The Team House - Inside Canadian Sniper Operations | Barry Nisbet | Ep. 373

Episode Date: October 4, 2025

In this episode, former Canadian sniper Barry Nisbet and co-author Mir Bamanyar discuss their book 'Send It! Canada's Snipers at War in Afghanistan.' They delve into the journey of writing the book, the rigorous training and structure of Canadian sniper courses, and share personal experiences from their deployments, including Operation Medusa. The conversation highlights the importance of teamwork, the evolution of sniping tactics, and the impact of IEDs on combat. They reflect on the human element in military operations and the future of the Canadian military.Grab the book here: ⬇️Send It: Canada's Snipers at War in Afghanistan https://a.co/d/2vMDZPqToday's Sponsors TrueWerk ⬇️https://truewerk.com/houseuse code "HOUSE" for 15% off!GhostBed ⬇️https://www.ghostbed.com/houseFOR 25% off sitewide! For ad free video and audio and access to live streams and Eyes On Geopolitics...JOIN OUR PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouseTo help support the show and for all bonus content including:-live shows and asking guest questions -ad free audio and video-early access to shows-Access to ALL bonus segments with our guestsSubscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseSupport the show here:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse___________________________________________________Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured__________________________________Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/——————————————————————Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouseSocial Media: ⬇️The Team House Instagram:https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_linkThe Team House Twitter:https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePodJack’s Instagram:https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_linkJack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21Team House Discord: ⬇️https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6SubReddit: ⬇️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/1501191241The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"00:00 Start02:47 The Journey to Writing 'Send It!'05:57 Understanding Canadian Sniper Training08:56 Early Military Experiences and Deployments11:41 The Structure of Canadian Sniper Courses14:52 The Role of Sniper and Spotter17:50 The Importance of Team Cohesion20:51 Engagements and Combat Experiences23:59 Operation Medusa: A Canadian Perspective29:46 The Evolution of Sniping Tactics32:47 The Impact of IEDs on Combat35:57 The Human Element in Sniping38:55 Reflections on Military Service41:41 The Future of Canadian Military OperationsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Special operations. Covert Ops. Espionage. The Team House. With your host, Jack Murphy and David Park. Welcome to episode 373 of the Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here with tonight's guests, former Canadian sniper Barry Nisbet,

and former Ranger and co-author of the book, Mir Bamanyar. They are the author of Send It, Canadian Snipers at War in Afghanistan. Thank you both of you gentlemen for joining us tonight. You're welcome. Thanks for having us, Jack. So maybe we just like kick it off. I mean, this is a little unorthodox, but talk a little bit about how this project came together.

How did Mir and Barry meet each other? All right. I'll take this one, Barry, because, you know, we can't trust you. You're old. Look, this sort of started in 2010. I'd written a seal book with Chris Osmond. I wanted to do something on snipers. And Chris said there's this great guy in Afghanistan.

He met called Gordon Cullen, who is instrumental and also writing this book. And through Gordon, I met Barry, and that's a long time ago. I think we met 10 years ago or something like that. And I went and interviewed Barry. you know, on and off, it's taken me a long time to finally get to the book. And I was going to write this whole thing about Canadian snipers because I now live in Canada. And I thought there are some stories that needed to be told that we haven't heard yet. And to that end, I got permission from the green machine of Canada's forces that I could participate in two weeks

at a sniper, call it boot camp, whatever training course with the RCR, which is the Royal Canadian Regiment. So I spent two weeks with those guys. and I interviewed some of them and I was going to write the book, but I recognized almost immediately that I'm just an idiot. There's no way I could write a book about something like sniping. It was really just so complex, at least to me it was. So I asked Gordon if he'd be interested in helping me on that. And he also introduced me to Barry at the time.

So I met with Barry a bunch of times, went to his house and looked at a lot of things. We talked a lot. He showed me a lot of the video footage. And eventually I just made the decision. I don't even remember how long ago that was. But a few years back, I said, you know, do you guys want to just write this book? And I'll write one or two chapters. But it's really your story.

You guys should write it and do justice to what took you, you know, to how to actually get to the point where you became combat efficient and very good at your job with, you know, sniper school and all the other experiences they had. For me, they said, and we reached out to a number of other snipers. Many of them were excited at the beginning, but not to participate. Barry and another guy, a couple other guys, a chap. So that's how I met Barry through this process.

And we've become good friends. You know, something I wanted to mention, too, from the onset, is that, and I'm dating myself a little bit here. but when I went through sniper school many years ago, all the instructors all told us how great the Canadian snipers are. Like, I'm not blowing smoke. And I heard that throughout my career in the Army. People speak very highly about the Canadian snipers. And Barry, I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about,

you know, why do you think the Canadian snipers are so well regarded and what is it about the Canadian military that has led them to create this program that seems to work very well for them? Jack, I think it's a combination of a lot of things. We're a small military, so we do a lot of cross-training. And we have a really good base of infantry skills before we even think about getting onto a sniper course. I was, you know, nine, eight years in the military

before I even got an opportunity to go on the course. And, you know, at that point, you know, I was a machine guarder, mortiman, reconnaissance patrolmen. So we just have a really solid base of basic before we can even be looked at to go on to a basic sniper course. Let's dig a little bit deeper, Barry. Tell us a little bit about your origin story about how you joined the military and why. How did all of that come about for you? Well, how it came about for me. I was 20 didn't really have a direction.

And my mom said to me, why don't you join the military? And I thought, why don't I join the military? So I went to recruiting office. I watched some videos. I saw the guys running around with guns jumping out of airplanes. And I said, well, that's what I want to do. And, you know, I signed up for the infantry. And I was told it would be, you know, months.

until I heard anything. Three weeks later, I got a phone call from a recruiting sergeant that called me very early in the morning and said, I hope you like getting up early. You're in basic training in three weeks. And off I went. And was it you, Barry, or was it your buddy Gordon? Because I remember it's in the book somewhere. One of you is colorblind?

Yeah. It's Gordon. Oh, that's Gordon. Yeah, so Gord kind of, Gord kind of tucked under the radar. There's some requirements, but we're all very glad, very glad he did. Just because, you know, exceptional soldier, exceptional sniper and instructor and mentor. Hey, guys, I want to tell you about the sponsor for tonight's show, which is true work. They make performance workware that's built like it matters because it does.

In the fall, the weather changes real fast. It can be hot, cold, wet, windy, sometimes all. during one shift, so you want performance workwear that will carry you through the entire day, like these pants that I'm wearing here today. True Work was founded by a trade professional who is tired of wet, heavy gear weighing him down. True Work set out to make workwear that keeps professionals comfortable, capable, and ready for whatever the day throws at them. They're designed with advanced performance fabrics for lasting comfort, all-day mobility,

and year-round job site protection. Every piece is tested on job sites with trade professionals, so in a lot of work. conditions change, you're still ready. This product right now has over 50,000 five-star reviews from professionals in every trade and every climate. So I really enjoy wearing these pants. I think you will too. I hope you'll go check them out. This is the T2 work pant. It's durable, flexible, water resistant. The thing I really like is that they're stretchy. Like this is something like you could even like actually work out in if you really wanted to, but certainly during the work day when when you're bending over and crouching over and picking things up.

These are very comfortable. It also has some lining inside so it's comfortable, you know, around your hips and like where your belt would go. They also make the M3 Wooby hoodie, which is wind resistant, insulated, and very comfortable. And they make the Tower Parker, which is a fully weatherproof and insulated jacket designed for cold, wet job sites. And they also have a line of flannel shirts that I hope you guys will go and take a look at. So upgrade your day with workware built like it matters.

Get 15% off your first order at truework.com with the code house. That's T-R-U-E-W-E-R-K dot com and the promotion code to get 15% off is house, H-O-U-S-E. Thanks, guys. If you could just tell us then about, you know, you joined the military. Tell us about sort of your early military career. You had a series of infantry positions, it sounds like. Yeah, absolutely. I was all, I've always been in the first battalion Royal Canadian Regiment in, in Petalua, Ontario.

I'll say my first deployment was to, was the, was, was, would have been to Kosovo in 1999. I would have been in a, in a section or I guess a squad. And I was just a, I was just a rifleman. So that was sort of my first, first appointment, peacekeeping mission into Kosovo. And then, you know, just kind of up through the ranks, you know, you get a little bit of leadership training. Next deployment was into Bosnia, where I was a, what we would call a section 2 IC. I guess, what would that be like in a squad? Assistant team leader maybe.

Yeah. Assistant team leader. Assistant squad leader, maybe. Yeah. Again, you know, just like another peacekeeping tour. And then a few years later, 2005, I was in Kabul, Afghanistan. What we were doing there was we were doing defense and security of a camp and QRF. So again, I was doing, you know, Section 2 I see on that.

And, you know, then that kind of brought me. You know, that I guess say, you know, you cut your teeth a bit on those tours. You get a taste. You get exposed to other countries and other units. And, you know, you kind of start to see that there's a lot more in the military to do. And that's when I sort of, you know, well, at that point, my first tour in Afghanistan, I'd already been to Ranger's School. I went to Ranger School in 2003.

and just progressed, you know, sniper course, 05, lucky to be in the sniper platoon, deployed to Afghanistan in 06. And that was pretty interesting, pretty interesting to our kind of first taste of combat. progressed through into sniper detachment commander course, advanced sniper sniper course, and then final tour was as the sniper detachment commander in 2010 back in Afghanistan. So talk to us a little bit about how the kind of the course works, the training. It sounds like you mentioned a basic course and an advanced course. And how does the, how is Canadian sniper training structured?

So first to even get onto the basic sniper course, I guess it's basically structured in three phases. You have your basic, you have your sniper detachment commander and then your advanced sniper, which would give you a position to be a unit master sniper. And just to get on the basic course when I did it, pre-rexit was you need to have basic comms, communication, and reconnaissance patrolmen. And so like we chatted before, like your infantry skills are already are already pretty up there. We had a pre-course of 24 candidates online that whittled down to 18 after a week of, you know, where they just to use a Ranger school term where they smoke does pretty good. And then to the course where we graduated three of the 18.

So a pretty high attrition rate back then with the course. And I mean, aside from that, you're learning obviously marksmanship, stocks, target identification, target distance estimation, and all these kind of foundational sniper skills. Yeah, absolutely. You know, the course is broken down into different performance checks. judging distance, observation, obviously, marksmanship, stalking. And back then in 2005, stalking, the course was very heavily weighted on stalking.

That was a real man-eater. That's where we lost so many candidates because it was just hard. And I think that that is something that really sets the Canadian. sniper course apart from from some other ones is is just the the level of stalking the skill that you know we're you're expected to be able to achieve the level you're expected to be able to achieve you know on the basic sniper course and it and there's sorry to interrupt barry there's a great chapter barry actually wrote on stalking which is highly detailed but it really talks not just about the physical grueling aspect of it, but also about the emotional, mental strength that

is required for you to actually complete the stock. Sorry, had to throw that in there. It was a great chapter. Yeah, no, absolutely. And that is a big part in the book because it's, any sniper, they, they're always going to remember the stalking phase of their course because it's, it's just like, I think I describe it in the book as it's like, it's a man eater and it's a dream, it's a dream crusher because that's, that's just where, that's where we lose so many guys because it's so difficult. It's such a difficult aspect of the course. And let's talk hardware for a second here. The Canadians are known to love their 3-3-8s. Is that what you learned to fire in the course, or was there a different platform that you guys

were taught on initially? So, in my course, we were using a C3A1 with, with a NERDL, 10 power, fixed 10 power, bullet drop compensator, 308. It was an old gun, but she fired straight. I was laughing when I read about that in the book because friends of mine who had gone to the Marine Corps scout sniper course, used the Unerdle scope, and they told me the exact same thing you guys wrote in the book, that the mill dots are made out of wax or something like this, and they melt off of the crosshairs? Yeah, you can always say you can tell an old Canadian sniper on a range

because he'll take his hat and he'll put it on his scope. Yeah. Because the reticle was wire and the mill dots are made of wax. So you never wanted the scope to heat up. Because then your mill dots get out of shape and then you're doing a judging distance PO and you're trying to cut that target by a mill dot that, you know, should be a mill and maybe now it's 1.3 or 1.2. so we've definitely advanced from that.

And for the young people out there, civilians who are not necessarily acquainted, could you describe the two positions on the sniper team, the sniper and spotter for folks out there? Yeah, absolutely. The way we would operate is the, you know, you have your shooter, your primary shooter, who will kind of have all the primary data, the primary dope on the gun.

And then you'll have your spotter. The way we would structure it is your spotter is your more senior guy. Because spotting is more difficult. Spotting requires more skill. Spotting, spotting requires more time. And if you've moved into the spotting position, you've already had that time on the gun. And I always describe it to people and they're always in,

in amazement. I always say, well, you've seen the movie The Matrix, and you see when Neo's dodging bullets, and you can see that shockwave coming off the bullet, I tell people, well, you can see that. And they're like, you can't see that. And I'm like, yeah, you can see that. And that's, you know, ultimately why we're spotting and why when you're seeing a sniper team, you know, that spotter is out with the spotting scope in line to the shooter with his scope over the barrel. So you're getting that true relation to when you're seeing that swirl, when you're spotting that round to, you know, if you don't get a first round hit, as Hollywood makes it look like we always get first round hits. But as you know, Jack, that's not always the, it doesn't always happen.

So you want to have a good spotter who's going to be able to make that quick, fast correction, you know, either, you know, a hold off or, or, you know, if you're going to adjust windage or whatever, but that's the basics of how we'll work in a two-man team. The spotter really is like the human calculator that comes up with the formula and tells the sniper what the program into the scope. And the sniper really is just a marksman, a very good marksman, but all he has to do is pull the trigger, right? He has the easy job.

Yeah, and I mean, we train and we cross-trained so much, and especially before we deploy that, you know, if. If I have to roll over and get behind, we'll say the 3-38, you know, I can do it, vice versa, you know, he can come over and spot. And again, like, I think why we are so good or why we're, you know, why we are very good at the job of being of sniping is that we just have that, we have that cross-training and we have that confidence to switch out into position. Because, you know, if we're going out for two or three days, one guy can't stay on the gun for all that time. You know, you've got to switch out and you've got to have the confidence in your teammates to be able to do the job if you're not the one on the gun. This is something I've heard, Barry, you can confirm or deny for me if this is true or not. I heard that one of the reasons why the Canadians feel such good sniper teams is it has to do with, in the Canadian military, those teams can stay together much longer.

than they can, for instance, in the American military, where the sniper and spotter have worked together for years and years. Definitely, Jack, in my experience, you know, I think that's pretty true. And I think if you talk to other Canadians, they would say the same. And I think that's also to the point where we're a small military, you know, especially compared to the U.S., you know. and we try to keep the specialties to where they need to be.

So if a guy, you know, if he gets into snipers and he's doing well and he's progressing, then why wouldn't we want to keep him in that position? And then, you know, and like you know, I mean, you build that confidence with your spotter and vice versa. And the more range time you get, you know, shooting in all the different conditions, different distances and such. especially if you get to deploy with that guy and with that team and stay together, it's just going to make you better.

It's going to make you more effective. Yeah, that's huge to have that kind of rapport between the sniper and spotter over such a long period. And I know this is jumping a little bit forward in your personal story, but while we're talking about training, I'd like to bring it up. You mentioned the advanced course. How does that differ from the basic one that we've been talking about? So the basic, I hate to call it basic because it's anything but basic, but it's, you know, you're laying the foundations for everything that's going to propel you forward, you know, as a sniper. Whereas the advanced course is you're learning the tactical side, the employment of a sniper debt about briefing company commanders,

about briefing unit commanders on the best way to employ, the best way to employ a sniper debt. Because we don't have or we didn't have, we didn't have an officer. So an NCO was, an NCO was it. In our case, it was a warrant officer. And, you know, he's responsible to go in potentially brief a lieutenant colonel.

And if we break it down further, me as a debt commander with my my debt if i'm you know going to work in a company um with an infantry company then it's going to be a sergeant that's going to be going in briefing um a major potentially so um you know and i think having that nCO knowledge um and and and learning those skills of building your courses of action and being able to to do a brief in front of officers it's, you know, it's just another, I think it's just another skill that, you know, Canadians and snipers that we bring to the table. That's a great point. I want to throw in something on that.

I'm sorry to interrupt, Jack. You know, the interesting thing is having talked to a bunch of these guys, I was always amazed as to how many officers had no idea how to deploy snipers in combat zones, how it was up to the UMS, the unit mass of sniper or whoever it was, to actually kind of convince them in brief. the officers as to the best deployment of various detachments across the front or something like that. That was a huge thing. I was surprised by that. I would have thought by now in the 21st century, you know, they would know how to employ snipers to the best abilities for everyone involved. But that wasn't always the case. I think it's an ongoing issue, Mir. I mean, any kind of specialized troops, be they snipers, reconnaissance, or even like mortars. And now today you get into, electronic warfare and drone specialists.

You know, if the officers haven't been brought up on those tactics in their basic course, then they're not going to know how to employ those troops when they have them, you know, as a resource. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, I think, too, I mean, as a, if I'm a deck commander and I'm in Afghanistan, you know, I don't, I want to be able to explain my capabilities.

to an officer, I don't want him to be trying to explain my capabilities to me because he hasn't done the course, he hasn't done the training, he doesn't know, he hasn't gone out in these tiny small groups, you know, where you have to be self-sufficient, where if QRFs on 15 minutes notice to move, that doesn't mean shit because it's 30 minutes until they get to you, right? So my team is my team and I know how to best employ it. And, you know, survivability is one of the factors that I have to look at when I'm, what I am going to deploy my debt, especially, you know, into combat. So, yeah, the advanced course is training you guys to be the voice inside the talk

that's representing the sniper detachment. Exactly, yeah. You went to Ranger's school. You mentioned that. We'll talk about that a little bit more. as we get down here. Tell us about your first deployment over to Afghanistan. First deployment in snipers?

Yeah. Oh, your first was with the infantry? Yeah. 2005 was your first deployment to Afghanistan in the regular army. Yeah, and as just an infantry soldier. And then so, yeah, I mean, I mean 2006, there was, you know, I was, I was, I was, sniper train. I was in the sniper platoon and Canada had we had been in Afghanistan, at least in Kandahar now for a few years. So, you know, I remember, I really remember it because guys were

dying. And in the Canadian Army, we were still getting used to that. Like we're in combat and guys are dying. And so there's just, you know, there's that build up to the deployment. And you know and then you get there and i think there's always that thing in the back of your head is like you know okay i've been a soldier for you know eight nine years now like but i haven't been a soldier in combat yet and i'm going into combat and i'm going to see combat like and how am i going to react so you can you just have that in the back of your head like how what am i going to do when the bullets start flying you know how how am i going to do when the bullets start flying you know how am i going to react so definitely not trepidation but you know and i talk about it in the book

during aunt medusa when you know the the first time when i was personally under direct fire when the talban were just shooting at me and you know i remember it so well we were we had We've been up in Massingar, supporting Ot Medusa, and the worst of it was over. And I said, you know, I got to go down and make a phone call. So walk down the mountain about 800 meters to one of the labs. And, you know, of course, I'm wearing a soft cap. I don't have any body armor on. I've got my C8, suppressed C8 slung over my back.

And, you know, I'm walking into the left is the Argonob. but on the other side is, you know, the Taliban's still there. And I hear a machine gun burst off to my left, and I don't think anything of it. And I think because it was so far away, you know, the rounds were subsonic when they went over my head, so there was no crack. But the rocks started just kind of dancing all above me. And I said, holy shit, they're shooting at me. And I just swung my C8 around, grabbed it. I'm not going to shoot back, obviously.

I just ran. I just, I sprinted as fast as they could to that lab, and I got to it. And, you know, I get behind the big, big green monster and I'm safe.

And I was just like, holy shit, they were shooting at me. And, you know, you mentioned the Argon Dob Valley, and I just want to point out that we have interviewed a 82nd Airborne Division guy and

101st Airborne Division guy who told us about, you know, in that valley as infantry. And I mean, that place was nasty. That was a very hot area. Yeah, it, it was a hot area. And, you know, I'll say we as on combat deployment, you know,

we were learning fast, you know. We were learning quick. We were doing a lot of infills, well, 99% of our infills we were doing by night. You know, small units, NVG, ate all lucky if we had some surveillance overhead, you know, telling us the way it was clear. But, yeah, it was a heavily IDed area.

Very difficult to identify, you know, good guys from bad guys. One day they're really, and they're they're spraying 8k rounds at you so it it was definitely an intense area and a lot of a lot of lessons learned working in and out of there but can you kind of lay out the like big picture what operation medusa was because that's sort of like all in and around this book i feel like yeah it's it's certainly a big a big a big portion. So at 2006, the Canadian contingent and MIR jump in here anytime.

I want to point out something real quick, actually. The interesting thing is 2006 was really mostly a Canadian operation in that area. I mean, I'm not saying no Americans participated because we know differently, but it was really primarily a Canadian operation. And in 2006, you could still call in a lot of air support, artillery, things like that. And that would change in 2010, I think. So my impression has always been from Medusa as one of the biggest Canadian ops, I think, since the Korean War. I correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was. And they were supposed to seize a particular town and drive out the Taliban from there, right?

And they had to cross a river. And there was all sorts of aerial bombardment, artillery, all this kind of stuff. But I think political pressure forced an early attack. I don't think the Canadians, this is my opinion. I don't think the Canadians were quite ready to launch the assault. I don't think they had soft enough targets, things like that. But the key thing to remember in 2006, they had a lot of air and artillery availability, and they could basically hit anything they wanted to, and that will change by 2010,

as Barry will eventually tell us. But Medusa, Up Medusa was a huge thing for Canada, and Barry will tell you all about the sniper. use over there, but we should also remember up Medusa is where Canadians take a lot of casualties, and not from the Taliban, but from Americans. So anyway, I'll let Barry jump back in. Yeah, Jack, like Mir said, it was a big operation. We, you know, we were going into Pangeway to push the Taliban out.

I was a I was a master corporal I don't know what that would would that equate to in the in the US military so we had I was the second in command of our three sometimes four man sniper detachment depending on what we were doing

we are attached to Charles Company and it was about a two day road movement into the Argonob and then we seized we seized the and we seized the house and we seized Mass

Massumgar and the infantry guys were happy to throw us out of their labs and then we had to walk up Massumgar with, you know, incredibly heavy rocks. Mine was probably tipping 150 pounds. I had an AR-10. I had 200 rounds of 762 in that, plus all of our optics, plus food, water, and all that. And, you know, the initial, once we got up and we got set up, you know, and we're in the high ground and we're looking across the Argonob and, you know, everything is quiet, right? Everything is quiet. We're not seeing any movement. It's kind of early morning. The labs, the infantry units, they're getting into their positions. And then like Mira had said, there's a plan for a two to three day bombardment of the area. that happened, but it was not the intensity or the length that we were initially told in the in the orders process of it.

And I tell you why that was. You know, they fired from what I heard, they fired everything from naval guns to MLRS's, you know, A10s, every aircraft you could think, dropped on that lot of artillery. And after a few days of that, the decision was made for the Charles Company, the infantry company to push across. If you're in the market for a new mattress, you've probably seen all the brands out there vying for your attention. Big names, splashy ads, all promising the same thing.

But here's the only brand that does it right. ghostbed. Ghostbed was created and is still run by manufacturing experts with more than 20 years of mattress making experience. They know the craft and they know how to build a bed that actually lasts. So how do they offer premium mattresses for up to 50% off less than the competition? It's not hype. It's smart logistics. As a family-owned company, that means there's no board of investors to answer to which is folks working hard selling mattresses. These are the true manufacturing pros and the result is an exceptional cooling and comfort at a price that won't keep you up at night. Every ghost bed mattress includes proven cooling materials backed by a 20 to 25 year warranty.

You also get 101 night's sleep trial with free returns if the mattress doesn't work for you and fast free shipping. Most orders arrive in two to five days. Right now as a team house listener, you can get 25% off site wide for a limited time. You can just go to ghostbed.com slash house and use the promo code house at checkout. That's ghostbed.com slash house promo code house. Upgrade your sleep with ghost bed the makers of the coolest beds in the world. Some exclusions apply, see-siphered details. I want to thank Ghostbeds so much for continuously supporting us.

It's been going on a year almost. So I really appreciate that. I hope you guys, if you're in the market for mattresses or pillows or bedding, check out Ghostbed. You can go to ghostbed.com slash house and get 25% off. right now. Love you and love Ghostbide. Thanks guys. And you guys set up an

observation position and we're overseeing that push? Well, we had been up in an observation post. We were co-located with it. We actually had a couple Americans with us

that were doing a couple things as well. And, you know, my detachment commander, made the decision that we'd be better suited to go across with the push. And once we got across, then to push out to a flank and then to provide flank security and overwatch. So we were actually in the thick of it,

and we turned back into just pure infantry soldiers after a couple vehicles got hit, mobility kills, guys got killed. and, you know, for a couple minutes there, all hell broke loose. The idea was that the, like we said before, that the bombardment would soften up everything. And the assumption had been, I think it was shortened by a day, don't quote me on that, the assumption had been that everything had been softened up, the Taliban weren't going to pose a problem. And so you guys launched the assault across the river and all that stuff.

And that's, and everything to your front opened up, basically. So the apartment may have done something, but it certainly didn't soften up the resistance by any stretch of the imagination. I think those guys were too hard and tough to be softened up. Like they were fierce, they were ferocious. They fought us for every inch. And ultimately, we pulled back. Yeah, I mean. It's during that pullback, though, I think.

that Charlie company gets hit by the AT-10, unless I'm mistaken, somewhere around that time. Once we had, once the push had stopped and we'd taken at that point for KIA, a lot of wounded, a couple vehicle kills, the decision was made to pull back, and we pulled back to our original position on Mastum Guard, and it was a day or two later, when an A-10 came and, you know, again, I can only speculate, but, you know, they got cleared on, my understanding was they got talked onto a fire that was on the other side of the river. The fire was misidentified, and, you know, a short burst was let out on the A-10. and, you know, for those of us who know the sound of it, it's unmistakable.

And that burp was a very short burp, you know, and it ended up killing one Canadian and wounding upwards of 20 or 25 and making that inventory company combat ineffective. I mean, Jesus, what happened after that? I mean, the sun comes up the next day. And, I mean, what's the battle plan? Because I remember you writing in the book about like the base. getting attacked that you were in. Yeah, I mean, in that situation with the A-10, I remember I was sleeping and I had my Ranger blanket pulled over my head and that A-10 woke me up, you know, and everyone.

And then you look down at the main body of the company and you just see, you know, dust and smoke. And it's like, you know, what just happened is the reaction. And luckily, we had some Canadian SF guys. located very near to us and you know they sent their advanced medic guys down and just started touching and bandaging and you know it was it was a it was a crazy time for sure especially when we don't know we didn't know what happened

yeah wow that's terrible and so I mean you guys start evacuating the wounded and what was the next phase for this mission? You know, that's, that's Jack where it got. It kind of got, it got weird, you know. It's the, so we evacuate the, you know, Chinooks came in because there's so many casualties. Chinooks came in, they're taking the wounded out,

and, you know, slowly it was almost like the force on the mountains sort of scaled down. We stayed up in that OP. We had a, like I said, we had a, there's a Canadian SF team up there watching another objective. And they were, they left. And then an ODA team ended up coming up. They were pushing into our AO. And, you know, eventually after that, you know, intense push. Charles Company to get across the Argonob and to seize that ground.

Eventually what ended up happening, it was a combination of A&A, Canadian, and I think some Americans, you know, probably two weeks later, and they just gently walked across the Argonob and met no resistance. That is weird. Yeah. I should point out, though, I also think that I do some of Gord and the other detentance. were calling in strikes, unless I'm mistaken, whereas you guys had gone down to become infantrymen, basically. I think the other detachments were out there still calling fire and all that kind of stuff onto the village, unless I'm mistaken on that.

Yeah, Cord's debt was also on Massumgar, you're about 8, 900 meters away from us. They were definitely calling in fire. and then we had another sniper debt with a blocking force to the north. And even once when we did finally pull back and got back up into our original position, we were much more effective there, like Mirr said, because, you know, we had artillery, we had air. And, you know, I think, again, what makes, like we were chatting before, it makes a Canadian sniper, you know, lethal.

is, okay, I can't shoot you with the gun. Well, I have a radio, and I'm going to call in a fire mission on you. And, oh, I don't have guns. Well, I'm going to jump on to the, you know, e-cast net and see who's up there and see what I can call in. And, you know, I think we, that's a big skill that we brought the table on that. We also, you know, learn in Afghanistan, you know, in combat is, hey, maybe we can't get them with the gun. but there's plenty of tools in the toolbox that we can use. And when you met up with the ODA up there,

is that where you ran into your old Ranger buddy? Yeah. So, you know, and it was really surreal. So, I mean, like I said, I did Ranger School in 03, and, you know, you meet some great people through it. And I meet a guy, Joe Healy. He was ODA. He was a sergeant.

And we were in the same company or platoon in Ranger's school. And, you know, we just sort of clicked. We stuck together through the whole school. I remember during one of the phases, I was the PL. And he was my platoon sergeant. And we had to set up the patrol base and everyone's tired and hungry. And nobody wants to listen. and they just want to get their 15 minutes of sleep and eat their ration.

And him and I, we just work, we just work great together, you know. And, you know, you lose touch with these guys as much as you think you're going to, you're going to be able to keep in touch with them. You know, but it's hard. So, yeah, this is like post-Medusa push, we're still in Massumgar, and I was on shift in the OPE. And I'm just, I'm looking across the Argonob, and we're told. old, hey, there's an ODA team coming up to see you.

They're coming up. They're going to park half their team here, and they're going to go set up another position higher up on the mountain. So it's okay. So they come up, and I can hear them behind me, but I'm on shifts. I don't pay any attention. They go up the mountain, and I get relieved,

and I'm sitting back in the shade. I'm looking at all their backpacks, their rucks, and they all have their name tapes on them, And I look and I see the last name, Healy. And I joke to one of the guys, cash, and said, hey, that was my best buddy in sniper school. You know, knowing well that you guys have, what did I say, Ranger School, sorry. Knowing that, you know, the U.S. has upwards of 50,000 special forces, soldiers, and the whole Canadian military has about 50,000 in it.

So I thought never crossed my mind that that was the guy. and so I see I see them all the U.S. the ODA team, they're walking down the hill and, you know, you know, I can make out arms and legs now and, you know,

and I'm looking and I'm looking. And I see this big tall guy and he's got a Boston Red Sox hat on. And I'm looking at him. And I look back at his rucksack and I look at the name and I look back at him and I just say, no way. So he keeps, he keeps, he keeps walking closer and he's, you know, he's basically right in front of me and I have my tilly hat hold out low. And I just look at him and I go, hey, hoser. And he looks at me.

And we just kind of smile. And then you have this rest of this, you know, Green Beret team who are going, who's this fucking Canadian calling us a hoser, right? And then, yeah, the next thing, you know, we hug. We have a, we have a super awesome man hug. and then yeah he's like holy shit guys you know in his in his accents because i think all americans have accent he's like yeah this is barry from ranger school and and you know it's funny because that introduction and just having that connection that whole oda team was like fuck yeah you guys are good right and we did some damage up there you know we definitely did some damage up there with, you know, them having the air assets that they could control and just

our ability to observe and to, you know, to, to, to pick targets. It was, I'll say it was meant to be. There was another interesting vignette that I'd like to ask you that I think happened somewhere around this time where you guys had an O.P that got compromised by the locals. and it was just like one village boy seeing that some rocks were overturned or something like that. Can you tell us about that story? Yeah, I mean, and that was a constant issue that we had was, and we would all say, you know, it's like the mountain is, the mountain is their TV.

They don't, they don't, that's what they look at. And if something's out of place, they know it, right? Like, they know that it's moved. They know that it's changed. They just had this uncanny ability to just to be able to understand the smallest change in their environment and think something's up there. And I mean, like Jack, the amount of times that we had been out and just thought we were good and no one saw us. and then all of a sudden a kid would just come walking out. And they would all of a sudden a kid.

And he would just come walking out and he'd turn and he'd just look right at us. And we're like, he can't see us. We're highly trained snipers, masters of stealth and camouflage. He can't see us. And, you know, any time they sent the kid out, they knew we were in the area. And then we were like, all right, time to go. because if we didn't, we knew what was the next. It's going to be a RPK burst.

It's going to be an RPG or hopefully not a recoiless rifle around. That's going to come ripping over our heads. But, yeah, the kids were a warning. Yeah, there's something about, you know, children get into everything. I mean, anyone who actually has kids knows, you know, how that works or remembers what it was like to be a kid themselves. And there's another story in your book that your buddy Gordon tells in Kosovo, where him and his buddy are wearing their gilly suits

and they're wearing the big bear suits and think they're super well hidden. And a little girl has her ball bounce away off a trail and she goes down the hill to get her ball and sees two snipers like, holy shit. Yeah. It goes running to her mom. Yeah. Yeah. It's true.

Also, another thing, I'm sorry, I want to point out another thing. I mean, I think you were a sniper in the range of Italians, Jack, unless I'm mistaken, or at least you were on the long gun of sorts. But what I always found interesting is when I was talking to these guys is about the ranges that they were shooting at in Afghanistan, right? This was genuine sniping.

This was not law enforcement shooting or, you know, city urban shooting. This was long-range shooting. So I always found that to be quintessential Canadian. I don't know why, but since I guess Canadians were only in Afghanistan, they hold the record for these long-range shots. shots and it's always stuck out to me about how good they really wear at long range shooting. This is the one thing I observed from all my research and hanging out with the guys. So anyway, I thought I should point that out.

Barry, do you want to move forward to the 2010 deployment? Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I guess four years, four years. years removed. I would have done my, I would have done my advanced sniper course. And then it was our turn to rotate, to rotate back in again. And like you had said, Jack, you know, with the ability to stay together, I'll say, you know, our sniper platoon changed, but the core, the core was still there. The core guys, you know, who were there in 06 with that experience and those lessons learned, you know,

we're going back in 2010. And plus we had the bonus that we had trained the guys that were coming with us because we run our sniper courses in-house. Unlike I know U.S. Army, they have their U.S. Army sniper school. You know, they all go through there. They all go through the same thing. We would run our units, we would run our own snipers. Hypercourses. And again, you know, that helps because we're training the guys that are

potentially going to come into our unit that are going to come and serve with us that are going to, you know, go into combat with us. So it's a, it's a big bonus. So we deploy back 2010. I'm a, I'm a detachment commander now. And we're, I'll say we're in a, we're in a different, we're definitely in a different area. We still went back to a few of the old of the old haunts, but we were, I guess we called like Adamsai, Adamsai chain, Chalawat, definitely some different areas. The big thing that stands out with that tour was the amount of IEDs had just increased tenfold. In 2006, I think the Taliban, they tried to fight us more. They would try to go toe to toe with us.

Engages with a lot more small arms, a lot more ambushes. But they lost because, you know, we've got artillery. We've got aircraft stacked at all these levels. And we've just got, we're just so lethal. We're just such a lethal force. And a lot of that was combined with the, obviously with the Americans with multiple ODA teams that we worked with. And in 2010, it seemed like that was scaled back a bit,

but the IEDs were just littered everywhere. We had a lot of casualties from IED strikes. Luckily not us, although we did have won in 2006 when we were out on a patrol. But even the ROE in 2010 was different. the ability to to call an air or to call an artillery was much more, it was restricted as far as what we could do. And I think that made our role as snipers even more important because we could use that precision fire with the minimum collateral damage, which was a big thing in 2010. we're, I mean, maybe we were going, we were going a little bit more hearts and minds by that time. Now having been fighting this insurgency for almost the decade,

I would definitely say there was a definite shift in 2010 into how we fought, just like there was a shift in how the Taliban fought in 2010. So it was a, it was a, you know, your steps and we still did the majority of our insertions at night we did the majority of our insertions on foot but it definitely up up the risk factor just with the increased iED threat on that tour and you talk a little bit about um i think one of your engagements you thwarted a ambush that was being planned trying to think of the one If there was more than a patrol going out.

You had a patrol going out and you guys were on top of the mountain. I think it was with Gordon. I think that's the one. I think that was, I think that was Gord, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. He hit someone who was preparing to set an ambush for the infantry patrol that was going to go through the town. And I think you observed some guy with a radio or something like that.

And then Gordon didn't tell anyone he was going to take. the shot and he scared the shit out of everybody on patrol when his rifle went off. And I want to say he hit someone on that, but I don't remember that exactly. But I think that's the mission. I think, I think Jack, if, you know, and this was actually one of the chapters that Mir wrote in third person from one of my stories. And that was when we were on a mountain called Salavat Gar. And honestly, this was just.

It seemed like just such a classic sniper mission where, you know, the planning was excellent. The major in charge, he knew the best way to deploy snipers was to let the snipers tell him how we were going to deploy. And that was major, that was a major Brown and he gave us that flexibility. and we came up with, you know, I think a stellar plan given the results. And what we did was our debt. We pushed out the night before, waited till dark. We infilled up the mountain. We got into position, you know, still under dark.

And once we were set, then they pushed a patrol out from, they pushed a patrol out from one of the strong points. and so we're hidden up the mountains we've got the 338 you know the sun's coming up you're getting a good indication of the wind because the cooking fires are coming up and they're set at different distances so you're getting your you know you're getting your near wind you're getting your far wind and you know we're elevated we're hidden and the focus was completely on this patrol that was walking through and you know I was I was spotting at the time and one of the guys is on the 338 and we're sort of tracking these couple guys through a village.

And the patrols come in from north to south down, kind of down a wadi line. And, you know, these two individuals are getting a little bit more interested in the patrol. And, you know, we have our ROEs and we're very strict with our ROEs. and in this instant this individual was definitely in contravention of the ROEs in close proximity to the patrol and you know without thought you know it was standby send it you know we crack a 338 round it goes over the patrol because they're below us we didn't have time to warn them, you know, they all hit the deck, you know. We engaged the guy. I think he was out of, I think he was 6008 meters. And, you know, it's a, it's a good hit. And then, you know, we just radio to the patrol, hey, that was us. You guys are good, you know. And then

patrol gets up, dust themselves off. They continue their, they continue their patrol through the town, everything's good. They're looping back around and we've just, we've got a really great position. We've got basically 360 degree views. We're fairly well hitting. We're in a defendable position if, you know, if the ship was going to hit the fan on our end anyways. And we can see north up this road into this open area that the patrol has to cross to get back to the camp. Well, we weren't the only ones thinking that. knowing that. So as the patrols looping around and they're getting ready to come through this open area in the field, there's great fields below us and, you know, people were starting to mill about

and, you know, they weren't farmers. And, you know, a tactic that the Taliban would always use is they would, I think the hide from the drones was, or from surveillance was, they always just wrap a blanket or something around a gun and they would carry it. And that was always like an RPK, right? It's like that's going to be an RPK under that blanket. So guys are just starting to set up. I think Taliban are starting to set up, getting eyes up, up that road to where they know the Canadians are going to cross,

you know, and it's, you know, it's going to, it's going to funnel, it's going to funnel them in there. And, you know,

so we pick this guy up walking and he's, he's carrying, he's carrying something, he's got a big blue cloth on it. We know what it is. But we don't have, like, we don't have,

we don't have positive ID. We, we can't say that's a guy. we can't shoot him. At this point, the team said switched up. So we had another guy. We had been actually the number one on the 338, and my 2 I see, he was spotting.

And I'm on the comm, so I'm talking to the patrol commander, and I can see them, and I'm like, okay, you guys got to wait. You got to stop. We got a situation developing here. We've got just give us a few minutes. And then so this guy carrying this, you know,

what we believe to be a gun, he stops on the trail and for whatever reason maybe to reassure himself that he was in fact carrying an RPK he just took the cloth off and you know two of us are like RPK like PID RPK and we can see we could see where he was going we could see where he was going to set up the gut you know he's just soon as the canadian start crossing he was just going to start laying rounds down and you know he's walking he's getting close to his position and, you know, I'm talking to guys. I'm like, yeah, do what you got to do

when you see the right window for the shot. And I'm radio on the patrol, and I'm like, hold, hold, hold, just wait. And then sure enough, you know, the guys engaged, you know, moving target. I think that one was 475. And, you know, once we made that shot, the gig was up. because all the other Taliban just turned and looked up at the mountain. And we were like, okay, it's time to go. So we're like, okay, yeah, patrol, you guys are clear.

And our plan was to stay up till dark and then, you know, come down. And at that point, I made the call, like, pack up, we got to get out of here because there's going to be, if we stay here, we're going to be in a world of hurt. So, you know, good, good day for us, bad day for them, but they weren't all like that. Do, um, you want to walk people through like the, the verbiage between the sniper and the spider real quick, which leads into the title of your book? Yeah. And, I mean, I would like to hear yours on this.

I don't know if that's uniquely Canadian or not. I've definitely heard different variations of it. But, you know, you know, right from training, it's, you know, you're in your sniper team. and we're on the range or or or or you're in combat it's it's always the same and it's just this calm sort of just like rhythmic just you just get into this you just get into the zone right you just you're so comfortable behind the gun you're so comfortable behind the spotting scope and it doesn't matter if your knees and elbows are digging into jagged rock and you're bleeding it's just you just get into that zone.

And, you know, the communication when you're getting down onto a target, it's just, it's quiet, it's calm. And, you know, as the shooter, you know, the shooter is going to make that decision as to when he's going to fire. But the spotter is, the spotter is continually monitoring the target. He's monitoring the winds. He's monitoring the mirage. You know, he's looking for those changes that he's going to.

I need to talk to the shooter about if we need to make a small correction, you know. We have our initial windage dialed in, but if we need to do a hold left or right, you know, that's what the spotter's doing. So, you know, the shooter knows he's in position. He's getting his breathing down. You know, he's in that slow breathing. And it's, you know, top of your breath, the shooter is saying, stand by where he's like, I'm on target.

You know, I'm good to go. I'm ready to release the shot. He says standby. He's doing that three quarter exhale. And as the spotter, because, you know, we're cross-trained. I know where he is in his breathing cycle. And I'll try to match that sometimes, too, if I can. And then it's send it, you know?

And once he hears that send it, once he's ready, once he's applied all those marksmanship principles and, you know, we're good with the target, then it's that. slow squeeze. And, you know, I say this in the book that's still the best phrase I've ever, I think I'll ever hear is standby, send it. Yeah, I think we use very similar terminology. I think we might have said shooter ready and send it. Might have been it going back a ways for me. But very similar. So after that deployment, I mean, do we want to talk about sort of like the end of your military career and how you retired out of the military?

You know, I love the military. I still love the military. And, you know, the best thing for me for getting out was, you know, I got out on my terms. I was a sergeant. I had, you know, turned down the next leadership course because I just knew, I just knew. knew I was done, you know. And, and even in Mirr writes a, mirror writes a chapter in the book, and it's, you know, I can tell you, my mom was upset because she read the book and, and I'm, I'm standing outside a tent and I'm smoking a cigarette. And my mom was like,

oh my God, you smoked over there? And I said, yeah, mom, if I didn't have a cigarette in my mouth, I had a, you know, a dip of skull in my mouth. And, you know, you just do bad things when you think there's potential for bad things that are going to happen to you. And then standing outside in a fob, I'm smoking a cigarette and two mortar rounds land 150 meters away inside the camp. And, you know, I'm on my fifth tour. I'm in my 30s now. And it was literally that moment where I was like, okay, you know what?

I've used my nine lives and then some. I've lost some good friends and I just at that time I made the decision to say, you know, I'm going to look for something else. How long were you in for at that time? Well, that was that was 2010, so that was 13, 13 years, 13 years, five deployments and. Yeah, kept you busy. Absolutely, yeah. So, I mean, I hung around the battalion for a couple of times. more years taught on a few more uh taught on a few more courses and then you know it it i left at

the pinnacle i in my mind i wasn't going to do anything better there was nothing i could do within the regular army that was going to top having you know been able to deploy twice as a as a sniper into Afghanistan, which is pretty rare amongst Canadian snipers, get two combat deployments to Afghanistan. So, you know, been there, done that, got the T-shirt, and it was time to move on. Hey, do you remember that picture you guys showed me of the stuffy that you guys had left on the path that you were hoping the Taliban would walk on and take a look at it? That was Percy the Penguin.

Yeah, what year was that? Can you tell us a little bit about that? So that was 2006. And, you know, again, for whatever reason, my mom had sent me this tiny little stuff penguin at Christmas. He had like a Santa Claus hat on and a little jingle bell sewn into them. So we had to tactical him up. So we took the hat off. We took the jingle bell out.

And we named him Percy. I won't tell you why we named him Percy. So Percy would ride in my in my breast pocket of my shirt on every off we went on after that. So one day we were, we were double. I think there's five or six of us in the team and we had pushed out to watch an objective. And we took the second floor of this building and we had strong pointed it. And we're like, well, you know, what if somebody was? walks by. You know, what if the Taliban

walked by then, you know, the best bet is, you know, how do we get them to stop? So what we did was we put Percy on the trail with a little note when we thought that would grab anybody's attention. I won't say what was on the note.

What was on the note? I won't say what was on the note. But, you know, fortunately for the Taliban, they didn't walk by that day, but yeah, I still have Percy somewhere. I think we have a viewer question for you, Dee, if you want to read that off for them. From Al, what's Barry's opinion on the modernization plans for the Canadian Army?

I mean, from friends that I still have in the Army, and there's been a lot of media about it with, you know, the Prime Minister saying he's going to meet to meet the 2% spending. And I think they're going in the right direction. I think we need to get more current. I think we always have sort of been a little bit behind in as far as procurement. But I think we always make up that where we just, we have top-notch soldiers. we're cross-trained and you know we have the ability to act in in so many different roles and

because we're such a small force um you know we we need to have that capability and we need to keep that capability and and i know we are um i've got friends that are on uh you know they're they're in latvia with um doing training missions throughout there and uh guys that i had served with And, you know, from them, they're telling me is that, you know, they're going in the right direction. They're keeping the standards high. And, you know, Canada, we're going to continue to be a top-notch professional force, you know, as we go into the, as we go into the next, whatever the next theater of operations is. Guys, thank you for joining us tonight. Is there anything else that we haven't talked about that you'd really like to bring up, either one of you?

Yeah, I just want to point out, I didn't go to a ranger school because people like Barry got my slot. You're blaming the dirty foreigners, the Canadians. The Canadians took your job, Mir. Is that what you're saying? That's definitely what it is. That's why I had to move to Canada, so I can be one of them. But anyway, no, but it was great. You know, I mean, it's really great to hear Barry talk about this in some detail. And, you know, the book did take on and off 15 years to do. do and the best decision that I made and they made is that they decided to be part of it. Because I think when you read the stalking chapter that Barry wrote, for example, I mean,

that's the nitty gritty. If nothing else, you learn something. And then, you know, if Gordon had the opportunity to make it today, we could, we could have talked about what a nerd he is and the human computer that he is. And, you know, he wrote some very interesting chapters about what it takes to be one and weapons and, you know, all the gadgets and things like that. that and he talked a little bit about the future of sniping, which is in the book. So if you're interested in that, you can read up on that. And I remember what was very funny is when Gordon told me about this, he was attending some five-eye thing in Washington, D.C. with a bunch of other people.

And they were talking about long range, you know, drone, AI, that kind of stuff. And shots at four clicks and things like that. And they were talking about the challenges for the future with all that for the sniper. And he said to two British officers behind him said, well, we'll just send in drones. And Gordon was really funny. And he said, you know, it really crushed our sniper hearts that these guys said that they'd send in drones instead of us. But he remains optimistic about the human involvement in sniping, even if it's super long range,

even if it involves AI and drones and what have you not. I think the key thing for me that I've taken away from all of this is the thing that you can't replace, which is that intangible human element, right? You look at someone like Barry, read a stalking chapter. You can just imagine the pain or like any of us, you know, when we've gone through certain types of selection. The pain you're willing to put up with it and understand and you get from that is, I think, what sets snipers and elite forces, and I will consider Canadian snipers to be absolutely elite, that sets them apart from most people, and I'm not belittling drone operators or people who work in

AI, but there's something to be said about the human spirit, the intangible element of a guy like a Barry, like a Gord, like you, you know, who've gone and done the work without, technically speaking, without a drone, a little bit of AI maybe. And I take it back. You did guys. You did, guys did use some drones but you know limited you still needed to have your skill set and all that so just saying human element is always key in the future and i think jack like the big the big thing with this book is you know you know Hollywood Hollywood TV there's this myth you know about you know the sniper and it's about it's always about making that shot right and what what what this book does is it It teaches you and it tells stories about what it takes to get up to that point to be able to take that shot.

The training that we have to go through, you know, the stalking, the shooting, the judging distance, that, you know, the mental, the mental toll that it takes, the physical toll that it takes, you know, just to get to that point to say, I'm a, I'm a sniper, you know, I'm a Canadian sniper. And then the book, it just takes you through missions and we're not glorifying them. You know, it's gritty, it's raw. You know, sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. And that is all in the book. You know, those stories are in the book. It's not, it's just not a glorified version. It's honest.

It's true. And, you know, I think anyone who reads the book will, you know, we'll see that and there's and there's just um you know so many great stories in it you know and i'll give a shout out to uh you know yves badard who is another guy who i was on two tours with who wrote a chapter in in the book as well and um yeah he's b it's just the the perspectives in the stories in the book are um you know i just think they're they're honest and they're raw and they're I think people will find them really engaging. The last thing I want to add to this is something Barry told me a long time ago that's stuck in my head, actually.

He said, Afghanistan didn't define him, but it refined him. And somehow that's always stuck with me. I don't know. It was a great line. I want to say about the book also that it's kind of a weird book, you know, usually sniper books about one guy who does all these wonderful things in his mind, maybe in reality. But this book is sort of part manual, part mental examination, and then it's coupled with real world missions. And I think that's what sets it apart. And it's got different perspectives on it.

I think in total we had four people in there plus me who've contributed in some manner or anything. But I think it's very representative of the entire Canadian sniping community. I think I'm right on that. And the book is titled Send It, Canada's Snipers, That War in Afghanistan. Dan, guys, where can people find the book? When's it coming out? The book is out now, Jack. And currently it's available on Amazon.

Or, well, basically that's on Amazon right now. Yeah, and Kindle. You can get paperback and Kindle. So I would suggest, of course, the book. Because I'm still old-fashioned. I'd like to hold things in my hand. I know. And it's doing well.

It's gotten good reviews. And I'm very happy with the book, actually. And I'm very pleased about the writing Gord, Barry, and B had done for the book. It really makes it unique. So anyone who wants to know anything about sniping, Canadian or otherwise should really be reading this book. When we had lunch years ago, Mir, I remember showing you my Kindle and you were just befuddled by this contraption. What is that? Like, you read books on this thing?

Like, what? I'm still kind of like that, you know. I mean, you're only seeing parts of it, but I got something like three plus thousand books behind me and I need a ladder to reach my books. I get it, I get it, man. So I love books, but it's, you know, the future really, I think, belongs to Kindle or Kobo or whatever. I don't have to look stuff around. My personal preference is I like to read novels on my Kindle and nonfiction books like send it. I will buy and put on my bookshelf.

And I should give you a shout out. You've got a book, a novel coming out next year. Barry is working on a novel. I'm working on a novel. So we're all sort of still doing the writing gig, which is always exciting. Great. We'll talk about those projects more down the line, I'm sure. For all of our listeners, we'll have links down the description to send it where you can go and find it. Do you guys have any social media that you want to plug before we go? I only have a website. Barry also has a website, but I think he's on, do you have social media, Barry? Yeah, I've got at Send It Book on Instagram.

You can follow that. And I've got my website, Barry C-Nisbit.com. You can also get the book through there. There's a link on there straight to Amazon. Awesome. That sounds great. So thank you both of you for joining us tonight, being flexible, and hanging with us.

Really appreciate it. I know our viewers will too. And for all of you out there, we'll see you guys next time. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Jack. Thanks, Dee.

Hey, guys. I want to tell all of you today about a new newsletter that we're launching that encompasses both the Team House podcast, the Eyes On podcast, and the high side news outlet, which I run with Sean Naylor. The newsletter is going to be once a week.

It's going to come into your inbox and you're going to get the most current podcasts on Aizon and the Team House and whatever's topical or current on the high side. So it's another way for us to get the information out to you as social media algorithms are pretty iffy and you never really know what you're going to get. So this is a once a week email. It'll slide into your inbox and it will have the greatest hits of that week. It's really good, man. Checking it out. The website for it is teamhousepodcast.kitt.com slash join. Teamhousepodcast.com slash join.

You go there and you enter into your email list or you enter your email into the little thing on the website and you're good to go and that'll be it. So we really appreciate your support and hope you'll consider signing up. Where's the link? The link will also be down in the description if you're looking for it there. And that's teamhousepodcast. Dot, K-I-T-K-L-O-IndiaTango.com backslash join.