The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 446. War, PTSD, & Psychedelics | Kelsi Sheren

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson sits down in person with veteran, entrepreneur, podcaster, and author, Kelsi Sheren. They discuss her upbringing, the discipline required for service, the necessity and reality of women in the armed forces, the lapse in standards at the hands of DEI, the trauma and PTSD incurred from combat, and how soldiers find solace when reintegrating with civilized life. Kelsi Sheren is CEO of Brass & Unity and author of “Brass and Unity, One Woman’s Journey Through the Hell of Afghanistan and Back.” Kelsi is a distinguished Canadian veteran, who served as a Gunner and Female Searcher during her deployment in Afghanistan. At Brass & Unity, Kelsi transforms bullet casings into jewelry, donating a portion of the profits to support veterans battling mental health issues. In addition to her work in the military, Kelsi is a champion in Taekwondo, and host of the Brass & Unity podcast.  - Links - 2024 tour details can be found here https://jordanbpeterson.com/events   Peterson Academy https://petersonacademy.com/    For Kelsi Sheren: On X https://twitter.com/KelsiBurns?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor On Instagram https://www.instagram.com/kelsie_sheren/?hl=en “Brass & Unity: One Woman’s Journey Through the Hell of Afghanistan and Back” (Book) https://www.amazon.com/Brass-Unity-Journey-Through-Afghanistan/dp/1637588917 Brass & Unity Podcast https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWCy2PRfqQZraiSCocX4Gyw Brass & Unity Website https://brassandunity.com/ 

Hello, everybody. I'm speaking today with Kelsey Sharon. She's CEO of Brass and Unity and author of Brass and Unity, One Woman's Journey Through the Hell of Afghanistan and Unity. And author of Brass and Unity, One Woman's Journey Through the Hell of Afghanistan and Back. She's a distinguished Canadian veteran. We walked through her story. She was a martial arts champion as a child. She joined the Canadian military when she was very young. She served in Afghanistan and had a series of, well, what you might describe as extraordinarily rough adventures there. We talk about that.

We talk about the state of the Canadian military. We talk about the state of Canada for that matter. We talk about her pathway back to something approximating happiness as a consequence of her experimentation with psychedelics, for example, we cover a lot of territory. So welcome aboard for the ride. Let's start when you're a kid.

Okay. What do you like as a kid? Tomboy. Aggressive. I started fighting at four years old. Fighting? Tech window. You start?

Oh, yes. And why did you do that? My mom saw a demonstration at the Coburg Mall in Ontario and it was kind of what you see in all these like crazy YouTube where it's like people jumping around kicking boards and breaking boards and doing all this big kind of demonstration to bring people into their club. My mom called me on a payphone and she, my dad was like, oh, talk to her about it. So he told me and she said, look, if we sign you up, you got to stay for the time we signed you up.

That's just how it works. So do you want to try it? I said, sure, let's try it. So I did and that was the rest of my existence. So it was wonderful. Were you a little four year old? Yes. So I am only five foot and about 110 pounds

on a good day, so I've always been really small. But what we did find out later on is that because of how aggressive I was in taekwondo and how I was fighting and how often I was fighting, I actually stunted my own growth. I was doing two a days by the time I was 12. What does that mean? So I was training in the morning

and I was training at night and I was training during the day if I was not at school, and I was a secondary black belt by the time I was 12 and a national champion. So I took it really seriously and that meant weight classes as soon as you hit a certain age and by working in the sauna and skipping and doing those types of things, constantly having such a low body fat, my puberty didn't come on until later. So they think that my height didn't quite go with it either. I see. Yes. I see. Yeah. So what did taekwondo do for you? Discipline, drive, belief in myself, the ability for self-reliance. You know, it's an individual

sport for the most of it. Taekwondo is something that's really fascinating to me. Martial arts in general, I think, are by and large one of the most underutilized activities for kids for discipline and for ownership and for responsibility. I think a lot of people are afraid of the violence tendencies with it. And like, I get it. It's a striking sport. You don't want to kick somebody in the head too many times. We understand head injury now much better than we did before. But what it gave me was this idea that if I showed up each and every day,

and I did the work, and I put in the time, and I trained and trained and trained, I could be the best at something. And because of that, it was really the self-reliance, this piece of, it doesn't matter what's going on around me, if I'm solid and I go into this fight, then I'm going to be just fine. And so that's kind of how my life went. And turns out, I got pretty good at it pretty quick. So I became highly addicted to it.

And it not only gave me the self-reliance piece, it also gave me that identity within myself very young. So when I started to go through the bullying phase where I cut my hair about this short and I wore tear-away pants and I wore a wife beater tank top because I was always training. When the teasing came along and all that traditional stuff that happens to kids, it helped me handle it better.

I got bullied a ton. Like lots of girls would pick fights with me and whatever, that's fine. But I never fought back unless I was hit first. I was always taught that you never hit first, but if you are hit, you make sure they don't get back up. And so I do remember the one time I did get in a fight at school and I was not afraid of my parents at school. I was terrified of my master, because he was coming in from Toronto that weekend

and he doesn't like when you fight in school. And I found out what happens when you fight in school. He puts you in the ring and puts you through a wall. So yeah, Tech Winda was fun. And I found out what happens when you fight in school. He puts you in the ring and puts you through a wall. So yeah, Taekwondo was fun. So why were you bullied and when did that start? That started really early. I was always more of a tomboy.

I didn't really fit. And I always did a lot of activities with the boys and I didn't really want to be around the girls. It didn't make sense to me because I trained with boys. My coaches were men. I was just always in that environment where you had to be a little harsh, a little harder. make sense to me because I trained with boys, my coaches were men. I was just always in that environment where you had to be a little harsh, a little harder. I also grew up in the middle of nowhere in Campbellford, Ontario.

So I grew up in the woods. I come from my mother's side, came over from Hungary right when the Soviets came in, they made it. And then my dad's side of the family had no running water until he was 12. And he was like this baby of seven kids. So I come from this really too hardened parents environment, and so going into that sport made sense, but that also created the identity of who I was, which was a little harsher, maybe. And in case you haven't noticed, I don't have a problem using my voice, so I would use it.

And that's irritating for a lot of people. So how old were you when the bullying started? I would probably say like six, six-ish. And it was mostly girls? Yes. And what did it consist of? At first it was just vocal and they would tease me for my hair because I used to wear, you're going to love this. I'm sure there's a, my psychiatrist is going to watch this and laugh. So I used to wear, my hair used to be really, really short because it was easier with a helmet all the time, right?

Just constantly sweaty. And I would wear it, I would wear it and I would wear it all the time. And I would wear it all the time. And I would wear it all the time. So I used to wear, my hair used to be really, really short because it was easier with a helmet all the time, right? Just constantly sweaty, you just always have a helmet on. And so I used to wear bandanas when I was going through the grow out phase, but I also only used to listen to Eminem. And so like, I like really young was exposed to like this,

I don't want to say like angry music, but like Eminem back then was, you know, not sober Eminem. And so I went through this phase where it's like I was training around a lot of music like this. I was around really hard people. I went into school and so I just kind of like went into myself because I didn't relate with anyone in school. And I was at a Catholic school and I didn't understand.

And they do their best to kind of teach you what God is and all of these texts and, but they weren't really making it applicable to life. It was, this is what God says, this is what you do, this is what you don't do, this is why you do it. And there was no room for discussion. There was no room for explanation or asking the question, why? So that's something that I didn't work well with me. I wanted to know why.

I had more questions and I just wasn't getting answers. So I just kind of went into what worked for me. And once I did that, that's when the pattern of behavior started. And then, you know, then it got to a little bit of violence when I got a little older, probably nine, 10, because then once I got my black belt, people were like, oh, you think you're...

And I was like, no, I really don't. In this weight class around, somebody around this height, for sure. But outside of oh, you think you're... And I was like, no, I really don't. In this weight class around, somebody around this height, for sure. But outside of that, Taekwondo's not really Jiu Jitsu. It's not really applicable in real life, I feel like, unless you're really good. And was the bullying almost all from girls? For a little bit there, there was boys.

And I remember a distinct incident where I was on the soccer field and I was wearing tearaways and they ripped my pants off. For a little bit there, there was boys. And I remember a distinct incident where I was on the soccer field and I was wearing tearaways and they ripped my pants off. I just thought they were not being nice. I didn't think anything of it. And at that point, I was used to it a little bit. I mean, I had little cliques of friends,

but again, I was at the club. My elementary school was here and my club is right here, so I would walk it. So I was always there. I was there in the mornings, I was there after school, I'd be there late. I used to teach once I had a certain belt level. Did you have friends at the club? Oh yeah, oh my gosh.

That was my everything. That's the problem. I didn't care about anything outside of it. Nothing mattered. Right, right. With that masculine attitude of yours, that young, what do you think would have happened to you in a school now? do you think would have happened to you in a school now?

Oh, I would have been transitioned. It's funny that you say that. I had Natalie Eva Marie on the show. She's a WWE superstar with pink hair, and she's very girly now, but we're having this exact conversation because she was the same. Tear away pants, slides, the whole thing.

She grew up around boys. And I said, my God, thank God we don't live right now. Because we would have been put on puberty blockers. I would have had my breasts cut off. I would have been told I was in the wrong body. I would have told that I wasn't who I thought I was. I knew I was a girl. I was good at being a girl.

I grew up cutting and splitting wood. That's to me what it meant to just be a girl. I could clean the house, I could cook, and I could cut and split wood. So why can't I do all of that? Why do I have to be the opposite sex to do those things? And so yeah, I would be transitioned and it's really tragic. What was it like for you when you hit puberty? Strange.

I went from flat as a board, both sides, no body fat at all, to just like disproportionate chest. It was a very strange, uncomfortable feeling. But it somehow, at the same time I was going through a whole other level of what I would consider trauma, now looking back doing a decade and a half of therapy, I've realized where a lot of that anger had kind of stemmed from in high school. And it came because my coach, who was my guy since I've been four, started sexually assaulting. People say sexual assault.

Raping my teammate, and she was 14. And my entire world exploded when that all got exposed. And I stopped training. And I stopped having an outlet. And I stopped having a community. And I stopped doing the thing that made me who I was. And because of that, I became radically angry, but with no place to put it, no understanding why and how to even fix it.

And my parents didn't know how to fix it. They just were grateful it wasn't me. What came of that with him? He went to prison. He was at a minimum security prison. It was statutory rape is what he got. I think he did two years. He has since been remarried to another one of the girls we trained with and has twin

daughters, which makes me real uncomfortable because that behavior isn't by accident and that behavior doesn't go away. Right, right. Yeah, so I can imagine that was extremely hard on you because you said you lost your community at that point as well. Everything. Yeah, we couldn't, we tried to take me to a new club to train because my goal was the Olympics.

From like, I can remember it from like the moment I saw somebody come in with Olympic rings on them at the gym, I was like, what's that? They're like, that's the Olympics. I went to the Olympics. I was like, hold up. You can go to the Olympics for a Taekwondo? And they're like, yeah. And it was over after that. That's it. That was the only path I could see for my life. I didn't see anything else ever, not once. And so once

that was ripped out, I couldn't train with anyone. I couldn't trust anyone. I couldn't trust men. Couldn't trust anyone around me. Because what if it's going to happen again? And then that became, that also then became a part of my identity. This is very angry child and no fault to my parents, but my dad's a long haul truck driver, my mom is now too. And my dad was gone a lot. And my mom had my brother and I, but she did the best she could,

but sometimes comments would come out like there's something wrong with your head. Those types of things, those borderline gaslighting conversations that happen, like there's something wrong with you. It's like, no, I know there's something wrong with me, but I don't know what it is and I don't know how to fix it. So at that point, I had gone through an interesting childhood. The school had called child services on my mom because one time they were passing out

timbits and I said I couldn't have it because I had to lose weight. Right. Yes, I saw that in your book. Yeah. So that followed me until I was 18. I had to see a pediatrician to make sure that my mom wasn't abusing me, which was ridiculous. But understand, I understand it. Do you think that that event, that betrayal, when you were a teenager, tilted you towards

post-traumatic stress disorder later? I've thought, I've really thought on, I've really meditated on that a lot. The reason I would say more likely no is because I think that when you watch someone die the way I've watched people die, you're going to have a mark anyway. So whether or not it was more severe because of it, maybe yes, it tilted, but I don't... Yeah, well, it was a pretty fundamental betrayal. No, for sure it is. A hundred percent. I don't disagree with you on that at all.

But you don't see an obvious connection. I think where the connection lied for me, more than that obvious connection, would be so that happened, then I went on deployment and a major authority figure after my injury threw all my shit paper in Afghanistan at me and told me it would have been easier if I died. So it's like the authority figure here that was a male, the authority figure here that was a male compounding on the injury that already happened and telling me I was worthless. Because when you look at this situation, and this is where this is a little convoluted

and it can seem really weird for some people to hear. So just bear with me. The person that was assaulted was my training partner. Her and I were hyper competitive though. Don't get that twisted even for a second. This is an individual sport. I wanted to be like her. When she cut her hair, I cut my hair. Right?

So when it happened. Is she older than you? Yes, by two years. So when it happened to her, there was almost this like weird thought of like, was I not good enough to even try? Like, you know, it's really, really messed up to even think that, but you get the connection and where I'm saying it's like I was never good enough there. I was never good enough here, and then I was never good enough in the service.

So there's that kind of identity that runs through it, and it's unfortunate, but I think that was a big part of my life for a long time. It's not anymore. I know I'm very good. I know my worth now, but looking backwards, that's been the beauty of the psychiatrist I got in 2011. He's probably about your age, very similar to you, dress is very similar, same attitude in Canada.

He was one of the first to do post-traumatic stress research on post-Rwanda veterans. He served in Rwanda and Bosnia as a medic. And this, I call him my old man, this guy, he has put up with everything, but he's been the only person outside of my father who has never told me that I'm not good enough. Even when I went through all of the things with him since 2011, the amount of times I call him telling him, I'm going to kill myself, I can't do this anymore. And the response would always be, I have treated you veterans for 40 years. You're not doing this to me.

I've never lost one. I'm not losing one today. And that was always the conversation. And he was always telling me the truth. So I think a lot of the healing came in a lot of different ways after the deployment. I think it was a blessing in disguise. That's why when Constantine asked if I regretted it,

I said, no, I don't regret any of it. I needed to go through those things to come out the other side and be who I am today. And I like who I am today. I love who I am today. I couldn't I am today. I love who I am today. I couldn't say that before. I couldn't say that five years ago. So you've pushed yourself really ever since you were a little kid.

Ruthlessly. Yeah. And I got the sense when I was reading your book too that I don't want to say that you were trying to prove something because that's a cliché, but you're obviously pushing yourself up against your physical limits in your martial arts, and then you decide to enter the service. And so let's talk about that. So why did you decide, why did, and you picked a hard route too. You went into the infantry, which was probably the most.

Infantry by accident, artillery by trade. So it's very strange. So in about 2000, I think it was 15, the United States started to integrate women into combat arms roles. So I was Canadian. And when I deployed, my unit went to an American FOB. So we were working for the 101st. We were working for Americans.

We were the only Canadians that were with an American set of human beings. We were firing for them. And that was in Afghanistan that were with an American set of human beings. We were firing for them. And that was in Afghanistan. And that was in Afghanistan. So that was different. And then I ended up doing infantry because the British called and they didn't have a woman to do the job. So they pulled me.

Right. So I worked with all of them. But before that, I joined the army because I went to college in Ottawa. I went to Algonquin for about a month. I tried to get out of the town as quick as I could. Out of the town you grew as I could. And- Out of the town you grew up in? Yeah, well I grew up in Coburg

and then we moved to Camberford and I went there at grade 11. So up until that point, I'd gone to Catholic school my entire life. And then I went into a public school for the first time. So that's fun. Transition point. And I went to like this farm town of this really like,

you know, really small town vibe, hockey team kind of thing. How big was Camberford? I don't even know this. I don't know the number, but it was tiny. We had one, at the time we had one bridge and we had a Tim Hortons. Yeah. And we invented the Toonie.

That's our claim to fame. There you go. It's massive Toonie, not relevant at all, but ridiculous nonetheless. And so, so yeah, we went there and then I left and I went down to the Remembrance Day ceremonies. I always go for Veterans Day in America and that was one thing my mom always taught me

is we always go on Remembrance Day. And so I went and I took the bus back to Algonquin and there was a lady on the bus that was in an Air Force uniform but like a plethora of medals. You don't really see that in Canada too much. You see it a lot in the States. They're everywhere, they're hanging off of them,

but in Canada not so much. So when you see that, it kind of sparks a little. So I went over and had a conversation. And just kind of like asked her about what she did, and I think she was a pilot, or she had flown one of the first females to fly, a whole kind of thing in Canada. So after that, I got off the bus and I just said,

I think I'm going to join the army. So I went to the recruitment office and right outside the Rideau Mall. How old were you? I just turned 18. I left at 17. And had you graduated from high school? I had, yeah.

I had. I went early to Algonquin to try out for the soccer team first. And then I went, so I started school in September and then I went there right around like November 15th. And then I got paperwork that I was accepted in December, and I got sworn in in December, and I was in basic training on January 3rd.

So it was a quick, yeah. Right, was that a shock? I don't think I even had time to be shocked. I just made the decision and we were going, and that was how it was going to go. We signed on the dotted line. So we went. Right.

And so tell me about your basic training. What was that like? I loved basic training. Basic training sucked, but I loved it at the same time. There's something about collective sucking together. There's that, we can call it trauma bond or whatever you want to put on it. But I liked the competition because within your group, you have men and you have women and everyone's in a different trade and, you know, Air Force, Army, Navy, and then who's

going where. And I, again, loved the idea of being underestimated. It worked for me. It's something that just drives me because normally I'm the smallest or I'm the woman or I'm the whatever kind of like title you want to put it on. None of it matters to me at all. And so we had a couple women. So immediately there was a clash with that because what happened was we would go down

and do the 10K run in the morning and then I would because we weren't allowed the elevators and then I would sprint up the stairs. But I was first so I got to the shower first. It's like, okay, you want to be first, be faster. So they didn't like that I was just standing out. I started to stand out a little bit. And I mean, it was good for the most part. It was a little rough.

I had a little bit of the same sort of stuff from elementary school kind of happened there. And it's like, okay, if it's happening everywhere, you're the problem. But I didn't know at the time that it was a thing that I was doing. It turns out I'm just way too masculine and I'm way too aggressive for a lot of women. And that rubs some women the wrong way. And so now knowing that, I understand that then I didn't. And so we went through basic training and it went well,

graduated on time, nothing went crazy. How many women in basic training compared to, like what was the mix? We had like five women in our group and the rest were men. How many men in basic training compared to men? Like what was the mix? We had like five women in our group and the rest were men. How many men? 30. Oh yeah, okay.

Yeah, so we had- What did the men think of the women? Depended on the woman. Okay, explain that. Some were sleeping with the women, some were competitive with the women, some other women were a lot smarter than all of these guys put together.

They were like doctors that came in and were like, I'm going to join the Navy. So there was some, we had some switched on women, but then there was, there was a different level of physicality. And because we all have the same PT tests, because this is when we didn't lower standards, we were all one standard, which we should always be. Some women didn't pass the pushup test the first time. I think the pushup test was five or 10 pushups. You couldn't pass the push-up test the first time. I think the push-up test was five or ten push-ups.

You couldn't pass the beep test. Beep is? So you know in a gymnasium they put like one of the lines over here, one of the lines over here, and it would beep and you would go beep and you have to run the other side before the next beep. And then go beep and then you have to run and it would get faster and faster. And it was a long drawn out activity. And you had to hit a certain amount of beeps to be able to qualify for the physical.

And a lot of people couldn't hit it. People were just overweight. And so if you failed a certain amount of times, you went up to the 13th floor, which I believe is the 13th, it's called Fat Camp. And you go up there until you can do it, and then you get put back into a new group. So that was always a fear for some people.

I didn't struggle with that because I came right from sports into that. So I was always a fear for some people. I didn't struggle with that because I came right from sports into that. So I was in great shape. Right. So you didn't have any trouble with the physical element? No, no, no. Because basic training isn't the heavy stuff. It's the cardiovascular work. It's the ability to be yelled at and not break. It's the ability to learn tasks on sleep deprivation. Can you function with little sleep? And so for me that was not too bad because my dad would wake us up at some ungodly hour

to go cut wood. I was pretty used to it. So it worked out. And then after basic we graduated and then we all got posted to our trade specific training. I was an artillery gunner so I went to Gagetown. And Gagetown is where you do your SQ and your DP-1. Grenades, machine guns, all the major weapon systems that you get the opportunity to shoot,

you learn them there. Once you're done that, then you go to your hyper, like, trade trade, so artillery. So then I went to the 105 guns and the mortars. Did you have any familiarity with weapons before? Oh God, no, I'd never been exposed to guns. My dad had a 22 for raccoons. You know, I never hunted, I never shot anything,

nothing at all. So it wasn't like a draw to the rah-rah of the weaponry or the violence of it. It was more of a, this looks cool, I think I could do this. But I think everyone knew I was either gonna be a cop or I was gonna go do something else. I just didn't know at the time.

And so we went through training there and that was fantastic. And how did the women do when the standards were equivalent? Like I said, some women failed. Yeah? Yeah, for sure, 100%. I presume some men failed as well. Oh, there was definitely a few.

We had a couple individuals, you'll find this comical, who joined because they said they were good at, what's that? Not Halo, but it's a video game. It's like a war video game. And I couldn't help but kind of do one of these and yeah, they failed out. They were just overweight. Because again, depending on the floor you live on, that's how you get up and down. Well, if you think about how many sets of stairs you had to do in a day, we're on the

ninth floor. We have to go down for breakfast because you have to swipe that card. If you don't, you get in trouble. Then you have to go back up, so there's two. Then you have to go back down for PT, there's three. You got to go back up, there's four. Now you're going on a 10K run, you're doing log stuff, and you're doing all this stuff, now you got to go back up.

And then they would just run you just because they felt like it. And then you would do the same thing at night. And then if they decided to toss bunks, you do the same thing again. So that, if you're not in shape, like that's hard for anyone to do all the time. And so when we got to Gagetown, they kicked it up a notch, right? Because now you're dealing with real guns, real weapons,

and how do you handle them? How do you carry them? And I remember the first time I shot a Carl Gustav, which is just the massive big guy here that goes on your shoulder, and it feels like you're just getting sucker punched by Mike Tyson in the face when it goes off. So it's run by two people.

So one person holds it, one person loads it. And so we went to shoot, my girlfriend and I, who was one of the tiny ones as well, and my sergeant looked at me and went, no, and he just went over and wrapped both of us together and did one of these. And I remember shooting that for the first time and I was like, oh, okay. Okay, I get it now.

This is not pretend. These things are for real. And then we switched to artillery. And once we went to artillery, that was a whole new animal. We were on 105, so they only have a 40 pound round. Explain the difference between the weapons. Yeah, so Carl Gustaf is a shoulder propelled rocket launcher. It has an explosive head.

It does have an explosive head. I didn't shoot any of those overseas, so I'm not like hyper familiar with them. We just did those in training. Then we have, for me, the things that I shot the most of was my C7, which was a long barrel, shoots a 5.56 or 7.62 round. And then we had hand grenades. They don't look like the pineapples, they're round like a baseball, the modern ones.

And then we had mortar rounds that shoot pretty, somewhat accurately, five kilometers within. So we had those, and then we had the 105s, which- How does a mortar work? So, to the best of my recollection, so it's run by two people. It's got a round plate in the ground that sits there that kind of holds it down, and it's a long tube.

And at the bottom is a firing pin. And then you've got a sight on it. And it just kind of looks like a metal off piece here. And then what you do is somebody lines up the sight with the grids they're given. And then the other individual comes with the round and they hold it on top of the tube and then they say fire and you just drop it and you duck your head to the side of it and then it shoots, it goes down, hits the firing pin and then propels out. And so we did a lot of those because that's our job, artillery is also mortimen. And then when we went to the 105s, those are what I kind of described to people like if

you've seen any war movie with like the horses or you've seen them with a boom, that's what that is. And the 105 is a 40 pound round, goes about 20 kilometers. I'm probably give or take on that. And it's got the big brass casing that you kind of see those big round guys. That's what that one kicks out on the back end. That's what you train on. But I then deployed on the 777s, which is a 155mm Howitzer, same sort of deal, modern sight, GPS, you can use GPS guided rounds on it.

It shoots around around 100 pounds. It can go up to max 40 kilometers, I believe. And so that thing is a different level of hurt. I mean, it's 100 pounds of HE or lume or white phosphorus or whatever you're gonna shoot and it's you know, they The saying is it's it's like the hand of God. It'll reach out and touch you wherever you are And so that's what I deployed on and when I got posted from Gagetown I went to a French unit and that only happened because another individual was struggling with some kidney problems from heat exposure. He was taking too much creatine and had really been one of those guys in the gym that was

not looking after himself appropriately with all of the supplements. And so his kidneys crashed out in the heat. And so at that point, they said, okay, he can't go to Valcarte and you're going to Pedawawa. And his dad's at Pedawawa. And I was like, well, trade. So it gets French. And I'm like, yeah trade, though it gets French.

And I'm like, yeah, we'll learn. It's our second language, isn't it? And so I went to Quebec and then I got there and no one spoke English and I had a female officer and that was about it. And so I deployed with those guys. I got there in September of 2008. Did you learn to speak French?

Just by being around, I don't speak it anymore because BC doesn't speak French. Right. Yeah. It's every other language. So, I don't practice. But I learned kind of as I went, my first interaction with my sergeant was, I don't want you. And I went, nice to meet you.

And so, it was a good start. Yeah. So, you deployed to Afghanistan with a French-speaking group. Yes. And you couldn't speak French. I learned. To speak of. Yeah.

Yeah, it was yes-no toaster kind of stuff. So I would ask him, like, use him as a human translator. And I would be like, it's so good. Class, English, French. And then he would just translate words. And then eventually I would start to pick up little sentences here and there. And then it was Fringlish. And then it got to a point where I could understand.

And I was the remote weapon system gunner for the TLAV, which was a turret tank, like a tank that we have that has a turret that shoots a, I believe it's a C6, puts a machine gun and it's a computer system. So I learned that in French. And then I went and learned all the triple sevens in French and the commands in French and the radio commands in French and the mortar systems in French. How did your fellow soldiers react to you on the French side?

You've been to Quebec, right? Yes, I lived in Montreal for a good while. That's right. So you know when you hit like Quebec city and you go north, they don't really like English people as much. Yeah, so it was about that. And then when you look at the gun troop back city and you go north, they don't really like English people as much. Yeah. So it was about that. And then when you look at the gun troop and then you get one of your gun troop members

as five foot and a hundred pounds at the time, you go, oh, great. Now I'm going to have to do twice as much work. And so it just, again, it's that prove yourself. Here we go again. And so I was fine with it and we did it and it was all good. And once they got a little confident once they could see I could load around. Once I could load around, it's like, okay, she'll lift things at least. And it was strange.

They had to have some conversations. My sergeant now, we're friends now and we've spoken since and he goes, yeah, we had to have constant conversations about them leaving you alone. Just like sexually. Because that stuff was just rampant. It's still rampant. It's just not ever prosecuted. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. I want to wander into the Afghanistan territory and your experience there, but I'm also curious about your feelings about women and men in the military.

Yeah. about women and men in the military. Yeah. So you were in early, obviously, and you were in before there were differential standards. Yeah. And you made reference earlier to the fact that you think that the same standard is appropriate. 100%. Okay. So tell me why you think that.

Perfect example. You and I go outside the wire, okay? You get shot. I'm beside you. Who's picking you up? Right. It's that simple. Okay, so what do you think that implies for women in the military? Like, I mean, the idea is that women can do anything men can do. That's not true. Yeah, I know. I know it's not true. And it doesn't even seem to me that it's particularly appropriate, but it isn't like I exactly know how to deal with that. I mean, you obviously worked yourself, you know, half to death in order to be able to manage this and you did manage it.

And so it's hard to say, well, it's hard not to say, well, good for you. But by the same token, it seems to me odd that we're insisting as a society that especially in, I would say especially in direct combat, that men and women can play the same role. And so what do you think about all that? I think it's really complicated and I'll tell you why. If we were fighting on average an enemy that played by the same rules or had similar respect for women. Yeah, well, that's also a big problem. But that's the problem. That's the main problem, right?

Well, okay, so we can talk about that a little bit too. Okay. Well, it seems to me that women are at risk if they're serving in the military in a way that men aren't. Not true. Okay. I can count on all my fingers and toes right now the amount of men who have been assaulted by other men in their units.

By like special operators too. I'm not just talking about like say like grunt people, you know. What if you're captured? You take that risk. Yeah, go on. Oh yeah, it's hell. We've seen it. We've known women who if we there's videos of Israeli women who were captured,

who were tortured to death and raped to death. And we have that on every platform. So I get it, but at some point it's, you have to make the decision. I was willing to risk it because I genuinely, the people that I was with. Did you know what you were risking when you were willing to risk it? Oh genuinely, the people that I was with. Did you know what you were risking when you were willing to risk it?

Oh, no, I don't, that was the thing, you know what, that's funny that you said it. Constantine said the same thing. He's like, do you really know what you got into? No. And anybody who's- I mean, you can say that about life in general, but this is a very extreme situation.

And I can't imagine what would have happened to you if you would have fallen into the hands of the wrong people in Afghanistan, let's say. You know, I've never thought about that, but I don't know, I don't think they would have been able to keep me very long. I would have been a problem.

Problems get eliminated fast. Like honestly, I'm that person, and in that time in my life, if you said, I need you to go run and jump over that person, in that time in my life, if you said, I need you to go run and jump over that wall, and you're probably for sure gonna die. If I knew someone was on the other side of that wall that needed to get pulled over that wall, I'm risking it. I'm risking it every time.

I hate that about myself sometimes, because it's like the sacrificial, like I will, I'll risk it. If it means getting somebody who needs something or somebody needs help, I'll risk a lot. It's probably not a great trait on some levels, but I will and I have and I do it again. What about the standards? Now, the standards were in place. Okay, and what's changed? Okay, so standards were in place, push-ups, sit-ups, yada, yada.

The reason you need the same standards is because if we go outside the wire and I expect you to do something for me, you expect me to do the same damn thing. And if a guy comes out of that building and he's coming at me and I'm compromised, you better pull the trigger or you better jump on him or you better do whatever it takes. Now, women become a distraction.

I don't, they become a distraction because two reasons. Men act different when women are around, we know that. We know that. They just respond different. If a woman's getting hurt, doesn't matter if he likes me or not, he's going to respond differently. He could put himself in danger now. He's going to react differently.

And secondly, because we have lowered the standards, we are putting people in places that are going to get others killed, full stop. We are actually making it more dangerous for people in service, on planes, in other areas by lowering the standards in society together. And we're doing it. And we're seeing the repercussions and we're not stopping it. So where's the line? I've been asked, do you think women need to serve?

If you want to respect the rights of the people we are fighting, unfortunately, I need to be there. Women have to be there because the Taliban and ISIS and God knows how many other enemies we've continued to make. There are women on the battlefield and they will use them if they are covered head to toe and they will put men in those burkas with AK-47s and suicide vests and they will think a woman is walking up to them who's not a threat and they will detonate. And they've done that and they did it time and time again.

The Taliban got smart and realized that we as Westerners to a fault will follow the rule, but they don't have to. And when that started to happen, people started getting killed more because they would hide themselves in women's positions. So they're like, okay, they're not going to bring women on the front lines with them. So the women and children would flee and that's how it would be. And then we started going, well, we have to do something about this because they were hiding weapons, money, jewelry, indicators that they were working with the Taliban in like women's hair and like under their burkas and under their breasts and like things like

that. So when I finally started going out there, you're finding all kinds of things because all of a sudden there was a woman there to actually search people. And we had never done that before because a man cannot touch a woman. And so as long as we want to fight fair, as long as we want to fight up against the current individuals we're fighting, whether that's Hamas or ISIS or the Taliban, you name it, speaking of the Taliban, side tangent here, two seconds. Have you seen the new article that came out

and they were like, oh my God, did you know the Taliban have started stoning women again? That doesn't really shock me. When did it stop, Jordan? I'm sorry. And also all of these people who have something to say about it, Where were you for 20 years when we could have done something about it?

When we were standing there watching it and you said we can't do anything about it. So why do you care now? You don't care. Selective outrage, I'm over it, sorry. Drives me nuts. Who are you speaking about particularly with the selective outrage?

Oh, you name it. Anybody on social media with a face? Anybody who's an influencer or a political commentator or these people who have made their careers off of just adding more negativity to the world and it's constant nihilism for young people to click on and become obsessed with the next new rage event? It's really hard to watch.

Now you had a particular role in Afghanistan. Yeah. You said, for example, that you were searching women. I was searching women. Right. So. And that's a specific role for women. Correct.

And you believe that that's a useful role. Now, what do you think has been the consequence in general of introducing women into the armed forces? There's obviously continual sexual scandals in the armed forces in Canada. It's always been there. We just haven't reported it. Okay, meaning it's always been there in what way? Because there has been women in the army, just not in combat arms rules in other countries. For us, there has. So those assaults have been going on for the individual, for example, I won't say his name, he's got a world to hurt anyway, who told me that it would have been easier if I died.

He's been charged with seven sexual assaults, but he made it to major and he's not being arrested or put in jail and he's getting to leave with a pension. So what does that say to everyone else below him? Do it. Just make sure they're quiet about it. And that's why it keeps happening. We don't actually take accountability for our actions. We never have.

Because if we did, it would stop. Okay, so I read an article in the Canadian Military Journal. I don't remember the name of the journal, but it was their DEI issue, right? And their, what would you say, recommendation for decreasing the frequency of the sorts of things that you're talking about was a retooling of the entire culture of the Canadian military.

Well, I don't exactly understand what that means because the culture is going to be a war culture. And I presume that there are downsides to that as well as upsides. I don't know how to understand the downsides in terms of the relationship between men and women. But if you have a lot of young men together who are single and a lot of young women together who are single, then there's obviously going to be sexual interactions on a nonstop basis. And I have no idea how that can be like reasonably regulated. I suspect that the DEI approach is not going to work very effectively. No. Yeah. So DEI approach is not going to work very effectively. No.

Yeah, so DEI, that's a trip. Canada's lost its mind. Okay, so I spoke to Buck Angel recently and I was asking him his opinion on how the Canadian military has just put tampons in the men's bathrooms. Yeah, and then made it what? A particularly punishable offense for the young men to take the tampon dispensers out of the bathrooms, which is obviously exactly what they should do. They should never have been in there in the first place.

Well, yes, that's for sure. Yeah. So bad leadership, right? You might say that. We can go with bad leadership. That rolls downhill. We have a saying in the military, shit rolls downhill. And so that's obvious.

So DEI is rolling downhill. We have a saying in the military, shit rolls downhill. And so that's obvious. So DEI is rolling downhill and it's rolling down to a already crippling military. Our military complex in Canada is shrinking astronomically. And not only that, it's shrinking because veterans aren't being looked after. People at Gagetown are having to rely on food banks to eat because they're not being paid enough. No weapons systems are coming in. People are having to pay for their own flights to come back from, where did they go? Was it Lithuania they were over there?

Excuse me. They were playing war games, i.e. they were just trying to be a show of force for Putin's. Anyway. And then we bring in DEI. So here's what's happened since I got out. This was a trip. I got to go back in 2021, 22, to New Brunswick to go shoot my last round as a gunner.

I didn't know this was a thing, but when you're like super old or something really bad happens, they bring you back to shoot your last round. Are you super old or something bad happened? It's gonna be 35 this year, Jordan, so we're gonna go with something bad happened. And they really messed up and they know it and there was

A book written about it. They didn't like it So so what happened was I went and I shot my last round and it was this You know all the big wigs came out and all of this and it was amazing because there was actually a female there That was a colonel that I actually respected and so it was a really big honor to get to shoot with her And so I'm there but what I saw was Really troubling to me. Disheveled beards, long nails, piercings, jewelry, weird colored hair and beards. We had lost the standard.

We stopped doing the standards of what it meant to be in the service. Men have to be clean shaven, women have to have short nails, you have to have one earring you can only wear wear wedding band like you don't do these things Their hair was a mess. They just looked a mess and I said, what am I looking at here? So this is the new standard So if you start to lower the standards People who have served like my friend Dallas Alexander who got slapped by the government for going on Sean Ryan like my friend Dallas Alexander, who got slapped by the government for going on Sean Ryan, people like that leave. Right. The experienced people who you need to teach these DEI people. Yeah, well when you lower the standards, the best people leave. Oh, 100%. Yeah. And so this is what's happening. So now you've got DEI. So what happens with DEI? Well, basics that we know. Men now are in women's spaces,

vulnerable spaces. Men now are allowed around women in environments that they just shouldn't be in service in general, meaning we normally get our own shower time, right? And where we get our, if we have enough women, we get our own tent. If you didn't, you're with the guys and you're used to it, it's fine. And so what was happening is people say

that it's an assault issue, it's a control issue, it's a leadership who has been told time and time and time again, you can get away with it. It doesn't matter. You're going to get away with it. If you're high enough rank, you got the right people around you, you're going to get away with that. So what does that say to women?

It says, well, I don't really want to be in the service. So now you're losing women. Or you're having women transition to men, so they're accepted in men's spaces and they're accepted as a male, so maybe they won't get raped. Because you've got, you had a Navy ship just have to come back recently in the United States because there was like 30 assaults in 30 days. And women were just pimping themselves out early, so they didn't get raped.

They said, well, I'll just do it now because then that way I won't get assaulted. So it won't be like traumatic. It'll be my choice. And so people are saying, well, why are we allowing women? How about you just stop raping people, guys? Where's the accountability on the man? Where's the accountability on the staff? Where's the accountability on the leadership to go, hey, if I catch you doing an assault,

this is what's happening to you. You're out, you're gone, your job is over. And you're going to have a dishonorable discharge for sexually assaulting someone, then you're going to get a criminal charge. Why aren't we doing that? Well, why do you think? Because we already have no one.

And also there's a lot of people that are old school that are still in, that are going to cover. Because, oh, what if a guy's like one year away from his pension, Kelsey? Let's just let this one slide. You don't want his family to not have any money, right? You don't want his family to lose his pension. You don't want them to have that name in the school, do you?

It's a hypocrisy. The service is filled with some of the best people that we have to offer. And then it's filled also with some of the worst we have to offer. And then it's filled also with some of the worst we have to offer because it attracts a type personality. There's bad eggs and everything, you know, with the police. Yeah, there's some bad eggs, but they're not all bad. And that's kind of what's happening with the service. Bad eggs, not all bad, removing funds.

What happens? Shittier people. So it's happening in the police. Now it's happening in the service and now it's happening in the service, and we already have one of the smallest armies. So we're being bought and paid for by the CCP, left, right, and center, approvable by CSIS on paper,

and then now we have weak borders, no military, no weapons, running out of artillery rounds, and giving how many billions of dollars to somewhere else, why would you want to join the service? You can be patriotic. And I applaud that. I have people come to me all the time, my daughter's going to join, can you talk to her?

So I'm not going to talk anybody out of anything. It's their path. If they believe they need to go do it, they will go do it. But at the same time, I'm sorry, this is not the country I fought for. So why do you think this is happening to the military in Canada? It's really easy to control people when they don't have somebody to stand up for them. Look at the protest. Okay? So when our own police turned on people at the protest-

You mean the truckers protest? Yes, so I was involved with that in BC. And my parents are truck drivers. Who do you think I'm gonna support? And also my business was crashing because of them. And I was losing everything that I had just built post army because of them. You actually think that I'm gonna stand for this

and watching what I was witnessing? Anybody in their right mind was not okay with this. So I came out and I did a sign and I said, I stand with the protest and everything just went, and I started talking to some friends. And then next thing you know, we got like a leaked WhatsApp chat from the RCMP and it was like saying some really nasty stuff about how they were going to like take their jack boots to the protesters face. They were using Nazi comments.

They were doing some really nasty things. And what I realized right there is who is going to stop us when the police turn on us? It's like, at least we have the service. At least we have the veterans. It's not the military that's going to stop it because they're weak minded at this point. If you're a DEI believer in that service, I'm sorry you're not. If you believe in DEI for the army or the Navy, or the Air Force, I'm sorry you've lost the plot.

You forgot why you joined. You forgot what real war looks like. You're delusional and you're going to cause harm. People are not going to like that comment. I'm going to get all the hate. I don't care because that's the truth. You're not a free thinker. Your job, I get you've been told that you were supposed to follow in suit, but there's

also a point in your life when you come to a fork in a road and you go, do I believe this? If you go no, it's going to suck, but you have to stick to what your truth is. And mine is that behavior is not acceptable. So who is gonna stop us? Well, it looks like the veterans because it's not the military. Because the veterans are the ones that know what war is.

Because we've all been there for the past 20 plus years and now we're all rocking into it again. The military doesn't look after its people, doesn't equip them properly, doesn't feed them properly, doesn't look after the families and puts you on an increasingly dangerous amount of pharmaceutical intervention instead of actually solving the problem.

So why would you serve? I'm sorry. Never again. Not for Canada. So what happened in Afghanistan? You went to Afghanistan, you were with the French unit. I was with the French. We went to FAB.

This was when? So I went, so I got We went to FAB Ramrod. And this was when? So I went, so I got to Vakarchi in September. We deployed in April of 2009. 2009? Yes, 2009. How old were you? I was, just turned 19.

And so we went, my battery R, troop alpha, we went to FAB Ramrod. So they go two guns at a time. So two gun troops, so we had two triple sevens and then two people, two, sorry, troops filled with enough people to run both those guns, the comms and the officers. So we got dropped off there in the middle of the Maymwan district. It's just like a three kilometer fob, really small, in the middle of nowhere. And that was the first time I had been outside the wire and went, oh, there's people out here that want to kill me.

It was very shocking. And immediately we transitioned with the other Canadians and we started right away. And so we got to know some of the Americans. The French didn't want the Americans on our side and the French wouldn't speak English to the Americans, but I did. So I wasn't chummy with everyone here

because I couldn't really talk enough to have like full conversations. So I started talking chummy with everyone here, because I couldn't really talk enough to have full conversations, so I started talking to the Americans. And there's a lot of guys from Texas and from all over the place, and it's wild, because everyone thinks the military is racist, but it's the most welcoming group of people I've ever met. There's people from everywhere, all walks, it was crazy.

And so that was great, I loved the FOB. When we were shooting. It's boring otherwise. You're just working out or you're, you know. You said love the... The FOB. Tell me FOB. Forward Observation Base.

And so that's just where our little home was. We had our tent. That's where we slept. That's where we shot guns. How did you understand your mission? Like what was it that you were doing that? I wasn't given a mission set. I wasn't given a mission set. I was a gunner

I was you go here you shoot the guns when you hear the fire mission run to the gun follow orders, right? Yeah, and the only other time is we would go up onto the OP tower and that We had a bunch of OP towers and Canada's tower was this one. So it was our juice upper It was oh my gosh. It was the something post, observation post, holy brain, get it together. We're going to get there. And you would do four hour shifts with the machine guns

and you would just watch. That's what you did. And then you'd do radio calls. So I like to mess around with the Americans and do them in French. So it was just fun for me. And then anytime there's a fire mission, you ran to the gun. So that was like my life for a long time.

How long? I think for that was like the first couple months. And then after that, I got a call, a call came down to the tower and said, Kelsey, you need to come into the tent. And I went into the tent and Sergeant LeBlanc was there and he said, hey, so there's about to be a big operation and the British need you to go with them.

I've told them no. And I was like, hey man, I want to be infantry. Don't take my dream. Let me go do this, dad. Like, I want to go do this. Like, let me go live my life, you know? And he goes, I don't want you going. I said, why?

And he goes, because you don't understand. He had deployed to Bosnia and he had deployed before and he had used his weapon in combat and that wasn't artillery, right? So it was small arms. And he's like, I don't want you going. And I said, okay. And he said, but they're not going to say no, they're not letting you stay. So what he did is he said, come with me and we went and got my rifle kind of sorted out.

He stripped his rifle down because he had deployed before he had all the Gucci kit. And I just had this like old sight that doesn't work unless it's at like 400 kilometers. It's not going to work for close combat at all. Like it's terrible. And he got me the Tac Light and all the cool things and gave me all of his. This is where it scared me a bit. He emptied his vest and took all his extra mags and went, you're going to need these. And he laid it out in front of me.

It was a lot of magazines. I was like, you really think I'm going to need that? He goes, mm-hmm. I said, okay. And then he took me to the little range we had there and I zeroed my weapon. And then he said, they're going to come get you tomorrow. So they were taking small arms fire on the way and they couldn't come get me. So they said if they don't come tomorrow, you're not going. So he was all happy. They came, they picked me up. There was a bunch of Terps on there and a

bunch of other individuals. Interpreters, sorry. And within that, there was just a bunch of random people on the Chinook, you know, bits and pieces from all over different places of Afghanistan. People go into the hospital, some interpreters, some of the military, and they drop me back off at CAF, which is the, it is essentially the massive base within Kandahar where everyone flies in and out of. If you hear about the Tim Hortons or the Pizza Hut, it's there. And so that's where the British were. And they dropped me off, and then they dropped me at the British gate,

and they said, here you go. And I walked into the British and I introduced myself. I don't know how to read the ranks, so I don't know who I'm talking to. They just have all different little, you know, we had chevrons at the time, they had different stuff. And so I must have been talking to someone high up. I think it was a commander Calhoun.

Commander, no idea. Just terrible. And I said, hi, I'm going to work with you. And they said, okay, you're going to be our female attache, so just female searcher. You're going to come with us. You're going to go see the RCMP here real quick. They're going to tell you what you can and cannot do. They're going to give you some zip ties and some gloves and we'll come get you.

So I went to the RCMP. They gave me a quick overview of what I could and could not do. What could you and could you not do? I couldn't... So I could not put duct tape on them, but I could zip tie their hands. I couldn't put them in certain positions. I couldn't put a bag over, but I could tie their eyes.

If I was removing things from the women, they had to be sat down in front of them so they could see that we weren't stealing it, that we were just removing it from them. And then, you know, just pressure points I wasn't allowed to push. I said, okay. And then I got gloves and a bunch of zip ties. And then I went back to the British and they said, okay, we're going out tonight at one

o'clock in the morning and this is what we're going to do. You're going to go from house to house to house to house and anytime there's women, we're going to call you. And you're going to follow that guy right there with the bomb dog. He's got a black lab named Benji and you're going to follow him everywhere he goes. Don't lose. He's got a black lab named Benji, and you're going to follow him everywhere. He goes, don't lose him. He's with you the whole time. I said, OK. And then they said, you can go sleep.

And I said, I don't think I can. And then we set off in a little school bus over to the airfield and then hopped on a Chinook. And I sat on the floor, which was a bad idea. And then people stacked around me. And then we took off. And we went out. It was the first time I used like,

NVGs, so nods to see at night and all of that, so that was interesting. And that was about it, to be honest, that's all I got told. And then we went out on foot and we had a hot LZ and we landed. Yep, so we, I'm gonna get, I'm so sorry. No problem.

We were taking some small arms fire when we came in and they dropped us off really quick. Problem was, people were sitting on my legs so I couldn't feel them. So when I stood up, my legs, I went to run, they gave out. And so a Scottish guy just grabbed the back of my vest like this and did one of these and just kicked me in the butt and it was like, aye, off you go.

And I was like, here we go. And so we went out and then we waited until morning prayer. Because of the respect we have, we wait till they're done their morning prayers, then we kick the door in. And then I was told they're not going to use me. Oh, you know, Burns, we haven't had people, women and kids around a lot. They've been leaving. I said, okay.

They told me we're going to be out there a week. I was like, okay. First house. We need her. And I go. I said, okay. They told me we were going to be out there a week. I was like, okay. First house. We need her. And I go. And it was my first experience of what 12 women and kids screaming and crying in a room by myself looks like.

And that was a, being a mom now, I really wrestle with some of that stuff. I didn't then. I had no reference point. But being a mom now, I really wrestle with it. Ressel with what? Kicking people's door in the middle of the night. With your baby screaming and terrified. The level of trauma I've left in that country

and the women and kids I encountered. What were you looking for? All we were told is we were looking for caches. Weapons, a lot of money, anything that would indicate people were working with the Taliban or anywhere near sort of IED, which are improvised explosive devices, any of those farms. And that's all I was told. And so if I were to find big wads of money or I would have find cell phones and any of

those things, I was like, bring them to them like, okay, this is what I found, who I found it on. And so- Did you? Yeah. Yeah who I found it on. And so- Did you? Yeah. Yeah, we found a lot. They hid stuff in women because they didn't think I'd be there to search them. And so we-

So does that help you reconcile yourself to what you did? No. Why not? Because I still did the thing. I still inflicted the trauma. It was still part of the pain. Doesn't erase it. It's there though.

So it's an uncomfortable feeling. Something I've definitely worked on a lot, but it's definitely there. Like, kick my door in in the middle of the night. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very immediate, hey, what you're involved in is very immediate.

And it's like, bang, it's just like, it's just like screaming and like madness and chaos. And you know, it's right after they're praying. It's just, it's dirty, feels dirty. Like I get why, like don't get me wrong. I'm not saying like we shouldn't have done it that way, but like shock and awe is how you don't get killed, right? It's like my buddy used to say to me,

I'd be like, how did you guys like, how did we lose so many more people than the SF? He's like, we move at night, we're quiet, and we get the job done and we leave. Conventional forces, we roll out at the same time every day, we go down the same road every day, you know, we're sitting ducks, it's different. So anyway, so you got to be quick and you got to be shock and awe a bit, right? So that's the tactic. And so we started doing that for a while, and that was going okay.

I had a couple scuffles with men in the family thinking I was a boy going into a room. So, we dealt with that a little bit, which is always fun. The interpreters didn't like that I was there. There's not a lot of respect for women, especially a female soldier. So, that was an interesting relationship to kind of work around, if you will. And then we had a couple of situations. So, situations, wow, what a difference. So that's an additional difficulty of being female

in the armed forces in those countries. Yeah, absolutely, because if you're fighting a country that has little to no respect for women, by and large, across the board, depending on your level of extremism, you're going to be dealing with a different trust issue, right? Yes, well, I would imagine that you're particularly hated too. Oh yeah, you can feel it. Oh yeah.

It like burns through you. Yeah, yeah, I bet. Yeah, you can feel that, but that's okay. I equally hated them just as much and I made sure they knew it. So again, this is where that masculine side switched on and there was no feminine left. And so within a couple days of being out on our on-foot operation, I was with-

Except you said that it bothers you now that you're a mother. It does bother me. I think I should bother anyone. You're a human being. I'm not disputing that. Oh no, for sure. I just think that feels natural to me. I feel like if I were to say, oh, I had no problem with what I did to those women and

kids, I think that would be slightly sociopathic. Yeah, right. I consider myself a painful empathy for a lot of people, especially post-psychedelics and really opening and doing work on myself. That kind of shell and heaviness isn't there anymore. That need to protect my heart is not there anymore. Now it's like painful all the time. Like right before we came here, there was a woman at lunch just yelling at her child.

I could see that she was stressed, but it was like watching the child take it. Oh, I just, I stopped eating. I felt nauseous. Like, I'm painfully empathetic now, and it's almost a, I almost wish it was a bit the other way. It's easier to- How much of that do you think is a consequence of becoming a mother? I mean, that's a big change.

Oh, yeah. I don't think it's as much as I thought it would be, because when I had my son, I wasn't well yet. So there was still that hardened part there. And thank God it happened so early where he couldn't remember what I was like. He gets to see happy mommy now. He doesn't see mommy crying on the stairs like he did when he was two and three, right?

So how long did you search? We only did a week. We did a full week of just non-stop. And because it was non-stop, I went from Alpha Bravo Charlie and I was shifted between every single unit. So if they were kicking a door, there was a woman, okay, then I would go over there. And then if they would kick and wait, and then they would go, okay, wait, we got women and kids, they put them in a room and then they would wait

for me to come over here and then I would search over here and there'd be the same sort of thing over here. There's not many of us. So you're used a lot. And so- How'd you get along with the Brits? I love them. How come?

They didn't question me. They didn't make me feel like I needed to prove myself. I was handed to them and they said, do you know what you're doing? And I said, probably better than some of you. And because I immediately fired back and didn't just cower into my shell, they're like, oh, she's lippy, is she?

And then they started calling me the C word in a good way. And I was excited about that, because I was like, oh, I'm starting to be one of these people, okay, okay, I can do this. And then- You're still only about 19 at this time? Yeah, I was 19 the whole time. Yeah.

Yeah. And it was just, they respected me. If I said stop, everyone stopped. They weren't like, huh, why should we stop? They were like, stop. Byrne said stop. Something felt wrong. And so they respected me.

And so I got on with them just wrong. And so they respected me. And so I got on with them just fine. And it was really lovely. They're, you know, I had South Africans, English, Irish, who else? Fijians. And they were just this amazing, eclectic group of people. And they all just were good with me there. There was no questioning it at all.

No one was weird. No one pulled any sexual stuff. No one said anything offside that I considered offside. It was a really respectful relationship and I liked it. So when they respected me, I was happy to be there. And so we're out and we were all on hold. There was a road to clear. And I had my back up against a wall, and on the right-hand side there was a road, and then there was another compound, and then they had a second story on that. So we put a sniper up on the roof and a spotter over there,

and we had some guys over here waiting. Then we had all of us up against the wall, and we had an interpreter beside me. And then just down the road, there was a road, and it kind of went from a big open field on the right-hand side, and then off the road was like a deep ditch, but it was like super green in that ditch, like really tall trees.

People don't think Afghan is like really green, but it shockingly is. And then at the end of it, there was this massive grape hut, and they're like, okay, we want to clear that before we go down this road. What did you call it? A grape hut. And what's that?

So essentially, it's like a mud hut with a bunch of holes in it, so if you hang things through it, it aer mud hut with a bunch of holes in it. So if you hang things through it, it aerates, so it'll dry things in there. And so we sent two guys out and one had a metal detector and one was a machine gunner and he was just going to watch his back. And so everyone's kind of watching this, this massive open area and it got weirdly quiet. And that's never a comfortable feeling.

And so we're just sitting there hanging out. I actually have a photo right before it. Somebody took a photo of me and I'm smiling like this. It's like one of my only photos from outside the wire. And next thing you know, you just heard this like boom! And the whole ground just like moved and I whipped my head to the left. And you saw one of our guys, what was left of him just, boom. And my eyes-

This was the guy with the metal detector and the machine gunner? Yeah, the machine gunner was sitting at the door, so the blast hit him to the left side and it ripped his kid off, shredded his arm down his body, took his whole helmet. I didn't understand how that happened, but everything was off of his body. That's Velcroed on and clicked in. I didn't understand. What I just witnessed, I couldn't understand.

I can't stress to you how foreign. There was no, I didn't get it was no like, I didn't get it. I didn't realize what I was seeing. And to the left of me, all you heard was the ICOM radio, which is this radio that the interpreters have when it's really clear. We can hear the Taliban, right? That's how we kind of like wiretap Taliban. And so when it got really clear, they were close.

The signal was good. And it was crystal clear because they like to watch, right? They like to watch you blow up video tape and use it for propaganda. And they're always watching and we know that. And so they did it and all you hear is, ah la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la

la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la I'll remember that to the day I die. The level of rage that I did not know that could exist in a human being just overtook my entire body. I looked over at Buchanan and I said, we need to run. He goes, wait. They all had radios. I didn't have radios.

I could just hear people screaming over radios. Then next thing you know, it just got chaotic quick. They're like, okay, go, go, go, go, go, go. I'm not supposed to be in this position. This is not my job. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I'm just doing what I'm told. Run, run, got it, autopilot on.

So we jumped down and we start running and I'm over with the medic and one of the guys comes, the machine gunner comes running down and he's like, I got him. He's taping him up and he's just saying, where's so and so, where's so and so? And he's kind of like right out of it. He just hits him with morphine and they get him off and they're like, go. And so we start jumping into that ditch that hadn't been cleared and we just start running. The only way I can describe it is if you listen to a movie and it's like a slow motion and you're in that black tunnel and it's just like all you can hear is like, and

you're running and running and you can't go like fast. And I'm running with, I had like 60 pounds of kid on me at the time, like a gazelle, like I'm just sprinting as fast as I can. We get to the road and they're like, on three, run. We're like, one, two, three. And we run across the road and we walk in. And there's some other guys that are in there and they look around and I look around.

And this, it's like, I hate that I said it, but I was just kind of like, where is he? Because I literally had no idea what just happened. And they're like, what's left is left. Start grabbing things. And I didn't have gloves on at the time. So we started with evidence bags, just putting body pieces into bags. It was over and over and I was grabbing them. This was the man with the metal detector? Yeah, what was left of him. And so we're doing that. And then there was a boot.

He must have hit it with his foot or the metal detector, but there was a big improvised explosive device at the back end of that grape hut, and he must have hit it and it set it off. And so his boot was still in there with part of his leg, but it was laced up. And dark humor. Boot's okay.

And one of my buddies just tapped me on the shoulder and he's like, I burned, good. And that was like the moment I felt like a dissociation happened. I called the light switch, which was like, we're done now, bye. And I became the version of myself I was for a decade after that.

Mm-hmm. You call that moral injury. Yeah. That was a good time. And so we're collecting everything, and next thing you know, all hell breaks loose. So if you know anything about the Taliban or terrorists, they love a good secondary device. And so they wait till everyone rushes in, and then they hit you again.

And they did that. So next thing you know, mortars are, I know how inaccurate those things can be. So when I hear them coming down, I'm like, oh, we got problems. And so they start just sending mortars and our guys are like sending mortars to try to deter the Taliban that are on the line coming in. And we're getting taking small arms fire and they call in the Pedro flights, which are the two blackhawks. One's going to come in and it's going to pick up the dead and the hurt and the other's going

to lay down hell. And so they come in and I don't know, this is just chaos. They go, okay, you need to, whatever you have in your pocket is good. Take your weapon, sling it, grab his weapon, put it on and then take both helmets. So I do that and we start running. And we're just running down this road that hadn't been cleared, just going through open fire. And it was the first time I'd experienced like the whiz and the pop really close. And then we tripped and we dropped

him what was left. And then we had to put them all back in while this is going on. And the next thing the Blackhawks show up and it was, I just didn't want to die. And they came through and one landed and the one guy was just like, where is he? Where is he? And everyone's like, oh, we got him, mate. We got him. We got him. It's all good. It's all good. Hit him with morphine. And meanwhile, he's covered up right beside him, what's left with a tarp. And they're just like, oh, he's on the next flight. Like, he's good. Like, just don't get him anymore stress. And so this other one comes through and-

This was the machine gunner. Yeah, the machine gunner. And the other black hawk takes off and just, we get back and I'm covered in blood and I'm taking off all the kit and putting it on there. And the machine, the guy on the black hawk comes through and just like, just likerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrr rrr rrr rrr and I just wanted to kill them all. And I hate that, I say that, but I did. And I don't apologize for it either.

And then I started to, the medic caught on, I'm still good friends with him. The trauma that you experienced, to what degree do you think that was a consequence of the mayhem that you saw, to what degree do you think it was a consequence of that hatred? I think it was, I think, because there was a lot of other things that happened on that one that really compounded it aggressively, but I think it was more the shock to the system of

watching someone die the way I did, and then the hatred came in secondary to really compound like just the pain of it. Yeah Well, that's a real transformation of personality. Yeah. Yeah, it was not I got quiet That's how everyone caught on I just stopped talking I stopped eating I stopped sleeping but when we came back to the when we were getting everyone out right before we kicked off again I started obsessively rubbing my hands. Hmm like like this and like trying to get the blood off. And until this day, it's with 2024, I still don't touch raw meat with bare hands. I eat meat. I eat predominantly only meat, but I don't touch it. I can't touch

it. I haven't gone hunting yet because of it. I'm really bummed about it. Yeah, we're working on that one. That's my last bugaboo. Yeah, yeah, because I didn't have gloves when I was grabbing him. So that was uncomfortable. Yeah, I think that's fair to say. Yeah, yeah. So I make jokes about it now,

because it's how I cope. So what happened to you after that? So we pushed off and we just kept going. And then I don't know if it was the next day or that same day, because everything started to become a blur after that. We just started getting hit. Every time we walked somewhere,

every time we moved, we were just taking it. Small arms fire, mortar fire, we were just getting clapped like constantly. They were everywhere. And so I got put in a weird situation again. I was with one of the troops. I was with Stephen Noble's guys. And we were walking into a smaller village and there was screaming up ahead in a compound.

It was like women. And whether it was like a target or whether it was a setup or whatever that pulled us there, he says, we pushed into this compound like, get on the roof. I was like, let's fucking go. Now it's my turn, right? So they lift me up because I can't get on that roof. They lift me up onto the roof and there's another guy to the right of me and then there's me and then there's a sharpshooter right beside me to the left-hand side, which is like a

sniper but the Brits call them sharpshooters, not quite snipers. And another guy there. And we are just laying down hell. Like I'm feeling nothing. We're just laying down hell. And the sharpshooter goes, I'm out of ammo, I got to jump down. His rifle, and I'll show you a picture of it, is the length of my body when I stand up, from butt stock to end of barrel. So I'm laying down rounds, he jumps

down, as he jumps down on the left-hand side, we get flanked. Three rounds go, hit his butt stock, protects my hip and just misses me. So after we're done the firefight, we jumped down and he pulls out the rifle and he pulls out the casing and I was like, tell me that's mine. He's like, no chance. You have a picture of it though. And I was like, that was my hip. And he's like, yep, it was.

So if he was there, he would, it would have went through him, would hit the butt stock and hopefully would have stopped. But because he wasn't would have hit the buttstock and hopefully would have stopped. But because he wasn't there, it hit the buttstock and it took enough of it that it stopped it. So I was very fortunate in that situation. And then after that, I started having, we started just, the next compound we went to, I was searching a group of women and there was a particularly combative set of women here. We had known at the point that this was home of the Taliban.

Like we knew somebody there, we knew that they were Taliban, we knew that. And so when I was searching some of the women, they chew, there's a drug they chew there, right? And it makes them really disoriented and it's really hard to search them. While I'm searching one of them, one of them comes at me with those like shears. Yeah.

Shears. Just one of these. I don't, I wasn't issued a small arms, like a handgun at all, which makes no sense. And my barrel is this long. So I'm not getting that in between us. So I just kind of do this and just kind of knock her down. So she's down, so at least then she's diffused, and it was fine.

But then after that, what happened was, I got really just angry with all of them. So I started, instead of taking something from them and setting it down, it just was out the window, out the door, there was no respect anymore. There was like, I don't care if they're in prayer, kick the door in, let's go. I'm not waiting for this, we got places to be.

And you could just see it just get worse and worse and worse and we were just in firefight after firefight after firefight, then our other guys got hit. Then we lost two interpreters. Then we had one of the other females there. She was a mask because she was in right behind. So now we had to get them out and it was just this, it was this really, really, really terrible operation that just didn't go well.

And all of those guys I was with, I bonded with. And they were talking to me, checking on me, and listening to me, or just sitting still because they knew I was not doing great. And then we got back to CAF. We finished the operation. They picked us up. We got back to CAF. We finished the operation. They picked us up. We got back to CAF and they said, see you later. And I went back to the Canadians and I was told by a captain that-

How long was that period of time? About a week. I think it was, I have the exact time stamp. It was, I believe it was the 9th at 0100 and then we got got pulled out at 215 a.m. on the 15th. And I went back to the Canadians and I was told right away to just not talk about anything that happened because no one's going to believe me anyway. And then I went back out to the FOB and I almost pulled the trigger on a kid because when I was doing the tower, the little girl that came outside the fob all the time, she

would wave. But this time I didn't see a wave. I saw a gun. And I racked around and the guy beside me was like, yes, girl. Like, what are we doing? And I just looked at him and I was like, what? And he was like, no. And I ran off the tower and I went into and I told my surgeon, something's wrong. Something's wrong. And they said, okay. And then they sent me back to CAF. And then they sent me to the doctor. And they said, we're seeing signs of acute post-traumatic stress disorder.

We're going to put you on these pills. Because I stopped sleeping. I stopped eating. I did that. What did they put you on? I have a list, but there's 11. Okay. I have a list, though. So there's 11s. Uppers, you know, sleep meds, antidepressants, any anxiety, you name it. It's just those types of medication.

Yep. And then they said, okay, go on your HLTA, which is your holiday. So I went to Dominican Republic with my mom for three weeks. And in that timeframe, we lost more Canadians that I was with. And I was angry and I drank and I was not fun to be around. And I just wanted to go back. And I went back. I went back out to the FOB, told an officer off and they sent me back to CAF again.

And they're like, oh, don't worry. Don't worry about your stuff. You're coming back. Don't worry about it. So I left all my stuff at the FOB and they brought me back to the doctor and they're like, this is getting worse. And then they sent me to the QM, which is quartermasters, where you get like your inventory stuff.

And they made me start counting pens. And then my braid wasn't good enough, so an officer, a warrant officer yelled at me and then I unleashed living hell. And I was told I had to go back to the doctors and I did and they said, you're going home in three weeks. So I went home three weeks earlier before the rest of my gun troop and I never saw the British again and I never saw my unit again. And then I got back to my unit in Quebec before everyone else and they told me I was going

to the hospital and see you later. And then I went to the hospital in Ottawa. And then I was there until they deemed me acceptable to try to retrain at the Knaut range and it didn't go well because I was working on a range. And then they decided they were going to med board me out in 2011. So I got med boarded out with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and an undiagnosed traumatic brain injury. And whatagnosed traumatic brain injury. What was the traumatic brain injury from?

How was that acquired? So what we understand now about machine guns, Carl Gustavs, artillery rounds, the concussive blast off of one round will give brain damage. And I did a lot of that. Right. Yeah. So. Right. Because we have 11 of the same 13 symptoms, right?

So my TBI was actually a big contributing factor to why I wasn't healing, but we weren't treating it because we didn't pay attention to it. Right. Because it wasn't written down. Right. And what kind of care did you receive when you got back to Canada? A social worker I found out recently. I had a social worker at Ottawa who was trying to work with me.

They tried to do hypnosis. They did EMDR. They did medication. They did exposure therapy. We did all those things and it just got worse. And then the medication increased. And then I moved to British Columbia with my now husband and I was given to the operational stress injury clinic in Vancouver, which is an okay place.

But luckily Dr. Passy was there. And he was given, I was given to him. And he was the gentleman that you mentioned earlier? Psychiatrist, yeah. And he was helpful? Yeah, I still work with him weekly. Why was he helpful? What did he do right?

He had walked the walk, so I know he understood. So I didn't have to explain myself to him. And he gave me the space and didn't tell me I was broken. He said, I see this all the time. You're going to be fine, kid. Just give me time. And I said, okay. And the idea of being the only suicide he ever had would haunt.

I couldn't do that. I didn't live because of me or wanting to be here. I lived because I had an obligation to others. And so, my now husband I've been with for 14 years, I met him right before deployment. And then I moved up to the C. You're right about that. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And I just can't let people down. It's like the, it's like, it's like the worst. So, so I stuck around. How are you doing? Fantastic. How come? Psychedelics, community, purpose, love, all of it in combination.

Mainly the catalyst point though with my husband did the best he could for as long as he could. My psychiatrist has never failed me. But what I had lost, and people don't really talk about this, when you transition out of anything, professional sports, military, police, going into the civilian world is not the same. And if you lose that community, it's not the same.

Right, so you're hurt and you don't have an identity. Yeah, and I was told at you don't have an identity. Yeah. And I was told at 21, I'd never work again. So that's a great label. So you have post-traumatic stress disorder, you're never going to work again and you're broken. We become the stories we tell ourselves. We know that.

So I told myself, I'm the injured veteran who's never going to work or get better. Because that's what I was told. So why wouldn't I believe that by the people who are trained experts in their fields? And it was only when my doctor said to me one day, like, we know you want to get pregnant, but you can't be on some of these pharmaceutical meds. So what about cannabis? And I was like, I grew up like that's a no-no.

Like no-no. He said, just give it a try. And I was like, okay. So I slowly started to integrate cannabis and remove sleep medication, and that worked. Then we got down to the last- What did cannabis do for you? It allowed me to get to sleep and stay asleep.

Oh yeah, okay. Yeah, because my problem was waking up from nightmares and then night sweats. I was really violent at night when I'd sleep. And so I was never sleeping, so I was never resting, and we know that was it takes 72 hours to break someone without sleep. It's not much. And so from there on, I said, OK, I'm going to go down this more holistic route.

And I started my art therapy. My doctor suggested art therapy. I started on the kitchen table in 2015. I started building bracelets out of old spent casings that my friends would send me from the range, which I found out really quickly was illegal when the RCMP cornered off my cul-de-sac and showed up at my door with guns. They were like, so do you have rounds in there? And I was like, nope.

I'm like, do you have a warrant? They're like, nope. I'm like, 7,000 50 cal rounds on the other side of that door. They just, they weren't actual, they were just casings, but you can't take those. So I was building jewelry out of them and I slowly started to develop this purpose and I never wanted to run a nonprofit, but I wanted to impact our community and I didn't know how.

So I was like, well, if I can make something, then that can be the vehicle that puts that money with those charities that's gonna do the boots on the ground work. So then I'm impacting change and I'm funding something. So that was my mentality going into the business. What did that grow into? Brass in Unity now is, oh my gosh, so Brass in Unity, I mean it took off in 2016. I met with Kevin Hart and he gave me the best piece of advice I've ever been given, which was at the time it was called Her Wearables.

He goes, you need to make it a unisex name. And I was like, right. So we did. He tweeted it out and a year later I was on Ellen and it, you know, Julian Huff and Michael Buble and all these people started wearing it for suicide prevention. And I was like, okay, we're cooking with something. Then next thing you know, we were nominated for- What were you making that they were wearing?

These, these. Just bullet jewelry, like with actual casings. That's it. Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Just pull. Use your muscles.

I believe in you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Sorry, I'm a positive affirmation individual. Yeah, well those are very nicely made. Thank you, yeah.. Thank you. Sorry, I'm a positive affirmation individual. Yeah, well, those are very nicely made. Thank you. Yeah. So I started making these and then we started selling them in the fashion world. Now, let me tell you about the fashion world in Bullet K6. It doesn't mix. I don't know if you know that. It seems logical.

Yeah, right. So long and short, it ended up kind of skyrocketing. And we by 2019, we were in Elle, fashion magazine, all of these things, all these stories, all these celebrities, 200 retailers, I had hand signed myself just hustling my way through North America, and COVID hit. And I lost my entire business overnight. Talk about a lack of purpose, having your whole identity wrapped around a jewelry company. That was a bad idea, isn't it? Well. It worked, it did its job, it did what I needed it to do. It got me up, it got me moving,

it got me know I want to kill myself every day. So all in that timeframe, I got married, I had a baby, ran this business, and then 2021 kicks over. And I get this phone call again from the same guy who introduced me to Ayahuasca. So in that timeframe, I started getting really suicidal again. By 2019, I was drowning.

I couldn't figure out why. I'm doing all the things. I'm doing what I'm told. I'm trying all the exposure therapies. Why isn't it working? And my buddy calls and he said, hey, what about ayahuasca? Griff's like, you know, do you know of heroic hearts? I said, no. They said they take veterans to do ayahuasca.

I was like, what's ayahuasca? They're like this tea. And I'm like, all right, let's do it. Last kick at the can, give it an honest try. Thirty days later, I went and did it with a group of operators and Blackwater dudes and army rangers. And I realized in that moment it was less about the ayahuasca and more about the community. I was welcome.

I was brought in again. I was seen. So we did ayahuasca for three days in the woods. Three days. Yeah. And my life changed. What did you learn? That the way that I was taught that God exists isn't true,

that God is everything. And that I wasn't gonna go to hell because I wanted tattoos. And that there was nothing wrong with my head. And that I was gonna be okay. If I just had faith in something bigger than myself. And that was when? What year was that? 2020.

2020? Mm-hmm. So after that, I've never been on a pharmaceutical drug again. Is that right? Yeah. From that point? From that point. Wow.

Yeah, we're going into 20, 25 soon here. How's your sleeping? Fantastic. Well, that's a good deal. Well, it's a combination of that and brain treatment I did in 2022. What'd you do? So I went down to this place

called Resiliency Brain Health Center in Dallas, Texas. They treat Army Rangers, Delta operators, NFL dudes. And what had happened was in 2021 from starting my podcast, I met Griff within the first four episodes, so I did psychedelics. And that carried me through and I integrated that. I did psychedelics, I did ayahuasca again that October.

And then after that, I had some really popular people on the podcast. And this organization was like, something's wrong with her eyes. And the only reason that happened is because my husband started dying. So all while this is happening in COVID, my husband and I were in the garage

and we're watching a Joe Rogan podcast, literally the same pattern of behavior we have every day. And I was smoking a joint before bed. He'd sit in the garage with me while we just had this like routine. He looks at me and he goes, Kelsey, something's wrong. And he grabbed his right side.

And I did pick my paramedics after I got home from the army and I was like, wrong side, brud. He goes, no, something's wrong. And he stood up and he goes, I think I'm dying. And he dropped with ground. And he just was gone. And so talk about move slow again. I started screaming.

We called 911. They put us on hold. I said, I just got a new Tesla. Let's test this thing out. So my neighbor came and put him in the car for me and we drove him to the hospital in less than five minutes and the ambulance called and said, pull over. Beat it. I'm going to get there faster than you.

Canada didn't help. Canada kept telling us it was mental health. It was not mental health. My husband was a professional super cross racer. He's hit his head more times than he can count. But what we're starting to understand about TBIs is they can be delayed. He was fine until he wasn't. Everything started to spiral after that.

He couldn't get out of bed. His depression, he started getting suicidal. He was losing weight. He wasn't functioning. He just didn't want to live anymore. And he couldn't get out of bed. His depression, he started getting suicidal. He was losing weight. He wasn't functioning. He just didn't want to live anymore and he couldn't figure out what was wrong. We went to every hospital. We did private doctors, MRIs, you name it. It's mental health.

It's mental health. It's not mental health. A friend of mine was on Instagram and was like, I'm at this brain clinic. I have too many head injuries. So I voice messaged him. It was a ranger. And I was just bawling. I said, will you help me?

I don't know what to do. Can you get them to see my husband? This was Wednesday. We called them, they said, this is no problem. We know what it is. He was on a flight and he was there on Sunday. Canada, two years, nothing. Nowhere, nothing.

One week, Texas. Yeah. So we went down there and he was there and they also treat civilians. And this was who treats the veterans, the resiliency clinic. And so, this lovely lady named Donna Cranston who runs Defenders of Freedom sat down and she goes, is your wife Kelsey Sharon? And he goes, yes, ma'am.

He goes, we think she has a TBI. Her eyes are all messed up on her podcast. We'd like to treat her. And I was like, okay. And like, you know she's Canadian, like we're gonna get special permission, don't worry. And they funded the whole thing. So they flew me down to Texas for two weeks after I did the four by four by 48 with another charity

because Goggins likes to make the rest of us suffer. And I went right there right after. And I was there for a two-week intensive program. And I found out that I not only had a TBI, I had dysautonomia in POTS. And that's one of the reasons I wasn't getting better. My vestibular system was completely a lack. My hormones were a complete nightmare. You name it, I couldn't tilt my head backwards throughout my whole body thinking I was something upside down. I was cautious. I was, couldn't drive a car. I was getting nauseous all the time. I couldn't be in a passenger seat.

So I did treatment with them. And then I continued to use things like microdosing to help. Not all the time. I do regimens eight weeks at a time, and then I go off and I integrate. But I still definitely have a tendency. When I get depression, I don't go as low as I did, but I go a little, but enough to go, okay, are we sleeping? Are we eating right? Are we moving enough?

Are we having enough water? What was I watching? Was it triggering? Was it Tucker Carlson all week? Maybe let's take a break. Let's go into something a little lighter. And so I started looking at all those things before I go to the next solution. And all in that timeframe, I wanted to help veterans differently.

So we donate 20% of our proceeds from Brass in Unity. I started journaling and writing a book. I started this podcast that was kind of taking off. And then I was like, might as well become a psychedelic integration coach so then I can help these same people that helped me. And that's what I did. And then now cut to where we are in 2024, where the book came out last year. And I'm healthy and I'm happy and I love myself and I know my worth and I know where I'm going

and I have a direction and I am so goddamn grateful for the people I have around me because without them I wouldn't have been here. And they didn't give up on me. Our government gives up on everyone else, but no one gave up on me. And been here. And they didn't give up on me. Our government gives up on everyone else, but no one gave up on me. And it's only because they didn't get ahold of me in time. Because if they did, I wouldn't be here. All right, ma'am. Thank you very much for walking us through that.

So for everybody watching and listening, I'm gonna continue to talk to Kelsey for another half an hour on the daily wire side. I'm not exactly sure what we'll talk about. Maybe more about the state of the military in Canada and maybe more about psychedelic treatment as well. So if you'd like to join us on that side, you'd be more than welcome to do that.

Thank you very much for agreeing to talk to me today. Thank you for having me. Yeah, it's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. Thank you everyone. Thank you to the film crew here in Austin, Texas today. Yeah, yeah. Thanks a lot guys for making this possible

and to the Daily Wire Plus people for making this podcast what it is. Much appreciated. podcast what it is. Much appreciated.