Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual by Jocko Willink (St. Martin's Press, 2017)
I watched an interview with Jocko Willink and was impressed enough to get this book from the library. It was, however, not at all what I expected. The title led me to hope that the content would be along the lines of my post, Obedience: the Surprising Secret to a Free-Range Childhood, though directed more towards adults, perhaps with tips and examples and encouragement for developing more discipline in our lives. There's a little of that at the beginning, but most of the book is about physical training—and intense physical training at that. I guess that's what I should have expected from a Navy SEAL. If I'm going to get into a physical training routine, I suspect healthymoving.com would be more my speed.
Discipline Equals Freedom is also quite short: 199 pages should be enough to cover a lot of content, but the print is very large and there are not many words on each page. It's more a series of short exhortations, almost a devotional in form.
So—not my kind of book. Nonetheless, I marked a few quotes.
As long as you keep fighting—you win.
Only surrender is defeat.
Only quitting is the end.
Because The Darkness only wins if you let it.
Do not let the Darkness win.
Fight.
Fight on.
To fight against The Darkness is to win.
Fight on.
(p. 77)
Perhaps the most critical form of self-defense is the mind. By being smart and aware, you can avoid situations that are likely to expose you to danger. That being said, there are times when your mind and your intelligence can no longer help you. That is the reality. In those cases, the ultimate form of self-defense is obviously the firearm. It is an equalizer without parallel and is simply unmatched in its ability to eliminate an attacker regardless of size and strength. If a person truly needs self-protection ... there is no substitute for the firearm. (pp. 118-119)
Without proper training, possessing a firearm is useless, or even more dangerous to its owner than not having one. Learning how to shoot quickly and accurately while under stress is absolutely mandatory if one is going to own a firearm. This means finding a good instructor at a quality range to participate in firearms training. (p. 120)
(Contrary to what I chose to quote, self-defense is only a small part of the book, and even in that he deals much more with martial arts than with guns.)
