John A. Dailey "Tough Rugged Bastards"

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome to the Human Behavior
Podcast.
Today we have a truly specialguest, john A Daly, a retired
Marine Corps Force Recon Sniper,founding member of MARSOC, the
Marine Corps' first officialunit under SOCOM, and author of
Tough, rugged Bastards.
If you're curious about how anelite group of Marines forged a
brand new special operationsdetachment at the height of the
post-911 conflicts, then thisepisode is for you.

(00:22):
John will share what it took tocreate and lead a pioneering
special operations team, onethat had to earn its place on
the battlefield and proveskeptics wrong.
We'll talk about everythingfrom the interplay between
Marines and Navy SEALs in Iraqto John's hard-won lessons on
leadership, teamwork andresilience.
Whether you're in the military,in business or just looking to
push your own personalboundaries, you'll find
something valuable in John'sexperiences and insights.

(00:43):
Thank you so much for tuning in.
We hope you enjoyed the episode.
Don't forget to check out ourPatreon channel for additional
content and subscriber-onlyepisodes.
If you enjoy the podcast,please consider leaving us a
review and, more importantly,sharing it with a friend.
Thank you for your time andremember training changes
behavior.
All right, everyone.
Thanks for tuning in.
Super excited today to haveJohn Daly on.

(01:05):
John, thanks so much for comingon the show.
Greg and I are both excited totalk to you today, man.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Thanks for having me.
I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yeah.
So you know, everyone kind ofheard a little bit of an intro,
a little bit of your background,but if you could, just for our
listeners kind of you know, giveus a little bit more about you.
You got a great Marine Corpscareer and the stuff we'll get
into about starting, you know, awhole new unit in the Marine
Corps and then the book you havecoming out.
But uh, kind of give everyonelike a little bit about you and
where you're from originally andthen, uh, we can jump in from

(01:34):
there.
Man, Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, I was born and raised kind of on the Virginia
West Virginia border and livedon both sides.
Uh, growing up so it, uhgrowing up.
So it was a great, you knowgreat place to grow up um the
mountains, um the blue ridgemountains, um, great.
But I knew that I wanted to getout as soon as I could.
So, uh, you know, in the in themarine corps, I decided to join
the marine corps as, as a youngyoung man, so as soon as I

(01:58):
graduated high school, I was ona bus for paris, highland,
andland, and uh, at 17.
And that you know, I knew thatit was something I wanted to do.
I, when I signed up, I I thought, uh, that, you know, I asked
them how long I could sign upfor.
I thought I assumed I wassigning up for 20 years.
Um, right now, now it goes inin four year increments, but uh,

(02:19):
so I wound up doing uh, 21years and and really had a lot
of luck.
I mean, there was obviously alot of work involved too, but
you know I kind of lucked outgetting into a sniper platoon
early and that you know, learnedso much there and then worked
my way into force recon, whichat that time was the pinnacle

(02:40):
that you could achieve in theMarine Corps.
So I spent most of my careerthere, loved that.
I mean loved every day of it.
And then I had the opportunityto move and start a new unit,
like you mentioned, a specialoperations unit, working not for
the Marine Corps but for USSOCOM.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Yeah, so you're an actual force recon sniper, which
, uh so sometimes people like tolike when they're making up
stories about what they did inthe military is like oh yeah,
it's a force recon sniper.
So when you actually meet one,it's actually somewhat rare, I
guess.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
But yeah, yeah, I guess it is.
I mean, I I know a lot of them,so it doesn't seem right.
That's definitely one of theone of the things that people,
uh, you know, if you're gonna,you know, make something up, you
may as well make up forcerecount sniper yeah, I mean you
go, go for the gold, right?

Speaker 1 (03:30):
I mean, uh, so we're gonna do it.
It's one of those things I usedto hear, like people like oh
yeah, so and so, and they saidthey were a force recount sniper
.
It's like, okay, maybe, but uh,it's, it's funny.
But uh, but yeah, man.
So I wanted to kind of jumpright in because you've got your
book out Tough, rugged Bastardsand we'll talk about what
you're writing, which a lot ofpeople know.

(03:51):
This Marines actually can readand write.
And I like to say one of thebiggest lies the Marine Corps
ever told is they just telleveryone that they actually
created the whole lie aboutMarines being dumb and cranny
eaters so that they get leftalone because no one thinks
they're we're we're doinganything.
They're like, oh, they're just,they're just a, the bastard
child of the DOD, and then weactually get to go do cool stuff

(04:12):
.
But, um, so you, uh, I want tojump into that.
Um, so you started up.
Uh, you helped start with abunch of other folks Some of
them I know this Marine SpecialOperations Command.
So that was new, obviously, theMarine Corps.
So, marine, you know one.
If you're a Marine, no one'sspecial, you're just a Marine.
But then also the Marines thinklike, hey, we're all special.

(04:34):
They'll tell other branches,hey, we're all special.
You know we don't need thisarea in SOCOM, like Marines
already are.
But could you give everyonejust a little bit of background
about, like, how that works andthe significance of it, and then
we can kind of jump into allthe different things that were
going on at this time.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Absolutely so.
The quick kind of historylesson is that the Marine Corps
has always, you know, throughoutour history has done kind of
the harder things done, specialoperations.
Really the first raising theAmerican flag on foreign soil
was following a 500-mile marchacross the Libyan desert by a
handful of Marines that raised aguerrilla army and were trying

(05:13):
to reinstall the rightful kingof Tripoli.
So the Marine Corps, and thenfrom there we kind of moved into
the Banana Wars in SouthAmerica and then from there we
kind of moved into the BananaWars in South America and were
really kind of in the politicaland military legends like Chesty
Puller was the militarygovernor of Nicaragua for quite
some time.

(05:33):
So you know, we had kind ofgained a reputation as jungle
fighters but also as a forcethat could kind of operate in
the political realm as well.
But the Marine Corps, like youmentioned, has really been
reluctant to ever embrace theidea that there's a special unit
within it.
So it wasn't until World War IIkicked off that the Marine

(05:57):
Raiders were formed, kind of atthe, you know, the president
said do it All right, andthere's a real, you know, real
interesting history when you getinto it.
The president's son wasinvolved and the marine that had
served as the president'sbodyguard, a guy named Evans
Carlson, was tapped to be one ofthe leaders of one of the

(06:17):
raider battalions.
So really interesting history.
But two years and the marineraiders were disbanded and other
than Force Recon and the MarineCorps and the marine raiders
were disbanded and it, you know,other than force recon and the
marine corps had several times,uh, following vietnam you know,
disbanded first forcereconnaissance company and
didn't reactivate them until thethe early, uh, late 80s I guess
.
Um, but uh, in 1987, when socomwas formed and it was kind of

(06:42):
following the failed rescueattempt to rescue Americans from
the embassy in Iran that hadbeen taken hostage the decision
was that, hey, we need onecomponent that oversees all
special operations.
So when they were formed, theUS SOCOM, the SEALs, went over

(07:03):
the Green Berets, went over theRangers, the Air Force Special
Operations, and the Marine Corpswas invited but said no, we're
good, you know, we don't want todo that and that's kind of the
way it's been.
So we were kind of within thespecial operations world, the
bastard children.
But following 9-11, theSecretary of Defense at the time

(07:24):
, donald Rumsfeld, said hey,we're going to need more special
operations for this comingfight.
And so he told the Marine Corpsyou guys, this time you are
going to participate.
So the Marine Corps fought backand eventually the decision was
and SOCOM fought back.
To be honest, they weren'treally interested in having
Marines join.
To be honest, they weren'treally interested in having

(07:45):
Marines join.
But the decision was that we'llstart a small unit that will be
a test bed for two years andwe'll see how it goes.
And I had, at this point, I hadbeen the platoon sergeant for a
force recon platoon and was Iwas in, you know, sitting in a
pub in Australia when 9-11happened.

(08:05):
So it was nighttime there notmorning.
But then we found ourselves inAfghanistan and it was by
November of 2001.
And my platoon was responsiblefor the first real Marine Corps
combat on road interdictionsbetween Kandahar and a town

(08:28):
called Lashkar Gahar.
But, uh, in in December.
So, you know, I came back onthe kind of on the back end of
that and, and, was you know, itwas probably largely responsible
for the fact that I was tappedthe hey, do you want to be a
part of this unit?
And of course, of course I didyeah, that's um, that it.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
It's cool how all that got started.
And then you know again, likeyou said, there's always these
sort of background politicalarguments and command arguments
and people saying, well, youknow, we don't want to do that
or yes, we want to do that, andso, like it's, it's interesting
the, the backstory on some ofthe stuff, because working
through that is really reallydifficult, right, so you know, I

(09:11):
, because I remember even thiskind of get started I knew some
folks over there and I was like,okay, well, there's these
arguments of like well, are youso calm or are you part of the
Marine Corps?
Do you fall under this?
It's like, well, we're underSOCOM.
It's like, okay, but that gearyou're wearing belongs to the
Marine Corps, so give it back.
I mean, like there's actuallike logistical things that that

(09:32):
, uh, that come up and um, soI'm curious, just because of the
way the culture is with theMarine Corps, um, and and the
DOD, and SOCOM is spelled, youknow, a-r-m-y.
If anyone doesn't know thatit's Army.
But you know, with that, whatwere some of those like kind of

(09:52):
challenges, looking back, thatyou sort of didn't expect to
happen.
I mean, of course, one you havethe people that are like hell,
yeah, let's do this and everyonewants to be part of this,
because it's kind of historicalright.
But then you also have a lot ofpushback historical right.
But then you also have a lot ofpushback and like I'm curious
like what that was like for youguys getting going.
Like what was that pushback yougot internally or externally?
I mean you're saying like evensocom didn't want you there.
It's like, hey, like we'refighting for a job here, we

(10:14):
should be belonging.
Like what are some of thosethings that you you came across
during that time?

Speaker 2 (10:18):
yeah, it was.
It was interesting, there was alot of it.
That it it uh, we, we kind ofarrived to the.
So our unit, detachment one,was composed of roughly a force
recon sized platoon, so about 30men, um, about another 30, the
men were our intelligence unit,which was massive.

(10:39):
I mean, that was, um you knowthey thought that our commander
was insane for for asking forthat, but it proved to be
absolutely valuable, um, andthen the remainder were, you
know, there were communicators,there were logisticians, uh,
administrative people are, are,uh, tactical air controllers, um
, you know, kind of all of theother things that you need to

(11:01):
make an organization run.
So for most of us in the inwhat was the operational platoon
, we just kind of put our headsdown and and did what we do.
So you know, we weren't umprivy to a lot of the decisions
that were being made and and alot of the the things it was.
The direction was that theMarine Corps was going to pay

(11:21):
for this and the Marine Corps isnotoriously cheap.
So they're like, hey, we'llgive you this much money.
And fortunately we were able to.
You know, we actually hired acivilian who worked as a
equipment specialist for the DOD.
So we brought him on and he wasable to kind of move money

(11:43):
around and get us the money forthe equipment and everything.
So we were very well outfitted,even though it was largely the
Marine Corps dime.
But there was like we had noidea, when we stood up, where we
were going to deploy, to who wewould deploy under.
We had assumed that we weregoing to go to Afghanistan.
That was just.
You know, we were a force reconplatoon, so our primary mission

(12:07):
is reconnaissance.
It seemed that reconnaissance,you know, afghanistan would be
the place for that.
So we spent.
We had a year basically toprepare.
We spent the first six monthsreally very heavily focused on
reconnaissance and on the ideathat we would be in Afghanistan.
So the vehicles that weprocured, you know, a lot of the
things were going to based onthat.
And then about halfway throughthey're like oh no, by the way,

(12:30):
you're going to go to Iraq,you're going to essentially
perform as another SEAL platoonunderneath the SEAL architecture
.
Once we, you know, once we knewthat, and then our mission was
primarily going to be directaction.
Um, you know, just finding badguys, and uh, that's what we, we
, we were also good at that.

(12:50):
So we spent the spent the lastsix months really kind of
focused on that uh skillset,building that up.
And we, you know that'sprimarily what we, what we did.
So overall there were, you know, at the headquarters level,
there were absolutely a lot of.
You know, there's a lot ofhead-butting and a lot of rice

(13:12):
bowl battles.
For us, I think, the biggestrecognition was, you know, you
start up a new unit, you havenothing.
I mean, we had buildings beingbuilt, but they were, you know,
temporary kind of structures,but even those took, you know,
three or four months to havebuilt.
We had no equipment.
So the only thing that everyrecon Marine owns is his own

(13:33):
rucksack.
So the one thing that we knewwe could do was go rucking, and
so the platoon sergeant that wehad was adamant that hey, we've
got a lot of people who werekind of considered heavy hitters
in the force recon community.

(13:54):
There's a potential, when you dothat, to have a lot of friction
.
What we're all going to do iswe're all going to put 55 pounds
on our back and we're going togo 20 miles every Thursday
morning and and when we finishwe're going to go straight to
work.
You know, there's no.
You know you can eat lunch, butyou know no time off.
No, uh, you know nobody's goingto clap you on the back for for
finishing the 20 mile run.

(14:15):
Um, so that really I think howkind of helps set the one.
It gave us the opportunity,just a lot of hours walking, to
get to know some of the peoplethat had come from different
units and things, but also justdrilled into our head that no
matter how special you are, yougot to get to work.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
And usually getting to work is going to be on the
black Cadillacs on your feet.
Yeah, yeah, I mean that.
That's a a whole host of issuesI could see coming up,
especially with that teamdynamic.
It's like you know, okay,you're being selected for this
special thing, you know the, theone you got to prove yourself
again.
Even.
I mean, this is the thing too.
It's like you guys have you'repicking from a group of people
that have already proventhemselves, not just like in

(15:03):
training and through assessmentand selection, but through
deployments and done this.
It's kind of like that, allright, starting over again
almost.
And, like you said, you gotnothing.
We got to figure it out as wego along.
Um, so what, what?
What do you think helped best?
Or like, how did you guys justform as a team?

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Right, right, what, what?
I mean, you're talking like,all right, yeah, we go out
hiking every Thursday, we'regoing to go to Iraq and we're
going to talk and whatever.
But like what, what was it that?
Uh, I was kind of brought in byour boss, colonel Coates, and
he said hey, you pick your guys,you know you, uh, and that's
where the title of the book camefrom.
He was.
He was like hey, you know you,you know my requirements, you

(15:57):
know I want tough, ruggedbastards.
And, uh, I was sitting in hisoffice.
I'm like man, you know, one ofthese days, if I ever write a
book, you know it's going to be.
You know, I, I kind of hadalways had this, this thing in
the back of my head.
You know, I always loved toread, so I always thought that I
would, uh, but I think that waspart of it.
You know I knew the people thatI picked, um and uh, you know

(16:18):
it was a really good lesson inleadership.
You know that.
You know that.
You know before that, like Isaid, I had been a platoon
sergeant at force recon.
But, you know, years before I'dbeen a, uh, a chief scout, like
almost a platoon sergeant inthe, in the infantry, at uh, in
a sniper platoon, and you, you,you always have the people that
you know you got to keep an eyeon, the people that you got to

(16:38):
sit down and coach and bring outthe best in, and the people
that you, you know you have tomake sure are not screwing up.
But in this sort of unit it was, you know a different type of
leadership is required.
You have to put people you know, give people things to be in
charge of themselves, becausethey're all leaders and had been

(17:00):
leaders.
So you, really even though oneof the things that really, I
think, kept us humble was justthe requirement that that we
were responsible for when we didget our, our facilities built
um, you know, every friday wewere out like pressure washing
the buildings and you know, eh,um, like our one one, a nine, um

(17:22):
, you know, we're sorting brass.
You know, it was cleaning thecleaning the heads.
It was because we were a unitwith very, very senior people.
We didn't have, yeah, a lot ofjunior guys that you could say,
hey, you know, lance corporalclean.
We didn't have any lancecorporal.
So it was all, uh, you know,and those things keep you, keep
you honest, keep you humble, youknow, when you realize that,

(17:42):
yeah, I'm uh, a team leader inthe first marine corps special
operations unit but I'm in hereplunging the shitter um, on
friday.
Yeah, it's hard to get too bigof a head yeah, no, and those
are the.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
I mean, um, it's like the little things like that
really go a long way, you know.
And when you're talking aboutyou know, taking ownership of
something, and it's not justabout you know, it's still all
the someone's got to clean thetoilet, someone's got to take
the trash out, someone's got todo this, and when you have a
bunch of senior folks, it's likeoh yeah, now we have to, we
have to start doing this again,we, I think I think we all still

(18:18):
realize that.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
You know the how lucky we were to be a part of
this, yeah, and how it meant,like the weight on our shoulders
was because, uh, if we didpoorly, then the it was.
The answer was easy.
You know, socom didn't wantthis, the Marine Corps didn't
want this, but we knew that.
You know, if this thing wasgoing to happen and grow, then
we needed to knock it out of thepark.

(18:40):
So we've just uh, that that'sit's quelled a lot of uh, you
know, even among the team Iwould say myself and the other
three team leaders initiallythere was head-butting, you know
there was.
But we were like, hey, we needto we'll, but heads will go out
and you know, throw blows in thecorner.
But you know, when that's donewe've got to get back to this

(19:01):
mission that we had and that'sto be successful at whatever it
is.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
so so you, so you guys are like you know, you're
doing this work up, you'rethinking you know, especially
strong reconnaissance, obviouslyrns background from everyone on
the team and you think you'regoing to afghanistan.
Then you got to pivot like,okay, like we're going to iraq
now different ball game,different mission.
But then, like you said, whatwas that like with the mean?
Did you guys feel sort of thatpressure of you know?
I mean, you're going on thefirst deployment for a brand new

(19:28):
unit, even though everyone'shighly skilled, highly trained,
highly experienced already hadcombat deployments.
Like what was that like goinginto that?
Because you, yeah, like yousaid, like you have to prove it,
otherwise it's not just hey,you know, not a great deployment
, it's like no, this, this, thisisn't going forward, this
unit's done.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, I absolutely think that collectively, we
realized that we were, you know,really, really good I think,
and I thought it was only methroughout that that I had this.
I'm like man, I'm, you know,when somebody can realize that
that they made a mistake, youknow, I should not be here, I

(20:06):
should not be here, I should notbe, uh, even though you know,
and I've kind of always, and I,and what I realized, you know,
when I wrote about it in thebook, is that you know, that's
probably the one aspect thatI've had more people contact me
about and say, man, I thought Iwas the only guy, because if we
don't talk about that likeimposter syndrome or whatever,
yeah, so I had, you know, all ofus, I think we're and you're
probably a psychotic if youdon't have that to some, to some

(20:28):
level.
Yeah, so there's, you know, butwe kind of push that down.
And it was, you know, when wegot, when we deployed, when we
landed in Iraq, we realized thattraditionally, with a normal
unit rotation, you're, you'rereplacing another unit and that
unit gives you, hey, here'severything that we were working

(20:48):
on, all the targets, packagesand things we didn't have that
the SEALs had put us in an areaof Baghdad where they had not
had another SEAL team.
So we didn't have that luxuryto kind of draw on.
And so we were like, man, we've, we've got to make something
happen.
We it's, and it's hard.
How do you, how do you figureout who the bad guys are when

(21:10):
you don't know anything aboutthe the area?
And that's where ourintelligence section like
totally paid off.
Um, so when we got there, we hadtrained with the understanding
that we were going to stay as anentire detachment roughly a
hundred folks, um, and so,attached to my team, I had a

(21:31):
human intelligence specialist, Ihad a, uh, uh, geo, uh, spatial
intelligence guy, I had asignals intelligence guy, and so
I had this, this insanely umcapable, you know, intelligence
apparatus with my team.
Um, when we got there, the, theSEAL commander who was in charge

(21:53):
was like, hey, I I own you guys, um, and you've got way too
much of this intelligence, soyou've got much more than I do.
So I'm going to, you know, takesome of your people and like
farm them out to to support mySEAL teams, which, of course,
initially we were, you know,really pissed him out, um, but
the the thing that we didn'tcount on is that now we had like

(22:16):
our eyes and ears all over Iraq, you know with um, you know
special missions units with um,other SEAL teams, youal teams
all over the place.
It's just attached throughout.
So we had this massive networkthat was very quickly able to
communicate among each other andtrack things that other

(22:37):
individual units weren'ttracking because they weren't
looking at the big picture, theywere looking kind of myopically
at their their own little patchof ground yeah, um, that that's
uh a number I just think of,like all the different things
that come up when you're doingthis.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
So, a new unit you're going there now you're working
for a seal commander, which Iget it like.
You know, they, that's howsocom can work, or, depending on
what command you're at, that'snot not unusual.
But like, what was there?
Like you're walking in, youknow, I always say, like Marines
and SEALs, actually they're somuch alike so they either love
each other or hate each other.
It's kind of like my brother isa SEAL, I'm a Marine, you know.

(23:18):
It's like you know there's uh,uh, like kind of crossover in
some of the missions.
But, um, and the attitude youknow, and and just just how that
is.
But uh, I'm curious, like, wasthat tough with them?
Like saying like, hey, we cando this work?
Or they just give you like theoh, we don't know what's going

(23:39):
on over here, go take that, gofigure something out.
Was it's like they're like allright, well, you guys are
Marines, so yeah, you know howto fight, you know and win
battles.
But like, how does that fitinto the overall structure of
what they were?

Speaker 2 (23:50):
doing terribly happy about it, um, but I think there
were some of them also thatrealized that, hey, if we have
this, you know uh, naval, youknow, now, you know, if we add

(24:11):
Marines into this.
Now, this, the Naval servicehas a bigger slice of the pie
right Within SOCOM, because thearmy makes up like 70% of of
SOCOM.
I may be off on that number,but of of socom, I may be off on
that number, but it's huge.
I mean, marsok makes up nowabout three percent, um, and
naval special warfare is likesix.
So there's, you know, together,um, you know, we, we grew a

(24:32):
little bit but we wereincredibly fortunate that the,
the seal commander that weworked for, was, was very
upfront.
He was like, hey, I'm, I'm goingto treat you exactly like one
of my teams.
I'm going to give youeverything that that I can you,
you know, give you to make yousuccessful, all the support, all
the assistance, and we're good,we're friends to this day.
I mean, he wound up, uh was agreat, uh, great supporter of us

(24:56):
.
So he was, it was helpful, butit was still, um, like I said
initially, just trying to find,you know, trying to find the low
hanging fruit that you can gofind and then, you know, build
from there.
So it that all came down to our, like I said, the Intel people

(25:21):
just making things happen, youknow, reading through Intel
reports and doing their littlediagrams, and and you know,
ultimately you know we're ableto point us within our couple of
weeks of getting there, youknow, at a, at a target, and
that target you know led toanother target and another, and
then you, you kind of make yourown luck after that?

Speaker 1 (25:35):
Yeah, that's, that's incredible.
What so?
What was the?
Uh, what was your guys' firstmission then, as the team?
I mean, what was the firstMARSOC mission Was your guys'
first?

Speaker 2 (25:45):
mission then as the team, I mean, what was the first
MARSOC mission?
So it was atypical, to say theleast, and it was, you know,
during our workup I was thejunior team leader, right, I
mean, I was a gunnery sergeant,you know, but I was still, you
know, quite a few years youngerthan you know, a couple of years
less time in the Marine Corpsthan the other guys.
So, um, I had always had thementality, and this one thing I

(26:10):
told my team is that, hey, we'lldo windows, right.
Well, if there's a mission todo, we'll do it, I don't care
what it is.
You know, everyone loves to dothe direct action mission, you
know, you fly in, you blow offthe door, you shoot things and
and you go home.
But I've always felt thatreconnaissance is the I mean,
we're called forcereconnaissance, right, that is
our bread and butter.
And in the time right before Icame to, before Detachment 1

(26:35):
started, I had been the directorof our urban sniper course and
our urban reconnaissance course.
So I had all of that kind offresh in my head.
So, anytime there was a unusualmission during training, my
team was given it.
You know, if it was, hey, it'ssub-zero and you guys are going
to be out in Mercury Nevada forfour days, you know, finding

(26:57):
routes and observing a target.
So when the first mission cameup again, it was our intel folks
that had found a report sayingthat and he'd seen a number of
reports over time that Iraqiinterpreters who were working
for the US were being killed.
And he went back and realizedwhat nobody else had put

(27:20):
together, that there had beenlike 17 of these interpreters
kind of around Iraq in arelatively short period of time
had been killed.
So he started, you know, justgoing through and doing link
analysis, and realized that, hey, it all comes down to one
person and that one person was afemale interpreter.
So we found out where she wasand they, uh, the, the Intel

(27:42):
guys, like, hey, you know, I'vegot an idea.
You know, if we can go grabthis woman, then we can, uh, you
know, start, you know, figureout what's going on.
So you know, all the teamleaders of course go in and
they're like, hey, I went tomission, I went to mission and
I'm like, hey, you know, this isodd, right, this is the sort of
mission that you know how manyreconnaissance missions or how
many of these sorts of thingshave anybody else done lately in

(28:04):
workups?
I did them all.
So it's, you know, it's likethe chicken little thing of,
like making the bread.
I'm like you know what, help memake the.
You know, and nobody elsewanted to go on reconnaissance
missions.
No one else wanted to do this,this one's mine.
So, um, it was, it wound upbeing me, uh, a seal that I had
to take with one of our humanintelligence folks, and because
it was a woman, we had borroweda female operator from the Grom,

(28:27):
the Polish special forces, andso it was the four of us,
civilian clothes, you know,driving out through Baghdad in
the middle of the day, and wegot to the place where she was
supposed to be and they're like,oh no, no, she doesn't work
here anymore.
She's, you know, 20 milesfurther away.
And so I'm on satellite phone,I'm like, let me, let us, let us
go.
And they're like, all right, soyou know.
Then it's, you know, 20 milesfurther, this way, and then it's

(28:48):
over here, and so all day we'rekind of bounced around until we
find a place.
They're like, hey, she quitlast week.
Um, and so we and, uh, you know, when she came in the, the Grom

(29:10):
, uh, operator, you know, tookher into custody, essentially,
brought her back, and we alsobrought the, the gentleman that
was driving her.
Uh brought her back and wepretty quickly realized that she
was, she was responsible, butshe was clueless.
Right, she had been a victim ofa what normally you call a
honeypot operation, right?
Or it's the shoes on the otherfoot, right, it's a guy with a
hot chick that entices you toprovide information.

(29:32):
In this case, it was a guy whohad befriended her and said, hey
, I need some interpreters,maybe you could get me your
company phone book or a recallroster or whatever.
And was using that to to go andtake these, these targets out.
So when she found this out, shewas distraught, obviously, but
she was also livid, right, it'slike a, you know, hell hath no

(29:55):
fury like a woman, scorned.
So she would.
He was pissed, yeah, so shepicked him up, you know, and,
and you know, you say, hey,here's where he works, here's
his house, here's, uh, hisfriends.
And so our first, our secondmission was uh, and that one,
that that mission, because ithad had, you know, so many kind
of moving parts that I think,made people, even though it was

(30:18):
going out to grab a an old ladyright, and you know people
recognize that, hey, there athere was a lot going on here.
So you know, these MARSOC orthese uh Detachment One people
are, can be, uh, you know,trusted to, to to do you know,
kind of traditional SOF typemissions.
You know, grab him his in hisplace of work.

(30:42):
Um, we grabbed him at his house, hit his place of work at the
same time and there's there's uh, uh a lot of like propaganda
and uh, bomb making materialsand things like that.
So so you know, grabbed him,you know, shook him a little bit
, and then you know, we startedto build a uh, you know, link

(31:02):
analysis of who's next.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yeah.
Yeah, that's wild but you wantto talk about when people say,
find work, you literally had tomake your own work.
But that's sometimes when youget the best stuff where it's
like, all right, no one's lookedat this, let's go over here and
then start putting thingstogether and then next thing,
you know, it leads to anotherthing.
Next thing, you know it leadsto another thing.

(31:25):
Greg, I don't want to.
This is the longest you've gone, I think, without talking.
I'm fascinated by thediscussion.

Speaker 3 (31:30):
I'm loving it, so no.
So I wrote down a couple ofnotes and apologize for going
sideways and backwards, butBrian's a huge fan Boy.
You can't see that, john, but Iknow when he gets excited and
he likes talking about themarines, you know.
So, uh, the first thing I wrotedown, I wrote it down in red
because, uh, we got three vetson here with various levels and

(31:53):
degrees of background andexperience and all that, and you
said something that is thestuff of legend.
You said they looked at you andsaid pick your own team.
Okay, how many times did thathappen in your career?
That happened nowhere, ever.
Right?

Speaker 2 (32:08):
So, how did you feel?

Speaker 3 (32:10):
John, when that was given to you.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
That was uh, it was a huge honor, right One, that uh,
our boss trusted me to pick theright guys and, um, I had had
the.
I don't know if it was always apleasure, but before I was
finally given a platoon I hadthe same boss.

(32:35):
He had been Colonel Coates, hadbeen my boss at First Force
Recon.
He was the commanding officerthere, then my boss at Special
Operations Training Group andthen my boss again.
So he had, uh, when he arrived,I was coming off a platoon as a
team leader and uh, normallythat's, you know, the
progression is from team leaderYou'll go to a platoon sergeant

(32:57):
at some point.
But he had had an idea tocreate a training cell.
So it was now it's prettycommon idea, but it really
didn't exist.
So there was a handful of usthat were kind of handpicked to
to help each platoon as theywent through their training.
You know, organize them,organize the training, evaluate,
make sure that they were beingheld to standards of performance

(33:18):
.
Um, so in that two years that Iwas doing that, I got the
opportunity to watch, you know,every platoon go through
training.
So I really had.
I was like you know, I knowthis guy, you know this guy.
You know, I know I want him.
Um, you know I really want thisguy to anybody that we wanted.

(33:41):
There were people that werealready, you know, in the workup
for a platoon, uh, for adeployment, um, so there were
certain people that we couldn'tget.
But, um, I had worked at aspecial operation training group
with a couple of the peoplethat I picked, um, so it was, it
was rewarding, you know, to beable to to do that.
And when you know, you knowtheir strengths, you know their,

(34:07):
their weaknesses, you knowyou've got to have, uh, you know
you don't want a team whereeverybody's exactly the same.
You know having the rowdy guythat you know you're going to
have to watch sometimes, but he,you know, when you send him out
for something, he's going toover-perform.
And then, uh, you know the, thequiet guy that's just always
thinking, you know, so it'sbeing able to.

(34:27):
And I've since, you know, in my, my current job, we talk a lot
about that team structure, teamdynamics and how you, um, you
know, if you have theopportunity to, to create a team
or to assign particular peopleto particular missions, you know
, taking into account their,their background, their
personality, things like that.
So I didn't realize I was doingit at the time, probably, but I

(34:49):
was able to, you know kind ofpick and choose to make sure
that I one of the things I thinka great trait or a trait of
great leaders and I don'tnecessarily consider myself a
great one, but you know,surrounding yourself with great
people and letting them work,and that was you know.
Having the opportunity to dothat is is from the ground up is
huge.
No, that was you know.
Having the opportunity to dothat is is is from the ground up
is huge.

Speaker 3 (35:10):
No, that's fascinating.
And and, uh, I was going downthrough uh, uh, similarities and
and we're dissimilar, ourbackgrounds, everything is,
nothing could be the same.
Uh, but I'm getting chillsbecause I'm reading your stuff
and I'm looking at it and I gookay, so one MAPSOTG has me

(35:30):
working in Iraq and I'm bouncingaround all the different
locations and, uh, I'm talkingto to to Jim Conway and I said,
hey, do I need to prepareanything for Afghanistan?
He goes Marines never going tobe in Afghanistan, so you have
no reason whatsoever to preparefor that.
And then the next thing I know,I'm getting sent to Afghanistan
and I land in Lashkar Gah, theysent me to, uh, uh, to Kandahar
.
Then a flight out to Lashkar andthey go, hey, you're going to

(35:51):
lower Helmand.
And I got all my gear, you know, and I'm scared to death with,
with Connex full of gear.
And they said, well, you won'tneed any of that because you're
following the Marines.
And I go what do you mean bythat?
And they said, well, with thearmy, they're following the
Taliban.
So you got to have like a, youknow, a propeller in your ass
and it was so funny to see thedifferent way that the war was

(36:15):
being fought even regionally,even in different cities and
even in different locations.
So so with the, for example,with the, when I would fall in
under a special operations groupunit or you'd go for a task
force, paladin, let's say, it'dbe completely different than the
next one.
So how long did it take you toget to the point where you were

(36:37):
up to speed with that, where youwere going okay, now we're
autonomous.
Now we and you never reallywere autonomous, but I mean now
we can run our own game and notbe beholden to some other unit
game and not be beholden to someother unit, I think pretty
early on, because we therewasn't a lot of support to
provide us.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
You know, we did some , some like joint operations
where we would work with theGrom if we needed, you know,
external security, because thetarget was too large or we had
to hit multiple targets at atime.
But we didn't.
We, we were formed to be aMAGTAF right, a Marine Air
Ground Task Force.
Well, not air, a Marine GroundTask Force, essentially, with um

(37:20):
and Colonel Coates built usaround the war fighting
functions of, hey, we've, youknow, we've got to be able to do
all these things on our own.
So, uh, we absolutely had tohave support, um, a lot of, uh,
a lot of.
It was like I said, we hadprepared for Afghanistan.
So we brought, uh, ifabs, uh,the Mercedes fast attack
vehicles which are pretty goodfor driving around the desert.

(37:42):
They're shitty for, you know,unarmored they're basically like
a Jeep, you know, without atire, you know, for driving down
the streets in Baghdad.
So we were able to put ourhands on a handful of almost
unserviceable Humvees before weleft, brought those over and,
you know, the Army was Armyengineers were kind enough to

(38:05):
weld, you know steel onto theoutsides and things of that
nature for us, and then laterSOCOM was able to provide us
with vehicles.
But as far as planning andexecution of the bulk of our
operations we were pretty muchself-sufficient.

Speaker 3 (38:21):
That's great, that's fantastic.
And, brian, I got to tell youwhen we did the research for
this, john, brian and I wereexcited about it, and you know
that some things have happenedin the last couple of weeks that
kept side railing it.
So this morning theanticipation was killing me to
be on here.
It's just so much fun to talkto somebody that's had such a
wide variety of experiences andit's not unlike a National

(38:45):
Football League coach.
You know you were given suchrare opportunities and you knew
that.
You knew that at the time andyou knew that going in and you
certainly didn't usurp that, youcertainly tried to go in and do
the best.
And that's different, becausewhat I found with the Marines
and embedded in dealing with theMarines all the time is exactly
what Brian was saying about.

(39:07):
Listen, every Marine's arifleman.
Every Marine does this andyou're not special and you know
when you talk to the JointSpecial Operations Command, it's
entirely different.
You know they all havedifferent units and different
insignia and their rich historyof whatever else.
So did you face any backlashfrom fellow Marines for being

(39:28):
allowed to have this amazingopportunity?

Speaker 2 (39:33):
Yes, I mean not from the tactical level, like peer
level.
I mean they were all jealous,obviously, but very jealous.
But there was a lot ofresistance from the Marine Corps
, from, you know, we dealt witha lot from staff officers that
were kind of on the periphery ofthings, uh, when, when we would
and we tried to be, and thatwas one of the things that was

(39:56):
kind of beat into us by our ourboss, colonel Coates, but also
our platoon sergeant um saidthat we've, you know, we've got
a.
We're representing the MarineCorps but we also have to.
We can't forget that we areMarines and that's the same
story, you know.
Same thing I tell you know,young Marines coming into MARSOC
now is, you know, the thingsthat, uh, that will make you

(40:17):
successful are the same thingsthat make you successful as a
Marine.
And I feel that that SOCOMrecognizes that about MARSOC now
is that they, you're startingwith Marines and so when you do
that, you're starting with apretty solid product.
But yeah, we would, you know,still there's the urge to rebel.
You know, like being a teenager, I guess, you know, when you're

(40:39):
given an inch you take a mile.
So you know, we would oftenroll into a conventional
organization chow hall and you,you know, or you know, in
Fallujah, you know, going to thethe Marine chow hall there with
uh it, we weren't allowed tohave beards, and that was uh
much to our dismay.
But uh, we all, because of that, we all had, like out of rigs

(41:02):
mustaches, um, like porn starmustaches, and we had, you know,
different uniforms and we had,uh, you know, different things
on our weapons and you know, wewould come into a chow and
inevitably somebody would like,hey, you know, you guys need a
haircut, you guys need to dothis, you guys need to do that.
And so we took a little bit ofpleasure in uh and I, you know,

(41:24):
why don't you go fuck off?
But for the most part, I mean,that's you know.
You know we, I think, largelyrecognize the fact that you know
we're representing the MarineCorps.
So we've got to do that in away that you know.
You know both tactically andthe tactical actions that we

(41:45):
take, but also the way we carryourselves, the way that we
behave.
Now we can't play the fool andmake.
If we do, we're going to makethe Marine Corps look bad, and
that's not what any of us wanted.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
Right and you got to have that right.
Like you said, the right kindof leadership.
Because, greg and I, when we'redoing our work, we work with
all kinds of differentorganizations police, private
sector, military but we see alot of the same.
We work with all kinds ofdifferent organizations.
You know police, private sector, you know military, but you
know we see a lot of the sameissues and when you know
everyone just says, well, it'sleadership, it's leadership or
it's culture, it's just like itreally is, like you can have.

(42:20):
You know, I always tell peoplelike you can have the greatest
team in the world and if there'sa bad leader, like they're just
not going to do, like they'regoing going to perform but it's
not going to be great.
Or you could take like acompletely average team, you
know, but give them a reallygood leadership and they're
going to do well.
Like it, because it's justthat's that comes down to
everything.

(42:40):
So what, like what are you?
You know everyone wants likehey, what's the secret to this?
And there isn't one, obviously,or what?
How do you do that?
But like what are some of thosethings?
Because you know you're talkingabout yourself and you have
your own experience, but you'vegot this group of individuals
that are high performers.
You know they want to go getsome.
They're Marines, so, like yousaid, there's some that you're
like, hey, no-transcript.

(43:13):
So you have those charactersand you have some people, like
you said, like they're naturalleaders, or, or you can, can or
can, are good speakers, they canbrief, but you know how do you
like what are?
What the best thing to do withsomething like this is.
You know, this is how Iapproach it.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
Are there those kind of takeaways that you've learned
in your career.
Yeah, I'd say one and I thinkthe SEALs may have come up with
this, but a little XY chart thathas performance on one side and
trust on the other.
You know, and if you you know alot of times in in the civilian
world, absolutely in sports,you know, absolutely Like we

(43:56):
prioritize the performance, youknow we want somebody that
that's a really good performer,even if they're they're low on
the trust axis.
Um, you know, you've, and youcan't have somebody that's super
trustworthy but sucks at theirjob.
So you really have to to, youknow, look for people and none
of us, are you know?
optimum performers all the time,all right, but what we need is
people that are, you know, bothyou know trustworthy and and go

(44:20):
to their job and we need tocontinue to work on, you know,
finding ways to bring them up inboth and both axes.
I think that's.
That's a huge one.
I said with you know there's inthe marine corps, the marine
corps leadership.
There's, you know, tworesponsibilities, I guess

(44:40):
there's mission accomplishmentand troop welfare.
Yep, and I think that thatcarries over to most, most
anywhere else.
You know the.
You know a lot of lately, a lotof the stuff I see is you know,
you know people that talk aboutleadership, talk about you know
welfare.
You know you gotta.
You know nobody knows how muchcares, how much you know, until

(45:01):
you know how much you care,which is ridiculous, right, I
mean, you know, if that was thecase, then, like your mom, would
be the best victim, sorry, yeah, all right, are you?
We need people?
We need to.
You know, win wars?
Right, we need to.
If that was the case, then yourmom would be the best platoon
sergeant.
Yeah, all right, we need people.
We need to win wars.
All right, we need toaccomplish missions.
So we got to have people thatknow what they're doing, and
that's easier, because that'sthe way that we promote people.
That's the way that we grow Allright, we get good at our job

(45:23):
and then we get promoted toanother level of authority, to
another level of authority, andwe can grow people, though, on
the other axis of making themunderstand that, taking care of
your people, looking out fortheir welfare, and the biggest
thing that I learned, like Isaid, in this particular
instance, was that you have torecognize the capabilities, and

(45:46):
that's one of the Marine Corpsleadership principles Employ
your people in accordance withtheir capability, right, knowing
that, hey, this guy's really,really good at this.
Let me, you know, focus him inthis direction, but let me also,
you know, make him do some ofthe things that he's not good at
, so that you know he'll, overtime, he'll get better.
So, you know, I learned a lotabout more servant leadership is

(46:20):
kind of the big buzzword, butthe more hands-off leadership
during that, because you can'tbe and I had been a, or I'd been
kind of forced to be, and, as ayounger leader, I think you're
forced to be, you know, maybenot a micromanager, but you've
got to inspect what you expect,right, and you, when you try to
do that with somebody, that, um,and you still have to do it,
you just have to do itdifferently.
You just have to say, hey, comeback and, and you know, brief
me on on what you've done,because you know people want to

(46:42):
be inspected, right, they wantto know that they've that you're
you're not just giving thembusy work, that what they're
doing is important.
So, you know, that's, that'swhat I learned, probably more
about kind of managingpersonalities.
You know, high performingpersonalities during that, uh,
than anything else, cause I, youknow they were all high
performing personalities.
You know any one of them couldhave stepped in and done my job,

(47:05):
uh, which probably means Ipicked well and done my job, uh,
which probably means I pickedwell.
And I said, there, there's uh asaying or the you know the
saying that you should surroundyourself with people that that
definitely, um, you know, makeup for your weaknesses, right.
So I felt, uh, you know, we hadall our bases covered with,

(47:26):
with attachment one.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
Yeah, I think you also can't surround yourself
with people that are yes men oryes people all the time.
Either You've got to havesomebody that's got the balls to
walk up to you and say you'reout of line or hey, there's
another way of doing this, andthat, in high performing teams,
can be suicidal, or or it can beconfrontational, but it has to

(47:49):
be done and I think that's anearmark of a good leader.
I wrote down one of your quotes, hoping that one day, when we
meet in person, that we'll beable to get a signed book to me.
Stuff like that is huge.
It's more important than coinsused to be important, but now
everybody's got one.
I saw a kid selling the cookiesuh, cookies for this football

(48:09):
team.
I bought some and he gave me acoin Uh, but back when it meant
something, I uh, this is.
This is the kind of quote thatmeant something to me.
And you said uh, don't followme.
It's your life, your walkingpoint, and and statements like
that are so deep because you'reat the top of your game.
Statements like that are sodeep because you're at the top

(48:31):
of your game.
You're an over-performingperson in a field of
over-performers, yet you took itseriously enough to not just do
the Army follow me on theinfantry, but to say, hey, look,
you've got a stake in this,step up to the challenge.
The second part of that lateron, was my passion is helping
people get better at gettingbetter.
Holy shit, you know.

(48:52):
Those are so important andinfluential because there's a
big group of people out thereI'll poke somebody in the eye,
I'm sure that just because youserved in the military, the next
thing you know they've got awebsite and they're teaching you
how to.
You know, hey, humility andresilience go high.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (49:12):
And.
But you know what I'm talkingabout and you look at them and
you go okay, whoa, wait, yourlife should be somewhat in order
before you come to me and tellme how to fix mine.
So, with all of the things thatyou bring to bear, what do you
think is the most?
There was a question there.
What do you think is the mostimportant experience that you

(49:34):
had from the military?
That you now teach CEOs andexecutives and people outside
the military that they justcouldn't see before they talked
to you.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
Absolutely.
I think there's probably ahandful of them, but I think the
most important thing is.
So, quick, quick story, but my,my wife, was a school teacher.
When I met her school teacher,for like 30 years we were
married, um, and we're stillmarried.
But she, a couple years ago shedecided to become a travel

(50:06):
agent and, uh, she got fed up,not with the kids she loved the
kids but, uh, the parents it'salways the parents and
everything.
And you know, I I didn't thinkthere were travel agents anymore
.
I figured people just uh, butthere were.
She loved it.
She's like a master logisticianbut, uh, when I started like
asking her about kind of what,about what she does, I realized

(50:27):
that really the key toleadership kind of boils down to
the same things.
That, uh, is the key to being agood travel agent.
And first you got to know wherethe hell you're going.
You know you can't tellsomebody that hey, come join me
on this trip.
We're going to go cool places,all right, they want to know
where you're going.
And as a leader, you are, youknow, kind of definitionally

(50:51):
right, you're leading peoplefrom one place to another.
So I think one of the biggestmistakes that leaders make is
that they really have no ideawhere they're going.
And a lot of people make thesame mistake in their lives.
Right, they really don't knowwhere they're going.
In the Marine Corps, themilitary writ large, or even in
in organizations, you might havea mission statement or things

(51:11):
like that.
But you know, within thatmission statement, that broad
mission statement, you've got tofigure out as a leader, where
am I taking my people to?
And maybe that's to being moreproductive, maybe that's to, you
know, making more money orwhatever that is.
But that's the first thing, Ithink.
The second is that you have tocreate a really bad-ass travel

(51:35):
brochure.
Once you know where you'regoing, you have to entice other
people to come with you.
And again, in the military, youcan kind of get away with hey,
I'm in charge, do what I say,but you can only get away with
that for so long.
Yeah, and absolutely inbusiness and some of the other
people I've worked with you knowyou've got to that doesn't work
very well, and even less sotoday.

(51:56):
I think people, the idea thatpeople take a job and stay at it
until they die, you know,doesn't exist, all right.
So, if you want good talent tostick around, you know,
demonstrating how they're goingto be better when they get to
that destination than they arenow.
And then, third is you have tobe very upfront about the cost.
All right, you know that.

(52:16):
Hey, you don't get to comealong on this ride for free.
You know it's going to take,you know blood, sweat, tears,
it's going to take this level ofeffort.
This is the standard that weexpect of you as a member of
this.
You know special operationsteam or the sales team, or you
know a football team, you knowit doesn't really matter.
So I think that, uh, you know Ilearned more from her.
That's really consolidated myview of of what leadership is is

(52:40):
kind of through through her jobas a travel agent.

Speaker 3 (52:44):
That's fascinating and the best bits of logic that
I've learned in my short lifeare always from somebody else
and it was unexpected and theirshort burst of information that
you can use immediately, ratherthan the soliloquy where you
have to read a lot and theperson drones on thank her for
us, because that's a greatanswer, by the way.
And you know the cost.

(53:10):
I think that's the other thing,the cost.
Like there's so few people thatjoin the military and so few
people that become veterans andcombat veterans, because I think
the cost scares them away.
They get sticker shock right upfront and they sometimes don't
understand that, for all thethings that we want and hold

(53:34):
dear in our country and theConstitution and the Bill of
Rights and our freedom, this issuch an essential part of that.
And it's so funny that, like thefalse bravado, the hubris that
you know, hey, don't tell methanks for my service this and
that I thank everybody for their, that you know hey don't tell
me thanks for my service thisand that I thank everybody for
their service.
You know, and I'm constantlythat person that's walking
around saying you made adifference and you know, giving

(53:55):
up my seat to somebody on theairplane that deserved it more
than I do, because I really dothat and what I've found is that
the elements of your book arethat way as well.
You're very thankful for thosepeople that gave you the
opportunity to be where you areright now, and, and and I think
that's an amazing uh facet, john, were you always like that, or

(54:16):
was that one of the things thatthe Marine Corps beat India?

Speaker 2 (54:19):
I don't think so.
I think I, you know, as a young, young guy, I think I was
pretty cocky, yeah, and as Ijoined the you know, I felt that
I was well prepared to join themarine corps and and, to be
honest, I had, I had beenpreparing for so long.
I didn't think that boot campwas was particularly challenging
.
You know, which you know isvastly, you know, different

(54:42):
story from a lot of people.
Um, and not that just I wassuper fit.
I, like I had studied all ofthe you know I had a recruiter
that was just feeding me all ofthe information.
You know, the kind of outdoorskills, things like that,
shooting, you know, all of thosethings I, I, I knew, um, but uh
, you know, I quickly had, likeI said, I was kind of misplaced

(55:06):
into a sniper platoon, right assoon as I got to the the
infantry.
Kind of misplaced into a sniperplatoon right as soon as I got
to the the infantry and uh,there I realized that I was, you
know, swimming with, with giantfish, and the only way to to
not get eaten was going to be to, you know, keep my head down.
You know, learn, and then Ireally, I think I learned.
You know a level of humilitythere.

(55:26):
You know a level of humilitythere, um, and I've found over
time I mean, I'm just not that,that guy who's uh, you know, if
somebody thanks me for myservice, I'm, I absolutely don't
feel that you need to, but, uh,you know it's, I'm certainly
not going to be an asshole toyou because you did it.
Um, you know, I enjoyed, like Isaid, every day of the 21 years

(55:49):
of active duty that I spent.
I, you know there were momentsthat I didn't, there were things
that sucked, but even thosethings, when you look back on
them, you learn.
I think the thing about payingthe price that some people don't
understand is that it's paid ininstallments, right, you don't
have to pay it all at once.
And you, you?
An analogy I use a lot is isyou know, mountain climbing, all

(56:14):
right, and I'm not a hugemountain climber, but you know
I've, I've climbed a few.
You know you get to to Everest.
All of the work to get betweenthe base camps prepares you to
get to the next base camp, youknow.
So it's not, uh, you don'tshoot up to the top all at once,
right, you, you acclimatize atbase camp one, and then you know
you start having to do some,like more technical things as

(56:35):
you move.
Uh, so the the work preparesyou for the next level of work,
you know.
And then leadership preparesyou, hopefully, for the next
level of leadership that you getassigned to.
So I don't, you know, I thinkpeople to shy away from doing
hard things because they say Ican't do that.
Like well, you can, you can dosomething more than you're doing
, and when you do that, that'sgoing to give you the skills

(56:57):
that you need to do somethingharder.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
Yeah, well, tell us about um, tough, rugged bastards
.
No, you got the book.
You know what, you know?
Why did you I mean, you wroteabout this and a lot in there,
but it's like, why did youchoose to, or what, what, what
kind of made you think like, hey, I should, I should document
some of this, or I want to getthis story out there.
How did you come up on, like,what was the decision to do that

(57:20):
?

Speaker 2 (57:21):
Yeah, it was a kind of long and roundabout, like a
lot of things.
But uh, I, after I retired fromthe Marine Corps, I had the GI
bill to use and, uh, I was in no, you know, no one would have
taken me into college when I gotout of high school.
You know, I didn't have themoney, didn't have the grades,
it wasn't going to happen.
But uh, you know, I was.
I finally started seeing thelight, uh, towards the end of my

(57:43):
career, and started using thetuition assistance program and
was able to finish a bachelor'sdegree just before I retired.
And then I still had all ofthis, you know, gi Bill left.
So I was able to get.
You know, I just I lovedreading, loved learning.
So I'm like, hey, let me take,get a master's degree in
literature.
It was in kind of liberal artsbut focused in literature.

(58:05):
And I finished that and, youknow, in that process I had to
write a lot.
And one of the professors waslike, hey, you know, we have
this at the university of northcarolina in wilmington, where I
live, you know, one of the bestwriting programs in the in the
nation uh, master fine artswriting programs.
So I'm like, well, you know,it's very competitive, it's they

(58:25):
only pick, like you know, adozen people a year.
And I was like, well, there'sno way I'll get in, but if it'll
make you happy I'll submitsomething.
And uh, somehow, you know, theymust have had like a quota for
military guys, whatever I got in.
And uh, I realized when I wasgoing through that program that
anything that I wrote that wasnon-fiction was going to have to

(58:47):
be reviewed by the DOD, and Iwasn't.
You know, as the graduationrequirement, your thesis,
essentially, was a finished book.
So I was like, well, I can'twrite about my time in the, in
the military, because I, youknow.
So I wrote a novel that wasnothing about the military and
and, frankly, not terribly good.
But uh, you know, when Ifinished that I had at least

(59:08):
learned the kind of the terriblygood.
But uh, you know, when Ifinished that I had at least
learned the kind of the bones ofwriting.
You know what writing was about.
And uh, I wound up running intoa lady that was writing a
history of the marine raiders inworld war ii and she had asked
me for some, some help with that.
And then she asked me she'slike hey, send me something that
you've written and I sent aessay about and it's included in

(59:37):
the book or portions of it areabout being a sniper in the joff
, iraq.
And, uh, she read it, she sentit to her, her agent, and her
agent got a hold of me and said,hey, you know, can I represent
you, let's turn this into a book.
And I'd really not thought ofit.
Um, represent you, let's turnthis into a book.
And I'd really not thought ofit.
Um, and I've been until thatpoint and I'm like, well, you
know, sure, why not?
Let's, let's, let's give it ago.
And so I wanted, when I did it,I wanted to, uh, one definitely

(01:00:00):
talk about the you knoweverything that the marines of
detachment one did and documentthe history of it.
You, you know, I think anotherthing I wanted I think a lot of
the books that are written by,you know, the GWAT books were
either written, you know, kindof too soon after the fact.
So I mean, they're greathistories, right, they're like,

(01:00:21):
hey, this happened, thishappened, this happened, I did
this awesome thing and then thisawesome thing.
There's a lot of those.
But at this point, when I wentto write it or when I finished
it, we were really like 20 yearsafter the fact.
So I think in writing, you knowa memoir, you know which means
in French memory, right, you'rewriting with a level of

(01:00:43):
reflection that kind of allowsyou to probably have a little
more humility perhaps than ifyou're writing it right after
the fact.
A little more.
You know the ability to say, hey, you know, now I'm telling you
this, but you know and I do thata couple times Like I don't
know, that I was this likethoughtful at the time, but yeah
, but this is what I'm thinking.
I wanted to write something thatI feel like another not a flaw,

(01:01:07):
just a difference with a lot ofof kind of G white books is
that they are really seem to befocused at other military people
.
You know a lot of acronyms andkind of just things thrown at
you and I I feel like I wantedto kind of give the, a civilian
reader, the kind of theunderstanding of of all of this,

(01:01:29):
without, like all of the kindof bravado or whatever.
Um, so I really was trying to,but I also wanted something that
would have some kind oflearning points for, you know,
military people if they did readit, uh.
So I, I went into it with a lotof uh kind of wicked, so I was
trying to hit and and feel likeI was able to to kind of get

(01:01:51):
them all in a way that that wasnot too terribly disjointed yeah
yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
so when you're, when you're, you know you're so
you're kind of going back andreflecting on this right as
you're writing it, and thenyou're putting this out there,
um, you know what, what you know, you, looking back on this,
like, is there something thatyou said?
Man, I really I wish I couldhave changed this, or or I wish
this was like a little bitdifferent or it handled this
differently.
Like I'm just curious.

(01:02:17):
It's like you know you go backto that because there's always
going to be something where youwish you did something better or
whatever, but like that you canreally go, man, like I wish I
had known this when I wasstarting this unit or I wish I
had known this then due to thework of so many people that I

(01:02:39):
don't.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
I mean, there's one thing and I didn't even put this
in a book, I'd kind offorgotten about it but I had
gotten into a habit of everytime we would hit a target, if
that building or that house orwhatever had a vehicle in it, we
would confiscate the vehicle.
And so we had this collectionof vehicles that we would use

(01:03:03):
for reconnaissance and thingslike that civilian vehicles One
of the midway through ourdeployment.
If we couldn't find the keys tothe vehicle or whatever the
case was, then we would usuallydisable it.
And we had been told to hey,you don't necessarily have to
disable these vehicles.
And we had been told to, hey,you don't necessarily have to
disable these vehicles.

(01:03:24):
But I uh, we did uh, hit this,this, uh, this house, and there
was a car in, like in a car park, carport, and I, on the way out
, I'm like screw this.
And threw a thermite grenade onthe engine block.
Um, and a thermite grenade isjust a super, super hot flame
that will not extinguish.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
And they will go through with a melt.
A car will go up in flames inlike, in seconds.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
Basically with a thermite in there, yeah, and uh
it's, it's somehow kind of shotthrough and got the like the,
the, the interior, on fire andthen, before we could, we could
even leave this, this whole, uh,palm tree.
You know, underneath thevehicle it caught a blaze, the
whole house and I think I burnedhalf a block down downtown iraq

(01:04:08):
.
So that was that was somethingI, you know.
I kind of got a a littletalking to after I like, yeah,
need to be a little bit moreprudent with my use of higher
techniques, but uh, no, I thinktechniques but uh, no, I think,
and maybe because you know I'velearned that, uh, even you know
when there are lessons to belearned and like, was we kind of

(01:04:29):
mentioned?
I mean, you've got to be brutalin, uh, the after action process
and as a leader, you absolutelyhave to tell people that, hey,
I expect you to.
You know, don't go along withme If you disagree.
You know it's your, you knowyou're going on this mission.
Your ass is on the line as well.
You're a part of this, so youhave a responsibility to point
out if you think, and maybemaybe I'll tell you to shut up

(01:04:51):
and color, because that's that'swhat I need to do.
But you know, you know we allwant the same thing, and if
we're all you know, if we allknow what that thing is, we know
where we're going, where ourdestination is, then we all have
equal responsibility to helpourselves get there.
So a lot of times where I madeyou know would have made a bad

(01:05:11):
decision, I had people thatwould step up and say, hey, man,
maybe we should think aboutthis.
And so we self-corrected a lotof times.

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
And even then, in things where we probably could
have done things differently orbetter, we learned a lot working
on.
Now.
I mean, you got the book outand you're promoting that and
it's telling the story which isgoing to be an incredible story.
But, like, what else are youdoing now?
Cause I know you you still worka little bit with military but
you do some private sector kindof stuff.
So just curious kind of howyou've been able to to take,
take the skills and all thelessons learned and sort of.

(01:05:55):
You know you're applying it ina different domain, but some of
the key core lessons are justthe lessons that people need to
learn.
So how, where, what are?
You doing with it now.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:05):
Yeah, and that's so.
I retired in 2008 andimmediately kind of rolled in,
you know, the next Monday to uh.
The job that I still do now is,uh, the training and education
branch director for the MarineCorps Raider Training Center.
So in it, you know, I'm, youknow, get to the great
opportunity to, to see, you know, special operators go through

(01:06:29):
training.
You know the ones that aresuccessful, the ones that aren't
.
And you know, I've, over thelast couple of years, after the
book, really realized that one Iwant to, you know, at some
point, do something different.
So I've started branching outto, you know, at some point, do
something different, um, so I'vestarted branching out into, to
you know, coaching, um, kind ofhigher performers and, uh, you
know, doing leadership, kind oftalks and seminars and things of

(01:06:51):
that nature.
So I'm really interested in, inincreasing the level of of that
uh that I get to do, uh,because I think there are so
many valuable lessons from themilitary that, uh, a lot of
things that we, you know, I'vefound a lot of times, things
that we absolutely take forgranted, that are kind of mind
boggling when you share themwith a corporate, you know, um,

(01:07:16):
so that's, that's a big part ofit.
I do.
I think I came, upon writingthe book, the realization that,
uh, or more in research for thebook, that that is kind of, as
greg mentioned a little bitthere there's so many kind of
military influencers, or youknow, whatever you want to call
them, that they're like hey, Idid all this awesome stuff, so

(01:07:36):
come, you know, follow me andI'll take you where you need to
go.
And that's really what the wholeidea of walking point was about
.
It's, you know, if you'rethere's, um, a little bit off
the topic, but there's a guy,joseph Campbell, who wrote a lot
about the idea of the hero'sjourney, the book, the hero with
a thousand faces, and, and hehe talks about, uh, in the

(01:07:58):
Arthurian grail legend, rightwhen the, the, the Knights, were
going after the Holy grail,they were like, hey, uh, I think
it was Percival or whatever.
It's like, hey, we each need togo, like we're all going to go
look for the grail, but we allgot to go our own separate ways
and we all have to go into thewoods where it's the darkest.
And if, if, you find a trail,then you're in the wrong place

(01:08:31):
because you know we need to gowhere there isn't a trail and
make one.
And that's really the idea thatI think I'm trying to get
people to understand is that youknow if you're following
somebody you're not going to getto your own destination, right,
you're going to get wherethey're going.
So I've started another bookthat's, uh, you know, going to
be called, probably, walkingpoint.
Uh, you know a little bit moreon, uh, lessons.
You know, not a a memoir at all, but lessons that I've learned,
kind of leadership wise andlife wise, and I think the more

(01:08:52):
I've you know, the older I'vegotten and the more post you
know military life I've I'velived, I've realized that, you

(01:09:22):
know, most of those are the same.
You know, those militarylessons apply to life and, um,
you know, if you can, uh, youknow, drink mushroom coffee or
in order to be successful, is iscrazy, right, so, uh, and
there's there's no such thing asa quick fix, right, there's, uh
, you know you've got to just dothe work consistently.
You know, a little bit at atime and, um, you know, over
time you'll, you'll get there oryou'll get close, but uh,
you'll get somewhere that nobodyelse has been, and that's

(01:09:44):
really what it's all about, Ithink.

Speaker 3 (01:09:46):
No that's amazing, and Brian and I are in
discussions, uh, for our secondbook, now in the very
preliminary discussions about it, and, uh, I've always said that
when the book is released ontape, uh, I wanted to have
Gilbert Godfrey be my voice.
You know, the guy from Aflac,but sadly he died.
So now I I'm not sure who I'mgoing to pick for that, but is,

(01:10:10):
and the one thing I of manythings that I love about what
you're doing here is, it's notabout the platitudes, it's about
the hard work, and it is hardwork and it's being consistent
and showing up.
My dad used to say my dad, aformer Marine, was, uh, was the
one that said you know, showingup is is more than half the
battle, it's almost all of thebattle.
And, and, uh, so who, uh, uh,in that book, when you go, uh,

(01:10:33):
uh, to having somebody, uh beyour voice, who, who are you
going to choose for your voice?

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
Is it somebody really cool or are you going to choose
for your voice?
Is it somebody really cool orare you goofy like me and want
to have somebody funny?
Well, I mean, it's already outon uh audio book.
So I, uh, I wanted to do it, Ithought that I would be, I
thought I would be uh would begood, but uh, you, apparently I
don't get that choice.
So the publisher made thedecision and they picked an

(01:11:06):
actor.
He does a lot of military books.
His name is Tom Beyer.
I think if you see him youwould recognize him because he's
been on CSI, miami anddifferent shows.
And I let my wife pick becausethey sent a bunch of audition
tapes.
Uh, I got to pick, but I was,you know, out of the people they
selected.

(01:11:26):
But uh, I'm like I can't listento this.
You know not my voice, cause Ihear it, you know.
So my wife listens to a lot ofaudio books.
So she picked him and and, uh,I've got a lot of rave reviews
about, about how he did.
That's great.
But yeah, definitely the secondbook.
I think I would, I would liketo do it.
I think that seems cool.

Speaker 3 (01:11:46):
Yeah, that's great.
And you know what, when?
When people listen to the audiobook, which is great, and your
success is great, the.
The idea is that when you sayit, when you're the one telling
the story, there's somehow muchmore weight to it.
I feel you know, because you'rehearing it from the, as Brian
and I joke the horse's mouth, orthe horse's ass, depending on

(01:12:06):
what the story is.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
So I like that you know at different times.

Speaker 3 (01:12:10):
Yeah, yeah, I love that, brian.
I'm just saying it's amazingthat we've had this opportunity.
John, I hold you in high regardand I think anybody would uh,
uh, be happy, uh, to dig in, andI'm I'm anxiously looking
forward to to your writing on onbeing the point man, being your
own point man that'sfascinating to me cool.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
Well, I like and we didn't get to talk about it.
But, uh, the stuff you guys aredoing, you know I really
enjoyed your videos and and I,you know, could talk for another
couple hours about, about that.
You know, I really think that I, you know, could talk for
another couple hours about,about that.
You know, I really think that,uh, the, you know, the one of
the good fortunes of my life was, uh, starting off in a sniper
platoon and the, with the kindof the mandate that you were

(01:12:53):
always under observation, youknow.
So just him, games, you know,were you know, memory games,
things like that were.
You know you, we were alwaysexpected to be observant and
that is probably a skill that's,you know, helped me more than
anything else.
Um, you know, in my life, uh,so you know a lot of your, your
stuff about just just payingattention to the little things,

(01:13:14):
your decisions that you make,you know are you know absolutely
ways to prevent, you know badthings from happening.
So are you know absolutely?

Speaker 3 (01:13:22):
ways to prevent, you know, bad things from happening.
So we run in some of thesimilar circles.
It'd be loved Uh, I would loveto for us to be able to
collaborate on something uh,because I think what you do is
fascinating and, and clearlyBrian and I are having a ball,
Uh, so uh, and you know, there'snothing better than knowing
that you're pulling the veilfrom somebody's eyes and
allowing them to see the worlddifferently, and maybe, if

(01:13:44):
that's the cathartic nature oftheir restart, then we've done
something.
I don't care about my namegoing anywhere, but my legacy
I'd like to be that at least oneperson one time in their life
goes.
Wait a minute.
We don't have to continue tostomp around in the great bucket
like Lucy and Ethel.

Speaker 2 (01:14:01):
We can go out and do something else, you know
probably not too many peoplewill know what you're talking
about there.

Speaker 3 (01:14:07):
Yeah Well, I've heard that all the time.
I have to keep Brian's myfilter for humans.

Speaker 1 (01:14:13):
I was like Greg, you're using movie references
that are before your time, letalone anyone else listening to
this show, like no one's goingto get that.
But um, no, I appreciate you.
Um, you know coming on andtalking to us and um, and you
know putting this stuff outthere.
You know it's I.
I always find it fascinatingtalking about the.
The reason why I find some ofthe stuff interesting is just

(01:14:35):
personally, with your stories.
One, obviously you knoweverything talked about having
to start a new unit, knowingabout how the marine corps is
like, there's all of thesegrowing pains and things.
And then you know, through alltalked about having to start a
new unit, knowing about how theMarine Corps is like, there's
all of these growing pains andthings.
And then you know, through allthis and all your other
experiences, you know you'recoming out just going like, hey,
here's the things you need tofocus on and anyone can do them
right.
You just it, just it's, it'shard work, it sucks, like sorry,

(01:14:55):
it's just doing.
I mean even even that's whatpeople know.
Like I mean even that's whatpeople don't even know.
Especially with being a sniperand doing reconnaissance, it's a
really boring job.
You're just sitting therewatching something for a really
long time.
It's not fun, it's not sexy.
You're just writing reports,sending stuff back, taking

(01:15:18):
photos, watching, and maybe youget a second of action.
It's really monotonous andyou've got to be organized.
And you have get like a secondof action and it's like it's
really monotonous and you got tobe organized and you have to
have attention to detail.
But like those skills, likethat's what it takes to do
anything and so it's alwaysinteresting.
It's like you know, have allthese careers and you can have
all these experiences, and itstill comes down to like, hey,
there's just some basic elementshere.
If you get really good at thosebasic elements, like you,

(01:15:46):
you'll figure the rest out oryou'll you'll, you'll learn
along the way.
Like it's just here's thethings you can control.
So I, I always appreciate it,like you said, like I'm not
doing the, you know the, themilitary influencer thing, you
know where it's, by my whatevert-shirt or way of thinking.
It's like no man, like you gotto do you, you have to, you have
to walk point in your own lifeand here's some fundamentals
that you can learn and that'llhelp you navigate that tough,
tough job, you know.

(01:16:06):
Yeah, so I, I appreciate that?
Um well, do you have a?
How else can people like followyou, get a hold of you or
contact you?
Obviously, like I said, I'llhave all the links and I'll
share the stuff on social mediawhen it comes out.
But, like you know, andespecially get your book.
But what else is the best wayto to to kind of follow along
and learn more from, learn morefrom john daily?

Speaker 2 (01:16:26):
so, yeah, I I write a couple of weekly newsletters
that go out.
One is um, but one is calledwalking point and that's really
the you know the stuff I've beentalking about um and the other
is called rtfu or ruck.
The F up is really just aboutrucking for fitness and and how
you build mental toughnessthrough that.

(01:16:47):
Um, I have a website, it'sjadailycom, at D-A-I-L-E-Y, and
there are links to both of those.
There's the book.
You can get all of those thingson there.
It's.
I probably need to update it,but it's.
It's all there.
Um, social media wise LinkedInsome.
Um, instagram some.
But, uh, I really am trying toto spend less of my time, less

(01:17:15):
of my time on there.
I've started, you know, makinga little video kind of inspired
by y'all, just short, um, hey,here's a little something to
think about, usually my Sundaymorning out on hike videos.
But yeah, yeah, the the websiteis the is the best place to, to
kind of one-stop shop.

Speaker 1 (01:17:28):
Yeah, I love it too.
I I always tell people too it'slike you want to just get, just
go throw a rock on and go for awalk and be alone with your
thoughts, like it's the best,it's so good for you in so many
different ways, and when youhave to do it a lot, like you
learn, like this really sucks,like you know, when you're doing
a long hike or something, butyou know it.

(01:17:49):
It's one of those things wherejust go it clears your head.

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
You know, yeah, you definitely learn to
compartmentalize.
All right, hey, I'm in a lot ofpain right now, but that's you
know.
I need to put that aside.
Um, you know, or I'm, you know,at some points, you know, and
most for fitness you're probablynot going to to go to the point
where you're like, hey, I don'tthink I could take another step
, but let me, I'm going to takeone more.
And if I did that one, then Ican do one more.

(01:18:11):
And then you know, if I coulddo that, I could take 10.
And if you get to the pointwhere you can pretty much do
anything, right, um, so that'sthat's why I I certainly didn't,
not something I loved when Iwas, when I was on active duty,
but it's something that, uh, youknow, I did a lot and it's
influencers.
You got to do this, you got tocarry this much, you got to

(01:18:42):
spend $500 on this or that.
I mean just, you know, get yourschool backpack, go for a walk.
When that gets easy, you know,throw in some more.
And you know, when that getseasy, go a little further.
You know, and then that's,that's how we.
It's the same thing withweightlifting, the principle of
progressive resistance.
Right, you do something untilit becomes easy and then, you

(01:19:04):
know, make it harder and theneventually that harder thing
will become easy too.
And the big thing I think thatI said it already but you know,
the hard thing that you do ispreparing you for the next hard
thing.
You know, as long as you keepthat in mind and the harder the
thing is, you know, the the, the, the kind of, the better the
victory of getting through isgoing to be.

Speaker 1 (01:19:24):
Yeah, and it's, and it's.
You know, it's funny too, evenwhen you get into how the brain
is wired for some of this stuffand like it's not even you, you,
you start to get that feelingof accomplishment or success or
whatever.
It is like finishing the hikeor whatever.
But you, actually your brainstarts that process when you
start working towards it.
Like it's like it doesn't justget, like the dopamine from the

(01:19:47):
accomplishment or winning, itactually creates this whole
pathway of when I do this thing,you know, I start to feel a
little bit, I start to get alittle bit of that dopamine and
then I go for that reward.
So it's like you simply justsetting those habits and
starting them.

Speaker 2 (01:20:01):
Yeah, it's like you're yeah, just, I mean being
the person you know realizing,hey, I'm the person that gets up
at whatever time five in themorning and goes for a run or a
ruck.
You know, when you start toidentify is that, yeah, you know
, you're like, hey, I'm nolonger somebody that that hates
rolling out of bed.
You're like I'm a person thatdoes this thing.
You know, know, I'm aweightlifter, I'm a rucker, I'm

(01:20:22):
a non-smoker, I'm a somebodythat doesn't stuff my face full
of cookies.
Well, you know, whatever it isthat you um, you know the
biggest thing there's done.
There's a lot of great researchabout that, goal setting and,
and, uh, you know, identitygoals versus process goals and
outcome goals and, um, but, but,uh, you know, james clear, uh,
atomic hamas is probably one ofthe better books about that.

(01:20:43):
But you know, starting toidentify yourself differently is
is, I think, the first step,and the first step in that is
figuring out where you're.
You know where you're going.
You know when I have thisjourney, I'm going to be a, a
fit 80 year old, you know.
Yeah, well, I need to startthinking of myself as a fit 50
year old to get there yeah, no,that's, that's great, john.

Speaker 1 (01:21:05):
We, we appreciate you coming on man and sharing the
stories, and there's, there'scountless others.
And then of course, you gotsome of the characters in there.
Colonel coats is his owncharacter, so of course he gave
you the title.
I mean, he's, he was the one Ican't remember who was telling
me about it when he was workingfor for coats and like they sent
him to a couple of guys to toranger school because he was all
about ranger school and theybrought him in the morning, like

(01:21:26):
before he left, and he was likeranger tab or body bag, you
come home, you either come home.
And I was like, oh, they werelike what?
Well, they were already likesame thing, like e6, z7s, right,
and so they're on a rangerschool.
Actually, the rangerinstructors were like did you
guys get in trouble?
Or something like what are youdoing here?
Like you're like, yeah, likethey'd already been at force
recon for a while.

(01:21:46):
They're already like doingwhatever.
They're like yeah, we just wehad a colonel who's got a thing
for this school.

Speaker 2 (01:21:51):
So here we are yeah, that is, if you were, if you're
going to be a team leader orplatoon sergeant, you know you
had to have gone and uh, I waslucky that I had gone before I
got there.
I went as a relatively youngsergeant from the infantry, from
a sniper platoon.
Okay, I was uh one of thethings that I think kind of
endeared me to him.

(01:22:11):
You know he was like hey, thisguy, you know, went to Ranger
school back, uh, you know, longago.
But yeah, luckily I went as a,as a young guy, and not some of
the some of the guys he wouldsend.

Speaker 1 (01:22:24):
Yeah, Well, we appreciate it, man.
Uh, I'll have all the links foreveryone.
Uh, you know, if you'relistening, check out tough,
tough, rugged bastards andfollow John.
Uh, he's always putting outgood stuff and we appreciate you
for coming on here, man, Thankyou so much.
And, um, yeah, we, we just justthanks for sharing that and
sharing the story.
It's a cool, cool piece ofhistory too that you're a part
of.

Speaker 2 (01:22:43):
Awesome.
Well, yeah, thanks for havingme.
I'd be happy to come backanytime.

Speaker 3 (01:22:47):
Oh, we got so much more we can talk about.
I agree, John.
I think that would be great,Brian.

Speaker 1 (01:22:52):
Thanks everyone for tuning in.
If you enjoy it, please shareit with a friend and don't
forget that.

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