This is Jocko podcast number 536 with Echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo.

Good evening.

After the Fallujah offensive, the Americans tried to quell the insurgency in Ramadi with a combination of political maneuvers and the cooperation of tribal leaders to root out foreign Islamist fighters.

But that plan has spectacularly fallen apart. The men who dared to ally themselves

with the Americans quickly learned that the U.S. military couldn't protect them. Insurgents killed

70 of Ramadi's police recruits in January, and at least half a dozen high-profile tribal

leaders have been assassinated since then.

Ramadi has become a town where anti-American guerrillas operate openly

and city bureaucrats are afraid to acknowledge their job titles for fear of being killed.

The government center in downtown Ramadi comes under gunfire or mortar attacks daily.

And that right there is an article titled Fear of Big Battle Panics Iraqi City.

It was dated 11 June 2006.

It's from the Los Angeles Times written by Megan K. Stack and Louise

Rouge. And we've heard from quite a few people on this podcast that fought in Ramadi in 2005

in 2006 and 2007. And there's one common theme that comes out of those conversations,

and that is the relationships

that we formed on the battlefield, the incredible mutual support that was shared between the Army,

Navy, and Marine Corps units.

And this happened at every level from the brigade commander working for the Marine Corps division commander and the good

relationships there and that carried down through the entire chain of command and at the

tactical level almost every operation that took place was a joint combined

operation and if you're not familiar with military terminology what that means is

...