John JW Warren: “Lead Like A Marine”

John Warren's in studio, decorated Marine veteran, author of a book that's now out this week, Lead Like a Marine, Run Towards a Challenge, Assemble Your Firearm, and Win Your Next Battle. John joined in 2005 and was motivated after 9-11 and the book is not meant to make you necessarily a better Marine but a better person with some leadership skills you can only get if you went to Parris Island. Am I right, John? And Quantico.

And Quantico, excuse me. So what were you doing before you signed it? I'd been in college. I'd actually been recruited by all of the academies to play basketball and I said I wasn't interested in that. And then 9-11 happened when I was in school and felt the call to serve like my grandfathers in the Pacific in World War II. Did you play basketball in college?

I played at W&L, Washington and Lee. And what changed after 9-11? I just really felt like the the nation was at a tough time. We had been attacked by Al-Qaeda.

I wanted revenge. I wanted to do my service and I thought it was my time to serve like my grandfathers. Why the Marines? The Marines are the best. They're the tip of the spear and I wanted to serve with them and I wanted infantry the whole time. Did you want, did your athletic ability help you through boot camp?

It did. I was at OCS in Quantico. All the officers go to Quantico but I was in pretty good shape at the time. Because you had your degree. I had my degree. So that means you go in as an officer.

You didn't have to go in as an officer but it gave you the option so I went in. And you won infantry? I wanted infantry and I wanted to lead Marines in combat. I think it's the greatest honor of my life and I have so much high respect for the military and especially the Marine grunts.

The same mount going in as you did, you do now? Even more now. I mean what the Marines do, what the corporal, the sergeant, they're the heart of the Marine Corps and what they were able to do in combat, intense combat and especially fighting a counter-insurgency. It's just an amazing experience and it's really difficult because one moment you're treating kids, you're handing out soccer balls, you're giving them lollipops and the next minute an RPG is flying by and you got to switch and all of a sudden you're kinetic. And you know it's so amazing and so underappreciated how you guys adapted to the battlefield.

First they said the last thing Americans want to do is get involved in urban warfare. Well guess what you ended up doing for how many years? And you got great at it and it was not just special forces. And one of the things we talk about in the book is do everything for a reason. It's one of the best lessons I think we can pass on to all your listeners.

You know think about outside the box why do you do all these things that you normally do and can they be improved? And when we got to Iraq things weren't going well in the Sunni triangle, things weren't going well in Ramadi and we totally shifted tactics. We started doing a census to find out who was living in every house.

We started communicating and talking with interpreters with the people. And ultimately you have to develop the human intelligence to systematically remove the bad guys, the money guys, not just the IED layers. Because most of the IED layers we actually felt sorry for. They're getting paid $50 for an IED to be laid and they've got to feed their family.

So you can kill all of those guys you want. You're not impacting the insurgency. You've got to systematically root them out and we did that. All right, also John, what you did too was cordon off an entire city.

You gave every people ID cards so you know who was coming in and out. It was amazing what you guys were able to do. And I think with the surge in Iraq was underappreciated because a presidency switched. A president thought it was a bad war and pulled the troops out prematurely. Next thing you know you had to go back in and the surge which was this great success story got smothered by the by the rise of ISIS which you also gone back and destroyed. There's nothing worse than fighting hard and bleeding for ground and then having your commander in chief give it up. And that's what we did. But you know the Marines, we're all about the fight and we can't you know we can't control a lot of decisions above us. So what was your thought when Afghanistan, when we evacuated Afghanistan the way we did?

I think it was a surrender of a country. And I think what we also saw was we had been lied to by politicians and we've been lied to by generals who were in charge of training the Afghan military for two decades. I mean they all told us right hey they're improving the Afghan National Army.

Hundreds of thousands of people. They're great and you know they've got all this gear and what did they last 28 minutes against the Taliban? I mean it was crazy. Right when we left the air cover and left them alone they weren't able to do with that American leadership. And then you see the incompetence too of if you're going to pull out you can do it much better than the way they did it. I mean if you and I went to get coffee and we just had a back of the napkin drawing and sketch of hey what should we do in Afghanistan to pull out it would have gone much better than how it went for them. How about the integrity or lack thereof of releasing your after action report the day of Fourth of July weekend when everyone had gone and when there was no scrutiny on it without any fanfare and the conclusion was we should have thought of worst case scenario.

I think it shows incompetence but it also shows a lack of fiduciary duty. All these people they just serve themselves in office. They're not there to protect the citizens of the United States. They don't care about us.

It's all to protect them and I think it's really criminal almost. Hey we speak with John Warren. You got to pick up his book Lead Like a Marine, run towards a challenge, assemble your fire team and win your next battle. So for people that aren't going to go to Parris Island or Quantico what could we learn from what you now understand and made part of your life? So we wrote the book really to help anybody. One of the chapters we talk about is just be blunt and direct with people. It's communication and we find that you know except maybe outside of New York people are not blunt and direct and it's not good. You don't know where you stand with people. It hurts relationships and one of the things that we've been successful at doing is just tell everyone where they stand.

That applies to your family, your marriage, your coaches, you know the team you're coaching on, your kids team. So I think that's very applicable. Small unit leadership we talk about that and decentralized authority. We talk about eating last.

You know we have a story in there where General Mattis he came it was Christmas day he came on duty at base and relieved one of the young officers to let him go home and eat dinner with his family for Christmas. And right now I think across the board we're seeing leaders that eat first. They think it's a privilege to lead with all these perks and it comes at our expense but they're supposed to be representing us and serving us. Are you talking about politicians or are you talking about the Marines?

I'm talking no I'm definitely not talking about the Marines. I'm talking about politicians. I'm talking about business.

I'm talking about religious organizations. I really think we have a failure of leadership across so many institutions in society and that's why we wrote the book. Do you think that this some of these concepts can be brought into everyday life?

Absolutely there's a term. Do you think parents could benefit from this too? I think parents, I think siblings, everyone can benefit from the book. What did you need to learn before you went in? Well I think when we went in you know before you went into when I went in I think I had the core values because I was attracted to the Marine Corps. I wanted to serve and some of the those traits that we find people are successful in regardless of military or not are extreme hard-working team players.

They've got grit and determination and they have a chip on their shoulder. They want to prove something and I think I had those characteristics but the Marine Corps molded me. It toughened me up. It fortified my grit and I think it was just an amazing experience leading Marines in intense combat and I actually learned a lot from them too. They were very experienced group when I got there. I was the stereotypical green lieutenant who shows up and says hey guys I'm here to lead you.

They had just gotten back from Fallujah. So how did you win their win them over? I learned to keep my mouth shut until I was actually able to lead them and you got to learn things before you can lead and I think I did a good job at that. So you got to show some vulnerability but not too much because you still got to be the leader right?

You got to crush crush them sometimes on discipline but you got to listen to them on tactics and you got to they've got to know and I think this is applicable to everyone who you lead they got to know that you love them and that you care about them and I think all my Marines know that. I think very similar to a lot of times a coach was not a great player and you have these great players doing things you could never do out there but you you got to lead them and they can always turn around any moment go you could never even you couldn't even get to that ball. You would never even have caught that pass. Hey we talk about Nick Saban in the book right? He was a defensive back for Kent State and now he's the greatest coach of all time. Same with Vince Lombardi.

Right well he was a pretty yeah he was yeah Fordham but he was he was a pretty good player but he was not a great player but looked up to Paul Horning which is pretty amazing but yet he had to lead him. So when people talk about the American military which you just mentioned is the biggest weakness of the Russians because they have nobody that's allowed to show any initiative and they don't have commanders on the ground to make decisions which means their generals had to come up front and a lot of them are being killed. I mean I think they've lost over a hundred generals and currents. Is that amazing to you? It's amazing. You fought for 20 years in two wars.

You didn't have that. On one account I was shocked at how many generals were actually on the front lines. I mean compared to our military there's no way in Iraq you would have even had a hundred generals on the ground so but to lose them all and just the incompetence of the Russians in general in Ukraine has been staggering. I mean how many tanks do you need to line up and lose before you stop sending tanks in a line with no combined arms, no infantry.

It's really amazing to me. So you're studying that and you also know what we learned on the fly in 20 years and how we adapted to the battlefield. They say there's over 200,000 casualties minimum 50,000 dead. Those as I don't want to lose one American but if you fought for 20 years and those are the numbers I would think that's extremely high. They've fought for 500 days. I mean they've already I mean they said by far have already exceeded all of their casualties during their you know compared to their Afghanistan time. The biggest disaster in their military history.

Absolutely. So when you see that take place do you think people have to take a step back and understand how resourceful and tremendous this generation which you are a part of war fighters are? I think the the Marines, the military, our men and women in uniform are really unbelievable. They're our greatest asset.

I mean we have great technology but it really comes down to you've got to take the ground you got to bleed for the ground and that really comes into grit and we got it. Does it surprise you the Marines are the only branch of the military that's hitting their recruiting goals? You know the Army missed their recruiting goals by 25 percent.

They're consolidating units. It is unbelievable but that really leads to a lot of problems in society not just the military. I think we're up to what 77 percent of the U.S. youth don't qualify physically anymore for the military.

You know that causes a huge problem. I think all these woke policies in the military you know you want to recruit conservative kids like me. I mean those are the ones that go serve in the military. I mean there are a lot of great Democrats in the military too. I'm not saying that but these woke extreme policies that does not help recruiting. That is a deterrent and that's one of the reasons why the military is missing their recruiting and that's a national that is a national security issue. They don't want these image ends of war fighters.

They don't. And that's what people it attracts people to the military. The image that people want to see who join the Marines is them hoisting the flag on Iwo Jima. That's the image that makes people want to go into the Marine Corps.

It is not celebrating pride month or celebrating a transsexual. It is amazing military excellence and that's what we've got to get back to. So Tommy Tomerville a famous football coach now senator from Alabama comes out and says we're not having anybody's command confirmed including the commandant of the Marines until you stop this policy of using taxpayer money to allow men and women in uniform to go to a state in which abortion is legal. So if I was to paraphrase that way that as awkward as I phrase that how do you feel do you think this is the right cause but the wrong way to fight it? A lot of people like senator Thune said I understand the means but I don't like the ways. I personally think the whole story is being framed in the wrong manner.

They're framing it on Tommy Tuberville. The issue is the Pentagon. The Pentagon was warned if you change this policy this is what's going to happen and that's what Tuberville told them and rather than being concerned about our national security and having that as their first priority they said no we're going to make paying for people to go get abortions which has never been a policy of the military. We're going to make that our first priority and they changed it and they're the reason why none of the generals have been confirmed. All they have to do to confirm the generals is remove the policy and all of those generals will get confirmed. The other thing that could happen is Schumer could have a vote on all these individual generals but it seems like the Senate is too lazy or they're playing political motives again and they're choosing not to do that. So I think there are a lot of solutions.

I don't think this is should focus on Tuberville. I think it should focus on hey we need to put national security first and that starts with the Pentagon. Okay listen we have a few more minutes with John when we come back decorated Marine veteran author of Lead Like a Marine. We'll get some things that you could put into your life when we return and also I want you to weigh you know what we should be doing next in Ukraine. The attack could be on their way but we only have 4,000 in our arsenal.

Should that be a reason we think twice about it? You'll listen to the Brian Kilmeade Show. Learning something new every day on the Brian Kilmeade Show. The more you listen the more you'll know it's Brian Kilmeade. A few more minutes with John Warren decorated Marine veteran. His book is out called Lead Like a Marine.

John a couple more minutes here as we watch we're watching Chris Ray take some questions and some praise. The FBI director in Ukraine. It's kind of good news that we added Finland and Sweden to NATO right? We can't add Ukraine even if we wanted to.

It's against the doctrine. Can't have an active country in a war. How much more support do you think we should be giving Ukraine?

I think it's a complex situation. I think first we have to really think about our own national security. I mean I'm really concerned about our ammo being so low. I mean even Biden slipped the other day and said hey we're running low on 155 shells. I mean like running what he's saying is we're running out of artillery and that's a scary thing. You know we're also low on javelins. We've given the anti-tank weapon 13 years worth of javelins to Ukraine and we're not we're not producing more to cover that. Which is crazy. I mean the fact that we're using them is one thing but the fact that we're not replacing them at a dizzying rate is nuts.

It makes no sense. I have a 7, 5 and 3 year old and I think they would all say if we produce 13 years worth we should produce more. If we give away 13 years we should produce more but we're not doing it. We're short of amphibious assault vehicles or amphibious assault ships like the mini carriers that hold marine battalions. I mean China is the greatest national security threat that we've faced in 30 years and we are not prepared in any way. But degrading the Russian fighting force and exposing them is in the U.S. interest. I do think it is in the U.S. interest.

And they'll keep that in mind. But I think we can't do that to the extent that we weaken ourselves to where we can't fight our own wars. Attack'ems would you give them? The attack'ems which are the long-range missiles? Well I think part of the problem is I mean going back to the book you know blunt and direct communication President Biden and the administration they cannot tell us what the strategic goals are or what we're going to do. All I hear is hey we're going to give them these weapons we're not going to give them these weapons and then two months later what do we do? We give them those weapons. So what's the strategy?

How are you making these decisions? Communicate with the American people. I know that's a really hard thing for President Biden communication but it's embarrassing but true.

It's really sad. We like a marine some principles for people to take away last minute. Hey the last chapter it's called lead from the front. It's about one of the greatest marines I served with Mike Ouellette. He was a corporal. He was a squad leader in the Nowzad district of Afghanistan. He was leading a squad. He took an IED blast that severed both of his legs and with tourniquets on he stayed in the fight. He set up his squad. He repelled attacks by 50 to 100 Afghanistan Taliban fighters.

He called on his own casualty evacuation report. He called on air support for cobras to come in and save his marines and he refused to be evacuated until he was the very last person to leave the battlefield. Those are the leaders we need.

Absolutely in every walk of life. John Warren pick up his book Lead Like a Marine. John thanks for your service. Thank you. It was great to meet you in person. Thanks for having me. I hope to see you again.