Shaun Newman Podcast - #401 - Willy MacDonald & Adam Corbett

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

Willy - Served 24+ years in the Canadian Military and did 6 tours (3x Bosnia, Kosovo & 2x Afghanistan) Adam - Severed 27+ years in the Canadian Military and did 7 tours (2x Cypress, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Afghanistan & West Africa) Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcast Let me know what you thinkText me 587-217-8500

This is Francis Whittleson. This is Benjamin Anderson. This is Dallas Alexander. I'm Alex Craneer. This is Forrest Moretti. This is Chris Sims. This is Chris Barber and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks.

Happy Monday. Hope everybody's weekend went well. This side was a busy one. Obviously, the SMP Presents happened and we're going to have the audio of that on the podcast here sometime this week, assuming everything goes to plan. So if you didn't get the opportunity to watch it live or, or see it on the live stream, that type of thing. No worries, we're going to place it here on the podcast.

I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone, everyone who came in for it. And to all the speakers, you know, Kig Carson coming in from Vancouver, Wayne Peters, driving in from Winnipeg, Byron Christopher, and Chris Sims. All of them, you know, put on, I thought, you know, what can you say?

Like, you put a bunch of minds like that together. And it was an interesting night, and, you know, I, Certainly enjoy being on the stage and getting to facilitate something like that. Either way, really enjoyed the evening, the weekend, getting to, you know, around different people. Speaking of things coming up, Canadians for Truth, March 23rd, Brian Dennison is in Calgary at their event center. And then March 26th, Dr. Paul Alexander and Red Deer. So if you're following along with the Canadians for Truth, just go to caniansfortruth.ca.

you can hit their Facebook page, etc. All the details are there. And that's some upcoming things happening here in Alberta. The team over at Prophet River, Clay Smiley, and the group there have been, what am I thinking here? My brain's been kind of mush.

I'm going to be honest. It's been a long couple days. But I'm like, what am I actually trying to say here? Anyways, I'm looking at two things. And I go, well, how will we do this? They specialize in importing firearms from the United States of America. and I keep reiterating this, you know, when it comes to firearms at this point, the amount of stuff going on with guns and government and everything else,

you might as well have somebody in your corner who knows the ins and outs of all that, and the Prophet River, I tell you what, that's what they specialize in. They are the major retailer of firearms, optics, and accessories serving all of Canada, so it doesn't matter where you're sitting, they can help you, Profitriver.com, go check them out. Mitchco, Spring, Michko Environmental, Tyson and Tracy Mitchell, their big season. I actually get to sit down with Tyson here in a couple days. This is Sean.

This has been Sean for like the last 24 hours. My brain is a little scattered. I need a good sleep, I'm assuming. Either way, what kind of intro is this, Sean? What are you doing here? I don't know, folks. John's just doing his thing. Michko Environmental, their busy season is going to be coming up right away.

They're going to have huge hiring spree. Spring, when all the kids are getting out of college kids are getting out, they go on a big hiring spree. They hire a whole ton of people, and then their busy season is all through spring, summer, right? So if you're looking for work, MichkoCorp.ca, or you can give them a call, 780214, 4004. I don't know why I said it that way.

4004, 4,004. See, my brain is, hey, what are you going to do? Gardner Management, they're Lloydminster-based company, specializing in all types of rental properties to help me your needs, whether you're looking for, you know, something that I got or something a little bigger. Give way to call if you're in the Lloydminster area, 7808, 50, 25. Let's get on before Sean melts his brain anymore, and you're probably laughing at the radio right now.

Before I go on any other curveballs here, how about we just get onto that tail of the day brought to you by Hancock. Petroleum for the past 80 years. They've been an industry leader in bulkfields, lubricants, methanol and chemicals delivering to your farm, commercial, or oil field locations. For more information, visit them at Hancock, Petroleum, and dat C.A. The first served 24 years in the Canadian military from 1989 to 2015. He did six tours, three in Bosnia, one in Kosovo, two in Afghanistan.

The second, 27 years from 1983 to 2010. He did seven tours. Two in Cyprus, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and West Africa. I'm talking about Willie McDonald and Adam Corbyn. So buckle up, here we go. This is Willie McDonald, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Well, welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today, I'm joined in studio by Willie McDonald.

So first off, sir, thanks for doing this. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. You know, I was telling you before I got on air with you, I've, like cleaned out the entire room because I got this event coming up on Saturday, which by the time this airs, folks, it'll be Monday, so bear with me. but I normally there's like other things in here. I might have a spotlight in your face and that type of thing.

You're getting just nice and easy. Just a couple of mics, the old headphones and a computer. That's it. This is pretty much the easy going up, but no stress on you this morning. No, it's perfect. And what the heck are you guys going to do? You guys are driving through to go fishing? Yeah, we're heading up to Lake Kipabiska, which is Tisdale area.

Oh, Tisdale. we have a good buddy up there who's a veteran and this will be the second year in a row we've done this where we whole bunch of us go up there and he's got a cabin on the lake and we just have a nice fishing trip because the 17th of March aside from St. Patrick's Day is also Regimental Day for the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry which was the birthday of the original Lady Patricia. So that's why a regimental day is celebrated on that day. let's start here who's lady patricia how's that

so she was the first colonel and chief of the ppcli regiment when it was stood up um in world war one basically for world war one so she was appointed as the colonel in chief and uh she was a cousin to the queen

i believe the late queen um to be honest with you the monarchy stuff is kind of lost on me sometimes. I don't follow it super close, but we know and we've had contact with. So the original lady Patricia

passed away three, I think three years ago and she was cousins to the queen, Queen Elizabeth. So she was an old lady. She was, yep, yeah. And, you know, she actually led a very interesting life from the limited history that I know she was the the Countess Mountbatten of Burma so her father was Mountbatten Mountbatten and you know that that whole family interestingly enough you know they're they're one of the most

attacked by the IRA families in history they I can't remember where they were they were on a on a on a on a a a yacht somewhere and she decided to go shopping um so she went to shore to go shopping or so the story goes and of course a bomb explodes on her father's yacht and you know basically kills the whole family except for her so uh rumor has it she was queen elizabeth's favorite cousin and uh she would show up for all the sort of keystone events in the history of the of the Princess Patricia's and when I say that, I mean March 17th, she would always be somewhere with a battalion, be it in Calgary where the first battalion was stationed for a long time, or overseas, you know, if there was a battalion in Cyprus or Germany when the second

battalion was there or, you know, as late as Bosnia in the, in the mid-2000s, she was still visiting. So you met this lady then? Yeah, yeah, oh yeah. Did you ever, I'm just curious, did you ever just like sit and have a chat with her and hear anything or she was just like ceremonial? No, she was, she was ceremonial, but she really loved spending time with the troops, if you know what I mean. She didn't want to be, she didn't want to be corralled by the officers. She wanted to sit down and have a beer and talk with the troops, and she did that quite often. I myself did spend a little bit of time with her, but only because she came to Bosnia in 2002 and I was a sergeant at the time and and I kind of got tasked to take care of her

personal security. So I had some interactions with her based on that, but my task at the time was very external. So we weren't looking in. We were looking out and just kind of seen to her well-being. So I never had a good opportunity to sit down and chat with her. You know, um, forgive me because I sit in a room decorated with hockey stuff. And you said you listen to Jamie and Chuck, so it's almost the same bloody question, folks. But I'm like, you know, when you and your buddy walk in and you got a dirty Patricia hat on and I'm chuckling,

I'm like, very proud to be a Patricia then, yes? Yeah, absolutely. And I assume it was like, if we're going to use the Amminton Oilers. Sure. I was going to think of a different team. But actually, I was going to use the Montreal Canaanans. We'll go with the Montreal Canaanians.

You play for the Montreal Canadians, and if you won the Stanley Cup, I mean, that's not quite what this is, but that's the way the lore looks to me. As I slowly, you know, I sometimes laugh at myself, boys, how little I know about our Canadian military. So when Jamie first came on, and then Chuck, of course, came on next with Jamie, and we got talking about the Patricias and everything else, I'm just like, I know like zero about this, but when I hear you talk about it, I hear about March 17th, which is like tomorrow, right? This is still a big day for you guys, which means it's part of the culture of being a Patricia, yes? Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, it's, it's, you know, it's not like Christmas with your family, but, you know, I think it gets more and more important after you've retired or after you've left the service because it gives you that opportunity to sort of reconnect with your colleagues from that particular generation of soldier and perhaps previous because, and I'll just segue here for a second. Sure. So Adam, who's here with me, him and I and another good friend of ours, Johnny Devine, we started doing a fishing trip, just the guys, the three of us.

Shit, it's got to be back in 2000, maybe, 2001, somewhere around there anyway. it was the early 2000s. And that has now evolved to the point where we have had as many as 21, 22 veterans, first responders come out to this fishing trip, which we hold up in northern Alberta. And interesting enough, Adam and I were talking about it and saying, you know, there's been interest from external organizations to provide support. And, you know, they look at it. almost like a fish bowl and say,

hey, what can we turn this into in terms of the health and well-being veterans? And part of that comes from the fact that once everybody shows up, you know, normally one of us is standing on top of a picnic table saying, okay, guys, there's only a few rules here. Rule number one, you know, we're not going to judge you. We don't care what your problems are. It's a safe place for you to be.

Rule number two, if somebody's napping, you can't wake them up. And rule number three is the fire has to burn 24 hours a day. and, you know, there's some other rules. I'm going to say this right now. Adam, you sure you don't want a mic on? I'm positive. You know, it's funny. People cannot see this, folks, because I don't have any cameras in here.

I've already labeled that. Every time Adam's nodding, he's laughing. I'm just like, let's just get this guy a mic. Put him on. You sure you don't want one? We keep going, guys. Take me two minutes. All right, let's do it.

All right, yeah, let's do it. All right. Now we got Adam Corbe. Corbett, Corbett? We got Adam Corbett hopped on with us. We convinced them. So welcome aboard, Adam. Let's talk about the, I know, you both probably chucking on that. We're talking about your camping trip. But I'm curious, why not waking anyone up from a nap? Is that an old guy thing? Is that an army thing? What is that? And I don't mean to suggest you guys are that old. That sound terrible. I just, you know, I got kids and I love a good nap. And personally, I prefer not to be woken out from it, too. So I don't know.

I think the I think where it really comes from is that you know we spent the bulk of our adult lives in the army and you know this fishing trip really was a time for just the guys like it's just guys we don't invite children or or you know spouses to get out and relax it's really a place to just come and get away from everything and spend you know three or four days getting you know you know decompressing as it were. And I think that that rule is important for us because we have lots of guys that'll get up, you know, let's start drinking beer at 8.30, whatever the case may be, or they'll have some bailies in their coffee. And by two o'clock in the afternoon, maybe it's raining out, maybe the weather's not great. They're like, hey, I feel like a nap. So we're not allowed to disturb them from their nap. That doesn't mean we don't take pictures, et cetera, but they're not shared for wide distribution, right? We just use it to make fun of each other. You know, we live such scheduled lives anyway, and this is, like Willie said, that's an opportunity to unwind.

You know, a lot of guys, you know, have big families and, you know, everything's very organized and kids waking them up or whatever. They don't need to have that when they come on this, on this ride, on the lake. You know, it's funny. I don't know why I get curious about such little details. I just, no waking anyone up from a nap. That's an interesting one. You know, for the listener, even for myself, you know, Willie was asking me when he first walked in, like, you know,

like, well, what have you researched? What have you done? And I'm like, listen, between Jamie and Chuck, I know about you as about as much as they could tell. And Adam, I know from a hole in the ground except walking in the door. Right now I'm rather excited about it. So maybe for me and the listener, we can start with this. Each of you can go one after another.

You can certainly add to the story as we go. Don't feel like you can't hop in on one another at all. But I am curious, you know, like who is Willie and why did he join the military? And the same with Adam. And then maybe as you're going, how long you served and where you served. And we can kind of get a feel for, you know, the two people I got sitting across from me today because I feel like there's quite this story here. And I want to get to some of it and see where we go.

Yeah, sure. I guess I'll start, Adam, if you don't mind. Don't go right ahead. So, you know, as Sean said, my name's Willie McDonald. I was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces for just shy of 25 years. And boy, you know, joining the Army was not something that was in the cards for me. I was a, you know, 16-year-old soccer player and arguably, you know, pretty good. And my mother was a single parent.

and she said when I was 16, hey, it's time for you to get a job. And my best buddy at the time, guy named Rob Stevenson, who's from Regina, that's where I grew up, said, hey, my dad told me I should go join the reserves. So why don't you join the reserves with me? And so we ended up going down to the armory in Regina and signing up to join the Royal Regina rifles, which is an infantry reserve unit in Regina. And really kind of didn't look back from that. You know, I think it's important to recognize the fact.

And Adam and I were talking about this on the way up here. I didn't have a father figure growing up. You know, I had some uncles and stuff like that. But when I joined the reserves, you know, now I had some male role models. And good or bad doesn't really matter because as a 16-year-old trying to navigate, you know, who you are and what does it mean to be a man, etc. And, you know, it was an important sort of growth development part of my youth. And I stuck it out there for just shy four years. And I was going to university at the time and I thought, I just hate this.

I just hate university. It sucks. And I'd already had some conflict with some of the professors. And I said, you know what? I'm just going to join the regular army. What was your conflict with the professors? Well, interestingly enough, it was an English professor. And I wrote a paper about some of the regular army.

short story and what was the author talking about. And so I wrote this paper and said, you know, it was very well structured, et cetera. And the professor gave me a crappy mark. And I'm like, well, why did I get this mark? And he said, well, that's not what the author was trying to get at. And you've completely misread or misinterpreted this story. And I said, well, did you know the guy? Well, no. I said, well, then how do you know that I'm wrong? As long as the structure's there, the arguments are there, you know, the support is there to make my arguments, then you really don't have a leg to stand on. Anyway, long story short, and I end up going up to the head of the faculty or whatever,

and they overturned it and said, okay, I give them a proper mark. But, you know, that was the first time I went, you know what, this institutionalized way of thinking, and, you know, this is kind of funny because I joined the army. But this institutionalized way of thinking, there's only one way to do it. But this is the only way you can view through this lens. That just wasn't okay with me. So I just said, no, I'm going to quit university. I'm going to go join the regular army.

So off I went. It's funny, just to hop in for a second. In high school, I wrote a paper on, oh, dang, it's like snow falling on trees or snow falling on leaves or some book. Anyways, it's a murder mystery, but it's a romantic. Anyways, it's a big book. I wrote an essay on it. And I remember this quite vividly funny, the things you remember from your childhood. And they gave me a failing mark on it.

And I asked, what did I fail? I mean, I'm not saying I'm a great writer. I'm not saying I'm a great and A, but I'm going to fail. I mean, complete the project, why'd have failed? We obviously didn't read the book because you're insinuating that the lead character who was a Chinese man. And it was a very race-based push on who was guilty. and I'd argued

well actually up until a certain point all the evidence pointed that he actually did it and so that's why I had anyways she told me I hadn't read the book and I said I went I'm like I totally read the book I just you know this is how I looked at it and everything could tell about chapter whatever and as soon it

so then she gave me a 50 like three so that I passed the paper instead of the 40 whatever it was back then and I still remember that and I remember thinking like like why you know like you know, like certainly the book is trying to tell a story, but every reader who reads the words is going to interpret it differently. Anyways, that just sprung to mind. And that was in high school.

And that one really sticks out with me because their first accusation of family was, not to even ask me about it, why did you think this was you didn't read it? Because there's no way you could have got to this conclusion from reading the book. And I actually had read the book. And, you know, maybe it was a little bit surprising because hockey player and everybody assumes hockey player with dumb jock and everything else. But I loved reading as a kid, you know, and it was a big healthy book back then. And I just loved reading. It was a tough read, but it was still, anyways, I'm rambling, but you get the point.

Yeah, no, I think it's a great point because, you know, and not to stray off too far, but, you know, perspective is important and having different perspectives is important. If we didn't have that, we wouldn't have fire, we wouldn't have wheels, we wouldn't have, you know, all those things that, you know, we look back at cavemen, quote unquote, and say, okay, well, there was some development there. Somebody had an independent thought, and it worked out. And, you know, arguably there was a ton of failures before that. But we got to a point where, hey, this works.

This is great. You know, and it advances the society. Maybe it's not always right, but it doesn't matter. Perspective's important. That's how we grow. That's how we develop, right? So anyway. Yeah, so.

I derailed you. Anyways. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. Welcome to the studio, guest. I don't get to do this that much on a computer screen because internet is funny and technology is funny. And when you talk over somebody, the audio gets, you know, shitty, essentially. And you can have real problems.

But when you're in the studio sitting across from me, like, we're going to have some fun today. Anyways, carry on. Yeah, so I went to join the regular army. And I ended up in the first battalion in Calgary. What did your parents think about that? Well, interestingly enough, when I joined the reserve, so my father, who was, I didn't meet my father until it was 14, He was an Air Force guy. And he never really had any influence on me, my development or anything.

But I had actually phoned him when I was 16 and said, hey, you know, my buddy wants me to join this reserve unit. And, you know, the sort of colloquial term is his militia. You know, he wants me to join the militia with him. And I'm thinking about it. And he's like, oh, I think it's a great idea. And I had talked to my mom. And my mom grew up in a military family.

Um, her father was, was in the Air Force. Yeah. Yeah. And so after the second war, my mom was born in 44, they, you know, they spent a whole bunch of time in France where he was posted. Anyway, the, the, I guess the, you know, growing up, she had a really tough time. Her father was an alcoholic and abusive and blah, blah, blah. Um, so she was dead set against it.

She was like, no way are you joining the military. And so I had called my. dad and asked him about it and then I then I spoke to my mom afterwards and said hey listen you know it's a it's a part-time gig it's weekends you know whatever I'll try it out for a year and if if it doesn't fit then I'll just then I'll just leave I'll just float away right like you don't need there's I'm not locked into anything so she eventually relented and signed the sheet because you have to be you know 16 years old you can't make that decision on your own you need parental consent so my mom had to sign the sheet and she did and I think for her for her

when I joined the regular army, she was somewhat disappointed because she had, you know, the hopes and dreams you have for your kid. She's like, oh, he's going to go to university, he's going to get a degree, he's going to be successful, blah, blah, blah. And then after a certain number of years, she became extremely proud of my service and, you know, became a big supporter of the Canadian Armed Forces and what we were doing because she had that intimate knowledge, right? and to the point where, you know, we're in Bosnia together and I send her a letter because we, you know,

we only had 15-minute phone calls once a week back then. And I say, hey, you know, can you send over some blankets and some candles and some batteries and stuff for the, for some of the families here that I'm working with? And, you know, she would go do a big sort of donation drive and next thing in all these, you know, three giant boxes of parkas and, you know, all this stuff shows up. In Bosnia. In Bosnia, yeah. And we're handing it out to the families there that need it.

And, you know, it was just, it was, that was her contribution, right, to what we were doing. You guys served together one tour? Was it just one? We were in Bosnia together in 97. But. There's a but. Yeah. and I spent a lot of time together outside of tours.

He was my deck commander on basic reggae. And, you know, maybe it's a good way to introduce Adam. Sure. Yeah, I would love to bring Adam into the conversation. Adam is one of my mentors, right? Like when I got into the regular army and within the first year, I was on a basic reconnaissance patrolman's course. Adam was my instructor.

And then we served together in different platoons in the battalion, sort of throughout a number of different years. And we did the one operation together. And I always worked for Adam. And so, you know, I attribute a lot of my history, my military history, to guys like Adam. And I mentioned Johnny Devine before. He's one of those guys as well. But, you know, those are the guys that had influence on your development and sort of shaped who you became.

Just for my brain, just so I can get dates kind of clear, what years did you serve in the military? So if I include my time in the reserves, I served from October, 1989, until. January of 2015. Okay. And Adam, if you're his mentor, what was your span in the military? I joined the military in 1983 March, right out of, I have just finished. Pull that mic right into you. Or slide over, yeah, yeah.

Right out of high school. You know, similarities to some of you. I didn't like school at all, but I was very fit, like you play in hockey, kind of thing. I always I always chuckle with with people in the mic. Some people are just they don't they got no problem putting something like this anyways and other people want to talk around it. For the listener and for myself when it plays back it's better if you talk right into this sucker because it's it needs this. I will endeavor to do better. Yeah well you got a great voice for it. Anyway sorry Adam. 1983 right right out of high

school because I hated school. I didn't you know I come from a small town called Wyoming on Ontario down in southern Ontario by Sarnia and I didn't want to work in the plants. I didn't want to have anything to do with agriculture and I didn't want to take on a secondary education. I didn't I just to me it just felt like a complete waste of time and I picked it up I didn't like Willie I didn't go into the reserves or I my parents weren't anti-military didn't know anything about the military I didn't know anything about the military. And it was an advertisement in the London Free Press for recruiting. And that's how I ended up going into the military. Like I used to steal my dad's guns out of the gun

cabinet and walk 15 kilometers back in the tracks and, you know, plink away all day with my dog. That's what I used to do for fun kind of thing. So I was kind of a natural to go into the infantry. And when I did my testing, I qualified for infantry. obviously, EOD and firefighter were my three picks. The only thing I didn't qualify for was radar screens, picking out stuff on radar screens there. EOD. Explosive ordinance.

Thank you. Right? Which I should have went into because I should have waited or been a firefighter kind of thing thinking in the long run, but being in the infantry was a natural for me. So in 83, you come out of high school and you go smack dab into training. Where do you do your training? Yeah, I did Cornwallis, all right, for eight weeks, and then off to Wainwright for, what was that one? 16 weeks.

Yeah, that was a long haul. A guy coming from Ontario. I'm curious what you're, did you do a ton of traveling as a young kid or was the first time coming to Wayne Raint one of your first opportunities at CNAW? That was my first opportunity. What did you think of the West coming? I loved it right away. My first posting was Victoria. You got Victoria?

Yeah, before they close that piece down. You know, RC&P officers obviously get stationed all over Canada, you know, and different places and different and everything else. When you're in the military, are you like licking your chops to get a place like Victoria or does it matter? I totally lucked into it. And then like even with day one getting there, I just fell in love with the place. Like the water.

I'm a real water baby. I really like. Like the water, mountain biking, climbing. you know, hiking, anything like that. Victoria was wonderful back then. How many, well, wait, so you luck out. Where did, where was your first posting? Was Calgary in the First Battalion.

Not Calgary ain't that bad either. I mean, honestly. We used to have the best postings. We had, we had Victoria, Calgary, in Winnipeg and the PPCLI, and the Royal Canadian Regiment, which is the Eastern Canada Infantry Regiment, outside of the Van Dus, which is obviously Quebec-based. They had London and they had Gagetown and pet, well, maybe Petowawa. But they were, they were like always jealous because we had these beautiful cities that we could get posted to.

You know, Winnipeg, maybe not so much, but the guys that were there loved it. Poor old Winnipeg. The guys that were there loved it. So, yeah, I went to Calgary and I was fortunate to go to Calgary in my opinion. I really enjoyed it there. And me as well. very fortunate. I had no idea what PPCL I was at all. I didn't know. All I knew is I needed to get away from Ontario and see the world. That's what that that was my, and shoot guns. That was

my objective. Oh my, it's called, I think it's called the brain freeze folks. I just had an amsa brain for it. I know what I was going to add. How many years did you, that's weird. You know, it happens time to time. How many years did you serve? I did 27 plus. Well, you did 27. Okay. That means we got over 50 years of experience of military sitting in this room today. What's some things about the Canadian military, you know, the average person just has zero recollection of, you know, like you guys have spent majority of your life serving for this country. You've got to not only train across Canada, see different parts, live in different parts, But then, I mean, how many tours did each of you go on?

So I did three Bosnia tours. Adam and I worked together in Kosovo. That was the other one, Adam. And then I did two in Afghanistan. You did two Bosnia? Three Bosnia. Three Bosnia. You did three tours in Bosnia.

I did three tours in Bosnia. I did one tour in Kosovo right at the start of the war there in 99. Yeah. And then I did Afghanistan. 2006 and 2012. 11 maybe. You did six tours? Yeah.

That's a lot, isn't it? Yeah, it's a long time away from your, from home, whatever you, whatever that looks like for you. Did you enjoy it? Oh, man, I loved it. Again, we were talking about on the way up here because we talk about that stuff all the time, right, when we get a chance to catch up. Because I live in Calgary now, and Adam lives in St. Albert just outside of Edmonton there. and I was literally saying to him, man, you know, there's very few things that I would change about my service

because I just had such a good time and it was, it was, you know, it was the best time of my life. But when I left, you know, it was also very clear that who I am, what defines me is not the military. It's just a part of my history, and it's not my, my personality maybe is driven by my service, but it's not, it doesn't define me as a human being. That's an interesting statement. I've probably, I see such correlation. Obviously, it's not identical, and I don't even mean to make it that, just between being a hockey player and being in the military, right? So many people, it comes to define who they are. and when you come back from that,

it's hard to not even just integrate back into society. It's just like, well, what do you do now? And that's a big question because here in Canada, you can do whatever you want to do for the most part, right? And I think that's a really interesting statement because, well, so many of us get locked into what we do is who we are. And coming back from six tours, spending almost 25 years in the military,

At what point along the way do you realize, like, this isn't who I, you know, like, I'm more than just a guy who with a gun slinged over my shoulder. That's a great question. I don't even know how to answer that. I mean, it wasn't until, so when I left, when I retired from the military, I went to work for an elevator company, Schindler elevator. And I still work for that company to this day in, you know, management role. And I also don't consider myself an elevator guy. You know what I mean? I'm just Willie.

That's who I am. And, you know, that's how I've built the network or the, you know, the friend circle, whatever I want to call it that I have. And I don't think a lot of it had to do with, you know, my acumen at being a soldier. I think a lot of it had to do just who I was, right? And how it was raised and the values that I had. have and, you know, my ethics and arguably, you know, you stay outside the line sometimes, but you got good friends like Adam to kind of knock you back into place, right? And, and so I don't

even know how to answer that question. It just one day I just was like, and I, and I was having the discussion with my wife. And I said, you know, the army does not define me. That's not who I am. It's a part of my history. And it, and it helped me becoming the person that I am, but it's not who I Yeah, it's a chapter in a book. Right. Right. It's a good chapter. It's a very interesting chapter.

Heck, it's what brought you here today, right? Yeah, absolutely. If it isn't for what you two had done earlier in your life, maybe we never crossed past. But instead, you know, as the world works and as Sean continues to have all these conversations, you know, somebody, my wife said to me today, you know, oh, where you go? You know, who you got today? And I'm like, I got a military guy driving in. I have no idea, you know? It's like, and then Adam walks a daughter.

God, this is Sean's perfect day. I know people will be like, how does Sean pull out, you know, get comfortable? This is my perfect day. Love meeting new people. Love having a curve ball thrown at me or a high heater or whatever we're going to call you. But this is about as cool as it gets, but certainly a chapter in the book. That's what I think of it. By getting back to your original question there about what was the biggest component that I took away from the military, it would be.

You know what it's like to be on a team. You play for a hockey team or a baseball team or whatever kind of team. For me, I think that was magnified by about 100% being on a military team, being with guys that you know will watch your back. You know that they'll risk their life to protect yours or even sacrifice their life to take yours. For me, that was the biggest. That's why we have these fishing trips because that stuff doesn't never washes off.

Yeah. Right. It stays with you for the rest of your life. I don't know if I get this right. And I hate to always bring up the hockey analogy. I just think when you win as a hockey team, it's a lifelong bond. Yeah. You walk by somebody you won with and you're like, hey, how's you going?

And it's just immediately. Absolutely. And when I listen to what you guys are doing this weekend, I'm like, oh, that's exactly what it is. Right? You're going to walk in, you're going to shake hands. Maybe you haven't seen each other in three years, but it doesn't matter. Nothing has skipped a beat because you've all experienced something that very few do. In sports, it's winning.

Like, very few teams get to win. Look at the NHL, I mean, or just look at some baseball, you know, the fucking Chicago Cubs. I mean, 100 plus years, right? Like, until they finally pulled it off, you know. Are you Chicago Cubs fan? No. Baseball fan? No.

Adam gave me a fist pump, and I'm like, oh, I wonder if he's a band. Side note. Okay, how many tours did you do at them? Seven altogether, I think. You did seven? Yeah. So you did Willie. Yeah, a couple of them were Cyprus.

Those are a pretty low, low level. You know, in the early days, that was the only tour operational thing that we could do is to go to Cyprus, Ops and Ogoose kind of thing. So, yeah, I did two tours there. Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Afghanistan. Afghanistan and West Africa. You guys were together in Bosnia, yes? Yeah.

Can we talk... Bosnia is one that first came on my radar when Jamie Sinclair was on here. He talked about how, you know, they tried talking, and maybe even Chuck talked a little bit about this, how they tried talking to people like, look, what happened here? Like how does, like, what's going on? Adam, I could see you in your head. Let's talk about Bosnia for a little bit.

I'm just curious. Your guys' experience. Very beautiful place besides the wreckage and, you know, the fired up buildings. Minefields. Minefields. Yeah. You know, Croatia was the same thing, too. It reminded me a lot of, like, southern Ontario with the cornfields.

Yeah, but there's some of these places you just can't walk in the field. You can't go into the bush, right? Because there's all these unrecorded minefields, an unexploded order. And what happened? That is a very good question. What happened? What drove a sector of people to be like this and destroy your country and hate each other so bad

that I have to come here and supervise you like children? Kind of thing. You'll get a different answer. Honestly, I don't have the answer because I've asked that question lots of times to locals. and I think a lot of times they don't even know what the answer. Isn't that mind-boggling that they don't know the answer? Yeah, it is very mine.

Yeah, I think the, you know, I think popular history is sort of the rule of the day. And if you go back to the conflict in Northern Ireland and, you know, when human beings are raised from the time they're born to hate somebody, you know, it perpetuates itself. over generations, and it gets to a point where we don't even know why we hate them, we just know that we do. And, you know, in the Balkans, the popular history is that, you know, when Tito died and he was the, you know, the communist leader of the former Yugoslav Republic when it was all Yugoslavia, that's where it fractured, because then you had a power struggle. You had a vacuum that occurred, and there was a power struggle between, you know, you

not just different ethnicities, but different religious organizations, right, or religious beliefs. And so that devolved and continued to devolve into, you know, okay, so there's Croatians, there's Serbs, and there's Muslims from Bosnia, called Bosniaks. That was kind of what we called them, but we don't really understand these arbitrary lines that they've drawn, and we don't really understand why they hate each other so much, and we don't really understand, you know, what the power grab is all about. And like Adam said, it's a beautiful part of the world.

You know, anybody that's spent any time on the Dalmatian coast, you know, will tell you. And, you know, the bridge and most are being blown up. And, you know, like those are examples of, you know, historical things that are, you know, magnificent feats of engineering that are gone. right it's no different than the statues of buddha being blown up by the by the Taliban it's a symbol of maybe prosperity or you know a symbol of a certain ethnic group or you know uh whatever you want to

say and it gets destroyed because they're trying to wipe them off the earth right it's just like i don't get it i don't get it so um i was just happy to be there i mean i was young it was it was an adventure for me, right? So it was great. I was in my first two hours in a place called Visico, just outside of Sarajevo. And it was definitely interesting and eye-opening. Well, the reason I ask is, you know, is, you know, like I can read the stories on it. You can watch documentaries on it. You can do a whole lot. You two got to walk the grounds. You got to walk around and talk to the locals. You got to see firsthand. And certainly, the more people I talk to, I get to talk more and more and more.

And I'm just curious if anything struck you as like, you know, because I think over in Canada here, and I could be wrong about this, and you too certainly will have an interesting perspective on this. I just don't think we think we think we could ever happen here. I don't think we think we can ever slide that far. I don't think it can ever get there, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, it'll never happen here. And I think that's a scary thought, actually,

to act like nothing bad can ever happen. It can never, you know. And so it's the reason why I bring it back up over and over again. And I appreciate you guys entertaining me with at least my thought process. Yeah. Man, it's like anything. It's like cancer. It's not going to happen to me, right?

Oh, I'm not going to have a heart attack. Well, I'm not going to car accident. Those things happen. And to me, there's no difference. Those things can happen here. You know, personal political views aside, you know, I think we're at a time. right now in our country where, you know, we either come together or we split, right? Like it's, it's a very interesting what's happening. And I find it somewhat scary.

Because I wore a Canadian flag on my shoulder for, you know, 25 years because I believed in this country. I believed in our way of life. And, and I still do. Don't get me wrong. But I have concerns if that's, you know, kind of the mild way I put in it, I suppose. Yeah, I was very proud to represent Canada. And for me, to leave some skin in the game, it was important to me to protect those that weren't able to protect themselves. That was my gig, especially kids, right? Parents, I could care less.

They're responsible for why those children are in the, and that was my gig. I would do anything to protect a kid. Very risky stuff, too, because I, you know, They're not responsible for what their parents are doing or not doing. Do you mind sharing, I don't know if a story or just an example, when you talk about kids, I guess as a, I don't know, civilian boys, I'm trying to envision what you mean by protecting the kids.

Maybe let's talk about gypsies in Kosovo. Remember that? where there was a gypsy family and where we were there was a village that was abandoned they had to leave right so they just locked everything up in their in their houses and walked away well we were responsible for protecting that to a to a degree because it became an issue a gypsy family moved in with kids right and they stole a bunch of stuff at one of the houses and it caused a huge incident like these villages were going to kill this family kind of thing and there were the kids running around in snow on the ground,

no boots or anything like, thus the jackets and stuff being sent from home because these people had nothing kind of thing. All they were doing was trying to survive. And then there's us in the middle of it, right? Trying to keep the peace, sort of speak, kind of thing. Yeah, it's just, yeah. You know, as a parent, I always go, nothing can prepare you for kids, right? Owning a dog can't prepare you for having kids.

Was there anything in your training that can prepare you for what you saw? You know, with that simple little story, is there anything, you know, like you roll over, I don't know what you guys were expecting. But, you know, even if they said, oh, you might encounter X. Is anything going to prepare you for that? That was a quick deal, that one. Yeah, which we both liked because there was no six-month pre-training to go there. I think we went, what was a month?

Yeah. And we were on the plane going there. So we had no, I didn't have any expectations. I don't know about you well, but it was, you know, it was a pretty rough mission. You know, we had to get all the vehicles collected up off the ship, right, from the port, and then get them to us, and then we had to get in them, and then we did a big road move. down there the camp that we took over there was nothing there it was a pool that was an old police station I think is that what it was yeah and so we had to do the wire we had to do all

the protection yeah it was like from ground zero kind of thing so yeah I had no idea what what do you mean you you got sent over to Kosovo and then I got to think about this let's refresh everyone's memory okay let's start there why did we get sent over to sent, why did you get sent to Kosovo? Well, again, Kosovo was attempting to break away from, I think it was Albania. I could be wrong, but it was part of that whole Balkans deal. And so, of course, a conflict broke out. And again, it was, in my understanding, in my opinion, it was religiously motivated.

And when we were there, it was a struggle between, you know, the Serbs and the Muslims. And yeah, I can't even, I just remember on the news, you know, one day it's like, oh, there's a war has broken out in Kosovo. And the next day it's like, guys, we're going. Start packing your gear. And we're like, okay. And we literally did a week of training. And then we were on airplanes flying to Albania. And our vehicles came into the port at Greece.

They were driven to Albania where we met up with them. And then we jumped in them and we did this giant convoy. It was all over the news. It was attack helicopters that were provided by the U.S. and stuff. And we literally drove across the border into Kosovo. And we all had different objectives to go secure. And that's kind of what we did. Not really knowing what was going to be there.

You know, it was all, it was in the news because the Russians rushed right down there to take the airport. Right. And that became headline news right away. So there were Russians that had secured the air in NATO or yeah, they wanted to get in there right away. So it was very political. So yeah. That was my take on it anyway.

You know, it's interesting. I just pulled up a map because I'm like in my head I know where Kosovo is, but I'm like the same time I'm like, Sean, you better refresh, you know. And you see where it is and like you just see how many little. countries are just squished together. I don't think we, I just, I'm talking to myself right now, folks, not to all of you. I'm talking specifically to Sean. It's like, I don't have a clue of how close all these people are compacted together and how

quickly things can unravel. You know, like, because, you know, you look at Kosovo, you got to, and I'm just going to, you're just going to rattle off the neighboring borders. You got Bosnia and. Herzegovina. Thank you. I was like, I didn't even realize that. You got Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria.

Romania is off, but I mean, Romania isn't, it can't be that far. So what's that? One, two, three, four, five, six neighboring countries, I think. Maybe seven. One, two, three, four, five. We'll give it five. And then within a stone throw, you got like, I mean, it just goes on and on. and on and on.

Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, yeah. You know, that's the result of, um, the former Yugoslavia, because that all used to be just Yugoslavia for the most part, you know, save Greece and some of those other places, but, um, they were all part of that republic. Um, and then when the war started in the early 90s, that's when all this splintering started to happen.

And, uh, you know, people started forming borders in their own countries and, um, So here's a question for two military guys who've been to, I'm not saying the worst part of the world, but have been put in situations that take a, not a giant country, a bigger country, a larger country. I mean, we sit in like one of the largest countries in the world, so everything compared to that is pretty small. And then it gets torn up into little tiny, you know, power hungry little spots, whatever we're going to call it. You got people in Canada that want to break Canada. You got people that think that, you know, you mentioned earlier, Willie. You know, we're at a, we're at a kind of an inflection point maybe of like, do we stay together or do we pull apart?

You guys have got to see what pull apart looks like. What about that don't people get? Well, I think it's a terrible idea, personally, you know, for a number of different reasons. But I don't think in my experience that anything good can come from it. And, you know, that's really all I'll say about it is I don't think it's a good idea. and I don't think anything good will come of it. Yeah, they should stay together. They should as a whole, right?

We've seen, like I've seen the Bosnia, or sorry, Serbia, Croatia, then Slovenia separated, right? And so that was a very smart decision on their part in that war, they separated. And they got out, and they didn't suffer any of the destruction and the heartache

and the terrible things that happened between those two. I didn't get it. These are people that lived next literally neighbor to neighbor kind of thing. And then just one day they all aided each other. You know, at one point, gents, I wouldn't have got it either. But then, you know, in the last couple of years, and you watch the United, I'm married to an American.

So you could see what Republicans and Democrats doesn't matter, your affiliation. You can just see what happens there. In Canada, we all have all lived through the last three years for better or worse. whichever side you fell on that coin and felt how much, I was going to say hatred. I don't know if that's the right word for what our leaders, and I'm speaking of specifically Trudeau, has said to really put us versus them. And I actually feel like I don't fully understand it, but I kind of understand how it starts, right? Like you can feel it in our own country right now.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's, you know, I have concern about it. I mean, you know, that's, I think about it fairly often. So how then, Willie, or Adam, how do you, you can feel the divide kind of pulling? And I always quote Daryl Sutter because I loved when he got on stage and, you know, when he was at a news conference and he said, there's three things that bring people back together. and he said, church, church, geez, John, church, sports, and music. And, of course, the Oilers were playing the Flames,

and even if you hate the Flames because I'm an Oilers fan, or maybe you're in Flames, I hate the Ours, you still love it, because everybody's there and wants to see a good hockey game. And sure, your team loses, and for once the Oilers come out on top, and I'm happy. But, I mean, there's something very, it brings everybody together. You know, we're concerned, everybody's kind of concerned, about everybody can kind of feel it kind of have it's seeping in and it's it's you know COVID really tore at the foundation of the family and and you know I mean geez just

yesterday they arrested the pastor in Calgary again you're like what is going on like this is we're in we're in la la land how do we can we is it possible to get people to come back together because right now it feels like it's being push push push push push push Or maybe that's what they lead us to believe. I don't know. And I just say they in a very open sense. My humble opinion, and I believe in this, regardless of the circumstance, is that our biggest failing is communication.

We live in a society right now where if you have a different opinion, it means you're wrong. People aren't willing to sit down and have an honest, open discussion about why they believe in what they believe in and what the best way forward is. You know, it's almost like ultimatums are being dropped. If you believe, you know, if you, if you were a supporter of the freedom confoy, you know, that automatically makes you whatever adjective of the day comes up. And if you were on the other side of the coin, you know, again, you know, it's like, well, I don't, I don't believe in that.

And I'll be honest with it, you know, I have, I got vaccinated at the beginning because I, you know, was somewhat compelled to for my employment. But I also served 25 years in the military and had about 17,000 vaccinations. And I was like, yeah, what's the risk, you know, to myself? And I made that decision on my behalf. And I have friends that made different decisions. And I'll tell you what I didn't do. I didn't ban them from my home. I didn't call them name.

I just went, hey, man, that's your choice. And I respect your decision because I respect you as a human being and your ability to decide. And that was my mantra throughout the whole thing. You know, and whether or not I agreed with it is irrelevant because I got to make that decision and I didn't expect to be judged for that decision, just like I didn't expect myself to judge other people for their decisions. Because I think we're all adults and we have that. That was the inference to me was,

have the ability to make that decision, right? And eroding freedoms or whatever the case may be based on what your decision was, like that's what started all of this, man. It's just, I just don't get it, you know. Jamie, great example, right? You know, I stayed at his home. He stayed at my home. No problem.

I wasn't afraid that he was going to kill me or my family, you know, by accident. I wasn't afraid of it. I was like, hey, man, you made a decision. And that was the best decision for you. And you're still my brother. I still love you. And you're still welcoming my home. You know, that was it.

I mean, we still held our fishing trips through this whole business. You know, we have another event. I don't know if Jamie talked about it. July long weekend, we hold it out at Jamie's campground. We still held that. I think we missed one year. There was a very reduced footprint. But, you know,

still have those things and get together because life is worth living, man. Like you let those opportunities pass you by because you draw a line in the sand. It seems like a bit of a waste. What's going to bring us together? I think the best thing that I have seen, domestic operations, like the fires, right, that brought that whole community in out west. I was at the railie fires and the clona fires and that whole community came together rallied together brought everybody together the floods was the same thing the Winnipeg floods right everybody

I think it takes almost in a national emergency to drive us all together what that looks like whether it's fire floods ice storm or even possibly conflict like a war look what how we came together as a nation through all the wars that we came in everybody came together all our natural resources all this little nitpick bickering kind of stuff had to be put aside because there was no choice that's what that's what made this country the way that it is we all came together that's a great point if the biggest issue we face is communication and I I believe I agree with that

I'm trying to think if there's anything I think that goes on top of that that's a really because I don't I personally don't want to go to war I don't want to think about you know like we grew up going Remembrance Day huge day for this country

right And I Every little town in Saskatchewan I grew up in a farm but you know Hulman's a hamlet. It's so tiny, it doesn't get even village. It's a hamlet.

And it's funny. I meet people from Saskatchewan all the time. I grew up in Hamlet. And what all of us in Saskatchewan share in common, and I assume everybody across Canada is, everybody has their monument because every little hamlet town village or village town city all had people went and fought and not one and died. That's, I mean, I don't think anyone escaped that for World War I or World War II.

I don't want that. Like, I don't want to have to bring people together. I don't want to see names on a wall that all passed. I don't want that. So when I look at communication, it's funny because that's what this weekend, the next event that I'm doing, is all about. It's like, you look at media, we have an issue. We have one side being talked about and one side in our country not. At least that's the way I see it.

So how, the easy answer to me is, while you create the other side and somehow they get, get a level playing field and maybe, but then you have the United States. And the United States, what's the problem they have right now? Well, they're like 51% something and 49% the other thing, which is pretty much you're going to hate each other. And so you go, okay, so how do you get people back together with communication? Is that even possible with such large amounts of population? Is you come back to it all?

is the algorithms and social media and blah, blah, blah, is that the real issue here? I mean, it's a great question. I don't know enough about it to really speak super intelligently to it, but I'll tell you what, like I don't watch CTV, CBC. I don't follow those programs or those, you know, those their websites or anything. I tend to read Al Jazeera and a few of the other, maybe AFP a little bit,

but it's the same thing over and over. You're kind of consuming the same story just written on a different day. And, you know, whether or not I agree with it is irrelevant. The fact that to me, and I spoke to you about Adam Day, who was one of my good friends, his style of reporting was I don't care, what side of the political spectrum you fall on, I am just here to tell the story. And, you know, another great friend of mine,

Christy Blatchford, who passed away a few years ago and, you know, wrote for the Globe and National Post, and she was the same. There's so many people that just hated her guts. But the thing was, there was the story where she would put her personal opinion on it, and then there was the story where she just reported the facts. And it seems,

to me like, you know, with Adam, with Christy, people don't want to hear facts. They want to be told what to think. And it's just like, well, no, we can't do that. You know, you look back at, I remember I grew up, we lived with my grandma, the 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock news. That was her thing. She had to stay up, watch the news. As soon as the news was over, she'd go to bed because she trusted the person that was reporting the news. It's not like that anymore. It really isn't. We read a headline and form an opinion based off of a headline rather than digging into it and trying to find the truth because it's easy, because it's convenient.

And, you know, I remember, I'll give you a good example when we were in Afghanistan in 2006 and after August 3rd happened, you know, and the four guys get killed, the front cover of McLean's magazine was a picture of me and my colleagues carrying Von Engerb's casket to the back of the waiting airplane.

and the headline on the front of that magazine said, what are we dying for? And originally I was somewhat incensed by that because it was like, how could they say that? Like, you know, that's just, it's not true. Like, you know, because we believed in what we were doing. But once you open the book and read the article, you realize, oh, okay, it's not as bad as the headline

would make it seem. But my reaction, my emotional reaction was to be angry. but I took the next step and opened it up and read the article. A lot of people don't do that, man. So it comes back down to the individual all over again. Of course it does, right? And when you start compartmentalizing pieces of Canada, people of Canada, you're this, you're this, you're this, instead of just being Canadian, right,

I think that that starts the, certainly starts the division. right, and people start floating apart instead of coming together as a nation. Right. And right now we're not, we're not the nation that I, you know, or that, that flight, we're something that's completely different now. And you're talking about communication and people are not, people are not really communicating with one another. The news aside, that's for me and politics, right?

And politics is hugely responsible. for that division. Now we're not acting as a whole unit. I talked about teamwork before and we're not a team anymore. We're multiple, multiple teams and we don't we don't have a main mission now to draw us all in together and stay focused and become the Canada that we that we were. We're very different now and I'm not sure whether or not how we're going to get there. Well, that's the million dollar question, isn't it? Yeah. You know, all I do is run into people.

You know, I interviewed Gerald Gronan, 97-year-old, grew up in Holland, was part of the Underground Railroad for sneaking people and food, and he gets put in a cattle car and sent, anyways, just this unbelievable story. I'm sitting in the room with this man, who still has his mind, and is telling me this story, and I just, he's just, just don't want it to stop.

I just, to me, you can read the stories, but to have somebody tell it in their voice and then, and their perspective, and then, and then at the end of it, say, but I truly believe there are more good people than bad, even the Germans, even the Americans, and you're just like, this is a guy who got loaded into a cattle car by the Nazis, and he's going to, you know. So I sit back, and I keep running into all these great human beings.

that somehow we have this problem of like, I'm right, you're wrong, or I'm not willing to listen to you because of, and I don't know how to get around it. I just, I just don't. But then I tack on to that. I just see what's going on in Gallaghery right now. And I go, oh, man, we're in, we're in dangerous territory. And I don't even know what that means.

And I got two lovely guys sitting across from me who have experienced. experience in this. And you know you mentioned, you know, I think, Willie, that, you know, you look at Canada right now and it kind of, you know, scares you a little. And I was curious, what scares you to right now in Canada? Because once again, some of, you know, it's Ukraine, Russia, the bank in Silicon Valley going into all these different things happening all over the place. And I go, okay, how does this come back to Canada? and affect the people that I love and want to protect and want to go on and my kids and everything else.

Once again, I just think it's kind of interesting timing to have both you sit across from me and go, well, what scares two military vets as you look around the country right now? Well, for myself, I mean, it's not about me anymore. It's about my eight-year-old son. And I think about what his future is going to look like, eight. Yeah, eight. and you know I say to my wife quite often

I'm worried about the world that's the country that's going to be left for him you know financially and economically where as far down in the toilet as you can get and he is going to be paying for that and his kids are going to be paying for that you know six seven eight years ago we had a surplus

on our budget and now we're so far in debt that it's going to take decades to claw out and and I think it's irresponsible governance I think it's I think it's divisive politics and I think that you know playing with the future of of our children and our children's children is just absolutely the worst thing to do and and and you know I've made the comment and again you know not taking sides here politically I've made the comment often that all the good people that would be really good politicians just don't want to get into that because after a year or two, they just feel

so beat down by the system that they go, I can't do this anymore. And, you know, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but Brad Wall, you know, he was a great premier for Saskatchewan. He decided to leave and he's living a wonderful life. But my opinion of why he left is that he was like, I just don't want to deal with this anymore. I'm, I'm, I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm a fighting an uphill battle and I fought it for X number of years and you know it's it's somebody else's turn to take the reins and you know it's about what does good leadership look like right now I don't I just don't see it man it's funny you bring up Bradwell I've pretty I've been pretty rough on Bradwell not

be for exactly what you just said why isn't he sticking in the fight everyone goes because the fight got too tough and I go you know why the fight gets too tough at least this is my eyes I know I'll let you two just tell me I'm completely wrong. I went and listened to Daniel Smith and I got lots of time for Danielle. She's been on the show and I went to a UCP fundraiser basically, you know, to raise money for the UCP party, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they sat there and they patted themselves in the back all night and, you know, donate money and everything else. And then last night I was in, I was in Wainwright listening to hosting, I guess, I should say.

an event talking about municipal bylaws, you know, and just listening to what people are concerned about. It's a pretty boring topic when you think about. And yet this is what people are concerned about. And I didn't see any politicians there. I didn't see any, and forgive me if you were there, I apologize. I just, I didn't get introduced to anyone. I didn't do it. And one of the things I really want out of a leader is somebody who's willing to listen to Sean, Willie, Adam, them, hear what they have to say and just talk to them and try and take away the, not even the emotion, but just like acknowledge, okay, I hear you, we're going to try and talk about this, whatever.

And maybe they're doing a great job, but I don't see it. And you know, you just see it play out over and over again where they don't want to talk about a certain subject because if they do, and Daniel Smith will be the, I think it would be the first stage, she came on the show, she was very open, talked very much with what I wanted to talk about. and then, you know, Global on them took what I had said or what she had said about my questions and used that on their thing and that's what they did. And so what you get out of politicians is they don't want to talk about everything

because the opposing side will literally take what they said, ram it down your throat as these are the worst people in the world. When all I want as a voter is exactly that. I just want them to come talk. I want them to hear what the public is like crying out about. And to me, that's like a, you talk about communicating. I see that huge gap. And how do you bridge that? When the opposing side will use exactly what they're doing if they do it against them.

Yeah, to hurt them. Yeah, absolutely. Or some political edge or, you know, you talk about leadership. That's the part that scares me the most about this country is when stuff gets real serious, I don't believe we have the leadership to even help us try and survive it and meet it head on. We don't have the resources. We don't have the people. We've let our military fall down to this state now.

We can't even protect the north. We're so relying on the Americans. We don't even have aircraft that had the armament to be able to shoot down the balloons that were flying over us from China, right? It's just if you don't have leadership, I don't know. It just, it scares me. How about this? What are you guys hopeful in the, you know,

you look at Canada, I hate to be so doom and gloom, you know, and focus on it. Is there anything from your standpoint that you're like, listen, you got to pay attention to this, or maybe you should talk to this guy, or I have been talking to these people. And this is some positive things going on in our country that may bear some big fruit in the future. We're Canadians. We'll fight our way through it. You know, look at our history. You know, we came over on ships and, you know, worked to land and endure it.

All kinds of hardship. We'll figure this out. We'll get through it. That's my positive spin on that. We have the core. We have a core. And that core is solid and that'll help us get through it. Whatever it is.

Yeah. I think there's enough good people in this country that care about the future. and that are doing what they need to do to raise their children, you know, with the same sort of values and ethics that this country was built upon, that there's good things in the future, right? We just need to make sure as the adults of the society right now that we make good decisions. You know, I think that that's super important. And leave something for the kids.

Yeah. You know, before you get, I let you guys get on with your day and, you know, go fishing and all that good stuff and stop talking about politics and hard things and maybe suck back a couple sociables. Could we talk about the white school? Absolutely. You know, it's in the military men I've talked to, it's kind of in this like different realm of its own, Willie. And I don't even know the story. so maybe you could maybe you can regale us with a bit of you know what happened what went on certainly I know it was August 3rd 2006 yeah Afghanistan but other than that I'd be curious to

to hear a little bit about it yeah so let me let me give you a little teeny bit of background before we get into the story is is the Canadian Armed Forces during my time typically underfunded, under-resourced, but we always made due with what we had, you know, an immense amount of initiative and creativity and imagination in order to achieve the mission. And that was a must-do. You know, I could remember lying on the ground in Suffield, Alberta, wrapped in a plastic ground sheet, freezing, soaking wet, because we didn't have good equipment, right? but we I I managed to survive that so you know it builds that resiliency right yeah I feel like

there's a story there what were you doing in Suffield wrapped in a well there's no trees to to get shelter under so you're you know the best you can do is wrap yourself up in something to to keep the elements off right so uh you know as an infantry soldier we spent a lot of time sleeping in the dirt uh whatever that looked like so um But anyway, I think it's important to bring that up because we did suffer and we suffered together, be it overseas or on training in Wainwright, Gaget, Gagetown, whatever the case may be. But we always came out of it with a good sense of humor. You know, at the time, it sucked.

And then when you're sitting in the mess, however many days later, you're laughing about it and going, man, that was stupid. Like, we're morons, but hey, it was awesome, right? And so that's just one thing. And the reason I tell you that is because when we went to Afghanistan in 2006, that was, that was, you know, literally we had just transitioned from the training mission in Kabul down south to Kanda Har province. There was a provincial reconstruction team camp set up. And we, I got there in January and we came into this massive American base at Kandaher Airfield. And, you know, we had everything we could need, everything, bullets, fuel, food. fast air, attack helicopters, predator drones, you name it, it was there.

And so now we had all these different tools in our toolbox. And as a battle group, Task Force Orion, led by Colonel Hope, with all these resources at hand and the experience that we had making new with very little, we did not really up until August 3rd come up against an opponent that scared us. We just rolled right over them, right? We went through lots of gun fights. We had lots of combat experience. And when we got to August 3rd, all of a sudden, because we had switched from Operation Enduring Freedom, which was under American Command, to NATO ISAF, International Security Assistance Force, our rules of engagement changed on the 1st of August. So you talked with Chuck and Jamie about this in your podcast with them.

And I'll get to it, but, you know, I was calling in airstrikes and they were being aborted because I was calling the target of school. And, you know, there's a team of lawyers who are giving counsel to a general in a room somewhere and saying, oh, you can't attack that because he called it a school. So just imagine that we've had all this stripped away from us. So I'll go back to the beginning, August 3rd, 2006. So my platoon, reconnaissance platoon, we had been told, hey, we need you to go to patrol base Wilson, which was on the highway, I guess would have been south of Pangeaway, which is east of Kandahar City. And we're going to stage there for an operation.

We didn't really know what it was about. So we go and, you know, we go to patrol base Wilson and we're having coffee with the boys and, you know, the officers are getting orders. And then we get called into orders as the section commanders in RACU. And myself, I was a J-TACA, a joint terminal attack controller. So I was throughout the entire mission in Afghanistan for that tour that I was on, I was calling in precision air strikes from various different air platforms. So because of that, you know, I become a combat enabler or a combat multiplier. And so I usually get pulled into the planning for these missions. So there was some intelligence that said, hey, the Taliban's massing in Pangeway.

They're going to try and push into Kandahar and take the city, basically. And that's where the governor's house was and blah, blah, blah. So Colonel Hope got orders basically, hey, get to stop this from happening. So it was kind of a two-prong mission. The company from the 2nd Battalion B Company, they were pushing from the north to the south, from Patrol Base Wilson into Pangeway, to the North School.

And Charlie Company, I can't even remember the Patoon, 9 Platoon, maybe. Those guys were told, hey, you're going to go with Raki Platoon, Reconnaissance Patoon. You guys are going to come from the east across the Argonab River and you're going to push into the vicinity of the White School. and you're going to secure that objective.

And basically we're going to, we're going to corral the enemy and make sure they can't squeak through and get to Canada our city. So, you know, we do, we do orders. We leave patrol base Wilson around 3 o'clock in the morning and we come through the Argonab. Complete blackout drive.

Colonel hopes outside of his lab and he's standing outside directing traffic because it was, in blackout drive with bulletproof glass, you can't see through that with the night vision optics that we had at the time. So it was all naked eye stuff. And he just wanted to make sure people weren't getting lost. So he was directing traffic to make sure we'd get across the Argon Dab River, okay.

Which essentially at the time had a little bit of water in it, but it was more of a wadi. And, you know, fast forward 15 minutes. The lead vehicle stops as, hey, We see some bad guys, permission to engage. Yep, go ahead. So we like them up and kind of there's a little skirmish that ensues. It doesn't last very long. And we kind of come to a stop almost.

And we dismount some troops and it's like, okay, we found some wires and it looks like there's some IEDs. So let's investigate. So there's copper wire running alongside the road. So we know there's devices there somewhere. So, you know, I think it was Bon Ingram section. goes up, it's light now, the sun's up, and Vaughn calls back and says, hey, there's a 500-pound bomb here, it's all wired up sitting on top of this mud wall. Can we get the engineers up here?

So the engineers go up, a guy named Sergeant Vishal, and on the way, he had called Vaughn and said, do I need my vehicle? And Vaughn said, yeah, I think it's a good idea. So on the way up, boom, hits an IED, vehicle explodes. So, of course, we have to now secure the scene and sort of evacuate casualties, et cetera. And, you know, luckily nobody's killed. And, you know, fast forward maybe an hour. Okay, new vehicle in the front and it's Chris Reed's vehicle.

They're driving up. They hit another IED. Chris Reed is killed and his whole section that's a headquarters vehicle. So a guy named Sean Peterson was the platoon second in command, the platoon warrant. Their platoon commander was gone. Well, now Sean's out of action because he's concussed. And, you know, I think all but one of the guys in that vehicle left, like we're medevacked. So then again, we get that cleaned up.

And, you know, we get Chris evacuated. And he was technically still alive when we evacuated them. But the PJs that came and picked them up, the parra rescue jumpers, They were on the Blackhawks, the MetaVac Blackhawks. They just kind of went, yeah, he's likely not going to make it. So, you know, we didn't really know until, you know, fast forward however many hours that he didn't make it. But the colonel now says, hey, we need to do a dismounted assault on this school and take this ground dismounted. We can't, we can't sacrifice any more vehicles.

So he calls in John Hamilton and Von Ingram, who by, by. default because Sean Peterson is gone is now the platoon commander for his platoon and John Hamilton was the platoon commander for reconnaissance platoon and says you guys need to put together a plan and you need to go basically take the school and at this point we're not really being shot at or anything it's kind of okay well we need to figure out a way to get in there and we don't know what we're facing but we'd been over this ground three or four times and had taken it and given it back up and taken it give it back up so anyway

come up with a plan we're moving up into our attack position and so reconnaissance platoon really wasn't part of the mission there was a handful of us John Hamilton looked at me and said hey I got to lead this you're coming with me I was his right hand man I said yeah no problem because at the time our mentality is okay let's go let's go take care of this it's going to take us half an hour

we'll go kick some ass and then we'll be home in time for lunch type deal well it's starting to get hot it's it's a pro Midday, we start approaching the school, we're getting into our attack position, and we get hit from our right flank. So now we got to fight a battle to our right flank. And it's my opinion that that engagement to our right flank was meant to delay us so they could flood the school with more people. So we fight this battle. You know, fortunately nobody gets injured or killed during the battle except for the bad guys. but that takes us about an hour, hour and a half to sort it out.

And then it's kind of like, okay, well, we're going to wait now because we have some fast, not fast air, but some attack helicopter assets from the Dutch that are going to come help us. Okay. So we sit around and wait for another hour or so, you know, it's now 2 o'clock in the afternoon. The sun's in the middle of the sky. It's, it was a good buddy of mine, Mars Janick had pulled out his kestrel and, and checked the temperature. And he alluded that it was somewhere between. 58 and 62 Celsius.

So we're burning up. We're waiting. And finally, you know, the attack helicopters show up and, okay, let's go. You know, we set our fire base. Fawn's going to do a left flanking and with his section and John Hamilton's going to control the firebase and, you know, we're going to, we're going to crack this not that way. But before we do that, we say, hey, you know, we've got Afghan resources. We've got Afghan police with us.

This is their country. This is their fight. Let's send them in first. Right? So they go in. We're kind of waiting. Of course, as soon as they get to the school, all hell breaks loose. You can hear all the gunfire and everything and the police come running back down the road. And they didn't even look at it. He just ran right past us. And so Hammy, John Hamilton, he gets on the radio to Colonel Hope and says, hey, the Afghan police are running away. Colonel Hope says, all right, well, you know what to do. John says, Roger, that's her. So he says to me, okay, you know, we're going to do this. assault, Vaughn, you move, Vaughn starts moving, well, he hits an impassable obstacle. So he gets on the radio and says, hey, I can't pass this obstacle. So now we got to readjust again. Okay, Vaughn, you come back to us. We're going to regroup and we're going to do a frontal, basically a frontal attack. So there's going to be one foot on the ground providing cover fire

and there's going to be one element moving. And so as part of that, Hammy says to me, hey, I need you to take the C6 and post up on one of our flanks so that you can provide us some extra cover. And the C6 is a general purpose machine gun, 7.62, fantastic weapon, super high volume of fire, and is really a combat enabler for a CERCOMB multiplier. So I take Bryce Keller and Mark Bedard over to the right flank, set them up, and I'm with them and I'm going to control the gun while John Hamilton and Vaughninger and moving to the school. So we hit our H-hour, which is our You know, that's our time to go. The boys start moving.

We're providing cover. And, you know, now we're getting resistance. But, you know, John Hamilton and Vaughn Ingrams, both their groups, they make it to the outhouses of the school. So they're not in the school. They're about 50 to 100 meters away just to the west. And I see somebody fall and they drag them around the corner and I'm like, okay, I don't have a radio. because my radio is overheated, it's not working. So I'm like, okay, well, it's no good to me up.

Why would I carry it? So I dumped it. And up to this point, we now have so many heat casualties that Pat Tower gets told, hey, go set up a casualty collection point. We need you to take care of these heat casualties because guys are going down with heat exhaustion and everything else. So Pat goes and sets that up. So he's no longer with us.

I don't have a radio. That's where I dump my radio with Pat, said this thing's no good to me. You know, well, I actually left it with one of the guys that was going back there. So I'm like, okay, I look at Bryce and Mark. And I, you know, I vaguely know these guys, but they're not in my platoon. I know who they are. They know who I am, but we don't really know each other. And I'm like, guys, we got to go help them.

I don't know what's going on up there. but we need to we need to get to that school the C6 is a big part of of our attack force if you will or assault force and we need to get this resource up there and so Bryce looks to me and he goes I don't think I can do it man I'm I'm I'm done like I'm the heat you know like I just I don't have any energy and I looked at Mark and he was kind of you know he didn't really say much he just kind of looked at me like I'm with him sort of deal And I said, okay, well, I'm going to go. I'm going to go.

I got to go up there and see what's happening and help where I can. And you guys can come if you want or you can stay here. It's up to you. So in the meantime, you know, we're having this discussion. The boys are up in these outhouses. They've kind of set up a quasi-defensive perimeter. And they're fighting a very numerically superior force. So at this time, there's probably 10 to 11 Canadians in that vicinity that are fighting, and the volume of fire has picked up significantly.

And so we now know that not only is it a numerically superior force, but we now know that it's a professional fighting force or an experienced fighting force because they're layering their fire. So they're starting with small arms. then they're opening up with machine guns, then they're firing rockets, and all of this is designed to, you know, give them time to reload, keep our heads down, etc. So there's rockets coming down the road flying past Keller and Bedard and I. I'm like, well, guys, I got to go. So I'm going to, you know, basically do a 30 second count or 60 second count, I can't

remember. And I'm going to take off. And I'm going to run across this field. I'm going to do it in one bound. So I'm just going to run straight there. and, you know, if you guys come, great. If not, then, you know, just cover me. Sorry, deal.

So they made the decision, hey, we're going to come with you. And I said, okay, great, we're going to do it. We're going to just go. The three of us are just going to run. There's no sense. It's like a bowling alley. It's flat as flat can be. There's no cover.

There's no nothing. We just have to get there. And we have to do it in one sprint across this field. So they're like, okay. And so I took a couple of spare barrels for the machine gun and grabbed some ammo off of Baderd and Keller so that they wouldn't be as weighted down. And we basically did a countdown and we stood up and we ran across this field. And, you know, the whole time there's bullets kind of skipping around us and rockets flying past our heads,

but we make it untouched, which is a miracle in itself. So Keller, I come running around the corner and I look down and I see there's a casualty. I don't know really the status, but I know it's a casualty because there's bandages and stuff. And I'm calling for Vaughn, hey, I got the C6. Where do you want him? Where do you want them? So Vaughn takes control of Bryce and his machine gun team. And I post myself up in one of these little outhouse type deals.

I'm exhausted, right? Like my legs, I was telling Adam. My legs are like lead. You know, I don't have any water. For whatever reason I didn't have any water. and I go into this room and, you know, there's a guy there, need, I think his first name's Adam, and I'm like, do you have water? He's like, yeah, I said, okay, give me some.

He's like, this is the last bottle. I said, well, I'm just going to take a little bit. So I took some gastrolate and I threw it down my throat and I washed it down with a, you know, a sip of water and instant, you know, instant energy is back. So then I link up with Hammy and I'm like, hey, man, what's going on? he's like we're in a horrible situation here we get guys that are heat casualties they can't function um badard's been shot he had been shot in the in the stomach just below his his plate on his his body armor and we got to get out of here i'm like okay and he goes i need you to call in some

fast air some artillery whatever we need in order to mask our movement back because we have to we're we're combat ineffective so i'm like all right well now the volume of fires even it's it's it's increasing and increasing and increasing. So at this point in time, there's a working radio. I'm talking to the, probably the Slayer Jock at the time. And we have some fast air in the vicinity, and I'm giving them cleared hot calls,

and I'm describing the target as a school that's a zigzag shape, because that's the shape that it was, was a zigzag shape. And I'm saying you're cleared hot, you know, drop your ordinance, and they're coming back and saying, my call sign was Slayer 61, Slayer 61, this is, I can't remember their call sign. You know, we just had on the board from the ages jock. So now I'm like, what the hell's going on?

I don't know what's going on. And now the radio stops working again. So, you know, we're starting, the situation's getting, it's, it's getting worse. So I can't remember how long we were there. We set up, you know, the C6 was set up where it was set up. We set up some other machine guns, some C-9s, which you're smaller machine guns. And we basically established a perimeter and John and I were talking about the best way to try and get ourselves out of there. And somewhere along the way I had walked back

over into the outhouse that was closest to the school. And I took my helmet off and I sat down. I was kind of like, you know, trying to figure things out. And I knew we're in a bad situation. But then, you know, I got up and I was going to walk back out. And then, you know, I was going to walk back out. and then that's when things got real bad. Some rockets came in. One hit the wall of the school and I was standing about eight to 12 inches off the wall so I got blown against the other wall and I landed on top of one of the guys in the doorway. And then all of a sudden, you know, there's a couple different explosions.

This happens a couple times. I get up and I start stumbling back because I'm, you know, somewhat concussed at this time. And I start stumbling back and I'm saying, you know, what the fuck was that? And another rocket hits the building. Of course, I get home back into the other wall again. So now I get up, put my helmet on, and I hear people screaming, and John's yelling for help, and you got to come help us, Will. And I'm like, oh, my God, you know, what's happening?

And I'm looking around the room. And, you know, there's some troops there that I don't know. They're from the platoon from Charlie Company. And I know them to see them, but they don't know me. I don't know them. But they're looking at me like, hey, man, you're the guy now. you got to do something to get us out of this and that they didn't say it but the way they looked at me was just like and I was sitting there and I'm like well this is it like I'm gonna they're

gonna have to write a letter to my mom and tell her hey died in a shitter you know in Afghanistan and I was ready to quit man that was it I was done I was tapped out I was like I can't I can't function you know I'm I'm somewhat concussed the heat is too much there's people screaming, we're in a terrible, terrible situation here. And the only thing that kind of brought me out of it was those guys looking at me to be a leader and to help them out of it. They wanted to live. I was ready to die.

They wanted to live. And so that changed my mindset, like very quickly. I went, okay, I've got to do something. And I remember having this discussion many years before with Adam and Mark Pickford and, you know, Johnny Devine and we were talking about, you know, is doing nothing actually doing something? And then on the basic reconnaissance patrolments course, the mantra was always, doing something is always better than doing nothing. So I thought, well, okay, I'll get over to Hammy and kind of see what the situation is and try and help out as best as I can. So I kind of made a decision to cross between the two buildings with the thought in my head that I'm not going to get

there because I'm going to get shot or blown up or whatever, but I'm going to go anyway. And it was really my ego that kind of led me to do that because I didn't want to, I didn't want people to think that I was a pussy, right? So I said, okay, I'm coming, John, I'm coming. And I, you know, I yelled friendly coming in and I ran out the door and I ran across to the other side and I dove through the door of the building that John was in. and you know on my way I saw where Vaughn and and Bryce were and it wasn't a very pretty scene and I dove across and I of course I landed on top of John Hamilton's foot which was

which had been blown up from the the rockets that had got fired in and of course he's screaming I'm like sorry man whatever so anyway I do first aid on him I turn a key him up I bandage him you know all squared away and then I'm like what are we going to do he's like I don't know the radio doesn't work. We're having, you know, there's guys, there's guys everywhere that are injured. And at this time, there was 14 of us there. And so now Mark Bedard, you know, unfortunately, when we, when the boys did first aid on him, they took his body armor off so that they could bandage his wound and they didn't put it back on. And so the impact of the rocket, he was still outside the building, it killed him. Then I turned over and looked where Von,

And Brice were and I went out I went out back out the building and I went over to them and I just basically said to Vaughn like hey Vaughn how you do and like you know sort of first aid is always like you know the first thing you say is are you okay and I'm like Vaughn are you okay and he kind of looks at me and you know he's got a daisy eye and you know his his stomach is is basically split open and his intestines are on his lap and one of his legs is bent back, like it's almost completely amputated, but not quite, and it's at a weird angle in his foot's point in the wrong way. And it was very obvious that Bryce was no longer with us. And Vaughn, of course, had a field dressing, a Canadian field dressing, and he was trying to, and it wasn't out of the package, and he was kind of trying to put it on Bryce. And he just kind of looked up at me and said, I think I'm slipping, and then he just died. And so, you know, now we're.

We've got Mark Bedard is dead, or sorry, not Mark Bedard, Bryce Keller's dead, Kevin's dead, and Vaughn is dead, Kevin DeLare. I think I was saying Baudard, I meant Kevin DeLare. So Kevin is now dead as well. And there's no less than probably six or seven other injuries, you know, so let's do the math. It's about nine, ten people out of 14. there's like four or five of us that are still functioning. And so the enemy knows that they have now got the upper hand.

They've got the momentum because we stopped shooting back because we were dealing with casualties. If you don't mind me asking, how many people are shooting at? Do you know, do you have any idea? Do we know a number? We do. So the intelligence reports after the fact said between 175 and 250. 175 to 250 guys shooting at a group of 14 now down to five okay carry on so so now it's like okay panic stations we got to we got to get out of here and we got to figure out how we're going to

get out of here and you know my initial reaction was okay I'm going to take the guys that are still able to fight I'm going to attack I'm going to just attack into these guys and try and by time for those guys that are injured to get, you know, withdrawn somehow. And, you know, Hammy says to me, no, it's a terrible idea. You know, if you leave, we all die. You need to stay here. I'm like, okay, yeah, common sense prevailed. And I was like, yeah, that's a great idea.

Thanks for giving me an out. So I grabbed the C6, which is still functioning. We put it up in a window in the, I guess, the westernmost outhouse. And there's just a little block window in the top. One of the guys is on his hands and knees. The other guy standing on top of him, and he's firing the C-6 out this window. And we got some machine guns, some smaller machine guns pointed in different directions because they're trying to envelop us now.

And, you know, Hammy finally gets through on the radio and basically says, hey, you need to come help us, or we're all going to die. And so a couple guys hear that. Matt Parsons and Tony Perry, they were master corporals and they were crew commanding labs. And they get on the radio and say, hey, Niner, we're going to go help these guys. and he's like, you know, that road is littered with IEDs. Are you sure there's a good idea? Basically, you know, don't go.

And they're like, we're going anyway. So, you know, these guys start driving up to where we are to come help us down this IED-laden road. In the meantime, Curtis Qualche, who unfortunately died in a car accident a couple years ago, is no longer with us. He was injured pretty bad. He'd been shot a couple times. He was missing a chunk of his by.

step in a part of his leg and he came crawling across the floor and grabbed me by the ankle and he's like give me a gun I want to fight and I'm like dude you're messed up like you can't you can't do this he's like no no I need to fight I need to fight so I eventually put a machine gun in front of him pointed him in certain direction and said okay just shoot that way right um so we've got a fairly decent sort of defensive perimeter set up but you know we're getting overwhelmed and then all of a sudden Pat tower shows up And I'm like, Pat, thank God you're here. You know, he's got a medic with him. And I'm like, where's the vehicles?

And he's like, it's just me, man. And I'm like, fuck. And he says, where's Vaughn? And I go, Vaughn's dead. He goes, okay. So the medic starts taking over, you know, doing triage and helping with, with, saving people's lives. And the guy was a rock star.

And so I'm like, well, we're in a bad situation. You know, who knows if we're going to get out of here or not. Well, in the meantime, Tony and Kiwi are not. driving down the road, guns blazing, 25 millimeter cannons are going, they have coaxial mounted machine guns, they've got pinto mounted machine guns and everything is firing. And so that turns the momentum somewhat back in our favor for a period of time and they pull up on either side of these buildings, drop the ramps and they're like, let's get, let's go. So we load all the casualties into one vehicle and, you know, the rest of the guys get into

another vehicle and, you know, we drive out of there. you know that's that's not the end of the battle but that's the end of my story for the battle because really after that we had flooded the area with reinforcements but then Colonel Hope was told hey no more like get out of there and actually you know if I think about it maybe that's wrong maybe he was told um to leave and he said no I'm not leaving and then uh you know after a certain amount of time. He said, okay, well, we're going to, we're going to pull back. And we ended up going back to Canada our airfield after that. And of course, in the meantime, you know, there's casualties being medevaced and all this stuff. So, you know, that's kind of how it ended up.

It was, you know, we lost four guys in total during the day. We had somewhere around 19 wounded. And I don't consider it a loss, but I'll take you back to when I said, You know, we had all these combat enablers. And when all of a sudden we didn't have artillery, we didn't have fast air, we didn't have attack helicopters, because the rules of engagement had changed, we now found ourselves at a significant disadvantage, especially numerically. But I'm super proud of everybody that day because to think that 14 guys held off somewhere around 200 guys for the amount of time we did. And, you know, even though we sustained casualties, that that's pretty remarkable.

remarkable in and of itself in my humble opinion. So, you know, that's the, that's the story. And maybe there's some nuance there in terms of different versions and how I've told it in the past. But that's how I recall it today. Well, A, first, thanks for sharing that. I'm sure, well, I don't know. I just, I sit on a fly on a wall kind of like, holy shit. And then to hear 175 to 250 and sure, we'll ballpark it at 200.

Like, that's wild to me. one. I don't know, Adam. You've probably heard that story on and off different times, certainly being a friend, good friends. What sticks out to a military guy or a guy who's served alongside Willie? First of all, I know that wasn't easy for him to say that. He's given a little bit more detail. And I've ever heard. I've heard it a couple of times. Soldiers like Willie that have been in combat, sometimes they don't talk about it. Like Rod Deering for example there and Medick Pocket. Like, I mean, he never, ever talked about it very rarely.

And like you, I sat back and just listened to every word that he said. But again, it was leadership, right? And leadership means different things to a lot of people, but to soldiers, it's key, right? Because people look up to you, especially when you start getting higher up and rank, they look to you to figure out the problem, right? just like I looked to the prime minister to figure out the problem or or whatever there.

That's what leadership is. You've got to step up to the plate even though you might not be able to. You know, physically, mentally, or whatever, you have to do it. And, you know, Willie pointed out that was the thing, you know, that got him going, right? Was those guys looking at him.

You know, what do we do now? Because we're screwed. Kind of thing, so. That to me is, like, I don't even know what to say at this point, right? Like, honestly, just click it off and let's all go in her merry way, you know, almost. To me, the wildest part, there's all of it. But what you just said is something that I'm going to have to think about for a long time, right?

You were ready to give up, and then their eyes are telling you, man, we got to do something. And that pulls you out of it. one of the things in society I see right now is a ton of people looking for somebody with that type of leadership to pull us out of this I don't know who it is I keep looking for it I keep asking the questions I keep talking to people because somewhere it's there we're gonna find it and everybody's looking for it and there's very few people that would be probably honest enough to tell that their story where they've been I wasn't until they looked at me you know I think that's really hopeful Honestly, and I'm really probably dark, and I don't mean to make light of the story, and I hope that's not how it's coming off. This feels awkward because I'm like, what you just talked about is I don't have words for. But in the middle of it, you're talking about giving up, and I know a lot of people over the chunks of time feel like giving up,

and then eyes come on them or people look at them and say, and it just snaps. I think that's really hopeful, honestly. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, you know, again, it's, I'm a glass half-fold. You know, was there horrible things that happened that day? Absolutely. But I don't look at it as a failure. I don't look at it as we lost that fight.

Because at the end of the day, Canada or city never got over rent. And soldiers assume that unlimited liability up to including death when you go on every single mission. And, you know, did we go into that fight with some misplaced confidence? Absolutely. did we go into that fight fully mentally prepared for what we encountered? Absolutely not. But we still made it out, right? We got in a gunfight earlier like July the 12th,

and I'll just give you a real quick Leaders Digest version of this. My platoon got ambushed by a numerically superior force with terrain advantage and blah, blah, blah. We got caught in a bridge basically at first light. And we had an American embedded training team with us, and they had three or four Afghans with them. And at the end of that battle, when we withdrew and pulled back, we did an after-action review immediately with the chain of command. And when it was a U.S. Army Ranger, he was a major.

When it was his turn to sort of tell his side of the story, he couldn't even talk. Like he actually started crying. And when he finally was able to talk, he said, I've never seen anybody fight like that. he's like you guys didn't stop moving forward even though you were outnumbered and and outgunned and and he was like just flabbergasted he just couldn't explain it and you know it's it's important for me to talk about how we made the most with the least when we when we were training during

the days where we didn't have any of these these resources at our disposal and you know as a small platoon dismounted 12 guys fighting against 40 or whatever the number one. was and eventually Mark Pickford's platoon came and pulled us out of the fire. But, you know, to continue moving forward and fighting against that numerically superior force, you know, that that is Canadian spirit. That is what we do. We take the, the best case scenario out of a terrible situation and we manipulate it so that it meets our needs, right? And we don't quit. We just keep going forward. And to me, that was a very, you know, it was almost an epiphanyphous. epiphany of a moment because, you know, to have our allies say Americans don't fight like that,

like you guys are crazy. And I don't even know what to say. I'm proud to have been a part of it. Yeah, what a bad your honor to have the Americans say that about a rag tag group. And I mean that in the best possible way of a group of Canadians who went in and, you know, like, I mean, that's pretty cool. Because, you know, one of the things I'd written down here when you were talking, and well before you got too deep in your story was, you know, like, what's the difference between Canada and the U.S. when it comes to the military? I think you actually pointed out in your story about, well, the tools and the tool belt. Like what the Americans have is insane compared to what probably anyone on the planet has.

And certainly there's going to be some different military nations that have something similar. But compared to Canada and the States, it sounds like it's pretty clear. The tools in the tool belt are not the same. and you know for them to tip the cap or you know being unable to speak that says a lot about what Canadians are capable about that might be the most hopeful thing you know that comes out of this entire thing I appreciate you guys coming in and doing this I know for myself always you know I enter this room and certainly when I don't know Willie or Adam this is this is the adventure for me you know like I don't know where this is going to go I have no idea

and I hope that I provided something that you two were driving along going, I wonder what this guy is all about, you know, and certainly you've listened to me before Willie with the two others, but I appreciate you coming and doing this. I hope it isn't the last time I get to sit and talk to, you know, I try and do what came out of, I've talked now, I think you guys are four and five roughly, and if I guess I tack on some of the older veterans,

it's certainly a few more than that, but there's so much wisdom, knowledge, experience, perspective out of our military veterans. I like to try and do it once a month where I try and grab some military guys coming and talk about different things and hear some stories because A, from a Canadian standpoint, I didn't know a whole lot about certainly that story other than what I've been told. And Jamie's certainly told some stories and Chuck told some stories.

And it's starting to give me some knowledge. I didn't know about my Canadian military history. And then on top of it, certainly just having your perspectives on the world today is really, really important. So hopefully you enjoy your cafe trip, and hopefully it isn't the last time you two hop on here. And certainly I hope I did my part

and making sure it was a place to sit and share some stories and ask some questions, all that good stuff. That's awesome. Thanks. Thanks so much for having us. Thanks for getting me on to Mike.