Great leaders exist in every industry. When we think about great leaders we often remember the things they did. But what’s more important is the impact they had on individuals, teams, organizations and society.
For the second episode of our 2023 NYC Veterans Day Parade Series, Fran Racioppi and Psychotherapist Drew Newkirk welcomed two Green Berets from very different wars creating impact across generations.
CSM Richard Rice served as a Green Beret in MACV-SOG in Vietnam and later became one of the founding members of Delta Force. Jason McCarthy served in 10th Special Forces during the Iraq war and went on to found GORUCK.
Today they’re swapping roles as mentor and mentee as they apply their lessons from Special Forces to entrepreneurism, fitness, mental health and building community. We show you how to build organizations on character, why we must embrace challenge, how to live a life of bias for action, and how society is shaped by America’s Veterans after their military service.
Drew also explores the difficulty elite performers have as they age and become friendless men; something scary to many of us.
America became the greatest country in the history of the world because of a national call to service since the Boston Massacre. Today, the world is more dangerous than ever. It’s time we bring America’s people back together, rebuild our community and keep America atop the world order.
Subscribe to us and follow @jedburghpodcast on all social media. Watch the full video version on YouTube. Brought to you in partnership with Just Ice Tea, Longtab Brewing & Talent War Group.
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Rich and Jason, thanks for stopping in The Jedburgh Podcast right here at the 104th running of the New York City Veterans Day Parade. We’re right at the end of the red carpet. We were in the one-meter knife fight. You’ve probably been in a couple of one-meter knife fights, Rich. Jason and I were talking about Vietnam veterans and he mentioned that you’re a veteran of every war.
Jason does tend to exaggerate once in a while, just a little bit.
On other things, it’s not bad. Thanks for coming to the parade, for joining us, and for your service.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
You are an absolute legend in special operations. Let’s talk about your career because you served in Vietnam at MACV-SOG, which is a special operations unit in Vietnam. You went off to this some amazing things after that. The Vietnam veterans are going to come by here. The parade was designed hundreds of years ago after the armistice to honor our veterans’ service. You initially served at a time when we didn’t do that as a country. We did a horrible job of supporting our veterans, nothing like we saw prior to that. Talk about entering service. At the time that you did, why even go in?
Throughout my entire life, I’ve always looked for a challenge, something to not necessarily make me better but to test me. I had been raised by my father, uncles, and various people who were influential in my life. They were World War II veterans. They came back and did some great stuff. That’s the thing that strikes me about Veterans and Veterans Day. It isn’t so much the military service although we honor that on Veterans Day. It’s what those veterans bring back and what they put into our society after they’ve served in our country’s military. That’s important.
They leave a thread in the tapestry of American life that is strong, versatile, and agile. They’re organized. They have great self-restraint. That was important to me. I wouldn’t say it was drummed into me but it was a continual thought going on in my head as I was growing up. I watched all the World War II movies and had my heroes. I wanted to do something for America. I built a need because I saw a lot of Americans, the people who were my contemporaries at that time, worried about themselves than they were about anything else. I decided that it was time for me to go into the Army.
The recruiter lied to me. I had no idea. I walked into an Army recruiter and he said, “What do you like to do?” I said, “I like the outdoors and I like to do things. I like to camp, fish, and hunt.” He said, “What have you done recently?” The only thing I could think of was, “I read a couple of books.” He said, “What are you reading?” I said, “Ian Fleming’s James Bond.” He said, “I’ve got the deal for you.” I was like, “What?”He said, “Army Security Agency. They run agents and agent handlers. They have a wide spectrum of intelligence activities.”
I thought, “I’m getting the picture. I can see myself on a foggy Berlin Street in a trench coat and a hat, smoking a cigarette, and passing classified information from some Russian to me. This is what it’s all about.” I got into basic training. The people from the ASA came to see me. They said, “We’re going to give you your options on what you’re going to do.” I said, “Great. This is what I’m looking for.” They said, “You can be high-speed radio intercept, sit around with a couple of cans on your ears all day, or radioteletype repair. You can repair machines.” I said, “No, you don’t understand. That isn’t what I signed up for.”
They said, “In your contract, there’s a little line at the bottom that says, ‘Needs of the service.’” I was like, “I’ve been tricked.” They said, “Think about it overnight.” The next morning, the recruiter showed up from the 82nd Airborne Division. He’s got spit-shine bloused boots and in his uniform. This guy is impressive. He had to say, “The Army says I have to come and talk to you guys to get you to volunteer for the Airborne. I don’t want to because none of you are good enough.” That set the hook. It was all downhill from there.
Don’t challenge me with not being good enough. The master of doing hard things is sitting right there. He’s doing hard things all day long over at GORUCK.
I watch him do hard things.
Let’s talk about that for a second because you explained that was what you saw and what you wanted to do. You want to do hard things. As we talk about doing hard things a lot, and you and I have talked about it extensively, why is that so important for leadership but as a society, why do we have to continue to get out there and do hard things? How does the military show people that this is a challenge you need to accept?
This deep-seated desire to challenge ourselves and do it as part of a team is seminal to such a rewarding life. That’s what I learned in the Army. I could talk about all the tactics and smaller points that the Army taught me but it was the commitment to something greater than myself and that was the team. The team serves the mission in America and all that. That’s great. It’s this idea of how we form friendships and communities.
The Army shows us how to do this. It’s important for me to do hard things but GORUCK is not called McCarthy. I never wanted it to be. I wanted it to be about the lessons that I took to heart in the Army, give those away to people, and say, “This is a great way to lead a life.” There’s a lot of people that do a lot of harder stuff than I do or we do. What we’re proud of is that we bring people from all walks of life in with us. That is the Special Forces mission. That is by with and through other people and building teams and communities, informing friendships and relationships by doing challenging things.
There is no other way to know what someone else has made of unless you do something hard with them. It doesn’t have to be push-ups, sleepless nights, or whatever it might be but you have to do something to know that you’re compatible with somebody else and know yourself which is seminal in all of this as well. It’s important that we do this because this is the life we are still leading. We enjoy it but it’s also important to make it inclusive, not in a cheesy or cheap way but in a very foundational and important way to us.
I’m the civilian in the group but I have a war movie question for you later. You bought a friendship twice. As a therapist, one of the things that I deal significantly with both men and women but specifically men is friendless men, especially as they get older and they maybe build a family. They start to shrink their lives with friendship.
It’s become a big problem and it’s a thing in my industry that’s being talked quite a bit about. You brought up friendship twice. As you guys connected, there’s a camaraderie. I see this inside world here that I’m not a part of and I could never be although you’ve invited me in. How do you maintain friendships? How does the military help facilitate that so that as you grow older, it doesn’t end? You don’t just drop them.
To simplify it, there’s physical, mental, and social health. You can wrap a lot into mental and emotional health, and all those types of things. Physical health is foundational in the Army and it’s very much tied to how you feel as well. If you are physically healthier and stronger, that’s better than being physically weaker like, “What’s your step count? How are you maintaining your machine? How are you taking care of yourself?”
You start to look at, “What’s your screen time? How much time are you spending outdoors?” These fundamentals are tied to us because to form friendships, you have to take care of yourself first. Without being selfish in a pejorative sense, you have to take care of yourself. To do that then, you spend time with people in the real world. You can never be part of this like, “There’s this group that we joined a long time ago,” but that’s not as important as what we’re doing now and what we’re going to go forward to pay that forward.
Every weekend, people from my neighborhood meet on my driveway. We do some push-ups and squats. It doesn’t matter and then we talk to each other. We drink a couple of cold beers of freedom, well-earned, and talk to each other. There’s no blueprint that the Army gives you that says, “Do this for a productive life.” You see what matters. You’re on a small team. You’re together. You live, work, and bleed together. In some cases, you die together. That bill says these bonds of camaraderie. Why can’t we have that?
Go read Fight Club. Everything is becoming truer. You have to find people in the real world. The word friendship has been bastardized on social media platforms. Those aren’t friends. Social media is a forum. It’s not a community. Communities and friends are in the real world. If you’re seeking that in your life and every single one of us, it’ll make him blush. It’s one of the toughest most accomplished warriors of the last few generations ever.
He needs to be on a team. He’s not just a Lone Ranger all the time eating nails for breakfast, waking up, and crushing life’s problems all day every day. None of us. You need other people. The first step is to take care of yourself. The second step is to admit that you need other people. The third step is to have a bias for action in the real world and go after it.
[bctt tweet=”First, take care of yourself. Second, admit that you need other people. And third, have a bias for action in the real world and go after it.” username=”talentwargroup”]
Bringing up Fight Club is interesting because the writer Chuck Palahniuk uses that book to work through hardship in his life and saw community as part of that solution, which is weird because a lot of people don’t look at that film and doing something hard together like kicking each other’s ass in that film.
You talk about the community. The military teaches you community. Not necessarily in a good way all the time but it teaches you. You come to realize that you do need others. You can’t just be by yourself. It fosters the ability to have friendships to deal with community-based things. How do you define friendship? This is not my words. This is a good friend of mine’s words, “A friend is someone that you call up and say bring guns and money and they say when and where.”
Every military guy I talk to has a version of that like, “Bring the shovels. We’re going to dig a ditch.”
That’s how you know who to trust.
In your post-Vietnam career, you went off to build some elite organizations and work in some elite organizations. As you sit here and talk about friendship, how do we define it? What comes to my mind is character. We want to be surrounded by people who, 1) Share our values and, 2) Display characters that we emulate. Talk about what you looked for as you went on to build elite Special Operations teams throughout your career. What are the character traits that you’re looking for in those service members to bring them onto your team?
The first thing I’m looking for is honesty, integrity, and willingness to do hard work even when it’s not a fun thing to do and it’s very mundane. People are willing to do that, people who are honest with me and themselves because if you’re not honest with yourself, you can’t be honest with others. That’s what I was looking for. When I joined the Army, one of the first things somebody told me was, “Don’t ever volunteer for anything.” I didn’t listen. I volunteered for everything. It’s stood me in good stead because it put me amongst people of good character, people who were there to do the job, and stand by me. I stood by them. It builds that friendship and community. It puts it all together.
What were the films that intrigued you enough to want to sign up? After being involved and getting in the shed, what were the films that intrigued you because they brought forth something true? Did those change?
When I look back to when I was a kid, I’d probably started with John Wayne, Ward Bond, and some of those guys in the Cavalry of the Old West. It looked neat. There’s a bunch of guys out in the middle of nowhere fighting for their lives and that’s pretty tough. You mentioned Fran, “What does it do for society?” How do you form an implement from steel? You forge it over and over again until it becomes so hard and you can do anything with it.
That’s what the military does in my mind. Watching a bunch of the old World War II movies that were expendable about DT boats is the first one that comes to mind. All of those showed me, and I didn’t know it was showing me, this camaraderie, something I wanted to be a part of. I wanted to bring myself to them and make something of myself through forging relationships in the military. I wouldn’t have put it that way when I did it. I just wanted to do cool shit. That’s what was all about. As I looked back on it, that’s what did.
Another great movie that I remember as a kid was The Longest Day. It showed both sides of the war and it was a little more realistic understanding that all movies have artistic license involved. None of them are exactly but that was a pretty accurate rendering of Ryan’s work. I was impressed with that. Thereby the 82nd Airborne Division, they played a great role in that and so did the 101st and many others.
Those kinds of things rattled around in my head. It encouraged me or caused me to make decisions later on in life. After I was in, the day that I reported Special Forces training group at Fort Bragg, I went downtown with a friend of mine who had joined me in doing that. I watched The Green Berets, the movie. It took a lot of license also but we got done with the movie. We looked at each other and said, “What the hell have we done?” Training started the next day.
It was rigorous but it was fun. That one influenced me to a degree. If I’d seen it before, I’m not sure I would have done what I did. I probably would have but the other movies that have gone on afterward, probably the closest to realistic was Black Lockdown. There was some license there. There has to be a movie to make it continuity correct.
It’s an incredible film. I probably watched it twenty times. As a civilian, even wrapping this conversation, think of the impact the film industry has had in the military and probably in the engagement with young people. It’s hard to put together how integrated those two communities have to be for this survival of this.
I want to ask you about national will. You brought Black Lockdown and you lived it for real on the ground. The other movie was one thing but nobody better tell you what it was like. If you take that operation and that day, we have these moments in history that have changed our national will in a lot of different ways, some for good and some for bad. It’s a sum-up history and we take that lens to it. We sit in 2023. The world is rapidly changing. It is the term near-peer that we’ve used for many years as we focused on the global war on terror who by all means was a lower adversary. It’s not a difficult adversary.
We suffered our losses and struggled to understand how to fight them at times but we’re in a peer-to-peer battle with not several nation-states who have tremendously more resources than terrorist organizations, yet those nation-states fund the terrorist organizations as proxies. In your assessment, looking back on all of the different operations that you were involved in, how important is it for America to maintain our national will when we get hit? General Whittington was in here and he talked about how we’re not far from that next attack on America. What does that look like? Do we have to get there?
One of the big problems that the military is having is recruitment. People are not that interested in the events that occur good or bad like 9/11 or terrible events right here in New York, yet it drove or strengthened the will of America to come together. We tend to drift apart. Each one of these events that occurs drives America that come together. It goes back to the idea of teamwork. I think back to my parents and grandparents who lived through The Great Depression. They had to come together as teams with friends and neighbors to get through life.
They were getting shot or blown up but that created a will within America to make America better. People wanted to live a better life. These events that have gone on from World War II, Pearl Harbor, and all kinds of things that bring America to stand together are the important mortar of the bricks of life of America. That’s how you bring people together. They’re extremely important to your point. I worry that we’ve drifted apart a little bit. Afghanistan and Iraq went on for so long and took away from the American Wealth.
It took Americans out of their comfort zone and continually pushed them into situations but they weren’t situations that were infinitive. It was a continual bleed. It wasn’t one big wound. It pushed America further apart. America needs to come back together. You do that with communities. You bring the community together.
GORUCK has said for years, “They build better individuals. Better individuals build better communities. Better communities build better nations.” That’s what it’s all about, to bring that back together again. I don’t want another definitive event that creates national will but I would have to agree with General Whittington. There’s probably one coming.
What’s left for the day?
Reflection and enjoyment. This is great to see all of the people that are here. The people of New York have come together. They’re either marching in the parade or watching the parade. It’s great to be involved in something like this. It was something I missed when I came back from Vietnam because it was an entirely different America, which was okay. That’s why we fight so that Americans can be Americans. That’s the way they chose to respond at that time. I didn’t get along with some of them because of it but that’s all right. Seeing people come together in honor and recognition of service makes me feel good.
[bctt tweet=”We fight so that Americans can be Americans.” username=”talentwargroup”]
That service transcends our time in the military. The service and leadership that we build and create and is imparted upon us through our military service, we carry that forward into society. The culture of America started before the Revolutionary War and with the founders of this country who came together because they identified that threat.
They were farmers who came together to serve in the military and created the military. It went back to their lives but took that experience and leadership, and then applied it to American culture. Our job, I believe truly as veterans, is to continue to impart what we take away from our service to society because we cannot let that portion of American culture fall away.
[bctt tweet=”Our job as veterans is to continue to impart what we take away from our service on society because we cannot let that portion of American culture fall away.” username=”talentwargroup”]
Being a therapist, I’m always watching. I love human dynamics. I geek out on it. Watching Fran, Jay, and you Rich, it’s fun for me to sit back and see the reverence they have for you. You talked about being a guy who does cool shit. People who do cool shit long enough become cool people. To make you blush a little bit more, you are both an overwhelming presence in a good way and a not-overwhelming presence. That’s a hard balance to be someone who could be in a room and have a thing that’s inviting but not overwhelming. Based on the way you’ve communicated, you are also watching. You’re a master of human dynamics and manipulation. You got manipulated and you learn from it.
I had great mentors who helped me achieve that status.
Isn’t it beautiful that we have them? We have mentors and we respect folks who deserve to be heard because they’re going to pass something awesome on.
A big message that needs to go out to all of America, not just veterans but to everybody, is to be a mentor. Find someone to mentor and a mentee with. We’re always learning. We’re learning until they put us in the ground and I’m not there yet. That is so important to pass on. One of the reasons I love working at GORUCK is because there are a bunch of young people there, including this guy right here.
Who’s your mentor? Who are you learning the most from in an individual relationship?
Jay.
I’d say, “He better be learning from you.”
It’s a mutual thing. There are things that I can bring to the table that make him aware and there are things that he can point out to me to make me aware. It’s a symbiotic relationship for the two of us.
The generational shifts are extreme at some level for all of us. If you’re not learning from younger generations, you’re fucked. Your voice is going to not be heard and you’re going to miss something significant. When I have a young client, I’m learning so much. All the acronyms that they throw at me, I’m gobbling them up. I started researching.
You are starting to reuse those acronyms and then it’s like, “That meant something to me twenty years ago but it’s different now.”
It’s not okay to just dismiss it or you will not have the power you could otherwise have.
You bring up a point and I have to agree with you. A lot of people think of mentors as old to young. Mentors can be young to old.
My young nephew is a killer. I am learning so much from him. He knows at least ten times more about military history than most adults. If you’re not an adult listening, you’ll miss how his mind is working which is different than how our minds work generationally and your mind worked.
Fran, I’m going to go back to this American will thing. We can talk about it forever but this idea that there will be a galvanizing event will happen. Look at history. There will be another attack. It’s not the point but this will happen. Look what happened on 9/11. All of a sudden, the recruiting lines were out the door. I couldn’t get a commission. I graduated from college and it took me a couple of years to enlist. I’m proud to have enlisted. You finally got to work for a living. I’m very proud of my service like that.
You galvanize the work in the Special Forces.
The more important thing is we also need stronger leadership at any and every level to have a real conversation with the American people about the importance of service and military service. Residents have inspired people to join at various times in history. You can talk about the importance but you have to find success. What was success in Iraq? I still don’t know. What was success in Afghanistan? I still don’t know.
Did we achieve that? I’m not here to debate that until the end of time. It’s just to say, what does success look like in the future? What have we learned in the past? What does it look like if the threat has changed? Someone in a high leadership position should make the case for service. That is always a good case to be made. JFK has done that in a very visionary way that we all strive for. Let’s harken back to that. It has to be modernized for this generation. You can feel this rising tide of, “This or that threat is out there and we need to act against that,” but there’s not a compelling case yet.
Veterans are talking to other veterans. There’s one standard deviation around that but how do we reach a broader public? How do we reach the younger people and make the military a more obvious or attractive answer for them to choose to lead that life of service? I believe at any time, some people want to challenge themselves, especially in the United States of America. We need to make it a little bit sexier because it does exist. That will then go on to benefit us for generations to come.
It speaks to the youth mentorship. My nephew might be able to have a better understanding, not at a cognitive level where he’s able to articulate that but knowing how he thinks is to help know how the new future of the military is going to be. If you don’t know how they’re talking and thinking, and they think differently than we do, you’re screwed. They’re not going to listen to the same voice that attracted us. My nephew thinks differently. He’s wired differently.
We can’t take it for granted. You bring up a good point. You have these galvanizing events. You have 9/11. You can’t get a commission. You can’t come in the Army. The lines are out the door and that persisted for a very long time. Now, those lines are short. There are no lines because, to some extent, we’ve taken it for granted that there are always going to be people who are willing to serve. They understand the message.
Everybody listened to country music for many years because everybody was out there writing songs about being an American Soldier and serving your country. We don’t think songs about that anymore. We don’t tell those stories anymore. We have to get leaders out there who are willing to advocate for military service and the cause. You go to do some pretty cool shit. It’s going to be a lot of fun and you’re going to be asked to do some hard things. Our people are going to give their life. It depends on the nation. Is that something that we must do? One hundred percent. People have to be willing to do it. We have to show them that there’s value in getting out there and doing that.
When you’re young, every year feels like an eternity. All I would say is there’s no greater way to spend your twenties to get specific than in service to something greater than yourself. If the military speaks to you at all, then this is a great place to serve. There are other ways to serve. There are lots of ways to serve. We need teachers and doctors, you name it. Where’s the national call to service? We need people to keep focusing on this and championing it. We need people who have worn uniforms who served in all sorts of different capacities. It comes in all different forms.
[bctt tweet=”There’s no greater way to spend your 20s than in service of something greater than yourself, and if the military speaks to you at all, then this is a great place to serve.” username=”talentwargroup”]
America loves veterans. It wasn’t always the case but America uniformly loves veterans, and God bless us for doing that. It’s like if you have another kid, your heart only grows. You don’t slice it like pie. We can love all different kinds of service. We need all different kinds of people to serve. The great thing about Veterans Day is it’s such a highlight of service. That’s what changes your heart. It’s also a very fun, exciting, rewarding, and challenging way to spend your youth. What is a better way to do that? You can go work in a cubicle and spend half your time on TikTok when your boss isn’t looking but you’re not learning anything. You need to learn how to be part of an awesome team environment.
Keep the faith. These things come in cycles. I’ve learned a lot of this from Rich. It’s easy to pinpoint everything wrong, “We got to do this or that,” but these things come in waves and they will continue to come in waves. The galvanizing events are a little bit more in our rearview mirror and the call to service is not front and center. That’s where we are. There’s a rising tide of us who are focused on this. That’s important that we all keep the faith and that we do it together.
We owe it to ourselves and the generation that came before us. We owe it to every single generation to keep that flame burning. The deal is not like you get to say, “I did this one thing and I’m good. I checked my box.” The person who starves the most value if you go down that path is you. You have to keep paying it forward. That’s a rewarding life. We’re having a lot of fun doing it.
I appreciate you taking the time. Thanks for coming to New York.
It’s my pleasure and honor.
Thanks for your service, Rich, and everything you do. Jason at GORUCK, thanks for your partnership with the show. It’s been one of the staples of the program that we’ve built over the last couple of years. I look forward to 2024 and continuing so much with you guys and the whole organization. Rich, I envy you. I started with it but you’re a legend in special operations. We as former special operators thank you so much for the opportunities that we had. We were out to go and do cool shit because you did it before us and you set that example for us to follow so thank you.
I thank you for taking that torch and carrying it to greater heights than I did.
I wish I could do it again. I’ll do it the second time. Thanks, guys.
