what do you do where you know an order is bad but if you don't fall in line the
punishment will be terrible Jaakko you talked about this when you were reading
the Maxim's Napoleon and I think the quote was something like every
general-in-chief who in consequence of orders from his appears gives battle
with a certainty of defeat of his armies ruin is culpable and I think that's
exactly true and what that really it means is extremely worship you own it
regardless and so you know in a military you've got to the Uniform Code of
Military Justice which is the the legal framework that the military falls
underneath our laws our military justice system and you're you're obligated to
not follow a a illegal order so if someone gives you an order to go execute
prisoners or do something that you shouldn't do you actually are legally
obligated to not follow that and and that following orders like you know
whether you're and it didn't work in Nuremberg right for the SS guards who
sent people to their deaths they all was just following orders it's not that is
not a defense so you have to it's on you it's it's your responsibility
and it's certainly under our own UCMJ it's it's it's on you and I think in
those kind of situations you you have to own that if it's truly bad if it's truly
catastrophic you have to be willing to take the punishment you want to punish
me for that okay cool you want to fire me why I'm not gonna do that because I'm
gonna sleep better at night knowing that I made the right decision
I'm not gonna go down this path it leads to you know the destruction of our team
that puts people in harm's way that puts you know that causes people to do
something that's unsafe and puts them in jeopardy and and you got to be able to
stare yourself in the mirror and that's most important oh you want to fire me
for that okay cool I'll take that now some people you have to understand that
you got to prioritize and there are those people that are like over the top
everything is like you're telling me to do this and I don't agree with it and
it's really not that big of a deal and one example I thought of people are
shocked to hear about what it's like going to war in today's world the
administer native requirements that are on you the
massive amount of paperwork that we had to do just to get approval for an
operation all the things that we had to do better required on us and we're in
the middle of a war and guess what we bitch tried to buy that all the time no
one more than me and Jackie was probably sick and tired of hearing me about that
and one of things he sent right away was hey guess what all these admin
requirements they're putting on us even though we're in the middle of a training
right now and they're asking us for this paperwork we're gonna do we're gonna do
them all all of them yeah and one of the reasons that I did that was because I
did not want higher headquarters to have anything to hold over me at all and
furthermore guess what I was doing I was building up myself a little relationship
with the boss man cuz oh you want admin stuff done no problem don't even worry
about it we're gonna build it up that's what we're gonna do hmm and then there
were times where the paperwork did cross the line and one of those situations
that we ran into was not really a paperwork situation but they had they
wanted us to work with Iraqi soldiers and we've talked about this before it's
in the book the Iraqi soldiers are very unreliable unmotivated can be disloyal
don't have good training don't speak the same language as us don't have good
equipment I mean it's just a laundry list of reasons why you don't want to
put your guys lives in their hands hmm well in Ramadi the fighting was
horrible in 2006 in other areas of Iraq the fighting had actually settled down
well the command above us wanted us to work with Iraqi soldiers they wanted all
the special operations people to work with Iraqi soldiers so they actually and
and the all of the special operations people mostly were resistant to this and
so everyone would kind of skate by and figure out how to not do it I'm gonna
take I'm gonna take a 25 man element of us special operators and we'll take
three Iraqis with us soon just to kind of shake them up right and you could see
why they were doing this you know why because it's safer it's it's a way there
okay we're doing what you said and they were actually using the term Iraqi face
we're gonna put an Iraqi face on this mission which to them literally meant
one face in subcases so we get told this as well and if you
you know if you read the book he will talk we talked about the fact that yeah
we were definitely not Pro taking Iraqis but we realized that if we didn't do
that if we didn't get the Iraqis out there fighting they were never gonna
learn how to fight and we would never yell be able to leave Iraq so we knew
that something we had to do but then they went one step further and they set
up a ratio and I know this sounds crazy they set up a ratio and they said I
think it was for every one American soldier you have to have five Iraqi
soldiers with you it was some ratio like that some number and if you were out in
some part of central Iraq outside of a small town and you were doing some kind
of a simple mission you could get away with that all day long
mm-hmm in Ramadi wasn't happen that would have meant I would have been
sending three or four seals out with 20-something Iraqis and that means if
there's a firefight you got three guys that are reliable if one SEAL gets hit
who else is gonna handle things it's a nightmare and so this order came
down and I just ran up the chain of command and said we can't do that hmm
and we're not gonna do that here's what we're taking we'll take as many Iraqis
as appropriate but this is the minimum force we're gonna have every operation
that we go on and so we set that standard and of course and this is
something I talk about a lot as well it was a sensible argument it made sense
there was obviously casualties on a regular basis in Ramadi
there were firefights every single day the platoon out in Corregidor their
first 24 missions in a row they got in a firefight 24 missions in a row they got
in a firefight then they had one day where they didn't and then the next day
they did again for another one however many missions so there were firefights
happening on every mission so for us to be like okay yeah we'll just bring three
seals and fifteen Iraqi soldiers it's a nightmare we're all gonna get killed if
we do that but one of the reasons that that we were able to do that that jakka
was able to get approval for that is because all the little stuff that all
you know other people would like oh we don't want to do this paperwork or
that's too much and they complain we had done that we had done those little
things yeah it's a pain for us yet do I want to do that
not I'd rather betray and do another stuff well we're gonna do it and so
because Jocko had set that standard and we made it happen then when we really
push back for the stuff that really mattered which is what I was talking
about you gotta prioritize it execute prioritize the stuff that really matters
we were able to get that approving guess what they didn't want us to go out and
get killed so is what we explained it up the chain
of like listen if we do that we're gonna we're gonna get a lot of guys killed by
doing that and I talked about this often is the fact that leadership is aligned
to the front troops and if not then there's something drastically wrong but
of course my bosses wanted me to keep my guys safe and kill bad guys and win the
war of course they did it in businesses of course the boss wants you to be
profitable and keep your troops happy but be profitable be ethical right that
those are standard things and those are gonna be aligned so if you send up an
idea up the chain of command or you get told to do something and you don't do it
because it's not gonna help you be profitable why would your boss disagree
with that mmm it's not gonna happen so you have to have the the wherewithal
to actually know when to say no and on the moral and ethical things that llave
talked about those are clear-cut those are clear-cut if you're getting told to
do something that's illegal or immoral then it is your duty and responsibility
to disobey that order and and that's the way it is