YouSaid · the spoken record

William McRaven

lines on the record: 69
first: 2019-09-30
most recent: 2019-09-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Right now, we have a special week, so it's a six month long, and the first 10 weeks of the first phase of training, we have what's called Hell Week. And Hell Week, when I went through was six days long. And within Hell Week, if that's not bad enough, they have generally on Wednesday you go down to the mud flats, which was this muddy slough of water that ran off from Tijuana and San Diego. And, you know, the mud is cold and wet and miserable, and you stay in the mud a lot. And this is really what breaks a lot of guys. And to your point, you know, you get down there and they know that when the trainees are in the mud, that this is the most exhausting period of time, they're going to have probably an olive seal training. And so they try to pit the class against each other. Everybody can come out of the mud, get warm by the fire if only five guys quit. And so you have to stay together as a class. You have to bond in a way that is meaningful. And if you don't do that, then the class falls apart. They want to find out who's tough enough to make it through hell week, make it through that period of time in the mudflats. And yeah, it's pretty excruciating.”
2019-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 349 – Admiral William McRaven · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Young potential seals, what's the secret to training? They said, you know, should I run more, should I swim more? I said, no, it's easy. You just don't quit.”
2019-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 349 – Admiral William McRaven · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is an ordeal, but recognize that everybody volunteers to be a Navy SEAL, and I think you know going into it that this is going to be some of the toughest military training in the world. And the expectation, certainly when I went through in 1977, all of my instructors were Vietnam veterans. And they wanted to make sure that the guys coming through were going to meet the standard of excellence both the physical standard, the mental standard, the toughness, the mental toughness that they expected because they didn't know whether or not we were going to be heading back into conflict soon. So, yeah, it was trying. But of course, I also tell people I was young. You know, I was 22, and when you're 22, you feel a little bit invincible. I was pretty physically fit. But yeah, it was six months of being cold, wet, and miserable every day, of being harassed every day. And you learn that the only way to get through is to tell yourself, I'm just not going to quit. I'm often asked by.”
2019-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 349 – Admiral William McRaven · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Realized that I had the physical toughness because the coach had encouraged me to go out and run hard. And that coach, Coach Jerry Turnbo, who and I have a great relationship today, you know, this is the sort of thing that everybody can do. Everybody can encourage some young man or woman to go do something, and that will fundamentally change their life. And as I've told Coach Turnbo a couple of times, that phone call put me on the path to be a Navy SEAL. And when you think about that path over the course of my career, the folks that I have hopefully positively influenced, well, a lot of that is a result of that one phone call from Coach Turnbull.”
2019-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 349 – Admiral William McRaven · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, the reason I put that story in there, and frankly, I'm often asked what's my favorite story in the book. And I think people are surprised when I tell them that that is my favorite story. And the reason it's my favorite story is because, you know, not everybody in the world is going to get a chance to go on a raid to get bin Laden or rescue Captain Phillips or get Saddam Hussein. But the point of that story is that coach called me. And again, I had not had a close relationship with him for a couple of years. I didn't even know he knew who I was, and he calls me at home the night before my last race. And again, I was just stunned by this, and he encourages me and that inspiration carried me through the day on the race the next day, and I broke the school record. Now, the fact of the matter is nobody cared about that school record but me, but it taught me that if I could break that school record, then I could go on to be a Navy SEAL because I had set that goal and I had achieved that goal.”
2019-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 349 – Admiral William McRaven · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My dad was always very understated, always very humble, just a wonderful father. And I think it never pressured me. And in fact, I think he went out of his way. Not to pressure me because I was not the athlete that he was, although I was a pretty good athlete. He encouraged me to do what I wanted to do and kind of follow my own dreams. And I will also offer my mother, who was an East Texas school teacher, equally strong in the right sense. She was this kind of very gracious and graceful southern lady, although she made sure that I made my bed every morning and did the sort of things she wanted. Which was great”
2019-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 349 – Admiral William McRaven · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely none at all. My dad was incredibly humble. In fact, I didn't know about a lot of his athletic achievements until I was in high school, and I happened to stumble on an old scrapbook. And, you know, I mean, my dad probably, when I was in high school, was in his late 50s or something. And, you know, I just assumed he was an old man. I mean, I was proud of his military service, but I find this scrapbook and I open it up and it goes all the way back to Portageville High, where he was a star football basketball player. Everything. And then he was a Hall of Famer at Murray State and then went on to play in the football league back at the time. I was stunned by this because dad had never really talked about his athletic achievements.”
2019-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 349 – Admiral William McRaven · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you know, that generation, that World War II generation, they were not huggers, at least the military men were not huggers. And so after my mother passed away in San Antonio, my dad didn't know, but we were on a classified mission. I had actually had to come back from the classified mission, do my mother's funeral, and then head right back out preparing for the mission. Dad knew something was up, but as we were kind of heading out, standing there at the airport in San Antonio, My dad went to give our usual manly handshake and instead we hugged and I said, you know, from then on I decided I was going to be a hugger because that was an important moment in my life.”
2019-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 349 – Admiral William McRaven · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He did. He became a labor negotiator in the city of San Antonio. Loved that job and spent time with what was called model cities in San Antonio, which was refurbishing the downtown. But so they were looking at some sort of scholarship, and my mother had hoped, my dad wanted me to go to the Air Force Academy. I was inclined towards the Navy because I had been scuba diving since I was about 13 and wanted to spend time around the water. So my mom tried to get me to go to the Naval Academy, but candidly, my grades were not good enough. My SAT score was not good enough. But fortunately, I was able to get an ROTC scholarship here to the University of Texas at Austin. And that was, again, a very smooth transition. I love my time here at UT.”
2019-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 349 – Admiral William McRaven · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, they didn't push me into it. They let me make up my own mind. Now, having said that, when I was in high school and looking at opportunities to go to college, again, my father was at that time a retired Air Force colonel. I didn't make a whole lot of money. He became a”
2019-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 349 – Admiral William McRaven · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know how early I determined that, but what I enjoyed was I really enjoyed being around the folks in the Air Force in this case, in the Army in San Antonio. I liked the camaraderie that I saw amongst my father.”
2019-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 349 – Admiral William McRaven · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And there was a Frenchman from Paris that Dad would visit with occasionally. And really, the Frenchman told me about Dad getting shot down during the war. And later on when I kind of questioned Dad, he said, yeah, I was a little too chicken to bail out of his Spitfire. So he landed the Spitfire in France, got picked up by the French resistance, of which this Frenchman was kind of leading the resistance, spent a couple days in France, and I managed to get him back over to England. Again, dad didn't talk a lot about that time, but you knew, certainly didn't talk to me about it. I think amongst his buddies, again, they talked about the war effort. But in talking to me, it was really all about the other people he served with.”
2019-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 349 – Admiral William McRaven · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I think with a lot of that generation, they really downplayed their efforts in the war. I think they understood that there was a tremendous amount of sacrifice that occurred from all the young troops that were out there. Rarely did he talk about his wartime events as though they were something great to be lauded. He would talk about, again, the other people that he served with. So interestingly enough, while I say he was a great storyteller, they were almost more about other people. I remember one time, though, we were in France, that same time during 1960.”
2019-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 349 – Admiral William McRaven · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know about that, but it was good money at the time. But kind of in the 1940s, I think they saw the storm clouds brewing. And as Dad tells me, he and four of his buddies decided to leave Cleveland and head to California where they signed up for the Army Air Corps. And then Dad went on and fought throughout World War II and time in Korea and then finally retired in 1967.”
2019-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 349 – Admiral William McRaven · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He did. He was playing professional football for the Cleveland Rams back when it went from nineteen thirty eight to about nineteen forty. And I think they were getting paid $120 a week. And Dad used to get an additional $10 for doing Wheaties radio commercials. So he was making pretty”
2019-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 349 – Admiral William McRaven · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I remember at one point in time later on in my life, my father said to me, Bill, life is all how you remember it. And so, as I tell the reader, this is kind of how I remember my life, the 18 stories in this book.”
2019-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 349 – Admiral William McRaven · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Get together so the officers club always go to the officers club on a Friday night. And again, this was the World War II generation. So you think about them, kind of the greatest generation. These men and women grew up as children of World War I, children of the Great Depression, all the men went off and fought in World War II. So they had a lot of stories to tell. And growing up as a young boy, I would kind of sit at their knee and listen to them talk about these stories. And the stories were always, you know, I thought kind of, you know, inspiring. They talked about heroism and bravery and courage and sacrifice. Sometimes a little unbelievable as stories tend to get.”
2019-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 349 – Admiral William McRaven · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, so the book starts off in 1960. My father was stationed in France at the time at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe shape. And we lived in a town called Fontenblaux, not too far from Paris. And I tell the readers about kind of growing up listening to my father and his fighter pilot booty.”
2019-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 349 – Admiral William McRaven · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, I grew up not too far from here down in San Antonio, Texas. Now I was born in Pinehurst when my father was stationed there at Pope Air Force Base. But as you point out, some people want to call this a memoir. And I guess in some respects it is a memoir. I mean, I tell the stories of the bin Laden raid and the rest of your Captain Phillips and the capture of Saddam Hussein. But really what I hope people take away from the book is that it's really about the great soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and civilians that I worked with over those 37 years. And really their impact on world affairs and on the success of our fight in Iraq and Afghanistan and just kind of seen through my eyes. And they are separate, you know, 18 separate stories, so you don't have to start at the beginning. You can, I think, pop in anywhere.”
2019-09-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 349 – Admiral William McRaven · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source