Jocko Willink (143:23)
Yeah, the, you know, clearly that's the same kind of attitude I have of, you know, be being, especially in Ramadi in 2006, like the civilian populace was being subjected to just abject, subhuman, terroristic behavior from the insurgents. And the fact that we were able to be there and able to rid that city of insurgents and give the, the people in that city the opportunity to live normal lives. And again, it ended up, you know, I mean, we would have to do a full assessment. It's a lot easier to do a full assessment of where Afghanistan's at right now because Afghanistan clearly has gone back to the dark ages of the Taliban. And it's just horrible to see Iraq. And I just saw another. I just saw a news story. I haven't fact Checked it yet, but they're passing a law that, that brings the age of consent and marriage in Iraq down to nine years old. So that's not a positive sign for the girls there. But I know that they at one point were living in a terrible situation and we were able to help them. And then on top of that, of course, we were thankfully able to overwatch the soldiers and Marines on the streets and, and keep hundreds of those soldiers and Marines alive. So same thing. Like, I know that what we did in our little, little share of the task, we did what we could. I think about what do we, what do we learn as a nation? You know, when I, when I look at the mistakes that we made in Vietnam specifically, just because I think I'm more familiar with that war and, and clearly it was very devastating for, for the country. And I, I wonder what lessons, you know, how do we, how there's such obvious lessons that, that we should have taken away from Vietnam and we didn't. And how short is our memory going to be this time? You know, when we're here, we are with the world kind of in the win. One of the worldwide is horrible right now. Like, you think about what's going on in Ukraine, in Israel, like, these are terrible situations. There's escalation. I mean, the escalation in those two areas of operations is both of those could go completely out of control very quickly. And how. Well, you know, what are we doing about it? How, what are we gonna, how are we gonna handle these situations? What lessons are we going to forget about? At what point do we become the catalyst for escalation instead of the catalyst for de. Escalation? And it's, I really hope that. Well, friends, we got a new administration coming in. Obviously Tulsi, who is, I know her personally and she's, I have a lot of trust and confidence in her. She's just a great person with a great attitude. And then I know some of the other people involved in the administration as well, and we've spent a lot of time, we spent a lot of time with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. What a smart and knowledgeable guy he is. And Vivek, I've met him and spent time with him. And again, these are people that I just, I hope that they recognize lessons that we should have learned from Vietnam, lessons that we hopefully have learned from Iraq and Afghanistan and we can move forward in a, in a way that makes this sacrifices from all these wars worthwhile as we move to a place of peace and not a place of war. There's a guy we know. I was thinking about this before, you know, knowing that you were coming on and we had talked about this a little bit. And one of the things that I think about when I think about wars, I think of a guy named Joshua, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. He is, you know, definitely one of the, one of the heroes of the Civil War and also a guy that I try and read as much as I can now. Just a very eloquent speaker who, I think the way he spoke and the way he wrote about things was very powerful and he captured things that, that I think he captures them in a way, even though it was a Civil War and post Civil War. But, you know, he gave a speech and I think it ties into everything that we're talking about. You know, when you think about what we did, you know, as a nation and then what we did as, as teammates and service members, he said this. We rose in soul above the things which even the Declaration of Independence pronounces the inalienable rights of human nature for the securing of which governments are instituted among, among men, happiness, liberty, life. We laid on the altar of offering or committed to the furies of destruction. So he's saying they're like we looked at the things that we're guaranteed or, or the things that the Declaration of Independence says, these are your, your rights as a human being. And we said, no, we don't, we don't care about them. We're going to put, we're going to put our sacrifice. We're going to sacrifice happiness, sacrifice liberty, and possibly sacrifice our lives for this while our minds were lift, lifted up to a great thought and our hearts swelled to its measure. So we're, we're performing above our station as, as mere human beings. We were beckoned by the vision of destiny. We saw our country moving forward, charged with the sacred trusts of man. We believed in its glorious career, the power of high aims and strong purpose. And I think it's important there, you know, we believed in the glorious career of our country. We weren't, you know, we believed that we were doing the right things. And, you know, sometimes I'll get asked that question of, you know, what would you do if you were ordered to do something that you weren't, that wasn't the right thing to do? I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. If we were told to do something that didn't make sense. I wouldn't do it. If we were told to do something that was immoral, wouldn't do it. And that's the way. Most of the people in the military are the vast majority. And by the. By Most, I mean 99%. But when you're there, you believe in what you're doing. If we didn't believe in it, we're not doing it. The power of high aims and strong purpose, the continuity of great endeavor, the onward, upward path of history to God. Every man felt that he gave himself to and belonged to something beyond time and above place, something which could not die. These are the reasons. Not fixed in the form of things, but formative of things. Reasons of the soul, why we fought for the Union. So when I hear that he's. Look, he's talking about the Civil War. But so much of that to me applies to my thoughts. Looking back at, at the wars, we did our duty, right? We did our duty like what you teach those young men, which is to put others above yourself. That's what we did. And we saw our friends, we saw our brothers, and we saw our teammates do that. And we helped the people on the ground as we talked about. And hopefully we learned lessons that can then be applied to our country. And I think this line about not fixed in the form of things, right? Not fixed in the form of things, meaning there's not an undeniable reason why we fought. It's not an underlying. You can't say, well, we fought because of this thing right here. So it's not in. It's not fixed in the form of things. But he says, but formative of things. So it's like, what did we learn from it? We did it. How did it make us better? How do we become better from what we went through? And I think that's just the way things work. When you, when you think of the idea that what we do is formative of who we are as individuals, what we do is formative of who we are. And our country, what our country does is formative of who our country is. And there's going to be mistakes and there's going to be things that happened, but as long as they form you into a better person and a better nation, then I, I think we have to move forward with that attitude, the lessons that we learned from it. And. And then there's another thing from Chamberlain. He says there is a way of losing that is finding when soul over masters sense, when the noble and divine self overcomes the lower self, when duty and honor and love, immortal things bid the mortal perish. So there's things that are more important than life. It's only when man Supremely gives that. He supremely finds that was your sacrifice. That is your reward. So although, you know, we. And. And those of us in the military, those of us that stepped up and served, when you serve, when you give, that's when you find. So it's what you talked about earlier. When you step up and you give that your reward, you make the sacrifice. Your reward is what you find. And so, you know, as I look back at, again, the idea of the wars that we fought, I want to make sure that we remember what it taught us, and we utilize that as individuals and as communities and as a nation. We use what we've been through to make us better. To where I'm at on it at this particular stage, always trying to keep an open mind, learn more. But Chamberlain was. He was a smart guy.
