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

beyond my platoon and task unit. I needed to understand how to lead up
the chain of command and why it was important.
The amount of information we had to gather and the required
paperwork we were forced to submit just to get approval for each combat
mission was staggering. It wasn’t what people saw in war movies or
television shows. Never in my boyhood dreams of battlefield glory had I
envisioned such things would be required. But it was the reality.
“We know our combat operations are making an impact on the
battlefield here. They are important,” said Jocko. I nodded in agreement.
Jocko continued: “But all of these operations need the CO’s approval.
He has to be comfortable with what we are doing. And we need his
support to get additional approvals from higher up the chain. So we can
complain about this all day and do nothing, or we can push the necessary
information up the chain so that the CO is comfortable and gives us
approval.”
Jocko had a point. The CO and his staff were not here with us in
Ramadi. They couldn’t fully understand or appreciate the efforts we had
made at risk mitigation and the excellent working relationships we had
built with the U.S. Army and Marine battalions and companies that
supported us with QRFs.
“We can’t expect them to be mind readers,” Jocko said. “The only
way they are going to get this information is from what we pass to them,
the reports we write and the phone calls we make. And we obviously
aren’t doing a good enough job if they still have major questions.”
“Well, they should come out here then,” I responded.
“They should,” Jocko answered. “But have we told them they should
or scheduled a convoy to pick them up? I know I haven’t,” Jocko
admitted.