# Canadian Special Operations Face Off with ISIS | Sebastian "Butch" Bouchard | Ep. 378

An episode of [The Team House](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492797340), 1 Nov 2025, 2 h 05 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/68352673/butch_audio.mp3

Sebastian Bouchard, a veteran of the Canadian Special Operations Regiment (CSOR), recounts his 15-year career, beginning with the unit's founding after the infamous Airborne Regiment disbandment and detailing the brutal selection process . His operational history spans night raids in Afghanistan, a chaotic deployment in Libya, and intense close-quarters combat during the 2015 ISIS push in Iraq. Finally, Bouchard shares his post-military struggle with service-related TBI and his success with unconventional medical treatment, which inspired him to found the global risk mitigation firm, the 242 Group. Find Butch here: ⬇️ https://242-group.com/ Today's Sponsors TrueWerk ⬇️ https://truewerk.com/house use code "HOUSE" for 15% off! GhostBed⬇️ https://www.ghostbed.com/house FOR 25% off sitewide! For ad free video and audio and access to live streams and Eyes On Geopolitics...JOIN OUR PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouse To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -live shows and asking guest questions -ad free audio and video -early access to shows -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Support the show here:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse ___________________________________________________ Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️ https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured __________________________________ Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/ —————————————————————— Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️ https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouse Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: ⬇️ https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: ⬇️ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" 0:00 Start/Origin Story 4:52 CSOR founded (2006). 15:02 CSOR Selection difficulty. 29:36 First deployment: Afghanistan. 45:04 2011 Libya rapid deployment. 50:29 Made fake IDs in Libya. 1:06:11 Commanding Iraq front line. 1:11:28 Major ISIS breakthrough. 1:39:41 TBI treatment success. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: The Team House with your hopes, Jack Murphy and David
[0:07] Speaker 1: bark Hey, folks, Welcome to episode three hundred and seventy
[0:15] Speaker 1: eight of The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here tonight
[0:18] Speaker 1: with our guest I'm really happy to have on the
[0:20] Speaker 1: show tonight, a veteran of the Canadian Special Operations Regiment
[0:24] Speaker 1: or SEESAW. His name is Sebastian Bouchard, goes by Butch.
[0:29] Speaker 1: That's how all his teammates know him.
[0:32] Speaker 2: Nice to see you, man.
[0:33] Speaker 1: Our first Seesore veteran on the show. We're really happy
[0:37] Speaker 1: to have you here.
[0:38] Speaker 2: Thank you, man. I'm happy to be here. Family's in bed,
[0:42] Speaker 2: it's late here in London and we go all the time.
[0:46] Speaker 1: Thanks for doing it.
[0:48] Speaker 2: Look I even dusted off to represent.
[0:51] Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it. So I usually ask people at
[0:57] Speaker 1: the beginning of the podcast to tell kind of their
[0:59] Speaker 1: origin story. If you can tell us a little bit
[1:00] Speaker 1: about how you grew up and how that took you
[1:02] Speaker 1: towards military service.
[1:05] Speaker 2: M yeah, you know, I joined seventeen. You can tell
[1:11] Speaker 2: them my accent. I'm French Canadian. It's important for your audience.
[1:16] Speaker 2: You're US based, and I'd like to say that I'm
[1:20] Speaker 2: French Canadian because I don't know if you guys are
[1:24] Speaker 2: aware of that, but there's Quebecers, you know, from the
[1:26] Speaker 2: province of Quebec, which I'm born in Montreal and from
[1:29] Speaker 2: the province of Quebec, but Quebecers are the one the
[1:33] Speaker 2: seventies and the early nineties. I think they want to
[1:36] Speaker 2: separate from kinda allegiances to friends whatever. I'm not. I'm Canadian.
[1:43] Speaker 2: My birth language French, but I'm a proud Canadian. I
[1:47] Speaker 2: served with the Canadian military and yeah, I joined seventeen.
[1:52] Speaker 2: I think, like you know, I've watched a few podcasts.
[1:56] Speaker 2: I know a lot of military guys both, you know,
[1:58] Speaker 2: in the States and in Canada. When you grew up
[2:02] Speaker 2: up harder neighborhood or a bit less wealthy, there's a
[2:08] Speaker 2: lot of guys that come from that background. You know.
[2:10] Speaker 2: I don't know if it gives you more grid or whatever,
[2:13] Speaker 2: but I grew you know, I grew up okay, but
[2:17] Speaker 2: really basic and a bit of a harder neighborhood in Montreal,
[2:24] Speaker 2: and it just always interested me to do a physical career.
[2:31] Speaker 2: And like you know, I'm forty two now, so if
[2:37] Speaker 2: you backtrack, when I was a teenager full Metal Jacket.
[2:42] Speaker 2: You know, early nineties, it was military movies and stuff.
[2:49] Speaker 2: So I piqued my interest. And then you know, you
[2:54] Speaker 2: remember that movie Full Metal Jacket, and somehow I thought
[2:58] Speaker 2: it was cool to get yelled at and you know
[3:01] Speaker 2: the drill instructor. Yeah, so it's as simple as that.
[3:07] Speaker 2: It hooked me. I watched Full Metal Jacket twenty thirty times.
[3:12] Speaker 2: I was hooked on it. Video games kind of you know,
[3:15] Speaker 2: give you a bit of a flavor of it. And
[3:17] Speaker 2: then yeah, right off high school, join the infantry. So
[3:23] Speaker 2: I'm in combat arms. Make people laugh a little bit,
[3:27] Speaker 2: you know, seventeen year old skinny tall, just high school diploma,
[3:33] Speaker 2: and I went into the recruiting office and I'm like,
[3:37] Speaker 2: I want to be a helicopter pilot or maybe a
[3:40] Speaker 2: jet pilot. You know these jets. You know where I'm
[3:43] Speaker 2: going at.
[3:44] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the points to the test score.
[3:46] Speaker 2: It is like, I didn't do the score yet, but
[3:49] Speaker 2: he's like, let me introduce you to the infantry, so yeah,
[3:57] Speaker 2: here you go. So and they sold me on it.
[4:00] Speaker 2: Anyway you can, you know, no matter the weather, and
[4:04] Speaker 2: everywhere in the world, you would be in trenches and
[4:07] Speaker 2: combat and blah blah, blah why it was sold. Convinced
[4:10] Speaker 2: my parents to sign because in Canada, I was not,
[4:13] Speaker 2: you know, an adult yet, so I had to convince
[4:16] Speaker 2: them to sign, and they did. I didn't give them
[4:20] Speaker 2: a choice, and I joined the French Canadian Infantry. It's
[4:24] Speaker 2: based in Quebec City nicknames the vain Deues, so it's
[4:30] Speaker 2: the French Canadian Regiment of Infantry served there. I was
[4:36] Speaker 2: lucky that, you know, I went through the steps or
[4:39] Speaker 2: a battle school and blah blah blah, and it was
[4:41] Speaker 2: lucky when I went to the third regiment. That's where
[4:47] Speaker 2: you know, in the nineties disbanded our airborne regiment.
[4:50] Speaker 1: Yeah, Patricia's was a Queen Patricia's Regiment or something like that.
[4:57] Speaker 2: Yeah, so from from the late seventies whatever when when
[5:00] Speaker 2: they stood up, there was a regiment based in Ontario
[5:05] Speaker 2: and Petawovo. It was an airborne regiment. So all the
[5:07] Speaker 2: paratroopers were in the same regiment. That and then that
[5:10] Speaker 2: they were They had a company that was French Canadian
[5:13] Speaker 2: and two other companies that were Anglo Canadians. That was
[5:16] Speaker 2: a regiment go was disbanded and when the government decided
[5:21] Speaker 2: to disbend them, they put a company of parachutists over
[5:25] Speaker 2: the maroon beret in each of the infantry regiment in Canada,
[5:30] Speaker 2: and you're correct, Jack on the West coast with the PPCLI,
[5:35] Speaker 2: and you know Quebec there's the French Canadian Infantry, and
[5:39] Speaker 2: in Ontario there's the BARSI or real Royal Canadian Regiment,
[5:43] Speaker 2: and each of those have a company of parachutists. So
[5:49] Speaker 2: I was lucky that. Back to my story is I
[5:52] Speaker 2: did battle school, then I checked in my infantry regiment.
[5:58] Speaker 2: And you don't go from being a new guy to
[6:03] Speaker 2: the Pear company. You need to earn your way to
[6:05] Speaker 2: be sent on parachute coores or airborne school and joined that.
[6:09] Speaker 2: But somehow, I tell you it's a true story. Somehow
[6:14] Speaker 2: in two thousand they needed bodies, so they took I
[6:19] Speaker 2: think that I don't remember five or six of us
[6:23] Speaker 2: from battle school straight to the pair lines to the
[6:27] Speaker 2: Paar company, which was a big deal back then.
[6:31] Speaker 1: And you didn't have your wings yet, so we paid.
[6:37] Speaker 2: We do not showed up because they it's not like
[6:41] Speaker 2: I magically ad my airborne calls. So I remember showing
[6:44] Speaker 2: up there with the group. We have green berets for infantry,
[6:48] Speaker 2: and I show up in the pair lines new guy,
[6:51] Speaker 2: day one, with five of my bodies, maybe less than that,
[6:55] Speaker 2: with a green beret for they couldn't load us on
[6:58] Speaker 2: the airborne calls for another few months. It was you know,
[7:03] Speaker 2: it was seventeen skinny and new guy that you're in
[7:08] Speaker 2: the pair of lines with a green beery like we
[7:10] Speaker 2: could we It's funny, you know, like all these little
[7:13] Speaker 2: cultural things like we had to take our berry off
[7:15] Speaker 2: as soon as we walk in the lines because then
[7:18] Speaker 2: you're getting smoked. It was illegal, you know. Anyway, so
[7:27] Speaker 2: better part of my career was over, the first part
[7:29] Speaker 2: of my career was five years right in the Paris.
[7:34] Speaker 2: Basically my infancy was was parachutists for five years and
[7:39] Speaker 2: the Vanders deployed Bosnia in Afghanistan.
[7:45] Speaker 1: Yeah, tell us about the first one to Bosnia. What
[7:48] Speaker 1: that was like for you?
[7:51] Speaker 2: It was, you know, I didn't know nothing, and it
[7:55] Speaker 2: was it was within a few months. It was even
[7:57] Speaker 2: before my maroonber actually, you know, recall and we deployed
[8:02] Speaker 2: to Tommy slav Grav in two thousand and one in Bosnia.
[8:08] Speaker 2: Obviously it's getting blurry now it's decades ago, but I
[8:13] Speaker 2: remember not being it might be the reason later on
[8:16] Speaker 2: that I joined Special Forces. But I remember being remember
[8:21] Speaker 2: I watched Full Metal Jacket and now I'm in the infantry,
[8:26] Speaker 2: and I'm thinking it's going to be war like Vietnam
[8:29] Speaker 2: at the end of the movie, and it was s peacekeeping, correct, right,
[8:33] Speaker 2: in two thousand and one, the war was over with
[8:36] Speaker 2: peace keeping. So for the six seven months we were there,
[8:40] Speaker 2: we would switch from and ever. You know, most soldiers
[8:43] Speaker 2: know that, regular soldiers know that we would rotate from
[8:46] Speaker 2: gate beauty to patrolling peace you know, peace stabilizing operation.
[8:52] Speaker 2: So we would patrol and then the third phase would
[8:56] Speaker 2: be for those patrols, and then it was seven month
[9:00] Speaker 2: just you at the gate or you're doing controls that
[9:03] Speaker 2: nothing happens, or your QRF and you don't get out,
[9:07] Speaker 2: you know. So I to be honest, Yeah, I was proud,
[9:12] Speaker 2: you know, I was seventeen, eighteen year old, hanging out
[9:15] Speaker 2: with the boys and tell me his left grab but
[9:18] Speaker 2: more money because for us it's tax free when you deployed.
[9:22] Speaker 2: I was happy, but it didn't scratch the hitch, right,
[9:25] Speaker 2: It was like, right, is that right?
[9:29] Speaker 1: And then presumably not too long after that, nine to
[9:33] Speaker 1: eleven happens and Canada joins the Multinational Coalition. How was
[9:38] Speaker 1: that kind of like transitional period for you? It's you know,
[9:41] Speaker 1: Canada's going to war now?
[9:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that that that happened right after this,
[9:47] Speaker 2: Like I think I was still in I was still
[9:50] Speaker 2: in leave when when nine to eleven happened, and again
[9:58] Speaker 2: normal infantry, we didn't think we deployed right away. They
[10:00] Speaker 2: send the PPCLI, the infantry that was there from two
[10:07] Speaker 2: thousand and two. Yeah, they deployed. It wasn't enough. It
[10:10] Speaker 2: was the west coast then. But then when we knew
[10:13] Speaker 2: that the PPCLI were in the mountains, you know, patrolling
[10:16] Speaker 2: the mounts and part of the mission, then it got
[10:22] Speaker 2: our head shed and our commanders, oh wow, yeah, we're
[10:25] Speaker 2: going to war, right, So I had to wait. It
[10:31] Speaker 2: was Roto too, I believe, so, so I think it
[10:34] Speaker 2: went p P C l I and then they sent
[10:38] Speaker 2: the RCR, but now it was in Cabul. So so
[10:41] Speaker 2: the initial push that they needed the PPCL, I don't know,
[10:45] Speaker 2: but what I heard is the PPCLI are our regular infanry,
[10:48] Speaker 2: the phenomenal in two thousand and two, right, supporting the efforts.
[10:54] Speaker 2: But then I don't Again, I was a young soldier right,
[10:57] Speaker 2: I don't know what happened, but then but then it
[10:59] Speaker 2: it was just Keble and and Keble was secured at
[11:02] Speaker 2: that point, remember two thousand and three, Keble was kind
[11:06] Speaker 2: of secured. Talibans were hurt and it and it kind
[11:10] Speaker 2: of was a repeat for us in a way. It
[11:13] Speaker 2: was somewhat of a repeat of what I did in Bosnia.
[11:15] Speaker 2: It was keeping Kebole safe. So my mind, my regular
[11:20] Speaker 2: infantry time was it was quite peaceful. It wasn't moved
[11:26] Speaker 2: to Kandahar and and that's when the Kenyan Falces got
[11:30] Speaker 2: really hit hard with you know, fighting the Taliban and
[11:32] Speaker 2: al Kada. It was in Kandahar. So my tour for
[11:37] Speaker 2: Afghanistan under a regular infantry unit was in Kebol and
[11:41] Speaker 2: it was a rinse repeat from Bosnia. There's nothing happened
[11:45] Speaker 2: there did Gate did. There was no pe at or
[11:49] Speaker 2: Camp Julian. There was o peace north and south of it.
[11:52] Speaker 2: So you would rotate from Gate Beauty to Ope Beauty.
[11:57] Speaker 2: So you'd spend a week basically sleeping on camp, but
[12:00] Speaker 2: not just you.
[12:01] Speaker 1: Know, yeah help in a tower or somewhere both.
[12:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you do patrol for a bit and
[12:08] Speaker 2: I rotate. Look, I'm not saying that I don't regret
[12:15] Speaker 2: my time in the infantry. It sounds like that, but
[12:18] Speaker 2: when I speak now, but we're talking five years that
[12:21] Speaker 2: they made me a man. Like the training and infantry
[12:25] Speaker 2: is hard. You know that. You know, you're hard, and
[12:28] Speaker 2: you do hard things, and you do a lot of
[12:30] Speaker 2: physical activity, and you go to the gym so and
[12:34] Speaker 2: you you at great leaders to at some point you know,
[12:37] Speaker 2: there's great infantry leaders that respect that that. Remember, I
[12:42] Speaker 2: joined seventeen so to me, that's where I grew into
[12:47] Speaker 2: a man. Yeah, and I wouldn't have I wouldn't have
[12:52] Speaker 2: passed the rest of my career, I think, not having
[12:57] Speaker 2: that having been grown and forge by this, this regimen
[13:03] Speaker 2: that I respect so much. But the two mentions I
[13:06] Speaker 2: did with with the infantry was, you know, not eventful
[13:16] Speaker 2: after that though, the guys from when they moved to Canada.
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[15:02] Speaker 1: Thanks guys, so for you coming back home. And you know,
[15:09] Speaker 1: it sounds again like you didn't quite scratch the itch
[15:11] Speaker 1: that you had, didn't have a hard combat deployment just yet.
[15:17] Speaker 1: When does this thing called seesore? When's the first time
[15:19] Speaker 1: you hear about it?
[15:21] Speaker 2: Yeah? And again, we don't know each other that much,
[15:25] Speaker 2: but I like good stories. You know, I'm the guy
[15:28] Speaker 2: I like to entertain the ruined stuff. So it is
[15:32] Speaker 2: a good story. And it happened two thousand was it
[15:38] Speaker 2: two two two thousand and six, yeah, or late two
[15:42] Speaker 2: thousand and five. And because I wasn't scratching the hitch
[15:48] Speaker 2: that I was discussing then, you know, I was a
[15:51] Speaker 2: corporal by by then. Got promoted that again. Yeah, so
[15:55] Speaker 2: I was a corporal, so it's the second rank for
[15:57] Speaker 2: us and getting some experience in the infantry. And I'm
[16:03] Speaker 2: discussing I remember with two other guys. They're still servings
[16:07] Speaker 2: with the regiments. I say their names, but I'm with
[16:10] Speaker 2: two guys and we're like, oh, we're gonna jail, you know,
[16:13] Speaker 2: obviously have jt F two, Like we're gonna scream for
[16:17] Speaker 2: a jt F two. Like okay, so we initial paperwork
[16:23] Speaker 2: for your chain of command to review and then send
[16:25] Speaker 2: it to send it to cancelf Cone. But then so
[16:30] Speaker 2: so that happened. I remember it happened. I think on
[16:33] Speaker 2: a Friday, Okay, we're putting the paperwork in, you know,
[16:39] Speaker 2: and on the Monday, so I guess Monday morning, the
[16:42] Speaker 2: leadership put in each of the company's entrants. They put
[16:47] Speaker 2: a a four piece of paper, you know, little poster,
[16:53] Speaker 2: but just on a normal printer piece of paper. It
[16:57] Speaker 2: was like a recruiting poster for something new, right, And
[17:03] Speaker 2: I don't exact details, but it was questioned, so there
[17:08] Speaker 2: was no symbol of you, and it it was just
[17:10] Speaker 2: like a soldier from because you know, our lineage is
[17:14] Speaker 2: with further Special Service Force to Black Devils. I found
[17:18] Speaker 2: that out later, but but there's I think it was
[17:20] Speaker 2: the Black Devil on there and it was questioned Jack,
[17:24] Speaker 2: So it was like, are you into direct action? Are
[17:28] Speaker 2: you interested in but yeah, yeah, they got us right.
[17:31] Speaker 2: Are you into special reconnaissance? You know, special warfare? Do
[17:36] Speaker 2: you want to work in extremely small teams? Like questions
[17:39] Speaker 2: like that? Maybe five or six questions and if so,
[17:43] Speaker 2: I send an email to this. I was sold. I
[17:46] Speaker 2: didn't even know what it was. I'm like, that's good
[17:49] Speaker 2: to be better than JTS. You know they got they
[17:55] Speaker 2: got one hundred and seventy five of US I guess, wow. Yeah.
[17:59] Speaker 2: So it was open to the entire military, so even
[18:03] Speaker 2: Air Force, Navy, you know, you could. I guess they
[18:06] Speaker 2: recruited through through the entire calf Caning Armed forces and
[18:13] Speaker 2: that that that process was pretty quick too. I think
[18:16] Speaker 2: the email was sent to my warrant officer, you know,
[18:19] Speaker 2: I sent and they tracked down who I was and
[18:21] Speaker 2: the three guys that we decided to do it, and
[18:25] Speaker 2: it was literally I remember saying to these two guys
[18:29] Speaker 2: were saying to each other, first unit, you know, you're
[18:33] Speaker 2: cocky when you're young, and like first unit that replies
[18:37] Speaker 2: gets us, you know, so cecil was banged. I think
[18:42] Speaker 2: the next week we're starting to do physical initial physical
[18:45] Speaker 2: test and psychologist test. So so that's why I ended
[18:51] Speaker 2: up in cecil.
[18:52] Speaker 1: As you're kind of like, yeah and push if you
[18:56] Speaker 1: can lean a little bit or scoot your chair a
[18:58] Speaker 1: little bit further forward, because I think we words once
[19:00] Speaker 1: in a while, you might be just a little too
[19:02] Speaker 1: far from the computer.
[19:03] Speaker 2: Okay, I didn't even you're you're.
[19:06] Speaker 1: I think you're good. Yeah, no, put it, put it back,
[19:11] Speaker 1: because otherwise we're kind of looking up at you. I
[19:13] Speaker 1: think right there is fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, all good,
[19:16] Speaker 1: thank you? Yeah yeah. So as you're as you're going
[19:23] Speaker 1: through this, uh, this process, it sounds like they did
[19:26] Speaker 1: have did they have some sort of assessment and selections?
[19:29] Speaker 1: Uh like protocol already established.
[19:34] Speaker 2: Again, it's getting quite far in my memory, but uh,
[19:39] Speaker 2: it was. It was fast. I remember doing tests. After tests,
[19:43] Speaker 2: they add a selection process. We'll get to that, and
[19:48] Speaker 2: you know, just suing the story. But but I think
[19:50] Speaker 2: they mimic what JTF two is already doing for pre
[19:54] Speaker 2: pre selecting, you know, like interview with psych psychologists and
[19:59] Speaker 2: it'll This test was pretty easy, I answered some questions.
[20:04] Speaker 2: So so I think that was just carbon copy from
[20:07] Speaker 2: what cansoft com which was not created yet. It got
[20:10] Speaker 2: created at the same time as seesaw, I think, because
[20:13] Speaker 2: at first it was JF two, you know, and their elos,
[20:17] Speaker 2: and I think at the same time as when the
[20:19] Speaker 2: regiment stood up in April two thousand and six, I
[20:23] Speaker 2: think ken soft comb became a thing because now there's
[20:25] Speaker 2: too many for elemen, so it gave them the reason
[20:27] Speaker 2: to have a command, you know. I think that's how
[20:30] Speaker 2: the story went. But yeah, there was a process. I
[20:34] Speaker 2: remember going through a process. We like I said, so
[20:40] Speaker 2: everything was successful for all of us from this para company.
[20:45] Speaker 2: We I remember as a young man finding it pretty cool,
[20:50] Speaker 2: the entire process because it was really secretive. From a poster,
[20:56] Speaker 2: send an email, your chain to come in, we'll handle everything.
[21:00] Speaker 2: And then we get the I don't know you guys
[21:02] Speaker 2: call it, you know, report duty.
[21:06] Speaker 1: Orders.
[21:07] Speaker 2: Orders. Okay, so let's use that word. So we got orders.
[21:12] Speaker 2: Let's say it was winter, and then by April of
[21:15] Speaker 2: two thousand and six, we got orders of next week
[21:20] Speaker 2: you're reporting to the base of Petubal, Ontario. More to
[21:24] Speaker 2: follow that, said brit and bring your your rucksack and
[21:27] Speaker 2: bring this you know kit list. Hey man, as a
[21:31] Speaker 2: young man, you know, by then I was what you know,
[21:34] Speaker 2: twenty twenty one whatever, twenty two.
[21:37] Speaker 1: Yeah, and it has a sec book.
[21:39] Speaker 2: Took one car, drove drove eight hours to the base
[21:44] Speaker 2: we've never been to.
[21:45] Speaker 1: It's it's an experience, right, Yeah, it has a little
[21:47] Speaker 1: bit of a secret agent flare to it.
[21:50] Speaker 2: You don't know it really did that at the beginning. Yeah,
[21:52] Speaker 2: tell you and and show up. I have to find
[21:57] Speaker 2: a building, you know, whatever building name, find a building.
[22:01] Speaker 2: And then there's some some guys in uniform there. We
[22:04] Speaker 2: didn't know if it was the cadre or whoever there's
[22:07] Speaker 2: they're in civies. Remember I'm in the infantry, clean cut
[22:12] Speaker 2: uniform all the time. Now there's a bunch of guys
[22:15] Speaker 2: and civies sitting in a tire. Okay, who are you
[22:19] Speaker 2: find you on the list? Okay in that room?
[22:21] Speaker 1: You know.
[22:22] Speaker 2: So it was pretty said. They put us basically in
[22:25] Speaker 2: barracks and it kicked off. I think it was a Friday,
[22:29] Speaker 2: I believe, yeah, because we got drunk that weekend. Yeah,
[22:32] Speaker 2: so showed up on a Friday party for one last time.
[22:36] Speaker 2: For months and then started on a Monday, and pretty
[22:42] Speaker 2: good experience. Yeah, and then the parade that first morning,
[22:46] Speaker 2: just strangers minus the two guys that brought with me
[22:50] Speaker 2: from Quebec. Just hot. I think that was that like
[22:54] Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy five something like that.
[22:58] Speaker 1: Yeah, what was the action process like? And were the
[23:01] Speaker 1: instructors jt F two Cadre mostly yeah, okay, yeah that
[23:06] Speaker 1: makes sense.
[23:08] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was mostly you know, for the the
[23:12] Speaker 2: hands and feet for sure, it was JTF two guys.
[23:18] Speaker 2: And then I remember some specialties would be you know,
[23:21] Speaker 2: I remember when when we I'll give you an example,
[23:25] Speaker 2: when we did the basic demo door chargers and blah
[23:29] Speaker 2: blah blah, it was I think an engineer from the
[23:31] Speaker 2: regular army because it's basic, right, So so there was
[23:35] Speaker 2: there was at certain points, you know, when we did climbing,
[23:40] Speaker 2: it was an a MO from what I don't remember
[23:42] Speaker 2: where PC I think, but but yes, the you know
[23:46] Speaker 2: course warrant officer course officer, most instructors were were from
[23:51] Speaker 2: from j F two. And I know you said selections,
[23:56] Speaker 2: so yeah, there is a proper selection for decades now.
[24:00] Speaker 2: But the first course, and that's when you know, I
[24:04] Speaker 2: was young again. I didn't really understand the politics, but
[24:09] Speaker 2: I guess the government back then. You know, I'm not
[24:13] Speaker 2: privy to that, but really Csorgas stood up because JTF
[24:18] Speaker 2: two was saying, look, we're in Afghanistan out we need
[24:21] Speaker 2: to support Element Rangers, you know, to do the court
[24:26] Speaker 2: and support them in DA's and blah blah blah. So
[24:29] Speaker 2: I think that it was government saying, okay, here's money.
[24:36] Speaker 2: You got the approval to start this new unit, but
[24:40] Speaker 2: it needs to happen now politics that maybe they were
[24:44] Speaker 2: running out of time to do it, elections coming. I
[24:47] Speaker 2: don't remember, but it was pretty fast because they got
[24:50] Speaker 2: the approval, a bag of money and make it happen,
[24:54] Speaker 2: so they didn't have time to put the one hundred
[24:56] Speaker 2: and seventy five people through a pipeline line of whatever
[25:01] Speaker 2: selection they need. An event now, they can't copy the
[25:03] Speaker 2: JTF two one because it's two different separate mandate. So
[25:07] Speaker 2: what we did is we started calls, so they wanted
[25:11] Speaker 2: I don't really recall exactly that the course layout, but
[25:15] Speaker 2: day one, let's say it separated us in teams, so
[25:21] Speaker 2: it's basically companies and we would do phase one. These
[25:25] Speaker 2: guys do Phase two and then we swapped, so everybody's
[25:28] Speaker 2: trying at the same level, and then we move to
[25:30] Speaker 2: the next step. But every week, at least once or
[25:35] Speaker 2: twice a week, there would be something called an evolution,
[25:39] Speaker 2: and it was basically a selection event. Right, So everybody
[25:44] Speaker 2: starts the course, if you get my story, everybody start
[25:48] Speaker 2: the calls without having done all the phobia tests, you know,
[25:53] Speaker 2: all the tests that you look at the psychology or
[25:56] Speaker 2: decision making. They did it during the call. So what
[26:00] Speaker 2: was weird is that a guy could do well at
[26:04] Speaker 2: ends and feet, but then on week number twelve, finally
[26:10] Speaker 2: he gets tested for phobia and the discover all you
[26:12] Speaker 2: got a phobia with boot gone. You know, it's weird, right,
[26:17] Speaker 2: Guys would be taken off course because they failed an evolution,
[26:22] Speaker 2: a selection event halfway through the cost, because that's the
[26:26] Speaker 2: only time they got to test for this specific skill.
[26:30] Speaker 2: It is really a weird I find it weird now
[26:34] Speaker 2: that i'm educated and I did in my career, I'm.
[26:36] Speaker 1: Like, oh, yes, yeah, that's the way they were trying
[26:39] Speaker 1: to build an aircraft while in flight.
[26:41] Speaker 2: Basically perfect way to say it, perfect way to say it. Yeah,
[26:46] Speaker 2: And that was the only year. Yeah, I think or
[26:50] Speaker 2: maybe they did that for two evolutions, but after that
[26:52] Speaker 2: there was pre selection selection, then board decide if you
[26:57] Speaker 2: go on the course, and then the course.
[27:00] Speaker 1: So presumably you make it through the selection events and
[27:04] Speaker 1: get selected for this unit. Can you tell us a
[27:07] Speaker 1: little bit more about like what C Source Mission said.
[27:11] Speaker 1: I mean, you did touch upon it already a little bit,
[27:13] Speaker 1: but I think maybe the mandate you said, shifted a
[27:16] Speaker 1: little bit as the years went on.
[27:19] Speaker 2: It did. Look now it's twenty twenty five, almost twenty
[27:24] Speaker 2: twenty six. I've been retarded for a long time. I
[27:27] Speaker 2: don't know the mandate switch already or you know, or
[27:35] Speaker 2: I guess that easy way to or as I readiness exhibitionary,
[27:44] Speaker 2: special fair Experts DA and special recognaissance that you know,
[27:50] Speaker 2: and I think your US base if I don't like
[27:55] Speaker 2: to because every unit is different, but we were kind
[27:58] Speaker 2: of mentioning that beginning before we went live. But mash
[28:03] Speaker 2: the Rangers with the Green Berets special Forces, you know,
[28:07] Speaker 2: put them together, and that's that's the closest I could say.
[28:12] Speaker 1: You know, right, they have the DA but also spirts that.
[28:18] Speaker 2: Do special warfare at the same.
[28:21] Speaker 1: Time, and they also do like the advising like foreign
[28:24] Speaker 1: and we'd called it foreign internal defense.
[28:27] Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, how do we call it again?
[28:32] Speaker 2: But I know exactly what you're saying. Yeah, foreign defense.
[28:35] Speaker 1: Going overseas and training friendly forces and things like that.
[28:39] Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And we really cut our teeth later in
[28:44] Speaker 2: Afghanistan so that you know, we finished Afghanistan for US.
[28:47] Speaker 2: It was twenty thirteen. I think we closed the mission
[28:50] Speaker 2: to towards the end of you know, the last let's say,
[28:53] Speaker 2: the last four four years of that mission, we were
[28:57] Speaker 2: really cutting our teeth into the Triple A. You know,
[29:00] Speaker 2: advisors as a company, that's all we call it. And
[29:03] Speaker 2: they way back then and and and more more recently
[29:08] Speaker 2: the last decade Iraq against Dash did a lot of
[29:14] Speaker 2: buy with through with them. That's another word we'd like
[29:17] Speaker 2: to use. But yeah, look for for your you know,
[29:22] Speaker 2: majority of audience, if you would take the Rangers and
[29:26] Speaker 2: join them with with the Green Berets Special Forces, it's
[29:32] Speaker 2: pretty good comparation.
[29:35] Speaker 1: I So then tell us about kind of like the
[29:38] Speaker 1: first combat deployment for cesare when when does that start
[29:42] Speaker 1: coming on the horizon.
[29:44] Speaker 2: Right after the first course, Like I said, they were
[29:49] Speaker 2: the new command and j DIFF too is hungry to
[29:51] Speaker 2: get a bit of support. So two thousand and seven
[29:56] Speaker 2: it was my first the you know, the end up parade.
[30:00] Speaker 2: So the first course being done with August two thousand
[30:03] Speaker 2: and six, and I was in Canada Hor I don't
[30:07] Speaker 2: know if you heard that based Graceland. It was where
[30:09] Speaker 2: JTF two and was based. And then close by I
[30:15] Speaker 2: think Team six had a compound get Go I think
[30:18] Speaker 2: it was called So I was in there I think
[30:22] Speaker 2: February two thousand seven, So you know, we did a
[30:26] Speaker 2: big ramp up too. So basically two courses one after
[30:29] Speaker 2: the other, because the stand up course, you know, the pipeline,
[30:33] Speaker 2: and then pre deployment training right after I remember at
[30:36] Speaker 2: the week off and then we're on pre deployment training
[30:39] Speaker 2: for a few months, then leave then in Candahar. So
[30:45] Speaker 2: first deployment with SERE was in two thousand and seven
[30:49] Speaker 2: in Canada Hor. The mission set of how was it
[30:55] Speaker 2: called this, I don't remember that the name of the
[30:59] Speaker 2: mission any this rotation that I was on, it was
[31:05] Speaker 2: attached to JTF two. So we're working for them, I believe,
[31:10] Speaker 2: just like the Rangers would be attaching themselves to Delta
[31:13] Speaker 2: and I'm not too sure, but we'd be in support
[31:16] Speaker 2: of JTF two operation and many it was definitely DA's
[31:21] Speaker 2: night raids on hvts m vts at that time, the
[31:30] Speaker 2: regular infantry battimes, we're getting hit hard by IDs. So
[31:34] Speaker 2: I remember that first tour the Knights that we deployed
[31:38] Speaker 2: was targeting ID facilitators, you know, leadership for I D
[31:44] Speaker 2: makers at night. Obviously it's quite busy. You know. Again
[31:51] Speaker 2: though that works pretty far in my head. But let's
[31:55] Speaker 2: say we'd get out once twice a week, lots of
[32:02] Speaker 2: I think it's the same for you guys, lots of
[32:05] Speaker 2: spooling up for an up and then something changed, either
[32:07] Speaker 2: they're stack or the intel changes, and then all stand down.
[32:10] Speaker 1: You know.
[32:10] Speaker 2: So we did a lot of stand up radio checks
[32:13] Speaker 2: and then we don't get the green light. But at
[32:16] Speaker 2: least once or twice a week.
[32:19] Speaker 1: Were you scratching the itch at this point?
[32:22] Speaker 3: Uh?
[32:24] Speaker 2: Not quite, And it was more, you know, I definitely
[32:29] Speaker 2: felt that I joined something special. But remember Jack, it
[32:33] Speaker 2: was our first door next to approven, you know, tier one.
[32:39] Speaker 2: We don't really use tier tier one unit. So we're
[32:43] Speaker 2: the the new retarded brother and I say that it
[32:48] Speaker 2: is now I'm retired new guys that enter, you know,
[32:55] Speaker 2: I got lots of friends and JTF too, and I
[32:57] Speaker 2: deployed with them many times. Great you know, great Tier
[33:01] Speaker 2: one unit. I believe they were pretty pissed off, most
[33:06] Speaker 2: of them. They were not the only guys on the
[33:09] Speaker 2: block now.
[33:10] Speaker 1: But I thought, uh, you know, I thought they wanted you.
[33:14] Speaker 1: They requested this unit be created.
[33:17] Speaker 2: I guess the the leaders saw the need. But when
[33:22] Speaker 2: you go down to the guy that's on the ground,
[33:25] Speaker 2: you know, and I'm a funny guy, and it's funny now.
[33:28] Speaker 2: It wasn't funny then. But the assaulter down on the
[33:32] Speaker 2: ground that joined JTF two and he's a new guy too,
[33:36] Speaker 2: But then he sees these new guys that let's equip
[33:39] Speaker 2: a bit. We don't have all the specialized you know,
[33:41] Speaker 2: we didn't have. There was a disparity there with kid
[33:44] Speaker 2: we don't have the same budget. So so anyway, I'm
[33:47] Speaker 2: not saying they treated us like slave, That's not what
[33:48] Speaker 2: I'm saying. But the culture, it wasn't a welcome boys,
[33:53] Speaker 2: we needed you. It was more like you stand there there,
[33:57] Speaker 2: you little new guy, new unit. So there was a
[34:02] Speaker 2: lot of that going on. And it's all fun in
[34:05] Speaker 2: games now, but back then, you know, you just finish it.
[34:10] Speaker 2: It was. It was tough course, tough, long months of
[34:14] Speaker 2: you know, and now you think you made it, but
[34:17] Speaker 2: then you show up on a mission and then the
[34:20] Speaker 2: guys that you're supporting they don't love you, they don't
[34:23] Speaker 2: hate you, but they just don't really want you there.
[34:26] Speaker 2: So you go at nine on ahead and they make
[34:29] Speaker 2: sure that you on the blocking falls and you stay there.
[34:33] Speaker 2: And if they're shooting inside of the structure, you make
[34:36] Speaker 2: sure you stay out there. We don't need you, you know,
[34:39] Speaker 2: watch your back. There was a lot of that, still
[34:43] Speaker 2: good lesson learned. We did a lot of training that
[34:45] Speaker 2: that can have a great training facility, you know, and
[34:49] Speaker 2: because you also to Canada, the training is a bit
[34:52] Speaker 2: more realistic. There's less rules you know on the base
[34:55] Speaker 2: back on the same as state side, right there's regulations
[34:58] Speaker 2: and range board and so the training was great. We
[35:01] Speaker 2: had I don't know if you visited, did you visit
[35:04] Speaker 2: Graceland or get.
[35:07] Speaker 3: It was.
[35:07] Speaker 2: It was a great complex, the best base I've ever
[35:10] Speaker 2: been on throughout all my all my deployments, because we
[35:15] Speaker 2: had a huge backyard. There's a big mountain range basically,
[35:19] Speaker 2: but it was all ours ours and so maneuver you know,
[35:24] Speaker 2: the ground was used so we could do whatever, three
[35:26] Speaker 2: sixty maneuvering the combers machine guns. We were kind of
[35:31] Speaker 2: we were needed to be the heavy weapon experts, so
[35:35] Speaker 2: spend a lot of time in the turrets on the
[35:38] Speaker 2: fifty cal machine guns, you know, cargy staffs, mortar. We
[35:43] Speaker 2: did a lot of training and it was as much
[35:44] Speaker 2: as you wanted, you know, as much ample as.
[35:48] Speaker 1: You wanted, connex containers full m.
[35:51] Speaker 2: Yeah. So so I had a great memory of that
[35:53] Speaker 2: first store, right because I was I was young, you know, corporal,
[35:58] Speaker 2: still not an leader, and you telling me that I
[36:01] Speaker 2: can leave my room with my C eight, you know,
[36:04] Speaker 2: my carbine, my pistol. I can just grab ammo, walk
[36:09] Speaker 2: to the range by myself and shoot for three hours
[36:12] Speaker 2: by myself. Just need to check in with you know,
[36:15] Speaker 2: check in with HQ saying range number two going live.
[36:20] Speaker 2: To me, I was a rock star. You So we
[36:23] Speaker 2: spent all the time either in the gym or on
[36:25] Speaker 2: the range, which, if you think about it, grewer skills
[36:30] Speaker 2: even more than on the calls. And then the dashment
[36:34] Speaker 2: commander doing the dachment training on himself doesn't need to
[36:38] Speaker 2: fill paperwork, so it kind of fast track or skill level,
[36:42] Speaker 2: or increase their skill level. Even if we're not out
[36:45] Speaker 2: of wire working, we were training at a high level
[36:48] Speaker 2: inside the water. Does it make sense.
[36:51] Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely, Hey guys, I want to tell you about
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[38:50] Speaker 1: Thanks guys, And so you did a couple of deployment
[38:55] Speaker 1: staff gainis Stan I'm just kind of curious, like, how
[38:57] Speaker 1: did you see that mission sort of evolve as ssor matures,
[39:02] Speaker 1: but also as the battlefield changes too.
[39:04] Speaker 2: I imagine, yeah it did. So that was the first
[39:09] Speaker 2: one I liked it. It wasn't scratching the hitch yet,
[39:14] Speaker 2: but we are infant unit and I understand the steps
[39:17] Speaker 2: we need to go through. The leash was still on it,
[39:20] Speaker 2: if we can use that termology, you know, we work
[39:23] Speaker 2: for another unit. So there was a few rotation of that,
[39:28] Speaker 2: you know that I wasn't on there, but I did mine.
[39:32] Speaker 2: And then there's a few evolutions of this, and then
[39:34] Speaker 2: I'm not too sure what happened. I'm not sure why,
[39:39] Speaker 2: but where Seesaw really got their first kind of glimpse
[39:45] Speaker 2: of what it is to be self sufficient and do
[39:47] Speaker 2: operation on your own. Within two thousand and nine. Again,
[39:51] Speaker 2: I don't know why the decision was made that for
[39:55] Speaker 2: two rotations. I think JTF two is busy somewhere. And
[39:59] Speaker 2: then I don't know, but it was Seesore only in
[40:01] Speaker 2: that cam grazeland, so there was either one or one
[40:05] Speaker 2: and a half. Anyway, there's many months that there was
[40:08] Speaker 2: no JTF to assaulters with US so and I did
[40:14] Speaker 2: this the second end of this portion. So my two
[40:18] Speaker 2: thousand and nine, what I'm saying my two thousand and nine,
[40:21] Speaker 2: Oh no, I deployed twice in two thousand and nine.
[40:23] Speaker 2: I did one combined. But anyway I did. I did
[40:25] Speaker 2: three months of this portion of SEESAW doing their solo up.
[40:30] Speaker 2: It was us. We weren't kind of approved yet to
[40:35] Speaker 2: do night ops, you know, like going for hvts or knocks,
[40:41] Speaker 2: and you know, we didn't do that. What we did,
[40:44] Speaker 2: what the tasked us were doing was desert desert mobility
[40:49] Speaker 2: old school you know, sas stuff like in trucks in
[40:53] Speaker 2: the desert for thirty days and I gotta Basically I
[40:57] Speaker 2: replaced a guy that got injured. I was a sniper
[40:59] Speaker 2: by by then at the sniper corse at some point,
[41:02] Speaker 2: so one of the snipers needed to be repat So
[41:05] Speaker 2: so I took the rest of this portion of his tour,
[41:09] Speaker 2: which was great because I got to live this mobility
[41:12] Speaker 2: lifestyle of this entire tour. With the mobility on the
[41:20] Speaker 2: we're a task in denying was it as drugs going
[41:28] Speaker 2: out in the Pakistan and money coming into the town.
[41:30] Speaker 2: Then we needed to disrupt that.
[41:32] Speaker 1: So spent spend.
[41:34] Speaker 2: I hadn't don't regard it. I think the longest on
[41:37] Speaker 2: was thirty two days. Wow, I was no jack. It
[41:42] Speaker 2: was amazing. Maybe that's what I like. But living out
[41:47] Speaker 2: of trucks and snipers wanted a TV's you know, these
[41:49] Speaker 2: six wheelers polarized sic ks. I lived out of that
[41:54] Speaker 2: ATV for yeah, thirty two days in the desert. It
[41:58] Speaker 2: was amazing. And just the disrupting them, so either getting cash,
[42:03] Speaker 2: we got like jing you know, jingle trucks, gold trucks,
[42:09] Speaker 2: load of ashiesh like bricks. It was amazing. I think
[42:14] Speaker 2: it was supported by what's your drug inforce teams? Yeah, yeah,
[42:21] Speaker 2: it was supported by that in some way. I think
[42:24] Speaker 2: they would come in and a chop or take pictures.
[42:26] Speaker 2: Then we'd burn it all anyway. Obviously this mission was
[42:30] Speaker 2: in support of the US right, and so so we
[42:33] Speaker 2: were supporting them indirectly, I think. But when we would
[42:37] Speaker 2: get something big, they would show up for pictures and
[42:42] Speaker 2: it was beautiful. I really liked it. We would get
[42:47] Speaker 2: resolved every week, I think, you know, they would drop
[42:51] Speaker 2: with the RCU one thirties, they would drop loads what
[42:55] Speaker 2: we needed, fuel, food, It was great.
[43:00] Speaker 1: Yeah, and so yeah, thirty days out there patrolling constantly.
[43:06] Speaker 1: That's a lot.
[43:08] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a lot. But it was needed because remember
[43:12] Speaker 2: we're still infant. You know, I don't want to use
[43:15] Speaker 2: these words all night. But we're new, we're we're four
[43:20] Speaker 2: years into becoming our own thing. Remember we stood up
[43:24] Speaker 2: a regiment, so that is still in play now. So
[43:28] Speaker 2: what we've learned, I think, and again i'm not I
[43:33] Speaker 2: think we we took the essays kind of book because
[43:38] Speaker 2: they did a lot of that, right, So I think
[43:40] Speaker 2: we initially kind of study. When it started, we're like, okay,
[43:44] Speaker 2: were leaguers and mobility TTPs and blah blah blah, which
[43:49] Speaker 2: we're not going to discuss, but we started somewhere and
[43:54] Speaker 2: at the end of these mobilities, we were extremely good
[43:58] Speaker 2: at it and we made our own and we became
[44:01] Speaker 2: really good at it. So it was needed. It's another
[44:05] Speaker 2: tool in our toolbox that we we we we sorted
[44:10] Speaker 2: out and we did ourselves and then now it's it's
[44:12] Speaker 2: in our books and that's what we teach our new
[44:15] Speaker 2: guys because we have but now guys are retiring, but
[44:19] Speaker 2: we were passing that knowledge now on course, you know,
[44:21] Speaker 2: even though they're not doing it. Anymore in the world.
[44:25] Speaker 2: We had this knowledge, real experience that we did ourselves.
[44:28] Speaker 2: That's great. Love it.
[44:30] Speaker 1: I got to ask too, because our viewers will love it.
[44:34] Speaker 1: What since you were a sniper on this deployment, which
[44:37] Speaker 1: rifle were you carrying? Was it the three three eight?
[44:39] Speaker 2: Yeah? Three three eight yeah? And we had a grade
[44:44] Speaker 2: three three eight to his Prairie Gun Works pgw DT I,
[44:50] Speaker 2: And it was first it was a McMillan chassis. And
[44:54] Speaker 2: when when we had this one, I love this thing,
[45:00] Speaker 2: you know, tag driver. So my primary was AR ten
[45:06] Speaker 2: on the quad. You know, I had my R ten
[45:08] Speaker 2: right on my end of balls. And then we had
[45:11] Speaker 2: we constructed things like these, these ATVs. We worked on
[45:15] Speaker 2: them ourselves so I could live off it. So a
[45:18] Speaker 2: big bear box at the back, you know, compermentalize with
[45:22] Speaker 2: okay food there, ammo there, easy access, okam seventy two
[45:25] Speaker 2: on the front with my R ten. So it loved
[45:27] Speaker 2: and each quad was different. And yet you're correct, So
[45:31] Speaker 2: three three eight was we had one fifty cal McMillan
[45:34] Speaker 2: fifty calper detachment or detachment was four quads. And we're
[45:39] Speaker 2: not going to go in tactics, but basically picture the snipers.
[45:42] Speaker 2: They work in full and on on these squads. And
[45:46] Speaker 2: then we'd had one fifty cal or two per per
[45:49] Speaker 2: team of full each sniper with their three three eight
[45:52] Speaker 2: each sniper with a semi auto platform. And yeah, it's
[46:01] Speaker 2: great that one. Look a highlight of that. We I
[46:06] Speaker 2: don't want up go into the tactics, but picture, you know,
[46:11] Speaker 2: and we we kind of nobody told us how to
[46:13] Speaker 2: do it. But how do you stop a convoy of
[46:17] Speaker 2: jingle trucks that you're picking up? You know, it's desert, right,
[46:21] Speaker 2: We're in the desert. There's no towns, small villages once
[46:24] Speaker 2: in a while, but it's really bare flat some dunes.
[46:28] Speaker 2: But anyway, you see an obvious convoy of five jingle
[46:33] Speaker 2: trucks six six, seven, ten care away, how do you
[46:36] Speaker 2: tackle that? How do you stop them?
[46:38] Speaker 1: You know?
[46:39] Speaker 2: Vs? No choppers coming in to stop it. You know,
[46:42] Speaker 2: it's just on v's that are slow in the sand
[46:46] Speaker 2: and ATVs that are fast. So I'm not going to
[46:49] Speaker 2: discuss how we did it, but we found like a
[46:52] Speaker 2: pretty cool way to just you know, stop then catch up.
[46:56] Speaker 2: Blah blah blah overwatches. It's great, so we'd get excited,
[47:00] Speaker 2: you know, you wouldn't see anything for two three days
[47:03] Speaker 2: and then you pick one up and then you've got
[47:05] Speaker 2: to go after it.
[47:06] Speaker 1: So this was just like a fairly prolific smuggling route.
[47:11] Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah. They were moving drugs, drugs out and cash,
[47:17] Speaker 2: and we didn't To be honest with you, I'm always honest.
[47:21] Speaker 2: I don't remember us because you know, we'd separate ourselves,
[47:24] Speaker 2: but I don't remember us getting cash. We got a
[47:27] Speaker 2: lot of drugs. Yeah, yeah, so the cash, I'm not
[47:31] Speaker 2: sure if they were using these same roots that we
[47:33] Speaker 2: kind of vectored in, but we definitely vectored into drugs.
[47:39] Speaker 1: So after Afghanistan, what can you tell us about Libya?
[47:46] Speaker 2: But you know what, Look, it's it's not a secret.
[47:49] Speaker 2: I got a medal for it, like everybody got to
[47:52] Speaker 2: medal for it. So so it's a known operation. You
[47:57] Speaker 2: remember in twenty eleven went yeah, So you know, Libyan's
[48:04] Speaker 2: were sick of Gaddafi revolted against him. The air force
[48:10] Speaker 2: was heavily involved into supporting the effort, the coalition effort
[48:15] Speaker 2: to support certain militias. And that's the So what I'm
[48:21] Speaker 2: going to say is that there was another verse, you know,
[48:24] Speaker 2: for for Seaesore, it was the first time. Remember I
[48:28] Speaker 2: mentioned we are the Eye Readiness uh you know, Eye
[48:33] Speaker 2: Readiness Deployable Unit DA unit for Canada. So so this
[48:39] Speaker 2: one was the first time that the pager went off
[48:42] Speaker 2: pagers back then, that was our first time that pager
[48:47] Speaker 2: goes off. And I don't remember the exact specifics, but
[48:52] Speaker 2: fast enough that the ro o s and the breeze
[48:54] Speaker 2: were on the plane, you know. So I don't want
[48:58] Speaker 2: to divulge off last we we can sure stuff, but
[49:01] Speaker 2: you and fast enough that you're getting brief on what
[49:04] Speaker 2: you're going to do on the plane.
[49:07] Speaker 1: And so I mean, yeah, it's a rapid deployment. What
[49:12] Speaker 1: are you guys, like, what what's your idea of the mission?
[49:16] Speaker 1: As you know you're learning more? Sorry, what was sort
[49:21] Speaker 1: of your understanding of the mission that you were going.
[49:24] Speaker 2: To That's that's definitely plus it's past Operation's not a secret,
[49:31] Speaker 2: is we We were gonna go there in civilian working
[49:37] Speaker 2: for foreign affairs and we were to assist the first
[49:44] Speaker 2: analyze and assist with the reintegration of our head of
[49:50] Speaker 2: mission into Libya. Kadaffi was on the goal. Tripoli was
[49:55] Speaker 2: kind of like the Green not Green's own, but the
[49:58] Speaker 2: safe place bean Ghassy flip now, right, But back then
[50:01] Speaker 2: ben Ghassy was far west, really dangerous, and Tripoli was
[50:06] Speaker 2: kind of stable under this militia that was supported by
[50:09] Speaker 2: their coalition. And I guess back then we had a
[50:13] Speaker 2: head of mission, so not an ambassador, but a head
[50:15] Speaker 2: of mission that was keen into going back in there
[50:18] Speaker 2: and showing face and hey, you know, I'm back in
[50:21] Speaker 2: Libyo and we're supporting the revolution, and we were tasked
[50:26] Speaker 2: into prepping for her arrival. It moved into other things
[50:32] Speaker 2: that I don't want to discuss, but that was that
[50:35] Speaker 2: was the support that we had to do for this operation.
[50:39] Speaker 1: And I mean, from your point of view, how did it?
[50:42] Speaker 1: How did it go? I mean, this is still sort
[50:44] Speaker 1: of a new thing for the unit.
[50:46] Speaker 2: Again and you for Bush, you know, and and again
[50:50] Speaker 2: in different ways. I loved it, you know, I love
[50:52] Speaker 2: being in the desert. I love the stuff that we
[50:55] Speaker 2: spoke about before. This one was different because, again for
[50:59] Speaker 2: a young regimen, it was the first time we didn't
[51:04] Speaker 2: have a cover story really, but we did. We weren't
[51:07] Speaker 2: see sort coming in. We were with Foreign Affairs and
[51:12] Speaker 2: we're just here on a diplomatic mission and we're concil
[51:16] Speaker 2: carry and blah blah blah, you know, and cities. So
[51:19] Speaker 2: again it's the first for us. So did we do
[51:21] Speaker 2: stuff wrong? Yeah, but but we learned a lot. So
[51:26] Speaker 2: first time I believe it was. Yeah, but it was
[51:28] Speaker 2: the first time that was a paper call and we're
[51:30] Speaker 2: deploying quick. I'm not sure if it was the first
[51:33] Speaker 2: time we were in plain clothes. I'm not sure about that,
[51:38] Speaker 2: but it was my first time. I really enjoyed it,
[51:44] Speaker 2: I can tell you. And like most soft unit, you
[51:48] Speaker 2: think outside the box, right, everybody likes to say that,
[51:51] Speaker 2: but but that's the first time that me Bush noticed that, Hey,
[51:56] Speaker 2: i'm win the I'm within the right career. Like we
[52:00] Speaker 2: we think outside the box. And I'll give you an example.
[52:04] Speaker 2: This deployment for me lasted about three four months, and
[52:08] Speaker 2: we were always having trouble moving from A to B
[52:13] Speaker 2: because the militia would would have many many checkpoints. You know.
[52:21] Speaker 2: And what's that movie in Benghazi?
[52:25] Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I know.
[52:27] Speaker 2: It's kind of movie, but it's a great story, it's true.
[52:32] Speaker 3: Fifteen hours.
[52:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, please think you so you know that the opening
[52:39] Speaker 2: part of that movie, that checkpoint that's really tense, you know,
[52:43] Speaker 2: and he's like point at the sky like euavs are
[52:46] Speaker 2: going to kill you if you kill me, like the
[52:47] Speaker 2: opening scene right when he picks him up new report
[52:50] Speaker 2: and there's there's a stand up as a checkpoint. It
[52:54] Speaker 2: was that that's the real, Like, that's pretty legit. The
[52:57] Speaker 2: checkpoints are really tense and it's stay an hour, two hours,
[53:01] Speaker 2: you know, and it's it was and you can't see
[53:04] Speaker 2: them because Tripoli was in Benghassy. I wasn't scared of
[53:08] Speaker 2: them kidnapping me or killing me. It's just another checkpoint, right,
[53:13] Speaker 2: They've just been made for no reason. Right, there's guns
[53:15] Speaker 2: on you and they have zero muscle awareness and so
[53:18] Speaker 2: it's dangerous. They get shot by the m D you know,
[53:22] Speaker 2: and and go back to Miami thinking outside the box.
[53:25] Speaker 2: We just got fed up. So we're like, we noticed
[53:29] Speaker 2: that they were trying to because they had a coalition
[53:32] Speaker 2: of us behind them. They were trying to be legit.
[53:35] Speaker 2: They weren't, but they were trying to look like a military,
[53:39] Speaker 2: you know, So they had an ID. We started noticing
[53:43] Speaker 2: and it wasn't at first one we showed up there.
[53:44] Speaker 2: But I think as the media is involved and they
[53:47] Speaker 2: want to look like they're they're legitimate force in Libya,
[53:52] Speaker 2: they we started noticing IDs and one day were like,
[53:57] Speaker 2: you know what, we took picture of the idea. And
[54:00] Speaker 2: then we're in the hotel room just you know, scanners
[54:04] Speaker 2: and stuff like we made our fake ideas. We're like,
[54:08] Speaker 2: well try that, so our real picture with their little
[54:12] Speaker 2: you know, the living flag, and how did we call it?
[54:17] Speaker 2: It was diplomatic support something anyway, and me and me
[54:22] Speaker 2: because I was always in Paris, so me and another
[54:25] Speaker 2: another you're still serving with go on, Jay, me and
[54:28] Speaker 2: jay at are and and because the nature of our work,
[54:31] Speaker 2: we're kind of the ones the most on the road whatever,
[54:35] Speaker 2: We're like, we're going to test this really yeah. So
[54:37] Speaker 2: so then we start showing more id's and they're like confuse,
[54:41] Speaker 2: you know, big smile. They're like, welcome to the team. Boys.
[54:49] Speaker 2: We're going through check's point like no other. And they
[54:53] Speaker 2: never they never.
[54:55] Speaker 1: Ye in your in your defense, Butch, you know, you
[54:59] Speaker 1: made fake ideas, but they were fake to begin with.
[55:02] Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure made up the bullshit idea.
[55:09] Speaker 2: It worked. Another thing actually that was just popped in
[55:13] Speaker 2: my head. I like these kind of stories. Backtrack, backtracked
[55:17] Speaker 2: our first day in there. So so how it worked,
[55:22] Speaker 2: there's no problem saying that how it worked. We didn't
[55:25] Speaker 2: fly right from Canada into Tripoli. We needed some approvals
[55:30] Speaker 2: still to come. You know how fast it was. The
[55:34] Speaker 2: politicians needed to catch up to make all you know, okay, yes,
[55:38] Speaker 2: now he got green light to go in the country.
[55:41] Speaker 2: So so we went to turn location okay for for
[55:45] Speaker 2: so so it was fast to leave, and then it
[55:48] Speaker 2: took like two weeks to get the final approval. Right,
[55:53] Speaker 2: it's typical, right, they pre staged us basically, so we're
[55:57] Speaker 2: pre stage somewhere and in another country and we're there,
[56:03] Speaker 2: bag of money, you know, renting rooms, blah blah blah.
[56:06] Speaker 2: But we deployed. I'm a sniper, then that's that's where
[56:09] Speaker 2: we're there, sniper for supporting case. So having three three eight,
[56:14] Speaker 2: we just discussed it. Yeah, it's collapsible, but I have
[56:17] Speaker 2: this PGW three three there with my carbine, my pistol, yeah, pistol. Okay, concealable.
[56:26] Speaker 2: We're there as diplomatic support, we're not soldiers. So then
[56:32] Speaker 2: they were two into this arrival in the third location,
[56:37] Speaker 2: Jay and I look at each other like, how are
[56:41] Speaker 2: we gonna our suitcase? Like it's too long for a
[56:45] Speaker 2: travel suitcase, Like are we gonna smuggle that in the country. Okay,
[56:52] Speaker 2: you're gonna think I'm lying, I'm not. We literally went
[56:56] Speaker 2: Desperado and we found in that third third country, we
[56:59] Speaker 2: found guitar cases and they're like, hey, it's perfect. It
[57:03] Speaker 2: fits in a guitar case. So like we bought guitars there,
[57:07] Speaker 2: guitar in the trash, boom long gun in the guitar case,
[57:14] Speaker 2: and you know, the carbines fit in the backpack. But whatever,
[57:17] Speaker 2: I'm fast fast forwarding to Okay, go time. We're coming
[57:22] Speaker 2: in Tripoli. So we land convoy to the hotel that
[57:28] Speaker 2: we selected that would stay, and then again going back
[57:32] Speaker 2: to these militia, they took control of all the five
[57:37] Speaker 2: star four star Wars media would go and all the
[57:40] Speaker 2: Western people would go because there's a lot of real
[57:43] Speaker 2: diplomatic efforts there and lots of media. So where the
[57:47] Speaker 2: white people stay, they would secure it to show, look,
[57:51] Speaker 2: we're on your side and we're securing your hotel, which
[57:53] Speaker 2: was needed. They had like scanned like airport scanners and
[57:58] Speaker 2: in the reception like GPP plus plus the scanner, and
[58:02] Speaker 2: then he had to go through this. So I don't
[58:05] Speaker 2: know his name, but we'll I'll describe him to you
[58:08] Speaker 2: is Jay, and I show up for check in as
[58:11] Speaker 2: a diplomatic agent of Canada. But I like music, so
[58:15] Speaker 2: I bring my guitar everywhere, right, And but then we
[58:20] Speaker 2: didn't plan. There was no reki, so we don't know
[58:23] Speaker 2: we're going to go through this in nine sight, yes,
[58:25] Speaker 2: and a reki team on folk. Guys, you know we
[58:27] Speaker 2: got this to go through, no no clue. So we
[58:29] Speaker 2: show up and I look at Jay. Well, there's no
[58:34] Speaker 2: turning back here, So I put my guitar on this
[58:38] Speaker 2: airport scanner. It goes through and I'll describe him to you.
[58:44] Speaker 2: His nickname for the because we became almost friends. His
[58:48] Speaker 2: nickname was a double inverted glock because this kid, this
[58:53] Speaker 2: this like fifteen year old kid at two blocks not
[58:57] Speaker 2: one two, but he had leg ulsters inverted so that
[59:01] Speaker 2: he could draw like this, Yeah, I double glock and
[59:07] Speaker 2: verded whatever. But that's the first time I meet him,
[59:12] Speaker 2: and he's that day beyond the scanner and I saw
[59:15] Speaker 2: my guitar go all the way to the ends. I'm
[59:20] Speaker 2: like yes, But then back back in and he's looking
[59:26] Speaker 2: at the screen. I'm like now now in my young
[59:30] Speaker 2: self mind, I'm like, oh, what is going to be
[59:32] Speaker 2: the option here, like, you know, am I gonna because
[59:34] Speaker 2: I'm concealed, Like I'm going through the step of what
[59:38] Speaker 2: are my option if he pulls the double draw? No, no, Jack.
[59:46] Speaker 2: He looked at the screen, he looked up at me,
[59:51] Speaker 2: look back down, and it's like he saw the coolest
[59:55] Speaker 2: thing in the world. His eyes were like that big
[1:00:00] Speaker 2: and he looked like he looked at me and he's like,
[1:00:05] Speaker 2: I know your secret, you know, So then I knew
[1:00:09] Speaker 2: we were good. He's like he didn't say a thing.
[1:00:11] Speaker 2: He just winked, and he's like, yeah. So every morning
[1:00:15] Speaker 2: when we'd go do whatever we wanted to go, and
[1:00:18] Speaker 2: I'm coming out with my guitar, is like, wink wink
[1:00:21] Speaker 2: all the time, wink wink away. In hindsight, that's how
[1:00:27] Speaker 2: it is, right, Like we compromise, is there. We did
[1:00:31] Speaker 2: discuss that is there a threat to us now if
[1:00:34] Speaker 2: they switch? You know, they know we're not. We're saying
[1:00:39] Speaker 2: we're young. So we decided to just go with it,
[1:00:43] Speaker 2: and it was perfect. You know, we moved and it
[1:00:45] Speaker 2: went to about two weeks. We moved to proper teamhouses,
[1:00:49] Speaker 2: so it was two weeks of like if they turn,
[1:00:52] Speaker 2: they know directly which room to go into, you know whatever.
[1:00:57] Speaker 1: I love the double inverted glocks. I'm gonna have to
[1:00:59] Speaker 1: remember that one.
[1:01:01] Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I wanted to share that.
[1:01:08] Speaker 1: And then I mean Libya winds down after three or
[1:01:11] Speaker 1: four months for you you're returning home, have things kind
[1:01:14] Speaker 1: of notably shifted within Seesore that now this is becoming
[1:01:18] Speaker 1: a seasoned unit that's capable of conducting different types of operations.
[1:01:22] Speaker 2: Mm hmm yeah. Bye. By then, where because because Libya was,
[1:01:28] Speaker 2: like I said, am I CRT's twenty.
[1:01:30] Speaker 1: Eleven right, twenty eleven is when Goadaffi died, so it
[1:01:34] Speaker 1: probably were there.
[1:01:35] Speaker 2: Wally died, so yeah, and the day that he died,
[1:01:38] Speaker 2: he was crazy when traffic for like twelve hours because
[1:01:40] Speaker 2: they were shooting in the air like gem packed everywhere
[1:01:45] Speaker 2: and just like three hours of just emptying bags or
[1:01:49] Speaker 2: t T fifty four is just the rule. Their role
[1:01:53] Speaker 2: was the rule was shooting with the NED. It was
[1:01:56] Speaker 2: safe for them, you know, shoot towards the med. I
[1:02:00] Speaker 2: lost them, but I had videos of busting or we
[1:02:03] Speaker 2: picked team houses by the water because we like to swim,
[1:02:07] Speaker 2: you know, we think it's you had to be because
[1:02:11] Speaker 2: they shoot at night. You had to be in at
[1:02:13] Speaker 2: night because the rounds they come down literally like we
[1:02:17] Speaker 2: have I don't have any more, but I would have
[1:02:19] Speaker 2: videos on my window open. It's like anyway, So he died,
[1:02:26] Speaker 2: it was we were not there when he died, but
[1:02:29] Speaker 2: I mean the entire country was just shooting in the
[1:02:34] Speaker 2: air for like three hours. Ridiculous. So so twenty eleven,
[1:02:40] Speaker 2: we are original now and we're building our own culture.
[1:02:46] Speaker 2: I don't know if you notice there's not many guys
[1:02:48] Speaker 2: on podcasts from Seestar, like you said, I'm the first one,
[1:02:52] Speaker 2: and there's a reason for that. We we definitely have
[1:02:55] Speaker 2: a culture of doing your job and that's it. You know,
[1:03:00] Speaker 2: I don't think it might change, you know, new generation,
[1:03:03] Speaker 2: but this unit of mine is really concentrating on making
[1:03:07] Speaker 2: a name for itself, which he has a great one now,
[1:03:10] Speaker 2: but it through throughout the culture was always do your job,
[1:03:15] Speaker 2: shut up. And you know, I don't think there'll be
[1:03:20] Speaker 2: there's going to be but no books, no, And I'm
[1:03:23] Speaker 2: not saying it's bad to do it. People want to know,
[1:03:26] Speaker 2: but this, this culture of ours is really that's why
[1:03:30] Speaker 2: I'm keeping it to like stories and you know, it's
[1:03:33] Speaker 2: it's really a culture. One thing I noticed now that
[1:03:36] Speaker 2: I live here in the UK working alongside retired and
[1:03:41] Speaker 2: says guys and says is like that, it's hard to
[1:03:45] Speaker 2: get stuff out of them. And we didn't mimic them.
[1:03:48] Speaker 2: It just happened that. It's kind of a culture too,
[1:03:51] Speaker 2: you know, keep it, keep itself. So twenty eleven, Yes,
[1:03:58] Speaker 2: we're teenagers whatever. You know, we have some operation behind us.
[1:04:05] Speaker 2: We were learning at every every turn, I'm skipping a
[1:04:10] Speaker 2: lot of special warfare stuff. Uh, training missions, you know
[1:04:16] Speaker 2: those are those are still happening, Those are constant. I'm
[1:04:20] Speaker 2: not sure if we're still in the Caribbean, but you know, Caribbean, Africa.
[1:04:24] Speaker 1: Are you allowed to say which countries Canada partners with
[1:04:27] Speaker 1: and does training?
[1:04:29] Speaker 2: Yeah?
[1:04:29] Speaker 1: Which are you allowed to say which countries that you
[1:04:32] Speaker 1: guys would go and train?
[1:04:34] Speaker 2: There's some that you can look online. Yet, you know,
[1:04:37] Speaker 2: Flintlock is a big operation in Africa, right we are
[1:04:41] Speaker 2: we are participate baiting in Flintlock. I don't remember the
[1:04:45] Speaker 2: one in the Caribbean, but we're in the Caribbean. We
[1:04:47] Speaker 2: went to Bilie, that was in the news. And obviously
[1:04:51] Speaker 2: if we're deployed somewhere kinetic we will do both. Remember
[1:04:56] Speaker 2: Ranger and Special Forces. Well, we'll have a team doing
[1:05:02] Speaker 2: triple A and a team doing missions, you know, so
[1:05:06] Speaker 2: it's important for us to when we deploy somewhere, we'll
[1:05:10] Speaker 2: definitely give some skill sets to our partner. For us,
[1:05:12] Speaker 2: we'll partner with a unit for sure. And yeah, we
[1:05:16] Speaker 2: rarely do stuff by ourselves. We always partner with.
[1:05:21] Speaker 1: And you know, a couple of years down the line,
[1:05:24] Speaker 1: now we got this problem called isis Yeah, where does
[1:05:27] Speaker 1: that kind of come on to the horizon.
[1:05:29] Speaker 2: For you and the unit at twenty fourteen, you know,
[1:05:35] Speaker 2: there was this tribe on the top of the mound
[1:05:37] Speaker 2: that kicked it off right, yeah, yeah, so it was immediate.
[1:05:42] Speaker 2: So you guys took the lead on that. I remember that.
[1:05:45] Speaker 2: And and we had ROTO zero. You know we call
[1:05:49] Speaker 2: rotos by numbers zero, one, two three, so you know
[1:05:53] Speaker 2: Roto zero was in there right away. First northern Iraq,
[1:05:59] Speaker 2: you know, just outside or a Bill, and then as
[1:06:03] Speaker 2: the war went on it went into Mosil, so in
[1:06:07] Speaker 2: Iraqi territory. But at first it was with the pesh Murgers, right,
[1:06:11] Speaker 2: the Kurds in northern Iraq or a Bill, so two thousand,
[1:06:18] Speaker 2: I think late twenty fourteen was the first time we're
[1:06:21] Speaker 2: in there into twenty fifteen. I have to say it
[1:06:28] Speaker 2: because he's a great friend of mine. But you're aware
[1:06:30] Speaker 2: we lost Green on Blue. We lost Andrew d worl.
[1:06:33] Speaker 1: Yah at a checkpoint.
[1:06:36] Speaker 2: Yeah, so he was on that first course with me,
[1:06:38] Speaker 2: so I knew him well. So you know, peace be
[1:06:42] Speaker 2: with him Green on Blue. It got mentioned many times
[1:06:46] Speaker 2: in the news, so I don't have to go into it.
[1:06:48] Speaker 2: But but just bad not on his part, that decision
[1:06:52] Speaker 2: making of the courage he was going to advise. Blah
[1:06:57] Speaker 2: blah blah. It was big for with their first loss.
[1:07:01] Speaker 2: We we lost. We lost an operator before that to
[1:07:07] Speaker 2: to disease, so we lost. But first combat loss was
[1:07:12] Speaker 2: was Drew and our only one.
[1:07:14] Speaker 1: Wow.
[1:07:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, so his name was great.
[1:07:18] Speaker 1: He was a great operator and h it's a yeah.
[1:07:21] Speaker 1: I remember when it happened that It is a really
[1:07:23] Speaker 1: sad story.
[1:07:25] Speaker 2: At first, you know, in the news it was I didn't.
[1:07:28] Speaker 1: Like that, you know, I remember that that they were
[1:07:30] Speaker 1: trying to make it sound like he blew through the
[1:07:32] Speaker 1: checkpoint or something.
[1:07:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, I know he was doing unapproved ops.
[1:07:38] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember this. Yeah, it's not
[1:07:43] Speaker 1: what happened. It was just a case of like mistaken
[1:07:46] Speaker 1: identity and confusion.
[1:07:48] Speaker 2: Yeah it was. And look quickly, if people don't know,
[1:07:53] Speaker 2: this detachment led by Drew was doing. I think it
[1:07:59] Speaker 2: was night vision training using night optics with the front line,
[1:08:04] Speaker 2: because it's right at the front line, you know. And
[1:08:06] Speaker 2: I don't know if your audience know, but the fight
[1:08:08] Speaker 2: with Diash, especially with the passion, it was World War
[1:08:10] Speaker 2: two trench lines. Yeah, yeah, dead man land. And then
[1:08:15] Speaker 2: I says, on the other side, so he was up
[1:08:18] Speaker 2: on the flood teaching partner force during the day how
[1:08:25] Speaker 2: to use these things. During the days, it's easier a
[1:08:29] Speaker 2: I'll come back at night to teach you guys how
[1:08:33] Speaker 2: to use them. But he didn't get told there was
[1:08:35] Speaker 2: a switch and whatever DIR unit was switching and the
[1:08:39] Speaker 2: unit that took over again, I was in there, so
[1:08:42] Speaker 2: I'm not sure if all the details, but that's how
[1:08:44] Speaker 2: I understand it is the unit that took over that evening.
[1:08:49] Speaker 2: The trenches they weren't a big tick with DASH like
[1:08:52] Speaker 2: a few days ago, so they're really on edge. So
[1:08:56] Speaker 2: you see what happened. So then these dear did guys
[1:08:59] Speaker 2: come back night from from their sixth you know, from
[1:09:02] Speaker 2: the back they think they're getting ambushed again or you know,
[1:09:05] Speaker 2: so then they opened fire. Yeah, just just said, yeah,
[1:09:11] Speaker 2: that's the gist of it.
[1:09:13] Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, tell us about your experience with the Canadian
[1:09:18] Speaker 1: word moves operation impact, right, Yeah, the first first.
[1:09:22] Speaker 2: Apployment line was I was in twenty fifteen, mostly summers.
[1:09:27] Speaker 2: I went there in the summer in twenty fifteen, so
[1:09:31] Speaker 2: shortly after you know this thebaccle And basically I'd say
[1:09:39] Speaker 2: it's one of the eyelight of my career that I
[1:09:43] Speaker 2: enjoyed the most because at this point in my career,
[1:09:47] Speaker 2: I'm a detachment commander, so I'm making the calls on
[1:09:50] Speaker 2: the ground. I got great guys in my detachment, and
[1:09:54] Speaker 2: our Operation impact for US was set up is we
[1:09:58] Speaker 2: would have a detachment plus attachments, you know, a team
[1:10:02] Speaker 2: of sniper at jadach to this to this core detachment,
[1:10:06] Speaker 2: me and my podcast, and I would be in charge
[1:10:11] Speaker 2: basically for the time of my rotation. I would be
[1:10:15] Speaker 2: given a partner for us, but also given a piece
[1:10:20] Speaker 2: of that flood. So it was about let's say twenty
[1:10:26] Speaker 2: k twenty kilimator of frontage fronting and that beat my sector,
[1:10:33] Speaker 2: and so I would deploy from the head quarter element
[1:10:36] Speaker 2: that's an hour drive back, and I'd go to my
[1:10:40] Speaker 2: team house, which was in proximity of this sector that
[1:10:44] Speaker 2: I own for the next five to six months, right
[1:10:49] Speaker 2: as a sergeant, you know, not an officer. As a sergeant,
[1:10:53] Speaker 2: we would have officer support. They visit the team house
[1:10:56] Speaker 2: and come CEOs. But basically I'm the boss of how
[1:11:02] Speaker 2: many pesh you know, heeshmergas that are defending this line.
[1:11:08] Speaker 2: They don't report to me. They report to the officers,
[1:11:10] Speaker 2: but their officers seek my consult meetings with them. All
[1:11:15] Speaker 2: see it, and that's how you need to see it
[1:11:18] Speaker 2: to do proper job. Is that was my guys, and
[1:11:21] Speaker 2: that's my front line, and I don't let Isis come through,
[1:11:25] Speaker 2: you know, And how we would impact the fight diesh Is.
[1:11:33] Speaker 2: We would leave our team house and we I would
[1:11:37] Speaker 2: do a w rekie, visit all my position and pick
[1:11:41] Speaker 2: with the intel that these guys are telling me the officers,
[1:11:44] Speaker 2: I'd pick where to situate myself for a week. We
[1:11:47] Speaker 2: were capped at a week. We couldn't be on the
[1:11:49] Speaker 2: front front, front line more than a week, so I
[1:11:53] Speaker 2: would pick flavor of the week. You know, where's the
[1:11:57] Speaker 2: last time they had to take did they try to
[1:11:59] Speaker 2: push there, so I would have to select, Okay, we're
[1:12:01] Speaker 2: gonna go spend a week there. That's the broad struggle
[1:12:05] Speaker 2: it But for a sergeant that now I'm scratching that itch.
[1:12:10] Speaker 2: Now I'm in charge of the guys I love, and
[1:12:14] Speaker 2: plus I'm actually in the fight. I'm in charge of
[1:12:17] Speaker 2: this line and when I send charge, I am because
[1:12:21] Speaker 2: we do buy it with through. So it was by
[1:12:25] Speaker 2: with through their version of a jatak. With my jatak,
[1:12:30] Speaker 2: we would select which target we're going to strike. But
[1:12:34] Speaker 2: again it wasn't Canada War. So for people that don't
[1:12:37] Speaker 2: understand what buy with Through is is I'm there with
[1:12:41] Speaker 2: you with my team, and I point you in the
[1:12:46] Speaker 2: right direction. I teach you how to find them in
[1:12:49] Speaker 2: their you know the fps or which house they're in.
[1:12:52] Speaker 2: I you know, focus you on it, and then I
[1:12:56] Speaker 2: help you write your SELTA, your request for about and
[1:13:00] Speaker 2: then you send it. So it's you that called the
[1:13:04] Speaker 2: Air Force to come and support. It's not me. We
[1:13:08] Speaker 2: would double check that okay, that gordon As are writing stuff,
[1:13:11] Speaker 2: but that's what buy with throwns. It's them that owned
[1:13:14] Speaker 2: the bomb, but I supported them and making sure it's
[1:13:17] Speaker 2: act curate and there's no Colt world damage and we
[1:13:21] Speaker 2: do this assessment for them. So so that that's what
[1:13:25] Speaker 2: I did in twenty fifteen, and it was really fruitful.
[1:13:30] Speaker 2: I don't recall anymore, but we did keep a kill
[1:13:34] Speaker 2: count obviously because they're soldiers. And it was really fruitful,
[1:13:38] Speaker 2: so so much so, and we had access through organic
[1:13:45] Speaker 2: weapons if need be, and and and that the rule
[1:13:48] Speaker 2: of engagement was that if we'd use organic, it was
[1:13:53] Speaker 2: in defense of our partner. Folks, you understand we couldn't
[1:13:57] Speaker 2: use organic directly. Yeah, we had to use Harris tracks
[1:14:02] Speaker 2: if we wanted to strike them, but buy with through anyway,
[1:14:08] Speaker 2: This this rotation in December, and I'm like, quite a
[1:14:12] Speaker 2: bit of news. We discussed that in the pre interview.
[1:14:15] Speaker 2: Is that I can speak a bit about it because
[1:14:18] Speaker 2: it made the news internationally as I don't know if
[1:14:21] Speaker 2: you recall if it came across your death. But in
[1:14:24] Speaker 2: December twenty fifteen, it was a large, large attack from
[1:14:30] Speaker 2: day ash trying to push the line.
[1:14:33] Speaker 1: Is that the same breakthrough where the seal named Keating
[1:14:36] Speaker 1: was killed. Charles Keating, I believe.
[1:14:40] Speaker 2: He died during my rotation. He was further north, so
[1:14:43] Speaker 2: it wasn't the same.
[1:14:44] Speaker 1: Breakthrough okay, okay.
[1:14:46] Speaker 2: And I don't it wasn't. It was a smaller breakthrough
[1:14:49] Speaker 2: after mine, I believe and look I went better and listen,
[1:14:53] Speaker 2: I'm not sure if it's okay after Yeah, the big
[1:14:58] Speaker 2: breakthrough was definitely just in the needed line, the center
[1:15:03] Speaker 2: of their push with a town called Talas Squad, and
[1:15:07] Speaker 2: it was again unlucky lucky, it was right in the
[1:15:13] Speaker 2: center of our you know team of eleven twelve plus
[1:15:17] Speaker 2: or pesh, so it was in ourceptor and it was
[1:15:21] Speaker 2: it was a long almost forty eight hours because basically
[1:15:31] Speaker 2: it unfolded kind of in steps, so we weren't on
[1:15:37] Speaker 2: the front when the push started, right, so at first
[1:15:41] Speaker 2: it was definitely there's because their teamals was like three
[1:15:45] Speaker 2: k from the front line, so you can hear whoa,
[1:15:50] Speaker 2: you know, something's really going on. It was kicking off
[1:15:53] Speaker 2: like World War two, probably vbids, suicide bombers, a lot
[1:15:58] Speaker 2: of a lot of They did the upper pre fire,
[1:16:01] Speaker 2: so there was about an hour of rockets and artillery
[1:16:05] Speaker 2: like one five five They had one five five, so
[1:16:08] Speaker 2: there was one five five rockets, improvised vb IDs just
[1:16:15] Speaker 2: pushing trying to pass. Tell us what there was another
[1:16:18] Speaker 2: town to try to come through anyway, big firefight, mass casualty.
[1:16:25] Speaker 2: So you know, because you know, when you do special
[1:16:28] Speaker 2: warfare ands like special forces, you build report throughout these months,
[1:16:33] Speaker 2: throughout these rotos. So what we did is we had
[1:16:36] Speaker 2: a small medical facility at our team house. Remember we're
[1:16:40] Speaker 2: just I don't want to say just gunfighters, but we
[1:16:43] Speaker 2: didn't have a PA attached to us. We just use
[1:16:45] Speaker 2: our skills and to win their trust and their loyalty.
[1:16:52] Speaker 2: Because their main hospital is about an hour drive from
[1:16:56] Speaker 2: their front line. We'd say, look, any bobos, stop at
[1:17:01] Speaker 2: our team house. If we're not at the front with you,
[1:17:03] Speaker 2: just stop at our team house if we can help,
[1:17:06] Speaker 2: just you know, stabilize you for the drive back to
[1:17:09] Speaker 2: her Bill to roll one, let's say. And it happened often.
[1:17:15] Speaker 2: You know, in an afternoon you're not deployed the front
[1:17:17] Speaker 2: and then a guy shows up. He rolled his ankle.
[1:17:19] Speaker 2: Always he got a straight bullet or whatever, so you
[1:17:23] Speaker 2: do a bit of that. But this this afternoon, it
[1:17:26] Speaker 2: was a big push. So it was like non stop
[1:17:30] Speaker 2: it truckloads high looks loads of all the the best
[1:17:36] Speaker 2: medical training I've ever got was there. It was like
[1:17:39] Speaker 2: all the injuries, you know, gunshot, moon, mangled leg, cut
[1:17:45] Speaker 2: off arm, you know, open skull, you know the stuff
[1:17:50] Speaker 2: that you're even so much that we had to you know,
[1:17:53] Speaker 2: after a few hours, we had to have a PA
[1:17:57] Speaker 2: physical assistant, you know, special forces doctor basically reinforced us
[1:18:03] Speaker 2: and then he took care of really the Pride ones.
[1:18:05] Speaker 2: Try to stabilize them as much as possible, and then
[1:18:10] Speaker 2: we put them back in their truck and that they
[1:18:13] Speaker 2: wouldn't make the rest. I don't know the numbers. I
[1:18:16] Speaker 2: don't know how many we saved, but we did stabilize
[1:18:19] Speaker 2: a lot of casualties. During that flood push. We ran
[1:18:26] Speaker 2: out of all supplies, so that there was that many
[1:18:29] Speaker 2: we were down at like we'd grab from our bed,
[1:18:31] Speaker 2: our bed sheets from our beds making back in. God, yeah,
[1:18:36] Speaker 2: it look it's a long story. I don't want to
[1:18:39] Speaker 2: spend too much time on it, but lots of lessons
[1:18:41] Speaker 2: learned there, down to the amount of stuff to explain.
[1:18:50] Speaker 2: So the influx of casualties is coming let's say from
[1:18:53] Speaker 2: the north ex actually north, they're coming down the Eyehway,
[1:18:56] Speaker 2: They're coming to us. Our team house is not ready
[1:18:59] Speaker 2: to have you know, thirty casualties at a time, we
[1:19:04] Speaker 2: have one bed, so now it's outside on the gravel,
[1:19:07] Speaker 2: you know, prioritizing and putting them on the ground. But
[1:19:10] Speaker 2: also we weren't ready to get so much crowd It
[1:19:14] Speaker 2: was almost down the crowd control because now the curds
[1:19:17] Speaker 2: are extremely courageous, right that the people, the civilians like
[1:19:23] Speaker 2: they are a courageous bunch. Respect them a lot. So
[1:19:27] Speaker 2: when they hear on the radio, Dash is pushing and
[1:19:32] Speaker 2: tell us what there's traffic of civilians with in case
[1:19:37] Speaker 2: at forty seven traffic, nighttime traffic coming to see what's
[1:19:42] Speaker 2: going on, to help. So now I shit, you know,
[1:19:46] Speaker 2: at some point it must have been three hundred people
[1:19:49] Speaker 2: just crowding our little space, just just there. It's crazy.
[1:19:57] Speaker 1: Did you have to kind of take control of the
[1:19:59] Speaker 1: tactical sit situation, start positioning them and organizing them.
[1:20:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know my guys, man, the guys I
[1:20:06] Speaker 2: worked with my heroes because I'm in charge of this
[1:20:12] Speaker 2: until the officer showed up later, I'm in charge of this.
[1:20:15] Speaker 2: So my two I see is heavily involved now prioritizing casualties.
[1:20:23] Speaker 2: You know, guys, you know, the guys are all doing
[1:20:27] Speaker 2: medical stuff. Then I'm at my two. I see the
[1:20:30] Speaker 2: pushes that we don't know what's going on. They might
[1:20:33] Speaker 2: be really coming. And there were only four kses way.
[1:20:36] Speaker 2: So my two, I see is taking lead, tactical lead,
[1:20:39] Speaker 2: because really my job is to advise the SYS. So
[1:20:43] Speaker 2: I'm constantly running in between my team house. One thing
[1:20:48] Speaker 2: I didn't explain is our team house with the the
[1:20:52] Speaker 2: HQ of the Peshmerga for this, you know, so that
[1:20:56] Speaker 2: the Kurds. I'm constantly running to the HQ to try
[1:21:00] Speaker 2: to advise them on what because they're they're feeding me
[1:21:02] Speaker 2: through interpretter like they took this mountain. We're over run there.
[1:21:06] Speaker 2: Bring the planes. I want the bombs. I'm like, no,
[1:21:10] Speaker 2: you got guys there.
[1:21:12] Speaker 1: I can't.
[1:21:13] Speaker 2: I can't drop bombs on your guys. Yeah, I kill them.
[1:21:16] Speaker 2: It will save more people, Like I tell you, you know,
[1:21:18] Speaker 2: it's a long story. But so I'm constantly running checking
[1:21:21] Speaker 2: on my guys. You're okay, but yeah, yeah, okay. Boom
[1:21:24] Speaker 2: back with the HQ. So that's why I needed help,
[1:21:26] Speaker 2: you know. I called back at my cook overwhelmed work here,
[1:21:30] Speaker 2: took a few hours, got a seizore major with me.
[1:21:35] Speaker 2: He took that from me. Now now he's with the
[1:21:38] Speaker 2: Kurds advising assisting them with what they need to try
[1:21:42] Speaker 2: to come control this massive Isis soldiers. They're they're past
[1:21:47] Speaker 2: the they're now fighting with the position. So they went
[1:21:50] Speaker 2: through the how they call it the n Z. Yeah,
[1:21:53] Speaker 2: so they're now and to end combat really with the positions. Yeah,
[1:21:58] Speaker 2: it was crazy. And again the buffer now is four
[1:22:02] Speaker 2: k between if they if they lose their position devices
[1:22:06] Speaker 2: is strong enough to really push, then they're coming towards us.
[1:22:09] Speaker 2: So we don't know that yet. IR is giving us
[1:22:11] Speaker 2: intel info was coming in all stuff.
[1:22:15] Speaker 1: I take it used to organic weapons defensively that night.
[1:22:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, they didn't get their emails. We're we're
[1:22:24] Speaker 2: gonna bring the organic to them, so they never got
[1:22:28] Speaker 2: They've never got past the curves. Are so courageous. They
[1:22:30] Speaker 2: never got past the line, the Ford line. Own troops
[1:22:36] Speaker 2: never passed it. It was constant battle there timeline wise,
[1:22:43] Speaker 2: so they pictured this this mass cat and US deciding
[1:22:46] Speaker 2: to ask for support because because now there was JTF
[1:22:49] Speaker 2: two in country. I forget the exact timeline, but early
[1:22:56] Speaker 2: into the night, let's say around nine pm that day,
[1:23:01] Speaker 2: the officer now is with me and he's like, you
[1:23:03] Speaker 2: have we need help. So we brought JTF two a
[1:23:08] Speaker 2: few JTF two guys to reinforce us. They don't like that,
[1:23:13] Speaker 2: I'm going to say that, but I'm going to say
[1:23:15] Speaker 2: it because it's not their mandate for Canada to Advices
[1:23:20] Speaker 2: as a company. So they took over control over our teamhouse,
[1:23:26] Speaker 2: security of our teamhouse, and then we went forward to
[1:23:29] Speaker 2: regain the line, right, so you can see why.
[1:23:33] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, JTF two coming into support sesore that. Yeah,
[1:23:37] Speaker 1: I can see that not going over well.
[1:23:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, and a it's mandate. Yeah, but at least it
[1:23:43] Speaker 2: tells you twenty fifteen, we were owning our skills enough
[1:23:49] Speaker 2: that there's a clean line now where you're not going
[1:23:53] Speaker 2: after HBT. It's not us to to rescue, it's it's
[1:23:56] Speaker 2: Advisors as a company, and it's DA it's us. So
[1:24:00] Speaker 2: it came in, took control of our team house to
[1:24:03] Speaker 2: allow us to go forward. I think the officer took
[1:24:10] Speaker 2: a great decision because the organic weapon, the engagement, because
[1:24:14] Speaker 2: I knew the ground, you know a lot. I said, look,
[1:24:17] Speaker 2: we need more snipers. So we took two JTF two
[1:24:19] Speaker 2: snipers with us and a warrant officer to help the
[1:24:24] Speaker 2: leadership so we could three assaultiers with us forward. So
[1:24:30] Speaker 2: basically they kind of gave up the mound. I'm giving
[1:24:34] Speaker 2: you a broad stroke here, but they pulled back from
[1:24:37] Speaker 2: the mount. Really, they were trying to take this village.
[1:24:40] Speaker 2: Tell us what so that's the only thing that to
[1:24:42] Speaker 2: retake the patch don't are not equipped with nine visions,
[1:24:47] Speaker 2: so it needed to be a day time. So what
[1:24:50] Speaker 2: we did is it was, you know, our contingent of cancer.
[1:24:55] Speaker 2: I don't remember the exactly fifteen let's say fifteen guys
[1:24:59] Speaker 2: plus I think two thy fifteen hundred pesh. I decided
[1:25:07] Speaker 2: because of the land. I'm like, I told the officer,
[1:25:09] Speaker 2: I'm like, look, we're going to spend the night at
[1:25:11] Speaker 2: this tank position. There's a tank position, just not even
[1:25:15] Speaker 2: a cave from the village, but we're going to bring
[1:25:18] Speaker 2: everybody there. We're going to hold the ground and then
[1:25:21] Speaker 2: first light, good old old school, first light. We're going
[1:25:25] Speaker 2: to advance on the town. A plan plan with this office.
[1:25:31] Speaker 2: It was all this plan. He delivered the plan, but
[1:25:33] Speaker 2: I helped him build this plan because I know the ground.
[1:25:36] Speaker 2: So we decided that cancer off would be in a school.
[1:25:41] Speaker 2: It was probably the only two story building in this town.
[1:25:46] Speaker 2: It's a really small town. It's all single story, two story,
[1:25:50] Speaker 2: a few houses, but this one was positioned perfect to
[1:25:53] Speaker 2: do a perfect almost l shape kind of support base
[1:25:58] Speaker 2: and the pesh would take the village. But so all
[1:26:01] Speaker 2: cans of guys. We took control of the school that
[1:26:04] Speaker 2: had two stories, so we're on the second story, and
[1:26:07] Speaker 2: then supported them taking back the village with with organic weapons,
[1:26:13] Speaker 2: support weapons, mortar and then the jatach doing his stuff
[1:26:18] Speaker 2: his job with the stack yad and uh obviously a
[1:26:26] Speaker 2: real gunfight, so you know, it took down a lot
[1:26:29] Speaker 2: of ices guys that we could with their baseline, and
[1:26:32] Speaker 2: the petch did a great job clear you know, the
[1:26:36] Speaker 2: powers clear clear the village and basically pushed them back
[1:26:40] Speaker 2: through the few the few breach they made and they
[1:26:45] Speaker 2: retreated basically uh brewhelming fire, they retreated back to their
[1:26:49] Speaker 2: side and then that was it and came back to
[1:26:53] Speaker 2: their village. So that so that that was the December
[1:26:56] Speaker 2: twenty fifteen kind of operation one. I'm like, you know,
[1:27:01] Speaker 2: I really enjoyed that one. That was really the entire thing, right, yeah,
[1:27:06] Speaker 2: them with medical and one thing I want to say
[1:27:10] Speaker 2: too on this one is the reason that we kind
[1:27:16] Speaker 2: of added lull. You know, we did the mass cash
[1:27:19] Speaker 2: and then we want to get after it. They're coming
[1:27:22] Speaker 2: for our team. I was like, let's go the old
[1:27:24] Speaker 2: up here was our commander, the General of Cancer of COUM.
[1:27:31] Speaker 2: The only reason we didn't get the green light to
[1:27:33] Speaker 2: take our pash and go take the line back for it.
[1:27:36] Speaker 2: It took like four or five hours of just waiting
[1:27:40] Speaker 2: for them to come, you know, so we're on the
[1:27:43] Speaker 2: rooftop of and then waiting waiting for it to come
[1:27:45] Speaker 2: because we couldn't get the green light as simple as
[1:27:49] Speaker 2: our commander was on a flight to the States, so
[1:27:53] Speaker 2: he's out of It's how stupid it is sometimes.
[1:27:56] Speaker 1: Right, But one of the stories like that, Yeah, like
[1:27:59] Speaker 1: the commander a sleep so you can't get the airstrike approved.
[1:28:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of. And that was worse because we got
[1:28:05] Speaker 2: cancel off. Guys about to be overran and they want
[1:28:08] Speaker 2: to go and take the line back, but we have
[1:28:11] Speaker 2: to wait for his command. And one thing I want
[1:28:15] Speaker 2: to say is back then it was general will go.
[1:28:19] Speaker 2: From what I know, I wasn't there, but from I
[1:28:21] Speaker 2: know when his when his phone started pinging when he
[1:28:24] Speaker 2: landed and he talked to his staff officer. What I
[1:28:28] Speaker 2: heard is that hey, the seesaw boards. Boys are in troubles.
[1:28:34] Speaker 2: Broke the line like do they go or they retreat?
[1:28:38] Speaker 2: And I don't know the words he use, but he
[1:28:40] Speaker 2: said they're not retreating. Tell the boys like leash off go.
[1:28:47] Speaker 2: You know. So I got to say this commander at
[1:28:49] Speaker 2: balls and he did it because you understand Canada, right,
[1:28:52] Speaker 2: We're really.
[1:28:54] Speaker 1: You're very nice, very nice.
[1:28:57] Speaker 2: Yeah that's my personal opinion. But you know, did this
[1:29:02] Speaker 2: commander basically I got to say, put his ball on
[1:29:05] Speaker 2: the table, say now, yeah, yeah, take the gloves off
[1:29:08] Speaker 2: on these assholes. It was the right decision. The picture
[1:29:12] Speaker 2: this in front of a partner for us.
[1:29:16] Speaker 1: We leave them, right, your credibility is gone.
[1:29:20] Speaker 2: Think of the repercussion for future rotation and the relationship. Right,
[1:29:24] Speaker 2: So you did the right decision.
[1:29:28] Speaker 1: And then the second deployment to a rack, you kind
[1:29:30] Speaker 1: of got to see the fall of Missule right, Yeah
[1:29:33] Speaker 1: I did.
[1:29:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, summer twenty seventeen. So again I got lucky I
[1:29:39] Speaker 2: was back in because that twenty fifteen one I kind
[1:29:42] Speaker 2: of moved letterally to be a commander of a detachment.
[1:29:47] Speaker 2: That's how kind of our when you go up and rank.
[1:29:51] Speaker 2: I was a specialist for most of these years, right
[1:29:54] Speaker 2: a sniper because in Cesore we don't have snipers in
[1:29:58] Speaker 2: each detachment. We have actually a sniper squad and I
[1:30:02] Speaker 2: don't want to discuss more than that, but our snipers
[1:30:04] Speaker 2: are altogether. So so I moved literally to do punch
[1:30:08] Speaker 2: in as a commander of gunfighters. And then right after
[1:30:12] Speaker 2: that roto, I went back to my roots, to my
[1:30:15] Speaker 2: specialty as a sniper. And then there was a detachment commander.
[1:30:20] Speaker 2: So when this roto came, now the war was moving
[1:30:25] Speaker 2: north is north towards Mosol. Soon now our partner force
[1:30:29] Speaker 2: became Iraqis again because you understand, Mosol is Iraqi centric,
[1:30:34] Speaker 2: so they had to take Moso back. Was the Iraqi
[1:30:37] Speaker 2: and not the Kurds. And this roto about the same
[1:30:41] Speaker 2: time six six It was five to six months long.
[1:30:45] Speaker 2: Our job was to support the Iraqis and to taking
[1:30:47] Speaker 2: Mosol back, and that was going on for many months.
[1:30:51] Speaker 2: But it happened that my rotation was was the We
[1:30:54] Speaker 2: didn't know it was going to be the last one,
[1:30:55] Speaker 2: but it was the last one. That they took west
[1:30:58] Speaker 2: Moso with that lit more complex that everybody saw on
[1:31:01] Speaker 2: the news and stuff. So that was the last stand
[1:31:03] Speaker 2: they were surrounded. That was the last stent of that,
[1:31:06] Speaker 2: and it was it was different because it wasn't trench
[1:31:10] Speaker 2: warfare anymore. It was urban so and I was centric
[1:31:15] Speaker 2: in a supporting you know, in the sniper position, so
[1:31:18] Speaker 2: basically bare bone old school sniper position for a few
[1:31:23] Speaker 2: days movie position every two three days, you know, urban opiece.
[1:31:28] Speaker 2: And we we we were at the front quite often,
[1:31:34] Speaker 2: spend you know, a week in and o P a
[1:31:36] Speaker 2: few days back to the teamhouse, back with the Iraqis
[1:31:40] Speaker 2: at the front, and went like this for months. Many
[1:31:43] Speaker 2: engagement I don't want to see the number, but you
[1:31:47] Speaker 2: know it's in It's in the hundreds every two three days.
[1:31:52] Speaker 2: You know.
[1:31:53] Speaker 1: Were you guys still with a discuss, Were you guys
[1:31:57] Speaker 1: still with a partner for us and kind of had
[1:31:59] Speaker 1: a sector of the city.
[1:32:00] Speaker 2: No, this one was different a bit. We were in
[1:32:03] Speaker 2: a we could only go that's how it worked. We
[1:32:07] Speaker 2: could only go and pick a building in a sector
[1:32:11] Speaker 2: that our partner Iraqi unit was in. Okay, Yeah, but
[1:32:18] Speaker 2: there was a restriction on us. And it's okay because
[1:32:21] Speaker 2: we're snipers. So the range was okay, but we could
[1:32:24] Speaker 2: not be within a kilometer of the actual flood and
[1:32:27] Speaker 2: it changed every day, right because they're taking itsurban now,
[1:32:30] Speaker 2: so the Iraqis are taking ground or losing ground, and
[1:32:33] Speaker 2: me as the commander, it was a restriction that they
[1:32:36] Speaker 2: didn't want cans off within or closer than a kilimator.
[1:32:42] Speaker 2: So it was a lot of work on satellite imagery
[1:32:44] Speaker 2: for me to okay, where's the front line today? Okay,
[1:32:47] Speaker 2: like this building, this building, I'll go see this one.
[1:32:49] Speaker 2: This one doesn't work, and then we spent too Once
[1:32:52] Speaker 2: you establish the lines, sometimes moved closer, you know, but
[1:32:56] Speaker 2: they're not going to make you like move and keep
[1:33:00] Speaker 2: in a k so. But but to get a proved
[1:33:03] Speaker 2: to go out and neat to show today's front line
[1:33:06] Speaker 2: and this is where I want to go, and then
[1:33:08] Speaker 2: it's like okay you can because it's within the guidelines.
[1:33:13] Speaker 2: That's all we did. But we weren't never this store,
[1:33:15] Speaker 2: I was your question. I was never Sometimes maybe they
[1:33:20] Speaker 2: were on the front, you know, I was never shoulder
[1:33:23] Speaker 2: to shoulder with them. I'm supporting them now like bare
[1:33:27] Speaker 2: bone sniping, of supporting own troops, protecting them as they move.
[1:33:31] Speaker 2: Blah blah blah. That's what we're doing.
[1:33:34] Speaker 1: So more of like the observation, the reckie, the airstrikes,
[1:33:38] Speaker 1: things like that.
[1:33:40] Speaker 2: And then if they're in a gunfight, I'm trying to
[1:33:43] Speaker 2: position myself to take down I says that shooting at them,
[1:33:46] Speaker 2: you know, like mutual support or not mutual support, like
[1:33:49] Speaker 2: close support.
[1:33:50] Speaker 1: Mutually supporting fires.
[1:33:53] Speaker 2: Yeah, they're not protecting me, I'm protecting them. Kind of.
[1:33:57] Speaker 1: Any particular stories from deployment that stand out in your mind.
[1:34:06] Speaker 2: No, A lot of combat, meaning a lot of engagement.
[1:34:11] Speaker 2: We didn't. We were far enough that Dash never reached us.
[1:34:15] Speaker 2: They reached our building once in a while with sporadic fire, rockcuess,
[1:34:18] Speaker 2: blah blah blah, but nothing like that. I fell, Oh,
[1:34:22] Speaker 2: we need to move. I'm saying we laid waste. I
[1:34:27] Speaker 2: can't say it, and I'm happy about it. We laid wasteed.
[1:34:31] Speaker 2: This this is the worst terrorist organization that I that
[1:34:35] Speaker 2: I am proud that I took down and my guys
[1:34:38] Speaker 2: and I took down a lot of them because they
[1:34:40] Speaker 2: deserve it, you know. I don't have to go into
[1:34:43] Speaker 2: the orific stuff that they were doing. That was my
[1:34:48] Speaker 2: most busy tour and it ended my career. Well it was.
[1:34:52] Speaker 2: I wish I did more, but but for the months
[1:34:54] Speaker 2: that was there, there's no crazy story like when I
[1:34:57] Speaker 2: just discussed them two and fifteen. It's just a lot
[1:35:00] Speaker 2: of work and good work. And it was the you know,
[1:35:08] Speaker 2: like I said, I was a sniper for most of
[1:35:11] Speaker 2: my career, but that's the tour that that was the
[1:35:13] Speaker 2: most engagement. And one thing that I can say I'm
[1:35:16] Speaker 2: proud of is I was a commander, so I spent
[1:35:20] Speaker 2: more time spotting. You understand that terminology. I spend more
[1:35:24] Speaker 2: time in the spotting scope, finding target and getting my
[1:35:27] Speaker 2: guys on. But I was proud of that because my
[1:35:29] Speaker 2: my career was coming to an end. I knew it,
[1:35:32] Speaker 2: and you know I can Two guys got their first
[1:35:36] Speaker 2: skills under my spotting to an experienced sniper, it's the
[1:35:40] Speaker 2: best feeling, right and I can tell you that he's
[1:35:44] Speaker 2: still serving. I won't say his name, but he knows
[1:35:46] Speaker 2: who he is. This first guy got his first skill
[1:35:49] Speaker 2: at night. It pans around his ankles because I'm on
[1:35:53] Speaker 2: chef and I took a lot. I love being in
[1:35:55] Speaker 2: the optics, so I took long shifts and I'm at night.
[1:35:58] Speaker 2: It's like two am, and across there was a small river. Anyway,
[1:36:04] Speaker 2: I'm seeing it across the river flashes. So they're starting
[1:36:09] Speaker 2: to just shoot towards their bank with machine guns RPKs probably,
[1:36:14] Speaker 2: and two or three of them. And I'm on the
[1:36:16] Speaker 2: turmoil and I'm like, I won't say his name because
[1:36:20] Speaker 2: you know, it's time for them to sleep, so I'm
[1:36:21] Speaker 2: just observing and I'm like, get there, get it. Get
[1:36:25] Speaker 2: So he shows up and he was so horny that
[1:36:29] Speaker 2: you know, he didn't even he's because we sleep with
[1:36:32] Speaker 2: their boots on and their pants he's so hot. Pants
[1:36:34] Speaker 2: are down to the ankle. You're sleeping like that, just
[1:36:37] Speaker 2: their haired out. He didn't even bother putting his pants up.
[1:36:42] Speaker 2: And his gun is set up on the tripod, ready
[1:36:44] Speaker 2: to go, you know, like just both open. And this
[1:36:48] Speaker 2: guy just come in helmet mvgs and just like in
[1:36:53] Speaker 2: his in his honor, were no shirt, sits on his
[1:36:56] Speaker 2: chair like where were boss? And I put him on
[1:36:58] Speaker 2: it and boom for first round across the water in
[1:37:01] Speaker 2: the chest. That gunner is beautiful. And then the guy
[1:37:05] Speaker 2: fires big hugs because it's his first one and he
[1:37:08] Speaker 2: went back to bed.
[1:37:13] Speaker 1: Right and around this timeframe on this deployment, you also
[1:37:18] Speaker 1: started noticing you were having like some cognitive issues, right, yeah, yeah,
[1:37:23] Speaker 1: So that's.
[1:37:24] Speaker 2: What I would love to get into after I am
[1:37:28] Speaker 2: not diagnosed, but but I have it. And the reason
[1:37:33] Speaker 2: I'm not diagnosed with TBI is because maybe it's it's
[1:37:38] Speaker 2: definitely an error, but maybe I come from the old
[1:37:43] Speaker 2: school mentality. You know, I joined in two thousand. It
[1:37:46] Speaker 2: was still the end of the ninety like be hard,
[1:37:48] Speaker 2: and then we can discuss the injury that through my career.
[1:37:52] Speaker 2: But many, many concussions, some are recorded my records, but
[1:37:58] Speaker 2: some are just like shake it off, you know, headache
[1:38:01] Speaker 2: the next day, and you know heart lending, parachuting, concussions
[1:38:07] Speaker 2: from falling from whatever. You know, So bang my head
[1:38:10] Speaker 2: many times during all these years, and and I guess
[1:38:17] Speaker 2: now I know you know I'm educated. You'll see I
[1:38:19] Speaker 2: educated myself quite a bit on it. And when your
[1:38:23] Speaker 2: brain rattles in your skull, and people notice. But if
[1:38:27] Speaker 2: you don't know when your brain rattles and it's in liquid, right, Look,
[1:38:32] Speaker 2: I'm not a doctor, a scientist, but I understand my
[1:38:35] Speaker 2: brain is in some jelly inside my skull, and when
[1:38:40] Speaker 2: it's rattled too many times, it leaves bruises on your
[1:38:45] Speaker 2: brain pan. And not only people will think heart lending
[1:38:50] Speaker 2: at night parachute boom, you knock yourself out. You got
[1:38:53] Speaker 2: a concussion. Everybody understand that. But just the nature of
[1:38:59] Speaker 2: a soft operator being closed by door, breach, wall, breach shooting,
[1:39:06] Speaker 2: you know eighty four that creates a vacuum. It is
[1:39:11] Speaker 2: a meaning concussion every time, right, am I saying it right?
[1:39:16] Speaker 2: The vacuum, the blast wave, yeah, the blood yeah, correct.
[1:39:21] Speaker 2: So blast wave and what they started because I love that.
[1:39:26] Speaker 2: Now it's online and now they're researching it. But when
[1:39:30] Speaker 2: I left, So I left in twenty nineteen, we'll skip that.
[1:39:32] Speaker 2: But I decided to move to the ukn twenty nineteen.
[1:39:37] Speaker 2: Just a few months before I left, cans Off really
[1:39:41] Speaker 2: started looking into traumatic brain injury TBI, military related traumatic
[1:39:47] Speaker 2: brain injury, and just before I left, it was starting
[1:39:53] Speaker 2: to be really a thing. And then there started being Okay,
[1:39:57] Speaker 2: who's more prone? I remember that, and it came down
[1:40:01] Speaker 2: to breachers and snipers. Breachers obviously explosive all day, you know,
[1:40:06] Speaker 2: non stop, and snipers was more of a oh, maybe snipers,
[1:40:11] Speaker 2: we should do tests on them because they shoot these high,
[1:40:15] Speaker 2: high velocity like caliber rounds right by their head. It's
[1:40:18] Speaker 2: probably doing something. So so they brought us their range
[1:40:23] Speaker 2: just a flat range on base and some some doctors
[1:40:27] Speaker 2: and scientists came from Toronto I think, and they started
[1:40:31] Speaker 2: putting these microphones but everywhere. And we're outside and we're
[1:40:34] Speaker 2: doing a they're like, bring the heaviest caliber you have, so, okay,
[1:40:38] Speaker 2: fifty cal. And then we'll take we'll take the can off,
[1:40:43] Speaker 2: you know, because it's more blast. And they I don't
[1:40:46] Speaker 2: remember the numbers, but they took some. We took some
[1:40:50] Speaker 2: shots and they're like, oh oh, And then I tell you, Jack,
[1:40:56] Speaker 2: they unplucked stuff, replug.
[1:40:59] Speaker 1: Yeah, because you met it out. Yeah, you maximize.
[1:41:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, the system's not working. You see where I'm going.
[1:41:06] Speaker 2: And then we do it again and they're like, this
[1:41:09] Speaker 2: is crazy. This is like five hundred percent more than
[1:41:15] Speaker 2: what we've seen in the NFL.
[1:41:18] Speaker 1: Okay, another day at the NAP.
[1:41:20] Speaker 2: But we didn't even do it inside, Jack, that's outside
[1:41:24] Speaker 2: open air. Like I told you, we just shot one
[1:41:28] Speaker 2: hundred and something from inside buildings for months, you know, Pick,
[1:41:33] Speaker 2: I don't know the number, but inside a building everything
[1:41:36] Speaker 2: is more condensed. So back to your question, I don't
[1:41:41] Speaker 2: remember when I started realizing, you know that my tempers
[1:41:47] Speaker 2: changing have a shorter fuse. I maybe two thousand, fifteen sixteen.
[1:41:59] Speaker 2: I started sing that that there was some stuff that
[1:42:02] Speaker 2: it's not me, you know, drinking more of ly, wanting
[1:42:05] Speaker 2: to party, short FEUs, memory loss can't for you know,
[1:42:11] Speaker 2: I can't remember grocery less blah. But I don't say
[1:42:15] Speaker 2: anything because first, I don't want to get sidelined. And
[1:42:18] Speaker 2: you know how it is, so and I know there's
[1:42:20] Speaker 2: people that are listening to this and they're like, oh,
[1:42:23] Speaker 2: that's me. You don't want to get sidelined with your self.
[1:42:25] Speaker 2: Operator you want to do as many mission as you
[1:42:28] Speaker 2: can and blah blah blah. Right, So it's when I
[1:42:32] Speaker 2: it's when I retired, And that's the portion I think
[1:42:35] Speaker 2: it's important for people to listen because you're probably like me,
[1:42:39] Speaker 2: you're you're serving, you have these things you don't want
[1:42:43] Speaker 2: to talk about. When I left and I went in
[1:42:46] Speaker 2: entrepreneurship on my own, then then what's important to understand
[1:42:50] Speaker 2: is nobody's paying me. I need to make my own
[1:42:55] Speaker 2: money because I'm my own boss. So now now it's
[1:42:58] Speaker 2: important that I got my wits. And that's when it
[1:43:01] Speaker 2: really started hitting me that I could feel something's weird
[1:43:07] Speaker 2: and looking around and what do I do? And I
[1:43:11] Speaker 2: don't have the money to go private in the UK
[1:43:13] Speaker 2: blah blah blah. But then okay, I need to spend money.
[1:43:17] Speaker 2: So for me, I know I don't have PTSD, but
[1:43:20] Speaker 2: I knew at TBI. Long story short, I went to
[1:43:25] Speaker 2: Mexico and I tried Basabo mu cell and basically, and
[1:43:32] Speaker 2: again I'm not a scientist, but I did. It's IV
[1:43:38] Speaker 2: and I did one IV bag. You called it the
[1:43:40] Speaker 2: golden bag.
[1:43:41] Speaker 1: You pay for it, and could you tell us a
[1:43:44] Speaker 1: little bit more about like what that what this is,
[1:43:46] Speaker 1: what this treatment is, and like what it's normally used for.
[1:43:51] Speaker 2: Again, so it's stem cells therapy, right, but I think
[1:43:56] Speaker 2: it named it over the the doctor in Japan. It's
[1:44:01] Speaker 2: a lady and her last name I believe is the Zawo.
[1:44:05] Speaker 2: So she I don't know when she realized that the
[1:44:09] Speaker 2: muse cells. I believe there's many muse cells. It's a thing,
[1:44:13] Speaker 2: but she realized that there's one that that was better
[1:44:16] Speaker 2: than others. So that's all I know. But if you'd
[1:44:19] Speaker 2: get this specific muse cell, yes you know, stem cell therapy,
[1:44:23] Speaker 2: it will discuss in what it fixed for me, for
[1:44:26] Speaker 2: all my little bobos, that's instant almost whatever they put
[1:44:30] Speaker 2: in that back. They put four different things, so you're
[1:44:31] Speaker 2: buying anti inflammatory. There's a strong and time in flammatory.
[1:44:36] Speaker 2: But the actual muse cell it fixes. You know, it's
[1:44:42] Speaker 2: supposed to be able to rebuild cartilage a little bit anyway,
[1:44:47] Speaker 2: but for my brain, it's supposed to the last eighteen months.
[1:44:52] Speaker 2: Like the entire thing, the process last eighteen months. I
[1:44:56] Speaker 2: tell you Jack. Three months into it, I woke up.
[1:45:02] Speaker 2: I swear I woke up a morning and I didn't
[1:45:06] Speaker 2: even know I had an a's. And I don't know
[1:45:08] Speaker 2: if you know you've been retired a while, but maybe
[1:45:10] Speaker 2: people will related to that. I didn't notice because it
[1:45:14] Speaker 2: creeped in, but I had an a's. Like I couldn't concentrate,
[1:45:18] Speaker 2: but it becomes dark. Yeah right, I was aging all
[1:45:23] Speaker 2: my body, all my brain was relating to it. Is
[1:45:27] Speaker 2: you're aging. I'm forty two now, like, oh, you're aging.
[1:45:30] Speaker 2: I woke up one morning, so that night this thing
[1:45:34] Speaker 2: just got rid of this a's of TBI to ad.
[1:45:38] Speaker 2: I was clearer that day. I remember exactly when it was,
[1:45:41] Speaker 2: and I'm like, ohoh, I'm going to spend three hours
[1:45:44] Speaker 2: at the gym today, Like I had just more energy
[1:45:47] Speaker 2: and I can you know I'm a business owner now
[1:45:50] Speaker 2: and I need to pitch client and corporation I used
[1:45:55] Speaker 2: to have because I took this bag in March, so
[1:45:59] Speaker 2: a few months back. I'm not even done to eighteen minutes.
[1:46:02] Speaker 2: But so before that, Butcher would have to like practice
[1:46:05] Speaker 2: and take notes and really go with notes or a
[1:46:09] Speaker 2: PowerPoint and have my queue lines. Now, no, I rehearse, obviously,
[1:46:15] Speaker 2: but then it's boom boom boom. My wife, you know,
[1:46:18] Speaker 2: a beautiful wife can send me to the grocery store
[1:46:20] Speaker 2: with a list of ten things and I don't forget one.
[1:46:23] Speaker 2: Before that, I would have to like, oh, send me
[1:46:27] Speaker 2: a text, and then I would even sometimes in the middle,
[1:46:30] Speaker 2: like I have to look at the text a few times.
[1:46:32] Speaker 2: So something happens in your brain that it fixes it.
[1:46:37] Speaker 2: I don't get angry. I got a four year old boy.
[1:46:39] Speaker 2: You know, a four year old boy is like a raptor.
[1:46:42] Speaker 2: It climbs walls. It doesn't listen to you, you know. Anyway,
[1:46:46] Speaker 2: mine is like that. And my wife really noticed it
[1:46:50] Speaker 2: because she's like, you have so much more patience with
[1:46:52] Speaker 2: your son, Like she knows I did that right, and
[1:46:55] Speaker 2: she's like, wow, you know so again, look I'm gonna
[1:47:00] Speaker 2: sounds like a salesman now, but I want so basically
[1:47:04] Speaker 2: my message to your listeners, especially if they have a police,
[1:47:12] Speaker 2: you know, background firefighters that knocks their head a lot.
[1:47:15] Speaker 2: Like there's stuff out there and I'm not saying that
[1:47:18] Speaker 2: to go to Mexico, but there's stuff out there that
[1:47:22] Speaker 2: won't fix you. And another thing, I got a friend
[1:47:26] Speaker 2: of mine. It was a jatach with us, so Gordon
[1:47:29] Speaker 2: Early is his name. It's mostly Canadian trench trick. But
[1:47:32] Speaker 2: if there's listeners in Canada, this guy was just last
[1:47:36] Speaker 2: week at Parliament. He's trying to push psychedelic you know
[1:47:40] Speaker 2: you're used to that in the States. There's two things.
[1:47:44] Speaker 2: There's TBI. I don't want to speak all night about it,
[1:47:47] Speaker 2: but there's TBI and this PTSD. Our government, yours in mind,
[1:47:52] Speaker 2: need to realize that you don't have to put pills
[1:47:57] Speaker 2: into the soldiers. I'll use soldiers because I am one,
[1:48:00] Speaker 2: but law enforcement and fireman you don't have to fill
[1:48:05] Speaker 2: them with pills. There's there's they should investigate, you know,
[1:48:10] Speaker 2: the the zo of mun seal if they wish to
[1:48:12] Speaker 2: or or psychedelics, psychedelics for PTSD, because that does wonders.
[1:48:18] Speaker 2: Gordon is big advocate and he's going to move the
[1:48:20] Speaker 2: government into looking to this because he's out there with
[1:48:23] Speaker 2: the media and stuff.
[1:48:24] Speaker 1: That's awesome. There's I actually I just interviewed today earlier
[1:48:28] Speaker 1: today the director and one of the persons in the
[1:48:32] Speaker 1: in the documentary he made, uh Marcus Capone, who's a
[1:48:36] Speaker 1: former Navy seal, And this whole this documentary is going
[1:48:39] Speaker 1: to be out on Netflix next week and like a
[1:48:42] Speaker 1: matter of days, and it's all about these seals going
[1:48:45] Speaker 1: down to I believe they did go down to Mexico
[1:48:48] Speaker 1: and doing ebo gain and d MT and you know,
[1:48:53] Speaker 1: the whole psychedelic treatment. And I mean they're very open
[1:48:57] Speaker 1: and very vulnerable in this documentary. And I really encourage
[1:49:02] Speaker 1: people to go and see it because it gets a
[1:49:04] Speaker 1: lot good yeah yeah.
[1:49:06] Speaker 2: And plus you know, through your channel you got so
[1:49:08] Speaker 2: much reach. So I respect that if you're because I
[1:49:11] Speaker 2: really believe in it now, like it's real Now, I'm
[1:49:15] Speaker 2: like I'll try it. I think there's something for PTSD
[1:49:19] Speaker 2: and maybe TBI, but psychedelics for PTSD and TBI. They
[1:49:24] Speaker 2: need to look at this this hour because it works.
[1:49:28] Speaker 2: I look, it's it's saved my life like my Look,
[1:49:31] Speaker 2: I don't want to go into details, but marriage is hard,
[1:49:34] Speaker 2: especially if you're all fucked up in the head. You
[1:49:36] Speaker 2: do still things, you know. And now now for months,
[1:49:41] Speaker 2: me and my life and my wife, my beautiful whife
[1:49:44] Speaker 2: is pregnant now and we're just happy. And it's because
[1:49:48] Speaker 2: it is. I know it, because it was you know.
[1:49:50] Speaker 2: It took months, but at some point I'm like, wow,
[1:49:54] Speaker 2: this is real, you know, so.
[1:49:57] Speaker 1: So tell us about the two four two group.
[1:50:02] Speaker 2: Look that this is the new adventure of my life.
[1:50:07] Speaker 2: Long story short, as we've been on for a long time.
[1:50:12] Speaker 2: I retired in twenty nineteen and I sold everything and
[1:50:17] Speaker 2: I left the UK with three suitcases. I think it
[1:50:22] Speaker 2: was to work for in risk mitigation, head of risk
[1:50:28] Speaker 2: mitigation for an entrepreneur businessman, and I did that. I
[1:50:33] Speaker 2: cut my teeth into private security basically, and that lasted
[1:50:38] Speaker 2: better part of three years. And then I opened my
[1:50:41] Speaker 2: own thing for two group, just because I missed working
[1:50:46] Speaker 2: as a team, you know, working for just one client.
[1:50:50] Speaker 2: It was great, but I wanted to have a try
[1:50:54] Speaker 2: at being an entrepreneur, so it grew pretty fast. We
[1:50:58] Speaker 2: just did her third year anniversary. But I can tell
[1:51:03] Speaker 2: you that I love it because basically me and my
[1:51:08] Speaker 2: three co founders, which I'm proud to say, you know,
[1:51:13] Speaker 2: like I'm cancer off and two of my co founders
[1:51:17] Speaker 2: are UKs F and another one is from the Met Police.
[1:51:20] Speaker 2: CTSF was like their their federal counter terror police, so
[1:51:24] Speaker 2: like the highest. So that's the four of us that
[1:51:28] Speaker 2: decided to start this and and it grew in four departments.
[1:51:32] Speaker 2: So so basically we have, you know, a department that
[1:51:35] Speaker 2: does risk mitigation, so the EP work surveillance and that's that.
[1:51:39] Speaker 2: The cookie cutter e P blah blah blah, we have that.
[1:51:44] Speaker 2: That That was our first department, but it quickly grew
[1:51:49] Speaker 2: into three more departments because we saw that us in
[1:51:52] Speaker 2: our network because we're global, uh you know guys guys
[1:51:55] Speaker 2: from Solcam, Jay Sock, Subcontract, Green Berets blah blah blah
[1:51:59] Speaker 2: name we do stuff in the US through them. We're
[1:52:03] Speaker 2: in Africa often. So we decided to open the UK
[1:52:09] Speaker 2: gun laws. We can't have a school here like a
[1:52:11] Speaker 2: you know, Constellas, so we can't. So we have training teams.
[1:52:14] Speaker 2: So our SAS retarded SAS guy leads the training department,
[1:52:18] Speaker 2: so we we do special warfare. We send training teams
[1:52:22] Speaker 2: to the places we were in the Ukraine, got a
[1:52:25] Speaker 2: bit pol in Africa, blah blah blah. So he leads
[1:52:28] Speaker 2: that department and then Special Projects. I don't want to
[1:52:32] Speaker 2: discuss it too much because it's our coolest department, but
[1:52:34] Speaker 2: it does stuff for agencies and government departments, you know,
[1:52:40] Speaker 2: problem solving tank stuff that they they need our expertise
[1:52:44] Speaker 2: to do that. They don't want to have their name
[1:52:46] Speaker 2: attached maybe you know. So we work mostly for corporation too,
[1:52:51] Speaker 2: but it's basically as Look, everybody has a Special Project department,
[1:52:56] Speaker 2: but us ours. That's what it does. It fixed problems
[1:53:00] Speaker 2: on conventional ways and all that. Right. And the thing
[1:53:04] Speaker 2: that's interesting if you go on the website you'll see
[1:53:06] Speaker 2: we got the MSU Mobile Security emit. I'm proud to
[1:53:09] Speaker 2: say we're the first in the world that has a
[1:53:13] Speaker 2: purpose built private motorbike s coort service. Okay, not unlike
[1:53:19] Speaker 2: what you see the cops at you know when they
[1:53:21] Speaker 2: do convoys, and it's different for us. That's why we're
[1:53:25] Speaker 2: the first one. Is there's a specific problem in London,
[1:53:29] Speaker 2: UK and it's organized crime, but it's mopeds, you know,
[1:53:34] Speaker 2: little mopeds. It's called moped crime. Here and how this
[1:53:39] Speaker 2: department came to life is these these wealthy guys here.
[1:53:44] Speaker 2: They can't drive. There's supercars, that's say in London, throw
[1:53:48] Speaker 2: it off, drive around because mopeds will come alongside, they
[1:53:52] Speaker 2: take rebar let's say. Therefore, therefore, so the rear guy
[1:53:56] Speaker 2: will wait till the car is stop at the red
[1:53:58] Speaker 2: light in traffic, smash the window. And what they want
[1:54:02] Speaker 2: is this jewelry. You know, the driver will have a
[1:54:05] Speaker 2: tech philip or they still watches. Ladies necklace their purses.
[1:54:10] Speaker 2: They don't steal the cars, not the hijack. They want
[1:54:12] Speaker 2: to come in and they stab them or they threaten
[1:54:15] Speaker 2: them with a knife to get their jewelry. So in
[1:54:19] Speaker 2: twenty twenty two are like, how do we fix this?
[1:54:22] Speaker 2: And the conventional way sam as in the or everywhere
[1:54:26] Speaker 2: in the world. Your client, as he wants to drive
[1:54:28] Speaker 2: his Lamborghini, you don't put a ep guy on the
[1:54:33] Speaker 2: seat next to him. You have a chase car. But
[1:54:36] Speaker 2: in populated cities, then cities it doesn't work the response
[1:54:42] Speaker 2: time and get the range rover following the Lambo. If
[1:54:45] Speaker 2: he burns a yellow light, then you're stuck at there.
[1:54:48] Speaker 2: It doesn't work. But bikes you're always with your client
[1:54:53] Speaker 2: and the mope as they don't get close and you
[1:54:55] Speaker 2: can react. So we ever and we're I found out
[1:55:00] Speaker 2: where the first in the world because I have to
[1:55:01] Speaker 2: pay for the policy for this. I had to go
[1:55:06] Speaker 2: to Lloyd's of London, Thank you Lloyds. They had to
[1:55:08] Speaker 2: draft of policy and they're like, we can't find Plumper
[1:55:11] Speaker 2: or Bosi doesn't exist, So so pay for the lawyers
[1:55:15] Speaker 2: and stuff to do the policy to ensure everything.
[1:55:20] Speaker 1: I think we have a question from a viewer.
[1:55:24] Speaker 2: Oh, nice, sir, Does that happen often? Or am I
[1:55:31] Speaker 2: at first?
[1:55:32] Speaker 1: I we know people who subscribe to us on Patreon,
[1:55:35] Speaker 1: they can we let them ask questions.
[1:55:39] Speaker 3: All right, So from uh Lane Hutchinson, which CFB has
[1:55:45] Speaker 3: the most unpredictable weather?
[1:55:49] Speaker 2: Oh that's an easy one. You must be Canadian CFB
[1:55:55] Speaker 2: Wayne Wright. It's got a micro climate. It's disgusting there.
[1:56:01] Speaker 1: That's that's way up north, isn't it.
[1:56:04] Speaker 2: It's no central it's in the bird of Okay, Okay.
[1:56:11] Speaker 2: I did a few training events there. I did one
[1:56:13] Speaker 2: of my leadership course there. It's famous that CFB Waynwright.
[1:56:19] Speaker 2: And I tell you it's like the breaking beacons here
[1:56:22] Speaker 2: in the UK. Well, it will snow sideways in August
[1:56:26] Speaker 2: and then immediately after freezing rain, immediately after sun immediately
[1:56:30] Speaker 2: like it's crazy, horrible.
[1:56:33] Speaker 1: I think we might have a Wayne right in Alaska.
[1:56:37] Speaker 1: I'm probably mixing the two up.
[1:56:39] Speaker 2: No, yes, you probably have. But yeah, so I don't
[1:56:42] Speaker 2: know what. It's got something to do with, you know,
[1:56:45] Speaker 2: the Rockies and then whatever. But that base is horrible.
[1:56:51] Speaker 2: The PPC, I know it's way better than me because
[1:56:54] Speaker 2: the West Coast me I just because Cancel turns a
[1:56:57] Speaker 2: bit everywhere I visited a few times, and I know
[1:57:00] Speaker 2: the rumor. It's true. It's disgusting.
[1:57:03] Speaker 1: You got another one day, Yeah, we got another one
[1:57:05] Speaker 1: from Sean Dudley.
[1:57:07] Speaker 3: Can you tell us the most esoteric skill set you've
[1:57:09] Speaker 3: been or seen taught that unexpectedly came in handy?
[1:57:16] Speaker 2: Ooh, that's a good one. I need to dust off
[1:57:19] Speaker 2: the TBI for that one. It's uteric. Please define the
[1:57:25] Speaker 2: word is sooteric To the French Canadian, I think he.
[1:57:28] Speaker 1: Means like kind of like odd outside the norm, like
[1:57:31] Speaker 1: if you guys learned like block picking or something like that.
[1:57:38] Speaker 2: Hopefully, as you can tell during this what ninety minutes
[1:57:42] Speaker 2: we've been together or two hours. My speaking ability even
[1:57:48] Speaker 2: though I have an accent and you know I don't
[1:57:50] Speaker 2: quite speak English. Good talking my way into places and
[1:57:56] Speaker 2: that goes with special warfare involved building rapport with partners.
[1:58:01] Speaker 2: Looked at the little example of me and Jay making
[1:58:04] Speaker 2: fake fake IDs, but but talking my way out situation
[1:58:11] Speaker 2: or in areas, or or talking my way into situation
[1:58:17] Speaker 2: that will benefit myself bullshitting.
[1:58:22] Speaker 1: Bullshitting is the word that's I think we prefer we
[1:58:27] Speaker 1: prefer to use the term rapport building.
[1:58:29] Speaker 2: Uh but yeah, I try to keep it real here
[1:58:33] Speaker 2: for your guys. Yeah, that's a skill that and and
[1:58:37] Speaker 2: I think most of uh you know, soft unit they
[1:58:41] Speaker 2: need that skill, right.
[1:58:42] Speaker 1: Absolutely, especially I think special forces. Well, butch thank you
[1:58:49] Speaker 1: for sharing your story with us tonight. This has been awesome,
[1:58:54] Speaker 1: and please tell viewers out there where they can find you,
[1:58:57] Speaker 1: where they can find two four two group, if they
[1:59:00] Speaker 1: want to employ your services, where should they go.
[1:59:03] Speaker 2: Yeah, look, that's a good point. Actually, we're doing good
[1:59:08] Speaker 2: enough that we're gonna I think you one. Look, the
[1:59:13] Speaker 2: paperwork is getting drafted. We will be in Florida, which
[1:59:17] Speaker 2: I'm excited about because you know, he has a good state.
[1:59:21] Speaker 2: We're gonna have a CEO there and and so two
[1:59:24] Speaker 2: guys will have an office there. And then you understand
[1:59:27] Speaker 2: that world we self contract. But the thing is, if
[1:59:29] Speaker 2: you go on two four to two dash group dot com,
[1:59:33] Speaker 2: you'll see our website. It will get all translated into Okay,
[1:59:37] Speaker 2: now you're gonna pick US, A or UK. But but
[1:59:39] Speaker 2: what I mean is all your viewers, most guys have
[1:59:44] Speaker 2: retard soft background and and please go on the website,
[1:59:49] Speaker 2: click on the department, see our story. And we are global.
[1:59:53] Speaker 2: We operate in the US VA legally via subcontractors with
[1:59:57] Speaker 2: great a great list of on boarded guys because we
[2:00:02] Speaker 2: don't take it's not because you were soft that we
[2:00:05] Speaker 2: take you. You need to have a certain demeanor and
[2:00:07] Speaker 2: the type of experience and skills that we need. But
[2:00:11] Speaker 2: we're always building a bigger network of operatives, you know,
[2:00:16] Speaker 2: So go on the website, review the department. If there's
[2:00:19] Speaker 2: a department that you're interested in, there's an inquiry in box.
[2:00:23] Speaker 2: Like I said, Q one six will need a lot
[2:00:29] Speaker 2: of good operatives in the US because will be based
[2:00:32] Speaker 2: there now legally, so we'll be truly global. For so
[2:00:38] Speaker 2: the plan is two four two Group, the CEO which
[2:00:41] Speaker 2: JTS two Colonel, we'll immigrate down to you guys, but
[2:00:44] Speaker 2: he's happy to spend six months a year in in Florida.
[2:00:48] Speaker 2: And I don't want to say his name yet, but
[2:00:50] Speaker 2: a Seal Team six guy will be his second second guy,
[2:00:54] Speaker 2: so operation manager. These two guys will run Western Hemisphere.
[2:01:00] Speaker 2: So so now instead of time zones and we we
[2:01:03] Speaker 2: were just in Brazil doing something pretty cool. Now now
[2:01:07] Speaker 2: you know this. This these two guys will take Western
[2:01:11] Speaker 2: Hemisphere from US. South America, USA, Canada will all be
[2:01:15] Speaker 2: handled by them, and then Europe Africa and we'll support
[2:01:19] Speaker 2: each other. But you understand trying to divide, you know,
[2:01:22] Speaker 2: you guys, you guys main task and support us, but
[2:01:25] Speaker 2: the main task will be Western Hemisphere, Eastern Hemisphere with US,
[2:01:30] Speaker 2: and then if it goes well still, then we're going
[2:01:33] Speaker 2: to move further. You can say Western East, but we
[2:01:36] Speaker 2: won't have a presence in Southeast Asia. You know, I
[2:01:41] Speaker 2: can tell you that my plan would probably be to
[2:01:44] Speaker 2: CEO let's say s A s R or two Commando,
[2:01:47] Speaker 2: you know, Australia based, and then it would take Southeast
[2:01:49] Speaker 2: Asia from US. But I'm truly, I'm truly building a group.
[2:01:54] Speaker 2: It's becoming a real group now and if you interested
[2:01:59] Speaker 2: in us, the most important thing to us is our guys.
[2:02:04] Speaker 2: We will never compromise our guys for money because this
[2:02:09] Speaker 2: world of contracting, there's a lot of paying the guys'
[2:02:12] Speaker 2: little wages trying to make more profit. Oh the clients
[2:02:16] Speaker 2: said that, so make it happen. We turned down clients.
[2:02:19] Speaker 2: I'm building a culture of what I miss because I
[2:02:22] Speaker 2: missed my regiment so much. Miss these guys every day
[2:02:25] Speaker 2: until I die. So what I'm doing in the private sector,
[2:02:28] Speaker 2: and my three co founders are doing, is building our
[2:02:32] Speaker 2: own little culture of guys verse you know, men, men
[2:02:37] Speaker 2: before gear. You know, that's that's what we're building.
[2:02:42] Speaker 1: So it's awesome.
[2:02:44] Speaker 2: Thank you for letting me say that. You know volume
[2:02:48] Speaker 2: of what you're.
[2:02:49] Speaker 1: Doing absolutely well. We really appreciate your time and spending
[2:02:52] Speaker 1: some of your evening with us to tell us your story. So, folks,
[2:02:56] Speaker 1: I hope you will go and take a look at
[2:02:58] Speaker 1: two four to two group. Sounds like they're expanding rapidly.
[2:03:02] Speaker 1: And for everyone else, we'll see you guys next time.
[2:03:05] Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in tonight.
[2:03:08] Speaker 2: Thank you Jack, thank you everybody.
[2:03:11] Speaker 1: Hey, guys, I want to tell all of you today
[2:03:12] Speaker 1: about a new newsletter that we're launching that encompasses both
[2:03:16] Speaker 1: the Teamhouse podcast, the eyes On podcast, and the high
[2:03:20] Speaker 1: Side news outlet, which I run with Sean Naylor.
[2:03:24] Speaker 2: Uh.
[2:03:24] Speaker 1: The newsletter is gonna be once a week. It's gonna
[2:03:27] Speaker 1: come into your inbox and you're gonna get the most
[2:03:30] Speaker 1: current podcasts on eyes On and the Teamhouse and whatever's
[2:03:35] Speaker 1: topical or current on the high Side. So it's another
[2:03:38] Speaker 1: way for us to get the information out to you
[2:03:40] Speaker 1: as social media algorithms are pretty iffy and you never
[2:03:44] Speaker 1: really know what you're gonna get. So this is a
[2:03:46] Speaker 1: once a week email. It'll slide into your inbox and
[2:03:49] Speaker 1: it will have you know the greatest hits of that week.
[2:03:51] Speaker 1: It's really good Dan checking it out. The website for
[2:03:56] Speaker 1: it is Teamhouse Podcast dot kit dot com, slash Join
[2:04:00] Speaker 1: Teamhouse Podcast dot kit dot com slash join h You
[2:04:05] Speaker 1: go there and you enter into your email list, or
[2:04:07] Speaker 1: you enter your email into the little thing on the
[2:04:11] Speaker 1: website and you're good to go, and that'll be it.
[2:04:14] Speaker 1: So we really appreciate your support and I hope you'll
[2:04:16] Speaker 1: consider signing up.
[2:04:18] Speaker 2: Where's the link?
[2:04:19] Speaker 1: The link will also be down the description If you're
[2:04:22] Speaker 1: looking for it, there and that's Teamhouse podcast, dot kit
[2:04:26] Speaker 1: k I, t kilo India, tango dot com, backslash, Join
[2:05:01] Speaker 1: assass

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