This is Jocco Podcast number 64 with Echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink. Good evening, I go. Good evening.

In a country that most people would struggle to find on a map, in a compound that few possess the courage to enter.

Men from my previous life took the fight to our enemy. In that compound, they found men that pray five times a day for your destruction.

Those praying men don't know me, they don't know you, and they don't know America.

They don't understand our compassion, our freedoms, and our tolerance.

I know it may seem as if some of those things are currently missing, but they remain at our core and always will.

Our capacity for them is boundless and is only dwarfed by the hatred in those men hiding in that compound, the hatred they have for you.

Those men don't care about your religious beliefs, they don't care about your political opinions, they don't care if you sit on the left or the right, liberal or conservative pacifist or warrior.

They don't care how much you believe in diversity, equality, or freedom of speech, they don't care.

I'm sorry you have never smelled the breath of a man who wants to kill you.

I'm sorry you've never felt the alarm bells ringing in your body, the combination of fear and adrenaline as you move towards the fight instead of running from it.

I'm sorry you've never heard someone cry out for help or cried out for help yourself, relying on the courage of others to bring you home.

I'm sorry you've never tasted the salt from your own tears as you stand at flag draped coffins bearing men you are humbled to call your friends.

I don't wish those experiences on you, but I do wish you had them.

If you had them, it would change the way you act, it would change the way you value, it would change the way you appreciate.

You would become quick to open your eyes and slow to open your mouth.

Most will never understand the sacrifice required to keep evil men like those from that distant compound away from our doorstep, but it would not hurt you to try and understand.

It would not hurt you to take a moment to respect the sacrifices that others make on your behalf whether they share your opinions or not.

It would not hurt you to take a moment to think of the relentless drain on family, friends and loved ones that are left behind sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months, sometimes for years, sometimes forever.

Ideas are not protected by words, paper and ink may outline the foundation and principles of this nation, but it is blood, only blood that protects it.

In that dusty compound, a man you have never met gave everything he had so that you have the freedom to think, speak and act however you choose.

He went there for all of us, whether you loved or hated what he stood for.

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