This is Jocco Podcast number 87 with Echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo.

Good evening.

I'd been away from infantry and from the army I'd grown up in for far too long.

Walking through the gates of Coleman Barracks was stepping into the welcome past.

The old army had not died after all. The 18th was military perfection. Men stepped

smartly across meticulously kept grounds, starched uniforms, blue infantry scarves, dazzling

shined brass and boots, snappy salutes, and cheerful good afternoon serers marked my journey

to the HQ where I'd sign in. The spirit of this fine unit was already infecting me.

The hot, stifling, windless day, the ragweed pollen that blew in from adjacent fields covering

the camp and immediately activating my hay fever. The rundown, boring camp itself, none of it mattered.

As inwardly I was transported to an island oasis untouched by turbulent seas.

And it was all thanks to one man, the battle group commanding officer who would forever be my

model, mentor, and friend. Colonel Glover S. Johns was the finest senior infantry commander I'd

ever seen or would see again. We shared a mutual abiding respect almost from the moment we met.

He was my kind of soldier and I was his. He was a warrior. Patent's aid before World War 2,

then during the war he'd hit the beaches of Normandy as part of the 29th Division and fought

from those bloody shores all the way across Europe until victory was achieved.

As a battalion commanding officer, he'd headed the task force that captured the critical French

town of St. Lo. In Korea he'd served as executive officer then regimental commander in my own 40th

division. His reputation there was awesome. One story that made its way through the division was

that a wild new exo had come into the 2-2-4th, gotten down on his belly in the mud to check the

unit's machine guns, filled the fire, and promptly moved two-thirds of the machine gun bunkers that

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