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

this is Jacob podcast number 387 with Echo Charles and me Jocko willink good evening Echo good evening combatives the art of hand-to-hand combat Bridges the gap between physical training and tactics the products of a good physical training plan strength endurance and flexibility must be directed toward the mission and soldiers must be prepared to use different levels of force in an environment where the intensity of a conflict changes quickly many military operations such as peacekeeping missions or non-combatant evacuation May restrict the use of least lethal Force combatives training prepares the soldier to use the appropriate amount of force for any situation combatives training includes arduous physical training that is mentally demanding and Carries over to other military Pursuits this training produces soldiers who understand controlled aggression and remain focused while under duress possess the skills requisite to the mission at all levels in the spectrum of force have the attributes that make up the warrior ethos personal courage self-confidence self-discipline and Esprit de corps and that right there is a quote from the U.S Army's technical circular tc3tac-25.150 combatives and the Army has made huge advancements in the past several decades in their combatives capability and ability the Incorporated elements of grappling and striking and weapons into a comprehensive system that has become a solid foundation for soldiers that are in any military occupation but as the manual States combatives doesn't only help soldiers with hand-to-hand combat it helps with improving all their attributes as soldiers and as human beings and it's an honor to have one of those soldiers with us here tonight who has led at all levels as an officer who not only trains and combatives but helped establish the combatives program in the army his name is General Michael farader he's a retired army General he served in Somalia he served in Iraq he's a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and he's here to share his experiences and Lessons Learned with us General thank you for joining us it's my pleasure good to see you I always have a good time diving into the history of combatives in the Army in the Marine Corps even the single teams has a little history of combatives we have an old I have an old uh Field Manual from years and years ago and it's pretty neat to see and there's been some some vast improvements in combatives over the years I'm sure we'll get into that but uh I always like to start at the beginning let's let's talk about where you came from what made you you well I came uh grew up in an Army Family my dad joined the army during World War II at the beginning of World War II he's a private he went officer candidate School and uh served in the Pacific he was put in for Medal of Honor they received a distinguished service cross uh and as he raised my brothers and sisters he always told us you got to take care of the men you got to take care of your troops and then things will work out for you and so also being an officer candidate we had to roll our socks and put them in the drawer and smiles facing up and answer the phone you know Colonel frerger's quarters Mikey speaking this line is unsecured you know back in the 60s so so how long did your dad stay in for 27 years you're tired as a colonel yeah and were you just old school moving all the time growing up yeah we we moved uh I'm I lived in 18 houses by the time I was 18 years old and then raised a family and probably moved them just as many times and this we just came out a month of the military child and um there's a lot of Truth to the resiliency and flexibility and adaptability of military kids and their ability to start over you know my mom used to throw us out in the yard and say go explore find out who lives in this neighborhood see where the other kids are so your dad was put in for the Medal of Honor and ends up getting uh the distinguished service cross what what did you growing up what did that mean to you what did you know about what happened or do you know did you did you do you have the citation hanging on the wall did you hear the story from him from his buddies or what was at it like that's pretty amazing yeah that you know that generation my dad had I think a silver star a couple bronze Stars a couple purple hearts and they were in the garage on the wall they didn't have an I I love me room like like my generation right so um but I went back to Guadalcanal with him when I came out of Ranger company command in 1989 and we walked his battlefields and we went and dug out canoes with with Islanders and we walked up on you know we saw where chesty puller and the Marines went and red Beach and then Inland and then all the way up to almost to New Caledonia it was amazing so your dad did like the full Pacific Campaign he did yeah I mean talk about casting a shadow you must have always felt I mean to this day I mean how do you ever feel like uh you know when your dad's that guy that's amazing well you don't want to disappoint them you could take a whooping but but if you get the d word you know I'm just warning then that that just kills you so he was a great athlete um he played uh before the NBA he played professional basketball and he played up to AAA baseball he came out of World War II went back to play baseball and you'd lost a lot of steps and a lot of speed and so he went back in the Army and uh and then continued on and then you go to Korea as well uh he did not fight in Korea he went uh like probably in 53 or 54 58 about 58 yeah I was always interested in that part of Dick Winter's book where dick Winters you know fought World War II a little entire European campaign they recall him for for Korea he gets to I think it was San Francisco they're about to get on the boat and they said hey anyone that was that fought in World War II you don't have to go and he goes cool I'm out he he had enough combat you know he's done and he said go back to my Farm in Pennsylvania amazing and um so so you're growing up you're going to different schools all the time what what schools were or sorry what sports were you playing I played baseball and basketball were you any good I was pretty good were you disappointing your dad the whole time no no I I did not you know going back to that military uh child different different kids you know could could get after better than others my older brother didn't like it and he didn't play sports and and he you know he would get the d word more than than me but uh um we moved to Germany so and we lived in Heidelberg and then Berlin so you know um a lot of my deeper thoughts about where American strength and power and the investment in our our young men and women you know when when we have the footprint in Berlin the Russians did not you know and so now in the Middle East when we get sent over there there's there's some validity to when we're there then the Persians are not and so um pretty you know never a couple incidents when everyone mounted up on the Berlin Wall you know machine guns and tanks up and uh so it kind of gives you as a 12 13 14 year old a good taste of there's a real world out here and so you you know if you're going to do something do something that makes a difference and be ready when it's time so how old were you when you decided you were probably going to go into the army it was pretty funny because because here I'm in San Diego and uh we retired my dad retired and we went up to Lake Tahoe for a couple years and then saw my high school and then my last year was down in Monterey and uh at the in Pebble Beach at the school and so I applied to West Point and did not get in and applied to uh ROTC and back then if you got an ROTC scholarship every school that has ROTC rights here so I I felt like you know Tom Brady everyone wanted me and so I said to him my Dad hey Dad uh University of California Santa Barbara I can play baseball down there there's all kinds of you know good looking girls down there and he said hey I want you to take a look at this school in Charleston South Carolina to Charleston yeah it's a military school I said that I got shoulder length hair man I'm playing baseball he said you need to take a look at this and so I I said no I'm gonna go to UCSB and he said take a look at it again and so didn't want to disappoint him right and so and I said you know I loved it in fact when I was in Berlin back then in Vietnam if you were a great athlete you you were playing on the commanding generals football full pad football Above the Rim basketball and fast pitch baseball and so I would talk to these 18 19 20 year old guys and say really you don't ever put a uniform on except for sports and I said Dad I want to join the Army I want to do that so that was kind of in the back of my head knowing that that really wouldn't be that way though a lot of people who've known me for the 35 years that I served to think that that's probably what I did anyways a lot of time in the gym and a lot of time on the playing fields but uh so I said okay I'll go to this military school for one year if I you know if it works out fine so what year what year did was it that you graduated high school 75 75. so you had long hair and your dad was okay with that he was not laughs uh what kind of music were you listening to just like the typical 70s rock yeah probably Beach Boys and Eagles and and uh Doobie Brothers uh-huh and and he convinces you to give one year shot at the Citadel yeah did you have any when you went there you know a lot of times young men are impressed by the whole the uniforms and the discipline and they get a little bit excited about that thing did you have any of that or were you just doing it to gratify the old man you know there's a lot of physical uh challenge there too so I enjoyed you know you know the running and the obstacle courses and and uh working out and then some Elite you know drill teams or other kind of teams trying out for those things um but what what's funny is um two years later my brother goes to University of California Santa Barbara oh yeah I'm fixing a little brother so but uh um the president of the Citadel was a guy named cygneous Lieutenant General retired and he had been the Commanding General in Berlin so they they had me booked you know six years earlier that I was going to end up going to that school dang yeah and it it worked out pretty good so you show up there they shave your head the whole nine yards yeah at the end of the first day I'm rubbing a shaved head think and Dad won Mike zero let's see where this goes from here were you uh you know I was talking to people about the Shaka boot camp and it's did you get that little shock of saying what the hell am I doing here not really you were down you were ready yeah and then then you you go what are you studying when you're in at the Citadel studied business and uh you know mostly the management leadership management side of it it interested me in accounting I didn't like not so much and what about sports are you playing any sports ended up um trying out for the baseball team and got a call back and that was the first day we were allowed to go downtown Charleston so this is where you know the young women were like five for every Cadet and so I saw this workout for the baseball career yeah it became a huge intramural player so they had Sports all you know all year round so I got to you know still get the book and and you had a good experience overall at the Citadel now yeah real good then uh what year did you get commissioned 79 and did you so when you're getting commissioned in 1979 what this is Jimmy Carter's president the what's what's the outlook on the military as you're going in it's low funding probably recruiting trouble or I guess recruiting that might not have been too bad because the economy was bad um post Vietnam um all the good ncos and good officers many many had left service they they've seen what combat is like you said about the winners and uh a lot so in the first couple years most of the ncos that I had were alcoholics and it's all volunteer Force just started and um so that and the um I ended up at a mechanized infantry in Fort Riley Kansas and the Army back then had tiered Readiness and so if you know 96 days get on a train go to Germany but if you're in the 82nd so you were level four so you're unfunded um we had a rifle company with three platoons authorized but only men for two platoons so it was it's pretty bad until President Reagan came in and and really uh you know resourced us a couple big things happen in those first six years when you when you got commissioned you go straight to uh to go to the Infantry officers basic course is that what is that what the pipeline was it was yeah and how long was that school uh 14 weeks are you feeling like you got a good education in that I mean I had uh I had James Webb on here who was in the Marine Corps Navy cross recipient and he was went to the basic school went to the Marine Corps infantry School infantry leader School got on had 12 days of leave got on a plane went to Vietnam went out they walked him out into the Middle Field pointed up original and said that there's your platoon he walked up there he said who am I relieving a sergeant said I've been the platoon Commander for the last whatever it was our other platoon Commander got wounded or killed you're in charge and that night they got a big gun fight and he was calling in air support and I said were you ready for that and he he said yes so they at that time you know in the middle of the Vietnam War they the Marine Corps was squared away at getting those guys ready you know I've often looked at some of the training that I went through in the 90s and thankfully we didn't get thrown into war because we wouldn't have been ready for it how did you feel that that course prepared you then I think we would all say it prepared us to do a squad Leader's job not command a platoon and combat yeah and uh and that was going to be taught when you got to your first unit and if you had a squared away Captain you know O3 then it was taught and if you didn't um your sergeants would probably bring you along if you're smart enough as an officer to listen then that's what happened to me like my captain was was horrible you show up your Captain's honorable so now it's on the ncos that are going to get you trained up we just kind of said hey we're in this one together let's you know let's get me get me trained I'll bring leadership and energy you know but what does bad leadership look for look like for a captain just for informational educational purposes when you say your captain was a bad leader what was up with him so I always tell everyone charcoal that you know you enter the service with your faith and your friends and your family and your integrity and you should leave the service when someone tries to take that from you and so my first Captain was a liar and a cheater and um he would steal things and he gave me that he said hey take this truck to Topeka and trade everything that's in the back of the truck to the guy and he's going to give you some stuff and put it in a truck and bring it back on Sunday I said I'm not going and he said your career is going to end right here I said I'm ready for that I'm ready for that you know there's nothing you can do there's nowhere I'm going to end up not doing this for you it's gonna you know make it right so he said get out get out of here he called in another little tenant that guy took the truck and it was a Chuck's full of stolen goods or something yeah yeah you know from um he would he would end up getting excess he'd trade internally to get stuff and then you know he stole a trailer and it was parked in the field and he sent you know Supply guy hey go hook that up to our supply truck bring him back because he could trade that for someone who needed a trailer who had lost one he's just a scumbag okay so your first yeah yeah what makes you decide you're going to stay in I guess I guess you had the family tradition so there was no yeah getting out well you know my mom was really strong uh elegant woman from Boston and uh and she would say hey if you don't like something then you know get to the top and change it and you know either and then my father would probably add to that if you walk out who do you think is going to take care of those soldiers so you know he would he would have supported me leaving um at the end of the first four years my high school best friend at about year 16 said you've served 16 years for four years of college you're a fool I said no John I stayed in because I like it uh so you so that's your first job um out there in Fort Riley Kansas sounds like you're learning some lessons of at least how not to act yeah uh where do you go from there well as you said I went from the basic course to Fort Riley they didn't allow my class to go to Ranger school so here I am a lieutenant with no Ranger Tab and every you know payday breakfast some general says if you're an infantry guy and you don't got a ranger tab then you're you're not worth it so I lived four years and you know the sort of a theme is wanted to go to West Point didn't get in went to the second string decided which none of my classmates would agree with that but but you know when you're 18 you're like oh my gosh yeah damn it and then you go to the basic course you know your dad is a paratrooper and and uh the distinguished Soldier he's like okay I get my Ranger Tab and then get ready to go to combat no no Ranger tapped so so I came back to uh in 1983 went to then I'd been offered a bunch of company commands as a lieutenant you know stay here it's a captain's job but you got what it takes and I had to tell the Botanical Commander I got to move on it's a big army you know I got I got some things I got to fulfill so I went back and about eight captains and again the same number 200 lieutenants and young sergeants started Ranger school after the captain Square course and only one graduate and uh because it's too easy for them to to say hey I've already I've been out there I've already LED I got good reports you know I can get I can get what I need were you a captain yet when you went through Ranger school that was yeah so you went through Ranger school as a captain what year was that like 1983 now we're talking 1984 or something like that October 83 to uh to January or December like did you prepare for Ranger school like nowadays people when they're going to some kind of selection they they go through a pretty they if they're smart they'll go through a pretty hardcore training regimen to get ready did you prepare training prepare for Ranger school I did and and uh I'd be you know Columbus Georgia you know August and July August June 80 pound rucksacks when like you know and I was probably a whopping you know 138 pounder 8142 you know and uh but other guys are on the golf course and they're laughing and joking and you know holding the beer up and they see me and my big black dog walking and then laying the half you know like that shooting asthma if I'd say you know hey Kelly go out there go go go go go go sit and then God Walk to him and then send him again sit and all that but uh then night Land Navigation you know all the things not time all the things that were going to come up you know you spend the time you know and you so you were ready for what were the numbers that you just threw out there you had how many people start this let's say probably 228 and 228 and these were captains they only eight were captains so only eight captains had the courage to uh try it again or try it because they already were comfortable you know complacency is a killer yeah it is and uh and so in this case uh we started and uh and only I only I graduated uh a guy named Danny Green was recycled he later graduated all the others quit along the way and then if the 220 uh young officers lieutenants and young Sergeants probably about 48 made it so we probably had a graduation around 50 starting 228. what was what was the hardest part or the biggest challenge for you in Ranger school uh I mean if you're 138 pounds I'm surprised you even lived through that you know food off everyone was 138 at the end so I didn't have yeah I lost probably about four pounds and I saw big men lose you know lots uh part of it was you know I've been deployed with the unit from Fort Riley around the country and overseas and and I had done a lot of training um we ran a basic AIT Advanced individual training at the Army had an idea to send them to the unit and you train them up so when I was going to Rainer school I kept thinking they got to have a safety net around here we're going down this River it's going pretty fast so you know they got to have a first aid tent around here you know for hypothermia so I was all I had already been to support platoon leader in the Battalion you know Logistics officer so I was just kind of and and my my Ranger buddy was Ed Ruiz he was a staff sergeant from the 82nd Airborne and he thought he was going to die he's like we're gonna die anyway and all this stuff you know to me I thought it was like you know Disney World if you're taller than Mickey you can get on this ride here and so man I'm gonna get five extra jumps this is great and and I literally would you know he would eat everything they gave him they'd give you two meals uh for a day or three meals for two days and I ended up just my work was getting heavy with the c rations so my work was getting heavy with extra towel and then you know when he'd start whimpering I'd go here you go take this ears here's spaghetti here's you know all that um so you know everyone has a day or two that are bad days in Ranger school and uh and if you have your Ranger buddies then they carry you through and likewise you do it for them so you know to me it was a leadership uh you know uh opportunity and just put one foot nut in front of the other what was the most uh significant leadership lesson you took away from Ranger school um you know I think you if you're not building teams they're falling apart That's A Life Lesson and so you're you're constantly trying to make the team stronger you're going around uh and and probably learned it because I thought that's probably the right way to do it and uh and then when you you see it come together and you see that we can get through this together kind of thing then you know and I you know I start with a lot of those enlisted guys all went to the ranger battalions so then when I started serving in the Rangers there's all my Ranger buddies are now ncos that no cap Affairs you know he's legit when you get done with that what's your next Duty station uh I went up to Alaska and uh and took it in Fairbanks North of the Arctic Circle ended up taking command of the parachute infantry company Charlie airborne and we had 50 guys at a reunion so from 1985 50 guys still get together in Fairbanks Alaska and and the Arctic the uke they call it it makes men you know they they all come in the skinny little legs and buck teeth and big ears and no neck and after they carry the rucksack through them through the winter on snowshoes they're tightened they're tight grouping hair studs they end up with a thick neck big legs and smaller ears yeah that's right exactly it's all moving in the right directions so now you're you're a company Commander you said at that point I am and what was your you know how what was your premise you know from a leadership perspective when you took company command how did you what was your what was your first sit down with the troops what did you tell them what was your kind of your principles of leadership somewhere along that time um I coined the idea you know or the model you know we win together and so it's pretty simple but it's we and it's together and it's about outcomes and they all wore a maroon Bray you know fancy hat and uh and they thought they were invincible and and I told them you guys you know we don't live fire no one in the Army does but I don't really care about that I care about us so first it was you know applied Marksmanship basic Marksmanship then applied Marksmanship and I would challenge the ncos and the reason I think we're still together is okay let's let's figure it out there there are great shots in this world and everyone in those companies do that and we will walk everywhere so we'll parachute in and we'll walk to the front gate There's No Buses coming to the Drop Zone all right we're going to be hard you know not not full of ourselves but you know and so that we challenged uh my best friend's company to a wrestling match and uh so he got the NCO Club is all kitted up and and when the first paratrooper got pinned by a non-airborne guy they couldn't believe it was like wait a minute we're Superman we're Airborne it's not okay so now the hype and the reality let's work on this here so we got to maneuver live fire level and uh um and they're they're just great so the the whole thing is I think in life if if you um treat everyone like they're really wicked smart and you know there were guys at the Citadel that we walk around like you know dumb privates and then you'd see them on a basketball floor and they were natural leaders and those kind of observations taught me you have no idea the fierceness in a platoon or a company and you have no idea the talent that's around you unless you let it come out and so that was that's the way that I do it I've done my whole life so then uh I get a call from Department of the army hey you've been up there for three and a half years we got something for you and I said what do you mean they said we we got we got a recruiting job down in San Jose it's real close to your home or recruiting or uh reserve duty and I said the phone lines up here in Alaska are not that good I hung up so I called down to Second ranger battalion and I talked to a friend of mine named Bernie champo I didn't know him at the time but it became a long friend and I said hey I'm I'm coming out of company command and I'd like to come compete try to try out for the Rangers you're supposed to be the best of the best and he said man you should have called a year ago you know we're we're booked way out and uh I said look I'm I'll fly down there I'll give it a try whatever you want he said I can't help you then a guy quit and so he had my name right there so you know what is Wayne Gretzky says you miss every you miss every shot you've never taken and so he calls up says hey Mike this is Bernie um if you can be down here and it's like I'm standing next to him here I am so um so that worked out really did you have to go through some kind of selection to be an officer in in the ranger regiment yeah yeah we we called it rope back then Ranger uh orientation program now now they use rasp yeah now they use rasps okay selection program and how long was this selection program uh probably three weeks and you were ready for that thing even though you hadn't been preparing you've been preparing just by being an infantry company Commander up on Alaska humping a rock and doing what you're doing and wrestling against the the legs yeah that's right exactly and again I'm the basketball player in the uh and the baseball player not not a Grappler yet so that's what's really unique about it so yeah so it you know combat water survival test which is you know simple and I grew up water skiing and playing around and then uh shoot and then um 12 mile foot March five mile run in uh 35 minutes and um so you the idea was one it was an orientation program because they wanted you to know how to tie your gear down where it goes what see all the weapons that you're gonna see when you get there and and then uh but also to know that if you take that unit if the day you arrive they go on a 20 mile foot March you can do it and and first of it's just an investment a good good you know people management you want to waste time bringing someone in and then have them to flop out because they're just not fit so you get a sign then you you get assigned to the range regiment I do as far as I can tell and you know I I was in the Navy obviously and I worked with the Marines a lot I worked with the Army on deployment I work with the Marines on deployment but and you know I work with special opera or Special Forces I work with uh marsok I've worked with kind of a bunch of different units I've worked with Rangers before I was live next Rangers but but the from what I could tell on the outside looking in it seems like Ranger regiment is kind of this the most uh Spartan of the units out there in terms of the day-to-day life of being a ranger and I've also been told this by by friends that were in in Rangers at ranger battalion the life that you lead there is like you're a ranger that's it nothing else and what we're going to do is be in the field and we're going to train and there's a lot of young kids there it's a very young group you know got because you can go right out of high school the training you don't have to go to Rangers school to go to Range of Battalion right you can just go through that two or three week thing and boom you're now at a ranger in a ranger battalion what was tell me a little bit about the day-to-day life of being in a ranger battalion yeah it was it's so the day-to-day life started on Sunday where you got a high and tight haircut every Sunday and so you know you either had a flat top or you had uh it looks like a divot from a golf course landed on top of your head and so and then so everybody starts right there everybody carried a ranger coin if you didn't have your coin you get smoked you know or you buy beer for somebody so getting smoked is you're actually like doing push-ups and PT like you're in boot camp yeah so that kind of thing doesn't happen I in it doesn't happen in the SEAL Teams that's for sure like no one's going to make you do push-ups when you're in the SEAL Teams though you you might if you do something really stupid you might get slapped around you might get actual Duty assignments but you're not you're not walking around this there's no there's no feeling of boot camp whatsoever when you're at a Seal Team yeah yeah Ranger regimen is not like that you there definitely is a boot camp yeah you don't want you know so I end up commanding a company being a battalion S3 being the regimental S3 command and a ranger battalion so you've seen it at every level yeah and except for the original Commander yeah you know but but there's there's a rise of Passage you know um every officer who serves in the ranger regiment has already done the job so I recommended the parachute company I come back and command a ranger company I Commander to parachute Battalion in the 82nd came back and commanded oh God that's smart Battalion S3 in the ninth Infantry Division and then Battalion has three for third Rings battalion in the enlist in the platoon there there are echelons I I joke about you know you you just love it when a new private comes in because he gets the green scrub pad and you get the buffer right and so you're no longer sticking your hand in the toilet cleaning it right but uh that until the ranger gets to Ranger school he he's he's a lesser now they'll fight you know in a bar together to take care of him uh they'll fight in combat together but there's there's you know I have gone to Ranger school I'm a Corporal E4 or I'm a sergeant E5 and you have not and uh your specialist that came from Korea and we're saying E4 you're not the same so that so it starts there in terms of Spartan life um the uh you know the officer is supposed to eat last you know make sure the troops the Rangers got their child and that kind of thing um but everyone has to meet that standard and so uh if if a guy falls out of a run falls out of a foot March then um the Army gave uh summary release authority to the range of Battalion and so you get dropped and they send down to leg land or send down to 9th Infantry Division or 24th after division back in those days and so you you had to stay on it and uh and you had to learn to play hurt and so you're jumping and walking through the night and falling in things and you know if you got hurt and you the wounded world to be kind of syndrome you know the lion see the one that's limping and you know they'll go after the ncos or someone will go after someone that's um can't keep up and so so it's a good it's a good tough life yeah the so you get you get a haircut on Sunday you get a high and tight on Sunday night we need Monday morning aren't you going in the field all the time don't they spend a ton of time in the field and yeah and all right they'll go so first first of all there's no other than uh combat prep there's no picking up trash that's what the divisions you know on the same post though we'll do a rotation of stocking the shelves in the commissary being the gate guards and all that Rangers don't don't do that and uh so instead it's probably in the rifle company it's probably Tuesday morning out uh Thursday evening back or through the week two weeks on a Thursday back the weapons clean and then that late into that night weapons cleaning the next day um hang your boots to dry somewhere and then get a haircut yeah and most guys don't spend more than one tour at ranger battalion is that accurate or not accurate yeah but the the uh I was at where was I I think I was at either brag or Benning and there was a guy who looked like he was made of you know leather and freaking muscle he looked like he might have been 45 or 50 years old he's in the he's in the commissary and he's wearing like his Ranger panties and like a ranger t-shirt and I'm like this guy is 100 Ranger you know he's and and I was I've always uh heard that most guys they do like maybe maybe four years hitch there maybe they'll do one more but then they move on because of the lifestyle is just so Spartan the the scenery senior ncos will stay and and a lot of guys will go from private to platoon Sergeant the same platoon you know 15 years that's awesome yeah and uh and then and then some some leave um if someone messes up then uh like I said they'll they'll get uh drop from rolls um a release for standards RFS and as you can tell them hey you can come back you know six months you can come back to this unit and never do once they get to the soft life they're not coming back they're not so but but uh it's very close and tight because you know you've got this this kind of cast system but it's also it's a brotherhood like none other yeah no so uh salute to the Rangers every time I work with a ranger you know what you're gonna get you're gonna get a 100 professional Soldier that's ready to do the job anytime anywhere uh outstanding what was from a leadership perspective what did you take away from the Rangers as a leader um so it probably came out of there with with what I would call my my command philosophy which is funny because my son Patty commanded the same Ranger company that I did and uh the only time in in history that a father-son command the same Ranger company and he wrote me and said many years later some 2006 he wrote hey Dad I've written my command philosophy at six pages would you read it and I tell me what you think I said no I won't read it no one else will either I was going to read six pages I said he said well what's yours I said it's easy I've had it since since Bravo Company 275. one is do your best do what's right improve daily build teams and take care of a little guy or show that you care and never quit and so I kind of came out of there with if you're not doing that then um you're probably falling behind and uh as an older guy as an older officer or as a general you know I would tell everyone um do your best means don't try to be the best because the team suffers when you try to manage yourself you know you know this and then do what's right be true to your wife and leave everyone else's alone and they all look at that and and I said this is not a religious thing man this is you're going to ask them to go up that hill you're going to ask them to you know leave the airplane in combat they trust you and too many senior officers and Senior ncos you know they cheat on their wives they think it's no big deal and now the truth police guy's fake you know he lies to her then go out to anybody right and then the rest is about the building of the team and and uh when I was in Alaska this guy finance officer I pulled him to the cage in the finance building because it's private from Charlie Airborne we've got no pay dues so I'd hear him in the first arm's office saying Jones no pay do all right son of motor finance next morning no pay due means he's not going to get any money yeah okay and so um the next day I hear Jones's voice first sergeant you know students aren't talking in there so I'm listening well he didn't have enough copies when he went over there for finance I kicked him back so now he's got four copies okay so the next day I hear his voice he signed the copies in blue ink and at that point I said that's enough so I said the first word said sir I said no this this guy's wife thinks he's an idiot because he's working for free so I go into financing the captain there um what's my next door neighbor his name's art I said hey Art my privates no pay dude he's been in here this is the fourth day in a row and he said oh what gosh we can fix that what's the what was the problem well you didn't have enough copies yeah you gotta have four cops you got a copy machine right there number two he signed it in blue yeah we got a hundred percent you know no deficiencies noted in our inspection at that point I grabbed it I'm gonna kick your butt in front of all your troops right here or are you going to pay this kid right now that you know that that word gets through that the boss is gonna stand up for us and I think that's what we we're supposed to do so that's what I really learned in those first two company commands when you were at ranger battalion are you going on deployment anywhere or do you just were you just staying in Fort Lewis yeah we traveled the world okay yeah um back then we had jungle uh training in Fort Sherman Panama so every year you go there um you'd go up into the Arctic Fairbanks or or Fort Richardson or Norway or something like that and then um we you do a long-in-flight rig parachute rig and then parachuting into Germany and and move for three three days and nights and then attack bad bad tolls as a was a Army Airfield there um went up to Boise Idaho jumped in the desert we would go we'd go quite a bit so you'd just go on big training operations and and get back Square your gear away get ready go do it again go to the field and and then then once every uh eight weeks you take two weeks stand down and then twice a year you take two weeks of block leave the whole unit shuts and goes it's squared away the Rangers don't play around uh so what do you get what'd you do when you got done with uh with with this tour of the Rangers um I I had to go next door and uh be in the motorized uh infantry and and then Desert Shield Desert Storm kicked off and uh and then I went to Commander general staff College and then um when I was in Commander general staff College in 91 92 but the uh regimental Commander came to interview and we had about 20 Ranger company former company commanders in the in the course and the word out was these guys this guy this guy and this guy were going back to the Richmond as majors and uh and so I thought well they've already picked but I stopped by to see the colonel and General Buckner and what's the regimental Commander he said oh God I'm glad to see I heard you were gonna go to 101st but I got a spot for you so I'm here sir let's go when the Gulf War went down where were you were you in uh the command and general staff college and how pissed off were you during that time me and and you know whatever it was 600 you know pissed off captain promotables or Majors yeah people tried to call back try to go back to their unit and uh you know back in those days a War lasted you know a weekend yeah that one did last what 72 hours or 96 hours or something like that yeah tornadoes that way just cause was out oh yeah Grenada too did you go to did you go to uh Grenada no I was in Ranger school yeah and then what about Panama um I gave up the ranger company and six months later Panama man yeah so one of the things that I would say uh to you and for this podcast is there's there's a lot of times that you don't get what you think is supposed to happen in life you know and and like the Lord is your assignment officer you know and uh um and I you know I should have been it's not that's not a good way of looking like that you know it's look through the windshield and not the rear view mirror and make something of what's in front of you is kind of what I would tell people so didn't get West Point like got this at all didn't get Ranger school got the weapons pretended didn't get a rifle but since when I went to the Ranger school I was like a blank disc or you know somebody teach me how to how to maneuver because I've been shooting mortars you know then got up to Alaska got the Airborne company got Bravo Company in the in the Rangers and that didn't get to go but in each case you gotta you know go with purpose do your best do a try take care of somebody and things will start to work out yeah well in those days it was just a roll of the dice whether you're going to get to go to war or not and and in those days you might be in a unit where you know you are not gonna go so you still had to motivate the troops or some of them didn't want to be motivated and during those days we invented something called urinalysis they didn't have it prior to 83. and so you you know had drug use and stuff like that and uh and suddenly now you you know who is and then you could punish them or correct them and all that so the Army changed a lot in in from 79 to you know 94. so after college and what did you learn there I mean where what were you learning what was your main main takeaways that you got out of going to the two years of command and general staff that's one year and uh okay one yeah and um someone told me that that the next 10 to 15 years of service will be with this group so knowing that there are people who are not infantry and they're squared away they're smart you know and up until then have kind of been sequestered into all male infantry units and and one thing I never left an infantry battalion until I made Colonel and that's pretty rare and so I was always finding a way um you know to get back and uh and different kind of History maybe and then back to the Rangers and then 82nd Airborne then back to the Rangers so so then that's what happens you get they had a slot for you back at the at the regiment and yeah first first at regiment and uh then General Grange or Colonel Grange made me the Battalion or the regimental S5 which could be civil military Affairs but actually it was I want you to create the ranger monument at Fort Benning I want you to create the James Dietz Prince I want you to create the pavers and all that stuff and so um he he went to go worldwide because we we'd been left out of uh Desert Shield Desert Storm except for one Ranger company from first Ranger um Schwarzkopf didn't didn't like the Rangers and he had been a Fort Stewart and so he probably felt that they were primadonnais and and so for whatever whatever reason the Rangers didn't get a lot of action and so General Granger said then Colonel Granger's view was I'm going to go to each of the combatant commands and and then arrange for an exercise so it will be used and then he came he would come back and he asked the communication officer there's these kind of radios Delta Force has these kind of radios in order to you know and you come back said what's the word on radios and the guy go I can't I didn't make any progress and then go to this guy you know this kind of supply stuff we needed this kind of Rapid Deployable parachute thrown out from a helicopter no action that he came to me and I said here's the print you know this at this print is the here's the sketch and met with these guys in Florida and that and and uh so in 69 days at the regimental level I was then sent down a Third Battalion where everyone wants to be in a battalion so it's the shortest I think I was hailed and farewell to the same social event and that so now you get into the Battalion and what are you doing offs there yeah we have a extra field grade in in the range of battalions who does the special ops liaison and coordination so for one and you're really schooling yourself on on what the other S3 what the S3 is going to do and you're probably the error apparent um so so I was yellow and and uh after a year um I moved into uh the S3 job and then my botanic Manner and another range of Italian Commander were killed in a helicopter crash in the Great Salt Lake on October 29 1992. so then um Danny McKnight came and took over third range of Battalion and and he he led third into Mogadishu with Bravo Company and and they worked with with the Jordan special operational task force there he he was not half the man of Colonel corneli and I think it hadn't had a lot to do with a lot of problems in the street there and uh you know when you think about the lieutenant colonel there's they're still pretty young but when you're a captain in a major you expect a lot from them and if he's a ranger Commander you expect a lot so I was asked to be the chief of staff of the armies Aid to camp and so where were you when when um did you deploy to Somalia then I did but I deployed after the big fight got it so I brought Alpha Company and a squadron um forward from from uh Delta Force and we we had trained we were going to be the replacement on October 3rd had the big fight and we arrived October 4th at about six at night we did patrols got Mike Durant back um and then um and then the president President Clinton struck a deal with Hadid and we thought we just lost six of our buddies and Gordon shugart lost you know Sergeant Cleveland who was a pretty good friend I did a lot of missions with that task force 160 and he was dragged through the streets and then you see you know and just giving up so I'm very proud of the Rangers I think Ranger Scotty Miller who retired as a four star was the captain underground for the Delta Force and a great friend and great great great officer person I think any other unit in the army that day would have been killed to the man in my Bravo Company and and elements of uh very Task Force Ranger did was amazing remarkable and encourages me on description what was the when you so you land on four October what was the atmosphere when you get there yeah it's really really eerie Sullen we got mortared that night and we one got killed and and uh Dr Marsh task force doctor wounded badly Grizz Martin was killed he had been a second range Battalion guy and then did the Long Walk and joined the guys are brag um but it was Eerie um there was sort of this rationalization that occurred that you know the ranger standard didn't have to be followed because we were hanging out with these cool guys and I and I felt we sent my Colonel there ill-equipped to command because he didn't have his staff and so I went I think I felt when I got there that uh I assumed that role of leadership again to get the arena standard back up to speed and I mean adding sandbagged you know the place they were living in and they're just kind of playing volleyball and hanging out and then going on missions and stuff so and then and then never you know they lost we lost some we lost six guys and uh it means a lot to all these guys and to me yeah it was uh obviously just the horrible I'm you know I was I was in the SEAL Teams at that time and we were all just well I didn't have it we had Durant on on the podcast and it was so uh so surreal to be sitting across talking to him when you know like I said I was in the SEAL Teams and we're watching you know seeing the videos of him and watching him get dragged through the streets and watching the videos that got posted or that were on the news and you know you think this guy well you want to do everything you can to help him and obviously I'm like in I was in San Diego you know I mean we're not going to get to do anything to help him out but yeah what a what a tough fight and a tough situation and um so when you get done with that what's your what's your next job after that when I became the regimental operations officer we planned Haiti and I got ready to go into Haiti and then I think General Powell and a few others went down there and broke her to Peace So we were rigged on the airplane clamshell we are three hours from jumping into combat clamshell and then actually um that night my mom passed away so she had cancer and uh so an air force uh tactical air control guy they drove me from Savannah to a Ford betting where I met my my wife and Margaret we linked up with Margie and then she put him out and played out to Monterey to settle my the estate so the whole time period was from kenneally Dyne Mogadishu Haiti my mom passing and then one month later I take Battalion command at Fort Bragg and it probably was kind of numb for about six months someone told me once and you know you got that smile back you got that sparkle back I didn't know it was gone yeah you must have been uh quite focused when you showed up where'd you do your first Battalion command it was Fort Bragg and second Battalion 504th parachute infantry and uh with the 82nd with the 82nd uh first brigade Commander was uh John abbazade a really great officer and the second one is the Famous Dave Petraeus so um General trace and I would race each other and so the other Battalion commanders when Patrick when when uh then Colonel Petraeus would come out in the morning and look around we'd all be stretching and they'd run and hide behind the bushes or their barracks and so he would say white level six let's go for a run all right sir so then we'd go two out two miles out and then come back and at the beginning of the fourth mile we'd race and so I think he's probably caught me by about three but I say hey surfing I want to play 101 basketball first you know you want to wrestle you want to you want to do anything else but uh so we had a lot of fun when he would come to Iraq later um I would tell my we're gonna get a call tomorrow night at 2300 to meet with General Petraeus at zero four exactly sir you know so we we learned to take a day off before the race the next day because he would try to sneak in there and uh no you probably smoked yourself the day before and so so when you're doing the Battalion command now um at the 82nd are you guys doing a workup cycle where you're training and then you're moving to a higher state of Readiness is that is that what you do in the Army I'm in the Navy so our cycle was always and it's the same with the ships and then Marine Corps falls into this too they do kind of what the Navy does which is get ready to go on deployment and then you board ships and you go on deployment and the SEAL Teams you get ready to go on deployment we sometimes we board ships sometimes we just fly to another place and we stay on deployment for six months that's sort of that's sort of the methodology of the Navy and methodology the Marine Corps too when you're at 82nd and there's no war going on what do you do yeah you have three Cycles um division ready force one two and three if you're in two that's the Intensive training cycle and pre if you're good at it then before you enter two you've done your basic Marksmanship of all weapons so now you can go straight into collective training and then uh at the conclusion of that eight week cycle of really field time then you become very force one and all your vehicles are rigged up to be para dropped all your ammos ready to go so you're basically on standby at that point yeah and then um if you're on three you can take your block leave or you're picking up trash and just you know stashing shelves into commissary and stuff you legit do that soldiers legit do that stock channels in those commissary I did not know that I don't think anyone in the Navy stock shelves in the in the commissary in the Navy I don't think so yeah I could be wrong yeah but at least in the SEAL Teams we didn't I don't know yeah when you try you know when you're a new officer the first time in 82nd and you try to tell a sergeant major my guy shouldn't be stocking shelves that dog doesn't hurt very long in the 80 Seconds what'd you take away from General abbazade and Colonel Petraeus at that time well um so attributes were they're very focused um one intensely focused General Petraeus the other focused and very cordial very friendly um one very good listener one a pretty good listener um and so I and seeing is Who is the very good listener who is the pretty good listener Joe abbaside was was a very good listener he's just curious as heck and General Petraeus was prone to um think he if he knew what he wanted then he didn't need to listen as you know you just had to be a little smoother at bring it up you know sort of be helpful and useful if maybe you know those kind of discussions um I have great relationship with both of them really great and but they're little little different leaders when um as a as a battalion Commander would you take away as a leader did you make any big mistakes did you have any huge Lessons Learned as a battalion Commander I I so the first was understanding really you know um who who did you need to own their heart what level did you need to own their heart to know that the unit would do anything for you so at a company level you know all 180 guys or 160 or whatever you know and if you get the E4 Mafia kind of with you um then you the companies can do everything and and the uh at the staff sergeant and Sergeant E5 right in the middle of that was where the Battalion Commander so so how do you get that well you got to run PT with them you know you got to roll with them you know you gotta be on that foot March when when they step off for the expert infantry badge you got you know not only do you step off but you you beat everybody a 12 mile for March so they know they know he he can do it you stand up to the Brigade Commander when they you know somebody's ragging on your guys you go sir you know it's not your job you run a brigade I'll run a battalion and uh I got this so that you got to earn their trust um so I think I learned that when you can do that then you can do anything then what was the so the you just were telling me that the you do in Rangers you already did the job somewhere else so now did you go is this when you did Battalion Commander at Rangers after that yeah I went down to Fort Benning from from brag at this at that time and took third range of a time and this is what 1996 1997 time frame yeah it's 96 to 98. and this is where you get your introduction to jiu jitsu am I correct it is yeah and what was that introduction like uh it happened this way what you know what it was like it was awesome but it happened this way then Colonel I'm a Crystal Stanley Crystal um asked me hey what do you what do you think about uh bringing these guys hoyce Gracie and hori and Gracie um in and training year Sergeants this idea of hand-to-hand or combative so and and I said well sir what's that going to cost me and he said it's forty thousand dollars for two weeks well we didn't even have night scopes on all of our machine guns in 1996 . I said so I'd rather take that money and put put it in the Scopes you know and he said okay good good um you're gonna do it I just want to know how you felt about it so that's all right so then within a week or two um I walk into the range of dining facility and there's these two guys sitting at the table somebody introduces them to me and you know I'm looking at a horse great this close so I'm thinking I wonder what do you do if I slapped him right now I didn't slap him I was going to say I actually do know what he did yeah I know we all know that but they uh they introduced um ground fighting in the form of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and I asked them you know why are you winning and he said you know my you know our father um took the Japanese style of fighting and and put the Brazilian side on it and and we can win and we will win so I I our a recurring theme is to trust and and super backup your your non-commissioned officers and so set up the training and then we pure fleeted it and uh right as I started to understand it then the Army sent me to Boston so um went up there went into Kenny Florian's Place once or twice and uh um and I trained with his brother Keith about two months ago it was pretty good pretty pretty awesome time and but uh so third range of battalions were combatives was introduced I went to the Fletcher School of Law and diplomacy in Tufts University as you know I was joking say that's a senior National Defense fellow so let's show a little respect around here with a title but then when I came back there's another one of those examples um there's a lot to talk about third range Battalion and learns and live fires and and uh guys getting killed and uh and hurt and training uh is that during live fire Evolutions uh guys getting killed at a demo range we had someone put P for plenty you know just trying to let's get rid of it all and through a dirt clog of clay in the air that was the size of a piano or something and landed on on guys that were behind tomorrow yeah and uh but you know you you learn when you're doing these things that it's dangerous and if you do what's right go back to that one you're going to be okay if you're with the right people you're going to be okay but when you do something wrong what did the investigation on that look like I mean what was the if you if you're talking to a young Soldier right now A young Ranger right now what would they take away from that there was negligence and and you know the master breacher was found was court-martialed and departed the army and what was he what was his thought process I just said bigger boom not not trying to be show off you but more like look if we continue to do this we're going to be here till 10 at night so then let's put it all in the hole and let's get out of here no kidding how much explosives you know I let me make the one correction I was that happened when I was the S3 and and I was in uh Mogadishu when it happened so um so I got investigated for having signed off on the uh the range request and then deployed and so then did the OIC and the ncoic were the ones that were finally found responsible and then what other what other major takeaways did you have from Battalion command at Ranger regiment you guys you talked about live fire yeah what was uh how much live fire would you guys do live fire maneuver well we did a lot we did we did uh company live fires so so in that train up for the Rangers to take the mission in a similar way as in the 82nd we would always do a short Readiness exercise which meant we had uh helicopter assets from the 168th and from Air Force Special Ops and he had gunships in uh and then you know sometimes it would be there's a there's a there's a special forces location in Copa Peru so we rebuilt it to uh um to seize it back should uh was a shining path or whatever and they had taken it then then we would live fire take it back so it's always built around some kind of ongoing actual objective out there yeah yeah and then again you you want range of platoons to um be be the best platoon size element that can OverWatch support by fire breach assault consolidate you know can uh breach any any kind of fence door or whatever and so you you string a lot of The Blocking and tackling and then you put it into a concept and um which is interesting because a lot in the 20-year War which we call this one we're just finishing up we're still working on a lot of our officers are sort of like a latch you know latch key kids they everything's been given to them they haven't had to conceptualize and visualize conceptualize put it together and understand angles and and um you know moving Force stable force and so I think we learned a lot about about that also in in range of a tank command now you're on you have to know things about three levels up um when you're a company Commander you gotta sort of know what the Battalion Commander thinks well as soon as you get to Battalion then suddenly it's jsoc and all the assets it's you know combatant command and or their Sif forces current terrorist forces host nation and partner Nations so there's a lot of that I think the biggest thing is just how smart the ranger officers and the senior ncos are that's that's when you realize oh my goodness you know I had four company commanders one of whom is Eric Carrell now a four-star they were all West Point classmates and they were great guys and they were but they're so smart and they would vote us a block so they'd come walking into the office like oh here we go all right but if I needed to do anything I would say to to Jeff Martindale is Eric doing okay he seems kind of Droopy these days and a minute later Eric be in my door sir what I'm good to go so I think you you know you learned that um that they're not as experienced but they're you find out that wow these guys are really smart and the senior ncos you know probably all ncos but you get to see it at the senior level you know really smart you know from a training perspective in the I grew up in the 90s in the SEAL Teams and we did live fire everything I mean we did live fire everything in fact that was pretty much the only way we trained was live fire we did live fire I ads we did live fire odds at night we did live fire CQC all the time that's that's what we did blanks kind of wasn't even a thing and I would you know hear about the Army hear about the Marine Corps and they'd be talking about using blanks we I mean I would personally my own ego would be like well you know it's so lame that they're doing blanks and we just did live fire everything everything was live fire didn't even think about it it wasn't even a question what we were doing we're doing live fire but in the 2000s we started actually using both simunition and we had a better form of Miles gear that was very high speed and very very realistic and we started using that and all of a sudden it made us so much better both those things made us so much better we do less live fire than we used to but we're a lot better because now we go against we go against an enemy that's maneuvering and shooting back at us and killing us and we're having down men and all that stuff and then when I ran training I I was really focused on that force on Force training did you guys see that did you see that kind of transition as well we did and uh especially going back and forth from big army to to the Rangers you would see and the the Advent of the combat training centers um joint Readiness National Training Center and uh the cmtc over in Germany now you had a world-class opt for and that that's what took the Army out of the doldrums of of post Vietnam to suddenly everyone's getting there asking you got to fight you got to know what you're doing yeah and so then it's like and then you have world-class Observer controllers that are saying you know you're the 14th iteration of that I've seen you're not that good yeah you know and not publicly but off the side and it's it's you know it's on the same rank they're saying you know your planning is not that good your communication is not that good your action's not injected aren't that good so you know here's your take-home packet or you get better and then you got a mission in two days you didn't you didn't rehearse anything get you guys out of rehearse when did they stand up that NTC and uh was it in the 2000s was it no no no no it was uh 80 85 oh okay so they've had it for a while yeah they're already brought in the combat training center the Blackhawk the M1 tank and the Bradley all all within a five-year span that's a big transition yeah all right so you get done with uh School you're up there and then you come where do you go back when you when you get done with that where you go yeah so um you know God had decided that I was a Ranger with a capital R so I should probably command the 75th Ranger regiment didn't happen so they sent me to the 11th infantry which is the school Brigade and you know talk about humility um you know having to suck it up and like oh my God you know plan a ranger company parachute company parachute Battalion ranger battalion Ops and then a training regimen and then training and so I had officer candidate School infantry officer basic course jump School that captains Advanced course or career course and then the Battalion of dogs and cats and now if you're we had a little issue with this in the field we used to have an issue with this in the SEAL Teams where no one wanted to go to training and especially the Advanced Training what we now call training Detachment but it used to be called training cell where you're actually training the platoons that are going to go work and uh you learn so much there number one but number two it's real it seems real obvious that you would want to take your best guys and put them where they're training the other guys as opposed to taking the turds and putting them in charge of training so did you were you able to make that mind shift after you got assigned to the training and realize you're gonna have an impact on a bunch of people that are coming through training including the basic infantry officers course yeah yeah right away and and uh probably in July of of uh 99 I was you know moping around and my wife would normally will say Okay moping time's over let's you know what are we gonna do with this and so that the entire generation that fought in Iraq and Afghanistan started underneath he started uh the captains I wouldn't allow the captains to stay more than 11 months in any job so they had to go back to their divisions otherwise they were going to be dead in the water they wouldn't make major and so all these guys will learn how to train had first sergeants were running training companies all they were in the first wave of captains and many of them are two and three star generals now and all that so big impact and then also I got called up to uh a four stars office tradoc commanding General's office and he said that okay you got the lieutenant course they're too soft the lieutenants are bunch of wimps you know all they do is Powerpoint they you know once you do a quick study come back here in three weeks and tell me how you're going to change base the training for all the officers in the army so um so we found out we did analysis real quick and found out that of the 16 basic branches only four qualified with the base with with a rifle well out of how many out of 16 branches I think it was artillery infantry um Engineers engineers and armor and everyone else might might fire a weapon might might not why and so this is before 9 11. um so I designed the course with a couple of the sergeants and a couple of officers and and we did the same same thing we did in the Rangers it's like okay Monday you're going to the field you know and then you're going to shoot every week that you're in a basic course we purefully did that and then the culture to the other branches about three years after I left you know went to their generals of quartermaster generals of Finance or whatever and got got away but I also saw the opportunity to insert combatives into every course and I had to fight you know the big organization they're like you can't you can't do combatives you don't have the manual says you should have a fairbane knife and you know fight like the Brits did in World War II so we wrote that the TC that you talked about and the credit goes to Matt Larson and Troy Thomas Troy just retired his Lieutenant Colonel Matt um long friend and black belt for under jockery they did they did the hard work I did the review and all that and and then they said to you you can't do it because you don't have any master trainers so we created a master training course you can't do it because you don't have a facility I traded two pallets of MREs for the book Warehouse and this guy was a deer hunter who was the uh the uh post Ops guy the military post and and I said hey Colonel Jordan I'll give you what what can I what do I have to give you to get the book Warehouse he says what a bunch of MREs would be helpful because I'm out on so in OCS when they finished their last training exercise they just throw MREs into the basement it's a big room so we bundled them up traded and then we went to two different high schools and got the first wrestling match we pieced it together so you know again the lesson learned is reject rejection and if you know it's right and then even several of the course directors didn't want their lieutenants captains or or officer candidates rolling around on the mats and so we who says that yeah what kind of what kind of human being what kind of soldier says hey I don't want my my troops to learn combatives that seems insane to me it was it was and so you just play through them and the captains would sneak down there and and again all of them ended up being um combat commanders as captains and majors and Battalion commanders in combat and and they all they all got it and our ncos got it right away it's at the staff sergeant level they got it right away and those were all commands our majors and you know Division and starting the Army level announced and what year is this this is like around 2000 that all this is happening yeah how long did it take you to get that manual the first combatants we published it we published it by uh I took over July of 99 probably by July of 2000. then where are you at when September 11th happens I was standing outside Admiral nadder's office at Joint Forces command in Norfolk Virginia and we were about to go to uh up to Iceland to do that we had an air base up there that we were responsible for and we were just he was just going to go do a European tour or something sort so I was in The Briefing on the trip and he and boom we see the first plane on his TV Boom the next and I'd been assigned there four weeks maybe came out of Brigade command again we're supposed to go to Pentagon supposed to go to join staff ended up in Norfolk what's the mission of The Joint Forces command it was uh the idea of secretary Rumsfeld that that we needed an honest broker to select um to use the Navy's Global Force present posturepressants to use the the idea of the MU rotation to uh division division rotations brigades Aviation he sort of solved some that we were we needed some broad coordination between all the services and the whole supply chain and all that it was a big time uh disruptive innovation nobody liked Joint Forces command nobody and uh and so you know it's like you go down everyone wants to stay in their Silo they do yeah well we're happy no one bothers us we called we called Norfolk the colonies we'd go up to the Pentagon and say we're going back down to the colonies you know so but uh so I was there and then and I'm sitting there thinking I'm going to miss another damn War I cannot believe this how can I be in the Army all this time and everyone's deploying and then I'm the deputy j3 preparing the deployment order for every unit in in the military and I'm thinking oh and then um uh so we're I'm there until 2004 so from 911 to 2004 watching everyone go to war and then someone said you know you'll you'll make General if you can get your boots dirty and you know your everything's good except for you so then uh General Honore and and general Vines J.R Vines pulled me out of there and sent me to be the assistant division Commander um and I had in Iraq I had I had all the MPS all the aviation all psy-op civil Affairs and our armies off and so I went everywhere and on the road a street that I didn't drive what year was that 2005. okay and what was your explain what your job was they they had these separate brigades that would rotate in and there wasn't a division headquarters on top of them a two-star and there wasn't a one star and so they were kind of just running their own thing what each Brigade combat team was they were Aviation brigades okay and military police brigades got it got it got it okay and so I became the sugar daddy for for them and how long was that first deployment over there that was uh just under six months well not long and then what was your what was your what were you what was your Viewpoint of the war look you watched the thing happen you're kind of detached the first three years of the war actually first four years of the war you're seeing the direction that it's going uh you know actually I was just talking about on this uh podcast yesterday with the guy who was with me in in the Battle of ramadi Lake and I was saying we're we're not winning we're losing this war this is now in 2006. a lot of people weren't saying that you know a lot of people were like oh yeah we're winning you know well my Battalion did this many missions that must mean we're winning and my Brigade did this many missions that must mean we're winning and we caught this many bad guys that must mean we're winning and so we're winning and that was there was a lot of that going on were you seeing that when you had it over there did it look any different when you got on the ground were you starting to question whether we were winning or not yeah I I I'd agree with you I think um first of all you you saw a lot of transactional you know leadership in other words we've got this units in we own this piece of ground and we're out of here on July 4th we know that and um so you saw good hard work you know to search the next time I went was at the tail end of the search and I went three times and so I I would have people would ask me a question like you just said and I would say well when I play golf with my friend Chuck and I hit the ball over the hill and there's water down there I'll say Chuck do you think I went in the water and he goes sir too close to call and I felt that way about Iraq the whole time when someone say are we how's that going to end up on Nightcore is too close to call um I think that the Kurds and the Iraqis could screw up anything and you know that doesn't get me in trouble but culturally they they can't take the win you know and uh I think it's the Arab culture that you know the grew all the way back to to uh you know coming out of the Far East are these camels and everything and they they have to trade and they say hey can we have I'm the shake can I have six camels and all those rugs and the guy goes no no no no no but the shake was powerful he'd go back to his village and say I asked him they heard what I wanted you know we gave him water they gave me one rug and all that so that they're Traders they do Trading they also have multiple wives and the wives promote their child and the one who becomes you know when you say Abu Mash that's that's the father of mosh so that that tells the tribe wash or you know Abu Zaid or abizade so Abu Zaid is is the father of Saeed and so they so that there's maneuvering always yeah and um so they you know they know that a new brigade is coming in new brigade commander and they can get another Suburban when that guy shows up and all that so they I think I think that that's the problem and you know my my third job there their tour Iran advising and training so my team trained all the national police the police the Army Navy oh small what year was this 2000 and 2010 what'd you do on the second deployment I was dcg for operations Deputy Commander general for operations at the for the three-star headquarters under General Lloyd Austin I I ran the Army Special Ops we had a CJ soda but that you know all about over there but within the core's area of operations it was a the CJ soda really was Arabian Peninsula and then inside Iraq itself was uh what would be Brigade uh Commander or joint Special Operation task force and general Lawson gave them to me he said you you speak their language and what year was this 2000 it was 15 months it was a long tour 2008 2009. so the surge was 2008 right six I think six or seven yeah maybe seven I guess because it didn't I was in my last appointment over there was 2006 the search wasn't happening okay yeah um I'm just trying to figure out when when uh you know what was going on when you were there so you were you had oversight of the siege of sodiff in Iraq during that tour the Brigade Commander everyone's got a thousand fathers you know you're going back to brag but the Brigade Commander direct reported to me I approved the nightly missions um if you know we went into whatever was Hillier hill whatever it was yeah that was uh prime minister maliki's Hometown we shot up his nephew there's something we shot at our SF guys first and they shot and killed him and so then so I'd meet you're the guy Channel awesome with the photos and with the tape show and then I'd go to the Prime Minister and show him um here's what happened you know you know we'd like to pay the family or we're not paying a family they shot at our guys first and he's dead um did a lot of efp hunting as as uh the makers or the deliverers coming out of uh out of Iran and then uh we had it we had a Iraqi Special Forces um version of they would live in this Camp take all the uniform off go home once a month and then come back and nobody knew who they were but we went into Soccer City I went in with them a couple times and then uh and then around big uh high level uh psychological operations and influencing operations now 2008 when that surge happened it sounds like you were there you started to you know this was something I was tracking on you know with General Petraeus and no more drive-by counter Insurgency we had to get out and this is what we did in ramadi the battle of the body we went into the city you know and we is the one one A.D who's going into the City and setting up combat outposts and whatnot you got to see that take place throughout the the whole country um and then did you start to think maybe we can actually for lack of a better word win I think you feel that way first of all commanders are optimists and uh it's a good thing to be um it's a bad thing to not be a realist but um you could be optimistic considered and then you'd see the gains um being made and for my role at that time you know I'd roll into a battle space see one of those Lieutenant Colonels I might have been a captain underneath me previously been during those days see how much they've grown up see feel the cohesion of their their organization um see what traps they were running against the uh Al Qaeda or or whoever um which I I think you still got to characterize it as optimistic but also knowing that um at some point we can't sustain you know 80 000 men and women here we can't sustain this budget or we can't if if they can't take it over from us then it's not going to work yeah that was a big thing I had to tell my guys because we had to start working with Iraqi troops and of course all my guys are like you're kidding me these guys are terrible they're not trained they're not trustworthy they don't have any equipment but what I had to tell them was hey if we don't get these guys trained up where they can actually go out and control the level of violence in their City then we're going to be here forever our sons are going to be here that's what it's going to be and that's a losing that's a losing proposition and the guys understood that and moved forward and certainly we were absolutely successful in ramadi and and that was based on what uh General McMaster did up in talafar and then General uh McFarland went and relieved him and then since it had been pacified they took General McFarland and sent him down to ramadi who relieved General gronsky who went home with his troops and and that's where they did they implemented that that strategy inside the city of Ramada you go in set up combat outposts in the neighborhood start to get to know the local populace and all that so we and we left and when we left within months after we left the ramadi was like a completely different place there was the level of violence was almost went down to nothing uh you know you had Sheikh satara bazio was out there they were forming up there we had there was like 30 police 30 Iraqi police that were pretty much collecting a paycheck and not do anything when we showed up in ramadi now there was 2 000 of these guys so there was a massive transition and it did look hopeful from from our perspective back here looking at the trans transition that had happened in ramadi we started seeing it in other cities and you were there for that what did that what did that look like on the ground for you yeah that the other big task I had was to convert the sons of Iraq um so what we were what we had was 104 000 Sunni men that Sean McFarland started uh getting getting the uh the Sawa or The Awakening going and and uh and so the thought was hey if we can get them on on every street corner then we we can get out of there I ended up having to uh brief Malarkey about every other week on a Wednesday and showing him we went around to every promise there's a Iraqi uh Special Forces two-star General mooth there who was sort of there their God you know their Warrior God so he and I would go we'd break the shakes we bring the U.S Brigade Commander or the Coalition Brigade Commander um the police we'd get them paid uh 300 a month and then um after six months then the Iraqis would during that time they're actually would learn to pay him and then after that the Iraqis money would pay him and so we converted it all and then about a year after I left um that she had started our calendar the sunnis and and then that drove them into the arms of Isis and that drove you know that search again is there anything that we could have done different in that transitional period you know we we ran into all those problems we had the Shia Army coming into ramadi the the obviously ramadi's filled with a bunch of Sunni we had the Sunni police like I said there wasn't very many of them but there was definitely some some antagonistic relationships there but we did see a unification of the Shia Army and the Sunni populace against al Qaeda like we absolutely saw that they neither one of those people neither one of those groups wanted Al Qaeda insurgents inside the city and so there was a brief time of unity but it seems like where we dropped the ball is not nurturing that relationship to continue to be positive maybe it's impossible I don't know um but do you think there's anything we could have done better I think understanding them better is the first step in other words because of that brother thing so it's me against my brother and then it's me and my brother against another family and then it's our tribe against another tribe and then it's you know all the way up to the Muslims against the world yeah and so um that they're a culture of of uh self-interest and so you have to that there's no the loyalty is very low and so when you say we're going to leave and now you got this there's got to be something in it form and if if you so what can we do better is fine that's whatever that was yeah I was rooting for Walmarts I thought if there was more Walmarts and you could employ people and they could have a place to go get a job and they would have a place to go and get uh burgers and get um you know Cheetos we've made some progress you know but we when we left we just expected things to work themselves out and what you end up with is a rift there's no Walmart to to get to go and work together that's what I'm saying like you want to give them something give them some kind of Commerce give them some kind of positive because it takes generations to get rid of and look maybe they never get rid of those things but eventually you're living right next to each other eventually you say you know what this is a little bit easier if we if we all are doing if we're all working together instead of working against each other but we just we I don't think we recognize the depth of the rift between the sunnis and this year which is which is completely pathetic not to recognize that's pathetic not to understand that I mean to say that to say that we didn't understand it everybody knew it I mean look my I I knew that at my levels my platoon commanders knew it my my senior ncos were like oh yeah we've got sunnis we've got she is we've got to make sure they get along so we on the ground knew it but boy we didn't end up at a higher level figuring out a solution to that stuff no no we didn't and uh you know creating you know within the Parliament and then within the provincial you know get equal representation and uh you could even say I mean Maliki so when we got to ramadi we thought we actually had the op plan we were going to do la falluja Style just complete smash of ramadi we're gonna go in there massive kinetics and kill all the bad guys and and get rid of them Maliki said you know Malik is a Shia and he said if we do that if I if I send my Shia Army into ramadi was filled as soon as it's going to look like you know it's going to look like uh extermination it's going to look like genocide we can't do that and so we took a different approach so Maliki understood that he knew that he couldn't do that yeah we we just didn't it's like we it's like we just dropped that ball you know we're heading towards the end zone we just dropped the freaking ball yeah you think about the uh you know 50 or 60 years of Peace in uh occupied Germany um in Korea in Japan and and uh because we Remain the presence there like I said learning that as a kid in Berlin and I think when we went back behind the wall of the embassy then you know we were telling first we moved our our footprint out to um al-assad in the middle of nowhere yeah and so now you know they're like there's some Americans here but they're not uh you know they don't got to get in the game anymore yeah and it's amazing what the American presence brings to peace I mean it really does I I you know when we left I don't think there's a one single military person when we left in 2010 2011 that thought oh this is gonna go this is this is gonna work smooth now I don't think there's anybody that thought that and I don't think it would have taken a huge American presence to keep things you know it's like the the school teacher in a room right the school teachers in the room the kids are pretty much doing what they're supposed to do that school teacher leaves the room it's Mayhem it's Mayhem that's that's what happens and it's not like the school teacher has equal force to whatever 25 high school students they can't they could easily overpower that high school teacher but the presence the understanding of consequences even the understanding that you're being observed like all those things make a difference and when we when we just walked away everybody I mean I was sick everyone was saying this is there's this is going to be this can be a disaster and sure enough it was yeah we we asked for 14 000 troops and uh and was like a permanent presence on the ground yeah and that would have been an update absolutely you know to have a mosul presence and a you know up by Spiker and then in Baghdad and uh out in the belts it would have been it would have been enough because now the school teacher size has the shakes and and the Iraqi generals to hold them accountable and to continue to ride around with them and all of that and uh but that was denied and it went from four thousand fourteen to four to three to two to Over the Horizon Kuwait and and we and we just saw how it played out in Afghanistan as well and we also got to see how it played out to have what was it 3 000 troops on the ground that were in Afghanistan for 18 months and there was really low levels of violence and you just were gonna let that wound heal you got to let these let these wounds heal over and let these relationships starts to form and it might like you said take a generation or two generations 50 60 years and in the meantime okay it's good it's good it's good training for our guys to be over there and working with these understanding these different cultures and and just this this lack of any kind of presence and then there was the um you know people were calling Afghanistan like this forever War it hadn't been a war it hadn't been a war for the last 18 months before we pulled out it had been a a peacekeeping observation of what was happening and maintaining some presence that that we could continue down the path that we were on and now I mean it's just been a complete disaster yeah exactly and you know whenever I hear on the news or someone says you know the troops are tired of this yep whoever's saying that isn't a true you know and tired of picking up trash and Fort Riley and when you're you know division ready three or not having sufficient uh bullets to to uh to do live fires that's when troops get tired and troops get tired look you put them into a strenuous combat where they're losing their friends yeah you're gonna get tired but when you say hey you're gonna go your friends and your brothers and sisters in in arms have gone and sacrificed so much and we're gonna go but we've gotten to a place we can maintain this that's what you're gonna go and do you're doing something positive and productive in the world troops say Roger that I got it let's go yeah you're right there's no there's no fatigue for troops that are going on to play going on deployment anyways let's go do something that counts so we definitely dropped the ball on that and this is what you saw in your last deployment so your last deployment was in what year it was uh all of 2011. so you were there for the shutdown yeah I I was asked to stand up the office of security cooperation which uh we have we have around the world different different names Mill groups Office security cooperation office of Defense cooperation so this was called security and um I worked for Ambassador Jeffers and general Austin at the same time and knowing that my replacement who was going to be Bobby castle and general Castle um that he would be working for the Ambassador out of the embassy um and so we downsized to 10 locations where we would have mostly contractors who would just maintain the helicopters maintain the M1 tanks that we gave them maintained the mraps and teach their them the maintenance and so that that was John Ross was a four-star I was a three star and this was your second time working for General Austin hey Louis and how was your relationship with General Austin it was great yeah and and his attitude about all this was he did he have the right Focus did you feel like comfortable with the decisions he was making I I did yeah and uh he's uh he's a really really great leader I don't know what's going on in his current job you know um and I haven't spoken to him in a couple of years but uh you know fight for the troop take care of the troops you know what will go after someone when they're bad bad guys he doesn't he's going to let loose the dog's War um very thoughtful big thinker in that regard understood you know his role was setting conditions and being out here and then being in the street where the trims can see him and then letting his layers of two stars and Brigade commanders or Squadron commanders do their part so and then so so are you there when the actual pullout happens when we're finally done no I left November 2nd and um I think they went out um two months later or something like that am I accurate when I say that people that everyone that was in the military looked at it and and uh thought it was going to be a disaster did you think that too or did you have hope when we're resourced I had hope and and going down to 2000 not not having a presence then that would be hopeless and in your circles you know with General Austin is their pushback going back up the chain of Commander people saying hey you know Mr President this is look we got a bunch of people that are saying this isn't going to work out well is that what's happening it is yeah and and do you think it's political pressure on President Obama that makes him say yeah you know what we're we're out I think um you know and it's really officer Tommy wants the first rule of the regime is to remain the regime and the second rule of the regime is to remain the regime and so yeah I think uh the polling or anything else the news Cycles um they were playing not more than a national strategic and defense which is strange because Obama's an articulate guy that I think could do a good job of selling what's the selling snow to an Eskimo he seems like that type of guy that could say hey here's the situation we thought we're going to be able to leave looks like that that's not going to be the best plan here's our here's our adjustment does that make sense I think so I think so um I you know I think politics drove it why they did I don't know you know why he would choose this that way versus another I don't know and and it's just a complete create a complete vacuum over there yeah again I go back to 1968 Berlin you know the my if we had if we pulled out of Berlin leaving a German Force there the Russians would have gone that day and taken it there's a book I haven't covered it on the podcast yet it's called the donkeys and it's written by a guy uh that kind of observed he wasn't in World War one but he he observed what the generals did in and the and the military government leadership in World War one and he wrote this book he wrote a long time ago but it's called the donkeys and it comes from that quote that everyone's heard usually they say Lions led by Lambs or something along that that's what they would say about the British or that some German said that about the British the actual quote was Lions led by donkeys that's what the Germans said about the Brits and this guy wrote this book just talking about what what is you know what terrible leadership it was and I don't know I'm thinking of uh I think of a lot of these leaders that we have nowadays as being donkeys especially when you see these Collective decisions where it's like everybody knows everybody can see same thing with Afghanistan there's not one military person that thought that was going to go well not none none and yet the the leadership is executing on these terrible plans okay so you get done with that um and I think what we I think we skipped when you were when you were at the um what 18th Airborne Corps which kept uh what as a two-star commanding Fort Benning okay yeah got it yeah and again that so Benning as Lieutenant bending as a captain in the careers course spending as a major and third range Battalion betting as a batang commander the tenant Colonel Benning as a brigade commander and then back for two stars so we would tell the housing office we're coming back so you better take care of Jesus you better Square these people away yeah these young soldiers and their families um so so another transformation job you know I had a lot of them in each of these that we've talked about transforming the sons of Iraq to be neighborhood watch instead of Al Qaeda um transforming the way soldiers fight hand to hand that that story about transforming the sons of Iraq before they were sons of Iraq they were called something else and I can't think of it right now um but it started out now yeah and and they had the Marines had said hey these locals are telling us what's going on desert protector that's what they called them and they formed this program called desert protector and so the first meeting that we had my information operations officer had with Sheikh sitar bazia he said we want to be desert protectors and so I got that information and I kind of started I I tried to figure out what the desert protectors were desert protectors had been shut down because Maliki didn't want a bunch of Sunni tribal uh Rebels running around that were armed by Americans so I had to tell Sheikh bazia hey it it's not desert protectors anymore it's now called Iraqi police and we can get you trained and then he was that sounds good and then the the one one A.D came in and Colonel Dean and Sean McFarland they took over and ran with it and it was great but uh that the way those things happen was and then after that came the sons of Iraq that's when they we actually my my guy came back with the document that they had created like the first one and he he showed it to me I was like well listen you know we had the translator go through it and it was pretty neat to see that stuff unfold like that yeah it wasn't you know a common theme on all of this is kind of the sparkle in the eye of a young Soldier marine or seal you know then they realized you know we're doing something now this is three squared away um at Fort Benning uh General Dempsey told me um I want you he was a tradoc commander I want you to bring the armor school from Fort Knox Kentucky to Fort Benning and change the Infantry Center into the maneuver center of excellence they're walking the streets together anyways tankers and you know artillery everyone's everyone's doing it so trying to bring the Infantry and the armor and the calvary together is the Shia and the Sunni and the Kurds so I was trained in many ways but and and then always having the old shake so all the retired generals I I'd go to and I'd say you know retired four-star armor guy look I didn't make this stuff up we're bringing the armor School you need to be you know an ambassador for a good idea and by the way doesn't everyone agree that it's better when we all work together right right well it doesn't is there anyone that thinks we're we're gonna go and you know Branch off and become our own country no we're going to work together as United States of America this is what makes sense we all have supported each other on the battlefield wouldn't it be better if we actually train that way but then rice bowls those silos exactly exactly and uh the the platform of the tank um is really important to the armor guys and so they will always maneuver jobs and positions where they can protect the budget line I'll get a call on that one that's all right well I'm a huge supporter of Tanks myself yeah I actually love tanks and I love tankers and God bless them you know we fight as a team you know we deploy as a team when you need help you shift assets and they show up and you love them and you know stack stack the planes you know to the Moon over the head of a seal platoon or a range of platoon and that's all good you know but that but that that took a lot of leadership um two years to to uh pull actually was about 14 months of command and then I went back to Rack as a three star and then I then I came out of there and took command of all the Army bases around the world so I ran 75 cities in 17 time zones with 123 000 employees delivering about 300 Services every single day from Child Development Centers to at that point 70 golf courses which I thought I should inspect myself but also then I realized hey guess what I have every gym maybe we'll have mats in most of those gyms that's a good spot yeah before we jump into the the gyms and the Jiu Jitsu and the mats and the gems of the however many gyms you own now that you were in this in this position before we were before we hit record today and since we were talking about donkeys uh you mentioned that your father-in-law actually worked with Colonel David hackworth in Vietnam correct give me some give me some stories come on the the what was the situation so that they were uh it was probably 1967 ish let's just say that and so uh my father-in-law then was Lieutenant Colonel promotable John Hemphill class of 51 West Point and David hackworth West Side I'm pretty sure a brigade Commander and my I'm pretty sure anyways there were orders that came out of the the 101st division headquarters telling uh Colonel hackworth to do this or that or the word came out late or or helicopters didn't show up but for whatever reason he uh Colonel hacker stormed up into division headquarters a bunch of tents in the jungle and uh started telling everyone how that they had really screwed up and and they're a bunch of jerks and you know unprofessional and so my father-in-law stepped in between Carl hackworth and his his people and said let's take this outside and talk it through and Colonel hackworth allegedly reportedly said no you know I'm not going anywhere and so then they they got it on right there started to find in the tent and rolled out into the darkness and and but they remained great friends until my final law passed away about two years ago but they they were fond of each other they knew that each was a warrior and uh that uh you know you're going to have disagreements get it on and then get over it now when I was kind of uh becoming a a disciple I guess I don't know if there's such a thing but it kind of when I started really getting interested in hackworth and I was reading his books and reading them again and starting to see a lot of good leadership in there he was absolutely he was absolutely hated in the entire Navy because he had done a report he'd done some reporting on the chief of Naval operations at the time Admiral borda who was a beloved guy who is a prior enlisted guy to come up through the ranks to become the chief of Naval operations and Colonel hackworth had done a report on him that he was wearing some unauthorized and unearned uh Awards on his uniform and Admiral bourna killed himself so he wasn't popular there he wasn't popular in the Navy at all the Army I pretty much got mostly the same thing from the army that you know the hacker from hackworth was just bad now recently I've talked to I actually went out to West Point and when I was at West Point they I would I asked the question hey how does everybody view hackworth now and they pretty much say I mean a paraphrase is hackworth was right what did you did you like you you did you know about hackworth from your from your dad or anything like that just a little just especially when about face first came out and uh General handed me the book told me to read it and uh um and then told the story so but he was what what did your father-in-law think of the book um well he thought it was good enough to give it to me okay that's a good point it's interesting because you know you read the book and you as you read the book you can go and I I actually had these thoughts and I thought you know what was he I mean you know you write a book about yourself of course you're going to put yourself in the good light you're going to make yourself look good you're going to pull the quotes that make you look good you're going to tell the story that makes you look good and I had a guy named General Jim mukayama on the podcast who was one of hackworth's company commanders in Vietnam and I was really excited I'm like now I'm going to get the I'm gonna get the real story on what hackworth was really like what they really thought of and what was he like for a commander and you know so I asked uh General uh General mukayama and he he couldn't have given hackworth any higher praise I mean he absolutely just loved Acworth and he told me that everybody in the Army knew who he was he said when he checked in at Fort Lewis when hackworth checked in uh mukayama was working like the the the desk the admin desk the Personnel desk or he was an aide or something he was but he was the kind of the young Lieutenant checking him in and I said did you know who he was and he said everybody knew who he was mystery infantry everybody knew him everybody knew his reputation so I thought that that was very reassuring to me so this is now more reassuring that uh getting word via your father-in-law that hackworth was the real deal both of them um you know back in in those days that body count was was a measure of success or Effectiveness and so both hackworth and and Margie's dad later General Hemphill um Turned people in who who doctored the books and uh so they Margie's dad was was the first West Point guy of his class to make 06. and he was the last West Point guy of his class to make one star and all the generals that that he reported had falsified uh the number of Vietnamese being killed during the South North Korean maze or Viet Cong you know he he rendered a report that is not true and I went all the way back to to the Pentagon and all those guys that were three and four five years ahead of him that sat the promotion boards cut them out and when the last one retired the next day he he made the next board here so I think that's you know that that's an the lesson of leadership is is can you stand strong when others won't can you stand strong when it's personally and professionally not in your interest and and do the right thing and and we need we need a lot of that we need more of that and we need to celebrate it when we see it do you remember because it's 1989 when when this book came out do you remember when it came out was it a big deal in the Army were people passing it around were people saying it was a bunch of crap they were they were yeah they were lovers and haters 89 I was in uh second range Battalion out of Fort Lewis my father-in-law had retired in 85 out in Fort Lewis and so um like it or not every Sunday we were over at their house you know for Sunday afternoon dinner and and I became I loved my father-in-law today I liked him but it would be you know come over have a beer we're gonna watch football absolutely mandatory fun love when but when the book came out that's why it's so easy for him to say hey read this now and uh that there were some that you know another thing for Our Generation we sort of looked at um if the person wasn't charismatic in a big way we didn't want to hear about back in Vietnam so in many camps the book that describes a warrior leading in time of combat was probably a little bit uh over overcast or overshaded by the context of it was Vietnam so we'll we'll give you guys that that uh opinion was like hey Vietnam we we know all about Vietnam was it hey Vietnam was you were it was a different different situation that doesn't convey to what we have to deal with now a little bit of a little bit of that that doesn't convey it doesn't match up but the other was the the context of arriving in your first units and your captain screwed up and your sergeants have two or three DUIs and you know the the carryovers and then they start telling you you know you have to be squared away like we are and you're looking thinking you know young and full of life and going I'm not sure I agree that you're squared away you know and uh so so then when we're in the basic course of the campus course and someone said well back in nam you're like oh please yeah I kind of look at you now yeah and then you know that in time they Sunset and you know the the new uh non-commissioned officer the more professional uh on purpose using those words literal a plan to make them professional came in we called the you know the sergeants in Vietnam shake and bake all right and so nowadays people don't know what shake and bake is but back in those days it was a pouch of of uh breadcrumbs and you put the chicken in it and you shake it up and then you bake it and you have Kentucky Fried Chicken well they've made sergeants shake and bake in other words after about a month or two uh in the combat zone they put pinned rank on them and said you're now an NCO and many of them they didn't have basic NCO course Advanced NCO course you know um primary leader development course they didn't have that non-commissioned uh Officer school like we do today like we did in the 90s and and 2000s so so anyways point is when uh when when his book came out probably have to be before like a.m you know I'm not sure of the lessons a Vietnam are going to be relative to me or pertinent when in fact you know leadership is transcended yeah and the other thing is it seemed like like I came in in 1990 1990 it didn't seem like we were going to have another big long prolonged War you know like those we all thought we'd do one Mission you know do one big mission and that would be that the big Mish there was no look and then and then the first Gulf War was over in 72 hours okay well that's what war is now you maybe we'll fight for you know maybe we'll do one big mission in a 72-hour War but that's what war is going to be like from now on it wasn't going to be this 10-year thing like Vietnam where you got all this experience and you're going to be out doing all these operations night after night after night and boy were we wrong about that um so all right so I just wanted to get some get your perspective on hackworth I appreciate that now you were just saying you took over all the bases uh in the world that's right you're the Army basis yeah all the army bases in the world which means you're in charge of the golf courses I'm not a golfer but it means you're in charge of the gyms and inside gyms you can put mats now at this point I think uh 2012 I saw an article that you got your brown belt not the jacquire that you know from UFC out there everybody the old school jacquire who's a a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt from the previous generation on old school I went there and trained in his school when I went from officer candidate School in in Pensacola Florida and I was going to Seal Team two in Virginia Beach and I stopped in in Atlanta and trained for seven days just one trained every day all day that was into that was in 1998. okay so you're a brown belt at this time you've been you kept training Jiu Jitsu which is awesome and and now you have the opportunity to start putting some combatives training areas and all these different gyms so how was that well like anything else it would it took you know one two three cups of tea so go go to the location meet with the the two Star General and and you know where you have your guys so you already know Sergeant so and so they're major so-and-so's there and so you go to the general and say um resources are tight in the army they always are but I can square you away and so here we can we can build a world-class facility here which gym would you want to put it in so rather than saying I own the gym and have the truck show up in the middle of night with mats for the program to stay alive that General needed and his certain major needed to uh to want it and and for the most part they did and so we went to Fort Drum then to Fort Campbell then to Fort Lewis and some of them now have huge training facilities that they spawned off of the original gym idea and so the the uh the strategy was um take away any excuses for people not training their people and uh oh you know you know we always got basketball intramurals you'll get you'll be okay you're going to be you'll have enough yeah 12 gyms at Fort Craig you're going to be okay and then oh people get hurt no more people get hurt playing racquetball in Army facilities than training Jiu Jitsu and or combatants and then mostly you know I I just don't want a generation uh to be asked by their grandson you know did you ever get in a fight dad a Granddad and he's no but I but I can I can put a PowerPoint presentation together like he'd never seen you know I just that's not the more you ethos and you said it early if there's a place where the Eternal Flame of warrior ethos should burn it should be forward bending in front of the the the main building there and as Fort Benning and the Infantry go so goes the army and as the Warriors of each service go still goes to their their Warrior uh their Warrior ethos so so uh you know no one likes change but a baby with a wet diaper right and so when you when you show up and tell the guy who's in charge of all the gyms who works for you that we're going to do this he says no sir you know that's Mission money not not morale money and and you tell them you know do you think um taking that stance is worth your job because I one of my guys said just unencumbered their future and I said this program is going to happen so let's all be for something that's going to happen and that's what stamina Crystal told me yeah we're gonna do this so be forward big time because you'll love you'll love your life much more than if you drag your heels so that that guy three years later um was two thumbs up and he had been a wrestler so he's in the department there we civilian he'd been a wrestler he was just reading a you know he was he wasn't doing what's right he was doing it right and I said let's do what's right instead change the manual I had to do it to to get there if your MWR manual says the gyms are solely for the use of you know after our you know basketball volleyball and intramurals change it and for use by you know soldiers in training go for it too easy yeah exactly and and it really is impressive the army combatives they have the combatives tournaments yeah which are which are pretty awesome um is that just coming from Matt Larson did they come up with that idea yeah in Troy yeah yeah I I have a picture on my wall in museum of about 28 people were all in the army green Woodland bdus Matson picture chores in the picture a young colonel farader's in the picture that was the first Army combatives tournament and then and uh and I I kind of just closed my eyes once you started talking because just last week was the 20th okay and I and I got too busy and I couldn't go down there they invited me and all that Matt is the the father of Army combatives and and I'm The Godfather okay I was gonna guess grandfather but maybe that would have been a bit much for you well no I I take that too um grandfathers have unconditional love for their grandkids but um when someone messes with the program then I show I'll show up again and just go close the door with whoever it is and say you know you've if if I say to you you want to choose you want to go shoot your sniper rifle you want to go shoot compare it oh yeah you want to drop a mortar around oh yeah you know you want to shoot the machine gun yeah yeah okay you know pull a lanyard on an artillery piece shot you want to go down to the mats oh well my back is you know and I I told I tell the senior officials just don't say no you don't have to you know if you're not into it that's fine I think you should be into it I think you should try it enough you know do Jiu Jitsu or any other martial art enough that you understand what it is and if that doesn't move you then then don't be moved that's fine but but don't make it you wouldn't make it that decision on anything else as a leader but on this one there's so much ego then uh oh yeah or lack of humility I came up with a protocol for how long you need to train your Jitsu for because I'd get asked this question a lot but by people that don't really like it for whatever reason it's sweaty it's hot their ego's getting crushed and I said you my protocol now I tell people is you train Jiu Jitsu until you tap someone out and then if you say if you don't if you get that feeling of tapping someone out and you don't say yes it's pretty cool then maybe Jiu Jitsu isn't for you but you at least need to train that that long I like it yeah so then you 2014 you actually get promoted to black belt once again from Jaco Ray uh when you were training when you were overseas when you were on deployment were you training did you guys did you have enough guys to train with yes yeah you always found people to train yeah thinking that um or understanding that I started training as a full colonel how old were you when you started training probably 40 3 44. check so I we took 18th Airborne Court in into Iraq in 2008. January 2008 we stayed till June of roughly June of 2009 15 months the second plane who had the mats and and I brought I just sent a picture to Henner I'm sorry to hear on and give Valente in Miami the Volante brothers and uh I brought them over and they they gave seminars at 28 different operating bases yeah and and uh and so over there yes um when deployed keep doing it we built a gym next to the Embassy in Union three across the street from the embassy and part of it was probably something like uh 70 feet by 70 feet of that beautiful and then someone you know went to the IG and said that you know I misused the gym I built it for my personal you know and it's like look we built it for everybody and we want everybody training you know you you would want a squad leader or a young NCO was a team of four or five to come in there three times a week and and go through situations okay we're in a room they grab you now what now what now what so so yeah so I continue to train and then was graduated to Black Belt by jockery and Matt um awesome yeah and uh is Matt did Matt get his black belt from chakrai he did okay yeah that's awesome yeah and now 2014 this is what was that was that your last tour it was yeah I retired in June of 2014. and then what'd you do once you retired um so I went up to uh Fort Lewis took Margie back to the hometown where her mom and dad and her four of her sisters were and I told her when you're sick and tired of your four sisters we'll go somewhere else so we were there about two years and she looked over and said I'm ready and then Dan was deploying to uh and how many kids do you have four yeah two boys and two girls Megan age 42 Dan H 40 Patty 38 and uh Mary Whitney about 35 how old are you 66. nice and you still train I do yeah Echo has spoken I'm getting better man I'm getting better all the time you get on a match is it you know um do you do what do you do for workout besides jiu jitsu do you lift weights every day do you calisthenics every day do you do nothing at all except Jiu Jitsu no I'll get about 10 workouts in a week and uh I stopped running I'm about to restart but in uh when covet hit we got locked down into Monterey and and uh shouldn't too bad um my uh three of my grandkids were there and we started just getting a cup of coffee and walking them and so we would walk you know eight miles walk out into the valley and back um but then I'll do weights do the Peloton bike um I'm not sort of build the quads work in the quads and lower legs quite a bit um and then golf I'll play golf uh and I and I'm I'm in this you know skills and drills I'm not into score and you're never going to get me pissed off on a golf course you know with all the stuff that we've seen in our life it's like look it's just you know it's mechanical you can't hustle you can't try harder you can't motivate yourself you gotta strike the ball you know but now so that's ready yeah and then and then currently you've got the national Veterans Memorial and Museum okay and and tell us how that came about yeah so when when I retired I started the federal group and we we decided that we would help transitioning veterans help find employment and and all and like I said in our store now at the Museum every you know something like 48 different companies um all veterans are have their merchandise and product we have books uh in there we should take yours as well we have uh um and then then when we bring an exhibit in there so anyways so I set out in 2014 to help I also started Hands-On inspired leadership which really is using Jiu Jitsu as a metaphor for life to close the distance establish the dominant position and finish and then giving that to high schoolers did all the Medics and and nurses in the hospital uh at Fort Lewis the freshman class at the Citadel three years in a row and basically you're you know telling young girls it's like women empowered you know your body is your body you can say stop right there take two steps back you can tell alcohol stop right there get back we can defeat suicide we can defeat depression we can defeat clock and so I'm still on that mission we right now I'm working with the Columbus Police Department to set up a oil hands-on-inspired leadership with them because they they do have Jiu Jitsu instructors but that's the sports side or the or the I love it side but how do you decompress someone you know I've got a picture of uh ball uh my my executive assistant puts the rubber band on the next one on the next one and so it's about size of a baseball and I took a picture of it and I said to someone that's what PTSD is that's what pts is right there and you got to take that apart one by one by one until the tension's gone but you can best do that through healthy activities through Sports through Jiu Jitsu through the connection that comes in the gym when all those guys that we just walk by you just feel it right so um so um then I started helping companies if if you tell someone that you ran all the army bases around the world you had a 12 billion dollar a year budget he took it down to nine that you have more than 200 parachute jumps and four combat tours they say you know thanks for your service you know but you tell them that those bases you were dispersing the checks then people would say oh now you're a consultant so so Mike ferreter helps companies connect wherever they need to be connected so into the military or um Army Air Force exchange service we do that and we do it for the right reason we do it because there's someone out there making goodness happen and we want your grandkids to say Granddad Whoever thought of helping you out to get that product and Big Lots is another another friend of ours pretty big um the West Point graduate is their CEO Bruce Thorne and he wants to help veterans too so then so I got this call First first I went to uh three things happen Senator Isaac said and I said I will fix the VA I just fixed the biggest part of the army and uh and so I interviewed with the president so team eight lawyers and um The Wall Street Journal announced that I was a finalist to be the secretary of the VA and the next day president Trump went in and said the secretary will just keep it you're doing great and the team so then um I interviewed to be the president and CEO of the Wounded Warrior Project and uh my good friend Mike linnington got the job he's done a fantastic job so then I got a call to come and interview to be the president of the Citadel which is when you figure out how I ended up at this little that's kind of comical to think about that and then my classmate and friend Marine different retired four-star Glenn Walters got that so I turned to Margaret I said man I'm not too good at getting job for three and she said you know we we know we're unencumbered we're free to do whatever we want and then I got a call from a lady in corn ferry in Atlanta and her secretary said can you take a call on Friday with uh with with Jane and I said of course and uh so then I said hey wait a minute your your phone your prefix is 706 are you in Atlanta yeah I said well I'm going to be in Atlanta on Friday can I just see her face to face and she said I said if that's breaking the rules no problem but yeah come on so I went in I'm interviewed with this Headhunter and uh we hit it off pretty good and when I was leaving she said who else are you going to see in Atlanta today I said no one came up here to see you so have you ever hired anyone on the phone no so so then they took me to Columbus Ohio living in Columbus Georgia and interviewed me and they said what do you think of this National Veterans Memorial Museum or national vmm.org for for the listeners and it is John Glenn was the senator the astronaut the fighter pilot the test pilot and he would look down on the old vets and then he would call the titans of industry in Columbus Ohio and say that that is not upfitting it's not good for for our vets it's an old raggedy looking thing so they knocked it down and they built this beautiful facility and when they walked me in what year was that built 2017 2016. again it looks like it's brand new yeah it's beautiful so I'm the founding CEO and president of it they said what do you think you know General Farrer and I and I said it's insufficient to our need and they say oh my God we put 62 million dollars in there what did we forget I said you forgot that there's veterans in San Diego there's veterans in Tampa there's veterans in Fort Lewis in Iowa and they're not coming to Ohio so we're going to need so they they said so so what what what's that's you know smarty pants what are you going to do so we'll have virtual tours and we'll have a veteran or store and we'll bring product in and help veterans that are small business owners I said we'll go to Ohio State University and we'll have a leader certification course for veterans and so when when you get asked that question as a veteran you don't have any continuing education what have you been doing tonight and the answer is yeah Patrols in ramadi that's what I was doing you know and so we've run four semesters of leader certification they get six hours of Master's credit um you can take it from right here right um and so we're growing that program this is like off the cuff this you know and you know it depends nice to meet you anything you want to say and then and I told him um that we would probably have a wellness and resilience program with things like Jiu Jitsu and and yoga which we have and we've had for two years um and I told them that uh we'd have young inner city youth especially as youth ambassadors and we run summer camps um on a you can see it there's a big giant field right there and uh and so now and and when we run the summer camp the coach will be a policeman another first responder and a veteran and these kids that are throwing water bottles at cops and and vilifying cops and and all this they'll get to know that these are men and women of character who give a about people and our leaders so the national Veterans Memorial Museum one of our mottos is more than a museum and I'm an Army Ranger more than a history guy and we can build teams and then we don't need to own anything but we started an employment service now we call a veteran concierge so we connect big companies and little companies to Veterans and we have an I.T solution that that um called opline and it'll um you just fill out a checklist went you know went to the boot camp when went to buds went to here deployed here cut this college this this I have a driver's license you know I'm a sniper and then it'll say um you're fully qualified and here's the kicker you're fully qualified um for these 14 jobs and these seven companies in these different parts of the of the nation and so when the Veteran's going through that now instead of going all the way through the employment thing and then they say you're just not a perfect fit and he's got to start over and start over so we're we're in our pilot year probably best way to say it and uh all of those were the original vision of what we could do and and much much more so we're getting after it and you got your uh bride away from our Four Sisters I did the bonus program yeah the other thing that's interesting in that regard is we bought a house in Ohio in Columbus Ohio and that is the first house that I've ever purchased wow because I've always been on Army bases or whatever yeah so life is good well that does that get us up to speed is that is that pretty much where we're at this gets us to today it does and um where can people find you uh that they could find me at National vmm.org or M farader at nationalvm.org or Mike at the fair Rider group okay and the fair you got the fair2group.com I'm assuming as well and then you're on social media I I am I'm on LinkedIn and Facebook uh Instagram and and and then the social media of our museum is I water it's just fantastic okay what's what's the social media of the um that's the one I don't have I have I have you on Instagram at uh Mike farider on Twitter Mike underscore ferriter and I have Facebook at Michael farader what's the what's the social media of the national yeah I would go to nationalvmm.org which would give you the landing page and you just scroll down and then just hit it yeah okay awesome and what do you what do you guys post on there that on the social media side our podcasts are on on our Facebook okay awesome and then uh one of the one of the things in that same discussion interview I I said you know we'll do these podcasts and and in essence um we'll have a virtual Museum Hall so whether it's short stories or uh whether it's you know 30 minute to 50 minute um you'll be you can be able to query and say I'm interested you know in Vietnam era guys I'm interested in in board who I'm interested in Lessons Learned and Leadership and so so it's like we have 35 000 square feet of Museum we've got about nearly 4 000 square feet of mats just saying and then uh but but we can have 350 000 square feet of virtual Museum Hall yeah you can and we'll never run you know like what did I hear 386 yeah this is podcast number 386. I mean you got you've got your your own uh you know virtual Museum storytelling uh opportunity here people can cover that you can hear hear about hackworth directly yeah you know it's awesome yeah it's awesome uh Echo Charles any questions yeah what are the rules for that combative tournament because I mean how do they differ from like you know your general Jiu Jitsu tournament rules yeah the the beginning um so I think they're three levels now one is one is it's straight commanders they're they're wearing uh the Army battle dress uniform or fatigues level two as you Advanced and uh kicking and striking the Torso and then in the finals kicking and striking so the first level is essentially like General Jiu Jitsu rules you got points for you know passing guard site and all that kind of stuff and then uh only if you don't tap them yes yes of course of course that's submission and then you go essentially to like a pancreation scenario yeah right no no headstray and then to MMA essentially okay right on yeah yeah yeah that's legit right there they just had like I said they just had the the tournament and I didn't get to go but all of the beginners all of the founders were there they're all older men beards and their bellies do they do they escalate through all the bases and have like a all-army combatives tournament that thing needs to be televised I think Jocko fuel needs to sponsor that yeah that'd be I see them everyone yeah what do you see them on YouTube or something yeah on YouTube or something they're not on like a big channel it's not like the event show it's like a clip like someone recorded it or something like that yeah they were ready this year if we had this four months ago if a few hours well next year we'll be doing it and yeah Tim Kennedy who's a friend of mine and how would you like to be like an army dude and you show up and you Tim you have to fight Tim Kennedy an actual UFC dude you know like you're like man I think we got our blue belt the same day oh you and Tim from a horse yeah oh right on and Tim was at Fort bragging with the special force of guys and I would go in there once while and I see you so if if I'm holding you like this then what yeah that works okay yeah that's awesome uh now uh anything else no that's it thank you great to meet you thank you my pleasure General any any closing thoughts well I I just appreciate um the chance to be here I'm I'm really humbled to to be sitting with you um I hope that that any message that I send out there to someone can help somebody secondly um so there's a guy in Columbus Ohio named Zach he said if I hit let Zach sit there he would let me have food and beer at his dad's restaurant for the rest of my life but uh you should have brought him down that's cool well send him out to visit something did he train Jiu Jitsu no okay we'll send him out to visit he can train some Jujitsu okay we'll make it happen then he that way you can eat for free there we go I gotta take care of the general to the rest of uh the audience there's a friend out there that needs to hear from you so give a call send a text check on your battle buddy your shipmate your your fellow team member check on somebody because you don't know if that's the one that's going to make a difference sometimes they just come in and they'll start working out again and all that other times they say he had a gun I'm right here in front of me so we can all make a difference in that stuff and then um if I could get you to really honored to meet you uh for the person and people that you guys are and the difference that you make for a lot of people well uh obviously thanks for joining us today thanks for sharing your experiences and your lesson learned over your career of 35 years and um more important thanks for your service in those 35 years in in Somalia in Iraq countless other places around the world uh static line jumping into God knows where to do God knows what uh and thank you for what you are continuing to do today to preserve and memorialize our veterans and our history uh it is much appreciated thank you sir all right sounds good thank you and with that General Mike farider has left the building and we just walked out he was definitely excited about the Jiu Jitsu mats yeah he's definitely into Jiu Jitsu and jiu jitsu helping in all aspects of life if you're not trained in jiu jitsu go change your Jitsu yeah I think it's pretty straightforward yeah I think it's pretty straightforward it's a good way to add value and that's not a popular that's not something I like to say yeah because you know why because in the military that turns into a thing like all right we're really going to add value here right so it's a corporate buzzword right and it's in the military as a corporate in the military as a buzzword add value over value added either one of those two we could go either direction but Jiu Jitsu is is going to add value to every part of your life now I would say unfortunately or fortunately it is secondary to what you claimed on one of our early podcast earliest podcasts that physical exercise is across the board gonna help out every aspect of your life yeah I would prioritize that as number one from physical activities I would put Jiu Jitsu as number two that's where I'm putting it I agree yeah so and it was interesting that uh recently I forget what I even forget what you said but it was along the lines oh you said something along the lines of uh I was talking about lifting weights we were talking about lifting weights how that that'll help every aspect of your life right exercise whatever we'll just say lifting weights and then you were like well even though you don't use it all the time because it's not like every day you're gonna be like you know power lifting something something along those lines he said and I remember thinking later on I was like wait a second that's because that's not really the the benefits of the weightlifting benefits of the weightlifting is let's say you're like strong like notably strong in all lifts and all things or whatever it does translate to Everyday stuff like if your chain you ever change one of those water bottles those five gallon water bottles in the cooler that's way easier when you're strong for sure I'm saying so there's tons of little things that you can do day to day I thought what you were gonna say I thought you're gonna say something that was meaningful that is beautiful it is meant something to people I thought you'd say like hey when you lift every day it creates discipline in your life it makes you overcome a challenge every day it makes you mentally tired so you just go down there I think you know you're gonna talk about five gallon water bottles but that's true that's it's all real it's all part of it that's what I'm saying that's how beneficial it is because we can go deep like you or just go not so deep like me and everywhere in between and boom the lifting is gonna you know it's gonna add value so jiu jitsu it's going to help you with your confidence I mean look the physical things help you to be more flexible you're going to get good cardio you're going to get good grip strength strength in general you're gonna get the appropriate reception is going to be improved so there's a bunch of physical things that you're gonna get but man the mental aspect the release of aggression the confidence built like you want a kid you got a kid that lacks confidence put them in Jiu Jitsu yeah put them in Jiu Jitsu you you have a 22 year old that lacks confidence get him in a jiu jitsu yeah you've got a 38 year old that lacks confidence get him in a jiu jitsu so it's going to be beneficial in so many different and yes you know what else that gives you gives you discipline gives you the power to overcome gives you the power to fight through things gives you a sense of community introduces you to new people there's all kinds of beneficial things when it comes to Jitsu is it secondary to to health and fitness strength training cardiovascular training Mobility training it's secondary to those things it's also complementary yeah like there's some people wait do you lift and Jujitsu on the same day everyone's well yeah is that just but it's not it's not planned it's no if you if you set up your perfect schedule would you do both things on the same day one day yeah one day a week yeah one day a week would have two days yes but only one day a week okay they're essentially Jiu Jitsu and Fitness we'll talk about a workout or whatever would overlap on one day okay only one day but they are complementary you can do that you can do one Jiu Jitsu one day lift or work out the next stage Jiu Jitsu the next day workout the next day you could do that or you could do like I do I do Jiu-Jitsu and workout the same day all the time I do that well let me put it this way every time I train Jiu Jitsu I lifted that day so we're batting a hundred percent yeah man and you know some days I went for a run as well some days I went for a surf as well in fact most days I went for a run as well so we got into controversy about this remember on on uh on more plates more days oh yeah the steroids yeah that's one of the things that that he said which I was my fault because I said yeah I'll work out three or four times a day to me that was like oh lift Jiu Jitsu run surf this isn't me going in and doing you know super squats right and so he took that as oh if this guy's lifting four to three to four times a day he's he's doing steroids right so my fault for not clarifying that but I do do that I do that as often as I can as a matter of fact now am I tired when I get done that dude I was tired we got home from training on Sunday this Sunday I was training you you you weren't there actually no no and you weren't there on Saturday either no no I never I never go on Saturday I don't think I've ever been there Saturday okay so I go on Saturday all the time right off it's been awesome I was tired on Saturday no no sorry on Sunday that's the good training yeah you get it out man you get you leave nothing on the map that's good training yeah feeling good about that but it doesn't inhibit me I might feel a little bit tight but I'll still serve I'll still go for whatever y'all still go for a run I'll still do other stuff I won't let it stop me yeah is what I'm saying hard training is not going to stop me from doing more training I might not be the the best run I've ever done yeah but I'm gonna get it get some get some if you know what I'm saying so let's do Jiu Jitsu that's my that's my recommendation workout do Jiu Jitsu I mean look at the look at the general here 66 years old right you know she's still trading yeah started at 43. he said 43. so that's one of those men 43 that was like a couple years ago for me just starting and has a black belt by the way yeah so it's like you know those things come on let's face it that's a common question where it's like hey I'm 40. is it too late for me to start because a lot of times you see these tournaments and these guys you know you see Gordon Ryan you know excelling in Jiu Jitsu and all these other guys where you look at them you're like bro I'm 40. right now that's not me no that's somebody else you know kind of thing but it's right it's not necessarily like that you know even actually as a competitor you can still start at 40. oh yeah for sure you can do the Masters yeah the divisions yeah they got weight uh weight and age divisions and belt divisions across the board so let's go train some Jujitsu train jiu jitsu guess what I'm gonna need some fuel you know what you're gonna need during Warfare yeah for a hundred percent yeah that's gonna help the go get some joint Warfare from jockoffuel.com get some get some drinks get yourself some ah man I went two I went two on the discipline girl get yourself some discipline go get yourself some Mulk you're post training Mulk maybe that's why you can just keep getting after it you got that Mulk hitter yeah get that protein going that's all good for you uh you know we got hydration coming yep I'm drinking one right now it's right over here yeah it's freaking awesome electrolyte beverage yeah it's so good yeah so good uh you know once again natural that's that's what we're doing we're making it literally good for you so we got that coming online um if you want this stuff check out taco fuel.com or go to Wawa go to Vitamin Shop go to the military commissaries and I just got word today from Joe Moss you know Joe Moss yeah that's got word from Joe Moss where pending going into the military exchanges so those of you in the military know what I'm talking about we're in Hannaford's we're in dash doors we're in Wake from ShopRite HEB down in Tejas by the way if you're in Texas your your support is appreciated of the cause at HEB HEB is like is these this is our front lines yeah so when you're out there in HEB we appreciate your support on the front lines of the battle we're in Meyer we're in Harris Teeter just rolled into Harris Teeter so you got a Harris Teeter by you check that out Lifetime Fitness big gyms you've been to a Lifetime Fitness before yes they're big yeah um go they got they got the drinks they got the supplements so go check that out jacofuel.com make yourself better also origin USA American made they started with the geese you know we're doing Jiu Jitsu here when you start Jiu Jitsu if you haven't already you're gonna need a ghee you want to make sure it's American-made probably the best quality ghee no matter who made it yep yep you know okay you just mentioned American made I'm starting to get more and more fired up because I see other companies out there and what pisses me off is not that the other companies are out there that doesn't make me mad it doesn't make me mad that they're out there it makes me mad when they they're they they are sending a virtuous message about themselves about their company and how they're doing good and they're actually lying they're actually lying about this they're not doing good they're they're they're they have slave labor for one thing instantly if you have slave labor you're done you're not doing anything good you can't do anything virtuous hey if you want to go and you want to make your stuff in China and you want to sell it here you want to keep your mouth shut and make money okay you're bad but I have beef with you but it's a contained beef when you start telling people about how virtuous you are when you are literally have slave labor and you're dumping chemicals into the into the water and you're pouring chemicals into the air that's what you're doing and then you're talking to the American people as if you're virtuous you're a liar you're a scum so don't be a part of that don't be a part of that get American made to get American made I don't care who it is look look Origins American made good you can get that you need that cool but whatever you're getting get yourself something that's American made and especially this is especially true with clothing especially true with clothing because those are sweat shops over there so go to originusa.com we're taking care of the workers we're taking care of the environment and we're taking care of you because we're giving you the best damn genes the best ghee the best hoodie the best T-shirt we're giving you the best and you don't have to have the karma of slavery and and ecological disaster on your soul it's freaking terrible originusa.com go get it get it yeah those jeans are uh extra legit black jeans available right now yep Delta 68. so the total what are the what are the different models of the genes I know the Delta 68 the many washes of course then there's the and then there's a factory factory yep yeah and that's more like the thicker one right not as stretchy still a little bit stretchy oh it's definitely stretchy but more heavy yes it's just thicker yeah like if you're in if you're in Minnesota yeah you might want those Factory jeans wintertime if you're in Montana winter time you want those Factory jeans even though I'll be honest with you I wear the Delta jeans I wear Delta 68s year round yeah but my legs don't if your legs ever get cold no I'm surprised your legs don't get a little chilly well I mean they're kind of skinny they have the capability to get cold yes thank you for asking to your knees generally speaking we're pretty warm over here okay generally speaking thank you the Jocko for asking all right but yeah the Delta 68 oh yeah all year all year all day that that's my my um what do you call my my Formal Wear check yeah me too all right also Dragon store called Jaco store if you want to represent on the path discipline equals freedom because it does by the way the idea of good right good something if you if you're faced with something bad there's some good to come from it you want to represent bro I'm telling you shirts hats hoodies whatever you need jockostore.com also we have a it's called the short Locker subscription scenario get a new shirt every month different designs creative who will say did you see Leif and Dave on the airplane together yeah uh Dave wrote planned or not what do you think I don't think it was playing I don't think it was planned either because I can't really see them like calling each other off be like hey I'm gonna wear the freaking again shirt you know so yeah not planned uh that's a good shirt though so and I understand that kind of coincidence and that's not even that much of coincidence because it's like hey if you're gonna choose one I could see why someone would choose that one we got two people doing it so I get it that was the January shirt for 2022. again yeah Jack so do you understand the layer behind that right oh yeah you know new year new me nope we're gonna do the same good stuff we've been doing again and actually I got it from you all right there you go no that's because sometimes I like wake up in the morning you know and I'm posting yeah and guess what I'm doing everything that I did yesterday again again I'm getting up early again you're going to work out again that's what's happening again I swear I got it so there you go get yourself some of that uh Jocko store.com go to subscribe to this podcast subscribe to the Jocko underground subscribe to the YouTube page the origin USA YouTube page the Jocko fuel YouTube page the echelon front YouTube page go check those things out we got some information on there for you check out flipsidecanvas.com Dakota Meyer badass yeah he's badass he's a Marine he's just a guy that can make things happen and he makes things for your wall too that you can hang on your wall flipsidecampus.com check that out we got a bunch of books written a bunch of books you know what they are if you don't have them go get them if you get and listen the most critical of these look you're you're 38 years old or you're 42 years old and you want to get you want to get leadership strategy and tactics and become better yourself cool but more important actually if you know a kid any kid in your neighborhood the kid across the street he seems to be freaking constantly like sitting out in the yard not doing anything maybe he's digging the holes for no reason you know Hawking rocks at things no Direction get that kid the way of the warrior kid books get them all five just literally get them and bring him over to that kid oh it's a girl no it doesn't matter girl boy it doesn't matter so many girls read way the warrior kid doesn't matter no Factor and then you know what go to Home Depot and spend 12 on a piece of pipe and hang it from a tree in their yard so they can start doing pull-ups and then just watch their entire life get better change the trajectory of their life way the warrior kid go get it also got Mike in the dragons so that's what you need for kids we talked about hackers today I wrote the forward to the re-release of David hackworth's book about face go pick that thing up says it's a 800 page leadership lesson it wasn't written for the leadership just written about a dude's life but when you read it from a leadership perspective you're going to see what's in there power so check that one out also we have Echelon front which is leadership consultancy where we solve problems through leadership we have echelonfront.com that's where you get those leadership Solutions we have Live Events we have online events the Online Academy is called is at extreme ownership.com it's called The Academy extreme ownership Academy go to extreme ownership.com if you want to learn the magic the magic we talk about Jiu Jitsu like it's magic guess what else is Magic knowing how to communicate with other people knowing how to interact with other people that's Magic so learn it you don't know it just like you don't know if you don't if you know Jiu Jitsu cool you know what a power it is if you don't know what Jiu Jitsu is and you've ever rolled to somebody you realize that you get destroyed I'm telling you right now this is that is one aspect of life is being able to fight there's another aspect of life it's called being able to interact with other people and it's magic if you know how to do it and if you don't know what I'm talking about right now if you don't understand what I'm saying right now you should go to extreme ownership.com right now and you should check out one of the free classes and see go oh that makes sense and then you go try it and it works so check that out and if you want to help service members active and retired you want to help their families gold star families check out Markley's mom mama Lee she's got a charity organization and if you want to donate or you want to get involved go to America's Mighty Warriors dot org and also don't forget about Micah Fink who is I guess last report is wearing a bare skin and he is scaling a 14 000 foot Mountain in the Rockies with no water and he's helping other veterans do that kind of stuff Heroes and horses.org Someday I'm gonna go with there when I'm older I'm gonna do do that whatever it is 45 Day program learn how to ride a horse go out in the mountains sit in cold water he you know bear or whatever they're eating yeah you know how to ride a horse no no a little bit no no not at all I've ridden a horse up at we have a thing called the council at Echelon front and it's up at an off-site location where we have horses so they put me on what's called a trail horse do you know where Trail horses Trail horse is just an old horse that just walks on it it doesn't it knows exactly what to do yeah yeah it's like uh I'm trying to think if another situation like this it's just a horse that's gonna kind of be compliant and it knows just to walk on the trail yeah it's called the trail horse okay it's not you're not really riding you're not riding a horse you're on the horse and it's walking but you you're hitching around you're kind of you're kind of just there okay yeah and it's well Tamed um but yeah I I so I don't know how to ride a horse now I've been on a horse but I don't know how to ride one very well at all like I know if you pull the rain this way you pull the rain that way I know how to stop it in emergency yeah yeah but right now I would just be empathetic I'm with you now Iris you know Iris Gardner yeah oh yeah she was she's like uh she was a horse Wrangler my wife too yeah my wife's uh grew up on horses yeah so she'll just jump on a horse and jump over stuff and run gallop and do all this other stuff you know she's like a cowgirl yeah in a sense and Miranda Iris yeah she's from England so is that a cowgirl from England I don't know what do you call girl from England English British cowgirl I don't know we have to we have to check with the check with my wife okay I don't think so though I think Cowboys are I think they might be American no but there's Cowboys in like South America too there's like cowboys in Mexico there's Cowboys and like down in South America well in Hawaii because I think there's also in like in New Zealand and stuff oh fro yeah maybe so anybody that's basically a Rancher yeah yeah I guess so in Hawaii they call them paniolos are they wearing cowboy hats yes see there you go and cowboy boots you know how to lasso and do the whole gig yeah yeah in fact they have like shows and stuff too it's pretty cool yeah it's impressive it's pretty cool like I said at some point when I have time I'm gonna go get with Micah Fink and I'm gonna learn all this stuff Micah Fink did it yeah he's That Grew he grew up in what New York and Long Island or something there you go Micah thinking and he's just like no I'm gonna actually be a cowboy in the wilderness in the wilderness and he straight up is so good on you there you go um if you want to connect with us first of all with uh General farader you can go to thefaradergroup.com you can go to National vmm.org and then there you can find the the social media for the national uh Veterans Memorial Museum you can also find him on Mike farader on Instagram Mike underscore Fair on Twitter and Michael farader on Facebook and Echo and I are also on the social media reluctantly kind of a little bit we're there look we're not trying to waste your brain cells we're trying to connect maybe you got a question maybe you want to maybe you want to see what's happening you can go on there I'm just saying that there's an algorithm on there and and I hate to tell you this there's a decent chance the algorithm is stronger than you are there's a decent chance that the algorithm is stronger than you are don't let it be it's not it's not because it's more physically powerful it's because you're allowing it to be stronger than you and I'm just saying don't don't allow the algorithm to be stronger than your willpower it's a bad move and it will make the rest of your life worse it will make the rest of your life worse so don't let that happen and thanks again to General Mike farider thank you for your service thank you for your sacrifice thank you for the lessons that you passed on to us today thank you for spreading the word of jujitsu and starting combatives in the army it's awesome one man a lot of impact and also thanks to the rest of our Warriors out there in the military who are making sacrifices right now so that we can remain free also thanks to our police law enforcement firefighters paramedics emt's dispatchers correctional officers border patrol Secret Service and all First Responders thank you for what you do every day and the sacrifices that you make every day so that we can be safe here and to everyone else out there let's think about let's think about those attributes that a warrior is supposed to have from the army combatives manual here's something to think about personal courage self-confidence self-discipline what's interesting about those attributes is there not inherited they're not passed down in your genes you don't get personal courage from your mom and dad you don't get self-confidence from your genetic gene pool and you damn sure don't get self-discipline in your bloodstream these are choices that you make you choose to be courageous you choose to have confidence and most important you choose you make the choice [Music] to be disciplined to have self-discipline so make the right choice by getting up every day and getting after it and I think that's all we've got for tonight so until next time this is Echo and Jocko out

Channel: Jocko Podcast

Views: 64,810

Keywords: jocko willink, podcast, discipline, defcor, fredom, leadership, extreme ownership, author, navy seal, usa, military, echelon front, dichotomy of leadership, jiu jitsu, bjj, mma, jocko, victory, echo charles, flixpoint

Id: -Sr1Jh9JA6o

Length: 176min 28sec (10588 seconds)

Published: Thu May 25 2023