where there’s a WILL...
ALSO BY JOCKO WILLINK
WAY THE WARRIOR KID
from wimpy to warrior the navy seal way
WAY of the WARRIOR KID 2
Marc’s Mission
MIKEY AND THE DRAGONS
WAY
OF THE
WARRIOR KID III
where there’s
a WILL...
JOCKO WILLINK
ILLUSTRATED BY JON BOZAK
Way of the Warrior Kid III is published under Jocko Publishing, a sectionalized division in association with Di Angelo Publications INC.
JOCKO PUBLISHING
In association with Di Angelo Publications 4265 San Felipe #1100
Houston, Texas, 77027
Way of the Warrior Kid III Copyright 2019 Jocko Willink. Illustrated by Jon Bozak. In digital and print distribution in the United States of America.
www.jockopublishing.com www.diangelopublications.com
Library of congress cataloging-in-publications data
Way of the Warrior Kid III. Downloadable via Kindle, iBooks and NOOK. Library of Congress Registration
Hardback
ISBN-10: 1-942549-48-2
ISBN-13: 978-1-942549-48-2
Facilitated by: Di Angelo Publications Designed and illustrated by: Jon Bozak
First Edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
No part of this book may be copied or distributed without the author and publisher’s written and approved permission. For educational and entertainment purposes, this book may be ordered in bulk through Di Angelo Publications.
1. Children’s fiction
2. Children’s Fiction ——Narrative ——United States of America with int. Distribution.
This book is dedicated to
the courageous Frogmen of SEAL Team Three, Task Unit Bruiser.
Especially, Marc, Mikey, Ryan, Chris, and Seth.
We will never forget them.
chapter 1
Seventh grade has actually been pretty awesome. Until today. With only three days left before summer vacation, things took a turn for the worse.
I have stayed on the Warrior Kid Path for almost three years now. I’m stronger and faster and do better in school than most other kids. And I have some pretty good friends. Kenny Williamson, who used to be a bully, now hangs around with me a bunch. So does Nathan James, a kid that I used to think was super annoying. Now we are all good friends and they are all on The Path of being Warrior Kids. Nathan started jiu-jitsu with me last summer, and at the beginning of this school year, Kenny started training jiu-jitsu, too.
We have all kinds of fun all the time. And these guys pretty much looked up to me. I was like a leader, just like my Uncle Jake told me I would be. I like being a leader. And I felt like I was a leader—until today. Because today was the day when Danny Rhinehart arrived at my school. First of all, who shows up at school with only three days left? I get that he just moved here, but still, it’s just silly!
Why would someone do that? Anyway, he ended up coming into our homeroom with Mr. Oglethorpe.
Now, Danny seemed really nice when I first met him. He was all smiles and super polite to everyone. Maybe a little too nice! He was actually pretty tall, too—maybe a couple inches taller than me. He ended up getting put at our table because Jennifer Garston went with her parents to Minnesota for the summer and left school a few days early. And because he was only around for the last three days of school, Mr. Oglethorpe asked if Danny could just kind of stay with me for the day.
So, we finished homeroom and then went to math class. Because school was almost over, we were just doing some games in math. We had to see who could finish problems the quickest and who knew the most math facts. And even though Danny was new to the class, he did really well. REALLY WELL. He knew the answer to just about every question. His hand would shoot up every time the teacher asked any question at all.
And of course, the teacher would call on him—probably because he was the “new guy” and the teacher was trying to be nice. And the whole time Danny had this big smile on his face. A REALLY BIG SMILE. A smile so big that it was kind of ANNOYING.
Then we went out to recess. And Danny was with me. I figured it was time to see what Danny was really made of, so I took him over to the pull-up bar with Kenny and Nathan.
“We like to do pull-ups,” I told Danny. “Get some, Kenny!”
With that, Kenny jumped up on the bar and knocked out fourteen straight pull-ups. That was pretty good and more than Kenny used to be able to do.
Then Nathan hopped up on the bar and he rattled off sixteen pull-ups in a row. That was impressive.
Finally, it was my turn. I was now pretty darn good at pull-ups. So I jumped up and knocked out a solid twenty-six pull-ups in a row. Not my best, but still decent—and a heck of a lot better than Nathan or Kenny.
“Nice!” Kenny shouted when I finished.
“Strong work, Marc!” Nathan added.
I looked over at Danny. I thought he might be intimidated by all this, but he didn’t look intimidated at all. Maybe that’s because he didn’t realize I was about to call him out and ask him to do pull-ups. I wanted him to see that even though he was good at math, there were other things in the world to be good at besides knowing math facts and how to figure out problems. Then he asked, “Do you mind if I have a go?”
That kind of surprised me. And he had a big smile on his face—like he was going to enjoy it. “Sure,” I told him, “go ahead.”
With that, Danny jumped up on the bar and immediately did a pull-up. Then another one. Then another one. And then another and another and another.
I was counting in my head. When he got to twenty, Nathan started counting out loud. “Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five…twenty-six, twenty-seven—that’s more than you, Marc!” Nathan shouted.
But Danny didn’t stop. He kept going. And going. And finally got to thirty-two before he finally struggled on the last one, came up short, and then dropped off the bar.
“Thirty-two!” Kenny shouted. “That’s a new record.”
“Awesome work, Danny. Isn’t that awesome, Marc?” Nathan added, looking at me.
I didn’t really know what to say. I hadn’t even done my maximum number. I could have done a few more, but I didn’t. And now my friends thought Danny was "awesome".
“Yeah,” I finally replied. “Awesome.”
“It’s no big deal,” Danny said. “I had a pull-up bar at my old house, so I did them a bunch. I’m sure you could have done a few more if you had to.”
SHEESH! Why would he even say something like that! He had clearly beaten me, and now he was saying it wasn’t a big deal? Maybe he was just trying to make me feel worse by making it seem like it was no big deal.
“What kind of pull-up workouts do you do?” Nathan asked. But he wasn’t asking me—he was asking Danny!
“Well, you know,” Danny replied, “just basic stuff. I jump on the bar and do a bunch of pull-ups, then do that a bunch of times. It’s nothing crazy.”
Nothing crazy?!?! Here I had been working on pull-ups for three years and I still got beat! It was crazy. It was driving me crazy! That was when I realized that Danny was probably one of those people that was just naturally good at pull-ups. My Uncle Jake had told me about people like that—people that were just naturally good at something. So he probably didn’t have to work hard at this at all—it was probably just easy for him.
But there were other things I was sure I could beat Danny at. At least I thought there would be.
; chapter 2
At the end of every school year, we have one day called “field day”. It is fun—at least it is now that I do better at the events. I have even won some of them. This is a long way from where I was in fifth grade when I couldn’t do a single pull-up. That was the summer that Uncle Jake came and taught me how to work out, how to eat healthy, how to study, how to swim, and even got me started in jiu-jitsu so I wouldn’t get bullied by Kenny Williamson, who became my friend after I stood up to him.
Last year I did pretty well at just about every event. The only one I wasn’t very good at was bobbing for apples. I just couldn’t get my mouth around the apple because it wouldn’t stay.
But I did well in pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, burpees, and the one-mile run. In fact, I won all pull-ups, sit-ups, and burpees for my class. Tony Hale won the push-ups, I think because his arms are so short. And Iris beat me in the one mile run and won first place because she runs competitively and trains all the time! But field day was still a great time and I had a ton of fun.
This year was different. Very different. And I bet you can guess why. Danny Rhinehart. He won just about EVERYTHING. He beat me in pull-ups, sit-ups, and burpees. Tony still won push-ups, though. I did thirty-one pull-ups, Danny did thirty-seven. I did 107 sit-ups, Danny did 131. I did thirty-six burpees in two minutes, Danny did forty-two!
And every time he would win something, Danny would just act like it was no big deal. He would smile and shrug it off, like winning was so easy for him!
But when it got to the mile run, I figured I could take him—and even win first place since Iris had broken her ankle in the spring and still wasn’t allowed to run. So, since I got second last year, I figured with Iris out of the race, it was mine for the taking!
My class and Mr. Blackwell’s class lined up for the race. The P.E. teacher, Mr. Sadolwski, then looked at us all and said, “On your mark, get set, GO!”
I sprang off the line and started to run hard. I wanted to get away from the rest of the kids and be out there on my own and away from the rest of the pack. In a race, the slower kids slowed me down if they were ahead of me. Not this time. I sprinted hard and got ahead of the pack. It didn’t take long before I was in the lead, out in front of everyone, on my own.
Once out in front, I didn’t even look back. Uncle Jake told me when racing, if you look around, you lose time and momentum, so I just kept charging ahead at a solid speed.
But being in first place wasn’t enough—I wanted to make sure I not only beat Danny, but crushed him! So I ran really hard. Really hard!
Then, as I rounded one of the corners, I noticed someone just a bit behind me. And of course, it was Danny! So I ran a little harder. It was a long straight away, so I just tried to run even harder, but I was already out of breath. I had to slow down just a little bit. But I thought I was far enough ahead of Danny to beat him.
As I slowed down, I kind of got my breath back, but I was still hurting.
Now, as I continued down the straightaway, I couldn’t tell where Danny was without looking—and I needed to know. So, despite what Uncle Jake had taught me, I turned my head and looked behind me to see where Danny was. I saw him, and he WAS GAINING ON ME! That’s right! Despite how hard I was running, Danny was running even faster.
I couldn’t believe it! So I tried to pick up my pace a little more, but I just couldn’t. My lungs were already burning!
But Danny wasn’t slowing down. He was getting closer and closer to me. I could hear him breathing, and he was breathing HARD! Even harder than me.
I started to get mad! Mad that he was beating me—not just at this race, but at everything! So I decided I would try to run harder so I could stay ahead of him. We didn’t have that much farther to go, so I stepped it up. But it wasn’t enough. Moments later, Danny was right next to me. He was breathing like crazy. I looked at him from the corner of my eye, and he looked like he was going to die! If I could just hold on a little longer, I thought he might break!
But he didn’t. He kept straining and breathing and fighting, and I just couldn’t keep running so fast. My lungs just couldn’t take it anymore. So I backed off. I let it go.
And as soon as I did, Danny pulled ahead of me. Not just by a little bit either. No! As I slowed down, he actually sped up and started running even faster!
I couldn’t believe it! Especially because there was no way I could run any harder. But Danny could.
So, I kept running, and I came in second place. When I got across the finish line, I looked for Danny, but I couldn’t see him. Then I saw a crowd of people from the other classes looking at something. I walked over and saw Danny. He was lying on the ground, completely exhausted. I was tired, but not as tired as he was. And honestly, it felt pretty good seeing him there on the ground like that, because I knew he was way more tired than I was, which made me feel kind of like I had won.
But the crowd didn’t think so. They were all telling him “great job” and “nice race”. No one said anything to me.
When Nathan and Kenny finished the race, they asked if I had won.
“No. Danny Rhinehart won,” I answered as I pointed to him lying on the ground, wanting them to see that he was more tired than I was. As soon as I said that, they ran over to see him—and to tell him he did a good job.
That feeling that I kind of won started slipping away, and I realized that Danny had beaten me again. And I didn’t like it.
CHAPTER 3
On the last day of school, things got even worse with Danny. One of the last things we did in class was a game where we got tested on all the knowledge we had learned from every class. We got asked math problems, history questions, vocabulary, and some science. It seemed like it would be pretty fun. Here is how the game worked: Mr. Oglethorpe asked two people the same question, the first one to answer correctly stayed in the game and the other kid would be sent across the room to sit down on the floor—they were out of the game. Mr. Oglethorpe kept repeating that, leaving fewer and fewer people in the game.
Now, I thought I would do well at this game. I studied hard all year and paid attention during classes. I definitely didn’t think Danny would do very well, since he had been at a different school all year and would probably have learned different things than what we learned. Boy, was I WRONG.
It turns out Danny was really smart! He knew that the formula for volume was length times width times height. He knew the first amendment of the constitution protected free speech. He knew that an invertebrate was an animal without a spine. He knew what an acute angle and a repeating decimal were. I also knew the answers to the questions as well as the questions I got asked.
As the game pressed on, you guessed it, the last two people in the game were Danny Rhinehart and me!
The whole class was watching and cheeering us on. Most of the kids were cheering for me because they knew me—and because Kenny and Nathan were cheering loudly for me!
When it was just the two of us left, Mr. Oglethorpe said, “Okay. For this final round, I will ask five questions. Whoever gets three of them right will be the champion. You guys got it?”
“Got it,” I replied. “Yes, sir,” Danny said.
“Okay. First question is science. What is the function of mitochondria in a—”
“Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell!” I shouted. The class clapped for me. I knew this one for sure.
“That’s right, Marc. Nicely done,” Mr. Oglethorpe said.
Danny whispered, “Good job. You were fast,” with a smile on his face. I thought he was just trying to psych me out.
“Okay, next question will be math,” Mr. Oglethorpe said. “What is absolute val—”
“Absolute value is the distance between a number and zero,” Danny exclaimed confidently.
“Ooooooooh,” Nathan and Kenny and some of the class responded.
“That’s right Danny. Nicely done. They taught you well at your last school. It is one to one. The next question will be about geography. What is
the capital of Turkey?”
I wasn’t a hundred percent sure on this one, but I could only remember one city in Turkey, so I took a shot. “Istanbul?”
“Nope. Not Istanbul,” Mr. Oglethorpe said.
“Anarka?” Danny asked.
Way of the Warrior Kid 3: Where there's a Will... (A Novel) Page 1
