“I’ll take a section of my SEALs and flank the enemy fighters,” Seth said calmly over the clamor of incoming and outgoing gunfire, pointing to the location on his map where they planned to maneuver. “We’ll take the high ground from the rooftop of one of those buildings there,” he added, pointing at a cluster of buildings.
“Sounds good,” said the major. “Do it.”
Seth gave the signal to move out, with J. P. Dinnell in the lead wielding his Mk46 machine gun and the squad of SEALs following behind. They aggressively maneuvered to flank the enemy, entered and cleared one of the buildings, then took the rooftop. From there, they engaged enemy fighters from the high ground, killing several and forcing the remainder to flee.
The patrol, no longer pinned down, was able to continue and soon made its way back to the safety of the base.
As Jocko listened to the debrief after the operation, the major said to Seth: “That was really impressive how you calmly maneuvered your element under fire and flanked the enemy. You must have been in a lot of urban combat—and a bunch of firefights.”
“No, sir,” Seth replied. “That was actually my very first firefight.”
* * *
To the senior leaders in the classroom, I explained that the only reason Seth and Delta Platoon were able to perform so well in their first firefight was that they had participated in extraordinary, realistic training prior to deployment. It was the same for us in Charlie Platoon.
“We were all thrust into some incredibly difficult situations,” I continued. “But we had spent months preparing in rigorous training scenarios. That training saved lives, enabled us to effectively execute, and played an integral role in Task Unit Bruiser’s success.”
“We could use a training program,” one senior leader agreed. “It would be nice if the executive leadership would develop one.”
“That’s what you are going to do?” I asked. “Wait for the executive team to build the training program? Does that sound like Extreme Ownership? Look, they’ve already got a lot on their plates. Besides, all of you in this room are closer to this problem. You understand where the experience is lacking and you have the knowledge that your junior leaders need. So you need to develop it.”
I explained that in the SEAL Teams, it isn’t the senior leaders—the admirals and captains—who run the leadership programs. It’s the returning platoon commanders and platoon chiefs and leading petty officers.
“It’s up to you to develop the training program,” I said. “Then run it up the chain of command for their support and approval.
“Put your junior, inexperienced leaders in difficult scenarios,” I continued. “Role-play with them. Force them to make decisions under pressure. Then debrief and analyze those decisions.”
I reminded them of Jocko’s mantra at training detachment: Hard training is the solemn duty of trainers and leaders every day.
“But you have to train smart,” I reminded them. “Maximize the use of time and resources. Make training realistic to prepare your key leaders for their real-world challenges. I guarantee you that the return on investment from a good training program will be substantial.”
Throughout the leadership development course, I grew to know many of the company’s senior leaders well. There were several outstanding leaders in the group. Three of them recognized the pressing need for a training program and took ownership of the problem. They stepped up and took on the challenge of developing and implementing an effective training program, despite their busy schedules.
I followed up with the company’s executive team and highlighted to them the need for an effective training program. Just as I suspected, the executive team was fully supportive. They welcomed the efforts of the department heads and senior project managers who took charge of the program.
It took significant effort and time to build the program. Finally, after months of preparation, they were ready to roll it out. I wasn’t on-site to observe the initial training session, but the next week I followed up via phone with one of the senior department heads who had helped build the program.
“How did it go?” I asked him.
“It could have gone better,” he said. “There was a lot of pushback.”
I was surprised to hear this after the extensive efforts that had been made to build a solid training program.
“What happened?” I asked.
“It wasn’t the content,” the senior department head answered. “The content is good. The objectives are solid. It was the delivery.
“The leader who instructed this first course was probably not the right guy to lead this effort,” he continued. “He put out too much information and constantly quizzed the participants, most of whom couldn’t keep up. When it was clear they didn’t understand, he yelled at them in front of the class. The class is normally an enthusiastic group, but no one was happy about that training. The feedback has been super-negative.”
“Not good,” I responded. “You know how important it is for the company to have an effective training program. First of all, training is only as good as the instructors who are teaching it. So you have to carefully select the right people for this.
“You have to push the standards and train hard,” I said. “But you can’t train so hard that it defeats the purpose of training in the first place: to educate and prepare your team to more effectively execute the company’s mission.
“So, you need to rein that in,” I continued. “Start over with a new instructor. In fact, you should instruct the next session. And make it clear to participants that this time will be different. Training should be challenging. But only as a means to make your team better, to prepare them for the challenges they face in the real world. You’ve got to train hard, but train smart.”
A Task Unit Bruiser machine gunner holds security from inside a compound. The terrain in the battle of Ramadi was mostly urban, but some operations took place outside of the city in rural terrain. Yet, the fundamentals remained the same: Cover and Move. Notice the extra bandolier of ammunition slung over the shoulder. Bruiser SEALs carried as much ammo as possible, and still ran low on a regular basis.
(Courtesy of U.S. Navy. Photograph taken by Mate Second Class Sam Peterson.)
CHAPTER 6
Aggressive, Not Reckless
Jocko Willink
“VIETRAM”—MC-1 AREA OF OPERATIONS, NORTHEAST OF RAMADI, IRAQ: 2006
Suddenly, the sound of machine gun fire ripped through the quiet night air as beautiful but deadly red streaks of tracer fire arced across the sky. I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but I knew that my sniper overwatch team out there in the darkness was in a gunfight. That was about all I knew for sure. I didn’t know if they had been spotted by enemy fighters and fired upon. I wasn’t sure what size enemy force they were engaged with. I definitely didn’t know what support—if any—the SEALs in the overwatch element needed from me or our assault force, staged and ready to launch. But even without a clear picture of what was happening, I needed to make a call. And my default mind-set was aggressive—to take action to solve problems and accomplish the mission. With that in mind, I knew what we must do: EXECUTE.
* * *
We were poised and ready to launch on a major clearance operation in a particularly violent insurgent stronghold. Our objective was to clear a village and marketplace in that stronghold—a series of small buildings and market stalls—known to U.S. forces as “Mav Market.” The name derived from a past combat operation nearby, when American forces under enemy attack had called for close air support, and U.S. war planes hit several enemy positions with AGM-65 Maverick missiles.
For the operation we were about to launch, I was the ground force commander, staged with the assault force of Charlie Platoon SEALs and a dozen Iraqi soldiers, at a U.S. Army combat outpost (COP) in a rural agricultural area outside the city. The area was known to U.S. forces as “MC-1.” Although it shared a border with the northern edge of the city of Ramadi, MC-1 was physically separated by
the Euphrates River that ran west to east through the area, demarcating the urban cityscape from a rural farming community. Beyond the river, the landscape opened into irrigated farm fields, levees, palm trees, and canals interspersed with small, scattered groups of houses. It did not look at all like the urban or desert terrain we had come to expect in Iraq; it was more like a scene from a Vietnam War movie. Task Unit Bruiser and other U.S. forces had nicknamed the area “VietRam,” an ode to the place so many of us had grown up hearing about in stories passed down through oral history from the generations of SEALs who had fought in Vietnam and through the Hollywood celluloid depictions in movies we had all watched growing up.
Although the Euphrates River separated the urban zone of Ramadi proper and VietRam, the violence from the city spilled over and permeated the countryside. The roads contained massive IEDs, large enough to take out armored vehicles, with frequent attacks along the main thoroughfares. Coalition patrols, when crossing fields or open terrain, were a vulnerable target for enemy mortar teams that knew the area well. The U.S. Army’s 1st Battalion, 109th Infantry Regiment (1/109th), was responsible for the area. They were an outstanding combat unit of experienced, professional, and courageous Soldiers. By the time Task Unit Bruiser arrived, the 1/109th had been on the ground for nearly a year fighting in this area. Because of the expansive rural terrain, with limited roads, troop concentrations were impossible—a single infantry platoon had to cover several square kilometers of battlespace. With so little combat power to affect such a large space, it was difficult to penetrate deep into enemy-held territory.
One of Leif’s assistant platoon commanders (or AOIC, for assistant officer in charge) in Charlie Platoon had built a solid relationship with the Soldiers of the 1/109th Infantry. The AOIC had teamed up with the Army company and platoon leadership that patrolled the area. Together, they made aggressive plans, orchestrating a bold push into the enemy-controlled territory along the river. The AOIC, along with Charlie Platoon’s leading petty officer (or LPO), and sniper Chris Kyle led their element of SEALs and the Iraqi soldiers they worked with on patrols and sniper overwatch missions deep into the contested areas, frequently receiving heavy enemy contact.
On one operation, the AOIC split his element of SEALs and Iraqi troops into two squads. One squad patrolled on foot across a muddy, open field when suddenly, insurgent fighters hiding in the tree line and nearby buildings opened up on them with machine guns. The patrol dropped to the ground for protection, pinned down by the enemy’s effective fire. Once they were “sucking mud”—facedown in a prone position to avoid the hail of bullets—enemy mortar rounds rained down, impacting all around them. Miraculously, the muddy field saved the patrol, as the mortars penetrated deep into the mud before exploding; the ground absorbed the explosions and lethal shrapnel, leaving large holes in the mud but fortunately no holes in our teammates or their Iraqi soldiers. The other SEAL squad, which had maintained a covered position from the levee that bordered the field, quickly laid down suppressive fire and beat back the enemy attack. Their solid efforts and plan using Cover and Move enabled the SEAL squad stranded in the open to move to safety without any casualties.
Over time, the series of aggressive operations by the 1/109th Soldiers, Charlie Platoon SEALs, and Iraqi soldiers challenged the insurgents’ control over the area. Together, the operations enabled the 1/109th to gain ground and set up a small COP in the midst of VietRam, from which a platoon of 1/109th Soldiers lived and worked. From that small outpost, 1/109th and the AOIC’s SEAL element conducted patrols, gathered atmospherics, and acquired intelligence about enemy operations in the area. Eventually, they identified a small enclave of a dozen or so buildings that seemed to be the root of many enemy attacks: Mav Market.
With multiple intelligence sources indicating the area was a base of operations for insurgents, the AOIC had brought the intelligence to us—Leif and the rest of Charlie Platoon, and me at the task unit—with the recommendation that we conduct an aggressive operation in the area. We agreed and planned an assault to clear the village, capture any suspected enemy personnel, search the market, and destroy any weapons caches we found. The planning cycle commenced, mission approval given from our chain of command, and a few days later, we launched from Camp Ramadi to the 1/109th infantry’s COP in MC-1.
Wanting to get “eyes on” the village and the market prior to the assault, we sent a sniper overwatch team—a small number of SEAL snipers, machine gunners, a corpsman, a radioman, and an element leader—into the target area prior to the assault. Their job was to spearhead the operation, sneak in clandestinely, observe the target area for suspicious activity, and provide security when the assault element entered the hamlet. This was critical, as the enemy had an effective early warning network in the area. Sympathetic (or fearful) locals monitored roads and paths going in and out of enemy strongpoints. When coalition forces passed by, the locals passed signals or made radio calls to inform the insurgents we were headed their way. That gave the enemy fighters an opportunity to make a move: either run and evade, hide their weapons and pretend to be civilians, or rally their troops and attack with IEDs, machine guns, rockets, and mortars.
To minimize their exposure for this mission, the overwatch element rode into the COP with a standard U.S. Army logistics convoy so as not to raise any suspicion, while the rest of us—the assault force that would actually clear the village and market—remained at Camp Ramadi, ready to launch.
When darkness fell, the overwatch element quietly patrolled from the COP. They stealthily made their way across flooded fields, through canals, over levees, and through date palm groves, until they reached the target area. The overwatch element observed from a distance for a few minutes and then determined that one of the buildings on the outskirts of the village appeared vacant. The point man pushed a little farther forward, confirmed that there were no signs of any occupants, and then called the rest of the overwatch element to advance. The team entered the building and cleared it, not dynamically as a SWAT team might do, but quietly, like cat burglars. Finding nothing, they put their snipers in place and set their machine gunners in security positions. The radioman passed their position to the tactical operations center back at Camp Ramadi.
Once the overwatch was in position, the next phase of the operation commenced. As ground force commander for the operation, I joined Leif and the rest of Charlie Platoon’s SEALs, who would be the assault force for the operation, accompanied by our Iraqi soldiers. The AOIC who had inspired the operation was the assault force commander. We mounted up in our vehicles at Camp Ramadi and drove out to the COP in MC-1 from where the overwatch had launched. Our assault force was about thirty strong, half SEALs and the other half Iraqi soldiers.
With the overwatch element in position, any movement or activity in the village would be observed and passed to the assault force. I anticipated that there might be enemy activity in the area, spurred up when the assault force entered the vicinity and the insurgent early warning network passed the word. Our transit in the Humvees was uneventful. We arrived at the COP, our staging point for the assault. We pulled in and combat parked the vehicles (Humvees were backed into parking spaces to facilitate quick departure), and our team dismounted. I made a quick radio check with the overwatch position.
“Charlie two-six, this is Jocko, over,” I said.
“Jocko, this is Charlie two-six, go,” the overwatch element leader responded.
I passed a quick situation report: “Assault force is staged at the COP. Any activity when we rolled in?”
“Negative,” he responded. “Nothing significant. We saw a few locals moving about. Normal pattern of life. About twenty minutes ago, it got very quiet. When you guys rolled in, no change—it seems like the village is bedded down for the night.”
“Roger,” I replied. “We will let things continue to settle, then launch in a few hours as planned,” I told him, indicating that we would stick to our predetermined assault time late in the night.
&
nbsp; I walked out to the vehicles and passed word to the rest of the team. The assault force dismounted the vehicles and entered the COP building. They took off their gear, sprawled out, and waited. Leif, his AOIC, and I had business to attend to, so we made our way to a small tactical operations center (TOC) that had been set up by the 1/109th Soldiers inside their COP. In an age when people usually think a TOC means giant plasma television monitors, coffeemakers, and slick modern furniture, this was the other end of the spectrum. This TOC was bare-bones: a few maps on the wall; a rack-mounted base station radio unit to communicate with elements in the field as well as the headquarters back in Camp Ramadi; some dry-erase boards with names, people, and plans written out on them; and basic communication procedures. That was it.
The AOIC knew the area and the key leaders well and greeted the Army platoon leader and the Soldiers in the TOC.
Leif and I introduced ourselves to the leadership of the 1/109th Infantry platoon that was occupying the COP. “Good evening,” I told them as we shook hands. “I’m Jocko, the task unit commander. This is Leif, the SEAL platoon commander.”
The Dichotomy of Leadership: Balancing the Challenges of Extreme Ownership to Lead and Win Page 14