514: Devastating Loss, and Everyday Combat in Ramadi. With Army Medic, Adam Anderson

Summary

Jocko Podcast #514: Devastating Loss, and Everyday Combat in Ramadi

Guests: Adam Anderson (Army Combat Medic), Ryan Jackson (Team Dealer Squad Leader, returning guest)
Host: Jocko Willink
Date: November 12, 2025

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Overview

In this gripping episode, Jocko Willink sits down with Adam Anderson, an Army combat medic who served with Team Dealer (Bravo Company, 2-6 Infantry, 1st Armored Division) during the brutal Battle of Ramadi in 2006, and returning guest Ryan Jackson. They recount the relentless cycle of combat, immense losses, acts of heroism, and the toll of war—both during and after deployment. Their conversation paints a raw and honest portrait of frontline life and the enduring bonds between soldiers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Backgrounds: Adam’s Early Life and Path to the Army

• Adam’s Upbringing in East LA:
  • Raised by his mother and stepdad (“he earned it” [05:21]).
  • “My mom was a courthouse clerk...my dad’s a tool and die maker. Both retired now.” [05:25]
• Troubled Teenage Years:
  • Kicked out of high school for having weed (1992) [07:05].
  • Skater and punk music fan; artistic talent develops.
  • Early jobs: Public works, then fire sprinkler fitter (loved the hands-on work) [10:44].
• Impact of 9/11:
  • Witnessed 9/11 while working construction; motivated to join military [11:47].
• Joining the Army at 28:
  • Chose combat medic after infantry slot required a waiting period.
  • "I was 28. I was old, man. But I was out running all these young kids." [12:57-13:07]
  • Boot camp and medic school: Found basic trauma training inadequate for realities ahead [14:33].

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2. First Iraq Deployment and Steep Learning Curve

• Deployment with 2-6 Infantry:
  • Rushed to Germany, then quickly to Iraq; met up with Ryan Jackson and other Team Dealer soldiers [16:49].
• Early Days in Iraq (2004):
  • Arrived in time for ongoing conflict, mortars near BIAP.
  • "The first night...rockets go flying over our head and popped like 100 meters in front of us. I was like, God dang, we ain't in California anymore." [17:49]
• First Casualties Treated:
  • "[My] first time I saw somebody was...after our extension at Camp St. Michael's; kid got hit by a mortar—lost both legs. I just started working." [25:45]

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3. Combat Trauma and Daily Reality

• Relentless Attacks:
  • Daily mortar and small arms attacks, under-equipped vehicles: “We put sandbags on the bottom...to try and protect us.” [24:30]
• Improvised Armor & Makeshift Solutions:
  • Lack of up-armored Humvees; welded steel, taped-on flashlights (“pretty redneck” setups). [24:44-25:14]
• Casualty Volume:
  • "We had 17 guys go down in a mortar attack"—multiple critically wounded, chaos, limited medics per platoon [27:03-27:24].
• Medical Advances—Role of TCCC:
  • Jocko and Adam discuss how trauma care (e.g., use of tourniquets, TCCC) improved over time; Adam taught his guys trauma basics before Ramadi [48:53].

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4. Preparation for Ramadi & the Surge

• Transition to Ramadi:
  • Five months in Kuwait (boredom, physical training), awaiting orders [47:08-47:46].
  • Team begins ramp-up for Ramadi amidst dire warnings: “They told us...the city’s really crazy, expect to see a lot of casualties on both sides.” [48:04]
• Training and Readiness:
  • Adam intensifies combat medical training for his squad (Israeli bandages, CAT tourniquets, etc.) [49:14].

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5. The Battle of Ramadi—Devastation and Heroism

• Hellish Handover & Early Losses:
  • During turnover, before official “transfer of authority,” 3 soldiers dead, 6 very seriously injured, 2 more wounded [50:22, 51:24].
  • “Imagine...the day you guys are supposed to take over, already had three soldiers dead.”
• ECP3 Attack (First Week):
  • Adam races into chaos: “I saw [an] explosion. Ran over, helped a wounded Iraqi, saw a lieutenant get shot through the calf, helped with ‘crispy critters.’” [51:29-52:46]
  • Multiple American and Iraqi casualties, including close friend Tribble, who was killed (“That was the most heartfelt one...just a good friend, camaraderie.” [54:09]).
  • Jocko reflects on the psychological burden of knowing more losses are inevitable [54:33].

Facing Mortality

• Adam’s Philosophy:
  • “As long as you give up to the fact you’re probably gonna die, you’re better off. Once you resign to that fact...you kind of kick ass.” [54:50]

A Typical Day in Ramadi

• Tempo of Operations:
  • 8 hrs on patrol, 8 hrs on QRF (guaranteed to get called out), 8 hrs to “rest” (actually prepping/re-fitting) [03:10].
  • “Couldn’t be in one spot for more than 13 minutes without getting attacked” [55:47].

July 2006: A Week of Heavy Losses

• Rescuing Staff Sergeant Michael Muir (July 18, 2006):
  • The act for which Adam Anderson would (much later) receive an Army Commendation Medal with “V” for Valor.
  • “[I] zig-zagged out to grab him under fire...pulled him into cover, threw on a tourniquet, and got him to Charlie Med.” [60:36-63:30]
  • Notable quote:

    “I said, man, I got bad news and good news. Bad news is you’re shot. Good news is both your twig and berries are still there.” –Adam Anderson [62:30]

• Adam Wounded (July 20, 2006):
  • Hit by RPG fragments: “Whole left side peppered...didn’t realize I was hit at first—kept fighting.” [64:50]
  • Refused evac; “Charlie Mike this. Strap me up, patch me up, went back out.” [70:09–71:04]
• Death of Squad Leader Christopher Swanson (July 22, 2006):
  • Adam describes the chaos—ambush, confusion, Swanson killed by a shot through the mouth [74:09–81:13].
  • Hauling Swanson’s body downstairs, utter exhaustion and emotional breakdown:

    “Started bawling. Sergeant Port came out of the darkness, hugged me, said, ‘You gotta get back out there, Doc.’ I said, ‘Just give me a minute.’” [81:13–83:35]

  • Recovery: “[I] got emotional, told my sergeant I need a break. He gave me all the time I needed—but I felt like I was betraying my guys, so I went back out.” [85:11]
• Loss and Relentless Contact:
  • Lost two squad leaders in one week.
  • “[It] was a wild goose chase. We’re all smoked, bounding and running—day just got worse.” [73:46-81:13]

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6. Coping, Aggression & Turning the Tide

• Aggression as Survival:
  • “We started becoming more aggressive...taking the fight to the enemy, doing more direct action. That made us safer.” [95:48-96:33]
• Team Bonding and Dark Humor:
  • Camaraderie and jokes—even in chaos. “[Hot brass lands on his neck]—I’m laughing, bullets smacking, I’m sorry bro!” [65:54]

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7. Returning Home & The Long Shadow of War

• Leaving Ramadi:
  • “Felt like I left my heart there. I wish we could go and travel back there one day, just to see how the town ended up.” [101:34]
• Struggles Upon Return:
  • Difficulty readjusting; fights with rear echelon troops who “sat in the rear with the gear” [103:00].
  • Assignments at Walter Reed working with wounded warriors, old friends, reunions with those he’d saved (notably Staff Sergeant Muir) [104:36-104:49]:

    “He just wanted to say thank you. He hugged right there and the whole place went silent. It was a heartfelt moment.” –Adam [104:50]

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8. Continued Service in Afghanistan & Health Aftermath

• Afghanistan—Fourth Engineers:
  • Leadership role, flying to check on medics, fewer casualties but the ever-present threat [107:46-108:39].
• Cumulative Effects:
  • Repeated blasts (IEDs, rockets, breaching charges) – chronic back pain, numbness, traumatic brain injury (TBI), speech issues [111:47–124:56].
  • Medically retired after a decade, emotionally devastated at having to leave service [113:14].
  • Ongoing struggle with VA healthcare to address spinal/nerve issues [121:22].

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9. Life After the Army: Tattooing, Music, and Brotherhood

• Tattoo Career:
  • Developed during time in Germany; became a respected artist, worked at top shops, featured in magazines, tattooed fellow soldiers [39:04–116:17].
  • “In my eyes, [other tattoo artists] are like rock stars…to get to tattoo them is cool, man.” [116:24]
• Art, Music, and Harley Riding:
  • Art as therapy and livelihood; open mics with guitar, keeps a motorcycle (though unable to ride much now) [41:30–127:51].
• Missing the Camaraderie:
  • “I miss the military every day. I miss the discipline, the camaraderie most of all.” [116:41]

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10. Healing, Support, and K9s for Warriors

• Finding Purpose and Support Post-Service:
  • Reconnected with Ryan Jackson; requested support from K9s For Warriors after hearing Ryan’s story [116:57–117:49].
  • The value of service dogs in dealing with anxiety, mobility, and PTSD—personal stories of Caliber the service dog intervening during anxiety attacks [126:50].
  • “If you need help, it’s out there.” [129:04]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “As long as you give up to the fact you’re probably gonna die, you’re better off. Once you resign to that fact, you kind of kick ass.”
  —Adam Anderson (54:50)
• “Started bawling. Sergeant Port came out of the darkness, hugged me, said, ‘You gotta get back out there, Doc.’ I said, ‘Just give me a minute.’”
  —Adam Anderson (81:13)
• “I said, man, bad news and good news. Bad news is you’re shot. Good news is both your twig and berries are still there.”
  —Adam Anderson to Mike Muir (62:30)
• "I miss the military every day. I miss all the discipline. Miss the camaraderie most of all."
  —Adam Anderson (116:41)
• “You guys were on patrol every day. Eight hours on, eight hours on QRF... Eight hours to ‘rest.’ It was ridiculous.”
  —Jocko Willink (03:10)
• “You couldn't be in one spot for more than 13 minutes without getting attacked.”
  —Ryan Jackson (55:47)

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Important Timestamps

• Adam’s Childhood & Upbringing – 04:55–09:18
• Joining the Army at 28 – 12:57–14:33
• First Combat Experiences – 16:27–27:03
• Major Mortar Attack (17 casualties) – 27:03
• Getting Ready for Ramadi – 47:08–51:24
• Early Losses in Ramadi Handover – 50:22–54:33
• Heroic Rescue of Mike Muir (July 18, 2006) – 60:36–63:30
• Adam Wounded (RPG Attack, July 20) – 64:50–71:04
• Loss of Swanson (July 22, 2006) – 74:09–83:35
• Heat of the Fight—Daily Ops – 56:09–96:33
• Returning Home, Re-Entry Challenges – 101:34–104:36
• Tattooing & Art Career – 39:04–116:24
• Seeking Support with K9s for Warriors – 116:57–119:05

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Additional Highlights

• Mental Health and Loss:
  • The suicide of a fellow soldier before deployment and inadequate Army mental health checks [44:19].
  • Adam’s struggle with survivor’s guilt, TBI, and stuttering post-service [123:40–124:56].
• Military Recognition:
  • Adam’s heroic rescue of Muir finally recognized with an Army Commendation Medal with “V” for Valor, years later [130:16–133:52].
• Aggressive Tactics Lessons:
  • Jocko and Ryan highlight importance of aggression for survival and eventual success over the enemy [95:48–96:33].
• Enduring Brotherhood:
  • Adam and Ryan's ongoing efforts to help other vets, including facilitating K9s for Warriors placements.

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Closing Thoughts

Jocko closes with a stirring reminder to "remember the regiment"—a call to honor the courage, resilience, and sacrifice of the soldiers who fought, died, and continued on in battles like Ramadi. Through Adam and Ryan's stories, listeners gain an unfiltered look at the cost of war and the indelible bonds of brotherhood forged in combat. The episode stands as a testament to the quiet heroism and ongoing struggles of American infantry soldiers.

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Relevant Resources:

• K9s for Warriors
• Ramadi Reunion 20
• Adam Anderson Tattoo (Instagram)
• [Book: Ramadi Declassified by Col. Anthony Dean]

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For more details, find marked timecodes throughout the transcript for deep dives into each story. Skip directly to the action, heartbreak, or wisdom as needed.

Transcript

[Jocko Willink]

This is Jocko podcast number 514 with me, Jocko Willink. On the 18th of July 2006, Lieutenant Blackstone's platoon was conducting census operations in Tamim when they came under a sustained enemy attack. In the initial barrage of gunfire, a bullet ripped through Staff Sergeant Michael Muir's thighs. Pinned down behind a five foot wall surrounding the water tower in Tamim, the platoon laid down a furious gauntlet of suppressive fire. Lieutenant Blackstone and Specialist Anderson realized that Sergeant Muir was unable to move and lying exposed in the street, they ran out under the hail of enemy fire and pulled Muir to safety. Next, Blackstone and his men attacked from their base of fire and aggressively assaulted the enemy occupied building that was the source of the hostile fire, only to have the enemy slip away. Such was the nature of the battle in Tamim against a lethal foe who knew the terrain and would not stay and fight. And that right there is a little excerpt from a book called Ramadi Unclassified, which was written by Colonel Anthony Dean and his one paragraph that from that book, and it's about a 400 page book, and it gives one small example of the incredible heroism that was displayed by troops on the ground in Ramadi on a daily basis in 2006. And that particular unit was Team Dealer, the Death dealers, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry, 1st Armored Division. And this is a company who suffered immense losses during that battle, and yet they never hesitated, they never backed down, and they continually took the fight to the enemy. And we have had Colonel Dean on this podcast, number 452, and we talked about his book and his experiences as a battalion commander. We've also had heard from General McFarland on this podcast, number 439, and he was the brigade commander in the battle of Ramadi. We've also heard from some other Ramadi vets. We've had Rob Black and Scott Husing and Greg Knight and Elliot Miller and Joe Hildebrand. We also heard from Ryan Jackson on podcast 491 and he was a squad leader in Team Dealer. And tonight it's an honor to have Ryan back. And also joining him is Adam Anderson, the soldier I just read about who braved enemy fire to rescue one of his wounded comrades. It's an honor to have you guys with us here tonight. Ryan, Adam, thanks for joining us.

[Adam Anderson]

Thank you, brother.

[Ryan Jackson]

Thanks for having us.

[Jocko Willink]

Welcome back, Ryan.

[Adam Anderson]

Thank you.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, man, good to see you guys. And just out of the gate, the reason that we're sitting here right now is because of Ramadi reunion20.com. This is a reunion that's taking place January 16th and 17th, 2026, the 20 year, the 20 year anniversary in Fort Bliss, Texas. And we got a bunch of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines that are going to be coming to this event. So if you knew anybody that was attached to the one one AD for a day, for a week, for a month, for the whole time, and they served in the Battle of Ramadi, check out Ramadi reunion 20. If you know anyone that was killed there and their families might want to go tell them to Check out Ramadi reunion20.com we're trying to get as many people down there as we possibly can. And for me, you know, getting you guys on here, we were just before we even hit record, you know, Adam, you, you were talking, you're saying like you like hearing from grunts on here. And I, I was telling you like what, when we looked at you guys and what you guys did every day out there patrolling, and we'll get into it, but you know, you guys were on like an eight hour cycle, eight hours on patrol, eight hours on qrf, which was bound to get called up, and then eight hours to allegedly rest. But you're actually just refitting and replanning to go back out there. You guys, you guys put in so much work over there. It was, it was ridiculous. So it's an honor to have you guys here. You guys are the ones that, that fought the battle. House to house, street to street, neighborhood to neighborhood. And so it's, it's awesome to get your stories out there. And, and yeah, like I said, Ryan, we kind of heard your story. If you haven't, if you're listening this right now, you want to, want to hear about Ryan's background, what he did, listen to episode 492. I'm sure you're going to chime in a little bit.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

But Adam, let's get into your story a little bit. Where you came from, a little background before you joined, before you joined the Army.

[Adam Anderson]

I was born in East Los Angeles, east la.

[Jocko Willink]

Get some. Hey, what was growing up like? What was your parents, what was your parents situation?

[Adam Anderson]

My parents were pretty good. My mom pretty much took care of me and my, my biological father was never in my life. So yeah, there's that. And my mom got remarried to my, my dad. I call him my dad. Yes.

[Jocko Willink]

Sounds like he earned it.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, he did. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And would your, what did your mom and dad do?

[Adam Anderson]

My mom was a courthouse clerk. She works right there next to the judge. Well, she's retired now, but she used to work right next to the judge. Okay. And my dad's a tool and die maker where he was. He's retired now, too.

[Jocko Willink]

Right on. And did you have. Did you have brothers, sisters?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, I had a brother and a sister. My brother's name is Gabriel and my sister's name is Francine.

[Jocko Willink]

Older? Younger.

[Adam Anderson]

They're younger. I'm the oldest. Huh.

[Jocko Willink]

And then, was there any, like, military history in your family? Any.

[Adam Anderson]

Any.

[Jocko Willink]

Any veterans or anything like that?

[Adam Anderson]

My grandfather served in World War II.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Hell, yeah.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Did you know him growing up? Was he still alive?

[Adam Anderson]

Yes, he was.

[Jocko Willink]

Did he tell you stories?

[Adam Anderson]

No, not until afterwards. After. When I came back from Ramadi. 2006. Yeah, that's when he started opening up. I didn't even know he was, like, in Iwo Jima. He was all over Japan.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, damn.

[Unknown Guest]

Okay.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, he was fought. He fought a lot of places. That was crazy.

[Jocko Willink]

Damn.

[Adam Anderson]

He always used to talk about being in Guam and bootlegging liquor. Yeah, they set up a still inside of a. In a jungle somewhere in Guam, I guess.

[Jocko Willink]

Selling booze.

[Adam Anderson]

Selling booze? Yes, sir.

[Jocko Willink]

What were you into when you were in school and high school? Do you play sports?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, I played baseball for a large part of my life. I love baseball. Big Dodgers fan.

[Jocko Willink]

Well, isn't that, like, required when you're growing up in east la?

[Adam Anderson]

I guess, yeah, I guess so. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And what were you into? School was like. Did you study?

[Adam Anderson]

I was pretty smart in school, I guess, towards the beginning. And then high school, I started screwing up a little bit. I got kicked out of high school.

[Jocko Willink]

What did you kicked out of high school for?

[Adam Anderson]

For having weed. There were some kids tagging right near us in the school. Cop. I had some pot in my. My pants. And. Yeah, so he caught these kids tagging and we're walking by. He made us all stop and he searched us off looking for the markers and stuff. And he found weed on me.

[Jocko Willink]

What year? What year was that?

[Adam Anderson]

1992. Okay.

[Jocko Willink]

And so I guess weed was pretty illegal back then.

[Adam Anderson]

Oh, yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

It's not. It's not as illegal anymore, especially out here.

[Adam Anderson]

It was super illegal back.

[Jocko Willink]

What kind of music were you into?

[Adam Anderson]

I was into a lot of different stuff, man. I grew up listening to a lot of punks. I was a skater, skater dude. So a lot of punk, a lot of old new wave, like the Cure, Depeche Mode stuff. And.

[Jocko Willink]

And what punk rock bands were you into?

[Adam Anderson]

Dead Kennedys.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay. Just going old school. Dk, huh?

[Adam Anderson]

Dk? Yes. Sex Pistols. What else?

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, so you were like a legit old school punk rocker into the late 70s, early 80s. Punk?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah. Bad religion. Okay.

[Jocko Willink]

And were you any good at skating?

[Adam Anderson]

Oh, yeah, it was pretty good. I used to skate with a lot of different pro skaters.

[Jocko Willink]

Could you hit an ollie? Impossible.

[Adam Anderson]

Probably. I don't even know what the heck that is. Possible.

[Jocko Willink]

It's one of those Rodney Mullen tricks that's, like, really hard to do. I guess everyone does them now.

[Adam Anderson]

But background?

[Jocko Willink]

You met him?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, back in the day. He came into a thing at her junior high.

[Jocko Willink]

Jack.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, some kind of like, exhibition or something like that.

[Jocko Willink]

And did he encourage you to keep skating or did he tell you he's.

[Adam Anderson]

More of a freestyle skater? I was more like a big ramp skater.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, you were like a ramp skater?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, he's like, ready? Big ramp, Chuck.

[Jocko Willink]

And what about. I know that your. Your future in the future, you. You do tat. You do tattoo art. So was art always something that you were into?

[Adam Anderson]

Definitely all my life.

[Jocko Willink]

Beyond just tagging school property?

[Adam Anderson]

That wasn't me. That was tagging the school property.

[Jocko Willink]

You're innocent, bro.

[Adam Anderson]

I'm innocent from that. Yeah. Wasn't me, but, yeah. Art's always been part of my life. I've always been a really good artist. I'm a young kid and.

[Jocko Willink]

Did you. Something you naturally were able to be good at and then you practiced? Did you just.

[Adam Anderson]

No, I was always pretty good at it. My Uncle Greg, he used to. He's a good artist, and he kind of motivated me. He said, man, you can't draw like me. And so I draw exactly like him, and that's what kind of motivated me. Yeah, tell me I can't do something. I proved him that I could.

[Jocko Willink]

I looked at your tattoo artwork online, and it's freaking badass.

[Adam Anderson]

Thank you.

[Jocko Willink]

Like, it's freaking legit. Like, you're highly skilled.

[Adam Anderson]

Thank you, sir.

[Jocko Willink]

Now, as you're going through high school, I guess before you get kicked out or once you get kicked out, like, did you have a plan in life?

[Adam Anderson]

No, not really. Well, I was supposed to join the Navy. My buddy Eric and me were gonna join the Navy, and I ended up getting that bust, and so that screwed up my Navy chances. He ended up joining the Navy, though.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay, so you were going to join the military?

[Adam Anderson]

Yes.

[Jocko Willink]

But then you get busted, and now you go down to the recruiter and they're like, hey, bro, sorry, you got a record, so, yeah, you ain't coming here. And so then what'd you end up doing?

[Adam Anderson]

I ended up selling my records, and I ended up started working for the city of Pico Rivera.

[Jocko Willink]

Doing what?

[Adam Anderson]

As a public works worker.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay, and how. And how'd you like that job?

[Adam Anderson]

It was all right. It was okay, I guess. It was just a job to me.

[Jocko Willink]

How long did you do it for?

[Adam Anderson]

I did it for about two years, three years, something like that. And then I became a union fire sprinkler fitter. Sprinkler fitter. Okay. Yeah. And that's what I did for the rest of the time before I joined the military.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. And how'd you like that job?

[Adam Anderson]

I love that job.

[Jocko Willink]

You're working hard, you're getting a sweat every day. You see the. The fruits of your labor each day, which always. I always like jobs like that, where you can actually see what you did.

[Adam Anderson]

Pass by buildings nowadays, and I'm like, yeah, I did all the fire sprinklers for that. I built the risers for that and all that stuff. So.

[Jocko Willink]

So where are you on September 11? What are you doing? You must be.

[Adam Anderson]

I was hanging. I was doing a Costco. We're building a Costco right there in La Puente. And, yeah, I remember that day because I remember my former running up to us and going, hey, man, plane just hit the tower. And we're like, what the heck? And then he came running back and he's like, no, planes is the tower. So we're like, oh, man, terrorist attack. And I remember being really, really heartbroken about all that stuff and seeing all the people die. But then afterwards, like, I'd come home from work and I'd sit down and watch tv, turn the news on, and I see soldiers fighting for us. That's what motivated me to join the military.

[Jocko Willink]

What year did you actually join?

[Adam Anderson]

2003.

[Jocko Willink]

So did you know what you wanted to do?

[Adam Anderson]

I wanted to be infantry. I wanted to go and shoot some people, but that's what I wanted to do. But I wanted to actually, I wanted to try.

[Jocko Willink]

No lies detected.

[Adam Anderson]

I was trying to. Trying to. I was really trying to get a Tower of Power. I wanted to go Ranger and Special Forces, but I just never got that far.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, but so did you go.

[Unknown Guest]

You.

[Jocko Willink]

Did you have the opportunity to go infantry right out of the gate?

[Adam Anderson]

No, no, they wanted me to wait, like, three months, but wanted to join right then there because otherwise I. I don't know. I just wanted to get the hell out of the east la, you know? So. Yeah, no, so they offered me a job being a combat medic, said I could go to the infantry right Then and there. So I go, I guess I could help some people out.

[Jocko Willink]

Boom, just like that. How long did you have to wait before you left for boot camp? Once you told him you go combat.

[Adam Anderson]

Medic, it was super quick, like a week. Oh yeah, I was gone.

[Jocko Willink]

And this is because your juvenile, your records were juvenile records of you getting rolled up for, for weed.

[Adam Anderson]

I had, I had my juvenile record, Seale. Okay. Yeah. So that way I was able to join the military.

[Jocko Willink]

Check. So now you're a 28. What? 20.

[Adam Anderson]

I was 28.

[Jocko Willink]

28 year old man. And you're going to boot camp. How was that?

[Adam Anderson]

It was pretty strange. I was old, man.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh yeah. You must have been like, literally I.

[Adam Anderson]

Was out running all these young kids, man.

[Jocko Willink]

How were you? Were you always in good shape or did you train for boot camp?

[Adam Anderson]

I trained for boot camp. I trained for it. So I was already starting to work out and the, the, the darn back. The recruiter took me out to go work out and stuff. So I was getting back in shape.

[Jocko Willink]

Shock.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And then how was boot camp for you?

[Adam Anderson]

I mean, it was pretty cool. I loved it. I went to Fort Benning, Georgia. So.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, when, when you say you loved it, there's a, there's. Most people don't say they love.

[Adam Anderson]

I love, I loved all the training, man. You just got me motivated. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And you didn't have any issue with like, here you are, an old punk rocker. Did you have tattoos at that time?

[Adam Anderson]

No, I didn't have any tattoos.

[Jocko Willink]

So you're a clean slate.

[Adam Anderson]

Yes, sir.

[Jocko Willink]

So mentally you were a punk rock rocker, but no one could tell.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

So you were able to slide under the radar.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Well, what about mentally when these people are yelling at you and you know, barking orders at you and stuff like that?

[Adam Anderson]

You're like, it's all good stuff. My dad, who's nothing, no factor. I just kept telling myself like, this is nothing. Yeah, no factor. Exactly.

[Jocko Willink]

And then from there, do you go to. When do you go to medic school?

[Adam Anderson]

Right after boot camp. We went to nine weeks of boot camp at Fort Benny. I think it was nine weeks. And then went to street to San Antonio, Texas, to Fort Sam. And that's like four months.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay. How was that school? Did you feel, do you feel looking back now like it prepared you for what you were going to experience?

[Adam Anderson]

Not at all. I mean, kind of. I mean, the trauma was not really on point there. Kind of learned it on my own.

[Jocko Willink]

It's pretty early too. This is what, this is still 2003 when you're going through this. Yeah. When you think about the medical advancements that we made as far as combat trauma between 2003, 2004, 2005, like, definitely we got so much better. And it's weird too. Like for special operations medics, they go to a school that's like a year and a half, two years long.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, definitely.

[Jocko Willink]

It's a lot. And they are, they're very prepared, you know, for what they're going to be doing, especially nowadays.

[Adam Anderson]

I was pretty confident. My skills though.

[Jocko Willink]

Good, good.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, definitely.

[Jocko Willink]

Because I remember when they started implementing like T triple C. You remember T triple C. But I also remember when they didn't have T triple C. Yeah. So like all these basic things of, like how to put on a tourniquet, you know, the, those fundament. What we think now is the absolute bare bones basics. We did not, we did not know that. Especially. I can go back to the early 90s. Like in the early 90s, what we learned about combat trauma was definitely, it was, it was like, hey, give the guy an IV. We spent all this time practicing giving IVs.

[Adam Anderson]

Oh, yeah, definitely.

[Jocko Willink]

Like, oh, under a poncho with the red lens in our, in our teeth, you know, giving someone an iv. But we, we never practiced putting on tourniquets. And we would, even at that time, we would talk about tourniquets and it would be like, oh, you, you'd be like, oh, if you need a tourniquet, you can make one with your belt. Like, that was the extent of tourniquet training, as opposed to what we should have been doing, which is having like a prefabricated tourniquet and practice putting that thing on at night. Like, that's what's way more important. So you go to the four month school, but you. So this is now 2003. Like, are you, you're feeling pretty good about the combat trauma medicine training that you're getting?

[Adam Anderson]

I thought I was at first, but my confidence got a little bit more when. So I went to Iraq. My first tour, in 2004. 2003. In 2003. Beating in 2004.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. Did you, did you go from medic school to ait?

[Adam Anderson]

No, medic school is reit.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, that's what it is. Oh, that's your advanced training. Okay, got it. So then where you go? Germany.

[Adam Anderson]

And then I went to Germany.

[Jocko Willink]

And this is where you guys meet?

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah. Same year, right on same deployment.

[Jocko Willink]

So you, you guys already there? I. Yeah, you'd been there for a little while at that time. And how was your. When you get with your unit, how much time did you have to get prepared to go to Iraq?

[Adam Anderson]

I think it was a couple of weeks. Once I got to Germany. Yeah, they just rock and roll, man. They just ship you out. So I was in Germany for a couple of weeks. I got to meet my brother. My brother was teaching in Ramstein, so that was pretty cool.

[Jocko Willink]

And what. What was he, Air Force?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, he was Air Force.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, sweet. So you meet up with your brother. How long had he been in the Air Force for?

[Adam Anderson]

Oh, he'd been in there for a minute already. A couple years. So.

[Jocko Willink]

So you're the new guy, but you're all. You're heading over to Iraq.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

How'd you feel about going into Iraq in 03?

[Adam Anderson]

I was kind of nervous at first, and I was really pumped up and motivated. You know, I just wanted to go and help our soldiers. I was ready. I felt. I felt very confident in my skills at the time. Time. So, yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And so when. When did you deploy to Iraq? What year was it?

[Adam Anderson]

Was it 04 or is it still end of 03? Okay, enemy of 04. Yeah. So it took us a while to get out there because I hadn't. I hadn't been set to unit yet. I was just knowing I was going to be in part of 26 imagery. I wasn't sure which platoon or which company or nothing like that. So we got there, and I remember us going to remember Islamian biop. I remember going to Kuwait first. Sorry, sorry, we're going to Kuwait. And I remember seeing the tower all shot up and stuff. I was thinking, like, man, that's crazy. And then we flew into Iraq in a biop. And I remember walking that night, the very first night, walking towards to go take a shower, and these rockets go flying over our head and popped like 100 meters in front of us. I was like, God dang, we need California anymore. I was like, what the hell? Close. Yeah, Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

I was actually my first deployment to Iraq, which was 03,04, we were in a little base that was adjacent to biop. So we had this little camp for seals that was called Camp Jenny Posey, which this badass Vietnam frogman who is still in. And his daughter was Army ROTC and her name was Jenny Posey. And he named the camp Camp Jenny Posey. So that was his little camp, but it was right there on biaps. So we, you know, we were. You probably ate at the same chow hall. Probably we did. So maybe even cleared our weapons in the Same thing there.

[Adam Anderson]

I remember. Just remember getting a biop in that winnow. That big old. The heck is it called, man? Those damn clearing barrels. No, not the clearing barrels. The. The hangar. Oh, yeah, it's all blown up and stuff. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Collapse down those big bunkers. They were like. There were some hangers that were like. Bunkers? Yeah, you know, they were super like concrete. Like big ass thick concrete bunkers. And some of those you could see had been hit with some munitions that were pretty specific, meant to take out those things.

[Adam Anderson]

We're seeing that tq2 right before we went to Ramada. Remember that?

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

So then where did you work out of? When? Once you got on the ground in biop, where'd you go? Did you work out of Baghdad or.

[Adam Anderson]

Where did they bust us out to? To one of Saddam's palaces. And that's where I met our unit. And they asked me where I wanted to go. 26 or 1 6. I said 2 6.

[Jocko Willink]

And so did you have any reason for that?

[Adam Anderson]

No, I just.

[Jocko Willink]

Just like, just.

[Adam Anderson]

I just wanted to go with my buddies.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, so you knew where some of your guys, some of your buddies were?

[Adam Anderson]

Well, just the guys that I went with.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And then where were you. So where were you guys working out of?

[Adam Anderson]

I ended up meeting up with these guys in mule Skinner camp. Neil Skinner.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay, and then as you're there and you start working. How's that job being a medic now?

[Adam Anderson]

It's kind of different. I got set to sent to hec and then I wanted a little bit more. I want to hit the line. So I'd go out with Bravo Company. I met Chris Swanson, met Ryan, a lot of those guys.

[Jocko Willink]

And, and what was. What kind of operations were you guys running?

[Adam Anderson]

We were doing like we, we do. Like we'd hit some houses here and there's. They always kept me in the back of the Bradley. I'm like, what the heck, man? Let me. Give me get out, man.

[Jocko Willink]

What's your perspective on that, Ryan? You're like, hey, we got a brand new guy. He's a medic. He's been here for a week. He's gonna be sitting in the back of the Bradley.

[Ryan Jackson]

I was pretty fresh myself. So see a new guy show up.

[Adam Anderson]

And.

[Jocko Willink]

Had you been there longer though?

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah, I was there for the invasion. Like the whole push off.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Jackson]

Wait. And all the way up. So we would get replacements in. Every now and then they just show up and just welcome the team.

[Adam Anderson]

Welcome.

[Jocko Willink]

Get your on.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Adam Anderson]

We were talking about. We were talking About Najaf and all that stuff. We got extended that first tour and I remember going in a job and then we were talking about. What was that for? Sergeant's name for starting coke. Copeland.

[Ryan Jackson]

Copperidge.

[Adam Anderson]

Copper. Yeah. And I remember going in a joff and sitting in this Honduran camp, camp hotel. And there's a bunch of little Honduran guys, man, little dudes. They camp hotel, Captain Baker. It's like a two mile stretch. And they got hit. They had ambushed like four times just rolling out there. And I remember when we left that place, this is when we went to Alcot. I don't know if you remember that. Yeah. Now the Ukrainian base. Yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Jackson]

We had a whole operation where we went to three cities and like.

[Adam Anderson]

Oh yeah, a week. Yeah, something like that.

[Ryan Jackson]

That's when we ended up at the CPA building and eventually.

[Jocko Willink]

The cpa Najaf. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we might have talked about that because we. Yeah, we've. We were going to go down to the cpa. We did go down to Najaf and that's actually classic because we got called to be QRF for the CPA in Najaf. We're in Baghdad. It's like a five hour drive. They didn't know helicopters are like, hey, we need you down there. And I'm looking at the battle map and I'm like, hey, there's a whole bunch of cities with bases in between us and them. Why us? And I remember specifically the. They're looking at Al Cut and being like, what about these guys? And they're like, oh no, those are, those are Hondurans. And I'm like, okay, well what's wrong with that? Like they can still be there faster than we can, you know, like it's a five hour drive, but yeah, that's the way it goes.

[Adam Anderson]

I remember the wall was like six feet tall. So I remember we were leaving Jaff because we got sent out kut. And I remember the, the tracer rounds flying over the. Right over the wall right above our heads and stuff when we were leaving. I remember this when we were driving out there, remember I was talking about this when we were driving out there on our convoy and I remember just. It was nighttime and I remember seeing a streak of light and a rocket popping, shooting at us and some gunfire coming at us. And so we started shooting back and I hear over the net, they're like, who the hell's shooting back? And they're like, the medics.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah, we're still on soft skin Humvees and five tons.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, we were really in a five ton. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

I. I don't know when the armored up armored Humvees got there, but I didn't really see any up armored Humvees. I left in 2000, like the spring of 2004 and I hadn't seen any up armor yet. You know, we definitely didn't have them. Ours were just like. We took the doors off those things, you know, so we could like get off, maneuver our weapons and get off faster and just have those things out of the way. Eventually we, we started doing some Mad Max stuff though, and guys would like weld door, like thick steel doors. We. We got a. We somewhere, got a bunch of steel from somewhere and started putting that on just to give some kind of protection at least to the door driver, you know what I'm saying? But we didn't have bulletproof windows or anything like that.

[Adam Anderson]

We put sandbags on the bottom of the. Try and protect us. Y. I remember all that stuff.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah, I remember the last podcast I said my 240 was strapped down on sandbags on top of soft skin Humve.

[Adam Anderson]

It's pretty redneck, but I have a picture of one guy had a surefire. Not surefire, a BS Maglite type duct.

[Ryan Jackson]

Taped into our rifles.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, you guys remember. You guys may or may not remember, but Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, like he was getting asked questions like, hey, like these guys need this and these guys. And he said, hey, you go to war with what you've got, not with what you want. I was like, hey bro, you might want to rethink that statement he making. All of us who are sitting out there with 240s strapped to a freaking sandbag.

[Ryan Jackson]

And then they changed our uniforms. We got ACU's.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And so how's the op temple for you? As a medic? Did you. Because you know, are you. Did you work on any guys on your first deployment?

[Adam Anderson]

The first time I saw somebody was at Camp Mum India. What was it? What was the name of the camp? Camp St. Michael I think it was. And this was after our. After we got extended to Camp St. Michael's and there was this kid that got hit by a mortar. Direct hit. You know, it's both of his legs. I remember him bringing him into the Aesthetian, working on him.

[Jocko Willink]

And that's your first.

[Adam Anderson]

That was my first time.

[Jocko Willink]

First guy you're working on.

[Adam Anderson]

Yes, it was.

[Jocko Willink]

How'd you feel about that?

[Adam Anderson]

I don't really see the injuries. You know, it's More like. It's weird. I close my mind off a little bit. You just start working, you know, that's always been my, I guess my talent. Stay calm and just start working, trying stop the bleeding, you know, just going through my mind, like what I need to do and stuff. So. Can you get a tourniquet on one of his legs? Because his stump was his legs completely blown off, so. Yeah, but the kid ended up living, I guess, from what I heard.

[Jocko Willink]

Was he one of your guys, or was he someone from a different unit?

[Adam Anderson]

No, he's from a different unit, but he was. Well, he's one of our guys. He's American, so that didn't really matter.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, yeah, but you. But you don't. Do you know his name? I know his name. I know. And that's the first. So that's the first time you actually work on somebody real time.

[Adam Anderson]

Yes. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And. And then what about the rest of deployment? Were you. Did you have.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, we had 17 guys go down in a mortar attack because we were sitting in a basin and two miles out of Camp St. Michael's that. That place. They were always mortaring us every day, like, almost. They dropped nine mortars on us, like, within like a minute.

[Jocko Willink]

Damn.

[Adam Anderson]

On the same spot. And these guys were out there doing sandbag detail. And. Yeah, he had 17 guys go down, three critically injured, and I just. We were just pulling guys in, start working on them.

[Jocko Willink]

So how many medics did you have with you? Like, how many of you are there?

[Adam Anderson]

There's like one. One of us per platoon. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay.

[Ryan Jackson]

What was it you're saying this morning? The most Purple Hearts since World War II.

[Adam Anderson]

That's what I thought. Yeah. They said that our unit had the most Purple Hearts since World War II.

[Jocko Willink]

No kidding.

[Adam Anderson]

@ that moment?

[Jocko Willink]

At that time.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. Mumadilla. There was. There was like, Mamadi and Ahmedia or something. There was, but they called. That was the original, like, Devil's Triangle or something. They ended up. They would say, like, Fallujah. They ended up saying it about. Somewhere else, too. But in that time frame, like, that's south of Baghdad. We go down there, and it would be bad. It would always be jacked up. So. So the guys got mortared. You take 17 casualties.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

You're working on as many as you can. Three of them were critical, and the rest of them weren't as bad.

[Adam Anderson]

They weren't as bad, but they still were all shook up. You know, they had some pretty bad wounds on them. Yep. And. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Did. Did. How. So three of those guys get casavacked out of country.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, definitely. And then what was name was Swift. I remember the PA was trying to. He got hit in the neck and so he was trying to get an airway down. So he tried putting laryngoscope down his throat to get a tube down his throat and he couldn't get it. So I jumped in there and got it in there and we're doing that.

[Jocko Willink]

So that's a life saving activity right there for sure.

[Adam Anderson]

Definitely.

[Ryan Jackson]

We thought he was dead when he left. Yeah, like we thought he wasn't gonna make it, but he's alive and kicking down.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Damn, dude. And where, where were you when you were performing this?

[Adam Anderson]

We had got him in a station first aid.

[Jocko Willink]

So you were in the aid station?

[Adam Anderson]

Yep.

[Jocko Willink]

Had you been out in the field with him and.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, I was already part of Bravo company.

[Jocko Willink]

Damn, dude.

[Adam Anderson]

Two six. Yeah, so. But all the guys, I remember running outside after hearing the attack and all the guys were all scattered every lying on the ground and stuff, smoking all this stuff, you know, the chaos behind all that stuff. And we were just grabbing guys, just running them over to the aid station.

[Jocko Willink]

Damn.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And how deep into like how long in deployment? What. What month was that?

[Adam Anderson]

It was like June.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah. After we got extended. So it was like 14 months in.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, damn, dude.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

What about on like a daily basis? How often are you guys taking casualties?

[Adam Anderson]

At that time, we weren't really taking that many. I remember who was on the. The Bradley that got hit.

[Ryan Jackson]

Sergeant Copper's when he got shot in the hand.

[Adam Anderson]

No, not there. In Mumadilla.

[Ryan Jackson]

I can't remember that.

[Adam Anderson]

They got hit with a big ied. I remember running up there afterwards because we were on the QRF to go check it out. I remember the medic was just sitting there, just not even doing anything.

[Jocko Willink]

Like in a shock situation. So you had to roll in and make things happen.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah, we were still getting mortared every day. Just weren't that effective. But for some reason our. Our building was like the highest point of the city.

[Jocko Willink]

Good aiming point, aluminum building.

[Ryan Jackson]

And just like it was an easy target.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, we just. It sat in a basin. So two miles out, they could see inside our whole camp. And then we started running patrols out. Remember that? And we. They brought in some paladins. So they get a poo. Point of origin. Sorry, just saying that for everybody. Yeah, they get a poo and we start shooting paladins back. That was crazy.

[Ryan Jackson]

Oh, they started. Yeah. We had the Q36 where they can detect where it comes from. They started Freezing the mortar round in the top of the tube and they just let it sit out there. They figured out what we were doing and so it would just freeze and slowly and then it would go down and hit. And they just set those up all over the place.

[Jocko Willink]

Damn, dude.

[Adam Anderson]

And like we, because we'd built grid square.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah.

[Adam Anderson]

Like almost immediately we'd shoot back.

[Ryan Jackson]

But it, yeah, they figured out what we were doing.

[Jocko Willink]

So, yeah, the, the counter battery never seemed to be as effective against like some mo running around with like a little 80 millimeter mortar or whatever. They just pull out of the car, drop a couple or do what you're saying. And it was, you know, then they just pack it up and go. By the time we return fire on them, it was like they were already gone. That's a tough, That's a tough situation. It's a tough enemy tactic to overcome. You know, like mortars like that. Now, I guess nowadays with the drones and the, you know, the. You probably be able to do a little bit better because you can see them setting up hopefully and put it on them beforehand. It's going to be a little different this next war, you know. Do you guys watch what's going on over in Ukraine?

[Adam Anderson]

It's freaking crazy. Definitely.

[Jocko Willink]

Like you and. I don't know, I was talking about this with a, with a young military guy, just about the fact that, you know, dude, when they train right now there's drones, like even during training, they're training against drones. And he was talking about how it's like terrifying because. Because you're like in a position and you'll get like an intel report like, hey, there's drones coming. So they stop and they try and hide, and then they're hiding, but it's like all of a sudden you just hear.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yep.

[Jocko Willink]

And they just know where they are.

[Ryan Jackson]

And they have, they have the drones that watch what's going on too, just so they can film it for propaganda too. Like, I watch clips of that stuff like, dude, foxhole.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah.

[Ryan Jackson]

Dropping munitions out on top of them.

[Jocko Willink]

So as I was talking to this young military guy, I was like, yeah, that's terrifying. And I said, I was thinking about, for, for, for our generation. It was like there's no indication whatsoever. You're just walking and all of a sudden you're blown up. You know, like, that's pretty scary stuff. At least when there's a drone, you're like, oh, there it is. I can react to it of some kind. But as opposed to just like, oh, you're just walking down the street or driving down the street and then the next minute you're engulfed in fire. You know, I think they both have their own form. Form of terror.

[Adam Anderson]

I'll.

[Jocko Willink]

I'll leave it at that. I think they're both pretty freaking heinous.

[Ryan Jackson]

Well, they got kids playing Xbox controllers, controlling these things and that's crazy.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, that's the, that's what everyone keeps saying about like, what skill set is going to be needed for the next generation. Those. What are they? Point of view. Point of view drones. They go first person view FPV drones, where it's like they're like a little pilot looking through their iPhone and flying in and just going into buildings and like it's, it's definitely, it's definitely next level right now.

[Adam Anderson]

Definitely.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, the. It'll be, it'll be interesting.

[Adam Anderson]

How do you fight that?

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, it's going to be weird. It's going to be weird to see how it unfolds. You know, are they going to come up with, you know, some kind of a weapon, like some kind of a high speed shotgun that you can just blast those things out of the sky? I saw one the other day that, that you basically shot a counter drone at a, at an enemy drone and it just goes out there and picks it off. So, you know, things will escalate and we'll keep getting better and better. They can, you know, they can make something like a laser gun, honestly, like a laser gun that can hit something and knock out the electronics in it and it falls out of the sky like there. We will counter this stuff definitely and it'll hopefully level out the playing field as opposed to just being a infantry soldier on the ground getting freaking chased by these things, which is horrified.

[Ryan Jackson]

The psychological aspect behind it. It just messes with you. Yeah, no, just thinking you have the advantage and the drone just comes out of nowhere and just flies right into you.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, and the other thing that's going to be weird is like, you know, we build, you know, ships that cost $3 billion, you know, and it's like, well, how many really badass drones can you build for $3 billion even? Like, because they make waterborne drones, you know, things that are like basically smart torpedoes, you know, how are you going to stop when 400 of those things come out? Your. Yeah, swarms. So. And then you start getting swarms below the sea and then swarms from the air at the same time.

[Adam Anderson]

Crazy.

[Jocko Willink]

It's going to be.

[Adam Anderson]

We got some shit to figure out, definitely.

[Jocko Willink]

So I'm very grateful that we didn't have to put up with that.

[Adam Anderson]

Me too. Yeah, definitely.

[Jocko Willink]

So you guys are deep into this deployment. But so for me, in, oh, three zero four, like just the. There was, obviously there'd be enemy attacks all on a regular basis, but certainly not comparable to what it was like in Ramadi.

[Adam Anderson]

Not at all.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, that was crazy. Not at all. So how are you feeling as you kind of, as you kind of get towards the end of this first deployment for.

[Adam Anderson]

Pretty good, you know, just, just so eye opening. Very eye opening for me, you know. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And it had to be a little bit different for you because you were a little bit older.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

I mean, you're now what, you're probably close to 30 years old at this time.

[Adam Anderson]

Definitely. I was 29, 29, 30, almost.

[Jocko Willink]

So that's a. You have a little bit more of a, of a perspective of the world then, you know, guys that are 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, you know.

[Adam Anderson]

You'Re still pretty freaking younger than me. Yeah, super young. But everybody was pretty cool with me, you know, and nobody ever believed how old I was. When I tell them, like, no way. I'm like, yeah, I'm 29, bro. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

So as you're, as you're wrapping up that deployment, are you thinking that the army is going to be something you do for a long time?

[Adam Anderson]

Oh, definitely. I wanted to be a lifer. I wanted to be in there as long as I could. Obviously didn't go that route, but yeah, I tried. I only lasted almost 10 years, so check.

[Jocko Willink]

So how was a reintegration when you get back to Germany?

[Adam Anderson]

It was, it was pretty fun, I guess. I mean, you talked about it. Yeah. Because we all got drunk. Everybody's getting all loaded. Yeah. We ended up going to that stupid, that gym.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, for like to, to decompress you guys or whatever.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah. So, yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And you're. They're like, oh, do you have any nightmares? No. Do you feel, do you feel scared? No, no. Do you, do you react? Are you short tempered?

[Adam Anderson]

No.

[Ryan Jackson]

Just want to get out of here.

[Jocko Willink]

Can I go to the bar? Yes.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah. Remember all the guys hitting all the bars and strip joints? Yeah.

[Ryan Jackson]

Our community was really, really small when we left. The whole place just fell apart. So we came back, like, we just, we were wild.

[Jocko Willink]

It was like kings of the world had returned. We wild out and you guys had been gone for what was it, a 14 month, 15 month deployment. Damn, dude.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, I was only there for like seven, eight months.

[Jocko Willink]

So when you guys get back, you guys begin another workup. Cycle start training again.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, we ended up doing graph and hones fells back to back. Yeah, I never even got to go to like Oktoberfest or nothing like that because we were always training.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, dude, you got jipped.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, the army should baft him four years I was there.

[Jocko Willink]

They should.

[Adam Anderson]

They should.

[Jocko Willink]

They owe you, man. Yeah, you should get some more VA pay for not getting to go to October fest.

[Adam Anderson]

Oh yeah. While in Germany. Travel everywhere. Because we used to celebrate German holidays too. Just like almost every weekend. So we get a three day or four day weekend every. Every other weekend and so.

[Jocko Willink]

So you got to see Europe a bit.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, definitely.

[Ryan Jackson]

We used to have a thing where we. We'd buy like a case of beer. I bought a liquor and get on the train and drink it until it ran out and then we just get off wherever.

[Adam Anderson]

I was tattooing there too, so that I used to pay for all my trips.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, so this is when you started your tattooing?

[Adam Anderson]

Yes.

[Jocko Willink]

How'd you get into it?

[Adam Anderson]

I just, I. Well, when I was in high school, one of these guys, he's an old cholo guy, got me into it and so.

[Jocko Willink]

But you didn't have any tattoos yourself?

[Adam Anderson]

Not at the time, no.

[Jocko Willink]

So you were just tattooing other people?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, well, I tattooed my legs. That was it. I had some tattoos on my legs I did on myself.

[Jocko Willink]

How old were you? Was that in Germany when you did that?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, yeah, I just started. I just ordered some stuff and started tattooing.

[Jocko Willink]

What was the first one? What was the first one you did?

[Adam Anderson]

Probably, I think it was this skull on my.

[Jocko Willink]

Hell yeah.

[Adam Anderson]

On my shin. Like a skull crossbones right off. Yeah, I did that.

[Jocko Willink]

Is it upside down or you're good enough at art that you figured out?

[Adam Anderson]

No, I figured it out. It's not upside down. It's just. Yeah, I did it with a single needle. I remember doing that. It took forever to fill it in and stuff.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, you didn't get like the shading.

[Adam Anderson]

Needle kit that you got? Kind of. I went along cuz they have like.

[Jocko Willink]

Starter kits for tattoo. You can get like the tattoo guy starter kit. It comes with a few different types of needles and some ink and stuff like that.

[Adam Anderson]

That's what I bought. And you know knucklehead infantry guys, man, they're just like, hey, tattoo me a dog. I'm like, all right, man, I got you.

[Jocko Willink]

So were you charging anything? You're just doing it for free?

[Adam Anderson]

Was charging people.

[Jocko Willink]

How much you charge for a freaking ace of spades?

[Adam Anderson]

I don't even Remember?

[Ryan Jackson]

But it was cheap.

[Adam Anderson]

It was pretty cheap, though.

[Jocko Willink]

Did you feel like you like it? Like you had a pretty good talent for it out of the gate?

[Adam Anderson]

I did, yeah. I picked it up really quick.

[Jocko Willink]

Did you tattoo any chickens?

[Adam Anderson]

Did you.

[Jocko Willink]

Did you ever hear about, like, tattooing.

[Adam Anderson]

Chicken skin and stuff?

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, figures and stuff like that? You never did that. You went right straight to human skin?

[Adam Anderson]

Yes, I did.

[Jocko Willink]

Straight to your own shin?

[Adam Anderson]

Yes. Kills my shin. Suck. That sucks.

[Ryan Jackson]

Very, very trustful because he was doc, so.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. Oh, that's right. So we know at least he's going to be keeping clean, even for sergeant.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Did he do any on you, Ryan?

[Ryan Jackson]

No, he's supposed to do one this weekend while we're here, but stuff. So. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

What was he going to do?

[Ryan Jackson]

I don't know, Anything.

[Jocko Willink]

Just whatever he.

[Adam Anderson]

A tattoo?

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah, just from him. Because he's did a lot of other.

[Jocko Willink]

Guys and did you. Most of the work I saw that you did online was like all black and white. Did you always just do black and white or did you do other stuff too?

[Adam Anderson]

No, I did a lot of color too, at the beginning when I came out here to. Well, when I got to Colorado, I was doing a lot of color stuff. When I went to Walter Reed, I was working at this other shop. I forgot the name of it, though. But I was just some really badass artists. One of his names was Chris Low and they're really badass color artists. So kind of traded off. I did a lot of black and gray and they kind of picked up their color work from them. So pretty cool. Like that.

[Jocko Willink]

Right on. So you're traveling on trains, drinking beer and tattooing people?

[Adam Anderson]

Oh, yeah, definitely.

[Jocko Willink]

And you're doing your workup?

[Adam Anderson]

Oh, yeah. And then we're playing guitar too, traveling around. Oh, really? Open mic.

[Jocko Willink]

You play guitar?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

What kind of guitar you have?

[Adam Anderson]

I don't have any right now.

[Jocko Willink]

What kind of car did you have? Are you playing acoustic or.

[Adam Anderson]

Acoustic? Yeah, we'd go and travel around and go pick up, play open mics in Germany.

[Jocko Willink]

I used to go to this one bar when I was in Germany, and every night at like 2 or 3 o' clock in the morning, when it was the end of the night, all these freaking Germans would sing John Denver, Country Roads.

[Adam Anderson]

Really?

[Jocko Willink]

It like, it was like a. It was like a religious moment for the bar. Like, everyone would be like, all right, all right, all right. They would all get quiet and then they'd put on country roads and all these drunk German. In Germany, Berbligan, which is outside of Stuttgart.

[Adam Anderson]

That's a mouthful, isn't it?

[Jocko Willink]

It's the. It's where the. It's where the seals used to have like a base there.

[Adam Anderson]

I didn't even know that. Yeah, that's pretty awesome.

[Jocko Willink]

Panzer concern. It was like an old. It's an old panzer based in World War II. The. In fact, the building where the SEALs were was a panzer like mechanic or a panzer garage. So they still had cranes that they would move the engines out of. The Panzers during World War II. Yeah, it was. It was pretty freaking cool. It was pretty cool to be there.

[Adam Anderson]

We were talking about bomb holder too. They had like Nazi swastikas built into the concrete headquarters.

[Jocko Willink]

Damn.

[Ryan Jackson]

Still the bricks?

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, just straight up.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

That's pretty surprising because they're pretty. They're pretty strict about the way they allow that. Yeah, yeah, they keep like the, the. The graveyards for the German soldiers are like, hard to find. You got to look around to find them. And they got these black crosses. It's like, you know Americans, we have the white crosses, right. They have black, like real heavy looking crosses for their, their soldiers from World War II. Yeah, the. They're very strict about that stuff. What base was that where they had the Swazis in the clear? That's crazy. Damn.

[Ryan Jackson]

Our battalion headquarters had swastika in the brick.

[Adam Anderson]

In the brick work. Yeah.

[Ryan Jackson]

They didn't even try to put a sign over it or anything. They just.

[Adam Anderson]

The library had a Swazi on the. In the brickwork too.

[Jocko Willink]

Damn, dude. Yeah, yeah, I'm surprised they didn't put something over there because like I said, you could. They're strict about like, you can't. You can't be in Germany and have swastikas. Like, that's illegal. They're. They're strict. Well, check. All right, so tattoos are going down. Like I said, we're drinking beer, we're getting ready for deployment. You guys find out your go. But you guys didn't know you were going into Ramadi, did you? When you guys were.

[Adam Anderson]

Not at first, no. No, we ended up going to Queen. Hanging out there for a few.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, you talked about that last time, right?

[Ryan Jackson]

Way too long.

[Jocko Willink]

Like the waiting game. The waiting game did not do you guys.

[Adam Anderson]

Well, I remember though, right before we were supposed to deploy, remember? And we had this one kid committed.

[Ryan Jackson]

Suicide outside with a saw in the porta potty.

[Jocko Willink]

With a saw?

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah, like he wasn't playing around.

[Jocko Willink]

Damn, dude. How many rounds did he get off?

[Ryan Jackson]

A lot.

[Jocko Willink]

Like, like, damn.

[Ryan Jackson]

I think he just put under his mask Just laid on it and just. I think it was still going off but for somebody stopped it.

[Adam Anderson]

I remember being downstairs in our. Because we're moving out the arms room, remember? And yeah, he was one of the kids that they put in charge of guarding our weapons, removing them out of arms room into the truck.

[Ryan Jackson]

Oh, you're talking about burns outside the. Right there, outside the company steps.

[Adam Anderson]

Yes, yes.

[Ryan Jackson]

Oh, that's different. That's not the guy in Kuwait. Yeah, so we, yeah, right before we left, there was a guy that, he was schizophrenic. Like people he would like.

[Adam Anderson]

He's a new guy though.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah, he would be talking to himself in the room and stuff. He spoke German too. His dad was German soldier or something. But yeah, we were getting ready to go to the field and he was guarding the weapons and put his weapon on. Three round burst and just underneath the sign that said we set the standards.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Jackson]

Then we all got called in, lost a four day weekend.

[Jocko Willink]

What do they tell you? What would they call you in to tell you they got the guy killed himself. Yeah. Did they do any like mental health checks or anything?

[Ryan Jackson]

No, they were investigating us. They were asking like if somebody was bullying them or something.

[Adam Anderson]

Oh yeah, it was stupid.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah.

[Ryan Jackson]

Everybody knew he was schizophrenic. Like he was like, he would yell at himself at night.

[Jocko Willink]

That's weird. You know, there's. I did, I did a couple podcasts about in Vietnam. They like lowered the standard of what you could get, what. Who you had to be to get in the army. And like they let in guys that were, were basically mentally handicapped, you know, and it caused real problems in the Vietnam War. Now a lot of them, they'd be like, okay, dude, you're going to be a cook or you're going to take some job, like some menial job that, that they could get by with. But occasionally, you know, sometimes they'll be like, okay, you're an infantry guy. And like there's a guy that wrote a book about it and he had to teach one of his fellow guys in boot camp how to tie his shoes because he didn't know how to tie his shoes. And when he asked him, they had to write a letter home and he said, hey, what's your address of where you live? He's like, he didn't know his own address. He didn't know how to write home. And he was in that freaking army. So.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, occasionally that's what, that's what, that's what you have to say about the army, huh? Yeah, we're all a bunch of. I can say that. Sorry.

[Jocko Willink]

So you guys are in Kuwait now. You guys eventually find out how long you guys were in Kuwait for a while, though. How long were you there for?

[Ryan Jackson]

Five months.

[Adam Anderson]

Five months, dude. Yeah, that's.

[Jocko Willink]

That's a long time to be sitting around.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah, that's what I said last podcast. Like, people wanted to go to war. Like, young soldiers, like, want to go to war.

[Jocko Willink]

It's better than sitting in court.

[Ryan Jackson]

It really was.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, it was boring.

[Ryan Jackson]

We would walk like a click to the chow hall. We had to wear all of our gear because we were acclimatizing. So you had to wear all of our gear? Chow back every time. And yeah, it's stupid training. We did EIB expert infantry badge.

[Adam Anderson]

I was in excellent shape then, though.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. Everybody just working out like crazy.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, definitely. Exactly.

[Jocko Willink]

Eventually you guys hear you're going up tomato now. You. You went up on ad. Didn't you go up early?

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah, I went with Colonel Dean and KEPL on.

[Jocko Willink]

So you're back still in Kuwait. What are you hearing when you're back in Kuwait, Adam?

[Adam Anderson]

Not really much. We just knew that where we were going to like this crazy city and I guess. What's his name, Sorry, Kawe.

[Ryan Jackson]

That was our cow.

[Adam Anderson]

That's where he was running that city at the time. Time. And they got killed.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah. And so I was like, wow, so this is right after Fallujah too. So they were saying, telling us that the city's really crazy. We're going to expect to see a lot of casualties on both sides, I guess. But did you.

[Jocko Willink]

Did you believe that or you just like, oh, it's another. Another hype speech or you.

[Adam Anderson]

Actually, I was preparing myself and my guys to. To deal with that. Training them all up. We were all training up really heavy. I was going through my old, like, model combat scenarios, you know, and stuff, and trying to. Because by that time, I guess our military, our medical knowledge had grown up a lot. So a lot of things have changed. So we got like those Israeli bandages. We got stuff like that. We got tourniquets. The cat tourniquets.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, yeah. So you were training your individual soldiers to be able to work on each other?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah. Yes, that.

[Jocko Willink]

That definitely. Like I said, we went through T, triple C, which was our kind of. Is it a three day course or something like that? But my guys used it to save lives 100%, you know, so that's awesome that you did that with your guys. As you're getting ready to go up.

[Adam Anderson]

There, training all These guys to all the infantry dudes.

[Jocko Willink]

So, yeah, yeah, that's freaking.

[Adam Anderson]

That was awesome.

[Jocko Willink]

You. You guys get up there. I'm going to read a little something from, from Colonel Dean's book of when you got guys get up there. He says, as we formed up for the transfer of authority ceremony at 0700 on the morning of the 7th of June, we had three soldiers dead, six very seriously injured, and two more wounded in action before even taking over. So just to explain that to civilians, when you go in to a new area of operations to take to what, relief in place, what it's called, basically someone's going to leave. Like a group is going to leave and a group is going to take their place. And so the group that's there, another group came in, comes in to take their place. You do left seat, right seat. Like basically you go out on some patrols with them to familiarize them with the area of operations, what the enemy ttps are, what to watch out for, how the area functions, and then the people that have been there leave, and now the new unit takes over, and that's called a transfer of authority. So by the end of the transfer of authority, just by the end of that transfer of authority, the day that you guys are supposed to take over, you already had three soldiers dead, six very seriously injured, and two more wounded in action before you even start your time on the ground in control. So imagine that this is just the worst case scenario. And I remember it very clearly because, you know, we, we actually went like Colonel McFarland said, can you go and talk to Colonel Dean? You know, just like, see what he needs, see if you can help him. And that's exactly what we did. But, you know, we went into his office and it was like, here's a guy that is looking at another eight months, a year, who knows how long to be in this area of operations. And he's already taken, you know, lost three guys before that time clock even starts ticking.

[Adam Anderson]

Right?

[Jocko Willink]

What do you remember about the turnover there?

[Adam Anderson]

I remember ECP3. That was pretty crazy. I was in a Bradley at the time. And I remember we saw the explosion go off and we're like, what the heck was that, man? So we're looking at the portholes and stuff and you see all the smoke coming up and we're like, come on, let's get out of here, let's go help them. We heard it was our guys that got hit or the mitt team, Sergeant Garza and Sergeant Reinhardt were on there. So we're like, we gotta go help our guys, you know? Finally, we got the old case. We ran out there, and I remember hopping out of the Bradley and running up and. Sworn Iraqi dude was shot in his thigh. I remember helping him out. And then I remember looking up and seeing this lieutenant run out of his vehicle, got shot right in the back of his calf. The front of his calf got blown out. And I was just like, man, this is crazy. Remember Sergeant Reinhardt? He was like a. He was pretty cool, man. He was a good dude. But I remember him just. They got hit when they were sleeping, and I guess his big old truck came rolling in there and just exploded on him. I remember getting an award, too, because I helped with the crispy critters. The Iraqi guys. There's like eight dead Iraqi guys, so I helped, like, burned in a. Oh, yeah, they were.

[Jocko Willink]

Vehicle or were they on the. In a barracks or something?

[Adam Anderson]

They were in barracks, yeah. They were all. They were gone. But Sergeant Reinhardt, I remember him going over this embankment, shooting all pissed off at these guys. I remember looking at them thinking, man, this dude's badass. You know, Like. Yeah. But I remember also remember Colonel Dean over there shooting. Yeah. Yeah. Disarmed 4.

[Jocko Willink]

It's interesting reading his book, you know? It's like, hey, is that the best spot for a battalion commander to be in?

[Adam Anderson]

I know. Nope.

[Jocko Willink]

But guess what, You. The enemy doesn't care. The enemy doesn't see that you're a lieutenant colonel or you're a private. Like, they're. They're going to do something, they're going to do it. You got to react to it.

[Adam Anderson]

I remember my platoons are telling me, doc, don't tell Colonel Dean, get down. Stay down. I was like, y. Like, sir, get down. He's just like. He's over there smoking his stogie. Yeah. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

That's awesome. So as you guys are taking over, how did. How did you feel? Here you are. You've been there for what, probably a week or something like that, and you've already had all these casualties, lost three guys. Tribble, Love and. And Crombie. These guys are.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah. You know, Tribble was probably the most heartfelt one because Tribble was a good friend of mine, and knowing that he got hurt and got killed the way he got killed, it was pretty sad to me. I'm glad.

[Jocko Willink]

What made it. What made that one hard? Particularly hard?

[Adam Anderson]

Well, just because we're just good friends, we'd always beatbox in the back of the Bradley and stuff, you know, just being stupid, you know, all of us. Just the camaraderie that you build with all the soldiers, you're. I guess we call them each other team. We're like a team too, you know? So, you know, I mean, yeah, it was just pretty sad.

[Jocko Willink]

So you got, like, Colonel Dean with the burden of having all these soldiers and thinking about, hey, I'm gonna lose. I'm gonna lose more of these soldiers.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And then. But for you on the front lines, your burden is like, hey, I'm gonna lose my friends and I might die myself.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, definitely. The way I felt was like, as long as you give up. Give up to the fact you're probably gonna die, you're better off once you resign to that fact and, you know, you kind of kick ass. You know, you do your thing.

[Jocko Willink]

That seems to be the most common theme of just, like, if you're scared and being paranoid and worrying about dying or being wounded all day long, I. I can't even see how you'd get outside the wire, you know, if that's what you're thinking about. I can't see how you'd get outside the wire. If you were like, could. Today could be the day? It's like, yeah, today could be the day. And that's the way it is, you know, as opposed to, today might be the day, and I better try and avoid it at all costs. It's like that. That.

[Adam Anderson]

Right.

[Jocko Willink]

Must be horrifying for guys.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah. But I guess as long as you resign to the fact you're gonna die, you're gonna be okay. I guess that's the way I felt. I mean, and I felt. I was just wondering, like. Like, who's gonna die today? Or something, because we were in contact. Every day almost seemed like that.

[Ryan Jackson]

I think it was. I said we couldn't be in one spot for more than 13 minutes without getting attacked.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, like. Well, she kept it moving. Keep it moving, especially during our day patrols.

[Jocko Willink]

And you guys were mostly working into meme.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

So we talked about it with Ryan, but what did the. What did the day. What did a day look like for you? Normal day.

[Adam Anderson]

Kind of like Warfare. The movie Warfare. Like, that's a Monday for us kind of deal. Yeah. It was crazy, man. I loved. I. A lot of good times, a lot of bad times. You know, the good times were like, when we get on firefights, we jack them all up and leave them dead, you know, that was a good day. But, you know, sometimes our guys got hurt, too. Yeah. I lost my. One of my best friends, Christopher Swanson, out there, and I went through two squad leaders in one week.

[Jocko Willink]

How'd that happen?

[Adam Anderson]

Michael Muir and. And Swanson.

[Jocko Willink]

So Michael Muir is the guy that you. That you dragged out of the street, but he was wounded and he's going home.

[Adam Anderson]

Oh, yeah, well, he got shot. It was weird. We were right there by the water tower, the big water tower off of Spears, I guess. Yep. That was funny, too. I was talking about the streets names and. And Ramadi, how they're named all after hot chicks.

[Ryan Jackson]

And football teams.

[Adam Anderson]

And football teams. Yeah, Like Spears and Love Hewitt and all this stuff and crazy stuff. But. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

So you were talking about. So. So what happened with Swanson?

[Adam Anderson]

Swanson, We. We had originally. Well, we should start with mirror first. Kind of go through that whole week.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, let's go.

[Adam Anderson]

So, sorry, Mirror. We. We had heard that dedication, weapons underneath the water tower, and so we got sent out to go check that out, so we patrolled out there.

[Jocko Willink]

And so is this during your time, like the eight hours a day that you were patrolling?

[Adam Anderson]

Yes.

[Jocko Willink]

So you guys get a call from the talk.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

From the battalion talk. And they say, hey, we get intel right now that there's weapons by the water tower.

[Adam Anderson]

Well, we prepared for this already. Okay.

[Jocko Willink]

So it was pre prepared.

[Adam Anderson]

It was pre prepared.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay.

[Adam Anderson]

So we went out there, and of course, you know, we have to walk out there because the Bradleys can't go certain areas because there's IED written places, you know.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. And again, for you civilians that are listening, think about what he just said. There's so many IEDs in the ground that you can't send Bradley's in because Most of the IEDs are meant for vehicles because that's a much better target for the enemy. You know, they'd much rather take out a vehicle and. And kill Americans than just kill Americans. The. The burning tank is very good propaganda for the Moos.

[Adam Anderson]

Oh, yeah, definitely.

[Jocko Willink]

So they put in big bombs. Fortunately, they would sometimes be, you know, activated by the tank itself or the vehicle itself. And so it would be easier and safer to be on foot.

[Adam Anderson]

Oh, definitely. So that.

[Jocko Willink]

That's why you guys are foot patrolling to this water tower as opposed to just taking Brad's in there. All right, so you guys are on foot patrol. Sorry, I'm trying to.

[Adam Anderson]

No worries, no worries.

[Jocko Willink]

Describe it a little bit.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah. And so we. We set up. We had set up a bell. Sorry. We set up security. Sorry. Around the area. I have brain farts, man. Tbis. Too many tbis.

[Jocko Willink]

It's all good, man.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah. So we set up security around the area and security. Sorry. We heard one gunshot just go off. Sermir got shot, and he's laying in the center of this intersection and he's screaming. So I run over by across the street, and I run over to where Lieutenant Blackstone was, and I was trying to get Mike. I was trying to get Sergeant Mira to crawl over towards me. Cause, you know, we all heard about the old scenario that every train's for, like, you know, don't run out there because there's a sniper out there, he's gonna smoke you. But I got tired of hearing him screaming. I'm not tired of it. I just didn't want to hear him screaming because it was. It's kind of sad. See your friend screaming? Yeah. I kept trying to get him to crawl towards us. He couldn't. So I was like. And I remember seeing his. The bullet went in his left thigh and opened up a big, old. Big old hole in his inner thigh, went underneath his right, and that's. That came out the back of his butt. But we. I didn't know. I didn't see that he was shot in the right leg only. I was just worried about that big. The big open wound in his left eye, because I always thought it might have taken on femoral or something. But there wasn't hardly any blood, so.

[Jocko Willink]

That'S a good sign.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, definitely. So I just told Lieutenant Blackstone, like, hey, man, I'm run out there and snatch him up. I'm not going to leave him out there. So I yelled out to everybody pulling security. I go, just run a 360. Just gunfire, man, just cover my ass. So as soon as I hit that. That ground, started running, started zigzagging. I'm like, my head, I'm thinking, please don't shoot me. Please don't shoot me. And bullets started snapping at me right off the bat. And so I just kind of zigzagged and I slid on top of him and I grabbed him by his IBA and I told him, I'm gonna get him out of there. And I dragged his ass.

[Jocko Willink]

Hell, yeah.

[Adam Anderson]

And then Lieutenant Blackstone and our interpreter helped me out. Last few feet as I got him over to the corner where we were at, got him under some cover, and I started working on him immediately. And I remember everybody's screaming, all the chaos that goes down when, you know, somebody, one of your brothers gets hit. And I'm just trying. Trying to yell at everyone like, everybody shut the hell up. You know, like, I got it. I got this. Don't worry about Them. And so they were trying to call in our. Our support element. So we had a couple Humvees roll up, and I'm trying to ask guys to help me get them up. And some of the guys were kind of, like, just kind of. You know, you can never really tell what goes on in people's minds. This is the first time, though, I remember Sergeant Randall was, like, apologizing, like, man, he's like, I'm sorry. He's like. Because some of the guys weren't listening. They were just standing around watching me work on him, trying to get him up. I got a tourniquet around his leg, and I. I packed his wound up with Krillex and wrapped it with an Ace wrap. Yeah. And then we threw him in the back of the Humvee. So his legs are all up, you know, the way the Humvees have been. Big old hump in the back. His legs are all up there. And I'm on top of him working. And we're driving down Spears just racing, and Mulnix is just dumping rounds, trying to clear the road for us. But, yeah, it's one of those moments that we can't talk about. Sorry, but yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And back to Charlie Med.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah. And that's when his lips started going cyanotic, which is blue. He's going into shock really bad, so. And I always used to try to make my. My patients, like, laugh a little bit. So he's like, bro, I think I'm shot in my other leg, too. So I started doing a blood sweep on him, and my finger went in a bullet hole right below his nuts. I go, I got bad news. I got some good news. Which one you want to hear first? He's like, the bad. I go, yeah, you're shot. The good news is both your twig and barriers are still there, man. So he starts laughing, so he kind of brought a little color back in his face. Face. Yeah. But, yeah, and then we get a trolley, man. They're. They're pretty tight. We called it in already, so they were already waiting for us. And we got in there, and I remember the crew, the. The. All the medics running out there with the litter, litter teams and stuff, trying to pull them in there. I remember getting out of the vehicle. My hands were covered in his blood. I'm like, man, I asked one of the medics, I'm like, hey, do you have any place where I could clean off my.

[Ryan Jackson]

My.

[Adam Anderson]

My hands and stuff? And they're like, oh, yeah, come over here. So. And then I get called In. I had a hot weapon on my chest, went, four, I still, you know, ready to rock. And. And they. They're like, hey, he wants to talk to you for a minute. And so I was like, okay. So I started walking in like, no, you can't take your weapon inside here. So I'm like, okay. So, like, hey, Doc, we got your weapon. So I walked in there. I remember seeing all these docs working on him, and. And he called me over, and I was like, he's like, thank you, bro, and shook his hand. And then that's when First Sergeant Shaw was like, hey, Doc. Yeah. Get back out there. You guys are still in the active firefight right now. So I was like, all right, bro, I'll see you after. See you after. And that's when we left and went back out there.

[Jocko Willink]

You took the same Humvee?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

The CAS of Akov took you right back out there? Yep.

[Adam Anderson]

We finished off our patrol. We couldn't even find the enemy after that.

[Jocko Willink]

No. I'm sure you guys scared the hell out of them.

[Adam Anderson]

Probably. I don't know. I hate that.

[Jocko Willink]

What about that weapons cache? Did you find that?

[Adam Anderson]

I don't even think so. I don't think there was a weapons cash there, but. Yeah. And then that was the 18th of July. The 20th of July. I got wounded. Sorry. I got my Purple Heart.

[Jocko Willink]

And would you get blown up? What happened on that one?

[Adam Anderson]

We were moving right by Jolie, right by the Blue Mosque, and we were passing right by there. And I remember walking down the open area thinking. I remember in my head telling myself, hey, pick up your pace, man. You're out in the open right here. Since I said that in my head, I started picking up my pace. I look over to my right, and it's like everything went slow motion. I see this rocket scale, skip and bounce and pop. They shot an rpg and it popped in the air. And I remember seeing Raymond and Esprit. They got swept off their feet. And I guess as I was running, another. Another one popped, and it's peppered my whole left side. So I had a. Like, they thought I was shot in my shoulder and stuff, but I wasn't. But I didn't realize that even something popped right behind me. And so Lugabille is like comedy in combat, man. Lugabille's down on the ground. I'm above him, shooting, right? And I'm firing. And one of my hot brass went in his neck. And he's like, God damn it. I'm like, I'm sorry, bro. Pop, pop. I'm sorry. And he reaches up and one. Another one of my hot brass goes inside his sleeve.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, damn, dude.

[Adam Anderson]

And so he's like, oh, God damn it. I'm laughing, right? And shoot. There's bullets smacking right behind me and stuff. And I'm shooting and I'm laughing like. I'm sorry, bro. I'm sorry, dude.

[Jocko Willink]

Hot brass is hot brass, bro. It's very hard not to react to that.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah, that was one of the things where they would take, like, big cans of vegetable oil and they would cut a hole in it. And they had those 72 millimeter Katusha.

[Adam Anderson]

Rockets and they would put them in.

[Ryan Jackson]

There and they would just wire it, like all the way down the street, hook it up to a cell phone. They would detonate it. Like they just sit in a window and just set it off.

[Adam Anderson]

I used to hate when they. They strip the wires down. Just was like a small little fine copper wire. You couldn't even see the naked eye unless you got close. And they'd run that stuff all over the place and then they detonate it.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, they were. They were definitely professional at making professionals at making IEDs. That's. That's for damn sure.

[Adam Anderson]

Yes, they were.

[Jocko Willink]

What happened with Staff Sergeant Swanson?

[Adam Anderson]

And so Swanson, I. Well, let me finish this. And so, yeah, so me and Lugabille. Sorry, I'll get this one here.

[Jocko Willink]

No, it's all good.

[Adam Anderson]

No, me and Lugabille started. Started. We're like, hey, man, we need to get out of here because we're out in the open right there. We only had this wall on the right side of us to cover us over there. Shooting at these guys, at the muzzle flashes coming from the stupid mosque in these houses nearby. And so we go, we gotta run down this. Go check on Raymond and Spiricueta. And so we start. I go, let's start running down. And so I'm shooting. I remember the glass breaking because all these stores were right there. I remember the glass busting from them shooting at us. And I remember just running, shooting like this with my M4. And yeah, it was crazy, man. Then we. We all met up, right? And we start shooting down the street like walking, like Reservoir Dogs. That's the way I felt at the time, like walking down the street, like Reservoir Dogs shooting. And then we go in this house and I remember doing a. The heck. What's his name? Water boy style.

[Unknown Guest]

Boom.

[Adam Anderson]

I retard strain, you know, I knocked down this big old gate and I remember Rayman and me, we start clearing this house and this dude coming up, Mr. Mistah. Yeah, I got him by the hair. And when I grabbed him by the hair to put him down the ground, I remember all this blood tripping from my arm. I'm like, dude, I'm hit. Raymond's like, hey, bro, you're shot in your shoulder. I'm like, no, I'm not. So removing my shoulder. And he's like, yeah, you're shot, bro. Like, no, I'm not. Whatever. Anyway, so, yeah, so at that time, we had done so many rounds, I went through my whole combat load. I had three quarters of a magazine left.

[Jocko Willink]

Damn.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, so that was a pretty mean fire fight.

[Jocko Willink]

How did it wrap up?

[Adam Anderson]

So our support elements start showing up and so we started directing fire and they started dumping rounds. And then the rest of our squad, rest of our team started rolling up. Because I thought for sure that somebody was out there dead or dying, you know, because they did a well planned ambush on us, but we just fought through it as usual. And so that kind of scared them a little bit because they realized that we won't just because usually our SOP at the time was just. We both threw an ambush and just keep on rocking, you know, but we, we take it back to them.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah, I think that's one of the very few times we actually got air support and got. They dropped a JDAM or something, one of those buildings. I think that's a firefight.

[Adam Anderson]

I don't know. They did a compass call. I used to hate that compass call. Remember that? They fly the jets or they try to set off all the. The set off frequencies or whatever. Trying to set off IDs. Yeah, planet IDs, but, yeah. And so I remember starting poor. We make it all back in the house and we're all bumping chest like, yeah, that was crazy, man. You know, and, well, I was making sure everybody's okay and I forgot I was hurt. And then one of the guys says, hey, Doc, you're all bleeding, man. What's up? I'm like, oh, yeah, I forgot about me. So I started dropping my gear and stuff. And I remember Lieutenant Blackstone calling it in and Sergeant poor platoon sergeant, the radio. And he's like, hey, Doc's hit, Doc's hurt. And I remember silence. And then I remember Serp coming back like, well, is. Is he going to be evac or what? And I remember the Tim Boston looking at me going, hey, bro, you know, like, what? Be evac? I'm like, no, man, let's try Mike this. Hell yeah. Like, charlie, Mike this. So strap me up. So they patched me up and we went back out there. Hell, yeah. And I remember. I remember crying, Colonel Dean was out there when we were gonna go back out there to go find out, see how many people we killed, see if we see where they were shooting at us from. So me and. Me and Swanson were walking together. And I remember Tenant Colonel Dean yelling at us, like, hey, guys, watch out. They can still fire RPG at you guys from that side. Like, Roger checks her, you know, like, whatever. We just. He didn't say anything about me. I'm all bloodied up and bandaged up and stuff. I look like a mummy probably. But, yeah, I love Colonel Dean. He's such a good guy.

[Ryan Jackson]

That's when Swanson got shot.

[Adam Anderson]

No. And then after that, that I ended up going to. This was pretty cool, man. Because when we got back, back on FOB Ramadi, I remember my platoon sergeant, my first sergeant were waiting for us because he knew I was hurt. And I remember I grabbed my aid bag because I never used to go out on patrols with an aid bag because they'd shoot me because they knew I was a medic. So I used to have a trauma pouch that I'd be able to take care of, like, four or five casualties. And so, yeah, anyway, so I grabbed my aid bag out of the back of Bradley, and we're walking out, and they're both looking at me like, shaking their heads like, God dang, Doc, like, what the hell? Like, well, whatever. And then we're told Swanson, they're like, get him to Charlie Matt and get him patched up. And I got sent out. They evac me to. To Anaconda. Okay, Real quick. And then I was there for a day. I remember thinking, man, my wife's gonna flip out when she hears about this.

[Jocko Willink]

And did you call her and tell her what's up?

[Adam Anderson]

When I got to Anaconda, I was able to. I'm like, I'm sure you probably heard, but I'm fine. Just want to let you know that. So you heard about what? Because they were calling her. She get like 3 o' clock in the morning calls like guys got hurt or guys got dead, you know? So I figured that they'd call her. Nobody called her, so she's all panicked at that moment. I was like, oh, man, sorry. But yeah. And then ended up flying back to Ramadi and I went back on patrol. And 22nd of July was when Swanson got killed. That was a whole show, man. We. We had originally moved into this. This part of town in Ramadi. I forgot where. I forgot what it was called. But the people there were. Were more. They were cool with us. And so we sat down, drank some chai with them. And I remember Christopher Swanson, his family sent a bunch of, like, kid toys and stuff, like bears and basketballs and soccer balls and all kinds of stuff. So we gave him all this stuff. And we were about to go out to go set up an SKT at the white apartments. Yeah, yeah. And so we. We moved out. I remember Spirita fell in the. You remember the. Like, the trenches.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah.

[Adam Anderson]

Fell on one of those ditches. I don't know how he did that, but they put him back into. Bradley, sent him back. And so we. We patrolled right in there, made it into the white apartments. We set up an skt. So we're all set up. And I remember we get the call that they wanted to pull us off that. And I remember telling Chris, I'm like, man, I have a bad feeling about this. Hey, bro, this is what we do. I was sitting on the couch chilling. Like, on the throne. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

For people that are listening, SKT is a small kill team. It's basically a sniper overwatch position that you guys were setting up, where you're gonna be able to be in a relatively secure position. Relatively, very, relatively secure, but at least you're not allowed in the open. But you. You can keep an eye on what the enemy's doing and interdict if you need to. And so that's what you guys were doing. And then you get called to go and do something else. What they want you guys to go do.

[Adam Anderson]

I guess there's a possible trigger guy, a possible trigger man, and he was supposedly in this call center right on Spears. So they call us out there. So we. We pack up all our stuff, we start moving out. You know, wherever duty calls, we're going to move out to. And I remember thinking in my head, I'm like, man, I got a bad feeling about this today. And as soon as we hit Spears on the main roads, that's riddled with IEDs, this car didn't want to stop. And me and Raymond were in the rear of the pack, rear of the team. We're moving up the street, and this car didn't want to stop, so we both shot at this car. And so I was thinking, man, this is already starting off pretty bad. So we started moving. We move up, and we get to this house where the supposedly grid coordinate was because they had an AUV up there that's watching these dudes, I guess. And we're like, there's no call center here, you know, so we go in this house and same time, I guess that there was a couple of guys paralleling us on a stupid moped, stupid scooters. And so, yeah, they were watching us. And I remember going inside and talking with a. The owner of this house and stuff. And we're like, hey, where's this call center at? He's like, there's no call center, sir. Maybe across the street. So I remember hearing two gunshots going off up top. And I called on my internal consultant, like, hey, what's going on up there? And Raymond's like, oh, those guys on the bike. I took him out. And so we ended up going. We ended up leaving that house, running across spears to this mechanic shop. It was a wild goose chase, man. The whole day was a wild goose chase. It was just bad. It was a mechanic shop and nothing's there. And we're all like, we're all smoked because, you know, you start bounding and running around and stuff. And so we end up going across back, right back to white apartments, right back where we came from. And we went around the. Our squad split in half and half of us went this way, and me, Swanee and Lt. Blackstone went this other way. And we see these guys walking down the street and they had like these track suits on that. I guess those were the guys they were talking about. So we snatched them up and pulled them in this bakery and Swanson and the rest of the squad went across the street and it was just me, Lieutenant Blackstone, his rto, and Raymond. And we're searching these guys and the rest of the squad was across the street. And I remember searching this guy and looking out the front door and we started taking fire. I remember being all pissed off. I wasn't even. I wasn't scared of nothing. I just remember being pissed like, God damn, can we have one day that we don't get shot at? That's from what I was thinking about. So I zip tied this dude, I threw him on the ground. I told him if he moves, I was gonna shoot him, but just try to scare him a little bit, but. And all of a sudden we hear a heavy machine gun started blowing through the walls. And so we all hit the deck and we're lying there and we're looking over, seeing Blackstone screaming in the radio. We're under heavy contact and all this stuff. And I remember telling Ryan, like, don't you leave me here, bro. You know, it's crazy. And so I remember their internal comms was screaming up, and. Yeah, I guess I remember yelling at Blackstone, hey, somebody's hurt across the street or something. So we stacked up on the wall, and he was the number one man out. I was number two, and Roy Rto was the number three guy. So we went out that door, and we were thinking, if we're gonna get killed, man, fuck it. Let's just do this right now, you know, I'm not gonna get my head chopped off somewhere, you know, becoming. Becoming some. Because we were so much under fire, man. I remember I should start shooting to the left at the muzzle flashes. And 10 blast started shooting to the right. And we ran across the street. And Raymond never made it across because he said that we were so much under fire that there's no way he would have made it across the street. He's like, I don't even know how you guys made it, man. And I remember it's kind of funny, too, because the 10 boxes started slowing down. So I was like, sir, don't slow down. Keep moving. And bullet ripped through his camelback. He left a perfect hold to his camelback, like, less than a foot in front of me. And so that's how crazy it was. He thought he was shocked because he felt the warm water dripping down his back. And I was like, you're fine, sir. And I guess my eyes looked all bugged out because we made it in the house where all the brothers were. And, yeah, he looked back at me, and he's like, what? I said, nothing, nothing. You're good, sir. Just keep on moving. And so we went up and went up the stairs, and I remember seeing this guy lying there on his back, and I didn't even realize it was Chris. Chris was a really good friend of mine. And we're still engaged in contact. So there's bullets flying through this doorway up on the roof. And he's just lying there. And I got up to him. I saw it was Chris. Yeah. And he was gone already. Taking a bullet to his mouth. Went out the back of his head. It's pretty sad. And so I started screaming down in the tent, Blackstone. I'm like, hey, sir. I'm like, chris is gone. He's like, anderson. He starts screaming at me. He's like, doc, he's like, you do whatever you can. Save his life. I'm sorry. I'm like, shot in the head. What can I do? And everybody just went silent. And so, yeah, I Try again. But I told Sergeant O, he was a new guy, that was his very first foot patrol with us, and he's already in the shit with us. And so I got Chris up on my shoulder and I started carrying him down, down those steps. And I remember him almost slipping off my shoulder. And I started screaming at the guys, they go, hey, man, I need some help. I don't want him to fall off my shoulders, you know, I don't know if anybody knows what it's like to carry a body. Guys are heavy, you know, especially off a battlefield, so. And you're all smoked because you're bounding, moving around. You know, a lot of people don't understand that kind of stuff. Yeah. Smoke do you get? And so I was like, doesn't have anybody have any lungs in their breath to help me out here? All the brothers started just staring at me. All the guys started staring at me. I'm like, he's falling off my shoulders. And then I guess Sergey Randall came running in like a. Like an angel just came running in. He's like, what's up? How did he come from? I was wondering, but I guess Raymond, the Bradleys couldn't find us because they had a different map they're working off. Yeah. So they couldn't find us. They could hear us in this. Engaged this contact, but they couldn't find us. And I guess just by pure luck, the driver saw Raymond popping his head out the door and. And pulled up and. Yeah. And so Sergeant Randall came on up. I go, hey, he's falling off my shoulder so I can grab him. He grabbed him and ran out the door. And he didn't see him anymore after that. And so I remember us just kind of going through it. I remember thinking in my head, like, God dang, that dude was a warrior. You know, he was like. He was someone like you, you know, somebody I really looked up to. Very big inspiration towards me.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah, he just got hit with a mortar round.

[Adam Anderson]

Oh, yeah. Like a week before 90 blast. And so he just got hit.

[Ryan Jackson]

And he was walking around with. Strapped on his ass and still going out every day, like, still in the fight.

[Adam Anderson]

I was in the Bradley when he got hit. Yeah, I used to love that stuff. Me and him always used to put our legs up on the Bradleys. The ramp went down and step out, you know, it was cool. It was awesome. We used to do stuff, stupid stuff. You know, it's funny things that you think about, the goofy stuff that we used to do. Yeah. But, yeah, sorry. Siren Swanson was a He's a. That affected me really bad, especially afterwards because, you know, they do the angel flight and all that stuff. And I remember guess getting back to Bradley and we're all kind of wasted and smoked and stuff. And I remember Sergeant Heinrich, he was our TC at the time he came down. He's like, I hope Chris is okay. I'm like, dude, he's gone, man. Every time Sergeant Heinrich and he just shut the. Sat down in his, you know, in the little. Because he's the Bradley commander. Sat down his little seat in there and shut the door, turned the turret and just kind of just saying much after that. And I remember we got back to. Towards the angel flight. I remember they wanted his helmet and his nods and all the sensitive items. So I had all that stuff, had his weapon. I was like, why the hell they want all that stuff? But yes, I wanted they held the angel flight for us to come back to give it to them. So I handed it off, gave my salute and the helicopter flew off. And I remember losing my stuff. I remember going underneath the staircase and started bawling. I thought it was by myself because I wanted some alone time by myself. So I went in this dark spot underneath the staircase and started bawling. That's when it all hit me. And I remember Sergeant Port coming out of the darkness and just scooping me up and hugging me and telling me, hey Doc, you gotta get back out there. I go, well, I just need to get my shit together. Just give me a moment. I just need this moment. And yeah, and so he's like, you need to get back out there, Doc. I got this. I got this. I just need a moment. And so yeah, that was pretty cool Sergeant Port to do that. That was a bad day.

[Ryan Jackson]

Also just a Monday.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, we was.

[Jocko Willink]

What did you say, Ryan?

[Ryan Jackson]

Also just a Monday.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, you know.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. You know, you mentioned the movie Warfare and you know, you. I said was. Was a regular day out there like. And you said like the movie Warfare. And when. When did you. Did you go see it in the theater? Did you watch it at home?

[Adam Anderson]

I watched it at home. I watched it right before came out here.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh really?

[Adam Anderson]

I was trying to get my back of my headset might get back in my head back in Romati. Trying to remember some stuff that'll that.

[Jocko Willink]

Movie will put your head back in.

[Adam Anderson]

Especially all the rounds going off the way they sound. Sounds almost just like getting shot at. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And I think that's, you know, that was kind of one of the underlying themes of that movie is like the realistic just this is what's happening. And you don't know why it's happening. You don't understand it. And you're going to go out there, it's going to be total chaos. And then you're gonna like leave and some moves are gonna walk out. I thought everyone's going, you know, they said just so the moose walking out afterwards, like, what's that? It's like that's what's going on. Like, they don't have to stand and fight against you. They can just walk away.

[Adam Anderson]

Right.

[Jocko Willink]

And watch you for a few hours, watch you suffer. And then they can. Once you leave, they walk back out and go terrorize the family again or do whatever they're gonna do. So that was a. I think that one of the underlying themes of it was like, this is just another day, right?

[Adam Anderson]

It was.

[Jocko Willink]

And then like you said, gotta put your gear on and go back in the field.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

The war is not gonna stop. The enemy's not gonna stop attacking. And you got to get your gear back on and go back out there.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah. Take a little break after that. Went to two squad leaders in one week. And I got hurt and so I went out the next patrol, next couple patrols, and I. I just get. Got overwhelmed a little bit. You know, I get emotional and started. Kept thinking about Chris and so I told sergeant for. I'm like, hey man, I need a break for a minute.

[Jocko Willink]

So what'd he do with you?

[Adam Anderson]

He just said, I mean, kick back in the talk and help out.

[Jocko Willink]

Just. Just. Yeah. Just gave you like a. Some time. Not going on patrol.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, because I was on patrol every single day and we never got any breaks, especially those medics. So yeah, I was always on patrol.

[Jocko Willink]

How long. How many days did he give you before he was like, hey man, we're gonna get you.

[Adam Anderson]

Gave me as many days I wanted, but I ended up. I felt like I was betraying my guy, so I had to get back out there. So I did.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah, because his break was sitting in the talk. Listen to what's going on on the radio. So he can't.

[Adam Anderson]

Not out there, you know. And after Penling got hit, Penland ended up losing both of his legs. I was in Newsweek because of that. Took a bunch of combat photos.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, really?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah. Crazy stuff. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

When did the Newsweek come out? Did you know it came out?

[Adam Anderson]

I didn't know until way after. And I had a copy somewhere. I think my ex wife has it somewhere. But yeah. And Penling got hit and there's a really famous photo of me holding his buddy hand. And, yeah, I was holding his hand, holding him up. But, yeah, it's pretty crazy stuff. I remember them pulling him in. Remember when Penley got hit?

[Jocko Willink]

Where was that?

[Adam Anderson]

He got hit with an id and I guess he was in a. He was in a rally. He was in up armored Humvee. And he got hit pretty hard. And I remember them bringing him in. He was just mangled. And I was remembering sitting because I was a medic. They wanted to have a familiar face there. So I was like, hey, brother. Like, you okay? You know, I'm holding his hand the whole time, talking to him, trying to get him, you know, coherent, but he was out. I don't remember if he ever talked or showed anything, but I remember holding his hand, talking to him. And there's pictures of me just right there holding his hand, trying to talk to him. And. And, yeah, I stood by his side until we walked him in the or. And the trauma teams out there in Ramadi were awesome.

[Jocko Willink]

They were awesome.

[Adam Anderson]

Heck, yeah, they were. I kind of got pissed at him when Sandra McCool got shot, though.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh.

[Adam Anderson]

Because they shot that other Iraqi guy. His guts were sticking out of his belly. And I remember telling the doc, I'm like, hey, man, take our guy in first, you know, because they're like, no, we gotta take this Iraqi dude in. I'm like, but he's the enemy, you know, what the hell?

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, he was an actual. He was moosh.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Like, not an Iraqi soldier.

[Adam Anderson]

No, he was moosh.

[Jocko Willink]

Damn.

[Adam Anderson]

And, yeah, so I sat there and dealt with all that stuff. I told our first sergeant. I'm like, hey, man, why don't you take sermon cool back there? First the team moves and they're like, well, it's like something that we have to do. You know, we help out everybody. He, as a medic, should know that. I'm like, no. I'm like, screw that, man. So to me, I would have left us back out there.

[Jocko Willink]

And did what? Did you and I see each other or. So you guys saw me at Charlie Met at some point.

[Adam Anderson]

Yes.

[Jocko Willink]

What was that about?

[Adam Anderson]

When Jolly got shot in the ear. I remember that. I remember meeting you there. Yeah, that was one of the times when I was taking a break and Jolly. I was at Charlie Med when they brought Jolly in. And I remember you standing there and checking on our guy. That was pretty cool because he was out on a mission with you guys.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah.

[Adam Anderson]

And he got shot. And you're like, hey, man, we knew who it was. We got him. We got him, we take care of you. We'll take care of him for you.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, yeah, that was. I always felt, I always felt good being able to tell you guys, like, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna get these guys.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, let me just feel good too.

[Jocko Willink]

We'll get, we got, we got people out there right now, they're gonna lay some of these, these bad guys out, man. Put it down. And I always like the fact that that would come up on the radio, you know, it'd be like, you know, it would, the call sign would come in and be like, you know, three enemy engaged with whatever. 300 win mag resulting in two enemy KIA and one enemy wounded to be like, cool, we're getting it done, you know, and, and yeah, like you said, man, you guys were getting it done, done too. And as I started this whole podcast off by saying like the amount of patrolling that you guys did on a day to day basis and, you know, going out in that city over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, definitely. I used to love watching you guys. We drop off a couple of your guys off and you guys would disappear for a while and then we pull you guys out of running gunfights too. So a couple times that was pretty awesome.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, we, we wouldn't, we always say that we wouldn't have been able to do anything without the support of the army and the Marine Corps because we didn't, we didn't have enough guys to QRF ourselves, you know, like, we just didn't, you know, we. Because we had guys split up all over the place. So if we got into trouble, we couldn't call ourselves. There was no, we didn't have the support to do it. So it was always you guys that, that came and pulled us out.

[Adam Anderson]

So that's why I was happy to do it too.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, well, it's freaking appreciated.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, definitely. I remember us in the Marine Corps, we go to chow, chow hall and talk to each other. Be like your size because you know, you had the, the river right there. Was it the Euphrates? Yep, the Euphrates river running right in the centers of the city, separating. To me, man, Ramadi proper.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. Yeah, that's the Habania Canal because remember, it splits off and the Euphrates goes and then the, the Habania Canal runs south and that's what borders Tamim and keeps Tamim separated from downtown Ramadi. Yeah. Is that Habania Canal?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, I remember that was like, you didn't talk about TBIS Man.

[Jocko Willink]

Well, yeah, the Marine Corps. So the Marine Corps had a real bad ao, which was kind of north of Michigan for the most part, even though they did have the gov center and then they had everything north of Michigan all the way up to the Euphrates. So they had a, you know, a really bad AO as well with the Ramadi Hospital in there and Firecracker. Yeah, those guys were. Those guys were in. In terrible scenarios.

[Adam Anderson]

We don't talk smack with them. That's right. And because we tell them, man, your AO is all jacked up. And like, hell no. We heard you guys in a firefight yesterday. You guys are all jacked up. We'd always talk shit to each other back and forth. Yeah, I thought that was pretty funny.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. My building, where my tactical operations center was, was kind of just across the Euphrates from the Marine Corps ao. And. But when we go to the rooftop, we could see the whole city. Like. Well, not the whole city. We could see a lot of it. And you could just go out there at night and there's be firefights all over the place. It was. That was a lot different than being in Baghdad in. In like 2003, 2004, you know, you'd seized occasionally, you'd see something going on. But Ramadi, if you want to see firefight, just go to the. Just go outside. You're gonna see it.

[Adam Anderson]

Heck yeah. Within 10 minutes. Start shooting at you.

[Jocko Willink]

Now, you know, this is like July 22, you know, you still got all kinds of time left on this deployment for you guys. And you know, you end up. You end up losing more guys. September 13th, Schaefer. And then September 26th, Len's Aaron.

[Adam Anderson]

I remember that day because we just got off patrol and we were walking up our steps and starting labs was coming down, kind of bump elbows, like, kick ass, you know, just saying, hey, man, you guys take care of business out there. And that was the last time I saw him. I remember that day. Turn lands. That sucked. I remember our guys finding our guys finding his nods and stuff after that.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah. A building on a roof like almost a block away.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

How'd that. How'd that happen? What happened from the iud? This is so big.

[Ryan Jackson]

It was so big that I think, yeah, they found us nods. Maybe not a block away, but very far away.

[Adam Anderson]

They went in this random house. Yeah, because I guess we had five target houses that we were hitting and to catch bad guys because we, you know, we set up a lot of missions like that too. Direct action stuff. And so. Yeah. And I Remember that? They pulled off because they were trying to plan our last route, and the sun had just came up, and so they went this random house to go plan the route out to the last target house that they were gonna hit. And, you know, we snuck in, or the guy snuck in, snuck in. You know, instead of making a big noise and trying to breach the door and all this stuff, we used to just sneak in houses, I guess there's a big picture window and this guy took off running and. And. Yeah, so that's when K ran inside and the guy pulled a gun out on him.

[Jocko Willink]

How'd that work out for him?

[Adam Anderson]

Well, the guy doing. Yeah, yeah. The guy tried putting a gun behind his head and tried to pull a trigger and cried. It was misfire. He lucked out, man. He ended up dumping all this whole freaking magazine. This dude's chest.

[Jocko Willink]

Damn.

[Adam Anderson]

And then this guy, this other guy chucked a grenade out the window, and they're like, frag out. And this new kid, Johnson, it was his very first patrol, this replacement kid, like, hit the deck and he didn't get hit at all. Yeah, it was a crazy time.

[Jocko Willink]

And that's just. That's one kid's first patrol. Yeah.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

So do you start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel at some point, or you start thinking about the end of deployment?

[Adam Anderson]

I mean, not really, you know, because we still had a lot of time left, so.

[Jocko Willink]

Just caught up in day to day.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, just day to day. Just hoping we all live through this kind of a scenario. You know, I started going back out on patrols and stuff, and we started doing our thing. We started taking less casualties because we started becoming way more aggressive. And, yeah, we became extremely aggressive trying to take after you guys. So we're doing a lot more direct action. Hit kind of stuff, and catching bad guys was our main. Our whole goal after that. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

It always seems to me that being more aggressive is actually safer, you know, like, as opposed to being. Being less aggressive seems to make you less safe.

[Adam Anderson]

Yes.

[Jocko Willink]

And taking the fight to the enemy and doing it on your terms as opposed to, like, doing it on their terms, usually works out better. Not always. I mean, you're still going to. I mean, the whole. When you look at the whole battle of Ramadi in general, when we started pushing into the city aggressively, like, definitely there's a spike in casualties. And, you know, it's. You're. The. The enemy attacks go up because you're in their face every day. You know, when you're in their face every day, they're going to come, they're going to, they're going to, they're going to bring it. And they did.

[Adam Anderson]

But over time, worse back on them.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, exactly. Over time you start, you start making progress and that's like, you know, you could start to see, it sounds like even you could start to see like, oh yeah, we're, we're starting to make progress and we get better, you know, like there's some stuff that you, you just can't teach, you can't, you can't get from a turnover op. Like you can't explain what to look for. You can't explain like what something looks like or what looks suspicious or you know, something that would stand out to you after being down the same street, you know, 20, 20 days in a row. We'll stand out to you if there's some, you know, like something's changed, something's different.

[Adam Anderson]

Oh, definitely.

[Jocko Willink]

Whereas if someone new shows up, up, they don't have that pattern recognition yet, you know, so that's, I think another thing that's really helpful. That's one thing that you know when you guys are on these long ass deployments, even though it's like brutal at the same time, you're gonna get really freaking good. Yeah, you're gonna know the neighborhood, you're gonna know the, every street, every building, the whole nine yards.

[Adam Anderson]

We became really good at clearing houses and stuff. Oh yeah, that was awesome. Yeah, I mean, I used to look at my, my guys with pride, you know, like we're badasses now, you know, we're kicking indoors and doing all that. We're doing that every single day.

[Jocko Willink]

They were badasses. Ain't no doubt about it. Ain't no doubt about it. So you start, you do. When do you guys start ramping up? Where you start knowing when there are replacement units coming in?

[Adam Anderson]

November I guess, wasn't it?

[Jocko Willink]

And yeah, how did that. Did you start getting more paranoid towards the end of deployment?

[Adam Anderson]

Like I don't think I did. I was just kind of like happy a little bit.

[Ryan Jackson]

We got like you said, more aggressive.

[Adam Anderson]

Like there was parts we got pissed.

[Ryan Jackson]

Off of the city that like, you know, for the longest time nobody had even been into. And we're like it, like we're just gonna go, let's go. They haven't, they're not expecting us. So we're just gonna go in there and that's what we do. Thunder runs down the street just waiting to see the IDs and catch them off guard. Go in there and do the same Thing at nighttime. And that was effective. Yeah, sounds reckless today, but it was effective.

[Adam Anderson]

I mean, I remember doing this night, this night operation, and we had a couple bad guys that we had to go get. And I remember stacked up on this wall outside this house, and there was a tank that was set up on op right outside of. Right on Route Michigan. There's a tank out there. And I guess some. Some moosh guy set up a bomb underneath and it went off. I remember us just seeing our heads. Like, I remember looking at our guys. Nobody even reacted. We just all went inside the house. We just did our thing, float through the house, cleared it, came outside. And then I remember us walking and Sergeant Randall's like, hey, man, watch out for that. It was a saw blade, the little trigger, those pressure. Pressure plates.

[Jocko Willink]

A little pressure plate saw blade.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Separated from another saw blade type thing that would fold on itself.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, yeah. So I'm like, what do we do about that? And he's like, no, just. We'll call it in and let DOD figure it out. Just mark the grid because we had a bunch of houses that we had to hit that night. Yeah. I remember thinking that this is awesome, man. Like, this is crazy stuff. You know what I joined the army for? Hell yeah. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And then you guys, you got. Did you guys not get replaced? Like, did you guys do a turnover with another unit of your ao? Okay.

[Adam Anderson]

First id, I think it was, wasn't it?

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah. Yeah. But we set up Cop Dealer, and that was our last mission.

[Adam Anderson]

That was our last one.

[Ryan Jackson]

That's when my squad, like, walked all the way back, like.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, yeah, that's right.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah. Like four or five clicks, like, just down through the city. Because for whatever reason, they didn't come out there. And we didn't have any vehicles left. All our ral were blown up. All of our homies were blown up. So, like, we just walked by static positions, check in with them, and they were watching us the whole time. But, like, yeah, they didn't. Like, they didn't. They didn't take over Cop Dealer.

[Adam Anderson]

I don't know.

[Ryan Jackson]

I don't know if we scared them or what.

[Jocko Willink]

Freaking crazy way to end deployment. There's a walk back.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

What do you remember about turnover ops with the guys? You were, like, trying to explain to them the situation that they were facing, kind of.

[Adam Anderson]

I remember some of the guys were just like, oh, man, it's crazy. I'm like, you'll be fine, man. Just keep your head on swivel and just be aware of your situational awareness. Man. And just always watch over your guys, you know, because they were medics. Yeah. So I always tell them. I just make sure you guys are all good.

[Jocko Willink]

Did you. Did you do any tattoos on anybody.

[Adam Anderson]

While you were never deployed?

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Unknown Guest]

What?

[Adam Anderson]

Never tattooed anybody when I was deployed. No way, dude. When would I have time? I was gonna say, when would I have time? Never. The only time that whenever we were gone, I was either at the gym or eating food at chow hall or sleeping or we had some downtime.

[Jocko Willink]

How was the. So you.

[Adam Anderson]

You.

[Jocko Willink]

You getting ready to go home? You're heading home? How was that? What was that? What was that emotionally, like, leaving Rati?

[Adam Anderson]

It's kind of sad. I felt like I left my heart there a little bit, you know? Like, I. I wish one day that we could go and travel back there, just kind of see how this town ended up, you know, like World War II survivors, you know, they go out to, like, Normandy and stuff and just kind of, like, you know, wow. Kind of reminisce.

[Jocko Willink]

I don't have that feeling yet.

[Adam Anderson]

I don't have that yet.

[Jocko Willink]

I don't have it. Yeah. Like, people are like, oh, you. You want to go back there? And I'm like, nope, I don't. I don't want to go back there. Maybe someday I will. Right now, I don't have any freaking desire to go back there at all. Occasionally something like, it'd be interesting to look at it, like, just stand up and walk around and not be, like, running around and moving from COVID to cover. It might be a little bit interesting to do that. But, no, I don't. I don't really have any, like, guys that go back to Vietnam, you know, guys that went back to the Hanoi Hilton, you know, after they were prisoners of war there for five, three, four, seven years or whatever, you know, like, they go back there. I don't have that yet for. For Iraq at all. Like, I don't want to go back there. I don't know.

[Adam Anderson]

I feel like I have unfinished business, man. I really want to.

[Jocko Willink]

Maybe if it was just a freaking nicer place, you know what I mean? It's like a hot, dirty hole. Like, I do not want to go back there. If it was, like, maybe if it was. Was like, a tropical paradise, maybe I'd be like, oh, yeah, I'll go back there and check it out.

[Adam Anderson]

Check it out. Y. I don't think so.

[Jocko Willink]

So you get back to Germany once again.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And how's the decompression this time?

[Adam Anderson]

Is. It's pretty crazy. I mean, I was kind of pissed off still. I was getting in fights and stuff, just fighting these guys that hadn't been deployed. They were just kind of sitting in the rear with the gear and. And these guys would always talk smack and stuff, and I'd lose my. On these guys start beating them up and stuff.

[Jocko Willink]

Did you get in any trouble?

[Adam Anderson]

Not really. I mean, like, we always policed each other up, you know, we took care of each other. So I never was alone, you know, I had my guys with me, but yeah, this is my stuff sometimes. Every now and then.

[Jocko Willink]

And then what was. You got. You ended up. You were saying earlier you got stationed at Walter Reed, right?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah. And then after that, I. I need to decompress. I got stationed in Walter Reed. I was there and I was in the cardiac step down ward. What's that, like where they do a hard cast and stuff like that?

[Jocko Willink]

What's a heart cast? I don't know what that is.

[Adam Anderson]

Oh, they put in splints or something.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay.

[Adam Anderson]

You know.

[Jocko Willink]

So are you working on guys that were coming from combat or are these like older veterans?

[Adam Anderson]

These are older veterans and stuff. But I was also part of the incoming window. Incoming wounded warriors, like where. Where I'd go in and process them. So whenever they had incoming guys that were coming from launch to or something that, you know, these guys lost their legs and. Or they're all jacked up, you know, and I had to help them out. Plus Penland was up there too, and K. And all the guys that were injured from Amadi were there too.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, that's kind of cool. You got to see those guys. How was it? Like, welcoming or. Yeah, I guess. Welcoming these wounded guys. How's that affect you mentally?

[Adam Anderson]

It. It was okay. I felt good. Cuz I remember seeing s mirror there.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam Anderson]

Afterwards. Yeah, it's kind of heartfelt thing. I was sitting in the chow hall eating some food, and I hear this guy yell, hey, doc, turn around and start mirror.

[Jocko Willink]

Damn, dude.

[Adam Anderson]

And he's walking over with his cane and he's like, I just want to say thank you. He hugged right there and the whole place went silent. There's like hundreds of people in there. And the whole place went silent. And I just remember looking around, we're both kind of crying and stuff, and he's like, thank you, bro, for saving my life, man. I was just like, man, you would have done the same thing for me, bro. It's kind of a heartfelt moment there, you know? Yeah. Yep. And that was pretty cool.

[Jocko Willink]

And so you keep that Job for.

[Adam Anderson]

I was there for a year and a half and I missed the line. So I reenlisted into the army. At this time it was like I. My original enlistment tour was six years, so then I reenlisted for four more and then. Yeah. So from. From there I went to Fort Carson, Colorado and. Because I wanted to get closer to home towards LA area. But I don't know.

[Jocko Willink]

We're getting there. Yeah, it's a little closer.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Closer than Germany.

[Adam Anderson]

Closer to Germany, closer than D.C. yeah, that place was a dump. It's crazy how from one street to the next, how it turns into like really ghetto to like, you know, really nice. In Washington D.C. it was cool. I met a lot of cool people there. A lot of cool nurses. I got to meet Bob Dole, a lot of all right. On Secret Service agents and all this crazy stuff. So we had a special elevator, the gold elevator.

[Jocko Willink]

The gold elevator, yeah.

[Adam Anderson]

The President would use and stuff and all that stuff. You had to have a certain clearance to get on the elevator. I remember getting in on it and there was all these Secret Service dudes in there, all tacticaled out. They go in the interstitial floors on Walter Reed and go set up their counter sniper teams up there.

[Jocko Willink]

No, that's cool.

[Adam Anderson]

Pretty cool stuff. Yeah, check.

[Jocko Willink]

So your next assignment is with the fourth Engineers, is that right?

[Adam Anderson]

Yes.

[Jocko Willink]

Did you. Is that the unit you picked to go to?

[Adam Anderson]

Kind of. I wanted to go back in the line unit and I was. I was hoping for an infantry unit, but they sent me the fourth Engineers.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. And I always have a good time talking to engineers because, you know. Yeah, because no one thinks. Thinks engineers just build stuff and it's like, no engineers. Freaking clear clear roads for bombs.

[Adam Anderson]

I hate.

[Jocko Willink]

It's a freaking nightmare.

[Adam Anderson]

I see out on patrol, see it out in the vehicles because they were all real slow. They'd be interrogating a possible ID or something. I get out and nobody really told me anything because I was an experienced medic by that time. I remember walking up to like Taliban, you know, they. They looked apart and they're mad dogging you. I knew they were Taliban. I'd walk up to them and start talking smack to them. And I remember my commander yelling at me, anderson, what the hell are you doing? Trying to pick a fight. You know, I would tell them all kinds of crap like, come on, get you guys out here, man. Let's shoot this out right now.

[Jocko Willink]

And this is. When did you deploy to Afghanistan then?

[Adam Anderson]

This was 2009-10.

[Jocko Willink]

That was a rough time. Where were you?

[Adam Anderson]

Kandahar. RC South. It was kind of cool because I had a little bit of rank on me about that time, so I was flying out all over Afghanistan because they. They pushed out our guys to all these different areas. Little. These little. These little, like little fobs here and there. So that's why I met Sergeant France at. He was on this little fob. Tiny little place, man. So I'd fly around helicopters and all this crazy stuff, just trying to check on my guy.

[Jocko Willink]

You'd be checking on the medics that you had.

[Adam Anderson]

No, checking on everybody.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay.

[Adam Anderson]

All the guys, the medics, making sure everybody got everything that they need.

[Jocko Willink]

Got it.

[Adam Anderson]

So.

[Jocko Willink]

But. But is it. Would each one of these units have their own medic with them that you were kind of overall in charge of, but you go out there and check on them and make sure they have what they need and everything's cool?

[Adam Anderson]

Yep.

[Jocko Willink]

And how was that deployment?

[Adam Anderson]

It was okay. We didn't really have that many casualties. I. I got in there and they had just deployed from Iraq to Afghanistan. So they were. I. I think I had like six months in Afghanistan, that tour, something like that. Seven months, because they had already. When I got to the unit, they had already deployed. And so I was our. I was back there train, training guys up all these new guys using my combat scenarios, trying to train them up. And I was doing all these like, the TC3, the tactical T, Triple C. Yeah, yeah, that. Teaching them all that stuff. Because everything had changed by then. Now we did Mace reports for people getting blown up and stuff. Stuff back then. Ramadi, man, you get blown up, it's like, hey, man, you good? Charlie, Mike, this. Let's get. Continue mission, man. What was the new protocol they do Mace reports if you're even near a blast, and it's like they pull you off the line for a couple days, protocol type thing to make sure that your head was okay. But I forgot the acronym stood for MACE Report. But they received do that because I guess I started finding out that all these blasts and stuff, man.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, it turns out they might not be very good.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, that's why I say tbi, man, because I've been blown up like over half a dozen times, you know, it's crazy stuff.

[Jocko Willink]

And what they're finding out now is not just getting blown up. It's when you're shooting a 50 cal, it's when you shoot a rocket, it's when you throw crashes, you know, crash bangs into a room. It's when you're like, anything blown. Breaching charges, like, all these little micro concussions over time, which we have probably literally thousands of them. You know, like, I mean, I used to be like our. Like a range safety officer. We'd be shooting rockets. So you go out. Back in the old days, I go out and, like, every guy in a platoon is going to shoot a rocket, right? You know, maybe two. So there's 20 or 30 rockets in a day. And you go home and you're like, well, you get back to the barracks, you're like, well, I kind of have a headache, but I'm not going to complain about it or anything.

[Ryan Jackson]

It's definitely not normal.

[Jocko Willink]

And, you know, he's sitting there, like, shooting the.50 cal. Sitting there, like you're doing teaching CQC and there's guys crashing the rooms, right? And you're above in the catwalk, but you're getting crashed all day long, like, so you get a lot of breaching charges. I mean, you know. You know, what's the minimum safe distance for a breaching charge? It's pretty freaking close. And what's the minimum safe distance for a breaching charge in combat? It. It's whatever you happen to get. So, yeah, these little things, they add up, and the, you know, you getting hit by a bunch of IEDs, yeah, those are big. And then on top of that, you put all these little micro concussions that you get over that time. That's stuff. They're finding out now that that stuff really adds up and causes some significant issues. So when you get back home from that deployment, is that when you start, like, you start feeling like maybe you need to get some assessments done?

[Adam Anderson]

No, my back was kind of messed up already. And so, yeah, I just. I kept going to the dock because my back. My legs would go numb every now and then. Come to find out my back was jacked up. So. So from, I guess, getting blown up in Bradley's all the time, you know, and that's a metal. It's all metal in there. So that thing hit, you know, poo.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah.

[Adam Anderson]

Just kind of jacked in my whole back, man. So.

[Jocko Willink]

So do you have some kind of disc problem or.

[Adam Anderson]

They couldn't figure it out, but I got med boarded out honorably, you know, and then. So we're 20 years later, just recently.

[Jocko Willink]

How do you feel when you get med boarded out? Did they.

[Adam Anderson]

I was really sad.

[Jocko Willink]

Did they prepare you for it? Like, what are they telling you?

[Adam Anderson]

Well, my. My PA was like, all right, Adam Anderson or whatever, they used to call me Andy or AD or whatever. Sergeant Anderson, whatever. My PA was like, she's like, well, you've been serving this country for long enough. It's time for us to take care of you now. So I'm like, no, ma', am. I don't want to get out of here yet. You know, I want. I want to do my 20 years at least. And so. But just like, no, your back's not going to make it. You're not going to make it. I'm like, man, I'll overcome all this stuff. I'll make it. Whatever. I'm just a medic, you know? But I didn't think about it. I'm not just a medic. You know, I was lifeline for a lot of guys.

[Jocko Willink]

But they give you no choice. Eventually they said, you're done.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, and then what?

[Jocko Willink]

How long does it take before when they tell you you're done and then you're out, how long is that?

[Adam Anderson]

It's like six months. I think it was the whole process. It was pretty. Pretty quick for me.

[Jocko Willink]

Did you come up with any kind of plan or what was your plan?

[Adam Anderson]

I didn't have a plan, man. I got out and I was like, man, what the heck am I going to do now? So I called up my old union hall.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay.

[Adam Anderson]

And I asked him like, hey, is there any way I could get a job out here in Colorado? Hanging pipe again? Sprink. Sprinkler pipe. And like, oh, yeah, definitely. So I get a call that next day from the business manager from the union hall out in Colorado, and he's like, hey, man, are you trying to find some work? And he's like, oh, yeah, but not right now, bro. I'm still in the military, man. I'm not out for, like, a couple more months, you know, just trying to check in.

[Jocko Willink]

That's pretty cool that the union took care of you, though.

[Adam Anderson]

Definitely. But I was tattooing doing pretty good work by then. I got pretty good, so I picked the best shop in town. So I started working at west side Tattoo. Yep.

[Jocko Willink]

And how's that living?

[Adam Anderson]

It was pretty good, man. I was making a lot of money there, so, yeah, it was pretty good.

[Jocko Willink]

And is it, like, when you're as good as you are at tattooing, what percentage of people come in and are like, hey, I want you to do this particular tattoo on me? And what percentage of people go do something cool on my arm?

[Adam Anderson]

Oh, I try to do something cool on everybody. I try and talk them into cooler stuff. Yeah, you guys gotta up, not upcharge them. But you Got up, up. Upgrade their. Their ideas. Yeah. So I'd always try and make it. Make whatever tattoo I'm gonna do on them really cool.

[Jocko Willink]

And how much does it cost for, like, for a tattoo?

[Adam Anderson]

Like $120 an hour.

[Jocko Willink]

Let's charge by the hour, huh?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

What's. Have you done? Like, somebody entire back piece?

[Adam Anderson]

Oh, definitely. And sleeves and then full torsos, full arm sleeves. Yeah. I've done a lot of big work on people.

[Jocko Willink]

And you're. You said it's 120 bucks an hour.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

So you're making good money. You're working in freaking five, six, eight hours a day or something. How long can you tattoo before you're, like, tired or, like 10 hours? Oh, you're doing 10 hour days?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, sometimes.

[Jocko Willink]

Damn.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, my back's pretty jacked up because of that. Now leaning over, just working on people. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And how long did you do that for?

[Adam Anderson]

I've done it until this past year. Yeah. Now I'm fully 100 retired from the military. Right on, right on. I'm 100.

[Jocko Willink]

So are you still doing occasional tattoos? If someone's kind of down for my friends. Yeah.

[Adam Anderson]

My friends, my family.

[Jocko Willink]

Do you. Do you like what kind of recognition? Because I look like I said, I looked at. Your tattoos are freaking awesome.

[Adam Anderson]

Thank you.

[Jocko Willink]

Did you get in a bunch of magazines and like that?

[Adam Anderson]

I've been in magazines, yes. I've done a lot of conventions, but, yeah, I've been a couple magazines.

[Jocko Willink]

Have you tattooed. Have you tattooed anybody that's super famous? Not yet.

[Adam Anderson]

Not yet. I don't think nobody's super famous. Tattoo. A lot of tattoo artists that are pretty cool.

[Jocko Willink]

Right on.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

I guess that's got to be, like, the ultimate compliment is when another tattoo artist wants you to tattoo them.

[Adam Anderson]

Definitely. Yeah. In my eyes, you know, they're like rock stars in my eyes. And I get a tattoo, I'm like, that's cool, man. You know?

[Jocko Willink]

And how was the. How was like, the. The highs and the lows of once you're leaving, you know, you leave the military every day?

[Adam Anderson]

I miss the military every day. I miss all the discipline. Mr. Camaraderie. Camaraderie mostly, you know, because you build that up. So I talk with this guy.

[Jocko Willink]

And how did you guys reconnect again?

[Adam Anderson]

Was it the reunion from watching podcast? Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, that's awesome.

[Adam Anderson]

I hit him up, man. I go. Because you guys are both inspiring, you know, Especially you. You too, bro. And I heard about the K9 4 warriors. So, yeah, I was like, man, I want a Dog. I need something like that to help me.

[Jocko Willink]

Right.

[Adam Anderson]

On my daily thing.

[Jocko Willink]

So the K9 for warriors, we're working on that right now.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yep.

[Adam Anderson]

For.

[Jocko Willink]

For Adam. Yeah.

[Ryan Jackson]

Applications should be. It's all submitted. We just need to step them up. Lindsey.

[Jocko Willink]

And then. And then it's pretty cool. For those of you that didn't listen to one with Ryan yet, they. They find the dog that's right for the person.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

It can be, like, anything. It could be anything from a freaking Chihuahua to a damn pit bull to a Belgian Malmai. Like, it could be anything, right?

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah. They're really good at matching the dog to your personality and your lifestyle. So he's probably not going to get a Belgian mal because, you know, it takes a lot of work and stuff like that.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

You're going to get a chill dog.

[Ryan Jackson]

Get a poodle.

[Adam Anderson]

A poodle. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And so how long will that process take?

[Ryan Jackson]

Typically, between a year and a half to two years. But, you know, we. We want to step it up so he could have his dog before the reunion. So we can present the dog at the reunion. Because canine is going to be there, and they're going to be there for other soldiers that need the help, but haven't heard the podcast or haven't, you know, don't know about it yet. So that's what we want to do is because not just him, just from being on the podcast and talking about it, two, three soldiers total that I know of. Like, I've walked them through the process of getting a dog.

[Jocko Willink]

That's outstanding.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

What did you. When you heard that on the podcast, like, what made you think, like, oh, damn, that sounds like I could use that.

[Adam Anderson]

I was going through kind of hard time in my life. I was just kind of feeling down a little bit, and I called him and told him. I'm like, hey, man, I mean, what's up with the canine for warriors? And he ran it all down to me. I'm like, do you actually use that in my life right now?

[Jocko Willink]

That's awesome.

[Adam Anderson]

You know, having a partner, little Kulu, like Caliber over there.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. Caliber, if you didn't know, is on the. Is asleep right now getting some sleep over here. Caliber's Ryan's dog. And just a freaking chill.

[Adam Anderson]

Such a good dog.

[Jocko Willink]

And the dogs will get, you know, trained to help out whatever a person specifically needs. Anything from, like, medical issues to, like, physical challenges, anxiety, the whole night.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah. We talked about, you know, the brace training they have last time I was on. So that's something that he could Definitely benefit. Like, I don't use that with caliber because I, you know, get up and stay stuff. But that's something he could definitely use, you know, with mobility issues. So he might get a big dog.

[Jocko Willink]

So that's what we're doing.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

What do you got on your notes there, man?

[Adam Anderson]

Oh, just things I wanted to talk about. Some dates.

[Jocko Willink]

How we doing them? How we doing?

[Adam Anderson]

We already got through them all pretty.

[Jocko Willink]

Did we. Did we get them done?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, we did.

[Jocko Willink]

Do we get the important highlights of the scenario?

[Adam Anderson]

I got this motivation from you when you went on Joe Rogan, that's why. Yeah, yeah. We touch base on everything.

[Jocko Willink]

That's like, one of those habits I got from being in the military. Like, you know, you're going somewhere, you better bring a notebook and be ready to write down, you know, what your boys say, you know, what your boss says or what you're, you know, whoever. Like, if I don't write something down sometimes it. If I don't write something down. So that's a little bit challenging to remember it.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, definitely.

[Jocko Willink]

So what's. So what. What else. What else have we got going on? You're done tattooing? You retiring? What's your day? What are you doing? What are you doing to work out right now? Got some mobility issues, obviously.

[Adam Anderson]

I. I go to PT twice a week, and I work out there.

[Jocko Willink]

Nice.

[Adam Anderson]

I mean, doing, like, this stationary chair and stuff. Like. Like cycling and stuff. And they teach me how to stretch and all that stuff. Mobility. Trying to get my legs moving.

[Jocko Willink]

Have you looked at. Have they started to figure out what's going on with your back yet?

[Adam Anderson]

They say I have a quada iguana syndrome.

[Jocko Willink]

What's that?

[Adam Anderson]

It's like a horse tail. Because your spine. The nerves on your spine come down. Looks like a horse tail. Okay. And so mile five slipped over mile four. No, mile four slipped over my L5. And the Stenosis in there is causing a lot of nerve, and it's constant nerve pain.

[Jocko Willink]

So you can get them to go.

[Adam Anderson]

In there, and I'm trying to. Yeah. I had this thing going on for over a year now, so it's just kind of hard. The va Is it.

[Jocko Willink]

So the VA is slow right now for you?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, definitely.

[Jocko Willink]

And you're not getting a response that you need?

[Adam Anderson]

Not as quick as I want it. Yeah. So I have to go out in the community, outside the VA community to get all my. Like, everything is done outside the community because all the V8 docs in Colorado are just all booked so far out. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

With the new VA system. You're supposed to be able to go and get looked at by someone like a civilian. Yeah, I've done that, like, with a couple things where they didn't have the capacity. And it's like, okay, well, here's your civilian doctor and you go to whatever normal civilian hospital here in San Diego for me, which is weird too, because we have Balboa Naval Hospital, you know, which is a big ass Navy hospital that. Yeah, usually they have somebody that can take care of you, but sometimes like, no, no, you, you. We don't have any appointments for four months. And you're like, bro.

[Adam Anderson]

Get shots in my back. And they sent me out of the community, so I'm supposed to find out soon when I'm supposed to get these shots. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Well, the good news, I've had. I had a neck surgery a while ago, but the good news is, like, with something like this is like, it's basically a mechanical problem. Like what you just said. It's like, here's a disc or here's a L3, L4, L5. It's a mechanical problem. Like, it, it moved, you know, and you just got to get that shit moved back and have them bolted into place. And like, it'll hopefully be good to go after that.

[Adam Anderson]

Hopefully.

[Jocko Willink]

Most of the time, they're pretty good at it. There are always risks. You know this, you're a doc. But like, there's Sometimes they're like, hey, man, if we. We could do this surgery and it might not help. That does happen from time to time. They can say, they'll tell you, hey, we might do the surgery and it can get worse. That can happen from time to time. Generally speaking, most of the people that I know, myself included, when I got surgery, got better. Got way better. And so, yeah, man, you know, suck 51 right now. So, yeah, you're going to, like, you know, however long it takes for them to get it all organized. But then hopefully you get in there, get under the knife. They, you know, again, I look at it just like a carpenter, you know, like, hey, there's a piece of wood that needs to get moved over a little bit and bolted into place. Like, that's basically what they're gonna do when they get in there, which is squared away. And. And that's. That's. So that's it, man. That's what we're doing right now.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, Well, I went to TBI clinic too.

[Jocko Willink]

And how's that working out for you?

[Adam Anderson]

It was all right because I built up a stutter, I guess. I Noticed this and I told the, the docs about that. They sent me a TBI clinic and how to take speech classes again.

[Jocko Willink]

And then what do they tell you to. Because what do they tell you to get rid of a stutter? Because isn't a stutter caused. Because you're thinking about the fact that you're stuttering. Isn't that like one of the things.

[Adam Anderson]

That, you know, you know, us army guys, we always talk smack. So being on the ball and quick with your comebacks, man. And I noticed that I couldn't do that all that quickly anymore. You know, it's hard for me to remember a lot of stuff.

[Jocko Willink]

Stuff.

[Adam Anderson]

You know, I don't know if you notice that I kind of. And I talk kind of like slurry a little bit, but that's just from my meds, I guess. I gave a pen and.

[Jocko Willink]

And then. So. So you were starting to stutter. And then what they do in speech therapy, like, what do they. They have you like say tongue twisters and like that.

[Adam Anderson]

They just had me trying to focus on saying what's on my mind, you know, instead of just like the, the, you know, like all stupid stuff. Stuff. But yeah, just try to focus on what's on my mind. Trying to spit it out. That was my issue. I kept having, I think it, but it wouldn't come out the way I would think it. Or I forget certain words and I just kind of like, you know, forget what the heck I'm talking about sometimes, you know.

[Jocko Willink]

Well, you've been kind of knocking it out of the park today. You only forgot one word. I forget what the word was, but you forgot one word. Security. Yeah. You forgot security. You remembered it. I did, yeah. You forgot the word security.

[Adam Anderson]

Security. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Other than that, you're kind of knocking it out of the park, bro.

[Adam Anderson]

Thank you.

[Jocko Willink]

Sounded good to go. And so one of the reasons that I love having you out here and Ryan coming back again, just to let people know about Canines for Warriors. It's canines for warriors dot org. There's a YouTube, there's an Instagram, there's a Twitter, and it's all at Canines for Warriors. And if people are interested in supporting that, it's so helpful. Go listen to go listen to Ryan's story and you can actually go on their YouTube channel. You can watch all kinds of people. You can see how massively beneficial. Beneficial it is for people to have a dog, a well trained dog, A dog that becomes a companion, a dog that becomes a friend, a dog that becomes a. You Know, like a. Like a battle buddy, you know, for all practical purposes. And, you know, I. I got. I have a dog. I actually have a new dog right now because my. My last dog died, and it was terrible. But got another dog, you know, hand dog.

[Adam Anderson]

Do you got.

[Jocko Willink]

I got a German shepherd. Yeah, my last one was a German shepherd. Yeah, yeah, it's. It's one of those things, man. Like, they. Whatever. What is it? What are the little chemicals that could release in your head when you pet a dog?

[Ryan Jackson]

Dopamine.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, Dopamine is like. That's for real. Like, when I just see my dog and my dog sees me, it's like, oh, it's. Everything's cool.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah, that's something that, you know, I talked about last time. Same thing happened, like, at the airport. Somebody sees Caliber. Like, there was a lady was really nervous about flying, and she sat down on the plane next to me, and she's like, that just made my day. Like, that just made the whole flight. And I was. Let her, like, play with Caliber the whole time. Like, I got lucky and getting, like, a whole road to myself, and she was just pedaling whole time.

[Adam Anderson]

And Caliber is really good at identifying stuff. Because I was sitting there last night, we were talking about some stuff, and I started feeling really anx. Anxious, and my body started, you know, kind of getting a little anxiety attack. And Caliber came and sat on my feet, and he's like, see? She knows. He knows. I'm like, yeah, that's cool, man. So I was petting Caliber. I'm like, thank you, Caliber.

[Jocko Willink]

That's awesome. You had a Harley Davidson jacket on.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, earlier.

[Jocko Willink]

You still got a bike? Oh, you got a Harley shirt on.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

You got a bike?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

What kind of bike you got?

[Adam Anderson]

Street Bob? 2024 Street Bob.

[Jocko Willink]

Nice.

[Adam Anderson]

Pretty cool.

[Jocko Willink]

You're out there rolling still?

[Adam Anderson]

Not really. Not all that much anymore, man. My back's so messed up right now.

[Jocko Willink]

Were you into bikes when you were a kid?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, kind of. Yeah. My dad was always pretty cool, man. He had dirt bikes for us and mini bikes. Oh, is that kind of stuff. Stuff growing up?

[Jocko Willink]

Chuck, those are probably not going to be ideal for your back at this juncture.

[Adam Anderson]

No, no, but I just, like. I like having my motorcycle.

[Jocko Willink]

Do you do art on your motorcycle?

[Adam Anderson]

No.

[Jocko Willink]

No pinstripes or anything like that?

[Adam Anderson]

Like that?

[Jocko Willink]

No freaking skulls on the gas tank?

[Adam Anderson]

No, no, no, sir. Dodger blue.

[Jocko Willink]

Dodger blue.

[Adam Anderson]

Yes.

[Jocko Willink]

That'll do it, dude. Awesome. Does that. Does that get us up to speed? Yeah. Yeah, you think? Get us up to speed. Man, we cover all the bases.

[Adam Anderson]

Yes, sir.

[Jocko Willink]

Awesome. Ryan, you got anything? Anything that we missed at all?

[Ryan Jackson]

Oh, no, I don't think so. Echo still not like dogs.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, Echo's evil. It's funny.

[Ryan Jackson]

Talk about that afterwards.

[Jocko Willink]

For the record, Echo's had his run ins with dogs.

[Adam Anderson]

Really?

[Ryan Jackson]

No, I just wanted to poke fun a little bit.

[Adam Anderson]

It's good now.

[Jocko Willink]

Right on. No, it's an awesome organization and like I said, when you go and check out their website, you can see how much, how, you know, just talking to you last time, it's very clear how. How helpful it is. And then when you see all the other examples of people that have been able to do so well, once, you know, once they got their dog and, and they have that companion and, and a sense of purpose as well.

[Ryan Jackson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

You know, and it's cool that you rely on your dog, but your dog relies on you. You know, it's like a two way street.

[Ryan Jackson]

Does give you a sense of responsibility. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

So, so.

[Ryan Jackson]

And hopefully, you know, just from this podcast, again, hopefully it leads more people to go in that direction. And also want to emphasize Austin, just if you need help, it's out there. So.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, man.

[Ryan Jackson]

Awesome.

[Jocko Willink]

Awesome. Adam, you got anything else, man? Any closing thoughts? Anything we missed?

[Adam Anderson]

No, sir. Just. You're a very inspiring person, man. I've been doing a lot of research on you. You're cool, man. I dig it. I dig what you do, man. Thank you so much for everything that you do.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, thank you, man. It's awesome. It's awesome to have you guys on here. It's, you know, thanks for sharing your experiences, telling your stories. Like, this is the kind of thing that people need to hear about. You know, I mentioned it earlier, like the, The. The war that you guys fought, the grunts on the ground, the infantry guys, it's. It's just. It's just outstanding. It gets overlooked a lot. And it really should be the, the. It should be the lead story. You know, the lead story on the war is our infantry soldiers that were out there on a day to day basis getting after it. So thanks for coming on and obviously thanks for your service. Thanks for your service in the army. Thanks for. It was an honor to share the battlefield with you.

[Adam Anderson]

Yes, absolutely.

[Jocko Willink]

For what you and for what your brothers did and for the brothers that you lost. We won't forget it, bro.

[Adam Anderson]

Yes, sir.

[Ryan Jackson]

Sir.

[Adam Anderson]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Jocko Willink]

And with that, Adam and Ryan, I've left the building. Great to hear from those guys. We. One of the things that I had in my notes That I didn't mention, which is pretty cool. It was a significant amount of time after Rati. Adam. They, like, tracked down one of the. One of the events with Adam. It's actually the one I read about with him rescuing mirror. And he was given a Army com with V for that action. So I failed to mention that during the podcast. I was talking with him afterwards, and that came up. So pretty. Pretty awesome. I had in my notes. And I just failed to. To mention it because it's pretty cool. That kind of closure happens, you know, in the military. You know, you always hear about the military screwing things up, but the military gets some things right too. You know, I had. I had some guys get their awards. What, elevated, you know, after several. After like eight years or something like that.

[Unknown Guest]

How does that happen?

[Jocko Willink]

The way I understand it, I don't. I'm not 100% sure. But what happened. This is what I know happened. At some point, three of my guys who had received bronze stars with these were located notified that they were. Their. Their award had been upgraded to a silver star. One of them is JP Dennell. He was awarded. He was. I put him in for a silver star, and he got. Initially got a bronze star with V. Seth Stone, who was given a brawn star with V, awarded this bronze Star with V. And his award was elevated like, 10 years later. And one of the medics, who. I don't use his name because I don't think he wants to be public, but good friend of mine, he, who is a medic, a corpsman, and he was awarded a bronze Star with V. And he. That was. That. That was upgraded, but again, it was after 10 years. And apparently, again, don't. Please don't quote me on this. Apparently the Navy did, like, a review of combat awards and handed out some of the upgrades after they reviewed what had taken place. So that was pretty cool. But it, you know, it was 10 years later, so occasionally those things happen. And that's what happened with Adam. Adam Anderson, whatever. I think it was like 15, 20 years later. They said, hey, dude, you remember when you freaking risked your life to go out and save one of your guys? Yeah, that should have been recognized. And so here you go. So he was awarded the Navy comp with V, which is a huge deal. The V makes a big difference. It's a big deal. Like a. Like an. An army achievement medal or a Navy achievement medal or an army combination medal or a Navy combination medal by itself. Like, I have Navy achievement medals for, like, keeping track of my communications equipment when I was a new guy seal. Like, that's. That's just way. It's just not even in the same ballpark.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

So with. To. To what we're talking about here, I think Leif and Seth used to make fun of me because I had five Navy Achievement Medals, which is. A Navy Achievement medal is the lowest award you can get, like, in the Navy.

[Adam Anderson]

It's good job.

[Jocko Willink]

It's peacetime, nothing going on. You're an enlisted guy in the days, and you kept track of your radios or you performed well during a training. Training exercise, you know, with the host nation. And, you know, your. Your ability to make communications was recognized up to senior levels, you know, but hey, dude, we're in it, comparatively speaking.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah, I see where you know what you're getting at. But hey, man, you're doing. You're out there doing a good job.

[Jocko Willink]

That's literally what it is. You're doing a good job.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

You know, you say you're just doing your job, right? No, this isn't just doing your job. You're doing a little bit more. You're doing. You're. You're being recognized for doing a good job. But it is funny to look back now.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And you go, damn, dude. Just rabbing a rack of Navy achievement metals. Oh, damn. Actually, the. The cool thing like the. The Army Commendation with V or the army achievement with a V. I don't even. Army. Is that a thing? Anyways, in the army, the arcom with the V is a badass award. And one thing that was. One of. Some of my guys got it from the army, and they are very. Including Seth Stone, by the way. He was. He was always very proud of his army calm with V. Wait, I think he had one. Yeah, he had one. Either was him or. I know his guys. Several of his guys had the archon with V, and they were very stoked on it. So there you go. Adam Anderson. Awesome to hear from him today. Awesome to hear his grunt perspective, infantryman perspective. These are the guys, I'm telling you, man, these guys rolling out there every day, eight hours on, eight hours on qrf, and then eight hours to prepare for your next mission. And. And, you know, like, being on QRF is not like, you know, beyond qrf. And Ramadi is like, okay, we're leaving. We're guaranteed. We're just about guaranteed to have to roll out. Everyone's getting in firefights. Everyone needs support. So that's what they were doing month in, month out, and just nothing but respect and admiration. And thanks to These guys. All that being said, when you're done with that mission, got to find your next mission. And we had some good talks once. We, you know, I'm always, look, we, we, we have more talk. We talk more than just during the podcast. So we're just talking about. To Adam about just, you know, he's, we talked about a little bit on the podcast, you know, his back and all that stuff. So he's, he's actually done a great job getting himself back into shape to try and get that handled. So you gotta, you gotta handle that physical piece.

[Adam Anderson]

Yep.

[Unknown Guest]

He looks like he lost a hundred pounds.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. So he's, he's handling the physical piece. Hopefully you get that back stuff straightened out and you know, we all, you got to stay ahead of that stuff is my recommendation. Stay ahead of it. And what happened was he had a motorcycle accident. You know, when you get injured now, all of a sudden you're not doing what you're normally doing. That's, that's when things can start to slip away a little bit. So you gotta, you gotta be heads up on that. When you're, make sure that you're lifestyle, when you, when you get injured or something, you can't be as active as you normally are. You got to make sure you keep up with your lifestyle. Keep. Make sure that you're doing the right things as much as you can. Because if you can't, if you can't run every day, well, because you got a bad knee, well, what can you do every day? Can you go on the hand bike? Can you can you at least walk? You know, you go for a long walk. Do you have to adjust your caloric intake? Yes, because that jams people up. Because people are used to, though. I'm working out all day and I'm eating, you know, 5,000 calories a day. Then you stop working out. You're still consuming 5,000. Actually, you might even be consuming more.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Because when you're working all day and you're working hard, doing something physical.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

You don't even have time to eat.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

And so you. Plus when you sit down to eat, me personally, not speaking for everybody, I'm not like, when I get done training, I'm not hungry right then, you know what I'm saying? Guess when I get hungry, a few hours after. A few hours after. And boredom.

[Adam Anderson]

That's what I was gonna say.

[Unknown Guest]

When you get bored.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, boredom. Just boredom eating.

[Unknown Guest]

And also, not to beat a dead horse, but I will also. You got to watch out for these sneaky Calories, you know when it's like, oh, yeah, I ate this meal. And then you drink something with like 300 calories in it. You know, for an average person, you know what it takes to burn off a hundred calories? One hundred.

[Jocko Willink]

How many?

[Unknown Guest]

One mile.

[Jocko Willink]

One mile.

[Unknown Guest]

Run, run or walk, whatever you. Whatever you want to do, but 100 calories? 100.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Damn, dude. So you gotta run a marathon today to burn off 2500.

[Unknown Guest]

If you gotta burn. Yeah, I mean, you got your baseline, you know, but the. These additional things, if you're not tracking which mostly, you know, who's. Who's tracking calories, you know, besides fitness people, whatever. But I'm telling you, what you eat, that's gonna be a bigger storyteller than.

[Adam Anderson]

Most of the other stuff.

[Jocko Willink]

I think then you're working out and whatnot.

[Unknown Guest]

Yep, I think so.

[Jocko Willink]

So if you got to eat, we recommend you eat some stuff that's good for you.

[Unknown Guest]

That good stuff.

[Jocko Willink]

Check out some jockofuel jockey. Fuel.com this is. We have protein. We got energy, we got supplementation. We got ready to drink protein. We were just up at the Olympia contest. Yeah, so that was. You see a lot of people that are. They need protein. I need protein. You need protein. We all need protein. Sometimes you got time for a little powder activity. Sometimes you just to get that RTD together. So whatever it may be, if you need it, go to jocafuel.com you can also get it at Walmart, Wawa Vitamin Shop, GNC, Military Commissaries, AES, Hannaford-stores, MD, Wakefurn, Shoprite, HB Meer, Wegmans, Harris Teeter, Publix, HY V, Lifetime Fitness Shields. Just really, you can get in so many places now, or you can go to jockofuel.com and check it out. We got what you need to be stronger, faster, smarter, healthier and better. There you go. Also, there's been a lot of sacrifices made for America, and yet people go and buy a pair of blue jeans that are made by a communist country or by some other adversary. Maybe it's just an economic adversary of our country, but they're not our country, so don't do that. Look, do you want to train Jiu jitsu? Of course you do, but that doesn't mean you need to support communism while you train Jiu Jitsu. No, you can support America. Do you have a cold head sometimes? Yes, you do. Does that mean you need to support communism? No, it doesn't. Do you sometimes need a pair of boots to wear? Yeah, of Course you do. You got to work. Does that mean you need to thereby support communism? No, it doesn't mean that at all. Do you need a t shirt? Yes, you do. Do you need to support communism? No, you don't. You see where I'm going with this? You do not need to support communism. You don't need to support slave labor. You don't need to support the destruction of our environment. You should support origin USA.com 100% American made goods. Jeans, geese, hoodies, jackets. Just everything that you need. Everything that you need. We got you covered. And it's all made 100% in America with 100% American materials. So go to originusa.com start working hard, wearing American jeans and American boots. Start keeping yourself a little bit toasty with an American hoodie. Train. Jiu jitsu, an American GI or an American made rash guard. 100. That's what we're doing. Get some.

[Unknown Guest]

What's that? It's. So I have this, these. I have two of them. It's a long sleeve. It's kind of like a. It's not a windbreaker, but it's like. It's long sleeve, no buttons. Hood. There's a hood on it. Kind of thinner material.

[Jocko Willink]

Zipper. Is that a zipper?

[Unknown Guest]

Zipper. Joe Moss wears them all the time.

[Jocko Willink]

No zipper at all?

[Unknown Guest]

No, no, it's like a shirt, but it's made out of like almost like a dry fit material. It's called something rtx, maybe Burr.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, burr. So this is a material, American made material. It's called burr. And it's like that's everything that you need when. Yeah, that's what I wear when I work out, of course.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Like it dries moisture wicking dry fast. Keeps you cool. Whole nine yards, bro.

[Unknown Guest]

I wear those kind of as the one of the standard uniforms like pretty much anywhere.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh, is this. Is this a revelation?

[Adam Anderson]

No, no, no.

[Jocko Willink]

Where you been?

[Adam Anderson]

No, no, no.

[Unknown Guest]

I've been doing it.

[Ryan Jackson]

But I mean I'm rev.

[Unknown Guest]

Revealing that.

[Ryan Jackson]

Okay.

[Jocko Willink]

You know the reveal.

[Unknown Guest]

These are. It's completely all purpose. I mean, look, I'm not going in the snow. I live in San Diego.

[Jocko Willink]

Well, I. When I go in the snow, I wear it as a base layer 100.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

So comfortable. Yeah. So good to go.

[Unknown Guest]

Yep. But yeah, that, that's one of. Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

So we got your base layer 100 made in America or your workout layer 100 made in America.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

I thought you were talking about the stow jacket. No, no, stow jacket. I bring with me everywhere. You know, my. You know my Little like. I guess it's briefcase. It's like a fabric briefcase that I carry everywhere. See me with it all the time. But in the bottom layer of that I have the Stow jacket. Black Stow jacket. So if there's chaos breaks out, no worries. Rain, wind, whatever. Let's go. Yeah, bring it. I'm good to go. Yep, that's. That Stow jacket is kind of mandatory. And then they just came out with something. I forget what it's called, but it's bonded fleece. It's basically like a windproof hoodie.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

With a zipper.

[Unknown Guest]

Do we know what bonded means?

[Jocko Willink]

It gives it like a wind water resistant and wind resistant layer on a hoodie.

[Unknown Guest]

Oh, it's like a little shield.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah.

[Unknown Guest]

Responded means like you're kind of blocked.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah.

[Unknown Guest]

Shielded.

[Jocko Willink]

That's it.

[Adam Anderson]

Okay.

[Jocko Willink]

I got one of those coming. I just ordered it a few days ago and it's on the way, so.

[Adam Anderson]

That'S good to know.

[Jocko Willink]

So there you go. Originusa.com get some.

[Adam Anderson]

They go deep.

[Unknown Guest]

Also, Jocko store.com is where you can get your apparel. We got shirts and hoodies on there. Got some hats on there, got shorts on there. Got new designs across the board. The newest one. Stand by to get some. But if you want to get the heads up on these new designs, sign up on the email list. Easy money. I don't spam. I promise I don't spam. You just all just valuable alerts saying. And not very often either too. They're kind of rare, but when they come, they're good.

[Adam Anderson]

They're valuable.

[Jocko Willink]

If you sent me spam, I actually wouldn't mind it too much. I know you're not going to, but.

[Unknown Guest]

Like you wouldn't mind.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah. Usually you send some pretty good stuff.

[Unknown Guest]

Oh yeah?

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Unknown Guest]

Because it's at least interesting.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

But.

[Unknown Guest]

Yes, but it won't be spam crazy.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, I'm.

[Jocko Willink]

Oh yeah, the whole spam is. It's an industry, isn't it? Yeah, it totally is spam.

[Unknown Guest]

And then there's spam and scam scam too, by the way. So because they'll spam a bunch of people, spamming means just mass sending stuff that doesn't have value or whatever and then hoping that someone like a real small percentage of people will respond to it in a gullible way and get tricked by their trickery.

[Adam Anderson]

See what I'm saying?

[Jocko Willink]

My wife was showing me this real the other day.

[Adam Anderson]

Oh yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

But it was a scam. This. You know, there was someone that was scamming Made the phone call, and this woman, and she's obviously has been waiting for someone to try and scammer. She had this thing set up. She was recording the whole thing. And basically she goes, you know, the person's like, oh, you have this. Some bunch of gold or money in a bank account. We just need your credit card number so we can transfer the money. And the woman's like, oh, my gosh, that's the best news. Thank you so much. I'm driving right now. If you give me a second, I'll pull over so I can get my credit card out for you. And she goes, okay. And she goes, yeah, I just need to pull over. She goes, well, just give me your credit card number. And she goes, yeah, I just need to pull over my. And then she has a recorded car crash. So she's like. She plays the recorded car crash, and then she starts acting like she's been in a car crash.

[Adam Anderson]

She's like.

[Jocko Willink]

I've just crashed my car. And the woman's like, can you get to your credit card still? And he's like, I. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I'm bleeding. And the woman's like, well, can you reach your credit card? It was pretty. It was pretty crazy to listen to.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah, that's, like, where it's at. Revealing just how freaking degenerate the scammers can be. You know, bro, those ones that they kind of take revenge on the scammers, they're like, that's endless entertainment.

[Jocko Willink]

I did revenge on the scammer one time, and it was a tax guy that was, you know. Have you ever had that one?

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah, the taxes.

[Adam Anderson]

Yes.

[Jocko Willink]

Where they're like, hey, listen, you're going to be arrested. You know, this is a violation of the law. We've got. We've got police officers that are gonna. That have been notified of your location. You need to pay this. This is a tax evasion, this whole thing.

[Adam Anderson]

Right, right, right.

[Unknown Guest]

I get them. I get that one through text.

[Jocko Willink]

Okay. I haven't gotten that. This was years. This was probably. This was probably at least 10 years ago. Yeah, okay, maybe eight years ago. But the. The interesting thing was I was being audited by the IRS at this time actively. So my. Like, I was actively being audited and turning in documents and all this kind of stuff. And so when it. When they called my wife first, she freaked out. You know, my wife, she's not even from this country, bro. She's from England. She's like. And let's face it, in England, Right now they will. They'll like, you can't make a post on social media without them arresting you. So my wife's like, you know, so they're telling my wife, like, your husband, he's going to be arrested. And she's like, oh, the funny thing, my son, who was like 10 years old at the time, was in the background. He heard it on the speakerphone in the car. And he's like, it's a scam. It's a scam, It's a scam. But my wife didn't believe him.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah, that's real.

[Jocko Willink]

So she gave them my number.

[Adam Anderson]

Oh, okay.

[Jocko Willink]

And I was at an event somewhere, and so I get like five phone calls and three texts from her that are like, the IRS is calling you. Anyways, long story short, I took me 13 seconds to realize that this guy was a scammer. And then I kept him on the phone for as long as I could. And here's why I'm telling you this whole story is because when I finally. When he finally realized I wasn't going to give him any information, that. And he had just wasted a half an hour of his time. Yeah, he was mad at me.

[Adam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Jocko Willink]

Yeah, that's how he was mad at me, bro, Because I wasted his time. So there you go. Watch out for the scams.

[Unknown Guest]

I see those responses as well.

[Adam Anderson]

Yes.

[Unknown Guest]

So, yes, I don't scam. Of course I don't scam.

[Adam Anderson]

I mean, it depends of.

[Unknown Guest]

Kind of easy to seek retribution on me if I scam. But I don't spam.

[Jocko Willink]

And you don't scam.

[Unknown Guest]

No spam.

[Jocko Willink]

You're anti spam, anti scam. There you go.

[Unknown Guest]

Store. You get a good valuable email, relevant, the whole deal, you know, especially if you want to get the bite on these. These new things that come out. And there's going to be a few coming out. So there you go. Anyway. Jocastore.com oh, also at JL store is the shirt locker. New design every month, a little bit more creative. But anyway, go there. You can check out some of the designs if you go on the. On the page or whatever.

[Jocko Willink]

But yeah, it's all on jockostore.com check Ramadi Declassified. This is the book. Colonel Anthony Dean wrote it. It is such a good account of his battalion and. And the overall brigade, but specifically his battalion in the battle of Ramadi. It's a great book. So much detail. Like I said, 400 pages. I read you one paragraph today.

[Adam Anderson]

He.

[Jocko Willink]

He was on the podcast for five hours. We didn't even Touch the surface of that book. So it's a great book. Get that one. I've written a bunch of books about leadership. Dave Burke, his book need to Lead. Check that one out as well. We also have a leadership consulting company called Echelon Front. If you need help inside your organization on anything. Anything. Yes, anything. Well, you mean the process that we add our material to our new fabrication? Like, yes, we'll help with that. Well, what do you know about that, Jocko? I don't know anything about that. You know what I do know about leadership and any problems that you're having are leadership problems. So if you have problems inside your organization, go to eslopfront.com and we will help you solve those problems through leadership. Also extreme ownership.com we teach the skills of leadership online. That's what we do. And leadership is a skill and it's a skill that you need to be taught and it's a skill that you need to practice. And you can do both of those things@extreme ownership.com. so check those out. And if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help families, you want to help gold star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Momma Lee. She's got an incredible charity organization. If you want to donate, you're going to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org also check out Heroes and Horses.org and finally, Jimmy May's organization Beyond the Brotherhood.org and lest we forget, Canines for Warriors. You can already you've heard what it did for Ryan. You can go look at some of those other stories that they tell Canines. That's K, the letter K9, the number 9s for warriors dot org. They're also YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook at K9s4warriors. Great organization. If you want to connect with Adam, we didn't mention this during the podcast, but he's got an Instagram. It's @AdamAnderson tattoo. And for us, check out jocko.com and then on social media, I'm at Jocko Willink. Echoes that echo. Charles, set yourself a time limit of about 3.5 minutes and then get off that satanic device. It's not helping you in any way, shape or form. Thanks once again to Adam Anderson and Ryan Jackson for joining us. Awesome to see you guys. Thanks for your service and sacrifice in the battle of Ratti. We will not forget you, we will not forget your fellow soldiers and we will not forget the heroes that did not come home. Also thanks to all of our military across the globe right now protecting peace and freedom. We will not forget you either. And thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, as well as all other first responders. Thank you for protecting our piece here on the home front and for everyone else out there, here's a little history from the 2nd Battalion 6 Infantry Regiment where Adam and Ryan both served. This is from global security.org and here's the quote. The battalion motto was Remember the regiment. The last words spoken by the then commander, Colonel Thompson on Christmas Day 1837 at Okeechobee Swamp during the Seminole War. The Colonel was fatally wounded having fallen below swamp waters. A private from the Rev from regiment pulled his fallen commander's head above the water so he could utter his last words, his final order to the men of the 6th Regiment. Keep steady men. Charge the hummock and remember the regiment. End quote. So there you go. Remember the regiment. And remember those brave souls the that gave their last full measure for us. That's all I've got for tonight and until next time. This is Echo and Jocko out.