566: Leading Through Chaos. Lessons From the Battle of Ramadi with The 1st of The 506th Band Of Brother. With General Ron Clark

0:00 [UNKNOWN]: This is Joker podcast number 566, for that Coach Charles and me, Joker willing. [UNKNOWN]: Good evening, I go. [UNKNOWN]: Good evening. [UNKNOWN]: Terrorist infested Ramadi in the wild west of Iraq is for US troops, the meanest place in the country. [UNKNOWN]: There is no better place to observe American troops and the fledgling Iraqi army in combat. [UNKNOWN]: They pack me off to camp Corregutor in eastern Ramadi with the first battalion, 506 infantry regiment, 101st Airborne Division. [UNKNOWN]: The 506th official motto is Kurahi, Cherokee for stands alone, but they're better known as the band of brothers. [UNKNOWN]: The sheer scale of violence in Ramadi is astounding, wrote AP's Todd Pittman after spending time with several units there.

0:46 [UNKNOWN]: One recent coalition tally of significant acts, roadside bombs, attacks, exchanges of fire, indicated that out of 43 significant acts reported in Iraq on a single day, 27 of those occurred in Ramadi and its vicinity. [UNKNOWN]: He wrote in a dispatch. [UNKNOWN]: As soon as we pulled into Keregidore, I opened the door of my Humvee, I heard the rattle of machine gun fire. [UNKNOWN]: an extremely affable Italian commander, Lieutenant Colonel Ron Clark welcomed us. [UNKNOWN]: He told us that if we were looking for action, we'd find it. [UNKNOWN]: Although firefights and other hostile action are routine, IEDs are the worst problem, he said.

1:29 [UNKNOWN]: IEDs were responsible for five of the six deaths his men have suffered since deploying in January. [UNKNOWN]: As of mid-May, the troops at Craigador had suffered 380 attacks from IEDs while finding and destroying 667 more. [UNKNOWN]: One day Clark's men found and dispatched 18 IEDs in a stretch of road that couldn't be seen from the observation posts he told us. [UNKNOWN]: The next day they returned and there were 18 more. [UNKNOWN]: then those are some quotes from an article from the Washington Examiner from June 19th, 2006, written by Michael Femento, that details some of the heroic work that was being done by the first of the 506 Bander Brothers in Eastern Ramadi.

2:20 [UNKNOWN]: I rack, led by then Colonel Ron Clark, also known as Task Force, Red Kurhi, and the Task Force was made up of soldiers from the first to 506, and a bunch of other army units that were attached. [UNKNOWN]: He had Anglical Marines, sailors from a CB battalion, and seals from my crew in Task into Bruser. [UNKNOWN]: And the Colonel, now General Clark, led that task force with impeccable professionalism, tenacity, courage, and care. [UNKNOWN]: And he united this disparate group into a powerful cohesive team, a true band of brothers that performed valiantly during some of the hardest sustained urban combat in the Iraq War.

3:07 [UNKNOWN]: He was, without question, one of the finest officers I ever witnessed or had the privilege of serving with, and reflective of that, it is no surprise that he is commanded at every level from rifle-patoon leader to company battalion brigade division to his current billet as the commander of U.S. Army Pacific, and it is an honor to have him with us here tonight to share some of his experiences and lessons learned, General Ron Clark. [UNKNOWN]: Commander of U.S. Army Pacific. [UNKNOWN]: Jako, thank you. [UNKNOWN]: Thanks for joining us, sir. [UNKNOWN]: That's good to be here. [UNKNOWN]: It's outstanding to see you. [UNKNOWN]: Good to see you again, my friend. [UNKNOWN]: Let's get it. [UNKNOWN]: Let's jump into just kind of how this all got started.

3:50 [UNKNOWN]: I forget with the number, but between you and your dad, first of all, you've never not been a part of the US Army. [UNKNOWN]: 60 years. [UNKNOWN]: So you're a dependent coming out of the womb. [UNKNOWN]: Yep. [UNKNOWN]: And then you win in while your dad was still active, duty. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, we served in the Army together for four years. [UNKNOWN]: that was nuts. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it was much better for him than me. [UNKNOWN]: And so your dad was an NCO. [UNKNOWN]: He doesn't want to list a guy. [UNKNOWN]: That's right. [UNKNOWN]: And what was a jump? [UNKNOWN]: What are you doing? [UNKNOWN]: He was a cook. [UNKNOWN]: He was a cook. [UNKNOWN]: He was a 92 golf which is food service specialist.

4:31 [UNKNOWN]: He would at joke all the time about how hard it was for my wife to initially understand the situation she had married herself into despite her having known me since I was 11 years old. [UNKNOWN]: So first time my parents come to visit, my dad goes to the refrigerator, starts asking hard questions like, hey, what's in that foil? [UNKNOWN]: What's the ambient temperature of this refrigerator? [UNKNOWN]: baking soda? [UNKNOWN]: How long has that been in here? [UNKNOWN]: And she's looking at me like what is happening right now? [UNKNOWN]: I don't know my man's at work. [UNKNOWN]: Let him cook. [UNKNOWN]: That's what I do now. [UNKNOWN]: It's let him have it.

5:12 [UNKNOWN]: There you go. [UNKNOWN]: It'll be fine. [UNKNOWN]: There's a, it makes such a huge impact, you know, being on, I did three deployments on Navy ships as in in sealed tombs and the difference when you have a good, a good, a galley where they're serving good food, it's night and day and it all comes down to the personalities that people that are doing it because if the people are giving the extra effort, you're going to have good food. [UNKNOWN]: If they're not, [UNKNOWN]: It ain't happening. [UNKNOWN]: And morale, oh, directly connected to the bellies. [UNKNOWN]: I know, down, down, down. [UNKNOWN]: And then what about your mom? [UNKNOWN]: Your mom was a teacher. [UNKNOWN]: She was a school teacher and then a principal and then an administrator in our hometown. [UNKNOWN]: OK. And so you moving around a bunch while you're growing up?

5:52 [UNKNOWN]: We did. [UNKNOWN]: We lived in, um, uh, [UNKNOWN]: Started out, born at Fort Mead, Maryland, Kimber Army Hospital. [UNKNOWN]: It was an awesome day for my parents. [UNKNOWN]: From there to Fort Dick's New Jersey, my dad deployed to Vietnam from there. [UNKNOWN]: Back, ended up at Fort Bliss, Texas through early years of elementary school from there to Germany. [UNKNOWN]: So we spent three years there and changed and then to Fort Paul, Louisiana, which is where I went through eighth grade through high school to my parents [UNKNOWN]: put some roots down in the community, even though my father was still, you know, servant and would serve for another eight years.

6:33 [UNKNOWN]: He decided at that point that, well, I guess another 12 years. [UNKNOWN]: He decided at that point that they were going to buy a house and put some roots down and let my mom, you know, get through her process of gaining a little tenure in the system and then they were going to move back there eventually in return. [UNKNOWN]: So you're going to, you're going to high school there. [UNKNOWN]: What are you into in your high school? [UNKNOWN]: I was an athlete, a pretty good student, I was baseball player. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so three year, Barcy athlete, playing baseball, and then I was team captain as a senior. [UNKNOWN]: Good teams, they were good enough that it kept us from playing other sports. [UNKNOWN]: So all the kids that played baseball for the most part played baseball only. [UNKNOWN]: because it was at a pretty good squad and that plus junior ROTC in high school, okay.

7:16 [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, came home first day freshman year with a uniform. [UNKNOWN]: My dad was like, what are you doing? [UNKNOWN]: So, like, I'm joining ROTC. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, they brought some kids over to the junior high, you know, they were all jazzed up with a bunch of, you know, awards and bells and whistles and chords and whatnot. [UNKNOWN]: And I was like, man, I want some of that. [UNKNOWN]: And they talked about what they did. [UNKNOWN]: So I joined ROTC as a freshman, without my parents' knowledge. [UNKNOWN]: Which they were cool with. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Learned some cities in shape, a little first day. [UNKNOWN]: He had been looking at her. [UNKNOWN]: So my freshman year, pretty good. [UNKNOWN]: Me and my dad helped me learn not to shine my shoes and shine my brass and to get it all tight. [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, press mean forms and all that business.

7:58 [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, at the end of the year, the ROTC program at this high school was so big. [UNKNOWN]: It was bigger than any of the graduating classes. [UNKNOWN]: So graduate class, about 250, the ROTC program was like 350 and so I mean, they didn't take everybody because it's kind of a, you know, it's a privilege to be able to stay around here and they have to continue to grow the pyramid, right? [UNKNOWN]: So you can't have as many sophomores as you have freshmen, you can't have as many juniors as you have sophomores in the singers or the top of this pyramid and you can just can't have that because you know how they made leadership positions. [UNKNOWN]: And so they would window down the program. [UNKNOWN]: And the guy who ran it was the guy who started it. [UNKNOWN]: He's a Lieutenant Colonel retired named Bob Freshley, phenomenal.

8:40 [UNKNOWN]: Set 47 kids to service academies. [UNKNOWN]: How that program? [UNKNOWN]: Over 150 kids to four year ROTC scholarships. [UNKNOWN]: So they knew what they were doing. [UNKNOWN]: They were kind of cultivating this culture of excellence. [UNKNOWN]: So you know, go in for my interview at my freshman year and I ain't so sure. [UNKNOWN]: that they're gonna let me stay, even though I've tried really hard to be, you know, excellent at all things. [UNKNOWN]: And they made me sweat a little bit, but I got to stay. [UNKNOWN]: They weren't so sure I had a career in uniform in me at the time. [UNKNOWN]: Were you thinking career in uniform? [UNKNOWN]: No, I was at the time, I just, it was a good class. [UNKNOWN]: I wanted to do my best, you know, I knew I was making a difference, making my parents proud.

9:21 [UNKNOWN]: I knew I was pretty good at it. [UNKNOWN]: Even as freshmen, so sophomore year, squat leader, junior year, [UNKNOWN]: Senior year I'm the head cadet. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, nice. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so at what point did you start thinking about Dirax will adult life career? [UNKNOWN]: junior gear. [UNKNOWN]: Went down to see recruiter again without my parents knowledge walking around. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, hey, getting some swag, you know, because they're going to give you some stuff that says be all you can be, it's posters and whatnot. [UNKNOWN]: And so it was all airborne and Ranger and special forces posters on the wall in my room. [UNKNOWN]: Kids wanted to grow up to be ball players and superheroes whatnot. [UNKNOWN]: I don't want to be a soldier. [UNKNOWN]: So I had great conversation with my dad.

10:01 [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, hey, I got a plan. [UNKNOWN]: And he goes, hmm. [UNKNOWN]: You know your mom and I've been saving up the nickels and quarters since before you were born to send you to college. [UNKNOWN]: And I have a younger sister, so it's two of us. [UNKNOWN]: She's four years younger. [UNKNOWN]: He goes, you're going to school. [UNKNOWN]: Like, well, you know, the army's got a college fund. [UNKNOWN]: Like, I got that, got that lift. [UNKNOWN]: You know, I got a plant in a paper college. [UNKNOWN]: Dad goes, no, you're going to be out there rocking and rolling in the army, getting after it. [UNKNOWN]: You're going to have time for that. [UNKNOWN]: And so, you know, I answer back as yeah, I will. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I looked at it, talked to the recruiter, he goes, hey, man. [UNKNOWN]: That dude's job is to get you and you know, get you in a contract.

10:45 [UNKNOWN]: There's what do you even want to be? [UNKNOWN]: Say 11 Bravo, one papaya with Victor option. [UNKNOWN]: Nick is. [UNKNOWN]: The 11 Bravo Paratrooper with an option to go to Render School in your initial contract, I go, oh yeah. [UNKNOWN]: And he goes, oh, which Ranger Battalion do you want to go to? [UNKNOWN]: And I was like, first, I say he goes, you know there's more than one, right? [UNKNOWN]: I said, yeah, but why would you want to go to second or third and then make any sense? [UNKNOWN]: He goes, that's about how much thought you've given us. [UNKNOWN]: There's a sit-in. [UNKNOWN]: So we talked and then he set up an office call for me with his boss, who's the Brigade Exo for Second Brigade Fifth Infantry Division at Fort Polk.

11:33 [UNKNOWN]: So I sit down with the Brigadix O, who's this larger than life, you know, amazing, you know, leader. [UNKNOWN]: He's got these huge hands and he's like telling me how he was a box and instructor at West Point, but he's an ROTC graduate and how, you know, if I had the right stuff that I should try to become an officer. [UNKNOWN]: And I said, okay, I'll do that because that way you can meet your parents requirement of going to college. [UNKNOWN]: and your own requirement of paying for it yourself because I didn't want my folks to pay for me to go to college because I mean they worked hard, they're public servants and we didn't have a lot of money. [UNKNOWN]: So I didn't want to burden them with anything past me turning 18.

12:16 [UNKNOWN]: So I applied a West Point based on that conversation. [UNKNOWN]: I get in early admission. [UNKNOWN]: So I only applied to two schools to college, West Point and the Air Force Academy. [UNKNOWN]: And so, and I got in a boat. [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, I didn't know how hard it was. [UNKNOWN]: And I'll just sign up because this major says to me, hey, you're the kid they're looking for. [UNKNOWN]: You know, you're varsity athlete, you're president of your class. [UNKNOWN]: You're a company commander in ROTC, you're the guy that the admissions department is looking for. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, sure. [UNKNOWN]: Sure, I am. [UNKNOWN]: Now I'm not thinking, you know, it is hard to get in. [UNKNOWN]: Oh yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Ah. [UNKNOWN]: Dad, plug got in. [UNKNOWN]: So no big deal.

12:56 [UNKNOWN]: Another kid in my class also applied and got in. [UNKNOWN]: So there's two of us from the two people from the high school that wanted to go to West Point, both got in and this can't be that hard. [UNKNOWN]: You're like 200% extra straight. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: What do you think? [UNKNOWN]: Because we guys concerned about it. [UNKNOWN]: So fast forward. [UNKNOWN]: I should hope at West Point. [UNKNOWN]: I've never even visited. [UNKNOWN]: Like, never spent a day on campus. [UNKNOWN]: Like, I didn't even talk to anybody who'd been there before. [UNKNOWN]: It's, so I show up, you know, on reception day, I flew up to New York on my own. [UNKNOWN]: My mom put me on plane. [UNKNOWN]: My dad was stationed in Germany at the time. [UNKNOWN]: So, put me on a plane, I arrived. [UNKNOWN]: My aunt picks me up, my mom's sister.

13:38 [UNKNOWN]: She drops him off two days later on our day. [UNKNOWN]: And so we're sitting there to bleachers and they're giving this little brief end. [UNKNOWN]: And then the cadets says, you have 90 seconds to say for a well to your family and then get over here in the line. [UNKNOWN]: And she goes, what is happening? [UNKNOWN]: And there you go. [UNKNOWN]: I don't know. [UNKNOWN]: Yes. [UNKNOWN]: Better look it out. [UNKNOWN]: Because we got like 90 seconds. [UNKNOWN]: Look it out. [UNKNOWN]: Go stand and line. [UNKNOWN]: And then, yeah, I tell you, once the parents all leave and they march you off, they say they'll be no speaking or talking from this point forward. [UNKNOWN]: So we get on a bus to go down to start in processing. [UNKNOWN]: As soon as we sit down, I say to the kids sitting next to me, Hey, I'm Ron from Louisiana.

14:21 [UNKNOWN]: Where are you from? [UNKNOWN]: He goes, Where are you supposed to be talking right now? [UNKNOWN]: And it's a stop talking back there. [UNKNOWN]: You're gonna say, okay, fine, yeah, whatever. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, the dude is 20 years old. [UNKNOWN]: He can't punch me in a face. [UNKNOWN]: They got rules, you know, whatever. [UNKNOWN]: So, fast forward, the end of our day where they've taught you how to march. [UNKNOWN]: They've given you, they've put you in uniforms. [UNKNOWN]: They've shaved your head. [UNKNOWN]: And now it's time to put on a parade by the end of the day for the parents, you know, family members. [UNKNOWN]: My aunt's still there. [UNKNOWN]: She's hanging out, you know, wanting to see how this thing turns out. [UNKNOWN]: And so this parade, this our day parade, is the only parade where they reverse height order the formation, so the short kids are in the front and the tall kids are in the back, so that the parents can see their kid.

15:11 [UNKNOWN]: So, needless to say, I'm standing in formation. [UNKNOWN]: I'm kind of going over in my head all the things that have happened to me today. [UNKNOWN]: People yelling at me, you know, marching me around, all right, you know how to march, I know how I wear uniform. [UNKNOWN]: It's not a big deal, you know, whether by Matt, I don't understand. [UNKNOWN]: And then I realized I haven't had any water. [UNKNOWN]: And they've been telling us all day drink water, drink water. [UNKNOWN]: I've been running from one place to another. [UNKNOWN]: I haven't done it to something like a little man. [UNKNOWN]: I'm gonna go get some water. [UNKNOWN]: So I take two steps to the rear, left face, exit the formation like supposed to, square the corners. [UNKNOWN]: Go inside this doorway inside of a, they come Sally ports, the openings in the barracks where they can at smartchout. [UNKNOWN]: So I go into the door, there's a water fountain in there and I'm sipping.

15:55 [UNKNOWN]: Oh my God, six, seniors are screaming at me and they're giving me face improvements. [UNKNOWN]: So I have to look at them in the face as they're screaming at me. [UNKNOWN]: And I don't understand why they're mad because I've done just doing what you told me. [UNKNOWN]: But again, it's not working out for me. [UNKNOWN]: And then the formation starts to move. [UNKNOWN]: The parade has started. [UNKNOWN]: And they are still giving me the business. [UNKNOWN]: So, this I get out there get out there so they basically throw me into the formation, but the short kids are all gone. [UNKNOWN]: I'm in the back, everybody's a head taller than me, everybody. [UNKNOWN]: So, one of my roommates from Cadet Bay strain was a basketball crew. [UNKNOWN]: This dude was, he was 6-10 and I'm just two rows in front of him.

16:38 [UNKNOWN]: five nine eight on a nine eight with a fri eight nine with a throw right so Literally everybody's that much tallered me and we march out there man and we get after it We come back. [UNKNOWN]: Well fast forward. [UNKNOWN]: I don't know 35 36 seven years. [UNKNOWN]: I keep her motor to four star [UNKNOWN]: One of the dudes in the picture found that photo that his parents took on our day of me, like, you know, a foot shorter than everybody else in that part of formation. [UNKNOWN]: He's like, hey, I found this picture of you. [UNKNOWN]: But I can't understand why you're in this part of the formation, it just doesn't make sense. [UNKNOWN]: I go, I got a story for you.

17:19 [UNKNOWN]: Now you know? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I was well hydrated, but I got the business. [UNKNOWN]: Like, right as we were going out. [UNKNOWN]: But that's kind of the story of my West Point experience. [UNKNOWN]: harsh open and shock for me initially because I didn't understand the environment. [UNKNOWN]: But man, what a great, just crucible for you academically, athletically, professionally to become an army officer, I mean, there's no better, there's no better proving ground for that. [UNKNOWN]: How long did it take you to kind of say to yourself, oh, I get this now. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, was it like day five? [UNKNOWN]: You're like, okay, I see what this is. [UNKNOWN]: This is this is a high school ROTC on steroids And I got to play this game.

18:00 [UNKNOWN]: I got to get these things right. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I had to help. [UNKNOWN]: I'd say it was probably the first week, but in the first couple of days, we're in the mess hall. [UNKNOWN]: Now, I don't know if we've ever been to West Point. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's like Hogwarts times six. [UNKNOWN]: And so, yeah, we're, new cadets, we're at the table, tan it at the table, supposed to combine your gaze to the table itself. [UNKNOWN]: We're not supposed to look around. [UNKNOWN]: And so they called all the first class cadets up to the poop deck. [UNKNOWN]: So all of the seniors that were running cadets, trained are all supposed to go to the spot, central spot. [UNKNOWN]: Something okay. [UNKNOWN]: Here's my chance. [UNKNOWN]: I've been wanting to look around this place the whole time and I can't and I'd never visit it before so it's all new.

18:41 [UNKNOWN]: Sit. [UNKNOWN]: Gazing around, you know, looking around, like, man, that's amazing. [UNKNOWN]: Flags, the mural. [UNKNOWN]: Look at all, it's stained glass, this is awesome. [UNKNOWN]: And then there's somebody right behind me. [UNKNOWN]: What are you doing? [UNKNOWN]: Sir, I am gazing around, you can go back and see that. [UNKNOWN]: What are you specifically looking at? [UNKNOWN]: on or code right, paintings on the wall. [UNKNOWN]: Any painting in particular? [UNKNOWN]: Yes sir, this one, that one, that one. [UNKNOWN]: Say goes, okay. [UNKNOWN]: Let's go take a closer look. [UNKNOWN]: And he marches me to within a bottle foot of this painting and then he goes closer, closer, closer.

19:28 [UNKNOWN]: So now my nose is touching the painting and he goes original oil or print, so it's an original oil, he goes, okay, how much do you think something like this costs? [UNKNOWN]: Is it sir, I do not know. [UNKNOWN]: That's one of your four responses. [UNKNOWN]: Yes sir, no sir, no excuse sir, sir. [UNKNOWN]: I do not know. [UNKNOWN]: He goes, ventric guess. [UNKNOWN]: Sir, I don't know because you think that maybe it's priceless Yes, sir It's it's probably priceless Here's where you from You're sir.

20:08 [UNKNOWN]: I'm from Louisiana more specific Sir, I'm from Lee'sville Louisiana because okay Lee'sville [UNKNOWN]: Don't you think that maybe in institution that can put priceless art in the FN Chow Hall can afford a plane ticket to send your country ass back to Lee's Villaleseana? [UNKNOWN]: Yes sir. [UNKNOWN]: Because there's 1,500 new cadets in here. [UNKNOWN]: You're the only one gazing around. [UNKNOWN]: play the game son or this ain't gonna last long. [UNKNOWN]: And so it marks me whenever my spot I'm like, oh, oh, oh. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, this is more serious than I originally thought it was.

20:49 [UNKNOWN]: I went through your officer candidate school in Pensacola, Florida. [UNKNOWN]: You know, run by Marine Corps General instructors. [UNKNOWN]: And the same thing, you got a squid that caught square in your meals. [UNKNOWN]: And you can only look straight ahead. [UNKNOWN]: You can't look down at your meal. [UNKNOWN]: He's got to look straight ahead. [UNKNOWN]: And so I'm just get down to the table. [UNKNOWN]: You know, it's the first meal. [UNKNOWN]: Maybe the second meal. [UNKNOWN]: And you know, I got some kind of like a chicken on my plate. [UNKNOWN]: I got it. [UNKNOWN]: Take a look at the chicken and I'm thinking of myself. [UNKNOWN]: There's no way that anyone can see, you know, there's no, there's no, I take the most minuscule glance down at my plate and everybody says, I might as well just like jump up and down and say, come and haze me because everybody saw it. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's wild. [UNKNOWN]: When everyone is doing one thing and one of these things is not like the other. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah, you stand out. [UNKNOWN]: Um, as far as, you know, [UNKNOWN]: When you look back, leadership lessons that you learned there, what do you really lean on from those days?

21:40 [UNKNOWN]: It's a number of things, and a lot of it has to do with accountability and responsibility in discipline. [UNKNOWN]: So academically, I was not... [UNKNOWN]: I was not prepared for the rigor of West Point in that everything was easy in high school, you know, at good, you know, ACTN SAT scores. [UNKNOWN]: So my mom's teacher, relatively easy business, right? [UNKNOWN]: So know the teacher, know the tests, she would say all the time. [UNKNOWN]: She would ask, do your best, okay? [UNKNOWN]: Do my best. [UNKNOWN]: Well, at West Point, they put, you know, 10 pounds of, you know, education in a fat pound bag. [UNKNOWN]: And it's intended to teach you to prioritize.

22:21 [UNKNOWN]: to understand that time is a valuable resource and you have to best use it on the things that are most important. [UNKNOWN]: So I didn't figure that out until my sophomore year at school. [UNKNOWN]: So academically, struggling, but a lot of that was because I was, you know, not focused on study. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, I was [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, socially I was very successful in terms of, you know, make it friends and, you know, sit, you know, get myself, you know, situated in terms of, you know, having folks that I could count on and, and building the relationships, but I wasn't doing the work. [UNKNOWN]: So I had an economics class, started sophomore year, instructor, range of qualified captain, you know, he's basically laying out, hey, here are the rules of the road.

23:02 [UNKNOWN]: One instructor over 15 students, which is most [UNKNOWN]: Most of the West Point classes are that way. [UNKNOWN]: Good student to instruct a ratio to be able to get the kind of individualized attention you need. [UNKNOWN]: And he said, okay, we're going to start each class with one of the cadets opening the class. [UNKNOWN]: so you'll go through the study for the evening and then you'll help summarize the lesson for your classmates the first day in class and we'll open each lesson with one of you doing that and that's your class participation grade so [UNKNOWN]: You know, here's how it goes. [UNKNOWN]: So it's, you know, just like a jump master, you watch me. [UNKNOWN]: So he opens the class and it was brilliant.

23:45 [UNKNOWN]: So okay, well, the next class, I had some project in another class that was more time consuming. [UNKNOWN]: So, I did not study economics that day. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: So, how'd Murphy's law work out for you? [UNKNOWN]: You know exactly how it all made every time. [UNKNOWN]: So, it's like, okay, could it Clark open the class for us? [UNKNOWN]: And that's it, sir. [UNKNOWN]: I'm unprepared. [UNKNOWN]: There he goes. [UNKNOWN]: Why? [UNKNOWN]: There's no excuse, sir, because don't give me that plead response, BS. [UNKNOWN]: Why are you not ready? [UNKNOWN]: Sir, I've some risk, I've studied for something else, and didn't apply the time I had to this, because all right, stay up to class.

24:29 [UNKNOWN]: Which, you know, okay? [UNKNOWN]: And then he asked a question, would anyone like to open the class for Cadet Clark all 14 hands go up and like, oh, buddy's good job. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: So after class he goes, hey, it's got a couple questions for you. [UNKNOWN]: One of them. [UNKNOWN]: Why are you here? [UNKNOWN]: Sir, I'm here to become a commission leader of character for the United States Army in the nation. [UNKNOWN]: He goes, don't give me that West Point mission BS man. [UNKNOWN]: Like, why are you here? [UNKNOWN]: Sir, I'm here to become an infantry officer. [UNKNOWN]: I'm going to be an infantry lieutenant, an infantry lieutenant. [UNKNOWN]: And it goes, would you show up for work unprepared as a bulletin leader?

25:12 [UNKNOWN]: I'm offended by the question. [UNKNOWN]: Absolutely not. [UNKNOWN]: He goes, how's this different? [UNKNOWN]: Like the task is homework for all your classes. [UNKNOWN]: Because if you don't do this, you'll never do that. [UNKNOWN]: So get to the business and I hear my mom's voice. [UNKNOWN]: You know, know the teacher, know the test. [UNKNOWN]: You know, do your best and school is your job. [UNKNOWN]: Do your job. [UNKNOWN]: So that was the lesson. [UNKNOWN]: School is your job, do your job. [UNKNOWN]: And from that day forward, my academic performance went up. [UNKNOWN]: My relationship with education improved immediately. [UNKNOWN]: And I ended up getting exactly what I earned.

25:55 [UNKNOWN]: I got my branch, I got my post of choice. [UNKNOWN]: and i got the right timeline going into the army because i had an opportunity to affect it early enough that it wasn't you know some situation i had to fall into something i was able to drive and you're making all this was a thousand people in every graduating class thousand yeah i have i've gone up and spoken at west point a few times and it's just you can feel there's a level of camaraderie there that's going to last a lifetime for sure [UNKNOWN]: Well, you all go into the same company together. [UNKNOWN]: And it's unlike the other service academies where they split. [UNKNOWN]: So in the Navy, some go in the Marine Corps, some go in the Navy. [UNKNOWN]: And Air Force, some go in Air Force, some go in the Space Force until such not a space force academy is created. [UNKNOWN]: In the Army, at West Point, we all go into the Army together.

26:39 [UNKNOWN]: So you'll have classmates with you. [UNKNOWN]: at every stop. [UNKNOWN]: So I always tell cadets, I've been up many, many times to talk to cadets and tell them all the time that what you do is a cadet that goes in eternity. [UNKNOWN]: You know what? [UNKNOWN]: What do you mean? [UNKNOWN]: You mean the negative. [UNKNOWN]: Oh yeah. [UNKNOWN]: It's like, who you are is who you are? [UNKNOWN]: So if you are not a good teammate, if you're a person that is not a serious human, and you do dumb things, that when you become the chief of the army, they'll be like, that is dumb. [UNKNOWN]: Well, that dude is not a good leader, yeah, he's terrible, didn't work with teammates. [UNKNOWN]: Oh man, let me tell you about the one time, you know, when we were at, you know, some place and things didn't go right in this guy.

27:25 [UNKNOWN]: was off, you know, off his rocker when he did X, Y, and Z. I mean, you don't outgrow it, because everybody is with you all the time. [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, one of my kids, and they were on their first day in college that the Dean of Steen stood up there and said, hey, and it's Duke University, so they form the number of the year they're supposed to graduate. [UNKNOWN]: So, for her, it was 2016. [UNKNOWN]: They spend all day putting these kids in white t-shirts and getting them into a [UNKNOWN]: a number and it's, you know, it's literally all day. [UNKNOWN]: It's like a concert wrapped in, you know, some welcome briefs and family stuff and then they get the picture.

28:05 [UNKNOWN]: And they say, some of you will not see each other this way again until graduation. [UNKNOWN]: So make some friends, you know, get to know each other because the next time you'll [UNKNOWN]: Like, I saw everybody, you know, two, two mandatory meals a day. [UNKNOWN]: The entire court gets for four years. [UNKNOWN]: And then you go out into the army with, you know, your mates, and you're, you can plan it. [UNKNOWN]: So you're kind of there together. [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, quick story, good friend of mine. [UNKNOWN]: We picked our branches together, we picked our posts together.

28:47 [UNKNOWN]: And we ended up being able to two leaders in the same company. [UNKNOWN]: You know, two of the three PLs are me and Carlos, right? [UNKNOWN]: And so, but we planned it like that and got it that way. [UNKNOWN]: So you can't run away from who you are, it echoes, you know, echoes. [UNKNOWN]: So what was your first assignment when you got done? [UNKNOWN]: Did you go to what schools did you get while you were, let me ask you that first. [UNKNOWN]: What schools did you go to when you were at the academy? [UNKNOWN]: I went to jungle school. [UNKNOWN]: Okay. [UNKNOWN]: Summer 86 down a Panama. [UNKNOWN]: That's some serious business. [UNKNOWN]: Black palm. [UNKNOWN]: Black palm. [UNKNOWN]: Poison dart tree frogs. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, shit. [UNKNOWN]: Vampire bats and haller monkeys. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it was, you know, the deal.

29:29 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it did. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it was 40. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, just trying to stay alive. [UNKNOWN]: Let alone try to learn how to fight. [UNKNOWN]: And then airborne school, summer 87. [UNKNOWN]: Nice. [UNKNOWN]: And then what's your first assignment you get done when you graduate? [UNKNOWN]: Germany. [UNKNOWN]: Third armor division. [UNKNOWN]: Boom. [UNKNOWN]: Five five cash. [UNKNOWN]: and that they put you right into a platoon. [UNKNOWN]: They did. [UNKNOWN]: Anyway, how's that for you? [UNKNOWN]: Ah, well, you know, Ranger School, and then the Bradley, oh, you think you went to Ranger School right now? [UNKNOWN]: Right away, yeah, it was a great story. [UNKNOWN]: So me and one of my roommates, he was off the Ford Orgler's first assignment. [UNKNOWN]: So we came up with this plan where the only two guys in our company that branched infantry is like 30 people in the company, guys and gals.

30:10 [UNKNOWN]: And so he and I had been in the same 3rd and 4th grade class at Fort Bliss Elementary played on the same P. We football team, you know, he was an O-lan man. [UNKNOWN]: I was a run-and-back. [UNKNOWN]: And so we're, you know, we're, it remains multiple times at school. [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, we both ran to infiltrating this like dude. [UNKNOWN]: 30 days leave after graduation. [UNKNOWN]: Like we don't need all that. [UNKNOWN]: Let's go to the first possible, it was IOBC back then named Dr. [UNKNOWN]: Officer Basin, of course, Bullock now. [UNKNOWN]: Let's go to first class they offer so that we can get in the first range of class and be tabbed up before Christmas. [UNKNOWN]: Let's do it. [UNKNOWN]: And you know you're like one hang nail away from that and not happening at any point in range of school.

30:53 [UNKNOWN]: So we wave leave like 11, 11 days leave, that's free. [UNKNOWN]: Like what's point gives that to you because they need you to get your mind right and decompress and not not. [UNKNOWN]: They'll give you 30 more if you want that too. [UNKNOWN]: So you can get up to 60 days leave back then upon graduation. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, no, we only need like. [UNKNOWN]: 19 here and we're getting down to four beginning right so we we get to betting we're in the same squad in the basic course you know shared department then we go to ranger school where range buddies in the course and so you know up and down but we make it three out of together heck yeah and then he goes off to California I still have to stay at betting and doing other school so I wasn't doing good math at all I mean I'm thinking I'm going to the line no you're not [UNKNOWN]: I get to Germany, what I didn't realize is because I cut down on the amount of weight time I'd have at Benning between courses and I didn't recycle anything.

31:49 [UNKNOWN]: I was in Germany at five months before my classmates. [UNKNOWN]: Six months, seven months before some of them because it took a while for me to get through other things work. [UNKNOWN]: So I show up, first day, my company commander says to me, [UNKNOWN]: I see that you're a West Point graduate. [UNKNOWN]: So yes, sir, I am. [UNKNOWN]: Because most of my best enemies are West Pointers. [UNKNOWN]: And I said, [UNKNOWN]: Thanks, sir. [UNKNOWN]: Hey, guys, that's all you got to say. [UNKNOWN]: I was like, well, I think I'll do okay here because all of my best enemies or West Pointers, I know a lot of them.

32:32 [UNKNOWN]: You got that, come on. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I got that. [UNKNOWN]: I was just gonna work out okay. [UNKNOWN]: And he bust out laughing, because you got good sense of humor. [UNKNOWN]: You're gonna work out okay here. [UNKNOWN]: I was like, okay, sir, thanks. [UNKNOWN]: His goop stairs. [UNKNOWN]: Meet your new Bulltune Sergeant. [UNKNOWN]: He's the acting Bulltune Sergeant. [UNKNOWN]: And tell me whether or not you want to keep him. [UNKNOWN]: Okay, so you're the third peat. [UNKNOWN]: They're built together. [UNKNOWN]: So I hustle up stairs, you know, walk into the little office. [UNKNOWN]: And when I walk in, this guy doesn't stand up. [UNKNOWN]: Is that okay? [UNKNOWN]: Starting your teens aren't? [UNKNOWN]: He goes for now. [UNKNOWN]: No surres, no nothing.

33:13 [UNKNOWN]: And he's chubby and he's got this big old outer regulation bushy mustache. [UNKNOWN]: And he goes, [UNKNOWN]: Well, you know, I'm between Sarn because everybody here's scared of me. [UNKNOWN]: The first Sarn, the Sarn major. [UNKNOWN]: Now, I'd met the CSM when I'd in processed. [UNKNOWN]: The CSM was two CIBs from, you know, two terms in Vietnam, CIBs. [UNKNOWN]: He gets scared of nothing. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, no, Brown star of Valor, 173 freaking be it now. [UNKNOWN]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, [UNKNOWN]: understanding it.

34:09 [UNKNOWN]: With your West Point experience, you can just judge an optimistic news in one minute. [UNKNOWN]: I said, deserve my dad's a master certain. [UNKNOWN]: If I was going to call him right now and say, what should I do? [UNKNOWN]: His response would be. [UNKNOWN]: fire that guy didn't stand up when I walked in room. [UNKNOWN]: Never dressed me as Sir Lieutenant, you know, out of, you know, out of regulations with the mustache and probably fat, you know, too fat. [UNKNOWN]: And he goes, okay, you passed the test. [UNKNOWN]: You know, your actual routine sardin is in route. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, I guess it's nuts. [UNKNOWN]: So Nupotune's aren't shows up. [UNKNOWN]: And so he and I go sit in the same office and you know, tall guy, you know, fit, you know, kind of rangey, cleanest witty kind of, [UNKNOWN]: kind of guy except he's from Louisiana he's from uh... coolie kini by you which is south obelusus you know no zip code kind of kind of situation where road runs out and uh... um... arcade day was the third the rage in cagin and he says to me lieutenant [UNKNOWN]: In this short period of time, I have determined that you the best I've done seen.

35:23 [UNKNOWN]: You the best lieutenant. [UNKNOWN]: I have ever seen you're going to shine. [UNKNOWN]: I said, I don't know what that means. [UNKNOWN]: You can go, oh, you're going to shine. [UNKNOWN]: I go, yeah, in the same words, don't don't understand what you're saying. [UNKNOWN]: He goes, I'm saying [UNKNOWN]: I'm just curious, like how many generals do you know? [UNKNOWN]: He goes none, but whatever that thing is they got you got it [UNKNOWN]: I don't think an old man. [UNKNOWN]: This is not going to go well, he's nuts.

36:05 [UNKNOWN]: So, so we go out to meet the bulltune and it's all, you know, it's like 1989 right now. [UNKNOWN]: This is 1989. [UNKNOWN]: This is February of 1989. [UNKNOWN]: So we go out meet the bulltune and he turns the bulltune over to me, you know, we're in this bay at the end of the hallway in the full, you know, World War II style barracks. [UNKNOWN]: And he goes, he goes, Lieutenant, the men are yours. [UNKNOWN]: And so I meet sleuths goes around. [UNKNOWN]: So I start my speech, you know, left shoulder forward, because I just graduated in range of school. [UNKNOWN]: Good morning, men. [UNKNOWN]: Walking forward, walking backwards. [UNKNOWN]: I'm Lieutenant Clark.

36:46 [UNKNOWN]: I'm your bulltune leader. [UNKNOWN]: About that same time, certain Davis comes back around, you know, the business end of the formation and goes, Lieutenant, I need to stop you right there. [UNKNOWN]: Okay. [UNKNOWN]: I've given the speech many times in my head for the last five years I've been preparing for this moment. [UNKNOWN]: And it never, ever at any point, has the opportunity to start stopping me after I say my name. [UNKNOWN]: And I'm, okay, he goes, I need to ask he's step back in the office for a second day. [UNKNOWN]: Something else, do I trust him? [UNKNOWN]: And then I realized, he told me I was gonna be general.

37:28 [UNKNOWN]: So, this can't be going that bad. [UNKNOWN]: So anyway, I do what he says, I go into the office. [UNKNOWN]: What I didn't realize is we had taken over Pultoon that had, [UNKNOWN]: five or six soldiers who were being chapter by the army and they were all in the last rank and so when I said standard ease they sat down there were some counters they like broke ranks and sat so when he walks around south of the formation he sees this and he's like oh no so he comes back around and he's yeah you need to stop you so he proceeds to do and grass drills with them and this can find space. [UNKNOWN]: Get up, get down, roll left, roll right, go! [UNKNOWN]: Stop, go!

38:08 [UNKNOWN]: The flood of cake! [UNKNOWN]: It was a mess. [UNKNOWN]: So for about 15 minutes, he sweated him up. [UNKNOWN]: And then came back and said, Sir, the minute ready for you now. [UNKNOWN]: So I come back out, start out right where I left off, good morning, man. [UNKNOWN]: I'm Lieutenant Clark. [UNKNOWN]: I am your new Baton leader. [UNKNOWN]: and the speech went much better that time but man he is he stayed with me the whole time I was a rifle peel and has been connected with me and my family our whole lives. [UNKNOWN]: I just talked to him last week. [UNKNOWN]: I talked to him about that once every couple of weeks. [UNKNOWN]: He'll send me some funny meme or joke or something. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, he had me crack and this is a couple of days ago.

38:51 [UNKNOWN]: I called him, I explained some problem to him, and, you know, what the, you know, wacky solution was it somebody came up with, and he said, you know, no, that sounds like to me, sir. [UNKNOWN]: That's like somebody's shit in their pants and deciding to change their shirt. [UNKNOWN]: And I said, I can't even breathe, I'm laughing so hard. [UNKNOWN]: But my whole adult life, he's been in it. [UNKNOWN]: ceremonies, you know, promotions, changes of command. [UNKNOWN]: He's been there for all of it, and he's been there since day one, just a great teammate. [UNKNOWN]: And he was right, apparently.

39:31 [UNKNOWN]: About one thing about that thing, a lot of things happen between that day and today, though. [UNKNOWN]: Good Lord, yes. [UNKNOWN]: So you do that, that rifle, two and a meter. [UNKNOWN]: And what did you do? [UNKNOWN]: Did you do a scalpel to the scalpel to the scalpel to the leader after that? [UNKNOWN]: So I think 16 months in a rifle, [UNKNOWN]: When did, uh, how about the first goal for? [UNKNOWN]: We deployed, uh, to, uh, Saudi Arabia and then, uh, Iraq. [UNKNOWN]: Was that when you were a scout, particularly? [UNKNOWN]: I scout PL. [UNKNOWN]: And how was that? [UNKNOWN]: It was good because you had, uh, you know, as a scout PL, you kind of have, it's a task force, uh, position. [UNKNOWN]: So you're, you're really working for the Battalion, um, three in the commander. [UNKNOWN]: So you have an opportunity to really shape how you train.

40:14 [UNKNOWN]: So I was really the first time I ever felt like I was in charge of something, [UNKNOWN]: on my own. [UNKNOWN]: But just before the ground board kicked off, I got injured. [UNKNOWN]: So I joined the tie-in after coming back from, you know, medical procedure while they were in a rack. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, okay. [UNKNOWN]: So yeah, I'd jump back into Mobile Tune after they'd done the 100 hours of marching towards, you know, victory there. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, you must be going crazy. [UNKNOWN]: It was nuts. [UNKNOWN]: But, you know, the whole point is, you know, how do you get yourself back into the fight instead of going in the opposite direction? [UNKNOWN]: And so, as luck would have it, I'm in the hospital at King Khalid Military City, and I'm trying to fly my way back.

40:59 [UNKNOWN]: I'm trying to go that way, and everybody else is coming this way. [UNKNOWN]: So I bump into a kid I went to high school with, who's a medic. [UNKNOWN]: And he goes, you know, I think we can get an FLA and get it, get it, go in that way. [UNKNOWN]: So let's do it. [UNKNOWN]: So I'd jump in an FLA with a guy I went to high school with, and we start making our way towards the war, where we made it to the division rear, and then went forward from there. [UNKNOWN]: So yeah, again, people in relationships, you know, kid sees me, he goes, hey man, it's good to see you. [UNKNOWN]: Good to see you too. [UNKNOWN]: Hey, nobody can get me right. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, let's go. [UNKNOWN]: So how was that did like what was your experience coming back from that or actually going into like so what did you do what was your pontoon doing? [UNKNOWN]: At that point, they were securing the check point that was between a rocking quaint.

41:47 [UNKNOWN]: So, going into it, just north of Saffron, so we're literally in a, basically a block in position, running a screen on the border to catch leakers and folks who were coming across. [UNKNOWN]: And so, you know, I'm out there doing that, and while I get back them on the tune, and they were like, oh my gosh, you know, [UNKNOWN]: We thought you were gone right now. [UNKNOWN]: No, let's go. [UNKNOWN]: So it was good. [UNKNOWN]: We spent the next six months, really. [UNKNOWN]: Screening that checkpoint and then escorting the Iraqi leadership to have the negotiations with you know, shorts cough and colmpile and all those folks. [UNKNOWN]: But it's kind of nice that you got real experience, though, as a young Paltoon commander.

42:27 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, there's still some hook an end you happen to be had when they got back. [UNKNOWN]: So yeah, it was good. [UNKNOWN]: And then what was the next time [UNKNOWN]: I've returned, our unit deactivated, so I returned to Benning, and you know, it's overfluttered with, you know, Lieutenant's who were, you know, short of the career course, you know, captains. [UNKNOWN]: And I was, you know, promotable to captain, but, you know, hadn't, hadn't pinned on yet. [UNKNOWN]: So it was one of those, hey, go find yourself a job. [UNKNOWN]: So I went out to the Ranger Training Brigade, and I spent the next two years at the Ranger School. [UNKNOWN]: That's a cadre. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Would you take away from that? [UNKNOWN]: You've got to, you see a lot when you're on the other side of that stuff. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it kept me in the army, is what did, because coming out of my first assignment, I wasn't so sure that this was, you know, for me, I'm married now, got to kid on the way.

43:15 [UNKNOWN]: I mean, you know, my mom, you know, for all the years as an army spouse wasn't so sure about me in an army mom. [UNKNOWN]: She's like, you should probably do something with your life. [UNKNOWN]: That's meaningful. [UNKNOWN]: And I'm like, I'm doing it, she goes in there now. [UNKNOWN]: he'd jump it out of airplanes, we're running around woods and whatnot. [UNKNOWN]: Need job with the office in a computer, like plenty of ants. [UNKNOWN]: It's by the only greenery in them like mom. [UNKNOWN]: I have a computer in them. [UNKNOWN]: I'm the, you know, Brigade S5. [UNKNOWN]: Yes, yes. [UNKNOWN]: I don't know what I'm talking about. [UNKNOWN]: But what I say, when I say it kept me in the army, it's because it's the first organization I'd ever served in where the leaders truly shared hardships with supportants.

43:57 [UNKNOWN]: I mean, everything was, this is what right looks like, I will lead the way, what I need you to do is meet my level of excellence. [UNKNOWN]: So I really enjoyed that opportunity. [UNKNOWN]: From the first minute I got there, it was like, hey, I'm not gonna ask you do anything, I won't do myself. [UNKNOWN]: So let's go. [UNKNOWN]: In my first company, the same company commander that had all these interesting things to say to me on day one. [UNKNOWN]: I never paid attention to his activities on a given day. [UNKNOWN]: I'm just trying to be a good teenager. [UNKNOWN]: And the other between leaders are also very good. [UNKNOWN]: They were newer than me, but they were very good. [UNKNOWN]: One being my, you know, classmate, best man in my wedding, Carlos.

44:42 [UNKNOWN]: And so, company first started phenomenal dude, he ended up being a Bataeng, Command Sergeant Major in 82nd. [UNKNOWN]: And so he schedules the company run on this guy's, like last couple of days in command. [UNKNOWN]: And so, okay, so the formal run, you know, now I'm in a pace, whatever it wants. [UNKNOWN]: So we start running after the end of the first mile. [UNKNOWN]: He starts to falter and he kind of turns and looks back at the three-loop tenets and he's got this kind of wild, like look of fear, you know, wild-eyed look of fear. [UNKNOWN]: He looks at the three of us and then he says to me take the company.

45:22 [UNKNOWN]: So, so I run up, you know, the three steps or whatever, I put my arm around him, I go, no, so this is your company. [UNKNOWN]: Slow down, we'll continue to run behind you. [UNKNOWN]: Because, okay, I'm running back to my spot. [UNKNOWN]: And Carlos says, you should, I would have followed you. [UNKNOWN]: And I said, that's why you didn't ask you. [UNKNOWN]: Come on, man. [UNKNOWN]: Anyway, we had some good leaders, but that was kind of the, that was in a nutshell, you know, my experience with that group of leaders. [UNKNOWN]: And so, going to the Ranger Trainer Brigade, [UNKNOWN]: and having a completely opposite environment where the leaders are like, hey, look, here's the task, here's the conditions, and here's the standard.

46:13 [UNKNOWN]: And this is what we're going to do, and I'm, oh, by the way, going to be in the front. [UNKNOWN]: you know, let's go. [UNKNOWN]: And so I, I just, if fundamentally changed the way I've viewed the army and, and it kept me in uniform, because I don't think I would a state if I had another experience like the first one back-to-back. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: And then, what, you had two years of that? [UNKNOWN]: Have that teaches me your school? [UNKNOWN]: Two years. [UNKNOWN]: And then what was on the staff? [UNKNOWN]: So I wasn't, you know, I was, you know, dressed up like an R.I. You do all the tasks with the students, but you're not at the grade patrols. [UNKNOWN]: Go on, go on it, go on it. [UNKNOWN]: So you do that for two years, what would you do next assignment? [UNKNOWN]: Well, I, okay. [UNKNOWN]: 25th victory division. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, nice. [UNKNOWN]: Got a lightning. [UNKNOWN]: Nice. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: And what'd you roll into for your first job out there?

46:54 [UNKNOWN]: I was a staff officer at division, working in the G3. [UNKNOWN]: It was good because you get a good understanding of things. [UNKNOWN]: Over the course of, you know, about a year in that job. [UNKNOWN]: And then I bounced out of there to Brigade. [UNKNOWN]: So I was the Brigade agent for a year, or for six months, and then I went down in a company command. [UNKNOWN]: Uh, probably one, two, seven infantry, Borsai. [UNKNOWN]: Get some. [UNKNOWN]: Yep. [UNKNOWN]: That was so good. [UNKNOWN]: It's the first job I ever had in the Army that I knew what to do on day one. [UNKNOWN]: It's like I have a plan and we're going to execute it violently. [UNKNOWN]: What was your mission, Michael? [UNKNOWN]: What were you guys doing? [UNKNOWN]: We were a light infantry company. [UNKNOWN]: in a light infantry brigade in a light infantry division. [UNKNOWN]: So it was all, you know, really closing with any of me by means of fire maneuvering.

47:37 [UNKNOWN]: Do you guys just get racked up what's just doing exercises and training exercises? [UNKNOWN]: That was it. [UNKNOWN]: Do you deploy anywhere? [UNKNOWN]: Do you go work with other countries and whatnot? [UNKNOWN]: We did across the region series of exercises that we now strained together for operation pathways back then. [UNKNOWN]: It was all bespoke exercises, but we would go [UNKNOWN]: you know doing co-weather training with the Japanese and you get better and you build that camaraderie with them so that you know, should you have to go to Christ's or conflict again? [UNKNOWN]: It's not the first time you've encountered one another, but we did a bunch of exercises, Cobra Gold and Tile and... [UNKNOWN]: we did north wind and orange shield in Japan because it will found to have a connection to Japan so they leveraged that in the training you know pipeline of things.

48:24 [UNKNOWN]: So, a bunch of time in the Pacific theater exercise. [UNKNOWN]: any major lessons learned to talk away from that company command? [UNKNOWN]: Sure. [UNKNOWN]: The things that we know are important like just being tough, being disciplined, that is part of the timeless [UNKNOWN]: nature of what we do. [UNKNOWN]: So the company I inherited did not have the silver streamer for physical fitness excellence which the streamer is just you know on your company guide on you have like the streamer and it says for physical fitness excellence that's silver, blue lettering and every infantry company in the division had one but us we were [UNKNOWN]: And so I asked the question, I'm like, why don't we have a streamer like, oh, sir?

49:13 [UNKNOWN]: You know, we are PT sucks. [UNKNOWN]: And I'm like, how's our PT suck? [UNKNOWN]: You know, we're on the same brigade. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, I don't understand. [UNKNOWN]: You know, it's tested as standards, you know, stuff's like, oh, you know, we don't have any ownership like at the squat and bulltune level. [UNKNOWN]: It's all like company stuff. [UNKNOWN]: And I was like, okay, cool. [UNKNOWN]: Then what we'll do is we'll do two days of company PT, two days of bulltune PT, and one day of company PT that's all [UNKNOWN]: I know, by the way, anybody that can beat me on the APFT gets my parking space, let's go. [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, back then, could get up and get down. [UNKNOWN]: So, yeah, no one parked in my space for the entire time, I was coming to Commander.

49:54 [UNKNOWN]: But we went from not having a streamer to having the highest P.T. [UNKNOWN]: average in division, but part of that was because we just made it hard, you know, take the easy out of this thing. [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, you sit down with your soldiers and you go, okay, what's on your mind? [UNKNOWN]: And that answer back is like, hey, we got all these rules. [UNKNOWN]: I go like, what do you mean? [UNKNOWN]: Like, it's SOPs. [UNKNOWN]: Like, we can only take one pound of, you know, lickies and chewies to the field. [UNKNOWN]: Why? [UNKNOWN]: We don't know. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, well, it's about soldiers load and you don't want them carrying a whole bunch of stuff. [UNKNOWN]: You grow a man. [UNKNOWN]: You can carry as much as you can carry. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, if you want to take a bag of Doritos that feel with it and a two-liter coke, go for it.

50:34 [UNKNOWN]: probably wouldn't do that, but have it, you know, let's go. [UNKNOWN]: So I'm like, that rule is now this, you know, gone. [UNKNOWN]: And it kids are like, yeah, so they, you know, they load up for the first, uh, feel problem. [UNKNOWN]: And we're gonna, it's just, you know, we're alert marshal the symbol on a Monday to precombat inspections and checks. [UNKNOWN]: And then we go to field, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, come home on Friday or cover and then go in the weekend. [UNKNOWN]: So, we start, you know, the morning formation, everybody's got rocks, we're all ready to go and there's no trucks. [UNKNOWN]: They ain't gonna be any trucks.

51:17 [UNKNOWN]: I'm walking to the field, which you can do in Hawaii. [UNKNOWN]: And so it's like, all right, cool. [UNKNOWN]: So we start walking. [UNKNOWN]: Only we're not going into the direction of the training area. [UNKNOWN]: We're going in the opposite direction, because we're going to put a 12 mile around the front of this, going into the field, because when you get there, you gotta be able to fight. [UNKNOWN]: It's not one of these, you know, hey, we're gonna do a 12 mile for a second to a 12 mile. [UNKNOWN]: So we take off. [UNKNOWN]: The first time we stop to do a water check, water break, whatever, that dudes check their socks. [UNKNOWN]: First, certain has a couple of them 55 gallon trash, you know, bends with the bag in it. [UNKNOWN]: And he goes, he's a big Simone guy. [UNKNOWN]: Sam, Martin, Lupay. [UNKNOWN]: Tao Tao Lassu, him, Martin, Lupay, big Simone guy.

52:00 [UNKNOWN]: That's where he comes up, big Simone guy, he goes, hey, anybody wants to throw any of that shit away. [UNKNOWN]: I got a can over here for you. [UNKNOWN]: Oh man, it was Benny Weenys and cans of denny more soup and two liter bottles of soda and you know, a package of pound, snicker bars, so he brought stuff in two big old bands and he had him take it back to the company and and then we kept marching. [UNKNOWN]: We get to feel to the feel problem. [UNKNOWN]: We walk back. [UNKNOWN]: So now you get to decide what you're going to take, but it's a discipline issue, right? [UNKNOWN]: You're going to, you had dudes who at like the next time were cutting their immories.

52:44 [UNKNOWN]: taking out the stuff they didn't want. [UNKNOWN]: And then taping up, taking the cardboard out, because that's like too much weed. [UNKNOWN]: So you can get to the standard that you can want guys to be disciplined and doing this the right way, but there's a way to do it that it's their choice, their decision, and they're making the grown-up, kind of decision calculus associated with the things you have to do because you can't be I am teen with it. [UNKNOWN]: You know, two-liter bottle. [UNKNOWN]: Mountain Dew? [UNKNOWN]: I mean, I love you, but that ain't gonna work. [UNKNOWN]: So, all those lessons about being fit discipline-emotivated, you know, leading from the front, all that stuff you learn all along the way. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, those lessons as a company commander were so good because that group of young men, five of them became kernels.

53:35 [UNKNOWN]: One of their kernels was a corporal. [UNKNOWN]: And he's still in the army. [UNKNOWN]: He ain't out of the road. [UNKNOWN]: Two guys in the company still in the army. [UNKNOWN]: I actually officiate his retirement second week of December. [UNKNOWN]: Nice. [UNKNOWN]: Which then makes me the only guy. [UNKNOWN]: But then they were nine certain major out of that company. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, those cats were getting it and they were strong and they were fit. [UNKNOWN]: And they're motivated and I still stay in touch with them. [UNKNOWN]: Actually three guys came to Hawaii on vacation and we had them over to the house big big who hot forum. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you get so much DNA, but in a sealed team, you get so much DNA from your first platoon and what is your first platoon chief like and you know later later on in my career when I was in charge of training and I'd meet some guy that was a platoon chief for the first time and he's kicking ass and I go, hey who's your first platoon chief and they tell me?

54:20 [UNKNOWN]: You could see it like you could see. [UNKNOWN]: And then occasionally you get the guy that was not doing good, who's your first platoon chief? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you might want to take a look around maybe look for some some other role models because they're out there, but it leaves a huge mark and you can see that that DNA kind of kind of Decemidates throughout people's careers and you can track it. [UNKNOWN]: It's pretty awesome. [UNKNOWN]: Do you remember so now we got you got what two two tours as a cartoon commander and now a company can Did you do you remember any Tragic mistakes that you made or anything along the way where you said, well, we shouldn't get a redo on that one. [UNKNOWN]: a lot of stories about Carlos. [UNKNOWN]: Well, my man was good. [UNKNOWN]: He was a best lieutenant Arbidane.

55:02 [UNKNOWN]: So our company had three cartoons at qualified first time on Bradley Table 12. [UNKNOWN]: And that's when they first started the cartoon battle table for Bradley's. [UNKNOWN]: And so Carlos's cartoon was at first one to qualify, first run. [UNKNOWN]: Really good, but to insert and he was excellent. [UNKNOWN]: And so because all of our cartoons qualified on this, we were able to [UNKNOWN]: secure this combined arms live fire and graphivir and it was with all the stuff. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, 1, 5, 5, you know, echelon and fires, the 105 to 81s to, you know, just getting it. [UNKNOWN]: And there's this, this obstacle that we're supposed to breach as a company and then attack on to, you know, this, this objective.

55:43 [UNKNOWN]: And so, [UNKNOWN]: There's a signal for, you know, the sport by far to open up. [UNKNOWN]: That's, that's, that's, that's second button. [UNKNOWN]: They have the sport by far and then they're going to attack through and secure near side. [UNKNOWN]: And then Carlos just pertains to main effort. [UNKNOWN]: They secure, you know, the backside of the breach. [UNKNOWN]: My opportunity is supposed to cure, secure the breach, and then join the company later. [UNKNOWN]: So I'm going to, a supporting effort. [UNKNOWN]: Well, everything kicks off, you know, spotty comms, I could expect. [UNKNOWN]: but you've got a pace plan, primary alternate contingency emergency. [UNKNOWN]: So green star cluster means that the armor vehicle launch bridge, AVLB is in. [UNKNOWN]: So now we can get across the gap.

56:26 [UNKNOWN]: Well, they fired green star cluster. [UNKNOWN]: We leave our assault position. [UNKNOWN]: So it's four Bradley's across this open ground and we are hauling. [UNKNOWN]: We've got smoked generators going on the first Bradley and we are getting it. [UNKNOWN]: I look over, I see something moving in my left. [UNKNOWN]: It's the bridge. [UNKNOWN]: They put up the wrong start cluster. [UNKNOWN]: So they are behind me. [UNKNOWN]: Ooh. [UNKNOWN]: Now I'm screaming towards this gap and I can't, there's no bridge. [UNKNOWN]: So I say to my driver, Floyd Ellison, do you think we can make it across the think ditch? [UNKNOWN]: And he goes, I reckon so. [UNKNOWN]: Oh man.

57:06 [UNKNOWN]: Kid from Oklahoma. [UNKNOWN]: I reckon so. [UNKNOWN]: So he punches it. [UNKNOWN]: And the Bradley is going about as fast as it can go. [UNKNOWN]: I don't know how fast we're going. [UNKNOWN]: Game everybody inside. [UNKNOWN]: Brace for impact. [UNKNOWN]: So we jump the tank ditch. [UNKNOWN]: About the time I get airborne. [UNKNOWN]: I hear Muppetoon starting. [UNKNOWN]: NOOO! [UNKNOWN]: So we, we make it to the far side. [UNKNOWN]: Oh. [UNKNOWN]: Let's not across. [UNKNOWN]: So now I'm in the tank, I don't call it a tank trap for nothing. [UNKNOWN]: Nothing. [UNKNOWN]: I'm in it from Trim Vander ramp. [UNKNOWN]: Everybody inside's okay. [UNKNOWN]: Oh man. [UNKNOWN]: So we fire, fire smoke, call for more smoke.

57:51 [UNKNOWN]: Tune Sardon says, hey, get off your vehicle. [UNKNOWN]: Y'all's to me. [UNKNOWN]: So I see, he's off his vehicle. [UNKNOWN]: He's grabbing the toe cable off the back of my Bradley, and then we grab the one off of his Bradley. [UNKNOWN]: He crosses the toe cables from his Bradley to mine, and he snatches me out of the tank ditch. [UNKNOWN]: Look at that. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: So by the time I get out of the ditch, we unhook the cables, the bridge is in. [UNKNOWN]: DJ Splatoon attacks through Carlisce Splatoon attacks through victory. [UNKNOWN]: So I think, you know, yeah, except I'm the lieutenant, tried to take it. [UNKNOWN]: So now we're at the AR.

58:32 [UNKNOWN]: What I don't realize is I knew the Batang commander was there, but so's the brigade commander division commander. [UNKNOWN]: So two star up on the hill watching this whole thing. [UNKNOWN]: And so we sit down, you know, the S3 is going through that. [UNKNOWN]: OK. [UNKNOWN]: uh... let's talk about what happened let's talk about what was supposed to happen and the division commander and repsy goes hey before we get started i got to know who tried to jump that take it and that's the response people are laughing and i go serves me doops that has a little bit of an exact like how generally himself he goes he goes why uh... it's a well sir that the bridge wasn't it i mean had to do something and he goes [UNKNOWN]: That's the spirit of the attack.

59:19 [UNKNOWN]: That is a lawns, the spirit of the cavalry. [UNKNOWN]: That's exactly what we want to train into our new tenants. [UNKNOWN]: Coin of excellence. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: So, dudes are looking at me like, are you kidding me? [UNKNOWN]: I got along that kid, I saw I could save him and we'll take it, we'll take it, yeah, and twice on Sunday. [UNKNOWN]: So, if you're asking me if there's some things I wish I could take back, yeah, I don't want to jump that tank this again. [UNKNOWN]: How is dumb? [UNKNOWN]: Even, even, even, even against the spirit of the cavalry. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, I know. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that was not good. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I got skidded on that when a couple times, but... [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's that's one for sure. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's a kind of move that earned your nickname if you're not careful Yeah, that's a call sign maker. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's a call sign maker for sure And the other one was when I was a major.

1:00:03 [UNKNOWN]: I was in the off-road battalion at the joint rent is training center and You know our our tack had been in the box for six days and we end up coming into contact You know, we got discovered so we're fighting so it's a tank mander [UNKNOWN]: the three, the two, and the alpha company commander happened to be there for somebody. [UNKNOWN]: There's four officers out there, hookin' and jabin', you know, with their long rifles, and maneuverin' against the hundred first, right? [UNKNOWN]: So, and so we decided to get aggressive, like, yeah, we think she do. [UNKNOWN]: As the three, I'm like, hey, I think we go try and find their talk and roll it up, let's go. [UNKNOWN]: So, yeah, so we start moving, oh no, we walked into a rifle company that was sitting in like a ORP.

1:00:49 [UNKNOWN]: And of course, you know, at the time, because it's a small community and that observer control is OCs and the opt for, and everybody, we're all living the same neighborhoods. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, our kids go to school together, we're all there together, it's small. [UNKNOWN]: And it's my, also my hometown. [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, I know more people I'm supposed to. [UNKNOWN]: And more people know me than they're supposed to. [UNKNOWN]: We're gets out that I've been killed in the box that Doron Mo3 call signed Wampuscat has been killed in the box. [UNKNOWN]: So, oh man, so I go, you know, we get picked up by White Cross. [UNKNOWN]: I go sign in the dead book in the bataine headquarters, and then I go home.

1:01:30 [UNKNOWN]: I'm at home, I'm beaten dinner. [UNKNOWN]: The kids had some kind of program at the school that night. [UNKNOWN]: And at the time, my son is maybe in the fourth grade. [UNKNOWN]: He walks in and he goes, ah, man, first it sees me goes, ah, man, it's true. [UNKNOWN]: I have like, what? [UNKNOWN]: He goes, you know, people were saying to night at school that you had gotten rolled up. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, what's that? [UNKNOWN]: And I said, no, they're never gonna get won't this get, never, he's like, they were right. [UNKNOWN]: you got rolled up so when you're eight year old is telling you you got rolled up because you tried to be bold and audacious yeah that's things yeah and so my six year old she walks by she's shaking her head like oh man the fan is shaking that sucks man you were the man now you're [UNKNOWN]: Um, you get done with company command, and it's time for what you become the aid.

1:02:39 [UNKNOWN]: How was the aid to the Commanding Journal of the 25th Infantry Division? [UNKNOWN]: Dang. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Big time job. [UNKNOWN]: How long did you have that tour for? [UNKNOWN]: A year. [UNKNOWN]: How was that? [UNKNOWN]: It's good, because I've been in division three years by the time I took that job. [UNKNOWN]: So new everybody and new all the things. [UNKNOWN]: And so you're able to help the boss navigate things and know like down to the, you know, down to the level of the street what's really going on. [UNKNOWN]: And you still know everybody who's down there doing it, so it's helpful. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, no, that's, I was able to, I came back from my rack. [UNKNOWN]: My first deployment as aatoon commander. [UNKNOWN]: And like, that's exactly what, you know, my, my commanding officer at Seal Team 7 was like, you're going to go be the aid. [UNKNOWN]: And I said, well, no, sir, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm Jockel.

1:03:21 [UNKNOWN]: I'm the prior and listed operational guy. [UNKNOWN]: I'm going to be, and he's like, you're going to be the aid. [UNKNOWN]: So, yeah, but that's exactly why. [UNKNOWN]: Because I could tell the boss what was going on in Iraq. [UNKNOWN]: Well, it was like, what was happening? [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, given the ground truth and also get the, try to explain to the boys what's going on. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, let me tell you what it's like up there with these all these stars running around every little dumb move that we make gets seen by everybody, you know, then the Navy we have that one little element these guys these these seals like we mess something up man everybody the Navy knows about it so it's good lessons learned for me. [UNKNOWN]: No doubt. [UNKNOWN]: Uh, and then and then what you're up for your objects. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, tour. [UNKNOWN]: No, I went to back to our human resources command to be in a Simon officer.

1:04:05 [UNKNOWN]: Oh, dang. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so a detailer. [UNKNOWN]: Okay, basically. [UNKNOWN]: Hard job because you know, you're working with your peers, you know, trying to get them into the right assignments, take care of their families. [UNKNOWN]: You take a ruck sick full of people and, you know, friends home every night, trying to get it right for them to get them in the right place to be successful. [UNKNOWN]: And to meet their, you know, their family requirements while also meeting our [UNKNOWN]: tough job learned a lot you know you have to have hard conversations with people you know and it's you know there's some rules to it you know if you end up jamming somebody better remember hmmm because they know and they're coming for you what's the worst time anybody ever snapped oh i had a guy come to fight me there you go i knew there had to be something like that [UNKNOWN]: I don't know that there's an ever heard of a story where an assignment officer had somebody come to HRC, our human resource, come in to fight them.

1:04:59 [UNKNOWN]: What assignment did you give him? [UNKNOWN]: I was sending him off to that active component reserve component assignment in South Carolina. [UNKNOWN]: Which is where he was. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, he was, he was there. [UNKNOWN]: He's in company command. [UNKNOWN]: He's having some struggles and we're trying to help him and he, man, he was coming coming at a complete wrong direction, which, uh, I was like, hey man, let me help you here and he's asking me questions. [UNKNOWN]: Like, where'd you go to school? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, what's the point? [UNKNOWN]: Oh, fingers. [UNKNOWN]: Like, where are you from Louisiana? [UNKNOWN]: I knew it. [UNKNOWN]: You know, he says stuff like that and I'm like, okay. [UNKNOWN]: So he comes up there to, you know, basically, and you have all the information. [UNKNOWN]: on people. [UNKNOWN]: You know what they look like, because you have their photo. [UNKNOWN]: You have everything their bosses have ever said about them.

1:05:41 [UNKNOWN]: You have all the notes from every conversation they've ever had with other detailers, because that stuff's in there too. [UNKNOWN]: So every time I've talked to this guy, you know, given them all those options, then like any of them, call them again, give them all those options, then like any of them, they're less options now. [UNKNOWN]: And now my man has figured out that he's down to like one option and that's it and it's you got 30 days to submit your resignation or report. [UNKNOWN]: And so he's like I'm calling my congressman and then I'm coming to see you. [UNKNOWN]: I was like all right. [UNKNOWN]: And then after that then it's opposite so off to school. [UNKNOWN]: Command [UNKNOWN]: And how was that tour?

1:06:24 [UNKNOWN]: Phenomenal. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: It was a war fighting at its, you know, at its best basic, what year is this now? [UNKNOWN]: This is 2000. [UNKNOWN]: Okay. [UNKNOWN]: So 2000 to 2003. [UNKNOWN]: No. [UNKNOWN]: Okay. [UNKNOWN]: 2002. [UNKNOWN]: So yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Two years in Dronimo. [UNKNOWN]: What's your job when September 11th happened? [UNKNOWN]: I was in Dronomo doing out for. [UNKNOWN]: OK. [UNKNOWN]: So units that were gearing up and working up to go to Afghanistan rolled through us first. [UNKNOWN]: And the whole point is to give them the toughest fight ever because it's going to save lives on battlefield. [UNKNOWN]: So that's exactly where we went. [UNKNOWN]: And then, are you looking at it or are you looking at when September 11th happens like, hey, are you send me like now?

1:07:10 [UNKNOWN]: Oh, I don't know. [UNKNOWN]: They got the advertisements now for the army. [UNKNOWN]: It's like, send me. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, bro. [UNKNOWN]: Everybody says send everybody in the military and they said me. [UNKNOWN]: And at that point, you figure everybody's going. [UNKNOWN]: see I didn't have that vibe you know I was I was going to college at the time and my the officer detailer was he was a friend of mine and September 11th apps I called him like I said like I'm ready to go I'll do I'll complete college later give me back to a team give me back to a team and he said I'll get he said you got to finish college right uh he said I'll send you to the next [UNKNOWN]: But what's cool is he told me, you know, I was telling him that story years later You know, we were and he said, you know, you know, who else called me and I go who he goes everyone?

1:07:54 [UNKNOWN]: Everybody that wasn't that a team every single guy called and said send me to a team because that's what we do Yeah, so but but he also told me this war is gonna last a long time Which I did not believe at all because you know, you look at [UNKNOWN]: Grenada Panama the first goal for these were like you know a quick quick. [UNKNOWN]: Yep matter of days And so I figured I'm gonna miss I'm gonna miss you know miss out on it and boy was I wrong I knew boys he right cuz he said it's gonna last for a long time Yeah, I you know everybody was itching to go but I knew I also had a pretty important role to play literally and [UNKNOWN]: I figured we'd get there. [UNKNOWN]: So my plan was to go from there to a deploying unit immediately.

1:08:35 [UNKNOWN]: And I ended up going to forces command to be an aid to camp again. [UNKNOWN]: Only this time, it's for the guy who talked to me about coming to West Point when I was in high school. [UNKNOWN]: Larry Ellis. [UNKNOWN]: Hey, anybody else? [UNKNOWN]: I'm pulling a one-riser slip. [UNKNOWN]: There's no way. [UNKNOWN]: But he said, hey, we're at war. [UNKNOWN]: I need you here. [UNKNOWN]: Somebody I can trust. [UNKNOWN]: And he's at four-star at the time. [UNKNOWN]: He's at four-stop commander. [UNKNOWN]: It goes. [UNKNOWN]: I need you here now, and this is like January. [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, sir, I get kids in school like that. [UNKNOWN]: He goes, I hear you can figure all that out and we'll do whatever we can to help you with it. [UNKNOWN]: But I need you here now, and ground wars about to kick off in Iraq.

1:09:15 [UNKNOWN]: And so, pack it up, move that land. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, telekids, dad got rolled up again. [UNKNOWN]: And how long is that, sir? [UNKNOWN]: A year and a half, yeah, 18 months. [UNKNOWN]: To finish that other story, my, the detailer sent me to seal team seven, we, and we deployed four months later, like he totally took, and he sent me my commanding officer there was my former exo, and he, I showed up there, he fired up a tuned commander and put me in a particular, but that was like, okay, thank you, cross the board. [UNKNOWN]: So now you're in this aid job, now you're seeing everything start to happen. [UNKNOWN]: See it all, cooking, and you have a really good understanding of it, and we actually went to a rack and Afghanistan while I was with them.

1:10:00 [UNKNOWN]: So you get to see firsthand what was going on, talk to your peers that are in the fight, really get a good understanding of, you know, not just the broad picture, but also at a pretty great angle level. [UNKNOWN]: It's going down, and, you know, you always have these moments when, you know, you kind of think through yourself, you know, the man upstairs has got [UNKNOWN]: he's got us identified for another mission later so that's all the reason we're going to make it through this so we we land it by up this is right after really a groundwork kicked off it's right they got Baghdad seized and so we land c130 spiraling down we're going to go from c130 [UNKNOWN]: you know, enter running on low, you know, hot, translucent on the UH 60s and we're, you know, we're going to get it into sea first armored division because it's one of the bosses divisions.

1:10:46 [UNKNOWN]: You had fourth ID, first armored. [UNKNOWN]: and a hundred first, we're all kind of in and around, Cindy Triangle, bagged it. [UNKNOWN]: So we land, and the one star who's escorting the boss, he goes, hey, aid man, we need your man offense. [UNKNOWN]: And at the time, we had four other generals traveling with us, because they had guys in the fight. [UNKNOWN]: And one guy was our National Guard D.C.G. [UNKNOWN]: And then our travel squad, the PSO Personal Security Officer. [UNKNOWN]: The communications guy, the initiative group chief, our executive officer. [UNKNOWN]: So it's all these guys I work with every day, you know, some of my dudes.

1:11:30 [UNKNOWN]: And he goes, he goes, put the boss, yourself, me, my aid, and everybody you love in the first aircraft. [UNKNOWN]: The second one is the one that gets shot down. [UNKNOWN]: Chuck. [UNKNOWN]: So, Kamo and Theo stand in her with me, and he's like, he's looking to be like, how close are we? [UNKNOWN]: So, I make out the manifest, and I do exactly what he says, except I put myself on a signer. [UNKNOWN]: So, he takes a look at it and goes, are you sure? [UNKNOWN]: I go, I'm positive. [UNKNOWN]: Not doing that.

1:12:11 [UNKNOWN]: You know, this is the place that I'm not doing that without me being there too. [UNKNOWN]: Well, as things would work out, no one told the politicians who were on one or two, because the two black hogs take off, switched buds, and off we go. [UNKNOWN]: So now I'm in the first aircraft. [UNKNOWN]: My boss is in the second aircraft. [UNKNOWN]: Doors open, I'm hanging out the door. [UNKNOWN]: I lose lose. [UNKNOWN]: Oh man, I'm looking for a smoke trail. [UNKNOWN]: Oh no. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so needless to say, everybody survived a ride on unscathed, but good and as gracious. [UNKNOWN]: But it's stuff like that when you're in aid, it's like, are you kidding me? [UNKNOWN]: So yeah, we had a couple of those kinds of moments. [UNKNOWN]: We're going across you, fray, these weren't trackers.

1:12:53 [UNKNOWN]: And it freaking goes down, man. [UNKNOWN]: And they're like, should we actually left? [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, you should not. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, I'm talking to them, but tanker, man. [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, you should not. [UNKNOWN]: He's like, well, hey, man. [UNKNOWN]: or it's come from Commander's Instructor number two. Although he would love to be in a firefight with y'all. He's got pissed up. B-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-he- [UNKNOWN]: That's all yeah, so we get to where we're going and he didn't even know that we've been you know We've been shot at and I was like hey boss, you know if this happens because we talk about why didn't we go look at cuz I told him not to you know We don't get them dudes another day They'll be around when we come back in 2004. [UNKNOWN]: Yes, indeed, but yeah a lot of that So you had felt like you had a pretty good grasp.

1:13:39 [UNKNOWN]: I mean an amazing kind of [UNKNOWN]: vision of what was going on and I rack at the time, and then you probably had a pretty good idea of where you're going to go when you were done. [UNKNOWN]: I did. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I knew I was going to Campbell. [UNKNOWN]: I knew I was going, well, I've been selected for Botanical Man and I knew I was going for Campbell. [UNKNOWN]: I thought I was going to third brigade because they hadn't stood up, fourth brigade yet. [UNKNOWN]: And so because I went to Campbell early, [UNKNOWN]: when they stood up, fourth brigade, they're like, hey, you're gonna command first, but tag you're it. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I'm like, well, who's there? [UNKNOWN]: You. [UNKNOWN]: Like, okay, it's gonna stand this thing up from the ground, but man, couldn't have asked for a better opportunity to really set conditions for the success of the organization from your perspective as a commander because you get that touch it all from the beginning.

1:14:32 [UNKNOWN]: So I, you know, literally good or bad, you know, [UNKNOWN]: How much time did you have to kind of get things administratively square the way before you started like a work-up or a training cycle? [UNKNOWN]: About six months. [UNKNOWN]: So we were building, we received initially one company set of equipment, you know, weapons, nods, and all that. [UNKNOWN]: And so as you're, you know, getting folks in, you start building each of the companies, you know, you got some of the officers came in first to be able to get somebody's sign-hand receipts and start receiving. [UNKNOWN]: equipment and people and getting it done right. [UNKNOWN]: But it took us about six months to get everybody there and then another year of training basically to get to the point where, you know, we're ready to deploy.

1:15:16 [UNKNOWN]: And that's when you guys went on deployment. [UNKNOWN]: It is. [UNKNOWN]: So this is now what November of 2005. [UNKNOWN]: And you did the last time I saw, I saw you down at the, um, at the reunion, [UNKNOWN]: When he was on the podcast, one of the first ones he said he came to me and said he wanted his company be called chaos and in the podcast he said I said no, he said I didn't say no, I said hell no. [UNKNOWN]: I think it was absolutely not. [UNKNOWN]: He's like, but that's what we played on. [UNKNOWN]: We thought about getting a listen, man.

1:15:57 [UNKNOWN]: If you call yourself chaos, chaos, you will be. [UNKNOWN]: You're already chaos. [UNKNOWN]: Let's try to take this down enough. [UNKNOWN]: So yeah, it was funny. [UNKNOWN]: It was great listening to him and then catching up with him again. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Oh man, but all of it came rushing back. [UNKNOWN]: I remember one afternoon. [UNKNOWN]: You know, because needless to say crazy Joe, there's a lot of, there's a lot of after-hour activity that required adjudication out of Charlie Cuppey. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, I'm sure. [UNKNOWN]: Oh my gosh. [UNKNOWN]: So, I said to my, you know, we do this series of briefings, you know, before weekend, it's like a safety brief. [UNKNOWN]: So you do a batain-wide-shape-replay, everybody together. [UNKNOWN]: You okay? [UNKNOWN]: Don't drink a drive, don't use drugs, don't, you know, go out, commit and mayhem, don't do all the things, you know, take care of each other, look out for one another, you know, It's about something bigger yourself, curry, bring it in, blah, blah, blah, sin, everybody breaks down and they do it again, a company level, and then they break down and do it again, it will tune level.

1:16:54 [UNKNOWN]: So I said, yeah, I wonder what Charlie Cumby actually says, like after I get done, like what gets transmed? [UNKNOWN]: And so I, you know, kind of wait a minute, give it a beat, walk down the Charlie company. [UNKNOWN]: And it's like, all right, bring it in, gun photos. [UNKNOWN]: Blababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababab [UNKNOWN]: Oh man, but, you know, again, he was right about, you know, house cats and alley cats, right?

1:17:37 [UNKNOWN]: So, yeah, they were definitely made for a fight, which they would have whether you wanted him to or not. [UNKNOWN]: uh... there's a reason why that company was on corrigid door with me there's a reason why that company was on the flight with me go into a rock keeping close old man uh... yeah did you gotta know you gotta see him and of course it'll go you'll re-create six doesn't trust us uh... trust you i do i trust you i'm exactly what you're doing exactly oh my gosh how's that work up you guys feel like you're ready to go when you're cutting on the [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it was, again, we had a good long period of time to really focus on being brilliant at the basics.

1:18:21 [UNKNOWN]: Start with, you know, basic weapons qualification, move forward to do some advanced weapons, you know, training, advanced marksmanship. [UNKNOWN]: We brought in some contractors who had recent experience down range, a bunch of special ops guys retired, [UNKNOWN]: our urban obsesopee and to really clean it up and to make it so that we could put it in a format that everybody could see and use and you guys benefit from that too. [UNKNOWN]: Because a challenge I always had as a commander is trying to solve for the problems that are sometimes unsolvable and one of the unsolvable problems is you know how combat's going to go that once you, you know, [UNKNOWN]: enter into whatever that fight is.

1:19:11 [UNKNOWN]: It's never going to be like training and we're supposed to train like we fight. [UNKNOWN]: So if you have urban ops training scenario with live ammunition, [UNKNOWN]: You know that you have to have the squad leader present, qualified on his weapon, trained on the entirety of this mission, two team leaders, same proficiency, same training, everybody's qualified on every weapon they're carrying in its organic unit that's going to do this together in order to limit the risk to force in the shoothouse every time. [UNKNOWN]: In combat, [UNKNOWN]: it is never like that and you can in as a commander you can't train that because the risk is too high.

1:19:59 [UNKNOWN]: I mean you can't just go hey give me two seals a scout a cat from Charlie company and a dude from dealer and we'll throw him in a stack and everybody one knows what to do and two isn't going to be the most dangerous person on the battlefield to the other people in the stack. [UNKNOWN]: Great. [UNKNOWN]: So here we go, how do we limit the risk to mission and risk to force? [UNKNOWN]: Because the issue in my head is risk to inaction, because we don't do something, it increases the amount of risk to our teammates and to the mission. [UNKNOWN]: So we used this urban operations SOP that we were building to buy down the risk through procedure, right?

1:20:41 [UNKNOWN]: So everybody knows that [UNKNOWN]: You know, when you go in the door for battle drill six alpha interbuild and clear room that the number one man doesn't just go left, because there may be furniture, you know, there may, there may be no left, you know, that you go path to least resistance and the team flows and they know where to go in a room on a stairwell in a basement, you know, they understand how everybody's supposed to move one through four or five or whatever the number of people have. [UNKNOWN]: So the only way to do that is train all the leaders. [UNKNOWN]: So if everybody from squat leader up in the battalion does this the same way, then we bite on that risk because now they can train all their guys and gals to do the same thing.

1:21:30 [UNKNOWN]: So you solve for that hardest problem you're going to have to solve for urban environment at night. [UNKNOWN]: with enemy, and friendly, and neutral, and furniture, and children, and unique, and media, and you name it, and partners, like how do you do all that? [UNKNOWN]: You do it in training by lead by lead unit train leaders first, and that's where we spend a lot of our time, and then just build in the proficiency of the organization. [UNKNOWN]: You know, the thing that I thought the seal's brought to us in abundance were two things. [UNKNOWN]: One toughness and two, the skill set of the sniper.

1:22:13 [UNKNOWN]: Now, we had snipers in every company because we sent one of our insios who was sniper school trained to the sniper course that seventh group runs on for Campbell. [UNKNOWN]: And so they allowed us to send as many people as we wanted through that course because we had an [UNKNOWN]: you know individuals in the scouts we had them in all the companies designated marksman i mean we had guys in new how to shoot in extremists and so have a dad [UNKNOWN]: You know, we're able to pull the seals in in a way that it just makes sense that you moved with our scout sniper section, because you operate the same way and, you know, we were just so humbled, you know, that you guys would show up and go, hey, we want to be like you on the objective.

1:23:03 [UNKNOWN]: So we want to put on the same camouflage pattern. [UNKNOWN]: We're like, okay. [UNKNOWN]: We're in Rome. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's cool. [UNKNOWN]: Let's go. [UNKNOWN]: So they don't, you know, they enemy knows who's wearing what? [UNKNOWN]: I mean, that's how they know where the boundaries are. [UNKNOWN]: Because the Marines in 37 were wearing one pattern and we're wearing something else. [UNKNOWN]: So when we move a boundary and start fighting it, confuses them. [UNKNOWN]: Because they're like, what are those guys doing? [UNKNOWN]: We're the Angry Birds doing over here. [UNKNOWN]: Getting it. [UNKNOWN]: That's right. [UNKNOWN]: When did you guys actually know you were going to Ramadi? [UNKNOWN]: Okay, great question. [UNKNOWN]: We thought we were going to side or city. [UNKNOWN]: So we were doing all this coordination with third infantry division. [UNKNOWN]: And then while we were in Camp Virginia in Kuwait, you know, you get this kind of hair, I remember.

1:23:49 [UNKNOWN]: You guys are going to Ambar. [UNKNOWN]: I told you that. [UNKNOWN]: So go, oh, yeah, it's kind of, yeah, there's, oh man. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, there's an order. [UNKNOWN]: But you guys are going to go out to Ramadi, to Corrigador. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, I don't even wear her to that. [UNKNOWN]: Like, what is that? [UNKNOWN]: It's like, well, it's just, you know, Marines are out there. [UNKNOWN]: It's an, you know, outpost. [UNKNOWN]: He's for money. [UNKNOWN]: It's real bad. [UNKNOWN]: Okay. [UNKNOWN]: So I grab my two and I go, hey, find out all you can about Ramadi. [UNKNOWN]: He goes back like 20 minutes later, because he's a surathon of video. [UNKNOWN]: And it's from the day before he had done a Google search of Ramadi off of like a dirty, nipper internet and camp Virginia.

1:24:32 [UNKNOWN]: And it's like preyed down Michigan. [UNKNOWN]: Black flags, mass dudes on motorcycles, trucks, firing AKs in the air to hold it. [UNKNOWN]: And that was yesterday, like who's letting that happen? [UNKNOWN]: And it's like, oh. [UNKNOWN]: Nobody, that's how it is. [UNKNOWN]: It's like, oh man, here we go. [UNKNOWN]: So we immediately got a loose recon set. [UNKNOWN]: I went out there with my three-dable Mac, and then our agency first started. [UNKNOWN]: James Bodekker, a couple of other teammates are four. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so we went out there to kind of check things out and see what was going on. [UNKNOWN]: And so we landed into Codham at night.

1:25:16 [UNKNOWN]: we get into the convoy with two, six, nine armors support bulltune. [UNKNOWN]: And these are all leavened brallows. [UNKNOWN]: This is like the old school support bulltune, not the Ford sport companies. [UNKNOWN]: And we had after we become modular brigade combat teams. [UNKNOWN]: And so these kids are all leavened brallows. [UNKNOWN]: And they're literally, give it convoy brief. [UNKNOWN]: It's clean. [UNKNOWN]: It's really, really good. [UNKNOWN]: And then they give a prayer, also good. [UNKNOWN]: And then they start saying goodbye to each other. [UNKNOWN]: like until Valhalla, like last time I'm gonna see you as now. [UNKNOWN]: Now I'm concerned, like, what, what is going on? [UNKNOWN]: I mean, I don't understand, like, why is it okay, so it is bad, okay?

1:26:00 [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, I'm wanting to spout the whole way down the road, man. [UNKNOWN]: And we get onto Cricidor, you know, they put us up in the patent arms, you know, little, [UNKNOWN]: Now we'll call it like a DVQ is like a little area where they put people who had to spend the night creator and we woke up in the morning that 11 rounds into, you know, C-RAM and 11 rounds into C-RAM. [UNKNOWN]: And so Echo for you, C-RAM is counterrocket mortar, uh, [UNKNOWN]: Counter-rocket, it's counter-rocket and mortar radar, right on. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: And so basically, does this. [UNKNOWN]: It says incoming, incoming, take cover, take cover.

1:26:44 [UNKNOWN]: And that's about how much time you have. [UNKNOWN]: And then these rounds start landed. [UNKNOWN]: Whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, whom, wh [UNKNOWN]: but what is going on? [UNKNOWN]: And then I do a chin up, because for some reason, I'm looking at ceiling, I'm like, it doesn't look like it can hold sandbags. [UNKNOWN]: And I do a chin up and only sandbags are ones above that door frame. [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, oh, man, this is bad. [UNKNOWN]: So, okay, so we sit down with our chain of command and we kind of start doing the things you need to do. [UNKNOWN]: And then we left the HHC, first-harm, and our four, [UNKNOWN]: there and then we went back to start getting people ready.

1:27:31 [UNKNOWN]: So I reorganized the leadership of our distribution Pultune and put Sarm First Class clip. [UNKNOWN]: And he's the guy that was running all of our advanced marksmanship and all that. [UNKNOWN]: I put him in as a Pultune sergeant for the distrable tune. [UNKNOWN]: So he could help get them ready for the fight that they were going to be in day one, minute one. [UNKNOWN]: And then started making some other decisions and changes. [UNKNOWN]: And so we started honing things a little bit to know what we were going to go to. [UNKNOWN]: And so the first meeting I have with, you know, now we're mid-rips. [UNKNOWN]: I show up with Charlie Cummings, me and Dave. [UNKNOWN]: And so we're sitting in the office.

1:28:12 [UNKNOWN]: You remember, you know, the tank manager's the office off to the side of the talk. [UNKNOWN]: And while we're sitting there, you hear this, whoosh, you know, boom. [UNKNOWN]: And so, I don't know how Dave was feeling, but I was kind of like, are you like, you don't want to like react because, you know, you're the new guy. [UNKNOWN]: I'm cool. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: But the two guys, Rob Rogamin and Earl Higgins, neither one of them moved. [UNKNOWN]: They're kind of like, and I'm like, no C-RAM. [UNKNOWN]: Boom, pretty close to here. [UNKNOWN]: What do you think the guys think that was? [UNKNOWN]: And they're like, and they're getting a, you know, getting a status report, you know, no casualties, no injury. [UNKNOWN]: What we think that was, you know, that's probably RPG, like Rocket, you know, pro-Blogger-nade.

1:28:58 [UNKNOWN]: Like, that close, like, where do you think they shop from? [UNKNOWN]: And so they had a big overhead projection of, it's like a overhead photo of, of, of, of cricketer, and it was, you know, cricketer or canal canal roden, and then like maybe a couple blocks out of it. [UNKNOWN]: And so they're both like, yeah, they just pop out of these little street right here, and they shoot into the fog. [UNKNOWN]: Where are they right there and they can pop out right across the street from here and shoot into the Fibb. [UNKNOWN]: So I look over Dave and I go, that is unacceptable and he goes, Roger that and he'll kick out some patrols right now, get him off the Fibb.

1:29:40 [UNKNOWN]: And so Charlie coming immediately, they got off the trucks and which straight into the freaking box basically, they went straight into the mob, like don't, you know, they put your stuff down, just keep going. [UNKNOWN]: So they walked out immediately, started patrol, and then the cool part about it for us is that's what we do. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, we're lighting for tree formation, you know, that's normal, whereas two, six and nine armor was a heavy formation. [UNKNOWN]: So it's an armor, centric, it's an armor [UNKNOWN]: So everything that they had was different in terms of tactics techniques, procedures, equipment. [UNKNOWN]: So again, our guys are comfortable doing that. [UNKNOWN]: So boys are on patrol and ops on your hair. [UNKNOWN]: Boom!

1:30:21 [UNKNOWN]: Boom! [UNKNOWN]: Boom! [UNKNOWN]: And so, Brogan earlier, like, what was that? [UNKNOWN]: And I said, I think that's a bearer. [UNKNOWN]: And they're like, dude, hey, somebody, somebody find a bear. [UNKNOWN]: They're like, Roger that. [UNKNOWN]: Nice. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, great curhy, right off the roof of your building. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, shootin' it dudes, puttin' in IDs on canal. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: From inside the fountain. [UNKNOWN]: So it's like, they've already found high ground and using it well in daylight. [UNKNOWN]: So yeah, yeah, the boys and girls were getting some and then they're Distribute to and got into a firefight like their first run.

1:31:05 [UNKNOWN]: So the first person earned a cab in our battalion was Lieutenant Jennifer when out there recovering a vehicle and wrecking people. [UNKNOWN]: And it was like, get back into five, you know, they're out there fighting is like, come on, come back inside. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so it was, it was gamey and sporty from moment one and you know how bad it was in terms of the the casualties and the number of contacts. [UNKNOWN]: So 269 armor, seconditions every day for the success that we saw based on their understanding of the environment being able to articulate that to us. [UNKNOWN]: They lost six soldiers inside Cricut or to indirect fire, [UNKNOWN]: Um, so the answer to that is, you know, personal protective equipment, where it all day, every day inside the wire because it's a requirement.

1:31:57 [UNKNOWN]: And so that's what we did for the entire time we were there and we didn't lose anybody to enter it. [UNKNOWN]: Despite taking, you know, over 400 rounds into the fireball we're there. [UNKNOWN]: that's crazy. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: And you showed up there you're working for General Gronsky, Colonel Gronsky at the time, from the two to eight just outstanding. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, with the gate. [UNKNOWN]: Oh yeah. [UNKNOWN]: He, I've said this many times. [UNKNOWN]: He is the most physically courageous senior leader that I've ever personally witnessed in combat. [UNKNOWN]: out there, walking patrols, after jumping fences getting after it, you know, he's going out. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, we're going out today.

1:32:37 [UNKNOWN]: How come with you? [UNKNOWN]: Okay, sir, rehearsals start in an hour. [UNKNOWN]: And he would go through the whole thing and be out there with Alpha Company, you know, able to do in, you know, patrols. [UNKNOWN]: He'd be with, you know, dealer on a patrol. [UNKNOWN]: He'd be out there with the gunfighter on patrol. [UNKNOWN]: So he was with gunfighter. [UNKNOWN]: when he was doing his rip-with-journal-mic farmland. [UNKNOWN]: So they come out, they come out to cringeter together and computers about to go out. [UNKNOWN]: And Grasky goes, hey, I'm going with these guys. [UNKNOWN]: And I said, sure about that. [UNKNOWN]: No, I just say anything to him. [UNKNOWN]: I said the German fraud like I said, we're good. [UNKNOWN]: We got stuff to talk about, you know, we're good, you know, yeah, we don't need to do that. [UNKNOWN]: He's like okay. [UNKNOWN]: So we start talking about Eagle's Nest. [UNKNOWN]: Like we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to [UNKNOWN]: as Charlie company and in general grassy is like he goes, well, what do you think out there because they're dealing?

1:33:38 [UNKNOWN]: I mean, it's that's outgoing. [UNKNOWN]: It's, I mean, they're, they're, they're set in conditions and, and they're, they're, they're the ones pitching, they're not catching. [UNKNOWN]: And so they get back and, you know, everybody's all tossed up, you know, because it just happened. [UNKNOWN]: And Groski's dudes are like, please, don't let him go out with them again. [UNKNOWN]: We're six days away from going home. [UNKNOWN]: But pleading with me, don't let him go back out. [UNKNOWN]: I go, I can't control what he's gonna do. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, you guys know him, he is gonna be out there with you. [UNKNOWN]: no matter what, I mean, just what a good man, a courageous leader, leader of character, and just was a fantastic person to work for and to get down. [UNKNOWN]: And not like in a gung hole, I'm a run out there and get something, but in like, you know, so what we're doing, I'm going to see what's going on out there, just as professional as they come.

1:34:25 [UNKNOWN]: And I'm not going to be a burden to you while I'm out there. [UNKNOWN]: You know, yeah, with my, you know, 12 dudes and we're moving tactically and we're in your way. [UNKNOWN]: So yeah, he was great. [UNKNOWN]: German father as well, fantastic standing boss. [UNKNOWN]: What do you remember when we showed up? [UNKNOWN]: So one of the reasons we showed up at Craig Doris because as soon as we got to Western Ramadi and we, I put an Overwatch element out where the Marines had been hit up at Firecracker. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: As I'm going to meet General Gronsky for the first time, [UNKNOWN]: My guys just killed a few ID in place and I walked into General Grantsy's office and he goes, are those your guys? [UNKNOWN]: And I said, yes sir, and he goes, I need you over in Eastern Remoddy, they think they go real problems over in this place called Malab.

1:35:06 [UNKNOWN]: And I was like, Roger that. [UNKNOWN]: Let's go. [UNKNOWN]: Let's go. [UNKNOWN]: And that was it. [UNKNOWN]: He just, you know, we killed some bad guys and he said, there's more bad guys that need killing. [UNKNOWN]: And so then immediately, we were heading over your way. [UNKNOWN]: And that's when we first got introduced. [UNKNOWN]: Yep, that was it. [UNKNOWN]: It was a good. [UNKNOWN]: I thought, [UNKNOWN]: Welcome in interaction initially. [UNKNOWN]: The thing, again, not having work with seals before [UNKNOWN]: That really, and we had special lots of folks in there all the time, conducting missions, tier 1 soft guys, and we provide security for them, and they come and give us brief get after it. [UNKNOWN]: We'd be in patrol with them, you know, Rangers would come into the same thing, you know, we'd do out of court on for stuff they were doing. [UNKNOWN]: But this is the first time that we've had, you know, someone come into embed with us, and to be a part of what we're doing as opposed to us supporting an operation that's by some other element.

1:35:54 [UNKNOWN]: That's a special operations type formation. [UNKNOWN]: So when you guys came in, it's like, hey, yeah, we're here to work for you. [UNKNOWN]: We're going to support you. [UNKNOWN]: Okay, what can you do? [UNKNOWN]: It's like, well, we just did this. [UNKNOWN]: And of course, we're tracking racetrack and just like, yeah, okay. [UNKNOWN]: Um, let's partner up with the scouts and then, uh, you know, Seth goes, hey, you know, we'd like to, you know, again, where what you guys are wearing and when we leave the wire, we want to understand what you guys are doing and go, okay, there, there, there will be rehearsals associated with what we're doing, here's the SOP, here's how we're going to operate. [UNKNOWN]: And I, I thought the humility displayed [UNKNOWN]: by the seals, really endured your team, your guys, to us right away.

1:36:40 [UNKNOWN]: Because I'd like to think we operated without a lot of you go. [UNKNOWN]: Um, you guys were great. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and it was about to work, and it was about doing it together the right way, and you guys came in, you know, with the right attitude, with the right skill sets, and you were really able to come in, and set conditions for success immediately, because the thing that we always tried to do was to set conditions, usually the night before an operation by season key terrain following as a part of a route clearance. [UNKNOWN]: seal scout snipers would go in with the route clearance and then spider up to these positions of advantage down long axes to be able to provide the overwatch necessary for the operations to go in the next day.

1:37:24 [UNKNOWN]: and you guys were on it from the first minute and just super teammates to work with. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, no, it was awesome. [UNKNOWN]: I think it was on when Joe Clayburn was on. [UNKNOWN]: I was like the best compliment I've ever gotten in my life was in the very first operation patrol that they went on. [UNKNOWN]: Stoner and some of the guys went out with those guys and the mid team and some Iraqis. [UNKNOWN]: He's holding on to come back. [UNKNOWN]: Got a big gun fight. [UNKNOWN]: Come back and I go with him to your office and he walks and he goes Sir, I want seals with him on every troll I do from here on out I was like, oh, this is good. [UNKNOWN]: This is good to be a good time and and Joe and Seth were like two peas in the pot They were like just ready to go man. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah ready to go and Seth You know nothing messes up a good work story like a witness, so he can't refute this Yeah, rest in peace brother, but he told me after a big firefight He came in.

1:38:14 [UNKNOWN]: He's all dirty and he goes I think I missed my calling [UNKNOWN]: I go really, it was I'm a water man, you know, and all that, and I dig it, you know, I'm a jerk, I'm a seal, you know, I love that. [UNKNOWN]: But this makes in it up, I should have been an infantry company commander. [UNKNOWN]: I'd like you went to the wrong school man. [UNKNOWN]: No doubt. [UNKNOWN]: The Naval Academy Class of 2000. [UNKNOWN]: Um, I thought I'd say 99, 99. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, 99. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: No, he definitely viewed himself more as a soldier. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, then anything else. [UNKNOWN]: That dude could fight. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, man. [UNKNOWN]: That brow. [UNKNOWN]: Yes, he did. [UNKNOWN]: That thing deflected bullets man. [UNKNOWN]: I was so big. [UNKNOWN]: I can keep it under the helmet.

1:38:54 [UNKNOWN]: But yeah, what a great teammate. [UNKNOWN]: Oh my gosh. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and those guys, the initial crew that I sent out there with Stoner, just a bunch of, just a bunch of studs and. [UNKNOWN]: So I was trying to remember if there was any like discord. [UNKNOWN]: If there was ever any moments where, you know, guys are, you know, rubbing up against each other is going to happen. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, you're going to have some kind of friction of some kind over time. [UNKNOWN]: The only time I ever saw it, and you know me, I was kind of everywhere, was in the cell hall, and they were talking about casually carrying combat, right, under fire, and the argument was over the use of quick clot. [UNKNOWN]: And it was like, you know, I remember Benchico and you never used this, and our guests are like, [UNKNOWN]: It works.

1:39:41 [UNKNOWN]: Oh, no, it causes this and that and they were fighting over, you know, how to stop bleeding and extremists, you know, and that was the argument. [UNKNOWN]: I'm like they're fighting over saving lives. [UNKNOWN]: I'll love this. [UNKNOWN]: Let's do it. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, um, really awesome start then straight to a blue on blue. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, man. [UNKNOWN]: which was absolutely freaking horrible, you know, I've debriefed it with Gunny Gibson, with Joe honestly, yeah, I mean just a thousand little, a thousand little things, like you said earlier, Americans, well, Army, Marine Corps, Iraqis, enemy, yep, [UNKNOWN]: change a crypto mid team mid team like it's there's a lot of stuff going on yeah and yeah a lot of just a terrible situation yeah and that was you know again I won't go through the whole thing against I went through a joe but I remember walking up your office and you know we're coming out of the field and I'm just [UNKNOWN]: you know, just absolutely sick and kind of looked at the map, you were like, what happened?

1:40:48 [UNKNOWN]: And you know, as funny as talking to some of your guys, prior to you showing up here today, and they said, you know, he's always just calm. [UNKNOWN]: Never seen blues temper and I'm like, have like, [UNKNOWN]: You know, you might not seem to lose his temper about coffee or anything like that, but I can tell you like even in the worst situations, you know, I went to that guy and told him here's what just went wrong. [UNKNOWN]: Here's why we have an Iraqi soldier dead We've got as few Iraqis we only got one of my guys wounded and here's why it happened. [UNKNOWN]: This is this is what went down And you know, you looked at it you were tracking you said [UNKNOWN]: okay make sure it doesn't happen again we got another mission to do right now yeah and that was it I mean that wasn't it there was more to follow but that was it for that day right and you know from my perspective you know my own personal battle rhythm was um I would look at these you know encounters with insurgents [UNKNOWN]: They operate kind on the same battle rhythm as college students.

1:41:44 [UNKNOWN]: So, college kids wake up when they can. [UNKNOWN]: It like noon, party, fight through the night. [UNKNOWN]: It's some point at about two or three. [UNKNOWN]: Tracer burnout, and then they start all over again, rinse repeat. [UNKNOWN]: So, I would sleep from about two or three in the morning until about 10. [UNKNOWN]: Get up, do PT or if I did PT the night before, you know, that it was plus or minus an hour or two, but I stayed up all night, every night. [UNKNOWN]: And so when that operation kicked off, I was asleep because it was at seven, you know. [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, you know, where my little hooch was, at, you know, seven, 30, one or whatever, the Iraqis are supposed to link up with Charlie Company and go, it was the first Battalion, [UNKNOWN]: into the Malab.

1:42:38 [UNKNOWN]: The wreckies were early. [UNKNOWN]: And so they left without Charlie coming. [UNKNOWN]: Despite doing rehearsals together, doing all of these guys with a wrecky intervention for one one. [UNKNOWN]: The heroes about time. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, they didn't think they needed us, which, OK. [UNKNOWN]: So you remember, they went in first and then they cleared west to east instead of east to west. [UNKNOWN]: So they started at the limit of events and that's why the Junty went into the courtyard where the seals were. [UNKNOWN]: Which is what caused the really blue and green and that's what kicked everything off. [UNKNOWN]: So the firefight kicks off because now they're in it. [UNKNOWN]: You know, they are shooting it whatever because they don't know.

1:43:21 [UNKNOWN]: I hear the commotion I wake up. [UNKNOWN]: walk into the talk. [UNKNOWN]: Well, it's happening. [UNKNOWN]: We don't know. [UNKNOWN]: Where's Charlie coming? [UNKNOWN]: There's still at, you know, check point one right in front of our fob because they haven't linked up with the Iraqi jet. [UNKNOWN]: You know, they're in contact. [UNKNOWN]: So go, mid teams talking to us, tell us and tell us they're in contact. [UNKNOWN]: They don't know who it is, but it's guys with helmets and weapons and body armor. [UNKNOWN]: Well, we've seen that before with, you know, AQI without cutting or I. [UNKNOWN]: And so okay, Joe, get down there, figure out what's going on. [UNKNOWN]: Let me know. [UNKNOWN]: He gets down there and we're in it. [UNKNOWN]: And that's what's gonna give us and got wounded. [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, dudes that don't grenades, dudes are, you know, 50 cow on the roof on you guys to go get the Juni.

1:44:07 [UNKNOWN]: Because I get back, hey, from Joe, there's a guy who's down, and he was taken. [UNKNOWN]: They took him, but we can see him, he's in the courtyard, because they were elevated. [UNKNOWN]: They were in a building across the street from you guys. [UNKNOWN]: We can see him, he's in the courtyard. [UNKNOWN]: So I told Joe, go get him, and he goes, we don't know if it's an American or a rocky, I said it doesn't matter. [UNKNOWN]: Go get him. [UNKNOWN]: and combat camera was with them. [UNKNOWN]: So they suppressed the seals to get the guy. [UNKNOWN]: And so it was two leaders from Charlie Company and a sergeant who'd already been wounded twice.

1:44:49 [UNKNOWN]: And that's why he's driving for his first son. [UNKNOWN]: He's in there. [UNKNOWN]: In the stack they go get the guy and bring him out. [UNKNOWN]: And then I got the heavy QRF. [UNKNOWN]: And I go go down there and put it down. [UNKNOWN]: The dudes in this building right here are the problem. [UNKNOWN]: bring the tank down there, lower the barrel, put it down. [UNKNOWN]: And by the way, I was with Joe, right? [UNKNOWN]: And when that heavy QRF got called, and I said, hey, let's go. [UNKNOWN]: Yes, my guys are somewhere in there. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and so then. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: So the heavy QRF, the company commander for animal company, was that he was in that section.

1:45:30 [UNKNOWN]: So when he went down there and he saw what was going on, [UNKNOWN]: the seals had displaced. [UNKNOWN]: So we thought they were across the street to the north. [UNKNOWN]: But in fact, crypto change no comes there on the south side of the intersection beyond the limit of advance. [UNKNOWN]: One house beyond and so he gets down there and he goes, hey, those are our guys in both locations and then somebody else sees fire. [UNKNOWN]: And so we've been shooting each other for 15 minutes at that point. [UNKNOWN]: So it's a miracle that no one else was killed. [UNKNOWN]: We had some guys wounded, obviously. [UNKNOWN]: Gunny lost leg. [UNKNOWN]: Gunny lost a leg later.

1:46:11 [UNKNOWN]: He was on that. [UNKNOWN]: I thought it was on that. [UNKNOWN]: OK. [UNKNOWN]: He was on that later. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, thanks for that. [UNKNOWN]: But yeah, there was. [UNKNOWN]: There's a lot in a very short period of time, but then, you know, everybody come on back. [UNKNOWN]: So, I mean, the way I remember it is we all looked at a map as people arrived back in here, and it's like, okay. [UNKNOWN]: We got more to do, you know, let's clean this up because we got to work up and go again. [UNKNOWN]: So it was, again, I think the trust really in two areas because, you know, of course, there's folks at high-rish lines are like, hey, [UNKNOWN]: You know, this is bad, you know, we got a now, you know, obviously we're going to investigate.

1:46:51 [UNKNOWN]: That's no big deal because everybody's telling the truth. [UNKNOWN]: Because that's the first answer. [UNKNOWN]: You know, hey, who was where we're in and did what? [UNKNOWN]: And it was all, everybody had a good understanding of what just happened and we're truthful about everything. [UNKNOWN]: And it's like, hey, sometimes this happens. [UNKNOWN]: It's the fog of war. [UNKNOWN]: It's a good shoot with a bad result. [UNKNOWN]: Because, you know, again, things happen. [UNKNOWN]: But then the other part of the trust equation that came in, that I thought was super important, was it, and I don't know if you even remember this, but the kids from Delta-Bleton pulled all their personal money and gave it to the family of the soldier that was killed.

1:47:35 [UNKNOWN]: So that Iraqi army was moved so much that the seals got the seats of honor at his memorial service. [UNKNOWN]: They asked me to speak, stones, bone. [UNKNOWN]: So that's what pulled us together with them. [UNKNOWN]: Was, you know, that moment in crisis where character-based leadership doing the right thing, trusting that, you know, because everybody understands the level of violence here. [UNKNOWN]: that bad things are going to happen to good people and we just have to do it we can to try to get this make this right and they did and it I think forced bonds that you know really I thought made the success of all the things that happened after that happened [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, no doubt it was, I mean, such an awful thing because these Iraqi soldiers, you know, they're not only the facing combat when they're in combat, they take leave, they go home and there's people getting assassinated, they're sort of, you know, Army Iraqi army people getting assassinated, their families are getting harassed, it's just an awful, awful existence for them.

1:48:34 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: And then to have this soldier get killed out there was terrible, and I mean, obviously my guys just felt absolutely horrible about it. [UNKNOWN]: But you remember when they ran out of money, their government was struggling to feed the Iraqi soldiers and, you know, okay, we'll feed them. [UNKNOWN]: And it's like, oh, different color of money, you shouldn't be doing that. [UNKNOWN]: And I just, I said, hey, you know, let me talk to the lawyers, and what we laid out was, this is a risk to us, you know, we got, you know, Iraqi soldiers passing out on their weapons [UNKNOWN]: I mean, that's a risk to our force.

1:49:15 [UNKNOWN]: So they figured out how to get some provision for us to be able to feed them legally. [UNKNOWN]: So we brought their cooks into our dime-soddy, had them prepare the meals, really, really helpful, because, again, without them, [UNKNOWN]: You know, it's just us, right? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, no, there's so much of that stuff happening with mentorship and like, even like I would when I got back, I'm just explaining to the special operations guys, what are you guys going out in the daytime, you know, and I said, well, well, our primary mission from the Siege Sota for was to train and fight company and between size elements of Iraqi soldiers. [UNKNOWN]: they don't have lasers for their weapons, they don't have night vision, and by the way, they don't have flashlights.

1:49:55 [UNKNOWN]: And so we would gather flashlights and give one flashlight per fire team so that they could see when we do the raid or something at night. [UNKNOWN]: But yeah, because they're totally, you know, terribly equipped in all nine yards. [UNKNOWN]: And they're out there, you know, doing their best. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: So, but I think you're right that did for us, you know, we definitely were bonded in our, you know, we knew that whatever we could do to help you guys. [UNKNOWN]: We knew number one, you'd be there to help us, no matter what happened. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, that was clear. [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, you had our back. [UNKNOWN]: And that meant so much for us and that, in that deployment. [UNKNOWN]: And you guys, by the time we showed up there, you guys had already taken, you guys already lost like five guys, I think at that point.

1:50:40 [UNKNOWN]: And that's, so we know what we're getting into. [UNKNOWN]: And it was so hard to explain to other people. [UNKNOWN]: How many enemy was there an interesting talking to General McFarlane you know in the special operation side You know I'm getting asked like how are you killing all these, but you know how you kill all these guys and General McFarlane said the the map is going how you kill all these guys and you say come on out and look That's one of the one of the best things I learned from you guys from from Dave Womack. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah [UNKNOWN]: was come investigate yeah like hey you want to investigate what's going on come come on out here investigate we can come we come on patrol with us see what we're doing see who are shooting please come investigate you want to see what's going on here we want you to see what's going on there yeah you know they didn't oftentimes want to come how well to know to where the rubber meets the road and if they did they were just shocked by so I had an encounter this is before you guys arrived [UNKNOWN]: where, you know, the lawyers at 2MF were, you know, basically saying, hey, you know, there's no way that you guys are, you know, that none of these, this should can't be legit kind of thing and it's like, well, you just try to get out of a tractor is his point and I go, that you even asked where the tractor was.

1:51:53 [UNKNOWN]: He goes, no, he's on a tractor. [UNKNOWN]: That's because he doesn't have a car. [UNKNOWN]: or a bike, or that's what he stole, or that's what he had. [UNKNOWN]: He was this guy had the mask on, had an RPG in his lap, and AK crosses back, and he was moving to the fight. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, he was inside the court on when he was shot. [UNKNOWN]: It was like, are you kidding me? [UNKNOWN]: And it's like, well, it just doesn't look right. [UNKNOWN]: I said, well, come on down, one down. [UNKNOWN]: Every Marine and infantryman come on get some. [UNKNOWN]: He's like, I'm not afraid. [UNKNOWN]: I don't think you are either We'll just you need to know that this is different in what you're seeing and so it was a good good eye out But he came down. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's great.

1:52:33 [UNKNOWN]: There is a there is also something that people don't understand is like when a civilian got hurt [UNKNOWN]: If we smashed open a wall, like we'd have to go down and repair it, we'd give them money in the home on New York, there was so much interaction between the civilian populists and us, and the Iraqi soldiers, and the interpreters, and the imams, and the government, the actual Iraqi... [UNKNOWN]: government that's there in Ramadi like if you killed like civilians got killed I'm not saying that there everything was perfect because there was times where we're civilians got killed got caught in the crossfire You know, they got murdered all the time by the insurgents themselves But to think that you could beat down there Indiscriminately shooting people was like just it's it wasn't possible [UNKNOWN]: It takes away from the credibility of what you're doing.

1:53:25 [UNKNOWN]: Because now they won't work with you. [UNKNOWN]: They're Iraqi soldiers won't work with you. [UNKNOWN]: They're Iraqi public won't work with you. [UNKNOWN]: The shakes won't work with you. [UNKNOWN]: The government won't work with you. [UNKNOWN]: Because they don't trust you to do things the right way. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, to have at approach to, again, it's a tough, tough environment. [UNKNOWN]: But having a approach that shows some due diligence is associated with your ability to discriminate in this process. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, Jaco, you remember, there are moments where, you know, the tactics, techniques and procedures by, you know, the insurgents were such that it just, it made no sense as beyond the pale that they would do certain things.

1:54:05 [UNKNOWN]: Why would you use a school bus in an attack? [UNKNOWN]: You know, why would you use, why would you dress up? [UNKNOWN]: like a dog and try to put in an IED, you know, it's because Americans tend to like dogs, so they won't shoot me. [UNKNOWN]: Come on, man. [UNKNOWN]: We can tell it's not a real dog. [UNKNOWN]: You know, and what you're that bag of rice that the dog is dragging is probably not, you know, right? [UNKNOWN]: Alpo. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so come on, man. [UNKNOWN]: So there was some of that, but for the most part, I think that [UNKNOWN]: What we're supposed to be doing is gaining the trust of the people, and the only way you do that is by actually doing things that matter to improve their quality of life.

1:54:46 [UNKNOWN]: One way I do that is making it more safe and secure. [UNKNOWN]: the way you can do that is by being present and keeping the enemy out of their, they want to have schools that are safe. [UNKNOWN]: They want to be able to have markets open and make some money. [UNKNOWN]: They want to be able to feed their families appropriately. [UNKNOWN]: So we were doing whatever we could to try to make that happen. [UNKNOWN]: And the Civil Affairs projects, the MedCabs, giving away medicine, taking care of the kids, giving people fuel for their generators, like all that [UNKNOWN]: every day yeah like you just you this is what it is you know it's like the the policing in America you've got a problem there you need to move in there and have a permanent presence there and if your permanent presence is treating everyone terribly like if they ain't got to work so it was really just incredible to see Americans American service men and women be able to do that you know [UNKNOWN]: to be out there, risk their lives, watch your friends, get wounded, watch your friends, get killed, and still be able to say, okay, here's where it stops.

1:55:47 [UNKNOWN]: And to see everyone do that on a daily basis was a real testament to the American fighting men and women for sure. [UNKNOWN]: And for my team, Charlie Company and the Malab. [UNKNOWN]: Alpha company operating out of OPO tell and then industrial area out of combat outposts. [UNKNOWN]: Our main effort, Bravo company, operate not a trotter, keeping the MSR open and all the things that went with that man to get away from your main effort, then Delta Company dealer having responsibility across the entirety of the space. [UNKNOWN]: you know having war eagle support everything that we're doing and then every attachment i mean the bravery the the want to on every mission you know just the accountability that they all had to one another i mean a closeness the bond of all that and everybody who is attached the seal platoon [UNKNOWN]: the engineers that were doing a bunch of police work for us out of the P.A.

1:56:49 [UNKNOWN]: Guard because it was a bunch of prison guards and cops in their Baltimore era was a chemist. [UNKNOWN]: So they've got this IED museum that they built, not only out now, man. [UNKNOWN]: This must go. [UNKNOWN]: It's like, oh, sir, but we want to show you this guy. [UNKNOWN]: Now, let's get the O.D in here, and not you guys, the real ones, and do this. [UNKNOWN]: So, yeah, it's just animal company, and then after that, the kids that came from Charlie G.237, they originally were crusaders, but to change their call sign, obviously, for the reasons we all know, but Tim and his guys were phenomenal.

1:57:32 [UNKNOWN]: were awesome. [UNKNOWN]: Just that whole crew, the laundry and bath kids were great. [UNKNOWN]: Ceebies, oh my gosh, you know, out there, under fire, building cops in a box, you know. [UNKNOWN]: It was a, it was the kind of, [UNKNOWN]: You know, togetherness, brotherhood, sisterhood, I mean, it literally is the band of brothers. [UNKNOWN]: You know, no doubt about it. [UNKNOWN]: Um, and, you know, just every day that you rolled out, it was like, we had a chance you were going to die. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, there was a solid chance you're going to die. [UNKNOWN]: You rolled down. [UNKNOWN]: Faruq way or route Michigan or sunset like, oh, yeah, you hit a triple stack ID easy string.

1:58:15 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, easy straight like it's that's it and and every body that leaves out wire 100% knows that there's no doubt about it. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and yet every single day They'd get their gear on and go every single day. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah [UNKNOWN]: Um, when you taking casualties, uh, losing guys, what from up from a leadership perspective lessons learned, what, what, what did you, what, what do you have to pass on? [UNKNOWN]: I know for me, uh, seals hadn't lost anyone in Iraq until I was there and they weren't, there weren't many, there weren't many seal leaders that had lost guys in combat.

1:58:56 [UNKNOWN]: I mean, there was very, very few. [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, we had, of course, we have the administrative book to follow, here's the, you know, here's the alert, here's what we've got to do and shut down these systems and past this word and go through this legal thing. [UNKNOWN]: And, but as far as you, oh yeah, I'm by the way, on top of all that, you got 40 guys that just lost one of their bros. And, by the way, they're still insurgents out there fighting and soldiers and Marines that are counting on you guys to your job. [UNKNOWN]: Regardless of what happens. [UNKNOWN]: So, here's what we're at. [UNKNOWN]: What did you learn? [UNKNOWN]: Unfortunately, we had some experience with it before we deployed, because they staggered the deployments of the four brigades from the 101st.

1:59:39 [UNKNOWN]: So the other three brigades were taking casualties before we left. [UNKNOWN]: So, catching notification, doing memorial services, doing remembers as a division. [UNKNOWN]: We had done some of that before we deployed. [UNKNOWN]: Um, so again, it, you know, just, you know, steals your resolve for the mission ahead. [UNKNOWN]: We, we lost, um, uh, specialist, Prince K to we, uh, in Baghdad. [UNKNOWN]: He was on the, uh, personal security detail for the Brigade CSM, and he was killed relatively earlier before the New Year. [UNKNOWN]: And we, we went to Baghdad and we were, apart of his memorial service, um, the leadership team from, from 106, you know, he was detached.

2:00:26 [UNKNOWN]: but we didn't lose a soldier in Ramadi until March. [UNKNOWN]: So, a ride to November, we didn't lose anybody for the first almost time loss. [UNKNOWN]: And then the same night, we lost Marko Silva and Cory Dan, and that was on Great White, which you talked to Joe about. [UNKNOWN]: Just the pieces in parts of how you deal with tragedy, and how you deal with the human dynamics associated with the loss of a brother. [UNKNOWN]: or sister. [UNKNOWN]: It really says a lot about the leadership of the organization and how prepared you are for those moments. [UNKNOWN]: Because again, you have to continue to fight. [UNKNOWN]: You can't just stop mourn, you know, hey, we're done here.

2:01:10 [UNKNOWN]: Let's stack arms in and call it a day. [UNKNOWN]: And I think some of that for me. [UNKNOWN]: You know, as an officer growing up, you know, in the formation, really, I go back to JRTC. [UNKNOWN]: There's a situation in training when I was a major where we had two soldiers get run over by them when tank in a part of the training sauce, and so it was, I mean, it was dreadful. [UNKNOWN]: And this is post. [UNKNOWN]: This is after 9.11, so it's, you know, it's 20 things. [UNKNOWN]: This unit is deploying to combat and they just lost to their brothers in a training accident that is preventable. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, it's, it was just the fog of war, you know, off force calmer fire tanks are in the breach.

2:01:53 [UNKNOWN]: So you want the dismounted infantry and the armor force to arrive at the decisive point together so that they can, you know, [UNKNOWN]: took fire soldiers allain on the ground and tank ran over. [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, we had to conduct the casualization stop, the exercise, and then the leadership team came together. [UNKNOWN]: So, it was the commander of the group, who's a colonel, with his sergeant major, and then the brigade commander, with his command sergeant major, and me. [UNKNOWN]: And so we're in a huddle talking about what to do next. [UNKNOWN]: Actually, we continue. [UNKNOWN]: It's the last day of the exercise. [UNKNOWN]: Should we continue to get to the training objectives of this seizure of this large Mount facility?

2:02:38 [UNKNOWN]: Or should we just call it? [UNKNOWN]: Because the other, um, the other factor is that one of the young men who was killed had a brother in the unit, like literally is other, is yet a sibling. [UNKNOWN]: So what do we do? [UNKNOWN]: So the decision was to pause, [UNKNOWN]: honor, you know, the memory of these two phone comrades, but then to start again, because in combat, [UNKNOWN]: There isn't a pause, and the lesson can't be if somebody gets hurt, we stop, or if somebody gets killed, we stop. [UNKNOWN]: We have to continue to fight through. [UNKNOWN]: So I'm in my head, that was the right course of action at the time. [UNKNOWN]: And that's the lessons we need to train as we go forward. [UNKNOWN]: So we work through that in training.

2:03:20 [UNKNOWN]: It's not the same as losing the teammate and combat, but you have to continue to fight. [UNKNOWN]: Otherwise, you don't have the area secure to be able to do the things you need to do to. [UNKNOWN]: finish the job. [UNKNOWN]: So, for me, that night when we lost certain silver, it was the tune from third between Charlie Company got ambushed. [UNKNOWN]: That's that's basically what happened. [UNKNOWN]: complex attack. [UNKNOWN]: They fought through, seized the foothold, started to, you know, fight back against, you know, the element that was targeting them. [UNKNOWN]: Silver was down in a kill zone, young man by the name of Alvarez.

2:04:00 [UNKNOWN]: is trying to move him like came from a position of you know cover into concealment to go back into the kills zone to try to get certain silver he's carrying him he's wounded can still evacuate himself doesn't and then decides that drape his body over silver because he's still being targeted at which time another soldier his battle buddy young man by name a Michael pushkin [UNKNOWN]: What made you go back and get certain silver? [UNKNOWN]: And he said, silver would it come back for me?

2:04:40 [UNKNOWN]: I had to go and get him. [UNKNOWN]: I said, okay, now you're wounded. [UNKNOWN]: Why did you not evacuate yourself again? [UNKNOWN]: Get help. [UNKNOWN]: You know, do something else. [UNKNOWN]: Why did you drape your body over him? [UNKNOWN]: He said, again, silver would have done the same for me. [UNKNOWN]: I could not leave a fallen comrade. [UNKNOWN]: It said plus, I knew that pushkin would come for me. [UNKNOWN]: And he did. [UNKNOWN]: That's the lesson. [UNKNOWN]: It's for your brothers and sisters, no matter how great the consequences are. [UNKNOWN]: You do what's necessary to fight through it. [UNKNOWN]: And unfortunately, we lost certain silver that day. [UNKNOWN]: But man, talk about being proud of the actions of everybody involved, to try to save the life of a foreign comrade at the risk of your own life.

2:05:30 [UNKNOWN]: In a situation where it is uncertain, it is undetermined, but you've got to try to turn the tide. [UNKNOWN]: And so, again, it's, you know, one of those situations where, of course, we lose Cory Dan, not an hour later. [UNKNOWN]: And, um, [UNKNOWN]: Now I'm faced with a situation that you faced as well, whereas, you know, Tweet was killed, but he was with our teammates in Baghdad. [UNKNOWN]: This is the first time I've ever lost a soldier under my command directly. [UNKNOWN]: So training, [UNKNOWN]: in, you know, administrative on leave, you know, personal time or in combat.

2:06:11 [UNKNOWN]: And we've just lost two in the span of, you know, pretty short period of time. [UNKNOWN]: So again, the voice that your soldiers here in a moment of crisis or marines or or seals here is yours. [UNKNOWN]: you know we have to fight through we have to do this the right way there's only one way to do this and that's with you know our efforts to choose the harder right over the easier wrong at every moment we have to be the leaders of character in that moment of crisis [UNKNOWN]: that our brothers and sisters need and it starts early it goes back to the first stories we were talking about where you have to decide in a moment you know take their company from your fallen out company commander or you know or jump back into line and courage and then jump back in the line so that's that's where it starts and that's that was really I think what's saw us through a lot of dark times during a battle of Romani [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, the idea for me in the 90s, you know, we didn't think of like we thought of doing missions as you're going to go do one mission.

2:07:12 [UNKNOWN]: You know, we were always training for the one big mission that was going to happen. [UNKNOWN]: But to be in this new environment where it's like, oh no, it's sustained combat operations and you're going to run out of ammunition. [UNKNOWN]: You're going to, you know, you're going to need supplies. [UNKNOWN]: You're going to run out of batteries. [UNKNOWN]: Like all these things that you didn't really think of before in the 90s, never thought about that, right? [UNKNOWN]: Never thought about that at all. [UNKNOWN]: And we certainly didn't think about, hey, if you lose a guy, we finish the tactical situation. [UNKNOWN]: Oh yeah, you fight to the problem, you get him. [UNKNOWN]: But then what? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: What about tomorrow morning? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Are we standing down? [UNKNOWN]: Because no, we're not standing down. [UNKNOWN]: And the enemy is going to continue to fight.

2:07:54 [UNKNOWN]: And that is, you know, one of the things that is so hard to do is guys, like, we're gonna put our gear back on. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: You know, and that's kind of what I told my guys. [UNKNOWN]: I said, I don't know what to tell you guys. [UNKNOWN]: The only thing I know how to do is work. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: And that's what we're gonna do. [UNKNOWN]: Put our gear back on and go to work. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, another, just great example of that is when dealer company had, they were escorting the clearance mission and they had IED go off and kill Greg Rogers to install it. [UNKNOWN]: You know, that started that chain of events with the tank catching on fire from the subsurface ID and, you know, we ended up in the Milab for over 36 hours flighting all through the night.

2:08:42 [UNKNOWN]: And in the process of, um, certain riders being killed, you know, his bulltune conducted evacuation to combat outpost. [UNKNOWN]: And then they, you know, were instructed as you normally would, hey, you know, go back to your company. [UNKNOWN]: The cashier care team will be over here to debrief to make sure that everybody's, you know, we can do the best we can to take care of everybody on the loss of a phone combat. [UNKNOWN]: So they did that, and then too later. [UNKNOWN]: comes cross street to talk and he goes, hey sir, we need to get back in. [UNKNOWN]: And I said, you ain't going back in. [UNKNOWN]: You just lost some things, aren't you? [UNKNOWN]: No, we're not doing that. [UNKNOWN]: And he goes, we have to.

2:09:23 [UNKNOWN]: The entire battalion and all the enablers are deployed right now into this fight. [UNKNOWN]: We've got three vehicles we're focused on doing this the right way. [UNKNOWN]: We'll do exactly what you want us to do on this. [UNKNOWN]: will agree later, but we need to be back out there right now because the combat power that we're going to lose for most not being there is not something I think that I'm comfortable with is a little too late or knowing that I can help and we'll do it the right way. [UNKNOWN]: Ray Curheway. [UNKNOWN]: So that's it. [UNKNOWN]: All right. [UNKNOWN]: I trust you. [UNKNOWN]: Let's go. [UNKNOWN]: And they did. [UNKNOWN]: It was unbelievable. [UNKNOWN]: But again, you know, in the moment where you've, you know, just lost, you know, your ball tunes aren't.

2:10:03 [UNKNOWN]: to have the wherewithal to go, you know what, not only am I okay with, you know, having a discussion with my, you know, with my mates about, hey, are we ready to go do this, but I'm going to go cross street and tell the tank manner. [UNKNOWN]: You need me. [UNKNOWN]: So we're going. [UNKNOWN]: And he was right. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, they went out and they did everything the right way. [UNKNOWN]: Um, just super proud of, you know, those soldiers at that moment and really, you know, period. [UNKNOWN]: You know, his. [UNKNOWN]: stuff you can't teach in situ, right? [UNKNOWN]: It's stuff that they have to know. [UNKNOWN]: Just outstand, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you know, it's always interesting to that idea and what you have to do. [UNKNOWN]: And I had Jason Kedzeror on here.

2:10:43 [UNKNOWN]: He was like a 50-cal gun or not. [UNKNOWN]: I think, you know, and here's his perspective of what it was like losing guys, and you're perspective. [UNKNOWN]: You know, it was, it was, you know, for general look for Ireland, you know, talking to him about it. [UNKNOWN]: Man, you know, I, I think, you know, I lost three guys in Ramadi. [UNKNOWN]: She lost 94 guys in Ramadi. [UNKNOWN]: You know, and he feels every single one of those guys. [UNKNOWN]: And at that level, it's harder, I think, because you're disconnected from the people. [UNKNOWN]: And unless you knew them personally, like obviously, he knew Travis Patrick Williams. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, he knew Megan. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, he knew them. [UNKNOWN]: But, you know, the kids that are out there just getting after it and, you know, end up losing their lives and the fight, I mean, you don't know as a tank manager, you should know everybody.

2:11:31 [UNKNOWN]: So that was really my biggest personal fear was that I would have to conduct a memorial service for a soldier that I didn't know or a seal that I didn't know or a marine that I didn't know. [UNKNOWN]: Even though it's in my fob and in my space and I should know everybody because an infrastructure contains about the over 900 people. [UNKNOWN]: And because I was the first one, [UNKNOWN]: everybody assigned to that battalion. [UNKNOWN]: I know them because I welcomed them all in and I walked around while they were at ranges before the deployment, you know, at PT in the childhood.

2:12:11 [UNKNOWN]: Once we deployed, just walking through the tents in the gym, [UNKNOWN]: in the cowhole, in the talk, in the day room, in the motor pool, just, you know, trying to every day sit with a different group of kids, I had, you know, one of my, one of my colleagues laughing, he was making a comment about who's from Mississippi, and I told him that we had, we had the CB company from Mississippi, and so you get to know all those kids, and there were a couple of CBs who were in the child line, and they had just arrived and wanted a [UNKNOWN]: Hey, man. [UNKNOWN]: They've got mayonnaise. [UNKNOWN]: And a couple of little packets take back to make some sandwiches later.

2:12:54 [UNKNOWN]: And I said, where are you from? [UNKNOWN]: And you all serve from Mississippi. [UNKNOWN]: Like, mayonnaise sandwiches. [UNKNOWN]: And we can do better than that. [UNKNOWN]: There's a peanut butter jelly, something hot sauce. [UNKNOWN]: No, mayonnaise. [UNKNOWN]: I was like, all right. [UNKNOWN]: Dude, they're living hard out here, man. [UNKNOWN]: And mayonnaise is a delicacy. [UNKNOWN]: But yeah, you had to get to know them all, you had to be with them on missions, talking to them, getting comfortable with them in their environment. [UNKNOWN]: So when I'd go out on a mission, a lot of times I'd just go to the rehearsal, getting a truck, and just go. [UNKNOWN]: So I can remember being in a clearance with Charlie Cummy, and it's somebody else, hey, get me another body in here because they need one of their due to help search.

2:13:39 [UNKNOWN]: Well, I'm there. [UNKNOWN]: So I pull security on the people that we needed to hold in the space until we were done. [UNKNOWN]: And I said, hey, you go like, got it. [UNKNOWN]: And so I'm standing there. [UNKNOWN]: And then, you know, in COGO's. [UNKNOWN]: Hey, who'd you leave on the, do you think there's a Chrome Clarks out there? [UNKNOWN]: What? [UNKNOWN]: Comes out and goes, sir, I go, hey. [UNKNOWN]: I showed up with a weapon. [UNKNOWN]: I'm working. [UNKNOWN]: It's OK. And it goes, sir, we can't have. [UNKNOWN]: I go, I also have. [UNKNOWN]: You know, authority to drop gimmlers. [UNKNOWN]: So it's like a support by fire position right here with you. [UNKNOWN]: So hang in there and we'll be fine. [UNKNOWN]: But it's that kind of, you know, those interaction they go back to and tell the stories, it's, it's for, I mean, it's, it's what we're supposed to do and back to your original question.

2:14:22 [UNKNOWN]: You have to know everybody at that level. [UNKNOWN]: That's the last time you'll be able to do it. [UNKNOWN]: So why waste that time, you know, why be in authentic, [UNKNOWN]: you know, why not be the leader you're supposed to be for this organization where everybody is in it with you. [UNKNOWN]: I remember, uh, I came over to talk to you about sign. [UNKNOWN]: I think we're doing some kind of a mission or something, um, was getting jinned up. [UNKNOWN]: This was maybe halfway through deployment, but I was sitting outside your office, uh, outside the talk there and you're in there with another soldier and the soldier, you know, the soldier walked out and, you know, I was waiting for him to get done. [UNKNOWN]: He walked out and I walked in and, you know, I said, [UNKNOWN]: That guy's getting out of the army and I said, oh, he said, you said, do you know what I tell people when they're going to get out of the army?

2:15:08 [UNKNOWN]: When they're leaving, we're on deployment, you know, we got five more months left of this deployment. [UNKNOWN]: He goes, you know what I tell him? [UNKNOWN]: You said to me, you know what I tell him? [UNKNOWN]: And I said, no sir, he said, I tell him thank you. [UNKNOWN]: And when I was at SEAL team one back in the day, if you decided you were going to get out of the Navy, you were called the Quitter, you were put on gate guard, like it was completely ostracized from the team. [UNKNOWN]: And man, when as soon as you said that word like a whole picture, I knew exactly what you were doing, I said that is brilliant. [UNKNOWN]: You said I tell these guys, thank you for your service. [UNKNOWN]: Thank you for what you did. [UNKNOWN]: And we wish you the best of luck.

2:15:48 [UNKNOWN]: And then you said, you know, 75% of the time that knocking on my door, like two hours later, like I want to stay, you know what I mean? [UNKNOWN]: Big Sarah had a change of heart. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: I mean that, but that's, that's what it is. [UNKNOWN]: You know, like, okay, what, how can I really help this person to eat? [UNKNOWN]: I work with businesses now. [UNKNOWN]: And someone will say, you know, I got this guy. [UNKNOWN]: And he's got some other opportunities to leave my company. [UNKNOWN]: Got this other opportunity. [UNKNOWN]: What, you know, what, how do I get him to stay? [UNKNOWN]: I go, the wish in the best of luck, tell me you'll, you'll, you'll write in the best letter recommendation, tell him you'll support him. [UNKNOWN]: If you have any questions when you get over there in the new job and you're, something, cause you problem, give me a call, I'll be here. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's what you do. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, as opposed to like, I'm going to burn this guy and cut their bonus in the all nine yards.

2:16:30 [UNKNOWN]: So that's, you know, just another example of leadership where I said, oh, I mean, here you are in the middle of the deployment. [UNKNOWN]: You got guys that are leaving. [UNKNOWN]: and guys that have a lot of knowledge, a lot of experience and they're going to leave. [UNKNOWN]: What do you tell them? [UNKNOWN]: I tell them, thank you. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: I went over some, you know, have green books that I've had, you know, since I was a lieutenant. [UNKNOWN]: So drives my wife crazy because that came to write it that stuff away some, because there's nothing good in most of these. [UNKNOWN]: Well, I have all of them by, you know, chronological order. [UNKNOWN]: So I pulled all the books from the deployment. [UNKNOWN]: And some of it's like, it's not quite a journal, but I'll take a little notes in there, say on this day, this happened, this sort of thing. [UNKNOWN]: But the thing that's constant is these little boxes, and they all have people's names next to them.

2:17:15 [UNKNOWN]: And it's all the people that I rate or senior aid. [UNKNOWN]: And it's me doing performance counseling in combat. [UNKNOWN]: And I'm thinking to myself, [UNKNOWN]: I don't remember any of that, but it did, that's those are those conversations where I'm sitting down with Paltoon Surgeons, with Paltoon Leaders, with Company Commanders, and we're having conversations about what happens after this, and where do you plan to go? [UNKNOWN]: with things and how do I assess your potential and continue and to have a developmental conversation with them even though we're in the midst of the throws of a pretty horrific combat situation, but to continue invest in the leader development or the folks around you.

2:17:57 [UNKNOWN]: But I don't almost forgotten that I've done that. [UNKNOWN]: But part of the, so I'm like, you know, that's 20 years ago, something like that. [UNKNOWN]: That guy, he was a pretty good, but then I didn't go to the end, or thinking I should probably do better now with that. [UNKNOWN]: But the lesson though is what you said. [UNKNOWN]: It's that, you know, less than 1% of our US population will serve in uniform. [UNKNOWN]: So for those who decide to wear the cloth of the nation, especially in that situation where they have deployed to combat, like, how do you not take a few minutes if they've decided, you know what, this has been great, but I'm going to go off and serve in other ways after this, my community, my family, you know, whatever, then hey, man, thanks.

2:18:47 [UNKNOWN]: I appreciate the fact that you made the decision to serve in this organization with us full stop. [UNKNOWN]: Yes, especially in that environment, I had Colonel Tova, who is the Siege sort of commander, and with all the stuff that was happening in her body, he came down, we gave him a briefing and one part of the briefing, I'm briefing it. [UNKNOWN]: And as I'm briefing him, I said, sir, you know, this, I've got this element that's out in Eastern Romadi that correct or there's seven guys out there and I said they have been in the last 23 straight operations, they've been in contact with the enemy 23 straight times and I'm, I'm, [UNKNOWN]: I did not plan this kernel though, but wherever you may be, literally as I'm saying that, my tech operations center chief comes walking in, hey sir, just let you know we get troops in contact out in the money, I don't care, I said, Roger that, I looked at kernel teller, I said, make that 24 straight.

2:19:44 [UNKNOWN]: And that being said, and being in the Romadi, you know, as a leader, you know, and I knew that as time goes on, like you can only get lucky so many days in a row, so many days in a row, and eventually it's going to catch up with you. [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, on the west side of Ramadi, it caught us up with us on August 2nd. [UNKNOWN]: We had Mark Lee get killed, we had Ryan Job, gets really wounded, ended up dying of wounds. [UNKNOWN]: And then on September 29th for our guys out Craig at our, um, we lost Mikey.

2:20:24 [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, we were, um, it was pretty normal, kind of a, you know, normal sounding day and listen to the radio and the talk, I'm hearing the calls getting made, the guys are in contact, which literally at this point, you know, it's just another day and our body, um, and then, you know, the call for fire support comes in, call for QRF comes in, um, I end up telling the passing word, what actual building the guys were in. [UNKNOWN]: They get extracted and then maybe 15, 20 minutes later, I got to call for you in the talk. [UNKNOWN]: And you said, Benny's going to be okay.

2:21:09 [UNKNOWN]: He said, Doug's wounded. [UNKNOWN]: Mike's wounded. [UNKNOWN]: And then he said, Mikey, they don't see PR in Mike, I don't think he's going to make it. [UNKNOWN]: You know, that was, again, one of those times where first of all, you know, there's, it's, it's the absolute most wretched thing to hear. [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, we all know Mike is as good as they come, a saint of the human being, literally. [UNKNOWN]: And, [UNKNOWN]: knowing that the bond that we already had from six months of hard fighting was now eternal.

2:22:01 [UNKNOWN]: What else do you remember about that day? [UNKNOWN]: With the exception of one more thing I'm gonna say. [UNKNOWN]: I was talking to Jimmy May, who was on the rooftop. [UNKNOWN]: If he wasn't on the rooftop, he came. [UNKNOWN]: He moved to the rooftop with Seth and Buddy carried out Mikey. [UNKNOWN]: and jumped in the thing was a 1-1-3, jumped in the 1-1-3, and he said when the door of the 1-1-3 opened up, as the ramp was dropping down, he's looking up and you're the first face that he saw, and you know that meant so much to him knowing that U is a time commander was right there to receive our guys.

2:22:53 [UNKNOWN]: means everything. [UNKNOWN]: It was, um, there's a brotherhood. [UNKNOWN]: Still is the, the eternal bond, which, you know, ironically began on the feast of St. Michael. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, Mikey was, he was effervescent, you know, just life oozed from him. [UNKNOWN]: So everybody who came in contact with him, knew him, appreciated him. [UNKNOWN]: He had this kind of cool, [UNKNOWN]: It's you know exactly that's the word that sums it up right there.

2:23:34 [UNKNOWN]: It's the photo of him during birds Which the famous photo I swear and I saw it it was on the ship I just I broke down because I'm like that that's him and everybody's strain and it's like, you know Life is ending for everybody and Mikey's like [UNKNOWN]: Like he knew the camera man was there and it was kind of like, you know what, I'm not screaming I think into the roller coaster like everybody else, just so cool. [UNKNOWN]: But man that was gut wrenching for so many reasons, one because it was it, I've been till that point, it was an easy day, I mean it was beautiful, sunny, um, [UNKNOWN]: You know, and it was towards the end of the deployment, which you can't get, you know, complacent and we didn't, but guys were still plunging in every day, you know, just like you're supposed to, and it's kind of one of those, where you grow up as a leader, no one where you're supposed to be.

2:24:44 [UNKNOWN]: And it starts early. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, it's a batang commander I used to go with. [UNKNOWN]: During PT every morning, I go with whoever had the best plan or look like we're going to have the most opportunity to fail. [UNKNOWN]: It's just because I wanted to be there. [UNKNOWN]: You kind of know where to be. [UNKNOWN]: It's something that tells you to check the aid station in the morning, your MPT. [UNKNOWN]: Or, hey, this is a bad contact. [UNKNOWN]: And you know, from the way we would do this, [UNKNOWN]: then I would stay in the jock or the talk because we have to continue to apply combat power to whatever this is. [UNKNOWN]: But for that particular contact, once we got the one-one-three's on station, I went to combat outpost.

2:25:30 [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, is the geography as I'd walk across Michigan to get over there to see. [UNKNOWN]: because they couldn't give me a good understanding of what was going on with Mikey. [UNKNOWN]: It was, you know, that it was like described it was bad, but they were still working on him. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, they were trying to save him. [UNKNOWN]: So nobody wanted to say he was gone. [UNKNOWN]: And nobody, obviously, you know, no one wanted that outcome, any less than, you know, [UNKNOWN]: And so I talked to the docs after we got him loaded up to go to TQ and they were like, yeah, we did everything we could.

2:26:11 [UNKNOWN]: And so no one that he won, you know, love had, you know, got to have no greater love than those who would, you know, sacrifice themselves with the brothers, you know, John 1513 applies. [UNKNOWN]: And Mikey is the, he's the touchstone for us in a way that, you know, we'll all hold in our hearts for ever. [UNKNOWN]: And it's everything that's happened since then for all of us to keep us all together and to keep us tight.

2:26:55 [UNKNOWN]: And you saw it at Fort Bliss at the memorial. [UNKNOWN]: You saw it at the commission in the U.S. Mikey Munsour. [UNKNOWN]: You saw it at the White House. [UNKNOWN]: With all of us that were there when his family was presented in the middle of honor You saw it at the Pentagon when he was indebted in all of heroes. [UNKNOWN]: It's every instance that we have to come together It's a celebration of Mikey, and I was service and how he touched us all in a way that We're just better [UNKNOWN]: We're just better. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: No doubt about that. [UNKNOWN]: Definitely a model for all of us to strive toward the frogman on the high ground.

2:27:36 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: We kind of missed that whole frogman thing. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Because I think it was the very first patrol the guys went out on and I'm in the talk with you and our guys come up on the radio with the frogman on the roof. [UNKNOWN]: You kind of looked at me. [UNKNOWN]: Well like what and then you hear it again frogman on the roof frogman on the roof yeah and and we had the call sign We didn't have the call sign frogman the guys that took our place picked up the day they decided to use the call sign frogman, which was a good call But yeah Every time I'd see you every time I'd come over to Craig or you'd see me or every time you come over to care for money Do you go frogman How we do it and now Mikey monsters are eternal frogman rock man on the high ground.

2:28:20 [UNKNOWN]: That's right [UNKNOWN]: covering down on the boys and you got that was pretty close those basically the end of our deployment yeah when did you guys start start heading home we we'll have to I think we we completed our rip on the 15th November so we we got home right before Thanksgiving great story tied to that we were in TQ waiting transport and we were on there for a day [UNKNOWN]: And as the first time, we'd all been together in a year. [UNKNOWN]: Because you know, the time was all spread out. [UNKNOWN]: So it's the first time everybody's been in one location. [UNKNOWN]: And so the one meth deputy commander was Jerome Nellar.

2:29:03 [UNKNOWN]: I remember him. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, ended up becoming a common operating corps. [UNKNOWN]: Phenomenal leader. [UNKNOWN]: uh... so he came down he's to come to create our all time which is why you know the boys loved them and he would say things like hey you know fancy for shriek on god i'm just a grunt and we all get there guy so he tried like held it you know make sure we were in you know in good stead all the time he's a great leader you know personable he's down on the line you know doing all things are necessary so he came out to teach you [UNKNOWN]: super. [UNKNOWN]: So I'm fired up. [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, sir, this is great. [UNKNOWN]: You know, of all the people they could come here and see us off.

2:29:45 [UNKNOWN]: You know, this is this means so much to the team. [UNKNOWN]: So thanks for that. [UNKNOWN]: And he goes, oh yeah. [UNKNOWN]: And we got your two beers per man for the morning, co-operate day. [UNKNOWN]: what? [UNKNOWN]: That's a thing? [UNKNOWN]: He goes, yeah, that's exactly it. [UNKNOWN]: What is that? [UNKNOWN]: It was well, everywhere Marines are deployed. [UNKNOWN]: They have a two-beer ration for the Marine Corps birthday. [UNKNOWN]: It's like, we don't ask their age, you know, it's two beers per Marine, no matter where they are. [UNKNOWN]: And we got your two beers. [UNKNOWN]: Think about you guys as Marines. [UNKNOWN]: And I said, we're not doing that.

2:30:27 [UNKNOWN]: That's cool. [UNKNOWN]: And he goes, what do you mean? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, doing that goes there, we're not Marines. [UNKNOWN]: He goes, but I think of you that way. [UNKNOWN]: And you should have the beers. [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, no. [UNKNOWN]: Because if you can walk down there and anybody can answer the question, when is the Marine Corps birthday? [UNKNOWN]: Well, Drake, all the very TQ. [UNKNOWN]: But we're not Marines. [UNKNOWN]: So I doubt anybody knows unless they have like a family member or something that's a Marine. [UNKNOWN]: Like we don't do, surely even, we don't do poor calls and we don't do any of that. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, we generalize your own one and the rules have to apply and the thing that practically, you know, talked to you about this is that none of these kids have spent any money in a year.

2:31:18 [UNKNOWN]: So what's to say? [UNKNOWN]: that good old Clark decides that I'm gonna pay 50 bucks for your two bears and 50 bucks for your two bears. [UNKNOWN]: And, oh, by the way, I got the money. [UNKNOWN]: Has I've spent it on nothing. [UNKNOWN]: And then I drank 10 bears and now we got a problem. [UNKNOWN]: And then the answer to the question is, how do you get 10 bears? [UNKNOWN]: It's like, how do you get any? [UNKNOWN]: It's like, because Clark was weak. [UNKNOWN]: And he said, come to pressure to drink like in high school. [UNKNOWN]: And of course, you know, it wasn't that Frank a discussion between the lieutenant colonel and star, I'm like, sir.

2:32:03 [UNKNOWN]: no, we can't do that. [UNKNOWN]: And he's like, I guess, you know, I have to mind to tell him you said that. [UNKNOWN]: And I said, I'm pretty sure my reputation could absorb that late today. [UNKNOWN]: And he just laughed. [UNKNOWN]: But yeah, so I had to tell, I told everybody is like, I like, Marines want to give you all two beers. [UNKNOWN]: I said no. [UNKNOWN]: Hang in there. [UNKNOWN]: We have all the beer we want a couple of days. [UNKNOWN]: This is keeping together a little while longer and Yeah, we were able to do that, but man, what it just a funny He was excited. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, we got you so the next time I see him I'm now one star and he's coming out of very court He's looking at me.

2:32:43 [UNKNOWN]: He's like Clark drank any beer lately It's our impact I have [UNKNOWN]: They don't play around with the Marine Corps birthday. [UNKNOWN]: No, they carry this business. [UNKNOWN]: They get, well, I don't know if they still do this, but kids would get, you know, like the 17, 18, 19-year-old Marines would get waivers to drink. [UNKNOWN]: Just cleared hot, like your 18 years old with 18 years old, you are cleared hot. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: And the Marine Corps seniors, like, they would travel with their mess kit, you know? [UNKNOWN]: So they would go to, you know, [UNKNOWN]: go to some embassy to have a Marine Corps birthday ball like while you're in combat. [UNKNOWN]: It's like, like, where are you going? [UNKNOWN]: They're getting it done. [UNKNOWN]: Oh yeah. [UNKNOWN]: I love the tradition though.

2:33:24 [UNKNOWN]: I think that's. [UNKNOWN]: No, it's awesome. [UNKNOWN]: It's outstanding. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Um, now you're, so now you get home. [UNKNOWN]: And you actually stayed in Battalion command when you got home. [UNKNOWN]: That's pretty awesome. [UNKNOWN]: That was great. [UNKNOWN]: Very lucky. [UNKNOWN]: Another six months. [UNKNOWN]: What that helped us to do was kind of get everybody back for sure. [UNKNOWN]: You know that to be able to [UNKNOWN]: You know, first, memorialize our fallen comrades. [UNKNOWN]: So as you know, we had a memorial done, because we had the time to raise the money and to get it in. [UNKNOWN]: we had that task force reunion ball to kind of bring everybody back together one more time. [UNKNOWN]: It's awesome. [UNKNOWN]: Just to honor the service and the sacrifice of all those that had gone before us, especially those who couldn't be with us that night.

2:34:09 [UNKNOWN]: And you guys put Mikey on that. [UNKNOWN]: Absolutely amazing. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so he's on every memorial. [UNKNOWN]: He's featured prominently in that headquarters. [UNKNOWN]: Amazing. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, he's one of us. [UNKNOWN]: So I carry that print around of zoom-walk-class destroyer, one thousand and one. [UNKNOWN]: Talk about it all the time. [UNKNOWN]: Got a little navy wall with my paddle and... Oh yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Fan and all that stuff and put up my office so people know I love them. [UNKNOWN]: General McFarlane's Army Seals. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: We're clear. [UNKNOWN]: I see you get credit for that. [UNKNOWN]: I'm pretty sure I said that. [UNKNOWN]: Did you say that first? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I did. [UNKNOWN]: uh well we took we took in ran with it that's for sure that we all said that how rough was it I mean have for for your boys that are coming home and now they are now that you have access to drinking and everything else you've been in combat for a year hardcore combat lost friends a whole nine yards was it was rough would you do to mitigate [UNKNOWN]: it was it was hard and that's so much that you know the effects of war because again if it's your first deployment then you don't know anything different if it's your you know not your first deployment you go man that was really hard but then not all that hard [UNKNOWN]: but it's to keep in everybody safe and healthy away from work.

2:35:27 [UNKNOWN]: So it's the, from the time you get there and the morning for PT and until you go home at the end of the day, you don't worry about- Oh, good. [UNKNOWN]: Everybody's good. [UNKNOWN]: But then unstructured time away from the headquarters away from the formation, that's when you have your big problem. [UNKNOWN]: So the thing that we struggled with was de-wise. [UNKNOWN]: So, [UNKNOWN]: You know, we would, you know, give the safety brief every night, it's like, hey man, don't go out and try to drink all the brown liquor and Kentucky and drive 100 miles an hour down a penny rally. [UNKNOWN]: It doesn't work. [UNKNOWN]: You know, if you have an issue call somebody, we had a barracks number with dudes would drive to come get, yeah, if you're in trouble. [UNKNOWN]: So there's no need to drink and drive.

2:36:07 [UNKNOWN]: So we had a couple of D-wise and it was kind of like, man, I didn't make any sense. [UNKNOWN]: just unimaginable. [UNKNOWN]: It was soldier went off to warrior leader course. [UNKNOWN]: He's just a stud, you know, squared away young kid and we had a barracks problem with overcrowding. [UNKNOWN]: So some of the more mature, you know, squared away young troopers were allowed to live off post and this guy was one of them. [UNKNOWN]: And so he goes off to the warrior leader course to Fort Knox, temporary duty comes back. [UNKNOWN]: His squad leader, well, first, he gets to DUI. [UNKNOWN]: And so we're like, oh, man, like, what is this?

2:36:48 [UNKNOWN]: And so we had this, it was a safety counsel that we would meet. [UNKNOWN]: It was a serious incident. [UNKNOWN]: We would all meet in the morning. [UNKNOWN]: The entire chain of command. [UNKNOWN]: And if it was something that was a soldier misconduct issue, then the team leader for that soldier, first line supervisor, NCO, would be the person that basically briefs the chain of command. [UNKNOWN]: Platoon, Company, Battalion, Leadership, Officer, and NCO. [UNKNOWN]: So me and McMaster Major, First Army, and Company Commander, we're belongs to our team leader. [UNKNOWN]: Squat later. [UNKNOWN]: And so on this one, we have everybody in there after this kid got DUI on Saturday night.

2:37:30 [UNKNOWN]: It's a Monday morning. [UNKNOWN]: And the Squat later says, hey, I need to be the person that briefs, not the team leader. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, no, it's the team leader that briefs. [UNKNOWN]: And he goes, no, Sarah, you know, like, without do respect, I need to brief this. [UNKNOWN]: Okay, all right, we're not gonna argue at five 30 in the morning about who briefs. [UNKNOWN]: All right, you, you brief it. [UNKNOWN]: So the soldier basically comes back from Warrior Leader Course. [UNKNOWN]: Squallator Meetsum, helps him turn in his weapon and his nods, gives him a ride home because he doesn't have a car. [UNKNOWN]: but he's living off post, so the squad leader's been taking this guy to and from work, you know, because he lives nearby.

2:38:14 [UNKNOWN]: So he basically tells us, hey, don't drink and drive. [UNKNOWN]: You missed the safety brief. [UNKNOWN]: Don't drink and drive. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, by the way, you don't have a license and you don't have a car. [UNKNOWN]: So don't do it. [UNKNOWN]: Okay, sorry. [UNKNOWN]: Take some home. [UNKNOWN]: Is that your girlfriend has a car? [UNKNOWN]: Don't take her car. [UNKNOWN]: Okay. [UNKNOWN]: So the next morning, he goes back to the guy's house, and he goes, hey, you were kind of sleepy last night when I was talking to you. [UNKNOWN]: Do not drink or drive. [UNKNOWN]: Do not drive. [UNKNOWN]: You do not have a license. [UNKNOWN]: You do not have a car. [UNKNOWN]: Don't do it. [UNKNOWN]: Kick it to DUI that night.

2:38:54 [UNKNOWN]: So it's like, how do you solve this? [UNKNOWN]: And so, you know, of course, everybody's losing their mind at this point. [UNKNOWN]: Like, how much work got done to keep this from happening. [UNKNOWN]: Like what, like all this? [UNKNOWN]: Like where were you, you ran through all these stop signs in order to get to this fender bender that ended up with you above the blood alcohol content allowable in a car. [UNKNOWN]: Like, where were you going? [UNKNOWN]: It was to visit. [UNKNOWN]: a buddy who had been wounded that was on medication for pain and drinking and he said I got to go be with him because he spiraled and so his girlfriend was tired she come on from work and he's like I got to go so he went.

2:39:43 [UNKNOWN]: spent time with his buddy. [UNKNOWN]: So what's going to cause you to forego your own health, safety, potentially your life, your brothers? [UNKNOWN]: And that's exactly what it was. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, right motivation, wrong technique. [UNKNOWN]: But that's what it was. [UNKNOWN]: And so in my mind, at that point, you know, something clicked because it's, it's that we're willing to take risks. [UNKNOWN]: to ourselves for our brothers. [UNKNOWN]: So how do we leverage that to make ourselves accountable for each other? [UNKNOWN]: as opposed to just being accountable for ourselves. [UNKNOWN]: So he's going to risk it, he's going to risk the biscuit to get to see his brother.

2:40:23 [UNKNOWN]: But he's not going to do it if somebody else has to pay for it. [UNKNOWN]: So that's what we worked on. [UNKNOWN]: It's like, hey, if you get the DUI, man, that hurts him too. [UNKNOWN]: It's not just you. [UNKNOWN]: So how do we work through that? [UNKNOWN]: And of course, how do you adjudicate it for this soldier who obviously was trying to do the right thing? [UNKNOWN]: Obviously bad things happened. [UNKNOWN]: Um, so, so yeah, we did what we could to support him, obviously, support his buddy, but then, you know, talk about how we take care of each other here, not just down range. [UNKNOWN]: And the way to do that is by really being there for one another in a way that makes sense. [UNKNOWN]: It's safe in doing it the right way. [UNKNOWN]: So, so we were able to work through it, but gosh, I mean, that's, that was the biggest challenge that we had was just trying to keep people upright.

2:41:09 [UNKNOWN]: you know, between the hours of limited visibility, just like in the fight with no insane leadership. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: And so you do that for another six months or so, you know, once you get home, what, what came after that? [UNKNOWN]: Well I was I was on orders to go to West Point to be a regimental tactical officer their four regiments of cadets. [UNKNOWN]: So we're pretty excited about that. [UNKNOWN]: We'd already entered our names into the housing draw. [UNKNOWN]: I don't want to go to about it and then some mega-fired. [UNKNOWN]: At Human Resources Command. [UNKNOWN]: So I ended up going back to Branch. [UNKNOWN]: This time is the Branch Chief 10 years later. [UNKNOWN]: So a funny story. [UNKNOWN]: When I was a captain in there, [UNKNOWN]: I'd gotten into it with one of the civilian ladies, because I didn't think she was pulling her weight.

2:41:54 [UNKNOWN]: So we moved some furniture around to help our company great sell, do better work, because we're doing some our work too in my mind. [UNKNOWN]: And so she basically threatened to take me to the union and bend the dog tags and sue me and everything else. [UNKNOWN]: So I'm like, whatever. [UNKNOWN]: And so she went the rest of the time I was there for another year. [UNKNOWN]: never referring to me in person. [UNKNOWN]: She would tell people to tell me things if we were sitting this close to each other. [UNKNOWN]: I was dead to her. [UNKNOWN]: Cold blooded, dead to her. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, her nickname was Sugar. [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, and it wasn't Sugar, it was like Sugar Night.

2:42:35 [UNKNOWN]: So, so I show back up as the brains cheat 10 years later. [UNKNOWN]: and all the other, you know, civilians are all excited. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, he's back. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, he's such a good dude. [UNKNOWN]: I would love him. [UNKNOWN]: And then, uh, she's kind of sitting behind her computer, you know, kind of behind the screen, just eyes over the screen. [UNKNOWN]: So I said, shig. [UNKNOWN]: Hug it out, come on, I know you got hate in your heart, come on, hug it out. [UNKNOWN]: And so she comes over and I hug her and she's got her arms down to the side. [UNKNOWN]: And I said, I bet you would have been nice to have ate if you knew I was coming back 10 years to be your boss. [UNKNOWN]: And she said, no, there's no way. [UNKNOWN]: Is that that you two f and stupid to make it beyond a greater cap than I go?

2:43:20 [UNKNOWN]: Since I have let's work this out and she was great. [UNKNOWN]: I mean she might have come back to officiate her retirement. [UNKNOWN]: After I left when I was in my next duty station, she was fantastic. [UNKNOWN]: But yeah, she was so mad at me for 10 years and I ended up back there as a boss. [UNKNOWN]: Sometimes she just got a hug at Al. [UNKNOWN]: I'll get out. [UNKNOWN]: But we did great work because we were able to go and spend time with brigade combat teams before they went into the box to record Afghanistan and help them one set their team for the deployment, but two make sure they were ready to reset the team to go again. [UNKNOWN]: Because you had all these units are redeployed, but leaders are rotating out through our [UNKNOWN]: So we were able to do some good during that time frame, and it during surge, and all that, so despite being unhappy about the initial burst traffic that you're not going to do something fun, you're going to do something hard.

2:44:20 [UNKNOWN]: But the next assignment after that, I ended up at West Point. [UNKNOWN]: You did, right? [UNKNOWN]: At the same time, it's an honor. [UNKNOWN]: It's a explain what the Simon Center is. [UNKNOWN]: It's the William E. Simon Center for the Professional Military Ethic. [UNKNOWN]: It is the centerpiece of West Point's character development program. [UNKNOWN]: So it's responsible for [UNKNOWN]: the development of leaders of character for the army and the nation through the character development program at West Point notice. [UNKNOWN]: When you took that over, what did you, you know, what, what lessons from the battle over body when you're talking to these young army candidates, cadets, what, what, what are you trying to pass on to them? [UNKNOWN]: Well, um, there's a capstone course in x 400 that all that it's graduation requirement, all the cadets have to take the Simon [UNKNOWN]: So in the in the class that I taught, they would literally come to see me as if they were reporting for duty as a new lieutenant in the first of the 506, so I would give them their initial counseling, my OER support form.

2:45:23 [UNKNOWN]: my priorities as a commander in commanders intent the same thing I gave to Lutense when they've show up and that's how we ran the class like they were Lutense in the battalion so you literally set it up like a role play at scenario where you said you are now checking into the first the five oh six I am the battalion commander yes oh that's awesome [UNKNOWN]: yeah and so they they loved it because again anything that helps them with practicum you know the next mission is to be a lieutenant so this is gonna help me with that to establish my personal and professional identity as an army officer so it's it was really good yeah do you still get feedback from up from those troops oh yeah and some of the things that i thought ended up you know on the personal staff later on and it's good because they you know they can call bull you know [UNKNOWN]: But yeah, I've run into quite a few of the students that were in my sections out in the army, doing big things.

2:46:16 [UNKNOWN]: That's awesome. [UNKNOWN]: So yeah, they're all. [UNKNOWN]: Promotable to O5 right now. [UNKNOWN]: We live first group by Todd. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, tells you you're getting old when you're cadets or Oh, yeah, and then you see picked a brigade command after that. [UNKNOWN]: I did and then how was that good? [UNKNOWN]: Down at Fort Benning, Georgia. [UNKNOWN]: It was a training brigade. [UNKNOWN]: Okay, so we had advanced individual training and Infantry basic training together, so one station unit training and [UNKNOWN]: for 11 bravos, and then we had basic training for all other ambulances to include the kids who were college students that were coming to become officers through the OCS program. [UNKNOWN]: What do you learn about people like psychologically when you're seeing?

2:46:58 [UNKNOWN]: Like that with your Ranger School experience too, when you're watching that, when you're watching this basic training and stuff, I mean, that's gotta be, that's gotta be an incredible, [UNKNOWN]: view into the human mind when you see these kids get turned from civilians to soldiers. [UNKNOWN]: It's because we also had responsibility for the reception battalion. [UNKNOWN]: You get to see him come rolling in on day one and you know they tell you we're comfortable shoes for your initial entry because they're going to issue you you know running shoes but stuff and you get here so just come in comfortable shoes. [UNKNOWN]: So depending on where you're [UNKNOWN]: That can mean a lot of different things.

2:47:38 [UNKNOWN]: There's this kid shows up with these boots, cowboy boots, and their purple and the upper is white, and it's got like these purple crosses on the front of them. [UNKNOWN]: So it's like he's, you know, from Texas Christian University to sign that we're signature boots, the basic train and so he's in PT uniform, because that's the issue, you know, [UNKNOWN]: They teach you the army values and soldiers create and then they put you in a P.T. [UNKNOWN]: uniform and the comfortable shoes you have to make it through day one, wear them. [UNKNOWN]: The kids from Hawaii, you know what that is? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: They're literally in slippers.

2:48:19 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, but yeah, so it's like cousin. [UNKNOWN]: come on, but yeah, it's they go from that to, you know, the end of, you know, 14 weeks for OCD and 10 for the others, they come out the other side. [UNKNOWN]: And you have, if you've been to a basic training graduation, there is no more patriotic. [UNKNOWN]: you know, empowering motivational ceremony on earth. [UNKNOWN]: Because these kids, I mean, in a lot of cases, you know, the Army is the first organization that they've been in that is of, you know, the right kind of values that they've aspired to their whole lives.

2:49:00 [UNKNOWN]: We had a situation where we had a hazing incident. [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, of course there's 50 kids in a cartoon in DrillSarden, you know, stepped out of, you know, [UNKNOWN]: You know, not widespread, but it happens. [UNKNOWN]: People make mistakes and do things that are not good. [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, of course, the cover was always worse than the crime, right? [UNKNOWN]: So there's a lot of that. [UNKNOWN]: And in the meantime, we find out, you know, cause somebody, you know, talks to a chaplainer, or slips a note under somebody's door, or it comes out. [UNKNOWN]: And so when it all is said and done, as it turns out there were these two soldiers a buddy team that decided that they couldn't live with it they had to tell somebody.

2:49:45 [UNKNOWN]: And so into the investigation, get all the statements, we figure out what happened. [UNKNOWN]: Obviously, you know, minister, you know, justice as necessary. [UNKNOWN]: And then the Bataenck matter says, hey, to me and Mr. Major goes, you guys got to meet these two soldiers. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's worth your time to spend a few minutes with them, talk to them. [UNKNOWN]: OK, so they come in, sit down and office, and these kinds of brand new kids, 18 years old. [UNKNOWN]: And so I said, what made you step up and choose the heart of right over these around? [UNKNOWN]: And the kid said, you know, sir, I listen to the story you told. [UNKNOWN]: And it was the one about Alvarez.

2:50:26 [UNKNOWN]: I tell those, every company would get the story about Alvarez and pushkin with certain, with certain soul. [UNKNOWN]: Every one of them. [UNKNOWN]: Never leave a phone camera and be there for each other. [UNKNOWN]: And so he said, sir, remember that story you told? [UNKNOWN]: And I thought to myself, you know, the army is the only place I've ever been where the values of the organization are what? [UNKNOWN]: I've been looking for my whole life. [UNKNOWN]: He said, I grew up in an environment where people lied to me, didn't tell me the truth. [UNKNOWN]: You know, we're just not of the right kind of character. [UNKNOWN]: He said, so I come to the army. [UNKNOWN]: And it's like, I've lived my entire life in a smoke-filled room.

2:51:06 [UNKNOWN]: And I'm breathing fresh air for the first time. [UNKNOWN]: He goes, and then this happens. [UNKNOWN]: And I remember what you said, and I'm not going back in that room. [UNKNOWN]: So, that's the power of it and again to see these families embrace their soldier. [UNKNOWN]: who's been through a crucible and come out the other side a better person and he's often run into the next level, you know, to join an army, you know, which is in a state of persistent conflict for the most part. [UNKNOWN]: It's just really powerful, yeah, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: And then after that, it was what Pentagon bound. [UNKNOWN]: After that, I went to academic fellowship at Duke University, which was super fun and interesting because my daughter was a student.

2:51:54 [UNKNOWN]: I was going to say we're seeing her at the same time, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that was fun. [UNKNOWN]: And because, yeah, she's, she's, that's awesome. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, after all the times, the army said, nope, this is where you're going. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so we get, we get Duke and again, she's a sophomore. [UNKNOWN]: So it was a fun year because [UNKNOWN]: You know, one, we got to, you know, spend time with hers in adult, which was cool, and then she didn't live at home. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, she's, she was an athlete. [UNKNOWN]: So she was in the dorm and she's with her team and we got a chance to see her grow and develop as a student athlete. [UNKNOWN]: And it was fun, but the best part was we would, she was on a full scholarship. [UNKNOWN]: So she would, she would say, hey. [UNKNOWN]: Let's meet for coffee before class, I'm buying it.

2:52:36 [UNKNOWN]: No, no, no. [UNKNOWN]: All right, so we've made it, places called Joe Van Goghs and she would think, get whatever you want. [UNKNOWN]: So, all right, let's go and talk about. [UNKNOWN]: So, we did some of that, but it was fun. [UNKNOWN]: And then I would get feedback from her on some of my activities in the classroom where I'm helping out the instructor and doing like one, we had this fantastic professor, [UNKNOWN]: and that the course that she taught was called the politics of violence. [UNKNOWN]: And so she asked me to sit in her class and offer vignettes when they get to something like [UNKNOWN]: I don't know, the psyche of the suicide bomber, or, you know, Connor insurgency, or, you know, or the civil rights movement, because I was alive in 1968, so, so it's like that.

2:53:27 [UNKNOWN]: And so in her class, she was, she's a Harvard graduate, was spent a bunch of times studying conflict that lived in the West Bank, I mean, super talented, but she was young, she was like, mid thirteenth. [UNKNOWN]: And so she looks like a student, and so she's like, and I'd love for you to be in my class and like help, you know, with some of the feedback and give some context the things, so yeah, I'd love that. [UNKNOWN]: So I'm in the class, and then she and I would meet for, you know, preparation for class, and she said, you know, I just don't understand how some of these kids are like not prepared. [UNKNOWN]: You know, they think that asking a stupid question is class participation, you know, it's not widespread, but there's some kids that just don't care enough about what we're doing. [UNKNOWN]: I go, okay, that's easy.

2:54:08 [UNKNOWN]: I'll show it for class. [UNKNOWN]: I said, show it for class eight minutes late. [UNKNOWN]: Because at 10 minute mark, people think they can leave. [UNKNOWN]: I go, show it, eight minutes late. [UNKNOWN]: I go, I'll be there. [UNKNOWN]: I'll take care of it. [UNKNOWN]: And she goes, really, what are you going to do? [UNKNOWN]: I go, it's no fun about the day. [UNKNOWN]: So, [UNKNOWN]: I'm in class, students are coming in, it's about five minutes, it's starting to get antsy because the instructors and that they are professors and that they're. [UNKNOWN]: And so I get up and I go, all right, the instructor's gonna be a little late because she asked me to talk to you guys first. [UNKNOWN]: And a couple of students, I've been in there for like two months and they don't know who I am. [UNKNOWN]: They're like, who's that guy? [UNKNOWN]: Like, where he come from? [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, I'm Colonel Clark.

2:54:49 [UNKNOWN]: I'm a work college fellow here at Duke. [UNKNOWN]: The doc asked me to do is to talk to you about your responsibility of students to be perfect class. [UNKNOWN]: I don't understand why is some of that. [UNKNOWN]: I was like, hey, look, it's very simple. [UNKNOWN]: You have to have an investment in what you're doing. [UNKNOWN]: Like, why are you even here? [UNKNOWN]: So same thing that the, you know, guy told me when I was full circle now. [UNKNOWN]: So back to the part about my daughter. [UNKNOWN]: So she goes, hey, I heard, you laid down a far too high in class today. [UNKNOWN]: I was like, really? [UNKNOWN]: She goes, yeah, when the kids in the track team was in there, you're like, you're dead. [UNKNOWN]: Like, how'd you survive? [UNKNOWN]: And she goes, because I'm on the right side of things all the time.

2:55:30 [UNKNOWN]: You don't want to be on the bad side of things. [UNKNOWN]: So it was fantastic. [UNKNOWN]: She's getting feedback through the track team on stuff going on. [UNKNOWN]: I know it's fun, it's a great year. [UNKNOWN]: It got to contribute a bit. [UNKNOWN]: It sounds awesome. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it pays off, pays to do things right. [UNKNOWN]: I was turning over my aid responsibilities and I'm going, you know, this, this, this, this, this, this, you know, it got to be this. [UNKNOWN]: Make sure you have this, I'm trying to get you wants this stuff and the guy that was taking over for me, you know, after two days he looks at me because hey, what does the boss do like when you mess something up? [UNKNOWN]: I looked at him. [UNKNOWN]: And I said, I don't know. [UNKNOWN]: Maybe one said, oh, we're breaking new ground.

2:56:11 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: I never screwed up anything. [UNKNOWN]: Be on the right side, man. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, no. [UNKNOWN]: Uh, then what? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, then to the Pentagon. [UNKNOWN]: No, correct. [UNKNOWN]: So I was, uh, the first time at the Pentagon was. [UNKNOWN]: How was that? [UNKNOWN]: Good times. [UNKNOWN]: It was good. [UNKNOWN]: The, uh, oh, here's the other story. [UNKNOWN]: So we're, uh, first time ever I'm working in strategy plans of policy. [UNKNOWN]: Which is good. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, it's Army strategy. [UNKNOWN]: Okay. [UNKNOWN]: Let's go. [UNKNOWN]: So we're in there, we're figuring things out. [UNKNOWN]: And my boss, it was his first time to Pentagon, too. [UNKNOWN]: He's too strong. [UNKNOWN]: And I'm a promotable colonel. [UNKNOWN]: So we've been around. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, it's not new to the army. [UNKNOWN]: You just knew to the way that Pentagon, there's language, and there's stuff and once you figure your way around, it's work.

2:56:58 [UNKNOWN]: So I'm getting ready to work when one of my wife goes, [UNKNOWN]: on the strategy bridge, and I think it's about you. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, I don't know what else could be going around. [UNKNOWN]: That sounds good. [UNKNOWN]: The strategy is talk about it. [UNKNOWN]: Then she goes, it really, it talks about all these stupid generals and kernels that they've been to Pentagon before. [UNKNOWN]: Don't know, the Army screwed up, because the first time I'm going to Pentagon is when you're a kernel or general. [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, who wrote that? [UNKNOWN]: Of course, it's a dude that works on this. [UNKNOWN]: And so I go see him like, oh, hey, man. [UNKNOWN]: Really? [UNKNOWN]: He's like sure that wasn't supposed to go. [UNKNOWN]: I go it's so fantastical.

2:57:38 [UNKNOWN]: You know it's going somewhere. [UNKNOWN]: I go, so do you want me to preheat this with the boss? [UNKNOWN]: There you want to just go in on this on your own. [UNKNOWN]: He's like, oh, Sarah, please preheat it. [UNKNOWN]: I go, no. [UNKNOWN]: I don't know the language. [UNKNOWN]: I'm sorry. [UNKNOWN]: It's my first Pentecostor. [UNKNOWN]: Good luck. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah, we were back out to, oh yeah, we were able to tamp it down though. [UNKNOWN]: But it was interesting. [UNKNOWN]: But a great, great opportunity to really understand how the army works. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's when I was a kid, we did a bunch of times a Pentagon man, and it's like a whole, a whole ecosystem here. [UNKNOWN]: You got to understand and learn and the way that thing operates is crazy. [UNKNOWN]: It is nuts. [UNKNOWN]: It's nuts. [UNKNOWN]: It only gets worse, the more senior you get. [UNKNOWN]: I'm sure. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: That would have to say.

2:58:19 [UNKNOWN]: When I was a three star, I was having coffee with Venet mystery who was one of the medics in a medical tune. [UNKNOWN]: He was a civilian working in pentagonos his last day. [UNKNOWN]: So we went down to the little courtyard in the middle of the pentagon and have cup coffee and just kind of catch up. [UNKNOWN]: But do you know we couldn't talk 30 seconds with us and my stop in me? [UNKNOWN]: Most of them had no idea who I am, but they know that it's a three-star general, and I'm probably involved in some sort of graphing corruption and not be sitting and doing some meat and doing the thing. [UNKNOWN]: I can't just be sitting, having coffee. [UNKNOWN]: One guy goes, man, I've never seen a three-star out of here but work must be out of stop. [UNKNOWN]: Stop. [UNKNOWN]: Just keep it before. [UNKNOWN]: We have a name, it was like, sir, do we need to go somewhere? [UNKNOWN]: No.

2:59:00 [UNKNOWN]: We need to keep swatting these guys away, man. [UNKNOWN]: But yeah, that's what I'm talking about. [UNKNOWN]: Uh, and then then deputy commanding general 82nd Airball and second Airborne Division and how that feel that was cool You know being on jump status at almost 50 Grounds a lot harder in your memory. [UNKNOWN]: Oh Yeah, that's a lot of good horrors [UNKNOWN]: But it was fantastic, because I worked for Rich Clark. [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, Rich Clark, Ron Clark, nobody got confused about nothing having to do with who's who. [UNKNOWN]: So, you'd hear all the time. [UNKNOWN]: It's like, hey, General Clark said this and people love which one. [UNKNOWN]: It's like, does it matter?

2:59:41 [UNKNOWN]: It's either me or him. [UNKNOWN]: It still needs to happen, whatever it is. [UNKNOWN]: But what a great experience for me, [UNKNOWN]: Um, because we deployed almost immediately when I got there went back to Iraq and I just I loved being in that division. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, it was kids are so motivated, you know, for an extra, you know, 250 bucks and months and I've, you know, in a, in a, in a room array, they are getting closer and closer. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: So just the, I'd never been in 80 second before. [UNKNOWN]: And so for me, you know, of the units that you'd want to serve in, that for me was was one of them. [UNKNOWN]: And I really enjoyed my time there. [UNKNOWN]: And what were you guys doing in Iraq? [UNKNOWN]: Was this an ISIS?

3:00:22 [UNKNOWN]: This is inherent resolve. [UNKNOWN]: So this is ISIS. [UNKNOWN]: Uh-huh. [UNKNOWN]: Uh-huh. [UNKNOWN]: Interesting thing was our scent, their army had the mission. [UNKNOWN]: and then third core came in and that was German Farland. [UNKNOWN]: So he, he comes in as the commander of third core, gets the mission as the JTF commander. [UNKNOWN]: And so he and I, when the first things we did together was flat to Amber. [UNKNOWN]: I can the game. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, so we're on a, you know, we're on a seat, 12 out to Alessadin. [UNKNOWN]: That's in surgery. [UNKNOWN]: Have you ever seen this? [UNKNOWN]: He's like, no. [UNKNOWN]: It was good though. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, is because you had that common framework for sure for what, you know, one, how training with, you know, partners supposed to work.

3:01:06 [UNKNOWN]: and now we both have the experience not just of having served in that, you know, region but having served together. [UNKNOWN]: And then there's, uh, because the Iraqi army is making a comeback, right? [UNKNOWN]: They're making a resurgence. [UNKNOWN]: So, don't resort. [UNKNOWN]: Back, really in Iraq, in TQ. [UNKNOWN]: So, so, German farming goes out, takes, you know, takes that picture of that famous picture of us in the, in the soccer stadium after Copico's Nest. [UNKNOWN]: uh... operation equals nest and uh... and so he has uh... rezoch sign it and then he signed it and he handed it to me and he said your turn so i flew out there just to you know c one what we're doing with the train mission out there but really to spend a few minutes with rezoch who came back from the u.s to a rock uh... defy dices [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's the talk about just crazy timing that you and their work and from a quarrel and again.

3:02:05 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so one of my favorite memories of General Ozac, and this is when he was a brigade commander for First Brigade or Axis. [UNKNOWN]: We're doing a mission brief and the operations orders go in and General Groski is still there then. [UNKNOWN]: So, General Groski gives this commander's intent. [UNKNOWN]: and then the translator translates it, and then he goes, but I'm gonna say this again to make sure that translator gets this right, and Rizaka's sitting, so Rizaka's sitting next to me. [UNKNOWN]: Groski's right here, so Rizaka turns a looks at me like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, [UNKNOWN]: So afterwards, I told Grasket that he goes, oh, that's good.

3:02:55 [UNKNOWN]: It's like, yeah, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: I had, we were supposed to, you know, we were submitting pictures and PowerPoint briefs of us working with the Iraqi soldiers. [UNKNOWN]: You know, it was a big part of, you know, the special operations, joint special operation mission was that stuff. [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, our pictures were kind of, you know, not the best, so I, it's called stone and I go, hey, man, I need like some legit pictures of you doing some legit, [UNKNOWN]: stuff with some Iraqis. [UNKNOWN]: And I'm not a kid. [UNKNOWN]: You know, two hours later, he sends me the most epic. [UNKNOWN]: He's like a Lawrence of Arabia, Hayman, Razak standing around the table. [UNKNOWN]: There's battle maps out. [UNKNOWN]: They're pointing fingers, lasers. [UNKNOWN]: It was, it was the, it was the best setup ever.

3:03:36 [UNKNOWN]: It was, it looked amazing. [UNKNOWN]: It was like that, absolutely perfect. [UNKNOWN]: We use those, we use those same pictures. [UNKNOWN]: You know, our variants of them for the next six months. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, they were great partners too though. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, he, he got it. [UNKNOWN]: He was out. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, he would. [UNKNOWN]: He would go into Ramadhi like in civilian clothes to try to get at misfuerics and stuff and wild. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, wild and he went back again. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and then what came after that? [UNKNOWN]: 2016, 2007. [UNKNOWN]: I went to the NATO Allied Rapid Reaction Corps to be the Dikasops. [UNKNOWN]: The UK. [UNKNOWN]: Okay. [UNKNOWN]: Fine, assignment. [UNKNOWN]: You liked that, brilliant. [UNKNOWN]: Where were you in the UK? [UNKNOWN]: We were in [UNKNOWN]: uh... image in barracks uh... which is where the you the uk core is located so they have a they have one core it's the allied rapper action core three star uh... headquarters at readiness so it's a brick three star in charge of the thing and there's always an american who's the decasap so you're responsible for a lot planning and operations and there's a brit uh... chief of staff [UNKNOWN]: an Italian decom so it's it's truly it and it's a NATO formation uh really good headquarters are very mature focused on uh hi ready are you uncommonly well rounded for uh for an army officer do you know do you're up uh Middle East Asia like is that is that normal?

3:05:07 [UNKNOWN]: No, I think, and again, it's, you know, it's generally short for journalists. [UNKNOWN]: So you're supposed to know a lot about, you know, inch deep my wide moon things. [UNKNOWN]: For me, I've just, I've had, you know, multiple experiences in multiple theaters as a journal officer, which has been super helpful to me. [UNKNOWN]: But I don't think it's, I mean, it's good. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, it helps me with everything I'm doing now because I've spent time with, [UNKNOWN]: Our partners in the five ice community have spent time, you know, with NATO teammates have spent time, you know, obviously in the Pacific, but I hadn't gone to the Pacific until the after that sun.

3:05:48 [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, to think that you could, you know, make your way back. [UNKNOWN]: You know, in that case, for me was, was great. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, but I enjoyed being in Europe. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, just well rounded to see all this stuff all over the place and then you end up back at the 25th Infantry Division. [UNKNOWN]: I actually I was at use your pack first. [UNKNOWN]: Okay, staff. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so I I Show back up drum Bob Brown asked me when I was at Capstone near the one star course where you travel all around we did Pacific trip and He goes hey [UNKNOWN]: How long have you been in England and I'm like four months? [UNKNOWN]: He's like, okay, how would you like to be my chief of staff next summer, I'm like?

3:06:31 [UNKNOWN]: I just got here, and you guys, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: But yeah, 14 months, that's all you really need there. [UNKNOWN]: That's the league minimum for joy to sum it. [UNKNOWN]: And then we need you out here, I'm like, okay, cool. [UNKNOWN]: So, 14 months in a day, I was in Hawaii. [UNKNOWN]: Which I hadn't been back since for duty, since 1996, says 20 year break in time. [UNKNOWN]: So I guess we'll have a 97, but the, [UNKNOWN]: The cool thing was, you know, I show up at the user pack to be because Chief of Staff and there's a third time I'd work for him today. [UNKNOWN]: So you're able to finish the sentences and it was just really a good environment to learn and grow from a very, you know, mature, focus senior guy who's a team builder.

3:07:18 [UNKNOWN]: So to have that experience working with him and then to go to the 25th Infantry Division from there, [UNKNOWN]: Um, you know, 20 years after I was the age. [UNKNOWN]: I'm back. [UNKNOWN]: Same office. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, that's same house. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, that's crazy. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: So, so I would I would talk all the time. [UNKNOWN]: We do a newcomers run every Tuesday. [UNKNOWN]: Formals, you know, I'm in a pace easy, but it's a, it's a, help, this to help new soldiers acclimatize to, you know, the environment there. [UNKNOWN]: And it's, and it's hard, you know, if you're just coming out of someplace where one, people haven't been doing good PT and two, someplace where it's warm. [UNKNOWN]: Mm-hmm.

3:07:59 [UNKNOWN]: It can be a challenge. [UNKNOWN]: So at the end of it is when I would talk, once we got everybody to get our old kids, you know, who made it, and then the ones who didn't, you know, fell out, they'd get them back there and so they were all together, and I would go, hey. [UNKNOWN]: You can do this, and it trusts me. [UNKNOWN]: I was a captain working in this building on the end of where there's no air conditioning in 1993. [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, you can go as far in this organization as you can tell some motivation will take you. [UNKNOWN]: So you can do this. [UNKNOWN]: You set the plot yourself to it. [UNKNOWN]: If today was difficult, it shouldn't be. [UNKNOWN]: Get there from here. [UNKNOWN]: And the cool thing was, because we had a patching ceremony that they prior where the chain of command would go out and put the patches on the new soldiers from all the units and why.

3:08:45 [UNKNOWN]: and then you do the run with them and you talk to them. [UNKNOWN]: Solders would connect with you in ways that are a bit unexpected. [UNKNOWN]: So I'm walking into the PX to get a Mother's Day card. [UNKNOWN]: It's like Friday, you know, hustle in there to get something for the weekend. [UNKNOWN]: I'm struggling. [UNKNOWN]: And this soldier stops me because sir, yep. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, salute to a proper lady goes, no, no, no, sure. [UNKNOWN]: Let me introduce you to my wife and my daughter. [UNKNOWN]: And he's, you know, he's telling me about his daughter, stuff, his wife is like, she's like, I don't understand. [UNKNOWN]: Like, why, you know, you're doing that, but okay. [UNKNOWN]: And then, she goes, are you in our company?

3:09:28 [UNKNOWN]: And he goes, no! [UNKNOWN]: He's general Clark, he's in charge of all of this. [UNKNOWN]: And now she really has that look on her face like what? [UNKNOWN]: What are we doing right now? [UNKNOWN]: And it little girl hugs my leg, you know? [UNKNOWN]: Because obviously, I'm, you know, friendly forces, but I'm like, yeah, I guess he's like, he talked to us at the welcome brief and, oh man, he's the be here, he's a young officer, he's got a family too, and yeah, this is cool. [UNKNOWN]: And she's like, good, I don't think so. [UNKNOWN]: We'll go now, but you get more of that than you will. [UNKNOWN]: I came out there. [UNKNOWN]: You had me out there to come and talk to the troops there. [UNKNOWN]: I was pretty awesome. [UNKNOWN]: Came out to Hawaii for a couple of days and talked to... brought the house down. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, couple.

3:10:08 [UNKNOWN]: We did two rotations. [UNKNOWN]: One before lunch and one after lunch. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: We packed the theater. [UNKNOWN]: Sergeant Smith Theater. [UNKNOWN]: About 5,000 people. [UNKNOWN]: Two turns. [UNKNOWN]: Real stable. [UNKNOWN]: People from Kanyeo and Pearl Harbor coming up the scope of the first time. [UNKNOWN]: Good stuff. [UNKNOWN]: We go and see Jaco Man. [UNKNOWN]: Where I don't know and then after that you get command of U.S. Army Central. [UNKNOWN]: I stayed in Hawaii for a while. [UNKNOWN]: I was a chief of staff at Paycom. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, okay. [UNKNOWN]: After that. [UNKNOWN]: So that's where we were during COVID. [UNKNOWN]: You can't keep a job again. [UNKNOWN]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, over 38 years.

3:10:58 [UNKNOWN]: I've, like, moving is one of the most stressful things for a family. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's like right up there with losing the job, but is moving. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, the close move is more stressful. [UNKNOWN]: What does that mean? [UNKNOWN]: That means you're moving someplace that's not far from the place you're at now. [UNKNOWN]: So it's moving from one 100-year-old house to another 100-year-old house that's 12 miles from the house you're in to move to another 100-year-old house. [UNKNOWN]: That's nine miles from there. [UNKNOWN]: And then, in this job, I moved four houses down, because the house was under renovation. [UNKNOWN]: The commanding journals, quarters were under renovation for the first year in change we were in command.

3:11:41 [UNKNOWN]: So we had to move from quarters 10 to quarters five. [UNKNOWN]: So we had to move four houses down. [UNKNOWN]: So the number of things that you know you don't want to put on the truck goes up if you're only going for houses down So how much China now you can break it right? [UNKNOWN]: So there's no insurance for that. [UNKNOWN]: You know that's on you the move The move does not cover the things you break [UNKNOWN]: So yeah, there's yeah luckily we were okay, but that was a 40,000 step day Yeah And then it's U.S. Army Central yes get command of that. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, how awesome is that feeling? [UNKNOWN]: It's pretty good. [UNKNOWN]: That's a great unit with an amazing history patent zone That's George S. Patton's third Army.

3:12:27 [UNKNOWN]: So you want to talk big time. [UNKNOWN]: That's that is a lot to that [UNKNOWN]: And as you're taking over that unit, I mean, now you're just, you're in charge of thousands and thousands of soldiers. [UNKNOWN]: What do you, what do you focus on from your leadership position? [UNKNOWN]: It's, it's one of these, it's an operational level command. [UNKNOWN]: So it's a little different in terms of the direct leadership responsibility. [UNKNOWN]: So you really lead through general officers and senior command sergeants majors. [UNKNOWN]: So the understanding of your intent [UNKNOWN]: the fight at hand is through others. [UNKNOWN]: So you have to be able to empower those other general officers who are at the entire tactical level to be able to be successful in the edge.

3:13:15 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's interesting on a teaches leadership. [UNKNOWN]: I talk about the fact that when you're in a fire team, you can manually make things happen. [UNKNOWN]: You know, you got four or five guys, you can, it will happen as a leader. [UNKNOWN]: You will make it happen. [UNKNOWN]: As soon as you get to a squad of eight, 10, 12 people. [UNKNOWN]: Now, there's some guys can't hear you anymore. [UNKNOWN]: You can't just run over there and grab many more. [UNKNOWN]: Like you have to use your, your fire team leaders and it just goes up from there. [UNKNOWN]: So you get to the general level. [UNKNOWN]: It's like, yeah, that has to be in spades. [UNKNOWN]: You know, it's making that happen. [UNKNOWN]: And again, it's an organization that's just got a mature backbone and it has tremendous history and the people that we served with while we were there were just unbelievable.

3:13:56 [UNKNOWN]: It was so super helpful to us to have them on board and to be able to get after the mission. [UNKNOWN]: But as all things would happen, I was in command for two weeks when Afghanistan fell. [UNKNOWN]: good luck. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's like what you're gonna do now. [UNKNOWN]: Like, where should you be? [UNKNOWN]: Physically, because you've got forward command posts in a couple of locations. [UNKNOWN]: Now you're responsible for receiving all of these, you know, folks who are displaced from Afghanistan. [UNKNOWN]: Like, you've got other missions as well. [UNKNOWN]: That's not the only mission you have in that region. [UNKNOWN]: So, just where do you need to be in order to get these things down and where can you best position [UNKNOWN]: You know, command posts and leaders in order to get things done.

3:14:41 [UNKNOWN]: So it was a challenging environment to say the least. [UNKNOWN]: And then from a morale perspective as well, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: There's all these, you know, so many people sacrificed over there. [UNKNOWN]: And then you see it just fall down like that. [UNKNOWN]: All in it, you know, very short period of time. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: And then next week, it was back to the Pentagon after that. [UNKNOWN]: Back to the Pentagon as the senior military assistant to the Secretary of Defense. [UNKNOWN]: Current a bag, time scenario? [UNKNOWN]: No. [UNKNOWN]: There are dudes who get paid to do that. [UNKNOWN]: But it's, you have a senior military representative for the office of the secretary. [UNKNOWN]: So you're, you know, another set of eyes and another set of ears, you're a pretty senior person.

3:15:23 [UNKNOWN]: So you can get things done, you know, through, you know, other commands. [UNKNOWN]: So you can, you can talk to the other combat, you can talk to the combatant commanders. [UNKNOWN]: in a way that they, you know, everyone communicates through you to incinerate anyway. [UNKNOWN]: The way the way that office was run when I was there. [UNKNOWN]: So, so you have to, it's about people in relationships, it's about being able to maintain communications with, you know, your teammates who are one level up, is forced ours. [UNKNOWN]: And then with the secretary as well, and with the joint staff. [UNKNOWN]: So it's one of those jobs where you're kind of the focal point in clearinghouse for a lot of information it goes to secretary. [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, it's a lot, it's and it's every day, all day, in every time zone, because it's a whole world.

3:16:09 [UNKNOWN]: So what literally is your battle with them? [UNKNOWN]: What time do you wake up in the morning? [UNKNOWN]: What time do you get a bed at night? [UNKNOWN]: When we ran the building, I would wake up at four. [UNKNOWN]: So when your Instagram posts hits at 434, you're already got me. [UNKNOWN]: You're done. [UNKNOWN]: Nice work, Jaco. [UNKNOWN]: Need some discipline. [UNKNOWN]: Just step it up. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, where are you at? [UNKNOWN]: So yeah, about four, we've worked out then, normally in the office, before six, read all the things. [UNKNOWN]: You know, he all, you know, gets all the special briefings from another letter folks and to keep him flat with all the things we want on the world.

3:16:49 [UNKNOWN]: You have to have all that information first and everything that's in the press overnight. [UNKNOWN]: You've got all of that too. [UNKNOWN]: And then it's all on until he's ready to roll out, which would be in the evening, but it's every day. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: It's every day. [UNKNOWN]: No, no days off. [UNKNOWN]: And did you see that like the now that you're at the highest level of perspective? [UNKNOWN]: What's shifted in your brain or did things shift in your mind? [UNKNOWN]: You know, the apples age, sitting in the room with the four stars, sitting in the room with the sec death, sitting in the room with the secretary of the Navy, like you start seeing things a little bit different than anything in your perspective shift.

3:17:31 [UNKNOWN]: Um, what it does, what it did for me is reinforce things that, um, that at that level would, um, [UNKNOWN]: You think that, yeah, it's supposed to work like this because, you know, you still have to build teams. [UNKNOWN]: It's a relationship service or just vital to success. [UNKNOWN]: You can't do any of this on your own. [UNKNOWN]: It's, you know, working by with and through its partnerships that are important. [UNKNOWN]: It's investing in relationships with people around you. [UNKNOWN]: It's being able to trust the people around you. [UNKNOWN]: And to be able to really assess, you know, on a whole bunch of different fronts, how you should, you know, react to things, because one of the most challenging things to do in that job is, is to be invisible, right?

3:18:17 [UNKNOWN]: So you're there, but you're not. [UNKNOWN]: So you're sitting in every meeting, but no one ever asks your opinion. [UNKNOWN]: until the meeting is over, and then the Secretary is like, what do you think of that? [UNKNOWN]: And you've had some time to kind of mall it over. [UNKNOWN]: And he's not asking, what do you think I think of that? [UNKNOWN]: It's like, what do you think of them? [UNKNOWN]: Because obviously, you've been in position in a minute. [UNKNOWN]: And there's my second three-star job. [UNKNOWN]: Had commanded at the previous two levels. [UNKNOWN]: been around the block a little bit, a lot of very diverse experience opportunities for me in a bunch of different places.

3:18:58 [UNKNOWN]: And so, you know, when somebody would say something like, hey, this capability, we need to shift it. [UNKNOWN]: And I would go, okay, if we do that, then if that's the decision that you make, then you're going to uncover this, this, and this. [UNKNOWN]: Because all zero some, I mean, there's not enough to be everywhere all the time. [UNKNOWN]: And I go, you're going to have to [UNKNOWN]: And if you're comfortable with that, and you know, it's his decision to make. [UNKNOWN]: But again, I'm in the room and he's asking my opinion and I'm like, where do you think this would occur? [UNKNOWN]: And I would go, okay, as I'm looking at this, the thing we didn't talk about is the obstacle bill and we think that there's gonna be a breach, but we're at the engineering assets.

3:19:38 [UNKNOWN]: Wherever the engineer assets go, that's where it's happening, but again, it was Secretary Austin, who was in the uniform for 41 years. [UNKNOWN]: So it's kind of like being Tom Brady's quarterback coach, you know, you're sitting back there with the iPad and you're going, yeah, he couldn't see this angle. [UNKNOWN]: But he's the guy in the arena and I'm kind of, you know, in the first row watching, you know. [UNKNOWN]: And then does that bring us to your current assignment right now? [UNKNOWN]: It does. [UNKNOWN]: Commanding General United States Army Pacific. [UNKNOWN]: So you got 111,000 soldiers.

3:20:19 [UNKNOWN]: One team, one fight. [UNKNOWN]: All three components. [UNKNOWN]: all three components. [UNKNOWN]: The theater includes 36 countries, 17 time zones, four bill billion people. [UNKNOWN]: That's 60% of the world's population. [UNKNOWN]: Seven of the ten largest armies in the world. [UNKNOWN]: Five of the seven mutual defense treaties, Australia, Japan, Korea, Philippines, and Thailand. [UNKNOWN]: This is a massive job. [UNKNOWN]: Massive job. [UNKNOWN]: Are you asking me? [UNKNOWN]: No, I guess I'm telling you. [UNKNOWN]: I don't tell you you're ready to do this, sir. [UNKNOWN]: You know, there's so much going on.

3:21:00 [UNKNOWN]: And you know, this goes back where you were just, you know, explaining you're leading through. [UNKNOWN]: You have to lead through other people. [UNKNOWN]: You just, you, and you have to get that mission. [UNKNOWN]: And that commander's intent has got to filter through so many layers. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, I, have you ever counted out those layers? [UNKNOWN]: How many layers does it take to get down to a private soldier on the front line? [UNKNOWN]: You're a lot. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: So it's got to be simple, clear, good size. [UNKNOWN]: And you need some help. [UNKNOWN]: And you're going to need some people on board with the program. [UNKNOWN]: Right. [UNKNOWN]: So I have three priorities. [UNKNOWN]: Keep it simple. [UNKNOWN]: All three's. [UNKNOWN]: I'll start to the P. Again, keeping it simple. [UNKNOWN]: To get it, you know, into people's heads. [UNKNOWN]: And so they understand it. [UNKNOWN]: The three priorities are people. [UNKNOWN]: our partnerships, and then our efforts to prevail in competition crisis in convict.

3:21:46 [UNKNOWN]: And we've been talking about people the entire time, so our focus on our people, and for the army, people are our weapon system. [UNKNOWN]: We don't put people on ships or planes and kit, we put kit on people. [UNKNOWN]: So to invest in the human is important, so our efforts to take care of each other and that's everything from training for large-scale combat operations, to caring for our military families of which I've been a part of one for 60 years, it's important and it's ingrained in who I am, [UNKNOWN]: and who I want us to be as an institution and organization. [UNKNOWN]: Partnerships, we can't do it without our partners in allies.

3:22:28 [UNKNOWN]: You mentioned our five treaty allies, we don't have a structure like NATO where all of the nations are agreed upon a certain set of articles and principles and standards. [UNKNOWN]: So it's bilateral between us and some of our partners, it's multilateral. [UNKNOWN]: In some cases, but we have to pull and draw [UNKNOWN]: to partner with us, to ensure the security of their countries and of the region. [UNKNOWN]: So for us, [UNKNOWN]: We don't do anything alone. [UNKNOWN]: We've, since, you know, the Lex thin and Concord, I mean, we've had partners in allies at our side.

3:23:08 [UNKNOWN]: It every turn. [UNKNOWN]: So the way we do things at user practice, it's always with partners in allies in mind. [UNKNOWN]: It's always with them, you know, at our side across 50 exercises you asked about, you know, hey, what the exercise is? [UNKNOWN]: Operation Pathways, 50 plus, [UNKNOWN]: operations activities and investments across the calendar year on key terrain at the invitation of our partners in allies with their forces, you know, shoulder to shoulder with us to get at the business of prevailing in competition crisis and conflict. [UNKNOWN]: The best way to prevail is by deterring war altogether. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, what we've been talking about the entire time is the harsh realities of combat.

3:23:52 [UNKNOWN]: If we can forego that, because we have demonstrated to our adversaries, that today is not the day. [UNKNOWN]: You know, open the blinds, still there, close them, not today, not today. [UNKNOWN]: That's what we try to do every day, you know, arm and arm with not just our partners in allies. [UNKNOWN]: from our international teammates, but with the joint force. [UNKNOWN]: So we think of the army as the foundation of the joint force. [UNKNOWN]: So we provide convergence where we allow for the connectivity of the joint force through army capabilities when we set the theater in the Pacific for crisis or conflict.

3:24:34 [UNKNOWN]: we also have, you know, capability for strike. [UNKNOWN]: It's, you know, it's, it's not necessarily new, but it's something that the army has really pressed and you see it happening right now in the Middle East where army assets on and from the land are affecting the maritime space. [UNKNOWN]: on unsinkable ships called land, you know, shoot, move, fight you again in a minute. [UNKNOWN]: So we've got that, and then close battle, which is our bread and butter, and endurance, which the army threw our ability to sustain the joint force provides endurance necessary for us to again prevail.

3:25:14 [UNKNOWN]: And how's the technology looking just like every day are you seeing the technology evolve? [UNKNOWN]: That's pretty cool. [UNKNOWN]: But I'd caution by saying, you've got to be brilliant at the basics first. [UNKNOWN]: It's still that basic hook and in jab and that we talk about all the time. [UNKNOWN]: But the question remains, can you fight? [UNKNOWN]: And so part of the reason that embracing modernization [UNKNOWN]: the fundamental ways of war are not changing, but the contemporary environment is changing. [UNKNOWN]: So ubiquitous drones, electromagnetic signature, I mean, the way we fought the fight in Romadi with air superiority at all times, [UNKNOWN]: You know, ubiquitous ISR at all times, that those days are gone.

3:26:07 [UNKNOWN]: I mean, having communications that are assured at all times, you know, sanctuary from which to build combat power. [UNKNOWN]: that challenge now. [UNKNOWN]: So now we've got down at the user level, you know, drone technology to send a drone like we would send a bullet instead of sending a human first. [UNKNOWN]: So we can buy down the Rista Force by sending a drone. [UNKNOWN]: One of my favorite things to do when addressing groups of people and talking about [UNKNOWN]: the change in character war and technology is launched drones during the speech. [UNKNOWN]: It did it yesterday. [UNKNOWN]: What do you have them do fly by as the crowd?

3:26:48 [UNKNOWN]: Just let everybody know what up? [UNKNOWN]: Behold, drone goes up. [UNKNOWN]: Now of sudden, nobody's listening, uh, which I'm okay with, get me off the X. [UNKNOWN]: But yeah, we've done it twice now where we've flown drones during a speech that I'm given in some freaking place, which is great, because the kids that are flat and we're like, you know, eat threes and we're dropping light in the vision. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, they're fired. [UNKNOWN]: They are getting after it, you know? [UNKNOWN]: They release this thing called a hornet. [UNKNOWN]: I swear it's about the size of this bayonet, you know? [UNKNOWN]: And it freaking took off and I can see it because, yeah, getting old. [UNKNOWN]: I say it's not what you used to be. [UNKNOWN]: It's like, oh, behold! [UNKNOWN]: And then when the captain's jumps up, it's just over there.

3:27:31 [UNKNOWN]: And it hovers, you know, people are like, oh, yeah, that's how it goes. [UNKNOWN]: So to be able to fight, you know, in a contestant environment, in electronic, you know, warfare space. [UNKNOWN]: to be able to leverage technology, whether it's, you know, computer to edge, it gives us, you know, ability to be able to upscale our targeting ability by being able to move digits across, you know, multiple contact layers with. [UNKNOWN]: Our partners in allies is something that we're gripping and again, I think it's the future. [UNKNOWN]: So if you don't get on board, it's kind of hard to, you know, continue to be successful.

3:28:14 [UNKNOWN]: So we have a, we have a data minute on the front end of every, um, commanders update brief, where our, you know, innovation folks in our own headquarters that work, our command [UNKNOWN]: and help us with adoption because if I find it interesting, people are going to find fascinating. [UNKNOWN]: So we have to continue to work it from that perspective to kind of lead change in the organization because there's some people that still want to use flip phones and don't want to adopt anything. [UNKNOWN]: It looks like the future and if we don't, we'll be in big trouble because our adversary, because right now we're fighting an adversary that's not near peer.

3:28:58 [UNKNOWN]: And if it emits, they can see it, so how do we, you know, hide signals and plain sight and still, you know, have the ability to be able to leverage the technology at hand to get inside of our enemies, Utiluper, decisions like. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, the mindset, you know, it's so important I've talked to some young seals a couple months ago and they were talking about the fact that, you know, well, the training that we're doing right now, you know, it's time reflecting what we can be doing on the battlefield we're doing this, we should be doing that and I said, [UNKNOWN]: I was explaining to them that putting you into stressful situations where you've got to adapt and overcome. [UNKNOWN]: It doesn't matter if you're trained into, you know, put out a fire, right?

3:29:40 [UNKNOWN]: You've got a chaos going on and you've got to figure out a solution to this problem. [UNKNOWN]: Or if you're figuring out how to bake a bunch of pizzas, right? [UNKNOWN]: You've got a chaotic situation. [UNKNOWN]: You've got to get that team together and adapt to what's happening. [UNKNOWN]: And if it's combat, well, we don't know what specific combat you're going to prepare for. [UNKNOWN]: I always tell, I told those guys, I said, you know, you don't have any urban overwatches, task unit bruiser did in our preparation to deploy to Ramadi, in work up, zero. [UNKNOWN]: We did zero urban overwatch positions, and while we were on the point we did, I think 106 of those types of operations. [UNKNOWN]: but we just adapt it okay well here's how you do it in the jungle environment here's how you do it in a in a rural environment okay what we can do in the server environment we had a couple guys had a couple techniques we put hang these things up we get here so that's what we're doing we're trying to teach people to think how to how to adapt quickly that you're going to have to look for solutions as solutions are going to be presented to you you're going to have to figure out what they are and sub-technology you're going to use it it's going to work great some of it's going not going to work great you got to figure out which [UNKNOWN]: Probably because you haven't figured out how to work it right, you know, like we would get the story about the seal teams like if you give the seal teams to ball bearings and disappear for now You come back once going to be lost and once it could be broken.

3:30:54 [UNKNOWN]: That's what we do. [UNKNOWN]: So that's the technology we're going to have problems with it, but [UNKNOWN]: If you don't adapt, you don't get used to it, you know, the first GPS that I got issue when I got to seal team one was the size of a, you know, a big shoe box and weighed 20 something pounds. [UNKNOWN]: And my boss, I said, boss, what am I carrying this for? [UNKNOWN]: And they said, well, this will tell you where you're at. [UNKNOWN]: And I said, I got a map in CUB because I can tell you, I'll tell you where I'm at. [UNKNOWN]: I don't need to carry this 25 pound thing. [UNKNOWN]: And by the way, it took that first GPS that I had to four hours to find itself. [UNKNOWN]: So we would go, it would search one frequency at a time. [UNKNOWN]: For like 20 minutes, each frequency, looking for a satellite, looking for a satellite.

3:31:34 [UNKNOWN]: So it take about four hours for a figure. [UNKNOWN]: Once it figured out where it was, it would continuously track. [UNKNOWN]: But you know, I had to get good with that thing. [UNKNOWN]: And once I figured out, oh, yeah, well, if I'm out in the ocean and I need to meet up with a submarine, I'm gonna need this raw. [UNKNOWN]: I'm the desert where there's no landmarks for me. [UNKNOWN]: I'm gonna need this thing. [UNKNOWN]: But people are gonna have to figure out how to utilize this new technology. [UNKNOWN]: And so when you go out there and you push yourself and you train hard and you push yourself to the limit and you make mistakes, all those things allow us to learn. [UNKNOWN]: And that's what we gotta do. [UNKNOWN]: That's what our soldiers say, there's airmen and we gotta do, gotta push ourselves. [UNKNOWN]: Look, it's not going to be exactly what it's going to be like combat. [UNKNOWN]: We don't know what's combat's going to be like. [UNKNOWN]: You know, you found out you're going to remind you of a month prior to two weeks prior or something like that.

3:32:16 [UNKNOWN]: We got to adapt. [UNKNOWN]: We got to figure it out. [UNKNOWN]: We trained as hard as we could. [UNKNOWN]: We pushed our guys. [UNKNOWN]: We trained our leaders. [UNKNOWN]: We built those relationships. [UNKNOWN]: We have trust in each other. [UNKNOWN]: So we can go out there and make stuff happen on the battlefield. [UNKNOWN]: And that's what American troops need to do right now. [UNKNOWN]: And obviously that's what you guys are focused on. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's taking, I think it's teaching our teammates like how to think, not what to think, you know. [UNKNOWN]: And it's, you know, the thing that we, you know, gravitated to in 82nd and I've carried it with me ever since is Rich Clark's guidance to us was to teach and train character and competence will follow. [UNKNOWN]: So you're not going to take your way out of character, you know, that, you know, your teammates know, you know, how to, you know, [UNKNOWN]: Choose the heart of right over the easier wrong and be able to think through this problem and have the experience of Whatever the work up or training plan or pipeline is provided for you to get ready for whatever this is and you pair that with the education that you've garnered You know whether in schoolhouse and institutional or learning from you know reading books and you know watching videos and whatever self preparation you've done [UNKNOWN]: uh... gets you to that moment in time where you have to make that decision that hard call you've got some other things to to fall back on that can help you to get it right and i'll just have to stay no doubt no doubt well i know we could talk forever uh... uh... what do you think's next for you

3:33:48 [UNKNOWN]: I'm, I'm right now the oldest general in the army. [UNKNOWN]: Check, by at least two years. [UNKNOWN]: Check, at least. [UNKNOWN]: So, yeah, we've been in the army almost, it'll be 39 years in May. [UNKNOWN]: So, so I, yeah, it's, it's most likely my last job. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, Roger that, well, you know the, um, [UNKNOWN]: And Jocco, no one thought this would happen. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it was not the plan. [UNKNOWN]: No one thought it would happen. [UNKNOWN]: When we were at Duke at 2013, we bought our retirement home. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, really? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, wow.

3:34:28 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: We, and man, mean they could remove it no more. [UNKNOWN]: Cheers. [UNKNOWN]: And now, yeah, you'll move another nine times. [UNKNOWN]: Well, I hope whatever you do. [UNKNOWN]: I hope it has to do with leadership. [UNKNOWN]: I would vote for you in any leadership position that you would apply for or try for. [UNKNOWN]: You've got my backing a hundred percent. [UNKNOWN]: You know. [UNKNOWN]: Means a lot. [UNKNOWN]: So echo trials. [UNKNOWN]: You got any questions? [UNKNOWN]: I got it. [UNKNOWN]: Quick question. [UNKNOWN]: There we go. [UNKNOWN]: Raise yourself. [UNKNOWN]: Let me say first. [UNKNOWN]: You don't look like the oldest general. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, okay, well, you can't disagree with that. [UNKNOWN]: There we go. [UNKNOWN]: Okay, you're looking very good. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, I'm in my apple before you ask me something. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it comes the bruiser.

3:35:09 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's a revisit real quick if you, if we could, um, uh, shug. [UNKNOWN]: So, could you clarify real quick why you wanted to fire her? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I couldn't. [UNKNOWN]: She was a civilian. [UNKNOWN]: I was just a captain. [UNKNOWN]: I was like a young, like, didn't really know the situation I'd gotten myself into by moving her work stations around. [UNKNOWN]: So she wasn't wrong. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so Echo Trial. [UNKNOWN]: So there's military guys and they'll roll into a position like that for two years. [UNKNOWN]: Meanwhile, there's civilians that have been working that job for 10 years, 40 years, years. [UNKNOWN]: So now, you know, you roll in there. [UNKNOWN]: Need to do this for 30 years and you roll them there for you and you're gonna start telling me like oh, you should do it like this Yeah, or anything's gonna happen.

3:35:55 [UNKNOWN]: Oh, in my case. [UNKNOWN]: I don't like going to the furniture. [UNKNOWN]: So yeah, okay So you were just kind of rubbing it the wrong way. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I didn't know any better. [UNKNOWN]: Okay, but she didn't give me a break She's like I'm care. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, he did me so it was more of a miscommunity It wasn't you didn't like now I go on some official level and be like, hey, I don't think you know I moved her computer her desk and the drops [UNKNOWN]: She comes walking in in the first thing she said is, oh hell no yeah echo Imagine someone rolled in here and told you that he should put the mics like this put the record her over there set the kit some new person yeah new person or even better they moved to my your god yeah by the way and they're only going to be here for a little while yeah like this is your job and there's going to be there for a little while then you'd be [UNKNOWN]: I'm just saying completely no.

3:36:43 [UNKNOWN]: So you kind of had that hate coming to you. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, I did That turned all of it. [UNKNOWN]: Okay, and you guys made up turn it turned it around. [UNKNOWN]: That's good. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, she was fantastic work Hugged it out. [UNKNOWN]: Hell yeah That's it. [UNKNOWN]: That's it. [UNKNOWN]: That's it. [UNKNOWN]: That's it. [UNKNOWN]: That's it. [UNKNOWN]: I was really wondering about that. [UNKNOWN]: No, no. [UNKNOWN]: No, she was great clear for she was great. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah She was great then. [UNKNOWN]: I just you know [UNKNOWN]: and understand my situation. [UNKNOWN]: It's best to do an assessment. [UNKNOWN]: You know, figure out what's happening, what's not happening and why. [UNKNOWN]: Uh, certain the near future, um, as, as much as, you know, we view each other's brothers. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: We have a football game coming up. [UNKNOWN]: Do we not? [UNKNOWN]: Yes, we do. [UNKNOWN]: Are you going to December 12th? [UNKNOWN]: I will be there. [UNKNOWN]: Yes, I will be there. [UNKNOWN]: I will be there on the tree.

3:37:24 [UNKNOWN]: And I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but I'm going to say it. [UNKNOWN]: The uniform reveal is coming. [UNKNOWN]: I think I'm doing a voiceover for the Navy uniform reveal. [UNKNOWN]: You're late. [UNKNOWN]: And on top of that, I think the uniform that is being revealed is very central to my girlfriend, my old job. [UNKNOWN]: So we got back on for us, which is nice. [UNKNOWN]: There's something else going on with that. [UNKNOWN]: There's something else going on with the Army Navy. [UNKNOWN]: Oh yeah, we're doing Travis Mills Foundation or sorry Travis Mania Foundation through doing Travis Manian tailgate. [UNKNOWN]: So I'll be there at that thing which is always awesome. [UNKNOWN]: And yeah, I guess I'll see you there.

3:38:05 [UNKNOWN]: Army dropped the uniform yesterday. [UNKNOWN]: Did they? [UNKNOWN]: They did. [UNKNOWN]: What is it? [UNKNOWN]: Was it on Fox NFL Sunday? [UNKNOWN]: Nice. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: So Grock was the reveal. [UNKNOWN]: Oh really? [UNKNOWN]: Yes. [UNKNOWN]: So they had he's in the uniform. [UNKNOWN]: It looks like [UNKNOWN]: It looks like something the University of Oregon would wear, it's all this like tree frog green, it's freaking awesome, but they had the visor on them, so he comes through the crowd, they have a bunch of kids there, they're doing a veteran's day thing. [UNKNOWN]: and he gets up on the stage with, you know, that NFL dudes, you know, Randy Moss and all of them, and then they hand him a football, like, who's that wearing the uniform? [UNKNOWN]: And he spikes it and they're like, it's grog. [UNKNOWN]: Takes the helmet off, fans go nuts.

3:38:45 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it was big. [UNKNOWN]: It was big time. [UNKNOWN]: I did it interview Arnold Schwarzenegger. [UNKNOWN]: interviewed me and him. [UNKNOWN]: You want to talk about like the smallest dude around. [UNKNOWN]: You stand next to that guy and you're like, yeah, this is this guy's in a different species. [UNKNOWN]: He's a monster. [UNKNOWN]: He's a big dude. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, but that'll be epic. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, [UNKNOWN]: Looking forward to your video. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: I'm looking forward to it too. [UNKNOWN]: I actually haven't even seen it yet. [UNKNOWN]: I just know I'm making the video. [UNKNOWN]: It's normally like state secret. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, it's things. [UNKNOWN]: It's a big time. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: How hype for you for those games when you were a cadet? [UNKNOWN]: It was everything. [UNKNOWN]: Did you guys ever do anything that you got in trouble for like they need to steal each other's goats and steal the mule and all that stuff I can need to look at this guy over here to know he's just keeping us high lived I'm aware of some Thevery of goats in what there's like a great goat caper That's from my west going class.

3:39:44 [UNKNOWN]: Oh real. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, some dudes. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, man. [UNKNOWN]: Did they get in trouble? [UNKNOWN]: Sort of not really but it was it was one of these ops that you would be proud of so they I don't know this would be true This whoever that they went down to the naval academy, but they went dressed as sailors Hmm and they kind of walked around and hey, you can show us the goats and they're doing a recon of the goat Holden area Whatever that is [UNKNOWN]: And then they come back, steal the goats. [UNKNOWN]: And then they whisk them to New Jersey. [UNKNOWN]: You know, it's not close. [UNKNOWN]: And they put them on this farm where one of the guys had a cousin that owned horses.

3:40:26 [UNKNOWN]: And so this, the goats are all at this farm in New Jersey. [UNKNOWN]: And you know, everybody's losing their minds, but what just happened to our mascots and they assumed treachery immediately in their right. [UNKNOWN]: So they start hot, hot lighten people. [UNKNOWN]: And of course, [UNKNOWN]: you know, they get a break. [UNKNOWN]: You know, they find out that in fact, the goats are alive. [UNKNOWN]: They're being held hostage at this location on the school of thinning Jersey. [UNKNOWN]: And so New Jersey State Troopers, Naval Academy and West Point veterinarian personnel, MPs, all that. [UNKNOWN]: This, but the cousin has been given strict instructions that unless he hears it from his cousin not to release not that they're going to have to take it by force.

3:41:11 [UNKNOWN]: So they end up getting everybody back safely. [UNKNOWN]: But I think the best capable of all was it was a year where Navy had a female brigade of midshipmen commander. [UNKNOWN]: and the first captain at West Point was a guy. [UNKNOWN]: And so she kind of gave him a ham in New York City, doing a speaking thing, I'd love to link up with you, I have dinner, you know, talk about this Army Navy stuff coming up. [UNKNOWN]: So we can just cut through all the BS and there's not a whole bit, they kidnapped him. [UNKNOWN]: He met her, they him. [UNKNOWN]: In a van, who'd over his head? [UNKNOWN]: Go on. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, because he and Marilyn. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: So it's, it's, it's, it's good.

3:41:51 [UNKNOWN]: It's all healthy. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, of course. [UNKNOWN]: And it's, you know, brothers and sisters and arms. [UNKNOWN]: It's, it's, it's, minute, you know, that, [UNKNOWN]: alma mater song yeah it is it is epic to go see that game yeah i think the last three or four yeah it's just very cool to see yeah we'll be back so yeah we saw you last time i got great we got a great picture yeah i was my first son-in-law yeah i know it's a large yeah i know talk about making me feel small it makes everybody's feels more three-time um Olympic gold medalist shop put [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, big boys. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and he's like he's cool is training his training. [UNKNOWN]: He's always doing like super dynamic type of Things you're like throwing just get just get after a man or a beast.

3:42:33 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you're gonna have some mutant kids [UNKNOWN]: I mean, you're going to have some athletic kids. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, you've got a professional, full-volted daughter. [UNKNOWN]: She's a beast and she's married to him. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, exactly. [UNKNOWN]: So yeah, they're people trying to sign an aisle right now. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I was going to say, I want to invest in that scenario. [UNKNOWN]: All right, now. [UNKNOWN]: I grandkids. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: aforementioned grandkids that are non-existent. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: No, no, no grandkids, yeah, huh? [UNKNOWN]: Well, I have a grand daughter. [UNKNOWN]: She's my son and he's my son. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's awesome. [UNKNOWN]: That is the situation that makes everything right with the world right on. [UNKNOWN]: Yes, it does, it is, it does. [UNKNOWN]: General Clark, any final thoughts? [UNKNOWN]: Well, Jacko, I just appreciate what you and Echo do because you have a voice that resonates with our soldier sailors, airman marines, and guardians in a way that helps them to one.

3:43:26 [UNKNOWN]: Really be proud of their service and to stay on a path. [UNKNOWN]: It's all positive. [UNKNOWN]: I appreciate you guys. [UNKNOWN]: Right on. [UNKNOWN]: Long time and coming man. [UNKNOWN]: Yes indeed. [UNKNOWN]: About 10 years we haven't. [UNKNOWN]: I know. [UNKNOWN]: I've been able to figure this out. [UNKNOWN]: No, there we are. [UNKNOWN]: Thanks for that. [UNKNOWN]: Appreciate you joining us once again. [UNKNOWN]: Thanks for sharing all those experience. [UNKNOWN]: All those lessons learned. [UNKNOWN]: If you're not writing a book, we'll talk about that later. [UNKNOWN]: Definitely write a book about all this stuff. [UNKNOWN]: Thanks for your father's service, your family's service, 60 years as a military personnel. [UNKNOWN]: That's pretty awesome, and most of all, thanks for everything you did, your soldiers did. [UNKNOWN]: All everyone in Task Force, Red Curry, did for my seals.

3:44:09 [UNKNOWN]: from Tasking Abuser, and on that God forsaken battlefield, we will never forget their service, their sacrifice, and we will forever be proud to be part of that few that happy few that they handle us. [UNKNOWN]: Yes indeed. [UNKNOWN]: Thank you, Jacko. [UNKNOWN]: And with that, General Ron Clark has left the building. [UNKNOWN]: looking, what'd you say? [UNKNOWN]: Youngest looking general? [UNKNOWN]: Youngest looking general. [UNKNOWN]: I don't know. [UNKNOWN]: Might be the oldest in number-wise, but youngest, because he's getting after it. [UNKNOWN]: He's a big part of it. [UNKNOWN]: He's going hard in the pain.

3:44:51 [UNKNOWN]: Running, lifting, training, that's what we're doing. [UNKNOWN]: Man awesome to see him. [UNKNOWN]: You've seen him periodically throughout the years. [UNKNOWN]: He came to [UNKNOWN]: metal of honor ceremony at the White House at the Pentagon did the ship commissioning here in San Diego. [UNKNOWN]: Oh we did an event before the ships commissioning we did like went out to the first the 506. [UNKNOWN]: They put up their memorial wall. [UNKNOWN]: They put Mikey on it was awesome. [UNKNOWN]: Some in Texas recently. [UNKNOWN]: So I'm with the Army Navy game, so pretty awesome to be able to see him and just watch him continue.

3:45:32 [UNKNOWN]: You know, he was a battalion commander back in 2006, 2006. [UNKNOWN]: So then he had already been in the, in the, he'd been in for 18 years at that point. [UNKNOWN]: not including the West Point time. [UNKNOWN]: That guy's been an army for a long time. [UNKNOWN]: 38 years. [UNKNOWN]: He's always been a dependent of the U.S. Army since birth. [UNKNOWN]: Right. [UNKNOWN]: That's legit. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: He's the army man. [UNKNOWN]: He's the army man through and through. [UNKNOWN]: So, yeah, what an awesome guy and what an awesome group of people that we got to serve alongside, what an honor that was. [UNKNOWN]: Meanwhile, we're getting after it. [UNKNOWN]: If you're getting after it, well, you need fuel.

3:46:13 [UNKNOWN]: I just drank three quarters of this protein shake right here. [UNKNOWN]: Vanilla. [UNKNOWN]: I had this selection. [UNKNOWN]: I chose vanilla. [UNKNOWN]: You know, it's just in that kind of melted ice cream. [UNKNOWN]: They got a picture of melted ice cream on the cover. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: It's accurate. [UNKNOWN]: Approved how it tastes like melted ice cream. [UNKNOWN]: Melted ice cream tastes good. [UNKNOWN]: Yes, it does. [UNKNOWN]: By the way, I melt ice cream. [UNKNOWN]: You put in the microwave oven? [UNKNOWN]: Yes, so I mean, not to go too deep into that, but you know, that's the moderator for all of us. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, we're going to do it. [UNKNOWN]: Uh, you know, when you first get ice cream, it's like hard. [UNKNOWN]: Well, it depends on how long it was in the car and the groceries. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: I'm saying straight out, the groceries, no dilly dallying like it's hard.

3:46:55 [UNKNOWN]: Or right out of the freezer, it's hard. [UNKNOWN]: Which I dig it, I dig it, not my thing though. [UNKNOWN]: I put in the microwave 25 seconds. [UNKNOWN]: 25 seconds. [UNKNOWN]: And it only melts around the edges so you can get that soft surf. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's the same around the outside. [UNKNOWN]: And then with that soft surf, it does kind of liquify a little bit. [UNKNOWN]: That certain points. [UNKNOWN]: That's what you're holding in your hand right there. [UNKNOWN]: You're saying, if you go up the nailer. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's real tasty. [UNKNOWN]: We just got some we just got the peppermint chocolate milk milk powder And I'm gonna tell you something Tell you something good. [UNKNOWN]: We'd so peppermint not have to mint not the mint. [UNKNOWN]: It's a little up little. [UNKNOWN]: It's a little upgraded There's something in it. [UNKNOWN]: You might not expect but it's there in full force Marshmallows the kind marshmallows that is in lucky charms like it tastes like the most Little marshmallows kind of like in a Swiss mess [UNKNOWN]: Yes, and Swiss miss a lot of times when you go to a place they they miss mixed the Swiss mess with water.

3:47:53 [UNKNOWN]: No, good. [UNKNOWN]: But but the marshmallows are always good. [UNKNOWN]: So we got that what they call it what they call the temporary flavor to drop in flavor. [UNKNOWN]: It's like we're making it for Christmas. [UNKNOWN]: Right, right, right. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Seasonal. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Seasonal. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Seasonal. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Seasonal. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Jockelfield.com, joint warfare, super curl, time war, you know, what are we doing? [UNKNOWN]: We're getting after it. [UNKNOWN]: You need this stuff. [UNKNOWN]: So check out Jockelfield.com, the one of your kid nutrition, by the way, you know, when you're a little kid and you just want something that tastes good, you don't even care.

3:48:39 [UNKNOWN]: Nutrition, you don't even understand what that is. [UNKNOWN]: It's like, yes, no bearing on the subject whatsoever. [UNKNOWN]: When you're seven years old, Newtrison is not a part of, it's not even part of the world, it might as well be, you know, totally absentee, right? [UNKNOWN]: This is not something you think about. [UNKNOWN]: Well, now you can have something that's good, you can get your kids, something that's really good for them, and they will just think it's just like, oh, good, chocolate, hot, you know, chocolate melt, whatever, fruity cereal, cool, tastes great. [UNKNOWN]: vanilla milk melted ice cream tastes great like that's what you're giving your kids yep you get the focus i've been taking the uh... the sleep we are like a little sleep thing for kids but i got a day gets all done with what is the sleeping just a little little sleep gummy yeah relax you know actually a little bit relax mode so we got all that stuff and we get a multi-vitamin remember for the warrior kids you get all that jock afield.com [UNKNOWN]: is a multivitamin, chewable?

3:49:33 [UNKNOWN]: Yes, it's a gummy. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, it's a gummy. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's what they see. [UNKNOWN]: That's a good move, right there. [UNKNOWN]: Remember back in the day, we're same generation, Gen X, if you will. [UNKNOWN]: You can talk fun songs. [UNKNOWN]: No, no, no, no, there's a different one. [UNKNOWN]: I don't have to, a different one. [UNKNOWN]: Same arrow though. [UNKNOWN]: I don't know. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, like so you're not. [UNKNOWN]: But same arrow, there are these like vitamin C waitfers. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: We're kind of tangy. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, they're like, but they're made of compressed chalk and it's like kind of that vibe, but they tasted really really good. [UNKNOWN]: Okay, so in our era, if I'm not mistaken correct me from that was the closest thing to like a vitamin treat that yeah, I ever had we'd have this big jug of them [UNKNOWN]: We got we got vitamin treats for you now.

3:50:17 [UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah updated upgraded. [UNKNOWN]: The new new lotter Oh, yeah, I'm proud with you. [UNKNOWN]: I'm with you. [UNKNOWN]: I'm fired up about that. [UNKNOWN]: Joccofuel.com Get yourself some nutrition and get some nutrition for your kids turn them into warrior kids Also origin USA.com You're gonna see you seen that have you seen the trailer for the warrior kid movie? [UNKNOWN]: Of course. [UNKNOWN]: Did you see the did you see the uniform the jiu-jitsu [UNKNOWN]: You saw that. [UNKNOWN]: I not only did I see that. [UNKNOWN]: I was wearing that. [UNKNOWN]: And if you look close, I forgot you were in there Hey, I didn't forget Good, but speaking of the trailer, and if you look close, I'm in the trailer. [UNKNOWN]: Yes, you are and I'm wearing the orange and ghee in that and by the way You're more in the movie.

3:51:02 [UNKNOWN]: I monitored very closely the day I watched the movie. [UNKNOWN]: Okay. [UNKNOWN]: You are very in the movie. [UNKNOWN]: I'm prominent. [UNKNOWN]: Okay, prominent in one particular scene in the scene. [UNKNOWN]: That's in the trailer. [UNKNOWN]: You're kind of [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, a little background. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you know, it wasn't really feeling it. [UNKNOWN]: You know what I mean? [UNKNOWN]: Have you ever seen Mike Wazotsky from Monsters Inc? [UNKNOWN]: And there's like some trailer that they're making and the trailer shows for the first time and Mike Wazotsky is barely in it. [UNKNOWN]: And then he's like, oh my gosh, another guy thinks he's gonna be all set. [UNKNOWN]: I made the trailer. [UNKNOWN]: I pictured you watching that thing go. [UNKNOWN]: Oh yeah. [UNKNOWN]: That is made.

3:51:42 [UNKNOWN]: The trailer. [UNKNOWN]: That is 100% accurate, bro. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, accurate. [UNKNOWN]: Well, you'll also notice that there's a lot of origin gear being worn. [UNKNOWN]: Yep. [UNKNOWN]: You also might have seen it in the tournament list as well. [UNKNOWN]: Have you watched the tournament list season 2 yet? [UNKNOWN]: I started watching it. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so there's a, I'm to the part when, okay, so it begins. [UNKNOWN]: He has this long hair actually was watching the recap of the, well, you will notice this is the Keith Jardine, the being of mean. [UNKNOWN]: Keith Jardine. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: He's, he's wearing a full origin like big insignia shirt and then Chris is wearing some, you know, there's other people, but there's nothing more prominent than just straight up origin T shirt.

3:52:24 [UNKNOWN]: The reason that Chris Pratt is fired up and Jack Carter is fired up and Jared Shaw's fired up for origins because 100% made in America. [UNKNOWN]: That's why that's why the fire up because 100% made in America because we are rebuilding manufacturing capability in America. [UNKNOWN]: They're also fired up because it's awesome. [UNKNOWN]: The keys are the best, the jeans are the best, the boots are the best. [UNKNOWN]: Go to originusa.com and get yourself some 100% communist free year. [UNKNOWN]: That's what we're doing. [UNKNOWN]: And here's another litmus test. [UNKNOWN]: They said bring this up before more about the supplements, but it goes for kind of everything. [UNKNOWN]: When your kids take it upon themselves to use, utilize the certain things that you own, that's when you know it's good.

3:53:04 [UNKNOWN]: Kids. [UNKNOWN]: And my daughter, she's in the beginning. [UNKNOWN]: Actually, I'd say rain the middle phase of like trying to be cool and you know, she's a teenager and I don't know whatever But she just took you know the origin the that it's like a really lightweight kind of win breaker I use it for the for the plane the black one She just wears it. [UNKNOWN]: She's leaving with it on like I was like that's why she's like yeah, like yes normal. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's yours [UNKNOWN]: You your gear has been apprehended. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's hard to escape a tower chair. [UNKNOWN]: But yeah, that's when you know and she's not wrong She's right actually she's looking to cool in it too. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, so I see what you know you go girl [UNKNOWN]: Anyway, originusa.com, because I'm taking USA all day.

3:53:45 [UNKNOWN]: All right, don't forget about Jockel Store. [UNKNOWN]: We have a new shirt out. [UNKNOWN]: Okay, first off, Jockel Store. [UNKNOWN]: That's discipline equals freedom. [UNKNOWN]: A good standby to get some good after it, right? [UNKNOWN]: You want to wrap it in there? [UNKNOWN]: So other stuff on there too. [UNKNOWN]: It's like all kinds of merch. [UNKNOWN]: Just good quality to many people have emailed me. [UNKNOWN]: And told me in person, by the way. [UNKNOWN]: These shirts are their favorite ones to wear because not only do they look good, they fit good, their quality. [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, do you have any of those subscriptions in there? [UNKNOWN]: We have some subscribers in there. [UNKNOWN]: They're called shirt locker. [UNKNOWN]: Called the shirt locker in the design every month. [UNKNOWN]: This month's design is a rip on Jack Daniels. [UNKNOWN]: Okay, because look I cannot stand here in broad daylight and recommend that you that it's okay to drink on the path or even freaking off the path I can't recommend that soon saying so it's basically a play on that so instead of drinking whiskey and Jack I know he had respect or you know like I dig it.

3:54:43 [UNKNOWN]: They're a company. [UNKNOWN]: You don't have a lot of history. [UNKNOWN]: I dig it [UNKNOWN]: But as far as drinking goes instead of the drinking we replace it with discipline. [UNKNOWN]: Seems like. [UNKNOWN]: That's kind of the play on that whole thing. [UNKNOWN]: Anyway, that's this one shirt on the shirt locker. [UNKNOWN]: There's a lot of other cool designs on there. [UNKNOWN]: People seem to like it. [UNKNOWN]: It's a good one. [UNKNOWN]: Also about the shirt locker. [UNKNOWN]: This shirt that I have on right now. [UNKNOWN]: All your pieces are nice. [UNKNOWN]: All your excuses are lies that looks like it's someone wrote it with chalk. [UNKNOWN]: Someone did write it with chalk. [UNKNOWN]: Someone did write it with chalk. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, we did that too. [UNKNOWN]: So anyway, that one's available to the GP general public. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, Jen Pop. [UNKNOWN]: Jen Pop. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, general population. [UNKNOWN]: Yes, to all of us to everyone to all. [UNKNOWN]: It's available now.

3:55:24 [UNKNOWN]: Got to restock because when I first released it, sorry. [UNKNOWN]: Like, hey, this is my best still trying to get a handle on these things, you know, in the Tory, all these official things. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, I'll have a good job. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you know. [UNKNOWN]: They have a little thing, but we restock them. [UNKNOWN]: I know how they's coming up, you know, just keep all these things in mind when you You know, when you think holiday shopping and all this stuff, but we restock for your rate of the world. [UNKNOWN]: It's a good doll on jockelstore.com. [UNKNOWN]: Good to know [UNKNOWN]: All right check out books. [UNKNOWN]: You know I'm written a bunch of books You got put your legs on by Rob Jones got need to lead by Dave Burke. [UNKNOWN]: You got extreme ownership Discipline because freedom field manual is actually awesome. [UNKNOWN]: There's an army captain that was here today that had to admit to General Clark [UNKNOWN]: that the first book that he ever read on his own was just when it goes for you to feel me we were harassing about that I was like hey man this is barely you know this is this is barely a book he says is the closest thing to an adult coloring book yeah [UNKNOWN]: But that's awesome though.

3:56:25 [UNKNOWN]: I appreciate that that yeah, this one your freedom field manual Leadership strategy and tactics field manual and then we've got some boys There's a series of books called warrior kid if you heard of these books. [UNKNOWN]: I heard good things So there's a movie coming out the movie and the books are a little bit different [UNKNOWN]: right? [UNKNOWN]: They're a little bit different. [UNKNOWN]: The movie is based on the books. [UNKNOWN]: The books are came first. [UNKNOWN]: The stories are great. [UNKNOWN]: Both of them. [UNKNOWN]: The book is going to be really, the kids are kids love this book. [UNKNOWN]: It's funny. [UNKNOWN]: It's... [UNKNOWN]: it's meaningful. [UNKNOWN]: It's powerful. [UNKNOWN]: It's inspirational. [UNKNOWN]: There's definitely some, there's definitely some emotion in it, right? [UNKNOWN]: I don't know nine yards.

3:57:07 [UNKNOWN]: So get the box and then go see the movie. [UNKNOWN]: And you can be surprised by the little twists. [UNKNOWN]: A little spin, a little spin, a little spin zone. [UNKNOWN]: But and it doesn't go too hollywood because you can't go too hollywood with something. [UNKNOWN]: Yes, you understand that, right? [UNKNOWN]: Of course. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, sir. [UNKNOWN]: Oh You know you can get two two wild, but this is right in the zone. [UNKNOWN]: It's right in the zone It's right in the zone like you don't want to go too much too little you're kind of bored But right in his own's where you want it. [UNKNOWN]: So there's enough hollywood in the movie that you're gonna go hell Yeah, thank you [UNKNOWN]: And it's also interesting because it skirts like some of it. [UNKNOWN]: You go. [UNKNOWN]: That's kind of that's like a silly moment And then sometimes you're like, I think I'm about to cry right now. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it just made that So there you go check out the way of the warrior kid movie comes out November 25 [UNKNOWN]: Global release on Apple TV.

3:57:55 [UNKNOWN]: So check that out. [UNKNOWN]: Also check out our echelonfront.com. [UNKNOWN]: If you have problems inside your organization, they are leadership problems. [UNKNOWN]: And at echelonfront, we solve problems through leadership. [UNKNOWN]: Go to echelonfront.com furthermore, leadership is a skill. [UNKNOWN]: Is the skill that you can get better at? [UNKNOWN]: Is it skill that you must get better at? [UNKNOWN]: And if you want to learn that skill, and you can't come to one of our events, go to extremeownership.com, and learn the skills of leadership at home. [UNKNOWN]: And [UNKNOWN]: If you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families. [UNKNOWN]: You want to help a cold star family. [UNKNOWN]: Let's check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. [UNKNOWN]: You heard about a little bit about Mark Lee today. [UNKNOWN]: He was killed in Ramadi, August 2nd, 2006, and when his mom found out, she almost immediately, well, she immediately was more concerned about us.

3:58:45 [UNKNOWN]: his teammates then she was about herself and eventually very quickly she decided to make America's mighty warriors dot org a charity organization that had just helped so many people. [UNKNOWN]: So check out America's mighty warriors dot org also check out heroes and horses dot org and then finally Jimmy May's organization beyond the brotherhood. [UNKNOWN]: dot org if you want to connect with us for well listen if you want to connect with general clerk he's a general so maybe that's not going to happen but I would recommend you check out um u s r pack that's u s a r p a c dot army dot mill this is a website you can see with u s r pack is doing you can also check out uh on instagram and on twitter x at u s r pack [UNKNOWN]: and these on Facebook as well, the US aren't even specific.

3:59:37 [UNKNOWN]: And for us, check out jockel.com and then where you go on social media, but you're probably just gonna waste your time. [UNKNOWN]: So I wouldn't. [UNKNOWN]: If you go on there, and you need to spend 30 seconds to see what we're doing, you already know what we're doing. [UNKNOWN]: We're lifting, we're training, we're recording, [UNKNOWN]: I'm at Jaco Willink, Echoes, I'd echo Charles, but just don't spend too much time on there. [UNKNOWN]: Thanks for once again to General Clark for joining us here today. [UNKNOWN]: Thanks for all you've done for America, for the Army, and for my guys in Tasking Abuser. [UNKNOWN]: We will never forget your leadership and the gallantry of the troops from Task Force Red Curry. [UNKNOWN]: Of course, thanks to all of our other military, military personnel around the globe right now protecting freedom and thanks to all of our veterans as well.

4:00:24 [UNKNOWN]: With a solemn salute to the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who fought alongside us in Romani. [UNKNOWN]: Also, thanks to police law enforcement firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correction officers, board patrol secret service, [UNKNOWN]: And everyone else out there, after almost 40 years, General Park continues to uphold the standard. [UNKNOWN]: You can see the standard. [UNKNOWN]: The moral principles, the pride, the selfless commitment, the teamwork. [UNKNOWN]: In the military, what's interesting in the military is we get issued a standard.

4:01:06 [UNKNOWN]: This is the standard. [UNKNOWN]: Task, condition standard. [UNKNOWN]: Here's the task. [UNKNOWN]: Here's the conditions you do it in. [UNKNOWN]: For active duty, for veterans of the military, do you strive to maintain that standard? [UNKNOWN]: Ask yourself that, and let me ask you another question if you weren't in the military. [UNKNOWN]: What is your standard? [UNKNOWN]: Do you know it? [UNKNOWN]: Do you live it? [UNKNOWN]: It's a good question to ask yourself. [UNKNOWN]: Do you actually have a standard? [UNKNOWN]: There are many paths that we can travel. [UNKNOWN]: You can travel towards a high standard or a low one.

4:01:47 [UNKNOWN]: And most likely, if you don't have a standard set that you're striving for, you're probably going downhill. [UNKNOWN]: You're probably going downhill. [UNKNOWN]: You have to know what the standard is, and then you have to strive to take the high ground. [UNKNOWN]: strive to be better in everything that you do. [UNKNOWN]: Strive to live the standard set by those who made the ultimate sacrifice. [UNKNOWN]: We should always be striving. [UNKNOWN]: And the way that we do that is by getting up every day and getting after it.

4:02:33 [UNKNOWN]: And that's all we've got for tonight. [UNKNOWN]: And until next time,