Jocko Willink

But prior to that happening, Admiral Borda had started a program called the Seaman Admiral Program because Admiral Borda was a prior enlisted guy.

And so he wanted to offer that to other troops, and so they started this program, and it was 50 sailors from the US Navy would get selected.

And I heard about the program, and actually one of my officers said, hey, they've got this program coming out, you should do it.

And I did it, and I didn't get picked up, but I got slated as an alternate, which was

no, there were no alternate spots that opened up because everyone took it, but I was an alternate.

So I knew I had a decent chance.

And, and that the guy actually sent a note back to my commanding officer that said, make sure this guy applies next year.

And so I applied again the next year and I got picked up for that program.

Yeah, at that juncture in my career and the way the teams were, this is 1998, you know, I had done three platoons, so I maybe had an LPO and a platoon chief left.

So I basically looked at it as, oh, instead of doing an LPO and a platoon chief, you're going to do an AYC and an OIC.

Gotcha.

And so it wasn't really, didn't really make that much of a difference to me, you know.

When guys ask me now, like, what should you do?

Or if they say, hey, I want to go on the SEAL teams, what should I do?

I mean, my career couldn't have gone any better.

Like, it was great.

But to your point, if you want to do the trade of being a SEAL, then you should enlist.

Yep.

That's just how.

Why did you decide to take a leadership role?