Jocko Podcast 24 with Jody Mitic – “Unflinching”

This is Jaco podcast number 24 with Echo Charles and me Jaco Willink And our guest tonight is Jody Mik Jody is a former Canadian Army soldier and sniper who served in Afghanistan He now serves as an elected member of the Ottawa City Council He got second place in a show called The Amazing Race He authored a best-selling book about his experiences He’s a husband and a dad And beyond all that Jody is a real hero an absolute inspiration to anybody that knows his story which is what we will be talking about tonight Welcome to the show Jody Thank you Jaco Did I miss anything? Joo Mega fan Thanks man No I appreciate that Also with us is Echo Charles Good evening Ekko Good evening Now before we dig into your book Yeah I wanted to start off with an excerpt of a poem by Rard Kipling and it’s called The Young British Soldier And I think this is a little bit appropriate since Canada is a former part of the Commonwealth of England and now part of the Commonwealth And while Kipling was never actually a soldier he did attend the United Service College in England which kind of prepared young men for the army although he never joined But he did spend many years abroad in the British colonies And he also lost his only son John in World War I at the Battle of Lu in September of 1915 where there was just about a 100 000 casualties in a matter of days And John Kipling was last seen lurching through the mud blindly crying out in agony after his face had been ripped apart by an exploding shell And this poem that I’m about to read a part of is not about World War I It’s about the British wars that took place from the 1830s till the early 1900s in a part of the world called Afghanistan And here is this uh latter part of that poem When first under fire and you’re wishful to duck don’t look nor take heed at the man that is struck Be thankful you’re living and trust to your luck and march to your front like a soldier Front front like a soldier If your officer’s dead and the sergeants look white remember it’s ruined to run from a fight So take open order lie down and sit tight and wait for supports like a soldier Wait wait wait like a soldier When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s planes and the women come out to cut up what remains just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your god like a soldier Go go go like a soldier And I think that poem sets a tone for what kind of a place Afghanistan can be Yeah It’s been a while since I heard that Yeah That last line’s not not a joke either No it isn’t Um and we’re going to get there in your book here in a minute Your book is called Unflinching This is the book right here And I kind of made that connection with the unflinching part You being a sniper you obviously can’t be flinching when you’re taking a shot right? And this whole thing kicks off the first chapter which the name of the first chapter is awesome because this is something that I believe is something that a lot of people have I know I damn sure did The first chapter is called the soldier in the child And I think that describes a lot of people that joined the military Yeah It’s the thing that’s in there It’s they’re born with it You were born with it I know I was born with it Yeah It’s all I ever wanted to do It’s all I want to do believe me Now your mom how did she feel about all that? She resisted uh like any ‘ 80s mom right? You’re How old are you again? 44 So you’re a little older than I am But my mom being a foster kid read all the books and all the books at the time said boys should play with Barbies and girls should play with Tonka trucks and and treat them genderneutral and blah blah blah But guess what? If you put boys in a room and girls in a room with toys the boys play with Tonka trucks and the girls play with the Barbies That’s just the way it is Yeah As a matter of fact my son I had two two daughters that were young and our house and I didn’t want them I’m not going to have them have all these Barbies I don’t even know where they came from but they showed up at my house and guess what? My son was born and I was all worried oh he’s going to be playing with Barbies That kid that kid didn’t care about Barbies He didn’t care about them Anything that had wheels on it Yeah It’s just And it’s just boys and girls are different Yeah They’re just different And and uh you know what? I know lots of women that are great soldiers I’m not saying that that they don’t have it but mom wanted you know uh no guns uh GI Joes but no you know couldn’t keep the weapons Um and you know and I and I love her for it because who knows who I would have been if she had maybe if she had fostered it it would have it would have fizzled out I don’t know Um but yeah all I want to do was soldier since I was a since I was a little boy So your mom had that attitude and then along came uh Uncle Jim Yeah Yeah Uncle Jim And Uncle Tell us a little bit about Uncle Jim Well I mean I just saw him the the last weekend actually He lives in Victoria where where Mr Ekko was born And um he when when you’re a child right there’s nothing more impressionable than a three-year-old really right? And when I was three he would back then uh if you were in uniform you could ride the train for free and get the bus for free And so he would ride the train in uniform when he had his uh leave and he’d show up at the house and he’d bring me teddy bears and I was like this is obviously the coolest dude ever and whatever he does I want to do it And he would tell stories about what he did you know and he was you know he was an infantry soldier same regiment that I joined and uh and and that was the seed I assume No one really knows This is just family lore right? Where because mom didn’t like it Dad was a bluecollar auto worker Uh his dad was in the army but it was like conscripted into the Serbian border guard When the when the when the German army showed up he basically threw his hands up was like “Yep I’m cool Don’t shoot ” Um you know mom’s dad apparently was in the army but no one knows cuz he died when she was 10 Um no one’s really sure what he did you know apparently he was in Korea but there’s no record of it So um anyway it’s just it was there and Jim I think was the catalyst that that sparked it Sparked it at when I was just a young little impressionable boy That happens Now when you got to be a teenager you know you kind of sounded in the book you sound like Yes You sound like a teenager You know what I mean? And I mean just to go here in your book you say “I was a loner who didn’t fit in I still dreamt of being in the army probably because I wanted to belong to something ” Yeah And it was definitely clear I didn’t belong in school I hated school I hate Especially cuz when you get to high school and I don’t know how you guys Well I’ve heard you talk a little bit about it It sounded like you had the same issues like definitely couldn’t connect with any of your teachers The only teacher I remember I had this one teacher I forget his name but he was Scottish originally and he was my history teacher Like the only um subject I cared about was history really And he would tell stories about everything else he ever did in life before he was a teacher And I was like “Okay this guy actually has some [ __ ] that I need to hear because he’s been around the world and he’s done everything ” the rest of them Oh I joined I became a teacher at a college and this is how you type And I’d be like why am I even here? What am I doing here doing math? I I you know snipers you know we eat ballistic charts for breakfast And math was useless to me in high school And uh yeah I just the last thing I wanted to be was in school And I actually cuz this this was the the ‘9s right? So that was still when you could quit school to join the army And I was like “Oh I’m just going to quit school and join the army ” And my parents like basically had to beg me to stay They let me join the reserves which in in Canada is called the militia And it’s like once a week and a weekend a month They’re like “You can do that but don’t quit school Finish school ” I like all right But it it was like completely against my will But they finally got you They finally let you join You joined the militia right? And then but but you weren’t still weren’t active duty Well the militia in Canada you can be called up to active duty but it’s not like we chatted a little bit about this on the way here where you guys have a different system here cuz yours is much bigger but also like the militia in Canada was the military before World War II basically So regiments were local Uh it was a part-time thing you know it was kind of like um it was the what is that? What do they call it? The citizen soldier And uh the regular army was just there to kind of give them an enemy force and and take care of the the the machine guns and the howitzers like the dozen or so that we had at the time And it wasn’t until after World War II that it flipped because it was you know the Cold War started and all that jazz So you know um at any time the regular army now into the ’90s could say “You know what? We need 10 reserve soldiers to to fill in a platoon here and you could volunteer ” And I remember when I showed up to my my reserve unit there were sergeants sewing private stripes onto their uniforms because they were called up to the regular army but you’re not a sergeant Like you’re qualifi because to keep guys in the reserves they promote them faster But when you go work with the regs like they’re not going to call you a sergeant You’ve been in as long as Corporal Smith Uh-uh Private stripes [ __ ] Yeah So uh but but guys guys we guys would fight each other to get those slots though cuz there was nothing better more honorable than to deploy with a reggg force regiment Absolutely And go you know peacekeeping but you know there’s still a few gunfights here and there I thought this was cool In the book you talked about this here You’re basically starting boot camp and you say you just get your haircut you get your head shaved for the first time Once the barber was done I studied myself in his mirror I barely recognized the young man staring back at me The eyes were the same but everything else was different I wasn’t Jodie midic layabout loner high school good for nothing another floundering adolescent with no ambition and no life plan That kid was lying under a pile of hair on the floor Looking back at me was Jodie Midik soldier in training I had goosebumps So legit Yeah Well so I had at the time Lethal Weapon 2 was my favorite movie ever So I had like attempted straight Mel Gibson Oh dude It was glorious Oh you should have seen it Uh who’s next? Yeah Oh yeah Walking around smoking cigarettes and pretending Yeah Anyway just being ridiculous But you know it happened to me again recently cuz I had grown my beard out and I had a bit of I had some long hair and I did I did it I shaved the beard down to nothing and I went to the barber who usually like does his best to give me a little bit of length but still make me look professional and I said “I want you to give me a number one all around “ That’s what I’m talking about And this was just this was just like a month ago and you know he he did all that and you know your skin feels cold because now the airs on it And I looked in the mirror and it was almost the same feeling I went “Oh oh there he is “ I was like “There’s that soldier ” And I remember the feeling because it was the guy’s name was Marco He was this Italian guy who cut my hair And he couldn’t believe it cuz he had fostered this ridiculous mullet for the last two years And now I said “Shave it off “ Because I showed him a picture of a Marine I said “I want to look like this guy “ And when he shaved it and then it It was like I was at the starting line of of like the biggest race I’d ever going to run in my life and and all I could think about was getting to the end and being successful And it changed my life man It changed my life Yeah You know what? One thing that cuz when I was a kid you was into this is going a little bit tangential but I was into the hardcore scene on the East Coast Hardcore music That’s what I grew up with And it was like yeah shaved heads getting after it But one of my my best friend at the time he’s like listen you know we’re part of this where there’s nowhere to hide You can’t hide behind your bangs It’s all right there You got to face yourself Nice And it also strips away you know any kind of I mean hair is basically uh uh what’s that word? It’s basically for show I mean that’s what hair is It has no purpose other than I look good So let’s just go ahead and remove that I don’t care what I look like I’m here to win So yeah I guess that might explain my haircut in some way But it I’m glad you picked that that that paragraph because when I did this a month ago was when I started my training for for a bodybuilding show I decided to do And I thought I was like I was having trouble getting into it you know? Uh I know how to do everything I know how to eat well I know how to work out I have been working out since I was like 16 but I just wasn’t it wasn’t clicking you know? And I went to the barber and I did that and it was like the switch went off Boom And there it was I was like “Oh I’m back at that starting line I’m going to be 40 in January so I want a six-pack before I’m 40 I don’t know Since I got blown up I haven’t had one It’s been 10 years “ Right on All right So now we get in this next section Now you’re kind of learning about what the army’s like And here’s some stuff that you said about it There was a system for everything in the army A way to stand and a way to sit a way to dress and a way to sleep There’s also a way to a system for how to properly eat at the mess hall Our routine was an endless monotonous cycle We woke up made our CS folded our sleeping bags in the exact way we’d been taught Once the tent was in shape it was on to barracks barrack boxes We had to lay them out as instructed with everything in its proper place whether it made sense or not We had to stand beside our kit and CS everyone perfectly still as the officer did inspection At the time I thought that so much of this discipline was overkill Why did we have to stand at attention when the officer was on the other side of the tent looking at some other dude’s cotton kit? Why did our barracks boxes have to be identical? It took me a couple years to figure out that the skills they were drilling into us are actually really important for a combat leader If you can’t still stand still long enough for morning inspection how can your commanders trust you to hold your post during a mortar barrage? How will a leader know he can count on you to be a useful soldier if you can’t even follow through on an order meant to keep you and your comrades safe even if you don’t know it at the time? All these drills were training me to put self-disipline above my instinct to flinch or flee When everything in me told me to break my posture to stand down I learned to obey a different order instead It was basic training but I was assimilating some important skills that would later make me a better sniper Now I talk about discipline all the time Yeah And that’s obviously why I honed in on this because you kind of captured the kind of things that they’re teaching you discipline They’re teaching you discipline And if you don’t make that connection for all you young troopers out there that are getting ready to join the military there’s a purpose There’s a reason behind it A definite purpose And you know that’s part of my book is the book that I wrote with Leif You know it’s one of the chapters is called discipline equals freedom Yeah There’s another chapter in there It happens to be called cover and move Yeah And you know we relate it to everything we do To me there’s no other tactic And again I had to call this out in your book And by the way I’m reading your book right now Yeah And I was trying to figure out how to do this Yeah like should I say “Okay can you read this section?” And then I thought to myself it’s going to be different for you to hear it coming from someone else to hear the words And when I looked up at you after reading that first section I was like he just enjoyed that I did Yeah Because you’re hearing it You can’t you can never hear it When you hear yourself read it you’re it’s like I don’t know It doesn’t I have my own reaction cuz they’re my words But I especially from someone like like you someone who’s shared relatively common experiences and you know I was a sniper team leader you were a you were a task force leader and for for us to have a similar reaction to the same types of things is it’s very interesting for me to see as well to see someone like Joo read the same thing that I went through and go yes exactly because you got It took me a couple years to realize like I said why why am I standing here? This is stupid This is just go out Let’s just go out there and train Well you are training [ __ ] You’re learning how to do what you’re told And you’re learning how to back because if you take off from your barracks box well guess who’s going to pay for it? The guy next to you And you know beyond doing what you’re told even in that paragraph you point it out Look the the the inspector’s looking the other direction You could easily break your posture Yeah You know he’s not going to see you never going to catch you But guess what? You held the line Yeah you held the line And that’s what you’re learning is that no matter what no matter if people are looking or not you’re going to do your job That’s your duty right? It’s your job It’s the job right? It’s the job And people what’s the what makes a good soldier? It’s someone who who understands their job is to be that soldier And I know okay I know what I’m saying and you know what I’m saying but you got to go through that to really understand it And me and you can give advice all day to people like new new guys We get when you tweeted out I was coming Oh I’m getting ready to go on selection I’m getting ready to go to I want to be a sniper I’m joining the infantry What do I do? What do I do? I can give you advice all day Joo can give you advice all day But man there’s some things you just got to learn on your own And that’s that standing there with your boots polished at full at you know standing at the chow wondering why you had to iron your shirt again is going to help you later on when you’re under enemy machine gun fire and and mortars are coming down Trust me that shit’s going to help you Yeah but you’re going to learn that on your own Now back to cover and move Uh here you go talking about cover and move In our pairs one guy would move forward while the other guy would shoot to provide cover The mover would yell moving and jump up and move forward about three steps saying in his head up he sees me down while his partner covered him At down the mover would take cover going to ground taking up a firing position and yelling covering once in position Then his partner would move forward the same way The idea was to always have a foot on the ground which means one soldier is covering while the other is moving Boom And you just and you just had to break that out on your own team at work now in the civilian sector right? Yeah Yeah We had lunch and uh the best thing I got out of reading your book My transition was a weird one Okay Politics is not business but there are some business aspects and that I’m now dealing with people that aren’t you know I’ I’m used to working in small teams with people that are professionals at what we do you know so snipers And even though that was 10 years ago that’s basically my last real working environment That’s what you know as that’s what I know So if even if I’m the boss and and you’re my sniper and I go “Eko I need you to take up this position ” I can go away come back that position’s taken But when you’re dealing with civilian staff who have never operated in that kind of or we say operated they’ve never worked in that kind of environment If I tell them to do something and walk away you better come back and check because they’re not used to that kind of freedom cuz it’s discipline but it’s you’re giving them I’m giving you the freedom to do the job I gave you You don’t need me to to double check that you took up the proper sniper position And then also the fire and the cover and move the foot on the ground I realized after reading your book I went so Jaco just basically was like listen dummy b that’s how I felt I felt like a dummy I’m like of course I should have implemented this in the office My people were operating in silos cuz I had my my because I’m the sports commissioner for the city So I had a sports one of my assistants was on sports one of my assistants was on the policy and one of my assistants was on um con constituency work and that’s where you deal with the the the voters who call in But none of them were talking to each other and I was only talking to them sporadically So I said “Okay guys from starting today ” I didn’t tell them why though I I wasn’t like I wasn’t going to say “Hey this guy Jo gave me an idea ” I said “Hey guys I got an idea from now on CC You’re going to CC him and you’re going to CC him back whenever you send an email and then I’m going to CC you and you’re going to CC me Within that week our productivity like 100% improvement because now instead of everyone was just aware of what what the others were doing and and they’re things that I already know but now I got to learn to apply them in my civilian life because I’m not working with highly trained snipers anymore I’m working with people that are good at their jobs but not necessarily the way that I expected them to be And it you know there’s there’s so much we were talking about it right before we we pressed record about why is your the last podcast was the art of war Mhm And and to to us it’s kind of like a duh You know Joe Rogan says all the time it’s a duh That’s a duh thing But there’s so much you can take from that book and and there’s a reason why Fortune 500 CEOs keep it in their desk because it you can apply a lot of what Sun Sue said 3 000 years ago to right now and just to your daily life to your interactions with your kids interactions with your your boss or your subordinates or or or your supplier or your you know your your colleagues It’s all right there It’s just you got to translate it you know uh it’s not um difficult ground It’s you know it’s a position you have to take on a on an issue Mhm So yeah like I get I it’s a trip to me this whole life this whole thing It’s uh it’s human nature Yeah That that thread of human nature runs through from 2500 years ago at Sunsu through war through life through business through the relationships that you now have with your kids Yeah It’s everywhere kids Now you since you were uh militia you actually went back to school after you went to boot camp So you get back to school and this is very typical Before militia training I’d been so bored at school and found everything tedious and pointless But after eight weeks of soldier training school seemed like a breeze I started arriving on time and paying attention to lessons In the military you can direct your career according to your aptitudes and interests So I decided to do the same at school Instead of taking classes I hated I picked ones I knew I would enjoy My grades improved because I was doing more of what I wanted to do For the first time I had discipline and self-direction And instead of all that energy being repressed or coming out the wrong way I had focus I went from being a loner and keeping to myself to becoming more outgoing and popular at school That discipline goes a long way It really goes along And see I went to college after I’d been in the SEAL teams for eight years No sorry 10 years So when I went to college I was like “Oh bring it Bring it on I’m going to study every little thing you say and I’m going to know it better than you “ But I found I was a better student Oh absolutely After going through boot camp No doubt about it Uh and basic training it just like learning became easier Yeah Oh yeah Yeah Even if I didn’t want to know what they were talking about Yeah And that’s something that the army imposes on you is they’ll teach you something Yeah And for the first time you cuz in civilian world when you’re a kid they go “Oh you got to learn this ” And you don’t study and next thing you know you don’t really know it And then you take the test and you fail and you’re like “I’m not smart I’m I’m an idiot ” In the army like “No you will learn this ” Then and then and then you learn it and you say “Oh okay That’s how I learn I actually have to apply myself and study and now I’m going to get an A Yeah Which is awesome So then now you still weren’t active in the military and you weren’t to get your factory work on Yeah Well I was I was as active as I had to be Uhhuh Cuz it’s you know it’s part time Right Right And then you know there was a girl Mhm this beautiful Russian girlfriend And um you know dad got me a great paying job But I’ll let you I’ll let you say Yeah No that’s that’s good And then finally you were like “Okay I’m ready to I mean you you worked in that factory situation for so long then you said I’m going to go ” Well it was about a year and I was making money that like it was like 25 bucks an hour Dang I was 19 What was it? 96 I think And uh I hated it I’m sorry dad if you’re if you hear this cuz he got me the job and it was with his parent company cuz he was in the union He was in the we had the Canadian Auto Workers down here with it’s the United Auto Workers and uh you just it just it just it was soul crushing for me for me And nothing against guys that can do it There are guys that have worked there 30 years They put the same rivet in over and over and over again for eight hours a day and they’re masters at it and they love it and they punch their card and they go home and they do their thing wasn’t for Jody I know So you get back you now you go full active duty You become you become a soldier by profession right? So I I I do what we call a a transfer to the regular force and and then on top of that usually you’re supposed to go through training again depending on your level of experience cuz I was only about 3 years So I should have gone through what what back what’s called battle school and that’s that’s the regular army’s battle school to to become an infantry soldier For whatever reason the decision was made that I wouldn’t Okay So you don’t go back in and but you are back active duty and now you’d think that Jody was all super squared away now but you weren’t were you? Well it was a it was a rough transition Joo Well yeah That came after Yeah We don’t You’re active duty right? Well yeah I’m a full-time privateier I was a corporal in the reserves right? Busted back down to private Show up There’s a lot of politics going on uh right now in at this time because the regular arm is being told it has to take reserves whereas before it was like if you need them you can take them Now it’s even if you don’t need them you’re going to take 30% So you have a battalion of infantry guys Let’s say one RCR at full strength is usually uh at this time it was about 700 Cut 30% off of active duty good to go guys and now they’re put aside and 30% reser show up to take their spot Ouch Yeah So that and this was mandated by our headquarters And so the politics within the unit was can I we’re allowed to swear on this right? Yeah Yeah Uh the reggg force guys were all like [ __ ] you and the horse you came in on and and that horse’s mom and anybody else associated with that horse I show up They thought because I was a they thought I was a reserve cuz the RCR has a reserve battalion So they they thought I was a reserve RCR And then when they found out I was a direct entry which means I go directly from the reserves into the reggg force without going through the RCR battle school Huh? So they just gave you that CAT badge Well well yeah but I did basic training in the reserves three years ago Oh Oh you did huh? And I got Man it was rough It was rough But it it And it got rougher because you got in trouble Yeah Yeah So I don’t know why you By the way just so you know you wrote this in the book that’s been published So acting like this didn’t happen now is a little bit too late You got arrested I did get arrested I don’t trust anyone who hasn’t at least been handcuffed Yeah that’s a good point Right Uh I made a mistake So we were now well I the preamble to this was that I did eventually get sent to the RCR Battle School and that’s where I I did get arrested another one of the trainees and I uh well the whole platoon went out Of course being young men we somehow found ourselves out at a uh gentleman’s nightclub and uh we were enjoying our evening and one of the guys who decided he wanted to get some cocaine and I was how old was I? 20 I had never even seen the stuff except for in Miami Vice Um and I’m like what’s the point? We’re already here We’re having fun I’m already got a few drinks got some girls uh sitting with us Why why leave? And he was adamant So I guess in his civilian life this was something he got got into And in my mind I was just like “Okay so he’s going to like leave on his own and go somewhere where you like in Miami Vice it’s always like the worst part of town ” Guess what? It was the worst part of town So I’m like “Okay I’m going to go with you Uh I don’t I don’t need any but but I’ll be there in case they try to mug you or jump you Turns out he was buying it from an undercover cop cuz you know like who else you going to buy it off right? And then when after they bust us so we’re like walking back to the club I’m like “Okay finally right? I can get back and start hanging with the girls again start getting my drink on “ We get tackled by guys bigger than you and I Uh and and like they’re so they’re the under they’re the Narc guys and they’re like “What are you doing? You crazy ” They look at our ID You guys are in the in the army and you’re going to smoke crack And I’m like “What?” Like I look at the guy I’m like “What’s he talking about?” He’s like “Well I might have they might not have had any coke so I might have bought ” And I’m like “Oh my gosh ” I’m just like but now that’s the reality of my life right? And I can’t There’s no going back There’s no changing it And it was it was at the time I described it as the worst year of my life but maybe it was the best the the subsequent year because it taught me a lot about myself It Yeah And that’s the main reason why I kind of wanted to tell that Yeah I wanted you to talk about that because number one like you said it’s a mistake that you made that you know I’ve had that feeling too before where you’re you’re just like “Okay this is my reality now There’s no you can’t go backwards ” Yeah you’re cuffed And yet you had you transitioned from it And in the book here’s how you kind of talk about that transition because they’re going to send you back to Meford What’s it me? Meford was the battle school So they’re going to send you to the battle school for another crack at it Your third crack at it My second crack at battle school but my third infantry course Yeah So here’s what you did And by the way you were teeter tottering this whole time They don’t know if they’re going to kick you out They might let you in because just so everybody knows the cops even took your side and you know they said hey this guy didn’t have anything to do with it but it didn’t matter the military will sometimes guilty by association association Yeah So the the the London the police department was like Jody you clearly had nothing to do with it but yeah guilty by association right and so they go back and forth Finally you get orders Okay we’re going to let you stay in and now you say this I had two choices I could be pissed off forever and feel hard done by Or I could go back to Mefford with a new attitude and make the best of it I could keep my head high and get off the bus with the shiniest boots the best pressed uniform the best laidout kit and the best attitude and be in the best shape of anybody there And that’s what you did That’s what I did So anybody that’s out there that’s listening to this podcast that hit a little bump in the road that’s what you do You show up with the best attitude the best shape with your head held high and you get after it Extreme ownership You got to own it Yeah There’s no hiding from it There’s no explaining your way out of it There’s no side no sideways maneuver you’re going to make You’re that guy I was that guy Oh there’s that guy Yeah So now fast forwarding a little bit uh you deploy Now you’re now you’re legit part of the regiment Yep Finally And you deploy to Kosovo which at the time was a real world mission I’m sure you were fired up I know I would have been fired I didn’t go to Kosovo but I would have been fired up to go to Kosovo because it was the only game in town I still remember when our C when our commanding officer said he we got we gathered up in the parade hall and he said when RCR is going to Kosovo and I still remember I was st you know we’re you know how it at ease you got your hand behind your back my hand went into a fist and I had to stop myself from doing a fist bump I was just like yeah you are going to become James Bond Chuck Norris and Rambo all in one moment Oh it’s going to be glorious So you go to Kosamo and and you know what? Yeah we’re kind of joking about it but it was a legit mission at the time There was there was stuff that was happening there I like this little section here You got you’re talking about the Russians cuz you’re stationed near some Russian folks And you said this we like to think we’re tough as as Canadians but it turned out this Russian unit where we’re were Russian airborne who had come from the fighting in Cheshna And we’ve gone into some pretty deep You guys talked about Cheshn Yeah we talked about Cheshn here These guys took things to a whole new level They were hardcore soldiers We would complain when our showers weren’t giving us warm water Then we’d look over to the Russian camp and see soldiers outside in minus 25° washing themselves with snow or out in t-shirts cutting firewood These guys were sleeping in World War II era tents while we were sweating inside our heated barracks And every morning they’d be outside in the ball freezing cold running doing chin-ups and bench pressing big truck tires These guys were legit Yeah Yeah And we didn’t know there was some there was some stuff going on at the Pristina airport at that time That’s why they were there Do you remember? Do you remember this situation at all? Brief me So NATO did its bombing thing right? Bomb the Serbians out of Kosovo basically And then it was like okay so a NATO stabilization force K4 the the Kosovo stabiliza or whatever it was um was going to move in and you know everyone was going to get a sector British Russian or British Canadian French blah blah blah Right as we’re like loading up on our vehicles that brigade or I don’t know how many big it was of Russians just basically showed up in the middle of the night at the Pristina airport which was also a military airport And they set up a perimeter around this like mountain bunker in there which just recently I read an article about it and they were like “Yeah hey guys it’s been however it’s been 20 years Uh this is what was in there ” Oh [ __ ] it was full of stuff that shouldn’t have been there So that’s that’s why everybody was like “Well what are they doing here?” Why do they only want to be there? Cuz they were like “Yeah we’re here to help guys Uh we’re just going to be right here in this area Don’t ever come in here or or we’ll kill you but we’ll be right here We’re just here to help No big deal We want to we want to be part of the part of the exercise ” But they were there to guard this this like bunker And there was like a lot of there was like I guess there was some nuclear and biological weapons in there and and some MiGs that should never have been in that part of Europe apparently And in the middle of the night you’d hear planes taking off and nobody knew what they were Uh but you know nothing really of substantial events happened in Kosovo Um you get home from that and this is when you get the opportunity to go to sniper training which is you know outstanding And and I thought you did a great job here of pointing out what a sniper is because people have little ideas in their heads about what a sniper is And here’s Jod’s version of what a sniper is A true sniper is someone who’s willing to do pretty much anything to accomplish the mission The sniper has a particular mindset and shooting is actually one of the easier parts of the role I’ve seen men at the rifle range who are amazing marksmen but who would be terrible snipers because they don’t have the patience They lack the ability to deny their own needs and to put the mission first A true sniper will make himself uncomfortable just to make the shot That is something so true The guys think that the that what a sniper is someone that shoots really well Yeah Yeah That’s that’s the least that’s the easiest thing I can teach you Right If I need you to be a sniper that’s the easiest thing I can get you to do You you know that movie Shooter with our buddy Mark Wahlberg there I I have not seen it It’s based on a book about uh a Vietnam era sniper or something But anyway he he takes this like guy who’s just teams up with him for the movie and he makes him the shooter like the the he teaches him how to shoot cuz that’s the easy part All that other stuff I I talk about that’s the part I’m looking for That’s what I’m looking for in a sniper You could shoot all day I could put you on the range and you could shoot bullse eyes from 900 meters all day As long as you got your Gatorade as long as you get your 10-minute break As long as I let you get up and go pee pee But what if I don’t let you do any of that stuff? Then what? Oh is it sunny out? That’s too bad Yeah it’s sunny out Yeah Oh is it going to rain? Yep Don’t get up Your target might come up But what if there’s ants crawling and biting your eyes? The eyes is problematic I would admit I would I would allow you to scratch the ants out of your eyes but but your target might come up while you’re scratching I wouldn’t get up if I was you The all the sniper courses definitely And you talk about in the book You talk about stalking That’s something that no one I haven’t seen that movie but no one really understands the difficulty and the challenging and the self-discipline It’s an exercise in stealth self-discipline to crawl you know one meter every 10 minutes It’s hard to get to a position where you can see your target and take the shot because you have to Yeah because you have to have the patience to and the mindset too Like I don’t know if it made it into the book I can’t I know you should know your own book but um I remember I was I was leopard crawling with a guy and we were on it wasn’t even a sniper thing It was just like a a field uh like um like a fieldcraft thing So we were learning how to just stalk just as soldiers And we were we were side by side but he was literally on an elevation maybe 4 in higher than me And I remember I was looking at him and I was like “Ah that’s not a good spot to be ” I freeze Boom Walker came over got him I was I was in direct line of sight but I was just that 4 in lower You got to like have the patience to look at the ground and go m I’m going to go this way even though it’s out of your way because you can’t be within sight of of the spotters or of the enemy And that guy went on to become our tier he he joined our tier one unit He’s a he’s a JTF guy but I remember at that time so it’s not like he was a dummy or anything and and and he might have learned a valuable lesson He probably learned a lesson But but that’s the mindset I’m looking for from day one from a guy that I’m going to put through sniper school cuz we don’t we don’t have a lot of numbers in Canada You know like I was telling you at any given time there might be 150 maybe 180 snipers active at any time in the in the forces And that might and that you know if you add in our tier one tier two guys or maybe there’s 200 So I don’t have time to to go looking for the best guys you know you have to come you basically got to come to come to us And uh and so I’m looking for the patience I’m looking for the guy who’s going to take that extra five minutes and look at the ground He’s who’s not going to when I tell him “Okay you can go go start stalking who’s going to sit there for another 5 10 minutes lose that time but study the route on his map you know because it’s easy to start and run and then you go “Oh man oh [ __ ] I should know where I’m going “ And no no time spent on the map is time saved on the ground right? And you so you’re looking for that guy and and there’s just it’s a it’s a it’s probably the same with SEALs You just you don’t it’s hard to describe but you know it when you see it So you get done with sniper school you spend some more time and then September 11th happens Game on And the opportunity comes up for you to go on deployment Now you had already been through sniper school You were a sniper but the opportunity there’s no opportunity for a sniper deploy What they need is a driver right? Which a driver slash uh security Yeah which is which is I mean it’s definitely a dangerous job It’s definitely a monotonous job It’s not it’s not a glorious job by any stretch but and and also what’s rough about being a driver is you have a lot less control over your own fate I mean you’re basically in a defensive situation When you’re driving in a convoy you’re in a defensive situation That’s all there is to it So here you are You’re a target Yeah You’re a target You’ve been trained to be the hunter and now you get an offer to go on deployment to be the hunted basically as a driver And of course because you’re a warrior you say “Oh you need a driver You don’t need a sniper but I’m going to go to Afghanistan “ All right bring it on Yeah that was it It was stay home or be a driver Pretty easy choice for pretty simple So now you were What were these little Jeeps you were driving? Eltus So uh it’s What do you guys got that’s comparable? Nothing Um is it just like a little Land Rover type vehicle? Yeah but it’s like not even like it’s it’s a it’s almost a class of its own Is it armored? No no it’s like a little um dune buggy looking thing It had like a four-cylinder engine built originally by Volkswagen Um we they were roughly the same like look as an original Willy’s Jeep Okay But that’s where the sim similarities ended And you get to Afghanistan and you’re you’re drive where where are you? Where were you? Kaboo That was Kabool And so you’re driving people around the city Yeah From base to wherever they got to go do from the airport to our main base which was um what was the name of that camp again? Our sorry I forget the main camp we had in Afghanistan but it was between the king and queen’s palace Got it And uh yeah they’d go there or because it was um officers and liaison officers mostly that we worked with right? So it’d be like go leazison with the Turkish guys go leazison with the Germans go leazison with this Afghan warlord to a dinner somewhere you’d sit around waiting drive them back Yeah Yeah Basically And we’d be as bodyguards when he was there and stuff And I mean like we said there’s a threat M you you obviously were prepared for anything of course but you you know there wasn’t a super high threat right? However there’s always a threat and I’m going to the book here The ILS jeeps were not designed to withstand an attack This fact became starkly apparent when three three RCR guys were driving Iltus and hit a landmine Two of them Sergeant Robert Short and Corporal Rob Bernerfanger died immediately And the driver TJ Sterling a friend of mine survived though he was injured After the incident TJ was brought to the hospital at Camp Warehouse and me and another one of the guys from the regiment went to see him This was the first time I’d seen one of our guys hit by a landmine In fact it was the first time I’d seen a casualty at all TJ was pretty banged up A couple of his teeth were broken and he may have had a broken jaw He had lacerations all over There’s always a particular odor in the hospitals around people who have suffered traumatic injuries I remember smelling that odor like blood or maybe just what I thought blood smelled like TJ was on a stretcher with big wheels We’d use this kind of stretcher before in training To me it was a kind of prop This thing we used for simulations But this was not a simulation This was the real thing TJ was still in shock It had taken a few hours for him to be extracted from the scene of the explosion “Shorty and Bernfanger are gone ” he said “Yeah man ” we replied We heard “I need a smoke man I need a smoke “ TJ said The doctors and nurses wouldn’t allow it but as soon as they were out of the vicinity we lit a cigarette for TJ and gave him a couple of drags Ah that’s way better Thanks We stayed and chatted with TJ about some inconsequential things trying to keep a fellow royal in a good state of mind For me personally I was learning from what was happening facing the reality that when things go wrong you have to get that smell in your nostrils and look those sights right in the eye Sadly a few years later TJ ended up taking his own life I was a pawbearer at his funeral And as I carried his coffin I wondered if he carried guilt for being the lone survivor in that incident So really to me that’s like you’re welcome to war Yeah And when you talked about getting that smell in your nostrils and looking those sights right in the eyes That’s I think an important thing for people to remember Yeah You know when things are bad some people want to deny that it’s happening They want to hold their nose and shield their eyes from it Wrong answer Breathe it in Yeah In our gig especially breathe it in you have to that you have in our line of work that’s the norm and I’ll tell you having working with worked with a bunch of different companies in bunch of different industries they run into these situations too you know where their company’s going to fail or there there’s a problem there’s there’s things go wrong and no you know what lives are not at stake And I say this all the time but livelihoods are And if you’re the CEO of a company you’re going to have to now lay off 500 people a thousand people three people and now that person’s not going to be able to afford their mortgage or pay for their kids or get food on the table That is serious business You’re ruining someone’s life And if you want to shield your eyes at that moment and you want to hold your nose so you don’t have to smell it you’re wrong Yeah And obviously this too here for TJ is you know we’re talking about the psychological wounds that people get Yeah Which for him were worse than his physical wounds He I remember one time after I got hit um cuz he he he actually came back with us in in ‘ 06 on the tour I was wounded on and he stayed in the talk the whole time But um I remember we were back and I you know I was hit and we were at his house and we were having a little bit of a party and he he was crying because he couldn’t believe that he cuz he got you know he was wounded and he got a monthly stippen for for his injuries and he was still but he was still active duty and stuff and and and I when I got wounded we had a new veterans system come in where I just got like a lump sum payment and and he was crying about you know how how is it that he can get this money but I only get this money And Jody what happened to you is so much worse than what happened to me And I was why are you worried about I’m I’m okay man I’m alive We’re here We’re having some drinks But he was so tore up inside about what happened to me versus what happened to him what happened to Shorty and Baronfinger And uh he he just carried that And I’ve and and you hear about that survivor’s guilt thing and you don’t realize how real it is till you see it And even after I got wounded when I came home I felt like [ __ ] because my boys were still back there And then when they went back in 2010 cuz our unit rotated back into theater it killed me I was dying inside That’s my the those are my guys you know they’re over there without me and I’m I’m letting them down because I was I told them I was going back with them I said “Don’t worry guys I’ll get better I’ll go back ” And I had to like really come to grips with that And you know TJ couldn’t you know we we lose too many guys to that to that stuff But I’ve I don’t know I never had those thoughts I never thought of of ending my own life ever But um I’ve known enough guys that have done it that clearly it becomes an option to some people And I’m I’m at the point with it because it it just happened uh uh maybe a month ago with an with a guy I worked with in the Green Beretss and uh I I just don’t think we can save them all I don’t know if any of your guy I mean I think I texted you when it happened or I tweeted it You did you texted me and and that one really my wife Elena she’s never seen me cry and I cried that night for Johnny and and it was because we we thought we had him He was living at one of the guys house that was on the the team that we that we worked with you know uh he had a girlfriend and like things were looking good and uh you know I’ve I’ve I’ve had to come to the conclusion in my own mind that we’re not going to we’re not going to save them all And this is a side effect of the gig of the life we chose that some of our comrades are going to go that direction And if you if I was to dwell on it the way TJ did then I I would become like TJ and I can’t afford to do that You know you use the word dwell and that’s a that’s a word that I use as well I use the word dwell and I and I and I always say that you got to face these things You got to understand these things You got to actually embrace these things You got to bring them in but you can’t dwell on them That’s right Right And I think that’s the key is to is honestly to do what you what you said is to breathe it in to look it in the eye deal with it but don’t dwell on it Move on Stay there That’s right Move on Accept it as a consequence of the actions you’ve chosen and move on to the next step Otherwise you’ll be that guy talking about that high school football pass that you that you caught And it’s I know it’s an analogy that fits here because we talked about this in your car There’s some guys I was a sniper I was a Navy Seal I was a paratrooper I was a machine gunner Whatever it is I was a jiu-jitsu black belt You know whatever it is And that’s where they’re stuck That’s where they’re dwelling They’re in purgatory in that whatever ring of hell you want to call it Stuck in that moment And you got to move on You can’t dwell because that’s where you’re you’re gonna die when you dwell And real simply what you got to do is you got to just take a step Got to take that step forward You got to you got to look got to look it in the eyes Then you got to walk away and you got to walk forward and move forward and make some make go in another direction Go forward Yeah Don’t go backwards Go forward Yeah And and I the other part is accept that maybe you can’t change things Well you can’t change what’s happened in the past Yeah You cannot do that It it happened It happened Yeah And um you’re not going to change it So what are you going to do? Are you going to let it drag you down? Are you going to dwell on it forever? Don’t Don’t do that man I know I know it gets a hold of you I know it’s a tough one It can But deal with it Accept that you can’t change it Accept that you’re here for a reason to do something You have the opportunity that maybe your buddies didn’t get They didn’t get Never mind Maybe you have an opportunity that your buddies did not get You think they would want to have you kill yourself? No They’d want you to live And that’s what you need to do Yeah Honor them Yeah By living an awesome life every day Make the change Be the difference You know you can’t change the world but you could change you could change somebody else’s day You can be the positive influence in your little tiny sphere Your my my influence in the world yours echoes It’s not the world but it makes someone else happy Yeah You can you can be the difference between a good day and a bad day for someone You know when I when I decided that I was going to try and become an officer in the SEAL teams part of that part of my decision was cuz I not like I was going to be an admiral or whatever it’s going to be like just and I said you know what cuz I had a prior enlisted officer that was just made our lives awesome because he was such a great guy Nice And I said to myself you know what? I might not change the world but I’m gonna have a cool SEAL platoon one day and those guys are gonna those guys are gonna be fired up and we’re gonna kick ass Just my little world Just that little thing And no matter where you are you got that little world Maybe like you said maybe it’s one other person maybe it’s just yourself but you make that little part of your world a little bit better Yeah You you you wake up in the morning I firmly believe you decide how that day is going to go Absolutely Whether you know I missed I missed my flight to come down I should have been here yesterday I missed my flight I own that I had a bad morning And I was I think I was even on the phone with you and I said “Yeah extreme ownership My fault ” And you and you giggled at me and you said “Yep uh own it Whatever ” Uh and then I uh my my my my one assistant called me and I said “You know what? I’m done being pissed off you know cuz I can’t I’m not going to let this one thing ruin the rest of my day and the rest of my weekend ” How’s that helping you move forward? How’s that helping the rest of your day? How’s that help you get here right now? Doesn’t help anything That doesn’t mean That doesn’t mean be a robot either though No Deal deal with it Process it Get Don’t Don’t get me wrong I was really mad yesterday morning Uh and it takes a lot cake waiting for you down here I had all kinds of good [ __ ] planned I’m like of all the things to be late for Yeah that’s right A guy like you want a guy like Jaco to think you’re a [ __ ] You know you’re a plug and can’t make a timing But you know everything’s going to be okay I’m here We’re still doing the podcast It’s beautiful weather I got to see my kids I got to pick them up from school cuz I I didn’t think I was going to I got to you know I got to see some friends walk the dogs that day And I and I I but I made that decision myself though I was sitting on my on the edge of the bed I didn’t have my prosthetic legs on yet And I said “Okay you did you pissed off now You’re done ” And I got up and I carried on with the day because and I Okay it’s easy to say it’s easy for us to say take that step Don’t dwell move on But I firmly believe if you decide you can change your circumstance and that’s a decision you have to make in your own mind I firmly believe it And and it might not feel like it today but try again tomorrow Y and then try again the next day And you know what? Call me before you before you make any decisions Just just please just call me first call or if you’re if you have Joo’s number call him because the world is definitely better with you here than without you No doubt about it And I I hate to keep hammering this nail but but it’s just a theme that I’m tire you know I’m tired of of hearing A buddy of mine another sniper had a heart attack um not long after that that guy killed himself He’s a great dude He’s a legend in the Canadian sniper world and he was diabetic and he smoked 1 000 cigarettes a day and drank a million beers a week And uh they said the heart attack was so fast he probably was cuz they found him in bed He was crawling into bed and probably went and was dead before his head even hit the pillow That’s how massive a heart attack it was When I heard it was a heart attack I was actually happy because I cuz when I heard it I went I just went I just went shooting with him He was in a great mood They’re like “Oh no no no no no It was a heart attack ” back and I went “Oh thank God ” Mhm That’s that’s that’s the point I’m at with this with that subject So anyway let’s move on man Let’s talk about puppy dogs and rainbows Okay we’re not there yet I feel like that was a good reference You know miss my flight Good I can bring my kids to school You know all this good that came out of it That’s right So I would like to go rainbows but we’re not there yet All right brother Hit me So now you’re you’re coming back from Afghanistan and you know you got your girlfriend and whatnot and here we go My first tour in Afghanistan ended a few weeks later and I headed back home I was still haunted by all the things I had witnessed in Kabool Images played over and over in my head Whether it was small children begging for money a mother holding a dead baby in the streets or my buddy TJ bloodied up from a roadside bombing my girlfriend expected me to return as the same guy who had left six months earlier but I was a different man now a different Jodie Everything around me looked different too Maybe things hadn’t changed much but I felt like I was on an alien planet My girlfriend had redecorated the house moving some of the furniture around and repainting the bedroom and I found it upset me Life had gone on without me and that fact was hard to take People around me kept saying “What’s wrong with you Jodie? You’ve changed ” And that would make me even more upset Not because they were wrong but because I thought I was the kind of soldier who could just walk it off But few soldiers can It takes time after a tour of duty for a soldier to readjust to civilian life And I wish I’d known that earlier I was expected to continue life just as I had lived it before my tour But I couldn’t Not right away I couldn’t step back into my normal routine as if I hadn’t witnessed anything on mission I couldn’t just hop in the car and go to the grocery shopping like everything was fine It’s interesting that you kind of felt like you were weak sauce because you were not the exact same before you went on deployment Yeah You feel like a [ __ ] even though you know you shouldn’t feel like a [ __ ] right? You feel like a [ __ ] It it it’s it’s the most frustrating at the time It was one of the most frustrating things because you want to be that guy for for for your for your woman Yeah of course I’m still that awesome alpha male that you fell in love with and can whatever doesn’t you know doesn’t blink at anything Uh except that water bottle at the side of the road right there What is that pile of garbage doing right there? What do you mean? I should just drive Oh right Yeah this is our street Sorry it’s not a road in Kabool Um and and uh yeah I just I w I like I said I wish I’d had that advice that you know be prepared for the fact cuz when I went to Kosovo like cuz I’ve had people ask me well you didn’t have that reaction when you came back from Kosovo Well I lived in the barracks All my [ __ ] was in storage I didn’t have a girlfriend I had a girl that I was dating She picked me up uh when we got home but like it’s not like we were going to get engaged or anything And you know I didn’t have any real belongings You know I I you know I I still lived at the unit This was a house I had bought You know my girlfriend had moved in You know she was talking about kids and marriage and we had dog We had a dog And I came home and I was like “What happened to my house?” And what is going on? And like you know what I told my dad when I went to Kosovo um you know in the book I talk about my dad One of the three times I’ve seen him cry in my life was when I deployed to Kosovo for the first time And and I said hey man don’t worry about it It’s 6 months Hey what’s 6 months right? It’s like six haircuts It’s six six mortgage payments It’s nothing Don’t worry about it And and I come home and I couldn’t even think that way myself And uh you know and I know I’m I don’t know if you felt like that after your first deployment Um but this one was different because I guess there I had a life to come home to besides besides the unit I’ve always been very compartmentalized in the way I think right? Sometimes probably to a detriment to um my family a little bit but I’ve always been very compartmental like work come home Oh I’m not I’m not at work anymore So just stop thinking about that stuff And it’s it’s it’s usually pretty positive But the problem is is that when you get to you realize you’re compartmentalizing your family out of the picture kind of which I would have a tendency to do somewhat And I mean that’s probably part of one of the things that But even even when you were a real young guy like like how long have you been married? I’ve been married for a long time I and and I’ve always been like that Okay I I honestly it’s wrong I think but the SEAL teams was always the biggest priority in my life and you know people will be like oh family first that was not true for me and luckily my wife understood that and she didn’t hold it against me right she knew that someday she knew the SEAL teams wasn’t going to last forever and all you guys in the military I I’ll tell you what the the military does not last forever well the big green machine rolls on Yeah with or without you exactly and and and the people that are there when you’re when you fall off those are the ones you got to worry about when you’re still on Yep And so that’s why I think I just was able to compartmentalize what you know away right? And I would basically be almost a schizophrenic of this is a guy that works and this is a guy that’s at home he’s dad or whatever And boom I just had that really good split and I think it was beneficial to me Probably was Probably is Yeah Yeah I I guess I assumed I was that guy too because that’s I you know I approached most things that way But maybe just having that little home of my own for that one tour and then also you know losing a couple buddies Mhm for the first time maybe I don’t know I don’t know what the thing like It’s not like it it didn’t wreck anything Like my career was fine Like it was just Well I mean I lost a fiance out of it but Yeah Yeah And that’s what happens next So she announced this is back to the book here She announced that she was leaving I was shocked because I didn’t want to break things off I just wanted to postpone the wedding but for her this was all too much Our relationship was over While I was certain this was the right time to get while I wasn’t certain this was the right time to get married I was certain about one thing I wanted to go back to Afghanistan and this time as a sniper And that’s something that Yeah I mean that’s something that it’s hard to reconcile the feeling of just wanting to go back I mean that’s that’s I want I want to go back right now Yeah of course Like people hey what’s it like? You you asked me what’s it like to be in politics? I go I’d rather be killing ISIS Yeah Uh frankly and I you know I’m not ashamed to say it I was good at it And and and I love the people that are out there doing it for us you know even though I’m not one of them anymore you know And what we we kind of skipped over but 9/11 happened during my sniper course And sniper courses We don’t just have a rotation of them going on in Canada We’re a very small military If you’re on a sniper course holy [ __ ] Like you you’ve got you got there They run like one or two a year or something maybe Mhm Not even every year Dang No There Well there now I think it is but back then mine was the first one in three years that had happened 25 of us tried out three of us passed So it’s not like you get on it and it’s okay You just got to pass So but 911 happened on like day five or six or something and you know it’s it as the towers fell we watched it fall on TV like they interrupted a class We thought it was like a Cessna right? The guy comes someone just flew a plane to the World Trade Center and we’re in the middle of a you don’t interrupt a class you know right? You don’t interrupt a a training session We’re like “Okay man Thanks ” And the duty sergeant runs off but we think a drunk guy in a Cessna And then he comes back and then so we go down to watch at the duty station And as the as the towers are falling I’m hearing like the starting bell right? I’m hearing like the horn at the start of the Super Bowl and I’m like “Oh it’s on ” Cuz I was considering retiring because of the lack of action So you did get your I hate to call it a dream but you got your dream going back to Afghanistan Oh yeah And this time you’re going as a sniper which is awesome You’re back in Afghanistan and there’s some heavy fighting going on now There’s some legit fighting and and the Canadians are actually leading operations which is the first time in quite some time I think since Korea Yeah Well this this what what we what we this was the first time we’d led operations that were non- peacekeeping ever since Korea Yeah you’re right And this but we what we walked into was the first offensive in NATO’s history ever Mhm Think about it right? NATO’s never been on the offensive except for in Afghanistan Kind of weird but North Atlantic Treaty Organization But anyway this one was called Operation Medusa This Canadian-led OP NATO operation was going to be different from anything we’d done so far It was a bit of a wakeup call So was the fact that my buddy Jeff Walsh had been killed in friendly fire in an accident that happened in August Clearly we were entering a high-risk situation That didn’t deter me anyway in any way If anything it made my resolve stronger I’d trained for this and I was ready It’s a good feeling What uh what was the friendly fire? Was it aircraft or was it shooting? No this one was unfortunately uh it was his buddy in the vehicle They were sitting next to each other and I guess he got in with his rifle not paying attention to the muzzle and it went off and shot Jeff through the face and killed him I that no one really knows exactly what happened but that’s basically pretty much what everyone figures happened Muzzle discipline Never point your weapon at something you do not want to destroy Yeah And keep your finger off the trigger Keep your weapon on safe All right Now as you guys are getting ready to go into this operation Medusa uh one of the orders that comes out is if anybody gets hurt during this mission we’re going to stop right away and take care of it We’re going to make sure the casualties are dealt with and then reassess the situation before moving forward That was during the uh the company commander’s orders right? And you were kind of thinking wait a second Yeah Yeah For those of you that don’t know which is I’m sure people that aren’t in the military when you’re going on an attack your your idea is to maintain the momentum of the attack And you you take casualties along the way while you’re attacking you keep attacking You don’t stop You know you’re going to take casualties You’re going to People are going to get hit Things are going to slow you down You don’t slow down You try and keep pushing forward You keep pushing forward You’ve I’ve said it on this podcast before Aggression will mitigate risk So you get aggressive you move through the target you get the target secure then you can deal with the the guys that are down Yeah Um not that you’re going to ignore them and you can’t drop off a medic here and there to to handle a situation but you’re not going to stop I mean literally you know stop No you can’t stop the whole battle group You can’t stop But you know the I don’t know if the order was delivered the way it was intended but that’s how it that’s basically what was that’s to paraphrase what was said And that’s why you know a couple of us were just kind of like yeah And what’s really what’s really uh to your point of not sure if that’s what was meant what’s really important is that the main thing you want to get across to your troopers when you’re going on to assault is you want to the main point to be get aggressive That’s the main point that you want to get across to them Not hey the main point that you’re going to take away from this is if we take casualties stop No we’re going to get aggressive We’re going to finish through the target We’re going to secure the target And nothing’s going to stop us from doing that I don’t care what happens That’s what you want to have going into an assault like this That’s that that’s my that was always my impression I’ve never been a company commander though But you’ve received plenty of orders Yes sir All right Now we’re starting it on the assault The assault is going down And here we go Up ahead the first vehicles were closing in on the white schoolhouse The zetemer cleared away for the lead platoon comprising of four LAVs and a G Wagon to take position next to the schoolhouse It was at this point that the Taliban decided to make their presence known by firing an anti-tank recoilless rifle round at the softest vehicle of this lead platoon the Gwagon The round went right through the front windshield causing immediate casualties Next our whole assault opened up all at once Every cannon every coaxial machine gun was firing Taliban were coming out of the weeds all around us out of tunnels windows mouse holes They had their head in the They had held their powder to the last second and then it was game on They had the defender’s advantage and they used it The call went out on the radio that one of our vehicles was hit and we had casualties As this was happening one of the LAVs that was stuck next to the schoolhouse went nose first into a ditch and was stuck I was trying to listen on the radio when suddenly the troops who were sticking out of the top hatches of our LAV yelled “Holy [ __ ] they’re right there ” They let go a burst from their C7s followed by grenade from a riflemounted grenade launcher At that moment our artillery began raining down and air support started dropping bombs on the Taliban I felt helpless during all this chaos because the plan for us as snipers was to get involved only once objective rugby had been achieved At that point we would get up on the school’s roof and provide cover for the bound to the next objective But in this situation Barry Cash those were your uh sniper teammates Barry Cash and I were stuck inside the LAV right at the time when our shooting skills were needed up top Needed most up top I was working the radio doing my best to keep everyone in the vehicle informed of what was happening up ahead Okay we’ve got three wounded in action and one killed in action I said relaying the message that there were three wounded soldiers and one who was killed in the G Wagon that had been hit Every soldier had a ZAP number which would be used as an identifier in case you were wounded or killed in the field Standard operating procedure was that if someone died in combat you never revealed their name during the battle At this point we didn’t know which soldier had been killed in that attack on the G Wagon and no one seemed to know the Zap number either Finally the major got on the radio I need to know now who the [ __ ] just got killed The radio crackled and a voice came on It was Warren Officer Rick Nolan Sir Rick Nolan was the soldier I had had a brief argument with the day before I’ve always felt bad that our last conversation was a little strained Rick was a good man and a great soldier Sitting in the front seat of that G Wagon he had no chance of surviving a direct rocket hit I looked at Barry in cash We were all stunned in silence No matter how much you prepare for that moment when a soldier you know becomes a casualty there’s nothing that compares to the actual feeling On top of that it was jarring for all of us because we just didn’t expect a soldier with his level of experience and status to be the first one taken out on the mission that section right there reminded me we were I had guys out um they were clearing a sector of Rammani and big gunfight broke out and I’m I don’t know three or 400 meters away maybe 500 meters away whatever it was I can just hear gunfire mayhem um radios I get up to a rooftop and I’m um you know hey what’s up? And I hear the the element commander got on the radio and he says hey we’re going to need casualty evacuation We’ve got one killed and one wounded And they were with I don’t know probably 20 Iraqi soldiers and five or six SEALs But you don’t know who it is right? And so I’m waiting and you don’t want to say anything on the radio and I’m waiting and I and finally I just said “Is it Iraqi or American?” It was like the longest pause I’ve ever heard in my life And he comes back and he says “Both Iraqi ” And it was like hey no offense to the Iraqi but uh to the Iraqi soldiers but you know I was relieved very relieved at that point And you talk about that too in here how somebody gets hurt or somebody gets wounded or somebody gets killed and you you know it’s one of your guys and you feel guilty when you hear the name and it’s not whatever one of your one of your be better friends or whatever And that’s uh one of those strange and freaking horrible things about war Yeah you guys were I mean this was like a [ __ ] sandwich out of the gate Yeah it you got to remember this is the t first time Canada’s been on the offensive since Korea And doesn’t matter how much you train uh the first few minutes are going to be sloppy until you get your [ __ ] together Well I I shouldn’t have even said [ __ ] sandwich I should have said this is combat That’s it Because I mean it’s going to you go into there you’re you’re setting up your positions you’re moving into position The enemy hadn’t really revealed himself As you said in the book they held their powder Yeah Well we we wondered if they were there at all because the day before we watched as they all drove out of the area fighting aged guys just drove away in trucks trucks full They left some guys behind They actually you know the average Taliban guy you know you don’t even have to duck if he’s shooting at you really I mean you should duck but the point is he’s probably not going to hit you but they whoever they left behind were guys that knew what the what knew what they were knew what they were doing And uh and I give them credit for that Like you know they’re not soldiers as we consider it but they’re they’re tough guys you know And you guys you sniper team you guys didn’t even have your body armor on Yeah Well cuz cuz snip it’s part of the you know what’s the three rules of special ops right? Always look cool Always know where you are And if you don’t know where you are make sure you look cool right? So wearing ball caps and not having body armor makes you look cool But also in our minds when we trained we have enough [ __ ] to to hump You know why add body armor to it and and helmets? You know we’re going to be in a position we shouldn’t If we’re being engaged we [ __ ] up But I tell you we I don’t know if you’re going to read it but there’s a there’s a few moment few minutes later where I’m like I really wish I had some body armor helmet on right now I’m not going to read it but that’s why I brought it up And I was actually I was actually not going to bring it up but then I circle to bring it up You know why? Because there’s somebody out there that’s in the field right now that’s going on some operation and they’re thinking you know what? I’d probably be better off if I didn’t bring my body armor And I’m going to tell you bring your body armor Yeah bring your body armor I did one operation that for a bunch of reasons I decided that I didn’t need body armor right? And of course ended up in a bad scenario and the only thing I’m thinking as I have as I’m have a gun pointed at my chest is you’re an idiot Yeah And you don’t have body armor on We had um we had the strike plate in the front of our chest rig but we found out after if we’d ever been struck in that plate it the spall from the plate would have killed us because it’s designed to be inside the body armor the the Kevlar cuz it had a Kevlar wrap around it around the around the ceramic But turns out it’s not that wrap is there more just for aesthetics or something I don’t know But anyway so it’s like “Oh no no no It has to be inside the issued vest in order for it to work a pocket in your in your chest rig ” Yeah No that’s not And the other crazy thing again for guys that are overseas right now even if you think you’re going to be far enough away from a firefight if you get hit with an IED you want your body armor on I mean that’s all there is to it 100% I always wear my body armor in a vehicle Yeah uh a after this But um but even the night I was hit I didn’t have body armor on I don’t know It was just a weird thing for me But but I you know like the the Romans or not the the Greeks uh the Romans they called it you know the first time you see combat you know seeing the elephant So you know we So let’s go back to Rick So Rick he’s a warn officer So do you guys uh maybe a petty officer chief petty officer? roughly he’s like a company he was a company quarter master so he’s not sergeant major but he’s like the next NCO down I’m going to guess he had about 18 20 years he would he had been a recon guy most of it you know I trained under him mentored under him you know it’s like when you when you imagine casualties you’re imagining Private Smith and Corpal Jones and you know whoever but our first guy killed is a guy who trained his whole life for war and he’s the first guy gone you know like there’s no uh there’s no uh status There’s no uh seniority in combat It doesn’t care if you’ve trained every day for 100 years or if you’ve trained one day ever That bullet is if it’s got your name on it’s got your name on it I was going to say bullets don’t even have names on them Yeah They’re going to hit who they’re going to hit Yeah And that’s why combat is so that’s one of the things about combat that makes it so so so damn awful is like you said you can train as hard as you can train you can make no mistakes you can be the perfect warrior on the perfect mission and you can still get blown up You can still get shot and there’s nothing you can do about it Yeah I I mean I hate to say it there’s nothing you can do about it you’re getting in you’re going to be trading lead with other people and that bullet can hit you Yeah And even if there are if they are dirt farmers with with 30-year-old AKs if it’s functioning it’s a threat And you know I I’ve had chats with guys about why was why was that vehicle even on the objective when you had these perfectly good armored vehicles Now these are up armored Jeeps the these these the they’re the German one right? We’d only trained to this point right? and and and in training that vehicle went to the objective So why wouldn’t it you know until until someone puts a recoilless rifle round through it and you go might be best to leave that one behind and maybe just get another Lav for the for the company quartermaster which after that they did but you know some lessons have to be learned But so the mayhem continues You end up helping and collect the casualties Yeah And now you’re sitting there You’re at the what we would call a casualty collection point Do you use that term? We call it what I call it I don’t know if you use that in here CCP So okay So you’re at the CCP the casualty collection point And here you go One of the most important things in the field of battle is taking care of your dead In fact the creed of the royals is never leave a royal behind On the field you want to get the bodies out of sight as quickly as possible It’s demoralizing for a soldier to witness a dead comrade during battle especially when it’s someone of Rick’s stature I went in the back of an LAV grabbed a couple of body bags and got to work with some of our other guys We picked up Rick and zipped him into a bag One of the other fallen officers was Frank Melish For a second I had a bit of hope because he was on a stretcher which meant he might have only been wounded But once I saw soldiers approach and check his dog tags I knew he was gone A casualty of the round that took out the Zetomire The sad twist was that Frank Melish and Rick Nolan had been friends for their whole careers and now they were lying on the ground together Next I helped put Private William Kushley into a bag I’ll never forget looking directly into his still open eyes and saying “Sorry bro “ As I zipped up his body bag Now that’s obviously enough to crush some people mentally and emotionally at that point but soldiers don’t have time and they have to do their jobs I mean what as you went through that emotion? Mhm And then you turn around and you go “Okay what’s next?” Yep How’s that work? That’s what you do If I had spent more than that one second saying “Sorry bro ” What am I missing? I was doing I I couldn’t get my snipers into a position to be useful being snipers So we were being useful in other ways And once that problem was dealt with because you could you could see the guy like you know we were trying to reorganize ourselves here We were in the reorg phase right? You know the guys are going the long way around of the vehicle because they were lined up next to the vehicle And so me and me and a couple guys are like “Okay we got to fix this ” we fixed it and people you if you felt you felt people relax and then my my main concern was that’s still our objective and we got to get to it so what’s next and that’s when I went looking for like I’m not even sure who’s in charge at this point because we had taken so much of our leadership had been hurt the company sergeant major two of the warrants uh you know and we had when that zetemer got hit um you It it it wounded a bunch of guys and you know we had Afghans with us We had some Americans with us Um uh what do you call the National Guard? I think there were National Guard uh mentors for the Afghans are with us Y and um my biggest disappointment from that day and I know I’m going to catch some I might catch some [ __ ] from some guys uh that were there We didn’t take our objective to this day You know what 2016? You know this is 10 years later almost In September it’ll be 10 years Mhm And to this day I’m like [ __ ] we didn’t take our we didn’t take our objective Yeah And part of that you know and and and for one thing when I when I you know was reading that in I mean obviously it’s just emotional moment and I knew that you just had to detach from the emotion I use that term all the time Yeah You got to just detach from it and you got to be conscious of that So like folks that are listening that are thinking how do you do that? That’s how you do it You cannot you got when you feel the emotions starting to override your logic and your ability to do your duty That’s what you have to do You have to go okay I got to detach from those emotions and I got to do my job now Yeah In that moment like I actually don’t remember like I didn’t really have any feelings Yeah You know I get more feeling now out of it listening to you read it Y cuz that starting with especially when TJ got got hurt You know that’s our workspace Yep Like you know here we’re in an office you people typing doors opening closing That’s the normal sound and vibe of this workspace We had burning vehicles We had dead dead soldiers We had wounded soldiers We had about 15 wounded by this point Um we had air support raining in We had artillery support reigning in We had enemy mortars coming down And you know that’s the norm Mhm That they don’t like when you sign up to be a Navy Seal they don’t hide the fact that you might get in gunfights It’s like the first thing you read It’s in big bold black letters You’re going to you could get killed It’s not in the small print at the bottom of the contract you know clause B of section 4 It’s right there That’s what you signed up for So it’s not abnormal for these things to be happening What you have to do is accept that they happened and carry on with the job And in that moment I remember I said “Sorry bro ” because I was it was I was I was actually probably felt more like “Hey man Sorry you’re out of the game ” Mhm Cuz it’s going to get exciting from here you know like a a fallen soldier in combat to me is especially a volunteer We weren’t drafted Did anyone make you join the Navy? No No I I fought with my parents to get into the army Yep I I I would have I would have fist I would have fought 10 of my best friends to get that job as that sniper team leader and there was nowhere else I wanted to be And a soldier falling in combat doing the job he chose in a in a it’s not of our choosing Don’t ever feel sorry for me cuz I went to Afghanistan Believe me I wanted to be there and for and to fall I get a lot of [ __ ] by some people but that’s it’s one of the greatest things a soldier can do is to fall for with his friends doing the job that that he chose or she chose And uh it’s I I get in [ __ ] sometimes because I think like this Well it’s I think the reason that is is because it’s so hard for people that don’t know what that brotherhood is like They don’t know what it’s like to want to do that They don’t understand that that’s that’s the soldier in the child That’s the way you’ve wanted to be your whole life That’s the way I wanted to be my whole life So to for these things to happen is is it’s like feeling bad for an MMA fighter cuz they got punched in the face You signed up for it You signed up for it And those guys you know they they’re there to fight And the military you’re there to fight Yeah And a byproduct of fighting in this situation can be injury It can be death And like you said it’s what we all signed up for And you know going back to the situation here one of the things that you talked about the fact that you guys didn’t secure your objective and one of the reasons that you didn’t secure your objective the next day is because you had another friendly fire incident Yeah And this is awful And and you know the book that that I wrote uh with Leif starts off with with with a friendly fire scenario happening And I wish I could explain to civilians it’s really hard for people to understand how these things happen I mean we’ve already talked about it what two times in this book Here’s another one Uh A10s come in You’re you’re you’re basically like half awake trying to get trying to get a little bit of sleep Yeah And all of a sudden you know you hear the gunfire you hear things happening All of a sudden you hear an A-10 burst go And Cash your your your teammate Cash he’s like “You’re not going to believe this but I think he just strafed our own guys “ Strafed is when you fire machine gun cannon uh automatic weapon fires from an aircraft And sure enough 30 soldiers more than 30 soldiers were injured Yeah And one was killed And by the way the one that was killed was Private Mark Graham who was a Olympic sprinter for Canada 1992 in Barcelona Yeah I mean it’s a nightmare It was a nightmare It was it was such a I even got mad at Cash at first because I was like because I I heard it and you know that brat the it it’s actually a nice feeling until that happened and that one sounded weird cuz like I I was half awake and we and and I you know they were doing strafing runs across cuz we were on each on each side of the Argondob River so you know there’s a bit of distance and that one was like like that was real close That’s kind of weird And I’m trying to just you know you know wake up and Cash says “Yeah they hit they hit us “ I go “What the what are you talking about? Why would he?” And I look down from our sniper position to where the vehicles were And that’s what exactly what had happened And on my mind I know what an A10 strike does I’m like “Oh my god he killed all my friends “ And then through the dust And so right away I’m like “Okay well if I’m the enemy I know what I would do ” You know sound the bugles boys We’re attacking They didn’t do that I My theory is they had already left for after the gunfight the day before And so we re reorientated all our focus to the front to keep an eye on the enemy And I and I can’t help but look down We had a a JTF uh sniper team directly to our left and and they left their uh spotters in place and the rest of them ran down with their medical kits and uh and when they were walking away when eventually the the the team you know four guys walk away with a body bag and I’m like “Oh okay that’s it ” And then the you know the radio you know then it’s like “Yeah we’re 10 10 wounded Oh okay 12 Okay 17 is 21 and then I think we ended up at about 34 35 or so and the entire leadership of the company’s wiped out uh in with injury and uh and that’s it That company is now combat ineffective Yeah Which is I mean you hear that in the modern day you don’t hear that very often Combat ineffective meaning that they can no longer perform their duties You just don’t hear that They just have they just didn’t have enough bodies left like they just didn’t have enough soldiers that were still functioning And you know we went to Afghanistan in 2002 with uh OP was it Anaconda I believe We sent a a battalion of of Canadian soldiers with um and that’s where the a Canadian sniper set the new record beating Carlos Hathco Cox that had stood since Vietnam And um but part of that mission was we lost four guys to an American F-16 Mhm And then this happened and people give give a lot of [ __ ] to the American Air Force or or aircraft Mistakes happen We almost got lit up by our own guys at the beginning of the assault You know we didn’t talk about it but I had to radio in and remind them hey guys we’re coming in from your flank You’ve looked through thermal I’ve looked through thermal Do guys like us look anything like bad guys looking in through thermal? I don’t know how it happens but guys get so amped up and they’re so ready to kill something you just don’t want it to be you Hey in in Romani there was incidents where Humvees engaged other Humvees right? Cuz the enemy had a helix look anything like a Humvey There’s no more distinctive vehicle in the world than a Humvey right? Especially when you’re in the military And but that’s to your point that’s the level of confusion and mayhem and chaos that happens and and just the mentality of guys when they’re scared and all of a sudden they see muzzle flash and oh okay you know what? Boom Oh I see something over there Engage Everything looks like an every a shovel in someone’s hand looks like an AK So I don’t lay any blame on the American pilot that did this Mhm He was doing the job he was there to do and and and someone told him to do something and they he queued off the wrong puff of smoke and and that’s what happened You know it was just a literally it was one of those it was one of those each little action led to it right? you know from Mark lighting the the garbage fire to to him coming over the mountain and the and the and the sun is in his eyes Hey man A bunch of small mistakes that compound and not even mistakes a bunch of just situational actions Yeah That compound into a tragic situation But I when you consider what a strafing run from an A10 can do for us to only have one killed is amazing is incredible And and and only you know of those 30 something wounded I might not have the right number but if I understand correctly maybe a dozen of them had to retire due to their injuries Maybe Crazy Yeah So you guys continue doing sniper operations You guys continue going on missions You support SF You support others Lots of really solid missions And now you’re out on another operation You’re patrolling through a village And again it’s your your team that you’ve been with the whole time You’re following Cash your boy Cash And I’m going to go to the book here Once he was about 10 meters ahead I turned and took my first step forward My right foot touched the ground and a massive orange fireball soared across my face I didn’t hear a sound For a few seconds I felt weightless as if I was suspended in fa in space The next thing I knew I was on the ground My ears nose and mouth tasted like mud And that’s when the pain hit A pain so intense that it completely overwhelmed my body and my silence I started punching the ground and screaming “Oh my god oh my god ” It was the only time in my life I’ve ever uttered anything religious The blast was so powerful that it had knocked Cash down and I saw him in the dirt up ahead of me For a few seconds I couldn’t see Barry or Gourd They had probably done what good snipers are supposed to do upon hearing the explosion Run for cover and prepare for an ambush A few seconds later once they realized what had happened they came running back towards me So there it is Did you know did you know it was an ID? Um not well Could have been RPG Could be somebody There’s For those of you that don’t know you don’t know Big booms are going off I I didn’t hear anything Uh right Like I said like the the you you’re not going to hear the one that gets you For in my case it was real I But my hearing was fine There was no ringing There was no And I’ve read um Colonel um help me out He wrote on killing Oh yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Anyway so I know your name I just I just forget it right now Uh and he talks about that in his other book on combat Yeah The little audible the body will shut it off and for a split second And um but anyway I I knew I’d done something something bad had happened once I you know my weapon was gone You know I my night vision is gone right? And the pain was so bad And you know it technically was an IED though under the technical definition right? Because it was a an anti-personal landmine on top of a mortar bomb Technically we you and I know that’s an IED But it’s really two conventional munitions put together and it did exactly what it was supposed to do you know Um it just uh it’s one of those it’s one of those things of war where there’s no rhyme or reason about who’s going to get what or when or where cuz everyone else in your patrol just walked over it I was the last guy I remember the first time the first time I was ever getting shot I was in Humvees and I’m going over a bridge in Baghdad and again this is going back to what you were talking about like when you don’t really know what’s combat’s like Yeah And I’m looking up ahead of me at the Humvey ahead of me and I see these like someone’s throwing cigarettes out the window and I go I’m like who the hell is smoking? We don’t even have any like who’s smoking right now And how are they smoking a thousand cigarettes at a time? So many cigarettes right now And then why are there smoke? Who? Wait why are these things sparking when they hit the the the ground over there? And why is there sparks? Oh okay News flash We’re getting shot at We’re under effective fire Yeah And uh it’s one of those things But my point is that you don’t always know what what’s happening And you know in the urban environment you didn’t know where shots were coming for You get like rounds would be going overhead You could not tell where they were coming from you know if they’re hitting something you can kind of get a general idea but you don’t always know what’s happening And all right so now going back to the book here my mates were all around me Now the next hour was the longest of my life I was in absolute agony and trying hard to stay positive I was also trying hard not to think about the possibility of bleeding out With each passing minute I was growing weaker and weaker Every time I closed my eyes it was harder to open them again I knew that if I lost consciousness it was over Barry and Gourd were standing over me “Do you think I’m going to make it?” I asked Gourd “Of course you’re going to make it Never give up bro You know that And you guys hadn’t been to TC? None of us So for those of you that don’t know there’s something called Triple C Tactical Combat Casualty Care It’s a very short course Yeah it’s like maybe a week It’s two days maybe three days because all they all they teach you is how to keep somebody alive when this stuff happens That’s what the goal is And it doesn’t take a super amount of knowledge It takes some some concepts Number one stop the bleeding And but none of your guys had been to it but they still saved your life I mean between Barry Gordon and I and you know and like we’re all experienced operators right? And uh we still have enough first aid training You know the first thing they did is slap the tourniquets on There you go At the at the arteries and my thighs and um and then they did their best from there And we’re snipers We’re not medics And we don’t bring as awesome as medics are they’re kind of in the way when you’re on a sneaky sneaky mission You know that was what we that’s how we classified our missions If they were sneaky sneaky sneaky or really sneaky sneaky If we were really sneaky sneaky someone was going to have a bad day Yeah And this one was a middle sneaky And and and uh we were in a spot where there was no LZ You’re not getting a vehicle in there Um you know and the closest medic was uh 12 500 meters away on foot at night through an Afghan village Hours Took them an hour The wrecky platoon just throwing this out there they they just came They just didn’t even wait for it They were just coming I love those guys That’s why that’s why I knew I had to say it I love those guys everyone any one of them that listens I love those guys 100% I’d do anything for them So they get you do get you out Yep They they put the phone in your hand before you go into surgery Right So we’re back in Kandahar at the hospital and someone hands me a phone and uh I forget how it even went Like I was on a lot of drugs by this point One thing about getting wounded is get to do a lot of good drugs Um here’s what you told your dad Yeah They got me Dad The Taliban But I’m alive I’m going into surgery I’m going to get through this Don’t worry I kind of want to compliment you right now because you always hear of and I’m basically complimenting like all my buddies Anybody I know that gotten wounded they’re like “Hey don’t worry about it I’m going to be okay ” Yeah And at the same time you called your dad like “Dad I’m wounded I’m going into surgery Don’t worry about me ” Yeah you know uh that’s that’s why actually what’s funny is uh Mikey Mansour who was one of my guys got killed in Ramani and I mean they were in grueling sustained combat every single day firefights I mean he went Winchester on his on his heavy machine gun so many times that I don’t even know Like one time I I was went to visit him in their camp cuz I was on the other side of town Winchester means out of completely out of ammo Oh yeah sorry Winchester means you’re out of ammo So I went to see I went to his camp pretty early in deployment maybe three or four weeks into deployment And I went over to their camp to see how things were going and someone’s like “Oh go check out the video that Mikey made ” And I go “Okay cool ” And Mikey shows me this video and it’s like a firefight happening Yeah and he’s filming He’s putting the sticking the camera up above the the wall and then he turns it back on himself and he and he says uh the name of the part of town that they were fighting in was called the Malab district And Mikey points a camera at himself and he goes “It’s the Moolab “ And so I’m looking at him laughing and then you know me being Mr Professional and I go “Hey man ” and he’s a new guy right? And I’m you know Jo you know and so I go “Hey man What are you doing filming when there’s a firefight going on?” I go “You need to get your gun up Like I don’t want to see this again ” And he’s like “Hey sorry sir but I was Winchester ” And I go “All right man Film some vids if that’s all you got left ” Be the history be the document guy then And just like in my opinion to go Winchester for for a seal if he’s anything like our machine gunners that’s pretty tough to do Oh yeah Oh it’s not like Mikey wasn’t carrying a ton of rounds But like I said my point of telling this story was that you know this was happening on a you know fairly regular basis Definitely firefights He wasn’t going to Winchester all the time but he multiple times and he was in you know almost daily firefights right? I remember for for to this is an actual number So the first 24 operations that that element went on in a row they got into a firefight in the city Yeah And then they had one where they didn’t and then they went right back to it again So they were getting a lot of firefights and in a lot of danger And um when we got home when I got home and I and I got to know his family a little bit you know his his family was saying that when he’d call they’d be like “What are you doing over there?” And he’d say “Oh we’re we’re just training some Iraqi soldiers We’re just on base just you know don’t worry about anything It’s just fine Typical combat soldiers stories to the family Typical badass Yeah So that reminds me of you Uh yeah Don’t worry about it Dad It just got blown up Yeah Yeah Um then here we go I woke up with a doctor looming over me Took a few moments for the anesthetics to wear off and for me to remember where I was and what was going on Then it came back to me in a rush The mission the landmine the pain the surgery The surgeon standing by my bed put it to me bluntly I had to cut off both your feet Boom I believe earlier we were talking about irreversible situations Yep And here you were Was that real to you at that time? Or were you basically hey I’m happy I’m alive Like I got a seal buddy that got blown up Yeah And uh and actually he didn’t get blown he got shot And um anyways one of my buddies was talking to him and he’s like “Bro man I’m I’m really sorry about you know “ because he lost his leg He goes “Bro man I’m really sorry about your leg you know ” And he goes “Fuck my leg I’m happy to be alive ” And I got to be honest I didn’t think that Yeah Um soldiering is done on your feet Mhm And I immediately went into defensive mode I um half my brain said “You tell that [ __ ] guy to go back and get that one of the feet and put it back ” Mhm And the other half is saying he’s a pro He knows what he’s doing If he took cuz we knew one was gone on the scene That was the one that detonated the device The landmine did exactly what it’s supposed to do It took blew my foot off The mortar bomb shredded my other foot And on the scene I remember as I was getting put onto the stretcher and getting put onto the ambulance that was finally able to get to us because they literally plowed a road to me with a combat bulldozer and had the ambulance behind it Um the medic from Wrecky Platoon said “Hey man your left foot we got it back into place so it looks like it might be okay ” So uh but your right foot’s gone I was like “Okay whatever ” Again at this point I’m like so out of it So when I woke up and he says “Yeah you know I had to take both feet “ Huh? Mhm And and in my mind I’m I’m thinking like well how am I going to how am I going to do this job? Okay And then so then I go into def you know depending on whose manual you’re reading or which doctor wrote it there’s certain number of steps to uh grieving Mhm And they say losing a part a body part is like losing a family member or something So now I’m dealing with two deaths in the family and the first step is always denial And you know and I’m like “Ah well it’s 2007 You know how awesome ” You know guys are going to be jealous I had my legs blown off I’m going to be like ro I’m going to be like Astro Boy be flying around and [ __ ] I’ll have like Robocop legs or something It’s cool It’s 2007 right? Everything’s digital Um and I kind of whether it was the drugs and or the endorphins from going through all that and but for that first until I was out of Kandahar that was my attitude you know right up to the boys all came in uh to see me off cuz we went from so I think I spent another day in Kandahar They flew me to Bagram and then I flew to Kuwait and then from Kuwait on to Germany Yeah But uh Lanchster and so every every stop though we picked up wounded American uh servicemen and and I think there was one other Canadian but so I just you know that’s how I felt right And and then and then once I was in Germany um I was just trying to deal with every day by day you know uh I just was you know they put me in a room with another guy who had been hit in an IED strike on a on a So a lab You you were saying LAV earlier So those are the Marine Corps The the Marine Corps has an enactment LAV So that’s why I was calling it that Yeah So it’s light armored vehicle and you guys in the army here they’re called strikers Yeah Except ours have turrets and I think yours has like remote uh 50 cals or something They’re all made in uh London Ontario Canada by the way Um so yeah I was just trying to deal with each day as as it came because now I’m I’ve never there’s no you can’t there’s no training for this right? in in casualty simulation it stops once you’re declared dead or evacuated right? So now I’m at a stage where I’m like “Okay I’m in a room with another Canadian dude um and an American Army hospital and uh I don’t know what’s next “ And every time I’d look down there’s no toes to wiggle It was just so I’m like “Okay well just gonna try and deal with this Just deal with it Just deal with it Just deal with it ” And I was in that mode for for weeks you know? I I’m waiting I I think I was waiting for a point where someone was going to give me my diagnosis you know or my the conclusion Mhm Or like a prescription like “Okay here’s what you’re going to do now This is not not just with your legs but with your life Yeah This is what’s going to happen You’re going to do this You’re going to follow these steps and at the end you’ll be deploying back to Afghanistan which is how it was going in my mind You know I don’t know what you’re going to read next but I was convinced I’m going back to Afghanistan That’s it Like just that’s it Whenever you know the Navy or the Army wants you to know something they send you on course So you know I was on sniper course and then you go on you go on driver course you go on t tactical combat casualty care course TC So so as you’re saying this that’s actually the next portion that I was going to and here you go Exactly what you were just about to get into From that point on I made it my mission to learn to walk again I treated rehab like a military course When the military wants a soldier to learn something they send him on a course So that’s the approach I took with my rehab the mission mindset right there But at the same time and now we start going into the fact that it was obvious that the military system the military system just couldn’t quite cope with my needs Sure I was offered help with all sorts of things from rehab to finding a home but no one truly understood the needs that are particular to a returning soldier And neither did I No So you didn’t even know I mean how do you know? But that’s what I’m saying How can you know? There’s no course There’s no prescription There’s no course There’s no training You know and and our military medical system was like like the we have lots of medics We have doctors for things like sprained ankles and and and and uh you know you hurt your back on a ruck march whatever Whatever Lots of guys and girls that do that No you know our physiootherap we’ve got physiootherapists but they’ve been dealing with tennis elbow and sprained ankles for 40 years And it’s no detriment to them It’s not their fault It’s um they just that’s the military that they were in And you compare that in the book you talk about when you went to the Center for Intrepid in San Antonio Yeah And now you had the American system which has been unfortunately dealing with thousands and thousands and thousands Yeah of wounded soldiers for at that point I guess for you guys about four or five years Okay Four or five years Well it was 0 Well 07 Yeah And I guess you guys started in ‘ 01 right after the Yep I I don’t know whoever whenever the guys first went in after the towers dropped and so so they had experience and they have giant amount of money I mean this is America and we do have a lot of money and they put a lot of money into it and and at the same time you had some Canadian folks that were like ah we don’t need that kind of stuff We don’t need those kind of things for rehab Right Right Well again I’m you know we have I’m trying to think of a correlation here but anyway we had these physiootherapists It’s a trade in the military You’re you’re a military physiootherapist and your job is to rehab guys like me and I’m telling you you can’t do it or you I’m telling you that you’re failing and this is why So your reaction is going to be well I know how to do my job and I don’t so I don’t at the time I was furious in retrospect they didn’t know any better and that’s why I started advocating so hard I I I got cuz I got home and I said this is what we got to do there’s not that many guys like me coming home I mean yeah there’s a lot more than there were last year because we’re actually at war the center for the intrepid Walter Reed and I believe there’s one here the Naval medical center BOA and and there’s Bethesda as well So uh well I’ve heard of three Okay The San Antonio Walter Reed and the one here Those are the biggies Yeah Th those are the ones where most of the traumatic injuries have been going from from the from you guys So I said let’s start sending a pair of physiootherapists down with like for every physiootherapist we send down or for every two casualties we send down let’s send down one of our physiootherapists And in 6 months that physiootherapist will get more experience dealing with more injuries at with more patients than they could ever hope for on base pedawa where two brigade is because we’re talking the difference between a couple of dozen soldiers getting hurt playing rugby or whatever or ruck marching versus actually uh yeah like a parade of guys get who are getting smashed in IED strikes and air you know whatever was happening You know I was standing there and the guy who ran Antonio at the time San Antonio at the time was he was an Green Beret physiootherapist So I don’t know if he was one and then the other or how it worked but so he’s the lead physiootherapist And I remember this Marine walked in to the to the room and he had both legs gone above the knee So he’s on the the the taller leg prosthetics and I and and he was blinded by it cuz he had been burned or whatever And and this guy he’s in full uniform He like screams the guy’s name He’s like “Jones ” And he tackles him and they start wrestling And I’m like “Yeah I want that ” Because the hospital I was in and again no offense the hospital I got great medical care for the standard right to their capability understood at that time and it it’s not like it was bad but it wasn’t what would have been best for me me being a soldier So I’m like cuz I’m in a hospital where it’s knee and hip replacements and amputations from diabetes So it’s a lot of older people Um I was probably one of the youngest people in the hospital at 30 I was definitely in the best shape you know like I remember my the first physiootherapy session she hands me a 4 lb bean bag weight with a strap on it and she says “Oh uh strap that around your leg and you know try and do like you know maybe maybe 15 or 20 uh leg raises if you think you can ” And I’m like “Uh-huh Where’s the squat rack?” I’m like so I strap it I’m like 4 lbs Is is that enough? And she’s like oh yeah we don’t want to start too hard Nice sweet lady Great person I loved her Doing the best she can She’s doing what she knows She’s doing what she knows I strap the thing to my stump and I start doing leg raises And she comes back like 10 minutes later She’s like “So how many did you get done?” I’m like “I don’t knowund about maybe 250 “ She’s like “Oh oh ” And I’m like “Yeah like I’m I’m in f I’m in shape It was just meat and bone smash Like I don’t have any other injuries here but there at San Antonio the lead therapist is tackling and wrestling with a blind legless Marine ” And I’m like that’s what I need I need to be around soldiers and people who know how I think And uh I can’t help again and I’m not trying to criticize or or or be overly um detrimental to the results of what came but imagine if I had had that treatment What you know people would say “Oh Jody you did fine You did great You’re the poster boy ” Imagine if I had been in San Antonio you know where could it be faster you think? Not well the level of expectation where I was was very very low So they didn’t like so if I had been in San Antonio they would been like no no you will be walking by March you will do this and you whereas where I was because that’s how they do it that’s like well we’ll see where you’re at you know and this and that and there was no there’s no one for me to mentor under or be you know like there’s no to be compared to or to be compared to Okay look at this guy over here He’s grappling with another dude even though his blind is missing a leg Yeah And are you ready to get it on? Yeah You know another guy came in I think he was a Marine too And he was wearing uh it’s just like a t-shirt Yeah And the same guy is like “Hey where’s your issue PT kit? The Marine Corps doesn’t play around ” And well this was the Green Beret guy right? But he’s But because they’re all it’s it’s a mixed force right? There’s Air Force uh Navy Marine whoever is there There was a there was a Navy I believe she was Navy EOD who had her arms blown off and she was recently in that Range 15 movie I think it’s the same girl I’ve only met one girl who had both her arms blown off by by an e uh by an IED But so I imagine it’s her But anyway um he expected you to be a soldier regardless of what happened to you You’re going to maintain that persona son And I was like yeah because I could feel myself slipping at this other place because there’s no expectations you know Yeah And you can only self mo and having never had my legs blown off before I could only me self-motivate to a point for so long and and and be the guy be my own drill sergeant and be my own uh inspector And there there’s a reason and I say this all the time There’s a reason why the best athletes in the world Yeah have coaches Yeah That’s the fact It’s because somebody has got to like show you the way Yeah And you can And furthermore you can only push yourself so hard I know for a fact you can only push yourself to 7% A coach is going to get you to 117% They’re going to push you a little bit harder They’ll have no mercy And so that’s what you need That’s what everybody eats Yeah You know and and so but again I try to give credit where credit’s due and and give you know you know people were worried When I wrote the book there were people I heard that were worried Mhm And I’m not I don’t want to [ __ ] on anyone And I don’t want it to seem like I’m blaming anyone for anything I put myself there I’m the one that wanted to be in that spot to step on that landmine My only expectation was that others would have put the preparation into their mission as I put into mine And I do feel that there were some at very high levels that maybe didn’t take things as seriously as they should have or realized the consequences of what was coming and take best practices from places like Walter Reed San Antonio Because when I said “Send me to San Antonio and send a Canadian physiootherapist with me and he or she’s going to learn in the 3 or 6 months I’m there more than she will in 20 years at any Canadian base ” It was “Oh well we appreciate that Midic but you know we’re we’re working on a Canadian solution ” And I was like “Well that’s going to be awesome once you figure out whatever the [ __ ] that is ” What about me? I’m talking about right this second We have a facility willing to take us So did they send PTs down there? No Because here’s here’s the backroom stuff The politics Jody what would the civilians think if we were sending our soldiers to a different country’s medical centers when we got hospitals right here? Now again what we were getting at the hospital was not bad care Yeah You know what I’m saying? Do you understand the distinction I’m trying to make? Okay Okay It was it was the best care to the capability and the knowledge and understanding that they had not only of their job but of the people that they were working with Yeah In other words you got if you got a 72year-old diabetic that has an amputation the 4B weight is good and that you can try and transfer that over to Jody Mid who just got off the battlefield three weeks ago Yeah He’s a different animal Yeah Because you’re an exception too right? To like what they what they’re trained and what they’re really good at caring for You come in and this is like this isn’t really typical that we all have to deal with Why are we going to change our whole system? But even things like I remember the first couple nurses that came into my room they were like “Oh hey honey what happened? Car accident Were you on a motorcycle? You’re on a motor “ Really? Well losing your foot is very typical of a motorcycle accident But they didn’t And I’m like “Oh I I stepped on a landmine in Afghanistan Do we even have soldiers in Afghanistan?” Yeah And I was like so hence hence this part of the book Ironically one of the biggest emotional problems I had to deal with was the anger I felt towards a medical system that did not seem to be able to respond appropriately to my needs Now you ended up putting on weight because you couldn’t exercise And you do give a little shout out right here to the Dairy Queen You say the Dairy Queen is delicious when you’re depressed Oh it’s so good Yeah it’s so good once it hits the lips Oh with the peanut butter cups and the swirly ice cream I might have to get one right after this Jaco We might have to find a Dairy Queen up in here Uh so in conjunction with the therapy sessions I also started taking an anti-depressant to start to help control my moods And then there was the other kind of pain the physical kind I was still using painkillers to dull the pain that was there each and every day I needed that relief so badly But in the end that too caused me tremendous suffering And I turned into something I never thought I would be an addict We’ve definitely are seeing this happen with our wounded veterans And here you go In no time I was taking more of the drug than I was supposed to in order to relieve my psychological and physical pain The addiction worsened and I started crushing the pills into a powder and snorting it to get a better high Those pills gave me relief from my stress and mental pain if only for a little while But as soon as they wore off my demons would return I worried about my future If I wasn’t a soldier who was I? And you’ve already said that a bunch of times that feeling of I mean and it everything you’d been in your life from when you were a kid that was what was inside of you And then you were able to act on that and become that soldier serve in combat get after it on the battlefield My whole adult life I became a man in the military I joined as a 17-year-old 174B 6’4 skinny weakling and I grew into into the man that you see and and that question you know when I was reading that when you know I had a buddy that uh retired the other day you know he 25 years and I just said to him I said how was it cleaning out your locker because I don’t know what it’s like for you guys but in the SEAL teams You have a locker and that’s your whole career is physically represented And the lockers are big They’re they’re they’re walk-in lockers They’re awesome Oh wow Like each guy has a walking locker Each guy has a big drying we call them a drying cage We call them cages cuz it’s just made with uh chain link basic material basically But each guy has Everybody has their own They’re almost as big as this office Right Right Right And you got cruise boxes in there and it’s your whole career is physically represented of everything you’ve ever been issued anything that you picked up along the way trinkets just everything is in your drying cage right? And when you retire you go you clean out your cage it’s empty you sweep out the floor you load it into your van you drive home and that’s it It’s over Yeah And I I So I said to my buddy the other I said you know how was it uh how was it cleaning out your drying cage? Cuz I that for me I wasn’t even worried about retire I didn’t even think about retiring I’m like okay I got to go do this Got to do the ceremony I’m all good Come back cleaning out my cage and I’m like “Oh this is over ” And for me I spent 18 out of 20 years out here on the West Coast and all within like a stones throw of the different buildings I mean all within these certain number of buildings Yeah Since I was a kid Yeah And the question so when I was reading that you wrote this that’s what I was thinking about what my buddy was thinking If I’m not a soldier if I’m not a SEAL then what am I? And that’s a tough question to answer for a lot of guys It’s brutal And it comes back to what we were talking about before dwelling right? I I it was really hard for me because I didn’t choose to leave right? I’d always imagined I’d be wounded I don’t know why Like you know visual visualization is very important in my opinion in our line of work And so I’d always tried to you know envision a being wounded Okay But it was like the cool scar across the cheek or like some shrapnel in the rib cage I could show off at barbecues you know and talk about when I’m like 80 I’ll be like “Yeah I still got some Taliban metal in there ” But no you know like it’s that or it’s a body bag You don’t think about the in between Even our system right our medical system in Canada not the in between Lots of body bags lots of bandages But the in between part they kind of dropped the ball Yeah And years ago World War I probably World War II you wouldn’t have made it They wouldn’t had to deal with you No Because you would have bled out They didn’t know Triple C They wouldn’t have got you Kazvak I mean it would have been You would have died That’s all there is to it A double Yeah Double amputation Yeah Forget about Uh so they just didn’t have that back then Vietnam it got a lot better in terms of the Kazak situation They get helicopters in there a lot faster That’s why you got a lot more wounded But figuring out what you’re going to do next and you held on to it You held on to it You tried to hang on to it cuz you decided you know what? I’m going to still be a soldier Yeah You got done with You did a half marathon Yeah But after that half marathon you were just too beat up Yeah From that Yeah And you decided that Well here’s what you put in the book I tell people that Jod the soldier was wounded in January of 2007 but it took him about two years to die To let the soldier in you Yeah go and I’m going to continue Of course this wasn’t an easy decision for me And I was filled with rage and anger And again I started using Oxycottton as a relief from the pain of loss It became my problem yet again But I diluted myself into believing I had it under my control You you talk about this thing where you’re reading a Reader’s Digest article Yeah And there’s an Oxycottton addict in there Yeah and he’s talking about how he’s shooting it up and you said to yourself you weren’t thinking “Oh that’s that’s horrible I can’t believe you’re like “Oh yeah I didn’t know you I already thought of that “ Huh And that is what hit you Yeah And I think that is what hit you realizing that’s when you realize you weren’t in control right? I mean that’s got to be that moment Well cuz it the story was he was a doctor I believe right? injecting himself in the bathroom when his young daughter walked in And I had now had a young daughter And I could just and now I’m like and I and in my mind it wasn’t oh imagine if my daughter caught me going to eject I went “Oh I can inject “ And I remember and I even went through a second where I remembered how great it was to get the intervenous drugs in the hospital And then the next second was “Oh this is not good This is not good And then when I ended up buying um I ended up buying Percoet which is like Oxycottton but like from a guy that I knew through another guy and it was they were in Ziploc bags Basically a drug deal Remember that thing that got me arrested? Yeah 20 years ago And I went “Okay this is this is it This ends here ” Well that’s an awesome I mean that’s awesome credit to you on that because so many people unfortunately they don’t take ownership of that They don’t say to themselves you know what I am addicted and this thing is controlling me and they always say things like just what you said oh I got this under control I can stop if I want to I just don’t want to I need it I’m in pain There you go I I had to take it And I would ask the doctors I would say “How do we get how do we get me off this?” And this was still you know 07 08 9 I think it was 2011 before I finished or got off them They still had in Canada anyway hadn’t realized what Oxycottton was a capable of And and so the doctors ah it’s like three days of withdrawals It’s fine Don’t worry about it Those withdrawals were worse than being wounded Those three days here’s your quote Those three days were absolute horror Quitting Oxycottton was harder and more painful than getting blown up in Afghanistan Yeah because because it was three days whereas I was in the worst Jaco echo I cannot tell you what the pain was like cuz it was so bad And that was the pain from going from withdrawals No the pain from getting blown up Okay So the pain from getting I cannot describe it to you but the withdrawals lasted 3 days of that kind of pain because your body and your mind are trying to trick you You’re still in pain man You’re still in pain You should take them You should take them But once you know what’s funny though? The three days it’s almost like you hit a switch and suddenly the pain starts to dissipate the hollow feeling in your chest starts to fill back in it This the ants stop crawling on your skin because that’s you’re going through all that I was grinding the stumps of my legs into the couch to give it some kind of other sensation other than I described it as like it was like a dog You ever watch a dog chew on a bone and he’s got it between his paws and he’s just going to town like with his with his teeth? That’s what it felt like on the ends of my legs was like I had like an animal just gnawing on my legs And then one day you know whatever the third or second two and a half or three days later I realized I’m like “Oh most of that’s kind of pretty much gone ” That’s crazy And uh I tell you there’s Jody before he quit Ox Cotton and then there’s Jody and Jody before he quit was still trying his best and doing well and if you talk to anybody was the guy a lot of people looked up to but you know things really started to turn around after I quit you know I really started to become capable of a lot in my in my mind I I think there’s a big difference but man that [ __ ] just my buddy he he is a he’s a paratrooper and uh he had to get some surgery on his knee you know paratroopers are always banging up their knees and and the doctor gave him codine or Tylenol 3 or something like that and He literally took it and threw it in the garbage He’s like “I saw what happened to Jod “ He’s like “I don’t even I don’t want anything “ And um that’s my advice kids out there Uh do not take it if you don’t if you can grit your teeth enough Do not take that [ __ ] Stay clean Do your best I I I wouldn’t trust me around it now If you had one I might take it Mhm I don’t It’s good Let’s just take some more of this alpha brain Take the alpha brain I’ll get on it instead of instead of getting addicted again Get off it by getting on it Uh so now you get through it You’re not addicted to Oxycottton anymore And now it’s what do am I going to do with my life? And here you go What did I actually want and what was possible? and could I really put my military past behind me and pursue something else that would make me feel fulfilled But it was time to stop asking questions It was time to find some answers And here you’re kind of referring back and it’s the last chapter Um it’s called on my own two feet I’m glad you still got a sense of humor after all this Can’t make fun of yourself man You’re taking life way too serious So a lot of professional athletes will tell you they miss two things when they retire The competition on the field and the camaraderie with the team teammates in the locker room It’s the exact same thing for soldiers after we leave the armed forces When I see soldiers on parade I still get chills down my spine because I loved it so much Just letting everybody know that that’s completely normal for all you guys that got out for whatever reason Totally normal Jody feels it I feel it We all feel that So then you went and did the Amazing Race in Canada Yeah We had the You got second place with your brother Second place And it was the first season Uh because the American Amazing Race was the most popular show in Canada So let’s make a Canadian one Let’s make a Canadian one If Canadians love anything more than the American version it’s the Canadian version Then you ended up doing this city councelor thing Yeah And that’s where you’re at now That’s where I’m at now You know one one part that we haven’t talked about and I’m going to do a little bit of a I’m going to score a few brownie points here at home So I I said they had to plow a road to me Yeah To to rescue me Right They literally plowed a road with a combat bulldozer And right behind it was what we call a uh bison ambulance And it’s an eight-w wheeled almost built in the same factory as the LAV in Ontario Canada Int London Ontario Canada by unionized workers and uh and and the commander of that vehicle was Master Corpal Atlanta Gilmore of the Canadian Forces Medical Corps who is now my wife retired Sergeant Alena Gilmore of the Canadian Forces Medical Corps Um and we have two beautiful daughters Ayla 7 and Kira 4 And uh we we we managed to connect I was wounded in January we connected in September Octoberish of the same of 2007 My girlfriend that I had had when I got wounded had left No fault of hers I don’t blame her one one bit you know um to get thrown into a situation where you have to care for a wounded soldier that a guy who before was like a rock you know and that’s not what she signed up for right? And uh and and Elena had recently broken up with with with her partner as well And when we found each other though the fact that she was a hot Irish blonde was just really a bonus Got to be honest And and uh she took one you know Jaco I I call medics they’re like our mommies What do you you guys have Corman you call them? Yeah Cuz combat guys we’re a little What’s that saying? If you’re going to be tough or if you’re going to be dumb you got to be tough If you’re going to be stupid you got to be tough And that’s and that’s us So we need the corman or the medic to be like “Hey hey hey Jo why are you limping? What? Come here Come here dummy Come here No no no Not in front of the other troops Mom stop it Stop it ” And and so that’s their job So she saw me She took one look at me She’s like “You look terrible ” I was surviving on Vector cereal and drive-thru sandwiches cuz I was by myself All the boys were still deployed or on course and I was living in my own private uh house on base So I had moved on to base I had this little puppy uh Charlie who wasn’t he’s not a service dog by any stretch but he’s the only reason I got out of bed in the morning So I owe him He’s still my buddy Still at the he’s at the house right now And um and she so she went into medic mode really She went “You know what? You should come by my house Bring your dog You can play with my dog ” And and you know let’s just hang out And when we got to when when we saw each other though it was camaraderie She was one of the last people to see me on the battlefield She carried my stretcher to the to the to the evac chopper And and you know if you talk to her the fact that I was you know uh a bearded hot guy was just a bonus to her too And you know eventually I let her kiss me guys Okay Passively I’m sure Yeah No she like she she’s going to ask me “Did you tell Joo the same joke you tell everyone else that I kissed you?” But when we we got pregnant a little quick Mhm Ayla’s birthday September Do the math So but you know we realized we talked about it when we talked about the survivor’s guilt You don’t you didn’t survive You know your friends live for your friends I didn’t survive And she didn’t like her vehicle hit landmines and she was in ambushes and all you know near near death on a battlefield is a bullet going an inch from your head That’s near death Yeah you laugh about it after but that’s So she was in all that too And so she’s pregnant and and I should have died and who knows what could have happened to her And who are we to deny what’s happening you know? So I I have I had to throw that out there that you know I have three beautiful blondes in my life with blue-eyed blondes that you know uh keep me in check And cuz I the the feelings I had in the book they’re not all in the past You know I woke up yesterday when I missed the flight man It it was more that I was disappointing you right? And hear me out right? because I was just like I was like I’m the city counselor and and a lot of guys look up to me and this and that and all the you know I got these kids and you know Atlanta and the and I I still can’t make a [ __ ] flight you know and I haven’t even met the guy yet and I’m already disappointing him and that went through me and it’s all because I stepped on that stupid landmine but I wouldn’t even be here if I hadn’t stepped on that landmine I wouldn’t have had these I wouldn’t have these kids if I hadn’t stepped on that landmine after my second fiance walked out of the house and my you know like all I that’s my joke I like all good soldiers I have three ex- fiances and a dozen ex-girlfriends sacrifice to the queen cuz we still swear allegiance to the queen because it’s real that’s like you said the teams come first and uh I had said well I’m going to retire at about 44 with 25 years in so why don’t I just start kids and I’ll add And I’m sure my life would be fine if I hadn’t stepped on the landmine but would it be as fulfilling? Would I be as as as de as broad or would I be as complete? Mhm I’m sure I’d be a kick-ass spec ops sniper somewhere doing something but I couldn’t imag like if if I had a a wish to not step on the mine but I wouldn’t get to keep the kids I’d step on that mine 10 times out of 10 And um so I had to you know I had to throw that in there and give credit to Atlanta for what she did for me and also my friends and family right? just nobody does it No one’s a rock you know So I I just had to say all that Yeah No And I actually uh I have a question about your wife and I was going to give you an opportunity Did I steal some of your thunder? Not at all Not at all Uh I’m glad you I’m glad you put that out there And also I didn’t want to steal thunder from your book And that was one of the things that I was going to tell people I mean obviously I think people are just going to buy this I mean obviously there’s this is the a big book which I’ve taken some excerpts out of Yeah And there’s so much more in it when you read it and you get the whole the whole package One of which is you explaining these relationships with your wife with your kids and how that happened which is just uh I mean for all practical purposes let’s just call it what it is That’s a miracle Yeah Here’s how it closes out People often ask me if I regret my time in Afghanistan because it cost me my two feet and completely changed my life If you live your life with regrets then you never move forward Those six months in Afghanistan before the explosion were some of the best times of my life I can honestly say as I look back on my life in the military I wouldn’t have changed a thing If I hadn’t stepped on that landmine I would never have connected with Alana I would never have had two beautiful daughters My mind and body were pushed to the limit after my accident And ironically I came out on the other side a better more complete person Maybe life would be easier now if I hadn’t lost a part of both legs but it certainly wouldn’t have been any more complete When I when I am in public today advocating for veterans rights or simply going about my daily life people sometimes approach me to say “Thank you for your service “ Those five words mean more to me than anything else And now I’d like to say something Jody from me And on behalf of every American Canadian Brit Australian and the rest of the free world thank you for your service and your inspiration to all of us to overcome obstacles and to make a difference in the world Thank you Thank you man You got a tear in my eye right now Don’t do it You’re on YouTube No doubt No doubt Thank you Jago Thank you too for your service Don’t thank me And I think that’s going to be enough for tonight So if you haven’t got this feeling yet and you’re listening to the podcast I know you’re going to want to go out and get this book It’s called Unflinching: The Making of a Canadian Sniper by my man right here Jody Midik It’s It’s what you want to read about That’s right And you can get it anywhere books are bought You can get it on Amazon I recommend uh for my American cousins use Amazon through uh what is it? The Joo podcast or the Joo Store He wants to go through Joo Store I like your recommendations there Go to the Joo store Click on the Amazon link So Joo gets a little piece of uh of the pie The paperback is out So you save a few bucks and uh be an honor to uh to have you guys read my book If you uh you’re on social media the web I do the webs Jody Midick J O D Y M I T I C on Twitter Instagram Snapchat and Facebook Snapchat I have no idea how Snapchat works Evidently everybody uses it Jody Midick Yeah On Snapchat It people use it Okay I’m going to take you I’m convinced it was I’m not going to judge Okay not going to judge Um yeah you can find Jody Mik on Instagram Facebook Twitter and for all you 14y olds out there you can get him on Snapchat Hey the 14-year-olds need to hear this That’s true Though so Snapchat is becoming like a real thing now Yeah Yeah It I think it originated as that kind of where it’s like “Hey let me send you this Isn’t this kind of cool undercover? And it goes away I’m convinced it was a dickpick It started out for something to send dickpick sexing and whatnot And then someone found a legit way to network or some that’s so it’s a real deal now All right Well so even The Rock is on the Snapchats Right on Right on An honor sir Um I um the chances of me being here tonight are are are very limited We have Twitter to thank Literally one of my fans and one of your fans basically head headlocked us on Twitter and made us talk to each other And uh and I became a fan when you were on the Rogan show and podcasting You know we talked a little bit at lunch It it really helped me when I was going through some rough times And you know I want to thank you for letting me come down here to this beautiful city and and do this for me And um you know thank you for writing your book and being who you are and and Echo thanks for for helping him make this happen And you know I got a a podcast I’m starting the Jody Mik podcast And uh there may or may not be an episode up uh in the next couple days but if people want to look for me there as well I’d be honored to try and entertain them uh as closely as you do And uh and as and as all the other podcasters I love do And you know I just do this to try and be me You know I don’t know who the new Jod Mig is I call I’m calling myself Jody 3 0 right now Uh and and uh and this life is a trip You know I call myself a student of the human condition and I’m always learning I’m always learning and I and I love to meet new people and um yeah that’s all I want to say right now man I appreciate this a lot You have no idea Well we appreciate everything that you’ve done As I’ve already said to everybody else out there that’s listening I think we’re going to actually continue this on and we’re going to go to a Q&A on the next podcast and we’ll just roll that out afterwards But for right now and for this evening I think that’s about all we’ve got So everyone that’s out there that listen to this that knows that a person can go to some depths and can climb right back out of those depths Get out there and get after it And until next time this is Echo and Jody and Joo out