Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win

wire,” I told my SEAL platoon commander bluntly.
Our enemies were the insurgents lurking in the city of Ramadi, not
other coalition forces “inside the wire” on the U.S. bases with us. We
had to all work together toward the same goal of defeating that
insurgency. We couldn’t let ego get in the way.
I continued, “This new advisor unit—these are Americans and good
Iraqis, possibly the best Iraqis; you do whatever you can to help these
guys. If they outperform your team and take your mission, good. We will
find you another one. Our mission is to defeat this insurgency. We can’t
let our egos take precedence over doing what is best to accomplish that.”
“Got it, boss,” said the platoon commander. A smart and humble
warrior, he quickly recognized his viewpoint was wrong and changed his
attitude. It was immaterial which units did what or who conducted the
most operations. It was about the mission and how we could best
accomplish it and win. The platoon commander and his element of
SEALs had been bravely fighting hard. They had been in dozens of
firefights in the few weeks they had been at Corregidor and could use all
the help they could get from another capable unit.
While the SEAL platoon commander quickly put his ego in check,
unfortunately, there were other egos getting in the way. As the new unit
began to interact with the SEALs and the 1/506th personnel, some of
their attitudes raised eyebrows. A few of them did not carry themselves
with the same humility as the Band of Brothers 1/506th Soldiers and our
SEALs did on Camp Corregidor. A handful of the troops from the new
unit flaunted an undisciplined appearance. Some had mustaches and
goatees with long hair. They wore dirty baseball caps and cutoff T-shirts
with mismatched uniforms. Now, some military units on remote,
isolated bases might ease their grooming standards in order to fit in with