The Team House - Canadian JTF-2 operator Jeff Depatie, Ep. 75

Episode Date: January 9, 2021

Jeff Depatie is a retired Canadian JTF-2 operator and is the founder of the Special Forces Experience. Get access to bonus segments with our guests: https://www.patreon.com/m/TheTeamHouse NEW! Team House merch: https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963 Podcast version of this show can be found here:https://soundcloud.com/user-796052562/interrogator-and-counterintelligence-agent-elana-duffy-ep-73 Team House Discord: https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links): https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Being a parent can be really challenging. Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five,

with free support services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Hey everyone. Welcome to episode 75 of the team house. I'm Jack Murphy here with co-host Dave Park. Welcome back from the holidays. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, had a happy new year, a happy insurrection.

Things are a little crazy. Welcome to 2021. That's just how it is now. Thank you for joining us. We're here tonight with our special guest, Jeff DePazzi. Jeff is a former Canadian JTF2 operator. So that's a Canada's counterterrorism unit. We're always really happy.

We have the opportunity to highlight, you know, our friends and allies around the world. A lot of people, you know, they don't necessarily understand some of the massive contributions that, in this case our neighbor to the north makes to the global war on terror i mean you guys have been all over it and um it's sometimes a shame how few americans really realize uh you know the whether it's the canadians uh the brits the australians i mean a lot of effort has been put in there and a lot of a lot of good men have also lost their lives uh from some of our ally

nations so jeff i just want to say um thank you for joining us tonight yeah uh it's a pleasure to be here dave jack um and uh thank you Thanks for that shout out. It is true. And the blur that is, I guess the fog of war, those things do kind of go unnoticed. And then we are one big team in a lot of ways at the end of the day. It's awesome. So the way we usually start off the show is Dave and I, we're big comic book fans.

So we kind of ask our guests, our guest, what their origin story is. Like, were you bit by a radioactive spider? Were you born with superhuman powers? Did you have a mishap with a nuclear reactor? What led you into the Canadian military and eventually special operations? Well, I guess humbly, I would have to say, I was more of a Bruce Wayne kind of character. No radioactive spiders, nothing like that.

Just a normal I-N-T-J fellow who came from a more wealthy family. and through life's events, things like that, tragedy, strife, all that kind of stuff, I slowly started down that path of the military. And, yeah, I would say it was like him, sharpening his steel, that kind of thing. It's kind of weird to, you know, humbly compare yourself to Bruce Wayne and the Batman, but, you know, I would say that would be something like that. Just a normal guy out trying to make a difference. Would you be comfortable sharing any of those stories, any of those experiences of kind of what led you down that path from, you know, coming from an affluent family and becoming, you know, boots on the ground, you know, ass kicker, a professional door kicker. I mean, it's not necessarily normal. Just be interested to hear more about like what led you down that path in life.

Oh, geez, Jack. The world of cause and effect, huh? I think some part of it is instilled in me being a volunteer to the community to get back to the community. You know, as a child, that was different than, of course, volunteering for the service. I would say that combined with, oh, sometimes are things gifts are cursed, as I don't know, my mother's awareness for global issues and the kind of bigger picture and how that inadvertently gets put down. like placed onto your children right just through discussion nothing positive nothing negative about it just the the the way things unfold and how you raise your children I did live fully out in nature you walk on my backyard where my

childhood backyard and you're walking to the Arctic kind of deal there's no nothing but bush and maybe a couple roads to stop you you know so hunting fishing survival very very young age that was all me shooting shooting you name it that if it involved camo outdoors survivalism i was into it from a very young age and then moving on uh lots of death loss that kind of thing that i think was handled extremely well and it taught me how to be more resilient in the long run i think that's this is just jeff de potty's opinion it's it's kind of a lost art parents shelter their kids a lot especially when it comes to death And it's going to happen, right?

It's an inevitable, inevitable thing. And I think having a healthy balance with a healthy relationship with that unknown can lead to good things. I think it did for me. It helped me be more resilient in the long run, especially once I started facing it more in the military. And then, you know, I'm a 40-year-old dude now. That's just a reality of my contemporaries now. You know, people are passing on. That's how it goes.

So that's where specific. I know that doesn't really touch on it. but you insert anything that has to do with extremist behavior in terms of living on the edge, you know, jumping out of planes, whatever that, not extremists as an extreme terrorist, but extremists of living on the edge, that was also there. That was my adolescence, you know, finding my new limits, my new boundaries. And at a certain point, maybe 80s, 90s, television, Rambo influence or something like that, but there was a natural progression like, oh, I have to go to the military.

This is the only place I can do that. And then 9-11 happened and it was even more of like, oh, yeah, yeah, now there's the urgency, even more. We've got to do this. And one thing led to another, regular army, airborne infantry, Afghanistan, things like that. And then into the SF and to the top of the tier in the Canadian realm. Now, did you have any interest in the military when you're younger other than like maybe a voyage passing interest? like did you ever think that you might go that way or was it something that just formed at a certain point in time man there i didn't my grandfather was a war war two vet but he died very young and the reason i mentioned

that is because he was the closest thing to a military person around me where i was there was no bases there was no direct military influence in canada even uh promotion of the military is very it's almost it's like you don't really see it there's no billboards you're very very only during afghanistan was there uh actually uh recruiting things on tv so you don't see it a lot other than through you know tv or the news you had the a team right you said 80s tv so i i would like to believe it didn't play in on my psyche but i mean who didn't you know john j rambo and commando and stuff like that how did it not play in on your psyche or g-i-jo if you're because when i was in the early 80s i was a kid i was watching cartoons you know and how does that

not play in but on the other hand i would like to think that there was a natural calling to it even i think back to when i was really young playing by myself you know had my little toy guns and stuff like that there was something there already i think there is an innateness to the tools that you use in the military and in some men particularly of course it is in women that just line up really really well cognitive traits you know personality traits physiological traits that like well this is the only place you're going to be able to really do this, you know, and use these innate traits you have. So I guess full disclosure, I have a bit of TBI going on. And my memory is, from my childhood is like pretty spotty at best. And yeah, so I couldn't recall those details. I'm just

trying to extrapolate a little bit. But I would say, yes, there's a natural calling and also maybe potentially some influence from the outside so when you went into the military how old were you when you went into the military well i was relatively on the older side so i was 25 by the time i got in you're an old man so life got in the way and i had enlisted i was actually um enrolling in the american military because at the time i didn't know canada had an sf unit say 99 2000 i was totally unaware of jtf2 it wasn't broadcast anywhere And at that time, we were much more of a blue beret kind of society. And we won't get into the cons of that.

But you weren't joining the military to be what I would call the same kind of soldier. So I was enlisted in the U.S. And that's actually what when 9-11 happened. It stopped my application for the American military. The U.S. stopped taking foreigners, understandably. So I was like, okay, let's try recruiting in the Canadian military. Recruitment was way down. taken too many numbers early on like when KBarr and all those kinds of things first

start up in Afghanistan. Slow application process and then my dad ended up and get a hip replacement and I had to take over the family business for a while, you know, so it was like these things that you deem necessary. So it wasn't until I was 25 actually by the time I got the military and I think in a lot of ways thankfully I would have been just a little too hair trigger and wild any younger probably. for so you were you aware of the Canadian special forces at that point in time or were you just going into the military to go into the military to maybe go the airborne route or whatever well the airborne like in the infantry even that is kind of like nobody really knows that much about it that is that was my my plan no by this point the recruiters had um got me wise to jtf2 and as soon as I heard that that's that's where I was going. That's where all my efforts were going.

I would do whatever it took to get there. Obviously, there's a lot of sacrifice to climb that echelon on, you know, family sides, all that time, all that jazz, right? And a lot of efforts that have to be made. And, yeah, I just vectored in. And then a few years down the road, got through selection, and then went through my course and got there. I was getting close to 30 now, you know, just by the way,

workups for Afghanistan. and a nine-month tour and you know you know how it goes it's never cut and dry and a straight road sure so you enlisted and when you enlist in the canadian military there you cannot enlist directly into jtf2 you have to spend time in in the conventional army prior to that so yeah there's no x-ray type program nothing like that they are toying around with it for a seesaw the canadian special operations regiment. You know, it's one of those 50-50. I'd like to see it happen, although I don't think it's,

you know, if we look at some of the results down south, and I'm speaking out of turn a little bit, but it doesn't really get all that many numbers in anyways, right? Like it does bring in some people directly off the street, but it doesn't really do the job, I think, that people hope it does. So no, no, there is no direct entry. You can do some reserve time and then apply.

However, just like anything, if you can't, you know, when you got to, the military will harden you up. You know, the full-time military is going to do some things that turn you into a soldier. And especially if you go infantry, airborne, you know, Pathfinder, Recky, you know, you volunteer for a Ranger Corps. Those kinds of things will definitely harden your souls for going into the SF selections.

So no, no, there is no direct, but I don't know if I, I'm on the fence about it when people ask me, do you should it be there or not so you went the uh infantry wrap and and that's uh the the path you took in yeah correct uh and infantry the second i could start volunteering for an airborne battalion that's that's what i was volunteering for i got there pretty quick actually super quick um just by it's one of those things kind of you know fate had it where seesaw the canadian special operations regiments stood up And a lot of the people that went to fill in those ranks came from the airborne battalions from the infantry regiments. It's just a natural fit.

Those are, you know, your late infanteer, airborne dude is probably going to be able to get through those selections a little bit easier. Not saying it's the only ones by any means. But so they were the houses, the companies were empty and needing people. So I got in there really, really fast. And, yeah, did some time there. and I haven't looked back. You said you did some time in the seesore? No,

pardon me, Dave, no, no. Just in the infantry and the airborne, spent some years there, volunteering for all the courses I could. We got to do the last, what was called the Airborne Indoc course. So you may have heard, you know, from the 90s, the Canadian Airborne Regiment.

It was Canada's special forces at the time, you know, equivalent of special forces. they were disbanded and their course had stopped being run, but we were lucky enough to run one of the last ones and go through that, you know, like just weeks of suffering in the snow and jumping out of stuff, you know, herks and helicopters and bibwhacking up. But like just it was great, you know,

just a lot of suffering for quite a while. But again, I think all those things harden your feet for the long run. Now, can you sort of break down for us? the how special operations in the canadian military works you talk about the seesore you talk about jtf2 uh and there's can softcom over that yes yeah what are the different aspects of it so basically anything that's in the special forces realm now is housed in can't softcom canadian special forces command similar to like a socom or um what a jsock i think is the other one if i'm not mistaken well jsox kind of broken off from there now if i'm not

mistaken. Anyway, so it's one command, housing, seesore, JTF, our supporting units, all that kind of stuff under one command. I'm going to insert a little Jeff to Potty opinion here. I think it was a terrible decision before our tier one unit, JTF2 had a direct pipeline to the prime minister. Things were a lot easier to do. And when you add in layers of conventional wisdom, if you will, it can add in some headaches. There is a lot of good things that come with it, you know, your own air command and that kind of stuff. So the assets that come with that, but very similar structure in that way where you have JTF, Csore, your 427 Special Force Aviation and a few other support sets and stuff like that housed in one command. It's it's relatively a small command just because we have such a small military

But like I said it came with some pros it came with some cons and And how does Csor and JTF differ in training in mission sets? It all starts with mandate, really. You know, what is that regiment mandated to do? That would be the first thing. And from there down, the next big guy is money and budget, you know, because there are a lot of creative shooters at all levels, willing to do a lot of different cool training.

But without the money, you're not going to really do that. And then it's assets, right? So as far as I know, JTF2 is the only other unit in the world that's been dubbed tier one from the U.S. side of the house, like Steel Team 6 or Delta. And I think most of the things that make that up are air assets and money, things like that, that will help sharpen the steel of the soldier and give them a little bit more tools. the selections are different. So now you've got your mandate, you've got your tools and all this stuff you've got to work with, and now you're going to filter in and shave the ice cube

with the people who are coming. And the characteristics that are picked for both units are a little bit different, again, to fill that mandate, right? You don't need certain characteristics to do certain things, and then it's filtered that way, right? And so would, like, What a rough comparison sort of be built. C-sor being sort of equivalent to Rangers and JTF sort of being equivalent to Delta.

Is that adequate or is it different than that? In a broad brush, I would say that so I haven't served in C-Sor, so I'm not going to really pretend like I know all the depths of what they do. I would say something like a green beret is a start point. That's where they try to mirror a lot of what they do. That's where I would say for a start point. And then as far as Delta and JTF2, yeah, I would say it as a start state. But if you reverse, like look back at the national mandate, we work differently.

Like JTF2 has a, unlike like Soutine 6 or Delta, they don't work at home in the U.S. Right? The FBI handles that kind of stuff for JTF2 has a national mandate within the country. So that adds in some differences. are like who we took over for the RCMP counterterrorism units. They had a different setup, much more cop structure, you know, think SWAT, the highest end of our SWAT, you know. So that changed a little bit of power unit.

But I would say like Broadbrush, that's where I would start. And then also based on selections from what I do know about, like I mentioned, the berets and C-sort. selections and then JTF and Delta they are different but if I was to kind of say okay what they're looking for just up to my knowledge that I would say yeah they're kind of picking for those same things but again their mandate is different than the brace and JTFs is different than deltas you know so they're it's kind of apples and oranges a little bit yeah and Jeff if I could interject and tell me if I'm off base here in any way just something I observed something

sometimes with some of our allied countries is that the United States, I mean, we're such a big country, so much more funding for these assets that we have all these like individual units that do one thing that are assigned one responsibility. So like you mentioned, we have all these helicopters and all these operators that we deploy overseas for hostage rescue missions. But we have like a whole duplicate set of that and the FBI with the hostage rescue team. And they have their own helicopters and their own capability. A country, a smaller military, a smaller country like Canada. Australia is another example. They don't have the funding. They don't have all these different units that can cover down on all these different responsibilities. So the counterterrorism units end up having that domestic mission as well. And again, correct me if I'm wrong, Csore. They have both like the direct action mission, but they also do what we would call foreign internal defense, the special forces mission, training foreign militaries.

Does that sound adequate? Am I in the ballpark? Yeah, well, it kind of makes me laugh. Like, Seesore's motto is something like we will find a way. And it's a direct reflection of that's like, okay, now you guys are going to do this. And now you're going to do that. And now you're going to do this. And now you're going to do that.

And whoa, whoa, okay. Because, like you said, we don't have so many units to pull from, whether, you know, you got this internal unit and this external unit and this foreign missions unit. So it does get lumped on in a little bit more. I think you hit the nose or the nail on the head with that that rough description of that. I don't know if it's so much a funding issue though, Jack. I think it's actually a numbers thing. Yes, no one is funded like the U.S. military, you know, cut and dry.

I just our ranks are so small. Even I think our entire military somewhere around 75,000 or something will reserve us, you know, like that's pretty small potatoes compared to some of what the bases down south hold. That's the size of special operations command in the United States. Yeah, exactly. So if you guys are sort of acting in the role of the FBI HR2, do you also have like arrest powers? Do you take law enforcement classes as part of your training? Okay, so I'm going to just like just put out a disclaimer here.

It's been a while since I chatted about this stuff and rules can change. So don't take it as gospel. What happens is peace officer status is given. The RCMP, which is similar to the FBI, do have those capabilities. They're just a different level and are actioned for different reasons. Yeah, it depends on who the person would be, those kinds of things. And then it's one of those things that there's a lot of dogs on a leash chomping at the bit to get in there. right and then it's like well first come first serve when things happen or uh no no this is our

jurisdiction kind of stuff and uh you know those kinds of things come in but yeah it would be peace officer status what happens is there's paperwork signed quickly hand it over and then it's not so much martial law uh kinds of terms that are implemented but they're there they're special considerations for the unit having to do those kinds of things interesting and um and then what i I would just want to say, Dave, there is other layers that I don't feel totally comfortable going into that muddy those waters even a little bit more. Sure.

So because of that status, is, do you, does JTF have teams like deployed throughout the country at various times as sort of quick action response teams? Or, because I mean, Canada is, It's a very large country, obviously, and I don't know where you're stationed in JTF, but if something happens on the other coast, you're not getting there super quickly. Yeah, so what I would say, this is where we're going to, like, I'll say what I can say, and you know, I can't say.

And again, it's been a few years, so things could have changed. There is like an immediate reaction force, generally kind of expeditionary for outside the country that are, you know, there's always someone stood up. for that, you know, a few minutes and notice to move kind of deal. And then as far as where people are within the country, that, that's kind of close hold info. But you're absolutely right. You don't just fly across Canada in an hour. Doesn't matter what kind of plane you're in.

So, yeah, it is a big ground to cover. So there are some things in place to take care of that. It's very interesting. So how long was the selection and what was that like for you? Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you. you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those

with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Well, I would say selection starts kind of in the what's called the BPSO's office, the base psychological screening officer and they do a real good job of looking at your file who you were before the military who you are in the military and they have really good metrics to be like no you don't stand a chance uh no you're not ready you know apply again so it really starts there that's uh

the thousands of people are screened out right there just um the way our selection works we have really good um ability to take attributes put them backwards into metrics to be like no no that's not going to work out. There's always, you know, the ones you'll slip through, but they'll apply again. So I'd say that's where it starts. And then you move into a week long, if you pass some standards and physical standards, some cognitive standards, that kind of stuff, you'll move into a week long selection. And this is where ours differs quite a bit from other units around the world, because it does have some flavor of that counterterrorism from the policing world. and then all the military stuff that's put on top of it.

And it's super, super characteristically driven. Basically, you know, that how do your cognitive attributes show up on paper when you're performing there? It's called neuro-psychological testing. So, you know, like a paper personality test, you know, yeah, I'm the life of the party, all that kind of stuff. Well, you put through stuff that directly reverse engineers, like you can't, it's harder to fake what it is.

It's like, no, he didn't display that. He did display that. It's much more like that. With the same kind of screws put to you where the past fail rate is somewhere around that 11 percentage, depending on the characters that show up. Sometimes if you have really powerful leaders, like I don't mean officer leaders. I mean, you know, leaders, they can help drive people through a little bit more. But, yeah, around that 11% mark.

and then you go into roughly it's a year-long course. And once again, you know, selection never ends for a jack. The, they're shaving the ice cube there for 11 months. You know, it's, you're not done. You're not even done after the first, after that year. You know, I kept waiting to be done and it wasn't until I retired. And even after that, I wasn't sure, you know, because that's the nature of the beast, right? You got to show up every day.

so they set that tone very early on after that year though you're you become a badged operator or a salter yeah can you tell us uh i whatever's not classified but can you tell us a little bit like what that training was made up of like the different types of things you trained in yeah well it's um you know the basics well i wouldn't call it the basics because they're they're to the nth degree but shooting multiple platforms obviously you got available to shoot cqb cccb is a huge portion of our course i won't get into like the details of how long it is but but it is i would say we're pretty tuned up in that department um see you be in fire green face stuff you know recon all that kind of uh that level of soldiering you know uh heyo halo kind of stuff um and

insert extract, all that kind of jazz, everything to get you ready to get out there and be deployable right off the hop. Of course, though, that doesn't include specialty stuff like Breacher, Sniper, advanced medical courses. There's medical courses and all there. And then the whole time, it's about developing the whole soldier, you know, because you don't just put on your camis all the time. Sometimes you're working in plain clothes. and sometimes you're talking to diplomats and you know so you got to be able to cover that whole spectrum yeah so did everybody receive breacher training and everybody receive sniper training and every or do guys eventually branch off in the base in your initial year-long training or is that a

specialty gained later and how does that work yeah so what normally happens is you'll get in and and you'll do some time um get your feet really um because i don't know what your experience is lots of times you go through training and then you get on your your feet on the ground and it's like no no we're not doing it like that anymore you know that was that was 1990 kind of deal so now you're you're adapting to that um it takes it depends because you'll you could jump on courses right away there's always training there's always upgrades right There's always like, here, man, this is the coolest new thing, you know, and go learn it and bring it in and adapt it. And then, like, you know, trying to manage 50 specialties.

But for us, Breacher is used as a progression in leadership level. So everybody gets basic breacher stuff, you know, running explosives and stuff like that. But your more advanced stuff is, you know, maybe a few years in, you get it and you move up a little bit in responsibility, you know, in your team position. and it's used in that way. And then for us, there's a bunch of other stuff, dive or all that kind of jazz, similar construct.

And then just with the sniper, it's a completely different thing. We're really, I think, the only unit in the world. It completely houses the snipers in a different place than within the ranks. It has some pros and cons. It makes for a really, really strong sniper unit because they're in there sniping all the time. and not having to worry so much about what the other squadrons and stuff are doing.

And actually, I'm not going to even throw a con on it because I don't think there is one. I think if you're going to do that kind of stuff, if you're going to have people specialize because we all know that a human being can only be stretched so thin and then things are going to, not even by on purpose or by will, it's just going to fall off. You know, we only have so much neuronal pathways to work with. So it does have that strength. And then, you know, everything else that goes with that, all the, plainclosed stuff and all the other programs that I would love to get into because I think they're

super interesting but I just can't. Sure, sure. We didn't really cover it, but when you were on the conventional side and the airborne side, did you do any combat deployments during that time? Yeah, Afghanistan had a nine-month deployment in, oh geez, man, that's crazy in the Pangeway. right in Zangabad, the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban. It was amazing. And it was everything I could have hoped being a soldier would be. I remember many times just being like, oh, man, yeah, this is it. I'm a soldier, you know?

Everything about this is, you know, multi-day gun fights and artillery covering my, our asses getting out of something and jet bombing stuff. And it was amazing. and also we never had to feel guilty about anything. The locals, I don't want to say we're open arms because, you know, the Afghans can be a tough bunch, but they were appreciative. So we didn't have that pressure of feeling like, oh, damn, here we got our government's mandate we got to do from above. And then the people here don't even want us, you know, so we got to, it was, it made for good soldiering.

You know, you could feel ethically, morally, like, yeah, okay, we're doing the right thing. we're here we're making a difference they they want us here um so that that made for an amazing um amazing tour it was uh it was the deadliest tour that canadians had and it was surprising because um it was a winter tour and normally in the winter things would quiet down but by this point it was kind of like they were getting savvy and they were adapting like they did and do and uh yeah so there was that kind of on the other side and You know how it is. It's all relative, right? Our platoon had all its tasks to do, and we got to kick a lot of ass straight up, and we didn't have to take any serious, serious casualties. So, you know, you go home from that pretty head high. Yeah, that's a win for sure. Yeah.

So you finished training. And what was it like when you first got to your team, your squadron? I'm not sure how you guys break it down. Well, we kind of have a little bit of the old SAS debt squadron stuff, but we're, because we work more, you know, closer with our southern ally, we've started moving towards like team and stuff like that. And really what it is is it's like, you're on fire, adapt, adapt, adapt, adapt, because you're going to be pulled in 50 different directions. You're going to be moved around. Not like, this is your new team, this is your new team, but it's like, okay, onesies and twosies, you're going to do. do this, you're going to do this. And that's just your life. It was a faster pace than I could ever

imagined. And they certainly, they squeeze it out of you. And I don't mean that. Cynically, it's just they get their money's worth. And it's amazing how much people can do and adapt to. But yeah, it's basically hit the ground running

and go, go, go, adapt, learn, develop, deploy. rinse repeat yeah it was it was amazing it was really great that's super cool and I mean so wasn't everything

you were hoping for when the time from when you first enlisted and you like had it from the beginning like yeah I want to be a JTF2 guy now you're there you're living the dream so not every moment of the military is fucking glory right I think with the suck though

comes the strength to do better on the other end I think it has a purpose. So obviously there is some of that. I'll go back to that thing, Jack, about saying that I've never, I never had to do anything or be in a position where I had to be, I had to have regrets. And I think that's a big one. And I'm not saying a lot of soldiers come out with regret or put in positions of regret,

but I always thought like, fuck, if I had to do something I didn't really want to do, what would I do? You know? And so that was a big win for me. And I would have to say yes. almost 100%. When I look back now with my rose-colored lenses as a dirty civi, yeah, it was definitely worth it. But I'm happy to be where I am now. Everything I look back with is fondness. It got me to where I am, but also like time for a little bit of me time and my life and moving on to new things.

How long did you spend there with JTF? Well, it was about a better part of a decade. I had to make my move out. Again, some family stuff. You know, a little bit of, I didn't really feel it at the time. But yeah, family stuff really kind of dictated, okay. You're going to have to start moving out. And then Jack already heard the story.

I met my wife, and that completely changed everything. The minute I met her, she was like, no, I'm not doing the military thing. Her dad was a Vietnam vet, and her grandfather was one of the original, before they were called seals I can't remember like the I don't remember what the acronym is but he was on the original what was that Jack

UDTs? Yeah so yeah underwater demolition guys I dug up a picture for her dad actually it was declassified but not made public of him and his like combat gitch and knife on the side

all black and white with the original dudes in the Pacific it was pretty cool anyway so she was not having any that. So that, and I was definitely not going to lose her. So, you know, that those, those couple things just were like, all right, here's my release papers. Uh, Alejandro asks, uh, with a unit designation being JTF2, was there ever a JTF one? And is it true that shooters and Canadian software issued hockey sticks as secondary weapons? So JTF2 is like, uh, when the government puts together,

cunning plans to try to like hide units and stuff like that because everything's a joint task force really right um you put together anyone and it becomes a joint task force so no there wasn't really like a joint task force one before joint task two as in two units that existed there was you know a joint task force and a delta an alpha and a you know whatever they wanted to name it just as you know that's what they call certain things so that was the idea of that name um to keep it uh hidden a little bit more and the hockey sticks no we don't get issued husk you got to buy them do you do the guys cut them down to make them easier to carry through doorways yeah yeah exactly you don't want to be caught when going through the doorway right so that must have been if for being such a small unit

having domestic responsibilities in addition to afghanistan and i maybe iraq i'm not sure but your schedule, it seems as though you would do a deployment that you would never have any downtime. Plus all your training requirements to stay current. What was that like for you and for your teammates? Yeah, well, if I could add in there too, we're also in charge of Marine counterterrorism as well. You know, so that the plate, she gets full. That's all there is to it. So you're just busy all the time.

you better love her and make her your mistress you know and that's the way it goes but that that's also goes into the characters that they choose so some things you'll be trained up to a certain point and they expect you to work a little bit lower that's that's where they want your performance right you train up and then you work in a performance zone but then also you can shelf it and then quickly grab it off the shelf and be like okay yeah I can do that again you know because you have adaptive characters who can learn super quick. So yeah, it gets busy. That's kind of the life that you sign up for.

As you climb that echelon, you're looking for more. You're looking for more. So the guys that get there, they probably don't know exactly how much more. How much more can you get out of someone? But it can get busy. Downtown. I would say that they actually do a pretty good job of this. Yeah, it's a human body can only be pushed so long before you start getting PTSD symptoms, before you get burnout, before you know what I mean?

You get cognitive dissonances, whatever it is, the human body, even the best of the best need to put their feet up and have a beer once in a while. And if you have families, you got to nurture that. It's a tough gig for families. No one's going to lie about that. You know, if you have wife and kids, it makes it hard. but they do try to do their best so it's it there's you know full throttle throttle off full throttle off as much as possibly can be done and then uh you know stuff as much as you can into a day and as far as like sacred cows we were out that's always a discussion like what do you keep what

don't you keep what can be put in a binder and put on that shelf what do you do especially when we know this um the enemy changes and one day this is the tools you need and so you can you got to be going right you got to be adapting you're figuring out what's new how do you stay ahead so that adds in a whole different paradigm as well now i know jtf was going to afghanistan were they also going to iraq well according to the newspapers dv jtf2 was in iraq um okay fair enough um and what was what was your first tour with jtf your first combat tour i'll say with jtf like compared to what it was when you're in the airborne infantry? I would say things feel safer because now you're,

you know, it's not any mouth breather to the left and right of you. You have guys that in most ways are probably better than you. You know what I mean? Your training is completely different. Your assets are completely different. Plans are actually, you know, you're able to execute plans. where it's not the old like, you know, it doesn't survive after the first boom. Well, the idea is that you have a team that can execute a plan.

And then you have the ability, the attributes, the attachments, the tech, whatever it is to do that. So in that way, yeah, it felt I would use the word safer. And then it then it's just different, different character, different roles. I that's why I I used the word very specifically though when I talked about Afghanistan and being airborne and stuff it felt more soldiery and then as you move up as you move up you start to work with different agencies and your roles change and fights aren't fought with guns they're fought with you know manipulation words that kind of stuff and what you can build to develop

the strategic picture as opposed to just a tactical picture. So I would say those are some of the key things, but I would say, yeah. Yeah. And we're, I know you say it felt safer, but you're one of yourself felt more reward, or not more rewarding, more soldierly. Did anyone feel more rewarding to you in their execution? I wouldn't be able to like litmus one and say it more so than me. other overall like my life as a soldier and I'm just using that word as like you know GI can a soldier and my life as an SF operator I would say SF was more rewarding as a whole just because it's a completely different arena a completely different world the the mentality is so different everything is just so different that I don't think you can

help but feel more rewarded whereas the infantry like we kind of joked you know you're sitting on the stairs sweeping the lines and uh amazing in so many other ways but uh it's yeah it's just not as awesome yeah where where the regular soldier uh is sort of move out and draw fire you know go go see if there are bad guys over that hill uh whereas and as you move up the tiers it's more like we know that these bad guys are here we know they sleep at this time we're going to go at this time and make the decision point when you know when they wake up with our guns in their face or whatever yeah and then also yes to that but also you know by time i got into the tier one realm like man the

technology the the everything that the early 2000s you know 2006 2007 everything that got developed so quickly the tools that we started were able to use were just unbelievable you know like to turn the tides i i i gotta say like i was always amazed like i was like why the how are you why are you fighting us what do you know what do you think you're going to grind us out here like um you may think you're going to economically collapse or you're going to lose the will of the people back home but uh the governments have decided that we're here and we outweigh you you know we like not saying they didn't do some damage you know like obviously there's people lost but uh what are you thinking there especially like by the time ISIS came around I was I was blown away by them

like almost like trench warfare style fighting against the west like what are you thinking you know there's a few thousand of you this is this is inevitable there's more Pashmurga they're going to run over you you know I was blown away by that kind of stuff uh Krishna asks are there any Sikhs or south Asians in the JTF uh I would assume they would be able to play a useful role if they're able to past election? Well, I guess the short answer is yes. Again, there's an operator and then there's all the branches, all the things you can do, all the assets, all the different tools there are there. The entire like below, like everything we talk about is obviously the tip of the iceberg and then everything that we don't get to talk about. So there's a lot more there room for, you know,

obviously I'm a white dude. I'm not going to blend in everywhere even with the best makeup. So yes, of course, it's a 100% whatever equal opportunity place, if you know, kind of what he's asking. No, I think so. And Alex asks if the events of Wednesday had happened in Canada rather than in Washington, how would the JTF2 and RCMPCT units be used? Well, I'm going to just to stay a little on the lively side, when our parliament was last attacked, there was a sergeant-at-arms with a pistol who got in there and tried it so I don't know that you know if any of that would have happened one you know condolences for real um i uh learned about

that later in the day man oh man you know not a fun thing for the country to have to deal with um would it those things happen so fast right so being a parent can be really challenging it's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Happened fast. Real-time data is very different. It's hard to play this like a

board, right? What could have happened? Well, what would have happened? What would have been put down more? I can't say. I just can't say if it would have been handled any differently. I do you got to say, I hate when things like that happen, you know, and then securities are tightened and people go on edge, especially right now in a very polarized time. It's such a shame. But I won't get in there. I'm not like wagging my finger or anything like that. I guess the short answer is it's impossible to tell because those decisions are made in real time and decisions made in real time don't always go or not oh they're not predictable the same way you know like we did talk about a well executed plan as they're motoring up there and jumping into action they would

have their plan they would do what they're doing but those were those are civilians you know those are american civilians you know they can't say it'd be tough and i and i don't know enough about the event who was involved and outcomes to really speak to it properly. Yeah. No, thankfully, it wasn't necessary. I mean, I was just on a personal level. I was frightened that it would turn into some sort of hostage situation. And thank God that didn't happen.

It would have been really dead. It's, you know, I think I have a soldier's heart, Jack. But when it comes to these kinds of things within your own country and the more I think about, the more I contemplate on things about violence in particular and the use of violence, it has its place and it's not removed. And I'm not going to dismiss that, but man, oh man, having to use it in this kind of context, whether you're them or the guys having to show up, it just, you know, 2020 was interesting and tough in its own way. and to start off 2021 like that would have been just not great. Right. So on your own, you know, later on in your career,

your own deployments to, in air quotes, places, are there any particular operations that stand out that maybe you can talk about even without maybe naming specifics of where you were or what the date was? There's types of operations that you conducted, any, you know, particularly hairy experiences that's stand out for you? No, I couldn't. And also, I didn't feel my, you know, baptismal by fire was very out of control. And it never felt to that same point again.

It always felt much more controlled, much more surgical, you know, if I may use that word. So no, not particularly, not, not really. Well, that's good to hear actually. I mean, that means you guys were all doing your jobs right yeah well you know kudos to jtf2 they have a presidential citation from bush they were there from the very gecko in the early 2000s and knock on wood we haven't lost a unit member any operation that's amazing that is amazing yeah and i mean i don't know what you can say jeff but i'm guessing that your former unit was deployed almost continuously throughout the war. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Yeah. And like I said, you know, I don't know what's really going on out there, but it was many, many, many years. If it's even over, you know what I mean? Yeah. Now what was the bureaucracy on political situation for you guys like while you were there? Because I know that certain U.S. forces had challenges at various

points of time of being pulled back because maybe Karzai or the you know because politics would dictate that hey we need to we need to slow down a little bit some countries to have their they're part of our task force but they have their own parliaments back home right you know and I've heard these stories about the Norwegians and the sweet or yeah the Norwegians or the Danish or whoever and they're playing this big operation and then a member of parliament gets wind and they're like grabbing your hoodie back here like this like well whoa whoa hold on a second you're not going there

I would say mandate wise like not mandate wise but as far as that governor goes you know the government governor I guess we call it I never really felt it that much I if I look at it comparatively we're not the most aggressive country in the world definitely you know from the outside but militarily we're definitely up there yeah hanging out we're not you know I'm not going to even pretend like we have the most foreign policy being projected outwards. We definitely don't. But I didn't really feel that in comparison. I would say as a, you know, an operator on the ground, that's what you want your operator. You want to hold them by the hoodie, you know. And I think that's really what they're looking for is that that guy, that group, that team, that, that,

that task force, whatever it is to be doing that, right? It's a lot, I think it needs to safer results to have to de-throttle than to miss something, right? So you want them doing that all the time. I think that's just a natural, as far as like on the ground feeling, every moment, I think, as an operator, you're like, let's do this, let's do this. I'm ready, man, you know, like you're, you're always locked and loaded, kind of ready to go. So there is a little bit of that, but I would say like if you step back and kind of zoom out on it and get some perspective, no, I would say it was pretty, good. And there's a few things I'd love to be able to touch on to even kind of put our country

into a position where a lot of people don't know and I can't and I'm not doing that to be a jerk. It's just where that's where I start getting like, okay, comparatively we don't have the most aggressive foreign policy projection, but we're definitely, we're part of the Five Eyes. We're part of North America and I would say, that the big difference is how much the type of exposure, you know, that is put out where it's kind of, I think they underdo it north of the border for sure. I think they could do a little bit better of it. We have a proud military history, you know, we're there in World War I, we're there, you know, World War II from the get-go, you know, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, were so many

Canadians moved down to the States and joined up in Vietnam War, there was money sent. You know, every single time, you know, the Gulf War one, Gulf War II, there's always some form there. Some, whether it was through money, through ships, through something. And then Afghanistan, right from the get-go, and then, like I said, the newspaper in Iraq later on. and people it's okay to be proud of that you know but they don't really do that but there's a little bit of press i think there's even like a documentary a few years ago about seesore if i remember correctly but the jtf guys they keep you way under under the radar yeah so i would um there is and it did get better jack as time went on um because

I don't want to pull the old, I don't even know if it's an adage yet, but you know, you may not support the war, but support the soldier kind of thing. Well, you know, you were elected, not your as in you guys, but the soldiers that are deployed, your elected government, who, you know, is doing this for your ideals, you know, you may not fully agree with it, you know, because you may not know enough or whatever, but they're there for you in a way, you know, and to have that kind of backlash. As far as that, uh, you know, you may not know, uh, you may not know, you may not know, that exposure that it's more because of that national mandate, knowing, you know, if there's an operator kicking about somewhere, doing something potentially with one of the other agencies, you know, that face that, oh, I recognize him. You know what I mean? So there's a lot of that to keep that under wraps. Can I ask us, wondering if you could talk a little bit, something you'd mentioned earlier, that you have traumatic brain injury. If you could talk to us a little bit about that because it's an issue I've written about We've interviewed other people who have it Justin Lassick by the way who we had on a few episodes ago lost his legs and he's been dealing a lot of stuff and he was on the show

Also talking about his his unit wasn't promoting him I had an email with him Like two days ago. I got a text message from he is being promoted now. Oh, that's great. Yeah, I only had to send a bunch of emails to the secretary of the army asking about it Oh no, we better clean this up. Yeah, yeah. I'm a journalist with such and the judge. I got a few questions for you. But no, Justin deserves it at a very minimum, you know.

So I just wanted to update people on his situation. And so Jeff, I's wonder if you could talk to us a little bit about your experience, you know, how you got injured and how you have grappled with this and the difficulties going forward. So it's in the very early stages of diagnosis. Just want to say that because when it comes to brain stuff, they're learning just more and more how complicated it is and how things like PTSD was a blanket term. And now they're seeing that, oh, okay, well, maybe it's just, you know, training scars where we've upregulated this soldier, you know, the way we've molded him makes him come out into the civilian world and look like. it's PTSD and it's not, you know, because it was a blanket statement, right? For anyone with anything going on mentally, it was like, oh, PTSD, PTSD. And obviously very real affliction, but it's time to spread how to treat it a little bit.

And then, yeah, TBI traumatic blast injury or brain injury. In this case, it's blast recurring blasts, blast in combat, blast and training. You know, as a breacher, I soaked up a lot of explosives. and it takes a little bit of time to come to the surface, you know, because you get now, you're kind of getting your legs, you're figuring things out, and then, you know, takes some time for these things to settle in. And for me, it's a little bit of those training scars,

a little bit of that TBI. So the thing with the brain injury is, the way you're cognitive, your neuronal network works in your head, if you're injured in a certain area, it'll come out in your you know your psychology in that same way and then it's like oh ptstsd well to treat it though i have a brain injury i don't have a personality disorder it's showing up as a personality disorder but it's different you know uh for the the guy you're talking about um that's going to show up completely differently because now he's you know lost his legs and

you know his life is completely different so to um to undo those things like especially you had a bit of brain injury already, you know? So now he's dealing with, by any definition, that's trauma. You know what I mean? I always was okay with the concept of losing my life in battle, but having to lose a limb was always the toughest thing for me to deal with. And it's not a vanity thing. It's just like that was, that was hard for me to conceptualize. So that, that's got definite markers for PTSD potential. Then you literally have blast injuries I'm not exactly sure how it happened to him. But some kind of injury, I assume.

Justin, yeah, he stepped on an IED. So, yeah, you know, you don't get any closer to an explosive than that. So then you actually have the damage side of it. And now is he out of the military? He's almost. He's on terminal leave. So he's just about out. You know, now he's transitioning.

He's got to rebuild a completely new identity based on already having those things that were imposed on him and now he's moving into a completely different world. Like we kind of talk about in the military, there's actually a lot of consistency and safety in the military. You know, you're going to get your paycheck. You know, you got your buddy's got your back, you know, all those psychological needs and physiological needs are met pretty much. And when you move out, now you're like, oh, man, I got to do this on my own and blah, blah,

blah, blah, blah. So for me, it's showing up, you know, Sleep loss and then sleep loss perpetuates that situation. Memory loss. That's the big one for me. Names to faces shows up. It's tricky for me. Like there's been a few people I've met like three times literally.

And even on the third time, it's like I've never met you before, you know. So there's a little bit of it showing up like that. Most of it's good to go. And most of our programming that we do at the Special Forces experience is all around personality adjustment, cognitive trade adjustment. you know, growth-minded, expanding your consciousness, basically polishing your steel or, you know,

sharpening your mind, that kind of stuff. So it keeps me in a place where all the things I need to do, regulate my impulses, my emotions and my thoughts, express those things, my impulses, emotions, and thoughts. It's all done in a really healthy way. So it really keeps it at bay. And then there's been a few other things, like on our team, we have some doctors and things like that. So there's like high dose multivitamin treatments and tracking treatments through biometrics and things like that that we use that I get to use myself to help keep it really under control as I rebuild those brain networks. It's fascinating stuff.

So you mentioned the special forces experience. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah. So it's evolved over time. It started off with a program called The Process, which. is it's for civilian men. It simulates a lot of military style training, but it's a big old personality assessment. And it's also designed for them to go through what we call post-traumatic growth, the opposite side of PTSD. So as your brain, literally think about like a snow globe and you

shake up your brain, you know, PTSD kind of does that. It can do it really quickly or it can do it over a long period of time, you know, you build up anxiety and stress and your brain. And you really reprograms over years. So it can happen quickly or over a short period of time. But on the other side, if you adapt that into your being in a proper way, we call it post-traumatic growth. And what we do at the process is we facilitate intentional post-traumatic growth. From there, we developed a program called the trials, which is part of the process now. So you go through you know, your months of assessments and tasks that you have to do before to build up yourself and for us to gather data, then you go through the eight-day experience and we're just constantly

observing you, testing you. Excuse me. Then you leave. Now we've got to make sure you're on a program that'll physiologically and psychologically build you up properly. And when I say build up, I don't mean people come broken. The idea is, you know, any one degree of change in your life at any time can be huge, especially for high achieving men. So a little bump does that. But with the trials, it's for the process as that follow on in phase four, but we started using it for other individuals. So it's worked really good for people with PTSD. Any kind of anxiety disorder really can help tune that up hugely. Or just people who are looking to expand their horizons be a little bit better. From there, we developed a program called OPEX, Operation X,

And this is for businesses. This is once again four phases. The idea is we go in and we assess your employees. We build up the data, the cognitive traits, the personality traits, all that. And based on that, as we're going, we're bumping it towards where you want. Think of a sales team. You want to optimize your sales team. Instead of just like throwing on sales training or something like that, what we do is we have encoders and decoders.

And we decode parts of your perception and personality that aren't serving you, aren't serving the company potentially, without getting into those brainwashing and compliance kinds of things. It's like it's agreed upon. Employee wants to be better, company wants better employees, and we do that. And then what we do is through the months of assessment and testing and development, we're undoing and we're redoing what they deem necessary, but we gather all that data and then we throw it into a one week intensive that they go through. So if it's a sales team, it's a, honestly, it would be the hardest sales intensive that they could ever go through. But on the other end, they can handle stress better.

They can speak better, all those kinds of things that you want from your sales team. They're able to manage burnout better. That's a huge killer in the corporate world. People burn out so quickly, you know, and then disabilities get paid. And so it's all about that. But then what we do is the last part is we re-inject everything we've observed through those three phases into their HR so that they can hire the right people. with a properly developed hiring process that looks a little bit you know it's way more robust than filling out some paperwork in the job interview and so

there's that and then the last thing that we just we're about to launch in March is ultra long range shooting so we kind of dialed it back from all that stuff and so I'm a sniper that's what I left the military as I absolutely love shooting and so we put together this awesome. It's an e-course delivered through videos and it's got resources and homework and that kind of jazz. But the idea is to take any basically rifle.

If you're into pistol, shotguns, that kind of stuff, carbine shooting, it has a place, but the idea is a more long-range program. Whatever long range is, right? If you're shooting a 22 of a short barrel, long range is different than shooting a 50-call with a nice big little long barrel on it.

But pushing that weapon from kind of at zero beyond its capability, just beyond, you know, however, whatever weapon, whatever bullet, whatever, because there's so many configurations in the world of shooting, you have the abilities to assess the terminal ballistics, the external ballistics, transitional ballistics, internal ballistics of the gun, and then something we're coining as the cognitive ballistics, the shooter. How do I make myself a better shooter? How do I train my body and my mind to be a better shooter? Because it's one thing to have the best equipment in the world. but if you're, you know, breathing heavy, you're stressed, you're on the run, you know, you got to do a kind of off angle shot and you got all the things working against you. Now I've got to think about all the formulas and math and everything I've got to do. That totally changes the game, right? And we're aiming at people who are, they have a gun in the closet. They want to learn how to shoot it better, but they don't have time to pay a thousand bucks to go to a weekend course.

You know, it makes it much, much more accessible. out of curiosity yeah sounds amazing when when we first talked Jeff all these ideas were like very embryonic what like two years ago when we first talked and now you haven't built out into this whole thing I mean it's awesome I'm really happy for you man yeah I appreciate that Jack is it's in the world I like to think that every time you bump into someone you learn a little something and I remember some things from that specific conversation and I can give Jack a good shout out here so we dubbed the company the sfe and that was jack who broke it down to that accurate we were we were calling it the special force experience when the first

i met you and uh we were like oh yeah the s f e and i was like uh yeah that's patented don't even come after that jack um yeah yeah things did unfold quickly you're right you heard it here first if you want an expert genius branding expert healing you or I don't even I had no idea that's really funny to hear though um hey and for our listeners out there if you guys got any questions shoot for jeff please shoot them out real quick here Alejandro says did you have the opportunity to cross-train or do exercises with other nations counterterrorism elements or any partnered operations overseas in a nutshell a leandro yes that's one of those things that we don't really talk about um I will

say this though, especially in the five eyes, and it goes well beyond the five eyes. The one thing about the war on terror, it led into a big coalition of people working together, which was massive. I think it benefited everybody because now the exchange of ideas happen so quickly, you know, that you're able to level up so much faster working with other elite units. Ian says if you're in a long range in Canada, do you know Rob F. Barney G. or Keith C. I don't know who those folks are. Well, yeah, Rob F.

Rings a bell. Right now, I'm down in the U.S. with my wife. We have her guns down here. And so we're shooting on BLM and state land a lot. And, yeah, I don't know them, those guys, but the names ring a bell. This is kind of my first endeavor into doing something a little bit more. I guess I don't want to use the word tactical, because it's not really geared to be a, you know, know a sniper course or something it's it's scared to get the best tune out of your pipe but

um it's the first time we're moving into this and it's delivered differently those guys they deliver it in a way that um i'm not delivering it this is meant to make it much more accessible like i don't know how many people have guns how many like right now trying to buy a gun or even hamill right now it is pretty crazy at least down here in arizona like so all these people now of fear of bought guns. And really the truth is now you're just more dangerous, you know. I'm of the mindset if you know how to use it properly, you're less dangerous because you're probably not going to have to use it and you're way less likely to injure someone else.

And then also moving into competition and sport and, you know, it's just a good way to get out with the family and stuff like that. That's cool. Out of curiosity is one of the reasons why you picked long guns as sort of an extension to your program is because there's such a biometric element to it and you know when you're talking about relaxation when you're talking about you know even it entering a meditative state there you know that that's much more the long gun shooter than it is like a carbine shooter or a pistol shooter well i guess yes you know in a nutshell um but i i love shooting pistol i love i love shooting anything really to be

honest, I like guns, but you're absolutely right. Once you move into this realm, there's a whole different type of like a Zen approach, a calming approach that comes with it. And it just, it didn't it to me it's much more technical than the rest. And I, I kind of hesitate to say that because almost every gun is very similar. A pistol has all the same forces that are rifle, you know, just different mixtures. So probably, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. Especially like now what I think about you know, you go out. You're kind of, for me, it's very, it's a very relaxing thing. I just don't think I consciously linked those things and say, hey, you know what?

Because of this, I'm going to do this. I would say that because of those attributes, it was a natural segue into doing it. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's great because one of the things about long range shooting is, and you know this even better than I do, Jeff. I mean, I think it puts you into like a meditative state because you're like so focused on this one. thing well it go into a meditative state most people try to clear everything right and to have to deal with so much between your target you know say an elk at 800 meters or something 800 yards

you know you're out in the cold you're on a high angle you're potentially freezing you know all those things and then to have to get into that state because if you don't you're going to be chattery behind the gun and you're not going to get your shot you know so it you you're It definitely brings in there. And that's why I was saying about the cognitive ballistics, you know, that's why we have a training program that goes with it. That's why we have, you know, breathing stuff. That's why we bring in all these other different elements to help calm people down to make that shot.

You know, think of a competition, like a precision, long range shooting competition. Even if you have all the skills in the world, but, you know, you're choking on your own air to get there. You know, it doesn't matter how great the shot is. You've got to get there. And then once you're there, you've got to be able to slow down because you're not going to be in a bench and no matter how good you build up your shooting position there's going to be some influence on your body and you're not going to go hold that position right heartbeat breathing out all that yeah yeah if you don't mind can we roll it back a little bit

about when you entered the snipers how long were you on the line uh and then and then when did you decide and why did you decide to go to the snipers well that was you know nothing's ever cut and dry i don't know how it is in the u.s military but because i'd done my sniper course but it was years before i went to the sniper troop so you know i was it was showing up in different ways you know marksmen long range in that way injecting those tools and traits so it was years i was sniper qualified but it was only like a year and a half i think not even that i spent in the snipers um before i left um in the unit and was there were you always like on the wait list for that or was there a certain point in time when you made the decision

that's where you wanted to go. I think it's a little of A and a little bit of B, if I remember correctly. And then things get in the way, you know, things change, teams change, needs of the unit change. But there's definitely like, you don't just walk in there day one. You know, there's some time got to be put in because the demands get up again once you move into that realm.

yeah so yeah i would say a little bit a and a little bit of b dave and was there a another selection process for that was there another training process for that uh yeah yeah yeah we have and you know whatever guys i'm going to say it i think we have the best sniper school in the world cut and dry um i do believe that uh and i'm not going to say the proofs in the put him but the proofs in the put But no, it's because we have such great allies, you know, that's the truth. But we also have that individual unit. And it did feel like there was a lot of selection to get there again. And that was like one of those times where you're like, holy moly, when does this stop?

Where's the, you know, the gravy train? So yes, in a way. But no, there definitely is. Not in a way. There definitely is because the demand, the way our unit is set up, the demand gets up a little bit. so yeah in a way there is yeah i don't know if there's actually an official one um but yeah there is i just need to check chat real quick and see if any marines chimed in i've been reading no i i win the best snipers in the world i just want to see if any

marines like uh popped in but not yet the canadians do have and have always had uh very well-regarded snipers yeah i mean don't i want to say i mean don't you guys win quite a few of the the tactical sniping competitions you know i couldn't speak to that uh i don't think our unit really enters too many of those i could be uh again i i say that kind of jokingly because there's probably you know better snipers somewhere else potentially i but i would also like okay if we're going to compare um if you actually wanted to get comparative about that statement of best uh it would be a hard argument not to not to win that one yeah and you guys can go do a little bit of wikipedia research and see who has the world record sniper shot yeah so yeah so you said that you

went to the sniper school years ago was there additional sniper training then like a longer course once you got into the section uh yeah like all things we'll just call it on the job training you know all the new things you got to do all the extra surveillance tools all the uh i won't get into the specifics of what's there um you know think tip of the iceberg sniper kind of gilly suit um and then below that all the extra stuff that you do got to hoist a board to work in there i don't really be able it if something's you know i think the u.s has one like a really good a school for everything and then like a really great structure to move through that and i not so as you move up that like into the upper echelons that kind of fades away because the

demands are so fluid and almost chaotic that you can't quite work that same way so you'll get some stuff piecemeal you know um we try to put it together as much as possible uh but because those numbers are low force generation sometimes takes a kick right if you only have X amount of guys and they're all deployed when you know you can't deliver the training kind of thing Alex is asking Siv group grad versus the SF experience grad who wins he's talking about our company that I've been creating but it's where we're doing something a little bit different it's more like escape the room sort of fictionalized scenarios that we put people through yeah I have to say Jack I

I did read through your stuff. And I agree with, I think they're completely different, but they are very different. Yeah, yeah. Maybe we can work together sometime in the future if we ever want to run anything in Canada or vice versa. Might be some opportunities to help each other.

I would definitely do that, Jack. I would definitely do that. Cool, man. So what do you got there? I was gonna say, Jeff, Jeff already put this in the chat, but for the people who are watching, or listening like on a podcast on the podcast without the benefit of the chat can you tell

us where to find your website and where people can like if they're interested in the sfe and they want to sign up and take one of these classes you talk about what's the next step yeah so head to the website the special forces experience.com and then right there on our page we have the process the trials opx and ultra long range shooting for uh anyone who's interested in the ultra long range shooting just head down there type in team house and once this thing's in the breach march first our program that is you'll get a 10% discount for signing up early there you go 10% discount when you mentioned the team house yeah and i i think the other thing i want to ask you jeff maybe we'll probably be wrapping it up in a little bit here um but if you could talk about

your transition out of the military being you know this high-performing operator you're a sniper um all the all these things and then transitioning into you know now you're not entrepreneurs small business owner yeah oh yeah jack um so this is something that i think that a lot of soldiers i don't know if i know you know what i'm gonna back up some people struggle with it getting out and then some people their transition happens a little better i was very fortunate that I went right in, you know, head first into the entrepreneurial world. There was a lot of spillover from everything that I got from the military there. And so it really helped.

It was a really exciting time of my life. A lot of things going on, you know, things that are weighing on me now, you know, like the TBI stuff wasn't really happening then. And so that it wasn't so bad. There was a lot of, you know, moving from one world that moves at that pace and moves like that and demands so much. from people and is able to get it because they have the training, the funding, you know, all the stuff that goes with it into the real world. I was shocked, you know, I was like expecting everyone to work like an operator and it turns

out, you know, that's not true. So that those kinds of things took a little bit of time to to manage, right? And I know some dudes, you know, that that identity, that new identity that's got to be forged, Because that's what the military does, right? They come in, they mold you into a soldier. And after you're not a soldier, right now it's not fully their job. There is transition programs. So for the guys who are looking to get out, take advantage of the transition programs, for sure.

Unless you really feel like, no, I got this in the bag. Because as we're seeing, something like the suicide stats and stuff are not, they're not nice stats. You know what I mean? And there are ways we can tidy that up. and I think it starts with knowledge of programs to help you segue out. That's where like, and this is not a plug, but programs like the trials, anything that gets you in a group, gets you talking expressively. I know a lot of guys don't like to be vulnerable, but you got to open up, you got to talk.

You have to do that to make sense as your brain is readapting to this new reality. In my case, you know, an entrepreneurial world, which did help. I would also say things like the reserves, you know, to slowly transition outwards. I did do a little bit of time there. I wish I could have did a little bit more. It just not, it wasn't a possibility just to like undo some of what you've turned into. Yeah, it was, it's been a great, you know, making the most out of life here. Jeff, I think it's interesting.

And we've talked about this with our other guests. too that you mentioned this broad umbrella of post-traumatic stress that they paint all veterans with and yet I think that often what we find with special operations vets seems to be less of the you know the intrusive thoughts of past experiences in Afghanistan like the classic ideas of post-traumatic stress and more of what like you're describing is this inability to transition from from here to here you know that you leave that position and now you have no you have no purpose you can't find the same type of mission you can't find the same type of camaraderie you know the the same type of challenge um do you

you in addition to all the tb i all you know all the breaches and explosions and everything do you feel like did at some point some of tell you that you had push minus stress and that just didn't feel right to you or like how did that how did you end up getting diagnosed with tbi that's an interesting question yeah okay well there quite a bit there so let's try to entangle this a little bit um one i think as you climb any ladder you know and people are either falling off or by their own you know volition leaving you know retiring other military and you keep climbing it you're getting in a little bit deeper you're kind of moving down a little bit in a way not not like negatively down but it's like no I want

more of that I want more of that my character is being molded for more and more and more so the those and again I'm going to use a word here don't get the hackles up you know resilience is actually built more that's you know SF training builds operators to be more resilient than the level below you know and as you keep going that keeps happening and those people have more of a drive to move towards that so I think You've ran through the scenarios in your head of what can happen a lot more. You've seen a lot more, which builds up those resilience. You know, you've learned how to adapt to all the shit that's out there that's going to be throwing the soldiers way.

A lot of soldiers come in really young, hot-headed, really no clue what the military is. They come in, boom, they're overseas, you know, bombs are going off, people are dying, and it's like, okay, I never really stopped and thought about this and prepped my mind now I have that kind of thing coming from it and then like with the operator it's a little bit more like yeah yeah you just don't kind of turn it off and but they're at a point and I'm going to speak kind of generally they know how to seek out things about themselves and others and tools that's what you do like I might speak out of turn a bit jack but like the SF operator is always looking for the the new tools, right? How to be better, how to be better. That's what you're looking for.

So when you move out, you're still looking for that. You're like, okay, well, now how do I be better, this way, this way? How do I show up better? How do I control the okay, man, that's not showing up. Well, how do I fix that? You know, that intensity is still there. So that helps that. But it's like, you know, chasing the dragon, you know, once you've kind of found the dragon and then you're not finding the dragon, it's hard to find that again. So that, that is that challenge. And then things like TBI can be very insidious, you know, sometimes they're, bam and it's there but concussive damage can take a long time to manifest and then you know you come out maybe you start drinking for two months and you know start falling down the hole a little bit more

and then maybe you're arguing with the wife you know there's a whole bunch of things in the chain that can set it off but like you said that purpose um finding purpose very very important because like you said the mission is dictated to you at the military you show up at this time you do this and then we're going to go to this and sometimes you don't really know the depths but it's given to you and now you have to do that yourself and as easy as that seems it's not that easy especially to find things that you know satisfy your soul but but there are ways to do that and then like for me it was just a little bit over time a little bit over time a little bit over time and then uh last year was particularly challenging uh because jess is american i'm canadian and the border issues that was

a nightmare and then my mom passed away and then uh there was like just these things that have happen happen happen happen and then it triggered off and then um with the work we do we're advocates for post-traumatic growth you know there's ways to turn almost all of this into a positive and it goes well beyond just reframing something into an opportunity there's a lot of tools so where i was already very aware of that so when i started feeling the other side of it and then the diagnosis began i was like it doesn't feel right um because i started digging in i was like well You know, I saw things that people, most people don't see, but it didn't, you know, I was prepared. I was able to, you know, get it into my head, incorporated into my being in a proper healthy way.

I don't think it's that. It's not that. It's not that. And then that's where, like, you know, TVI starts looking. It's like, oh, shit, you know, that can manifest the exact same things. And luckily, most of the tools are similar to get you there because it didn't, like you said, it just didn't resonate. right I was it was like no that's not it it's something a little bit more and as they you know psychologists and doctors especially neuroscience like neuroimaging brain

sciences expand what what it is they'll see that it's it can manifest very similar but there's a lot of roads to get there and yeah luckily I just happened to be researching the opposite side of the coin with post-traumatic growth which gives you a lot of antibodies towards it. That's really fascinating and I can see how it must be very frustrating for people who have TBI because if it's misdiagnosed and they're sending you to therapy for PTSD, but you're not getting any better because you've been misdiagnosed and it's actually a physiological issue with your brain. Just a kind of FYI, not FYI, but I would say they're all physiological issues. Something is happening where your neurons are not firing properly or they're wired improperly.

or there's parts of your brain that aren't working in tandem with the other parts of the brain properly. So I think they both show up like, but exactly, Jack, now you're showing up and you're like, okay, now I'm a little bit mad that I have to sit here. And I'm having a hoisted board all these guys heavy stories. You know, they got their own journeys they got to go through. So definitely, you know, check the hubris at the door because you got to know, okay, am I, was I, I don't want to use the word weak, but was I vulnerable to some. something and experience or was no no no i wasn't vulnerable it's something else and

with the military especially guys with combat you don't have to look too far i i even think you know shooting even to shoot in a service rifle like a 226 or something enough with no ear pro can can do something you know it's got enough wall up yeah and being on helicopters and stuff like that it all it all pegs out the blast uh the pressure meters um in testing yeah yeah Exactly. I remember wearing the pressure meters and I don't know how many times they were red, you know, for so many scenarios. You start shooting big rifles, big long guns, yeah, 50-Cal. I mean, it's been known to detach retinas, you know? Mick says 2021 is the boss level. Here we come, God, coming in hot.

Brad wants to ask you your opinion about psychotropic drugs to treat TBI and PTSD. Let's just know that I'm not a doctor and this is just for fun entertainment, right? So I'll give an opinion. This is my opinion. I think they have a huge place. So one thing that happens with PTSD's, picture little pathways in your brain. Certain parts might be shut down, certain parts might be working, but they're really solid pathways. And think of the guy or gal who's like shut in in their house, they don't even want to go for groceries.

their life has been limited down to like a few neurons and they fire a lot and they're caught in these overwhelm or feedback loops and they can't break it psychedelics can definitely come in and they give it a little shake up that on its own without proper integration i think is nothing um i would like to believe that most people can integrate safely but i don't believe that i think with that shake up um they call it brain entropic theory that They play around a lot with this with the psychedelics, especially like a psilocybin or an ayahuasca or something. I think they can have a huge healthy impact. I just can't negate the integration because if you go in and now you shake something up,

who knows what you're going to see or how you're going to experience it. You need to bring it back in a healthy way. That means like eating, sleeping, exercising, all the things to make sure your hormones and neurotransmitters are super. healthy that your body's moving properly that you're breathing right you know there's a you got to make sure that that so you rebuild proper habits over the old junk that you're trying to get away with so in a nutshell yeah i definitely believe in them um i do know yeah it's definitely a good thing it's it's kind of on the forefront and um yeah this stuff's tied and tried and true like amazonians have been using ayahuasca for thousands of years like

They have been part of human culture forever. And most of them used them in that kind of way where it was like, okay, you know, Joe's not doing so good. Let's give them a little shake up and then, you know, reintegrate them. So yeah, they definitely have their place. So, Jeff, I was going to ask you if you could stick around for like a 10 minutes to do the bonus segment with us if you have a moment, if that's cool with you. What am I getting into, Jack? I'm going to ask you, it can actually be almost anything. Yeah, it kind of is.

But just wrapping up here for this segment, thank you everyone, joining us, our first show of 2021. Really looking forward to what we got coming on this year. We got guest scheduled all the way into mid-April. If you go back and you look at our New Year's message we published, I walk through the whole list of people. Next week, next Friday, Nick Brockhausen, You guys have asked for Nick many, many times.

We have him coming on the show. He is a veteran of Mac V. Saug in Vietnam. Author two books, WeFew and Whispers in the Tall Grass. So we're really looking forward to our conversation with Nick. Please make sure you like, subscribe and share the video and subscribe to the channel. And there's also a link down in the description to our Patreon page if you want to support what we're doing here and get access to the bonus segments that we film. And also, once again, is Jeff's website. special forces experience.com so go check them out any final thoughts anything you

I failed to cover that you you want to put out there Jeff no that was great guys all right Jeff thank you so much for your time we really appreciate it thank you thanks so much and I look forward to talking to you again soon take care everyone have a good night okay that's it that's it for the stream so