montana, right? Quarterback, like these famous guys getting throwing touchdown passes, receivers making touchdowns, three touchdowns in a game. Everybody holding them, you know, making the game winning catch or the throw, right? Meanwhile, the tackle is doing such an important job. literally like the tackles in the line if they don't do a good job you don't win you don't score you don't the game like you cannot win um of course that goes for everyone down the line right but from the

outside the tackles job is not glorious it's like it doesn't get the cool limelight and the cool like freaking glitter and all that stuff similar to like the navy seals it went in i got all this whatever and you always say just like i say like hey you had a job to do and you did your job. You know, even like a, I don't know, the logistics guy or something, right? He did his job. Or it's kind of the same deal, bro. Like the logistics guys, if they don't do a good job, you jam up the whole system and we cannot win. Facts. But sometimes when we don't get the glory, you know, I'm in a tackle. I ran like a seven second freaking 40 yard dash. And, you know, I didn't make the receiver, you know, like the position, the depth chart. And they put me a tackle. But I was like one of the best

tackles ever like freaking never missed a block blah blah right but i had these dreams of being a wide receiver i've never caught a touchdown in my whole life i feel regretful see how crazy that sounds yeah yeah so it's kind of the same thing yeah yeah but that lime light kind of gets in your eyes a little bit you know yeah i don't you think i'm not gonna i'm not gonna pin the hey i wanted the limelight on this guy he probably just feels like he could have offered more and plus he he he didn't make it when he did go you know what i'm saying for your word would he say He failed. He failed special forces selection. So like it's one of those things you always want what you can't have type scenario. So he's got some of that going on. Yeah. And limelight I know. And that may have came off a little bit inaccurately, you know, like not congruent or whatever, but it's, it's an analogy though. Because let's face it special forces like freaking socks special for that some cool stuff to the public eye. Yeah. That's limelight. That's the limelight I'm talking about. I'm not talking about like he. He, deserves more medals than you because he was more important and he's got you know it's like it's

lit slightly different than that i'm saying from a perspective just it's more of an idea from a very specific perspective is what it is but i think for him he just i think a little bit of this is just you want what you that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the jaco underground podcast so if you want to continue to listen go to jaco underground dot com and subscribe and we're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms so we are not subject to their control. And we are doing this so that we can support the Jocko podcast, which will remain as is free for all, as long as we can keep it that way. But we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors. And we're doing it so we can give you more control, more interaction, more direct connections,

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