Shaun Newman Podcast - #540 - Chris Arnott

Episode Date: November 29, 2023

He spent 25 years in the Canadian military serving in 5 tours overseas. He survived jumping out of a plane after he hit the side of it and his parachute got tangled up. Now he operates Banshee Hunting and Fishing Guide Service. Let me know what you think.Text me 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcast E-transfer here: [e-mail]

This is Graham Wardle. Mark Fraser. This is Marty up north. This is Alex Kraner. I'm Rupa Subramania. This is Tom Longo, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Wednesday.

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lubricants, methanol, chemicals, delivering to your farm, commercial oil field locations for more information. Visit them at Hancock, Petroleum, dat, CA. He spent 25 years in the Canadian military. and now is the owner-operator of Banshee hunting and fishing guide service. I'm talking about Chris Arnett. So buckle up. Here we go.

Welcome to this Sean Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Chris Arnett. So, sir, thanks for hopping in the studio. Thanks for having me. Yeah. You were asking, I don't know a whole heck a lot about what the heck this is and everything else. You're asking, you've stumbled on to me, I assume, because I've interviewed other guys who were part of the military, correct? Kind of correct.

I got a text. from a friend that's a listener. He's out in Tisdale and said, hey man, you, you're looking for ex-military who were working in the outdoor industry now. And he contacted me, he said, hey, I know this guy, as in me. And I thought, well, give him a listen,

give him a call. Here's his number. Yeah. I said, yeah. Okay, sure. I'm down. I've never done anything like this before. I'm kind of freaking out with a camera there.

Don't worry. Don't worry about it. Don't worry. I mean, I don't know. I guess it's funny, it's, it's become second nature for me, you know. This is, I think you're like 538 now. Holy crap. So you're asking like, you know, like, you know, is this full time?

And it's like, yeah, it's full time. Been full time since 2022. That's cool. Started in 2019, started interviewing locals from here like Shep, who's, you know, rest in peace. You know, and some different people. Bill Maasgrave, I was telling the story. We were joking about the Ivanholm Motel, you know, like, who, you know, you drive by. You're like, who's ever stayed there?

Well, once upon a time, it must have been a hop-in-law. I mean, it still is. You know what? When I was a kid, it was. Ivanhoe. Yeah. Yeah. Well, when I was a kid, I mean, like town ended at McDonald's, and on the other side, it ended at A&W.

Like, that was a while ago, right? Yeah, I remember when it ended at A&W. That is a long time ago. I mean, you know, how long ago since you last lived in Lloyd? I left Lloyd in December of 95. December of 95. Yeah. okay well finishing it out 2019 started the podcast started interviewing people from town like

shep and and different you know characters and it was very athletic focused lots of hockey players but you know don't cherry rome mclean yeah i saw this and that you know on and on it went it was a it was a fun little ride until covid and then the middle of covid i think we all had a choice you know like well i don't know what are we gonna what are we gonna do yeah are we just Are we just going to lock everybody away for the rest of time? And nobody was talking about. No media would talk about it. I couldn't, you know, the only places I could find talking about it was the United States.

And I actually, I should give Wayne Peters a shout out right now because Wayne Peters was in Kand and he was doing it. And so then I just started interviewing, you know, I just, one day I woke up after I interviewed Roger Hugginson and he sat there and he like verbally pinned me against the wall. He just was, he yelled at me. He just, you know, you can't two step this. You can't. And he just, blah, blah, blah, blah.

bang, bang, bang. No punches were thrown. I don't mean it that way. Just like verbally. Yeah, I get it. And I said, okay. And I woke up the next morning. I'm like, I'm not going to talk about anything but COVID until we're out of this.

Wow. And I would suggest never doing that ever again. No, that's a dark. It's a dividing issue for sure. And it's just, there was no reprieve for me, you know? Like I love talking. I love having a diverse set of guests where we talk, you know, can we talk some serious stuff? Yeah.

But it's heavy. to always listen to heavy is tough. It is. But in saying that for a year, I mean, and maybe it was a little less than that. It was from about August 21, maybe July, 21 until February. So a little less than a year, all I did every week was come in and interview somebody on COVID, over and over and over until it was like, this is insane.

Why are we still doing this? And then the trucker convoy happened. And so now, since 2022, been full time, but it's been all over the place. So I've really enjoyed it. enjoyed sitting with military guys because I just, you know, it's funny, you know, like military guys probably don't think anything of it. No different than if you played high-end hockey, you don't think anything of some of your story.

Whatever. That's just what happened. There's lots of people. But like in Canada, I don't, like, I'm trying to think of like, there's probably 20 podcasts and I probably need to have some of those guys on who shine the light on it. I just don't hear enough about it. And so to have people come on, talk about being in the Canadian military specifically is I don't know, I'm really enjoyable.

From my side and the audience. It's a different lifestyle. It's one that we, it's a completely separate portion of society that we, we keep to ourselves. We don't talk about stuff unless we know yet, right? So, I get it. It's, I assume it's like,

it's like the hockey brotherhood. There's just certain things you can tell when there's an outsider in presence. I'm going to ask some dumb questions today, no worries. I'll give you some dumb answers. Good. I look forward to it. So you're, I guess I just sit here and I go, so you were from Lloydminster? Born in Wainwright, raised in Lloyd, though, yeah. And did you come from a military family?

I did. Yeah, my father served. I grew up with my grandpa and grandma, though. Grandpa was serving. He was in the Air Force, so that's why we were in Wainwright. My mom worked at the junior ranks there, met my dad, and I happened. but yeah Grandpa served 25 years and I'm not sure I don't talk to my father

so I don't know how many years he was in was it if you don't like me prying now is your time to speak in German when he joked before if I asked him a question folks he was going to start speaking and didn't like it just yell at you in German

when you talk about your father are we talking like super young he wasn't around or never met him never met him never met him no interest in me mom had me at 17 okay and uh yeah i never really pride about it uh i i found well i didn't find him my wife found him on facebook and kind of communicated him with him a little bit on facebook and he said some things that just just sat wrong with me so i was like yeah no i'm done thanks uh how long ago was this uh probably a couple years ago now

Yeah. So I'm 47 now. Yeah. And yeah, just my wife decided that she was going to do that. She's very singular minded person. And she's like a bulldog with the bone sometimes. She will not let go. Singular minded?

Yeah. Yeah. My wife used to do insurance fraud investigations. Oh, okay. So she's, she's very good at digging and getting to the bottom of things. And so it probably just sat with her and bothered her then. I don't know if it bothered her. She just went and found him.

One day she said, this is who it is. Yeah. Yeah. And as a kid, once again, these are where the dumb questions coming, folks. Because obviously I grew up, my, you know, I told this lots, dad's been on and talked about it. But as a young kid, we almost lost the farm.

And so, you know, I have years where dad was just working his butt off. I mean, he was just gone. Yeah. But he'd come back home for three days and you get to hang around or, you know, he drove a truck. Right. So you'd hop in the bunk and you go ride with him for a week and, you know, you know, live the trucker lifestyle. And at no point as a kid did you go, I'm just going to go find him? Um, I remember trying once, but like that was the age before the internet.

Yeah. So a little. So it was a, uh, a Winnipeg phone book, I think. And I tried once, never really got anywhere with it and just said, you know, I, I, doesn't really matter. And so you grew up with your grandparents? Grandpa and grandma had a big, a,

uh, we lived with grandpa and grandma in Wainwright and then mom moved to Lloyd after we were out on her own for a little bit. So like I said, she had me at 17. Yeah, young girl. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, that's, I mean, it still happens, but like, um, at least back then it was, not that it was like, oh yeah, you should have kids at 17. But I think kid, people were having kids earlier back than they are now.

I think so. You know, like now people are, I even look at myself. I think we had, well, Che was 30. I was, sorry, I was 30 when we had, when we had her first. And that's, I think that's a good age to, to do that, you know? I really do. I, do you? Yeah.

How many, do you got kids? We have four between the two of us, yeah. Okay. Yep. And did you have them at older age? I had my first. I was 25, I think. 25.

Yeah. And do you, do you, do you think? 25 was a I think 25 might have been a little young really yeah why do you think that um I don't think I really hit really really maturity until I was in my 30s at 25 I still wanted to go out and do really dumb stuff so you know what I mean yeah well I mean at up at 35 I still wanted to go out and do really dumb stuff you know I think it's a man thing well no I shouldn't say that you can say that Everybody wants to do stuff.

I think from probably, I don't know, I don't know when it hits. For certain men, it's 15, for others it's 17, but there's, let's just put it at 15. And for some of us, it goes until you're through like this decade of danger. You know, are you just going to do stupid crap? And you're just like, well, why are you doing that? I don't know. I don't know. Men like to do stupid things.

And it's kind of like growing up and coming out from the parents' wing. You know why you do stupid things? because there was this girl, right? Isn't there a country song about that? Something about this guy being in a pickup truck and blowing through cornfields and running over fences because there was this girl, right?

That's why we do stupid things. It's to impress women. Absolutely. I know I did. Absolutely. That's a fair point. That's a fair point. So what drew you to the military?

Like I just you mentioned you played football, correct? I did. Played football and like were you always, you know, like I get it. The family, you know, your grandfather being a military man, airborne, correct? No, Air Force. Air Force. Air Force. Was that something you're like as a high school student?

You're like, I'm just going to the military. No, you know what? Mom said that I always wanted to be either police or military. Always. And always had an interest in it. it. You know, originally my plan was to join up, get a parachute course, and then either go to the special forces, the JTF2, or go search and rescue technician. But I had an accident. In 99, I had a parachute accident and got told that if I ever jumped again, I would be

in a wheelchair. I got lucky my once, and that was it. What happened? I had a really bad exit from aircraft. So I think that I bounced off the side. Of the plane? I think so. I think my exit was terrible. But so my risers, the part that connects to your canopy from your harness, they were all twisted all the way up, right? And there's a drill.

You grab behind your risers and you kick your legs like crazy and it spins you the opposite way and then your canopy fully develops. I was young. I was dumb. I brought looking back I should have pulled my reserve shoot but you pull your reserve boys are going to ride you hard right that's just the way it is so I thought now I can do this I can kick out of this no problem and it was a night jump onto Buxton which is our home drop zone on the on CFB Edmonton and steel barracks and it's just a big field it's a it's pasture but there's swamps and pickets and freaking everything else out there, right?

So, yeah, I was falling a lot faster than I thought I was. I looked down. I saw the ground. I released my equipment. And, uh, and I hit. And the boys said that they heard me hit. And, uh, yeah, I don't remember anything until I got to the ambulance. So, uh, there's a drill.

When you land, you meet up at the drop zone rendezvous point. So before, when you're doing your briefings and everything else, before you even load the aircraft, you set your compass, you know which way the drop zone rendezvous is, you know how far it is based on where you're going to jump and what position you are in the stick. So you know where it is. And if somebody hasn't shown up there within an hour or half hour, whatever, you got to go find this guy. Well, Mark Legge found me. He was one of the guys that was killed in 2002 in the friendly. fire accident and David Boyce and they said that they found me on my hands and knees trying to pack up my canopy. I don't remember any of this. So Mark was my section

commander and I do remember him and I was a corporal at the time saying like, hey man, you're hurt, but no, no, I'm good. I'm good. He said, well, I'm going to, I'm going to carry your rucksack. No, you're not, Sergeant. I'm going to carry my own gear. So I did. They helped me pack up my chute. And, uh, I think it took us probably about an hour and a half, two hours to get to the, the, the drop zone rendezvous.

And it was only like 500 meters away. So they said, yeah, you're, you're hurt. Mark said, getting the ambulance. So I'm not hurt. I'm good. Get in the Fn ambulance, or I'm going to make you get into the F and ambulance. Yeah, Roger that, Sergeant. So got into the ambulance.

They put me on a spine board, jacked me full of morphine, took me to the surgeon hospital, laid there strapped to a spine board for like eight hours in the x-ray room. And finally got some x-rays. Doctor looks at me and goes, no, you just, you're bruised. So I called the duty driver. we always have a guy at the unit that drives the van right it's a duty it's a 24 hour duty call him he'll take you where you need to go took him back to my truck on base went home showered went back to the unit we had our own doctors at the time so went in to see the doctor he said yeah i'm going to

send you for more x-rays okay so went and did that came back saw him said so tell me a story I told them. I had a really bad exit. I landed really hard. I said, I carried my stuff off the drop zone, like a good soldier. And he looked at me and he called me an idiot. And I was like, well, what did I do? So you've got a compression fracture, T12 and L1.

Your pelvis is fractured. You bit through your tongue and you've got a high-grade concussion. I just kind of looked at him and said, oh, okay. So you are damn lucky you are not in a wheelchair. And I was fit. Like when you're in the parachute company, you have to be fit. Like I was striations in the chest six pack. Dumb question.

Why do you have to be fit? More is expected. Like when you're airborne, the doctrine is you're dropping in behind enemy lines. Airborne forces are always surrounded, always. So if you're being used in an airborne roll, you're dropping behind enemy lines or you're dropping onto an objective, you're seizing that. If you're not physically fit, you're detriment to your team. Right. That's the bottom line.

So you do PT every day, all day, and a fittest bunch of hard drinkers you've ever seen, right? So, yeah. So Dr. Calls You an idiot. You got all these fractures. That's what happens? He sends me on leave. I say, okay, so what do you want? So I should be in a clamshell, but you carried off your gear, so there's no point putting you in a clamshell brace now.

So he sent me on a couple weeks leave and physio and just healed everything. Just time, time and exercise, man. when you say you have a bad exit, you smack off probably the sat of the plane. I think so. You go spiraling down. Yeah. Like are you saying your shoots kind of open or like it's just like what's a hard landing?

I guess I don't fully understand. I can't remember the math. It's been a long time obviously since I jumped. But we were jumping CT1 shoots. Like they, I'm pretty sure they were designed in World War II. Like they're not the civilian canopy. They are designed to get you on the ground fast. Fast.

Right. And I was jumping out of the aircraft. I had a full rucksack. So that was probably about 70 pounds. I think it was about 210, 215 at the time. I'm like 190 right now, but just. Built. Jacked.

Yeah. And I've heard it equated to jumping off a two story building. That's a good landing. That kind of force. You impact. with. Of course, they teach you the drills how to properly land. Well, do you think I could do that?

No. Jumping out is fine. But, but it's the landing. That's the hard part, right? And in the night, too. Yeah. It adds a different element to it for sure. So did you stay in the military after this?

Yep. I did. I went on another tour, uh, six months after that, four months after that. Did you go on a tour before this? Yeah, I did. A tour in Bosnia in 97. And then had my parachute accident in October of 99. I was on tour November or December of 99.

Did the 2000 tour. Yeah, so I was two months. And back on tour? Yeah. That's hardcore. That was dumb. Like I should have stayed home, but my pride wouldn't let me, right? The pride and the paycheck.

So, yeah, it was dumb. Looking back, it was dumb. But at the time, yeah, I was, I don't know, I thought it was all right. I don't know. You're looking at me like, I'm... You know, I say this, well, I don't know. Some days I sit in this chair and have somebody come and sit across me and rale me with stories about just about anything, right? Military guys always find a way to make me go, holy.

You know, like I think hockey players are tough, you know, and they are. Yeah. Compared to soccer players. Wow. But the story you just said, you know, a soccer player, are you? Oh, he's going to go. Yeah. That's good.

I just, to me, like, this is, you go, well, what are you looking for? It's like, well, I just want to hear about the military life. I, I, the, the stories, the, the, the, the stories, the, tours, the outlook on life, the looking at the world right now and seeing all the craziness going on, military men have just an interesting perspective. It doesn't mean they're right. It just means they have like they've been over to the other side of the world. They've seen things. Like you went to Bosnia. Yeah. What was Bosnia like on your first tour? How long did you go for? I went for six months right after the Dayton Accord was signed and Bosnia is a beautiful country. It is absolutely

gorgeous it reminded me a lot of the interior bc but um let me tell you man you want to see some old world hate you go there like the the serbs came through and your family converted to islam 600 700 years ago so we're going to make you pay now just old school disgusting human hate what does that do to it because you would have been young back then right i think i was what was I 19 20? Like a young kid. Yeah, young kid from, seeing something that you're just like, well, I don't know. Young kid from Lloyd never like farthest I had been was freaking LA.

You know, so it, yeah, completely, you have no, no context for, for that kind of, of hate. And we did. We, we dealt with a masgrave. thank God we didn't discover it but they were in the process of pulling people out and bagging them and yeah to see those bags and that many bags all in a row it's something that you don't ever lose and like I said it's it's old world hate for no reason other than you converted your great, great, great grandfather converted to Islam. Oh, my goodness.

I can't think of Alex's last name. Why is that, folks? I'm having a mental block this morning. Tom and Alex. Anyways, Alex is from Croatia originally. He comes on the show roughly once a month. They talk about world politics, a bunch of different things. Croatia is gorgeous.

And, I mean, he was. is a military guy and he always, the example he always says on here is, is you take a jar of red and black ants and you, normally they don't do anything, but if you shake it up, they'll go and they'll start killing each other. Absolutely. So whenever he looks at world conflict and you're talking about Serbia, uh, or not Serbia, um, Serbs, uh, you, you're talking, he's just like, all you got to do is just take it and somebody shook the glass. Oh yeah. And then they went at it. That's a great way of thinking about it. And he just looks at all these different places, and they're just shaking the glass.

And he goes, so who's doing the shaking is more the better question? It goes, war is awful for all sides because innocent people are going to die. Absolutely. And, you know, when you're talking about being there and seeing, like, man, masquerades, like, that's terrifying. You know, like, I mean, this is, on this side, you think of Canada in general. Like, we just don't have, I shouldn't say we don't have stories like that. Certainly with First Nations, you go back about 100 years. Maybe you can give me a, maybe you know a little better than I, but you go back, I'm reading

Big Bear's book. And for some reason, I just can't finish off like the last chapter. Don't know why. I guess it's waiting for the right time. The Frog Lake massacre. And the fact that the government, the government just starved out different until they signed. And you're like, this is hard to read. Like this, you know, our government has done this.

So Canada isn't without its blemishes as well. No, we're not. We're not. But everybody, every country that I've been to anyways, has a tendency to gloss over those blemishes, right? Like I spent a month in Germany and working with 231 Yeagerstrupen. So they're mountain core, totally professional guys. They absolutely know what they're doing.

We don't have a downhill ski in the Alps. That was pretty crappy. at a dispenser machine, like a Coke machine that served beer in our shacks. It was a pretty good go. But just talking to their guys, they do not teach them about the prelude to World War II. They don't. That's just glossed right over. And World War II, they kind of glass over it as well.

You know what I mean? Like you can go in Germany And in their barracks A lot of them You can still see There's the big laurels Right

That used to have the eagle And the and the swastika And the eagle and the swastika is carved out But the laurels are still there It's just a blank page in their history And Canada has Blank pages in our history too That's

You know It's hard to look at internally, right? Yeah. To see some of the things. It's also tough, though, because, like, our government, you know, as we try and correct some things from the past, let's say, they absolutely, over the last three years have just, like, absolutely drilled a population and said, oh, yeah, you're not going to play ball?

Fine. We're going to make life difficult on it. You're like, okay, so we're going to fix everything in the past, but here in the future, or right now in the current, we're just going to be dicks, and we're going to just do horrendous things to the people. Yeah. And nobody seems to care about that. We only want to stare back at this.

It's such a wild time. And probably every time is wild. You know, like, look over here. Don't worry about what's happening right now. It's like, I don't, some days I just don't get it. I don't get how we can't all just get on the same page and realize the government is like, we employ them. Like, I mean, it's our money that pays for all the stupidity they do.

I mean, I don't know. You know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Chris is staring at me going, yeah, maybe not. Yeah, you know what? I don't know. I was out for an answer. I don't know. Well, actually, I appreciate I don't know because I feel like, you know, you watch any expert get on a show.

And they ask him about 50 million different things. And they always have an answer. It's like, was that the right? Like, is that actually? Or can we just say, I don't know. I had Bruce Party on here. He was a lawyer from out Ontario. And he was the first professional I had on here who said, I don't know.

And I was like, oh, man, I like that. Yeah. It's like, I don't know. You know what? If you're asking a professional, a professional question, that's fine to say, I don't know. But we always said, like when we were teaching classes, courses, if you don't know, say, I don't know. But I'll get back to you by the end of the day. I'll have an answer for you.

You know what I mean? But something like politics and, man, I'm not the guy to talk to about that. I think every politician will tell you what you want to. hear and then once they're elected they will do whatever they want it's it's pretty simple nDP conservative they're all the same do you pay do you look at the world like uh like geez like i just saw the video um of the saskatcham parliament where they're they're chanting ceasefire and it's uh haven't seen this Sean I'll level with you I don't watch the news that's fair enough I said as soon as uh COVID started hitting I turned off my television

television. So you don't, so when it comes to, okay, then I'm not even going to worry about that for right now, when it comes to like Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, Russia, all these different things, war, war, war, war, war, you go, yeah, whatever. I don't go, yeah, whatever. I go, geez, that's too bad. I, a friend once explained to me sphere of influence versus sphere of control. Hmm. Okay.

So you can control what you think, what you do. You can influence those that are closest to you. But outside of that, you can't really do anything. So for me to have an opinion about Russia and Ukraine, about Israel, Palestine, you know what? I'm not Russian. I'm not Ukrainian. I'm not Israeli. I'm not Palestinian.

Yeah, I could maybe have an opinion on it, but I don't feel that I would be getting both. sides of the story to form a really educated opinion. I actually share that thought on specifically what's going on right now with all the, I'm like, I just, what I've learned through COVID with all the, the propaganda that, the media gives you,

I'm like, I, fuck, I'm supposed to go through it with a fine-tooth comb and then try and understand internal relations between Israel and Palestine, all these different things, and you go down all these rabbit holes. And God bless all.

of you that do because I just on this side I'm like I want to talk to real human beings and don't get me wrong if they have an opinion on it I'm willing to listen to it because that's what we do here we try and pull things out and talk to different cast of characters talk to people who have an opinion and they will educate you you check their opinions because sometimes opinions are just opinions and they're not based in any fact but they'll give you something to look into so you can form your own opinion right from an educated understanding stance.

Wow, that's a decade of therapy right there, eh? How many years do you serve? 25 and a half. Well, you served 25 and a half. Yep. Yeah, I was medically released two and a half years ago. So how's life been on the outside? It's been weird.

It's been really weird. I was released. Can I just say, too, for people who have no idea if they're just listening, Chris has got a solid beard, a solid beard. It's pretty nice,

oh yeah, I shaved mine off for Halloween and I grew in, I had this mustache, I had the, the Mario mustache. You're going to be like,

I don't believe you. And I'm going to, I'm going to show you that way you can, you can truly believe that I had. That's, there you go.

That's sweet. I would have kept that. Wait, I did for a bit. And then I'm like, you know, You got to. Come on.

Come on, Sean. You got to grow up back. Do it. Well, it's funny. Married to a woman. Love her, to bits. And she likes a short beard, doesn't like the long beard. I'm like, I love the long beard.

I just, I love the look of it. I just, and I grew, I worked in the oil field for 10 years. Yeah. Every day had to shave. Every freaking day. When you grow facial hair, folks, you go, oh, yeah, you got to shave. Oh, that's not, it's like, every day I had to go shave. And at one point in time, I had to dry shave on in sight because they're like, are you, I'm like.

Did you shave close enough? It's like being in the Army, man. Is that what it is? Well, yeah, we weren't allowed to have beards. Well, pioneers are very specialty guys within the unit were allowed to have beards because it was tradition. But everybody else. What's pioneers? Pioneers in my unit were guys infantrymen that took a specialized pioneer course.

So they had knowledge of explosives and demolitions and construction. They enabled movement and denied the enemy movement. So these guys could crater runways, they could build bridges. They could build us bunkers. They could do it. So in other words, they learned all that just so they could grow a beard. Pretty much. Pretty much.

Yeah. And it's a trade that dates back to the Napoleonic era. and every country at that time had pioneers. You see these guys. They had the big leather apron, the white apron. They carried axes. You see pictures of them. And the story goes that they were allowed to grow beards

because their packs were so heavy that they couldn't put a shave kid in it. Really? That's the story. I don't know. That's the myth or the legend. That's the legend. That's the legend.

So in the military, Mm-hmm. How many guys are in like this in a unit? Pioneers. When I was in, it was a platoon. So it was 32. Okay. That doesn't mean that everybody or other guys weren't qualified the course.

But Pioneers was a platoon of 32 guys? Yeah, give or take, yeah. And so they'd roll in all just giant beards. And if, like, when you were on the course, you could grow a beard. They should have a commercial of become a, you know, like. Be a pioneer. Be a pioneer and have big giant beards. And just a guy with a chainsaw.

I mean, I mean, you know. I should do recruiting for the army. You probably should. No, I shouldn't. Yeah, I think. I can't lie like that. Can't lie like what? What do you mean?

What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? We can do this all day. You can't lie like what? I can't look at somebody and go, hey, man, this is all good. This is all crazy. You don't, you're 25 years of, I mean,

accident aside because I don't know is that a freak accident I yeah it was okay it's not like that happens once at every 10 jumps this is like pretty rare no you know it's it is rare but it absolutely happened

geez we just went off on a tangent hey yes we're bouncing we had an exercise in Wainwright and the parachute company dropped into this drop zone called rifle ridge and it was dark and we're talking guys from the commando. So from the airborne regiment, when the airborne regiment was disbanded, the vast majority of two commando came to Edmonton and formed the nucleus of

3rd Battalion Princess Patricia's. So they formed the nucleus of our parachute company. And we're talking guys with hundreds of static line jumps. And they jumped into Rifle Ridge and there was broken femur. there was broken backs. Really? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was terrible.

Like, it was to the point, it was so bad that we ceased the exercise. And, like... It was just the terrain then? I, between the terrain and the darkness, and I'm pretty sure that there was a wind shear. So you'd think that you were coming down one way, and then the wind would take you just another way. And you're going fast enough where it just like slams you into the rock or whatever.

Yeah, into the prairies, right? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's, that's... It happens. It's, it's an inherently dangerous job. The infantry is anyways. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I can't speak to another job. Well, I mean, I mean, I think if you're joining the military, in general, it's an inherently dangerous job, isn't it? I, you know what? For some trades, yes. For other trades, not so much. I don't think so. So when you say 25 years, I can't lie. Yeah.

You look back on it and you go, you know, it was a good career, but when what comes after the butt? a lot of it sucked what sucked about being in the military uh well uh the expectations they sucked like um

we work in a we I used to work in a there was no defects allowed um like you had a zero error environment you had to be perfect

every time every time every single time that's an incredible amount of pressure to live with and it it breaks people it does and you know what there's politicking I was never very good at it and that's okay that's just who I was I wore my my opinion on my sleeve and maybe I ran my mouth a little bit too much to inappropriate people at inappropriate times, but that's just the way it was. Like, unfortunately,

I was just talking to a buddy who's just went out hunting with him on Saturday. And he's still in. And he just, yeah, man, the old gray mare ain't what she used to be. The old gray mare? Yeah. Yeah.

Just ain't what she used to be. It's gone. The army as an institution, when I say the army, I mean the Canadian forces, I guess, will swing either way right or way left. And that's just the way it is. It cannot seem to find the middle ground anywhere. Isn't that just culture and life in general? I think so. Because, I mean, we've swung so far left.

It's just to epic proportions at this point in time. You know, when we talk about creating a manly commercial, I'm like, nah, they'll probably have Dylan Mulvaney come on and say, join the army. It's great. Yeah. You know, and you're like, nobody's going to join. You know, here's a funny story. Miss Universe is bankrupt because, well, I don't know, probably amongst other things,

they allowed transgendered women to compete at Miss Universe. And you're like, who wants to see a transgendered female at a beauty contest, right? It just makes zero sense. There's people out there that do. I don't know. You can, I'll allow. you to back off that one. I'm not.

I'm going, not as many as you think. We all know it. We can all, like, we can all just call it off for what it is. Nobody wants to see that.

Okay, so maybe it's like the, the Bud Light commercial. Well, maybe they just made an epic mistake and misjudged their audience. Oh, 100%.

But, Bud Light hired Dylan Mulvaney to be like the poster child, poster whatever, for Bud Light. Bud Light, who's Bud Light's target audience? American Red Decks, as far as I know.

And Canadian. Red Nets. Canaanians who don't like real beer. That's true. That is true. It's funny. We'd put it in the, it just always seemed to be in the dressing room. Like, I think in the hockey culture, Bud Light was pretty synonymous with the hockey dressing room. Nice, easy light beer after the game. You got to hydrate after the game, right? That's right. So you drink water,

right? And it was called Bud Light. Yeah. And so you had it in a canoe, right? Now if, now if you, now if you, now if you bring a Bud Light anywhere, Like, I mean, from young guys to old timers, don't bring that in here. No. And it's been a big, like, this is how it, but it hasn't, it isn't just beer. It isn't just Bud Light. They've made it a political statement. They made it a social statement.

Miss Universe, which makes zero sense. Then it was, then it was, oh, Victoria's Secret. Victoria's Secret put away the, retired the Angels, which is like, listen, you can think whatever you want. They sold billions of dollars. and had sexy women in tiny little things with angels wings on and walk down runways. It makes kind of sense whether you like it or not.

They changed that out and brought it. One of their new cast of characters was a transgender man. I'm like, what male or female wants to see that? Nobody. And then their stock price went from $87 to I think it's $17. It's like, right. Okay. So maybe let's Spartan up here.

So what you're telling me is now is the time to buy into Victoria's Secret. It probably is. I wouldn't doubt it. I mean, they've been around, they're going to bounce back. You know, they will. Well, I mean,

what do they sell? Sexy women in lingerie. I mean, like, just get away from all the woke stuff and we can go back to doing business. I'm not going to disagree with you. I mean, most people are going to be like, well, no,

I'm going to go to somebody else. Like, well, who else is in that? I'm sure there are others. I don't know. I don't know. Victoria's Secret's just, you know, like, I don't know. It's synonymous with,

with lingerie. It is the brand. Yeah. Yep. It is. Yep. I get it. I don't know.

It's a strange world. So when you talk about the military going left and right and they can't seem to find center, we can't find center. No, and you know what it is, is that the military will always bow to public opinion. Why is that? Because if anything shouldn't bow to public opinion, you would think military would be almost at the top of the list, wouldn't it? Because the military is a cross-section of Canadian society. And if the military is not in line with Canadian values, then they're not. no longer the Canadian military.

Does that make sense? No. It doesn't. But that's an opinion. The military should be completely, not completely separate from society, but my opinion. But its job is to protect society. Is that Canada, and I don't think our Canadian society is ready for this, the military should be a war fighting machine.

that's it war fighting machine they shouldn't I shouldn't say they shouldn't you know what do I care if somebody has purple hair no no can you do your damn job that's what I care about so yeah is there a a certain tradition of looking all the same and the high and tights and and shiny brass and everything else looking professional yeah taking care of the little things. Yeah, absolutely. And you know what? It's, it's the little details that really matter.

And I live by the seven peas. Which are? Pre-planning and preparation prevents piss poor performance. Mm-hmm. I like that. Right. So, but, you know, yeah. No, the army, the Air Force, the Navy should be war fighting machines.

We can absolutely peace keep. we, they can absolutely peacekeeping. And the Canadian soldier is very, very good at it. At peacekeeping? Absolutely. Canadian soldiers have been called the superlative diplomat. What, we, how, forgive me, maybe I don't understand, but how can you be bad at peacekeeping? Because aren't you just the buffer?

No, no, well, you're the buffer, but you're also dealing with the people in that buffer zone. Okay. Right? So Americans, I love them. I love working with the American military. Love it. They have toys and everything that just blows your mind. And they have support.

I'll tell you a story about Melvin, maybe a little bit later. You don't want to tell Melvin right now? No, not right now, because it's going to get off on a tangent. Sure. No tangents here. But the American military has a tradition of coming in heavy. handed, very, very heavy handed. And it's very much, no, you're going to do it my way. You're going to do what I say, where you're going to pay. Right. Now, I can't speak to what happened in Iraq. I can't.

I wasn't there. But I can speak to what happened in Afghanistan and in Bosnia. And there is always you're in this, and Bosnia is a perfect example, because it was a piece of, keeping tour. It was. The Dayton Accord was signed. There was low level hostility still going on, but it was very low level. You're just trying to keep everybody, hey, hey guys, just cool it out, right? You're that referee in the middle. Yeah. You know, somebody just landed a sucker punch to the the nether regions and you get in there, you separate them. Hey, man, just chill, go back to your corner and you go back to your corner. But there's always the little problems that are on the ground. and Canadians, for whatever reason,

the Canadian soldier has an ability to see things from both sides and come up with a middle ground solution. It's a reflection of the Canadian society. You think that's what we're good at? Honestly, all right. We used to be really good at it,

but now we swung way too far left where it's all about me, me, me, me, me, right? As society, we used to be really good at finding the middle ground with most things. I'm not going to say with everything, with most, but a Canadian soldier always found the solution that worked. And it wasn't always within the rules or within what he was told to do, but he had enough information and enough trust from his chain of command, his or her chain of command, that they could figure something out and make it work. And that's why we were so good at it.

That's, that's, um, I find that really fast, you know, because I just, you know, I don't know. I just always assume everybody can be a good referee. And I don't know if that's what a peacekeeper is. Yeah, you know, kind of, but you know what? Think about, think about like a school yard fight. But, no, and then I'll say, there's going to be guys, two guys fighting and there's going to be the crowd around, yeah, kick his ass, kick his ass.

But there's always going to be that one person that tries to get in the middle and go, hey, guys, come on. Yeah. Well, I mean, and if you played football, you've... I did. Right? How many... Not well.

How many... There were good referees and then there were referees that stirred the pot. You know what? And actually when I think... The good referees always looked the other way when the Barons did something. Those were the good refs. Those were the good refs? Yeah.

That sounds like an American train of thought. That's probably, they probably enjoyed that too. You do what you do to win, right? It's funny. like playing hockey all my life, there were good refs, there were poor refs. Yeah.

And, you know, actually when you think about that and you, and you push it on to get, on a peacekeepers, it's like, oh, actually, maybe I do get that more than I,

than I initially thought because I just, you know, I just, completely impartial. I just assume you roll in with, you know, I don't know, tanks and you're sitting there. You're like,

okay, boy, so this is over, you know, go back to your home. I don't, I don't know, right? Yeah. In 97, we were in a,

town called B hatch and it's a beautiful town beautiful beautiful town but we were a platoon so 32 guys 30 30 minus guys on leave are I would say that our strength at any given time was probably 20 22 guys and across town the bosnians had an entire brigade so like 1,200 people 1,200 people 1200 against how many? 20-ish. If they wanted us out, they would have had you out. They could have had us out.

Was that nerve-wracking? No, I didn't think about it at all. Really? Yeah. It just didn't dawn on you because you were naive, or you were, like, very confident in why you were there and that they wouldn't attack because it was, guys were just here to help, but it's not a big deal.

You know, I was a private at the time, So I was, and I was a gunner in our grizzly. So the old six-wheeled little turret with a 50-cal and a 30-cal machine gun up there. But I did get out on the ground and it brings back to being that superlative diplomat. Our section commanders could go and talk to these guys, be friendly with them, but still professional. You know what I mean? They didn't want us out. They wanted us there.

They wanted to cooperate with us. That's just nice guys, man. That's probably more the answer then is they didn't want you out to begin with. Because if they did, it would have been over. Oh, yeah. But it's swarmed by 1,200 guys and were going to toast. Yeah. Yeah, it would have been done.

Did they speak English? Like, was there language barrier there? Oh, absolutely. Language is Serbo-Croat. Excuse me. We had interpreters that we generally hired local. And they went through background checks and everything else. Armand was our interpreter.

I can't remember the other guy's name, but Armand was a straight shooter. He would translate or interpret word for word. He wouldn't add his own opinions. He wouldn't try to twist what was being said. Well, you just think, you know, and forgive me, I just, I lean on Hollywood for this one, which is a dangerous thing, I know.

Yeah. But, you know, like when I've watched movies with interpreters, like their job is so vital. or so very important. You get a couple words wrong. Because the body, like, like, I've, I lived in places where there was language barrier. And certainly there's like, certain like, you know, body language that is, is, is, is,

is universal. Yes. Yeah. But there's also language, you know, when you talk about yelling in German and things like that. There's, you know, like certain, um, cultures get excited and it can look like, oh man, what have I done? And they're, they're not mad at you whatsoever.

Yeah. So if the interpreter doesn't get it right, you know, and you got guns and everything in the on both sides. It could be a powder keg. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, I feel like you're walking around the powder keg the entire time. Yeah.

You could be. Yeah. But it's not how you remember it. No. Did you enjoy, do you enjoyed being on tour then? Being on tour was, I did five tours total. You did five tours total? Yeah.

Where did you say? Twice in Bosnia and then another three times in Afghanistan. So yeah, I liked, I joined the military. to be overseas. I hated Garrison, hated it, all the politicking and the BS and... When you say Garrison,

that's here, back on home soil? Yep, yep. And the pointless exercises that could have been done in a sandbox with a little green army men. Yeah. And that's just my bitterness talking.

But, uh, yeah, I loved being overseas. Is it like a hockey player saying, I just, I just can't do any more practice or even the regular season game? Can we just get to the playoffs?

Can we get to the, real deal here already. I already ran through the motion 70 times. We get who the top teams are. Let's go to, let's get to, into it already. So we can figure out who's going to win this thing. And what used to drive me absolutely crazy was, uh, with our training, there was this big thing.

Okay, guys, we're going to go back to the basics. Which. I get it. You got to master the basics before he can advance. But once you're at that advanced level, should you not keep advancing? You would think so. But with new guys coming in all the time. Like the infantry has an incredibly high turnover rate because guys are getting out, guys are getting injured, guys are getting promoted and posted, whatever.

Like I can walk into it. I spent, I think 13 years in the third battalion in Edmonton and I could walk in there and maybe know one guy now just in a span of 13 years. Like it's not really that long when you look at it, but it is for the army. That's a long time. It's a lifetime. Yeah. But, yeah, it was always back to the basics, back to the basics. And, you know, like, yeah, it is.

It's a hockey player. Okay, guys, today we're going to learn how to do turns. Right? It's funny. Are you serious, coach? We were having this. You made me choke on my coffee. Yeah, let's perk on turns.

It's funny, I was saying to a guy, we were talking about kids and, you know, competitive sports and different things. and he was asking, you know, about, I don't know, putting his kid in, I think it was actually soccer. And I was like, I don't know the first dang thing about soccer, but I do understand if you want your kids to succeed, find him a good coach, right? Like more so than the, like, sure, if he's a, you know, I don't know the levels of, I'm going to use hockey here. AAA versus C. You know, you kind of, it's like, well, do you want them playing C? No, I don't want him playing AAA, but I mean, you're in AAA with the wrong coach can ruin any kids.

kid. And the year and C with the right coach can build any kid up to go off and have a grand old career in any sport. Absolutely. And what I kind of hear from from you is that that's where my mind goes, Chris, is like you're like, you know, like coming back, going back to the basics, that I assume is one person or a couple saying this is what we're going to work on today because this is what I think we need to work on. And if you get to the right guy, he might have you doing crazy stuff, which just lights the boys up. Absolutely. urban operations became a lot more streamlined during my time in the third battalion. The third battalion is a completely light force.

So it's an infantry battalion. So about 500 guys. And you have a parachute company, or at least they did when I was in there, a parachute company, a mountain operations company and a used to be amphibious company. And then you had your combat support where you. You had your reconnaissance platoon, your snipers, pathfinders, your signalers, pioneers, mortars. But we were blessed in that unit that we had a lot of consummate professionals. Like I said, when the airborne regiment was disbanded, two commandal pretty much became the nucleus of that unit.

And we had guys, geez, my company, in. 2002 in that that first tour in Afghanistan. Our company commander is was ex-French foreign legion. Our sergeant major came from JTF to the Canadian Special Forces. Like these guys just they knew what they were doing and they really took the lead with urban operations. And they man, it used to be just chuck a grenade into the room and then you flip your C7 to automatic and one goes high and one goes low and you just spray the room. Let's, ridiculous. Like you're going to either kill everybody or kill nothing, right? And it got to the point where we were slick. And there used to be a base on the north side of Edmonton called

Grisbaugh. And the military gave that up and moved to Lancaster Park, which they call steel barracks, which is north of Edmonton now, just by like five minutes. But before we completely abandoned the base, we had a brigade level exercise, urban operations exercise. We tore the hell out of every building there. And we used a simunition, which is like a nine millimeter paintball, like a paintball on a nine millimeter round. Sure. So, oh, God, it hurts. It breaks skin. Had one of my Warren officers catch it right in the nuts. Bad scene. Oh, yeah. Like split them open. Right. So they hurt. And they will absolutely reinforce if you were doing something wrong.

But man, what a great exercise. Because we could punch holes in walls. We could defend buildings like we would actually defend them. We put razor wire up stairwells and guys would attack you and you'd just be laughing at them. But the bigger picture was, wow, if we ever really have to do urban operations for real, we better be well prepared or we are going to get chewed up. Like, we are going to get absolutely destroyed against people who know what they're doing. Like, a platoon, 30 guys properly placed in one building, can wipe out an entire company, no problem.

120 guys. So, like, we better know what we're doing. But it was the best exercise that I had ever done because they just let us do whatever. There was no back to the basics. It was test and adjust. Let's see if this works. If it works, cool. How can we improve it?

If it doesn't work, cool, get rid of it. How often, you know, when you look back over your 25 years, how often that happened? What you just said where you're like. Unfortunately, not enough. Not enough. Not enough at all. And a lot of it is, there are so many hoops that you have to jump through to pull off an exercise in the military. There are so many people that have to be involved.

There's budgets. There's paperwork in triplicate and everything else. It's a complex process. But some of the best stuff I ever did. And we, uh, we were right next door to 408 tactical helicopter squadron. So we had a pretty close working relationship with them, especially with the parachute company. So yeah, one exercise, man, we, we got our briefings. We jumped on a helicopter.

We flew to Wainwright, did a live fire attack, got back on the choppers, home. one time for dinner. That was freaking phenomenal. But the string pulling to pull that off was an act of God. It's just, and as I progressed through the ranks and went to different positions, it really opened up my eyes because the military is a branch of the government and the bureaucracy comes with it. Everything in triplicate, everything, yes, no, maybe bookings.

budgets it all comes into play right so yeah it's it's it's funny the uh the well it's just being a part of government right and you just go like well you look at our government right now just just just poorly managed and by being poorly managed that's going to affect not just just one part but it's gonna you know when it comes from the the head cheese it's going to affect all parts who's the head cheese well the guy at the top would be the prime minister is he well no not honestly no we know he's being a he's a puppet for oh i just mean he's a bigger head i'm sorry i'll inject an opinion that guy doesn't have two brain cells to rip together so you know he's being played by somebody but certainly i'm not a conspiracy theorist but like

it's pretty obvious to me anyway you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to go one plus one equals two at this point right like i mean yeah we can you know there i'm sure he's done a lot of good things for a lot of people but for the majority haven't met those people? I mean neither, but they have to, mathematically they have to exist, right? Well, I mean, somebody's pocket's getting full, sure. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. It isn't anybody out West. No, it's not. Um, you know, and you look at, you look at, you look at like the, the Canadian military, I don't know, maybe you don't share these thoughts. Maybe you share the exact thoughts. Every military guy I have in here and go, so I like, you know, how's our military doing? Not well. Yeah, not well. Great. Okay. So we have this big giant

country and we are banking on the United States, bailing us out of everything. Between the United States and England, yeah. And you go, well, if you talk to Americans, they say their military is not weakening. Well, no, weakening. Well, I would say weakening. I would say, yeah. Yep. Um, so why? So why? Why? Why is it weakening? Yeah. Probably because of, uh, culture and ideologies and everything that, you know. Society.

Society. Absolutely. Right? Like we put a lot of, um, our energy and focus on really silly things. Yeah. You know what? And absolutely it's a, there's a general lowering of standards. And that's just the way it is.

Like you said, my grandpa did 25 years and he was a pay clerk. So he was in Wainwright and Wainwright was my regiment's training home. So he said like, and when I joined the army, I talked to Grandpa about this. I was like, man, we've got guys on courses that they've been trying to pass this course for three years. We just can't get rid of them because of the bureaucracy, because of the rules. And he laughed. What's so funny? he said man we would have guys

all their kit turned in their last paycheck in hand at the bus station with a bus ticket back to their place of enlistment in less than 24 hours I'm like how did you do that and he just looked at me so we didn't have computers well you just you go

and then and then what happens and I could be wrong on this so I just look at it and I go like if it's a bit of an exclusive thing and you've got to be tough and you got to be pushed, all of a sudden, people are like, I wonder if I could do that. And then maybe I want to go do that. But when they put all these weird rules in and they start just a lot,

it's not a participation medal, I don't mean to make it seem that easy. But it's not, that's where it's leading to, you know. Then all of a sudden, it's like, okay, so you just get, you know, like none of the rules matter anymore. You know, like we're going to, you know, and. Too far left. Right. Yeah.

Absolutely. And you look at the military, you're like, you know, like, I had, I, I, I admire people who went through the, uh, the tough parts of it. Cause I'm like, yeah, I look at that and I go, man, I wonder if I could do that. Actually, and then I go, I know I could do I want to? That's the big part of it. A lot of people can. And, uh, like everybody's course, everybody's battle school course was the toughest ever. Right.

It's just the way it is, right? Like, oh my God. Yeah. You, you weren't on my course. So you don't. know. But I went through right after disbandment of the airborne regiment. And every instructor that I had, minus one, was two commando. And they were angry. Because their entire regiment got disbanded. I can't comment whether it was right or whether it was wrong. It was definitely political.

But either way, they were angry. And they definitely made us pay. Like I went in to battle school at ripped 215ish. And I came out at 155 pounds. Oh my God. Yeah. Like they ran us everywhere. You know, like...

Did you enjoy it? No. God, no. It was terrible. It was the worst, one of the worst experiences of my life. It was terrible. And yet you stayed. Yeah. But you know what? I went back. I didn't go back. I got posted back to Wainwright as an instructor.

Sure. And I got it. Because these guys that you're teaching are going to your former unit to your friends with your name on them. So if he doesn't belong there, I can't speak for everybody, but I did everything, my power to get rid of the guy. And sometimes I was successful and a few times I wasn't. But I was always very. good at having my ducks in a row and I learned really quick the best way to get somebody off of a course was to have all your ducks in a row all the administration

done follow the rules the paperwork rules to a T and then there could be no argument because you have documented everything you gets in front of the CEO and the CEO looks at his file and goes yeah dude you're not ready you're done so you know like I got it did you have you know we talk about the people that shouldn't be there. Did you ever have somebody, and I assume this has happened, but that you're like,

this guy's gonna flake out and then surprise the living crap out of you? Oh yeah. Yeah. Tons of guys. Tons of guys. In the battalion, there was definitely guys that you went,

oh man, who put you through? Like, you were just a waste. You apologize to the trees because you're breathing all the oxygen, right? Like, Just a waste. I don't want to say a waste as a person, but definitely should have not been there. But yeah, there has been guys that I looked at day one, week one, and I'm like, yeah, you'll last a week.

You'll last two days. But then they either, as an instructor, part of your job is to find that button. Find their button. It doesn't turn them into an animal, but. makes him go like no i can do this and and sometimes that button is my button was you want to tell me that i'm i can't do something that's my button that ensures that i'll do it you can't do this oh yeah watch me right and there was some guys yeah they either got into the routine they got comfortable and they flipped that switch or they found their their place

where they could go to when the stress was high and that was my job as an instructor was not only to instruct but to induce stress as silly as that sounds it was to induce stress I don't I don't think it sounds silly at all and when you're going through I believe they call it developmental phase one now we used to call it battle school your infantry training so they came from basic they already know to march and fold their clothes and the basic basics of the military and then they come to the infantry training and that's where we show them the basics of our job and yeah timings matter moving with the sense of purpose matters if you're if you're dogging it you're screwing somebody else over

you know what i mean so yeah that was my job and i i i was maybe a little too good at it sometimes because sometimes guys would crack absolutely but you just do little things like I'd say all right it's this time now I want you guys out on the road formed up at this time and then we had these drill canes so it's about three feet long piece of maple brass at the end and then a 50 caliber shell at the other end just the brass of it and I'd stand there and I'd just tap it on the floor and just watch them And it freaked guys out. I don't know why, but it just did.

Mm-hmm. And just that subtle inducement. Oh my God, if we're not moving fast enough, Sergeant's gonna freaking kill us. Right? But it was good. It's funny. Some guys, you find their button,

they find their place, they flip their own switch or you as an instructor, find it and flip it for them. Sometimes it, it took, grab, a guy by the back of the vest and and hauling them with you on an attack on a section attack in training sometimes it took that sometimes it took getting in his face and up one side down and down the other it took that and it flipped their switch and i don't care it's if it's either man i i i freaking love this now or i'm gonna show serge i don't care the point is that you're going to do it. Have they removed that ability now? I haven't instructed in a long time,

but from what I understand, yes, instructing is dangerous now for the instructor with, if you're being harassed, you should never have the ability to report taken away from you. However, again, it's swung too far left. so yeah part part of part of joining the military or i might argue like you know playing high level hockey you know from my standpoint yeah is stress that you're going to have induced stress on you yeah that's that's part of what you're signing up for yeah so to just complain about that on day whatever you're like well maybe you're not cut out for the team that's right yeah and it's it's funny you know um i've i've been wondering if there's a it do they just

just find a way, you know, like I think of a sports team what ends up happening, I feel, and maybe I'm wrong on this, is if the coach can no longer do it, because now they can be reported or whatever, the team kind of just slowly pushes the, the individual out. I'm not going to say anything about that. Yeah, okay, fair enough. Yeah. I don't mean to play, you know, I just, to me, I wonder if, if there's just different ways. The military and especially the infantry is a society unto itself with its own language,

its own rules. Um, you got a lot of A type personalities. Like, and, and you have to be a little bit off to sign up with the military to begin with. And you have to be more off to go infantry. Because that's the infantry's job.

You're, you're the boots and bayonets. You're doing the gross stuff. Like that, that's the infantry's job. Yeah. So you gotta be off. You meant, you mentioned, um, uh,

it's funny. I don't know if I've ever asked this. You can't remember if I talked to Chuck about this or not. But you mentioned you had your first kid at 25, correct? Yeah, something like that. Somewhere in there. Was that tough going away? Absolutely.

My first daughter was born a week before I left for my second tour in Afghanistan. And how long was it a tour? Six months. Six months. Give or take. But then you have the six month of pre-training before the tour. So you don't see your daughter for a full year? No, she was born six months, uh, sorry six months a week before I left.

Yeah, we talked to the, uh, the OBGYN and she agreed to induce my wife, uh, so I could be there for the birth. But then week later, I was gone. So yeah, it's, it's hard on families. It's absolutely, absolutely hard on families. So. Yeah, it puts food on the table. It puts food on the table. It's just one of the things when you're, when you're signing up,

probably young men don't think of that. Or young women, for that matter. It's like you just sign up. You're like, here comes the adventure of a lifetime. Yep. And all the training and, yeah, all right, Sarge, I'll show you and all this. Yeah.

And then you find that woman. You get pregnant and you go, crap. Now I'm going to the other side of the world and I'm not going to see my kid. You know, like one of the coolest things, Chris, about doing what I do now. is, you know, I worked in the oil field for like a decade when I got back and have mad respect for everyone who works in there no matter the job, right? It's a tough job.

Tough job, busy elements on and on and on. And I landed in this job of sales, which is probably like the easiest job out there, right? I mean, it wasn't the wild west of what I hear, you know, bringing the bottle and the old school ways. But like, honestly, it was a fun, great job. It was flexible. Like, you know, to be around family and kids. kids home every night, weekends, et cetera. But like now with podcasting, don't get me wrong,

my boss can be a bit of a dick from time to time. But overall, like... That always happens when you work for yourself. Oh, man. But the flexibility is like second and none. And one of the things I'm really cognizant of with having three young kids like we do. Yeah. It's like, I want to be around for this.

Yeah. Like, and even being around for it, I'm still freaking busy. And I feel like I miss out on a ton. But then I hear, you know, like, Yeah, I have her a week before and then I'm gone for six months. It's like, who, that's a big, that's a big, you're giving up a lot, I guess. Yeah. In more ways than one.

It was tough. Yeah. I'm not going to lie to you. It was tough. It weighed on me. So you try to have the best support network in place that you can. And yeah, but it's still going to weigh on you. Of course.

Everybody who goes away from their family misses their family, whether they're going. going for work or tournament or whatever, right? Did, uh, every time I left, I was, I was telling, we got a billet kid living with us. And, um, I can't remember how I said it. And hopefully I said it the right way. Who knows if I did or not. But I was, you know, like when I left home for the first time, he's 15 and I was, I was 18 when I left. And I went out to Ontario.

And back then there was, you know, the internet was there, but like. It wasn't like today. No, it was not. And I, I remember my billets having a long distance. phone card, I think, so I could call home. Yeah. Right? In Canada, folks.

Like, anyways, you get the point. And so, like, you were just removed. And I remember being, I had one day where, and it happened every year I left, every year I went back, played three years there, played four years in the States, played over in Finland, and I'd have one day where I felt like, just like, pity party for Sean for being away from everybody. And those days, the day sucked until you realize what the day was, I felt. It was just like, oh, you're going to be sad today.

That sucks. but tomorrow the sun will rise, you know, and on we go. But I'd have one day like that. In the military, did you have the, I don't know, the tour blues or I don't even know what to call it? Absolutely. That's a good way of putting it. Yeah, the tour blues. You know, you're with your guys, you're with your friends, but yeah, man, absolutely.

You miss grandma's cooking or grandpa's baking or bullshit with your uncles or, of course, you miss your, while you hope you miss your, well, you hope you miss your, your wife. You hope you miss your kids. But I mean, yeah, absolutely. You miss your buddies at home. You go, oh, man, I bet you're out hunting right now. Or, yeah, I'd be sitting on the lake right now if I was at home, right? Of course you do. You have to. It's human. Yeah, in 25 years. Now you're retired. Yep. What do you do now? I am breaking into the guiding industry. For hunting? Yeah. Hunting and fishing. How's that been? It's,

this is my first season. So I worked in B.C. In a flying camp over the summer. And it was horsebacks, horseback stone sheep hunts. And it was pretty freaking cool. And then I had another contract where I did moose up north of Fort McKay. That contractor and I didn't really see eye to eye on a lot of things.

So dealing with. the clients and being out and doing the job was awesome, I need to find an outfitter who has the same mindset I do. And while people are listening to this and there's maybe an outfit or two. Maybe. Maybe. What is, what is the, what's your mindset on it? Two things, the seven peas, pre-planning and preparation prevents Pissport performance.

So. You want somebody with their dachsh in a row. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm the kind of guy that I'll, I'll do just about anything for you. If it's reciprocated. Yeah. And you tell me why.

Hey man, I want you to go do this. This is why. Yeah, dude. No problem. I'll get that done for you right now. Right. But when you're just bouncing back and forth and over and everywhere else, it makes no sense. And, and you know what, I, I do joke that I am in Dockon.

We all are. Oh yeah, but you can take the boy out of the infantry. You can't take the infantry out of the boy. There's a set way of doing things. And for the most, most of the time it makes sense. You do A before B before C, right? So yeah, but dealing with the clients, being with the horses, man, it was freaking great. Being outside.

It was awesome. I just, I loved it. I love being outside. And it's not like the army outside. the army outside, you know, when you're, you're cold and miserable, your client probably is too. And you just look at him and go, hey, uh, you went ahead back for a couple hours, grab a coffee and a fire. He goes, yeah.

Instead of looking at your buddy in a trench going, hey, man, this really sucks. And he goes, yeah. You know what? Like you can, it's different, but there's a lot of skills that really transferred over directly. So, and dealing with different people all the time is kind of cool. Yeah. And in theory, you're getting people that are on like their vacation and their vacation.

They're giving up to go out and you know, and endure to get an animal. Absolutely. Yeah. Like they, they're there for a reason. My last clients were all very, very seasoned elk hunters from Colorado that came up for, for moose. So they knew the game. And well, Drew was from Texas. and seasoned whitetail hunter.

And he was not prepared for the cold north of Fort McMurray and north of Fort McKay. But he did good. And the terrain, right? It's that boggy muskeg. They don't have that in Texas. So, but man, those four guys were freaking phenomenal. You probably, you know, whether we're talking military or hunting and guiding now, you probably learn a lot about a person in those moments, like in those scenarios.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, oh, that's an interesting human being. Well, and there's nothing else to talk about after the hunt. That's, you know, what do you do? What do you do? What do you like? What drives you?

What floats your boat, right? And you just get to know people. It's really a cool job. And I get more of a charge now out of seeing somebody shoot their first goose or their first deer or whatever else than doing it myself. Like, don't get me wrong. I love to hunt for my own. myself, but, you know, somebody, somebody smacks a goose and they're excited.

You go, man, that's pretty cool. I remember, I remember my first goose. I thought it was pretty cool, too. Right? And it's just that feeling over and over and over again. Or they snag a great walleye. You go, man, I am so freaking happy for you. And it's not even, it's not sarcastic.

It's not, it's like, man, that, that's really cool. I'm glad you got to do that. That's, um, That's a cool thing you have then Because for a lot of us That's a hard thing To get excited by somebody else being excited Am I saying that the right way?

Yeah, yeah Don't get me wrong I still get jealous I'd be like, yeah I would have Gotta be on my wall but it's on yours Right Well yeah, I just I mean like you think to have a job

Where you can get lit up By other people being lit up That's pretty cool Yeah. I wasn't always that way. But I think the army aged me, matured me. I've done that. I want to see other people do it.

Yeah. I love being out with somebody, taking somebody on their first, their first hunt. This is really cool. It's a cool experience. Well, it's something unique being out in the outdoors, in the bush, or wherever. Yeah. With a gun on your back, you know it's got bullets in it. Mm-hmm.

You know what the game is. You know what you're trying to do. Mm-hmm. It feels very, um, primal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like there's very few feelings like that.

Yeah, I'm actually reading a book right now. It's called On Hunting by Colonel Dave Grossman. He did the book on killing. And, uh, on killing is a staple in the infantry world that goes into the, the mental aspects of it. And I did tons of studies, military, police. It's a very, very well-written book that's understandable. And now he's done the same thing with hunting.

And he, there are anti-hunting people out there. And you know what? That's cool, man. Do you do you? I'll do me. But he breaks it down into like people aren't the top of the food. chain but we were always hunters so you know like yeah okay out most parts of Alberta you're the top of the food chain but you get where there's grizzlies

there's bears there's wolves you're not the you're not the top of the food chain anymore you have tools that level the playing field but I think when you're out there and yeah everybody can go a smack in a white is the easiest thing in the world. Smacking a mule deer is the easiest thing in the world. You know what? It's not. They are absolute masters of their environment.

And the only reason that you can get one is because of the tools through technology that we have now. You know what I mean? I can hear a phone ring and it's sitting right beside me. It's probably you. You're not wrong. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut off your thought. That's okay.

I was going on. I was drifting off there anyway. No, no, no, the, you're not wrong. When you go out, I was going to think, what you were bringing to mind is you're a little bit exposed. You know, when you're in four walls or you're in a house or you're in the city or whatever, you just don't, you're not exposed to the elements, no? Yeah. You get out and experience some of the countryside. It's just, it's a, there's a reason why men in particular and women, but by and large men.

But in saying that, my sister-in-law, that and she'll be like, excuse me. My wife hunts too. And there's a whole bunch of them. I'm like, I'm going to catch flack for that. But regardless, men and women, there's a reason why they take their hard earned days off and go sit in the bush somewhere. Absolutely. It's for me, it's absolutely for my mental health. Absolutely.

It gets me away from noises and cars and people and it's what. and I hate that saying like you can't pour from an empty cup, right? But it does. That's the best way to explain it is being out there. Isn't that the worst when you hate the adage and you still got to use the stupid thing? Yeah, you feel like a hypocrite. But that's what fills my cup. Yeah.

Yeah, just that quiet and the focus. Well, you know, when you talk about, you know, like watching somebody get there first, you know, sitting here, I never thought, I never thought I would find something that mimicked hockey. Okay. The feeling I got from hockey, I should say, right? Like, just love stepping on the ice. Love being in the dress.

Was it soccer? It wasn't soccer. No. Okay. But it was sitting across from people and talking to them. And what I get a kick out of is people in their first times. Because they all come in and they're all very tentative. And they all see the cameras and the lights and like whatever.

I don't know. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the mic. Once upon a time, I remember being very terrified. I can go back to the first episode and be like, oh man, was I terrified? Yeah, no kidding. I just didn't. I just didn't like it.

You're on the spot. Yeah. And the thing is, is when most people leave, I would say out of 100 people, 99 of them walk out a little lighter than when they walked in. And I can, like, you can visually see it. Like they walked in, they're pretty, oh, I don't really like, I had a few different, I got to do 49 interviews with, you know, kind of the community pillars of Lloyd.

Right. And there was a bunch of them walked in here. They're like, 90 years old. They're like, I just pretty nervous. I don't know if I want to talk. I'm like, you're nice. What are you nervous about? Like, I just want to hear your story.

You're the expert on it. Let's hear it. And by the time they're walking out, they almost looked like there were 82, you know? Like they shaved off eight years. I'm like, that's pretty freaking cool. Everybody loves to tell their story. Yes, they do.

Yeah. And everybody has, I would argue, has a story to tell. I would agree. I agree with that argument. Now, before I let you out of here, because I, you know, we've bounced and we've, we've zigged and we've, you know, this is the lovely day of podcasting, especially at first time where you're just like,

I can't wait to see where Chris takes us. Uh-oh. Um, is there anything else, you know, like, because I go, I got plenty of time. Like if you're like, oh, we got to talk about X, let's talk about it. But if you're like, no, we've covered a full gamut. I know my, my, my final thought for you before I let you out of here, but is there anything else, you know, that you want to, you want to make sure that. Yeah, let's talk about some veteran issues. Sure.

Because I'm a veteran now. I'm not just army. So there's a lot of veterans out there, unfortunately, that I feel are their own worst enemy. whether it be with the mental health or the physical health or or something like that, they're their own worst enemy. And Department of Veterans Affairs is a bureaucracy. It absolutely is. But, and I've been guilty of this too, guys get out or they're still serving because you can

have a claim in while you're still serving. And when I broke my back, I did not put a claim. claim in because it was that pride thing until grandpa said i'm going to put you in touch with family friend that i served with who now works for dva department of veterans affairs said okay let's give this guy a call right did he said essentially look man you're a small cog the army will use you chew you up and spit you out you need to look after you but unfortunately I think a lot of vets and a lot of still serving, they don't know what's out there.

They don't read the policy. They'll get on the phone with the case manager or someone from DBA and they won't treat that person on the other side of the phone like a person. They either got a chip on their shoulder, they think I deserve this. I'm entitled. I don't like that word to this. And you get more flies with with honey than shit, right?

Because that guy on the other guy, girl, on the other side of the phone, working for DVA is trying to help. But like you need to put yourself in their shoes. Working a job like that, I can't imagine how incredibly quick that you get jaded. Because there are absolutely people who abuse the system. I was in these Facebook groups for veterans. and I had to leave. They were driving me crazy. There was a specific incident.

Somebody was asking about how to put in a claim. And of course, it came around out, well, what for? And this person said, well, I got frostbite on my pinky. And this was before I was taking a bunch of meds. So I was angry And I did the internet tough guy and I just unleashed And I'm like you are the problem You are the reason that claims are taking years

There are people out there with missing legs missing arms missing digits broken bones And you're putting in a claim because you got frostbite on your pinky Like are you for real I want you to take a step back and have a good hard look at yourself in the mirror. Like, have a man upton with breakfast and go, hey, you know what? It's frostbite. At least I got all my digits. But like I said, veterans, some veterans won't read the policy.

And if I can say anything dealing with DVA, educate yourself. Read the policy. Do what they ask you to do and do it to the letter to the T. and work with them. I'll catch flack for this because a lot of veterans and Department of Veterans Affairs have a very counterproductive relationship.

DVA is there to help, but the hoops that they expect you to jump through, a lot of times can seem a little much. But that's okay. Just jump through the hoops, do what they ask you to do. Do it with a smile on your face and you can hang up the phone and go,

geez, that person was whatever. But while you're on the phone with them, man, they're trying to help you. Right. So it's really unfortunate. I don't, it's a problem. I don't know how to fix other than maybe get a message out. Read the policy. DBA is there to help.

And if you don't be too proud to put in a claim. If you're hurt and your injury falls under the mandate of DBA, put in that claim. It's there to use, right? I mean, it's pretty good now. I was medically released. I have C5, 6, and 7 are fused now. And the discs between the, so like right here, right? See that nice little scar there?

Yeah. and the discs, they took the discs out and replaced them with medical mesh. So I was medically released. But use, read the policy and use what's there because it's good. Because now massage therapy for me is covered. I see a counselor for pain and some trauma and stuff like that. And that's covered. So use.

the system, but use it appropriately, but know what you can get. And, and yeah, it's kind of a, a kick to the rest of Canadian society that, that once you're out of the military, that you have these things available to you that maybe the average Canadian doesn't. And to that, I'll be a bit of a prick and I'll say, well, maybe you should have joined the army at 18 then. You know what I mean? It's, it's not the best way to look at it, but.

I don't think it's the wrong way to. look at it. It's a way to look at it for sure. I tell you what, I think I think I can get behind military folks having access to a bunch of that compared to a politician being on the taxpayer's dime for the rest of time. Oh yeah. You know, like golden handshake, yeah. Like to me, I think you go serve the country and I'm sure there has to be a time frame and a bunch of other things in order to, you know, you don't serve one day and get everything like that. seems a little bit, you know, and I'm sure there's all that. But to me, like, if you're going to go serve overseas and put your life in harm's

way and deal with mass graves and, you know, jump out of a plane and break your back and everything else for the country, the country should, should support that, right? I agree. Like, I mean, that seems like pretty common sense to me. Now, I'm just one man. And like you say, it's just an opinion. Whereas, you know, supposedly you're serving the country by being in this giant cog, the bureaucracy.

That's right. And then you're going to get what now for the rest of your life? Exactly. I have a tough time with that one. Yeah, because nobody would join. Because, right, the benefit would, or the, the ask doesn't equal the potential reward. Yeah. So why would you join?

But so, yeah, but I, before we, we kick out, I promise to tell you about Melvin. Oh, Melvin, yes. And you get a better memory than I do. On my most prolific overseas experience. So I'll set the stage. It's 2002. We're the first Canadian tour into Afghanistan. My company had to send two platoons to a place called Coast.

It's on the Pakistani border. And we were to secure an airfield that had a squadron of Australian special air service. So they're special forces. And it had a American Green Beret team. And it had guys that only had first names. So I'll tell you a couple stories about Coast, maybe. So they only had first names, but they wore fancy gear and had big satellite phones. If you know what I mean.

I don't know who they worked for. I don't know. Okay. So we were there for a while. And it was very austere. Coast was the wild freaking west. And it was awesome. It was the best time I ever had in the Army.

And like I said, my company commander was ex-F-F-Legion. My sergeant major was ex-JTF2. Like we were, most of our senior NCOs were two commando. We were firing on all cylinders. Like, we had a team. And, but it was very austere. We made our own shower. We, when the Americans, the 101st was there for a month before we were, they left us food.

They left us these Americans. crew served meals. So it's a big casserole tin that you would feed a crew, right? So you boil it. And the only thing that they left us was sausages in brine and scrambled eggs. So three meals a day, you're eating sausage and brine or scrambled eggs, right? But it was still one of the best times in my career. But so where was I going with this? to wild west okay yeah melvin so we got the special forces guys there and we're in two compounds and we had some uh they weren't afghan national army yet they were the northern alliance and they operated in the area too and uh so we were on these rations of sausages in brine

or scrambled eggs oh no i was going to tell you about the guys that uh I'll come. I'll tell you about Melvin first because it leads directly into the rations. So we had a FARP guy as well, a forward air refueling point guy. And he was from Texas. And he's named Melvin? Nope. But he spoke with a lisp.

So imagine a Texas accent, that deep Texas drawl with Lisp. And he was a little off. Farp guys are the fuel specialists. So I wonder if he maybe inhaled a little too much of his own product. But we were getting tired of sausage and eggs. So the FARP guy buys a chicken from the one of the locals. You're saying, oh man, we'll get eggs. We'll get this.

We'll get the next thing. Like, man, that's a good idea. That's some out-of-the-box thinking. Good job, dude. Like everybody was surprised, right? and most nights we were getting mortared or rocketed about three o'clock in the morning 233 o'clock in the morning so you're up your your body armor's on you're in your fighting position right and usually wait see if anything else happens but everybody's ready to fight right

now and come time you go okay well nothing's happening all right so we'll you start your routine, right? Hard points get manned. Everybody else does whatever they're supposed to be doing. Some of the guys got to go back to bed, whatever, right? Because it's a 24-hour operation. Well, you'd figure four o'clock in the morning, what does this chicken start doing? Melvin's a man's name, right? Yeah, a fart guy didn't buy a chicken. Farp guy bought a rooster. So this freaking bird starch just giving her at four in the morning after we've already been up for two hours because we just got rocketed or mortared and right and the canadian guys were like yeah we're irritated by it but we're Canadian we're nice guys ah right but the special forces guys the american

green berets they were like listen man you got to shut this bird up you have to shut this bird up you have to shut this bird up or something's going to happen and one day probably about a week melvin didn't crow and look over and there's this little waft of smoke coming out of the corner of the compound right so everybody just kind of if you're not mad at a hard point you kind of go over see what's going on and the fart guy is losing his mind he's jumping around everybody hey guys have you seen melvin have you Melvin. We're like, no, man. We don't know where he is.

I don't know. But you turn the corner of the compound. There's like four of the SF guys squatting like cavemen, hey? You can see their backs and you can see they got a fire going in the corner of the compound. And no hard up hand on heart. Melvin's on a freaking spit. Like these guys got so tired of eating sausage and brine and eggs.

They had a rooster. They put Melvin on a spit. And the farp guy. finally comes around the corner, he sees it. Because Jesus Christ, guys, he was just doing his fucking job. And he didn't talk to them for the rest of the time we were there. And it's just one of those things you're trying so hard not to laugh.

Because this poor fart guy, he wanted his best friend get cooked on a spit. And the SF guys were, like it was out of a movie, like caveman just hunched over a fire, right? It's just epic. But, uh, Yeah, but Coast was the Wild West and it was awesome.

But my second tour in Afghanistan, I was in Kabul and I was part of a reconnaissance platoon. So we were on patrol and we operated out of G wagons. So the Mercedes G-series, right, the Jeeps and they had a Coppola on them. They had the C-6, the 30-Cal machine gun. So we'd usually operate in crews of. three or four. So driver, commander, gunner, and another guy. Um, so one day, we as, as a section's eight guys. So, uh, we were on foot. Uh, I was one of the guys patrolling on foot and, but we had our cars. Uh, they were crewed. They were about a block over. So you got four guys. You're

wandering around downtown cabal. Um, um, You're exposed. You're making yourself a target, right? Let's see if something happens. Let's, right? But you got your guys a block over. If something does happen, they can be there in a heartbeat. And I was third in the order of march.

So I was the third guy in the patrol and we're spaced out. And I remember, this is 20 years ago. And I can tell you exactly where we were. And this woman walks. passed she wasn't a woman she's a young young woman and she was in her job and she was carrying books and for whatever reason she locked eyes with me and she said thank you like and it just it dumbfounded me like the incredible risk this woman took saying anything anybody had to seen her hurt her man she would have been freaking stone to death but the the risk she took just to

say thank you you know and i could pick her out of the lineup today like it burned in my memory it just but that was probably and and you know what when afghanistan finally fell i think if you set foot there your first time and you didn't know that that was going to be the outcome, you were just fooling yourself. A population has to want change. You can't force change on them. Not saying that they don't want change, but they got a real struggle ahead of them. But that was my prolific experience.

My prolific war experience, I guess, was somebody. saying thank you. And she was obviously heading to school or back from school and just, just an amazing there are very few times in my life that I've been lost for words and that was one of them.

That was maybe the only time. So yeah, there it is. So it's a wild story to end. Yeah, man, yeah. Two words. You know, but you understand the, the gravity of what's the situation and everything that could go on. The risks she took.

Yeah. And it breaks my heart. But it is what it is, right? Before I like you out of here, let's do the Crude Master final question. I've been, for the listener, I've been bouncing around on it. It's been on substack. It's been on here. But I'm trying to get it squeezed in one way or another.

And so today, Curd Master, final question, we've been trying to throw a little bit of a hopeful spin on the end. you know like what what's something what's something Chris looks into the future into the next year into right now I don't know and is very positive on like this is this is what whether it's something you're doing in your life whether it's something you see in society seeing your family it doesn't matter to me I'm going to Depeche mode you're going to Depeche mode yeah man really yeah and where are

they playing they're playing in Rexall and Rogers Rogers right yeah I'm not a hockey fan I wonder how Depeche mode man I haven't heard that in a long time. I know, right? That's why we're going. But, uh, no, uh, I'm looking forward to things getting back more to normal because there's still not. Nope.

That's what I would really like to see. We, we've come out of what, two years, two and a half years, three years almost of something so divisive to society that. Like, man, and I don't care, vaccination status. I don't care. That's my phone. That's your, sorry. Sorry about that.

That's a hunting buddy. That's great. Darth Vader interrupts. Man, well, I'm 47, right? So I mean, like, that's my jam. Star Wars is my jam. But if you're not going to ask me if I'm vaccinated against measles, mumps, and rubes,

and whooping cough, don't ask me if I'm COVID vaccinated either, right? So, but I just want everything to get back to kind of normal. People should be allowed to, people need to be with each other and not talk about it and not let it tear people and families and friends and everything else apart. It's ridiculous. There are lots worse things in this world. than that particular disease or illness, whatever you want to call it. There's lots worse things.

And we expose ourselves to it every day without realizing it. I don't know why it became such an issue. I do know why it became such an issue, but like, man, let's get back to normal about it. Let's have Christmas. Let's, and I don't care if you do Christmas, Kwanza, freaking DeWali. I don't care. Get together. Have a good time.

Have a good time with your friends. Have a good time with your family. and I just do you, you know. But yeah, that's what I'm looking forward to. And maybe spring bear getting out guiding and working and doing my thing. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you making the drive and coming to do this. Yeah, man, it's a nice drive.

I hadn't done it in a while. Nothing's changed other than Lloyd's grown. So, yeah. I went to the old Tims and discovered it's no longer Tim's. Oh, it's a jewelry store. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, dude, thanks for having me. Yeah, appreciate it.

Thanks for coming in. Thanks, dude. One favor before you get off, can you say this is your name and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast? This is Chris Arnett and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast.