411: Faith, Family, and Flag, with General James "Mook" Mukoyama

This is Jocko, podcast number 411 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.

Good evening.

Vietnam was far different from Korea because I was there with one mission, defeat the enemy, as opposed to the Chang Pari Fund. In Korea, I didn't have the time, energy or resources to support the community. We were not there to win over hearts and minds. We were fighting the enemy in guerrilla war. Lt. Col. Hackworth briefed us on tactics he had learned in previous deployments. But this form of irregular insurgency warfare was less predictable and organized, more chaotic and treacherous. As the leader of Battle Company, I was leading operations in these gruesome firefights. In one particularly ruthless battle with the Viet Cong, we had many killed.

There were three dead bodies at my feet. A unit is most vulnerable right after a victory. It is just human nature to let your guard down and breathe a sigh of relief. But as the guy in charge, the pro, I knew that and acted accordingly. I was on my radio with my platoon leaders barking out orders and telling them to take care of their wounded, reorganize their units, redistribute ammunition and watch for enemy avenues of approach for a counterattack.

But suddenly I stopped. I glanced down at the enemy bodies at my feet and realized that something had happened to me. Something had hardened my heart only moments earlier. These bodies were alive. Human beings, children of God, with families and loved ones. They were fighting for something equally as important to them as I was fighting for myself.

And yet I was treating them like bumps on a log.

I then remembered Jesus Sermon on the Mount, in which he told us to love our enemies.

So in the midst of all the mayhem, the so called fog of battle, I stopped and said a prayer for the three Viet Cong and their families.

But I was also saying a prayer for myself.

And that right there is an excerpt from a new book which is called Faith, Family and Flag Memoirs of an Unlikely American Samurai Crusader, which was written by retired Major General James Mook Mukayama. General Mukayama was born in Chicago in 1944, the second son of Japanese immigrants. He was raised in a humble blue collar family, eventually joining the army where he served over 30 years, including tours in Korea and Vietnam, where he served as a company commander for one of my heroes, Colonel David Hackworth.

His awards include the Silver Star, three Bronze Stars and the Purple Heart. He was the first Asian American to command a U.S. army division. And he has been on this podcast before, over five years ago, episode 124. But it is an honor to have him here with Us tonight to discuss his new book, which I had the honor to write the forward for and publish. And he's going to discuss this book and the lessons he learned from his incredible experiences. General, thank you for joining us once again.

Well, Jocko and Echo, thank you so much. It's great to be with you again. And especially.

The fact that, Jocko, you wrote the foreword to this book in which you quote Colonel Hackworth. So anybody who has any knowledge of leadership in terms of famous people to have the forward mentioned that I have some redeeming qualities in the eyes of both Colonel Hackworth and you, it doesn't get any better than that. So I am just so honored to be on the podcast again. Thank you.

Well, thank you for coming back. And like I said, it was an honor for me to be able to write the forward and just to be able to read through the book, get an advanced copy of the book, hear all the stories and lessons that you learned, and for you to have sat down and captured all these lessons for people to hear the story, to hear what you've been through, your trials, your tribulations. It's just a fantastic book. Not just about history, but also about just how to live a better life. So thank you so much for writing it. And like I said, it's my honor to be able to write the forward.

I guess we might as well just get into it a little bit and start off from the beginning from where you came from. Chi Town. Do you guys call it Chi Town for real?

No. Okay.

Only outsiders call it Chi Town.

Yeah.

All right, let me just jump into the book a little bit. You say growing up in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s in the Northwest side of the city of Chicago was like winning the American lottery. My nuclear three generation family lived in a tenement apartment in the heart of an immigrant community, while my parents owned and operated a mom and pop gift shop on Main Street. The Logan Square neighborhood was truly an American environment as it was primarily immigrants. Polish, German, Italian, Jewish, and one Asian family, mine, the Mukayamas.

So did you stand out much?

Well, you know, I obviously, because I was the only Asian. Perhaps I did, but I never felt that way. I mean, you know, the neighborhoods in Chicago, the people who lived there were a community regardless of your ethnic background. My best friend was Jewish. I had Catholic friends. I happened to be raised Protestant. But every neighborhood had a. A basic core, which was your local grocery store, your barber shop, your local bar.

Which was the most important, a church. I mean, Chicago has so many you know, parishes, Catholic parishes, Protestant churches, Jewish temples. But the. So I went. I was born and raised, as I said, in Logan Square, northwest side of Chicago. And I went to. We went to a Methodist church right up the street. Literally, it was on the same street, maybe two blocks away. And every Sunday we would put on our Sunday best clothes. That's what you used to do in those days. And we would walk to church as a family. And that was other than school. That really was, I shouldn't say other than. It was the center of my life at that time because, you know, every Sunday we go, I join the choir. I really was a choir boy.

And I actually, in grammar school, I sang a solo on local WGN TV with our youth choir. But I was in Cub Scouts, I was in Boy Scouts. The pack and the troop were sponsored by our church. I mean, the church was so important. And that led me to, you know, the motto of the Boy Scouts for God and country.

And so that. That was the found part of the foundation of my life.

So talk about your mom and your dad. So your dad was. Do you say issei? Is that how you say it?

Issei.

Your dad was issei, but your mom was nisei. Can you explain the difference between issei and nisei?

Sure. The Japanese word for generation is sei. Okay. And to count in Japanese, 1, 2 and 3, 1 is Ichi, 2 is knee and 3 is San. So ichi, ni san. Issei is a combination of ichi and sei, which means the first generation to come to America. So those were the immigrants who were born in Japan, but they came to America. The second generation, keeping in mind ni is two Nisei were the first generation to be born here. So they were American citizens. Okay. The third generation was sansei. Now, the immigration pattern for the Japanese to America was an anthropologist's dream because they all came here at the beginning. It was a wave from Hawaii and from Japan in about the late 1800s, early 1900s, maybe a two decade period of time where they came in. But then by the 1920s or so, there was anti Japanese feelings already mounting. Yellow.

Journalism by the west coast papers, the Hearst newspaper chain. And they ran stories about how, you know, the Japanese immigrants were.

Doing terrible things to white children or white women. And so there was a lot of. But what happened was it was more than that. These Japanese immigrants were extremely industrious. I mean, they worked hard and they saved and they were able to change a lot of the. Here in California, a lot of the farmlands and orchards were developed by Japanese before the war, before World War II. And, you know, there was jealousy about that. Now, what most people don't know is that Japanese nationals were prohibited from owning land in the United States. Okay. The Japanese were smart. What they did is they purchased land in the name of their children because they were citizens, so they could. They could do that. But there was a lot of jealousy. So when the war broke out, it was very clear that the hysteria from Pearl harbor. And by the way, I should point out that the FBI checked on the loyalty of the Japanese Americans. You know, that was one of the reasons they were put in camps, because they said there was be a fifth column movement where they would be spying for the Japanese and they would be pointing out the weaknesses in our defense, you know, our forts. And so there was not one case of Nisei's or Issei's of espionage ever proven against them.

Wow.

So your dad was Issei and he. Oh, yeah, he had come over.

Yeah. I'm sorry.

No, no, it's all good. But then your mom was born here.

Yes. And that was kind of a cool story. She was. Well, let me get back to my dad first. The reason he came here. He was born in Japan in 1900, and his father.

Kind of, I wouldn't say squandered. He came from a relatively well to do family in rural Japan. We were from a place called Yamanashi, which is a prefecture in Japan, right. Near Mount Fuji. Okay. In fact, my name, Mukoyama. Muko means over there and yama means mountain. From my father's backyard, every day he could see Mount Fuji. I mean, it was, you know, really beautiful. And so when people ask me, what does your name mean, you know, in English? Well, having been an English major, rather than saying, you know, the mountain over there, I say yonder mountain.

And so anyway, my grandfather invested, I guess, in the Japanese future market or something like that, for sake, I think, and he lost like half of the family fortune or, you know, assets. He still had a decent amount, but. So 1901, he books to the United States and the idea was to make enough money to come back, you know, with honor, back to Japan. Right. So my father's born in 1900, 1901, his father leaves, stays in the States for 18 years.

Leaving, by the way, his wife with five kids. Right. And so when my father turned 18, my grandmother said, you get on a ship and you go to the States and you get your father to come back. So that's what he did. He got on a boat, landed in Seattle, and my Grandfather was in Kearney, Nebraska, and he was the head. He was a pretty sharp guy. And he was the head of a Japanese labor group working in the sugar fields and very successful. And so my father said, you know, I'm on a mission, you know, mom says you got to go back. And so they moved to Denver, Colorado. Okay. The real neat thing about this was my grandfather was a Christian. This was highly, highly unusual for a Japanese at that time.

When did he become a Christian?

I don't know because I never met him. He died before I.

Came of age in Japan. Because my father was successful, he did get him to go back. But a neat story was when they moved to Denver, my grandfather purchased a boarding house.

The boarding house was at the end of kind of a rail line where miners used to, you know, go to the boarding house. You know, they'd work in the mines and then they'd come. Well, the boarding house had like waitresses, you know, it was a. So they had a restaurant or whatever you want to call it, where they fed the miners. But the. And they had waitresses, you know, that would wait on them. Well, the waitresses turned out to be more than waitresses. But my, but my grandfather didn't know that when he bought the place. Right? So being a Christian, he comes in and he closes down that part of the so called operations. Right. Needless to say, a lot of the miners stopped coming. And so. So, you know, but my grandfather, you know, had had enough money. So my father said, you know, it's time to go back. And he went back, you know, but my father said, I'm staying.

And he was very unusual for issei. Most issei were very. They came from rural areas.

They weren't highly educated and they were introverts because they were learning a new culture. They didn't know the language. My dad wasn't like that at all. Here he is, he's 19 now, and he's in California and he sells cars, he sells insurance. He worked as a houseboy for a millionaire somewhere. He was a chauffeur. He was a gandy man on the railroad. And then he worked his way down into Mexico. He lived in Mexico for about five, six years. And then he worked his way up the Mississippi river valley and wound up in Chicago in the late 20s. So this is the kind of guy he was. He's a bachelor this whole time. Right. Now, my mother, the way he met my mom was she was born in Madison, Wisconsin. Okay. And.

They had like a small farm. And.

And I don't what Drove my grandfather to do this. But right at the beginning of the Depression, he moves the family to Oklahoma, you know, the Dust Bowl. And sure enough, she lived through all. She read Pearl Buck, you know, and she said she nailed it. You know, that was what they went through, you know. And so she's. She lived through the Depression and all that. And so now comes my father, right? He's in Chicago. Somebody knew her family in Oklahoma and introduced, you know, introduced them because in those days there were anti interracial laws in the United States. You know, whites weren't supposed to marry Asians and vice versa. So. So he goes to see her and, you know, you think especially in those days, they had arranged marriages. It was kind of a given, you know, that. Well, my mom was born here. She was having nothing of that, you know, and he had, you know, he had to, you know, earn her approval, which he did, thank goodness. Otherwise I wouldn't be here. And they got married, moved to Chicago, and we were one of the few Japanese American families in Chicago before the war. There were probably 3 to 400 total.

During. After the war because of the camps and the relocation of Japanese Americans who were in those concentration camps. And by the way, they were not death camps, but they were concentration camps, your normal definition of concentrating people of a certain race or ethnicity behind barbed wire with machine guns, facing in, not facing out. And so when they came back after the war, out of the camps, and actually during the end of the war, there were so many jobs in Chicago, it was a good place to come, but there was no organization set up to do that. So my father and my uncle and some of the Issei who were in Chicago formed what was called a mutual aid society.

So when people came out of camp, they would get them apartments, they would find them jobs, they get their kids in school, you know, that type of thing.

And, you know, you talk about in the book that your mom and dad basically operated the. The main gift shop in town. So you learned about hard work. You worked in there. Your mom worked six days a week. I think your dad worked seven days a week. Like that was kind of the American where you got a lot of your American hard work values from watching them.

Yeah, it was. That was a nice.

You know, I never felt poor. You know, we never owned a home. We always lived in an apartment building until, you know, I was maybe 20 years old, but I was already out of home. And.

Our strength was our family and our culture and our values. And. And the gift shop was how.

You know, my father was Able to pay for our living, really, there was not enough money for college for my brother or I, and we knew that, but that was our lot in life. We didn't complain about it. We said, okay, we got to go out and earn it, you know, just like my father was earning, you know, and he gave me great gift about.

Values. When one of the Japanese values, which I, as, you know, talk about in the book, is something called on, which means debt. So when people do things for you in life, you remember that you do not forget it. And so my father owned this gift shop for about 30 years. It was a small gift shop on Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago. You know, they sold things like figurines and lamps and ashtrays and dishes and, you know, small things like that. And it was open six days a week.

On Monday and Thursday nights until 9 o'. Clock. The other days were 9 to 5. And it was just our family who was running it. We did have one employee, employee who was one of our neighbors, you know, and that was it. So, you know, my brother and I would go to the gift shop, we'd help unpack things, line things up, and then when we got old enough to drive, we would deliver because we had one of our things was free delivery. It was kind of cool.

You guys were the early version of Amazon, huh?

Yeah.

Yeah. You say here in the book.

My father inculcated the value of Japanese culture into my brother and me. My parents demonstrated the core cultural tenets through how they carried themselves and lived their lives. They instilled the concepts of honor, loyalty, dedication, debt, which you just mentioned, and perseverance. And you use the Japanese words in here, which I'm not going to pronounce because I'll mess them up.

Yeah. And by the way, Japanese, I know enough Japanese to be dangerous, okay? Which our parents did not teach us Japanese when we were younger because there were really two reasons. Number one is they would be able to talk to themselves in Japanese, and we couldn't understand what they were saying. Anybody who's a parent would love to have that type of a thing. But the other thing was my brother is older than I. He's six and a half, seven years older. So he was a young boy during the war when Pearl harbor hit and everything. Okay. It wasn't the latest craze to go around speaking Japanese at that time. So they didn't teach us Japanese. So the only Japanese that I really know, believe it or not, I learned at the University of Illinois.

And I studied my heritage because, see, when I went To U of I. I was going to be an officer in the United States Army. Initially, I wanted to be a chaplain. I was so I. Because my faith is paramount in my life, and as a youth, I was very active in our youth activities and I wanted to become a minister. But I was also in junior rotc and I loved the military, and I know we'll talk about this, but the samurai tradition is huge in the Japanese culture. In the Japanese culture, the warrior is at the top of the culture, unlike the Chinese culture, where.

The academician is. The scholar is at the top of the culture. But in the Japanese culture, it's the warrior, the samurai. And so those two things.

I decided I was going to join the army and I was going to be a chaplain. That's how I was. Because I didn't know what God wanted me to do. Well, that didn't turn out.

And I decided to do the army thing. And I'm a fairly focused guy. So once I decide to do something, I. Pretty well. When I went to university, if it smelled, looked like, or moved like military, I was in.

Yeah. You mention in the book that these Japanese cultural concepts were part of the samurai tradition of Bushido, the way of the warrior. Bushido is the moral code that guides samurai's way of life. So you had that being kind of programmed into your brain. And then, of course, you had the church and the neighborhood and then the American values. And you say this as the result of these two major cultural influences, the Eastern from my father and the Western from my mother. My early childhood through my adolescent years embodied the American immigrant experience. Shared this experience with millions of other American families. Although we must come to terms with our government's mistakes, this country has provided my family and I with boundless opportunities. I've been blessed to be a citizen of the greatest land of freedom and opportunity in the world, with pride in my family's past and ancestry, as my father emphasized and exemplified. We should take pride in our ethnic heritage, but our future efforts must be dedicated to the country of our citizenship, the. The United States of America.

So, yeah, you were. You, you. You definitely did a great job somehow of amalgamating all these different influences from the Boy Scouts to the church, to the Bushido to the culture from the Japanese side like this. You turned out pretty good putting all that stuff together.

Well, I. As. As I say, I. I've been so blessed and have so many people. You know, God puts people and experiences in your life just when you need them. And, you know, I was. When I was in the Army, I was blessed to have great NCOs who made me look good. And I had commanders who mentored me, didn't cut my head off when I screwed up. And I had my fair share of mistakes. And.

I just had other people in my private life who came at the right time, my wife being one of them. And that's a God thing alone. In fact, in the book, I talk a lot of what I refer to as God things.

Yeah, I was going to say that's an underlying theme in the book, is the God things.

Yeah, well, it just, you know, perfect example is my wife. My wife is Korean. I'm from a Japanese heritage. Anybody who's studied history will know that the odds of a Japanese guy marrying a Korean woman on a scale of 1 to 100 is a minus 50. And yet God put us together in an incredible way. A very short period of time of courtship. And she was here, believe it or not, in California. I'm in Chicago now. Get this great catch that she got. Right. I had come back from Vietnam, I was unemployed. I'm living with my parents. Not in the basement, but I was living with my parents. Right. I don't have a job. I'm in Chicago. She is in San Jose, California.

Beautiful.

It's sponsored by an American family, a very well to do American family. In fact, when I went to pick her up on our first date, I pull up to the front of the house and there is a fountain in front of the house.

Say no more.

So I say to myself, self, what did you get yourself into here? But somehow I was able to convince her that I had some kind of redeeming quality. So she fell for it. And I tell people I'm not. I've not been a salesman in my life, but that was the best sales job I ever did.

As you're. You started to mention this before, but you had these basically two gravitational forces that were pulling you. One of them was towards the church and one of them was towards the military. There's a nice happy medium there, and that is become a chaplain.

Right.

Which seems like a pretty good move, you know, if you want to go with your faith and with the military. But you. It sounds like the church that you were involved with started kind of getting away from your beliefs.

Yeah. What happened was the reason I and I had this all planned, I'm pretty good on when I determine a mission and then studying how to get there. And so I was going to be a chaplain, but I really loved the samurai stuff. Right. So I Said, I know what I'm going to do instead of what most chaplains do, which is they go to university, then they go to seminary, and then they join the military and they get a direct commission as a chaplain. Okay. I wasn't going to do that. I was going to go to university, go to rotc, go through infantry training and get qualified as an infantry soldier, go to airborne school, Ranger school if I could, which eventually I couldn't. But, you know, I was going to be, you know, an infantry officer, and then I would go to seminary. Okay. But by. I felt that by taking the same training as my soldiers that I was shepherding, that I could be more effective. And plus, it would give me some street cred, you know, with the soldiers if I walked in their boots. You know, nobody gave me a break when I went through my training. I mean, you know, the obstacle course, you know, at five foot four and a half.

You know, I didn't. Nobody gave me a break. I didn't ask for one because if I couldn't cut it, I shouldn't be there. Right. You know, and so that was my plan. Okay. Then what happened was my denomination merged. I'm Protestant. My denomination merged with another denomination, and they. They had some doctrine that I just didn't agree with. So now I was in a catch 22 because in order to become a chaplain in the military, you have to be endorsed by your denomination. I wasn't buying the theology or doctrine, so I couldn't. I wasn't going to go to the seminary when I really. My heart wasn't in it. It would be so hypocritical, and I just couldn't do that. So when I'm praying at that time to God, you know, the answer I thought he was saying was no, you know, and. But that's not what it was. It was weight.

Just wait.

Yeah.

He was saying for now, infantry.

Right.

It was divine intervention sending you to be an infantryman.

That's right. That's exactly right.

So you did. You did this through the ROTC program at. What school was it?

University of Illinois.

And you're in the rotc, you actually end up staying longer and get your master's degree because you got your original degree in English, Right. And then you stayed and got your master's degree, right?

That's right. What happened was, you know, as I said, I didn't have. I didn't have enough money. My parents couldn't fund our education. Right. So, you know, as a teenager, I got a summer job as soon as I Could. My senior year in high school, I worked at a warehouse in Chicago.

Monday through Friday, 5pm to 10pm and Saturdays, eight hours. Okay, so 33 hours a week my senior year in high school just so I could earn money so I could go to college. I still had to take out a couple loans, but at least it gave me enough where I could do that. And so I'm at the University of Illinois, by the way, my first two years were at the University of Illinois in Chicago, which was at Navy Pier. Most people don't know that after the Korean War, the University of Illinois was going to expand.

Into Chicago. But it would take time to build, find a place where to put it and everything. So, so called temporarily, it was at Navy Pier. And so it was kind of fun because we used to joke about Harvard on the rocks and the only school that could be torpedoed. And by the way, the pier was 5, 8 of a mile long. I know that because the men's gym was on one side and a lot of my classes were on the opposite side. So I had 5, 8 of a mile to go between classes. You get what, 10 minutes between classes.

But it was a great education because they knew the university was coming. So a lot of PhDs agreed to teach, even though it was just freshmen and sophomore students. Okay, I never had. Are you ready for this? A graduate student Teach me. My first two years they all had PhDs. Now that was good news and bad news. The good news was, you know, they all had PhDs. The bad news was they all had PhDs. The bar was so high that the dropout level was 2/3. The students dropped out.

Again, I'm reading some highlights of the book. The book has got so many details and stories and lessons in. It's just awesome. But I wanted to read this section because, well, well, I got a kick out of it. So you're. You're basically at this point, you're going to become. You're going to get a regular army commission, which was a big deal back then. And you say I was on my way to receiving a regular army commission, but I had to get two waivers. First, there was a height minimum of 5ft 5 inches, and I was only 5ft 4 and a half inches. I'm proud of that half inch, but I had to be waived to account for the other missing half. Second, I had to get a doctor's letter vouching that my past operation to remove the tumor on my head would not be a physical impairment in combat. So I went to see my lifelong family physician Dr. Shapiro at the time. Vietnam protests nationwide were ensuing with guys burning their draft cards and booking for Canada to avoid service. I walked into Dr. Shapiro's office and said, doc, I need a favor from you regarding the Army. Before I could get another word out, he responded, don't worry, Jim. I'll make sure you don't have to serve a day. Needless to say, I immediately corrected that misunderstanding and he wrote the waiver justification. I received my regular army officer commission in the infantry branch when I graduated in June. My army career was on its way. But I concluded the answer to my dilemma. Ministry may be a no, but the military was a hard yes. So while a bunch of other people in the country were trying to avoid going in the army and going to Vietnam, and you were in there to get a waiver so you could go.

Oh, yeah, that was. But, you know, in those days, that. That was what most guys felt like doing. They felt, you know, because our parents were the World War II generation and they had served, you know, you either had a father or uncle or grandfather or cousin, somebody who had served. And that service.

Value was inculcated in our. In my cohort generation. And unfortunately, it was also the beginning of.

You know, the 60s where you had it starting to go the other direction, and people were just, you know, booking the Canada.

You know, doing things so they couldn't. They wouldn't have to be. They wouldn't be able to perform.

So they couldn't pass the physical.

Yeah. You have this one section here that I also wanted to mention. It's. I'm going to fast forward a little bit. You say, I always saw an understood life not as filled with obstacles to overcome, but rather opportunities to excel. There is a phrase in Japanese, shigata ganai. Did I say that right?

That's right. You said it right. Yeah.

Which means it can't be helped or it is what it is. I neither expected nor was I promised that life was going to be a rose garden. I had to plant and cultivate the seeds of opportunity if I wanted my future to blossom. So I just thought that that was a good attitude adjustment for anybody. Like, hey, this is what you're going to get. It's not going to be perfect. It's not going to be a rose garden, and that's the way it is.

Well, that also holds true for my faith. I am a Christian. I.

Make no excuses for that. In fact, I'm very blessed. And.

I tell people, especially younger people, that if you become a Christian or a person of faith, There is evil in this world and there is a guy called Satan, and you can deny it all you want, but the fact of the matter is that if you are a person of faith, you're going to be attacked. You have to understand that we are in spiritual warfare every day, every moment of every day. And we need to cling to our values and our faith, and that'll get you through anything, because God is always with you. He doesn't desert you. When I was in combat, I never worried about my personal safety because I knew if God was going to take me, I'd be in a better place. So, you know, I could then concentrate on my main task, which was my soldiers, make sure we accomplished our mission, but with professionalism and watching for my soldiers. Hackworth was.

Just a master at that. He never put us in a position where we would be vulnerable because of some crazy, stupid order to do X. He always found a way to, you know, like my last operation, you know, it was unusual. My company in the Delta, we actually had a last operation because President Nixon started withdrawing units from Vietnam in 1969. And so my unit was one of the first units that was selected. So here I am, a company commander, infantry company commander. We're out in the middle of nowhere in the Delta, and we had our final mission come down. And we were air mobile. So, you know, we were limited by the number of slicks or Huey helicopters that we could get to go on an operation. So that limited me as to how many soldiers I could take. Okay? So not knowing how my soldiers were going to react to, quote, unquote, last operation, I had a certain number. I couldn't take everybody. I had more people who wanted to go that I could take because, I mean, we were hardcore. That was the nickname of our battalion. And we basically, you know, we wanted to. They wanted to be on that last operation. You know, I mean, I had my machine gunner who had a broken thumb. Okay, now, talk about a guy who could beg off on an operation. He insisted on going, and he was my best machine gunner. And I said, you're going. There's no question about it. And so we. So we go on the operation. The point I'm trying to make here is I was extremely careful. I didn't know if something had come up that I'd have to do, you know, we would have done it. But nothing unusual came up during that operation. When we came back, there was another company that was operating in the same area. The commander of that company was. And I talk about it in the Book was my roommate from the University of Illinois. So we were both in a military honorary society. We were both commissioned as infantry officers. So can you imagine how cool that was when you're in a battalion and you are. I commanded Battle Company, and he commanded Claymore Company. And by the way, that was one of Hackworth's really great things. He used to use words to motivate people. So instead of Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, you know, phonetic Alphabet, company designation, he had alert battle, Claymore Dagger. And so I commanded Battle Company. My. My roommate, Don Meyer, commanded Claymore Company. And so that final operation when we came back, I've got. There's actually a photo, not in the book, but there's a photo I have of he and I kind of sitting on the ground, and behind us are our soldiers, right? And everybody's got a grin from ear to ear because we had come back from the last operation. These guys are getting on, hell, you know, they were going to go on a Navy ship and go back to the States. You know, I decided not to go back. And the company ready for this, they. They went back to Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.

I could have taken my company back to Hawaii, but I said no. You know, I'd only been there five months. Five, six months, and I said no. I got to do the full tour because I was a bachelor. I didn't know my wife at the time. I had friends, classmates of mine who had been killed there. Some guys were married, going back for their second or third tours. And I said, no, it's not right.

So I called Hackworth, and he had already moved up to the central highlands as an advisor for the Vietnamese at a very high 2 core level. And I contacted him. I said, sir. You know, by the way, my nickname Mook came from Hackworth because he couldn't pronounce Mukoyamo. And I called him sir. So he. But anyway, I. So I contact him. I said, sir, I'm not going back with the company. You know, could you use me? I had orders the next day.

Yeah.

You know, it's interesting as you talk about the last operation. I was always nervous about the last operation, so I never had one. I never had one. I would only. And I would do this with my guys, too. I wouldn't say, hey, this is our last operation or anything like that. We would just do operations and then on, you know, I'd say, all right, that's it. Like, okay, we could get what no, we're not doing. Okay, that was it. The last. The last operation we did was the last one we just did. So no one would really know it going into it, even me. Even I wouldn't know now. I'd be might getting a little bit suspect. But I never wanted to say this is gonna be our last operation, because, I don't know, in my mind, I felt there was some kind of jinx to it. Kind of like what you felt like not wanting to do anything, you know, so really to know something was your last operation. Look, when we were getting to the end of deployment, guys knew that they had to be getting close. But I never talked about it just because I thought that it was. I felt like, superstitious about it. Like it was a jinx to say, this is our last operation, everyone stay safe. It seems like guys would get a little bit nervous or try and be too safe. And sometimes when you're trying to be safe, you actually make yourself more at risk because you're not being aggressive. Which is a better way to stay alive.

Absolutely. Now, regarding that, Vietnam was different when it came to end of a deployment, because we did not towards the middle of the war, towards the end, our rotations were not unit rotations. They were individual replacements. And so.

That really hurt the reintegration when they came. When we came back to the States, believe it or not, one day we're in Vietnam, the next day were in San Francisco.

By yourself?

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That.

That definitely is identified as one of the problems, you know, in World War II. All those guys that fought in the Pacific or fought in Europe, they all got in a ship together and sailed home. At the end of the war, they got to talk. They got to debrief guys in Vietnam by themselves. They leave their unit, which they feel bad about, and then they come back to the United States alone, and they get dropped into Main street, usa, without any debrief, without, you know, discussing what they'd been through with their other people that could understand it. So, yeah, that definitely was not a good system. And I think, you know, if you're in a platoon or you're in a company or you're in a battalion, everyone is on. Everyone has a different mindset because it might be my last mission, might be today, but it might be your first mission, so. And then it might be echoes. You know, he's in the middle of deployment, so you got a bunch of people with a bunch of different mindsets, and, yeah, that definitely is. And different levels of experience. So we might go out on a mission. It's my first mission. You've been here for six months. I'm not as skilled as you are. I don't have the knowledge that you have. So we go out to do a very complex mission. You're having no problem with it, but I don't know what the heck is going on. So, yeah, I definitely like the way the military has been doing it for the last wars, which is, yes, you all deployed together as a unit, but I don't think you'll ever get a better.

Combination that they had in World War II, which is we're going to deploy and we'll all go home when we all win.

Yes.

You know, that's a level of commitment, which I think is good because I think when you're, if you're going to go to war, you should have the commitment of everyone in America saying, yes, when I go or when my son goes, they're not coming home until it's one. And so do we really want to do this? Because people think, oh, it's only six months, it's only one year, I'll go over, come back. That's how politicians say, oh, we'll go ahead and go over there. No, I can tell my constituents it's only a one year deployment for their sons. It's like, how about you tell your constituents, well, number one, your sons may die. Number two, they're going to be over there until we win, which could take six years. And then all of a sudden you think, well, how bad do we need to fight this war?

Yes.

Because our politicians often just want to jump in any war. They're like your friend at the bar that wants to pick fights with everybody, but they know that you're going to back them up as soon as you leave the bar. All of a sudden they're the friendliest person in the world.

Let me rewind a little bit on the book here. In November 1966, I was an infantry school second lieutenant, or, sorry, I was an infantry second lieutenant ready to fly overseas the next morning and join the 2nd Infantry Division on the demilitarized zone in the Republic of Korea. So this is, you know, right after you got done with school, you end up going to Korea, which Korea at this time? What year is this? Like 1964?

66.

66, yeah. This was interesting. There's still combat operations taking place in 1966 in Korea with including people being wounded and killed during that time period.

Oh, yes, absolutely. And this, this was, I've actually, you know, because I was, I was the young stud infantry guy, you know, just graduating from, from my basic officer Training, I volunteer for Vietnam. Right. And keep in mind, I'm a regular army officer normally. One of the so called benefits of being regular army is that.

The army gives you most of the time preferential treatment on assignments. Well, I thought Vietnam was a no brainer. I'm an infantry guy. We got a war going on. I want to go there. They sent me to Korea. Okay, once again, this was a God thing because they sent me to Korea. But on the DMZ in Korea, see now we have. The United States has part of the DMZ which is the 38th parallel that separates North Korea from South Korea. It's about a 4,000 meter band and it's a no man's land. Nobody's supposed to be there. And if you find anybody in there.

You can shoot to kill.

And.

The North Korean Special Forces used to try to infiltrate through the DMZ to get into South Korea to attack, you know, power plants, disrupt the government, assassinate the President in the blue House, which is their equivalent of our White House. And so we were there to, number one, to.

Reinforce that barrier. But frankly we were a tripwire. We were United States forces online that if they came through and killed us or attacked us, then we would be at war with them. And so we knew that, we knew what we were up against. So we did have these special forces guys come through. 13 months I was there, we had 12 guys killed and about 40 wounded. My first experience with mass casualties was one of our compounds had a sapper attack. And you know, because these are special ops guys, these weren't, these were not guys who wanted to be detected. They wanted to get in, do their jobs and disappear, which they were very good at. And so they, they attacked one of our camps in the DMZ area and they blew up a couple barracks and, and so that's the first time I had seen our medics in action. Which, you know, next to infantry, the MOSS or military occupational specialties that I admire the most are the medics and in Vietnam, the helicopter pilots, these guys were incredible. I mean they just, you know, so to see 18, 19 year old medics having the triage and to make life decisions about who lives and who dies, you know, lining up wounded and there they are. Because seeing the dmz, we were not permitted to have helicopters and so we couldn't medevac them. They actually had to be ambulances like in mash. You know, you saw the mash, that's what we had. And they were not paved roads. These were all gravel roads and everything. And so here.

I get to the scene of the situation and here are these young medics just.

Doing their jobs.

Yeah, you write about that experience in the book and it's definitely unsettling. And again, it's important for people to remember that even in 1966 you still had soldiers getting killed, killed and wounded over there. And like you said, you know, the, you talk about the medics just by their sheer presence, they're providing life saving medical and psychological aid. Despite the immense pressure of holding someone's life in their hands. They perform with composure. They're among the most courageous soldiers on the battlefield. And actually I've had quite a few helicopter pilots here from Vietnam. And one statistic that I don't think I'll ever forget is there was 5,000 Huey's sent to Vietnam. 3,200 of them were lost in combat. That's like completely crazy to think about, especially when you think about today's, you know, when an American helicopter gets shot down today, it's like, I mean they make Black Hawk down. They make, they write books and might write and make movies about those situations in Vietnam. That was just another day. They just, just another day would they, they'd get, they scrap that helicopter and they'd go get another one and get right back in it and fly it out there and do it again. And those, it was cool talking to those guys too. Like those helicopters, they were kind of like a muscle car, like a 1960s muscle car. It was just like an engine and a propeller on top and that's it. You know, like there wasn't all these electronics in there.

So it wasn't armored either.

No, definitely not armored. It was just like, like just a car, just a muscle car up there with a big engine in it and some propellers on top and you're going to fly that thing in there, get shot up and get that thing out of there. It was, those guys were definitely incredibly courageous.

There's another, another chapter in here which I mentioned earlier. You say, you talk about this when you were a student. There was a book called the Ugly American and it talked about how Americans act when we're overseas. And you say, I vowed to myself I would do all I could to reverse that trend. When I went abroad, this attitude was not rocket science. I just treated everyone I met with respect, as fellow humans. I always tried to remember that I was a guest in their country. So I treated them like I would want tourists to treat me in America. So you end up, you're in this town or you're on the outskirts of this town, Chang Pari. Am I saying that right?

Yeah. Cheap chain.

Pari residents were extremely poor and many community social services were lacking. Through my conversations with the Korean populace, I understood how dire their needs were. As a battalion adjutant who was responsible for unit administration and resources, I saw an opportunity to fill the gap in the local community. The community had countless needs, so how could we make a difference? I established the Chang Pari Community Assistance Fund to affect a broad base of change. Our fund was going to be run by non commissioned officers. So I appointed the battalion command sergeant major to be the chairman and first sergeants to be the directors. And this is what you did. You went out and built, you know, helped them in a bunch of different ways and just built a good relationship with the people out in the community.

Yeah, I was, you know, this, this was the beginning of my connection, lifelong connection with Korea, which, which obviously was culminated when I married my wife, who happens to be Korean. So this was kind of the. The primer for me. So I'm in, I'm in Korea. I'm a platoon leader of a weapons platoon company on the dmz and you know, I've only been in country four months or something. And the battalion commander calls me down to the battalion headquarters. Oops. You know, I'm a young first lieutenant now, and I'm. So I go down to the battalion headquarters. And he said, lieutenant Mukuyama, how are you doing? And I said, sir, I'm now after 11 years of training to be an infantry officer, have the honor to command soldiers on the dmz, combat patrolling. And I said, I'm having the time of my life and I'm really enjoying it. And he said, I noticed you have a degree in English. And I said, yes, sir. And he said, I notice you have a master's degree.

So I could see where this is going, right? And I said, yes, sir. And he said, how would you like to be the battalion adjutant? Now this was a captain's position, right? And I'm a first lieutenant, you know. But I told him, I said, sir, I'm honored that you would even consider me, but I'm really happy, you know, leading soldiers. His response was, lieutenant, I'm not looking for happiness in my battalion. He said, you will report on Monday.

Yes, sir. I saluted and about face on Monday. I was there. And so. But what that, what that helped me with was I was in a position as the battalion adjutant. I knew all the personnel records of my soldiers, and I knew what their civilian background was. So, yeah, we did establish the Cheng Pari Community Assistance Fund. And that was kind of neat. You know, in those days, we used to get paid in cash once. Once a month, the pay officer would be sitting at a table with his.45 and a guard, armed guard behind him, and he got all this cash. And each guy would come up, you know, salute, name, you know, whatever. And the payroll officer would. Now, in Korea, like in Vietnam, we didn't. We weren't paid in US Dollars. We were paid in what were called MPC Military payment certificates, but they were. They were in dollar denominations, you know, $0.50, $5, you know, that type of thing. And then every now and then, what they would do, this was to combat the black market because US Dollars were very valuable compared to the local currency, okay? So they changed to mpcs.

And then every now and then.

They would cancel the current series of NPCs. So those would be worthless, and they would hand out new NPCs. So anybody who is dealing with those old ones in the black market, you know, they'd be worthless. So. But, you know, so there's a pay officer, and he pays out. Well, you know how GIs are. I mean, American soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, you know, they're very generous and especially when their pockets are full, right? So you had this pay table with the pay officer, and then right next to the pay officer is like the laundry boy. The, you know, these different organizations that they owed money to, right? Collecting money. At the end of the table, I put a coffee can and I just had a label on it and said, you know, chain Paris Community Assistance Fund. So, you know, guys would put in 50 cents or a dollar. Well, a battalion is 1300 soldiers. You know, it's a decent amount of money. And so we. We were able to get that money put together so we could do things for the community. We had, for example, in the village, they. And by the way, Chan Pari was the poorest part of Korea because it was right near the dmz. So if a war came, they'd be the first to go. So the country did not invest in infrastructure. There were no paved roads. There were only gravel roads. Electricity was like three hours a day. I mean, you know, that's. You know, people were still living in, literally, houses with dirt floors and, you know, thatch roofs. And.

So basically there was a fire in the village and two homes were destroyed. And so we just went to the families and we gave them a grant of so much money. And we just said, we know you're Hurting. So here they had a school.

They had two schools in Chang Pari. They had a private school for the rich, and then they had a public school for. For everybody else, the public school. Keep in mind, this is only. This is 60, 66. So it was about 15 years after the end of the Korean War, 13 years. And wood was very scarce in Korea because they had burned a lot of it for fuel and things. And so this public school had no chairs, no desks. They didn't have blackboards. Okay. And so we bought them like 40 desks and chairs and three blackboards, you know, for, for the school. And we did other things, too, for a local hospital, a church. The church needed some construction. So being the S1, the British personnel officer, I knew the guys who were carpenters in my unit, so I sent them down to the church so they could help work with the church doors and things like that. Because wood was so scarce, they used to build houses or buildings out of cement blocks. Okay, well, in order to make cement, you need sand. And we were right near the Imjim river.

And banks of the river had sand, right? So I got five ton trucks, maybe deuce and a half from our S and S Battalion, Supply and support Battalion, go down to the river bank, get the sand, bring it up to the church so they could mix the cement. So my soldiers used to joke about how I could have run for mayor of Chang Pari. And one.

You get done with this, with this tour in Korea, and you end up filling out like a dream sheet, which meant, hey, this is where we know. Where do you want to go next? Is what they're asking you. And of course you are looking to go to Vietnam. So you, you won't say, you want to either go to Fort Bragg or Fort Benning, which are. These are the places which would likely deploy you to Vietnam.

And you say, but instead, I was assigned to the Army Infantry Recruit Training center at Fort Lewis, Washington, near Tacoma. The pattern of requested assignment denials was continued. You mentioned earlier, like, so far you have. You're. You're just not getting what you want. You're not getting the jobs you want to have in the Army. You want to go to Vietnam, you end up in Korea. You want to be a platoon commander, they let you do that for a little while, but then they make you the, the adjutant. Like, they, they're just. You wanted to go to Ranger school? No, no Ranger school. Yeah, yeah. It's just, that's kind of the. The hand you're being dealt.

And you do mention this you say, while it's Korea. While in Korea, I had also observed another pattern that was chipping away at my trust in army leadership. I noticed some leaders were more interested in their careers than the unit mission or the welfare of the troops. And you mentioned that there was like a ranking system and. And some of the battalion. The battalion commanders got ranked. And you looked at the way that the battalion commanders were ranked, and you would have ranked them, let's say, 1, 2, 3, 4. They ranked them 4, 3, 2, 1. So they actually, from a leadership perspective, were the opposite as you saw them, which was, you know, just a little bit of a scary thing to see from your perspective as a young lieutenant.

Yeah. The insight it gave me was that the army.

Appeared to be more interested in developing managers than commanders. And.

It was very clear.

It was sad in a sense. But then it also started to chip away, as I said, at.

My desire to spend the rest 20, 30 years of my life with a system that, number one, was ignoring everything that I had ever asked for. They wouldn't even throw me a bone. Right. Make me a little happy. But also, I saw what they did with leadership. And Hackworth was your, you know, perfect example. Here's a guy who stood up, you know, and he was just, you know, you're the nail sticking out, and you get pounded back down, but he wouldn't stay down.

You say this. I had two roommates during my tour at Fort Lewis. The first was Lieutenant. Lieutenant First Lieutenant Donald Iden was a fellow infantry officer and a Washington state native. Don got orders to Vietnam and joined the 25th Infantry, 25th ID Tropic Lightning Division. He was killed in action May 1969. On June 27, 1969, Life magazine published the photos of more than 200 soldiers who were killed in action in just one week in Vietnam. The week selected was the week that Don died, and his photo was included. This publication became a rallying cry for the anti war movement movement. Meanwhile, my former roommate from college, Don Lankmeyer, had just recovered from wounds sustained in Vietnam and was looking for a new assignment. We had kept in touch, and he got orders to be assigned to the training cadre, the training center at Fort Lewis. And you already mentioned Don as well. Don Meyer. You end up in this position as the Secretary of General Staff, and so you're working kind of directly for the general. And you, you say this. I had the opportunity in that position. I had the opportunity to meet one man who changed the course of my career. Leadership in life. Lt. Col. David Hackworth. Reported into Fort Lewis as a new battalion commander. I was the first officer he met at the headquarters. Due to my SGS job, I knew who Hackworth was, a living infantry legend. I had already read his informative handbook on small unit tactics and guerrilla warfare. But I tried to conceal my excitement and followed with professional regulations. I immediately stood up and said, welcome to Fort Lewis, Lieutenant Colonel Hackworth. The general will be with you shortly. Hackworth, as all veterans will tell you, arrived early to guarantee he would not be late. In practical military terms, combat operations have key times for certain actions to happen by all units in an operation. If one unit fails to do their part at the time stated in the operations order, it could mean the failure of the total operation resulting in loss of life. I've always followed that policy of never being late. Perhaps I will admit to an extreme. My children used to complain about arriving always early. But I taught them that it is disrespectful to the other person to be late. Time is something precious that you cannot give back to someone when you are late. Without hesitation, Colonel Hackworth responded to me, what are you doing sitting behind a desk? If you want a company, I'll give it to you. I answered that I was honored, but that I'd come to the same conclusion weeks earlier and had already secured a company command from another battalion commander. He was not happy, but I but understood I had given my word and had to stick by it. I later learned that Hackworth had an uncanny knack for sizing people up literally on the spot. In his view, you, you were either a stud or a dud, and there was nothing in between. Thankfully, he quickly decided that I was a stud based on my eager but respectful response. I observed this phenomenon for over 30 years, and Lt. Col. Hackworth's intuition was always accurate. Tough training cycles were necessary to prepare our soldiers for the brutality of Vietnam. As it turned out, my roommate, Don Meyer, was already assigned to be a company commander in the battalion that Hackworth took over. So I was debriefed on his firsthand experiences. Hackworth pushed his recruits harder than ever before. He rightfully maintained that we were not doing our recruits any favors by not pushing them to their limits in training. Intense and harsh training would pay benefits and save lives in combat. He was, as always, spot on. I had the same policy. Influenced by my samurai teachings, 99% of Fort Lewis graduates were shipping to Vietnam, so no slack could be permitted in our standards. We were short training officers in my battalion, so I was leading my company with no officers. But I Had great non commissioned officers.

So there's your introduction to Hackworth, meeting him for the first time.

Yeah, it was.

Like I said, he just had that knack.

And he was very accurate. It was uncanny. It was just. And that's why he was so successful, because he surrounded himself with really good people. That's the first thing I noticed when I got to Vietnam and I met the officers of the battalion. And these guys were all extremely competent. And.

I didn't see one that I wouldn't serve with later because he had already called out the people that he didn't want. And he, you know, he just wouldn't put up with people who, you know, you could make a mistake with him as long as you were giving your best, because we all make mistakes. But if he saw a slacker, I mean, that was it. Gone. He wasn't there to win the hearts and minds of people who are not willing to pay attention, Especially in combat. You can't put up with that.

Yeah, for sure. You tell a story in here about how one of Hackworth's drill sergeants had beat up one of the trainees, and you guys kind of get together and you're able. And it's a great story from the book. That's why get the book so you can get the details of this story. But you guys figure out a way to kind of get the problem resolved, still preserve the career of the drill sergeant, still keep the trainee happy. You guys get creative in solving this problem. And you say in the book, through this indirect approach to problem solving, I witnessed why Colonel Hackworth's leadership had become legendary. He understood how to adjust tactics to resolve problems, trained subordinates to step up, and above all, cared about the outcome for his troops. I was lucky that this wasn't the only incident where I'd learned from his leadership firsthand. But it was just the beginning. This resolution cemented the professional connection with Colonel Hackworth that would lead me to eventually getting to Vietnam.

So you were already slated in. What happened with the battalion that you were supposed to go in? So you said you were slated into a battalion. And when Hackworth said, hey, you should be in a. You should be in a company command. And you said, well, I've already. I'm already supposed to be in. What happened with that one?

Yeah, no, that was a good battalion. I had a excellent battalion command commander.

And so he.

We were short officers in the training units at that time, rightfully so, because we needed guys, you know, in combat to fight. And I was. We didn't have an executive officer in our battalion. I was the senior company commander, data rank. So when the battalion commander went on leave, I would be the acting battalion commander. And so that's when that incident occurred with Hackler's drill sergeant. Now.

He was a Vietnam veteran Airborne guy, you know, an E7, a real honest to goodness E7, and who had been in combat. And so. But now he's a drill sergeant, one of the Hackworth's guys. And our two companies shared a company street at Fort Lewis. And so his drill sergeant was in his car, and one of my recruits was walking in the company street with his hands in his pocket. Not a good idea. Which we used to refer to them as Air Force gloves.

So he stops his car, rolls down the window and tells the recruit, you know, recruit, take your hands out of your pockets. The recruit then says something about the sergeant's wife or mother. And so he gets out of his car, picks the guy up by his collar, takes him into a day room, you know, away, so nobody can see what's going on. And he bounces him off the wall a couple times to get his attention. Doesn't break anything, you know, but trying to put the fear of God in him. There was one person in that day room which was one of my NCOs. Okay? But he was, he was what they called an instant NCO in Vietnam. We became short non commissioned officers, especially the junior ones, the E5s and E6s. So they had a special program where the best graduates out of the advanced individual training would stay for 90 days, get further training, and they would graduate as E5s, okay? And we used to call them shake and bake NCOs or instant NCOs. So that, that was one of the guy who's in the, you know, day room, right? Well, my recruit was a. He was a trainee. He was one of so called.

A. He. He had enough knowledge of uniform code of military justice to be dangerous, okay? So he said, well, you can't do this. You know, I'm going to get you court martial because this is trainee abuse, you know, which in those days in the training, I mean, that was, that was a big deal, right?

It's still kind of a big deal. Now it's probably even more of a big deal.

Well, the good news was that the drill sergeant and the trainee were both black.

Had one been white and the other black, it would have been even worse. Okay? But so that was the good news. And so the nco.

When my trainee said that, well, he just looks at the other nco. And he says, you don't have a witness thinking that this NCO would back up, you know, good old NCO justice. And you know, and my NCO says I saw the whole thing.

So anyway, that's. And so I get a call from the staff duty officer because I'm the acting battalion commander, right? I'm at home and I get this call, you know, and one of our trainees has been beaten up by Hack, you know, so I said, don't call brigade. I said, wait until I call you back. I call Hackworth right away. I said, sir, we have a problem, you know, and he said, well, let's meet, you know, at your headquarters. So we both went and got together and we came up with a plan. And so I talk about in the book, but a long story short is this happened right before Christmas, okay? And there was going to be a Christmas time leave time for the trainees actually, because they're all going to Vietnam, right? So at least give them time with their families, you know, Christmas time. So they're all kind of, you know, wanting to go there, right? So Hackworth and I bring the trainee in, but I'm the battalion commander, so Hackworth's just sitting on the side, okay? And I said, you know, tell me what happened, you know, and of course the story is totally different, you know, I was just innocent. I was walking in the company street and this jewel sergeant, for whatever reason took me into a room and beat me up. And you know, that was his story, right? So I'm sitting there, I say, well, we want justice to be done for you. What do you want? I want this guy court martial, okay? Said, okay, we could probably make that happen. I said.

But you know, you're for a court martial. This is pretty important stuff and you'll have to be a material witness for this. And the trial will probably go on for a little while. I'm saying all this and I can see the kid is thinking to himself, oh, I'm not going to be able to go home for Christmas, right? And Hackworth butts in and he said, well, I think I can help here, you know, I can do uniform code of Military Justice, Article 15, non judicial punishment. And he lists all the major punishments, you know, oh yeah, you know, bread.

And water for 30 days, you know.

Reduction, exactly, all that forfeiture of pay, you know. And so he said, but we want justice done for you. Now it's my turn, you know, but we want justice done for you, trainee. So what do you want? And he said, well, I'm pretty confident in Colonel Hackworth. I'm sure he could handle this. I said, fine, then we'll proceed that way without a court martial. And I said, you're dismissed. Now, I wanted to really go up one side and down the other about his, you know, his part of this deal. But I didn't want to jeopardize what we had just done, you know. And so we bring in the Hackworth's drill sergeant, and Hackler says, okay, Article 15, you know, we're going to take a rank, one rank away from you. You know, month's pay is suspended for 90 days. And for those of us who have been in the military, all that means is for 90 days, if you keep your nose clean for 90 days, it goes away. And so that's what we did.

Got it done, took care of everybody.

I'm gonna fast forward a little a bit to Vietnam. Going to the book. While I was commanding a. While I was commanding Battle company in his battalion, I earned a priceless honor from Colonel Hackworth. He gave me my nickname in the military. He couldn't pronounce Mukuyama, so he called me Mook. I called him sir, though he was affectionately referred to as Hack by the troops. Hack had a great knack for making our troops feel special by creating names or mottos only used by our unit instead of the usual company designations. Using the phonetic Alphabet of Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, our companies became Alert, Battle, Claymore, and Dagger. When he first took command of the battalion, he changed the name of the Fire Support base from Fire Support Base Dagger Dickey to FSB Danger. And most important, he named our battalion the Hardcore. We were also a recondo unit, which refers to the lurps, or Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols. Elite units also had military greetings and responses unique to their units. When officers entered a unit, this was tremendous, a tremendous builder of esprit de corps or unit pride for. For the hardcore. When an enlisted soldier met an officer, they saluted and said, hardcore Recondo. The officer would appropriately respond, no slack. I actually saw Hack walk up to a wounded soldier on a stretcher, and the soldier would salute and say, hardcore Rondo, sir. These nicknames served as a constant morale boost, and even in the toughest times, everyone was proud to be hardcore. And that's the. The COVID of the book is a picture of you. You're standing on the COVID and you've got. You're holding your helmet, your helicopter helmet. And of course, written across the forehead of the helmet in giant letters it says hardcore.

When. When we were discussing the book, that was the. You know, we started talking about the COVID of the book and I was talking to John and I said, hey, the pictures that I would like on the COVID I mean, obviously I'm not the last word, but that picture of General. The general with the helmet that says hardcore. And I said, it doesn't get much better than that in my book.

So.

You also, you mentioned this earlier months that hardships of combat. I was also blessed to have one of the greatest spirit boosters. My camaraderie with my best friend. The good Lord provides people in your life that provide us special comfort during the most difficult times. As I mentioned earlier, my former roommate Don Meyer was in ROTC program and was also commissioned as an infantry officer out of college. After graduating, don joined the 101st Airborne in Vietnam. He was wounded and recovered. Once we reunited at Fort Lewis, he became and became roommates. Our friendship quickly reinvigorated. He then joined Hackworth with the Hardcore and commanded Claymore Company. Then I joined the Hardcore and commanded Battle Company.

Yeah, you know, Don was. Don was like six foot four. And to review, I was five foot four and a half. And so, so we would walk around campus and it was. It was like, well, a lot of young people won't even know who Mutton Jeff was. But we were like Mutton Jeff. And we did, you know, we both came from rather modest backgrounds to say the least, although he did have a car. And so we both lived in the dorms because we couldn't afford an apartment. It was the cheapest way to live. But the dorms didn't serve dinner on Sundays. Okay. So he and I would go down to, you know, the. The local part of Champagne Urbana at the University of Illinois. And there was a Chinese restaurant. So we go in there. We could only afford one order of shrimp with lobster sauce. And each of us got a beer. Okay. And we would sit there, literally. One shrimp for you, one shrimp for me, two for you, two for me. We'd actually count the shrimp. But, you know, we had good times together at the university. And so to be with him in Vietnam, it doesn't get any better than that.

Oh, yeah, for sure. So you're a company commander. What was your operational tempo like? Like, how often was your company going out on operations when you were in the Hardcore?

Oh, we, we go out.

We'd go out weekly, three or four days. We didn't have long operations Hackworth. Basically.

His theory. Now, keep in mind, we were in the Mekong Delta. We were not fighting nva. We weren't fighting North Vietnam army regulars. We were fighting guerrillas who were just as dedicated, I might add. I mean, I never. I'll never forget the one important battle we had. I was in the.

I was with Hackworth, who was in his helicopter over this battle and watching him. This was a culmination of about a week and a half of preparation. We had gotten intelligence that there was a Vietnamese. Really, it was a training battalion or a battalion, you know, of new recruits in our area. And we had intelligence about where we thought they were at. And so.

Hackworth could smell it a mile away. And he said, this is rock solid. We got to act on this. So we. One. The night of one day, he put in two companies, okay? And then the next morning, he put in the third and fourth companies, and we kind of encircled this area. And then he called in artillery, naval gunfire.

Artillery, you know, gunships, and. And it was like a turkey chute. It was incredible. I'm in the helicopter with him because I'd only been in country about a month, and he wanted me to learn operations, right? And so I'm sitting there and watching him, the way I phrase it, orchestrate the battlefield. He knew where the companies were. We had a map, were flying over this whole thing, right? And at the beginning, before we even had contact, everybody's in position, and we got a radio contact from one of our company commanders, and he said, just had a contact, killed three vc.

Captured a couple weapons. They're heading northwest, okay? So Hack was sitting there, and he said, Mook, about 15 minutes, we should hear from Claymore, okay? 15 minutes, Claymore comes up, you know, and, you know, same thing. Contact. We killed so many, blah, blah, blah. And then in the meantime, he's still pouring all this. This ordinance in the area. So they're trying to get out, but they're already encircled, you know, and this went on all day. And in fact, it got so.

It was. And higher headquarters found out what was happening, you know, because all this traffic. And the brigade commander comes now. He's above us, right? Circling.

Oh, so he shows up, actually in his own helicopter.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

You know, and.

So then the division commander. I mean, this was nuts, you know, And Hackworth gets on the. On the line. He said, listen, you guys, I'm calling in artillery and calling in our airstrikes. I can't worry about you. So, you know, if you want to meet me somewhere, you know, I can give you a brief, but get out of my ao.

That's you know, that's what he said. Right. So the division. Well, I want you to meet me at, you know, X. Okay, so. And Hackworth is really, really upset. And the S3, Major Merkner, he was in the helicopter with us, you know, so Hackworth lands the helicopter and they put Murder and me in charge of what's going on, you know, and we go back up and we take our position. And so it was just incredible. But the thing that, the reason I brought this up is I started by saying the VC and how dedicated they were. Okay. I saw a VC who was dying near a canal, okay. He took his AK47 and he threw it in the canal. The reason for that is during Vietnam we had, unfortunately, body counts where it was, you know, they wanted us to report how many we had killed and wounded and then how many weapons we had captured. Well, the way you could get a credible body count was that the number of weapons was kind of close to the number of people have been killed. But let's say you say, you know, we kill 20 and we have two weapons. That's kind of, you know, the BC knew that, you know, and they. And by the way, they had AK47s which were much better weapons than our M16s, you know, and when I say that, you know, you could pick up an AK47 out of mud almost and fall.

Still going to work.

Yeah. So I saw the dedication of the vc. That's one axiom in combat is always respect your enemy, never underestimate them.

Did you have any. Do you remember any major leadership challenges that you had as a company commander?

You know, I really, I really can't think of it. Well, I mean, I.

After Hackworth left, we had a new battalion commander come in. Nobody could fill Hackworth's shoes.

That had to be a rough tour. Come and take a Hackworth that was.

Right. So here I am. I'm now the company commander of Battle Company. And what we used to do is we'd be out in the field, all the companies were not out at the same time. We'd rotate. Okay. Because one company might be.

Manning the security for the kind of a stand down situation. All you're doing is you're guarding.

The perimeter and so you're out on patrol and then you come back, you're out on operations and you come back and you're supposed to get like a break, you know, to recover while the other companies go out. Well, I had a situation where my guys were being sent right out again while other companies could stay Longer. That didn't fly with me. So I went to the battalion commander, in fact we. And once again, they used to joke about a path between my hooch and the battalion commander's hooch where I'd go and I'd say, hey, listen, you know, sir, just wanted to remind you that we've been out and these guys are still here and they're staying and we have to go out again. I think maybe somebody missed something.

You have a picture. There's a picture that's kind of, kind of famous. It read and it went in like the ap, I guess whatever AP was back in the day, or upi. Upi, that's what it was. What was the, what was going on in that picture? It's a famous picture. It's in the book. I know that you didn't, you didn't never saw the picture until year a few years later.

Right.

But when you saw that picture, what was going on in that picture? It's. I know it's. You mentioned in the book. It's one, it's your radio man, Barry Rabinovitz. Rabinovitz Spec 5. Right. And he's getting carried out on a stretcher.

Yeah.

What's going on in that photograph?

Yeah, what happened was that we had in this particular operation, which wasn't a heavy operation.

He basically detonated a booby trap and sucking chest wounds. I was near him, so I got a little shrapnel, but it wasn't a big deal, just scratches. And so we called him medevac helicopter. There were some other guys wounded too. So there was a UPI photographer on that helicopter and he snapped a photo of my guys carrying Barry on a stretcher towards the helicopter. And it's a very action packed photo. You can just see the expression on my guys carrying, you know, of concern, carrying his wounded body to the helicopter. And then in the background, I'm standing there watching all of this because I have my radio in my hand. I just had called in the helicopter and you see all the debris and smoke around it. Because in Vietnam when you called in a medevac, you would take a smoke grenade and we had different colors of smoke grenades. So you could, you would say, like, let's say it's a yellow smoke grenade. So we're popping yellow, you know, that's. So the medevac helicopter knew that's where to land and we had secured that area. You know, so that's what that photo is that the story behind that photo was. And as you said, I didn't know about that photo until about three years later, after I'd come back from Vietnam, I was now working for a. I had left the regular army, which is part of my book story, but I left. I left the regular army and I joined the reserves because I had a commitment, frankly, of I was going to serve 20 years no matter what. Turned out to be 32. But, you know, but what happened was I was working for a Japanese trading company. We were importing bicycles and bicycle parts to Schwinn Bicycle in Chicago. So I'm, I'm. I'm paying a sales call on, on the guys at Schwinn. I'm in the, you know, the waiting area. You know, they had a coffee table with magazines and there was a US News and World Report magazine and it had an article about Vietnam. So I said, hey, I'll take a look at this. I'm kind of interested. And that photo was there, but it was only like 3 inches by 3 inches.

And so I looked at it and then I saw guys who were in my company, so I knew it was our company. And then I saw I was in it. So then I wrote the magazine. I said, how can I get a copy of this? And they said it was upi. So I contacted upi and ironically, the photographer was, was a Japanese photographer. And so it got the photo. But the story is that was selected as the UPI photo for the day that kind of went around the world about Vietnam because it was such an action packed photo. And it got in Stars and Stripes, Pacific Stars and Stripes, which, as you know, is the newspaper for service members throughout the world. World. And it was on Stars and Stripes. And so fast forward 50 years, I'm now at a reunion of the hardcore in Tampa Bay, Florida, right? And we're in this general session and one of the, one of the guys, one of the infantry soldiers raises his hand and he says, I've got something for General Mook, okay? So I don't know what, you know, so I go, go up there. And he said he had the Pacific Stars and Stripes issue that he had saved for 50 years. And he gave it to me because I was the company commander and I was in it. And I said, I can't take this. You know, you saved us. He said, sir, you were, you know, you are the commander. You need to have this. And as I say in the book, that just shows you the bond between soldiers.

Who have fought together and the respect that we have for each other that he would give that up. You know, for me, it Was just an honor.

Yeah, no doubt.

You say this about Hackworth as you're wrapping up the hit, as he's starting to finish up his tour there. Colonel Hackworth set an example every time he stepped on the battlefield, meriting our respect and showing us how much he cared. I was a company commander in a battalion he led in Mekong Delta of 1969. Colonel Hackworth was a Korean War veteran who was awarded his eighth. No, that's not a misprint. Purple Heart for wounds sustained in combat while he was our commander. While he was monitoring a firefight in his C2 helicopter, he noticed some of our soldiers were in trouble and seriously wounded. He ordered his pilot to land the chopper in the middle of the firefight to extract and save the wounded soldiers. The reluctant pilot needed some convincing, but eventually landed. The small CNC helicopter was able to load the two wounded men, but there was no room for Hackworth. He ordered the pilot to lift off with him standing on the skids, and he got hit in the leg, earning him his eighth Purple Heart. After that incident, Hackworth could have ordered us to walk through a wall of fire, and we simply would have asked, where do you want us to go? By setting an example of our selfless and fearless warrior and leader, Colonel Hackworth earned our lasting trust and admiration that went beyond the battlefield and into our hearts. Leaders must set the example physically, mentally, and ethically. Now that. Well, going on, going back to another section of the book, Colonel Hackworth had transferred to 2 Corps to become the Senior Operations Officer, or G3 advisor. After receiving his eighth Purple Heart. The army took him out of the field because they did not want the enemy to gain a huge morale boost by killing one of our greatest infantrymen of all time. A month after Hackworth was transferred, President Nixon started the withdrawal of our infantry units from Vietnam, and the hardcore was one of the first to be selected. When. Do you remember the day that he actually left the battalion?

Yeah, it was.

We really didn't have a big ceremony. I mean, you know, I mean, there was a change of command, but it wasn't, you know, we're out in the middle where Fire support base. I mean, you know, it's going to be like five minutes. It's not going to be a band and, you know, and all that stuff happening like you have stateside. But it was very moving for the guys because he had taken the hardcore from this and I didn't. Maybe I talked about a little bit. When Hackworth was assigned to be that battalion commander, it was one of the Worst battalions in Vietnam. Basically draftees. You know, he had commanded a battalion of the 141st. Little different quality of soldiers. Okay. This was an all. This is basically a draftee battalion. And.

I'll just say the previous leadership was not Hackworth's standard. And they were taking casualties. Morale was down. Hackworth gets down and he turns it around 1000%, not 100% to make it one of the most efficient fighting machines. And our ratio of kills to our soldiers getting wounded or killed was. I don't know what it was, but it had to be like.

80 to 20 or something, if not higher.

You say this I could have take so that. So your. Your battalion gets selected to go home. Basically. We were talking about this last mission thing and. And as you mentioned, you could have gone back and gone right to Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, you said. But I was a young stud lifer and had only been in country five months. So I decided to return. I contacted Hackworth and asked him if he could use me. The next day I had orders to report to military assistance command, Vietnam Team 25, where Hackworth was a member. I was assigned The H Core G3 plan advisor authorized as a major. So you just sent him a note. Hey, you got anything for me? Next day you got orders to your new assignment in Vietnam.

Yeah.

You're in this advisor role and you say. In November 1969, I was assigned to a company deputy. Senior enlisted deputy. The deputy senior enlisted advisor, a full colonel. And the senior enlisted advisor, Sergeant Major Robert Dundero, on an inspection trip of special forces camps on the border of Laos and Cambodia. I was a young captain coming along to take notes. When we landed on the first camp, we immediately came under attack. A rocket was shot, landing just 20 meters away from me. But woefully it hit the senior enlisted advisor. He was killed. The backstory was even more gut wrenching. The sergeant major was scheduled to go on RR the following day to Hawaii to meet his wife, waiting to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. I, being a captain, outranked the sergeant major. I could have ordered him not to go get on that helicopter, but. But I didn't. I carried immense buried survival guilt for decades. Combat was gruesome, heart rendering guilt ridden. My deployments in Korea and Vietnam tested my leadership, bravery and humanity. But I also witnessed men of courage, brothers and leaders come together for our duty to protect and serve the finest country in the world. I've shared examples of the uncertainty of being in combat. One cannot control what happened in the past or what will occur in the future, but we can control what our reaction is in the present. As I entered back into the civilian world and into my life's next phases, I always kept these lessons in combat warfare, Lt. Col. Hackworth's leadership and God's divine timing close to my heart.

Yeah, that's one of those things where, you know, you look back and of course, woulda, shoulda, coulda, and all these little decisions that we make in leadership positions, you know, that one tiny decision that you do or don't do, and you've made thousands of decisions like that when you're in Vietnam, you know, you make thousands of decisions like that.

Well, you know, this, this I talk about survivor guilt, which is related to something that I've been very passionate about. And I'm sure you were going to talk about it, but I think this is a good time. And that has to do with the invisible wounds of war.

Especially. I go around the country giving speeches about this. And I literally have been to medical colleges.

I've spoken at the American Psychological Association.

District 19, which is the military psychologist. And.

Everybody knows what PTSD is. I mean, you'd have to live in a burrow not knowing what that is. People also know what traumatic brain injury is, okay, Especially sports too. And then military sexual trauma.

Both male and female. So those are, these are not physical wounds, but they're wounds that are internalized.

But there's one that is not spoken about very much and that is moral injury. And so when I talk about moral injury.

I ask for a show of hands. You know, how many people are aware of ptsd? Every hand goes up. How many are aware of traumatic brain injury? Every hand goes up. How many are aware of moral injury? I might get a few hands go up. But now actually, to be fair, in the last couple years, moral injury has surfaced more into the discussion about.

Wounds of war. And that's because of the high suicide rates.

My organization, Military Outreach usa, which is a faith based nonprofit to help veterans.

We concentrate in two specific areas because not, you know, there are thousands, literally thousands of nonprofits out there wanting to help our veterans.

So you can't be everything to everyone. And so our niches are one, homeless veterans, and number two, reducing the suicide rate.

So when it comes to homeless veterans.

We had an agreement signed by the Secretary of Veterans affairs in 2016 that recognized Military Outreach USA as an organization that could. We created a program called Veterans exiting Homelessness. Okay, now you have to understand, military Outreach is a small organization. We're just handful of volunteers.

Very. There's only two people that get any pay, and it's not a lot like part time pay is what I'm talking about. And.

We basically.

Have set up this program for veterans working with the VA who are working with VA social workers. And they get them stabilized where they can function and get them into what they call permanent housing, which is really a one bedroom apartment that's subsidized by a HUD VASH voucher. Okay? They give them the keys to the apartment, but that's all they give them. So imagine the first time you moved into an apartment, you kind of need stuff like Lysol, toilet paper towels, sponges, buckets. How about a bed? Right? They don't have a bed. They might have a cardboard box or sleeping bag or a blanket. So we worked with the VA because, as I said, we're a small organization. There's no way for us to vet these people. And we know that there are a lot of people out there who claim to be veterans who are not veterans. So we don't have to deal with that because the VA already qualifies these people as veterans. Okay? So we have a network of houses of worship of all faiths. And we've expanded that network to include American Legion, VFW Post.

Other VSOs, veteran service organizations. We have Lions Clubs, Rotary, even have high schools. And we made a list of what we call move in essential items, these items that somebody needs when they move into an apartment. And we said, could you kind of have a, you know, get your congregations or parishes and make a collection of this stuff or your high schools and we'll arrange with you to have it. We'll pick it up and then the VA social workers will come and take it away and they then give it directly to the veterans. Now, we don't ever get in contact directly with the veterans ourselves. That's okay. I just want them to be helped. Okay? And since 2016, we've been able to raise over 1.3 million items, over $1 million worth of items. And we just delivered our 2,600th bed. Now, these are people who are no longer sleeping on the floors or streets or whatever.

So that's one program, Veterans Exiting Homelessness. The other program is about moral injury and the invisible wounds of war, where I go out and I actually.

Explain what it is. But in 2015. So that's like eight years ago, we published a book, Military Outreach, which is on our website. It's in a resource, by the way, our website is military outreachusa.org militaryoutreachusa.org go on our website resources. The name of the book is they don't receive purple hearts. And it's all about the invisible wounds of war. We talk about moral injury. Moral injury is nothing new. If you read the Iliad, if you read Shakespeare, you will read the Bible, the book of numbers, chapter 31. When the Jewish warriors return from defeating the Midianites, Moses greets them outside of the camp, but he will not let them re enter until they go through a purification process. The knights when they came back from the Crusades were not permitted to participate in the holy sacraments until they went through to penance and reconciliation. The Native American Indians have had sweat lodges, you know, so basically.

Our societies have known for millennia if you send warriors out to war, when they come back you got to help them reintegrate. Well we so called modern society people have forgotten a lot of that. And you know our, that's why the suicide rate of now the number is questionable. You know the VA there was at one point they said 22 plus per day veterans. Now we're not talking about active, we're talking about veterans were dying by suicide recently. They said well it's like 17 frankly. We found studies by non VA people who say it's much higher than that, but one is too many per day. And so we basically are trying to educate the public because moral injury is not a death sentence, just like PTSD is not, you got it the way moral. And by the way, when I go out I give a definition what definition of moral injury is. You know, as you know from the book, I'm pretty simple minded guy and I try to, you know, boil things down to the essentials. So moral injury goes like this. From the time you're born until you're 18 years old, you develop a personal moral code, a sense of right or wrong that could come from your family, your religion, your friends, your community, whatever. Then you join the military and you learn a warrior code. The warrior code is superimposed on your personal moral code and in fact transforms it somewhat. And then you might have to participate in operations or activities that violate your personal moral code, such as killing. You don't have to be the person that pulls the trigger. You could be a witness or you could feel you should have prevented it. Or let's say you follow another unit and you see that innocent civilians have been killed or you handle body parts at that time, you sustain a so called invisible wound of war. Moral injury. And it is the position of military outreach USA that the Main approach for healing moral injury is not a medical doctor with prescription drugs. It's the forgiveness and grace of a moral authority, a loving God, the counseling of clergy or sensitive therapists, and the support of a community offering hope and help. And I can't tell you how many times I've gone out and given presentations and afterwards veterans or their spouses walk up to me in tears and they say, now I get it. I was told I had ptsd, but I know I don't have ptsd. I've got something else.

And when I give my presentations, I talk about there's a healing process here. Number one, you have to know what you have. You can't address the problem unless you know what you have. Number two is forgiveness.

You have to obtain forgiveness. And this is a moral injury. I'm not a, I'm not, I have to be very clear about all this. I'm not a psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker. I'm just a guy who's walked those boots and shared some of these things with my own moral injury that I've talked about in the book.

And I've been doing this for 20 something years now with veterans.

And I've seen.

Really good, competent psychologists at the VA who have helped veterans.

And so that's the second part of, and forgiveness could be something that happens quick or could take a long time time. The third part of the healing process is when you have moral injury, you feel as if you have participated in such bad things that you have no sense of self worth. You are worthless, nobody can love you, God can't love you. In fact, you get mad at God, which is okay, he can take it, but you know, you really, you feel that you have no worth at all. That's why people with moral injury will not talk to their families about it because they fear. Well, there are two things. Number one, they want to protect them from what they've experienced. But number two, they don't want to lose their self respect or their love. So they don't talk about it. You know, and what we do is we try to educate the public, that is the families of veterans, because we found out that, you know, vets normally will not admit that they got a problem. It's, you know, suck it up, move forward, you know, don't show a sign of weakness. I get all that stuff, but it's not right. And oftentimes it's the family, the spouses that force the veteran to get help. You know, it's either like, it's either me or, you know, I'M gone unless you get help, that type of thing. So we're trying to educate the families and also to let the families know that this is not something they've done wrong.

And they can help.

So we try to get veterans to understand this and seek help through different opportunities that are available.

I wanted to get that right out front about the passions of what I'm into now, today in my life. I've been so blessed and I'm hoping that this book will educate and encourage people. It's not about Jim Mukoyama. In fact.

People who read the book will see that I have no acknowledgment section in the book. And the reason I don't is, is I mention as many names as I can.

The whole book is an acknowledgement of.

People because it's not about me. It's about how God has given me blessings and encouragement through all these people that have been my mentors, that have helped me become what I can be, and that is to serve others. That's my life, my life mission at a very early age. I know I talk about this in the book when I was 9 years old and I have no reason. I still, I try to rethink, you know, why would a 9 year old do this? But one day I said to myself, self, why are you here? What is your, you know, what's your mission? You know, and my answer was to.

Try to serve and help people and just, you know, I wasn't looking to find a cure for cancer. I wasn't, you know, looking to be this great, you know, leader or whatever. All I wanted to do is help people. And I figured if everybody did that, you know, the world would improve.

You know, if everybody had that type of mission or a purpose in life. And I only found out later as my faith matured about really servant leadership, which is, you know, which is what my faith teaches. And the best servant leader of all times, in my opinion, was Jesus, because he's the guy who gave up his life for us. And in fact, if you read the Bible, he says, you know, I didn't come here to be served. I came to serve others. And that to me, you know, servant leadership. One of the best books I've read on leadership was something called the Servant by James Hunter. And it's fictional, but what he does is he takes the leadership pyramid, so to speak, and he turns it upside down. And he said, instead of the leaders being at the top with everybody else down kind of at the bottom, it's everybody else on top. And the leader at the bottom.

When you, when you speak about this stuff, what was it like? What was your experience like? And you write about it in the book, but your experience, like coming home and reintegrating yourself, that was a really.

You know, another thing I should say is that I always thought when I was a kid and growing up that I led a normal life. You know, I was an American. I was just, you know, I was enjoying life.

And, you know, I didn't realize until later when I got experience as a young officer.

In combat and then dealing with veterans later, I have led an abnormal life because I've had a stable nuclear family, I've had a strong faith foundation, had, you know, my wonderful wife of 52 years who's put up with me. And, you know, guys, it doesn't get any better than that. And then, plus, which. Which we haven't talked about here, but I will now, among these God things that I mentioned, I'm an Agent Orange survivor.

And so, you know, I've always been pretty healthy. I've been into martial arts. Oh, yeah, I should say something about martial arts. Even though I'm sitting across from one of the best. I. You know, and martial arts, of course, was part of the samurai tradition and all that.

As a young kid, I realized I have a problem with anger. Anger management. Again, it's amazing how I realized this at such an early age, but I have a terrible temper that I have to control. And so I worked on that as a kid, okay, so. And I was always the smallest, the smallest guy in. In my classes. And so the bullies and the. In the playground used to pick on me, you know, because I was an inviting target. Right. Well.

I knew I had to control myself.

And so I just brushed it off, you know, I shrugged it off and I just said I considered the source and all that. But one day, once again, I was about nine years old in the playground, the big bully called me a Jap. And I lost it. I literally lost it. I had him on the ground in about 10 seconds and I was on top of him and I was beating him, okay? So kids were pulling me off of him, you know, and they're saying, where's the Jim Mukuyama that we knew? You know, And I didn't break anything. The guy, you know, the guy was more embarrassed than anything else. And I was never picked on again in the playground. But so I'm just giving you the background that I've had this problem, I still have it, that I know my temper needs to be controlled. So that's why I got into martial arts. Because if anybody is really a student of martial arts, they understand that it's really self discipline and self control that you're really studying. And in fact, once you get to a certain level, I know I'm preaching to the choir with you and Echo, but once you get to a certain level, you can do serious damage, you know. But the good news is, you know, you can also control the situation and you don't have to prove it because you know you can do it. So I studied martial arts to be able to control myself for self discipline. And I, you know, I got, I was very, I never made a black belt. I, it's a long story about that. I, I actually, when our son came along, Jay, you know, and, you know, my wife's Korean and Jay is adopted from Korea, we got into taekwondo. So I did it with him. You know, here I am, 40 something years old, right. You know, I was in pretty good shape though. I mean, I wasn't a slacker and so I worked my way up to it. He got a black belt before, like he was 10, you know, but we started him very early though. And then I got up to a brown belt and then I injured myself and.

Pretty much ended my career. I mean, I could have gone back, you know, but by that time I was now the general.

I had a few other things going on in life, you know, like Desert Storm and things like that.

But that's my experience with self control and the martial arts, which I was fortunate because at the University of Illinois, I actually joined the karate club at the U of I. And the teacher was, the sensei, was one of our students who had a black belt. And this was the Japan Karate association jka, which is really the classical stuff, none of this, you know, show thing. It was, it was really, it was really tough though, you know, I mean, I was happy to get a yellow belt, I gotta tell you. I'm not kidding, you know, but then later on I did the taekwondo stuff and I got up to a brown belt, so I've been blessed.

And did that perspective help you when you were coming back and reintegrating into, you know, coming home from Vietnam, now you're going from active duty into the reserve components and having to kind of carry on, having to find the next phase in your life?

Yeah, that's right. I kind of got off the track.

It's all good. We talk about martial arts. That's always a little tangent we're happy to take.

But yeah, integration for me from Vietnam was once again abnormal for those times. Now you'll get what I'm getting at.

When we came back from Vietnam, and it's hard for young military today to understand this, we were told when we landed in California not to wear our uniforms, to take our uniforms off because we were spit upon. People threw excrement and urine at us and called us baby killers. And, you know, and it was brutal. Let me just say that. And in fact, a very dear friend of mine who just passed away, Vietnam veteran with the 101st, this poor guy was from San Francisco.

And he was Italian and he was raised Catholic.

And so he goes to Vietnam.

Was a platoon leader, saw a lot of combat.

Came back, and he wasn't real happy coming back from Vietnam from this whole experience. But he, he lands in San Francisco and all this crap occurs, you know, and so he's back and, you know, some of his friends and even family had disowned him or whatever. And so he goes to his priest, right, thinking that he's going to get some, you know, some sensitive or some, you know, response. And the priest said, you were in Vietnam. He said, and you fought in Vietnam, you're going to hell.

And so he turns around and he doesn't go back. You know, now later on in life.

He was able to forgive the priest. And you don't forget those things that just like Jane Fonda, I might add, I've got to get this out too. Jane Fonda was the definition of treason is to give comfort to the enemy during wartime. She did that in spades going to North Vietnam, sitting at an anti aircraft gun that was being used to shoot down American planes, wearing an NVA helmet. And she's an actress with world popularity, the daughter of Henry Fonda. And there she is giving propaganda, just gold to the enemy.

Vietnam veterans hate her. I'm trying to be kind when I say that. But to give you an idea, one of the favorite sales items for Vietnam veterans are urinal covers with her photo on it. And so, and I, and I'm not proud of this, but I'll just tell you that I, for many decades, guys, I mean decades, I hated that woman so much, had there been a call for a firing squad, I would have been the first guy in line. I mean, that's how much I hated this woman. Okay. Well, once again, through the grace of God and my faith, I have come to understand that.

I can forgive her. I cannot forget what happened. And.

When I say I can forgive her, I can stop hating her and stop letting that bitterness control me. And that's one of the things about moral injury, is that you don't want to let the past control your present, and you have to think of moving forward. And so I have.

It was like a big weight lifted off my shoulder when I said, you know, I forgive her. I'm moving on, you know, and really, it's not really for me to forgive her. It's for God to forgive her, because only he knows what's in her heart. And I've never heard her sincerely apologize for what she did and, you know, say that, you know, she's sorry for what she did to the veterans and their families. And, you know, I mean, she could do a little restitution maybe, you know, like donate to, you know, veterans organizations or something, But I've never seen that. And so.

But she's got to live with that, and I'm not in control of that. So where were we?

Well, no, that talks about coming home and how difficult that was.

Yeah. The reason why mine was abnormal again was my church supported me during Vietnam. When I was in Vietnam, they sent me packages, which was not the norm in those days, okay. And one of the funniest things is the thing I treasured the most about the packages is they sent me packets of soy sauce because I was going to a Japanese American church, right? So, you know, in the mess hall, I couldn't get, you know, I was lucky to get rice every now and then. And it was mostly, you know, Uncle Ben's or something. It wasn't, you know, Asian rice. And so anyway, that was. But they. When I came home, they treated me like a hero. And the reason for that is our congregation was constituted of many World War II veterans who had fought in the Hundredth Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II and had served in the military intelligence service. So they knew what. You know, and they wanted to talk to me about it, you know, because I was an infantry guy. You know, I had seen some combat, you know, so. And they were so proud of me, you know, when I was promoted in the army and when I became a general, I mean, that was huge, you know, and then later on in life, when I talk about. In the book I've had, I got involved with the building of a national Japanese American memorial in Washington, D.C. that took seven years out of my life because I walked around the country on my own dime, giving speeches, raising money for the memorial. Now it's a national memorial authorized by Congress. Okay? And they pass a law, and what they do is they give us the land for the memorial, but that's it. So whoever is sponsoring the memorial has to raise the money.

For the architect to build the memorial. And it has to be approved by, in Washington D.C. where this memorial is at, there's like I want to say a dozen commissions, you know, the, you know, the garden club or the national umpty ump, you know, commission that you have to go through to get, you know, I mean, they control the height, the height of the memorial, how far away it is from the curve, the material you can use in it and all that stuff. So for seven years of my life, but the neat thing about it was I would go around the country to these Japanese American organizations because nobody else would donate to this. It was seen as an ethnic memorial, which really was a patriotism memorial. And so I would be with all these veterans, Nisei veterans, who are my heroes. I mean, how cool is that to be able to be with your lifetime heroes? And here I am, I'm meeting all these guys from World War II who have been through battles, they've been through prejudice, they've been in camps themselves. Imagine you're 18 years old, you just graduated from high school, right? And you get a knock on your door. It's a local FBI agent and he said, be on the corner of State and Madison on Monday morning with two suitcases. And that's it. You know, you're put on a train, you're put in some God forsaken camp in the middle of nowhere and you're there for three years. And your family, let's say you owned a business, you know, you can't survive, you know, you have to, you lose your business, you have a home, you can't pay the mortgage because you have no income because you're in a camp, you know, and, and then the local army recruiter comes and he says, I want you to go die for your country. And I don't, guys, I don't know what I would have done if I were in their shoes. I might have told them to take a hike, you know, but these guys volunteered. And the reason they volunteered is they wanted to prove to the rest of America that Americanism is, is not a matter of race. We're all red blooded Americans. We all bled red and bleed red. And they wanted to prove that we were loyal. The Japanese Americans were loyal. And the only way you could prove it was by dying. And that's what they did. And they were the difference because of their example in the European theater of operation. Let's say we had 9 million. I'm just using. I don't know if that's the right figure, but let's say 9 million soldiers, sailors, marines serving.

And in combat areas. As Jocko can attest, the reputation of units, good and bad, spread like wildfire. You know, the good units and you know, the ones that are not so good. Well, the 442nd hundredth battalion. 442nd, their reputation was off the charts. I mean, everybody wanted them.

You know, fifth army commander. They just wanted those guys, you know, and.

I was just so blessed. So I would go around giving speeches, right? And these guys wanted to have their photo taken with the general, you know, because, you know, most of them were enlisted men, right? And we know, you know, if you're enlisted guy, you know, the company commander who's a captain is like a God, right? And so a general. I mean, they hardly ever get to speak, see one much, much less speak to one, right? So I go to these events, and they all want to get their pictures. We didn't have selfies in those days, but they would, you know, they wanted to get their picture taken with me. And. And I, on the other hand, I wanted to get my picture taken with them, of course. So it was. So my return and integration back into society was. Was smooth, to say the least, because my church really supported me. When I came back, they immediately, they said, we want you to teach the teenagers, you know, And I said, I'm in, you know, because I wasn't that far. Much older than they were at that time, you know. And so I. I did that and got very, you know, active and in the church and everything. And so it was unusual. It was abnormal, once again, which some people might think is normal. It was really abnormal normal. And that helped my healing and my ability to integrate back into society, which most of my peers did not have because of the rejection. Like my friend that I told you about, where the priests told them, that's crazy.

That's the kind of stuff that happened. And so it's like cancel culture. Fifty years ago, you know, where they found out that they had, you know, people. Guys in the reserves, you know, because we had to have our hair cut short, you know, people could see right away, we're military guys in the reserves used to wear wigs, you know, during the week, you know, so people wouldn't know that they were, you know, that's how bad it was. It was. It was incredible. But I had a smooth integration, very blessed.

And you end up getting great stories that you write about in the book when you went out to. You already talked about it here, but you went out to San Francisco on a trip with your cousin, you end up meeting your wife, kj, you guys hit it off and get married.

Well, it's not quite.

I have to be very accurate about this. Okay. She. It was, for me, love at first sight. I mean, I just, I knew the moment I saw her.

It wasn't quite the same on the other side. I was just some guy who was.

Showing up and living with your parents. Didn't have a job. Yeah, yeah, not exactly. Not exactly a catch there, mook.

That's right. That's right.

So you had some convincing to do.

Yeah, I did. But once again, that's. That's the God thing. I talk. Those are the type of things in my life that, you know, are almost unheard of, things that happen.

And you. So once you're married, you. You actually end up adopting two kids.

Yes.

First Sumi.

Right, right.

And then Jay, who's the. By the way. Thanks, Jay. Jay connected us originally for the original podcast. He heard it, heard me talking. So.

And, and as you're doing this, as you. Now you got kids, and as you're raising these kids.

You, you end up creating the Mukayama family code, which is a document that you've got in the appendix of the book. And this thing is classic. I recommend, you know, when you, when you all read the book, get the book. These are just, just to burn. Just to run through some of the highlights of this.

General tenets. Have faith and be grateful to God. Obey the laws of God in our country. Always tell the truth. If you do something bad, admit it and apologize and you go on with these really good tenets. Be polite and use good manners. Try, try your best in everything you do and you go on with this stuff. You have a list of daily conduct like make bed at mealtime, set the table, say grace, sit up straight, don't talk with a mouthful of food, eat all that you take. Request permission to leave the table, take dishes and cups to the sink, help clean up, brush teeth after every meal and snack. So you go through kind of the daily conduct that people. And then you've got this thing called prohibited actions, which you mentioned in the book that maybe that wasn't the best, you know, psychological way to do. But I actually think it's great. You know, things like do not brag about your accomplishments or possessions. Do not be discouraged by failure or disappointments. Don't talk back or interrupt your elders or Teachers don't. Do not abuse your body by smoking, drugs or alcohol. Do not be jealous of others. Do not be greedy. Do not be nasty or try to hurt other people. So you've got these really good tenants. It goes on, but I'm just kind of jumping through some of them. Get the book so you can get the whole list. But that's the kind of thing that's in here that really.

Those are really great tenets.

Well, you know that book, by the way.

You know, the reason we did that is our kids were very young when we put that out, by the way, they were like 4 and 5 years old, okay?

They were like, this is a lot of rules, mom and dad.

Yeah, Come on. But the surprising thing, though, you'll be surprised to hear this. At four and five years old.

We kind of make it. We made it a special occasion, right? Mom and dad have a surprise for you. You know, that's always, you know. And.

You know, these are kids who can't read cursive or can't actually read a lot, you know. So I printed everything on the original Mukuyama family code using colored markers, you know, to make it interesting for them. They were all in plastic pages. And then our daughter's favorite color was purple. So I put it in a purple binder, right? It became known as the purple book because the advance. The whole purpose of it was one day, KJ And I were talking and we said, you know, if something happens to us, if God takes us while the kids are still young, we want them to know what our values are for the Mukoyama family, okay? And so that's why that was the purpose of it. The benefit that we received, which I did not anticipate, was that, number one, when we had the special occasion, we had ice cream, you know, after dinner. And then so. So I go ahead and read page by page, item by item, about this. At 4 and 5 years old, they understood about 85% of it pretty good, you know, so. But the other benefit was as they got older in life, okay? If they did something that upset us or got me mad, okay? Instead of my going on a tantrum, I'd say, let's get the purple book out, okay? And you see this line where it says, you know, don't be greedy or don't, you know, don't be jealous of your friends if they're successful, but rather be happy for them.

Do you know why Papa wasn't real happy with you today? They couldn't say. You never told me.

Well, that idea of living by a code is something that I put in the way the warrior kid books. There's a warrior kid code in there. And also I tried to find it, but I had in my house when my kids were younger, Willink family rules. And I tried to find it. Mine was definitely not as long as yours. I didn't go that hard in the pain as you did, but I tried to find it. I'm going to try and find it. I think I've got it. I've got a copy of it somewhere. I wasn't able to find it. Obviously there were some similar things in there, but same thing, just knowing what the standard is and then if you violate the standard, here's what the consequences are.

Well, the military. See I have a master's degree in the teaching of social studies. The reason I did that, even though I was going to make the military career, I knew I was going to be infantry. I knew I was going to Vietnam. So the odds of my being wounded and perhaps disabled were not small. So I had to have a profession to fall back on. And as you and I have talked about both being English majors, English isn't the greatest livelihood producer, shall we say. And so I had to have a backup profession and something that doesn't, didn't require me to run the 20 yard dash. And it was teaching, which I always considered to be an honorable profession, you know, so I, I made, I, I got my degree in the teaching of social studies. The reason I'm saying all this is that you mention about the military. I found out that I was taking all these graduate courses of history and philosophy of education, psychology of education. And I learned that the military had one of the best training programs anywhere which was tasks, conditions, standards.

Yep, indeed.

You know, you let them know what the task is, you tell them the conditions under which it's going to happen and you tell them the standards you expect them to meet. No slack. And that's worked very well.

It does work well, that's for sure.

I'm going to fast forward again. You got to get the book. There's all kinds of stuff that I'm skipping over. Otherwise I'd just be reading the whole book. Which you know, you need to do for yourselves out there listeners. But fast forward a little bit. My near quarter century of service in the army reserves because you got, when you got out of the regular army you joined the reserves was marked with challenging yet fulfilling assignments. I commanded at every level, company, battalion, brigade and division. In every instance. I had great non commissioned officers who luckily made me look good and mentors who gave me challenging assignments to grow and didn't hand me my head on a platter when I screwed up. These individuals gave me the opportunity to reach my fullest potential. My leadership philosophy also empowered me to rise through the ranks by leading with care and balance. I set out to be an example for my troops. And then you say when I was promoted to brigade general one star. I was the youngest general in the army at the time at the age of 42 years old. Subsequently I became the youngest major general two star three years later at 45 years old. When I took command of the 70th Division, I was the first Asian American in the history of the U.S. army to command a division.

So you kind of powered up through the ranks.

And again, lots of good leadership lessons learned in there. You got a bunch of stories about that. But I want to fast forward here to a situation that really.

Really changed your, your course in the Army. He said the army had to reduce its forces. Instead of using the established process. The top brass, the Chief of Staff of the army, the chief of the Army Reserve and the chief of the National Guard and the presidents of the Reserve Officers association and the National Guard association of the United States met in a hotel room away from the Pentagon and made a smoke filled room deal. In essence, it decimated the army reserve aviation by 80% and eliminated the two Reserve Special Forces groups and kept the two National Guard groups. Neither decision was defendable in terms of military readiness, which in fact was significantly degraded. It was a purely political decision. Decision.

So this happens and you were, you were president of the Army Reserve association at the time and, and after this decision gets made, which is going to cause all kinds of damage to like you said, to the, the, the readiness of the country, military readiness. The next morning at 8:00am The ARA, that's the Army Reserve association, issued a press release saying the so called off site agreement did not have the support of the men and women of the Army Reserve association due to the detrimental effect it would have on our nation's readiness.

The Washington Post ran a front page article with several quotes from the ARA newsletter. Soon thereafter, army reservists and Army Reserve civilian employees from throughout the country pleaded with me to testify. Someone had to stand up. I remembered when I was a young officer in Vietnam vowing that if I ever got to a position of authority, authority to protect my soldiers and nation, I would do so unlike the generals and admirals who failed to do so in Vietnam because they allowed themselves to be handcuffed by the elites in Washington. I remembered how Colonel Hackworth stood up and voiced his apprehensions about the Vietnam War. Although his military career deteriorated after sharing his concerns, he demonstrated. He demonstrated that his troops and their well being was far more important than himself. By standing up for his values, Colonel Hackworth chose to set a strong example of courageous and caring leadership. I had to decide whether I would follow his lead. My opportunity to choose soon came. As president of the Army Reserve Association, I was invited, not subpoenaed, to testify before a congressional subcommittee about the off site agreement. I could have excused myself by saying I had a conflict or just declined. But as a leader within the Army Reserves it was my responsibility. I needed to honor the reservists I was serving with and leading. I had to tell the truth even if no one else would. I accepted. Prior to testifying, we had a family kitchen meeting where I presented the reality of the situation. I informed my family that testifying would most likely end my army career and our lives would change. So I appeared before Congress telling the truth. I asserted that the sweeping overhaul of the Army Reserves would endanger soldiers lives, degrade our military readiness and waste our taxpayers money. This off site decision was haphazard and the guards lack of preparedness would damage the US Military's tactical missions and grand strategy. Standing in front of Congress, I maintained that politics should not be allowed to override military considerations. Colonel Hackworth had also stood his ground to defend what was right. So he knew what consequences were coming next for me. In his nationally syndicated column, he tried to cover my six and protect my back by writing a column entitled Moral Cowardice endangers soldiers. He detailed my testimony before Congress and the background of the so called off site agreement. Based upon his own experience with the Guard and reserves, he agreed with my assessment that this haphazard decision was endangering troops by disregarding their tactical competence. Hackworth stressed that quote, courage is as much a part of soldiering as gunpowder. But having guts isn't just about charging the enemy. It is also about standing tall against wrongdoing and fighting for what's right. End quote. I greatly appreciated his cover and conscious and Hackworth's own example of courage was one of the reasons I spoke out and told the truth. It was unfortunately to no avail. One year later I was history and my career came screeching to a halt. But suddenly there were no assignments available for me because I was so young. I had five more years remaining before my mandatory retirement date. I got the message and I retired.

You followed in Hackworth's footsteps once again.

Well, but once that's true, what I classified that as another God thing, which was that he was in fact my wife when this all happened. And I'm having. Now I'm having kind of a pity party because, you know, my 32 year career has just gone literally down the drain, right? And so KJ Says to me, wait a second. She said, you know, you survived Vietnam, actually two combat tours, Korea, Vietnam. And.

You had your agent Orange experience where you had your kidney transplant, where our adopted daughter was the donor, by the way, Anna Match, which is another God thing.

And.

I have reached the rank of major general, which at that time was the highest rank a reserve officer could attain. And.

You married me, so how could I argue with you?

What are you complaining about?

That's right. And you know, she was right. And it was tough time for me. You know, God was giving me a message that this chapter in my life is, has ended. He's got other plans for me. And I just said, okay, whatever, let's. Let's move forward and see what you have in. In store for me.

You go into a section here that's just about. And you mentioned one of the ways that you were able to serve after the army.

But you go through a list of things, and not just a list, you go through the stories and lessons learned from various things that you got involved with afterwards, the first of which is volunteering in hospice, which you did that your wife, K.J. she got her degree and she was going out and volunteering herself. And so you two actually volunteered together in hospice. What did you learn from seeing that side of death? I know obviously you'd seen death on the battlefield. This is a very different kind of death when people go into hospice care. What did you take away from that?

Yeah, I appreciate you asking me that, Jocko, because it gives me an opportunity to educate people about hospice. First of all, number one, hospice is for people who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness with a prognosis of less than six months to live. Okay? Once a person has reached those criteria, they're eligible for hospice. Hospice is one of the most wonderful services that.

Our society has. Volunteers who are willing to do this.

A hospice team is comprised of a doctor, a nurse, a certified nurse's assistant, a therapist, could be physical, could be spiritual chaplain, and a hospice patient volunteer.

All of this is provided at no cost to the patient. And by the way, the unit of care is not only the patient, it's also the caregiver. Because oftentimes the caregiver is the one who needs the help. And the person who is dying sometimes doesn't even know what's going on.

But almost all know, no matter what. You know, we're taught, we're trained, that.

Even when a patient is lying in a bed, can't talk, don't open their eyes, you assume that they can hear everything that's going on. And you treat them as if they're part of the conversation. You don't ever say anything negative in front of them, which could be really a downer, so to speak.

And the way I got involved in it was KJ saw this ad for a very wonderful hospice organization called Rainbow Hospice in the Chicago area where we live. And they offered training sessions, but it was like a six week training program in the evening, a couple days a week, you know, and, you know, being the guy that I am, I didn't want her to go out at night, you know, by herself. So I said, well, I'll drive you and I'll take a book or I'll take work with me, you know, while you're going through the training, I'll just kind of, you know, do my thing. Well, I got sucked up into the training with her because I've always tried to help her.

When she was in school and I helped her with her studies. And so.

I got involved in the training. So we both were qualified as hospice patient volunteers. Now, the average, at least at that time, the average hospice patient volunteer lasted about 18 months.

The reason for that, it is extremely strenuous, stressful.

You know, you understand the contract. You know, the person is dying, okay? And you're there to provide comfort and help to not only them, but to the family or caregiver. So you come in as a patient volunteer for maybe three hours at a time so that the caregiver can take a break, maybe they can take a nap, maybe they can go to a movie, maybe they can, you know, get their hair set or do whatever, and we take care of the patient. So.

We did that for six and a half years. And it was, it was stressful. But the good news is we could help each other and lean on each other.

What happened was in our training, we were told that, and it makes sense. It's not easy to get hospice patient volunteers. So each team has one patient volunteer. So K.J. and I would be. We're going to be split up now, you know, because she'll be with one patient and I'll be with another patient, you know, and one day a friend of ours Who And I talk about it in the book. A friend of ours whose husband had died from cancer was visiting us, and.

We told her about what we were doing, and she said, you know, the most effective help I got when my husband was going through the cancer was when a married couple came to visit us, because the husband would spend time with my husband and the wife would spend time with me. Okay? So all kinds of bells and whistles go off in our mind. So we go to our hospice patient volunteer, and we said, hey, you know, have you ever thought of assigning a husband and wife as a team, you know, for hospice? And she said, you are the first husband and wife team that's ever trained here. So she said, we'll give it a shot. And that's what we did. And so that's how, you know, we were able to last so long in that. And I'll tell you the. To answer your initial question, the insight I got into dying was a totally different thing in terms of.

People of faith really handle it much better. And I can make that general statement because we did that for six and a half years. And.

It was. And most. And a lot of people who are dying cared more for us than they cared about their situation because they could see that we were volunteering and helping them. But it was also, you know, stressful for us. And I'll never forget, we had one patient who.

A Chinese lady who didn't speak English, and she never spoke. We never heard her speak to us while we were there. This was a lovely story. Her caregiver was a woman from South America who. Her name. The patient's name was Mrs. Chen. And her caregiver was related to her through marriage. You know, Mrs. Chen's nephews, you know, married this other woman, second cousin or something, and this other woman was a professional CNA. And so she took Mrs. Chen into her home and set aside a bedroom just for her, and she was her caregiver, okay? And so that the relationship was so beautiful, you know, from two different cultures. And so, anyway, what I'm getting at is when it came, when she was dying, I mean, we knew the end was coming fairly soon, you know, and K.J. and I visited her, and we were leaving, and Mrs. Chen said, thank you. I mean, it was like.

Out of the blue, you know, and it was like she was saying goodbye to us because she knew that she didn't have. We had other wonderful experiences. I had a Vietnam veteran who was an enlisted man and an army guy, a man of great character, obviously. And when he found out I was a general, and he was in a wheelchair and he had cancer. And I was taking him around the facility, and he would tell everybody, I have a general. He was taking me around, you know, and then he said, this was the touching part. He said, you know, general, when I beat this thing, that guy was a fighter, you know, and he had cancer. And he said, when I beat this thing, I'm going to become a hospice patient volunteer like you and KJ.

Man, I got to tell you, that's. So when he died, we had a policy of not going to funerals. I mean, it just would have been too hard and too many, frankly.

But we went to his funeral, and he was Greek, and his mother immigrated from Greece. Her husband had been killed in the Greek Civil War. And.

It was just he and her. And he was like 65 or something and just retired from government service and never married. And, you know, he was devoted to his mom, and she was devoted to him, and he had planned to take her around the world.

As a gift. And then the guy gets cancer. So we go to the funeral at this. You know, Chicago is a city of neighborhoods and of ethnicities. Okay, well, there's this one funeral home that most of the Greeks go to, you know, and so we go to the funeral service, and, you know, we're the only non Greeks there, much less only Asians. Right. And his mother knew exactly who we were, and she was so grateful to us.

So, yeah, hospice was a very eye opening, but we're very grateful that we had that experience. And it really taught us about dying. People can be so gracious.

Yeah, definitely. Incredible way to serve as well. You end up also. And again, these are things that you had the opportunity to serve, and that's what you call them, opportunities to serve. You end up doing work with the veterans, affair with the VAs, with the VA and then what you already mentioned with. With putting together that. That memorial for the World War II veterans. And one thing that was interesting about that, you were in charge of making sure that all the names that were going to be on this memorial were accurate. And at one point.

They. They wanted to.

Yeah, I know where you're going.

Yeah.

No, they wanted to omit the names.

Yeah.

Of the non Japanese Americans who served in those units. Now, I. E. They were the officers, because although the unit. You know, at that time, the military was segregated. So they put together this Japanese American unit, but all the officers were Caucasian or non Japanese. There was actually a Korean captain.

Who was assigned, and he. Bless his soul, his name is Colonel.

Young OK Kim. He was given the opportunity by the commander, regimental commander, not to serve because he was Korean and he knew the animosity between the Koreans and Japanese. And Colonel Kim, to his credit, said, these are Americans. I'm an American, you know, I will not be transferred. I'll serve with them. And he was with the Hundredth.

Yeah, but, yeah, you say the units originally had Caucasian officers, many of whom died in combat. There was some objection to listing their names because they were not of Japanese ancestry. Being a combat veteran, I immediately squashed such nonsense. This was a national American memorial. To deny those soldiers this honor would have been reverse discrimination of the worst kind. I permitted no further discussion.

Yeah, it was kind of nice to be a general sometimes because a lot of the people on the committee were former service members. But, you know, it was so ridiculous. I just said, that's it. You know, I've got enough trouble trying to make sure the names were correct. You know, there were 830 plus names that eventually got on the memorial. And, you know, we dedicated it in 2000. Knock on wood for those. Can't see me, I'm hitting my forehead. But there have been no changes, no corrections.

That's impressive.

The names.

That's impressive. And then the fifth opportunity that you talk about in the book to serve was helping with the Navy with getting a religious program inside the Basic Training center in there in Chicago.

Yeah, that was interesting. A very dear friend of mine, his name was Joe Gray. He was a major general in the Army Reserves when I was, in fact, when I was active as a general, we go to these general officer conferences. And Joe was a strong man of faith. In fact, in his civilian life, he was the public relations guy for.

The 700 Club. I mean, so he, you know, he was.

Very strong Christian, and he got involved with the military ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. And so he calls me one day and he said, jim, do you know anybody at Great Lakes? You know, I'm an Army guy, you know, I don't know the Navy guys, you know. And I said, no, I don't. He said, listen, you know, we're trying to get into Great Lakes to give these classes to help supplement the command religious program. And we're already at Fort Benning with the Infantry Army. We're already with the Marines. We're already with the Air Force at Lackland Air Force Base. We haven't been able to break the code at Great Lakes, okay? Because Great Lakes is the Navy's only recruit training center now. They closed the other two. So I said, well, I'll give it a shot, but, you know, I can't promise you anything. So I call up there and I say, this is Major General, retired Jim Mukoyama. Can I speak to the admiral who was, you know, the commander? I just. I wasn't gonna, you know, stop and go and collect $200. So I get right through, right? And I say, admiral, you know, we have a program. I'd like to introduce you to, an organization that is willing to come and volunteer to supplement your chaplain's command. Religious program. Could we come talk to you? Sure. Bring them up. Okay. So I called Joe Grayback. I said, okay, now I got the toe in the water. You gotta. You gotta make it swim, right? And so we go up there and the rest is history.

And is that still active right now?

Oh, yeah, very much so. In fact, in the epilogue of my book, okay, For. I volunteered for 20 years as an instructor at the chapel at Great Lakes. Okay. Now, I didn't go every Sunday. I went about two Sundays a month. But, you know, for 20 years, you know, because it was always on Sunday, so I'd have to miss my church on Sunday, you know. But I was willing to do that because I wanted to recruit. See, I didn't care if they stayed in the Navy for a career. I wanted them to have the foundation in life that I had to get them through what they're going to struggle with in life. And if they have that, it's good enough for me. So for 20 years, I volunteered as an instructor at the chapel. Our average attendance was maybe between 20 and 50 recruits. Okay. Now you have to understand, the chapel there seats 1200. Okay.

That's kind of lonely in there with 20 people.

Yeah. So. Well, no, the chapel had this main church. The building had its main chapel and then had smaller chapels. Okay. Okay. So we get, obviously, a smaller chapel. So for 19 years, that was the average Covid hits. Okay. We had to close down for about a year and a half, you know, because the base was closed, you know, to outsiders. Okay. Then they reopened it, and we changed from Sunday classes to Friday night classes. So what that did was when recruits went on Sunday.

Some had to choose between services and our class. Now, they didn't have to do that. They could just come to our services if they wanted to. All of this, of course, is voluntary, right? Our attendance? Well, two things. Number one, Covid's over so people now could fellowship together, which they hadn't been able to do for over a year. Okay. Number two.

We had access to them without having to fight the services. Our attendance exploded, literally exploded. I told you. We had these small chapels, then we got larger chapels, then we got the chapel. Okay.

My Last class was September 30th last year. And I get up there from my last class. The chapel was packed. 1200 recruits. And I'm up there giving my class, and I'm looking out there and I'm saying to myself, only God, it was just incredible.

I guess what you already talked about, what I would say is right now.

The pinnacle of what you've done for outreach and helping people. And that's the militaryoutreachusa.org and you've talked about what programs you're running there and how that's helping people out and what's the current status of that.

Military outreach actually is doing quite well. We have expanded our program. We've actually teamed up with an organization in Alabama called Crosswinds foundation, and they published two DVDs. One is called Invisible Scars, and that talks about PTSD. The second one, and the way this happened was I saw that first video.

About five years ago, and it was the best thing I've seen on PTSD up to that point, because they had individual soldiers, sailors, marines, give their stories, and they gave their names, they gave their services and the wars that they were in.

And then they had chaplains, they had social workers and psychologists. Okay, talk about PTSD and what could be done, etc. So I called them, I said, hey, I want you to know this is the greatest thing since sliced bread that I've seen. Are you thinking of doing one on moral injury? Pregnant paws, Right? And the guy said, well, General, you know, we're like your. Your organization, military outreach. We're a small, you know, really local organization. We don't have a lot of funding. And I said, his name was Bob Waldrop.

He's the guy who runs it. And I said, Bob, we're losing 22 plus veterans a day. We got to move on this. It's the same thing like in Vietnam. After Vietnam, PTSD was ignored, for Agent Orange was ignored for decades, and vets were dying and suffering, and they weren't getting the aid that they could have gotten, you know. And so I said, you know, we can't wait. We gotta take action on this. I appreciate it. If you could think about it, you know, a couple weeks later, he calls me back, he said, we're in. Okay. Then he puts the monkey on my back, and he said, oh, by the way, do you know any veterans who have moral injury that would be willing to talk. Do I know veterans with moral injury? I mean, I had a whole bunch of them lined up. They came up to Chicago, they did filming of the dvd. So the second DVD is called Honoring the Code and it's all about moral injury. The purpose of these DVDs is to educate the public, encourage people who have it to seek assistance because it's there. And as I said earlier.

It is not a death sentence. This can be beat, but it's got to be with people who understand it and the person has to seek the help.

Are these things available online anywhere?

You can actually go to CrosswindsFoundation.org and they don't charge for this. You can, I think it's streaming. Okay.

But yeah, I was gonna say because I don't even have a DVD player anymore. So I hope it's streaming. If it's not streaming, we'll, we'll figure out a way to make that work.

Yeah, they used to.

They, they used to.

Mail them to people the free of charge to veterans or family members.

Again. That's nice. But if they're not streaming, we'll work with them to make sure we get that thing. They'll get those two videos somewhere where people can just watch them. Yeah, right on demand as soon as they hear about them. So we'll make sure that's, that's happening again. So much stuff to cover in the book. It's just the book is, is wonderful. I'm gonna fast forward here and kind of, kind of wrap up what I'm going to read again. Get the book everybody, so that you can, you can get the rest of the story here. You say this. People have often asked me, Jim, why are you so happy? How are you so optimistic and peaceful? What makes you see the glass half full instead of half empty? Peace is not the absence of war, but rather the absence of fear. And when your life is not controlled by fear, you have joy. I have learned and stood by these two definitions through my faith. And they give me a steady peace of mind. This mindset doesn't mean that I am always wearing rose colored glasses. Nor is it the case that I have never doubted my abilities or the outcome of a crucial situation. Doubt is not bad. It generates a realistic assessment and plan of action. But I understand that God has a plan and I do not fear what he has planned for me. I'm going to close out my reading from the book with this section here. You say, in my lifetime I have faced obstacles that I could have used as excuses. I could have dwelled on my short stature, minority status or lower class background, casting myself as a victim. But if I spent all my time contemplating these disadvantages, I would never have had my success or blessings. I chose to be optimistic about my future and remain grateful for the past and present. Life is a constant experience of choices. It is crucial to understand that you alone control your choices and how you react to your circumstances. A major advantage falls to those who appreciate the blessings they have received in life rather than those who accept the woe is me attitude and blame their unfortunate circumstances on others.

And as you say, we control our choices and how we react to our circumstances. That is indeed true and you are certainly an extraordinary example of that.

Well, I do talk about right at the end of the last chapter, speaking of choices, about a Dr. Edith Edgar, whom I met here in San Diego actually. And you probably know her because she was a Holocaust survivor.

After World War II. She got her PhD.

But she is actually trained for the armed forces about choices and positive approach to life. And she, you know, her whole thing is we all have choices in life. And she said she could have chosen to, you know, be a victim. I mean, you know, family members were killed. She went through some pretty horrible experiences. And yet today she's.

You know, I haven't spoken to her for a while, so I hope she's still alive. But when I met her, she was already like 94, I think. And she, when she walked into the room, you know, her presence, there was just an aura about her of positivity and grace and.

She was just incredible. So I have a, in the book, there's a picture of me with her, which is so nice.

We had a wonderful woman, Rose, who is a Holocaust survivor. Just incredible. And unfortunately she passed away last year. But I mean, you want to talk about survivor? She had, she had been in line, she was in Auschwitz. She had been in the line for the gas chambers like seven, eight or nine times. And she would get put in that line and she would kind of just sneak out of it. And it happened to her, like I said, eight or nine times that she was in the line to be killed in the gas chambers. And she'd sneak out of that line when she showed up. When she, when she arrived in Auschwitz, they, as she was getting off the train, a random person to her said, tell them you're 16. And that's all the person said, tell me you're 16. Just real quick. And Rose kind of said, okay. And they asked her how old she was. She said 16. And she was a very small woman. I think she was 14 at the time. But they put her in a different line. All the people under the age of 16 went right into the gas chambers and were killed. And so, I mean, it's just. Just the. The craziest story. But again, she's the same way. When she would walk into a room and when we met her for the first time, it was like a beam of energy was coming into the room. Just an incredible woman.

But, yeah, and I would say both. Same. Same attitude with both them, like, hey, we have control over how we respond to things, and that's. That's up to us.

One thing that you have. And again, just to. Just to talk about military outreach, USA.org.

I think that's the best place to find you right now. There's also a Facebook page, but you have as your slogan, when you can't walk, when you can't run, walk. When you can't walk, crawl. When you can't crawl, we will carry you. So.

That'S what you're doing right now. And again, it's an incredible service to the veterans. Does that get us up to speed? Is there anything else to cover? What else besides the book?

Yeah, I would say one other thing about military outreach that you asked me. How we. How are we doing? We've also added a program.

It's we. This is another God thing. About four years ago, we lost our executive director, which created a huge hole because this guy was the guy who authored the book. They don't receive Purple Hearts, and without him, we would have never gotten to where we were at as an organization. And unfortunately, he had a lot of pressures and he had to.

Leave that position. So now I'm looking for an executive director, right? I wear this hat, this Vietnam veterans hat, wherever I go every day. And I do it because, number one, I want people to know that we have veterans in our communities. You know, not everybody wears a hat like I do, but, you know, we have them. And it also generates conversations. And you can understand this when, you know, when guys are veterans and they'll come up to me and they'll start talking to me, you just out of the blue. And it. It's like we. We've known each other forever, you know, especially when I find out they're army guys or they were in Vietnam, you know, and you know how the routine goes. When were you there? What unit were you in? You know, blah, blah, blah. And. And so I met my Cadillac dealer, my car dealer, and I'VE got this hat on. There's another guy with a Vietnam veterans hat on. So immediately we bond, we talk. I give him my card, I always carry my card, and brochures about military outreach. And he said, I know a guy who's doing exactly kind of what you're doing.

And he's in my American Legion post and blah, blah, blah. And I said, hey, you know, tell him about me and, you know, have him contact me that. So he does. He contacts me. His name is Chappie Farrer. He is the current executive director of Military Outreach USA. He had his own 501C3 called Stand By Me Heroes. And the whole idea of that is to reduce the suicide rate. Sound familiar? And he basically has what he calls foxhole soul counselors. And the whole idea behind it is one on one, peer to peer. And so what we do is our offices are called Dunkin Donuts and we establish a one on one relationship with a veteran who might need help. And once the trust thing is established, that's the thing you have to do first. But once you can get the trust established, then we can talk about the serious stuff and how to get them help.

We have prevented suicides. There were two Marines who had a pact.

They selected a date, they pressed their uniforms. They had their dress uniforms pressed. They cleaned their weapons, and one of them met one of our foxhole soul counselors who worked with him and talked him out of it.

And, you know, that's. That's worth everything we've done.

That makes it all worthwhile right there.

Yep.

And like I said, for people to support that, it's military outreachusa.org/Charles.

Yes.

You have any questions?

Hey, do you ever think about revisiting your taekwondo career and getting your black belt, or is that a closed chapter?

That's a CLO at at 79. I think that's a little. No, but seriously, though, I. It would be something, you know, if I. I think, though I've slowed down and I don't think I do, I wouldn't do justice to the dojo, you know, and I. I would not do anything that I didn't feel I could really do 100%.

So you have thought about it then.

It's good to see you again, sir.

Okay, same here.

General, any closing thoughts?

Well, my mantra, every day is a great day. I have my faith. My family live in the finest country in the world. And I get a lot of sometimes feedback about the finest country in the world thing. And I tell people, listen, I've been around the block A few times when.

You know, I've seen an African American elected president of our country and reelected. I've seen an African American secretary, two secretaries of state, male and female. I've seen Asian Americans succeed. I've seen in my lifetime alone, major changes, attempts for our society to improve and also to recognize the errors of our past, such as.

Eliminating redlining for real estate.

Also eliminating.

Intermarriage, racial intermarriage, prohibition, prohibitions.

I've seen.

Education opportunities improve. I've seen the integration of our armed forces.

The military was the first major.

Organization in our society that integrated under President Truman.

In fact, when I was in the military, and I'm sure you've done this too.

Sometimes I found myself forgetting the race of my soldier or the person I was dealing with, because after a while, we're all alive, drab, you know, and so that was the beauty part of the military. You know, it was a meritocracy. It wasn't equal outcome, it was equal opportunity. And so I'm so. Every day I say that. I say it every chance I get. I said it today at the restaurant when we had breakfast. I say it when I'm. When I'm talking to somebody online that there's been a problem with something. But I always say every day, you know, it's like the person on the other line who's always hearing people complaining and, you know, swearing at them or whatever, it just blows their mind when I say it. I said, hey, I know, you know, you're not the problem. You know, you're just trying to deal with the problem.

But I really. It makes me feel good when I say it, because literally, guys, I'm not kidding. I've said this thousands of times over the last decade, and I've not had one person tell me, you know, I don't want to hear that. It's the other way. It's. I mean, I see smiles on people's faces or I see surprise, you know, and then smiles, and that's. It gives me a good feeling. It's like serving when. When you serve others, you know, it's. You can see that they benefit from it, and then also, hopefully, they will serve others because somebody's gone out of their way to serve them. So how can I be so positive? How can I not be so positive based on my life experience?

Well, sir, it's an amazing story, and once again, it's an honor to have you back here, an honor to publish the book.

An honor to be able to write the forward for the book. And just thanks for coming back here. Thanks for sharing your stories and your lessons learned, and most important, thanks for your service. Thanks for your service in Korea. Thanks for your service in Vietnam. Thanks for your service in the army and in the reserves, and thanks for what you continue to do today to help our veterans and their families. Thank you for everything, sir.

Well, it's. It's a distinct honor and privilege. Thank you.

And with that, General Mook Mukayama has left the building.

And definitely left us with some lessons learned.

Some things to think about for sure.

And.

Great book. So there you go. Not much more to say.

Yep.

I would say, you know, awesome to hear from him.

I always. With him, I always think of, you know, the saying, it's not the size of the dog in the fight, size of the fight in the dog. So like him. So being five, four and a half, that's not big physically. But to be that effective.

That'S when I think about that.

Okay, if we're gonna bring this up.

Sure.

He was talking about his friend. Little thread I had to follow. He's talking about his buddy Don, who he went to ROTC with in Illinois. And they were broke. Remember this?

Yeah.

And they would go out and share. One beer each, plus lobster sauce, shrimp. Okay. And they divided. One shrimp for me, one shrimp for you, one shrimp for me, one shrimp for you. Here's the thing. He's five, four and a half. Do you remember how tall he said Don was?

6 4.

There's a problem there. If I was Don, I would have been like, hey, man. Like, my kids would do that. When my kids were little, you know, it's different. I would get two hot dogs, and they would get one, and they'd. How come you get two? Because I'm three times as big as you are, you little gnat.

Cause I'm huge. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, but that shows you, Don. Very fair guy. Very, very fair guy. Maybe, you know, the argument could be made that maybe Mook needed it more, get a little more jacked.

Oh, yeah, maybe. But I don't know, it is one of those things where you got to kind of weigh out the checks and balances a little bit because you six, four, he's big. Big guy, small guy. You know, there's certain element of, hey, well, I'm six' four. I'm big. If I don't eat enough, I'm gonna shrink.

Yeah.

So you're gonna take. You know, it's one thing to be like, okay, I won't get my freaking calorie surplus today because we're going shrimp and beer. But it's another thing to be like, hey, like, I kind of gotta not go into starvation mode.

Yeah.

Kind of a scenario, but I don't know. That's something. I'm sure they work.

You know what's an interesting part of the book, too, is, like, the.

It is what it is. Like the Japanese saying for, like, this is what you got. And there's a weird dichotomy between, like, hey, this just is what it is, which is almost just accepting what the way things are as opposed to, like, hey, I'm not gonna accept this. I'm gonna make something happen. I'm gonna make the best out of this. And it's just because in life, you know, there's things you control. There's things that you can't control. You know what I mean? Like, there's things you can control, and there's things that you literally can't control. Usually the things that we can't control is a lot less than we think, and we actually have a lot of control over a lot more things than we think. But when you do get to something that you can't control to be able to say, yep, it is what it is, and not worried about it, move on. It's very similar to the Travis Mills conversation about, like, hey, there's nothing I can do about this. Can sit here and contemplate it forever, and I'm not gonna get the answer. That dog don't hunt. The dog don't hunt. I'm gonna move on. I'm gonna do deal with what I got. It is what it is. And now I'm carrying on. There's also. You could have that attitude. If you take that to an extreme, which I don't recommend. All of a sudden it's like, well, you know, if I was supposed to be getting hired at that job or getting promoted, then I would. Instead of being like, oh, I didn't get promoted. You know what? What can I do to fix it?

Yeah.

So you got to pay attention to what you can control, what you can't control. And you should look at everything. Your initial look at everything should be like, I can control this. And then have the world prove to you that, no, actually, you can't. Yeah, like, oh, I can. I can do better with this. Well, actually, that's your whatever. You can't control that. Okay. And eventually you realize, yep, can't control it. I'm not going to worry about it. Move on. It is what it is. So awesome stuff. By the way, speaking of eating shrimp or food, sometimes you need to up that caloric intake. Sometimes you need some protein.

Yes.

I recommend you get some milk from Jockofuel. Jockofuel.com get yourself some food. We don't have lobster sauce milk, and I don't think we ever will. Maybe Pete might like that. He likes lobsters a lot.

Oh, yeah, he does like lobsters.

So he might be like, oh, that's a good idea. Let's make lobster. Lobster milk.

Yeah.

It'd be more like a chowder. You know how, like.

Oh, yeah, New England clam chowder, right?

But this for. Yeah, as far as, like, the flavor, because, like, look, Moch is like a dessert. Like a chocolate milkshake is like a chocolate milkshake, right? Vanilla milkshake, banana milk. Like, it's like a dessert, but you get the. The lobster milk. That's like a. A chowder, a lobster chowder flavor. You see what I'm saying? So it's a different drinking experience.

Would you warm it up?

Warm it up?

Oh, no kidding.

I think so.

So There you go. Jockofuel.com. you can get hydrate, you can get greens, you can get the. You can get the.

Go. The.

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Also Origin usa. Boom. You train in the jiu jits. Could you use origin geese in Taekwondo? I guess it depends on the teacher.

I have no idea.

Yeah, I have no idea either. Nonetheless, we're doing Jiu Jitsu anyway, so. Yes, Origin usa. That's where you can get your American made everything, by the way. But yes, Jujitsu, geese, rash guards, the hoodies. I feel like the Hoodies. Don't want the heavy hoodies. But you know, the tradish origin hoodies.

Have you ever had to admit when you're wrong?

Yes.

I do too sometimes. I got one for you.

What?

So you know we got the heavy hoodie. It's cool.

Yeah.

I mean, and if you're from Maine or Minnesota or Michigan or Montana, you're gonna need that heavy hoodie.

Yeah.

But I've always been kind of, let's just say against a lightweight hoodie. Hey, what would you say? Okay, so there's the kilo hoodie. I would consider that medium weight.

Okay.

And then there's one more hoodie from Origin usa. I can't even remember what it's called. It's the other one. Yeah, it's like standard issue or something like this. But it's a little lighter. But damn, that thing is like perfect for a lot of scenarios.

That's the one. So to me, my scale is one down. You know, like, you know, sizing chart can be like shifted depending on your region. But to me the kilo is heavy and then the heavy is like ultra heavy. Like there's. There are very few circumstances that I'm going to wear the heavy. I wore the heavy snowboarding.

The kilo is made for California in a lot of ways. That temperature. So the temperature in San Diego, it's 70 degrees in the day, it's 50 degrees at night.

Yeah.

Kind of. That's like the year round situation, right?

Yeah.

Because the thing is, in the desert, which, which San Diego is a semi air desert. When the sun goes down, it gets cold, it's cool. Let's say at a minimum.

Yeah.

You know, it can be, it can be 35 degrees. You wake up, there'd be frost on your car.

Right.

That can happen in San Diego. But even on a summer night, it's like 50 degrees, 53 degrees at night. You know, if you're outside and you're whatever gonna want that, you know you're gonna want that kilo.

But the light one that you're, you're still calling it lightweight. I think that's medium.

It is medium weight. It is medium weight. It is. But it's, it's a good like 1.5.

Yeah.

Layer. It's a good one to have in there. So check it out. Get yourself a hoodie. Get yourself an American made hoodie. Don't just go buy something from a, from a damn slave labor camp sweatshirt. Yeah. Sweatshop hoodie. Don't just don't buy one of those. Buy an American made one. 100%.

Oh, yeah. Don't forget the jeans too. Multiple different colors.

Yeah, true.

That means. And so the Delta 68 one too. And we talked about this before, but not as much as compared to how significant it is. And that's the stretch, the functionality of Delta 68 jeans.

Very good.

You can do deep squats with those.

You can do literally anything thing.

Yeah.

If you were. If you were a yoga person. Yeah, you could do yoga. If you were a ballerina, you could do ballet, bro.

Knee. Knees over toes guy.

Yeah.

Can wear that thing during his administration. Yeah, yeah.

When he's. When he's squatting or dunking. Yeah, he's got some. He's got some hops.

Yes, sir.

Multiple knee surgeries.

Yeah, man.

But he's getting hops.

Yeah.

That's impressive.

Yeah. And he can wear the Delta 6.

And he's not a spring chicken either, Right. How old do you think he is? Oh, I don't know, mid-30s?

Yeah. He's not 20 something, I don't think.

I don't think he's 20 something. But he's dunking.

Yeah.

Kind of with ease too.

Yeah.

Kind of like power.

Well, he said. He said he has a 42 inch vertical. Just massive, by the way. So here's a little trivia you didn't know about me. I had the highest vertical on my first year. My first year at University of Hawaii football at the highest vertical, 39 and a half.

Damn.

Yeah.

What is it right now?

One.

Maybe two.

On a good day?

It's not very high, but. Yes. So 42.

Did you work on it or is that just.

I didn't, I didn't have any training program. No. But I liked like jumping around and doing stuff. And actually literally growing up in our elementary school and high school, like in the. There were the. There were these outdoor hallways. And as the hallways would kind of go through the school, there are places where you can jump and touch the beams that go across. And different hallways had different height of beams. So the one I remember elementary school, the one going in the cafeteria, had the highest beam. Nobody could touch it. And I was. But I'd always. And I ended up. I ended up touching it.

When I used to train Dean a lot for mma, we had in the upstairs area of city boxing.

They had like lights above us and then like a beam and then a pipe and there were different heights.

Yeah, yeah.

And I would make him just. I'd be like, touch the beam. And he would just. But it wasn't just one Jump. It would be like touch. If it was the. I think the lowest thing was like the, the beam I think was the lowest thing. So I'd touch the beam, he would just have to sit there and like, jump, jump, jump, jump.

Then I was exercise training.

No, like during, like sprawls and then grappling. And I'd be like, all right, touch the beam. And he'd stand there, jump, jump, jump, jump. And like touch the. Touch the pipe. And the pipe was like higher. So he had to like kind of touch the light and he'd have to like full on jump. But yeah, jumping is freaking legit. So Good for you. So you had the 39 and a half.

39 and a half Y.

And knees over toes is at 42.

42. Yeah. Any. Well, what they're saying is like, that's impressive. Anything over like 36 is impressive. Like even the basketball player. And also like what, 5, 10, 5 11. So basketball players don't need a 40 inch vertical. Even though some guys actually the freaking. There's this guy, freaking Aaron Galloway was his name. You call him the helicopter. That was his name. Basketball player. He was like 6, 6, 68 or something like that. 48 inch vertical, bro. He could just dunk. Like, it was so it was very, very impressive.

There was a kid when I lived in Coronado back there was a kid, he was like in the summertime, he was probably his junior year in high school and he was, you know, I'd see him out there, he'd be doing sprints and then he had. Remember those shoes that had like the toe pad?

Yeah.

And he would go and train for like an hour with those things.

Yeah.

And his goal was like he was gonna dunk his senior year. I don't know whatever happened to this kid. Yeah, but, but he was cool. He. By the end of summer, he was slam dunking.

Right.

We know there's a difference, right, between dunking and. He wasn't that tall. He's probably, he's probably six feet. Yeah, but he was slam dunking.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? By the end of summer. I never, I didn't calculate in the beginning. So it's something that you can definitely improve at.

Well, yeah, I mean, especially the knees over toes, guys. Because he. Guy, because he said his vertical was like 19 or something, like really bad or 21. He said he more than doubled it. So. Okay, that was his jam. So yeah, you can train it. And in fact, there's, there's this apparatus. It was, it came out, it was this, it was a big thing for gyms where you could stack plates on it. It was almost like a hammer strength machine for squats. But then instead of just squats, you do jumps on them. So you could load weight and do jumps with the pads on your shoulders, you know?

Okay, so you, you could do that with a bar, but you'd hurt your back and neck and shoulders.

You could.

Yes. This was. You know what hammer strength is, right? Those, those machines, they're just, they're just leveraged. There's no chains or pulleys. They're just. It's more leverage. So it's that essentially, but it's a. You, you stack the plates on the, on the back, on the little thing. And then you put the shoulder, you know, like a squat, not squat, calf raise machine where you're underneath the pads on your shoulder kind of resembles that, but it's hammer strength is.

And you're jumping and you're jumping and.

Then you can put your feet up on this little incline part on it.

Did you do that because you were like trying to get that vert?

No, I, I got. I already. Before that was introduced to the training facility I was at at, uh.

I had already had a high vertical. So yeah, I did it for a little bit to improve it, but it, I didn't do it consistently enough to improve anything. Plus we didn't test vertical after that. So who knows?

Explosive power.

Yeah.

It's a good thing. All right, well, there you go. You can do all that with a pair of Delta jeans on.

Yes, you can. They look good too. Buy that way. Yes. Origin USA All American made huge deal. Also Jocko store called Jocko Store. That's where you can represent discipline equals freedom on your shirts and hats and hoodies and shorts. Even got fight shorts on there. Board shorts. Also on the Jocko store, there's thing called the shirt locker. If you don't know about this. Different design every month. New shirt, new design every month. People seem to like it. I know people who. That's literally their whole wardrobe. Shirt lockers.

Yes.

Yeah.

Jamie's dad. Yeah, for one. He's representing full on. Check. Jocko underground dot com. Check that out. We have another little podcast that we do on there. We. And we. We own that platform. So no one can ever censor us in any way. Check that out. Don't forget about YouTube. Don't forget about psychological warfare. Don't forget about flip side Canvas. Dakota Meyers got that company making co cool stuff to hang on your wall. The books. Faith family and flag memories of an unlikely American samurai crusader. Let's face it, that's a good subtitle for a book that is by what you just heard from General James Mook Mukayama. The book's great. All kinds of good information in there and check it out. Get it. It's available on Amazon. And then I've written a bunch of books. You know what they are. There's a new edition of Leadership Strategy and Tactics out the field manual. Get that expanded a dish. And then you know the rest of the books. The kids books. Get the kids. Get the kids. You know the books. So they have a code to live by. Also, Echelon Front, we have a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. Go to ashlamfront.com if you need us to come into your organization or if you want to come to one of our live events. That's how you do it. Also we have a, a online training academy for leadership. Leadership in not just in business, not just on a team, but in life. So check that out. Extreme ownership dot com. And if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families, join up. Gold star families. Check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got an amazing charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to americasmightywarriors.org don't forget about heroes and horses.org I'm going to check in with Micah who's probably just come. Well, he came out of the field a little while ago, but we'll see how many, you know, mountain lions he was able to track down and kill with his bare hands. Also Jimmy Mays got an organization beyond the brotherhood.org Check that one out. And finally, of course, from today's guest, check out Military Outreach usa. All great organizations. We support them and we hope you do the same. If you want to connect with us on the interwebs. Echoes at Echo Charles. I am at Jocko Willink. Just, just be careful because the algorithm is looking to grab you. And you can't blame the algorithm. You can't blame it. You can't blame it. It's like people that are afraid of AI. Dude, I will unplug your machine. You know what I mean? That what you're gonna do? You ever see me with a plug, I'll unplug you. You know what I mean? People talking about AI, they're afraid of AI. Wait until I rip that 110 out of the socket. Watch you freeze up, son. 220. Whatever whatever it's running, kill its generator. Like, you know.

Simple, pragmatic solution.

Or put water on it. You know, get a little water. Yeah, go, go throw your iPhone in the sink and see how that works for you. All right, so watch out for the algorithm, but it's not a monster. You can kill it, you can unplug it, rip the. Rip the plug out of the socket and you'll be good. Thanks once again to General Mukuyama for joining us. Always appreciate you your service and thank you for sharing your lessons learned. Thanks for writing an amazing book. Thanks to all our military personnel out there tonight, especially our Vietnam veterans who fought in such terrible conditions with very little support from our citizens in this country. Thank you for what you did and thank you for your service and sacrifice. And also thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, Secret service, and all first responders. Thank you for your dedication on the home front to keep us safe and everyone else out there.

So many lessons, and one of those lessons is to have a code to live by. A code. A code that can guide you and help you make decisions and help you do the right thing. That's why I made the Warrior Kid code, so that kids can have a code to live by and know what's right, know what's wrong, and let it guide them. Let's grab a couple of rules from the Mukayama Family code. Always tell the truth. Try your best in everything you do. Be personally neat and clean. Save your money and spend it wisely. Do the right thing, even if it's unpopular. Be on time for appointments. Do not brag about your accomplishments or possessions. Do not be discouraged by failure or disappoint disappointments. Keep good posture. Do not slouch.

That's some of the rules. And they're all good. And they're simple, but they're not easy. Have a code, live by it. And allow no slouching. And of course, allow no slack. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko out.