Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: What's Up With Military Recruiting, Recruiting Videos |

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

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This is the Janko Underground podcast number 159 sitting here with Echo Charles, and we've got some questions and some answers. Yeah. For the people. That's true. Cool. Let's get into it. We ready.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. Good. First question. Hello, sir. I recently retired from the National Guard. I was very successful recruiting leader, even after COVID. All my success came from using your leadership concepts.

As I'm trying to figure out my next step, I can't help to see on the news the recruiting issues our military is having. I believe the answer is in leadership. I'm sending the message because I would love to be able to impact this need and need guidance on how or where to start. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Right on. First of all, I'll say this in the past couple days, maybe the past week or so,

recruiting numbers are back up. So there's some new leadership in the military. There's some new leadership in the government. and it seems like that is helping our recruiting numbers. So it seems like we're moving in the right direction there. But that being said, I'm sure if you were a good recruiter while you were in, I'm sure you'd still bring some value. And so what I would do, honestly, is look for job opportunities in that environment.

So I real quick went to USAjobs.gov. There's a website where you can apply for civilian jobs. And there was a bunch of jobs on there. Training officer, these are civilian jobs, training officer for the National Guard. Human Resources Assistant. What is a human resources assistant you think they do? Recruiting's got to be in there. Public Affairs officer for the National Guard needed.

Again, these are civilian positions that you could get into as a government. employee working with the National Guard as a public affairs officer. So think about that. If you're working public affairs and you're out there, what are you doing? You're basically, you can do a lot of recruiting. And then there's a bunch of other ones. I mean, there's an intel officer mechanic or like, you know, target repair. There's a bunch of other types of jobs. But what I'm saying is you retired from the National Guard. There are opportunities to still work inside the system. So in the SEAL teams, like at Treadette, we have like a deputy ops guy. That's a civilian. So he was in the teams. Most of the times he was in the teams and retired from the

teams and then gets a job as a civilian. So that way, because military people move around so much, you need some continuity there. You need someone there that has eight, 10 years worth of knowing the training sites, knowing the issues we're going to face, knowing how to deal with this, that, And the other thing, that's why you have these civilians. It's the same thing in basic steel training. There's civilians that work there that keep the continuity together. So that's what I would do if I were you. I would look for recruiting type jobs if they come up, but also just public affairs jobs,

training officer jobs, human resources jobs, because I think all those would probably lend you to an opportunity where you'd be able to carry on your career in the National Guard, but as a civilian. So that's what I would do. Thanks for your service. Go get some. How often do you see like military videos on TV? You.

What do you mean by a military video on TV? You know, like recruiting, you know, a few, the proud, you know. I don't know because I don't watch a lot of TV. So I don't even know if they do they have recruiting things on TV. I'd have to go to YouTube and watch them. Yeah. Like I know that. Hmm.

I'm thinking back. the UFC would have a lot of cool marine corps stuff some air force off and some National Guard stuff yeah yeah yeah some of the army stuff is really good but from a video standpoint that um but I don't know I always felt like sometimes those videos can be real compelling you know they look like blockbuster movies and it's kind of like because you know I don't know when when I was young when it when it came down to like joining the military it was kind of like that was like the that was the feel where it's like yeah you can go and go out

I'm going on these. Well, they're getting back to that kind of recruiting now, too. Yeah. Because for a while, the recruiting videos were not very, uh, they were recruiting. I don't know who they were trying to recruit, but they wouldn't recruit a dude like me.

Right. Like I joke about it. Dude, when I showed up to a recruiter, when I realized you, oh, wait, you'll pay me money to carry a machine gun. Sign me up.

I'll go right now. What? Right. Let's go. So, but if they would have showed me the, like, some of the advertisements for, from a few years ago where it was like weird.

They weren't talking about, being a warrior right they were talking about being something else yeah you know I've as I've said I didn't become a ballet dancer yeah the reason I didn't come about a ballet dancer isn't because they didn't have good ballet recruiting ads it's because I didn't want to be a ballet dancer I wanted to carry a machine gun so when I saw my ads for guys carrying machine guns that's sign me up yeah you show me an ad for somebody that's not carrying a machine gun why would I go there right you don't show me that I don't show me that I don't want to be a cook. Like you could put a cook, a chef thing, advertisement on the TV. I don't want to

be a chef. I don't like cooking. It's not speaking to you. No, it doesn't speak to me. And by the way, if you were, if you showed me, here's what you could do. You could trick me, right? You want me to be a chef. So you show like a guy walking through the kitchen carrying a machine on. I'd be like, whoa, wait a second. That could be cool. So I go sign up. Now you got me there and you hand me a spoon and a bowl and a knife. and a knife and you're like, okay, you're going to, you know, do food prep. Dude, I don't want to do that. Yeah. So now I'm pissed.

I want to carry a machine gun. You show me if here she was a machine gun in the kitchen. I thought that was what we were doing. Yeah. I thought there's people that need to get whacked in the kitchen. No, they don't. We're making soup. No, I don't want to make soup.

So I think they're doing the right thing now. You want to show someone carrying a machine gun going to war because that's what you are trying to recruit. Yeah. Not trying to recruit. a ballerina or a chef. Now, if you want to be a cook in the military, cool, you can go and apply that. It's a nuanced job.

And you can learn that skill set if that's what you want. Good. Because now if you sign up to be a cook in the Navy, and now you get on the Navy ship and they're like, cool, here's what you're going to be cooking. You'll be cooking all this breakfast and it's cool. Man, you'll learn to cook really well for massive amounts of people with, you know, troubling circumstances.

You know, because you don't always have to be able to be able to be. have all the supplies you need you got to figure how to make things work and you're on a ship and there's like right so you become a good cook if that's what you want to do but you got to be real with what you're doing that's my point you got to be real with what you're doing yeah yeah that makes sense it feels like if someone's advertising wanting to recruit a cook or chef and they advertise the guy with a machine gun right and they get you in there and you go in there expecting the machine gun expecting all the stuff you get the you know the the ginsu knife and the spoon and the bowls and stuff it feels like that that restaurant might not be as successful oh no they're gonna problems with me

they have some problems with you and everyone else like you that kind of come in a bunch of people the wrong people got me and tony a fratty and they're they're telling us to make salad right exactly right exactly right meanwhile they needed uh what's the guy of diner diners drive ins and dives Guy Fierry. Yeah, they need that guy. Dude, that guy likes to cook, bro. Oh, yeah. All day.

I've given up on like the whole, you know, for a while. It's like, oh, you know, maybe cooking, you know, like barbecue and stuff. It seems like a cool thing to like to do, right? Yeah, sure. You know what I mean? Yes, I do. People are like, oh, it looks like fun. It's fun.

Hey, barbecue. We're going to get some stuff. For a while. I was like, okay, well, it seems like this is supposed to be fun. Yeah. It's not fun for me. It's not my thing. It's not my jam.

I'll eat it. You know what I'm saying? You don't say. Like late Babin comes to my house and spends three hours prepping for it. Or John Dudley. John Dudley would be prepping food 48 hours in advance. Square it away, dude. Next level.

It tastes delicious. I'm totally down for that. But I don't want to do it. Not because I'm lazy, but I don't get any. It doesn't make me feel good. That's not huge. I would just, I get as much gratification from making a ham sandwich as I do from making a good steak. But by the way, my ham sandwiches are good.

They take me three minutes. I'm sure there. My sake is not that great. My wife makes a prime rib. Takes her a few hours to make the prime rib. It's good, man. It's really good. But if I was left to my own devices, I would never have prime rip.

Because I'm not going to take four hours to prep and do all the stuff. It's not who you are. Yeah. So. Yes. So the point being, even me, not in the military, probably past any kind of military age as far as being. in my prime.

Are you thinking about getting in the game? No, no, no. What you're hearing is me saying sometimes when I'd watch those videos like like, like, it was mainly like the army if I'm not mistaken. Marine Corps does doesn't play around either. Marine Corps does a great job. In fact, I think it's Army and Marine. Yeah, sure.

Those videos were like, okay, and they'd have different messages, you know, like go on a mission, be elite, um, travel the world. They were all like really legit videos. To me, as a customer or an avatar as they might. I said, Van Mascotchi. It were. It was working.

That kind of PR slash advertising slash marketing, whatever was working. These other videos that you're referring to, I've never seen in real life, but I've seen, you know, on the internet. I've seen like, you know, these guys, they'll talk about them. Yeah, because people were putting, they were just, just opposing, uh, juxtaposing, uh, Russian recruiting video. Yeah. And like the American recruiting video. Right. And the Russian recruiting video was recruiting hard.

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