Jocko Podcast - 381: Fighting The Odds and Trauma, With Kelsi Sheren.

Episode Date: April 12, 2023

Founder and CEO of Brass & Unity, host of The Brass & Unity Podcast. Brass & Unity was started in 2016 as a way to help fellow soldiers. After serving in Afghanistan as an Artillery Gunner at 19 years old and losing friends during battle, Kelsi came home with PTSD. After 7 years of anger and pain she decided to use her struggle for good, and try to help others through their struggle. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 381 with Echo Charles and me Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Also joining us tonight is Kelsey Sharon, who was in the Canadian Army. She served in Afghanistan, and she was actually on this podcast before number 288. And you may notice that podcast number 288 is not actually available. Because after it was released, I was contacted. by some of the soldiers that she served with and they asked if I would edit the podcast to not include some of the names of people involved in this specific operation that we talked about on the podcast because they didn't want some of the details about events that had occurred to be revealed to families of the wounded and families of the fallen.

There were also some disagreements as to what had happened in combat and specifically to what Kelsey had done and had not done. And so my immediate reaction was just to take down the podcast very obviously because the families of the fallen are the priority. and so we took it down. We tried to edit that out. We also tried to edit out some of the contradicting stories of what it occurred in combat. And so we tried to take some of those out.

And once it was all edited and cut up in the end, after we'd removed a bunch of the material, the podcast just didn't make sense anymore. So we just, we kept it down. And then because we are kind of, gonna put it up and then we didn't put it up. I am at fault for not ever putting an explanation as to why we pulled it down and why I didn't repost it.

And it left Kelsey in a bad spot because of my actions. So ultimately, and this was important to me, the soldiers that served with Kelsey, and these are soldiers that reached out to me and even the ones who had a very different perspective as to what had happened during this particular operation, Even those soldiers told me that Kelsey had performed very well in her role, and they were appreciative of what she had done and were appreciative of what she'd been through.

And most important to me, they said that Kelsey had been a good soldier in combat. And because of that and because I know that Kelsey has helped people deal with their own trauma, I wanted to take this opportunity to get Kelsey back on here again and discuss her experiences at a high level and how she has gotten through and managed with her post-traumatic stress that she's been through. So with that, Kelsey, thanks for coming back. Thanks for having me back. Oh, I'd like to catch people off guard there, don't you? I honestly didn't think that was going to happen. Oh, I mean, I just wanted, I felt that I never explained to anybody why I pulled the last

podcast down and I just wanted to make sure people understood why I did and that it wasn't through any fault of yours and that, you know, we pulled it down, we tried to edit it. It was a bunch of, it just ended up not really making sense. And so I figured the best thing to do would be leave it down. And I know, and I also know that I drag, I kind of drag. dragged my feet on that. And I kept saying, well, let us try and edit it again. And it just never came out good.

I think to be completely transparent with you, it's one thing to take it down. I think I just should have been told before. It went three weeks. And the only reason, the only reason I'm bringing it up is it actually just, the saddest part for me wasn't the fallout of like the loss of speaking gigs, the first book deal. It wasn't the blacklist from people in the community. It wasn't the Reddit pages. It wasn't the one guy that wrote you that email who walked it back after I threatened the defamation lawsuit. Wasn't any of that. It was that I got an opportunity after your show. That was a game changer. And for a podcaster, to get the opportunity to go sit with someone like Lex Friedman was a big, big fucking deal.

and I had done something during the pullout that I actually wrote about in this afterwards because a lot of things have happened since and so let me just finish this thought and then I'll go through. I think the thing that fucked me up the most wasn't that any of that stuff had happened. It was that I would tell this person

who just met me who spent five hours recording with me and then took me out for dinner for my birthday, shut a restaurant down and built a friendship with, all to turn around and look at me and say, you lied to me, you used me, and because of that, I'm not going to talk to you till he puts it back up. That broke my heart.

Because I build relationships in this space, and this was the first time my character had ever been questioned by fucking anyone. And so I, looked up to and still do I look like I looked up to you like when I met you sorry echo you're a great deal too man but when I met you it was a big deal because I look up to you from a military standpoint you're a podcaster and I'm a podcaster and there's levels to that game I get that but I looked up to you the man the guy the Navy SEAL right and for me I knew you what you explained to me what you

were doing and why you were doing it. But then I had 13 pages of proof and written statements from five different people, including my platoon sergeant, my radio comms, my medic, who confirmed everything and disproved everything in that email, everything, every last point. Then I had five videos. And then it went fucking dark. And I had no one I could get a hold of. that pissed me off because I was like this guy has his boot on my fucking neck and I've expressed what's going on I've expressed how bad this fucked me up and then I got through that and then when the Lex fallout happened that broke me because I was building a friendship with someone who was willing to take time to help me kind of move through this space in a way where it was like

learn from mistakes it was like somebody I could trust. and I could start to talk to and be like, hey man, I'm doing this episode. Like, I'm working on this, how's this edit or like this? Like he was willing to become a friend, not just like a guy's person. I went on a show and whatever, right? So that for me fucked me up. So the fallout actually from Lex was like what hurt, it was more disappointment that I wasn't contacted first because I know how you two roll and I know how this show rolls. And that's not how you guys do things. So that fucked me up because when all of a sudden I started getting inundated online and I got hit and I got drug through the mud like I got fucked and I got fucked hard because of this one guy and after I threatened him with a lawsuit he shut it down

fucking apologize walked it back so then what it actually did give me the opportunity to do because I don't believe there's losses and I don't believe that anybody goes through shit so there's not a learning lesson on the end of this this taught me a lot of patience a lot of patience had to learn a lot of lot. I had to learn about how I was going to learn to respond to things. So I'm appreciative for that. It gave me the opportunity to go back and call every motherfucker that stood side by side with me and get written statements and put it in this book. It got more photos. It got more videos. It got everything. And then the family members that he said that didn't approve that, I got written letters from them. So Hoppo and McLaren and every dude I say, I've got written proof that I can say

their names everywhere I go. So I'm not showing up as this person who, who maybe kind of said, she did what she said. It's like I will beat somebody with this book. There's so much proof in it and evidence is disgusting. So it gave me the opportunity to show up for myself in a different way. And it really did. And it taught me a lot. Patience. Patience. So much fucking patience. But I won't lie to you when I say, when the fallout happened, I allowed, I said this cleared hot a couple weeks ago, I allowed the trolls to eat me alive. Like, I mean, spin me out of control. Like, had to go sit in the jungle in Peru and work on some serious shit because I could

not move through it. And what got to me was like all these dudes that are friends of mine who are also mutual friends with you. And I'd be like, I know you're seeing him this weekend. Can you say something? Just ask them where it is. And they'd be like, no one wanted to piss you off. and I was like, oh, I see.

So I waited it out. And then finally this year, and when I say I moved past it, I moved past it. I went away in July, I had to. I was a walking ticking time bomb. And all that time that this happened, right after you and I sat down, my husband almost died.

And we had to figure out and get a diagnosis of a TBI, go down to Texas, use Defenders of Freedom, go do all this TBI treatment. So he was like literally, dying and falling apart. I was losing my business because I lost so much fucking respect in the community. Abbotsford police canceled on me, major universities canceled on me, and it was all until Jocco puts it back up. Even Lex had to put a statement on his episode with me. I am aware that Jocko has taken the episode down and is to edit out the names of the families. And so like even on my like

last stuff. So I had to realize I can't read comments. I can't fucking listen to anyone unless it's five people around me. And if they say I'm doing the right thing and I'm focusing and I'm on the right path and I'm being a person I can be proud to wake every morning to be, then that's fine. Everyone else is just fucking noise. And I had to learn that. And so as fucked up as this whole situation was and I know exactly why it happened, like I know exactly why it happened. This is what happens when individuals who were mentally unwell, who don't deal with their trauma, don't deal with their hurt, don't deal with their war pain. This is what happens when people stay here and don't get help.

And then the people that do that go up here who have gotten help, that shows, that's just their ego talking. They're pissy because they're not in the situation I'm in. Look where I'm sitting. This is round two. I'm fucking lucky. I know that. But it didn't come from not working.

It didn't come from not trying. It didn't come from not putting the fucking effort in even on the days I didn't want to put the effort in. So if you have a problem with me sitting in this chair, don't write anonymous letters. Fucking say it to my face because you won't. No one will. No one will even try because I can back up everything I say and I have no issue with it. So it taught me a lot and I'm okay with that. Now I am.

It wasn't for a hot minute. Like 24-7 rage. Full rage. Fucking. Brady would, I'd just have a smile on my face, and he'd be like, what is your problem today? I'd be like nothing. He's like, you're vibrating anger. Like, everything in me because I had no fucking recourse.

I had nothing I could do. And then this Christmas, Brady was like, we're getting you a new watch. And I was like, whatever. He's like, we're taking old apple things back. I was like, okay. So I found my old computer Just happened to have three more videos I didn't know I had

And they weren't like crazy videos But it was like a pan shot with me With every guy I said I was And major Calhoun And then my platoon sergeant And you could hear me talking And then there was another one with One of the guys

And there was like Artillery going over top And so I had no recourse So I had to text your wife She's like, please don't text me anymore And I was like, I don't want to do this But I don't have another recourse other than showing up at your gym like a psychopath,

which was like this close. So, yeah, I'm not happy about it, but I'm also surprised that you said what you said, so I can appreciate that. That's taking accountability. So thank you. Yeah, I mean, I am going to air on, you know, like, for me it wasn't even,

as soon as I got an email that, like, the families of the fallen, I was like, pull it down. Like, that was it. That's all I need to hear. And that's knee jerk. Cool. I'm going to knee jerk like that every single time. And then everything else I just had to just try and muddle through.

And we tried to get it to where it was like a leaner podcast. And it just ended up being not very presentable. No, fine with that. But tell me that. Yeah. Tell me that. Not a year and a half later. Tell me that.

Tell me that. So I don't spin out of control. Tell me, hey, guess what? We tried. We did try. It was, it's just too lean. It's not what our show is not good. enough come re-record it and the only reason I think it was even on the radar is

because I had to message your wife those videos I said I I'm sorry I don't want to be doing this I don't want to be texting you right now you might be the last person that ever gets my wife's because it's like from a couple years ago phone number yeah she's because she doesn't like this kind of thing and I don't like it either I didn't but you got to understand I didn't like it either man I wasn't happy about it either But I had done the try to go through the friends thing, but everyone's afraid of you. I tried the no one wants to piss you off and get on the wrong radar. Literally, I had seven separate people we know say that to me.

So I was like, okay, I got no choice. I said, hey, I just got these videos. I don't want to bother you, but Jack's not responding. So what do I do? So she was like, here, I will get him to respond like 30 seconds. She must have just called him and be like, fucking deal with this. So I don't care. Whatever got it done, got it done.

But I can tell you, I'm persistent. And I won't. It's my name. so why wouldn't I be? This isn't something small. This is who I am on this planet. All right. So you're back.

You're here. I am. Let's talk through your life, which is how the book is laid out. Starts in the beginning. It does. Canadian girl. Talk to me. Oh, yeah.

I mean, fortunately and unfortunately, now it is. It's not as proud to say it as it used to be. But yeah, I'm from a small town, from a really small town. town called Campbellford and it's farm town born and raised like 45 minutes from there and my parents are truck drivers just like normal every day hardworking people and I grew up there and I started fighting when I was about four so taekwendoa martial arts were my life up until about 19 I took a brief gap there when I was a teenager and then got back into it I was in the military but my mom decided It was going to be a thing where, you know, my kids are never going to just have nothing to do.

So they're constantly going to be in a sport and then, you know, they're going to be an athlete some type. So for me, it end up being soccer and taekwondo and then very quickly moved into just taekwondo. And that became taekwondo every other day to every day to two a day, to coaching, to training, to national level. And I just, I ran through it. There was something about being able to control the situation yourself and something about, for me, it was always the smallest version. I was always the smallest version of like the weight class or like whatever we were fighting. And so it was like there was always that underdog type tone to my life. There was never a, oh yeah, that's a given.

That's a given. You know what I mean? So for me, I really like the fact that I could have to show up. I like to be challenged and I like to show up when I say I'm going to show up. And that's in anything. So I moved through that stage of Taekwondo quite well. I did very good. Didn't lose a lot when I was younger, which was really.

really nice. And then when you did lose, that was a hard learned lesson, which was never fun. I remember the last time I lost, I was kicked in the face. I just woke up on the ground. It was like full. What are the rules when you're a kid doing taekwondo? How does it work? So for me, you, oh, geez, it's going to be a little different than it is now because things have changed a bit. But for me, I could fight girls and boys up until like 11, 12th. And for me, we couldn't, you weren't allowed to get, at least in my club. We weren't allowed to get a black belt to a minimum of like 11 or 12. So, and that was, you know, you had to start way,

it's kind of like jujit, so you got to go a hot minute with it and work all the way through the belt. So, you know, there wasn't a lot of, now it's different because they use an electronic sensor system for the Olympics and stuff like that. So when you're fighting, you have sensors on your feet, almost like a sock, and then your ho-goos have sensors.

And then the head shots are just three points. So the hogos would, if your foot doesn't hit perfectly, it doesn't score. So when I was fighting, that kind of came in a little later on. So when I was fighting, if you were aggressive enough and you kicked hard enough,

even if someone blocked it and you key up really loud with it, it was like, you know, because there was refs in like each corner, you would get a point. The guy didn't quite see it. This guy would mark it. Headshots are obvious.

You can always kind of see those. But as I got older and got through that, that started to come into the system. And then ultimately, in my last couple years, that was how the system worked. And I didn't like it. Can you get in trouble

in taekwondo for kicking someone too hard, like in the head. I thought that was part of it. I thought it was like you, do you know this echo? You never did this? I thought you couldn't, I thought you weren't supposed to like full on knock someone out. You weren't supposed to kick people in the head. Head shots were super important.

They're three points. I mean, you don't kick on the back of the head. The back of the head is like the hard no. Like you don't try to do that. I don't think you're supposed to try and take someone's head off anyway, but it happens where somebody could be into do it like a spin kick and another person could be coming in and it just, claps right at this right time and just hits the job.

I mean, I've definitely seen people get knocked out. Oh, yeah. In Taekwondo matches, but it always seemed like it was a bad thing. Like they were like, oh, this guy got knocked out and like it shouldn't have happened. Really? Maybe I'm reading it wrong. No, no, I mean. I never did Taekwondo.

Yeah. There might be maybe a truth to that in somewhere. But I mean, where I grew up, it was very much like headshots are three points. How much is a body shot? I think it's just one. I mean, I haven't fought in a long time, so bear with me here. Last time I fought, I was 19. So you accumulate points.

Like how long do you, how long is a round? So yeah, they go by rounds. And then I know once you hit Black Belt or a certain level or certain weight, like a certain level, you do like three rounds. So it would be like, for me when you're younger, it was like two rounds, like 45 seconds in between each rounds like a minute, sometimes a minute and a half. And then there's one ref in the middle and then to be scorekeepers on the corners, then you have your coach and your coach here. And then when you hit like a certain level, then it's three rounds, 45 per second in between, and it's like two minute or one and a half minute kind of rounds. But for me it was like, I always aim for the head.

It's the most points. You know, if you can get someone, you don't want to try to break their face. I mean, head, head here. This is more of like an axe kick when you're coming down, something along those lines where you slap the face. And that's how noses get broke a lot. But I was never discouraged. It was never like, try not to kill someone. Like don't try to go out and like rip their head.

head off, but like, because you need to be able to pull your leg back so you can get back at it. But I knew people who they would, they would come in, they roundhouse somebody, but then they would do this thing where they kind of like take their hip and drag their foot with it. So then the head kind of goes with it, which I never liked. I think that was really an asshole move, but. Because it was like too much. Yeah. You already got your points.

Hey, it's fucking snap back. The whole point is like quick snap move, right? Balance quick snap move. And so when, when that just seems, it seems silly to me. So you're doing taekwondo at your peak, how many hours? Where's a day of Taekwondo were you training? Oh, that was national level. So I was fair, I mean, I was like 12, 13.

I was doing a minimum of an hour in the morning. So my mom would take me in the morning, and it would be me and like one or two other girls that would train with my coach. And then my mom would stay, and then she would take me to school. And then the odd time, depending on the day, I would go at lunch just to do like a 30 minute

because my school was walking distance to my club, so it was perfect. And then after school, I would do a training session. But then I also did like, I would coach, like, so I would train, I would teach some classes, kind of like payment. So once I hit black belt, that's when I could start teaching and just helping out and like supporting the club.

So I would train my class, but then afterwards I would stay and like help coach and teach and then I would go home. And then it got to a point where my parents lived 45 minutes from the club. So what I would do is I'd bus in or my mom would drop me off in and then I would stay for a couple days a week with my coaches at their house. And I would just live with them because they were husband and one. wife. So at that and it was and that was easy. And then they would take me to school and then I would help with their daughter. It was just kind of worked out well. So I was probably at my peak. And then

when I was in the military, the last, right before Afghanistan, I fought a little bit. Vakiaz and then I did a little after. And then after that I, I, wait, wait classes, man. We were just talking about this with Rebecca Rouse. She's here. And we're talking about like weight classes and like having to go up or go down. Like that as a female, once you get past puberty is rough on the system. And like it's doable and everybody can cut weight. But it's like at a certain point it's like it affects your hormones. It's unhealthy.

And it's like I didn't want to do that anymore. I didn't want to be in a sauna with fucking suit on skipping. What weight class were you? Oh man. When I was tiny, I was like, I was tiny Finn. So I was like 76 pounds. And that, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And then when you move up, I think I would have been, I thought fly weight, which I should have been finned. But I fought fly because I was like on the bubble. And it was the U.S. open in Las Vegas. So I wasn't sure if I was going to make weight. I was like teetering and I was really struggling to cut. Like I couldn't I couldn't seem to get that one extra pound without it really hurting like the hydration. Yeah. When you're 76 pounds like one pound is a lot of weight. Well when I fought in the yeah well that was one a bit younger but when I fought in Vegas it was

it was like 108 and then the next one down was 103. And so I was I was teetering at like 103, 104. And I was like I couldn't I couldn't seem to get that one pound. And if you didn't make weight, you just don't fight. That's just it. So I was. I was teetering at like. I was teetering at like. I I was like, well, I didn't want to risk it. So I'll just move up to fly weight. What a living hell mistake that was. Because everyone is my weight, who's like up to 108, but like 5-7, 5-11. So my first round was with a girl from Chinese Taipei.

And she just fucking just came out and just kept me at a distance with her headshots. Just fucking pop, one after the other, pop. I'm getting nowhere here. So I finally do get inside. But I was never really trained with that system. So when I kick, I can kick hard and I can pivot really fast, but I don't necessarily, my foot doesn't sit perfectly where the sensor's on the top of the foot with the Hogo,

so it's not scoring. So now I'm just getting frustrated. She just keeps kicking me in the head. I lost my first round. I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. And that was what age? 19. And are you, when you're in high school,

are you doing good in school, like from a grades perspective? No, I'm terrible. I'm terrible in school. I, yeah, no, for me for school, like I got into, I just stopped Taekwendo. right as I went into high school. And it was like the worst time for that to happen, right? Because it was my entire identity.

Then my coach went to prison. And then I, after that, I didn't trust anyone. So I wouldn't train with anyone. So then I was just angry. And your coach went to prison for molesting someone? Yes. So she was my training partner. And she was like a year or two older than me.

And it went on for two years. It was called a relationship slash statutory rape. So he went to prison for statutory rape of a minor. And then you don't have a, coach anymore. Don't have a coach. Don't trust anyone. And that happened as you went to high school? Yeah, yeah, right at that pivotal, like, transition point there. So then you get to high school and you're, you're not very great at school? Listen, I was, because when I was in school, like, the deal was like, I could do my homework. I could train. My dad was a truck driver, so I would go

with him for a couple weeks at a time and I do a book report. Teachers were pretty good. I, I wasn't like a failing student. I was like, if I applied myself, I would have been an A student. But Like I didn't like what I was learning. I never enjoyed it. So the same problem everyone else has. So when I went into high school, I was in a Catholic school in elementary, but then I went into like a Catholic Catholic school, whereas like religion was a class and you had to wear a kilt.

Girls had to wear the kiltz. I don't like kiltz. I'm not a kilt person. Sorry, Dean. But kilts are just weird. And so I had to go into this school and I was angry. I was super angry. I didn't trust anyone.

Didn't trust men. That's for damn sure. And I just thought everyone was going to let me down. Everyone's going to let me down. Everyone's going to fuck with me. That's just like how life is. Like the person I trusted the most. Like he started training me at four, him and his wife.

His wife was a world champion. She was a bad dude. She was like such a good fighter. And he was a huge, huge fighter. Like this guy was prominent. Our grandmasters and our masters were coming from Toronto. So I was like, I trusted this guy. And then that just ruined it all.

So then I started playing rugby. And then I mean, that's where a lot of the rage, That's where a lot of the rage would come out, which was perfect for me because I was small enough that I could be a fly half or a scrum and I could run. So I really got into that in high school and then started focusing on that for a little bit.

And women's rugby, I know, is the same as men's rugby. Is girls rugby the same as boys rugby? Men's rugby the same as women's rugby as girls, boys. What do you mean? I think so. So I know that women's rugby, there's the same rules. Like for instance, in women's lacrosse, It's different rules. Okay.

And it's a much different sport. Okay. In girls lacrosse, same thing. It's a much different sport. Women's rugby is the same as men's rugby. Right. It's full on. I don't know if girls rugby is the same as boys rugby, which boys rugby is the same thing.

Yeah, it's full on. Fuller's exactly. Yeah. Oh, oh, yeah. Like, you mean like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought you meant like it was played a little differently. Like, because there's sevens and then they're 15s.

No, no, no. I meant like the one, like, like, hockey or. Oh, like, because we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't hit. hockey but men can hit and hockey yeah yeah women are vicious yeah yeah for sure i've watched uh women play rugby very impressive yeah they'll grab you by the ponytail and just pull you back from that and they'll just palm your face and there's no issues with that and everyone just end the you never want to be at the bottom of the scrum with women because they will like intentionally take the metal cleats to your face like they they love it um i know women who pop their mouth goes out and like bite like it's

it's it gets catty fast um but yeah i play I played I played nine to grade nine to, yeah, after I got out of high school there. So I played for a while, played for a couple different teams. And what did you, when you're, is it the same in high school in Canada? Like, do you have freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, and then you graduate at around age 18? I mean, I started, so grade, we went to, mine was one to nine, one to eight for elementary, and then nine to 12. And I graduated at 17.

And that's your high school. And that's it, high school. So that is the same as America. When you were, let's say, 15, what were you thinking you were going to do with your life? That's the thing. I didn't have a plan because my whole plan. I was on the fighting path. Like that was my career.

I wanted to be an athlete. I was told I could do it. So, okay, I'm going to do it. Like, that's what I wanted to do. I put my life, my passion, my everything into, I wanted to be a taekwendo fighter, Taekwondo fighter. I wanted to go to the Olympics. I want to represent Canada.

Like I always wanted to do that. That was never in my mind. there was not a day. I think I tried a summer off. It lasted three days, four days, and I was doing sit-ups in the living room. My mom was like, okay, we'll just go back. I couldn't do it.

I couldn't stop. And I loved it. So that was the path, was athlete. Now when I went into school and things like that, like, yeah, I didn't give me as many phys ed classes as I can get. That works for me. So I didn't have a path. I didn't have a plan.

I mean, even now when I think back, like, what would have I had done if I didn't join the military? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if it would have been good. I mean, I have a type of personality. Maybe I would have to land it as a cop.

Like, I honestly, I can't picture anything else. So you were kind of wandering in high school. Super wandering, yeah, yeah. I had to wear a kilt, didn't like anyone. Oh, that's right, because it was a Catholic school. Catholic school. What kind of music did you like? Oh, I wish I brought photos.

That's good. I was into super emo screamo Alexis on fire like that kind of stuff I used to go to like concerts and listen to like as I lay dying and like mosh pits and the whole thing so I was like it was a dark angry little ball of a human who just who needed an outlet really desperately I always kind of asked that question and I think it used to mean more than it does now because when I was a kid which is I'm I think I'm actually a lot older than you I mean you're not that much 51. It's just a number. So, but when I was younger, you really couldn't, there wasn't, like nowadays, people can listen to a wide genre of music because it's kind of all on the internet.

Right. You can watch anything for free and you can get into different stuff. When I was a kid, you were basically only going to be into one, maybe two kinds of music. So if you knew what was somebody who was into, you kind of knew what they were like when they were, at least you have that part of their personality down. Nowadays, someone could be like, oh yeah, I like, you know, I like. you know, I like agnostic front and I like the bad brains and I like some country Western band and I like Taylor Swift. Sure.

By the way. Yeah, sure. Taylor Swift. I don't. I was recently on a trip with one of my friends who's their daughters, a huge Taylor Swift fan and so I was just listening to them talk about. I don't know. And they told me one song that I did recognize, but I don't know any Taylor Swift songs.

I'm sorry Taylor Swift if you're listening to this. I just, and I have three daughters. So it's weird to not know. and I think they were kind of liked Taylor Swift. Am I missing something? I feel like you probably know one. Like if you would hear it. They told me one and I was like,

oh yeah, I recognize that song. Shake it off. Is it the shake it off? Yeah, I think it was something like that. It was like, oh, it's a little catchy tune. Yeah, yeah. But these days you can listen to like,

actually I had a really good, you know, as a parent. Sure. I mean, you have some moments as a parent where you're like, all right, we're doing something right. I walked into the garage gym the other day. Oh, shit. And my 13-year-old daughter was in there doing squats and listening to Led Zeppelin. Oh, that's fantastic.

So I can't walk back down the house and like high-five my wife. And I said, we got something on here? You know, we're going in the right direction. My point is that, okay, so that was you, you had freaking, you were in the zone. I had, um, I used to have big spacers in my ears. I used to have 20 different earrings in here. I had three in my tongue, one of my nose, like. And this is in the Catholic school.

I started to do my ears on my own with safety pins. And then my mom would let me color my hair, whatever I wanted. What was the purpose for this? I liked tattoos. I like piercings. I like, I don't know. I was always kind of like, it was also one of those things where it was like, my mom was like, just never pierce your face. Like, just don't pierce your face.

And then she took me to get my nose pierced at 14. So like, you created a monster. You gave me permission. Now I'm just going to, I'm going to see how far that permission. and go. And when you look back, was it like a rebellious thing? Like you're trying to show your parents like, hey, I'm a rebel. You can't really control me. No, I had a lot of... It's more like just what you were into? I just think I was into it. I had a lot of respect for my parents. Like my, my mom and I were so similar that we butted heads. Now I see it and understand why. It wasn't like I didn't like

her. I mean, she was basically a single mom and my dad was on the road for a couple weeks at a time, right? With two kids in two different sports and like a boy and a girl and like... What sports did the boy play? My brother was a motocross racer. And then what else did he do? He got into soccer a little bit. He tried taekwendo, but his hips are locked. They don't. Sorry, they're so bad.

They don't move. And then he got into football. But racing, Moto was like serious in our family. Dad would go with him on the weekends. Mom would go with me on the weekends. Like it was serious. Yeah. So you're this little kind of pierced-faced.

Angry ball. Angry kid, and then you graduate high school. Yeah. And now what are you doing when you graduate high school? So for me, I left that Catholic school halfway through, and I went to another school that was close to my parents. That one was a little different, played rugby there. That was the farm town.

That was like the, I was like the weirdo because I walked into the school and they're all like wearing plaid button up shirts and they all like work on farms. Like they, you know, they all had that kind of vibe to them. And until I started dating one of those people. And then it was like, oh, she's okay. And then as you do in high school, you have like the worst breakup of what you think is going to be your entire life. And I was like, I need out of this town. And then...

Wait, what did you just say? I need to run away. Like, I just need to run away. Like, it's so dramatic. And then I went to college in Ottawa. For the first program, I could get accepted it to at Algonquin, which was travel and tourism, which means nothing. I don't know what that means. And then...

What year is this? That was 07. Okay. So 07, you're in your first year of college. Yeah, my first month of college. Your first month of college. Yeah, I mean, I went to play soccer. I only made it about halfway through the tryouts,

which worked out kind of perfect, because then I went into my classes, hated them. November rolled around, and then I went down to Remembrance Day, and that's when I met the lady on the bus. And this woman was military. Yes. And what was the initial contact?

Was it eye contact? What was it? It was her uniform and how she carried herself. She was in the Air Force and she just had like the row of metals. And she just looked perfect. Like she just looked like you when you see in a movie where you have those like weird moments in movies where there's like the catalyst or the turning point in the movie where you look and there's like the lights kind of shining on them. The kind of the way they light it. Because I know you like lighting.

I'm talking to you for lighting here. Yes, ma'am. Yeah. She's talking to echo by the way. I'm sorry. Because I don't care about lighting. Yeah, he doesn't care about lighting. I understand.

Yeah, but it's like, it's just one of those moments where it's kind of like, ah, like, I don't know. And I was drawn to her. I always, but I had always liked the military, but I always had this respect for soldiers. Like we always did Remembrance Day. Our schools always did it. We always wrote poems.

We already participate. We always wear the poppy. You guys don't do poppies, but we do poppies, which is the red poppy on the left. And then I don't know how long we're going to be able to do that for anymore. But we're doing that still right now. And I just, I wanted to talk to her. She just had this kind of aura about her.

That just seemed like she was a cool person. And you had like a freaking black concert t-shirt on and piercings in your face. Did you go over it and say something to her? Yeah, I did. And then what did you say? I just said, I don't remember the exact words, but she ended up talking to me about her life a little bit. And she was like one of the first females that could fly. And she had served for like some.

I mean, she was super old. I mean she. Meaning she was probably like 40? No, she was like, like legit, like, did you do time in nom slash, did you do time further on? Like, she shouldn't be on the bus by herself. Like, maybe she needs some assistance, kind of elderly type. So she was just in her uniform for. It was Remembrance Day.

Oh, okay. Got it. Yeah, no, just because she sits on the bus and strolls. Well, I thought maybe she was active duty. So she was older. She was a much older. Yeah, much, much older. Got it, no, no.

It was Remembrance Day. So that's November 11th. So that's Veterans Day for you guys. So you guys say happy Veterans Day. Right? I don't. There's some level of controversy about this. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. There's some controversy about Veterans Day, about what you, there's proper salutation and what you should say or what you shouldn't say. I think the happy Veterans Day, I think is okay because it's supposed to be appreciative of veterans.

So not for us, though. But not for Memorial Day, right? So you shouldn't say happy Memorial Day because it's like a day of remembrance. So you guys have. That is our day. That is your remember. So you wouldn't say it there. No, no. And we don't have a memorial day. So we rememberance day is like the day. That's a memorial day.

Yeah, that's memorial. But on November 11th for us. So she was down there and I go to those ceremonies a lot. Like I always go. My mom and dad used to take us like just teaching us like we have to go pay respect. This is what we do. You shake their hand. You say thank you for your service and you live your life.

Like it's like an hour ceremony. You stop at 11. Everyone stops. That's it. So I was on my way back from the ceremony. So she must have been going the same direction. And I was on the bus. And I just had it with her and I got off and like, again, like this movie moment where you feel this kind of like pulled to something that you don't really understand why and just decided I was going to join the army.

And then you go to a recruiter like how long was that process take? It went fast for me. So I went into the recruiter's office like the next week, did a little bit of Googling. Went into the recruiter's office in Gatno outside of the Gatno mall there. and I walked in and said I want to join the military and I want to do something in the front lines and she was like okay but

the fuck does that mean and then she said but here's the thing like anything that you if you do your paperwork anything that you join anything that if it's on the front lines truly like a front lines position like it's dag red meaning like we need people so you will deploy but you said dag red like dagred red so like you'd be like dag green or dagred

red meaning deployable non-deployable and like for red was like they needed people in the service because that was rotating the most. Like those are the bases that were turning people. Every like six months, a new base would go and replace and rip out. And then it would be a new set of Canadians. So I picked one of the jobs initially, they said it was too small. And then I picked artillery and they're like, okay.

But I was like, but infantry is too small. But artillery fits. And they're like, yeah. How much is the round weigh? 100 pounds. Okay. It makes sense. Logic.

Do you weigh more than 100? I do now. Yeah, yeah. Right now I'm at 101, 108. Then did you weigh more than 100 pounds? Or probably around there? Probably around there. Because I still like, like when I, when I was in high school, going into college, like, I was still very much an athlete. Like when I, I didn't just like play rugby for fun. Like I still raised motor. I still ran. I still did everything. Like stayed really up on my fitness. That was something that like I needed to be doing. It was a big part of my identity. And then I went and tried out for the college soccer team. So like I was fit. I was fairly fit for it. So you were good to go. And then they said no to infantry because you're too small. Yeah, I think they're more worried about weight. Just like constant carrying of the weight. Yeah, for sure. It's freaking brutal.

Yeah. There's no way to put it. And yeah, and if you're, that would be, you know, me carrying 100 pounds is half my body weight. You carrying 100 pounds is your body weight. That means me carrying 200 pounds. Or actually, I weigh 225. Yeah. And then freak out and listen to be like, yeah.

Get it right. Yeah. Get it right, brother. But we've been through that before, haven't we? So I went 225 pounds. And if I, that would mean I would have to carry 225 pounds, which 225 pounds for me to carry is really, really, really, really hard. Yeah.

That's a lot of weight to carry. So for someone to carry their body weight, it's a ton. So they say no to that. But then they say yes to artillery, which is also kind of interesting just because you're still going to be carrying a ton of weight. Which I did. Yeah. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know their reasoning, but they said yes. So I said, okay, cool. Sounds great to me. I don't want to be in a tank. I'm claustrophobic. It's like a tin can. I don't like that.

The idea of like, I think of like popcorn and like a microwave inside of a bag. I'm just like... The weird thing for you is you'd be like... Perfect. Kind of stoked in a tank. I was a RWS system gunner for the T-Labs. So I love that.

Yeah. It was in the turret just like in underneath. Everyone was all tight and I could fit all my gear on and not have to take anything off. It was perfect. How long before you left for boot camp? Oh man, January that year. Like how long from I signed the papers to I'm leaving for boot camp?

A month and a half. Okay. Just under two months. It was fairly fast. That's good. They shouldn't give you much time to think about it. No, they shouldn't. They need to just get your ass in the vehicle and like, yeah.

I'm surprised they don't pull you out day of. Like, oh, you want to join? Cool. Sign here. Boom, you're gone. Yeah. They used to do that. Really?

Parking to do it. They used to do that. Yeah. They couldn't do that to people nowadays. No. You get sued for something. You get sued for. Sure.

So a month and a half, what did your parents think about this whole scene? Again, they knew it was a type-a-personality. I'd always been more of a tomboy. I'd always, you know, wore the tear-away pants and the, you know, the socks and the sandals. Like, my parents were like, she's going to go, she's going to go do something a little more aggressive. We expected that. Now, we didn't expect the military, though, because I didn't hunt. I never shot guns.

I was never exposed to them. I never enjoyed them, but they were never part of my life when you think of the military in the act of war, you think guns. I didn't have any interest in guns. So for me, it was more of a, this seems like it's a good fit for her because it's going to challenge her physically and it's going to challenge her psychologically. So we support it and they were happy enough to,

they actually dropped me off. So you leave now in January of 2008. Is that right? 2008, yeah. 2008. So do you know when you sign up that you're going to go deploy to Afghanistan? Yeah, so they gave us like, I don't know when, I don't know how. I don't know the whole, they don't tell you that,

but they tell you, like, Canada is involved. I think the speech was like, Canadians are involved in an active military war. We are not a united, like we're not UN. We are part of a fighting force that will rotate. If you do one of these jobs, you will end up deploying. Period. I was like, okay.

That's pretty cool. Well, it was more of a, don't be shocked if you go somewhere here soon, like real soon, like in a rapid pace. Yeah, it's good that they set expectations that way. But it'd also be cool if that was kind of a guarantee. And again, I'm just going back to like my own. own personal life where if they could have told me like you're guaranteed to go to war everyone I know would have been like sign me up I hear that now too though right I hear a lot of

people like not to like tangent off of this sorry but I went to Gagetown what month are we right now the end of last year I got invited back by the Canadian military like who never called and then they called last year and we're like hey you never got to shoot your last round and as a gunner That's your. Oh, is that like a thing? Yeah, yeah. We get to shoot one more, one more pulled the lanyard there. And you never got that.

So we want to give that to you. That's cool. Yeah, so they brought me out and did it, and it was a whole thing. But that's, I talked to, you know, a whole new group of soldiers that were on the range, like, rounds down. And we all talked and they made a huge thing out of it, right? So I was talking all these people, da-da-da-da. And I was like, I'm like, have you guys ever deployed? They're like, oh, no, none of us have.

We've all, you know, we're all just kind of waiting, but it doesn't seem like it's going to happen. So we just go to the range and we do X's and we train. And I was like, oh, I don't know what it's like to be in when it's not an active war. Yeah, that's, they're going to have to maintain the training standards until the next war comes around. And that's what the country needs from them. I've had people that have been guilt, they felt guilty. You know, they're like, I was only in from, you know, 93 to 97. I never did anything.

I feel like it. And I'm always like, hey, man, you held the line when you did what the country asked you to do. That's right. Nothing wrong with that. Yeah. And then for everyone else that's praying for war. And I know you young bastards are out there praying for war. We know it.

I know it. Just cool. Be careful what you wish for. Which I got told to. And it never, never pulled a prayer for war from my lips one time. So that's the way it goes when you're young and dumb. So you get to boot camp. How's boot camp?

Shock. Oh, yeah. They start yelling right away. I mean, sorry, Kath, my mom yelled a lot. It didn't freak me out. No factor for you. Yeah, it wasn't like, yeah, that was our form of communication, unfortunately. Legitimately, yeah.

So when I got, it wasn't as much of a shock as it was that all of my staff were French and like thick accent French. So when they would yell at you, though, they would speak really fast. So you didn't always understand them. So you would make nicknames for them and things like that. So it was more of a shock to the system there. Now looking back, knowing signs and symptoms of like TBI and PTSD and stuff like that. Holy shit. Some of my staff were, there was some trauma there.

Yeah, because they were part of like first rotations all going through, right? And they had all done like Bosnia before. And they had all done. A couple of them had done like a few other type, you know, gigs that end up causing some issues. And now I understand why they were whipping chairs and hair triggers. and it wasn't an act for some of them. For some of it was real. Yeah, because for some of them it is an act.

Oh. Like the Marine Corps is pros. And I know, I guess I know more about the Marine Corps drone instructors, but that's part of their thing. Like they're going to put on a little act for, to set that image and everything. And they're told, they know what they're doing. Yeah.

And I think that's fine. I think that there should be a level of intensity that has to be brought forth all the time when someone is training. I think that's what makes people strong is if you are not used to that level intensity and you're not used to that and you go into a situation

where now that's being presented constantly, you're not going to know how to work in that. So I accept that. I understand it's a part of the process and you have to do it. But it was more, it was a basic was fun for me. Again, it was a challenge, something I had to learn,

things I had to get good at, and I was good at the fitness part. And if you were good at the fitness part, you were fine because we were on the ninth floor of the mega and the mega the only people got to use the elevators were the staff and if you got caught using the elevators your whole room was going out the window and then you're going to carry it all up the stairs so we were on the ninth floor and again I was physically fit so stairs were not an issue so when we had to go down for breakfast down and quick up like we wanted to come back in from like PT I was up quick

so I got first showers I got to eat first I was always ready first just because I was faster than other people in our pod so it worked out okay for me how long is Canadian boot camp it's like 12 or 13 weeks they've been Changing. And you get done with that and then you go to like the advanced school for artillery? First, we did SQ first, which was like all weapons. So grenades, Carl Gustav's, machine guns, C7s, like C7, C8s, like all the stuff that you're going to use. Does everybody go to that school? I think anybody whose combat arms does.

And then how long is that school? That's only four weeks. And then artillery school. And then artillery. But we did ours in the same spot because most of the people that I was in basic. with, quite a few of them were artillery or infantry or combat engineer. And so most of us got sent to Gagetown because the combat engineers are above us, the artillery were on this floor and then infantry were in another floor because the RCR are out there, the W battery is out there. That's where my

sergeant, Mark LeBlond, he who was with me in Vecutza, he's actually posted to Gagetown. He was the one who got the artillery for me to go shoot my last round. So he like organized all that, but he's out in Gagetown. So that's where they're like the school is. And W battery is, yeah. Did you like the army when you got in? I love the army. I love the army. Because I didn't have to think about what I had to wear.

I didn't have to think of what I had to do. And if I could just follow orders enough and show up physically, I was winning. It's not difficult. Don't be stupid. Shut your mouth. That's it. Just follow in line. There'll be a time for you to make decisions.

Most of the time, unless you're in a leadership position, there's not. So just accept that and move forward with it. But I liked the Army because I had to show up every day if I wanted to be successful. And that was real. Like if you didn't show up, you fall behind, it's a problem. And then if you're my size and then you're one of the only women in the unit

and you fall behind, it's even more of a problem. So you don't be the problem. As long as you're not the problem, then you're fine. Yeah, I really liked the military when I got in. And it seems like you did too. Well, it's fun. I think if you look back at it now, you know, hindsight's 2020.

but you learn a lot about yourself, right? And I like figuring out who I am. I like challenging who I am or what I think my lines are or what I think the standard is for me. Like I like the constant having to figure it out. So it was fun for me at the time. So then what do you do when you're done with all that training? Now you're in your, what do you go into a battalion?

So we did SQ and then we did DP one. And that's when we switched from, you know, people who were other engineers and infantry and things like that. And then we went into where they, we moved into just artillery. So then we went to like not with W battery, but artillery schools there. And then we started to learn the 105s and the mortars. So we did all of that. And then on graduating on the parade, the, I think it was the RSM of Atkinsa, came to our graduation and was like, you, you, you and you are all being posted to Val. And that gets you.

It's the French base in Quebec. Got it. Okay. Yeah. And it's a combat arms base. So they have like the Van Duser out of there. I can't remember what the armored guys are called out there. And then the five Ralk are out of there.

So we got posted. And originally I wasn't supposed to be going there. Originally I was supposed to be going to Petawawa. But there was another guy in our troop, our gun troop, when we did the last week of training where we were out in the field. And it was really, really hot. His kidneys started failing. And we found out that it was like too much. preotene use happening and he was I'm serious I'm dead deadly serious and then LeBonte a

Meriev LeBonte who was my officer I kind of brought it forward like hey can I can I swap out like because if he's going to go he can't be deployed it's too hot he can't be in the sun his kinnezo fail so they're going to he can't go to Val because Val's deploying next so then what happened was his dad was an officer at Petawawa and I asked if we could trade so we swapped posting so I end up going to Val and he ended up going to Petowahua. So then Marieb Levanti, who was my officer there, she came to Vacquette with me as well. She deployed, but she was just on a different gun.

So you get stationed attached to what unit? Yeah, so I went to Five Ralk. The Sank Arreelci, so it's the fifth Royal Canadian Horse Artillery. That's where you show up. And that's where I show up in, I think it was August. Yeah, August of 2008. Where's that geographically compared to where you grew up? Okay, so I grew up in Ontario.

So if you think, Ontario's here, Quebec's to the right of it. And I grew up in a really small time. So I'm probably about 18 plus hours. Hours? So you're not by home anymore? No, not even remotely close to home. You're not going to be seeing your parents on the weekends or anything.

Well, no, basic training was in Quebec as well at St. Jean. So that one was about five hours. So because my parents lived two hours from Ottawa, then from Ottawa to there's a couple hours. And then where I was posted, was north of Quebec City. So I was way above where there was any English speaking people. So you show up and then are you guys immediately in a workup preparing to deploy as soon as you get there?

It was funny. We showed up that day and I was with, I think, there was like three or four other guys that were English speaking. We all show up. They all got put and had to go do duty work right away. And then I got to just hang out. Okay. How's that? Because a bunch of people who, like, it's funny because my sergeant and I talk about this now.

because the first time I saw him last year was 10 years like ago. So I saw him just recently and him and I've gotten really close ever since all this stuff is happening. And he said, I remember the first day you came in. They fucked up so bad because they treated you differently right off the bat. They didn't just make you go do work too, right? All of you go fuck and you're all going to mop the floors. They all have to go like mop floors. And I just got to hang out and talk to all the guys that were on the troops that we were going to be working with.

Yeah. Right. And he told me on day one. He said, like, I don't want you in his broken ass English. I make fun of him for it now. He's like, I don't want you on my gun. Because, again, I look like I wouldn't be able to do the job. And now that means you're down a person on a gun and on a workup.

That's a problem. Again, liability. Asset or liability. What do you more look like? I looked like the liability. So then how long did it take you to kind of prove that you could do the job? Well, we went out in the field with them. It took a little bit.

they were, the RSM was with us on our graduating time when we were working on the triple sevens. So they had seen us work. So it's not like I was incompetent. He saw me work, it was fine. But it took me a while. We didn't go and shoot the triple sevens until I think we went to Texas for workup.

So at that point, it was getting really close because we ended up deploying in April. So I got there in August and they said, okay, you got to learn French, and you've got to take the RWS system in French, and you've got to take your mortar course in French, and you've got to take your triple seven course in French. So I was like, okay.

And then you got to be fluent in it on the radio. So when you're on the tower, you can communicate, and then you can understand how the gun works in French. So I just learned it all in English, and then we got posted there, and then I had to go and learn all these courses in French. So that was fun. How are you with languages?

Not, I mean, here's the saddest part. It's like where I live. It's mostly Mandarin Cantonese or like Farsi or Arabic or Indian. So I don't, I'm not great. I spoke French in high school a little bit. bit, that a little bit of Spanish. But then when I went into a place where there was no English, it actually worked in my favor because I had no choice. So I'd be sitting there on parade, just going, and then they would start marching and moving. And I would go, oh, what was that?

Gosh, right? So I would slowly pick it up. And so I started speaking fringlish. So it was like a really nice mix of French and English. And then I would start to really drive my staff crazy and be like, oh, Saint-Jean, it's, what's book in French and then they would translate word for word, like I was asking Siri a question. So they didn't appreciate that. But eventually I started to pick up on

like little things. And then once we got to Texas, I started to, didn't take me long to figure out the gun. Because a lot of the times I would run charges or I'd run lanyard. I only had to load rounds the odd time. If we were short people, I would load rounds. I can do it.

it's definitely, I'm going to tire out faster, but I can fucking, I can do it, or you're not allowed to run them. So I would do the charges and... How much is the roundware? Like 80 to 100 pounds. Thank you. And there's, it's like a weird,

because it's rounded on the bottom. So it's like, it's technique, really. So what my sergeant would do is he would take me to the gym. And he would give me like ways to work out where I could take like a heavy dumbbell. He would put a chair on one side and then a chair at the other end. And he'd be like, I want you to load it, like grab it like you're grabbing around, and then lift it up like

you're grabbing around, and then walk over and go put it on the chair like you're putting it on the tray. And then pick it back up and do it again. And just start doing that. So I was getting repetition and building the muscles to actually do the lifting. And then a lot of just he would take, especially in Afghanistan, he worked with me in the gym, and he'd be like just working on the little muscles on the arms so that if I was loading, you know, mortars a certain way, like I could use more of one hand rather than my whole body leaning over on the machine.

And so it's it's just about technique, just learning technique, and then really just honing in on that technique at that point. So for me, it wasn't too bad, but we got to, we went to Wainwright first. Wainwright first? Wainwright first. Yeah, that winter. So that was, I don't know if you know Alberta.

And then you also know winter plus Alberta. It normally equals like minus 40, so whatever that translates into an American. It's fucking cold. It's so cold. Yeah, translates to cold. Yeah, like the guns. freeze. So we would do, we did this operation called Operation Maple Leaf and it was like workup

and it was like all of us though. It was like all the whole regiments. It was like infantry, artillery, combat arms, like everyone that was going to be going. We were all doing like a simulated thing and we had to wear these vests that had sensors on them. And then they had other military come in and people who weren't deploying and play the Taliban. And then you just wear the sensors. But the great thing about the sensor is for me, if I was in the turret, the sensor didn't work, so I could just take the sensors off, and then everyone else would die, and I would not. You'd be the lone ranger in the turret laying down fire. That's right, exactly.

So we went to Wainwright first, and we did our field exercise there. That's when we did our first live fire exercise with everyone, like with, you know, the griffins overhead firing and like all of us were, we each got like four live rounds. And one of the guys from our unit was sitting in the truck. I don't remember what those trucks are called. They're almost like a half ton of they have the big, the green over top, and you put people in them on the bench seats there.

And he fucking just fucking had the rounds. And he put the buttstock down, pop. And it round took off right through. And oh, my God, I just remember the hellstorm. I know the guy's name. I won't say it.

But I remember the hellstorm, and he had to be English too. He had to be one of the fucking English guys that came on our unit. So it was interesting because it was like, there's only like six of us. gonna not just not be one of us that fucks up. So it was, um, it was fun because my staff were really great.

So like, uh, Leblanc was really great, Fontaine was really great. Robichot, he was this, Roby shows like, Bobby de chef, Robichos like six foot at least, almost 300 pounds, just huge guy, but Acadian French. So like this really thick, cannot understand French. He was fantastic, but yeah, I had, I had good staff members with us there. So I learned a lot. And you went to Texas after that? Yeah, we did one week in Texas.

Just one week. It was either Fort Hood or Fort Worth, wherever you guys shoot live from. I can't remember where. But we were, it was one of the forts in Texas. I remember we flew in. And we flew in. And we immediately got walked into a room where we got sat down about all the dangerous animals that we would encounter when we went out in the field and how not to squat down to pee.

And then I got the look. And because we were going out and we were going to shoot live. artillery on the triple sevens. We're gonna do it for the week. And so they're like, you know, if there's not a porta potty, don't squat down, this is what these spiders look like, these are what these snakes look like,

if you hear this rattling, don't walk over there. So we got this whole like spiel, like welcome to Texas, like everything will kill you. Just don't fuck around. It's like, okay. So we went to Texas and we did live fire and that was funny. When all this happened, I actually found,

I found a video of a shooting live fire there. It was so fantastic to watch back because it's like, it's a different life. It doesn't even feel like the same person. It doesn't feel like it feels like you know that scientists are talking about how like there's like might be like simulation theory kind of how there's like different parts of our lives going on, but just like tweaks all across space. It's like it feels like it's a different time. It doesn't even compute with me. So when you watch that back doesn't look like me, doesn't walk like me, just sounds like me.

It's strange. It's just strange. Yeah. And then how long did you guys know that? you were going to Afghanistan at this point? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We didn't, we knew, like, I knew on graduation parade. Like, we knew, like, in April.

A date? They gave you a date. No, a date, but April. They said, like, you guys are the next rotation for the summer. So we knew it would have been April or May to about September, October. That's when you know you'd be leaving sometime in that timeframe. Yeah, no, we knew to be leaving either April or May. Oh, either April or May.

Yeah, we weren't, we weren't sure. It just depended on who left first, and then which gun was going first. First, it was Alpha. Then it was Charlie. So we weren't sure which unit was actually. going to rip out first. Yeah. The military is not quite as squared away on their travel plans as everyone might think they are.

It's always like, you might be leaving around this date. Well, Canada is doing that right now to the Canadian soldiers in Lafayia are having to pay for their own food and travel and they're not reimbursing it. What's up with that? Well, we're on a show of force right now. So Canada is rotating people over to Latvia. And I don't know. We're giving all the money to Ukraine, so we don't have to give it to our people.

That's kind of crazy. Yeah. So yeah, they're not squared away on things like that. Okay. What's your final sort of terminal guidance as you guys are getting ready to deploy? You get a little leave time beforehand? Yeah, we got to think it was like two or three weeks. Yeah, and we could go kind of do whatever we wanted.

We went, my whole gun troop went to Cuba. So we decided we were all going to go to Cuba. Like on vacation? Right before. Yeah, just all of us. We were just going to all. Because a lot of these people were friends and they're like, they're close. The town's small.

Everyone speaks French. I know a couple people. They speak kind of English. So you take a whole crew to Cuba. Yeah, we all went. Like where in Cuba? We went to, it was. Like Havana?

Veradero, I think it was. Yeah, Cuba. Because Americans can't go to Cuba. Yeah, but we can. Yeah. I mean, you can now, can't you? I think we can now. Yeah.

Actually, I'm not sure. Can we? Echo Charles? Don't know. Don't have the... You guys have an embassy there now. Hmm. Okay, so you're going.

You're Canadian. You're like, we're going to Cuba. Yeah, we went to Cuba. And we went on like just the whole... whole everyone just got drunk it was just a absolute shit show how long did you go for a week yeah I almost drowned that day like so I mean that trip so like I don't that was an interesting trip like it was alcohol plus

no not alcohol it wasn't I will I've never been a big drinker I've never alcohol's never been like what about a big swimer yeah I could swim yeah I swim so how'd you almost drown so I went out like a dumb ass and I walked you know when there's like I don't know what it's called they have these big concrete barriers that go pretty far out sometimes into the ocean. And I don't know if it's for like cruise ships to kind of come in or like things to leave. But anyway, there was like a pier and it went quite a ways. And it was a little rough out, windy.

But I was like, that's a cool photo. So I walked all the way out there by myself. And a wave came and knocked me not into the side where the boats would come, but into the ocean side. And it just fucking turned me. And I've never experienced, I didn't grow up near the ocean. I grew up new like Lake Ontario. So that was, so that, so I'm not exaggerate. I just like balled myself up and held on,

I had a camera in my hand and glasses and I just held on like this and just and hoped because there was no way I could figure out which way is up, down, like there was no, I'm like I'm gonna have to ride this out. And it was horrific and I don't fuck with the ocean anymore. Like I love the ocean, but they're like serious. From a distance.

No, I'm going in all the time. Serious amounts of respect. Just like, if that looks rough, like don't play. Like we were just in Mahamas with our son And it was the ocean was rock in one of the days And Jack's like I want to go on the ocean I want to get like pushed And I was like okay you can put your vest on

I'll take you to this point and I'll let it push you in But it had a nasty undertow And I said like don't mess Bobby don't turn around don't mess with it Yeah yeah yeah and it's fucking just come and sucks him And just slammed him it's like you can't He doesn't understand but I learned the hard way And so it finally did spit me out

I had everything in my hands, but I remembered very distinct, like, I'll never, like, if it looks like that and you're near a pier, I'm like, I'm not, I'm not doing that ever again. Did you get the picture? I don't even, no, the camera was broke. So that was the thing, is the camera broke, and that was when I was going to use on deployment, but the only

reason I have any photos from deployment, it was Catherine Fontaine gave me her little hot pink camera to take with me outside the wire, so I didn't, I didn't have photos, I just didn't have my camera anymore. It's not me. It's my own fault. And then that's your pre-deployment leave, pretty much? Yeah, and then I drove, I drove,

I drove back, I drove across the country, and then I drove home to visit with my parents. And the thing was, they asked me, like, do you want us to come on the day of your deployment? And I was like, well, no, it's all the way. And if I could say, like, don't bother. It's totally fine. So I spent the last couple days with them

and my brother, my mom, and my dad. And I don't think I understood the gravity of what I was going to do, and I don't think anyone else really understood the gravity of what I was going to do. Because at that point, in the war, You guys had already been involved with Iraq. You guys already been in Afghanistan.

So America, I felt like, started to see more of what was going on in those actual countries. Whereas Canada, it's like we weren't seeing that. At that point, we had had a really serious incident with Nicola Goddard. She was an artillery captain, and she was in the White School House attack. And so that was our first female that we lost. And our first, like, I think, I think officer, not 100%. But she, that was the only thing I, I hadn't heard much about this. I had been told, you know, the fucking, you know,

that these Middle East people are killing our soldiers. And like, that's it. Like, we didn't, we didn't get a briefing. Like, we didn't get like a cultural, hey, this is what Afghanis are really like. We didn't get like, this is how they speak. This is how they shake their hands. These are the type of languages they speak. This is the type of food.

Like, we didn't get the fucking, we didn't get the memo. We didn't get the memo. We didn't get the memo. So when we did finally deploy, it was like this false idea of what we were doing. And even when we were there, whether I was with the British or I was with the Canadians or the Americans, I wasn't told shit.

So I didn't really know what we were doing. I was just waking up every morning and doing what I was told. How old were you at this point? It was 19. How did you guys get overseas, big military aircraft? Or did you got fly over there on civilian aircraft? So we flew from Quebec. So my parents didn't come.

Long and short, my parents didn't come. I did that on my own, which I regret to this day. And we got over on a, our first stop was a civilian aircraft. It was just us, though. So it was like empty. We all had our own rows kind of situation. And we flew to Dubai. And that was our stop point.

So then that's when we got on the Herks. And then we flew the Herks from there into Kandahar. And then you get into Kandahar, where do you end up operational? raiding out of. So for us, we went to Canada House. So on the side where Canada House was, we had, the officers were staying in, like, those container, like, spaces. I don't know what they're called. But so they had spots there. And then we, we only stayed there for three days. So we came in, we got our kit, like, we got our kit in Dubai, like our plates and our weapons. We got, like, a couple bags and things like that, our helmets and all that. But then we had shipped everything else

there. So that's when we got our big cases that we shipped months ahead that we were going to bring with us out to the fob. So we weren't staying at CAF. We never stayed at CAF. That was not our spots. A lot of officers rotated in and out, but we didn't. So two of the unit,

two of our gun troops went, went to Massum Guard, one went to another Canadian Fobb, and then my guys, Alpha, went to Fob Ramrod, out in the May 1 district. So we were the only ones from our regiment working with a non-Canadian

set of people. We were with, there was 100 of first guys there and just like American going in and out. And then now I know, now I know what I was looking at. And then there was some like special operations guys going in and out that just looked, had beards.

And I didn't know what that meant back then. I didn't understand what special operations community was. Yeah. So that's where you end up is at Fab Ramrod. Yeah, I was at Fab Ramrod. And at Kandahar, what we did is we did like a half day where we did like an IED overview training of like what we were finding and kind of what we were seeing. So they brought us over to like an open area.

And then they kind of had it set up where it looked like there was like some garbage over here, some rocks over here, some piles of stuff over here. And then like another wall here. They'd like bring you around and be like, this is like, you know, cigarette butt package where they took two tin foil pieces and wrapped a wire here and you stepped on that.

So we would learn about, okay, these are the types of IDs we're finding then like daisy chains in the walls. And we were starting to see this is what they were currently seeing in country. And then the next day we did a briefing where we went into a room. And then we looked at like what suicide bombers look like and what it looks looks like when they blow up and we watch slides of like this is what

we're seeing in country and if you see a vehicle born if you see like donkey born like we're seeing these and this was just kind of like this was your situational awareness that you were being given and then we got like a couple booklets to keep in our little pockets that were all in French about Afghanistan. Did you still not speak French well enough to like be okay with it? I spoke enough. I remember the moment where it clicked that I understood. stood a sentence, I was being yelled at. I remember very clearly. I very vividly.

Was that during boot camp? No, that was in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan is when you started to finally really think a little bit in French. Yeah, you know when, yeah, I don't know if, do you speak another language? No. Okay. Do you speak another language? He speaks pigeon.

Okay. But there's a. We speak pigeon. Sure. I was just going to say, we. Be inclusive, Chaco. We, uh, there was a moment where I, I felt almost like a, I heard someone speaking, and I was like, oh, I got that.

I got it all. I didn't get like word, word, word, I was like, oh. And it was a moment after my sergeant was pissed off, and he looked at Bommadee de Chafroby Show, and he was like something along the lines of like, I can't believe she just fucking did that. And I went, je accomplice, sergeant, and he stood up and walked into the tent and slammed the door.

And I was like, oh, I shouldn't have said that. That was worse. I made it worse. I understand, Sergeant. Yeah, I just let him know. I understood what you just said. Je-com-Prault. And he was just like, that motherfucker.

Yeah. I had a guy on that was with the French Foreign Legion, and I've read books about the French, but that's what they do. You go there, it doesn't matter what language you speak. Spanish, English, German, they're going to speak French to you, and you're going to learn French, and that's it.

That's how it goes. Joel. Yeah, Joel. He came into my office right after I did your show last time. He walked into my office, knocked on the door, And it was like, is Kelsey here? And then my girlfriend, Talley, was like, why? Why?

Why? And then he's like, oh, I've done Jocko. I want to drop off a book for her to read. And so he lives near me. Yeah, I just know about this book. He's a nice guy. Yeah, he reaches out from time and time. I think he wrote, he did.

He wrote another book. And I'm sure we'll do it at some point on the podcast. I think it's called Seville. I think it's called Seville. Maybe it's about like the civilian transformation or something. I haven't read it yet because he sent it to me, but it's tax. get a lot of books. So then what's your job in Afghanistan when you get there?

You get up to Ramrod. I was a triple seven gunner. So tell everybody what that means. So it means I ran a 155 millimeter howitzer that shot 100 pound round max 40 kilometers. So miles. I speak kilometers too. So we're good. Perfect.

Great. Fantastic. And so we provided fire for the infantry and those people that were within that distance of Fab Ramrod. So the Americans, what had happened? was there was a Canadian reservist unit that was at Faber Amrod prior to us, so we ripped them out.

Those people left us a noose as a welcoming gift on our tent. Wait, that was an American unit, you said? No, it was a Canadian reserve unit. Okay. Yeah. And they left you a noose, just welcome. Yeah, it was really lovely.

Dark humor, military dark humor. Uh-huh, yeah. Okay, and so your job is how, so are you standing watch? Are you doing 12 hours on the gun? Are you only working at night? Like, how's it go down? Okay, so when we got to Ramrod first,

we kind of got the overview of what was going on. These are the Americans, and here's the tricky situation. Most of these French people don't speak English. And so when you're dealing with the corner of our fob that we were on, we were responsible for one O.P Tower. The rest of the other three, I believe, three or four that there were. I think there were three. We're American run.

We did not run those at all. So our job was to provide individuals for four-hour shifts on that OP tower and there'd be two people at a time. So there's two guns there and one from each gun would go at that time frame and you would do four hour shifts together. So my shift often was 12 to four or four to eight. I liked the four to eight because I could sleep, get woken up and then my sergeant would let us go back to sleep for a couple hours. If you did the 12 to four, they would make you get up with everyone else. And so it worked out all right. So for me, What we would do is we, right as soon as we got there, we started doing shifts.

Like the second we land is like, okay, they're leaving. We got to get on the rotation. So we had the rotation board up. And then we would have to do, one of us would have to do GD with the Americans every week. So at that point, the triple sevens were running when we were called to run. So we were on call for anybody in the area and any of the Americans that were leaving. And we would kind of, our staff would know like, hey, this is happening or we're going to be a little more aware or no one's doing GD this week. Like there's an operation going on.

Yeah. everyone be on standby. So you guys wouldn't sit at the guns. No. And then when something would happen, run. Boom, you'd get to the guns.

Yeah. And so it was a little more of a dramatic kind of job because it, for the most part, if we weren't on the guns, we were either servicing the guns, working on them. I was the T lab gunner. So I was in charge of the TLAV. So I had to do, we would do GD and then we would do the tower work. And then I would be responsible for making sure that that machine guns serviced and then that RWS is.

If we go outside the wire, I'm good to go on that. So I was in charge of that. And then otherwise, they would, our sergeant, because he knew it wasn't good for anyone to be bored. It was not, we need to keep people constantly on a schedule. So he would make work tasks. We're moving gravel over here. We're going to make this look nice around the tent here.

We're going to, you know, blah, blah, blah, make work shit. And then we would all, all of us, unless you were sleeping, unless it was your turn to sleep or however it was scheduled out, if you heard the, like the mission call, you ran. So if you're in the shower, you fucking, bye. If you're working out, sprint, like it didn't matter. You're on the guns. Unless you were on GD or you're on the tower, you run to the guns.

That's just how it works. Middle of the night doesn't matter. Guns. And it's all of us, right? So it takes a lot to run those guns. You can run them. Like if you're doing, for example, we were doing a night shoot. And it was scheduled plan operation.

The guys were going out. We knew at 12 o'clock. And for the next, it was like the next three hours. Every 20 minutes, we're firing loom on the dot. So then three of us can do that. So then my sergeant would be like, hey, you, you and you, we're going to do this. Or what he would say is like, hey, we don't need two people on the tower that night. One can go.

And then what you'll do is if it's your shift and we're running the gun, you come down, just fire and then go back up to the tower. So you would just constantly have this rotation. I like to doing those ones too, because those were kind of interesting for me because I got to listen a little more and learn a little more from like listening to the radios rather than when you're in like a, you know, just rounds down range, just to do, too, too, like you don't learn anything. you're just kind of in that muscle memory mindset. And then how often are you firing rounds, do you think? Like every night are you firing rounds? Or is it like every three nights, every four nights? It just depended.

It honestly just depended. It depended on people in the area. It depended on how much the Americans were doing that were close enough to us. We fired a lot of loom. We did do a lot of loom for a lot of night stuff, like a lot, a lot of loom. I know that the other guns, Bravo and Charlie, because my girlfriend's bin and Sab were on those guns. They ran, they fucking ran rounds down range, big time.

They were in a more centralized area. We were hell and gone. But when we did fire, we fired. We were rounds down range. If we were doing a fire mission, we were doing like 10 at least, and that's on each gun, and we were hammering them out, and then we're kind of waiting. But there's stuff I found out that I can't talk about,

but it's wild to learn afterwards what you, you were doing because I didn't know what we were shooting who we were shooting for what were the rules of engagement I didn't know what rounds down range where they were going like I just fire the fucking gun and do your job that's it and so it was interesting to kind of learn a little bit more afterwards about what we were doing at ramrod and how that worked as Canadians with Americans and like the dynamics and stuff like that it was interesting yeah um people on the ground really like to have artillery support that's for damn sure so that's pretty cool well it was uh it was great too, because I really took a liking to the gun.

I don't know why. There's something about, I don't know, maybe it's because I'm really small, but there's something about the big boom, the big impact, the idea that you can be a small person on the other side of it and still do massive damage is just like, I don't know,

it just felt powerful. And like, we were actually supporting something and doing something that was meaningful. And so I knew when people called us, like, if we got a call in the middle of the night, like, Bombaday chef was in our tent, and then Sarge was in the other tent. But like watching a 300 pound man get up in his boxers and sprint in the middle of the night is probably one of the funniest things I'll ever see like it is

You knew that when you were when you were getting a call Somebody needed you. It wasn't like oh for fun Did you guys have a standard of like how long before you got rounds down range? Were you guys like hey, we need to get this done in a 30 seconds or we need to get this done in two minutes Did you guys have a standard? It depended because sometimes we get a call and it'd be like missy on set like let's go fire fire fire or it would be Hey, everyone getting ready stand by wait two minutes, wait for the call, and then fire, and then fire.

Like, it just depended. It just, it was very... Who are they calling into? Are they calling into, like, a comms tent, and then the comms tent's relaying you to the grid coordinates? Yes, so what's happening... You guys are plotting them, making the adjustments and firing.

Yeah, so what's happening is the foo up front forward observation officers that's attached to the infantry units. They're artillery, so like Hoppo and Daniel Venture were the British ones that I was with. That was my first. first experience of being under artillery. So I watched, I got to see the other side of it. So they would call in a like a grid coordinate that would relay to our tent with where like Fontaine was. And then she

would plot it and give us the grid and she would give us and then she'd spit it out to the, the comms and then we would hear it and then Sergeant would lay it. And then the guy on the sites would move the big wheels. And then we would hear how many rounds. And then one guy would prep the rounds. Then one of us would prep the charges. And then one of them stand by the lanyard. And sometimes we were having issues with hydraulics. When that happened, things got messy fast because then you have to pump it manually. And if you've never done that before, it's really hard to articulate how difficult it is. It's like because the more hydraulic fluid you get in it, the stiffer it gets, but you have to get it to a certain point to be able to get

the recoil to go or it won't kick back, right? So, and depending on the grid, the closer the round, the higher that gun's got to go, right? The further the angle goes. So if something went wrong, with the hydraulics and you're doing that manually like that's a that's a whole job on its own just trying to get that and so we we had that happen quite a few times which was an interesting experience but being on the other side of it was wild too because that is truly terrifying to be underneath indirect fire is a horror when you're on the receiving side that's for damn sure I just I don't know what I expected or thought it would be like because like I think the goal for me would ultimately to be a foo.

Like that was, it's the best of both worlds. I get to go with the infantry units and do what I wanted to do, but I get to call artillery with the thing that I love to do. Right. So getting to witness it and then be on the other end of it is just never something I actually thought I would get to experience, little alone in Afghanistan, like that quick. So.

So eventually you get picked up for, to be, to go out with a British unit. Yeah. So at that point, it was, I believe the beginning of June. I don't know when they started talking about it. It's just when I got notified about it. So it just came down the pipe that there was going to be an operation that they needed some, now I understand the CSTs for, so females to go and get attached to the British units. And they needed to be able to speak English too.

So at that point, my sergeant said no, because he used to be infantry. And he was like, no, this is not a job I was trained for. This is not a job I'm prepared for. This is not something she can do it because we were really. really lucky. Again, I was really lucky. When I went to Val, Mark didn't really let us rest on like, some people would get to like have the weekends off or whatever, like a day off or so, but he would be like, we're going to go, we're going to go work on shooting. We're going to go do level four. We're going to go do a little more than we need to be doing, but just a little more because we are going

to war and he's been there and he's done it a few times. He understands like unexpected things come up. So if you know how to move and shoot better, you're going to be better. And it's just going to be better for everyone. So he put the effort into us, like the days off in Texas we were supposed to get, we climbed a mountain because fucking climb a mountain, I guess. So better be better, go better. So we did everything we could to be the best soldiers we could when we deployed. And that's the only reason I didn't get killed was because he like legitimately taught me how to shoot and move. He taught me how to go in a house and move properly so I don't get myself killed. He taught me how to grab people. He taught me how to put people up against the wall. He taught me how to zap strap people.

Like if he didn't go and do that, like just extra shit, I would have been a living nightmare. And that was who? My sergeant, Sergeant, Mark LeBlanc. He's an officer now. So I, I refuse to call him by that. He'll still be an e-dog. Yeah, he's a dark side. So now you get, how far deep into deployment are you when you, when they ask you go out and do this operation with the Brits? Two months? Okay. So you're at least acclimated to the heat and the heat and the weather. Yeah, the weather and then the prayer and the the noises and like how the country, how the country works, meaning like within my fall, I understood how the country worked.

I understood by watching like this one family in a compound here. I understood because we brought Afghanis in to work for us who would build, you know, the concrete pads and things like that. And then we had a situation with that. That was a whole thing. and then being the weak link, the woman there, I was the target for that one. So that one was fun to be able to diffuse a situation

because I was able to recognize a situation. Again, because somebody took extra time to make sure that I understood and I wasn't an idiot. And then I got the call, they said, yeah, you're going. Like, it's not really a choice at this point. Like, I've tried to keep you here, but I can't. So the least that we can do is, like, we'll go zero your weapon. because you zero it when you get in country,

but then it's been sitting. I'm not using it. So we go and zero the weapon, and then he just stripped his C7 and just fully tacked mine out. So I didn't know how to use half the shit on this thing. And I don't know why we needed to add the weight, but he's like, well, you're going to need this,

you're going to need this. And then he end up stripping all his kit and gave me like his mats, his extra megs and all of these things and grenades. And I had never carried grenades at this point. Like I had thrown them in like SQ, but I'd never carried them on my physical body. that's a whole new level of weird and uncomfortable.

And I just wasn't prepped for that. It's just like tape over the spoons because that was, they made fun of me for that. But I felt safe and comfortable, so that was fine with me. And then I got dropped off. So what happened was the Chinook, the Chinook came out to pick me up the one day because they were picking up people at different fobs.

And they came out to get me and they took fire. So they turned around and went back. So then they're like, if they don't come tomorrow, then you're not going and they'll have. to find someone else because they need they're leaving on this date and you need to be there a day before because you need to go meet with the RCMP you need to be able to get zab straps you need to be able to get told what you're allowed to legally do and then kind of walk through that if you can't do that then you can't go so what happened was they they tried again the next day and they were able to

pick me up so then i got picked up and i left and it's weird because i you know fully thought i'm going back to the most everything else is there fully going back to that gun i went back to that gun ended up being for like a week and then i was gone again so i never i never really stayed at that fall much longer after that. So they picked me up, they dropped me off at CAF, and then they just brought me to the RCMP. So the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, they do deploy. They do have people there that do deploy to do investigations and things like that,

like military police as well. And so they brought me there, and they handed me a pair of mechanics wear gloves and some zap straps. And they're like, do you know how to put somebody in duck position? I was like, no. They're like, let us show you how. Do you know how to like, if you had to take somebody down, can you do it? And I was like, yeah.

And they're like, okay, show me. So then they would show me other ways that like you're not supposed to put people in this position. And if you're going to zap strap them, they have to be able to sit. They can't tie your hands and feet. You can't put bags over the head. Like just how to do it legally so I won't get myself in trouble. And then I was just told my sergeant was like, don't fuck it up. You don't have a boss.

No one's going to tell you what to do. You're going to have to make judgment calls. Go do it. And you're still 19 years old at this point? Mm-hmm. And then you link up with the Brits. Yeah. And then I went and linked up with them.

They're at a different side of calf. They have their own gates and deal and flag and that whole thing. And do you, are you there for like the mission briefing so that you know what's happening? No. So I got dropped off that night. It's fine. Everyone laugh.

It's cool. Echoes more just sad. It's just sad at this point. I got dropped off and I walked in and I met a couple of, the different higher-ups. I remember exactly who it was at the time. But they just said, you're going to go with us. We're going.

You're going to follow these people, and we're going to leave it at 100. So go get some rest. When everyone gets ready, you get ready. Follow along. It was women and children. That's it. You're going to talking to women and children. Women and children.

You're going to take, you're going to, here, they go. We don't often have women and children stay there. Normally if they know we're coming in and this has been a planned up for a while, we know that the women and children are going to leave. We understand that. They flee most of the time. We don't often use you.

Like I was straight up told that. I was like, okay, well, this shouldn't be too bad then. And at this point, I don't give a shit. I get to get off the fog. And I get to go do something. So I'm super excited. So more than jazz to go. So we go, I couldn't sleep

because these are all new people and I'm excited to go and I should have slept, didn't. And then we all pile into a school bus and we drive out to the airfield and then that's when we got on the Chinooks so we got split into the different piles that were all going to go on Chinooks and um that's when I met the the bomb dog that I was going to be near which was Benji is a black lab and the guys that I was going to be near to start with but they said like we don't normally use you so if we need you we'll move you around

there's only one of you and there's three there's like it's like alpha bravo trail so we're going to move you around and that's how it's going to go and then I didn't realize how much I was actually going to get moved and I got shuffled like a deck of cards it was ridiculous so and it was a helo insert you guys flew in yeah we flew in at night um I just know I was on the floor I was on the floor and I was like wedged between people and there's a guy sitting not on my legs but between my legs but enough where it was like my legs were like my legs were going numb so I was like but we were out we're out there for like 45 minutes like a good it was a good flight um and then we landed and I couldn't feel my legs at all.

Like I couldn't feel like I stood up and my adrenaline just started, you know what you like that feeling and you know both when I'm talking about when you step off of something and you just start running, well the bottom half didn't agree that we were going to run.

And so somebody grabbed the back on our vests in Canada. We have like the mesh, but we have this handle. Just grabbed a hold of that and just fucking just drag handbook. Aye, let's go. Just some one of the mixed accents

and just kicked my ass out of the door. And it was the most shocking to the system, eye-opening and overwhelming experience. I've never been put in a situation since where I've been so disoriented. It was like pitch black. I had an NVG on that I barely trained with.

I was going to say, did you have much experience on Night Vision? No. When we first got to the Fob, there was no NVGs in the tower. So we didn't have them for the first couple hours of the shift. And people gave me so much shit after your show left. time and they had them what are you talking about they would never put people

in a tower of the NVGs do you know Canada shut your mouth we had no NVGs for a little bit I remember having to call down be like can we get some NVGs this is a night we can't see anything so I had I didn't have very much training at all with it so that's a trip right when you start trying to figure out your footing because things look like holes that might not be holes oh yeah yeah no it definitely takes time to get used to walking on nods for sure yeah so and it's just the one right We don't have like the...

There are both. It sounds like you had a monocular one, which is only one. Yes, we had those. Yes, we had those. Yes. That was, I think it would have been better with both, but I think that tripped me out a bit. You know, hearing this story, actually, believe it or not, you were actually blessed with the fact that you knew less about what was going on. If you would have known a little bit more, you would have been even more terrified. I know.

You know, if you actually knew a little bit more, you would have been like, what the hell is going on? This is like, luckily you didn't quite, you knew just, you were like just at the surface of understanding. So that's probably a good thing. Otherwise, it would have been even worse for you because you've been thinking, wait a second, I don't even know where I am in Afghanistan right now. No, I didn't. And that's not good. No, and that's what blows my mind because I talk to a lot of people now on my show, right?

And I interview a lot of high level people like yourselves have been lucky enough to have conversations with. And they tell me these, I just had a guy on the other day who wrote the book, A Few Bad Men. And he's like giving this operational overview of like, yeah, we're going to the situation. This is the equipment we got. These are like just all these details. And I'm just sitting there going, what the fuck? How like how little I knew.

Have you ever parachute before? I have. Have you ever free falled before? No. But I was tandem. Okay. How many times? Only once.

Okay. Yeah. It's a really good example of like the first time you ever do a free fall. What you notice and what you see is like really, really small. And then the more you do it, the better you get and the more you see and the more you Understand what's happening and just like it's it and then you get to like be Andy Stumpf who has thousands of jumps and and he like he's gonna be way more aware than he was when he had You know four you know I remember my first jumps you know I like the only thing I remember and it wasn't like I was panicking I was I wasn't I wasn't freaking out but I was like okay Altitude look at my rip cord altitude look at my rip cord like look at my rip cord like look at my

instructor, look at my rip cord, that's pretty much what I noticed. Like rip cord altitude instructor, just that's what I noticed. And then by the time you get to 10 jumps, you're like, oh, there's like a cool mountain range over there. It doesn't it look cool from up here? And you get to see more and more. And you get to understand more and more. It's similar in combat. You know, the more you do it, the more you're like, okay, I understand what's happening. And if you've gone through rigorous training, even that can allow you to be very open-minded and absorb a lot of information. And you have a lot of experience like I mean God by the time I got shot at for the first time I was like oh cool like I I was like thank you like this is fine like I wasn't because I'd done so I done I mean I didn't

shoot my weapon at the enemy for the first 13 years I was in the SEAL teams and I'd done all this training you know from 1990 until 2003 and that's a long time to prepare for something yeah and so but for you it's like you're 19 years old your artillery your You're with a different unit. You're wearing nods that you haven't really trained with. You're getting in a helicopter with people you don't really know. Like there's a lot of things that and it's your first time. Yeah.

So you add all those things up and it's definitely there's a lot lacking. And from their perspective a little bit. Like I did ops with what we would call strap hangers. No offense. Do you've ever heard that term before? Yeah, I have. Yeah. So like you'd be a strap hanger.

Like I brought females that were strap hangers and it's like you're not. being derogatory because sometimes you had like a computer guy that's a strap hanger. So we'd have strap hangers and I've taken strap hangers on where it's like okay you give them two handlers like they're going to watch them they're going to make sure everything's good to go they're going to get them to do their little job whatever their little job is and they don't really but at least we would have them in the brief like I would say like hey here's where you're going to be in the in the convoy here's where we're going to be on the target here's where I want you to sit if anything goes bad you go back to this vehicle if you don't know which vehicle go to go to go to go to go to go to

any Humvee and walk up to the driver and say like, hey, I'm the strap hanger. Tell me where to go. And they'll take care of you. So we had at least a minimum amount of planning to make sure, which by the way, that came from a lesson from me where I did take some strap hangers out. It didn't work out good. And mistakes got made that I should have been more attentive to and I should have put more guidance in place, which I did after that happened.

But yeah, so I can kind of see someone thinking, oh, you know, we got. this girl she'll be you know if we need her we'll bring up to the front we'll bring well you know we don't expect to see a lot of females and also what happens is they don't know what you don't know or they don't remember what you don't know so if I was to go on a jump with Andy Stumpf right now he'd be like oh yeah like hey just just do this yeah expecting that I know how to do it when I'd be like hey dude I don't know how to do that or or you know expect me hey when you're coming for the landing just make sure you do this this, you know, triple Lindy on the, on the approach.

And he thinks, he would legitimately think I would know it. Right. And I'd be like, hey, dude, I don't know how to do a triple, triple Lindy. But if I didn't say that, or if I didn't know to say that, or if I didn't have time to say that, or we're in a freaking helicopter. And he's like, triple and I'm like, you know. So that could be problematic. So I'm just trying to, I try and figure out, you know, the situation that you were in

from like a mental perspective. And it's not good. No, I'm like a golden retriever. I'm just happy to be here. You're happy to be here. I'm happy to be here. Yeah, and that's cool when you're going to a happy place. It's cool when you, yeah, when it doesn't end up being like where the grounds are filled with IEDs

and people don't like you, especially women and they don't like women who have guns and they think that you're a little boy that's taking their daughters and their children into a room. Yeah, they don't like you very much and you learn really quickly. It didn't take me long to switch my brain on. Once the day we landed, we sat in the dark until morning prayer. That was like the we're going to, all hell is going to break loose. That's when we're hitting and moving.

So we got told like they're going to go now. So morning prayer happened. And then a group went forward and breached that first compound. Once that happened, I got called up right away, right away. And so Benji, who, that's the dog and his handler and I went, went right up to the houses. and it was already like everything had already calmed down, but they had the women and kids over in one area. And I went in with my helmet on

and I had a scarf on as well because it was freezing, which also, no one tells you how cold it gets at night? Just FYI, if you're ever deploying, can someone tell someone with a degree at night it becomes? Because it gets fucking cold. So we're outside there, outside the wire in the middle of the night, and I'm just shaking, thinking just like wearing a T-shirt and my just button-up kit with my plates and then my vest.

I'm like, oh, it's freezing. It's fucking cold. So we went inside and they're kind of all huddle to the side and I had the big scarf over. So my hair was blonde at the time and my braid was tucked in. You could not tell that I was a woman from Adam. Like there was no way you would know. And so when I went to grab the women and kids,

and at this point I'm pretty calm and I'm pretty gentle. So I'm like, come with me into the room. Like not creepy, not pointing guns. Just we're going to go in here. I'm going to search you and it's going to be fine. they're looking at me terrified and the husband or the elder of the family freaks the fuck out cries to grab a hold to me like this and a bunch of the guys start pointing the gun at them and they start the interpreter comes or starts yelling he thinks you're a boy he thinks you're a man

he thinks you're a man take your helmet off so and i was taught because at this point uh Trevor had already we had a canadian who had an axe put into his head um and he's the reason why honor house exists but long and short he sat down in a prayer circle and this was back when the soPs were different took his helmet off out of respect Taliban never came up, acts in the head. He lived, he's alive, he lives on the island of Vancouver,

he's amazing. But we were always told you never take your helmet off. So I'm kind of looking around, looking for someone to tell me what to do because that's what I've been trained to do. And I'm like, oh, fuck it, I'm by myself, take my helmet off.

And he calms down once he sees that I'm a woman, everything kind of chills out. Then I go and I do my first experience of like searching people, but the difference is these people are real rule, right? They're not like, Kabul, educated, you know, girls that are, you know, these are no running water.

The only men they ever see is like their elder. That's the word of God. They learn everything from them. And so they're a mess and they're terrified and they're crying and the kids are crying. And I'm not, I don't know what the hell I thought would happen. But it wasn't like I didn't expect like the fear. When you see that amount of fear in a small child's eyes, that's like a thing that sticks. That you were and maybe now because I've done so much I can look back at it.

it this way, but like that, the fact that I was the thing of someone's nightmares makes me sad inside. Yeah. So that was a, that was a weird, that was a weird first exchange. Didn't expect, I don't like it. I don't know what I expected, right? Because again, I just happy to be here. Right, right.

And then, so you guys end up, you're in the field for a total of, what, five days? I think something along that lines. I don't know, everything blurred. And it's, you're in multiple contact. backs. Yeah, a lot. A lot of contacts with the enemy as you're moving from village to village doing clearances.

There's an incident where there's a big IED. Yep. You have one soldier get killed. Another soldier get really badly wounded. That's a nightmare to work through. And this whole time, like you said, you're getting shuffled around. You're moving to the front. You're moving to the back.

You're moving back of the front. your... I was never in the back. I was just moving to front. I was moving in front to different parts of villages. So it was like I was never just like sitting waiting. The only time I ever like stopped

or we weren't in firefighter is that night. And then I got to sleep for a three hour chunk like the first night. That one was the, I remember because I slept in the, my sergeant gave me that like it's like a, you put it over top of your sleeping bag to protect your sleeping bag. Oh, Bidde-sock.

Yeah, thank you. And so what I did is I just wanted privacy. So I got inside of it and I tied it up really tight of it tight. tight and then I put it up beneath and then I changed in that and then I slept in that while my stuff dried because it was wet. And so the, you know, the whole time I was there, again, it's not like war isn't difficult, shit's not hard, people don't die, stuff doesn't happen. It was just weird situations. I was in awkward placements for a meeting like we were moving from one village to

like one of the videos I sent to you was the artillery going over top of us. Well, what had happened at that point when we were moving from that village was when you look at the right hand side of the video you can see there was a there was a tree in the way of the sniper so some of the engineers came over and blew it up so they could blow the tree out of the way okay but while we were waiting for that we were all starting to push forward once the sniper got in place we were pushing forward along this there's like a mud wall when you step upside there's like a mud wall but for me it was like probably up to my shoulders right and so we're pushing forward and I'm going ahead with a couple of the guys and I'm like third I'm third behind them Because at this point, we had been in some contact, and I had moved fine enough where they just stuck me in with everyone else.

They weren't like, hold her back, then we'll bring her forward. It was just like, we're finding women everywhere. She's just go from here to here to here. So I'm moving forward with one of the guys, and we got close contact, like close contact, closest I've ever seen, never experienced anything like that before. And it was to the point where we were taking rounds and one of the guys was like, we have to push, push, push back. And I was like, what do you mean? We were, what? He's like, run that way.

again and I was like okay so what happens was he covered fire and I ran and I remember I just remember this big hole in the ground and I remember jumping over it and it was one of those like slow motion moments because like there was rounds coming down and it was my first real like taking fucking hand like handgun fire so we retreated back and I where I took the video from we were sitting in the ditch on the right hand side and we were waiting for artillery to come down and that was the first time they were calling rounds over top of us and I was like that's close and they're like sure is sure is and that's when I could feel the ground just oh my god because they used to say to us in the training like you're the hand of god and I was like I don't know what that means but I'm gonna find out

and I found out and I loved it as soon as first lanyard pull I was like that's an addiction that's a that's a thing I want more of that I want more of that that's that's something special that's like all the hair on your body raises and the ground moves and your like what you just sent down range is going to wreak havoc, make somebody have a real bad day. Yeah, I can't imagine that there's anything better for an artillery person and to be in the field and see the impact of what it's like to have artillery utilized

for the folks on the ground, for sure. Yeah, it was cool just because the power of it. And so that was all like one thing. So that was my first kind of like experience to like actual like popping over my head of rounds, coming. And then the second one that like, again, it was just they were, we were moving from like one village to the next and we were pushing forward. And Stephen Noble, he was my platoon sergeant. He was, he had pulled us back and shoved us into a compound and put some of us on the roof because

there was girls screaming. They heard screaming in the next compound ahead. So they put us on the roof. I'm one of the only people that don't go on the roof. The medic, the bomb dog and the CSTs. We don't go on the roofs. We don't do sentry at night on the roof because there's only few of us. So I got put on the roof, which, again, I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to be shooting my rifle. I'm fucking stoked to do this. I get on the roof.

We're taking rounds. And we're shooting. There's a guy beside me, myself here, and another guy here. And so they call him sharpshooters, the British. So the sharpshooter that was with me jumps down off the roof to grab more ammo. He lies his rifle, which is the entire length of my body. and I have a photo with me holding the rifle and the round we pulled out of it.

And we get three rounds that come from the left side and smoke the buttstock of his rifle and just by the just covers my hip because it's the length of my body. And we all get down off the roof and we look and he's got like an AK round like in the buttstock and so he duct taped it up and I said, can I have that?

And he's like, no fucking chance. And I said, can I take a picture of it? He goes, yeah, absolutely. So I took a picture. I put it on my leg and I took a picture of it and then I tattooed it on my finger. So it's like there was, just situations and when the IED went off I was in the group and we were waiting for that those two

people to go clear the road and so on the compound on the right hand side we had a group of guys that was back a little bit with a sniper on the roof and then there was a mud like a compound when I say compound I'm talking like mud walls real rough ruggedy not fucking a compound like a marble and we're leaning with our backs up to it and on the left hand side is in a little little ways away is a gray put, and then if you go down the road a little to the right, and there's a ditch, and then there's this road that goes up to the grape hut. And then on the right-hand side of that road is just a whole open clearing. And so we were waiting for it to be cleared.

And there was, we were just sitting still and everything was calm, everything was quiet, eye-cal chatter, nothing, everything was perfect. And so we were just sitting there, and I remember, I was looking over, talking to a couple of guys, and the ground fucking shock. like something, and I remember just whipping my head around and seeing the worst thing that I'll see for the rest of my life. So that was a situation, again, that I shouldn't have fucking been in and shouldn't have been a part of,

but Noble said, you, you, and you, go. And I don't know what does go mean? Go, run now. And so Craig Hardy, the medic that was with us, is dealing with the first individual, and what had happened is the blast went off and there was somebody at the door. And he took the brunt of the blast,

blew his kid off and just wrecked him. So we were dealing with that. And then afterwards, three of us run down off of the road into the ditch and sprint towards the great put. And then we get to the road that's right adjacent to the great put and they give the, okay, one, two, three run.

And at this point, all hell is broken loose. Now we're taking mortar rounds. We're taking small arms fire and things are getting out of control. And so what they did is the Taliban used that moment to be, you know, wait for everyone to come and then secondary. Just you know what that looks like. So we get inside the gray putt and then I was with Stephen Noble and a couple other guys. And that's the moment I say often like my light switch goes. Like the switch happens when I find out that this is what's left and you're cleaning it up and we're running.

and we're moving. And so I just blacked out and did what I was told. I didn't think about what I was doing or touching or grabbing. I just did what I was fucking told. And then just after that, I didn't feel anything anymore. Like there was not anything I could feel. There's not anything I could do about it. There's nothing that I could switch on or off. It was just like I was fucking gone. Like a part of me was like, see you later. Wall. And that was just how it worked. And so once we finished that, we all put everything we could onto the stretcher. And then I carried the two individuals' helmets and one of the rifles. And I slung my rifle and I carried his rifle.

And it was all twisted. I'd never seen anything like that happened to a weapon. I obviously know they're malleable, but I had never seen it in person. So the gravity of the situation did not punch me in the face, though, until we got the stretcher back into that compound that was down on the right hand side of where I was sitting, where the snipers were. And we went inside of there. And at that point, that's when the, um,

the pedros the guys came in the blackhawks and one came around and unleashed hell like out of those like mini guns and just fucking i'd only heard that once when we were in um wainwright when they were shooting over top of us for the first time but i had never heard like oh my god and so at that point they got everybody on um the flights and they had taken off and then the fire had kind of dampened down And that's the moment that like Craig sat with me and he was the medic and he just kept asking me if I was okay. Because at this point I was obsessively rubbing my hands. Like I didn't have my gloves on for that. And so I had some stuff all over me and I just kept rubbing my hands really, really aggressively.

Like just trying to get it off because I would rub my kit and my kit was covered and had dirt on it. So I just keep rubbing and it would just keep getting worse. And so I just kept sitting there and I would sit on the ground and I remember it because there was inside there, there was like a, not a room, but like a cutout. And the other guys were sitting over there. And they're all kind of, a bunch of them were sitting in a circle and they're all smoking. And I was like, I want a cigarette. And they're like, you're not starting now.

Like we're not giving you a cigarette. Like this is not how this is going to work. And he gave me like hand sanitizer or like some type of something and like just like, just like, just like, just wipe it off. Just like, it's cool. Just wipe it off. Like this is, this guy is a hardened medic. He had done some time, other places.

And so he could see that I was not coping and something it was off really, really fast and then at that point it was like within 15 minutes they're like okay up we go push on that's it and I didn't know what to do with that fuck am I supposed to know what to do with that I like the thing that got me is like all of these guys it's like of course you can't sit there and wallow in it but like what the fuck are you supposed to do with that and it's funny because since our last conversation I've talked about you on a few shows because somebody, quite a few people that asked me about this story. And I talked about it in length on my podcast with Danny Venture, who was friends with one of the guys that we lost.

And then I talked about it with one of the family members and I said, can I talk about this? The reason we want to talk about it is because it just keeps their names alive. And I was like, okay. So Danny and I talked about one of the situations and he said, you know, when you handle that, like, how do you think it, do you think it could have been better? Do you think it could have been different? Do you think you could have, you know, anything? And I said, it's funny that you say that because when you asked me last time I was here, like you asked me very clearly, and this is stuck with me, and it was like,

if somebody would have sat you down and said, hey, what you're feeling is normal, what you're experiencing is normal, how you're reacting is normal, this is okay, you're going to get through this, instead of slapping medication on top of it and then having to exit the country, and then eventually exit the military, do you think you would have been okay? Yeah, I fucking think I would have been okay. But I think at the time,

our leadership didn't know how to deal with mental health. It was still too early in Canada's involvement in 2009. And our staff, like my sergeant tells me to this day, I didn't know what to do with you. I didn't know how to help you. I didn't know what you were going through because I had never been through an experience like that. So if the leaders I'm going to have never experienced it,

and I'm glad that they never had to experience it, because no one should have to experience that. But war is war and that's what happens. That's the reality. So if he didn't know how to help me, how am I supposed to get help? Like I didn't have anyone to be like, hey, this is normal.

This is okay. So, you know, that, that, that was the moment. That was when they, when they, when you look at my TBI paperwork and like the stuff from Veterans Affairs, like that's the fucking check in the box for them where they're like, yep, that's where that IED, that ID, situation that body clearance that whole thing that was the moment and then the rest of the op just went fucking downhill from there yeah the um that conversation that we had last

time you were on and because the whole time you know I was sitting there kind of like I'm doing today of like just pointing out the fact that you were young you were not trained for this you weren't aware of what was happening you know overall in the big picture you're getting like a five-minute brief about what you're going to go do. There's a lot and then your follow on to a traumatic situation is like, okay, cool, clean your hands. We're going to the next village. And although, and then when you get done and we'll get into that. But yes, I had a connection at some point in my life where, you know, I'd get these, these, when I was trained in MMA fighters and the MMA fighters, they would be

very confident and then they would go to the fight. And they'd get like, especially, quite frankly, in the UFC when it's the UFC. And it doesn't matter. You do a bunch of shows, amateur shows. You've been wrestling your whole life, whatever. You've been in fights. You know what you're doing. You don't get nervous.

You don't get nervous anymore. After a guy has wrestled his whole life or boxed his whole life and now he's going to go, they don't get nervous before a fight. You know, a collegiate wrestler doesn't get nervous before a wrestling match. Like, they get over it. Okay, and maybe they get a little bit nervous, but they get over it. And all of a sudden they show up at UFC and it's a real thing. I think they have a name for it.

They call it something like UFC jitters or something like that. And what I realized is if they didn't know what it was, they'd be like, oh, there's something wrong with me. And at some point I said to myself, oh, the same thing happens in combat. The same thing happens before combat and the same thing happens after a combat. Oh, before combat, you're nervous. And it's okay that you're nervous. It's okay that you're not sick, but your stomach is in knots. It's okay that you're, you maybe even like, I've seen guys shivering, like they're shivering, they're scared.

And it's like if you go, hey man, it's all good. You're supposed to feel that way. It's your body getting ready for combat. Don't worry about it. It's fine. And they go, oh, okay. And it's the same thing before they get in the cage. It's like, hey, man, what you're feeling right now is you being prepared for combat.

And the same thing on the other side of like, oh, you have some uncontrollable emotion because you lost one of your friends. Yep, that's totally normal. Like, hey, man, I've lost a bunch of friends. And it's like, oh, yeah, sometimes I'll just start crying. Yeah. Oh, that's, that's, and it's not like, I don't, I don't think to myself, hey, I, I don't, I had a heard of, you know, actually I would, the cliche is like I heard a song, but that doesn't

actually happen. I don't like hear a song. But maybe there's be a picture I'm looking at. Or I'll read something and, you know, go read old emails. That's a real freaking smart move on a freaking Saturday afternoon. But you do that and you can be like, oh, okay. Oh, now I'm sitting alone and I'm crying. Yeah.

But for me, I'm like, that's totally normal. That's what you do. And it's okay. And I don't think that that message gets to people to say, oh, yeah, you lost some of your friends and you're 23 or 19 or 27 or 32 years old and you're going to be bummed out about that. Yeah. And there's going to be some uncontrollable emotions that you as a grown person are not used to because there's nothing, you know, oh, you get mad at the supermarket because the line was long or you get mad because your computer printer didn't work or you get sad because you watched a movie. But that's all different compared to, oh, I lost. one of my really good friends and it's a different kind of emotion that I'm not used to.

So what they should be thinking is like, oh, that's normal. I'm sad that I lost some of my friends. And instead what they think is I'm sad. It's uncontrolled or there must be something wrong with me. And that becomes, I think that becomes the beginning of a problem. Like where no one says that, no one says, oh, yeah, you should. You, you, you're, oh yeah, you uncontrollably cried like yesterday afternoon while you were sitting in your room by yourself. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, that's, you lost one of your good friends. That's going to happen. Yeah. I do that when I hear Dane Cook. When I hear Dane Cook, I think of Chris Gould. I think about our friendship. And I think about that and like the fun, like, listening to that and doing laundry and talking about stupid things. Like, I think I hear that and I'm like, I'm just going to cry.

Like, I did that on, it was Memorial Day. I was out for a run. and I was listening to something and it popped on and I came around Brady was in the cul-de-sac with our neighbor who's an ex-firefighter and I came around the cul-de-sac and I'm screaming and I'm angry and I'm bawling my eyes out and they're like what's wrong and I'm like I'm upset like I just it fucking punches you and it's like feel it accept it sit in it sit in it and but you then have to move through it that's the difference is you can't hold on to it the anger and the sadness it's okay to feel it

It's necessary to feel it, but we don't teach anyone that it's important to feel it. No, it's fine, it's fine. Nothing's wrong. Nothing's wrong. Who's that helping? You need to feel it or it's going to sit in you and it's going to hurt you long term. You have to move through that shit. But I was never taught that.

And that's why I said, like, when I've been interviewed since, that's been a question. It's like, do you think I think it could be done different? I said, the first thing I say every time is Jocko asked me this question, and I think it illustrates exactly. what went wrong and why in a really small sentence? Because no one pulled me aside and said that. And it was really no one's job to either, right? I wasn't supposed to be there. I wasn't supposed to happen.

Like all these things happened. Like these were all things that happened in war, but situations just went wrong. It just was worse than they thought it would be. I mean, it's not that I think they wouldn't have brought me, but it just was worse. Yeah. And then you get done with this.

And instead of decompressing with these guys, and unknowingly venting and unknowingly like processing all these emotions. You wouldn't, I wouldn't be like, hey, everyone, we're going to get together and we're going to rehash and let out our emotions and go through our emotions, which guys do that without, it's not like a plan. It's just like, oh, we're freaking telling stories. Guys are like, oh, okay, so you're crying, you're laughing, you're crying, and you're processing all those things.

That's pretty normal, very normal for that. to happen but you didn't do that with these guys no and that I have found out since because a friend of mine um Jacqueline Scott her name her nickname jacks she was a CST she's a warrant officer special operations and she's been downrage and I said to her when I told her my story she was like oh yeah that that happened to me you go and you get attached to these people but the CSTs like so i just did this jacks act that protects gets mental health help for CSTs but that wasn't happening for all the Gwatt so It's like if you were a CST, you were ripped away from the unit you were just with and then drop back to wherever you are to people who don't understand what you just went through. Frankly, my guys didn't want to fucking hear about it.

They were pissed off that I got to go in the first place. So coming back and then having that conversation was, and frankly, I was silent when I got back. So that's that if you know me, that's a problem. I can't really imagine that actually. Oh, well, that's okay. You'll never have to. How's that? So there was this idea that you're just dropped.

And so when you have no one to talk to, people that don't understand, haven't been there, didn't experience it, don't believe you. The fuck are you supposed to do with that? You stop sleeping. Okay? So then I would pace at the boardwalk. I would go down the boardwalk where the Tim Hortons is and where there's a bunch of ridiculous restaurants in Afghanistan. And I would pace and I would just walk. and I would stay awake.

And then Benji's handler and Benji would hang out with me. And then one of the other Brits would come around and they would kind of swap off. Some of the guys would come hang out with me that I was with during that whole situation. They would come and hang out with me at night and stuff like that. Because I think it was like the green bean or that other coffee shop was open late. So I would get tea and I would walk around and pace. So now I'm not sleeping, but I'm not sleeping during the day either. So now I'm getting real irritable.

Not only am I getting irritable, I'm starting to have issues with loud noises and like unexpected bangs and all of these things. Now I'm just crying in the shower on the floor. This is good. And it gets to a point where I can almost talk about it like a separate person now, it feels compared to like two years ago when I was here versus the way where I, like just the amount of work I've done since. It's like I can almost talk about it to a point where I don't fucking feel hysterical.

It's like I can see it from an outside perspective. It's like, oh, God damn it, there was so much wrong. There was so much wrong that no one caught on to. No one paid attention to. And if I did catch on to it, it was from like an authoritarian, like, you're in trouble now situation. Like I end up getting put at the QM's with quartermasters, which, again, even if you didn't deploy, even if you did deploy, and you were in the clerks, or you were mailing us, or you were getting us ammunition. You're a part of the team. But when you go to the QM and the quartermaster, who's a warrant officer, who hasn't set foot outside of CAF, looks at you and go, your ponytail's too high, where's your full mega?

The response isn't going to be like, oh, I just done. It's no big deal. Blah, blah, blah, blah. It's going to be like, go fuck yourself. You've been sitting at this calf. You don't do anything but drink coffee and eat fucking Tim Hortons. And you want to bitch at me about my ponytail right now after two days ago I was picking up some dude's body pieces?

Get the fuck out of my face. Like the response is not going to be met equally. It's going to be intense and over, like, I hadn't slept. These are problems that are starting to come out. No, we don't recognize that as a problem. Instead we go, to punish her, we're just going to make her count pens. Yeah. And from a leadership perspective, you take that individual and you're like, hey, dude, I got a job for you over here.

Yeah. You're going to come over here and you're going to hang out with me. Yeah. And everything's going to be cool. Yeah. You're not going to get any trouble and it's going to be all good. Yeah. And we're going to debrief some stuff.

And you protect your people to make sure that they're not getting exposed to that kind of, you know, authoritarian behavior, which they're not going to respond well to. No. It's very difficult to respond well in those situations. because everyone kind of comes out of it like I literally don't care. No. And so you don't have any authority over me and I'm going to do whatever I want. And you've got to let them work through that.

Otherwise, you've got to keep them basically a little bit separate and let them decompress a little bit so that they can get that out of their system and they can come back to normal, you know, in this case, you know, garrison life. Because you can't. It can be difficult for people to go from in the field to garrison without having issues. So it's really the responsibility of the leadership to go, yep. Oh, yeah, I got Kelsey, yep. She's going to be with me.

She's going to be with me for her. I have a special assignment for she's working on some stuff with me. And I'd be like, hey, Kelsey, can you have the next couple days? We got to prep this brief. And can you help me with it? And you'd be like, I don't feel like doing that. I'd be okay. I know.

You don't want to. But cool. Here, put it together. And, you know. Right. All good. And I've done that with a lot of people. Yeah.

You know, I've done that with a lot of people where it's like, hey, come, you know, J.P. to Nell. He was, when we got home from deployment, he went, he got pulled out of his platoon because he had a hurt shoulder. So they put him as a buds instructor. That wasn't a good move. That was not a good move. And so, yeah.

And so, you know, after a very short period of time, I got the word. And I was like, yep, he'd come work for me. And he brought him, you know, and then it's good because we are not going to expose him to stupid stuff and it's okay and no offense to people that do stupid stuff in the military or that get you know and also like that whoever that guy is whoever these people are that are they don't it's unfortunate oftentimes you should default to hey if I see someone that's not doing the right thing my default should be what's wrong what's going on I mean if I'm in a in a senior leader or a leadership position and I don't know you right and I'm walking across base and I see

you and I'm like, hey, your ponytail is a little bit out of hand. And you go, hey, fuck off. I wouldn't be like, I'm going to punish you. I'd be like, hey, hey, what's going on? How long are you in, how long you can get this base for? Is everything cool? Like, I wouldn't be on the attack mode. I'd try and figure out what's going on because people, that's not normal.

And I can, it doesn't take anybody. No one in the military is walking around telling people to fuck off. It doesn't happen. So when it happens, some, that's like, for lack of a better word, It's a huge cry for help or at least a serious indication that you're going to need some assistance. Right. And so that's, it's horrible to hear that. It's horrible to hear that.

And again, we got to do a better job inside the military of like teaching people how to lead instead of teaching people how to be authoritarian idiots because it's very easy to slip into that. And it doesn't hit. It's not hard. It's not hard to see it too. I think a lot of these signs are really simple when people know what they're looking for. Unfortunately, at the time that I was there, number one, these guys, most of them are French.

So when I would speak to them in English, they, like if it was like an Ejdan, like a warrant officer or like someone above, like that was not, you speak French. Like you speak French to them because they don't speak English. And then so then they get frustrated and angry at you if you're not, you know?

So anyway, so that would happen, shit like that would happen and then it'd be like, oh, your magazines empty. And I'd be like, used all the rounds. Like, what the fuck? And you would get written up for that. And then I remember one time I got set, when I finally got to go back to my fob, at that point they had put me on a laundry list of medications

and didn't tell my staff. So they put me on drugs, heavy drugs for sleep and all these other things and like fast acting stuff. And then they sent me back out to the fob, but didn't tell my staff. So my sergeant, Sergeant LeBlois, had no idea what was going on. And finally, at one point, you know,

I would just kind of walk around like a zombie. I would go do my workouts. I'd do my run. I'd go do the tower stuff. But it was just very like slow moving kind of quiet. It didn't talk to anyone. And at one point, my sergeant decided me down and he was like, you know, if you want to,

you want to be a part of this group, you need to participate. And I remember just being like, I don't fucking care. Like, I just, you know what I mean? Like, these guys were already pissed off. I went and got to go and do something that they wanted to go do. They were bored. We weren't shooting at the time.

Like I understand it. Like I get it. You're on a fob day and day out. That can get like the repetition there and like you're going to war. So like you're supposed to be fucking fighting. And like when you're not, it's it gets boring and I get it. But I'd come back and at this point, you know, some of the some of the stories of what had happened had kind of made word around. And then like one of the girls I knew was like don't fucking talk about that.

Like people think you're crazy. No one believes that. Like no one believes you. And I was like, awesome. So I like went back and he was like, you know, if you want to, you know, be a part of the group, you got to like, you need to try and be part of the group, you know, this whole thing. And he was trying. And that night, we ended up shooting, it was like night early morning. And we were doing rounds down range.

And I mean, like normally we would pop, pop, pop, pop, pa, pop, and then we would stop for a bit. We wouldn't do another fire mission. But at this point, we were like, boom, boom, boom. And we were just cranking. And at about 10 rounds. because they gave me the sleep one that you put on your tongue that dissolves really fast, fast acting. I had taken that. I was told you take, at this point in my life, I was told you take your medication when you're supposed to take your medication.

And so I'm not even waking up to this. And our tents right beside the triple sevens. I'm just feeling the vibration. And I'm just like, okay, no one's coming to get me. No one's saying, like, I didn't hear fire emission. I just know rounds are going down. So I finally got up and I went out there and they're cranking rounds down. And now we're cranking mortars.

And they pull me over to the mortar. And they give me around, they're like, let's go. And like, so one of the RSM starts yelling at me in French. And I remember freezing with the mortar and just going like freezing. And he's like, let's go, tamana, burns, let's go. He says yelling me. And I'm like, I was so fucking out of it that by the time I finally put the mortar and let go, I just started bawling my eyes out.

I had no idea, like, what was going on. And my sergeant said to me, he's like, we were looking for you. We went up to the GD. We thought you were on GD maybe. Like, like, I always come running to the guns. Like I'm always one of the first ones there Because I like certain positions So if you get there first, you can put it in, you know

So, you know, but I didn't move And then I remember I pulled him inside the tent And it's funny, we talked about this And he says to me all the time And I think he feels really guilty And he'd be like, I remember the moment You lined up your pills and you showed him to me He goes, hey, tea burns, fuck.

And I said, yeah, I've been on these since I got back and he just you could see like this is not good or okay we have to do something about this like right now and then the tower situation happened where I racked around and it was a kid and I didn't pull the trigger and it was a whole situation because I thought she was waving she was waving she was but I was so after what happened with IED my tone changed my empathy was gone my ability to see Afghanis as human beings was fucking over. Like, I didn't care if you were a kid. I didn't care if you were a woman or you were a Taliban member.

I didn't fucking like you. I didn't want to see your face. Don't fucking look at me. Don't talk to me. Don't try to fucking grab at me. I was forceful. I was violent and I was angry. So like when that happened and I went down off the tower and I told them,

they were like, yeah, you're, you got to go back to CAF. Like, this is a problem. And they had worded it to me like, don't worry, you're coming back. Don't worry, we'll see you soon. Like, don't take all your stuff. Just take what you need. Just take what you need. And then I went back to CAF.

And, yeah, that was the last, that was the last time I saw that FOB. That was the last time I ran a triple seven. And that was the last time I saw everyone except for my sergeant. And I saw him by. chance when he was going on his HLTA. So his break, I was at CAF when he was rotating out to go on his holiday. So he saw me and I remember it so clearly. He was in a truck.

He was on the passenger side. He was jumping in the truck and he's like, you got to fucking give me something. Give me something. What is going on with you? You need to give me something. Talk to me. I was like, I don't know. I have nothing.

I'm not feeling good. And then that's when they may see the doctor more often. and then I went on my HLTA. So they sent me out of country on holiday to end up going, I was meeting my mom in the Dominican. And so I went through Dubai, Heathrow, Toronto to Dominican. And I was out of my mind on these, you know, psychiatric meds, sleep meds, anti-anxiety, anti-depressant meds.

They don't tell you really like what you can take with it or what you can't. Or they don't really tell you contradictions. really say like don't drink alcohol or like don't party oh they like they don't really give you briefing so you leave i go and then i was in dominican for almost three weeks and it was just my mom didn't know what to deal with me how to deal with me what the fuck was wrong with me it was there'd be loud noises i would crouch down and start screaming at the top of my lungs while we were gone we had lost some more canadians that i had done training with out of that were vandu's so it was like i just need to get back i need to get back i need to get back i don't know what the fuck i thought i was going to do

I needed to get back. So once I did get back into country, they brought me back to the calf, and then they kept bringing me to the doctors. And now I had standing appointments where they were assessing me, and that's when they assessed me in country, and diagnosed me in country.

So at that point, that triggered the system to send me home. So I ended up going home, I think it was like about three weeks before everyone else went home from my gun troop, and I never saw anyone again. I didn't see the Brits, I didn't see the Canadians, and I didn't see the Americans, again. Good debrief you got.

It was super solid. It felt useful. It felt like it was tools in my toolbox. What did they tell you? They're like, okay, we're sending you home early. What's their reason? They end up diagnosing me at the time. It was acute PTSD.

So it was on a severe scale. They were hoping it was acute, meaning like, we'll work through it. It'll get better. It'll go away. So they just said you're going home and you're going to go to report to

Vakitze, you're going to meet with the RSM, and your RSM is going to give you your papers, and you're going to go to the hospital in Ottawa. Because that's where they want to send you to the closest spot of where your family is for support, and my closest spot was where I swore in, which was Ottawa, which was about just under three hours from my parents.

So I was the closest they could get me. So did you go back there as like an inpatient? No. At first it was outpatient, and they kept me as originally they were, because they don't do a lot of inpatient in a lot of places. So they put me as outpatient.

So I went to the RSM first. I flew into Quebec, like middle of the night, 2 a.m. Empty airport, no fucking clue how to get to and from. So I called an officer I knew, woke him up. I was like, would you come pick me up? And so he took me to get a coffee. And then I went back to the regiment. And I had to wait at the regiment because the housing that I was staying in was on the base,

and they were renovating at all. So I had nowhere to go. So I just went to the regiment. I got there in the regiment. I'm in my uniform and my boots that are still fucking held together with duct tape and blood all over them

and went up to the RSM's office and he handed me a piece of paper and he said you're going to Ottawa and that was it. And right before I had left, Afghanistan, my major sat me down, took all of the medical chits that they had been doing while I was there,

threw them at me and told me that it would be better if I just died. It would have been less paperwork. Now it would have come to find out that piece of shit has been kicked out of the military for sexual assault by seven different women. So it's like karma sucks when you're that person. Or it's kind of good.

Or it's kind of fantastic, but I'm trying to be kind. Yeah, there's that saying, if you believe it's a Native American saying. Can you say Native American? You have to say indigenous for Canadians. And it's, the diagnosis is a curse, right? Like you get diagnosed with something. something, it's a curse. And then the other thing is we did a podcast. We have another podcast

called The Underground Podcast. We talked about this experiment. And I need to memorize these details, but basically they took kids, kids that had a little bit of a speaking impediment. It's a little bit, like a little bit of a stutter, better seven, eight years old. And they said, hey, this is really bad and it's going to get a lot worse. It's going to be a problem in your life. And And sure enough, all their freaking stutters got way worse. They took kids that had a little bit of a stutter. And they said, oh, yeah, this is normal. It's no big deal.

You'll grow out of it. They all grew out of it. They took kids that had no stutter and said, the way you talk indicates that you have a tendency to start stuttering. And you need to pay attention to that. And they've developed stutters. And this was in, I want to say the years was like maybe the 30s or something like that. Can't do that now.

And they call it the. monster experiment because it was monstrous what they did to these kids and they ended up suing. But, you know, isn't it interesting, you know, even if just to say like, oh, yeah, Kelsey, you know how you feel like really bad right now? That's, first of all, that's normal. And second of all, you'll process through it over time and you'll be okay. And guess what? Everybody has people die.

Everyone's parents dies. Everyone's grandparents dies. It's normal and we deal with death and you're, that's what you're feeling. eliminate a lot more right now because most people don't have to deal with people that are their age dying. It's sort of a war thing. Occasionally it's a drunk driving thing. Occasionally it's a, you know, it does happen. But you feel really bad right now, and that's the way everybody feels. And what you're feeling is normal. And over time, it's going to process. It's going to get better. I don't know how many people I have had

reach out to me. We did a podcast, and I was talking about overcoming grief. And I did this whole big thing. It was very dramatic. No one's shocked. Very dramatic, but you know, I basically described when you lose someone, you get hit with waves of emotion that you can't control and they're going to be bad and it's going to be a storm and it's going to feel like you're never going to get out. That's the way it feels. And it feels like that because we're, as we grow up, we get control of our emotions and all of a sudden we don't need to, you know, we can push through things. Well, all of a sudden you get hit with emotions you can't control. Boom. It's a wave. It's a storm. You think it's never going to end.

Well, it does it. And then when that kind of dissipates a little bit, you're still going to get hit with more waves. You're still going to hit with other storms. They're not going to be as bad. And then over time, they're going to become less and less frequent. Sometimes people feel guilty because they think, wait, I was so heartbroken. And now I'm not. And there's something wrong with me?

No, no, no. You're just processing the information. So I think it's terrible as I'm hearing you talk about this. It's like the curse of a diagnosis of being like, oh, you have something wrong with you when it should be like, oh, yeah, you're experiencing what everybody experiences that goes into combat and loses people. Yep, that's normal. Yep.

Yep. Here, put yourself in the normal box. And here's what's going to happen over the next six months to a year. It might even be 18 months. The horrible feelings that you're feeling right now are going to dissipate over time. That's normal. If sometimes it feels like they're not going to dissipate, it's okay. The harder they hit you, the more they're going to dissipate.

So it's going to be okay. You're going to work through it. You're going to be okay. We all that have been in combat lost people, we've all been through it. You're going to be good to go. Like that would be such a nice thing to understand. It's amazing how much rewiring has to be done to individuals after deployments. If they are not held in that box and said, hey, this is normal.

This is good. I've seen it now. And some of the stuff I do and the work that I do after I did your show, I got inundated with people who just needed help after we talked about the psychedelics and ways that I was starting to heal and things like that. Just the amount of people that were like that hurt me to hear so much because I heard myself and you. And once you and are having that conversation, it made so much common sense. Like this is the amount of rewiring, the amount of work that has to be done, all because of really terrible, uneducated leaders.

And nothing more than that. Nothing more than people who just didn't know any better or did know any better and didn't care enough to put the effort into their people so that they could end up coming out of this. The amount of people that have been medically released in the military that have lost their jobs because they were given a diagnosis. And this is something I, last week on one of my lectures I was learning. I'm doing integration coaching. Like I'm doing a program so I can work with heroic hearts to help with other veterans.

and one of the lessons was on particularly was on this kind of topic about things like 12 step and AA and how it's like the conversation is once an addict, always an addict. Well, no, no, no, no, no. That's putting somebody in a box to say this is your diagnosis, this is who you are for life. That's not true at all. You can learn and you can heal and you can grow from these things so that you do not have to stay in that box. But we're told so often that that box is where we're held.

and that in order to work through that, you have to stay in that box and you can't really push too far outside of it because, well, we don't want to, we don't want anyone to relapse or you want to even to struggle. It's like you have to see yourself outside of that diagnosis or you will live and eat and sleep and breathe that diagnosis. That's just the way it works. How you talk to the mind and the body is how the mind and body are going to respond to you. So if you keep saying, I'm so and so, I have PTSD. I'm so and so. I have a TBI. You're hearing that. and that is being reinforced in your wiring. That's why things like, that's why I use psilocybin. It changes the wiring. Change up the tone so that you can start thinking differently so that the new pathways can be formed. I'm not Kelsey and I'm, I got injured in Afghanistan and I have PTSD. I'm Kelsey.

I deployed Afghanistan. I served. I came out with PTSD and I'm doing pretty fucking awesome. Like it doesn't have to be everything. It doesn't have to be your whole life. But we have to stop this. You are the diagnosis because it's really what's holding people back. And it's really what's honestly killing people long term.

So you get home and you get, did you eventually go into inpatient? No. So they kept you an outpatient. Yeah, but I had to go like multiple days a week. So it was like two, three days a week. I just had to get on a bus, go down to the Ottawa hospital, which is also a... Were you getting paid active duty? Like, are you still in the army at this point?

Yeah, yeah. So you're in the army and your only job is just to like... Get your shit together. Right. Just get it together. But at this point, though, there was a gap. So when I went to Ottawa versus when someone called me was a six-month gap. What were you doing in the six months?

Stuff. Just like. Not being a soldier. Traveling. And you were spending all the money. Spending the money. Not knowing how to control. That doesn't seem like a very squared away system.

It wasn't a squared away system. A lot of people since then have been like, there's no way no one called you. I'm like, oh, yes, there is. There's for sure. And when they did finally call, the conversation was, because I had the doctors I was seeing, but it was not, they were not military doctors, right? They're like social workers and those types of people

who are just following up on paperwork, making sure their medication is being dosed out and that, you know, blah, blah, blah. So there wasn't accountability with them. I'm like, you're not authority to me. Are you still taking all the drugs that they're giving you? Oh, yeah. What's the major drug that they're giving you?

I don't know a lot about drugs. Well, I wish, I actually have the list because I just recently had to, my TBI diagnosis just got turnedbound by Veterans Affairs because they said it was not service related. So I am having to fight it. So I actually saw for the first time the laundry list of medication written out that I was on and it was like Calazepan

and Zoloft and Percocet. It was like it was just nasty, heavy, contraindicated type of drugs. And just like numbs your brain? Oh my God. It flatlined me. Andy asked me that last week. He goes, what's it like to be on SSRI? I've never been on SSRI.

I was like, if you take somebody's, you know, the heartbeat, the EKG and all this thing, just flatline it. Everything. Emotions, happiness, sadness, sex drive, like unbelievable amounts of just numb. Nothing made me happy. Nothing made me sad. Nothing made me tired. Nothing made me awake. I was always kind of groggy.

I was always just kind of humming along. So it's like a chemical lobotomy of sorts? It felt that way because I had so many other different drugs, though. Right? And so now I understand, like, some of those drugs should not have been taken in, injection with other. Like I didn't know that though. And that just goes to the conversation between the doctors and where were the gaps, right? Who was talking to who? Who was prescribing what? So anyway, I had a gap there. When they did finally call, they said, hey, we're going to try

and retrain you. Meaning we're going to post you to a unit in Ottawa. You're going to go two half days a week, Tuesday mornings and Thursday mornings. And you're going to work those hours. We're going to give this a go. And so I went to Kanaught. range, which is in Ottawa, which works with the Hill, works with RCMP. It's one of the largest Commonwealth ranges around. It's massive, massive. We do everything I said we did there. We do all the types of training. People say that don't happen there just because you don't know what's not happening. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen in there. Okay. So we do all different types of things there. And so the whole thing was work the radios. So when somebody was calling to make the range go

hot, I would just run them through the, you know, the speech and then yeah, range hot. and then I would go clear the range and then we also were attached to a protected wildlife kind of sanctuary so we had like a little hovercraft and we had like we would go out and we would see if people were fishing that weren't supposed to fish

and we had a couple big birds we made sure that they didn't fucking electrocute themselves one did it was you know it's just I drove around it was menial task nothing exciting but there was a situation where finally I was starting to kind of get into a flow of things there was a situation though where I went to clear a range and I went to step on the sand and it just

I reverted backwards fucking fast and I just dropped and they're like yeah you're done this isn't going well for anyone and so then they decide to discharge you from the army yeah so at that point then they brought me it went to like the board the medical board and they started to look at like doctor's appointments medication retraining how is everything kind of going and then because at that point I had signed a second contract so I was on my fourth year and so they're like are we she's going to stay or are we keeping her what's happening and then they decided they're going to give me a 3B medical release so an honorable discharge but a 3B med release so a full med release uh for the diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder and then what's your next move so now you're out of the army

you're still getting a paycheck uh i was yeah i'm still getting a paycheck um and then what it happened was uh i got the and mind you i tried not to leave i tried to stay i said just post me to where i want to be and I'll do what you want me to do. I'll work a reserve unit. I just, I don't want to leave. And they said it's, I remember the social work, I'm like, you're not going to work again. Like you're done.

Like, you're not going to work ever again. And at this point, I was dating Brady, who's now my husband, and he lived in British Columbia. So I got released on the 23rd of May, and I was on a plane on the 24th. And then I went out to British Columbia. And then I've been there ever since. And then at that point,

I was waiting to kind of get a doctor out in British Columbia. And then I was switched over to the operational stress injury clinic, who I end up seeing Dr. Mock and Dr. Greg Passy, who's now Dr. Passy is still my doctor to this day. And then we just worked really, really diligently, really hard. And those were the really dark years. Those were the years where, like, the suicide was every day, the thoughts of it were every day, the planning of it were every day.

And I was numb. And it was super fucked up. and I was riding mountain bikes and we were doing all these other things to stay busy and life was good. Like I had a good life and it looked good on the outside but I just wanted to die every day.

And that's hard to explain to people when you're 21 years old and like you have everything and you get to live in this amazing province and you have a great boyfriend and everything's going awesome and you get to go to Whistler and do this and do that.

and it's like, yeah, but I still want to fucking die every day. I don't want to leave my bed every day. I fucking hate everyone. And anybody who looks like they're Middle Eastern, I'm terrified of. Like, to the point where it's like I'm a dog who's been abused by them where you come near me, I'm going to snap. Like, it's like, I'm fearful what I'll do when I'm around them. Like, I can't be pulled over by a cop that looks brown or I'm going to, like,

I had my doctor's number on speed dial because I used to drive to his office to Vancouver, right? And I live on the border. So I used to drive the 45 minutes all the way downtown. But there's a stretch on the freeway. And there's always traffic, like dead stop traffic. But it's right beside two Muslim schools, one for girls and one for boys. And I would always get stuck in the spot.

And it would, coming home from treatment, and it would just fucking send me into a rage. So I'd always go down into the HOV lane. And I would tell my doctor, I'm always going in the HOV line. If I get pulled over, I'm calling you. I'm going to call you. Because if this cop is not white or black and he looks and he's got like a term, anything, I'm fucking calling you and I'm not rolling the window down. Because it was to the point where I was legitimately that reactive.

Male Middle Eastern men fucking spun me out. Are you on a bunch of drugs still at this point? Oh, yeah. I'm on all these drugs until I didn't stop going. I didn't start to slow down on these drugs until right before we had my son. Like what does your doctor say when you call and say that? Like that seems to me to be very alarming if you're calling me up and saying like if I get pulled over by someone that's not white or black, I'm going to go crazy. I panic.

I'd legitimately panic. So what does your doctor say when you tell him that? He goes, I'm here. I'm here if you need. We'll just deal with it. One day to time, we'll deal with it as we go. It never happened. When you say you're working through stuff, like what does that actually mean?

Like when you sit down with your doctor because I've never talked to any kind of like a person like this before. for. Yeah. So I don't know, like, what are you doing? So first he would, obviously, he would review the file of when he got me. And then he would just sit me down and he would, like the first time I met him, I was with mock too. And I remember it, my whole body just shook and I sweat so bad.

I was soaked by the end of the conversation. And he'd be like, run me through what happened. So we would do exposure therapy. We would do EMDR. We'd do traditional talk therapy. We would do medication. We would do, you know, physical fitness was a big. part of the therapy making sure I was staying up on that and then it got to the

point where it was like we're just going to work on exposure therapy so I live in a province where there's a huge population of people from overseas we have a ton of immigration in Canada and BC it's a in particular right and so there's an area called Surrey I would not go I would not go no chance a lot of women burqas like certain areas head scarves traditional guard, like nothing, nothing wrong with that, but I wasn't ready for that interaction to happen. So I just wouldn't go there. And then I had a situation because at this point, they were like, we're going to also send you back to school. So they sent me back to school

and I went to a school that was predominantly a lot of these people who I wasn't quite ready to be in a room with. And then there was a bunch of school shootings that happened in America. So then now the colleges were like, we're going to do active shooter drills and not tell the students when we're doing them. And that didn't fly with me real well. They attempted to do one and I was gone. I was like, if that ever happens again, I need to know. And they're like, well, we can't tell you when. And I was like, then I'm not responsible if you come near me as a pretend person for how I react. And once we started having the conversation with the college, I end up leaving my degree like three credits. Short because I couldn't do it anymore.

Are you seeing any progress as you're going to like counseling? It would do this. And that's the other thing. I really want to state before I say this, healing is not linear at all. It doesn't mean because you start a day, you're going to get to Z and it's going to do this straight line. Very often it's this.

My experience with counseling is goodwill hunting. Have you seen this movie? Echo Charles. Yes, sir. Robin, Will. and Matt Damon doing therapy. Right? You look a lot like Matt Damon.

Thank you. The young pictures of Matt Damon, it is factual. Yes, actually. And I actually pulled up a picture and it's pretty obvious. And actually, I have a friend that's pretty good friends with Matt Damon and I like forwarded it to him. I go, dude, check this out. And he showed him, he showed me the little text back and they were laughing about it. So yes, there's some similarities.

Yes. But is that what therapies kind of like? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, listen, my therapist is an old school, old dude. He's a bad dude. He's served in Bosnia, Rwanda. He does not fuck around.

He doesn't take, I'm not feeling well today. More. That's bullshit. Let's try again. So this is like Goodwill Hunting. Yeah. Because of Goodwill Hunting, Robin Williams was in Nam. Yeah.

Allegedly, right? So he was in Nam. Allegedly. He wasn't taking any shit. You know what I mean? That's Dr. Passy. But with like a cowboy hat and sometimes really fancy boots. Just depends on his day.

So he, yeah, we did a lot of exposure therapy. So what he would be like is like, I want you to go sit in a mall. I just want you sit in the food court. Tell me how you feel. See how long you can stay. This dude's taken, like, if you were saying this kind of stuff to me, I'd be like, cool. I'm going to handcuff you and you can sit in a mall like with your hands behind your back.

Right. And I'll expose you like that. Yeah. So, but we would try that shit. Seriously. And then when I was at the college, I was coming home one day. I was coming back from New West. and I was driving down the road

and a car cut me off right before I got onto the Alex Fraser Bridge and it was a car full of Middle Eastern people. And I sat there and he cut me up and cut in front of me and the driver got out of the car and came up to my window and smashed his hand on my window and started screaming at me.

And so my whole body just started like convulsing, like genuine convulsing. So I just called 911. I was like, hi, I'm being assaulted by this men. man, you're going to need to do something because I'm going to do something. She's like, ma'am, stay in the car. I'm like, he's smashing my window. Like, I'm sitting here, like, laughing at him as he's getting more and more angry.

I'm like, this is. And then the light turns great. He jumps in the car and takes off. I grab his plate. They take the plate. They go down. They actually dealt with him. And he actually got, like, in a lot of trouble.

So I just, for me, it was like exposure therapy was one of the bigger ways. It doesn't. Now, listen, exposure therapy is hard, very difficult for a lot of people. And it does not always work. Sometimes it can make it worse for individuals. It actually got to a point where they would get me to write down the really bad stuff that happened on deployment, like all of it. Everything that's like in here, write it out into like a couple pages and then I'd have to read it to them. And so it got to the point where I was actually saying this and it was making it not worse, but it wasn't helping.

It wasn't helping the situation. So then we moved on to things like EMDR. And you know, that's where you wear the little sensors in your hands and, you know, it triggers the brain, the ones. side of the brain and that's supposed to help. It didn't work with me. For me, it really was just starting to understand PTSD and how the brain worked. When he started, he's got this whiteboard, when he started to explain to me instead of treat me like a patient, but talk to me like a colleague, I started to wrap my brain around it. He's like, so this is what's happening. When you have this event, this part of your brain is lighting up. And because of a T, well, he, we didn't know all the time,

but because of PTSD, you know, this isn't actually doing what it should be doing. So your dopamine and your serotonin, and then he would start to explain how the brain is, you know, handling it, and then your cortisol, and like that's why you're having physical reaction. So he just started to talk to me like a person and not say, hey, so what's wrong with you today? Or how are you struggling today? You'd be like, this is what's going on with your body. And I would go, oh, so when I see that person, that's why I'm feeling that way. Oh, so see, you're just explaining to me what's happening.

I can start to wrap my brain around it. I wasn't this like helpless, hopeless, individuals sitting across from you that just needed to be fixed. They need to be fixed. I needed to be heard and I needed to be understood and I needed to be educated. That was it.

And what we've now found out as of last year was I had an un, part of the reason it took me so long to get to this point. And again, there is no time frame that is right and healing is not linear. so it can take you 10, 20, 30 years. It can take you one to two years. Depends on how it's handled.

For me, from 2009, from that operation till about 2015, that's when I was heavily, heavily medicated. Like, would wake up in the middle of the night, make food, have no clue I did it, would have conversations with Brady, and he'd be like, do you not remember the whole conversation we had last night?

I'm like, nope, would not be able. And that's all medicine induced. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All like, what's that word? Like reactions or like it's just like a something that can happen. I can't think of the word right now. There's a word for that. Blackout is like when you drink.

Yeah, but that's, blackout. Yeah, something like that. Something like that. A drug-induced blackout. And I actually had several situations in Ottawa when I was living by myself where I would wake up on the floor and I used to like to make peanut butter toast and I'd wake up with my cat like on the floor.

Like I'd be passed out. So I must have hit my head. when I went down and I'd eaten like half a loaf of bread. Like I just, this shit was just all medication related. And so Dr. Passy got really, really serious. He's like, hey, like, you know, at this point I was married. Brady and I got married. We knew we wanted to have kids.

So the conversation had to get real about like, hey, you're on drugs that, yes, they may be helping you, but at what cost if you have a child, right? And so that's when we started to get into the serious, conversation about medication and that's when I started to say like hey I I don't want to be on these my whole life there's got to be a better way and then that's when he suggested art therapy and that's how that started and that's the beginning of your jewelry company yeah it's such a weird thing to say jewelry company because a lot of people shy away when I say that's why I made a funny look I know it's jewelry company it's weird because I never uh yeah yeah I never meant to make jewelry I never

wore a jewelry. It's not a space I used to fuck in. It's not something I used to love. I was like, I love jewelry. I love dressing. Like this is not a tomboy with tearaway pants. So when it came up, he just suggested art therapy of any kind. Painting, right, do something. And so that's when we started that. And I started going to local stores and I had a, well, basically Brady was like, why don't you just call some friends and get some casings? Like you have a bunch of people that can get you some stuff. Why don't you play with those? Like, I don't know what you're going to make out of it. just go play with those. So I made some calls to some people that I end up, you know, who were, did basic with,

but were now snipers in the RCR, and they sent me some, like, Lapua casings, and then some 50 cows, and then some 7-6-2s and 556, and they would ship them to me in a box. And so at that point, I had started, like, sitting on the kitchen table and hammering the shit out of brass, and I would get, like, wire and, like, wire-wrap things. And I'm just, I'm a mess, but I'm out of bed, though. I'm out of bed. And I didn't think of suicide.

I didn't brush my teeth, but I didn't, I also didn't lie in bed all day. That's serious. So that was like, I got out of bed. I sat down to the kitchen table. I was there from the moment he went to work, and I was there when he got home, and I didn't move, but I wasn't in bed.

He was like, okay, my brain is focused on something else. So at that point, that started to grow, meaning I was like, well, I heard that crystals work. And I was like, at the point of like just desperation of like hating waking up, hating how I was feeling or not feeling at all, hating the way I was reacting and fighting in my life and just the pain that was just getting up

and opening my eyes every day. And so I was like, fuck it, crystals it is. And so I went to a local store and I like found a whole wall of crystals and I was like, I like black. So I picked a bunch of black stones and clear rocks and started wire wrapping these just, I have photos now when I look back at the shit that I was on my website and I'm just, it's just, it's atrocious. But it was, what's beautiful about it is it was the start of something really, really cool. And that was the start of me finding my way out of this

diagnosed life I was deemed to live for the rest of my existence and be a welfare patient and someone who's on meds and who has to be at a doctor every other day. And that's what the military told me was going to be the rest of my life. And this was a lifeline. And so I started building beaded bracelets. So just the beaded bracelet with like an eight millimeter bead on it with a hole in it. And then I would, Brady bought me a pipe cutter, a handheld pipe cutter. And he built me this little block of wood. And then he drilled a hole so I could put the casing in there so I could take the firing pin out. And then I could hammer that instead of the kitchen table. Because I would I would just sit there and hammered on the kitchen table, like brand new kitchen table,

brand new house, just married. And I'm just fawking this thing sideways. Just like, this is my workshop now. Like, and so I'm sitting there. And I told Dr. Passy this. And he's like, okay, let's, let's lean in here because we found something that's making you get up, making you alive, making you happy or seem to be happy. Let's keep, just keep doing it.

And we'll keep working on this stuff. So when I would go see him, he would talk to me, be like, hey, how's your sec drive and I'd be like fine fully lie to him come to find out later on that was a tb i issue um and then he would be like so uh how'd you sleep and i'd be like didn't sleep he'd be like okay well let's talk about how we can get you to sleep and then we would start just like ticking away at little things like sleep is the most important thing we understand i know you're friends with huberman and he talks about sleep is like the most important thing if you can get people to sleep you can get them to heal you can get them through anything that's why you also know the other flip side

want people to talk, what do we do to them? We withhold sleep because within 24 hours, people's brains will fucking melt. Like, you need sleep. So it would be like, let's focus on getting you sleep for the next handful of months. How are we going to do that? How do we accomplish that? Do we need to get you moving more during the day? So you're expending more energy? Do we need to look at the doses of meds? Do we need to look at your sleep schedule? And we would just tackle one task at a time, one task at a time. While all doing that, I would just build jewelry all day. So I'd sit there, I almost just made a joke, I'm not allowed to say, I would sit there like I was in a factory,

and I would just pump out jewelry, like it's going like a style, and I would just make these beaded bracelets. So I'd take the 7-6-2 round of the 556 casing, I would grab it with a pair of pliers, grab the pipe cutter, and cut the end off, and I'd take that much off of it there. And then I'd pop the firing pin out, and I'd chamfer the edges,

and I'd string it onto a bracelet, and I'd tie a bracelet. And then people started to like them. And then my husband was like, hey, so I think you might have something here. Like I can help you if you want. And so he built a website for me. And so we built a website and then we got our friend Clayton who came and he would take photos. And then we put him on the website.

And then nothing really happened, right? Just because you have a website doesn't mean things are going to sell. Right? Echo? Correct. So then at that point, it was, well, you have to cold call. Start knocking on doors. What the hell does that mean?

I don't know. Who buys jewelry? Stores. Okay, what kind of stores? Fashion stores. I don't really like fashion, and I'm not really into it. How am I going to get them to buy my stuff? So I would go, and I would cold call people on the phone.

I'd just go through a list of, like, boutiques in Vancouver, and I would cold call people. And then the next question would be like, what's it called? I don't know. And they'd be like, do you have a line sheet? and I'm like, what's the line sheet? They'd be like, what's your margins? I was like, good question, what do you work on? Like, I just, I had to learn from the ground up.

And so I started learning. And then I got my first store in South Surrey. And I started selling there. And then she was like, hey, there's a trade show in Las Vegas. And at this point, I was mildly pregnant. But for a small person, I was huge. And she's like, there's a trade show in Las Vegas. It's called Magic.

It's where all the buyers from like North America come to do their sorts. or their retail shopping for all their stores. Like, you know, all the big brands go there. Like Rebecca Minkoff goes there, like Timberlin goes there. And then, like, smaller brands go. Everyone goes. You can buy a booth just like Shot Show. You can go and do it.

So I made a backpack full of these beaded bracelets. And I printed off what I thought would be line sheets. And I took a friend with me and I was like, we don't have tickets to get into the show. But we're going to get in. So we whizzled our way into the show. And I went to the jewelry section. of where the buyers would go.

And I would stop people when they came out of meetings with other brands and be like, hi, my name's Kelsey Sharon. And I own this business called her wearables because that's what it was first called. And I do this and I'm going to donate the money to this and then here's some samples, here's some line sheets.

And I signed 10 stores. Super frowned upon. Like they don't like when you do that because people are paying thousands of dollars for these booths and I'm just like, hi, I'm in the corner. And it worked. So then that night we went

dinner at this restaurant called Carbone and the Aria. Didn't have a reservation. Just like shouldn't have been there. And they got us in. They said, you got 45 minutes. So we sat down. And then these two guys sat down beside me. I didn't know these guys.

They were both very flamboyant and more than willing to have conversation. And I had been wearing like five or six of these. And it was just all brass casings and beads on my one arm. So like kind of stood out. And he leaned over and he goes, what are those? So those are bullet casings. And he goes, why? And I said, perfect.

That's why I put a bullet casing on my wrist so that now I can talk to you about veterans issues in mental health. He looks at me. He's like, okay. So I give him this whole spiel. By the end of the dinner, he goes, I'd like to meet with you tomorrow. We have a company and we work with some people and we connect. We connect to people.

We'd love to chat. If you're up for it, I'm like, sure, gives us his name. We go back to the hotel. I Google his name. And I'm like, that's where I've seen him. He's married to Jesse Tyler Ferguson from Modern Family. So I was like, this guy's. connected to someone.

I don't know why, but he's connected. So I'm like, we'll meet with them. We meet with them. And he's like, my girlfriend, Beth Bears from two broke girls, is looking for a partner for jewelry for her sexual assault foundation that she's working with Equine Therapy with. So I think you might be a cool fit. Like, would you mind if I introduced you? And I was like, it's fine.

It's totally fine. Meanwhile, I'm like freaking the fuck out inside. Anyway, long and short, I meet with her. And we have a conversation. We design a bracelet and a neck. and they give me a call and they're like hey so Ellen's 12 days of giveaways coming up are you able to have like 400 bracelets because Beth wants to bring them on the 12 days a giveaway on Ellen and I'm like I still making these on my kitchen table okay yeah yeah no problem no problem

when you need them by this is Thursday they need them for Saturday so my neighbors come over and people help me and we're packaging and I'm just stringing bees like an episode of like every reality business show yeah like you got a big deal but it's two by I Thursday. You're like, okay, I'll get it done. So I get it done. I get them there. And I turn on the TV and Beth is bouncing around in her elf costume and Ellen's got one

of my mini warrior bracelets on her wrist and she's like posing it. Like she's, you know, being perfect about it like just as you would want someone to be. And it was amazing. And so then we got hit and I went down to her event for the Sexual Assault Foundation. And we went down and I met her and CAD and everyone else and Julian Huff and all these people. And then that's how it kind of started. She gave one to Julian Huff. Julian Huff wore it somewhere.

And then Whitney Cummings wore it with Julian Huff because, you know, there are horse people and everyone's connected, Beth and her. And then so she would send me, Beth would send me photos of like her and Whitney Cummings be like in my bracelet. And I'd be like, what the fuck is happening? This is like, I just did this to help myself and like hopefully help other people. And it's okay. And so I got a call for my mom.

And she's like, I'm driving for. Kevin Hart. And I was like, what? You team drive with dad. What are you doing? She's like, no, I'm like team driving for, I'm going to do Kevin Hart's What Now to her. And I'm driving some of his equipment around. I'm going to try to get him to meet with you. And I was like, okay, mom, I don't think you understand how this works. Fuck, she did it totally underestimated Kath. Totally underestimated her. By the time she got to Vancouver, she had harassed the people so much, well, by harassed, I mean, she got to know the team so well. They fell in love with her. she would see Kevin and she'd like you need to meet my daughter you need to meet her and finally I think

he just like stopped and caved and was like okay I'll meet your daughter in Vancouver like I'll just shut up if this shuts you up I will meet your daughter so my mom's like bring gifts like make Kevin something this is still called her wearables at this time by the way so I had been watching real husbands of Hollywood which was Kevin Hart's did you ever see that show no oh oh oh you need to watch real husbands of Hollywood Hollywood. Is it like a fake? Yeah, it's like him and a bunch of his boys acting as like the real house, like real house

face. It's a TV show or? Yes, it's a TV show. Wait, is it like a parody? Because there's the real housewives of wherever. Yeah, but it's like a parody version, but of like the men. Oh my God. And so he's called people Mitches in it, like male bitches, right?

So I'm like thinking I'm funny and I'm like, I'm going to write a joke in the card. Who, right? On the off chance I get to meet him. So we go to the show and then I get the like the way. back from his security guy. So we go to the back and it's just my mom, myself, Brady, and Kevin. And he walks over. I didn't realize Kevin and I are the same height. For real? When I wear like a little heel, Kevin and I are the same height, which was to me was great. It was the best. So I'm like here, this is who I am. This is what I'm doing. This is what

I'm looking to achieve. He opens it up and I said, I wrote a joke in there. I'm really regretting that I wrote a joke in there right now. Please don't laugh if it's not funny. He's like, do you want me to really laugh? It's funny. I mean, I would like that. So he laughs and he kind of goes, huh, yeah, that's not bad. It just kind of gives me like it. It wasn't terrible. What was the joke? It was about him being a Mitch.

It was something along the lines of that. And so anyway, he opens it up and he looks at it and he goes, is this a bullet casing? He said, yeah. And he goes, huh, that's cool. And then he looks at the tag and he goes, you want men to wear this? And I said, yeah. And he goes, why is it called her wearables? I was like, motherfucker. Damn it. And then it just, we chatted for a little bit.

We took some photos. And then he yells to his boy. He's like, yo, we're going to tweet this out tonight. So he tweets it out at the time. He had like 26 million people on like Twitter. He tweets it out. I'm driving over the Alex Fraser bitch just going, oh my God. Okay.

So we go and at this point, Brady goes, you know, hey, if you're going to take this seriously, like we need to incorporate. Maybe let's think about changing the name. Let's try and rebrand this. So at that point, we changed the name. to Brass and Unity incorporated in 2016. And then after that, it was like, we were just getting it on all the right people

at all the right time. Like, Brady's friends with the nanny of, you know, at the time it was Jenna DeWan and Tatum. And so like Jenna wore a bunch of my stuff to like a game. It got seen in like a bunch of things. It was on Ellen. It was on Forbes. It was on this person and this person.

It was like this weird thing that was happening. And then I was just getting known in the fashion industry. So at that point, we had taken it from the kitchen table in a couple years to over two, retailers in North America that I'd got every single one on my own like went to the trade shows cold called had like cell phone numbers texting family members like that's how I got my orders and I signed all of these accounts and we started donating all the money so we donated half a million dollars and anytime the money came from the country is where the money would go so like it went

if it was sold in Canada it would stay in Canada if it was sold in the US it would go to the US organizations and then I started taking the business like really seriously and started really really trying to develop, like, what do I want to do? And all while doing this, I was holding it kind of together, kind of, surface level together. But at that point, we had now had my son, and postpartum was a, hmm, that's an animal. That hormone, that's a, I don't wish that on my worst enemy.

There is something about postpartum that's so nasty. like the idea of like my cousin my cousin said this like one time it was like I want to drop my kid off the fire station like I can't do it anymore like the what it does chemically to your brain it's so damaging and like heartbreaking because it it's something that you just can't climb out of I know people it's it's never left them after their kids they've struggled with it and had issues with it so for me when I started to compound some stuff that when that happened and then the no sleep again and then the stress of a kid and and then just the new life, it all started to get to be a bit too much again.

So I started to lean in to the business as much as I could. It was like my solace. It was like my piece. It was the thing that was working for me, all while doing treatment still and weaning off of medications. And this is when cannabis started right before it was legalized in Canada. At that point, I started using cannabis for sleep medication instead of actual medication. So now I had been weaning off all of these drugs and I was only on like two at that point. But what we didn't understand was the damage was done.

Meaning being on an SSRI for 10 years has major repercussions and serious. Like it can do damage to the body, long-term damage. And so at this point, we did switch over to cannabis and started to have those conversations with my in-laws and everyone like, hey, I'm a weed smoker now. Like that's a whole different type of thing when you walk into a world where cannabis for a lot of people is like the dirty drug, like the party drug, like the thing that you don't do. like losers do it and you lie on your couch and like you lose your life and like but meanwhile I was starting to function more because of it um and so all of this is kind of happening and then in 20 20 19 it was right before COVID it got real bad again like I was almost reverting I was like going backwards I wasn't having the intrusive thoughts like I was having

you know, the first five years after the war where it was like I would hear something and it would just bring me all the way back. Like sounds, smell, temperature, everything. It was now, it was like, why I'm not getting any better. I'm actually getting worse, why? And I can't stop it and I can't help it,

but I'm just going backwards. And it starts to get to the point where mommy was having more hard days crying on the stairs than good days. And I would try to hide this from Jack. And I would try in good face, just the best face I could, but my irritability.

And then how you show up in front of your children when they're young is how they're going to show up to you. And I couldn't wrap my brain around that. Meaning if I was irritable or I was miserable or I was exhausted, even if I wasn't showing it to him, he could feel that. And so he would come at me like that. And I'd be like, why is he always so mad at me? Why is he so angry? And he's like, it's how you show up. Your energy, it will be reflected back off of a child.

That's just how it works. So I started to really know there was something wrong again. And that's when things got really dark again. And I was starting to spiral a bit. And then COVID hit. And I lost my business overnight. So we lost all 200 retailers in like a two weeks span. And now I went from finding a purpose and the thing that was pulling me out of the darkness to find to losing the thing that pulled me out of the darkness now having to figure out myself and this.

And like everything, putting everything into this. like financially, emotionally, everything I had I put into this. And not only me, but other people that were working with me and the volunteers, because I would bring in, I had some volunteers that would come in who were ex-paramedics or ex-firefighters or people that were struggling with trauma, and they would just come and hang out the office because we had a couple dogs there, right? So they'd hang out, they'd package some stuff, or they would just sit and talk. Or they would, we had like a Nintendo game boy.

They just like sit there, like just hang out on the couch, be outside of their home. So it's like, now this wasn't just me I'm worried about. Now I'm worried about everybody. And at that point, I had gone on the bike ride, the 75th anniversary of D-Day, which was in France. And I was lucky enough, and my husband weren't lucky enough. We went over and we did a 600-kilometer bike ride for charity. And we rode like the whole week before, and then we landed on June. Beach on the anniversary with a World War II veteran who was an artillery gunner from New

Brunswick and Russ Kay was walking and talking and him and I were the only gunners on there and he looked at me one day and he goes you're going to be my two I see this trip I was like yes sir oh my God yes like just ball my eyes out right he landed on Juno Beach he was on the first one's there and to get to witness someone going back there for the first time and didn't cry a tear and I was hysterical. I just weeped and he hugged me. He goes, it's okay, honey. All my friends are here.

And oh my God, just that, the strength in that person, just unbelievable. And the witness, it was just extraordinary. And it was such a privilege. So, you know, we were on this bike ride and there were some people there that were some known names. I didn't know anybody from a hole in the wall, and I always have my bracelets. And we have this active one that we have. It's called the Buddy Check Active, and it's just like a, looks like a beaded, but it's rubber.

Work out in it. Anyway, I'd given these all to all the riders. So like Trevor Linden was on the ride and like the CEO of David Foster Foundation, like a bunch of different people came on this. It was like 150 of us, right? And so I gave all these bracelets out. And on the bus ride back going to the airport, one of the guys was like, hey, like, I know some people. Do you mind if I tell them about what you're doing?

I was like, sure. So I come back and I get on a phone call, and I'm on the phone with, like, one of the top publishers in North America. I'm on the phone with, like, the top PR person who works with, like, Rick Springfield and, like, Candace Bushnell. I'm like, I don't belong on this phone call.

This is ridiculous. And like, this is Kelsey. We want her story to be told. And they're, like, telling all this. And I remember one of the publishers, she said on the phone, I'll never forget it. She goes, she's Canadian. Why would we care?

And then I saw Red and reactions. happened and the only person who stayed on the call is Kim and she's still my PR she still works with me but to say that is that I've been put in all these situations every single time I've tried to better myself or help someone else so I knew as long as I kept on this path I would be okay so Kim says to me one day hey I have an opportunity I want to talk get you talked about on GMA and I want to get someone to interview you. And so we did this big interview and she, she gets me a segment on Good Morning America about my jewelry brand. And all within doing that, she goes, hey, Carson Daley wants to talk to you. He's got this new segment called Mind Matters.

And at this point, I'd seen it because he just interviewed Logic. And I was like, I love logic. And I'm like, that guy wants to talk to me? He's like, yeah. I was like, okay. She goes, but like, just let you know, it's like between three people and like, I don't think you're going to get it. So just don't get excited about it. She's super straightforward about it. And so I got it though. So people came in and she's like, hey, like this is a big opportunity. So if you're going to start your podcast, start it now.

Like start it now. This is the time to talk about it. So at this point, I said to Brady like, you know, I'm, we talked about me doing a podcast a year before, you know, this is the time. Let's just do it. So we did it. We turned a design space and I had a shipping container inside my office. That was also a meditation deck on top.

and we turned it into a studio. And I had no idea what I was doing, but I just started. And I think that's the most important part is like you have to start. You cannot know what you're doing, but you have to start. Or you're going to sit and plan yourself into your like own grave. So I just started. And then I did the interview with Carson. And it went really well.

And we talked about it a little bit on there and kind of talked about how art therapy was helping me. The next day I did an interview on my show with Matthew Griffin. from combat flip-flops. He's an ex-ranger. And, sorry, former ranger. Sorry, former ranger. And my husband was like, hey, why don't you reach out to them for a sponsorship? Because they put, like, bullet casings and flip-flops, right?

They were on Shark Tank. That's where we first saw him. He's like, why don't you call them? So I emailed him. And I was like, hey, would you guys want to ever work with us? And he's like, yeah, we'd go together like peanut butter jelly. It makes sense. Casing, casings, casing, helping it.

Let's do it. And then I was like, do you want to do the podcast? And at this point, I had never talked to a special operator. So I was super nervous. And he was like, yeah, for sure. So like, okay. All right. So we do the podcast.

And at the end of it, he leans in because it was virtual. He leans in. And he goes, because if you know, Griff, he does this thing where he looks you in the dead of your soul. And he goes, doing okay. And I was like, yeah. Yeah, I'm great. Like totally fine. And then he leans in even further.

And he goes, are you really doing okay? and I fucking broke in half. It's like he could see through me. He was just waiting to see when it was going to crack. And I cracked. I cracked in half. And I started just losing my mind. And I'm struggling with this again.

I don't know why it's not getting better. I'm doing all the right things. I'm eating all the right things. I'm working out. I'm blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like just giving this laundry list. And he's just sitting there going, uh-huh. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Sounds about right. Yeah. So do you want a solution? And I was just like, what do you mean? Like, I'm doing everything I'm told. So this is the solution. And he's like, no, it's not.

There's other ways. Have you ever heard of ayahuasca? And I was like, like in passing, like it's some crazy thing you do, like some crazy drug. And he's like, kind of. Look, there's a slot open in 30 days. If you want to come, you're welcome to join. It's with Heroic Hearts Project. And you can come and sit in ceremonies with us.

The kicker is you can't be on any drugs or any medications. because of serotonin reuptych. Like it can be a real, real problem. And I said, okay. So I said, yes. I called Brady. I said, hey, there's a thing I want to go do. You know, it's called ayahuasca.

And he's like, fuck it. Okay. All right. And I just kind of said, like, I'm not feeling well. I'm not getting better. I don't know what to do. I'm kind of at my wits under here again. And it's getting worse.

So, like, what do I have to lose? So I call Dr. Passy. I say, hi, I'm going off of this medication that I've been on for 10 years. And he goes, well, I don't think that's how it's going to go. And I said, yeah, no, I'm here's the thing. I'm like not really asking, though. I'm telling you I'm about to do it. And I just need you to be aware because I'm going to do this thing.

And I know that I can't be on. He goes, what are you going to do? I'm going to go sit with ayahuasca. And he goes, yeah, you can't be on anything. I said, well, that's what I'm going to do. And he goes, okay, I know you're not going to listen and you're going to do it anyway. And so we just kind of gave him a warning or a head. heads up. If Brady calls or something goes wrong and, you know, things are out of whack,

this is what's going on. And he goes like, you know, just try to wean as much as you can, but that's like going off of an SSRI. You've been on at 150 milligrams every day for the past 10 years is going to have serious repercussions. And it sure has held it. It had major physical, psychological, tangible, painful repercussions. And I never recommend to do it that way. It's the most dangerous way to do it. You never go a cold turkey off something. But I was desperate and I didn't know what else to do and I felt like I did not have another option and I was backed into a corner. So I did that and then the night before I was supposed to leave my passport expired because it was COVID and I had had my passport in the safe and because in Canada you couldn't

leave the country Canada was locked like if you couldn't they were saying like if you if you have to leave the country like it has to be for like a work reason or you had to have like a like a reason to go to the States or like a reason to leave. It was when it was like real dicey. They're not sure what's going on. So I needed expired. So what I had done is I had my nexus card, which is like another, it's like a passport, right? And you can use it to drive across the border and travel and stuff like that. But it didn't have my married name on it. It just had my maiden name. So I just like called the airline and I was like, hi, I accidentally put the wrong last name. And they're like, okay, no problem. We'll issue a new ticket. And then I just, I traveled on my nexus card, which the reason

it's kind of dicey is because once you have a passport in one name, they have to match. But I just hadn't had the systems talk yet. So they didn't know. So I left on that and I went down and I sat in ceremony and that's when the change happened. That's when the start of the real deep, true stuff that was buried, that was stuck, that I couldn't move, that I couldn't get past, that I couldn't heal from, that the medication was just masking. That's when the shit really started to heal.

that's when everything started to change. And that's like a mayhem, like a journey from what I understand. It depends. I mean, since I've talked with you guys, I've sat six more times. So I've really started to integrate. Again, psychedelics aren't for everyone. Psychedelics are not safe with certain medication. And psychedelics should not be done in a non-safe in setting.

And psychedelics should have a major integration component on the front end in the back end. So I'm really careful to say that because it is not like a go-do, sit-by-yourself, good luck situation. It requires weeks of integration and a proper dieta, meaning what you eat, whether it's what you eat, what you consume on TV, what you consume from liquid, so alcohol and all those things, can't have pork, you're not supposed to have certain things, like you have to follow it. And if you don't, you find out why you're supposed to follow it. And then it's going into the ceremonies in a safe sentence setting with facilitators that are trained who know what they're doing and know how to handle situations if they go one way or the other and then coming out

of that with integration on the back end whether that's with your group or with a coach or with someone else you have to integrate that and the amount of people that I know that are big names who are going into situations and not integrating their shit and coming back and wondering why they're still struggling that's why they're struggling they're not integrating what they have learned and they are not listening that is the most of the most of the most of the most of the important. The ceremonies are one thing, right? The integration is everything. If you don't do that work before and on the end, it's dangerous. Psychologically, like physically, you need to follow the rules. There's a reason why you do it a certain way. And I learned that, definitely learned that.

But ever since last time you and I sat, psychedelics have, when I say I've leaned in. When we sat, we were just talking, we weren't doing psychedelics. No, we weren't, no, Jocko was not doing psychedelics. I didn't slip anything in. Yeah, last time you and I were doing psychedelics in the room together? No, I can't see that ever happening. I can't see you sitting with the medicine. Yeah, no, I've never done any drugs before. And so, other than alcohol and caffeine, and I don't use alcohol anymore. And I'm actually very, I've become more and more anti-alcohol as time goes on. Good. I think it's really terrible. And, yeah, I've just never, I don't really have any desire to do any drugs, it seems like it's like not for me.

You know, it's funny is, uh, to put it simply. Have you, have you sat with any psychedelics before? I go? No, man. You're both very like a type, not necessarily need control, but control is a big aspect of your life. And Andy asked me this too. He's like, yeah, I've never done psychedelics.

I was like, probably tell you why. It's a control thing. Certain, when you sit with a really strong medicine, whether it's five MEO, a strong psilocybin ceremony, ayahuasca, ibogaine, whatever. You don't get to control any part of any of that, what your body does, what your mouth does, whether you vomit, whether you shit yourself, like you don't get to control a lot of what the medicine does. And when I say you lose control, it's not like anything you've ever experienced where you're like, I can fight my way out of this.

It's like, nope, you're done. That's it. And the more you fight it, the more it takes hold. Right. And so a lot of people I notice who have never experienced it are people that maybe lean more on the not needing, but definitely more control, like of just environments and situations, how your body feels and like always wanting to be a certain way. Like I had a Marine with us in Peru and control was a thing for him, big time. And I remember when there was an incident on the one night, we had a gentleman who was with us. He's a good friend now. And I'd been in plenty of ceremonies at this point where everything had gone pretty smooth. Everyone stayed on their mat unless it was to go to the bathroom. A few people vomited on themselves. You know, it's just standard behavior.

Sounds like a good time, doesn't it? But at this time, on the second night in Peru, I had an individual who was one mat in between, there was one person in between us. And we were sitting there, and I was the first to drink that night. And you don't choose who drink. drinks, right? It's the maestroes in the middle, the healers, the Shepibo tribe, people who I sit with from Peru. And they decide who comes up first. And they have a way of doing it. You just let them do their thing. I got called up first that night. And so I went up and I took my, I got the medicine

from her, did my prayer over it, drank it. I just think about drinking it and I get a whole body And I went and sat back down on my mat. And it takes, you know, half an hour, 45 for some people. But by the time they got around to everyone finishing drinking, the last person was starting to drink and I was already shooting off to space. So at that point, that means that, well, now the maestres have to drink. So that's going to be another like good half an hour, 45 minutes before they start even singing the Icaros and the prayers before ceremony even really like opens.

So I sat there and I was like, oh no, here it comes because the visuals start. And the visuals are so bright and so vivid and so intense. And then they got more intense. And I was like, oh, okay. And then they were like, oh, now they're out of control. And now things are starting to move. And because of the TBI, vertigo and pots and things like that for me was like motion. It's not good.

So I start vomiting violently. right no one else has barely even drank nothing's even started and i'm on my hands and knees and just like just the most intense to the point where i'm driving now and i can't breathe because i can't get air in between so i'm just like you know that like constant so i'm doing this and i'm and i just remember just because then it's control and i go hi let go let go let go let go and i just keep trying to say like i let go i'm letting go i trust you and i my whole body just drops down and i have got nothing and i I'm gone, and I mean gone, gone, like not in this galaxy gone. And things are swirling and it's black and it's moving.

And I just hear this, wah, wah, wap, out of the corner. And I kind of come to, and I've got the bucket in my hand, and I just kind of, it's pitch black, but it's an open-air Maloka. So there's screens. So, like, there's a door and there's screens so you can hear the jungle. And the jungle has a tendency to respond. when the medicine starts to respond. And I start to hear the maestro start to sing.

Now, I'm already in space. When they start to sing, what they do with those icros is they move the medicine. So now, like it moves it within you. And so they start singing the iceros and you can feel the vibration. So they're like singing this really beautiful thing. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

it's too far, too far, too far. Like, I had gone too far. in my mind I thought I had gone too far right and I hear this slamming and then I just hear this noise and it sounds like a horror movie when like it's like a weird like demon where it's like that like that like rhr like it's like an angry cat that deep level kind of growl and I hear it coming out of this side and I just go nope nope we're not turning it. our head. We're not looking at it. We're not looking at it. Because I'm going, is anyone else hearing this? And the icrosse are getting more intense. And it got to a point where space started to

vibrant, right? Like, almost like when something's winding up, where it's like, whoa, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, and you're waiting for that kind of boom. And so it started to kind of do this wind. And I hear this, like, and it's getting louder. And then I just slamming and slamming and slamming. And they give you a red flashlight. the red flashlight. It's like Opsack, right? It's got the red cover on it. And so they go, if you have to go to the bathroom,

you point it at the ground, find your way to the bathroom. If you need help, point it at your chest. I'm turning it on. So I hear this, I hear this smashing, and time is just like starting to speed up,

and I just put it in my chest, and I'm just vomiting. And so the facilitator comes over, and he drinks too, but this is someone that's incredibly experienced in the medicine, who can be in the medicine, but also be very present.

So he like pulls me over to the bathroom, right? And I'm going pee and I cannot stop peeing. And so what I've learned now is that there's tons of different forms of purging. There's energy purging, right? So big yawns where your jaw hurts. You've yawns so much that you're having these big, huge, like, oh, like, and it's an energy movement, right? Some people just do that.

Some people don't purge at all. Some people vomit. Some people shit themselves. Some people pee. And so. I had been vomiting and I was like, I have to pee and I literally can't move. And as I'm in the bathroom, it's all white, just like white. There's no lights on, but it's just like that white tile.

So it's quite bright. You can see the light coming in from the moon. And I'm sitting there. I'm looking down at my hands and my hands are just changing and moving and molding into these colors. And I'm like, I'm okay, I'm okay. I'm safe. I'm safe. I'm safe.

Just having this inner dialogue. I'm just going pee. And then I just hear, bang. bang, bang, and just like people are moving in the Maloka. Normally things stay pretty still. And I see one of the other guys come into the bathroom. And then another guy come into the bathroom. And then another guy and another guy.

And now we're all in the bathroom, except for the facilitator and for the maestroes and one other guy. And this guy is beating the fuck out of himself. He's so deep in the medicine and that thing that is in him took hold of him. and he just starts slamming his arms and he's bob and he's punching himself and the next morning when he wakes up like his hand is swollen his eyes are black and blue his legs are bruised but what had happened was he was so in the medicine and everyone around him was kind of like freaking out the control aspect i'm getting to is one of the marines that was in the group with me pops his head in the curtain and he just goes you guys good you guys good guys solid you good need help you get we're like no man

We're all freaking out right now. He's like, I got it, I got it. The facilitator runs in and goes, hey, Ryan, hey Ryan, you good right now? And he goes, yeah, I'm fine, fine. And he goes, you want to come with me? And so they had to go hold him down. So Ryan snaps out of the medicine, right? Like he's still in it, but enough to be present and sits down on the guy's leg

and the other guy sits down and they just hold him there while they pray over him until he just, his body gives out. So I spent probably half of that ceremony in the bathroom because, what I was hearing was the thing that was coming out of him came out of him and was ripping the Maloka in half and running up the ceiling. So like you could you could hear the crawling going up the ceiling and all around. And all the time he's like make it's him that was actually making that noise, the guy. This thing was coming out of him and kind of going through him and making this noise.

And he's smashing it. So it sounds like the whole place is just falling apart. And because I was struck. struggling so deeply with anger and rage to the point where it manifested itself and the thing that came out of him was a form of my anger. And it was trying to get into the bathroom. So I was seeing it rip through the ceiling and come try to get in, but I can't stop peeing. So I can't get off the toilet to save myself. So one of the other guys who had sat in ceremony with me last time, I said, Sam, Sam, and he just sit here, Sam, Sam, I need you sit here, Sam, I need

you're peeing. I said, Sam, hold my hand. I just need you to stay with me and hold my hand. And once they kind of got him calmed down, I was able to, all of us slowly, they're like, it's safe, you're good to come back out, you're safe, it's good. So we all slowly started going back out into the pitch black. But the thing was, every time the maestros would sing, because they pray over each and every one of you, there's a male and a female, and they work their way around the room.

and each one of you gets a different prayer. So like the male is known as like the surgeon. He comes in, he gets in there, does all the nasty removal, all the gross stuff, and then she comes around and bandages you up, if you will, and then prays over you and does this work to you. And it's really intense when they're singing and praying to you. You can feel it's a lot. So they're like, you need to receive the prayer at the end of like you need to, so you need to come out.

But every time they sang, that thing in him would get angry. And so she would start to sing and he would start to rear up. And then I would start to freak the fuck out. And he's like, the facilitator would be like, just sit with me and just stay here. We're just going to stay here. We're just going to be in it. And so I was working through all of this. But the next morning I had a conversation and none of us at that night wanted to sleep by

ourselves. We were all so terrified. We were ceremony closed and he was still in the medicine. He was in it the rest of the night. So like he did not leave the medicine until the morning. And he was, he beat himself silly. And there was a lot of lessons in that. And one of those for me was I was able to see the anger and what it was doing to everyone around me.

And I was able to see what it was doing to myself. I saw a visualization of it. I heard it. I could see the thing that everyone said was attached to me that I couldn't make go away on my own. And so as hard as it is to sometimes to let go of. control and let go of needing to be the person that handles everything, it was necessary. I needed to let go. I needed to go let someone else help me because I could no longer help myself.

And so psychedelics now for me have become such a massive part of my life. I'm doing a clinical trial with a company in Canada for psilocybin soon. I'm patient zero for. I use psilocybin now as a form of antidepressant for me. It almost replaced an SSRI, but not something I need to take. Only when I catch myself going into a bit of a dip, I'm able to then microdose, and it keeps me at a place where I never dip to where I can't pull myself back out again. And then I use ayahuasca when I'm working through something,

and only when the medicine calls, not when I choose to go. So I've never, like, booked a trip or tried to. it's always presented itself to me as an opportunity or a chance to go somewhere. And that's how the medicine should be. And so it's been a weird transition of learning how to let go and learning how to be patient and move through emotions rather than hold emotions. Yeah. No, that definitely makes sense.

I know that for me, like for me, I don't know. I've always had a good grasp on that there's a lot of things that I have no control over and I'm okay with that. And even from a leadership perspective, you know, I would, anybody that's ever worked for me, knows that I'm the literal furthest thing from a control freak. I'm like the most decentralized. Is that the truth? Confirmed.

Okay. Yeah. Like I you know, fourth law of combat leadership is decentralized command and I'm absolutely that way. In fact, I'm a little bit too much that way. You know, but I'll let go people, let things go even more. So I've always been very comfortable with the fact that a lot of things you can't control. There's some things that you can't control and I'm perfectly fine. I can kind of shrug off things that I can't

control and move forward, you know? So I guess maybe, I guess maybe I do. I present controlling. Yes. But, yeah, I mean, I mean, like here's, like just an example. Like my kids growing up, they didn't have to have curfews. Like, you know, like, you didn't care. You come home when you're ready.

Like that's an example that people are always like, oh, you serious? I'm like, yeah. I'm like, come home when you're done. I think, Kelsey, you might have a little bit of a point, though, because you don't like to control external stuff, but you seem to like to control internal stuff. Like kind of more hardcore than the normal person. I'd say that's probably accurate.

Yeah. Like I said, I know that there's things I can control. I know there's things that I can't control. The only thing I can control really is like myself. And how I'm going to behave and make sure that I'm doing the right thing from my perspective. So a lot of people,

and I'm assuming maybe this supplies to you, at the very least a little bit, maybe a lot, where drugs make you kind of lose control, no matter what drug it is. Even alcohol, you lose control of your mind in certain ways. That's for sure. What you're talking about is, you know, another level of loss of control.

Listen, there's levels to this shit. Yes, ma'am. There just is. But that's okay. I mean, that comes in time. And you are like you do, the perception you do put out, even though it is you're controlling yourself. So whether it's like you're 4.30 in the morning wake up or it's, you know, just getting in the workout. It's like you do control your life to a tea.

And so I think because, when. when you're talking about maybe you on social or what you're doing on social, the perception is that you're like that with all things. But that's only because people don't see the things that you're not controlling on, right? And maybe if they didn't serve with you, they just assume this guy's, that's how it works.

But yeah, anything, you know, alcohol, anything that you take, whether it's a psychedelic alcohol, anything that's gonna change your perception is going to give you a lack of control internally, whether we like it or not. And that is a hard thing for some people to grasp. And even when you're in the medicine, it's almost impossible to let go because what are you letting go to and what are you allowing in? At what point are you letting go too far?

Are you gone all the way? Do you ever come back? Like that's the- Yeah, my think, my thought is no. You know what? My thought is I'm not coming back. Well, that's what I was afraid of in Peru. There was a moment where I was like, during that, where I was like, if I fully let go here, I'm concerned I won't snap back.

But that's fear speaking, right? that's the voice in my head. That's the thing that I talk about. That's the thing that says, no, we're not doing this, or no, you're too tired, or no, you can't do this, or no, you're not big enough, or why would they talk to you? It's like, that's the voice you just have to just shut the fuck up

and push down because it doesn't get to be in control anymore. And that's the difference is the medicine has taught me that I don't always get to have control and sometimes it's okay to let go of it, as long as I'm aware that I don't abuse it. I don't play with this medicine. It's not like a fur fun. Like this stuff is not fun.

So far it does not sound fun. It's not. And anybody who's like, oh. I have no temptations to do this stuff for now. Zero. I mean, listen, there's some where you're less like purging and less violent. Like I mean, five MEO, it's a quick 15 minute, you know, it's a DMT. It's a different thing.

I think you would 15 minutes. It just does not sound fun. I would like to see you try it because I know how much you would fight it tooth and nail, but that's the thing is you can't fight it. Like it doesn't, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, go. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry to disappoint you. I probably won't be doing any of these things. Yeah. So and I think this kind of applies to a lot of psychoactive substances where if you start with the reason anyone would choose to do that, isn't it because they don't like the results of their

controlling of their mind or lack thereof? So I would think you're in a whole separate boat where you're like, yeah, I like to have full control over my mind, therefore my behavior, you know, that stuff and I like the way it's going. So why would I give it up to whatever the goddess his name is? Goddess his name. I was talking to some of my friends that have done the journey. Right. And they're like, oh, you should do it.

And I was like, no, no, I'm probably not going to do it. And they're like, oh, you know, you should. And I was like, well, I feel like I'm driving down the highway at like 85 miles an hour. And I feel like pulling over the side and just taking apart my engine and putting it back together doesn't seem like a smart move. It's not ideal. It's like running pretty good. And they're like, well, you could be going 95. And I was like, no, I think I'm actually going pretty good.

I think I'm kind of like, you know, like I'm looking at my RPMs and they're smooth and the, like, cool, like the temperature's good. And they're like, we should ask your wife what she thinks. I was like, go ask my wife what she thinks. She'd be like, dude, this guy is fine. Like, let's not, let's not mess up this engine right now. I actually agree with you, especially for your situation where, because I'm actually more kind of on your side with it. just from this alone where at the very least it's going to offer. We're taking sides now?

Yes. Okay. The table has been divided. Let's face it, right. You know, but okay, if we were forced to take sides, I'm going to be leaning a little bit towards because I think that new perspective that from what I understand, because my brother and I know a lot of people who've taken one trip or another on different. Journey.

Journey. Yes. Yes. Correct. Yes. How dare we? So I know people who have done it and they all kind of report back the. the similar thing where it's like, man, it offered this perspective that was very like eye-opening, you know,

and it improved their perspective, you know, on things. You know, varying levels of lasting results, but at the very least, the experience improved their outlook on things. I think it's, it's, what you're intending to go and do and how much work are you willing to do afterwards to keep the lasting effects. Yeah, I dig it. That's the, the, the trip, the journey is, is just, the catalyst, it's just the pin drop, right? The rest of it comes afterwards. The real work is after because now you've explored, the mirror has been put in front of you, whether you like it or not. The stuff you're seeing is not something you want to see, but you're seeing now because this is what you've chose to do. Now I'm going to show you what you need to see to work on it. So like,

for example, excuse me, the first experience I talked about where I did it with Griff and those guys, that was very much if you were to take a line and you were to put the future in the past the first trip was the very bottom of the past the stuff that was stuck the trauma the Afghan stuff the stuff I couldn't undo

the stuff I couldn't work through so those first three trips were that the second time I went well because it's listen let me stop it stop it you stop it listen you do them in over three days so you do one each night

so that's one ceremony oh so you've done two sessions of three each? I've done three sessions of three each. So nine. So the first one was very much the Afghan stuff. That's the one that I spoke about on the last show where I talked about like Chris and going through the other side and all of those really just getting the closure moments of survivor's guilt really, really working through that there.

And then actually came out of that one with no more chronic pain in my shoulder that's permanently separated with no collarbone. So that's a weird thing all in its own. So I, the body holds, you know, the body keeps the score. That's a real thing. The trauma is held in the body. So when you can work that out too. And then the second time I went, so that would have been ceremony four, five, six.

Those ones were getting closer to more of my future issues. Like the stuff that was newer issues, not so much the Afghan, but more of the deeper, the deeper rooted things that I was trying to work through, right? Stuff that I was really, really struggling with. And then the last group of ceremonies I went through, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. One of the main reasons I went was because of this, because I was not coping, period. And so I made a call to Jesse at a row of carts project. And I was like, hey, bro.

He goes, how you doing? Not great. What do you need? You know what I need. Okay. When you need to go, as soon as you got me. He goes, okay, let me see. Sure enough, one thing moved all on its own naturally, the other thing.

And then next thing you know, it was like, you can go then. So I went and I went into that with a very serious intention. And that was to learn how to become a better, more present wife because at this point, Brady was super sick. And I was trying to be the rock. So I had no emotions. I wasn't empathetic. I wasn't compassionate.

And it wasn't because I wasn't feeling those things. It was because the spouse needed me to be the tough one. Because he had been the tough one for so many years, right? He had been the one that pulled me out of bed, got me moving, got me up. made sure I didn't end up killing myself and he was the one who was the rock. So it was like, I needed to be the rock. But I didn't know how to do that empathetically.

I knew how to do it operationally. I knew this is what you need. This is what we're going to do. This is how we're going to fix it. Not, hey, I'm going to sit with you when you're not feeling well and just be with you. I was like, no, we got shit. We need to fix.

And so I went into this going, I need to be more empathetic wife and I need to let go of this anger. Because you lived rent free in my. head for two years ruthlessly and I was like I can't carry this shit anymore I can't do this anymore it's not fair to anyone it's not fair to me it's not fair to my family it's not fair period and so I went in and I told the I told the maestros I said I'm angry and I'm angry at a level I cannot fucking control and I can't make it stop as I say it with a smile like I was like I'm so angry it's bubbling and I said I'm having a lot of pain in my head

And so when I went into those ceremonies, they were very, they don't, when you have this meeting with, sorry, when you have this meeting with the maestroes, you don't, they don't talk back to you. They just listen to you. And then they whisper in Spanish and then you leave. And then you go and you do the vomitivo, which you're going to love. You're going to guess vomitivo is, yes, you're vomiting, but it's forced vomiting. You drink this lemongrass tea. It's cold. and there's a big jug and you all sit outside of like one of the little huts and you each get a cup that's about yay big and you fill it up and you have to drink it continuously

until you start vomiting. And the whole point is... What are you doing Thursday night? Megan vomitivo, clearly. So you do that though because you're going into ceremony the next day and if somebody didn't follow the dieta or they didn't fully cleanse themselves properly,

this takes everything out. And they kind of say, say it like, this is like the farmer prepping the garden or the prepping the fields, right? Before the, before the, they come in with the medicine and they plant the seeds. And so you do this and it's, that's a fun experience for everyone involved. And then you go into the ceremony after that. But one of the nights, though, I had said that, I had said that to the maestro, you know, about my head.

And he came over when he was working on me and they tell you like, these people are pretty physical. So like heads up if they tell you to do something, don't freak out. Don't be weirded out. Like this is, they've been doing this for thousands of years and this is lineage. Like just do what they say. They don't speak English either. So the one night he comes over to me and he's done praying over me and I'm in the medicine, but I'm not vomiting on myself for a minute. And he just gets up and grabs my head on the sides and just starts pushing from the front and the back and just pushing and just pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing. And then he stands up and he just grabs, they have this, it's like a perfume, but it's like

there, each purse, each maestro has their own and it's like preyed over and they use it. And sometimes they'll spit it on you and sometimes they'll pour it on you. And it's kind of like a holy water, but there's a joke there. So he goes and stands on top of me and he just goes and he blows into me. And I felt from the tip of my head all the way down, if you were to take. a couple inches off my body, almost like my aura. I just felt everything just drop out. And my whole body just kind of dropped and I was exhausted. And I asked them the next day when we were doing the flower bath and he said, he just looked at the translator and goes, ask her, how is her

head feeling today? It was the first day I didn't have a headache. So I was like, shit. Okay. All right, we're doing whatever. The last night, she comes over and she's praying over me. And I'd been expressing because we do group and all these things and so I'm talking about what I'm struggling with and I'm frustrated with and all of this and the next night she goes in and at the end of ceremony she comes over to me and I'm one of the last ones she prays on and she goes she grabs my shirt and she starts pulling pulling it up I was like so I just lift up my shirt's pitch black and I don't care I've had a baby in a hospital everyone's seen everything and she's she starts pouring it onto her and then she just comes over and she grabs the palm of her hand from the tip of my neck all the way down right before my

pelvic bone and she just starts slamming all the way down just so boom and she's just slapping my chest and she just boom boom boom and then I just feel this sharp pain come under my right rib and it's like her eyes light up and she just starts pushing like she's trying to break my lower rib there and she's finally just pop pop pop pop and then just boom again and then she just sits up and she just vom and she just vomits into her bucket. it and I just go what just happened and the and it was gone the pain was gone and afterward the next day we were doing the flower bath and we were saying bye to them and I went up to her and I just started smiling and I just started bawling my eyes out and I took my necklace off and gave it to her

and she took her earrings off and she put them on me and then she said something in Spanish and and the translator's such like everything's going to be okay now and I looked down and my watch and it was a year to the day that Brady dropped with his TBI that I'm put in the hospital. So it was like this whole circle thing started happening. And at this point, I had found out earlier March that year, I was, I had gone undiagnosed TBI.I. So that was one of the problems of what was going on with me. I went down to the resiliency brain center in Coppell, Texas. Rebecca does some work with them with Defenders of Freedom. And when Brady was struggling, with his TBA and by it means struggling, I mean he, we were sitting in the garage and I was

smoking some weed before bed and we were sitting there and we listened to a podcast before bed in the garage, leave the garage door open and it's nice out, put podcasts on, most of the time it's Rogan, we sit there and smoke weed and we just hang out, we talk about it. Some of the neighbors come over and it's just whatever, relax. He's sitting there and I'm kind of out like pacing, watering the flowers and he just goes, hey, hon, I don't feel so good. And I'm like, what do you mean? It's always pretty healthy. He was standard. And he goes, he didn't grab his left side.

He grabbed his right side. And he goes, something's really, really wrong. And he stood up and then just fucking went gray and dropped. And my neighbors, our family doctor, and she was at work. And her husband just happened to be outside. And Jack was already in bed. So I started screaming for him to come over. And I called 911, and they put me on hold.

God, dang. So, B.C. has a matter. massive shortage of paramedics and ambulance drivers, it's unbelievable. So they put me on hold and I told Mark, I was like, get him in the car, just get him in the car. And it was the first moment I had almost like the first time I had ever had like a real true flashback moment of me not being able to move fast enough. Like when I was in the ditch trying to get to the body, it's like I couldn't get upstairs to get my shorts. I couldn't get my keys fast enough. It was like this. It was the first time I had felt that again. and so they got him into the car and I rushed him and the ambulance called on the way and they're like we're going to need you to pull over I'm like we need you to fuck off like I'm already at the hospital like you're useless and just click kind of thing pull up to the hospital bring brady in and he's sitting there in the waiting room and he's just gray and he's just violently shaking and the nurse the nurse comes around and gets him in triage and this overweight unhealthy nurse looks at my husband and goes have you had any substances today and he goes like literally literally

like couple puffs of cannabis. She gives him the dirty look. And Brady's like, I need help. And she's like, no. So they wouldn't help him. They deemed him a drug addict on the spot because he used cannabis. So they wouldn't provide proper care.

So now at that point during COVID, no doctors would see us in person. No one would help us. Absolutely fucking nothing. So this is happening. And I've got nowhere to go, nowhere to turn. And I remember seeing on Instagram a while ago,

my buddy Ronald Farrow, who was a former Ranger as well, who knew Griff. post this stuff with a lady in a white coat at this place in Texas and he was working on his brain like this TBI stuff, right? And I look at Brady

and we're kind of having this conversation and I'm like, the doctors don't know what's wrong with them they're telling them it's mental health. They're telling them, like we pay the money, we go do the MRI, we do the scans, nothing's showing up, we do the blood work. It's like we don't know what we're looking for.

None of the doctors are helping us. And so I call Ron and I send him a voice message and I'm bawling my eyes. out going, I don't know what you're doing, but is there any chance any of these doctors are willing to help us? And he's like, can I have permission to say, play this to like Doc G in them? And I was like, yeah, yeah. So he plays it. And like, so resiliency brain center, they treat civilians and ex-military. And a lot of times it's like special operators. So there's like when I went down, there was like Rangers. There's like Delta guys or seals like they treat the gnarliest of the gnarly. and so she goes, we can get him in.

This was a Wednesday, and Brady was in Texas on a Sunday. So Brady did a two-week intensive program with Doc Gooday and Doc Eisenman, and he ended up doing amazing. And it took a long time after that, like, don't get me wrong. We found out he had a TBI for when he was racing Supercross, so they went completely undiagnosed. And so like hormone imbalances, vertigo, disautonomia, like you name it, He was having it.

He couldn't work. He couldn't function. He couldn't get out of bed. Depression was kicking in severely. He was dropping weight like going out of style. And all the while Canada was like, he's fine. It's mental health. It's COVID.

It's like there's more to this. And so they help them. But then the deal was if we get him in, we know there's got to be something wrong with you. Because you've been talking, I've been kind of expressing it like, I have low-grade migraines. I have stomach issues. I have major vertigo. I have anger problems. I have a really hard time making decisions and like really just kind of sticking with something.

And they're like, yep, that sounds right. And she's like, you know you don't have to live like that, right? And I was like, well, yeah, once Brady, you know, da, da, da, she's like, okay, Brady comes down, will you come down after? And I was like, well, we can't afford both of us. And she's like, let me introduce you to Donna Cranston. And that's the CEO of Defenders of Freedom. And Donna, they're a 501, 3C, so a veteran organization, and they pay for brain treatment

for veterans to go through this program, but Americans. So they got special permission to bring me down, and I was their first female combat veteran they'd ever treated. And right before I went to that, I said, well, let's make it harder. Let's make it harder on myself. I'm going to go down and do the Warrior Angel 4x4 by 48, because it's for vets and for Heroic Hearts Project, and I owe Heroic Hearts Project a lot.

Like, I owe them the time they put into me to help me. I, if I can go show up somewhere, if it just means running, I can do that. I'll go do that. I'll go hurt myself for them and we'll fundraise. So I made a plan. Brady came back. I went down to do the 4x4 by 48, which was one of the wildest experiences I've ever had. We did it in the Houston Forest and we did it with Andrew and Adam Marr.

And then Marcus was there and Jesse was there and all the guys were there, like Bill Anthe's and them from between the ears and his wife. And it was this really, a really, really amazing therapeutic event. and we did peyote and there was a tribe that was brought in and like it was cathartic as fuck like it was the best experience and then the day after we like the night we finished i drove to houston i drove to dallas and then i went into a two-week uh inpatient kind of deal with resiliency all because defenders of freedom was like someone's struggling no one's going to help her in Canada we're going to step up and help her so they they helped saved me because what i realized is my inability to make decisions

was because my prefrontal cortex isn't working because of the TBI. My inability to sleep was a lot of it was because I was struggling hormonally. So everything, my cortisol was out of whack. My disautonomia and stuff was happening. Pots was happening. So that's why I was getting car sick constantly. I was having stomach issues all the time. I had a low-grade migraine all the time.

It looked like I was concussed all the time. I looked stoned when I wasn't stone. My eyes were just always kind of a little bit lower. And that was all from an undiagnosed traumatic brain injury. And so I went through the treatment there and I came out and I've been doing fucking fantastic ever since. But I did ayahuasca after that. And it was nuts.

It's a different thing. When your whole brain starts firing, not just parts of your brain, that's a different level. I stepped up another level with that. But what I found was that microdosing was psilocybin and working really hard like I was telling you when I came in, you're like, oh, here you can drink this. And I'm like, I'm going to drink this because that's making a difference for me. The ketones are making a difference for me in a really big way because I'm struggling with blood sugar issues because of the TBI. So the ketones keep me

from crashing and have all these sugar lows. But they also are just fuel for the brain in general. Do you eat sugar? Not a lot. No, no. Do you eat carbohydrates? Or are you like in a ketonic state? I'm not, no, I'm not. I eat carbs, like, but not a ton of carbs. Like I'll have a piece of toast in the morning, you know, but we don't eat like potatoes and like all that stuff. Are you on any other drugs like, what are they called, pharmaceutical drugs anymore? No, I haven't been on any since the first time I went down I-I-WASCO. When I dropped that last one, that was the last time I was on anything. And you got a book coming out to get us up to speed. Yeah. The book is called Brassin' Unity. It is. Which is also the name of your podcast business. Podcast business, Instagram. It's all brass and unity.

Yeah. When does the book come out? July 11th. So we are, the publisher wants pre-sales. They want it on the New York Times bestseller list. So they want to give me ample time to get it done. Yeah, well, that's where you do. That's what you do.

The pre-sales, all the pre-sales that you do count in the first week of sales. So that's how you get on the big list. It's silly. It sounds silly to some people. And like, don't get me wrong. Like I get it. But the reason I want it is because I was told I'd never get a book published ever. So why not shoot for the moon?

Oh yeah, no, definitely go for it. It's free advertising. If you get on the list, then you get free advertising from that, from that. So it's all good. I've been really lucky because last time I was in here, we were working on a couple different deals with some things. But in between that time frame, the Afghan pullout happened. And I got drug into that in a really weird way in a very, like, unnecessary.

but necessary way. And so that was a wild experience and something crazy that we added a couple, we added like 20 pages from. We were able to, Griff called called again. So who am I to say no to the guy that helped me?

Yeah. Either that would block his number. Right? Just like one of the other. Something really intense. But yeah, so he called and he said I have a nine pack of VIP Canadians and Canada's not answering the phone. So I got on Instagram and started doing what I do, which is network really, really well. And I called a couple people and no one really had answers.

And I said, well, I'm going to call Dean and Alana because I said there's no way in hell. They're not involved in this somehow. There's no way. So I call Alana. And at this point, Dean had been on the show and Alana had been on the show. And Dean and I had built a good friendship. We spent the last shot show. we were doing stuff over there together and Alana wasn't there.

I think I know you through Dean. You do know me through Dean. I think that's my original connection with you through Dean. Yeah. And so Alana, I message her and I say, hey, I'm assuming you're probably involved in this somehow. And she goes, you probably guessed right then. Yeah, why? What do you need?

And I said, look, I've got a nine pack. I've got the head of the women's rights for the Afghan commission. And I've got her daughter, who's the national, I think she was the cricket, national cricket coach. some like they're on a lovely list is all I was being told and then they got their three-year-old and then I got the rest of the daughters and a couple husbands and she's like what do you need for me and I said well I said I would try to move them because they have Canadian visas but they're Afghan passport holders and I said but I need my documents cleared and the the paperwork for the IRGC paperwork for Canada they put Canada put two people on it to answer all of the emails

from every Canadian Afghani that was trying to get out of the country cute right cut to a snap election by Trudeau all in the same week of the pullout so I get a phone call from CBC and they say hey Kelsey we want to interview about how you feel about how the Afghan pullout is going and we're going to interview a handful of you so we're going to gaslight some veterans on national television are we and she's like well we just want to have this discussion and so then I told her what was really going on in Afghanistan and then she we hung up and then I got a phone call the next day And she's like, well, so the interview has been canceled. There's been a snap election.

And we've been told there's a media blackout on anything Afghanistan related. I was like, fucking fantastic. Canada. So it's a good place right now. So we've got all these Canadians who are trying and nothing's working. And I say, Alana, I do need the help. And she goes, okay, send me the docks. So now we're on Kabul time.

So her and I are staying awake while she's working to move people with their contracting company. And I'm just trying to get this one family out. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. all I have is signal and all I have is Instagram. That's it. We'll figure it out. And so I, one phone number got me to another phone number who got me to someone else who ended up getting me to a person on the ground named Austin, who you actually met this weekend.

Right off. And I didn't know his name at the time. It was just A. And I said, hey, I got these people. And he goes, I don't know who you've been talking to, but I just left a meeting. And there's seven different units that are going to be going out looking for your family here soon. He's like, you've been annoying a lot of people.

I said, yes, that's me. I will get someone to answer whether they like it or not. And so cut to a couple days, the day right before the bombing, we end up having to move them to a different safe house, which was a bit of a shit show. Because at that point, the three-year-old was at the gate and got beat by the Taliban with a buttstock of an AK-47. So we had a bit of an issue now.

And then the Americans came and took the high value, the main high value from the group, which means the rest of them were going to be left behind. Even though I told them not to split up, they did. So we moved into a second safe house, and I was doing this all using grid coordinates on Google. And so at this point,

the husband of the mother, the husband and the father of the child, he's a student in New York. So he's stuck in New York, and he's messaged me on Signal going, what's going on, what's going on? And they're messaging me on. signal and then I'm dealing with other people trying to just get a route or a place to get them

inside this airport and everyone's doing this you know this everybody was like going around the government backdooring people calling people we were all just anybody was just trying to get anybody on any plane and so I said to this guy Austin I was like hey I owe you one if you can help me out and he goes yeah yeah let's just let's get this going here he's like I'm going to give you a 45 minute window you're going to be within that airport in 45 minutes and I can't help you after the this because we had blown two windows already. We had missed two windows, one because they were too afraid to leave, because this was right after the bombing.

So the bomb went off. Now everyone's too afraid to go anywhere. And then we were getting warnings that there were more bombs being placed near mosques. So they didn't want to leave at all. And the kid was getting worse. So then he said, I just need them to be within 45 minutes. So then we had to move them to a different safe house. So I find a grid.

I send them the grid. I tell the husband to chill the fuck out because he's not listening and he's freaking out. And then they're kind of. of freaking out because now I've got him on a 24-hour watch where they're watching the phone to make sure because the Americans said to me like give me their phone number I'm going to call if they don't answer we're on to the next one so they're on a 24-hour watch and everyone's kind of getting heightened and no one's sleeping and then I still haven't got the documents cleared to get them on a plane and then Alana finally calls and goes hey I made a call I got them cleared here's the information

sends it all to me so she did some backdoor deal to get it all kind of dialed for me at the British. And so we get that. And all while this is happening, I'm doing this over voice notes. So I'm having voice notes back and forth with the family on the ground and the voice notes with excuse me, with Ennett on the phone. And the cool thing about that now looking back is as annoying as I am and I always send voice notes, this is fucking something cool to have now to look back at because no one would believe it because it's for goddamn dickulous. So next thing you know, we get a 45 minute window. I put him in a taxi. And I say, I need you to just go, I'm going to give you a grid,

and I need you go sit in the taxi there. So they do. They go sit in the taxi and they're waiting. I said, and then Austin text, and he goes, I need you to send me a photo of them. So they send, like, a photo of them, like, smiling in the taxi. And he's like, send me a fucking photo of their whole body. Like, he starts, because he's going in and out and in and out.

And he's just like, I don't have time to mess around. You need to just give me what I need. And so they get out, take a picture. So they get out, they take a picture. He goes, does somebody have a bright colored scarf? I was like, I don't like where this is going. And I said, yes, why? And he goes, tell me what color.

I said, I got a red scarf. He's like, okay, perfect. So he's like, I'm going to give you this 45-minute window. When I say, go, you need to move him to the next grid I give you. So we're all kind of sitting and they're waiting. And then gunfire is kind of going off. So they're starting to freak out because we can't be on the street. We need to go.

And then he finally says go. And he gives me a grid. And at this point, we had been awake. I'd been awake for four days. So, like, trying to sleep every couple hours because we're running on Kabul time. And I'm in. I'm in Vancouver and my cul-de-sacs screaming into my phone leaning against my Tesla where all my neighbors are just like, what is she the crazy lady yelling about now? And I'm like, run through the open fire.

Run! Like, I'm losing my shit into the phone. And I'm trying to watch Jack play. And they're just like, what the fuck? So this is all happening. And I said to Brady, I'm like, it's go time. You need to deal with him. You need to deal with him.

And so he takes Jack and we're doing the thing. And I'm going back and forth on the phone. We get him to the grid. and they're standing outside, and you can hear it in the background, and there's, like, guns going off, and cops are screaming, and she's, while I start screaming,

she's like, they're telling me to stop waving the scarf, they're going to shoot on me, they're going to shoot on me, like they tell me to leave the area, and I said, you need to go to, like, the service road, I need you to stand there. I've never, by the way, I've never been in Kabul. So I'm using Google to figure this out. So this happens, and he goes,

I'm going to pop smoke, tell him to stand there. And so they pop smoke and she voice messages me losing it. They're throwing tear gas. We have to run. We have to run. I'm like screaming at the top of my lungs. Like I could never be a handler because I am not calm. And I'm just like, stay in the fucking smoke.

Like I'm just losing my shit at her because we were told at this point that because of who the mom was, they were going to be found. It was like take them or die. Like that was a conversation I was being told. And so I was starting to freak out because. I was the only option they had left. And if it didn't happen, what was going to happen to them? Was it going to be another way I left Afghanistan, like in a fucking disgrace and not the way I wanted to leave?

Or could I actually pull this off and redeem some sort of something, right? Just anything. Because the way I left those kids last time was I was the thing of nightmares. I wanted to be the thing that helped for once. So when they pop smoke, he says to me, I said, hey, dude, thank you for doing this. And he goes, I have it in the book, but basically there's a screenshot. And he's like, well, we weren't going to trust it lead of it to Canadians. They're not even a real fucking country anyway.

And so I'm just like, this is great timing. He goes, tell him to stand there in the smoke and start waving the red scarf. So I tell her to start waving the scarf. Cops come over and they're pointing guns and they're screaming at them. And she's screaming. And he goes, I'm about to send my buddy D out. He's in shorts and a T-shirt with no kit. He's got a huge beard and big muscles.

He gets shot in the head, it's on you. Fucking fantastic. This is a good day. So they're screaming and I just keep telling him, stay in the smoke. And they're like, no, we can't. I said, I finally snapped. And I said, and I listened to it back today because I can't believe I said it. And she thanked me afterwards, but I was like, if, and I scream to the tongue my lungs,

if you do not run into the smoke, you're going to fucking die and your head is going to be cut off. Run into the fucking smoke. and I was losing my shit. So you ran into the smoke and then everything went dead silent. Like no one was communicating with me and then I just got a text message from Austin and it just said jackpot.

And they pulled the family and it was the, I was standing on the back deck and Brady and Jack were inside the house and the screen door was open, the screen door was there and Jack came running over because as soon as it hit Jackpot

I just fell down and I just started fucking bawling my eyes out and Jack was, Mommy, did we win? And I was like, you're fucking right we won. They're like, yes, we won. Like, we beat the Taliban one family. I did one thing.

I got one family. That's all I wanted to do. And it was a bunch of, like, like school age girls. Shabnam is in Ottawa doing her doctorate. She had a guest lecturer spot at Otto University. Wall Walla and her husband and her child are in New York. And Faran is never going to have to go back there. And the rest of the girls are in school and are functioning.

So I'm like, okay, you know what? If that's how I left Afghanistan in the first time, that's fine. but that's not how I chose to leave forever. So I did that in between the book. So we added that into the book and we got permission from the family. And yet, the husband wrote a quote on the back and I got permission to just transcribe the voice notes.

So when you read it, it's like the, you can see that she's not English speaking. Yeah, it's funny to read. They're like, can we correct this? I was like, no, no, the editor's like, we have to. I'm like, no, you can't, you can't correct it. And so then they let me put some, photos in and then the day that they actually made it into the States, they sent me a video of

and yet seeing Faron for the first time again. And then now they send me like videos on the birthdays and stuff. And I'm going to see them when I go to New York to do some press and some things like that. And we haven't met in person yet. So I'm like really stoked to do that. But I was only able to do that because like Alana answered the phone like on a random like again, my podcast got me to someone who then got me to that person who then got me to her who I was able to. So it's just, You know, everything happens the way it's supposed to happen, whether it's painful, whether it's necessary, whether it's fucking shitty. There's lessons in every single thing that we do and we just have to choose to see them. Well, I'm glad you got the W.

That's a good way to close out that deal. That was the, man, I remember just lying on the couch being like, there's no fucking way I can do this. Like, what am I doing? I just started using Instagram. I think everybody did, but it just, it took the right person to be like, I'm going outside of the chain and I'm going to do something because it's the right thing to do, not because I have to do it, but because it's the right thing to do. And also this bitch is not going to stop texting me excessively if I don't do what she's asked. Yeah, it's the free market. I mean, this is really like the free market versus the government system. I mean, everyone that every, I mean, look, the government did get people out, but the free market got the free market folks. really got a lot of stuff done, which was awesome. And whether it's people like Chad and Tim Kennedy that got out, you know, thousands of people, great.

That's awesome. For you helping to get out nine people, that's freaking awesome too. Like everybody counts. I just couldn't sit there and watch it. Like I couldn't sit in my cushy office and watch it and not try. Yeah. And this whole conversation has made me realize that it must be really weird to be your neighbor.

When I come home. Your neighbors must be like, dude. Well, when I first moved, when I first moved to that house in a cul-de-sac so it's like a fishbow, right? When I first moved to that cul-de-sac, there was multiple RCMP officers in the house and houses there and things like that. And the first experience they ever had with me, well, the neighbor actually wrote about it. One of the neighbors is married to an individual who's Muslim, which is not a big deal.

It's totally fine. I can be fine with that now. First five years, real rough. Then I started to learn about things and understand things and educate myself and I was fine. Anyway, I just moved in. We were there maybe a week. One of the neighbors was taking Christmas lights down and she was over there and I, you know, got the guts and was like, I'm going to go introduce myself. I'm going to go be a good neighbor.

I don't normally do that. I walked over, said hello. Nice to meet you. She goes, hello. And he goes, hello. And we're talking. And she thinks it's funny. and she leans down and she goes,

are you the one with the veteran plates on your car? And I said yes. And she goes, well, my husband and children are Muslim, so you're not going to kill them, are you? And my response, being me, was, I don't kill the children. You ask a stupid question, you're going to get a stupid answer.

So they've learned about me. They've learned that there's things I don't like, there's things I like, and they've learned to just accept me for me. I come home from Peru. I go lie in the middle of the call, the second look at the stars and smoke a joint for hours.

And they're like, what the fuck is happening? Like I said, must be very interesting to be your neighbor. Oh, man. It's a trip, I say the least. But you know what? Well, as hard as we are on our neighbors,

is like we have a good amount of them that would do anything for us. And I would show up for any of them. I just wish there'd be less health. They just keep piling more in. And so that's my only squawk is I need some space. And actually after your show, because of your show, I had a bit of an issue where I had to call some police in the states,

make sure someone didn't cross a border. And it just got to the point where privacy became a priority. Where I live, where my son goes to school, it started to become a priority. Yeah, those are good things to think about. Yeah, yeah. So, and it got a little crazier when we started, like, so when I was on last time, the book was about to come out, we ended up pulling it, and we end up getting a publishing deal with a U.S. publisher, which was great. I went with Post Hill through Simon & Schuster, and they did the book with, what is it called, Stuart Scheller's book. So I knew they were more military-esque, and I went with them, and they really trusted me with this and let me add a bunch of chapters and, like, really revamp what I wanted to do. And when it came to, time for the book to be published, that's when the McDonough came forward and bought the rights

to be produced and turned into a TV series. And that's why we changed the names in the book because those are the names that are going to be used in either the movie or the series. So it'll just overlap really smoothly. And so when we got that opportunity, we wanted to make sure it was kind of tied together with Neil and whenever they were ready for like deadline to come out and announce it and whenever the book was ready. So it overlapped really well. And I was really, really lucky and a lot of people supported me on this. And then I was able to take it to other people in our community and be like, read this. Would you review it? Tell me what you think about it. And if you do like it, would you put a quote in it? And I had so many people offer to do that. And that was a

really cool experience because it's like being at your own funeral. Because this book is my life and people are talking about your life to your face. And so that was a bit of a trip to kind of get those things back and kind of see what people really thought or whether they just. just wanted to make me happier or not, but like some of them put some interesting quotes in it. But I had a lot of seals and Rangers and British special operators and members of the British Empire and doctors who are all willing to put their name on the book. And then Neil McDonough himself. And I was really, really, really, really fortunate to be able to actually get this to the finish

line because it's been such a long process. And then to know that it's hopefully going to end up on screen. And hopefully I just hope someone learns something, like whether it's leadership or an individual. because I can tell you right now, last time I did your show, and I text Helen like the day after because I had never, ever been inundated like that before with people who needed help. And people just saying,

your interview made me cry, and it made me cry because it made me realize how many of the same things I was going through, but I was unwilling to listen to myself or talk to myself about or even tell anyone about. So it opened a door. And that's all I needed was I needed the door opened so that I could kick it all the way off the fucking hinges

so that people don't have to keep doing this anymore and nor that this is, this is all fixable, we can heal from this. The generation of this going from 22 to 44 a day is bullshit and unacceptable, and it never needs to be like this at all. It takes buddy checks. It takes accountability and effort on ourselves to heal ourselves, and that's what's happening now.

And that's why you're seeing legislation change and why you're seeing psychedelics being integrated and other people showing up for each other. Do your buddy checks, period. Work with organizations who do buddy checks, who care about the longevity of someone's health and not just sending them on a psychedelic, trip. Work with people who do integration. Work with people who look at TBIs. So we started condensing

down the organizations I work with and only focusing on a handful of them because there's so many of them that are doing, there's like 46,000. I had the CEO of the boot campaign, Shelly Kirkland on the show. She's a good friend. And her and I had this conversation and I was like, why is it that there's all these amazing organizations and yet the suicides are going up? What's happening here? And she's like, well, no one's talking. And it's because we have all of these spots all over the United States and Canada of all these amazing organizations that are doing tons of work. 46,000 is like the number in the U.S. It's like a ridiculous amount of people that work for veterans.

It's insane nonprofit level. But none of them talk. And it's like this is compartmentalization. We understand that communication is key. We need to talk. So I've been talking to a couple different individuals like a Moral Compass Federation who they have, I believe, the organization that Tim and them have

is it save Safer Alice? Yeah, they're a part of it as well like Flandersfield. Like there's a bunch of different ones. They're a part of it and it's like a coalition of forces.

So it's like these people all specialize in something. Because what I found out after your show was the amount of work I had to do just to get somebody in a certain state help. Right. So I for like, until the episode went down, I literally spent all that entire time

just trying to get people to different organizations. Okay, call them. They don't do what I need. Okay, do you know somebody that might do what I need? Well, you could try them. And then I would just do that until we got people into spots. And then I really started to look at things like who's really doing the heavy lifting. And then I started to really align myself with them.

So like we do our, in September, we do our buddy check bracelet the You Matter one with boot campaign for suicide prevention. So we work with boot campaign on that. Defenders of Freedom we work with to get people TBI. So really specific, really driven traumatic brain injury support. And then with Honor House in Canada, that's the only Canadian organization we work with. And they're doing a tour right now where they're raising a million dollars for their 120-acre ranch up in Ashcroft, British Columbia. That deals with operational stress injury only. It's like 10 cabins and a main house and they bring people up and they just work heavy, heavy stuff, whether it's families or big groups.

So we work with them. They're the only Canadians I give money to, I know them, I love them. And I think they're like Ronald McDonald for first responders and veterans. So they don't just do vets. And you can go and stay there for free, and they'll look after your entire family, no duration, like time limit. They're insane people for that.

And then I work with, so we've got Heroic Hearts Project, All Secure Foundation, which is Jen and Tom Satterley. Those are good friends, and I really believe in what they're doing for relationships because I think it's so important

when you're looking at a family unit, right? If you want the whole family unit to work, these two have to work. It can't just be the kids above the parents. It has to be the parents first. Everything else works together when there's communication. So I really, really love them.

And then there's vets with Marcus Capone, which you know Marcus well and Amber. And so try to highlight and help any of these organizations to try to get more attention because the work they're doing is the work that's really making the difference, right? I'm tired of supporting all these different organizations where I'm not seeing the money go where it needs to,

and that's why I've cut it down to just these handfuls. I've seen the work, I've been a part of the work, I've experienced the work, and I know the difference it's, making long term, not just short term. So all of these people I put in the book and then we're going to donate portions of the proceeds again of the book to all these different organizations. And then Rebecca Rouse and I partnered and we're working on a new book together as well. So my goal is get this thing on the list so that when her and I do it, we're going to donate the portion of the proceeds

to Defenders of Freedom from her and ours book as well. So we're just trying to use everything that I'm doing and anything that I'm doing, whether it's my podcast and the sponsors I have, have to the business and the buddy check bracelet and the book and now the film to put the money in the hands of the organizations that are doing the boots on the groundwork because I can't fix everyone and it's also not my responsibility to fix everyone but if I can help fund the people that have that responsibility I can live with that. And you can find all this stuff at brassan unity.com. Yeah, everything's at brassanunity.com. We have a Patreon now for Brasson unity for the people that join. That's another thing we started after your show. We have a thing

on Instagram, we do mental health Monday. So we go live and then we have a group on signal. So we have people from all over the world that join this group. And it's just like a support network of any type. You don't have to be military. And then we issue challenges every month. So whether it's physical or psychological, we issue three points every single month. And we want you to do them every single day for 30 days and try to stack habits so that we can get people feeling better, healing and moving forward. And that can be everything from we're going to walk two kilometers a day. We're going to drink two liters of water. We're going to do five minutes of breathwork. And then the next month, we're going to read 10 pages of a book. We're going to

eliminate a negative habit. And then we're going to stop alcohol this month. And we're just stacking these habits. And so after your show, we were able to garner a big enough group where we started the signal group chat and you can get onto it through Patreon. And you can just be a part of we have people everywhere in the world that's nuts. I've never experienced anything like it. You got this guy in Italy. You got a guy in Australia who never walked, barely walked a day in his life. And now this guy's walking six, seven kilometers a day. It's insane. We had a guy who used to drink nine cans of Coca-Cola a day.

He's down to zero soda. So it's like this stuff can work with community. We just need to realize that we need to stop being the people who act as if we, not that we're bigger than everyone else, but like we've all been through serious shit. We all are worth the time and we're all worth the effort. And if we put the effort in, others will show up for you to help support that. And community is everything to what I do. everything. It means, I don't care if I make money. I never have. It's never been a part of it.

Community. Our community is in this dire straits because there's no reason why these suicide numbers need to keep going up. There's no reason. We have too many communication devices. We have too many people who care. We need to start showing up for each other and calling each other. Buddy check. It's not fucking difficult. Five fine people on your phone. Be accountable to those people. and then get those five people to get five other people to be accountable to. But make the phone calls. That's why I work with like Zach Bell, veteran with the sign. That's why I work with all these people because they care about the outcome.

They don't care about the money. They care about the outcome. Is that person going to stay alive or am I going to have to go to that person's funeral? Well, no, they're going to stay alive because I made the call when I knew they were off. Like don't be afraid to say something. What's that saying? See something. Say something?

If we all said something, most of the time, I'll bet you there'll be some people that would still be with us. We just need to put the effort in. Yep. It's been a rough couple months for us in the SEAL community. That's for damn sure. I heard. Instagram.

Yeah. Brass and Unity. Brass and Unity. Facebook, Brass and Unity. YouTube Brass and Unity. You also have Kelsey Sharon. Yeah. They finally...

Kelsey underscore Sharon. Yeah, they finally decided that that was verifiable enough. It was funny. Once the deadline article came out, They're like, oh, she's not a weirdo. We'll give her a blue check mark. I was like, oh, that's how that works, huh? Does blue check mark mean you're not a weirdo?

I mean, I think it means it's your weirdo. You're just like a little easier to track down. Yeah, yeah. So everything's there. Everything's on social. You can get a hold of us out. That's my thing I will say, and I mean this. Don't comment.

If you comment, I'm not reading it. I don't read comments anymore. I said that to Andy. And he was like, oh, I'm going to send you some comments. And I'm going to say, go fuck yourself. Like, don't send me your comments. DM me. If it even starts with anything I don't like, I won't even open it. So if you need help, you can DM us. I will help you. If you need support, we will help you.

If you genuinely want help, that's fine. But if you get on there and you make comments about my big heavies or that I was too aggressive or that I'm too rough and I swear too much and blah, blah, but fuck off. I don't have time for it anymore. You don't get to live in my head anymore. I played this game before. Not playing it again. Simple as that. So keep it positive, people. That's it. Which is a good overall recommendation for life. I think so in general.

Anything else? We miss anything. Go check out those organizations. Go check out those organizations. And the easiest way to find them is brass in you. You got links to them on there? We got them all on the donation pages, places you can find them. And then check out the people we work with.

They matter. They make a difference. Cured nutrition. Ketones, they'll make a difference in your life. I've been really lucky to have Daisy May. It's the crown on my head that I, that people think I don't have a forehead so it's fine we just wear the hat all the time and it's like it's quiet up there got it awesome well thanks for joining us thanks for coming down to

day go once again and hanging out appreciate it thanks for your service and thanks for what you're doing right now to try and help out as many people as you can well thanks for having me back can't say expected it but I am happy to be here right on and with that Kelsey Sharon has left the building. Lots to think about. Definitely some mental health issues to think about, and I would say, personally, mental health is going to be helped out, aided much by physical health. And look, I can't recommend drinking things that make you throw up and all that stuff.

Because I don't have an experience in that area of life, right? I do have experience drinking protein Sure drinking ready to drink proteins I would recommend Hey if you want to go in that direction First of all I think she said a bunch of stuff About doctors and The pat like whatever you're doing

There's a protocol, fall the protocol Right? In the meantime I know some protocol You can need protein Go to joccofuel.com get protein Yeah It's true bad Go to joccofuel dot com

Get some protein Get some pow-pow right Yeah, the new official term for powdered protein is pow-pow. Yep. So get some of that milk, pal-pow. Get some RTD. I'm about to have one, by the way. I had two already. Oh, yeah, you're just over there getting after it.

Oh, yeah. I mix the, so this is what I did this time. It's not my first time. You drink half the chocolate, half the banana. You mix them. Then you mix them together for that banana chocolate. Hey, man, you got to get creative with these things, you know. Does it make the the whole experience more enjoyable?

Ready to drink. Check that out. Get your obviously. I mean, the only reason we're basically functioning right now is because we got the joccal discipline. Go. Get yourself some go. The good energy drink.

You know what? So check this out. Time more. Time war. We released time more. It's got obviously vitamins, minerals, some anti-aging stuff in there. So check this out. We're at the muster.

I'm at the muster and I'm looking at the Downstage monitor you know what that means? Yeah, so when you're standing on stage, you're there's a there's two big monitors right down there and they have like what's next on the schedule. They have like your notes for your PowerPoint thing and I don't have a lot of notes. Anyways, I get there. I'm on stage. I'm looking. I go and I ask the AV guy. I go, hey man, are these Do we get bigger downstage monitors? And he's like, no. And I go, do you have this in some new setting for the font and he goes no it's the same it's the same it's literally the same exact thing

that we always run and i was like oh dang i could see yeah i could literally see better now look i have good vision knock on wood bro knock on wood right i don't i don't wear glasses and i'm 51 years old but you know sometimes i would be like i'd be looking at that thing down there you know sometimes you're 10 feet away from looking across the stage and you're looking it's 20 feet away sometimes I would it be I'd be able to read it but it'd be a little bit of a you know and honestly most of the time when I'm looking on my slides it says add notes here because I don't actually have any notes when I talk I just I'm talking but even seeing add notes here's like why is that so clear yeah so I don't know what's going on yeah I'm not making scientific claims here

but I but I literally could see better and we've got like looting in there we got ingredients in there that absolutely help they are meant for ocular supplementation and I'm gonna say bro like literally squared away and envision improvement yeah so time war go get it give it a shot see how it makes you feel it is legit yeah it's funny that uh because you you know how you get in the routine of taking something you know and you know so a lot of like Especially supplements and vitamins like this kind of stuff. It's not like drugs. Like let's say certain drugs like caffeine or alcohol or something.

You feel it. Right then and there. That's how drugs are, right? Even if you take a pill, it's like a couple minutes, a few minutes later. You're like, oh, I feel it because it's like psychoactive. But supplements, like a lot of times they take a while. So, you know, I just get like joint warfare. That exact thing happened to me with joint warfare where I'm bad to start taking it.

And of course the next day you're not feeling it. But it was like later that week or early the next week. I was like, you know how like when you warm up, I'm very in touch with my body. Right? You know, when you warm up, you're like, oh, that warm-up set, I know exactly like the level of stiffness, soreness, energy, even like with my breath and stuff, like I'm really, really in touch with it. So there's a small evaluation that goes down. And I remember doing my first warm-up pause, like, ooh, I'm feeling like a pop in my step in my step, kind of a good pop.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not a pop in your joints. No, I mean, I felt like, you. You know, you have that snap in your body. Like you just feel like more like powerful or whatever. The warm up seem like, oh, man, I kind of don't even need to warm up. The stiffness is already gone. And I'm thinking, well, I'm just one of those things where I'm feeling abnormally good today.

I was like, yeah, that's good. Then the next day was kind of the same deal where I'm like, dang, I'm kind of feeling good. And you don't really remember because it's not this new thing. You've been doing it for like a week, week and a half ready. You see what I'm saying? Then you think back, wait, what could be caught? You're like, oh, that's the, that's the factor right there. That's exactly it.

That's what I had too. because I've been on time war for like six months now. When was the last muster? I wasn't on time war yet, right? And so then all of a sudden I go, and I was like walking around the stage, I can still see him around. I can see more.

I was, and I thought to myself, what is different? What is different? And I was like, oh, literally taking a supplement that has ocular health ingredients in it, and I can see better now.

The thing was just working. Hallelujah. Bro, it's freaking awesome. Yeah. So yeah, check out the Time War. It's awesome. You can get this stuff at joccofuel.com. You can get, you can get at wah-wah.

Look, we got moved a little bit. We got some, we got the imperialists, the empire. The big beverage empires. They're trying to attack the rebels, which is go. They're trying to attack. They're trying to snuff us out. Like, we're over here, Star Wars style, freaking American Revolution style. They're putting, they're throwing their resource.

is at us trying to crush us down there in that little corner go in there ask for it number one I just found out too we were crushing we we had mulk in wah-wah for a little while before the imperialistic empires came and bought some of our slots and we were crushing people were picking people were picking milk over let's call them the other protein options oh damn but and that's what freaked out the big the big popas they were like We can't have these guys coming up. So they bought the space for the protein? Yes, they definitely bought the space for the protein.

All of them. Damn. And they bought like two out of five slots for drinks, and they bought the primes. And these are things that, look, to Wallace's credit, they let us in there because they had a good amount of request for it. But then, you know, they're running a business. I get it.

They're running a business. A deal. But also, they want to have some options for the people. Yeah. And let's face it, we're literally selling something that's good for people. They know that too. So now when I walk into Wawa, I want to go or a protein or whatever. What?

I got to shift my eyes down down. Yep. And you can't get a protein there right now. So now what you do is you go, hey, you hit them up on social media like, hey, we had some jockle mok in here. We were all feeling good. We were running our, you know, construction equipment better. You know, we were doing a good job. Now we're getting fed trash.

So can you help us live? Can you help us be better? So that's what you do at Wawa. We're in Vitamin Shop. By the way, best brand in vitamin shop. Did you see that? Yes. Victory is ours.

Yes, victory. That was freaking awesome. Thank you, everybody for the support there. Military commissaries, Hanifers, dash stores, Wake, Foreign, Shop, Right, Circle K in Florida. H.E.B. and Meyer. We're in H&B. And we're also in Harris Teeter now.

So check those out. Go in there. Get it on. You don't have to order. You can pick it right up at the store. And you're good to hook. Yeah, especially those mole. RTDs that's like the

It's a little right in like a it's just a it's just a move some move it's a little bit of a game changer That in a time war that freaking time war's no joke Yeah, I'm feeling like I'm freaking Superman walking around with x-ray vision up in this piece It was funny. It's like crazy is that your vision is probably back to where it was like you know in your 20s or what you know the one you know that prime time when all your freaking What it would collagen hyluronic acid do You know, all the stuff that's keeping you young. And you just went back there, but you got used to being, you know, your 50-year-old eyes. Yeah.

And now you're back to 20s and now you can really feel the harness of power. So there you go. Check out jocofuel.com. OriginUSA.com. If you need hunt gear, if you need Jitsu gear, if you need rash guards, if you need geese, if you need t-shirts, if you need jiggers, if you need jeans, which you need, get yourself some Delta 68's. Because then things are freaking the best thing. You can put on your legs. It's true. It's part of my uniform by the way Delta 68. It's 100% yeah you know that we said that what are you what do you call them the tiers of uniform you know you have your camis you got your dress blues you got your you know the Delta 68 is my top dress you know that is a good dress move origin USA.com made in America. We just brought out a new ghee the nanoprol have you tried it yet you have mine one I think it's actually sitting over there bro. I there you come and get on the mat so throw that ghee on a

homie, come on now. I got to come and get it. Yeah, you've got to come and get it. Yes, sir. But they are best key ever. Best key ever. We did it again. So check that out, origin to usa.com made in America.

And look, we got freaking the Chinese right now surrounding their mate doing exercises off of Taiwan. They're making moves. And we're sitting over here without a good supply chain, except for us. We'll be able to make geese, right? They want to go to war? Cool. Bring your own geese, people.

Yeah, Maine America. It's a real thing, man. It is no joke. That's what we're doing. We're bringing back that supply chain and we're bringing back manufacturing to America. OriginUSA.com. Go check it out.

It's true. Also, Jocko has a store called Jocco Store. So you go to jocco store.com. That's where you can get you discipline equals freedom shirts. Good. Good shirts. Get it there. Also, we have the shirt locker,

which is a monthly subscription scenario. You get a new shirt. shirt every month it's a good one I was at the muster I saw a lot of people represent and you know what's cool as cool as it's just the next thing right it's like a next level thing yeah it's like yep you're in the game yeah it's funny because like every to see your reaction is funny because you don't you're not always updated on the new one shirt you know so like you'll be smiling and where we'll be like where that shirt come from yeah because it's a good one because it's a good one it's like when you were a little kid and you put on a new pair of shoes you maybe you think you run a little bit

faster you see people with that shirt on their walking they're walking with a little bit more you know a little bit more umph a little bit more authoritai in the world it's so true so get on that get on that uh jocco store dot com don't forget to subscribe to the podcast don't forget to subscribe to jocco underground dot com we talked about you know we covered some different subjects on there we're trying to explain things in the world that don't really quite fit into jaco podcast but Definitely things we need to know about. So that's jocco underground.com. It's also a platform that we own that we can't get kicked off of because we own it, bull.

Like, you know, when you were a kid, you're like, one day I'm going to own a restaurant. Yeah. I'm going to get, I'll be able to go in there and get a chocolate shake and a freaking triple burger. Oh, yeah. I still think that. Yeah. So there you go. Well, now we have our own little platform.

It's not a restaurant, really. But kind of cool still. Improve your life. I'll tell you that. Yep. That's $8. And $8. If you can't afford it.

We still want you in the underground. We still want you to have the knowledge. Just email assistance at jocco underground.com. But if you can kick in a little bit, that helps too. That's how we keep the mainframe up and running. Did I say mainframe? Yes, sir. Kind of a technologist over here.

Uh, YouTube channel. Subscribe to that. Subscribe to the origin USA YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Jocco Fuel. YouTube. YouTube channels. There going on. Psychological warfare.

Flipside canvas.com. You got Dakota Meyer. I've written a bunch of books check them out you know what they are also we have Eshalonfront's our leadership consultancy we solve problems through leadership go to Eshalonfront.com we just did a muster biggest muster ever sold out we sell out everything so if you want to come to one of our events go to ashlamfront.com click events and see which one you want to go to FTC council battlefield like what do you want to come and do check that out we also have online

training extreme ownership.com we are doing what we're constantly going online, we're interacting, we have courses that you can take, we're putting up new courses on a regular basis. Leadership is not something that you just know how to do. It's not something you're born with. You've got to learn it and then you've got to train it and you got to practice it. And it's not something for just like, oh, I'm the CEO. I need leadership training. No, you're a new person at a command, new person at a company, new person in a family and you've got to interact with other people. You need to know how to lead. That's what we're doing. Extreme Ownership.com, come learn how to lead in life.

And if you want to help service members active and retired, of course, Kelsey's got her brass in unity.com. She's got a bunch of charities that she's working to support. So go check those out. Also, if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families. Want to help Gold Star families. Check out Mark Lee's mom. Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization.

And if you want to donate or get involved, go to America's Mighty Warriors. And also don't forget about Micah Fink, who's got Heroes and Horses.org. We just got a report from him, from the field. Apparently, he just whittled a stick and then killed a mountain line with it. And he's eating it at this time while he is in an ice bath, in a river. So Micah Fink is out there. He's really helping a lot of vets find themselves by getting lost in nature. So go check that out as well. If you want to connect with Kelsey once again brass and unity

Dot com brass and unity. Her Instagram is brass and unity. Her Facebook is brass and unity. Her YouTube is brass in unity. She's also on there at Kelsey underscore Sharon. It's S-H-E-R-E-N. And for us, Echoes at Echo Charles. I'm at Doc O'Willink. Just look, be careful because there's an algorithm on there and it's got your name written on it. So just watch out. Thanks again to Kelsey for joining us and thanks to all the troops that are out there around the world right now that are standing watch and protecting our freedom and our way of life. And the same goes to our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, all first responders. Thank you for protecting us here at home. And to everyone else out there, look, you may not.

be in combat literally but combat and life are very similar they are a struggle they are a struggle and sometimes you can get pulled down and you got to get yourself back up and you do that by working hard by being disciplined and getting up there and taking the high ground that's what you do go make it happen and until next time This is Echo and Jocko. Out.