The Human Behavior Podcast
Do you ever wonder why people act the way that they do? Join human behavior experts Brian Marren and Greg Williams as they discuss all things human behavior related. Their goal is to increase your Advanced Critical Thinking ability through a better understanding of HBPR&A (Human Behavior Pattern Recognition & Analysis.) What is HBPR&A? It's a scientific (and fun) way to understand and articulate human behavior cues so that you can predict likely outcomes and it works regardless of your race, religion, political ideology or culture!
The Human Behavior Podcast
John A. Dailey "Tough Rugged Bastards"
Today, we have a truly special guest: John A Dailey—a retired Marine Corps Force Recon sniper, founding member of MARSOC, the Marine Corps’ first official unit under SOCOM, and author of Tough Rugged Bastards. If you’re curious about how an elite group of Marines forged a brand-new special operations detachment at the height of the post-9/11 conflicts, then this episode is for you.
John will share what it took to create and lead a pioneering special operations team—one that had to earn its place on the battlefield and prove skeptics wrong. We’ll talk about everything from the interplay between Marines and Navy SEALs in Iraq, to John’s hard-won lessons on leadership, teamwork, and resilience. Whether you’re in the military, in business, or just looking to push your own personal boundaries, you’ll find something valuable in John’s experiences and insights.
Thank you so much for tuning in! We hope you enjoy the episode. Don’t forget to check out our Patreon channel for additional content and subscriber-only episodes. If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving us a review and, more importantly, sharing it with a friend.
Thank you for your time and remember: Training Changes Behavior!
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Hello everyone and welcome to the Human Behavior Podcast. Today we have a truly special guest, john A Daly, a retired Marine Corps Force Recon Sniper, founding member of MARSOC, the Marine Corps' first official unit under SOCOM, and author of Tough, rugged Bastards. If you're curious about how an elite group of Marines forged a brand new special operations detachment at the height of the post-911 conflicts, then this episode is for you. John will share what it took to create and lead a pioneering special operations team, one that had to earn its place on the battlefield and prove skeptics wrong. We'll talk about everything from the interplay between Marines and Navy SEALs in Iraq to John's hard-won lessons on leadership, teamwork and resilience. Whether you're in the military, in business or just looking to push your own personal boundaries, you'll find something valuable in John's experiences and insights.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed the episode. Don't forget to check out our Patreon channel for additional content and subscriber-only episodes. If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving us a review and, more importantly, sharing it with a friend. Thank you for your time and remember training changes behavior. All right, everyone. Thanks for tuning in. Super excited today to have John Daly on. John, thanks so much for coming on the show. Greg and I are both excited to talk to you today, man.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you know, everyone kind of heard a little bit of an intro, a little bit of your background, but if you could, just for our listeners kind of you know, give us a little bit more about you. You got a great Marine Corps career and the stuff we'll get into about starting, you know, a whole new unit in the Marine Corps and then the book you have coming out. But uh, kind of give everyone like a little bit about you and where you're from originally and then, uh, we can jump in from there. Man, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was born and raised kind of on the Virginia West Virginia border and lived on both sides. Uh, growing up so it, uh growing up. So it was a great, you know great place to grow up um the mountains, um the blue ridge mountains, um, great. But I knew that I wanted to get out as soon as I could. So, uh, you know, in the in the marine corps, I decided to join the marine corps as, as a young young man, so as soon as I graduated high school, I was on a bus for paris, highland, andland, and uh, at 17. And that you know, I knew that it was something I wanted to do.
Speaker 2:I, when I signed up, I I thought, uh, that, you know, I asked them how long I could sign up for. I thought I assumed I was signing up for 20 years. Um, right now, now it goes in in four year increments, but uh, so I wound up doing uh, 21 years and and really had a lot of luck. I mean, there was obviously a lot of work involved too, but you know I kind of lucked out getting into a sniper platoon early and that you know, learned so much there and then worked my way into force recon, which at that time was the pinnacle that you could achieve in the Marine Corps. So I spent most of my career there, loved that. I mean loved every day of it. And then I had the opportunity to move and start a new unit, like you mentioned, a special operations unit, working not for the Marine Corps but for US SOCOM.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're an actual force recon sniper, which, uh so sometimes people like to like when they're making up stories about what they did in the military is like oh yeah, it's a force recon sniper. So when you actually meet one, it's actually somewhat rare, I guess.
Speaker 2:But yeah, yeah, I guess it is. I mean, I I know a lot of them, so it doesn't seem right. That's definitely one of the one of the things that people, uh, you know, if you're gonna, you know, make something up, you may as well make up force recount sniper yeah, I mean you go, go for the gold, right?
Speaker 1:I mean, uh, so we're gonna do it. It's one of those things I used to hear, like people like oh yeah, so and so, and they said they were a force recount sniper. It's like, okay, maybe, but uh, it's, it's funny. But uh, but yeah, man. So I wanted to kind of jump right in because you've got your book out Tough, rugged Bastards and we'll talk about what you're writing, which a lot of people know. This Marines actually can read and write.
Speaker 1:And I like to say one of the biggest lies the Marine Corps ever told is they just tell everyone that they actually created the whole lie about Marines being dumb and cranny eaters so that they get left alone because no one thinks they're we're we're doing anything. They're like, oh, they're just, they're just a, the bastard child of the DOD, and then we actually get to go do cool stuff. But, um, so you, uh, I want to jump into that. Um, so you started up. Uh, you helped start with a bunch of other folks Some of them I know this Marine Special Operations Command.
Speaker 1:So that was new, obviously, the Marine Corps. So, marine, you know one. If you're a Marine, no one's special, you're just a Marine. But then also the Marines think like, hey, we're all special. They'll tell other branches, hey, we're all special. You know we don't need this area in SOCOM, like Marines already are. But could you give everyone just a little bit of background about, like, how that works and the significance of it, and then we can kind of jump into all the different things that were going on at this time.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. The quick kind of history lesson is that the Marine Corps has always, you know, throughout our history has done kind of the harder things done, special operations. Really the first raising the American flag on foreign soil was following a 500-mile march across the Libyan desert by a handful of Marines that raised a guerrilla army and were trying to reinstall the rightful king of Tripoli. So the Marine Corps, and then from there we kind of moved into the Banana Wars in South America and then from there we kind of moved into the Banana Wars in South America and were really kind of in the political and military legends like Chesty Puller was the military governor of Nicaragua for quite some time. So you know, we had kind of gained a reputation as jungle fighters but also as a force that could kind of operate in the political realm as well. But the Marine Corps, like you mentioned, has really been reluctant to ever embrace the idea that there's a special unit within it. So it wasn't until World War II kicked off that the Marine Raiders were formed, kind of at the, you know, the president said do it All right, and there's a real, you know, real interesting history when you get into it. The president's son was involved and the marine that had served as the president's bodyguard, a guy named Evans Carlson, was tapped to be one of the leaders of one of the raider battalions. So really interesting history. But two years and the marine raiders were disbanded and other than Force Recon and the Marine Corps and the marine raiders were disbanded and it, you know, other than force recon and the marine corps had several times, uh, following vietnam you know, disbanded first force reconnaissance company and didn't reactivate them until the the early, uh, late 80s I guess.
Speaker 2:Um, but uh, in 1987, when socom was formed and it was kind of following the failed rescue attempt to rescue Americans from the embassy in Iran that had been taken hostage the decision was that, hey, we need one component that oversees all special operations. So when they were formed, the US SOCOM, the SEALs, went over the Green Berets, went over the Rangers, the Air Force Special Operations, and the Marine Corps was invited but said no, we're good, you know, we don't want to do that and that's kind of the way it's been. So we were kind of within the special operations world, the bastard children. But following 9-11, the Secretary of Defense at the time, donald Rumsfeld, said hey, we're going to need more special operations for this coming fight. And so he told the Marine Corps you guys, this time you are going to participate.
Speaker 2:So the Marine Corps fought back and eventually the decision was and SOCOM fought back. To be honest, they weren't really interested in having Marines join. To be honest, they weren't really interested in having Marines join. But the decision was that we'll start a small unit that will be a test bed for two years and we'll see how it goes. And I had, at this point, I had been the platoon sergeant for a force recon platoon and was I was in, you know, sitting in a pub in Australia when 9-11 happened. So it was nighttime there not morning.
Speaker 2:But then we found ourselves in Afghanistan and it was by November of 2001. And my platoon was responsible for the first real Marine Corps combat on road interdictions between Kandahar and a town called Lashkar Gahar. But, uh, in in December. So, you know, I came back on the kind of on the back end of that and, and, was you know, it was probably largely responsible for the fact that I was tapped the hey, do you want to be a part of this unit? And of course, of course I did yeah, that's um, that it.
Speaker 1:It's cool how all that got started. And then you know again, like you said, there's always these sort of background political arguments and command arguments and people saying, well, you know, we don't want to do that or yes, we want to do that, and so, like it's, it's interesting the, the backstory on some of the stuff, because working through that is really really difficult, right, so you know, I, because I remember even this kind of get started I knew some folks over there and I was like, okay, well, there's these arguments of like well, are you so calm or are you part of the Marine Corps? Do you fall under this? It's like, well, we're under SOCOM. It's like, okay, but that gear you're wearing belongs to the Marine Corps, so give it back. I mean, like there's actual like logistical things that that, uh, that come up and um, so I'm curious, just because of the way the culture is with the Marine Corps, um, and and the DOD, and SOCOM is spelled, you know, a-r-m-y. If anyone doesn't know that it's Army.
Speaker 1:But you know, with that, what were some of those like kind of challenges, looking back, that you sort of didn't expect to happen. I mean, of course, one you have the people that are like hell, yeah, let's do this and everyone wants to be part of this, because it's kind of historical right. But then you also have a lot of pushback historical right. But then you also have a lot of pushback and like I'm curious like what that was like for you guys getting going. Like what was that pushback you got internally or externally? I mean you're saying like even socom didn't want you there. It's like, hey, like we're fighting for a job here, we should be belonging. Like what are some of those things that you you came across during that time?
Speaker 2:yeah, it was. It was interesting, there was a lot of it. That it it uh, we, we kind of arrived to the. So our unit, detachment one, was composed of roughly a force recon sized platoon, so about 30 men, um, about another 30, the men were our intelligence unit, which was massive. I mean, that was, um you know they thought that our commander was insane for for asking for that, but it proved to be absolutely valuable, um, and then the remainder were, you know, there were communicators, there were logisticians, uh, administrative people are, are, uh, tactical air controllers, um, you know, kind of all of the other things that you need to make an organization run. So for most of us in the in what was the operational platoon, we just kind of put our heads down and and did what we do. So you know, we weren't um privy to a lot of the decisions that were being made and and a lot of the the things it was.
Speaker 2:The direction was that the Marine Corps was going to pay for this and the Marine Corps is notoriously cheap. So they're like, hey, we'll give you this much money. And fortunately we were able to. You know, we actually hired a civilian who worked as a equipment specialist for the DOD. So we brought him on and he was able to kind of move money around and get us the money for the equipment and everything. So we were very well outfitted, even though it was largely the Marine Corps dime.
Speaker 2:But there was like we had no idea, when we stood up, where we were going to deploy, to who we would deploy under. We had assumed that we were going to go to Afghanistan. That was just. You know, we were a force recon platoon, so our primary mission is reconnaissance. It seemed that reconnaissance, you know, afghanistan would be the place for that. So we spent. We had a year basically to prepare. We spent the first six months really very heavily focused on reconnaissance and on the idea that we would be in Afghanistan. So the vehicles that we procured, you know, a lot of the things were going to based on that. And then about halfway through they're like oh no, by the way, you're going to go to Iraq, you're going to essentially perform as another SEAL platoon underneath the SEAL architecture.
Speaker 2:Once we, you know, once we knew that, and then our mission was primarily going to be direct action. Um, you know, just finding bad guys, and uh, that's what we, we, we were also good at that. So we spent the spent the last six months really kind of focused on that uh skillset, building that up. And we, you know that's primarily what we, what we did. So overall there were, you know, at the headquarters level, there were absolutely a lot of. You know, there's a lot of head-butting and a lot of rice bowl battles.
Speaker 2:For us, I think, the biggest recognition was, you know, you start up a new unit, you have nothing. I mean, we had buildings being built, but they were, you know, temporary kind of structures, but even those took, you know, three or four months to have built. We had no equipment. So the only thing that every recon Marine owns is his own rucksack. So the one thing that we knew we could do was go rucking, and so the platoon sergeant that we had was adamant that hey, we've got a lot of people who were kind of considered heavy hitters in the force recon community.
Speaker 2:There's a potential, when you do that, to have a lot of friction. What we're all going to do is we're all going to put 55 pounds on our back and we're going to go 20 miles every Thursday morning and and when we finish we're going to go straight to work. You know, there's no. You know you can eat lunch, but you know no time off. No, uh, you know nobody's going to clap you on the back for for finishing the 20 mile run. Um, so that really I think how kind of helps set the one. It gave us the opportunity, just a lot of hours walking, to get to know some of the people that had come from different units and things, but also just drilled into our head that no matter how special you are, you got to get to work.
Speaker 1:And usually getting to work is going to be on the black Cadillacs on your feet. Yeah, yeah, I mean that. That's a a whole host of issues I could see coming up, especially with that team dynamic. It's like you know, okay, you're being selected for this special thing, you know the, the one you got to prove yourself again. Even. I mean, this is the thing too. It's like you guys have you're picking from a group of people that have already proven themselves, not just like in training and through assessment and selection, but through deployments and done this. It's kind of like that, all right, starting over again almost. And, like you said, you got nothing. We got to figure it out as we go along. Um, so what, what? What do you think helped best? Or like, how did you guys just form as a team?
Speaker 2:Right, right, what, what? I mean, you're talking like, all right, yeah, we go out hiking every Thursday, we're going to go to Iraq and we're going to talk and whatever. But like what, what was it that? Uh, I was kind of brought in by our boss, colonel Coates, and he said hey, you pick your guys, you know you, uh, and that's where the title of the book came from. He was. He was like hey, you know you, you know my requirements, you know I want tough, rugged bastards. And, uh, I was sitting in his office. I'm like man, you know, one of these days, if I ever write a book, you know it's going to be.
Speaker 2:You know, I, I kind of had always had this, this thing in the back of my head. You know, I always loved to read, so I always thought that I would, uh, but I think that was part of it. You know I knew the people that I picked, um and uh, you know it was a really good lesson in leadership. You know that. You know that. You know before that, like I said, I had been a platoon sergeant at force recon. But, you know, years before I'd been a, uh, a chief scout, like almost a platoon sergeant in the, in the infantry, at uh, in a sniper platoon, and you, you, you always have the people that you know you got to keep an eye on, the people that you got to sit down and coach and bring out the best in, and the people that you, you know you have to make sure are not screwing up. But in this sort of unit it was, you know a different type of leadership is required. You have to put people you know, give people things to be in charge of themselves, because they're all leaders and had been leaders.
Speaker 2:So you, really even though one of the things that really, I think, kept us humble was just the requirement that that we were responsible for when we did get our, our facilities built um, you know, every friday we were out like pressure washing the buildings and you know, eh, um, like our one one, a nine, um, you know, we're sorting brass. You know, it was cleaning the cleaning the heads. It was because we were a unit with very, very senior people. We didn't have, yeah, a lot of junior guys that you could say, hey, you know, lance corporal clean. We didn't have any lance corporal. So it was all, uh, you know, and those things keep you, keep you honest, keep you humble, you know, when you realize that, yeah, I'm uh, a team leader in the first marine corps special operations unit but I'm in here plunging the shitter um, on friday. Yeah, it's hard to get too big of a head yeah, no, and those are the.
Speaker 1:I mean, um, it's like the little things like that really go a long way, you know. And when you're talking about you know, taking ownership of something, and it's not just about you know, it's still all the someone's got to clean the toilet, someone's got to take the trash out, someone's got to do this, and when you have a bunch of senior folks, it's like oh yeah, now we have to, we have to start doing this again, we, I think I think we all still realize that.
Speaker 2:You know the how lucky we were to be a part of this, yeah, and how it meant, like the weight on our shoulders was because, uh, if we did poorly, then the it was. The answer was easy. You know, socom didn't want this, the Marine Corps didn't want this, but we knew that. You know, if this thing was going to happen and grow, then we needed to knock it out of the park.
Speaker 2:So we've just uh, that that's it's quelled a lot of uh, you know, even among the team I would say myself and the other three team leaders initially there was head-butting, you know there was. But we were like, hey, we need to we'll, but heads will go out and you know, throw blows in the corner. But you know, when that's done we've got to get back to this mission that we had and that's to be successful at whatever it is.
Speaker 1:so so you, so you guys are like you know, you're doing this work up, you're thinking you know, especially strong reconnaissance, obviously rns background from everyone on the team and you think you're going to afghanistan. Then you got to pivot like, okay, like we're going to iraq now different ball game, different mission. But then, like you said, what was that like with the mean? Did you guys feel sort of that pressure of you know? I mean, you're going on the first deployment for a brand new unit, even though everyone's highly skilled, highly trained, highly experienced already had combat deployments. Like what was that like going into that? Because you, yeah, like you said, like you have to prove it, otherwise it's not just hey, you know, not a great deployment, it's like no, this, this, this isn't going forward, this unit's done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I absolutely think that collectively, we realized that we were, you know, really, really good I think, and I thought it was only me throughout that that I had this. I'm like man, I'm, you know, when somebody can realize that that they made a mistake, you know, I should not be here, I should not be here, I should not be, uh, even though you know, and I've kind of always, and I, and what I realized, you know, when I wrote about it in the book, is that you know, that's probably the one aspect that I've had more people contact me about and say, man, I thought I was the only guy, because if we don't talk about that like imposter syndrome or whatever, yeah, so I had, you know, all of us, I think we're and you're probably a psychotic if you don't have that to some, to some level. Yeah, so there's, you know, but we kind of push that down. And it was, you know, when we got, when we deployed, when we landed in Iraq, we realized that traditionally, with a normal unit rotation, you're, you're replacing another unit and that unit gives you, hey, here's everything that we were working on, all the targets, packages and things we didn't have that the SEALs had put us in an area of Baghdad where they had not had another SEAL team. So we didn't have that luxury to kind of draw on. And so we were like, man, we've, we've got to make something happen. We it's, and it's hard. How do you, how do you figure out who the bad guys are when you don't know anything about the the area? And that's where our intelligence section like totally paid off.
Speaker 2:Um, so when we got there, we had trained with the understanding that we were going to stay as an entire detachment roughly a hundred folks, um, and so, attached to my team, I had a human intelligence specialist, I had a, uh, uh, geo, uh, spatial intelligence guy, I had a signals intelligence guy, and so I had this, this insanely um capable, you know, intelligence apparatus with my team.
Speaker 2:Um, when we got there, the, the SEAL commander who was in charge was like, hey, I I own you guys, um, and you've got way too much of this intelligence, so you've got much more than I do. So I'm going to, you know, take some of your people and like farm them out to to support my SEAL teams, which, of course, initially we were, you know, really pissed him out, um, but the the thing that we didn't count on is that now we had like our eyes and ears all over Iraq, you know with um, you know special missions units with um, other SEAL teams, youal teams all over the place. It's just attached throughout. So we had this massive network that was very quickly able to communicate among each other and track things that other individual units weren't tracking because they weren't looking at the big picture, they were looking kind of myopically at their their own little patch of ground yeah, um, that that's uh a number I just think of, like all the different things that come up when you're doing this.
Speaker 1:So, a new unit you're going there now you're working for a seal commander, which I get it like. You know, they, that's how socom can work, or, depending on what command you're at, that's not not unusual. But like, what was there? Like you're walking in, you know, I always say, like Marines and SEALs, actually they're so much alike so they either love each other or hate each other. It's kind of like my brother is a SEAL, I'm a Marine, you know. It's like you know there's uh, uh, like kind of crossover in some of the missions. But, um, and the attitude you know, and and just just how that is. But uh, I'm curious, like, was that tough with them? Like saying like, hey, we can do this work? Or they just give you like the oh, we don't know what's going on over here, go take that, go figure something out. Was it's like they're like all right, well, you guys are Marines, so yeah, you know how to fight, you know and win battles. But like, how does that fit into the overall structure of what they were?
Speaker 2:doing terribly happy about it, um, but I think there were some of them also that realized that, hey, if we have this, you know uh, naval, you know, now, you know, if we add Marines into this. Now, this, the Naval service has a bigger slice of the pie right Within SOCOM, because the army makes up like 70% of of SOCOM. I may be off on that number, but of of socom, I may be off on that number, but it's huge. I mean, marsok makes up now about three percent, um, and naval special warfare is like six.
Speaker 2:So there's, you know, together, um, you know, we, we grew a little bit but we were incredibly fortunate that the, the seal commander that we worked for, was, was very upfront.
Speaker 2:He was like, hey, I'm, I'm going to treat you exactly like one of my teams. I'm going to give you everything that that I can you, you know, give you to make you successful, all the support, all the assistance, and we're good, we're friends to this day. I mean, he wound up, uh was a great, uh, great supporter of us. So he was, it was helpful, but it was still, um, like I said initially, just trying to find, you know, trying to find the low hanging fruit that you can go find and then, you know, build from there. So it that all came down to our, like I said, the Intel people just making things happen, you know, reading through Intel reports and doing their little diagrams, and and you know, ultimately you know we're able to point us within our couple of weeks of getting there, you know, at a, at a target, and that target you know led to another target and another, and then you, you kind of make your own luck after that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's incredible. What so? What was the? Uh, what was your guys' first mission then, as the team? I mean, what was the first MARSOC mission Was your guys' first?
Speaker 2:mission then as the team, I mean, what was the first MARSOC mission? So it was atypical, to say the least, and it was, you know, during our workup I was the junior team leader, right, I mean, I was a gunnery sergeant, you know, but I was still, you know, quite a few years younger than you know, a couple of years less time in the Marine Corps than the other guys. So, um, I had always had the mentality, and this one thing I told my team is that, hey, we'll do windows, right. Well, if there's a mission to do, we'll do it, I don't care what it is. You know, everyone loves to do the direct action mission, you know, you fly in, you blow off the door, you shoot things and and you go home. But I've always felt that reconnaissance is the I mean, we're called force reconnaissance, right, that is our bread and butter. And in the time right before I came to, before Detachment 1 started, I had been the director of our urban sniper course and our urban reconnaissance course. So I had all of that kind of fresh in my head. So, anytime there was a unusual mission during training, my team was given it. You know, if it was, hey, it's sub-zero and you guys are going to be out in Mercury Nevada for four days, you know, finding routes and observing a target.
Speaker 2:So when the first mission came up again, it was our intel folks that had found a report saying that and he'd seen a number of reports over time that Iraqi interpreters who were working for the US were being killed. And he went back and realized what nobody else had put together, that there had been like 17 of these interpreters kind of around Iraq in a relatively short period of time had been killed. So he started, you know, just going through and doing link analysis, and realized that, hey, it all comes down to one person and that one person was a female interpreter. So we found out where she was and they, uh, the, the Intel guys, like, hey, you know, I've got an idea. You know, if we can go grab this woman, then we can, uh, you know, start, you know, figure out what's going on. So you know, all the team leaders of course go in and they're like, hey, I went to mission, I went to mission and I'm like, hey, you know, this is odd, right, this is the sort of mission that you know how many reconnaissance missions or how many of these sorts of things have anybody else done lately in workups? I did them all. So it's, you know, it's like the chicken little thing of, like making the bread. I'm like you know what, help me make the. You know, and nobody else wanted to go on reconnaissance missions. No one else wanted to do this, this one's mine.
Speaker 2:So, um, it was, it wound up being me, uh, a seal that I had to take with one of our human intelligence folks, and because it was a woman, we had borrowed a female operator from the Grom, the Polish special forces, and so it was the four of us, civilian clothes, you know, driving out through Baghdad in the middle of the day, and we got to the place where she was supposed to be and they're like, oh no, no, she doesn't work here anymore. She's, you know, 20 miles further away. And so I'm on satellite phone, I'm like, let me, let us, let us go. And they're like, all right, so you know. Then it's, you know, 20 miles further, this way, and then it's over here, and so all day we're kind of bounced around until we find a place. They're like, hey, she quit last week. Um, and so we and, uh, you know, when she came in the, the Grom, uh, operator, you know, took her into custody, essentially, brought her back, and we also brought the, the gentleman that was driving her.
Speaker 2:Uh brought her back and we pretty quickly realized that she was, she was responsible, but she was clueless. Right, she had been a victim of a what normally you call a honeypot operation, right? Or it's the shoes on the other foot, right, it's a guy with a hot chick that entices you to provide information. In this case, it was a guy who had befriended her and said, hey, I need some interpreters, maybe you could get me your company phone book or a recall roster or whatever. And was using that to to go and take these, these targets out. So when she found this out, she was distraught, obviously, but she was also livid, right, it's like a, you know, hell hath no fury like a woman, scorned. So she would. He was pissed, yeah, so she picked him up, you know, and, and you know, you say, hey, here's where he works, here's his house, here's, uh, his friends.
Speaker 2:And so our first, our second mission was uh, and that one, that that mission, because it had had, you know, so many kind of moving parts that I think, made people, even though it was going out to grab a an old lady right, and you know people recognize that, hey, there a there was a lot going on here. So you know, these MARSOC or these uh Detachment One people are, can be, uh, you know, trusted to, to to do you know, kind of traditional SOF type missions. You know, grab him his in his place of work. Um, we grabbed him at his house, hit his place of work at the same time and there's there's uh, uh a lot of like propaganda and uh, bomb making materials and things like that. So so you know, grabbed him, you know, shook him a little bit, and then you know, we started to build a uh, you know, link analysis of who's next.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, that's wild but you want to talk about when people say, find work, you literally had to make your own work. But that's sometimes when you get the best stuff where it's like, all right, no one's looked at this, let's go over here and then start putting things together and then next thing, you know, it leads to another thing. Next thing, you know it leads to another thing. Greg, I don't want to. This is the longest you've gone, I think, without talking. I'm fascinated by the discussion.
Speaker 3:I'm loving it, so no. So I wrote down a couple of notes and apologize for going sideways and backwards, but Brian's a huge fan Boy. You can't see that, john, but I know when he gets excited and he likes talking about the marines, you know. So, uh, the first thing I wrote down, I wrote it down in red because, uh, we got three vets on here with various levels and degrees of background and experience and all that, and you said something that is the stuff of legend. You said they looked at you and said pick your own team. Okay, how many times did that happen in your career? That happened nowhere, ever. Right?
Speaker 2:So, how did you feel?
Speaker 3:John, when that was given to you.
Speaker 2:That was uh, it was a huge honor, right One, that uh, our boss trusted me to pick the right guys and, um, I had had the. I don't know if it was always a pleasure, but before I was finally given a platoon I had the same boss. He had been Colonel Coates, had been my boss at First Force Recon. He was the commanding officer there, then my boss at Special Operations Training Group and then my boss again. So he had, uh, when he arrived, I was coming off a platoon as a team leader and uh, normally that's, you know, the progression is from team leader You'll go to a platoon sergeant at some point. But he had had an idea to create a training cell. So it was now it's pretty common idea, but it really didn't exist.
Speaker 2:So there was a handful of us that were kind of handpicked to to help each platoon as they went through their training. You know, organize them, organize the training, evaluate, make sure that they were being held to standards of performance. Um, so in that two years that I was doing that, I got the opportunity to watch, you know, every platoon go through training. So I really had. I was like you know, I know this guy, you know this guy. You know, I know I want him. Um, you know I really want this guy to anybody that we wanted. There were people that were already, you know, in the workup for a platoon, uh, for a deployment, um, so there were certain people that we couldn't get. But, um, I had worked at a special operation training group with a couple of the people that I picked, um, so it was, it was rewarding, you know, to be able to to do that.
Speaker 2:And when you know, you know their strengths, you know their, their weaknesses, you know you've got to have, uh, you know you don't want a team where everybody's exactly the same. You know having the rowdy guy that you know you're going to have to watch sometimes, but he, you know, when you send him out for something, he's going to over-perform. And then, uh, you know the, the quiet guy that's just always thinking, you know, so it's being able to. And I've since, you know, in my, my current job, we talk a lot about that team structure, team dynamics and how you, um, you know, if you have the opportunity to, to create a team or to assign particular people to particular missions, you know, taking into account their, their background, their personality, things like that.
Speaker 2:So I didn't realize I was doing it at the time, probably, but I was able to, you know kind of pick and choose to make sure that I one of the things I think a great trait or a trait of great leaders and I don't necessarily consider myself a great one, but you know, surrounding yourself with great people and letting them work, and that was you know. Having the opportunity to do that is is from the ground up is huge. No, that was you know. Having the opportunity to do that is is is from the ground up is huge.
Speaker 3:No, that's fascinating. And and, uh, I was going down through uh, uh, similarities and and we're dissimilar, our backgrounds, everything is, nothing could be the same. Uh, but I'm getting chills because I'm reading your stuff and I'm looking at it and I go okay, so one MAPSOTG has me working in Iraq and I'm bouncing around all the different locations and, uh, I'm talking to to to Jim Conway and I said, hey, do I need to prepare anything for Afghanistan? He goes Marines never going to be in Afghanistan, so you have no reason whatsoever to prepare for that. And then the next thing I know, I'm getting sent to Afghanistan and I land in Lashkar Gah, they sent me to, uh, uh, to Kandahar.
Speaker 3:Then a flight out to Lashkar and they go, hey, you're going to lower Helmand. And I got all my gear, you know, and I'm scared to death with, with Connex full of gear. And they said, well, you won't need any of that because you're following the Marines. And I go what do you mean by that? And they said, well, with the army, they're following the Taliban.
Speaker 3:So you got to have like a, you know, a propeller in your ass and it was so funny to see the different way that the war was being fought even regionally, even in different cities and even in different locations. So so with the, for example, with the, when I would fall in under a special operations group unit or you'd go for a task force, paladin, let's say, it'd be completely different than the next one. So how long did it take you to get to the point where you were up to speed with that, where you were going okay, now we're autonomous. Now we and you never really were autonomous, but I mean now we can run our own game and not be beholden to some other unit game and not be beholden to some other unit, I think pretty early on, because we there wasn't a lot of support to provide us.
Speaker 2:You know, we did some, some like joint operations where we would work with the Grom if we needed, you know, external security, because the target was too large or we had to hit multiple targets at a time. But we didn't. We, we were formed to be a MAGTAF right, a Marine Air Ground Task Force. Well, not air, a Marine Ground Task Force, essentially, with um and Colonel Coates built us around the war fighting functions of, hey, we've, you know, we've got to be able to do all these things on our own. So, uh, we absolutely had to have support, um, a lot of, uh, a lot of.
Speaker 2:It was like I said, we had prepared for Afghanistan. So we brought, uh, ifabs, uh, the Mercedes fast attack vehicles which are pretty good for driving around the desert. They're shitty for, you know, unarmored they're basically like a Jeep, you know, without a tire, you know, for driving down the streets in Baghdad. So we were able to put our hands on a handful of almost unserviceable Humvees before we left, brought those over and, you know, the Army was Army engineers were kind enough to weld, you know steel onto the outsides and things of that nature for us, and then later SOCOM was able to provide us with vehicles. But as far as planning and execution of the bulk of our operations we were pretty much self-sufficient.
Speaker 3:That's great, that's fantastic. And, brian, I got to tell you when we did the research for this, john, brian and I were excited about it, and you know that some things have happened in the last couple of weeks that kept side railing it. So this morning the anticipation was killing me to be on here. It's just so much fun to talk to somebody that's had such a wide variety of experiences and it's not unlike a National Football League coach.
Speaker 3:You know you were given such rare opportunities and you knew that. You knew that at the time and you knew that going in and you certainly didn't usurp that, you certainly tried to go in and do the best. And that's different, because what I found with the Marines and embedded in dealing with the Marines all the time is exactly what Brian was saying about. Listen, every Marine's a rifleman. Every Marine does this and you're not special and you know when you talk to the Joint Special Operations Command, it's entirely different. You know they all have different units and different insignia and their rich history of whatever else. So did you face any backlash from fellow Marines for being allowed to have this amazing opportunity?
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean not from the tactical level, like peer level. I mean they were all jealous, obviously, but very jealous. But there was a lot of resistance from the Marine Corps, from, you know, we dealt with a lot from staff officers that were kind of on the periphery of things, uh, when, when we would and we tried to be, and that was one of the things that was kind of beat into us by our our boss, colonel Coates, but also our platoon sergeant um said that we've, you know, we've got a. We're representing the Marine Corps but we also have to. We can't forget that we are Marines and that's the same story, you know. Same thing I tell you know, young Marines coming into MARSOC now is, you know, the things that, uh, that will make you successful are the same things that make you successful as a Marine. And I feel that that SOCOM recognizes that about MARSOC now is that they, you're starting with Marines and so when you do that, you're starting with a pretty solid product.
Speaker 2:But yeah, we would, you know, still there's the urge to rebel. You know, like being a teenager, I guess, you know, when you're given an inch you take a mile. So you know, we would often roll into a conventional organization chow hall and you, you know, or you know, in Fallujah, you know, going to the the Marine chow hall there with uh it, we weren't allowed to have beards, and that was uh much to our dismay. But uh, we all, because of that, we all had, like out of rigs mustaches, um, like porn star mustaches, and we had, you know, different uniforms and we had, uh, you know, different things on our weapons and you know, we would come into a chow and inevitably somebody would like, hey, you know, you guys need a haircut, you guys need to do this, you guys need to do that. And so we took a little bit of pleasure in uh and I, you know, why don't you go fuck off?
Speaker 2:But for the most part, I mean, that's you know. You know we, I think, largely recognize the fact that you know we're representing the Marine Corps. So we've got to do that in a way that you know. You know both tactically and the tactical actions that we take, but also the way we carry ourselves, the way that we behave. Now we can't play the fool and make. If we do, we're going to make the Marine Corps look bad, and that's not what any of us wanted.
Speaker 1:Right and you got to have that right. Like you said, the right kind of leadership. Because, greg and I, when we're doing our work, we work with all kinds of different organizations police, private sector, military but we see a lot of the same. We work with all kinds of different organizations. You know police, private sector, you know military, but you know we see a lot of the same issues and when you know everyone just says, well, it's leadership, it's leadership or it's culture, it's just like it really is, like you can have.
Speaker 1:You know, I always tell people like you can have the greatest team in the world and if there's a bad leader, like they're just not going to do, like they're going going to perform but it's not going to be great. Or you could take like a completely average team, you know, but give them a really good leadership and they're going to do well. Like it, because it's just that's that comes down to everything. So what, like what are you? You know everyone wants like hey, what's the secret to this? And there isn't one, obviously, or what? How do you do that?
Speaker 1:But like what are some of those things? Because you know you're talking about yourself and you have your own experience, but you've got this group of individuals that are high performers. You know they want to go get some. They're Marines, so, like you said, there's some that you're like, hey, no-transcript. So you have those characters and you have some people, like you said, like they're natural leaders, or, or you can, can or can, are good speakers, they can brief, but you know how do you like what are? What the best thing to do with something like this is. You know, this is how I approach it.
Speaker 2:Are there those kind of takeaways that you've learned in your career. Yeah, I'd say one and I think the SEALs may have come up with this, but a little XY chart that has performance on one side and trust on the other. You know, and if you you know a lot of times in in the civilian world, absolutely in sports, you know, absolutely Like we prioritize the performance, you know we want somebody that that's a really good performer, even if they're they're low on the trust axis. Um, you know, you've, and you can't have somebody that's super trustworthy but sucks at their job. So you really have to to, you know, look for people and none of us, are you know?
Speaker 2:optimum performers all the time, all right, but what we need is people that are, you know, both you know trustworthy and and go to their job and we need to continue to work on, you know, finding ways to bring them up in both and both axes. I think that's. That's a huge one. I said with you know there's in the marine corps, the marine corps leadership. There's, you know, two responsibilities, I guess there's mission accomplishment and troop welfare. Yep, and I think that that carries over to most, most anywhere else. You know the.
Speaker 2:You know a lot of lately, a lot of the stuff I see is you know, you know people that talk about leadership, talk about you know welfare. You know you gotta. You know nobody knows how much cares, how much you know, until you know how much you care, which is ridiculous, right, I mean, you know, if that was the case, then, like your mom, would be the best victim, sorry, yeah, all right, are you? We need people? We need to. You know, win wars? Right, we need to. If that was the case, then your mom would be the best platoon sergeant. Yeah, all right, we need people. We need to win wars. All right, we need to accomplish missions. So we got to have people that know what they're doing, and that's easier, because that's the way that we promote people. That's the way that we grow All right, we get good at our job and then we get promoted to another level of authority, to another level of authority, and we can grow people, though, on the other axis of making them understand that, taking care of your people, looking out for their welfare, and the biggest thing that I learned, like I said, in this particular instance, was that you have to recognize the capabilities, and that's one of the Marine Corps leadership principles Employ your people in accordance with their capability, right, knowing that, hey, this guy's really, really good at this. Let me, you know, focus him in this direction, but let me also, you know, make him do some of the things that he's not good at, so that you know he'll, over time, he'll get better.
Speaker 2:So, you know, I learned a lot about more servant leadership is kind of the big buzzword, but the more hands-off leadership during that, because you can't be and I had been a, or I'd been kind of forced to be, and, as a younger leader, I think you're forced to be, you know, maybe not a micromanager, but you've got to inspect what you expect, right, and you, when you try to do that with somebody, that, um, and you still have to do it, you just have to do it differently. You just have to say, hey, come back and, and you know, brief me on on what you've done, because you know people want to be inspected, right, they want to know that they've that you're you're not just giving them busy work, that what they're doing is important. So, you know, that's, that's what I learned, probably more about kind of managing personalities. You know, high performing personalities during that, uh, than anything else, cause I, you know they were all high performing personalities. You know any one of them could have stepped in and done my job, uh, which probably means I picked well and done my job, uh, which probably means I picked well. And I said, there, there's uh a saying or the you know the saying that you should surround yourself with people that that definitely, um, you know, make up for your weaknesses, right. So I felt, uh, you know, we had all our bases covered with, with attachment one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you also can't surround yourself with people that are yes men or yes people all the time. Either You've got to have somebody that's got the balls to walk up to you and say you're out of line or hey, there's another way of doing this, and that, in high performing teams, can be suicidal, or or it can be confrontational, but it has to be done and I think that's an earmark of a good leader. I wrote down one of your quotes, hoping that one day, when we meet in person, that we'll be able to get a signed book to me. Stuff like that is huge. It's more important than coins used to be important, but now everybody's got one.
Speaker 3:I saw a kid selling the cookies uh, cookies for this football team. I bought some and he gave me a coin Uh, but back when it meant something, I uh, this is. This is the kind of quote that meant something to me. And you said uh, don't follow me.
Speaker 3:It's your life, your walking point, and and statements like that are so deep because you're at the top of your game. Statements like that are so deep because you're at the top of your game. You're an over-performing person in a field of over-performers, yet you took it seriously enough to not just do the Army follow me on the infantry, but to say, hey, look, you've got a stake in this, step up to the challenge. The second part of that later on, was my passion is helping people get better at getting better. Holy shit, you know. Those are so important and influential because there's a big group of people out there I'll poke somebody in the eye, I'm sure that just because you served in the military, the next thing you know they've got a website and they're teaching you how to. You know, hey, humility and resilience go high.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:And. But you know what I'm talking about and you look at them and you go okay, whoa, wait, your life should be somewhat in order before you come to me and tell me how to fix mine. So, with all of the things that you bring to bear, what do you think is the most? There was a question there. What do you think is the most important experience that you had from the military? That you now teach CEOs and executives and people outside the military that they just couldn't see before they talked to you.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think there's probably a handful of them, but I think the most important thing is. So, quick, quick story, but my, my wife, was a school teacher. When I met her school teacher, for like 30 years we were married, um, and we're still married. But she, a couple years ago she decided to become a travel agent and, uh, she got fed up, not with the kids she loved the kids but, uh, the parents it's always the parents and everything.
Speaker 2:And you know, I I didn't think there were travel agents anymore. I figured people just uh, but there were. She loved it. She's like a master logistician but, uh, when I started like asking her about kind of what, about what she does, I realized that really the key to leadership kind of boils down to the same things. That, uh, is the key to being a good travel agent. And first you got to know where the hell you're going. You know you can't tell somebody that hey, come join me on this trip. We're going to go cool places, all right, they want to know where you're going. And as a leader, you are, you know, kind of definitionally right, you're leading people from one place to another. So I think one of the biggest mistakes that leaders make is that they really have no idea where they're going. And a lot of people make the same mistake in their lives. Right, they really don't know where they're going.
Speaker 2:In the Marine Corps, the military writ large, or even in in organizations, you might have a mission statement or things like that. But you know, within that mission statement, that broad mission statement, you've got to figure out as a leader, where am I taking my people to? And maybe that's to being more productive, maybe that's to, you know, making more money or whatever that is. But that's the first thing, I think. The second is that you have to create a really bad-ass travel brochure. Once you know where you're going, you have to entice other people to come with you. And again, in the military, you can kind of get away with hey, I'm in charge, do what I say, but you can only get away with that for so long. Yeah, and absolutely in business and some of the other people I've worked with you know you've got to that doesn't work very well, and even less so today.
Speaker 2:I think people, the idea that people take a job and stay at it until they die, you know, doesn't exist, all right. So, if you want good talent to stick around, you know, demonstrating how they're going to be better when they get to that destination than they are now. And then, third is you have to be very upfront about the cost. All right, you know that. Hey, you don't get to come along on this ride for free. You know it's going to take, you know blood, sweat, tears, it's going to take this level of effort. This is the standard that we expect of you as a member of this. You know special operations team or the sales team, or you know a football team, you know it doesn't really matter. So I think that, uh, you know I learned more from her. That's really consolidated my view of of what leadership is is kind of through through her job as a travel agent.
Speaker 3:That's fascinating and the best bits of logic that I've learned in my short life are always from somebody else and it was unexpected and their short burst of information that you can use immediately, rather than the soliloquy where you have to read a lot and the person drones on thank her for us, because that's a great answer, by the way. And you know the cost. I think that's the other thing, the cost. Like there's so few people that join the military and so few people that become veterans and combat veterans, because I think the cost scares them away. They get sticker shock right up front and they sometimes don't understand that, for all the things that we want and hold dear in our country and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and our freedom, this is such an essential part of that.
Speaker 3:And it's so funny that, like the false bravado, the hubris that you know, hey, don't tell me thanks for my service this and that I thank everybody for their, that you know hey don't tell me thanks for my service this and that I thank everybody for their service. You know, and I'm constantly that person that's walking around saying you made a difference and you know, giving up my seat to somebody on the airplane that deserved it more than I do, because I really do that and what I've found is that the elements of your book are that way as well. You're very thankful for those people that gave you the opportunity to be where you are right now, and, and and I think that's an amazing uh facet, john, were you always like that, or was that one of the things that the Marine Corps beat India?
Speaker 2:I don't think so. I think I, you know, as a young, young guy, I think I was pretty cocky, yeah, and as I joined the you know, I felt that I was well prepared to join the marine corps and and, to be honest, I had, I had been preparing for so long. I didn't think that boot camp was was particularly challenging. You know, which you know is vastly, you know, different story from a lot of people. Um, and not that just I was super fit. I, like I had studied all of the you know I had a recruiter that was just feeding me all of the information. You know, the kind of outdoor skills, things like that, shooting, you know, all of those things I, I, I knew, um, but uh, you know, I quickly had, like I said, I was kind of misplaced into a sniper platoon, right as soon as I got to the the infantry. Kind of misplaced into a sniper platoon right as soon as I got to the the infantry and uh, there I realized that I was, you know, swimming with, with giant fish, and the only way to to not get eaten was going to be to, you know, keep my head down. You know, learn, and then I really, I think I learned. You know a level of humility there. You know a level of humility there, um, and I've found over time I mean, I'm just not that, that guy who's uh, you know, if somebody thanks me for my service, I'm, I absolutely don't feel that you need to, but, uh, you know it's, I'm certainly not going to be an asshole to you because you did it. Um, you know, I enjoyed, like I said, every day of the 21 years of active duty that I spent. I, you know there were moments that I didn't, there were things that sucked, but even those things, when you look back on them, you learn.
Speaker 2:I think the thing about paying the price that some people don't understand is that it's paid in installments, right, you don't have to pay it all at once. And you, you? An analogy I use a lot is is you know, mountain climbing, all right, and I'm not a huge mountain climber, but you know I've, I've climbed a few. You know you get to to Everest.
Speaker 2:All of the work to get between the base camps prepares you to get to the next base camp, you know. So it's not, uh, you don't shoot up to the top all at once, right, you, you acclimatize at base camp one, and then you know you start having to do some, like more technical things as you move. Uh, so the the work prepares you for the next level of work, you know. And then leadership prepares you, hopefully, for the next level of leadership that you get assigned to. So I don't, you know, I think people to shy away from doing hard things because they say I can't do that. Like well, you can, you can do something more than you're doing, and when you do that, that's going to give you the skills that you need to do something harder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, tell us about um, tough, rugged bastards. No, you got the book. You know what, you know? Why did you I mean, you wrote about this and a lot in there, but it's like, why did you choose to, or what, what, what kind of made you think like, hey, I should, I should document some of this, or I want to get this story out there. How did you come up on, like, what was the decision to do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a kind of long and roundabout, like a lot of things. But uh, I, after I retired from the Marine Corps, I had the GI bill to use and, uh, I was in no, you know, no one would have taken me into college when I got out of high school. You know, I didn't have the money, didn't have the grades, it wasn't going to happen. But uh, you know, I was. I finally started seeing the light, uh, towards the end of my career, and started using the tuition assistance program and was able to finish a bachelor's degree just before I retired. And then I still had all of this, you know, gi Bill left. So I was able to get. You know, I just I loved reading, loved learning. So I'm like, hey, let me take, get a master's degree in literature. It was in kind of liberal arts but focused in literature.
Speaker 2:And I finished that and, you know, in that process I had to write a lot. And one of the professors was like, hey, you know, we have this at the university of north carolina in wilmington, where I live, you know, one of the best writing programs in the in the nation uh, master fine arts writing programs. So I'm like, well, you know, it's very competitive, it's they only pick, like you know, a dozen people a year. And I was like, well, there's no way I'll get in, but if it'll make you happy I'll submit something. And uh, somehow, you know, they must have had like a quota for military guys, whatever I got in. And uh, I realized when I was going through that program that anything that I wrote that was non-fiction was going to have to be reviewed by the DOD, and I wasn't. You know, as the graduation requirement, your thesis, essentially, was a finished book. So I was like, well, I can't write about my time in the, in the military, because I, you know. So I wrote a novel that was nothing about the military and and, frankly, not terribly good. But uh, you know, when I finished that I had at least learned the kind of the terribly good. But uh, you know, when I finished that I had at least learned the kind of the bones of writing. You know what writing was about.
Speaker 2:And uh, I wound up running into a lady that was writing a history of the marine raiders in world war ii and she had asked me for some, some help with that. And then she asked me she's like hey, send me something that you've written and I sent a essay about and it's included in the book or portions of it are about being a sniper in the joff, iraq. And, uh, she read it, she sent it to her, her agent, and her agent got a hold of me and said, hey, you know, can I represent you, let's turn this into a book. And I'd really not thought of it. Um, represent you, let's turn this into a book. And I'd really not thought of it. Um, and I've been until that point and I'm like, well, you know, sure, why not? Let's, let's, let's give it a go.
Speaker 2:And so I wanted, when I did it, I wanted to, uh, one definitely talk about the you know everything that the marines of detachment one did and document the history of it. You, you know, I think another thing I wanted I think a lot of the books that are written by, you know, the GWAT books were either written, you know, kind of too soon after the fact. So I mean, they're great histories, right, they're like, hey, this happened, this happened, this happened, I did this awesome thing and then this awesome thing. There's a lot of those. But at this point, when I went to write it or when I finished it, we were really like 20 years after the fact.
Speaker 2:So I think in writing, you know a memoir, you know which means in French memory, right, you're writing with a level of reflection that kind of allows you to probably have a little more humility perhaps than if you're writing it right after the fact.
Speaker 2:A little more.
Speaker 2:You know the ability to say, hey, you know, now I'm telling you this, but you know and I do that a couple times Like I don't know, that I was this like thoughtful at the time, but yeah, but this is what I'm thinking.
Speaker 2:I wanted to write something that I feel like another not a flaw, just a difference with a lot of of kind of G white books is that they are really seem to be focused at other military people. You know a lot of acronyms and kind of just things thrown at you and I I feel like I wanted to kind of give the, a civilian reader, the kind of the understanding of of all of this, without, like all of the kind of bravado or whatever. Um, so I really was trying to, but I also wanted something that would have some kind of learning points for, you know, military people if they did read it, uh. So I, I went into it with a lot of uh kind of wicked, so I was trying to hit and and feel like I was able to to kind of get them all in a way that that was not too terribly disjointed yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:so when you're, when you're, you know you're so you're kind of going back and reflecting on this right as you're writing it, and then you're putting this out there, um, you know what, what you know, you, looking back on this, like, is there something that you said? Man, I really I wish I could have changed this, or or I wish this was like a little bit different or it handled this differently. Like I'm just curious. It's like you know you go back to that because there's always going to be something where you wish you did something better or whatever, but like that you can really go, man, like I wish I had known this when I was starting this unit or I wish I had known this then due to the work of so many people that I don't.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's one thing and I didn't even put this in a book, I'd kind of forgotten about it but I had gotten into a habit of every time we would hit a target, if that building or that house or whatever had a vehicle in it, we would confiscate the vehicle. And so we had this collection of vehicles that we would use for reconnaissance and things like that civilian vehicles One of the midway through our deployment. If we couldn't find the keys to the vehicle or whatever the case was, then we would usually disable it. And we had been told to hey, you don't necessarily have to disable these vehicles. And we had been told to, hey, you don't necessarily have to disable these vehicles. But I uh, we did uh, hit this, this, uh, this house, and there was a car in, like in a car park, carport, and I, on the way out, I'm like screw this. And threw a thermite grenade on the engine block. Um, and a thermite grenade is just a super, super hot flame that will not extinguish.
Speaker 1:And they will go through with a melt. A car will go up in flames in like, in seconds.
Speaker 2:Basically with a thermite in there, yeah, and uh it's, it's somehow kind of shot through and got the like the, the, the interior, on fire and then, before we could, we could even leave this, this whole, uh, palm tree. You know, underneath the vehicle it caught a blaze, the whole house and I think I burned half a block down downtown iraq. So that was that was something I, you know. I kind of got a a little talking to after I like, yeah, need to be a little bit more prudent with my use of higher techniques, but uh, no, I think techniques but uh, no, I think, and maybe because you know I've learned that, uh, even you know when there are lessons to be learned and like, was we kind of mentioned?
Speaker 2:I mean, you've got to be brutal in, uh, the after action process and as a leader, you absolutely have to tell people that, hey, I expect you to. You know, don't go along with me If you disagree. You know it's your, you know you're going on this mission. Your ass is on the line as well. You're a part of this, so you have a responsibility to point out if you think, and maybe maybe I'll tell you to shut up and color, because that's that's what I need to do. But you know, you know we all want the same thing, and if we're all you know, if we all know what that thing is, we know where we're going, where our destination is, then we all have equal responsibility to help ourselves get there. So a lot of times where I made you know would have made a bad decision, I had people that would step up and say, hey, man, maybe we should think about this. And so we self-corrected a lot of times.
Speaker 1:And even then, in things where we probably could have done things differently or better, we learned a lot working on. Now. I mean, you got the book out and you're promoting that and it's telling the story which is going to be an incredible story.
Speaker 1:But, like, what else are you doing now? Cause I know you you still work a little bit with military but you do some private sector kind of stuff. So just curious kind of how you've been able to to take, take the skills and all the lessons learned and sort of. You know you're applying it in a different domain, but some of the key core lessons are just the lessons that people need to learn. So how, where, what are? You doing with it now. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's so. I retired in 2008 and immediately kind of rolled in, you know, the next Monday to uh. The job that I still do now is, uh, the training and education branch director for the Marine Corps Raider Training Center. So in it, you know, I'm, you know, get to the great opportunity to, to see, you know, special operators go through training. You know the ones that are successful, the ones that aren't.
Speaker 2:And you know, I've, over the last couple of years, after the book, really realized that one I want to, you know, at some point, do something different. So I've started branching out to, you know, at some point, do something different, um, so I've started branching out into, to you know, coaching, um, kind of higher performers and, uh, you know, doing leadership, kind of talks and seminars and things of that nature. So I'm really interested in, in increasing the level of of that uh that I get to do, uh, because I think there are so many valuable lessons from the military that, uh, a lot of things that we, you know, I've found a lot of times, things that we absolutely take for granted, that are kind of mind boggling when you share them with a corporate, you know, um, so that's, that's a big part of it. I do. I think I came, upon writing the book, the realization that, uh, or more in research for the book, that that is kind of, as greg mentioned a little bit there there's so many kind of military influencers, or you know, whatever you want to call them, that they're like hey, I did all this awesome stuff, so come, you know, follow me and I'll take you where you need to go.
Speaker 2:And that's really what the whole idea of walking point was about. It's, you know, if you're there's, um, a little bit off the topic, but there's a guy, joseph Campbell, who wrote a lot about the idea of the hero's journey, the book, the hero with a thousand faces, and, and he he talks about, uh, in the Arthurian grail legend, right when the, the, the Knights, were going after the Holy grail, they were like, hey, uh, I think it was Percival or whatever. It's like, hey, we each need to go, like we're all going to go look for the grail, but we all got to go our own separate ways and we all have to go into the woods where it's the darkest. And if, if, you find a trail, then you're in the wrong place because you know we need to go where there isn't a trail and make one. And that's really the idea that I think I'm trying to get people to understand is that you know if you're following somebody you're not going to get to your own destination, right, you're going to get where they're going. So I've started another book that's, uh, you know, going to be called, probably, walking point.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know a little bit more on, uh, lessons. You know, not a a memoir at all, but lessons that I've learned, kind of leadership wise and life wise, and I think the more I've you know, the older I've gotten and the more post you know military life I've I've lived, I've realized that, you know, most of those are the same. You know, those military lessons apply to life and, um, you know, if you can, uh, you know, drink mushroom coffee or in order to be successful, is is crazy, right, so, uh, and there's there's no such thing as a quick fix, right, there's, uh, you know you've got to just do the work consistently. You know, a little bit at a time and, um, you know, over time you'll, you'll get there or you'll get close, but uh, you'll get somewhere that nobody else has been, and that's really what it's all about, I think.
Speaker 3:No that's amazing, and Brian and I are in discussions, uh, for our second book, now in the very preliminary discussions about it, and, uh, I've always said that when the book is released on tape, uh, I wanted to have Gilbert Godfrey be my voice. You know, the guy from Aflac, but sadly he died. So now I I'm not sure who I'm going to pick for that, but is, and the one thing I of many things that I love about what you're doing here is, it's not about the platitudes, it's about the hard work, and it is hard work and it's being consistent and showing up. My dad used to say my dad, a former Marine, was, uh, was the one that said you know, showing up is is more than half the battle, it's almost all of the battle. And, and, uh, so who, uh, uh, in that book, when you go, uh, uh, to having somebody, uh be your voice, who, who are you going to choose for your voice?
Speaker 2:Is it somebody really cool or are you going to choose for your voice? Is it somebody really cool or are you goofy like me and want to have somebody funny? Well, I mean, it's already out on uh audio book. So I, uh, I wanted to do it, I thought that I would be, I thought I would be uh would be good, but uh, you, apparently I don't get that choice. So the publisher made the decision and they picked an actor.
Speaker 2:He does a lot of military books. His name is Tom Beyer. I think if you see him you would recognize him because he's been on CSI, miami and different shows. And I let my wife pick because they sent a bunch of audition tapes. Uh, I got to pick, but I was, you know, out of the people they selected. But uh, I'm like I can't listen to this. You know not my voice, cause I hear it, you know. So my wife listens to a lot of audio books. So she picked him and and, uh, I've got a lot of rave reviews about, about how he did. That's great. But yeah, definitely the second book. I think I would, I would like to do it. I think that seems cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's great. And you know what, when? When people listen to the audio book, which is great, and your success is great, the. The idea is that when you say it, when you're the one telling the story, there's somehow much more weight to it. I feel you know, because you're hearing it from the, as Brian and I joke the horse's mouth, or the horse's ass, depending on what the story is.
Speaker 2:So I like that you know at different times.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I love that, brian. I'm just saying it's amazing that we've had this opportunity. John, I hold you in high regard and I think anybody would uh, uh, be happy, uh, to dig in, and I'm I'm anxiously looking forward to to your writing on on being the point man, being your own point man that's fascinating to me cool.
Speaker 2:Well, I like and we didn't get to talk about it. But, uh, the stuff you guys are doing, you know I really enjoyed your videos and and I, you know, could talk for another couple hours about, about that. You know, I really think that I, you know, could talk for another couple hours about, about that. You know, I really think that, uh, the, you know, the one of the good fortunes of my life was, uh, starting off in a sniper platoon and the, with the kind of the mandate that you were always under observation, you know. So just him, games, you know, were you know, memory games, things like that were. You know you, we were always expected to be observant and that is probably a skill that's, you know, helped me more than anything else. Um, you know, in my life, uh, so you know a lot of your, your stuff about just just paying attention to the little things, your decisions that you make, you know are you know absolutely ways to prevent, you know bad things from happening. So are you know absolutely?
Speaker 3:ways to prevent, you know, bad things from happening. So we run in some of the similar circles.
Speaker 3:It'd be loved Uh, I would love to for us to be able to collaborate on something uh, because I think what you do is fascinating and, and clearly Brian and I are having a ball, Uh, so uh, and you know, there's nothing better than knowing that you're pulling the veil from somebody's eyes and allowing them to see the world differently, and maybe, if that's the cathartic nature of their restart, then we've done something. I don't care about my name going anywhere, but my legacy I'd like to be that at least one person one time in their life goes. Wait a minute. We don't have to continue to stomp around in the great bucket like Lucy and Ethel.
Speaker 2:We can go out and do something else, you know probably not too many people will know what you're talking about there.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, I've heard that all the time. I have to keep Brian's my filter for humans.
Speaker 1:I was like Greg, you're using movie references that are before your time, let alone anyone else listening to this show, like no one's going to get that. But um, no, I appreciate you. Um, you know coming on and talking to us and um, and you know putting this stuff out there. You know it's I. I always find it fascinating talking about the. The reason why I find some of the stuff interesting is just personally, with your stories. One, obviously you know everything talked about having to start a new unit, knowing about how the marine corps is like, there's all of these growing pains and things. And then you know, through all talked about having to start a new unit, knowing about how the Marine Corps is like, there's all of these growing pains and things. And then you know, through all this and all your other experiences, you know you're coming out just going like, hey, here's the things you need to focus on and anyone can do them right. You just it, just it's, it's hard work, it sucks, like sorry, it's just doing. I mean even even that's what people know. Like I mean even that's what people don't even know.
Speaker 1:Especially with being a sniper and doing reconnaissance, it's a really boring job. You're just sitting there watching something for a really long time. It's not fun, it's not sexy. You're just writing reports, sending stuff back, taking photos, watching, and maybe you get a second of action. It's really monotonous and you've got to be organized. And you have get like a second of action and it's like it's really monotonous and you got to be organized and you have to have attention to detail. But like those skills, like that's what it takes to do anything and so it's always interesting.
Speaker 1:It's like you know, have all these careers and you can have all these experiences, and it still comes down to like, hey, there's just some basic elements here. If you get really good at those basic elements, like you, you'll figure the rest out or you'll you'll, you'll learn along the way. Like it's just here's the things you can control. So I, I always appreciate it, like you said, like I'm not doing the, you know the, the military influencer thing, you know where it's, by my whatever t-shirt or way of thinking. It's like no man, like you got to do you, you have to, you have to walk point in your own life and here's some fundamentals that you can learn and that'll help you navigate that tough, tough job, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I, I appreciate that? Um well, do you have a? How else can people like follow you, get a hold of you or contact you? Obviously, like I said, I'll have all the links and I'll share the stuff on social media when it comes out. But, like you know, and especially get your book. But what else is the best way to to to kind of follow along and learn more from, learn more from john daily?
Speaker 2:so, yeah, I I write a couple of weekly newsletters that go out. One is um, but one is called walking point and that's really the you know the stuff I've been talking about um and the other is called rtfu or ruck. The F up is really just about rucking for fitness and and how you build mental toughness through that. Um, I have a website, it's jadailycom, at D-A-I-L-E-Y, and there are links to both of those. There's the book. You can get all of those things on there. It's. I probably need to update it, but it's. It's all there. Um, social media wise LinkedIn some. Um, instagram some. But, uh, I really am trying to to spend less of my time, less of my time on there. I've started, you know, making a little video kind of inspired by y'all, just short, um, hey, here's a little something to think about, usually my Sunday morning out on hike videos. But yeah, yeah, the the website is the is the best place to, to kind of one-stop shop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it too. I I always tell people too it's like you want to just get, just go throw a rock on and go for a walk and be alone with your thoughts, like it's the best, it's so good for you in so many different ways, and when you have to do it a lot, like you learn, like this really sucks, like you know, when you're doing a long hike or something, but you know it. It's one of those things where just go it clears your head.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, you definitely learn to compartmentalize. All right, hey, I'm in a lot of pain right now, but that's you know. I need to put that aside. Um, you know, or I'm, you know, at some points, you know, and most for fitness you're probably not going to to go to the point where you're like, hey, I don't think I could take another step, but let me, I'm going to take one more. And if I did that one, then I can do one more. And then you know, if I could do that, I could take 10. And if you get to the point where you can pretty much do anything, right, um, so that's that's why I I certainly didn't, not something I loved when I was, when I was on active duty, but it's something that, uh, you know, I did a lot and it's influencers.
Speaker 2:You got to do this, you got to carry this much, you got to spend $500 on this or that. I mean just, you know, get your school backpack, go for a walk. When that gets easy, you know, throw in some more. And you know, when that gets easy, go a little further. You know, and then that's, that's how we. It's the same thing with weightlifting, the principle of progressive resistance. Right, you do something until it becomes easy and then, you know, make it harder and then eventually that harder thing will become easy too. And the big thing I think that I said it already but you know, the hard thing that you do is preparing you for the next hard thing. You know, as long as you keep that in mind and the harder the thing is, you know, the the, the, the kind of, the better the victory of getting through is going to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's, and it's. You know, it's funny too, even when you get into how the brain is wired for some of this stuff and like it's not even you, you, you start to get that feeling of accomplishment or success or whatever. It is like finishing the hike or whatever. But you, actually your brain starts that process when you start working towards it. Like it's like it doesn't just get, like the dopamine from the accomplishment or winning, it actually creates this whole pathway of when I do this thing, you know, I start to feel a little bit, I start to get a little bit of that dopamine and then I go for that reward. So it's like you simply just setting those habits and starting them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like you're yeah, just, I mean being the person you know realizing, hey, I'm the person that gets up at whatever time five in the morning and goes for a run or a ruck. You know, when you start to identify is that, yeah, you know, you're like, hey, I'm no longer somebody that that hates rolling out of bed. You're like I'm a person that does this thing. You know, know, I'm a weightlifter, I'm a rucker, I'm a non-smoker, I'm a somebody that doesn't stuff my face full of cookies. Well, you know, whatever it is that you um, you know the biggest thing there's done.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of great research about that, goal setting and, and, uh, you know, identity goals versus process goals and outcome goals and, um, but, but, uh, you know, james clear, uh, atomic hamas is probably one of the better books about that. But you know, starting to identify yourself differently is is, I think, the first step, and the first step in that is figuring out where you're. You know where you're going. You know when I have this journey, I'm going to be a, a fit 80 year old, you know. Yeah, well, I need to start thinking of myself as a fit 50 year old to get there yeah, no, that's, that's great, john.
Speaker 1:We, we appreciate you coming on man and sharing the stories, and there's, there's countless others. And then of course, you got some of the characters in there. Colonel coats is his own character, so of course he gave you the title. I mean, he's, he was the one I can't remember who was telling me about it when he was working for for coats and like they sent him to a couple of guys to to ranger school because he was all about ranger school and they brought him in the morning, like before he left, and he was like ranger tab or body bag, you come home, you either come home. And I was like, oh, they were like what? Well, they were already like same thing, like e6, z7s, right, and so they're on a ranger school. Actually, the ranger instructors were like did you guys get in trouble? Or something like what are you doing here? Like you're like, yeah, like they'd already been at force recon for a while. They're already like doing whatever. They're like yeah, we just we had a colonel who's got a thing for this school.
Speaker 2:So here we are yeah, that is, if you were, if you're going to be a team leader or platoon sergeant, you know you had to have gone and uh, I was lucky that I had gone before I got there. I went as a relatively young sergeant from the infantry, from a sniper platoon. Okay, I was uh one of the things that I think kind of endeared me to him. You know he was like hey, this guy, you know, went to Ranger school back, uh, you know, long ago. But yeah, luckily I went as a, as a young guy, and not some of the some of the guys he would send.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, we appreciate it, man. Uh, I'll have all the links for everyone. Uh, you know, if you're listening, check out tough, tough, rugged bastards and follow John. Uh, he's always putting out good stuff and we appreciate you for coming on here, man, Thank you so much. And, um, yeah, we, we just just thanks for sharing that and sharing the story. It's a cool, cool piece of history too that you're a part of.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, yeah, thanks for having me. I'd be happy to come back anytime.
Speaker 3:Oh, we got so much more we can talk about. I agree, John. I think that would be great, Brian.
Speaker 1:Thanks everyone for tuning in. If you enjoy it, please share it with a friend and don't forget that.
