Jocko Podcast 89 w/ Mike Thornton. Vietnam Medal Of Honor. Take Care Of Your Team

this is jaco podcast number 89 with echo Charles and me Jocko Willing good evening echo good evening I was sitting in my Tactical Operations Center in Ramadi alone I was staring at a document on my computer and I had to keep wiping tears from my face as I read it the document had been submitted to me by the Delta platoon commander there was an award recommendation for Michael Monsoor and the award was the Medal of Honor for Mikey he had been sitting on an outcropping of a roof in South Ramadi on an overwatch and a grenade which had been thrown from an unseen location actually hit him in the chest and fell to the ground in front of him and he could have jumped away from the grenade and he could have saved himself but if he had done that his teammates that were positioned next to him they would have been exposed to that blast so instead of moving away from the grenade Mikey jumped on the grenade he smothered it and he absorbed its lethal explosion thereby saving our teammates and at the same time sacrificing his own life the morning that had happened September 29th 2006 I got a call from the battalion commander from the first to the 506 an outstanding officer and leader that I respected and admired and this element from Delta platoon had been in the field receiving fire and returning fire most in the morning which was nothing new or nothing unusual but it had escalated and I knew that there had been trouble and when the colonel called me he told me that there had been a bad fight and then he went down the list of my men describing quickly what their wounds were and what their status was and and pretty much telling me that they were gonna be okay until he got to Mikey and I could hear a shift in his voice it became very grave and very serious and I could hear the the sympathy in it and I knew what was coming Mikey got hit bad he got hit really bad Jocko and I don't think he's gonna make it and my heart jumped through my chest and then it sank back down to my stomach and then erupted into my brain in a maddening rush of anger and horror and gut-wrenching sadness and I grabbed all that insanity and all that emotion and I pulled it back into my mind and I held it down there while I uttered the only words that I could muster Roger that sir and when the delta platoon commander who's one of my best friends and a very close friend of Mikey's when he called me we were mechanical we had work to do he debriefed me I listened we discussed the follow-up and the next steps and the resupply and the operational impact of the casualties we held it together and the next day I talked to one of the seal officers that Mikey had saved I talked to him on the phone because he was in Germany already with the other seal that had been wounded badly on the rooftop both of whom would have been dead if it hadn't been for Mikey they were only wounded and because of that they were heading home and when I talked to this young officer he explained to me what happened with perfect clarity Mikey could have jumped away and saved himself but he did not his only movement was toward the grenade Mikey did not hesitate what kind of a man does that and when I was a brand new guy at SEAL team 1 I began to learn and understand what kind of man did that you see as a young enlisted seal at SEAL team one there were two pictures on the quarterdeck just to the pictures were of SEAL team ones Medal of Honor recipients lieutenant Bob Kerrey and petty officer 2nd class Mike Thornton and we young guys we memorized their names as well as the name of the SEAL team two Medal of Honor recipient lieutenant Tom Norris and we read their citations over and over again and debrief them amongst ourselves but we young enlisted seals we focused on on Mike Thornton he was an enlisted man like we were and we hadn't heard about him and he was a legend not only for his actions but for his reputation as a seal as an operator as a leader as an all-around badass frogman that we all aspired to be as a young enlisted SEAL he was the mark he was the example he was Mike Thornton and a few months after checking into SEAL team one I was in Virginia Beach I was going to a school at the Navy base there on Little Creek and one day after work we went to a place called Papa's pub don't mind you I wasn't even old enough to get in but the chief snuck me in there and as we were sitting there having some food and talking a handful of other seals walked in and and they were wearing their full dress choker whites and one of them was a big monster of a man and he had a rack of ribbons up to his shoulder and the Medal of Honor around his neck and I knew exactly who it was it was Mike Thornton right there in front of me the ultimate seal the ultimate hero standing there in the flesh then my chief looked and he he saw how awestruck I was and he told me to go over there and say hi which I did now again I was a new guy I didn't have my Trident yet and at SEAL team one at the time as I have accounted over and over again we knew guys pretty much got treated like worthless scum but when I introduced myself to Mike Thornton slap me on the back and said welcome to the teams and then he told me I'm from Team one - I'm from Team one - and then he bought me beer and treated me like I was his brother the man himself treating a pathetic new guy like me like I was one of his long-lost buddies and I never forgot that attitude and that humility and I would see Mike Thornton occasionally over the years and I and I swear it always seemed like he remembered me at least in my mind but years later he actually did get to know me a little bit when Mike Eamon Soares parents received the Medal of Honor from President Bush in the White House I was with Mike Thornton again and after that solemn ceremony well we went and we drank and we raised hell and we raised our glasses to mikey into the rest of our fallen brothers and mike Fortin treated me and the rest of our task unit the same way he treated me when I first met him like we were all brothers and that night now that I had seen combat myself and seen with my own eyes the bravery and the selflessness and the sacrifice that is the very core of our community I finally understood why Mike Thornton treated us all like brothers it's because we were and we are and with that it is an absolute honor to have here tonight a hero a legend a patriot and someone I'm so proud to be able to call brother retired seal and Medal of Honor recipient Mike Thornton sir welcome aboard thanks Chacos think so and it's my honor to be here too you are unbelievable warrior as Mikey Mansour I tell you my love goes up to George and Sally and everybody there but that was an unbelievable day to have Tommy and me there in Colin and in a pod Senath and all the other team mates there it was a lot different than when I received my Mountain so but it he was an honor that these young men are getting the respect that they deserve so much and then to bring the whole team home when I received my medal was only Tommy Tommy received his knows only me so god bless the Navy they're finally getting it right and honoring these great young men like Mikey Mansour and Edie Byers so you recently had a book come out which is awesome and you wrote it with your fellow teammate and and fellow Medal of Honor winner Tom Norris and also with another seal dick couch and and the book is called by honor bound and you know for me you know I was talking about this before the podcast before we started recording you even though you want to know they get these really good debriefs in the SEAL Teams and you'd think that there was a vault with all these great debriefs and that you explained to you everything that happened on certain missions especially highly important missions you think that that existed but it actually doesn't exist and for me this book was like the the detailed debrief that I always wanted to have you know not only of the operation that you did with Tommy but also the one that Tommy conducted by himself and and both of them are just so well detailed in here and it's just a phenomenal book to get that kind of granular detail of what you lived through that like I said even being in the SEAL Teams myself for 20 years I never had as good of an understanding at all as I have these operations now so thank you for writing it and you know I want to dive into it a little bit because that's kind of what I do on this podcast is definitely this pleasure yeah and and so it's you know I had to jump around a little bit but just what talking about your background and where you came from growing up in in South Carolina yeah correct I was born and raised in the hills of South Carolina and my my father was my hero of all times you only had a sixth grade education and my dad was in the Philippines from 39 and he got left in the Philippines after MacArthur pulled out and he was one of the Raiders over there they did a movie and I see I only had a sixth grade education but he was the guy that everybody respected he had his own company and I used to ask guys why you've been working for my father for 30 years you know he said because he and my dad always told me this and that's what I tried to do when I was in the team to take care of your people your people will take care of you and my mother gave us love and religion and and but daddy was hard as rocks and but he had the greatest respect for that man and everybody else that knew my father had the same respect for him now you mentioned that your dad you know had a sixth education obviously he was he was a hero to you and a successful guy and was able to put things together in his life and well did he ever talk about what he did in the pie not until I had been wounded several times and during my second tour overseas and he said he said I think you'll understand this and I said I understood the first time I was ever wounded so you know wounded in 1939 or wounded in 1969 or wounded in in today's war I think it brings a reality that war sucks any way you look at it yeah there's no doubt about that I guess your dad wanted you to earn being able to hear good stories from him but you got to get wounded before I'm going to tell you that fair more than once that's a hard man now I'm going to the book a little bit this is you talking I didn't do that well in school I couldn't read and I still have problems with it I'm Dyslexic back then they didn't call it that you were just dumb for me it meant that I simply couldn't keep up in school I did okay in math but that was probably the only thing I loved history otherwise I did poorly I had to repeat my sophomore year in high school and that really hurt my pride so it's no wonder I got in with the wrong crowd and started getting into trouble nothing serious but we were mischievous southern country boys drinking beer and making bad decisions the sheriff was out to the house a few times and there were was a time or two in juvenile court and I caught a lot of classes I had 72 absences in my senior year in high school that's it that's it pretty pretty pretty legit record well you could only miss 30 and he automatically failed but I didn't think they wanted to see me coming back so you know to that dyslexia and thank God we found out what he really is and actually I've never even read the book my wife's read it to me five times and I'd make the changes and stuff like that but I do have it on tape and if I hear something I understand it but what I'm trying to say in that is it's like young men know you may have it tough but you can redo this I've been a successful businessman I want to always do the ranks and I got a commission and I did this and I'm just trying to say there's only one and that's what I tell these kids when they're going through training but you know that I was only one person school stop you and I sure so there's always to get across that obstacle under it around it on top of it in one way the other so don't let something stop you and and for you to move forward and make a better life for yourself in your family awesome awesome words right there now speaking of moving forward it's is you had like the classic case of the judge telling you alright son you can either join the Navy or we're gonna find a place that you're not gonna like so much as home well I didn't know this 20 years later my father finally tell me him in the juvenile judge was a there were friends with each other and he said I don't let you make your first major decision go to juvenile basically six months and you know juvenile hall or I could turn around and make the first major decision in my life and I didn't saw that crazy movie the five Solomon brothers during World War two then I saw the movie the navy frogmen with Richard Widmark and I turned around I said I've always wanted to be a UDT frogman and I saluted and a guide the guy that enlisted me was a second class machinists mate and Ned his name was Ned Johnson and when he retired he was back as an 89 he was a senior enlisted for recruiting the state of South Carolina and he tells everybody I he'd made Mike Thornton who he was today at doubts then so you come in and did you you just went boot camp and then straight to buds or you guys did have buds you guys called it on a fiancee a knee replacement underdog underwater demolition recruit training I was supposed to go and I was trying to go straight from there they said no we and you have to go to outside I like I saved my dyslexia was pretty bad and I had to get a 10-point waiver just to get into the teams and they must have needed people pretty damn bad because I finally got my ways when I was in Hawaii and I I came back to Coronado went through training and I was thinking about you know going through training you know here's here's a quote from you coming through training we had some instructors who were not only good teachers but they were real characters there was Vince Oliveira who is part American Indian and a plank holder at SEAL team one he called us palefaces and we stood an on fear of instructor oliviere then there was Dick Allen a black seal who was the navy boxing champion he once sparred with Muhammad Ali when Ali was asked once who hit him the hardest he said it was a chief petty officer in the in the u.s. navy named dick Allen and then there was instructor Terry Moy who we called mother Moy it seemed as if he was always watching us making sure everything we did was that we put out a hundred percent so what I was thinking about during this was when I went through I went through in 1991 and there was clearly there were some rules in place but also the instructors kind of did what they wanted to and then what the command wasn't watching them there's clearly there's more rules and oversight now I've seen that with my own eyes but I can't even imagine what it was like when you were going through them but the instructors must have just been able to do whatever the hell they wanted to do to you guys I tell you offense Oliveira the most sadistic son of a bitch ever met in my life okay yeah and I was just with Terry Moore the last two days of course this is reunion weekend right Terry still looks like a gladiator as he did back then and Dick Allen used to hang us from the Fulop bar and he'd punch us in the stomach but I tell you if you didn't keep her hands loose I mean if you didn't keep your hands loose he'd kill him then of course dick and Vince and dick both have passed and but they're their memories and there's a funny thing about life itself you know and it's not what you've done this the respect you want to gain from the teammates and dick and Terry and Vince all-grain game my respect and my love and they'll all of as long as might thorns alive the stories will continue going off that's what I was that's all I want from the the my peers to remember who Mike Thornton is us and that's and that's what those guys taught me yeah were those guys one of those guys Vietnam vets or were they Korean War vets both a little bit of everything Vietnam vets then there was Tommy hatchet in there too they used to call Tommy and I after I got in the team's of salt and pepper he's a great big old black guy and those stronger than damn hawks and you know actually Vince was one of the original seals in 1962 and he went over to Nam of course back then they didn't know what they would do with the seals they're not a period of time so you get uh you get done with buds and I'm going to the book here there were 22 guys who graduated in my class 18 from the original 129 I remember how lucky and proud I felt as I was given orders to SEAL team one even back then it was no small thing being a Navy SEAL but it's one thing to be a seal and yet another to do the work of a seal I thought that was an important little highlight there of like when you get done with buds it's just the beginning really correct is just you just cracked open the door then you got to go through the damn door and have to get through the door you got to prove yourself and like like you're saying we're a nobody back then you know if you hadn't had a couple of tours of Vietnam you were just trashes or savory sure yeah so going the book my first platoon was Charlie platoon we were in country from 1969 through or from December 1969 through July 1970 we worked out of a place called dong Island and it was a great deployment we had solid platoon officers and our platoon petia leading petty officer was Barry Enoch one of the finest steel operators a team won when I made my first deployment he was my see daddy it was the same for all of us on our first combat tour and it was an active tour seems like every other night we'd be out most of the time we made contact I remember we took down a few province-level Vietcong Drey types and one time we had a good intelligence we were able to take down an entire VC grenade factory it was great so that was your first appointment when you talk about Barry Barry Enoch and actually how KooKoo Dahl talks about as well as says us as new guys even the veterans we worshiped Barry Enoch he was a great leader and a great teacher what was it about him that made him just that made you guys remember him and revere him so much well I think it's like you were talking about me in your gradient reduction which I don't deserve that but uh Barry was a leader he took care everybody and he's a guy he kind of like I looked up to my father he was my see daddy and he was always there for all of us and me and last night tomboy Hannah and me and Wayne Hampton and Mike lacrosse and and how Kuykendall were all getting a picture together and then remembering the great guys and we were all we're talking about Barry of course Barry felt passed away a few years ago and he's another guy you know it's like I say he'll always be in all our conversations and was somebody we all looked up to you know so it's the great leadership I mean that he showed us and and not just the leadership as a leader but the leadership he showed us to try to be a better person and and that deployment what were you guys doing you guys were doing we guys two point off of boats were you guys going in helicopters you guys going on foot patrols a little bit everything a little bit of everything foot patrols basically Sam pans Whalers by that time we finally got the LSS C's which were in the light and then the medium support SEAL support craft of course we had the mighty moe a lot of our stuff was the mighty moe oh it was a Mike Big Mike Hayden had the you see it had all the the rebar by about 20 inches out so if he got hit by an RPG it explode there instead of going through the hole we did a lot of like I was working down that down the sea float was steve frist with the kcs his scopes back then we didn't have that many sill so we would help each other we did if they say we need help converse our people all right around and dead Tom would send the guys at and he felt should be going so we'd like Rich Solano myself and much other guys would go out and help other platoons and stuff and we you a 60 gunner I was a 60 out of stoner 60 and I and I carried a car 15 but always carry the Swedish Kate with me all the time and a pistol always had a backup backup in the back of your neck go back over there so you know some we have funny things you know and you and you learn from each other so it's like that uh that uh when we hit that a grenade factory Mikey sands jumped out and he had a sixteen is he didn't lock down he didn't lock down as uh as hitch and his his he jumped out of the boat his barrel fell out in the water and the river and he's definitely diction he's yelling give me one of your guns I said hell no I'm keeping all my guns here so you know as we all learned and Mike was a great m60 guy he saved our asses many times and but um everybody did their and did their job is just as you were saying long it was a team effort and my life was saved by people I might look oz and other people in our platoon and and we backed each other up all the time and and that was a super-active actually how how Kuykendall it was talking about you here in the book this is Hal talkin I can remember more than one firefight where we were shooting and ducking sometimes more ducking than shooting but Mike would be right there working that sixty with a big grin on his face there were plenty of times when I was really scared but I'm not sure Mike ever was he was reliable and brave but I'm not sure he ever knew or understood fear like the rest of us he was a great teammate and my god he was strong none of us could believe how much ammo he carried sometimes he'd go out with a thousand rounds or more that's close to 80 pounds of just ammo and he'd swim canals with that load he'd just shrug and say you don't want your 60 gunner to run out of ammo do you we got through a pretty active deployment with no one getting killed then a couple of guys stayed behind to break in the new platoon while the rest of us packed up and left they were two of our best and one of them was killed in a helo crash with three other seals we took it hard when Rich Solano was killed but I think Mike took it the hardest Mike was a guy who really cared for his teammates so so even with all that action you guys you guys went through the deployment with you know what did you take a few wounded guys but you only had a few but nobody was killed and actually we were I was down at Sea float and rich Solano was working with the Gulf platoon I thinking and that was when the helicopter went down and of course when you come off a hot LZ you're supposed to shut down your aircraft and check the rotor blades because back then the rotor blades could have a hole and it could last for 30 minutes or 45 or an hour and the pilot of the helo when we get back for a birthday party or something and the helo fountain and actually rich was killed and Berlin was killed and Toby Thomas was killed Gardner was killed so that was one of our base we lost five guys that day not for we lost five and I went down and and identified the bodies and it was you know I've only had one bad dream in my whole life and it was after identifying that because rich whole face was completely gone and only way I could identify me he had a scar on his arm and but you know a loss of any teammate as you know as well as I do that like Mikey and and every time you know every time I lose it even a new kid today which I've been out speaking to their classes and stuff like that you lose a little bit more your heart I don't know how much more of my heart I got to lose but it takes it out of you I mean it is I don't want to see anybody ever get hurt or especially a loss of a loved one and they're all there the their lifes are just as important to me with the new kids today as rich and all those guys were important to me back then you you come home from that deployment and you go into SEAL team one cadre which we actually have talked about on here with Roger Hayden because we still we when I was a at SEAL team one and I was in training cell we still called the cadre and that was I don't know 20 something years later and I never even made the connection and and Roger and I talked about the fact that you know some of the training that you guys implemented back there the the the point man course where you're walking through and the trip wires are there and all that we still did that a lot of the demo we still did and and so that's what that's what you did when you got home you went into that training cell being cadre and teaching and you know you mention here that you learned a lot being an instructor and I always I always agree with that in fact when when I was in the SEAL Teams no one wanted to go to the training department right we all wanted to just deploy just employ deploy so when I took over the training I always told guys look if you want to be you know if you want to master what you do you got to go and teach it and you also mention al Huey in here and when I went through buds when we are at San Clemente Island every night when the Sun Goes Down we'd sing the song good night al Huey good night out Huey good night out Huey wherever you may be and I never knew and still don't know who al Huey is other than the campus called al Hugh it's called camp al Huey out there and and honestly I make my kids sing this song when Sun Goes Down my me and my kids we sing this song I'm sure you've heard of Dave Shively Commodores Shively and Allen and Daver best of friends and Al was another mentor like Barry not to me and they went through class two of UDT back in the 50s and there were all in Korea and stuff and he led by example again you know but I mean it's kind of like when he talks it better be like EF Hutton you better be listening keeping your ears wide open and just as I'll tell me one day he says you know good Lord gave you one mouth two ears and two eyes so use 80% of that and pick the other ones shut for 20% and then you you from cadre you had a chance you went back and deployed again but you went to Thailand and we gonna teaching the Thai SEALs we took trained the Thai seals I was along with dick Flanagan and one of the finest officers as tomboy hen was a great officer great leader and Al was with us on that nest reason Hawaii owl and I were so close and we trained the Thai UDT and the SEAL team Texas and then they went up and they worked off the borders all I can say about that yeah and understood and then you got home from that and now it looked like the war in Vietnam was kind of winding down and there weren't full seal opportunist deploying any more no more Silpat UN's only basically what we were going over we were sending enlisted LDN advisers and like a bunch of the guys that know were over there with me on that tour was uh it was at the reunion and it was kind of funny to get together and talk with all of them you know and talk about but we've lost a lot of those guys which have passed in to age or cancer or something and you know it's just one girth in about the reunion you know none of us are getting any damn younger so you better get out and see your shipmates anytime you get a chance oh yeah the LD NN you mentioned and just that everyone knows with that that those are like Vietnamese South Vietnamese seals seals and the LD instance for a living and die as what is actually in Vietnamese does that mean like a warrior from the Sears on the Bay Area's just type me up so you get a chance to go back again and this is funny cuz typical seal you know it's like oh we need to go back on deployment again yes I'll go he said me I'm going back to the book so when I got to Vietnam this time I spent close to a week at NHA trang working with the LD n ends there getting a feel for the what they were doing in the field I'd work with the Vietnamese seals on my first tour back in 1969 US and I saw a few familiar faces you have to hand it to those guys for them there were no combat rotations life was combat 24/7 year in year out they fought until they were killed or as it worked out in the end we lost the war so those are the guys you're working with and I think it's I mean you get into the relationship that you formed with these guys which was you know they were other brothers yep they were that you took care of them they took care of you and of course the reason a nice to feel that Tommy and I are still alive today is cause a day nanquan which I explained in the book they were I'd worked with him on previous chores and many operations and they were there there's just like one of us I mean they took care of me so that's the reason I hand-picked those two guys that was dang and Quang Quang those those were guys that you had worked with before Vietnamese seals and so you get to to lean on am I saying that right to an unasked wound on okay so you get to tubing on this is where you're gonna be working out of and again you're not the seal platoon this is a totally different situation and what you had there into Enon if I gathered it all correctly you had five enlisted seals from SEAL team one and then you had to seal team two officers and then pause with those two seal team two officers who were sound like they were more junior guys maybe it was their first deployment but then Tommy Norris showed up as well as the OSE yeah Shively captain shot come north Chablis he had all the seals du/dt EOD divers everybody and then Tommy Nelson was our Lieutenant Commander no three and he was the head of all the sills Tommy was the senior sill operator in country then we had Ryan mccumbee and another lieutenant it was there then they were all they were all East Coast guys now we had actually I think we had more like 18 enlisted guy okay and we and we broke it up and Gary Gary Chamberlain and Harry Connick OA went with lieutenant Hughes down one thing then Ryan mccumbee was our boss and I stayed up so everybody it had many tours that went down south and I had the most tours and I stayed up north with Ryan McCombie then Tommy would go back and forth to run operations of course it was hard to get a OS approved because uh you know it was pretty at that time we were fighting in quandary and way city and all that stuff and they were trying to overtake it but we're still were able to get our ops in and you had what two squads of LDN and what made up a squad of LD NN approximately I think we had we had more LDN ends than we did but we separated those guys too I know when we went on the operation woody was we always had a cell as you know on an insertion extraction craft and would he had a we only had three ill names on the OP with us but he had another six or eight on her on the boat the boat if we needed supplies so it and and I gotta mention this because again it's half the book of by honorbound is we've been throwing Tommy Norris his name around here and when he showed up to work with you guys he had been in country for some period of time and he had done this this multiple pilot rescue operations the bat 21 mission and Tommy was say that I knew about his reputation and he knew about my reputation and it was kind of funny timing I only operated one time and that was that operation but we were of course still best of friends and I know when we resubmitted tommy was put in for a medal and it was resubmitted and then he was upgraded to the Medal of Honor later on and greatest friend any man could ever ask for and I look back on the officers and the leadership we had on like I was saying tomboy Hannah and Captain Shively and and Tommy and and Ryan mccumbee and and norm Carly and I'm you know even when we were in sixth with more sinkhole and stuff like that it was we had some great leaders you know and all those guys took care of their people that's what I really looked up to them for for always being there for the troops you know they make you your ass up but nobody else is going to so now once Tommy shows up they you get to start getting the mission tasking for this mission that becomes you know the mission and the Paris peace talks were going on but you know tom tom was saying that there's no at the operational level you guys like oh that's great but it's not changing anything for us on the ground meanwhile they're you know they're they're attacking way city and it's just hard and so Tom goes down he gets called down by by the Commodore Shively Shively to to get a mission tasking and this is this is Tom Norris talking Uncle Dave had me take a seat in his office that's what that's what you guys called the Commodore yeah I never called any my Commodores an uncle at least not to their faces Uncle Dave had me take a seat in his office and I could tell he had something on his mind Tom he said the Vietnamese commander of the LD NN wants to run a seal reconnaissance mission to the mouth of the country Quang Viet River is that right quadtree Quan tree river specifically he and his superiors won to know about the defense's an enemy disposition around Quan tree Naval Base and he wants a Vietnamese LDN an officer to head up the reconnaissance team I want you to run the operation to ensure the mission gets done properly but this needs to be seen as a Vietnamese operation so that was the tasking doing doing a reconnaissance correct pretty normal operation I'm it's pretty standard it sounds like you guys were running those type of operations fairly regularly yeah basically the NVA had already moved across the quad via River so that was a new we knew that and we knew and they were trying to take over quandary again and and they attacked onwe city that was an April and this was an October and when this thing was going down so we knew was hot and heavy up there but tommy said yes you know you never said no to Uncle Dave and and so you guys decide her or Tom you know let's you know hey let's do a small a small group you're gonna take five guys for two Americans and three Vietnamese seals right obviously the two are you and and Tom Norris and then the three the three guys that you're going to take with you the three Vietnamese that you're going to take with you two of them were your hand-selected guys Quan Quan and then there was another officer the other guy was an officer right correct and he was lieutenant I've heard you tell the story in here he's called lieutenant Tuan yeah we got a always called Thai well yeah but we put a different name in there because uh he kind of made the operation Co South got got it so here's the basic concept of operations so I was really the funny part of it Tommy said I'll do the mission if you let me choose who I want to take photos back then we had a rotation basically where everybody get a chance to go in the fill and with I always went in the field with the new guys and stuff and and he said I'd like to make a choice in Uncle Dave said well bitch I know it is and he said well we've never operated together and he saw bet just Mike Thornton and he said yes sir that's who I want to take with me on operation and actually woody was supposed to be going in on that operation and but we took woody on the insertion extraction means of transportation and that's that's that's bill Woodruff Woodruff who you talking about yeah and we will get into what his role was here's the here's the overview of the mission and this is this is Tom Norris talking it was not a particularly difficult mission and it was certainly something we'd done before so we knew the drill in general is about a 50-mile transit from two Enon up the cuvette river in our boats with a max speed of about eight knots that was a little more than six hours so you're talking about a six hour transit the plan was to get well out to sea so no one on the beach could know which direction we were heading north or south once we turned in this case north we'd make our way up the coast then turn west back into shore then we hope to be on station off the southern bank of the Ku Yvette River soon as possible after dark we'd then leave the junks and paddle in close to shore on rubber boats and then swim the last swim ashore from the rubber boats we'd insert do our job and get out before first light we didn't have to be back at two Enon before first light but we sure as heck wanted to be back across the beach and away from the coast before sunup I was told I'd have offshore Navy support in the way of two destroyers so if we're running a little late in getting out of there I'd have some friendly on-call fire support so that's a real standard mission that you know when I first got the team one we did that not not the exact same thing and not real but we trained it all the time you're gonna get on you know mark fives and you're gonna have your zodiacs on there then you're gonna get a little closer to the beach and once you get close to the beach to drop off the zodiacs then you get a little bit close to the beach and then the last thing you do is get out the boats swim in you go do your operation so kind of standard stuff and you know he says it's not something you hadn't done before it's correct here's what you were talking about with when you're talking about the LD n ends going back to the book the LD n ends came in all varieties of experience and capability and courage on this operation we have three very good ones lieutenant Kwan was a first-rate LDN an officer and ding and Kwan this other Kwan is an enlisted Lal DNN no relation were two guys I'd work with on my first tour and was with them again in two Enon dang and Kwan were good to go but the problem was Kwan the officer well Kwan was hurt and that's the reason sir yeah the problem was that lute Winnick lieutenant Kwan he liked to get after a little bit sometimes less luck all of us maybe he had too much to drink the night before and so he what do you get now some kind of accident yeah he was riding it and a whaler ran into the pier he had his head and he busted both his eyes and he could have you sees they were both completely shut so this is how we got the other new officer which I've never worked with but uh but I'd worked many tours I mean not many tours but many operations with the other two guys and I'd worked with Kwan and he was really good but of course he was unable to make the OP so they we brought in another young officer which I had never operated with and this other just so everyone knows as we're going through this the other officer that you now brought on that you hadn't worked with before his name was lieutenant blonde yeah am I saying that right no but I'm not gonna really help got the vietnamese speaker in here tighten me up so you had the the Navy was out to see the two things the Navy was supposed to help you with was helping you guys do navigation because in this time no GPS it's so easy now I'm embarrassed by how yeah this and obviously fire support if you need it yep basically what they were supposed to do is vector or sin and that's where each ship takes the radar plunge and they shoot it in and they see where we are in in the jocks which were 39-foot concrete junks is what the and then they would see where we were then they'd shoot us at azmuth and then we would take our compass and we'd go in there one of the ships shooting is they were trying to overtake Quan tree again and he left and went down south to help give gunfire support to the help the Vietnamese Army and Marine Corps to hold off the NVA and when that one guy shot the azmuth and he was about three degrees off but when you're 15 miles off the beach three degrees is a lot yeah and everybody said the CEO said that's the river of rust it actually was the Ben hai river which was actually in North Vietnam so when we went inserted we're way north of the quad Viet now you had talked about Bill Woodruff woody you're referring to him and all as at an important point here and this is something we always try to hold true to you won't always put like a seal with your assets if you can't manage it so you got a seal out there on the boats that are going to be recovering you because it's a guy that you know it's a guy that you trust then you know he's not going to leave you hanging and the mule is hanging that's right and you know that's a good lesson learned for anybody doing operations right now I don't care what unit you're with if you're in the Marine Corps and you're using an army asset try and put a liaison officer with the army if you're in the Army you're using a Marine Corps asset try and put a liaison officer same thing with Special Operations because those are the guys that speak your language they're gonna be able to predict what you're gonna do if things are going sideways it's just it's just a smart move to do and then you know you talked about how these things started going wrong and you're you're off the coast and instead of being where you thought you were you're at the Ben hai river which is basically south of the Ben hai so we and Tommy and I discussed it and he said we'll go ahead and go in we'll do what we call a horseshoe off we'll go in so many clicks and go north and then go back to the spec to the ocean and and try to if we can pick up you know if we could do it we were doing a body snatch too closely of course by a body stance you get your best intelligence that way so then we used to do direct action missions to go capture bad guys but we didn't call them body snatches and I'm kind of wishing we did it sounds a lot better than just body snatch you guys should have named those body snatching operations I would have felt a lot better about it so it and tactically you're going in it's pretty normal you swim in it's pretty normal you get on the beach and here we go back to the book this is you talk and I was carrying the Starlite scope a bulky first-generation night-vision device that allowed you to see relatively well at night it was the size of a loaf of bread and weighed 8 pounds Tommy told me to scout the beach area to see if I could find any of the features we were looking for or expecting to find like the mouth of the river I went north about 200 yards from our position in the same distance to the south and with the Starlight scope I could see a good ways up and down the beach no River mouth and nothing looked familiar Tommy moved inland just a short distance to look the area over with his binoculars neither of us saw anything that indicated we were supposed to be so and then like you said you you know you're in the wrong space but you might as well do in reconnaissance while you're there and that's kind of the the decision that's made and I was thinking about this too so I was thinking you guys only have five guys and the idea behind that must have been hey let's travel light and we can maneuver really quick and then I got to this list of what you were carrying here's what Mike was carrying Mike talking I was the mule on a recon patrol I carried a car 15 carbine and just over 800 rounds of 556 ammunition along with an assortment of the Dozen fragmentation CS and smoke grenades I also had three law rockets and a starlight scope all of us carried a medical kit and inflatable UDT over the head life vests I also had our silenced weapon a 22 caliber automatic pistol with a suppressor attached to the barrel we called it a hush puppy so now exactly light for for reconnaissance and moving I was thinking you guys would try and stay all slick but that's that's no joke what you were carrying now as your patron you start seeing fires and eventually you see movement you see bunkers and and Tommy says I think it's about time we get the heck out of here you say Roger that sir it's about zero 300 you got about three hours of darkness left and you get into a stream right and start moving towards the beach wells for three different reasons one that keeps you low silhouette we knew that we were within a battalion of NVA at that period time then we saw tanks and gun in gun emplacements so we knew that we were way north of where we were supposed to be so by getting in the stream the tide ranges 18 feet over there so the current was running out so we knew it was going out to the ocean so we got in there by keeping our low silhouette in there we could move a lot faster in the water and we didn't hopefully we wouldn't bump into any of the enemy out there which we're starting to move around at that time in the morning so now you start hearing something it's correct and you know you halt the patrol and you see what you see is NVA soldiers a bunch of them it's like an encampment of NVA soldiers and they and and correct me if I'm wrong but from their position and where you had moved to in the stream now you're looking at them and and as you move to the water you're gonna be exposed is that is that the situation well actually they were in a base camp type dealing there's a quick reaction force okay the main force was behind us of course that's that exposed us kind of cut off our southern route so to the north of us which we knew were going farther north there was that big Lagoon as the map show and so we would have to our eastern flank we had the ocean to the western flank we had the lagoon and then to the south we had the bad guys that we knew of and to the north we had some sand dunes and but we could see after you pass this one big bunker you could see nothing but flat Beach so we feared I'd be our best objective to move up there and Tommy got on top of this we thought it was a big sand dune but actually it was a puzzle as a bunker built me actually had tunnels down inside of it so and that's the one that you did a recon and you found that bunker yeah I found them I mean he brought Tommy there Tommy went up there with the radio learn which was dang and that gave us you know of course back then is the radios for PRC seven sevens lana site which you so yeah yeah and he's trying to make comms back to woody and or back to the ship but if needed the shit was a Newport News in the USS Morgan this one says ships were then we had we finally got woody but woody was done off the mouth of the quaver yet he thought you know after he got their bearings they were a long ways off from where we were so at this point Quan you guys are you guys are in that bunker and Quan comes running back and he says daiwei Norris with the Starlight scope I see two men coming down the beach they're quite a way off but they're heading our way mm-hmm so then you seem like you come up with a plan right there of what you're gonna do yeah which to me I'm like thinking well I'll let you brief what your plan was but you see two bad guys coming down the beach and your idea is cool it's time to do our body snatch that's correct and I figured the officer which name is unmentioned he was bit he was a good sigh he's like five nine wait and strong I mean that slutty guy right and this is the other Vietnamese or the Vietnamese officer sir the quantity guy yeah so I put him down on the beach because the the high water line and these guys were walking up and down the high water line and the other guy was about a hundred a hundred and fifty a hundred yards ahead of the the guy who calls the other guy was walking up in the sand dunes and I figured we got to make sure we not came out let the other guys just walking by cuz he's just tooling down the low the coast line looking around and so I said I sent Quan down with the hush puppy and not Quan but the officer and I sent him down and I said I'm on this guy's go walk by us but when the other guy I'll take him out and then I had Quan there with me and Quan after I knocked him out cold and when the Quan got him he taped him up and and secured him so two guys are the two enemy are walking down the beach at a pretty good distance apart you say okay I'm gonna get me and Quan will go get this guy will capture him and then lieutenant or this Vietnamese lieutenant you go and get this other guy it's correct and you said kill him right no I said if he could take him take him back I got it but he's right on the shoreline so the waves were breaking that's making a lot of turbulence and noise and and and the other guys up in the sand DIMMs he's at the high-water line walking around like that I knew he would be the last one there but we had to make sure we took him out for sure right and then I told the officer he he could go up and take this guy out or eliminate him or just make sure he didn't go back to the village because the villages on down the beach and he he stood up and you know lied a mile in in Vietnamese doesn't mean stop come here he's got an ak-47 the bad guy does he's got a you know a 22 long hush puppy which is about from here across this room and you know he's out there like that and then the guy opened fired on him he's running back towards Tommy and me and I'm running past him because I know he's on his own of the village and as I say in the book you know they were they have radios like everybody he did so what sometimes they would the way they would send information they'd shoot so many rounds in the sky and somebody'd answer back but they changed all the time but at that period of time he only shot off two rounds so I hopefully that didn't mean something bad or good and we got to the opening of the he went across the creek the creek bed and he was heading straight to the entrance to the village and I dropped down to one knee hit two shots hit him in in the back he fell down and the next thing all hell I was 50 to 75 bad guys were chasing us down and and I was heading back to Tommy and we got back and I would I move doubt on the point as the book explained so I let it go so so when you when you grab or now you're heading back to Tommy and that's in that big sort of bunker doomed yeah yeah and so now all you are co-located in the big bunker no actually I'm out on the very point okay and Tommy was up on top of the mark god dang and they had taken our the guy we did capture up there and he was up there so I move the officer to rear security and told him if he sees anything let Tommy go and I put Quan over on my eastern flank which is the side of the ocean so I was about fifty feet ahead of him 50 yards ahead of him so I could cover I could see everybody coming in so I was kind of like the point but I kept Quan over to on the ocean side if they tried to flank me he would knock them off then I could see them Lagoon over here I can see the lagoon and so I could see everything out in front of me and now the enemy starts coming for you came forward and and you start you know engaging them taking them down and engaged in and what I do I'd come up over here I'd roll over and come up somewhere else I throw a grenade over here I moved back till another grenade I'd move forward where the grenade hit because I had by that time and I gave him a frost pretences how many people we had they didn't know we had 12 or 15 or only didn't Tommy no more shooting from up there but Tommy was on the radio trying to get communications and what Tommy was trying to get communications from and just to kind of lay this out a little bit the the ships have been told hey we might need fire support that's correct well when you and whenever you set up fire support for yourself you always set up what we call pre designated firing position so hey we you know you name them whatever you're gonna name them ABCD 1 2 3 or you give them girls names whatever car names but yeah it's real easy to jump on the radio and say hey fire at position Bravo now and the you know whatever fire support can start hitting that so that's great if you're worried you're supposed to be and that's the issue ok so Tommy starts doing its best and saying hey fire rounds at this pre designated spot they fire rounds of that pre designated spot yes I couldn't see it so they started moving north of that period of time and they were shooting smoke in the air and and the fire fight one for almost almost 3 hours actually 2 hours and 55 minutes and we had eliminated a lot of these guys and they start falling back and so there's five of you that are making like 30 40 50 guys fall back well just four of us because got it the other guy never just kind of rounded up it with what and that's just you're taking good fire discipline correct one or two rounds of making good hits making sure what I do I shoot in the sand about an inch and I'd see their heads come up then I'd shoot a about an inch below the sand and I get a head shot every time say if you tell it and then you'd roll over you know then was the grenades you or knowing that we were getting as you mentioned when a grenade of course we have a four second delay in ours and and they're their grenades that we had pulled those things before and they gun would go anywhere from 14 seconds to 28 seconds they don't have good quality controlling their grenade factories like we do let's see yeah you you're talking about that you're sending guys off now you're you continue to shoot you're continuing to hold your position you're you're about halfway through your ammo at this point and then speaking of these grenades you're in one of these positions in boom in comes one of those grenades to your to your spot what you do about that well I yelled grenade and I grabbed it and threw it back I was going 1,000 2,000 3,000 about time I hit 8,000 the damn grenade came back over and I'm going 12,000 13,000 because of course were you in thousands and I gives you a good second I threw it back and and the the grenade went back in fourth five times and I was at 21,000 22,000 I said this thing's got to go off and it went off and I was hit six times in my back was wrapped now and I just yelled out I didn't say nothing else and when I yelled out I just stayed there and I looked up and there was four guys coming across and I eliminated all four of those guys and that's when we found out they started falling back and Tommy said they were falling back and I said that's it he said are you okay I said you know I'm wounded but I'm okay a week I'm still very very mobile and of course the Adrenaline's pumping like god knows what and and you don't worry about yourself used to just need you know you need to get out of there that's all we knew now at this point it seems like they're falling back a little bit and it looks like from from the way it's described there's basically another dune that's a little further back from where you are approximately 500 yards and that's to the north of the North right by itself I mean everything else is flat except for that one doom and so what you what you guys hash the plan real quick all right let's get to that thing it's further away it to create some distance and then from there we can eventually get in the water and get here and you know I talk about cover and move all the time and and that's like the fundamental principle of of how we fight and in in a normal situation you would just get little terrain features and you'd move back a little piece at a time because because that's how you support each other in this one there was nowhere to hide in between those two no so you guys made the call of Tommy and who's gonna stay up there who's Tommy and Dangs a real mistake up there and tommy said you fall back because at that period of time I was the only one that had any a been wounded but what we did I looked across had a pair of binoculars I looked across and I said I couldn't understand why because I counted almost 100 guys some Tommy says a lot more than that and it was a NVA betaine they were current trying to encircle us and and by the time I got back as the book says Dan comes back by himself because Tommy had been shot in the head at that period of time so so you guys they put down cover they put down cover fire for you you're right and then you fall back you're doing what you're supposed to do and you got the Vietnamese lieutenant and you got Quan with you on you get back to that position and that means lieutenant Norris is still up in the big bunker getting ready he's waiting for your fire support and and while that's happening I'm gonna go to the book right here I was asking for naval gunfire right onto our position mmm and he says those rounds could have hit dang and me just as well as the bad guys but I had no choice the guy on the radio came back and said understand fire for effect and I said absolutely put it on us and he said are you sure and I said just get it in here and so they had actually as they were called in this naval gunfire hmm Tommy was like seeing guys comin and like through the grace of God a one big round hit there and they hit them and got a lot of bad guys and then again going back to the book I went back to getting the law ready to fire that's a law rocket I could hear the ship shooting but that's the last thing I remember and then the narrator comes in and says at that point in the fight Tom Norris took an ak-47 round to the left side of his forehead the bullet entered his skull at the orbital socket of his left eye toward a section of his skull exposing his brain and caught a shallow furrow along the brain itself dang saw his officer go down and the extent of his head wound his lieutenant had been shot dead knowing there was nothing he could do he made for the others who had just taken a position on the next dune to the north as he ran he took a round through the radio he still carried on his back knocking him down the round destroyed the radio and saved his life but fragments carried through into his back dange picked himself up and kept running it took him close to ten minutes to reach Mike where's Tommy Mike asked dang when he reached him where is daiwei daiwei is dead dang replied and this is it so you know your trusted Vietnamese fellow seal says hey look the lieutenant that's died way lieutenant he's dead and this is what you do I'm going to the book here I told Kwan and the others to wait here that I was going back for Tommy they tried to stop me saying it was no use he was dead I believed them I too thought he was dead but I wasn't going to leave him behind we never leave anybody behind so no way was I going to be the first to do that and I've been wounded or dead he'd have come back for me that's who we are dang said he was dead and I had no reason not to believe him it didn't matter and what if by chance he was still alive I could not have lived with myself if I have left him behind not knowing or what the NVA might do to him if he were still alive that whole area south of the bunker was littered with bodies and they would be looking for revenge I had close to a quarter of a mile to cover and the last part it was uphill but I ran all the way the initial salvo from the Morton that was the ship out at sea although I didn't know it at the time that it was the Morton shooting had made the bad guys think twice about advancing on the dune with the bunker when I got close I saw them moving carefully toward the bunker from where I could see they were flanking the bunker and moving in from the east or the beach side as well as from the south I saw Tommy lying on the west side of the bunker - guys were climbing over the top as they moved in from the east they moved cautiously and got within a few feet of him I shot them both and moved to where Tommy was he had an unbelievable head wound the whole side of his forehead was gone his brain was visible you could actually see it the front lobe of his brain was kind of pushing out through his skull I could see why dang said he was dead I sure thought he was I picked him up put him over my shoulder and started running I also grabbed his ak-47 as I knew I was getting low on ammo I hadn't taken more than ten steps from the bunker when there was this explosion behind me from naval gunfire round the concussion picked us both up in the air lifting Tommy off my shoulder and tossed us forward ten or fifteen feet I literally saw him move my shoulder leave my shoulder and fly through the air when I landed I sat there for a moment stunned trying to orient myself and catch my breath once I sorted myself out I crawled over to where Tommy was lying in the sand once I got to Tommy again and started to pick him up he spoke to me for the first time he said Mike buddy and that was when I knew he was alive I said can you run and he says I can run but I can't see but he really couldn't run then he blanked out again I put him in a fireman's carry and took off for the dune to the north where I had left the others I heard him talking now and then and I guessed he was fading in and out but I knew he was alive and I put all my energy and focused to covering the ground between where we were and the other dune well like I said you know you and I've talked about the camaraderie and the respect we have for each other and even though Tommy's much smaller than I am that he would have done the same thing for me I know that so so just like you say you you know if he died which were all honors we understand what our job more it is as being Navy cells but I could have never lived with myself knowing that he was dead I thought he was dead but the grace of God he's still with us so as we I was running back with him I got shot to my left calf and through my my left calf and I fell to the ground and we got back in there's Quan and a giving us cover fire were you like when I've done stuff that was maybe not the safest things in the world I never was really thinking like oh this is dangerous were you thinking oh this is really dangerous oh well you just oh he's over there and I got to go get him because that's what we do that's what we do so that's what it is you don't you know fear is a good thing but you got to focus I mean if you know I could have set dinners today we go all grilled I'm just go lie here and do it but I said I'm gonna take as many of those sob down as I can and you know and then the thing is is that it it's like we go back to what we are and in the camaraderie and going through training or why we do things and things like that and I think of the broader was my father as I go back to I look about it cuz my dad never would have left me behind or anybody else behind you know and that's what's instilled in us as we go through training and that's what's instilled us you know no tomboy Hendon was saying last night he said you know I don't think you and your what fear was well I knew what it was but I mean being afraid you know if you worry about being afraid of everything you should never be in the field because you're not focused on what what you're trying to do so that's the whole thing is you know so we're out there to do a job so let's get the damn job done yet it's interesting to me I would I think guys would feel more afraid when we were getting ready to go in the field when even me you know you when you have time to think like oh we're going down this street which has had you know there's 17 IEDs on it the last four days and there's guaranteed to be another one on there tonight what the question is is it gonna hit yours are gonna hit someone else and that's I would see the look on guys says while we were getting ready to go out and it you could see a little bit of that but once you're in the field everyone's doing what they do they're just doing their job and I just like flicking the switch you know why switch you get you'd get your mind and know what you're supposed to be doing so the guys doesn't have his mind in the game he's gonna stay at home he ain't going out in the field with my teeth or not promise you that now this is one of my one of my favorite parts of the book that is well I'll read it when I got this is you talking when I got back to the Dune dang in-kwon were waiting for me providing cover fire lieutenant Tuan was nowhere in sight he'd already made it for the water to escape but God bless ding and Quan they waited for me and were still in the fight even though dang was wounded they said Mike what do we do now and I said we swim which is the classic SEAL scenario in that the water is our salvation you know it's like we we have that special experience in the water and and people aren't comfortable in the water and it's our home and that that was just the classic answer these guys were said what do we do now remember we're combat slumbers not combat runners but the running does help so now talk about when you're getting now you're moving to the water you're carrying Tommy what goes on then well I didn't inflate Tommy's life jacket as some of the stories said I I was using Tommy's like a surfboard and every time a wave would break I'd push him underwater and bring him up the other side because the worst thing you could do is have a wave and we had six sets of waves coming in and that's how Quan ended up getting injured can you guys shot and so after I got Tommy out that's when I put and I could never find Tommy's lifejacket and he had it in a pocket down on his calf and I said why so wonder if I get a bullet hole I said it's good because we can put a piece of tape and you know if you have a you know sucking chest wound I can take so I took my life check it off me put it on his head and I took the you know the old UDT I took a harness but I just put a little bit of air and I started breast stroking out to sea and that's when I saw Kwan was in not going anywhere and I could see dang out in front of me and so I swam over and grabbed Kwan and I put Kwan in front of me Wan had been shot too he had been shot he bad you know yeah then the back femur and also his buttocks was completely kind of gone so he couldn't so I say you're wounded you got shrapnel on your back and he got shot in the leg like you got lieutenant Norris who's basically unconscious dying and now you got Kwan who he can't move himself he's in mobile as well correct and gang his leading point as you guys are paddle out and you're carrying both these other guys into the water so what I did I took Kwan and put his arms I'll put my arms underneath Kwan's arms and he yelled Tommy like this and I started breast stroking and two we got out past the range of their weapons and at that period of time i inflated coins like tank with a little bit then i actually tied his life jacket to my waist and i towed Kwan and swam with Tommy on my back here's again a typical I think this exemplifies that seal attitude right here this is you talking every time Tommy woke up it was Mike you got everyone I could only count four of us where's the other guy I'd say I got them I got everyone and then he drift off again then when he woke up but again it was Mike you got everyone do you have all of them and I'd say damn it Tommy I got them all okay they're accounted for but I just love the fact that you know you got a guy that's clearly close to death and when he does become conscious his number one concern is does he have his guys with him his troops and that's the way great leadership is sometimes they people surpass that because they you know but it goes back to the thing that you and I were talking about earlier you take care of your people your people will take care of you now you get out you know pass like you said pass the small arms fire and and again dang and Quan keep asking Mike what do we do what do we do and each time you said we swim we just keep swimming we'll swim south all the way to to enon if we have to that's correct and that's what you did you start you kept swimming and kept swimming and kept swimming and you're out there for three hours swimming and and just to put that into some perspective for people that have never swam in the open ocean before the longest swim that you do in seal training is five point five now nautical miles which is six point two statute regular land miles and that takes depending on the current depending on how good of your swimmer you are that's the longest swim that they actually make you do and that takes like three four sometimes five hours that's the longest one that they make you do and by the way they give you a little water break in between so here you are swimming this and you you're wounded shot the leg like I said you're dragging these other guys now luckily bill Woodruff and we talked about this earlier you have a bull he saved our life I mean Billy wouldn't give up on us he would not give up he kept looking for us and they and actually the Morgan thought they'd killed us all they thought and they never knew until several years ago that we were still whole hi no that's that's actually a great and again obviously I can't cover the whole book on the almond part on this show but get the book because there's dick couch did a great job of actually going out and talking to the people that were that were firing talking to people on the Morgan and you're right they they fired rounds and all of a sudden they didn't hear anything and they fired danger close rounds meaning like that we know are going to be very close to our friendly forces and then they never heard another word so their thought was you know horrible we must have hit our own guys and but luckily and any other thing that's interesting about Bill Woody Woodruff is the other lieutenant Vietnamese lieutenant had actually gotten out to them and told him hey this is what happened the lieutenant got killed Mike went to go get him and never came back that's what he got told so the word got back to woody and he called the Newport News and they went out with the navy blue that Tommy was dead and I was missing in action and they were still looking for Kwan and dying so ok so here's actually here we here here in the book and again dick couch did a great job getting back with all the all the guys that had were there or at least a lot of them and he's talking to - woody here bill Woodruff he says it was about 11:30 and I saw the Newport News begin to move off to the south then my junk skipper got a call from the other junk that was off to the north and slightly inshore from us we were about a half a mile apart so as to better search the area they said they had swimmers in the water and we're going to get them you can't know what that meant so there it is because bill stuck around and I have the greatest admiration and respect for Bill I'm glad that bill found us because bills will do a counter attack and then we had Ryan mccumby down in doing on getting a bunch of guy everybody else that was left to come and find us so that goes back to the things about taking care of your teammates you know and and and thank God they did find us because uh none of those guys would have made it because I mean they had over 600 bad guys up there so they you know you know sometimes you don't want to leave nobody behind but sometimes you got to take your losses too you know it was the two things and I've heard this from other seals from Vietnam to missions there's no question we're launching on is down pilot and seals in trouble we're going yep and that's what those guys that were instilling to me none were doing they were getting ready to go out there go home come they were coming after us you know and I hate to say it but I figured we'd the lost everybody trying to get in to get us so Tom just because like I said I had the gun in place was I had tanks in there we weren't the heavy duty guys but that goes back to even what we have today with you know like Eric Kristin trying to go in and losing the guys that you know we go we're going to go in and get our boys back out and you know and and and you know we passed the Pathan on back from where I am these these young men who serve us now I have the greatest admiration they're a lot smarter than I am because they begin you got these kids are going through training they'll all got college education but they're enlisted guys they just have to be in the teams and the training they do that's awesome oh yes way better than then I had it when I went through there there and they're very high standards great guys coming through so you guys now get back on board but obviously this isn't over yet because you got severely wounded especially Tommy Norris and you you actually told them bring the Newport News back because there's a correct there's the doctor I knew there was a doctor on board because it was a Navy Cruiser and they had a lieutenant commander on board and I called woody and I said we have four WIA and one critical and and they Newport News did turn around and we started steaming and our jock woody was on the other John our John got there first and we passed down a boats and chair then we passed down rigger than we put Tommy inside that and got him up there and I actually picked Tomi up out of it and carried him down because the thing was too wide to get through the hatch so I picked Tomi back up and carried him down and laid him on the gurney in the doctor's office and then I got called to the bridge to debrief the Admiral what was this is a again a great find by dick couch another another seal that that wrote the book another Vietnam seal and he found a guy named Chuck Zender and Chuck Zender was a corpsman on the USS Newport News and I'm not sure why why dick couch found him or how that worked but he's the guy that he found and he's talking about when you guys came on board and what was interesting was that a few months before actually a month earlier they'd had a turret explosion on the USS Newport News and it killed eleven killed eleven eleven and wounded 62 hmm and so they these the medical staff on that was they were kind of primed luckily they were used to they had just been through basically a horrible mass casualty drill and they were somewhat ready for it which you know again by the grace of God they were they had some recent experience with dealing with wounded and and so that's why they were ready for this and that's according to Chuck Zander this this corpsman and here's here's Chuck Zander talking when they came aboard they were pretty scruffy lot my job and handling casualties was triage I saw them first evaluated them and sent them on to a senior medical person corpsman or doctor for treatment I remember seeing this one American I couldn't believe his head wound his forehead was simply blown away I had two thoughts one it was a good thing he was in salt water or he'd have bled to death my second thought was this man will not be alive in the morning he went straight to dr. Falchi Rio for tiro who was waiting for him in surgery there was this big guy who was with him and he carried him from the fantail to the sickbay we had to force him to let go so we could treat him he wanted to go into surgery with him so that was you chosen obviously and he also said that when when they came out and said hey we need to check you out and you looked and he said no the Tommy comes first the rest of us can wait this is Chuck sender two talking again while we were treating the Vietnamese seals I kept my eye on the big American I finally got him to sit down so we could look him over I saw blood on his pant leg and I cut into his trouser I saw a bullet hole in his leg my eyes got big and I called another corpsman over to look at it I said we better treat that and the seal said something like yeah whatever he just didn't seem to care but he did care about the others and kept asking about them especially his lieutenant we knew he was a lieutenant because the other big American seal said he was he had no rank insignia on him so again your number-one priority is your teammates through it another person so you guys make it back the ship gets you back to land Tommy eventually gets casualty evacuation to the Philippines yeah I got on the radio and Ryan mccumbee and we medevac Tommy off by helicopter to Danang in Ryne flew down on a helicopter and he was waiting in Danang and Ryan stayed with Tommy than they sent a 141 because we knew we had our POWs Admiral Stockdale Budd day people like that out and so all the top doctors you know neurosurgeons all those guys were over there because they had already pulled in Vietnam with the exception of just general practitioners and by the time we got Tommy through the whole operation got him to the Philippines to Clarks it was almost nineteen hours long the medevac than his operation lasted a 19 and a half hours his first operation and they stayed in touch with us but I stayed on board the new portion used to the following day to take care of the Vietnamese spoke English but I spoke pretty I mean I very I was fluent in Vietnamese and so I stayed on there until we got them all patched up this is the doctor talking major Walter grand he's the neurosurgeon that they had to get this guy to get get Tommy Norris to in the Philippines Perth and he says when he arrived we took him directly into the o.r at the time general military battlefield protocol held that the patient needed to be needed to be or should be conscious going into surgery and I was surprised that someone with this serious of a head wound would be conscious and conversant fortunately he was he was still dressed in his operational gear which were blue jeans and a black t-shirt of some kind as I was conducting my initial examination I remember that he was conscious but but just barely I could tell he'd been through a lot then he seemed to come more alert and ask sir can you tell me about my men I know we got them all off the beach but can you tell me if they're okay still then it's it's the team's now they get done with the surgery that you're talking about little incredibly long surgery and here's the doctor talking again on removing the bandage and inspecting the wound we talked and I sensed that he didn't know that he no longer had a left eye I was reluctant to tell him as he had endured a great deal but he was a pretty tough fellow so I told him that we were unable to save his left eye he thought about it for a second and then said do you think they'll kick me out of the Navy because of that I said that I couldn't really answer that but I took it as a good sign that he still wanted to be a seal then the funny part it wasn't the eye as much as was the loss of the front Lobel part of his brain that was I actually don't think that's funny sir I don't think it is either so when you say that what do you mean that what was the you saying hey they're not gonna get you out of even though you've lost part of your brain yeah well I think that was a one of the that we talked about it because he wanted to stay in he he was already chosen to be a lieutenant commander at that period of time and of course he own medical hold that does get to stop and but Tommy would have been a great he'd have been a great Admiral I mean he really would have done us proud as of Ryan mccumby too and then a few other guys who didn't go up to the ranks of to the top but we've had some great leadership up there and Erik Olson bill McRaven gentleman Joe Kernan McGuire the Burke Allen I mean the way you look it I watched the team's grow from yes 0:04 was as high as you could go and still being the team's and now look isn't that looks like the thing and the guys and I just amaze me every time I look and read something or something how much I'm so proud of each one of these young men and who serve this great nation of ours yeah it's amazing again that the the attitude is just constant and you know I had this with my guys that got wounded that none of them wanted to go home they wanted to just stay yeah they ain't care if they just had to sit and stay in watch they want to stay with us in Iraq well you know I mean how proud all you guys were when we were there with Admiral Olson and you guys were receiving your awards and the Pentagon you know after Mikey Mansour and and you know you look at the geyser and job and those guys that you know of course he lost his life in a very basic operation and but you know even though when they they had the diversity against them they continued to strive to make their life better well Ryan job's the classic example he was blind in both eyes he was telling me he wanted he was already back in America and he's on the phone told me can I please come back to Iraq I want to be with the platoon yeah yeah and he goes in gets his college education it has a beautiful family and he's I remember there when I was able to put the Purple Heart on him down then Tommy and I were there with Admiral Lawson of course I was that pathetic where was that was that in the hospital no no he was at the Pentagon oh okay I think we had for you guys the Penguins and then we went down and he gave other from the team three we gave Colin green was there yeah yes the task unit bruiser awards ceremony at the Pentagon yeah we were all pretty surprised to be there doing that yeah but yeah Ryan job so you guys put the Purple Heart on him that God uh yeah he had the same attitude that year from Tommy Norris hey can I stay in can I be there maybe with the guys how much longer were you in Vietnam after that operation mmm that was October 31st and I came home on a break in November and then I came home for good and January so then then everybody left in March of 73 and woody and rest the guys they stayed there and they came back there's no final thing perks he and woody under Chamberlin and Harry Connor Cola and all those guys Brad bill Bradford and stuff so and that was the last sales of course then we got involved with Delta pretend you know with the Cambodia issue and all that kind of stuff and the Philippines and stuff like that you uh you talk about coming home here I'm going to the book coming back to the team this time was different from my first vietnam tour when you were labeled a one tour wonder which is by the way still what you get called in in this day and age you come home from your first deployment or even from my Thailand tour at SEAL team one you are not a made man until after your second combat rotation it was not so much respect from the team veterans as many of them had been on four or five combat rotations it had more to do with acceptance I was now one of them when guys like Gary Gallagher and Walt Gustav 'el and Doc cell came up to you and said nice job over there or good work getting your lieutenant back off that Beach it really meant something there was also getting to know my kid who thought I was some stranger which I was and getting reacquainted with my wife I've been gone more than I was at home since we were married and there was the absence of combat both the worrying of having to go in the field and in some ways missing the anticipation of getting ready to go on an operation and the rush that comes from combat I looked at all this as normal for any seal coming home but it was still an adjustment so you guys same stuff the guys go through now Delacorte brewing the same exact stuff guys go ahead and our spouses don't get enough credit for what they do I mean they raise our kids they families they take home you know stuff that we should be there to try to help them with but you know we have amazing spouses you know in the teams too and we have a lot better you know the first day I mentioned my wife they said where she did the Navy issue or no they done now we have a whole different outlook thank God and you know there are part of our lives and they shift make it better for all know the the military want all the military wives oh yeah what they do yeah they're raising the kids but they're also fixing water heaters and you know repair and plumbing and they're just doing everything in the house like I said stuff that that we're supposed to be doing if we're own home so they had to put up with all the BS with a man's taking a car in there trying and hell I'm not to change all they say you know don't try to pull that one or revise now going back to the book this is you talking I was notified in September that I would receive the Medal of Honor a lot goes through your mind when something like that is going to happen to you you try and play it down in your mind like it's no big deal but it really is a big deal everyone in uniform notice it's a big deal I felt humbled and undeserving and I swore that I was not going to change me well you know Mike thorn has always been a renegade and probably always will be a renegade and I wasn't gonna let it change me and so you know when I went back to get the medal they wouldn't let Tommy out of the hospital so I kidnapped kept him so Tommy was still recovering from the head and he was just oh well this is this is what a year later a year later and Tommy still I mean he's just going through all this and all the surgeries and everything else I mean Tommy you went through surgeries for six and a half years and still goes even now so you know it's unbelievable I mean so but they wouldn't let him out of the hospital go to your ceremony know so I said hey this is my I said I'll bring him back you know and they said no I said well I'm gonna get in trouble when I take him out so I kept him for four days but in my hotel never filled his name and everybody in the world's looking for it in the Surgeon General of the Navy which is a three store putting me on report and I had to go to Admirals Master does my first one you know Tony fratty who is the charlie platoon chief we used to we used to talk about Mike Thornton and we'd say you know just on random days we'd say hey you know what Mike Thornton's doing today whatever Mike Thornton wants to do today so you just smuggled him out of the hospital against orders went to went to admirals mast you talked a little bit about the ceremony here going back to the book we showed up at the White House for the ceremony then we were all taken in the Oval Office and I was presented with the medal I'll never forget President Nixon saying Mike what can I do for you and I said well mr. president you could break this medal in half and give the other half to this young man which was Tom Norris you were pointing to standing behind me because he saved my life too so again even even in the end there you are up you're looking out for your teammate all right all the way through we still look out for each other even today after 46 years never just it's a job that you never give up well the book like I said I mean we've covered a fraction of the book and it gives so much more detail it goes on to talk about the rest of your Navy career it goes on to talk about and and obviously it talks about Tommy Norris his career as a as the FBI agent by the way went into the FBI and was an undercover operative I mean just unbelievable unbelievable yep you got to get this book so that you can get the full details of what I'm talking about and you know the last thing I wanted to greet from the book is the citation from your Medal of Honor please don't they can go online and read it but the books called by Otterbein ladies and gentlemen and I tell ya I I never felt I deserved them that'll never fill I would deserve the medal but you know that I wear that with the honor of the men and women who served before me served with me and serve after me but a lot of people don't know we've lost to me and eight hundred fifty-three thousand people this great nation does enjoy our freedoms today and that's who we can never forget and freedom is not free and we must honor each and every one of them and they all deserve the medal was given their lives for this great nation of course Mikey Mansour like I said before what a great young man I knew Mikey and I feel for all our gold star families and because I've never knock on wood I've never lost a child but I've lost a lot of a lot of clothes great friends and I know what what part of they're going through but you know until you lose to a child of your own that you gods best you to give it's hard to people to understand but freedom is not free this written in blood as you know Chuck well yeah and you know I can't even fathom what it's like to lose a child I know uh you know it's I can't I can't even fathom and you know when I hear people throwing the word here all around you know I always I always say when I hear a lot of veterans say and that is the real heroes didn't come home agree with you but at least we did get them home and we still continue to try to get the ones the remains of the ones home well you know the like I said if you go and get this book you can you can read it you can learn a lot about these operations you can learn a lot about people and what people are capable of and what real sacrifice looks like and you know Mike again like everyone's gonna want to tell you and tells you all the time thank you for the service that you made for our country but as a seal I want to say thank you for setting the example that we followed and as a person and as a human being thank you for showing us that we're all capable of more than we thought and no matter how dire the circumstances no matter how many enemy forces are advancing no matter how many rounds they're firing at you know how many grenades they throw at you no matter how big the problems that you face in life never quit on yourself and never quit on each other very well put they're drunk Oh sir I think we've kept you here long enough well echo I'm sorry you didn't get a whole lot of speaking time there buddy now enjoying the list that's what echo does yeah you get the lucky job you just sit back and listen to awesome stories but thanks for coming on as my honor thank you for what you're doing and getting the word out to the public and because it's like I say freedom is not free ladies and gentlemen the freedom was written in blood and please don't take advantage of this you know give back to the ones that were given so much and I goes back to what you and I were talking about - I mean the the wives the children the sacrifices they make for their for their spouses to go overseas and keep this nation free and what's the organization that you have now it's called the Michael Lee Thornton found issues some that fund we give out money and I don't give out you know fifty thousand or a hundred thousand I give out ten thousand here five thousand there and and our met foundation basically or I'll give out 20,000 you know and just a couple examples one was a young marine came back he was a corporal they retired him of course it down it takes them be anywhere from nineteen months to two years to get into the VA he had these bad headaches but he'd have enough money to pay for us his co-payments I write a check to the MRI to the hospital I wrote right to check they do an MRI fund found out he had a brain aneurysm in was able to say the young man's life another one and we had a guy in special ops he was an Air Force Major Intel officer at JSOC and he was overseas his wife got don't know swith stage four cancer we put her in the Duke University I tried to save her life a friend of mine goes back to the day when we started cell team six in along which started JSOC in 1980 he was our chaplain he was a Catholic chaplain and he calls me said Mike I hear you had a great foundation I have a problem I said what is your problem I do our due diligence we were able to get their kids into this backed in this Christian school which all the kids there raised from the age of seven to ten or eleven I can't remember and there's three of them but they had spent their whole school time in there yeah but the father causes the coal payments we say I'd already built up to a like a hundred seven thousand dollars with the co-payments I paid for the kids to wish and wrote a check which was a little bit over eighteen thousand dollars you know for all and put them back in there but at least say he had a stable platform and everybody knew what was going on with the mother yeah all the teachers knew the kids and stuff like that and then at that period of time I go back and I make some phone calls to some good friends of mine in New York City and they took care of the over the hundred and seven thousand dollar co-payment so I put a bandaid on the problem and then I try to other but I mean call for fire support yeah fire so yeah but I mean I work with the the Navy SEAL foundation Navy SEAL Family Foundation the we work with to keep in our history of the museum was John Lee does a great job that we do up at Pebble Beach the Marine Corps law enforcement foundation which is the number one foundation in the nation to give or ninety-nine cents of every dollar raised and I give 97 cents of every dollar raised I do have one administrator I pay further so my wife and I can travel around and and take care of that but but there's some great foundations out there I just tell to make sure you do your due diligence on their foundations you just go online and check them out and they're fair a 4 star 5 star and find out but all the foundations I work with this gotta give at least 94 cents of every dollar race now too helpful for the calls where can they find your foundation just pull up the the Matt fund okay online and NDT yeah fund the the Matt bond or the Michael e thorne I put my name on it the buck stops with me is somebody's pouring fingers they only got one finger to point I'll take full responsibility of what I do so as I always have you know don't do and I have people like Bob Kerry congressman used to be a knight medal of honors on my board I have an admiral on my board I have a two really great businessmen on my board and I have supports of people all over the United States which help support their cause they said they used to give money to other foundations but they didn't like the what the money was being supported so they give me the and I and like I say we make sure we take care I mean if like somebody blows up the engine I was the engine having a bad month they got laid off and we pay for their rent but we write the check to the we don't give it to the person we give it to the complex or we give them to the hospital or we give it to the doctor so that way I know the money's going where it's supposed to be going so they can get the take care of there my problems well obviously your service isn't quite over yet you're still serving and still helping veterans and seals across the board and once again sir thank you for coming on it's been an honor knowing you it's been an honor talking to you and I look forward to talking to you again some well we will Jocko just keep doing what you're doing and echo keep them out of trouble yes sir thank you very much for having me on thank you all right we just took a technical break and Mike Thornton has left the building you know and went to go do what Mike Thornton does whatever you want which is pretty much whatever he wants yeah and it was awesome obviously come on agree and when Mike Thornton tells you don't read my citation you don't read the citation simple as that those no factor yes no factor at all yeah yeah but awesome having them on obviously and now we want to keep having people like Mike Thornton on the podcast yes if somebody wanted to help us have people on this podcast sure do you have any suggestions on how they could maybe lend to that effort no Charles the support sure oh yeah like basically that's what I'm saying a way to support yeah yeah of course here's the way and support yourself that's kind of thing you know what's good for the goose is good you know what I'm saying maybe origin we're in league with origin as you put it yes I do put it that way sure yeah so origin main so origin may main the state just so to be clear yes origin Mei Annie oh you mean ever like you might be like main ma and you know like the state the main one kind of kind of which makes sense by the way yeah the main one totally and so you know a lot of times like okay we'll take the keys that's how I first heard of origin by the way Biggie's like all these keys are dope checked it you know and of course you know but that technically is kind of a matter of opinion as far as like okay I'm gonna look at this game like okay no I'm because someone might like forward more than Chevy or whatever whatever yeah or the look especially with the keys like you know the the subtle difference is kind of you know it's to each their own kind of thing yeah I guess you're going just like full-on fashion realm here I don't go into attention I'm looking for functionality you probably could have guessed that yes so yeah and you look into it so the functionality part yes all that of course but when you see made in America this is like the epitome this is the that basically the defining situation so you know you know they'll be like they made in America but then you know it's closer or whatever you're saying stays close but then you say okay dang those are good shirts you know where do you get your blanks from or whatever now all we get them from you know somewhere other than America kind of thing know the cotton get the cotton from America that's what origin did that actual cotton yeah well why would you talk about functionality just kind of FYI yeah when you have a guy that's making the geese and therefore it's going to weave the material to make the keys with mm-hm he's gonna make material that is specifically the best to have for Aggie right that's a situation with origin that type of commitment yes that's why we're a league with origin yeah totally makes sense we're kind of we have that mindset over on this side it makes sense well so so yeah origin that that's the one I'm looking forward to Mikey mmm-hmm and I'm down four G's by the way mm-hmm but yeah so I'm looking forward to that one origin main oh RI GI n ma I and II mmm-hmm just to be clear just in case it's not just keys yeah you can get the hash guards I'm glad yeah and we're gonna be making everything there yeah we're gonna be making everything that everything that I utilize in my life yeah I'm gonna make it's like that so you're gonna kind of come out with almost like a life kit it's really what it is it's don't use the Reebok terminology bro that's reductive yeah this is because the Reebok calls it like the UFC fight kit okay but I didn't know not kidding like the word kit is a University where kid is a universal word yeah you concur with right but what did you call it the kid that's what I called it I guess so so you can call it's the Brits call it kit they call their OP dear like their web gear yeah they call it kit yeah which means that we also because we have interoperability with the Brits and with the Aussies sure so we also tend to call our gear kit so yes in fact you are correct if you were to say I'm gonna make all my kit there right the answer is yes but there's a fine line where people might think of the UFC fight kit which didn't go over real well when they first came out yeah and you know we're gonna let that be their thing for sure as far as it going well or not going well this one what would it be kind of like the diss the unofficial discipline equals freedom kit how about we just call it gear yeah we could just call it gear I guess that's my vote all right I don't rule the world well so if you want to call it kit on your side and I'll call it gear over here yeah let's do that you know that way you're comfortable I'm all about everyone being comfortable with what they're saying technically it'll be a kit with gear in it okay there's a traditional use of the word kit right right that's like hey okay you got like rival kids yeah I got a survival kit when I was sitting you know then it's got a compass and a whistle and a pair of matches in it what happens if you use both matches you're in trouble so that's a survival kit a whistle you just said whistle yeah yeah you know when you're a little kid you get lost in two ways what you supposed to blow on the whistle for a while nobody find you no not that I know what you doing Kawai would you got lost you just keep heading in one direction and in Genosha yeah or or up in the mountains so it's kind of they call it mauka and Makai mauka is Mountain Makai is ocean so that's kind of the directions yeah otherwise you just keep walking oh that's a good lesson for life to college in the mountains one time long story maybe some other time back to origin please another time so boom origin main all made in America rash guards geez all like it's nuts this is like yeah and by the way supplements there too yeah supplements urgent labs yeah yeah so you can find it all there yeah it's still and and we are going to make basically what we're talking about here chocolate supplements cuz again what do I specifically want I'm pretty particular let's make that thing yeah and and then we go forward the good part about that is to is you're kind of one of these guys you can rest assured you're not gonna have like this these weird extra things like I don't know you know hair dye or something like we will not be selling a hair dye yeah yeah or something like this so yeah that'll be good the good stuff for Jemaine calm yes also support yourself so on it I I'm not gonna go into my kettlebell situation again this time actually yesterday I worked out I didn't do kettlebells I did I saw somebody tweeted you that was it was like an article that said that those little golf yes squats but not don't baby yeah and and that was a funny article you know what the title was called something along the lines of I'm trying to make remember it exactly it was 14 ways to avoid being bigger no to remain a puny little weakling but actually puny I think no bleep do we've your word it'll do you yeah so apparently given number whatever number that was I'm gonna remain a puny little dweeb apparently here's the thing are those really goblet squats though cuz goblet squats no I know what you do you do that you basically do a front squat yeah double rack double rack yet cuz goblet is like cuz this is the form of the shape of God and that's how you hold it there it is but what if you use like a huge s kettlebell moving my metcon yeah that could work in fact I mean respect to the author that I forget who wrote it or whatever but it was a real subjective really yeah you know I think it was more of a Shok article kind of yeah you know you know but if you take penalties I look a serious directive out there trying to help people that have skinny knees proud of them baby look at you anyway I didn't really like the article on that level but for a laugh it was good and and factually here's the deal the kettlebells are legit yeah and they are God let's go out there let's cross religion but here's the thing there's a good point hey yeah I'll tell you what you know we're talking about what you what you used to you're good now what you're used to yeah yeah for some reason I hurt like my wrist or something yeah or I hurt something and I couldn't do back squats or front squats so I was do yeah I was maybe was my shoulder anyways I was doing goblet squats with the with my big kettlebell yeah which is 40 kilograms and I I had put on the schedule of what I was gonna do like 25 it was a bunch of losers I'm at con scenarios but the first number was 25 it was 25 20 15 oh the reps yeah yeah those are the rest 25 hurt yeah yeah I was bang because it's only it's only 88 pounds right that champion that should be pretty insignificant yeah but you really do when you do those goblet squats yeah you're using your whole body to keep that thing yeah yeah yeah yeah I think I'm used to it and I think that yeah and I got used to it in a pretty short period of time yeah that's what was cool yeah so on it calm you can get that kind of stuff there if you want the cool ones mmm I think and I don't know cuz then you know I haven't ventured out and I don't think I ever will venture out to go see where I can get other kettlebells from no need really because you can buy the regular ones or the adult ones and let's face it man you take enough pictures of the dope ones for your Instagram wherever you take pictures for and you kind of can't go back you can't mmm keep that invited yourself into a kettlebell corner exactly right anyway and you and your social media yeah have painted yourself into the yes corner which is not a bad thing necessarily on a.com slash chuckle that's where you get these painting myself into a corner with my social media I'm gonna wake up every day at 4:30 yeah you got a post-it guess what the other day I got home at three o'clock animal or I got I didn't get to sleep until like 1:30 yeah when I woke up in the morning I was really tired yeah and I was you know what am I gonna do I'm painting in the corner I had to say hey guys do it I'm I'm going back to sleep and I actually went back to sleep I told everyone - yeah see that's good though you took accountability though yeah like that's just lying which I don't support oh if you did it if I said if I woke up took a picture of my watch which I've had people say like I bet you just week oh did you ever sometimes just wake up in the morning take a picture you watch and you go back to sleep no actually I don't do that yeah it doesn't seem like you could ever bring yourself to do no well why would even want it you know didn't want to do that it's a horrible scenario it kind of defeats the purpose yeah the whole purpose so the other day woke up took a picture my watch and I was like I gotta go gotta to bed I'm too freaking tired I'm so in fact Abed but you didn't post it no no no you said I said active it I'm going back to bed god I'm sorry hold the line for me yeah I dig your copper for me actually that one time we got home cover and snooze you guys cover and get after that would be over here snoozing well hey that's the freedom part though yeah then you have the freedom to a man you gotta sometimes I mean you can't like um especially if you're working out and you don't you straight up don't get enough sleep I'm not saying you don't you don't but that's not what I'm saying right now but if you the proverb you you us when we don't get enough recovery uh-huh which sleep is recovery right that's not a good thing man so every once in a while you gotta exercise that restraint in the form of the freedom to sleep in yeah well I did it's part of life anyway on it also the whole painting yourself in the corner okay so I got this jump rope and it's like you know then I don't know how up-to-date you are on the new jump rope I know they're getting better there their dough and here's the thing if you just buy a regular jump rope like you'll see the difference and I mentioned that because I got a on it jump rope I told you about the time my neighbor taught me I do the crossover tie servers and that's what it really hit me like this is the dope jump rope so if you want to upgrade your jump rope boom on it that's the one in fact just go in there see what what up see what they have there a lot of good stuff a lot of good stuff also good way to support when we get this book by honour-bound Tom Norris Mike Thornton and dick couch when you get this book going our website joke about cast calm there's a book section top menu boom click on their books from podcast by episode by the way this episode 89 click through there I'll take you to Amazon you get your books there or even if you can do some other shopping if you're gonna buy a lawn more duct tape whatever click through there good way to support you know small little action just one little click through big reaction by way of support also subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already iTunes stitcher google play all these podcasting providing platforms and YouTube for the video versions of podcasts and excerpts and some other various little video things that's a good way to support also job where's the store it's called chocolate or chocolate or calm there are hats they're good hats trucker hats flex fit three colors weight flex fit they're flexing weight they don't have the little like thing in the back where you not yeah the snapback no I think they're flex fit they don't make trucker hats that are flex fit I don't think they do now oh okay pretty sure I'm fairly positive they're hit with their hats bass yeah and they're they're dope yeah I thought you're gonna bring me nine of them yeah yeah you didn't do that those that's a bummer John Bull has a store but Jocko has no hats there is a you know what there's this other kind of hat I think it's called like like an operator hat it's like real simple anyway I'm about you know doing that one too interesting in the event of you not being as into the trucker hat is maybe something else we'll see flex it as well that's my being and is flexpa cool is that good yeah flex fit has a purpose I just have never seen a trucker's hat flex fit yeah and I doubt I'm gonna see one now nah man it's the new stuff apparently but yeah some other stuff on there some shirts on there cool stuff Jocko even has a shirt that he designed which is cool layers if you will just I like the way you promote the shirt that has your picture on it you proud of that oh you know I'm not actually because I didn't wear that one you know I didn't want I didn't want my picture on there yeah actually that's true I got to give you that echo did not want to have an echo shirt because it doesn't demand edit yeah he told it she's called Jacko's door I got some pole yeah hey Charlie on store and I'm not saying to buy this shirt I'm not saying to buy a hat I'm saying go on the store chocolate or calm again if you like something get something good support also psychological warfare if you don't know what that is it's an album with tracks jaco tracks and these tracks help you get through moments of weakness in your campaign against weakness every once in a while when you wage these hard campaigns against weakness against your you know waking up early sticking to the diet workout all this stuff sometimes you get moments of fatigue sometimes even the strongest have their moments of fatigue that's affirmative so this I called you wore fur these tracks they're like little spots for those moments of fatigue get you through it no problem psychologically then you act boom so yeah that's a good one so if you're you know waking up early like I said you're waking up early you feel like hitting the snooze listen to psychological warfare one of those tracks on there I think it's called get up and get after it you will not hit the snooze good one you know that's it psychological will link anywhere iTunes where else Amazon music all these place where they sell mp3's good you can get him there yeah yeah this book that that we covered today by Mike Thornton by Tommy Norris and my dick couch you can get you gotta get this book it's a great book it's a great read and that's a good place to start so much more detail than I went over today when we just as I was walking out Mike and his wife and I was telling her that I was explaining to him that it's like the debrief I wanted since I was a thief or in the Navy yeah they wanted to know what happened I wanted the details well now we got him and those are some crazy details by the way yeah yeah it's crazy he's deep he's talking about how yeah you know my friend gets his like four head blown off or whatever you can see his brain all this stuff even in a movie that that'd be pretty graphic see even in a movie that be unbelievable yeah lucky bag oh that movie wasn't really realistic because the guy had his head blown off and he lived but that was a crazy part though right hate on that movie you know but yeah well it really happened oh so he's you know he has him his other guy he's shot by the way it is like and he's going you know through the ocean all this stuff and shrapnel in his back from that he threw back five times and then we're sitting here and he sees he's sitting right there that's the guy who really did that you know he's not I mean recent of course acting is cool in dope furro but that's not an actor that's a guy who really did it heavy but that's heavy yeah it's crazy so get the book read about it read the rest of the details that we barely even scratched the surface on also some other books you can get you need a book called extreme ownership it's about leadership yeah it teaches you how to lead sure it's a book that I wish I had when I was a young leader mm-hmm but I didn't have it I wasn't old enough to have written it and giving it back to myself yet yeah it doesn't work like that also we're speaking of being young using another book called the way of the warrior kid which is awesome because kids all over the place like parents now when I'm speaking somewhere they bring their kids yeah so I get to meet these kids yeah kids that are getting after it which is pretty awesome so way the warrior kid so many kids are like doing pull-ups now yes sir I was just gonna say my thing my daughter would be like she's bothering me dad dad I want to do pull-ups she doesn't want to go you don't get that from reading Cinderella Cinderella did not make her want to want to do that right well right I did tell her the story Cinderella last night coincidentally she poops about it don't know I didn't compel her to go do anything compel her to eat better no did it compel her to study hard no she just said it was beautiful okay so it compelled some thoughts of beauty yeah yeah but it didn't compel any change of direction in life no no action taken I'm going with way of the warrior kid yeah me too also discipline equals free freedom Field Manual mm-hmm is coming out that could compel you yeah to get after it yeah it could I check it out there's no books like it no and it's like I'm it's a manual that's a major part yeah you know how like when you listen you're like okay you know you kind of get a feel but there's nothing there's nothing about the manual it tells you what to do yeah and it also talks about some faults better in my head mm-hmm so is interesting you can get it appreciate it also origen main you already covered that which is good that is now us by the way we're partnered so when you start your jujitsu journey or if you're on your jujitsu journey check it out come and get it if you're on the path of getting after it mm-hmm do it with us at origin and also if you want to partner with us from a leadership perspective in your business our business Ashland front leadership consulting that's what we do me Lafe Babb and JP Danelle Dave Burke info at Ashkelon front com don't Google and look for Jocko speaking mmm because that's going to give you a speaker's agent that's going to charge you more money is there something called like a like a bureau or thinkers Bureau speakers agent that's all thank you okay and and there trying to provide a service they're trying to get they're trying to connect speakers with people that need speakers but we don't need anyone to connect us with people that need speakers you can go straight to Ashland front calm well so that's that also the muster September 14th and 15th in San Diego just to clarify the first three musters were based on the same material because we did it on the west on the east and then in the center of the country just to clarify now that now this muster muster for is a new material so it's different new approaches new stories it's not sold out yet but it will be so if you want to come register now extreme ownership calm and while you're waiting for the muster if you have a question for us you can ask that question on the interwebs we're there on the Twitter the Instagram and that's face ebo haha echo is that echo Charles and I am at Jocko willing also snapchat are you on there I am on there and I posted a snap so far one snap and it disappears after 24 hours yes so you can't I've got I'm still working to figure out like how I'm supposed to utilize this thing yeah so we'll continue working on that one yeah and that's it that's how you can get in touch with us and finally to anybody else that's out there who thinks maybe you're being overwhelmed or you think the deck is stacked against you or you think you can't go on anymore think about Mike Thornton and remember that you are capable of so much more as long as you never give up and keep getting after it so until next time this is echo and Jocko out

Channel: Jocko Podcast

Views: 362,587

Keywords: mike thornton, jocko podcast, jocko willink, vietnam, military, echo charles, flixpoint, navy seal

Id: qYrH5-gItiI

Length: 139min 3sec (8343 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 28 2017