Shawn Ryan Show - DECLASSIFIED #47 Dallas Alexander - The World's Farthest Sniper Kill / JTF2 Operator

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

PREVIOUSLY CLASSIFIED - After a cease & desist order, attorneys, and standing our ground for free speech, we are now able to bring you the full production of Episode #47 with Dallas Alexander. You'll get to hear about operations that were declassified in just the last few weeks. Do not miss this one. The Joint Task Force 2 (JTF2) is a highly secretive and elite special operations unit of the Canadian Armed Forces, specializing in counter-terrorism operations, both at home and abroad. Dallas Alexander and his JTF2 Sniper Team were responsible for landing the world's farthest shot, breaking every record before it. We'll dive deep into the changing culture of the military and how Dallas was forced out of the unit for refusing COVID 19 Mask & Vaccine mandates. Support the show and grab your "Don't Censor Me Tee" HERE. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://mudwtr.com/shawn - USE CODE "SHAWN" Dallas Alexander Links: Website | Spotify | TikTok | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Have you noticed that most ice cream is now common smaller cartons? Not blue bell. Blue bell takes pride in providing our customers with full half gallons and full points of our delicious ice cream. We would never want to deny any one of all the rich and creamy goodness found in every carton. Blue bell wouldn't have it any other way. This episode is brought to you by Dr. Teals. When you need to relax and recharge, take a bath with Dr. Teals' pure epsom salt. It helps relax the body while the natural essential oils help calm your mind. Enhancer self-care ritual with Dr. Teal's foaming bath for long-lasting bubbles, and Dr.

Teal's shea sugar scrubs for smooth glowing skin. Soak in Dr. Teal's to recharge the body, mind, and spirit so you can soak in life's important moments. Find it at a Walmart near you, now available with a fresh new look. Ladies and gentlemen, this episode has had a ton of controversy surrounding it for the past couple of weeks. I'm talking about Dallas Alexander, the Canadian JTF2 sniper who is on the team that took the world record for the farthest ever sniper kill of all time.

It happened in Mozul Iraq. Previously, this content was considered classified by the Canadian government. I believe that this was considered classified because it is an embarrassing segment on why Dallas left the JTF2 command when he was kicked out for not complying with the COVID vaccine mandate and not complying with mask mandates. We took the original video down to please all parties in case there was something classified in the previous episode. We did not want to compromise any JTF2 unit or any of its operators or any allied operators across the globe. So we took it down to make sure that there was no classified information. We

worked very closely with the unit. Turns out they couldn't really tell us what was classified. What's pleads me to believe? They were silencing their operator. With that being said, I want to give a personal message to anybody whose goals or aspirations is to become a JTF-2 operator. I've worked side by side with the JFTF unit on multiple occasions. They are phenomenal at what they do. It is a unit that is the best of the best.

Please do not let the censorship that's going on over there, or the weak leadership to tour you from your goal. I'm going to tell you one thing, weak leadership is always eventually replaced with strong leadership. This is happening all across the globe right now. People are censoring their operators. They are kicking their guys out of the military for the COVID vaccine and mask mandates.

And this is going to turn around. I promise you, this is a huge win for freedom of speech. I want to give Eddie Gallagher and Andrea Gallagher and Tim Parletori a huge thank you for having my back with this because this episode would not be going out if it weren't for them. So I really appreciate that. I appreciate all of you in the audience. In fact, we have a Freedom of Speech limited edition t-shirt for sale on the website. Go down there, support us, support Freedom of speech. I love you all, enjoy the episode, cheers, and I'll see you soon.

Dallas, Alexander, welcome to the show, man. Thanks so much for having me. We've been going back and forth, what, for a couple of months now on Instagram. Yeah. And yeah, it was a pleasure to connect. Yeah, likewise. Um, happy beer, man. I'm humbled to be here, but I'm happy to be. Oh, man, I'm, I've been, I'm really excited about this interview. So for everybody watching,

former JTF2 sniper, Canadian sniper, tier one unit, and you have the world record for the longest, farthest sniper kill of all time which we'll get into. But so with what I have an operator on it's kind of the same format every time we talk about how you grew up, we got you interested in the military, your entire military career and then we get into you know some struggles and what you're doing now. But everybody starts off with a gift.

You watch the show, you know that? You got any guesses? I guess that it's going to be something that's sugary and looks like a bear. Yeah, there we go. There you go. Those are hard to come by. Those are hard to come by. I don't know what that means. I put a little something, I we go. There you go. Those are hard to come by. Those are hard to come by.

I don't know what that means. I put a little something, I sure that. Oh, what is that? So after our conversation at dinner, it's a great book. Did you read that already? Yeah. Yeah.

It's a big after the first psychedelic experience. Yeah. Well, I have a, just like a Kindle version, so let's get a hard copy I thought it would be perfect to grateful Yeah, after talking about how you got out of the military and all the people that are indoctrinated now and post-psychedelic experience I think that's a book that a lot of people a I think everybody could get something out of that book and that Don Miguel Ruiz wrote it and I've been trying to get him on this show for a while.

Yeah, that would be great interview. But yeah, man. So I can't wait to dive into that portion of this story. It's you before we do. Flip the script on you. I brought you something also. Oh, shit. One.

I brought you a box of my favorite hot sauces. Oh, damn. Thank you. If you're a hot sauce guy with this shit, it's good to go. I have definitely a hot sauce guy. And then another bottle of, it's a gold bar, Rick House bourbon. So, you got a good bar stacked up here.

That's what gets you on the table. Thank you, sir. Oh yeah. That's gonna look great up there on the bar. Yeah, it's nice, nice, it'd be nice addition. And I'll dive into this tonight. Ginger goat. Yeah, man, it's just Canadian.

Ah, yeah, Canadian company. Right on, man. Ginger goat, I'll check this out. But, all right, let's dive in. Let's do it. So where'd you grow up? I grew up in Canada. I grew up in Alberta.

It's kind of one of the Western provinces. And I grew up in a little Matysedlement. So it's like an indigenous community. Really small, man. Like I think Max Population, while I was there, was just over 400 people, something like that. Oh, wow. Yeah, tiny.

Wow, yeah. Tyke family. Yeah, yeah, very. Grouped with a brother and a sister, and I, both my parents, we moved out there. Man, I wanna say, yeah, I think just before I was in grade one. So it's where my dad grew up. My dad has made tea.

He grew up there, and we moved out there. I don't know what grade one is. I was probably four or five years old. Yeah, I grew up there until I moved out at like 18. So, oldest, youngest. Middle child. Middle child. Middle child.

Yeah. Would you like doing one, you're a kid? Man, I spent so much time outside. It was like we lived just kind of on the outskirts of the little hamlet village kind of center, on like 80 acres that backed on to a fucking Gajillion acre. So I was outside all the time. I was fucking in the forest playing.

And when I wasn't doing that, I was playing hockey. It's Canadian, Canadian thing to do. I was like, all of my time was those two things. I was either outside in the woods or the lake or whatever, or plain hockey. Big hockey player still. I don't play as much now. I was actually just chatting with my boys about

because I have two young boys of play hockey. I was like, I gotta get back in, if I'm not playing it forever, they're gonna surpass me right away. Yeah, it's a goal of 2023 to start playing more hockey again. I love the sport. How about How about your dad? Did you guys close? Yeah, yeah, man. He's, uh, he's great. Like my dad is my hero, man. It's, it's crazy. Um, how it works like I now have kids my my own and I do a lot of like reflection on how my parents were and how they kind of raised us and try to replicate as

much as I can. Yeah, yeah we're close and it's just a great guy. How old are your kids? So I got two boys, one's 15, one's 14 and a daughter that's just a fucking great guy. How old are your kids? So I got two boys, one's 15, one's 14, and a daughter that's just turned two years old. Oh man. Yeah. Yeah, I got a 16 month old. And that's the only kid I have. But man, I notice I get like these little flashbacks of when I was a kid, I'll do something.

And then it'll register my brain and it'll be like, it's almost like a deja vu. Do you have that happen? All the time. Yeah, that's a normal thing. Yeah, I have that all the time. It seems. Anyway, so we got you entrusted in the time. It seems. Anyway, so, so what got you interested in the military? I was a finished playing junior hockey and I didn't really know what I wanted to do.

I was torn between continuing to play hockey. I had some opportunity to play like like semi pro kind of can make a living grind out a living out of it. And during one of the offseason those working in the well field in Alberta. And I was working with a guy who had done like a four-year kind of military thing. He was a comms guy just did like one one kind of service contract or whatever four years. He just worked kind of out in the oil field every day and he was telling me about this unit in Canada, GTF2. I didn't really believe in my first,

like I didn't know much about the military, uh, when I was playing hockey, it was just sign, our military specialty. Um, so he was telling me about it. And I was like, hmm, he's like counterterrorism. You know, they do all this cool shit. I was like, all right. So I like got onto the, I think I dial up internet at the time.

There was like just a couple little things out. There wasn't much about it, but they had like this old like blurry recruiting video. And there was a couple little, I think someone had written a book. But there wasn't much out there. But it was enough to show like, fuck you, it was telling me the truth. Then as soon as that, as soon as I realized that we had that,

I was hooked. Oh, that's what I want to fucking do. How old were you at the time? I think it was like 23. 23. Yeah, I was after junior hockey, so I was in oil field. Yeah, 22 or 23, something like that.

Round of a year. This would have been about early 2000, no, summer or summer of 2005, I think. Okay, so the war's already going on. Yeah, yeah, so like, you know, 9-11 and all this stuff has already happened. We had guys to play, and I've seen a little bit more of it come,

like through whatever news and stuff that like, you know, Canada got employed and I was like, okay, but I just, I wasn't, I didn't, I wasn't tracking the military very much. I was really in a hockey and it's the whole thing the only thing I ever fucking thought of. You weren't into music as a kid. I've always loved music.

I would always sing along in the car as much as possible. And I grew up like one of my best friends growing up, his family was extremely musical. I spent a ton of time with them and it would just be like at the lake, jamming on the acoustic guitar and playing. Everyone could play and sing and work good. And I really loved that part of music. So that's, it was later that I got a guitar, but that's what that's what's like, oh I want to learn in a couple chords. I could like play a campfire song every now and again when everybody's jamming It was probably Maybe 18 or something like that when I got my first acoustic learn a couple chords

But I never like it would sit in the corner of my room for six months at a time And I wouldn't play it or forget things, be like, oh, what was that song I used to know again? And yeah, I wasn't, it's not what I thought I would be doing. So this is a relatively, this is a totally new chapter. You may have dabbled in it a little bit, but now there's some dabbling actually saying a few times with the so the my buddy at it just says has a guitar shop in eminent and now He was playing guitar in high school and like some of his family members a couple other friends And we had a band and like we'd sing like some alternative songs at like a school dance or something

I was like this could be cool, but yeah, I was never really, I was just, I just wanted to play hockey. So there was not really a thought for anything else until I found out that we had a fucking counterterrorism unit in Canada. So so you found out about JTF2, you're working in the oil fields. How does, how do they do it in Canada? How did you get recruited? So I did a little bit of reading and I was like, I just assessed that. I think infantry would be the best because you have to do two years in the regular force military before you can try out, like before you can go on selection. So it's like infantry looks like the best bet for me. So I just went

into the recruiting center and I was like, I want to join the infantry. And I was like, okay, I was like, I want to go to JTF2. And they're like, all right, slow down kid. Like everybody wants that. So yeah, I went in and you have choices you have like three choices based on like to give you like this This little test to write or whatever and I'll be like okay because you're test score You have all of these different choices and they try and depending on who the recruiting person is they're gonna try and Guide you a certain way or what the numbers are short of but I was like I just want to go to the infantry It's like, ah, it's kind of full right now but I was like, I just wanna go to the infantry. It's like, ah, it's kinda full right now.

It's like, alright, we'll call me when there's a spot. I'm like, well, I must've been a bluff because I gotta call like literally a week later or something and they're like, okay, you can start basic training. It's the end of 2005. So like, I think it was around Halloween or something like that. Yeah. Went to basic training.

How was that? Yeah Went to basic training. I was a um I'd been training really hard Just because of what I saw So there was more on the internet about You know some of your American groups here and then all of like my favorite movies that I watched a thousand times black-octown. Tears of the sun and shit. I was training really hard so I thought basic training like it wasn't too crazy. I was a little disappointed.

You were supposed to joke for you. Yeah like the fitness standards I was like what the fuck? And I was like okay maybe it's gonna get harder. I'm sure, careful as you wish for. But yeah, the basic training I found, the hardest part was like getting used to just like people shouting at you for no reason. And like, just, you know, that stuff, where it's like, yeah, by my tongue, yes, sergeant,

I was like, okay, push ups, okay, yeah. Yeah my tongue, yes Sergeant, I'm sorry, okay push ups, okay yeah. Yeah, my boots are shit, my bed didn't make it properly, whatever, like getting used to that stuff. But yeah, like physically I thought it was, I was way more prepared. And I needed to be probably. What is, do they give you any guarantee that you're gonna get a shot to try out or is it just say you know best a love to you?

Yeah, it's it's really that they're You just you have to do two years before you can even begin the process. Okay, so you might Get your two years in and be like I want to go try out and you don't pass the psych evaluation or you don't pass, you know, whatever the physical standard test is at the time or your training command doesn't support it. You'd just be like, so you just joined in the blind. Oh yeah, I had no idea. It's like, I had a goal and that was it. Let's go get it. With no roadbap. Yeah, that's right. So you got into the infantry. Yeah, so it was basic training. And then at the time, there was a soldier qualification course on an infantry kind of

separate soldier qualifying was like anything army trade and then infantry was like infantry specific. And those brought me into 2006 is when I got to battalion the three PPCLI in Emton Would you think of it over there? Man, I thought it was great like I I was very focused on where I wanted to go so I didn't let a lot of like the Army Nis baller me There's a lot of just like there's some nonsense

Yeah, sweet the floor sit on the stairs Nis, bother me. There's a lot of just like, there's some nonsense. Sweet the floor, sit on the stairs. Okay, it's four o'clock. Now you can go. I'm just sitting here for a fucking hour. A bunch of that stuff, but I enjoyed like the guys. I was super happy that I went to the PPCL. It's three PPCLs specifically.

It was like the light infantry battalion, with like the airborne attitude and all this stuff. And I enjoyed my time there. And when I got there, I was just like, through basic training and through like infantry and all this stuff, I started seeing like, reki platoon, so like he was calling a recon, I think we call it reki, but there'd be like a reki platoon of guys and there's like snipers within that.

And I was like, oh, fuck that. That is, looks pretty cool. And I got to our battalion. And they're like, the reckey platoon with a sniper that was like across the hall. And I was like, oh, man, those guys like they're doing cool shit. They're allowed to unblast their boots

and wear fucking black tukes and stuff. And I thought it was way cooler. So I When I got to battalion, I was like, you know, time I changed command like I got two years I was like I'd really love to become a sniper And again, they're like, yeah, yeah, pump your brakes and But I ended up I had like some good support from the warrant in our platoon and I ended up going on our reckey course and halfway through that I was like, look, when this is done, I know it's a prerequisite

but I want to be loaded on the sniper course this summer. He's like, yeah, I will see. It was a big like attrition rate on the reckey course that they ran, but I ended up making it through and you have the place on the top, I think it was third or something, to be able to go on the sniper course. Luckily, I did that and I got loaded on the sniper course that year. A bunch of things happened really fast. A bunch of other, like it was very

lucky. Timing was right. The platoon I went to, they had, I think that you just got back from Afghanistan and there was a bunch of guys at at left and there was just like, they filled a lot of new guys so they kind of didn't have. All the guys at the time in that they were like, they generally want to send like a corporal onto,hook private. So I got lucky to get into these places, but... See? So you showed up to the infantry and then went right into the Brucky program and then right into the sniper program? Yeah, it was... So I got there in the summer of 2006, in that the fall of 2006,

we went there and like the day I dropped my bags coming from course, they're like okay, repack this and get on this bus because you're going to be we're just like an enemy force for a group that was working up to go overseas. Got back and then I did like a couple other like a machine gunner course, so a machine gunner course. And then I went into the basic pair of course, which everybody wanted to do too. Like it wants to be airborne, worst course in my life, by the way.

And then the reckey, so that was in the fall of 2006 and reckey course started, they did like a selection for reckey course and then it started in January of 2007. So it was like, it was fast. Yeah. And then the sniper course was right after that. Did you deploy with them?

No. I got, I got fibbed, fibbed too in the army way. So the one thing I wanted to do is I wanted to have a deployment before I went to JTF2. The one thing I wanted to do is I wanted to have a deployment before I went to JTF2. And I was told I was a spare for a tour going over to Afghanistan and I was like, okay, great. Like, people seem to get injured or something happens all the time. So there's a good chance I'm going to get to go. And then my warrant said, you're of course loaded on Racky. But if the spare position becomes available, we're going to take you're course loaded on Recky, but if the spare position becomes available,

we're gonna take you off course and you can go. I was like naive, it's like, absolutely. Best case scenario, perfect. If I go, I get to go, if I don't, I get to finish my Recky course. Somebody got injured on the team that was gonna go to Afghanistan. So the spare came available.

While I was on course, the warrants switched positions. And the next warrant up was like, no, no, you're already on a course. Stay on your course. We got this guy that can be a spare and go overseas. So I was like, I was pretty fucking rattled. That's like, we had an agreement. Like, he's like, yeah, but we're not gonna pull you off of court. I don't care.

This course is great if I'm sitting around here, but it's not, I didn't come to the military to go on courses. So, I didn't win that one. So, a body of mine went over and he had a good tour. I was like, fucking, and then it was, I can't remember at what point I was talking to the recruiter at GTF2. And he's like, don't worry, when you get here,

you're gonna get lots of tours. And it was a misconception that it was almost a prerequisite to have some tour experience to go there. So, because we had, like the battalion I was in is in Western Canada, GTTFT is in Eastern Canada. And there wasn't a lot of information coming out. The little recruiting runs they did. They, like, we didn't really know much about it. It was like, very secret.

Yeah. So there still isn't much about it. Yeah, and they're looking around. There's only one guy running around. Yeah. That I've seen that's talking about it. Yeah, and they're looking around. There's only one guy running around, that I've seen that's talking about it. Yeah, so it was, we didn't know what to expect. And then rumors are always just like, oh no, they won't take you if you don't have appointments.

Oh, they won't take you if this. They need this, selection is this and that. And it was just like this fucking crazy rumor mill in our battalion. That's like, oh man, what did I get myself into? So you said you talked to a recruiter, so they coming around the units recruiting guys or they have like a hotline or unit sucks with them.

They kind of have both. When I made it clear to my chain command at 3vp that that's what I wanted to do, that's why I joined and everything, I got really good support for it and there was a group of us that all trained together to do selection. But they have guys come around like a recruiting team of you know, a solter's that have if going on to the recruiting side or whatever. And they'll show like a couple little clips of whatever, like these cool guys shit blowing up stuff

or some MCT things or whatever. Show a little bit of a kit and then go to the next battalion and do that. But there's also kind of like a haul lines. You can reach out to a person and be like, and it's kind of all during that process of doing like your psych test and physical and all this stuff, but the recruiter was there to kind of answer questions.

And one of them was just like, you don't have to have a tour to come on selection. So that made me happy, but I was still a little pissed off at like, yeah, I missed that first rhodo. You missed, you missed some good action, huh? It sounded like it. Yeah, I was, I think we were calling an omelet team, so they were like, they're, uh, it was kind of like the advice and assist and a company,

but I think it was a mix of Afghan army and police. Oh, I could be getting that wrong, but, uh, it just, a guy who took my spot was a friend of mine and come back and I was like, fuck. Yeah, I sounded like a good one. I've been there. So you're saying that the recruiting standards or requirements are kind of, nobody really knows what they are.

So now that you're, I mean, now that you're talking to the recruiter, what are the requirements? So there's a psychological evaluation. You have to go do a couple, I wanna say it was two appointments. And it's just a psych going through all of their psych stuff determining if you would be a good fit or not. And then there's a physical test. You have to do on the standard. I do not remember. But it was like run, pull ups, push ups, whatever it was, certain times and certain numbers. And that all kind of goes in your file and it is sent off to the hill. And that's,

or like, so Dwyer Hill is our unit called the hill. And they get all these files from all across the different branches of the military and pick the people up, are gonna come on selection that year. And then they run a few cereals of that. So the sounds, the sounds very similar to Delta, they're recruiting from all Canadian military units.

Yeah. Or Brian, yeah, like I, I could have fucking been a musician for two years and then try it out. Yeah. Yeah, any, any brand. Okay, so they, yeah, so this is very similar to Delta. Yeah. Interesting. And I think the, the thought behind it is we we're gonna teach you everything you need to know.

And like, you don't need to be really good with a pistol because we're gonna show you the proper way to do it anyway. And if you shoot a lot, you probably have bad habits coming. I'm like, so, there wasn't a big concern of where you came from. The most successful recruits percentage wise are from the infantry, by like a pretty big percentage, I think.

But still, you can be a Navy, whatever, cook. Okay. And still. Are there other levels of special operations units within the Canadian Armed Forces, or is it too expensive? Yeah, yeah. So we have JTF JTF 2 is kind of the counterterrorism hostage rescue mandate tier one. Csor is like almost like the Delta Ranger relationship a little bit. Okay, they're the special operations regiment and then we have like a Hilo group and like a CBRN, like chemical weapon, all of that kind of stuff.

Those dudes that go like the crazy machines. Did you guys work with them? Yeah, we work with them all the time. Like overseas and domestic and like it's, do you see a lot of carryover from the, I'm sorry, I don't, the, the, the, like the Ranger relationship that you were just talking about with that other unit,

do you see a lot of draw coming from that unit into JTF2? Uh, yeah. Yeah. I think even more now. I, I don't know if it was set up this way, but there's a lot of guys now that go there first and then come to GTSU. The average on farm income in the United States was a loss of $1,100. 60% of US port comes from one company, wholly owned by the Chinese.

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Visit rebelcremory.com to find a store near you. So you do the, you do the psych test, you do the, you do the psych test, you do the physical test. What, how's the, do they give you like a, hey, you're in immediately or is it a long way? No, you got to, it's a funny one actually. So you do, you'll know if you pass the test because you know what the times are, you know what the numbers are, there's like a physical, like a PSP staff, they're like, okay, that's

your push on them, or good, Use your runtime, use your pull ups, use your whatever. So you know if you passed physical test, I don't recall knowing if I passed the psych or if they're just like, you know, like psychs, you just wanna know what's they're going in. But you wait for a message from Dwyer Hill to say like, yeah, you're picked up on selection.

So I was training with a group of guys to get ready for it. And we were like, we were given, or like two or three workouts a day, and like our chain of command was giving us time to do it. And it was, got really good support in that sense. But they were all, I was already in a wrecky putune as a sniper, and they were in a different squadron or company.

So I was going out for a run, morning PT, and I think it was all three of them. We were like, oh, we got our message. We're picked up to go on selection. I was like, where the fuck did you find that out? And I was like, oh, I charge a major just told us. So I was like, now I'm like, why didn't you hear fucking anything with the hell?

So I went and found my high charge for major. I was like, he's like, what do you want? Do you have anything to tell me? He's like, oh yeah, you're going on selection. I was like, fuck. Like, thank you. And then I went and did my runner or whatever. But I was just, I don't even know,

it was maybe 10 minutes in between, but I was like, am I going? What's happening here? Yeah, it was fine. It's like bastard. But yeah, so they send the message back to the different units and you just get worried, like show up at this time.

And that's, it's all you know. And it's like, again, you see, like I was training in battalion with like, fuck, some of the fittest people I've ever met my whole life and you'd see, they'd go on selection, come back like three days later, like, what the fuck happened? Didn't make it under like, like can't talk about it, but not anything, like, days later. Like, what the fuck happened? Didn't make it, I know like, I can't talk about it, but not anything.

Like, and then the next guy, what the fuck happened? And then so you're going, it's intimidating. So you see like, I'm working out with these guys. I know their machines, and they're just like, a couple days later, coming back. I'm like, a couple days? What happened there? A couple days, like, so yeah, going in, it was just such a mystery

and just the rumors that fly around. So is the hill at the same, is it at the same base that you're on or did you have to travel, you know, is it at another location? Yeah, so I was in Edmonton, which is Alberta. We traveled to Dwyer Hill, which is a near Ottawa and that's where all the selection was run all around that area. Okay

So you get there you get you show up around how many people are trying out There's a couple cereals, but the cereal I was on I think was 30 just over 30 people maybe 30 people Yeah, how many of these are there running a year? It varies every year depending on recruiting numbers and all this stuff. I think the year I did it, so my selection was in 2008. I wanna say there's four cereals or something like that. Okay. Three or four cereals?

A year. Yeah, the year I was on it. So I know it varies. I think they try to get as many good candidates as possible, but again, recruiting numbers go like this. I bet they're like this right now. Oh yeah. Same here.

So you get in about 30 guys. What do they have? how are you received? Are they welcoming or are they staying off at? No, it's far they yelling at you. It's psychological right off the bat. So you flew into Ottawa the night before, they tell you where to stay in the hotel, they tell you what time to meet a bus.

You just get on a bus. Like here's your number, you'll now be referred to as this number. Go sit down. And it's not like, not really a dick. It's just like, never a matter of fact. Number nine, get on the bus. And you just like, fuck me.

Like, what's gonna happen? And it's kinda like that throughout. It's a seven day selection. And you just don't know, don't know what's gonna happen. There's guys that have done it a couple times. So they have a different clue, or like there's some people that knew

because friends or whatever told them, but like coming from out west, we didn't have a clue. None of us knew anything that was gonna happen. Damn. Yeah, it was, you had no ties inside the unit or anything. No, I had totally in the blind. In the blind? Just like hoping we prepared well enough.

So what was it like? What was it like? What were they looking for? First test. It's like fitness is a big part, but it almost doesn't matter. I realize this after like the guys that were super fit that came back,

like if you can do 200 push-ups, you're gonna be asked to do 200 and two. Like the fitness is important, cause it's fucking hard, but it's more about mental resilience, I think, than actual physical fitness. Like, you passed the fitness standard to get there. Now, no matter how fit you are, you're gonna,

you're gonna be pushed. And that, but definitely happened. And then it's just like, it's like an all day 24 or 7 psychological fucking mind fuck. Oh, good. And there's all kinds of different tasks to see how you think, to see how you work in a team,

see how you work under pressure obviously, to test the things you're scared of. How did they do that? How did they test what you're scared of? Oh, man, they were just, without maybe getting into exact specifics, it would be like they'll test to see if you're claustrophobic,

test to see if you're scared of water or drowning, test to see if you're afraid of heights, test to see your reaction in these situations. And when they find it, when they find your fear, are you gonna hang out in that fear for a little while? Oh yeah, you'll get like, you were exploring, if you are showing something you're afraid of, it is exploited for sure.

Okay. What was yours? it is exploited for sure. Okay. Yeah. What was yours? Um, the ones they tested, I didn't really have any of them at that point. I mean, I have a healthy respect for heights. But I mean, I love the mountains and I'm a climber and stuff.

But some of the most scared I've been have been on my trad climbs because I have respect for heights. I wouldn't say I'm scared of it. But that would probably be the one where I was like, the test that they do I was like, fuck it got down. I just have to do it. I just don't want to give away precisely what it was.

But that was the one where I was like, okay, okay, I'm like, fuck it, I'm here, but that would have been the one. I'm not really, I'm not claustrophobic. We trained a lot in the water getting ready for it, so I was pretty comfortable in the water. Yeah, so if you don't, I totally understand I wanted to give anything up and I don't want you to do that. I'm not prying. So if you don't want to answer just,

you know, you can tell me it's fine. Everybody's going to understand, but I'm just, I'm trying to get, you know, the gist of what the selections like. So it sounds, first it sounded like it was kind of a gentleman's course where it was just very matter of fact on an ocean. Oh no, no, no, no, no. So after that then they start yelling and they're like,

Oh yeah, it is. You go back and forth. There's a bunch of different personalities doing different things for different reasons. So it was psychological. Some guys don't care about me like, welcome you number 10. Leave. Some people fucking right in your face to see if you're afraid of someone yelling at you to see if it's like how you handle

it. And it was like just, it was very good. It was a roller coaster like, and then you have time, like, on your own, where you'd have a task. And then it was with a team. And I'm like, you didn't know if, when they tell you to go to sleep, if you're actually going to sleep or something's going to happen or like, it was just, it's seven days. And it's like, there's not very much downtime and there's just, they try to really assess how you're going to be if shit is hard and you're tired.

And you have a team relying on you or you have to do something on your own. Is it 24 hours a day? Is it just one task to the next task? Oh, yeah, 24 hours a day. Even like your task of, okay, go to sleep. You're like, okay. Like, yeah, it's just 24 hours a day. And mine was run in like late

Fall I think it was November in Canada. So it was like cold outside and it was a mix of like rain and snow and fucking crazy and I remember Part of that actually helped me because I like hurt my knee on it So one of my strength going in strength going in was running I was a pretty good runner. And there's a lot of running that has to happen.

But I hurt my knee and I was like, now the first few days or whatever at the front of the run stuff, feeling pretty good about it, to like, red limping at the back of everything, like, staff and a fucking ambulance right behind me, like, just fucking quit number 10 Just like running in the dark just quit. Why are you doing this? Look at everyone's up there

Do you think they want to work with somebody that's this fucking slow? I'm like, oh my god. Do you think they want to work with me? Yeah, like This was my strength that I'm just trying to run but we ended up doing some stuff I got through this like crazy ice cold river, and there's a bunch of cold kind of exposure stuff. I ended up helping my knee lot. So it was like that night, and then the next day I was like, I was feeling a little bit better,

and I started, it was like, I thought I was on my way out, and then I had this little comeback. Do it, that part is great. That's where I was happy that we were doing it in the cold in Canada. How many guys made it through? Out of all the cereals, I want to say we had, so it goes seven days selection and then it goes to the Assaulter Course.

Oh, shit. So, if you pass selection and are deemed, you know, what they're looking for, you go on an Assaulter Course, that's like 10 months. So from all the cereals, I think we started the assault or course at around 30, something like that. Let me rewind a little bit. So they've had, I'm just trying to understand everything. So you're saying they have four,

the year you tried out, they had maybe approximately four selections throughout the year. Do they compress all these selections? Yeah, most of them are like back-to-back. It was like all I think in the fall. I was like serial one, two, three, four. So there is one time of year where you have a shot to try out for JTF2. And if you're not in that one month, you've got a week.

And you got a week. Okay, so four classes, a 30, that's about what, 75% cut rate? Yeah, and you would see it like it fucking hour one when it started. People were like fuck this, I'm out of here. Like, we laughed about it, like, because to get there is such a pain in the ass process to begin it, like you got to do two years in the military, and I mean not everybody joins just to do that, but like, I'm in the psych test, and the fucking physical test, and the training, and like, flying across the country, to go, and then like the first hour people are like,

nope, I'm done, get me out of here. Okay, but yeah, it's, yeah, 75% roughly are chopped there, and then, man, I may show you, I remember the numbers exactly, I've had a lot of concussions between then and now. It's all good. But yeah, I think our course started at around 30. Okay.

It was time to start the Assaulted Course. So, you get through selection. Is there any kind of, I mean, is there, what's, does the attitude change once you make it through selection and you're getting ready to go to a Assaulted Course or is still, yeah, no, no, the attitude changes drastically. It becomes more now like a gentleman's course. Okay. Now they're clear that like this is still select. Like this is now part two of selection.

It's going to be a ten-month course where you're learning fucking everything. But there was a big attitude change. It was more like a lot of people just, they wanted to show you how to become a good assalter. And that was pretty constant throughout. There was some like, in a time instructor, you can't hit like, making that known. But for the most part, it was good like gentlemen after that.

Gentlemen's course after that. When you're going through the course DC, do you have access to the operators that are over at the unit already? Not really. Some guys had friends that were there and stuff and you could have a chat with them or whatever, but we had just like the cadre of staff that were running each package. That would be our access to the current assalters in the unit. Okay. Yeah.

What kind of skills are, how's it broken down? So selection's done in the fall and then SOAC starts. That's our special operations of the Salter course. It starts in Jan, when I did it, it started in January. So we go and we actually, we came down South and did like a shooting package where they're just like, we're gonna teach you how to shoot these guns now. It was done at like Blackwater, it was Blackwater at the time. Oh, no shit. Yeah. You guys are coming down here. Yeah, cuz it was cold

Fuck January. I feel like shooting pistol and loading mags And it was just I can't remember I want to see it was like a month or a month and a half of Just shooting like straight from the basics like this the pistol is how this how you hold it, this how you use it. And just every day, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot. Was it internal instructors? Oh, yeah. JTF2 guys, Deachin.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, we had like a training cadre that was, and they would get guys, so training, and they would get guys, so training and they would bring guys from like, some of the squadrons in to also teach. So yeah, it was all like, we were learning to be a solter from a solter. Rifle ampistol.

Yeah, yeah, Rifle ampistol. What happens after that? So once you're done there, and then we lost a few guys in that stuff, just like people couldn't pick it up or safety's are always a big one, because it's all looking forward to being in the CQB. So like, if you can't pick up on weapons safety

after some chances, then it's like, cause you know, you get into some tight situations later. But after that, we went to, shooting was done, and then it was CGB, basic CGB. So for the audience, it's not military, CGB's, close quarters battle, that's entering houses, entering buildings with a team and flowing through with weapons. That's right, yeah.

A lot of hostage rescue, capture kill type stuff. That's right. How was that for you? Having never done that. I found it to be a lot of fun. But this, at this part in the course, it was not so friendly. Because we have a trading facility that's like a whole collection of different rooms.

But there's no ceiling and there's a catwalk where the instructors are watching what you're doing. And then just like fucking tearing you apart. Yeah, it's a it's a high stress part of the course for sure. You're trying to learn, take all the things you learn in the shooting package and now put it into a very dynamic situation where once you're going and flowing as you're running and you're making shots and your dudes right there and you're shooting right there.

What's beyond the target? There's just so many things to process that it was like, it was high. I, I enjoyed it, but I almost didn't make it through either. I, uh, there was like, it came down to like a final day in a final room. Um, I loved being aggressive. I was fucking the CQB and sometimes it got me a little more tension. But yeah, I was like down to like if I got another safety, I think it was going to be like that's it for

me. But I still do this day after having done the course, gone through when did all the CQB and squadrons and all the other things, I still disagree completely with the safety that put me kind of on the bubble. I think it was a bad call, but. Do you think maybe they put that on you just to add to the pressure, no one that you only have one left? I don't think so.

Cause if they did, I think they would, would have done it to more people. Like, there was a couple of us for sure that we're like, we just gotta be careful on this run. Just be careful. I don't think it was done in specific. It was just, I did it to myself. I don't know how to do that. How long was that portion?

Oh man. I wanna say it was just a couple months maybe, so it's shooting as a month. Yeah, maybe two months. And again, these are all very, this is a long time ago. Yeah, yeah. It's all ish. So we're roughly, but three to four months into selection. Yeah.

What do we have left? So after you've shown that you can be safe and you're picking up on that stuff, it was still, we're mixing in stuff to at this time that was like fighting medical training. So it'd be like CQB in the morning, let's say, maybe a period of like T-Triple C medical training and like fight class.

CKB in the evening and then like another fight class in the evening. What kind of fight class are you guys doing? Uh, like that mixed martial arts. So this kind of, you're getting the basics of striking, boxing, kicking, um, and then grappling, like some BJJ stuff and then growing to incorporate like weapons and team like more like in a CKB, like in a room environment, like you're coming in someone's hospital, but not necessarily armed,

like not compliant, how do you take care of that? You know what I mean? So incorporating now you have a long gun and you have your gear and like that kind of stuff so the built on first of the like the basics just how to throw a punch How to kick all these different things and grappling and then add it in you know The guns you're gonna have or they're using a knife that you might have if you're in a Harry situation when at what point do they start? Uh, how do I say at what point do they start cross-training? So what point do they expect, how do I say that? At what point do they start cross-training?

So what point do they expect you to start busting out Jiu-Ditsu in a killhouse or more striking in a killhouse? That was the next portion. It was like basic CQB and you're learning the fundamentals of fighting. And then an advanced CQB was like bigger targets, off camp, things we've never seen, getting all like the... and it was more hostage rescue centric at this point, different types of infills, fast-roping, repelling, or like high-speed vehicle approach, or, you know, sneaky. And then in those scenarios, you would have guys that were in the building and this we switch from life fire to sim simulation

but there would be Every fucking scenario you can think of they would put into these buildings and houses and we would go, you know everything from like So, you know, everything from like explosive entry to just like mechanical breaching and just the whole thing came together and that and that's where you're presented with situations where you're like ISS that like I would probably be, well time because I'm on course, I'd probably be in trouble if I shoot this person so I'm going to fight them. And that's where it all kind of came together.

Okay. So basically what they're doing is it sounds like, correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like CQB is the big, the mother load here. Yeah. And then they're adding in fighting, medical, air operations. You guys doing any diving? No, not on our basic soldier navigation. Yeah, definitely. That's the nav, like navigation and all that stuff, is we have a green phase that's after advanced sea kibis, after the kind of tackle, like the hostage rescue kind of domestic stuff, like, you know, you're wearing black and you're doing domestic Canadian hostage rescue

or kind of the scenarios. And then it goes to more. Oh, no shit. So you guys do domestic stuff? So that's, so mandate. Yeah, it's sort of like we're a mix because we have a domestic hostage rescue mandate, what, kind of globally, but like we will be what the government reaches for if something happens that like our police can't handle.

So almost like your, what's your hurt, your FBI think have HRT, HRT, yeah, have like that domestic-hawks-dressed humanity here. So we have that. No shit. I can't wait to dive into how this unit is broken down. I had no idea you guys were both domestic and foreign. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. So, is there anything else you want to cover

when it comes to the training, you know, the selection? Is there anything else you want to cover when it comes to the training? You know the selection? No, man. So when you finish, yeah, how's that? The selection or the the assault or course Because I just saw kind of one big selection you're seven day if you get to be on the soldier course course, you do it. And the green phase ends with navigation, reconnaissance, all the stuff you do in the woods, really long, rock halls, and then like, you're like an escape

of invasion portion, and then you get inevitably captured and go through like resistance to interrogation, kind of, training. I think it's very resistance to interrogation kind of training. I think it's very similar to like a lot of the stuff that the guys down here do. Yeah. Yeah, so that part you just, I hear it on the woods for fucking all the time on the rain. How, what was the most challenging portion for you? challenging portion for you.

I would say the CQB, basic CQB, learning to just like move and shoot and think really fast. That was the most challenging. The green stuff I enjoyed, I was already a sniper from 3BP, and quite frankly, the wrecky course in 3vpc all I was damn near the hardest thing I've ever done. So I was I was already pretty comfortable in the woods and I grew up in the woods and stuff anyway. So the green phase that was physically tiring was not the hardest part for me. It was learning to shoot, move, and communicate.

Yeah. How did it feel when you made it? Oh, man, I felt the fucking on top of the world. It was years in the making to finish that chorus and say, like, welcome to GTF22 kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. It was like that dream came true. But like as I was going through it, now I had new goals. It becomes more of a reality stuff. Yeah, so I'm like, okay, made it good. But fuck, I got a lot to get to work on kind of thing. So.

Yeah. So you started, it sounds like four classes, roughly 30, in each class, it's 120 people. What did you walk out of there with after the town's, man, I should know this, the guys on my course are gonna kill me for it, not remembering the number, but I wanna say it's like 16 to 18. 16 to 18, 16 to 18. I don't think of our course picture in count of that.

Yeah, that could be off a couple, either direction, but it's like a 90%. That's like a 90% if my, oh yeah, from like the start. Yeah, it was known that like from the beginning of the process to becoming an assaulter, it's like upwards of 90% like attrition. That's incredible, man. Yeah, so you get done. How do they present it to you? What is the last exercise were you? So the last thing what did we do the last thing was the resistance to interrogation. And after that, oh man, how did it end? We got brought back to the hill and it was like, yeah, it was like in our

one of like our mess facility kind of thing. We just like get brought in and there's like, now you're looking at the community of all of the Assaulters. Oh, the whole. That weren't deployed, but like all of the Assaulters are there, and you're just like, you get like a coin and they're like, tell you what squadron you're going to. You're like, fucking welcome, kind of thing. It's cool, it's just like, yeah, it seems so long in the making at that point. And like so many fucking points are just like, yeah, it seems so long in the making at that point.

And like so many fucking points are just like seemingly sheer luck is why I'm sitting there. You know? But just, yeah, super grateful to be, it was a cool day. Nice. Yeah. Well, let's take a break and then we'll come back. We'll get into how you were received in the unit.

Sure. Get into some hazing stories, maybe. Okay. I want to take a minute to tell you about Vigilance Elite Patreon. Patron support is what makes this show possible and gives me the ability to bring these one-of-a-kind stories to the public. Go to patreon.com, slash vigilance, elite, and support the Sean Ryan Show today. Alright, Dallas, we're back from the break.

You've made it through selection, and you're showing up to your new home unit at JTF2. What's it like? Um, man, it was amazing. I, like I was saying, it was something I'd wanted to do for so long. Finally, like, okay, now, it was almost like, now I can really get to work. Um, the squadron I went to, the, like, the level at which they shot and did CQB and like the skill level of everyone was fucking crazy. It was like, okay, the course sort of prepared you, but now the learning really begins kind

of thing. And I got to a good debt and the debt commander at the time was great. He's like, so like you're talking about hazing. For me, there wasn't really much. He was like, look, you made it through all of this for a particular reason. You know, if you see something that you don't understand, ask, if you see something that you might think

is fucked up, ask, bring it up. It's like, because everyone is here to think outside of the box. So like, you're gonna have different life experiences, different opinions, see things differently. And we wanna get the value from that sort of thing. So it was, it was especially CQB. It was like stepping in to do it with squad

and they're so fucking fast. I was like, okay, I gotta get the work. Like speed up the shooting, speed up the moving. But I was just like immersed. It just hours go early, extend my workout and stay late to just work on kit and work on draws and shoot and shoot and shoot. This is a nice show up to a unit that wants everybody's perspective.

Yes, they are out of the box, thinkers. Yeah, I think I really appreciated that part of it. I know some of the guys that went to some other places that had a couple of little hazing things, but it was all, it seemed like it was in good fun and then it was like, we're just fucking around, like you're in, yeah, let's get to work. So yeah, I was super grateful for how it was like. When you have a busy day ahead, try a bit to dress shampoo. It helps to support healthy hair by giving you the power to wash

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You could see longer, thicker, darker eyelashes in just eight weeks. And at RedboxRx, it's only $11.40 a week. You won't find a cheaper price online. Take a free assessment today and use the code Spotify for 10% off at redboxrx.com. How I was receiving how professional it was. Can you talk a little bit about how JTF2 has broken down? How many? Yeah, so we have like assault squadrons.

And it's kind of changed a little bit over time and it continues to change sometimes like in the military fashion, it goes this way and they like go back to what they were doing before. They'll have assault squadrons. And within those, you have like, all of the assaulters, you have the breaching capabilities. And then there's some specialties like climbing

within some of the deaths or diving within some of the deaths. And then snipers was in a different squadron that was almost like in support of all the squadrons. And then there would be like a Garrison squadron doing shit around camp and helping out and whatever. What squadron did you go to? So I went to a two squadron. Two?

How many are there? Three squadrons there. Do they have different reputations? Yeah, they all kind of have a little bit different feel. Like almost like a different culture each. Yeah, a little bit. Like nothing crazy, but it would be like, you know, three squadron kind of had the dive capability in divers

and they were kind of like, jokers, a little bit. Two squadron that I went to was like a little bit harder like it was like I don't know just had a reputation of being a little more serious a little harder and then one was kind of a mix of both kind of jokers kind of like more like cowboys I guess so it was interesting interesting to see how it was. And they're pretty accurate. All the guys were great, but it's just,

it was pretty accurate. I think the feeling that we had for each one being a little bit of a different culture. Is that where you wanted to go? I didn't care. Or didn't care. No, I didn't care where I was. No preference.

I wanted to get to a squadron and start learning as much as I could. So you get there and then you had mentioned that you guys also do domestic. So if there's three squadrons, I'm guessing there's what, a train up and overseas and a domestic. Yeah, it's sort of like that.

And we try and keep a cycle, but even the consistency of that, it was just changing all the time. Based on manning issues or opt-em, but with other overseas tasks, and then you're like, because we always have to have someone on call like immediate response in Canada.

So that takes a big chunk of manpower. And that's just like, if you were needed, and that was like, we started with pages, but it would be like, beep beep, you gotta fucking, you have to be a camp within and I think it was an hour and a half or two hours. And you have to have your shit ready to go. Like, if you get there and you need to have that

on a fucking bus or truck or whatever to get on a plane, like, there's no time to now organize everything, you know? So it was like bag one, bag two. All these like just different tasks. All the gear ready to go. So that part of it in the cycle would be like you need to maintain that and then still have guys overseas doing whatever tasks we have. and then people doing their post-employment leave, resting, or actually more courses, you're just trying to mix those three things, which was like rest recovery and training, domestic being on call. But you're able to train in that one as well and then deployed wherever we're doing stuff.

What are the, so what is it in cycle? What six month cycles, eight month cycles? We've tried a bunch of different kinds of cycles throughout my time there. I think what they tried to have the most of was like, I think what they tried to have the most of was like, man, I can't even remember. I wanna say it was like nine months or something. So the deployments at one point were being cut in half a team's rotating out. So you're doing more of like a four month deployment

instead of a six or nine month. But we've tried a variety of a bunch of different things. Okay, so there's no set. Not when you see it drawn on a fucking whiteboard, I'm like, oh, okay, so I'm kind of gonna know what I'm getting up to. And then it's never the case. It's not. It's no, it was like for the first 10, 11 years I was there.

I was gone six, eight months every single year. Whether it's deployment or training, gone a month back a week, gone two months, like six to eight months, I was looking at it throughout and it was like every year was that amount. Gone rusting. Yeah.

So you get in there, you're integrating with the team, it sounds like you want right in to CQB with them. Yeah. I think that's the biggest, because like part of the green phase is like, you're doing like mobility stuff with heavy machine guns, you're doing all like that kind of stuff. So you're, that's at the tail end, of course. That's pretty fresh, like, you know, you're right off it

and it's not a thing we do a ton, well, depending on the task, but once you got into the squadron, the big thing to catch guys up on was CQB and like shooting, CQB shooting, CQB, and like the standard at which the guys in the squadrons were when you got there, like to bring the course guys up to that.

Yeah, yeah. I gotta be honest, I deployed with you guys and whatever, this is 18 years ago. But yeah, we deployed or co-located with you guys and can't hear Afghanistan and they've got a killhouse out there, you've been there. Yeah, no, I never been there. And I remember the first run we did integrated with you guys.

I don't take any offense to this. I wasn't, my expectations weren't too high for Canada. The boy was I fucking wrong. I think what that comes from is the hostage rescue mandate. So like, it's different if you're doing a calm back clearance because you can be a little more deliberate because you don't want to fucking get shot. Yeah.

H hostage rescue, the priority goes to the hostage. So like you come into a building, someone knows you're there, you gotta fucking move fast. What's the thought process behind how fast we trained, I think? Yeah, so I just remember just running, I'm not a small guy. Like, just fucking running to keep up sometimes. Like, and then shoot, keep going.

Like it was the processing of it all. It was like, oh my God. I was super impressed and I could only imagine how much it has evolved in the past 18 years. Yeah, yeah. Or evolved to the path, you know, who knows? The military is so different now. The last two years, but anyways, that's bullshit.

But yeah, man, so how did you integrate in with the team? I mean, were they, I mean, you know, were they, how long did it take before you were equivalent to, is where I'm trying to go? Were they like 100% accepted you, hey, were ready to go, were ready to pull? No, it was still passed on like,

you're still almost like a probation period. Like, you're still being assessed all the time. It's like don't take offense to it, cause so am I, like everyone is in a way. Like you have to keep a level of fitness and shooting, and see what you can be, and like all this stuff has to be dialed in. So it was known, like, look, you can't,

you're not just here now, you can fucking relax. And the pace is crazy. Like, even when I was at home, like, I just felt like I was playing catch up all the time. So like, when did I become an equivalent? I don't know, I fucking didn't. And now, like, I just, there's always someone that's so good that I'm like, I gotta get faster.

I gotta get better. Then I move to snipers and I'm like, fuck these guys, I gotta get stronger and faster. And then fighting like fuck these guys can fight. And like I gotta get stronger and bigger. And like it was everywhere. The competitiveness of that environment, like it's just relentless every fucking day

is a competition of some kind. And it's you're creating it yourself, really. Like, we do shooting competitions, but like if I have a shit day on the range, it's just like that whole evening sucks. I'm like, no, I guess they late. I'm gonna go back. I'm gonna what the, like,

why was I pulling these shots this way or why I was it slow or why it's just, you're comparing yourself all the time. Everyone around. It's such a crazy environment for that. Let me rephrase the question then. You showed up, you started doing CQB, when is the unit, or two squadron,

giving you the ominous, ominous saying, hey, we're deploying, you're ready for this. I don't know if there was a line in the sand or a time frame learned, it was just slowly, man, I don't know the time. It was like, I never felt like I was done progressing, compared to the peers, but I did feel like a legitimate part of the team,

like not that long after. Like where my opinion was valued or something I saw was like good point. Like it didn't take that long. The integration was pretty professional and it was pretty fast, I think. It wasn't like, you know, although the year after our course, they skipped, there was like a year skipped of SOAC for some reason.

So we're like the new guys for like two years. There's still a little bit of new guy shit. You're like different transport jobs and checking on it on trucks and shit that will be like, that's the new guy to ask. But I was like acceptance and where I felt like I was part of the team, like it happened pretty fast. Okay. Yeah. Is the probationary period? I don't even know what the timeline is. I just remember people saying like selection is never over. It's kind of the attitude. Like just know that you have

to keep a high standard team. Or on your keep. Yeah. Yeah. You're not here to relax. Kind of trip. Yeah. How long before your first deployment? So, as I always see, my self-recourse was all of 2009 basically. It was like January to like October, I want to say. Maybe it wasn't 10 months yet. Oh, no, we did some continuation training. So, I was in the squadron at the end of 2009

and I deployed to Afghanistan in the second half of 2010. So I had a year, about a year with the squadron. We had a couple like, we were doing a lot of MCT training at the time. What is MCT training at the time. What is MCT training? Like, sorry, maritime countertares and stuff. So like boats and choppers and ladder climbing and ships. Cause we were poised for the winter Olympics

that happened in Canada. So we were all in the area in case anything happened. So we were getting familiar with like the trains and the systems in Vancouver and the different venues that were there and if anything happened on the water, you know, so there's a lot of time put into that task or whatever. Yeah, and then the second half of 2010

is when I went to Afghanistan for the first time. How was that? Man, I had a great time. It was so... It was so crazy to see how different the world is. You know what I mean? Like in two places, like from Canada to Afghanistan. It's about as different as it can get.

And just to witness that real life was like, it's just so much like you take in so much. It's like there's so much exciting, adventurous feelings that come with it. And then there's like, you know, disgust and fucking sadness almost and like just your mind is blown at some of the evil you can see. So the task I went on actually, I was again, I was a spare to go on a deployment that was more DA's and doing hits on targets. I was a spare. And then I got asked, they're like, hey, there's just other tasks going. I got to Afghanistan. At the same time, you can be on that team for sure

or you can go to that spot and you can wait to try and deploy with your debt to go. Yeah, I was like, wow, what's the chance is? So I started like chatting with guys who were doing work-up trends, like, how's everybody feeling? Is anyone thinking that it might not happen? So I took the sure thing, the sure deployment, I'd been waiting now at this point,

seemed forever to get over there. So I just went in this mixed team of dudes and we went to Kabul and I think that one, got extended a couple of times and ended up being around eight months or something. So when you deploy is all of two going to Kabul or the team? No, the team.

So no, like I was just pulled out and it wasn't even our squad. It was a team of like, man, I think, I think there's five of us, five or six of us, but they were like from all over the place. Like this squad and that squad and a sniper, two snipers actually, but they were like from all over the place. Like this squadron, that squadron, a sniper, two snipers actually, but not in sniper roles. Like this was all like low pro, kind of gray role. So I didn't really have any experience in that. So we did a workup training with some of the

guys that did have experience when did like a motorcycle course, driving course, another driving course, because we did do one on our assault or training. But it was like to get like, I'd never really even ridden a motorbike before. So we went to this dirt bike place and they just taught us how to fucking ride properly. Driving a bunch of surveillance stuff and then like the source handling operations type of things.

And deployed to go do that task. Yeah. Anything spectacular happened that you want to talk about on that deployment? No. Well, yeah, like actually sorry. Yes. That's OK.

A couple of things that were just crazy. So like I was saying before, the environment is there's embassies. A couple of things that were just crazy. Like I was saying before, the environment is there's embassies. There's like a green zone. There's cafes and restaurants. All mixed in with like, there's VBID attacks happening. There's shootings around the city. And you're just like, a big part of that job

is networking, meeting people so you could have a heads up on these things if you're going to do a job in a certain area. But we met, it was the first time I'd ever met him. He actually used to be a soldier at JTF2 and he had a business there. So he had like a restaurant and like housing, kind of like a hotel for embassy overflow. And it's like, no, it wasn't in the greens. And what was known is like a pretty secure, like it was like double wall, he had good security and stuff. But we were, you know what I feel so proud,

I don't remember the date of it, but we had like barbecue that are like little house that we were living in in the city. And one day we were gonna go get stuff for the barbecue. We go to this grocery store, and I can't remember why, but we just went to another grocery store that we didn't normally go to. And we come back and we just like, here fucking hell break loose. Because it's only a few blocks away.

And then we get a call from this guy who had the facility. And he's like, he calls one of the boys and he's like, fuck, you gotta come get me, I'm in trouble, help kind of thing and he like hangs up the phone. Like, well what the fuck, you know, what did he say? I don't know man, I don't know if he's at his house or like where he is, we call back and he's like,

no, the grocery store we skipped to go to the other one, got attacked like that same time for him and he was in there and I guess two guys came in shot the place up like through these frags and I can't remember if one guy if it was just grenades or if one of them blew themselves up but he was he hit, he got shot, and I think he got some trapezole, and he was like trying to get out of there, and so he called again, and he's like, don't let them take me, you guys gotta come find me, he told us he was at this grocery store, so we were like, fuck,

like we gotta go right now, and now a couple questions came up, but like Mandy, blah, blah, blah, blah, and we're like, oh fuck that, like I grabbed like my med kit, we hopped in a truck and it was like, it was really close to our place. And we just spread out to try and find them.

I was running down the street. I went in the grocery store first and it was just fucking chaos. Like it was still smoky. There was fucking bodies and blood and shit everywhere. And like that's something like the smell of that for the first time. All of it hitting your nostrils and you're just like,

this is fucking madness. But you're also, is there still people in here? Like I'm looking and now there's the local ambulances are starting to come, so they're trying to, just trying to figure out what's going on. We're trying to find our fucking friend. So I like I don't see him in here and we started like just split up and in pairs

and like running down the streets and eventually he got there was another Canadian there that just like somehow found him in the area. He got loaded up and like taken to a an aff like a local hospital and stitched up and flew out I think to Germany or something and got to take care of it. But like the chaos of it all was, I was like, wow, it's just like so fast it happened. We're about to have a barbecue, crack a beer and then it's like, man, kid, pistol, let's fucking run along under the truck, lock it up, and let's fucking find our guy. And it was crazy, because we had rehearsed in workups, one, two man CQB, in case something happened

that was sort of like this, but now thinking about it, I'm like, I never expected to see that scenario. You know what I mean? And what's the best way to search blocks and blocks for someone when your team is five, six assaulters? Like, there's a bunch of things that I was like, I don't know if I was fully prepared for that.

But we didn't think about this one. Yeah, so that day was pretty intense. Did he survive that? He did. Yeah, yeah, man, he's fucking tough, too. He just kept at her. And I think he's just, I hear about him every now and again. And he's just like somewhere else doing something crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Right on, man. Yeah. it's glad he made it out. Look at that one. So you come back from that deployment. Yeah, so that would have been 2011?

Yeah, I mean, 2010 over Christmas and came back. Oh, fuck, I don't even remember. Sometime early in 2011, I think. See, you back home from your first trip, which one completely different than what you were expecting, it sounds like. And you're back in with your primary unit, with the boys, right? So what's coming down the pipe now? Did they deploy while you were?

Yeah, so one of the troops, I think, I don't think the whole squadron deployed. Again, it's a little hazy, but it might have done a switch one troop and then the next troop. But they were deployed at the same time that I was in Kabul. They were down in like near Kandahar. Just doing the hits and stuff like that. From what I heard, it wasn't two. I didn miss too, too much. So I was like, okay, there was a lot of dry holes and like, you know, stuff that it wasn't necessarily lining up, like some of the previous guys had gotten. So I was like, okay, I wasn't too sad about missing that. I was happy with the experience I got

doing the other task. Well, what is the next task? So I went back, I was in two squads in 2011, as I'm getting back into whatever next cycle we were probably call it IR when you're just like, you know, a meter response, you have to be ready to rock. There's a big workup training that goes with that, a bunch of domestic, you're getting back into like, H did my sniper course for JTF2.

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Belize looks pretty nice this time of year. Or, hmm, Palm Springs. Go to your happy place for a happy price. Go to your happy prize, prize line. How did they come about? Is that something you put in for? Yeah, I wanted it. I was already a ragged forced sniper and I knew I wanted to go there.

I just wanted to get some time in the squadron first. I got a soldier experience and a lot of breaching experience and then I was asking, I was asking a lot to like, can I go like can I go to snipers. Yeah, and they supported it all. So I did that course and then moved over. Hold on, how was that course? Oh, I was fucking great. What I had to compare to was the CF, like our rag-forced sniper course, which at the time I thought it was also great, but then it was next level, like at the hill with that sniper course. It was just everything from the weapons and ammo, like the kit, the support for it, like

the fucking gun-text or ninjas, man, like all of the support for it, like the fucking gun techs or ninjas man, like all of the support for it was so good. Like if you're shooting and there's an issue with kit, there's like someone right there to fix it, replace it, get it going. Like, and the, they just, the precision that is taught, and that was very much a gentleman's course also. They're like, the snipers want you to be a good sniper. Here's how you do it. course also. They're like the snipers want you to be a good sniper. Here's how you do it. So it wasn't like a high-trish and rate. I don't know if any, I think we had like one guy fail. But I thought the course was great. And I always love the stalking portion of sniper training. It's the mode. It's like hunting. Like you were in the fucking zone. It's like a flow state activity. So that I always loved. So like it was more challenging stocks now and it was, it's just,

it encompasses kind of all green skills. It's a sniper stock. So to see the level at which you were expected to do it, I was impressed. How close are you getting the target? So you have a box kind of thing that you have to be in. So we have two guys who are snipers looking for you stocking. They're like, we'd be sitting in a chair beside each other with binos and they know that you're starting somewhere down there, like the whole course and you're stalking towards them.

And you have to be inside of 300 meters, I think it was. So you start off a K or two away. So there's a little bit in an navigation. It's more picking the ground to move in efficiently. And then there's walkers out in the field where you're stalking, feel the forest or bush line or whatever. Generally, you don't get a bush line for too long before it's a field. And the people watching, the snipers watching

and looking for movement, looking for any sign of people creeping up on them, are in radio comms with the walkers. And if they see anything, they'll have an air horn. I don't like these guys getting slick. So they're like, on the boners, and it's like a step on. So they don't even have to, and you have to freeze. And if you don't, there's a bunch of integrity things that come down the line.

But, and then they'll be like, yeah, Walker, whoever, move to your right, by the log, he's controlling where this guy's going. He's like, there's just a sniper at your feet, or like controller arms, like you're touching a sniper. So you have that going while you're moving, you have to get into a final firing position set it all up. When you're comfortable that your camouflage, that you think they can't see you, you tell one of the walkers around, like there's a shooter ready to,

it was like an identification first. So you had to judge the distance by using your scope to measure how far they were, and then you had to identify just so that they know that you have a clear window to see through. You have to identify a letter that they'll hold up. So you're like, you're looking, the walkers are like, okay, he's gonna hold the letter. You're like, you say the letter? Yep, good idea. Now all of our stocks ended up being live fired.

So in this particular part of it, you would shoot a blank round. And now the walkers, it starts at like, up being live fire. So, in this particular part of it, you would shoot a blank round. And now the walkers, it starts at like 10 meters, five meters, like two meters or something. So he's like, yeah, I got a sniper within 10 meters of me. So the guy's like, okay, somewhere here.

And he's like, okay, don't see him. If he doesn't see you, and that's what you're hoping for, moves to five meters. Still doesn't see you fire around. what you're hoping for. Moves to five meters. Still doesn't see you fire around. And this one is just a blank round. So it's to see like, what type of vegetation is trying to be? Have you thought about that?

Have you thought about that it can move or fall down if you shoot around? And then you have to do a reload. So there's movement in there that you have to control. And then the guy moves, I think it's like two meters. And I could be getting all this a little bit wrong, but it's roughly this. And then he's like, okay, nope,

let's tell him to send a second shot, boom, it's a blank ground. And then they look, they don't see anything, then you're good and you're like, okay, then you wait. When everyone is done, precisely where the guys are sitting will put up like a steel target, it's the same size. And then you have to, now you have to make that shot. Okay, so the past comes if you can make that life

fire shot after. Just for the audience, you know, you're talking about stalking through an open field. I just want you to talk about how the pace of which you are moving to not be compromised. Yeah, so pace is based on how well you pick the ground. Like, if there is, for instance, a hill somewhere in there, it's in your best interest to get behind it. in there. It's in your best interest to get behind it. Have the guys looking for you, like, have the hill between you two, and you can you can upright walk, you can run if you want, to make up time.

When there's no hill, or then no trees to use, and this stuff, it's really using ground to just try and maximize efficiency, because like to low crawl really on your belly, it's fucking tiring. If you're a good gun with you, it's super tiring. So picking ground is the biggest thing. Like, that's what makes you able to move in a pace that is like in your best interest. And it doesn't have to be crazy. Like, you know, you can crawl behind a slope that's not that big

without having to be right on your belly and like just like inching across Melbourne field. So it's things like even vehicle tracks and stuff. You can just, it's picking up on those things. And, and trying to see also what's ahead of you. Because the worst thing is the fucking cross the one. And then you have nowhere to go and you have to like backtrack

and clover leave around somewhere. Cause in the terms of stock, it's all timed. Don't ask me how long, cause I don't fuck her remember. But it's all timed. So you have to complete this task in a certain amount of time. So like if you waste an hour crawling up

and now you're calling, you're like, you're taking risks you shouldn't take with fast movement, like you're not setting yourself up for a successful final firing position. Yeah. What type of shots are you guys taking? Like how do you mean? I mean, so is there a portion where you're not stalking

and you're just going for accuracy and distance? Yeah, and a lot of that is based on the Hossadreski stuff. So like, it's mainly the HR shots were up to 300 meters, and it would be like, based on MOA, and I think it was one, like a minute of angle. So, you know, roughly at 100 it's super tight. 200 is a little bit bigger. 300 is probably like that.

And like, those are the shots you have to make all the time. That shooting standard is very high with what platforms. We trained with a 308 for most of it. And I think the thought process behind that, because of bigger calibers that you fucking battle the wind way, like a 338 is what we used after. But to train with a 308, like, you have to be on your wind calls more.

They're less forgiving rounds. Just in terms of wind really is the biggest thing. on your win calls more, they're less forgiving rounds, just in terms of win really is the biggest thing. Like, you're working that art a lot more than with a 338. So that's what the course we trained on. So far this distance, you guys were working with at school. Oh, during the course, well, we came down to Texas to train with, I don't know if you know the accuracy first guys.

I don't. Oh, okay. So we came down to train with them. And in Texas, on course, we were shooting like, we had our 3, 3, 8, and 50s out by then, like a couple kilometers, like we're shooting 25, 2600 meters. Okay. Yeah. His program, like it was like nothing I'd ever seen.

I part of the course, it was like, fucking blew my mind. Like I, at first, I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna understand this. And, but as you go through it, just what he was teaching for long-range shooting, man, it's a pretty fucking big reason why we got that long shot in the end, like a huge reason. Yeah, that's a serious credit.

Like, while I can get into an hour, I can talk about it before that deployment that I went on, but like, we'll talk about it before. Okay, because it on, but like, we'll talk about it before. Okay, because it's, yeah man, it was next level. From the sniping experience that I'd had before, it was crazy. So you guys are using 308, 3308, 50K. Yeah.

What else? Oh, that was it. So we had 308. Once we're in sniper troop, like once you've done your course and you go to sniper troop, we weren't really using the 308 bolt gun anymore. So we had a 308 gas gun, 338 bolt gun and a 50.

Okay. Did you guys ever get into the Creed Moral? What is it? 6.5 or something? Yeah, there's been guys, I know guys like have played with it, trial, there's kind of some, it was in the realm, I've never shot it.

There's like guys that are really into ammo. Shit are always tracking what's coming next. I was more like, what do we have to use? And that's what I'm gonna try and get good. That's how I am, do I? Yeah. But no, we never got into that or shot at all. Right on.

I was just curious. All right, so we get done with the sniper course. You're back at JTF2 and the sniper squadron. Yeah, I went over to snipers right after my course, basically. So I left two squadron, went to a different squadron that had the sniper treatment. Is this much smaller squadron? It was kind of like support, you know, so like the tactical

part of that squadron was like the snipers. We would do like reconnaissance and sniping. Um, and then there was, oh man, I don't even remember the other troops. It was just like, it was a completely different makeup. It wasn't like an assault squadron at all. Okay. Yeah. Or you've farmed out.

Yeah. To the, to the other squadron at all. Okay, yeah. Or you've farmed out to the other squadrons. So like for an IR cycle where you're on, you know, immediate response, you have a certain amount of snipers attached to that. An overseas task, depending on the task, a certain amount of snipers for you to deploy with that squadron the entire time or you kind of as needed,

that's right over. They tried it all over. No, it was almost always you would go and do the full deployment. Okay. In my experience, I did like the full deployment with the squadron. Yeah. Who'd you deploy with first?

Uh, my first Iraq tour was in 2015. And this was like, Iraq had kind of just kicked off for us. There was one roado before us, which was Roto Zero just to make it all confusing. Second Roto was Roto 1, which is the one I was on. And we, they only sent two snipers, so I deployed with like my TL, which just so happened to be my current brother-in-law. And it was just a two-man sniper team. We actually mostly worked with our brother unit, the C-saur I was telling you guys about. For most of that tour, trying to think, well, it was a mix actually, sorry.

So we were with some tooth-coating guys and working with C-Sore guys. And we were just, there was kind of a front line, it was crazy, it was different. It was the curds were trying to hold ISIS back. I need to come to like just old, there's like a front line, well then there's some nomans land, and then there's ISIS on the other side. So where were you guys over like our beel? This was like we're out of our bill, but more towards like towards Mosul. So it was my first tour, it was like Mosul was like the city I

could see like way in the background on all the different tasks we did there. So that was mainly just trying to help the curves whichever way we could. There's little bit of training stuff. We didn't do too much of that. That was more what C-Saw was up to, but it was just navigating all the restrictions and rules and stuff like that and just trying to be as effective as you could against fucking ISIS that wanted to keep pushing back all the way through Kurdistan.

So are you guys getting pretty kinetic? Yeah, I was, well when we got there, there had just been like the first Canadian casualty of that war. And so when I first got on the ground, there was like a bunch of restrictions like no move here and there. And like we just had to figure out ways around that to get to work. So like eventually, you know, it was kind of always a back and forth. Like we wanna go do this, we wanna go do that. It's like, well, you can do this, you can't do that.

This is a proof, you can't go there. Like just all of that. But I was with, like, he said the T.L. I was with, like we would just fucking every night brainstorm. How do we get out there now? How do we get out there? How do we do this? Um, and then yeah, it ended up being a pretty good aggressive, good aggressive tour. And, um, a lot of it was like long, so to be like sniper stuff because you're, you're on a line and they're like, they're not standing 300 meters out there

because anyone that did that would have been dead already. So it was like sniper and air strikes. That combination was what we were doing. And it was described like, describe a typical day on the line. How many guys are you with? Yeah, so it would be normally myself and my sniper partner, who is the TL and our two men and team, kind of ran the OPs that we would go on

and we would bring some guys from C-Source. Sometimes we'd have a J-Tack with us. So that's the guy that controls all the aircraft and drops normally an interpreter and drops. Normally an interpreter or every time an interpreter. And the crew numbers varied. Sometimes it would be four of us out for the night. Sometimes it would be like eight or ten. And then sometimes we would go out with like the other squadron guys that were there. So we're all just like trying to get on this line and trying to bring the fight to ISIS.

So the number's varied, but it would go, are you with any curds? Yeah, yeah, the whole time. It's all, yeah, the whole line is just like, it's crazy to see this line at night, because you can just see, like it's just like bunkers and a light that just goes across the horizon and like all these positions are manned all the time so that like ISIS cannot get through. So we would normally go out a few days at a time so that we could go to one,

go to another kind of support from wherever we were getting information that shit was happening. the information that shit was happening. And sometimes it would be very insulated. I remember the first one we went out is like my first real thing really I was doing as a sniper. So I was like, I'd been a sniper for a long time considering my CF time. And I was like, I am fucking ready.

Like we went out and I didn't sleep at all for like two days because I was like, I'm not missing a goddamn thing. When we got there, the courage was like, I am fucking ready. Like, we went out and I didn't sleep at all for like two days because I was like, I'm not missing a goddamn thing. When we got there, the curds were like, oh, every night, you know, there's machine gun fire from there. Every night, there's a sniper over there. I was like, okay. I'm like, fucking, here, like I was set up ready to go and my, my team lead.

He's like, yeah, okay, well wake me up with something crazy stuff. He's had a lot of experience already. He's done it so much shit and I'm like, just ready to go. So I'm like, dip in like, just coffee, dip, and like, I'm not asleep. I'll sleep when we pull off and we go back to camp.

And it was like, not a fucking thing happened for like two days. I'm like, through the tarp, I'm like, what's going on here? It's like every single day you're getting shot at from this place. And like, so there was balancing like who was overblowing whatever was happening to them or exaggerating and then trying to figure out where you can have the best kind of effect and then just trying to get your place. You're trying to get your spot there.

We did that one, nothing, yeah. But it was normally a few days online, go back and assess even if you came, if there's a better place to be, or there's someone's taking fire, just whatever the best way we can kind of support. Did you get to do what you wanted to do as a sniper? Yeah, not deployment.

Yeah, I mean, it's a weird thing, but you always wish for it to be closer. Some reason, I don't know why I were like that, but it's like, you know, you shoot someone, like, so the closest, the best place we got was a position that was like 1700 meters to the town that ISIS was in. And it was like, this little valley looking down

and like, there was always something going on there. And so that's where we were like, sniper fire, but, and still sometimes you're like, it's so blurry, you don't need a 1700 meters shot, machine gun through a window, and you shoot, and it's like the firing stops. You know, like, I don't fucking know, it's like, dead, did he run out the back?

Like, there's no way to know. The most effective thing I think that we did with the combination of what we had was wrangling guys and pinning them down places and then dropping them bomb. What do you mean wrangling? Well, so like if a fighter's headed one way, you shoot at him. If it's not a first round hit, which, you know, two kilometer first round hit is like, it happens.

Look at that after. But like, it's probably gonna be an vicinity and the spotter shooter team will walk on. Normally now, if a round lands, they'll square into something, we'll just pin someone in and drop a ball. That's what, on that tour, we found most successful. Okay, I was fucking successful. How many bombs do you guys think you dropped that?

Oh, I have no idea. Fucking successful. How many bombs do you guys think you drop that helmet? Like fuck, I have no idea. I don't know. It got slick though. Like, there's a bunch of things like you're obviously always watching for, you know, call the collateral damage, but it's people. People that are not in the fight.

Yeah, because it was, most of these areas close to the line, it was only ISIS left, but not exclusively. Like sometimes, now whether it was their family, or like they use shields and stuff all the time. So like, in sniping human shields, oh yeah, did you see that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's go into that.

That was the next roto, but sure. So this would be moving forward to the next roto, but sure. So this would be moving forward to the next roto that I did there, which would be in 2016 and into 17. And this was the tour that we made that really long engagement. Well, let's go back. Okay, let's go back. I want to take a break before we get there. Okay. So this deployment, you're doing all sniper stuff, but I mean, did you really get the satisfaction that you were hoping for me?

Did you get your first confirmed kill and witness the kill? That's what I'm asking. Cause that's whatever sniper wants. Yeah, I know. And no, and I don't even, I don't know if I ever really even, well, no, never I don't even, I don't know if I ever really even, well no, I don't know, never mind we did. So sniping, no, it was always like guess, like it worked.

I don't know what happened on the other side of that. Okay, wall, window, whatever. The biggest numbers were from airstrikes for sure. Okay. Get dialed in, pin some group of people or whatever they're, and just fucking end them that way. I don't find that is satisfying. Oh no, I totally agree.

I know where you're getting at. For sure. Yeah. I've done a lot of engagements where what you're talking about where it's where it's, well, I mean, you know, there's no more gunfire, but so you didn't get the full bone confirmation. No, not yet.

All right. So you come home. Yeah, come home from that one was, I wasn't that long. I think we were there for four, four or five months. Four months. Yeah, okay. This is when they were trying to do shorter

and just get guys through. One, because there was a bit of a break that period that I did my sniper course between like what was going on Afghanistan and then we weren't doing much in Afghanistan for a while and then when I rack happened there was like everyone wanted to go. So I think part of the shorter rotations were we don't know how long it's going to go. Let's keep guys fresh but also let's get guys going because that's important.

Yeah. Yeah. What's the, what's the retention at the JTF2? Is it good? It used to be. It's not anymore. COVID, COVID fucked it up. Yeah. COVID.

We're going to get into that. Let's take a break before we get into the, uh, to the World Record Road of six. Thank you for listening to The Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes, and leave The Sean Ryan Show review. We read every review that comes through, and we really appreciate the support.

Thank you. Let's get back to the show. BAM! All right, Dallas, we're back from the break. You getting ready to go back over, but before we just had an interesting conversation on the break that I had to cut you off, so JTF2 has not had any casualties?

No. No casualties in that. No KIs. No KIs. Killed an action. Yeah. That's, that's unheard of. Oh yeah, that's why.

I mean, and like I was just saying, like the sentiment is like We hear some lucky motherfuckers like there's been guys shot up. There's been real close calls Like I'm the first point we were just talking about like there's a couple times where I'm like fuck Normally that was mortifier, but like yeah real goddamn close I mean ship when I worked with you guys the day, I think it was the day we left, you guys spun up to go out in a halo that shot down outside of Canada horror.

And I know for a fact some dudes got shot up because I saw them afterwards. But damn, that's in only one KIA through and now we're Canadian Special Operations. Yeah, I believe so. If there's something I'm forgetting, please forgive me. But like I'm fairly sure, and that was one I was just telling you about, cause it would've been Roto Zero in Iraq, and it's just a sea sore guy.

And that, that was it, man. Wow. And like, yeah, again, just knock on wood, because, you know, it's a fucking, it's a crazy, it's a crazy thing you're out there doing. It's been a long war. But yeah. And we are, let's get into it. Blessed.

And as you are, let's get into the next deployment. OK, so next deployment was a, Roto number would have been Roto six. For this one, I went with four man sniper team. I was a two IC, TL and two, number one and two. Most of the deployment was we were trying every step of the way to get into Mosul. So we had from the first row to I was there, we were on a defensive line, way back from Mosul.

And this one, we were trying to get in there. So the Iraqis and some pushes done previously had pushed ISIS back into Mosul. And mainly West Mosul. So there's a river goes right in the middle. And of ISIS was pushed back there. Other than like, there's also some other tasks with, or in the cities going to, to look for people. But the whole time most of that road, we go and do a few hits around the cities and those were mainly like, no one wanted to scrap. It's like you're in someone's house. Panels in the middle of the night. They're like, yeah, okay, I'll come with you. So none of that was very dynamic. It was fun, but it wasn't anything really

really great. No, great. Yeah. And then so most of that road was that, but all of us really trying to press to get in a Mosul. And like RTL was just like, he had his, as soon as we got there, he had his eyes set on a San Ninovo hotel, which was like, I think it was a nine story hotel right on the river, West looking into East Mosul where where ISIS was like that's where they were now holding so the fight was kind of across the river.

Are we getting into this already? That's this is yeah this is this is okay so whoa yeah so I actually I'll talk a little bit about I'll talk a little bit about the workup. Like I mentioned it a bit. We went, we came back down to Texas again, trained with accuracy first. And we were starting to shoot upwards of three kilometers. We're kind of like the group of guys in that true fucking phenomenal, just always pushing, pushing, pushing.

And we were there and we got this piece of kit and it's company, man, I hope we get it right. It's Taccom, HQ I think. And they make a prism. So previously, long shots were like, you dial on a sniper scope, and then you're holding in the reticle. So you'll be with the shooter spotter team, the shooter's not even looking at, can't even be looking at the target.

It's a different reference point, and then you're getting corrections off of that. Because in order to have the round go that far, like your gun is now required to point up in the air, essentially. So you can imagine if you're looking through a scope, you're looking high up on a building, higher up on an antenna, holding on a fucking cloud, like something like that and just trying to get a correction. So this prism did, is it allowed us to have that angle

but also still see what you're aiming at. Okay. So we got like the first couple versions of it that were just like this piece of metal, just like here's how you put it on. And we were playing with those. What is it look like? It goes in front of the scope.

And they're like, they have a company and it's like, they're getting them out there now. This was like the very, I think some of the very first ones. It just attaches on the rail in front of your scope. And it's like, whatever a prison does, whichever way it's angled, I don't know. So that when you're pointed out, the shooter's field of view still has the target in it.

So what does it look like, a UNS or something? Yeah, sort of like a UNS. Oh, good. Yeah. These were like very rough first prototype kind of things that we brought with us. And it was just trying to piece together stuff so that we could reach out a little further

and a little further. Is this something you would keep on your rifle fixed? All the time. No, it would be very specific. Okay. Because you can't shoot someone at 100 meters with that on. Yeah. You won't be able to see them.

I've never. I don't have any experience with this stuff. Yeah. So it's like this prism thing comes and we're like, what the fuck? And so we're doing workout training. And I told this funny, our sergeant major's there and some other guys, and I was like, I promise you on this road,

I'm gonna break the world record. So that workout training, really? Workup training in Texas. Now it sounds extremely cocky, I get it. And then my side page is like, what? It's like, I fucking, I'm telling you. And the last time we were there, I know where we're going. It's like, I promise we will break the world record

on this deployment. Did you know what the record was? Yeah, I was like 24 something. Like, there's a break guy I think that had like 24 meters or something you You don't know them. No, I don't know. I would love to get the two of you and here for an episode together But no shit, so you knew the damn you knew the world record. Yeah, it was like 2400 But we were we were punching past that very consistently with this prism now and I was like holy fuck

so That was before we deploy the first, and it was I think it was just over six months to where most of it was just trying to get into that fight in Mosul. We ended up getting into that hotel as an OP and it was kind of a weird. So the Iraqis were on like floor three or four and we were ended up moving into an OP on the top floor, like floor nine I think it was. And it was just weeks and weeks and weeks of just watching, just looking and watching and learning the ground. We were waiting for an Iraqi push from the north

to start clearing through the city or the east part of Mosul. And we were gonna support that, like perpendicular. So we have high ground or perpendicular to the fight. The ground is sloping up and away. So it's like an absolutely perfect scenario for long range typing. Like you can see splash. You can't spot swirl at that at that range because the fucking combination points so high, but it's just like this setup, we're like holy fuck. But we were in there for I think total, we're in there like 50 some days.

And it would be not all that one would go like a week, two weeks, go back to our bill, we grew up like, are they gonna push? Oh, they might, we'll go back. And it was, I think 52 days, it was around that time that we were. You guys were going back to the same OP? Yep, that's bullsie.

Yeah, that's really cool. Well, for the first, for the first long while, all we were doing, like we had a loophole and we had another squadron that was with us and we would just be on the glass and then on the thermal night at night and just be gathering information on the town and then calling air strikes. So like we weren't, there was nothing coming from that building from us. And they were used to getting shot at from the fourth floor. The Iraqis just like, fuck whatever.

So it wasn't like, it wasn't just you and a few guys hanging it out there. There wasn't a lot of heat. Like it felt pretty safe, man. To be honest, like we got up to the top floor, Like it felt pretty safe, man, to be honest. Like we got up to the top floor, cleaned it up, set it up, covered our roots in and out of where we were watching. And it was, like the building would take the odd round or mortar. But it like, I think it was more like, let's just keep everyone on the fucking side

undertones and send something. Because there was a rack, he's like five floors below us. I don't know if I can understand something because there was Iraqis, like five floors below us. Yeah, so it was just like, kinda, not mundane, but just like, OP routine. Nice, like, fucking flip-flops every day. Just looking at the spying scope, listening to podcasts. But what it gave us was a super clear picture

of everything in the city. Like, everything was laced. We knew the distance to fucking every building and the corresponding dope or the elevation holds and stuff to use. So it was between that and how much we trained with communication between the sniper shooter team. That's the deadliest combination of sniper skills, I think.

Like everyone can learn to shoot a bolt action gun. It's really not that complicated. If you have good ammo and a good weapon system, but like the communication and how fast and slick it got is what I think made like, because we supported that I rack you push for like almost a week and it was like very effective, but it was because of we knew everything. We're just like the corner of that building.

We have a name for it. You knew where it was on it. Elevation here's a wind call send that, shhh, it was like, as soon as the round lands, it's not a hit. Here's your corrections and it's like that support. Wow. It was just so, it was so fucking cool to see the culmination of that sniper troop,

what we learned in Texas, how much the guys cared, how much they pushed, how much they wanted it to like all come together. And it was like, it was pretty slick. Some ranges that were, Man, I bet we broke the record between the four of us, the previous one. Fucking five times that week. Are you serious? Yeah, like 2400. So the longest shot, like the 3540, the battle kind of came a little bit towards us each day up to maybe 2100 meters

So like that week all the engagements were from 3,540 meters to like to grand So there was like a bunch of different Shots but we're like well, we don't say Now we got second place and third place and fourth place and fifth place. I guess we're like, that was a long shot. We were just, we were stunned, but I'll get into kinda how that was, but it was so, because the tour was kind of slow and there was one thing that happened

that like it almost fucking It it like changed my fucking drive it like kicked me an overdrive so there was this ISIS fighter that got captured and They were doing a debrief a camera if it was an intelligence debrief or a reporter or something was talking to him They were doing a debrief. I can't remember if it was an intelligence debrief or a reporter or something was talking to him. Let's go back to the human trafficking thing we were talking about downstairs earlier.

And he was bragging about having raped like upwards of 200 young girls because there's a human trafficking sex trade in the battlefield, like the battlefield of Iraq. I remember being like, just so fucking disturbing, but also, like, next level rocket fuel for what I wanted to do. Like, it was, to me, that's the worst fucking evil there is. Like if you're gonna fight for a cause and you're gonna kill, you're gonna fight another war, you're gonna fight, you know,

guys are killing each other in a battle. That... that happens, it's part of fucking history and everything is. But like that specific getting that information, every time we fucking killed Salon, But like that specific getting that information, every time we fucking killed Salon, I was like, that number 200 plus was in my head. I'm like, that's 200 plus less that's going to happen tomorrow, starting today.

And it was like a fucking drive, I was so hungry. And this was like kind of my own internal purpose. I don't know if I, we talked a little bit about it, and I don't know the drivers of, you know, why everyone's doing it. But for me, I was like, we need to stack these fucking bodies while we have the chance. They're right there, and like, I don't want any of them getting out.

Yeah, yeah, that was, it was crazy. It was, it's just such an intense driving factor. Like, I don't even know how to explain it. Well, you just, yeah, like I wanted to be watching all the time, like just letting no one out alive. If such a fucked up thing. If it's such a fucked up thing. How did you get access to the interrogation?

Again, it came through intelligence, I think it was actually through the Americans, that told us that you didn't actually see him say. No, no, I wasn't like sitting in on the interrogation or debrief. It might have even been a reporter that was talking to him, but we just we got the information like through the through the chain of okay, out of information, but it just fucking. It fucking and rage. It was a profound piece of information. Absolutely. Change the way you operate. Yeah.

Yeah. Were you already in that OP when that intelligence came in? Uh, yeah. We were going, we had been in there. Man, I don't remember exactly. We probably in and out for 20 or so days. Um, and then this came. And I was like, I don't even know how I didn't think it was happening.

Or, you know, I mean, it just, it was not something I considered. That was part of it. Them raping women. Yeah, like the, just that there is a human trafficking element on the battlefield. Like happening while we're there. And I don't know why I wouldn't assume that. Like all of the things that I've seen, I think I watched every fucking ISIS video there is. And I read like, I'm like, okay, this

is evil. The beheadings, headings, everything like burning kids all of it. Yeah, I'm like drowning on all the cages. Yeah. I want to know exactly what we're dealing with. And I just, I don't know exactly what we're dealing with. And I just, I don't know why I never thought, I never considered it until I came out and I was like, fuck, it makes sense. But it was like, it's next level, it makes sense. The raping of women is, that's what flipped it for you. It flipped it because I knew that the way they said it, it was also like young girls. It's not like there's prostitutes being passed around, which is human trafficking anyway,

which would fucking erase me, but it's next level when it's like kids, kids, man, it's fucking kids. Yeah, so it was like next level hunger and just everything. I was like, it was almost back to the first road. I'm like, I don't want to take any time off the scope and like we would just do such long shifts of watching

just to not miss any of it. Because I'm like 200 plus. Like if that's an average, even if it's exaggerated, like you know fucked up a lot of people's lives, whatever it was, it might not have been 200, maybe he was bright and exaggerating, but still. And that's one guy. That's one guy.

That's one guy. So do you think that that piece of information affected the other operators that you're with as well as much as it did you and refocused the entire mission? I was thinking about that before coming to talk to you actually, and I realized that I don't know if we really all talked about it in that much depth. We got the information and I'm sure some guys are like, let's fuck up, let's go get them. I just don't know if it's at the same with everybody. I haven't really disgusted. So I'm actually be something that I do at one point, but for me anyway, it was like,

it was like kicking it and it overdrive. What changed? I mean, what actually changed the next day when you found that out? It was different than before. Was it more time on the glass where you less lenient with who you're gonna kill? No, it was more time watching. Because it's easy to get lulled in like okay it's my shift on the glass.

Like fucking I haven't seen anything but someone farming for two days. Yeah, but then it was just yeah just like really really studying ground just took so much responsibility. Like if I'm watching and I see some things there and I'm missing it, then that could be more. Do you know what I mean? I don't think people understand how mundane and how boring sniper operations actually are. And I'm not a schoolhouse sniper.

I've done a lot of sniper missions and it's exhausting, and it's boring, and you're out there for a long time for about 30 seconds of excitement. Yeah, exactly. But, do you wanna go into why that job is so mentally exhausting, even though you're just laying there?

Yeah, so it's crazy because it is all mental, like other than stiffness from just sitting or laying there. We had a loophole or like an observation who really cut through a wall back in the hotel so we could like our to get into where we were observing from. We actually had two places because we were there there like a saying with some of the guys from The squadron and we would split up Arx sniper team and squad guys and we'd be just like watching reporting just seeing what was happening So lots of times it was just like sitting there

Just staring through scope now. It's it's tiring for a whole bunch of different reasons. One, it can be very boring. Like the excitement of a new OP wears off when nothing happens for days quite quickly. And then there's eye strain with just looking through optics all the time. Like you're looking through a spotting scope because the distance we were

like hours and hours and hours. And then you're like switching eyes and this one's all fucking blurry. You're like trying it and it's tiring on your eyes and tiring mentally to try and stay focused for that long. Days and days and you're rotating and you go back to have a coffee and fucking bite you ever and then switch back and you're back on the scope. And like I said, it wasn't supposed to go with the 50

some days that we were there. Every time we went, it was like, oh, this is the time. Like, the rackies are ready to push and then it just wouldn't happen for some reason. I mean, okay, four days of just watching people come out and farm, go back in. There was some drop, like, airstrikes that kept it a little bit interesting from time to time. What were some of the things you guys were seeing?

So, I mean, just to paint this into a perspective, if anybody's deer honed, it's that boring, but you have to be more ten of, because you're not just waiting for a deer to come out. There's already hundreds of deer out, and you're waiting for this specific one. So you have to be on top of your game at all times, or you're going to miss the one. You're going to miss your, you know, and so it's not like you're just waiting for some movement. You have to really understand. And there's tons of movement too, so you have to decipher it.

It's a city on the other side. So like we would see people come from this house, go farm, go back, drive around. Then you would see like an armed person, you're like, oh, that could be fighter. And then just the day to day life, because ISIS was running around all over the place. Like they had their flags up in certain buildings.

They were moving around, but it's just like, it's mixed in a fucking city. So trying to decipher that and then really, again, the responsibility is, if you're fucking calling a bomb on something, like that's a lot of responsibility. From every angle that you can see and time and movement who's coming in and out, like you're having to give an assessment that there's no, there's no civilians in it, like this, you know, because you have to be as sure as you can be

that it's just ISIS in there. What are some activities that you guys will witness that would render a cleared hot? Well, it would be places that we just see fighters going in and out of constantly. But then you would have to see no civilian movement. And I can't remember what it was, but it was like a certain time period.

And there's a bunch of categories of targets, which I also don't remember. But there was like a bunch of criteria. And then there was your own, like I wanna be fucking sure. Do you know what I mean? So you're like, I guess what I'm asking is, how would you differentiate?

I mean, if you're looking at, you're looking, it, we're talking, you're saying a minimum of 2,000 meters. You know, and so, what is it that these guys had that identified them as a nicest fighter rather than a farmer? Oh, they open-carried.

So anybody with a weapon? Oh, yeah. Well, it was also, it's hard to explain, like I'm sure you some pictures, but like, it was so different and it was interesting to see the people who live there and when there would be movement, like, so when the Iraqis started pushing, or days before, like, when things were built, you would see them come into a part of town and just be fucking villainous. Like, they're tapped up.

Like, they have the fighting gear and stuff, trucks with guns or whatever. But like, they would just, it was so obvious to see the demeanor of them coming in, taking over houses, like building up defensive positions and stuff like that. I know that this family comes out of this house every day, goes to the field, there's a woman,

man, you know, they have some kids. And then it's like that house, you witness it being taken, board it up, like fucking scram, We're using this now. Thank you. And it was like cartoon character villains. Like you would just see it coming. You're like, it was so easy to distinguish that other than

you meant they were carrying guns and shit. But like, I think even without that, because sometimes there would be people on like that guy as a fighter for sure, just how he was acting or you could tell now, you're not gonna take that risk with a shot until he's armed, but like, you can tell, we've been watching this village.

So it was like, the edge of the river was all farming basically, and it pushed back to like, the town would start and it was almost like a village and Mosul was in And it pushed back to like the town would start. And it was almost like a village and Mosul was in. And the city center was kind of off and down to our left as we were looking at it. So it was like farming into a village into the city. We're looking at these people every day, all day.

And we're like, you kind of know, even if it was coming in and out and around, and we're like, you kinda know even who's coming in and out and around, but like when the ISIS guys were rolling in, it was just like, it's just so fucking villains. It was crazy. And they're asking, yeah. When is the, it may have been this, it may have been the world record shot, but one is the first time that you got

a immediate feedback from somebody that you killed. And you saw, you saw them hit. That was that one. Well, no, no, but I was a spotter on this shot. So there's something about this shot that like, it's interesting because the news got it wrong. Anything that's out there got it completely wrong.

Snipeings very much a team sport. We had shooters set up, so I'll back up a bit. Once the push actually happened of the Iraqis pushing from the north south to try and get ISIS kind of out the south under the city, but really it ended up being very concentrated in like the city center. When that started, it was like you're just watching

a battle, there's like homies, the fucking sending v-bids, there's like anything to have, there's choppers, soldiers on the street. So we're perpendicular watching this fight happen in front of us. So when that started, we came from behind the little opening. And we set up on these big tables, still sucked in a little bit to the window, but we are in a fight. We weren't so concerned being three and a half kilometers away that they're going to be like

taking fire from our rackeys and they're like, oh maybe someone's over there. It's just very, appeared to be very confusing for them. So we the first day, they started pushing. it was still a little bit out of range for us. We sent some rounds at VBids that were like, because we would hear over like what's called like icon chatter that they're doing it. We're seeing, a camera if it was live or like the same day like videos they were posting about it And you'd see it drive down and these fucking vbid like vehicle born ID Explosions were insane like none of the airstrikes compare to these things going off. Oh, okay fucking shake the whole

Shake everything work three kilometers four kilometers away. It's just like everything Boom Crazy huge explosion Worked three kilometers, four kilometers away. It's just like everything, boom. Yeah. Crazy huge explosion. So there was a couple of rounds fired at these guys. Like, could we knew that we could see them? They're trying to get to where the Iraqis are, as close as possible and set these things off. So we're like, maybe this API round

will get it early or whatever. It was super, that was like 4K. That was like getting up the hill, so it was probably just around four kilometers. It was getting really hard to see where those like, damn, the corrections would be given. I think it was a second day. So the fighting was an interesting like timeframe. It would be super early morning

till like lunchtime. And then it would just like die right down just after lunch maybe. So that day started the routine of like our sniper team. Both teams would be up on the guns on the glass super early like four o'clock in the morning. At one o'clock, we'd almost go back to like OP routine, like switching through watching. It took a couple days to figure that out, but it was just, I found it strange to them like, you're stopping, like I've launched, like, and everyone. It's like, there's a little bit of some movement here and there, but I'm like, it was weird. It jives. I interviewed another guy who was there around that time frame. Yeah, actually It's like there's a little bit of some movement here and there, but I'm like it was weird. It jives. I interviewed another guy who was there around that time frame. Yeah, actually, I know these painted these up.

Oh, okay. He was in the field, Jaytech, and he's at the exact same thing. Yeah. Morning. It was hot and then, boom, nothing. Yeah. And so we would get like, we would either be ready to go or come wake up. The movements I would just get on the guns and start going.

So Vib is far out. It's the fight, sort of, start angling towards us in one of the guys. So there's two teams and we rotated. So my body was on the gun. I was spotting. So my body was on the gun. I was spotting, RTL, was spotting, it was on the gun. Hit a guy with a ricochet at like, probably around 35, 3600. And we're like, holy shit.

Like, we're trying to guide the fight with sniper fire. We're thinking we can hit these guys, like these guns are accurate. We're on everything. We know all the fucking ranges and all the dope. Like this is like the pinnacle of all the things we've been ready for. But the first time like you'd see someone get hit

at 35 of whatever it was, I don't know the exact range of that one. We're like fucking crazy. Erikshade like hit the guy in the leg. They had these motorbikes that went around the fucking battlefield picking up their injured and like bringing them back somewhere. Like wow, and it just kinda started creeping forward. And so for the, like the longest confirmed shot,

that was, oh man, I wanna say it was like mid-morning, the second day of the push, maybe. There was a building, some fighters retreated to, so the Iraqis were pushing, you could see them, could see ISIS firing, a couple of sniper rounds, they ran into this building. We'd see no civilian movement there at all, like I don't even think ever in that whole thing.

So there's like three or four guys in there. We called an air strike and it was like a dud, just like I can't remember what you call it, but like fuck all happened. We're like, well, but then this fighter out of the second story starts lowering his assault vest and his AK. And I saw it and I was like, okay, a f***ing corner of, I can't even remember

what we were calling it. I'm like, guys there, simultaneously, f***ing telling the same thing. Like the guy's coming out, there he is, here's your dope, Winkel send. Tch, when it's like a 10, just under 10 second flight time. 10 seconds? Yeah, it's like nine, nine point something, flight time.

You guys have this calculated out. You know how long it's gonna take to get there. Yeah, oh yeah. There's four of them. There's four of them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fuck you, Frank. Get a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a, time of flight is super important because it gives you a lead. If someone's moving, it gives you, like, is it even, like if a guy's running, you're like, it's useless as you are.

I'm if 10 seconds later, it's fucking fast. 80 meters down the road. I've never shouted at anything that took 10 seconds for my bullet to get there. Yeah, fucking me. Forgive me, I'm a little bit of a loop on this. Yeah, so 10 seconds. And the rounds were like,

tch, tch. So it's crazy because the news reports, like the shoot from JTF2, wrote the word, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it was essentially a sniper team, Simon. We don't know whose round it was. Are you shitin' me? We don't know whose round around it was. Are you shit me? We don't know who's around it was.

There's one that hits the guy, and I'll show you the video after. And one that lands, probably like a quarter of a mill to the left. So like just for people that don't understand, just like if all things are equal, trigger pull, the wind, your hold, everything is equal.

The guns are exactly as dialed in. Just ammo variants at that range, you'll fucking put around, a meter that way, two meters out. Like just literally the fee per second that it burns at coming out. So, so one hit, one landed right beside. And I was like, fucking hit. Like goddamn it.

And what did he do? So what did the guy do? He fall down. Oh, yeah, he's fucking dead shit. Like, it's a bit of a leg. No, no, no, this one went right through. Like he was bending over to pick up his gun and like went through His side kind of his back

I need just Fell rolled down a hill and he stayed there for weeks Should guys give him the name? No, but we We got ripped out just a fast forward ahead. That's our news there for weeks. Eventually I push ended and the next team went over to West Mozilla and then I got a message to like your buddy still laying off in the dirt.

Yeah, so it was a it was a Simon sniper shot. 10 seconds. 10 second flight time. And what was that ten seconds like well because we had been engaging so there's a lot of questions like was it first round hit I'm like well technically sort of but we had already been engaging To like some really close shots like fucking it would we were just trying to support in a way that like some really close shots, like fuck, and we were just trying to support in a way that if someone is in an avatage, a shooting position against an Iraqi,

like he's gonna get the fuck out of there. If there's a sniper on him. And obviously we wanna hit him, but like the range is tough. We'd been engaging. So we're able to influence the battlefield from where you're at by taking shots. Yeah, that's right.

So they know they're getting shot at, whether it's gonna kill them or not, it's effective fire. Yeah. So it's gonna influence their position. Yeah, exactly. So that was kind of, no, I had made a promise that we were gonna break the record

anyway, so I was really hoping for it. But that's what we were doing. So, in fact, it was like, was it a first round hit? At 35, 40s, you know, that's possible. Yeah, it fact, it was like, was it a first round hit at 35-4? It's been like, that's possible. Yes, no, maybe it was for whoever ever fucking got it, but it was one of the two guys. So it was, we just really, like, and it's such a team sport that people don't understand, I think a lot of, and like I was saying, the most effective fucking teams I've ever seen is because of communication being slick. Like, you're not questioning, oh, but what do you, do you think we should, like it's like shooter spotter and you have words that are back and forth. Like, here's your

target, here's your dope, here's a win call. The guy's like, I'm ready to fire standby and you don't even say I'm ready for it. It's like standby. That means I'm ready to watch right now send it cool and then Fucking 10 seconds later in this particular case So so that happens we're like goddamn the craziest part well a crazy part is I'll show you the video again after the four guys now squirt, like they're running across this field to get,

they don't know where the fire's coming from. It's fucking forever away. And there was like a corner at the alley, oh, I called it the alley. And there was like one guy stacked, two guy stacked. And there was four of them headed there. So I'm like, like, down with the celebrate, I'm like, you target. Go to the alley.

Here's your dope. Here's your win call. Fucking send it when you're ready. Got on. There's four guys stacked on the corner. The round hits and I see a splash. Like, I, in the scope and on the video, you'll see what I mean. I was like, did we just get a triple kill?

Like, what the fuck? All four guys drop and there's this huge 50 splash behind them. I was like, literally, they're stacked, really close on this alley corner. The round hits, all four of them hit the ground. I was like, what the fuck? They all got up up all four of them Day he's run across the highway I was like, oh

Guys we blazed that after and it was just barely closer would have been like 29 plus like 29 50, like 2950, something like that, range wise. And it was like real close to being a double kill. Like I wouldn't even know what to call my quattro fuck just happened. But that was crazy, yeah. So that was kind of how it was in the fight, just moved closer to us. And we

were switching on and off on the gun. Because I don't know how much you shot the 50, not more, but like time how the fucker kicks. It's a huge factor. and I think why so many guys have like TVI issues now But we would go like that the supporting that push for a week was like we're firing a lot around We like the end of the day just being like the room like looking at each other Like brain dead like I don't know what I'm gonna say Like all of us really you feeling this too? Oh yeah. But in that scenario, like that's not gonna stop you from shooting the next day when it's time to go.

So yeah, we just rotated through shooting, spotting, shooting, spotting. And it was like two days later that I had a real good finally. And I'd spotted for Scotty a few that were like, fucking epic shots. Like there was a sniper team actually that was trying to stalk one of the squadron guys pointed. He's like, hey, watch this truck trailer out here.

This would have probably been around 23. I think it was like 23 hundred meters something like that. And underneath I could just see Silhouette, it would look like a sniper team. Slowly moving, like shooter spot, you can see the silhouette. And then I saw the silhouette, like from truck trailer that was kind of grasped behind them. I saw him put the rifle down, I was like, God damn.

And it's like, what are you fucking trying to get psyched right now? So I got Scottie on, send it, it missed, it was a wind call about a mill to the right, I got Scottie on, send it, it missed, it was a wind call, about a mill to the right, I think. Quick correction, and a fucking went through the face of the fucking shooter, I think. Like, from what I could see, it's a 50 round.

So you just see this body come up, and the guy, the spotter, I'm assuming, was, I could see, it's still the way, he's pulling on the rifle to try and get it, but he must have had it slung or something, or fell over top, and then he's like, fuck this, and on the rifle to try and get it, but he must have had it slung or something or fell over top. And then he's like, fuck this.

And he just ran like alley one, alley two, alley three. And I was like, what's trying to get him to lead the next alley, it didn't work out, but there was ended up being chatter about like no more cyber movement in the daytime, like from ISIS. Yeah, so that one would have been even up there with some of the longer shots, and that was a two round hit.

Wow, that's because now the shooter in Sparter could communicate off the same target. Like this prism, what we trained before, all the work, the fucking history of the troop had done to like get us pushing to these ranges. And it was like, it was pretty slick. Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, so what?

See, you had immediate, immediate targets right after, right after the record. It was broken. It was still going like, I can't remember what time it happened. It was mid-morning. And the fight kept going till one in the afternoon and died down, and the Iraqis pushed a little bit more, so it was kind of getting a little bit closer to us,

but now kind of, instead of directly in front it was a little bit off to our left. And it just like the next morning again, up super early. Now the targets were probably between 2,000 and 2,500 meters. I think this is where I got some good feeling. Now no one went to see if the body was still there and stuff like that, but there was some engagements that won ticure at this.

It was some kind of rally point or something for them because there was a lot of fighters who were seeing goal into this building, come out into this building, so we're watching it. We're like, just, again, it's like getting the criteria so that if we're going to drop on it, it's not, there's no collateral damage or at least like to our best estimate that we can possibly give. But there was one guy standing, they were going, they kept coming in and out, they'd end up out

and there's, I was on the gun, we're shooting and they're like, they don't know where it's coming from because it is still a long ways away. And they're like, the Iraqis are fighting them, but we're like now way off to their flank, you know, standing in the kitchen window and put a round like, to me. I was on this on the gun on the scope I said hit it just look like it right like through his

soul and I don't know but It was then everyone there was I think we counted there was like 10 guys that ran like into that same doorway and Rallyed kind of rallied in this kitchen. We just kept hammering them until the bomb came and we dropped it. And I think there's 10 guys that we counted in there at that time. Oh.

And I was like, that's fucking 2000 young girls that are not going to be raped anymore by these motherfuckers. Good for you. Or like, that's what my mind was working at the time. I'm like, it's crazy. And you asked about the other human shields. We saw that.

As the fight progressed, there was a big alleyway that there was a lot of movement in. They would sometimes be like, no gun or carry it under a blanket or just like, if you're not sure, we wouldn't shoot obviously. But then once it started heating up, you would see I'm like, okay, door cracks. And like a woman's coming out. Like what the fuck?

And a guy like, push, run across the alleyway. Like you fucked the cowards. Yeah. Do you guys see a lot of that? Oh yeah. When it was like, when, because it's like I was saying, when you notice it's like these villains moving into town, man. And you would see people getting bullied, you'd keep human shields like.

Did you see human shields, uh, Did you see human shields get shot? No, no, no. What would they do? You know, if they push the woman out, is that woman, I mean, where should go? Oh, you would, you would just see something like scurry back in or try to run down the alley, like, because they're taking over their houses

for a brief period of a fight sometimes. And if they could advance take over house build up a small fighting position and try and try and use it. But yeah, it would just like whatever was within reach because they know we're not going to fucking shoot them. It's a person, an unarmed civilian in front of them. Yeah. It's just... Yeah. So, okay. At what point did you realize... ...no holy shit, you know, we just... ...we just set the record. Well, we realized it there.

What we didn't know is the squadron that we were with, they were filming... ...like that day, as they were watching. Like zooming in with, they were filming like that day as they were watching, like zooming in with this camera that was like, that's crazy fucking optical and digital zoom. So like, at the end, we were like, he's like,

oh man, I got all this shit on fucking tape. And some of the T.L. was like, okay, just the cards and like, we're in the room we're like, holy fuck, man, did that just happen today? Like, this is in the evening and watch it again again and like, this is crazy. But like, there's no way to know who's round it was. Damn.

So there's like, I just, I found it funny. Like the way the news put it out. We're like, we're not gonna talk about it now, but now that I'm retired, it's a crazy thing. But I was happy almost because it's like, it's shared in a team of sense, you know what I mean? No, I think that's awesome. It's pretty cool.

Yeah. A lot of people don't realize you know, it's We've realized it but a lot of you know civilians who've never Been in that type of environment or done that kind of work. You know people don't realize how much of a team Oh, yeah, well and the whole of you are running takes to be able to do the whole O.P. was running as a huge team with it wasn't just snipers like the squadron guys J tax like the interpreters we had working with like it was it's a big fucking team that in that particular time like made it such a successful O.P. or support operation. I guess it's what it turned into. When did you guys find out that it was on the news? That was so that was stupid. They put it out early.

We had handed over, so we were still occupying that OP when it was out in the news. That's what's trying to make to me is fucking insane also. That's what's trying to make to me is fucking insane also. Like, it was it same day? No, no, no, it was a little bit, it was a little bit after. So that day, the information kind of got back and then kind of went up to chain a command. And I think it's a bit of an old school thing, but we had like the CEO come out and kind of confirm the kill, which is interesting. I'm like, I think that what it used to be

confirmed or unconfirmed kind of thing. It was some, I was like, this is also kind of weird. But, so that came out, got pushed up a chain of man, and then we're like, we're gonna release the story. We were doing a hand over with the next crew coming, still using this OPEC. There's a lot of space left, arcs-wise to observe, to support the fight that was happening. But it went out in the news, and it's pretty obvious from that battlefield that like, if you see that in the news, where was this coming from? It's probably that fucking big building right there.

So they started taking fire and mortars that were not normally happening and had to pull out of that OP quite quickly. I just think it's like... It's so fucking irresponsible. I'll bet you guys were pissed. That quag- I- yeah. It puts you on your team at risk.

Very high risk. Well, and it's... And, too, just think how many more guys you get to kill. That's right. You know? Yeah. How many more kids... Luckily...

...are saved from getting raped. Luckily, that team was an aggressive team. So my first T.L. my brother and I was the T.L. of that team. And they just moved a little bit south out of that building and they fucking, they did some very good work also. So were you with them?

No, no, no, this was after the handover. So we did a handover of like what we were up to, short on the OP, we had other OP positions, we had a record. And then we left, that was the end of our tour. And they continued the fight into like the city center of West Mosul. Wow, yeah. Let's take a break. When we come back, I'd like to talk about your first kill when you were the guy on

the trigger. Sounds good. I want to take a minute to tell you about vigilance elite Patreon. Patron support is what makes this show possible and gives me the ability to bring these one-of-a-kind stories to the public. Go to patreon.com, slash vigilance, elite, and support the Sean Ryan show today. Alright Dallas, we have a nice break there. Let's pick up. We talked about how frustrated you were after that first deployment.

We talked about the world record. We didn't talk about the first time that you got a kill behind the rifle as a sniper. Yeah, so that, again, everything before, I'm like, maybe, maybe not, but like, you know, it's not, these words satisfying, but it's satisfying. Like, I'm not, it's like, did I, did it work? I don't fucking know.

It's immediate feedback. That's the thing. So it's like, it's like hitting a piece of steel. You hear the ding. Yeah. So the ding of it, that literally didn't have until almost the end of that, that roto, where I had, and there was in the fight I was talking about,

but it was like a bunch of times again, the guy's not shooting anymore from this window. Did he run away? Did I hit him? His body in there? Who knows? And there's a lot of that, it's fucking frustrating. So yeah, the first time I would say, and even this one,

so I'm gonna tell you, but I'm still not satisfied to the fullest capacity. Because the shot went into a building. Now, spotter says hit, I recall seeing a fucking good hit. But even that, I'm like, did what happened on the other side of that wall? There's money laying there, there's a gun. So, it was satisfying.

There was a certain level of satisfaction everywhere and because of the driving factor I was saying like I don't care if I just Called an air strike or we did as a team like every person was Every fighter now was like A new level of satisfaction. Mm-hmm. But there is a different level of satisfaction that comes with having trained so much, having prepared so much, and everybody that I know, including myself,

Sniper specifically, want to get a clear sniper shot, dead He's there next target. CQB long gun. You wanna have a hit. That's like I came in the room, shoot, he's down there. Maybe a badger check, good. Pistol, you want it. Like part of me is a little sad. It's like I had a great time in my career, but like the satisfaction that I anticipated from these situations

never, it was never to the fullest level. Okay. Now this shot, I was like, I'm pretty fucking certain that on the other side of that room or that other side of that kitchen window, he didn't get out of there. Well, I know he didn't get out because we dropped the bomb on it after anyway, but that was the most satisfying sniper shot that I took off for sure, because it was the most clear. Everything else, there was a level of uncertainty with hits.

And some of them were like thermal hit, but it's fucking far away too, and you're like, I don't know. It's not the same one, it's not the same at all. It's not like a video game. So yeah, I have almost like deep and dodged the full level of satisfaction. And I don't know if it would have even made

a huge difference, because then I would have even made a huge difference because then I would have wanted an M4 kill in the CQB scenario. And then after that, or a few of those, I would have wanted a fucking pistol kill. And it probably seems crazy to some people hearing that. But it's like practicing and practicing

and practicing a sport like hockey, I never playing a game, scoring a goal or something. You know, it's the same. And you put in so much time and effort and passion and fucking time away from family and all of these things to focus on something like this. And then it only sounds bad today because of, it's new narrative that's pushing you.

Everybody's not surprised at the military or what you're supposed to fucking tell a bad guy. bad today because of, it's new narrative that's put you in. Everybody's, it's not a surprise military, or a fight or a fucking kill bad guy. It goes to a special operations unit, wants to fucking put bad people in the dirt end of story. And it's now with these new stipulations that are put on society, it's bad guys are people too. You know, no, they're not.

No, and it's a proud of all of it. And I'm proud of have, like I'm not proud of having wanted that either. It kept a drive and a hunger all the time. Like you're not satisfied, not done, not satisfied, I'm not done. Yeah, so even my most satisfying is I've shot it. It's like I never got to go see the guy or what I know. Well, let's talk about it though.

Yeah, so let's talk about the experience. So this was the fight was pushing a little bit south towards downtown Mosul, like old city center. And there was a house, and it was like a, we call it pink house, it was like a pink color. But they were using it. We saw a lot of guys going in and out as like some kind of rally point or something. There'd be like four or five hanging out outside. They would go out somewhere, come out, get on motorbike and rip off and like, and there was, the porch, because we're trying to mostly support the front, the closest threats to the Iraqis

that we're trying to clear the town. So we're like, okay, there is movement here, like mark that and continue this, but when it was starting to get in that range, I was on the gun and there's a dude and I just remember how he looked like. Again, it's like the villainous character. He had like a black attack vest on gun. And he was coming in and out in and out and we sent around or two,

I think he was on the other gun. And three or four guys went in and there was already we'd I sent around or two, I think V-f***ing was on the other gun. And three or four guys went in, and there was already we'd counted four to five, and there were dudes thought that there was around 10 in there. But I could see them like in a big frame window, like all of us off a back kind of patio thing through what, it would look almost like a kitchen window.

And he was like looking because again it's a confusing space I would imagine to be in where the fuck are these rounds coming from. And I got one that went right through the window and sitting right through his chest. There's a 50 cow. So then when it broke, he dropped, and then we just kept sending rounds through that window until the bomb dropped and we collapsed the whole thing. So what happened inside this kitchen? I don't fucking know,

but it felt pretty good at the time to like get that. That mean it sounds like a 50 cow round one through it was just a, well yeah, and hearing, you're likeing hit. Oh my god, thank f***. Damn. Yeah, it's a crazy game,

or it's a crazy thing to try to explain like how, unless it's close, unless you're shooting f***ing 5, 6, 700 meters, or an N, a lot of times you're like, effective sniper fire got some type of job done. Like the machine gun's not shooting anymore. Or you, you know, like I was saying before, like people do a certain place to use something bigger

or more effective. Yeah. I mean, did that, even though it was, you know, that far distance, did that affect you at all? Like, seeing it happen? Not wondering. Uh, like, in what you mean? I mean, did it, did it, did it affect you mentally?

Did it bother you that you? No, oh, fuck,er. I was happy. It affected me in a positive way. Okay. I think. And even looking back at, we can kind of get into it a little bit after whatever, but like struggles of this type of career. No, every single person that I think I killed or did

or made the actual call to drop the bomb on top of their head, I was happy about. Yeah, I leave happy and proud about that. So on that, that was your second rotation at Iraq, correct? Yeah. Yeah. Wrapping that deployment up, before we do wrap it up, is there anything that we're missing that you want to bring out? Um, I think something that and I touched on it or I talked about it, but changing the way I saw stuff was like this human trafficking aspect to war, to like conflict, like actual happening conflicts.

I'd heard, I think it was through an interpreter telling me or something, that the Iraqis are doing the same thing, that they would bring like these young girls around and now ages I don't know, but two different positions that are packaged so that like the guys down there could have their relief and then get back to fighting. A huge and trapping ring. So this is fucking people that are in the same building in some cases. And it's just like attempting to wrap your head around that now.

Because you're like, what the fuck am I doing? I, because you're supporting this against an evil, right? But if the same thing is happening, so I really started, there was a rumor that like this was going to happen while we were there. It was like Thursday or something. They were like, gonna have a party. And I did hear the volume of whatever was happening down there.

They got wild. In the same building. In the same building. So like the hotel inside was empty. Like the floors went around and you could see down all the way to the lobby. But they are like five floors down. So we could hear and I was like, no, I just stopped and this the fight wasn't going on at this point, like the actual push. Well, like I didn't take my OP shift looking forward that night and I looked out the back of the building all night to see, I was like, if there's a sign that any of that is happening, that I see someone coming in,

any of, if I see a fucking sniff of it, and I told this to my buddy, and I stayed, like, normally I showed you that video, flip flops most of the time in this fucking OP, when I was on the gun or not, this one I was like, I stayed in all my kit, I was like, if I see this, I'm going down there, and I'm killing everybody on that floor. And it was like,

he was like, man, I was like, will you come down? Will you have my, I'm going down? It's like, well, you come down, like, well, you have my, I'm going down. It's like, well, fucking come with you. And it was such a crazy, like, internal battle, because you can imagine the shit storm. Like, can you fucking imagine what would happen? If I had seen that and gone down,

though, is it, like, I can't even fucking imagine. Like, a whole, like gone down, duh, is it? Like, I can't even fucking imagine. Like a whole, like politically, strategically, all of these different things. I don't even know what would happen to me. I remember how the least important thing would have been in that scenario. All of that. And in the eyes of the government, those kids,

oh yeah, 100%. Probably in the least important piece in that scenario would have been the kids that were fucking great. Yeah. And to me, that's the society we live in now. The least important thing to me would have been what the fucking backlash was.

Yeah. So it was crazy. I was such an emotional nightmare. And I was just like, I was ready to go and I was watching out the back. And I never saw anything. I kept like over the balcony out the back. I was watching out the back and I never saw anything, kept like, over the balcony, out the back, over the balcony, out the back.

There's zero fucking chance I would have been able to be somewhere zero chance, or that was happening and not give it my full maximum amount of aggression to fucking try and do something about it. Yeah. It never happened, so I don't even know if it sits at a rumor, but like, it just, again, it was another thing that blew my fucking mind, like, that I never even considered this part of a fucking battle space.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Like you think about it with war torn countries, you know, and refugee camps and all these things, it's people are very susceptible to being kidnapped into that market, but I's never thought about it. Being part of an ongoing fucking war. I mean, it's, unfortunately, it's very common, over there, even with, just like you're saying, even with the good guys. Yeah. You know, suppose it's good guys, but I mean,

even then, I think that's just the Middle East, you know? Yeah. Afghans, rape little boys, day boys, you know, it happens all the time. I mean, it's an accepted part of their culture. Yeah, it's really a tough pill to swallow. Yeah, well, and I had a personal, because I heard the same stories from Afghanistan and guys,

and I was like, I have my own personal line in the sand. If I see that, I'm fucking shooting something. And I'm care what part of your culture it is, I'm gonna fucking shoot you. If I have the capability to do so, there's no way I'm gonna go home. That would be something that would weigh heavily on me after, you know, like I didn't do something in that scenario.

That's, so, yeah. That was, I went over there with that line in the sand for sure, but, fuck man, I didn't expect to hear it be the way it was. Almost, yeah. Man, I got an energy sheet in my buddy, Matt Murphy. He's running that Operation Light Shine that I was telling you about, you know, earlier, and they're making some big, big waves in the incompatible sex trafficking. I would love to, in any way, support all over.

Yeah. He's right here in Nashville, so I'd be happy to connect you. Yeah, that'd be awesome. But, um, damn. Well, let's wrap that deployment up then. Okay. And get into, yeah, all of that, all of the big, and this was literally like, this is the fucking best time in my career. It's like the pinnacle of my career. Was that deployment and that week specifically.

And that was, it was only like a week long, I think. And then the fight had kind of pushed past. And it slowed down. I think it was because it was getting towards where it was really, really congested old city Mosul. But we did a handover anyway, like I was saying, the next team came in and we fucked off, came back home. And I was in communications a little bit

because it was like a sandwich. My brother-in-law was the next sniper Tielet that went in and they were really getting after it. As it was like the range too, I think, got closer from some of the opi's that they were describing to like where old city was. So I was happy to hear that it was still going, but yeah, it was six months I think we were there

and like five point, seven of. I was like, not crazy exciting. Just really trying to get up to and it was our team leader, our sniper team leader that was like so dialed in on wanting to get to that hotel. To the hotel. That he like, he stayed focused and we just tried to support as much as we could in any way to do it. And he got us there, man. That's incredible.

Yeah. So, that was the end of that tour. That was 20, 2016 into 2017. And just in between, it did some other training and did like our dive course and our climbing stuff I didn't go back till 2018 Okay, what's your home life?

Home life there was a transition so I was married When I got to the unit. Oh God, I shouldn't only stay for sure. In 2008, we got married, and this was like my ex, who I had been with from getting into the army, like knowing about I want to go to JTF2. It's pretty young, I think, 20, 21 or something when we were like starting to settle in together. So 2008, we got married, I would have been roughly 24,

something like that. Going to the unit and man, I was fucking full on. Like, it's crazy to, so you go into a place like this and I know that it's kind of around the community, like everything takes second seat. Maybe not for 100% of the people, but for me being a young man and like the entire want the entire like drive to go to the unit like after reflection. It's like, it was such a like an ego filled. And it's like a young man wanting to know,

actually I heard when your guests say this. And it's like a young man wanting to know, actually I heard one of your guests say this. And he was saying like, M, I enough. Do you know what I mean? Like, we're men in this planet, like, am I enough? Like, am I good enough for whatever this life is? Mm-hmm.

And you're like, I gotta fuckin' prove it somehow. So I think that's what really hooked me when I first heard about JTFG, I was like, holy shit, that's a way to prove to myself, to everybody else that I have enough, that I'm like, I'm strong enough, man enough. And it was when I got that laser beam focus, man. Every course, every deployment, every task. I was like send me I want to go send me work early like work late

Yeah, it was just like it strains so much on a relationship it It's such a formative time I mean for women to too, I assume. But for a man to be like, this is the man I'm becoming and your focus is on something like killing people. The focus is on like, do I have good communication with my wife? Am I, we're just like growing into these different people

in times when we're growing into the people we're going to be. And it was like every long trip, every point, it was just like we were growing in different directions. We had two boys, it was just saying one's 15 and one's 14 now. And it was like we were there to co-parent. And then I'll be like, and now I'm going. And some of the longer ones like Afghanistan, I think it was eight and a half, eight months or eight and a half, whatever it was, it was long. And this was like before fucking FaceTime.

So like my kids are young. I'm calling on the fucking phone, a sad phone or whatever, like once a week, you're just like, you're growing into different people. And it was, itself, like it was selfish, like the task, not the task, but my own mission to get to JTF2, I want to be the fucking best assalter

that there ever was. And everyone has that same, you know, it's like that the crazy competitiveness of the thing. We're like, I can't do that if I'm rushing home to like get the kids out of daycare. Or like, I can't do that if I'm there to make dinner every night. I had to be on the range, all these things, and it was just such a focus. A fucking young man, ego, and selfishness almost, you know, like, yeah. If I was a 40-year-old, like I'm turning 40 in April, if that was now me being an assaultor, I'd be like, no, man, there's some balance here. Like, I'm gonna keep sharp. Yes, I want to go kill. But like the most important thing the whole fucking universe is you're your family and your friends. Like I 100% my whole It's just there's nothing more important. So

it took like that I mean the whole path of my life to realize that, but it's crazy how it goes when you're young, dude, and that you wanted so badly that you're like everything else comes second sort of thing. Yeah, and now that I'm out, I'm like, I'm trying so hard to just let all my boys and now we have a young daughter. So I am with her every day kind of thing, but just letting show them that like, I'm here. I'm not going on to appointments.

My focus is like, this is important. What you're doing is important. You didn't come to that realization until recently after your separation? Yeah, well, it was fucking, it was even down the road from that. Like, we separated and I was still, like, go, go, go. And I always, I really tried to at least out of any relationship, keep it good with my boys because it was very important. I didn't actually even want to have any more kids for the longest time. But they moved back to Alberta, the small town where the area would grow up small-telling, because I was gone all the time, and she's like, well, the fuck am I gonna stay here for?

Mm-hmm. Where her family was, support was, and I would deploy train, deploy train, and fly back. And like every, I was looking back at the counter and like every month, I went to Flue, I would tell Bertha, back every month that I wasn't gone to deploy, because I was like, that that was important. Like I don't want to know that,

all the other relationships in my life or taking a back seat, I don't want my boys to feel like they're taking a back seat. Now, my conversations as they age that we'll have to have, and feelings that they may have had while I was deployed are gone, but I intentionally try to just make sure that they know a fucking important thing out of me. We asked if they moved.

That's great advice for anybody, you know? Well, it's, and it's really good advice for guys who are still in. Yeah, like chest fucks. It's not even advice. It's just... It's... Yeah, it's all... It's the way you experienced it. And it's gonna help a lot of people that are in right now. Yeah, like...

There's a balance and fuck... There's a balance in everything. There's... You can be... To aggressive... You can be too compassionate. Like, there's a balance in everything. There's, you can be, to aggressive, you can be too compassionate. Like, there's a balance. And in life, it's just, I think, like, figure out what the fuck

your own personal priority are, and then find a way to balance all the other ones' responsibilities and other things. But, yeah, so, they moved back, and she's, like, my boy is a fucking incredible man. Like, it's some day when we're down here, you'll have to meet him.

Just great athletes, amazing head on the shoulders. Like, as co-parents, I'm super happy that she's their mother and such an amazing job, as I was gone all over the place. And a lot of the character comes from, you know, both of our opinions on parenting, but like the day-to-day load, that was not me. And there's like, I don't know, it's easy to justify importance.

You know what I mean? When you're serving and you're like, okay, I'm leaving my family for six months, eight months. I'm another month, another week. Well, this is very important. Like this purpose, whatever it is. And there is also, so shift came. When I joined, it was like, can I prove that I'm enough? Can I like to everyone? Now I'm here, I want to prove that I'm the best in this debt. I want to prove that I'm the best in this squad.

I want to like, that was the driving factor all the time. It was that in like, a sense of adventure. And then it started changing to like, like I was saying, I was hearing some of these things and seeing the result of like, what our job is, it was now, and again, I don't know if I just attached to this so that I could justify continuing to leave.

But it was like a bigger purpose now. Like this was fucking helping people. Killing people was helping other people. And especially after hearing about like the trafficking stuff, I'm like in a big way. I'm like just fucking get me back on the ground with a gun and fucking air support if I can get it unless killed as many people as we can because the fuck's just heartbreaking. And like I have a young daughter now and I cannot imagine. Like, yeah, if that happened, oh Jesus Christ.

Like, I don't, like I just to think about it, it's like, and families went through this, it's like hundreds and thousands of them. And like, so, it's like I said before, there are 366 million videos of children being raped in circulation just in the US alone. That's more than one video per person that lives in this country. Fuck man.

That's what we're up against. And when you say you're up against, you're fucking right. Like it's in society, fucks me, it's trying to... Almost, I seem like it's trying to be normalized. Yeah. Accepted, like, from my... Other, like, I live in another country, but looking down on a court case of something like,

I don't know if you want to go into this or edit it out, but like Epstein, and there's like, they're fucking clients to these convicted criminals. And they're not... They're not released in the list. What the fuck? Yeah. What the fuck? How the fuck do I live in it?

Like a world where that's... It's like, it's fucking blows my mind. It blows my mind. It blows my mind to a man. It's like if I wanted to start a business where I brought mind to a man. It's like if I wanted to start a business where I brought people to a location so that someone could come murder them. Don't worry, I'll facilitate all of that.

I get charged for facilitating, but none of the murderers get fucking convicted. Everyone's just like, ah, you're good. We got them. What the fuck? That's your boss, my one. That got the, what the fuck? That shit both went one. That whole topic, man, is, it's like we gotta do something to change it.

So yeah, I would love to connect with your pal. Let's do it. And just in any way, like I don't even know how I try to, you know, post the awareness about it and donate to these organizations, but like, I know those people doing good fights for it, so find a way to get involved with that. I would definitely be happy to connect you. I'm interviewing him, her pretty soon, so, but yeah, with you being around Nashville more and more, it's gonna be really easy to link you in.

But I know what you're saying. It's they're normalizing, they're trying to normalize pedophilia. Yeah. And you're seeing it with, I mean, you know about the Balenciaga thing, right? You know, I mean, they're not even hiding this shit anymore. Yeah, that's what's fucking crazy.

They don't have to, because half the population doesn't care that little kids are being raped by rich elite politicians. Yeah. And everybody else. It's not just rich elite politicians. It's... It's so... It's...

It's everybody. It's so many influential people. Yeah. It's so many influential people. Yeah. It's fucking wild. Like, yeah, fuck man. Oh, yeah, so things. Yeah, people have really gotten good.

It just, looking the other way and pretending nothing happened. And that's a damn shame. Yeah. But, but let's get back to your transition. And also, I'm really interested in what the culture of the team is like at JTF-22. So I've been around a lot of American special ops units. It's been a long time since I've been around, but the culture was boozing, bar fights,

womanizing, very competitive. Just, we're gonna do a whole segment on that, but I mean, is it, how was it over there? Is it, man, oh, fuck. It's, boozing was like, it would be like, go train, go do something. You're not good at it until you can do it on over. And when the fucking city were in, burn it down,

and you're doing like, fucking, pair operations. Yeah, like shooting. Seek you be, now guys are super proficient, so we can do it. But it was definitely part of the culture, or is, I guess. I find it interesting because it's such an ex, like it's a very accepted just like...

And I think I'm starting to understand where it comes from. You're having a group of guys, competitive, aggressive, like fucking primal. Like, every single day, you are trying to get better at killing someone. That's like, in terms of intensity, right there at the top of anything you could be trying to do every day. So like, other things are like, it doesn't seem like that big of a deal, killing people. So I sort of see where that culture comes from, but I think there's a bunch of like,

there's so much common sense that gets left out of so many decisions in the fucking military and soft. So like an example, and I'll come back to that one, but like when, so marijuana is legal in Canada, not legal if you're in our unit, like drug tested and all this stuff, even CBD. So like this, this thing that helps with like information and sleep and all these things like guys have problems with? No, but like booze accepted. You can fucking burn it down to 4 a.m. if you had to see, you could be at fucking 9.

If you take C.V.D. to go to sleep, you're gonna get in trouble when you're fired. It's like, it's in grain, man. And I don't know how this shit comes from like way, way, way back in the day, but it's it's in every organization I've ever seen. Yeah, including the right force army. Like just, it's everywhere. The messes, the beer, the fucking fights, the women, the like, I think it's dialing it back a little bit more now, but even just like drunk driving. It'll be like somewhere here, oh, it's gotta get back to the Shacks.

And just like it's fucking such a crazy, like toxic world almost. Like, it's interesting, you know, because this, it, I think I've read, or maybe you told me that JTF2 was that founded in 1992? Yeah, I was like, no, 92 or 93. I was like a takeover from RCMP. We had some of the like SAS, I think,

help stand up the original format of what we're doing. And it was mainly domestic at that point. Reason I'm just, I'm bringing it up as a young unit. It hasn't been around, you know, that long. And so the culture's relatively new, but the culture carries over from, it's the same. What I'm noticing is it's the same, no matter what country,

no matter what branch of the military, no matter what, special operations units all operate very similar. It's a very similar type of person that gets in. It's a very, you know, type of people that one in and in the culture and all of them are that I've seen is very similar. And so the culture, when I show up to the teams,

it was, it was, it was work hard, play harder. Yeah. If you don't boost them with us, we don't trust you. Yeah. And there was a lot of that. It was like, it doesn't drink with the team. We don't fucking trust them. Yeah.

And, but the seal teams have been around, you know, for a long time. Yeah. But the SEAL teams have been around for a long time. And before I came along in 2001, there was a period where there wasn't anything going on. And sucks for those guys that were in at that time. Didn't get to do anything. But boozing was very prevalent then.

Then 9-11 happened. All the war started happening. Lost, trauma, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da It's interesting to watch it evolve. But I like... So I guess when I'm, where I'm going with that long-winded explanation of the culture is was it the party mechanism or was it coping organism? Yeah, it was the party mechanism. It was the, for most of my life, and unless I just wasn't assessing it properly,

like, there's been some intense days where I'm like, a whiskey fucking comb in nerves for sure. I don't think I used it as much as a coping mechanism until the later part of my career. So like literally last, that's funny after that much time. And it's just, I had a loss in my personal life. That was fucking next level.

And it fucking floored me. And it was at a time that I was starting to see the unit going in direction. I didn't wanna go. And it was at a time that I was starting to see the unit going in direction, I didn't want to go. And it was at a time where I was noticing that I had injuries that were a lot of exposure to concussion blasts, heart openings, fight concussions, 50-gall. Like all of that stuff was starting to take its whole. And I noticed it in my personality more. And what did you notice about your personality? So like I've all generally been like a pretty happy chill dude. And I was getting angry a lot. Now, I was in Sniper True, which is the angriest mother

far as you've ever met. So, I was maybe the least angry a lot of times, but for my baseline, it wasn't normal for me to be like that. And I was always trying to learn read books and I introduced meditation like years ago and morning journaling and things that are supposed to help, but I kept getting injured concussion. Like it would bring on these crazy symptoms

of like crazy anger, memory loss, like nausea, like just I would feel so fucked up and then it would pass a little bit, I'd go back into whatever, fight room, jumping, shooting, breaches, and it just would come back again, come back again. And while I was seeing this, simultaneously I was seeing the unit go in a direction,

I think we spoke about a little bit, it was like how the whole fucking society is going in a direction. I think we spoke about a little bit. It was like how the whole fucking society is going in a direction that I wasn't there to do that. I wasn't there to stay on this ship that's going off and I fucking totally different bearing than I want to be. So I was getting angry a lot. And then in 2019, my brother passed away. So he was, well, he's my age now, so he's 39.

And a fucking floor of me. I was like, every tool that I've learned to use to deal with shit, I didn't work. I didn't know how to do it properly. And so I just like a fucking drink. And that's really when, and like I said, I'm sure there was times before that that I was like using it to cover something at some point,

but was never like, Uber prevalent, or like it wasn't super obvious to me, even thinking back on it. But my brother just like, I don't fucking know. I was not, like, I was ready not ready but I was more expecting to lose friends like we talked about our unit is very lucky or have something happen to myself all of that I felt like I was mentally prepared for I was not fucking prepared for like my brother to die 39 years old.

And how did he die? I had cancer, damn. So they had cancer, tried to bunch of everything to fucking fight it man. Put in a good scrap, but he passed away and... Yes, we're 19, in May. And I like, I wasn't equipped man. I thought, I thought like I fucking, the books I'd read, the things I was doing, I thought I was good to keep it on level. But I was mixing that with like continuing brain injuries. And I was like, I can't fucking deal with this. So I was drinking lots of whiskey.

And I, this is really when I started playing music. Like, so he had a recording studio in his basement where we grew up on the Matysetlement. And, like, I could strum a couple of chords or whatever. I was like, oh, you gotta come record a song. I was like, yeah, I will, you know, one day, just fucking in the job and in life or whatever. And I never got to record with him. And so, I don't know, when he passed, I just fucking drank and played my guitar so much.

I got everything out, like writing songs, man. I write songs and I wouldn't even be able to finish them. I wouldn't be able to sing them. I... Like, without just breaking down a crying. But it was like, it was releasing something. Mm-hmm. And again and again, just, it was, it was a while that, I fuck, I didn't even know how, like,

I didn't know the tools to use. Like, so, I like, it was just fucking whiskey. It was my two-o-man whiskey and writing. I knew that writing and singing something about music, like it's another like a flow state for me activity, where like you were immersed most of the time, or not, but like just like you can be, where you're not thinking future past future. Like if you were really in it, and I would teeter back forth,

and I would find those moments, and I was like, oh fuck, it feels, there's a bit of relief. And then I would think about what had happened. The expectations I had of our lives being long and us fucking hunting and fishing together for the rest of our lives and him, you know, being there when my boys get married or just like all of that.

All right, I was fucking gone. So it was playing fucking songs, listening to songs and drinking whiskey. Did you ever get into prescription drugs? Uh, no. No, I didn't. Maybe it's good that I didn't even know what they were capable of. Yeah. Because I probably would have.

Uh, I've never been in a drug user other than alcohol, is for sure a drug. But actually, let me take that back. I'll call nicotine and caffeine, let's say, if that's a drug. But like, no, I didn't get into that fucking thankfully because I hear the come off of that recovery is fucking crazy. Yeah.

Yeah, man, so that's like, how are your kids handling you when you were in this? Well, my boys lived in Alberta, so they didn't see it all the time. They saw some of it, like it was, every time. Every time I cleaned it up when they were around. Yeah, like sort of, sometimes, man, I remember your time, like it was maybe a time. I'm playing it up on there around. Yeah, like sort of.

Sometimes man, I remember time like it was fresh and they were visiting and I was like sitting in a basement drinking whiskey and writing songs. And I just like couldn't stop crying. And I remember like my son came down and he's like, oh my god, are you okay? And like, yeah, I'm just like, you know, I'm still processing, you know,

just a processing all of this. He gave me a hug and he like went and got Sarah, but it was just like, most of the time, he was like by myself with it, which, I don't know, I felt like it needed to be, whether that's the right way, that like grieve or recover or not. That's, it would be late at night, and I would just like drink and play guitar,

drink and play guitar. And Sarah tried to like, that's my fiancee. You know, like, you know, you're not doing well, but I don't know. It's like I didn't want the help. Kind of thing, you know, I'm like, this is your ex. Sir your ex.

No, her ex is my fiance. She's your fiancee. Yeah, but we have a daughter with. Unlike I know, but she's like, what the fuck do I do? Like, what's the, you know, what's like, what the fuck do I do? Like what's that? You know, what's that? That's OP for this. And I, it was like, I was keeping it together enough

to like operate in a day, not operate. Like, you know, I was going to work and I was like, you know, parenting, like there are dinners and stuff, but like, it was just, it was very much a coping mechanism for me. Like, I was drinking that shilly water. Yeah. When did you start coming out of that?

Was that, this is, because right now, this discussion time period is, you're still in. Yeah, correct. Yeah, this's 2019. We had a discussion about psychedelics at dinner that I cut off because I wanted to have it here. Yeah. Did that happen?

So this happened after. OK, so before we go into that, let's finish up with retirement. But back to the culture, back to the culture, we've talked about the competitiveness. And how it's earn your keep every day you're at the unit, you're proven yourself to everybody that you're working with, constantly you wanna be the best shooter, the fastest runner, fastest swimmer, the best breacher.

And I actually think you're just attempting to prove it to yourself. Like, the competitiveness is there because every guy is trying to prove to themselves that they're like, you know, I look at my peers, I'm like, you're a fucking great soldier. Like, I was never like, rarely, like, pick up your game. Yeah. I was doing that to myself all the time. And I think everyone did that. Now there's competitions. So it is an external thing, but

I think most of it was just like every I don't know how the fuck they pick all of us, but like it's the type of people that are like, I need to be the best at all this stuff. So where I'm going with this is, I'm probably going to get a lot of flat for saying this, but fuck it, I don't care. When you leave the unit, you know, here, whether it's seal teams, whether it's dev group, whether it's delta, whether it's the SF teams, you know I'm not gonna say that the brotherhood is completely gone

But it it becomes even more competitive outside of the space because you don't have I Think it becomes more competitive because not everybody has the same end goal, you know, as we used to have. And so it becomes a very toxic culture. Once you're out. Once you're out. Do you have that?

The details of how I left our unit, not about that, just about. So, this is what I'm going to say. It kind of it whittled out people in my life that may have brought that on. Okay. So, I don't see that now. The people I surround myself with now are the exact motherfuckers. If I was starting my own unit to go do something, they would be all the first picks. Okay.

And I've had great support from like the dudes. Really good. Like, there's some people that kind of like fell off and I just use it as a good like, that's around the scenarios of kind of what I left. So I think that weeded out any exposure to a real toxic competitive thing after. There's also, we don't have a lot of people out of soft doing things, you know what I mean?

So there's a lot of things that I'm doing now just chatting about it or trying to share experiences that are it's kind of brand new in Canada. Okay, it's sort of, especially with the amount of things I have to show and like, you know, great experiences and pictures and video to kind of, to go along with it. So I don't feel there's a lot of toxic. Man, that's great to hear. Stuff around, yeah, come again. Yeah, that's great to hear.

Here, it's everybody, everybody from these communities, they love you and they're behind you until you're doing better than they are and then they Cut you down and yeah, we talk about this in quite a few of the episodes. It's I would say the only ones I don't hear that from our The Marine Corps Do you talk to any of the SAS guys about this? I haven't talked to any of the SAS guys about this? I haven't talked to any of the SAS guys.

Oh, OK. You're the first foreigner I've had on here. Oh, congratulations. OK. But yeah, it gets very competitive after service. And guys don't like it when their counterparts get exposure. You might be interested to talk to you. A buddy of mine is, I don't know if you know

the company through dark. They were SBS guys and we did some sniper training stuff together and just kind of remain pals. So they have a great successful company happening right now in the UK. It would be interesting to, I don't know what they're, it seems like a great network. But it also kind of seems that way down here

from like an outside. It can be a great network. It's like the internal, it's the stuff that you don't see on the outside. You know, you don't see the ultra-competitiveness and how toxic it can become. Well, I, man, I fucking, I recognize that now as like a toxic way of living every single day or at least unsustainable, I think that competition is healthy. I think there's

a lot of places where it's healthy, but 24-7, like, it's just so taxing. Yeah. So fucking taxing. Now that I'm out for whatever it is since April, so nine months or whatever, I'm like, holy fuck, I can just calm down. Yeah. There's a lot of ways you can't. The vigilance, the hyper awareness stuff, I don't know if there's a way to just ever turn off paying attention.

This is toxic. When you go like see a cycle or whatever. And they're just like, yeah, but what about just being normal? Like, man, you can just fucking go outside and not look around and not see that someone's been with you for three turns already. And then like, you know, it's, it's probably taking up too much energy. But like the cliche can wrap can Raph what was saying? You don't just turn it off, you know? Do you want to turn it off?

And that's the thing, that's the discussion I have. There's a lot of times I'm like, no, I'm still a protector of my family. I'm still like in society, I would play that role if something ever presented itself. So like in a sea of people not paying attention, fuck, I mean, someone's gotta pay attention. Yeah, no, I'm with you.

And it's, like I said, it's probably a little more energy than you need to use, but I don't know if I would, yeah, I don't know if I would like, if there was an off switch, if I would turn it off completely anyway. Especially the way the world's going, right? Yeah, no kidding, all right. Okay, let's take a break real quick.

Okay. Okay. Thank you for listening to The Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes and leave The Sean Ryan Show review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show. Alright, Dallas. Let's get into why you left JTF2.

Alright. So the last couple of years, last few years, I kind of alluded to it before a little bit like, it didn't like the direction that we were starting ahead. What, let's talk about what year this is. Uh, this was probably around, when did the fucking COVID things start 2020, right? 2020, the very beginning of 2020. Yeah, so it was like, tail end, beginning of 2019, maybe, tail end 2018.

So it was like just starting, and there'd been a couple of steps throughout my time there where I saw it's not changing in a way. So right about the time all this woke stuff started hitting the news. That's right. So in the news, it infiltrated fucking briefing time and infiltrated like different training that they wanted everyone in the Canadian forces

to go through. What kind of training? Oh, like sensitivity training to everything you can imagine. Like, from like just every category of wokeness, it seemed like there was a sensitivity course that came along with it. Now, so instead of learning how to kill people, exactly, you're learning how to not hurt anybody,

so this is the tradeoff that I'm like, why the fuck are we doing this? So one, within this gate of fucking Guarantee Training Center, there's no, like we don't have big issues in all of these places. Now, do I think people need to be nice to other people? Yes.

Do I think it needs to take away from my fucking range time because you have some agenda? No. And that was starting to happen. And it was like a little bit more and a little bit more. I just saw it going in a direction that I didn't like. When like this COVID thing happened, they, so already we're headed in a direction that I'm not super fond of. And then the COVID happened, you know, everything grinds to this unnecessary halt in my opinion.

And we're waiting to see what happens. Like, okay, there's a vaccine coming out, okay. So I'm just reading about it. I'm seeing what they're saying in the news. Reading other things. I'm just staying very open-minded. I'm like, okay. What do I feel like this is something that I am concerned about?

Am I scared? Is there a fucking black flag sweeping planet Earth? I'm like at what level? And it's almost like the protector of the family kicks in, right? You're like, what level do I need to be concerned as things were coming, even like what the news is reporting. I'm like, okay, I see, I understand that they're trying to scare everyone.

I don't see anything that I need to be concerned of. We're looking at demographics, we're looking at fatality rates, all these things. Like, I'm not concerned about this. To me, like you're getting numbers, like, anyway, I'm just like, no, I mean, it came out, you know, it's not, they were bullshit numbers. There's no ifans or but about it.

They were reporting people that died in car accidents and motorized cycle out at accidents, people that were shot. That's right. You know, people that were dying from other illnesses that may have had COVID, you could have died from fucking cancer, but if you had COVID, you died from COVID.

If you were in a car accident and fucking died and had COVID, it wasn't the car accident that killed you. It was COVID that killed you. You know, so it's, the numbers were fudged. And that was, I mean, from the way I see it, that was to just like get everybody in line, like be scared, be scared to be your part. And I was like, yeah, I don't think so. From what I'm seeing right now,

I'm not concerned about it. So I was like, I look at it like the flu shot. Every year there's flu shot, I'm not concerned about the flu. So I don't get it. Uh, the government, the unit had a different opinion because obviously it's the government organization. So the I was like, I just was like, no. In this particular case, no. And I would have done the same thing honestly if they're like, the flu shots now mandatory. Okay, well, I'm not taking, I don't require it,

I don't see risk. And this is like, as I've evolved, or hopefully evolved, but like learning about health and all these different things, I'm evolved, or hopefully evolved, but like learning about health and all these different things, I'm like, okay, there's places for different medications. It should be up to the individual to make that assessment, your own fucking health, especially fucking injecting something in your body.

Like, it's the ultimate, like, the way to overstep on someone's freedom. Like you must inject this. I'm like, okay, I'm like, it doesn't seem like it's for me. I had to go to the appointment anyway, but at this point we're not ordered to take it. The tricky wording, the coercion and all the stuff I saw was like other than a couple cases of people that I know that were directly ordered to do it. I even think those were mistakes

that people would recognize later. Like shit, I don't think that was within my, like I didn't have the right to do that. Now that says everything fast, what's gonna happen? Who knows, but I saw a lot of fucking coercion, and I declined getting my first shots on a Friday afternoon. And by Monday, I was being threatened to be kicked out of the unit, kicked out of my troop

by my Sergeant Major. I'd never seen a reaction, that's something that's yesterday, like I've never seen a reaction like that, to almost anything. Like in my opinion, I could have fucking drunk drove my truck through the front gate and it would not be that reaction. Maybe they'd be like, hey man, like,

fuck, something's obviously going on. Let's figure it out. This is something, there's pretty, pretty all right, support prior to this. So it was like a fucking snap of fingers. Like overnight, it just changed so drastically with this narrative that like after being I mean, I was like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like,

I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like,

I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like,

I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just least these things. I'm like I just told him like I just want more time I was like I couldn't believe the reaction like so fucking fast Like okay, this is a weird one So I was everybody else don't at the unit pens on the person There are a lot of people who are torn, but a lot of people were courage,

a lot of people were told like, you're not gonna advance your career. You're gonna be kicked out. So the end result was you're going to be kicked out of the military a five F-relief release, I think it's called, if you don't comply. Like the most drastic shit I've ever seen. So like not only like, you're not on a list

of deployable right now because maybe, I don't know, some other country has a problem with it or whatever, it's like, you're fucking kicked out. Like, it was insane. And that led to, so this would have been probably... And I wanna say like, tshh. October, end of the year, 2020,

by time like everything happened and the 2020, no, 2020, and they were like, this was in place. And now they have a bunch of people there with the CAF that are like, yeah, we're not doing this, okay, begin their release process. You look at what are your options and there was like exemptions.

There were some exemptions that they wrote about. Very rarely were those except. So I wrote to get exemptions for a whole bunch of different things that I believed. And I talked, it's actually I talked to like an indigenous elder from around where I was from. And like, I mean, we didn't really get into it. I'm not really religious dude,

in terms of the dogma in any particular book, but I'm a spiritual guy for sure. And just I have beliefs in things that are bigger than us. I don't think it's all just an accident of whatever. But the advice I got from a person that I I deemed spiritual or religious whatever it is was like Don't do it yet like this is the same government that fucking took our indigenous people through them and like These schooling projects to like teach the Indian out of them like that was not that long ago Yeah, there's a scar left on the indigenous people that's like,

I'm not, we just trust everything you say. We've done that before. And it was a sentiment of like, what is natural, we feel, what will we believe in our belief system? And I try to put this into a, like here's another reason, another reason that I think, in this particular time,

like I wanna be examed from this. And like the cadre of the fucking army or whatever was like, no, that's not legitimate, really just fucking thing. Like, fuck you, cocksucker. Yeah. So, simultaneous, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so a room, me and you, or whoever was in my team or dead. No mask required, it's fucking stupid. We can all assess this now. It's been going on for, you know, at this point,

like, almost a year. Next room, I don't even mask. It's, you can all agree it's fucking stupid. Oh, so when so is coming to the meeting, you gotta put on a mask. I'm like, no. No. And this just kept happening.

And people will get upset. And I'm like, too fucking bad. Like, this is all a charade right now. I see you in conversation with certain people until it's time to virtue signal to a bigger group or whatever. Like, it's all a charade. And I'm not playing this game. And so it would be like, I get in trouble.

So, like, oh, can you just fucking place put a mask on. I'm like, no, like, the next one's going to be up the level of fucking administrative problems. Like, at what point are you going to see that I don't go fuck anymore? Like, I was now chasing up medical issues that I had, all the MTV I stuff I was telling you about, and I was getting a medical release process started Because I was gonna I was gonna be kicked out Now how many guys are are you leading the charge here are other guys following your footsteps? I was out front for sure

Different people took different approaches. I know a lot of people that are no longer in, that were all this like I'll put it that way. I didn't really get permission to talk about their own situations, but like... Yeah, I was putting my foot down. Most people, whether they caved, they're not really appreciated.

Yeah, there's obviously a collection of people that didn't. So I was now chasing up a medical release. In hindsight, I'm like, what a fucking blessing. Because I needed to stop exposing my brain to impacts. This was just the catalyst. So it was like, yeah, I'm gonna cross on that line. But I, everything was bringing on these concussions symptoms. So looking back on it, I'm like, ooh.

But it just, I couldn't believe how it fucking changed overnight. And then the final like straw was I was going to a meeting to hear about why my exemptions were declined, why some person who didn't even fucking come to me, or talk to the person that I spoke with, declared like religious exemption. No, medical exemption. No, like even I brought up all of these concerns. I might have could digest all of these different things that were showing up in young men who are not at risk of fucking dying from COVID. I just like, no, no, no, no.

All of these things are no. So I was going to this meeting for them to tell me why everything was declined. The meeting just happened to be at like a meeting room and put a mask on And then can we have the conversation that you had with the Gentlemen before you entered that room. Yeah, so I was talking and my like chain of command knew and I don't like my media chain of command I mean and he was like escorting me in my surge of major and he was like, hey man, they're gonna ask you to put a mask on.

I know. And he's like, like, can you do it? It's like, fuck no. So he went into to kind of give the room a heads up. And this was like the ultimate, like, because I could have just fucking put it on. And I wore balaclavas all over the fucking place.

But like the principle behind this nonsense, I was seeing this like, this charade. Like it was just such a joke. Like yeah, I'm not doing it. So the RSM comes out, like I need to put a mask on Dallas. I am not doing it. I don't even want to fuck a mask. And that escalated a little bit.

Instead of using my first name, call me by a rank. I told him when he stature got a little bit up and I was just like, don't get fucking poke chest with me. And I use it, I won't use his name here, but... And then he's like, get out. So he goes down, open the door to this building. So you coming outside with me? It's like...

Just looked away, went inside, and that was the last time I had access to fucking even get on camp. Wow, that's how it ended. It's how it ended. So I got him a truck. My Sergeant Major came out and he's like, fuck, I was like, look man, I know the position I was put you in, but I don't give a fuck anymore. I drove home, and like my past never worked again.

So all the clear out process and everything had to be dug through people on camp. I got a little charge on the way out. For that, I can't even remember what it was called. That behavior towards the RSM. And that was like the... See you later. That's crazy.

That's insane. It's fucking insanity. I... But like I was saying, I think yesterday I mentioned this, just like... I liked what you said at dinner. You'd mentioned that you asked the Sergeant Major, you said, well, is everybody in that room? Mm-hmm, masked.

Yeah, so I asked. He said, is everybody in that room? Mm-hmm, masked. Yeah, so I asked, he said, is everybody in the room gonna be wearing a mask? He said, absolutely. He said, then that means you're all safe, if they work, and if they don't, and you're not safe, then why are you telling me to put one on? Um, and that's when he got started using my rank instead of my name. Well, what else are you gonna say to that?

Well, it just shows. It's a fairy ghost sergeant major. This is fucking what common sense looks like. Yeah, it's just, it was my... Where did yours go? That's a thing. Where the fuck did it go? Um...

Yeah, so that was like the last day. Uh... I was ever the wireless running center. All the release... Do you feel that destroyed a big part of JTF2? No. At least not for me. So one, I think it was already going in a direction that I didn't like, that

it wasn't for me. It was not, the unit was no longer, or is least rapidly turning into a place, that the people they selected were not going to fit in there anymore. And I just, I recognize that for me, my own personal thing. So the unit is still full of fucking super hard charge and professional motherfuckers. The best workforce, friends, brothers I've ever worked with, there is a portion that needs a realignment. Is that portion growing? I think maybe because the other portion's shrinking.

No, it would appear to be growing. But like when I go chat with boys, I don't feel like the numbers are growing where people are like, yeah, you know what, we need to be forced to do more shit. And we need to really soak up all this woke business, like no one's saying that, unless the most important thing to you in the world is your career. So it's still, there's just still fucking great warriors there. Yeah.

So I leave and like, the unit, I never expected, whenever I got out, no matter how it was, I didn't expect it like, this unit's gonna come to a halt. Like, oh my god, Dallas is leaving the unit because you just, I'm not fucking dude in a big organization. Like the train just keeps going. But there's, I didn't expect it to be like that. But I have just really good friends and brothers out of it all.

That like no matter the bullshit I've had my back in a lot of ways. They did lose a lot of stuff though, by losing you. I mean, what percentage of the unit do you think left because of the jab mandates and the woke agenda? And because this has happened across the world, you know? And when I get guys in who are fresh out, I mean, it's horrible. They've demoralized all of the units. And the attrition rate, it's a joke.

The attrition rate is a joke now. They can't keep anybody in. They can't recruit anybody. Because they miscalculated who joins the military, especially who serves in a, who wants to serve in a, in a soft environment, at that capacity at that level. Well, I don't know if the people really making the calls for this to happen, want units like that.

Well, that's when I'm, we can get into that in a minute. But, but I guess what I'm, we can get into that in a minute. But I guess what I'm saying is, you know, this is just an estimation that's not based off any factual information other than just who I know left. Yeah. The seal teams because of the jab. And I'm gonna say it's damn close to 50%. You know, between the woke agenda and the jab mandates.

I mean, these are the only people in the fucking country that stand up for what they believe in. Everybody else has just got their head down and they're just trying to get through the day. These are the only fucking people that step up to the plate, you know, and they just left. And when they left, let's say it is 50%, you know, I mean, dude, you took the, you took the,

you were on the team that has the world record for the longest sniper kill in, in world history. And the TL is also, I can't remember what step he's at, no, but he was being kicked out for the same reason. There you go. So they, here you have an all star sniper team at the top level and you're not gonna be able

to pass that knowledge on to the next guys. Yeah, like the girlfriend. You know fucking detrimental that is. The corporate knowledge is, it's fucking mind blowing. And even like, I don't know the numbers of guys got out, but I know a large number of people that don't want to be there. And that's just two people. Yeah. That's just two people. Yeah. You know, this they're not going to get your mindset. They're not going to get your

you know, the hard skills and not going to get the soft skills. They're not going to get your mindset. They're not going to get your, the hard skills, they're not going to get the soft skills. You're not going to get it. And there aren't any other wars happening right now. So that experience is going to get real thin. It's going to get real hard to come by. And so yeah, I would say they lost a tremendous amount of experience and knowledge by doing that. It is crazy.

Yeah, it's just there's so many things that seem so backwards to me. Now, going back to the, you know, do they, you don't think they want people like that. When I saw the defund the police movement happen in the US, that was the, I immediately, I was like, they are going to get rid of the old guard and replace that with the new mindset

that's gonna do whatever, whoever these fucking people are that are pushing this agenda, they wanna replace the old garb with the new guard that's gonna do whatever they say. And then we saw Kerry over from the defund the police movement, then the new administration took over. Now we're seeing it, not even just special operations,

and it's military-wide, they're restructuring, yeah, every, everything. Yeah, well, it's, like historically, almost, and I'm not much of a military historian, but like, you have groups of guys in soft, I'll say guys, because we've never had a female insulter, but like, we're selected to think outside the box, to use common sense, to assess certain things,

to hold a fucking ground, to not get bullied, and then it was like this big surprise at the end, like, oh, you must be going through something, you've changed, like, other fuckers, I didn't change. This is who you selected. You selected someone to not be bullied in the shit. I didn't want to do.

And now you're just, you're seeing it. Like, that's what's happening. Like, just standing my ground. Like, it's like the ultimate fucking selection test. And like, so I just, yeah. Throw it on out the gate and turn to country music. Is there anything you regret about, I mean, you stood up for what you believe in?

Is there any, do you have any regrets? I mean, you stood up for what you believe in, is there any, do you have any regrets? To the guys that are still in that unit, you know, when the next mandate comes down the pipe. Yeah, I, no, man, I don't. And I, I, I stood my ground. I'm trying to think if there's anywhere where I was like, ah, maybe I just do something.

I don't think so. I stood my ground everywhere. And I know I was a pain I'm trying to think if there's anywhere where I was like, ah, maybe I just do something. I don't think so. I stood my ground everywhere, and I know I was a pain in the ass to people because I'm not doing that. And now it's the next level I'm not doing. I'm not even signing that administrative fucking wrist slap that you're giving me. Try to keep it out of care. It was just so absurd.

I couldn't wrap my head around it. So I did, I stood my ground in places, and I'm so happy now that I'm out that I did. And like I said, it was looking back, like all the concussions, MTBI stuff and everything, piling up. I think it's a good thing overall anyway, but I, in that sense, no regrets at all. And I was telling people my opinion, why I was doing it, you know? And I don't care if guys wanted it, go fucking day. Take two, take three, five boosters and stuff. Like I don't, I don't particularly care

what drugs you assess personally that you wanna use. Use everything Pfizer makes? Use none of what I make. Like, I truly fucking believe in freedom. So it was never like, hey man, don't do this, don't do this. I'm like, here's some things that I'm reading. Here's some things that I'm seeing. Think about it.

You're not an anti-vaxxer. You just want choice. I just want choice. Anyone can take whatever they want, but it definitely got me looking into more ingredients of things. And it started with me and my family, while back, what's in her food?

What's in her cleaning products? Is in our water? and I'm like, I'm not gonna do all of this, and then like, what's in that thing? Ah, there's just my mind, and a bunch of other things we don't know, I'm not sure, given. So it's just, I'm not anti-medication,

I'm not anti-vaccine, if those are the things you want to do. I am anti-you telling me what I have to put in my fucking body to fit into society. We have to go to a restaurant. Like, those are our mandates and Canada. Like, you show a Vax Vaz, you can't come eat here. No shit.

Yeah, that's real. Yeah. Well, I remember. It's, it's, now it's done. It's mostly done. But the mandate from the government is like, you can't get on a plane, a train, or a bus. You can't go eat at restaurants.

Every restaurant was required, or they could be shut down to ask you for proof of fucking COVID vaccination. Wow, yeah. It could be shut down to ask you for proof of fucking COVID vaccination. Wow. Yeah. I've heard they were doing that in some states where we don't do that shit here in Tennessee. Yeah, I gotta come to Tennessee more. You might like it.

You'd say that in grade. Yeah, so it's just, for me, it's always been just like, it's the freedom I question. I'm like, so many guys gave so fucking much to try and have that fight for freedom. And like, you know, friends that have died. And like, for fucking, for it's just to be like, not even taken really so much as just like, handed right over.

Most people are just like, fucking take it, take my freedom. Take this so that I can go eat out a restaurant. If that's what you say I need to do. Oh my God. Where do you think this all came from? What is it stemming from? I see. Like, okay, these are conspiracies,

but I don't know. I don't know. At what point they just, they come out of the realm of, it seems like nothing ever gets out of the realm of conspiracy, it is not in the news. To some people, regardless of what it is. Like, there's now a ton of, you can go back and watch

hours of video, where they're like, here's what the vaccine is, here's what it's going to do, here's what it's gonna do. And you just see that narrative change as like it's undeniable. Everyone's triple vaccine still getting COVID. Oh, but it's gonna, you're not gonna die. Or you're gonna die less.

Like there's no fucking way to measure that. I had COVID twice and I'm like, I didn't die. It was uncomfortable. But like if I had three shots of whatever was that going to be less than I had? How the fuck do you measure that? It's a good way to trick people though, because it's a metric that you can't measure.

You can only have someone say, you're not doing your part, because you might die in an ICU and take up a bed for it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I did my part and my COVID didn't kill me. You're like, what the fuck? It's clever as shit to have the narrative change from dead stop, this is gonna stop you

from getting your spreading COVID. Those videos are out there. Your president said that, a bunch of people said that. And then, oh, well, no, it was never really intended to stop the spread. It was to reduce critical symptoms. You know, like, and people are like, yeah. That's what I'm saying.

Oh, fuck, that's what I'm saying. Like, people conspiracy theorists were saying it six months ago, like, hey, is it not, they've never produced any studies that are showing and stopping any kind of spread. Cats out of the bag now. I know a ton of people who got the jab, who got COVID.

Absolutely. Like, the cat is out of the fucking bag, you know. But in people, I just saw, I don't even watch the news anymore, but my wife had it on this morning as I was walking out. And I saw they have another booster coming out. Oh yeah.

50% of the country is gonna bend over and take that booster, they're probably waiting in line right now. It all excited to take it. It produced... So, there's like the way I see it as a spectrum. On one side, there's a lot of money I play. And people do crazy shit for money.

Companies make a fucking shit load of money. When policy dictates profit, the first fucking people purchase are the policy makers. So, there's like... That's just like the common sense, I feel like we can all agree on, there was a lot of people that made a lot of money office. Let's just say that's like the lower end of it all. To the other side, we're seeing things

that really fit in line with a globalization that wants to happen. And this is a good catalyst for it. They say it, they, I mean, like the people who want it, right in their own book. The great reset, they put it out, everyone can go read it. It's not a conspiracy, the guy's name is on it. He wrote the fucking book. This is what we want.

This is now led into a whole bunch of different ways that they can implement things. Like you have to show proof to get into this restaurant. Maybe a handier way would be if there was an international digital idea where we knew what everything was doing. And if you don't agree, you can't get on a flight from this country to that country. Well, like a digital idea for everyone to travel everywhere.

That's being worked on. That's already there. This is not conspiracy. The government of Canada has a known digital, known traveler digital ID program sponsored world economic forum. Air Canada, certain airports. This is on the fucking government website. Wow. There's not a conspiracy at all. You can log in and go check it out. No, traveled or digitally ID system. A year ago to say this was a huge conspiracy. Come on. They don't want that. Like essential, a central, a digitally backed central currency or whatever the acronym is for that.

That's another thing. So like, on the, everyone should believe and be able to see that like there's just a lot of money outplay. A ton of people made fucking billions of dollars. And on the other side, there's a lot more things pointing now that the next step that they said they wanna make is where it's going. So I think that's what it was about somewhere in that spectrum.

What's next? It was fuck, who knows? It's crazy. Have you seen the interview? It's like the CNN reporter that was like chatting, that was caught like on a Like a camera was recorded or phone was recording And they're like, yeah, we're told to push all the COVID narrative all through this. We're just like, okay, well, what happens now? It's all the next big push is climate change.

We have to all the momentum is going to be put in that. You're gonna see it on every single screen. You're gonna see it on everything. And the video about out, people are still like, no. Like the fuck it works for CNN. I haven't seen that. Yeah, I just saw it again. I mean, it's pretty obvious.

Somewhere, you know. Oh, and that's a thing. If you, I mean, lots of people see it, but lots of people don't. And even with a recording of like that, people are still like, no. What? No, it's your fucking truck that's doing it.

Okay. It's insane. It's insane. It is insane. Oh, it's a rabbit hole. Go down that one a long time. Yeah, well, we could spend hours on that topic, but... But let's move into psilocybin and psychedelics. Okay.

Let's get on something a little more positive. Yes. So you get out, you something a little more positive. Yes. So you get out, you're dealing with some of the trauma. At some point you decide, yeah, so getting out, there's no saying like I was saying a lot of concussion symptoms, a lot of that kind of manifested itself as anger and a typically not angry person. My brother dying, I was having a hard time processing,

it's all of that. And like, immediately after, it was like, that's when I was like, I was drinking a little a lot of whiskey. And then, as time passes, I'm like, it was still kind of definitely a struggle, but I was like tapering kind of my daily behavior. And I started hearing about the effects of like a big dose of psilocybin. There was podcasters that I listened to were talking about it. There were studies I was seeing being done for things like PTSD, trauma, depression, anxiety,

all these things, alcoholism, or just addiction in general. And I was like, fuck it. What do I got to lose? A bunch of people whose opinions in health, I respect opinions on mindset and growth, just a bunch of things. A bunch of Googling, can you fucking die from taking too much mushrooms? Can census is no.

You can be in different realms for sure, but apparently no. Now, there's some odd liar cases like I was saying, I think there's like mental issues of some sort. Like, do your research before you take this advice. Yeah. But I was like, okay, it's not something that people overdose from.

I'm not gonna be like, because what happened is I read about it, got the Coles notes that I thought I needed set set and setting, I was in a meditative state and I was like, set some intentions, and fucking threw down, I think it was four to five grams the first time. I like sent my wife out of the house. My fiancee and baby out of the house,

it was like, okay, I don't know, I'm not gonna have my phone on, but I'll message you and like I think it's like six or eight hours of stuff is gonna take time to process. So I was sitting in my living room and it started to kick in. I know it was the craziest, not craziest. It was like I was saying, it was like

one of the most profound days of my whole life when it was all said and done. It was such a release of so many things. Like, from an outside perspective, I'm glad Sarah wasn't still there because it would have looked like I was having a terrible, terrible trip. Like, I was on the ground and like I got nauseous.

And I was like crawling to the bathroom. I thought I was gonna puke. I was like, I wasn't sure. And there was a bunch of things. Advice I had gotten was just like, you just gotta let go. Like when this comes, just the fucking let go. And I was struggling so hard, my ego,

to narrate what was happening. And like, just like, it's almost like you're getting to a panic state. And with that, I was so nauseous. I was like, oh yeah, just like, we gotta let go, we gotta let go, we gotta let go, we gotta let go, and things are fucking crazy. Visuals are crazy. Looking in the mirror and my skin is crazy and it's like, it's reptilian shapes and stuff.

Like it was wild. I was like, just let it go, let it go, let it go. And I did and I like laid down and just like it go, let it go, let it go. And I did it, and I laid down. And just like the angle, my back was to the wind about everything went dark and silent. And I was like, I remember just like, throughout the whole thing, having like this beat like in my body.

I was like a pow-owd, like for me like my indigenous background. It was just like I heard like a pow-owd drum the whole time and I felt so fucking like connected to earth sort of thing like it's probably won't make a lot of sense to people who have not done psychedelics but I just I fucking cried so hard. And it was like a release of, I don't even know. It was like a fucking river coming out of me. And it was like, it was kind of laid on my side, a wave of movement, everything was dark,

but it was just like flowing. And then it went like deep, deep into this hole and it was like this fucking scaredest I'd ever been. I was like, I'm in hell. It's like quiet, empty. I was like, I'm in hell. It's like quiet, empty. I was like, I'm dead or something. I'd, like, even just my own thoughts were so fucking loud. And then I, I like, just saw like my brother

in that place. And he was kinda like, like, why are you having such a hard time with this? And it was almost like, I'm over here, so now I know, but like, just like, I didn't go anywhere. And it's like, what the fuck? And it was like, he was, he, just through whatever, that means I don't remember if it was like saying these words, but just like,

I've gone nowhere, I'm always as close as like to a thinnest your eyelids kind of thing, is what I came out of it with. What the fuck in this war and feeling came over me. And like, I was no longer like afraid that I was dead, I guess. And then at the same time, this is crazy. This octopus thing, like gave me almost like a hug. I just felt like so warm.

And it was like, it was my little daughter, like essence or whatever. And I laid back down, like I turned over, what I looked at the ceiling and it was like, this fucking path to heaven, man. Like my living room's here. I look at a million times since that night and I'm like, what the fuck?

Where did this come from? But like, I was seeing like a lineage, like all, it was like a path, all of the men in my family to like, rick, rick, rick, rick, rick, wherever. And it was like all of that, it was a part of me, I had never felt that before. Do you have that much, do you know about your family lineage? A little bit. This far is a one, do you think? No, no, no. There was like mystery people in that thing. But like it was just a part of me. It was an intuitive feeling.

Yeah. Like the wisdom of this whole, everything that is me is like from all of these different, these men. And then almost just after, it was like the same thing, but for all the mothers in my line, like it was like the love and warmth from that side, it was almost like all the way up to like mother earth sort of thing, you know?

It was weird man, and it was like, it happened a couple of other times, and we can talk about those stories later, but it was like as much as so many of the struggles here feel like you're alone. Do you know what I mean? A lot of it, and we're terrible for this in our community of just like, well, that fucker's not gonna understand. I'm talking to this guy, he doesn't get it.

And I'm not even like, I didn't have a crazy career. I've had some close calls a couple times. They don't, and I've been snapped back to those in a couple of loud scenarios, but like some of the guys you've had sitting in this chair, I'm like, well, since, yes, you're like, just be humble to be telling the story,

but like, I have not had that level of career. So I can't imagine some guys just thinking they're in it alone. You know what I mean? level of career. So I can't imagine some guys just thinking they're in it alone. You know what I mean? Like people don't fucking get it. And I always had that, but it was, this was showing me like, it was such a fucking warm embrace of like all of this lineage of mothers really,

that like you never, shit's really hard, you're just like you're not alone here. You come from this, you come from all of this, and none of these people went anywhere. Physical state obviously is gone somewhere, it's sort of fucking ground or pile of ashes, but like the being is like, this is all you, all the way up to the fucking beginning of time.

Like, it's so crazy to even talk about this level to try and, and I see it's so clear, like I didn't forget anything of this entire trip as I recall. And he was like six hours of these, like little lessons, things I didn't know. I needed to like pull on. What do you think the most important thing

you took out of it was? 100% it was my brother. Like it was that I just, I had a feeling now that was night and day from beginning to end of like this, this loss, this expectation that I had. Like, oh, you're gonna be here forever to fucking do all these things together. Hunt and Fish and C. Caleb and Mania married and Gigi at some point. And like, you're gonna be here and fucking play music and all these things.

It was like, he was like okay got it you had a bunch of expectations that's all your ego I'm still here I didn't go anywhere and that was that was that was the biggest thing for sure that was like I don't know how many, I probably had a drink to numerous every single fucking day, since he died until that point almost. There was a couple of times I'm like, okay, I was trying to sort through it, but this was like,

boom, when I came out, I was like, holy shit. It was night and day. I was like, I don't even have a desire to drink to cover up the things I don't know how to process. Kind of thing. Now, I still drink the relationship with alcohol. I, it has changed a lot. It has changed a lot. And I look at it now like the way I had a lot of time in my life.

Just like it can enhance some fun. I fucking, I love the taste of a good bourbon or a glass of red wine. Be it like I really do enjoy alcohol. But like the the lesson, I'm just like, and I told us to my niece. If life is good, if you think you're doing, like you're not in a dark place particularly, have a glass of wine. Like in indigenous communities,

there's a big problem with alcohol. And it's a slippery slope, man. And I've kind of like teetered, gone too far this way, tried to come back, take some time off. But it's why you're doing it. Do you know what I mean? It's hugely important.

Cause it's not like corn juice, grape juice, or fucking barley juice. But that's not, the issue is not with some liquid substance. In my opinion, it's what it's covering up or what it's being used as a crutch to process, I guess. Why are you using it to cope with? what it's being used as a crutch to process, I guess? Why are you using it to cope with? What are you using it to cope with?

So what you're getting at? That's what, yeah, like, there's an underlying thing. If you feel like shit, like for me it was very, with my brother dying. I'm like, I don't know how to fucking deal with this. I don't, the tools that I thought I had are not working. So that one, it was like temporary numbing agent, essentially. So you've done two more sales Ivan trips, since,

what sparked those? You just didn't feel like you were, do you need more? I think the way I look at it for myself, after discovering it, I wanna use it probably every year. And I'm gonna look into more guided things and stuff like that.

I did the first few by myself. Just have a big ego, I think. I don't think I would let go as much if someone else was in the room for the first couple. And I didn't know what was gonna happen either. Like I didn't want someone supervising me and then I get violent. Like I'm holding dead person when I wake up or something. I'm like, I don't know someone supervising me and then I get violent. Like, I'm holding a dead person when I wake up for something.

I'm like, I don't know what this is gonna do. Now, I don't think I have any knowing what comes out of me when I've done it three times, but like, I have no want to be violent in it. So that was kind of a, okay. I could not imagine like being a fucking fight when I'm like that amount of suicide. So yeah, the second one was just like continuing work.

Like, there's still... Oh, there's just... It always offers something new, I think, from my experience. The last one I did was just at the end of this last year, October, November, something like that. And as well, I let it seven grams of penis and abeustrine. And for this one, I went to like our little cottage beach house. Just by myself, again, I'll let like a couple candles, made a fire, set in setting, meditation, and this one was a fucking insane mental battle.

Like, but by the end of fighting with myself for, say, I couldn't imagine fighting, but it was like an internal fight. Let's go in. I'm really curious. So I took them, they came one fucking fast, and I was like, oh shit, fuck, I did too much, I wasn't ready to do it again.

Like maybe I'm jumping the gun, it had been now nine months or almost a year since the last time. I didn't know, again, I got nausea, so this time I actually threw up. And I was just in such a fucking internal battle. Like, no matter if I find that if I close my eyes, you really go deep inside. If you open your eyes and look at stuff, it comes out,

but no matter where, there's just no escape. And it was like four hours of this, and then I, it was so f- I almost wish I would have recorded it on a GoPro or something. The sounds I was making, man, were like a fucking animal. I remember it, and I'm like, I don't know what I was growling. Like, there was all these crazy things. And I still had that like, I don't know what I was growling. Like there's all these crazy things. And I still had that like, like that drum beat, the concert every time I take it.

But and I was just like fighting, fighting and growling and I just felt like such a fucking animal. I was like, there's, like, and then it was kept saying, like you have to go through this fight like Your life how you go about it how you process things whatever the next step is like you just left the unit You're going into the unknown Like you need to know that you have this fight and I was like fuck and then it it kind of like Con and something came over me

that was like, the best way I can describe it is like, you've graduated. And it was like, you are strong enough for fucking anything this world throws at you. And I was like, holy fuck, I'm getting tingly, sorry, but I was like, Jesus Christ. I didn't know the whole time. I'm like, you're just like, it was this,

you're in it, you're all by yourself. Nobody's coming. This fight you have to be strong enough for. When it was all said and done, I was like, oh, fuck, I'm like, I am strong enough for it. So that kinda tapered off. It was crazy night that tested it. It was tapering off into the evening.

And I was like, this is not the right way to process. By the way, I'll say that right now. What is about to go down. But I had made an obligation early in the day for something that evening. And I pushed the start time a little bit because something happened. So it was like, it was not in a great place to be in public,

but I was like, fuck, already said I was gonna do this, I'll go do it. And like I wasn't like, still like, tripping, but I was like, I was now super tired, emotionally drained. I was like, okay, what a lesson. And I went and did it, it was like to go to a hockey practice and like, help my nephew get ready.

So I come in, my family's there and stuff. Sarah's like, what was it? It's like just like tired, just trying to drink some water and like still processing everything. Like drained. And then we go to hockey and we hadn't heard from her dad for a day in a bit. There's just super unusual. Like he called us like three times a day. Everyone gets like answer like he wasn't feeling good prior. I'm like oh no fuck.. I'm like, did anyone go? No, I'm not so good. I'll go check on them after this practice.

So we went to his house and I'm like, it's like, it's gonna start to wait in the truck. It's just like, oh my God, why? I'm just like, just give me a second. I go in to his apartment and he was dead on the ground. And I was like, fucking god damn it. Like, it's seen a lot of dead bodies, so that part wasn't like a crazy shock to me,

but I'm like, I have to go outside and I have to tell, my fiance, that her dad is dead. And then I got a call from a man, my friend and brother and team leader from multiple, like just her brother, that his dad is dead. And he's getting like, oh my fuck. So I kinda had a little moment, and we know it's just like,

the processing was a lot easier because of the first psilocybin trip I went out. So I'm like, just kinda had a man, it was a pleasure. And I'm sorry that this is how it is, but I know that you're around. But it was still like, to go outside and I went around to her side of the door and she fucking lost it.

And she's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, you can imagine, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, such a, like a terrible evening, but I find it so strange that I got that lesson right before that, like I don't, it was just the events of you don't think that's the first one. So that's data. No, no, no, no, I don't think it's coincidence at all.

How it all happened. But it's fucking interesting, that's for sure. Yeah, that's for damn sure. Yeah. Is your wipe tried so seven since then? Uh, no. So she has plans to. Yeah.

She wants to. She's looking for the right place. I don't, she doesn't want to do it all alone, which I, from what I read, the best way to do it is like have someone experienced, kind of walk you through the process. And that's probably what I'll do going forward. I might, I might try and the next time, and I am in no hurry to do it again right now, but when I do, I might try something like ayahuasca and have it guided, and see what I get out of, you know,

a person that knows kind of what a guide these things. But yeah, she wants to at some point. What about your brother-in-law? I think that he will also, at some point, or he might have, like, so he's a bit of a... He'll, he knows, he knows that it's fucking good. He sees, he's a health not into all the same things, like really. So I'm not 100% sure he hasn't done it in a place

and just not said anything about it. He's also kind of reserved a little bit. You might, if you weren't gonna have a second Canadian on, you might wanna have a chat with him. Right on, if you guys got it back. Conspiracies, you'll be here for a long time. Yeah, so I'm a huge fan of it. There's some things again that you need to be cautious about, but like my mother had

and is having, like I just as you can imagine, her son dying super hard time. I know that she's interested in doing it as well. There's a couple of clinics I think that are, it's like, it's coming into a place where it might be available soon for some of this big trauma stuff. So I'm hoping that fucking everybody does it. Man, I know that you're familiar with maps, all right? Yeah, so I know they're doing a big study

with MDMA and I think they're using prisoners. Okay. And I can't really say anything, but there's another group that I used to be with and their experience. They're doing studies on them with MDMA and supposedly having amazing results. I've heard some of those were combos as well. Like Silasibon and MDMA or... Well, wasn't yours? I've been gaining five MEOs. Five MEO DMT. But that wasn't a combo. I did, I did I began on a, I think I did I began on a

Wednesday and I did five MEO on a Friday. That's pretty fucking close. It's close. It's pretty close to the combo. It wasn't. I think what you're talking about though, what the combo is, is both the murder and administration of the same time. Yeah. And so I haven't done that.

I did a very light psilocybin journey since nothing like your experience. I did two grams and had one of the most amazing conversations with my wife that I've ever had before. It's a magical mushroom. Yeah, it is. It is like a lot of people will get a lot out of it,

especially our politicians. Yeah, and then I hope that, and I've had some friends do it after hearing my story, and there's a couple guys, and it's just like, I've never heard it not help somebody. Yeah, now I'm not saying it's impossible, or I'm not saying that that is not possible whatever it is, but like, it's helped every person that has taken it with like

what the purpose. It intention or not really, like even if some people get slapped in the face with like here's an intention, you should have had. Yeah. You know? But yeah, I think it's, I think it's huge, man. I think for guys who've gone through crazy careers in this stuff with just what you see,

and what you do in a time away in the fucking, just how you grow into a person in that environment. Again, this will just, this will bring you, it'll shine some light on some things that you might not have otherwise seen. What do you got coming up? So now you're now you're big in the country of music. Putting my foot in the door. Yes, I'm here to chat with you and then I'm going to write songs in Nashville for the week. I've got a bunch of different appointments lined up with like these professional like real deal songwriters so I'm super excited to learn

from them and see what we can come up with. We're writing for an album to do a to do an album to be kind of recorded between here and Canada. Yeah and I just want to fucking meet people and play tunes. Music's always been such a big part of my life and a very therapeutic part for a lot of it also. Do you have any particular ambition with this or you just along the journey? Like if you would have asked 20 year old Dallas, if this was the path I was taking instead of going to JTF2, it would

have been the same reason. Am I enough? Is it like, you know, I got to prove some things. Now I just want to write good songs because I love good songs. Music has helped me so fucking much that I know that a song with truth, it can do crazy things. Like it can really help. And just some of the songs I've written now and playing them to like veteran communities and stuff, like I've had big strong fucking dudes like crying

and they're like, man, like you can't write a song like that if you didn't have a career in this like it fucking hits home And like that is crazy to have and music does that so I want to write good songs Want to write fun songs to man songs are great for Hard ache and heartbreak and hard times Processing but they're also like you have a good music column times good and it's that much better So the real intention is to just write good songs and play them for whoever wants to listen.

Do you think, do you still have some of those songs that you wrote about your brother? Yeah, I actually played one live for the first time when it would play in November, and it was the first time I When did we play in November? And it was the first time I'd ever been able to play it in front of anyone and not like start crying. But yeah, I played that one live and there was a, it was the room was silent. I couldn't believe it. And then there's handful of people that were brought to tears that I'm like it's

It's such a It's such an age old way of connecting with someone, you know, yeah, so I like the country music that I love is They're telling the fucking truth like the struggle the good time heartache whatever it is They're telling the truth in the song. So yeah, I have some of the songs. I don't know. Where's they're gonna go? I don't know.

You write songs and sometimes I'm like, you just get it out. And don't touch it again. Sometimes you come back to it and play it because it connects you to something or a certain moment. I don't know. I just want to keep learning how to do it so that I can keep doing it. Well, man, I kind of want to wrap this up. But thank you for coming in here and sharing your story. And I wish you the best of luck.

Thanks so much for having me. And I have a whole list of people that I'm dying to connect you with. And I'm gonna do it as soon as we flip these cameras off. But one last question. Yeah. We had two or three people to recommend for this show. Who would it be?

Oh man. Do they have to be Canadian? It can be whoever you want. Okay, so I think at some point, if he's ready, my brother-in-law would be a great chat. He's got a lot of war experience. He was very fucking respected. And you guys will have a fucking interesting dinner conversation also. Uh, he would be good. Uh, I think that to get a perspective, maybe from the UK, guys would be cool stas in the through dark guys, I can give you his contact. Um, I don't

know, I know it would be around for a shot show, but whenever it is, I think it could be cool to hear what, how the cultures are the same or different, but whenever it is, I think it could be cool to hear how the cultures are the same or different from over there. And if it's something in a non-tactical space at some point, I got to say my sister's doing really cool things in Canada. She's really helping indigenous community. She was like a pro boxer. She's dabbled in everything from acting to modeling and fitness and she's

You know like me and a hard time processing my brother our brother passing But she's a fucking fighter scrapper, so Maybe that would happen at some point. Yeah, most of it is fucking my family and my friends, man. Right on. Yeah. Well, hey, man, seriously, I wish you the best of luck. I'm going to make this a big deal. Oh, thank you so much.

Oh, yeah. So I can help you. Yeah, cheers. The Bullwork Podcast focuses on political analysis and reporting without partisan loyalties. Real sense of day job is sprinkled on our PTSD. So things are going well, I guess. Every Monday through Friday, Charlie Sykes speaks with guests about the latest stories from Inside Washington and around the world. You document in a very compelling way all of the positive things have come out of this, but it also feels like we have this massive hangover.

No shouting or grandstanding. Principles over partisanship, the Bullwalk podcast, wherever you listen.