Jocko Willink

Like I went down the list and

was figuring out who was to blame.

And there was something in my gut that felt so disgusted by my thoughts.

And I was probably, you know, a half an hour away from when the CO arrived, and I couldn't figure out why I felt so disgusted in this debrief.

And it occurred to me,

like a giant slap upside my head that the reason I felt disgusted is because I was trying to blame people for things that were my fault.

Because this operation, like every operation, when you are the senior leader on the battlefield, you're in charge of everything.

And every one of those mistakes that happened are because of me.

They're because of me, because I failed as a leader to convey how important it was to pass your location.

I failed to convey as a leader how important the limit of advance was.

I failed to convey how important it was to keep control of those Iraqi soldiers.

Those things are my fault that that's happened.

Not any one of those guys.

And so when the commanding officer showed up, and the command master chief, and the investigating officer, and they're sitting there in the room with my wounded guy who's got his head bandaged up.

It's Matt Hasbro.

You know Matt, right?

Matt was my swim buddy in second phase.

So I'm looking at Matt in the back.

I mean, it's only a miracle that he's alive, right?

He had 50 cal punching through the roof.