558: What We Can Learn From John Spencer Almost Dying 20 Times.

0:00 [UNKNOWN]: This is Jockel-Pond, 558 with Equal Charles in May, Jockel-Willink, Good evening, I'll go get you. [UNKNOWN]: My left ear is a natural conversation starter. [UNKNOWN]: It is visibly damaged about half-missing. [UNKNOWN]: People get curious. [UNKNOWN]: They ask about it. [UNKNOWN]: It is a good story, and people's eyes tend to get wide.

0:16 [UNKNOWN]: Man, you could have been killed. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, there's more where that came from, I smiled and casually mentioned this or that. [UNKNOWN]: I was a soldier for 25 years, and I am now known in defense circles for my globe-trotting war research, teaching, writing, and public work. [UNKNOWN]: It is a life and career that has landed me in jeopardy a time or two, or 20.

0:36 [UNKNOWN]: 20 times I almost died. [UNKNOWN]: Hard to believe, but here they are. [UNKNOWN]: Tales of war, of travels and unsafe places, training incidents, freak accidents that could have happened to anybody, and a few that were purely my own fault. [UNKNOWN]: The good, the bad, the weird, all autobiographer, but this is not an autobiography.

0:56 [UNKNOWN]: These are stories about the moments that shaped me, about lessons that stayed with me long after the danger passed, and that right there's an excerpt [UNKNOWN]: Called 20 times I almost died life lessons from the edge of survival and is written by John Spenceer John's retired U.S. Army Soldier Ranger Ranger instructor who rose through the ranks from private to major Served in combat as aatoon commander and as a company commander He is the chair of urban warfare studies at the modern war institute at West Point Director of the urban warfare project.

1:31 [UNKNOWN]: He is the host of the urban warfare project podcast [UNKNOWN]: he's the chair of war studies at the Madison policy forum and the co-founder and executive director of urban warfare institute and with all that he's also written scores of articles case studies books including understanding urban warfare which is based on the podcast.

1:51 [UNKNOWN]: Connected soldiers, which we reviewed last time he was on the podcast episode 462, and he also authored the many manual for the Urban Defender, which has been translated into dozens of languages after became a staple of war fighting in Ukraine. [UNKNOWN]: And we talked about that. [UNKNOWN]: as well as his time on the ground in Ukraine and Gaza when he joined us for episode 463.

2:15 [UNKNOWN]: So if you want to hear John's full backstory, he's military experiences in their entirety. [UNKNOWN]: Go and listen to those two episodes 462 and 463. [UNKNOWN]: But for tonight, it's an honor to have John back here with us to discuss his latest book, 20 times I almost died. [UNKNOWN]: Well, it's good to see you, man.

2:34 [UNKNOWN]: It's good to see you, brother, and you echo as well. [UNKNOWN]: It's also [UNKNOWN]: and you're uh... you're still on the still on the on the road chase in war uh... absolutely more than ever unfortunately that there's a lot of war going on and i'm just in the last month southern lebnon gaza cashmere uh... working on working as a by john as well [UNKNOWN]: Cashmere, give me a quick brief on Cashmere because I was a little blip on the radar for most of the world, but it was a big deal.

3:00 [UNKNOWN]: Sure. [UNKNOWN]: So right in a book about this four-day award that happened between India and Pakistan, two nuclear armed countries in 2025, it was a blip and it was interesting with the media covered from it, it's a massive, actually, war and exchange, started with a gruesome terrorist attack against civilians, signaling out men, asking the religion, shooting them in the face and further family.

3:20 [UNKNOWN]: like 26 civilians died, India responds by attacking those terrorist locations and then there's a exchange between the Pakistan army or military and the Indian military, 20,000 artillery rounds, chains, hundreds and hundreds of drones, and then India kind of ends it by escalation management, hitting 11 air bases across all of Pakistan showing, look, you want this to end because we can hit you where we want, when we want, just got back from Kashmir, they're one of [UNKNOWN]: basically the feel commanders just amazing individual and getting those first person experiences of what happened during those four days and it'll be a book about it probably next year.

3:58 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah the the Indian military is I've I've covered some of their stuff on on this podcast just because there's a you know their their tradition comes from England obviously as they have a strong military it has a lot of similar attributes that they try and keep in their kind of in their culture.

4:16 [UNKNOWN]: absolutely and they have and this is part of why you need a book you know four days how do you write a book about four days of war because it's it's the evolution of terrorism in this region some changes that happened but even the modernization of the Indian army which is this kind of story where India about a decade ago says we're not going to rely on anybody else's traditions weapons or anything it's going to be making India they created some unique capabilities that get tested right we you often talk about [UNKNOWN]: And this, it became the test.

4:46 [UNKNOWN]: So a lot of those investments and changes at the Indian military government had made showed in their favor. [UNKNOWN]: And you can look at the Pakistan side, which is a Chinese-based military, but it's most of their military equipment comes from China, and how it performs. [UNKNOWN]: So as an American, I'm like, there's a story here where Indian actually is really American systems going against Chinese back systems and how that performs that could be a benefit to a lot of individuals.

5:12 [UNKNOWN]: Other than just telling the story of the war. [UNKNOWN]: and what about Lebanon? [UNKNOWN]: What's going on there right now? [UNKNOWN]: What does that look like? [UNKNOWN]: Sure, so there's a, you know, I had been multiple times since October 7th actually, some, you know, of course we talked last time about the Pager operation that was just, I mean, there's a movie in a story in that, but has below our kept it up, I think in 2025, Iran past has below a billion dollars.

5:36 [UNKNOWN]: So, has Iran has blazing Iran's crown jewel, proxy army, and it's an army, it isn't just a terrorist organization. [UNKNOWN]: I went last month to visit with the idea of to see where there's been this negotiated kind of pause to allow the Lebanese government which is great for the first time in the history of Lebanon.

5:53 [UNKNOWN]: They recognized Israel the state, so massive on the strategic level from the workbody in Elamato. [UNKNOWN]: How far the idea for Ford really since the second level on where they're far they're for so even traveling there was probably like number 22 We're practicing roller verdreels. [UNKNOWN]: It was pretty interesting as how to get into where the idea for now holding this line forward and until [UNKNOWN]: Two of the Lebanese armies able to clear out Hezboa also the what they found in Lebanon You know tunnels.

6:23 [UNKNOWN]: We talked about tunnels and Hamas tunnels. [UNKNOWN]: I've been into and I've been in the head Hezboa tunnels before but since in the last 20 years They built bunker complexes or not tunnels [UNKNOWN]: and what they're finding, I went all the way forward to something called the Belfort Castle, which is like a crusader, Castle, and Lebanon's all about terrain.

6:41 [UNKNOWN]: So you really got to go there, see it and see how many ridge lines, and how you look back and you can see almost all of Israel, and it's almost like downhill. [UNKNOWN]: And that's why it's always this fight over ridge lines and everything. [UNKNOWN]: But one of the, there are a couple of things that, if I had not gone, I wouldn't understand like the, the impact of these wire guided, a commercial off the self-drones, you know, they're, they're a problem in Ukraine.

7:02 [UNKNOWN]: If you go to Ukraine and some of the battle feels, it looks like it's just all white because it's piano wire that that's attached to their drone. [UNKNOWN]: It hits a ground on a few, you know, that like the toe missile, you ever go to a toe missile firing range, you're like, you're just walking over piano wires.

7:17 [UNKNOWN]: Those started popping up in 11 on a killing and lots of idea of soldier because it's really very few countermeasures because you can't use anything electronic And if you don't and they fly low because of the fact there were a guy if they can go almost 15 kilometers It's still a threat in southern Lebanon to these idea positions roll kind of hold it other they're blowing up [UNKNOWN]: What they have to do to blow up a bunker complex is very unique compared to what they like in the Gaza tunnels which they fill with concrete or with liquid explosives for these tunnels they have to like take jugs of explosives and fill like caverns from floor to ceiling with explosives and blow it and it actually will register as a earthquake in in Israel some of the what they have to do.

8:00 [UNKNOWN]: And there was a collapse on itself? [UNKNOWN]: Yes it collapsed on itself and you have basically new terrain. [UNKNOWN]: is the Lebanese army working with this really army at all or they I wouldn't say that they're the Lebanese army for the first time which actually realized it's seen and did some unique reporting about this their the Lebanese army has never had the ability to do anything against his blitz which is a big army way more financed armed everything [UNKNOWN]: The Lebanese army is taking some of these trial areas that Israel has already kicked has blood off of, but they're still like tunnels and everything, so Lebanese army is coming in and taking control of those and keeping a separation in their coordination with the Israeli military but the Israeli military is like, I'm going to hold this line until you fill in with some security or do something else.

8:47 [UNKNOWN]: but what's really interesting is that there has nothing to cut off. [UNKNOWN]: Because of the fall of Syria in 2024, which in fact is actually because of Israel's operations against Hezbollah, because Hezbollah used to send tens of thousands into Syria to prop up a side when every was facing problems when that was gone.

9:05 [UNKNOWN]: I saw it fell really quickly, but now the new guy in Syria, which is former Al-Qaeda ISIS terrorist, is not a fan of Iran, so he's cut off the lifelines of shipping missiles. [UNKNOWN]: He actually stopped the vehicle, which is really interesting. [UNKNOWN]: One of the vehicles, Syria stopped recently, which is full of these wire-guided drones, because they're having [UNKNOWN]: such an impact on the battlefield that they somebody is trying to push them in, whether it's Iran or Russia, but because Syria is not this highway till Hezbollah Hezbollah is really struggling to survive.

9:36 [UNKNOWN]: But to say the Lebanese army is working with Israel, wouldn't be right, but there is a hope here. [UNKNOWN]: At least there's coordination. [UNKNOWN]: That's why I asked you, it's going to be very surprised if they were [UNKNOWN]: you know, like actually doing some kind of join operations together, but even the coordination, that's kind of similar to what we would try and do in Iraq.

9:51 [UNKNOWN]: We'd get, you know, an area secured and then put in Iraqi police element in there and hopefully over time you can turn it over to them completely and sounds like that's similar to what they're trying to do there. [UNKNOWN]: hopeful. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, there's just like there wasn't a rock, there's a capability kind of problem and how to rapidly do that in the midst of a war and everybody wants to hurry up for Israel though like we're going to hold these positions until you get this fixed because it's not, it has what just moves back in and [UNKNOWN]: As much as you can see now you can see a Lebanese army flag maybe in the distance.

10:23 [UNKNOWN]: I used to visit and even last year You could stand in Israel and see a Hezbollah flag flying just on the other side where they're not supposed to be because there is this whole UN mission millions of dollars spent for this UN mission to keep Hezbollah out of this kind of buffer area between the Latani river and Israel's border [UNKNOWN]: And that's that road I had to take down total time render back up, which actually from the military perspective, one of the other inter-supporters.

10:50 [UNKNOWN]: because Israel has a bin in this ground. [UNKNOWN]: So long, they're not used to projecting power out that far, so logistically, it's how do you get logistics, what we say, you know, images, talk tactics, professionals, talk logistics, to get that logistic train to keep it under the drone threat as well with wirecard drone.

11:09 [UNKNOWN]: The drone is a massive problem because they don't have like basing or anything to project out. [UNKNOWN]: It's not an expeditionary of military. [UNKNOWN]: What about if you've done any trips to Ukraine lately? [UNKNOWN]: No, actually, my last one was December of 2023. [UNKNOWN]: Once Gaza kicked off, I'm an urban warfare perspective.

11:26 [UNKNOWN]: The urban guy, I've been, I made my eighth trip to Israel, seventh trip into Gaza. [UNKNOWN]: And I was in Gaza this last month as well, just seeing, like, what's the status of this? [UNKNOWN]: Haven't been back, but still say, closely connected to some very interesting Ukrainian officers doing some of the robotics and some of the fighting over there.

11:43 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: definitely wild to see and I was, you know, some of the advancements of how fast the drones and how fast the battlefield changes and the technology changes is like it's incredible. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and I know you would appreciate this. [UNKNOWN]: I also, but I also spent a lot of time you know McMaster, I don't know if you've had him on.

12:02 [UNKNOWN]: I have not yet. [UNKNOWN]: Amazing, but he has this article about the fallacies of war because he's a true, like you were a scholar. [UNKNOWN]: One of his is the vampire fallacy because he just won't die no matter what. [UNKNOWN]: Is that you just need that one piece of technology, right? [UNKNOWN]: That the drones are gonna save us all.

12:15 [UNKNOWN]: And it's not saving anybody in Ukraine in Russia. [UNKNOWN]: There's still a thousand a day dying. [UNKNOWN]: and they can't really move the lines because they're just mass and combined ours maneuver. [UNKNOWN]: But if you listen to most people in the world, they're like, we just all need more drones.

12:28 [UNKNOWN]: We should need millions of millions of more drones. [UNKNOWN]: Like, that's yes and that's not gonna solve all your problems and you're not gonna have this. [UNKNOWN]: I think China is trying to put out humanoid. [UNKNOWN]: They did some fancy Hollywood movie, like that's their future. [UNKNOWN]: They're going to put human toys and not have the risk humans, not put the man in the mud to seize that ground, the hold that ground is just all fallacy.

12:50 [UNKNOWN]: So I cringe a little bit about the drone conversation. [UNKNOWN]: I believe it's, they're important if you don't have them, whether like we were talking in policing or in soldiering, if you don't have them, you're going to be found wanting. [UNKNOWN]: If you don't have a countermeasure to what the most advanced version is, you'll have [UNKNOWN]: But that's not going to win your award, depending on what your objective is.

13:08 [UNKNOWN]: You still got to put men and women in the mud to do hard things. [UNKNOWN]: And actually the book I have a coming out in October about the Azerbaijan or Minio award, which was one of the real first stories of drones in 2020. [UNKNOWN]: And you go there and I now interview every commander on every battlefield.

13:24 [UNKNOWN]: And it's like seals and rangers helping up 40 kilometers of mountain terrain with rocks on their back to get to that objective. [UNKNOWN]: where a drone might or might not be present and a breach in mind, wire fields of trenches, it wasn't about drone, but that's this weird myth that we have that people want us to believe that that's the future, like it's a part of the future.

13:47 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, there's always going to be these advances at technology that when you get into them, they seem like they're going to change the game. [UNKNOWN]: But I always say, technology doesn't change the game. [UNKNOWN]: It's going to become part of the game. [UNKNOWN]: It's just part of the game.

13:59 [UNKNOWN]: And you have to adapt to it and it's still going to get back to what what it is. [UNKNOWN]: There are revolutions in military affairs. [UNKNOWN]: I believe in that and teaching at West Point you try to distinguish Okay, what's a revolution in military affairs like black powder the machine gun Telegram railroad nuclear weapons these things chain air aircraft these things change [UNKNOWN]: The true character of warfare.

14:21 [UNKNOWN]: You never going to show the nature, but even drones that they're not a revolution in military affairs There's an evolution of air power. [UNKNOWN]: Yes, they're cheaper, but if you don't have an air power Which is what people just don't want to talk about in Ukraine like neither side have air superiority Air control, so drones are present for many reasons.

14:40 [UNKNOWN]: I think AI will potentially be a revolution military affairs across a couple domains, but wait to see check [UNKNOWN]: What made you decide to write this book? [UNKNOWN]: I mean, it's really a story telling is the more I traveled, the more I talked to, there's actually, I think we talked to my first book, one of my writing mentors is Max Brooks, that they got to wrote the book Woolworth's E, just a really creative writer, and I would tell him some of these stories, if you had to write these down.

15:05 [UNKNOWN]: These are insane, nobody's going to believe these, but you have to write them down. [UNKNOWN]: So I started doing that and then like reading your books about living by a code and other things, it just started to, as I was writing just to kind of record my own history, there are lessons that shaped me and who I am and put me to the test.

15:24 [UNKNOWN]: And I don't write it in the front of the book, but there are many themes that run through it, and I know it's kind of silly telling you. [UNKNOWN]: the fact that Stress Reveals character, when I finished the book, it was almost too late, like that's the thing is that all these are stressors I've put, got put under, some of them changed me forever, like the year-byte story, I'm sure, others tested me.

15:47 [UNKNOWN]: I tested my character at the moment, sometimes I look back and say, okay, did it change me or did it test me? [UNKNOWN]: Well, uh, let's get into it here. [UNKNOWN]: And like I said, if you want to go back and hear the rest of John's backstory in the military experiences, it's episode 462 and 463.

16:04 [UNKNOWN]: But let's get into it 20 times I almost died. [UNKNOWN]: So this is I'm going to jump in here. [UNKNOWN]: This is post October 7th. [UNKNOWN]: You're in a tunnel. [UNKNOWN]: in a hummus tunnel under Gaza and your research and what's going on and you say this we were all wearing protective gear but bunched up close together and enclosed airless space even a small detonation would shred us like confetti.

16:26 [UNKNOWN]: Everything in my experience signal this was not a safe place. [UNKNOWN]: You're pretty astute with that assessment. [UNKNOWN]: And being part of a ad hoc study group was not the norm for my research. [UNKNOWN]: It made me even more nervous And I'm not the nervous type. [UNKNOWN]: I looked a bit rowy.

16:40 [UNKNOWN]: I said that right rowy rowy. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, rowy For some hoping for some verbal or visual cue how far was he taking us? [UNKNOWN]: We kept it on it was cowboy up time [UNKNOWN]: I estimated we were 100 feet down. [UNKNOWN]: Rally confirmed the actual depth was 150 feet. [UNKNOWN]: There was enough room down there to drive a vehicle through and later recovered home videos indeed showed the terrors gleefully zipping about in a small pickup truck which explained the extensive ventilation system without it carbon on oxide exhaust would have been fatal.

17:08 [UNKNOWN]: we were here we halted. [UNKNOWN]: The guards were some 20 meters ahead sweeping their lights about the blackness and beyond. [UNKNOWN]: Again, I wondered how much farther rowey intent to go. [UNKNOWN]: Just walking around down here stirred up waffles of thick dust that contained who knows what toxins.

17:24 [UNKNOWN]: No one in our group seemed eager to go much further. [UNKNOWN]: But my attention was locked on the soldier standing forward of us. [UNKNOWN]: His flashlight beam cutting into the void. [UNKNOWN]: Beyond him stretched more than two miles of unknown tunnel, running deep into the Hamas stronghold of Gaza City.

17:38 [UNKNOWN]: Nothing about it was cleared or secured. [UNKNOWN]: Even if patrols had been there here yesterday or an hour ago, what way to be on his light could change in an instant? [UNKNOWN]: The soldier was peering off into uncertainty itself into the possibility of an ambush, hidden explosives, or fighters slipping back into the darkness.

17:56 [UNKNOWN]: The fact that we were even going down there was, if I'm honest, insane. [UNKNOWN]: I began visually collecting information, how the tunnels constructed, what the builders had planned to do with it. [UNKNOWN]: This tunnel was estimated to extend two and a half miles back into Gaza City, and it was hard not to think about the people who built it.

18:12 [UNKNOWN]: How long was it since a mosque fighters had been right where we were standing? [UNKNOWN]: The longer we lingered, the more uneasy I became. [UNKNOWN]: No one was as much enamored with my group. [UNKNOWN]: Nice enough people, but if things went haywire down here, every non-professional in the mix would only put us at further risk.

18:27 [UNKNOWN]: Mercifully, rowy declared it was the end of our tour and explained why we were likely the last civilians to bear witness to it. [UNKNOWN]: Everything we had seen was marked for destruction. [UNKNOWN]: The thousands of hours, material and money, Hamas dumped into this pit would be soon be utterly obliterated.

18:43 [UNKNOWN]: Exhaling and collective relief, we began to head back the way we had come. [UNKNOWN]: And then you get into the lesson here. [UNKNOWN]: If there's one lesson I carried out of this memory is the importance of presence. [UNKNOWN]: There's no replacement for it. [UNKNOWN]: Not in the parent, not in parenting, not in leadership, not in business, not in research, not in war.

19:01 [UNKNOWN]: Titles and words matter, but showing up [UNKNOWN]: matters more. [UNKNOWN]: A four-star general walking into a unit, Elon Musk on a flag factory floor, a parent sitting behind beside their child, presence communicates something that cannot be underestimated. [UNKNOWN]: The knowledge gained from presence from simply being there cannot be replaced.

19:20 [UNKNOWN]: So there you are. [UNKNOWN]: Do you just occasionally go what the hell am I doing here? [UNKNOWN]: That was one of the most vivid examples of how, how I get to this point. [UNKNOWN]: Usually I'm traveling in these words by myself or with a commander in his tank or whatever it is. [UNKNOWN]: That one was very unique and in the situation like we should not be down here and I [UNKNOWN]: I think because of my experiences, I even looked at it differently than some of the other people that I was with.

19:49 [UNKNOWN]: This is crazy. [UNKNOWN]: The two guys standing in front of us, and it's unclear tunnel for two miles in front of us. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, as you know, you could just shoot from, and it's going to hit everybody. [UNKNOWN]: I never find myself in a similar, I've been in plenty of tunnels and guys, and now there's an estimate of 600 miles of tunnels that they're dealing with.

20:10 [UNKNOWN]: But that was one of those. [UNKNOWN]: But the knowledge I gained as, you know, I've been in tunnels in North Korea, there's a similar one in between a North and South Korea called tunnel three that you can go visit as it's actually a tourist site where they take you down into it, it's actually not a sophisticated but it's a similar like invasion tunnel, they amount.

20:29 [UNKNOWN]: That was the best of that tunnel. [UNKNOWN]: Was it captured by the South Koreans at the North Koreans built it correct to was discovered with like like some air would popped up There's three of these that had popped up over time and there's been other [UNKNOWN]: The North Korean South Korean Board is very fascinating.

20:44 [UNKNOWN]: The fact that it's like exotic animals and things like that, they don't know if what exotic animals. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, there's like cranes and leopards and things like that, because this is a ground that hasn't been touched for since the end of the Korean War. [UNKNOWN]: So there's no humans that have been in there.

21:00 [UNKNOWN]: So there's like exotic animals and things like that that have survived in a area that people aren't allowed to go into. [UNKNOWN]: And every once in a while they'll set off a landmine because it's also heavily mined, but I think it was a century saw this like a air escaping from a hole or something when they found this one.

21:18 [UNKNOWN]: This is in the 70s. [UNKNOWN]: but it's a tourist site now, as an example, but that presence, understanding how much Hamas invested in that tunnel, I couldn't have gotten it. [UNKNOWN]: And all the other tunnels I was in, because that was very unique as an invasion tunnel. [UNKNOWN]: It led right up to the border with Israel.

21:34 [UNKNOWN]: It was meant to flow thousands of soldiers that they didn't use it on October 7th, but it was one of those moments of, [UNKNOWN]: Well, what am I doing? [UNKNOWN]: This is crazy. [UNKNOWN]: Well let alone me but what are these other people doing and it was only open like three days But that was this really like you want to see a tunnel, okay?

21:48 [UNKNOWN]: We got one right here [UNKNOWN]: And there's just 600 miles of tunnels, and the other side. [UNKNOWN]: I think it's more. [UNKNOWN]: The last visit I had, I sat down, and they have like a graphic of all the ones they've found, suspected, and everything. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, they found almost 150 of them between the tin mile, between Gaza and Egypt.

22:08 [UNKNOWN]: There's a border that was used for smuggling weapons, and they found, and the only way they found them, which is its own study is how do you find a tunnel? [UNKNOWN]: that one was, they actually had Intel that drove them to know that that tunnel was there and they wouldn't dug it out. [UNKNOWN]: But one of the ways they just drilled a hole in the ground every tin feet and they did that along this border for 10 miles.

22:30 [UNKNOWN]: So for 10 miles, just to make sure they all the way down their water table and then they stick a camera down. [UNKNOWN]: And for some of these, that's the only way you could know. [UNKNOWN]: So the estimate is 1,000 kilometers or about 600 miles in this very small piece of ground because they've been doing it for 20 years.

22:47 [UNKNOWN]: that's wild. [UNKNOWN]: And those clearance operations are still ongoing. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and they're filling them with concrete, which is very expensive or exploding them, but it'll take years to fill them or to deal with them. [UNKNOWN]: What's the procedure for clearing them as far, do they try and clear them like there's an infantry element go down there and clear them?

23:08 [UNKNOWN]: It depends, it's been a lot of time, so they're the only unit in the world, besides some special community people that have an entire brigade dedicated at engineers for underground for tunnels. [UNKNOWN]: So they have robotics, they have dogs, the last resort is a sender guide on there, especially now that all the hostages are, that was one of the kind of the constraints of if there's a hostage in a tunnel and they were, the hostages were in tunnels.

23:32 [UNKNOWN]: Now, they don't have to, I mean, especially with the robotics, they can clear them out of the way, but then you have a blast door. [UNKNOWN]: So there are cases, because there's the blast doors, which is, again, a research geeky stuff. [UNKNOWN]: I was there in 2021 when there was a war between Hamas and Israel, called the Guardian of the Laws, and Israel thought they had been successful at destroying tunnels.

23:52 [UNKNOWN]: So they bombed a lot, but there's a letter that, yeah, you know, I send more assign to put in more blast doors, because the blast door will stop the [UNKNOWN]: Which it also stops robotics from investigating the tunnel so there's some challenges there But there's no one way they do it. [UNKNOWN]: I know they're leaning towards you They tried to fill them with water at one point like the flood We talked to that didn't work There's just two pores The main way they do them now is they will send robotics down if they need to clear it and then [UNKNOWN]: If there's nothing of value, depending on what value it is, sometimes they want the value which down there and they've found some crazy stuff from like manuals on how to use the hospitals as headquarters for the military, hummus, to other stuff, but once they clear it, then they'll fill it with either explosives or concrete.

24:44 [UNKNOWN]: long war. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: All right. [UNKNOWN]: I'm going to jump here and obviously I'm not reading the whole book at the book. [UNKNOWN]: Everybody wants to get 20 times almost died. [UNKNOWN]: I'm jumping forward here. [UNKNOWN]: You're in a Iraq. [UNKNOWN]: You're a platoon commander.

24:56 [UNKNOWN]: You jumped in and you're setting you settling into your combat operations. [UNKNOWN]: And again, I'm jumping, I'm just jumping like reading some highlights of the book. [UNKNOWN]: There's so many good details in here about how you end up. [UNKNOWN]: But if you're a little, if you're wondering oh wait, well, what's going on?

25:06 [UNKNOWN]: We'll get the book and you can figure out the rest of it. [UNKNOWN]: Uh, we were to travel by road with no lights just by night vision goggles, which at the time illuminated the world in a blurry green, green hue with terrible depth perception. [UNKNOWN]: We wouldn't be blind in my lead vehicle, but I sure hoped my driver, Ralston, had eaten his carrots.

25:27 [UNKNOWN]: Behind him sat mire on fire sport, calf cart, who are our radio men sat behind me, and sanding between all four of us was Brooks, who man the heavy 50 caliber machine gun up top. [UNKNOWN]: All four were young, listed men, sons of the south, and after two weeks riding with them, I felt we had a decent working rhythm.

25:45 [UNKNOWN]: That two would pay off down the road. [UNKNOWN]: But let's get back to the mission. [UNKNOWN]: Our road south would cross a major bridge, then continue another kilometer to a crossroads where I would deploy my men and vehicles along the by-secting road. [UNKNOWN]: one detail bothered to hell out of me though that business about setting up wire and warning signs higher headquarters really thought that was necessary whom we're supposed to be warning civilian looky lose sacheting up in the dead of night so they wanted you to put up like you know check point and put up big um these signs you know warning people yeah [UNKNOWN]: I debated asking for clarification, then I hoped that that aspect would be scratched, but no, a supply truck turned up to unload rolls of constant in a wire and large, prepared signs.

26:30 [UNKNOWN]: I can't read Arabic so I assume they said stop, you are ignoring the kill zone, do not pass, go, do not collect $200. [UNKNOWN]: When we were supposed to put up these decorations, once my men were in place along the road, we had to begin our attack, not wait around for some Iraqi patrol to raise the alarm.

26:47 [UNKNOWN]: A more cynical officer might have forgotten the wire and signs, but I simply decided I'd handle that part. [UNKNOWN]: A good leader does not build unit cohesion by passing the stupid on down the chain. [UNKNOWN]: So what's you end up doing? [UNKNOWN]: So I mean this is a a tack and a tack literally like rolling in with as much fire powers we had and a parachute brigade with our chili fire behind us and we were going to ride up and just literally drive up to this division headquarters and open fires.

27:19 [UNKNOWN]: Cleared hot as soon as we arrived. [UNKNOWN]: what they wanted me to do was to put wire in front of us for some reason. [UNKNOWN]: So once we rolled in, literally, Mark 19 50 cows, everybody engaging. [UNKNOWN]: I put my radio down, knee and my driver, cut the wire off, threw it into the street, threw the signs of the street, and then got back to commanding the fight.

27:42 [UNKNOWN]: Would you think that that was the spirit of the order? [UNKNOWN]: Hey, I, like I said, I wasn't going to pass it down, but I actually say at the end of the chapter, I think they're still there, I mean, we left them there, we, we accomplished the mission because had I argued that at the time, they were just, we know, a waste of time.

28:01 [UNKNOWN]: But yeah, I think it met the spirit of the mission. [UNKNOWN]: So did the immense amount of firepower that our entire platoon was laying down for a long time. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you know, when building combat outperson Ramadi, they would put up signs. [UNKNOWN]: You know, and they were, they may, it actually made a lot of sense because you couldn't have vehicles in pedestrians walking towards this combat outpost.

28:23 [UNKNOWN]: I was always being built because it could be a vehicle born ID or it could be a suicide vest. [UNKNOWN]: And so there was legit, constant, you know, wires and the signs put out there that said, you know, had skulls on them and stuff like stay away and it's fairly effective. [UNKNOWN]: So I guess in that sense, it does, in that case, it probably does make sense, but, you know, maybe not in this one.

28:44 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: It's like the band of brothers when Tom Hanks goes up and sees the staff with the food in the bread. [UNKNOWN]: Somebody thought that was a good idea without even visualizing the context. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you know, that's a band of brothers. [UNKNOWN]: That's a case that I bring up because sometimes you're going to get to order to do some dumb stuff.

29:03 [UNKNOWN]: And well, that's one of the best examples. [UNKNOWN]: You know, everyone loves dick winters, you know, as a leadership example, well, at the end of the war, the war is almost over. [UNKNOWN]: They're about to sign the treaty and everybody knows it. [UNKNOWN]: And he gets, he has to send guys over on a recon across this river.

29:19 [UNKNOWN]: And the first 90 cents guys across the river was a gunfight. [UNKNOWN]: Someone got I think that I think someone's killed there's some casualties It's a bad deal They come back and The next night the I think he's a brigade commander says hey, I want you to do another recon and you know dick winners says hey I'm sorry, you know, I'm not sure if that's the best idea.

29:36 [UNKNOWN]: You know, there's really not much we're gonna see we took casualties yesterday and I was like nope, you're doing it [UNKNOWN]: Okay, Roger that, sir, you know, and goes and they all sit down in the basement of one of the buildings and drink wine and never do the recon. [UNKNOWN]: And that's one of the things I heard the same story about a few times in Vietnam seals in Vietnam, that they were told to go out to a particular, you know, set an ambush out yet.

30:01 [UNKNOWN]: We got in tell that there's going to be something, you know, this, we actually set up an ambush on this river or this road or whatever. [UNKNOWN]: And the guy's new, like this is not. [UNKNOWN]: You'd see they're too far of an insert or the enemy is too thick there or there's not going to be anything.

30:14 [UNKNOWN]: And so there was times where the guys get Roger and they push back and they'd get told, no shut up and do it and they'd go Roger that and they'd go and patrol 200 yards outside the wire and set up a perimeter and set there for six hours. [UNKNOWN]: And then they'd patrol back up, hey, we set up the ambush didn't say anything.

30:31 [UNKNOWN]: And you know, there's actually a really good, if you ever heard of a video series, it's called Charlie Company in Vietnam. [UNKNOWN]: It's really good. [UNKNOWN]: It's actually on YouTube. [UNKNOWN]: So you can just go watch it. [UNKNOWN]: But it shows a really interesting dynamic. [UNKNOWN]: It's such a great leadership example.

30:49 [UNKNOWN]: It's sort of like what you see in the first episode of Band of Brothers with Sorbao, Sorbao, and you know, so much as a tragic story. [UNKNOWN]: I don't know if you know that guy killed himself eventually. [UNKNOWN]: But um, [UNKNOWN]: you get that that dynamic of this really hardcore guy that's, you know, uh, thinks you he's very authoritarian in all that and then eventually Dick Wenders takes over and he's a much better leader in this thing on Charlie Company, it's it's the opposite when you when you're introduced and this is a documentary.

31:21 [UNKNOWN]: It's just, you know, there's guys out in the field with cameras. [UNKNOWN]: You you introduce this guy's Captain Jackson. [UNKNOWN]: And he can tell he is just admired by the guys. [UNKNOWN]: He listens to what they have to say. [UNKNOWN]: He's very easy going when he talks to them. [UNKNOWN]: And a lot of admiration.

31:37 [UNKNOWN]: And then another guy comes in and takes over form, who's named Captain Rice. [UNKNOWN]: And Captain Rice is the first image that you see me is kind of standing with his hands on his hips. [UNKNOWN]: And he looks like, you know, [UNKNOWN]: he's captain america type pose and you go on let's and you know he's immediately kind of giving directives and not really listening as much as he should and eventually you fast forward in the documentary and they're saying well you know hey captain rice you know how's it going and he says you know it took a little time for the guys to get used to me but they they realize that you know they they just got to do what i say and [UNKNOWN]: And then they didn't go to some of his guys that are out in the field.

32:17 [UNKNOWN]: And the guys who are in the field are like, oh yeah, we just call in the radio, we're not doing anything, we're not listening what he's saying, you should go a day. [UNKNOWN]: So I always say that like, there are times when you're going to told to do stuff that doesn't make sense, and sometimes you know, you got to figure out a way around it.

32:34 [UNKNOWN]: For instance, in your case, taking those signs, throwing them out in front of the vehicles can call in a good. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's a great conversation of, you know, lawful orders on lawful orders that I get sometimes in my, I do a lot of media questions about, I mean, like, the officer takes a oath to the Constitution and then listed to the officers appointed above them.

32:54 [UNKNOWN]: Lawful unlawful order some there is a gray area between this like that's just a stupid one Yeah, I was gonna say there's there's lawful orders. [UNKNOWN]: There's unlawful orders and there's stupid orders I went out when I've got I've got to ask a question a couple times. [UNKNOWN]: I'm like uh No one ever gave me an unlawful order.

33:07 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you know what I mean? [UNKNOWN]: It's like there's not some Carmel that's coming down. [UNKNOWN]: Hey, I want you to do this thing. [UNKNOWN]: That's totally illegal like no that doesn't that just does not happen Uh at least I never saw it happened right, but we get drilled and you know being enlisted and going up to officer [UNKNOWN]: How many times I had to which is a great vignette and I do case studies of the the masquerade me lie Those that were told to do awful things.

33:31 [UNKNOWN]: That was an unlawful order to kill Unarmed civilians to do the things that was done There are plenty of other examples now whether it's you know black hearts or other books that It happens, but it is very rare and most people can distinguish and it's [UNKNOWN]: It's not a thing that the media tries to make it out to be yeah.

33:51 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, they make it like it's a thing like you just pointed out There are eggs if you think about the millions of troops that deployed in millions of operations that were conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan [UNKNOWN]: And the amount of times where something, you know, unlawful happened, it's very rare, it always gets found out and it's a nightmare.

34:13 [UNKNOWN]: But if you think about all the times it, good, you know, guys did the right thing over and over and over and over again and did everything they could to mitigate the casualties with civilian population and all that stuff. [UNKNOWN]: So it is, it's so rare that, you know, when you hear about it, you're like, well, that's not, it's not really a thing.

34:32 [UNKNOWN]: But you're right. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, you do need to emphasize that if something unlawful does come down, then you, you know, you have to, you have to, you are required to not do that, obviously. [UNKNOWN]: but um and they may take a lot of personal courage depending on what the climate and culture of the unit is that may take a lot of courage but it's that's why you want the training, the leadership training is you may have to be staying alone against an unlawful order how rare it may be [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, like I said, I never got told to do anything that was even like questionable, you know, just, yeah, because we got a bunch of good people.

35:15 [UNKNOWN]: And yes, we do get some bad people occasionally, and you have those kind of cultures like you're talking about occasionally where you have maybe a platoon or a squad where the things are out of balance and things can get, can go off the rails, unfortunately. [UNKNOWN]: And it's the the the gift that I'm given travel in the world to see other milliliters were you know whether it's a conscript military or you know a less professional military depending on what side you're talking about where those systems that we have from the day you enter [UNKNOWN]: When you raise your hand to the oath, may not be present in some other places in the world and I appreciate what we have.

35:52 [UNKNOWN]: Check. [UNKNOWN]: Getting to your lesson on that one, the lesson is common sense. [UNKNOWN]: The U.S. military is full of maxims, principles, and rules from some two things to the principles of war. [UNKNOWN]: They are handed down as less memorized by generations of soldiers off without anyone knowing exactly where they first came from.

36:08 [UNKNOWN]: but they endure because they work. [UNKNOWN]: They are lessens that despite context prove useful more often than not. [UNKNOWN]: One of those less-side learned as a young soldier was the five principles of patrolling, planning, reconnaissance, security, control, and common sense. [UNKNOWN]: At first glance, common sense might seem too obvious to even include, but over the years I came to understand why it earned its place right along, side planning, and security common sense saves lives.

36:36 [UNKNOWN]: I think one of the reasons you have to remind people about common sense is because when people get too close to a problem, then all of a sudden common sense can disappear. [UNKNOWN]: That was one of the things I learned from one of my political commanders when I was young seals. [UNKNOWN]: We'd be, he'd have us in the room doing all the planning ourselves and then he'd wander in after we'd been, you know, staring at this mission for eight hours and he'd point out some obvious thing.

37:03 [UNKNOWN]: That was complete common sense that we hadn't seen because we were too close to the problem. [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, I always thought he was just a tactical genius when I was a young guy. [UNKNOWN]: Be like, oh, this guy's a tactical genius. [UNKNOWN]: He sees these things that we miss. [UNKNOWN]: We missed the most obvious things, but then I realized it's just because he was seeing everything from an elevated position because he made sure that he didn't get too far down in the weeds and that's what [UNKNOWN]: The closer you are to a problem, the less common sense you might have.

37:27 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: And that comment said something that one was when we were about to drive into a, off a cliff and somebody broke the silence that was drilled. [UNKNOWN]: Even to me, as a soldier, you don't break the silence. [UNKNOWN]: And he yelled out, stop. [UNKNOWN]: Like the common sense over a, but the fascinating part, you know, whether it's teaching at West Point or whatever, but the meta thinking that we were taught to think.

37:48 [UNKNOWN]: whether there's a military decision making process or whatever and you can get so tied into that that you're just like common sense is to go right Yeah, but the the process over comes at some time. [UNKNOWN]: I remember they were really pushing the military decision making process on like platoons and I finally said guys this is for like Brigade level staffs [UNKNOWN]: This, the military decision making process, this giant, you know, staff driven process is for a staff.

38:19 [UNKNOWN]: It's not for a platoon commander, it's platoon sergeant. [UNKNOWN]: Like, no. [UNKNOWN]: But the machine will eat that right, because troop leaving procedures are supposed to be for that lower level. [UNKNOWN]: And you have MDMP, and even you have higher levels with this one. [UNKNOWN]: People that pushing down where it really becomes Eisenhower's quota.

38:34 [UNKNOWN]: You know, plans are useless, but planning is everything. [UNKNOWN]: So it's the thinking through and what you want, which is whether we talk about Iran and the straight-up or moves, people are thinking that we weren't, nobody had planned for that. [UNKNOWN]: Like you haven't been around the military.

38:47 [UNKNOWN]: We plan to plan to plan whether it's based, you know, Martian's landing in Vegas. [UNKNOWN]: There are plans, and there is a whole task force, as you would know, betternight, that plan for the straight-up or moves. [UNKNOWN]: We don't have a problem planning. [UNKNOWN]: it just sometimes you get caught in the process.

39:03 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, um, fast forward a little bit. [UNKNOWN]: Looks like a wire sir coming out of the dirt on the right, on the right there, going across the field. [UNKNOWN]: I found what he meant. [UNKNOWN]: It was a wire with yellow insulation, bright yellow. [UNKNOWN]: That alone was peculiar.

39:21 [UNKNOWN]: I had seen my share of IEDs, the wires were usually black or subdued colors. [UNKNOWN]: Following the yellow line, I saw it indeed led to a dirt mound right beside the road, which was undoubtedly concealing a half-buried artillery shell. [UNKNOWN]: We sat a minute as I debated our options.

39:36 [UNKNOWN]: one of those moments I felt four pairs of eyes on me waiting to see how I handled it. [UNKNOWN]: I guess I can guess what's beside the road what I can't figure out is what that wire is going. [UNKNOWN]: There's nothing out there. [UNKNOWN]: I was using a loud, not inviting opinion, but I heard a murmur of agreement.

39:57 [UNKNOWN]: I finally decided, let's drive around it to the far side to see if we can see anything. [UNKNOWN]: We turned on the field, eased along what I hoped was a safe path, staying parallel with the record. [UNKNOWN]: When I felt we had driven far enough, I ordered a whole open-my door. [UNKNOWN]: Cathcart, let's go.

40:13 [UNKNOWN]: We followed the wire with our eyes, where it disappeared from view, I assumed it was buried, buried, we walked beside it, maybe another 20 meters, then it simply ended, as in not buried and not connected to anything. [UNKNOWN]: So you think about this for a while, let's call EOD, I decided.

40:31 [UNKNOWN]: We'll keep the four trucks here. [UNKNOWN]: The rest can head back. [UNKNOWN]: Roger that, sir. [UNKNOWN]: Signed, Kafka took a knee and got on the horn. [UNKNOWN]: Sure, I just killed the rest of our day, but I was not about to risk some other passing patrol getting killed for real. [UNKNOWN]: So this is a situation where, you know, you see something, and you had a gut feeling.

40:52 [UNKNOWN]: Well, explain your gut feeling on them. [UNKNOWN]: Sure. [UNKNOWN]: So the part that we would drive around, it was a 1-5-5 round lane on this side of the road. [UNKNOWN]: This is pre kind of advanced EFP. [UNKNOWN]: This is early in 2003, right? [UNKNOWN]: variety of IEDs are happening uh... sixty million motors one five five rounds are primarily what's being done but this is just laying on the side of the road and we've actually drove in driven past a family with a broken down road which we were supposed to to stop at the time all these things but there was a stage of at this point where somebody would come in laid the idea and somebody else would come in laid the triggered and somebody else would come up exploded so there was some common sense here to what was happening

41:32 [UNKNOWN]: But the moment in the field is standing over this yellow wire, which is odd. [UNKNOWN]: And the cut cart next to me says, sir, we could just pull this out of the way. [UNKNOWN]: Not that we hadn't done that in the past. [UNKNOWN]: We just pulled this out of the way. [UNKNOWN]: At this time, EOD wasn't even a, there was only an air force thing.

41:47 [UNKNOWN]: So we had Air Force EOD attached to you. [UNKNOWN]: So you'd wait hours. [UNKNOWN]: So you'd say, sir, if we call it a sandwich, we're going to be out here all day. [UNKNOWN]: So there's that listening to subordinates element, but you're still the leader having to make the decision. [UNKNOWN]: And it was a bit of something wasn't right intuition in my favorite book, Gavin DeBecker's gift of fear.

42:05 [UNKNOWN]: There was some processing happening even in my subconscious, like, no. [UNKNOWN]: And I don't pull it. [UNKNOWN]: I've surrounded it lately. [UNKNOWN]: Luckily, I didn't. [UNKNOWN]: It was all a trap. [UNKNOWN]: It was too obvious right in hindsight, of course that's too obvious. [UNKNOWN]: You all are at the time though I was like no, we just pulled this off to the side of the road It was all booby traps so underneath that one five five round was four one five five rounds [UNKNOWN]: There was actually a trip wire if you walked in, even look at it, and this is what the EOD who was really upset about it, because it was actually a trap for not just us, but it was a trap for the EOD as well, because it had layers of booby traps.

42:41 [UNKNOWN]: Under this thing, and had we pulled this of all the stories, which one was like, probably the closest to death, it was that one, because it was a split second decision on whether the pool that out of the way, or wait, and we waited for hours, and it was a trap. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that decision-making process, we're like, it's gonna be like, in plus you see wires all over the place.

43:04 [UNKNOWN]: It's not like this is something weird. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, this is totally, no, there's like stuff on the ground and there's that, and you go, oh, guys, see this a million times, whatever, we just pull this thing. [UNKNOWN]: There was no initiation to it, so that's the thing. [UNKNOWN]: Like in order for these to go off, you have to have some electronic charge.

43:18 [UNKNOWN]: There's just a wire that ended in a farm field. [UNKNOWN]: Like, of course I can pull this. [UNKNOWN]: The lesson here, intuition is the ability to understand something immediately without the need for conscious reasoning. [UNKNOWN]: In combat and in life, I have felt this gut feeling many times, a very subtle sense that something was not right.

43:38 [UNKNOWN]: Our brains are super-computers taking in information in a depth we do not fully understand. [UNKNOWN]: We are doing pattern recognition, scanning for dangers, even subconsciously, running on biological code that is ancient and hardwired. [UNKNOWN]: That's a hair standing on the back of your neck or whatever it is, it's there and it's that book that the gift of fear Which I had read before this.

44:02 [UNKNOWN]: I mean, it's how many times we actually override that and say well That's don't listen to that signal. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, this one was a gut feeling and the weird thing is sometimes you override that feeling and it's like Oh, yeah, everything's fine, and it's You know, you know, you got lucky and you start to doubt your intuition a little bit [UNKNOWN]: I remember when I was a kid, this one of my buddy's girlfriends, and she was supposed to fly down and see him, and she just didn't get on the plane, and he was like, what do you mean?

44:37 [UNKNOWN]: He's like, well, whatever, I forget the shitty shoes and some Florida or something, she says, I, no, I'm not coming, and he was like, well, why? [UNKNOWN]: What happened? [UNKNOWN]: She said, I just couldn't get on the plane. [UNKNOWN]: I had a bad feeling. [UNKNOWN]: you know the plane didn't crash you know now who knows echo Charles maybe she would have written on but wait the lecture wait difference you know or whatever but in war though there is as you cause with as we all have put about would play this war game part of the planning he would roll the dice and that chance in wars so present in every day so there is the some of the black bad luck good luck it's the probability in chance of war

45:18 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, there's no doubt about that and you can do everything right and it's still you can still get caught That's right, and you can do everything wrong and come out on-skate. [UNKNOWN]: Yep All right moving to chapter six, which is called pepper [UNKNOWN]: I think we talked about this last night, but not in this much detail.

45:39 [UNKNOWN]: Age 19, two years into my service, all my dreams came true, and I was assigned a second Battalion 75th Rage Regiment for Lewis Washington. [UNKNOWN]: At long last, I was one of them, the best of the best, and I was thrilled by that truth every waking moment. [UNKNOWN]: So you're a young Ranger, how old do you?

45:55 [UNKNOWN]: at that point? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, 19. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, check. [UNKNOWN]: 19 years old, two years in the army. [UNKNOWN]: There's a local a watering hole called Cowboys. [UNKNOWN]: And this is where all of you guys. [UNKNOWN]: What's wrong with that? [UNKNOWN]: All you guys would roll down there.

46:09 [UNKNOWN]: So it's good. [UNKNOWN]: And a bunch of young Rangers with high entice rolling down there. [UNKNOWN]: John, if you remember those, they were like mohacks. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: They don't do many more. [UNKNOWN]: No, they don't. [UNKNOWN]: They don't do many more.

46:23 [UNKNOWN]: Um, it was, I forget it, I don't think it was, I'm in general in the crystal. [UNKNOWN]: Well, somebody came in and said that, you know, this is in the counter and certain she, you know, this is the beard area, like you just causing yourself to stand off. [UNKNOWN]: Where are the actual, to go back to World War II?

46:37 [UNKNOWN]: Where does it come from? [UNKNOWN]: This distinction of this haircut, but they basically said it was causing you to have to stand out more than blend in. [UNKNOWN]: So the name went to, not a relaxed standard. [UNKNOWN]: It just went to a regular regular haircut, certainly. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

46:51 [UNKNOWN]: I got my buddy Seth Stone. [UNKNOWN]: He was in Sauder City, 2008. [UNKNOWN]: That's why I was. [UNKNOWN]: Yep. [UNKNOWN]: And we talked about this last time, but he he gave himself a straight-up mohawk, right? [UNKNOWN]: And he he ends up getting into Sauder City, and he's got a brief like some kernel or some general.

47:14 [UNKNOWN]: And he's got his helmet on. [UNKNOWN]: because he doesn't want to take his album off because he's got a Warhawk and he said he said they're talking, this guy, the guy's like, you know, hey Lieutenant, you can take your helmet off, you know, take your body. [UNKNOWN]: He's like, no, I'm good to go, so no factor, but he was really just hiding the fact that he has a over your mohawk and I've got a great picture of him in Sauder City like looking off in the distance as the walls being built.

47:39 [UNKNOWN]: And there's smoke in the, you know, in the background and everything and he's got his helmet off and he's sporting that war hawk. [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, occasionally that's like that might be the proper haircut for the situation. [UNKNOWN]: So here you guys are, you guys are at Cowboys the bar when your buddies can't, he's talking to some dudes and some girls and, you know, the stuff.

48:00 [UNKNOWN]: And they decide all you guys are going to go out to this place called the quarry And you get out to the quarry and this is a You know campfire scenario and you're you're there talking to some girls etc. [UNKNOWN]: etc. [UNKNOWN]: Next thing you know, you're just you're out. [UNKNOWN]: I have a little nap I didn't have the baseball bat.

48:17 [UNKNOWN]: Yep hit land with the baseball bat And I didn't feel a thing. [UNKNOWN]: There's just literally like I woke up later, but I didn't feel the impact nothing [UNKNOWN]: That's crazy. [UNKNOWN]: That's that's potentially lethal blow. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I mean, an unexpected blow to the back of the baseball hot back of the head Of course the top back of the head not got a pretty good stitch, but I mean, it opened you up too.

48:40 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I'm hoping the up to miracle Well the opening up is part of the story because I went to the hospital got stitches didn't answer any questions and then went back to my [UNKNOWN]: My barracks, that would later come back to home and like wait a minute you were there And I'm in the same yard the next next night like wait a minute You were here last night and the name peace come and I answer God you're not lied to you or steal Part of our code.

49:04 [UNKNOWN]: I answer all the questions. [UNKNOWN]: It becomes a longer [UNKNOWN]: So, you get knocked out, you get stitched up, but you don't really say what happened, and now your boys are like, wait a second, you got jumped, this is about, you know, these people are disrespecting, well, the first of all they're trying to hurt, they hurt one of our brothers, unacceptable.

49:27 [UNKNOWN]: and they heard a fellow ranger, you know, fully unexpectable, unacceptable. [UNKNOWN]: And they beat the other guy down and he was very present in a wake for it. [UNKNOWN]: So they knocked me out, I have a ranger buddy coming at code you don't go anywhere alone. [UNKNOWN]: They beat him down really bad.

49:42 [UNKNOWN]: But to the point where he still was able to walk everything, but he was a very visible sign where I'm like nothing happened to you. [UNKNOWN]: Like he was a very visible sign of how they attacked two rangers at this party. [UNKNOWN]: So your ranger brothers are like, we gotta go get payback.

49:57 [UNKNOWN]: Great. [UNKNOWN]: And this is that, so this is that night. [UNKNOWN]: Like you got knocked out one night and now the next night you're going back. [UNKNOWN]: Great. [UNKNOWN]: It's like a Friday night and you're the barracks and everybody like what happened. [UNKNOWN]: And we're making calls.

50:13 [UNKNOWN]: I'm not a dummy about like Cheney command calls and everything. [UNKNOWN]: And then we're going to go back up, like, okay. [UNKNOWN]: So two truck loads full of rangers go back up on Saturday night. [UNKNOWN]: You roll in there. [UNKNOWN]: And by the way, so that's the reason the chapers called pepper because as all this was going on, your buddy here, someone called out the name pepper.

50:32 [UNKNOWN]: Yep. [UNKNOWN]: And so that was the intel that you'd gather. [UNKNOWN]: That was right. [UNKNOWN]: Was it some dude named pepper did this? [UNKNOWN]: Yep. [UNKNOWN]: So you go into cowboys and you go into the bar. [UNKNOWN]: I'm looking for pepper. [UNKNOWN]: And sure enough, you found him.

50:44 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's a group of individuals said also can't have said you're looking for a pepper to Yes, and he said he's in the alley down the street, don't bring your friends or or bring ours This is very like childish kids dumb in hindsight [UNKNOWN]: And of course, I walked down this alley, believe the, so it wasn't a barfite.

51:02 [UNKNOWN]: Actually, that was a non-alcohol. [UNKNOWN]: No, there's no alcohol involved in this, just stupidity. [UNKNOWN]: Um, we walked down the street down this alley to arc lit alley. [UNKNOWN]: There's already a giant arena of civilians. [UNKNOWN]: You know, young kids with one guy standing in the middle of it.

51:17 [UNKNOWN]: This is straight out of a roadhouse type scenario. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: And we're walking. [UNKNOWN]: So like, this is like an 80's free at movie. [UNKNOWN]: It's so awful. [UNKNOWN]: That was there. [UNKNOWN]: I actually went back to the, like, really recently. [UNKNOWN]: I was given a brief to the Ranger Regiment.

51:33 [UNKNOWN]: And I went back to that. [UNKNOWN]: Did a little battlefield towards, right? [UNKNOWN]: And we were walking. [UNKNOWN]: So now we're like, literally, like, reservoir dogs. [UNKNOWN]: Shoulders of shoulder walking down this alley with all the, all the [UNKNOWN]: And one of them said at this point, you should take your shirt off because I lifted weights, you know, a swollen, so I take my shirt off.

51:51 [UNKNOWN]: How much did you wear? [UNKNOWN]: I probably weighed 180, I got Rangers, you know, they went a lot. [UNKNOWN]: 180, but there's many points to this story. [UNKNOWN]: One of the points to this story is that I'm inside freaking out. [UNKNOWN]: I have no, I'd never been in the fist fight basically at all ever.

52:10 [UNKNOWN]: and I'm walking into this arena with a guy sitting in the middle of it because of the UFC one, of course, and I tell this and I told you this, of course, we had had the hoist gracing in his brother kind of tutorial that now Matt Larson who is the, you've talked about is actually kicking butt at West Point.

52:29 [UNKNOWN]: teaching, combat of still, that's awesome. [UNKNOWN]: We had had that, like, tutorial, like, two weeks of not knowing what you're doing in juditsu, that's the amount of training I had. [UNKNOWN]: So from a very kind of war-study perspective, I was as unprepared as any individual could be for the battlefield life was just voluntarily walking into.

52:49 [UNKNOWN]: And then Pepper clearly had had some experience as a scrapper, basically. [UNKNOWN]: So I take my shirt off into this arena and there's a guy sitting in the middle of it and then that's pepper It's pepper. [UNKNOWN]: It actually I think I might even said are you pepper and you know, it's just to see to start swinging And you knew you knew at least to close the distance I was really professional with I really proficient at closing the distance grabbing the arms And that's what I I did what I at this point all of my adrenaline like this is the story even in my first book I tell like [UNKNOWN]: As a great case study of what it feels like to be unprepared for something.

53:27 [UNKNOWN]: Like all my adrenaline, cortisol, everything's just off the charts. [UNKNOWN]: And I barely remember parts of this, because I'm not ready. [UNKNOWN]: So I close the distance, wrap them up, and take them in literally. [UNKNOWN]: And this is the part where you tell the story like this didn't happen.

53:43 [UNKNOWN]: In the alley, and now we end up in the gully, in like ankle, knee deep water, in the gully of this alley. [UNKNOWN]: And I am, [UNKNOWN]: I had to successfully close the gap and achieved a mount on top of him so I was mounted on the side of this gully with basically our feet in the water and we're having this fight with fingers into my eyeballs scratching like everything because he had clearly never been wrapped up.

54:08 [UNKNOWN]: He's just a swinger. [UNKNOWN]: At one point, unlike they taught us, I achieved arm control but my face was close to his [UNKNOWN]: Because they're hurt really bad and they let go and then I got them in some like Crucifix reverse choke to we passed out Got up felt better about myself and then like the movies.

54:34 [UNKNOWN]: There's like sirens in the background like we got to go And I get my shirt that I hadn't wearing like and your ear looks pretty bad they gave me my shirt We leave before the cops show up kind of like a movie like cops slid in we slide in out [UNKNOWN]: And then I do the visor on that while the guys driving the hospital really fast, do the visor my ears gone.

54:55 [UNKNOWN]: Like how much of a reader is gone? [UNKNOWN]: You've seen it. [UNKNOWN]: Just like, yeah, that's pretty jack. [UNKNOWN]: And I could have actually, which is the, all these, this one story has allowed me to, you have conversations with my kids, have conversations with young men. [UNKNOWN]: One, you know, nobody can disrespect you, you earn respect, it is given, it is not demanded.

55:18 [UNKNOWN]: But even, [UNKNOWN]: I don't get the year in your surgery. [UNKNOWN]: I get offered the ability to have my ear fixed, because my identity is so tied to the Ranger Regiment. [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, I can't do that. [UNKNOWN]: I can't miss, I have a Ranger School slot. [UNKNOWN]: If you're in the Regiment and you're gone too long, then you gotta go.

55:37 [UNKNOWN]: So I denied all the surgeries and just wanted to get back to my unit to serve as quickly as possible because my identity was tied so much to it And then eventually they kicked me out, you know, they don't kick me out. [UNKNOWN]: I get released for standards It's a terminology. [UNKNOWN]: Actually, it's Lieutenant Colonel Stanley McCrystal at the moment up to seven five and he says basically you have a you have a profile You have to leave until you are healthy and you come back.

56:01 [UNKNOWN]: What's a profile? [UNKNOWN]: Um, that's when you're injured and you have like your covering from an injury so you can't do certain things So because my ear couldn't wear a helmet for like three months Like what you can't be here Is you gotta go get healthy and come back. [UNKNOWN]: And that was he on your board with Stan McCristlaw on your board.

56:18 [UNKNOWN]: And he was the metallic commander. [UNKNOWN]: So he basically signed this as a counseling statement. [UNKNOWN]: You know, basically the same. [UNKNOWN]: What was the actual term that you used for really for standards or the best for standards? [UNKNOWN]: So, no, it can be a disciplinary tool.

56:34 [UNKNOWN]: It's unique to the Ranger Regime is, you ever, it's a long conversation, but in Ranger Regime, if you have a discipline and medical or anything, they don't have to have any, like, a US Army administrative action, they just sign this document, and then you go somewhere else. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

56:51 [UNKNOWN]: And I just went to literally the infantry unit on the other side of the Ranger Regime events. [UNKNOWN]: So, it's a young man, there's so many lessons here about, you know, for my life, [UNKNOWN]: like a depression and my daddy's gone because I wanted to be a Ranger so bad. [UNKNOWN]: What year was this?

57:06 [UNKNOWN]: This is 1996. [UNKNOWN]: Damn, dude. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: But things happened for a reason. [UNKNOWN]: I go on to have, to this day, if that hadn't happened, I wouldn't be sitting here. [UNKNOWN]: But that, that story gave me so many life lessons in the hard way. [UNKNOWN]: That I had included in the book.

57:23 [UNKNOWN]: To include in jujitsu, echo, yeah, and I would go on and learn jujitsu and know how bad I didn't have bite, but it is kind of crazy that even with your, I think in the book you say you had done like four classes of jujitsu and that's what you needed to get close the distance on this guy. [UNKNOWN]: Like there is, if you're not, if you're not skilled opponents, for [UNKNOWN]: the gross motor movements of jujitsu are actually not that hard like rush the guy grab on to him, get him on the ground, but that stuff if someone doesn't know what's happening, that's what was so crazy when I did jujitsu for the first time having [UNKNOWN]: No idea what was going on none.

58:07 [UNKNOWN]: Like there was no this is pretty UFC There's no even a comprehension of like the guard was not a thing the mouth was not it wasn't even a thing it was like nothing It was nothing it was I don't even know a good metaphor to describe what it was [UNKNOWN]: The Master Chief that was teaching me glue this literally did whatever he wanted to and you had no idea what was happening You went like oh, I'm gonna keep my arms in you even know your arms are out You didn't think well.

58:32 [UNKNOWN]: I don't want to turn my back here like I don't even know He's on my back. [UNKNOWN]: I didn't have nothing to do with me It was crazy and so you only had this minimal amount of training and you still understood these kinds of you I'll do impose them. [UNKNOWN]: That's one thing that was because when I started to learn due to it I only knew three things, but I could impose them because someone else didn't know anything [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I mean, this is Matt Larson.

58:54 [UNKNOWN]: Again, having Matt Larson was in, this is where you get to starch for the entire military. [UNKNOWN]: Really? [UNKNOWN]: Because Stanley McCrischel sends Matt Larson out to all these schools, so I didn't even want to, which is actually unfortunate they're going back towards this band at jabbing.

59:08 [UNKNOWN]: hand-to-hand combat thing is he wanted to redo that system so he sent matter going back to that yes in what way What do you talk about they've restarted some of the ban at assault courses? [UNKNOWN]: I understand I like the bayonet assault courses I mean, I think that that's cool to like run around and like aggressively slaughter some dummies I think that's cool for aggression you know like in a basic for the basic training that means is that replacing [UNKNOWN]: Oh, no, that's not a good call.

59:32 [UNKNOWN]: That's not a good call, right? [UNKNOWN]: Because there's no, which is really the close of distance is about to encourage some move forward under that, that's what Matt said. [UNKNOWN]: Like, this isn't about building UFC fighters in the military. [UNKNOWN]: It's giving them examples to overcome their fear of being punched in the face.

59:46 [UNKNOWN]: So that close of distance with the initial lesson, but Matt, you should teach all these lessons. [UNKNOWN]: Like, it's crazy that even in our movies and everything, everybody's strategy is to take their hand [UNKNOWN]: the most amount of fragile bones and banging against the hardest part of the human body the skull.

1:00:04 [UNKNOWN]: And that's the game plan of most people in a whatever street fight or whatever. [UNKNOWN]: That's the stupidest plan. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it is stupid. [UNKNOWN]: You know, there was some of the stuff that we learned because I was lucky to, well, I guess, lucky in a way that I got to see like the various martial arts come into the seal teams over time.

1:00:21 [UNKNOWN]: And yeah, the reliance on striking as a way to control [UNKNOWN]: is it was really interesting to see because striking is not a good way to control people. [UNKNOWN]: You know, Rodney King, Rodney King, like how well did striking work to control him? [UNKNOWN]: You know, it's like they had to beat the living shit out of that guy and that's very common.

1:00:44 [UNKNOWN]: It's hard to knock someone out. [UNKNOWN]: Go watch a boxing match. [UNKNOWN]: It's hard to knock someone out. [UNKNOWN]: You know, if you get a complete soccer punch on someone, [UNKNOWN]: You probably have, what do you think? [UNKNOWN]: What's percentage chance? [UNKNOWN]: If you get a soccer punch on someone, 50%, 50%, I think it's 50%.

1:00:59 [UNKNOWN]: I think it's 50% in the time. [UNKNOWN]: If you get a soccer punch on someone, and now look, if the guy's like a skilled boxer and he's soccer punches, maybe it's a little higher percentage, but a random dude doing a soccer punch with someone else, it's like a 50% chance that you're gonna get, that you're gonna knock them out.

1:01:16 [UNKNOWN]: So now we're thinking, oh, if we strike someone, [UNKNOWN]: There was this fantasy in the sealed teams like if you strike someone with your muzzle or you strike them in the face that they were going to be now like fall down and be compliant Which was it turned out to be so wrong. [UNKNOWN]: We had guys muzzle strike and news in the face and all of that was open up a bunch of you know cuts and acute damage to their face which didn't get them under control and now you had a bleeding [UNKNOWN]: and injured prisoner that you have to deal with right and now you're turning in over to the death and this guy's got like big laceration on his head and they're like what happened well you know one of my guys muzzle struck him three times in the face well why did you do it three times then why does he okay someone else then had to go and tackle and because he still wasn't controlled because a strike generally speaking doesn't get someone under control so yeah it is interesting that how much it's it's like the fantasy of the

1:02:07 [UNKNOWN]: You know, before the UFC, you know, I'm going to hit you with, you know, throw the three strikes and you're going to fall down. [UNKNOWN]: It's like it doesn't work that. [UNKNOWN]: Which is the point of UFC one puts all of that to the test. [UNKNOWN]: So much more than if you remember the boxer were boxing gloves.

1:02:20 [UNKNOWN]: Art Jimmerson. [UNKNOWN]: Because he knew that he would break his hand. [UNKNOWN]: And all of those first fighters in UFC ones, they're all breaking their hands. [UNKNOWN]: Banging their hand against these people's skulls. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: There's that one with a big like 600 pound guy.

1:02:32 [UNKNOWN]: I think I keep striking him because he's broken both of his hands. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, well, it's, I'm, well, hopefully Matt Larson has got a handle on keeping things the way they're supposed to be. [UNKNOWN]: He's pushing, again, culture and everything. [UNKNOWN]: He's pushing and we have some leadership, but it's, um, because sometimes it does feel like we're not trying to prepare you for UFC.

1:02:55 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, absolutely. [UNKNOWN]: There is, it's a, it's an bureaucracy that can be your left and right without the right leadership. [UNKNOWN]: And he's constantly, and at West Point was an amazing place for him to be, about what is it up out, not just the skills, but is this, you want to test somebody's courage, which he uses, like the Jessica Lynch story as well as, and you've got a fight, and there's no better way to test somebody to fight, and put them in a fight where they're not going to injure as much, so then there's the skill set.

1:03:31 [UNKNOWN]: bought in that jujitsu's the the only solution it's like no jujitsu boxing wrestling more time and then whatever other kind of stuff you know you can figure out that works and past that information on um getting locked into one thing ever that's like saying hey this is like saying we're on the battlefield this is the only tactic we're using like I would never say that why would I say that about fighting?

1:03:52 [UNKNOWN]: So, it's more about, as much as I talked last class about, what Ranger School is for us, it's a test of character. [UNKNOWN]: It's what it is, it's a lot of things, but it tears you down to your individual, and now I get to test your character. [UNKNOWN]: Will you quit, will you do lie, steal food, all that, combat us, starts with it, will give you, test your courage.

1:04:14 [UNKNOWN]: As much as West Point still does boxing as well, requires one, which they should? [UNKNOWN]: Semester boxing. [UNKNOWN]: Do they do judo to a wrestling? [UNKNOWN]: They're all, those are all optional. [UNKNOWN]: Boxing is mandatory. [UNKNOWN]: OK, because I want to say the Naval Academy is like a semester boxing a semester resting in a semester of judo, maybe.

1:04:30 [UNKNOWN]: And maybe it's turned into a digital now. [UNKNOWN]: But like, resting in boxing isn't great combination. [UNKNOWN]: You know what I mean? [UNKNOWN]: I've had my son do boxing just not so much to wonder. [UNKNOWN]: Know how to throw a punch about how to not get by a punch as much as I have to do to.

1:04:43 [UNKNOWN]: And if you have a good, like, combo, you, [UNKNOWN]: You'll be 80% 90% of people in the street with just one to combo maybe throw a three and a four on there Just to finish it off, but yeah, and a little bit of head movement. [UNKNOWN]: You're going a long way But now there's I just saw a video of Matt coming on to like the Danes of a trench combat of So the setting matters as much as once you do this progression of you're not going to be on the mat in a combat [UNKNOWN]: The Danes had set up basically a trinch line and then they jump in and they basically have and they have fake knives Because this is what we're seeing and they you know, which we have like the like the electric night Think like that that throw that into a combatters fight, but like let's put the realism as much as you were talking about S.A. Marshall's

1:05:28 [UNKNOWN]: gift of all the things you gave, about that realism of training. [UNKNOWN]: So just saying thing for combat of training, you should elevate this to realism. [UNKNOWN]: So put you in a trench and then your weapons, knives, everything. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, man. [UNKNOWN]: Good stuff. [UNKNOWN]: You're less in from this, and you kind of mentioned already, but respect, respect is one of the most misunderstood values among young men, young soldiers, and even many adults, at its core, respect is a positive feeling, admiration for someone's character ability or achievements.

1:05:56 [UNKNOWN]: It is not the same as honor, though the two are often get tangled together, honors about a steam, even prestige. [UNKNOWN]: Respect is deeper. [UNKNOWN]: It is not demanded. [UNKNOWN]: It is not taken. [UNKNOWN]: It cannot be forced. [UNKNOWN]: Respect is earned. [UNKNOWN]: In my youth, I believe the opposite.

1:06:10 [UNKNOWN]: Like so many young warriors, I thought if someone disrespected me or worse, disrespected my tribe, then a fight was the only way forward. [UNKNOWN]: That mindset leads you down dark avenues. [UNKNOWN]: You tell yourself that respect is something you have to defend at all costs, and that the mere perception of disrespect justifies violence or revenge.

1:06:27 [UNKNOWN]: That thinking destroys lives. [UNKNOWN]: It nearly destroyed mine. [UNKNOWN]: Through time and service, I learned the truth. [UNKNOWN]: Respect is not something you shout about or fight for. [UNKNOWN]: It is something you build, patiently through your actions and excellence. [UNKNOWN]: True professionals, true leaders, the giants in any field, whether military business, sports or scholarship, do not demand respect, they earn it.

1:06:48 [UNKNOWN]: And because it is earned, it lasts. [UNKNOWN]: Important lesson yeah, I mean you think about even game culture like it's such a Such a fallacy about respect and disrespect. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, and it's one of those things that as you know a young like you said young warrior, right? [UNKNOWN]: That that stuff means a lot and when it gets when it gets ruffled It's very very difficult for a young man to sort of detach from The part of respect that is all wrapped up in their ego [UNKNOWN]: and thinking, oh, yeah, you know, I said something about some guys, it's a question one time, you know, somebody said something to me in the street, I want to beat them up type thing.

1:07:32 [UNKNOWN]: And I said, you know, you don't have to try and earn respect from somebody that doesn't respect themselves. [UNKNOWN]: Like anyone that's running around the street, I think this guy was like some drunk idiot, you know? [UNKNOWN]: You're saying something about whatever his girlfriend or his wife or something like that and it's like, bro Now you're gonna go get a fight with this guy.

1:07:48 [UNKNOWN]: That's what we're doing. [UNKNOWN]: We're gonna go in the fight with this guy on a Friday night You just took your wife out for dinner and now you're gonna go fight some random loser in the street Possibly get sued possibly go to jail possibly get stabbed possibly get jumped by his friends You know, not not almost no outcome is good [UNKNOWN]: And that's what we're doing.

1:08:10 [UNKNOWN]: Like, no, we should not be doing that. [UNKNOWN]: You need to elevate a little bit and just be careful with that. [UNKNOWN]: And it translates against echelons. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, from war, even war. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, there's the three reasons people go to. [UNKNOWN]: Nations go to war still stands.

1:08:24 [UNKNOWN]: Fear on our interest. [UNKNOWN]: Honor is not the same. [UNKNOWN]: There's respect. [UNKNOWN]: But honor is a big part of why nations go to war. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. [UNKNOWN]: You're with your, you're in Iraq. [UNKNOWN]: You're with Ahmed, who's like a tribal leader slash gangster.

1:08:42 [UNKNOWN]: Ahmed was all smiles. [UNKNOWN]: And there's a guy that shows up, Nijib, Ahmed was all smiles. [UNKNOWN]: My dear friend, Nijib, what a delightful surprise. [UNKNOWN]: May I conclude my business with Captain Spencer? [UNKNOWN]: And then I shall be entirely yours, Nijib steered, Iceli at him.

1:08:56 [UNKNOWN]: Pretending not to notice Ahmed turned the music down and not to then address me. [UNKNOWN]: I've thought about your civil affairs plan to start delivering large dumpsters in the neighborhood So everyone stops throwing it in the streets. [UNKNOWN]: I knew what he was doing making the jeep wait letting the jeep overhear us as if Ahmed was the kingpin and I the hapless US Army officer had come hat in hand to seek his counsel [UNKNOWN]: Ahmed started naming local drivers who might agree to the work, and the G-Listened Seathing, until his patience finally broke.

1:09:24 [UNKNOWN]: Ahmed, what about my sister's boy? [UNKNOWN]: Brad was at my ear rapidly translating. [UNKNOWN]: Quite unfortunate, Ahmed admitted, but that is how headstrong young men behave. [UNKNOWN]: They shot him, like a manjee dog in the street, and now they walk around smiling? [UNKNOWN]: Now I knew of the beef.

1:09:43 [UNKNOWN]: One of Nijeeb's guys had refused to stop for Ocmet for an Ocmet checkpoint. [UNKNOWN]: Ocmet shrugged, headed occurred in your territory your men of wood have done the same. [UNKNOWN]: Nijeeb's eye balls bugged out. [UNKNOWN]: He started to sputter, but Ocmet calmly raised upon, you were being discurdious, I'm speaking to Captain Spencer.

1:10:02 [UNKNOWN]: Captain Spencer can go to the devil. [UNKNOWN]: his fist were bald with rage and the look in his eyes was the one my mom used to get just before she erupted. [UNKNOWN]: Only the weapons here were a lot worse than a belt. [UNKNOWN]: Najib's man, Najib's man's hand went closer to his guns to one of his like little security dudes.

1:10:20 [UNKNOWN]: Uncle likewise reached toward his vest. [UNKNOWN]: and this is one of Aquaman's guys, the table guards leveled their AKs and fits his eyes went wide in a flash all three of us saw how precarious our position was. [UNKNOWN]: If anyone in that room set or did the wrong thing in the next few seconds, we'd all be lying in a pool of blood.

1:10:37 [UNKNOWN]: I was an airborne ranger trained to destroy troops. [UNKNOWN]: How would I wound up here? [UNKNOWN]: I slowly raised my palms speaking smoothly, soothingly, and Brad matched my tone. [UNKNOWN]: Gentlemen, we're all friends here. [UNKNOWN]: That wasn't true, shooting the Jeep's nephew was like dumping gasoline on a roaring blaze.

1:10:54 [UNKNOWN]: All they could hope was that neither boss wanted to die over such petty grief. [UNKNOWN]: Not that either would give an inch in the moment, of course, it was the same story all over Iraq. [UNKNOWN]: Bad guys, worst guys, and US troops caught in the middle. [UNKNOWN]: The young man seems to have made a huge mistake in his actions, I told Okmed, but the bullet struck his face and he is disfigured.

1:11:14 [UNKNOWN]: They told him to stop, he disobeyed, disobeyed. [UNKNOWN]: I looked in a jeep, I know Okmed, he's a generous man. [UNKNOWN]: Is there some compensation for your family that you might accept? [UNKNOWN]: I had been in Iraq long enough to know, tribal, or even cultural settlement for wrongful deaths could be paid, and what we called blood money.

1:11:31 [UNKNOWN]: Now, jeep sneered. [UNKNOWN]: The only thing I'll accept is his head on a stick. [UNKNOWN]: seemingly bored with all this posturing Ahmed casually waived, half a million DNR. [UNKNOWN]: Najeev exploded in rage half a million four million. [UNKNOWN]: The boy is injured buddy lives three million you're cringing jackal or I'll kill you where you stand.

1:11:49 [UNKNOWN]: I'm not standing Najeev one million or you'll be dead before you hit the floor. [UNKNOWN]: Najeev cast his eyes slowly about the room. [UNKNOWN]: Uncle stood like iron ready to die. [UNKNOWN]: The two guards at the table and sergeant fits were markedly steely. [UNKNOWN]: Any shooting he'd be the first to fall.

1:12:04 [UNKNOWN]: Najeev's eyes locked on mine like lasers. [UNKNOWN]: I didn't appear to be armed, but in fact had my 9mm pistol ready under the table. [UNKNOWN]: All things considered a million dnr was nothing to sneeze at, so no jeep finally nodded. [UNKNOWN]: Allah is good. [UNKNOWN]: I solely exhaled. [UNKNOWN]: I don't have it here, Ahmed, con-cautioned.

1:12:23 [UNKNOWN]: You're a man of your word, a jeep allowed. [UNKNOWN]: Just take care of- just take care of this never happens again. [UNKNOWN]: He nodded to his man and uncle let them out, death staring them every step of the way. [UNKNOWN]: Brad was quivering beside me and Sergeant Fitt slowly rolled the tension out of his neck.

1:12:38 [UNKNOWN]: And Ahmed, just another day in the office, he smiled but never as we stood. [UNKNOWN]: It was a pleasure to see you as always, my captain. [UNKNOWN]: Please extend my fondest wishes to your mother. [UNKNOWN]: The sopranos of Baghdad. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, there's an article I wrote called The Gangs of Baghdad, which is kind of a macro level.

1:12:58 [UNKNOWN]: What I was doing to today in Baghdad. [UNKNOWN]: was driving around that he's these Tony Supranos legit and they were in character you know like full deities jumpsuits I mean this demeanour around that they watched it but they were legit and they had gangs they had it was mafia and I would go around and give them lots of money which is where the chapter starts off and I get in the room very dark similar to this jacco with me my translator and my bodyguard who just kind of stands off to [UNKNOWN]: basically mob scene of the guys taking guests of like you do me a favor, I do you a favor and I'm one of the people coming in to his meeting and then the guy storms in and it's I go from a street fight now I'm almost in a gun fight in a very small room

1:13:44 [UNKNOWN]: where everybody is hot tempered and a gun on on the trigger, hand on their trigger. [UNKNOWN]: It was crazy and how did I get here? [UNKNOWN]: And I had about four of those Tony Supranos to deal with in an area bagged out of about 75,000 people. [UNKNOWN]: And that's how we achieve stability.

1:14:04 [UNKNOWN]: I know Romani, I'm sure there were powerbrokers form a tribal. [UNKNOWN]: This is urban. [UNKNOWN]: So this is like, [UNKNOWN]: You asked about what their tribe was like we talked about my tribe. [UNKNOWN]: It was more of these, you know, people who controlled gangs and had the power to do it.

1:14:19 [UNKNOWN]: Gangsters. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, your lesson here is humility. [UNKNOWN]: This friend was a Baghdad chapter May read like a gangster movie set in the middle of a war zone, but from years one of the hardest and most important lessons I carried forward The lesson is simple to say but difficult to live be humble.

1:14:33 [UNKNOWN]: In the military and business and in life, people often tell you to be aggressive, to be the smartest person in the room that toughest the smartest, the most lethal. [UNKNOWN]: I have lived that world and yes, there's a place for strength and resolve, but there's also greatness in humility.

1:14:46 [UNKNOWN]: The real honor is not the honor we receive. [UNKNOWN]: It's the honor we give. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, he got painful. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: You know, it's funny. [UNKNOWN]: He's like, how often you actually have that kind of, you've got to do the same thing with, in many cases, just like, your straight-up chain of command.

1:15:05 [UNKNOWN]: Like, you're going to be working for some people. [UNKNOWN]: that you may not hold in the highest regard, you know, people that may be unexperienced, it may be arrogant, it may be like who knows, but there are definitely people that you're going to work for where you have to put, you have to just be humble because if you let your ego flare up there, you're just going to flare up and you're going to get crushed with it at the boss.

1:15:29 [UNKNOWN]: So, [UNKNOWN]: And I had situations in Iraq, similar that where I thought I was the boss in a room of where they were the bosses. [UNKNOWN]: If I didn't have the humbleness like I did that, just to be quiet for most of it, it could have gone badly and there were a couple other situations where I was like, I'm the American, I'm the captain, I'm in charge of this whole area you come in, like that's not going to work.

1:15:53 [UNKNOWN]: fast forward a little bit. [UNKNOWN]: This is still in Iraq. [UNKNOWN]: I don't know who suggested using this opportunity for a weapons check. [UNKNOWN]: But it was not unusual. [UNKNOWN]: Soldiers in combat are trained to keep their weapons clean, lubricated, and serviced almost religiously.

1:16:08 [UNKNOWN]: But from time to time they need to test fire the weapons to be served and they are ready to spring into action. [UNKNOWN]: That junk pile of barrels did not look like anything that required further investigations are requested radio permission from my company commander and he granted us the okay to light it up a simple test fire of weapons.

1:16:25 [UNKNOWN]: My guy's grand! [UNKNOWN]: Nothing like some live fire to clear the senses. [UNKNOWN]: I gave the honor to my Mark 19 grenade launcher mounted a top my vehicle. [UNKNOWN]: It's basically a belt-fed 40mm. [UNKNOWN]: Grenade machine gun that makes a distinctive boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, methodical and beautiful in its symphony of destruction.

1:16:43 [UNKNOWN]: We backed my home V up about 300 meters, I didn't want to be any closer on the off-chance those barrels were filled of gasoline, the rest of the platoon waited another 100 meters behind us. [UNKNOWN]: Brooks was above me in the vehicle, gun hatch, sliding the large lever back to arm the mark 19, [UNKNOWN]: When he looked for me for approval, I calmly announced fire at will, having blown up all kinds of stuff over the last month or two, I figured I had seen it all what I had never seen before or since was time stand still.

1:17:14 [UNKNOWN]: The tank ditch vanished in an explosion, I can only liken to slow-mo footage of the moom shop blasting off from Cape Cornelville, only this wasn't slow-mo, and we saw this immense white [UNKNOWN]: I just had time to duck between my driver's side door before it hit us with the sound and fury unlike anything I'd ever known.

1:17:38 [UNKNOWN]: Non-lethal thankfully, but a thing you actually felt pressing down into your guts. [UNKNOWN]: When I was sure it was passed and gone, I slowly rose and just stared, stunned. [UNKNOWN]: A butesized column of smoke and fire was pouring into the sky, mushrooming out, and it just kept climbing.

1:17:56 [UNKNOWN]: A mile high, maybe two, maybe more. [UNKNOWN]: My stunned guys looked at each other and to me. [UNKNOWN]: All of us, all of our ears were ringing, jaws unclunching, realizing we were lucky to be alive. [UNKNOWN]: Radio static cut the wonder. [UNKNOWN]: It was my commanding officer. [UNKNOWN]: White six, white six.

1:18:15 [UNKNOWN]: This is attack six. [UNKNOWN]: Was that you? [UNKNOWN]: I swallowed, feeling so morgrel and unworthy before the looming hammer of the gods, raising the mic, I replied as blandly, but confidently as I could. [UNKNOWN]: A tax-sex, this is white-sex, testfire complete. [UNKNOWN]: It was no way to hide it anyways, the cloud streamed into the sky like a signal flare visible for miles and every direction calls were already pouring in from units across the region.

1:18:42 [UNKNOWN]: Every one of them demanding to know what God's name had just happened. [UNKNOWN]: It was not the kind of thing you could cover up the sky itself told the story. [UNKNOWN]: So this isn't, the book's not written chronologically. [UNKNOWN]: This is going back to 2003, is a young petulator. [UNKNOWN]: And it, again, another lesson learned of the stupidity, shooting at these barrels.

1:19:05 [UNKNOWN]: And at this time, we were, and people's just don't understand, the battleful collection, these things that people get assigned to do, a job was to go out and find any stockpiles. [UNKNOWN]: And we'd find an entire warehouse full of stuff. [UNKNOWN]: And we'd collect that all that up. [UNKNOWN]: And a lot of times, we would just blow it in place.

1:19:20 [UNKNOWN]: literally like we're playing pyro around the all of Iraq just stack we would take we would take just Iraqis who had been kicked out of the Iraqi army because I was there for that who would load them up on dozing the half and take them out in the fields and just collect up all the artillery rounds and put them all on the pile and blow them up.

1:19:39 [UNKNOWN]: But this was that testfire into that tank. [UNKNOWN]: And it literally just echo, it was just black barrels and like probably rocket fuel is what we think that it was. [UNKNOWN]: Most likely it was rocket fuel that we shot at. [UNKNOWN]: And I've never seen to this day a mushroom cloud as big as the one that created.

1:19:59 [UNKNOWN]: We blew some missiles in place, and the same thing. [UNKNOWN]: It was a legitimate mushroom cloud. [UNKNOWN]: It was crazy. [UNKNOWN]: And we had stopped. [UNKNOWN]: It was kind of a buy of the highway. [UNKNOWN]: I think it was Route Tampa. [UNKNOWN]: It's a rent-tap-a-go-south of Baghdad.

1:20:15 [UNKNOWN]: It was Route Tampa. [UNKNOWN]: And so we were down there, and we, you know, some aircraft that identify these big missiles on the ground so we're like, cool, go-bill, I'm in place. [UNKNOWN]: We go out there, we set security. [UNKNOWN]: And I'm looking at my UD guy and I'm like, you know, he kind of set, you know, the, the safe distance and it was, you know, probably like half a mile or something because we, because they were by the road so we had to stop the traffic on the freeway and um, I was kind of like, dude, I think we're might be, you know, little, little being a little extra cautious little risk of earths or I don't think we need this much of real boy who was, I wrong.

1:20:46 [UNKNOWN]: those things where it was crazy explosion. [UNKNOWN]: So this sounds like this one sounds even worse, man. [UNKNOWN]: And it was that moment when I still talked to that company commander, Ned Richmond. [UNKNOWN]: And he thought I would come back with like burnt off eyebrows and everything.

1:21:01 [UNKNOWN]: But we still laugh about this testfire complete. [UNKNOWN]: Actually, you got a funny one with a lathe. [UNKNOWN]: We were hitting a target in Ramadi and his breacher, one of his breacher's had breached a car trunk while they were searching it. [UNKNOWN]: Well, in that car trunk, they had a thing of gasoline in there, you know, like a five gallon can of gasoline.

1:21:21 [UNKNOWN]: It caught fire. [UNKNOWN]: There's this raging fire. [UNKNOWN]: And I'm like a few buildings over and I see this just probably like 40 or 50 foot fire. [UNKNOWN]: And I get on the radio and I'm like, uh, life, mind tell me what's going on with that fire over there. [UNKNOWN]: You know, he got his video.

1:21:39 [UNKNOWN]: We preached the thing, but I'll put it out now. [UNKNOWN]: I was like, okay, but it was the same thing. [UNKNOWN]: And you know, things go a little bit sideways from time to time. [UNKNOWN]: But, um, [UNKNOWN]: You know, the important thing here that's less near was integrity, you say, from the day soldiers enter service crossing the line from civilian to soldier, they're indoctrinated with list of values.

1:21:56 [UNKNOWN]: At first, they are memorialized like memorized like multiplication tables. [UNKNOWN]: Over time, they are tested sharp and improving and training and in combat until they are no longer words but character. [UNKNOWN]: Integrity is at the center of that list. [UNKNOWN]: Any profession, any human relationship is built on trust.

1:22:10 [UNKNOWN]: Trust between a soldier and a commander, between a worker and a boss, between a husband and a wife, between citizen and society. [UNKNOWN]: Once trust is broken, it's almost impossible to win back. [UNKNOWN]: That is why integrity is not an accessory to character, it is the core. [UNKNOWN]: The West Point cadet honor code states simply, a cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those that do.

1:22:29 [UNKNOWN]: It was the first formalized, under general Douglas MacArthur, and it is a single sentence that can be applied in every corner of life. [UNKNOWN]: The U.S. Army value of integrity expands on it. [UNKNOWN]: Do what's right, legally, and morally. [UNKNOWN]: Integrity is a quality you develop by adhering to your moral principles.

1:22:46 [UNKNOWN]: It requires that you do and say nothing that deceives others. [UNKNOWN]: As your integrity grows, so does the trust you, others place in you. [UNKNOWN]: The more choices you make based on integrity, the more this highly prized value will affect your relationships with family and friends, and finally the fundamental acceptance of yourself.

1:23:08 [UNKNOWN]: Um, you know, last time we, this didn't make it into this book, but I think it's worth revisiting. [UNKNOWN]: You had, first of all, I think you were a, you were a company commander, and you had a young, you had a couple kids that were playing around with guns, and one of the guys shot the other guy in the neck.

1:23:27 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, uh, got wounded, hurt really bad, and then shortly thereafter, you had a young lieutenant. [UNKNOWN]: that had a negligent discharge, which that's something that was supposed to be reported up the chain of command. [UNKNOWN]: You already were jumping into a situation where the platoon had a bad reputation, you had this freaking kid get shot, and you just decided like, I don't need to put any more bad shade on this platoon, and so you decided that you were not going to report this up the chain of command.

1:24:04 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I mean, there's this one is a story of it's kind of easy to tell the truth that there's a mushroom cloud. [UNKNOWN]: But you, you're right, we should couple that with times like when I was offered $10,000 by a guy at a checkpoint to try to just let him through. [UNKNOWN]: And I could have taken that and there's so many cases where people don't.

1:24:25 [UNKNOWN]: That case wasn't an issue of whether I was, it was almost whether I was going to follow an order, which is report, not lie about it actually the company commander asked about it later and I, he greeted my decision in that moment when, in that story with connected soldiers, the unit where I was making a decision that I felt was, I was taking some of the burden on myself by not reporting it to allow this, [UNKNOWN]: entire unit.

1:24:51 [UNKNOWN]: And he couldn't hide because it literally his weapon exploded into the clearing barrel. [UNKNOWN]: He couldn't hide it in front of the soldiers, of course. [UNKNOWN]: He wasn't going to lie. [UNKNOWN]: That complexity is the human nature of stress-revealing character. [UNKNOWN]: Of course, we do not lie cheater steel, but that's going to put into the reality of human condition and situations.

1:25:17 [UNKNOWN]: you unit your family and everything without reaching your integrity and this these are real examples of being a little do it funny thing about this is my daughter you know I built this into the code really like your book talks about living by a code a family code and and we have that we do not lie cheat or steal and and she's at church and she hears it it's not like I created these things actually I took it from you know the west point kid cadet conduct code code conduct basically [UNKNOWN]: But these are universal values and why they're so important is we've got to put them to the test.

1:25:52 [UNKNOWN]: So it closely links to that situation, although the stress of that, those days, as you know from our last talk, was intense. [UNKNOWN]: So having to make those decisions like that were really hard and to set that risk to myself, professionally, not lying about it, but not reporting it. [UNKNOWN]: So is it, are you maintaining your integrity by not reporting it?

1:26:15 [UNKNOWN]: And I made a real decision that it wasn't, so I maintained my character while still doing what I thought was best for the men. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's definitely a tough call on that one. [UNKNOWN]: And you talked to your company commander later, and he was like, yeah, you made the right call.

1:26:31 [UNKNOWN]: And I think a lot of times, you know, I've played things out in my mind to like, okay, if this gets found out, and I have to sit down with my boss and explain why I made this decision, why did this, is it defensible? [UNKNOWN]: You know, was I doing this for my own benefit? [UNKNOWN]: You know, which is always a big red flag.

1:26:49 [UNKNOWN]: If you're trying to take care of yourself, [UNKNOWN]: I mean, you're not going to get any trouble if this little lieutenant has an AD or an ND and you report it, you're not going to get any trouble for it. [UNKNOWN]: You're not going to get some coming down to you, especially because you just took over the little platoon.

1:27:02 [UNKNOWN]: So it's not like you were doing it to protect yourself. [UNKNOWN]: You're doing it really to protect the platoon, get their morale moving in the right direction, gain some trust from them. [UNKNOWN]: And at the same time, that's risky too, because I always tell the young leaders in the military.

1:27:16 [UNKNOWN]: If they think that you are going to cover for them, stand by, because you're going to need to cover for them, because they're going to do shit that they shouldn't be doing. [UNKNOWN]: And if you set that precedent and then all of a sudden, they cross a line that you know, but they don't know.

1:27:35 [UNKNOWN]: Now we have a major issue, you know, so when you cover for them on some small scale without saying, okay, look, you can get, because I've had this conversation with many guys, oh, you've got trouble for drinking, okay, cool. [UNKNOWN]: This one is your, is your good out of jail freak press.

1:27:49 [UNKNOWN]: If this kind of shit happens again, you, I will not be able to help you and I'm not going to help you. [UNKNOWN]: So you got to draw that line in the sand where they understand, okay, I got away with a little bit, [UNKNOWN]: My boss isn't a tyrant, but if I do this again, there's no escape.

1:28:04 [UNKNOWN]: But a lot of times, you guys make them stake of, they just go, okay, well, you can get away with this time. [UNKNOWN]: And then the next thing they do is even worse, and then they're surprised when you come down on them. [UNKNOWN]: because you need to and they're surprised about it. [UNKNOWN]: And so you got to really set that standard of you know this this this this the line and if you go over this line I got nothing for you.

1:28:25 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so and we and I had to have that talk with them in to make sure they knew that wasn't covered for anybody and and that and I that particular face consequences absolutely for his action. [UNKNOWN]: and you had to stay up and clear everybody and drill it and everything, but I had to make that very visible because it's in the gray that somebody may take a decision to be that they can get away with things.

1:28:46 [UNKNOWN]: So I was very deliberate in explaining what had happened and then what was going to happen as a consequence of it. [UNKNOWN]: You know, what the hires knew or not, that was a different story, but the men definitely knew what was the rationale and the leadership decision that was made. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, sure.

1:29:03 [UNKNOWN]: Leadership is hard, man. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Fast forward. [UNKNOWN]: We're going to take you to another war zone, Ukraine. [UNKNOWN]: Around Kiev, there is no single grand clash. [UNKNOWN]: The battle unfolded across hundreds of square miles with numerous medium and small scale engagements.

1:29:20 [UNKNOWN]: We had several locations. [UNKNOWN]: We wanted to inspect and Bucha, my saying that right? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, Bucha. [UNKNOWN]: Bucha was the first on our list. [UNKNOWN]: By the time we arrived, Bucha had already become a name whispered in horror. [UNKNOWN]: Russian soldiers tied Ukrainian men, women and children, and the elderly with their hands behind their backs and slaughtered them at close range.

1:29:38 [UNKNOWN]: Some were shot, point, blank, others execution style. [UNKNOWN]: The images emerging from the town were not war. [UNKNOWN]: They were evil, a special kind of evil. [UNKNOWN]: This was not the kind of violence Liam and I hardened by conflict had seen before. [UNKNOWN]: This was intimate murder.

1:29:54 [UNKNOWN]: cruelty close up, and for that reason in its own way, even worse. [UNKNOWN]: The somber truth was still being uncovered, videos with surface later, mass graves would be exhumed, stories of torture, mutilation, and sexual assault would flood the world. [UNKNOWN]: Authorities recovered hundreds of bodies after Russian forces withdrew, the local count eventually rose to 458 in Bucha alone, most of them shot, and many with binding marks on their hands.

1:30:23 [UNKNOWN]: A mask grave about 45 foot trench near St. Andrew and all Saints Church held a dozen or more bodies and body bags when satellite imagery first revealed it. [UNKNOWN]: Entire families were found in their homes. [UNKNOWN]: Their lives extinguished in what local testimonies later described as asks of systemic terror.

1:30:43 [UNKNOWN]: 17 bodies were found in a mass grave just days after we visited, among the earliest grim confirmations that what was happening in Bucha was only the beginning to be fully known. [UNKNOWN]: The full number would climb later. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's, so this is my post-career of war research going who we wanted to recreate the Battle of Keeve.

1:31:07 [UNKNOWN]: I think we might have talked about it last soon, but one of the most decisive battles, but this story of the massacre of Bucha, and I deal a lot with media and a moral one and accusations of war crimes and things like that. [UNKNOWN]: It all has very deliberate definitions, but the Russian unit did in Bucha, and they actually received the words from Putin.

1:31:30 [UNKNOWN]: for their operation in Bucha was tie the hands of civilians behind their back and shoot them in the back of the head, execution style, and other horrible things. [UNKNOWN]: I do believe there was a special type of vehicle and to be there was very somber of what that town village of Kiv experience was awful to see firsthand.

1:31:50 [UNKNOWN]: Um, you show up there and what's an interesting point that you make in the book. [UNKNOWN]: You talk about the fact that in, uh, in the movie Red Dawn right and the movie Red Dawn it's like the teenagers from the high school that go out and do the resistance and you make the point that more realistically, in Ukraine and if Red Dawn ever happened in America, it's going to be the veterans that step up that have the experience and sure they might, you know, command some teenagers from the high school football team, echo Charles, if needed.

1:32:17 [UNKNOWN]: But it's gonna be the veterans it's step up and you you meet one of these one of these kernels and You know When our guide introduced me as major Spencer the man who wrote the manual the kernels eyes lit up pumping my hand and gratitude He rallied his men saying my praises They broke out into appreciative whistles cheers and applause And that's because you had written this we talked about a last time that you'd written this like a mini-manual for urban defense and it spread throughout Ukraine did like wildfire [UNKNOWN]: blew my mind that it did and I'm great guidance for people that are trying to defend their it's literally meant for them absolutely you know you didn't write it for them but you wrote it for them yeah to block the streets and eventually how to how to do an L-shaped bambooish things like that there's like very basic stuff that that they translated and printed hundreds of thousands across the country and he and even in Bucha had had a copy of it and

1:33:10 [UNKNOWN]: and was there with me so it was it was surreal to for that posting on X to translate into a war zone for civilians and him being a veteran of which are so many that I think Russia underestimated veterans with access to weapons and not wanting to be subjected to you know Soviet we're able to do but I'm surprised they didn't throw a couple of Vietnam [UNKNOWN]: But wasn't the dad, so that's the interesting part.

1:33:41 [UNKNOWN]: The dad who gets capsules was his background that he had trained them in. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I don't know. [UNKNOWN]: Maybe he was. [UNKNOWN]: But then there's that Air Force pilot that gets dropped in. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, but I want to write that book of, because Ukraine is such a real story of, from grandfather's on the roofs with RPGs.

1:33:59 [UNKNOWN]: They had gotten from their other grandfather that they took out this whole combo of 100 vehicles. [UNKNOWN]: And right off of Bucha, actually, they [UNKNOWN]: of vehicles, a Russian vehicles, because Grandpa's on a roof hitting the last deal vehicle with an RPG he had taken from the Russians at another location.

1:34:18 [UNKNOWN]: A red dog gets it really wrong, you've got to add some better engine there. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, well, yeah, America right now with guys to two decades worth of war. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, they'd be hard. [UNKNOWN]: We'd be a hard place to invade. [UNKNOWN]: Who we'd already be hard just because we got a lot of guns, right, these parts.

1:34:34 [UNKNOWN]: But now that we have 20 years of combat experience, too. [UNKNOWN]: Guys, everyone between the ages of like what I guess maybe 25 and 55 I'm 55 by the way So that's like yeah, so even older than me and guys that are 65 the manual so specific Actually even for a US veteran is how many times we do a lot of we did a lot of defensive like Even within Ramadi you know defense of a site, but what if you're the the civilian now Helping design the defense of the entire city [UNKNOWN]: and your goal is just to keep them out or to attribute them all of this that very common urban warfare history that has worked even against us through that into the book and the fact that they immediately translated into actions.

1:35:18 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: And that's where you get this lesson here, uh, service services, the act of helping or working for someone beyond yourself. [UNKNOWN]: One of the U.S. Army core values, selfless service teaches, put the welfare of the nation, the army, and your subordinates before your own.

1:35:34 [UNKNOWN]: Selfless service is larger than just one person. [UNKNOWN]: And serving your country, you're doing your duty, loyally, without the font of recognition or gain. [UNKNOWN]: The basic building block of selfless [UNKNOWN]: and look a little closer to see how he or she can add to the effort. [UNKNOWN]: That value captured what I saw in Bucha and what I have seen in other war zones.

1:35:56 [UNKNOWN]: Service means putting something greater than yourself first. [UNKNOWN]: When your family, your community or your nation is under attack, when freedom, yours, or someone else's is threatened, or where there is a bully, and I hate bullies you stand up to. [UNKNOWN]: To serve is to step forward.

1:36:14 [UNKNOWN]: powerful. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and that guy wasn't just to be clear. [UNKNOWN]: He wasn't military. [UNKNOWN]: He was a civilian. [UNKNOWN]: I called him a colonel because I think he had been one in the Soviet military a long long time ago and he formed like a militia like we would want in a neighborhood but actually how many people would volunteer to to serve and be that and that's what you saw on your crane and why they survived the initial onslaught was just a bunch of civilians standing up and say no.

1:36:38 [UNKNOWN]: Growing out and making things happen, serving each other, there are some chaos that it caused as well as given civilians, weapons also without training, which is a bit of the what's your plan, whether you talk about it. [UNKNOWN]: And I get asked this a lot. [UNKNOWN]: The book was translated at 16 different languages.

1:36:52 [UNKNOWN]: It isn't, you know, cutting pace. [UNKNOWN]: It does depend on culture, service, preparation, access to weapons really important. [UNKNOWN]: If you're going to resist an invasion, like you said here, if you know what, what state you might attack, you might [UNKNOWN]: But are they going to be organized because there's an element that was really interesting about the Ukraine war It was just about slowing the Russians down because if you can get into the city like we were talking about the attack of Baghdad Which the plan was to encircle the entire city of six million clear house by house, which would have went horribly But if you can get inside that city and do a Psychological then people actually lose this that service mentality that will tough light like what's over now

1:37:35 [UNKNOWN]: There's an American tank sitting in the middle of Baghdad. [UNKNOWN]: It's over, right? [UNKNOWN]: And they all look away. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: And it's interesting. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, the way locals can fight compared to, you know, the invading army. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, even, you know, in Iraq, once the Onbar Awakening kicked off and you had the locals, the tribal leaders that were putting their tribesmen out into the Iraqi police.

1:37:55 [UNKNOWN]: And now they were police not the areas. [UNKNOWN]: It was like so much easier. [UNKNOWN]: Because they understand the culture about it and they can make things happen smoother. [UNKNOWN]: Um, fast forward a little bit, wearing a range of school phase two. [UNKNOWN]: I knew I'd had it. [UNKNOWN]: Had to get off that mountain to ASAP, or I was done for.

1:38:11 [UNKNOWN]: The ice storm was just my final stroke of rotting luck. [UNKNOWN]: I'd have to go back and start over. [UNKNOWN]: Was I crying as I turned away, letting the rest of the file pass me? [UNKNOWN]: I couldn't feel a thing. [UNKNOWN]: On the verge of passing out, I moved mechanically toward the ambulance when a familiar figure suddenly stood in my path.

1:38:30 [UNKNOWN]: nice night for a walk. [UNKNOWN]: It was Sergeant Hall trying to smile through his grimace in a winter wonderline land I rasped. [UNKNOWN]: Where you head and John, I tried to swallow, nodded toward the ambulance. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you sure about that? [UNKNOWN]: Shame welled up inside me and it felt a lot worse than hypothermia.

1:38:52 [UNKNOWN]: He gave my shoulder an encouraging jab. [UNKNOWN]: You can always quit tomorrow. [UNKNOWN]: That was not just a Ranger line, but it was the kind of fatherly wisdom I had never had growing up past to me at the exact moment I needed it most. [UNKNOWN]: I slowly nodded, tapping my last ounce of strength, I about faced, and we took shelter.

1:39:15 [UNKNOWN]: And I'm going to fast forward a little bit to Ranger School Phase 3. [UNKNOWN]: Meanwhile, more men fell out with foot pain, seeing their faces as the stretcher's carried them off was heartbreaking and never more so, than when I went to the weekly religious service offered to Rangers in the middle of the swamp.

1:39:33 [UNKNOWN]: There was Sergeant Hall, and just seeing him gave me a burst of energy. [UNKNOWN]: But when I greeted him, he hung his head in near-terror, tears. [UNKNOWN]: His feet were so swollen, he was wearing boots two sizes bigger, but that wasn't enough to quail the pain. [UNKNOWN]: I guess it wasn't, I guess it just wasn't meant to be, he muttered.

1:39:53 [UNKNOWN]: Well, Sarge, you know, he looked up sharply, what? [UNKNOWN]: You can always quit tomorrow. [UNKNOWN]: He stared at me long and hard. [UNKNOWN]: Then, holding a tree for support, he hauled himself up to his feet. [UNKNOWN]: I'll walk you out, John. [UNKNOWN]: It was my turn to study him, the way a family does.

1:40:13 [UNKNOWN]: That moment sealed it from me. [UNKNOWN]: He was no longer just my sergeant. [UNKNOWN]: He was my brother. [UNKNOWN]: His face was so red from holding it in. [UNKNOWN]: I thought he was going to burst, but he didn't quit that day or the next. [UNKNOWN]: And then, miraculously, his pains largely subsided, and he carried on.

1:40:31 [UNKNOWN]: guys were there for each other in those freaking dire moments. [UNKNOWN]: And by a random luck, he appears in the book multiple times as much as my development as a from civilian to Ranger to whatever, starting to whole Leon Hall later, Colonel Hall, I should just with them for summer vacation with the kids was there.

1:40:52 [UNKNOWN]: The Ranger School, like we talked about is, it's our ace going to test your character all the way to break you down. [UNKNOWN]: That one was interesting. [UNKNOWN]: As a ranger instructor and I know you're your time as an instructor, but for this one the uniqueness of what the What that sleep deprivation food deprivation will do the human body depend on what status You know everything from child up to that moment will do the human body Your range of school exposures so many like you would never see it unless you went to that environment what that does to the body and one of those things was Wait, he was experiencing which [UNKNOWN]: You know, we were in the mountain phase in Dalana, Kajorja during the winter, where it was at times in the negative 20.

1:41:33 [UNKNOWN]: So just freezing temperatures. [UNKNOWN]: And you end that phase and you go to the swamps of Florida and lower Florida and it's in the 90s. [UNKNOWN]: Well, some people's feats had frozen so bad and it's chubling, not frostbite, but chubling, that those molecules, when they thawed, they didn't like thaw correctly or something, but it caused like, [UNKNOWN]: them to be walking on needles for not one day but like it just didn't stop and that's what he was experiencing very unique human stuff and as much as actually I gotta tell you this because it was freaky in the in the mountain phase as an instructor you go back and you see some cadets that are some students called studs [UNKNOWN]: had to go to another phase because their necks would basically be locked down and it'd be facing down.

1:42:18 [UNKNOWN]: This huge hump would form on the back of their neck called it rubber neck because their muscles just weren't so developed at that carrying that rucksack on an incline had done something through their neck and [UNKNOWN]: It was a rear, like, medical phenomenon that would happen, freaky. [UNKNOWN]: They were 100% fine, and some of them kept going, just looking up, and like, you are right.

1:42:39 [UNKNOWN]: Like, I'm fine. [UNKNOWN]: I can do this, what the human body does, but the fact that he was with me, and that was one of the things in the book that I wanted to make the theme, although there's lots of things. [UNKNOWN]: You know, you, of course, I talked about it in a show many times, but the sheer ability just take one more step, just wait one more day.

1:43:00 [UNKNOWN]: What that will do to your mentality, a little mind of your body, [UNKNOWN]: But the fact that I wasn't alone that he was there in the course with me was so unique for me to experience and There are other times when he was still there with me, but in that part of You know that where the US Army went really bad with the army of one kind of aspect versus [UNKNOWN]: it'd be like you can be all this stuff that you're never an army of one and I wasn't in that school uniquely and even though he wasn't using a different platoon that's just on his presence for me at that age I was such an immense thing but that that model that was you can always quit tomorrow was really big for us in that course.

1:43:42 [UNKNOWN]: Your lesson is not just about quitting, but family, family is blood, of course, but not exclusive to blood. [UNKNOWN]: The truth is bigger than that. [UNKNOWN]: Families found wherever people choose to walk through the fire together, refusing to quit on one another. [UNKNOWN]: That is the real lesson.

1:43:54 [UNKNOWN]: No one is meant to go through life alone. [UNKNOWN]: We all need people who steady us when we stumble and remind us that we can endure. [UNKNOWN]: When Leon told me, you can always quit tomorrow. [UNKNOWN]: It was more than a ranger line. [UNKNOWN]: It was wisdom given at the exact moment I needed it most.

1:44:09 [UNKNOWN]: fast forward a little bit, and this gets into the best Ranger competition. [UNKNOWN]: That's a hard good evolution right there. [UNKNOWN]: It is. [UNKNOWN]: So tell me about, because they take it serious. [UNKNOWN]: They are me does not play around. [UNKNOWN]: They do not. [UNKNOWN]: It comes to the best Ranger competition.

1:44:25 [UNKNOWN]: So what unit were you stationed at when you did it? [UNKNOWN]: I was in the Ranger Training Brigade. [UNKNOWN]: So I was a Ranger's instructor. [UNKNOWN]: What was the only chance I was going to get to do it so fascinating, who I wins the competition. [UNKNOWN]: But just to do the training and to do the competition, which is for us is like the Olympics of... Do you get selected from the Ranger instructor group to represent at the best Ranger competition?

1:44:52 [UNKNOWN]: You do your own competitions in each battalion, and then in the Regiment. [UNKNOWN]: So each division basically gets, I think, two teams in the Ranger Regiment because it's the best Ranger gets a little bit more, both the Ranger unit, you know, the three battalions and the school get a little bit more slots, but you have to compete, so you do a competition at within the unit.

1:45:13 [UNKNOWN]: in each one of the times and then you come to do it. [UNKNOWN]: So then you have to get selected and they select individuals and they make teams because this is a two-man competition. [UNKNOWN]: On who do I think will win? [UNKNOWN]: So buy your, all your scores and whatever it is. [UNKNOWN]: And they cut you from duty, which is hard, why an officer, it's hard for officers to do it because in order to compete for it, [UNKNOWN]: Um, you're training like six months in advance of this.

1:45:36 [UNKNOWN]: It's an endurance company train six months in advance just to get selected to be one of the guys Are you saying once you get selected now you're training for six months, right? [UNKNOWN]: And you so you kind of had to be an ass kicker. [UNKNOWN]: You had to be an extreme physical shape just to [UNKNOWN]: make it to the team but also survive the team which is actually as you know one of the stories is that how many people go into the competition injured because this is this ultra endurance competition that you're training so much.

1:46:04 [UNKNOWN]: Super pair for these three days that you you're over training basically you exert yourself and you have all this medical team but you're like a pro athlete by time you join the team you have a you're dietitian and medical team all [UNKNOWN]: Does does every unit that participates take it that seriously now now some but the Rangers have to take it seriously Well if you don't so this is a thing if if the division and I as a Ranger instructor could I actually Help run the first year and then it was my second year as a Ranger instructor that I competed in it [UNKNOWN]: The teams that every division can send a team, if you send a team, and you haven't left them prepared for a 3-day competition, which is always the fascinating part of it.

1:46:44 [UNKNOWN]: You could be the fastest, like a 12-mile roadmarch for you, it's your army. [UNKNOWN]: You could be super fast in doing that. [UNKNOWN]: But then you, if you don't do that back to back to back for three days, you won't make it 50% of the competitors who may have been given six months to train or may have not, 50% just historically of this competition dialed in the first day, because they're college athletes, whatever, they're not trained to do three days of it non-stop with you and MRE a day.

1:47:13 [UNKNOWN]: How did this screen for to make sure that you are good for three days to get you on the team? [UNKNOWN]: So the competition, the trial was a full day and that's pretty good test because there is and you're with now, you can do all the testing of how fast you can recover, how much lactic acid are you building, like all these things, you can test for somebody's ability to recover quickly and that's the competition, the competition is something really hard and then there's a pin on the height which is really fascinating, again just like [UNKNOWN]: But if you finish faster, you have more rest, you have more recovery time.

1:47:48 [UNKNOWN]: But if you're barely surviving, and it's going to trickle into the next event, and you're now the first for the next event based on where you placed, the way they tested, we tested was the trial to get on the team was a full day. [UNKNOWN]: So some people would dial in that day, because they gave 100% in the five mile run, in the 12 mile roadbars, and they're not ready for the, [UNKNOWN]: You know, thousands of meters swim and all the rest of it, and they actually just their body quits on them.

1:48:13 [UNKNOWN]: So it's pretty easy selection. [UNKNOWN]: Okay. [UNKNOWN]: He's not on the team. [UNKNOWN]: So there are a couple ways today. [UNKNOWN]: But it is weird how some people just have a certain genetic like composition that makes them better for this type of event. [UNKNOWN]: where I could see someone going, oh, you know, this guy was a great wrestler.

1:48:31 [UNKNOWN]: We should put him in best range or it's like, hmm, that might not be the best call. [UNKNOWN]: This guy was great. [UNKNOWN]: Whatever, you know, because there's obviously there's going to be wrestlers that are, it would be awesome. [UNKNOWN]: But I'm just saying it's, it's a very unique, it's like competition.

1:48:43 [UNKNOWN]: It's like the MMA of endurance competition. [UNKNOWN]: You can't be good at one thing. [UNKNOWN]: It doesn't matter if it's physical, because if there's some tactical, there's land navigation shooting, rope climbing, [UNKNOWN]: There's all these other individual skills that you have to be good with as well, but the overall foundation, if you can't go for 60 plus hours non-stop, which is which is fascinating, the guy who won my years is a special unit person, like he cheated, you are already at like this elite status of selection into elite status, so it's just like a never, and he's like, I didn't prepare for this, this is another day at work.

1:49:20 [UNKNOWN]: Oh, damn. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Talking smack. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it wasn't like 36 years old. [UNKNOWN]: He was. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's that's my research partner, Aliim Collins. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, right on. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and I think though the endurance athletes, if I remember correctly, and dirt that endurance athletes peak at like that age, they peak at like 35.

1:49:37 [UNKNOWN]: They're like triathletes. [UNKNOWN]: I want to say the best triathletes are in that. [UNKNOWN]: age zone am I right I could do you have any idea yeah right well thanks for your input But it he's a freaker nature to be clear so even at 36 let alone at at 46 that I still knew him He's still running a hundred miles a day just beast [UNKNOWN]: And it doesn't, and it's not just the runner, because that's also the competition.

1:50:01 [UNKNOWN]: Like, you know, we're great. [UNKNOWN]: You run fast, but that doesn't mean you can carry a lot of weight for an unknown amount of distance over the three days. [UNKNOWN]: Does the Ranger competition change year to year? [UNKNOWN]: Absolutely, and there's some fascinating stories of where one started major comes in, like, I want to do this this year, like, we did pukeal sticks one day, like, that's weird.

1:50:21 [UNKNOWN]: And then how do you, because it's all about points and weighted points? [UNKNOWN]: How's the day point the Q-Culsterx? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you did on a plank, so this guy had watched the wrong movie or something, but you did on a plank, and if you fell off, you won the round and you get a certain weight.

1:50:37 [UNKNOWN]: Some, again, it's almost a science to the competition as well, as you know which events are weighted the most. [UNKNOWN]: So it's not just who got first place, but that, like the endless romance, the first night ends with an unknown distance romance, it can be, [UNKNOWN]: 12 miles, it can be 30 miles, it's weighted a lot because if you win that, it doesn't matter if you won the 10 events before, that's weighted more.

1:51:00 [UNKNOWN]: So our true strategy, and this is what the teams will do, each team has a coach, knows where, okay, you need to, you need to finish top three in this event, as much as others like the pupils, you just gotta do your best and it doesn't really matter, it's not weighted that much. [UNKNOWN]: falling off the cargo net as you're trying to go down to the highway to speed, and you're falling to your death, you know, this is one of the times you almost died, and in the last second, your foot got tangled up in like, spared your life.

1:51:32 [UNKNOWN]: Yep. [UNKNOWN]: Did you get injured? [UNKNOWN]: Did it rip your knee apart or anything? [UNKNOWN]: Nothing, it's pretty, and it is a front of everybody, because everybody can watch, it's like this is done every year for an in Georgia, and so they have spectators everywhere, my family's there, but we had trained this, because we have home court events, some people say it's cheating.

1:51:50 [UNKNOWN]: If you, [UNKNOWN]: work at Ranger School, where you can of course train on all these. [UNKNOWN]: There's more than one obstacle, there's a two mile one, this is one of the shorter ones. [UNKNOWN]: And you develop tactics to do every, you shape seconds off of everything. [UNKNOWN]: So we develop the tactic of this 40-foot cargo net, you go up, you know, you're stringing in one line, if you follow one line up, on the way back, you just curl your legs up and you just slide down it.

1:52:13 [UNKNOWN]: You have control, but we had an account of even working there that between all the practice that we had done all these obstacles, they upgraded them, they paint things, they switch out nets. [UNKNOWN]: So on the morning of, we get to this officer, we're doing our method, this entire net had been switched out and had been tightened.

1:52:33 [UNKNOWN]: So, when I went to do that tactic, I just refill, because I didn't have my feet in it. [UNKNOWN]: And I just refill a 40 foot off this thing and just by, again, sheer luck. [UNKNOWN]: I was following now head first down in my boot, caught into the net, tangled in the net, and stopped me in my head just like this far from the bottom.

1:52:56 [UNKNOWN]: Freaky, and then I still got a, [UNKNOWN]: get off and keep going. [UNKNOWN]: So it was a split second in all the the black shirts and Ranger structures where you were black Rangers were running to me and I had to keep going because I you know this this competition I had prepared for for so long and you guys end of what 12th.

1:53:14 [UNKNOWN]: Yes, me and my partner, who later, you know, cuts the dead weight. [UNKNOWN]: He wins another year. [UNKNOWN]: So I used to say, in my own defense, that that was the first year. [UNKNOWN]: And everybody, 50% of the competitors die off on the first day. [UNKNOWN]: Just their body's fail, no matter how good you are, and just to finish was a badge for me, a badge of honor, but nobody up to that point that year, 2007, had ever won their competition who had not done it before.

1:53:41 [UNKNOWN]: because you learn so much about your body and what training you need to do and actually the winners would say your training started the day after the competition. [UNKNOWN]: You got to increase that those injuries that over training by training for that day and some people you had won multiple times.

1:54:00 [UNKNOWN]: Um, Liam had done it before. [UNKNOWN]: So who wins? [UNKNOWN]: Yes, I got 12th place with me in my partner. [UNKNOWN]: He will later goes on. [UNKNOWN]: It does it twice more wins on this third time with a different partner. [UNKNOWN]: Are you allowed to eat like his nutrition open? [UNKNOWN]: No.

1:54:15 [UNKNOWN]: So back to that, you know, different strain ranges and seals. [UNKNOWN]: You got one meal. [UNKNOWN]: You get one meal a day during their competitions. [UNKNOWN]: There's not. [UNKNOWN]: It hasn't changed again like they said that the, uh, is it a memory? [UNKNOWN]: Yes. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, and it's 60 straight day.

1:54:31 [UNKNOWN]: I mean the first night is this unknown distance road much the second night is a land navigation Where the the farther you cover the more points you get the you know the more you're you're up in your level So that's the second night. [UNKNOWN]: There's like historical events. [UNKNOWN]: They'll change a lot of the in-betweens But there are historical events because they are the crushers that actually cold the herd [UNKNOWN]: it makes it easier.

1:54:52 [UNKNOWN]: I'm surprised they don't. [UNKNOWN]: I know I've seen it on television before, but I haven't seen it like covered like on wide world of sports or something. [UNKNOWN]: Now the history channel, hit your camera covered from multiple years ESPN covered it for multiple years. [UNKNOWN]: I guess I just missed it.

1:55:06 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it was actually rated I think it was on what magazine discovery magazine is that the toughest military competition in the world. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: How hard freaking no joke, right? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and it was just an honor to do it, serve, and to finish it, I was, yeah, and actually the person who picked me up afterwards with Leon, there he is, certain hall, was the guy who did it, but it's a good joke, and I see Liam who won that year, and it was like, like another day at work for him, and they won, like sometimes it's close, like, and it's all changing, like, him it, and it's all changing, like, him it, and it's all changing, and it's all changing, and it's all changing, and it's all changing, and it's all changing, and it's all changing, and it's all changing, and it's all changing, and it's all changing, and it's all changing, and it's all changing, and it's all changing, and it's all changing, and it's all changing, and it's all changing, and it's all changing, and it's all changing, and it's all changing, and it

1:55:37 [UNKNOWN]: And it was actually that his partner was a sniper when I was in 275 when I got my ear bit off. [UNKNOWN]: That's how small the community is. [UNKNOWN]: And they're all the both in a special unit at that point. [UNKNOWN]: And it was like they were in the lead from day one and like a great margin.

1:55:53 [UNKNOWN]: Like doesn't matter what you do, you're not going to catch them. [UNKNOWN]: It's not like that every year. [UNKNOWN]: Studs. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Awesome. [UNKNOWN]: Fast forward a little bit. [UNKNOWN]: We're going back to Iraq. [UNKNOWN]: Patrol, Mountain Patrol, Humvee. [UNKNOWN]: Something it hit us really hard was an RPG roadside bomb.

1:56:09 [UNKNOWN]: No, there was something else outside May's window, wreckage of some other vehicle, but who's. [UNKNOWN]: I cranked my neck, found Sergeant Wood in the seat behind May, in the same predicament, pierced by shards, stuck in his seat. [UNKNOWN]: His door and window smashed, too, guys trying to help.

1:56:24 [UNKNOWN]: My door opened and hands pulled me out everything hurt like hell, but at least I could stand. [UNKNOWN]: I spotted Khalid, our interpreter a few meters away. [UNKNOWN]: He'd been sitting behind me and looked shaken, but intact. [UNKNOWN]: Where was Brooks? [UNKNOWN]: I glanced up and back toward the turret, but he was no longer maintaining that manning, the heavy machine gun.

1:56:40 [UNKNOWN]: Then I spotted him among the group helping me and wood. [UNKNOWN]: I later learned that he'd been thrown from the vehicle landing in a nearby field in a freak stroke of luck that kept him alive. [UNKNOWN]: The gun itself was gone, sheared off in the crash, [UNKNOWN]: but crashed with what?

1:56:54 [UNKNOWN]: Was it a suicide attack? [UNKNOWN]: Nobody seemed to think so. [UNKNOWN]: It was a Iraqi civilian van heading for Kirkuk in the middle of the night without any lights on. [UNKNOWN]: If flu passed our parked vehicles and tea bone dust at what my guys all agreed to is easily 60 miles an hour.

1:57:10 [UNKNOWN]: My blood ran cold. [UNKNOWN]: How bad is it? [UNKNOWN]: Trust me, sir. [UNKNOWN]: You don't want to see it. [UNKNOWN]: He was right being in command, though I didn't have much choice. [UNKNOWN]: Still a bit dazed. [UNKNOWN]: I came around for a look from the road. [UNKNOWN]: It looked like the van It slammed into a brick wall.

1:57:23 [UNKNOWN]: The front was a split a display of abstract metal sculpture dripping with engine and body bodily fluids [UNKNOWN]: I had seen men torn apart war but nothing compared to the recon front of me at least three corpses was it for? [UNKNOWN]: There's six or it looks like the two in the back are still breathing.

1:57:41 [UNKNOWN]: I saw that was true, but what I also saw made me think they wouldn't be breathing much longer. [UNKNOWN]: Then I heard wood cry out and turned to my own. [UNKNOWN]: We need to call a medevac I said, done sir, they're already in the air. [UNKNOWN]: Minutes later the chopper was putting down medical team jumping out in full gear.

1:57:57 [UNKNOWN]: Minutes after that more headlights coming from the north [UNKNOWN]: would have to be every emergency rescue asset from the cop was pulling up in a semi-circle around the accident. [UNKNOWN]: I pulled my guys back to let the pros in. [UNKNOWN]: They had to cut May and wood-free bandaged them up before they could bleed out.

1:58:12 [UNKNOWN]: Both were hefted onto litters to be whisked off by the chopper, but May wasn't having it. [UNKNOWN]: I'm good sir, we don't have to do this. [UNKNOWN]: Hey Lieutenant, I came closer. [UNKNOWN]: The doc stood next to him shaking his head. [UNKNOWN]: He's not going to [UNKNOWN]: I knew where he was coming from, that soldier instinct to defy all adversity to sacrifice and to never leave your team or your family.

1:58:36 [UNKNOWN]: Then I glanced at the wreck, and at the dead civilians now mercifully covered by ponchos. [UNKNOWN]: Should I have ordered the medics to leave May, to let him stay with us? [UNKNOWN]: No, they would have looked at me like I was out of my mind, so he was carried off to the Medevac helicopter yelling all the way.

1:58:51 [UNKNOWN]: They put him in the chopper, which got him and wood to the best army hospitals first in Baghdad and then in Europe, following surgery and physical therapy both were able to walk again but not run and both were discharged from the army. [UNKNOWN]: May saw it clearly that night, once he was on the chopper, he knew he would not finish the fight with his wartime family.

1:59:10 [UNKNOWN]: What made displayed in that moment was something I had read about in books, seen in movies about World War II and Vietnam, at witness many times already in our platoon in Iraq. [UNKNOWN]: Another aspect of a soldier's commitment to duty involves how they respond to injury. [UNKNOWN]: You might expect that being wounded is a golden ticket to get out of the war zone and return safety at home.

1:59:31 [UNKNOWN]: The reality is often the opposite. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, norley. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that was it. [UNKNOWN]: Luckily, well, I think I mentioned, I mean, this is 2003, this is the time we're rolling around in regular cargo hombees with, you know, which slats on the side. [UNKNOWN]: I was in a M998, which is an up armor, or 1096, people who do this, 1096, I think, an up armor ton B, just one that we had.

1:59:58 [UNKNOWN]: And we were turning in a road and the thing tea bonus, like six miles, probably had it been any other vehicle in my formation, all dead instantly. [UNKNOWN]: But, in fact, we were basically in this wheeled tank, it saved us, didn't save all six civilians in this bay and drive. [UNKNOWN]: They didn't even live?

2:00:15 [UNKNOWN]: None of them, they didn't make it to even pick up their old dead. [UNKNOWN]: And then how bad the metal that did is still collapsed that side went into the legs of main woods [UNKNOWN]: Lesson. [UNKNOWN]: Duty is an obligation. [UNKNOWN]: As much as we should all serve something greater than ourselves, we also each have a duty.

2:00:35 [UNKNOWN]: In the military, that duty is both moral and legal. [UNKNOWN]: The army definition includes as simple but profound instruction for failure obligations. [UNKNOWN]: Doing your duty means more than carrying your assigned tasks. [UNKNOWN]: Duty means being able to accomplish the tasks as part of a team.

2:00:49 [UNKNOWN]: You fulfill your obligations as part of your unit. [UNKNOWN]: Every time you resist the temptation to take shortcuts that might undermine the integrity of [UNKNOWN]: But duty is not only a military concept, it is part of everyday life. [UNKNOWN]: Every day we face temptations for shortcuts, temptations to look away, temptations to serve ourselves rather than others.

2:01:09 [UNKNOWN]: To choose duty is to choose responsibility to keep faith with those who rely on us. [UNKNOWN]: Not always easy. [UNKNOWN]: No, and I had to get up that next morning for myself and and go back on patrol new vehicle Lost up to two and to be only only and then go back to work. [UNKNOWN]: This did you the war doesn't stop no [UNKNOWN]: Fast forward a little bit and we kind of discussed a little bit this in the beginning, but in late 2020 numerous articles that noted that new fighting had broken out in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Kabar, how do you say that?

2:01:50 [UNKNOWN]: Nagorno-Kabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabarabar [UNKNOWN]: or some expertise in the former republics.

2:02:02 [UNKNOWN]: Nagorno-Karabakh had long been a flashpoint between our minions and Azerbaijanis, going back to the early 1990s. [UNKNOWN]: I read how the tide had turned when the Azerbaijanis special forces scaled the sheer cliffs rising more than 400 feet that protected the mountain city of Susha. [UNKNOWN]: So we talked about this a little bit, but just tell us about this [UNKNOWN]: crazy offensive operation by these Azerbaijanis special forces and what they did.

2:02:30 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so this is the book that I have coming out in October. [UNKNOWN]: This is actually the story of 2021 when I went and by myself, interesting, because Liam's my boss now at this point. [UNKNOWN]: So the guy who beat me in Best Ranger 2007 becomes my boss at West Point. [UNKNOWN]: and I retire now I'm doing this war research like I want to go here I don't know if you can and I'm in 2021 like nine-ish months after the war had ended going through checkpoints as a civilian bomb it's one of those times like this is too much I as much as that tunnel was as me the only American eBay in this entire region's ever seen going through as or by Johnny checkpoints right beside Russian checkpoints trying to get to this city

2:03:12 [UNKNOWN]: the end of the 2020 war. [UNKNOWN]: So this is the city of Sushenwia, was there as an urban warfare guy. [UNKNOWN]: The war starts in these massive, you can't describe it and we try to do in a book of line of control, flat, open land, a mine, wire, wire pickets as far as you can see. [UNKNOWN]: Entire cities that used to be there, [UNKNOWN]: taking brick by brick to nothing.

2:03:35 [UNKNOWN]: So they're they're sitting on the map and you drive by them like where is it and all you see is as far as you see foundations of homes because they they took every brick from these cities and demolish them. [UNKNOWN]: It starts in the flatlands and it goes into high mountains where as the Azerbaijanis in September of 2022 break through the land and control have a break there which was really just soldiers on the ground doing it isn't drone, [UNKNOWN]: Then there's a ward that continues on and while they're fighting in one part of the battlefield, they send 400 special forces through the woodline, despite aerial movements, and they have to basically rock for about 40 kilometers with about 60 pounds under backs.

2:04:21 [UNKNOWN]: to get to the city that is important to both sides, the city of Susha, it's on our cliff for a hundred feet and it's an ancient city and why because it's a fortress city and it overlooks actually the capital city so it's like decisive what we call decisive train. [UNKNOWN]: I had known a little bit about it but again, I want to go see it walk the ground like not only follow the path that these basically are Ranger units and as we're about to [UNKNOWN]: and what they do to try to stay hidden for this 40-kilometer movement.

2:04:52 [UNKNOWN]: And they set up a patrol bases around this cliff city. [UNKNOWN]: Well, what they don't even know, and this is how the special forces kept it. [UNKNOWN]: So secret, they assigned us special forces general basically to this operation to take this city of Susha. [UNKNOWN]: And there's four teams of 10 who have the job of scaling the cliffs.

2:05:12 [UNKNOWN]: because it's a really easily defendable city. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, it sits on a cliff and there's only one entrance that you can pull the block off. [UNKNOWN]: and they had lost it in 1990s, but they even the 400 that are of these teams don't know that there are these 14s of 10 that are like the sniper, the seals, actually they they do develop the some joint task forces.

2:05:35 [UNKNOWN]: So they had their version of seals and others in this element, but nobody knows that this is happening that these four teams, one of them gives actually a compromise, and [UNKNOWN]: And they send a whole unit to another city as a diversion. [UNKNOWN]: It's the planning that went into this was masterful.

2:05:55 [UNKNOWN]: And then they had the 400 that are split up into 100 person teams that also have to scale basically cliffs. [UNKNOWN]: Not the 400 is sheer but like straight up hands. [UNKNOWN]: to infiltrate the city and take it with very minimal fight, because as soon as those four infiltrated the city, they set up in like hotels in service snipers to start taking out the defenders and reporting on the defenders, but then have all the roles in.

2:06:22 [UNKNOWN]: So this is the whole thing about, you know, Murphy, you have this key piece of technology, so nobody's thrown to work. [UNKNOWN]: So it's actually November 7, 2020, and the answer by the Armenian is actually send massive tanks and reinforcements from the capital city towards the, so it starts to be like this.

2:06:42 [UNKNOWN]: like this moment where it can go both ways and they run out of anti-tank gutted munitions to do anything about the tanks because they can only bring what they carried with them. [UNKNOWN]: It's such an epic story that you would think would come from over to and it's 2020. [UNKNOWN]: But a fall rose in, eliminates all the drones, nobody has drones and it's just battle to the very end.

2:07:03 [UNKNOWN]: But they've basically, back and forth, and they've taken the inside of the city, fascinating. [UNKNOWN]: And it ends the war. [UNKNOWN]: Because once Susha, the city is called clear now, they have the high ground over the capital. [UNKNOWN]: So Armenia goes through Russia, basically asks for a ceasefire, and the war ends right there, because that urban city was taken.

2:07:24 [UNKNOWN]: So as an urban war for a guy, like, that's just, I need the research that, and we try to recreate the story. [UNKNOWN]: And in 2021, I was able to recreate some of this story, but that's where I've been spending the last two years as going and learning every part of it. [UNKNOWN]: So I have a lot more context.

2:07:40 [UNKNOWN]: Now, of course, the time passed, I'm talking to every general in all the previous battles, walking the ground, making new maps of it. [UNKNOWN]: And you talk to the guys that were on that 40 man element? [UNKNOWN]: Yes. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: How's that attitude about this whole thing?

2:07:56 [UNKNOWN]: They have a very, this was the hardest project I've ever done. [UNKNOWN]: They probably will remain because of not only the translation problems, because you have to have a translator there and we're understanding doing this research and I know we talked about S.L.A. [UNKNOWN]: Marshall going in, like, you had access to World War I, World War II people right after what they had experienced.

2:08:20 [UNKNOWN]: But I'm talking to people on the same team. [UNKNOWN]: They're in the same battle with different... [UNKNOWN]: views on how it went and and trying to arbitrate. [UNKNOWN]: Okay, you said you you were here. [UNKNOWN]: He says he that's made this really hard to recreate this this especially that battle but we actually did all the battles of the war and this is a pretty big all the decisive moments.

2:08:45 [UNKNOWN]: Those guys were very quiet didn't want to talk you know but learning about the fact that [UNKNOWN]: how they planned that general and kept that secret of the four teams away from the other guys who had no clue that they were there and then do those deep complexions was really interesting and to learn about.

2:09:03 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, the camera to that book comes out. [UNKNOWN]: Lesson here discipline many people think that military discipline is simply about following orders It is that the take that hill moment when obedience and courage come together But it's also much more true discipline is doing the right thing even when no one is watching when there is no order to follow It is acting in accordance with your values maintaining control of your thoughts and actions in an absence of supervision [UNKNOWN]: discipline is hard work consistency and goal setting.

2:09:31 [UNKNOWN]: It is getting up every morning to exercise not because you want to, but because it's part of the job and part of the job that demands it. [UNKNOWN]: Like the Osirba Johnny soldiers who climb those mountains to reach Susha, discipline is the endurance of both body and mind in the face of challenge.

2:09:47 [UNKNOWN]: One of the earliest lessons in discipline I ever learned came from my mentor, brother, and family, Leon. [UNKNOWN]: At Fort Polk, he showed me that discipline was the daily grind the choice to put in the work when others would not. [UNKNOWN]: The military provides endless opportunities for advancement, physical development, specialized schools, competitions, education, and leadership, but only for those willing to outwork everyone else.

2:10:09 [UNKNOWN]: Leon and I set goals and work toward them every single day. [UNKNOWN]: We stayed late, studied, trained, and pursued mastery while others were content to simply show up and do their job. [UNKNOWN]: That was discipline, not waiting for orders, but creating your own standards and living up to them.

2:10:26 [UNKNOWN]: I think you say Discipline is freedom. [UNKNOWN]: I do believe I say that. [UNKNOWN]: And for me, the research is that this job that I have, where there is no guide book of how to succeed, is to discipline going to these areas, finding that information, getting to the truth. [UNKNOWN]: That is a...

2:10:42 [UNKNOWN]: One of the reasons I wanted that to be in there. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, no, that's the truth. [UNKNOWN]: Speaking of Fort Polk, so Fort Polk is the joint readiness training center. [UNKNOWN]: It's where the Army sends its brigades, battalions, divisions to go and train and get ready to go to war.