This is JoCo podcast number two sixty eight with Echo, Charles and me, JoCo Willink. Good evening. Good evening. And also joining us tonight is Rafe Babbitt. Good evening.

Good evening. Good to be here. All right. So I can't say it like I can.

Well, I don't know. You put your own spin on it, right? I mean, that's the hard part when he gets warmed up.

Just does it so well, though. I mean, the bar is high. When we were we were backstage at the first JoCo live. Actually, it was it wasn't jungle. I was in New York City.

Oh yeah. And someone someone said something to you like or are you nervous? And you said, well, a little bit and then. Well. I'm trying to craft the conversation, maybe that didn't happen the way you're looking at me, like know somebody was talking to you and somehow you rehearsed your lines.

No, no, no, you wasn't. It was I was making the video and you were like, you know, I'm over here going over what I'm going to say. And no, that was me taking a nap or something.

I think it was just in passing. I was making a video. OK, you're doing like you're doing whatever you're doing. And then I was just saying good evening. I decide to be funny, I guess, because that's your job.

What's funny is that jam that up. Did you if you live with which one for that for one 60 in New York. Yeah. When when I say good evening, I was like, good evening. Like, I jammed it up I think.

And that weird. You have one job, one on one. But this is the pressure greater on you to get those words right. Exactly. Exactly right.

You know, what was crazy about that was like you didn't know what I was going to talk about. And the only person that knew what I was going to talk about was me. And I knew I was going to go out there and talk about stuff. And it was going to be like as part of a thing as I could possibly have to go and talk about.

And so you're all kind of, you know, cool. This is a crowd. It'll be fun. And I'm sitting there thinking, how am I going to get through this? You know, and then I do get through my part and then you screw up your part.

Well, thankfully, in a way, I screwed up my part before you did your part, you know.

Oh, I knew something was kind of I don't want say off because it was an off, but something was a little bit different when you rolled up, like when you came onto the stage. That's when you wait a second. Something's different right now because I didn't know what was going on at that time.

Yeah, but which is weird.

I didn't give you any heads up at all. No, sir. You did not want to savage Savage. So it's real. Yeah.

You did that to me at the JoCo live in Austin as well.

No heads up whatsoever. And you read, you know, reading six words and talk about us working together and stuff he'd written about me that I never even, you know, hurt heard before. And it was I was like ball of my eyes out the back door actually came up to me afterwards and he said, you know, how about a heads up next time? And I go, Sorry, bro, you go. I was openly weeping.

I was like, that's rough. Yeah.

Well, so anyways, let's hear your good evening one more time. I mean, what we got. Good evening. There you go.

I mean, everyone, always everyone always likes the late Bob in Texas Batman thing that you've got going on. Right. I guess you can just gargle rocks or yell and scream over the sound of gunfire.

Do you remember when we were in South Africa on the radio? I do have. Have you ever shared that story with anyone in your life, particularly the person that you're married to?

We're on this radio show. It's a big popular radio show in South Africa. And we're getting interviewed about leadership. And we're talking and these these females are calling into the show and they're like, that man's voice is amazing.

What I can do is South Africans voice. But it was it was pretty funny.

Wait, that's is that public that that interview might be. Yeah, I think I saw that pretty funny.

I remember you guys being in South Africa on the radio show and it's on YouTube with us. OK, where you go, we can look it up. There you go. We can tag it. Wait, what do they say? We'll put that in the show notes.

I would say that, but I know that there's a limited chance of you putting anything in the show, notes the show.

No, I don't know. It's on me on the podcast. You know, you can find YouTube, the description, description, but also people do that on. Do you know when people put out a podcast on iTunes, for instance, you can put links in there. Echo Hmm. Yeah, you can put them in the show notes so people say, oh, I'll link it in the show notes. All right. So I'm not making any remote promises about anything being in the show notes.

Yeah, I guess I guess you can use your Google fingers if you want to see Leaf getting complimented by the ladies of South Africa or let's say some of the ladies in South Africa.

It's on YouTube.

It's out there. All right.

So now that we've gotten through that, let's get into the subject of the night. The subject of the night is the squad leader makes a difference.

The squad leader makes a difference and with decentralized command. Which is the fourth law of combat leadership. This is undisputable, it's undisputable that the squad leader makes a difference because with decentralized command, everybody leads. You want everybody to be a leader. And lately. I have been talking about the fact that the poorest and highest form of decentralized command is actually culture, and if you have a strong culture inside of an organization, then the people in the organization at any level can make decisions based on the culture of the organization, just based on the culture.

They can figure out what to do.

If you have a strong culture, if it's we take care of the customer, think of how many decisions you can make. If you know, hey, our our culture is to take care of the customer.

You can make all kinds of decisions if your culture is we have the highest quality, we make the highest quality product.

How should I cut the corner here? No, you shouldn't. Should I should I get a little cheaper material to put in here?

No, you shouldn't. We make the highest quality product, which means that culture drives decision making.

We have the best value, we give the best value. Does that mean we're going to try and maintain that low price? We can make decisions? You know what? We can shave off a little bit of money there and we can get a better value for our clients.

So you can make all kinds of decisions with that. And the military has culture, too. And units in the military, different units in the military, right down to the platoon level, have a culture that can also drive decision making.

They can drive good decision making, actually. And he can also make it can also drive bad decision making, right, if you have bad culture, it can actually drive bad decision making.

So real obvious example, bad culture is a bad culture of blaming others, of not taking ownership. And if you're not taking ownership, you have a culture where nothing ever gets fixed. That's what's happening. So if our culture is to blame everyone else, we're not we're not going to improve.

We're not going to getting better, obviously, again, if we have a culture where we're cutting corners and worrying about it.

That's when accidents happen. If we have a culture where we're looking out for me right now that's looking out for four JOCO, well, then we're not covered moving for each other. I'm not there to cover move for someone that needs help if I've got a culture of micromanagement.

Guess what? No one's going to have any initiative because the culture isn't. We'll sit around and wait and get told what to do. So you can see how these cultures drive bad decision making. Of course, culture can also drive good decision making.

Right. With with good culture. If you've got good culture, if you've got a culture of ownership, if everyone in your team is has got the culture where, hey, we take ownership, we solve problems, guess what? That culture is going to drive people to say, hey, you know what? That's my fault, let me fix it. So we want that culture of ownership. We want the culture where people don't cut corners. We want the culture where people look out for their teammates.

We want culture where people are empowered and they make things happen. So it's it's real obvious how powerful culture can be, and I think sometimes people think about culture as.

It's like non quantifiable. Well, you know, they have a good culture, but what does that really what does that produce? What does that give you? The reality is, if you have good culture, it is extremely powerful. It's the highest form of decentralized command and centralized command is extremely powerful in its own right.

So then the question becomes, OK, how do we actually create culture? How do we do that, how are we going to create culture and the answer is, if you think about it for a little bit, the answer is that you create culture the same way that culture has always been created. How does culture get created? We have to tell the story. We have to we have to we have to share this story, we have to explain what we've been through, what we've done together, who we are, what our history is, what we stand for, and actually and actually why we stand for that.

And if you can carry on that story, if you can tell that powerful story, you can create a culture. Now. We can't just make the story up. We can't just we can't we can't just fabricators or actually no, we actually can. You actually can just create a a a story almost out of thin air. And if you.

If you use that story, if you use that lie to replace the story and you tell that lie for long enough, it becomes the truth, right? Nineteen eighty four. That's exactly what that's the whole premise of nineteen eighty four. We control he controls. What is it. Who controls the past. Controls the president, who controls the president, controls the future. Know who controls the present, controls the past and who controls the past, controls the future.

Whatever order you want to put those in. If I can convince you that this is the story, this is the history, this is where we came from, I can manipulate the culture. So so it actually can be done.

But that takes like a massive kind of universal propaganda machine to make that happen.

And I think the the better way to do that and what we should do and what good leaders do is to base the story that develops into our culture based that obviously based on the truth.

That's the most powerful way to create a culture, is to tell that truthful story, to hold up those examples from the path from the past.

Those those values that got us to where we are. Those heroes that stood for those values, you tell that story and that becomes the culture. And one of the strongest cultures. That I've ever been around is the culture of the United States Marine Corps. And they do it in a bunch of different ways, but but what we're going to talk about today is a shining example.

It's a shining example of how to create culture because they have a manual, they have a manual. The manual is called the squad leader makes a difference. Think about this black belt move they make, they make a document that's called the squad leader makes a difference.

So obviously they want to have decentralized command.

They want their squad leaders to step up and lead. So they make a whole manual that's called the squad leader makes a difference.

And it goes further to set the culture inside the document itself, because in this book, the squad leader makes a difference, which is subtitles subtitled Readings on combat at the squad level.

And it's from the Marine Corps War Fighting Lab, which is which is a legit name for something at Quantico. It's put this thing was put together in nineteen ninety eight by a couple lieutenants, m m o baldy.

No idea how to pronounce your name. I apologize and am Otero. So these guys put together this manual and you're going to see that what it is actually doing is telling these stories and building a culture of decentralized command where everyone is a leader and the squad leaders can make a difference. I was thinking when you were at the Naval Academy, what examples?

How was that culture like when you when you looked at the Marine Corps? They did.

Did that culture permeate into the young life babin brain and pull you in that direction a little bit?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, we had some some outstanding noncommissioned officers, Sergeant Major, that ran our RPG and he come running by at four o'clock in the morning and yelling for the brigade of midshipmen to get up, you know, and it was yeah. Just there was there was a lot of that was in fact, I remember my own parents parents weekend. So you go through like the bleep summer, which is a you just show up at the Naval Academy.

It's kind of boot camp at the Naval Academy is we call please summer. So you show up in the run and all these midshipmen to boot camp, you're you're kind of going to that boot camp style. And toward the end of that, your parents show up for parents weekend and they can visit for a few days and see you and then they take off. But he was he was like talking to the parents who hears who hears from Maine. And and so, you know, a few people raise your hand like, oh, yeah, he's he's from he's like I'm from Maine to the main part of Parris Island.

And he just starts laughing. And it was just yeah. That was certainly instilled in us. And everyone has to go through, you know, whether you going to be a ship driver in the Navy or submarines or fighter airplanes or or whatever you have to go through, you know, at least at least two or three week program. That's kind of like Oak's down at Quantico. It's I mean, they do it at Quantico for the Marine Corps.

You get a taste of that regardless. And so that whole whole thing, every Marine, a rifleman and putting folks through that was was very appealing to me. And I went there because I wanted to be a SEAL, but certainly marine ground. It was my second choice. I did not get selected for doing.

Two things. Isn't it interesting the way that just saying that this guy would run by at four o'clock in the morning just makes you think good to go? That's number one. I would I was going through officer candidate school, which is also run by. Well, the Marine Corps is are the are the drill instructors. And we would we are going for a run. And every day we'd run through like a like an office or real office or housing where their officers that were stationed in Pensacola lived.

And, you know, every day we'd be singing cadence. And then you go through there and you have to get quiet. And they would just do like a quiet little cadence just to keep in step. And then you'd get through and then you'd start singing again, you know, it'd be four or five o'clock in the morning or whatever. So one time we got this this one drill instructor wasn't my normal drill instructor. This other drill instructor took us for a run.

And he was he was new and he was all kinds of fired up. And so so we get to that area and he like gets real quiet. And so, you know, he's saying whatever the cadence was. And then all of a sudden he he sings as the cadence. He's like, get out of the rack, like quiet. And we're all like, get out of Iraq. And he's like, get out of the wreck. And we're like, get out of Iraq and he get out of Iraq.

And so we're we're five o'clock in the morning run by all these officers. And by the end, we're just out of Iraq and just screaming.

And that was a good time. I was like, so that's what the Marine Corps does.

That's what the Marine Corps does. They make a human being say, I'm from Maine, the main part of Parris Island.

That's what the Marine Corps does and we must salute them for that. So this book is one of those things where I when I'm on my own, when I'm on my trout trails through the world, I stumble upon these things is one of those things.

I saw that title like, you've got to be kidding me. What is this?

So the squad leader makes a difference. Reading on combat at the squad level, Vol. one. And by the way, this Vol. one, I have not been able to find volume two, three, four or five or six. So maybe these guys got sent somewhere from the Marine Corps War Fighting Lab and didn't ever make another one.

But let's get into it.

Here's the forward in combat.

Sometimes when I read these things, I think every single thing that I'm about to read, I just read it and stop. This is one of those things. So in combat, the actions of individual leaders affect the outcome of the entire battle. Squad leaders make decisions and take actions which which can affect the operational and strategic levels of war.

Well-trained squad leaders play an important role as combat decision makers on the battlefield, leaders who show initiative, judgment and courage will achieve decisive results not only at the squad level, but in the broader context of battle.

Without competent squad leaders capable of carrying out of a commander's intent, even the best plans are doomed to failure.

So, you know, you hear about the general and the colonel and the captain and even the gunnery sergeant, you hear about the Marine Corps leadership and and, yes, they're outstanding.

But when you're a corporal and you read this, you think, you know what, I got to get mine to think of how awesome that is.

And from a from a you know, from a business perspective, how how how how do you what story do you tell your employees? What what story do you tell the people that work inside your organization? What story do you tell them?

Do you tell them that that that they are decision makers? Do you tell them that their judgment and initiative will drive results at the strategic level? Do you ever tell your team that? That's how you set the culture. That, you know, as you as you're reading that I'm thinking about as a student of history and I love reading history books, and obviously you do you know, you've done some amazing books here on the podcast, but we always talk about it from the big you know, the the commander, the general.

You read, you know, Julius Caesar maneuvered his his or Alexander the Great did this or Napoleon did this or Patton moved his army here. And he might have been making some overall decisions. But the army that's moving is is the the front line leaders out there, the squad leaders that are executing that, making it happen. And I love the way we do that echelon. We're our definition of leadership is everybody is a leader. And you said something recently that I hadn't thought about in that way.

But we're OK. Who is actually a leader? If you interact with humans in some way and actually need them to go in a direction and more together provide a resource or or support than you actually are a leader. And I think when you see yourself that way, I mean, the most powerful armies in the world, the most powerful teams, companies in the world are going to see themselves where everyone sees himself as a leader, able to solve problems and make things happen and move the team forward in the direction they need to go.

Yeah, that's and that's one of the best things about this podcast, is that I get to I get to read books not written by the general, not written by the admiral, but written by a rifle, one of Napoleon's riflemen or a machine gunner in Stalingrad.

Like that's that's a war. That's what we're hearing from. And what's what's what's powerful about that is then you get to see you get to know you get to learn how that leadership is perceived by the troops on the front line.

I mean, that that podcast that we did about Stalingrad, where you they were hearing Hitler talk about them being gone, they were still there.

They were surrounded. They were fighting for their lives. And they were hearing the broadcast of Hitler saying it was a great sacrifice and they stood to the last man.

They're like, we're still here. What are you doing? Give us help. Give us support. Let us let us break out. No. And you realize, oh, those well, those people on the front lines, they do they they make such a big difference.

And if you set the culture correctly, they will have even more impact. Goes on this this public, this publication illustrates how bold, imaginative squad leaders impact the outcome of the battle or campaign, the historical examples here represent some of the cases in which squad leaders were able to change the course of history. Did I just say a squad leader changed the course of history? Yes, I did.

In each case, the squad leader had to make a quick decision without direct orders, act independently and accept responsibility for the results. Short lessons are presented at the end of each story, these lessons should help you realize how important your decisions are to your Marines and your commander in combat. You must think beyond the squad level. You must develop opportunities for your commander to exploit your every action, must support your commander's intent. You must be competent in the combat skills required of a combined arms leader.

You are the primary war fighter of the Marine Corps, boehme.

Freakin logit. I think about how often how different that is rife with a culture of centralized command where the senior leaders like we are the front, my troops just don't get it, they don't know what they don't understand.

And then and then the frontline troops, like the guys up in the ivory tower, you know, the senior leaders, they don't get it, didn't understand what's going on here versus, you know, people are just sitting around waiting to be told what to do versus the the team that's actually empowered to step up and lead and make things happen. And that team is just unstoppable, unstoppable.

Here's some quotes that this thing starts off with. The most brilliant plan depends for its tactical execution on the squad leaders. Poor squad leaders may ruin the best laid plans. First rate squad leaders often save badly devised plans.

The squad leader is the sole level of command that maintains direct contact with the men who do the actual fighting.

It follows then that the squad leader is to be trained as a tactical commander and as an educator of his men, that's interesting because, you know, when we talk about.

Span of control and on the battlefield, you know, you can have four or five, six guys and you can pretty much control them. You can you can you can. You can make things happen. You know, when you've got four or five, six guys, maybe seven, it starts getting really wonky at eight. But that's because you can see them there. Right there you can you can move four feet. You can grab life and say, hey, move, move a little further forward.

You can actually just make things happen through direct supervision.

So that's that's that's very important to remember that these squad leaders are the ones that actually have the contact to make things happen.

You go up one level, you go from the squad to the platoon.

Well, that platoon commander can't get to that kid over on the left flank. He can't get to that machine gunner up on that. No, he's not going to be able to get there. He's not going to make it happen. And that's why as you grow, you have to get better at the loss of combat. You have to get better decentralized command. You have to get better to keep things simple. You have to get better, prioritize and execute.

You have to get better cover move because you don't have that direct control anymore. You can't just, you know, use your force of will to make things happen. You need to get over here. It doesn't work anymore. Continuing on the IDF, this guy's Israeli, the IDF squad leaders are trained to command independently in the field modern armies operate in small, dispersed formations. All levels of command must be trained to think and act independently. Modern weapons, which provide small groups of men, greater firepower and flexibility of movement, call for a high standard of command at all levels.

And this is something that we've been able to walk through. And I apologize that it hasn't been chronological in nature, but. When the machine gun came, we had to start using decentralized command, because if we're all bunched up together, we're all going to die together. So that's when World War One, towards the end of World War One, we started getting decentralized command and started having the squad like you're not going to be with me anymore.

Hey, laugh when we go on this mission, I'm not going to be able to give you any guidance at all as the company commander because you're going to be four hundred meters away.

We have no radios and you just are going to have to make things happen. You have to know what we're trying to make happen. You've got to go do it on your own.

So this idea that, you know, when you saw the the redcoats right.

Line up and we're going to march together, that's the old way of war. I mean, the Romans, the phalanx, like all the old formations of war, it was like we're all together.

We can just maintain good control over this big group, easier because we're all co-located. And modern warfare brought us to pay. I'm not right there. We launched on this mission and I might not see you again until the mission is complete.

So the people that are out there leading, I have to know what they're doing, why they're doing it. They have to understand the commander's intent and they have to take initiative to get to that goal. And if he concludes this with the squad leader, therefore the squad leader is therefore to be trained technically as an officer, not as a corporal.

And that's from Yigal Alon, who is the field commander in the Israeli Defense Force, and he actually was a scout with the Brits in World War Two, fought in Syria, fought in Lebanon, founding member of the Israeli strike force.

So some experience first they kicked this whole thing off.

And this this is actually a big shocker to me. They kicked this off by talking about Corporal Alvin York, United States Army.

So I expected this to be all Marines, but the Marine Corps is awesome.

And they said, hey, these are awesome examples of where squad leader made a difference and we're going to use them. France, nineteen eighteen, the new Sargon offensive was the last important battle of the First World War. On the night of twenty five September 1918, over one million American soldiers moved up to relieve the French forces on the front lines. The American advance that ensued swept easily through the first two lines of German trenches. And then progress slowed.

Facing stiff resistance, the reserve division was called up. Corporal Alvin York served as an infantryman in the 80 second division. Your company started across a valley at six in the morning as they began to move, the company came under heavy fire from behind a hill. Enemy machine guns mowed down the first wave of advancing Americans. No one knew where the deadly fire was coming from. So your platoon sergeant decided to take the platoon on a mission to find it.

The platoon found a gap in the enemy lines and circled to the rear where they thought the machine guns might be.

The group of Americans stumbled across two German litter bearers whom they followed back to the headquarters of the Machine Gun Battalion. The Americans walked right into the German machine gun command post, opened fire, and the Germans immediately surrendered. Upon hearing the fire behind them, the Germans that were dug in near the command post swung their weapons around and began firing at the Americans caught in the open in a hail of automatic fire, the Americans instantly took casualties.

Corporal Yawk took aim at the nearest machine gun about twenty five yards away and killed the man behind the gun. He continued to fire at each German who popped his head out of a foxhole after watching his troops being massacred by this lone sharpshooter.

The German major in command yelled to York. If you'll stop shooting, I'll make them surrender. Work on your marksmanship, people, work on your marksmanship. Within minutes, the remaining American troops had captured 90 German prisoners, but they were behind enemy lines. Corporal Yawk took charge and quickly organized his platoon.

He decided to move back towards friendly positions straight through the German lines. York ordered the German prisoners to carry back the American wounded every time the group came upon a German position, Yawk told the captured German major to order the troops to surrender. The well disciplined German soldiers never questioned the order, and by the time York's small band reached friendly lines, they had acquired one hundred and thirty two German prisoners. In their wake, York's platoon left thirty five deserted German machine gun positions and a significant gap in the German defenses.

This gap, which York had created, was a vital element to the success of the division's advance.

This advance gave momentum to the American forces and contributed to the success of the offensive. Phenomenal. Here's the lessons Corpo York was quick to exploit the opportunity which had been created. He realized that his actions would affect the outcome of the battalion's advance and made decisions which supported his commander's intent. His strong situational awareness guided him in taking action, which had decisive results.

You know, when you think even when I think when I think of World War One soldiers, you I definitely envision someone that's much more obedient than what we have in the modern all volunteer military today. Right. You've got someone to say. I mean, I would say the whole world was more obedient, right. You had a much more stringent class structure in America. You had that much further separation between the officers and the enlisted. And so so for this kid to be like, oh, I got this, it's incredible.

It's incredible to show that kind of initiative. And I think the fact that it was in World War One is even more incredible. Think about what would happen if he was just standing around waiting to be told what to do in that situation now, which is what so many leaders we work with think is the right call, like you should just wait to be told what to do and then carry on orders without question. And and he would just be standing there waiting to be told what to do and they would fail.

And maybe the whole offensive fails as a result. Instead of someone who actually understands the Y understands the commander's intent and the purpose behind what what they're trying to do and can take the initiative to go make things happen.

Yeah, you know what I often say and I read about I don't want yes. Men, right. I don't want someone that's just like, hey, sounds good, Jarkko. Sounds great. You know, you want someone, it's going to push back and like, I don't agree with that. Wait, what about this? Take that one step further is like I want someone that's just going to figure out what to do and go freak and execute it.

Right. That's what we want. That's what we're trying. That's what we want. That's what we're trying to grow.

That's we're trying to develop in our support and leadership, is that they are going to look even look beyond even look beyond what I can see and say, oh, I bet if I did this, it would be a good move. And maybe they're batton 80 percent. I'm good with that. I'd rather have somebody Battan 80 percent on 80 percent good moves that took initiative and made things happen in 20 percent of the time. I got to go. Oh, hey, hold what you got, man.

Don't go over there yet. Much rather have that initiative.

But that's something you've helped me with as well, though, with it, because I think it's a hard thing for a lot of leaders to accept is that, well, you know, we got to come up with the right solution. We don't want to make mistakes and we want to move forward. And when you're like, listen, 80 percent solutions that go 80 percent solution together where we're never going to have a perfect plan. So let's let's get the plan as close, you know, in a good direction and then execute it, execute, execute and have the initiative be default aggressive.

I think I think that I know it it can stifle me. And I've struggled with that. And I'm not executing because I'm trying to get it to the ninety seven percent solution. Like, listen, 80 percent solution, start, move things forward, execute. And I think that's very empowering to think about that. You don't have to have the perfect plan. Yeah. You got to just go. Yeah. Very liberating to be like, oh I don't care about that at all.

What we might not be. Oh I don't care, you know. Well what if you don't care about that, that hill over there.

Yeah. Get there. Well do you want me to have a logistics. Not I care about that one. Well do you want me to do it in the daytime. I don't care. How well do you want. No, I don't care when you get that help.

OK, but let's do it. The point I'm making here though is is, you know, even whether it's on front or working together, tasking a bruiser in, you know, there can be something like in my mind, I'm like, hey, you know, Jack was really good at this.

And I got to make sure that Jack Warner, you know, has like, this is the right plan and it's going to meet every single thing that, you know, he wants to do. So you start putting these self-imposed restrictions instead of like when when you're like, hey, man. Eighty percent solutions go right, let's execute. And that's it's super liberating to think about it that way. And you realize like, hey, what I thought, you know, I've got to get this thing perfect.

So, you know, Jack was like, yeah, that's good. I actually don't I'm actually I'm actually failing if I'm not executing. And I'm I'm sitting here trying to come up with a perfect plan.

Yeah.

There's some report you were trying to get and you were like, hey, you know, I haven't gotten you this report because I can't quite figure out this little detail at the end to make sure that it's one hundred percent. And I just I, I'm just not giving it to you because I don't want it to be inaccurate and I don't want to have you, like, pissed.

And I was like, bro, I actually I'd rather I said, have I ever sweated you for the details of anything in the past 15 years? And it was funny. You you kind of you tilted your head a little bit. You went, nope. And I was like, why do you think of the starts to wear these little like literally in meaningless, meaningless details?

And you're like, Roger, I'm an idiot. Go. Got it. So no factor.

And that's a that is a great example, though, because here I am stewing about trying to put together a multi-page report and you're like, hey bro, just Semir just just say, hey, I don't have that. I don't have all the information yet. Here's what I think we're doing. Here's kind of the general direction we should go.

And as soon as you said that, I was like just another reminder that it's self-imposed restrictions and it's really it can cause all kinds of problems. So yeah.

And obviously that means I'm doing a bad job of, you know, telling you what the parameters are of success, you know, from like, hey, can you tell me what these numbers are? You're like, cool. Yeah.

But it's going to take me three weeks to dive into all these details. If I was like, hey and dude I just need to know like ballpark, where we at.

OK, got it. Because I can give you that in thirteen minutes. But you know, it's the it goes back to some of that implied, implied commander's intent. Right. Because the implied commander's intent is that when I ask for something I need that thing. Right. Hey, you know, when Jack ask for something because he doesn't have much but he for something, he must want that thing really exact. The implied intent is that I want the implied intent with me is basically I want perfection.

That's that's that's a complete implied intent. And for some reason, EKOS never really picked up on that.

No, no, that's actually not true.

If I think about it like the way there's been some things where I've seen I found out after the fact what you did to reach a level of.

As close as a human can get to perfection on something where I've been like, I didn't expect him to do all that, but he did it.

So that implied level of perfection just from my own stupid personality is like enough to make someone say, I better get this right before we go forward. And that sucks.

And and I talked about it at Gettysburg was like, you've got to think about what you're implied, what your implied commander's intent is. And if especially if you're going to ask them to do something that's outside that normal implied commander's intent. And, you know, we talked about it with General Lee and some of his some of his subordinate leaders that he generally was about kicking ass. So we're moving here. What's generally going to want me to do? He's going to want me to kick ass go forward.

But he said, hey, you know, don't go forward right now. But they get that word. They're like, yeah, but it's generally I'm going to go get some.

And they messed things up. So you got to pay attention to that implied commander's intent that just your personality has your own personality, has a has a culture to it and you've got to pay attention. Scarey.

That was a that was some rare praise for Echo. Charles said we get a note that down take a well deserved, well deserved.

Obviously things. Well, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I'm thinking like the first time we ever went to, like, travel to do the podcast and you had like and I expected I was like I had my fingers crossed, my toes crossed, my ears crossed, hoping that, you know, all this quote, all this equipment showed up and we'd be able to you know, we have some guests come in and it's going to be there.

The time is valuable and all this stuff. And I'm like thinking, oh, I hope this you had it all.

You know, in the Pelican case, everything was there.

I was like right there to work. It squared away, as it were, which is not, you know, maybe what everyone expects, maybe some people have a different implied scenario. All right.

All right.

Next one, Sergeant Henry and I haven't even said that's what this whole manual is.

It's just. Anecdotal one page stories where the squad leader makes a difference. Sergeant Henry Hannigan, U.S. Marine Corps, Haiti, 19 19.

Following serious rebel uprisings, the United States began a prolonged occupation of Haiti in 1915. Charlamagne Peralta was the leader of the rebel army known as Cactus, the 2nd Marine Brigade spent several months in unsuccessful attempts to topple Charlemagne's group. Henry Hanigan, a sergeant in the brigade, devised a bold plan to separate Charlamagne from the bulk of his troops and ambush him.

Sergeant Hanneke sent one of his most reliable men to become a member of the Keiko's band. In a short period of time, the infiltrator had earned the Outlaws trust. Then Sergeant Hannegan had his spy feed the Keiko's location of a Marine unit that was vulnerable to attack.

Talk about putting the bait out there, sends a little spy in there and says, hey, there's going to be these Marines are going to be vulnerable to attack and it can spy. Soon returned with information of a rebel plan to attack these Marines, as well as Charlemagne's location during this attack on a on 31 October 19 19, Sgt. Hanigan led a twenty two led twenty two local militiamen in an attack on Charlamagne disguised as rebels. This is you know, this is freaking getting it disguised as rebels.

Hannigan and his unit moved through several guard posts and boldly walked into the unsuspecting rebel camp when he was within 15 yards of where the story is going, it's going right where you want it to go. When he was within 15 yards of Charlamagne, Sergeant Hannegan drew out his pistol and shot and killed the rebel leader in the firefight that followed.

Dude, in the firefight that followed, the small raiding party captured the rebel position and defended it from a series of counterattacks.

The Marines, who were the target of the rebel attack, had been warned by Sergeant Hanigan of the impending strike and were well prepared for the rebel attack. The rebels were thoroughly defeated the morning after his. After the action, Sergeant Hannegan reported Zoids to his commanding officer, his commanding officer. Know what he was doing? He was just out there getting after. Heineken's actions had rooted more than a thousand outlaws, killed their leader and virtually shattered the entire band resistance movement in northern Haiti.

For his actions, Sergeant Hanigan was awarded the Medal of Honor. I mean, what up to talk about taking commander's intent and just run and default aggressive to the core? That is the riskiest bunch of of of actions. Right. Hey, I'm going to set these guys over here as bait. I'm going to sneak in there already dressed up as rebels. By the way, when I get in there, I'm just going to shoot this guy the first chance I get.

I wonder, had he had he had some direction or approval from his commanding officer, if that would have got to be. Yeah, no, that's that's too risky. Don't do it.

That that may have happened. You know, every time I talked to Tilt, I'm like, I'm sorry if I was in charge, man. I don't know if I would have improved any of your operations.

I'm going to go twenty four miles into Cambodia with four other guys are going to sit around and wait to get attacked by a freakin division of Adva soldiers. OK, cool, let's do it.

You know, as I think about that, do a lot of people obviously you can be too aggressive, right? We got to be aggressive, but not not not too aggressive. Not reckless. And it sounds like they mitigated the risk they needed to. Obviously, it was successful, you know, in that regard.

But I think what a lot of leaders miss is and really we we got a lot of scrutiny on our pretty bold and aggressive operations in Ramadi back in 2006.

Is that by being default aggressive, you can actually mitigate risk? So by going into areas where the enemy they were insurgent neighborhoods that no no one else could get into. They had no U.S. or coalition forces presence. They had no expectation we were going to be there. So we'd show up in places that would catch them off guard. They we had the initiative. They didn't. And it sounds like that's exactly what happened in that situation. And I think some leaders you got to think about that.

Look, you can actually mitigate risk by being default aggressive and something that, you know, you were you were all about and tasking a bruiser. And I think we utilize to our advantage.

Were you in the chow hall in the in the camp, Mark Lee Chow Hall, like early in deployment when our commanding officer was talking to me and he says, you know, what about all these these guys with IEDs? Because I was telling them that we were going to be going on patrols and it's going to be very dangerous. And he said, what are you going to do about these IEDs and these guys that are putting IEDs in the ground?

And I go, we're going to kill them. And that was my mitigation plan, which is a very good mitigation plan. Get in position where you can kill those guys. So your overwatch team sets up and you've got people patrolling to kill the bad guys. And he was like, OK, it sounds like a good plan, right? And yes. And that's an example of how are you going to stay safe by being aggressive. That's absolutely true.

But just OK, take the ID threat as an example, right. If if we're patrolling to an area where they have no expectation, we're going to be there. The locals are out on the street. I there's we're actually much safer from IEDs than we are if we're rolling down, rolling down the main route where they're expecting it to U.S. forces to be.

And that's I think that's a great example. And in in our CEO's mind is how do we do this is dangerous. And and I think actually thinking it's actually less dangerous to be super aggressive and to be someplace where they have no expectation versus them sitting back and waiting to ideas where they know we're going to be. Lessons Sergeant Hannegan displayed outstanding initiative, that's the understatement of the year and tackle proficiency.

OK, maybe that's the understatement of the year in devising and acting upon a plan to defeat a large rebel forces plan supported the brigade, the brigade's mission in Haiti, Sergeant Hannegan, except at great risk, but displayed the courage and nerve to see his plan through his bold action to achieve decisive results. With a small band of men, Sergeant Hanigan was able to defeat a larger rebel force by adhering to tactical fundamentals. His twenty two man main effort attacked the enemy's center of gravity.

The rebel leader. Without leadership, the rebel force quickly disintegrated. Sergeant Hanigan used the element of surprise and deception to execute his attack. Surprise is one of the most important tactical fundamentals and was essential to this tactical undertaking. Sgt. Heineken's actions illustrate how tactical decisions at the squad level can impact the operational and strategic levels of war and can ultimately affect US policy.

Sgt. Handyman's attack greatly affected the balance of power in Haiti, lessening the turmoil in the country. It was a major step towards ending the rebellion on the island. So there you go. It's a strategic move and we always try and point out to companies that your frontline troops can have a negative strategic impact or a positive strategic impact. And it's even that's even more accentuated in this day and age.

Now that we have social media and you can have one employee at one of your stores either do something horrible and and really damage your reputation or do something heroic and really help your reputation. So do you have you in place, the culture that's going to drive those frontline people to do something heroic? Or have you got a culture where they're going to be driven to do something horrible? I don't know.

That's on you, your team. The prospect of surprise is always the surest guarantee of victory. That's from von Melanson, who's a World War Two general.

He wrote the book Panzer Battles, which we haven't gotten to yet on the podcast. We'll get there.

No tactical action should ever be undertaken without the element of surprise.

Speaking of Germans this year, I already thought this book is going to be about Marines and now we already have Army, Marine. I certainly thought it was going be about Americans. This is about a German. So the Marine Corps attitude is wide open.

Sergeant Wentzell, German Army Belgium, 1940. The German plan to invade France included the invasion of Belgium and Holland. The French had not defended their border with Belgium, leaving it open to attack. The Belgians, however, had constructed a series of forts along the canals throughout the countryside.

The most formidable of these was even email.

Manned by 12 hundred Belgian soldiers, the powerful guns of even a male commanded the eastern approaches to the Belgian border. If this fortress was not eliminated, the German army would have significant difficulty crossing the border. The Belgian border Sergeant Wenzel was a member of Germany's parachute forces. Must've been rad being a paratrooper in World War Two. You're the cutting edge of tech. I mean, what, a few years earlier, it wasn't even an idea that you can hawk a person out of a plane with a piece of it with a freakin piece of cloth above them.

And they live.

And here they are just doing assault's this one. They weren't paratroopers, actually. On 10 May 1940, his paratroop company daringly landed on the top of Ibin, a male in gliders with the mission of silencing the guns of the fortress in order to allow the German army to capture bridges to the east. When Sergeant Wentzell landed atop the fortress, he realized his commanding officers glider had not made it to the objective. This left Sergeant Wentzell in command of 80 parachutists.

In four man teams, the Germans used flamethrowers and special shaped charges to attack each gun turret, Sergeant Wenzel commanded his unit from a captured pillbox. The situation became tenuous when the Belgians prevented the German reinforcements from arriving by blowing the bridge on the main route of the ground attack. The paratroopers were caught off. The Belgians were also calling artillery on the Germans, and enemy infantry could be seen preparing to counterattack the paratroopers. And as I was reading this, I was like, wait a second enemy.

Who are we talking about?

They're talking about the Belgians.

Sergeant Wentzell continued to lead the parachutists for three more hours as each Belgian gun position was eliminated after the sun had set Sgt. Wentzell linked up with German forces from the east. Even a male had fallen. Sergeant PENCIL's actions allowed German forces approaching from the east to advance unmolested across the canals with a force of 80 men he had subdued.

Twelve hundred of the enemy. The defense of Belgium was broken and the German army was able to rapidly defeat Belgium and move into France, the northern wing of the German army rapidly outflanked flank the French army and brought about a defeat of French forces in a mere six weeks for his heroic actions and outstanding leadership. Sergeant Wentzell was awarded the Knights Cross.

When you think about 80 men beating one thousand two hundred, I was sitting there in my mind I'm thinking like, how how do you do that? But then you have probably heard me say, don't dig in.

Don't get in a position where you can't get out of. Well, if you set up a fort where you're all in bunkered positions and all of a sudden the enemy gets in there and they can maneuver really quickly and you're stuck in this pillbox or you're stuck in this gun emplacement while the other while your bad guys, the people are trying to kill you are running around and sneaking around and can get free fields of fire because you're stuck in this box. That's that's in my mind how it happens.

You do have to recognize that even a male is probably the most impregnable force fortress since a monster cookie monster like I think a two hundred foot high walls along the Krenzel.

I mean, so they they probably felt like completely safe. No factor. There's no way the Germans are coming. But I think what's crazy can we talk about the element surprise in that situation? The Germans knew they were coming. I mean, there was an attack on obviously the German. The Germans knew they were coming. They had every expectation. The Belgians knew that they were going to do the. Yes, I'm sorry. The Belgians knew the Germans were coming.

So the Belgians, they they didn't have the the Germans did not have the element of surprise there because they but they didn't know the manner in which the attack was coming. And I think technology played a key role because I believe that might been the first use of blighters combat ever. If I remember that correctly, it was certainly one of the first, if not the first. And so they they didn't have the expectation that they could land on top of this fortress.

It was also the first use, I think, of shaped charges as well. Ah, that was an advantage. Brand new technology. So they felt safe in these giant caissons of, you know, concrete and steel. And I think what an amazing victory of of just being default, aggressive to the core, hitting them. Even when they expected that the attack was coming, they didn't realize the manner in which it was coming. And I think they just overwhelm them with now they're in the fortress and we felt safe.

What do we do now, then?

And I think well, the the technical, I guess, definition of surprise. Because, you know, if if in jujitsu, right, you know, you're going for Nordmark, you know, you're going from our mark, you know, I'm trying to tap you out, right? You know, I'm trying to tap you out. You know, I'm trying to tap you out. So I'm grabbing your neck and you're you know, I'm trying to grab your neck and boom, I go for your arm.

Right. So it's a surprise. Even though, you know, I'm trying to tap you out, I'm still going to surprise you. It's like a similar thing, right?

We know we're going to attack, but what are these weird, quiet winged things coming from the sky?

And why are they filled with people, 80 people versus twelve hundred? It's freaking insane. Lessons Sergeant Wentzel realized that it was his responsibility to complete the mission after his commanding officers glider failed to land on the fortress. How's that guy feeling afterwards?

He's like, so bummed, Fluffy, if he was still alive, if you're still alive, he worked with the existing plan and took advantage of the element of surprise that is airborne landing and given him taking charge of 80 men.

Sergeant Winchell showed outstanding leadership and courage as he commanded the efforts against the fortress for three hours against great odds. Sergeant Wetzel's understanding of the plan allowed him to shoulder the burden of responsibility of leading the assault force. He clearly understood his pivotal role in the invasion of Belgium, and his actions fully supported his commander's intent.

Sergeant Wetzel's company level raid permitted a regimental river crossing, which in turn allowed the German army to rapidly pour into Belgium. This eventually led to the fall of both Belgium and France. So there you go. Totally pivotal moment.

One thing I wanted to say it. I don't disagree with you very often there. But yeah, it would be from a personal perspective, like, man, I'm so Obama that wasn't there, wasn't able to lead that. But actually, from a leadership perspective, you should be absolutely stoked that you're your front line leader, still stood up, made things happen, got the job done even without you there. And obviously that's the real testament of leadership that it's about.

The mission is not about you.

Yeah, yeah. No, that's the on a personal level, of course, the guys bombed on a professional level. He's totally stoked. And you obviously on a personal level, you're like freaking totally stoked that your frontline troops got the job done while you were, you know, while you were in some vineyard somewhere drinking wine.

I will say as as a couple of times that I was acting task you to commander and desk and a bruiser. Well, there was some huge operation going to be done and dealt with in a year out the battlefield. I was like, this is not fun. You see, that's sort of on a personal level. I am extremely.

But that's what I was good at that says here. And this one of the quote, It is not the big armies that win battles, it is the good ones. That's Field Marshal Morris de Sacs, which. Born in sixty ninety six, podcast one 110, we covered his book and he's a he's got a weird background, he's all kinds of things.

He was like Polish and German and French and served in the Imperial Roman Army. But he wrote that book. I think it's my reveries on war. It's a good book podcast. One tenth he's got the title Field Marshal.

It's pretty cool it. Remember, we had a attack in Brazil. We had it. We had a captain obvious. And and so he was kind of over the top with, like, the obvious comics. And we promoted him to Admiral Obvious. And then it kind of went beyond that. I was like, look what sounds even cooler, bigger. So he became Field Marshal Davies.

There's only been I mean, as far as I know, at least in the in the US Navy, there's only been one field marshal of the obvious, which is a big promotion.

You know, the big promotion, it's almost like a five star. Let's be honest, that's not quite a five star, but it's definitely you are definitely put out some obvious stuff.

You don't want to be field marshal. Obviously not by that.

It's weird, too, because you'd think when you got when you caught, you know, Captain Obvious, right. When you catch that nickname, you're going to start maybe paying attention. Right. Putting yourself in check when you get promoted. What was the next promotion when you get promoted to admiral? Obviously, like this is definitely got to stop. I got to just just just bite my love a little bit more. Still don't feel don't quite pull it off.

Guess what? Once your field marshal. Well I think once you field marshal own it right on it. Hey, I got a real couple obvious points to point out.

Sergeant Rubab back to back German Army France. Nineteen forty in the spring of nineteen forty, the German army invaded France. As the campaign campaign progressed, the tenth Panzer Division was directed to cross the Meuse River and continue to attack toward Paris. The French realized that the river provided a natural obstacle that could be used to halt the advancing Germans. Sergeant Rubab, the leader of a squad of assault engineers which was attached to the Germans sixty nine Infantry Regiment. The Germans were.

The Germans control the east side of the river and the French were dug in on the West. The French defenses included artillery machine gun bunkers all along the river after a violent Stuka air attack, Sergeant Rubab squad attacked with infantry as his rubber boat reached the far shore.

Sergeant Rubab squad attacked and destroyed the nearest bunker. On reassembling his squad, Sergeant Rubert realized only two boats had successfully crossed the river, leaving only his squad and one infantry squad on the West Shore to create a breach in the French defenses.

How many people were supposed to go?

Assault engineers, I wonder how many boats they actually had, the only two made it OK. Undaunted, he ordered his unit to attack another bunker with grenades and a satchel charge. The French soldiers inside surrendered and their white flag was replaced with German colors. This drew cheers from the Germans on the far side of the river and demoralized the French defenders. Sergeant Ruban then advanced and aggressively took two more bunkers, creating a mere three hundred metre gap in the first line of French defenses.

More German forces then followed him across the river after receiving a fresh supply of ammunition and four more men than when he got four more men. Proceed. Sergeant Rebirth continued his attack, and as enemy artillery started raining down on them, Sergeant Ruban moved his squad quickly so that the artillery fire could not adjust to them. His squad overtook three more bunkers and broke them through the second line of enemy positions. The second line of enemy positions.

After seeing several of the bunkers blown up, the French forces assume that they were being overrun, their spirit crushed. The French began to withdraw. The action became a route as the advancing German pursued Germans pursued the French forces first achievement. Sergeant Ruban received a battlefield commission to lieutenant as awarded the knighthood of the Iron Cross.

When I think now thinking to that last one in this one. Let's face it, you got a small number of guys and you just start going home, just start attacking and people aren't expecting you to do that, right?

They don't expect they see to show up. They're like, oh, whatever. And then all of a sudden they're bunkers. You in shape, charge on it and you're getting jacked up, going and moving quicker than these people that are in these static positions. This is maneuver warfare, right? This is like the beginning of maneuver warfare. I can move and you can't just think of that, think of that and then think of it from a leadership perspective.

Think of it when you say this is what we need to do. And now you've just dug into your position, you can't move anywhere and Will says, Hey, Jonquil, I know that's what you want to do, but what about what about this over here with these other clients?

And I go, oh, you we're sticking to the plan, right? It just doesn't work. Whereas I'm like, hey, this is where I'm at right now. What do you guys think of this? We're out right now, but we might have to flex.

That's all you need to say. That's all you need to say is, hey, mom, I have an open mind. That's all you need to do to have an open mind. Present your idea with with an out. Right. Take your position, but give yourself an out. That's all you need to do. You can maneuver a little bit. I think that mentality, like from a defensive perspective, you know, I know Clausewitz talked about the defensive position being, you know, the strongest.

And your mentality is like, you know, you're giving the all the momentum, all the initiative. And I think particularly when you're in a fortress where it's even a male or, you know, this these positions, they probably had no expectation that someone could be inside their fortress. And we're totally safe here until I get to go. We have the advantage.

And so as soon as that happens, I mean, that doubt starts to creep in like, man, you know, you're you're done. They've they've lost they've lost all morale. People ready to surrender before ready retreat. I think that's there's something about just being on the advance that gives you, I think, all the advantage of the world.

Did you when I was talking about the fact that they raised the German flag and that help morale, I had a vision of a certain American flag going up and random buildings over the city of Ramadi.

Sometimes. I don't know what you're talking about also.

I mean, that was very helpful for morale. I can either confirm or deny that that the American flag was run up or, you know, you talk about we're going in there and, you know, we get approval for these missions like, you know, we're going to be a sneaky sniper overwatch. We don't want the bad guys to know where we are.

Couple of times we just just had to run the All Stars and Stripes up in the middle of the city and say, we're right here, bring it. And we did get in fact, Dave Burke called me on the radio. It did this. Good deal, Dave. Good deal. They call me on the radio to pass the word to us in one particular position that, hey, there were some troops massing. And I was like, bring it on.

This is that that's exactly what we're hoping for. Mass attack, bring it on.

Good morale for the troops. I don't know if that could have gotten it was like plausible deniability for JoCo. Is Tasket a commander there? We didn't exactly run that one up for. Well, I guess there was some indication because.

Well, since we're putting ourselves on report here, we weren't you weren't allowed to fly an American flag, period. And we did have an American flag on Kamari 24/7 over time.

So maybe my implied commander's intent was, if you gonna run up the Stars and Stripes, you've got to run up the stars and Stripes, make it tall, make it don't have a lot of machine gun pointing in all directions, which we did check lessons.

Sergeant Rubab clearly understood the importance of rapid crossing. Of the river, the commander's intent at all levels, from squad to division, was to cross the river quickly in order to maintain the momentum of attack. A delay at the river would have given the French time to strengthen positions closer to Paris and possibly halt the German offensive. So that's a that's a really good, simple example of commander's intent to say, hey, listen, the commander's intent of this operation is we have to get across this river as quickly as possible.

And now everybody in your division knows we're going to get across this river. That's the goal. And I'll do whatever I gotta do to make that happen. That's a very nice, clear example of what a commander's intent is.

Now, everybody. Now everybody knows what we're trying to do. And if something changes, the enemy does something I don't expect. Guess what? Cool. I'm going to adapt anyway to get across this river and to take as many of my guys with me as I can. Taking on the role as the main effort of the German attack, Sergeant Rubab displayed outstanding leadership, shouldering the responsibility of creating a breach in the French defenses. Though greatly outnumbered on the far shore, the squad followed their courageous and decisive leader, Sergeant Ruban.

Bravery and judgment allowed him to succeed. Despite being isolated and under attack by French artillery, Sergeant Rubab did not wait for reinforcements, but continued to attack the enemy, deciding that rapid action was necessary. This is where action versus in action, right? Action versus inaction. What was I saying yesterday when we were recording EFL Mind? I was I was like nine times out of ten. Action is better than inaction. This is an example. Now, is there a case where perhaps it would be better to wait for reinforcements?

But I'll tell you what, here's the deal. If you take action, you know what? We've got enough guys. What we're going to push. We're going to go. Maybe you get stopped. Maybe you meet heavy resistance. Now you know that now you know, you actually can't proceed. But if you go like, hey, actually, we just we just took another bunker.

Let's take another one. You take small steps, you go forward, you take action, and then you learn from the feedback. If the feedback would have been, hey, we just try to take another bunker and we got shellacked, OK, well, we're not going to move anymore.

We're going to wait for reinforcements. Fine. What should your default mode be? Be aggressive. Make it happen. His actions create an opportunity which his commanders took advantage of by pouring forces through the region, decisively defeating the enemy, Sergeant Roberts actions contributed directly to his battalion's crossing, his division's attack and the eventual defeat of France five weeks later.

Far better, it is, quote, far better, it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor that neither enjoy much nor suffer defeat because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory or defeat.

And that's Teddy Roosevelt. Medal of Honor, Cuba, Sun, Medal of Honor, Utah Beach. All right, next up, the Marine Corps brings it. We've got we got Sergeant John Basilone, U.S. Marine Corps, Guadalcanal, 1942, August nineteen forty two. The 1st Marine Division landed on Guadalcanal, encountering stiff resistance from the Japanese defenders. Sergeant John Basilone served as a machine gun platoon sergeant in support of Company C, 1st Battalion 7th Marines. On the night of 24 October, Sergeant Basilone Platoon occupied a key position in the battalion's offensive perimeter on a jungle ridge just past twenty one thirty, the Japanese began a ferocious attack in the dark, rainy night.

Intense fighting followed and soon the machine gun unit on Bastian's Wright was overrun by screaming Japanese soldiers hurling grenades and firing rifles. At the same time, Basilone machine guns started running low on ammunition, Basilone knew that the enemy that had broken through on his right were between him and the ammunition dump. But he decided that if his gun teams were not resupplied, the positions would fall.

Sergeant Basilone took off his heavy, mud caked boots, stripped himself of all unnecessary gear and sprinted down the trail. After returning with several belts of ammunition, he set out for the unmanned machine gun pits to his right, knowing that those heavy weapons were vital tools in the defense of the ridge. When he got back to the gun positions, he found to unoccupied machine guns jammed and ran back to get one of his own, he ordered a team to follow him.

After Basilone Gun crew reached their destination, he immediately put them into action. Basilone lay on the ground and began repairing one of the damaged weapons. Once the gun was repaired and loaded, he got behind the gun and began engaging targets. The fight raged on and Japanese bodies began to pile up in front of the machine guns. At one point, Sergeant Basilone had to direct his Marines to push back the piles of bodies to maintain clear fields of fire.

Several more times during the night, Sergeant Basilone made trips back to the command area for desperately needed ammunition. Eight separate attacks were sent against the Marines that night, and Basilone Platoon fired over twenty five thousand rounds. They were credited with killing an estimated three hundred enemy soldiers, playing a major role in thwarting the Japanese attack. This successful defense re-established the perimeter of the 1st Marine Division, protected the vital airfield and led to the conquest of Guadalcanal, the first island taken from the Japanese.

For his initiative, resourcefulness and leadership in defense of the ridge, Sergeant Basilone was awarded the Medal of Honor. Lessons. Tactically, Sergeant Basilone understood his role in the defense of the ridge and the intent of the company and battalion commanders, his machine gun served a pivotal role in the company and battalion defense line plan. He took numerous actions necessary to ensure his battalion's success.

This included making the decision to weaken one position in order to fortify an adjacent unit's position to his right. Sergeant Basilone exhibited great leadership during the defense. He went to great lengths to provide his unit with whatever tools were necessary to maintain the defense of the ridge. His courage in braving enemy fire to deliver ammunition set an example for his Marines. Unbelievable. It's interesting when you think about they're low on ammunition and his decision is, I'm going to get I'm going to go personally get the ammunition.

And I can see a couple of factors playing into that decision. One of them being, if we don't have ammo, we're all going to die. So it doesn't matter. You know, I could send another guy, but.

And I could stay here to try and help, you know, maintain our position, but without without ammunition, we're all going to die. So the number one thing we need is ammunition. And these guys know what they're doing. They got this, but without bullets, we're going to get overrun. I'm going to do this. That's. It's an interesting thing because, you know, sometimes leaders got to say, OK, this is what's going on, here's the absolutely critical test and I'm actually just going to go do it right now, because if it doesn't get done, we're all doomed.

Taking off his boots. That's a that's a hard thing for me to think about because my feet are soft. Man, I think every time we turned on Basilone Road, you know, up there at Camp Pendleton, going to our ranges and training, just think about think about, you know, the exploits of John Basilone. That's incredible.

And I you know, I think the other thing, too, to think about here is these other these other illustrations we're looking at. I mean, obviously amazing illustrations of a junior leader, you know, squad leader stepping up and making these calls. But, you know, the previous ones in World War one and two, you were talking about, you know, look, vicious fighting. Obviously, people are dying and being, you know, shot and blown up or bayoneted or whatever.

But those particular charges, Bonzai charges like that in in Guadalcanal, like there's zero quarter's going to be given. So you're overrun and everyone's going to get killed. And I think, you know, I think that was it's a different situation, you know, and I think a lot more desperation there. You can't just throw up your hands and surrender like the Germans did to sergeant your Corporal York in that particular situation.

Yeah, I mean, I almost didn't even make it past the sentence. In the dark, rainy night, intense fighting followed. And soon the machine gun unit on Basilone Right was overrun by screaming Japanese soldiers hurling grenades and firing rifles. Just dark, and when you're in dark, and especially in a jungle like that and it's dark outside and then you shoot your gun and now you've seen the muzzle flash like you can't you can't see anything now.

Like, it's dark, it's black. And so now the only thing you're hearing is screaming Japanese. They're throwing grenades, which again, is ruining your night vision. You're seeing muzzle flashes. You're shooting back at muzzle flashes. Freking, just horror, just horror. Yeah, that's some unbelievable heroism there.

I think you're hitting on a good point, too, about the priorities, nice cups. And I think, you know, we generally would say leaders don't want to be down on the details when we detach.

But, you know, to your point, if you in the prioritize and you'd say, if I don't go do this now, none of it matters. We have to do that.

And it's the existential priority. If if we don't execute this priority, we will not exist anymore. It's an existential decision. And there's only you look at it, I look said, you know, I got this guy, he's working that gun. He can do that. There's one person that could actually make this happen right now, and it's me. I'll be back in seven minutes with some ammo, fellas.

Bazzy. Next up, Sergeant Jacob Pavlov, Russian army, Stalingrad, nineteen forty two in the fall of nineteen forty two, the German 6th Army was pushing into the Russian city of Stalingrad.

The Russian strategy was to draw the Germans into the city and fight them from building to building. Sergeant Jacob Pavlov of the Soviet 13th Guard Division was called into his battalion map room in order to do recon a four story house in order to develop a company plan to attack the building. That night, Sergeant Pavlov selected three men from his squad and set out on the reconnaissance so he could do a recount in this building so that we can do a company sized 150 man assault on this building.

When the four man team reached the objective, Sergeant Pavlov realized that the house was occupied by only a few German defenders, he decided to seize the house immediately with his small team. He quickly devised a plan and within minutes had attacked and taken control of the House. Using captured German machine guns and their own Tommy guns. Sergeant Pavlov led his men in fighting back wave after wave of German counterattacks. The next night, Sergeant Pavlov sent a messenger back to his battalion.

By morning, his group was reinforced with 16 men, three anti-tank rifles, two mortars and more machine guns. His defensive preparations continued. He directed the placement of a minefield around the building. He ordered his men to take out the interior walls of the building to allow freedom of movement. He posted sharpshooters and observers in the top of the building and fortified his command post at two hundred yard trench was dug for resupply when the German. That's a lot of things to get done.

Digging a few hundred yards is no joke. What does a digging?

A two hundred yard trench. And posting sharpshooters and removing the walls inside the building so you have better freedom of movement. This guy was not playing when the Germans sent larger armored forces against him, Sergeant Pavlov, in improvised new tactics to fight them. This is beautiful. Due to the limited elevation of the German tanks, Pavlov sent his machine gunners to the top floors and his anti-tank cruise to the basement. From these positions, his men put accurate suppressing fire on the German infantry while destroying the army of the armor.

So a tank gun can only go so far up and so far down, and apparently they couldn't go far enough up to hit the roof where the machine gunners weren't couldn't go far enough down to hit the anti-tank weapons. Pavlov's house proved to be a key Russian position in the battle for Stalingrad, the building's height allowed Pavlov's observers to call accurate artillery fire in any direction, and snipers chalked up hundreds of kills from the attic.

Upon finding his objectives, the lessons upon finding his objective lightly defended Sergeant Pavlov, ignored his orders and used his initiative to take the house by surprise. This key decision fully support his commanders intent. Now, what's interesting about this is we dig in a little bit.

If I was sending you leave to go and do a recount of a building that we were going to attack tomorrow with one hundred and fifty men. I might not even cover the contingency, we might not even cover the contingency of, hey, if there's no one in there, just take it like because you're not expecting. If you're expecting to need one hundred and fifty people, you're not expecting that for people, so you might not even consider that. Hey, and by the way, if there's light resistance, just take it, because even light resistance with four guys going into a defended position, it's going to be hard.

All I need is one person with a machine gun at the end of the hallway and you got real problems.

So the fact that he just said, I think we I think we got this right.

Get it done. And there's no radios. There's no radios. They're not calling up and saying, hey, hey, hey, Jakiel, this is life. I took the building. Send reinforcements. No, you're just there.

You said he sent a messenger the next day, four hours later after you hold station for twenty four hours with four guys. That's that's crazy.

That's that's the power, though, of the commanders at Tetteh. You know, understand the why. And I think if you.

And certainly, I mean, the culture in the Soviet army at that time was pretty centralized, you know, as far as decisions to be made. So I can't imagine that he got briefed for that contingency. And I think that's highly unlikely.

So someone just to be like, hey, but think about what happens here, though. If he goes back, you know, he goes back and says, hey, there's only, you know, it's the only light resistance there. We can attack now. And maybe maybe by the time they plan their attack and 24 hours later it's reinforced and there's 200 people there, you know, instead of a dozen or whatever it was. So that's that's pretty amazing initiative to say, OK, what they actually what we want to do strategically is take this key piece of terrain and I'm going to take it right now because there's the initiative here.

There's the opportunity in front of me and, you know, to seize that initiative. That's that's incredible.

Let's get it. That's Leeroy Jenkins just showed up in Stalingrad, Lee Rojak.

But think about that, though, from a perspective, leaders, they don't you think that you don't want your people to do that? I don't want them to go too far. I don't want to get too too aggressive. I don't want you know, you wait for my orders.

And so so there are plenty of leaders who would be upset with a squad leader like Pavlov executing on something like that instead of actually saying, that's awesome. And if I had a bunch of Pavlov's we're going to we're going to win this thing. It's going to make all the difference. I used to tell the the task unit commanders and I tell the whole task unit, but I put the task unit commander assigned and say, hey, you know, there'd be chaos going on and they wouldn't be getting anywhere.

They'd be bogged down. They'd be getting shot up with paintball. All those problems would be happening during training.

And I'd say imagine if each one of your fire team leaders was doing something smart to move you where you wanted to go. Imagine how easy things would be, and they'd look at me like dumbfounded because they'd know that's true. Like, let's face it, if a fire team leader goes, hey, we've got a wounded guy, we need to move him. And the boss just said, we're moving south to the rally point. If we all know we're moving south, rally point, every fire team can can start to make that happen.

And that was one of the things that would help help move a task unit from centralized command to decentralized command.

Just that little conversation which I had dozens of times.

Hey, what do you think it would be if every one of your fire team leaders right now was doing something that you wanted them to do, that was that was moving them towards your goal?

How do you think that would affect you right now?

They'd be like it would be very helpful. And I'd be like, yes, it would be.

Why don't you tell them all what that overall goal is right now? You're in a perimeter. Everyone's everyone's within 50 meters. You could actually just yell it out. Right now, we're moving south. The rally point alpha. Let's go.

OK, go. Maybe one fire team leader looks another fire team leader and says, hey, I got cover, you bound back, all right. That's that's that's eight guys moving in the right direction. Some other fire team leader goes, hey, we're good.

We got dead space. Let's move. OK, that's another four guys.

And you just need to think that way. You need your team to go out and make things happen, but they can only do that if they know where they're going. I watched you have the other side of that equation as well, you know, which is something we talk about a lot of excellent fraud, and that's when we would see the the recognition in these young leaders of the power of leadership and whether it was a fire team leader or squad leader or a machine gun or a machine gunner who was in charge to anybody else.

And they're standing out in the street in this tone, you know, in this town, the urban, urban, you know, training environment. And there's paint balls flying around and explosions going off and total chaos.

And that was it was so much like the leadership laboratory that you always talk about was just an incredible thing to watch. And when I was out there, you know, in my mind, my last command is as a senior leader, just observing my my team and being there with you as you're you're you're mentoring and training folks and walking up to some machine gunners and, hey, what's going on right now?

There they I don't know what's going on, but does it make a cause regardless? What do you what do you what do you think you should do right now? Would you get in that building over there?

Why don't you make it happen? I remember I'd get the the blank stare of, like, wait a second. You're telling me that I could get people to go over there and they look at me kind of tilt the head and say I'm going to get in trouble if I do that, I can't do that.

Actually, no one is doing anything right now. I just walked by your platoon commander and he was sitting there talking to your task unit commander about spaghetti for dinner because they have no idea what's happening. And if you don't make something happen, no one is going to be eaten. Anything tonight is going to do this over and over again.

Well, but you would ask the question like, hey, do you think your dad's going to commander want you to be sitting out the street getting shot right now? And the answer is of course not. Of course, they don't want their tied up with some other problem. Where were the spaghetti dinner or whatever it is. But once you once they recognize the power of leadership and you encourage them to make that call and I hate fall back in the building now and now, all of a sudden, you got leaders at every level that are stepping up and making things happen.

So so you having both of those conversations with the leaders both ends to encourage encourage their their junior folks to step up and make calls and then with the junior front line troops that are executing and then you actually have decentralized command that's out there making things happen.

It's a powerful, powerful tool. Decentralized command sergeant back to Sergeant PADF showed exceptional leadership skills while defending the House. He organized and led an effective defense position for over six weeks. He showed tactical improvisation and skill as a combined arms leader. Sergeant Pavlovsk, actions show how one leaders actually can contribute to an overall battle, his platoon sized defensive strongpoint became the key position for his battalion, which in turn became the main effort of the division.

Friggin awesome. It's better to be it's better to be on hand with 10 men than to be absent with ten thousand. That's from Tamerlane, a Mongol emperor. That would that would be Genghis Khan or Genghis Khan. What, that Moghul emperor. It's not him, is it not? It's not him, it's not him. I don't even actually know if those two were related. But same area of the earth, that's for damn sure. And apparently I apparently both of them are like kicking ass.

What was what was what was the biggest concern? I kind of think of it. I thought I thought it was.

No, it's not it it's I had to go back and review the book I read a few years ago. You're right. It does begin with like a team as a team. And they make it they made some kind of a movie about Echo that maybe you could help out here. There's a movie about it. So that's a week from neither one of us to be on that. Right.

I got to research that for sure. More discipline go.

But I know that that's not him. All right.

Sergeant Thorton, British Army France. Nineteen forty four. Vital to the success.

I like I said that life just pounded some background. I didn't remember that name.

Let's bring the Clerides vital to the success of the nineteen forty four allied invasion of Europe was the capture of valuable bridges inland of the beaches. This was to be done by parachute forces the night before D-Day. If these bridges were not taken, the German army would be able to counterattack the landing forces and push the allies into the sea. Just after midnight in the early morning hours of six June, the fifth parachute brigade of this British six Airborne Division landed in Normandy.

One glider company was tasked with the vital mission of seizing and holding the Pegasus Bridge, which crossed the Caine Canal.

And secure the east flank of the British landing beaches, if this bridge was not secured, the Germans would be able to launch a flank attack into the exposed left wing of the British invasion forces. After seizing the bridge in a daring assault, the company established a defensive perimeter facing east towards an intersection at zero one thirty two tanks of the first Panzer Engineer company with infantry support crept toward the bridge as the lead element of a German counterattack. The only there's a good story.

The only anti-tank weapon available to the platoon covering this approach was a small Pyott rocket manned by Sergeant Thornton. The paratroopers were fearful that a tank attack could not be stopped. Sergeant Thorton laid lay hidden in a pile of equipment, knowing the limited range of the pot and the vulnerability of his platoon's position. He decided to wait until the tanks were a mere 50 yards away before firing. Thornton fired the shotgun and scored a direct hit on the lead tank.

The round penetrated and caused a magnificent explosion. Shells inside the tank began to cook off, creating a fantastic light show.

The German company commander was mortally wounded as he tried to flee the Burning Hulk. The display and numerous explosions acted as a beacon for other paratroop forces lost in the dark. They converged on Pegasus Bridge, believing that British forces had come under severe attack. The second German tank immediately reversed course. The lieutenant in the tank reported that the British had occupied the bridge in force and were equipped with six pound anti-tank guns. The German commanders decided to wait until daylight before launching another attack.

As morning approached, the allied forces were able to land on the Normandy beaches and protect from a strong German counterattack. The German delay allowed the allies to build up combat power on the beaches and rapidly strike England. The invasion of France and the drive across Europe led to the defeat of Germany in less than a year's time. So some lessons here. Sergeant Thornton knew that his gun was the only defense the paratroopers had against the German army. He decided to hold his fire until the lead tank was danger close, lowering the Germans into a trap.

This is jet, that is that is bad ass right there. You got to think what's going through that guy's father. I mean, just being in close proximity to tanks in Iraq 50 yards away, it just that noise and knowing the power of that thing.

And, you know, and, you know, his guys are like, dude, what was he waiting for? Yeah.

And you got that thought going through your head of, like, the Caddyshack. Like the Domus. Yeah, you got one you got one shot to quote the great echo.

Charles, you could say Dad. Yeah, that's a tough one. When when Sergeant Thorntons Round hit the tank, it set off a chain of events which helped ensure the success of the D-Day invasion. The British were able to reinforce and reconsolidate in the dark. The Germans decided not to risk a night attack against strong unknown forces. The burning tank itself prevented the Germans from approaching the bridge when the British when the bridge with the bridge in British hands, the paratroop company held an entire Panzer regiment at bay.

Now, if that Panzer regiment had been able to penetrate into Normandy, into the Normandy beachhead, the allied invasion might have failed.

The company's pivotal position supported the Airborne Division's mission and allowed the British landing forces to free access to the beaches.

One shot potentially shaved the left flank of the allied invasion. One shot save the left flank of the allied invasion.

And there's a comment here. A tactical success is only really decisive if it is gained at the strategically correct spot, that's von Milkie, which we haven't done him yet, but we got him in the box.

All right.

So while I was reading that. I thought of something, so I was talking about the fact earlier that. When we got to Modern Warfare, when we got machine guns, we started to decentralize command because now life's squad is one hundred yards away from me. So that way we have some dispersions that we all way we all don't get killed at the same time. So that way, I just got to say, hey, like Lahiff, here's our objective.

You got to make it happen. So now when you're talking about going in like you're going into gliders and it's in in Band of brothers, when you're watching the gliders come in, you're going in the dark, you're hitting. You're just you're just going to be alone when you hit the ground. That's what's going to happen. You're going to be with what you're going to be with whatever. Twenty two other guys. That's what you're going to be.

You who knows where your commander is going to be. You're freaking flying in the dark where you're jumping out of an airplane. How what's your grouping? How many people are you going to be close to? So. That not everyone I mean, they have almost no communications, so what we have to do is we have to make sure that everyone understands the commander's intent. Everyone has to have some kind of objective.

So the more we got to this modern warfare, the more decentralized command was and the more importance there was on commander's intent.

Then what happens then we start getting radios.

Right, so now all of a sudden, hey, if you go there, I'll call you. I'll let you know what to do when we get there or if you get into trouble, if it's not what you expected, give me make Kames. So now all of a sudden I'm allowed to disarm and I naturally ease towards taking the stress off of the commander's intent because I figure just give me a call when you hit the ground if it's not what we expected.

So when you think about if you're going to freaking launch gliders and paratroopers into France for D-Day, you got to expect they're going to hit the ground there.

I have no idea where they are, what to do. They're going have no communications with you. They better they let me rephrase that. They're going to have no communications with you and they hit the ground. They are probably not even going to have communications with more than five or six people when they initially hit the ground, maybe 10. You know, maybe if it's in a glider, they're all together, but they're going to be isolated.

So they have to understand the commander's intent.

Otherwise, it just stops right there.

But as soon as we get radio communications now, it's like, OK, well, you know, when you hit the ground, check in for the objectives. Or, you know, if you if you're not sure where you are, give us a call and we'll so all of a sudden commander's intent becomes less important. And then you get to.

No less important, if you if you can make radio less important, if you can make radio calls, so then you get you fast forward, you know, to Vietnam, where maybe now every platoon has a radio. Right? Every platoon has a radio.

So now what we at least can can control that. Then you fast forward to the to the 90s. Like even when I first got in the teams, we might not have a radio for each guy in the platoon. There might be like four guys. Don't get a radio. Hey, make sure you stick with one of the you know, because you're doing like a ship building. You're like, hey, if you got a radio, make sure you stick with somebody that does.

But now pretty much we don't need to even know anything.

By the time we get to the teams in the two thousand, we've all got radios.

We all got radios. So.

So now I can control more life, tell me what's going hey, give me a status update so I can tell you what to do next and then you go to the 2010s.

All of a sudden, I got a Blue Force tracker.

I got a video of what we're doing and you can see where now we're becoming. We're going away from decentralized command and moving closer and closer to more micromanagement because the technology allows me as the leader to.

Move those chess pieces as I see fit. And it feels comfortable it feels more comfortable to do that. Of course, we know it's wrong because for me to be like life, give me a status update date so I can give you, you know, your next move. Oh, well, my status update only at JoCo. We're getting flanked right now. What do you want me to do? Oh, I want you to. Oh, they've just got shot.

Why? Because he didn't react quickly enough. Because he's sitting there waiting to be told what to do.

So what we're seeing now is a tendency to move more towards centralized command because we have the technology to facilitate centralized command.

I'm not saying it's right. I'm saying it's bad. It's wrong. But that's the reason that it's happening. We're starting to see more and more micromanagement because we have the technology to facilitate it.

As you're saying that I'm thinking about, you know, I'm thinking about the training that you ran was, you know, which was the best freekeh training in the world when you were the officer in charge of training detachment, you know, for the West Coast SEAL teams.

And, you know, your instructors were were out there to teach to teach people how hard it was going to be particular in the urban environment. You know, in a combat situation, how easily you can get blue on blue situation, how easily things could go chaotic, how easily you can't actually make bombs on the radio. You know, the land warfare environment. Exactly. Same thing. And distances at ridgelines in the way or whatever it may be.

And because it seems that way in theory, you know, it seems that all in theory, when you just talk to everybody on the radio is basically just radio will deal with the conflict.

OK, and then when you realize, like, hey, that's not going to work if we can't make you talk about shipboard. And that's a great example, like, hey, I'm down in the engine room and there's a whole bunch of steel between me and you up on the bridge. I got no comms with you whatsoever. And if we're thinking that, like, hey, I just made a call on the radio and everyone heard me and I tried to do them, you taught me that in one of one of the biggest lessons for me, you know, whereas as we've talked about here and, you know, podcasts, you know, years back is is is trying to put out, you know, a message over the radio, hey, everyone, do this, do that.

And you were like use verbal commands. And that was one of those things. Like not everyone is hearing me on the radio there in the middle of doing stuff. There's people that are on the third story and they're talking to a bunch of walls and they're not they may not even be hearing your transmission. So this illusion that I'm communicating, you know, is is it's a total illusion because it's not a reality. And if people don't have commanders that they can't execute and there's no substitute for that at all and we see that now right in the business world as leaders send out an email or, you know, hey, I told everybody what to do, that they should just read their email like your guys in the field on their email 24/7.

They're there in the middle of doing stuff. By the way, they got 14 emails.

At six o'clock in the morning, and you think that they're going to take that one from you and be like, oh, especially especially if you're the kind of leader that turns out, hey, just checking in with everyone, let no one.

What's going on? Like, no, no, don't send me checking emails.

You're going to email. I'm e-mailing you. There's a reason for it. You need to open it up and read it. That means I'm not going to email you 12 times a day. I'm not going to email you three times a day when you get an email from me. It's important if you set the precedent is that I'm going to send you a bunch of stuff that doesn't matter.

Guess what? Same thing with with coming up on the radio. Hey, I actually need to. Hey, anyone got another Humvee we can push back in this rally? I can get two more guys are talking on the radio, talking on the radio, talking on the radio, and eventually no one's listening to you anymore. We worked with a company recently where they run the plant and the plant is being managed from a couple hundred miles away like a command center, and they lost power.

So they lose power and all of a sudden, like, they got no comms at all. Everything has to be done on site, you know, and if you don't understand commands, the 10, if you don't understand those procedures are I mean, you've got to have those contingency plans in place.

And I think that was what was so awesome about about seeing that at, you know, a trade that when you were running things is you're instilling those lessons of like, OK, this is why I've got to make sure that my junior leaders, my squad leaders, you know, can step up and make calls, because if regardless of the technology that we have, we're going to fail.

If they can't, yeah, there would always be the the troops coming through. And they'd say, well, I said, well, how are you coordinating what's going to get on the radio and when it's go time? And I'd be like, what if you don't get comms? And they would kind of look at me puzzled. And if you if you make your plan, this is this should be the fifth law of combat.

The fifth floor of combat is if you make your plan. And it's based on making Comune radio communications with some other element. And your plan relies on that. It will not work.

There will not work. It is going to fail. You got to have, you know, secondary, tertiary forms of communication that overcome the radio, as you're saying.

And I'm thinking about the image of you standing on top of a Humvee at entry control point three on the far side of the canal when we had all this danger of snipers around there and we knew that this was there was sniper activity there, like no one actually peeked their head above the big Hesco barriers, was standing on top of the Humvees with this tape antenna, you know, extended to like six or eight feet above his head to make comms with me.

You know, as I was we were forward in in an overwatch position.

And even then it was it was it was a recognition of like, hey, we we're it's going to be really hard to talk on the radio, you know? And you did you put yourself at risk to do that. But if I didn't have commanders again, I mean, there's no way I could I could rely on that to have you make the calls for me, you know, from a distant position.

I wanted to say one thing about this. And you talk about, you know, the power of the flag. And we talked about in that previous, you know, the Germans had run up the flag and the French were demoralized, nothing more demoralizing than a giant burning tank hole. You know, the hulk of that tank just just burning there that all the all the others could see.

And that that was obviously incredibly demoralizing in this particular situation. And I think when you. Oh, I see what you're saying.

You're talking about this particular where he hit this tank with a with the. Yeah, he had the tank with a rocket. All of a sudden, you know, the tank explosions, a big fireball. And clearly that was a massively demoralising thing for the German forces there, which which turned it around for the Brits.

But I think, yeah, running up flags is great, blowing up tanks and having a burning the vehicle for all to see.

Like, oh, I don't want that happened to me. Yeah.

The reason it took me a second there is because the times that American tanks got blown up in Ramadi and it would take, you know, twenty four hours to get an eighty eight down there to drag them out. And that was freaking demoralizing too, you know, and that we talked about the vehicle graveyard, but just knowing that they're going to get some the enemy's going to get there and it's freaking horrible.

It was incredibly demoralizing to try to drive down, you know, Route Michigan and see some burned out hulk of a vehicle on the side of the road. But the good news was on our side, it was also very demoralizing, you know, when the bad guys could observe their their buddies laying out in the street after some SEAL snipers put them in the dirt, you know, and that was pretty demoralizing as well for them, which we took some pride in, Jack.

Next, Sergeant Stephen Gregg, U.S. Army, Italy, nineteen forty four in August of nineteen forty four, the allied offensive in Italy was stalemated and amphibious landing at Anzio was executed in an attempt to outflank the German defenses and capture Rome. The landing units became stalled on the beachhead allow allowing the Germans to reinforce their defenses.

The day after the landing, company of the hundred and forty Third Infantry was moving north towards Rome. The Germans were waiting in ambush and the company was quickly pinned down by enemy fire, realizing that the fire was too heavy for the medics to tend to the wounded. Sergeant Gregg, a mortar man, picked up a 30 caliber light machine gun and advanced on the enemy position.

His his measured accurate bursts suppress the enemy long enough for the casualties to be evacuated. Unfortunately, Sergeant Greg ran out of ammunition, was captured. While Sergeant Gregg's captors took cover from incoming American artillery, Sergeant Gregg grabbed the machine pistol and fought his way back to friendly lines.

Sometimes I pause because I'm thinking about these things in a little bit deeper level, like picking up a 30 caliber light machine gun, which it sounds like machine gun, a 30 caliber machine that is not light and just advancing on the enemy position.

That's just awesome, and then you picture this guy, we start getting hit with artillery and all the captors hide and he's like, Oh, Jack.

You little babies watch this grabs a machine, pistol, fights the way back front lines, the next day the Germans counterattacked el company or sorry, the next day the Germans counterattacked.

El Company was ordered to hold the line on a hill captured the day before acting as a forward observer observer. Sergeant Greg directed over six hundred rounds on to the enemy until he lost communications with the mortar section. Knowing how important the mortar fire was to the defense, Sergeant Gregg took the initiative to find out what had happened to the phone line upon nearing the mortar section. Another soldier yelled that the Germans had seized the mortar position and were dropping rounds on the Americans.

Sergeant Greg assaulted the Germans, taking two prisoners. He quickly put the mortars back into the fight by gathering up a handful of American troops and teaching them how to fire mortars. OJT El Company held the line Sergeant Greg's bravery initiative and situational awareness contributed to his unit's successful defense. The defeat of the German counterattack led to the allied break out from the beachhead and the eventual capture of Rome.

That's just a solo op right there.

That's crazy.

This solo operation having to go check out and go find out what's going on with this phone wire. Oh, wait a second. There's some Germans with our borders. Cool. What do I do? Oh, I attack them.

They give me a 30, 30 caliber machine gun.

Let's get to Sergeant Greg displayed keen lizard lessons. Sergeant Greg displayed keen situational awareness during combat at Anzio while acting as a forward observer. Sergeant Greg realized the importance of his unit's role in the company defense and did everything in his power to keep the Morris firing. So this says he realized the important role like he realized was going on. There was no one told him, we better get those mortars up. He realized it and made something happen when ambush.

Sergeant Greg displayed the bravery and decisiveness to take action. His individual attack on the Germans lifted the pressure on his unit and allowed the wounded to be evacuated. Sergeant Gregg's leadership abilities and strength of character allowed him to take a handful of Americans not under his command and train them while under enemy fire. Sergeant Gregs improvised section maintain the supporting fires, which were so critical to the company's defense.

Action is the common theme action. Look, they talk about initiative that's good, they talk about understanding the commander's intent.

But actually taking action is is what we need to do in the book called Extreme Ownership.

When we talked about prioritize and execute, one of the things that I had told Stoner was, you know, wrote it on this thing, relax, look around and make a call. And what's interesting about that is when I wrote that there's a part missing, there's a part missing to that. So when you get into a situation where there's a lot of mayhem going on, what you need to do is relax. You take a breath, look around, actually observe what's happening, and then make a call.

Right. Make a call.

Now, there's a part that's when you line that up with the loop, it almost lines up perfectly because observe, Orient, decide and act.

We got relax, which is like, all right, look around, which is definitely observe and then make a call is decide the thing that I didn't say to Seth. Was was act, and I would have said execute, I would have used the word execute, I didn't put that on the windshield for him. The reason that I didn't put that on the windshield for him. Is because. When you tell a SEAL platoon to do something nine times out of 10, it's going to get executed.

When someone says online, the word gets passed, they get online. When someone says peel, right, they get online, they peel right. When someone says strong right, strong left. When somebody makes a call, it gets executed. And his platoon was executing stuff. It was him that needed to make a call.

So that's that's the piece that I didn't tell Seth because I didn't need to because it wasn't him.

That was he was going to make the call. His platoon was going to execute. And and believe me, they did. You know, when he would make a call or when someone would make a call, they'd execute. That's pretty normal. It's very normal for a SEAL platoon. It's very seldom that it's the opportune. When they get the win, they get told to execute something that they don't do it. If you make a call, JP Tinnell is executed.

Yeah. You picture you got 16, JP Donnell's or even if you got five JP to Nel's and some other guy's shit's going to happen. It's going to happen.

So when I wrote that for Seth, it was about him and the execute part. I didn't have to say anything because I knew if he made a call, it was going to happen.

That's a that's a big assumption for a lot of it's a big assumption for us as individuals and it's a big assumption in a normal team, right.

Look, I knew Delta Platoon at that time and like I said, most SEAL platoons, quite frankly, they will execute, as we just said.

But that's not always common.

And it's something that you should we should actually add. If you're going to say, hey, if when there's things happening, relax, look around and make a call, the next thing should be execute. Because there's people that make calls, there's people that make calls and businesses, there's people that make calls and dynamic situations, they make a call. But if you haven't trained and been been, for lack of a better word, programmed that when you hear a call, you're going to execute.

There's often times when the execution doesn't happen. The reason I bring this up is because I was thinking about this, because every one of these things, the common thing is that somebody is taking action. It's not someone's making a decision. They're making a decision to, but they have to act.

And even when Dave talks about the loop, you know, he he says that the most important part of the loop is action. It's action. You've got it. You've got to take action. If you don't take action.

Look, you can observe or you decide all day long if you don't act, doesn't matter. And same thing with relax, look around and make a call. Hey, you can relax and orient yourself and observe what's happening and make a call. But if nobody executes that call, you're dead in the water. So these things are all about actually taking action.

It's a great observation because that's that's the breakdown for a lot of leaders and we see that all the time, you know, with a decision gets made and we work with a company and, you know, they've got a problem performer and they've done everything they can to train and mentor them and say, OK, we're going to have to actually make the decision to to let them go.

And then you come back and talk to them six weeks later and the decision got made, but they never executed and the performer still there. And then it takes six months or nine months to get that done. And and it's so much harder to do then. And all the damage has been done. And I think that's a great observation to make, because it's a you know, you can make a decision, but if you're not actually executing it and it doesn't, it gives you you're setting yourself back.

You're losing the initiative. You're wasting, you know, momentum. You're giving your competition a leg up. And, you know, to your point earlier, like nine times out of ten, action is the best thing. Yeah. Take action. Taking it a step, the direction you need to know you need to go. And it just gives you all the advantage of the world.

Then occasionally you could get a platoon where they're not you know, they don't have that.

They don't have that attitude where they're like, OK, the calls got made and we're going to go make this happen. Occasionally you would get a platoon like that. And then then it would be, hey, would you hear that call? You got it. You got to go get on it. You're going to make that happen. You got it. You got to execute.

Like I said, don't platoon didn't need that. They just needed set to relax, look around and make a call once the calls get made. They had experienced guys in there, like you said, you got some you got some JP Downs and some other freakin guys.

They're going to make things happen in there. It's no factor. Action. Next one, Corporal David W. Lam, U.S. Army Korea, nineteen fifty one in October, nineteen fifty one G company, twenty Third Infantry Regiment was battling for Heil 520 of Heartbreak Ridge. The company had been weathered by repeated fights with the North Korean forces. Corporal Lam was acting platoon commander of the 3rd Platoon of a unit of about twenty soldiers. So we got the the freakin E four out there.

Acting as a platoon commander. Following heavy bombardment and supporting fires, Corporal Lamb's platoon made a direct assault on Hill five twenty. Upon nearing the enemy, LAMS Platoon was halted by enemy fire and began taking casualties. Lambe called back for reinforcements. Lieutenant Dino. Gathered his first platoon and moved towards LAMS position, Danos platoon began to take casualties and halted when the young lieutenant was killed. Private High stepped into the role of platoon commander and rallied his platoon while under fire, Corporal Lamb directed the use of supporting fires and planned a new route for the enemy attack for the company attack.

After a bitter fight, the two platoons breached the enemy defenses during the assault on the position. Corporal Lamb was wounded. Private High was now the main effort of the attack. He directed the remaining soldiers in taking out the bunkers in the enemy defenses, using grenades and flamethrowers. Three hours after the attack, it set off the enemy position was secured, Corporal Lamb's leadership had pulled his platoon and the remainder of company forward through the withering fire in the enemy's position.

The attack pushed the enemy off hill five 20, an important and important step in removing resistance from Heartbreak Ridge.

You know, it's interesting, a lot of times tell leaders, you know, you should have if you got seven or eight direct reports, you should have two or three of those direct reports that are ready to step up and and take your job. And and here you got a private you know, this guy is this guy's a freak in private and he takes charge and makes things happen.

That's next level, right? Hey, it should be. Imagine me saying, hey, look, you got your direct reports and all your direct reports, your direct reports. You should have two people that are ready to take your job. And by the way, in their direct reports, there should be five people that are ready to take your job.

That's impressive. And if you if you made that your goal that the people, not just your supporters, their subordinates, there was people that were there, there were two levels below you in the chain of that were to step up and take your job, if need be. Imagine how effective and efficient those individuals would be.

Freaking awesome like you talk about all the time. Every leader should be trying to work themselves out of a job. And I think it's so hard to do that because our egos get involved here, like, wow, I want to be the one that makes the calls, you know.

But you insisted on that. I know you learn that from from Delta Charlie in your time in the SEAL teams and putting like Ryan Ryan jobs are our most junior ranking guy as an E3, and we put him in charge of running an entire assault like planning and executed that assault. And, you know, he did get it. Was it was it made him so much of a greater contributor because he understood. Well, you know, the he understood the challenge of leadership.

He understood how he could best support, you know, the overall team and then what kind of information we needed to make decisions. And I would have never done that without your encouragement. And in fact, I think I pushed back on a little bit. You're like, hey, why don't you let who's your most you it. Why don't you let why don't you let Biggles run this? And I was like, are you sure about that? Are you like he's he's brand new and and you're like, yeah, just let him see what he does at the fun.

And that's, that's, that's a crazy thing right there. Right.

Is like he'll do fine and he'll be fine. Yeah. It's only right. He'll do fine. He'll do fine. It's like even when we run FDX is like the FDX training program for civilians.

Would I, I don't know how we had this talk or when it was.

But the overall, the overall, the overall meaning of the talk was, was like they'll be fine. Like these civilians that got forty five minutes of training of how to assault the building. They're actually going to do fine. It won't be that big of a deal. Look, is a SEAL platoon better trained?

Yes, but I'm saying the general idea of what they're doing is going to be it's going to be fine, it's going enough to work with. And so someone like bagel's who is like in the platoon and going through the work up and understands things is like, hey, watch this, he'll do it. I'll do it fine. And, you know, he'll make the same. He'll make you just did it. Leif Babin, the platoon commander from the Naval Academy.

You know, you just did it and you made four mistakes and bagel's is about to do it. And he's going to make five. It's not like life just did it. And he made one mistake and Biggles is going to do it. He's going to make eighty. No, it's like it's like seven mistakes. And he made three. That's yeah. It's like that crazy.

And and the the thing that you mentioned about how much more it opens up somebody's brain when they get to see or like all that when you're in charge of all and this is exactly you you called it this is what Delta Charlie did.

Hey, you're in charge this. You're running this.

And all of a sudden, instead of me looking at this little tiny sliver of the plan and the sliver of the execution, I'm looking at this whole big thing. And so I see so much more. See how things are interconnected. That was such a powerful left.

Am I going to use this word? Yes.

Life changing. Life changing. For me to have the vision and to have my boss say, you're going to run this and get to run it and see all these things that I had never seen before and be like.

And then the next mission, by the way, I'm back to just being a radio man, but I can see all the connections. I know the importance of the job. I know that I my I know that this would help my boss. I know that this would help the other the other squad leader. I know that I should talk to this guy about it makes you infinitely better. That was a really powerful lesson that that that I learned from you and saw the impact.

And I think that if leaders can just simply put their ego in check and realize just to your point that you had with those SEAL platoon commanders and to ask you to think if you had think if you had 60 or 40 of those guys out there who can see that vision, you're thinking about not just their task, but everything. How can they can help the overall mission and the intent, the purpose that you're out here, you know, trying to accomplish?

It's just absolutely life changing and game changing. And that that team is just they just dominate. There's no there's no stopping that. They just crush everything.

Some lessons. Corporal Lamb displayed tremendous leadership abilities. His fellow soldiers benefited from his competence when he assumed command of the platoon and led a company sized attack. When the time came for him to command at a higher level, he was able to shoulder the responsibility. Tactically proficient.

Corporal Lamb had learned the necessary skills for commanding a platoon in combat prep check.

He was able to coordinate supporting fires with his company commander, direct actions, direct the actions of other platoons and inspire the men under his command by his personal leadership. His knowledge and ability met with the success on the battlefield.

By the way, I got a I got a text from Tilt the other day, and it was after he listened to a podcast with with Dave Burke. Good duty. Yes, good deal, Dave. A good deal.

Dave was telling you. No talking about calling for bombs, calling fire, calling for fire in Ramadi. And I don't know the number of times that that Dave was on the ground to drop bombs. But, you know, it was a lot.

Yeah, it was a lot. And then listen to it, I was like, hey, I really like listening to your your podcast with Burke, let him know that I got the call some fire, too, only I was in for when I did it.

And and and and it is. You could not.

You could not compare the amount of times that Dave Burke dropped bombs in his entire career, including training, you could not compare that amount with the amount that tilt dropped on one operation, one operation where he's sitting at night for 12 hours with continual close air support.

Still will make you feel like a baby.

Yeah, I don't think you're I don't think you're measuring up to. I don't think you're measuring up to that in any way, shape or form.

But look, that's you know, we talk about humility. And I think that's any time I think I've done something or we saw some combat, you know, and you start reading books. I mean, every single one of these of these illustrations here, I mean, it just just blows away, you know, anything that I saw it.

It's it's incredible. I will say this, though, I talked to I did I talked to, you know, a couple of Vietnam seals that are outstanding, you know, folks and had some awesome experience and had served as a SEAL machine gunners in Vietnam. And they talked about being in some gunfights.

And I mean, these guys I mean, amazing, you know, incredible people who had awesome experiences, our forefathers that created this legacy, you know, for us, the SEAL teams and we were talking about machines, SEAL machine gunners, you know, and how it was really cool to see our belt fed machine kept us alive and how awesome they were.

And and we were talking about, like, how often, you know. So I asked I asked when I'm good for it, I'm out of here how many times you have to reload your machine gun?

He's like, oh, man.

Maybe a couple of times I was like, well, how many mean you must have shot your whole load out of, you know, much at times. It's like, nah, I don't think I ever whole load up. And I was thinking like, dude, our seal machine gunner shot the entire six hundred round load and then maybe four or five hundred more rounds. Everybody else was carrying like all the time on so many of these operations.

Yeah. The I had the same conversation with, with, well I had this exact same conversation with one, you know, bad ass for Father Vietnam SEAL who was a machine gunner in Nam, and he said the same thing. You know, he was like I think he said he's like, yeah, we got in six firefights. But that's what I also learned is that much like current SEAL deployments, you could have one SEAL deployment in Vietnam where you go to a certain AoE and the enemies act in a certain way and it's freakin like daily craziness.

And they were doing what they. Oh yeah, they do since they would do squad operations. So they go every other night. Your squad, my squad, your squad, my squad. And they would do operations all the time. So it is also based on the particular AoE that, you know, that you were in.

I mean, even when we were when we were in Ramadi, the guys that were over in another city, you know, whatever, not not that far away. Some of those guys didn't didn't I don't know if they got in firefights. So or maybe they got, you know, two or three.

So it's one of those things where I hate to use this word, but I got to get lucky with your AoE, you know, and then, of course, you get to make your own luck.

Next up, Sergeant Steven Bouchard, U.S. Marine Corps, Vietnam.

Nineteen sixty seven in July of nineteen sixty seven 1st Battalion, 9th Marines took part in Operation Buffalo designed to defend the border between North and South Vietnam, known as the Demilitarized Zone. During this operation, the battalion was ambushed by an entire North Vietnamese army regiment and took very heavy casualties. The 1st and 2nd Battalion 3rd Marines were sent to rescue one nine and stabilize the area. Sergeant Bouchard served as the right guide for 2nd Platoon, a company one three.

The platoon's mission was to clear the area where one nine had left their dead.

As a company moved out of its positions, second platoon came under heavy shell fire, the platoon commander was wounded and had to be medevacked. The platoon sergeant took command. The VA began firing from bunkers in the far tree line. The platoon sergeant froze with fear, leaving the platoon without leadership.

Sergeant Bouchard unhesitatingly took command of the platoon and played an important role in the company's subsequent actions. Sgt. Bouchard's strong leadership pulled the platoon through the horrible task of retrieving the corpses of one nine while under enemy fire while manning a defensive position. A breach in the battalion line was created between Bouchard's platoon and the adjacent B company. Bouchard's platoon counterattacked into the breach and sealed off the VA, who had infiltrated the perimeter. His unit then made contact with approaching forces wearing marine gear.

Sergeant Bouchard ordered his Marines to hold their fire until the figures had come into within hand grenade range. At that time, Bouchard decided to open fire on the approaching soldiers who were inva, wearing stolen gear from the dead of the one nine. Bouchard's tactical actions broke the enemy attack and the Marines went on the offensive. Sergeant Bouchard remained in command of 2nd Platoon until the unit was ordered to pull out a one three was the last unit to leave the battlefield before B 52 strikes leveled the area.

Sergeant Bouchard was both willing and able to take responsibility of leading the platoon, his tactical skills allowed the platoon to play a major role in the company's combat operations. Sergeant Bouchard was able to take charge by being decisive. We recorded the whole thing yesterday on four F online on being decisive, the squad leaders did not respond to the platoon sergeant who was too fearful to lead. Sandra Bouchard took decisive action and was not afraid to make tough decisions and carry out difficult tasks.

And once again, what do you do? He took action. Taking action, his decision to open fire on the individuals marine uniforms require decisiveness and acceptance of responsibility. Sergeant Bouchard led his platoon by example. Many Marines were devastated by the sight of the Marine dead left behind by one nine. Sergeant Bouchard's capable and firm leadership held second platoon together and that right there, I mean, it's just devastating. You know, we talked about the how how much it hurt to see an American tank burning in the streets in Ramadi.

I mean, can you imagine your platoon is now out there just recovering body after body after body of your fellow Marines? I mean, it's a it's a nightmare. And and obviously, they didn't go into it too much.

And I'll have to do some research and if I can find any more information about this. But, you know, they clearly mention it here. Many Marines were devastated by the sight of the Marine dead left behind by one nine. Realizing that his unit had to be at the right place at the right time in order to make a difference. Sergeant Bouchard led a counterattack to plug the gap in the lines between A and B companies. This platoon level tactical action secured the company flank and prevented the battalion from being split and overrun.

Then there's a quote here from the German army that says it's better to have a good sergeant in command than a bad officer. We'll take that one.

That's that's a great quote right there.

Corporal Lester A. Tully, U.S. Marine Corps, Vietnam, nineteen sixty eight, the nineteen sixty eight Tet Offensive took American forces in Vietnam by surprise way. City, the ancient imperial capital of Vietnam, was quickly overrun by the North Vietnamese army, the VA, given the mission of relieving the first Arvin Division Command Post Co. 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines advanced on foot through the city.

The first Arvin division, S.P., was located at the northern corner of the Citadel, a historic fortress, companies route of advance would take them right through the Citadel.

The company advanced along Highway one with second platoon in the lead until it became necessary to cross a bridge over the Perfume River, just as the lead squad crested the center of the span, an envy machine gun and placed in a fortified bunker opened fire. The company was pinned on the bridge and the lead squad took multiple casualties.

And 60 was set up to counter the NBA position, but the team leader was killed moments later as sparks flew from enemy rounds hitting the bridge structure, Corporal Tolley decided to take matters into his own hands. Corporal Tully was second squad leader of 2nd Platoon.

On the bridge, his squad was located directly behind the lead squad assessing the situation. Corporal Tully decided upon a course of action that would allow his company to advance, realizing that his squad was protected from fire and was the nearest to the enemy. Corporal Tully charged up a walkway and threw a grenade into the enemy position, killing five Enova and silencing the position the company followed. Corporal Tully's squad crossed the bridge and advanced upon the Citadel. As the company neared the Citadel, it met heavy resistance from northern Vietnamese army regulars while forced to withdraw golf to fight golf.

To clarify the situation around the Citadel, American commanders had gained a much needed clearer picture of how strong the enemy was in a way city. Now the American commanders could concentrate on what to do rather than wondering what was going on. That's a you know, we used to set up the the old barricaded shooter down a hallway. This is just an awful one, a barricaded shooter down a bridge. And what are you going to do, you've got downed men on that bridge because you think, oh, I'll just jump off the bridge will be OK.

What about your wounded friends up there so you can't just abandon it? It's a nightmare. What's up with what's up with a grenade killing five inva? That's all that must have been.

That's a tight shot. They must have been closely grouped. I mean, like way tightly grouped. That's a well well thrown from grenade.

I always love that. You know, the.

I guess. Yeah, the American grenades being like baseballs. Baseball sized and the Germans, they couldn't they couldn't hang because they play soccer and so they you know what, a potato masher Grenada's Ecuadorans here. You ever seen a grenade with, like, a long stick on one end of it, like on Red Dawn? Yeah. So that's called a potato masher because it looks like some, you know, but the reason that it was created was you can use it like with leverage to throw further.

Yeah.

Because you can't kick a grenade like it's a soccer ball. So they couldn't throw it like a marriage.

You could take an American kid, man. Come on. He's going to take that little baseball sized gradated hook that thing strike. He's going to put it into a machine gun. Go five people. Accuracy's freaking awesome. Yeah.

If you move from easy company that would with the two, five or six, the band, a band of brothers. If you seen that the television show read the book. But remember, Buck Compton was the all-American catcher for UCLA baseball team. And he was like he was apparently direct line drive hitting German soldiers with with him so freakin after. That's so epic.

I was when I was going through Steet, like the what became s cute.

So, you know, get done with basic training and you show up at a team and then they put you through training. And we we, we went to a grenade course which was just run by team guys, but we were throwing pineapple grenades, straight up pineapple grenades.

The crates were marked nineteen forty seven.

What's the pineapple grenade that your dish look in grenade. It sort of looks like a pineapple. It's got those like spikes, spikes on it like like a like a quad pattern.

Oh yeah.

It just like a stereotypical grenade. Oh yeah. Like OK. What you look like if someone's going to get a tattoo of a grenade.

Right. Right. That's what they get. OK, so then what then. Kind of modern grenades.

That's just the round and just the edges looks round that but that, that those pineapple grenades. So we go up there and this is just dumb team guy stuff. So we start throwing these grenades in like a bunch of them are not working because they're whatever at that time, like fifty years old or something crazy like that.

It's so we're can these grenades and the chief that was running the training who it was a freaking badass team guy.

Matter of fact, Tony mentioned him because he died, but his name is Tim Farrell. And so we're throwing these grenades. And when they would so if you threw a grenade that didn't go off, the protocol was shut down the range call EOD, EOD can come out there, whatever, in five hours and you're going to sit there for five hours waiting for them to show up. So Tim Farrell didn't want us to miss training. So he's going out on the range.

He'd like be like he'd give it like whatever, a few minutes and then he'd take another grenade, another freaking. Old rusty pineapple grenade, you go pull the pin, set it down next to the one that was the dud after he went out there, look for those balls, he set it down and then run back and jump into the pit and drop a new guy.

I'm like, Dandi, this due to bad ass. Like, this guy's crazy. But that's you know, that's how if you're out there running a hand grenade and just do not do not do that. Do not do that. Do not do that. Not advisable.

Like I said, dumb teen guy stuff. Freaking real dumb. Those those pineapple grenades, you know, the sixty seven which is the mortar round grenades. We use it that is the frag pattern is is so much frag is tiny, it breaks up into this little small piece where the pineapple growers got those big old chunks and that's what the, that's what the, the insurgents had in Ramadi. The cover was blown up.

Oh yeah. They have those they have those Russian ones that are more cylindrical, they're cylindrical and they still have the grid pattern on them.

We covered a bunch of those out of that one mosque that we cleared with Iraqi soldiers.

Imagine that you can stash their weapons there. So you don't use the pineapple grenades at all no long. No, no. Dang, that's kind of the iconic look.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying around here. To get a tattoo of a grenade, you're going to get that one most like. I've never seen any one of them. I'm sixty seven grenade tattoo have you. I haven't yeah. Because it's kind of round right. It doesn't quite have the kind of boring. Yeah. Looking unless you're hocking it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm OK. I remember some of those on pineapple, the Russian pineapple grenades.

Those things were heavy.

They're a lot more weight, little more umph to them for sure.

It seemed like well like you said the frag was heavier, you know, like just the just the metal was heavy. I don't know what the explosive weight was off top of my head. They're definitely bigger, they're they make a big move, I can tell you that. So there's different sizes of grenades or no.

Yes, there are. Like so you mentioned that the grenade killed however many guys in one shot.

That was more a statement of like that must have been a hell of a shot. And the guys must be close together because a grenade is a very small explosive.

I mean, it's it's a small five five metre kill radius of either. Yes or it's.

Yeah. If they're all cruising together. Boom. Here's a note for Echo Charles, though, that the movie master, the so the five minute kill radius for sixty seven are hand grenade. Fragonard is the same. It's the same kill radius for a golden egg, which is a 40 millimeter grenade that you shoot out of your your erm two or three grenade launcher or the old school in 79 that we carried. And unlike what you might see in the movie Commando, when, when you, when you shoot a 40 millimeter grenade into the building doesn't blow up.

And we had several times where it just it frag people and they run off. And so yes, that's a common mistake this morning. No, that's a common misconception. That actually is true. And commando is actually factually the proof that it does so well.

All I going to say is I tried that many times. And as an officer, you know, my my job is to stand back and and the high point, my weapon would be detach. But that also means that if I'm in the back, I can shoot some 40 million grenades. And we've got quite a few of those things, which was awesome.

I remember you often coming back with an empty bandoliers.

So wait on Predator.

No, no, no. They started told they didn't start it up. Remember the CNN predator, Jesse Ventura? Blain Blain says, I don't I don't have time to bleed. Right. Remember that part?

Yeah, you bleed. And then the guy Poncho said, OK, do you have time to duck? Exactly. He came out shot. Is that the 40 millimeter? That's a forty eight hundred.

Yeah, he had two or three. So he's launching that into the unlet. Like, look, it would definitely keep guys heads down. And if we did have we had a couple of guys that just scored some direct hits with a 40 millimeter grenade, which is if you take one of those in the chest, it's game over for you. That was pretty epic. But but there is what doesn't happen is like you saw a predator where you launch a 40 million, a 40, 40 Mike Mike into a bunker and like a giant explosion happens and six guys go flying ten feet in the air in all directions.

That doesn't happen. That was pretty disappointed.

Did you see my Instagram post was that, hey, people are parking in front of my driveway and then I shoot the cars? Yes. Is that a 40? Mm. I mean, I guess I thought you had a rocket.

Well, not a rocket. I use like, you know, the big I think like six of them fit in there.

Oh you know what you did have you had the street sweeper. Oh there's a street sweeper, 40 millimeter grenade which the Marines had three Marines had some and they're heavy, but it's pretty awesome. It's just it's a cylinder. And so, yeah, you can just launch a whole bunch of it's basically like a gigantic revolver with 40 millimeter. That that wasn't real. It was real.

But I don't look at the tag that what he called instructions or whatever the name I did shoot some vehicles with forty my mike.

It does create quite an explosion. If you can ignite the gas, you know, then it will catch on fire. There wasn't a gigantic explosion that happened. Oh, that was a little disappointing that you got to go and good deal, Dave, with the bombs there.

Yeah. There's just not that much explosive inside. I mean, you like how big a M80 is. Yeah. I mean, think of how big an M 80 is. Well then think of how big a greatest. I mean, I can just kind of multiply that and you know, you're going to get something similar.

So do you remember that they gave us the thermobaric forty. Mike. Mike, I do remember that. Which would create a much larger explosion. It's supposed to kill people with the overpressure. And they they gave us a bunch of like several cases of them. And that was supposed to last the entire deployment. And we shot every single one of them on one operation within about a one hour period, which was awesome.

That was awesome. But what was also additionally awesome was I got an email follow up and they said they said something like, hey, we're wondering if you've had a chance to utilize because they were they were tested. They were testing them. We're wondering if they've had a chance to if you ever had a chance to use any of these thermobaric grenade. Forty millimeter grenades. And have you had a chance to fire any of them yet? And I was like I was like, Alif, have you ever like have you shot some of those?

How are you? Because I shot all of them were that they were awesome and I just wrote back weren't good.

Send them more I think, I think I asked for more of them. The only thing that was different is that they they were much heavier because they're a lot larger and the explosion is much, much more powerful. So a little closer to what you might expect. But you got to account for that in the trajectory because you don't get where you're aiming, it is either falling like, you know, 50 meters short. Yeah, that's kind of hard to drop in on the army.

Can't Markley roll out dope in your form? Like, that's crazy.

All right. The lessons from that one corporal towhee knew the mission of the company was to relieve the 1st Armored Division headquarters when the company was halted by fire. He took decisive action in support of the commander's intent to free up the movement of the company so the mission could be continued.

Corporal Crowley acted, Corporal Tully acted on his own initiative. Being the second in the company formation, he was in the best position to evaluate the situation and take advantage of the opportunity developed by the joint squad.

So what we have here, again, we've got somebody that's in a position. They're not the leader. This isn't the gunnery sergeant, this isn't the platoon commander. This isn't the company commander. This is the squad leader.

Who takes action and makes a difference and look, we we saw this kind of thing all the time and we were lucky enough to work alongside the Army, work alongside the Marine Corps and see.

You know, not just from our own tunes, not just from Charlie and Delta, to see our young fives and step up and make things happen. We got to see things like this. We could see things like this all the time. All the time.

You got to you got to think about how young these guys inexperienced these squad leaders are as well, too.

And I was you know as well as reading here in those stories, I'm thinking about a a young squad leader that we worked with from three eight Marines, Lima Company named Joe Tomsky, Corporal Joe Thompson. And we did probably a dozen operations with Corporal Topsy in his squad. And we learned a lot from those guys. I mean, they had been in Ramadi for several months prior to us and had fought through some of the most difficult, dangerous neighborhoods.

And he was he was twenty one years old. So here's here he is in charge of a squad of Marines leading those Marines, a beloved squad leader stepping up and making calls, supporting the chain of command, you know, and just just executing and getting things done. And I had so much respect, you know, to be able to work with with a Marine like that and and tragically overtops. He was killed on August 2nd, 2006, the same day that we lost Markley, same day Ryan Joe was shot and blinded.

And we we lined up next to those Marines from 38 Lima Company and we put both Joe Thompson and Mark Lee on that Angel flight at the same time.

And I remember the silence of of all the Marines next to us as as our SEALs were chartable to carrying those that our brothers in body bags and put them on that angel flight as they took off.

And just the the glow of that of that helicopter going, going, going around as they took off to fly those guys home.

And what a loss.

I mean, just seeing how crushed those Marines were losing their brother in this beloved squad leader. And I was just thinking about as we're hearing those stories, it's hard to to imagine that these guys, how young they were, you know, a guy like Corporal Tomsky, 21 years old, and with all that, you know, just limited life experience.

And yet in this massive position of responsibility that are playing such key roles in whether or not their team succeeds or fails. And just my hat's off to all the squad leaders out there and what an honor to work with a guy like that and to reflect on on the impact that he had on all the Marines that he led.

Yeah, that was. I think that's probably a pretty good place to stop for today. We got some more that's more things to cover and. It's important to remember that these guys. You know, the guys that we're talking about in this book, when you're talking about Corporal Tomsky, when you're talking about Mark, you know, we talk about how they make a difference on the battlefield and make a strategic impact, but.

Their actions in the way they lived in the example that they sent definitely have made a difference in the way that I think in the way that you think. And the impact that they had not just on the battlefield, but to see an example, to be examples of what a leader is.

And more important, what a person can be. And like I said, well, we'll pick this up on the on the next one. But from from these stories that we heard already. You know, I kept referring back to taking action and and. These these squad leaders, they take action and they and they make a difference. And and that applies to us as individuals, our actions make a difference are actions that we take as people make a difference, not just on the battlefield, not just in business.

But in life. So step up, take action and make a difference. All right, Echo Charles, it's been a while, but I need some help over here. Yes, sir. Why don't you talk for a little bit? All well, you talk about taking action, which I agree with.

Obviously, what we're going to start small.

How about that?

As far as taking action, GHOSHAL, the best action that we can take to improve is to improve our physical health starts there.

This is this is essentially the foundation for pretty much all other action when you think about it.

OK, I was feeling like obviously I was getting a little bit emotional there, I'm done now. You can stop talking. OK, we're trying to cool down. I think I'm cool. We're good.

Good. What I was going to say is we got to start small, OK? We're not all we're not all dressing up like rebels, you know, with our friends going in and shooting the rebel. We're not all doing that, OK?

That was epic. Most of us are just kind of, you know, just going day to day with it, you know, with our lives and tactically and strategically trying to do the right thing. Right.

Starting small, best way to take action or the best thing to do is to maintain or improve our physical. Let's just say it's a great place, it's definitely a great place to start. Yes, we like it. Yes, sir. Can't argue. No, can't. So. Improving physical health takes what I used to call beat downs, you've got to beat down your body a little bit, varying levels of beat downs.

We all worked out today. Affirmative. Some of us plan to work.

Oh, did you not want to go? No, not yet. I'm working on later. So I'm saying I'm saying he said Echo has called me out earlier for not throwing around the Honda, the Honda Kettlebell. You're saying you've been in town for two days. Would you be more consistent if you weren't with your workouts, if you lived in San Diego with me or like near me, Jack?

So that was it.

Like, what if we really wanted to show up at my house at five o'clock in the morning? Then you get there. How do you feel when you get there? How do you feel once you're working out? How do you feel once you're done?

That's the best. The best. It's the best. And luckily, I got I got an early crosthwaite class that I usually hit at five thirty in the morning, get up at four thirty, stretch out. And that's that's in Dripping Dripping Springs.

Crosthwaite Second wave. Yeah. Awesome plug coming at you cross second wave. Awesome gym. How many classes you have. Four or five a day. Yeah. Outstanding coaches team four or five day. Great to have great instruction. So good after. Here's a question, I have a question for you.

OK, straight up. Like ok, ok. OK, so you know what you just said.

Like what would you do you think you paraphrasing. Would you make workouts if you live in San Diego. Right.

So the whole accountability in early workouts. OK, well he's going to get his butt. Yeah. So you have this thing where in this kind of me just assuming where, you know, when you have a workout partner, you're way less likely to skip workouts.

Right. So for you, you might think of yourself you like you know, it doesn't apply to make a large group of workouts. Hell, no kind of thing. Right. But do you believe that that's a sound theory? I do believe it's it's out there.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it is. Yes. Yes, yeah. So when Jack was like, all right, I'll see it. Five X you're going to be they're going to get you up. Makes sense. But yeah.

So through workouts sometimes, you know, you got to beat on your body so you can recover, you know, on through that recover beat down recovery process. We may need a little support. So we'll start with the joints funding. Another foundational, uh, concept, your joints on your body track. So get some supplements. We've got a lot of supplements for pretty much everything. So joints is joint warfare, super crude oil.

These things maintain your joints so you don't have to worry about that kind of stuff. You just worry about the workout, making it to the workout in case and you know, and pushing hard again in case I like it.

So here's what we're going to do for life. Yeah, he's going to be he's going to get some good sleep, maybe take some of that hypnosis, then he's going to wake up, maybe have a little discipline here to get to the workout. He's going to have joint warfare causes. Can't really function well with Kaleil. Yes, sir. That gets him that that gets done. Guess what?

He's coming at it some, Molk, going to rebuild with the protein after easy money.

And then he's got a roll in here for the podcast. Cracks open a discipline go, by the way, pretty soon, pretty soon one Leif Babin is going to have his own signature.

We're working on that.

Hey, if you want any of this stuff, this is we just started this. We're trying to do a better job of.

Helping you help yourself. So if any of this stuff that you want, you subscribe to it at Origin Main Dotcom, if you subscribe to it, we will ship it to you for free. That's what I said. I said what?

I said that that subscription is awesome because there's I've over the last couple of years, like the joint warfare krill oil. That is the super cool. If I don't take that stuff like I feel it, it's a problem. I absolutely feel it. There's no question it makes a difference. So that subscription of it just shows up. You're never out. It's it's awesome.

I love that. And also to like, OK, so and consider this, which this is something you don't really think about the joint work from the krill oil.

You don't go like through the day thinking, oh, can't wait to take my joint warfare like it's not on your mind until it's time to take it. So like Molk, sometimes you can be like, hey, I can't kind of can't wait for that Mokelumne. I'm feeling that right now.

It's just different if you're saying so when you get into the red zone.

As far as supply of the joint warfare, it's like, oh, you can kind of understand how you get there, you know, but when you have the subscription and the problems kind of avoid it.

It's true, though, you know, for that kind of stuff.

So you can get it at Walwa, by the way. You can get the drinks at Walwa Whole East Coast, by the way. We're in we're in whole East Coast. Everyone that helped us, but everyone in Florida that helped us by going in and clearing shelves is much appreciated. And you did it. You did it. You got Walwa, full chain, whole East Coast. No matter where you go, you see a wow, I can go in there and get yourself some some discipline.

Go also vitamin shop. You can get it there.

So that's cool. Yes. Also Orjan main dotcom origin.

Main dotcom. You can get American made these because we're training Jiu-Jitsu. Yes you can. American made rash guard you can get. That's cool when you're training. We can't wear guys in the street. You can not considered. Not considered what.

Appropriate. Appropriate. We want to wear jeans. Yeah. OK cool.

We got American made jeans, American made jeans, American made boots, T-shirts, hoodies, just all kinds of American made gear.

It's true. Speaking of gear.

JoCo has a store with Gear Jakiel store dotcom is where you can get your discipline equals freedom gear, your good gear, your your your stand by to get somebody to get some gear.

Yes. Oh, yes.

So, yeah, a good way to represent apparel was what you call your hardcore Secondo Algeria hardcore reconned all day.

Yes. All available. Like I said, JoCo store dockum.

Also we we have a little what's called what we call the shirt locker. Good, you don't like me? Well, I don't know why you made it this weird thing, but we have the shirt locker. Yes. See what I'm saying? No, like you didn't like I said it the way you call Hurt Locker with all that weird. And you will because it's like The Hurt Locker.

I see it anyway.

Look, either way, you get a new shirt every month.

Did you put, like, little tags in those that says definite yes. To later the details with that one. There's some details in there. Yes, there's some layers in there anyway. So these are cool design ideas. Did you steal that idea from Lululemon? I thought it was Lululemon. I don't know.

I don't know. No, no, I didn't, though. No, the answer's no. OK, well, it look way cooler. Well, there you go.

So you're good either way. Yeah. Look into that new shirt every month. Cool layers designs represent people. Subscribe to this podcast. Subscribe to the JoCo Unravelling podcast.

Darrell Cooper's in Town, by the way.

We're going to be recording Grounded podcast, talking to Dean Lish, trying to get moving on that Warrior Kid podcast.

I know that I told you when I finished my last book and got it turned in, we'd get cracking on that. So that was two days ago.

Another deadline met. Also, we had the underground JOCO underground, JOCO Underground Dotcom. If you want to get a little bit more amplifying information from the underground, you want to you want to see something a little bit. What's going on behind the scenes. You can go to the underground. We have a bunch of stuff going on there. We're we're doing this podcast on there called the JOCO Underground.

It costs money. It costs money because we don't want to have we don't want to have sponsors. Look, I know it's hard enough to listen to us talk about this stuff right now. Imagine if we were talking about something that we actually didn't like.

It would suck really bad. If so, we only talk about things that we actually use that we actually own. That's what we're doing.

We don't want to have somebody else hold us hostage with their money, eight dollars and 18 cents a month. Or if you want it, if you want if you can't afford that, it's OK. Email assistance at JOCO Underground Dotcom and you'll get taken care of. So if you're going to if you're if you're feeling a little bit angry, what are they doing?

Well, first of all, this podcast the same as long as it can be this way, it will be. But if you can't afford it, it's OK. We want to help have you explain the eighteen? No, because I've had quite a few people ask me that. We haven't yet. We're not ready to put the word out yet.

No one person that I can remember gets the exact one.

But it's sort of layers. Layers. We got YouTube. Subscribe to see EKOS legit videos where he has one of considered wanted to be the best assistant directors in the world who really kind of guides the the the whole tone of the videos.

That's me. Yes. So you're welcome. But you know what? I'm humble that way.

I just let him I let him I let him kind of take the credit for the videos, psychological warfare, a bunch of a bunch of tracks on their flip side, Gamescom, Dakota Meyer making stuff. We got books. We got a bunch of books. We got final spin, a story, a novel, a poem.

I'm not sure you're going have to judge for yourself. It's available for preorder right now. Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual, The Cold Evaluation of Protocol, Discipline Coach, Freedom Field Manual Way.

The Warrior Code for Field Manual. Way to work it. One, two and three. Making the Dragons about Face by Colonel David Hackworth.

And of course. Of all those books that I've written, the ones that life actually thinks are the best are extreme ownership and the dichotomy of leadership.

So you can get those through, which we wrote together, Echelon Front, that is our leadership consultancy where we solve problems through leadership. Go to Echelon front dot com for details on that. We have Heff online, which is that's why Leaf's out here.

We just recorded four new sections for EFF online where we go on this particular course. We are going deep into the into the principles that are in extreme ownership because you read about them and you start applying them and you need some help and need some adjustment. These are like advanced courses on those fundamental principles. And then we're very soon we're going to have we're going to have those available for all 12 chapters of extreme ownership. We get got we had an hour long plus of content in each of those course that match each chapter.

It's going to be got to be awesome.

And there's quizzes and then we do we're doing live stuff all the time on there. So if you've got a question, you can come and ask us.

That's if online dotcom, by the way, if you really want to see jako get animated if online. I have fun. I had fun. He brings it up. I have fun. That's what I do.

We have the muster in twenty twenty one, those kind of change. But go to extreme ownership dotcom if you want to come to a live event.

We've got also the X which is field training that we talked about a bunch today, how these guys are learning about leadership. You want to go through that, come to our FDX. That's what it is. And also we have F Battlefield where we will take you on a guided tour to learn the leadership lessons from the Battle of Gettysburg. So check those out.

F overwatch, where we are placing we are placing executives into your company that have experience from the military, that know the principles that we talk about all the time, go to f overwatched dot com. And if you want to help service members active and retired their families, gold star families, well, a good way to do it is check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee.

She's got a charity organization. And if you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to America's Mighty Warriors dog.

And if you want to if you just feel the need to listen to more of my protracted presumptions or you need to hear more of EKOS unavailing articulations or leifs, tiresome tales, you can find us on the interweb, on Twitter.

On Instagram. Which Echo only refers to as the grim and on Facebook life is at Leif Babin on the Graham Laugh is at real life Baban because you don't want to get the other laugh back in an unreal echo.

Have mechanical if you are kind of unreal, Echo is adequate. Charles and I am at Jocke Willink and thanks to all the folks out there in uniform, especially the squad leaders. Squad leaders of the world, you make a difference in keeping the world safe and to our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service and all first responders, thank you for making a difference by keeping us safe in our worst times.

And to everyone else out there. Remember that no matter where you are. No matter what is happening, no matter how outnumbered, outgunned, outmatched you might be at any particular moment, you make a difference.

But you only make a difference if you make a difference. Your actions matter, your effort matters, your tenacity matters, so don't let off the gas. Don't wait for someone else to handle it for you, don't accept your fate, if you don't like it, take action. You make the difference and you make the difference by taking action and of course. By getting after it and until next time this life and Echo and JoCo out.