Life Changing Moment in Combat | Leads to Life of Service | Force Recon | Non-Profit Founder | Jake Harriman - Combat Story

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
There was like screaming theseguys had never been shot at before.
They were terrified, just yellingon the radio and I couldn't hear.
They started banking thesehelicopters everywhere.
Those knuckleheads set us down ina kilometer radius around southern
Baghdad and dropped us all off tofour completely different points.

(00:22):
Only one stick was on target.
The other three of us were,who knows where on my stick.
It was me and DC andthese other three guys.
So they're setting a security perimeterand I'm sitting there and I'm ashamed
that in all my training and all my realworld missions, I was just paralyzed.
I didn't know what to do.
And DC looked over at me.

(00:44):
He was this old kind of experienced guy.
He looked over at me, he ran over atme, and he punched me right in the face.
Welcome to Combat Story.
I'm Ryan Fut and I serve WarzZone Tours as an Army attack
helicopter pilot and CIA officer.
Over a 15 year career, I'm fascinated bythe experiences of the elite and combat.
On this show, I interview some ofthe best to understand what combat

(01:07):
felt like on their front lines.
This is Combat Story.
Today we have a fascinating combatstory of Jake Harriman, who's one of
those guys who makes you feel incrediblylazy for not helping hungry people in
Africa seriously and helping to heal thedivided America one person at a time.
It's no surprise that Jakeserved alongside Todd Osky.
I. Many longtime fans of this show willknow as the enlisted marine Sniper became

(01:31):
a marine officer force recon leader,and was then invited to serve in the
most elite unit in the US military.
He can't help but do great things.
If you worked with Todd, Jake isa truly incredible and humble,
but accomplished combat veteran.
He's a marine officer who led aplatoon during LI F1 in Iraq where
he had a life-changing moment thataltered the course of his life.

(01:53):
It's a sad but very powerfulmoment that anyone can relate to.
He would finally be admittedinto the storied ranks in
the force recon community.
We conducted a mix of recon andsurveillance and direct action missions
down range, including one that I'm sorryto say involves helicopter pilots that
made one particular DA really hard forJake, but also taught him a profound
lesson despite many of Jake's successes.

(02:16):
Takes us through several moments ofhis life when he is truly humbled,
getting turned down at a chance tobe a seal to being turned away from
his audacious attempt to join forceRecon earlier than he should have.
And even being punched in theface by a team sergeant on an lz.
After leaving service, Jake continued toserve, but in a very different capacity,

(02:37):
completed an MBA at Stanford, andthen started a nonprofit that's helped
over 300,000 people in remote areas ofAfrica, and at the same time helped fight
off extremism in these remote areas.
More recently, he created anothernonprofit called A More Perfect
Union that's mobilized 35,000members across the US to help heal

(02:58):
the deep divides in our country.
Looking to service members of all kinds.
Step in and lead justfrom a different foxhole.
You can find more and help at PU us.
That's Mike Papa uniform us.
With that, I am so excited for youall to hear this very funny, but also
powerful discussion with Jake Harriman.

(03:19):
Jake, thanks so much for taking thetime to share your story with us.
Honored to be here, man.
For those who are listeningand can't see your background.
I'm wondering if you can share alittle bit, you got some paddles
behind you, you got a couple plaques.
Oh yeah.
Can you speak to the paddles just for,for folks who can't see 'em right now?
Yeah.
My, uh, that's probably myprize possession in my life.

(03:44):
I have, I have moved that thing,you know, like all of us have, we've
moved a thousand times and, uh, I'malways very careful when I move that.
Uh, it is, it is one of the mostimportant things that I own.
Uh, that was my, uh, recon paddle.
So the, my, the paddle that myguys gave me after I left force.
And, uh, that's a pretty treasuredkind of tradition for the guys

(04:06):
in the community when you leave.
Um, if your guys don't think you're atotal idiot, uh, then they, uh, they
will handcraft this paddle for you.
And obviously the, the, the paddlesassemble for the recon community
back in the day when we usedto be, uh, you know, paddling.
Uh, swift, silent and deadlyfrom, from the ocean in, in our

(04:27):
little rubber boats to go to somedeep, uh, deeper connaissance.
But, uh, it's, it's a, it's atrade craft that they learn.
Uh, the guys learn while they're inthe recon community about how to make
these paddles and, and that, uh, theyput a lot of time and love into it.
And then at when you are ready totransition out, they have a paddle party,
which, uh, in, in our unit it was mostly,you know, a, a huge bonfire on the beach.

(04:53):
All the guys get around, a little alcoholand, uh, maybe little alcohol Yeah.
Of that might have been involved.
Uh, but they passed this thing from,from guy to guy around the circle.
And everybody basically busts your chops.
Said, you know, says, tells afunny story about you, and then
maybe something good about you too,kind of as, as it's going around.

(05:14):
But, uh, it, it was a pretty, uh, prettyincredible experience, uh, really made me
miss the guys even before I'd even left.
Uh, but yeah, this thing, I I, I'vetaken this thing everywhere with me.
I, I really, it means a lot to me.
That's cool.
So that's the thing, like yourhouse is burning down, you
gotta run in and get something.
Yeah.
That's coming out.
But I would definitely grab this Yes.
Before anything else.

(05:35):
Oh, that's cool.
Um, all right.
Well.
Just before we hit record, you hadmentioned that, uh, in doing your own
ho homework on me, you came acrossour interview with Todd Osky, who we
re-interviewed but have not aired yet.
So we have another interesting one onhim that people will see later this year.
But I, I was just wondering if youcould tell us, he's beloved by people
who watch this show and probablyanybody who's come across him.

(05:57):
Like, how did you know him?
Where did you guys cross paths?
And any stories you havefrom Alki would be great.
Todd.
Todd is just an incredible human being.
Uh, definitely a piece of work.
That guy.
And, uh, I first met him at three one,we were both at Third Battalion, first
Marines, and he had come in as a, asa second lieutenant, um, from IOC.

(06:21):
I was a, at the time I wasthe first lieutenant, uh, xo.
I was executive officerat, uh, weapons company.
And, uh, he, he came in justfull of piss and vinegar.
Really great guy.
Super, you know.
You know, his whole personality,heart, his heart, his nails heart,
his woodpecker lips, as you would say.
Yeah.
And, uh, that he, he justan incredible human being.

(06:42):
Su super pure.
He's a purist.
Right.
Uh, back to basics and wejust became instant friends.
Uh, just such an incredible guy.
And then, um, I went over toFor Worth, uh, and then Todd
came over shortly after that.
He, he came back to the community,uh, as you know, he was there mm-hmm.
Before as, uh, as an enlisted guy.

(07:02):
And then, um, and then came backover as an officer afterwards.
And we overlapped while we werethere at the unit for a while.
But, um, just anincredible, incredible guy.
Can't say enough good about him.
Would you guy, would you hangwith him when he was working out?
He just seems like a beast.
Oh, well, if I wanted to bedestroyed, I would hang with him.
Uh, well we worked out.

(07:23):
Yeah, he, he, uh, we didwork out a couple times, man.
He, he is a, he is a beast for sure.
Um, I, I consider myself in prettygood shape, but, but Todd would
always, would always destroyme if we worked out together.
God, that's cool.
So, um, look, I, I want to cover someof your time at the Naval Academy.
You seem like on paper you hada path in your mind that you

(07:47):
were gonna go do great things.
You did a lot even in college.
But just before we get tothat, like, was the military
always something on your mind?
Like, was it a family tradition?
How do you choose the Naval Academy?
So, uh, no, not at all, man.
I, I grew up, uh, I grew up a littlefarm in West Virginia up on a mountain.

(08:09):
Uh, we grew up in poverty, but I, Ididn't really know it at the time.
Uh, my parents were awesome.
We lived off the land, hunted formeat, uh, grew everything, you know,
out of the, out of the gardens.
Uh, it was a prettycool, pretty cool life.
Um, and I remember, uh, mydad had been in the Navy.
My dad was in the Navy four years.

(08:29):
He was a signalman on the USSmidway and had been in Vietnam.
Wow.
Uh, in the, in the Gulf of Tonkin.
And he never really talkedabout it a whole lot, uh, but.
I knew that it really meant a lot to himbecause we had this little tiny little
black and white TV that every, uh, 4th ofJuly we'd watch the 4th of July parades.
I dunno if you remember, theyused to have these big parades.

(08:51):
And my dad would always like,tear up when he was watching the
parades, and he was a hard guy.
And I, you know, I was a little kid.
I was like, eh, something inhis eyes or something like that.
What's going on here?
I'd never seen him cry.
And, and, uh, over time I beganto realize, you know, just my dad
understood the cost of freedom.
You know, he'd, he'd lost, uh, buddies ofhis who were marines, uh, who he'd gone to

(09:13):
college, uh, or going to high school with.
And it really meant a lot to him.
And so I, I kind of had, there wasthis underlying kind of, uh, call
to serve from a very young age.
But I knew nothing about the military.
My dad never talked about it.
Uh, there was, uh, nobody else in in,in my family had been in the military.

(09:33):
I had my, my dad's uncle had been,uh, a medic actually on Iwo Jima of
all things, which I found out later.
Geez.
Yeah, he was, uh, he was, uh, a, a prettyhardcore guy, an amazing individual.
But, um, I didn't knowabout him till much later.
And I remember my only interactionwith the military was every once

(09:56):
in a while we would see these guys.
So I lived, remember superremote up on this mountaintop.
We would see these guys runningup the trails in the woods and up,
up our road and in military gear.
No way.
Did you live out like.
Where they, where they do selection.
Dude, it's you, you wouldn't believe this.
So fast forward years later, as I'mcoming outta the force Recon commuter,

(10:20):
I'm, I'm training with one of my buddiesin the platoon to, to try to go take
CG selection and I'm talking to him,uh, this amazing guy, uh, who, who
actually went over to CAG and became,did, had an amazing career there.
But, uh, I was talking to Eddieand I was like, Hey, um, do you
know where this selection is?
He's like, yeah, it's in some,some random ass place out in
the middle of nowhere called.

(10:43):
And I was like, what?
Literally at the end of, at the endof my parents' farm, it looks down
over the, uh, uh, uh, the river basin,where is, and so these guys would be
basically taking selection up throughour, up through our farms on their,
you know, their long nav course there.

(11:04):
And, uh, as a kid though, Igrew to really hate these guys.
And the reason was not because of them.
They, they never messed with us oranything, but, um, the government
was expanding the base and theywere taking, they were trying to use
eminent domain to take, uh, take farms.
And so, uh, as a kid, all I sawwas the military trying to take my,

(11:27):
my parents' farm, our neighbor'sfarms, all this kinda stuff.
Uh, and my dad kind of mobilized some,some local community folks to kind of
push back and he had a unique voice 'causehe was a veteran and, and he was able
to kind of talk with the folks there andwe were able to kind of save the farm.
But, but that was my only interactionin the early days of the military.
So I, I had no plansto go in the military.

(11:49):
Uh, but I did feel this likedeep kind of, uh, call to serve
that my dad, for my dad, I think.
Yeah.
And also, you know, my family,my, my mom's the same way.
She was always very.
Um, passionate about servingother people in the community.
So service was kind of abig part of, of our life.
Uh, my mom always said, you know,there's always someone struggling

(12:11):
a little more than we are, and weneed to be helping those folks.
So we'd go cut firewood and, and, youknow, deliver food to folks when they were
shut in the winter and stuff like that.
So service was a big part of who we were.
And, and then as I got older,I began to feel that kind of
call that my dad had felt.
And I had a friend in high schoolwho had applied to the Naval

(12:31):
Academy, and this guy, this guy hadwanted to go to the Naval Academy
since he was like six years old.
Like he Naval Academy or West Point.
He was like, he kneweverything about the military.
He knew he was, wow.
He was the opposite of me.
And, you know, as, and we playedfootball together and he, he was like,
Hey, you should apply for this with me.
The, the, you know, the, the academiesare great with athletics, you know, great

(12:53):
sports, you know, um, you learn a lotabout leadership, all this kinda stuff.
I, I knew nothing about it, so.
I was like, sure.
And he's like, oh, and bythe way, it's free, right?
Like there's, you know, your parentsdon't have to pay anything and
you didn't have a lot of money.
So I thought it's a great, great route.
So I applied and uh, I got in.
I couldn't believe it,and I was like, oh, well.

(13:16):
So now I'm like, okay, well what is this?
You know?
Um, and I learned, you know,they started sending materials.
I learned, you know, I was gonnahave to wear a tie every day.
And I had to be in the militaryfor six years and I was, and all
my buddies are going to like partyat, at West Virginia University.
Yeah.
So I'm thinking that soundslike a much better path.

(13:38):
And I, I knew nothing again, right?
Nothing about the military.
So I actually turned down theappointment, uh, to the Naval Academy.
I was such an idiot.
And my dad's like, what are you doing?
What are you doing?
Um.
Because I, you know, I was a dumbkid, a high school kid, and thought
I was gonna be friends with myfriends from high school forever.

(13:59):
Of course.
Then you go to college, I went to WVU and,uh, from like day one, you all scattered.
There's 25,000 people at the university.
So I never saw most ofthose guys ever again.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
So after that first year, uh, youknow, I, I started going to school
and, and I, I really thought,man, I made a huge mistake.
I, I had never, I'd neverbeen outside West Virgin.

(14:23):
That's not true.
I, I've been outside of West Virginiaonce my grandparents took my brother
and I to Ocean City, Maryland once.
Wow.
And that's the only time I'dever been outside the state.
And, uh, you know, I'm like,I, I had this hunger to kind of
see the world and, and, uh, andadventure, you know, and excitement.
And I was, you know, I was an athlete.
I kind of thought, you know,I really wanna be challenged.

(14:44):
And so kind of boughtinto the whole thing.
I, I, I saw Top Gun, thoughtI was gonna be a pilot.
And so then I, I just tried reallyhard to, to get back in and I
have this, uh, I have this kind ofmentality, like I just will not quit.
And it's, uh, I know it's reallyannoying to people sometimes, but,
but I just would not give up, man.

(15:05):
I just, I just, uh, I, I, I re I wasrelentless on trying to get back in, um,
you know, told them I made a big mistake.
This is really what I felt calledto do, was able to convince,
uh, a senator from West Virginiato gimme another appointment.
And, uh, and miraculously got back in.
Geez.
And this time I was, I was all in,uh, and, uh, decided to go, man.

(15:30):
And I mean, correct me ifI'm wrong, but do, do you.
Do you get a RhodeScholar when you're there?
No, I, so I was in the Rhodes.
I, I, I had applied, they wantedme to apply for Rhode Scholarship.
I I was like a semi-finalist.
Geez.
But I, I did, I did not getan actual Rhode scholarship.
I wasn't, I wasn't that smart.
You end up playing somesports there, right?
You end up Yep.

(15:52):
Graduating with honors.
You end up going to Stanford later.
You helped found or co-foundseveral, several different, uh,
ventures, so quite accomplished.
And I'm just, I'm curious if that was, ifyou were aware of that or thinking like
that was gonna be your trajectory whenyou're transferring into the academy?
Uh, no, man, I, I, I, I'll be honestwith you, I, I didn't know, I, I

(16:15):
was kind of bright eyed, bushy tail,didn't really know what was in store.
I, I really thought I was gonna bea Top gun pilot in the beginning.
I, I was very naive about the military,didn't understand, uh, what was going on.
And, and I, and I, when I first got in.
They send you this book to study.
It's called Reef Points.
It's a small little book.
It's got a bunch of knowledge aboutweapons, fort aft and ships, and

(16:40):
different types of weapons the Marinesuse and like all this kind of stuff.
You're supposed to memorize thatwhen you go through Plebe summer,
which is like our bootcamp.
They rate you on all this stuff, right?
They're like yelling atyou to like recall this.
Uh, and some of it's useless, you know,sayings and quotes and songs and all this
kinda stuff, but you're, you're supposedto memorize all of it and everybody who

(17:04):
gets in the academy, um, memorizes thisstuff so that when they go to through the
plebe summer, it's not as, it's not hell.
Well, it's, it's tough,but it, it is not as bad.
But I was an idiot.
I basically got thatand I was working a job.
To try to make some money that summer.
And I was like, oh, what is this?
You know, I I, I didn't even readthe paper, I just threw it away.

(17:26):
And so I show up, I show up on dayone and they start just screaming,
yelling at us, you know, uh, youknow, asking us all these questions.
And you know, my classmates were kindof rattling off all this information.
I'm like, man, how dothey know all this stuff?
Then they get to me.
Of course, I know anything.

(17:47):
And so I ended up doing a lot of pushups.
I got very strong, uh,in, uh, in plebe summer.
A lot of burpees, a lot of pushups.
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And now back to this combat story,that was my initial introduction.
And then, you know, once I, once Ikind of got settled in, got my feet
under me, I, uh, I started lookingaround at different, you know,
there's different moss you can select.
You can select, uh, Navy orMarine Corps, and there's lots

(19:37):
of different moss within that.
And, you know, you are, uh, you'reassigned or selected into, uh,
that MOS based on your kind classrank and all this kinda stuff.
But some of the moss you haveto really try for, you have to
apply for and compete for 'em.
And I, there was a, there was a NavySEAL there, um, Lieutenant, uh, who

(19:59):
was, uh, one of the company officersthat I kinda really looked up to, you
know, and I, I thought, you know, ifI'm gonna do this military thing, I
really kinda wanna be on the forefront,you know, I wanna be out there.
I. Told 'em the most dangerousmissions I wanna have the most,
you know, uh, you know, havethe most impact that I can have.
I was super naive then.
I mean, you know, we hadn't,the military had not been in, in

(20:21):
combat for a really long time.
Yeah.
So, just for people listening,this is pre nine 11?
Pre nine 11, yeah.
Yeah.
This is like 96, 97, 98 time timeframe.
And, uh, yeah, I decided I,I really wanna be a seal.
So I really, uh, I startedworking my ass off to do that.
There was probably 250 or 300guys in my, in my class that

(20:45):
wanted to, to go seals as well.
And we had 15 spots for my class for buds.
So super competitive.
And I remember just working my ass off.
I, I, you know, I, I thought upto that point, I. I had been able
to kind of succeed at everythingI tried, you know, I, I, I, if I
worked hard enough, I was able tokind of get what I, what I went for.

(21:08):
So I was pretty confident I was gonnabe able to get one of these billets.
And I'll never forget, uh, we wereseniors and they sent us home for a
Thanksgiving break, and they told us theywere gonna call us with a final decision.
'cause they'd whittled it down to 20.
There were 20 of us left,15 spots, 20 of us left.
And I went home for Thanksgiving breakand I got the call and they're like,

(21:31):
Hey, look, uh, we're really sorry.
You, you, you didn't make the cut.
Oh, man.
And I was devastated, man.
I was devastated.
I, I had, I had never failed at somethingI really wanted badly my whole life.
And, and it was one of thebest lessons I ever learned.
Probably, probably one of thebest things that happened to me.

(21:52):
Um, I, it was my first lesson in humility.
And the power of humility.
And, but I was devastated.
And I remember going back to school,I had, I had picked, uh, Marine
Corps ground as second, but I didn't,I I hadn't learned a lot about
the Marine Corps at that point.
I, I was so focused on becoming a seal.

(22:12):
I, I, I hadn't really learned a whole lot.
And I didn't have the best attitudeafter I came back, you know?
Um, and I remember there was a, there wasa Captain Marine there, another company
officer who kind of saw, uh, knew mycase and kind of came alongside me and,
and kind of put his arm around me andtook me under his wing to try to teach

(22:34):
me a little bit about the Marine Corpsand just the history and the, you know,
the whole esprit de corps, the values.
And I began to fall in love withthe Marine Corps, you know, and I, I
really started looking up to this guy.
He was a quiet professional.
He didn't talk a about himself.
Uh, he talked a lot about the Marines.
He got to lead.
You know, he, he began to teach me aboutservant leadership and, and the power

(22:58):
of servant leadership, which is, uh,so core to kind of who the Marines are.
And I found out later, you know,he had this little wing and
bubble on his, uh, on his uniform.
I had no idea what the reconcommunity was at that point.
And I found out later he had been,he, he was a force recon guy.
And as I got to learn more about that,I became fascinated about, about force,

(23:22):
you know, and it's a little different,as you probably know from the SEAL
community, there's a lot of informationat the time about seals and, you know,
there were movies about seals Yeah.
And all this stuff.
And nobody knew what force recon was.
And it was very quiet.
And I became fascinated about that.
And I was convinced that that's,that's what I wanted to do.

(23:44):
Um, and so I, I learned that yougotta go into the infantry first.
And so I, I became pretty laserfocused on becoming an infantry
officer in the hopes that I would,I would make it over to force recon.
I would say it's even still prettyquiet compared to some of these
other communities that Yeah, justthe Marines are good about, I mean,

(24:04):
good and bad, I suppose, in, inkeeping these things quite quiet.
But yeah, I, I think thathas a lot of benefits too.
Oh, it does.
And, and I'll, I'll be honest withyou too, like the Marines, uh, they
have this great mentality that,um, a Marine's, a Marine, you know,
um, there's no special Marines.
Yeah.
And we all just have different jobsand we're all doing the same mission.

(24:29):
And every single marine thatgoes in, if you're enlisted,
you're trained as a rifleman.
If you are an officer, you aretrained as a rifle platoon commander.
Um, everybody's trained initially todo like that infantryman's job and.
That base that, uh, of that foundationthat they give us is critically
important because it allows usto work seamlessly across Moss.

(24:53):
You know, those guys that are out thereon the, on the tip of the spear, whether
it's force or recon or the infantryunits, like everybody's supporting them,
understands what the, you know, the,the perspective at, at, at some level of
what those guys are dealing with becausethey had to learn it as their foundation,
as they were going in the Marine Corps.
So I, I really have always appreciatedthat ans me to say, I feel like

(25:15):
the, the Marines do the best job atleadership just across the branches.
It's, it's just so strong.
Like anytime I meet someonewho is an officer in the Marine
Corps, it's so clear how.
It's, uh, like an appropriateamount of confidence has been
instilled in them over time.
And it's frustrating as an Armyofficer to say it, but it's true.

(25:36):
Yeah.
I can't believe you're saying this.
Oh, man.
I've been, yeah.
I've been hijacked by people like Kowski.
That's right.
So, um, so you end up going into theMarines, obviously, um, it looks like you
end up doing quite well at the academy.
You go Marines seems like it endsup being the right fit for you.
I don't know if you ever lookback and you're like, oh, what
could have been if I was a seal?

(25:57):
But you seem to have.
I look, I, I, uh, I, I have some verygood friends of mine who are, who
are seals and they crushed it in theSEAL community and I, I was able to
operate with some very amazing, uh,seal, seal, uh, seal guys and, uh,
awesome community in and of its own.
But I will say don't regret at all.

(26:19):
Yeah.
Uh, I am super grateful thatI got to become a Marine.
I feel super blessed by that and.
What I learned in the infantryfirst, and then in the, in, in
the force recon community afterthat shaped the man I am today.
Uh, it shaped who I am.
Everything I learned about leadership,um, had its foundation in those years.

(26:41):
And of course I learned a lot after that.
You know, I'm always, we'realways learning as leaders.
You never arrive as a leader.
You're always, that's true.
You're always learning.
But, um, a lot of the foundationand the principles that, that, that
made me who I am today, I learnedin those, in those early days.
And I didn't learn them from, uh, youknow, the courses we went through or from

(27:02):
generals, you know, or, uh, you know, the,the officers that were in charge of this.
I actually learned it from my Marines.
The most important lessons I've everlearned about leadership came from those
who I had the, the privilege of leading.
And, uh, that those lessonshave really stuck with me.
I mean, if we, if we take that as ajumping off point into your time as, as

(27:25):
a, uh, an infantry platoon commander, canyou talk us through kind of what that, I
mean, you have a little bit of time prenine 11 some USS call related stuff, and
then looks like you go down range withthe push in oh three into, into Iraq.
Yeah.
What was the, what was that like for youseeing that combat was on the horizon?

(27:48):
Because in the nineties, like alot of us, myself included, just
thought it was never gonna happen.
Yeah.
No, no.
We, we did, and let me back up.
One, uh, one step just to kind oflet you know, um, when I first got
into, you know, I, I went to the, thebasic school, then you go to IOC, the
infantry officers course, and I was,as I was coming outta the infantry

(28:08):
officers course, I was super hell bentto go to the force recon community.
I really, um, I'm just superfocused on that and I thought,
um, I gotta get over there and.
I don't know if Todd talked a lot aboutthis, but the way you get into the force
recon community, it's kinda like theycall you don't call them kind of thing.
Yeah.
You have to prove yourself in the infantrycommunity first, uh, for years to kind

(28:32):
of prove that you got the kind of medalthat's required to then come over.
They take folks who are seasoned,who, um, who have kind of proven
themselves with the Marines thatare leading that kind of stuff.
Well, I was super cocky and asI, you know, I was a total idiot.
Uh, so I'm coming out at IOCI getassigned to Third Battalion, first
Marines, uh, which very honored that Igot to serve in that unit and, uh, and

(28:56):
became, uh, took my platoon commander'sspot at as an 81 millimeter more platoon
commander at the infantry battalion.
From day one, I was just focused.
I, I just wanted to get over to force.
So I learned about the, the forcerecon in Doc that was gonna,
that that was gonna be going on.
And, um, I somehow managedto get a copy of a gear list

(29:20):
and kind of the coordinatinginstructions for that first day.
And obviously you have to haveorders to go over there to
take, you know, selections.
You did not just show up, did you?
I just, I just kind of decided I wasgonna go and just see what happened.
Oh my God.
So I took leave.
No way.
I took leave and I showed up,man, at like 4:00 AM at the

(29:45):
pull up bars over at the unit.
That's awesome.
And uh, and, uh, you know, it was,it was probably 30 of us there, you
know, everyone's yelling and, and, uh,grabbing the, you know, grabbing their
gear, messing with their gear, gettingready to go and all this kinda stuff.
And everybody, it is dark.
Nobody's checking records or anything.
And I just, uh, they just, I just startedthe selection with everybody else.

(30:05):
And, um, I get about halfway through theday and I'm just getting my ass kicked.
I mean, I'm just getting crushed.
I never experienced anything.
Like I said, I thoughtI was in good shape.
I was just getting crushed.
And we were about halfwaythrough pool phase.
And I, and I'm in the pooland I'm, I'm just drowning.
And I, I'll never forget the, theofficer of the OIC for the selection.

(30:31):
And he looked over at the gunand he say, Hey, who's that guy
in the pool drowning over there?
And the gunny looks at his list.
He's like, you know, sir, I'm notreally, I'm not really sure who that is.
And the captain's like,get his ass outta the pool.
So they, they brought me overto the captain and uh, he
said, who the hell are you?
I said, well, sir, I'm,uh, I'm second lieutenant.

(30:53):
He's, he's like, second lieutenant.
He's like, how, how did you get over here?
I said, well, sir, I just, Ijust really want to be here.
I just came over and, and they just,they just started laughing at me.
Oh my God.
And, and the captain's like,you've gotta be fucking kidding me.
He's like, he's like, get your ass backto your battalion and come back over here

(31:14):
when you got some hair on your balls.
And he said, I just cannot believe.
And I was so devastated because, you know,we had done like, multiple o courses.
I, I ended up like, sliding down the road.
I couldn't, hold on.
I'd done it so many timesand my hands were bleeding.
I was soaking wet.
My, my, my pride was just crushed here.
I thought I was just kind oflike a player and I just ended

(31:36):
up being completely demoralized.
So, second most humbling momentfor me, you know, first one
had been not making seals.
Second one is just gettingcrushed at the end.
Doc.
Jake, did you have to tellyour company commander?
I didn't tell anybody, man.
I just came up.
Oh, hell no.
No, but I mean, like after,did they make, did, did anybody
find out you had done this?

(31:57):
Nobody found out.
Oh my God.
I mean, I, I told, I told a coupleof my buddy lieutenants 'cause like,
what, what's wrong with your hands?
Why, why are you bleeding?
Um, but you know what's funny?
When I, when I eventually made itover, uh, and got invited over to take
selection, those guys remembered thatthe guys who were over at the unit,
they, they actually remembered me.

(32:18):
Um, and they just thought,man, this guy was just crazy.
Um.
Which kind of helped.
I, I could see that going sideways, likeif that had gotten back to whoever your co
was your battalion commander, like Yeah.
He's doing what?
He's on leave?
No, he is not on base, no.
Oh, no.
He is in the pool.
Yeah.
Oh, that's right.
God.
That's right.
Uh, so, um, but, but you spend likefour years in the infantry, right?

(32:42):
I mean, it's, yeah.
No, no.
It's a good amount of time.
Time in the end.
So after, so after that, I, um, Ilearned my lesson and I really drilled
down into becoming the best infantryplatoon commander that I could be.
And that involved learning from my guys.
I had a great staff sergeantwho kind of showed me the ropes.

(33:03):
Um, we trained hard, I really believedin training and preparing guys.
You know, we, again, it was, itwas kind of pre nine 11, but we,
we wanted, I wanted our, our unitto be the best, best prepared, so.
We were always doing, we werealways doing crazy stuff.
I was training them as, as if wewere over at a force recon platoon.

(33:23):
We were, they were the best.
Um, uh, they were in the bestshape of anybody in the company.
Um, and, uh, we, they were areally good, uh, tight knit unit.
And I loved, I lovedworking with those men.
I learned so much from them over time.
We deployed, uh, did, did a coupledeployments, uh, did, uh, uh, what's

(33:45):
called a oc, I'm not sure if you'refamiliar with that, Marine Expeditionary
unit, um, where the, the concept at thetime, pre nine 11, was they would, uh,
they would station Marine Corps units offthe coast of potentially troubling areas.
So we were kind of America's 9 1 1 force.
We were the response unit.
If something goes south, they callus in, you know, as the, as the quick

(34:06):
reaction force kick down the door, kindof do the initial kind of phase, and
then the Army would flow in after us tokind of do more long term operations.
And so we did a, um, mostly during peacetime you do these OC deployments and you
do a lot of training with kind of, uh, youknow, allies, uh, allied military units.
Um, a lot of poor visits.

(34:27):
You know, once in a while there'dbe something that that kind
of kicked off, but it was verylow, low vis kind of thing.
The, the, the, the first thing thatreally happened was the US' coal got
hit, and that was the first time I sawany kind of, uh, thing like combat.
You know, we, uh, the Navy lostseveral really good sailors and that

(34:49):
hit, um, we were charged with kindof defending the coal because they
had a, a lot of these little, littleboats, um, were still kind of circling
to do a re-attack to, to sink it.
So we were tasked with doing securitypatrols around the coal to, to keep
it, uh, protected from getting sunkuntil they could get it to a port.
And, uh, I remember, you know,them carrying the body bags out,

(35:12):
out of the, out of the ship.
That was the first time.
It was kind of a littlebit of a aha moment.
Like the, oh, this is, this is real.
This is real.
Yes.
And something's going on here.
Uh, and that's, that'sbigger than we kind of know.
And so after that deployment, wedid another deployment where we were
doing some, uh, we helped stand upCJTF HOA in Djibouti, horn of Africa.

(35:36):
Uh, yep.
And right in the, in the Horn ofAfrica where, uh, there was some
activity Al-Qaeda activity that wasnow, that was now, um, post nine 11.
Nine 11 had kicked off, uh, the war.
I actually had a really good buddy whowas, uh, one of the lead, uh, he was
with Mattis when they went in to, uh, dothat initial take down, um, in Kandahar.

(36:01):
Wow.
And, uh.
And I, I was, I was frustrated'cause I was not with him.
Yes, it would go there.
Instead, we were, we were taskedto go to the Horn of Africa.
I'm like, what are we doing?
The Horn of Africa there, there waslike Al-Qaeda activity in Yemen at
the time and all this kinda stuff.
And so we were planning some operationsbut nothing super kinetic or anything.
And then it was, uh, as we werecoming back from that deployment,

(36:24):
we, we pulled into San Diego.
So this was about, thiswas, uh, late 2002.
Uh, pulled into San Diego, got all,all, everybody off the ships, everybody
kind of went home, goes on leave.
I kind of, uh, got into a new apartmentthat I was renting some crappy place
down on the beach and Oceanside.
And I remember I got recalled bymy, uh, XO and I go back in to

(36:48):
see him and he is like, Hey, yougotta get all your guys back off.
Leave, um, we're going back over.
And I said, sir, whatare you talking about?
He said.
He's like, we're, well, we're, it lookslike we're, we're gonna invade Iraq and we
are the Senior Infantry Battalion in theMarine Corps, and they want us up on the
front lines, so they're holding our place.
And so, uh, we had to,I, I couldn't believe it.

(37:10):
'cause I, like you, I, I did notthink we were going to war with Iraq.
Yeah.
I thought, you know, how many timeshad we postured for this guy and he
backed down and all this kinda stuffand, and so I was very frustrated.
We'd just got everybody home.
And so we called all the guys back,got all, everybody back on the ship,
went all the way back over there.
And of course you remember inthe beginning of the war with

(37:32):
the, uh, WMD threat, uh, wewere all training in mop gear.
And, um, we finally get over there,they move us up on the, up on the
berm, uh, there in Kuwait, andwe're running drills in mop four
and it's over a hundred degrees.
And I'm, I am so frustrated at this point.

(37:53):
I cannot believe we're havingto go through this stuff.
I'm like, this is just ridiculous.
I can't, can't believe.
So we're running drill afterdrill after drill, and then I'll
never reme, uh, never forget.
Um, we heard this, uh, uh, callsign, brevity code over the,
over the, uh, over the radio.
Lightning, lightning, lightning, whichwas the code for incoming scud missiles.

(38:16):
And I'm thinking it's another drill.
So I'm yelling with the guys.
I'm like, Hey guys, get in your holes.
Get in our fighting holes.
Throw your mask on.
Everybody's kind of groaning.
So they get, they get in their holes,throw the mask, and then all of a
sudden we look up in the sky andyou could actually see the kind of
trails smoke trails coming over.
And these things startblowing up behind us.

(38:37):
Now everybody's divingfor their gear, right?
I mean, and, and it was, uh,it was a, that was the first
kind of pucker factor for me.
And, and, you know, sure enough, companycommander comes running down the line.
He's like, he's like, Hey, the presidentjust said go get your guys in your trucks.
You know, we're, we're going the night.
And so I ran over to our sisterplatoon, where a buddy of mine from

(38:58):
the academy who I'd gone throughIOC with, uh, named John Chow.
Uh, and, and, uh, ran over tohis truck, gave him a big hug.
We exchanged letters.
You write, you know, the lettersyou write to your loved ones, right?
Because I didn't know, we didn'tknow what was gonna happen.
And, and, uh, ran back to my truck,man, and I remember they blew the berm.
We go through the berm.
There's tomahawk missiles flying overour head north, north of Baghdad.

(39:21):
I mean, artillery, I mean, it was nuts.
I just, uh, and that wasthe start of the war.
And um, and then we just began to push.
Do you remember what you wrotein that letter by any chance?
Like do you still haveit or do you recall?
I have looked, I havelooked for that thing.
Um, but I remember, I remember thinkingafter the fact, kind of being relieved

(39:44):
that they, they never got the letter.
Not 'cause I was afraid of dying, butbecause I remember being relieved.
'cause I was so naive.
Right.
What I was writing, that'swhat I was thinking.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, I'm sure what I was writingwas just super corny and, you
know, um, very unrealistic.
And, uh, I was probablywriting something to some girl.
I, you know, I, I don't know.
I don't, I, I don't even rememberwhat I wrote, but just a quick

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And now back to this combat story.
Uh, but yeah, I remember we hadgone through the, the, the paces

(41:32):
of writing these letters and, and,uh, you know, the Marine Corps
had really trained us really well.
We had, I remember feeling superconfident and super prepared,
even though we'd never done it.
And even though honestly wewere all scared, you know,
uh, you're always scared.
But once the rounds start flying, asyou know, it's just like something

(41:54):
clicks and you're training justkicks in and you just start moving.
You just start moving and shooting anddoing what, what you're trained to do.
And, uh, thank God, I mean, thankGod we, we, we trained so much
and we were, we, and we were soready because it really saved us.
I mean, countless times as youknow, how, how long until you guys

(42:16):
are in your first contact going in.
The first major contactwas a place called Noria.
Uh, I don't know if you remember, therewas a thing called the Battle Ussery.
It was the first major contact in thewar, and, uh, we were pushing into the
city and, um, Intel, we had bad intel.
Intel had said that the, the city hadbeen surrendered and as we're coming into

(42:40):
the city, there was, I don't know, 50or 60, uh, uh, military age males kind
of waving this white flag kind of stuff.
And, uh, the unit that was right infront of us, uh, it was called Task Force
Tarawa, their marines had gone up, uh, to.
Uh, take them as POWs.
And we were, at the time, we were, alot of these guys were surrendering.

(43:00):
We would, we would take 'em and move'em to their rear for processing.
So they thought it was the same thing.
So they move up to take these guysand these guys pull out weapons and
begin kind of mowing down our guys.
And that was, I remember thatwas the first kind of casualties.
And now I'm hearing over the radio medevacrequests, tons of medevac requests.

(43:20):
Um, we're hearing the, thefirefight starting down range
and it became very confusing.
I mean, I remember there was a lotof confusion at that point because it
was the first kind of major contact.
We end up getting orders to basicallysecure the corridor through Nasia so

(43:40):
the division could continue to pass.
Unimpeded through the city because it, it,what ended up happening was, uh, Saddam
Fein, um, and some of the, the Saddam'smilitary as well had stayed in the city.
They were there ready to fight.
They were dug in.
And so they, they were prepared.

(44:01):
And so they were way moreready for us than we knew.
And that started a prettypowerful, um, series of firefights.
And so our job was to kind of securethe corridor and hold it as the rest
of the, the, uh, the regiment RCT onewould, would pass through the corridor.
And so, yeah, it was very chaotic.

(44:24):
Um, I remember Todd Popowski, uh, so hewas in, uh, one of the sister units and,
uh, Todd was controlling cobras as we weretrying to, uh, push some of the, the, the,
uh, insurgents back from the highway and.
Just make our waythrough the city finally.
And when the main element hadpassed, we were able to leapfrog

(44:45):
then back up into the lead.
And then we had to dig in onwhat was called Highway seven.
That was nor the main avenue approachfor American forces at the time.
We made it through Nasia.
We had to dig in on Highway sevenbecause we had to wait resupply.
Um, we were low on ammo, low on food.
Everybody was exhausted.
And uh, so we just hadto sit there and wait.

(45:06):
I mean, just obviously you go to theelite levels with, with, uh, force
recon, but kind of looking at thatfirst engagement you go through and then
what you learn over time, the more youguys do this again and again and again,
like, do you kind of look back on thatfirst engagement, just thinking like,
we, we were not this pristine fightingforce that we would later become?

(45:28):
Yeah.
I mean, for sure.
Yeah.
But I would say though too, I mean it's,I, the fundamentals did kick in, you know.
Fundamentals did kick in,uh, um, shoot and move.
I mean, uh, fire maneuver,the basics, right?
Yeah.
I mean, uh, the basics are so importantin the Marine Corps and if you practice
the basics, um, you know, especiallyin the conventional elements, but even

(45:53):
in the special operations side too.
I mean, it's, it's really in importantto have the basics down and the
basics kicked in in those times.
And we, we, um, and our own company, we,we had no casualties and it was, um, wow.
I was so grateful for that, youknow, so grateful, uh, that we had
no casualties and, and it was a lotfrom the kind of just discipline

(46:14):
fi, you know, fire discipline.
Um, you know, we were able tomaintain our, our, our, our ammo.
We weren't wasting a much ammunition.
Um, you know, and also weweren't taking a lot out, a lot
of civilians as well, right?
Because that's another fear you haveduring a first engagement is guys being
trigger happy 'cause they're so scared.

(46:35):
And, and it was a confusing time too.
The Fein was recruiting thesefarmers, you know, they were dressed
in black, some of them were women,um, coming with weapons at us.
And it was hard to distinguishlike, you know, who was who.
Uh, and you know, I was, I was, I rememberbeing impressed by the Marines in their,
in their fire discipline at the time.

(46:56):
Now, of course, overtime we got much better.
Yes.
And the more experience you have, and alsothe big thing I think that happened was.
You go from that pucker factor when youfirst hear round snapping near you to,
it kind of becomes normal over time.
You know?
Um, it's not like you, you are neveroff heightened alert, but it's, you're,

(47:19):
you are able to think more fluidly inthose moments, you know, if you can just
for people who haven't been in, in thattype of position, I think that even on
this show, they hear a lot about the,the marine, the soldier with the weapon
and like how they evolve over time.
Maybe as a leader, like as youlook at yourself, like what are the
things that you do better faster asa commander on the ground that you

(47:41):
notice when you're in recon perhapsversus when you're in this first push?
I think, um, one of the, the first thingsyou learn a, as a leader that you get
much better at is not trying to be a.
The guy, the number one guy through thedoor, taking out the bad guy right away.
Right.
Your, which is hard job.

(48:02):
Like, it's really hard for people likeus who grew up wanting to be in the shit.
Right, right.
Yeah, it was, it's really hard.
I wanted, I, and, and I made mistakesdoing that, you know, on the first couple
hits and a couple of my, they grabbed meand they'd like, sir, you know, uh, you
have got to maintain situational control.
You're the guy who's gottacontrol the situation here.

(48:23):
You have to maintain visibilityon everything that's happening.
You know, the cast we have on station,the, you know, the, the rotary wing
aircraft we have on station, theindirect fires we have on station,
the, uh, the allies that we haveworking for us, the, the security
element that we have working for us.
Like, you've gotta becoordinating all of this stuff.
And if you're not doing it, ifyou go down, it's, it creates
chaos for us on the target.

(48:45):
And so you have to find a mix of,and of course there are moments when
things get tight where you need to kindof lead and, and, and, uh, and, and.
Um, with your guys through an engagement,but for the most part, I learned to be
much more calm in those situations asrounds are flying and, and maintaining

(49:08):
a, a higher level of situation, awarenessof what's happening on the target.
You know, all the different elementsthat are, that are moving, thinking,
trying to think four or five steps ahead.
Yeah.
Yeah.
About what's next, right.
Um, and, you know, thinking throughcontingencies, maybe there were
technicals, uh, that were supportingthe enemy that were much closer

(49:29):
than the Intel had reported.
So thinking through like, how are we goingto, how are we gonna stop that force from
the, the reinforcements from coming ontarget, um, within, for enough time for
us to be able to get out of there, right?
So, um, how, what are we gonna do in,in, in a mass casualty type event, right?
Um, trying to think throughour, our, you know, all of the
different contingency plans, right?

(49:51):
Having, um, me.
Being very familiar with what thoseare, rehearsing that in my mind,
rehearsing that with our team sothat I was able to maintain that
situ aware, situational awareness.
And so that's something that over timeI be, I began to get better, uh, at,
um, I never mastered it, you know?
Uh, there were always folks who were, whowere far better, tougher, smarter than

(50:13):
I was, but I did get much better at it.
Uh, over time on that.
On that OIF one kind of firstdeployment, what's one of the
harder moments you had to deal with?
Whether it was leadership or, orjust kinetic heat of the moment?
Well, um, there was one moment,uh, actually changed the
whole trajectory of my life.
Um, it was, it was, uh, I meanactually it was right after Nasia.

(50:38):
Um, I had mentioned that we haddug in north of the city on Highway
seven, and I don't know if youremember the early days of, of the
Iraq war, but Saddam had been reallyoppressing the population in the south.
Uh, there was a lot of poverty,a lot of hunger, uh, for
the population in the south.
They were pretty desperate.
Um, a lot of the farmers, I'd alludedto this, but a lot of the farmers had
been recruited by Fede to fight us.

(51:01):
They didn't even knowhow to use their weapons.
They were just recruited because the Fedesaid, Hey, we'll drop some food off here
for your family, or we will give you alittle bit of cash, you know, if you pick
up this weapon and go fight these guys.
Um, a lot of coerced, youknow, fighting like that.
And we were fighting these guysby the hundreds in the early days.
And I remember, um, this one morning,so we, we, we had dug in and I remember

(51:24):
it was really about 4 35 in the morning.
Um, it was before BM and T. And, and Iknew as the sun began to come up, they
were gonna start shooting at us again.
So I got up outta my hole and Iwas walking the lines, checking
the guys to, you know, just tomake sure everybody was ready.
And I look up on the highway andthere's this little white car

(51:44):
racing toward our position fromthe north, this little sedan.
And I remember thinking, this isweird, because there were no cars
on the highway at this point.
You know, we had, we had been movingin mass, imagine an entire infantry
regimen moving on a highway, right?
So there were no cars.
And, um, the enemy had just startedusing suicide bombing tactics, you

(52:06):
know, VB IEDs that would run intoour position to blow themselves up.
So I thought this was A-A-V-B-I-E-D.
So I grabbed three of my guys, we tookoff running to stop this car, and, uh,
the car stopped about 50 meters out andthe driver hops out and starts waving
his arms frantically and running at me.
So now I think, okay, this guy's,he's, he's got a suicide vest

(52:28):
on, he's gonna blow himself up.
And I'm yelling at him in Arabicto try to get him on the ground.
He's not listening.
And, um, I'm like, okay,I'm gonna take this guy out.
So I, I, I, I raise my weapon and as,uh, you know, I kind of, the front side
post gets really clear on his chest.
I start to look behind him and I seethis big black blob come up behind him,

(52:52):
and it's a big black military truck.
He's coming up behind this little whitecar, and these six guys in black jump
out of the truck, run up to the car,and they start shooting into the car.
And this guy starts screaming, turnsaround and starts running back to the car.
And that's when I realized that thisguy was one of those poor farmers
who was trying to escape across ourlines of safety with his family.

(53:14):
'cause he didn't wanna fight.
And so, and, and the Feinhad caught up to him.
And so I yelled at my guys to take outthe Fein and I was running as fast as I
could to try to save this guy's family.
And by the time I gotthere, it was too late.
You know, I, I lookedin the passenger's side.
His wife had been shot inthe face and in the chest.
She was slumped over dead.

(53:36):
He had a little baby in the backwhose arm had been shot off.
She'd been shot in the head and.
He was cradling the body of his little,like five or 6-year-old daughter who was,
uh, you know, she was shot in the stomach.
She was, she was choking on her ownblood as she was trying to breathe.
And, um, I'll never forget that momentbecause for the first time in the
war, everything really slowed down.

(53:59):
And I put myself in this guy's shoesand I thought, man, I, I live in a world
of choices, you know, where, what do Iwant my kids to, to grow up to become
what I want them to have for breakfast?
Like what were this guy's choices?
When he woke up this morning, he couldwatch his kids starve to death or strap a
bomb on his back to run into our position.

(54:20):
Like he had nothing.
And in that moment, I hadthis kind of awakening, man.
I was like, I feel like, uh, God had givenme the ability to actually see this, the
other human being for one moment in a war.
And I connected withhim and I was like, man.
I was filled with rage.
I was like, you know, it's notfair that the GPS coordinates of

(54:42):
a person's birthplace dictate whatchoices they have in this world.
We live in this country withso many choices, it's amazing.
Um, and, and everybody needsto have those freedoms.
And, uh, that really moved me.
That was the beginning of a prettypowerful awakening in me, and it shaped
what I would be doing later in life too.
But, um, that moment followed me,you know, I saw a lot of stuff

(55:04):
and stuff, and we all do Yeah.
Combat before that and after that,but that, for whatever reason,
that moment really stuck out.
And I like, I saw that guy's eyesand my dreams for like, uh, years
after that, after that moment.
A couple questions onThanks for sharing that.
I mean that, like, I, I'm gettinggoosebumps just listening to it.
It's powerful.
The, I guess two things.

(55:26):
The first is the guys thatyou watch do the killing.
What happened to them?
Just for people who were dead,weren't resolution, they were killed.
But by the time I got to the car, the fedwere all dead on the side of the road.
My guys had taken themout, just taken 'em out.
Um, and, and so they were dead.
I, I didn't even, I wasn'teven concerned about them.
I was, when I saw the picture ofwhat, you know, what happened, this

(55:47):
car guy was, see what was happening.
This guy was kneeling in the,you know, next to the car
with his daughter in his arms.
He was kneeling broken glassand just blood everywhere.
And uh, and uh, it was just, you know,for whatever reason, and, and again,
so many horrible things, so manyhorrible stories, get rid in a combat.
You can't unw write, you know, andfor whatever reason, that one was

(56:10):
just sealed in my mind, you know?
And the other, your other marines who wereon the scene with you there, like, were
you guys talking about this afterwards?
Did they kind of have the same impressionor was it like a we never for you?
We never, we never talked about it.
Because what happened was, whathappened was we had to move immediately.
Yeah.

(56:30):
So we took that guy and his daughterand we evaced him back through the,
through the ranks to the rear guard.
Um, I actually found out laterthat that girl made it, or maybe
they just told me that, but, uh,I got word that she had made it.
Um, but we had to keep moving, you know,because, um, you know, there was a, there

(56:51):
was enemy threat ahead of us, and, andwe had to keep, we had to keep going.
And in fact, I've told this storyat this point a lot of times.
Um, and there's guys in my unitwho, or in that infantry interview
have, who have reached out to meafterwards, said, man, I remember
that day we never talked about that.
He's like, and, and they'd be like, Iremembered that day like it was yesterday.

(57:12):
You know?
So it did affect everybody.
Um, but for whatever reason, that reallymoved me and, and changed my trajectory.
And then that's my, my kind offinal question on this is like,
did you end up doing somethingdifferently because of that?
Is it like a motivating factorthat just continued to drive you?
Did you start reading things differently,interacting with people differently?
Like what was the change youstarted seeing with yourself?

(57:35):
You know, you know, itwas slow inside of me.
Um, because what ended up happening inthat moment was I switched right back on.
I had this really human momentand then I switched right back on
and I was like operating again.
But, um, I began to see a, um,a lot more human dimension in
everything that we were doing.
And I, that really helped me when Iwent over force, you know, because we

(57:57):
would be doing a, a da and you know,you go through the door, you're throwing
bangs, you go in a room and there's likesmall children crying everywhere, right?
And there might be a guy in the, you know,so you, you have to like process all of
that and see what's really happening.
And I. Uh, in real time and you,and you've gotta be able to balance

(58:18):
lethality and, and danger with humanityand compassion at the same time.
Right?
And that was something that, um,began to kind of build in my soul and
in my heart in that, in that moment.
But the, the more important, probablylong-term impact was, it actually shaped
what I did after I got outta the MarineCorps, after I got outta the military.

(58:40):
I think I alluded this before westarted the podcast, but, um, I had
a few options I was looking at afterforce that I was gonna go into, and I,
I chose to go a different path becauseof that moment on Highway seven.
Um, it's shaped the, the future directionof my life and it's, it actually
radically changed, uh, everythingfor me, uh, now, and I always say.

(59:00):
It always takes, uh, God's gottabeat me over the head with a two
before, multiple times before hegets the lesson through to me.
But, uh, but he eventually did, andI was eventually able to kind of go
into this new work often in, in theprivate sector since I've been here.
You know, I do get a lot of questions.
I just think, I don't know, as militaryofficers in our past, the way we were
brought up to lead is like very focusedon the people and taking care of 'em,

(59:23):
and I think it's noticeable when folkshave a, you know, a military vet as
a leader somewhere along the way.
Mm-hmm.
And I often think I, I justthink back about how quickly
maybe we mature in those roles.
Mm-hmm.
And I think it's moments like that,like I, I didn't experience what you
experience, but just things wouldprobably accelerate your professional
maturity by years in the moment.

(59:44):
Yeah.
And like you, the way you weresaying it, like, you go into
a room, you see the humanity.
Like you have such a different perspectiveon every battle, every decision you make.
Mm-hmm.
You're probably thinking aboutmore things because you've just
been forced to do it earlier on.
Um, what a sad way tohave to learn it though.
Geez.
Yeah.
Uh, um, I, I did notice, so youcome out of three one, you go

(01:00:05):
over to, uh, first Force Recon.
Do you miss the Fallujahpush with these guys?
I did because three one goes in, right?
I mean, what are you doing whenthey're going in October of oh four.
So we came three, one came back November.
Yeah, so we, we retrograded, you know,after kind of mission accomplished.
Um, yeah, we, we were in, we retrogradedback to um, uh, we did a relief

(01:00:29):
in place and then we went back tostage in Dia and then they moved us
out, uh, uh, back outta theater andback home and, um, as we came home.
Then of course on the way home,that's when I got orders to go
over, take selection of force.
And so as I was, you know, doing selectionand then, uh, schools phase and all that

(01:00:51):
kind of stuff over at Force Three, onewas training back up to go back over.
Um, to go back intoflu, to go into fluent.
Um, so yeah, I wasn't therewith them during that time.
Just outta curiosity, how did youknow what was happening when, like,
were you just so deep in selection?
You, you had no concept of whatwas going on in the outside world?

(01:01:13):
No, no.
I did.
I did.
And, um, you know, I lost, I lostsome, some friends in that, uh,
time during that time and feltvery angry that I was not there.
Yeah.
Um, but you know, and it certainly,it certainly motivated me to, and
focused me in my training, uh, whileI was at force, you know, uh, uh,

(01:01:35):
making it through selection andmaking it through school's phase.
Uh, just I was really impatient toget to my unit, to get to my platoon,
you know, I wanted to get to myplatoon and get back over there.
Uh, but the force recon process isvery methodical, you know, it's, uh.
You, they, they help you becomevery, very good at the, the, the very
focused work that we would be doing.

(01:01:57):
Um, you know, with lots and lotsand lots of training, um, which
is, which is critically important.
Um, but yeah, I, I was, uh, fully awareand, uh, and, you know, I can't say enough
good about the, the marine rifleman, youknow, the, the, the guys I got served

(01:02:18):
with in three one, they're just incrediblycourageous, really good, good men.
I. Who, who really put iton the line many times.
Uh, three, one is just a storied unit,but, uh, but that my, the guys I got
served with were really incredibleand to this day, many of them, uh,
I'm still close with That is awesome.

(01:02:38):
We're pulling together a, uh,documentary on Fallujah and we
interviewed a lot of three, fiveguys, some three, one, a couple of the
Army guys who were there at the time.
It's just insane battle.
But have to imagine a lot of those guysin three, one, you probably knew them.
Yeah.
You were down ranging.
Yeah, absolutely.
Geez.
Um, just in the interestof time, Jake, like.

(01:02:59):
You've done a lot since you'vegotten out of the service.
I feel like you packed a lotinto, I mean, how many years
are we talking that you were in?
Eight.
Eight years.
In eight years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was, uh, and you've done a lot since.
Can you, you know, you've alluded toit many times now, this idea of, you
know, your trajectory was changed,could have done a lot of things, uh,

(01:03:20):
including where I used to be, I'm sure.
But you, you take a different path.
Where is it, where does it takeyou coming out of this space?
Yeah, I, um, so after my, I, I did, Idid a, uh, um, once I got my platoon
of force, we went back over, uh, wewere part of, uh, what was then called
OIF three, uh, operating in a, an areacalled ba, north Bale Province, which

(01:03:45):
was basically southwest of Baghdad.
There was a, at the time.
The, they were the, the new parliament,they were trying to seat the new
parliament and in this one provinceit was a hive of insurgent activity.
There was a lot of operations that theywere operating out of this area to,
to assassinate these mps. And therewere, there no coalition forces that

(01:04:07):
been in that area for about six months.
So we didn't have a lot of intelabout what was going on there.
So our job became one, onecollecting intel and what
was actually going on there.
So we did some kind of deep RNS,uh, collection there in North Bele,
and then two carry out, um, youknow, da after da, you know, to, to

(01:04:30):
begin taking out different targets.
Um, I can tell you one story yeah, where,where I, I I learned another really
kind of key lesson from one of my guys.
Um, at the time we hadgone into the DA phase.
And, uh, you know, we were gettingd target packages every few days

(01:04:50):
and we got the, um, one night wegot a pretty high value target.
It was, it was very high up on the list.
And, uh, the guys were excited.
So I brought the team leadersin and we, we began to plan.
And I had this one team leader who's kindof a legend of the recon communities,
is, uh, his name we call Simon, dc.
And, uh, DC was, uh, my, uh,my, uh, free fall team leader.

(01:05:14):
And he and I were gonnabe on the same stick.
Uh, so we decided to do a, a helohard hit, um, four helos, uh,
you know, uh, land on the target.
We'd fast rope down and, uh,we'd do a simultaneous breach.
Two different points in the building.
Are you going in with one 60th orare you flying in like Marine Huey's?
No, well, uh, originally we weregonna get some of the best pilots.

(01:05:37):
That's actually part ofthe story we end up with.
There's nothing wrong with Marine Corpsaircraft at all, but the pilots, we,
we had ch 46 s, which are old as shit.
Yeah.
And the, the pilots, I mean,you know, you know, the, these
aircraft and the pilots were new.
They were new guys.
Never a good combo.
Never not a good combo.
Yeah.

(01:05:57):
Because, uh, the, because of the empo,all the older, more experienced pilots
and, and, uh, and platforms were out onother missions when we got this target.
So my job was to brief the pilotsin the ready room and, and my,
my guys went to brief, my teamleaders went to brief the guys.
So I go into the ready room.
I'll never forget, I go in thereand you know how it is with you.

(01:06:20):
You were a pilot.
There was this healthy a tension.
You guys sat in the raid roomdrinking coffee and eating donuts.
You know why the rest of usare out there in the mud.
It's true.
So I, so I go into the raid room and,uh, I'll never forget looking across
the table at what I thought lookedlike these four high school kids,
you know, they're really young guys.
I said, oh, sorry guys,I'm in the wrong room.

(01:06:41):
And I turned to leaveand they're no n no, no.
Are you Captain Herriman?
You're here to, you know,go, going to get so and so.
And I was like, yeah, who are you guys?
They're like, Hey, we're your pilots?
And I said, we were civil air patrol.
Yeah, yeah.
I said, you guys are not my pilots.
And they, of course, then theywere indignant, you know, they
were really pissed off that I was,I was so condescending and, and

(01:07:02):
they assured me that they got it.
So I was like, okay.
By the way, I had no other options.
So I briefed these guys, theyassured me they were gonna be okay.
So, um, we did a test fire boardup on the aircraft about one in the
morning and take off, and we're headinginto basically southern Baghdad.
And as we're coming in, we start takingsmall arms fire, which is normal.

(01:07:24):
I mean, it's like almost every,any, any, any hard hit you're
gonna do, this is gonna happen.
Right.
And so I'm, uh, I got my PE toolson, and this year I'm, I'm, I'm
listening to my team leaders kind of rerehearsing, going over the, the plan.
And this year I'm listening topilots and it, and this year it
sounds like somebody took a cage ofsquirrels and just started shaking it.

(01:07:44):
There was like this screaming, theseguys had never been shot at before.
They were terrified, just yellingon the radio and I couldn't hear.
And they started bankingthese helicopters everywhere.
Those knuckleheads set us down ina kilometer radius around southern
Baghdad and dropped us all off tofour completely different points.

(01:08:05):
No, only, only one stick was on target.
The other three of uswere who knows where.
And so they landed, kickedus out, and then took off.
And so I'm, I'm on the,uh, my stick, on my stick.
It was me and, uh, DC andthese other three guys.
So they're setting a security perimeterand I'm sitting there and I'm ashamed

(01:08:28):
that in all my training and all my realworld missions, I was just paralyzed.
I didn't know what to do, you know?
I had this dumb look on my face standing.
I must have been standing therewith my mouth hanging up and
trying to figure out what to do.
And DC looked over at me.
He was with the guys, you know, settingthe security perimeter, and he was

(01:08:48):
this old kind of experienced guy.
He looked over at me, he ran overat me and he punched me right in the
face and he said, Hey sir, you gottawake the fuck up and grabbed me.
He could.
He could see what was going on, huh?
Yeah, he could see what was happeningto me and he shook me really hard.
He's like, Hey, you gotta come back here.

(01:09:10):
And I was like, well, I, you know, Idon't, I don't know what's going on.
I mean, I don't know where everybody is.
We got guys on the target.
He's like, Hey, sir, you gotta calm down.
He's like, listen, you'rethe leader right now.
Everybody's looking toyou to make a decision.
I understand that we got chaos rightnow, but just take, take 30 seconds.
Start remembering in your mind whatassets we have available to us.

(01:09:31):
You're gonna come up with a plan.
Just calm down.
Just take a couple deep breaths.
And he shook me out of it.
And then he went back over to the guys.
And so I was able to kind of calm down.
And then I remembered we had a, wehad a specter, uh, overhead, right?
And, uh, they had this, this cool toolwe called the finger of God, which

(01:09:52):
was basically the, the, the God beam.
The beam that you, yeah, yeah.
The God beam.
That would light up the targets, right?
So you could call in, uh,uh, call in munitions.
And on a, it was a foggy night.
And so of course on a foggynight, many times you on
nods, you can actually see it.
When they light it up,you could see the beam.
So I called up to the aircraftand I said, Hey guys, light the

(01:10:13):
target up with the finger of God.
And they turned it on.
And then I called to my teamleaders and I said, Hey guys,
everybody look up in the sky.
Follow the beam down to the ground.
That's the target.
Move on the target.
So everybody starts, we just start runningthrough the alleys in, in south Baghdad,
trying to desperately get there in time.
And by some miracle, theguy was still on the target.

(01:10:37):
Oh my God, my guys were pinned down.
But we were able to, to, to do the breach,worked the target, grabbed the guy, got
him out, those knuckleheads landed the,the aircraft we got on the aircraft and
were taking off right as the technicals,the reinforcements were coming up.
And so, you know, happyending, everybody survived.

(01:10:57):
We had no casualties.
We got the bad guy, but I, none of thatwould happen had it not been for the
calm decisiveness of this guy of DC.
Yeah.
You know, and I learned a powerful,powerful lesson that, you know,
we're always gonna, there'salways gonna be moments of chaos.
The first thing out the window in anycontext is gonna be the plan, right?

(01:11:17):
And you, and in those moments,you need to calm down.
You need to think with clarity.
And you, you need to kind of takeyourself out of the situation
and see the bigger picture, um,to be able to make a decision.
And many times you don't have a hundredpercent of the information you need.
You're gonna be, you'regonna have to act on 60%.
Right.
But you gotta act withdecisiveness and 'cause people

(01:11:38):
are looking at you to make a call.
And that, that lessonstuck with me after that.
It's interesting, the thing thatDC says to you, which is like,
think of the, like he gives yousomething specific to grasp onto.
Right?
Instead of just like thinkclearly, you know, which is Right.
Yeah.
What the hell is that gonna do?
Right.
But it's like, hey, thinkof the assets you got.
All right.
Um, yeah.
Oh, that's amazing.
Hey, you said something, as youguys were coming into land, so I was

(01:11:59):
always in an Apache with two pilotsand we were just shooting things,
so you know, we didn't carry troops.
But you said that while you'rekind of talking with the pilots and
overall you've got your team leader.
Rehearsing the plan.
Mm-hmm.
Like what kind of stuff is he sayingto the guys right before you land?
Just for people who've neverbeen in such a, a position.
So as we're coming in, they'rereviewing sides of the building.

(01:12:22):
So we talked about, uh, white side, blackside, um, you know, like the, uh, and
each, each side would map to north, south,east, west, you know, um, and so that we
could remember which side we're moving to.
'cause the aircraft are trainedto land on certain sides.
So as you come off the aircraft,you know exactly what wall you're
going up to, you know, and we'drehearsed it numerous, numerous times.

(01:12:45):
Um, so you're, you're talking,you, you're, you're reviewing
the, the breach points.
You're reviewing, um, uh,you know, um, the timeline.
You are reviewing theassets we have on station.
Right.
So I'm, I'm thankful that we hadreviewed that as we're coming in as well.
Um.
You know, uh, and, and just trying tocalm everybody down, just going over kinda

(01:13:08):
last minute stuff, uh, and just doingfinal comp checks, those kinds of things.
But, um, a lot of times youdon't have time to do that.
Yeah.
But in this case, uh, we had alittle extra time, um, and it was
a little more complicated than whatwe had normally done on a hard hit.
So we just wanted to review someof the, the, the technical stuff
that would happen on the ground.

(01:13:29):
And is there anything, and after thiswe'll transition to what you've done since
you got out of outta uniform, but is thereanything you used to say to guys, like
right before you'd go off on the mission?
Um, anything in particular you justremind 'em one last time or something
you always wanted to say to them?
Yeah, a a lot of times I wouldbe, um, you know, we did a lot
of these, but uh, I always.

(01:13:51):
Would go over.
They, they knew I was gonna do this.
I would always go over and Iwould say, Hey guys, I'm gonna
go pray for us real quick.
Anybody wants to join me?
Come on over.
And I'd say a little prayer.
I'd kneel down on my gearand say a little prayer.
I really, my faith is everything to me.
It like, um, is reallya core part of who I am.
And it helped me do some really,uh, would, would be considered

(01:14:12):
dumb things to take chances thatI wouldn't have otherwise taken.
Um, but I would always pray for the guysright before we would go in and, uh,
you know, I'd always tell, you know,tell the guys, Hey, love you guys.
Um, let's just, let's do whatwe're trained to do here.
It's just, it's another day, youknow, another day, another target.
We know what we're doing.
Um, let's bring everybody back.

(01:14:34):
That's cool.
So that's cool.
So you, you somehowlearn all these lessons.
You come back, you go to StanfordBusiness School, which is not that
easy to get into, and, and you've goneon to do a lot of good in the world.
Like what is, what'syour transition out like?
Yeah.
What, what should people learn from it?
So, as I was coming out, um, I was, thereason I transitioned out, uh, I had, I

(01:14:58):
had been training with one of my buddiesin the platoon to take keg selection.
I thought I wanted totry to go over there.
Uh, I was talking to the guys,um, at the agency, at the, uh, you
know, the special activities, um,group, uh, about working over there.
A lot of my buddies had gone over there.
And, you know, the natural progressionfor guys like us is to take the next step.

(01:15:20):
But I was, I felt so strongly about thisproblem that I had identified, and it
started on highway seven, but again,I, I began to see it again and again.
The desperation that extreme povertywas creating in a lot of these places
we operated was fueling the growthof groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
Um, and we had this kind ofproblem because, uh, aid groups

(01:15:44):
couldn't reach these populationsto help provide those choices.
'cause it was just too dangerous.
You know, we had USA contractorslater on would try to come in, but
you know, you're rolling in a bunchof Humvees and stuff like that.
That's not, you can't build trust.
You can't, you can't doreal work development there.
When, when we're all wearing, you know,I got an in four strapped man, I'm
wearing armor, all this kinda stuff.

(01:16:06):
So I thought this was a real gap.
Like we needed to, um, weneeded the kinetic solution.
We needed to, there's evil in this world.
We gotta take those guys out.
But those groups thrive by preying onthe vulnerability in these impoverished
areas, people who have no otherchoices, but to go in these groups.
And I wanted to address that.
And so we hatched this idea, what ifwe could make a hybrid, take former

(01:16:28):
operators like us, the no combat,combine 'em with frontline development
professionals who know how to createlike locally led solutions to poverty.
And we can embed these compositeteams deep in these gray zones
where no other NGOs could operate.
And we could live there for five to sevenyears, um, working with local organiza
or working with local leadership, but alocal organization that would increase

(01:16:49):
crop yields, increase incomes, buildwhat we call resilience corridors to
stop the spread of Isis Al-Qaeda in theseareas as a more comprehensive solution.
So yes, we need the kinetic, but weneed these other softer skills at
the same time to contain the problem.
So that was the idea.
So when I transitioned out, um, Idecided I needed to go build that.
But man, when I, my transitionwas not great, uh, when I got out.

(01:17:14):
I instantly miss my guys.
I mean, I've, I just felt totallylost and totally ill-equipped.
I thought to my, you know, howam I gonna build, take on extreme
poverty in a conflict zone?
I don't know anything about poverty,you know, or about solving it.
Uh, not trained to do that.
We were trained to kill people, and,and so I, I didn't know where to start.

(01:17:36):
I bought some, like, nonprofitsfor Dummies book, you know, and
was trying to like, figure outhow to, you know, build something,
but I had to pay my, pay my rent.
You know, I'm living in this littleapartment trying to pay my rent.
So I had to, I got this, uh, jobdriving a seafood delivery truck.
I was delivering seafood in San Diego.
No way.
In Orange County.
No way In la Yeah.

(01:17:56):
To pay my rent.
And honestly, it's one ofthe best jobs I ever had.
'cause I, you know, I, I, I drivethe truck during the day, gimme a
chance to kind of like, I starteddecompressing from the war a little bit.
I to think about what was next, howwas I gonna, how was I gonna do this?
Finally, I had a buddy who had goneto business school and he said.
Listen, you're trying to buildsomething, you need to go to business
school to figure out how to build it.

(01:18:18):
And that seemed to make sense to me.
And I, you know, I, I, I had heard ofHarvard and Stanford Business schools.
I'm like, well, I kind ofmade this deal with God.
I was like, look, if you wantme to go to business school, you
gotta get me into these schools.
And so I, 'cause Ididn't want go to school.
So I applied, I put the packagesin, I kind of forgot about it.
I then, I just kind of went back to mylittle nonprofit for dummies, trying

(01:18:40):
to put together a plan to build thisthing and driving the seafood truck.
And about three months later I gothome from the, dropped the truck off,
went, went back to my apartment, andthere on my doorstep was the, these
two packages that I got accepted.
And I just couldn't believe it.
And, uh, so I, I decided to go toStanford 'cause Stanford focused

(01:19:01):
on like entrepreneurship and,you know, been building things.
And so.
Incredible thing.
Yeah, man, I, I went to Stanford,about 30 of my classmates,
helped me build the model.
A bunch of the faculty there, uh,provided mentorship and some seed
funding to get it off the ground.
And I graduated in June of oh eight.
Um, and then in September ofthat same year, I packed my bags

(01:19:21):
and moved to a remote village inAfrica, uh, to start building this.
And where I lived, I lived in thesevillages then for the next, um,
almost eight years, uh, kind ofbuilding this thing and scaling it.
Alright.
Just real, real quick on that.
When you were the seafood truck driver,were you like the best seafood truck
driver that has ever been created?

(01:19:42):
Like these, your boss was like, thisguy, I need more, more Jakes on the.
Oh, I loved it.
I loved it so much because I, you know,you, I pull into, it was just simple.
I pull into the gas station, I, I'mwearing my little Dickies and my
little gas station shirt with my nametag on, you know, and I go in there
and, and, and everybody's treatingme like one of them, you know?

(01:20:04):
And then I, and then I go tothe restaurants and the Mexican
guys working in the kitchen orgiving me free food and stuff.
It was just a great job.
I loved it.
That's awesome.
It was very good.
Uh, and it was, I'll tell you whatwas really great, man, Ryan, when I
went to business school, the fir thoseinitial meetings at business school
was like, everybody's kind of wearingtheir resume on their sleeve, talking
about how cool they're, oh, I workedfor Kleiner Perkins or Silicon Valley.

(01:20:26):
This Silicon Valley that I was at,you know, working on Sandhill Road.
What'd you do?
I said, I, I drove a seafooddelivery truck in San Diego.
And they kinda laughed nervously,like, no, seriously, what'd you do?
I'm like.
I drove a seafood truck and sat here.
Yes.
So like, I was afraid to tellpeople honestly that I was a Marine.
'cause I thought, I, here I'mgoing to this liberal school,

(01:20:48):
they're, they're not gonna like me.
They're gonna put me in a box.
I judged them sadly.
Um, and I didn't want to tell 'emuntil much later when I, I had
made some really good friendships.
Turns out totally misjudged everybody.
They became my huge, my biggest champions.
Oh, I'm sure.
They really helped me, man.
Uh, they loved it, man.
They loved the whole idea.
It was, it was pretty incredible, dude.

(01:21:10):
Um, can you talk about some of thevillages you were in, or is that, do we
have to keep that quiet for some reason?
No, that's, that's fine.
Um, so we did, we didwork in southwest Kenya.
There was a, a, um, growing Al-Shabaabinfluence and also some gangs
operating on the border with Tanzania.
Um, and so we were trying to.

(01:21:30):
Recruit young guys out of that stuffto work in our projects to help help
them farm and increase their incomesthrough increase in crop production.
There was a lot of hungerthere in that area.
So we had maybe done work there.
Um, I then moved, uh, and we built outthis really amazing organization there
that continued to grow, run by Kenyans.
And then I moved to the mountainsof Southern Ethiopia and I was

(01:21:53):
operating there for a while.
Um, building way up off thegrid, up in the mountains.
Is this where you'd see coffee, Jake?
Like, is that Yeah, kind of Ethiopiacoffee would be up in the mountains.
There's some coffee there.
Yeah.
And we'd do these crazy boundarywalks to try to map the area out
and, you know, we'd run into like,there was like a man eating lion.
There's like huge pythons.
It was like insane stuff aswe were doing these walks.

(01:22:15):
Um, but then after that I movedto, uh, northeast Nigeria in,
uh, Boca, what was called Bocara.
I. Uh, CFI territory, and there wasa group called Isis, west Africa,
that had begun, uh, moving in thearea and building out their cate.
So we were trying to, um, buildout again this resilience corridor
to block their, the spread ofthis group, um, in that area.

(01:22:38):
So, uh, and we, we builtthat every time as well.
So, look, I made everymistake in the book.
I was a total ahead, but I, I hada really good team, and so the team
started having some incredible impact.
We impacted about, uh, to date,it's been about 350,000 people.
Um, global team of about 230 staffraised about $60 million to scale it.

(01:22:58):
Yeah.
So, um, I, I mean, were youjust loving it, being out there?
Dude, it was amazing.
It was amazing.
I mean, I had an hour and a half workwalk to work every day out to the fields.
And of course the first w I'll tellyou this, the first week, my first
week on the ground was not amazing.
So I, I thought I was this likebadass operator coming in here.

(01:23:21):
Super smart guy from Stanford.
My first week I got jumped by apack of thieves, um, black widowed
fighters and safari and swarmed my hut.
Um, I got malaria.
Uh, we had an earthquake.
And then the last day of the week,um, which was also my birthday,
I got struck by lightning.
Um, I know, I mean, youcan't make this stuff up.

(01:23:45):
I had a really bad weekend.
Oh my gosh.
I'm like, man, somebodydoes not want me here.
Um, do you go down after that?
What happens when youget struck by lightning?
I mean, it hit me.
I, it blew me across the hut.
Uh, you know, I was actuallysetting up our satcom.
Uh, we were, you know, we're offthe grid, so I set up a satcom, uh,
uh, unit to, to run our wifi, tobuild a wifi, you know, for the.

(01:24:08):
Project and was tryingto get that thing up.
And it was, the antenna was outthere, cable was running from the
antenna to my laptop, which was onmy lap, and I was sitting on a stump
inside the hut, and this huge stormrolled in and my buddy's like, Hey,
man, that storm looks pretty big.
And I was like, oh, no,don't, don't worry about it.
Like, no, I'm a marine.
Fine.
He's marine.
I got this, I'm a marine, it's no problem.

(01:24:30):
Next, next thing I know, dude, I'm layingon the other side of the hut against
the wall wake, waking up, opening myeyes, and my buddy's over me shaking
me, and I thought my legs were on fire.
And I said, dude, my legs are on fire.
Like, no, no, no, you're,you're, you're okay.
I'm like, what happened?
And then of course, as any goodbuddy, when he realizes you're

(01:24:52):
alive, he starts laughing at me.
For sure.
Yeah.
He's, dude, you, you justgot hit by like lightning.
Oh, and I, I'll never forget, man.
I was like, you know, I can handle, I canfight off thieves, I can handle spiders.
But how do you beat lightning?
You know, it's like, I, I hope, did youhave like a group chat with all these

(01:25:13):
guys from Stanford and you were like,Hey, what'd you do on your first week?
And they're like, oh, I got thiscoffee spilled on me at Google.
You're like, yeah, me too.
Geez.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
It was crazy.
Oh man.
It was crazy, man.
And, and then I, I think what I'veseen more recently from you publicly is
more perfect union and I was just Yeah.
Hoping you could talk alittle bit about that as well.

(01:25:33):
Yeah, no, no problem.
Yeah, so that's, that'smy passion right now.
So I, after living in these, uh, inthe bush in these villages for about
eight years, I came back to the Statesto participate in a leadership program.
The President Bush and Clinton werestarted called the Presidential
Leadership Scholars Program.
And, um, I hadn't lived inthe States for 15 years.
I'd always been deployed down range to theMarine and then lived in these villages.

(01:25:55):
And man, I remember cominghome for this program and I
was just shocked by what I saw.
I did not recognize the countrythat I left to fight for in 2000.
And there was this bitter fear andhatred ripping apart our communities,
this horrible extremism and creptinto politics just destroying
all value for American citizens.
And I saw what I thought was likea real pandemic loss of agency.

(01:26:16):
You know, Americans just didn't feellike they can make a difference anymore.
And I really felt compelled to do it.
Something about it, because, you know, allof us had been down range fighting for the
idea of America against ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
I only realized it wasn'tgonna be them that defeated us.
It was gonna be us.
We were gonna, we weregonna tear ourselves apart.
And then I got really pissedoff thinking about our buddies

(01:26:37):
who paid the ultimate sacrifice.
And I felt reallycompelled to do something.
And, you know, I had some mentors whosaid, you know, you should run for office.
I, that's a terrible idea.
Um, there's gotta besomething better I can do.
And so I started putting together aplan and uh, I had some of my donors who
been back to me for about eight years,they said, you know, you were, this
outs, we outsider that disrupted the aidindustry with this new model, had global

(01:26:59):
impact, which you as an outsider, nowtake a look at the politics industry.
Is there a way to disrupt that andhelp build out more center Wow.
Help, help heal the divide.
So I put together a 40 page whitepaper, sent that around to my mentors.
I had like, you know, Jim Madison,John Allen, president Bush, a few
others said You should do this.
So I put together a 12month, uh, transition plan.
There you go.
Alright.
Yeah, keep going man.

(01:27:19):
That's crazy.
That's people you can call on.
That's amazing.
Well, I was, I'm super blessedby some incredible people who
were taking an interest and, andthey said, you should do this.
So I put together a 12 monthtransition plan to hand off the
reins to the new CEO 'cause I wantedto make sure that it survived and.
And I didn't have to worrywhen I handed it off.
They're, they're crushingit now without me.
I think they just had to get rid of me.

(01:27:41):
Um, and then in June of 2020, I stood upthis new entity called More Perfect Union.
And it's super simple concept, man.
I saw this, what I believed is thegreatest untapped, strategic asset
this country has, which is our bravemen and women coming home from the
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and, um,they're looking for a new hill to take.
You know, we need new purpose.
We need meaning.

(01:28:02):
And, uh, a lot of, a lot of folksare going into great careers and
they're, they're successful, butthey're lacking that purpose.
They're lacking that meaning.
And so, uh, I believe there's nogreater hill to take right now
than to help save our democracy.
So we train, we recruit kind of topvets, train and equip them in our model.
They go back to their home state andlaunch what we call bricky yards,

(01:28:23):
which are our version of chapters.
Bricky yards.
We call 'em Bricky yards 'cause we'rebuilding the country back brick by brick.
And, um, it's very simple concept.
You know, veterans we're using ourcounterinsurgency skills we used overseas.
Here at home we're doing humanterrain mapping to map out
the dynamics in the community.
What, who are the left folks?
Who are the right folks?
And we're bringing them together.
And key leader meetings aroundcore activities like community

(01:28:47):
service projects, right?
It's really hard to hate somebody ifyou're swinging a hammer next to 'em.
Building a, a house for somebodyin the community or would use
social connection activities.
Just fun stuff like concerts, potluckdinners, um, you know, fitness challenges.
Having good time togetherto, to build understanding.
And the whole point of these eventsis to, is to humanize the other side.

(01:29:09):
Our politicians in media right now havereally dehumanized this from one another.
Again, it's actually as, youknow, a tactic reason war.
It's awful.
So we've gotta, we've gottaphysically come together as
Americans humanize one another again.
And in that process, find thatjust common ground, but move
beyond that to higher ground.
Remind us what it means to be Americans.
Remind us that there's so much more thatunites us in, divides us in this moment.

(01:29:29):
You know, and as I always say, we'rea government of buying for the people.
We cannot wait for people inWashington to figure this out.
No one's coming to save us.
We have to do this ourselves.
You know, we're Americans, we're betterthan this, and we can do this on our own.
And what I've found is that there'sa real hunger in the country, man.
It's like spread like wildfire.
We had like 10,000 members in all 50states, um, in October of last year.

(01:29:53):
And then by the end of the year, wetripled in size over 35,000 members.
Geez.
Um, it's really grown fast.
Uh, you know, Americans wanna dosomething and, you know, as, as, as
you know, in a crisis, the ba, the bestthing you can do in a crisis to get
people out of a crisis is get peoplemoving, get them doing something right.
We're paralyzed by fear.

(01:30:14):
It's just like when DCpunched me in the face.
He, he wanted to get me doing somethingto get out of that paralysis, get out
of that, that, that moment of fear.
Right.
By doing something, by acting.
And now we as Americans in thismoment, we need to act together.
That's awesome.
Um, is this what you see yourselfdoing the next three to five years, is
it's just investing in this heavily?

(01:30:36):
Absolutely.
Man, we, we, you know, we fought so harddownrange to protect the idea of America.
Now we gotta do, we got onemore tour to do here at home.
Interesting.
And I think it's really importantthat, that, you know, this is my life.
I'm committed to bringing our countryback together here so that we can save
what we all fought so hard for downrange.
How do people find thisif they want to connect?

(01:30:57):
This is vets specifically, butalso just people in the community.
Well, it's, it's, it's every,it is for all Americans.
Veterans are just the catalysts.
Veterans are the, are are the conveners.
And it's, it's gonebeyond veterans now, too.
It's any, anybody who's served AmeriCorpsPeace Corps, you know, folks who have
done Teach for America, anybody who'sserved the greater cause of America.
So if you go to our website,mpu.us stands for more.

(01:31:22):
Perfect Union mpu.us.
We have Bricky Yards all over the country.
Join a Brickyard, start a Brickyard,get involved, sign up, become a member.
Awesome.
You know, we want youjoin us in the fight.
There's no greater momentthan right now to sign up.
This is awesome.
All right.
I'm gonna ask you two questionsI ask everybody, and I'll
let you get outta here, Jake.
The first is when you were down range, oralso I would say when you were in Africa.

(01:31:47):
Um, but I typically ask peoplewhen they were down range.
Is there anything that you carriedwith you or wanted to have on you
that had sentimental value, good luck,charm, something that someone had
given you that you just wanted nearby?
Yeah.
Um, there was, I, I carried withme this little, uh, pendant.
That, uh, it was a littleshield on the back of it.

(01:32:10):
It had a, uh, a scriptureverse Joshua one nine.
Um, be strong and courageous.
Know that the Lord yourGod is with you always.
And, um, I carried that thing withme always, uh, every hit that I did,
every earnest mission that I did.
And after I got out and I met thelove of my life, uh, she, my now
wife, I've totally married up.

(01:32:32):
She had done work in the intelligencecommunity, worked in some really
dark places, doing some dangerouswork, and I gave that to her so that
she could carry it with her as well.
But that, that littlething meant a lot to me.
Um, and I carried it, uh,and she carried it as well.
That's awesome.
Where did you get it?
I got it from a, a pastor friend ofmine in Southern California when I

(01:32:54):
was a boots second Lieutenant gaveit to me one time and said, Hey, this
is before the war, and said, Hey,I. Why don't you keep this with you?
Uh, and uh, just remember whenyou're carrying it with you who it
is, that's protecting what, who,who it is that's protecting you.
Yeah.
And then last question I ask everybody,kind of looking back on many years in
service and near death experiences andlessons learned and people you lost

(01:33:17):
along the way, as you kind of look backon that time, would you do it again?
Oh man, a hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
I have had such a wild ride.
I feel so blessed to have livedthe life that I've lived so far.
So fortunate, man.
Um, I would not trade it for anything.
I can't thank you enoughfor the time, Jake.

(01:33:39):
This was a ton of fun.
I'm very impressed to justbe chatting with you with
all these things that you do.
So thanks for sharing it with us andwe'll have links to find MPU for folks
if you want to join up and help out.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, brother.
I appreciate you.

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Life Changing Moment in Combat | Leads to Life of Service | Force Recon | Non-Profit Founder | Jake Harriman

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Life Changing Moment in Combat | Leads to Life of Service | Force Recon | Non-Profit Founder | Jake Harriman