she's not doing a very good job

because she's about to get killed.

She's not giving up any information.

What she should actually do is

try and craft some kind of a story

that stalls or prolongs her life.

Hey, this is Jocko Willink.

I'm sitting in my podcast studio, remotely,

and this is The Breakdown.

[upbeat music]

First up is "Saving Private Ryan."

[waves crashing]

Obviously, this scene is D-Day.

The military really looked to bring a lot of people

that didn't have combat experience

to do the invasion on D-Day

because they knew that needed some fresh mindsets going in,

that weren't gonna be absolutely horrified,

but even with that you can tell from this

that there's a lot of fear going on

because they're going into a pretty hellacious situation.

[soldiers vomiting]

You can see a lot of the guys are looking very nervous.

They're trying to capture that on the camera.

You see some of the guys that are actually throwing up,

and they could be throwing up from being nervous,

that can happen, but my guess is in this case

most of these guys are throwing up

because they're sea sick.

They're not used to being on the water,

and they're going through rough seas.

Your body starts to adapt to the motion of the ocean

when you spend a lot of time on the water in boats,

but even going from a large ship,

which these guys have been on,

into smaller boats, people that aren't used to it,

they can definitely get sea sick.

And that's probably what's going on here.

- 30 seconds!

God be with you!

- Port side stick, starboard side stick,

move fast and clear those murder holes!

- In a Navy vessel, the starboard side is,

as you're looking forward in the vessel,

it's the right-hand side,

the port side is the left-hand side,

so he's saying the stick,

which is just a group of people,

that are on the starboard side,

he's just giving them instructions.

United States military is made up

of multiple different branches.

You have the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps.

In this scene right here, you see Navy boats

that are bringing US Army soldiers to the shore.

As soon as they hit the shore,

they're gonna be doing what the Army does.

While they're in the water,

they're doing what the Navy does.

You have to have a good relationship

between the services in order to get the job done,

and they certainly are showing that here.

- Want plenty of feet between men.

Five men, it's a juicy opportunity,

one man's a waste of ammo.

- What he's talking about right there, he's saying,

keep your dispersion is what we call it,

it means space yourselves out,

don't bunch up in a group.

If you're all together in a tight group,

you become an easy target for the enemy

because they don't have to shoot very accurately

and they'll hit one of you.

If you're in a group, they shoot a burst of ammunition,

they can take out three, four, or five guys

that are in that group.

What that sergeant is telling them is to keep your distance

from each other so you make yourselves harder targets.

[droplets pattering]

Most of the times, when you do some kind

of an amphibious operation coming over the beach,

you're gonna get wet.

There's a chance that you could possibly stay dry,

but it's a pretty small chance.

It's one of the things

that makes coming over the beach

an amphibious operations so hard.

Not only does it make you cold, but it affects your gear,

your radios, your weapons, everything gets affected,

especially by salt water.

It's a real challenge

and it's something you have to contend with

'cause it's gonna happen.

[whistling]

[whistling] [metallic scraping]

- [Shouting voice] There is fire in the whole--.

[gun firing]

One of the things that makes "Saving Private Ryan"

so realistic is that it doesn't shy away

from showing the horrific graphic nature of war.

War is absolutely violence.

It's killing and it's death, maiming human beings,

and it shows that really without any mercy

in this opening scene.

This is actually a nightmare scenario,

coming across an open area,

which starts with the water,

and then goes on to the beach,

and you're facing elevated machine gun positions

from the enemy.

They're shooting down at you,

from a totally protected position.

So what do you do in a situation like that,

how do you face that?

Well, what you have to do,

and it's very counter-intuitive,

is you have to move forward.

As a leader or as just one of these troops

that's out there trying to survive the situation,

you might think, I just wanna stay here and hide,

I don't wanna move,

but what you have to do is move.

And what that also means,

is if you are with one of your friends and they get hit,

you might not be able to help them,

and the best thing you can possibly do for them

is to continue to advance.

That's what makes this scene so hard to watch.

Guys are having to at that moment make a decision

between staying with their friend and dying together,

or moving forward to try and accomplish the mission.

It's a horrible situation to be in.

[shouting]

- Navy beach battalion, sir.

I gonna clear these obstacles, great halt for the tank.

- The Navy had units that would go in to the beach

and clear out obstacles.

They'd also go and try and clear out obstacles

that were in the water or on the beach

before the invasion even starts.

The predecessors to the SEAL Teams were those guys,

the underwater demolition units,

and if you really wanna get specific about it,

in the Battle of Tarawa, over in the Pacific,

there was a operation that took place

where the Marine Corps was taking that island,

and they hit a bunch of underwater reefs with the boats,

and the boats got held up on those reefs.

And so the Marines had to get out

and had to go across about 600 yards of water

before they got to the beach,

and they took massive casualties.

It was a horrendous scene.

And the US military, the Navy and the Marine Corps,

realized that we needed to have someone

that could figure out what was under the water

as they got closer to the beach,

and if there was obstacles there,

then they'd get rid of them.

And so they formed up the Navy combat demolition units,

and those were the guys

that eventually became the underwater demolition teams,

and those were the guys

that eventually became the SEAL Teams.

- All the fortress boundary is a channel.

- Order sir, you go spend the last out there in this line.

- Come on blitz.

- One of the most important things about the US military,

and any good military organization,

is that they use something called decentralized command.

There's not some senior person,

at the top of the rank structure

making every single decision,

for the people on the front lines.

The people on the front lines,

understand what it is that they're supposed to get done,

and then they go and do it by any means that they see fit.

So sometimes there might be a little conflict,

but as you can see Tom Hanks' character,

they have a little bit of a discussion,

but it last two sentences,

and then they move on,

and go and try and achieve the objective,

that's decentralized command and you see it in action there.

[guns firing]

This scene depicts the incredible bravery,

that these soldiers had to storm forward,

facing a high percentage chance,

of them being killed or gravely wounded.

This is one of those epic battle scenes that again,

reflects the courage of the frontline soldiers.

Next up, we have "Apocalypse Now".

[upbeat music]

- [mumbles] Men this is better than Disneyland.

- The premise of this movie is that

there's a guy Colonel Kurtz

that has gone native, gone rogue

and the US military decides

that he needs to be taken out,

and so they send a special forces soldier

along with a bunch of Navy patrol boat personnel up

to go and kill him.

This is a movie.

Having someone go completely rogue

like that is pretty unrealistic,

it would get picked up on

and they'd be taken out of that situation

and put into someplace where they could recover

and get a grip on reality again.

One of the things that was unique about Vietnam

was the river system that flowed throughout the country

in the Mekong Delta in other areas.

You know, they had what we call the Brown Water Navy,

the predecessor to the special boat teams which we now have

was guys driving small boats

that could push up into these enemy controlled areas

and conduct operations,

and that's pretty much what

is taking place in "Apocalypse Now".

- Purple haze, look [mumbles],

[crosstalk]

- They've got a chief petty officer

in charge of this vessel,

a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy

is a very proud rank.

They say in the Navy that chiefs run the Navy.

Navy chiefs are very experienced tactically,

they understand what the job is,

and they do what they need to do to get the job done.

- People can't picture me in Vietnam.

Chief picture me at home having a beer watching TV.

[laughs]

[crosstalk]

- You might be wondering, well,

these guys are out on patrol.

They seem to be joking around.

They seem to be carefree.

You gotta remember that anyone in the military

SEALS included,

we're just people and people have lives,

and they've got girlfriends back home

and they've got other things going on

and they wanna laugh and have a good time.

You know, this would be obviously tactically unsound

to light off of purple smoke

and give your position away to the enemy,

and actually obscure the vision of the people

that are on the boat,

that's a little bit unrealistic,

but for the fact that they are sort of relaxed

because there's no actual combat taking place.

That can happen,

now depending on where you are,

you need to use caution and it certainly seems