← Jocko Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
This is Jocko, podcast number 527 with Echo Charles, and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. When I arrived at headquarters early that Friday morning, the closest parking lot was already crowded. By the time we held our first formation, every lot was full and trucks lined the sides of the road. As I made my rounds that weekend, I saw soldiers sleeping outside in the rain while they practiced field craft, repairing vehicles with scavenged parts and building logistics plans for our deployment. There were plumbers turned medics, electricians turned mortarmen, financial advisors turned staff planners, all putting their life on hold for three days to train to fight and win our nation's wars. All doing it without pay, all doing it without hot meals, all doing it without complaint or expectation of recognition. All doing it because it's their job, because not doing it would let someone down, because letting someone down later might mean someone dies. And that right there is an excerpt from an article by Nathan Fry, who is a US army infantry officer. He's a Ranger, a battalion commander currently of the 1372, or, sorry, 3172 infantry, which is Mountain of the Vermont National Guard, which is a relative, I guess, of the 1172 Task Force Saber, the amazing unit that we fought alongside in Ramadi, whose lessons that we learned from them kept many seals alive. And Nathan is a veteran of multiple combat deployments, mountain guide, and an entrepreneur. And it's an honor to have him with us here tonight to share his experiences and lessons learned. Nathan, thanks for joining us.
- [01:48]
B
Thanks for having me.
- [01:49]
A
What I miss in that. How do you say the. The. 3, 1, 7, 2. How do you say it?
- [01:54]
B
3, 1, 7, 2.
- [01:55]
C
Cool.
- [01:55]
B
Yeah. Or we call. We call the Mountain Battalion, too.
- [01:58]
A
Okay, check. See, there you go. The Mountain Battalion.
- [02:01]
B
Mountain Battalion, check.
- [02:02]
A
Right on. Well, we'll get into some of the Mountain Battalion a little bit. Let's. Let's get a little bit of your background. Tell us about growing up. Where are you born?
- [02:08]
B
I was born in Alabama, so my dad was a Vietnam veteran. He'd come back and use his GI Bill to go to college. You know, like one of those classic sort of post war success stories, right? Like his. His dad had been a Grey Pound bus mechanic. His mom was a. His old school. Right. Like at. @&t. Telephone operator, like the switchboard operator, like pop up, you know, put the Swiss. The switches in. So he's the first person from his family to go to college. He got a degree.
- [02:38]
A
Was he from Alabama or.
- [02:39]
B
No, he's from Memphis, Tennessee.
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A
Okay.
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B
He ended up working for the VA medical center down in Alabama.
- [02:47]
A
And.
- [02:48]
B
Well, I guess I gotta get my. Get my times right. He ended up being in a VA medical center in Louisiana first. That's where he met my mom. Then they went to Alabama, and then that's how I was born. Eventually went back to Louisiana.
- [02:58]
A
And what did your dad do in Nam?
- [02:59]
B
He was a loadmaster on C.130s. So he got drafted in 68, it would have been. And so he was over In Vietnam, like 69, 70 time frame, as he told me after I graduated airborne, after graduate, airborne school, kicking pukes like you out of the back of my airplane. So thanks. Thanks, dad. Appreciate that.
- [03:17]
A
Sounds like a good plan. And then what was it like growing up? You got. You got what, one brother?
- [03:21]
B
Yeah, I got a younger brother, Corey, Five years younger than me. So we weren't super close. Been really cool. Just in the last year or so, we're starting to, like, have a common business endeavor and our lives intersecting ways that, like, it really didn't before. So we're starting to get closer now. But, you know, growing up, we're not super close with each other.
- [03:40]
A
Yeah, five years is a pretty good gap.
- [03:41]
B
It's a. It's a big gap. And we're really different too. And I'm finding now, like, in very complimentary ways, but at the time, you know, when you're five years apart and you're 13 and eight, you don't appreciate that stuff. Right. You're just like, that kid's a nerd. He's not a nerd. But yeah. So I grew up super rural. Ended up getting sort of a special pass to go into the school in town, as we say, like, we got to go in town to the Walmart or whatever, so go to school in town. And so what I ended up doing is my dad would drive me in and drop me off at school. I do school, and then he'd be back in the evening. I'd go back to the house and, you know, do the tours around the house and stuff. So I was kind of.
- [04:24]
A
Where was this? Was this still in Alabama? Is this.
- [04:26]
B
No, this is back in Louisiana at this point. I was in Alabama only for like two or three years.
- [04:30]
A
Got it.
- [04:31]
B
And then back.
- [04:31]
A
So this is in Louisiana. You're living in the sticks. In the sticks, and your parents wanted you to go to a better school or something like that.
- [04:38]
B
Yeah.
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A
So you're driving 30 minutes.
- [04:40]
B
Driving like 30 minutes into school. Because my dad worked in town too, and so it was. I was lucky to go to school. But sort of limited in the extracurricular things. And really what that ended up doing for me is sort of like, early on in high school, pretty isolating. I started getting with a really bad crowd, got kicked out of school for a week. And I think, what'd you do to.
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A
Get kicked out of school for a week?
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B
Smoking on the railroad tracks after school. And we're like, oh, it's, you know, at that age, you're like, yeah, it's fine. They're not going to get me. It's after school and you don't know the rules. And so we're smoking cigarettes on the road tracks, and assistant principal pops out and he's like, you, you, you, you, and you. Principal's office. Great. That's kind of like a low point. And my dad, at that point, I think, to his credit, realized that I needed something in my life. And a guy he worked with was. Ran a Boy Scout troop. And he was like, you're going to join Boy Scouts? And I was like, I don't want to join the nerd Boy Scouts. But the two Scout masters were super cool. Like, essentially became my first mentors. Like, one was a former collegiate wrestler, one was a marathoner. And they basically just like, they taught us about discipline and said, look, if you're gonna go on these trips, you gotta be able to run two miles. I never run two miles before. Right. But beginning every Scout trip, the Scout Scout meeting, like, go out and run two miles. And eventually we could. And then we ran three, and then we're in four, you know, so it was. It was really formative for me.
- [06:06]
A
And so you're. You're launched into Boy Scouts. And that's. It's funny you said nerds, because in my mind, I always want to envision Boy Scouts as a paramilitary organization for youth. Like, that's. And I know it's not like that, especially anymore. Like, I don't even think it's Boy Scouts anymore.
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B
Scouts.
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A
I think it's just Scouts. So that's. That's different. And then what are you into besides the Boy Scout thing? Because weren't you into, like, music and that kind of thing, too? So what's going on with that?
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B
That was the other thing.
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A
So.
- [06:37]
B
And this is all, like, sort of coincided with each other. I got in my head that I was going to be like, you know, because I lived in the sticks and, you know, country music and sort of, you know, that was. That was just the culture I was in. And so I think after that sort of spiral and getting Kicked out of school for a week. I was like, you know, I need to find something different. So I started. I picked up the bass guitar. It's like air quotes. I was not very good. Like, you know, four or five power chords would play any punk song. Yeah, you're good to go. So, like, you know, playing bass guitar in a really terrible punk band, my Friend's Garage, and, you know, thinking about, like, being countercultural and breaking the rules and such. But, yeah, so we was doing that and doing Scouts and.
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A
So you were, like, in a punk rock band and in the Boy Scouts.
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B
At the same time? Yeah.
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A
What were your punk rock influences?
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B
Like, the bands? Yeah, I love no Effects.
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A
Okay.
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B
Yeah. No Effects was like, I think one of the first punk bands I listened to. And then I was never, like, Dead Kennedy's guys, like, to. I was like, not melodic enough. But then the. We were talking about this earlier, right? Like, the mid to late 90s was like this debut of. Of, like, bubblegum pop punk. So you have like, Blink182, dude ranch comes out, Weezers coming out. And, like, that was, you know, that's what we get together. And we would just, like, play offspring and Blink182 because we could. Because it was easy. Yeah, yeah.
- [07:57]
A
And you're in the Boy Scouts at the same time.
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B
Boy Scouts, check.
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A
And this kind of gets you into just doing the outdoors type stuff. You're rucking. Well, before it was rucking, when it was just called hiking.
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B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had this. I remember to, like, distinctly getting a Cabela's catalog in the mail one day, you know, because I hunted with my.
- [08:17]
A
Uncles, and it's like the coolest thing ever.
- [08:19]
B
It was amazing because, like, it's got the pictures of the Rocky Mountains and there's these goats, and I'm like, wait, there's snow and the ground actually goes up. And, like, this is. There's places like this. And so I got my driver's license. I was 16 years old. And I'm like, okay, what's the closest mountains? And I don't know how I found it because there's, like, no Google search at this point. But somehow I figured out, like, oh, it's the Ozarks in Arkansas. So my parents, to their credit, were like, yeah, you and your friend is my buddy Dave Melikar, who later went to the army as well. And I was a Diplomatic Security Service guy. So we. We still stay in touch and probably because of this trip. So we load the car up, we drive all the way up to Northwestern Arkansas. And, like, unload. And I swear to you, like, we unload in. In the. In. In the parking lot, and someone's playing a banjo like Deliverance. And we both kind of look at each other and we're like, what have we done? But then we spent, like, three or four days just out backpacking on these trails, and it was just so liberating for me. It was like, wow. Like, you can go out and sort of be on your own and, you know, cook and make your own decisions and. And I think after that, that was just like, the mountains are my thing. And so I would drive, I don't know, 10, 12 hours at Big Bend national park over in Texas, we started, like, learning how to climb. And by that I mean, like, repelling off grain silos with, like, marine ropes. I was like, I can't believe that I'm still alive. Because when I saw I started learning how to climb, I was like, we were totally hooking those ATCs up the wrong way. Um. Yeah, that was the beginning of it. That was high school. Like, grain silos and road trips and Boy Scouts and.
- [10:00]
A
And so what was your plan as you looked at your future? You're like, okay, I'm in high school. Obviously I'm going to graduate at some point. What am I going to do next? What was your plan?
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B
Get out of Louisiana.
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A
And how was the best way to do that?
- [10:10]
B
I didn't know, right? And my dad, again, to his credit, was like, you're gonna go to college, right? Like, this is. This is something, you know, I've worked hard. You're gonna do it, you know, but we didn't have the money to do anything out of Louisiana at the time. What was it called? The, like, star program or something. But if you had a certain gpa, you get free tuition to lsu. It was a good school, right? And so everyone was doing that. And I was like, I am not staying in Louisiana. I'm not going to Baton Rouge. Like, I gotta find something different. So I went to my guidance counselor, and she said, well, there's this place called West Point, and it's free. And I was like, oh, it's free. How does that work? And she's like, we have to join the Army. I was like, okay, that's fine. So I get in my head, I'm like, I'm gonna go to West Point. So go through all the things and got accepted. And when people heard that being accepted in West Point, they were like, you are going to West Point. And this is like. I think I wrote about this and like, a little pre. Brief thing. I mean, this is freshman year I got after. I guess it was sophomore year at this point, after I got kicked out for smoking and kind of reformed myself. But now I'm like, I'm a reformed punk. And so I just dyed my hair black and spiked it up. And the principal comes to me, he's like, you can't have your hair black and spiked. It's distracting. And I was like, it's my constitutional right to wear my hair up. And so I write this treatise referencing. I researched it, like, all this stuff referencing why it was my constitutional right, freedom expression, to wear my hair up. And the founding was, if I'm distracting with my black spiked hair, then every young woman in the school who's wearing tight pants is distracting too, so they need to wear skirts. And it didn't fly. And they were like, cool, thanks for this. Take your hair down. But, like, that sort of rebellion thing persisted. And so, yeah, when I was like, I'm going to West Point, people were like, there's no way you're going to make it. Like, it's not gonna happen.
- [12:09]
A
But you went.
- [12:10]
B
But I went, and I guess I didn't make it. I don't know how.
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A
How did you visit West Point before you went?
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B
No.
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A
Did you watch. Wait, did you watch any programs or anything about West Point?
- [12:20]
B
No. I mean, this was the. Like, there was no. I guess Internet was super rudimentary at this point. I remember I had a catalog. You know, you would get, like, college catalogs. And I had this thick sort of book that had pictures. The cadets are marching uniform. Like, it was like, totally different than anything I'd ever seen in Louisiana. Right. Like, I mean, I. We eventually got a house, but first part of my life, I grew up in a trailer, right? Like, and so I'm looking at these gray stone buildings, looks like castles towering above the. You know, the. The Hudson. And of course, they taking pictures when it's, you know, the leaves are orange. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is like a storybook. Like, this is gonna be amazing. There's mountains. So, of course. Course I'm like, mountains. You know, I can go over there and, like, be on the climbing team. It's gonna be great. And. Yeah. So stoked. And then it got there and, like, some of it was really, really good. Like, I really like the challenge of it. But the whole, like, punk rock nate was just totally tweaked out. Like, wait, you're telling me I have to do this? I have to do that. Like, I can't. I wanted to study foreign languages. Want to study Russia, and I want to go to Russia again. Don't ask me how. It's like. It's just. My fixation was like, what's the opposite of Louisiana? Oh, it's Russia. And, you know, you get up there and they're like, no, you know, you can't really do that. There's no international relations. At the time, the closest thing was what they called Apple Arts, Philosophy and Literature. Like, that's what you. You're like, oh, you're an Apple major. And it was very derogatory.
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A
It sounds very derogatory.
- [13:45]
B
Apple. So I, you know, I was like, I. I don't know what I do, but I can't do this. Like, this is going to. It's not what I expected out of college, career, and, man, I wish I could find him. But to his. To his credit, the. My English professor was this guy named Colonel Schmidt. He was an age 64 pilot. He'd been in Gulf War, and he was an RTC graduate.
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A
What year is this?
- [14:08]
B
This is 2002. 2003.
- [14:10]
A
Okay, so the war's going on straight up?
- [14:12]
B
Yeah, in March. Yeah, in March of that year. Right. And so, like, we're all. We're all like, okay, this is for real. Like, we, you know, we could graduate and end up going to war. And, you know, so at some point, I went to Colonel Schmidt, and I was like, I don't. I. Like, I don't know what this is. Maybe I'm going to go enlist. I don't know. And he said, have you ever tried rtc? And I was like, what? What is that? And he just looks at me. He's like, oh, you poor dumb country bumpkin. So he tells me about rtc, and I'm like, oh, wait, wait. I can go to a college where I can study what I want and do this at the same time. It's like, absolutely. So I applied to Dickinson College. I kind of did a search. I was like, you know, best Russian programs and Dickinson, like, stars align. It was like, they have a great ROTC program, a great Russian program. And I remember spring break, I went down and met the ROTC professor, military science. And he was like, we'd love to have you. So I applied, and at the time, thankfully, like, scholarships are pretty plentiful, and so got a scholarship and transferred from West Point.
- [15:13]
A
And there was no stigma for you going down to the ROTC place. Like, yeah, I'm at West Point, but I don't like it. They weren't like, well, why would you like rotc? Why would you like the army if you don't like West Point, the pinnacle of Army.
- [15:24]
B
Yeah, I don't, I don't remember that. I mean, maybe I just explained it really well. I mean, it's pretty clear because I was, I was also, I was also doing well there. And I think that was the weird thing. It was not like I was failing and like crying in my bunk, you know. And I remember my, my company first sergeant, you know, cadet first sergeant came to me and he's like, why are you doing this? You know, like, why are you throwing away this opportunity? And I was like, it's not what I want. So I think going down there, you know, probably with the grades that I had and the performance evaluations that I had, like the first time real estate, science, who I still keep in touch with, Colonel Mazzarella, called the Maz. So, you know, the Maz looked at that and his, you know, he, he was like, yeah, seemed like a good, good out.
- [16:07]
A
Was he the West Point guy or the rotc?
- [16:09]
B
No, this is ROTC guy. Yeah.
- [16:10]
A
And did any, did any West Point people as you were like, hey, I'm going to go do rotc? Was everyone. I would imagine guys would be like, grabbing you by the, by the scruff and saying like, dude, what are you doing? Why are you leaving here? This doesn't make any sense.
- [16:22]
B
Yeah, that's. It's my company first aren't. I wish I could remember his name, but he sent me down, had a long talk with me. But I, I mean, Nate Fry, one of my flaws is like, once I make up my mind, I kind of make up my mind. I guess that's a, it's a, it's a blessing and a curse there. And so I'd sort of made up my mind at this point and was like, no, I'm gonna do it. I think it was the right call in the end, though.
- [16:42]
A
Yeah. It is very interesting that you can get commissioned by doing four years, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year at one of the service academies, or you can go to rotc, which is like four years where you're part, kind of part time soldiering, or you can just do OCS, which is 13. That's what I did, 13 weeks. But I was a prime listed guy.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And you get, you can get the same commission out of every one of those different, completely different scenarios. And I guess it makes sense that if you were not into it. But you were still performing well. So what'd you end up doing? 1 year at West Point.
- [17:19]
B
Yeah. Finished the. Finished my freshman year, plebe year, and then transferred after that down to. Down to Dickinson. Yeah. I think the commissioning sources are. They've all got their strengths and weaknesses. I like that. There's a lot of. There's a lot of diversity there. And some people, I think, are really fit for the academies, some for ROTC and some for ocs. Like, it just kind of depends on where you're at. So I think our commissioning program is awesome.
- [17:46]
A
Yeah, I worked with just outstanding officers from West Point and from the Naval Academy, and I work with terrible officers from the West Point and the Naval Academy, and I work with great guys from ocs and terrible guys from ocs and great guys from rt. It did. It's really about the human and not about the. The training that you went through or whatever. The commissioning program that you got.
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B
Yeah.
- [18:07]
A
So now, did you. Are you looking at your army career? What did you decide to do with your army career as you're getting ready to any other. Before I get to that. So you go to college Four years, three years now at. And you're studying Russian?
- [18:18]
B
Yeah, I studied Russian. And it was. I say, like, it was exactly what I wanted it to be because I got a chance to. To go to Russia. And this was sort of these crazy days after, you know, Putin had sort of just come into power. There was a lot of openness. I mean, there's talk about at this time, like Russia might join NATO. It was nuts. And so, you know, we go over there and. And I spent. I went twice almost for a total of almost a year between the two times I was over there. And it was just eye opening for me, you know, to. Again, this is like some progression of. From Alabama to Louisiana to West Point to Pennsylvania. And now like to go and sort of be on your own in Russia.
- [18:59]
A
Where in Russia were you?
- [19:00]
B
In Moscow? I ran. So my house, my apartment. I was staying with a host family and I would get up in the morning, go, run, run through Red Square, right? Like past Lenin's tomb, past St. Basil's Cathedral, down, you know, through the gates of the. Of the Kremlin. And it was. Since it was crazy, right? It's like, no, nothing. Country kid running through the middle of Moscow. It's probably super dangerous. I just didn't even know. But. But yeah, I spent all this time there and really, I think for the first time learned about other cultures and that people Completely see different aspects of the world than you do. Right. Like, like there was this pivotal experience I write about in my subsack post, but I got knocked out by a Russian kickboxer. And I was. So I was teaching. My operations officer, Phil Bourne is cringing right now because I've told this story like a gajillion times. I'm like to the load tennis. I'm like, all right, let me tell you about the time. But like the short, the short version of it is I was teaching at this Russian high school, like an internship and they, the kids sort of tricked me to go down and to do like combatas with them. And they paired me against this like two time state champion kickboxer. And he knocked me out. Right, like flat out knocked me out. And there's the way it was sort of set up though. That's when I realized after that I was like, I thought that these people were my friends. The reality is they see me as a competitor because I'm American. And I think that was the first time it was like really eye opening for me as a cadet to understand that, that like the world is a competitive place and that me in that ring with that Russian kid was like a tactical proxy for the geopolitical strategic struggle between the United States and Russia. And. Yeah.
- [20:44]
A
Had you ever trained before?
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B
No. I mean, I mean I did like plea boxing at West Point and I like wrestled club at West Point. So I was like, I knew some basic takedowns and I could like, knew.
- [20:55]
A
The difference between like MMA fight or was it a.
- [20:57]
B
It was Rudolka Poshka. Like, like. So it was the way it was all set up. I thought we were just like rolling in the gym, like, oh, we're going to go. I'll go down here and I get down to the gym and there's like a. Yeah, like an MMA ring set up with one dude in it and I'm the other, I'm the other guy.
- [21:14]
A
Did you wear gloves?
- [21:15]
B
So that was. Sorry. I go down in like shorts and a T shirt and they give me a gi and I'm like, okay, cool.
- [21:22]
A
Like a sambo scenario.
- [21:24]
B
Yeah, yeah, it was Russian Rukopasha. It's like like Russian kickboxing is.
- [21:28]
A
Did you wear pants?
- [21:29]
B
Yeah, so pants and a, and a, and a, and a top. And then they put me in a ring and put these gloves on. I think they're boxing gloves, but they're. They have like their fingers. Yeah, they've got fingers in them. I've never seen this before. And Then I tried to try to do a single leg takedown on this kid and he just kneed me in the head and knocked me out. It was, I had no chance. But ask me later about how that translates over to Russian invasion of Crimea and Ukraine. And like, it's all, it's all a.
- [21:55]
A
Thing because it's all a thing.
- [21:56]
B
So it's, it's all like Nephrey's strategy or Nephro's understanding of Russian strategy, right. Which I formulated in the years after getting knocked out by a Russian kickboxer and then saw it play out in Crimea. Like step number one is lull you into false sense of security, which is what those kids did to me. Like, oh, you know, we're all friends, we're gonna go down and roll together, right. Russia did that to us basically from 2000 until 2014. So the next thing is back you into a position that you can't get out of without embarrassing yourself. Like that was the initial invasion in Crimea. And Russia's kind of like, what are you going to do? You really going to attack us? Nuclear armed power? And the west is like, well, I don't know, right? So now we're backed into a corner. Fast forward, you know what, eight years later, like there's invasion of, the invasion of Ukraine because they had put us in the corner that we couldn't get out of. And the last thing is fight dirty, which is what they did. It was like, I think we're rolling and having fun. And the reality is like, they're putting me inexperienced, little me against a, you know, two time Russian state champion, right? So fight dirty. What? That's the little green men. That's all the disinformation, you know, the, the political, the political disinformation that's happened in countries throughout Europe and United States. So like, that's the Russian playbook. And they did it to me as a, as a, as a kid there. And as it was unfolding over the course of years here, I was like, it's the same thing. It's the same thing.
- [23:13]
A
It's not a bad plan. I mean, it's an effective plan.
- [23:16]
B
Yeah, it worked.
- [23:18]
A
So as you're getting, you're going through, spend a year in Russia, you're what, you study in college?
- [23:23]
B
Russian.
- [23:24]
A
Just Russian. Yeah. And then you, you graduate. What's your plan? What, what, what job did you want to have in the army?
- [23:30]
B
I want to be an infantry officer. So it's like, that's, that's the, that's the thing everybody wants to do. So. Yeah, I want to be an infrastructure officer. Got that, got my branch, went to officer basic course and then, you know, got a chance to go to Ranger school.
- [23:45]
A
Any challenges in the, in the basic course?
- [23:48]
B
No, I think it was pretty straightforward at the time. At the, at the time, officer basic course was more of a prep for Ranger school type things like pre Ranger school. And Ranger was really the capstone event I think for us at that time. This is 2006, 2007.
- [24:02]
A
Okay.
- [24:02]
B
So no, I, I thought it was, it was really solid. And I think, you know, as we get later to talking more about what I'm trying to do now with training, I think that was in many ways a big, a big influence on me is like I had really good, high quality training as a cadet, as an infantry lieutenant, you know, as, as a, you know, or, or Bullock student, as a Ranger school student. And you just see like the power of training and how it can be transformative. And you, you know that from all your SEAL training, it's like training matters.
- [24:31]
A
Yeah, I had a James Webb on the podcast and he was in class of what, 1968, whatever, the big popular class from the Naval Academy. But he went from there, went to the basic school, went to infantry officer school and took whatever, nine days of leave and then went to Vietnam. They brought him out in the field, they pointed at a ridge top and they're like, your platoon is up there. The previous platoon commander had been killed or wounded or whatever, was gone, walked up there, linked up with his guys, you know, met his platoon sergeant. And then that night he's doing like combined arms fire because they're in a massive gunfight. And I said, did you feel like you were ready? And he's like, I was ready. Which is amazing. And it also shows you that at that point in the war, you know, you had enough experienced guys that were, that had been in combat to then be able to teach combat. Which by the way, isn't necessarily a one to one transfer because there's some people that have been in a lot of combat, but they don't really, they might not be the best teachers of combat. It's kind of like there's some people that are really good at jiu jitsu, but they are not the best teachers. So you got to find someone that has done it, was good at it, and then has the ability to teach it. And clearly the Marine Corps at that time was able to get him trained up. And you must had a bunch of combat experience, guys teaching you. If it was 2006.
- [25:47]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a, you know, I mean, I even look back to, even to rotc, right? So our senior military instructor was Nassar and Greg Kuhn, SF guy, you know, done multiple deployments with them. The professor of military science was a, had been a Kiowa pilot in the first Gulf War, right? So like, these guys knew what was up and they, they knew the value of training and they invested us and trained us seriously. And you know, the same thing, going to officer basic course like these. That's it. A lot of them had, you know, they had done the first wave of OEF or, you know, they had done some oif, and then they were coming back and, and, you know, taking a break and training us. And I mean, it was serious. Like, we felt the burden.
- [26:27]
A
And it's also crazy. And I've seen this how fast all those combat experience guys are gone. You know, like, it doesn't take long before you're in a class where you're supposed to be learning combat techniques and there's no instructor that's been in combat. It doesn't take long for that to transpire either. So then you go Ranger school. Did you prep for Ranger school in any special way?
- [26:50]
B
Probably too much. I don't know, like, spoiler alert, fast forward. Like, I, I think I thought about it non stop for like three years, you know, and I dated my wife through college and then we got married right after college. And so she'd kind of seen the whole journey and she came to me at graduation and my oldest daughter was a couple months old at the time because I basically like, had the kid and then went to Ranger school. I was like, bye.
- [27:15]
A
Graduation from Ranger school.
- [27:17]
B
Graduated from Ranger school, right? So, so my wife shows up, you know, with my, with my daughter, my little tiny daughter, and she's like, how was it? And I was like, it's not as hard as I thought it was gonna be. So I think, like, I prepped super hard for it.
- [27:28]
A
But what did you do to prep first? What advice would you give for somebody that's getting ready for Ranger school?
- [27:32]
B
Take the tactics seriously. Like, understand how to communicate an operations order. It's not like the physical. We got physical. Well, it's relatively easy. I mean, you know, like some of us struggle, like, for the most part. Like people, they get the physical part down, right? Do what it is that works for you. I'm not a ruck guy. Like, I don't get a lot out of it. So I was swimming, I was running I was lifting, and that did it fine for me. The killer is the ability to. It's. It's Boyd's OODA loop, right? John Boyd's OODA loop, right? Observe, orient the side. Act. Like, how quickly can you absorb information? Orient yourself to that information, Express it to your platoon, get them to observe and orient, right? So you got to get them in the OODA loop as well, and then make a decision, and all of you act on it in concert. That's the hard part. And so, you know, it's the. You know, I fall asleep during class, then I miss a critical part of the. You know, the classes of, like, Ranger School teaches you everything you need to know. You just have to pay attention. And one of my pet peeves even today is, like, if you're in a class with someone and you don't have a notebook out and you're writing that down, you're missing it, right? Because you're probably especially sleepy as it is, right? And so you're hearing it, you're probably not really remembering it because you're already sleepy, as opposed to, if I'm writing this stuff down, I'm hearing it. I'm physiologically using my motor skills to write it. I'm seeing it as I write. So now I've reinforced that learning by three, and then later, I can go back and read it again. And so that's what I saw, is people were like, oh, I don't understand why I fail. And it's like, let me see your Ranger Handbook. And there's nothing in it. And you're like, you gotta write this stuff down, y'. All. So, yeah, write it down and then study it.
- [29:14]
A
And so what did your wife say to you when she showed up to your graduation? She said, how bad wasn't you? Like, it's not that bad.
- [29:18]
B
Yeah, it was like, it wasn't bad. As I said, it wasn't bad as I thought it was or as I thought it would be. It seemed like, like. Like superhuman. As a cadet, you're like, only super humans graduate. I can never do this. I think. And you've talked about this in your. In your podcast before. It's like, it. Every time you do something hard, it raises your confidence level. So as a cadet, you're like, I can never do that. And then you do, you know, airborne school. As a cadet, you're like, oh, well, that. Okay, I can do hard things. And. And. And then you go to Officer Basic course, and you're like, oh, those are. I can do hard things, right? And then at that point, like, you're fully prepared to go to range where you have to believe in yourself that you're prepared to do it and realize it's like, it's not superhuman. It's. It's. You've done hard stuff before. You're just gonna raise the bar one more notch.
- [30:06]
A
Check.
- [30:07]
B
Yeah.
- [30:08]
A
And then where'd you get stationed?
- [30:10]
B
Fort Lewis. With. With 2 ID. So, 2nd Infantry Division.
- [30:15]
A
And you what, Roland As a platoon commander.
- [30:17]
B
Yeah. Right In. So this is. This is where, you know, everything. Everything in my sort of career at this point, I've been going, like, really, really well. And at this point, I go in and I feel like I like a plan and I like to follow a plan. I'd say, like, I envision something like, oh, this is the way it's going to happen. Right. And so things started to sort of get out of sync here. And I think that in many ways, like, bit me in future times. Right. Like, I started to see that things weren't going according to the plan that Nate Fry had for himself. Right. So I roll into 5th Striker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. So 5th Brigade, 52 Striker was brand new. On I showed up, there was like a platoon and a half there. We were riding to the range on. On buses instead of strikers because we're like, literally brand new unit. So eventually my platoon.
- [31:13]
A
07.
- [31:14]
B
This is. Yeah, this is 07. Yeah. Brand new, brand new unit. And so eventually the unit sort of gets formed up and. And we, um. It's amazing mentor there again, I've sort of lost touch with him. Hopefully, like, catch him, reinvigorate and catch him again. But my company commander was a guy named Captain Eric Schwartz. And Captain Schwartz had been like, original 10th Mountain Division in OEF, like 2001, 2002 time frame. Amazing person, amazing tactician, amazing teacher. And so I was super lucky to have him, like, as my mentor, you know, growing up as a platoon leader, but so spent some time, like, standing up that company and then eventually ended up being the assistant S3 in the. Like, in the battalion. But like, to be completely honest, like, I got to the point there where I was. I felt like I was, like, mad angry frustrated because I felt like I was being underutilized. And that that attitude ended up biting me pretty hard because when the. When the unit got. It's finally got its deployment orders. And this is a whole nother nut roll. People out there who are in five two, remember this, but we were supposed to go to Iraq, and we're heading to NTC and, gosh, probably three weeks or so before ntc, they're like, actually, you guys are going to Afghanistan. So it was a complete. Complete U turn of tactics, techniques, mindset. So we all. You know, we all started prepping to go to Afghanistan. But at that time, the Human Resource Command came down and was like, hey, you know, you guys, some of you have been here too long. You need to go and. And go fill out these embedded training teams with, you know, that are standing up at Fort Riley. And.
- [33:06]
A
And were those embedded training teams supposed to go to Iraq or Afghanistan or both?
- [33:12]
B
Yeah, I think it was both. It was, like, depending on which one you got assigned to. Um, and without going into many diesels, like, I was being kind of a jerk at this point. I. I had. I was.
- [33:22]
A
How old are you at this point?
- [33:23]
B
Oh, gosh, 20, 25, I guess. Yeah, this was, like, three years. Like, I just made captain and, like, angry and bitter and felt like, wow, the unit doesn't, like, recognize me and my talents well enough. And so. And they're like. I think they kind of gave him. It was like, well, you know, Fry's got some talents, but he's also a pain in the butt. So, like, sent him to the et. So I ended up not having a chance to deploy with those guys, which I looked back on. I was like, yeah, I was dumb, you know, for. For being just. Basically just being a jerk. So, long story short, like, the ett, the world.
- [34:02]
A
It turns out, the world did not revolve around you.
- [34:04]
B
Yeah, but it took me another, like, eight years to figure that out. Yeah, this is like the Nate Fry right now is. Is. Is a product of the mistakes that Nate Fry made. And all the. You know, and I talk to my lieutenants about this all the time. It's like, you should be open to making mistakes, because, you know, in the long run, those of us that don't make mistakes, I think maybe in the end, and this is a long, you know, time, like, after 15, 20 years, you know, you've missed out on all this learning. I think, you know, over time, it. It definitely made me better. Maybe I'm just not very smart.
- [34:35]
A
And what sucks is you're, like, angry and bitter about this thing, which is probably not huge. But then just the fact that you're angry and bitter about that thing, that's not huge. Let's say you get to a unit that's not really stood up, and you're like, dude, this is. What am I having to. So you're kind of angry about that and then that escalates into, like, people see that, you know, people smell when you're mad, and people smell when you're frustrated. And. And that always smells like it's about you, you know, and so then you. Then. Then you get assigned to something where they go, hey, you know what? Actually, we're not going to take you to Afghanistan. You can go over here. And the reason they did that is because you were kind of mad and frustrated and showing it, which, again, seems selfish. So now they look at you and go, oh, you can go over here. Which, what does that do? Makes you even matter and you get more frustrated. That's a. It's a little bit of a downward spiral that people can fall into.
- [35:24]
B
For me, it was. And I look back and I'm like, I was so dumb. But I. You know, every Ranger qualified infantry officer is like, I'm going to be the scout platoon leader. Right. I'm going to be the battalion scout platoon leader. And I was like, I going to be the battalion scout platoon leader. Like, I'm fit, I'm smart and motivated. And the S3 at the time, then Major Jose Ocasio, brilliant guy, right? And. And he was like, he saw talent me, and he's like, I want you to be my AS three. Nobody wants to go and be on staff. Nobody wants to go be on staff. Nobody's going to.
- [35:51]
A
Like, there's another thing that made you angry.
- [35:53]
B
Yeah. I was like, oh, the AS3, like, that's a coffee maker. And so, like, I spent my time up there instead of learning from him. And I did learn from him eventually. But, like, instead of really investing time and learning from him, being like, I'm here because he sees talent in me, like, and he's grooming me for something bigger, I just, like, walked around all sulky and was like, I'm the three. I should have been the scalp platoon leader. Right. It's like, you know, and like I said, people pick up on that. They know that, like, they do. Even if you don't say it.
- [36:16]
A
Like, you know, they smell.
- [36:17]
B
You exude it. Yeah.
- [36:19]
A
I always say people can smell your intent.
- [36:21]
B
Yeah.
- [36:22]
A
And this is case in point, you know, and really good. Really great. Just lesson learned for. For everyone that's out there. Because the opposite side is, you know, I was telling you when I. When I showed up to SEAL team, want to get done with SEAL training, and here I am, you know, made it through the toughest military training in the world and all this stuff, and I show up there and they're Literally, hey, go clean the, Go clean the heads. You know, and there's where the cleaning supplies are. Go clean them. And like, okay, cool. That's what we're doing. I've cleaned those things like it was, you know, the most important thing in the world. And that is the thing where someone goes, oh, that guy's kind of a hard worker. Let's, hey, we can send him to this school. Okay, let's send to that school. And it just takes a different term from that, that initial reaction that you give something. So that's great. Heads up to, to the young troopers out there. You know, when something comes your way, man, just grab onto it. Do the best you possibly can.
- [37:11]
B
Take it. I, I, I mean, the context for me is looking back, I was like, I was the honor graduate from my ROTC class. I was the honor graduate from my IOBC class. I was, did the, what is it called? Like, the, the Ralph Colonel Puckett Board. You know, to be in the running, to be the graduate from Ranger School. Like, I think I'm hot stuff, right? And I was, I was good, right? I was. But I wasn't the only one that was good. But when you go into this and you're like, look, I'm honorary, you be like, you better bow down and for me and, like, recognize how awesome I am. Like, dude, you're a second lieutenant. Chill out. Right? Like, you know, however many, however many other honor grads are there out there, right? But, yeah, you get stuck in this cycle of like, like, I'm awesome. You better treat me like that.
- [37:53]
A
Yeah. It's also from a leadership perspective, you know, because we'd always have, like, the young, cocky guys coming into the SEAL teams and being able to take them and go, hey, bro, like, we know you made it through SEAL training. So did everyone else. Yeah, it doesn't really mean anything. And you know how good you do this job that you're being assigned right now, however small you think it is, people are going to watch you people to judge you. And if you, if you can kind of convince guys of that, you can see them turn around sometimes. Sometimes, of course, people, they're just. Life is going to be the thing that's going to have to humble them.
- [38:20]
B
Yeah.
- [38:21]
A
So. So you get this assignment to do one of these internal embedded training team.
- [38:26]
B
Yeah. Yeah. And then, so this is where, you know, the plot continues to thicken. Nate Fry gets even more angry. So I had. Weird.
- [38:34]
A
Because you seem like such a nice guy in here, you know?
- [38:37]
B
Yeah, I'm super chilled out now. Yeah, I'm a skier now.
- [38:39]
A
Yeah, it's like ski. Okay. Angry Nate Fry.
- [38:42]
B
This was Angry Punk Nate Fry. And I'm just like Skier Nate. All good. But. So I'd gone to sfas Special Force Assessment Selection.
- [38:50]
A
Wait, how did you get that billet?
- [38:52]
B
Did you. So you do that? I did that as a lieutenant. Right. So you just go temporary duty to.
- [38:57]
A
Got it. To do the selection, which is not that long, right? That's like a few weeks.
- [39:01]
B
21 days. Yeah. So it was 21 days at this time. And so like I'd gone to SFAS thinking I was like, oh yeah, I'm going to eventually go to, to, to Special Forces training, got selected. And so I sort of had like this in the background. It's like, okay, you can go to SF training whenever, you know, you get back from deployment. Well, the, the, the orders for the ET is get canceled. Right? So at this time, and this is 2009, by this point they shifted. The army decided to shift the, the burden for the etts, the mtts, to all the, the combat brigades. So if a brigade was deploying, they would deploy their, you know, the normal formation and then they would also have to carve out a slice and those would become ET is, right. So the brigades had to staff both. So they shut down the ET MTT program. And I was like, all right, what do I do now? And they, well, you know, you've been selection and you got selected, so go to SF course. Okay, I'll go to SF course then. Fine. So further feeding into the ego, right? So now here I'm a 24 or 25, maybe 26 at this point. Like 26 year old, you know, Captain, like, I'm awesome. I got, I get selected and I'm gonna go to selection. Now I'm fast tracking to sf. Okay, well, mindset matters. And my mindset was not mature, so ended up going to, to the SF course. And again, things are going super well there for me, like performing well, no recycles, you know, going through the whole thing, like no problem. But internally, like a lot of frustration, anger building, building up still. Like, I think from the previous, from the previous like assignment, going through the SF at the same time. And it was like, just to put it frankly, like not what I thought it was going to be in terms of like the mission and the mindset in many ways. And so near the end of it, a kind of a series of things pop up that, you know, you know, further caused me to just like get mad and angry and like, what Kind.
- [41:02]
A
Of things popping up, just like stupid, like chicken shit type evolutions or.
- [41:06]
B
Yeah. So I'm trying to, like, how to. How to put it, like, in a tactful manner. I. I think at the time, this is my analysis. Somebody can yell at me about it afterwards. But, like, I think at the time, you know, most of the really strong players were deploy, right. And so if you were at the actual, you know, cadre course at this time, it's like, it wasn't always their. Their best people. And so I had. I wasn't super impressed with like, the quality of like, the instructor that we were, that we're working with. And so again, here's Nate Fry, like, thinking he knows everything. This is.
- [41:41]
A
This is rough. Yeah, this is not a good recipe.
- [41:45]
B
No, no, it's. It's like. And I can look back now and be like, okay, well, yeah, you were, you know, walking, like, thought you walked on water. So I'm getting like, angry and angry the whole time. Cause I'm like, this is wasting my time. Whatever. And so near the end of it, we go to Robin Sage, like the final, like the final culminating exercise. Everything's going well, right. But two things happened that, like, that really set me off. So the first is my wife was pregnant with my son at the time, and I was like, I'll be back, you know, in time for Robin Sage. Like, I'll be able to see the birth. But she came early. And so I missed my son's birth. And so I'm like, I get a cell phone call from the Cadre one day, and they're like, hey, you know, you know, special call from your wife. Like, she went to labor and she had the kid. So I'm like, devastated. Like, I feel like at this point I have put my career in front of my family, which is something I resolved never to do. And I did. And then the second thing is a guy on our team lost his knots, his night vision devices. And when they lose these night vision devices, they shut the lane down. They're like, hey, look, you guys all have to go and find these night vision devices. And we can't find them, right? They're gone. You lost them on the side of the road. Some guy from central North Carolina picked them up. Dude's got him as mantle piece right now, right? Like, they're gone. So they recycle the entire team, everybody.
- [43:15]
A
Back to how far back to the.
- [43:17]
B
Beginning of Robin Sage, right? Which is a six week, a six week setback. But at this point, like, the Nate Fry anger And, and frustration, right, Is like, Is so built up. Plus missing my son's birth, you know, plus this, you know, like, being recycled back to the beginning. And I'm like, nobody recycles me, Fry. I don't recycle anything. I'm first time. Go through ranger school, right? Like, like, how do you, you know, how do you have, like, the, The, The. The gall to recycle me? So I get super mad and I'm just like, I resign. I'm leaving. I'm leaving sf. I'm leaving the, like, the pipeline. All I had to do was go back and all I had to do was go back and go back to sf. Go. Go back to Robin Sage another six weeks. Yeah.
- [44:00]
A
How deep? How long is that? Up until that point.
- [44:05]
B
18.
- [44:05]
A
What did they say to you?
- [44:07]
B
Nothing. Because, like, I mean, when you have somebody come in and it's like, hey, I'm gonna quit. They're like, okay, it's, yeah, ringing the bell, right? I ring the bell, like, got angry, and it's like, you know what? I'm. I'm too good for this. Rang the bell, like, walked on, walked away. Yeah.
- [44:22]
A
I'm glad I'm interviewing you and not that guy. Like, that guy's rough, man. That's rough.
- [44:30]
B
I was, I was, I was super angry. And I, I, Yeah, I, I can't tell you exactly why, but caused me. And it's like, for listeners listening out, you know, for people listening, right, it's because I've, I've sort of made it my life goal to be as transparent as I can about, like, my mistakes, because I'm super lucky in the sense I recovered. And we'll talk about this in a second. Was like, you know Jason Pelletier, right?
- [44:54]
A
Like, yeah, for sure.
- [44:56]
B
Jason Pelletier recovered me. And in that same way, I've had two resets, like, two hard resets. That was the, the Boy Scouts and kind of got me back on my path and got me on track, and I was successful there, and then started spiraling again. And then met Jason Pelletier, and he put me back on track. But, yeah, I was probably not a fun person to be around.
- [45:16]
A
So what happens after you quit sf?
- [45:20]
B
You go back to the force. And so at this point, they were like, well, you're an infantry officer, but you just did all this SF training, and like, what. What do you want to do now? And. And I'm so angry at this point that I'm just like, I don't, I don't care. And they're like, well, there's this unit deploying from Fort Bliss, Texas. They need an S2 battalion, an intelligent intelligence officer. Do you want to deploy as they're Battalionist 2? I was like, yes, fine. It's fine. Let's go. So here's an infantry officer. I've never been to intel training other than, like, what I got in sf. And so I go to Fort Bliss, deploy as, as a battalion intel officer, technically military intelligence, but I'm not, because I don't know anything about military intelligence, but, like, put it together and, like, did well. But then.
- [46:09]
A
And.
- [46:09]
B
But after that, I was like, I'm done.
- [46:10]
A
And where'd you guys deploy to?
- [46:11]
B
Afghanistan.
- [46:12]
A
And what was that deployment?
- [46:13]
B
Like, so it was the drawdown. Like, so at this point, President. So this is 2012, 2013. Obama had already. Had already announced that the US was leaving. And so the Taliban at this point was like, well, we're not doing that until they leave. Yeah. Why are we going to stick our neck out? And so, like, yeah, like, relatively. It was not like your Ramadi experience at all. And I was an S2.
- [46:40]
A
So this is, you know, I get asked a lot of questions, and I get asked so many questions. This is such a good conversation because I get so many questions about, you know, things that happen to people in whatever career they're in, whether the military career, police, corporate America, whatever team they're part of. And there's like, things that go slightly wrong. And I'm always saying, hey, listen, you got to take the high ground, you know, you know, absorb of much the. The. The problem as you can, and you don't want to lash out. Don't let your ego get in the way. And a lot of times, hey, you got to play the game. Like, hey, there's. It's a game. You got to play the game. And this is like a classic example of. I'm, I'm glad because I give people that advice all the time. And sometimes I'm like, well, you know, but occasionally, shouldn't you just stand up for yourself? And I'm always like, you know, you want me to say like, hey, you know, if someone talks to you that way, you got to stand up for yourself. It's like, no, actually, when someone above, below, or across the chain of command to you treat you disrespectful, the answer is not to then be more disrespectful back to them. That's not the answer. I don't care where they are on the chain of command. Look, can you, can we carve out some scenario where, you know, someone is truly being deeply disrespectful in front of the street. Sure, you can come up with something like that. It is so rare that I will barely even mention it. These are classic. These are classic stories that you're telling of not being able to absorb something. Play the game, deal with it. Because ultimately you're going to win in the long run. You got to think more strategic. And it's hard to think strategic when you're 20, 23, 25 years old. It's really hard to go, okay, I can see where this is going to go in the long run. I need. I need to play the game. So this is just great reinforcement for people to really think about how they're going to respond. And 99.9% of the time, when you take the high road in the situation, you will end up in a better spot.
- [48:35]
B
Yeah.
- [48:35]
A
Just like in combat, 99 of the time, if you get the high ground, you're going to be in a better situation. Occasionally, rarely yet. Okay, we're going to get in this little ravine, we're going to maneuver around. I get it. But 99 of the time, taking the high ground is the way to go. And. And that's the way it works. So these are great stories for people to hear because everyone, just about every single day you deal, we deal. People deal with some scenario like this, their boss disrespects them, they didn't get the job they want. Whatever. The thing is, it happens all the time. And to be able to go, okay, cool, I'll make the best of this right now.
- [49:12]
B
Yeah.
- [49:12]
A
Is a skill that you must learn, otherwise you're gonna have to get multiple resets in your life. And they're, generally speaking, not very fun.
- [49:19]
B
Yeah. And you're lucky if you get them, like, sometimes. Yeah. Right. Like, I amazingly lucky that I've gotten the resets that I. Twice. Right. Like, like, I. I don't plan on doing my third strike. Right. Like, this is too good. But another thing I would say to, to the listeners is, like, it. The fallacy of falling on your sword. Like the. The nobility of falling on your sword. So, you know, a couple of times I've done that where I'm like, I'm not going to. I'm not going to stand for this. I'm going to follow my sword for this. And like, you know, all my peers are going to see how awesome I am and that I, you know, took the bullet for everyone else. And like, they do, and they're like, wow.
- [49:56]
C
Yeah.
- [49:56]
B
Like, Nate's gutsy to do that. He's also stupid, right? He's. He's dumb. So.
- [50:03]
A
And oftentimes. And this is a problem that I've talked about with. Not a problem, but one of the. One of the sort of mysteries with David Hackworth, and it's not much of a mystery with me, but David Hackworth, you know, he was. He would have been a brigade commander next and division commander. He could have really shaped how they fought the war. But he did this interview and he spoke his mind and he was. You know, he literally gets asked during that interview, don't you think you're a little emotional about what's happening here? And he's like, yeah, you're damn right, emotional. I'm watching these kids get killed every day. So he reached a point where he could not do it anymore. That being said, if you want to play like the. The what if. What if he sucked it up one more time and. And he became a brigade commander, division commander. Could he have helped more individual soldiers? Maybe, maybe not. Yeah, but. And we see this, you know, this happens in politics when, When General Mattis was working for Trump and it was like he resigned his position and he was in the news for a short period of time. And by a short period of time, you know, today's news cycle is 24 hours, maybe 48. And then no more influence.
- [51:13]
B
Nobody cares.
- [51:14]
A
And not in that position to make a difference anymore. So it's to your point. Look, are there times where we can go back through history we can say, oh, yeah, this leader, this. This platoon commander or this battalion commander stood his ground and actually was able to make a massive change that has happened historically, but doesn't happen very often. Most of the time, like I fire you. Cool. I got Echo right here. He's going to do exactly, oh, you want to resist me? Cool, you're fired. Echo steps in and Echo's going to be no resistance whatsoever, and he's going to do exactly what I said and I'm going to win. And you just get fired.
- [51:49]
B
I coined this term at some point. I don't know if I said it or some other people talk about. We talk about, like high maintenance all Stars, right? And it's like a high maintenance all Stars, like, okay, cool, like you're an all Star, but you suck up so many of my resources, my time, you know, because I've got to pour all these, all this time and resource in you that I can't give to other people. I would rather have. Sometimes there's a time for the high main salsa, I guess. But, like, sometimes, like, I would rather have a bunch of slightly above average performers than this one high maintenance all star who, like, yeah, kills it, but is a pain in the butt to have around. Like, that was me, right? I was like, objectively, I was objectively good. I was objectively a pain in the butt. Right? Like. And those two things cancel each other out.
- [52:38]
A
Yeah, they do. And they actually, they kind of end up a little bit on the negative side rather than just cancel each other out there. It's actually that disruption to the morale and the disruption to the culture is so problematic because then you end up, you know, if you work for me and you're a high maintenance. What'd you say?
- [52:56]
B
High maintenance, high maintenance all star.
- [52:57]
A
If you're a high maintenance all star and you work for me and. And you're causing all these issues. I mean, Echo's over here looking at me like, dude, you really put up with this guy. And. And so I lose leadership capital because of your behavior. So it's just not good. So you do this deployment and during this deployment, I'm sure, like, hey, I'm getting out of the army. This is a done deal for me.
- [53:14]
B
Yeah, I was at this point, it was like, everything, you know, everything that I thought I was going to accomplish, I was like, I haven't done any of it. And like, the SF thing was not without its, like, emotional toll. Like, walking away from that. I was like, felt like a complete failure. And my attitude just got even worse. Right. So I get out of the army at 7, 7, 7 years and some change, and I'm like, angry, done. I, you know, I'm done with this army thing. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go do something else. I'm gonna go to Vermont, I'm gonna study forestry, and I'm gonna. That's what Nate was gonna do.
- [53:53]
A
Kind of sounds like a good deal.
- [53:54]
B
Work with trees. Trees don't yell at you. If you get angry at them, you can cut them down. It's all good.
- [54:00]
A
I was building a retaining wall in my backyard when I was probably at like the 16 year mark or something like that of the Navy. And I'm out there and I'm all day, it's hot and. And just sweating. But I'm building this nice looking retaining wall. And my wife comes out and she's like, oh, how's it going? I'm like, I think I'm gonna become a Mason when I retire. And I was like, completely serious I was completely like, you get. Because a lot of times in the military, you're, you're, you have nothing to show for your work at the end of the day or the end of the week, at the end of the month, like, totally. Oh, you as an officer. Oh, you built another PowerPoint brief. You did this thing. Of course, being on deployment is nothing more gratifying than that. But the day to day life is not you. You don't see much for it. And here you go. You work a hard day, 14 hours, and I have a little wall.
- [54:47]
B
Yeah.
- [54:48]
A
And it's going to be there forever.
- [54:49]
B
Immediate gratification.
- [54:50]
A
Immediate gratification. Feels great. And like you said, the blocks don't talk back. The concrete, you know, goes where you want it to go. All good. So you had that idea with trees.
- [54:59]
B
Yeah, that's what I'm gonna do, like just go be a forester. So we moved to Vermont.
- [55:06]
A
What does your wife say to this?
- [55:08]
B
She's so tired of me at this point, I think, like, you know, I've drug her around. You know, she had my oldest daughter and I left like a week later for ranger school and was gone for 60 days straight. And she's like, single, parenting, 23 years old, you know, miles away for 100 miles away from her family. Like, she's, she's a saint, right, that she's still with me. I think at this point she's just like, wants me to do something to be stable and not stalk around the house like a, you know, angry.
- [55:37]
A
So she's kind of down with us.
- [55:38]
B
Yeah, I mean, she's.
- [55:39]
A
Other than like, where are you gonna get a paycheck from?
- [55:41]
B
Yeah, yeah, there's that part. But she, I just, like, she's, she's like, we'll figure it out. Yeah, she's figured out. She's like super fiscally responsible. It's like, yeah, I'll eat beans and ramen will be fine. So. Okay, so we get out and yeah, I'm like, I'm gonna go to, to grad school to, to study trees. And University of Vermont had a great program and her family's from Pennsylvania. So we're like, okay, Vermont works. It's like within a day's drive of the, of the, the grandparents. So we coming up to Vermont and pretty clearly or quickly, I'm like, yeah, I need some money and I need probably some life insurance and health insurance. And, you know, this time, like the whole time, I'm still skiing, I'm still climbing, I'm ice climbing, I'm Pursuing certification as an IFMGA Mountain guide. And so I'm like, vermont's great, right? I can ski, I can climb, I can do my guide certifications, I can go to school. Right. All these things kind of wrap together.
- [56:37]
A
What year is this that you get out of the army?
- [56:39]
B
2013.
- [56:40]
C
Okay.
- [56:41]
B
Yeah, 2013. And so you're gonna.
- [56:45]
A
You have to go to college for these qualifications.
- [56:48]
B
Well, so this is the. The AMGA is the American Mountain Guide Association.
- [56:52]
A
Okay.
- [56:52]
B
And American Mountain Guide Association. It's essentially like a professional licensing, but in order to progress through it, it's like these series of courses that you have to do. Like, you know, certified as a rock guide, certified as an alpine guide, certified as an ice climbing guide, certified as a ski guide. And it takes a long time. I mean, it's a long, arduous route, and there's a ton of. Every time you do a course, you got to build a resume for it, right? So it's like, oh, if you want to go to the advanced rock guide course, you know, you've got to put up like, something like 30 different climbs, like, super high level, you know, difficult, remote. So it takes time and it takes money to do it. It's not easy to do.
- [57:31]
A
Your hope is at the end of all that you can become a guide.
- [57:34]
B
Yeah, like a fully certified. Anybody can guide. But, like, to be a certified guide and work internationally, you have to go through this whole, you know, this whole, like.
- [57:42]
A
And that's your plan?
- [57:43]
B
That's my plan. I'm going to study trees, and that's going to give me enough time to go to the forest service.
- [57:48]
A
And so you're going to college basically for forestry?
- [57:51]
B
Yeah, for forestry.
- [57:52]
A
Okay. Going to college for forestry. Then you're doing all this extracurricular. Trying to become a guide.
- [57:56]
B
A mountain guide. Yeah.
- [57:57]
A
Okay.
- [57:58]
B
Exactly.
- [57:58]
A
And you realize you need money, and.
- [58:00]
B
That would probably be good. And. And because guiding is, I don't know, like, kind of dangerous. Health insurance lifestyle is probably a good idea, too. And so I kind of like, oh, National Guard. Like, what can the National Guard do for me? And find out that there's this mountain battalion. The mountain battalion, right. So I look and I was like, there's a mountain warfare unit in Vermont. Like, how sick is that? So I call these guys up, and I'm like, hey, this is who I am. Like, active duty guy, you know, former active duty guy. And, you know, I'm up here in Vermont, like, what do you guys have available? And I was like, you gotta be kidding me. So I. I I. I come off as, you know, working as a battalion. S2 off of active duty. And. And they go, well, we got this battalion that's two slot open. I'm like, you got to be kidding me. Okay, so here we go again. But at this point, I'm mellowed out a little bit, and. And I sign up for the Vermont Guard, and. And this is. This is the, you know, this is the next reset, right? Like this. This changed the course of my career in my life. So I show up at. At the mountain battalion headquarters for my first drill. And, you know, I walk out, there's soldiers standing in formation. I remember, like, the mortar platoon sergeant is like, knife handing one of his guys and just like, chewing them out. I'm like, okay, well, that's not what I expected to see. I thought the guard was like, about barbecues and stuff, you know, and there's people doing maintenance over on Humvees. Kind of. Kind of like the, you know, the narrative that you read at the beginning. And I walk in and meet the recruiting officer, and he goes, hey, you know, this battalion commander wants to meet you. Okay, cool. So I go up and he goes, look, he's former active duty guy too. Like, just do the thing for him. Okay, fine. So I walk in, salute, report, and Lieutenant Colonel Jason Pelletier. And. And he sits me down and he. He just starts to have a conversation with me. Where are you from? What do you do? Oh, you're in 117. I was in 417, you know, infantry battalion. And so we kind of got this bond and, you know, we start talking and. And I think he senses it, and he's like, look, I know that people have bad experiences and good experiences on active duty. I'd encourage you to do this. Take all the good that you ever saw and bring it here and find all the good that we have here and put it together and just throw the bad stuff out. And I was like, okay, I. I can do that.
- [60:12]
A
Seems like a really good option, man.
- [60:14]
B
Yeah, I mean, it was like, it was great.
- [60:15]
A
It was.
- [60:16]
B
It was. It was like Transformers on transformational in terms of the mindset. It was like, okay, just take all the good stuff and just put it together and be a good team player. And I think he probably was like, hey, we're stoked to have you on as a. As. As the S2. And. And I mean, that was it. All right, Salute and walk out. And like, that was the beginning of the changeover.
- [60:37]
A
Yeah. And. And like I said in the beginning, you know, Jason, Peltier, who is just. Just outstanding soldier and super humble guy, you know, very, very nice, very approachable. Probably, you know, as a. As a combat leader, has an incredible amount of combat experience from his time in Ramadi, where they were faced against a brutal enemy. And yet, and. And as I mentioned the beginning, I can't say it strongly enough, the amount of information that they passed on to me and my guys, you know, that's it. It was. It absolutely kept our guys lives. It's 100. Kept our guys lives. There was. There was operations where they would, you know, there's. There's one operation I'm thinking of right now that, you know, Jason told Life, like, do not do that. And you know, like, Leif was like, hey, what do you think of this? And he's like, well, that's not. I wouldn't do it. And I'm not gonna go through all the details, but, you know, Leif was like, yeah, but, you know, we could probably make something happen. And you know, and finally, Jason just like, I think. I think the quote was, if I wanted to get one of my guys killed, I would do this. And Leif's like, oh, okay. So that right there. And there's plenty of examples like that to go through, but just a super nice guy, humble guy, very effective combat leader, and it's just awesome that he stayed in and now he gets someone like you and is able to kind of assess where your. Where your mind is at and talk to you in a way that changes your entire perspective very radically in a conversation.
- [62:14]
B
Yeah, that's.
- [62:16]
A
That's real leadership right there.
- [62:17]
B
Yeah. And. And he had. He had a team under him, and I think this just speaks to the power of team and organizational culture. His XO and his S3, both former active duty guys, you know, had come to the guard and their mindset was the same. They were like, look, take the good. You know, put it all together. Like, there's a unique culture here. Feed into that culture. And that culture was one of the. Of, like, standards, discipline, integrity and effectiveness. And I think that for me was maybe the more transformative aspect of it, because I was like, okay, these guys don't. I mean, grooming standards important, fitness standards important. All this stuff is important, but it's also not at the expense of being effective. And that, I think, was the thing that I was like, okay, I can get along with these guys. Because so much of. A lot of my frustration had been like, why are we doing this? Like, this doesn't make any sense, right? Like, there's no functional reason for us to be doing this. And yet, well, you know, big army says, do it, do it. And here's this common sense group of people who are like, if it doesn't work, we're not going to do it. I'm like, I can get onto this. Like, you know, this is really good. They also, like, little by little, sort of harness, like the anger and the energy that I think I had. And so that I was just talking to Colonel Paul Judge, who was Pelletiers XO at the time, and he's like, yeah, I just remember in our first, like, field exercise, it was like this brigade exercise and I was still the S2. And I got on the phone and like yelled at somebody because they weren't giving us ISR support. And he said, yeah, you said, I hope your mother's happy and proud of you. And like, hung up the phone and he said, I laughed. And I was like, I like this guy's fire. He's going to fit in just right. But then they also was like, okay, Nate, like, how can we approach this, like a different way next time? Like, I love it that you're sticking up for us, but can we soften this a little bit? And so there was this. You know, it's funny, Colonel Pelletier was the battalion commander, and then Colonel Judge was later the battalion commander. I was a company commander under him. And I think there was this sort of process of like, let's shape Nate to be a little bit more relaxed about this stuff. So it was a multiple. It was like a multi step sort of intervention from these guys who are like, you got a lot of potential, buddy, but like, there's some other things that are distracting, detracting from it. Can we mellow that out? Can we refocus that? You know, it's like a nuclear explosion could do one or two things, right? It can destroy things with all of its energy or it can be harnessed to create like endless clean power, right? And I was like, destroying a lot of stuff. And I feel like those guys were like, I love the energy. Let's. Let's put it in a nuclear power plant and get it to do something constructive. And I owe those guys my, my life. You know, where I'm at right now because of the way they approach that.
- [65:01]
A
Yeah, yeah. It's also awesome because if you, if someone pushes hard against, you know, someone that has a lot of what we're calling right now energy, you know, if, if, if you come into my office and suit me and Go. Sounds like you, sounds like you really think you know what you're doing. Boom. It's going to be, it's going to be a nuclear reaction, right? It's going to be bad, the bad kind of nuclear reaction. Whereas for someone to sit down, well, tell me what's going on and all of a sudden recognize it and then try and figure out how we can capture this and do something good with it. Just the leadership is just so important along the way. So, so that's it. You're now with, you join the unit and then what's that like? Are you, did you go active duty immediately with the, with the National Guard?
- [65:41]
B
No, I went played with Therese for a little bit. So I, I, I was a traditional National Guard guy one week in my two weeks a year thing and, and I end up working with the US Forest Service over in New Hampshire and run around the woods with trees. Little too low energy for me though, right. Like at a certain point I was like, trees are not growing super fast. Like, could we go faster? Trees and trees are like, no, bro, like we're not going any faster. And so, you know, continuing to do the mountain thing. And this is where I think, like I really started to get my stride. Got a call one day from now, retired General Nate Lord, who is a old Mountain battalion guy. And he said, hey, look, we need a full time training officer at the Army Mountain Warfare School. Would you come on AGR duty to do this?
- [66:28]
A
Did he know your background?
- [66:29]
B
Oh yeah. So another guy that I owe so much to because he was like, we need Nate here. You know, the school started at an inflection point and he pulled some strings to like to get me to the school. And that was, that was the beginning of sort of like, okay, I finally feel like I'm doing my thing.
- [66:45]
A
And so did you go active duty then?
- [66:47]
B
Yeah, so I went do that school agr to, to go work at mountain schools. I worked there for three years.
- [66:53]
A
So what's, what's going on at the Mountain School? Who, who, you, who shows up there to train?
- [66:58]
B
Yeah, it's. So any of your listeners out there who have been to Mountain School will, will back me up on this probably and say it is one of the best kept secrets in, in the Army. Um, the, here's what's different about it, right? Airborne School, Ranger School, like all these other schools that you know that the army has. You go there, you're instruct for two, three years and you're gone. Right. With the Mountain Warfare School because of the, the unique the way it's uniquely set up. Some of those instructors have been there for 10 or 15 years now. That comes with some negatives, right? Like the whole homesteading mentality. It also makes them amazing masters of their craft. And it makes them. They've also had time to hone, and you were talking this earlier, like hone themselves as instructors. Not just I know the stuff, but I can teach the stuff. And so the level of professionalism there is just, it's through the roof. They're all practitioners, right? They can ski, they can climb, they can teach how to ski and climb. And so at this time, you know, the mountain school is really looking at, okay, what, what is coming next? And the army's talking more about Arctic. It's more talking about specialized warfare. 10th Mountain Division is sort of standing up again as an actual mountain unit. And we get to sort of be at the middle of all of that as the Mountain Warfare school, writing doctrine, advising people on, you know, on how to integrate mountain operations into their, into their formations. And also like tons of like, foreign partner assistant stuff. I mean, these guys, if we're not teaching a course, there's typically an instructor team gone somewhere in the world teaching mountaineering to someone. Like, it was so busy.
- [68:38]
A
What does your training ground look like? Do you have good training in. Where is it in Vermont?
- [68:43]
B
It's in Vermont.
- [68:43]
A
And do you have good training there? Do you have like massive amounts of acreage to train in?
- [68:48]
B
Yeah. So Ethan Allen training site is, is like just east of Burlington, 12,000 acres that backs right up to the spine of the Green Mountains. Like, so the eastern boundary is the long trail. So you can do, I mean, if you get really creative, like as a training guy, right, you can like do long distance movements through the mountains. Where you go up, you hit the long trail. You know, we would do these huge traverses. We'd come down. There's a, I'd say a higher elevation HLC up there, you know, so like seize the hlc, set up a defense around it, get tagged. I mean, it's just, it was amazing what we could do in that training area.
- [69:28]
A
And do you guys, do they ever go out west, Western America to train?
- [69:31]
B
Yeah, that's. We'd send people out all the, so every spring and try to get people out and, and do, you know, extended training trips. And in the Sierra, out in Colorado, training with, with mountain guides. And a lot of those guys are on the similar track as I am. Like, they're going through the, the American Mountain Guide association instructor track at the Same time.
- [69:47]
A
Is the school run by National Guard and reservists or is there active duty guys up there? Is it like, is it an active duty place to get stationed as well for an army dude?
- [69:56]
B
So this is the, the interesting thing about it is that it started as a pure National Guard school, but because they were so effective and oh gosh, I'm can't quote the exact 2001, 2002, early 2000s, the Army CO opted the school and was like, you're no longer National Guard school, you're gonna be the army school. So it's staffed by National Guard, Vermont National Guard people, funded by Big army answers tactically to the Maneuver center of Excellence down at Fort Benning, Georgia, but administratively controlled by the Vermont National Guard. Right. So, like, it's mom and mom and dad. We like two Christmases and both parents are divorced.
- [70:34]
A
How many people are, how many people are stationed there? How big is the instructor staff?
- [70:38]
B
It's like 30 to 35 instructors at any given time. Some of them are full time, some of them are part time. Some of them come on like temporary contracts. And then there's just a couple of officers. Like, there's the commander, the ops officer and, and then the training officer. So. And the rest are all NCOs. And they're for the most part, like pretty amazing NCOs.
- [70:55]
A
So that's the best kept secret in the Army. I, I think it sounds awesome. And do you ever interact with the Marine Corps, Bridgeport Mountain Warfare?
- [71:03]
B
We try there. I remember I went out there once on a, on a, a, like a, like orientation mission, I guess. Like, they invited us out and we're talking, talking. At the end of the conversation, I was like, hey, you know, is there anything we can do for you? Like, just let us know. And they're like, right. Because their program is amazing. Like, they've got an amazing setup there. And I think they were just like, yeah, little brother, if we need you, we'll call you. So we had some interaction with them, but I, they're. I'm jealous. They have a great program.
- [71:32]
A
They have. Yeah, that's. I mean, it's great location. Good Lord.
- [71:35]
B
Yeah.
- [71:36]
A
All right. So you do that for how long? How long are you in that role?
- [71:39]
C
For?
- [71:39]
B
Three years. Yeah.
- [71:40]
A
And then did you decide you're going to stay on active duty after that?
- [71:44]
B
So that's when General. General Knight threw one of his, one of his, his staff officers basically directed me. He's like, you're going to go to North Macedonia and, and, you know, be the Liaison at the embassy in North Macedonia.
- [71:59]
A
So General Knight is the. For those of you who don't know, he's the. He's the adjutant general of the Vermont National Guard. He was on this podcast, 505. He was with us in Ramadi. He was one of the guys getting. Getting it done in the Tactical Operations center in Ramadi. Great guy. And he provides us with honey or syrup? Maple syrup. Yeah. What am I thinking? Honey. It's like Vermont.
- [72:20]
B
He probably does honey, too.
- [72:22]
C
Yeah. And pickles as well. And salsa. Don't forget that.
- [72:26]
A
Which you said, do the best pickles. Best salsa you've ever had. Best salsa you've ever had is from a. A dude from Vermont. That's right.
- [72:33]
C
Yeah.
- [72:34]
A
A general from Vermont.
- [72:35]
C
And I have salsa experience, too.
- [72:38]
A
Very highly experienced.
- [72:39]
B
He was gonna send some back, but he said he's out for the season.
- [72:42]
A
Does he have a name for the salsa? Is there, like, some kind of name on it?
- [72:45]
C
I don't know.
- [72:45]
A
I didn't catch it or anything like that.
- [72:47]
B
No, he just makes it.
- [72:49]
C
But it has, like, a label on it.
- [72:51]
A
Okay.
- [72:51]
B
Yeah.
- [72:52]
A
You don't remember what it says?
- [72:53]
C
I didn't catch it. You know, I was too busy eating it. But it is what it is. It was good, though, Jack.
- [72:59]
A
So he tells you, hey, you got to get a real job in the. In the army.
- [73:02]
B
Yeah. He's like, you're going to go to the embassy and do this embassy thing. And this is a super exciting time, too, because North Macedonia is, like, on the verge of joining NATO. And so my friend Gene. Gene Enriquez, who was also in Ramadi with you guys, but he. I called him before this. I was like, can you tell me any stories about Ramadi? He was like, dude, I was an E3. Like, I know. I don't know. I can't tell you anything. But anyway, so Gene was there with you all in Ramadi, but. And now he's. At this point, he's. He's an officer. He's a major. He gets North Macedonia across the NATO finish line, and then I show up, like, three months later, and. And, you know, it's just like, okay, what do you do? Now they're in NATO. Like, what's next for a new NATO member? And, you know, this is the best mission command I've ever gotten was from a Department of State ambassador. So Ambassador Burns, who's the. The. The ambassador to North Macedonia, calls me in her office, and she's like, hey, great to have you. Here's what I need you to do. Solidify North Macedonia into NATO silence. And I'm like, okay, any, any guidance, ma'? Am? She's like, don't do anything illegal, immoral and ethical, but get them solidified into NATO. And I'm like, okay, Roger that. Like, that's it. That was the conversation. And so we spend the next two years like basically wild westing that place. And it's like, you know, carry strike groups in the Med, get F18 Hornets to fly in and like drop bombs in there. They've got this amazing training area there. Like get the F15s in, you know, call 10th Special Forces Group up in Germany. Hey, we got F18s coming in. Can you guys come down on this date? You know like. And they're like, yep, absolutely. So they come down, we're driving live, dropping live ordinance in the middle of North Macedonia, like planning these. I mean we did a huge airborne operation. The UK, Italy, US I forget, it's like 4000 people. They did like a mass tack jump in. Like it is nuts. And we're going 110 miles an hour. And then it all starts to make sense because Russia invades Ukraine and we're like, okay.
- [75:00]
A
And you're, you're, that's where you are when Russia invaded Ukraine.
- [75:03]
B
Yeah, yeah, we, so we've been, you know, we're kind of been tracking it and watching it in the news and looking at the build up and then yeah, one day I wake up and look at my phone. It's like, you know, Russian frontline elements. I got a text from the office, the ODC chief, Office Defense Cooperation. He's like, hey, you know, briefing at the embassy at 9 o'. Clock. I get in here and so we go in and you know, to the classified area and they kind of fill us in on.
- [75:24]
A
Were you surprised?
- [75:26]
B
We were not. We had sort of been seeing things and been filled in. It was, it was, it wasn't a question of like if. It was more a question of like when is it going to happen? So it was like, okay, it happened there, there it is. And so from then it was like, how do we help North Macedonia? Tiny, tiny little country. The ambassador always said that they punched above their weight. You know, they immediately start emptying out their storehouses to get anything that they can old, old, like Warsaw Pact, Warsaw Pact ammunition and equipment over to Ukraine and try to hook them up. So that was, that was like the effort for the next few months was like, get anything we can to Ukraine and to help them out. So it's an interesting time.
- [76:07]
A
What Is your, you know, when you look at the way that war has gone since then, what. What is your assessment right now?
- [76:15]
B
Gosh, I don't think I'm paid to do this. I mean, I think that the, the bottom line assessment is Russia can't win. Like, if, if we allow them to win in Ukraine, it's going to empower them to do anything they want in the Balkans as well, in the Baltic region. I mean, there's all sorts of. There's all sorts of issues with disinformation that they're doing in the, in the Balkans, you know, trying to turn Serbia in their favor. You know, Serbia is a proxy state, you know, causing issues on Europe's doorstep. And Kosovo. And then I don't even want to talk about the, like, the Baltics up north. And it's like, okay, what if they decide to take a little enclave in Latvia, Lithuania, or Estonia of native Russian speakers? Right.
- [77:02]
C
It's just.
- [77:03]
B
It's. It's like the. It's like the appeasement situation from the 30, 38, 39 all over again. Right. Like, if you allow Russia to take this little bit, then they're just going to be emboldened to take more. This goes back to the Russian kickboxer story, right? Like, we're in a difficult situation, but in order to win, we've got to make some. Some risky decisions. I think you, You.
- [77:21]
A
You said the phrase Russia can't win, and what you meant by that, now that you've completed the statement, is like, Russia can't be allowed to win.
- [77:29]
B
Yeah. So sorry. Yeah. But no, they could certainly win.
- [77:31]
A
Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, they can.
- [77:34]
B
Yeah.
- [77:35]
A
It's, you know, they just have the, the war of attrition. They can continue to go, and Ukraine has a limited number of people, and that's a real problem, you know, And I always, you know, unfortunately, it's just a. War is just the, the cliche thing of, like, war is a test of wills. Well, it is.
- [77:56]
B
Yeah.
- [77:56]
A
And it's like a. It's like a test where you really think you can win, and I really think I can win, and. Because if you really don't think you can win, you'll probably be like, you know what? I'm good. But if you think you can win, you're going to keep going. And if I think I'm gonna win, I'm gonna keep going. And that's kind of. It seems like that's where they're at.
- [78:15]
B
Yeah, that's what's happened.
- [78:15]
A
Because. And in my opinion, like, The Ukrainians, they can't. There is no. This is, this is an existential war. Like if they lose, that's it for Ukraine. So every man in Ukraine will fight to the death and that's just bloodbath. And how much of that can Russia take and what does that look like on the world stage?
- [78:36]
B
So but then there's also the issue that, that every man in Russia is not fighting.
- [78:42]
A
Yeah, right.
- [78:43]
B
Like that's part of the problem is that the, the, the national commitment to it. It's, it's not there. I mean, like I, you know, my travels, you know, run into Ukrainian, as Ukrainian person in, you know, the United States or, you know, over in Central Europe or something like that. You're like, oh, you're here. Yeah, you know, I left. Okay, well that's like one less person who's over there, like actually trying to fight. So.
- [79:05]
A
And, and the fact that, well, you see the, the videos of like guys being forcibly recruited and well, why are they having to do that? Because, yeah, everyone says, oh, that's so terrible. Well, yeah, it is. And at the same time, why, why do they have to do that? So, yeah, I guess I, I should have re. Rephrased that. Certainly the politicians are willing to expend every willing Ukrainian's life to maintain what they can.
- [79:32]
B
I mean, I think what Ukraine has done so far is amazing.
- [79:36]
A
Oh yeah, for sure.
- [79:36]
B
Like what they have done against is Russia is, is mind blowing. But they don't have the personnel, they don't have the equipment. And I'm talking way above my very good at this point. But I, I guess I'm speaking now as Nate Fry, adjunct professor who teaches international relations at University of Vermont. Right. And so this is not me as a battalion commander, but me as like a sort of international relations wonk talking about this. And it's, it's, it's this idea that like, they're going to run out of resources unless someone, NATO, eu, United States decides to back them on it. Because we see that the return on our investment is, is greater than us not being involved. I think that's where we stand right now. Like, there's been a sort of this trickle of like, oh, we'll give you this, we'll give you this, we'll give you this. And a lot of people much smarter than me, more informed, have said, like, what have, what would happen if we had just given them the full weight of everything in the first six months might be done right now, but we just trickled it. So.
- [80:33]
A
All right, so you get Done with that job. What came next?
- [80:37]
B
So then I went back, I spent a year as the XO at Mount Battalion. And then at that point I was like, there's nothing really left for me to do on active duty. And that's where I said, look, I've got this idea that I've been nursing in my head. I mean, I say a decade, probably more than that, because it's all about like making mistakes and getting better. I've been making mistakes for a long time right now. So I said, look, I'm gonna, the tree thing didn't work out. I'm gonna go get an mba, learn about business and how to do spreadsheets and investments and stuff like that. And I'm gonna launch this, you know, be a traditional guard guy, you know, one week a month, two weeks a year, and I'm gonna launch this, the startup.
- [81:16]
A
Where'd you go to business school?
- [81:17]
B
University of Vermont, right there. Easy, convenient.
- [81:20]
A
And then how long is business school?
- [81:22]
B
This was a compressed program, it was a year long. So it's just like.
- [81:27]
A
And did you, what'd you learn?
- [81:30]
B
I learned math, which is good. Like being able to speak, being able to speak the language of investors, I think has been the biggest thing for me. You know, when they come in the room and start talking about like equity and cap tables and you know, like, you know what, you know, what are we going to do in terms of like seed, seed rounds and pre seed and series A and all this stuff. And it's like I wouldn't have known how to do that before business school. So the hard skills are really great. I think the, what I would call like the soft skills, right, of like leadership and organizational management, at least at my program, were pretty lacking. And honestly that again was part of the inspiration for the like for the startup and what we're trying to do because I think it's, you guys know this, right? It's incredibly hard to teach people how to lead and make decisions through a book and through lectures. And I think that's a big flaw in my program and other programs of one of my lieutenants is down at, gosh, I'm going to mess this up. Texas A and M or ut. I think he's at University of Texas and he's doing business school down there and military guy with a deployment and he's like, yeah, same thing. Hard skills are great. All the soft skills about leadership, he's like, this is not right. Like professors well meaning and, and well researched and studied. Talking in class about, hey, this is how you do this stuff and he's like, that's not actually how it plays out. So I think business school is great for teaching like business, but leadership side of things, it's challenging.
- [83:04]
A
So your idea is, what's the, what's the idea that you had the back of your mind?
- [83:08]
B
Yeah.
- [83:09]
A
For all this time.
- [83:10]
B
The idea in the back of my head is that to put it like very simply, the US Military, probably in general, I can speak in particular about the U.S. army. The U.S. army is over indexing, continually over indexing on equipment and hardware and far underinvesting on training people and skills.
- [83:32]
A
One thing that, so I have a company called Echelon Front. We do leadership training, we do leadership consulting. And one of the things that we do is, is we have something called the FTX field training exercise. And we have these really high end laser tag systems and we teach people like the most rudimentary tactics, but then we start giving them missions and we send them out on missions to detain, capture, kill, set up overwatch positions, do hostage rescues. They do all this super high speed stuff. Not that they're going to be proficient at hostage rescue, but, but they get put in these scenarios where they have to make decisions, they have to lead. And the reason that we did that is because when I was in the SEAL teams, the last few years I was in, I ran the training for the West Coast SEAL teams. And so we were running these big giant FTXs. And that's where you'd see leaders actually get, you know, punched in the face with reality and have to go through real time making decisions. You know, there's, there's some things in life. It's the same thing with Jiu Jitsu, by the way. You know, you, you can tell someone for three days how to stand up on a surfboard. You can tell them for a month. You could, you could, you could, you could use graphics and have the best lectures in the world explaining to someone how to stand up on a surfboard. And they still have to go out and stand up a surfboard and it's going to take them 12 tries, 20 tries, 40 tries before they do it one time. And once they do it one time they go okay. And they're going to be able to go okay with it or they're going to be able to, they have a leg to stand on, they're going to start being able to get up. So the thing with leadership is like I can tell you how cover and move works over and over and over again. I can put slides up here, and all that will put some of the context into your head, but you still have to be put in that situation where you have to see it for yourself. And the reason I said it's like Jiu Jitsu, I've been explaining to people lately, there's a lot of different methodologies for training Jiu Jitsu, and some of them are, hey, like, drill. Just drill. You drill this move over and over and over again. You learn the move, then you drill the move. And the other end of the spectrum is you don't even learn the move. You just get put in positions, and then you try and figure out what to do. And the correct way. What I will say is the correct way is, the way I explain to people is there are, let's say, 10 things that you have to do in Jiu Jitsu to make a move work, and I can teach you five of them, and the other five, you have to figure out by doing them. And some people, it's a really good instructor that's got a really special move that they are really good at. Maybe that guy can teach you seven. And you got to figure out three on your own. There's always an element that you have to figure out for yourself. That's why you can't just drill the move. You have to live, engage with people. You have to go through that. And so it's the same exact thing with leadership. I can tell you five things about what's going to make this work. But until you're in the field, until you know someone is yelling at you and you start feeling your emotions flare up and you go, oh, wait a second. Oh, this is detachment. I remember Jocko talking about detachment. He said, take a step back. Take a breath. Okay? Look around, nod your head and listen. Okay? That's what I'm gonna do. But until you get put in that situation, you don't know how to do it. You have to get put in there and see what it feels like. So the idea of not just learning from a book, which, look, I've written a bunch of books, and I've had plenty of people say, oh, your book really helped me. But they always follow it up with, like, your book really helped me. And I got put in the situation, and I remembered it, and I did it, and then they become proficient. So that's. That's what you're talking about?
- [87:23]
B
Yeah. Yeah. So I think that the best way to think about this really comes down to an idea of. Of like, you know that I love John Boyd, right? John Boyd. And the OODA loop. Right. And so the OODA loop is observe, orient, decide, act.
- [87:38]
A
Right.
- [87:38]
B
So the first two aspects of the OODA loop are, are mental, cognitive. Right. Like I read a book, I understand the book, but then I have to make this jump from, from like the understanding to actually putting it into practice. Right. Is exactly what you're saying. And so what we see across the army, unfortunately is it's easier to put money into something tangible. Right. It's very straightforward for me to make a knife, to make a missile, to make an unmanned aerial system. So we're making these things and at the same time we're cutting funding to the opportunities that are so pivotal for people. Ranger school, we are watering down the, you know, the standards for, you know, like NTO education system. Basic leader course. Right. Advanced leader course. Right. So we're eroding standards, we're taking away these training opportunities. And then are we surprised when we, when like people in the military can't achieve the training outcomes we want them to? Whereas like, well, we gave you the knife. Well, sure, you gave me the knife and you gave me a book how to use the knife, but didn't you actually give me a. Put me in a position where I had to learn how to use it? Well, no, there was enough budget for that. Yeah, that's a problem. It's a problem. And so when you talk about like making these FTX is. Yeah, absolutely. Like I am a product of a well funded GWAT era army. When I was a platoon leader with 52 Stryker, I think I probably did 10 live fires. I mean like, like constant in 18 months time, like so many live fires. So I get really good at fire and maneuver. Right. That was, it was great.
- [89:11]
A
Did you say 10 live fires?
- [89:13]
B
Yeah, like platoon level, like so platoon level. Live fires we were doing, we go to Yakima Training center in central Washington. I'm not sure like, like static ranges, but like go out to Yakima Training center like oh, here's your striker. Here's, you know, here's the scenario. Like drive on, dismount, you know, run in, shoot the buildings up for like an 18 months time. It was, it was nuts. Yeah, yeah. Harry, Colonel Harry Tennell was the brigade commander at the time come from 173rd and that guy was like we will use every drop of ammunition. We have to just live fire all the time.
- [89:47]
A
In the SEAL teams, we are so blessed because we would do live fire. I like, I wouldn't, couldn't put a number. It's, it's Literally like hundreds of evolutions in a platoon workup. It's crazy.
- [89:58]
B
Yeah, we don't get that.
- [89:59]
A
Yeah, I know. It's just one of those things where I go, gosh, you know, like, I forget how totally lucky we were. And that was like mid g wat for you. You know what I mean? That's when you're going to get the. You know, when you said strikers, I was like, okay, because that's, it's next. A little next level. If you're out there doing live fire with the strikers and they're putting down 25 millimeter chain gun and stuff like that. That's, that's. I could see a little bit of a smaller number. But yeah, we, we do live fire. Like. Yeah, it's our job. Yeah, yeah.
- [90:25]
B
I mean, I think an infantry platoon leader, if they get a couple of platoon live fires, like. Cool.
- [90:29]
A
Are you serious?
- [90:30]
B
Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. Like in the train. Because like the overall training progression, you know, let's say you're a platoon Leader for 18 months and you're gonna go, you know, like your training progression, you're gonna end up doing buddy team live fire, team live fire squad live fire. Do that a couple of times and you get a platoon, then you go to company live fire. And then, you know, you reset and go back to it. So, yeah, I mean, that's. And the National Guard's even worse, right? Like, if I get a platoon leader, one live fire in the National Guard, I'm.
- [90:53]
A
I'm stoked that that's, that's not good. Yeah, that's not good at all.
- [90:58]
B
So, so. But to suit to the point of like what we're trying to do here, right? Like the army has said, look, these FTX's, live fires, really resource intensive. Take a lot of time, take a lot of money. And a lot of times they're only training like one echelon of people in a certain way. And so, you know, they, you know, we don't get enough live fires, you know, from the standpoint of what we need to do to achieve training proficiency. So the army has identified that and they're like, look, we need to do more in this, what they call like synthetic training, right? So simulators and things like that. But all the simulators that the army is making right now, it's all like shooter, like kinesthetic type things, right? Like, you know, an engagement sales trainer to make me a better shot, you know, a tank gunnery trainer. And I look at this and go, okay, where are we? Where are we getting reps and sets on difficult leadership decisions, moral ethical decisions, tactical dilemmas. When I go left, I'm screwed. If I go right, I'm screwed too. Like which, like where, like where do we, you know, where do we pull that off? And then even one level deeper than that is the data, right? So like if I get on engagement skills trainer, you know, like a really, you know, good marksmanship trainer, it's going to tell me like, oh look, you know, you're losing your sight picture. You're jerking the, you know, you're jerking the finger on the trigger. Like you know you're breathing at the wrong time. Right. We've got data analytics behind that. So you know, here's the dream that we're thinking about. Like with, with my company Spire. Like can you, can you pattern like the complexity of mental decision making and help under someone understand? Look, you know Jocko, you are firmly in the like quick decision, you know, amygdala, like rapid gut instinct decision making or you know, are you more in the sort of prefrontal, prefrontal cortex reasoning, you know, like where, where do you sit in that? And then having the ability to say like, look, we know where you're at now how do we coach you to get to be a more well rounded person? So you can switch sort of toggle back and forth between amygdala and prefrontal cortex, right? Can I go back and forth, forth, relatively easy. Like that's a skill you have to practice. And I like, that's Nate Fry from experience, right? Because I was all amygdala for the first 10 years of my career. Like everything was just like, you know, rapid fire. And then had to train to get to the point where it's like I'm going to take a deep breath, I'm going to slow my emotions. What word do you use it for? You used a word earlier, like a.
- [93:26]
A
Deliberate relax, look around, make a call, detach, detach what it is. Yeah.
- [93:32]
B
So like detached from your situation. Like that's a, that's a muscle. And so can we put people in situations high rep and high set so it doesn't take a ton of time, ton of money, ton of ammunition, like all this other stuff. So that on a, let's call it a daily basis. On a daily basis, Nate, for I can run through a scenario to help me move from being a back of the brain, lizard brain thinker to a prefrontal cortex more reasoning thinker and know when to distinguish between the two.
- [93:58]
A
Yeah, there was, I had a conversation with a young military Crew talking to a group of guys, and they were talking about how, well, the. The training isn't reflecting exactly what's happening on the battlefield right now. You know, and so. And I get it, right, we always tried to make the training reflect what was happening on the battlefield right now. But now you've got, you know, drones coming in and all these sensors are coming in and all these different things are coming in. And so. Well, how do we, you know, the training doesn't reflect it, and the battlefield is changing quickly. But what I tried to explain from a leadership perspective is that it's the same thing that you're saying, which is if you take someone and you put them in a challenging situation with dilemmas and problems and pressure, it doesn't really matter what's causing those things. You can learn to make decisions whether, you know, you and I are getting mortared and we're sitting there getting mortar, and we got to figure out what we're going to do. That's. There's pressure, there's danger, there's time constraints, and we got to make a decision on what we're going to do. Cool. It doesn't matter if we're getting mortared or if there's a VB id, you know, in a vehicle driving towards us, we still got it. We're in a situation, we got to make a call, or if there's a drone overhead or, you know, we have people that are. We got wounded guys. Like, it doesn't really matter. What we have to learn how to do is take a step back to tat, look around, make a call, make an iterative call that will move us somewhere in the right direction and make a. Get the feedback. So you learn how to use the skill regardless of what the variables are. And I think people lose track of that very quickly. That. Oh, you don't. You don't need. You know, we. We run drills with corporations where, you know, we give them some kind of a problem, like some kind of a rudimentary problem. Like, I'll take three different Lego sets, put them in one box, mix them all together, and then give them the pictures and like, hey, build this stuff. If someone doesn't lead that, if someone doesn't step up, if they don't cover for each other, if they don't keep things simple, if they don't do that, like, things will just fall apart. And even. Even putting together Legos, like, people will start yelling and screaming at each other. You. That's the. That's the wrong part. Like, you see that These are with grown adult business people.
- [96:10]
B
Yeah.
- [96:11]
A
Yelling. And you think, okay, so they haven't learned how to detach, they haven't learned how to take a step back. They're letting their emotions drive their decision making process. So these things are very problematic. And you are 100% correct that if you can put people iteratively in these situations. And that's exactly what we do now at Echelon front with the fdx. It's also exactly what I used to do was just put a platoon and the platoon leadership in high stress scenarios with a lot of problems and they've got to sort them out. And they can sort them out a different way each time, but they learn. What they learn is they learn how to sort things out under pressure, under time constraints, they learn how to make things happen. And it is a skill. And I think that's one of the biggest problems with leadership is people don't understand that just like any sport, the vast majority of the sport is skill. It's not natural gift. Like rock climbing is a great example. Right. You know, the amount of skill. People underestimate the amount of skill in rock climbing. You ever gone rock climbing?
- [97:15]
C
Which I was at a gym.
- [97:17]
A
At a gym. Yeah.
- [97:18]
B
Did you?
- [97:19]
A
Were you good at it?
- [97:20]
C
No.
- [97:20]
A
Yeah. You see? Are you a weak person?
- [97:22]
C
No, no, not really.
- [97:24]
A
Well, check. You see what I'm saying? Like you can have someone that has the skill of rock climbing, climbing can completely out climb someone that's strong. Even, even someone that specializes in like pull ups. If someone's a good rock climber. I've climbed with, I suck at rock climbing, but I've, I've gone rock climbing with people that I could probably do, let's call it 10 times more pull ups than that.
- [97:49]
B
Yeah.
- [97:49]
A
And they can out climb me without, without breaking a sweat.
- [97:53]
B
Yeah.
- [97:54]
A
Because they have the technique, they have the skill of rock climbing. So there is skill involved in leadership. And yes, there are natural gifts that you may have for leadership. Some people are, you know, a little bit more articulate, some people are a little bit calmer. Those things are really beneficial. But just like someone might have a naturally strong grip. Right. And that's going to give them a little bit of tendency to be a little bit better as a rock climber. Well, guess what? That pales in comparison to actually learning the skill of rock climbing. So I think you're onto something.
- [98:23]
B
Well, the thing that frustrates me too, as we look at the advent of justifiably amazing technologies like AI the one that really gets Me is that talk about brain implants. It's like, oh, I'm going to put a chip in your brain and that's going to help you perform better. We're skipping a step. We're skipping a lot of steps actually. And that step is, is some sort of structured mental cognitive training. Like you hear this all the time, like we use a fraction of our brain. It's not because we're not capable of doing it. I think it's because we don't have the training, we don't have the resources, we don't have the mentorship. And so before we jump and it's like the idea of medicine, right. Like, we're not going to go from, okay, you have an infection in your arm to like, let's just cut the arm off. Right? Somewhere in there I have various interventions that I can, I can use to try to help me not cut my arm off. Right. And so before we jump to what, I'm going to put a neuralink in your brain to help you perform better. What about all the other things we're not doing right now? You know, so when you, when you talk about like what you're doing with Echelon Front and the FTX is, you know, my question is like, next step, how do you make sure that over the course of months after that intervention that they actually learned. Right. They read your book and then they said, oh, I learned something about it. Cool. Where were they before they read your book? Where were they right after? And where were they right after they actually got to implement it? Right. Can you imagine being able to chart that with the technology we have right now, some sort of machine learning technology running through, you know, digital simulations where you can go, you know, I see where Ekko is at before we talked, now I see where he's at after he's read my book and talked. And then I can check him again in six months and be like, wow, you really have grown. Like we know you're growing as opposed to, well, you thought you're growing but like you haven't actually moved. So now we can re enter, you know, we can, we can do another intervention and say, okay, where do you think the hang up is? Right? So it in it, it instills like, it enhances the dialogue that I should be having between me and a company commander, between me and a platoon leader, between a CEO and you know, one of their mid level managers. And we don't have that right now.
- [100:43]
A
Yeah, because, because we don't have this tool yet. The diagnostics are come from my instructor staff at Echelon Front, because we can, we can see and we can do diagnostics of what the issue is, but that takes us interacting, right, and observing. So that's, you know, it's expensive for the clients. And, you know, clearly, if we had a way where we could say, oh, here's, you know, let's see how you're doing now, or, and go through this protocol and you're getting tracked, that would be great. Very beneficial. Because right now, people, you know, just like anything else with technology, it's. It's manually performed by us human beings, the instructors at Echelon Front, and we're good at it, but there's a limited supply of instructors at Echelon Front. So this is where it would be very, very beneficial.
- [101:32]
B
It's data points, right? And I was just talking to someone about this the other day because they were asking me about avalanche training, and they were like, because I do avalanche Ed on the side. And they were like, whoa, what's the thing with, like, that. That pit where, you know, you dig in the snow and you tap it? And I'm like, yeah, that's the worst thing that has ever happened to avalanche training, right? Because, like, everyone thinks, oh, I'm taking an avalanche course. I'm gonna learn how to dig a pit in the snow, and I't tap, tap, tap, tap, tap on it, and it's gonna tell me everything I need to know, right? That's like looking for weak layers in the snow. Guess what you did after you spent 45 minutes or an hour digging your pit in the snow and like, tap, tap, happen around it. You got one data point for one spot at one given time. Do we make decisions, like, from a scientific standpoint based on a single data point? No, we want multiple data points, right? And so when I'm teaching Avalanche Ed, it's like, okay, how can we get as many data points as possible and many different aspects and elevations as we possibly can? So instead of doing one big intervention, like a 45 minute snow pit, you know, I'm going around. I'm like, all right, I'm doing a hand shear, I'm doing a shovel shear. All technical terms, right? But I'm, like, doing stuff that allows me to get a lot of data really, really quickly so that by the time I'm ready to drop into that backcountry line, I've got a much better idea of where the avalanche changer exists and whether it exists in my spot. And I've made that call, like, okay, like, this is safe or this is not safe. So I would, I would say that what the army is doing right now in many ways is like, we're digging a big snow pit. It takes a lot of time, a little research, a lot of energy, and we get one data point on that platoon leader, if we're. If we're lucky. Right. One, maybe two. Right. In my case, I got 10, you know, but, like, not as much as you did. Right. As opposed to what if we had a tool that allowed us to get a data point every day, like, and it didn't take that long, or the same way as, like, digging a hand shear? Only takes me 90 seconds. If I had a way, you know, 10 minutes a day.
- [103:16]
A
Right.
- [103:16]
B
I could get a data point on where you're at as a leader. 30 data points over the course of. Over the course of a month, 90 over a quarter. Holy smokes. Like, what does that allow me to do as a mentor, as a company commander now, in regards to looking at a lieutenant and saying, like, here's where your strengths, here's where your weaknesses are. Like, that's. We can make decision off that data.
- [103:39]
A
So that's the idea.
- [103:40]
B
That's the idea.
- [103:41]
A
That's the idea that you rolled in with and you went to business school with that idea already in your head.
- [103:46]
B
Yeah.
- [103:46]
A
And then you get done with. With that. Was there any. Any other major points from business school besides Excel spreadsheets and whatnot?
- [103:55]
B
Excellent. No, I mean, it networks, networks, networks. I mean, like, I think starting a company, especially like a startup is. Is like pulling the string on a sweater. Like, you don't have the grand picture in front of you. Like, you start with asking one person one thing, and they lead you to a person, and that person leads you to two people. And so, like, what started in business school, as you know, me asking a professor, hey, can you get me a contact with somebody, you know, who runs a business accelerator? Right. And I talk to that person and then, you know, they next and next. Next. And I'm like, I think business school. And it's for anybody who's listening to this, who's like, oh, I'm getting out of the army, you know, what, what are. I'm getting out of the military. What. What do I want to do? Maybe I want to go to business school. Choose a business school that has the networks into the industry that you want to be in, because they've all got their own thing, right? Stanford's going to put you in tech. You know, I don't know UPenn is going to put you in medicine. So I think that's the biggest advice I've got for people when they're like, I'm thinking of going to business school. Like, great. What industry do you think you want to be in? Go find a school that does that. Because really what you're paying for some hard skills, paying a lot for like the network that is going to help you launch whatever you want to do. So that's what it did for me.
- [105:11]
A
And then when did you, when did you take over as battalion commander?
- [105:14]
B
At the beginning of this business school. So it was like coinciding. I started business school in August. Change command was in August.
- [105:21]
A
And you took over for Colonel Pelletier, right?
- [105:24]
B
Oh, no, no, no, he was long gone. Yeah, he was long gone at this point. Uh, no, I took over for my friend Stephan Asper. And yeah, I've been. That was August 2024, so we're coming up on 18 months at this point. And then took over to awkward, like knowing that we were also deploying this summer and then I was going to have to build the business at the same time and just had to make a call and I was like, well, I'm just going to get started and I'll figure it out once I get there. So yeah, now I'm kind of looking at the down the barrel of, you know, deploying this.
- [105:57]
A
How long is the deployment for?
- [105:59]
B
It's door to door going to be about 11 months. When you think about like the pre training away from home, nine to 10 months in country and then the pre, then the demobilization would come back.
- [106:09]
A
How often does a National Guard unit like deployed currently?
- [106:12]
B
Yeah, it depends on, it depends on the unit. So this is one of the, you know, the great things about the Vermont Guard, the Mountain Battalion. If you look back at the, the op tempo of the, you know, the deployment cycle of the Vermont Guard. So Ramadi was 2005, 2006. Right. And then 3rd Battalion, the Mountain Battalion, deployed to Afghanistan. 2010, 2015, we were on the patch chart to go to deployment. So we went to NTC or excuse me, went to jrtc, but the deployment ended up getting canceled. So but still went through the whole cycle. 2020, they deployed to CENTCOM and now 2025 as well. So it's like a five year cycle. It's been, it's been a consistent five year cycle for this battalion, which is not something. I mean every National Guard unit is on a five year cycle. Very few of them are like, yeah, every five years you're going to deploy.
- [107:02]
A
Actually deploying.
- [107:03]
B
Yeah. And I think that's, that's a testament. And you saw it in Ramadi. It's a testament to the type of unit that you know that the, the National Vermont Guard produces 1172 and, and 3172.
- [107:13]
A
And that's where you're at right now?
- [107:15]
B
Yeah.
- [107:15]
A
So what's the status of the business? So the company's called Spire Y and then. And the, the product that you're working on is called Mentor.
- [107:23]
B
Mentor is the software program.
- [107:25]
A
And what's, where's it at right now? Like what's the current status of it?
- [107:28]
B
Testing with ROTC programs. So University of Vermont, Dickinson College, Utah Valley University and University of Texas El Paso are all, are all working with this right now. You know, unpaid pilot beta feedback. You know, the cadets are using it, telling us what they like, what they don't like and we just fix it as fast as we can and get it right back out to the field.
- [107:46]
A
Is it, is it augmented reality right now?
- [107:49]
B
No.
- [107:49]
A
So what is it, what does it consist of right now?
- [107:51]
B
Now it's just a, it's a, it's a desktop web app. Right. So you use either tablet or a laptop to access the simulator. So you work through the simulator which are all built on cadet specific situations like learning battle drills or going through troop leading procedures. And it puts you in a story, right. Like you're the third platoon leader.
- [108:08]
A
So it's like a video game.
- [108:11]
B
I try not to say like gamified because I think people automatically think like, oh, it's supposed to be fun. It's like, I don't know, maybe it's.
- [108:17]
A
Fun, but I'm saying graphically and whatnot, like it's set up like a video game.
- [108:23]
B
It's built in Unity game engine and my designers that work on the team are game designers. So kind of what we're trying to do with it is make it and meet the audience where they're at.
- [108:34]
A
Right.
- [108:35]
B
Like a lot of these, a lot of these RTC cadets, like they're very used to Call of Duty, you know, Botters, Gate, all these like super, you know, super popular video games. And so if you can just make this a degree away, much more likely to adopt it.
- [108:50]
A
I'm impressed with video game, like yeah, video games. I've never really played them, but when I see them, they're freaking impressive. So if you start throwing really good combat leadership dilemmas in there for people, I think it's kind of awesome actually.
- [109:07]
B
Yeah, no, I Mean, and that's that the simulation is the means. It's the, it's the vehicle that we use to gather the data on how you, on how Echo thinks reacts. And then eventually where we're going with it, and we've talked about this earlier, right, is that there's a dialogue, a two way dialogue, right? There's a dialogue between the Decision analytics engine and the simulator. So that as I change, grow and develop, right? The simulations are changing with me. I'm not waiting to manually select. I want to go to the hard level in Super Mario Kart. It's automatically giving me the harder level as I get better. And then there's. And this is crucial, right? There's also the dialogue between the simulator, or excuse me, with the Decision analytics, the cadet and their instructor. Right. Because we are not taking the human out of the loop here, right? Like usually, like interperson mentorship is, is the most important part of all this. What we're trying to do is make it so that instead of you showing up cold and not understanding like what Cadet Fry needs from you, you know, you can go into this data analytics dashboard and go like, ah, I see exactly where he's struggling. And when I come into your office, instead of spending 30 minutes trying to figure it out, like, we go right to the chase, right? We're right to it. Like, hey, I see you're struggling with this. Like, what have you been doing? How, like, how can we help you with that? Right, so the dialogue between instructor, student and the digital interface, and then between the student, the digital interface and the simulator is sort of like the, the value of what we think we're adding here.
- [110:35]
A
But we're still going to need to go in the field sometimes, all the time. And speaking of going the field, just give us a quick brief on that. The. Was it Edelweiss. Edelweiss ski race?
- [110:45]
B
Yeah, Edelweiss Raid.
- [110:47]
A
Give us a quick brief on that because I, I read the article, but just for people to hear about what it is and what takes place there.
- [110:52]
B
Yeah, the, the, the Edelweiss Raid is. Well, I say is. Was. It's been discontinued. Hopefully they'll start it back up again. But it's the. Austria built it as the, the world champion world championship for military ski mountaineering hosted by Austria.
- [111:07]
A
It's kind of an awesome. It's pretty big, isn't it?
- [111:09]
B
It's pretty sick. Yeah. It's hosted by Austria and they're owned. They have this like mountain training site south of Innsbruck, Austria. And this place Is like nuts. You know, you drive up and there's stone buildings surrounded by this, you know, these towering peaks. They've got their own little ski lift there. And then all of it is, is more. All the rest of it is like human powered. Human powered. Like uphill downhill. So we, I was at Mountain School 2017, 2018, went over to Austria and this Austrian colonel who ran it and this guy named Colonel Leonard, you know, he comes up to me one day and, and he's very blunt and he's like, well, I haven't ever seen American battle vice raid. I'm like, I don't know, sir, because I don't know what it is. And he goes, well, let me explain it to you. So he explains like this, you know, military scheme out in our areas. I'm like, this sounds amazing. We're going to make this happen. So we're driving back, we got to fly out of Frankfurt. So we're driving up to Wiesbaden, US Army Europe Headquarters, and I'm like making PowerPoint slides on this thing in the car. I'm like, I'm going to sell this to somebody before I leave Austria. We walk into US Army Europe headquarters. Long story short, found the right guy, put these slides on his desk and we're like, we want to do this. And he's like, how much did it cost? We're like $50,000. He's like, oh, easy pocket change. Okay, cool. So we train up our first $80,000. Yeah, did I say 50? So we trained our first team up in 2019. Total bad news Bears, right? Like scrapping people from all over the place. There's not a lot of people in the army that can actually ski. And this is, you know, for the leader, for the listeners. Haven't, like ski toured before. Like what we're talking about here is going uphill on skis, right? And so like your, your heel is free and your ski, ski. And you put this fuzzy carpet thing on the bottom of it called a skin. And, and then that allows you to climb uphill on pretty steep slope. And then this is a 48 hour race. And so we've got a pack with, you know, gear sustainment. You've got your M4 on the side of the pack, right? So the pack weighs like 40 pounds and they make you carry the sled with you. And that adds some more weight to it. So it's just like, it's not like recreational skiing. You're like, you got a 40 pound pack and I'm going uphill and it's awesome and miserable at the same time. So we in 2019, do a good job. 2021, it was canceled because of COVID And so 2023, we're like ready to go on this thing. We put together two teams and went over and competed. And this is the biggest thing for us is in the end, the Austrians gave us this amazing compliment, you know, because it is competition, but it's also, it's training. Um, and at the end when, you know, these guys came up to us and said like, like, we're really proud to have you guys Americans here with us because you clearly understand the purpose of the race. And it's not just about. It's not just about training and winning. It's also about functioning as a team in the mountains and being able to actually do mountain warfare. Um, so.
- [114:03]
A
Yeah, how far do you transit during the thing?
- [114:05]
B
Oh, gosh, it's like it was like 18, 16, 17, 18 miles a day. And then in total, I want to say it's like 12,000ft of gain and loss over. Over two days. So it's like the first day, you know, you do like 15 miles, like 6,000ft of gain and loss. You spend the night in a tent, like a bivouac site. And the next day you do the other leg of the course, which is. Yeah, the other like 12, 13, 14 miles. And then another, um, 6,000 foot gain and loss. And then along the way you're also doing tactical tasks. Right, so there's like repelling medical evacuation.
- [114:41]
A
There's pictures of you guys shooting.
- [114:42]
B
Shooting? Yeah, there's like high angle course you have to shoot and pop balloons, grenade throwing. It's like, you know, it's a, it's a tactical tasks interspersed and you know, they expect you have a designated leader. You have to stay together, you know, as a team the entire time. So it really is about like, can you as a squad size element, do actual mountain warfare? Right. It's not a, like go as fast you can. I mean, it is a race, but like, if there's a strategy to it. Right, because if you're just as fast as you can, but you fail all the tactical tasks, you still don't necessarily win.
- [115:15]
A
Right, right. And do you do ski mo now too?
- [115:19]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [115:21]
A
And are you like competitive on that? Is there a recreational world out there that's doing skimo?
- [115:27]
B
Yeah, it's in the Olympics for the first time actually. So Olympics.
- [115:30]
A
You know what this is? Echo, Charles. No, bro. So it's like ski mountaineering. Is that what it Is.
- [115:37]
B
Yeah.
- [115:38]
A
And you're wearing your. You're wearing your, like your skinning skis, right? So the skis that have the. The. The free heel bindings, and you go up the hill. And when I have, like, gone ski touring doing this right here, I'm like, basically at maybe a brisk walk. Maybe it's like, equivalent of me being like a brisk walk. It's like a hike, you know, just going uphill with skis on. But the ski mo guys are like, running, running. It's freaking crazy. And sometimes you get to points where you can't ski uphill anymore because it's too steep. And then you have to take your skis off, put them in your pack, and just hike up, like, run up a freaking hill. And then you get to the top of the hill and you ski down. Then you do it over and over again. It's got to be something. Some sick endurance. Like, is that maxing out your endurance?
- [116:24]
B
Yeah, I mean, those guys are the guys that are doing it. Like, those style races are insanely fast. I mean, they're, you know, they're probably, you know, ultra marathoners. In the summer and the winter, they just, like, turn to this. The interesting thing is a lot of them can't actually ski. They're just. They're really so.
- [116:38]
A
Such good shape.
- [116:38]
B
Yeah, they're just like. They're really, really good uphillers, and then they survive the downhill. It's also hard because the skis are like, as wide as this thing because.
- [116:45]
A
You wanted the skis to be as light as possible, so they're super skinny. The bindings are, like, super light.
- [116:50]
B
You're not. You're not ripping on those things.
- [116:52]
A
But yeah, I was. I was up at Big Sky, Montana, and there was a ski mo competition. Those guys, you know, I'd never seen it before with my own eyes. And so the first time I see these guys, I'm expecting in my mind that they're going to be kind of hiking up and they are freaking running. And I'm like, yo. And then they. At the. At Big Sky, Montana, like, they come down. The Big Cool are like, they come down all the. The toughest trails on those little skinny skis and stuff. Yeah, it's. It's kind of epic, to be honest with you.
- [117:20]
B
Yeah, it's. It's a. It's a. It's a amazing sport. I think the fact that it's in the Olympics is a testament, like, it's. It's growing in popularity. I don't do really, like, the, the, like Real instance of, like, I'm wearing Lycra and running up the hill as fast as I can. I like the, like, the burger backcountry reverses. So there's one called the Grand Traverse in Colorado. It goes from Crested Butte to Aspen. So it's like. It was like, 40 miles. I don't remember. 40, 40 kilometers. There's a difference. I don't remember. It's. It's a long race that traverses from one to the other. And so there's, like, you know, avalanche consistent considerations. Some people are doing it on skinny skis. A lot of people are doing it on fatter skis because you're actually in backcountry terrain. I. I really like those. Um, and then, yeah, we're holding a. A Schema race in Vermont on the 1st of March. Um, and it's like a 10th Mountain Division memorial Ski Race.
- [118:10]
A
Hell, yeah.
- [118:10]
B
So where are you having it? It's in Stowe. If you're not a super, like, 10th Mountain Division nerd. You know, a lot of people don't realize, but Stowe was sort of the epicenter for a lot of ski culture in the US like, not only from a lift standpoint, but this guy named Mini Dole. He was the inspiration for the National Ski Patrol because he broke his leg on the mountain. He was like, that would be a really nice summer day to come. Get me out. So he came out and he organized a National Ski Patrol. And then he was also so stoked on mountains that he was like, this is World War II time frame. He's like, we really need some mountain troops like Europe does. And so he lobbied to Congress and the President until they. They finally relented and were like, oh, we'll make these mountain troops. And so 10th Mountain Division came from Minol, who was a Stow skier. So we're. We're doing what we call, like, the Stow Mountain Heritage Race. And it's, like, really celebrating, like, 10th Mountain Mountain troops, like our. Like, our Battalion National Ski Patrol. And so it's more like a backcountry race we're going to do. There's. There'll be some Lycra people there, but a lot of it, too, is.
- [119:07]
A
How far is it going to be?
- [119:08]
B
It's 11 miles and 4, 000ft of gain and loss. Yeah, it's fun.
- [119:13]
A
I was reading something about the. The mountain patch.
- [119:17]
B
Oh, the new. The Rams Head?
- [119:19]
A
No, like, some kind of unauthorized but authorized patch.
- [119:22]
B
That's the Rams Head. Yeah.
- [119:23]
A
Okay.
- [119:23]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [119:23]
A
So what's the deal with that. That's pretty cool history. That's a.
- [119:25]
B
That's. Yeah, that's something generations of Mountain school people have been fighting with. So the Guard, when it was first, when the Mountain school was first introduced, like the 80s, they made this, you know, like a, A distinctive qualification patch of. It was a, like a, A goat, a ram's head. So if you're mountain qualified, you got to wear the rams head. So it was a National Guard thing. But people that went to the school were like, so stoked on this, this, this ram's head that, you know, they started wearing it. And the army, of course, was like, that's not an authorized patch. You can't wear that. And people would like secretly wear it angry.
- [120:00]
A
Nate just came back out.
- [120:02]
B
It's like, don't mess with my ram's head. But so the army was like, no way. You can't wear this thing. And so over decades, like, generations of Mountain school commanders have been working with the army to try to get it, like, formalized. So it finally got formalized earlier this year. And I, my friends are working at Mountain School. And it's just a testament to branding, right? He's like, dude, our wait list went from like 15 people to class to like 50 people to class. Because now you can wear this, you know, you can wear your bling bling. And people are like, I want that bling. So, like. Yeah. So everyone's stoked on Mountain School now.
- [120:37]
A
Because how long is the school, the actual school?
- [120:40]
B
The basic course is two weeks. And then there's an advanced course that you do, you can do after that, which is a two week summer and two week winter. Winter. So the basic course is either summer or winter. And then the advanced courses is you got to do two weeks in the summer and two weeks in the winter. So you learn how to ice climb and rock climb.
- [120:57]
A
Do you get the rams head for.
- [120:58]
B
For basic. For the basic.
- [120:59]
A
For the basic.
- [121:00]
B
One basic course.
- [121:01]
A
A two week course. You get that bling?
- [121:02]
B
Get the bling. That's all you gotta do.
- [121:04]
A
That's awesome, man.
- [121:05]
B
Yeah.
- [121:06]
A
Is that. Does that get us up to speed? We talked about. Well, we talked about your current position. You talked about spire. We got mentor coming on. Does that get us up to speed?
- [121:15]
B
I think I think so.
- [121:16]
A
We cover all the bases.
- [121:17]
B
Story of my life.
- [121:18]
A
Where can people find you? So I know you got Spire TG dot com. What does the TG stand for?
- [121:23]
B
Training group.
- [121:24]
A
Okay, so you got spiretg dot com. It's a relatively barren website, right? Now, but people will be listening to this five years from now, so hopefully by then it's a lot more. You're on LinkedIn. Nathan Fry, Vermont National Guard. Where else can people find you anywhere else?
- [121:38]
B
Check out the Mountain Battalion Insta. Okay, so we're at Mountain battalion. It's pretty easy to, pretty easy to find. Yeah. We try to post in there as much as we can.
- [121:48]
A
Check out the gram. Right on, right on, kids.
- [121:51]
B
I got a bunch of young kids in the battalion. They do the gram for me, so.
- [121:55]
A
Yeah, well, get the word out. I mean, it's like, like you said, it's a hidden secret, but it's such a important part of the military. And, you know, I, I. Before we hit record today, I started telling you a little bit about, like, the, the SEAL team and the SEAL Team two. Back in the day, they had like, a huge focus on mountain warfare, and they were like, awesome. I showed up there kind of too late for that because I was at Seal Team 1 when I got out there, but there were still the remnants of, of the Yukon platoons that were skiing. And it was pretty, pretty awesome heritage. And I think they're, they're kind of bringing it back now, which is awesome because, you know, that's where we could possibly be fighting in the future. So I'm like, glad that you guys are getting the word out about what we have to offer here in America. That's awesome. Echo, Charles?
- [122:39]
C
Yeah.
- [122:39]
A
You got any questions?
- [122:40]
C
I do. One easy one. You actually will have some. Somewhat of an expertise on this. Okay. So playing the bass guitar back in the day, you mentioned power chords.
- [122:50]
B
Yeah.
- [122:50]
C
Learn a few power chords. I, I don't think I've ever heard that before. What's a power chord?
- [122:55]
B
It's like basically a sequence of super easy chords that you go through. It's like any, like, basically any punk Wrong and, or Nickelback song is just like, you know, a progression of like, you know, and it's like, yeah, I just put them together and let them rip.
- [123:09]
C
They can make all kinds of songs with it.
- [123:11]
A
You can make any, basically any song. Yeah, the, the, the, the structure of any song you can play with just power chords and power chords essentially, is two notes at a time on a guitar. It's two notes at a time, really. On a bass base, it's one, it's just one note. It's just you're playing one note. Unless you're Lemmy from Motorhead and then you, you're playing too. He kind of plays power chords or hardly Flanagan. He plays Some power chords on the, on the bass. But most people, it's one note. That's why a brother like Nate, who has no musical experience, or Jocko when I was in high school, no musical experience. Guess what? You're going to be bass slash singer. And so. Yeah, because they can literally go, hey, put your finger here. Bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom. You just do that over and over again. You're a bass player.
- [123:53]
C
Okay.
- [123:54]
A
And I caught some. I got into trouble. Probably the most controversial thing I've ever said on Twitter was I said, if you can play guitar, you can play bass. It doesn't go backwards. But if you can play guitar, you can definitely play bass. But then there's people, like, they attacked me because, because being able to play bass isn't being able to necessarily play bass. You know, you're not going to be slap based. Less Clay Pool or Flea or Harley Flanagan or Lemmy. Like, you're not going to be there. Cliff Burton, you're not going to be there. But you could make the noise and you could get. You could be a bass player.
- [124:32]
C
Yeah.
- [124:33]
A
If you can play guitar. That's all I was saying. I'm not trying to take anything away from my people. Not taking, taking anything away from Nate. Maybe you were a really good basis.
- [124:41]
B
It was not a good basis. No, no. But yeah, that's why I play Blink 182 and Offspring.
- [124:45]
A
Yeah, there you go. You could just make it happen.
- [124:48]
C
Okay, cool. So can, can you, can you like, tell me what's a. What's a cool power cord that I can bring back home and, and kind of rip on?
- [124:57]
A
Well, it's literally on a base. It's one note.
- [125:00]
C
That's it.
- [125:01]
A
That's it. It's like perfect. Well, that's a. That's a chord progression.
- [125:06]
C
Yeah, but that's a power chord, right?
- [125:08]
A
No, a power chord is one.
- [125:10]
B
Just one of them. Like E. Like E is a power chord. Yeah.
- [125:15]
A
As a matter of fact, if you pick up a bass guitar right now and the big fat string on top.
- [125:19]
B
And you just go, power chord.
- [125:21]
A
That's an E. All day. All day.
- [125:24]
B
Like sharps and flats. Right? So like, like this is like. It's. It's a plain old note, like in the chord. In the chord scale progression without any shorts and flats on it. Like, there's no, there's no nuance to it. It's just like. Okay, so use power.
- [125:37]
C
Power. Okay, okay. So you said E, A, D, G. What's that? Chord progression.
- [125:43]
A
Progression.
- [125:44]
C
Okay, so are there different combos of. Or chord progressions, you know, that are.
- [125:48]
A
Like kind of del song, bro. Yeah, but.
- [125:51]
C
Okay, I guess.
- [125:52]
A
But yeah, and then there's like, happy ones.
- [125:54]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [125:55]
A
You know, like a D is kind of like a happy sounding noise.
- [125:59]
C
See, now you're talking. Okay.
- [126:00]
A
And like A, E. So what's eadg?
- [126:03]
C
Is that happy? Is that sad or that mad? Or is there a mad one?
- [126:06]
A
That's. That's kind of a nice one. That's kind of.
- [126:08]
B
Yeah, that's Blink 182 if you like. Blink 182. You're there.
- [126:11]
A
Hell yeah.
- [126:11]
C
I like.
- [126:12]
A
Okay.
- [126:13]
C
All right, Good day. This is a good start.
- [126:15]
A
You know, you get back on that ukulele or what?
- [126:17]
C
Maybe.
- [126:18]
A
Okay.
- [126:18]
C
I got into digital. That's why.
- [126:20]
A
Okay.
- [126:21]
C
And this stuff kind of starts to apply the roots.
- [126:23]
A
Yeah.
- [126:23]
C
I'm saying. Yeah. Okay. All right. I'm gonna look into it. Thanks for that. Good to meet you.
- [126:28]
A
Any other. Any. Any other questions? That's it.
- [126:30]
C
No, that's it.
- [126:31]
A
Right on. Nathan, any. Any closing thoughts, bro?
- [126:35]
B
Just stoked you guys had me out and talked a little bit about where we're trying to go with. With, like, the future army training. I think it's just, like, maybe two takeaways for the third. Listening. Honest. Number one is like, mistakes are okay, right? Like, I. I'm evidence of, like, you know, you can make enough mistakes at a certain point, you actually bludgeon your way through and realize, like, oh, I. You know, I. I can reform and change and recover and. And really comes down to mentorship. You know, having somebody who sees you invest in you and willing to say, like, okay, let's brush this dust off and, you know, turn the lump of coal into a diamond. And then, you know, that, you know, from that moving into, like, what do I think the army needs, what I think the military, the society needs right now? More people invest in other people. Right. Like, all the hardware in the world, you know, ships, unmanned aerial systems, drones, data analytics from companies like Palantir. All good stuff. Like, we need all of it. Rebuild arsenal, American democracy. Absolutely. We also need to build, like, the. The complexity of the American leadership mind. Right? Like, and that doesn't come overnight. It comes through mistakes. It comes through reps. It comes through sets. It comes through vulnerability. All the stuff you talk about on this show, you know, like, it's. It's not hype. It's. It's the real thing.
- [127:50]
A
So leadership is the most important thing on the battlefield, and there's no doubt about it. So awesome, man. Well, thanks for joining us. Thanks for sharing these experiences. I know it was like, what'd you say? You wanted to be a very brutally transparent, so I appreciate you doing that. So many people, hopefully, that'll. They'll keep that thought in their mind. You know, the lessons that you learned and that you shared with us today is awesome. So thanks for those. Thanks for your service, and salute to the National Guard, with a solemn gratitude to the brave soldiers of the 1172, the Vermont National Guard. Those guys were just. They fought so valiantly in Ramadi, and like I said, they. They kept our guys alive. With the turnover that we were only on the ground with them for, like, around a month, but the turnover they gave us was just great. So we'll never forget those guys. And thanks to the National Guard. And thanks, Nate, for coming out, man. Appreciate it.
- [128:38]
B
My pleasure. Thank you.
- [128:40]
A
And with that, Nathan Fry has left the building. He's got to go back to his job as a battalion commander. Getting after it also sounds like he's doing that ski mo up in Vermont. That's pretty awesome.
- [128:53]
C
Yeah.
- [128:53]
A
I'm telling you, if you watch this stuff, I'm gonna go watch on the Olympics. It is hardcore endurance activities. Hardcore. These guys are running up hills on skis with a pack on. It's.
- [129:06]
C
How far is the hill? The whole. The whole hill?
- [129:09]
A
Yeah, the whole Thousands of feet of vertical climb. So it's cool. You know, it's. It's. Especially if you've climbed hills. Like, when you're in the military and you have to walk up hills, you. You humper up hills, it totally changes you the way that you visual visually understand a hill. Like, even when I'm driving through the mountains, I'm not kidding. Every mountain that I look at, I go, looks like. That one looks rough. That's a rough one right there. Hate to. Like, that's gonna take it out of you. Hate to walk up that thing. That's a tough one. Get that thing done. I'm not kidding. When I drive through the Sierra Mountains, every single mountain that I see, I look, I assess it, and I go, damn. Because going uphill is really hard. So ski mo is going uphill on skis, and you get to come down, have a little bit of fun.
- [129:55]
C
Yeah.
- [129:56]
A
But it's no joke. I kind of want to get into it. It's a little living down here. It's a little bit tricky. And like I said, I. I'LL go out and do like just the back country where you're kind of just walking.
- [130:09]
C
Yeah.
- [130:10]
A
Maybe an elevated walk, like a little bit, a little bit of speed. But like as far as, hey, I'm gonna race. I'm not there yet.
- [130:16]
C
No.
- [130:17]
A
But that will require a lot of training. Yep, a lot of training. And training is what we're doing. And listen, when you're training, you're gonna need fuel. We strongly recommend, we strongly recommend Jocko Fuel. All kinds of things that you need. Whether you need protein, whether you need hydration, whether you need energy, whether you need joint supplementation, whether you need greens. Whatever you need, we got you covered. We even have a new pro series out that is just next level. The kind where, look, it's more expensive because it's a lot more expensive for us to produce it. But like the protein has beef protein isolate. Like it's very high end. As high end as we could possibly make it. There's a, there's something called muscle drive. Yeah. Which again, these are the kind of things where that, that one is a kind of made very. Not. We didn't make it specifically for this, but listen, we got people cutting weight right in our game. Whether it's wrestling, jiu jitsu, fighting and being able to preserve your muscle when you're on a calorie deficit is something that's very important. But also just what about the times of the day where you don't, you don't have the ability to eat for whatever reason. This stuff's awesome. So that's muscle driving. Then we got, we made a pre workout that is like kind of psychotic. You know, it's like a full pre workout. The full pre workout. You know, for someone that needs a full pre workout to go crazy and psychotic. So we got the. Anyways, check that out. That's the, the pro series at Jocko Fuel. And then we've got like the standard issue, which by the way, the standard issue is way above the standard, but that's what we got going on. If you need anything, check out jockofuel.com or go to whatever store you go to. Whether you go to Walmart, Heb, Wegmans, no matter where you go. Myers. We just. Everywhere Hy Vee. We got so many retail places now, you can generally find it where you go. Jocko Fuel. Get it there. Or jockofuel.com also we're training and we're from New England. Like the 10th Mountain or like, like the 1172 or the 3172. Yeah, these are new England people. And guess what else we do in New England? We make clothing. Originusa.com not just new England, by the way. We got factories down in North Carolina as well. But these are. These are. This is clothing that's made 100% America. 100American made clothing. Jeans, boots, hoodies, Jiu jitsu. You and I are about to go train, apparently. Do you have a rash guard with you?
- [132:55]
C
Yes.
- [132:55]
A
I do too. And guess what? My rash guard is 100 made in America. Yeah. That's what I like to hear. So we want to train. We want to train in American made goods. We want to work. We want to work in American made goods. We want to relax. We want to halax in 100American made goods made from American materials. Check it out. Origin USA.com get some.
- [133:17]
C
It's true. Also Jocastore.com we're representing. We're on the path as far as the clothing that we wear. We want to exude our identity into the world, which is discipline. Anyway. Discipline equals freedom. Shirts, hats, got some hoodies on there. Got some rash guards. New rash guard coming out, by the way. Death core to the core guard. Discipline equals freedom.
- [133:43]
A
You are wearing a SOG support shirt.
- [133:46]
C
Yes.
- [133:46]
A
Expand on that for me. That is a black on black shirt, which I must say is about as legit as it gets.
- [133:52]
C
It is.
- [133:53]
A
Yes.
- [133:54]
C
So, okay. Yeah, yeah. SOG support. So there's two little parts to this whole thing. So SOG support. I can't be just busting out a sog.
- [134:01]
A
Sure.
- [134:01]
C
You, you know this about me. I was not in sock. See what I'm saying?
- [134:05]
A
Nor was I. Yeah. And therefore I will not wear SOG material.
- [134:11]
C
Yeah.
- [134:12]
A
As if I was in sog.
- [134:14]
B
Right.
- [134:14]
A
Look, look, I was in the SEAL teams.
- [134:16]
C
Yeah.
- [134:16]
A
I had a guy one time ask me on Twitter, like, hey, you know, I wasn't in the SEAL teams, but I, you know, really respect what you guys do. Is it okay to wear a trident?
- [134:30]
C
Yeah.
- [134:30]
A
And I responded. I was in the seal teams for 20 years and I don't wear a trident out in public.
- [134:37]
C
Yeah.
- [134:37]
A
So that, that's like, you know, stolen valor activity. Right.
- [134:44]
C
It's what it feels.
- [134:45]
A
And, and so the sog, like, we, we want to spread the message of sog. Oh, yeah. That's why we support the SOG cast with Tilt John Striker Meyer. And he's had freaking unbelievable interviews with so many people, so many SOG guys. The SOG Air guys. I mean, he's just. It's get. It's capturing one of the most profound eras of Heroism in the history of the United States of America. That's what SOG is. Now, am I gonna put on the SOG symbol and just walk around in the clear? Hell, no. Not doing it.
- [135:26]
C
I kind of wanted to.
- [135:28]
A
You did want to. Yeah. I had to veto it.
- [135:30]
C
Yeah.
- [135:31]
A
Well, I had to. I had to make an addendum.
- [135:32]
C
Yes.
- [135:33]
A
And the addendum was support. Right. And this is something like. There's various organizations in America.
- [135:42]
C
Sure.
- [135:43]
A
Where if you were to wear their symbol on its own, you would have it removed. You're not allowed to wear it. But if you. If you have their symbol and you clarify that, you are just support, you're good. It's all good. We get it. You support it. So we have the SOG support. Sure.
- [136:02]
B
Yeah.
- [136:03]
A
No stolen valor. We weren't in sog, but we damn sure support sog.
- [136:08]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [136:08]
C
And we want to represent, you know, the whole thing. Plus, we love tilt, let's face it.
- [136:12]
A
Yeah.
- [136:12]
C
You know, so.
- [136:13]
B
Yes.
- [136:14]
A
Who else? Dick Thompson, the Frenchman. We go down the list. Down, list. Every one of these guys.
- [136:19]
B
Yeah.
- [136:20]
A
SOX board. So where do we get the SOG support Clothing?
- [136:24]
C
Sog legacy dot com.
- [136:27]
A
Sog legacy dot com.
- [136:29]
C
You can get just a few of them, but, yes, the black on black. Very symbolic, because this is a secret war.
- [136:34]
B
Yeah.
- [136:34]
A
Black ops, bro. Og.
- [136:36]
C
Yeah. You see, I'm saying. So, yeah, that one. That one came out good. We have a regular one, though, for guys representing in the clear, which is cool, you know, of course. All day. And then there's like a basic. We might call a standard issue. On.
- [136:47]
A
Yeah, it's pretty cool, but.
- [136:49]
C
Oh, yeah.
- [136:49]
A
In the clear.
- [136:50]
C
Yep.
- [136:51]
A
You like that phrase? Yes. I forget. When I said that for the first time, you were like, okay, you latched right on. It was actually one of my. One of my platoon chiefs when I was a platoon commander, and he was the first person that really used that. Well, you know, it was like just, you know, I forget what was happening, but, like, the commanding officer was there or something, and he comes up to me. You'll see how one of the guys just in the clear. To the commanding officer, just in the clear. I'm like, okay, it's the best.
- [137:19]
B
Yeah.
- [137:19]
C
I say it at home with my kids, and they, you know, they'll pick up on what it means. So now it's just gonna be part of their vocabulary.
- [137:26]
A
You know where it comes from, Actually, in the clear. I'll tell you. So when you're on the talking on the radio, your radio, the military radio, goes through an encryption device. And the encryption device changes your voice into gobbledygook. And then when it gets received on the other side, it gets unencrypted and you hear it in English. But sometimes there's something wrong with the crypto device.
- [137:50]
B
Okay.
- [137:50]
A
So it's just coming through and so you gotta go, hey, pass in the clear. Which is. It's kind of a risky thing because you're giving away some piece of information, right?
- [137:59]
C
Everybody.
- [137:59]
A
Yeah, everybody can hear in the clear. So that's where in the clear comes from. But the way it lands in kind of normal interaction, it lands very well. So that's good, good stuff.
- [138:09]
C
So, yeah, yeah, SOG legacy.com, that's where you can get the SOG represent tation shirt, support song, support column. But jocko story, that's discipline equals freedom. That's good. You know, we saw the Super Bowl.
- [138:23]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [138:23]
C
You know, head coach, you know, sort of kind of shouting it out.
- [138:26]
A
See what I'm saying? Straight up. Yeah, yeah, good, good. Player got injured in practice.
- [138:31]
B
Good.
- [138:31]
C
Very useful. Yeah, very good mindset, good attitude. So, yeah, you can represent that as well. There's get after it. We have a new get after it shirt, by the way.
- [138:40]
A
Okay.
- [138:40]
C
It's. There's a little history behind that.
- [138:42]
A
Is that the tape one?
- [138:43]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [138:44]
A
Okay.
- [138:44]
C
You know why, right? Yeah, Hell yeah. But yeah, absolute brand new. Brand new. The also to the shirt locker underway subscription scenario. New design every. Every month. Some new designs on that one just came out. Pretty solid. This one. Actually, I'm gonna tell you what it is. Tell me what you think. So you know how like, you know, ransom note, the traditional, the one you'd cut out from a newspaper, a magazine and stuff like that. But it's called like a ransom note. It's like that, yeah.
- [139:14]
A
So what does it say?
- [139:15]
C
Discipline, equal freedom.
- [139:16]
B
Yeah.
- [139:17]
C
Just to let you know.
- [139:18]
B
Yeah.
- [139:19]
C
It doesn't matter who sent it. Factual. There you go.
- [139:23]
A
Anyway, it's all on jockostore.com, so check that out. Also we got a bunch of books, we got put your legs on by rob Jones. We got Dave Burke, need to lead. We got a bunch of books that I've written. We got things my brother used to say by Ryan Manion. So check out the books wherever you buy books. Also, Ashlon front we have leadership consultancy. You heard me talking about today. It's what we do. Extreme ownership. Dot com. Some of the skills that I talked about, of leadership, you can approve them. Online training, asking questions, going through courses. You can continually put this stuff into your brain and you will pick up on it over time. That's what we're doing. Also, if you have or you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families, want to help Gold star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Leash, got a charity organization. It's absolutely incredible. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to americasmightywarriors.org also check out heroes and horses.org and then finally Jimmy May's organization beyond the brotherhood.org if you want to check out Nathan Fry, you can go to his LinkedIn. It's Nathan Fry with the National Guard and then also spiretg.com and finally he also the Vermont National Guard. The one notes the it's the 3172 mountain. You can find their Instagram as well and follow that. And thanks once again to Nathan Fry for joining us. Man, we got some good lessons learned from him, you know. And as usual, you don't get the great lesson learned when you do the perfect thing. You do it. You get the great lesson learned when you when you make a mistake, you learn from it. And he definitely shared a lot of those with us with us today. So appreciate that a lot. And thanks again to the soldiers of the Vermont National Guard and the National Ground National Guard around the whole country. We appreciate everything that you have done and that you continue to do for America. Also thanks to our entire military staged around the globe right now to protect freedom and our way of life. We thank you all for your service. Also 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 your service here on the home front and everyone else out there. There's a creed of the 1 72nd. It's known as the mountain creed and it breaks a bunch of stuff down. But I'm just going to give one little section of says quote, always will I keep my equipment and myself ready for whatever tasks I may be given. The sheer nature of my unit's mission requires that I maintain my equipment and master its capabilities and employment. My brother soldiers and countrymen count on my ability to shoot better, climb higher, ski farther and fight with more cunning and aggression the than enemy, any enemy I may face, end quote. So whatever task you may be given, be ready. And that means you have to get up every day and get after it. That's all we've got for tonight and until next time. This is Ekko and Jocko out.