470: Don't Get Caught In The Crossfire in The Information War. With Jeremy Stern.

Summary

Podcast Summary: Jocko Podcast Episode 470 - "Don't Get Caught In The Crossfire in The Information War" with Jeremy Stern

Introduction and Overview

In Episode 470 of the Jocko Podcast, retired Navy SEAL Jocko Willink engages in an in-depth conversation with Jeremy Stern, Deputy Editor of Tablet Magazine. The episode, titled "Don't Get Caught In The Crossfire in The Information War," delves into Jeremy's multifaceted career spanning military service, journalism, and diplomatic roles. The discussion also touches upon the recent devastating attacks in southern Israel and the broader implications for information warfare and propaganda.

Jeremy Stern's Background

Family History and Upbringing

Jeremy Stern was born in Encino, San Fernando Valley. His father, an 88-year-old creative advertising professional, had a tumultuous early career, including being fired from writing for Johnny Carson due to a conflict with a sock puppet character named Lamb Chop. Jeremy's maternal grandparents were Jewish refugees from Vienna who escaped the Holocaust. However, his parents led a largely secular life, assimilating into American culture without practicing Judaism actively.

Notable Quote:

"They completely stopped speaking Yiddish or German in the house with my mom and her kids. They did not observe the Sabbath, they did not believe in God, they didn't talk about God." [10:19]

College Years and Studying Russian

During his time at Oakwood School and later in high school, Jeremy engaged in typical teenage activities, including sports and experimenting with substances, without a clear life direction. Upon entering college in rural Ohio, he faced a language requirement, initially considering Spanish but ultimately choosing Russian on a whim. His Russian studies were profoundly influenced by his teacher, Natalia Shanska from Odessa, Ukraine, who emphasized immersive learning.

Notable Quote:

"She really took it really, really seriously. And that just showed me kind of how much pride she had in her own profession." [16:09]

Jeremy's immersion in Russia lasted over a year in St. Petersburg, where he lived with a host family and became fluent in the language, reflecting a significant personal transformation.

Military Career

Joining the Army

Inspired by interactions with military officers during his time in Washington, D.C., Jeremy enlisted in the Army in 2014 at the age of 28. He pursued a commission as an officer, completing Basic Training and Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Benning. His determination to shift from a previously lackadaisical lifestyle to a disciplined military role was evident.

Notable Quote:

"My. I just wanted to do it and ran around the woods as a little kid playing army. And just as soon as I could, you know, I played army for the next 20 years after that." [27:00]

EOD Training and Deployments

After OCS, Jeremy specialized in Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), attending a seven-month program in Niceville, Florida. His deployments included missions in Saudi Arabia, Syria, and humanitarian demining operations in Tajikistan. In Syria, he supported counter-ISIS operations, while in Oman, he assisted in addressing chemical threats from the Yemeni conflict.

Notable Quote:

"The Houthis in Yemen were firing these chemical rounds over the border. It was like, where are they getting these chemical rounds?" [46:00]

Transition to the State Department

Upon completing his military service, Jeremy transitioned to the State Department, taking on a role as a defense attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin. His appointment was influenced by his extensive field experience and ability to bridge military and diplomatic efforts. In Berlin, Jeremy navigated complex geopolitical dynamics, including sanctions on Iran and relations with Russia.

Notable Quote:

"The ambassador gave me that job. So, they kind of like finesse this lateral transfer for me to the defense attaché's office at the embassy in Berlin." [63:00]

Information War and Media Perspectives

The latter part of the podcast focuses on the recent attack in southern Israel on October 7th, described by Jocko as the most lethal killing of Jews since the Holocaust. Jeremy analyzes the ensuing information war, highlighting how anti-Israel rhetoric surged globally, particularly in Western media. He contrasts the domestic misinformation campaigns in the U.S. with the more direct propaganda faced overseas, emphasizing the challenges Israel faces in managing its public relations amidst intense scrutiny and political pressure.

Notable Quote:

"When we talk about the information warfare, what you mentioned earlier about the information operations that are happening on all fronts at all times... it's really impacting the way people think." [93:00]

Jeremy discusses the unified political response in Israel post-attack, driven by a surge in popular support for decisive military action against Hamas and Hezbollah. He also critiques the spread of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on both the left and right, linking them to attempts to undermine collective agency and promote divisive ideologies.

Conclusion: Key Takeaways

The episode underscores the intricate interplay between military service, journalism, and diplomacy in shaping public narratives and policy. Jeremy Stern's unique career path offers insights into the mechanisms of information warfare and the pervasive influence of propaganda on global perceptions. The conversation emphasizes the importance of disciplined leadership and objective analysis in navigating complex geopolitical landscapes.

Notable Quote:

"Patriotism and where my family came from and the lives they built for me and in America... there was a genuine connection to those kinds of motivations." [32:26]

Final Thoughts

Jocko Willink and Jeremy Stern conclude by reinforcing the significance of maintaining personal discipline and staying informed amidst global chaos. They encourage listeners to engage critically with information, avoid falling prey to propaganda, and uphold leadership principles that foster resilience and clarity.

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Notable Quotes Summary:

1. "They completely stopped speaking Yiddish or German in the house with my mom and her kids. They did not observe the Sabbath, they did not believe in God, they didn't talk about God." — Jeremy Stern [10:19]

2. "She really took it really, really seriously. And that just showed me kind of how much pride she had in her own profession." — Jeremy Stern [16:09]

3. "My. I just wanted to do it and ran around the woods as a little kid playing army. And just as soon as I could, you know, I played army for the next 20 years after that." — Jeremy Stern [27:00]

4. "The Houthis in Yemen were firing these chemical rounds over the border. It was like, where are they getting these chemical rounds?" — Jeremy Stern [46:00]

5. "When we talk about the information warfare, what you mentioned earlier about the information operations that are happening on all fronts at all times... it's really impacting the way people think." — Jeremy Stern [93:00]

6. "Patriotism and where my family came from and the lives they built for me and in America... there was a genuine connection to those kinds of motivations." — Jeremy Stern [32:26]

These quotes encapsulate the pivotal moments and insights shared during the podcast, providing a glimpse into Jeremy Stern's experiences and perspectives on leadership, information warfare, and personal transformation.

Transcript

[Jocko Willink]

This is Jocko, podcast number 470 with Echo, Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.

[Echo Charles]

Good evening.

[Jocko Willink]

The shocking attack in southern Israel this weekend was the most deadly killing of Jews since the Holocaust. The death toll is worse than the worst day of the Yom Kippur War. It is a massacre that will transform Israel and the Middle East. The scenes of horror and bloodshed that resulted, including the murders of entire families, the kidnapping of small children, the rapes young women, were seemingly intended to cause maximum anger and shock inside Israel. More than one hundred and fifty people were seized by terrorists and taken back into Gaza where they are being held hostage. They include women, very young children and the elderly. In the cruel logic of the region where Israel is located and has been located for several thousand years, Hamas's killing spree was not a repulsive example of the depths of human barbarism. Instead, it was considered a huge win and shredded Israel's vaunted military deterrence. And those right. There are some excerpts obviously written after the October 7 attacks in an article written by Alana Newhouse and Jeremy Stern for Tablet magazine. Alana Newhouse is the editor in chief of that magazine and Jeremy Stern serves as the deputy editor. And Jeremy had an interesting path to that position, serving in the army as an EOD officer, working for the State Department and eventually becoming a journalist. And it's a privilege to have him here with us tonight to share his experiences and lessons learned. Jeremy, thanks for joining us, man.

[Jeremy Stern]

Thanks for having me.

[Jocko Willink]

I guess we're going to get into a bunch of that, you know, going through your, where, how you ended up as the, as the deputy editor at Tablet magazine and some of the things that you've written about there. But let's get to the beginning, the beginning of your life. It's a pretty interesting background. You were born in, where? In the San, in San Fernando. Fernando Valley.

[Jeremy Stern]

That's right. Encino.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. Encino man. And your dad sounds like he's a pretty wild character.

[Jeremy Stern]

He is, yeah. And he, he had a pretty wild life. He, he's 88 now, so he's still around. He had me late in life, but he grew up first in Rochester and then in New York City. His first job out of college was writing on Johnny Carson. He was a comedy writer. And, you know, this is back in the day when I think it was a bit more cutthroat and brutal back then.

[Jocko Willink]

So is it not cutthroat and brutal anymore?

[Jeremy Stern]

Well, I think what I had in mind was did you see the story recently, there's a woman. I think she might be a cast member, but she's definitely a writer. On snl.

[Jocko Willink]

She didn't see it.

[Jeremy Stern]

Gave a story to the New York Times about how, you know, when Elon Musk went on the show, he kind of tore apart the bit that she had written for him. And, you know, it was this big sob story about it. She was traumatized by the fact that he didn't. Funny, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It just, you know, I put that story in front of my dad, and he reminded me of how he got fired from Carson, which was. You remember this woman, Sherry Lewis? You remember her? She had the sock puppet called Lamb Chop. It was a big kind of mainstay of, you know, late night tv.

[Jocko Willink]

Is this in what year? What decades?

[Jeremy Stern]

This would be like the early 60s. Yeah. And anyway, you know, my dad had been on the show for a number of years, and he wrote a bit for this woman. It was literally just a sock puppet that she would tell jokes with. And he got called into Carson's office and he said, you know, what's the problem? Did I do something wrong? And he. And Carson and Sherry Lewis are sitting there and they said, well, no, Tony, we love your jokes. We think they're fantastic. Fantastic. But Lamb Chop has a problem with it. It's literally like a fucking sock puppet. And the sock puppet starts tearing into my dad and fires him. And Carson's like, I'm sorry, the sock puppet's spoken. You're done. It was like, how he got. That's how he got fired.

[Jocko Willink]

So what was next after that?

[Jeremy Stern]

Oh, man. He became like an ad man in New York City. This is kind of the generation now after, you know, Don Draper and Mad Men and all that. So probably more cocaine than alcohol by that point, but still plenty of booze. Anyway, he kind of made his way around. He moved to Mexico for a while, you know, I think got into a bunch of trouble, and then eventually he moved to la.

[Jocko Willink]

What kind of trouble did he get to in Mexico and where in Mexico?

[Jeremy Stern]

So he was in Mexico City, you know, and this is like the seventies by this point. You know, I think it was like. It was a wild time there was.

[Jocko Willink]

Was your dad a hippie? Was he just like a rock and roller? Like, what was the deal?

[Jeremy Stern]

I think the sensibility was a little more rock and roll, but, you know, it was like creative advertising in the 1970s, you know, back and forth between America and Mexico. It was.

[Jocko Willink]

So he had, like, a legit job down there in Mexico.

[Jeremy Stern]

He Did. Yeah, he eventually. So he worked for McCann Erickson, which was a big. In New York, and then eventually for shy at day and in. In la and anyone who's seen the show Mad Men, you know, you kind of recognize those, those two agency names. And then. Yeah, he eventually made it here. He. I have three half siblings. They. We all have the same dad, different mom. But you know, eventually he got divorced and then he married the young secretary, you know, almost 20 years younger than him at his office. And that's my mom.

[Jocko Willink]

And. And then what's your mom do when you were growing up?

[Jeremy Stern]

She was mostly stay at home mom. She worked in some administrative jobs at UCLA and USC up in la. Yeah, that was about it.

[Jocko Willink]

And then your. What's your mom's background then? Where'd she coming from?

[Jeremy Stern]

So she was born and raised in. In la. So her parents were from Vienna. My grandparents, they were Jews in Vienna left in the late 1930s. My grandmother was part of the Kindertransport. You know, if you've heard of that. They. They got to England. They got out in time.

[Jocko Willink]

Wait, so this is your mom? You're sorry, your grandma.

[Jeremy Stern]

This is.

[Jocko Willink]

My grandma was part of the Kindertransport. Was. Was taken out of Germany.

[Jeremy Stern]

Correct.

[Jocko Willink]

And made it to England.

[Jeremy Stern]

A sponsor in England. Right.

[Jocko Willink]

Who.

[Jeremy Stern]

Who took her in? She was still, you know, considered at that point in an alien from an enemy country in wartime England. And then my grandfather. This is actually kind of a crazy story. So he was more of like a street kid. He had his mom, but that was it. He didn't know who his father was. He suspected his father was probably an officer in the Imperial German Army, Wilhelm Main, Germany, who had an affair with his mother during World War I. But he never knew for sure, but all he had was his mom. And he lived in a building in Vienna where, you know, there was only other Jews lived there. And Nazi police came one night, you know, this is 1938, 39. Took all the Jews out of the building, sent them to camps. But there was, I think two Nazi officers who were involved in this raid. And. And one of them recognized my grandfather as the friend of his little brother. He knew him from around the streets, playground, played soccer together, whatever, and so he spared him and let him go. And my grandfather also got to England.

[Jocko Willink]

So how old was your grandfather at this point?

[Jeremy Stern]

So he must have been probably about 15, 16.

[Jocko Willink]

So where did he go?

[Jeremy Stern]

So he made it to Ilkley, north of London, I think in England again, where they kind of held all of these.

[Jocko Willink]

But did he. Did he like E and E to get there or how to get there?

[Jeremy Stern]

That I'm. I'm actually not too sure. I don't think he was part of the official Kindertransport, but I think, you know, he somehow made his way to. First to Portugal and then to southern England, and then, you know, was processed like all the other aliens were, and then up to Ilkley. And his mother was killed in a. She was executed in a camp outside of Minsk in what's now Belarus. And that's all he knew. And then he later was permitted to join the British Army. He was in the artillery stationed in North Africa, and then was part of the invasion of Italy at the boot of Italy. So he was in the Battle of Anzio, which I think included 6,000 allied troops, 4,000 casualties. So it was one of the bloodiest battles of that theater of the war. But he survived. And my grandmother spent the war building tank parts at a factory on the Isle of Man off the coast of England. And they linked up after the war in these kind of Austrian refugee circles and couldn't get a visa to come to America at the time. So they moved to Sosua in the Dominican Republic. Lived on a farm where I think my grandfather would have been happy. You know, he loved raising pigs and chickens and hanging out in the sun, which, you know, you can imagine after everything he just went through. My grandmother was more of a kind of, you know, urban urbanite, Viennese woman. And so they eventually got a visa to come to California and move to la. And so that's where my mom was born.

[Jocko Willink]

And then how'd they make a living in la?

[Jeremy Stern]

My grandfather, he was like odds and ends. He sold rack hair products at malls. He owned a wig store. He was. They were kind of part of this Austrian refugee community in LA in the San Fernando Valley. And a lot of them ended up being pretty successful in business and whatever else. My grandfather never was. That just wasn't who he was. He was just. He was more of a kind of a mensch. He loved hanging like he was a chess grandmaster. He played a lot of soccer. He loved soccer. He loved politics. He. I remember when I was a kid, like, at any given time, he had the names of every senator sitting senator in the US Senate memorized, and he would switch out the information every time there was an election. You know, I don't even know why. I think it was just. It was something. It made him proud to, you know, live in a representative democracy. And he felt like he should actually Know the names of all of his representatives.

[Jocko Willink]

And so, yeah, so then is your mom. Your mom's now a young lady that marries this older dude. How old? How much older did you say?

[Jeremy Stern]

They're 17 years.

[Jocko Willink]

17 years apart. And so she's, she's. Is she raised, like, Jewish, active Jewish, practicing Jewish?

[Jeremy Stern]

No. It was kind of typical of their world, which was these people that had a kind of latent Jewish identity that was important to them and that they wanted to pay some attention to. But, you know, they completely stopped speaking Yiddish or German in the house with my mom and her kids. They did not observe the Sabbath, they did not believe in God, they did not talk about God, they didn't go to synagogue, they didn't send them to Jewish schools, which, you know, again, I think was typical of a lot of the people who survived what they, what they went through. And, you know, their families were killed in the camps and, and all of that.

[Jocko Willink]

That's also just, you know, assimilation. Americans, you know, just. People come to America, it doesn't matter where you come from. There's a lot of people that. I have a friend that was, you know, his dad was. His dad was Mexican. And I'd always be like, oh, you know, when I first met him, we started hanging out. I was like, oh, do you speak Spanish? And he's like, no. And he. And I said, oh, your dad didn't speak Spanish to you? And he goes, no, my dad barely spoke to me because he, his dad didn't want to speak Spanish to his son because he didn't want his son to speak Spanish.

[Jeremy Stern]

Right?

[Jocko Willink]

He wanted his son to speak English, so he didn't speak Spanish to him. He's trying to, like, be American, so there's some of that too.

[Jeremy Stern]

That's exactly right. Yeah. I think that was a big thing. And they sent them to, you know, these public schools that are these, like, assimilation factories. Right? It's just like make, make everybody American as quickly as possible. And it worked, right? That's kind of the, the beauty of the, of the country.

[Jocko Willink]

So, so now you're born, so your dad's, what, 50 something when you're born?

[Jeremy Stern]

He's 52 when I'm born.

[Jocko Willink]

And then what's your. What are you doing growing up?

[Jeremy Stern]

So, yeah, also in the San Fernando Valley, you know, kind of middle class, typical, you know, Jewish kid in la, played a ton of sports, you know, went to basically the same school my whole life with all the same kids.

[Jocko Willink]

What school was it?

[Jeremy Stern]

It's called Oakwood. It was. They had different campuses, but they, you know, they're. They're kindergarten to 12th grade.

[Jocko Willink]

Is it a Jewish school is deserve.

[Jeremy Stern]

No, but it's just regular Jewish kids.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, okay.

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah, just regular school. And, you know, same kind of growing up. I mean, not, you know, some sort of background awareness and pride in coming from a Jewish family, but with zero tradition or observance or anything like that. Right. Which again, is like, you know, it's. It's pretty typical. But it's also typical for, you know, what eventually happened to me, for, you know, the. The grandkids to become more interested in all of this than the parents. Right. Because it's kind of like you just said, you know, so my mom was the one who was. Had the direct connection to the grandparents who didn't want to speak the foreign language. They didn't want to talk about the past. They never talked about the past ever. Right. So for her, it was just. That was her world as the grandkid. You're like one degree removed and you're like, what the fuck is going on there? Like, why don't. Why don't they ever speak about this stuff? How come when I ask my mom questions, she doesn't know the answers, you know? And so, yeah, that's partly where that came from. And I wanted to go visit Vienna, where they came from. I wanted to go to Israel. I got, you know, a little bit interested in it, but most of that actually came later.

[Jocko Willink]

So when you're in high school, what are you doing in high school? What are you into? You playing sports?

[Jeremy Stern]

I played sports for a while. I was really into it. And then, you know, kind of early high school, I ended up smoking a lot of pot. I was into girls. I hated class, you know.

[Jocko Willink]

Again, what kind of music did you listen to?

[Jeremy Stern]

Oh, man, everything. I was really into hip hop. I was really into kind of classic rock, you know. I guess it was all like, fairly typical, like, Jewish kid from la. It was like, you know, Tupac and Biggie and Nas, you know, but it's. Yeah, it was, I would say for a while there. Got pretty lost.

[Jocko Willink]

Did you. Did you have any plan for life? No.

[Jeremy Stern]

Zero.

[Jocko Willink]

Didn't know what you wanted to do?

[Jeremy Stern]

Totally. Zero. I. It was one of those cases where it was just like, I thought that nothing interested in me. And that freaked me out. Right. Once I got to a certain age.

[Jocko Willink]

Then did you say, I better figure out something to interest me real quick?

[Jeremy Stern]

Honestly, the way it happened, it didn't really come together until I went to college. So I went to college in Ohio, in kind of rural Ohio.

[Jocko Willink]

Did you have a plan going there? Were you going to study anything in particular?

[Jeremy Stern]

No, I. I mean, I had no idea. I thought maybe I would study English because it sounded easy. I mean, the one thing I like doing was reading. I like reading books. I liked. Particularly I liked reading novels and reading history. That was, you know, one thing I could kind of. You know, it's how I like to spend my time. But I. I knew even then there's, like, there's no future in that. There's no money in it. There's no, you know, you can't build a life on that. But I had to satisfy a language requirement when I was in college because I didn't get good enough grades in high school. Spanish.

[Jocko Willink]

So I'm from SoCal. And you didn't roll out with the freaking Spanish.

[Jeremy Stern]

I know. It's fucking embarrassing.

[Jocko Willink]

Three or whatever.

[Jeremy Stern]

Exactly.

[Jocko Willink]

You know, you were smoking too much dope.

[Jeremy Stern]

Exactly. So.

[Jocko Willink]

So what. What language you pick?

[Jeremy Stern]

So I just picked Russian, just on a whim. I was like, whatever, that sounds weird and cool, and, you know, it's super different from Spanish, which now I hate because I did so badly in it, and. And that's when it changed. I just. I. Total luck of the draw. The woman who. Who taught that Russian class, her name was Natalia Shanska. She was from Odessa in Ukraine. And she just became, like, the single biggest person in my life up until that point. Just an incredible woman, brilliant mind, amazing teacher, and she took an interest in me for whatever reason.

[Jocko Willink]

How long did it take you to figure out that she was awesome?

[Jeremy Stern]

Oh, first day of class.

[Jocko Willink]

So what'd you do first day of class that made you realize that?

[Jeremy Stern]

I think it was. You could tell how seriously she took the subject and that she didn't care. She cared enough about tests and grades and, you know, to kind of help you along in your future. But you could tell she wasn't impressed by kids who could get good grades but still didn't have any kind of real command of the language or ability to speak or read. She really took it really, really seriously. And that just showed me kind of how much pride she had in her own profession. Right. So it wasn't even at first. It wasn't even just that I, like, fell in love with a Russian. It was just, she's the first person I saw where I was like, man, she figured out what she loved, and she does it, and she takes it seriously every day. And she was the same every day. She was never, like, tired or pissy or moody or whatever. Like every single day. Which I'm sure in her own life she had all that, right? She had good days and bad days, but she never showed it.

[Jocko Willink]

And was it like an immersion situation? Because I. Well, so I. I took Spanish in college. And when I took Spanish in college, like, you'd go in and they wouldn't speak any English to you, you know, like the whole time. And yeah, I was, by the way, I was an old. I was 28 years old when I went to college because the Navy sent me to college. So, you know, I roll in there and I was like, just please just tell me in English what page to go to and stuff like that. Was it that scenario?

[Jeremy Stern]

Not quite. I mean, I. I know the kinds of programs you're talking about. I mean, once we kind of learn the Alphabet and we learn basic stuff, she would try to do it as much as possible. Her bigger thing was pushing everybody to go to Russia and spend time there and get out of Ohio for their junior year, go spend 1, 2, 3 semesters. There's. That was her big thing. She was like, I'm just going to give you the building blocks, but you're going to show up there and you're, you know, even though you've taken two years of Russian, you're going to get there and you're not going to understand anything that anyone's saying. So even if you get A's in my class, you're not going to understand a fucking thing. But you'll have some sort of framework to build off of. And that's what she pushed me to do, and that's what I did. I went and lived in Russia for a little over a year.

[Jocko Willink]

So what were you majoring in at this point?

[Jeremy Stern]

Russian.

[Jocko Willink]

So you majored in Russian?

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah, Russian language and literature. I took some other classes too, but that was the only thing I cared about.

[Jocko Willink]

So you end up going to where in Russia?

[Jeremy Stern]

St. Petersburg.

[Jocko Willink]

And how long. How many semesters did you do there?

[Jeremy Stern]

Like two and a half. It was like two semesters plus a summer.

[Jocko Willink]

So like a full year? Yeah, one full year. What was the living scenario?

[Jeremy Stern]

I lived with this little old lady who were lived in this huge, giant Stalinist 1950s apartment complex at the edge of town on the Finnish Sea. I mean, it was like way out in the boonies and, you know, Russia everywhere is like, pretty up and the infrastructure sucks and like, you know, it's just kind of a slog to get through it. But this was like, you know, a few degrees Removed from that. And she had a son in the. In the Russian Navy who would pop in and out, you know, every once in a while. But, yeah, it was. So this was a real, you know, language immersion program because she didn't speak a word of English, and they just, you know, I was, what, 19, and they just threw me in her apartment. It was just me and her.

[Jocko Willink]

How long did it take you to start adapting to that lifestyle?

[Jeremy Stern]

It. You know, I mean, there are things that are in. In Russia that are cool, you know, for. For young American especially. I think if you're a guy that's kind of hard drinking, the people seem kind of rough, you know, but it's got all this incredible history. People are obsessed with, you know, literature and movies and music and. And whatever else.

[Jocko Willink]

Wrestling and weightlifting.

[Jeremy Stern]

Wrestling and weightlifting. And so that you can adapt to pretty quick. This was also, you know, is there a party scene?

[Jocko Willink]

Because you're 19 years old.

[Jeremy Stern]

Huge.

[Jocko Willink]

And are you, like, the richest guy in the world because you're an American?

[Jeremy Stern]

No, because, I mean, you're a junior in college, so you got, like, 14 bucks in your bank account. So I made money teaching English to Russian students. That was how I got my, you know, my drinking money. But it's, you know, it was a different Russia, too. This was 2009, 2010. So this is when Medvedev is the president. Putin's technically the prime minister. I mean, this is all like a facade. You know, it's all fake. But it was still, you know, Putin had been in power for less than 10 years. People still had a memory of the 1990s and the total chaos and the corruption of the Yeltsin years. You know, Putin comes in. In the early 2000s, American and Western petroleum engineers had gone to Russia and basically turned around the entire oil and gas industry. So they're getting hundreds of billions of dollars of extra revenue that they hadn't been getting throughout the Soviet Union. And so, you know, I think Putin's probably a smart guy, but anyone would have done well in that scenario. So there's a lot of extra cash flowing around that had never been there. There's McDonald's and Burger King on every corner for the first time. It was just kind of an optimistic time before, you know, it took a turn later.

[Jocko Willink]

And then how many. Like, what's your schedule? Are you going to class there? What are you doing?

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah, I'd say for the first semester, you're going to class every day. And then as it wears on, you're kind of like, you know, you, you develop a close group of Russian friends, and you're like, I learned more just shooting the. With them every day then going to class. And so, you know, there's an increasing amount of goofing off.

[Jocko Willink]

And so you had taken two years of Russian enrollment when you got there.

[Jeremy Stern]

That's right.

[Jocko Willink]

And could you understand what was happening when you got there?

[Jeremy Stern]

Barely.

[Jocko Willink]

And then how long did it take before you were. It took a good conversational. Then how long was it before you're like, yeah, I can speak this.

[Jeremy Stern]

Oh, man. I mean, probably about a year until.

[Jocko Willink]

I was like thinking in Russian, think.

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah, maybe dreaming. Having dreams where it's unclear in the morning when you wake up which language it was in. You know, I had friends visit me who were, you know, coming in from Ohio, and I could fully translate between them and my Russian friends, totally fluent, could read the newspapers every day. That took like a full year.

[Jocko Willink]

Now, as you're. You spent a year there, did you have to go back to one more year in Ohio when you got done with that?

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah, that's right.

[Jocko Willink]

And then do you start seeing what your future is going to be? Do you have a plan yet?

[Jeremy Stern]

No, still nothing. I was like, okay, so now I've got. I like reading books and I like speaking Russian. That's it. So, like, what the am I gonna do with that? No, I mean, at that point, I was applying to jobs at Whole Foods, and I was dating a girl from New Orleans, and I thought she got a job at a, at a magazine in D.C. and I followed her and I was like, I'll work at the market down the street or whatever. But I, I eventually got a job at a magazine that existed then called the American Interest, which is a quarterly political magazine.

[Jocko Willink]

And what was your job?

[Jeremy Stern]

I was like a research assistant.

[Jocko Willink]

What do you make doing that?

[Jeremy Stern]

$30,000 a year.

[Jocko Willink]

$30,000 a year. And you, you're working an eight hour day, they're saying, hey, I'm gonna do a story about blah, blah, blah. Can you give me the background between this election here that took place in Russia or whatever?

[Jeremy Stern]

Exactly.

[Jocko Willink]

And then you sit there, give them a bunch of notes, given a bunch.

[Jeremy Stern]

Of notes, and then, you know, like, eventually you can do some of your own writing, and then if that's good enough, you can impress some older people who take an interest in your future. And that's kind of what happened. But I was, I was living in D.C. and then partially in New York, and it was in D.C. when I.

[Jocko Willink]

What was going on in New York.

[Jeremy Stern]

I was Kind of commuting back.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay, got it, got it.

[Jeremy Stern]

But it was in D.C. i met some retired army officers for the first time. I, you know, never met anyone in the military, really. I mean, other than my grandfather fighting in World War II. Like, zero military experience from anywhere in my family. But in D.C. you know, a lot of people come through, as, you know, So I met a lot of people, and I found that really interesting. And I like talking to them, and I was really impressed by them. And I also saw what happened to people who kind of moved to D.C. after college and then never left and get a job at a think tank and work your way in and out of government and you become a lobbyist and whatever. And that. Actually, that was the first point, I think, that I got freaked out about what the future could look like if I didn't do something different.

[Jocko Willink]

So how. Like, what kind of progress did you make in the writing world or in the research world? Like, did you ever. Did you publish anything? Did you get any articles or were you just doing research? Thank you.

[Jeremy Stern]

I published a couple. Yeah, right. I published a couple articles, I think. But the main thing was that I ended up developing a relationship with this guy, Walter Russell Meadow. So now he writes the main foreign policy column for the Wall Street Journal. He's an author and historian. He's a really great and brilliant guy. And so there's kind of a developing theme here of identifying mentors throughout your life. Right. So the first was the Russian teacher. Walter became the second. And so I had done just enough work to catch his attention or to allow him to take some sort of interest in me, not floundering and having no future. And that ended up being a big. A big help.

[Jocko Willink]

Now, did you. At what point did these officers encourage you to just join the army and get out of D.C. it wasn't even that.

[Jeremy Stern]

I mean, no one kind of pushed it on me. I was just. I was impressed. You know, I think it was that background of having felt like I squandered some of my high school years smoking dope and being an idiot, being an idiot and chasing girls and not paying attention in class and. And all of that, given the opportunities that I had. I think it was the first time that I realized, like, okay, it's not necessarily too late. Like, it's too late to relive all of that, but there are ways that you can live your life where you figure this out at, you know, at this point. I'm, what, 21? Yeah, 22. So it's not necessarily too late. To, like, make something of myself and to go on another adventure and to do that kind of thing.

[Jocko Willink]

The military really is a. Such a nice place, an opportunity for people to go. And it's like, you get a clean slate. Here's the track. Get on this track. Doesn't matter where you are, you're. You will instantly become a respectable contributor to society. The minute you show up and you enlist, you're going to be, oh, this person's a contributing human. You can be from a degenerate to that next day. You're a respectable human being. Which is. Which is kind of freaking awesome, honestly, if you think about it.

[Jeremy Stern]

That's right. Did you always know you wanted to go in?

[Jocko Willink]

Yes.

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah. And what were your reasons back then? Like, what would you have said when you were 18?

[Jocko Willink]

When. See, it's. I would normally throw a question back at you, like, when you were a little kid, what did you want to do? But seems like you didn't want to do anything. But most people, like, oh, I wanted to be a movie star or a rock star or a firefighter or a banker or whatever. And most people have that. I literally just wanted to be a commando carrying a machine gun. So when I figured out that you could get paid money to be a commando and carry machine gun, I was like, where do I sign up for this? I'm in. That's literally what I always wanted to do. You know, my. My mom is like. My mom showed me this piece of paper I filled out in, like, fourth or fifth grade or something, and it was like, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I was like, soldier spelled wrong. You know, something like that. Because I was a little kid. So, yeah, I just always wanted to do it and ran around the woods as a little kid playing army. And just as soon as I could, you know, I played army for the next 20 years after that, which was a good time.

[Jeremy Stern]

But you came across a lot of people, I assume, where it was kind of like they needed a fresh start or they were running away from something.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, yeah. You know, there's a common story. Yeah, very common story. That's why I brought it up. You know, I brought it up because you meet so many people in the military. It's like, oh, what were you doing? Oh, you know, I just quit college. I just got kicked out of college. I just, you know, graduated high school, was working into, you know, digging ditches or whatever, or I, you know, had a DUI charge coming my way. And there's a lot of people, like, that there's also people that's like, oh, well, you know, I figured I could learn a trade or whatever. You know, the Navy is, the Navy is very blue collar industrial work. Like, if you join the Navy, you can be a diesel mechanic, you can be an aviation mechanic, you can be a fuel guy. Like, there's all these technical jobs that you can get in the Navy where they just transfer over to the civilian sector. And it doesn't seem, at least when you're probably looking at the brochure for the Navy, you're like, well, I want to be a diesel mechanic. And that guy looks like he's just in a shop working on a diesel engine. Okay, cool. Whereas in the army, you might see a guy you want to be a diesel mechanic in the army, you're like, wait, why is that guy carrying a machine gun? And he's out in the middle of desert somewhere? So that might not seem as appealing feeling for someone that wants like a blue collar industrial job. So. But you meet a lot of people like that in the Navy, and, and yeah, you just get that reset button. So I think for me, it was what I always wanted to do. And I'm very, you know, it's weird because I always encourage, I, I'm cautious to encourage people to join the military because I know for their first, like three weeks of boot camp, they're going to hate me because you didn't say nothing about this. But I think eventually people that do go in the military feel like they made a good move. And I will say, here's a question that I've gotten more confident answering over the years is people used to say, well, you know, I'm thinking about doing it, but I'm also thinking about whatever, you know, going, getting my next promotion or finishing college or starting college or getting my doctorate or getting my master's. And I'm always like, you know, you can always do that. You can always get your master's, you can always get your doctorate, you can always go and work for this finance company. I'm like, the military window is pretty closed. And I would go so far as to say it's a lot easier to go do that when you're 18 years old than when you're 23 years old or 25 years old. Like, even you're talking about going to live in St. Petersburg, Russia in an apartment. I'm thinking about that right now. I would rather go to boot camp than go live with some random woman in St. Petersburg, Russia, in a Stalin flat. You know, like that does not appeal to me at all. Eating Russian food, which I don't even know what that consists of. That's so.

[Jeremy Stern]

It's even worse than whatever you're picturing.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, that's what I'm, that's what I'm saying. Like, none of that appeals to me. If I would have done it when I was 18 or 19, like, cool. You just suck it up. Kind of like you, you know, you suck up boot camp and you suck up all the. Whatever junk things you have to do when you're getting indoctrinated in the military. But I would. That's why I recommend to people now. Like, yeah, if you, if you're thinking you have that itch, I would do it. And the other thing is I meet people all the time that tell me, I wish I would have joined. I wish I would have joined. I wish I would have joined. I've met very, very few people, very few people that have told me, I wish I never would have joined. Even friends of mine that have been, like, wounded, badly, they're never like, I never. I wish I never would have joined. No, they're happy, they joined. So I lean towards. I've been, I've gotten more confident over the years of answering the question, you know, I'm thinking about join during the military. Should I do it? My answer's pretty much like, yes. Occasionally I'll get someone that's like, hey, I'm 31 years old, I have a wife and three kids and a phenomenal business, and I bring in six figures and I really want to join the army. I'm like, check the reserves out. So anyways, that's how, that's how it ends up. Yes, that's what I wanted to do. But there was. So you're looking at the world, you're meeting these officers, and you realize that you've squandered much of your talent with smoking pot and chasing girls. And you decide, I'm gonna go and join the Army.

[Jeremy Stern]

That's right. And, you know, I, I had some better reasons too. Like, you know, I. Authentic feelings of patriotism and where my family came from and the lives they built for me and in America. And, you know, there was a genuine connection to those kinds of motivations.

[Jocko Willink]

Where were you when 9, 11 happened?

[Jeremy Stern]

I was like a little kid, seventh grade.

[Jocko Willink]

So it's, you know, do you have, do you remember much of it?

[Jeremy Stern]

I remember my. So, yeah, I grew up on the west coast. So this was, you know, 7:00 in the morning or so, right? Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, I was like that.

[Jeremy Stern]

I think I remember getting in the car with this, you know, this girl who was in 12th grade who drove, you know, a bunch of little kids to school for carpool. And we hadn't turned on the TV in my house before I'd left when I was eating breakfast or whatever. So by the time we got in her car, the first tower was already hit. And then we were in the car listening to the radio when the second tower was hit. And at that point, you know, there's kind of no cell phones at this point still. So at that point, we. She took us back to her house so we could just basically flip on the tv. And our parents were calling her parents, and they were like, bring everybody home. So then she, you know, she rounded all the kids up, and then she dropped us off one after another. And then I think I just spent the rest of the day watching it on TV with my parents. Where were you? So you were in the Navy?

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, it was actually. I was going to college, and I was driving to college, and they're like, oh, airplane hit one of the World Trade Centers. And I was like, oh, you know, I did. I literally didn't think much of it. I figure a Cessna, you know, guy confused, foggy, whatever. And then I went to a couple classes. I went to a class, and they were like, oh, no, it was a big airplane. I was like, oh, that's freaking crazy. And then, you know, the second tower got hit, and two and two. And I knew we were going to war. That's some very close juncture. And now it's now when. So now when you're thinking about going to the army, it's what, 2013? 2014.

[Jeremy Stern]

That's right. So it's about 2013, when I'm thinking about it, seriously. Signed my contract in 2014. So this is in the kind of sequestration days, in the kind of middle of the second Obama term. So it was actually, you know, I expected to sign the contract, and two weeks later, I'd ship out. But it was like eight months until I got a slot for basic. Right. Because there's just no money and there was no slots, and they were trying to get rid of people. Right. People were getting pink slips.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. And did you. Did you enlist to be an officer?

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah, so I went to get that.

[Jocko Willink]

Kind of contract or whatever.

[Jeremy Stern]

That's right. So it was in my contract that after basic, assuming I made it through, that I would go to OCS at Fort Benning, and I went to basic at Fort Benning as well.

[Jocko Willink]

Oddly enough, I never realized that they did that until very recently. That if you. Because in the, in the Navy, you don't go to Navy boot camp, you go straight to ocs. And in the army, if you're gonna be an officer, you go to boot camp first and then you go to ocs.

[Jeremy Stern]

That's right.

[Jocko Willink]

And it's actually pretty cool.

[Jeremy Stern]

And if you get injured or you wash out or something happens at basic, then you're enlisted for those three and a half years.

[Jocko Willink]

What if you're just a turd?

[Jeremy Stern]

If you're. If you're just a turd, you become an 88 mike and you drive a truck as a private and doesn't matter if you have a, you know, if you have a college degree or whatever.

[Jocko Willink]

So if you're con. Are you getting judged while you're in basic training?

[Jeremy Stern]

I mean, I guess you are. You have to be a real turd to wash out that bad. OCS is really kind of the bigger filter, and some serious turds make it through there as well. But it's. Yeah. I mean, basic. I. I mean, this is 2014. By that point. It's like. I mean, everybody's getting through.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, right. Are you, when you're going through there, are you identified as an ocs, like.

[Jeremy Stern]

And the drill sergeants don't like that.

[Jocko Willink]

They don't like it.

[Jeremy Stern]

No. They give you a lot of.

[Jocko Willink]

How many people are in your. What are you in a company with, like, 150 guys in your boot camp?

[Jeremy Stern]

So it was more than that. So you're in a platoon with, you know, I think 39.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay.

[Jeremy Stern]

So it's, you know, how many guys.

[Jocko Willink]

In there are going to OCS?

[Jeremy Stern]

Very few. So in my platoon of about 40 guys, probably five or six, do they.

[Jocko Willink]

Put you in charge of things?

[Jeremy Stern]

They. Yeah, they. They mostly do. And they try to get you to kind of compete against each other and they pit you against each other to vie for the loyalty of the. The lower enlisted guys.

[Jocko Willink]

Dang mind games. So that's what happens. You end up. You enlist, you go and. Did you. Did you do a contract to get eod?

[Jeremy Stern]

No, they didn't have anything like that. The way that worked was. So you go to basic training, you go to ocs. Towards the ends of ocs, they have you ranked. I can't remember how many. I think there's about 80 people in our class. They have you literally ranked one through 80. There's a guy with his name next to the number 80, and, you know, there's a Guy with his name next to number one. And they get the available slots from, you know, army personnel headquarters in Fort Knox or whatever. And they say, we have 17 infantry slots. We have 100 logistics slots. We have whatever. And then you get up on a stage and you go 1 through 80, and you pick what you got. And there's like a. There's a board up behind you showing what's getting taken, right? So, yeah, a lot of the. A lot of people wanted intelligence for whatever. You know, military intelligence for whatever reason. That was, like, a really popular one. There was only, like, one or two slots. You know, most of the guys towards the top of the class, I would say, wanted infantry. But one thing you could do is get a seat for EOD school. So it was not guaranteed even by that point. So that's what I selected. I wanted to go to EOD school.

[Jocko Willink]

How did your Russian language. How did you not get put into a slot? They go, hey, we've got a fluent Russian linguist.

[Jeremy Stern]

It was like, typical army.

[Jocko Willink]

Just didn't care.

[Jeremy Stern]

Whatever. It was like, oh, you speak Russian. We can teach you Korean. Like, you know, oh, you speak Korean. We can teach you Arabic. Like, it's. You know, that kind of thing. Especially at that level. Your second lieutenant, they're trying to teach you basically how to spend a career in the Army.

[Jocko Willink]

How did you do an ocs?

[Jeremy Stern]

I did okay. Yeah. I was in the top, I think, 12 or 13 of the class. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

So any. Any thing that shocked you, do you have any challenges with anything?

[Jeremy Stern]

I got, like, a pretty serious ankle injury, and that was just kind of. I would. The reason I think of that is because, you know, you gotta basically take a pause while you heal up, or else you're not gonna pass any of the physical fitness requirements, Land navigation, anything like that. And they basically just put you, like, in a cell with some other injured dudes waiting. And that's like, you have a lot of time.

[Jocko Willink]

Are you rolled back? Are you. It's your class moving on. And now you're.

[Jeremy Stern]

That's right, your class moves on. And then when you're all healed, you. You pick right back up. And that's where you just have a lot of time to think about, like, what am I doing? Like, I'm sitting here. My girlfriend is back home. I'm just sitting around doing nothing. I'm not progressing in class. I'm not getting to, you know. Do you school quickly enough? So that was like, a good time to just kind of take stock of everything.

[Jocko Willink]

How did you like it when you Got in the army. Coming from your freaking dope, smoking, lackadaisical attitude, it was great, man.

[Jeremy Stern]

Like, I. I mean, the most fun part about it was, I mean, other than the obvious. Right, right. I think anyone who's seen a movie about the military has a sense of, like, there is a fun element to basic training, but the best part was like, you know, I came from this super hippie, liberal, progressive, dyed in the wool blue Los Angeles upbringing, and I didn't, like, know my own country at all was how I felt. And I was in a room with 39, 38 other dudes from all over the country, mostly from pretty poor, rural backgrounds. Not all by any means, but a lot of them, you know, different races and religions. You know, it's kind of. It's kind of. The cliche is accurate. And it was just so much fun. Right? It's like you get to know everybody. Everyone, like, I mean, for the most part, everyone finds ways to get along, at least you know, as much as you need to get through the course. And, like, I just love that. It was like, it felt like, you know, it was like an education in my own country that I, you know, I had. I never had before.

[Jocko Willink]

So you were. You were into it?

[Jeremy Stern]

I loved it. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Dang.

[Jeremy Stern]

I kind of hit my stride. It was, you know, I. I got really into fitness for the first time in my life. I got, you know, I loved working out, like, several hours a day with other friends, and I got really into, like, studying all the infantry doctrine. And I. EOD was this thing that I heard about the Hurt Locker came out. At the time, I was like, that seems cool.

[Jocko Willink]

So, yeah, Locker supposed to be Army. Was that Army?

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah, that's right.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay, check. And so you saw that, and you're like, yo.

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah. I mean, it's a ridiculous movie. But yeah, at the time, I was like, that seems cool.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. And. But you mentioned your girlfriend, but this is actually before you left for boot camp, you had met up or linked up with one of your old high school friends or something like that.

[Jeremy Stern]

This is now my wife. Life.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. We.

[Jeremy Stern]

We'd known each other in high school, but she just, you know, before I went to basic, I. I guess that's the point at which I really started taking fitness seriously. And I, you know, I didn't know at the time they get you into shape of basic training. But, you know, I. I spent. Because, you know, there was eight months between when I signed the contract when I got to go to Fort Benning. I had all this time on My hands. And so I just spent a while working out, and my wife heard, I think, from a mutual high school friend, like, oh, Jeremy got Jack act. So she just, like, hit me up on Facebook or whatever it was back then. And we linked up, and now we have. In two weeks, we'll have three kids.

[Jocko Willink]

Nice. Nice. So you get done with basic, you get done with the ocs, and now you go. Now you go into EOD school.

[Jeremy Stern]

That's right.

[Jocko Willink]

And how long is EOD school?

[Jeremy Stern]

So. Well, I guess so after ocs, you go to Fort Lee in Virginia, because EOD is technically part of the Ordinance Directorate, which is logistics. But anyway, so you go there. So even at that point, it's not guaranteed, and this was pretty fucking scary because you have to go to an EOD board. So what I selected at OCS was the right to go see the EOD board, which still reserved the right to say no. And if they said no, I would have been part of Ordinance Logistics, which I probably would have crushed my soul. But I was fortunate enough to make it through the board. And then after that, yeah, they send you to EOD School, which all. All the services go to the same EOD school in. In Niceville, Florida, about 45 minutes away from Pensacola.

[Jocko Willink]

It's a Navy school. Right.

[Jeremy Stern]

It's run by the Navy. It's closest to Eglin Air Force Base, but, yeah, the Navy runs the school.

[Jocko Willink]

And how long was that school?

[Jeremy Stern]

Seven months. It's a long.

[Jocko Willink]

And it's mostly academic. Right.

[Jeremy Stern]

There's a. There's a very large academic component to it in the sense that towards the beginning, you spend a lot of time learning the history of explosives and the science behind the explosives and the development of them. You know, EOD kind of starts in. In World War II. The British invented it, right. Because they had all these time delay German bombs falling in London. They had to figure out how to diffuse them and dispose of them before they blew up.

[Jocko Willink]

Since the beginning of the SEAL teams as well, because it was an American Guy, Draper, that was over there that was volunteering to do that because he couldn't get into the American Navy because of his eyesight being too bad. And so he had volunteered, and that's why he was over there doing that. And he did that job, and he eventually came back to America. They led him in the Navy. He did that in Hawaii. Disarmed a bomb. It's pretty. It's an amazing story. But it did start with that EOD right there.

[Jeremy Stern]

Insane.

[Jocko Willink]

Yep. Solving those problems.

[Jeremy Stern]

Those guys are nuts. I mean, they were literally like tying ropes to fuses in, you know, 500 pound fragmentation bombs and tying the rope around their waist and like running to try to get it to pop out nuts.

[Jocko Willink]

And then how was that school for you? Any, any issues at that school? Any challenges?

[Jeremy Stern]

I mean, it was pretty challenging. I didn't have any kind of like formal engineering background. I didn't know anything about electrical engineering or chemical engineering or anything like that, you know, let alone a lot of this hands on explosive work. But again, it was awesome. I loved it. And that one's cool because all of the, the classes are not separated by, by branch. You're sailors and airmen and marines and.

[Jocko Willink]

Soldiers and enlisted and officers altogether.

[Jeremy Stern]

Correct.

[Jocko Willink]

How is, what's the physical part like?

[Jeremy Stern]

It's not.

[Jocko Willink]

Nothing crazy.

[Jeremy Stern]

No, you just have to keep meeting the minimum demands of your, of your, whatever branch you're in, except if you want to. There's certain, at least in the army there were certain elite level. Like EOD is a bit different in the Navy. Like I think it's part of all of EOD is part of special operations in the Army. That's where their funding comes from. But there's plenty of just conventional vanilla EOD teams that attach to these brigade combat teams, you know, these giant infantry formations. If you wanted to make it into special Forces or you know, do kind of like AOB support, there was, you know, different physical fitness requirements for that.

[Jocko Willink]

So you get done with that and then what's your first, what's your first real job?

[Jeremy Stern]

So I'm at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, and I was an XO Company XO first and I was a platoon leader second. And then November 2017 is when we deployed.

[Jocko Willink]

So you go, you show up there, your company XO and then you get put in charge of a platoon.

[Jeremy Stern]

Right? It's a little backwards.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, that was a little backwards. And now you go on your first deployment and it's 2017. You said, what did you guys deploy to?

[Jeremy Stern]

So it was a kind of rotation. So at this point, you know, this is towards this end of 2017, there's.

[Jocko Willink]

So Missoul it's going on and stuff like that.

[Jeremy Stern]

There's, I mean, most of the people I knew out there was, they were just like sitting around. There wasn't a ton, but. Yeah. So in Syria there was at Altamf Garrison, you know, a couple hours from the Iraqi and Jordanian borders. There were EOD teams running soft support out there. And you know, they were supporting these ODAs who at that point Were doing mostly like capture kill missions and counter ISIS and all of that de mining, you know, getting rid of IEDs from residential areas, all that kind of stuff. So that was the only kinetic environment that was live at the time. Everything else was. There was running EOD support in Saudi Arabia. So there was only two EOD teams, Army EOD teams running EOD support for the US Military and all of Saudi Arabia, which is like over 2 million square kilometers. So not enough people. And there was these humanitarian demining missions in, in Tajikistan. There was. There was some. This was actually kind of weird. We showed up in Salalah in Oman, which is near the Yemeni border. And the war in Yemen was active at the time. And the Houthis in Yemen were firing these chemical rounds over the border. It was like, where the. Are they getting these chemical rounds? So they called in EOD teams to clean up all that. So that was kind of. And then there was, you know, the command was sitting around in Kuwait. And so we deployed as a company. But EOD teams technically, you know, they deploy as like detachments to either A Special Forces units or to larger infantry units. And we just all kind of rotated throughout.

[Jocko Willink]

So what was your first gig? What was it? Which one did you do first?

[Jeremy Stern]

Saudi Arabia.

[Jocko Willink]

So you're in Saudi Arabia. What's your op tempo in Saudi Arabia? I mean, this is like the only. That sounds like there's not much going on.

[Jeremy Stern]

There was not much going on. I mean, the only thing was the Houthis were firing these, these Birkin II ballistic missiles at the airfields. So King Khalid, you know, some of the times they would dud fire. EOD would go and clean them up or you do the kind of post blast analysis. But it was. There was no mystery, right? We knew, we knew where they're coming from. Yemen. And yeah, we do kind of like bomb support stuff for the US Embassy. Sometimes the seals who were based, I think in Bahrain, they'd be training up in northern Saudi Arabia, and we'd go up and do some training with them. But that was basically it.

[Jocko Willink]

And then what. What about Syria? Did you get to go to Syria?

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah, I mean, briefly. You know, it's. There was the first unit that went in. Everyone was TDY at that point. So people would do. There was one unit that did. Or one detachment that did like 180 day rotation. And then everyone else was like 30 days and that was, you know, they had this AOB where the, the special.

[Jocko Willink]

So you're saying your rotation was going to be 30 days?

[Jeremy Stern]

That's right. And, you know, by that time, it was like they had captured a bunch of like, dishka machine guns from, you know, the Russian supported whatever forces they were fighting. They bring them back. We'd set up dishka positions and so.

[Jocko Willink]

Were you on, like, a little FOB somewhere?

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah. So this is like, where.

[Jocko Willink]

Where were you?

[Jeremy Stern]

This is like, near Altam Garrison. So at this fob, I was only there for like a couple of weeks. And then.

[Jocko Willink]

Were you freaking hyped to be there?

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah, I mean, it was the only other. I mean, the. The best part of the deployment was this demining mission in Tajikistan. They had this.

[Jocko Willink]

Let's finish Syria first. So you're in Syria. Is it. Does it feel like you're in the wild West? Because I. I didn't never went to Syria. And what was the. Like, how much, how much infrastructure did the US have there?

[Jeremy Stern]

Very little. I mean, the funny thing about this is, like, at the time, Trump is president and he's trying to pull US Forces out of Syria. So you get notifications like, we're gonna blow up this AOB and we're gonna get out of here. We're gonna blow up the FOB and get rid of everything because Trump's pulling out. And then, like, he'd somehow get, like, vetoed by the national security bureaucracy is like, all right, take it all down. We're staying.

[Jocko Willink]

They slow rolled him. Yeah, insanely.

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

It's crazy that that happened.

[Jeremy Stern]

It was crazy. And I mean, the other crazy thing is, you know, it was all these counter ISIS missions. I mean, ISIS was kind of the, you know, the opponent of the Assad regime, which just fell. And so a lot of what the Americans were doing there were de confliction with the Iran, the Iranians, and the Russian Air Force. Right. Trying to stay out of each other's way. So, you know, again, I don't want to oversell my participation in a lot of these. These larger events because I serve with guys who did, you know, some. Some serious work. But there was kind of a feeling there that it was like, you know, no one feels conflicted about, you know, getting rid of isis, but it felt like it was kind of in the service of keeping the. The other bad guys, you know, in position there. So, yeah, there was a lot of that, but I mean, as a platoon leader, it was a lot of.

[Jocko Willink]

I just saw some meme about, like, who's winning in Syria right now? The people that are supported by the Pentagon or the people that are supported by the CIA. It's like, it's Freaking ridiculous.

[Jeremy Stern]

Have you seen that, that meme? It's like the Iron Dome missiles and the, and the rockets coming in from Gaza. And it's like my tax dollars somehow. Also my tax dollars.

[Jocko Willink]

Freaking crazy.

[Jeremy Stern]

Kind of like that.

[Jocko Willink]

That's exactly what's happening. Right, but so when you're there. So the amount of infrastructure, was it like how many people are this little fob that you're on?

[Jeremy Stern]

Less than 30.

[Jocko Willink]

So less than 30Americans.

[Jeremy Stern]

There's some basic workout equipment. There's these, you know, little kind of.

[Jocko Willink]

Like plywood and the odat. This is a special forces team that's there.

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah, they're the ones running.

[Jocko Willink]

And they're, they've been there for months.

[Jeremy Stern]

Yes.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay.

[Jeremy Stern]

And they would also rotate it in and out pretty frequently.

[Jocko Willink]

But you're coming in there just to support them.

[Jeremy Stern]

Correct.

[Jocko Willink]

And hang out.

[Jeremy Stern]

I was there to support my EOD who are supporting the.

[Jocko Willink]

Got it. So you show up and these guys are running stuff and you're just there happy. Like a little war. War tourist, basically. That's very accurate. Is it? Did you get to do anything cool at all besides man, a dishka on the, on the freaking on the wall or anything?

[Jeremy Stern]

You know, it was like there was a lot of post blast analysis, you know, when they would, they would get into. I mean, I think in the whole time we were there, there was one big firefight where there was, you know, they eliminated like 11 ISIS guys, captured 13. They were all wearing SFS, you know, so we'd kind of disable those, bring them back, do some post blast analysis.

[Jocko Willink]

Did you disable them with robots? Did you, how did you disable those guys?

[Jeremy Stern]

No, I mean most of those are like really rudimentary. It's like there's, you know, somewhere in the circuit there's some deck cord and it's like bright and red and it's sticking out and you know what it is, right? And like in EOD school they teach you well, there could possibly be a wire running through the deck. Like no one does that. You know, it's, it's too, it's too hard, it's too complicated. Those guys would blow themselves up trying to make them.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah.

[Jeremy Stern]

So no, it's just like you come up with. Yeah. Ceramic scissors and cut the deck cord and that's that. Yeah. And then they had a bunch of, you know, anti tank and anti personnel mines buried around in the desert, but you know, that kind of stuff too. It's like you've got an EOT team who goes and clears it First.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. How hyped are you when you first, like, defused something because you went through. I'm just thinking, you go through all this school. I mean, I'm just thinking about myself. Like, the first time I kicked in a door, yeah, I was like, oh, thankfully I got to kick in a door. You know what I mean? Like, been training my whole life to kick in a door and finally got to kick in a door. So the first time you get to defuse something, you must have been hyped for sure.

[Jeremy Stern]

I mean, you know, it's. Again, I don't want to overstate my.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, yeah, no, you're doing a good job of downplaying. And it's mostly.

[Jeremy Stern]

I mean, I'll explain why. Yeah, it's mostly because, you know, so I'm a platoon leader at the time, my platoon sergeant, who to this day is one of my best friends. I'm going to his wedding and he's running everything. He has been at this point, you know, on six deployments, he's lost a ton of friends, you know, other people maimed in his life. The way we. We did a great job together. I think we made a really good team. And he cared, you know, he taught me a lot about just caring for the soldiers and taking care of their, you know, promotion throughout the ranks and all of that. And so when it came to the actual hands on EOD work, I was like, making sure everyone was set up for training. Everyone had, you know, everything they needed, but I followed his lead on that part of it. So when they brought me an S fest, it was like a cat bringing a mouse to its owner. It was like, hey, lt, we have something.

[Jocko Willink]

Can you please defuse this?

[Jeremy Stern]

Right, exactly. Yeah, exactly.

[Jocko Willink]

Perfect. Freaking awesome.

[Jeremy Stern]

But it's, you know, I wasn't cutting it off of a dead guy's body.

[Jocko Willink]

Right on, right on. So then the other thing you mentioned was going to Tajikistan. What was going on there that you said was interesting.

[Jeremy Stern]

The reason that was cool. It was so tough. Tajikistan in the 90s. Like a lot of these other countries after the Soviet Union had collapsed, had a big civil war, and they were surrounded by other countries that had a lot of civil wars. So their borders with Uzbekistan and with Afghanistan are both kind of still covered in mines. So there was a big partner force from Afghanistan and from some other countries in the region, both military and civilian, who came out to basically get trained on humanitarian demons mining. So we went out there and, you know, these are mines that have been there for, you know, close to 20 years. At that point. But that was like, you know, that, that was something like you could feel completely unconflicted about, right? It was like, there's a bunch of things in the ground that want to explode and kill kids, right? And so we're gonna go and get rid of as many of them as possible. And this is like, it takes decades to do this shit, right? I mean like in Europe they still have, you know, bombs in the forest in France and that they're never going to get rid of. So you're never going to get rid of everything. But that was like a cool one. It was, it was. The OSCE was kind of somehow part of it. I don't know, I never saw them. But that was an interesting one because Tajikistan is like a freaky, weird country. It's like this tiny little Central Asian country that's sort of Russian, sort of Chinese, sort of Persian, sort of alpha Afghan. And that was cool. And I got to, you know, work with a bunch of guys from Afghanistan that, you know, I never ended up going there. So that was fun.

[Jocko Willink]

Do you like, is there, is there enough language crossover or know and, or are you one of the guys that like, when you show up into a new country, you're like, I'm going to learn this language?

[Jeremy Stern]

No, but a bunch of people in Tajikistan speak Russian.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay.

[Jeremy Stern]

So this was my, it was like, ah, finally it's useful. So that was actually cool. So I, I taught, you know, one part of a demining class to a bunch of Tajiks in, in Russia.

[Jocko Willink]

Seals are. We don't. We, we're not good with languages. You know, it's kind of our notoriously bad at languages. Whereas compared to the special Forces, you know, they go to language school. They all go to language school and we don't go to language school for a little while. They, there was a while where they were sending seals to like a three month school, whatever, and it was just worthless. And I got, I was, this was before the war in the, in the year 2000. I was over in the Persian Gulf and we were doing counter smuggling operations against people that were smuggling stuff out of the Persian Gulf. So we ended up tracking this Russian ship and we ended up taking down this Russian ship. But what was crazy was why it was smuggling oil out of Iraq and so, so sanction. Yeah. Was breaking the sanctions and so what. But the, the reason I'm telling you this because it was a Russian flagged vessel. And in my platoon, which we had my friend Drago, who's a Polish guy that was forced to speak Russian growing up, so he spoke Russian. We had a hippie guy who went to Berkeley and studied Russian and spoke Russian. And like, I think he lived in Russia, so he was fluent Russian. And my platoon commander who went to the Naval academy and when he started at the naval academy, it was like, yeah, you know, we're Russia's the enemy. So he studied Russian. So in this one SEAL platoon of 16 dudes, we had three, like, fairly fluent Russian speakers. And it was just a miracle. So, yeah, it was one of those. One of those odd moments in time. So you're. When you're in Tajikistan or do. What are you. Are you a guy that goes out and gets on that local food too, or what?

[Jeremy Stern]

Oh, yeah. I mean, I got food poisoning. I was like, a little too adventurous. Yeah, it's pretty good there. It's not bad. It's better than Russia. Somehow.

[Jocko Willink]

I'm one of those guys, like, I don't want any of the local food. I don't try and learn the language. I'm. I'm. I'm not the best at that type of thing. Like, I wouldn't have been like, when I look at the Special Forces mission compared to the SEAL mission, and I didn't know this at the time, I was too stupid. But I ended up in the right spot because I'm more of a like, SEAL type mentality than the, than the Green Beret, Foreign internal defense. We're going to learn the language, we're going to embed with these people. I was just like, not, not that into it. And luckily for me, I, when I flipped that coin and really it was just because the water. I heard the seals were in the water, obviously, and, and I wanted to be like a maritime type commando. So that's how I ended up doing what I was doing.

[Jeremy Stern]

Is this also because when you were coming up, this was pre kind of counterinsurgency strategy, right. So there wasn't really this idea yet that these teams were going to be going out and living among the population and.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, and it was just be me, dude. You got to remember, I was 18. You know what I mean? Like, I wasn't idiot. And there was so much less information at the time. There was no information. So they're just. We didn't even understand that. And even if, I mean, I didn't really start thinking about the two separate missions probably until I was a few years into actually being a SEAL before someone explained to me, oh, well, the Green Berets all speak a language. I was like, oh, well, that's. That's cool and weird. Why would they do that? It's like, oh, well, they embed and they live with them. And I was like, oh. And then, you know, you also start hearing that the seals in Vietnam worked with Vietnamese seals. So you're like, oh, so there. Then it would make sense to learn that language a little bit. But still, there was also whole SEAL platoons that were just in. In Vietnam that were just working, you know, just unilaterally as seals. Whereas Green Berets, man, they were out doing awesome stuff. I mean, you know, training with the. With the. Not only the South Vietnamese, but with the. The Mongs and who else? There's one other. The Montagnards, but there's one other group, but they. They were out there training and embedded with these people. Again, awesome mission. And I look at it now, and I'm like, yeah, that's freaking killer. And then, not to mention the Green Berets that were in sog, which were going out with Vietnamese with South. With two Americans, maybe three Americans with three or four South Vietnamese guys. I mean, that's epic. So, yeah, just a different mentality. And, you know, I also don't, like, blend in well, so, you know, I've never been, you know, oh, I'll grow my hair out, and now people will think I'm from, you know, Afghanistan or Iraq. It's like, no, I look like a big white dude. I look like a big American special operations dude, is. Is what I look like. And I got told that quite a few times as anytime I kind of brushed up against that other type of work, guys be like, dude, stick with what you got, dude. You're a good assaulter. Stick with that. And then once I became an officer, it's like, yeah, you go ahead, be a. Be an assault force commander. Not a. Not a low viz. Guy sneaking in the back door. It's just like, not. Not my jam. And, you know, I had a guy once tell me, you know, he's talking to a group of us. Like, yeah, it takes. You know, it takes, like. Like a year, maybe even a year and a half, 18 months to get the. To get the special operations stink off of you, meaning in order to be, like, in a clandestine role. And then he looked at me and he goes, not you. He was just like, yeah, you don't. You ain't doing this job. And I was like, cool. Fair enough. So. So you. So now when you're in Tajikistan, you're on this first deployment. These. I mean, this is Cool stuff you're.

[Jeremy Stern]

Doing, it was great.

[Jocko Willink]

And you're having a good time. You still love in the Army?

[Jeremy Stern]

Yes, very much.

[Jocko Willink]

And so is your plan now, thinking you found your, you found your gig, you found your jam in life.

[Jeremy Stern]

At that point it was, you know, my wife, her career was taken off, she was hitting her stride, and we were just, we never saw each other. We were married by the, by the time I deployed. And I sense that she was kind of done with me being gone that much, and there was no point in promising her that I wasn't going to leave again, because you always do. So then after those deployments in 2017 and 2018, I got out of the Army. Basically what happened was this guy, Richard Grinnell, he was the US Ambassador in Berlin. US Ambassador to Germany during the Trump administration. He'd actually called me when I was deployed. We'd come across each other when I was in D.C. and he was hooked up with this other guy I mentioned earlier. He was looking for a kind of policy advisor or chief of staff type role at the embassy who was not a career foreign service officer in the State Department. And I somehow got recommended to him, or he decided he wanted to ask me to do it. But at that point I was deployed. I was like, that sounds awesome, but I can't. So when I came back and my wife and I kind of agreed, I was, it was ready to get out of the Army. I called him back and happily at that point, he had not yet filled the position. He was already in Berlin. He made it through his confirmation hearing, and so he gave me that job. And so I, they, you know, the army had to kind of like finesse this lateral transfer for me to the defense Attache's office at the embassy in Berlin. But technically, you know, the day I got my discharge paperwork from the Army, I onboarded with the State Department and put me on a one way play to Berlin and my wife and I moved there.

[Jocko Willink]

So your wife got to go with you?

[Jeremy Stern]

She did for a while. I mean, she would come back and forth because she worked in la, but yeah, we got to spend a lot.

[Jocko Willink]

Of time there and. And had you done much work with the State Department prior to.

[Jeremy Stern]

No, I mean, I, I did EOD support for the embassy, but, you know, that was pretty irrelevant. I mean, I got to know the way they operated a little bit, but that was mostly the kind of the way the Marines ran the security situation.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, it's weird. I just thought of this because you and I were talking earlier about just being in the 90s and in the military in the 90s, you were mentioning that I was kind of a split career between pre war and post war. But pre war, we would interact with the embassies quite a bit and we'd understand, like, the Ambassador and the Charge 8 Affairs and like, we, you know, kind of got to know that world. But once the war started, I didn't think about that stuff ever again. It was just off my radar. So I'm assuming. Yeah, like you said, you had a little security, but it's a whole new world when you start doing Department of State stuff.

[Jeremy Stern]

Completely new world. And all the policy issues were totally different. So at this time, so this is now 2019, the big American priorities are, or Trump's big priorities out there were killing Nord Stream to this gas pipeline from. From Russia to. To Germany. It was getting our NATO allies to spend 2% of their GDP on defense. It was improving NATO infrastructure. You know, these highways that cross from Western to Eastern Europe. It was getting them to kind of update their, their technology. So these were all the kind of big, I mean, really like 50,000ft policy issues that I had barely any familiarity with. But I think the reason he identified me and the reason it ended up working out was, you know, as you can imagine, Donald Trump's political appointee to be his representative in Berlin does not always see eye to eye with the career State Department bureaucracy who's out there. Right. And I think I was, because I had just gotten out of the army and I was seen as kind of plausibly neutral. Right. In that way, I was just out there serving my country. So to have me in the front office interfacing directly with the career bureaucracy, it, I think was helpful to kind of, you know, lubricate that relationship. And I think it ended up working out pretty well, actually. You know, it's got this building full of 1200, you know, people who are not exactly supporters of Donald Trump.

[Jocko Willink]

There's 1200 people Department State in the.

[Jeremy Stern]

Embassy in Germany, including the, including some of the German civilians who do support work. Yeah. I mean, they have Berlin Station there. There's. It's huge. It's. I. I think it must be the biggest one.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, I was gonna say it must be one of the biggest ones in the world.

[Jeremy Stern]

Yep.

[Jocko Willink]

So what's your day to day like when you're doing that job?

[Jeremy Stern]

It was, you know, you roll up pretty early. The US Embassy in Berlin is this awesome location. Right. It's right next, next to the Brandenburg Gate, Right. Where Ronald Reagan gives the big tear down this wall speech, you're right there. So you roll up. The ambassador would come in pretty early. We would do a kind of press roundup in the morning. We'd take a look at all the German headlines. Then we kind of, you know, you have a representative from all the different sections in the embassy. The political section, economic section. You'd have a representative from Berlin station. You'd have, you know, some of the kind of law enforcement guys. Everyone would go around in this kind of group sync. And then from there, it was like every day was pretty different. I mean, a lot of crazy shit happened while we were there. There was a. You know, our big push at the beginning was to basically get the Germans to comply with U.S. sanctions on Iran. So this is the time of, like, maximum sanctions against Iran. So the two things that we did that were successful. We. We got the Germans to block landing of any flights from Mahan Air, this Iranian airline. And then the other one was to recognize Hezbollah as a terrorist organization because the Europeans typically split. They. They introduce this, like, artificial difference between the political and the military wing of Hezbollah, which allows them to conduct banking transactions with members of Hezbollah. So, you know, by the end, we convinced them to basically get rid of that fake distinction. But there was also. I mean, I don't know if you remember, but there was these Russian security services executed this ex chechny in general in broad daylight in the tear garden. So that was something that happened that, you know, I mean, that was the responsibility mostly of Berlin station to. To follow up on it.

[Jocko Willink]

So what does follow up on that look like?

[Jeremy Stern]

I. It's a mix of I'm probably getting in trouble if I talked about it. And there was a ton of I didn't even know about. But, you know, so this was like. I mean, for all the, like, crazy about Trump being, you know, this is at the end of Russiagate, right? So all the stuff in the media about Trump as a Russian agent, he's friendly to Vladimir Putin, it was. We were kind of on the backside of all of that. It had kind of wound its way through.

[Jocko Willink]

Congressman Insane he was. During, like, prior to the end of it, if you were in the embassy in Germany and you're got all this press saying that Donald Trump is a freaking Russian agent, right?

[Jeremy Stern]

And people in Germany, disaster. It's a total disaster. And people in Europe, like, they don't watch Fox, right? They read the New York Times or they watch msnbc. So, like, to them, I mean, here I had a lot of crazy people in my life who bought This A to Z. But at least there was like some back and forth. Debate is like, is this bullshit? Is it not in Germany? It was like you couldn't find anybody who didn't believe the entire thing. And I mean, the funny thing is like we were doing some like, pretty like intense anti Russian shit while we were there, right? Oh, yeah, it was, it was the administration's policy. Nord Stream 2 was kind of the biggest part of it, obviously, you know, trying to get NATO allies to spend more money on defense. There's only one country that's aimed at. Right. And so when they, they executed this guy who I, I think was, you know, trying to immigrate to the US or, or something, you know, that was like an intense, like, oh shit, the Russians think correctly, they can do anything in Germany. They can execute this guy in broad daylight knowing there's going to be zero repercussions. So that was wild.

[Jocko Willink]

So what does it look like when you have those people, those permanent kind of State Department people that are, you know, who knows when they were appointed or who knows when they got hired how many years ago, decade ago? Is that a realistic, is that an average time? Would you say someone's been over there working at the State Department for 10 years in Berlin?

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah, I mean they, they rotate through, they have these three year rotations like the army or like the military. But, but once you become a subject matter expert, if you're an expert in Germany and you speak fluent German, you know, the State Department is probably correct to be like, let's just keep sending this person back to Germany. Why send them to Afghanistan at this point? You know. Yeah, but you, you know, the problem there is you have a lot of people going native. Right. It's like they start feeling like their job is to explain Germany to Americans, especially to the Trump administration. Right. Rather than represent American interests in a foreign country.

[Jocko Willink]

What was the level of hostility? So when you showed up, there had been what, two years that, that Trump had been. Since Trump had been elected.

[Jeremy Stern]

That's right. It was a little, a little over two years.

[Jocko Willink]

And what was the level like, could you still feel the hostility from some of the, some of the troops there?

[Jeremy Stern]

The Americans? Yeah, yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

I shouldn't say troops from some of the State Department personnel.

[Jeremy Stern]

Yes. And, you know, I don't want to overgeneralize. There's a lot of people who are doing a great job serving their country in the foreign service and, and all that. But yeah, there was a lot of people who, you know, would, I think, encourage their German Counterparts to wait out the term. Right. He's gonna get voted out, he's gonna get put in prison, he's gonna get shot, like, whatever. He's just, he's gonna go away at some point. So don't trip over yourselves to meet any of these various demands that are coming out of the embassy. Right. Because he's going to be gone and like a traditional Democrat, or maybe even a traditional Republican will, will take his place.

[Jocko Willink]

What's that going to look like this time around?

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah, they can't, they can't act fooled or surprised this time.

[Jocko Willink]

It also seems, you know, like, for Trump to realize and recognize, like, how long does it take before you go, gosh, wait a second, I put out this word a little while ago. The front line. The front line is not doing what I said. Wait, what's going on? Why don't they understand, like, just the amount of time it takes to go, oh, these people are actively not carrying out the policies that I'm putting forward.

[Jeremy Stern]

Right.

[Jocko Willink]

It takes a little, it takes a little while. I mean, you've got a lot of stuff going on. You're President, United States, you've got however many embassies that are out there, however many countries, you got all this stuff going on. And of course, you know, even the best leader, when fully supported by the, by the folks on the Trump on the front lines, it still takes time to go. Oh, yeah, now I'm seeing these policies come into effect. Oh, yeah, it's been, it's been three months. Oh, yeah, we're starting to see, we're starting to get feedback. Well, those three months, you go, wait, where's the feedback? Oh, there's no feedback. Oh, because nothing changed. Oh, because they aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing. So you can imagine that the feedback loop took a while that first time around. And, you know, again, his first time being president, he's looking around going, oh, well, you know, I, what's the feedback loop here like? Wait a second. Nothing's changed since I asked that to happen. Okay, what's going on? Why is it taking so long? You can just see it's, it's going to be a, it was much slower last time, and this time I think there's going to be a lot, the feedback loops gonna be a lot quicker. He's gonna recognize what's going on if that kind of thing is going on. And even what we talked about earlier with, you know, getting orders, hey, we're going to leave this FOB in Syria. The president has ordered us to leave the fob. Okay, we're gonna blow everything up. Okay, cool. Let's plan for it. And it's like, well, actually, we're not going. And those kind of things, I think, are going to be a lot more difficult for. For people to get away with this time around, because I think Trump is just going to have such a much clearer understanding. I think he's putting people in place that are going to be on board out of the gate and not be a bunch of people that are going to try and slow roll his policies.

[Jeremy Stern]

I think that's right. And, you know, with this Doge Elon initiative, you know, it's. I think the basic idea is that he or, you know, his team are going to try to do to the US Government, the federal government, what they did at Twitter, which is show up, first day, fire 80% of the workforce. Everyone falls into a panic that, you know, the servers are going to crash and nothing's going to work. And it turns out everything works just like it did before, which means that. That 80% of the workforce was completely redundant. Right. I think they figure it must be at least that bad in the US Government. And I think the State Department is probably pretty freaked out because the Foreign Service is a prime target for, like, how many people do we have chilling in Paris, hanging out?

[Jocko Willink]

Well, apparently we have 1200 in Berlin.

[Jeremy Stern]

Right. Living in awesome apartments, hanging out, you know, like, how much work are they doing? How necessary is all of this? How much did their language training cost? Like, I think it's, you know, it could be a bloodbath.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. Yeah. All right, so how long you do that job for?

[Jeremy Stern]

That was about a year and a half.

[Jocko Willink]

So you're in Berlin, which is like Cold War, you know, battleground for intelligence, for counterintelligence, for espionage, for spies. Like, when you're there, people are trying to collect on you. What. What did you have to be heads up on with people trying to collect on you? I'm just like, just for example, when I was in the SEAL teams in the 90s, and we'd be going to a country and they'd give us sort of the basic, like, hey, if you. If you're in a bar and this incredibly gorgeous woman comes up and starts talking to you, it's probably not your charm or good looks that are doing that. So be careful what you're saying. Like, what kind of stuff would give you a heads up on.

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah, I mean, first of all, exactly. That. These guys getting honey trapped. Right. So it's. There was actually a guy that we knew who, you know, he got this foreign girlfriend who. And he didn't report his contact with a foreign national. He was dating her, he was sleeping with her. She ended up, you know, reporting either accurate or fabricated charges of sexual assault and rape to the services and. Or, sorry, I think she threatened to do that. That if this guy did not cooperate with whatever, the embassy somehow found out and they got rid of him. Right? So that was one.

[Jocko Willink]

So that. It's just. Just so people know, like, as much as you watch, like, Jason Bourne. Charles.

[Echo Charles]

Yeah. Born Identity.

[Jocko Willink]

As much as you watch Jason Bourne and all of us that are in the military go, yeah, dude, whatever. Such. But these things, like, these things are really happening, like these kind of intelligence, counterintelligence, that stuff is going on. And there's a classic example right there.

[Jeremy Stern]

Right. And there was some other stuff that I heard about. There was the way the Russian security services would fuck with people who worked at the embassy. This guy, who was certain he'd left a bunch of dirty dishes in his sink. He came home at the end of the workday, all the dishes were clean. That didn't think anything of it. The next day he came home, he knew he had left his dog in the kennel. He came home, the dog was locked out on the balcony. The Russians, presumably, at this point, were trying to get rid of this guy. They didn't want him in the country anymore. So he freaked out, reported this, and the State Department got rid of him. So, you know, there's all these ways that, you know, I think they have of letting you know that you're being watched or getting rid of you if they don't want you in the country anymore.

[Jocko Willink]

It's also just important to recognize, you know, that the. What you mentioned earlier, the. The information warfare that's happening on all fronts at all times. We really. We as, as Americans need to really pay attention to the various propaganda that's coming from various sources and how simply outstanding it is and how impactful it is and how it really, truly dictates the way people think. And what, you know, what you mentioned earlier about the. The. The Russia gate type stuff and where we in America, you know, look, you could be in America and there's still. You can probably find. Well, you definitely could find people that would. 100%. Well, no, actually, of course, you know, this Donald Trump was colluding with the Russians. Of course he was. We saw it on the news. We saw it for three years. You know, they didn't follow the story it's just accepted as fact. And that's in America, where there is the counter. The counter propaganda of saying what. What actually happened and explaining everything that's been done over and over and over and over again. And you still hear about Russian collusion, and you still hear about the 2016 election being swayed by the Russians. Total fabrication. It's crazy that we have to say that, but that's true. But then you point out a very important fact, which is overseas, they're not getting all that counter propaganda. They're just hearing the propaganda that's being put out. And so you had the entire country of Germany and most of Europe. Well, of course, obviously Donald Trump is colluding with the Russians. Look at the reporting over there. And the craziest thing is that Donald Trump was harder on the Russians than any other president has been.

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah, I mean, just the, you know, the oil and gas policy. Right. Like, really, really ramping up American petroleum production.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah.

[Jeremy Stern]

What's the, you know, the primary consequence of that, other than, you know, Americans, you know, being energy secure, is that the price of petroleum goes down, which means less revenue for the Kremlin. Right.

[Jocko Willink]

All right, so keep that in mind, everybody. So how much longer do you do? How long did you do that job for?

[Jeremy Stern]

That was about a year and a half. And then after the pandemic started is. Is when I got back to la.

[Jocko Willink]

What was. Did the pandemic start while you were in Germany?

[Jeremy Stern]

I was there at the end of February.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay, so you got home just before it kicked off for real.

[Jeremy Stern]

It had kind of already started because this was when, like, Northern Air Italy had completely blown up. Right. And I think that was like, at the beginning of February or maybe mid February. People were dying a lot. But, you know, like, public events and conferences and stuff weren't being canceled yet. So at the end of. I think it was like February 20th or so, 2020, I was staying in the Bayer Scherhof as this really old kind of 18th or 19th century hotel in Munich. And it's for the Munich Security Conference, which is people from all over the world are coming in for this big security conference. Conference. It was a delegation of like 200 people from China. Right. It was like, oh, man. Like, we're watching all. I mean, even back then, you know, for. If you were, like, paying any attention, it was like there was no mystery about, like, where this was coming from. It was like, oh. So anyway, I, After I got home, after that, my wife and I got. It was the sickest we'd ever been There were you.

[Jocko Willink]

Were you. Were you already planning to leave the State Department?

[Jeremy Stern]

Yep.

[Jocko Willink]

And what made you decide to do that? You just like, I gotta get back to America.

[Jeremy Stern]

It was one of the other things I did while I was there. Is so the ambassador at the time got tasked by Trump to do some work for the National Security Council, where he was basically negotiating some political and economic normalization agreements between Serbia and Kosovo in the Balkans, totally separate from the Germany portfolio. But, you know, he was stationed in Berlin, not that far away. And so I was the kind of working level negotiator on all of those. And they were at the time, the economic normalization agreements were successful. We signed them at the conference and I was like that, you know, put a dot on it and that's it.

[Jocko Willink]

And that's because you were done being separate from your wife. You wanted to move back to. And was. Her career is going. What was she doing at this time?

[Jeremy Stern]

She's a TV writer.

[Jocko Willink]

And. Yeah.

[Jeremy Stern]

So her career was taken off. She was writing on a bunch of shows.

[Jocko Willink]

It was Sugar Mama. He was like, yo, I'm going home.

[Jeremy Stern]

That's right. That's right. I. I was done with the. Yeah. The government salaries and.

[Jocko Willink]

Was she living out in la?

[Jeremy Stern]

She was living out in la. And I also, you know, my dad, like I said, is much older. I saw, you know, this pandemic was coming. It was killing a lot of older people. I was like, okay, it's probably a good time to get home.

[Jocko Willink]

So then what did you start doing when you got home?

[Jeremy Stern]

I did some consulting work for a little while, and then I eventually fell in with Tablet, who you mentioned at the beginning. So that was, you know, Tablet was a magazine that I loved as a reader. I had been reading it for a number of years. I had no interest in a career in journalism, like, at all, but I just love Tablet, and I wanted to be a part of it. And at that point, I think when I was in the Army, I wrote some op EDS for the Wall Street Journal. I did, like, a thing for the New York Times. They just, you know, when they were looking for some kind of commentary from someone who was active in the service or a recent veteran. So I kind of grew that muscle a little bit, and I liked it, and I love Tablet. And mutual friend introduced me to the editor in chief there, and they were looking for a news editor. So I came in and I became the news editor. And then eventually the deputy editor.

[Jocko Willink]

Was it hard to get hired for that job with, like, no experience, or were they just Desperate or. I mean, how did you. How did you pull that off?

[Jeremy Stern]

I think, you know, I was like literate enough and I had a good enough sensibility. And, you know, I think most people in journalism, they go into it from the beginning and they never get out. Right. And I guess that gives you like a good resume for getting other jobs in journalism, but it teaches you nothing about the shit you're writing about. Right. You have no real experience of the world. I mean, some people do, but most don't. You have no experience of the kinds of jobs that are being done by the people you're writing about. And I think that explains a lot of the poor quality of the journalism you see out there. So I think to their credit, they thought the. The experiences I'd had living in Russia, being in the army, being in the State department, being able to write a bit, you know, that was maybe a better qualification than like having gone to journalism school.

[Jocko Willink]

What's the business model at Tablet? There's no. Is. There's no physical copy, is there?

[Jeremy Stern]

So there's. I shouldn't announce it too soon, but there's going to be probably at some point soon there will be a monthly print version.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay.

[Jeremy Stern]

But no Tablet. Yeah. It's primarily an online magazine.

[Jocko Willink]

And is it make money through online advertising?

[Jeremy Stern]

Tablets a bit different. So like the, you know, the two basic business models you have in journalism are on the one hand, the like, ex wife of a dead billionaire buys the Atlantic. Right. Or Jeff Bezos buys the Washington Post. And there's your business model.

[Jocko Willink]

Right.

[Jeremy Stern]

There is no other business model model. You lose $100 million a year, it doesn't matter. And then the other is nonprofits. So that's what Tablet is. So it has a board. Tablet itself is a nonprofit. It can spin off various for profit, you know, enterprises, but it's. It's basically nonprofit. So that's what kept it kind of ad free, which is like a much better reading experience.

[Jocko Willink]

But it's a much better reading experience, right?

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah. But the print edition will be a kind of way for, you know, there to be some kind of economic relationship with readers, people who want to pay extra for something special. I think that'll be cool.

[Jocko Willink]

So. So what. Tell us a little bit more about Tablet. Like what is the. What is the driving force behind Tablet?

[Jeremy Stern]

Tablet's a. It's a Jewish magazine that's about everything. So it started off as a little bit more of a niche product, you know, Jewish magazine in New York, writing primarily about Jewish issues, but it attracted a lot of just amazing talent that was fleeing more traditional journalism as the business model was breaking down, as it was getting politicized and whatnot. So it was actually, you know, it was attracting a lot of some of the most talented people who had been, you know, the New Yorker and New York Times and stuff like that. And then as time went on, its remit kind of expanded to just cover all of American life from kind of a Jewish sensibility, I'd say. So at this point, it's just kind of a national American magazine that has a kind of core Jewish identity, which is what, you know, I really liked about it. And a lot of people, I think, appreciate about Tablet, and I'd say probably over half the readership at this point is not Jewish. But just the fact that it has some kind of identifiable core there is attractive to people. It's not, you know, I think something like the Atlantic, the New Yorker. It's like this kind of free floating, elite center, left, left wing social game. Right. Whereas Tablet, I think has some kind of identity grounding it that, you know, even if you're not Jewish and you don't know anything about Jews and you don't care, it's kind of interesting, right? It's like the sub culture in America that somehow feels authentically American.

[Jocko Willink]

Now you, we, we talked about you growing up, right? And as you're growing up, Judaism wasn't front and center in your life. Now as now you mentioned that when you were in Russia, you start thinking more about your Jewish heritage and where did it go from there? Like bring us along, along kind of your Jewish journey from, you know, you, you, you're in college, you don't really, you're not really thinking and, and practicing Judaism actively. Like, what did you, did that curiosity start to grow? Did you start to get more grounded to it? What happened?

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah, so I mean, it, you know, my grandparents passing away, that's one thing, right? It kind of just makes you think and it's like, well, you don't want, you know, if they were Jewish and my parents are Jewish and I'm Jewish, that means this somehow endured for thousands and thousands of years, right? Most Jews are not Jewish because they like recently converted. My, my family, certainly not. So it was, you know, it kind of puts it in perspective and makes you feel small, I think, in a good way. And you kind of, you know, come away with this feeling of like, it endured for all this time. Am I going to be the one who like brings it to a halt? That would be shitty, right? So that's one. I mean, yeah, living in Russia was kind of another. So, you know, my, my family is mostly German Jews, but before that, like, you know, everybody from that part of the world had come from the Russian empire. And Russia is one of those places where it's just like, you can see this kind of rise and fall of various incarnations of the society and the total destruction of things that, you know, used to be around in recent history. And that kind of put it on my radar too. I visited distant family I had in Israel for the first time. That was an eye opening experience. It was, you know, seeing Israel in the flesh and how different it was from the way I'd been educated about it or the way it's portrayed in media.

[Jocko Willink]

What were the differences?

[Jeremy Stern]

I mean, I think the most striking one is, is that, you know, people have this sense that Israel was built by people who escaped the Holocaust. So therefore it's people who are kind of Central and Eastern European people who are therefore white. Right. That's the kind of image you get of Israel. You get there. It's like a fucking Middle Eastern country. Right. Like over half the people are Jews from Iraq, from Morocco, from Libya, from Syria, places like that. So that's about half the population. 20% of the population are people who fled the Soviet Union or descended from people who fled the Soviet Union. Like I guess you call those people white. I don't know what that means. Right. And then the, the other part are the descendants of Holocaust survivors. So the first thing that strikes you when you get there is like Israel's not like a weird, disappointing Denmark, right? It's like a super over performing Lebanon. So that was another. And then, you know, I just kind of, as I grew up, I, I think I just got more interested in the tradition and the history. I never to this day developed, you know, particularly strong personal faith or, or belief. But you know, there's just a lot of, kind of very interesting history and tradition there that I kind of vibed with a lot more as time went on.

[Jocko Willink]

So how are you raising your kids?

[Jeremy Stern]

We're raising them Jewish. My wife was a Presbyterian minister's granddaughter. She is not Jewish at all, but she's converting in the process of converting and we send our 3 year old to a Jewish preschool and all the kids are going to be raised Jewish. But you know, we're not going to, we're not going to pretend to be people we're not. Right. Like we're not going to turn around and make it like an extremely observant Orthodox household. We're going to do our own version of it. But it's interesting. You know, it's like things that are theoretical until they become a part of your, your life, which is basically, you know, we send our 3 year old to the Jewish school and you always hear about, you know, these weird anti Semitic threats that these schools get. There's an active, you know, there's a guy walking around with a gun. There's a bomb threat called in, like, whatever. You hear about it all the time and it's like, why is your kid in the school? School? It's like, oh man, this is a choice.

[Jocko Willink]

Well, speaking about threats, let's talk about October 7th. What were you doing when you, when you heard about what was happening there?

[Jeremy Stern]

I was in Belgrade, Serbia, actually, reporting a different story. But that was one of those. You could kind of see it unfolding on Twitter and in WhatsApp, groups of, you know, people, friends I have in, in the area. And it's just, you know, like all these things, it's like we were Talking about at 9, 11, it's like the first things that happen, you're like, what? Like, okay, I guess there was, you know, some attack. And then it's like, oh, this seems worse than I thought. It was probably like just over the course of that, that first 24 hours that you're like, this is actually. The country is never going to be the same after this. This is, this is, they just live through maybe the most momentous thing that's happened since 1948. And it was obviously horrifying to see. And, you know, first thing was the check that my, you know, cousins and aunts and uncles and some distant family I had. There were. Okay. They were one cousin who ended up going into Gaza after the, the war began and lost his leg. Actually, he'd only been there for 48 hours, I think. But at that point it was just like, okay, there's like no more around a tablet, right? This is like, this is. Our core mission is to serve readers who are interested in the truth of what's going on and why it happened.

[Jocko Willink]

So as you. Well, as I watched it unfold and then it was one of the most shocking things to me about watching unfold from a media perspective was how quickly you got to see the anti Israel rhetoric start to go. I mean, it was, it was almost simultaneous. It wasn't even like, oh, it's been five days. And it was prior to any actual military reaction from Israel. Like, they were, they didn't even have things under control yet. And there was rhetoric going back against Israel. What. What is, what does that look like from your perspective?

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah, it's complicated. I mean, you're right that it was basically simultaneous. So October 7th happens. Hezbollah declares war on October 8th. Right. The international Criminal Court that just issued these arrest warrants for the Israeli prime Minister and the foreign former defense minister, they date their charges of war crime crimes to October 8, right before the war began, before Israel even went into Gaza. So those are charges of genocide, intentional famine, you know, all these kind of things. They date it to October 8th. So it was like, it really was instantaneous. And then it went through several different forms over the last year. Right. So you had the initial reaction of, you know, it didn't happen the way the Israelis said it did. You know, those women weren't really raped. Those people didn't really have their heads cut off. And then, okay, you get this. You know, the IDF basically collects all of this documentary evidence, makes it available to the international media. So then it moves on to these people had it coming, right? They were living right on the border of Gaza. They live in a country that doesn't even belong to them anyway. Right. This is. Israel is a white European colonial project. Right. This is legitimate. This is legitimate violence visited upon them by people who are trying to take land back that is rightfully theirs. And then it spread, you know, to Columbia University, I think is where it began. And then basically college campuses all over America. And then you had a kind of European incantations of all of this. And it's been, it's been a wild year to see. You know, there's been right, right wing and left wing versions of the kind of anti Israel, anti Zionist, anti Semitic, whatever you want to call it, you know, at its more extreme versions, kind of Jew hatred. I mean, we were talking earlier about my experience in the army and how it was kind of a. An education in. In my own country. So I had joined in 2014. And that was right at the beginning of something that has kind of escalated since then, which is people warning, I see this mostly in the media and among certain people in Congress saying that there's increasing radicalization within the ranks, right. White supremacists and Christian nationalists in the American military. And I didn't know what to believe back in 2014, but everyone in my life seemed to think that was definitely true and it was definitely going on. So I at least had my eyes peeled for it, like in almost six years in the army, which is not, you know, it's not 20 years but it's a big enough sample set, right. I came across hundreds of people, you know, deployed in five different countries as a part of a few different units. In six years, in almost six years, I never encountered anything you could even remotely call antisemitism. Nothing like zero. And one of the things that taught me was that version of bigotry. There's something I don't want to say un American, because that's a term that politicians, I think, use too much and abuse. But it's like non American. There's nothing native or natural about it to the way Americans think. In order to participate in it and to start believing in it, you almost have to be educated into it. Right. It's not something that strikes anybody who lives just off their own common sense and their own personal experience in America as being anything other than, like, deranged and demented. But I think that's why you see it kind of most prevalent on the left on college campuses among academics, among, you know, people in media, and then on the right, mostly these kind of maybe social media influencers or, you know, kind of at the elite levels of being kind of, you know, very visible online personalities. I just, after everything we've seen the last year, it just seems even more clear to me that this is not a development that's spreading among ordinary Americans. This is really a kind of elite level fight on left and right.

[Jocko Willink]

And so are they, are the, are the elite level, left and right unified? This is, you know, something that Echo and I will sometimes talk about. You know, I'll kind of start. I'll start doing the one degree of separation and how you can go from being like, let's say you're a liberal leaning left Democrat, and if you go one degree at a time, you can go all the way to. You're at the dinner table with one of your friends who's a Nazi from the conservative side, you know, like, and your friends, because you both hate the Jews or you both, you know, it's like you can just get, you can get there. You can. If you go one degree at a time, you can get there. What does that look like, you know, when you, when you talk about the left and the right and they both end up with this or the, the, would you call them the elite extremists, left and right, and you end up with these attitudes at some point. Do they unify?

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah, it's a good question. I think so. It's, it's kind of complicated. So maybe to take the left wing version first, because it's it's probably a bit newer and more novel. I mean, it's as old as Soviet communism, but it's not ancient. Right. But it's kind of internally coherent. So I think it's kind of easy to understand. Which is whatever you want to call, you know, the kind of progressive ideology of the last ten years. Right. Wokeism is how most people refer to it. It's based on this idea that, you know, basically the sins of the past are so egregious that they have to be rectified at nearly any cost in the present. Right. And that the only way to do that is to punish the descendants of the people who conceivably committed those crimes in the past. Right. Broadly referred to as like white people. Right. Or whatever. And that those people are the villains of history and the people who punish them are like the heroes of history. Jews, like, are a special problem for this ideology. The idea of like a racial hierarchy which kind of, you know, wokeism is like almost like a theological version of this. Right. I reference Soviet communism because it's basically class struggle except replaced with identity and racial politics. Jews are a problem for the internal coherence of this ideology because Jews are clearly among the victims of history. Right. Ghettos are invented for Jews. Concentration camps are invented for Jews. Gas chambers are invented for Jews. It would be ridiculous to try to claim that they're not among. I'm not saying more than anyone else, but just like Native Americans, like black people in various societies, Jews are among the victims of history. At least in the American context. Most Jews look like white people, right? So that technically means it's possible to be white and to be a victim. And if that's true for Jews, maybe it's true for other kinds of white people. Maybe that means that referring to people as quote, unquote, white doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Maybe not all black people are always and primarily black. Maybe the whole woke racial hierarchy is a bunch of bullshit and people are just people and they're not defined by their race. Right? So that's why I think Jews for, for the left wing version of this, this they have to be identified as in America, they're white, they're oppressors, and they're supporting a foreign country that is oppressing the victims in that region. Right. Otherwise the whole thing doesn't hold together. And I think that's kind of the explanation for, or it's an explanation for what you've seen with these, the explosion of hostility to Israel and also to just American Jews on the political left, that, that's the left wing version of it, the right wing version of it, which maybe has a bit more in common with the ancient European old. The madness of old Europe, those versions of anti Semitism has a bit more in common, but it's still kind of, of, you know, uniquely American and of this moment, which is, you know, I think what you see with a lot of people on, on the right who are, you know, predominantly these are people online, Very, very online. These are people who talk about Jews controlling American foreign policy, Jews controlling the banking system, Jews assigning minders to every individual member of Congress to make sure that they vote the right way. Right. This is stuff that's like kind of old czarist Russian propaganda. Right. I think what makes it a bit new and a bit unique to, to our country is that you also often find this kind of stuff grouped together with a resurgence of like National Enquirer level stupid conspiracy. Conspiracy theories that have nothing to do with Jews. Right. Did the aliens build the pyramids? Does the deep state control your mind? Is Goldman Sachs funneling fentanyl across the border in order to get people to vote a certain way? Right. It's. It's all of this kind of demonstrably nonsense conspiracy theorizing rather than, you know, the kind of more elevated version of asking good questions about things that are genuinely uncertain. Right. And I think what unites both the Jew hatred and the nonsense about aliens building the pyramids is what they both do is they serve to undermine our collective attachment to reality. Right. Another big kind of, you know, theory on this end has been really questioning the legacy of World War II. Were the Allies actually the bad guys? Did Hitler actually want peace? Did the Jews force Roosevelt and Churchill into fighting a genocidal war? Again, the details of that, I think are uninteresting. Right. World War II is probably actually the most covered subject in world history. Right. Anyone who wants to learn about it can access any number of books or documentaries or whatever. The thing that's interesting about it is that it's part of this process of undermining our attachment to our own collective past as Americans. Right. It's severing a lot of our connections to our ancestors and to our sense that what they did was good. Right. And so what does this have to do with theories about Jews controlling the world and your mind and being responsible for, for why your life sucks? Right. What does that have in common with the other nonsense theories? I think it all serves to demoralize otherwise ripe people, right? Who would have otherwise felt like it's within their power to do something about their life? I would actually say it's the opposite of what this podcast, of what your podcast does. Jocko. Right. As I understand it, a lot of it is about, is instilling a sense of agency into maybe primarily young men. Not only there's millions of people who listen, but to take one core audience, it's giving young men a sense that there's actually something they can do about the quality of their life and maybe also about the circumstances of their community or the future of their country. Right. It's within their power to do something about that. Both theories about Jews controlling the world and your life and the government and all of that and these things about like, you know, did the aliens Bill write the Constitution or whatever other nonsense? All it does, what all of those do is take any agency away from you. Right? There's nothing you can do. It's the deep state. It's aliens, it's Jews. Right. And so I think this is kind of the right wing version of the explosion of anti Semitism.

[Jocko Willink]

Right.

[Jeremy Stern]

It's a, it's a, it's an explanation for a sense of collective failure, which is why I think the right wing version actually kind of has more in common with the versions of anti Semitism you see, like in the middle, in like Pakistan. Right. It's like, oh, it's like it's the Jews who did this. Right. The left wing version is maybe a little more specific to contemporary left wing politics in America.

[Jocko Willink]

So what? When you look at Israel right now and the situation that they're in and from a, from a media perspective, what, what, you know, for lack of a better words, I know I put out and talked about very early on that the way that they handled the media and the propaganda and the information war after the attacks on October 7th was going to be so critical. And like, And I'll tell you one example, one of them was like the, I think it was, it's an, it's a Twitter channel, but it was either idf, it was IDF something. You know, whether it was the IDF error, IDF ground, I forget what it was, but they were just throwing up, like, oh, we're, we're hitting this building, hitting this building, hitting this building. And I, I said, I said on a podcast, like, that's not the call. That is not the call. And I know that that's the call if you're an Israeli person or you're a Jewish person that's looking at what's happening. In Israel, what I want to see as. As an Israeli or as a Jew sitting in wherever I am, whether I'm in Israel or whether I'm from. In another part of the world, I want to watch that all day long. But that wasn't the call. The call was, how can you put out, you know, what. What they're trying to do from a humanitarian perspective, what they're trying to do from. From preventing civilian casualties perspective. That's what they needed to focus on. And quite honestly, they. They did shift that. They did shift that pretty quickly from like a what looked like vengeance Twitter into, okay, we're trying to do some humanitarian things here. But I think that was a critical piece, you know, and right out of the gate, you know, one of the first things that I said after October 7 was there's nothing more that Hamas wants than for Palestinian people to get killed. They want as many Palestinian people to get killed as they possibly as can possibly get killed. And the younger and the more innocent people get killed, the more happy Hamas is going to be. And so there's. There was a. A part of me that, you know, thought the best move for Israel would have been like, okay, we've secured our border. I'll stop. We're going to sit here and we're going to let the world absorb. Before we do anything, we're going to let the world absorb what happened. We're going to show the world what happened. And I also realize, and I said this as well, if I'm an Israeli and that happened to my family, we're not sitting. We're gonna go. We're. We're gonna go take action. We're gonna find the people that did this. And that was almost a. A foregone conclusion. You know, you can't go in and murder and rape 1300 people and have those families annihilated. Like, expect those relatives and those countrymen, fellow countrymen, to sit back and not do anything. So it was almost like a foregone conclusion. I had the thought that, you know, in a perfect world, the maximum restraint would have. It probably would have been better in the long run to be. I still think that right now. I think it would have been better in the long run, but I also knew it was not going to happen. So from a information operations perspective, what are your. What are your thoughts as you look at the situation that's going on as it. As it continues to unfold?

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah, I mean, Israel's never been good at pr. I would say Jews as a people are terrible at Public relations is, if you haven't noticed, I think there was maybe two forces undermining whatever incipient hope there would have been for the kind of information response that you just described. One is what we talked about earlier, which is on October 8, they were being blamed. They felt that they were being blamed by the world for what had just happened to them. And that doesn't rob them of the agency to have, you know, been able to take the high road and be above that. But it did serve to undermine any forces in Israeli politics that would have pushed for more restraint. Right. Because the people who were for a kind of maximum punishment in Gaza could point to the response, the international response to October 7th and say, this is the response when we haven't fired a single shot yet. What do you think all of that restraint is going to accomplish? Right. So that was one. I think the other was that, you know, Israel's relationship with America is, and with Washington, D.C. in particular, is obviously a very important one. And I think what they saw was that they had tolerated Hamas in Gaza on their border and Hezbollah and southern Lebanon on their northern border for decades. Right. For a very long time. And they saw the ways that the Americans handled Iraq and Afghanistan. And I think in their opinion, I'm referring to them as if Israel is a unitary country. Right. It's an extremely politically fractured country. There's people with every opinion under the sun. But just, you know, to, to try to steel, man, that argument, the, the.

[Jocko Willink]

Most like, liberal people lived right on the border with Gaza. Is that a, is that a. I've heard that stereotype.

[Jeremy Stern]

There were these kibbutzes that were among the ones that were slaughtered on October 7, which were populated by Israelis who were. It was a, it was kind of a statement they were making about their optimism about their ability to live just on the other side of a fence with, with Palestinians. Right. It was an expression of hope for the future as opposed to retreating to Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean Sea, far away from any border, right? That's right. So I think they saw the various American and coalition failures as they saw in Afghanistan and Iraq. And I think the way a lot of them would describe it would be an aversion to achieving clear military victory. Right. The phrase I've heard them use is like American managed war. I think they saw a lot of this the year before, by the way, in Ukraine. Right. In the year and a half before. This way of like providing the Ukrainians with enough weapons and enough capabilities to survive, but not enough to actually win a Battlefield victory. They saw this as kind of, this was the maximum kind of support that Israel was going, going to get from the United States and thus from the world. Right. And given the way that October 7th changed the country, I don't think that they were, they were, they felt they even had the political support from a country that, by the way, you know, the day before on October 6, there were these massive anti government protests trying to get the Netanyahu cabinet to fall. People were protesting these judicial reforms. Reforms. So it's a big, very active liberal movement in the country that was totally swatted down by the events of October 7th. October 7th guaranteed that those people had lost all political cachet. Right. And the country became unified around the goal of no longer living with Hamas and Hezbollah, but actually achieving a decisive military victory. Right. Which they knew at that point no one was going to support them in doing, but it was something they felt like they had to do. So I think maybe that was another factor contributing to the marginalization of any voices in Israel that would have otherwise called for more restraint. There was just enormous popular support for. We don't want to go back to October 6th. Right. We need to live in a totally new security state situation.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. And even if you're not going to show more restraint, you, you should propagate that you are showing more restraint. That's my point. Like that the, the propaganda was not as good as it could have been. Or the, the information operation is not even propaganda. Like, the information operations could have been better.

[Jeremy Stern]

They're exceptionally bad at that.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. So where do you see it? Where, so where do you see it right now?

[Jeremy Stern]

It seems that at this point it would be very, very difficult for Hamas and Hezbollah both to reconstruct themselves into a serious security threat anytime soon. They're not decisively defeated in either Gaza or Lebanon, but it would take quite a lot. Right. Especially I think with the Trump administration coming in. The basic source of financial and military support for both Hamas and Hezbollah has been Iran for years. Right. And I think, you know, there's going to be a lot of unpredictable things about this second Trump term. But I think one thing you can kind of guarantee is the policy of maximum pressure on Iran is going to come back. So the Iranians are going to have less money for their forces. Right. I think another thing we saw unfold in Syria this week is, you know, people had been referring to Hezbollah as Iran's kind of strategic depth in the region. Right. I think what happened this week, as we saw it, was actually their only cap really, really capable fighting force. The irgc, whose expeditionary forces have been in Syria for a while, just completely fell apart. Right. So I think they've been exposed this pretty hollow. So I think, you know, Israel has achieved a real security, they've reached the real security goal that they've had for a very long time, which was to eliminate these various threats on the borders. Will they be able to actually shape that into a better political outcome than they've seen in the last several decades? That's definitely to be seen, but they, they don't have a very good history of being able to influence anything remotely like that.

[Jocko Willink]

What are they going to do with Gaza?

[Jeremy Stern]

First of all, I have no idea. But when you talk to people in Israel, I think there's a feeling that, you know, they very much like some of the Arab countries that they've been improving relations with and cooperating with in the last several years after the Abraham Accords, to come in and pay for the reconstruction and take some maybe political ownership of what goes on there. I, I doubt that will happen. Right. I don't think the Saudis are, you know, jonesing to get into Gaza and be responsible for, for everything that happens so that I really don't know. I mean, I think they just, at this point they're probably limited objectives are to create like, you know, multi kilometer buffer zones where just no people live. Right. No buildings are built, no tunnels are built, no weapons can be smuggled in without their surveillance networks being aware of it and to just push those people further back. This is, it's, that's not a pretty picture. Right. But I don't, I'm not aware of any better solution that they've come up with so far.

[Jocko Willink]

Syria. Interesting to watch that thing fall apart so quickly.

[Jeremy Stern]

Yeah. I mean, one of the interesting things, right, is from why were the Iranians and the Russians in Syria in the first place? Right. I mean, I'm curious for your take on this. The story back when this happened, right, was the Americans were negotiating the JCPOA, what became the Iran deal back in 2014. And they depended, obviously, both on the Iranian government and also the Russian government for the success of those negotiations. And I've heard people explain that that's the reason the American response to the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea in 2014 was so weak. And also why the Americans were happy to let the Russians back into the Eastern Mediterranean where they hadn't been since midway through the Cold War, and also to cooperate a bit with the Iranians. They're not cooperate, but deconflict, get out of each other's way. We're all trying to get rid of ISIS here. Right. So, I mean, part of the collapse in Syria has been like the collapse of that understanding. Right. And so what's interesting, I think it's kind of propitious for Trump is he's coming into office with, I think, more leverage again on the Russians and the Iranians than he would have had two weeks ago. Right. Because now he can actually force some pretty tough terms on the Russians, for example, by not allowing them to return to their bases in Syria if they come to terms with him in Ukraine. But it's, it's really interesting. I mean, I'm not. Syria is so complicated.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, no, I agree. I think it's. I think it's actually very good for Trump right now going in. It's going to be able to use that as a negotiation tactic, for sure, and it's going to hopefully help give him some leverage in Ukraine. I guess We'll. I guess time will tell. Hey, at also at Tablet, you guys talk about some. Like you said, it's about the world. And one of the, one of the articles that you wrote that really seemed to get a lot of traction didn't have anything to do with. Well, had very little to do, I should say. I guess they had a little to do with war. But this guy Palmer, Lucky, how'd you, how'd you stumble onto that guy?

[Jeremy Stern]

I think I started hearing about Enduril when I was deployed. So this is like 2017, 2018. You first started hearing about this new defense technology company in Southern California that was using this new AI powered software system to power all of its autonomous weapon systems. And, you know, this is a full six to seven years before the introduction of Chat GPT. So at this point, AI wasn't like a silly buzzword that everyone was using. It was kind of like, oh, is this real? You know, and the cool thing about them, I remember kind of tracking at the time was, you know, traditional defense contractors like Lockheed Martin or Raytheon or whatever, they work on these cost plus contracting models. So basically, the government decides what they want them to build, they come up with all the specifications, and then they pay them the costs of their time and their materials, plus a fixed percentage fee on top. Right. This is why these companies tend to make a lot of money the longer they take. Anduril was kind of taking an opposite, more kind of traditional business approach, which was they were developing all of these weapon systems themselves. And then once they were ready, they would sell them off the shelf to the government. I was like, that's kind of cool like that. I mean, that's interesting, right? Because they wouldn't talk about any of their new capabilities until they'd already proven it. Anyway, that's how it first got on my radar. But then the more I learned about them, it was, you know, the founder was this guy. Palmer Luckey was the same guy who invented the Oculus, that guy like, you know, and he kind of in a.

[Jocko Willink]

Trailer in his parents driveway or something.

[Jeremy Stern]

That's right, yeah. He was 19 years old. He's living in a trailer in his parents driveway. And he's just this kind of authentic engineering genius, right? And he's kind of got like a uniform, right? He's, he wears like Hawaiian shirts and cargo shorts and flip flops and he's got a goatee and he's got a mullet and it's like he's just like a really wacky figure. But I was like, I can't believe that guy is the one who's building these drones that are being deployed in Ukraine and everywhere else. So, yeah, I just, I got interested in him and I reached out to his team at Anduril and ended up getting to spend some time with him and wrote an article about kind of his life so far. He's only about 30 years old.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, 30 years old. He sold, he sold his first company there to Facebook for $2 billion, which is. I could, I could parlay that into a good time right there. Echo Charles, let me tell you. And are you going to expand on that? Anything else going to come with that?

[Jeremy Stern]

Would that maybe the piece went, you know, kind of unusually gangbusters. I mean, which I was glad to see. Right. Is like to realize that your own interest in something super specific and relatively unknown totally catches fire in other people's imagination too. So that was cool to see. And yeah, so I mean, people have reached out about a film adaptation and a book adaptation and so we'll see. The, the book, I think is the one that's more likely to happen and kind of a. More of like a history of the development and the kind of the, the decline in fall and then the revival of the defense industry in California.

[Jocko Willink]

It. And you'll tie him and that company into it.

[Jeremy Stern]

He's such an interesting character that I think it's, you know, it's more interesting to follow him than it is to follow, you know, something amorphous like the defense industry.

[Jocko Willink]

So I hope he'll figure prominently it is, it is. I mean he's, he is a movie. I mean he really is a movie. Just everything about him lives or he doesn't live in, but he's got the. Well, he's got the largest collection of video games in the world or something like that.

[Jeremy Stern]

He does. And he keeps it buried 200ft underground in a decommission Titan or Atlas Air Force nuclear missile base. I mean he's. Yeah, he's kind of endlessly.

[Jocko Willink]

The dude's 30 echo Charles. Yeah, he's really into anime. Like he's a character dude.

[Jeremy Stern]

And I think it was, I don't think it was before it was published, but at least since the piece has been published. His now his second company. So he sold Oculus to Facebook for $2 billion and now Anduril, the defense technology company, is now valued at about $14 billion.

[Jocko Willink]

It's impressive. So what else you got going on? You got the, you could do a podcast with Walter Russell Mead, who you mentioned earlier. The podcast is called what really Matters. You guys do a little, you guys do a little kind of review of the weekly news. You kind of hit him with the things and he, he gives you his feedback on it.

[Jeremy Stern]

That's right. It's a 30 minutes short, quick hit podcast News and History. Basically, you know, the, the if, if it's providing a public service, it's basically, you know, kind of helping you understand what news actually matters in the long run, historical sense and what you can basically ignore because it's empty calories and nonsense.

[Jocko Willink]

And then what else? Anything else to get us up to speed?

[Jeremy Stern]

Got a piece coming out pretty soon, maybe by the time time this episode comes out about. It's a long profile of Amos Hochstein. He's the senior White House diplomat in Lebanon. He's the guy who brokered the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon two weeks ago.

[Jocko Willink]

What's his background? What's going to make it interesting?

[Jeremy Stern]

Super interesting. This guy, he's American. American parents, American grandparents, but grew up in Jerusalem, served in the IDF, moved to the US became a congressional staffer in the 1990s, kind of traditional democratic foreign policy circles. He then becomes a lobbyist for some extremely unsavory African dictators, including Gaddafi and Equatorial Guinea. He then joins the Obama administration and eventually becomes the kind of senior energy diplomat in the Obama administration and gets kind of stuck in the middle of. Of the story of the Biden family's involvement in the Ukrainian national gas sector. Then he comes out of government, joins the board of NAFTA gas So he's in. He's kind of directly involved in Ukrainian gas, and then he gets hired again by the Biden administration. And he's supposed to be just be like the energy guy. And he somehow parlays this all into this gig where he's the chief diplomat in Lebanon. And his kind of novel contribution or invention is he figures out a way to interact directly with Hezbollah. And so it's like he kind of circumvents American laws about having direct contact with him. So obviously the interesting thing being the guy who figured out how to negotiate directly with Hezbollah is a Jewish IDF veteran from Jerusalem. Right. So how did the story of. How did they come to trust. Trust him?

[Jocko Willink]

So much interesting stuff. Right on. Does that get us up to speed?

[Jeremy Stern]

I think so. Check out Tablet Mag.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, you're on Twitter. Twitter X. Jeremy Stern, La. You're the editor at TabletMag. Tabletmag.com Special thanks to Maggie Phillips. She's a freelance writer. She's a former tablet journalism fellow. She happens to be the daughter of a guy by the name, name of General Sean McFarland, who was my leader and I admire him greatly. And a friend of mine from the Battle of Ramadi, and she connected us.

[Jeremy Stern]

One of the best people you'll ever meet.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. So thanks to Maggie. Appreciate it. Echo, you got any questions?

[Echo Charles]

Oh, how's your Russian now?

[Jeremy Stern]

It's not as good as it was the day I left, but it's not bad. I'm. I'm instilling a bit of it in my son, teaching him some words.

[Echo Charles]

There you go. That's all I got.

[Jocko Willink]

Right on. Jeremy, any. Any final thoughts?

[Jeremy Stern]

That's it. Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure.

[Jocko Willink]

Right on, man. Well, thanks for joining us. Thanks for your service in the army, obviously, protecting our nation.

[Jeremy Stern]

Thank you.

[Jocko Willink]

Thanks for your service in the State Department. I think you're the first State Department person we've had on here working on the diplomatic front. And thanks for what you continue to do today to get good information out to the world. Much appreciated. Thank you. And with that, Jeremy Stern has left the building. Obviously some turmoil in the world right now, which means got to make sure your own personal world is squared away. I recommend you do that by working out, by lifting, by training. The jiu jitsu always helps. And if you're going to do that, you're going to need fuel. Good fuel, clean fuel. We recommend Jocko Fuel. Hey, check it out. Jocko fuel. Go to jockofuel.com. you can get protein, you can get Hydration, you can get energy drinks, you can get supplements for your joints, for your health. You can get whatever you need to put in your body. Go to jockofuel.com check it all out. The best tasting and the best results that you will get from supplementation.

[Echo Charles]

Very effective.

[Jocko Willink]

So you can get it Wawa. You can get at Walmart, you can get it at gnc Vitamin shop, aps, Military commissaries, Dash doors, Wake fern, shoprite. H e B down in Texas, mei are up in the Midwest, Wegmans, Harris Teeter, Lifetime fitness shields, small gyms everywhere. No matter where you're at, you can get the goods. If you want to sell this stuff, email jfsalesacofuel.com check it out. Get stronger, get smarter, get healthier, get better. Jockey fuel. Get some stu also shot.

[Echo Charles]

Shout out to freaking Cold war, by the way.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh yeah, that's a winner.

[Echo Charles]

Two incidents in the past one week. You know the kind where the sickness is coming. It's coming already like something. Because there's two phases or three if you count that sickness.

[Jocko Willink]

Sickness. Have the foothold.

[Echo Charles]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Like you can feel it.

[Echo Charles]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Or it's around you.

[Echo Charles]

There's two levels of foothold. So you know, the first one is like, wait, is that a sickness? Or do it. Did I just inhale some dust? Like, what is it? That's the first little. And that's like, okay, you know, but.

[Jocko Willink]

When that comes, Cold war. Cold war all day, like big time.

[Echo Charles]

So the second foothold is like, oh, Brad's coming. You've already accepted it fully as fact that I am getting sick right now, you know, and then you get sick. Right.

[Jocko Willink]

That's not even a foothold. That's like an assault. Assault has begun.

[Echo Charles]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay, so foothold you can go, go, go Cold war.

[Echo Charles]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

But then once the assault's underway. Go Cold war.

[Echo Charles]

You already thought or you even heard the, you heard that. You know, you just hear the mortar sounds. Two incidents where I had that already. It was. I was getting sick, literally. And cold war. I take three, by the way, and I, I eat like a banana, like a fruit with it. I don't know why. Maybe it's just the tradition. But nonetheless, two different instances. Sickness gone, bro.

[Jocko Willink]

When I, when I feel that either one, I start jacking. Cold War. Yeah, I'll have like three in the morning. I'll have three in midm morning. I'll like go crazy. Yeah.

[Echo Charles]

Oh, yeah. And yeah. But yeah, two, two instances where I was deep into the, like beginning parts of the assault. Reverse Both times, boom. Back in the and you can watch.

[Jocko Willink]

Family members going, dropping down. It's chaos out there and you're going strong.

[Echo Charles]

Cold war same day. They know the protocol. Oh yeah, 100%.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh yeah, dude. It's great.

[Echo Charles]

Reliable Y.

[Jocko Willink]

So check it out to that. We got what you need. Jockofield.com. check it out. Also, if you're training jiu jitsu, if you're working out, if you're working, if you're hunting, if you're cruising, no matter what you're doing, you should do it with American made clothing. And in all those categories. We got you covered. Origin USA.com doesn't matter what you're doing. You can represent wear clothing that is 100% made in America from American made materials. Go to origin USA.com and get some.

[Echo Charles]

It's true. Also J store called J store. This is where you can buy your shirts, hat, hoodies, apparel, merch, if you will. And represent discipline equals freedom. Good. You know these types of standby to get some. It's a good one. Gonna represent that. Also on Jocko store there's a shirt locker subscription shirts every month, new design every month. A little bit outside of the box as far as designs go, but still representation across the board. Trust me.

[Jocko Willink]

Are you gonna make one about that video that you just put up? What the Just show up?

[Echo Charles]

Yeah, the abuse that I just took, you know. No, hey, one never know.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay? I'm saying we're gonna find out about that one.

[Echo Charles]

Yeah, but yeah, if you like, go to jocastore.com you can, you know, kind of browse there. Check out something like something. Get something. Also known as defcor.com, by the way. I'm saying that's the. That's the OG like if you know, you know, scenario. But it's also known as de dot com. Anyway, yeah, you like something, get something.

[Jocko Willink]

Check it out. Subscribe to the podcast. Subscribe to Jocko underground.com. check out our YouTube channels. There's the Jocko podcast official. There's Jocko podcast clips because Echo Charles made a clip.

[Echo Charles]

Amen.

[Jocko Willink]

Need a place to put it. Jocko Fuel has one. Put one up with it with Chris Pratt. Did you watch that one?

[Echo Charles]

Yeah. Wait, the realistic. How realistic? Yeah, that one. Actually, I like that one more than I thought I would like it. It was very. It was very well done.

[Jocko Willink]

What did you like about it?

[Echo Charles]

Just the interaction was good. The. It was relevant because that's stuff like where I kind of wonder too, like, oh, how good was he really looking? Because he Looks good to me. They all look, you know, for the.

[Jocko Willink]

Most part, you know, I could tell. You could tell. It was very nice because when we went to film Warrior Kid and there's combat scenes in Warrior Kid and, like, Chris didn't need to get trained. He said, do you know what's up? So that was. That made things a lot easier.

[Echo Charles]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And, you know, so. Yeah. So check that out. Jocko Fuel YouTube channel and also Origin USA YouTube channel. Check those out. Psychological Warfare. Flipsidecamus.com Dakota Meyer. Making cool stuff to hang on your wall. Bunch of books. I've written a bunch of books. Wrote a book called Leadership Strategy and Tactics. A lot of people keep that one on their desk.

[Echo Charles]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

By the way, because it's just a reference. Oh, like I'm having this issue. Boom, open it up. Problem solved. I'm having another issue. Boom, open up. Problem solved. Leadership Strategies and Tactics. I wrote an expanded edition that's available. Written a bunch of other books. Written a bunch of kids books. Some of those kid books are getting turned into a movie.

[Echo Charles]

I hear good things.

[Jocko Willink]

You don't have to wait for the movie, even though the movie's gonna be worth waiting for. Way The Warrior Kid. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Don't forget about Mikey and the Dragons. Don't forget about Extreme ownership. Dichotomy of leadership. About Face by Hackworth. Bunch of. Bunch of cool books. Check them out. Echelon Front, we have a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com for details there. Also, we have live events. We have the Dallas muster, which is already taking place and it's sold out. And all the musters that we do sell out. So if you want to go. San Diego, February 23rd through the 25th. San Antonio, April 29th through May 1st. Sign up, register early. Del Sol Women's assembly be coming up at some point. Check Those out. Extreme ownership.com is another website that we have where you can learn the leadership principles that we teach in an online academy. It's amazing what you can learn online. You're pretty good at music or not music, but video editing. Pretty good at that. Did you go to a college for that? No. Did you learn it online?

[Echo Charles]

Learned it online.

[Jocko Willink]

So you watch. Go watch. What's your most profound and impactful video that you have made as far as, let's say, which shows off your editing and CGI skills?

[Echo Charles]

Well, that's a. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Put it this way. For the time it was like Warpath. I think maybe first was, like, good. That good video was, like, kind of fun. Yeah. Not it. Not in general, but.

[Jocko Willink]

But. But if we want to see, like, now you do cgi. You do all this other stuff.

[Echo Charles]

Cgi. If you went to Instagram and looked at the third measure stuff, that's like, more cgi, but it's a very specific kind of cgi. Actually, you know what? I have that third measure video, the one about the robots taking over the world that has never been published yet. The one like, you're in it. Wait, I think you're in it. I forget. But yeah, but it's mixed with real live footage and stuff. It's actually pretty.

[Jocko Willink]

Does Rana shoot somebody with a D?

[Echo Charles]

Yes.

[Jocko Willink]

You didn't never post that.

[Echo Charles]

Never posted it.

[Jocko Willink]

How come?

[Echo Charles]

Because I want. I wanted to do, like, a final scene where it's like, either part of a dream or part of a something or maybe some campaign or something.

[Jocko Willink]

But let's get it out. All right, well, check that out. You can learn. You can learn through online sources. And if you check out extreme ownership.com you can learn the leadership lessons that we learned on the battlefield. You can apply them to every aspect of your life. So go to extreme ownership.com for that. And if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help gold star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She started an amazing charity organization. It's called America's Mighty Warriors. And if you go To America's mighty warriors.org you can donate or you can get involved. Also heroes and horses.org, micah Fink up there in Montana, and then Jimmy May's organization, beyond the brotherhood.org check all those out great organizations if you want to connect with us. For Jeremy Stern, he's got his podcast, which is called what really Matters. He's on twitter x eremystern la and he can also be [e-mail] and for us, you can find my [e-mail] on social media. Ocko Willink and Echoes, also on social mediacco. Charles, just be careful when you get on there. Just be careful. Watch your back. Because if you don't watch your back, next thing you know, 20 minutes went by, 27 minutes went by. You could have learned a new guitar chord. You could have. You could have done what, probably 250 burpees in 20 minutes. Yeah. Maybe even 300.

[Echo Charles]

Yeah, man, sure.

[Jocko Willink]

So do that. Don't let the social media get you. Thanks once again. To Jeremy Stern for joining us sharing your lessons. Thanks for your service in the army and the State Department and thanks for what you continue to do to inform the masses. And thanks to all our men and women out there in uniform with a special salute to the EOD texts from every service. Thanks for what you do to keep us safe. And also thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service as well as all other first responders. Thanks for your sacrifice to keep us safe here at home and everyone else out there. The world's a chaotic place. It's chaotic place and you should look at it. You should study it. You should do your best to understand it. You should be careful though that you don't get caught up in it. You don't get caught up in the propaganda. You don't get caught in the crossfire of the information wars. Stay detached, stay objective and keep getting after it. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko out.