Rebel News Podcast - “Bards of War” a “military documentary like nothing I have ever seen before” (GUEST： Scott Kesterson)

00:00:00.000 Hello Rebels, you're listening to a free audio-only recording of my show, The Gun Show.

00:00:05.740 My guest tonight is American filmmaker and citizen journalist Scott Kesterson to talk about his new

00:00:12.300 movie, Bards of War. It's about the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and it was

00:00:17.960 filmed over the course of 10 days in Afghanistan. If you like listening to this podcast then you

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00:01:14.540 great way to support The Rebel without ever having to spend a dime. And now, please enjoy this free

00:01:20.060 audio-only version of my show. An American filmmaker had unprecedented access to Canadian soldiers

00:01:31.100 over 10 days in Afghanistan. Now, I was able to see the resulting movie and today I'm talking to

00:01:37.800 the man behind the camera. I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Gunn Show.

00:01:50.060 Ten days in the theatre of war. That's how long my guest tonight, American filmmaker Scott

00:02:06.000 Kesterson, spent embedded with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry in Afghanistan.

00:02:12.280 The resulting film, Bards of War, depicts our soldiers in a way Canadians don't often get

00:02:19.700 to see. They're unfiltered, uncensored, and completely honest. But don't take my word for

00:02:25.960 it. Here's a clip of the trailer for the movie. Nobody wants to watch the game. You want to be

00:02:31.040 in the game. But at the same time, we know in this area, our turn is just around the corner.

00:02:36.860 I was a citizen journalist. I embedded for a year. The story I had come to tell was in the legacy of

00:02:42.920 Ernie Pyle. It was never about the Taliban, nor to make some moral judgment on war. My story was

00:02:49.220 about the soldiers, their experience, and what that looked like through their lens on events.

00:02:54.420 Now, what kind of filmmaker has the guts of steel to go to the theatre of war, but also has the kind

00:02:59.620 of character, rapport, and also skill set that our soldiers would feel like they could trust him

00:03:05.680 to be there and tell their stories without getting everyone killed? Well, he's a Trump-loving former

00:03:12.280 military man himself. He joined me for an interview we recorded yesterday morning. Oregon-based

00:03:18.140 filmmaker Scott Kesterson is the man behind Bards of War, and our interview covers what compelled him

00:03:25.200 to make this movie, the mainstream media treatment of the military, Omar Khadr, and why Canadians should

00:03:33.240 be proud of our men and women in uniform.

00:03:52.440 So joining me now is the filmmaker behind Bards of War, Scott Kesterson. Scott, you are new,

00:04:00.280 a new person, I think, to a lot of our Rebel viewers and Rebel followers. And, you know, right behind

00:04:08.580 you, you have an American flag and a Canadian flag. You're a filmmaker from Oregon, but somehow you ended

00:04:14.340 up embedded with the Princess Pats. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? Because you're a pretty

00:04:20.380 highly regarded filmmaker, aren't you?

00:04:22.080 Well, I guess within a certain circle. Let me just give you a quick little background. I have a pretty

00:04:29.460 crazy background. I served in the military from 83 to 91 in the Oregon Army National Guard. And then,

00:04:37.360 which was really interesting, just how this all comes about, on 9-11, 2001, I was actually in

00:04:44.380 Victoria, British Columbia. Woke up to a dream of three rockets hitting a building, only to discover that

00:04:51.040 from my country is under attack. And it's where I really built such a deep love for Canada because

00:04:58.840 of the graciousness that was extended to all of us that were there. I mean, to be on the outside of

00:05:04.540 your country being attacked, and yet the unity of North and South, meaning two countries, was just

00:05:09.780 phenomenal. Very few people have experienced that. And it was a life-changing moment, to be very honest.

00:05:14.640 Fast forward, I had my own company. I had been doing freelance photography and videography.

00:05:24.420 Fast forward, 2005, I always wanted to be an embedded combat photographer. So, I reached out

00:05:31.920 to my old unit. An absolute surprise was basically this, not if I could go, but when would you like

00:05:38.180 to go? Would you like to go to Afghanistan? And that decision was made in about 30 seconds. So,

00:05:42.040 I launched. So, that took me, I was in Afghanistan as the first embedded citizen journalist in the

00:05:48.920 Department of Defense in 2006 and 2007, won an Emmy for my work that's in this film in 2007.

00:05:57.040 Then, starting in 2008 to about 2011, I was back in Afghanistan. My total time, it was three and a

00:06:03.800 half years on the ground. And I did, I started working in the area of information warfare and narrative

00:06:10.320 warfare and film for special operations teams. So, I was doing everything from informational

00:06:15.660 warfare to literally building training products for them so they would be better able to operate

00:06:19.480 on the ground. And then, from 2011 to approximately 2016, I worked in, I did continue to work in the

00:06:30.380 special operations area, working both in technologies area, working with the Five Eyes countries. I worked

00:06:36.780 with narrative warfare again and a lot of information warfare concepts. And then, 2016, I ran a super PAC

00:06:44.740 for President Trump. And then, I'm kind of a long way around. I'm now back into filmmaking and I'm doing,

00:06:54.120 where I really probably should have been all along, but I have my small company, just myself,

00:06:59.120 Expedition Cafe. And the first film out is Bards of War, Fighting is Everything, which is based on

00:07:04.780 Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. So, there's a quick.

00:07:09.040 Wow. I mean, that's quick. I feel like you glossed over some pretty serious accomplishments there.

00:07:15.780 Now, I guess what prompted you, this is a two-part question, because as I was watching the video,

00:07:22.540 I mean, first of all, what prompted you to end up being embedded with the Princess Pats? And secondarily,

00:07:29.360 how did you get such unprecedented access to them? Because really, we haven't seen this kind of access

00:07:37.500 to Canadian soldiers in theater since the Korean War, really. How did you, an American, end up with

00:07:45.840 that? So, a couple of things on that. One, I was with a very unique element that was in Afghanistan

00:07:52.760 from the very beginning. The National Guard's role were combat advisors. They didn't call them that.

00:07:57.240 They call them embedded trainers. Later, the Canadian version of that were called omelets.

00:08:01.980 So, the combat advisors were attached to the Afghans. And so, when this mission was coming up,

00:08:09.800 and it was called Operation Mountain Thrust, the American lieutenant colonel did the liaison with

00:08:15.940 Lieutenant Colonel Ian Hope's command to ask and to get the permissions to have me be there,

00:08:21.880 which would also put me there alongside of the Canadians. So, that's kind of how that all got

00:08:25.500 started out. And that negotiation took about a month or so. And it was all worked out. So,

00:08:30.800 then once the, we got into the, you never know what you're going to get when you go into a war zone,

00:08:37.460 to be honest with you. And it just so happened that the group that I was with, which was ACOI,

00:08:42.760 Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, PPCLI, ended up seeing the majority of the action.

00:08:48.020 The unprecedented access was really, that was Colonel Ian Hope's vision, was really to be able to get

00:08:56.900 close to the soldiers. And my whole intent over there was to take what Ernie Pyle had done with

00:09:04.440 the storytelling of World War II and do that in film. And so, really personalize, when I say

00:09:10.200 personalize war, let the soldier really tell the story and experience through the optics of the

00:09:14.780 soldier. And I'm, that's, so that was my constant push. The other part of that too,

00:09:20.240 was just building the relationships. Like all soldiers, when you come in with a camera,

00:09:25.820 they're very suspicious. And rightfully so, because I think that soldiers are very unjustly treated by

00:09:31.060 the majority of media. And having worked with media too much, I can, I will say personally,

00:09:35.120 they are. So, we'll leave it at that. But the, once we, once they started to see that,

00:09:42.240 and they'll learn a little bit about me because I had been a soldier. Then they started to see how

00:09:45.520 I was operated. I understood a lot about how their movements were. So, I was able to

00:09:49.800 work with them instead of against them. I didn't have to be coached.

00:09:53.260 We built very quickly and combat tends to do that in a very short amount of time. You can build tight

00:09:57.660 relationships. And really after day one, I think that we had a pretty good understanding that

00:10:02.500 we were going to work together here really well. And I was willing to take the same risks they were.

00:10:07.460 And I saw that as my job as much as anything. And from there, we just had kind of an amazing ride.

00:10:13.680 I will tell you, it was an amazing 10 days that I think tells an incredible story. And I know this

00:10:20.680 is going to sound a little bit biased coming from a filmmaker, but that's okay. I think it tells an

00:10:25.720 incredible story, not just about soldiers, but I think it tells an incredible story about Canada

00:10:30.920 Canada and what it is to be proud of a nation, fighting for a nation, and yet uphold the Canadian

00:10:37.640 values that much of the world doesn't really appreciate. I mean, they do this so well in their

00:10:43.360 interviews and in their experience. And they are, and we'll get to this a little bit more, but I mean,

00:10:48.600 they just really demonstrate to me, they personify the proud Canadian aspect in this film.

00:10:53.900 Uh, yeah, you were embedded with the PPCLI. Were you with the one in the three, like the Edmonton

00:11:00.620 based guys? Yeah, there was Edmonton based guys. So, and, and, um, they were all, they were a really

00:11:07.240 good group. Um, just, and we've stayed in touch. In fact, um, one in particular, very, he is really my

00:11:14.300 closest friend. I mean, he and I have, uh, stayed in touch, right? We laughed the other day. I don't think

00:11:20.060 we've gone a week without texting or talking or something since 2006. That says a lot.

00:11:25.860 Yeah. I mean, the PPCLI, they really are, um, sort of Canada's flagship, um, fighting machine. I,

00:11:35.140 I mean, they were the, um, first, um, and, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, the only, um, Canadian,

00:11:43.720 uh, forces that were honored by the United States president for their, um, bravery and expertise

00:11:52.120 in Korea. So, I, I mean, you, when you were, uh, embedded with them, you really were embedded with

00:11:58.300 the best. Now, going back to the movie, how did you choose the name of the movie?

00:12:05.300 Okay. This is interesting. That's a great question. Um, so struggled a lot with, so there

00:12:10.800 was some variations of this film that we tried early on and, and, uh, some struggles with an

00:12:15.160 early producer. And so finally, I took it all over and, um, decided to make this a pure Canadian

00:12:21.340 film. That's not how the footage was originally used. And, um, the, actually the title goes back

00:12:28.440 to 2012, uh, 2011, actually in the fall, I had gone to Scotland on a trip and I went to the Scottish

00:12:37.360 National Gallery Museum in, in Edinburgh. And, um, downstairs, there is a terracotta sculpture,

00:12:44.900 which I can't remember the name of the artist right now, but it is, it was, I don't remember

00:12:49.480 the name, but it's what came to mind when I saw it. And it was a bard at the foot of Odin with two,

00:12:55.260 two ravens on his shoulder. And suddenly it hit me. It's like, he's a storyteller of war.

00:13:01.420 So really, literally, bards are the old poet class that told the stories of war and also

00:13:08.020 would, would, uh, chastise the elite if they didn't like what they were saying or didn't feel

00:13:13.620 the truth was. So really in a certain sense, the bards were also our first really early story, 0.99

00:13:18.020 um, citizen journalists, right? So I, bards of war became very, uh, apropos for me because it was 0.97

00:13:25.540 literally soldiers become the storytellers of war. So that's the, that's the essence of the name.

00:13:31.420 You know, you were able to get, and I think this will probably take us into the next part

00:13:37.180 of the interview where we end up talking about, um, political and cultural things. Um, but you

00:13:42.720 were really able to get, uh, without giving too much away about the movie, uh, some very candid,

00:13:49.580 um, comments from the soldiers that back then a few years ago, um, I guess nearly a decade ago,

00:13:58.240 that I don't think you would be able to get from them now. And not that they wouldn't want to say

00:14:03.700 those things, but because I don't think the military brass would let them say it.

00:14:08.260 Well, that's an interesting thing you said. So Colonel Hope wanted complete access to his guys,

00:14:13.560 and you have to really give credit to who I think is one of the greatest Canadian commanders in modern

00:14:20.100 time. And he's been through his political rungs for doing sort of great things that he did.

00:14:25.220 Um, and this is a good segue. Colonel Hope put absolute trust in his squad leaders. He believed

00:14:32.620 in decentralized command. He learned from the histories of the Americans. And by comparison

00:14:36.600 to the history of the more, the British, more regimental model, but he was neither one. He

00:14:41.520 defined a Canadian style of fighting insurgency, which it was, it truly was Canadian. And it was so,

00:14:49.200 uh, impressive to see. I have, I, I speak highly of him and I will say this, if I've worked with some

00:14:55.560 of the greatest U S commanders in our modern history, and I've had that privilege on that list

00:15:00.820 of great commanders, I put Colonel Ian Hope. He is just one of those amazing strategic and tactical

00:15:09.240 leaders that understands the soldier and understands how to lead brilliantly. And I think you will find that

00:15:14.820 that's said by almost every single person. This is my own opinions. And I think you'll find that

00:15:18.720 resonated with almost any, every single person that worked with him. And I say all this because

00:15:23.240 ultimately his idea was, if you're going to tell the story, get it's the squad leaders access. You

00:15:28.880 have to worry about not mine. And that was there for when I was there at heart. I'm a soldier. I always

00:15:35.880 have been. And so once you establish that rapport and that trust, they don't have to feel in a

00:15:43.640 conflict situation. I think what is missed so many times is I'm, I'm as a sole cameraman, me, I,

00:15:49.600 everything I did. So literally backpack documentary, backpack journalism, you have to be as independent

00:15:56.600 and mobile as a soldier when you're on the ground as they are. And you have to know how they move and

00:16:01.840 you have to respect how they move. And you have to be willing to take the same risks without being

00:16:06.420 crazy to cause them to have to worry about you as a liability. Once those parameters are established,

00:16:13.140 pretty much the doorways are wide open because you, you integrate rather than having to be outside of.

00:16:19.580 And what my observation has been is too often the types of coverage that are given to soldiers is

00:16:25.680 journalists tried to go from the outside as if observers, rather than realizing the intent of the

00:16:31.320 embed program was always to embed, to get in, to tell that inner story. And so I hope that that's

00:16:38.400 been achieved. Well, and I think you came, just your military background, it comes with a certain

00:16:46.200 level of understanding. I think, and I'm highly critical of the mainstream media. I think they come

00:16:52.480 with their own certain set of biases about what soldiers in the battlefield are doing, how they are

00:17:00.400 treating the locals, how they are behaving, the rules of engagement. I think the assumption is that

00:17:05.620 no, the, um, Western forces are, um, you hear it all the time. They're an occupying force that they

00:17:14.660 aren't a moral army. Um, and I think you come from a place where you understand the rules of engagement

00:17:21.520 government and, and how I suppose hamstrung, uh, the military can be in theater. Um, and I think

00:17:28.900 that comes through where, um, there's a sense of camaraderie, um, between yourself as a filmmaker

00:17:36.240 and the soldiers who are being, like I said, very, very candid with you about their experience and

00:17:42.800 their feelings. And, um, you really do humanize them. They aren't just a war machine. They aren't just

00:17:48.620 this, um, uh, this, uh, finely tuned machine of death as the mainstream media might paint them.

00:17:56.660 They are dads, they are brothers, they are fathers, they are husbands. And that comes across.

00:18:02.380 I think one of the most powerful, so let me back up just a second. Sure. When I looked at doing this

00:18:09.600 as an exclusive film on Princess Patricia's, well, PPC LA,

00:18:13.240 the film was a great action film until I dug into the interviews, which I hadn't looked at for a

00:18:22.060 couple of years. And then I realized the gold because what was there was a very rich fabric of

00:18:30.280 real, a very rich personality of who soldiers really were. And I was very privileged to have

00:18:37.360 that relationship where they would speak candidly. Um, I agree with your comments that there is a,

00:18:43.660 there is a persistent betrayal. I won't say who, but I will tell you that in, in that in 2007,

00:18:49.240 there was a Canadian media agency that asked me to do a set of, do a story on the soldiers that were

00:18:55.040 deployed out in similar area. And I did it and I had it reviewed by two top one Pulitzer prize winning

00:19:02.580 journalists in the U S first before I sent it. And they wrote back to me and said,

00:19:07.460 this is top notch work. Send it. The response I got from the Canadian agency was this can't be real

00:19:14.940 because soldiers don't talk this way. You need to find how they hate war, how they hate being deployed.

00:19:20.200 And I, frankly, I walked away from a fairly sizable commission on the piece because I just told them

00:19:24.560 I'm not doing it for you then because I'm not going to lie. This is who they are. These are real

00:19:28.320 people. Um, I may, I, I think that what has happened in this film, it's interesting because

00:19:36.360 there's a little backstory that's relevant here. When these products, when these three videos that

00:19:41.520 are in the film, there are the three fighting scenes and they've been integrated into a much

00:19:44.680 bigger piece were first released. They were released in August of 2006 and they were released

00:19:49.560 on an American site out of Portland, Oregon, KGW, who was hosting my blog. Uh, they, YouTube was a

00:19:56.740 year old at that point. And the, the, uh, videos were then copied over by a couple of soldiers and

00:20:02.980 one in particular that I told him he could have them on his site to show. Now, considering YouTube

00:20:07.560 was a year old, these things garnished over a million hits each early on. And what transpired

00:20:15.480 there was a political maelstrom. I, the only way I could say it is it was literally, I, I was called

00:20:20.880 into national command in Condor. I was berate, you know, chewed out for affecting Canadian popularity

00:20:27.000 of the war. Uh, the Canadian national command actually went through a process of trying to

00:20:31.620 have me expelled from country. And all while all this nonsense is happening, Colonel Ian Hope is

00:20:38.520 calling me over to his compound, awarding me with the Orion coin, which is the highest award he could

00:20:44.440 give. I was, it's unbelievable honor. And, you know, just giving me personal interviews and telling,

00:20:50.280 you know, we're talking about the war and what was going on and really expressing some of his

00:20:54.920 deeper philosophies on conflict, which was, it was impressive. So the military and the regiment

00:21:01.160 continue to stand with this film the whole time, but the national command has that one went on to

00:21:06.740 getting into your liberal party. They actually debated and had wanted to blacklist my passport for ever

00:21:11.160 coming into country. I mean, this is some, some crazy stuff. And it really was kind of a foreshadowing

00:21:16.000 to where you are today. You know, that's an excellent point. Um, you know, if you do watch,

00:21:22.360 um, a lot of our state broadcaster, you would think that Canadians as a rule are okay with the payout,

00:21:29.680 um, that Justin Trudeau made to Omar Cotter, the $10.5 million, but the overwhelming majority of

00:21:37.180 Canadian sentiment thinks that it's appalling. It's an insult to our soldiers who've

00:21:41.080 been told by the liberal government that they're just asking for more than Justin Trudeau was

00:21:45.440 willing to give them. So the bias plays into everything that this, you know, our soldiers

00:21:50.120 are just, you know, they're greedy. They're, they're, um, you know, involved in this long drawn

00:21:56.380 out, um, legal proceeding for their pensions. Then we can easily give out $10.5 million to someone who,

00:22:04.240 that we know killed, uh, one of our allies blinded another and helped build IEDs to harm

00:22:12.160 quite likely Canadian soldiers. Um, and if Americans, God forbid, ever watched our state

00:22:18.480 broadcaster, they would get entirely the wrong impression about Canadians because, you know,

00:22:24.660 how our current government treats our military, um, is not in line with the affection normal Canadians

00:22:33.380 have for them. So a couple of things on that. First of all, Omar is a straight up terrorist.

00:22:37.820 And that part is, um, he was responsible for the death of one of my close friends, teammates. So 0.97

00:22:45.380 let's just, I'll leave it at that. But it was, there's no question where he sits on a lot of our

00:22:51.160 books. So the next thing is, is that, um, what we see, if you take what's happened with Vice Admiral

00:22:58.920 Norman and, and that whole scandal is very much what they did. It's a mirror for us because I

00:23:05.720 think this is where Americans can really find a good bridge is that's what they had tried to do

00:23:09.780 with Lieutenant General Flynn. And it's the same sort of railroading of taking a great name in the

00:23:16.320 military. The, the sad part is what I don't think a lot of Canadians realize is though it was not

00:23:21.120 to the scandalous level, that sort of political pressure. And I, and this, I'm going to speak

00:23:26.980 from my optic, this is not coming in any way from the person I'm going to speak about. I want to be

00:23:31.840 clear about this, but from what I observed, that same type of pressure was, was put upon Colonel Ian

00:23:38.160 Hope. And he should have been your director, your head of military, but instead now is he, he is still

00:23:46.520 a Colonel. And the irony is that the person involved with the Norman process was the architect who claimed

00:23:53.180 he was part of Colonel Hope's team, which I think he was, but he sure as heck didn't design the

00:23:58.040 strategies. I'll tell you that much. Right. So you have this kind of incestuous, scandalous

00:24:02.960 environment, which reminds us so much of what we're trying to undo in our own country. And you're right

00:24:07.640 in the middle of it. The, the, the problem, I think it goes further though, because when we get into this

00:24:13.060 and I mentioned national command earlier, I want to be very clear about this. I am a, I support the

00:24:19.600 regiment and all that they stand for a hundred percent. And at some point, uh, I'm actually

00:24:23.920 going to be working to give a copy of the film to the regiment for the regimental museum. That's

00:24:28.760 down the road. But in the process right now, we've still had to deal with a bit of the national

00:24:32.960 command stuff. And the national command is from the outside, from my observance as an American is

00:24:38.960 still doing the same type of nonsense. I mean, it's, you had that scandal of the, the, the parade in,

00:24:45.380 in Toronto, and instead of just outrightly condemning it, they're backpedaling and trying to

00:24:49.340 excuse it. And then at the same time, you're taking your Canadian Afghan memorial and you're

00:24:55.020 making it a private affair rather than making it public. So the question from, from the way I see

00:25:01.220 it is it's almost like you want to whitewash, not you, but that there's an element to try to

00:25:05.860 whitewash the Canadian history here in Afghanistan, when it is one of the richest experiences for your

00:25:13.840 military on so many levels. There are so many heroes that come out of that. So many great stories,

00:25:19.020 so many great experiences of what Canada stands for, both the good and the ugly, because war is

00:25:24.820 not, is neither. It's not one or the other, it's both. And then I, so I, I kind of segue back to the

00:25:31.180 film. This film to me becomes even more important for Canada because it's one of your few documents

00:25:36.500 that if someone isn't trying to bury right now, to be honest with you. You know, that's a great point

00:25:41.560 about whitewashing, um, the time Canadians spent in Afghanistan. Um, so often the war is painted as

00:25:50.500 this illegal war and again, as an occupation. Um, but really we did some incredible things there. Um,

00:25:59.560 some ordinary people did some extraordinary things. And those people, while we're losing our World War II

00:26:07.160 veterans every single day, the men and women who served in Afghanistan, they're in our communities

00:26:13.520 with these rich stories. Um, but I think a lot of times sort of, uh, not unwilling, but maybe they don't

00:26:21.900 feel like they can tell them, um, or that we want to hear them. And I think we do.

00:26:28.540 I, I think you do too. I think that, so there kind of is a metric to this. Um, and I'm not going to

00:26:34.080 take, I'm not trying to take in any way credit. I'm going to kind of look at cause effect prior to

00:26:39.020 those three videos that came out in August of 2006, very few people were, were, uh, coming out

00:26:46.780 on the highway of heroes. Yeah. Post that it was hundreds of people, which is an indicator to me

00:26:53.380 that Canada wants to know about its military and it's very proud of its military. And I've never run

00:26:58.080 into anybody, uh, well, at least in my circles, it doesn't think Canadians, the Canadian military is a

00:27:03.520 great thing to be proud of. The, I think the bigger challenges over all of this is making sure that

00:27:10.900 that history doesn't get buried. Um, Afghanistan is, you said it, I mean, you did some amazing

00:27:16.100 things. You also had, and I go back to Colonel Ian Hope, you had a commander that literally rewrote

00:27:21.160 the future of Canadian type of fighting. Canada's approach to war was different than the Americans.

00:27:27.660 It was different than the Brits. It was uniquely Canadian. And in my perspective, it is also very

00:27:32.420 value-based in that sense. But the one thing that I will, I have so much respect for, for the Canadians

00:27:37.820 is there's a difference of, and it's really, if you look, the film has three hashtags. It's, it's

00:27:45.220 conviction, righteousness, and ruthlessness. And it's, there is a point there that everything that

00:27:51.280 you learn about being with Canadians has a center point of conviction. There is a, there's a

00:27:56.040 righteousness position on that, which is both values and Canadian, what it is to be a Canadian,

00:28:01.420 Canadian out there in the world, which is also you're part of a world community, but your nation

00:28:05.820 is always there. There's a massive amount of respect for diversity. But at the end of the day,

00:28:10.860 that ruthlessness is the purpose of war. And what is most missed in the media across the board is this

00:28:17.660 was never about a fight with Islam. This was a fight, the people that we were going after in this, 1.00

00:28:24.120 in the South, were straight up criminal drug networks hiding under the title of Taliban

00:28:28.980 and claiming to be Muslim. These people were using that as a shield, when in fact,

00:28:34.100 they were a little more than drug runners and human traffickers. And that is so seldom ever said

00:28:39.060 in the media. And it's a huge difference. There is a righteous point of being there. And who wants

00:28:42.740 that in your backyard?

00:28:44.740 Now, Scott, you're being so generous with your time, I could probably talk to you all day.

00:28:48.740 Um, uh, you've had some challenges trying to show the movie here in Canada.

00:28:54.980 Yes. Um, well, it's, it kind of goes, it goes to the regiment, the national command again. And I,

00:29:02.980 this has been a bit challenging. Um, when I first got the film finished, which was December, January

00:29:08.980 of this year, I approached the museum just to offer the military museum in Calgary. I want to be very

00:29:15.940 clear about this. And before that was the regimental museum about getting them a copy.

00:29:20.820 They loved the film and it was a huge compliment to me. And so we began a kind of a process, which

00:29:27.780 I was a little bit surprised at, that they were going to screen the film in Calgary at the military

00:29:33.140 museum. And it was a huge compliment to me and this, their, their strength in the work. Um, about

00:29:39.700 three days before that screening national, a, some level of the national level command swooped in and said,

00:29:45.940 no, we can't do this. And I think this is where it really got disturbing for me was because I

00:29:50.660 started to hear the same story that I heard in 2006, which was, we can't endorse these comments

00:29:56.260 of the soldiers. Um, there's another comment they made that there's a scene in the film where

00:30:01.460 an Afghan military guy slaps a civilian. And one of the Patricia's kind of snickers and he says,

00:30:08.980 you know, they have a different way of doing things. Well, literally the comment to me was,

00:30:14.100 we can't endorse that because the Canadians should have intervened. And I laugh at that 0.99

00:30:17.940 because I even, this is the other part is that wasn't even the Patricia's authority,

00:30:22.740 all that authority, they had to go through the Americans. That was the way it was. So 0.97

00:30:26.580 that whole reaction is very transparent and very real, but here you have these other issues going

00:30:31.940 on, like your crazy parade in Toronto. Again, you're, you know, whitewashing of your memorial

00:30:37.700 by sticking it behind closed walls and a film here that is so upholding of Canadian values.

00:30:46.580 Now, let me just segue this and why this gets even a little crazier when the national command

00:30:50.100 says they can't endorse it or back it, et cetera. If you go to the website, there's a second review down

00:30:57.540 is about a four or five paragraph review. This review is from a Marine Colonel. Now, just to kind of

00:31:05.220 put this in context for those that don't know us Marines, us Marines seldom give compliments about

00:31:10.580 anybody other than us Marines. They also have one of the most difficult, um, systems to earn rank,

00:31:17.620 very much like the Canadian army. So it's very difficult to get ranked. So he writes about a

00:31:23.620 four or five paragraph review that sums up with these words that these guys get it. And I,

00:31:30.580 as a Marine will stand shoulder to shoulder with them and fight any day with them.

00:31:36.100 That's level of compliment doesn't come any higher than that. And so I find it just ironic

00:31:42.340 when you have a can't endorse this film from Canada, which is, and that's fine. That's politics.

00:31:47.700 But I want Canada to hear that this thing has legitimately been reviewed. And if you go into

00:31:52.340 the reviews, I've had it reviewed by my special operations friends. I've had it reviewed by Marines

00:31:56.660 well before we ever got it to the Canadian market and everybody says the same thing. Soldiers get

00:32:01.540 it. They're great for fighters. They're doing a great job. That's a thing to be proud of. And I

00:32:06.100 think what's that's at the core right now, what, in my opinion, as I look kind of the politics from

00:32:11.460 the optics outside, Canada needs that you need to start realizing just how much values that are held

00:32:17.540 in the, in the Patricia's and how much, what the regiment represents in terms of that richness of being

00:32:22.340 Canadian. It's this nonsense of like, you know, war is bad. War is real. Let's just put it like 0.98

00:32:29.220 that. I mean, it's, it's one of those unfortunate conflicts that whether you are, you want to read

00:32:34.180 the Bible and see about conflict, it's all the way through there. You want to, you know, we are just a,

00:32:39.140 a, by nature, but it's the process of how you are in war. And I would say that everybody I've worked

00:32:48.260 with the Patricia's rank as some of the best war fighters I've ever been with. Scott, how do people

00:32:56.020 see your movie? I mean, the first, my first, uh, reflex when the government tells me I shouldn't

00:33:02.420 watch it is I want to run out and watch it twice. So this is what I, it's a good question. And it's,

00:33:10.340 so this is kind of what we're doing right now. So two things, I think this is a great forum.

00:33:13.780 Um, when I set this up, I anticipated a little bit of pushback. I didn't know where it was going

00:33:18.660 to come from. So the film is first and foremost available as a digital download purchase from the

00:33:24.340 web website. And if you don't get it through an app, so you actually have to buy it and download

00:33:29.540 it to your app on your laptop or your desktop. That's just the virtue of the tech tyrannical nature

00:33:35.300 of all the distribution things now. But all that said, it isn't going through some sort of

00:33:40.980 distribution house. This is a filmmaker direct to market model because I want to preserve the

00:33:46.100 access to people. That's important to me. The second part, there's something we're starting

00:33:50.580 now and it's just beginning the groundwork, but I figured that this is a, this is a movie

00:33:56.340 buying for people for, I mean, this is a movie for Canadian people to see. So, and I don't have

00:34:01.140 any announcements on this yet, but where I'm starting to speak to local pubs and bar owners across Canada,

00:34:06.180 we're going to do some announcements on where people can go and see the film for an evening,

00:34:10.100 buy some beer, have some food there. It's not going to be a charge event. And like everything

00:34:14.500 else, if you like the film and you want to support the work, you can buy a copy. Right. But it's,

00:34:18.580 I'm trying to keep out of the, the, any sort of that constructed distribution networks. It's,

00:34:26.260 it doesn't do a service to the filmmakers and it, it really, this is a true independent film from,

00:34:32.100 from creation to delivery to market. And so first and foremost, you can get it on the website,

00:34:37.540 download a copy. It's an MP4 file plays on any device, or as we, as you watch the website and

00:34:43.620 we evolve this, there'll be some, we'll start to look for ways to get it out into the public

00:34:47.460 in different ways. I'm very much, I'm a gorilla marketer by nature. So I enjoy this sort of thing.

00:34:51.460 It's fun. And I think it's a great way to kind of break the paradigms of what usually constricts us

00:34:56.660 from, from our controls of people saying what you can and can't watch. Right. Yeah. I think that's

00:35:01.940 great. I gorilla marketed a book all the way to a bestseller for the last few weeks. So yeah,

00:35:08.580 no, I, I think that's great. This sounds like the kind of thing that should be airing at legions,

00:35:15.300 Royal Canadian legions all over the country. They serve liquor and there's a lot of veterans

00:35:21.460 kicking around those places. I think it would be a hit to show in some of the legion halls across

00:35:28.420 the country. Um, Scott, what's the website again, just for people? Sure. It's bards of war film. So

00:35:34.900 it's B A R D S film, bards of war film.com. Um, and that's, uh, it's real easy access. The website's

00:35:43.140 made to be fairly simple. It's not real complex. You'll find some reviews there and, uh, there's

00:35:48.020 the film download. It's a, just a digital purchase. Uh, once you get it, then you get a little notice in

00:35:52.900 your email, click on that and download the film. It's pretty easy. Any other projects you're working on?

00:35:58.260 Yeah, actually the second film will be out in, uh, in the fall. Um, and that will be,

00:36:03.700 that title is combat advisor. It'll be the other part of the story, not specifically to the Canadians,

00:36:08.820 but the advisor role that I was there to watch. And then I've got a number of films planned out

00:36:13.940 over the next few years. I mean, this is pretty much now my, this year we'll roll out two films

00:36:18.020 and then going forward, it'll be about a film a year is what my push is to get these out and just,

00:36:23.060 and really the, the theme that I have that has come out of this, it kind of goes back to the pillars of

00:36:27.700 what this was about, which is, I go back to this conviction, righteousness, and ruthlessness.

00:36:32.580 And I think there's a, it defines a lot of the type of stories that I seek and a lot of the type

00:36:37.300 of stories that I like to tell. It's, um, it, it really gets into those deeper parts of who we are

00:36:42.340 and what it takes us to be, uh, essentially a warrior in life. Right. Well, Scott, I want to thank

00:36:49.140 you for your time. And I also want to pencil you in when, when the new movie comes out. Um,

00:36:55.460 but I also want to thank you for taking, um, such care, um, to show our soldiers, um, in,

00:37:04.420 I guess, in the truest light, which is also the best light because they really are some of the best

00:37:09.620 in the business. Uh, Scott, thanks for coming on the show today. Thank you very much.

00:37:26.020 You know, I think it's pathetic that the distribution of Scott's film is being hampered

00:37:30.980 by the politically correct bureaucrats in the upper echelons of the Canadian military.

00:37:36.020 His film depicts a moral Canadian military, but remember, this is the same politically correct

00:37:43.300 Canadian military bureaucracy that hampered our efforts here at the rebel to help military families

00:37:48.900 in need and stepped in to block your donations to them. This is the same politically correct

00:37:55.060 military bureaucracy as Scott rightly pointed out that left families of dead soldiers out of the

00:38:01.220 the commemoration of the Kandahar battlefield cenotaph in Ottawa. In the end, all the politics

00:38:08.340 just hurts our soldiers and stops us from honoring them the way that they deserve. Well, everybody,

00:38:14.580 that's the show for tonight. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you do take the time to see

00:38:19.620 Scott's movie, Bards of War, if only because some bureaucrat doesn't want you to. I'll see everybody

00:38:27.540 back here in the same time in the same place next week. And remember, don't let the government tell

00:38:32.740 you that you've had too much to think.

Rebel News Podcast - May 23, 2019

“Bards of War” a “military documentary like nothing I have ever seen before” (GUEST： Scott Kesterson)

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