Jocko Willink

We volunteered for what was called an ARG platoon on the East Coast.

It's called a MARG platoon.

We volunteered for the ARG platoon, and we went and did a shipboard deployment, which for me was awesome because

We had a lot of assets to train with.

We worked very closely with the Marine Corps, which was awesome.

We did, you know, we trained, we did like their shooting package with the force recon guys.

We trained with them.

We did ship boarding with them.

We did stuff, a lot of stuff at Camp Pendleton after our own workup.

And I also got to learn and understand the structure of the Marine Corps and how they operated, which gave me an insight onto conventional forces at large and what they were doing, interacting with the Navy.

It was very, very beneficial for me.

I was,

I was the primary comms guy in my first platoon for whatever reason.

They didn't have a primary comms guy.

And I had gone to comm school, as a matter of fact, on the East Coast, the SEAL comm school on the East Coast, which was awesome.

And so then I was a primary comms guy in my first platoon.

So now I'm the primary comms guy in my second platoon, which means...

I'm sitting with the officers during planning.

I'm, you know, learning how the communications work, learning about contingencies, learning about loss of comms plan, learning about QRFs.

Like I was learning things that I wouldn't have been learning if I had been a machine gunner.