245: Knowing What Leads to Victory. Critical Importance of The Fighting Spirit Combat Lessons Vol. 3 with Dave Berke
Jocko Podcast- 1,054 views
- 2 Sep 2020
0:00:00 - Opening 0:02:32 - Combat Lessons Vol. 3. 2:03:32 - How to stay on THE PATH. 2:22:36 - Closing Gratitude.
This is JoCo podcast number two forty five with Echo, Charles and me, JoCo Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.
Also joining tonight is Dave Burke. Good evening, Dave. Good evening. Did you make it to the status of honorary co-host yet?
Yes. No, I was thinking we're getting there. People want to know why they call the good deal, Dave.
This is the fact that we've been talking about that.
This is why check back again tonight with some more combat lessons from the from the document called Combat Lessons Document written in the throes of World War Two.
And what they were doing was interviewing front line leaders and front line troops.
In fact, the subtitle is Rank and File in Combat What They're Doing and How They're Doing It. We've covered two of these so far and this is the third one.
And, you know, sometimes I think to myself, well, you know, I mean, we kind of get the idea right and I'll start thumbing. So I started thumbing through this when I, you know, do we really need to cover another one of these?
So I start thumbing through it and you just start reading these things and I can't put it down and I'm still learning. And so I figure if I'm learning, we can all learn why? Why trying to hold it back from the people. No reason we can get right into it.
So here it is, Combat Lessons, Vol. three. And we've done two of these so far. Actually, I forget what a number of podcasts they are, but we've covered two of these volumes.
This is the third volume and this is what the all the volumes start off with this quote, The paramount combat lesson learned from every operation is the vital importance of leadership, which is really an interesting thing that we say every single time we talk to people, our equipment, our supply and above our all men and above all, our men are splendid, aggressive and determined.
Leadership is the priceless factor which inspires a command and upon which all success in battle depends.
It is responsible for success or failure, and that is July 3rd, nineteen forty four starts off just jumping right into leadership, leadership and command need for leadership comments received from all active theaters continue to emphasize the need for competent and aggressive leaders. This is especially true as regards junior officers and non-commissioned officers. Lieutenant General Courtney Hodges, who observed operations in North Africa and Italy, stated.
And before I even get to that.
Why is it why is it just so awesome that they're just pointing out over and over and over again and each one of these volumes, that leadership is the most important thing on the on the battlefield and yet.
We work with companies that have no leadership training for their people. Until someone shows up and then I guess they do, but it's bizarre that it's bizarre that it is so hard, what makes it what what they what makes it so hard to see that leadership is the most important thing.
What do you think makes it so hard to see?
I stumped good deal. No, there's a couple of things. First is I don't think people realize how impactful leadership is. They almost convinced themselves that, hey, our what we can do is, you know, if we bring in people with these skills or our software suite and they get so wrapped up in all these other components, they lose sight of the fact that this thing, this intangible thing that you can't really track with the with the spreadsheet, they lose sight of how important it is.
And I think the other part that we're seeing a lot now is people lose sight of how often you have to keep addressing leadership. And so they think it's sometimes like, hey, no, I understand what a good leadership is like, and they think they are applying it, but they don't realize that, hey, I've got to keep addressing this over and over and over again.
And they lose sight of not just how important it is, but also how important it is, how hard it is to sustain it. And when we come work with companies, the more we work with them and the longer work with them, the more they want to keep doing it.
They realize, man, I had I had no idea how long this journey was going to be, but the ones that figure it out to they they they elevate so quickly, they get so good so fast when they make it a priority.
Yeah.
The first thing that you said, you are defacto not detached when you're inside of a company, you're firefight and day to day you're trying to figure out what the next quarter is going to be and you're trying to figure out what's going on with the sales team. So you're just in it. And so you you start to lose track of the fact that this is this is all about leadership.
So that happens. And that's why when we come in with a company, we can immediately see because we are detached.
That is part of it.
The other the other cool thing analogy here is when you start doing jujitsu, you you know, you get through that point where you realize how much you don't know when you realize, wow, I got a lot to learn. And as a leader, you know, you can read the book and be like you can read Extremeness.
Oh, yeah, I got this. But that's like the first two, three moves that you learned in jujitsu and you think you're good to go, but you don't realize you need to drill. You need to practice. You need to see there's so much more to learn. So those are the things I think that yeah. Can can inhibit people from recognizing what we say all the time.
What every freaking book that I read says leadership is the most important thing. So getting into what General Hodges had to say, a few division commanders are satisfied with the qualities of a major percentage of their platoon commanders. Ouch. Too many of them are lacking in aggressive leadership, self-reliance and ability to meet emergencies, inefficiency of officers in this group, and carrying out orders strictly and in making accurate reports as to locations, dispositions and information gained was especially stressed by one division commanders.
So that's a horrible outlook. And if you feel that way, what are you supposed to do about it?
That's why you need to implement training for your subordinate leaders.
And that's exactly what this next recommendation is.
Course for NCO, that's noncommissioned officers. Lack of leadership on the part of noncommissioned officers was also frequently reported in one division in reserve. A special course was designed to develop more aggressive leadership in noncommissioned officers and to make squad to make the squad a real fighting team trained to use the firepower of its weapons to the maximum. This leadership course consisted principally in what is termed a battle drill. While most comments on leadership deal mainly with leadership during actual contact with the enemy, the true leader, recognizing the responsibilities of his position, must exercise leadership at all times.
He must be unsparing in his efforts to take care of his units by providing for the comfort of his personnel and at the same time ensuring proper maintenance and safeguarding of their equipment. Exercise leadership at all times. And isn't it interesting leadership strategy and tactics, what's the most important thing you have to take care of your people?
What is this unsparing in your efforts, even as you read? Even as I read that the first time I read it, I read unsparing in his efforts.
And you think it's going to say to provide the discipline mandatory for combat operations, but no, unsparing in his efforts to take care of his units by providing the comfort.
And there's the dichotomy at the same time, ensuring proper maintenance and safeguarding their equipment and what it should say there is their training. Right. It's all about safeguarding their mates and equipment. That's cool. But you've got to make sure that they're well trained and ready to rock and roll when the time comes.
Irresponsibility in this connection. Comment of Colonel Morris Barker. Fifth Army Italy is interesting. Younger officers seem to lack a sense of responsibility for the men under their care and for the equipment entrusted to them. They seem to feel that there is an inexhaustible supply of equipment and that all they have to do is throw stuff away when they no longer lead it needed.
Of course, the non-commissioned officer follow there, the non-commissioned officers follow their lead. This lack of responsibility is tremendously important and something drastic must be done about it.
Hey, Colonel Morris Barker, you should do something about it. You should. Because if your junior officers are lacking the sense of responsibility, guess what? Whose fault is that? Yes, yours. That's one part. The other thing that I underlined here is, of course, the noncommissioned officers follow their lead. And that's a subconscious thing that happens.
You get somebody in charge and you get somebody that's what in whatever they're doing, where they're underperforming or they're treating things as if they don't matter or they're throwing equipment away or whatever they're doing, the junior people are going to follow them.
That's the way it works. Along this same line, Lieutenant Colonel E.W. Gibson Jr. to Forty Third Division, New Georgia commented, The chief fault of the inexperienced officer is that he does not realize his responsibilities with respect to looking out for his men, finding them food and water, checking their bivouac and seeing to their clothing if he will evidence his concern for their welfare. He can forget about morale. They'll fight. If he will evidence his concern for their welfare, he can forget about morale, they'll fight.
Who would have thought that if you actually take care of your people, they'll fight?
Did it say, hey, if you bark orders at your people, they'll fight now?
Didn't say that. Did it say, hey, if you impose hard core discipline on them, they'll fight?
No, I didn't say that either.
It's what you have to do is just show evidence of your concern for their welfare and then they'll fight.
Widespread affect junior officers and non-commissioned officers seldom realize the widespread effect on major operations of their failure to do their particular jobs properly, being an excellent fighter is not enough unless the junior leader performs his other command functions in an efficient manner. The resulting failure of his personnel or equipment can imperil the whole action of a major unit. Once again, if my people don't recognize that, whose fault is it, and this one's this one in particular, casting the blame.
But we should say, make sure you tell your junior officers and non-commissioned officers what the widespread effect of their failure would be.
The following comment is from the division commander 36 Division Italy at Salerno, carelessness was noted in the landing of communications equipment. Most communications failures are believed to be the result of careless handling of the equipment by personnel. Without communications, even the best trained troops are very often cannot be employed where desired. So yeah, didn't waterproof your radio correctly and everything falls apart through your radio to the bottom of the landing craft and it got banged around and the tubes broke.
Total failure. Why? Because no one emphasized the fact that, hey, your job as the radio man is the most important job of anyone out there. And if we can't make communications, doesn't matter what else happens. If we can't make communications, we're going to fall apart.
Next in practice and more practice, commanding general, 3rd Infantry Division, Italy, the development of leadership is largely a matter of practice practice in leading make these lieutenants actually lead, exercise their voice and issue commands require high standards of physical condition.
Always got to throw that in their.
Make these lieutenants actually lead. Having James Webb on when he went through the basic school and then got done with the basic school and then had 12 days of leave, and then he landed in Vietnam and they drove him out through the AOH and then pointed at a ridge line and said, there's your platoon up there.
OK, who am I replacing? Well, you're not replacing anyone. The lieutenant that was there is no longer there because he dead or wounded. So there's a sergeant that's been running the platoon. Go take over, walk up the hill. He takes over that night. He's calling for fire, total mayhem. And he was I was like, well, were you ready for that?
And he said, yes. That's squared away. Were you ready for that action coming out of 06 or coming out of coming out the basic school that I'm listening to you talk about this? And the first thing I'm thinking is it sounds like somebody read this and took some action because I was the beneficiary of by the time I got in the Marine Corps, the the NGOs, the the the middle level enlisted Marines that on paper were subordinate to me, but really were way more experienced than me.
They didn't let me fail.
And so I can tell you right now, Second Lieutenant Burke, when he had his first group of Marines, was an idiot.
But I was lucky because rather than my subordinate enlisted Marines kind of following whatever stupidity I might be, they were put in place are actually. Hey, sir, a better way to do it might be this or something, but I got really good leadership up the chain.
So that lesson, that lesson somehow has taken hold from this nineteen forty four to now because Marines are taught from the get go.
The smartest thing you can do is a young lieutenant is listen to your staff and listen to your gunny's, your staff sergeants, those Marines who on paper work for you. You're going to learn a lot from them. And thank God my junior enlisted didn't listen to me at all. They were they they understood that they needed to lead up the chain.
And for me to look you guys, that I'll be ready in no way.
I was ready when I walked out of TB's and I walked into whatever that first thing that I did, had I not had that leadership up the chain, I would have struggled much more than I did, much more than I did.
The other thing I take away from this is, is you need practice, practice and leading. Right.
And there was there's there's situations in business.
Right, because we work mostly with businesses. Now, what you have is an opportunity to train leaders all the time, day in, day out.
There's always situations where decisions need to get made, where there's low level decisions that need to get made. Well, there's medium level decisions that need to be made where there's high level decisions, where maybe you still need to make the decision, but at least you can allow them to attempt to make that decision and maybe get corrected or maybe get maybe get a pat on the back for, hey, good way to think through that issue so that this does happen.
And if you think about the fact that every opportunity you get, you say, you know what, a junior personnel, once you run this project, why don't you once you organize that logistical movement that needs to take place, why don't you run that meeting? Every time you get that opportunity, take it, because that is what you are doing. You are letting your subordinate leaders practice leading and they need it and you let them do it in an environment where, look, I'm going to let them run an in-house meeting with just our company.
So that way, if they screw it up, no one sees it. It's OK. We can debrief it later. I'm not going to let them go out and brief the client on what we're going to do and have him drop the ball on that. But after I see them perform well, three or four or five in-house meetings and they've got control and they're confident and they're doing a good job. Cool. Hey, why don't you brief this part of this thing to the client, OK?
Yeah. And then we go from there. So as a leader, every opportunity that you get, give your subordinates all the way down to the front lines, the opportunity to practice leading by actually leading. Let them lead some stuff. Yeah, and most decisions that we make in business in and most decisions aren't catastrophic. Most of the decisions, even if we get them wrong, they aren't going to destroy our company or have these catastrophic effects. And that's not to say it's a free pass.
You still need to have these guardrails in place. You don't want your people to be able to drive the truck off the road. But the truth of the matter is, is that giving your people opportunities to lead isn't that hard, because even the things that you push down to their level and help them when they get it wrong, which they will, most of those will not undermine your company. Now, be smart. Just like you said, I'm not just going to cut loose my brannagh.
I take this high our number one client, our biggest moneymaker. Just go figure it out. Call me when you're done.
But the decisions that we make, there are so many opportunities to let other people even get along a little bit and get involved, have a small part of it and watch that grow and just have confidence that the decisions, most of the decisions we make aren't going to lead to catastrophe.
Yeah, yeah. I did that piece on EAF online almost maybe a month or two ago.
It was that it was like, listen, very few decisions that you make are final decisions. In fact, almost none of them. And furthermore, just about every interaction you have is up for further negotiation. So if Dave and I are arguing about something and Dave wants to do a and I want to do B, we can walk away. And it's not like that is what's going to happen in most cases. Most of the time there's going to be further negotiation.
And and if I may be subordinated my ego and say, all right, Dave, let's go with your plan, I can go back and reinsert some of the things that I thought might be a little bit smoother if we did it the way I was thinking. And once we start to see that, it's good. So we move forward with a little bit more negotiation.
And and you're right, those are the opportunities where you let people lead. You know, what prevents us from doing that is when I want to be in charge.
Man, it feels good to be the man. It feels good to be the man. What's crazy about that?
Is it you is when you're my boss, you're the guy in charge. When you take something that you're responsible for and you give it to me, you don't look weak. You actually look even stronger than you are like that fear that, hey, I want to be in charge. I look like I'm in charge.
When you give people on your team that work for you the chance to lead and if you actually put yourself in a position to follow them, you look so much stronger than when you refused to ever do that. You want to know something that I haven't quite figured out yet.
I know it exists. I know it happens. I know it's a thing. But it has to do with detachment.
It has to do with perspective. It has to do with ego. It's these three things. So you have you have perspective, you have detachment and you have ego.
So here's what happens, Dave. Let's say I do something. Let's let's use the scenario that you just gave. Right.
If I'm the boss and you work for me and I walk in and say, hey, Dave, you know what? We got this project. Why don't you go ahead and take ownership of this thing and run with it now? When we look at that, we know we know that from the outside that that that increases your respect for me.
Right.
But how often do we see someone that goes, Dave, here's what we're doing and here's how we're doing it. Because in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, well, Dave doesn't want to think that I don't know what I'm doing. Dave needs to know that I have the plan and he needs to know that actually I'm the boss.
So even though when you when you're not in it, you know that it's a bad move, but you do it or sorry when you're not in it. Yeah.
When you're not in, you know what the right thing or the wrong thing to do is we just make that mistake all the time. I see it.
I play this game with clients like who would you hire, who would you fire when when if EKOS in charge of us and ECKA walks in and you and I were in charge of a project, we were working together on a project and that says, hey, you guys missed the deadline. And I go, well, it's because Dave didn't finish his part of the project because he is late. And then he Dave walks in the office and says, what happened?
And Dave says, Well, you know what? I actually need to perform a couple of things. I could have done a better job here.
I should have supported JoCo a little bit more so that we could complete the project. OK, which guy are you going to give the next project to? You're going to give it to a guy who took ownership all day long.
Everybody knows that. Everybody knows that. And here's the thing that I haven't quite figured out. Everybody knows that. And then when they're in it, they say, oh, it's Dave's fault.
It's just the way it's so horrible. It's like a lesson that you try and teach to people over and over and over again.
The lesson is detach, take your ego out of it and understand it from the boss's perspective or from the subordinates perspective. See it from the other person's perspective. And you'll see it's so obvious that you're making a bad call. It's so obvious that you're making a bad call. But when you're in it, you do it.
So detach. Take your ego out of the picture and see the other person's perspective, which, by the way, when you tell someone a story or you show someone example, that's exactly what's happening.
They're detached their egos out of it because it's not them and they they see the better perspective because they're not in it.
There's a little there's a little triangle of justice, a little triangle of of how to proceed and assess what you're doing, it it's detachment, it's perspective, and it's ego.
If you can remember those three little things, that little triangle of decision making, it's going to be it's going to put you in the right place, way more often than if you lose either one of those three. You put your ego in there. It doesn't matter. It overrules them. You don't see the perspective of now. You don't know what's happening. You're not detached. You're in it. You lose.
All right, every infantry lieutenant should be thoroughly trained in firing all the infantry weapons, you cannot know too much about them. He may have to fire direct fire of several weapons and he never knows when. Good, good. Next thing, theory is not enough. A thorough and practical knowledge of his job is the basis for efficient leadership. This knowledge must be gained in a practical way by exercising leadership under all conditions. Too much of our leadership training has been theoretical in nature.
There has been too much dependence on listening to lectures.
Opportunity must be given to the junior officer to put the theoretical knowledge to practice by actually leading criticisms of errors made must be so couched that they do not destroy the initiative and spirit of the individual.
Just when you think like, you know, you, I really come up with this thing about how to debrief people and how to do it in a nice way so that they actually receive it. Hey, this is 19 what I say. Forty four. Forty three. These guys are already figured all this out.
Theoretical, this is what's nice about role playing, this is what's nice about the program, and this is what's nice about living in a business where you can actually put people in leadership positions where they can practice the theory that we're talking about, because someone can you can explain to someone how to do a jump shot basketball. You can explain that to them for two weeks. They'll have a concept in their mind, but they've got to go. They've got to get on the foul line.
Leadership on the beach, fifth amphibious corps, Tarawa squad and platoon leaders must expect that the mixing of units and an apparent state of confusion are normal in an operation of this nature, when troops have gained the beach and coordinated battalion and company attacks are broken up by the enemy, pillbox defenses, leaders, weather lieutenants, corporals or privates must take the initiative and push on with the men in the vicinity, whether of their own units or not. This assault was very successful because men moved on in spite of heavy losses.
So. I was talking about something with Darryl Cooper on the Unraveling podcast.
We have something called an error box when you're doing a dive underwater and the error box is when you're diving underwater, you're being impacted by the currents and the tide and your own physical.
Productivity as you dive, so if I put you on a blindfold and put you underwater in a pool, right, and said dive in a straight line, you are blindfolded, you would not dive in a straight line. You'd be a little bit off.
Then if I gave you a compass, you could maintain a little bit better, but you'd still be off a little bit.
It wouldn't be perfect. And then you put tide and current and now you're going to be off.
I assume it's very similar to flying a plane like a plane may drift a little bit to the left. Right.
OK, so it's the same thing. So what you have to do when you're diving is you dive so that you can you want what you're looking for is a reset, a reset point where you know exactly where you are. So example, if you're going to dive in a bay or in a harbor, you would aim. The first thing you would do is aim at a big wall that's five hundred yards long. You're not going to miss that goal even if you had to dive 500 yards to get to that quite well.
It's a massive target. But when you get to that target, you might have drifted 20 or 30 yards to the left or 20 or 30 yards to right, or even 40 or 50 or 60 yards left or right, depending on the tides, depending on the currents. So when you actually hit that wall, you have no idea where you are, what you've done as you've landed inside the error box.
So then what you do is you take a right hand turn when you hit that wall, once you take that right hand turn, you go to the end of the wall till you get to the corner.
Now, guess what? You know exactly where you are. And then your next you can swim your next leg, but you've tightened up that error box.
So what we need to do and we're planning is we need to figure out if we can reset that error box at any point, how can we do it? And if we can't do it, then we need to pay attention to that. So what we were talking about actually was Syria.
And you go into Syria and you think, hey, we're going to do this little thing in Syria and it will have this impact and will be good to go. And what you're saying is, I'm going to hit with one.
I'm going to hit right where I'm aiming for. Well, what are the chances that they're not really good, so what do you do? Oh, you need to figure it out. You need to figure out if if it's the error boxes here, we might go ten to ten to the left, the right. Now we know. And by the way, if we don't get a reset there, our next leg is going to have an even bigger error box.
So when you look at something in a strategic way like Syria, what your assumption has to be, you have to you have to go through that whole thing as if your error box never got reset and you missed every single time. And by the end of it, then you have to look at the total cost of what it would take to solve that ultimate situation. And that's what you have to be willing to commit.
And we don't do that. What we say is, well, we'll go in and do this and it'll have this impact. And then from that perfect spot that we know we'll do something else and it will we'll be perfect again. And so the same thing happens in business.
What people, unfortunately, have a tendency to do is they plan with a positive attitude. And we don't want a plan with a positive attitude, we don't want to say, well, you know, Dave, if we make drinks, we're going to we're going to if we put if we put drinks in the can, our assumption is they'll all we can is going to be perfect. There'll be no error. Well, there's going to be error and then once we once they get to the stores, while they're getting shipped to the stores, nothing's going to happen to any of them.
There's going to be no damaged goods. And then once they're in the store, none of them are going get stolen. And then once they're bought at the store, none of them will get returned. Right.
So if you have that attitude, it's a mistake.
So you have to plan with a negative attitude at least to be able to cover whatever contingencies you have at the end of the day, which is, you know what?
People will buy it. Right. That's the last thing you say is once the cans are in the store, people are definitely going to buy it because I like the way this tastes.
Well, actually, that's not necessarily true. Your taste buds are different than everyone else's in the world, so you can't assume that all this is just going to fly off the shelf.
No. What are you willing to invest if your error is calculated and exponentially increased every phase of your operation? Think about that to keep yourself out of trouble.
Orientation, the this is ridiculous, ridiculously awesome, the need for explanation, the American soldier always performs better if he knows the whys and wherefores of the problem confronting him.
So where force this is a word we're going to bring back into usage, because what wherefores means it's it's for the cause or reason or for which reason you're doing something. That's what wherefore means. So you need to know the whys and wherefores. You need to know the reason that you're doing something. His willing, intelligent cooperation can be gained if commanders will take the time and effort to explain the situation, the mission, the plan devised to accomplishment, the effect success will have on the general situation.
In short, everything concerning the operation that the time and available information will permit. Wow, that's crazy. This is why you don't you don't want me as a co-host. All I want to do is sit here and listen to you read this, then I don't want to say anything because I'm listening. That is like God, that is so good. Yeah, it's so good.
And yet how often do we run into a company and the front lines and you go to talk to them and they don't understand why they're doing something. It's it's it's so straightforward.
I was thinking earlier, I asked that question right at the beginning. Sometimes we when we start working with companies, one of the reasons why they reach out to us is even in these, they'll have these initial calls. They just reach out. They want to have just a call about what is actually in front do. And one of the things they'll say is like, listen, we don't really know how to do leadership training. We don't really know what to do.
So that's that's why they they reach out to us. That's why the book that's why extreme ownership is so good.
And that's why listening to stuff is so good, because it itself isn't complicated, it's not complex. And we create these things in our mind that it's so difficult and it's so nuanced.
Leadership is so simple.
Now the application is hard, it is easy, hard and totally.
But the reason the book is so good and the reason why listen to this. Like, how much more straightforward would that be? Explain to people why they're doing what they're doing and they'll do better.
And then we see those missteps at every single level. And our job is to find out, hey, why aren't you explaining it to your people? Sometimes it's like you said, hey, their ego gets in the way they want want to look weak and we pull them back and give them that detachment, their perspective. We go, hey, do you think is a leader? If you just spend a little bit of time telling your people why they're doing what they're doing, well, that make you look worse or better as a leader?
They get the answer right every single time. But it's because we're coming in from the outside helping them see it in a way that they wouldn't see it before. But none of the answers are complex.
And as I'm sitting here and I don't want to cohosts, I just want to listen to this book be read aloud because there's that simplicity to it.
But he's talking about the World War two battlefield. And my brain is like that fits everywhere. That's every company we've ever worked with. It's every problem I've ever had. It's all the same thing. Yeah.
And for anyone that's worried about, well, what if you don't have time. Yeah, there's going to be times. We don't have time.
And guess what, if you've done this time and time again and now you're making a call, people call. Got it. He's going to fill me in later, but he's telling me this for a reason and I'm going to move forward.
Yeah. Back to the book.
Such explanations will do much to forestall rumors, anxiety and mass hysteria, all factors which contribute to incidents of war neurosis cases, which is, you know, people shell shock or or I guess I guess it's not PTSD if it's during the conflict. Right.
But guys breaking down, if people know why they're doing what they're doing, they will have much less of a chance of breaking down. And we actually talked about this.
You know, they've talked about the fact that one thing that we could have done better is explain the bigger picture of what was happening. And the reason we saw the reason this became so obvious is because the guys in to Bruiser that were involved in the planning, that were involved in picking targets, that were involved of figuring out where we're going to position overwatch, is that we're going to battalion level briefs. And these were all different guys throughout the chain of command, whether it was the point man, whether it was the the lead sniper, whether it was the platoon commander, the platoon chief.
But they all understood the why and the wherefores, the guys that we were saying, hey, get your gear on and going on another mission.
Those were the guys that had that that had a rougher time of it psychologically. So that's on us. That's on me.
And and as life explains in the book, when we got back and we put together the brief that I was briefing to the the naval special warfare community at large about what we had done and lay off for the first time put together. Wow. We went and helped the one one aide win back the city. Even he didn't hadn't really assembled that in his head. So I'm sitting there and he said that he's like, man, we really had a big impact.
And I'm like, ashamed, because if he didn't really see that, how in God's name could one of his front line guys see it?
Now, look, part of this is because that trust that life did have and s same thing like, hey, we're going to go get after, you know, what those guys say, Roger, point me in the direction of bad guys and we will go and get after it.
But not everyone's feeling that way, especially two months, three months, four months, five months into a deployment. Whose fault is that? One hundred percent on me. One hundred percent on me. So there you go. There, plain as day. Explain to your people the whys and wherefores. It also makes them. It also makes them. More resilient when things go wrong.
So when you talk about losing somebody, you talk about just that, the devastating effect of losing someone on your team. Those are the type of events that you can fully understand why people want to just tap out. They just don't want to keep going through this. And we were going to memorials. I think we had a stretch that are beginning. It was 60 KiOR in 30 days, something really bad.
The more connected you are, the more you understand those things, the easier it is for you to look at that.
It's no less. It's still soul crushing, but you can still power through that if you understand. But if you don't understand it, you are disconnected. Those type of critical events, those catastrophic events do tap out all over the place. And so it also allows you to endure the hardest things are going to happen. And the more connected you are, the more you can understand why you need to keep moving forward when those things happen.
Yeah, one hundred percent. And on top of that, where I what I initially thought you were going to say was, by the way, this is the foundation of decentralized command, because what they're talking about, they're not talking about disaster. They're just talking about willing and intelligent cooperation, which I guess is, you know, you could interpret that as decentralized command. But if you want somebody be able to make decisions and lead out on the battlefield, they need to know the whys and wherefores of what's happening.
This is the foundation of decentralized command. On top of that, what you said is absolutely true.
And by the way, it doesn't only apply to combat, it applies to a business where, guess what, we got to lay off twenty eight people and no one feels good about that. And if they don't understand that, it's how we're going to keep the company afloat and how we're going to move forward. And this is exactly what the numbers look like. And this is why we need to make this decision.
If it's just, hey, I'm a business, we're business, and we got to get rid of some people right now, it's like, no, why?
Next method of dissemination, if possible. This orientation should be conducted by the leaders in immediate contact with the soldier, by the individual he instinctively looks to for guidance during the stress and strain of combat. It should reach the private soldier through his squad leader, the squad leader, by means of the section or platoon leader, the platoon leader from the company commander, and so on. However, each higher echelon of command must be certain that the information is carefully and accurately disseminated by those next lower in the chain of command.
This method of orientation also tends to enhance the prestige and influence of each echelon of leaders with those junior to them.
So you want to utilize the chain of command to put this information out that elevates them.
Now there's a dichotomy this and outside the battlefield that we did out at Gettysburg, we had some clients out there talking about leadership principles. And one of the leadership principles that I talked about was the horse's mouth, because there are certain things.
Well, and to ask you to Bruxner, there are certain things that I had to tell the team, there was no there was I didn't want there to be any of the of the misinterpretation of any kind. I am going to tell there's been a change in the ROV. There's been a change in our overall mission set that's not getting interpreted through the chain of command. And I'm going to hope that the that the fire team leader conveys the same message.
No, it's going to come from me. So out there at the battlefield, you know, there was a CEO that was saying, hey.
I feel like the message isn't always getting to the front lines, and when it comes to important things, that can be a problem, I'm like, yes, absolutely.
If it's something that is super important, there's been a legal change or a regulatory change in what's happening in the way we do business. I would be having a video teleconference and saying, hey, hey, everyone, good to talk to you. I know. I know. You know, I haven't talked to you in a few weeks, but here's what's going on. We've got this major change. I wanted you all to hear from me. I already briefed your leaders on it, but I wanted to make sure you didn't have any questions.
So when it is a significant change, sometimes it's got to come from the horse's mouth.
By the way, if you get to do that in an optimum way, what you do is you prebreathe your leaders, you give them the opportunity to brief their troops, and then you say, hey, everyone, to get together just to reemphasize what you heard, boom.
A little bit of both. Next one, tell the story, Colonel Earl Maxwell, surgeon. New Georgia, a soldier needs to know what is going on, what is expected of him, what he may expect to encounter, he must have a definite objective or goal without these. He's an automaton with no personal interest in the efforts of his unit and is entirely unprepared when the unexpected or unexplainable happens without the proper orientation. He is more prone to absorb wild rumors, loose talk, misinformation, all resulting in constant mental stress and strain evidenced by apprehension, fear, anxiety, incoherence and confusion.
There you go. There you go. You don't look, we worry about, hey, people aren't going to do what I wanted to do because I didn't tell them. But what about the fact that now they're scared now they don't know what's happening now? There's increased stress because they think they might get fired tomorrow. They think they're laying off half the fort, all those things. Put those things to rest. Next section, the After the fight conference, every effort must be made to emphasize the important part each individual plays in successful combat of his unit, a method used by one infantry regiment to accomplish this and at the same time provide information which would furnish background.
Orientation is described in the following comment. They eat it up. This little section is called Major Kermit Hanson, 30 4th Infantry Division, Italy. While I was S2 of an infantry regiment, that's the intelligence guy I found that had aided the efficiency of the regiment to have material assembled as the fight was going on.
When a battalion was pulled out for a rest, all the men and officers were assembled in a group. First, I would use the collected material to give them the whole picture from the viewpoint of the Army Corps and division. And then I would get down to more detail on just what the battalion had done, what German units they had fought and how many casualties they had caused the enemy. Such a conference keeps the men abreast of the situation, increases their morale and keeps up their fighting spirit.
The men eat it up during this. After the fight conference, I would emphasize how much of our information regarding the enemy was obtained from prisoner of war interrogation, impressing upon them how disastrous talking could be if they were captured. So this is taking a a debrief, a post operational debrief and taking it to the next level, sliding a normal psychological warfare on the troops.
If you're if you're down at the bottom of the org chart, you're a front line guy. And not just the military, you know, a private or a rifleman.
Same thing in business. You've got your front line sales folks are out there.
If you as a leader and look, if you're the CEO, you're a key leader. You've got the big picture. If your folks on your team at the very front can picture in their minds how they're that one little action they take goes all the way up. And he's described the viewpoint of the army like we're invading Europe. This is a big viewpoint.
And he's trying to get that connection all the way down to that one little action you take when he says they eat it up. The first thing that popped to my mind is, is they feel like they have ownership. They what they do matters. And if you think what you do matters and you can actually understand how what you do matters, you as a CEO, you can kind of you can leave.
You don't need to be here anymore. You can pack it up and let your people go do their thing. And a lot of times we like I don't have time to explain. You have to make the time to explain it, because if your people make that connection, it makes your life so much easier because they feel like they own this. That is such a powerful thing. Yeah.
You invest one dollar in effort in explaining to people what's happening and it pays dividends tenfold.
Yeah. There's a section here called Battlefield Gallantry, which by its very title must be read. Here's the subtitle.
He didn't know when he was beaten. Seventh army, Sicily, during one of the more fluid situations in the Sicilian fighting, and I love that because you just know how completely crazy it was. But this is even more of the more fluid situations.
The wire line running from the Italian command post to the rear suddenly went out. Sergeant Joseph Ghar Leskie, with three men, started back to check and repair the break. After they had traveled about one half mile, they were ambushed by a patrol of 30 Germans.
So that's for for against 30 who had managed to infiltrate our position. Sergeant Kowalski and two men were wounded while the third man was killed. So they're down to three, the German patrol leader called in perfect English, give up, you crazy Americans. Although severely wounded and outnumbered ten to one Sergeant Greer, Leskie ordered his men to open Rapid Fire after emptying his rifle. The sergeant rushed the enemy with hand grenades. The German patrol, surprised by the unexpected stubborn resistance, was defeated and driven off with the loss of a number of its men.
There you go. Battlefield gallantry. Aggressive action. Cover and move. Getting after it, Sergeant Kowalski, just just getting some next little section protected by valor, the Germans have a nasty habit at times of opening fire at extreme ranges and making you advance under it.
While this long range fire is not particularly dangerous, dangerous, it is very disconcerting. The platoon of which Private Shelby are whored was a member, had been advancing under this long range fire until despite several casualties, they had secured a position within three hundred yards of the gun which had been harassing them. From here on, there was no cover. This did not deter private Whored, who suddenly springing to his feet, raised some two hundred and fifty yards until he was within a hand grenade throwing range with four grenades.
He silenced the gun and rushing in, killed four of the remaining enemy and wounded three others with his carbine. He then turned the machine gun on other enemy elements in the vicinity.
The success of his apparently suicidal rush demonstrates the fact that valor can sometimes provide protective armor, the enemy simply did not realize that any man would try such a thing. And we're not ready to put their fire on him, by the way. He's got to you've got to wing, too, because he got it was three hundred yards away. He closed two hundred and fifty yards and then he made grenade shots at 50 yards. Credit General Douglas MacArthur, it should be constantly emphasized that there must be no thought of surrender as long as it is possible to do damage to the enemy.
The men, Bataan and Corregidor, fulfilled this condition, however, in some cases we have not done so. The Japanese soldiers always do, unless all are individuals also do it. We will suffer serious setbacks before Japan is conquered and the word individuals is italicized. And I obviously it's italicize for a reason, it's like, hey, at an individual level, you cannot surrender. If you can still do damage to the enemy, you cannot surrender.
Next thing, reorganisations after the attack. Don't waste time. I mean, you could just just say don't waste time.
Lieutenant Colonel Murphy, Infantry, Eataly, when an objective is captured, immediately push reconnaissance elements of the supporting weapons unit forward behind the rifleman, get rifle groups out for security as soon as the positions captured. Have the weapons platoons immediately take position to beat off a counterattack, displace promptly at least one half of the heavy weapons company forward to capture the objective or to the captured objective. Get your artillery observer up front. Hurry. We were taught all these things and they are still perfectly sound.
So what he's saying and my point for this is you get that advantageous moment and you're. The gravitational pull will be to take a breath, to relax, don't do that. Continues on here, delay brings trouble when an outfit gets into trouble is it is usually because they haven't pushed these points hard enough when they waste time just a little instead of getting set and moving stuff forward at once.
You probably will have only a little time to dig in before the counterattack hits, but if you set with if you get set without delay, you will be all right.
Whether you plan to keep going or hold what you've captured in football, there's a strategy called the no huddle, you know, huddle offense.
It's literally exactly what that is where, you know, in football, you run a play, they blow the whistle. Take a little time, everybody.
Yeah. The offense goes back to the huddle to formulate their next play. They come to the line, something defensive huddle, all this stuff. Right. Then they come to the line, they make the call, boom. They run another play.
You go no huddle offense, right.
When the you know, the guy gets tackled or whatever, you're back up, boom. Right on the line.
Quarterback calls the play from the line in code real fast to usually.
Isn't that more fun? No, frickin tiring. Super tiring.
So you got to you got to kind of you got to be ready for it. You got to train for it for sure. But what it does is the defense are used to that rhythm. You know, that a sprint rest huddle get set, you know, all that stuff. You if you run a no huddle offense and they're not ready for it, you get one, two plays ahead of them. Brother, you'll just march down the field if you don't take it.
So why doesn't that just happen all the time? Because Tyree. I know, but why doesn't someone train up a squad where they're like, OK, this is what we're doing?
Oh, well, OK. So when I played in high school, the, you know, quite a small island.
So the white male was the other team we're playing. And they were I forget if we beat them last time or it was closer, I don't know. I forgot what happened the last time, but we were going to play them again. And the word on the street was they were just going to beat us like bad.
They're going to beat us better. And I always was thinking, like, why? Why would they even say that? You know, even if they beat us, we're like competitive. So it doesn't it wasn't making sense. It seemed like they had something brewing. Sure enough, they come out with the no huddle unexpected and they just marched down the field.
How to do it to I don't remember. But until they scored and they started and it was all like quarterback keep.
You know what that means now, like instead of, like, giving it to the running back or throwing it, the quarterback gets the ball from the center and just runs it. Oh, but these are all formulated plays where he just where he's running on the outside is when the left side, right side, middle like and they're just coming. And I remember that was kind of a beast. Yeah. Aaron Chung was this did he make it really make it to the NFL or anything.
Oh no, not that I know of. But he made it the offense, made it to the end zone.
You that and I remember just how like victory. Yeah. I remember thinking man whole I remember thinking like you guys go huddle like I can't like get my get my act together here to tackle nobody because you're just so on your toes the whole time.
Here's the other thing. OK, so, so there's that. And I still you haven't really answered my question, which is if you're a coach where you just say, hey, we're actually going to condition ourselves in a different way, in a non-traditional way, and we're going to be ready just to we're never going to huddle. Yeah, you the thing is, that's a huge undertaking. The thing is we do that's a common conditioning method is like no offense for like, I don't know, ten minutes, twenty minutes or whatever.
Like that's part of football, conditioning, practice and stuff. Because when you go no huddle, you better buckle up. There's no substitutions.
I wonder if you would just get guys that were different, like they'd all of a sudden they'd be smaller and skinnier and have more have less power. And then you'd end up with a team that even though they could run the no huddle offense on defense, they would just get they would get run through methodically. Yeah. What do you mean?
Meaning if everyone else on the other team is just jacking steel and doing klinz, we're three fifteen and they're going up against a bunch of guys that are weighing in at one seventy because they're doing this no huddle offense all the time is doing well. Yeah I could see it.
You'd end up with different physiques. Yes, for sure.
And some teams they'll, they'll kind of have that more in their strategy, you know, and you know, sometimes they pass the ball more or they run the ball more awesome. You know, some no huddle.
That's like some of the quarterback keeps a lot as important as opposed to quarterback sneak, which is different. Yeah, not. Well, I would say the explanation for that is it can be risky because if you don't know how to know how to know huddle and then the defense is like, oh, we're ready for the no huddle, then it's like man, you get shut down, OK?
It's like, all right is different now, understand. Yeah. And I think the other thing I sometimes wonder about football is, you know, you see like a trick play on YouTube. Yeah. How come everything's just not a trick, you know, because they're risky.
Just like jujitsu, like you do this trick moves and jujitsu. You get like a group of people figured out that trick. They're going to shove it up your they're not going to it's not going to work.
We'll say that probably it becomes not a trick play. No. Yeah.
It's no longer a trick play when people know. So. Yeah. And there there are teams who and that's actually kind of how the. No huddle is two, it's kind of it's I wouldn't call it in the realm of trick plays, but it's kind of one of those things that it's unorthodox. The unorthodox ness of it is part of the advantage, you know. So it's like there's another play called the reverse, right? It's like we'll call it a common trick play, you know, let's go to the other side of the field, right?
No, it's right here. Yes, sir. But it's OK.
You're good at a lot of things for one or reverse is like, let's say, OK, so you get 11 guys essentially.
Right. You got the quarterback behind the center and they say, sit down, whatever. Right. If it's a running play, I'm going to get if it's you can run it up the middle. Right. That's usually for short yardage situations. We need three yards for this first. No power, whatever power through exactly right. Jump. I might even jump three.
Maybe, maybe that's more of a one yard half yards. It's got it. But whatever. Right then there's like an outside run which is you can either give it to the running back and he'll run on the outside. But anyway, whatever side you're running in, right side, left side, whatever, there's no like there's no like oh we always run to the right side. We always you know, there tends not to be that much of that going on.
But when you run when a play is going to the right side will say, you can see it all.
Eleven guys start look if if they go back to the other side now. Yeah. But this is, this is how they do it though.
So I was right.
I guess that's an ambiguous statement. Go to the other side. So I don't know. OK, so what's about to happen.
So they either pretty I mean there's plenty of ways to do it, but they basically show that this play is running to the right and then they say the running back is running to the right with the ball. If I'm on the line on the for the front the front line guys, you're going to step right, because you got to get in front of the defense this way because they're running behind me something. So when you look at the offense as a defender, you see the whole offense as a group.
They flow to a certain side. You know, that's where they're going now. Pass, play.
They're just going to sort of stay in place because the quarterback is dropping back and he got a pass. The receivers go right. So you can see all this stuff on the defense.
So, boom, the whole offense is flowing. This one side, your natural tendency is to roll that side right.
Pass hard. And then what happens there?
One receiver or maybe the tight end or something like this. He goes or he steps once the only guy one step back and goes all the way around the quarterback or the running back. Sometimes they give it to the running back. The running back gives it to him going the other side.
Go to the other side because the other side. Exactly. You're correct. Yes.
So that OK, so that that's an unorthodox play overall. That's not a typical play, but it's not like when you see it, you know, OK, they run the reverse. It's it's a play. Yes. But it's unorthodox.
But you get there are teams that run a lot of those types of plays. But once the defense knows, oh, they run these kinds of plays, it's like it doesn't work as good as it's like it's like when leg locks.
Yes. People started getting I remember we train with people that fought that leg locks, which is totally the they were the solution to jujitsu.
Right. But we did we did really like locks.
Yeah. We did even more like locks than some guys that thought the leg was actually the jujitsu. So all of a sudden they try the leg locks. The leg locks weren't working. Yes, we were doing leg locks more than the leg lock people. Yeah. So yeah.
So then they had to try and do regular jujitsu and then. Right then when you get to walk.
So good example. So the leg locks. Right. So remember and this goalscoring you'll see I think one or maybe two I forget, but it was this crazy new, some legs or whatever. He sat back for one. Right. So this is that's an example of what happens if someone knows your trick play unorthodox play. But it's unorthodox for a reason. Just like I said, if it's like so effective once, you just do it all the time.
Well, because it probably has more risks if everyone's on a reverse. Right. In football, if everyone's blocking to the right and we send one guy back to the left, you rely on them getting tricked, that everything's going to the right if they see the reverse all the time to say, oh, yeah, I see. Right. But get ready for the reverse. That lone guy running around is going to get creamed.
You know that that situation with Ken Shamrock and Joyce, that shows you how really a little bit beyond the Gracies at that time were even more highly developed than you thought they were. Yeah, because with you, when you watch that sequence hoists immediately, I'm not going to recommend a perfect like like lock defense. He's on top and now he's on top, right? Yeah. It was the perfect leg like defense at a time where basically no one was doing leg locks in jujitsu.
Yeah. So it's pretty awesome. And it's pretty impressive that even at that time he had the defense for the leg lock. Now, I don't know, maybe they maybe they saw enough of it or they knew that it was a possibility because Ken Shamrock was what was he champion Pankration and Shuto shoot for.
Yeah. Shoot fighting where they were doing leg locks. So they might have watched enough to go, oh, you know what? If he starts going for this, you've got to grab his neck. You've got to go on top. No, they they did legless the alligators. OK, so there's a video this is an old school video where it was oilor and higson doing essentially a demonstration might have been primate or something like that. Looked like maybe in the middle of pride, maybe a half time situation.
OK, so it looked like it's old school, but that's not more old school than UFC two. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, it might have been.
So by the time they're teaching it pride. Yeah, everyone's kind of doing like walks by that.
But, you know, like they do such hard core, fundamental like stuff. Yes. This is this is really the feel you got. And part of the demonstration was a legless submission. It was like the basic straight of straight echolocating. Yeah, exactly right. So, you know, like when they do those demonstrations, you know, Horia and Hicks in the toilet, when they do those demonstration, it's all just the basic the fundamental Gracy style.
Yeah. And I was in there. It's not like they were like, OK, let's with some new age stuff, it was there's nothing. Here's a here's a strange angle. This is Gracie Jujitsu. Yeah, exactly right. And it was part of it. Yeah. So you figure. Yeah, of course they did that stuff with the Geita by the way.
And that's what I'm saying. What I'm saying is it's impressive because if you're thinking like, well, you know, back then they even do four locks at all.
Yeah. It's like, wow. And actually know who did a lot, you know, did a number of foot locks to finish people oilor. Really. Yeah. Whether it be snagging box office doing exactly right.
I mean now for the whole football game is is the whole you know but but again, going back to his crazy consumer, it's, it's, that's the example where it's like, oh if Liguria foot locks back then we're such a cheap move like such an easy like shortcut kind of move that you surprised we were like, why don't you just do them all the time and then can sort of camp was kind of like, well yeah we do. That's part of how we win.
You just get one guy to figure out the little trick and you're exposed a lot of the time. That's why it's a trick move. Otherwise it'd just be fundamental moves, it seems.
So a trick move that you use all the time is not a trick at all. It's just another move. It's just another move. And here's the thing. And it will not be another move if it has a high end, high part or a high risk involved in it.
Yes, that's usually what trick, which is what Ken Shamrock got caught with a high risk move that actually Joyce was able to capitalize. He's on top and cantonments on the bottom. Same thing with the reverse. Same thing as a Hail Mary.
Not that actually that's not a trick move, but same thing like what do you call it? The one where you sweep it to the running back and then he throws the ball back to the quarterback.
You ever seen those? Yeah, it's like that's a trick move. You see guys kill with that. But running backs can't throw the ball that that's such a high risk. Oh, don't let the quarterback get make a catch and get creamed by one of the DBS. Now your quarterbacks out because you know, he doesn't take as much punishment as the rest of guys on the team. So there's all this risk I'm seen.
Yeah. When Dean got Chikako in the absolute finals with the what we call the Caraco, he look, which is now called fifty fifty.
But you could see that Cockerill, there was confusion and I mean obviously he's an incredible world champion himself, but there was not a there you could see like he was not aware of what was happening. Yeah. And Dean was obviously fully aware he was always happening.
Yeah.
But now we've seen plenty of people. Oh you want to go to fifty fifty with the. OK, cool. And they're going to have their defenses and the whole nine yards. So it's now, it's now not a hugely advantageous trek move because it's just a normal move now. Right. And then that's a good example is one of one of these things that, you know, when you create a whole system around like foot locks, for example, that you start to eliminate all the risk factors that come with it.
That's what a system does, you know, eliminates lingering problems, whatever becomes like an actual effective system. If if you can't eliminate the risk, that's not a system. You're still over here throwing the risks out. Really, hopefully you won't.
You know, and that's what I think some of the old foot lock guys or people, they'll be like, oh, I'll just jump for Filloux. Oh, yeah, sure. I'm you know, it was and it's not based on like a system systematic football game, like how it is like Dean had so early on. You know, I'm sure that's why I think he was he was as effective, you know, definitely very effective, we'll say.
Yes, sir. All right.
Let's go back to where we were at. So we were talking about not delaying when you get in certain situations.
And it was talking about, you know, hey, once you once you do an attack, you get in a position, then you need to immediately set yourself up and and get your defense ready immediately.
Don't wait. And then there's a jumping forward to a section here where they talk about how do you do that? Like what's the methodology for making that happen? Well, here you go.
Reorganisations aided by prior planning. Lt. Col A'Hearn in Italy. From the battalion commanders point of view, the most vital feature of reorganization is prior planning. By that, I mean deciding well in advance whether all machine guns are going to displace forward immediately or only half of them deciding. What areas the 81 millimeter mortars are going to cover, what is the 60 millimeter mortars are going to cover, the various companies cover all this planning is vital so that the prompt issuing of orders for reorganization could be effective immediately following the capture of the objective.
Think about where you can use that in your way in your entire world, business, life, everything that's going on. Hey, when this happens, we're going to do this immediately afterwards. That is the deal.
There's a comment here. This is from the editor. All comment on attack tactics against the Germans emphasize the importance of prompt and thorough reorganization of the attack unit. When it reaches its objective, it is necessary that this be accomplished in order to oppose effectively the habitual German counterattack. And it goes on. Reorganization of an attack unit must begin at the elementary squad level and work to the top.
Have squad leaders organize their squads, section leaders supervising the work of all squad leaders. The platoon commander, assisted by the platoon sergeant, supervise the work of the section leaders and so on. Chain of command. The company commander must be planning the defense of the position, checking the disposition of his weapons and coordinating the fires of his mortars with his artillery support. So that's a decentralized command.
So preplanning, what you're going to do when you win is a really important thing. Mm hmm. And then once you win, immediately execute the plan.
Yeah, this happens with companies that they close a deal, right?
They close the deal. Hey, I close the deal with, you know, whatever with Bill. They if they're smart, they have a follow up plan.
It's a emails coming two days later. Hey, Bill, just phone up. Want to make sure you got the support that you needed. And by the way, I also want to let you know we've got some other features that we are adding to our product in two weeks when it comes out. I want to let you know that that's happening. And also, I know that you've got some affiliate businesses that you also work with. I would like to reach out to them and see if we can help.
You know what I'm saying? Like, you have a plan.
Yeah, a winning plan.
Yeah, that's there's a and there's a slight difference between because as long as that plan isn't contingent on, like, the fact that you and because just just a little while ago, we're talking about, you know, the idea that, OK, my whole comprehensive plan, every move like one, the next move is dependent on you executing the first move. Right. Meanwhile, there's a lot of wiggle room in that first move. There's levels of success, you know, check.
So you literally can't go to the second plan if you don't achieve this certain thing, which is that's a variable over there. However, just to shut you down.
No, no, no. I'm saying there's a difference there. I'm saying don't get confused in that. Let me tell you what the difference is.
This is important because you you brought up a totally valid point. Tactical echo gets that gets all the gets a W. But it's about to get a little bit revoked. Here's the deal.
So you're right. We don't know exactly how it's going to turn out. Right. We don't know what that win actually looks like.
But here's here's the deal. The section that I just read, what did it say? It said, let your section leaders lead, let your squad leaders lead.
So what you say is, listen, folks, once we secure this objective, we are going to immediately develop a defensive posture.
That means this you spell out what your intention is and then your subordinate leaders, through decentralized command, step up and fulfill your intent immediately based on the particulars and the variables of the outcome of the victory.
Yeah, one mission for patrol, a patrol should have a single and sole mission. There appears to be a general tendency upon the part of staff officers and immediate commanders to add a second mission just because the patrol is going to be in the vicinity of some point in which they are interested. I believe this is that this point of a single mission is highly important.
So when you're telling your people, hey, this is what I want to go doing these hey, by the way, do this and by the way, do this doesn't help what you got there.
Leg locks, no football quarterback, sneak, whatever these lessons are everywhere, you're just you're you're making that point about, hey, we just closed the deal with Bill, we're not done.
And that was kind of a kind of a micro example like like close the deal with Bill. But I'm going to reach out to Bill on Monday. We're going to keep looking. And I was thinking in the context of this idea of, hey, when we accomplish the mission or we have a win or whatever, that success ends. That's true at that very small tactical level, that email to Bill. It's also true at the strategic level, at the highest level of how we work with companies.
One of the things we do with the senior executive level is we help them build these big strategic plans, the five year plan. But the five year plan doesn't just map out five years. And then at the end of those five years, we we are done that five year plan, the five year cycle never ends. And so when we achieve these big victories in business, nothing really ends. It's just leads us to the next things, too. We can get bigger and bring more people in.
That's true in sports. It's this idea that the win that we're looking for isn't the end of any of this. The win that we're looking for is what allows us to start to do more and bigger and other things of what that long range strategy is, which actually in the businesses we're working with, there's no end for them.
They're going to get bigger. They're going to get more dominant, they're going to be more successful, are going to branch out in other areas. And I I'm a big fan of EKOS sports analogies. But the win, even if you think like the team that wins the Super Bowl, you know what they want to do as soon as they win the Super Bowl, they want to celebrate that. They want to win the next Super Bowl, because if not, they become the story of, oh, yeah, you guys won the Super Bowl and you didn't even make the playoffs next year.
This this idea of when you win, you have to plan to have something to do right after that, which is you're going to want to rest. You don't want to take a knee. And that's the worst thing we can do because that win is fleeting. And you don't email Bill, you're going to lose Bill because someone's going to get in there and you don't get Bill's content. You're going to lose those contacts, too. And that win is going to be meaningless in the long run unless you recognize the win is just another step.
You moving forward?
Yeah, actually, that's that's that makes sense to right where it's like and you mentioned used super quick, barely mention this. Sure. You want to party right after right after you win the Super Bowl. So you know the classic story, right. Like you have certain champions.
Right. Whatever they win the Super Bowl, they win the heavyweight title, whatever. Next day they're training ready. I'm saying that's like the real championship game. Well, you get like the one time champion, right, who may be like, I don't know, whatever. He's the one time champion. He goes, he wins. And what's he doing? Partying, cruising. I need to take a couple of weeks off vacation. I'm going to go spend my bonus money, whatever.
You know, I'm quite whatever for a little bit. Lenoir, I like you see, I'm saying it's like it makes sense.
So the guy who who can strategize, like, yeah, I won, but, you know, like the real champions going to get back to work immediately.
It's kind of that it's one hundred percent that that's why these, these principles from combat apply to everything in life. Yep.
We're not just outspent in our bonus money in Kōichi, not necessarily the poor map reading patrolling to provide security was generally good, but patrolling to maintain contact and determine enemy positions and movement was often slighted. Many patrol leaders lack the ability to read a map and locate themselves.
This resulted in incorrect information being brought back, failed to reach the objective and an inability to call for fire support, some patrols didn't know the situation and what to expect and what specific information was desired. They were not properly properly briefed prior to starting. So once again, if we have a team who doesn't know where they are, they're useless. What does that mean? If you have a team that doesn't understand what they're making, how much they're making, how much they're producing, what their raw materials, where, what the level of the raw materials are, what what level of all those things?
If people don't know where they are, they're worthless. Infantry notes, I get to read books that have sections that are called infantry notes, I'm a happy human inter unit liaison. Major General Lucas' Italy experience has shown that enemy offensive action is usually along the boundaries between units bomb Ramadi. This fact emphasizes the need for close liaison in constant contact between adjacent units from squads on up. Maximum benefit from coordinated action will be realized if commanders will ensure that the following conditions are met.
Exchange of active liaison personnel between adjacent units, close contact between front line organizations, and a mutual agreement to ensure maximum combined protection along the boundary. Prompt report to adjacent units of any unusual enemy activity. Early advice of plans for attack, counterattack or withdraw. Together with a request for assistance desired from adjacent units.
Commanders should know at all times what units will be directly affected by their action and realize that it is their responsibility to keep those concerned informed. So look, we work. We interact with all kinds of different groups, all kinds of different departments, all kinds of different divisions, all kinds of different companies. We work with companies all the time that all rely on other companies to get their job would be to be right. It's business to business.
How do we where does the weakness usually fall? Where does where does failure I should say usually where does failure often fall? It's in those seams between those two businesses. So what do you do? Here's some suggestions.
Exchange active liaison personnel write actually trade some people.
Hey, take this person. I'll take that person, let them run that project, then work through this project. Close contact between organizations, mutual agreement.
To to to work through those problems that you're going to have prompt reporting, hey, hey, Echo, if your t shirt business can't supply my silkscreen business, can you please tell me.
Right, that's what we want. I think you have that backwards. But I understand.
I say if you're silkscreened is your t shirt business can't supply my silkscreened business. Why do you think I have that backwards? Because usually silkscreened provides service for the t shirt business. I guess so I could go a two way street. You're right, you're right. So either way aspect of my my apartment. Either way, what we need to make sure that we're talking to each other. Maybe I'm running out of ink. Yeah. And now I'm not going to be able to print your shirts made.
My sales are going down. I can't supply you with that business that don't depend on that anymore. See, I'm saying there we go.
Early advice of plans for attack, counterattack or withdraw. Right. So if I'm going to be printing a ton of shirts, I tell you, hey, man, I got a big order from another company. I'll let you know if you're going to need something. Here's the wait time. Oh, OK. Let's plan through that. OK, great. Commanders should know at all times what units will be directly affected by their action and realize, as my response is what I just said.
It's my responsibility for telling you, hey, I'm going to go. I've got a bunch of other stuff we've got to print. If you need something, you better tell me ASAP.
Got a sap? Surely use your rifle. It's another good heading.
Col. Harry B. Schurman, commanding officer, Infantry, Italy, we have a hard time getting rifleman to use their rifles. They depend too much on artillery and supporting weapons. In most cases, it would be better if they fired, even if there is no visible target. A group of infantry, a group of riflemen may be stopped by a German machine gun, which they can't locate. But if they open fire in the general direction of the machine gun, the Germans will usually pull out.
I believe that we have placed too much emphasis on fire orders and fire control by unit leaders. Men must be taught to open fire at once in the general direction of any target that is holding them up without waiting for any squad leader or any other individual to tell them to open fire. What does that? It's decentralized command. And it's also going on the offense and it's also cover and move. They're kind of like in the UFC when a guy gets like hit real hard and he just starts swinging kind of like that when he gets hit.
So if you punched me really hard at, my reaction is just to start swinging a little bit. Kind of a kind of.
Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, yeah, actually, I would say accurate, it's like I'm in jujitsu when some of the dean gets a good position on me and I use the spazz defense. It's kind of like that. Like he starts saying, I'm just going to spaz out, started moving like crazy. Is it just like mess him up? Yes. Throwing bullets down there.
So it's like, oh, yeah, you're not picking your shots, I'll tell you that.
Definitely not being shots. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah.
There's a connection there too to what you were just talking about a little while ago too, which was, hey, doing something is usually better than doing nothing. And if your plan is hey, let's you know, we're in a difficult situation, let's assess a little bit. Let's reach out to our supporting organizations while just sitting here doing nothing as opposed to, hey, we've got resources right here that we can expand right now.
Now, I can't win the war with these resources, but I need to use these resources right now. This team get online started pulling, moving forward, JOCO Radio back, see what kind of fire support we have, coordinate with the other agencies inside your organization. But this tendency of I'm going to sit back and see what's happening or doing nothing. What they're saying is, hey, you were given those resources, those tools that you have so you can use them.
And yeah, that artillery always looks better on the airplanes. Look like a really cool. You imagine when we were in Ramadi if every time we went on to assault the criteria's, we wanted to wait for aircraft first.
Yeah, you're going to sit there all day long. And I knew that firsthand is a amazingly Alia's on my job as an Anglican Marine Air Naval Gunfire liaison company was to try to bring that air support. But actually, the best thing I did was support them, say, hey, listen, we can't get air for all these times that I'm not going to provide you what you need. Let's come up with another way to do this. And when they show up, that'll be a great force multiplier.
It'll be awesome. We're going to sit around waiting for that thing. We've got all these other assets that we can use and we need to use them.
Yeah, because it's it's a real low risk, right? Yeah. If I start pushing forward right now, which seems like a lot be a lot easier for just me call some artillery over there. But guess what, you don't have it right now.
So what seems like less risk is actually more risk because action beats in action. So when I'm sitting here waiting for artillery or waiting for aircraft to come overhead, guys are the enemy who I just knew that they were somewhere over there. They're moving, they're maneuvering, and now I'm getting beat.
So what seemed like less risk is actually more risk.
Notes on training, how I would train a company now Captain Robert C. Gates, Infantry Italy, if I had to train a rifle company again, I would stress the following basic discipline, which means smart saluting, alertness, bearing cleanliness and neatness of person, clothing and equipment, shoes shined, haircut, etc.. Get perfection in this early, as is the basics of much later training. Combat firing on a course which included a lot of surprise targets, proper distribution of small arms fire over a suspected target area, use of the rifle sling, sniper training base training.
So the bombers borderline heavy machine gun. For them to be given to every man in the squad until he has a thorough knowledge of the weapon is one of our more effective weapons, but must be in the hands of a trained man to really be valuable. A bar man in one of our companies got 20 Germans for sure, in an hour during one of the their counterattacks. This was one half the casualties his platoon inflicted.
Credit scouting and patrolling need plenty of emphasis.
So terrain appreciation to teach the men advantages and disadvantages of terrain features, teach them to visualize how the ground on which you are located looks from the enemy's viewpoint, what he can see and what he can't see, where you can take positions unobserved. So I was saying the other day that I think terrain. In combat is the difference, and I'm not 100 percent sure this is the difference between a white belt and a purple belt, when you know terrain, when you understand how you can use that berm or how you can use that ravine or how you can use that high ground, when you start to understand that, that's when you can just start to tap people out by maneuvering.
And I'm not 100 percent sure that the reason I'm not I'm not sure about it is.
Is because it's this massive thing, it's like a it's like understanding the theory of grappling itself. So if you if you took fighting like, OK, what's a fight, it's two people swinging, punches each other and trying to kick each other, if that's what we think fighting is once, you know, terrain. Now we understand that there's a whole nother dimension. It's called grappling. So maybe the purple thing doesn't really work.
But as far as just comprehensive understanding of how to fight, when you understand terrain, all of a sudden you understand there is a third dimension in the game. Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah, I think I just talked myself through it. I think I figured it out.
You know, that's the big thing to try and teach the young leaders is like, OK, the minute you move over here, the enemy can't shoot at you anymore. You move for me. If you can get your platoon to move four meters as a whole to the east, you are free and clear from those guys.
Yeah. And that means you can now run or you can move quickly. Yeah.
Yeah. Even like even like the high ground. Right. We always hear that and that I, I probably don't understand is the amount that there is to understand about it. But it's like in, in fighting their positions you can be in where you can hit them and they literally can't hit you like there's positions like that. But then if you don't know about them, you could ask them, OK, what's their position? And they don't know that like grappling.
Another thing, it's really hard to figure it out. And it's almost impossible, really.
Basically, the high ground is being on top. Yeah.
Let's say you're mounted, though, like Brennan's punching you. Really, if you're mounted. Yeah. And you know how to fight. Of course. Yeah. If you're just a kid mounted on high ground. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a dominant high ground. Know if you're in their guard you're still in the high ground, but you're not like maybe the best, most dominant high ground. You know, the thing that's interesting that you got to remember about high ground is the way you're angle if you're hiding in a foxhole.
If I'm in a foxhole and you're in an elevated position above me, what good is my foxhole if I'm in if that's even if I'm on a pretty deep foxhole, if I'm above you, I can be in a shallow foxhole and I'm totally protected.
Yeah. Kind of in a way, it depends on where you are, I guess, but you don't have to be in a foxhole, really just got to back up a little. That's how good HighGround is. Whereas if you're on the low ground, a foxhole doesn't even really do you any good.
No foxhole. Not to mention you got gravity on your side, if you know, which is a powerful thing. So Touraine appreciation. So if you're if you're happened to be a military individual and you're new to the game, start thinking about terrain for next camouflage and camouflage discipline, particularly the discipline pound into the men, the necessity of not making trails, not moving around when the enemy can observe your position and similar matters until each man always thinks about it.
Feeling the heat, I mean, it's I told you, man, the best thing about being here is I just get to listen to this stuff. You know, we were just talking about terrain. And I was thinking, if you're you're in a competition, whatever it is, I don't care if it's jujitsu, the military, private sector, if you understand terrain and your opponent doesn't. You have this massive, massive disparity, it's it it makes things so much easier if you understand how to use the train and you're fighting to get someone who doesn't it you can be undermanned, you can be under-resourced, under equipped.
And it's the same thing in the private sector. You don't have to be the biggest if you understand how the environment around you is working and your product or your interaction with the market does work and your opponents don't, you can be the smallest company out there and you're going to end up dominating because you understand the terrain. And then you were just talking about the connection to camouflage. And as you're saying that we were just talking about, don't give away your position.
And I just love how listening to these things that we talk about, the connections between all the other lessons that you keep talking about over and over again. And I'm just sitting here over, like John just said, that when the last time we were here and don't give away your position and camouflage allows you to not do that. And he's made the comments like this, especially the camouflage, which at that point he was making the the other thing.
Well, when I talk to people about the importance of terrain and then you translate that into leadership, what you realize is that. Human beings are the terrain, the people that you're dealing with, they are at various elevations, they have various micro terrain there. Their personality is terrain that can be high and low.
And that's why we literally say take the high ground morally. Right. So if Echo does something, if he's working for me or we're working together and he does something, he does something that he shouldn't have done, I need to maintain the moral high ground. The minute that I say, hey, I know you took some money from that client, give me 10 percent of it or else I'm going to report you. What does I do?
I can never I just gave up the high ground and I can never get it back. I can never get it back. Everything is going to be a struggle from here on out. So the way that you view things and if you start to view the elevations that you're seeing, the way people behave, the way people interact, where the ravines are, where the cover is. Who is cover and who is concealment, meaning, like, if I know that, Dave will back me up.
In the deep in the deepest sense, the word but echo, he'll feel like stick up for me a little bit, but then he's going to he's going to bow down to whatever temptations are there.
That means Dave's going to give me cover, X is going to give me a little concealment. But then he's gone like those interactions. When you're dealing with people, you're dealing with terrain, you're dealing with variations in the surface of where you're working.
Organization of squad leaders, squad, chain of leadership to the point where if there's only two men left in the squad, they will know automatically who which one is the leader.
Keep the squad organized this way, regardless of casualties and consequent replacements.
Some other information, very, very tactical in selecting non-commissioned officers. I'm convinced in selecting non-commissioned officers, I am convinced that steadiness is the first asset.
How do we talk about science? We talk about the ability to detach, not get emotional. That's the first asset. Resourcefulness is the second. So how am I going to get these problems solved? What can I use with what I have to get these freakin problem solved? That's number two intellect.
Third, I've known some really smart people that were really an effective.
Flunking out machine guns, the battle indoctrination courses have given some troops the idea that if they attack machine guns by crawling toward the machine guns on their bellies without a chance of hitting back. This is not so they must go around and flank them out in this connection, in training and in maneuvers, we should teach this flanking out by having our men go over the toughest and hardest hills available, as we had to do in Sicily, in Italy. It's just over and over again, physical conditioning, too, is all important.
Here in the so-called rest period, all infantry men take a four mile march and 40 minutes each day precision and snap in all basic drill, including calisthenics, should be stressed, precision and snap. That's something that I'm not good at, what snappin precision and snap in my movements, I see. So I see some guys like doing exercises, whatever name and exercise. I don't I see you have a lot of snap, but I need to focus on that more more precision and snap.
Oh, there's a little headline for you. The hard way is safer.
Col. Harry B. Sherman, Commanding Officer, 7th Infantry, Italy. Stress, stress, night crosscountry movements and night attacks don't allow the units or individuals to use any road, path, trail or any other easy route of advance. In every case, they in every case have the move by only the most difficult and inaccessible terrain in the vicinity. Roads pass trails and even just open ground that offers easy going are almost invariably mined or booby trapped. Make the men regard the most difficult ground as the natural route of advance, and it will save many casualties.
The easy path leads downhill, my friends, this is kind of epic motors, by the way, I'm skipping through a bunch of this stuff because they go through each individual like Department of Combat.
Right. But I read them all because there's always things that you can learn. So this one is this is like the motor pool.
Motors need maintenance. Brigadier General Vincent Meyer commanding 18 to Field Artillery Brigade, Italy. It was my experience that as soon as we moved out of the staging area and got within range of the enemy's guns, motor maintenance for some strange reason came to a summary end. It was partly due to the vile weather and to the slimy mud. First Echelon maintenance was so utterly wanting that drivers were not even checking the water level in the radiators. The motor mechanics were honestly trying to do proper second echelon maintenance, but they were exposed to the weather with no overhead cover from the rain and were slipping and sliding around in the mud that was inches deep.
It finally got them down. They just couldn't cope with it. So. So I read you all that and I read all that for a very specific reason. So you got this. You people aren't doing maintenance. The the drivers that are supposed to probably do some kind of a cursory check of a vehicle, they're not even checking if the freakin radios are filled. Now, we got vehicles are overheating and then the secondary maintenance. These guys, are they they're out there in the weather.
So what is this guy's solution to the problem? Corrective measures when I realized the gravity of the situation. I placed an energetic leader in charge, that's what he did. That's what he did, placed an energetic leader in charge. He, meaning this energetic leader, immediately scouted around and got a place with overhead cover and hard standing using available buildings and got a couple of caves. We required that the drivers clean off mud and drain old oil across the street from the shop.
This helped to keep the shop in clean order. As to the first echelon maintenance of my motor as the first line maintenance, my motor officer had to bear down in no uncertain terms. But in two or three days, the drivers were back to doing the things they had been trained to do for so many months prior to entering the combat. In addition, I required every officer. So already we got multiple good things right. You've got a problem.
Look, I don't even I'm not going to solve the problem. I put a good leader in there. The good leader starts to figure things out. Oh, where we can walk around and go overhead, cover, going to get some caves and then this guy starts holding the line, hey, you need to freakin do your maintenance checks. Took him two or three days to tighten them back up. Why is that? You hold the line. What are you holding the line on if you allow slack, they're going to take it, bro.
You think I want to do vehicle maintenance echo, Charles? I don't think no, I don't want to do vehicle. You don't want to do is get my vehicle to you and let you worry about all that crap. That's what I want to do.
I'm lazy. So I just give it to you, and if you accept it, guess what, I'm never doing maintenance again. If you say, Hey, bro, sorry, JoCo, you got to do your share. Well, what if I don't I'm not taking your vehicle two or three days later, I'm not even asking. I'm just doing my job, OK? So that's awesome. And then it gets this. In addition, I required every officer prior to starting on a trip with a motor vehicle to check at least one item on the car in which he was traveling, for example, tires, battery, water.
So then he put another little level of checks in there.
Freakin Leggate, by the way, all the problems that you have are leadership problems, kind of goes for your kids to read that thing that were that that concept right there, like you kids, right?
If they're like, I don't know, throw away my rubbish. Oh, like your kids aren't doing their vehicle maintenance. Yeah. When they can, but if you do them for vehicle maintenance, obviously, but they're metaphoric vehicle maintenance, you know, they're not clean, they're not making their back.
Here's my my son just turned four, by the way.
So that's about the time, give or take, where they brush their own teeth.
But like you expect the three and a half, four year old kid to brush their teeth. Good. Maybe maybe not in the beginning when it's like two, when they start getting teeth, you brush the teeth for them. But if you're like, hey, you're trying to save time on bedtime scenarios and all this stuff, you just come here, I'll brush your teeth and you brush them good or whatever because you're an adult. You know how to brush your teeth, right?
But as a kid, they're going to be like turning three, turning four, and you keep brushing their teeth for them. They're just going to keep doing it. Just like if you keep giving me your truck to change the oil or whatever you're trying to do to me or whatever.
Same kind of thing.
But if you're like, hey, and actually you kind of taught me this. What the tying the shoes thing. You know, I don't care if you're trying to save time, learn how to tie your shoes.
So if you're like, hey, I'm not brushing your teeth, you're brushing your own teeth, you don't want to do it twice. After all, they were like your own teeth. I don't want to I way rather just sit there as a kid and quite frankly, as an adult, just show my teeth, have someone else crush them way more.
Right. But man, it's just not like that.
Because what you do, age three, you show your child the faces of meth transitions where people are methamphetamines, they get arrested over several years. So their teeth ended up all yellow and falling out. Yeah. And you say, hey, do you want to see faces of people that don't brush their teeth? Yeah. Yes. And of course, that that's true.
I don't know if I'd ever do that, you know, two to three, four maybe. I don't know. But I feel like that comes before.
That's the why, by the way. Yes. Why you brush your teeth. Yes. Or that's why you get your your teeth have to be brushed. So now we're in phase two already where it's like just like how you you're going to give me your truck to change the oil. You know, the oil has to be changed. We already know that part. So I'm saying it's just a matter whether I'm going to do it or I can do that thing for me.
I'm saying, what if it's like, no, no, you sincerely want to brush your teeth. I highly doubt that. I'm saying, look, I don't why I want my toothbrush.
How about that? I don't want to I don't want them not to be brushed. But if someone else could OK, maybe not brush your teeth that how about whatever.
Do you clean your house. Yeah, do the dishes. That's a big one.
What if someone's like, oh, someone always does your dishes, you know, you just sort of like when my wife when my wife is mad that my kids didn't do the dishes. And she'll tell me, like, oh, the kids didn't do the dishes as she's cleaning the dishes. Yeah, yeah.
How many times I've cleaned the dishes because my children didn't clean them. Zero zero times.
Zero times. Yeah. That's not a good way to train your kids if they didn't do the dishes. Well, that's not actually a thing, shouldn't be a thing they do the dishes. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. That's the worst.
So my daughter, my on the family group text. Sure.
The other day, my oldest daughter posted something that's or sent to the group text, which was a screenshot of a post that someone had made. And it said, like, my dad talk no.
Like Dad talks about hard value of hard work, hasn't done dishes in seven years, you know, and that was the big hit on JoCo or they do any shot.
So, look, if you're not doing your own dishes, they're doing your dishes. You're on the other side of that scenario. They're not holding the line on your discipline.
They have their jobs. Oh, OK.
OK, we're talking about a bigger system now. Yeah. This is I understand the system.
I have I have responsibilities in the house. You do? Yes. They're called it's called pay mortgages.
Right. It's called providing the roof. Yeah. That's that's what I do. I understand they have their responsibilities, things like doing the dishes.
So it was a pretty good shot. I got a kick out of it, my daughter giving me a hassle, or you could get super technical and be like, hey, I don't regard doing dishes as the benchmark for hard work.
No.
I mean, they fortunately, they weren't trying to have a legitimate argument with me because they were not they know not that it's not a you know, you're down for that solution.
All right.
Essentials of jungle warfare, jungle soapies, S.O.P, attack procedures, combat patrol.
Once again, if I've gotten to a point in my life where I'm reading a document that says S.O.P, attack procedures, combat patrol, I'm pretty happy about the lump one have a covered route of withdrawal picked out in advance in case enemy pressure becomes too great.
This is another little hint towards the value of preplanning.
If you're going to have to leave, tell everyone where you're going to leave by to keep one squad back as a reserve and to provide a force to cover the forward elements of the patrol if they're forced to withdraw. Why am I talking about this? What in God's name does this have to do with anything that we're doing here and in a leadership situation?
Well, let me tell you, when you're in a business and I'm in businesses. You have a certain amount of capital, those are your resources, every military modern, every modern military book, actually.
No, it's not even just modern. If you go back and you listen to this podcast, every thing that we've ever talked about says you need to have a reserve. Why is that? Because you can come up against variables that you didn't expect. So these people, when we when we sit here and talk about variables and I'm acting as if, hey, here's a real cool concept about the variables and things that could go wrong. OK, it's been talked about for thousands of years.
And in order to cover down on those variables that you cannot anticipate, you need to have some level of reserve.
So when you are running a business and you have to place resources in different things, you can buy this much produce, you can buy this much gear, you can buy this much, you spend money. Let's just go let's just say money. That's a simple one. We have this much money.
Is it smart to use all of to employ all of our money at the same time?
No, it is not.
You must keep a reserve back because when it goes, project goes sideways. So if I say I'm going to give half my money to Echo and half my money to half of our half of the money that we have have to echo and half today.
Oh, because we want to get the project done quickly. And then all of a sudden, echo hits are hits a hiccup. What can I do now? Nothing. I have nothing else to give. So what I should do is give a third of my resources to echo a third to Dave. We start to move forward. You had a hiccup echo. No problem. We got your back.
Little reserve capital ready to employ men should be designated to watch for snipers. Now, why is that important? How does that relate to anything?
What company are we talking to right now that needs to have a person designated to watch for snipers?
Let me explain. When you are doing anything and you give people important jobs as collateral duties, you can anticipate that those collateral duties will not be done with maximum effectiveness, with collateral meaning.
Hey, Rico, I want you to navigate. I want you to cut the brush that's out in front of us. I want you to look for booby traps, and I want you to look for snipers. Here's a third thing.
Just look, I'm sorry if your first job is to look for snipers. How much time are you spending looking for snipers? The answer is very little, if any. So what I need to do is say, Hecho, you got these three jobs. Cool. But one thing I really don't want to have happen is get hit by a sniper. So Dave, he's going to be in the middle of the patrol. He's not cut and brush. He's not looking for booby traps.
What he's going to do is he's going to move forward a little bit. He's going to stop. And while the patrol moves, he's going to be looking for snipers. That's his job.
And what's the philosophy there? Is it because, of course, much of a sniper is important, but you don't want to compromise any of your jobs because you're spread thin? Or is it because a certain job kind of kind of almost in a way requires less attention from time to time?
Here's another example. We started getting EOD explosive ordnance disposal individuals tasked to our platoons in the SEAL teams as this was happening. And we started getting these guys that this was in the beginning of the war, that a lot of the EOD guys that were coming on board, like they weren't they hadn't been through any combat skills training. They didn't really know what they were doing. And of course, I didn't really know any of these guys at the time.
So I'm just thinking, why would we take a regular Navy EOD guy that's used to being on an aircraft carrier in case there's an emergency with a bomb that's strapped to an 18?
They need to get disarmed. Why would we take that guy and try and make him basically into a seal when it seems like it'd be a lot easier to me to take a seal, send him to an EOD school, you learn the skills and then if something happens, you can you can handle it. My commanding officer at the time said, hey, JoCo, here's the deal.
If it's a collateral to use these exact words, but he said the exact same thing, which is, hey, if the enemy is going to be using booby traps, which they are, and IEDs, we want to have somebody that that's the focus of their life. And I soon as he said that, I was like, oh, good point, thank you. I will gladly train an individual so that they are focused on keeping us alive. So if you have priority, it's a form of prioritize and execute.
Meaning I can't take something that's important. If I deem something is important, I need to assign it to a person as their primary responsibility, post up outposts to cover platoon as it's as it organizes the position place loaded automatic weapons nearby in case enemy attacks do so. Cover your flanks, select a difficult position to attack, preferably on high ground. I just have to say, when it says high ground cover trails and other likely avenues of enemy approach with well dug in automatic weapons pits, dig three men emplacements so that they are mutually supporting and cover the area completely around the platoon.
If the platoon has sufficient communication equipment, that's a sound power telephone net, connecting the platoon command post with each squad should be provided, be able to talk to each other, booby trapped, the area complete completely around the perimeter, clear light brush and fire lines outside the perimeter for 20 to 40 yards. These are real tactical things. Arrange artillery and supporting fires, placed sharp pointed sticks ten to twenty five feet and goes goes through that. Use grenades freely when the enemy is seen or heard.
Hold weapons fire until a definite target is observed. Premature firing of weapons will disclose positions. Dave, you talked earlier about not wanting to disclose our positions. When you start shooting at night, that's definitely gonna happen. Much of the jungle soldier, first Marine Corps, if he is to survive, it must be second nature for every jungle soldier to keep his mouth shut on the trail. Recognize common jungle sounds, keep his eyes off the ground when on the trail and maintain a constant watch toward the head of the column and to a selected flank, get off the trail at Holtze, conceal himself and observe the flanks, dig in a protracted Holtze, know the Nambu, which is the light machine gun to the Japanese by its sound, because it is the framework of the Jap Jungle Organization and it is and guide to flanks and strong points.
That's so good. You got to know what the Japanese machine gun sounds like, because if you know, if you see where that Japanese machine gun is, it's on their flanks or it's in their strong points. Black, his face and hands to and remove any shine from equipment could serve his own ammunition and pick up abandoned bandoleer when he sees one memorize and invariably use the units selected code words for leaders, various maneuvers, ammunition, kormann, et cetera, to be able to select a knight position so that the jungle works to his advantage and to the disadvantage of the infiltrating.
Jap's appreciate the fact that Japs do not have Cat's eyes, that they are afraid of the dark, and that at night a moving Jap is an easy victim for a silent Marine who believes in his bayonet, care for his equipment. Religiously, weapons deteriorate with unbelievable rapidity in the jungle and must be cleaned at every opportunity. Good, what's good about that is and the main reason why I thought it was important to say that.
Is because if you're in charge, that. The section right there. Shows you how important it is to convey to all the troops a baseline of actions that is going to help you win.
Because it's real easy to sit back and think, well, obviously you should know what this machine gun feels sounds like, and obviously you should black in your face and like all those things seem super obvious.
But why are they written here, because people fail to do them so as a leader, what can you look at inside your team where there might be some obvious things?
And by the way, you know, these things have I've been talking a lot lately about values and and the fact that if you have the proper values, this is sort of the ultimate form of decentralized command because people can operate just based on the values.
So these are almost these are like these minor things that almost become values. Right. To use your code words every single time to conserve your ammunition, every single those are those are almost like values that you have.
Dig in at protracted Holtze. Think if you did if you were a jungle fighter and you did all these things all the time, that's the way you operate.
Your survivability is going to be infinitely larger than someone that doesn't do these things. So what is going on at your business inside your teams where this stuff isn't happening every single time? What do you need to tell people? What needs to happen, you know, these are the things you need to think about as leader, they're not as obvious as you think.
Are also the things that your people need to know, because those are the things that they need to do. So you can win your people, the ones that aren't camouflaging their faces or recognizing the sounds of those machine guns. Not only do they not know what they're supposed to be doing because more than likely nobody's ever explained it or taught it to them. They also don't understand why it's important, what the significance of it.
And if we do this as a team, we are going to win. And if we don't, we're going to lose. There's a reason our enemies put out snipers, and it's the same thing in business is you are you are.
If you're if you're running a business right now, listen to this podcast and you own a company or lead a team, you're at war. The people you're competing with don't want to share space with. You have an equitable share of the market. They want to run you into the ground and they're going to harass you.
They're going to probe you. They're going to watch you. They're going to try to take you out. They're going to set up snipers and machine guns. And you have to know what you need to do to win. And if your people in the front lines don't know this, you're going to lose. And the reason they're not doing it is because there's something wrong with them or they're not. It's because you haven't shown them why they need to do that for you guys to win.
And that's why these lessons get repeated over and over and over again.
And that's why it's fun to listen to the stuff patrolling jungle craft. Lt be mayor, infantry, Bougainville. I think back now on how I used to cos when scouting and patrolling came up on the schedule. He's talking about training, I had the idea that with all the lectures and field work we had, it would all come as second nature when we got into combat. But let me tell you something. I have many veterans of Guadalcanal in my platoon who have lots of combat experience in patrolling, and they still have plenty to learn.
Let me give you an example of a four day patrol we had in Jap territory in those four days. We moved about a thousand yards a day. Starting at 7:00 in the morning, an hour stop for lunch and ending at five, figure out for yourself how far we averaged per hour. It's pretty tough to move like a cat through the jungle hour after hour. One man causing a little too much noise can cause the annihilation of a patrol. I sincerely mean it because it has happened.
Teamwork, men must not try to fight the Japs individually, a soldier fighting on his own is a most uneconomical investment, and unless he is lucky, he will accomplish very little. It is a rare occasion when a Japanese machine gun is not covered by other weapons, including a sniper, to no one man can move in on such a combination. Fighting must be done by mutually supporting groups, and in order to make this system effective, training must be continuous, and every effort must be made to keep the composition of the groups unchanged.
Essential standards, the successful and efficient intelligence and reconnaissance platoon should have the following standards select personnel mentally and physically better than average. Each member should be the equal of the average squad leader. Rigorous physical hardening. Lots of hill and mountain climbing experience in the jungle during training, they should stay out for eight or 10 days at a time, use native guides and learn how to read signs from them. Have them show the men the edible fruits and vegetables, strict water discipline, both as to the amount consumed and its purification ability to move rapidly and silently use arm and hand signals to indicate the situation and the desired action.
No talking or whispering.
Constant maintenance of visual contact, front and rear, left and right, physical hardening.
Here's some basic principles. Travel light. No papers include a high percentage of automatic weapons and concentrate a large proportion of them, Wellford. The point should be heavily armed when I used to hear the Vietnam guys talking about, they would move the machine gunners close to the point because you're expecting a contact front. That was the kind of became the S.O.P off. Well, not all the time, but it was we used all the time in Ramadi. JP almost always had Mikey up there, why, JP, some point needs that cover fire.
Approach streams gingerly, the Japs like streams best for their ambushes, make sure that the point has grenades in his hand when he starts across it.
Damn, that's freaking fired up. Don't pause for any reason until both banks have been well scouted in both directions. Select successive reorganisations points as the patrol progresses down the trail to provide for swift reorganization. Maneuver swiftly on first contact, Jap ambushes and Jap ambush weapons are not normally sighted to cover wide fields of fire, usually bear mainly on the trail. Likewise, the Japs react poorly to an attacker who makes and acts on his decisions quickly. And yes, obviously, I'm using the term Jap here.
I know it's an offensive term, but this is the literature of this time period and they're not talking about the Japanese people. They're talking about the imperial Japanese armor army and military who they were fighting to.
The death infantry control is hard to maintain in squads, platoons and companies when operating in the woods. Connecting groups are soon lost from sight and sound is necessary. That particular attention be directed by all commanders from the squad leader on up that to maintain control of their forces and contact with adjacent units. Every individual must know the location of his immediate superior and his sleep at all times. And this is the last thing from this particular volume fighting spirit. It was notable that until such time as the infantry got fighting mad, there was a carefree attitude among the troops in training.
This mad spirit can be developed to a certain degree. The use of cover in advancing by creeping and crawling must be stressed, it is necessary to emphasize the importance of the live soldier as Kampia as compared to the dead hero.
Emphasized the importance of the live soldier as compared to the dead hero, and that's sort of a dichotomy between that and fighting mad. And fighting mad and staying focused, and they call that fighting spirit.
So there you go. Lessons being learned over and over again. You would think that.
You would think that the things that we talk about, the thing that's the things that we teach, the things that we teach to the military, the things that we teach to the business world, the things that we teach to law enforcement, you would think that the things that we teach, which we are literally reading from a book, that's what whatever 70 years old, you would think that people would just be like, hey, bro, what are you trying to teach us?
We are your teachers, the most obvious things ever. We don't need you. You'd think that we wouldn't have a business.
But we do. Oddly enough, there's something there's there's a force that draws people in the wrong direction.
And where should I say there's forces, there's forces that draw you in the wrong direction, forces of ego, the forces of lack of perspective.
There's another force in addition to those forces that I talked about earlier, what ego perspective and what emotion, ego, perspective and detachment.
The other one the other fourth thing that draws people down. Is complacency and just weakness just taking the easy path? Those are the four those are the four things that mess us up.
There's a fourth leg to the stool, complacency, emotion or emotional detachment. Yeah, these are the things that draw people down, ego. You and I have been talking about ego a bunch lately, it just so happens that that's been the topic of our most recent series of of conversations, whether it's Eve online or just you and me or ego, just happen to be on the forefront.
When I was as you're talking, the word complacency was just ringing in my head. And I was thinking, as you said it, not that it's it's a separate thing, but. Your ego will get out of control when you're complacent. Absolutely. And and if your ego is out of control, you'll get complacent totally.
And then if you just think you're just going to detach from emotion and just you get complacent about your ability to do that, you will get sucked in. And if you want to actually see it from other people's points of view and go, how will it look if I say this, if you get complacent and understanding, it was just the way you put that word under under all three of those things of that triangle is it's the complacency.
That is why you don't apply those three things and we can do whatever you want it. Just the way you're saying it in my mind was when when I don't keep my ego and my ego mechanism isn't working. It's because I'm being complacent with, oh, I'm humble.
I'm a humble guy. Dave's humble. I know how to keep my ego in check. And the minute I tell myself I can do that, my ego gets out of control.
Yeah, complacency is an underlying symptom and cause. Of these three things that keep us in business, bro, they keep us in business right on. All right, Echo Charles. Yes, we kind of close out talking about fighting Spirit, but yeah.
Any suggestions on how we can keep our fighting spirit up, keep the fighting spirit up?
Yes, the path. That's what I'm talking about. OK, so you are on our path and we all have individual path, by the way, some overlapping elements, of course, fitness, mental and physical, if you're not at the very least maintaining.
But hopefully we're working to move to progress mentally, physically, physically.
That's a big one once you get married. Well, you know, you got your career in order to face it. That complacency on the on the physical home front.
By the way, if you don't have physical health there, you're in a real bad way in every way. Yeah, but mentally, spiritually and emotionally, it's all going downhill. So we want to maintain as much physical health as we can is kind of where we're going.
That is true. But I think that the kind of the perception is that that hill that you're talking about go downhill. That's a big hill.
It's like it's like long. And then when you're like younger, potentially you're at the top of that hill. But the hill is so long that you can let these things slide for so long that on the way down, you kind of know. Yeah, sure.
I'm letting my health kind of slide, but it's not like code red. It doesn't feel like code red for like a long time.
Rome wasn't built in a day and it wasn't destroyed in a day either. There you go. They go day by day.
But then one point you look up in the infrastructure's hurt, hurting, and you're like the infrastructure might not be recoverable. That's what I'm saying is the problem.
And and that is kind of one of those one of those points that I think doesn't for some reason doesn't dawn upon us real obviously.
You know, no, that's because it creeps in, creeps a little bit at a time. But you kind of would think.
Right, like on paper or whatever, that like you could get to the point, you could at least predict, OK, look, I'm going downhill. I get it. This is happening every single day, by the way. I get it.
But when I get to X, Y, Z point, I know that that's not recoverable or I'm in a super hot water or whatever. So let's when it gets to here, let's let's really tighten it up really. But we don't really do that.
Well, we hope we do. You know, we hope we do that.
Let's not get it.
Let's not let it get to the point and something that can do it, something that can that that allows us to to let it slide more is you got some like you're feeling a little dinged up. Yes. Right.
Maybe those maybe those joints are feeling better. Just that's one of the things.
And well and actually that that reminds me of what I was thinking like.
Sure. Yes. We would like if you work hard, work out hard, everybody takes a beating, don't take a beating.
But even like daily. Doing like the same thing every day, sitting down every day, like all that kind of stuff, it jams up your joints as well.
Did you know that if you sleep with your knees together on your side, it kind of like puts weird pressure, like on your hips and your knees? I did not know that. Yeah. So what I found out anyway or whatever.
All right. Joint stuff of you. There you go. We need supplementation. We're in the game. We are working out.
If you're not working out, it's like, man, you got to start working out.
You have to definitely. Unless your job is. Even then, it even if you have the most physical job you can think of, we know what you have to do proactively do mobility stretch, you know what I'm saying?
Pro soccer player. Well, then again, if you're pro athlete, you are working out your whole gym. So, yeah, OK, you are correct. I agree with that 100 percent. OK, so work out. You're not working out.
We're working out now and you will need varying levels of supplementation and start from the bottom of the foundational supplementation joints. Keep that. Keep those in the game. You're not getting younger. I know you heard it before.
Seems obvious, but we don't act like it sometimes when I'm saying you get older, like joined conversation just with yourself, because I know I know the thought that, you know, someone's like, hey, I'm not getting any younger brother that literally applies to every single human being at any age.
You could be just born. You're still not getting any younger.
You know, I'm saying I don't know, though, bro.
Also, you are getting some people are getting it, but like, don't you think, hey, I'm better in these following nine aspects right now than I was last year. I think I'm getting younger.
No, see, you lost me at the last part. You might be getting better for sure. More mobile, more physical, whatever. But nonetheless, what I'm saying is sometimes these cliches are super self-explanatory, like obvious to everyone or whatever. So then I see them.
Then I got to explain what I mean by a you see thing, because they apply some say, all right, anyway, take joint warfare and super oil, keep your joint in the game because weak joints is worse than weak strength in and sense that, you know, because you don't even have the capability to understand it and you didn't need to expand on your dad.
I'm looking at Dave. He didn't say anything.
So I figure I was compelled to explain a little bit more than April show that I nodded my head, which is every bit the same as saying I understand just how you guys words right now tells me that you don't fully understand.
I'm trying to give it to you.
So you got joint warfare. Croyle Discipline, discipline, go vitamin D three Cold War. We got the RTD. You can drink. OK, where you at Dave Burke.
Good deal. What's your flavor assessment at the current time of the cans of discipline. Go Sarah. Full sniper.
That's your number one. No one just came out. No echo Charles.
Where you ask to. I'm going to be honest. I like the Jonquil Pommer taste the best. But you know how you like you going like routine's. I'm on the sour sour apple sniper. I think maybe subconsciously it's I'm still in the novel phase, you know, like go to Flavoursome. Same but I think taste wise. Yeah.
Oh Parmer Edge like by a little bit.
When is your signature flavor coming out. Good deal Dave. It's, it's next man. So we have slapped the table. We are, we are officially on the flavor.
Did you, did you get the flavor that you liked. We did. We did. And now it's production time. It is time the cans are ordered.
Oh the claimants. Or shall I be a little.
I had to talk last week and I think we're we're next.
So I actually you know, I saw the can design. Did you post the can design. I think I reposted it from him every time.
Like this is like Pete's dream. Yeah. Every time he gets to design a cool can he like just that's his that's he's so happy he was super fired up on this. Exactly dude. Yeah. He's and probably because you were fired up. I was fired because he sends me stuff and I'm like looks cool. I was, I was super excited when he sent me that stuff. I was so stubborn. He was so cool. And he's like, yeah, totally.
Why is JoCo such a freaking show bit.
Yeah, I'm feeling totally unknown because, you know, when you're fired up, you're, you know, artistically, you're like, oh, man, this one really came together. You know, there's layers in there and you show it to like your prime primary audience and they just are like, cool, bro.
Why don't we come to you sometimes?
Hey, warning order.
A warning order is means like, hey, we got an operation that's going to be coming up pretty soon in the Southeast after a store called Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah. Yeah, yep. I hear good things.
They're going to be having discipline go there. Little warning order that when it comes, go get some.
We're on a little mission milk protein that tastes good or dessert that has protein. I'm not sure which way you want to screw it either way is good with me. Sure. Jacobite.
Yeah. Good, good, good, good product. And this stuff is also available at the vitamin shop. Or at Origin Main Dotcom, which is where you can also get jiujitsu products such as aguy such as a crash cart. And by the way, I just don't not just hoggy kind of get thuggy. You can kind of get the guy that you want the most comfortable guy ever made reffed.
Yeah. Is there a more comfortable either? It's not even in the same ballpark.
Yeah, it was funny because my son, he's four, like I mentioned before. So he'll like just be like we're not training at any place or nothing like that.
But he'll randomly be like, hey, it's time to train. Yeah. Or at the very least put them put on.
Like I just want to put on the gear right now so he'll hopefully he'll put it on and I'm like, remember Pete, because when he met Pete at the bottom of it and I was like he's the one that made this guy. So he'll be like cool. And he'll be running around doing this thing, whatever. And then he'll say, Hey, can you tell Pete thanks for making this guy for from your kid is nice.
Straight up all the police. Yeah.
All right. So we got guys, we got boots, American made boots, American made jeans, blue jeans.
Right. You would think you would just think, oh, blue jeans. That's an American thing, right? Blue jeans come from America. You know what? You're right and you're wrong. Blue jeans came from America. They originated in America, but they're not made there anymore unless you get Origin Jeans and then they're made in America. A hundred percent from the thread in the cotton you go never sewn the whole nine yards.
So if you want to support America and you want to support this podcast and you want to support America, then check out Origin Main Dotcom and I'll quote echo here. If you see something and you like something, get something good. Something that's true.
Also, Chocolate Store is called JoCo Store. So we're on the path, like I said, like we always say.
So if you want to represent while on the path, we got some shirts, some hats, some hoodies, some shorts, board shorts, some other various items on there.
Drugstore.com, like I said. So, you know, just let me just read to good. Get all these things representative of this crazy hard from time to time path that we're on, including the shirt that I'm wearing right now.
Yes. Hardcore Rigondeaux all day. You know, I don't introduce new shirts into my lineup very often.
Yes. It's a it's a it's a weave move for sure.
So here I am, Hardcore Secondo, Slack Warrior. So don't forget that you can get that at the local store as well. Yep. Some, some, some of that stuff is for children, some of it for adults, some of it's called killer. So some it's called warrior kids.
Regardless of what kind of soap you get, it will all allow you and your family to stay clean.
Subscribe to this podcast if you haven't yet, which is just crazy if you haven't yet.
So the value of subscribing to a podcast, real, whatever. I'm just saying, because it's one of those things, you know, an ongoing kind of question mark, like, oh, you're like, yeah, you know how valuable is saying subscribe to the podcast.
OK, so it's for new if you're new to the pod also. Well, you can subscribe to another podcast which is called the JoCo Unravelling podcast. Can subscribe to that one. It's myself and Darrell Cooper. We originally called it the thread. See, that's value we got there.
Yeah, but that's valuable right there to be an OK, you listen to a podcast, you probably, you know, unless you're like brand new, the first one you ever listen to. Whatever and think, think for some reason this is like a one off or an individual episode. Then you say subscribe to this, but we're listening to a podcast. But there is, in fact, like you said, unravelling podcast, whole different podcast.
I subscribe to that one, too, available for subscribing also grounded podcast, which we are going to record another one with JP.
But we didn't sorry, we we're out of Time and work podcast. I know I owe you those. I apologize. I need to work harder. We have a YouTube channel where Echo Charles makes videos. If they're short, really compact videos, then they'll have all kinds of excitement in them. If they're a long video, then there'll be no excitement in them. We'll just be people talking, which in Echo Charles's opinion, is the way to do it valuable.
Everyone else doesn't think that, but it's Echo Charles YouTube channel. That's what he that's where he's at.
Yeah. I got a text from Brandon today and he said, Hey, who Pickworth. Yeah. And he he said something along the lines of, you know, troupers since day one. If we don't have explosions, if that's not part of the program, something's wrong. There's another vote.
They just do it one time, see if anybody, you know, gets mad or whatever.
So YouTube channel, subscribe to it in Psychological Warfare, an album and a JOCO album with JoCo Trappes helping you through moments of weakness. Straight up, when they come about, you just boom. You listen to that boom. No weakness, no movement.
And also we got psychological. We got flip side canvas, sorry. Flip side canvas dotcom. Dakota Meyer making cool things too for you to hang on your wall. Also got some books. We got a book called The Code Day. Vork. Good. What you got about the code.
Still using the code every day. I am.
I still get more direct messages on social media about that than anything else, because it was this idea of like, hey, we just have this conversation.
You have to look at that. You want to not be complacent, you want to you have to do it every single day, every single day, I thought.
Were you going to say is we also talked about you've got to know where you are. This book, the code, the evaluation of protocols, actually allows you to assess where you are.
How can you move if you don't know where you are? The answer is you can't. The code, the evaluation, the protocols written by Djoko Willink, Dave Burke and Sarah Armstrong.
You know what's funny about that? The code like elements from this book are now in my everyday life, like my whole, you know, remember how it feels like back in the day.
But let's just face it, kind of the current you know, how you, like, label your experience from one to 10.
Give it a score, one to ten. Now it's one to five. Oh, it changed.
Your whole five is like the unattainable perfection. You know, four is like your general perfection, you know.
Yeah. You've got to be careful with that one, though. The force. Yeah. Because if you're if your wife is like, hey, how do I look tonight in this dress? And you're like, oh, you're a five.
What you mean is unattainable. Perfection is what you get is slapped the guy for that one. Here's the thing.
When you get really used to this evaluation system, I'll get slapped. I got it. I got to stay true to the code. Got a hundred percent. You know, your kids are doing somersaults or whatever. They're getting a one, two, three or four, maybe sometimes five if it's perfect. But I'm just saying the whole rating system gets shifted down to this one now and the same standard as well.
Like Phys like I'll even text like, hey, I just threw up before. If I get Dave, if I text. You had just threw up before. Right. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Impressive.
So I'm saying, I'm just saying this is life now also have leadership strategy and tactics. Field Manual Way The Warrior Kid one, two and three. Mikey in the Dragon's Discipline for Freedom Field Manual and extreme ownership and the dichotomy of leadership. We have a leadership consultancy called Echelon Front where we work with companies. Dave, what are you spearheading right now? I think we are working with like 20 different companies on long range programs right now. I think everyone from a different sector, a different place in the market and.
You said something a minute ago, it's the same exact thing with every company, but everything is different because they're all different and not one single thing about it is boring.
I, I, my wife would tell you that I repeat myself a thousand times a day. I have not once gotten tired of it and companies that working with us. The coolest thing about it is despite all the stuff going on in the world right now, they are getting better and it is so awesome to be a part of that.
Why are we doing so? If you want that, go to Echelon Front Dotcom. You can check out our consultancy. We also have an online training platform to make you a better leader, not just through static training, which is there. You can get some fundamentals reinforced, but you can also just sit there and ask me a question. You can come to a live interaction. I'll be sitting there on my computer. You'll be on your computer and you can ask me, Hey, JoCo, here's the situation that I'm going through.
I will answer it. You can talk to Dave, you can talk to me if you can talk to you can talk to anyone on the Echelon front team. So go to Heff online dot com if you want to hang out and talk. We also have the muster, which is a leadership conference. Two out of three have been canceled this year. The next one is Dallas, Texas, December 3rd and 4th, probably going to be social distancing.
So we have less seats and people from Orlando and and Phoenix are coming to Dallas. So it's going to sell out even quicker than normal extreme ownership dotcom, if you want to come to that.
We have if overwatch. You heard on podcast, the last podcast to 40 for Mike Zerilli, George Randall, this is Echelon Fronts, taking people from the military that have leadership experience and placing them into your civilian organization to help you bring your team in to the winning category. And you know what, if you're already winning. It will help you win harder. And America's Mighty Warriors dog, that is my family, that is Mark Lee's mom. If you want to support military personnel, if you want to support the families of military personnel, including Gold Star families around the world, you can go to America's Mighty Warriors dot org.
You can donate or you can get involved. Mammoliti, bless her heart. That is her mission and she is driving it.
And. If you need more. If you can't live without some more of my thought threatening theories or you'd like to hear some of echoes, obtuse opinions, or maybe you just like to hear one more of Dave's enthusiastic allegories, then you can find us on the interweb, on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Dave is at David R. Burke, BTR, Kagi Ekos, adequate. Charles and I am at JoCo Willink and all the troops that take these combat lessons and apply them to your present duty to protect our right to self determination in the world.
Thank you for your service and to the police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers and Border Patrol and Secret Service and all the other first responders out there.
Thank you for doing what you do every day to keep us safe when we needed the most. And to everyone else out there. You know, you hear these stories and you hear these theories and you hear these principles, and there's no rocket science to them, there's no mystery. It's the same thing, it's disciplining, it's action, it's communication, it's follow through, it's planning.
You know what to do. You know what leads to victory in combat and therefore, you know what leads to victory in business and you know what leads to victory in life, don't hesitate. Don't wait. Now is the time to implement. To go out there and get after it. And until next time, this is Dave and that go and JoCo. Out of.