381: Fighting The Odds and Trauma, With Kelsi Sheren.

Founder and CEO of Brass & Unity, host of The Brass & Unity Podcast. Brass & Unity was started in 2016 as a way to help fellow soldiers. After serving in Afghanistan as an Artillery Gunner at 19 years old and losing friends during battle, Kelsi came home with PTSD. After 7 years of anger and pain she decided to use her struggle for good, and try to help others through their struggle. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 381 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Also, joining us tonight is Kelsey Sharon, who was in the Canadian Army. She served in Afghanistan and she was actually on this podcast before number 288. And you may notice that podcast number 288 is not actually available. Because after it was released, I was contacted by some of the soldiers that she served with. And they asked if I would edit the podcast to not include some of the names of people

• 0:42Jocko Willink?

  involved in this specific operation that we talked about on the podcast. Because they didn't want some of the details about events that had occurred to be revealed to families of the wounded and families of the fallen. There were also some disagreements as to what had happened in combat. And specifically to what Kelsey had done and had not done. And so my immediate reaction was just to take down the podcast. Very obviously, because the families of the fallen are the priority. And so we took it down, we tried to edit that out.

• 1:28Jocko Willink?

  We also tried to edit out some of the contradicting stories of what had occurred in combat. And so we tried to take some of those out.

• 1:38Jocko Willink?

  And once it was all edited and cut up, in the end, after we'd removed a bunch of the material, the podcast just didn't make sense anymore. So we just, we kept it down. And, and, and then because we were kind of gonna put it up and then we didn't put it up, I am at fault for not ever putting an explanation as to why we pulled it down and why I didn't repost it. And it left Kelsey in a bad spot because of my actions. So ultimately, and this was important to me, the soldiers that served with Kelsey, even, and these are, these are soldiers that reached out to me and even the ones who had a very different perspective as to what had happened during this particular operation.

• 2:23Jocko Willink?

  Even those soldiers told me that Kelsey.

• 2:27Jocko Willink?

  Had performed very well in her role and they were appreciative of what she had done and were appreciative of what she'd been through and most important to me, they said that Kelsey had been a good soldier in combat. And because of that, and because I know that Kelsey has helped people deal with their own trauma, I wanted to take this opportunity to get Kelsey back on here again and discuss her experiences at a high level and how she has gotten through and managed with her post-traumatic stress that she's been through.

• 3:10Jocko Willink?

  So with that, Kelsey, thanks for coming back.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me back. Oh, I like to catch people off guard there, don't you? I honestly didn't think that was gonna happen.

• 3:24Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I mean, I just wanted, I felt that I never explained to anybody why I pulled the last podcast down and I just wanted to make sure people understood why I did and that it wasn't through any fault of yours and that, you know, we pulled it down, we tried to edit it, it was a bunch of, it just ended up not really making sense. And so I figured the best thing to do would be leave it down and I know, and I also know that I dragged, I kind of dragged my feet on that and I kept saying, well, let us try and edit it again and it just, it just never came out good.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  I think, to be completely transparent with you, it's one thing to take it down. I think I just should have been told before.

• 4:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  It went three weeks and the only reason, the only reason I'm bringing it up is it actually just, the saddest part for me wasn't the fallout of like the, the loss of speaking gigs, the first book deal, it wasn't the blacklist from people in the community, it wasn't the Reddit pages, it wasn't the one guy that wrote you that email who walked it back after I threatened a defamation lawsuit. Wasn't any of that. It was that I got an opportunity after your show. That was a game changer. And for a podcaster, to get the opportunity to go sit with someone like Lex Friedman, was a big, big fucking deal.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  And I had done something during the pullout that I actually wrote about in this afterwards, because a lot of things have happened since, and so let me just finish this thought and then I'll go through. I think the thing that fucked me up the most wasn't that any of that stuff had happened. It was that I would tell this person who I just, who just met me, who spent five hours recording with me and then took me out for dinner for my birthday, shut a restaurant down and built a friendship with, all to turn around and look at me and say, "You lied to me, you used me, and because of that, I'm not going to talk to you till he puts it back up."

• 5:35Speaker 01

  That broke my heart. Because I build relationships in this space, and this was the first time my character had ever been, ever been questioned by fucking anyone. And so, I looked up to, and still do, I looked up to you. Like, when I met you, sorry, Echo, you're a great deal too, man, but when I met you, it was a big deal. Because I look up to you from a military standpoint. You're a podcaster, and I'm a podcaster, and there's levels to that game, I get that. But I looked up to you, the man, the guy, the Navy SEAL, right? And for me, I knew you, what you, you explained to me what you were doing and why you were doing it.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  But then I had 13 pages of proof and written statements from five different people, including my platoon sergeant, my radio comms, my medic, who confirmed everything and disproved everything in that email. Everything, every last point. Then I had five videos. And then it went fucking dark, and I had no one I could get a hold of. That pissed me off, because I was like... This guy has his boot on my fucking neck. And I've expressed what's going on. I've expressed how bad this fucked me up. And then I got through that, and then when the Lex fallout happened, that broke me.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Because I was building a friendship with someone who was willing to take time to help me kind of move through this space in a way where it was like, learn from mistakes. It was like somebody I could trust and I could start to talk to and be like, "Hey, man, I'm doing this episode. Like, I'm working on this. What, you know, how's this edit?" Or like this. Like, he was willing to become a friend, not just like a guy's person. I went on his show and whatever, right? So that for me fucked me up. So the fallout actually from Lex was like what hurt? It was more disappointment that I wasn't contacted first, because I know how you two roll and I know how this show rolls. And that's not how you guys do things. So that fucked me up because when all of a sudden I started getting inundated online,

• 7:45Speaker 01

  and I got hit and I got drug through the mud, like, I got fucked and I got fucked hard because of this one guy. And after I threatened him with a lawsuit, he shut it down, fucking apologized, walked it back. So then what it actually did give me the opportunity to do, because I don't believe there's losses, and I don't believe that anybody goes through shit, so there's not a learning lesson on the end of this. This taught me a lot of patience. A lot of patience. I had to learn a lot. I had to learn about how I was going to learn to respond to things, so I'm appreciative for that. It gave me the opportunity to go back and call every motherfucker that stood side by side with me and get written statements and put it in this book. It got more photos. It got more videos. It got everything. And then the family members that he said

• 8:30Speaker 01

  that didn't approve that, I got written letters from them. So Hopo and McLaren and every dude I say, I've got written proof that I can say their names everywhere I go. So I'm not showing up as this person who, who, eh, maybe kinda said she did what she said. It's like, I will beat somebody with this book. There's so much proof in it and evidence. It's disgusting. So I, it gave me the opportunity to show up for myself in a different way. And it really did. And it taught me a lot.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Patience, patience, so much fucking patience. It, but I won't lie to you when I say when it, the fallout happened, I allowed, I said this on Cleared Hot a couple of weeks ago, I allowed the trolls to eat me alive. Like, I mean, spin me out of control. Like, had to go sit in the jungle in Peru and work on some serious shit because I could not move through it. And what got to me was like, all these dudes that are friends of mine, who are also mutual friends with you. And I'd be like, I know you're seeing him this weekend, can you say something? Just ask him where it is. And they'd be like, no one wanted to piss you off. And I was like, oh, I see. So, I waited it out.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  And then finally this year, I, and I, when I say I moved past it, I moved past it. I went away in, uh, July, had to. I was a walking, ticking time bomb. And all that time that this happened, right after you and I sat down, my husband almost died. And we had to figure out and get a, like a diagnosis of a TBI, go down to Texas, use Defenders of Freedom, go do all this TBI treatment. So he was like, literally dying and falling apart. I was losing my business because I lost so much fucking respect in the community. Abbotsford Police canceled on me, major universities canceled on me. And it was all, until Jaco puts it back up. Even Lex had to put a statement on his episode with me. I am aware that Jaco has taken the episode down and is to edit out the names of the families.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  And so like, even on my like, last stuff, so I had to realize, I can't read comments. I can't fucking listen to anyone unless it's five people around me. And if, if they say I'm doing the right thing and I'm focusing and I'm on the right path and I'm being a person I, I can be proud to wake up every morning to be, then that's fine. Everyone else is just fucking noise. And I've, that, I had to learn that. And so, as fucked up as this whole situation was, and I know exactly why it happened, like, I know exactly why it happened. This is what happens when individuals who are mentally unwell, who don't deal with their trauma, don't deal with their hurt, don't deal with their war pain. This is what happens when people stay here and don't get help.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  And then the people that do, that go up here. Who have gotten help? That shows, that's just their ego talking. They're pissy because they're not in the situation I'm in. Look where I'm sitting. This is round two. I'm fucking lucky. I know that. But it didn't come from not working. It didn't come from not trying. It didn't come from not putting the fucking effort in even on the days I didn't want to put the effort in. So if you have a problem with me sitting in this chair, don't write anonymous letters. Fucking say it to my face. Cause you won't. No one will. No one will even try. Because I can back up everything I say. And I have no issue with it. So it taught me a lot and I'm okay with that. Now I am. It wasn't for a hot minute.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Like

• 12:01Speaker 01

  24/7 rage.

• 12:03Jocko Willink?

  Full rage.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Fucking Brady would, I'd just have a smile on my face. And he'd be like, what is your problem today? I'd be like, nothing. He's like, you're vibrating anger. Like

• 12:18Speaker 01

  everything in me. Because I had no fucking recourse. I had nothing I could do. And then we, this Christmas, Brady was like, we're getting you a new watch. And I was like, whatever. He's like, we're taking old Apple things back. I was like, okay. So I found my old computer. Just happened to have three more videos I didn't know I had. And they weren't like crazy videos, but it was like a pan shot with me with every guy I said I was and Major Calhoun. And then my platoon sergeant. And you could hear me talking. And then there was another one with one of the guys and there was like artillery going over top. And so I had no recourse. So I had to text your wife. She's like, please don't text me anymore. And I was like, I don't want to do this.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  But I don't have another recourse other than showing up at your gym like a psychopath. Which was like

• 13:08Speaker 01

  This close. So, yeah, I'm not happy about it, but I'm also surprised that you said what you said, so I can appreciate that. That's taking accountability. So, thank you.

• 13:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna err on, you know, like, for me, it wasn't even, as soon as I got an email, that, like, the families of the fallen, I was like, pull it down. Like, that was it. That's all I need to hear. And that's knee jerk, cool. I'm gonna knee jerk like that every single time. And then everything else, I just had to just try and muddle through, and we tried to get it to where it was like, a leaner podcast, and it just ended up being not very presentable.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  No, fine with that, but tell me that.

• 13:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Tell me that, not a year and a half later. Tell me that, tell me that, so I don't spin out of control. Tell me, hey, guess what? We tried. We did try. It was, it's just too lean, it's not, our show's not good enough, come re-record it. And the only reason, I think it was even on the radar, is because I had to message your wife those videos. I said, I'm sorry, I don't want to be doing this. I don't want to be texting you right now.

• 14:16Jocko Willink?

  You might be the last person that ever gets my wife's.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  Because it's like, from a couple of years ago.

• 14:23Jocko Willink?

  Phone number.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:24Jocko Willink?

  She's, because she doesn't like this kind of thing.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  And I don't like it either. I didn't, but you got to understand, I didn't like it either, man.

• 14:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  I wasn't happy about it either. But I had done the, try to go through the friends thing, but everyone's afraid of you. I tried the, no one wants to piss you off and get on the wrong radar. Literally, I had seven separate people we know say that to me. So I was like, okay, I got no choice. I said, hey, I just got these videos, I don't want to bother you, but Jack's not responding. So what do I do? So she was like, here, I will get him to respond, like, 30 seconds. She must have just called him and been like, fucking deal with this. So, I don't care, whatever got it done, got it done. But I can tell you, I'm persistent, and I won't, it's my name. So why wouldn't I be? This isn't something small. This is who I am on this planet.

• 15:07Jocko Willink?

  Alright, so you're back, you're here.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  I am.

• 15:11Jocko Willink?

  Let's talk through your life, which is how the book is laid out. Starts in the beginning.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  It does.

• 15:20Jocko Willink?

  Canadian girl, talk to me.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, I mean fortunately and unfortunately nowadays, it's not as proud to say it as it used to be. But uh, yeah, I'm from a small town, from a really small town called Campbellford. And it's a farm town, born and raised like 45 minutes from there. And um, my parents are truck drivers, just like normal everyday, hardworking people. And um, I grew up there and I started fighting when I was about four. So taekwondo and martial arts were my life up until about 19. I took a brief gap there when I was a teenager and then got back into it and I was in the military. But um, my mom decided it was gonna be, it was gonna be a thing where you know, my kids are never gonna just have nothing to do. So they're constantly gonna be in a sport and then you know, they're gonna be an athlete of some type.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  So for me, it ended up being soccer and taekwondo and then very quickly moved into just taekwondo. And that became taekwondo every other day to every day to two a day to coaching to training to national level. And I just, I ran through it. There was something about being able to control the situation yourself and something about, for me, it was always the smallest version. I was always the smallest version of like the weight class or like whatever we were fighting. And so it was like, there was always that underdog type tone to my life. There was never a um, oh yeah, she's, that's a given, that's a given, you know what I mean? So for me, I really liked the fact that I could have to show up. I like to be challenged and I like to show up when I say I'm gonna show up and that's in anything.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  So, so I moved through that stage of uh, taekwondo quite well. I did very good, uh, didn't lose a lot when I was younger, which was really nice. Um, and then when you did lose, that was a hard learned lesson, which was never fun. Um, I remember the last time I lost, I was Uh, kicked in the face. I just woke up on the ground. It was like full.

• 17:08Jocko Willink?

  What are the rules when you're a kid doing Taekwondo? How does it work?

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Um, so for me, you, um, oh geez, it's gonna be a little different than it is now because things have changed a bit. But for me, I could fight, uh, girls and boys up until like 11, 12. And for me, we couldn't, you weren't allowed to get, at least in my club, we weren't allowed to get a black belt till a minimum of like 11 or 12. So, and that was, you know, you had to start way, it's kinda like jiu-jitsu, you gotta go, go a hot minute with it and work all the way through the belt. So, um, you know, there wasn't a lot of, now it's different because they use an electronic, uh, sensor system for the Olympics and stuff like that. So when you're fighting, you have sensors on your, on your feet, almost like a sock, and then your hogu's have sensors.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  And then the head shots are just three points. So the hogu's would, if your foot doesn't hit perfectly, it doesn't score. So when I was fighting, that kinda came in a little later on. So when I was fighting, if you were aggressive enough and you kicked hard enough, even if someone blocked it and you key up really loud with it, it was like, you know, because there was refs in like each corner, you would, you would get a point. Guy didn't quite see it, this guy would mark it. Head shots are obvious, you can always kinda see those. But as I got older and got through that, that started to come into the system. And then, um, ultimately, in my last couple of years, that was how the system worked and I didn't like it.

• 18:25Jocko Willink?

  Can you get in trouble in Taekwondo for kicking someone too hard, like in the head? I thought that was part of it. I thought it was like you, do you know this, Eko? You never did this? I, I thought you couldn't, I thought you weren't supposed to like, full on knock someone out. You weren't supposed to kick people in the head.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  Head shots were super important. They're three points. I mean, you don't kick them in the back of the head. The back of the head is like the hard no, like you don't try to do it. I don't think you're supposed to try and take someone's head off anyway, but it happens where somebody could be in to do like a spin kick and another person could be coming in and it just claps right at this right time and just hits the jaw.

• 18:58Jocko Willink?

  I mean, I've definitely seen people get knocked out in Taekwondo matches, but it always seemed like. It was a bad thing. Like, they were like, oh, this guy got knocked out and like it shouldn't have happened.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  Really?

• 19:10Jocko Willink?

  Maybe I'm reading it wrong.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  No, no, I mean.

• 19:13Jocko Willink?

  I never did Taekwondo.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  There might, yeah. There, there might be, uh, maybe a, a truth to that in somewhere, but I mean, where I grew up, it was very much like, headshots are three points.

• 19:21Jocko Willink?

  How much is a body shot?

• 19:22Speaker 01

  I think it's just one. I mean, I haven't fought in a long time, so bear with me here. Last time I fought, I was nineteen.

• 19:27Jocko Willink?

  Uh huh.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  So.

• 19:28Jocko Willink?

  So you're, so you accumulate points, how, like, how long do you, how long is a round?

• 19:32Speaker 01

  So, yeah, they go by rounds and then I know once you hit black belt or a certain level or certain weight, um, like a certain level, you move, you do like three rounds. So it'd be like, for me, when you're younger, it was like two rounds, like, forty-five seconds in between each rounds, like a minute, sometime, sometimes a minute and a half. And then there's one ref in the middle and then to be, scorekeepers on the corners, then you have your coach and your coach here. And then when you hit like a certain level, then it's three rounds, forty-five second in between and it's like two minute or one and a half minute, kind of rounds. Um, but for me, it was like, I always aim for the head. It's the most points. You know, if you can get someone, you don't want to, you don't want to try to break their face. I mean, head, head here, this is more of like an axe kick when you're coming down, something along those lines where you slap the face and that's how noses get broke a lot, but,

• 20:17Speaker 01

  um, I was never discouraged. It was never like, try not to kill someone. Like, don't, don't try to go out and like rip their head off, but like, cause you need to be able to pull your leg back so that you can get back at it. But I knew people who they would, they would come in, they roundhouse somebody, but then they would do this thing where they kind of like, take their hip and drag their foot with it. So then the head kind of goes with it, which I never liked. I think that was really an asshole move, but.

• 20:41Jocko Willink?

  Cause it was like too much.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:42Jocko Willink?

  You already got your points.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Hey, get fucking snap back. The whole point is like, quick snap, move, right, bounce, quick snap, move. And so when, when that, that's just seems, seems silly to me.

• 20:52Jocko Willink?

  So you're doing Taekwondo. At your peak, how many hours a day of Taekwondo were you training?

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Oh, that was national level. So I was fair, I mean, I was like twelve, thirteen. Um, I was doing a minimum of an hour in the morning. So my mom would take me in the morning and it would be me and like one or two other girls that would train with my, my coach. And then my mom would stay and then she would take me to school. And then the odd time, depending on the day, I would go at lunch, just to do like a thirty minute, cause my school is walking distance to my club. So it was perfect. And then after school, I would do a training session, but then I also did like. I would coach, like, so I would train, I would do, I would teach some classes, kind of like payment. So once I hit black belt, that's when I could start teaching and just helping out and like supporting the club. So I would train my class, but then afterwards I would stay and like help

• 21:37Speaker 01

  coach and teach and then I would go home. And then it got to a point where it, my parents lived forty-five minutes from the club. So what I would do is I'd, I'd bus in, or my mom would drop me off in, and then I would stay for a couple of days a week with my coaches at their house. And I would just live with them, because they were husband and wife. So at that, and it was, and that was easy. And then they would take me to school, and then I would help with their daughter. It was just kind of, it just kind of worked out well. So I was probably at my peak. And then when I was in the military, the last, right before Afghanistan, I fought a little bit, in that kids' age, and then, uh, did a little after, and then after that, I, I, weight, weight classes, man. We were just talking about this with Rebecca Rouse, uh, she's here, and we're

• 22:19Speaker 01

  talking about like weight classes and like having to go up or go down, like that, as a female, once you get past puberty, is rough on the system. And like, it's doable, and everybody can cut weight, but it's like, at a certain point, it's like, it affects your hormones, it's unhealthy, and it's like, I didn't want to do that anymore. I didn't want to be in a sauna, with fucking suit on, skipping.

• 22:36Jocko Willink?

  What weight class were you?

• 22:37Speaker 01

  Oh, man, when I was tiny, I was like, I was tiny thin, so I was like seventy-six pounds? And that, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then when you move up, I, I think I would have been, I fought flyweight, which I should have been thin, but I fought fly, because I was like on the bubble, and it was the US Open in Las Vegas, so I wasn't sure if I was gonna make weight. I was like teetering, and I was really struggling to cut. Like, I couldn't, I couldn't seem to get that one extra pound without it really hurting, like the hydration.

• 23:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, when you're seventy-six pounds, like, one pound is a lot of weight.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Well, when I fought in the, yeah, well, that was when I was a bit younger, but when I fought in Vegas, it was, it was flyweight. So I think it was like one oh eight, and then the next one down was one oh three. And so I was, I was teetering at like, one oh three, one oh four, and I was like, I couldn't, I couldn't seem to get that one pound. And if you didn't make weight, you just don't fight. That's just it. So I was like, well, I don't want to risk it, so I'll just move up to flyweight. What a living hell mistake that was. Because everyone is, my weight, who's like up to one oh eight, but like, five-seven, five-eleven. So my first round was with a girl from Chinese Taipei, and she just... Fucking just came out and just kept me in at a distance with her headshots. Just fucking pop, one after the other, pop.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  I'm getting nowhere here. So I finally do get inside, but I'm, I was never really trained with that system. So when I kick, I can kick hard and I can pivot really fast, but I don't necessarily, my foot doesn't sit perfectly. Where the sensor's on the top of the foot with the hogu, so it's not scoring. So I'm just getting frustrated. She just keeps kicking me. I had, I lost my first round. I was like, oh, I was like, I don't want to do this anymore.

• 24:07Jocko Willink?

  And that was what age?

• 24:09Speaker 01

  Uh, nineteen.

• 24:11Jocko Willink?

  And are you, uh, when you're in high school, are you doing good in school, like from a grades perspective?

• 24:15Speaker 01

  No, I'm a terrible, uh, terrible in school. I, uh, yeah, no, for me for school, like I got into, I just stopped taekwondo, um, right as I went into high school. And it was like the worst time for that to happen, right? Cause it was my entire identity and my coach went to prison. And then I, after that, I didn't trust anyone. So I wouldn't train with anyone. So then I was just angry.

• 24:33Jocko Willink?

  And your coach went to prison for molesting someone?

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Yes, well, they, so she was my training partner. And she was like a year or two older than me and it went on for two years. It was called a relationship slash statutory rape. So he went to prison for statutory rape of a minor.

• 24:51Jocko Willink?

  And then you're, don't have a coach anymore?

• 24:53Speaker 01

  Don't have a coach, don't trust anyone.

• 24:54Jocko Willink?

  And that happened as you went to high school?

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Right at that pivotal like transition point there.

• 25:00Jocko Willink?

  So then you get to high school and you're, you're not very great at school?

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Listen, I, I was, because when I was in school, like the deal was like, I could do my homework. I could train. My dad was a truck driver. So I would go with him for a couple of weeks at a time and I'd do a book report. Teachers were pretty good. I, I wasn't like a failing student. I was like, if I applied myself, I would have been an A student. But like, I didn't like what I was learning. I never enjoyed it. So same problem everyone else had. So when I went into high school, I went, I was in a Catholic school, an elementary, but then I went into like a Catholic Catholic school, whereas like religion was a class and you had to wear a kilt. Girls had to wear the kilts. I don't like kilts. I'm not a kilt person. Sorry, Dean. But kilts are just weird. And so I had to go into this school and I, I was angry. I was super angry.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Um, I didn't trust anyone, didn't trust men. That's for damn sure. And I just thought everyone was gonna let me down. Everyone's gonna let me down. Everyone's gonna fuck with me. That's just like how life is like. The person I trusted the most, like he started training me at four, him and his wife. His wife was a world champion. She was a bad dude. She was like such a good fighter. Um, and he was a huge, huge fighter. Like this guy was prominent. Our grandmasters and our masters were coming from Toronto. So I was like, I trusted this guy. And then that just ruined it all. So then I started, uh, I started playing rugby. And then, I mean, that's where a lot of the rage, that's where a lot of the rage would come out. Which was perfect for me because I was small enough that I could be a fly half or a scrum and I could, you know, I could, I could run. So I really got into that in high school and then started focusing on that for a little bit.

• 26:33Jocko Willink?

  And women's rugby I know is the same as men's rugby. Is girls rugby the same as boys rugby?

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Men's rugby the same as women's rugby is girls, boys, I, what do you mean?

• 26:44Jocko Willink?

  So I know that women's rugby.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:46Jocko Willink?

  There's the same rules. Like for instance, in, in women's lacrosse, it's different rules.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 26:51Jocko Willink?

  And it's a much different sport.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 26:53Jocko Willink?

  In girls lacrosse, same thing. It's a much different sport. Women's rugby is the same as, as men's rugby. Like it's full on. I don't know if girls rugby is the same as boys rugby, which boys rugby is the same thing.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's full on.

• 27:05Jocko Willink?

  Full on just tackle.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Yes. Oh, oh, oh, yeah. Like you mean like that. So I, I thought you meant like it was played a little differently, like because there's sevens and then there's fifteens.

• 27:13Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no. I meant like, I'd like the one, like, um, hockey.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Oh, like, cause we can't, we can't, we can't hit in hockey, but men can hit in hockey. Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, and women are vicious.

• 27:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I've watched, uh, women play rugby. Very impressive.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, they'll grab you by the ponytail and just pull you back from that and they'll just palm your face and there's no issues with that and everyone just, and you never want to be at the bottom of the scrum with women because they will in like intentionally take the metal cleats to your face. Like they, they love it. Um, I know women who pop their mouth because they're like bite, like it's, it's, it gets catty fast. Um, but yeah, I played. I played nine to grade nine to.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, after I got out of high school there. So I played for a while, played for a couple of different teams.

• 27:59Jocko Willink?

  And what did you, when you're, is it the same in high school in Canada? Like, do you have freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, and then you graduate at around age 18?

• 28:08Speaker 01

  I mean, I started, so grade, we went to, mine was, uh, one to ni- uh, one to eight for elementary and then nine to 12, and I graduated at 17.

• 28:17Jocko Willink?

  And that's your high school?

• 28:17Speaker 01

  That's it, high school, yeah.

• 28:18Jocko Willink?

  So that is the same as America. When you were, let's say, 15, what were you thinking you were gonna do with your life?

• 28:25Speaker 01

  That's the thing, I didn't have a plan. Because my whole plan, I was on the fighting path, like, that was my career. I wanted to be an athlete. I didn't, I was told I could do it. So, okay, I'm gonna do it. Like, that's what I wanted to do. I put my, my life, my passion, my everything into, I wanted to be a taekwondo fighter, I wanted to go to Pan Ams, I wanted to go to the Olympics, I wanted to represent Canada. Like, I always wanted to do that. That was never in my mind, that like, there was not a day, I think I tried a summer off. It lasted three days, four days, and I was doing sit-ups in the living room. My mom's like, okay, just go back. I couldn't do it, I couldn't stop. Um, and I loved it. So, that was the path, was athlete.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  Now, when I went into, to school and things like that, like, yeah, I didn't, give me as many phys ed classes as I can get. That's, that'll, that works for me. So, I didn't have a path, I didn't have a plan, I didn't, I mean, even now, when I think back, like, what would have I had done if I didn't join the military? I don't know. I, I don't know. I don't know if it would have been good. I don't, I mean, I have a type A personality, maybe I would have landed as a cop, like, I, I honestly, I can't picture anything else.

• 29:32Jocko Willink?

  So you were kinda wandering in high school?

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Super wandering, yeah, yeah. I had to wear a kilt, didn't like anyone.

• 29:39Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's right, because it was a Catholic school.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  Catholic school, had to go, had to do a religious-

• 29:42Jocko Willink?

  What kind of music did you like?

• 29:43Speaker 01

  Oh, I wish I brought photos, that's good. Um, I was into super emo, screamo, Alexis on Fire, like, that kinda stuff. I used to go to, like, concerts and listen to, like, As I Lay Dying, and like, mosh pits and the whole thing. So I was like, I was a dark, angry little ball of a human who just- Who needed an outlet really desperately?

• 30:05Jocko Willink?

  I I always kind of asked that question and I think it used to mean more than it does now because when I was a kid, which is I'm I'm I think I'm actually a lot older than you.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  I mean, you're not that much.

• 30:16Jocko Willink?

  Fifty one.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  It's just a number.

• 30:18Jocko Willink?

  So, but when I was younger, you really couldn't, there wasn't, like nowadays, people can listen to a wide genre of musics because it's kind of all on the internet. You can watch anything for free and you can get into different stuff. When I was a kid, you were basically only going to be into one, maybe two kinds of music. So if you knew what somebody was into, you kind of knew what they were like when they were, at least you have that part of their personality down. Nowadays, someone could be like, oh, yeah, I like, you know, I like Agnostic Front and I like the Bad Brains and I like some country western band and I like, uh, Taylor Swift. Sure. By the way. Yeah, sure.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  Who like, you like Taylor Swift?

• 30:55Jocko Willink?

  I don't, I was recently on a trip with one of my friends who's their daughter's a huge Taylor Swift fan. And so I was just listening to them talk about, I don't know. And they told me one song that I did recognize, but I don't know any Taylor Swift songs. I'm sorry, Taylor Swift, if you're listening to this, I just, I'm, and I have three daughters, so it's weird to not know. And I think they were kind of like Taylor Swift, you, am I, am I missing something?

• 31:19Speaker 01

  I feel like you, I feel like you probably know one, like if you would hear it.

• 31:22Jocko Willink?

  They told me one and I was like, oh, yeah, I recognize that song.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  Shake it off, is it the shake it off?

• 31:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think it was something like that. I was like, oh, it's a little catchy tune.

• 31:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:29Jocko Willink?

  But, but these days you can listen to like, actually I had a, I had a really good, you know, as a parent. Sure. I mean, you have some moments as a parent where you're like, all right, we're, we're doing something right. I walked into the garage gym the other day.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Oh, Jesus.

• 31:45Jocko Willink?

  And my thirteen year old daughter was in there doing squats and listening to Led Zeppelin.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  Oh, that's fantastic.

• 31:53Jocko Willink?

  So I can't walk back down to the house and like high five my wife and I said, we got something going here, you know, we're going in the right direction. My point is that, okay, so that was you, you had freaking, you were in the zone.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  I had, um, I used to have, uh, big spacers in my ears. I used to have twenty different earrings in here. I had three in my tongue, one in my nose, like.

• 32:13Jocko Willink?

  And this is in the Catholic school?

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Um, I started to, uh, I started to do my ears on my own with safety pins. Um, and then my mom would let me color my hair, whatever I wanted.

• 32:22Jocko Willink?

  What was the purpose for this?

• 32:24Speaker 01

  I liked, I like tattoos. I like piercings. I like, I don't know. I was always kind of like, it was also one of those things where it was like, my mom was like, just never pierce your face. Like, just don't pierce your face. And then she took me to get my nose pierced at fourteen. So like, you created a monster. You gave me permission. Now I'm just gonna, I'm gonna see how far that permission can go.

• 32:44Jocko Willink?

  And when you look back, was it like a rebellious thing? Like, you're trying to show your parents, like, hey, I'm a rebel. You can't really control me?

• 32:52Speaker 01

  No, I had a lot of-

• 32:54Jocko Willink?

  Is this what you were into?

• 32:55Speaker 01

  I just think I was into it. I had a lot of respect for my parents. Like, uh, my, my mom and I were so similar that we butted heads. Now I see it and understand why. It wasn't like I didn't like her. I mean, she was basically a single mom when my dad was on the road for a couple of weeks at a time, right? With two kids, in two different sports, and like, a boy and a girl, and like-

• 33:12Jocko Willink?

  What sports did the boy play?

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Uh, my brother was a motocross racer. Um, and then, what else did he do? Uh, he got into soccer a little bit. He tried taekwondo, but his hips are locked. They don't-

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Sorry, they're so bad. They don't move. Um, and then he got into football. Um, but racing, moto, moto was like, serious in our family. Dad would go with him on the weekends. Mom would go with me on the weekends. Like, it was serious. Yeah.

• 33:38Jocko Willink?

  So you're this little kind of, uh, pierced-faced-

• 33:42Speaker 01

  Angry ball.

• 33:43Jocko Willink?

  Angry kid, and then you graduate high school.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:46Jocko Willink?

  And now what are you doing when you graduate high school?

• 33:47Speaker 01

  So for me, I, uh, left that Catholic school halfway through, and I went to another school that was close to my parents. Um, that one was a little different. Played rugby there. That was, that was the farm town. That was like the, I was like the weirdo. Because I walked into the school and they're all like, wearing plaid button-up shirts, and they all like, work on farms. Like, they, you know, they all had that kind of vibe to them. Um, and, uh, until I started dating one of those people, and then it was like, oh, she's okay. Um, and then as, as you do in high school, you have like, you're, you're like, the worst breakup of what you think is gonna be your entire life. And I was like, I need out of this town. And then, uh-

• 34:24Jocko Willink?

  Wait, what did you just say?

• 34:25Speaker 01

  I need out of the town. Like, I just need to run away. Like, it's so dramatic. Um, and then I, I went to, uh, college in Ottawa. For the first program I could get accepted to at Algonquin, which was travel and tourism, which means- Nothing. I don't know what that means. Um, and then

• 34:43Jocko Willink?

  What year is this?

• 34:44Speaker 01

  That was oh seven.

• 34:46Jocko Willink?

  Okay. So oh seven, you're in your first year of college.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, my first month of college.

• 34:51Jocko Willink?

  Your first month of college.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I, I went to play soccer. I only made it about halfway through the tryouts, which worked out kind of perfect because then I went into my classes, hated them. November rolled around and then I went down to Remembrance Day and that's when I met the lady on the bus.

• 35:08Jocko Willink?

  And this woman was a military?

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:11Jocko Willink?

  And what was the initial contact? Was it eye contact? What was it?

• 35:16Speaker 01

  It was her uniform and how she carried herself. She was in the Air Force and she just had like the row of medals. And she just looked perfect. Like she just looked like you, you and you see in a movie where you have those like weird moments in movies where um, there's like the catalyst or the, the, the turning point in the movie where you look and there's like the lights kind of shining on them, the kind of the way they light it. Cause I know you like lighting. I'm talking to you for lighting here.

• 35:38Jocko Willink?

  Yes, ma'am.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:39Jocko Willink?

  She's talking echo by the way.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sorry.

• 35:41Jocko Willink?

  For people who are listening. Cause I don't care about lighting.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, he doesn't care about lighting.

• 35:44Jocko Willink?

  I understand.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's like, it's just one of those moments where it's kind of like, oh, like, I don't know. And I was drawn to her. I always, but I had always liked the mil- not the military, but I always like had this respect for soldiers. Like we, we always did Remembrance Day. Our schools always did it. We always wrote poems. We always participate. We always wear the poppy. You guys don't do poppies, but we do poppies, which is the red poppy on the, on the left. And then um, I don't know how long we're gonna be able to do that for anymore, but we're doing that still right now. And I just, I wanted to talk to her. She just had this kind of aura about her that just seemed like she was a cool person.

• 36:17Jocko Willink?

  And you had like a freaking black concert t-shirt on and piercings in your face. Did you go over to her and say something to her?

• 36:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did.

• 36:24Jocko Willink?

  And then what'd you say?

• 36:25Speaker 01

  I just said, I don't remember the exact words, but she ended up talking to me about her life a little bit. And um, she was like one of the first females that could fly and she had Served for like some, I mean, she was super old. I mean, she

• 36:38Jocko Willink?

  Meaning she was probably like forty?

• 36:40Speaker 01

  No, she was like, like legit, like, did you do time in NOM slash, did you do time further on? Like, she shouldn't be on the bus by herself, like, maybe she needs some assistance, kinda elderly type?

• 36:51Jocko Willink?

  So she was just in her uniform for?

• 36:53Speaker 01

  It was Remembrance Day.

• 36:54Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  It was Remembrance Day, yeah, no, just because she sits on the bus and strolls.

• 36:58Jocko Willink?

  Well, I thought maybe she was active duty.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  No, god, no.

• 37:00Jocko Willink?

  So she was older, she was much older.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, much, much older, no, no, no, she, um, it was Remembrance Day, so that's November eleventh, so that's Veterans Day for you guys. So you guys say happy Veterans Day, right?

• 37:10Jocko Willink?

  I, there's, there's some level of controversy about this. I don't know.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:15Jocko Willink?

  I, I, I, yeah, there's some controversy about Veterans Day, about what you, this proper salutation, and what you should say, or what you shouldn't say. I think the happy Veterans Day, I think is okay, because it's supposed to be appreciative of veterans.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  So not for us, though.

• 37:32Jocko Willink?

  But not for Memorial Day, right? So you shouldn't say happy Memorial Day, because it's like a day of remembrance. So you guys have

• 37:38Speaker 01

  That is our day.

• 37:39Jocko Willink?

  That is your remembrance, so you wouldn't say it there.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  No, no, we don't have a Memorial Day, so we, Remembrance Day is like the day

• 37:46Jocko Willink?

  That's Memorial Day.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's Memorial Day, but on November eleventh for us. So she was down there, and I go to those ceremonies a lot, like, I always go. My mom and dad used to take us, like, just teaching us, like, we have to go pay a respect, like, this is what we do. You shake their hand, you say thank you for your service, and you live your life. Like, it's like an hour ceremony, you stop at eleven, everyone stops, that's it. So I was on my way back, uh, from the ceremony, so she must have been going the same direction. And I was on the bus, and I just chatted with her, and I got off, and like, again, like this movie moment where you feel this kind of like pulled to something that you don't really understand why, and just decided I was gonna join the army.

• 38:24Jocko Willink?

  And then you go to a recruiter, like, how, how long does that process take?

• 38:27Speaker 01

  It went fast for me. So I went into the recruiter's office like the next week, did a little bit of Googling, um, went into the recruiter's office in, uh, Gatineau, outside of the Gatineau Mall there, and I walked in and said I wanted to join the military, and I wanted to do something on the front lines. And she was like, okay, but

• 38:46Speaker 01

  Fuck does that mean? Um, and then she said, but here's the thing, like anything that you, if you do your paperwork, anything that you join, anything that if it's on the front lines, truly like a front lines position, like it's dag red. Meaning like, we need people, so you will deploy.

• 39:00Jocko Willink?

  But you said dag red?

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Like dagged red. So like you'd be like dag green or dag red, meaning deployable, non-deployable. And like for red was like, we, they needed people in the service because that was rotating the most. Like those are the bases that were turning people every like six months, a new base would go and replace and rip out. And then it'd be a new set of, new, new set of Canadians. So, um, so I picked one of the, uh, one of the jobs initially, they said, and they said I was too small. And then I picked artillery and they're like, okay. But I was like, but infantry is too small, but artillery fits. And they're like, yeah. How much does the round weigh? Hundred pounds. Okay. It makes sense, logic.

• 39:36Jocko Willink?

  Do you weigh more than a hundred pounds?

• 39:38Speaker 01

  I do now. Yeah, yeah. Right now I'm at one oh, one oh eight.

• 39:41Jocko Willink?

  Uh, then did you weigh more than a hundred pounds or probably around there?

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Probably around there because I still like, like when I, when I was in high school, going into college, like I was still very much an athlete. Like when I, I didn't just like play rugby for fun. Like I still raced moto, I still ran, I still did everything, like stayed really up on my fitness. That was something that like I needed to be doing. It was a big part of my identity. And then I went and tried out for the college soccer team. So like I was fit, I was fairly fit.

• 40:07Jocko Willink?

  So you were good to go.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 40:08Jocko Willink?

  And then you, they said no to infantry.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:11Jocko Willink?

  Cause you're too small.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think they were more worried about weight. Just like constant carrying of the weight.

• 40:17Jocko Willink?

  For sure. It's freaking brutal.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:20Jocko Willink?

  You know, um.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  There's no other way to put it.

• 40:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And if you're, that would be, you know, me carrying a hundred pounds is half my body weight. You carrying a hundred pounds is your body weight. That means me carrying 200 pounds. Or actually I weigh 225.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:33Jocko Willink?

  That's going to freak out and listen to be like, yeah. Get it right. Get it right, brother. We've been through that before, haven't we? Uh, so I weigh 225 pounds.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 40:42Jocko Willink?

  And if I, that would mean I would have to carry 225 pounds, which 225 pounds for me to carry is really, really, really hard. That's a lot of weight to carry. So for someone to carry their body weight, it's a ton. So they say no to that, but then they say yes to artillery, which is also kind of interesting just because you're still gonna be carrying a ton of weight.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Which I did, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know their reasoning, but they said yes. So I said, okay, cool. Sounds great to me. I don't want to be in a tank. I'm claustrophobic. It's like a tin can. I don't like that. The idea of like, I think of like popcorn and like a microwave inside of a bag. I'm just like.

• 41:16Jocko Willink?

  The weird thing for you is you'd be like.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  Perfect.

• 41:19Jocko Willink?

  Kind of stoked in a tank.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  I was a RWS system gunner for the T Labs. So I love that.

• 41:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  I was in the turret just fucking underneath and everyone was all tight and I could fit all my gear on and not have to take anything off. It was perfect.

• 41:35Jocko Willink?

  How long before you left for boot camp?

• 41:36Speaker 01

  Oh, man, January that year.

• 41:38Jocko Willink?

  Like how long from I sign the papers to I'm leaving for boot camp?

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Uh, month and a half.

• 41:45Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Just under two months. It was fairly fast.

• 41:47Jocko Willink?

  That's good. They shouldn't give you much time to think about it.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  No, they shouldn't.

• 41:51Jocko Willink?

  They need to just get your ass in the vehicle and like.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:54Jocko Willink?

  I'm surprised they don't pull you up day of. Like, oh, you want to do it? Cool. Sign here. Boom, you're gone.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:59Jocko Willink?

  They used to do that.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  Really?

• 42:00Jocko Willink?

  They used to do that, yeah.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  They couldn't do that to people nowadays.

• 42:03Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  You get sued for something. You get sued for sure.

• 42:07Jocko Willink?

  So a month and a half.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 42:08Jocko Willink?

  What did your parents think about this whole scene?

• 42:10Speaker 01

  Again, they knew I was a type A personality. I'd always been more of a tomboy. I'd always, you know, wore the tearaway pants and the, you know, the socks and the sandals. Like, my parents were like, she's gonna go, she's gonna go do something a little more aggressive. We expected that. Now, we didn't expect the military, though, because I didn't hunt. I never shot guns. I was never exposed to them. I never enjoyed them. And they were never part of my life. When you think of the military and the act of war, you think guns. I didn't have any interest in guns. So for me, it was more of a, this seems like it's a good fit for her because it's gonna challenge her physically. It's gonna challenge her psychologically. So we support it and they were happy enough to, they actually dropped me off.

• 42:51Jocko Willink?

  So you leave now in January of 2008? Is that right?

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Uh, 2008, yeah.

• 42:55Jocko Willink?

  2008. So do you know when you sign up that you're gonna go deploy to Afghanistan?

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. So they gave us like, I don't know when. I don't know how. I don't know the whole, they don't tell you that, but they tell you like we're, Canada is involved. I think the speech was like, Canadians are involved in an active military war. We are not united, like, we're not UN. We are part of a fighting force that will rotate. If you do one of these jobs, you will end up deploying. Period. I was like, okay.

• 43:20Jocko Willink?

  That's pretty cool.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Well, it was more of a.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Don't be shocked if you go somewhere here soon, like real soon, like in a rapid pace.

• 43:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's good that they set expectations that way. But it'd also be cool if that was kind of a guarantee. And again, I'm just going back to like my own personal life where if they could have told me like, you're guaranteed to go to war. Everyone I know would have been like, sign me up.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  I hear that now too, though, right? I hear a lot of people like, uh, not to like tangent off of this, sorry, but uh, I went to Gage Town. What month are we right now? The end of last year. I got invited back by the Canadian military. Like, who'd never called, and then they called last year. And we're like, hey, you never got to shoot your last round. And as a gunner, that's your-

• 44:04Jocko Willink?

  Is that like a thing?

• 44:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. We get to shoot one more, one more, one more pull the lanyard there. And uh, you never got that. So we wanna, we wanna give that to you.

• 44:13Jocko Willink?

  That's cool.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they brought me out and did it, and it was a whole thing, but um, but that's, I talked to a, you know, a whole new group of soldiers that were on the range, like, rounds down, and we all talked and they made a huge thing out of it, right? So I was talking to all these people, da, da, da, da. And uh, I was like, I'm like, have you guys ever deployed? And they're like, oh no, none of us have. We've all, you know, we're all just kind of waiting, but it doesn't seem like it's gonna happen. So we just go to the range and we do X's and we train and I was like, oh, I, I don't know what it's like to be in when it's not an active war.

• 44:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, they're gonna have to maintain the training standards until the next war comes around. And that's what the country needs from them. I've had people that have been guilt, they felt guilty. You know, they're like, I was only in from, you know, ninety-three to ninety-seven. I never did anything. I feel like it. And I'm always like, hey, man, you held the line when you did what the country asked you to do.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 45:02Jocko Willink?

  Nothing wrong with that. And, and then for everyone else that's praying for war, and I know you young bastards are out there praying for war. We know it, I know it. Just cool, careful what you wish for. Which I got told to, and it never, never, it never pulled a prayer for, for war from my lips one time. So uh, that's the way it goes when you're young and dumb. So you get to boot camp. How's boot camp? Shock?

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, they start yelling right away. I mean- Sorry Kath, my mom yelled a lot. It didn't freak me out.

• 45:36Jocko Willink?

  No factor for you.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, it wasn't like, yeah, that was our form of communication unfortunately. Legitimately, yeah. So when I got, it wasn't as much of a shock as it was that all of my staff were French. And like, thick accent French. So when they would yell at you though, they would speak really fast. So you didn't always understand them. So you would make nicknames for them and things like that. So it was more of a shock to the system there. Now, looking back, knowing signs and symptoms of like TBI and PTS and stuff like that. Holy shit, some of my staff were, uh, mm, there was some trauma there. Yeah, because they were part of like first rotations all going through, right? And they, they had all done like Bosnia before and they had all done, a couple of them had done like a few other

• 46:22Speaker 01

  type, you know, gigs that end up causing some issues. And now I understand why they were whipping chairs and hair triggers and it wasn't an act for some of them, for some of it was.

• 46:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because for some of them, it is an act.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Oh!

• 46:35Jocko Willink?

  Like the Marine Corps is pros and I know, I guess I know more about the Marine Corps drill instructors, but that's part of their thing. Like they, they're gonna put on a little act for

• 46:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:46Jocko Willink?

  to, to set that image and everything and they're told, they know what they're doing.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's, and I think that's fine. I think that there should be a, a a level of intensity that has to be brought forth all the time when someone is training. I think that's what makes people strong is if you are not used to that level intensity and you're not used to that and you go into a situation where now that's being presented constantly, you're not going to know how to work in that. So I accept that. I understand it's a part of the process and you have to do it, but it was more, it was, uh, basic was, was fun for me. Again, it was a challenge, something I had to learn, things I had to get good at, and I was good at the fitness part. And if you were good at the fitness part, you were fine because we were on the ninth floor of the mega and the mega. The only people got to use the elevators were the staff. And if you got caught using the elevators, your whole room was going

• 47:35Speaker 01

  out the window and then you're gonna carry it all up the stairs. So we were on the ninth floor. And again, I was physically fit, so stairs were not an issue. So we had to go down for breakfast, down and quick up. Like, wanted to come back in from like PT, I was up quick. So I got first showers, I got to eat first, I was always ready first. Just because I was faster than other people in our pod, so it worked out okay for me.

• 47:55Jocko Willink?

  How long is Canadian boot camp?

• 47:56Speaker 01

  It's like 12 or 13 weeks. They've been changing.

• 47:59Jocko Willink?

  Hmm, and you get done with that and then you go to like the advanced school for artillery?

• 48:03Speaker 01

  Uh, first, uh, we did SQ first, which was like all weapons. So grenades, uh, Carl Gustavs, uh, machine guns, C7s, like C7, C8s, like all the stuff that you're gonna use.

• 48:13Jocko Willink?

  Does everybody go to that school?

• 48:15Speaker 01

  I think anybody who's combat arms does. I

• 48:19Jocko Willink?

  And then how long is that school?

• 48:20Speaker 01

  That's only four weeks.

• 48:21Jocko Willink?

  And then artillery school?

• 48:22Speaker 01

  And then artillery, but we did ours in the same spot. Because most of the people that I was in basic with, quite a few of them were artillery or infantry or, or, uh, combat engineer. And so most of us got sent to Gage Town. Because the combat engineers are above us, the artillery were on this floor, and then infantry were on another floor. Because the RCR are out there, the W battery is out there. That's where my sergeant, um, Mark LeBlond, he, who was with me in Vet K, he's actually posted to Gage Town. He was the one who got the artillery for me to go shoot my last round. So he like organized all that, but he's out in Gage Town. So that's where they're like the school is and W battery is, yeah.

• 48:59Jocko Willink?

  Did you like the army when you got in?

• 49:02Speaker 01

  I love the army. I love the army because I didn't have to think about what I had to wear. I didn't have to think of what I had to do. And if I could just follow orders enough and show up physically, I was winning. It's not difficult. Just don't be stupid, shut your mouth. That's it, just, just follow in line. There'll be a time for you to make decisions. Most of the time, unless you're in a leadership position, there's not. So just accept that and move forward with it. But I, I liked the army because I had to show up every day if I wanted to be successful. And that was real. Like, if you didn't show up, you fall behind, it's a problem. And then if you're my size and then you're one of the only women in the unit and you fall behind, it's even more of a problem. So you don't be the problem. As long as you're not the problem, then you're fine.

• 49:45Jocko Willink?

  Hmm, yeah, I really liked the military when I got in. And it seems like you did too.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it's fun. I think, I think if you look back at it now, you know, hindsight's 2020, but You learn a lot about yourself, right? And I, I like figuring out who I am. I like challenging who I am, or what I think my lines are, or what I think the standard is for me. Like, I like the constant having to figure it out. So it was fun for me at the time.

• 50:13Jocko Willink?

  So then, what do you do when you're done with all that training? Now you're in your, what are you, going to a battalion?

• 50:21Speaker 01

  So, so we did SQ and then we did DP1, and that's when we switched from, um, you know, people who are other engineers and infantry and things like that. And then we went into where they, um, we moved into just artillery. So then we went to like, not with W battery, but artillery schools there. And then we started to learn the 105s and the mortars. So we did all of that. And then on graduating on the parade, um, the, I think it was the RSM of Akitze came to our graduation and was like, you, you, you, and you, and you are all being posted to Val and

• 50:54Jocko Willink?

  What's Val?

• 50:55Speaker 01

  Vakitze. It's the French base in Quebec.

• 50:58Jocko Willink?

  Got it. Okay.

• 50:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, um, it's a combat arms base. So they have like the Van Dues are out of there. Um, I can't remember what the armored guys are called out there. And then the Five Ralke are out of there. So we got posted and originally I wasn't supposed to be going there. Originally I was supposed to be going to Petawawa. But there was another guy in our troop, our gun troop, when we did the last week of training where we're out in the field and it was really, really hot, his kidneys started failing. And we found out that was like too much creatine use happening and he was, I'm serious. I'm dead deadly serious. And then Lebante, Maryev Lebante, who was my officer, I kind of brought it forward like, hey, can I, can I swap out? Like, cause if he's gonna go, he can't be deployed, he can't be deployed. It's too hot. He can't, he can't be in the sun. His kidneys will fail. So they're

• 51:43Speaker 01

  gonna, he can't go to Val because Val's deploying next. So then what happened was his dad was an officer at Petawawa and I asked if we could trade. So we swapped postings. So I ended up going to Val and he ended up going to Petawawa. So then Maryev Lebante, who was my officer there, she came to Vakitze with me as well. She deployed, but she was just on a different gun.

• 52:02Jocko Willink?

  So you get stationed attached to what unit?

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was, I went to five RLC, the, the Cinq RLC, so it's the, the fifth Royal Canadian Horse Artillery.

• 52:12Jocko Willink?

  That's where you show up?

• 52:12Speaker 01

  And that's where I show up in, I think it was August, yeah, August of, uh,

• 52:16Jocko Willink?

  Where's, where's that geographically compared to where you grew up?

• 52:19Speaker 01

  Okay, so I grew up in Ontario, so if you think, uh, Ontario's here, Quebec's to the right of it. Um, and I grew up in a really small town, so I'm probably about eight, uh, eighteen plus hours.

• 52:32Jocko Willink?

  Hours?

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:33Jocko Willink?

  So you're not, you're not by home?

• 52:34Speaker 01

  No, not, not even, not remotely, close to home.

• 52:37Jocko Willink?

  You're not gonna be seeing your parents on the weekends or anything like that?

• 52:39Speaker 01

  Well, no, well, basic training was in Quebec as well, at Saint-Jean. So that one was about five hours. So, cause my parents live two hours from Ottawa, then from Ottawa to, uh, there's a couple hours. And then, uh, where I was posted was north of Quebec City. So I was like way above where there was any English, any, any English speaking people.

• 52:56Jocko Willink?

  So you show up and then are you guys immediately in a workup, preparing to deploy as soon as you get there?

• 53:01Speaker 01

  It was funny, we showed up that day and, uh, I was with, I think, there was like three or four other guys that were English speaking. We all show up, they all got put and had to go do duty work right away and then I got to just hang out.

• 53:13Jocko Willink?

  Okay, how's that?

• 53:16Speaker 01

  Cause a bunch of people who, like my, it's funny, cause my sergeant and I talk about this now. Um, cause the first time I saw him last year was ten years, like, ago. So I saw him just recently and him and I've gotten really close ever since we've, all this stuff is happening. And he said, I remember the first day you came in, they fucked up so bad. Because they treated you differently right off the bat. They didn't just make you go do work too, right? They're, all of you go fuck and you're all going to mop the floors. They all had to go like mop floors. And I just got to hang out and talk to all the guys that were on the troops that we were gonna be working with. Yeah, right?

• 53:49Speaker 01

  And he told me on day one, he said like, I don't want you, in his broken ass English. I make fun of him for it now. He's like, I don't want you on my gun. Because again, I looked like I wouldn't be able to do the job. And now that means you're down a person on a gun and on a workup, that's a problem. But again, liability, asset or liability, what do you more look like? I looked like the liability.

• 54:11Jocko Willink?

  So then how long did it take you to kind of prove that you could do the job?

• 54:14Speaker 01

  Uh, we went out in the field with them. It took a little bit. Uh, they were, the RSM was with us on our graduating time when we were working on the triple sevens. So they had seen us work. So it's not like I was incompetent, he saw me work, it was fine. Um, but it took me a while. We didn't go and shoot the triple sevens until I think we went to Texas for workup. So at that point, it was getting really close. So we ended up deploying in April. So I got there in Aug- uh, August and they said, okay, you gotta learn French. And you gotta take the RWS system in French. And you gotta take your mortar course in French. And you gotta take your triple seven course in French. So I was like, okay. Um, and then you gotta be fluent in it on the radio. So when you're on the tower, you can communicate and then you can understand how the gun works in French. So I just learned it all in English and then we got posted there.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  And then I had to go and learn all these courses in French. So it was fun.

• 55:02Jocko Willink?

  How are you with languages?

• 55:04Speaker 01

  I'm not, I mean, here's the saddest part is like where I live, it's mostly Mandarin Cantonese or like, um, Farsi or Arabic or Indian. So I don't, I'm not great. I spoke French in high school a little bit, um, then a little bit of Spanish. But then when I went into a place where there was no English, it actually worked in my favor because I had no choice. So I'd be sitting there on parade, just going, and then they would start marching and moving. And I would go, oh, what was that gauche, droite, gauche, oh, left, right. So I would slowly pick it up. And so I started speaking Fringlish. So it was like a really nice mix of French and English. And then I would start to really drive my staff crazy and be like, oh, sergeant, c'est,

• 55:48Speaker 01

  qu'est-ce que buck en français, en anglais? And then they would translate word for word, like I was asking Siri a question. Um, so they didn't appreciate that. But eventually I started to pick up on like little things. And then, once we got to Texas, I started to, didn't take me long to figure out the gun. Because a lot of the times I would run charges or I'd run lanyard. Um, I only had to load rounds the odd time. If we were short people, I would load rounds. I can do it. It's definitely, I'm gonna tire out faster, but I can fucking, I can do it. Or you're not allowed to run them. So I would do the charges and, um,

• 56:22Jocko Willink?

  How much did the round weigh?

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Like eighty to a hundred pounds.

• 56:26Jocko Willink?

  Thank you.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  And there's, it's like a weird, cause it's rounded on the bottom. So it's like, it's technique, really. So what my sergeant would do is he would take me to the gym and he would give me like ways to work out where I could take like a heavy dumbbell. He would put a chair on one side and then a chair at the other end. And he'd be like, I want you to load it, like grab it like you're grabbing around and then lift it up like you're grabbing around and then go walk over and go put it on the chair like you're putting it on the tray. And then pick it back up and do it again and just start doing that. So I was getting repetition and building the muscles to actually to do the lifting. And then, um, a lot of just, he would take, especially in Afghanistan, he worked with me in the gym and he'd be like, just working on the little muscles on the arms so that like if I was loading, you know, mortars a certain way, like I could

• 57:10Speaker 01

  use more of one hand rather than my whole body leaning over on the machine. And so it's, it's just about technique. Just learning technique and then really just honing in on that technique at that point. So for me, it wasn't, it wasn't too bad, but we got to, uh, we went to Wainwright first. Wainwright first? Wainwright first. Yeah. The, that winter. So that was, I don't know if you know Alberta? And then you also know winter plus Alberta. Um, it normally equals like minus forty. So whatever that translates into an American. Um, it's fucking cold.

• 57:41Jocko Willink?

  Translates to cold.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, like the guns freeze. So we would do, we did this operation, um, called Operation Maple Leaf. And it was like workup and it was like all of us, though. It was like all the whole regiment. So it was like infantry, artillery, combat arms, like everyone that was gonna be going. We were all doing like a simulated thing and we had to wear these vests that had sensors on them. And then they had, uh, other military come in and people who weren't deploying and play the Taliban.

• 58:07Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 58:07Speaker 01

  And then, um, you just wear the sensors. But the great thing about the sensor is for me, if I was in the turret, the sensor didn't work. So I could just take the sensors off. And then everyone else would die and I would not.

• 58:18Jocko Willink?

  You'd be the lone ranger in the turret, laying down fire.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  That's right. Exactly. So we went to Wainwright first and we did, um, we did our field exercise there. That's when we did our first live fire exercise with everyone, like with, you know, the griffins overhead firing and like all of us were, we each got like four live rounds. And one of the guys from our unit was sitting in the truck. I don't remember what those trucks are called, uh. They're like, almost like a half ton of, they have the big, uh, the green over top and you can put people in them on the bench seats there. And, uh, he fucking just fucking had the rounds and he put the buttstock down, pop. And it round took off right through and oh my god, I just remember the hellstorm. I know the guy's name, I won't say it, but I remember the hellstorm and he had to be English too.

• 59:01Speaker 01

  He had to be one of the fucking English guys that came on our unit, so it was, uh, it was interesting, so it was like, there's only like six of us. Can it not, just not be one of us that fucks up? So it was, um, it was fun, cause my staff were really great. So like, uh, LeBlanc was really great, uh, Fontaine was really great, uh, Robichaud, he was this, Robichaud was like, Bobby the Chef, Robichaud was like, six foot at least, almost three hundred pounds, just huge guy, but Acadian French. So like this really thick, cannot understand French. He was fantastic, but yeah, I had, I had good staff members with us there, so I learned a lot.

• 59:39Jocko Willink?

  And then you went to Texas after that?

• 59:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, we did one week in Texas. Just one week. It was either Fort Hood or Fort Worth, wherever you guys shoot live from, I can't remember where. But we were, it was one of the forts in Texas. I remember we flew in and, we flew in and, uh, we immediately got walked into a room where we got sat down about all the dangerous animals that we would encounter when we went out in the field and how not to squat down to pee and then I got the look, um, and, cause we were going out and we were gonna shoot, uh, live artillery on the triple sevens, we're gonna do it for the week. And so they're like, you know, if there's not a porta potty, don't squat down, this is what these spiders look like, these are what these snakes look like, if you hear this rattling, don't walk over there. So we got this whole like spiel, like, welcome to Texas, like, everything will kill you, just don't fuck around. It's like, okay.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  So we went to Texas and we did, um, we did live fire and, uh, that was funny, when all this happened, I actually found, I found a video of us shooting live fire there. It was so, it was so fantastic to watch back, cause it's like, It's a different life. It doesn't even feel like, uh, doesn't even feel like the same person. It doesn't, it feels like, you know, that scientists are talking about how like there's like, might be like simulation theory, kind of how there's like different parts of our lives going on, but just like tweaks all across, um, space. It's like, it feels like it's a different time. It doesn't even compute with me. So when you watch that back, doesn't look like me, doesn't walk like me, just sounds like me. It's strange. It's just strange. Yeah.

• 1:01:04Jocko Willink?

  And then how long did you, did you guys know that you were going to Afghanistan at this point?

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We didn't, um, we knew, like, like I knew on, on graduation parade. Uh, like we knew, like in April.

• 1:01:15Jocko Willink?

  A date? They gave you a date?

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  No, a date, but April. They said, like, you guys are the, the next rotation for the summer. So we knew it would have been April or May to about September, October.

• 1:01:24Jocko Willink?

  That's when you know you'd be leaving sometime in that timeframe?

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, we knew we'd be leaving either April or May.

• 1:01:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh, either April, May.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, we weren't, we weren't sure. It just depended on who left first and then which gun was going first. First it was Alpha, then it was Charlie. So we weren't sure which, which unit was actually gonna rip out first.

• 1:01:38Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:39Jocko Willink?

  The military is not quite as squared away on their travel plans as everyone might think they are. It's always like, you might be leaving around this date.

• 1:01:47Speaker 01

  Well, Canada's doing that right now to the, um, the Canadian soldiers in Latvia are having to pay for their own food and travel. They're not reimbursing it.

• 1:01:55Jocko Willink?

  What's up with that?

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  Well, we're on, we're on a show of force right now. So Canada is rotating people over to Latvia. And I, I don't know. We're giving all the money to Ukraine, so we don't have to give it to our people.

• 1:02:07Jocko Willink?

  That's kind of crazy.

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, yeah, they're not, they're not squared away on things like that.

• 1:02:11Jocko Willink?

  Okay, um, what's your, what's your final sort of terminal guidance as you guys are getting ready to deploy? You got a little leave timed beforehand?

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, we got, I think it was like two or three weeks. Yeah, and we could go kind of do whatever we wanted. We went, my whole gun troop went to Cuba. So we decided we were all gonna go to Cuba.

• 1:02:30Jocko Willink?

  Like on vacation?

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  Right before. Yeah, just all of us. We were just gonna all, because a lot of these people are friends and they're like, they're close. The town's small. Everyone speaks French. I know a couple people. They speak kind of English.

• 1:02:42Jocko Willink?

  So you take a whole crew to Cuba?

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, we all went.

• 1:02:44Jocko Willink?

  Where in Cuba?

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  We went to, uh, it was Veradero, Veradero, I think it was. Yeah.

• 1:02:50Jocko Willink?

  Because Americans can't go to Cuba.

• 1:02:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, but we can. I mean, you can now, can't you?

• 1:02:54Jocko Willink?

  I think we can now. Actually, I'm not sure. Can we echo Charles? Don't know, don't have the.

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  You guys have an embassy there now.

• 1:03:01Jocko Willink?

  Hmm. Okay, so you're going, you're Canadian, you're like, we're going to Cuba.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, we went to Cuba and we went on like just the whole, everyone just got drunk. It was just an absolute shit show.

• 1:03:11Jocko Willink?

  How long did you go for?

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  A week. Yeah, I almost drowned that day. Like, so I mean, that trip. So like, I don't, that was an interesting trip.

• 1:03:18Jocko Willink?

  Alcohol plus swimming?

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  Not alcohol. It wasn't, I've never been a big drinker. I've never, alcohol's never been like.

• 1:03:25Jocko Willink?

  What about a big swimmer?

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I could swim. Yeah, I swim.

• 1:03:28Jocko Willink?

  So how'd you almost drown?

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  So I went out like a dumbass and I walked, you know, when there's like, um, I don't know what it's called. They have these big concrete barriers that go pretty far out sometimes into the ocean. And I don't know if it's for like cruise ships to kind of come in or like things to leave. But anyway, there was like a pier and it went quite a ways and it was a little rough out, windy. But I was like, that's a cool photo. So I walked all the way out there by myself and a wave came and knocked me not into the side where the boats would come, but into the ocean side. And it just fucking turned me and I've never experienced, I didn't grow up near the ocean. I grew up near like, Lake Ontario. So that was, so that, so I, I'm not exaggerating.

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  I just like balled myself up and held on, I had a camera in my hand and glasses and I just held on like this and just, and hoped because there was no way I could figure out which way is up, down, like there was no, I'm like, I'm gonna have to ride this out. And it was horrific and I don't fuck with the ocean anymore. Like I, I love the ocean, but they're like serious.

• 1:04:30Jocko Willink?

  From a distance.

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  No, I go in and all the time, serious amounts of respect. Just like, if that looks rough, like don't play. Like we were just in Bahamas with our son and it was, the ocean was rocking one of the days. And Jack's like, I wanna go in the ocean. I wanna get like pushed. And I was like, okay, you can put your vest on. I'll take you to this point and I'll let it push you in, but it had a nasty undertow. And I said, like, don't mess, Bobby, don't turn around, don't mess with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's fucking just coming. Sucks him and just slammed him. It's like, you can't, he doesn't understand, but I learned the hard way. And so it finally did spit me out. Um, I had everything in my hands, but I remembered very distinctly, I'll never, like if it looks like that and you're near a pier, I'm like, I'm not, I'm not doing that ever again.

• 1:05:14Jocko Willink?

  Did you get the picture?

• 1:05:15Speaker 01

  I don't even, no, the camera was broke, the ca- so that was the thing is the camera broke and that was when I was gonna use on deployment. But the only reason I have any photos from deployment was Catherine Funtan gave me her little hot pink camera to take with me outside the wire. So I didn't, I did not have photos. I just didn't have my camera anymore. It's on me. It's my own fault.

• 1:05:32Jocko Willink?

  And then that's your pre-deployment leave, pretty much?

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then I drove, I drove back, I drove across the country and then I drove, I drove home to visit with my parents. And the thing was is they asked me like, do you want us to come on the day of your deployment? And I was like, well, no, it's all the way in, if I could say, like, don't, don't bother. It's totally fine. So I spent the last couple of days with them and my brother, my mom, my dad. Um, and I don't think I understood the gravity of what I was going to do. And I don't think anyone else really understood the gravity of what I was going to do. Because at that point in the war, you guys had already been involved with Iraq, you guys already been in Afghanistan. So, America, I felt like started to see more of what was going on in those actual countries.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  Whereas Canada, it's like, we weren't seeing that. We, at that point, we had had a really serious incident with Nicola Goddard. Uh, she was a artillery captain and she was in the White Schoolhouse attack. And so that was our first female that we lost and our first, like, I think, I think officer, not a hundred percent. But she, that was the only thing I, I hadn't heard much about this. I, I had been told, you know, the fucking, you know, that, uh, these Middle East people are, are killing our soldiers and like, that's it. Like, we didn't, we didn't get a briefing, like, we didn't get shit. We didn't get like a cultural, hey, this is what Afghans are really like. We didn't get like, uh, this is how they speak, this is how they shake their hands, these are the type of languages they speak, this is the type of food.

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  Like, we didn't get the fucking, we didn't get the memo. We didn't get the memo. We didn't get the memo. Um, so when we did finally deploy, it was like this false idea of what we were doing. And, and even when we were there, whether I was with the British or I was with the Canadians or the Americans, I wasn't told shit. So I didn't really know what we were doing. I was just waking up every morning and doing what I was told.

• 1:07:18Jocko Willink?

  How old were you at this point?

• 1:07:20Speaker 01

  Uh, I was nineteen.

• 1:07:23Jocko Willink?

  How did you guys get overseas? Big military aircraft or did you guys fly over there on civilian aircraft?

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  We flew, so we flew from Quebec, so my parents didn't come. Long and short, my parents didn't come. I did that on my own, which I regret to this day.

• 1:07:39Speaker 01

  And we got over on a, our first stop was a civilian aircraft. It was just us, though. So it was like empty. We each all had our own rows kind of situation and we flew to Dubai. And that was our stop point. So and then then that's when we got on the HIRX. And then we flew the HIRX from there into Kandahar.

• 1:07:59Jocko Willink?

  And then you get into Kandahar, where do you end up operating out of?

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  So for us, we went to Canada House. Like so on the side where Canada House was, we had, um, the officers were staying in like those container, like spaces, I don't know what they're called, but so they had spots there. And then we, we only stayed there for three days. So we came in, we got our, our kit, like we got our kit in Dubai, like our, our plates and our weapons. We got like a couple of megs and things like that, our helmets and all that. But then we had shipped everything else there. So that's when we got our big cases that we shipped months ahead that we were going to bring with us out to the FOB. So we weren't staying at CAF. We never stayed at CAF. That was not our spots. A lot of officers rotated in and out, but we didn't. So two of the unit, two of our, our gun troops went, uh, went, went to Massam Guard, went, went to another Canadian FOB.

• 1:08:46Speaker 01

  And then my, my guys, uh, Alpha went to FOB Ramrod out in the May 1 district. So we were the only ones from our regiment working with a non-Canadian set of people. We were with the, uh, there was a hundred and first guys there and the, just like Americans going in and out. And then now I know, now I know what I was looking at. And then there were some like special operations guys going in and out that just looked, had beards. And I didn't know what that meant back then. I didn't understand what special operations community was, yeah.

• 1:09:17Jocko Willink?

  So that's where you end up is at Fawb Ramrod?

• 1:09:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was at Fawb Ramrod and at Kandahar, what we did is we did like a half day where we did like an IED overview training of like what we were finding and kind of what we were seeing. So they brought us over to like a, an open area and then they kind of had it set up where it looked like there was like some garbage over here, some rocks over here, some piles of stuff over here. And then like another wall here, they'd like bring you around and be like, this is like, uh, you know, cigarette butt package where they took two tin foil pieces and wrapped a wire here and you stepped on that. So we would learn about, okay, these are the types of IEDs we're finding, then like daisy chains on the walls. And we were starting to see, this is what they were currently seeing in country. And then the next day, we did a briefing where we went into a room and then we looked at like what suicide bombers look like and what it looks, looks like when they blow up. And we watched slides of like, this is what we're seeing in country.

• 1:10:04Speaker 01

  And if you see a vehicle born, if you see like donkey born, like we're seeing these. And this was just kind of like, this was your situational awareness that you were being given. And then we got like a couple of booklets to keep in our little pockets that were all in French about Afghanistan.

• 1:10:20Jocko Willink?

  Did you still not speak French well enough to like be okay with it?

• 1:10:25Speaker 01

  I, I spoke enough. I remember the moment where I, it clicked that I understood a sentence. I was being yelled at. I remember very clearly. I, very vividly.

• 1:10:35Jocko Willink?

  Was that during boot camp? Is that during?

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  No, that was in Afghanistan.

• 1:10:38Jocko Willink?

  In Afghanistan is when you started to finally really think a little bit in French.

• 1:10:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know when, yeah, I don't know if, do you speak another language?

• 1:10:45Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:10:45Speaker 01

  Okay. Do you speak another language?

• 1:10:47Jocko Willink?

  He speaks Pidgin.

• 1:10:48Speaker 01

  Okay. But the, there's a.

• 1:10:50Jocko Willink?

  We speak Pidgin.

• 1:10:51Speaker 01

  Sure. I was just gonna say, we. Be inclusive, Chaco. We, uh, there was a moment where I, I felt almost like, uh, I heard someone speaking and I was like, oh, I got that. I got, I got it all. I didn't get like word, word, word. I was like, oh. And it was a moment after my sergeant was pissed off and he looked at Boma de Chef Roby Show and he was like something, it was something along the lines of like, I can't believe she just fucking did that. And I went, je comprends, sergeant. And he stood up and walked into the tent and slammed the door. And I was like, oh, I shouldn't have said that. That was worse. I made it worse.

• 1:11:27Jocko Willink?

  I understand, Sergeant.

• 1:11:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. I just let him know. I understood what you just said. Je comprends. And he was just like, that motherfucker.

• 1:11:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:35Jocko Willink?

  It's I had a guy on that was with the French Foreign Legion and and I've read books about the French, but that's what they do. They just you go there. You doesn't matter what language you speak. Uh, Spanish, English, German, they're gonna speak French to you and you're gonna learn French and that's it. That's how it goes. Yeah. So.

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  Joel, you had.

• 1:11:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, Joel.

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  He he um, came into my office uh, right after I did your show last time. He walked into my office, knocked on the door and it was like, is Kelsey here? And then my girlfriend, Hallie was like, why? Why? Why? Um, and then uh, he's like, oh, I've done Jaco. I want to drop off a book for her to read. And so he lives near me. Yeah. So I've got this book. He's a nice guy.

• 1:12:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he he reaches out from time to time. I think he wrote, he did. He wrote another book. And I'm sure we'll do it at some point on the podcast. I think it's called Seville. I think it's called Seville. Maybe it's about like the civilian transformation or something. I haven't read it yet because he sent it to me, but good stacks.

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  You get a lot of books.

• 1:12:31Jocko Willink?

  So then what's your job in Afghanistan? When you get there, you get up to Ramrod?

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  I was a triple seven gunner.

• 1:12:37Jocko Willink?

  So tell everybody what that means.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  So it means I ran a one five five millimeter howitzer that shot a hundred pound round, max forty kilometers. So miles.

• 1:12:46Jocko Willink?

  I speak kilometers too, so we're good.

• 1:12:48Speaker 01

  Perfect. Great. Fantastic. Um, and uh, so we provided fire for the uh, infantry and those people that were within that distance of FOB Ramrod. So the Americans, what had happened was um, there was a Canadian reservist unit that was at FOB Ramrod prior to us, so we ripped them out. Those people left us a noose as a welcoming gift on our tent. Um.

• 1:13:10Jocko Willink?

  Wait, who? That was an American unit, you said?

• 1:13:13Speaker 01

  No, it was a Canadian reserve unit.

• 1:13:15Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:16Jocko Willink?

  And they left you a noose, just welcome.

• 1:13:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was it was really lovely.

• 1:13:20Jocko Willink?

  Dark humor, military dark humor.

• 1:13:22Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:13:23Jocko Willink?

  Okay. And so your job is how? So are you standing watch? Are you doing twelve hours on the gun? Are you only working at night? Like, how's it go down?

• 1:13:30Speaker 01

  Okay, so when we got to Ramrod first, we kind of got the overview of what was going on. These are the Americans and here's the tricky situation. Most of these French people don't speak English. And so when you're dealing with the corner of our FOB that we were on, we were responsible for one OP tower. The rest of the, the other three, I believe, three or four that there were, I think there were three, were American run. We did not run those at all. So our job was to provide individuals for four hour shifts on that OP tower. And there'd be two people at a time. So there's two guns there and one from each gun would go at that timeframe and you would do four hour shifts together. So my shift often was 12 to four or four to eight.

• 1:14:12Speaker 01

  I liked the four to eight because I could sleep, get woken up, and then my sergeant would let us go back to sleep for a couple hours. If you did the 12 to four, they would make you get up with everyone else. And so it worked out alright. So for me, what we would do is we, right as soon as we got there, we started doing shifts. Like the second we land, it's like, okay, they're leaving, we gotta get on the rotation. So we had the rotation board up and then we would have to do, one of us would have to do GD with the Americans every week. So at that point, the triple sevens were running when we were called to run. So we were on call for anybody in the area and any of the Americans that were leaving. And we would kind of, our staff would know like, hey, this is happening, or we're gonna be a little more aware, or no one's doing GD this week.

• 1:14:54Jocko Willink?

  Like there's an operation going on, everyone be on standby. So the, so you guys wouldn't sit at the guns?

• 1:15:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:15:01Jocko Willink?

  And then when something would happen?

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  Run.

• 1:15:03Jocko Willink?

  Boom, you'd get to the guns.

• 1:15:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so it was a little more of a dramatic kind of job because it, for the most part, if we weren't on the guns, we were either servicing the guns, working on them. I was the T, at the T-lab gunner, so I was in charge of the T-lab. So I had to do, we would do GD and then we would do tower work and then I would be responsible for making sure that that machine gun's serviced and then that, our WS system, if we go outside the wire, I'm good to go on that. So I was in charge of that. And then otherwise, they would... Our sergeant, because he knew it wasn't good for anyone to be bored. It was not, we need to keep people constantly on a schedule. So he would make work tasks. We're moving gravel over here, we're gonna make this look nicer on the tent here, we're gonna, you know, blah blah, make work shit. And then we would all, all of us, unless you were sleeping, unless it was your turn to sleep,

• 1:15:48Speaker 01

  or however it was scheduled out, if you heard the, like, the mission call, you ran. So if you're in the shower, you fucking, bye. If you're working out, sprint, like, it didn't matter, you're on the guns. Unless you were on GD, or you're on the tower, you run to the guns. That's just how it works. Middle of the night, doesn't matter, guns. And it's all of us, right? So, it takes a lot to run those guns. Um, you can run them, like, if you're doing, um, for example, we were doing a, a night shoot, and it was scheduled, planned operation, the guys were going out. We knew at 12 o'clock, and for the next, it was like, the next three hours, every 20 minutes, we're firing loom on the dot. So then, three of us can do that. So then my sergeant would be like, hey, you, you and you, we're gonna do this.

• 1:16:31Speaker 01

  Or what he would say is like, hey, we don't need two people in the tower that night, one can go. And then what you'll do is, if it's your shift, and we're running the gun, you come down, just fire, and then go back up to the tower. So you would just constantly have this rotation. Um, I liked doing those ones too, because those were kind of interesting for me, because I got to listen a little more and learn a little more from, like, listening to the radios, rather than when you're in like a, you know, just rounds down range, just tuh, tuh, tuh. Like, you don't learn anything, you're just kind of in that muscle memory mindset.

• 1:16:57Jocko Willink?

  And then, how often are you firing rounds, do you think?

• 1:17:04Jocko Willink?

  Like, every night are you firing rounds? Or is it like every three nights, every four nights?

• 1:17:07Speaker 01

  It just depended. It honestly just depended. It depended on people in the area, it depended on how much the Americans were doing that were close enough to us. We fired a lot of loom. We did do a lot of loom for a lot of night stuff, like, a lot, a lot of loom. I know that the other guns, uh, Bravo and Charlie, because my girlfriends, Ben and Sab, were on those guns, they ran, they fucking ran rounds downrange, big time. They were in a... More centralized area. We were hell and gone. But we did, when we did fire, we fired. We were rounds down range. Like we, if we were doing a fire mission, we were doing like 10 at least, and that's on each gun, and we were hammering them out, and then we're kind of waiting. But I, there's stuff I found out that I can't talk about, but it's wild to learn afterwards

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  what you were doing. Cause I didn't know what we were shooting, who we were shooting for, what were the rules of engagement. I didn't know what rounds down range, where they were go- like, I just fire the fucking gun and do your job. That's it. And so, it was interesting to kind of learn a little bit more afterwards about what we were doing at Ramrod and how that worked as Canadians with Americans and like the dynamics and stuff like that. It was interesting.

• 1:18:12Jocko Willink?

  Yep. People on the ground really like to have artillery support. That's for damn sure. So, that's pretty cool.

• 1:18:19Speaker 01

  Well, it was, uh, it was great too because I really took a liking to the gun. I don't know why. There's something about, I don't know, maybe it's because I'm really small, but there's something about the big boom, the big impact, the idea that you can be a small person on the other side of it and still do massive damage is just like, I don't know. It just felt powerful and like we were actually supporting something and doing something that was meaningful. And so, I knew when people called us, like if we got a call in the middle of the night, like Bombede Chef was in our tent, and then Sarge was in the other tent. But like, watching a 300 pound man get up in his boxers and sprint in the middle of the night is probably one of the funniest things I'll ever see. Like it is, you knew that when you were, when you were getting a call, somebody needed you. It wasn't like, oh for fun.

• 1:19:04Jocko Willink?

  Did you guys have a standard of like how long before you got rounds down range? Were you guys like, hey, we need to get this done in 30 seconds, or we need to get this done in two minutes? Did you guys have a standard?

• 1:19:13Speaker 01

  It depended because sometimes we'd get a call and it'd be like, Missy on set, like, let's go, fire, fire, fire. Or it would be, hey, everyone get ready. Stand by. Wait two minutes, wait for the call, and then fire, and then fire. Like, it just depended. It just, it was very...

• 1:19:28Jocko Willink?

  Who they calling into? Are they calling into?

• 1:19:30Speaker 01

  Coms tent.

• 1:19:31Jocko Willink?

  A comms tent, and then the comms tent's relaying you

• 1:19:33Speaker 01

  To us.

• 1:19:33Jocko Willink?

  to the grid coordinates?

• 1:19:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, so what's happening-

• 1:19:36Jocko Willink?

  And you guys are plotting and making the adjustments and firing?

• 1:19:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, so what's happening is the FOO up front, Forward Observation Officers, that's attached to the infantry units. Um, they're artillery, so like, HOPO and Daniel Venture, um, who were the British ones that I was with. That was my first experience of being under artillery. Um, so I watched, I got to see the other side of it. So they would call in a, like, a grid coordinate. That would relay to our tent where, where, like, Fontaine was. And then she would plot it and give us the grid, and she would give us, and then she'd spit it out to the, uh, the comms, and then we would hear it, and then Sergeant would relay it. And then the guy on the sites would, would move the big wheels, and then we would hear how many rounds, and then one guy would prep the rounds, then one of us would prep the charges,

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  and then one of them would stand by the lanyard, and sometimes we were having issues, uh, with hydraulics. When that happened, things got messy fast, because then you have to pump it manually. And if you've never done that before, it's really hard to articulate how difficult it is. It's like, because the, the more hydraulic fluid you get in it, the stiffer it gets, but you have to get it to a certain point to be able to get the recoil to go, or it won't kick back, right? So, and depending on the grid, the closer the round, the higher that gun's gotta go, right? The further the, the angle goes. So, if something went wrong with the hydraulics and you're doing that manually, like, that's a, that's a whole job on its own, just trying to get that. Um, and so we, we had that happen quite a few times, which was an interesting experience.

• 1:21:00Speaker 01

  Um, but being on the other side of it was wild, too, uh, because that is, uh, truly terrifying to be underneath.

• 1:21:10Jocko Willink?

  Indirect fire is a horror. When you're on the receiving side, that's for damn sure.

• 1:21:15Speaker 01

  I just, I don't know what I expected or thought it would be like, cause like, I think the goal for me would ultimately to be a foo. Like that was, it's the best of both worlds. I get to go with the infantry units and do what I wanted to do, but I get to call artillery with the thing that I love to do. Right? So getting to witness it and then be on the other end of it is just never something I actually thought I would get to experience, let alone in Afghanistan, like that quick. So.

• 1:21:37Jocko Willink?

  So eventually you get picked up for, to be, uh, to go out with a British unit.

• 1:21:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. So at that point, uh, it was, I believe the beginning of June. I don't know when they started talking about it. It's just when I got notified about it. So it just came down the pipe that there was going to be, uh, an operation that they needed some, uh, now I understand like CSTs for, so females to go and get attached to the British units. Um, and they needed to be able to speak English too. So at that point, my sergeant said, no. Because he used to be infantry and he was like, no, this is not a job I was trained for. This is not a job I'm prepared for. This is not something, she can do it. Because we were really lucky. Again, I was really lucky. When I went to Val, um, Mark didn't really let us rest on like,

• 1:22:28Speaker 01

  some people would get to like have the weekends off or whatever, like a day off or so, but he would be like, and we're gonna go, we're gonna go work on shooting. We're gonna go do level four. We're gonna go do house clearing. We're gonna go do a little more than we need to be doing, but just a little more. Cause we are going to war and he's been there and he's done it a few times. He understands like unexpected things come up. So if you know how to move and shoot better, you're gonna be better. And it's just gonna be better for everyone. So he put the effort into us, like the days off in Texas we were supposed to get, we climbed a mountain. Because fucking climb a mountain, I guess. So better be better, go better. So we did everything we could to be the best soldiers we could when we deployed. And that's the only reason I didn't get killed was because he like legitimately taught me how to shoot and move.

• 1:23:12Speaker 01

  He taught me how to go in a house and move properly. So I don't get myself killed. He taught me how to grab people. He taught me how to put people up against the wall. He taught me how to zap strap people. Like if he didn't go and do that, like just extra shit, I would have been a living nightmare.

• 1:23:28Jocko Willink?

  And that was who?

• 1:23:29Speaker 01

  Uh, my Sergeant, Sergeant, uh, Mark LeBlanc. He's an officer now, so I, I refuse to call him by that.

• 1:23:35Jocko Willink?

  Well, this hill's still be an E-Dog.

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's a dark side.

• 1:23:39Jocko Willink?

  Uh, so now you get, how far deep in deployment are you when you, when, when they asked you to go out and do this operation with the Brits?

• 1:23:46Speaker 01

  Two months.

• 1:23:47Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so you're at least acclimated to the

• 1:23:50Speaker 01

  The heat and

• 1:23:50Jocko Willink?

  The heat and the weather and everything.

• 1:23:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, the weather and then the, the prayer and the, the noises and like how the country, how the country works. Meaning like within my FOB, I understood how the country worked. Um, I understood by watching like this one family in a compound here. I understood because we brought Afghans in to work for us, who would build, you know, the concrete pads and things like that. And then we had a situation with that. That was a whole, that was a whole thing. Um, and then being the, the weak link, the woman there, I got, that was the target for that one. So that one was fun. Um, to be able to diffuse a situation because I was able to recognize the situation again, because I would, somebody took extra time to make sure that I understood and I wasn't an idiot. So,

• 1:24:35Speaker 01

  um, and then I got the call. They said, yeah, you're going like, it's not really a choice at this point. Like I've tried to keep you here, but I can't. So the least that we can do is like, we'll go zero your weapon. Cause you zero it when you get in country, but then it's been sitting. I'm not using it. So we go and zero the weapon and then he just stripped his C7 and just fully tacked mine out. So I didn't know how to use half the shit on this thing. And I don't know why we needed to out of the way, but he's like, well, you're going to need this, you're going to need this. And then he ended up stripping all his, his, his kit and gave me like his mats, his extra mags and all of these things and grenades. And I had never carried grenades at this point. Like I had thrown them in like SQ, but I'd never carried them on my physical body. That's a whole new level of weird and uncomfortable and

• 1:25:18Speaker 01

  I just wasn't prepped for that. It's just like tape over the spoons. Cause that was, they made fun of me for that, but I felt safe and comfortable. So that was fine with me. Um, and then I got dropped off. Uh, so what happened was the Chinook, uh, the Chinook came out to pick me up. The one day, cause they were picking up people at different FOBs. And they came out to get me and they took fire. So they turned around and went back. So then they're like, if they don't come tomorrow, then you're not going and they'll have to find someone else. Cause they need, they're leaving on this date and you need to be there a day before, cause you need to go meet with the RCMP. You need to be able to get zap straps. You need to be able to get told what you're allowed to legally do. And then kind of walk through that. If you can't do that, then you can't go. So. What happened was they they tried again the next day and they were able to pick me up.

• 1:25:59Speaker 01

  So then I got picked up and I left and it's weird because I fully thought I'm going back to the everything else is there fully going back to that gun. I went back to that gun and ended up being for like a week and then I was gone again. So I never I never really stayed at that FOB much longer after that. So they picked me up, they dropped me off at CAF and then they just brought me to the RCMP. So the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, they do deploy, they do have people there that do deploy to do investigations and things like that, like military police as well. And so they brought me there and they handed me paramechanics wear gloves and some zap straps. And they're like, do you know how to do the, put somebody in duck position?

• 1:26:41Speaker 01

  I was like, no. They're like, let us show you how. Do you know how to like, if you have, if you had to take somebody down, can you do it? And I was like, yeah. And they're like, okay, show me. So then they would show me other ways that like, you're not supposed to put people in this position. And if you're gonna zap strap them, they have to be able to sit. They can't be, can't tie your hands and feet, you can't put bags over that, like just how to do it legally so I won't get myself in trouble. And then I was just told my sergeant was like, don't fuck it up. You don't have a boss. No one's gonna tell you what to do. You're gonna have to make judgment calls. Go do it.

• 1:27:09Jocko Willink?

  And you're still 19 years old at this point? And then you link up with the Brits?

• 1:27:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then I went and and linked up with them. They're at a different side of CAF. They have their own gates and deal and flag and that whole thing.

• 1:27:23Jocko Willink?

  And do you, are you there for like the mission briefing so that you know what's happening?

• 1:27:28Speaker 01

  No. So I got dropped off that night.

• 1:27:32Speaker 01

  It's fine. Everyone laugh. It's cool. Echoes more just sad. It's just sad at this point. I got dropped off and I walked in and I met a couple of the different higher ups. I remember exactly who it was at the time, but they just said, you're gonna go with us. We're we're going. You're gonna follow these people and we're gonna leave it at 100. So go get some rest. When everyone gets ready, you get ready, follow along. It was women and children.

• 1:28:01Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna be talking to women and children?

• 1:28:03Speaker 01

  Women and children. You're gonna take, you're gonna, here they go. We don't often have women and children stay there. Normally if they know we're coming in and this has been planned out for a while, we know that the women and children are gonna leave. We understand that. They flee most of the time. We don't often use you. Like I was straight up told that. I was like, okay, well, this shouldn't be too bad then. And at this point, I don't give a shit. I get to get off the fob. And I get to go do something. So I'm super excited. So more than jazzed to go. So we go, um, I couldn't sleep because these are all new people and I'm excited to go and I should have slept, didn't. And then we all pile into a school bus and we drive out to the airfield. And then that's when we got on the Chinooks. So we got split into the different piles that were all gonna go on Chinooks.

• 1:28:47Speaker 01

  And um, that's when I met the, the bomb dog that I was gonna be near, which was Benji. He was a black lab. And the guys that I was gonna be near to start with. But they said like, we don't normally use you. So if we need you, we'll move you around. There's only one of you and there's three, there's like, it's like alpha, bravo, tri. So we're gonna move you around. And that's how it's gonna go. And then I didn't realize how much I was actually gonna get moved and I got shuffled like a deck of cards. It was ridiculous. So.

• 1:29:15Jocko Willink?

  And it was a helo insert? You guys flew in?

• 1:29:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, we flew in at night. Um, I just know I was on the floor. I was on the floor and I was like wedged between people and there's a guy sitting, not on my legs, but between my legs, but enough where it was like my legs were going numb. So I was like, but we were out, we were out there for like 45 minutes, like a good, it was a good flight. Um, and then we landed and I couldn't feel my legs at all. I couldn't feel like I stood up and my adrenaline just started. You know, you like that feeling and you, you know both what I'm talking about. You, when you step off of something and you just start running. Well, the bottom half didn't, didn't agree that we were gonna run. And so somebody grabbed the back on our, on our vests in Canada. We have like a, the mesh, but we have this handle. Just grabbed a hold of that and just fucking just.

• 1:29:59Jocko Willink?

  Drag handle.

• 1:30:00Speaker 01

  Aye, let's go. Just some, one of the mixed accents and just kicked my ass out the door. And it was, uh, the most, uh, shocking to the system, eye-opening and overwhelming experience. I've never been put in a situation since where I've been so disoriented. It was like pitch black. I had an NVG on that I barely trained with.

• 1:30:22Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say, did you have much experience on night vision?

• 1:30:24Speaker 01

  No. When we first got to the FOB, there was no NVGs in the tower. So we didn't have them for the first couple hours of the shift. And people gave me so much shit after your show last time. And they're like, of course they had them. What are you talking about? They would never put people in a tower with NVGs. Do you know Canada? Shut your mouth. We had no NVGs for a little bit. Um, I remember having to call down, but like, can we get some NVGs? This is a night, we can't see anything. So I, I didn't have very much training at all with it. So that's a trip, right? When you start trying to figure out your footing, because things look like holes that might not be holes.

• 1:30:59Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. No, it's definitely takes time to get used to walking on nods, for sure.

• 1:31:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, and it's just the one, right? We don't have like the...

• 1:31:08Jocko Willink?

  There are both. It sounds like you had a monocular one, which is only one.

• 1:31:12Speaker 01

  Yes, we had those. Yes. That was, that was, I think it would have been better with both, but I think that tripped me out a bit.

• 1:31:17Jocko Willink?

  You know, hearing this story, actually, believe it or not, you, you were actually blessed with the fact that you knew less about what was going on. If you would have known a little bit more, you would have been even more terrified.

• 1:31:30Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:31:31Jocko Willink?

  You know, if you actually knew a little bit more, you'd have been like, what the hell is going on? This is like, luckily you didn't quite, you knew just, you were like just at the surface of understanding. So that's probably a good thing. Otherwise it would have been even worse for you. Cause you've been thinking, wait a second, I don't even know where I am in Afghanistan right now.

• 1:31:50Speaker 01

  No, I didn't.

• 1:31:51Jocko Willink?

  And that's not good.

• 1:31:51Speaker 01

  No, and that's what blows my mind. Cause I talk to a lot of people now on my show, right? And I interview a lot of high level people like yourselves have been lucky enough to have conversations with. And they tell me these, I just had a guy on the other day who wrote the book, A Few Bad Men. And he's like giving this operational overview of like, you ever go into the situation? This is the equipment we got. These are like, just all these details. And I'm just sitting there going, what the? How like how little I knew.

• 1:32:17Jocko Willink?

  Have you ever parachuted before?

• 1:32:18Speaker 01

  I have.

• 1:32:19Jocko Willink?

  Have you ever freefalled before?

• 1:32:20Speaker 01

  No, but I freefought, but I was tandem.

• 1:32:23Jocko Willink?

  Okay, how many times?

• 1:32:24Speaker 01

  Only once.

• 1:32:25Jocko Willink?

  Okay, yeah, it's a really good example of like the first time you ever do a freefall. What you notice and what you see is like really, really small. And then the more you do it, the better you get and the more you see and the more you understand what's happening and the just like it's it and then you get to like be Andy Stumpf, who has thousands of jumps and and like he's going to be way more aware than he was when he had, you know, four, you know, I remember my first jumps, you know, I like the only thing I remember and it wasn't like I was panicking. I was, I wasn't, I wasn't freaking out, but I was like, okay, altitude, look at my ripcord altitude, look at my ripcord, like, look at my instructor, look at my ripcord. That's pretty much what I noticed like ripcord,

• 1:33:07Jocko Willink?

  altitude, instructor, just that's what I noticed. And then by the time you get to 10 jumps, you're like, oh, there's like a cool mountain range over there. Doesn't it look cool from up here? And you get to see more and more and you get to understand more and more and it's it's similar in combat. You know, the more you do it, the more you're like, okay, I understand what's happening. And if you've gone through rigorous training, even that can allow you to be very open minded and absorb a lot of information and you have a lot of experience like, I mean, God, by the time I got shot at for the first time, I was like, oh, cool. Like, I was like, thank you. Like, this is fine. Like, I wasn't because I'd done so I'd done, I mean, I didn't shoot my weapon at the enemy for the first 13 years. I was in the SEAL teams and I'd done all this training, you know, from 1990 until

• 1:33:52Jocko Willink?

  2003. And that's a long time to prepare for something. And so, but for you, it's like you're 19 years old, you're artillery, you're with a different unit, you're wearing nods that you haven't really trained with. You're getting in a helicopter with people you don't really know. Like, there's a lot of things that and it's your first time.

• 1:34:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:15Jocko Willink?

  So you add all those things up and it's definitely, there's a lot lacking. And from their perspective, a little bit like I did ops with. What we would call strap hangers, no offense. Do you ever heard that term before?

• 1:34:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have.

• 1:34:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So like you'd be a strap hanger.

• 1:34:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:29Jocko Willink?

  Like I brought females that were strap hangers and it's like, you're not being derogatory because sometimes you had like a computer guy that's a strap hanger.

• 1:34:36Speaker 01

  No, I know what you mean.

• 1:34:36Jocko Willink?

  So we'd have strap hangers and I've taken strap hangers on where it's like, okay, you give them two handlers. Like they're going to watch them. They're going to make sure everything's good to go. They're going to get them to do their little job, whatever their little job is. And they don't really, but at least we would have them in the brief. Like I would say like, hey, here's where you're going to be in the, in the convoy. Here's where you're going to be on the target. Here's where I want you to sit. If anything goes bad, you go back to this vehicle. If you don't know which vehicle, go, go to go to, go to any Humvee. And walk up to the driver and say like, hey, I'm the strap hanger. Tell me where to go.

• 1:35:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:35:08Jocko Willink?

  And they'll take care of you. So we had at least a minute, a minimum amount of planning to make sure, which by the way, that came from a lesson from me where I did take some strap hangers out. Didn't work out good and, and mistakes got made that I should have been more attentive to, and I should have put more guidance in place, which I did after that. After that happened, but yeah, so I can kind of see someone thinking, oh, you know, we got this girl. She'll be, you know, if we need her, we'll bring her up to the front. We'll bring, well, you know, we don't expect to see a lot of females.

• 1:35:39Jocko Willink?

  And also what happens is they don't know what you don't know, or they don't remember what you don't know. So if I was to go on a jump with Andy Stumpf. Right now, he'd be like, oh yeah, like, uh, hey, just, just do this.

• 1:35:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:55Jocko Willink?

  Expecting that I know how to do it. When I'd be like, hey dude, I don't know how to do that. Or, or, you know, expect me, hey, when you come in for the landing, just make sure you do this, you know, triple Lindy on the, on the approach and I'd be, and he thinks, he would legitimately think I would know it.

• 1:36:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:36:08Jocko Willink?

  And I'd be like, hey dude, I don't know how to do a triple, triple Lindy. But if I didn't say that, or if I didn't know to say that, or if I didn't have time to say that, or we're in a freaking helicopter and he's like, triple landing. And I'm like, you know. So that could be problematic. So I'm just trying to, I, I try and figure out, you know, the situation that you were in from like a mental perspective. And it's not good.

• 1:36:30Speaker 01

  No, I'm like a golden retriever. It's just, I'm just happy to be here.

• 1:36:33Jocko Willink?

  You're happy to be here.

• 1:36:34Speaker 01

  I'm happy to be here.

• 1:36:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And that's cool when you're going to a happy place.

• 1:36:38Speaker 01

  It's cool when you, yeah, when it doesn't end up being like where the grounds are filled with IEDs and people don't like you, especially women, and they don't like women who have guns and they. Think that you're a little boy that's taking their their daughters and their children into a room. Yeah, they don't like you very much and you learn really quickly. It it didn't take me long to switch my brain on. Once the the day we landed, we we sat in the dark until morning prayer. That was like the we're gonna all hell's gonna break loose. That's when we're hitting and moving. So we got told like they're gonna go now. So morning prayer happened and then a group went forward and breached that first compound. Once that happened, I got called up right away, right away.

• 1:37:20Speaker 01

  And so Benji, who um that's the dog um and his handler and I went went right up to the houses. And it was already like everything had already calmed down, but they had the women and kids over in one area. And I went in with my helmet on and I had a scarf on as well because it was freezing, which also no one tells you how cold it gets at night. Just FYI, if you're ever deploying, can someone tell someone what the degree at night it becomes? Because it gets fucking cold. So we're outside there outside the wire in the middle of the night and I'm just shaking, thinking just like wearing a T-shirt and my just button up kit with my plates and then my vest. I'm like, oh, it's freezing. It's it's fucking cold. So we we went inside and they're kind of all huddled to the side and I had the big scarf over.

• 1:38:03Speaker 01

  So my hair was blonde at the time and my braid was tucked in. You could not tell that I was a woman from Adam, like you, there was no way you would know. And so when I went to grab the women and kids, and at this point I'm pretty calm and I'm pretty gentle. So I'm like, come with me into the room, like not creepy, not pointing guns, just we're gonna we're gonna go in here, I'm gonna search you and it's gonna be fine. They're looking at me terrified and the husband or the the elder of the family freaks the fuck out, cries to grab a hold of me like this and a bunch of the guys start pointing the gun at him. And they start the interpreter comes over, starts yelling, he thinks you're a boy. He thinks you're a man, he thinks you're a man, take your helmet off. So and I was taught, because at this point, uh Trevor had already, we had a Canadian who had an axe put into his head.

• 1:38:46Speaker 01

  Um, and he's the reason why Honor House exists. But long and short, he sat down in a prayer circle. And this was back when the SOPs were different, took his helmet off out of respect. Taliban never came up. Axe in the head. He live, he's alive. He lives on the island of Vancouver. He's amazing. Um, but we, we were always told you never take your helmet off. So I'm kind of looking around, like looking for someone to tell me what to do because that's what I've been trained to do. And I'm like, oh, fuck it. I'm by myself. Take my helmet off and he calms down once he sees that I'm a woman. Everything kind of chills out. Then I go and I do my first experience of like searching people, but the difference is these people are real rural, right? They're not like Kabul educated, you know, girls that are, you know, these are no running water.

• 1:39:28Speaker 01

  The only men they ever see is like their elder. That's the word of God. They learn everything from them. And so they're, they're a mess and they're terrified and they're crying and the kids are crying and I'm not, I don't know what the hell I thought would happen. But it wasn't like, I didn't expect like the fear. When you see that amount of fear in a small child's eyes, that's like a thing that sticks. That you were, and maybe now because I have done so much, I can look back at it this way. But like that, the fact that I was the thing of someone's nightmares makes me sad inside. Yeah. So that was a, that was a weird, that was a weird first exchange. Didn't expect, I don't like it. I don't know what I expected, right? Cause again, I just happy to be here.

• 1:40:12Jocko Willink?

  Right, right. And then, so you guys end up, you're in the field for a total of what, five days?

• 1:40:20Speaker 01

  I think something along that lines. I don't know. Everything blurred.

• 1:40:22Jocko Willink?

  And it's, you're in multiple contacts.

• 1:40:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot.

• 1:40:27Jocko Willink?

  A lot of contacts with the enemy as you're moving from village to village, doing clearances. Uh, there's an incident where there's a, a big IED.

• 1:40:37Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:40:37Jocko Willink?

  You have one soldier get killed, another soldier get really badly wounded. That's a nightmare to, to work through. And this this whole time, you're, like you said, you're getting shuffled around, you're moving to the front, you're moving to the back, you're moving back to the front, you're

• 1:40:55Speaker 01

  I was never in the back. I was just moving to front. I was moving in front to different, different parts of villages. So it was like, I was never just like sitting waiting. The only time I ever like stopped or we weren't in firefight is that night. And then I got to sleep for a three hour chunk like the first night. That one was the, I remember because I slept in the, my sergeant gave me that like, it's like a, you put it over top of your sleeping bag to protect your sleeping bag.

• 1:41:17Jocko Willink?

  A billy sack.

• 1:41:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you. And so what I did is I just wanted privacy. So I got inside of it and I tied it up really tight of the tight. And then I put it at the meet and then I changed in that and then I slept in that while my stuff dried because it was wet. And so the, you know, the whole, the whole time I was there, again, it's not like, war isn't difficult, shit's not hard, people don't die, stuff doesn't happen. It was just weird situations. I was in awkward placements for, meaning like, we were moving from one village to, like, one of the videos I sent you was the artillery going over top of us. Well, what had happened at that point when we were moving from that village was, when you look at the right hand side of the video, you can see there was a, there was a tree in the way of the sniper.

• 1:42:02Speaker 01

  So some of the engineers came over and blew it up so that we could blow the tree out of the way. Okay. But while we were waiting for that, we were all starting to push forward. Once the sniper got in place, we were pushing forward along this. There's like a mud wall. When you step upside, there's like a mud wall, but for me, it was like probably up to my shoulders, right? And so we're pushing forward and I'm going ahead with a couple of the guys and I'm like third, I'm third behind them. Because at this point, we had been in some contact and I had moved fine enough where they just stuck me in with everyone else. They weren't like, hold her back, then we'll bring her forward. It was just like, we're finding women everywhere. She's just go from here to here to here. So I'm moving forward with one of the guys and we got close contact, like. Close contact, closest I've ever seen, never experienced anything like that before.

• 1:42:45Speaker 01

  And it was to the point where we were taking rounds and one of the guys was like, we have to push, push, push, push back. And I was like, what do you mean? We, we were, what? He's like, run that way again. And I was like, okay. So what happens was, he covered fire and I ran and I remembered, I just remembered this big hole in the ground and I remember jumping over it. And it was one of those like, slow motion moments because like, there was rounds coming down and it was my first real like, taking fucking hand, like handgun fire. Um, so we, we retreated back and I, where I took the video from, we were sitting in the ditch on the right-hand side and we were waiting for artillery to come down. And that was the first time they were calling rounds over top of us. And I was like, that's close. And they're like, sure is, sure is. And that's when I could feel the ground, just whoa, and I was like, oh my God.

• 1:43:31Speaker 01

  Cause they used to say to us in the training, like, you're the hand of God. And I was like, I don't know what that means, but I'mma find out. And I found out and I loved it. As soon as first lanyard pull, I was like, that's an addiction. That's a, that's a thing. I want more of that. I want more of that. That's, that's something special. That's like, all the hair on your body raises and the ground moves and you're like, what you just sent down range is going to wreak havoc. Make somebody have a real bad day.

• 1:43:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I can't imagine that there's anything better for an artillery person than to be in the field and see the impact of what it's like to have artillery utilized.

• 1:44:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:09Jocko Willink?

  You know, for the, for the folks on the ground, for sure.

• 1:44:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it, it was cool. Um, just cause the power of it. And so that was, that was all like one thing. So that was my first kind of like, uh, experience to like actual like popping over my head of rounds coming. Um, and then the second one that like, again, I was just, they were, we were moving from like one village to the next. And we were pushing forward and Stephen Noble, um, he was my platoon sergeant. He was He had pulled us back and shoved us into a compound and put some of us on the roof because there was girls screaming. They heard screaming in the next compound ahead. So they put us on the roof. I'm one of the only people that don't go on the roof. The medic, the bomb dog, and the CSTs. We don't go on the roofs.

• 1:44:53Speaker 01

  We don't do sentry at night on the roof because there's only a few of us. So I got put on the roof, which, again, I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to be shooting my rifle. I'm fucking stoked to do this. I get on the roof. We're taking rounds. Um, and we're shooting. There's a guy beside me, myself here, and another guy here. And so the sniper, um, they call them sharpshooters, uh, the British. So the sharpshooter that was with me jumps down off the roof to grab more ammo. He lies his rifle, which is the entire length of my body. And I have a photo with me holding the rifle and the round we pulled out of it. And we get three rounds that come from the left side and smoke the buttstock of his rifle and just, just by the, just covers my hip. This is the length of my body.

• 1:45:34Speaker 01

  And, uh, we all get down off the roof and we look and it's, he's got like an AK round like in the buttstock. And so he duct taped it up. And I said, can I have that? And he's like, no fucking chance. And I said, can I take a picture of it? He goes, yeah, absolutely. So I took a picture. I put it on my leg and I took a picture of it and then I tattooed it on my finger. So it's like, there was just situations. And when the ID went off, I was in the group and we were waiting for that, those two people to go clear the road. And so on the compound on the right hand side, we had a group of guys that was back a little bit with a sniper on the roof. And then there was a, uh, uh, mud, like a compound mud. When I say compound, I'm talking like mud walls, real rough, ruggedly, not fucking a compound like a marble. Um, and we're leaning with our backs up to it.

• 1:46:18Speaker 01

  And on the left hand side is, um, in a little ways away is a gray putt. And then if you go down the road a little to the right and you, there's a ditch and then there's this road that goes up to the gray putt. And then on the right hand side of that road is just a whole open clearing. And so we were waiting for it to be cleared. And there was, we were just sitting still and everything was calm. Everything was quiet. ICOM chatter, nothing. Everything was perfect. And so we're just sitting there and I remember I was looking over, talking to a couple of the guys and the ground fucking shook. Like something, and I remember just whipping my head around and seeing the worst thing that I'll see for the rest of my life.

• 1:47:01Speaker 01

  So, uh, that was a situation, again, that I shouldn't have fucking been in, and shouldn't have been a part of. But Noble said, "You, you, and you, go." And I don't know, I mean, what does "go" mean? "Go, run, now." And so, um, Craig Hardy, the medic that was with us, is dealing with the first individual, and what had happened is, the blast went off and there was somebody at the door, and he took the brunt of the blast, blew his kit off and just wrecked him. So we were dealing with that, and then afterwards, three of us, uh, run down off of the road into the ditch and sprint towards the gray putt. And then we get to the road that's right adjacent to the gray putt,

• 1:47:46Speaker 01

  and they give the, "Okay, one, two, three, run." So, and at this point, all hell is broken loose. Now we're taking mortar rounds, now we're taking, we're taking small arms fire, and things are getting out of control. And so what they did is, the Taliban used that moment to be, uh, you know, wait for everyone to come and then secondary, just, you know what that looks like. So, we get inside the gray putt, and then, I was with Steven Noble and a couple other guys, and that's the moment I, I say often, like, my light switch goes. Like, the switch happens when I find out that there's, this is what's left, and you're, you're cleaning it up, and we're running and we're moving. And so, I just blacked out and did what I was told. I didn't think about what I was doing or touching or grabbing, I just did what I was fucking told.

• 1:48:31Speaker 01

  And then, and just after that, I didn't feel anything anymore. Like, there was not anything I could feel, there's not anything I could do about it, there's nothing that I could switch on or off. It was just like, I was fucking gone. Like, a part of me was like, "See you later." Wall. And that, that's just how it worked. And so, once we finished that, we all put everything we could onto the stretcher, and then I carried the two individuals' helmets, and one of the rifles, and I slung my rifle, and I carried his rifle, and it was all twisted. I'd never seen anything like that happen to a weapon. I didn't, I obviously know they're malleable, but I had never seen it in person. Um, so the gravity of the situation did not punch me in the face, though, until we got the stretcher back into that compound that was down on the right-hand side of where I was sitting,

• 1:49:15Speaker 01

  where the snipers were, and we went inside of there. And at that point... That's when the um, the Pedros, the guys came in the Blackhawks. And one came around and unleashed hell. Like out of those like miniguns and just fucking, I'd. I'd only heard that once when we were in um, Wainwright when they were shooting over top of us for the first time, but I had never heard like.

• 1:49:38Speaker 01

  Oh my god, and so at that point. They got everybody on um, the flights and they had taken off and then the fire had kind of dampened down. Um, and that's the moment that like uh. Craig sat with me and he was the medic and he just kept asking me if I was okay. Cause at this point I was obsessively rubbing my hands. Like, I didn't have my gloves on for that. And so I had some stuff all over me and I just kept rubbing my hands really, really aggressively, like just trying to get it off. Cause I would rub my kit and my kit was covered and had dirt on it, so I'd just keep rubbing and it would just keep getting worse. And so I just kept sitting there and I'd sat on the ground and I remember it because there was a.

• 1:50:18Speaker 01

  Inside there, there was like a, not a room, but like a cutout and the other guys were sitting over there and they're all kind of, a bunch of them were sitting in a circle and they're all smoking. And I was like, I want a cigarette and they're like, you're not starting now, like we're not giving you a cigarette, like this is not how this is gonna work. And then he gave me like hand sanitizer or like some type of something and like just, just like, just wipe it off, just like, it's cool, just wipe it off. Like this isn't his first deployment, like this is, this guy is a hardened medic, he had, he had done some time um, other places and so. He could see that I was not coping and something, it was off really, really fast. And then at that point, it was like within fifteen minutes, they're like, okay. Up we go. Push on. That's it. And I didn't know what to do with that. Fuck am I supposed to know what to do with that?

• 1:51:02Speaker 01

  I, like, the thing that got me is like. All of these guys, it's like, of course you can't sit there and wallow in it. But like, what the fuck are you supposed to do with that? And it's funny because since our last conversation, I've talked about you on a few shows because somebody, quite a few people asked me about this story. And I talked about it in length on my podcast with Danny Ventura, who was friends with one of the guys that we lost. And then I talked about it with one of the family members and I said, can I talk about this? They said, the reason we want to talk about it is because it just keeps their names alive. And I was like, okay. So Danny and I talked about one of the situations and he said, you know, when you handled that, like, how do you think, do you think it could have been better? Do you think it could have been different?

• 1:51:46Speaker 01

  Do you think you could have, you know, anything? And I said, it's funny that you say that because when you asked me last time I was here, like you asked me very clearly, and this has stuck with me, and it was like, if somebody would have sat you down and said, hey, what you're feeling is normal, what you're experiencing is normal, how you're reacting is normal, this is okay, you're going to get through this, instead of slapping medication on top of it and then having to exit the country and then eventually exit the military, do you think you would have been okay? Yeah, I fucking think I would have been okay. But I think at the time, our leadership didn't know how to deal with mental health. It was still too early in Canada's involvement in 2009 and our staff, like my sergeant tells

• 1:52:31Speaker 01

  me to this day, I didn't know what to do with you. I didn't know how to help you. I didn't know what you were going through because I had never been through an experience like that. So if the leaders I'm going to have never experienced it, and I'm glad that they never had to experience it because no one should have to experience that. But war is war and that's what happens. That's the reality. So if he didn't know how to help me, how am I supposed to get help? Like I didn't have anyone to be like, hey, this is normal, this is okay. So, you know, that, that, that, that was the moment, that was when they, when they, when you look at my TBI paperwork and like the, the stuff from Veterans Affairs, like that's the fucking check in the box for them where they're like, yep, that's where that,

• 1:53:13Speaker 01

  that IED, that situation, that body clearance, that whole thing, that was the moment. And then the rest of the op just went fucking downhill from there.

• 1:53:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the um, that conversation that we had last time you were on and because the whole time, you know, I was sitting there kind of like I'm doing today of like just pointing out the fact that you were young, you were not trained for this, you weren't aware of what was happening, you know, overall in the big picture, you're getting like a five-minute brief about what you're gonna go do, there's a lot, and then your follow-on to a traumatic situation is like, okay, cool, clean your hands, we're going to the next village, and all the, and then when you get done, and we'll get into that, but yes, um, I had a connection at some point in my life where, you know, I'd get these, these, when I was

• 1:54:04Jocko Willink?

  training MMA fighters, and MMA fighters, they would be very confident, and then they would go to the fight, and they'd get like, especially quite frankly, in the UFC, when it's the UFC, and it doesn't matter, you do a bunch of shows, amateur shows, you've been wrestling your whole life, whatever, you've been in fights, you're, you're, you know what you're doing, you always, you don't get nervous, you don't get nervous anymore. After a guy has wrestled his whole life, or boxed his whole life, and now he's gonna go, they don't get nervous before a fight, you know, a collegiate wrestler doesn't get nervous before a wrestling match, like, they get over it, okay, maybe they get a little bit nervous, but, but they get over it, and all of a sudden, they show up at UFC, and it's a real thing, and I think they have a name for it, they call it something like

• 1:54:46Jocko Willink?

  UFC jitters, or something like that, and what I realized is, if they didn't know what it was, they'd be like, oh, there's something wrong with me, and at some point, I said to myself, oh, the same thing happens in combat, the same thing happens before combat, and the same thing happens after a combat, oh, before combat, you're nervous, and it's okay that you're nervous, it's okay that you're sick to your stomach, it's okay that you're, well, not sick, but your stomach is in knots, it's okay that you're, you're, you may be even like, I've seen guys shivering, like, they're shivering, they're scared, and it's like, if you go, hey, man, it's all good, you're supposed to feel that way, it's your body getting ready for combat, don't worry about it, it's fine, and they go, oh, okay, and it's the same thing before they get in the cage, it's like, hey, man, what you're feeling right now is you being prepared for combat, and the same thing on the other side of like, oh,

• 1:55:29Jocko Willink?

  You you have some uncontrollable emotion because you lost one of your friends? Yep, that's totally normal. Like, hey, man, I've lost a bunch of friends and it's like, oh, yeah, sometimes I'll just start crying. Yeah, oh, that's that's that. And it's not like, I don't, I don't think to myself, hey, I had a heard a, you know, actually, I would, the cliche is like, I heard a song, but that doesn't actually happen. I don't like hear a song, but maybe there's be a picture I'm looking at.

• 1:55:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:53Jocko Willink?

  Or I'll read something and, you know, go read old emails. That's a real freaking smart move on a freaking Saturday afternoon. But you do that and you can be like, oh, okay. Oh, now I'm sitting alone and I'm crying.

• 1:56:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:07Jocko Willink?

  But for me, I'm like, that's totally normal. That's what you do and it's okay. And I I don't think that that message gets to people to say, oh, yeah, you lost some of your friends and you're 23 or 19 or 27 or 32 years old and you're gonna be bummed out about that.

• 1:56:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:24Jocko Willink?

  And there's gonna be some uncontrollable emotions that you as a grown person are not used to because there's nothing, you know, oh, you get mad at the supermarket because the line was long or you get mad because your computer printer didn't work. Or you get sad because you watched a movie, but that's all different compared to, oh, I lost one of my really good friends. And it's a different kind of emotion that I'm not used to. So what they should be thinking is like, oh, that's normal. I'm sad that I lost some of my friends. And instead, what they think is, I'm sad it's uncontrollable. There must be something wrong with me. And that becomes, I I think that becomes the beginning of a problem, like,

• 1:57:04Jocko Willink?

  where no one says that. No one says, oh, yeah, you you should, you you you're crying. Oh, yeah, you uncontrollably cried like yesterday afternoon while you were sitting in your room by yourself? Yeah, okay, yeah, that's, you lost one of your good friends. That's gonna happen.

• 1:57:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I I do that when I hear Dane Cook. When I hear Dane Cook, I think of Chris Gould. I think about our friendship and I think about that and like the fun like listening to that and doing laundry and talking about stupid things. Like I think I hear that and I'm like, I'm just gonna cry. Like I did that. I did that on, uh, it was Memorial Day. I was out for a run, um, and I was listening to something and it popped on and I came around. Brady was in the cul-de-sac with our neighbor who's a ex firefighter and I came around the cul-de-sac and I'm just screaming and I'm angry and I'm bawling my eyes out. They're like, what's wrong? And I'm like, I'm upset. Like I just, it fucking punches you and it's like, feel it. Accept it. Sit in it. Sit in it. And but you then have to move through it.

• 1:58:03Speaker 01

  That's the difference is you can't hold on to it, the anger and the sadness. It's okay to feel it. It's necessary to feel it, but we don't teach anyone that it's important to feel it. Oh, it's no, it's fine. It's fine. Something, nothing's wrong. Nothing's wrong. Who's that helping? You need to feel it or it's gonna sit in you and it's going to hurt you long term. You have to move through that shit, but I was never taught that. And that's why I said, like, when I've been interviewed since it's, that's been a question. It's like, do you think anything could be done different? I said, the first thing I say every time is Jaco asked me this question and I think it illustrates exactly what went wrong and why in a really small sentence. Because no one pulled me aside and said that. And it was really no one's job to either, right?

• 1:58:47Speaker 01

  I wasn't, I wasn't supposed to be there. I wasn't supposed to happen. Like all these things happen. Like these were all things that happened in war, but situations just went wrong. It just was worse than they thought it would be. I mean, it's not that I think they wouldn't have brought me, but it just was worse.

• 1:59:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And then you get done with this.

• 1:59:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:06Jocko Willink?

  And instead of decompressing with these guys and unknowingly venting and unknowingly like processing all these emotions. You wouldn't, I wouldn't be like, hey, everyone, we're gonna get together and we're gonna rehash and, and let out our emotions and go through our emotions. Which guys do that without, it's not like a plan. It's just like, oh, we're freaking telling stories. Guys are like, oh, okay. Okay. So you're crying, you're laughing, you're crying and you're processing all those things. That's pretty normal.

• 1:59:37Jocko Willink?

  Very normal for that to happen, but you didn't do that with these guys.

• 1:59:41Speaker 01

  No, and that I have found out since because a friend of mine, Jaclyn Scott, her name, her nickname's Jax. She was a CST. She's a warrant officer, special operations, and she's been downaged. And I'd said to her, when I told her my story, she was like, oh yeah, that that happened to me. You go and you get attached to these people, but the CSTs, like, so I just did this Jax act that protects, gets mental health help for CSTs. But that wasn't happening for all the GWATs. So it's like if you were a CST, you were ripped away from the unit you were just with and then dropped back to wherever you are. To people who don't understand what you just went through, frankly, my guys didn't want to fucking hear about it. They were pissed off that I got to go in the first place. So coming back and then having that conversation was...

• 2:00:25Speaker 01

  And frankly, I was silent when I got back. So that's, that if you know me, that's a problem.

• 2:00:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I can't really imagine that, actually.

• 2:00:33Speaker 01

  Well, it's okay. You'll never have to. How's that? So there was this idea that you're just dropped. And so when you have no one to talk to, people that don't understand, haven't been there, didn't experience it, don't believe you. The fuck are you supposed to do with that? You stop sleeping. Okay, so then I would pace at the boardwalk. I would go down the boardwalk where the Tim Hortons is and where there's a bunch of like ridiculous restaurants in Afghanistan. And I would pace and I would just walk and I would stay awake. And then Benji's handler and Benji would hang out with me. And then one of the other Brits would come around and they would kind of swap off. Some of the guys would come hang out with me that I was with during that whole situation. They would come and hang out with me at night and stuff like that.

• 2:01:18Speaker 01

  Because I think it was like the Green Bean or that other coffee shop was open late. So I would get tea and I would walk around and pace. So now I'm not sleeping, but I'm not sleeping during the day either. So now I'm getting real irritable. Not only am I getting irritable, I'm starting to have issues with loud noises and like unexpected bangs and all of these things. Now I'm just crying in the shower on the floor. This is good. And it gets to a point where... I can almost talk about it like a separate person now, it feels compared to like the two years ago when I was here versus the way where I and like just the amount of work I've done since. It's like I can almost talk about it to a point where I don't fucking feel hysterical. It's like I can see it from an outside perspective. It's like, oh, god damn it. There was so much

• 2:01:59Speaker 01

  wrong. There was so much wrong that no one caught on to. No one paid attention to. And if they did catch on to it, it was from like a an authoritarian like you're in trouble now situation. Like I I end up getting put at the Q M's, the quartermasters, which again, even if you didn't deploy, even if you did deploy and you were in the clerks, or you were mailing us, or you were getting us ammunition, you're a part of the team. But when you go to the Q M and the quartermaster who's a warrant officer who hasn't set foot outside of CAF, looks at you and go, your ponytail's too high. Where's your where's your full magazine? The response isn't going to be like, oh, it's no big deal, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's going to be like, go fuck yourself. You've been sitting at this CAF. You don't

• 2:02:42Speaker 01

  do anything but drink coffee and eat fucking Tim Hortons. And you want to bitch at me about my ponytail right now after two days ago was picking up some dude's body pieces? Get the fuck out of my face. Like, the response is not going to be met equally. It's going to be intense and over like I hadn't slept. These are problems that are starting to come out. No, we don't recognize that as a problem. Instead, we go, to punish her, we're just going to make her count pens.

• 2:03:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And from a leadership perspective, you take that individual and you're like, hey, dude, I got a job for you over here. You're going to come over here and you're going to hang out with me. And everything's going to be cool. You're not going to get any trouble. And it's going to be all good. And we're going to debrief some stuff. And you protect your people to make sure that they're not getting exposed to that kind of, you know, authoritarian behavior, which they're not going to respond well to. It's very difficult to respond well in those situations because everyone kind of comes out of it like, I literally don't care. And so.

• 2:03:40Jocko Willink?

  You don't have any authority over me and I'm gonna do whatever I want. And you gotta let them work through that. Otherwise, you gotta, you gotta keep them basically a little bit separate and let them decompress a little bit. So that they can get that out of their system and they can come back to normal. You know, in this case, you know, uh, garrison life. Cause you can't, it's can be, it can be difficult for people to go from into the, in the field to garrison without having issues. So it's really the responsibility of the leadership to go, yep. Oh, oh yeah. I, I got Kelsey. Yep. She's good. She's gonna be, she's with me. She's gonna be with me for, I got a, I have a special assignment for just cause she's working on some stuff with me.

• 2:04:21Jocko Willink?

  And I'd be like, hey, Kelsey, can you, the next couple of days, we gotta prep this brief and can you help me with it? And you'd be like, I don't feel like doing that. I'd be like, yeah, I know. You don't want to, but cool. Here, put it together and you know.

• 2:04:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:04:32Jocko Willink?

  All good. And I've done that with a lot of people, you know, I've done that with a lot of people. Where it's like, hey, come, you know, JP didn't help. He was, when we got home from deployment, he went, he got pulled out of his platoon because he had a hurt shoulder. So they put him as a BUDS instructor. That wasn't a good move. That was not a good move. And so, yeah, and so, you know, after a very short period of time, I got the word. And I was like, yep, he'd come work for me and he brought him, you know, and then, then it's good because we are not going to expose him to stupid stuff. And it's okay. And no offense to people that do stupid stuff in the military or that get, you know, and also like that, whoever that guy is, whoever these people are that are, they don't. It's unfortunate. Oftentimes you should default to, hey, if I see someone that's not doing the right thing.

• 2:05:17Jocko Willink?

  My default should be what's wrong? What's going on? I mean, if I'm in a, in a senior or in a leadership position and I don't know you.

• 2:05:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:05:26Jocko Willink?

  And I'm walking across base and I see you and I'm like, hey, your ponytail is a little bit out of hand. And you go, hey, fuck off. I, I wouldn't be like, I'm gonna punish you. I'd be like, hey, hey, what, what's going on? How long are you in, how long you get this base for? Is everything cool? Like I wouldn't be on the attack mode. I try and figure out what's going on because people, that's not normal. And I think it doesn't take anybody, no one in the military is walking around telling people to fuck off. It doesn't happen. So when it happens, some, there's, that's like. For lack of a better word, it's a huge cry for help, or at least a serious indication that you're gonna need some assistance.

• 2:06:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:06:06Jocko Willink?

  And so, that's, it's horrible to hear that. It's horrible to hear that. And, again, we gotta do a better job inside the military of like, teaching people how to lead, instead of teaching people how to be authoritarian idiots, because it's very easy to slip into that.

• 2:06:24Speaker 01

  And it doesn't, it's not hard, um, it's not hard to see it, too. I think a lot of these signs are really simple, when people know what they're looking for. Unfortunately, at the time that I was there, number one, these guys, most of them are French, so when I would speak to them in English, they, like, if it was like an agent, like, warren officer, or like, someone above, like, that was not, you speak French, like, you speak French to them, because they don't speak English. And then, so then they get frustrated and angry at you if you're not, you know, so anyway, so that would happen, shit like that would happen, and then it'd be like, "Oh, your magazine's, uh, empty." And I'd be like, "Used all the rounds, like, what the fuck?" And you would get, you would get written up for that. And then, I remember one time, I got set, when I finally got to go back to

• 2:07:06Speaker 01

  my FOB, um, at that point, they had put me on a laundry list of medications, and didn't tell my staff. So they put me on drugs, heavy drugs, um, for sleep and all these other things, and like, fast-acting stuff. And then they sent me back out to the FOB, but didn't tell my staff. So my sergeant, Sergeant LeBlanc, had no idea what was going on. And finally, at one point, you know, I would just kinda walk around like a zombie. I would go do my workouts, I'd do my run, I'd go do the tower stuff, but it was just very, like, slow-moving, kind of quiet, didn't, didn't talk to anyone. And at one point, my sergeant sat me down, and he was like, "You know, if you want to..."

• 2:07:49Speaker 01

  You wanna be a part of these, these, this group, you need to participate. And I remember just being like, I don't fucking care. Like, I just, you know what I mean? Like, these guys were already pissed off. I went and got to go and do something that they wanted to go do. They were bored, we weren't shooting at the time. Like, I understand it. Like, I get it. You're, you're on a fob, day in, day out. That can get repet- like, the repetition there. And like, you're going to war. So like, you're supposed to be fucking fighting. And like, when you're not, it's, it's, gets boring and I get it. But I'd come back and at this point, you know, some of the, some of the stories of what had happened had kinda made word around. And then like, one of the girls I knew was like, don't fucking talk about that. Like, people think you're crazy, no one believes that. Like, no one believes you. And I was like, awesome. So I like, went back and he was like, you know, if you want to, you know, be a part of it,

• 2:08:33Speaker 01

  you gotta like, you need to try and be a part of the group, you know, this whole thing. And he was trying. And that night, we end up shooting, uh, it was like night, early morning. And we were doing rounds downrange. And I mean, like, normally we would pop like, a couple, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And then we would stop for a bit, we would do another fire mission. But at this point, we were like, boom, boom, boom. And we were just cranking. And at about ten rounds, cuz I had, they give me the sleep one that you put on your tongue that dissolves really fast, fast acting. I'd taken that. I was told, you take, at this point in my life, I was told, you take your medication when you're supposed to take your medication. And, uh, and so, I'm not even waking up to this. And our tent's right beside the triple sevens. I'm just feeling the vibration and I'm just like, okay, no one's coming to get me.

• 2:09:18Speaker 01

  No one's saying, like, I didn't hear fire mission. I just, no rounds are going down. So I finally got up and I went out there and they're cranking rounds down. And now we're cranking mortars. And they pull me over to the mortar and they give me a round. They're like, let's go. And like, so one of the RSM starts yelling at me in French. And I remember freezing with the mortar and just going like, freezing. And he's like, let's go, tabanak burns, let's go. He starts yelling me and I'm like, I was so fucking out of it. That by the time I finally put the mortar and let go, I just started bawling my eyes out. I had no idea like, what was going on. Like, and my sergeant said to me, he's like, we were looking for you. We went up to the GD, we thought you were on GD maybe. Like, like, I always come running to the guns. Like, I'm always one of the first ones there cuz I like certain positions.

• 2:09:59Speaker 01

  So if you get there first, you can fucking, um, so, you know, but I didn't move. And then I remember, I pulled him inside the tent. And it's funny, we talked about this and he says it to me all the time and I- I think he feels really guilty. And he'd be like, I remember the moment you lined up your pills and you showed them to me.

• 2:10:20Speaker 01

  He goes, S T burns, fuck. And I said, yeah, I've been on these since I got back. And he just, you could see like, this is not good or okay, we have to do something about this, like, right now. And then the tower situation happened where I racked around and it was a kid and I didn't pull the trigger and it was a whole situation because I thought she was waving, she was waving, she was, but I was so...

• 2:10:50Speaker 01

  After what happened with IED, my tone changed. My empathy was gone. My ability to see Afghans as human beings was fucking over.

• 2:11:05Speaker 01

  Like, I didn't care if you were a kid, I didn't care if you were a woman, or you were a Taliban member. I didn't fucking like you. I didn't want to see your face, don't fucking look at me, don't talk to me. Don't try to fucking grab at me. I was forceful, I was violent and I was angry. So like when that happened, and I went down off the tower and I told them, they were like, yeah, you're, you're, you gotta go back to CAF, like this is a problem. And they had worded it to me like, don't worry, you're coming back. Don't worry, we'll see you soon, like, don't take all your stuff. Just take what you need, just take what you need. Um, and then I went back to CAF and uh, yeah, that was the last, that was the last time I saw that FOB. That was the last time I ran a triple seven.

• 2:11:50Speaker 01

  And um, that was the last time I saw everyone except for my sergeant. And I saw him by chance when he was going on his HLTA, so his break, I was at CAF when he um, was rotating out to go on his holiday. So he saw me and I remember it so clearly, he was in a truck, he was on the passenger side, he was jumping in the truck and he's like, you gotta fucking give me something. Give me something, what is going on with you, you need to give me something, like, talk to me, talk to me. I was like, I don't know, I have nothing, I'm not feeling good. And then um, that's when they made me see the doctor more often and then I went on my HLTA. So they sent me out of country on holiday. To, I end up going, I was meeting my mom in the Dominican.

• 2:12:35Speaker 01

  And so I went through Dubai, Heathrow, Toronto, to Dominican. And I was out of my mind on these, you know, psychiatric meds, sleep meds, anti-anxiety, antidepressant meds. They don't tell you really like what you can take with it, what you can't, or they don't really tell you contraindications. They don't really say like, "Don't drink alcohol." Or like, "Don't party early." Like, they don't really give you a briefing. So you leave. I go, and then I was in Dominican for almost three weeks. And it was just, my mom didn't know what to deal with. Me, how to deal with me, what the fuck was wrong with me? It was, there'd be loud noises, I would crouch down and start screaming at the top of my lungs.

• 2:13:16Speaker 01

  While we were gone, we had lost some more Canadians that I had done training with, out of, that were Van Dues. So, it was like, I just need to get back, I need to get back, I need to get back. I don't know what the fuck I thought I was gonna do, but I needed to get back. So, once I did get back into country, they brought me back to the, um, to CAF. And then they kept bringing me to the doctors. And now I had standing appointments where they were assessing me. And that's when they assessed me in country, and diagnosed me in country. So, um, that, at that point, that triggered the system to send me home. So I ended up going home, I think it was like about three weeks before everyone else went home from my gun troop. And I never saw anyone again.

• 2:13:53Speaker 01

  I didn't see the Brits, I didn't see the Canadians, and I didn't see the Americans again.

• 2:13:59Jocko Willink?

  Good debrief you got.

• 2:14:01Speaker 01

  It was super solid, it felt, uh, felt useful, felt like it was, uh, tools in my toolbox.

• 2:14:07Jocko Willink?

  What did they tell you? They're like, "Okay, we're sending you home early." What's their reason?

• 2:14:12Speaker 01

  Uh, they end up dying me, uh, diagnosing me at the time it was acute PTSD. So it was on a severe scale, they were hoping it was acute, meaning like, "We'll work through it, it'll get better, it'll go away." So they they just said you're going home and you're gonna go to report to Vakhetze, you're gonna meet with the RSM and your RSM is gonna give you your papers and you're gonna go to the hospital in Ottawa. Because that's where they want to send you to the closest spot of where your family is for support and my closest spot was where I swore in, which was Ottawa, which was about just under three hours from my parents. So I was the closest they could get me.

• 2:14:50Jocko Willink?

  So did you go back there as like an inpatient?

• 2:14:52Speaker 01

  No, at first it was outpatient and they kept me as originally they were because they don't do a lot of inpatient in a lot of places. So they put me as outpatient. So I went to the RSM first. I flew into Quebec, like middle of the night, 2am, empty airport, no fucking clue how to get to and from. So I called an officer I knew, woke him up, I was like, would you come pick me up? And so he took me to get a coffee and then I went back to the regiment. And I had to wait at the regiment because the housing that I was staying in was on the base and they were renovating it all. So I had nowhere to go. So I just went to the regiment. I got there in the regiment, I'm in my uniform and my boots that are still fucking held together with duct tape and blood all over them and went up to the RSM's office and he handed

• 2:15:35Speaker 01

  me a piece of paper and he said, you're going to Ottawa and that was it. And right before I had left Afghanistan, my major sat me down, took all of the medical chits that they had been doing while I was there, threw them at me and told me that it would be better if I just died. It would have been less paperwork. Now to have come to find out that piece of shit has been kicked out of the military for sexual assault, like by seven different women. So it's like karma sucks when you're that person.

• 2:16:06Jocko Willink?

  Or it's kind of good.

• 2:16:07Speaker 01

  Or it's kind of fantastic, but I'm trying to be kind.

• 2:16:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's that, uh, that saying, people believe it's a Native American saying.

• 2:16:14Speaker 01

  Can you say Native American? You have to say indigenous for Canadians.

• 2:16:17Jocko Willink?

  Um, and it's, the diagnosis is a curse, right? Like you get diagnosed with something, it's a curse. And, and then the other thing is, we did a podcast, we have another podcast called the Underground Podcast and we, we talked about this experiment and I, I, I need to memorize these details, but basically they took kids, kids that had a little bit of a speaking impediment, just a little bit, like a little bit of a stutter, that are seven, eight years old. And they said, hey, this is really bad and it's going to get a lot worse.

• 2:16:53Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna be a problem in your life. And sure enough, all their freaking stutters got way worse. They took kids that had a little bit of a stutter and they said, oh yeah, this is normal. It's no big deal. You're you'll grow out of it. They all grew out of it. They took kids that had no stutter. And said, the way you talk indicates that you're you have a tendency to start stuttering. And you need to pay attention to that. And they developed stutters. And this was, this was in, I want to say the years was like maybe the thirties, something like that.

• 2:17:23Speaker 01

  Can't do that now.

• 2:17:24Jocko Willink?

  And they call it, they call it the monster experiment because it was monstrous what they did to these kids. And they ended up suing and, but you know, isn't it interesting? You know, even if just to say like, oh yeah, Kelsey, you know how you feel like really bad right now? That's first of all, that's normal. And second of all, you'll you'll process through it over time and you'll be okay. And guess what? Everybody has people die, people's, your, everyone's parents dies, everyone's grandparents dies. It's normal and we deal with death. And you're, you, that's what you're feeling, you're feeling it a lot more right now because most people don't have to deal with people that are their age dying. It's sort of a war thing. Occasionally it's a drunk driving thing. Occasionally it's a, you know, it does happen.

• 2:18:07Jocko Willink?

  But you feel really bad right now and that's what, that's the way everybody feels. And that what you're feeling is normal and over time it's going to process, it's going to get better. I don't know how many people I have had reach out to me. Um, we did a podcast and I was talking about overcoming grief. And I did this whole big thing. It was very dramatic.

• 2:18:27Speaker 01

  No one shocked.

• 2:18:28Jocko Willink?

  Very dramatic, but you know, I basically described when, when you lose someone, you get hit with waves of emotion that you can't control. And they're going to be bad and it's going to be a storm and it's going to feel like you're never going to get out. That's the way it feels and it feels like that because we're, as we grow up, we get control of our emotions. And all of a sudden we don't need to, you know, we can push through things. Well, all of a sudden you get hit with emotions you can't control. Boom. It's a wave. It's a storm. You think it's never going to end. Well, it doesn't. And then when it, when that kind of dissipates a little bit. You're still gonna get hit with more waves. You're still gonna hit with other storms. They're not gonna be as bad. And then over time, they're gonna become less and less frequent. Sometimes people feel guilty because they think, wait, I was so heartbroken and now I'm not.

• 2:19:13Jocko Willink?

  And there's something wrong with me. No, no, no. You're just processing the information. So I think it's terrible as I'm hearing you talk about this. It's like the curse of a diagnosis of being like, oh, you have something wrong with you. When it should be like, oh yeah, you're experiencing what everybody experiences that goes into combat and loses people. Yep, that's normal. Yep, well, yep. Here, put yourself in the normal box. And here's what's gonna happen over the next six months to a year, might even be 18 months. The horrible feelings that you're feeling right now are gonna dissipate over time. That's normal. If sometimes it feels like they're not gonna dissipate, it's okay. The harder they hit you, the more they're gonna dissipate. So it's gonna be okay. You're gonna work through it. You're gonna be okay.

• 2:19:56Jocko Willink?

  We all, we all that have been in combat, lost people, we've all been through it. You're gonna be good to go. Like, that would be such a nice thing to understand.

• 2:20:06Speaker 01

  It's amazing how much rewiring has to be done to individuals after deployments. If they are not held in that box and said, hey, this is normal. This is good. I've seen it now in some of the stuff I do and the work that I do. After I did your show, I got inundated with people who just needed help. After we talked about the psychedelics and ways that I was starting to heal and things like that. Just the amount of people that were like, that hurt me to hear so much because I heard myself in you. And once you have, you know, having that conversation, it's like, it made so much common sense.

• 2:20:46Speaker 01

  Like, this is the amount of rewiring, the amount of work that has to be done, all because of really terrible, uneducated leaders. And nothing more than that. Nothing more than people who just didn't know any better or did know any better and didn't care enough to put the effort into their people so that they could end up coming out of this. The amount of people that have been medically released in the military that have lost their jobs because they were given a diagnosis. And this is something I Last week on one of my lectures, I was learning, I'm doing a integration coaching. Like I'm, I'm doing a program so I can work with heroic hearts to help with other veterans. And the, one of the lessons was on, particularly was on this kind of topic about things like 12-step and AA and how it's like the conversation is once an addict, always an addict.

• 2:21:31Speaker 01

  Well, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's putting somebody in a box to say, this is your diagnosis. This is who you are for life. That's not true at all. You can learn and you can heal and you can grow from these things so that you do not have to stay in that box. But we're told so often that that box is where we're held. And that in order to work through that, you have to stay in that box. And you can't really push too far outside of it because well, we don't wanna, we don't want anyone to relapse or you want anyone to struggle. It's like you have to see yourself outside of that diagnosis. Or you will live and eat and sleep and breathe that diagnosis. That's just the way it works. How you talk to the mind and the body is how the mind and body are going to respond to you. So if you keep saying, I'm so-and-so, I have PTSD.

• 2:22:13Speaker 01

  I'm so-and-so, I have a TBI. You're hearing that. And that is being reinforced in your wiring. That's why things like, that's why I use psilocybin. It changes the wiring. Change up the tone so that you can start thinking differently, so that the new pathways can be formed. I'm not, Kelsey and I'm, I got injured in Afghanistan and I have PTSD. I'm, I'm Kelsey. I, I deployed to Afghanistan. I served. I came out with PTS and I'm doing pretty fucking awesome. Like it doesn't have to be everything. It doesn't have to be your whole life. But we have to stop this. You are the diagnosis. Cause it's really what's holding people back and it's really what's honestly killing people long-term.

• 2:22:58Jocko Willink?

  So you get home and you get, did you eventually go into inpatient?

• 2:23:02Speaker 01

  No, so I didn't.

• 2:23:03Jocko Willink?

  So they kept you in outpatient?

• 2:23:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I had to go like multiple days a week. So it was like two, three days a week. I just had to get on a bus, go down to the Ottawa Hospital, which is also.

• 2:23:11Jocko Willink?

  Were you getting paid active duty? Like are you still in the army at this point?

• 2:23:14Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 2:23:15Jocko Willink?

  So you're in the army and your only job is just to like?

• 2:23:18Speaker 01

  Get your shit together.

• 2:23:19Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 2:23:19Speaker 01

  Just get it together. Um, but it, at this point though, there was a gap. So when I went to Ottawa versus when someone called me was a six-month gap.

• 2:23:31Jocko Willink?

  What were you doing in the six months?

• 2:23:34Speaker 01

  Stuff.

• 2:23:35Jocko Willink?

  Just, just like, like.

• 2:23:36Speaker 01

  Not being a soldier. Traveling.

• 2:23:40Jocko Willink?

  And you were.

• 2:23:40Speaker 01

  Spending all the money.

• 2:23:41Jocko Willink?

  Spending the money.

• 2:23:42Speaker 01

  Not knowing how to control.

• 2:23:43Jocko Willink?

  Checking on you.

• 2:23:46Jocko Willink?

  That doesn't seem like a very squared away system.

• 2:23:48Speaker 01

  It wasn't a squared away system. A lot of people since then have been like, there's no way no one called you. I'm like, oh, yes, there is. There's for sure. And when they did finally call, the conversation was, um, cause I had the doctors I was seeing, but it was not, they were not military doctors, right? They're like social workers and those types of people who are just following up on paperwork, making sure their medication is being dosed out and not, you know, blah, blah, blah. So there wasn't accountability with them. I'm like, you're not authority to me.

• 2:24:14Jocko Willink?

  Are you still taking all the drugs that they're giving you?

• 2:24:16Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:24:17Jocko Willink?

  What, like, what's the major drug that they're giving you? I don't know a lot about drugs.

• 2:24:21Speaker 01

  Well, I, I wish I actually have the list because I just recently had to, my TBI diagnosis just got turned down by Veterans Affairs because they said it was not service related. So I am having to fight it. So I actually saw for the first time the laundry list of medication written out that I was on. And it was like Clazepam and Zoloft and Percocet. It was like, it was just nasty, heavy, contraindicated type of drugs.

• 2:24:44Jocko Willink?

  And just like numbs your brain?

• 2:24:45Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. It, it flatlined me. Andy asked me that last week. He goes, what, what's it like to be on SSRI? I've never been on SSRI. I was like, if you take somebody's, you know, the heartbeat, the EKG and all those things, just flatline it. Everything, emotions, um, happiness, sadness, sex drive, like unbelievable amounts of just numb. Nothing made me happy. Nothing made me sad. Nothing made me tired. Nothing made me awake. I was always kind of groggy. I was always just kind of hum and long.

• 2:25:12Jocko Willink?

  So it's like a chemical lobotomy of sorts?

• 2:25:14Speaker 01

  It felt that way because I had so many other different drugs though. Right? And so now I understand like cert, some of those drugs should not have been taken in conjunction with others. Like I didn't know that though. Um, and that just goes to the conversation between the doctors and where were the gaps, right? Who was talking to who? Who was prescribing what? Um, so anyway, I, I had a gap there. When they did finally call, they said, hey, we're going to try and retrain you. Meaning we're going to post you to a unit in Ottawa. You're gonna go two half days a week, Tuesday mornings and Thursday mornings. And you're gonna work those hours. We're gonna give this a go. And so I went to Canot Range, which is in Ottawa, which works with the Hill, works with RCMP. It's one of the largest Commonwealth ranges around.

• 2:25:59Speaker 01

  It's massive, massive. We do everything I said we did there. We do all the types of training. People say that don't happen there just because you don't know it's not happening. Doesn't mean it does not happen in there. Okay, so we do all different types of things there. Um, and so the whole thing was work the radios. So when somebody was calling to make the range go hot, I would just run them through the, you know, the speech. And then, yeah, range hot, da, da, da, da, da. And then I would go clear the range. And then we also were attached to a protected wildlife kind of sanctuary. So we had like a little hovercraft. And we had like, we would go out and we would see if people were fishing that weren't supposed to fish. And we had a couple of big birds. We made sure that they didn't fucking electrocute themselves. One did, it was, you know, it's just, I drove around. It was menial task, nothing exciting.

• 2:26:42Speaker 01

  Um, but there was a situation where finally I was, I was starting to kind of get into a flow of things. Um, there was a situation though, where I went to clear a range and I went step on the sand and it just, I reverted backwards fucking fast. And I just dropped and they're like, nah, you're done. This isn't going well for anyone.

• 2:26:59Jocko Willink?

  And so then they decide to discharge you from the army?

• 2:27:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, so at that point, then they brought me, I went to like the board, the medical board. And they started to look at like, okay, doctor's appointments, medication, retraining, how is everything kind of going? And then, because at that point I had signed a second contract, so it was on my fourth year. Um, and so they're like, are we, she's gonna stay? Or are we keeping her? What's happening? And then they decided they were gonna give me a three B medical release. So an honorable discharge, but a three B med release. So a full med release, uh, for the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.

• 2:27:30Jocko Willink?

  And then what's your next move? So now you're out of the army, you're still getting a paycheck.

• 2:27:34Speaker 01

  Uh, I, I what? Yeah, I was still getting a paycheck. Um, and then what had happened was, uh, I got the, and, and mind you, I tried not to leave. I tried to stay. I said, just post me to where I want to be and I'll, I'll do what you want me to do. I'll work a reserve unit. I just, I don't want to leave. Um, and they said it's, they, the, I remember the social work of me like, you're not gonna work again. Like you're done. Like, you're not gonna work ever again. Um, and at this point, uh, I was dating Brady, who's now my husband, and he lived in British Columbia. So I got released on the 23rd of May, and I was on a plane on the 24th. And then I went up to British Columbia. And then I'd, I'd been there ever since. And then at that point, I had, um, was waiting to kinda get a doctor out in British Columbia.

• 2:28:20Speaker 01

  And then I was switched over to the Operational Stress Injury Clinic, who I end up seeing Dr. Mock and Dr. Greg Passy, who's now, Dr. Passy's still my doctor to this day. Um, and then we just worked really, really diligently, really hard, and those were the really dark years. Those were the years where like, the suicide was every day, the thoughts of it were every day, the planning of it were every day. And I was numb, and I was super fucked up. And I would, I was riding mountain bikes, and we were doing all these other like, you know, things to stay busy, and, you know, life was good. Like, I had a good life. Um, and it looked good on the outside, but I just wanted to die every day. And that's hard to explain to people when you're 21 years old, and like, you have everything, and

• 2:29:03Speaker 01

  you get to live in this amazing province, and you have a, you know, a great boyfriend, and everything's going awesome, and you get to go to Whistler and do this and do that, and it's like, yeah, but I still wanna fucking die every day. I don't wanna leave my bed every day, and I fucking hate everyone, and anybody who looks like they're Middle Eastern, I'm terrified of. Like, to the point where it's like, I'm a dog who's been abused by them, where you come near me, I'm gonna snap. Like, it's like, I'm fearful what I'll do when I'm around them. Like, I don't, I can't be pulled over by a cop that looks brown, or I'm gonna, like, I had my doctor's number on speed dial, cuz I used to drive to his office to Vancouver, right? And I live on the border, so I used to drive the 45 minutes all the way downtown. But there's a stretch on the freeway, and, um, there's always traffic, like, dead stop traffic.

• 2:29:47Speaker 01

  But it's right beside two Muslim schools. One for girls and one for boys. And I would always get stuck in the spot. And it would, I would, coming home from a treatment, and it would just fucking send me into a rage. So I'd always go down into the HOV lane, and I would tell my doctor, "I'm always going in the HOV lane. If I get pulled over, I'm calling you." "I'm going to call you, because if this cop is not white or black, and he looks, and he's got like a tur- anything, I'm fucking calling you, and I'm not rolling the window down." Because it was to the point where I was legitimately that reactive. Male, Middle Eastern men, fucking spun me out.

• 2:30:28Jocko Willink?

  Are you, are you on a bunch of drugs still at this?

• 2:30:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I'm on all these drugs until, I didn't stop going, I didn't, I didn't start to slow down on these drugs until right before we had my son.

• 2:30:38Jocko Willink?

  Like, what does your doctor say when you call and say that? Like, that seems to me to be very alarming if you're calling me up and saying like, if I get pulled over by someone that's not white or black, I'm gonna go crazy.

• 2:30:52Speaker 01

  I'd panic. I'd legitimately panic.

• 2:30:54Jocko Willink?

  So what does your doctor say when you tell him that?

• 2:30:56Speaker 01

  He goes, I'm here. I'm here if you need. We'll just deal with it. We, one at a time, we'll deal with it as we go. It never happened.

• 2:31:02Jocko Willink?

  When you say you're working through stuff, like, what does that actually mean? Like, when you sit down with your doctor, because I've never talked to any kind of like, uh, person like this before.

• 2:31:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31:12Jocko Willink?

  So, I don't know, like, what are you doing?

• 2:31:15Speaker 01

  So first, he would, obviously, he would review the file of when he got me. And then he would just sit me down and he would, he, like, the first time I met him, I was with Mock too, and I remember it, my whole body just shook, and I sweat so bad, I was soaked by the end of the conversation, and he'd be like, run me through what happened. So we would do exposure therapy, we would do EMDR, we'd do traditional talk therapy, we would do medication, um, we would do, uh, you know, physical fitness was a big part of the therapy, making sure I was staying up on that. And then it, it got to the point where it was like, we're just gonna work on exposure therapy. So I live in a province where there's a huge population of people from overseas. We have a ton of immigration in Canada, in B C, it's a, in particular, right?

• 2:31:59Speaker 01

  And so there's an area called Surrey, I would not go. I would not go. No chance. Um, a lot of the women, burkas, like, certain areas, um, headscarves, uh, traditional gar, like, nothing, nothing wrong with that. But I wasn't ready for that interaction to happen, so I just wouldn't go there. And then I had a situation because at this point, they were like, we're going to also send you back to school.

• 2:32:28Speaker 01

  So they sent me back to school and I went to a school that was predominantly a lot of these people who I wasn't quite ready to be in a room with. And then there was a bunch of school shootings that happened in America. So then now the colleges were like, we're gonna do active shooter drills and not tell the students when we're doing them.

• 2:32:48Speaker 01

  And that didn't fly with me real well. Um, they attempted to do one and I, I like, I, I was gone. I was like, if that ever happens again, I need to know. And they're like, well, we can't tell you when. And I was like, then I'm not responsible if you come near me as a pretend person for how I react. Um, and once they, we started having the conversation with the college, I, I end up leaving my degree like three, three credits short. Cause I, I couldn't do it anymore.

• 2:33:13Jocko Willink?

  Are you seeing any progress as you're going to like counseling?

• 2:33:18Speaker 01

  It, it, it would do this. And that's the other thing I really wanna state before I say this. Healing is not linear at all. Doesn't mean because you started A, you're gonna get to Z and it's gonna do this straight line. Very often it's this.

• 2:33:35Jocko Willink?

  My experience with counseling is Good Will Hunting. Have you seen this movie, Echo Charles?

• 2:33:39Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 2:33:40Jocko Willink?

  Robin Williams and Matt Damon

• 2:33:46Jocko Willink?

  doing um, therapy, right?

• 2:33:49Speaker 02

  You look a lot like Matt Damon.

• 2:33:51Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:33:51Jocko Willink?

  The young pictures of Matt Damon, it is factual.

• 2:33:54Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:33:54Jocko Willink?

  Actually, and I, I actually pulled up a picture and uh, it's, it's pretty obvious. And actually I have a, I have a friend that's pretty good friends with Matt Damon and I like forwarded it to him. I go, dude, check this out. And he showed him, he's showed me the little text back and they were laughing about it. So yes, there's some similarities.

• 2:34:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:34:12Jocko Willink?

  But is that what therapy is kinda like? I don't know.

• 2:34:15Speaker 01

  I don't know. I mean, listen, my, my therapist is an old school, old dude. He's a bad dude. He's served in Bosnia, Rwanda. He does not fuck around. He doesn't take, I'm not feeling well today. No, more. That's bullshit. Let's try again. Like,

• 2:34:31Jocko Willink?

  So this is like Good Will Hunting.

• 2:34:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34:33Jocko Willink?

  Hunting, Robin Williams was in NOM.

• 2:34:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34:36Jocko Willink?

  Allegedly, right? So he was in NOM.

• 2:34:37Speaker 01

  Allegedly.

• 2:34:38Jocko Willink?

  He wasn't taking any shit. You know what I mean?

• 2:34:40Speaker 01

  That's Dr. Passy. But with like a cowboy hat and sometimes really fancy boots. Just depends on his day. Um, so he, yeah, we did a lot of exposure therapy. So what he would be like is like, I want you to go sit in a mall. Just when you sit in the food court, tell me how you feel, see how long you can stay.

• 2:34:55Jocko Willink?

  See, this dude's taking, like, if you were saying this kind of stuff to me, I'd be like, cool, I'm gonna handcuff you and you can sit in the mall, like, with your hands behind your back.

• 2:35:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:35:03Jocko Willink?

  And I'll expose you like that.

• 2:35:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, but we try that shit, seriously. And then when I was at the college, I was coming home one day, I was coming back from New West, and I was driving down the road, and a car cut me off, right before I got onto the Alex Fraser Bridge. And it was a car full of Middle Eastern people. And I sat there, and he cut me off, he cut in front of me, and the driver got out of the car, and came up to my window, and smashed his hand on my window, and started screaming at me. And so my whole body just started, like, convulsing, like, genuine convulsing. So I just called 911, I was like, "Hi, I'm being assaulted by this man, um, you're gonna need to do something, because I'm gonna do something." She's like, "Ma'am, stay in the car." I'm like, he's smashing my window, like, I'm sitting here, like, laughing at

• 2:35:49Speaker 01

  him as he's getting more and more angry. I'm like, "This is..." And then the light turns gray, he jumps in the car and takes off. I grab his plate, they take the plate, they go down, they actually dealt with him, and he actually got, like, in a lot of trouble. So, I just, for me, it was like, exposure therapy was one of the bigger ways. It doesn't, now, listen, exposure therapy's hard, very difficult for a lot of people, and it does not always work. Sometimes it can make it worse for individuals. It actually got to a point where they would get me to write down the, the really bad stuff that happened on deployment, like, all of it. Everything that's, like, in here, write it out into, like, a couple pages, and then I'd have to read it to them. And so it got to the point where I was actually saying this, and it was making it not worse, but I wasn't, it wasn't helping, wasn't helping the situation. So, um, then we moved on to things like EMDR.

• 2:36:34Speaker 01

  And, you know, that's where you wear the little sensors in your hands, and, you know, it triggers the brain, the one side of the brain, and that's supposed to help. It didn't work with me. For me, it really was... Just starting to understand PTS and PTSD and how the brain worked. When he started, he's got this whiteboard. When he started to explain to me, instead of treat me like a patient, but talk to me like a colleague, I started to wrap my brain around it. He's like, so this is what's happening. When you have this event, this part of your brain is lighting up. And because of the, well, we didn't know all the time, but because of PTS, you know, this isn't actually doing what it should be doing. So your dopamine and your serotonin, and then he would start to explain how the brain is, you know, handling it, and then your cortisol, and like, that's why you're having physical reactions.

• 2:37:18Speaker 01

  So he just started to talk to me like a person. And not say, hey, so what's wrong with you today? Or how are you struggling today? He'd be like, this is what's going on with your body. And I would go, oh, so when I see that person, that's why I'm feeling that way? Oh, so see, you're just explaining to me what's happening. I can start to wrap my brain around it. I wasn't this like helpless, hopeless individual sitting across from you that just needed to be fixed. They need to be fixed. I needed to be heard, and I needed to be understood, and I needed to be educated. That was it. And what we've now found out as of last year was I had an un, part of the reason it took me so long to get to this point. And again, there is no timeframe that is right, and healing is not linear.

• 2:38:03Speaker 01

  So it can take you 10, 20, 30 years. It can take you one to two years. Depends on how it's handled. For me, from 2009, from that operation till about 2015, that's when I was heavily, heavily medicated. Like, would wake up in the middle of the night, make food, have no clue I did it. Would have conversations with Brady, and he'd be like, do you not remember the whole conversation we had last night? I'd be like, nope. Would not be a-

• 2:38:34Jocko Willink?

  And that's all medicine induced?

• 2:38:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, all like, what's that word? Like reactions or like, it's just like something that can happen. I can't think of the word right now. It's, there's a word for that.

• 2:38:45Jocko Willink?

  Blackout is like when you drink.

• 2:38:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:38:47Jocko Willink?

  I think we call it a blackout.

• 2:38:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, something like that.

• 2:38:50Jocko Willink?

  Something like that, a drug-induced blackout.

• 2:38:52Speaker 01

  And I actually had several situations in Ottawa when I was living by myself, where I would wake up on the floor, and I used to like to make peanut butter toast, and I'd wake up with my cat like on the floor, like I'd be passed out. So I must have hit my head when I went down, and I'd eaten like half a loaf of bread. Like I just, this shit was just all medication related. And so, Dr. Passy got really, really serious. He's like, hey, like, you know, at this point, I was married. Brady and I got married. We knew we wanted to have kids. So the conversation had to get real about like, hey, you're on drugs that, yes, they may be helping you, but at what cost if you have a child? Right? And so that's when we started to get into the serious conversation about medication and that's when I started to say like, hey,

• 2:39:36Speaker 01

  I, I don't want to be on these my whole life. There's gotta be a better way. And then that's when he suggested art therapy. And that's how that started.

• 2:39:44Jocko Willink?

  And that's the beginning of your jewelry company?

• 2:39:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's such a weird thing to say jewelry company because a lot of people shy away when I say that.

• 2:39:51Jocko Willink?

  Funny look when I made it.

• 2:39:52Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:39:53Jocko Willink?

  Jewelry company.

• 2:39:54Speaker 01

  It's weird because I never, uh, yeah, yeah. I never meant to make jewelry. I never wore jewelry. It's not a space I used to fuck in. It's not something I used to love, but I was like, I love jewelry. I love dressing. Like this is not a tomboy with tearaway pants. So when it came up, he just suggested art therapy of any kind. Painting, write, do something. And so that's when we started that and I started, um, going to local stores and I had a, well, basically Brady was like, why don't you just call some friends and get some casings? Like you have a bunch of people that can get you some stuff. Why don't you play with those? Like, I don't know what you're gonna make out of it, but just go play with those. So I made some calls to some people that I end up, you know, who were, did basic with, but were now snipers in the RCR.

• 2:40:38Speaker 01

  And they sent me some like Lapua casings and then some 50 cows and then some 762s and 556. And they would ship them to me in a box. And, uh, so at that point I had started like sitting on the kitchen table and hammering the shit out of brass and I would get like, uh, wire and like wire wrap things. And I'm just, I'm a mess, but I'm out of bed though.

• 2:41:01Speaker 01

  I'm out of bed. And I didn't think of suicide. I didn't brush my teeth, but I didn't, I also didn't lie in bed all day. That's serious. So that was, that was like, I got out of bed. I sat down at the kitchen table. I was there from the moment he went to work. And I was there when he got home. And I didn't move, but I wasn't in bed. He was like, okay. My brain is focused on something else. So at that point, that started to grow. Um, meaning I was like, well, I heard that crystals work. And I was like, at the point of like, just desperation of like, hating waking up, hating how I was feeling, or not feeling at all. Um, hating the way I was reacting and fighting in my life and just the pain that was just getting up and opening my eyes every day.

• 2:41:46Speaker 01

  And so I was like, fuck it, crystals it is. And so I went to a local store and I like, found a whole wall of crystals. And I was like, I like black. So I picked a bunch of black stones and, um, clear rocks and started wire wrapping these just, I have photos now, when I look back at the shit that I was on my website. And I'm just, it's just atrocious. Um, but it was, what's beautiful about it is it was the start of something really, really cool. And that was the start of me finding my way out of this diagnosed life. I was deemed to live for the rest of my existence and be a welfare patient and someone who's on meds and who has to be at a doctor every other day.

• 2:42:28Speaker 01

  And that's what the military told me was going to be the rest of my life. And this was a lifeline. And so I started, uh, building beaded bracelets. So just the beaded bracelet with like, an eight millimeter bead on it with a hole in it. And I would take elastic and then I would, um, Brady bought me a pipe cutter, a handheld pipe cutter. And he built me this little block of wood. And then he drilled a hole so I could put the casing in there so I could take the firing pin out. And then I could hammer that instead of the kitchen table. Because I would just, I would just sit there and hammer it on the kitchen table, like, brand new kitchen table, brand new house, just married, and I'm just fucking this thing sideways. Just like, this is my workshop now, like, and so I'm sitting there and, um, I told Dr. Passy this,

• 2:43:13Speaker 01

  and he's like, okay, let's, let's lean in here because we found something that's making you get up, making you alive, uh, making you happy, or seem to be happy. Um, let's keep, just keep doing it, and we'll keep working on this stuff. So when I would go see him, he would talk to me a bit like, hey, how's your sex drive? And I'd be like, fine, fully lie to him. Come to find out later on, that was a TBI issue. Um, and then he would be like, so, uh, how'd you sleep? And I'd be like, didn't sleep. He'd be like, okay, well, let's talk about how we can get you to sleep. And then we would start just like ticking away at little things, like, sleep is the most important thing. We understand that. I know you're friends with Huberman, and he talks about sleep is like the most important thing. If you can get people to sleep, you can get them to heal, you can get them through anything. That's why, you also know the other flip side.

• 2:43:59Speaker 01

  When we want people to talk, what do we do to them? We withhold sleep, because within 24 hours, people's brains will fucking melt. Like, you need sleep. So it would be like, let's focus on getting you sleep for the, like, the next handful of months. How are we gonna do that? How do we accomplish that? Do we need to get you moving more during the day, so you're expending more energy? Do we need to look at the doses of meds? Do we need to look at your sleep schedule? And we would just tackle one task at a time, one task at a time. While all doing that, I would just build jewelry all day. So I'd sit there, oh, I almost just made a joke, I'm not allowed to say. Um, I would sit there, like I was at a factory, and I would just pump out jewelry, like, it's going, like, out of style, and I would just make these beaded bracelets.

• 2:44:40Speaker 01

  So I'd take the 762 round of the 556 casing, I would grab it with a, um, pair of pliers, grab the pipe, uh, pipe cutter and cut the end off, and I'd take that much off of it there. And then I'd pop the firing, uh, the firing pin out, and I'd chamfer the edges, and I'd string it onto a bracelet, and I'd tie a bracelet. And then, uh, people started to like them, and then my husband was like, hey, so, I think you might have something here? Like I can help you if you want. And so he built a website for me. And so we built a website and then we got our friend Clayton, um, who came and he would take photos. And then we put them on the website and then, you know, nothing really happened, right? Cause like, just cause you have a website, doesn't mean things are gonna sell.

• 2:45:20Speaker 01

  Right Echo? Correct. Correct. So then at that point, it was, well, you have to cold call. Start knocking on doors. What the hell does that mean? I don't know. Who, who buys jewelry? Stores. Okay. Well, what kind of stores? Fashion stores. I don't really like fashion and I'm not really into it. How am I gonna get them to buy my stuff? So I would go and I would cold call people on the phone. I'd, I'd just go through a list of like boutiques in Vancouver and I would cold call people. And then the next question would be like, what's it called? I don't know. And they'd be like, do you have a line sheet? And I'm like, what's the line sheet? They'd be like, what's your margins? I was like, good question. What do you work on? Like I just, I had to learn from the ground up. And so I started learning and then I got my first store in South Surrey. And, um, I started selling there.

• 2:46:05Speaker 01

  And then she was like, hey, there's a trade show in Las Vegas. And at this point I was mildly pregnant, but for a small person I was huge. And, uh, she's like, there's a trade show in Las Vegas. It's called Magic. It's where all the buyers from like North America come to do their sourcing or their retail shopping for all their stores. Like, you know, all the big brands go there, like Rebecca Minkoff goes there, like Timberland goes there. And then like smaller, you know, brands go, everyone goes. You can get buy a booth, just like shot show, you can go and do it. So I made a backpack full of these beaded bracelets and I printed off what I thought would be line sheets. And I took a friend with me and I was like, we don't have tickets to get into the show. We're gonna get in. So we weaseled our way into the show.

• 2:46:49Speaker 01

  And I went to the jewelry section of the, where the buyers would go. And I would stop people when they came out of meetings with, with other brands. And be like, hi, my name's Kelsey Sharon and I own this business called Her Wearables. Cause that's what it was first called. And I do this and I'm gonna donate the money to this. And then here's some samples, here's some line sheets. And I signed 10 stores, super frowned upon. Like they don't like when you do that. Cause people are paying thousands of dollars for these booths. And I'm just like, hi, I'm in the corner. And it worked. So then that night, uh, we went to dinner at this restaurant called Carbon and Aria. Didn't have a reservation, just like. Shouldn't have been there and they got us in. They said you got forty five minutes. So we sat down and then these two guys sat down beside me. I didn't know these guys.

• 2:47:35Speaker 01

  They were both very flamboyant and more than willing to have conversation and I had been wearing like five or six of these and it was just all brass casings in beads on my one arm. So like kinda stood out. And he leaned over and he goes, what are those? I said, those are bullet casings. And he goes, why? And I said, perfect. That's why I put a bullet casing on my wrist so that now I can talk to you about veterans issues and mental health. He looks at me, he's like, okay. So I give him this whole spiel. By the end of the dinner, he goes, I'd like to meet with you tomorrow. We have a, you know, we have a company and we work with some people and we connect. We connect people. We'd love to chat if you're up for it. I'm like, sure. Gives us his name. We go back to the hotel, I Google his name and I'm like, that's where I've seen him. He's married to Jesse Tyler Ferguson from Modern Family. So I was like, this guy's connected to someone.

• 2:48:20Speaker 01

  And I don't know why, but he's connected. So I'm like, we'll meet with him. We meet with him. And he's like, my girlfriend Beth Bears from Two Broke Girls is looking for a partner for jewelry for her Sexual Assault Foundation that she's working with Equine Therapy with. So I think you might be a cool fit. Like, would you mind if I introduced you? And I was like, it's fine. It's totally fine. Meanwhile, I'm like freaking the fuck out inside. Anyway, long and short, I meet with her and we have a conversation. We design a bracelet and a necklace. And they give me a call and they're like, hey, so Ellen's twelve days of giveaways coming up. Are you, do you have like four hundred bracelets? Cause Beth wants to bring them on the twelve days of giveaway on Ellen. And I'm like, I still making these on my kitchen table. Okay. Yeah, yeah. No problem. No problem. When you need them by?

• 2:49:06Speaker 01

  This is Thursday. They need them for Saturday. So my neighbors come over and people help me and we're packaging and I'm just stringing beads.

• 2:49:13Jocko Willink?

  This is like an episode of like every reality business show where they're like, you got a big deal, but it's due by Thursday.

• 2:49:20Speaker 01

  You're like, okay, I'll get it done. So I get it done. I get them there and I turn on the TV and Beth is bouncing around in her elf costume and Ellen's got one of my mini warrior bracelets on her wrist and she's like posing it like, she's, you know, being perfect about it, like just as you would want someone to be and it, it was amazing. And so then we got hit and I went down to her event for the Sexual Assault Foundation and we went down and I met her and Cad and everyone else and Julian Huff and all these people. And then that's how it kinda started. Um, she gave one to Julian Huff, Julian Huff wore it somewhere and then Whitney Cummings wore it with Julian Huff, because you know, there are horse people and everyone's connected, Beth and her. Um, and then so she would send me, Beth would send me photos of like her and Whitney Cummings,

• 2:50:05Speaker 01

  be like, "And my bracelet." And I'd be like, "What the fuck is happening?" This is like, I just did this to help myself and like, hopefully help other people. And it's okay. And so I got a call from my mom and she's like, "I'm driving for Kevin Hart." And I was like, "What? You team drive with dad? What are you doing?" She's like, "No, I'm like, team driving for, I'm, I'm going to do Kevin Hart's What Now Tour." And I'm driving some of his equipment around. "I'm gonna try to get him to meet with you." And I was like, "Okay, mom, I don't think you understand how this works." Fuck, I totally underestimated Kath. I totally underestimated her. By the time she got to Vancouver, she had harassed the people so much, well, by harass, I mean, she got to know the team so well.

• 2:50:48Speaker 01

  They fell in love with her. She would see Kevin and she'd be like, "You need to meet my daughter. You need to meet her." And finally, I think he just like, stopped and caved and was like, "Okay, I'll meet your daughter in Vancouver." Like, "I'll just shut up. If this shuts you up, I will meet your daughter." So my mom's like, "Bring gifts, like make Kevin something." This is still called her wearables at this time, by the way. So I had been watching, uh, Real Husbands of Hollywood, which was Kevin Hart's, did you ever see that show?

• 2:51:14Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:51:14Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:51:14Speaker 02

  Never heard of it.

• 2:51:16Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, you need to watch Real Husbands of Hollywood.

• 2:51:19Speaker 02

  Is it like a fake?

• 2:51:20Speaker 01

  It's, yeah, it's, it's like him and a bunch of his boys acting as like the real hus- like, Real Housewives. It's ho-

• 2:51:26Speaker 02

  Is it a TV show or a movie?

• 2:51:27Speaker 01

  Yes, it's a TV show.

• 2:51:28Speaker 02

  Wait, is it like a parody? Because there's the Real Housewives of wherever.

• 2:51:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's, it's like a parody version, but of like, the men.

• 2:51:35Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 2:51:35Speaker 01

  Oh my god. And so he used to call people Mitch's in it, like male bitches, right? So, so I'm like, thinking, "I'm funny." And I'm like, "I'm gonna write a joke in the car. Hoo, right?" On the off chance I get to meet him. So we go to the show and then I get the like, the wave back from his security guy. So we go to the back and it's just my mom, myself, Brady and Kevin. And he walks over. I didn't realize Kevin and I are the same height.

• 2:52:01Jocko Willink?

  For real?

• 2:52:01Speaker 01

  When I wear like a little heel, Kevin and I are the same height, which was to me was great. It was the best. Um, so I'm like, here, this is who I am. This is what I'm doing. This is what I'm looking to achieve. He opens it up and I said, I wrote a joke in there. I'm really regretting that I wrote a joke in there right now. Please don't laugh if it's not funny. He's like, you want me to really laugh? It's funny. I was like, I mean, I would like that. So he laughs and he kind of goes, huh? Yeah, it's not bad. It just kind of gives me like, it wasn't terrible.

• 2:52:28Jocko Willink?

  What was the joke?

• 2:52:29Speaker 01

  It was about him being a Mitch. It was something along the lines of that. And so anyway, we, he opens it up and he looks at it and he goes, is this a bullet casing? I said, yeah. And he goes, huh, that's cool. And then he looks at the tag and he goes, you want men to wear this? And I said, yeah. And he goes, why is it called her wearables? I was like, motherfucker. Damn it. And then it just, we chatted for a little bit. We took some photos and then he yells to his boys like, yo, we're going to tweet this out tonight. So he tweets it out at the time. He had like 26 million people on like Twitter and he tweets it out. I'm driving over the Alex Fraser bitch just going, oh my God. Okay. So we go and uh, at this point, Brady goes, you know, if you're going to take this seriously, like we need to incorporate, maybe let's think about changing the name.

• 2:53:12Speaker 01

  Let's try and rebrand this. So at that point, we re, we changed the name to Brass and Unity and incorporated in 2016. And then after that, it was like we, we were just getting it on all the right people at all the right time. Like Brady's friends with the nanny of, you know, at the time it was Jenna, uh, Dewan and Tatum. And so like Jenna wore a bunch of my stuff to like a game. It got seen in like a bunch of things. It was on Ellen. It was on Forbes. It was on this person and this person. It was like this weird thing that was happening. And then I was just getting known in the fashion industry. So at that point, we had taken it from the kitchen table in a couple of years to over 200 retailers in North America that I'd, I'd gotten every single one of my own, like went to the trade shows, cold called,

• 2:53:52Speaker 01

  had like cell phone numbers, texting family members. Like that's how I got my orders. And I signed all of these accounts and we started donating all the money. So we donated half a million dollars and anytime the money came from the country is where the money would go. So like it went, if it was sold in Canada, it would stay in Canada. If it was sold in the US, it would go to the US organizations. And then I started taking the business like really seriously and started really, really trying to develop like, what do I want to do? And all while doing this, I was holding it kinda together? Kinda. Surface level together.

• 2:54:29Speaker 01

  But at that point, we had now had my son and postpartum was a hmm, that's an animal. That hormone, well, that's, that's a, I don't wish that on my worst enemy. There is something about postpartum that's so nasty. Like the idea of like my cousin, my cousin said this like one time, it was like, I wanna drop my kid off the fire station. Like, I can't do it anymore. Like, the, the, what it does chemically to your brain is so damaging and like heartbreaking because it, it's something that you just can't climb out of. I know people, it's, it's never left them after their kids. They've struggled with it and had issues with it. So for me, when I started to compound some stuff, when that happened and then the no sleep again,

• 2:55:13Speaker 01

  and then the stress of a kid, and then just the new life, it all started to get to be a bit too much again. So I started to lean in to the business as much as I could. It was like my solace. It was like my peace. It was the thing that was working for me. All while doing treatment still and weaning off of medications. And this is when cannabis started, um, right before it was legalized in Canada. At that point, I started using cannabis for sleep medication instead of actual medication. So now I'd been weaning off all of these drugs and I was only on like two at that point. But what we didn't understand was the damage was done. Meaning being on an SSRI for 10 years has major repercussions and seriously, like it can do damage to the body, long-term damage.

• 2:55:55Speaker 01

  And so at this point, we did switch over to cannabis and I started to have those conversations with my in-laws and everyone like, hey, I'm a weed smoker now. Like, that's a whole different type of thing when you walk into a world where cannabis for a lot of people is like the dirty drug, like the party drug, like the thing that you don't do, like losers do it and you lie on your couch and like you lose your life and like, but meanwhile, I was starting to function more because of it. Um, and so all of this is kind of happening and then in 20, oh, was it 2019? It was right before COVID.

• 2:56:35Speaker 01

  It got real bad again. Like, I was almost reverting. I was like going backwards. I wasn't having the intrusive thoughts like I was having, you know, the first five years after the war, where it was like, I would hear something and it would just bring me all the way back. Like, sound, smell, temperature, everything. It was now, it was like, why, I'm not getting any better. I'm actually getting worse. Why? And I can't stop it, and I can't help it, but I'm just going backwards. And it started to get to the point where mommy was having more hard days crying on the stairs than good days. And I would try to hide this from Jack, and I would try and good face, just the best face I could, but my irritability, and then how you show up in front of your children when they're young is how they're gonna show up to you. And I couldn't wrap my

• 2:57:20Speaker 01

  brain around that. Meaning, if I was irritable, or I was miserable, or I was exhausted, even if I wasn't showing it to him, he could feel that. And so he would come at me like that. And I'd be like, why is he always so mad at me? Why is he so angry? And he'd be like, it's how you show up. Your energy, it will be reflected back off of a child. That's just how it works. So, I started to really know there was something wrong again. And then that's when things got really dark again. And I was starting to spiral a bit. And then COVID hit. And I lost my business overnight. So, we lost all 200 retailers in like, a two-week span. And now I went from finding a purpose in the thing that

• 2:58:03Speaker 01

  was pulling me out of the darkness, to fight, to losing the thing that pulled me out of the darkness, now having to figure out myself and this. And like, everything, putting everything into this. Like, financially, emotionally, everything I had, I put into this. And not only me, but other people that were working with me, and the volunteers. Because I would bring in, I had some volunteers that would come in who were ex-perimetics, or ex-firefighters, or people that were struggling with trauma, and they would just come and hang out the office. Because we had a couple of dogs there, right? So they'd hang out, they'd package some stuff, or they would just sit and talk. Or they would, um, we had, uh, like, a Nintendo Game Boy. They would just like, sit there, like, just hang out on the couch, be outside of their home. So it's like, now this wasn't just me I'm

• 2:58:48Speaker 01

  worried about. Now I'm worried about everybody.

• 2:58:52Speaker 01

  And at that point, I had gone on the bike ride, the 75th anniversary of D-Day, which was in France, and I was lucky enough, and my husband was lucky enough, we went over and we did a 600-kilometer bike ride for charity. And we rode like the whole week before, and then we landed on Juneau Beach on the anniversary with a World War II veteran who was an artillery gunner from New Brunswick. And Russ Kay was walking and talking, and him and I were the only gunners on there, and he looked at me one day and he goes, "You gonna be my 200IC this trip?" I was like, "Yes, sir, oh my god, yes!", like, just bawled my eyes out, right? He landed on Juneau Beach, he was on the first ones there. And to get to witness someone going back there for the first time

• 2:59:35Speaker 01

  and didn't cry a tear, and I was hysterical. I just wept, and he hugged me and he goes, "It's okay, honey, all my friends are here." And, oh my god, just, that, the strength in that person, just unbelievable, and to witness it was just extraordinary, and it was such a privilege. So, you know, we were on this bike ride, and there were some people there that were some known names, I didn't, I didn't know anybody from a hole in the wall, and I always have my bracelets. And we have this active one that we have, it's called the Buddy Check Active, and it's just like a, looks like a beaded, but it's rubber, work out in it. Anyway, I'd given these all to all the riders.

• 3:00:20Speaker 01

  So like Trevor Linden was on the ride, and like the CEO of David Foster Foundation, like a bunch of different people came on this, it was like 150 of us, right? And, so I gave all these bracelets out, and on the bus ride back going to the airport, one of the guys was like, "Hey, like, I know some people, do you mind if I tell them about what you're doing?" I was like, "Sure." So I come back and I get on a phone call, and I'm on the phone with like, one of the top publishers in North America, I'm on the phone with like the top PR person who works with like Rick Springfield and like Candace Bushnell, I'm like, "I don't belong on this phone call, this is ridiculous." And they're like, "This is Kelsey, we want her story to be told." And they're like telling all this, and I remember one of the publishers, she said on the phone, I'll never forget it, she goes, "She's Canadian, why would we care?"

• 3:01:04Speaker 01

  And then I saw red and reactions happened. And the only person who stayed on the call is Kim and she's still my PR. She still works with me. But to say that is that I've been put in all these situations. Every single time I've tried to better myself or help someone else. So I knew as long as I kept on this path, I would be okay. So Kim says to me one day, hey, I have an opportunity. I want to talk, get you talked about on GMA. And I want to get someone to interview you. And so we did this big interview and she, she gets me a segment on Good Morning America, about my jewelry brand.

• 3:01:44Speaker 01

  And all within doing that, she goes, hey, Carson Daly wants to talk to you. He's got this new segment called Mind Matters. And at this point, I'd seen it because he just interviewed Logic. And I was like, I love Logic. And I'm like, that guy wants to talk to me? He's like, yeah. I was like, okay. She goes, but like, just let you know, it's like between three people and like, I don't think you're going to get it. So just don't get excited about it. She's super straightforward about it. And so I got it though. So people came in and she's like, hey, like this is a big opportunity. So if you're going to start your podcast, start it now. Like start it now, this is the time to talk about it. So at this point, I said to Brady, like, you know, I'm, like, we talked about me doing a podcast the year before. You know, this is the time, let's just do it.

• 3:02:26Speaker 01

  So we did it, we turned a design space and I had a shipping container inside my office. That was also a meditation deck on top. And we turned it into a studio. And I had no idea what I was doing, but I just started. And I think that's the most important part is like, you have to start. You cannot know what you're doing, but you have to start. Or you're going to sit and plan yourself into your like own grave. So I just started. And then I did the interview with Carson. And it went really well and we talked about it a little bit on there and kind of talked about how art therapy was helping me. The next day, I did an interview on my show with Matthew Griffin from Combat Flip Flops. He's a ex Ranger, and, um, sorry, former Ranger, sorry, former Ranger.

• 3:03:10Speaker 01

  And, um, my husband was like, "Hey, why don't you reach out to them for sponsorship?" Because they put like bullet casings in flip flops, right? They were on Shark Tank. We saw, that's where we first saw them. He's like, "Why don't you call them?" So I emailed him and I was like, "Hey, would you guys want to ever work with us?" And he's like, "Yeah, we'd go together like peanut butter jelly. It makes sense, casings, casings, helping, helping it, let's do it." And then I was like, "Do you wanna do the podcast?" And at this point, I had never talked to a special operator, so I was super nervous. And he was like, "Yeah, for sure." So I'm like, "Okay, alright." So, we do the podcast, and at the end of it, he leans in, because it was virtual, he leans in and he goes, because if you know Griff, he does this thing where he looks you in the dead of your soul and he goes, "Doing okay?" And I was like, "Yeah, yeah, I'm great, like totally fine."

• 3:03:55Speaker 01

  And then he leans in even further and he goes,

• 3:03:59Speaker 01

  "Are you really doing okay?" And I fucking broke in half. It's like he could see through me. He was just waiting to see when it was gonna crack. And I cracked, I cracked in half and I started just losing my mind and, "I'm struggling with this again, I don't know why it's not getting better. I'm doing all the right things, I'm eating all the right things, I'm working out, I'm blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." I'm like just giving this laundry list and he's just sitting there going, "Uh huh, mm hmm, yeah, sounds about right, yeah. So, do you want a solution?" And I was just like, "What do you mean? Like I'm doing everything I'm told, so this is the solution." And he's like, "No, it's not, there's other ways. Have you ever heard of ayahuasca?" And I was like, "Like in passing, like it's some crazy thing you do, like some crazy drug?" And he's like, "Kind of.

• 3:04:45Speaker 01

  Look, there's a spot, like a slot open in 30 days. If you want to come, you're welcome to join. It's with Heroic Hearts Project and you can come and sit in ceremonies with us. The kicker is, you can't be on any drugs or any medications. Um, because of serotonin reuptake, like it can be a real, real problem." And I said, "Okay." So I said yes, I called Brady, I said, hey, um, there's a thing I want to go do, I, you know, I want, it's called ayahuasca and he was like, fuck it, okay, alright. And I just kind of said, like, I'm not feeling well, I'm not getting better, I don't know what to do, I'm kind of at my wits end here again, and it's getting worse. So like, what do I have to lose? So I called Dr. Passy, I say, hi, I'm going off of this medication that I've been on for 10 years.

• 3:05:28Speaker 01

  And he goes, well, I don't think that's how it's gonna go. And I said, yeah, no, I'm, here's the thing, I'm like, not really asking, though. I'm telling you, I'm about to do it, and I just need you to be aware. Because I'm going to do this thing, and I know that I can't be on, he goes, what are you going to do? So I'm going to go sit with ayahuasca, and he goes, yeah, you can't be on anything. I said, well, that's what I'm gonna do. And he goes, okay. I know you're not gonna listen, and you're gonna do it anyway. And so we just kind of gave him a warning or a heads up, if Brady calls or something goes wrong, and, you know, things are out of whack. This is what's going on. And he goes, like, you know, just try to wean as much as you can, but that's like, going off of an SSRI, you've been on, at 150mg every day for the past 10 years, is gonna have serious repercussions.

• 3:06:13Speaker 01

  And it sure as hell did. It had major, physical, psychological, tangible, painful repercussions. And I never recommend to do it that way, it's the most dangerous way to do it, you never go cold turkey off something. But I was desperate, and I didn't know what else to do, and I felt like I did not have another option, and I was backed into a corner. So I did that. And then, the night before I was supposed to leave, my passport expired, because it was COVID. And I had had my passport in the safe, and because in Canada, you couldn't leave the country, Canada was locked, like, if you couldn't. They were saying, like, if you, um, if you have to leave the country, like, it has to be for, like, a work reason, or you had to have, like, a, like, a reason to go to the States, or like, a reason to leave.

• 3:06:58Speaker 01

  It was when it was, like, real dicey, and they're not sure what's going on. So when it expired, so what I had done is, I had my Nexus card. Which is like another, it's like a passport, right? And you can use it to drive across the border and travel and stuff like that. But it didn't have my married name on it, it just had my maiden name. So I just, like, called the airline, and I was like, hi, I accidentally put the wrong last name. And they're like, okay, no problem, we'll issue a new ticket. And then I just, I traveled on my Nexus card. Which, the reason it's kind of dicey is because, once you have a passport and one name, they have to match. But I just hadn't had the systems talk yet, so they didn't know. So I, I left on that and I went down and I sat in ceremony and that's when the, the change

• 3:07:40Speaker 01

  happened. That's when the start of the real, deep, true stuff that was buried, that was stuck, that I couldn't move, that I couldn't get past, that I couldn't heal from, that the medication was just masking, that's when the shit really started to heal. That's when everything started to change.

• 3:07:57Jocko Willink?

  And that's like a mayhem, like a journey, from what I understand.

• 3:08:02Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. It depends. I mean, I've, since I've talked with you guys, I've, I've sat six more times. So it's, I've, I've really started to integrate, um, again psychedelics aren't for everyone. Psychedelics are not safe with medic, certain medication and psychedelics should not be done in a non-safe set, set and setting and psychedelics should have a major integration component on the front end and the back end. So I'm really careful to say that because it is not like a go do, sit by yourself, good luck situation. It requires weeks of integration and a proper dieta, meaning what you eat, whether it's what you eat, what you consume on TV, what you consume from, um, liquids, so alcohol and all those things. Can't have pork, you're not supposed to have certain things, like

• 3:08:44Speaker 01

  you have to follow it and if you don't, you find out why you're supposed to follow it. And then it's going into the ceremonies in a safe set and setting with facilitators that are trained, who know what they're doing and know how to handle situations if they go one way or the other. And then coming out of that with integration on the back end, whether that's with your group or with a coach or with someone else, you have to integrate that. And the amount of people that I know that are big names who are going into situations and not integrating their shit and coming back and wondering why they're still struggling, that's why they're struggling. They're not integrating what they have learned and they are not listening. That is the most important. The ceremonies are one thing, right? The integration is everything. If you don't do that work before and on the end, it's dangerous.

• 3:09:28Speaker 01

  Psychologically, like physically, you need to follow the rules. There's a reason why you do it a certain way. And I learned that, definitely learned that. But ever since last time you and I sat psychedelics have, when I say I've leaned in.

• 3:09:44Jocko Willink?

  When we sat, we were just talking, we weren't doing psychedelics.

• 3:09:47Speaker 01

  No, we weren't. No, Jaco was not doing psychedelics. I didn't slip anything in. Yeah, last time you and I were doing psychedelics in the room together? No, that I can't see that ever happening. I can't see you sitting with the medicine.

• 3:09:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, I've, I've never done any drugs before. And so, other than alcohol and caffeine, and I don't use alcohol anymore. And I'm actually very, I've become more and more anti-alcohol as time goes on.

• 3:10:12Speaker 01

  Good.

• 3:10:13Jocko Willink?

  Um, I think it's really terrible. And, uh, yeah, I've just never, I don't really have any desire to do any drugs. It seems like it's, um, like not for me.

• 3:10:23Speaker 01

  You know, it's funny is, uh,

• 3:10:25Jocko Willink?

  To put it simply.

• 3:10:26Speaker 01

  Have you, have you sat with any psychedelics before, Jaco?

• 3:10:28Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 3:10:29Speaker 01

  You're both very like A-type, not necessarily need control, but control is a big aspect of your life. And Andy asked me this too. He's like, yeah, I've never done psychedelics. I was like, probably tell you why. It's a control thing. Certain, when you sit with a really strong medicine, whether it's five MEO, a strong psilocybin ceremony, ayahuasca, you, um, I begin whatever, you don't get to control any part of any of that. What your body does, what your mouth does, whether you vomit, whether you shit yourself. You don't get to control a lot of what the medicine does. And when I say you, you lose control, it's not like anything you've ever experienced where you're like, I can fight my way out of this.

• 3:11:11Speaker 01

  It's like, nope, you're, you're done. That's it. And the more you fight it, the more it takes hold, right? And so, a lot of people I notice who have never experienced it are people that maybe lean more on the, not needing, but definitely more control, like of just environments and situations, how your body feels and like always. wanting to be a certain way like I had a marine with us in Peru and control was a thing for him big time and I remember when there was an incident on the one night we had a gentleman who was with us he's a he's a good friend now and I'd been in plenty of ceremonies at this point where everything had gone pretty smooth everyone stayed on their mat unless it

• 3:11:54Speaker 01

  was to go to the bathroom few people vomited on themselves you know it's just standard behavior it sounds like a good time doesn't it um but at this time on the second night in Peru I had an individual who was one mat in between uh there was one person in between us and we were sitting there and I was the first to drink that night and you don't choose who drinks right it's the maestros in the middle the healers the shapiibo tribe people who I sit with from Peru and they decide who comes up first and they have a way of doing it you just let them do their thing I got called up first that night and so I went up and I took my I got the medicine from her did my prayer over it drank it

• 3:12:38Speaker 01

  I just I just think about drinking it and I get a whole body gag um and I went and sat back down on my mat and it takes you know half an hour forty-five for some people but by the time they got around to everyone finishing drinking the last person was starting to drink and I was already shooting off to space so at that point that means that well now the maestros have to drink so that's gonna be another like good half an hour forty-five minutes before they start even singing the icarus and the prayers before ceremony even really like opens so I sat there and I was like oh no here it comes because the visuals start and the visuals are so bright and so vivid and so intense and then they got more

• 3:13:23Speaker 01

  intense and I was like oh okay and then they were like oh now they're out of out of control and now things are starting to move and because of the TBI vertigo and pots and things like that for me was like motion is not good so I start vomiting violently right no one else has barely even drank Nothing's even started. And I'm on my hands and knees and just blah, like just the most intense. To the point where I'm driving now and I can't breathe because I can't get air in between. So I'm just like, you know that like constant. So I'm doing this and I'm, and I just remember just. Cause then it's control and I go, I let go, I let go, I let go. And I just keep trying to say like, I let go, I'm letting go, I trust you.

• 3:14:05Speaker 01

  And I, my whole body just drops down and I have got nothing and I'm gone. And I mean, gone, gone, like not in this galaxy gone. And things are swirling and it's black and it's moving and I just hear this. Wah, wah, wah. Out of the corner. And I kinda come to and I've got the bucket in my hand and. I just kinda, it's pitch black, but it's an open air Maloka. So there's screens. So like, there's a door and there's screens so you could hear the jungle. And the jungle has a tendency to respond. When the medicine starts to respond. And I start to hear the maestra start to sing. Now. I'm already in space.

• 3:14:50Speaker 01

  When they start to sing, what they do with those Icarus is they move the medicine. So now like it moves it within you. And so they start singing the Icarus and it, you can feel the vibration. So they're like singing this really beautiful thing. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's too far, too far, too far. Like I had, I had gone too far. In my mind, I thought I had gone too far, right? And I hear this slamming and then I just hear. This noise and it sounds like. A horror movie. When like, it's like a weird. Like demon. Where it's like that, like that, like.

• 3:15:27Speaker 01

  Like it's like an angry cat, that deep level kind of growl. And I hear it coming out of this side. And I just go, nope, nope, we're not turning our head. We're not looking at it. We're not looking at it. Cause I'm going, is anyone else hearing this? And the Icarus are getting more intense. And it got to a point where.

• 3:15:47Speaker 01

  Space started to vibrant, right? Like, almost like when something's winding up, where it's like and you're waiting for that kind of boom. And so it started to kind of do this wind and I hear this like, and it's getting louder and then I just slamming and slamming and slamming. And they give you a red flashlight. The red flashlight. It's, it's like OPSEC, right? It's got the red cover on it. And so they go, if you have to go to the bathroom, you point it at the ground, find your way to the bathroom. If you need help, point it at your chest and turn it on. So I hear this, I hear this smashing and time is just like starting to speed up and I just put it in my chest and I'm just vomiting.

• 3:16:30Speaker 01

  And so the facilitator comes over and he drinks too, but this is someone that's incredibly experienced in the medicine, who can be in the medicine, but also be very present. So he like pulls me over to the bathroom, right? And I'm going pee and I cannot stop peeing. And so what I've learned now is that there's tons of different forms of purging. There's energy purging, right? So big yawns where your jaw hurts. You've yawned so much that you're having these big, huge like, oh, like, and it's an energy movement, right? Some people just do that. Some people don't purge at all. Some people vomit, some people shit themselves, some people pee. And so I had been vomiting and I was like, I have to pee and I literally can't move. And as I'm in the bathroom, it's all white, just like white.

• 3:17:14Speaker 01

  There's no lights on, but it's just like that white tile. So it's quite bright. You can see the light coming in from the moon. And I'm sitting there, I'm looking down at my hands and my hands are just changing and moving and molding into these colors. And I'm like, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe. Just having this inner dialogue, just going pee. And then I just hear bang, bang, bang. And just like, people are moving in the maloka. Normally things stay pretty still. And I see one of the other guys come into the bathroom. And then another guy come into the bathroom. And then another guy and another guy, and now we're all in the bathroom. Except for the facilitator and for the maestros and one other guy.

• 3:17:56Speaker 01

  And this guy is beating the fuck out of himself. He's so deep in the medicine and that thing that is in him took hold of him. And he just starts slamming his arms and he's and he's punching himself and the next morning when he wakes up like his hand is swollen, his eyes are black and blue, his legs are bruised. But what had happened was he was so in the medicine. And everyone around him was kind of like freaking out. The control aspect I'm getting to is one of the Marines that was in the group with me. Pops his head in the curtain and he just goes. You guys good? You guys good? You guys good? You guys all good? You good? Need help? You good? We're like, no, man, we're all freaking out right now. He's like, I got it. I got it. Facilitator runs in and goes, hey, Ryan?

• 3:18:41Speaker 01

  Hey, Ryan, you good right now? And he goes, yeah, I'm fine, fine. And he goes, want to come with me? And so they had to go hold him down. So Ryan snaps out of the medicine. Right? Like he's still in it, but enough to be present. And sits down on the guy's leg and the other guy sits down and they just hold him there while they pray over him until he just, his body gives out. So I spent probably half of that ceremony in the bathroom because what I was hearing. Was the thing that was coming out of him. Came out of him. And was ripping the Maloka in half and running up the ceiling. So like you could. You could hear the crawling going up the ceiling and all around and. And all the time he's like make, it's him that was actually making that noise, the guy.

• 3:19:25Speaker 01

  This thing was coming out of him and kind of going through him and making this noise. And he's smashing it. So it sounds like the whole place is just falling apart. And because I was struggling so deeply with. Anger and rage. To the point where.

• 3:19:41Speaker 01

  It manifested itself and the thing that came out of him was a form of my anger. And it was trying to get into the bathroom. So I was seeing it rip through the ceiling. And come try to get in, but I can't stop peeing. So I can't get off the toilet to save myself. So one of the other guys who had sat in ceremony with me last time. I said, Sam, Sam. And he's just sitting here, Sam, Sam, I need you to hold my hand, Sam. He's like, tell us you're peeing. I said, Sam, hold my hand. I just need you to stay with me and hold my hand. And once they kind of got him calmed down. I was able to, all of us slowly, they're like, it's safe, you're good to come back out, you're safe, it's good. So we all slowly started going back out into the pitch black. But the thing was every time.

• 3:20:26Speaker 01

  The maestros would sing. Cause they pray over each and every one of you. There's a male and a female and they work their way around the room. And each one of you gets a different prayer. So like the male is known as like the surgeon. He comes in, he gets in there, does all the nasty removal, all the gross stuff, and then she comes around and bandages you up, if you will. And then prays over you and does this, does this work to you. And it's really intense when they're singing and praying to you. You can feel it's, it's, it's a lot. So they're like, you need to receive the prayer at the end of like, you need to, so you need to come out. But every time they sang, that thing in him would get angry. And so she would start to sing and it, he would start to rear up and then I would start to freak the fuck out. And he's like, the facilitator would be like,

• 3:21:08Speaker 01

  just sit with me and just stay here. We're just gonna stay here. We're just gonna be in it. And so. I was working through all of this, but the next morning. I had a conversation and none of us at that night wanted to sleep by ourselves. We were all so terrified. We were, ceremony closed and he was still in the medicine. He was in it the rest of the night. So like, he did not leave the medicine until the morning. And he was, he beat himself silly and. There was a lot of lessons in that and one of those for me was. I was able to see the anger and what it was doing. To everyone around me and I was able to see what it was doing to myself. I saw a visualization of it. I heard it. I could see the thing that everyone said was attached to me.

• 3:21:51Speaker 01

  That I didn't, I couldn't make go away on my own. And so as, as you know, hard as it is to sometimes to let go of control and let go of needing to be the person that handles everything. It was necessary. I needed to let go. I needed to go let someone else help me because I could no longer help myself. And so psychedelics now for me have become such a massive part of my life. I'm doing a clinical trial with a company in Canada for psilocybin soon. I'm patient zero four. I use psilocybin now as a form of antidepressant for me. It almost replaced an SSRI, but not something I need to take.

• 3:22:35Speaker 01

  Only when I catch myself going into a bit of a dip, I'm able to then microdose and it keeps me at a place where I never dip to where I can't pull myself back out again. And then I use ayahuasca when I'm working through something and only when the medicine calls, not when I choose to go. So I've never like booked a trip or tried to. It's always presented itself to me as an opportunity or a chance to go somewhere and that's how the medicine should be. And so it's been a, it's been a weird transition of learning how to let go and learning how to be patient and move through emotions rather than hold emotions.

• 3:23:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, that, that definitely makes sense. I know that for me,

• 3:23:15Jocko Willink?

  like for me, I don't know. I've always had a good grasp on that. There's a lot of things that I have no control over and I'm okay with that. And even from a leadership perspective, you know, I would, anybody that's ever worked for me knows that I'm the literal furthest thing from a control freak. I'm like the most decentralized.

• 3:23:30Speaker 01

  Um, is that the truth?

• 3:23:32Jocko Willink?

  Confirmed.

• 3:23:32Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:23:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like I, I, you know.

• 3:23:37Jocko Willink?

  Fourth off combat leadership is decentralized command and I'm absolutely that way. I'm in fact, I'm a little bit too much that way, you know, but I'll let good people let things go even more. So I've always been very comfortable with the fact that a lot of things you can't control. There's some things that you can't control and I'm perfectly fine. I can kind of shrug off things that I can't control and move forward, you know, so I, I, I guess maybe, I guess maybe I do. I present controlling.

• 3:24:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:24:03Jocko Willink?

  But uh, yeah, I mean, I mean, like here's, here's like just an example, like my kids growing up, they didn't even have curfews. Like, you know, like didn't care. You come home when you're ready. Like that's an example that people are always like, are you serious? I'm like, yeah, I'm like, come home when you're, when you're done.

• 3:24:16Speaker 02

  I think Kelsey, you might have a little bit of a point though, because you don't like to control external stuff, but you seem to like to control internal stuff, like kind of more hardcore than the normal person.

• 3:24:29Jocko Willink?

  I'd say that's probably accurate. Yeah. Like if I, like I said, I know that there's things I can control. I know there's things that I can't control. The only thing I can control really is like myself and how I'm going to behave and make sure that I'm doing the right thing from, you know, my perspective.

• 3:24:42Speaker 02

  So a lot of people, and I'm assuming maybe this applies to you, at the very least, a little bit, maybe a lot where drugs make you kind of lose control. No matter what drug it is, really even alcohol, you lose control of your mind in certain ways.

• 3:24:56Jocko Willink?

  That's for sure.

• 3:24:56Speaker 02

  Now, what you're talking about is, you know, another level of loss of control.

• 3:25:00Speaker 01

  Listen, there's levels to this shit.

• 3:25:02Speaker 02

  Yes, ma'am.

• 3:25:02Speaker 01

  There just is. And but that's okay. I mean, that comes in time and it's, you, you are like, you do, uh, the perception you do put out, even though it is you're controlling yourself. So whether it's like your four thirty in the morning wake up, or it's, you know, just getting in the workout. It's like, you do control your life to a T. And so I think because when you're talking about maybe you on social or what you're doing on social, the perception is that you're like that with all things, but that's only because people don't see the things that you're not controlling on, right? And maybe if they didn't serve with you, they, they just assume this guy's, that's how it works.

• 3:25:36Speaker 01

  But yeah, anything, you know, alcohol, anything that you take, whether it's a psychedelic, uh, alcohol, anything that's going to change your perception is going to give you a lack of control internally, whether we like it or not. And that is a hard thing for some people to grasp. And even when you're in the medicine, it's. It almost impossible to let go because what are you letting go to and what are you allowing in? At what point are you letting go too far? Are you gone all the way? Do you ever come back? Like that's the

• 3:26:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, my thing, my thought is no.

• 3:26:07Speaker 01

  I, you know what?

• 3:26:08Jocko Willink?

  My thought is I'm not coming back.

• 3:26:09Speaker 01

  Well, that's what I was afraid of in Peru.

• 3:26:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:26:12Speaker 01

  There was a moment where I was like during that where I was like, if I, if I fully let go here, I'm concerned I won't snap back. But that's fear speaking, right? That's the voice in my head. That's the thing that I talk about. That's the thing that says, no, we're not doing this or no, you're too tired or no, you can't do this or no, you're not big enough or why would they talk to you? It's like, that's the voice you just have to just sh- shut the fuck up and push down because it doesn't get to be in control anymore. And that's the difference is the medicine has taught me that I don't always get to have control and sometimes it's okay to let go of it. Um, as long as I'm aware that I don't abuse it. I don't play with this medicine. It's not like a for fun. Like this stuff is not fun and anybody

• 3:26:55Jocko Willink?

  So far it does not sound fun.

• 3:26:56Speaker 01

  It's not. And anybody who's like, oh.

• 3:26:57Jocko Willink?

  I have no temptations to do this stuff right now. Zero.

• 3:27:01Speaker 01

  I mean, listen, there's some where you're less like purging and less violent. Like, I mean, five M E O, it's a quick fifteen minute. You know, it's a D M T. It's a different thing.

• 3:27:10Jocko Willink?

  You give it fifteen minutes and this does not sound fun.

• 3:27:13Speaker 01

  I would like to see you try it because I know how much you would fight it tooth and nail, but that's the thing is you can't fight it. Like it doesn't, you'll, you'll, you'll go.

• 3:27:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Um, I'm sorry to disappoint you.

• 3:27:24Speaker 01

  You'll never.

• 3:27:24Jocko Willink?

  I probably won't be doing any of these things.

• 3:27:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, so and I think this kind of applies to a lot of psychoactive substances. Where if you start with the reason anyone would choose to do that, isn't it because they don't like the results of their controlling of their mind or lack thereof? So I would think you're in a whole separate boat where you're like, yeah, I like to have full control over my mind, therefore my behavior, the, you know, that stuff. And I like the way it's going. So why would I give it up to what's whatever the goddess's name is?

• 3:27:55Speaker 01

  Goddess's name is.

• 3:27:58Jocko Willink?

  I was talking to some of my friends that have done the journey, right? And they're like, oh, you should do it. And I was like, no, I'm probably not gonna do it. And they're like, oh, you know, you, you, you should. And I was like, well, I feel like I'm driving down the highway at like eighty-five miles an hour. And I feel like pulling over the side and just taking apart my engine and putting it back together doesn't seem like a smart move.

• 3:28:17Speaker 01

  It's not ideal.

• 3:28:18Jocko Willink?

  Cause it's like running pretty good. And they're like, well, you could be going 95. And I was like, no, I think I'm, I think I'm actually going pretty good. I think I'm kind of like, you know, like I'm looking at my RPMs and they're smooth and like,

• 3:28:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:28:28Jocko Willink?

  cool. Like the temperature's good. And they're like, we should ask your wife what she thinks. I was like, go ask my wife what she thinks. She'd be like, dude, this guy's fine. Like, let's not, let's not, let's not mess up this engine right now.

• 3:28:38Speaker 02

  I actually agree with you, especially for your situation where, cause I'm actually more kind of on your side with it, just, just from this alone where at the very least it's gonna offer you.

• 3:28:50Jocko Willink?

  We're taking sides now?

• 3:28:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:28:52Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:28:52Speaker 01

  The table has been divided.

• 3:28:53Speaker 02

  And let's face it, let's face it, but you're, you know, but okay, if we were forced to take sides, I'm going to be leaning a little bit towards, cause I think that new perspective that from what I understand, cause my brother and I know a lot of people who've taken

• 3:29:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:29:06Speaker 02

  one trip or another on different.

• 3:29:08Jocko Willink?

  Journey.

• 3:29:09Speaker 02

  Journey. Yes. Yes. Correct. Yes.

• 3:29:11Speaker 01

  How dare we?

• 3:29:13Speaker 02

  So I know people who have done it and they all kind of report back the similar thing where it's like, man, it offered this perspective that was very like eye opening, you know? And it improved their perspective, you know, on things. Um, you know, varying levels of lasting results, but at the very least, the experience improved their, their outlook on things.

• 3:29:32Speaker 01

  I think it's, it's what you're intending to go and do and how much work are you willing to do afterwards to keep the lasting effects?

• 3:29:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I dig it.

• 3:29:41Speaker 01

  That's the, the, the trip, the, the trip, the journey is, is just the catalyst. It's just the pin drop, right? The, the rest of it comes afterwards. The real work is after, because now you've explored, you've, the mirror has been put in front of you, whether you like it or not. The stuff you're seeing is not something you want to see, but you're seeing now because this is what you've, you've chose to do. Now I'm going to show you what you need to see to work on it. So like, for example, excuse me, the first, the first experience I talked about where I, I did it with Griff and those guys. That was very much if you were to take a line and you were to put the future in the past. The first trip was the very bottom of the past. The stuff that was stuck, the trauma, the Afghan stuff, the stuff I couldn't undo, the stuff I couldn't work through.

• 3:30:26Speaker 01

  So those first three trips were that. The second time I went, well, because it's, listen, let me stop it, stop it. You stop it, listen. There, you do them in over three days. So you do one each night, so that's one ceremony.

• 3:30:41Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so you've done it. Two sessions of three each?

• 3:30:44Speaker 01

  I've done three sessions of three each, so nine.

• 3:30:47Jocko Willink?

  So nine.

• 3:30:47Speaker 01

  Yes. So the first one was very much the Afghan stuff. That's the one that I spoke about on the last show where I talked about like Chris and going through the other side and all of those. Really just getting the closure moments of survivor's guilt, really, really working through that there. And then actually came out of that one with no more chronic pain in my shoulder that's permanently separated with no collarbone. So that's a weird thing all on its own. So I, the body hold, you know, the body keeps the score. That's a real thing. The trauma is held in the body, so when you can work that out too. And then the second time I went, so that would have been ceremony four, five, six. Those ones were getting closer to more of my future issues, like the stuff that was newer issues, not so much the Afghan, but more of the deeper, the deeper rooted things that I was trying to work through, right?

• 3:31:32Speaker 01

  Stuff that I was really, really struggling with. And then the last group of ceremonies I went through, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. One of the reasons, one of the main reasons I went was because of this. Because I was not coping. Period. And so I made a call to Jesse at Heroic Cards Project and I was like, hey, bro. He goes, how you doing? Not great. What do you need? You know what I need? Okay. When you need to go? Soon as you got me. He goes, okay, let me, let me see. Sure enough, one thing moved all on its own naturally, the other thing, and then next thing you know, it was like, you can go then. So I went and I went into that with a very serious intention and that was to learn how to become a better,

• 3:32:18Speaker 01

  more present wife, because at this point Brady was super sick and I was trying to be the rock. So I had no emotions, I wasn't empathetic, I wasn't compassionate and it wasn't because I wasn't feeling those things, it was because. The spouse needed me to be the tough one. Cause he had been the tough one for so many years, right? He had been the one that pulled me out of bed, got me moving, got me up, made sure I didn't end up killing myself, and he was the one who was the rock. So it was like, I needed to be the rock. But I didn't know how to do that empathetically. I knew how to do it operationally. I knew, this is what you need, this is what we're gonna do, this is how we're gonna fix it. Not, hey, I'm gonna sit with you when you're not feeling well and just be with you. I was like, no, I got, we got shit we need to fix, like.

• 3:33:00Speaker 01

  And so I went into this going, I need to be more empathetic wife, and I need to let go of this anger. Because you lived rent-free in my head for two years ruthlessly. And I was like, I can't carry this shit anymore, I can't do this anymore. It's not fair to anyone, it's not fair to me, it's not fair to my family, it's not fair, period. And so I went in and I told the, I told the maestros, I said, I'm angry. And I'm angry at a level I cannot fucking control, and I can't make it stop. As I say it with a smile, like, I was like, I'm so angry, it's bubbling. And I said, I'm having a lot of pain in my head.

• 3:33:40Speaker 01

  And so when I went into those ceremonies, they were very, they don't, when you have this meeting with, sorry, when you have this meeting with the maestros, you don't, um, they don't talk back to you. They just listen to you. And then they whisper in Spanish, and then, then you leave. And then you go and you do the, the vomitivo, which you're gonna love. You're gonna guess vomitivo is, yes, you're vomiting, but it's forced vomiting. You drink this lemongrass tea, it's cold, and there's a big jug, and you all sit outside of like one of the little huts, and you each get a cup, it's about yay big, and you fill it up, and you have to drink it continuously until you start vomiting. And the whole point is-

• 3:34:23Jocko Willink?

  What are you doing Thursday night?

• 3:34:27Speaker 01

  Megan vomitiboe, clearly. So you do that, though, because you're going into ceremony the next day, and if somebody didn't follow the dieta, or they didn't fully cleanse themselves properly, this takes everything out. And they kind of say it like, this is like the farmer prepping the garden, or the prepping the fields. Right? Before the, before the, the, they come in with the medicine and they plant the seeds. And so you do this, and it's, that's a fun experience for everyone involved. And, um, and then you go into the ceremony after that. But one of the nights, though, I had said that, I had said that to the maestro, you know, about my head. And he came over when he was working on me, and they tell you, like, these people are pretty physical.

• 3:35:10Speaker 01

  So like, heads up if they tell you to do something, don't freak out, don't be weirded out, like this is, they've been doing this for thousands of years, and this is lineage, like, just do what they say. They don't speak English either. So the one night, he comes over to me, and he's done praying over me, and I'm in the medicine, but I'm not vomiting on myself for a minute, and he just gets up and grabs my head on the sides and just starts pushing, from the front and the back, and just pushing, and just pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing. And then he stands up, and he just grabs, they have this, it's like a perfume, but it's like they're, each purse, each maestro has their own, and it's like prayed over, and they use it, and sometimes they'll spit it on you, and sometimes they'll pour it on you, and it's kind of like a, like a holy water, but there's a joke there.

• 3:35:55Speaker 01

  So, um, he goes and stands on top of me, and he just, and he blows into me, and I felt from the tip of my head all the way down, if you were to take a couple inches off my body, almost like my aura, I just felt everything just drop out, and my whole body just kind of dropped, and I was exhausted. And I asked them the next day, when we were, we were doing the flower bath, and he said, um, he, he just looked at, uh, the, the translator and goes, ask her, how is her head feeling today? And it was the first day I didn't have a headache. So I was like, shit, okay, all right, we're gonna do whatever. The last night. She comes over and she's praying over me. And I'd been expressing, and because we do group and all of these things.

• 3:36:38Speaker 01

  And so I'm talking about what I'm struggling with and I'm frustrated with and all of this. And the next night she goes in and at the end of ceremony, she comes up to me and I'm one of the last ones she prays on. And she goes, she grabs my shirt and she starts pulling, pulling it up. And I was like, what the fuck is happening? So I just lift up my shirt, it's pitch black. I don't care, I had a baby in a hospital, everyone's seen everything. And she's, she starts pouring it onto her and then she just comes over and she grabs the palm of her hand from the tip of my neck all the way down, right before my pelvic bone. And she just starts slamming all the way down, just so boom. And she's just slapping my chest and she's just bum, bum, bum. And then I just feel this sharp pain come under my right rib.

• 3:37:18Speaker 01

  And it's like her eyes light up and she just starts pushing, like she's gonna, trying to break my lower rib there. And she's violently just pop, pop, pop, pop. And then just boom again, and then she just sits up and she just, and she just vomits into her bucket. And I just go, what just happened? And the, and it was gone, the pain was gone. And afterward, the next day, we were doing the flower bath and we were saying bye to them. And I went up to her and I just started smiling and I just started bawling my eyes out. And I took my necklace off and gave it to her and she took her earrings off and she put them on me. And then she said something in Spanish and, and the translator said like, everything's gonna be okay now.

• 3:38:02Speaker 01

  And I looked down at my watch and it was a year to the day that Brady dropped with his TBI that I put in the hospital. So it was like this whole circle thing started happening. And at this point, I had found out earlier, March that year, I was, I had gone, uh, undiagnosed TBI. So that was one of the problems of what was going on with me. I went down to the Resiliency, uh, Brain Center in Copel, Texas. Rebecca does some work with them, with Defenders of Freedom. And when Brady was struggling, um, with his TBA, and by I mean struggling, I mean he, we were sitting in the garage and I was smoking some weed before bed. And we were sitting there and we listened to a podcast before bed in the garage, leave the garage door open, it's nice out.

• 3:38:47Speaker 01

  Put podcasts on, most of the time it's Rogan, we sit there and smoke weed and we just hang out, we talk about it. Some of the neighbors come over and it's just whatever, relax. He's sitting there and I'm kind of out like pacing, watering the flowers and he just goes, hey hun, I don't feel so good. And I'm like, what do you mean? Cause it's always pretty healthy is standard. And he goes, he didn't grab his left side. He grabbed his right side. And he goes, something's really, really wrong. And he stood up. And then just fucking went gray and dropped. And my neighbor's our family doctor and she was at work and her husband just happened to be outside. And Jack was already in bed. So I started screaming for him to come over. And I called nine one one and they put me on hold.

• 3:39:30Speaker 01

  So B C has a massive shortage of paramedics and ambulance drivers. It's unbelievable. So they put me on hold. And I told, I told Mark, I was like, get him in the car, just get him in the car. And it was the first moment I had almost like a the first time I had ever had like a real true flashback moment of me not being able to move fast enough. Like when I was in the ditch trying to get to the body. It's like, I couldn't get upstairs to get my shorts. I couldn't get my keys fast enough. It was like this. It was the first time I had felt that again. And so they got him into the car and I rushed him and the ambulance called on the way and they're like, we're gonna need you to pull over. I'm like, we need you to fuck off. Like I'm already at the hospital. Like you're useless. And it's click kind of thing. Pull up to the hospital. Bring Brady in.

• 3:40:15Speaker 01

  And he's sitting there in the waiting room and he's just gray and he's just violently shaking and the nurse.

• 3:40:22Speaker 01

  The nurse comes around and gets him in triage and this overweight unhealthy nurse looks at my husband and goes, have you had any substances today? And he goes, I like literally like a couple puffs of cannabis. She gives him the dirty look and Brady's like, I need help. And she's like, no. So they wouldn't help him. They deemed him a drug addict on the spot because he used cannabis. So they wouldn't provide proper care. So now at that point during COVID, no doctors would see us in person. No one would help us. Absolutely fucking nothing. So this is happening and I've got nowhere to go, nowhere to turn. And I remember seeing on Instagram a while ago, my buddy Ronald Farrell, who's a former ranger as well, who knew Griff.

• 3:41:01Speaker 01

  Post this stuff with a lady in a white coat at this place in Texas and he was working on his brain, like this TBI stuff, right? And I look at Brady and we're kind of having this conversation and I'm like, the doctors don't know what's wrong with him. They're telling him it's mental health. They're telling, like, we pay the money, we go do the MRI, we do the scans, nothing's showing up. We do the blood work. It's like, we don't know what we're looking for. None of the doctors are helping us. And so I call Ron and I sent him a voice message and I'm bawling my eyes out going, "I don't know what you're doing, but is there any chance any of these doctors are willing to help us?" And he's like, "Can I have permission to say, play this to like Doc G and them?" And I was like, "Yeah, yeah."

• 3:41:39Speaker 01

  So he plays it and like, so Resiliency Brain Center, they treat civilians and ex-military. And a lot of times it's like special operators. So there's, like, when I went down, there was like Rangers, there's like Delta guys, there's SEALs, like, they treat the gnarliest of the gnarly. And so she goes, "We can get them in." This was a Wednesday and Brady was in Texas on a Sunday. So Brady did a two-week intensive program with Doc Gade and Doc Eisenman and he ended up doing amazing. And it took a long time after that, like, don't get me wrong, we found out that he had a TBI from when he was racing Supercross, so that went completely undiagnosed.

• 3:42:21Speaker 01

  And so like hormone imbalances, vertigo, dysautonomia, like, you name it, he was having it. He couldn't work, he couldn't function, he couldn't get out of bed. Depression was kicking in severely, he was dropping weight, like, going out of style. And all the while, Canada was like, "He's fine! It's mental health. It's COVID." It's like, there's more to this. And so they helped them, but then the deal was, if we get him in, we know there's got to be something wrong with you. Because you've been talking, I've been kind of expressing it, like, "I have low-grade migraines, I have stomach issues, I have major vertigo, I have anger problems, I have a really hard time making decisions and like, really just kind of sticking with something." And they're like, "Yep, that sounds right." And she's like, "You know, you don't have to live like that, right?"

• 3:43:05Speaker 01

  And I was like, "Well, yeah, once Brady, you know..." She's like, "Okay, Brady comes down, will you come down after?" And I was like, "Well, we can't afford both of us." And she's like, "Let me introduce you to Donna Cranston." And that's the CEO of Defenders of Freedom. And Donna- They're a 501, 3C, so a veteran organization, and they pay for brain treatment for veterans to go through this program, but Americans. So they got special permission to bring me down, and I was their first female combat veteran they'd ever treated. And right before I went to that, I said, "Well, let's make it harder. Let's make, let's make it harder on myself. I'm gonna go down and do the Warrior Angel 4x4x48," because it's for Vets and

• 3:43:46Speaker 01

  for Heroic Hearts Project, and I owe Heroic Hearts Project a lot. Like, I owe them the time they put into me to help me. I, if I can go show up somewhere, if it just means running, I can do that. I'll go do that. I'll go hurt myself for them, and we'll fundraise. So I made a plan. Brady came back. I went down to do the 4x4x48, which was one of the wildest experiences I've ever had. We did it in the Houston Forest, and we did it with Andrew and Adam Marr. And then Marcus was there, and Jesse was there, and all the guys were there, like Bill Anthes and them from Between the Ears and his wife. And it was this really, a really, really amazing therapeutic event. And we did peyote, and there was a tribe that was brought in, and like, it was cathartic as fuck. Like, it was the best

• 3:44:28Speaker 01

  experience. And then, the day after, we, like, the night we finished, I drove to Houston, I drove to Dallas, and then I went into a two-week inpatient kind of deal with resiliency, all because Defenders of Freedom was like, "Someone's struggling. No one's gonna help her in Canada. We're gonna step up and help her." So, they, they helped, saved me, because what I realized is, my inability to make decisions was because my, my prefrontal cortex isn't working, because of the TBI. My inability to sleep was, a lot of it was because I was struggling hormonally, so everything, my cortisol was out of whack. My dysautonomia and stuff was happening, POTS was happening, so that's why I was getting carsick constantly. I was having stomach issues all the time. I had a low-grade migraine all the time. It

• 3:45:12Speaker 01

  looked like I was concussed all the time. I looked stoned when I wasn't stoned. My eyes were just always kind of a little bit lower. And that was all from an undiagnosed traumatic brain injury. And so, I went through the treatment there, and I came out, and I've been doing fucking fantastic ever since. But I did ayahuasca after that, and it was nuts. It's a different thing. When your whole brain starts firing, not just parts of your brain. That's a different level. I stepped up another level with that, but what I found was that microdosing with psilocybin and working really hard, like I was telling you when I came in, you're like, oh, here you can drink this. And I'm like, I'm gonna drink this because that's making a difference for me.

• 3:45:52Speaker 01

  The ketones are making a difference for me in a really big way, um, because I'm struggling with blood sugar issues because of the TBI. So the ketones keep me from crashing and have all these sugar lows, but they also are just fuel for the brain in general.

• 3:46:05Jocko Willink?

  Do you eat sugar?

• 3:46:06Speaker 01

  Not a lot. No, no.

• 3:46:08Jocko Willink?

  Do you eat carbohydrates? Are you like in a ketonic state?

• 3:46:11Speaker 01

  I'm not. No, I'm not. I eat carbs like, but not, not a ton of carbs. Like I'll have a piece of toast in the morning. You know, but we don't eat like potatoes and like all that.

• 3:46:19Jocko Willink?

  Are you on any, um, other drugs, like, uh, what are they called pharmaceutical drugs anymore?

• 3:46:24Speaker 01

  No, I haven't been on any since the first time I went down to Iweska. When I dropped that last one, that was the last time I was on anything.

• 3:46:33Jocko Willink?

  And you got a book coming out. To get us up to speed.

• 3:46:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:46:37Jocko Willink?

  The book is called Brass and Unity.

• 3:46:39Speaker 01

  It is.

• 3:46:39Jocko Willink?

  Which is also the name of your.

• 3:46:42Speaker 01

  Podcast business.

• 3:46:43Jocko Willink?

  Podcast business, Instagram.

• 3:46:45Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 3:46:45Jocko Willink?

  It's all brass and unity.

• 3:46:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:46:48Jocko Willink?

  When does the book come out?

• 3:46:49Speaker 01

  July 11th. So we are, the publisher wants pre-sales. They want it on the New York Times Bestseller list. So they want to give me ample time to get it done.

• 3:46:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, that's what you do. That's the, that's, that's what you do. You, the pre-sales, all the pre-sales that you do count in the first week of sales. So that's how you get on the big list.

• 3:47:10Speaker 01

  It's silly. It sounds silly to some people and like, don't get me wrong. Like I get it. It's, but the reason I want it is because I was told I'd never get a book published ever. So why not shoot for the moon?

• 3:47:19Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah, no, definitely go for it. It's free advertising. When you get on the, if you get on the list, then you, um, get free advertising from that. From that. So.

• 3:47:28Speaker 01

  Well, it's, it's, I've been really lucky because, um, last time I was in here, we were working on a couple of different deals with some things, but in between that timeframe, um, we, the Afghan pullout happened.

• 3:47:41Speaker 01

  And I got drug into that in a really weird way, in a very like unnecessary but necessary way. And so that was a wild experience and something crazy that we added a couple, we added like 20 pages from. We were able to, Griff called again. So who am I to say no to the guy that helped me?

• 3:48:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, either that or block his number.

• 3:48:05Speaker 01

  Right? Just like one of the other, something really intense. But yeah, so he called and he said, I have a nine pack of VIP Canadians and Canada's not answering the phone. So I got on Instagram and started doing what I do, which is network really, really well. And I called a couple people and no one really had answers. And I said, well, I'm gonna call Dean and Alana, because I said, there's no way in hell they're not involved in this somehow. There's no way. So I call Alana. And at this point, Dean had been on the show and Alana had been on the show and Dean and I had built a good friendship. We spent the last shot show, we were doing stuff over there together and Alana wasn't there.

• 3:48:47Jocko Willink?

  I think I know you through Dean.

• 3:48:48Speaker 01

  You do know me through Dean.

• 3:48:49Jocko Willink?

  My original connection was through Dean, yeah.

• 3:48:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so Alana, I messaged her and I say, hey, I'm assuming you're probably involved in this somehow. And she goes, you probably guessed right then. Yeah. Why? What do you need? And I said, look, I've got a nine pack. I've got the head of the women's rights for the Afghan Commission and I've got her daughter, who's the national, I think she was the cricket, national cricket coach, some, some like, they're on a lovely list is all I was being told. And then they got their three year old and then I got the rest of the daughters and a couple of husbands. And she's like, what do you need from me? And I said, well, I said, I would try and move them because they have Canadian visas, but they're Afghan passport holders. And I said, but I need my documents cleared. And

• 3:49:33Speaker 01

  the, the paperwork for the IRGC paperwork for Canada, they put, Canada put two people on it to answer all of the emails from every Canadian Afghani that was trying to get out of the country. Cute, right? Cut to a snap election by Trudeau, all in the same week of the pullout. So I get a phone call from CBC and they say, hey, Kelsey, we want to interview about how you feel about how the Afghan pullout is going and we're going to interview a handful of you. I said, so we're going to gaslight some veterans on national television, are we? And she's like, well, we just want to have this discussion. And so then I told her what was really going on in Afghanistan. And then she, we hung up and then I got a phone call the next day. And she's like, well, so the interview has been canceled. There's been a snap election,

• 3:50:16Speaker 01

  and we've been told there's a media blackout on anything Afghanistan related. Fucking fantastic.

• 3:50:20Jocko Willink?

  Canada.

• 3:50:21Speaker 01

  So it's a good place right now. So we've got all these Canadians who are trying and nothing's working. And I say, Alana, I need some, I do need the help. And she goes, okay, send me the docs. So now we're on Kabul time. So her and I are staying awake while she's working to move people with their contracting company. And I'm just trying to get this one family out. I don't know the hell I'm doing. All I have is Signal and all I have is Instagram. That's it. We'll figure it out. And so I, one phone number got me to another phone number who got me to someone else who ended up getting me to a person on the ground named Austin, who you actually met this weekend.

• 3:50:55Jocko Willink?

  Right on.

• 3:50:56Speaker 01

  And I didn't know his name at the time. It was just A. And I said, hey, I got these people. And he goes, I don't know who you've been talking to, but I just left a meeting and there's seven different units that are going to be going out looking for your family here soon. He's like, you've been annoying a lot of people. I said, yes, that's me. I will get someone to answer whether they like it or not. And so, cut to a couple of days, one of the day, the day right before the bombing, we end up having to move them to a different safe house, which was a bit of a shit show. Because at that point, the three year old was at the gate and got beat by the Taliban with a buttstock of AK-47. So we had a bit of an issue now. And then the Americans came and took the high value, the

• 3:51:39Speaker 01

  main high value from the group, which means the rest of them were going to be left behind. Even though I told them not to split up, they did. So we move into a second safe house, and I was doing this all using grid coordinates on Google. And so, at this point, the husband of the mother, the husband, and the father of the child, he's a student in New York. So he's stuck in New York. And he's messaged me on Signal going, what's going on, what's going on? And they're messaging me on Signal. And then I'm dealing with other people trying to just get a route or a place to get him inside this airport. And everyone's doing this. You know this. Everybody was like, going around the government, backdooring people, calling people. We were all just, anybody was just trying to get anybody on any plane. And so,

• 3:52:25Speaker 01

  I said to this guy, Austin, I was like, "Hey, um, I owe you one if you can help me out." And he goes, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's just, let's get this going here." He's like, "I'm gonna give you a 45-minute window. You're gonna be within that airport in 45 minutes, and I can't help you after this." Because we had blown two windows already. We had missed two windows, one because they were too afraid to leave, because this was right after the bombing, so the bomb went off. Now everyone's too afraid to go anywhere. And then we were getting warnings that there were more bombs being placed near mosques. So they didn't want to leave at all, and the kid was getting worse. So then, he said, "I just need them to be within 45 minutes." So then we had to move them to a different safe house. So I find a grid, I send them the grid, I tell the husband to chill the fuck out because he's not listening, and he's freaking out.

• 3:53:08Speaker 01

  And then, they're kind of freaking out because now I've got them on a 24-hour watch, where they're watching the phone to make sure, because the Americans said to me, like, "Give me their phone number. I'm gonna call. If they don't answer, we're on to the next one." So they're on a 24-hour watch, everyone's kind of getting heightened, and no one's sleeping. And then I still haven't got the documents cleared to get them on a plane. And then Alana finally calls and goes, "Hey, I made a call, I got them cleared, here's the information, sends it all to me." So she did some backdoor deal to get it all kind of dialed for me at the British. And, so we get that, and all while this is happening, I'm doing this over voice notes. So I'm having voice notes back and forth with the family on the ground, and then voice notes with, excuse me, with Enyette on the phone. And the cool thing about that now, looking back, is as annoying as I am, and I always send voice notes,

• 3:53:53Speaker 01

  this is fucking something cool to have now, to look back at, because no one would believe it, because it's goddamn ridiculous. So, next thing you know, we get a 45-minute window. I put him in a taxi, and I say, "I need you to just go, I'm gonna give you a grid, and I need you to go sit in the taxi there." So they do. They go sit in the taxi, and they're waiting. I said, and then Austin texts, and he goes, "I need you to send me a photo of them." So they send like a photo of them like smiling in the taxi, and he's like, "Send me a fucking photo of their whole body." Like, he starts, because he's going in and out, and in and out, and he's just like, "I don't have time to mess around, you need to just give me what I need." And so they get out, I said, get out, take a picture. So they get out, they take a picture. He goes, does somebody have a bright colored scarf? I was like, I don't like where this is going. And I said, yes, why? And he goes, tell me what color. I said, I got a red scarf. He's like, okay, perfect. So

• 3:54:38Speaker 01

  he's like, I'm gonna give you this forty-five minute window. When I say go, you need to move him to the next grid I give you. So we're all kind of sitting and they're waiting and then gunfire is kind of going off. So they're starting to freak out because like, we can't be on the street. We need to go. And then he finally says, go. And he gives me a grid. And at this point, we had been awake. I'd been awake for four, four days. So like, trying to sleep every couple hours because we're running on Kabul time. And I'm in, I'm in Vancouver and my cul-de-sac screaming into my phone, leaning against my Tesla, where all my neighbors are just like, what is she, the crazy lady yelling about now? And I'm like, run through the open fire, run! Like, I'm losing my shit into the phone. And I'm trying to watch Jack play and they're just like, what the fuck?

• 3:55:22Speaker 01

  So, this is all happening and I said to Brady, I'm like, it's go time. You need to, you need to deal with him. You need to deal with him. And so he takes Jack and, and we're doing the thing and I'm going back and forth on the phone. We get him to the grid and they're standing outside and you can hear it in the background and there's like, guns going off and cops are screaming and she's, wawala, she starts screaming. She's like, they're telling me to stop waving the scarf. They're gonna shoot on me. They're gonna shoot on me. Like, they tell me to leave the area. And I said, you need to go to like the service road. I need you to stand there. I've never, by the way, I've never been in Kabul. So I'm using Google to figure this out. So, this happens and he goes, I'm gonna pop smoke, tell them to stand there. And so they pop smoke and she voice messages me, losing it.

• 3:56:06Speaker 01

  They're throwing tear gas. We have to run. We have to run. I'm like screaming at the top of my lungs, like, I could never be a handler because I am not calm. And I'm just like, stay in the fucking smoke! Like, I'm just losing my shit at her. Because we were told at this point that because of who the mom was,

• 3:56:24Speaker 01

  They were, they were going to be found. It was like, take them or die. Like that was a conversation I was being told. And so I was starting to freak out because they were the, I was the only option they had left. And if it didn't happen, what was going to happen to them? Was it going to be another way I left Afghanistan, like in a fucking disgrace and not the way I wanted to leave? Or could I actually pull this off and redeem some sort of something? Right? Just anything. Because the way I left those kids last time was I was the thing of nightmares. I wanted to be the thing that helped for once. So when they popped smoke, he says to me, um, I said, hey dude, thank you for doing this. And he goes, what, I have it in the book, um, but he, basically there's a screenshot and he's like,

• 3:57:06Speaker 01

  well, we weren't going to trust it, leave it to Canadians. They're not even a real fucking country anyway. And so I'm just like, this is great timing. He goes, tell them to stand there in the smoke and start waving the red scarf. So I tell her to start waving the scarf. Cops come over and they're pointing guns and they're screaming at them and she's screaming. And he goes, I'm about to send my buddy Dee out. He's in shorts and a t-shirt with no kit. He's got a huge beard and big muscles. He gets shot in the head, it's on you. Fucking fantastic. This is a good day. So they're screaming and I just keep telling them, stay in the smoke and like, they're like, no, we can't. And I said, I finally snapped and I said, and I listened to it back today because I can't believe I said it and I,

• 3:57:47Speaker 01

  she thanked me afterwards, but I was like, if, and I screamed to the top of my lungs, if you do not run into the smoke, you're going to fucking die and your head is going to be cut off. Run into the fucking smoke. And I was losing my shit. She ran into the smoke and then everything went dead silent. Like no one was communicating with me. And then I just got a text message from Austin and it just said jackpot. And they pulled the family and it was the...

• 3:58:16Speaker 01

  I was standing on the back deck and Brady and Jack were inside the house and the screen door was, the door was open, the screen door was there and Jack came running over because as soon as it hit jackpot, I just fell down and I just started fucking bawling my eyes out and Jack goes, mommy, did we win? And I was like, you're fucking right, we won! They're like, yes, we won! Like, we beat the Taliban, one family, I did one thing, I got one family, that's all I wanted to do. And it was a bunch of like, like, school age girls. Shabnam is in Ottawa doing her doctorate, she had a guest lecture spot at Ottawa University. Wawala and her husband and her child are in New York and Faran is never gonna have to go back there and the rest of the girls are in school and are functioning. So I'm like, okay, you know what? If that's how I left Afghanistan the first time, that's fine, but that's not how I chose to leave forever.

• 3:59:01Speaker 01

  So, I did that in between the books, we added that into the book and we did, got permission from the family and, and yet, the husband wrote a quote on the back and I got permission to just transcribe the voice notes. So when you read it, it's like the, you can see that she's not English speaking.

• 3:59:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's funny to read.

• 3:59:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, they're like, can we correct this? I was like, no! No, the editor's like, we have to. I'm like, no, you can't, you can't correct it. And so then they let me put some photos in and then, the day that they actually made it into the States, they sent me a video of Enya seeing Faran for the first time again and then now they send me like, videos on the birthdays and stuff and I'm gonna see them when I go to New York to do some press and some things like that and we haven't met in person yet, so I'm like, really stoked to do that, but I was only able to do that because like, Alana answered the phone like on a random, like, again, my podcast got me to someone who then got me to that person, who then got me to her, who I was able to, so it's just, you know, everything happens the way it's supposed to happen, whether

• 4:00:02Speaker 01

  it's painful, whether it's necessary, whether it's fucking shitty, there's lessons in every single thing that we do and we just have to choose to see them.

• 4:00:15Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'm glad you got the W. That's a good, that's a good way to close out that deal.

• 4:00:22Speaker 01

  That was the, man, I remember just lying on the couch being like, there's no fucking way I can do this. Like, what am I doing? I just started using Instagram, man. I think everybody did, but it just, it took the right person to be like, I'm going outside of the chain. And I'm gonna do something because it's the right thing to do, not because I have to do it, but because it's the right thing to do. And also this bitch is not gonna stop texting me excessively if I don't do what she's asked.

• 4:00:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's the free market. I mean, this is really like the free market versus the government system. I mean, everyone that, every, I mean, look, the government did get people out, but the free market got, the free market folks really got a lot of stuff done, which was awesome. And whether it's, you know, people like Chad and Tim Kennedy that got out, you know, thousands of people. Great, that's awesome. For you helping to get out nine people, that's freaking awesome, too. Like, everybody counts.

• 4:01:17Speaker 01

  I just couldn't sit there and watch it. Like, I couldn't sit in my cushy office and watch it and not try.

• 4:01:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and this whole conversation has made me realize that it must be really weird to be your neighbor.

• 4:01:33Speaker 01

  Um, when I come home.

• 4:01:35Jocko Willink?

  Your neighbors must be like, dude.

• 4:01:37Speaker 01

  Well, when I first moved, when I first moved to that house in a cul-de-sac, so it's like a fishbowl, right? When I first moved to that cul-de-sac, there was multiple RCMP officers in the house and houses there and things like that. And the first experience they ever had with me, well, the neighbor, I actually wrote about it. One of the neighbors is married to a, an individual who's Muslim, which is not a big deal. It's totally fine. I can be fine with that now. First five years, real rough. Then I started to learn about things and understand things and educate myself and I was fine. Anyway, I just moved in, we were there maybe a week. One of the neighbors was taking Christmas lights down and she was over there and I, you know, got the guts and was like, I'm gonna go introduce myself.

• 4:02:20Speaker 01

  I'm gonna go be a good neighbor. I don't normally do that. I walked over, said hello, nice to meet you. She goes hello, and he goes hello, and we're talking. And she thinks it's funny and she leans down and she goes, are you the one with the veteran plates on your car? And I said, yes. Um, and she goes, well, my husband and children are Muslim, so you're not gonna kill them, are you?

• 4:02:43Speaker 01

  And my response, being me, was, "I don't kill the children."

• 4:02:49Speaker 01

  You ask a stupid question, you're going to get a stupid answer. So, they've learned about me. Uh, they've learned that there's things I don't like, there's things I like. Uh, and they've learned to just accept me for me. I come home from Peru, I go lie in the middle of the cul-de-sac and look at the stars and smoke a joint for hours. And they're like, "What the fuck is happening?"

• 4:03:10Jocko Willink?

  Like I said, must be very interesting to be your neighbor.

• 4:03:14Speaker 01

  Oh, man, it's a, it's a, it's a trip, I say the least. But you know what? Well, as hard as we are on our neighbors, is like, we have, we have a good amount of them that would, would do anything for us. And I would show up for any of them. Um, I just wish there'd be less houses. They just keep piling more in. And so, that's my only squawk, is I need some space. And, um, actually, after your show, because of your show, I had a, I had a bit of an issue where I had to call some police in the States, make sure someone didn't cross the border. And, you know, it just, it got to the point where privacy became a priority. Where I live, where my son goes to school, it started to become a priority.

• 4:03:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, those are good things to think about.

• 4:03:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So, and it got a little crazier when we started, like, so, when I was on last time, the book was about to come out, we ended up pulling it, and we ended up getting a publishing deal with a US publisher, which was great. Um, I went with Post Hill through Simon and Schuster, and they did, uh, the book with, uh, what is it called? Stuart Scheller's book. Um, so I knew they were more military-esque, and I went with them, and they, they really trusted me with this, and let me out a bunch of chapters, and like, really revamped what I wanted to do. And, um, when it came time for the book to be published, that's when the McDonoughs came forward and, and bought the rights to be produced and turned into a TV series. And that's why we changed the names in the book, because those are the names that are gonna be used in the, in either the movie or the series.

• 4:04:41Speaker 01

  So it'll just overlap really smoothly. Um, and so when we got that opportunity, we wanted to make sure it was kind of tied together with Neil and whenever they were ready for like deadline to come out and announce it and whenever the book was ready. So it overlapped really well and I was really, really lucky. And, um, a lot of people supported me on this and then I was able to take it to other people in our community and be like, read this. Would you review it? Tell me what you think about it. Um, and if, if you do like it, would you put a quote in it? And I had so many people offer to do that. Um, and that was a really cool experience because it's like being at your own funeral. Cause this book is my life and people are talking about your life to your face. Um, and so that was a, a bit of a trip to kind of get those things back and kind of see what people really thought, or whether they just wanted to make me happy

• 4:05:26Speaker 01

  or not. But like, some of them put some interesting quotes in it, but I had a lot of SEALs and Rangers and British, uh, special operators and members of the British Empire and doctors who are all willing to put their name on the book. And then Neil McDonough himself. And I was really, really, really, really fortunate to be able to actually get this to the finish line because it's been such a long process. And then to know that it's hopefully going to end up on screen and hopefully I just hope someone learns something like whether it's leadership or an individual, because I can tell you right now, last time I did your show and I text Helen like the day after, because I had never, ever been inundated like that before with people who needed help. And people just saying, your interview made me cry and it made me cry because it made me realize how many of the

• 4:06:09Speaker 01

  same things I was going through, but I was unwilling to listen to myself or talk to myself about, or even tell anyone about. So it opened a door and that's all I needed was I needed the door opened so that I could kick it all the way off the fucking hinges so that people don't have to keep doing this anymore and nor that this is, this is all fixable. We can heal from this. The, the generation of this going from 22 to 44 a day is bullshit and unacceptable and it never needs to be like this at all. It takes buddy checks. It takes accountability and effort on ourselves to heal ourselves. And that's what's happening now. And that's why you're seeing legislatures change and why you're seeing psychedelics being integrated and other people showing up for each other. Do your buddy checks, period. Work with organizations who do buddy checks, who care about the longevity

• 4:06:51Speaker 01

  of someone's health and not just sending them on a psychedelic trip. Work with people who do integration. Work with people who look at TBIs. So we started condensing down the organizations I work with and only focusing on a handful of them because there's so many of them that are doing, there's like 46,000 I had, uh, I had the CEO of the boot campaign, Shelley Kirkland, on the show. She's a good friend. And her and I had this conversation and I was like, why is it that there's all these amazing organizations? And yet the suicides are going up. What's happening here? And she's like, well, no one's talking. And it's because we have all of these spots all over the United States and Canada of all these amazing organizations that are doing tons of work. Forty-six thousand is like the number in the US.

• 4:07:34Speaker 01

  It's like a ridiculous amount of people that work for veterans. It's insane nonprofit level. But none of them talk. And it's like, this is compartmentalization. We understand that communication is key. We need to talk. So I've been talking to a couple of different individuals, like Moral Compass Federation, who they have, I believe, the organization that Tim and them have, is it Save Our Alice? Yeah, they're a part of it as well, like Flanders Field. Like, there's a bunch of different ones. They're a part of it. And it's like a coalition of forces. So it's like, these people all specialize in something. Because what I found out after your show was, the amount of work I had to do just to get somebody in a certain state help, right? So for like, until the episode went down, I literally spent all that entire time

• 4:08:19Speaker 01

  just trying to get people to different organizations. Okay, call them. They don't do what I need. Okay, do you know somebody that might do what I need? Well, you could try them. And then I would just do that until we got people into spots. And then I really started to look at things like, who's really doing the heavy lifting? And then I started to really align myself with them. So like, we do our, in September, we do our Buddy Check bracelet, the You Matter one with Boot Campaign for Suicide Prevention. So we work with Boot Campaign on that. Defenders of Freedom, we work with, to get people TBI, so really specific, really driven, traumatic brain injury support. And then with Honor House in Canada, that's the only Canadian organization we work with. And they're doing a tour right now where they're raising a million dollars for their 120-acre ranch up in Ashcroft, British Columbia, that deals with operational stress injury only.

• 4:09:04Speaker 01

  It's like 10 cabins and a main house. And they bring people up and they just work heavy, heavy stuff, whether it's families or big groups. So we work with them. They're the only Canadians I give money to. I know them. I love them. And I think they're, they're like Ronald McDonald for first responders and veterans. They don't just do vets. And you can go and stay there for free and they'll look after your entire family. No duration, like time limit. They're insane people for that. And then I work with, so we've got Heroic Hearts Project, All Secure Foundation, which is Jen and Tom Satterley. Those are good friends and I really believe in what they're doing for relationships because I think it's so important when you're looking at a family unit, right? If you want the whole family unit to work, these two have to work. It can't just be the kids above the parents. It has to be the parents first.

• 4:09:49Speaker 01

  Everything else works together when there's communication. So I really, really love them. So it's, and then there's vets with is Marcus Capone, which you know Marcus well and Amber. And so try to highlight and help any of these organizations to try and get more attention and because the work they're doing is the work that's really making the difference, right? I'm tired of supporting all these different organizations where I'm not seeing the money go where it needs to and that's why I've cut it down to just these handfuls. I've seen the work. I've been a part of the work. I've experienced the work and I know the difference it's making, long-term, not just short-term. So all of these people, I put in the book and then we're going to donate portions of the proceeds again of the book to all these different organizations.

• 4:10:30Speaker 01

  And then Rebecca Rouse and I partnered and we're working on a new book together as well. So my goal is get this thing on the list so that when her and I do it, we're going to donate the portion of the proceeds to Defenders of Freedom from her and ours book as well. So we're just trying to use everything that I'm doing and anything that I'm doing, whether it's my podcast and the sponsors I have to the business and the Buddy Check bracelet and the book and now the film, to put the money in the hands of the organizations that are doing the boots-on-the-ground work because I can't fix everyone and it's also not my responsibility to fix everyone. But if I can help fund the people that have that responsibility, I can live with that.

• 4:11:08Jocko Willink?

  And you can find all this stuff at brassandunity.com?

• 4:11:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, everything's at brassandunity.com. We have a Patreon now for Brass and Unity for the people that join. That's another thing we started after your show. We have a thing on Instagram. We do Mental Health Monday. So we go live and then we have a group on Signal. So we have people from all over the world that join this group and it's just like a support network of any type. You don't have to be military. And then we issue challenges every month. So whether it's physical or psychological, we issue three points every single month and we want you to do them every single day for 30 days and try to stack habits so that we can get people feeling better, healing and moving forward. And that can be... Everything from, "We're gonna walk 2 kilometers a day, we're gonna drink 2 liters of water, we're gonna do 5 minutes of breath work." And then the next month, we're gonna read 10 pages of a book, we're going to eliminate a negative habit,

• 4:11:55Speaker 01

  and then we're gonna stop alcohol this month. Like, and we're just stacking these habits. And so, after your show, we were able to garner a big enough group, where we started the Signal Group Chat, and you can get onto it through Patreon, and you can just be a part of... We have people everywhere in the world that's nuts. I've never experienced anything like it. You got this guy in Italy, you got a guy in Australia, who never walked, barely walked a day in his life, and now this guy's walking 6, 7 kilometers a day, it's insane. We had a guy who used to drink 9 cans of Coca-Cola a day, he's down to zero soda. So it's like, this stuff can work with community. We just need to realize that, we need to stop being the people who act as if we... Not that we're bigger than everyone else, but like, we've all been through serious shit, we all are worth the time,

• 4:12:39Speaker 01

  and we're all worth the effort, and if we put the effort in, others will show up for you to help support that. And community is everything to what I do. Everything. It means... I don't care if I make money, I never have, it's never been a part of it. Community. Our community is in this dire straits, because there's no reason why these suicide numbers need to be, keep going up. There's no reason. We have too many communication devices, we have too many people who care, we need to start showing up for each other, and calling each other. Buddy check. It's not fucking difficult. Find 5 people on your phone, be accountable to those people. And then get another 5, get those 5 people to get 5 other people to be accountable to. But make the phone calls. That's why I work with like, Zack Bell, Vetor with a Sign,

• 4:13:24Speaker 01

  that's why I work with all these people, because they care about the outcome. They don't care about the money, they care about the outcome. Is that person gonna stay alive? Or am I gonna have to go to that person's funeral? Well, no, they're gonna stay alive, because I made the call when I knew they were off. Like, don't be afraid to say something. What's that saying? See something, say something? If we all said something, most of the time, I'll bet you there'll be some people that would still be with us. We just need to put the effort in.

• 4:13:54Jocko Willink?

  Yep, um, it's been a rough, uh, couple of months for us in the SEAL community, that's for damn sure.

• 4:14:00Speaker 01

  I heard.

• 4:14:05Jocko Willink?

  Instagram.

• 4:14:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:14:07Jocko Willink?

  Brass and Unity.

• 4:14:08Speaker 01

  Brass and Unity.

• 4:14:08Jocko Willink?

  Facebook Brass and Unity, YouTube Brass and Unity. You also have Kelsey Sharon.

• 4:14:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:14:14Jocko Willink?

  Kelsey underscore Sharon.

• 4:14:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, they finally decided that that was verifiable enough. Uh, it was funny. Once the deadline article came out, they're like, oh, she's not weirdo. We'll give her a blue checkmark. I was like, oh, that's how that works, huh?

• 4:14:26Jocko Willink?

  Does blue checkmark mean you're not a weirdo?

• 4:14:28Speaker 01

  I mean, I think it means that you're weirdo. You're just like a little easier to track down. Yeah, yeah. So now everything's, everything's there. Everything's on social. You can get ahold of us. Uh, that's my thing I will say, and I mean this. Don't comment. If you comment, I'm not reading it. I don't read comments anymore. I said that to Andy, and he was like, I'm gonna send you some comments, and I'm gonna say, go fuck yourself. Like, don't send me your comments. DM me if it even starts with anything I don't like. I won't even open it. So if you need help, you can DM us. I will help you. If you need support, we will help you. If you genuinely

• 4:15:02Speaker 01

  want help, that's fine. But if you get on there and you make comments about my big heavies, or that I was too aggressive, or that I'm too rough, and I swear too much, and blah, blah, fuck off. I don't have time for it anymore. You don't get to live in my head anymore. I played this game before. I'm not playing it again. Simple as that.

• 4:15:21Jocko Willink?

  So, keep it positive, people, which is a good overall recommendation for life.

• 4:15:26Speaker 01

  I think so in general.

• 4:15:27Jocko Willink?

  Anything else? Did we miss anything?

• 4:15:30Speaker 01

  Go check out those organizations.

• 4:15:31Jocko Willink?

  Go check out those organizations. And you can, and the easiest way to find them is Brass and Unity. You've got links to them on there?

• 4:15:36Speaker 01

  We got them all on the donation pages, places you can find them. And then check out the people we work with. They matter. They make a difference. Cured nutrition, uh, ketones, they'll make a difference in your life. I've been really lucky to have Daisy Mae. They're on, it's the crown on my head that I wear that people think I don't have a forehead, so it's fine. We just wear the hat all the time, and it's like, it's quiet up there.

• 4:15:55Jocko Willink?

  Got it, got it. Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us. Thanks for coming down to Dago once again and hanging out. Appreciate it. Thanks for your service, and thanks for what you're doing right now to try and help out as many people as you can.

• 4:16:08Speaker 01

  Well, thanks for having me back. Can't say I expected it, but I am happy to be here.

• 4:16:12Jocko Willink?

  Right on. And with that, Kelsey Sharon has left the building.

• 4:16:21Jocko Willink?

  Lots to think about, definitely some mental health issues to think about. And I would say personally, mental health is going to be helped out aided much by physical health. And I look, I can't recommend drinking things that make you throw up and all that stuff. Cause I don't have any experience in that area of life, right? I do have experience drinking protein.

• 4:16:49Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 4:16:49Jocko Willink?

  Drinking ready to drink protein. I would recommend, hey, if you want to go in that direction, first of all, I think she said a bunch of stuff about doctors and

• 4:16:59Jocko Willink?

  the pat, like whatever you're doing, there's a protocol, follow the protocol, right? In the meantime, I know some protocol. You're gonna need protein. Go to jockofuel.com get protein.

• 4:17:10Speaker 02

  It's true, man.

• 4:17:10Jocko Willink?

  Go to jockofuel.com, get some protein, get some, get some pow pow, right? The new official term for, for powdered protein is pow pow. So get some of that milk pow pow, get some RTD. I'm about to have one, by the way.

• 4:17:28Speaker 02

  I had two already.

• 4:17:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah, you're just over there getting after it.

• 4:17:30Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, the, I mix the, so this is what I did this time, it's not my first time. You drink half the chocolate, half the banana. You mix them, then you mix them together for that banana chocolate. Hey man, you gotta get creative with these things, you know, to make the, the, the whole experience more enjoyable.

• 4:17:48Jocko Willink?

  Ready to drink, check that out. Get your, obviously, I mean, the only reason we're basically functioning right now is because we got Jocko Discipline Go. Get yourself some go, the good energy drink. You know what? So check this out. Time war. Time war, we released time war. It's got obviously vitamins, minerals, some anti aging stuff in there. So check this out. I, we're at the muster. I'm at the muster and I'm looking at the downstage monitor. You know what that means? So when you're standing on stage, you're, there's a, there's two big monitors right down there. And they have like, what's next on the schedule? They have like your notes for your PowerPoint thing. And I don't have a lot of notes.

• 4:18:32Jocko Willink?

  Anyways, I get there, I'm on stage, I'm looking, I go, and I asked the AV guy, I go, hey, man, are these, do we get bigger downstage monitors? And he's like, no. And I go, do you have this in some new setting for the font? And he goes, no, it's the same. It's the same, it's literally the same exact thing that we always run. And I was like, oh dang. I could see.

• 4:18:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:18:55Jocko Willink?

  I could literally see better. Now, look, I have good vision, knock on wood, bro, knock on wood, right? I don't have, I don't wear glasses and I'm 51 years old. But you know, sometimes I would be like, I'd be looking at that thing down there. You know, sometimes you're 10 feet away from looking across the stage and you're looking, it's 20 feet away. Sometimes I would, it'd be, I'd be able to read it. But it'd be a little bit of a, you know?

• 4:19:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:19:21Jocko Willink?

  And honestly, most of the time when I'm looking at my slides, it says, add notes here, because I don't actually have any notes when I talk, I just, I'm talking. But even seeing ad notes here, I was like, why is that so clear?

• 4:19:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:19:32Jocko Willink?

  So I don't know what's going on. I'm not, uh, making scientific claims here.

• 4:19:37Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 4:19:37Jocko Willink?

  But I, but I literally could see better.

• 4:19:41Jocko Willink?

  And we've got like luton in there, we've got ingredients in there that absolutely help there. It's, they are meant for ocular supplementation. And I'm gonna say, bro, like literally squared away and, and vision improvement.

• 4:19:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:19:57Jocko Willink?

  So Time War, go get it. Give it a shot. See how it makes you feel. It is legit.

• 4:20:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's funny that, uh, because you, you know how you get in the routine of taking something, you know? And you know, so a lot of like, especially supplements and vitamins, like this kind of stuff. It's not like drugs, like let's say certain drugs like caffeine or alcohol or something.

• 4:20:21Jocko Willink?

  You feel it.

• 4:20:22Speaker 02

  Right then and there, that's how drugs are, right? Even if you take a pill, it's like a couple of minutes, a few minutes later, you're like, oh, I feel it. Because it's like psychoactive. But supplements, like a lot of times they take a while. So you know, I just get like joint warfare. That exact thing happened to me with joint warfare where I'm about to start taking it. And of course, the next day you're not feeling it, but it was like later that week or early the next week. I was like, you know how like when you warm up? I'm very in touch with my body, right?

• 4:20:49Speaker 02

  And you know, when you warm up, you're like, oh, that warm up set, I know exactly like the level of stiffness, soreness, energy, even like with my breath and stuff like I'm really, really in touch with it. So there's a small evaluation that goes down. And I remember doing my first warm up, I was like, oh, I'm feeling like a pop in my steps, pep in my step, kind of a good pop.

• 4:21:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Not a pop in your joints.

• 4:21:12Speaker 02

  No, I mean, I felt like, you know, you have that snap in your body, like you just feel like more like powerful or whatever. The warm up seemed like, oh man, I kind of don't even need to warm up. The stiffness is already gone. And I'm thinking, and it's one of those things where I'm, I'm feeling abnormally good today. I was like, yeah, that's good. Then the next day, I was kind of the same deal where I'm like, dang, I'm kind of feeling good. And you don't really remember, because it's not this new thing. You've been doing it for like a week, week and a half already. You see what I'm saying? Then you think back, wait, what's, what could be causing, you're like, oh, that's the, that's the factor.

• 4:21:41Jocko Willink?

  That's exactly it. That's what I had too. Cause I've been on Time War for like six months now. When was the last muster? I wasn't on Time War yet, right? And so then all of a sudden I go, and I was like walking around the stage going, I can still see, I was, and I thought to myself, what is different? What is different? And I was like, oh, literally taking a supplement that has ocular health ingredients in it. And I can see better now.

• 4:22:11Speaker 02

  The thing was just working.

• 4:22:12Jocko Willink?

  Hallelujah. Bro, it's freaking awesome. Yeah. So yeah, get, check out the Time War. It's awesome. You can get this stuff at jogglefield.com. You can get, you can get it at Wawa. Look, we got moved a little bit. We got some, we got the imperialists, the empire, the big beverage empires. They're trying to attack the rebels, which is go. They're trying to attack. They're trying to snuff us out. Like we're over here Star Wars style, freaking American Revolution style. They, they, they're putting, they're throwing their resources at us, trying to crush us down there in that little corner. Go in there, ask for it. Number one, I just found out too, we were crushing. We, we had

• 4:22:52Jocko Willink?

  Molk in Wawa for a little while before the imperialistic empires came and bought some of our slots. And we were crushing. People were picking, people were picking Molk over.

• 4:23:05Jocko Willink?

  Let's call them the other protein options.

• 4:23:07Speaker 02

  Oh damn.

• 4:23:08Jocko Willink?

  But and that's what freaked out the big, the big papas. They were like, oh, we can't have, we can't have these guys coming up.

• 4:23:15Speaker 02

  So they bought the space for the protein?

• 4:23:17Jocko Willink?

  Yes, they definitely bought the space for the protein, all of them.

• 4:23:20Speaker 02

  Damn.

• 4:23:21Jocko Willink?

  And they bought like two out of five slots for drinks and they bought the primes. And these are things that look to Wawa's credit, they let us in there. Because they, they, they had a good amount of request for it. But then, you know, they, they're running a business. I get it. They're running a business. But also they want to have some options for the people.

• 4:23:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:23:43Jocko Willink?

  And let's face it, we're, we're literally selling something that's good for people. They know that too.

• 4:23:47Speaker 02

  So when now, when I walk into Wawa, I wanna, I wanna go or a protein or whatever, what? All I gotta shift my eyes down.

• 4:23:54Jocko Willink?

  Down. Yep. And you can't get a protein there right now. So now what you, what you do is you go, hey, you hit them up on social media like, hey, we had, we had some Jaco Mulk in here. We were all feeling good. We were running our, you know, construction equipment better.

• 4:24:07Jocko Willink?

  You know, we were doing a good job. Now we're getting fed trash. So can you help us live? Can you help us be better? So that's what you do at Wawa. We're in Vitamin Shop. By the way, best brand in Vitamin Shop. Did you see that?

• 4:24:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 4:24:20Jocko Willink?

  Victory is ours. That was freaking awesome. Thank you, everybody for the support there. Military commissaries, Hannaford's Dash Stores, Wake Forest Shop, Wright Circle K in Florida. HEB and Meyer. We're in HEB Meyer and we're also in Harris Teeter now. So, so check those out. Go in there. Get it on. You don't have to order. You can pick it right up at the store and you're good to hook.

• 4:24:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, especially those Mulk RTDs. That's like the.

• 4:24:47Jocko Willink?

  It's just a, it's just a move.

• 4:24:49Speaker 02

  It's a move.

• 4:24:50Jocko Willink?

  It's a little bit of a game changer.

• 4:24:53Jocko Willink?

  That and a time war. That freaking time war is no joke.

• 4:24:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:24:57Jocko Willink?

  I'm feeling like I'm freaking Superman walking around with x-ray vision up in this piece.

• 4:25:02Speaker 02

  You know it's funny, it's like

• 4:25:03Jocko Willink?

  How crazy is that?

• 4:25:03Speaker 02

  Your vision is probably back to where it was like, you know, in your twenties or what, you know, the one, you know, that prime time when all your freaking, what it would collagen, hyaluronic acid, you know, all the stuff that's keeping you young. And you just went back there, but you got used to being, you know, your 50 year old eyes.

• 4:25:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 4:25:20Speaker 02

  And now you're back to twenties and now you can really feel the harness power.

• 4:25:25Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. Uh, check out jockofuel.com, originusa.com. If you need hunt gear, if you need jujitsu gear, if you need rash guards, if you need gee's, if you need t-shirts, if you need joggers, if you need jeans, which you need, get yourself some Delta 68s. Cause then things are freaking, the best things you can put on your legs.

• 4:25:44Speaker 02

  It's true. It's part of my uniform, by the way. Delta 68.

• 4:25:47Jocko Willink?

  A hundred percent.

• 4:25:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. You know, the, we said that, that what do you, what do you call them? The tiers of uniform. You know, you have your camis, you've got your dress blues, you got your, you know, the, the Delta 68 is my top dress.

• 4:25:58Jocko Willink?

  That is a good dress move. OriginUSA.com, made in America. We just brought out a new gi, the Nano Pearl. Have you tried it yet?

• 4:26:06Speaker 02

  You have mine.

• 4:26:07Jocko Willink?

  Why? I think it's actually sitting over there, bro. You wanna come and get on the mats and throw that gi on, homie. Come on now.

• 4:26:14Speaker 02

  I gotta come and get it.

• 4:26:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you gotta come and get it.

• 4:26:16Speaker 02

  All right. Yes, sir.

• 4:26:17Jocko Willink?

  But they are best gi ever. Best gi ever. We did it again. So check that out. OriginUSA.com, made in America. And look, we got freaking the Chinese right now surrounding their mate, doing exercises off of Taiwan.

• 4:26:34Jocko Willink?

  They're making moves and we're sitting over here without a good supply chain, except for us. We'll, we'll be able to make gees, right? They wanna go to war? Cool. Bring your own gees, people.

• 4:26:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Made in America. It's a real thing, man. It is no joke. That's what we're doing. We're bringing back that supply chain and we're bringing back manufacturing to America. OriginUSA.com. Go check it out.

• 4:26:58Speaker 02

  It's true. Also, Jaco has a store called Jaco Store. So you go to JacoStore.com. That's where you can get your discipline equals freedom shirts. Good. Good shirts. Get it there. Also, we have the Shirt Locker, which is a monthly subscription scenario. You get a new shirt every month. It's a good one.

• 4:27:13Jocko Willink?

  I was at the muster. I saw a lot of people representing. And you know what's cool? As cool as it's just the next thing, right? It's like a next level thing.

• 4:27:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:27:22Jocko Willink?

  It's like, yep, you're in the game.

• 4:27:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's funny, because like, every, to see your reaction is funny, because you don't, you're not always updated on the new one. The new shirt, you know, so like, you'll be smiling, and everybody like, where did that shirt come from?

• 4:27:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 4:27:34Speaker 02

  This is a good one.

• 4:27:35Jocko Willink?

  Because it's a good one. It's like when you were a little kid, and you put on a new pair of shoes, and maybe you think you run a little bit faster. You see people with that shirt on, they're walking.

• 4:27:43Speaker 02

  They're walking fast.

• 4:27:44Jocko Willink?

  With a little bit more, you know, a little bit more oomph, a little bit more authority in the world.

• 4:27:49Speaker 02

  It's so true.

• 4:27:50Jocko Willink?

  So get on that, get on that, uh, jocko store.com. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. Don't forget to subscribe to jocko underground.com. We talked about, you know, we, we covered some different subjects on there. We're trying to explain things in the world that don't really quite fit into Jocko Podcast, but definitely things we need to know about. So that's jocko underground.com. It's also a platform that we own that we can't get kicked off of, because we own it, fool. Like, you know, when you were a kid, you're like, one day I'm gonna own a restaurant.

• 4:28:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:28:21Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna, I'll be able to go in there and get a chocolate shake and a freaking triple burger.

• 4:28:27Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I still think that.

• 4:28:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so there you go. Well, now we have our own little platform. Not a restaurant, really, but kinda cool, still.

• 4:28:34Speaker 02

  Improve your life, I'll tell you that.

• 4:28:35Jocko Willink?

  Yup, uh, that's eight dollars and eighteen cents a month. Hey, if you can't, if you can't afford it, we still want you in the underground. We still want you to have the knowledge. Just email assistance at jocko underground.com. But if you can kick in a little bit, that helps too. That's how we keep the, the, the mainframe up and running. Did I say mainframe?

• 4:28:54Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 4:28:54Jocko Willink?

  Kind of a technologist over here. Uh, YouTube channel, subscribe to that. Subscribe to the Origin USA YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Jocko Fuel YouTube. Kind of all kinds of YouTube channels there. Going on. Psychological Warfare, flipsidecanvas.com. You got Dakota Meyer. I've written a bunch of books. Check them out.

• 4:29:13Jocko Willink?

  You know what they are. Also, we have Echelon Front, it's our leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com. We just did a muster, biggest muster ever, sold out. We sell out everything. So if you want to come to one of our events, go to echelonfront.com, click events and see which one you want to go to. FTX, Council, Battlefield, like what do you want to come and do? Check that out. We also have online training, extremeownership.com. We are doing, we're constantly going online, we're interacting, we have courses that you can take, we're putting up new courses on a regular basis. Leadership is not something that you just know how to do. It's not something you're born with. You gotta learn it and then you gotta train it and you gotta practice it. And it's not something

• 4:29:57Jocko Willink?

  for just like, oh, I'm the CEO, I need leadership training. No, you're a new person at a command, new person at a company, new person in a family, and you gotta interact with other people. You need to know how to lead. That's what we're doing. Extremeownership.com. Come learn how to lead in life. And if you want to help service members, active and retired, of course, Kelsey's got her brass and unity.com. She's got a bunch of charities that she's working to support. So go check those out. Also, if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee, she's got a charity organization. And if you want to donate or get involved, go to Americas

• 4:30:37Jocko Willink?

  Mighty Warriors.org. And also, don't forget about Micah Fink, who's got Heroes and Horses.org. We just got a report from him, from the field. Apparently, he just whittled a stick and then killed a mountain lion with it. And he's eating it at this time, while he is in an ice bath, in a river. So Micah Fink is out there, he's really helping a lot of vets find themselves by getting lost in nature. So go check that out as well. If you want to connect with Kelsey, once again, brassandunity.com, brassandunity.com. Her Instagram is brassandunity,

• 4:31:19Jocko Willink?

  her Facebook is brassandunity, her YouTube is brassandunity. She's also on there at Kelsey underscore Sharon, it's S H E R E N. And for us,

• 4:31:31Jocko Willink?

  Echoes at Echo Charles, I'm at Jocko Willink. Just, look, be careful because there's an algorithm on there and it's got your name written on it. So, just watch out. Thanks again to Kelsey for joining us and thanks to all the troops that are out there around the world right now that are standing watch and protecting our freedom and our way of life. And the same goes to our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, all first responders. Thank you for protecting us here at home. And to everyone else out there.

• 4:32:09Jocko Willink?

  Look, you may not be in combat, literally, but combat and life are very similar. They are a struggle.

• 4:32:20Jocko Willink?

  They are a struggle and sometimes you can get pulled down.

• 4:32:26Jocko Willink?

  And you gotta get yourself back up. And you do that by working hard, by being disciplined and getting up there and taking the high ground.

• 4:32:37Jocko Willink?

  That's what you do. Go make it happen. And until next time, this is Echo and Jaco, out.