Jocko Willink: Hunting Muqtada al-Sadr Alongside Tier 1 Units

About this video

Ritland recounts his 2003 deployment as a SEAL platoon commander in Iraq with Team Seven, describing frequent direct action missions targeting insurgents. He later served as an admiral’s aide, gaining exposure to Pentagon-level strategy and the bureaucratic challenges of war planning. Returning to Ramadi in 2006 as a task unit commander, Ritland describes recognizing the failure of kill-capture tactics and pivoting to support counterinsurgency operations focused on securing the local population.

Key takeaways

• Ritland describes his Team Seven platoon in 2003 as the only SEAL platoon in Iraq at the time, conducting rapid direct action missions with minimal IED threats and high operational tempo
• According to Ritland, his platoon’s capture of a Muqtada al-Sadr lieutenant unexpectedly escalated violence and organized insurgency across Iraq, revealing strategic miscalculation by senior leadership
• Ritland reports that serving as an admiral’s aide exposed him to Pentagon bureaucracy, micromanagement, and a lack of clear victory definition in Iraq, leading him to recognize patterns similar to Vietnam War leadership failures
• Ritland recounts that by 2006 in Ramadi, he observed endless repopulation of insurgent networks despite ongoing kill-capture operations, leading him to adopt counterinsurgency principles focused on securing the civilian population rather than targeting individuals

Episode details: published August 8, 2026 · 103.4K views · 25:58 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Stories told by Mike Ritland’s podcast guests are the guests’ own accounts, attributed to them — not independently verified. Commentary is Ritland’s, presented as his analysis.

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