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

There were no more questions. The most important question had been
answered: Why? Once I analyzed the mission and understood for myself
that critical piece of information, I could then believe in the mission. If I
didn’t believe in it, there was no way I could possibly convince the
SEALs in my task unit to believe in it. If I expressed doubts or openly
questioned the wisdom of this plan in front of the troops, their derision
toward the mission would increase exponentially. They would never
believe in it. As a result, they would never commit to it, and it would
fail. But once I understood and believed, I then passed that
understanding and belief on, clearly and succinctly, to my troops so that
they believed in it themselves. When they understood why, they would
commit to the mission, persevere through the inevitable challenges in
store, and accomplish the task set before us.
Most of the operators accepted my explanation. Not every member of
Task Unit Bruiser was convinced immediately. We had to reinforce the
importance of combat-advising Iraqi soldiers continuously.
Through the course of the deployment, our SEALs conducted every
major operation with Iraqi soldiers. Often the Iraqi soldiers did things
that were stupid and dangerous. On one combat operation, an Iraqi
soldier accidentally squeezed the trigger of his AK-47 rifle and blasted a
dozen rounds of fully automatic fire into the floor next to the SEAL
operators standing near him. The bullets missed some of our SEALs by
inches. On another operation, Leif and his SEAL combat advisors had to
rip the rifles out of the hands of Iraqi soldiers who, while under fire, ran
from the enemy contact while shooting their AK-47s backward over their
heads, with other SEALs and Iraqi soldiers downrange from them—
incredibly foolish. Another time, Iraqi soldiers on patrol with our SEALs
were engaged by enemy fighters. An Iraqi soldier was hit, and his