473: Achieve The Intent In A Matter Best Fitting Reality. With Codey Gandy
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This is Jocko podcast number 473 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. The mission of the rifle squad is to locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire maneuver or repel the enemy's assault by fire and close combat. The Marine Corps Rifle Squad is the fundamental maneuver unit of the Marine Corps Infantry. It is organized to provide multiple fire units and mutually supporting combined arms effects on the battlefield.

Time and again, the tide of a battle has been changed through a squad leader's decisive employment of their squad. Mission tactics is a fundamental enabler of maneuver warfare. Mission tactics is a method of command which relays commander's intent to subordinate leaders and empowers them to take initiative on a dynamic battlefield in order to achieve that intent in a manner best fitting the realities facing the subordinate leader.

Rifle squad leaders are the point at which mission tactics are actually employed in the operational environment. They must be able to effectively and efficiently use the tools and techniques available to them in order to generate the desired commander's intent. To that end,

The Marine Corps has developed small unit tactics and techniques which have proven effective for small unit leaders in past wars and operations to serve as a template to guide squad leaders as they face new and challenging environments. A foundational aspect of Marine Corps leadership is the small unit leader's ability to understand the fundamentals of the profession of arms and confidently apply them in innovative ways.

This ability is the core enabler of mission tactics and maneuver warfare. Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1, Warfighting, defines maneuver warfare as, quote, "...a warfighting philosophy that seeks to shatter the enemy's cohesion through a variety of rapid, focused, and unexpected actions which create a turbulent and rapidly deteriorating situation with which the enemy cannot cope."

End quote. I think I could just read those like just kind of continually. That's from a little excerpt, a little combination of some excerpts from the Marine Corps publication. 3TAC 10A.4 Marine Rifle Squad explains how the Marine Rifle Squad operates, how it functions, how it's led, and the Marine Corps does an outstanding job of creating leaders.

We have one of those leaders here tonight, Cody Gandy, Marine Corps fire team leader, squad leader, platoon sergeant, and now leadership instructor and director of experiential training at Ashlawn Front. He's learned a lot over the years coming up through the ranks, and he's here with us tonight to share some of those experiences and lessons learned. Cody, thanks for joining us, man. Yes, sir. Pleasure to be here. When you hear close with and destroy...

Do you have flashbacks? It's a little burning inside of my soul there as you read that off. Oh, so epic. All right, let's get a little bit of your background. Where'd you grow up?

So I grew up in Northern California, small town called Loomis, California. It's about 20 minutes north of Sacramento. So capital up there and a small town. So you're talking, you know, 7,500 people is, is what you're dealing with. Little cow town up there, small community, but you're close enough to the big city if you want. But so you say cow town and a lot of people don't understand that much of California, most of California is agriculture. Yes, sir. Well, is that what's going on up there?

Yeah, we're on the outskirts of the, or we're on the edge of the city. And so as you get a little past the high school and stuff like that, it's all cows and ag and stuff like that. So definitely have rode a couple of cows in my life. And what'd your mom and dad do?

So my mom was real estate growing up. So she was a working mom and my dad was a, was a cop. So still is, um, all kinds of billets was on the sheriff's department, small town PD. And now he's still a, he's a homicide detective out in California right now as well. Where did he, did he grow up in California as well? Yeah. He's from San Jose. Okay. And what about your mom? Same thing. She's up in Auburn area where my, my grandparents grew up. And then brothers, sisters,

I have a younger sister. Yeah. So she's four, five years younger than me, depending on the time of the year. Yeah. And so you're growing up. What were you like a kid? What are you into? Pretty quiet, pretty reserved. Um, I know, you know, me, uh, pretty, uh, reserved person got that from my dad and kind of grown up that way. Uh,

heavily involved in sports i was at that weird kid that would watch sports center three times in a row and i would give you all the stats and i knew everything about everything sports and so i was worried your dad that into sports no it's just i i fell in love with it i wanted to do football baseball sports year round is what i wanted to do so i was that was that was my life until i until i went to the marine corps later on so as you're growing up

Did you get, did you like go play travel ball or what? Yeah. So baseball was a year round thing. Was that your best sport? I was better at baseball, but I liked football more and then I supplemented wrestling in there to help with, with football. How many years did you wrestle? Uh, three. Once I got to high school, I stopped just because it was, I know. Why?

It was just too much in my head because I went from football and then it was fall ball for baseball. And I thought I had a chance to go in college for one of those two. And so I had to pick and choose. Echo Charles. We're playing football, right? Okay. Part of football, a big part of football is to grab another guy and pull him to the ground, right? Yep, yep.

So if you start, but then there's other things. There's a ball. There's throwing a ball. There's kicking. There's other things. But really, what a lot of people like about football is you're going to grab a guy and pull him to the ground, right? Yeah, yeah. It's part of the gig for sure. So you get done with football season, and there's another season that starts that we could participate in. Yeah. There's no ball. There's no throwing. There's no kicking. All there is is grabbing dudes and pulling them to the ground. Yeah. Why isn't wrestling more popular? Yeah.

Why did Cody Gandy quit wrestling? It's a good question. Because what you're talking about literally is like half the appeal for like half the people. So you're talking about tackling somebody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So first off, only defense tackles. Yeah. A lot of people actually, I would say, and tell me if you agree with this, did you play defense, offense, both? Defense. Yeah, so most people I think like offense because you can get the score. Yeah.

And the objective of the game is to get on offense and score. Okay, but let me say something else. There's also people that are trying not to get taken down to the ground, right? Yeah, yeah, fully. And yeah, continue running. Yeah, continue running and getting away. Yeah, yeah, fully. So... Yeah, to be honest, I don't... I mean, sure, there is translation for sure. Oh, man, I can see how it would help or whatever. In fact, jujitsu and rugby, there's like a... I told you I made like this little documentary mini doc or whatever in the Australian Rugby League.

but they take jujitsu to get better at rugby. Anyway, it's a long story, but to answer your question, they are complete. It doesn't seem like it if you don't play football, I guess, but they are completely different, different experiences. One is like,

Yeah, you're fighting the guys on just more of a combat scenario. The other one doesn't feel like a combat scenario. It's more about like... It's a game. Yeah, it's like it's... The combat part of it is more of a means for something greater. Dude, wrestlers go hard. Wrestlers go hard. Wrestlers are like... They say, you don't play wrestling. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yep, that makes sense. You know what I mean? That feels correct. You go play football. You ain't playing wrestling. Yeah. I understand. All right. So I fast forward a little bit there. So you're pretty good at these games? Yeah.

Good, not great. I had the ability to do that, but I didn't take it seriously. So the practices and workouts, I would show up and do good. So you're watching SportsCenter three times a day, but you're not putting out on the suicide sprints?

Is that what's happening? I guess at practices, yes, but it's all the stuff outside. There's a difference between being good and great. I wasn't putting in the work. I was more worried about other things in life. What other things were you worried about? Girls and parties. Was that it? So you're quiet and you're reserved, but you like girls and parties. I was the introvert in a group of extroverts. And so they kind of brought that out of me. And so that was where my head was at at 15, 16, 17. So now we're in high school.

13:30 SJ: So you're in high school, and how's your schools? Are you guys going to states? Are you guys winning CIF regionals? How's it going? 13:38 CH: Yeah, CIF... Nothing to state. Went to the CIF championships in baseball my junior year, football my junior year. Senior year, we weren't the best in football.

And then baseball, we were pretty decent. Um, but nothing, nothing to the state level. And are you starting to get looked at for college? Were you thinking that's an opportunity for you? That's what I wanted to do. So I wanted to go, my goal was to go NFL. Um, but I weighed like a whopping one 65 my senior year. And, uh,

Wasn't really the card. So I had some looks on some D2, some D3, some smaller schools and had some D1 baseball, but I really wanted to play football more than anything. And how is it when you're growing up in a small town and your dad's a cop? How's that? How's that work out? A little challenging. It's pros and cons, right? So everybody knows my dad. My mom and dad are kind of life of the party. We're always doing big things. We're doing, you know, camping with 50 people and going out in the woods and doing stuff like that. So everybody knows my dad.

My dad eventually transfers to the neighboring city. So he's in a Rockland cop and I live in Loomis. So everybody knows him. He, he coaches me in football and his full kit as a kid. And so I get dropped off at school in a squad car, which I don't think you're supposed to do that. But that was, that was cool growing up. Um, so it was people knew, but I was a bit of a knucklehead and got in trouble a couple of times. And so that was, uh, the classic cops kid causing trouble in trouble with the cops. Um,

Majority of times, no. Able to get away. But I got arrested when I was 16. So I was a younger kid. I graduated when I was 17. So my junior year, hung out with a lot of older kids, playing football, dated an older girl. And we were going to one of the dances and got caught underage drinking. And they're like, hey, you got to call your dad.

And this was when your dad was a cop in that town. Yeah. My dad's been a cop pretty much my whole life. That's all I've ever known. And so I call him and I'm just like, I let him down was the thing. Cause he's like coached me and guided me and don't do this stupid stuff and learn from him, et cetera. And remember making the call and he's like, Hey, just, you know,

What are you gonna do? Because the cops there and he wants to he's asking everybody questions like who did this who's drinking and there's like two sides It's you drank or you didn't drink and I was like, well I'll just tell the truth because one thing I learned growing up is like the truth is that's it I never got in more trouble for telling the truth is when I lied is when I got in exponentially more trouble. It's exponential Yeah

You lie, it's going to hurt. Oh, yeah. To tell the truth, it's going to hurt a little bit. I like that. Exponential is what we're dealing with. So you told the truth. Told the truth. Still got in trouble, but there was no punishment at home for what happened. Did they lock you up? No. Because I feel like if I was your dad and you got rolled up, I'd be like, hey, dude, freaking throw him in the clink for the night. Just let him see. Scared straight, dude. Yeah.

Is that wrong? It's harsh, but hey man. Especially in a small town, they probably had four cells or something in jail. Yeah, you probably knew other cops too. That makes sense. I was always around cops. Processed you in. But you ultimately don't get in a ton of trouble because, well, first of all, it's not that big of a crime. Underage drinking. What kind of music were you listening to?

My first CD was Beastie Boys, Licensed to Ill. That was my first CD. So that's when my dad bought me. I don't remember what age it was. Your dad bought you that? Yeah. Interesting. Okay. So I was in middle school. Beastie Boys, System of the Down. My dad was really into rock. I was really anything that had a good beat or just got the blood flowing. Obviously, a lot of workouts for sports and stuff like that. But it was pretty much anything that had a good tune to it.

And so were you thinking about going to the Marine Corps this young? No. Absolutely not. What were you thinking about doing? I wanted to go into law enforcement. So growing up, you know, I was born in 91. Watching my dad, it's a little bit cooler to be a cop back then than it is nowadays.

My dad was the hero in the house and it just made sense. And hearing the stories and people gravitate towards him and want to talk to him, it's what I wanted to do. No interest in the military whatsoever. I had a buddy, one of my best friends that ended up going in the Marines and he wanted me to meet his recruiter. And I was like, hell no. I wanted to serve, but just in a different way. Both my grandfathers were Navy guys. So I had some family in the military as well. But for me at the time, it didn't make sense.

- So are you gonna go to college to make this happen? 'Cause you don't need to go to college to be a police officer, do you?

No, you can go straight out of high school. I wanted to go to college to get a degree. Well, I wanted to do football was the primary route, but I wanted to get a degree because certain law enforcement agencies, you have to get a degree to promote to certain levels. That was really the only reason. Now, are you getting looked at for colleges? You said you got some D2 schools looking at you. Yeah. Small schools for, for football, a couple, you know, lower tier, tier two D1 schools for baseball, but I really wanted to play football, but I was just, you know, too small. I,

I ate Top Ramen every day was my fuel source. Like every single day, that's what I ate after school. So I didn't prioritize the nutrition as I should. That's the 165 in full gear is what I weighed. When you were growing up and looking at your dad, did you get to see the good side of being a cop? You see him in uniform. You see people treating him with respect. Did you see any of the downside? Did you see any of the negativity from the stress, anxiety?

from watching your dad? - I think my dad did a very good job of shielding me from that. Obviously when I'm really young, he wants to not let me know what's going on. But we had a couple instances where he had a undercover car at the house and our tires got slashed and stuff like that. And we didn't really run into any people that he arrested in the past, which was good. But sometimes we'd be out and he would see someone, he's like, "We're gonna go," which I kind of put two and two together. So I really didn't see any of that until,

In high school, my dad's partner got killed in the line of duty. So one of his partners, Matt Redding, was doing a DUI checkpoint or set up cones on a freeway super late at night about 2 a.m. And a drunk driver hit him and killed him. And I just remember after the fact, that was the first time I saw my dad kind of process something negative from a law enforcement lens. How old were you when that happened? This was...

I think it was freshman year, so 2005. - So you were like a fully cognizant young man. - I was aware, yeah. And I knew the guy, so he's been to the house a couple times, played basketball with him. He was a younger guy than my, my dad joined when he was like 31, 32 for law enforcement. So I knew the guy Matt, so it kinda hit home and it hit my dad pretty hard. - And would you say that that made you hesitate towards law enforcement or made you more,

move towards it. I think it solidified it. Like then I, I knew in the moment I was like, this is exactly what I want to do. Oh, that's so strange how young men are like that. You know, like we just see stuff like that and it makes us want to go do it. It's very strange. Um, all right. So,

Did you get any scholarships to college? Did it work out the way you wanted it to? No, I had some D2, D3, but I eventually wanted to carve my own path. I went the JUCO route, went to a small school in, you know, middle California. And I wanted to, you know, play, you know, get some reps, gain some weight, and then eventually wanted to try to walk on. I wasn't getting a lot of exposure. My senior footballer team wasn't very good. We had a losing record. There's not a lot of eyes on teams that aren't very good. So I thought going JUCO, getting my weight up, getting some reps, getting more film, and then I'd walk on D1 was my route. Mm-hmm.

But how'd that work out? That was a short lived as I, uh, after my freshman year of college ball, uh, blew out my knee and, uh, kind of the, the walls came crashing in after that point. What was the injury? Um, MCL, PCL meniscus. What did it happen during the game? Nope. It was just non-contact just cut in a turn or something like that. Yes, sir. Yeah.

All right. And now what does that do to your, you said, you said things a little bit sideways after that. Well, I'm in college. I'm away from home, which I'm away like two hours, but I'm on my own at, you know, and I'm still 17 cause I graduated when I was 17. And so I'm on my own for the first time I get done with football and my, my dream is gone. Right. And you know, at 17, 18, you don't really have a lot of perspective on life. And, uh, my, my mission's over on the NFL. My, my dreams crushed. And so I start, uh,

making one bad decision which is followed by another and hanging around with the wrong people and doing the wrong thing and it's just I'm on a path of destruction at that point. - So what are you drinking and partying and are you skipping classes the whole nine yards? - Yeah, I'm failing like just like 101 classes like you just have to show up to pass and I'm just like I'm not going. I don't care is where I'm at. - Did you think how long you were gonna be able to do that for? - No, very very short-sighted living day to day.

And so who turned you on to the possibility of going in the military and possibly going to the Marine Corps? So it was a collection of events. So I, this was the summer of 2010. Suffered the injury in the spring. During the summer, there's not much going on. Doing a bunch of wrong things. I end up going to a party and I, at the house, this guy tries to pull a gun on somebody. Pulls a gun out. There's all this chaos and we're in a not so good part of town. Um,

he's flashing around he ends up putting it towards his head and pulls a trigger but it's a misfire and guys tackle him take it away and from that moment I'm really just sitting there processing like what am I doing is the question I'm asking myself like where am I at like why just real quick you told that pretty quick you're at a party and a dude has a gun

And he's like flashing his gun around acting like a tough guy? People are mouthing off. We're not so good part of town. People are mouthing off. They pull it out to show that they're tough and stuff like that, waving it around. But then he decides he's going to kill himself? I don't know if that was the master plan or whatever, but that's how it ended up. And when you say misfire, like click or misfire like partial discharge of the weapon? Click. Click.

Okay. And now people tackle him. People tackle him, take it away. Please show up. I'm long gone before then. But as I'm leaving and everybody's kind of running away as they see a gun and stuff like that. You're reflecting on your life. Reflecting on the life choices. And how did I end up here in this moment? And so that was kind of the self-reflection moment on like, what am I doing? You know, that's a really good thing to think about.

You know, every once in a while, you gotta, if you're lucky, if you're lucky when you're 18, 19, 20, 14, 17, 37, you can take a step back and look around and go, hold on a second, why am I here right now? Is this the right spot to be in? And I think that some people feel that you get to a point where it doesn't matter anymore. You know, if you watch someone kind of self-destruct in their 40s, 50s, like,

For them to dig themselves out of the hole that they dug, it's going to be too much. And so they just keep going. But I've seen people recover from those situations where they step back and say, you know what, this is not working out well. I need to stop doing this. But it's an important thing to, you know, it's like we talk about detachment all the time at Ashland Front.

Because when you're in the shit, when you're a kid, you're in it and you're doing it, you don't... That's just another night. You probably had other nights like that where there was a fight, there was a knife, there was a thing, people got arrested, DUI, like the whole nine yards. This stuff's happening. And when you're in it, you don't recognize...

Like oh my gosh, I'm on the bad path right now. And what's crazy is your parents recognize it. Your parents are like what the are you doing? And any of your friends that kind of move forward in life, they're like dude what are you doing? Why are you still doing this kind of shit? So yeah that's a good little lesson learned. Assess where you're at sometimes. Take a little look around. Hopefully you don't need a traumatic event like a dude possibly killing himself. That's a bit much but that's what it takes.

- So then how did you, so now you're kind of open to suggestion of another path. - I see the football path, at least in the moment. The card, like it's a path that's really long and I'm trying to figure out what to do. I'm thinking of going into law enforcement, but there's my knees all jacked up and I call one of my buddies, the Marine that I went to high school with that tried to bring me the crew and I was like, hell no.

ended up calling him. I was just seeking advice from, from anybody. And he just got back from Iraq at the time. And I was like, Hey man, like, I really don't know what I'm doing. Like I'm in the pits right now. Like how's the Marine Corps. And he was just sick. You could hear him like perk up. He's like, Oh, this is my moment. He was like a Ace Ventura. And he's like, you ask him that question. He's getting ready to give you a 30 minute answer. Yeah. So this dude did that. Okay, cool.

- And it was good, he was honest and upfront. He's like, "Hey, it's tough, it's challenging." What really painted the picture on what I wanted to do, he was like, "I look at where I'm at and what I'm doing "and the rest of our friends, and it's different." He's like, "I've made great strides in life. "I'm gonna get education when I get out. "I have all this experience." And he's like, "Look at our friend group right now, "what are they doing?" And I was like, "And I'm that person." He's like, "What are you doing right now?" And I'm like, "They can't compare. "We're on opposite sides of the spectrum."

And like just in a conversation it was like click. And so just that relationship that, you know, influence that he had were peers or friends were the same age. It just the path open. And that's what I wanted to do. And literally like the next day on crutches, I went to the recruiting office. Did you need to get surgery or did you already get it? I was going to get surgery. So I, I moved up the surgery. Um,

got surgery and they gave me kind of like hey you can't really do anything for about six months and i was like watch me uh kind of thing i went to the recruiter's office like hey we can't touch you till it's healed um so i'm kind of on the back burner for a while i'm not really looping in my parents uh to what i'm doing on the decision um my parents are kind of opposite my dad's very stoic very reserved my mom's very emotional and so i fear that

my mom's gonna have a very hard time with it. So I was like, I'll just wait close to my bootcamp date and then I'll let her know, which I didn't really loop her until about a month out. I was supposed to leave April, 2011. I got a call October, 2010, like on the first, he's like, Hey man, can you leave in two weeks? And I was like, sure. And I was still enrolled in classes. I'll drop everything. I'll do everything. And I believe in an October, 2010. How's bootcamp?

We should go to San Diego, right? San Diego. How was it? So being a fall class, uh, not too bad. Obviously we don't do a lot of water stuff like you guys do. Um, the physical activity I'm pretty used to in terms of, you know, being in sports my whole life, the mental, I'm definitely used to being yelled at and screamed at and stuff like that. I did get some advice from that Marine on what to do and what not to do. Uh, the hardest part for me was, you know, growing up, I, I never really thought myself as a leader. I'm very, I don't

I don't talk, I don't speak. I just kind of just watch and, you know, act that way. I was always kind of the action guy. So if somebody wanted me to do something, like I would do it and that would be how I led.

But for whatever reason, you know, about two weeks in, you know, in each platoon, in about 100 guys is your boot camp class. There's a guy called the guide. They carry the flag. They're like they represent the group. And our guide was at dental doing some dental thing. And the guide was sitting on our quarter deck. And all our instructors are getting pissed off like somebody go and get it. And there's like 100 of us just sitting there and nobody's moving. And I don't know what it was. Just I had this pole. I was like, I'll go.

And so I grabbed the guide on and now I take over this position. I'm the number one guy in charge of 100 people, which is very foreign to me.

very challenging as I'm 18, they're all 18 and you know, I pay for everything that they do. But that leadership component initially that was challenging to say the least. So when you're the guide in the class, do you do some, is this just during marching? It's during everything. During everything. So they'll be like, guide, get your class assembled and stuff like that. Yes, sir. Guide, give me a head count, that kind of thing. Yep. You're starting off, well, it's all overseen, especially at the beginning. You're very like,

turn left, turn right type of thing. But everything the class does is a reflection of you. So when somebody's locker's jacked up, like you're going to pay as well and you're going to meet that quarter deck and you count for the class at the end of the night, like you say the thing. So you're basically a class leader. Yes, sir. And did you stay the class leader the whole time? Yes, sir. That must be rare. It was...

When I went to officer candidate school, I was the president of the class. And like the other classes, they'd go through like three, four, five presidents. But I was just president from day one until we graduated. But most people just cycle through because things are just jacked up and it just sucks. So were you the guide the whole time? From whenever I picked up that guide on like two weeks in until we finished, I was. Did you have anything that was challenging for you in boot camp? Was there anything that was hard for you?

- Not really the physical or the mental, like it was fun. Like you're getting all the stuff I did in my previous life, like that's training, but now I'm getting paid to train. That's a fun aspect to it.

I wasn't the challenging part wasn't the you know missing family or friends like I was ready to do this it really just was that leadership component that I wasn't really prepared for I never was in a leadership role I never was told to like speak up I never was told to motivate people I never was told like or taught hey you know these two guys like they're your peers you need to get them up to shape like I didn't know how to do that and I'd find myself like doing a lot of things that I couldn't figure out like hey this guy's jacked up like you need to fix him and I was like I don't know how to do that like we had a guy

Wasn't really all there and like I'd have to shave his face every morning Like that was my responsibility like like stupid things like that But also hey this kid's not gonna make the run or he's not gonna make the weight like you need to figure out like how To get him up to speed I didn't know how to do it at the time and it was just kind of a learning curve month after month until eventually left on It's it's a lot harder than it looks in terms of getting people towards this common goal. Did the kid learn to shave?

well for about a month I had to do it for him but uh and which was weird he was older than all of us he was like super old like 28 damn I didn't know they let 28 years old 28 year olds in the Marine Corps I don't know the cutoff I'd have to check but he was definitely 7 to 10 years older than all of us damn uh

- What was it like, you know, you probably had a bunch of combat veterans as your drill instructors. Did you pay attention to that? Did you notice that? Was there like, were they talking about those kind of lessons learned? 'Cause you were going to infantry from the beginning, right? You were going to 0311? - So the recruiter, right? Recruiters are recruiters.

When I went to the recruiting office, I was like, I want to go be an 0311, I want to be in infantry. They were like, we can't, all the billets are filled. Like if you want to become an infantry, you have to go this other route, which is called security forces, which is 8152.

And security forces, there's three billets in there. There's a fast team, which I was told was like the SWAT team. I was like, oh, that sounds cool. Sold that. Sold that one. Fast team is cool, but yeah. And then there's like presidential security. And then there's like basically people that guard nukes. So high priority bases. Those are the three routes you can go security forces. So I was told.

And I believe like, hey, in order to go infantry, you have to do the security forces route, which means you don't do a four-year contract. You do a five-year contract and you got to give two years to security forces before you go to the fleet and be a part of the infantry. And I bought that sweet, sweet life in the beginning. That's crazy.

Check. Okay. So, but do you still have to go to school of infantry? Don't you? Yes. Okay. So after bootcamp, that's the first school you go to. How'd you, did you graduate number one in your class in bootcamp? Yes. That's what I'm talking about. Echo Charles. See that right there? Yeah. I see that. He's going to underestimate Cody, dude. So when they're graduating, there's a hundred freaking dogs in there trying to get that. Do you get promoted because of that? Do you get like a stripe because of graduating number one? Yes, sir. Damn dude. Okay. All right. Um,

So now you, how's the, how's the school of infantry? It's a different beast, right? Bootcamp's all about discipline. It's, it's drill and things that like, like, why am I doing this? But it's, it's really to instill discipline. Marine Corps, it's discipline. That's, that's really all we care about.

When you go to the School of Infantry, there's two paths. So if you're an O3, you go to the School of Infantry for the whole three months, or you go the MCT route, which is everybody other than infantry. You do the same month and a half, but the last month and a half is, you know, it's not as... Specialized to your thing? Yeah. And so the O3 route was...

That was fun. You know, you're in, you're at Pendleton, you're hiking the mountains up there. You're in the field all the time. You're getting dirty. You're doing the camel paint and stuff like that. Like it was an absolute blast. The, um, the Pendleton mountains, like you think of climbing mountains, right? You don't think of Southern California, San Diego mountains, but I'll tell you what, dude, those mountains, those they're like hills, but dude, they feel like mountains, never ending hills. Uh, what's the, what's the attrition rate at school of infantry? Do you know?

I don't know. Majority of the time it's just people getting rolled back for injuries. So, you know, it's, you know, for us it's, you don't go to sit call unless like it's mandatory. A lot of people are trying to escape there and they don't want to do it's, it's a lot of hiking and you're hiking with like a hundred pound packs, like stuff you're never, ever going to use. But it's like, they just want to teach you how to carry this heavy load. And you know, those hills, they, they get you and it's week after week after week. And it's

it sucks. And some people, it's a lot of attrition, but you just get rolled back and you start over again. You know, the quickest way to get through bootcamp, the quickest way to get through SOI is you just keep going. You just keep going. Jack. So you did a month and a half of that and then you get turned over to the like specific, uh,

fast company security forces training? - School of Entry is three months. So for the first month and a half, it's all generalized. So everybody does the same thing. The last month and a half, 'cause I was an 11, that's a rifleman, you go that route. And then you have your 31s, which are machine gunners, mortar men, and they learn those individual skills.

So what was it but you were oh 311. Yes. Okay, so you so you did you did get the infantry MOS But but they slaughtered you for the different job of security forces Yep, because that's where you start and then after School of Infantry I went to Virginia and then I went to the security forces school and then how's that it's

It's unique. So it's very specialized as I was going in the fast company, like it's, it's a SWAT team as what I was told. It's a lot of specialized training. So we got to do a lot of cool stuff, but it was just another school. So it's another three months, but you're doing, you know, advanced urban combat, which was really cool. Got to go to designated marksman school. That's her, you know, mini sniper courses. Some of the platoons I wanted to go do, um,

but it was a lot of stuff. And I look back when I got to the inventory, like I'm really thankful to go to the, that, that way in that path. Cause I learned a lot more than the inventory was given people. So it was, it was a fun route. It was in Virginia. Never been to the East coast, really close to damn neck. We trained on that. So I got to see a lot of cool dudes with beers, riding golf carts around and stuff like that, which I put two and two together. Um,

But cool opportunity out there. - And so just for people that don't know, FAST company, it's Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Teams. They were only formed in like the 80s, I wanna say. - Yeah, it was in response for like embassy attacks. So that was really why they built it. And so each, there's three FAST companies out there, Alpha Bravo Charlie, and they're designated to certain parts of the world. So you're really the QRF, the Quick Reaction Force, to get sent out to those places.

Did you have any problems or anything or any challenges going through all these different schools that you got to go to? Or was it pretty straightforward? Schools are pretty straightforward. But initially trying in that first platoon, it was still that peer-to-peer that I couldn't really figure out. I kept getting slotted for leadership positions. I was a fire team leader at 18 and I'm leading a bunch of 18-year-olds and

I couldn't find the mix on being friends and being a boss. And then I learned the hard way that, you know, if you don't draw that line, then people are going to take advantage of your position. And they think that they can, you know, Cody's the boss, like I can get away with stuff. And I kind of had to learn that the hard way on like where to set the line, specifically with friends as you promote from peer to leader. Mm hmm.

So you were a little bit too nice in the beginning. I was I'd rather be liked Was the mindset was your attitude and I always say it's easier to like if you become bros first And then you have to reel that back in because you went too far That's a lot harder than hey, we're gonna be professional first and then over time the trust gets built and it's like oh Yeah, I can give you some slack and we can be bros But we all know that you know what what the scenario is as far as work goes. I

Whereas if you're just like rolling in, hey, I just want to be everyone's friend. Cool. They want to be your friend too. A lot. So then what did you guys do? So now you get, you're actually trained up. You're like, what are you going standby? Or are you on permanent standby? So we're out in Virginia. We're in Norfolk is where the, it's called Camp Allen out there. They've moved it. I think they're at Portsmouth right now, but that's like my first official unit is, I'm in first fast company, alpha company, fifth platoon. So we're eight, five, six,

So we're there, we're doing a typical workup and the deployment schedule we're supposed to go on is we're gonna go to Guantanamo Bay is where we're supposed to go. So we do this six month block of training, then we go to Guantanamo Bay, that's the first place.

That is, you know, I think three to four months and you're really just stationary security on the fence line. So you're still doing the fence line rotation where you're just up in a guard tower for, you know, 12, 15 hours a day. And you're doing that month in month out for three months. Dude, talk me through a day of sitting on a 15 hour watch sitting on a guard tower, looking at a jungle or something. You see a lot of crabs, a lot of iguanas, um,

You're hoping and praying for some Cuban asylum seekers to come across the water and approach your post, which happened a couple of times. And that was like the action that we got was, hey, I got some people moving in the water and we sent our QRF. And it's funny in the moment watching, I remember being in a tower and

you're watching the Cuban fence line and you see their post towers as well. And this group climbs up, you know, uh, a cliff and I just see him standing. There's like three of them. And I'm like, like, this is it. So we call the QRF and our QRFs, all our big dudes that come out of the Humvee. And it's like a dead 50 meter sprint to just spear these people into the ground. Cause they're like, this is the moment that we've prepared for. That was really like, these are people that are defecting. Yes. They're just, but they just, they just get, yeah.

And then eventually those, the defectors, they get taken back. We pass them up to headquarters. And then, you know, what happens after that? We don't really know. We did a lot of security at the, you know, the base in Cuba fence line to where they do some meeting and trade prisoners and stuff like that, which obviously I'm 18, 19. I don't really don't know what's going on. I just, I see a lot of things and I'm coming to like, Ooh, what are they doing in there? Jack. All right. What it was after Gitmo.

Get Moe, we come back. We train for a little bit more, and then we're going to go forward deploy to Rota, Spain. So Rota, Spain, big naval base out there, and that's where we're going to stay. And basically you're on standby in Spain for anything that's going to go on. You're on standby, but you have other mini deployments where you're going to go train with forward allies. So we train with the Royal Spanish Marines. We go train with the— And you have one platoon. One platoon. Is that right? Yes, sir. How many guys are in it?

30, 35. - So like pretty much a kind of standard platoon. - Standard platoon. It's just the fast mindset is you just have a different capability. So all of us are trained to do a bunch of different stuff. So you're operating at almost like a company. So it's 30 guys, but everybody can do a bunch of different stuff. So we go, we're all Spanish Marines. We go train with the Israeli Defense Force, which was really cool and unique. Getting to go to Israel, go to Jerusalem. You get to see the Gaza Strip and stuff like that. And training with those,

People was unique because in Israel everybody serves in the military And being there I was one of the snipers for our platoon got to train with Israeli snipers and they're all female Which that's just what they decide to do a little more low profile able to get into place and what like that But he also saw a lot of US citizens. They were US citizens, but they were fighting for the IDF which was interesting to say and

So we train with those guys, we come back, we're in Rota, and then this is September 11th, 2012. On that day, that was anniversary of 9/11 obviously, a bunch of embassies are attacked around the world.

At the time, we think it's a joke. We're doing the whole, hey, get ready, the get ready drills. We did 1,000 of those. And that night, they're like, hey, you guys are going to go down to potentially Libya in response to Ambassador Stevens getting killed. Oh, so the Benghazi thing starts unfolding and you guys are on the hook. That's actually legitimately your mission as a fast company is there's an embassy being attacked here.

That is textbook. We need to send the fast company guys down there to go and secure the embassy and provide, you know, until we can get bigger forces there. That's, that's literally what you're supposed to be doing. Yes, sir. And when you say you, so are you seeing like reports of it?

I mean, we're all in our rooms and we get the message, but we're all checking online. We have internet and stuff like that. So we're checking on the computers and seeing just all the carnage going on. But all of us are a little, I'll just speak for myself, unsure on like what we're actually gonna do. 'Cause it's the whole like, is this a game? Is this a drill? And we really didn't know.

we're gonna go pack, we're gonna go prep, we're gonna get on the plane, but we've done that a thousand times to where we actually get on the plane and then we get off like, hey, good job guys. And so nobody really knew what exactly we were doing until we actually got on the plane and we took off like, oh, this is real, like this is where we're actually gonna go. - How long did that take? 'Cause there's all kinds of, you know, debrief points on this that those guys were on the ground and

no, they didn't get any help for hours and hours and hours. And there's a lot of bureaucratic red tape that held up reinforcements from showing up at a reasonable timeline. So like how long did it take for you guys to actually leave?

It was a classic hurry up and wait. So obviously at the time I'm a, you know, I'm an E3, I'm a fire team leader. I'm in charge of three guys. So I have like three layers up in the chain of command trying to get information from. So we get all our gear prep, which is probably a couple hours. We head to the tarmac. We prep all that stuff. We have to palletize. We're bringing everything with us. That takes a couple more hours and eventually we leave. So I would say probably 10 to 12 hours is what it took to get down there.

That shit's crazy. So you've already seen the reports of the deaths. Yeah, we're seeing the videos, the classic, the picture that's always shown. It's, you know, the burning embassy and the guys kind of running around. Yeah, you got Ambassador Stevens was killed. An information officer named Sean Smith was killed. A guy named Ty Woods, who was a former SEAL who I went through buds with, he was in my buds class, he was killed. And then Glenn Daugherty, another SEAL, was killed.

And all that took place pretty rapidly. And they didn't get the support that they needed. You know, again, this has been kind of debriefed ad nauseum. It's interesting to hear your perspective being there, how quickly you could have gone and how much you how long you had to wait to actually leave. What what was it like when you got on the ground? You finally get on the ground down there.

Well, flying over. And I think what took the longest is whoever was overseeing this whole thing didn't know who to send. So I know there was a Mew in the area. I know even talking to some guys on the front team that they were potentially going to go down there as well. So there was like probably five different units that had the potential to go. And for whatever reason, we got the call. So I think that's what delayed us initially.

On the flight there, there was still just mass confusion. So we really didn't know what we're getting into, where we were going. We couldn't figure out if we were going to be full kit or wearing low vis there. Like we changed out probably five or six times just because it was just frantic. Like we don't know what to do. And obviously this game of telephone gets down to the troops and we're like, what the hell are we even doing? So that was a little frustrating. Yeah, it's.

That's what happens when you have a foggy chain of command, you know, and there's always a little tension between like the State Department and the military. And...

it's just very, very challenging. And if you don't have people that have experience to be like, oh, we got a problem, here's what we need to do. Just the little debate that you just brought up of, should we wear plain clothes or should we wear our combat uniforms? Dude, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. Like, it doesn't really matter. Like, as if Cody Gandy rolls into freaking Libya and people are like, oh, uh,

Is he a local? Like a freaking six foot one white dude with blonde hair and blue eyes. There's no one's like, oh yeah, he must just be a local, just out on a daily walk. And he's in shape and he's wearing freaking 5'11 pants.

Oakley sunglasses. It's just bullshit. And they're like, oh, we might want to go low this. Who are you going to fool? Who are you fooling? You're not fooling anybody. But bureaucrats will get caught up in this kind of thing. They'll get caught up in things that don't matter. What matters is we have people on the ground that are being attacked and we need to provide them reinforcements right now. We should have them overhead assets in minutes, like 20 minutes to get...

Overhead assets there and we should have other ground troops there. This is not a big area of the world This is like where were you in Rota? That's not a that's not a far flight. This isn't a 12-hour flight This is this is should be happened so much more rapidly but the bureaucratic people and there's also a lot of risk aversion because

Well, if the embassy is under attack, what if the attack increases and now we send more guys and now they're in trouble too? Maybe more guys get killed. I don't want to take that risk. It's like, no, wrong answer. This is America. We have an embassy in trouble. We go and we secure that embassy, period, end of story. By the way, we have the air assets above to keep the people on the ground relatively safe in most situations.

So you finally, where do you land? The airport in Tripoli or something like this? Yeah, we land up there. We deload all our stuff and we have these, we're working with the Department of State, which I didn't really know until actually we got there and kind of figured out what we're doing. But we land and there's just these souped up SUVs and you're talking bulletproof windows. You got the ability to put like a,

M240 in the back and pin out the window and it's just all this high speed vehicles that land there. And so we load all the stuff and we head to this main site, which at least my interpretation at the time was this was a designated spot where they're gonna rebuild the embassy. So the Benghazi embassy, it's gone. It's destroyed. You can see the pictures online.

And so they designated this new area close to the embassy where we're going to reconvene. Because you have all these people at the embassy where they have nowhere to go. And so the Department of State, I believe, set up this new satellite place and that's where we were going to go.

So we rolled in and it's just, you know, it's just pandemonium. It's just crazy. We're just, you know, crashing into cars, trying to get there. Like just whatever you can think of the car. And it's like, we're just trying to get there as fast as we can. Cause you know, at 19, I'm like, what's going to be there when I get there is, is the mindset. And you let an 18 year old drive this, you know, indestructible vehicle in the city, they're going to do whatever they want. So yeah.

We drive there, you know, there's just 35 of us. So we break up into teams. We eventually get there and it's very anticlimactic on the arrival. The whole debate on low-vis, full K, like to your point, it didn't freaking matter because we got there. It's super dark. We're clearing these buildings, which have already been cleared like before we got there. Eventually we link up with the Department of State and now we're just, hey, we need to immediately set security while everybody reconvenes to our location. So that was the initial, you know, on the ground. The first thing that we do is we get to this new satellite campus and

Everybody reconvenes at our location. And now we're just, we're going to hold fast while they rebuild the embassy here. There. That was, that was the mission is embassy's gone. This is going to be the new location for the embassy. Did, well, so they just secured some, you guys secured some buildings, some random buildings in a compound that have a wall around it. Was it even? No, just sucked. So that was part of the mission was you have to be the security while they build the wall. Sun comes up. What's the, are you guys anticipating like, Hey, we're going to get attacked when the sun comes up or there's a lot of really think through that.

I mean, that's what we're hoping for at the moment. But, um, obviously like my perspective at the time is there's only 30 of us. And so really the ROEs are very strict because you know, in our minds, like the help's not coming. So if you do anything dumb, shoot, like we're fucked is what's going to happen. So very strict on what we're supposed to do. Um,

Sun comes up, there's a lot of Intel reports on like people are moving towards the area and we hear all these potential riots and gathering the stuff like that. And, you know, the ROEs it's, everything's gotta be non-lethal is, is the course of action just to not stir anything up. But, you know, for the three months that we were there, it was all just, you know, smokes and mirrors on, on what's actually happened. It was all this, what ifs, what's going to happen, but it was very stagnant and just, Hey, we're going to hold it down while they rebuild the embassy here. So then how many days do you end up on, on the ground there?

- We got there, you know, September 12th in the morning and we stayed right before Christmas. - Okay, so you were on the ground for a while. Did anybody ever attack you guys? - No, you had people kind of approach the perimeter and you're sending non-lethal, you know, the, what are those like, the riot grenades. - Yeah, yeah, the crash grenades. - Yeah, the Stinger, I can't remember what they're called, but those fun things. You have your VCPs and ECPs of people coming in, coming out.

You had some people there, some tier one guys with beers. We don't know what they were doing. That would bring people in and interrogate them and we would hold security while they interrogated in the building and stuff like that. But that was really the extent of it.

What was the were you guys eating MREs or did you guys quickly get supply of local food or something initially? It was MREs. We brought all that we brought all the water But eventually they set up in one of the buildings like a you know a place where they could cook for us and stuff like that So we split into two satellite places so we broke the platoon in half So it was really 15 and 15 so it was small enough to where we could feasibly do that um

any major lessons learned that you brought home from that? And how did that, I'll ask you that question first. - Biggest lesson learned was just information itself and how powerful it can be. So part of like the flight over and everything was there was just this constant theme of unknown and that unknown caused a lot of panic and craziness. And actually, Sean Glass, who you just had on again for the second time, I just worked with him up at NYPD.

And he was talking about, you know, during training, they were trying to see what stressed out the seals the most. And when it would be in the most stressful thing was just standing on the outside of the door, going into the building, that unknown factor is what stressed people out the most. And I saw that in real time at 18 and 19 and how information can help mitigate that unknown. But oftentimes as leaders, we withhold or our team doesn't need to know, or I don't even know myself and we don't tell people.

which ends up, you know, that gets down to the troops and they're coming to that worst case scenario on their own on like, Hey, my boss is stupid. They don't know what's going on. Like we shouldn't really be here. Like all that can come from not just sharing vital information. So from that, you know, deployment in itself, I figured if I was in a position, whether it was a fire team leader, squad leader, platoon sergeant, if I had the ability to share insights or information that could help bridge the gap between the chain of command or keep the troops involved is what I wanted to do. Yeah. Yeah. That's important. You know,

The idea that the high level of stress comes before you enter the door, right? That's like such factual. I can imagine that they got guys with heart rate monitors and sweat monitors and we're watching them like, oh, here they come. They're coming to the door and it's peaking out. And now that once they go in the room, it's like everything calms down. They start to understand what's happening. I think that I have been conditioned

in like every aspect of my life to open the door. But like, I don't, I don't like that unknown just like most people don't. But I think, I think at a certain point you realize, I realized it's better just to open that freaking door and go handle whatever's in there. That's much more, uh,

That's much easier to deal with then I'm gonna stand here and ponder how terrible this could be and the reason that's in a small scale is like Oh, I don't know what's in this room. I'm gonna open the door we're going in but on a bigger scale is like what you with through in Benghazi like hey, I

We haven't, we don't know what's happening on the ground. We've got forces that we could send. And instead of going, send people there, just kick open the door. In this case, it's, you know, send another force. But that mentality, especially again, from like people that haven't been in combat, people that are bureaucratic types, they're trying to figure everything out from the outside.

The answer is in the freaking room. The answer is on the ground. The answer, when there's a problem with a business or there's a problem with a situation, the answer is like, oh, go open the door and see what's happening. And when you don't open the door and see what's happening, you're going to sit outside and not understand it completely. And then you're going to, in a worst case scenario, you're going to get more and more nervous and worried and anxious.

Paranoid about what's going on and it's gonna cause more and more problems and it's gonna cause you to hesitate more and more Which caused the things to get worse? So freakin go, you know, that's my long way of saying go go just go and we were on this op and we were We had a we had like a sniper element or not a sniper element. Yeah, we had a little sniper element We were gonna we were hitting a village

with like, I don't know, four or five little, it's like a little market, right? But it was in a more rural area north of Ramadi. And

So we had an Overwatch team in watching this. And then I forget exactly what happened, but we were all the assault force. We were at not even a combat outpost. It was just like a little forward, like little staging platoon plus army guys that had a little hooch basically set up. They had like one building. And so we're staged there with them. And we're waiting for our snipers to give us some intel and tell us what's going on. And all of a sudden like shooting starts. And...

I'm like, mount up, we're going. And that's it. Like, just like that. There was no, you know, I'm sure we got some radio calls on the way in there, but it wasn't like, wait a second, what is happening? We need to know what's going on. Like, no, we'll find out on the way. And if we don't find out on the way, we'll find out when we show up there. I know that my snipers aren't going to shoot dudes in Humvees. You know, they're not going to shoot the dudes in Humvees that have Punisher skulls on their chest. They're not, we're not going to, that's not going to happen. So we're going to roll and then we'll find out what's going on.

But that that's years of conditioning of like, oh, there's something bad going on. Let me go figure it out. Let's go in there because it's only going to get worse. And I will understand more and see more when I get on the ground and when I see what's happening. So that's a really good point. And then what you said is we are all responsible for conveying information up, down and across the chain of command. And the more you can tell your troops what's going on.

the better they're gonna understand, 'cause things can be happening with the troops where they don't know why this is happening. And like if this situation that you were in, if you expand that over time, where luckily for you, it was done in 12 hours, you guys didn't have the time that it takes to truly formulate the crazy rumors that can happen, and that's what happens. So when we keep the troops isolated,

from what's going on, quote unquote, behind the scenes. It shouldn't be behind the scenes. It just is. Well, then they're going to be like, oh, okay, hold on. Why are we making this decision? And this did happen in Ramadi for us, where we had some guys that were like in the planning space, like whether it was the point man, whether it was the lead sniper, whether it was the breacher, they're kind of like understanding what's happening or...

The assistant platoon commanders or the platoon commanders, they're going to the brigade meeting. They're going to the battalion meeting with me. I'm at the brigade meeting once or twice a week. I know everything that's going on. But does one of my new guy 60 gunners know exactly? No, dude. You know what he's getting told? Hey, get jocked up. You're going again. Hey, get jocked up. You're going again. Hey, get jocked up. You're going again. Eventually, some of them are like, wait a second. Why? Where are we going? And why are we going there?

So to your point, to say like, hey, here's what's happening. Here's what's happening at a strategic level, an operational level, and here's the tactical level that we're about to go execute on. That is how you prevent people from getting spun off into the rumor mill, the craziness, which is absolutely terrible because the rumors that they make up are not going to be good. They are not going to be good. They're going to be, you know, it's going to be that, you know,

Who knows? You know what? They don't want to send us. They don't want to send us from Rota because, you know, then you make up your craziest explanation because everyone that's they think everyone that's going to go there is going to die. It's like and then what happens when two hours later, you're going, we're all going to die. So good stuff. And you spend so like three months there on the ground.

Yeah, just over. September, October, November. Yeah, December. You get done with that. How's it coming home from that? It's good. We got ripped out by another unit. So another unit stayed there. The embassy wasn't complete. They got a lot of the walls up and stuff like that, which was good. So we got ripped out by, I think somebody came from the MEU or another security forces element that came and relieved us. But yeah,

We went back and then from there, that was really the end of the security forces tour for me. So that was about the two year mark that I finished. And then from there, you're going to get to go to the fleet. You're going to, it's what I, what I signed up to do is going to take me two years to get there.

And where'd you end up getting stationed? So there was, there was three places that we were going to go. So ring core gets what the ring core wants. It's just how it works. We were either going to go to Lejeune or 29 palms or to Hawaii. Those are the three places. When you say we, who are you talking about? The platoon in itself. Cause everybody's going out there to,

To some unit. So all 35 of us are going to go out. So they disband the whole thing? Yep. Damn, okay. And they break up majority of the platoon into Lejeune and 29 Palms, and they send all the NCOs to Hawaii. So I got promoted to E4 while in Libya, and there was like, I think, four or five of us of the platoon that were NCOs. So us stuck together. We all went to Hawaii together. Hell yeah.

- We approve of that, Echo Charles. So are you a squad leader now that you got promoted? - I finished, yeah, right before I left Virginia, like the platoon is disbanding so I get promoted to the squad leader billet before I leave so I'm holding that billet for a couple months which that just elevates me from in charge of four to in charge of 12 now, I'm in charge of three teams so trying to figure that out and then when I arrive on the island of Hawaii, I'm part of two, three now, I immediately get thrown into a squad leader position. - That's awesome.

So that was fun. Hawaii was a- Now, were they looking at you like, oh, dude, you came from Fast Company. You don't know what it's like down here on the front lines with the grunts. Or is it like, oh, this guy came from Fast Company. He's got some experience. Like, what's their attitude? My-

My team was still deployed. They were, I think, in Okinawa at the time. And so when I immediately landed, I immediately went to school. So I went to the advanced infantry course, which is our infantry course, leadership course. The first leadership course I ever went to was like three years in after I already had all these iterations of leading. So I immediately go to this new school, which gave me a leg up. Where was that school? It was in Hawaii. And how was it? It was pretty brutal. How long is it?

- It's probably two or three months. And it's all field work. So you get to operate as a platoon sergeant, you get to operate as a platoon commander, you're writing mission orders, you're doing offense, defense, you're doing urban, and you're in charge, you're the platoon commander running that whole thing, which was really cool. It gave me a lot of perspective on what officers deal with, that whole, 'cause I sit there and I'm like, oh, Jocko's writing an order, that should be prepared easy, but when you gotta write an order on a weekend and it frickin' sucks and you gotta handwrite it, you don't get to type it, you have to handwrite two copies

It gives you a lot of perspective on what's going on. So I learned a lot there. It was a very tough and grueling school. A lot of people, they self-select out or they just don't get along with the instructors 'cause majority of us are NCOs and there's sergeants and staff sergeants leading us and there's just a lot of head-butting going on, but it was fun. Most physical school I've been to, the only-- - Or just humping? - Yeah, they got some hills out on Oahu. There's this route we take called the Devil's Backbone.

which is probably the hardest physical thing I've ever done. And we're hiking, you know, a hundred pound packs. It's like 12 miles uphill both ways. Somehow they're gassing us while we're out there. Like it just sucks. It was the only time I've ever, you know, not stayed with the instructor from a PT standpoint. It just was, it was intense, but it was fun. I loved it. I love being able to be in those roles. And I think when I was in the school, I was in charge of two different iterations. I was in charge of a defense and,

which I failed that iteration. 'Cause you learn how you have to lean on other people. 'Cause I may be the platoon sergeant, platoon commander, but I have to appoint a nav man and a guy that's built a terrain model and all these different pieces. And you can do great, but the team could fail. And guess what? You're still gonna fail. So I failed the defense. I put us on a elevated piece of terrain, but basically in rock.

And so the guys could not dig in and we got attacked and we did not do well. And so once you got out, did you, did you select the terrain while you were out there? Did you select the terrain prior to getting out to the location?

It's basically en route. So en route. But once you got there, you're like, all right, there's rocks here. We should move. It was probably like two. Once I got like two feet down, then we started hit that bedrock. And then it was like, it's too late. Dark's coming. Like we're already here. Like figure it out. And then are they, do you get attacked? Yeah. And what are they using? Miles gears or paintball? No. At that point where he's still using blanks.

but with no laser indicators or anything. But so it's just the instructors are kind of judging. Yeah. And you get, you get evaled, you get peer evaled on what's going on. And so I failed that iteration, which was humbling for me because I never really failed anything in the Marine Corps. I was always elevated even from bootcamp to number one and every place I went, I was like the first person promoted or in charge. And so it was very humbling for me because I,

I thought I did great. And then I failed. And if you fail twice on anything, whether it's when you're in charge of platoon or, you know, assembling any piece of gear or, uh, um, calling for bombs and stuff like if you fail twice on anything, you could drop from the course. And so I failed that. How early was that in the course?

That was probably about halfway through. And so I knew I was going to get another chance, but I didn't know what I was going to get. And luckily I got, you know, urban. So I got to plan an attack on a city, which coming from fast company, that gave me a leg up. Cause in the traditional infantry, you don't get that training. I went through, we call it AUC, CQB, advanced urban combat down in Norfolk. And that was three months where I learned how to clear buildings. And there's some high speed stuff out there. When we went to Israel, which was probably,

the greatest mountain town I've ever been to was a gigantic city. So I had a lot of experience in urban combat from training standpoint. So I had a leg up there and I crushed that second iteration being in charge just because I had that experience in place. How long is that whole school?

It was probably like two and a half, three months. And now you feel pretty good getting out of that thing. I mean, that sounds like awesome training. That was probably the best training I went through from a learning perspective. And now your battalion, 2-3, they were on deployment and now they're coming back? They're coming back. People are leaving. People are getting out. And then I get transitioned to a platoon. And you're ready to rock and roll? I'm ready. I've been waiting. Because not only do I go to AUC, but I go through...

Our water survival course, which is, I think, the more challenging course from an attrition rate in the Marine Corps. It's called MCWIS, Marine Corps Instructor of Water Survival. I think we, like, 100 people tried out. We had, like, 30. We graduated with eight. Damn. It's just three months of swimming, which I'm not really a good swimmer. I'm just too dumb to quit. This is what ended up happening. Plus, I'm in Hawaii, so the water's not that cold. So I went through all this schooling, which was great, which gave me a leg up. And after I got to platoon, it really kind of got...

welcome with open arms just cause I had this experience. The fast guys that came in before had a good reputation. Some of the other security forces that were at like the new bases, they didn't have that good reputation and they didn't get the training that we got to. So we were kind of seen as like these assets that we could utilize. So that was nice for me. And then are you starting to work up basically when they show up? So they show up and then you're going on that, um, nine month workup before we deploy again. And how's the workup?

Workups good. So in Hawaii, you go to the big Island to train. We call it, I think it's Island Viper. It's actually gets pretty cold out there. You're working on lava rock, which is its own fricking beast to try to deal with and move on that terrain.

You go down to Pendleton to get certified down there. Or so you go down to 29 Palms to get certified, which is very similar to like the FTXs that we always talk about. That's like the culmination. It's the names changed over the years, but after your workup, you go down to 29 Palms to make sure that you can deploy. So they have these cadre down there called coyotes and whether it's called ITX or CACs, they've changed it over the years.

for about a month and a half, you're getting certified by the Marine Corps to make sure you can deploy. And that was really like the first test as a unit on like, Hey, are you guys good to go? Which we're being told we're going to Okinawa, which the guys aren't really thrilled about that. Um, you have a bunch of guys that signed up for four year contracts and in a four year contract as a Oh three, you really get one deployment. You get two if you're lucky. So these guys is one deployment. They're going to Okinawa. So that was tough to deal with because it's not the mission that they wanted. So keeping them on task or trying to motivate them when it's their

they're going to do something they don't want to do where they see all these other teams that are still over in Afghanistan and stuff like that. It was tricky to navigate, but that final iteration was pretty cool to see the team come together and work as a cohesive unit. And you're doing platoon and company and battalion size, you know, operations, which was really cool. And eventually we get certified before we head over to Okinawa. Any other, any major challenges during that? I think in that space, uh,

One of the constant themes throughout the Marine Corps has been, you know, people wanting to take their lives. In boot camp, we had a guy try to commit suicide in SOI. We probably had several guys try to commit suicide. And there's all, there's this really negative mindset in the military towards that guys that try to commit suicide. It's a coward's way out or, you know, why didn't they ask for help? And I remember being young and when people don't succeed at taking their life, they get put on suicide watch. I'm sure you know what suicide watch is. You get

Echo tries to commit suicide. And so at night, there's gonna be four people that watch you. And you know, I don't get to sleep. Now I just have to watch you, which frustrates me a little bit. So they have this negative mindset towards this. And so this continues to happen throughout my time in the Marine Corps is guys just consistently try to commit suicide for whatever rhyme or reason. And one of the lessons I learned out at two, three was, you know, the power of relationships in itself. I had this Marine, uh,

uh that was in our company that was you know doing the wrong thing he popped on a drug test and uh i basically was one of the guys i got tasked with you know getting back to the speed as you know you pop on a drug test you're getting kicked out of the military but i spent a lot of time with him you know he got put on restriction which means you can't leave base you can't change out of uniform it's like your life sucks and i spent a lot of time with this marine um but i don't really i

for lack of a better phrase, don't really care about what's going on. Like it's taken away from my team. Like why would I prioritize this person when he, you know, he wants to get out, he doesn't want to be with us. And, you know, fast forward a little bit, this guy tries to commit suicide. And this one I was relatively a part of to where we're looking for him, we can't find him.

He's in the barracks, we break down the door and he tried to hang himself. And the team got there just in the sake of time to cut him down and resuscitate him on scene. And I remember after the fact, obviously there's an investigation on what's going on from the head shed and a lot of questions are getting asked on who was with this person at this time or who spent time with this person here. And a lot of fingers indirectly pointed toward me and the time I spent with him.

And I started to think on the role that I played in the situation on, you know, I potentially could have helped this person not make this decision by simply being there for him. And I really undervalued relationships specifically in the Marine Corps, because I couldn't wrap my mind around, I'm gonna be with Jocko for two years. Like, why should I spend time with him? He's gonna get out, he's gonna move on.

there's somebody else out there. Um, or there were, there's more people that are higher priority. And so that really was a harsh reality for me on like, you have to take time to know the team. You have to get to know them, not just on a professional level, but a personal level of like, like things matter and what's happening at home and why he made that decision. I potentially could have uncovered that, you know, saved him from making that decision. Cause that, that mental health piece, as you know, in the veteran community, it's a, it's a real thing. Um, there's this, this, uh,

it's not a survey, but it's basically a graph on the amount of suicides in the last 20 years, the 20 year war, right? It's, it's around 140,000 suicides in 20 years from the, from the military. And that same 20 years, it's roughly like 6,600 that were killed in action, like 6,600 versus 140,000. Like that's the difference between killed in action and suicides. And it's,

you know, after that fact, I really told myself that, you know, in life in general, whether it was in the military, when I got a family or I joined a team, like relationships was going to be thing I focused on most in life, because you never know when somebody is going to need your help. And if you don't have that relationship, they're not going to ask.

So that was one of the biggest lessons in that two, three before we left. Didn't that when you had that AT4 accident too? I did have that as well. What happened with that? So this was a lesson on complacency. Complacency is a real thing. Complacency is typically a matter of time if you allow it. We were training up at I think the Air Force Base or the Army Base on Hawaii because all the branches are up there.

and we're running an AT4 live fire range. So we're there for about a week, we're getting guys certified. This is before we go down to 29 Palms to get our final check. And I'm there as a RSO, a range safety officer. So I don't even get to participate, I'm just checking boxes, making sure guys are safe. And about end of the week, Friday, we're still certifying guys, and one of the guys comes up to the line, and we're just rushing guys through, we need to check the boxes. For whatever reason, still don't know,

Before he shot, he started to arc his AT4 towards the sky. And as you know, there's a back blast to the AT4. It's pretty nasty. Well, as he aimed towards the sky, the back blast went directly into the ground and ricocheted at a 45, then hit me where I was standing offset. So I was taking a knee watching. I just remember the blast and I just remember going down.

And I don't really know what happened. I come to a couple seconds later and it's just, you know, my ears are ringing. I can't see. I touch my face. I turn my flashlight on and there's blood and I know something's wrong. So as he pulled the trigger, blast goes into the ground. That blast has to go somewhere. Just offsets at that 45 and that debris and that blast, it hits me right in the face.

Hits me in my right eye. I walk up to our lieutenant who's overseeing the range and I was like, sir, I don't know what happened, but something's wrong. And I just remember him shining the flashlight at my face and seeing his face told me everything that I needed to know. - This ain't good. - I was like, it's an oh shit moment. But to see everything play out after the fact,

We trained for that. You know when the SEAL teams are like, you train for things like that. I can't tell you how many times we ran a nine line or a casualty. It was seamless. And in the moment, ironically, the only thing I was worried about was my kit and where it was gonna go. I had all my stuff and one of the guys that helps me at Echelon Front on the FTX, his name's Joe. I was like, hey man, here's my gear. Please take care of it. Don't lose it. That's all I was worried about. He's like, dude, don't worry about this. Just go.

And so we go see the doctor on site there that's overseeing the range and you know, loss of life, potential loss of life, eyesight or limb, like you get medevaced out. And so we fly from, I think the north side of the island down to Pearl Harbor down south. And I'm a bit of a mess. I'm concussed. And unfortunately for the citizens of Hawaii, I'm throwing up on the chopper.

outside the chopper. So if somebody is listening and they reflect on the moment, that was me. Cause I was not feeling too hot on that bird. Eventually we get to the doctor and checks me out and, you know, half step left, half step right. You know, I still can't see that well in my right eye. I'm missing some part of my eyelid there, but you know, grace of God, I just came away a little winged. Then you guys go on deployment.

Then we go to Okinawa. And what are you doing when you get to Okinawa? Like what's your, what's your, what's the mission of the team?

You're continuing to build a relationship out there. Obviously we're stationed out there. There's two bases. There's camp Hanson and camp Schwab. Those are the two sites there. There's a unit that's permanently stationed out there as well. So you're there, you're doing a lot of iterations with the local forces there. You get to go do some of the Island stuff. So we went and trained with the Republic of Korea Marines, which was fun and fascinating to see how they train and lead and stuff like that. But what differences did you say?

Because, I mean, the Korean military has a... The South Korean military has a freaking outstanding reputation from the Korean War, from the Vietnam War. And not just an outstanding reputation. Let me quantify that a little bit more. Like their beasts. Like they're brutal. They get after it in a big way. You know, a lot of the...

Even throughout history like we joke about the kinder gentler military that we have, you know now But America has always been somewhat kinder gentler than a lot of other militaries. So How was how was the Koreans?

They're pretty strict. They're pretty crazy. They're small, but they're mighty. We had some of our teams do some snow packages with them, which is terrible. Like I hate the cold and the cranes would get out there like in the middle of the morning, just no shirts on getting PT in the snow and like watching them train and watching them fight and then kind of introducing to their cultures and we're switching food and stuff like that. It was a really good experience because I was a squad leader at the time. So I got paired up with one of their squad leaders. So we're sharing insights. We're teaching them. You speak English?

- Enough. - Yeah. - Enough to get along. We know what each other are trying to do. And so a lot of, we're like clearing houses together with them. - Awesome. - Which there's that language barrier and stuff like that, but it's fun. And I get to learn just a different way to lead. There's some compassion there. They really care for other people. It's a different military, but it's all just leadership that I'm trying to take in. And throughout my time in life, I've really been aware of how other people lead.

you can't be an eye even just be watching what other people do. Like I'm always fascinated how other people treat each other. And I learned a lot on what not to do. And I learned a lot of what to do. What'd you learn what not to do on that one?

What not to do was the frontal direct assault on people, which coming from the Marine Corps and I've been quiet, but the Marine Corps, you can't be quiet. And the Marine Corps, I love the Marine Corps, very rock, paper, rank organization, meaning I'm in charge of you, so guess what? It's your fault, it's your problem.

The problem with being direct is initially I was fascinated because it worked right. Cause I can use threats and I can use consequences and ultimately like it gets things done. Like if I, Hey Jocko, you're going to do this or else like, guess what? Typically you're going to do it, but at what cost? So it's this, you know, tactical victory, strategic loser, as we all talk about. So, um,

I learned eventually from that watching other people and then towards the end of my career that I was rubbing people the wrong way. I thought I was doing great, I was getting things done, but I found like people didn't want to work with me or work for me because of how I handled things. And so this direct frontal assault was something that I could not utilize. There's a time and place for it, but it's one, two, 3% of the time. Majority of the time it's that indirect approach as we talk about. So that was...

humbling for me because at the time I thought I was doing everything right because that's what I saw a lot of people do was it's direct like and I just see people get yelled at and they're like oh like that's how you get things done but then that person rarely is leaving they're like thank you so much for that wisdom that you imparted on me so that was a yeah

Big lesson learned. Dude, I got so lucky in my second platoon going from my platoon commander that got fired to Delta Charlie, who was awesome. And it was just this such a contrast in two days. We went from like a guy that's yelling and screaming and imposing everything on us. And we get him fired. We have the big mutiny. We get him fired. And then Delta Charlie comes in and takes over. And it's just like, dude, just as awesome and humble as you could ever hope for.

indirect to the point where it's like, I don't even think he, if I was to guess, and I said, hey, you know, Delta Charlie, did you use the indirect approach with us? He'd be like, I'm not sure what that is. I figured you guys would have the best ideas. You know what I mean? It's like what he believed. It was so good. And man, I got so lucky in having that because it's very hard to learn stuff. And a lot of times what happens is you learn things

you get a lot of your DNA from your first platoon and your first leadership. So if you've got a guy that's yelling and screaming to you, and like you said, guess what? It worked. We all did it. We all, you know, and by the way, there's also, I had another guy that was a master chief that was a brow beater.

Meaning you come up with your little idea echo Charles But the belittling that you would get before you really even presented the idea was so bad. You're just like I don't it's I'm not and rather not do this. You know, I mean think I'm a grown man. I'm like 22 year old grown man and You know, I'd see him talking a bit dude. I don't want none of that. I don't want I'm not I'm not down for this like whatever he he's he's a master

Master browbeater and then as I became friends with that guy, of course form a relationship with him I figured that out but then you get older you like dude you'd see someone Step into his line of wrath. You just be like dude. There's nothing I could do for you like echo You're my friend you I ain't got nothing for you. You know, it's game over for you, dude. I'm sorry so and learning again like you said then seeing how people are

They might submit to him in the moment because there's no choice. It's a freaking seal Master Chief. Like, what are you going to like? You're screwed. You're an E4. Like, you literally have no give 0% chance of survival. Like, it's not happening. And so they submit. But the problem is those people, they just remember that and they're not giving their best work and they end up leaving. They go to different teams and it's just terrible.

So yeah, those are such important lessons to learn. And if you don't learn them, they'll come back and bite you. And I try and imagine like young Cody, in my opinion, if I was to guess, you'd be like, hey, this is what we're doing today, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like totally professional, totally squared away,

but with a little lack of connection, you know, and a little lack of feedback, and a little lack of like giving ownership away because you're squared away, you know what to do, here's the plan, let's go execute it. You're just a matter of fact kind of guy. And I imagine when you were 21, 23,

the matter of fact was a little bit more matter and a little bit more fact. So was there some incidents that you remember? Was there an individual that you worked for that was like a yeller or a screamer or something like that? How did you, what made you see the light?

So for me, it was, you know, we would do peer evals on, you know, where people stood in the platoon. And I started to get some anonymous, not so anonymous feedback on, you know, how I was leading. And I started to really reflect and look back, you know, when I was subordinate on like how I viewed my leadership. And, you know, there's definitely people in my life that I didn't want to be like.

And as I got older and I started to get a squad leader and eventually I got thrown into a platoon sergeant role, I didn't want to be somebody that people didn't want to be like. I wanted to be someone that they're like, I want to be like him. I didn't want to be the name like, don't be like Sergeant Gandy. I didn't want to be that person. And I was trending in that direction just on how I handle myself. And I could see the writing on the wall from some of the

anonymous feedback, but also just how like how the troops were receiving what I was saying is like, I would give them a command or an order and like, just to see, you could like, you could just see it like the culture, the look. And you know, I would, I have some good guys that would come talk to me. I'm like, Hey man, like you can't do that. You can't say that. And also I was the youngest squad leader and I had a lot of, you know,

senior veteran squad leaders that were, you know, coaching me and teach me and stuff like that. So really at the end of the day, I just reflecting on, you know, the time that I was in, I didn't want to be a name that people didn't want to be like, or like, man, that Sergeant Ganey, like I want people like, yes, that's somebody you want to be like, or learn from him, not don't learn from him. So that's a huge, um,

That's very lucky because like I said, a lot of people, they see Sergeant Gandy and he's yelling and screaming. And I literally, I'm one of your freaking Lance Corporals and I hate it, but I emulate it. You know what I mean? It's like the chain of abuse, right? I beat up my kid. So then my kid hates it. But what does he do? Beats up his kid. And instead of breaking the chain and being like, oh, I remember how terrible it was to be treated like that. And I think that's where I got very lucky because I

I had that two days. I saw it went from one extreme to the other extreme in two days. And I was only, how old was I? This was like 1993. So I was like 22. So otherwise, if it would have been a gradual change

Like, oh, we work for this guy, he's a jerk for a year. And then you come home, you go on post-deployment leave, then you get another guy. And that guy that comes in, he's gonna take a little while to establish, but it's all compressed. So it's like, terrible leader, freaking best leader in two days. And I think that helped me so much because it made me go, oh, wow, it's so obvious. It wasn't like, oh, that guy was a dick, but this guy's cool over a long period of time. It was like, oh, no, this guy's freaking terrible and this guy's awesome. So...

recognizing that you shouldn't be the guy that you literally didn't like as opposed to oh this guy hated him but you know what it was it worked I still had to do what he said so I'm gonna be the act the same way it's just um it's a little trap you can get caught in a little trap gotta watch out for that one uh and now at this point you're you're are you coming up on your your time in the Marine Corps

- Yeah, so after we get back from that deployment, so down to Okinawa and then Korea, so we come back and then I'm probably at like four and some change and

people get out, people do that thing. And I'm told that, hey, this unit's gonna go back again to the same rotation. And when I heard that really the writing was on the wall, it's not, Okinawa was great, but it's not what I signed up to do. So when that moment came, that was when I was, I wanted to get out. I had the opportunity to get out early, but I really wanted to stay and pay back to the troops and be a part of the platoon.

A lot of people, they call it FAP, which is basically you go serve another billet outside the platoon. People took that route because they just didn't want to go do another workout. But I really wanted to stay and help my guys, set them up for success. Again, kind of the legacy play on let's set the team up for success, not for failure. So I decided to stay in and help them. And as they deployed, that's when I got out. So right as they deployed, you got out? Yes, sir. And what was your plan? My plan was to go to school and then go into law enforcement.

Did you save up money while you were in? Are you just gonna use the GI? Hey, we are learning some lessons but not others. - The running joke is I got out with $5 and a hangover. - Yeah, check. That's crazy. It's crazy. What's crazy is you make decent money in the military and you have really low expenses. But I'll tell you what, you find some expenses. You find some expenses at,

2300 on a Friday night is where you find your expenses I was even living off base I had

barracks, but I chose to live off base and pay because why not? Yeah, because you're the richest guy in the world. And the other thing is you get used to that. That paycheck's coming, dude. Paycheck's going in there two weeks. Doesn't matter if you're on leave. Doesn't matter if you're working, not working. Doesn't matter. You're getting a paycheck. So you get used to that thing. So you had a brilliant financial plan when you got out. You had next to no money, but you're going to get the GI Bill. You were counting on that.

I wouldn't have gone to school if I didn't get the GI bill and part of, as I mentioned earlier, law enforcement, certain ranks. So as you get up and you get some on your collar, you need a degree to get that done. So I was like,

I had a buddy that I served with, he was the only guy I stayed with the whole five years. He was from Texas, I'm from California, so I was like, let's go to school in Arizona together. So, moved to Arizona, I was like, what's the quickest degree that I can get? So I got a communications degree in about two years. I did it all online, I did one class a semester, which was like that five hour Wednesday night class to check the box on the GI Bill.

My run and mate lasted like three months as he tried to take like advanced Mandarin and was like, hey, this sucks. I can't do it. He ended up going contracting. So I was stuck there by myself, met my wife out in Arizona and then graduated in 2017. But were you still in school when you started coming around EF? No. So you did graduate. I graduated in the spring of 2017 and

we had our first son me my wife paige had our first son bear my wife was pregnant again as we had back-to-backs and then the fall of 2017 yeah um i got a call from my sister that my parents were getting divorced um and so i decided to move back home to try to help that situation so your parents have been married for a very long time 30 something years or something like that it was yeah right around there

and they're getting divorced. So now you head back, back home. - Yeah, so my-- - Bring your wife with you? - Yeah, so my sister calls me in the fall, like at 2:00 a.m. and she's like, "Hey, we caught dad cheating on mom. "You need to move back home." And so,

I have this decision to make. I kind of have my life figured out and this is a moment where things are going to change. And so we uproot, I take my wife. I was like, Hey, we're gonna move back in with my mom and my sister. Uh, we moved back home with them, which was pretty humbling at, you know, 26 years old to move back in with my mom. I, I kicked my dad out, you know, as much as I'm not an emotional person, I tell my dad like, Hey, if you don't fix this, like you're never seeing your grandkids again is how I handled it in the moment. So move back in with my mom. Uh,

at a low point in my life, right? I think getting out of the building. - And what are you doing for a job? - Yeah, so I think, you know, the world owes me everything for my great service to this country, right? And I find myself struggling on what to do. I'm trying to get into law enforcement, it's taking way too long. Backgrounds is taking forever. I just, I need to do something. So I start a job demoing burned down buildings, making $500 every two weeks. - Jack. - Trying to support a family. - So then when did you start thinking EF?

- Like a week after my second son was born, I believe, JP asked me to come help out with the FTX program. So JP was like, "Hey man, I'm running this hands-on training "at S. Shawn Front," which, living in Arizona, JP did an event at the Phoenician, and I've known JP a long time, and he was like, "Hey, why don't you guys come have dinner with me?" So I went and saw him and kind of learned what he was doing.

That was really the first point. But then he was like, hey, I need some people that I can trust was really it. He's like, I'm running this new training. Jocko's letting me run it. I just need people that aren't gonna embarrass Esh on front of the client. So I came out in the fall of, I think, 2017 to help out with a gas and electric company, FTX. And as I came out there,

I was a little unsure on what you guys were doing. I obviously got it, right? It's the laws of combat, that makes sense to me. But watching JP and another instructor teach these gas and electric companies, those dudes wanted no part. They're saying like, "Hey, this is bullshit. "This doesn't work here." There was a guy that stood up and walked to the wall and head-butted a bunch. He's like, "This is what it's like to work here." And I was like, "Damn, you guys do this? "You're gonna teach this guy how to lead?"

But to watch, like, in a matter of a day, like, people just start to, like, things click. And to, like, see, like, grown-ass men after the end of FTX, like, crying, like, hey, I'm a shitty leader. Like, I failed my wife. Like, I'm like, how are you guys doing this? This is crazy. Yeah. It is wild. It is wild. And it's, like, so transformational. And the FTX is...

probably the most dynamic because you get to see the morning and afternoon, day one, day two. Sometimes we do two days. Some days we do one day, but the difference between the individuals and the group. So someone that, and they do like, you can't,

If we were trying to script a Hollywood movie to show how the laws of combat work, if you made it as obvious as it is when you see like the leader of a company that's like, no one on my team is stepping up to lead. And you're like, okay, go do this tactical mission. And the tactical missions are not like crazy. But then that leader, you'll put him in charge or not in charge. It doesn't matter because he's the CEO of the company. He'll be out there like, don't move. Hey, you like,

Move to that building right there and stay there until I tell you to leave. And just complete micromanagement. And then, you know, you record. You know, I'll have like a voice recorder and just like record what he's saying. And then you play it back to him. And he's like, dude, I'm a loser. But you don't realize it. Or you'll see people freaking out. You'll see people raising their voices. You'll see people yelling and screaming. You'll see people being totally indecisive. Like it is so...

blatantly obvious to everyone that's on the team, the Echelon Front team. Like you're like, "Oh, this is absolutely terrible. "Hey, Cody, grab a camera and film this right now "'cause this is an example that we can use "from here to eternity, except we won't need to "'cause there's gonna be another one "on the next iteration." And when people go through those and they make those mistakes, it hits them so hard. Because when I tell you like, "Hey, Echo, this is what you did "during that situation."

And you can't a lot of times you can't believe it this happened to like in the teams We'd be doing CQC or something and you'd say hey echo you you freaking like stutter stepped going in that room and you backed up the chain train and it caused a bunch of problems and Echo be like no I didn't like truly in your heart believe you didn't do something and

And then we'd break out the video. You're like, yo. So it's the same thing. Not that we videotape every run at Echelon Front or at an FTX, but in the debrief, they're like, oh, I did do that. Oh, yeah, I did. Oh, that's terrible. So they become self-aware many times for the first time in their lives of what it's like to interact with other human beings and how those interactions are perceived by everyone else. Because what I say to you

And how I say it to you is often different from what you hear and what you see. And the delta between those things can be great. So these are some of the things that you get to see. And people really do make like transformations in two days going to an FTX. And you got to see that the first one. You see a guy banging his head on the wall. That's so classic.

Yeah, it's at Echelon Front where it's like, oh yeah, here's the, you know, we'll always have, oh yeah, one guy was standing in the back with his arms folded, you know, looking out the window. And there's your target because you got to get that guy to recognize that what we're teaching is going to help him, it's going to help his team, it's going to help the whole company. Yeah, it's freaking crazy. So when you start off just doing kind of role playing and then directing the role players and then you just escalate it from there.

Yeah. So starting off, it was, I think it was five of us and JP was over, JP was running everything. So he was running, like he was just the only instructor. And then it was just those five kind of friends just trying to figure it out. There was no SOPs. It was, we had no radios. Like it was just Thunderdome out there.

And it's, we're playing laser tag and you know, competitive juices are flowing and we're just trying to rack up kills on the opposing side and stuff like that. So that's where it started. And eventually this was like a two week iteration that we did with this company and the client came back. They're like, Hey, we love this. We want to double down and,

Towards the spring, JP was like, hey man, they want to do another six months, I think. In my hand, I have two decisions. He's like, this is kind of a part-time, full-time role. I need you for six months, maybe even a year. Because I was in backgrounds for law enforcement, or I can do that. And in the moment, I was like, law enforcement will always be there for the most part. I can go there when I'm done. Sessional on front moment, it's going to pass if I don't take it. So I was like, cool, all in. Give it a shot. Give it a shot. And pretty good shot.

So you went from being a role player, running the role players, and then it was, okay, running kind of the direct, the backside of the entire FTX. And now you're running FTXs. Yes, sir. And when you, as you see your growth and you see like the fact that you get to teach these principles, but what I think is awesome is like you applied these principles and that's

what we talk about all the time is if you apply these principles in life, things are gonna work out. - There's some truth to it. Look at that. - And you continued having kids, right? That's what we're doing. - Yup, I got four kids. My boys just turned, so we got seven, six, four, and two. - That's a fairly tight grouping you got going on there. Seven, six, four, and two. What are you learning from applying these principles on the home front?

it's a hell of a lot harder than any other realm. And what makes it harder? It's just closer to other people. It's, you know, it's my kids, it's, it's my wife. They, my wife knows what to say to get under my skin. My kids are carbon copies of me and what they do is reflection of me. It's that emotional connection and the ego in me, which makes it harder.

And I always reflect on that when I go teach as I remind people like, hey, if you're gonna try this at work, like I work with Echo, like it's easier to get along with him. But at home when things aren't going right or to detach specifically, it's harder to do those at home.

It was harder initially. And, you know, as I got married and as I had new kids or more kids, it was just a new perspective. I think detachment specifically was something that I thought I was always good at being reserved and, you know, having a dad who was a cop being very stoic. Like, that's how I thought you should be. Marine Corps, being detached, you know, emotional decisions get people killed. Ego based decisions get people killed. That was always good.

hit over and over and over again as I joined Echelon Front you know I was always detaching but I didn't have the word and then you gave me the word I was like oh that's what I've been doing but when I had kids it was just different it's it's harder to detach and my kids are so close and we homeschool and like literally last week my my seven-year-old dropped a gallon a gallon of purple paint on my black tile and like in the moment I'm just like all the things I want to say and do and I was like

He's seven. He wants to help in his paint. It's not that big of a deal. The weird thing is, so not only is there this, there's these sort of pre-formatted relationship things that you have with your kids. So, you know, you care about your kids and you know,

You know exactly what they should be doing. You know it and and you know what echo Charles you're right You're actually right. And if you if your kid was like, all right, here's the here's the schedule Here's what we're doing your kid could become the the Apex example or the apex capability that they could have they could meet them all like we all know that we could formulate the plan and we're right We're a hundred percent, right?

But I'm gonna tell you right now, there's a pre-programmed thing in our mind that we know that we're right and we know what's best for our kids. There's also a pre-programmed thing in their head. And that thing doesn't always line up, you know? There's something about your kids. And look, there's something about your kids, and it's the same with your employees, it's the same with people. Like if I bark orders at you or I say like, hey Cody, here's exactly how we're doing this,

You're going to have psychological reactance, which is a real term that I learned. You're going to be like, oh, Jocko thinks he knows how to do this better than me. Jocko thinks he knows how to run the FTX better than I do.

Okay, we'll see and you're gonna be negative man. It's just what's gonna happen. It's guaranteed to happen It's guaranteed to happen. I have your best interest in mind whether I'm talking to my daughter who I'm like Oh, you want to be champion? Here's what you should do a hot I know bro. I've I've trained actual freakin champions echo Charles. Yes, sir straight up by the way

Let's just get real here. In the sports that we're talking about, I have been down the promised road. I have trained the world champion. Right? I get it. Yeah. Know the deal. Know the deal. 100%. Yeah. Now, let's say I had a daughter that wanted to be world champion in the same sports. I know exactly what to do. I literally know exactly what to do.

I cannot impose that plan. It will not work. It will not work. Psychological reactance. I want my daughter to be world champion probably more than she does. You know what I'm saying? I know what you're saying, yes, sir. Probably more than she does. And I know how to do it. I know how to do it. I've walked that road. It's a good dream. It's a good dream. It's a good dream. But I can't impose that plan on her. Yeah.

And it's the same thing with like your team. Like I know what, I know what Echo should do with a video. I know. Oh, you're going to give me that look? Maybe not the best. I understand what you mean. I love that. So I know what, I know what my team should be doing for something. Look, when I was in a, when I was a SEAL platoon commander, dude, I was a,

a very experienced SEAL at that time. When I was a tasking commander, I was a very experienced SEAL at that time compared to normal SEAL for sure because I was a prior enlisted guy because I had taught stuff and done the whole thing. But luckily I'd worked for Delta Charlie who was way more experienced than we were when we were those young kids. And he wasn't like, all right, I know what to do. I literally know everything and I'm not going to tell you what to do.

So when I was a task unit commander, I look did I know everything No, I know a hell of a lot more than Leif Babin and seth stone who've been in the team for two years Yeah, hell yeah, I did. I knew a shit ton more than they did. Did I then impose it on him? No, you can't do that so this idea of Imposing your plan and like you said when you get to your family, dude, you know how to turn your son into the best

Football player basketball player baseball player jujitsu player wrestler like you know how to do it We know how to do it, but it ain't gonna work. You cannot you cannot do that That's a that's a very difficult thing and not only is it not gonna work and Not only is our perception wrong or our perception kind of locked in that we think we know everything their perception is locked in that you don't Their perception is locked in that you don't if I can't tell my ten-year-old son that

where to where to put his hips on an arm lock in jiu-jitsu if i can't tell my tent which this happened i was like hey dude put your hips a little further on he's like you don't need to do that i'm like okay cool we're done here it's freaking 10 i've been doing jiu-jitsu for 25 years at that point like that's where we're at that was such a good wake-up call because you cannot impose things on people now look can you occasionally get someone uh you can occasionally get someone that's

More open to it. Sure. Very, very rare. Almost never. It's almost never that you get someone that's like their mind is just open blank slate. Write what you want to write. It's almost never. And if you do try and write stuff on there, they're going to freaking like bump your hand and scribble and erase it. It's going to be a problem. So yes, the fam situation. It's real. Got it. Got it. It's real. Got to keep it real. Uh,

When you as your senior kids get older and or do you think you're do you think? Are you starting to see some of the behaviors that you have reflected by them? I mean he's your your oldest is seven and

That's actually, I don't know if this is a valid question. Might not be a valid question. I don't think the formulations are there yet. I don't think there's enough form of, I don't think their personalities are formulated enough at age seven to where you're like, oh, I see the reflections of me in them. I don't think it's old enough. What do you think? There's some tendencies coming out, but yeah, there's nothing, we're still building who they are.

I think to your point and really the question at hand, I'll just speak on one thing that we're navigating right now. Since we homeschool, like we can kind of control curriculum. It's my kids call my wife, the teacher, and I'm the warden of the school. Wait, they, they, they use the term. Well, we taught them what it was. Um, but it's math, English, that stuff like that. And then periodically we throw stuff in there and obviously we're conditional on front like ownership. It's very hard to teach a six, seven, four, two year old ownership, but, um,

the whole, when I mentioned getting arrested and with my dad and the truth piece, like being truthful is something that I'm navigating right now. And I think a lot of people, when they read the book, extreme ownership, like ownership is one of the hardest tenets we have to overcome. Like, well, where does that start? It starts when you're a kid. And I get to see that in real time when I watched my kid do something. He's like, no, that, that can just spilled by itself. Like I literally watched you do it. And so navigating things like that. And, you know, I always ask questions at workshops or keynotes on like,

whose kids when they do something do they fess up like nobody raises their hand but like I have a leg up because I'm getting to this early and

I give my kids a lot of choices. I'm like, hey, I know what happened. Just tell me the truth. And they still fumble and mess up, but we're getting quicker to them realizing that the truth is what I need to be doing. For example, we first moved to Arizona. One of my sons, my oldest son, he cut all the drip lines in my backyard with scissors. Yeah.

And I remember walking out in the morning and like surging move, dude, walking on the backyard in the backyard's flood. It doesn't rain in Arizona where we're living. And I'm like, what happened? And then I look around and just all the drips, there's just piles of, what was he using to cut them? Scissors.

- Dude, that's a freaking insurgent right there. - I remember sitting all four of my kids down. It was just me at home, Paige was gone, and asking my kids who did this. I actually filmed it to see what happened, and all the kids are just like, "Nothing." And my oldest actually was like, "It was me." And in the moment, there's a couple choices that I can do.

does this really matter? It's water. But what did I want to do? I wanted to do a lot of things. But in the moment, I'm like, cool, man, we can't be doing that because of A, B, and C. And it was just a moment where it was a teaching lesson for him that,

I appreciate the honesty. Like you still can't do this. Like ownership doesn't just eliminate like when people mess things up, but in the, and there's been constant moments like that where, so that's what I'm trying to get in early. Cause I want them to learn this, this habit, which is going to build into a tendency, which builds into who they are when they're 10. Like if I could teach my kids ownership by 10, I believe I'm setting them up for success. Like I don't want them to learn when I learned when it's 28 years old, like, Oh, this is what you're supposed to do. Like I want to help them out. So yeah.

- Yeah, man, it's interesting. And I've kind of been through it now, 'cause I only have one, like, quote, kid left that's 15 years old. My other kids are grown people. But man, you look back and you think, I wonder if I made the right move right there. It's very interesting, and also, I just got a new dog, by the way.

And, you know, so now I'm like just deep back, deep in with the dog thing. Right. Back deep in with the all of it, the training and all that. And the the way that you train a dog like there's dude, there's just similarities. Here's one. You can't. You know this one because actually you might have taught me this one. The reward. You can't reward 100 percent of the time. You can only reward 80 percent of the time. So literally you tell your dog to sit like a puppy. You say sit.

Give him a treat. Say, say it again. Give him a treat. Say, say it again. Don't give him a treat. Say, say it again. Give him a treat. And that little bit of randomness, because you were talking about this with some kind of applications or something, right? Yeah. Or gambling or what? Applications. Apps. Yeah, it was apps and kind of doing that variable reward. Variable reward. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Whether you're a human or a dog, you both respond better to randomness.

Variable reward there has to be some element of surprise the the dopamine that you get from the the surprise is As valuable as the reward itself So you get you do the right thing and you don't get a reward to do the right thing you get a reward You're excited you get a reward you're excited. You don't get a reward Well, I'm gonna try again see if I can get the reward again, and that's what in imprints the behavior

So as you look at the way kids when they grow up, you're like, oh, I see some little characteristic. What did I do that made that characteristic exist in this human being right now? Maybe it was me, maybe it was a school teacher, maybe it was a friend, whatever. But what pattern of life, what lesson did that person, what used to be a kid now is an adult and their behavior has been modified. It's behavior modification.

by friends, by all this other stuff, and this is where they end up. - Another tip too, by the way, on the flip side of the variable reward, it's the opposite with punishment. So you gotta punish every single time, 100% of the time. So consistent punishment,

He's like, oh, in a dog's brain, kid's brain, whatever. They're going to be like, I know under all circumstances, not even consciously. It's already like instinct. It gets trained into your instinct where it's like if I do something, 100%, that's like literally just the way the world works. So even if I do choose to do it, I know what's coming. So a lot of times they just avoid it naturally. But if you do a variable punishment, it's kind of like,

The idea of maybe I can get away with it. That's enticing too. Yeah. That's equally enticing. Like I might get away with it. That's kind of fun. Kind of dope. Yeah. Like, you know, you ever met someone, they're like, oh, when I was a kid, I shoplift. But you're like, you were rich. And they're like, no, but it was, they kind of do it because they want the excitement of the whole jam. It's like a dark variable reward really. See what I'm saying? On the dark side though. Yeah.

You gotta watch out that double whammy on that one. Basically, yeah, if you're gonna punish everybody or the people or the pets, keep it consistent. True. And this is true with the kids and it's true with your team, your employees, your peers. It's like just true. It's humans, the way that they respond. It's just...

Very very predictable and look does everyone have their own little elements. Yep Everyone's got their own little thing Cody might be a little bit more resistant to pain than echo or whatever, you know Echo might respond a little bit better to this thing than something else and that's why I gotta keep I gotta keep that in mind but broadly speaking the principles like they're not gonna change you have to maybe modulate them a little bit in one way or the other but they're gonna they remain and I seen this now for years and years and years and every time

Every time you think like, oh, maybe it's not. Maybe this time will be different. It's not going to be different. It's not going to be different. It's just not going to be different. It's so predictable. Predictable within the degrees of variation, but it's predictable. So that's what we're doing. So that's where we're at right now, huh? You run the FTX. How often do you guys do an FTX right now at Echelon Front?

2024 we did 28 28 total and some of these so some of these are companies that hire echelon front to give them a transformational leadership alignment inside their world and knowledge and unified knowledge so

someone, let's say I have a company, tell me how it works. I have a company, it's called Jocko Fuel. I want to get my team trained up. I can see that the problems that we're having, they're all leadership problems. So what do I do? I contact National On Front and then what do I do? Say, yep, I want to, I heard about the FTX thing, that's what I want to do. Then what happens?

So basically there's two models of the FTX that we run. There's corporate and then there's individual. So the corporate model is, you know, we come to you. So if it's Jocko Fuel, hey, we're going to bring, I'll bring my team up to Maine. We'll locate a site, which is typically a paintball field, airsoft field. We have used hotels. We've used old refineries. Like we'll just find something that works. Anything that has buildings is pretty beneficial for us. We bring all the gear and you guys just really have to show up.

The FDX in itself from a company standpoint, it gives us a couple of things. One, it is a team building exercise, but that's not the point. That's the byproduct of it. You're going to do something hard together, which, you know, builds a lot of camaraderie and helps with the culture. So that's part of it, but it's really a, you know, it's a leadership

lab for lack of a better word. A lot of people when they read the book or they come to a PowerPoint done by one of the instructors, everything's theoretical, right? Cover move is about relationships and a lot of people will say like, I'm a team player, I'm good at relationships. A lot of people think their communication is great and they know how to detach and they always already centralized. The FTX is a culmination. It's a test on the reality of who you are. Theory and reality are two different things.

I know a lot of people that have done a lot of Echelon Front training that have come to 20 musters and they think they're great at these and they come to the FTX and they blow it out. They mess it all up because it's different. And so it is a culmination. It is a test of it. It is typically...

We do some kind of lean in. So you read the book, you get a workshop, you do a keynote, and then we run the FTX and then we tie everything back to what you do. There is some tacticalness to it, right? That's the vessel that we chose to use because that's what we know. It's, you know, part of the military is FTX is it's a culmination event. And so there's a tactical piece, but it's strictly about leadership. We'll teach people, you know, how to walk in a line and how to enter a room, but we don't really care. We're not going to talk about it. We're going to talk about leadership and I'm going to talk about how, Hey, echo,

on that run like and i i killed you as a leader what happened to the team well the team didn't do anything well yeah because you told them exactly what to do and when to do and how to do it we call that you know centralized command we call that micromanagement yeah and so in the moment it's all it seems tactical but it's really it's all about leadership and so after each run we do a bunch of runs throughout the day everybody switches roles so sometimes you're you know the jocko in the platoon sometimes you're the frontline shooter and you gain a lot of perspective on what

the boss does, what the frontline contributor does. And at the end, we're tying it back to what you do personally and professionally. So we're taking this, you know, hypothetical laser tag scenario and we're tying it back to what you do. And typically there's some followup on, Hey, you guys remember run number one, which the mission was go talk to an old guy and you slaughtered the entire city. Like how does that apply to you at Jocko fuel? That's the goal of the FTX. You know, if you took someone that had never trained jujitsu before and you got a

you know, the Hicks and Gracie to teach him a class with PowerPoints and maybe videos and theory and all this stuff. And you had, and Cody, you can't, you'd never changed it before. And you didn't wrestle. And you came and took this class from him for three months about how to do an arm lock and what the theory was of balance and all these different things. And look, you're not going to get a better teacher than Hicks and Gracie. When you got on the map for the first time, you would not be able to execute this stuff.

Same thing with basketball. Same thing with playing the guitar. You can understand the chords. You can understand exactly where your fingers are supposed to go. You can memorize things with flashcards. But until you get your fingers on the fretboard of a guitar, you're not going to learn how to play. And that's what I feel the FTX is. And it doesn't, unlike jujitsu or unlike guitar, like even once you pick that guitar up, even if you know all three, it's still going to take you a while to get your physical skills

Dexterity to the point where it'll work or same thing with jujitsu like it's gonna take a while to actually Learn the muscle memory of the move, but this is leadership And so it is a wake-up call, but it's not like you have to now learn a physical movement No, you just have to learn a mental movement, which is which can be adopted much quicker

If you have an open mind and you show up, you'll be like, oh, oh yeah, I overreact sometimes. Or, oh, sometimes I start talking when I should be listening. Or, oh, sometimes I try and come up with the most perfect plan and it's wasting time. So there's all these things that you can literally learn and you can stop doing them because you learn to recognize them because you learn how to detach. So that is the way it works. So that's the corporate FTX. The individual FTX is basically...

someone can just sign up and go. - Yeah, so we started to have demand from smaller organizations on, hey, Jocko, if you only has 10 people,

you are not going to come to us. Like we'll come to you. Or traditionally it's like people, a little skeptical, they see the footage and they think it's, you know, barbed wire and, you know, low crawls and that's not what it is. So people want to test it out. So we created a, an event to where people can come see what it is. So we open it to small teams or small individuals, which has been successful. And it said, you just come to us. So we typically do this after a muster, or we do this in Dallas where we're located and people come to us and we run it through there. The difference is,

you're not with your whole team. You're with, you know, potentially 29 other people from different walks of life, but the teaching points are still the same. Yeah. Good point though. It's not a physically demanding event. It's not like, like you said, crawling under barbed wire. It's actually, there's, there's no physical strenuous activity. It's,

All mental. Now, look, you're going to be walking around some buildings, but you'll literally be walking around. The rule is don't run, right? The rule is don't run. Now, listen, that's the rule is don't run. These freaking people get crazy and they start running and sprinting and acting like John J. Rambo. But you shouldn't need to run because if you've got someone covering properly for you, you can move in a smart fashion expedited, but you don't have to sprint anywhere.

And you can execute the maneuvers correctly. So it's not, again, you're right. Sometimes people see like the physical side of things. And you know, there's like boot camp type things that are out there where you're going to get tested mentally and physically, basically physically. This is not that. This is educational.

You will not be tested physically. We've had people of every age bracket and physical condition go through FTX and their performance doesn't have anything to do with physical. It has to do with mental. It has to do with leadership. It has to do with decision-making. It has to do with learning to execute these laws of combat leadership. And what's gratifying for us

Is that we get to see those transformations take place and then we get to hear, you know, then people send their whole company or they start sending the rest of their leadership team. And then we get to see companies transform, entire companies transform because they're

They truly understand these leadership principles and they start to utilize them throughout their company. And we see companies that go from, you know, that massively increase their their workflow, their profitability, their engagement, everything. They just get better across the board. So that's what we do. That's what you do over there, over here at Ashland Front. Does that get us up to speed?

Yes, sir. All right. So if people are looking for you, they can find you at Echelonfront.com. You're on LinkedIn at Cody Gandy. You're on Instagram and you're on Twitter X. You have not been active on Twitter X in the past. I think I looked at it. It was like two years or something like that. The gram kind of took over. The X, Twitter X is coming back. Although there was an announcement made today by...

Mark Zuckerberg that he is moving away from From I don't think he would call it censorship it ended up being censorship and I think he readily kind of said that he's going towards the community notes model and

which is from Twitter, which is now called X, which is if you say some dumb shit, people will be like, no, that's not true. Here's the facts. And it gets tagged as a community note. I haven't done it yet. I haven't done a community. I haven't called somebody out because I'm not, you know, to be honest with you, I'm not sitting there like looking to argue with people in the interwebs. It doesn't seem like a move. And it seems like it's like a lot of time. If you're going to dedicate your life

I get it. Like there's people that that's what they do for a living. I don't do that for a living. You know what I mean? I actually have other jobs, right? - Yes sir, you do. - Like being an online presence is almost accidental in a way. Maybe not accidental, it's-- - Incidental, like kind of part of the gig. - Yeah, it's like hey, well yeah, we're posting some stuff but

I'm not like someone's going to say some stuff like read, you know, getting into it with them. Yeah. Uh, so that's that. So people can find you there. You're at Cody Gandy, C O D E Y G A N D Y. There you go. That's where you're at. You're all, you get a lot of, uh,

You're posting with your kids. You guys are lifting. You guys are doing pull-ups. You're working out. It's pretty awesome. You got the warrior kids in the house. I'm trying to get them in the game. Yeah. They doing jujitsu? We tried it a couple years ago. Yeah. When we were doing traditional school and it was just...

My boy specifically, it's eight hours of school, and I'm like, hey, let's go to jiu-jitsu. It was not a good recipe. So we've been talking about it. We're going to try again in the spring to get him back in because now we're full homeschool. Yeah, you may need to get, and it may be worth it, to have mats at the house. You have mats at the house? Yeah. So once you get the mats at the house, it might be worth it to just have someone come in and get someone that's an instructor to come in twice a week, get them into the game. And then you...

Just you know make wrestling and do jitsu just kind of like part of what we do for fun Yeah, that's the most optimal way to get them trained at a young age. So the Gracie's did like you Oh, you're a little kid cool You don't know that you're playing guard pass, but you're playing guard pass You don't know that you know hold that you're holding them out, but you're holding them out You don't know that you're escaping them out, but you're escaping them out. It's just a game It's just part of life and I recommend that as a good way to make it happen. I

- Echo Charles, you got questions? - Yes, sir. - A couple questions. - Okay, okay. - So when your boy cut the drip lines, did you ever ask him like, "Hey, why'd you do that?" - It wasn't so much a why.

The what it came down to was like I provided easy access to scissors So it wasn't the why was because he could right right like experimental, you know Water squirted out, right? Yeah, yeah, there's another one cool, but that's totally real I mean actually, you know, it's gonna sound crazy, but there's an element to absolute truth to this, but that's kind of valid and

for a little kid because that's what we do as little kids. We're tinkering with stuff. What happens if I break? So I was a little kid and I was not a morally like skewed kills, like pretty, you know, pretty morally sound as a kid, according to, you know, the world, you know, society, whatever. Um, but our neighbors had this, uh, and now as an adult, I feel real bad, but they had this, these big glass jars, right. Full of, uh, like,

fermented meat and it was by their garden. And at the time I didn't know what they're for. They're just these huge glass jars, right? Big ones, like abnormally big. There's some weird stuff inside. But as it turns out, it's to attract like bugs and flies away from the garden. It was like a whole process.

And we used to make these slingshots when I was young and they were real effective by the way. So I was like, the neighbor's freaking glass jars over there. Let me see if I can hit it. Not thinking like of the real world consequences, you know, and they're glass too. So it's not like, oh, they're like a plastic bucket or something. They'll just make a cool sound. That's it. So I hit one and just freaking, it was a marble that I was shooting and it exploded. Like it was spectacular. I was like, that's kind of cool. Like, but that's what it was. It was out of curiosity. I wasn't trying to be mean to my neighbor. So,

So I hit one and I was like, damn, that's fucking awesome. So I go grab my brother. I was like, bro, watch this. Just ruining this guy's garden or neighbor too. It's not like it's some like foreign place. They'll never see me again. It's our fricking neighbor lives right there. And then, you know, so we destroyed all of them just out of like, just sheer, you know, yeah, it seems crazy. But at the time, like what goes through your head as a kid, you're just like, oh, that was kind of awesome. Let's see what happens when this happens, you know, like, Hey, see if you can hit it and you just disregard the other real world stuff, you know?

So I kind of don't blame them. - Dude, I-- - In a way. - I have an alley behind my house and the kids across the alley, this was a few years ago, they just hucked mud, like mud snowballs, mud balls at my car.

And they were young. They were too young to realize what that means, but old enough to be like, oh, that made a cool sound and it left a mark. And I'm a little human being and I want to leave my mark on the world. So I come outside and there's just mud balls all over my freaking car. And they were standing there with muddy hands and just didn't even care that I'm like, hey, what are you doing? I think I called them savages. Yeah.

I was like, what are you doing, you little freaking savages? Kind of like joking. So yeah, you got to watch out for that. Also, John Bozak. This is when I was a little kid. He's at my house and I had this, we had like a pathway that had little tiny rocks on it, right? And he was, we had a well with a concrete, piece of concrete over the well. So that's kind of like the pathway went by the well. And we used to just kind of sit on the well sometimes.

And I was doing something and he was sitting out there and he had a hammer and he was just smashing the rocks. Taking the little rocks, putting them on the wall and smashing them. Take another one, put him on the rock and smashing them. And I kind of didn't even pay attention to it because I'm a little destructive kid too. But anyways, my mom comes home and now the hammer's sitting there. There's like rocks smashed and John and I are no longer out there.

But my mom comes in and she's like, who? You know, because it's her freaking house. And like, why is some? She's like, who's who's like smashing rocks with a hammer on the well? And John Bozak's like, oh, it was me, Mrs. Willink. And she's like, well, which she didn't expect that truthfulness. Right. She expected denial. Maybe she's like, well, why did you do that? And John, without he's just like to see them be destroyed. Yeah.

Because to see it be destroyed. Yeah. I'm like. It's true. How do you even respond to that? Yeah. You know. I'd be like, dang, all right. I guess so, right? Yeah. I could get there. You could get there. Actually, my, you know, solar water heater. So we had a solar water heater on the side of our house. Huge, like huge, just solar panel. And my brother had this big, like a boulder, like the heaviest one. And he was just like. Damn.

And he puts it and fucking just destroys the whole shit. He got beat for it. But that's another one of those ones where it's like, brother, an obvious human being would know never to do that. Just literally destroy the solar water heater. And he's just like, I want to see what was happening. You know, that's just how, you know, like, and for whatever reason, I don't know if this is a boy thing or whatever, but like the destruction part of things is like very fun. That's part of it. Yeah. Or loud noises. Back to the slingshot scenarios. These slingshots are very effective. Yeah.

There was a pig farm like acres away and down a valley from our house, right? And it had a tin roof. So we'd shoot the slingshot. The marble was like way down and you could see the spot, you know, the shine, the glimmer of the marble. And then it'd go down and it hit it. So loud sound, right? We'd always do that. And to the point where the owners of the pig farm

one time came out with their shotguns and were like, hey, and they started firing the shotguns to scare us off or whatever. But it's like before that happened, we were just like, yeah, shoot the slingshot down there, make a cool sound, you know, just literally ignorant of the consequences, the rules, etiquette, the whole thing. Like, you just don't know, you know, I could get there. That's what I'm saying. Jack, any other questions, Echo? All right. So JP said you guys were cousins. Is that literally true or is that just an expression? Cousins.

It's true. It's true. Straight up. It's true. First cousin. Dang. Okay. All right. Get it. He's letting it out of the bag. All right. I didn't know it was a secret. You know, that's one of the first things I heard about you. So I figured, hey, common knowledge. But hey, good to see you again. Check. Cody, any closing thoughts? Just one last thought on...

- Obviously I teach this book that you wrote and there's been a common occurrence on a question that I consistently get. And since I shared the story about my mom and my dad,

One of the hardest things that I've ever had to deal with, just on a fundamental level, was that divorce that my parents went through. And ironically, that was when I joined the team. And as I'm joining the team, obviously I'm reading how to do this and you guys give us a skeleton on how to teach this. My mom takes notes of what I'm doing, what I'm teaching. And then she asked me a question about ownership, which has kind of led me to where I'm at today. And the question was, how do I take ownership of your dad cheating on me? Was really the summary of the question.

I've shared this with you, I think, at a battlefield, but in the moment, brand new to the team, I really didn't know what to say. My first was like, Jaco's gonna FaceTime my mom and tell her what to do. And the second question, or the second thought was like, what did she do? She had to do something to cause this, but then I simply recognized that there was an action and there was a consequence. And then I was stumbling on,

well what if you're in a scenario where you did nothing wrong but things still happened and this has led me to having a lot of conversations over the years because you know we get the question all the time about affairs and you know kids with terminal cancer and you know i got a question a couple years ago at an event where a woman stood up and was like hey i was sexually assaulted by somebody in the room

like how do i take ownership of that i think a lot of people miss just considering i teach this a part of ownership is you know your response to things and you know the advice i gave my mom and advice to give to a lot of people is if something sometimes things are just going to happen like life happens and it sucks and oftentimes we're a victim to certain things

Being a victim and having a victim mentality are two very different things. A victim mentality is you're waiting for someone or something to come solve your problem for you, which that's not how life works. Like honestly, people don't care. There's 8 billion people in the world and you have the worst day of your life. Like no one's really going to take notes. So the ownership in that is, you know, what you do next. And you know, the, the greatest I give my mom is, you know, who she was and who she is are two very different people all because she took ownership of her life and

that is oftentimes missed in the book. And when we teach is, you know, 10%, 5% of the time is things happen to you and your response, that ownership that you have, like that is a choice that you have this ownership. It's, it's a choice. Like you have a choice to utilize it if you want to, but yeah,

I definitely have people in my life, people that I run into where that's not the case and they feel they did nothing wrong or there's nothing that they can do, which ultimately leaves them powerless. And so I feel just to wrap that up, that there is a place for ownership in everything. Sometimes it's in your response, sometimes it's in the problem, sometimes in the solution. And so

that really has been the hardest question I've ever received that I shall on front and all the people that I've talked to, it's, it's my mom that, you know, caught me off guard, but I like to remind people of that. And it's something that I honestly close with at every workshop that I do. Cause that piece is typically missing in the context of the book. If you don't read between the lines. Yeah. There's, there's no doubt about it. There's things that happen. Well, like you named them like terminal diseases, someone attacks you, you know, you get hit, uh,

you're driving down the highway perfectly normal, like a good 55 mile an hour law obeying person and you get slammed from behind. Like this is not your fault that this happened. There are things that are not your fault.

And how do you take ownership of those things? You take ownership in how you respond. What are you going to do now? How are you going to move forward? What are you going to learn from it? How are you going to prevent this from happening again? All those things, those are things that we can do to the best of our ability, and that is still taking ownership. Yeah, that's a really good misperception that people can have, which is, oh, you know, my husband cheated on me. How is that my fault? It's like, oh, well,

We don't have to take ownership of your husband being a bad person, but you can take ownership of how you respond to it. And that's one of the things that we teach and definitely a good point. Another thing that we teach is to get after it. I know you get after it, Cody. What's your physical activities right now?

Rob Jones and I just finished up with that, uh, marathon. So what'd you do? You did a rock marathon. So I did a 25 pound weight vest marathon, running, ran it. What was your time? Uh, just over four hours. Freaking awesome. How's your knees? They've been better. Not awesome. They don't feel like 33, only slightly better than Rob Jones's knees. Very true. I've never, but whatever reason we decided to do that marathon, uh,

I just called Rob. I was like, hey, are you in or are you out? He's like, I'm in. I was like, cool, we're going to run a marathon. Rob has that background. I've never ran longer than like three miles. I was like, cool, let's do something hard and let's add a weight vest. The knees are what got me. It was about, I didn't tell Rob this until about mile 20. He was like, how are you doing? I was like, dude, this sucks. In my preparation, I never ran longer than 12 miles, but I didn't tell him that. I wanted him to just be a part of it. Around mile 20, the weight was really...

It was killing the joints. No, it was good. We ran it up in DC area around Iwo Jima, which was awesome. It's hard to be a quitter in that environment when you have Arlington there. And I got to visit one of my old platoon commanders there that died in 2020. But just to be in that area, you can't quit. You're going to finish. So cool environment to be in. Yeah.

- That was the training plan this last year, which was fun to do in the peak of Arizona summers. So there will be no running in my foreseeable future. - Time to get jacked? - No, yeah. - Report to Echo Charles to get jacked. Well, whatever kind of jacking you're doing, whatever you're getting after, whatever you're making happen, you're gonna need fuel.

We recommend Jocko Fuel. Go check it out, jockofuel.com. We got everything that you need. We got MULK protein shakes ready to drink. We got powder. We got joint warfare. If you run a marathon with a weight vest on, you're gonna need some joint warfare and some Superkrill. They will legitimately bring you back to health. They're freaking awesome.

We got go. You had a go. What are you drinking? Pink lemonade over there? Pink lemonade. Is that your go-to? That's the go-to. Arizona summers, you can't beat it. It's the sweetest one. I think mango's the sweetest. You think so? Yeah. We kind of had a consensus last night, right? But yeah. You may be a little biased, but it's okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's possible. Yeah. You know, it is good. Well, all this stuff, you can get it at jocofuel.com. You can also get it at Walmart. You can get it at Wawa. You can get it at Vitamin Shoppe. GNC Military Commerce. If you're over in Korea...

From the military, you can get it right there at the commissary or at the exchange, which is pretty awesome. Hannaford Dash Stores, Wakefern, ShopRite, HEB, Wegmans, Harris Teeter, Publix. Publix is another massive regional food chain down in the southeast. We're rolling into Publix right now. So be on the lookout. Clear the shelves. Publix.

Been awesome. Lifetime Fitness, Shields, and small gyms everywhere. No matter what kind of gym you got. You got a jiu-jitsu gym. You got a powerlifting gym, an MMA gym. Doesn't matter. We got you. If you don't have it there, go to jfsalesatjockelfield.com. We'll hook it up. That's what we'll do. Originusa.com. You're going to need jeans. You're going to need a gi. Your kids are going to need gis, Cody Gandy, because they're going to start training jiu-jitsu. Best thing you can do for a kid.

The best thing you can do for a kid is jiu-jitsu. More important than love. I say that sarcastically, but there's some facts. Get your kids trained in jiu-jitsu. You should be trained in jiu-jitsu. OriginUSA.com. We got jiu-jitsu gis for you. We got jeans, boots, hoodies, rash guards, boots. Pretty much everything you need. Hunt gear, jackets, boots.

I just ordered two of the rain jackets. I don't think there's that many left. But I ordered two because I'm like, I'm going to have my freaking rain gear. T-shirt joggers. So check it out. OriginUSA.com. Made in America, 100%. 100% made in America. That means you support the American economy. It means you support the American worker. It means you support America. Don't go to freaking China to buy your gear.

Go to the United States of America, originusa.com. Check it out. It's true. Also, Jocko has a store called Jocko's Store. Of course. Yeah, man. This is where you can get your Discipline Equals Freedom hats and hoodies and stuff. Mainly shirts, though. You're going to represent on this path that we're all on. Discipline Equals Freedom, good. The whole deal. That's where you can get your stuff, your merch, if you will. Also, on Jocko's Store is a shirt locker. That's a subscription scenario where you get a new design every month.

Different kind of designs more creative. It's a true. You understand what I'm saying? Anyway, it's all in Jocko store.com. Mm-hmm Check it out. If you need steak, how many times a week you eat steak Cody when I'm at home I don't mmm. How come because I eat it all the time on the road. Okay, so what do you eat at home chicken? Oh

Big chicken guy. Big chicken guy. Big chicken guy. Big chicken guy over here. Well, when you're on the road, if you need steak at home, right now I got a rack of steak from Primal. Like a rack. They sent me a rack of steak and...

I'm just like full on and then I got prime rib from Colorado craft brief beef for like Christmas activities Yeah, and I just ordered more. Yeah, because it's so freakin good So if you need steak you need beef go to primal beef comm go to Colorado craft beef comm you get the the beef tallow Yeah, which is it's like it's like the fat the fat. Yeah, they cook. Yes, so now you can cook like a

a hot dog in there. Yeah, yeah. Or a sausage or bacon. Eggs or whatever. Yeah, eggs. Throw the tallow in there. That's good. Did you get the beef tallow? No, no, no. Actually, that's why I'm all surprised and fired up. From what? Primal?

Colorado Craft Beef. All right, homie. Primal Beef does have jerky now. Yeah, yeah, I got a bunch of jerky. The jerky's freaking good. It's good. Yeah, it's good. It's ridiculously good. So check it out. ColoradoCraftBeef.com, PrimalBeef.com. Get yourself some steak. Subscribe to the podcast. Check out the Jocko Underground podcast. Check out our YouTube channels. We got Jocko Podcast Official. We got Jocko Podcast Clips Official. Clips, not official. Okay. Just clips. Just clips. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Origin USA has one and then Jocko Fuel has one. That's a good behind the scenes. Want to know what's happening? Check those out. Subscribe to those. Psychological Warfare, FlipsideCanvas.com. Dakota Meyer making cool stuff to hang on the wall. I've written a bunch of books. Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual. Expanded a Dish is out. Check that out. Final Spend. Just I've written a bunch of books. Kids books. Your kids are reading the kids books?

How do they like them? Big fan. That's why we've got that pull-up bar. Oh, yeah. Every time they enter the door, pull up. Imagine how awesome they're going to be as humans. Yeah.

You know what I mean? - Yeah, man. - When you're seven years old and you got a pull-up bar that you have to, every time you walk by, you gotta knock out a couple pull-ups, just think how much better you're gonna be as a human. - Yeah, but I think I might incorporate, we have a pull-up bar, but it's outside, so it's different. - No, you gotta have it in the house. - That's way different. - It's in the door. So when they go in the room, pull-up. When they go out of the room, pull-up. - Fuck. - Dude, I melted when my son was, I put a pull-up bar in his room, like on the wall, a full commercial,

Pull-up bar on the wall. It was his full good dream. It's a good dream Yeah, that's the kind of stuff. You know, it's a little bit maybe you know, the results speak for themselves So I'm I'm down that sounds like a good bro to get the pull-up bar for your kids for yourself or your kids Ashland front you heard us talking about it today. We solve problems through leadership go to Ashland front comm you want to come to our own events? You want to go to one of our FTX is check that out those things sell out and

So if you want to go to an FTX, it is an awesome experience. The reason we started doing FTX is because that's the way we taught leadership in the SEAL teams and it was freaking effective. So we brought it to the civilian sector. If you want to go to an FTX, go to echelonfront.com and check the schedule. We also have the muster, we have council, we have battlefield. We got all kinds of stuff going on. We got the women's assembly. So just check all these things out. And then we have online training. We have an online training academy.

Extremeownership.com. These skills that we talked about, these skills that you can learn that will make you a better leader and a better human being,

in everything that you do. They're gonna help with every aspect of your life. Go to ExtremeOwnership.com, learn those skills. And then if you wanna help service members, active and retired, you wanna help their families, Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got an incredible charity organization. If you wanna donate or you wanna get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. Also, HeroesAndHorses.org, Micah Fink, up in the freaking wilderness with our veteran community, helping them find their souls. And then Jimmy May has got an awesome organization,

It's called Beyond the Brotherhood, helping guys get out of the SEAL teams and move into the civilian sector. If you want to connect with us, once again, Cody. Cody's at SOMfront.com. Check out. If you want him to come and talk to your company, you want to go to an FTX, check that out. He's also on LinkedIn. Occasionally post things on LinkedIn. The gram he posts fairly active Twitter. He's maybe going to get back on. We'll see. He's at Cody Gandy. It's C-O-D-E-Y-G-A-N-D-Y.

And from for us to check out jaco.com and then we're on social media, but we're not look I'm not there to debate you about freaking some weird topic No, no, I'm not gonna do that echoes not you can do that. No, sir. I'm no debating weird topics You can check out echoes making videos sometimes He made a video of Terminator robots trying to steal Jocko fuel. Oh, yeah the parallel universe one Hey

Spoiler. Does Rana Willink, she got wounded. Does she survive? Oh, yeah, huh? She's wounded. We're scared. But I feel like she's going to be okay. Yeah, she might recover. I mean, she's going to have a scar. Only time can tell. But, dude, should she lay it down with those freaking Uzis or what, bro? Yeah.

Yes, she did. I would like, I wish I was there to watch you direct that. She looked good. Yep. Yeah, that was good. That was a good day for sure. She was laying it down. Yeah. She's a natural. Adam did not do well. No, you know, he had his purpose. He had his purpose. You know what I'm saying? Carrie, Carrie, Carrie and the fire didn't make it. Carrie, yeah, yeah. Carrie got, Carrie got burned up too, right? Oh, I wanted to tell you critique. You ready for critique? Yeah, of course. So for a flamethrower, you know,

There's like a little bit of fire on the end of the flamethrower. Like the tip of it. Yeah, that's just kind of there. Oh, yeah, yeah. The pilot. It's like a pilot light. Yeah. Okay. But you didn't get that part. Good detail. Made it very unrealistic. That's what stood out. Okay. Wait, actually, you gave me a good critique about the grenades too on a different video. What was it? Remember the grenade? You were like, hey, you should have talked to me about the grenades. Where'd you mess up?

don't know I forget what I messed up but he was just like he pulled the pin and then he just held it or something you're like no that the spoon or whatever like it comes off or I don't know something yeah when you throw it the spoon comes off yeah like there's some technical thing that happens that you know I failed to include tactical echo didn't know didn't yeah I've never thrown a grenade before but I don't know that kind of stuff you know but anyway we got you got Cody Gandy so you know next time we're gonna consult 100% anything else fellas

Negative. Right on. Cody, thanks for joining us once again. Thanks for your service in the Marine Corps. Devil dogs. And thanks for what you do every day at Ashlawn Front, teaching these lessons to leaders and teaching leaders how to lead. It's awesome. Appreciate it. Thanks to all our armed forces who are also out there right now leading and keeping us and our way of life safe. And thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service officers,

All other first responders, thank you for your service. And a solemn salute to Matt Redding, killed in the line of duty after just four years on the force, 29 years old. Do not forget the sacrifice that our police and law enforcement make. And everyone else out there, just like the principles of maneuver warfare and mission tactics and commander's intent allows the Marine Corps to win on the battlefield, the principles of combat leadership

that we teach can help you win in business with your family and with your life so take ownership and go lead and until next time this is cody and echo and jocko out