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

00:00:00.940 Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.

00:00:06.480 Dr. Jordan Peterson has created a new series that could be a lifeline for those battling depression and anxiety.

00:00:12.740 We know how isolating and overwhelming these conditions can be, and we wanted to take a moment to reach out to those listening who may be struggling.

00:00:20.100 With decades of experience helping patients, Dr. Peterson offers a unique understanding of why you might be feeling this way in his new series.

00:00:27.420 He provides a roadmap towards healing, showing that while the journey isn't easy, it's absolutely possible to find your way forward.

00:00:35.360 If you're suffering, please know you are not alone. There's hope, and there's a path to feeling better.

00:00:41.780 Go to Daily Wire Plus now and start watching Dr. Jordan B. Peterson on depression and anxiety.

00:00:47.460 Let this be the first step towards the brighter future you deserve.

00:00:57.420 Hello, everybody. I'm speaking today with Kelsey Sharon.

00:01:13.200 She's CEO of Brass and Unity and author of Brass and Unity, One Woman's Journey Through the Hell of Afghanistan and Back.

00:01:20.660 She's a distinguished Canadian veteran.

00:01:23.900 We walked through her story.

00:01:26.080 She was a martial arts champion as a child.

00:01:30.020 She joined the Canadian military when she was very young.

00:01:33.100 She served in Afghanistan and had a series of, well, what you might describe as extraordinarily rough adventures there.

00:01:40.720 We talk about that.

00:01:42.100 We talk about the state of the Canadian military.

00:01:44.560 We talk about the state of Canada, for that matter.

00:01:46.660 We talk about her pathway back to something approximating happiness as a consequence of her experimentation with psychedelics, for example.

00:02:00.580 We cover a lot of territory.

00:02:03.040 So welcome aboard for the ride.

00:02:06.660 Let's start when you're a kid.

00:02:08.420 Okay.

00:02:08.960 What are you like as a kid?

00:02:10.480 Tomboy.

00:02:11.760 Aggressive.

00:02:12.820 I started fighting at four years old.

00:02:15.540 Fighting?

00:02:16.220 Taekwondo.

00:02:17.120 You start?

00:02:17.660 Oh, yes.

00:02:18.160 And why did you do that?

00:02:19.500 My mom saw a demonstration at the Coburg Mall in Ontario, and it was kind of what you see in all these, like, crazy YouTube where it's, like, people jumping around kicking boards and breaking boards and doing all this big kind of demonstration to bring people into their club.

00:02:35.840 My mom called me on a pay phone, and she, my dad was like, oh, talk to her about it.

00:02:40.840 So he told me, and she said, look, if we sign you up, you got to stay for the time we sign you up.

00:02:45.380 That's just how it works.

00:02:46.160 She said, do you want to try it?

00:02:47.160 I said, sure, let's try it.

00:02:48.540 So I did, and that was the rest of my existence.

00:02:52.620 So it was wonderful.

00:02:53.660 Were you a little four-year-old?

00:02:55.560 Yes.

00:02:55.880 So I am only five foot and about 110 pounds on a good day.

00:02:59.460 So I've always been really small.

00:03:00.820 But what we did find out later on is that because of how aggressive I was in Taekwondo and how I was fighting and how often I was fighting, I actually stunted my own growth.

00:03:11.640 I was doing two-a-days by the time I was 12.

00:03:13.900 What does that mean?

00:03:15.040 So I was training in the morning, and I was training at night, and I was training during the day if I was not at school, and I was a second-degree black belt by the time I was 12 and a national champion.

00:03:23.320 So I took it really seriously, and that meant weight classes as soon as you hit a certain age.

00:03:28.500 And by, you know, working in the sauna and skipping and doing those types of things, constantly having such a low body fat, my puberty didn't come until later.

00:03:37.040 So they think that my height didn't quite go with it either.

00:03:40.900 I see.

00:03:41.460 Yes.

00:03:42.180 I see.

00:03:42.800 Yeah.

00:03:43.380 So what did Taekwondo do for you?

00:03:45.880 Discipline, drive, belief in myself, the ability for self-reliance.

00:03:51.340 You know, it's an individual sport for most of it.

00:03:53.780 Taekwondo is something that's really fascinating to me.

00:03:55.960 Martial arts in general, I think, are by and large one of the most underutilized activities for kids for discipline and for ownership and for responsibility.

00:04:07.720 I think a lot of people are afraid of the violence tendencies with it.

00:04:10.840 And, like, I get it.

00:04:11.640 It's a striking sport.

00:04:12.580 You don't want to kick somebody in the head too many times.

00:04:14.420 We understand head injury now much better than we did before.

00:04:17.920 But what it gave me was this idea that if I showed up each and every day and I did the work and I put in the time and I trained and trained and trained, I could be the best at something.

00:04:27.800 And because of that, it was really the self-reliance, this piece of it doesn't matter what's going on around me.

00:04:33.440 If I'm solid and I go into this fight, then I'm going to be just fine.

00:04:37.440 And so that's kind of how my life went.

00:04:39.060 And it turns out I got pretty good at it pretty quick.

00:04:41.460 So I became highly addicted to it.

00:04:44.340 And it not only gave me the self-reliance piece, it also gave me that identity within myself very young.

00:04:52.580 So when I started to go through the bullying phase where I cut my hair about this short and I wore tear-away pants and I wore a wife-beater tank top because I was always training,

00:05:02.080 when the teasing came along and all that traditional stuff that happens to kids, it helped me handle it better.

00:05:08.540 I got bullied a ton.

00:05:09.500 Lots of girls would pick fights with me. 1.00

00:05:11.460 And whatever, that's fine.

00:05:13.160 But I never fought back unless I was hit first.

00:05:16.140 I was always taught that you never hit first, but if you are hit, you make sure they don't get back up.

00:05:21.240 And so I do remember the one time I did get in a fight at school and I was not afraid of my parents at school.

00:05:26.920 I was terrified of my master because he was coming in from Toronto that weekend.

00:05:31.600 And he doesn't like when you fight in school.

00:05:33.660 And I found out what happens when you fight in school.

00:05:35.780 He puts you in the ring and puts you through a wall.

00:05:38.640 So yeah, Taekwondo was fun.

00:05:40.120 So why were you bullied and when did that start?

00:05:44.720 That started really early.

00:05:46.600 I was always more of a tomboy.

00:05:48.340 I didn't really fit.

00:05:49.300 And I always did a lot of activities with the boys.

00:05:51.040 And I didn't really want to be around the girls.

00:05:53.540 It didn't make sense to me because I trained with boys.

00:05:56.700 My coaches were men.

00:05:59.020 I was just always in that environment where you had to be a little harsh, a little harder.

00:06:02.980 I also grew up in the middle of nowhere in Campbellford, Ontario.

00:06:06.000 So I grew up in the woods.

00:06:07.360 I come from my mother's side, came over from Hungary right when the Soviets came in.

00:06:12.520 They made it.

00:06:13.200 And then my dad's side of the family, you know, had no running water until he was 12.

00:06:16.440 And he was like this baby of seven kids.

00:06:18.740 So I come from this really two-heartened parents environment.

00:06:23.700 And so going into that sport made sense.

00:06:25.760 But that also created the identity of who I was, which was a little harsher, maybe.

00:06:31.120 And in case you haven't noticed, I don't have a problem using my voice.

00:06:35.220 So I would use it.

00:06:36.360 And that's irritating for a lot of people.

00:06:37.840 So how old were you when the bullying started?

00:06:42.280 I would probably say like six.

00:06:44.560 Six-ish.

00:06:44.960 And it was mostly girls? 0.92

00:06:46.100 Yes.

00:06:46.400 And what did it consist of?

00:06:47.860 At first it was just vocal and they would tease me for my hair.

00:06:50.660 Because I used to wear...

00:06:51.520 You're going to love this.

00:06:53.060 I'm sure there's a...

00:06:54.800 My psychiatrist is going to watch this and laugh.

00:06:57.620 So I used to wear...

00:06:59.920 My hair used to be really, really short because it was easier with a helmet all the time.

00:07:02.740 Right?

00:07:03.000 Just constantly sweaty.

00:07:04.060 You just always have a helmet on.

00:07:04.920 And so I used to wear bandanas when I was going through the grow-out phase.

00:07:08.640 But I also only used to listen to Eminem.

00:07:10.900 And so I really young was exposed to this...

00:07:14.960 I don't want to say angry music.

00:07:17.580 But Eminem back then was not sober Eminem.

00:07:20.860 And so I went through this phase where it's like...

00:07:22.640 I was training around a lot of music like this.

00:07:24.860 I was around really hard people.

00:07:26.200 I went into school.

00:07:27.060 And so I just kind of went into myself because I didn't relate with anyone in school.

00:07:31.300 And I was at a Catholic school.

00:07:32.660 And I didn't understand.

00:07:33.580 And I...

00:07:35.420 You know, they do their best to kind of teach you what God is and all of these texts.

00:07:40.300 But they weren't really making it applicable to life.

00:07:42.780 It was, this is what God says.

00:07:44.120 This is what you do.

00:07:44.940 This is what you don't do.

00:07:45.920 This is why you do it.

00:07:47.060 And there was no room for discussion.

00:07:49.180 There was no room for explanation or asking the question, why?

00:07:53.960 So that's something that didn't work well with me.

00:07:56.620 I wanted to know why.

00:07:57.660 I had more questions.

00:07:58.900 And I just wasn't getting answers.

00:08:00.060 So I just kind of went into what worked for me.

00:08:03.240 And once I did that, that's when the pattern of behavior started.

00:08:06.700 And then, you know, then it got to a little bit of violence when I got a little older.

00:08:10.640 Probably 9, 10.

00:08:12.240 Because then once I got my black belt, people were like, oh, you think you're...

00:08:15.900 And I was like, no, I really don't.

00:08:18.900 In this weight class around somebody around this height, for sure.

00:08:21.760 But outside of that, you know, taekwondo is not really jujitsu.

00:08:24.800 It's not really applicable in real life, I feel like, unless you're really good.

00:08:29.000 And was the bullying almost all from girls?

00:08:33.400 I had a...

00:08:34.040 For a little bit there, there was boys.

00:08:36.140 And I remember a distinct incident where I was on the soccer field and I was wearing

00:08:41.300 tearaways and they ripped my pants off.

00:08:44.420 I just thought they were not being nice.

00:08:46.800 I didn't think anything of it.

00:08:48.540 And at that point, I was used to it a little bit.

00:08:50.780 I mean, I had little cliques of friends.

00:08:52.200 But again, I was at the club.

00:08:53.840 My elementary school was here and my club was right here.

00:08:55.940 So I would walk it.

00:08:57.160 So I was always there.

00:08:58.440 I was there in the mornings.

00:08:59.280 I was there after school.

00:09:00.220 I'd be there late.

00:09:01.020 I used to teach once I hit a certain belt level.

00:09:03.480 Did you have friends at the club?

00:09:04.760 Oh, yeah.

00:09:05.340 Oh, my gosh.

00:09:05.860 That was my everything.

00:09:08.560 That's the problem.

00:09:09.540 I didn't care about anything outside of it.

00:09:11.520 Right.

00:09:12.020 Nothing mattered.

00:09:13.160 Right.

00:09:13.540 Yeah.

00:09:14.380 With that masculine attitude of yours, that young, what do you think would have happened to

00:09:19.100 you in a school now?

00:09:19.960 Oh, I would have been transitioned.

00:09:21.460 It's funny that you say that.

00:09:23.100 I had Natalie Eva Marie on the show.

00:09:24.820 She's a WWE superstar with pink hair. 1.00

00:09:26.740 And she's very girly now.

00:09:28.160 But we're having this exact conversation.

00:09:30.080 Because she was the same.

00:09:31.120 Tearaway pants, you know, slides, the whole thing.

00:09:33.840 She grew up around boys.

00:09:35.520 And I said, my God.

00:09:37.500 Thank God we don't live right now.

00:09:40.200 Because we would have been put on puberty blockers. 0.98

00:09:42.340 I would have had my breasts cut off. 1.00

00:09:43.460 I would have been told I was in the wrong body. 0.99

00:09:44.920 I would have told that I wasn't who I thought I was.

00:09:48.340 I knew I was a girl.

00:09:50.080 I was good at being a girl.

00:09:52.000 I grew up cutting and splitting wood.

00:09:53.920 That's, to me, what it meant to just be a girl.

00:09:56.020 I could clean the house.

00:09:56.720 I could cook.

00:09:57.200 And I could cut and split wood.

00:09:58.680 So why can't I do all of that?

00:10:00.580 Why do I have to be the opposite sex to do those things?

00:10:03.960 And so, yeah, I would be transitioned.

00:10:05.960 And it's really tragic.

00:10:07.640 What was it like for you when you hit puberty?

00:10:11.020 Strange.

00:10:12.320 I went from flat as a board, both sides, no body fat at all, to just like disproportionate chest.

00:10:18.880 It was a very strange, uncomfortable feeling.

00:10:22.880 But it somehow, at the same time, I was going through a whole other level of what I would consider trauma.

00:10:29.380 Now, looking back, doing, you know, a decade and a half of therapy, I've realized where a lot of that anger had kind of stemmed from in high school.

00:10:35.520 And it came because my coach, who was my guy since I've been four, started sexually assaulting, people say sexually assaulting, raping my teammate, and she was 14.

00:10:47.680 And my entire world exploded when that all got exposed.

00:10:51.760 And I stopped training.

00:10:53.300 And I stopped having an outlet.

00:10:54.600 And I stopped having a community.

00:10:56.040 And I stopped doing the thing that made me who I was.

00:10:59.520 And because of that, I became radically angry.

00:11:03.700 But with no place to put it, no understanding why and how to even fix it.

00:11:08.620 And my parents didn't know how to fix it.

00:11:10.320 They just were grateful it wasn't me.

00:11:13.160 What came of that with him?

00:11:14.940 He went to prison.

00:11:16.820 He was at a minimum security prison.

00:11:18.940 It was statutory rape is what he got. 0.84

00:11:20.620 I think he did two years.

00:11:21.540 He has since been remarried to another one of the girls we trained with and has twin daughters, which makes me real uncomfortable.

00:11:30.900 Because that behavior isn't by accident.

00:11:32.600 And that behavior doesn't go away.

00:11:34.680 Right.

00:11:35.360 Right.

00:11:36.000 Yeah.

00:11:36.420 So I can imagine that was extremely hard on you because you said you lost your community at that point as well.

00:11:41.580 Yeah.

00:11:41.940 We couldn't.

00:11:42.320 We tried to take me to a new club to train because my goal was the Olympics from like, I can remember it from like the moment I saw somebody come in with Olympic rings on them at the gym.

00:11:52.940 I was like, what's that?

00:11:53.760 They're like, that's the Olympics.

00:11:54.620 I went to the Olympics.

00:11:55.460 I was like, hold up.

00:11:56.760 You can go to the Olympics for Taekwondo?

00:11:58.520 They're like, yeah.

00:11:59.340 And it was over after that.

00:12:01.040 That's it.

00:12:01.520 That was the only path I could see for my life.

00:12:03.540 I didn't see anything else ever.

00:12:05.560 Not once.

00:12:06.520 And so once that was ripped out, I couldn't train with anyone.

00:12:09.700 I couldn't trust anyone.

00:12:10.720 I couldn't trust men.

00:12:12.320 Couldn't trust anyone around me because what if it's going to happen again?

00:12:16.780 And then that became, that also then became a part of my identity.

00:12:20.380 This is very angry child.

00:12:23.340 And no fault of my parents, but my, you know, my dad's a long haul truck driver.

00:12:26.680 My mom is now too.

00:12:28.200 And my dad was gone a lot.

00:12:31.500 And my mom had my brother and I, but, you know, she did the best she could.

00:12:35.480 But sometimes like comments would come out like there's something wrong with your head.

00:12:39.220 You know, those types of things, those like borderline gaslighting.

00:12:43.220 Conversations that happen, like there's something wrong with you.

00:12:45.540 It's like, no, I know there's something wrong with me, but I don't know what it is.

00:12:48.160 And I don't know how to fix it.

00:12:50.380 So at that point, you know, I had gone through an interesting childhood.

00:12:54.100 The school had called, had called child services on my mom because one time they were passing out Timbits.

00:13:00.000 And I said, I couldn't have excited to lose weight.

00:13:02.280 Right.

00:13:02.820 Yes.

00:13:03.200 I saw that in your book.

00:13:04.600 So that followed me till I was 18. 0.89

00:13:05.940 I had to see a pediatrician to make sure that my mom wasn't abusing me, which was ridiculous. 0.55

00:13:10.480 Right.

00:13:10.920 But understand, I understand it.

00:13:12.500 But do you think that that event, that betrayal when you were a teenager tilted you towards post-traumatic stress disorder later?

00:13:23.980 Well, I've thought, I've really thought on, I've really meditated on that a lot.

00:13:32.300 But the reason I would say more likely no is because I think that when you watch someone die the way I've watched people die, you're going to have a mark anyway.

00:13:48.480 So whether or not it was more severe because of it, so maybe, yes, it tilted, but I don't.

00:13:54.900 Yeah, well, it was a pretty fundamental betrayal.

00:13:56.900 No, for sure it is, 100%.

00:13:58.360 I don't disagree with you on that at all.

00:14:00.580 But you don't see an obvious connection.

00:14:03.040 I think where the connection lied, for me, more than that obvious connection would be, so that happened. 0.94

00:14:11.080 Then I went on deployment and a major authority figure after my injury threw all my shit paper in Afghanistan at me and told me it would have been easier if I died. 0.94

00:14:22.460 So it's like the authority figure here that was a male, the authority figure here that was a male compounding on the injury that already happened and telling me I was worthless. 0.91

00:14:31.180 Because when you look at this situation, and this is where this is a little convoluted and it can seem really weird for some people to hear, so just bear with me.

00:14:38.820 The person that was assaulted was my training partner.

00:14:43.160 Her and I were hyper-competitive, though.

00:14:45.140 Don't get that twisted even for a second.

00:14:46.640 This is an individual sport.

00:14:48.080 And I wanted to be like her.

00:14:49.240 When she cut her hair, I cut my hair.

00:14:51.100 Right?

00:14:51.320 So when it happened—

00:14:51.760 She older than you? 1.00

00:14:52.400 Yes, by two years.

00:14:53.080 So when it happened to her, there was almost this weird thought of like, was I not good enough to even try?

00:15:02.340 You know, it's really, really messed up to even think that, but you get the connection in where I'm saying it's like I was never good enough there.

00:15:08.020 I was never good enough here, and then I was never good enough in the service.

00:15:11.400 So there's that kind of identity that runs through it, and it's unfortunate, but I think that was a big part of my life for a long time.

00:15:20.300 It's not anymore.

00:15:21.400 I know I'm very good.

00:15:22.220 I know my worth now, but looking backwards, you know, that's been the beauty of the psychiatrist I got in 2011.

00:15:30.960 He's probably about your age, very similar to you, dresses very similar, same attitude in Canada.

00:15:37.700 He was one of the first to do post-traumatic stress research on post-Rwanda veterans.

00:15:42.280 He served in Rwanda and Bosnia as a medic.

00:15:44.740 And this—I call him my old man.

00:15:46.720 This guy, he has put up with everything, but he's been the only person outside of my father who has never told me that I'm not good enough.

00:15:56.960 Even when I went through all of the things with him since 2011, the amount of times I call him telling him I'm going to kill myself and I can't do this anymore.

00:16:03.720 And the response would always be, I have treated you veterans for 40 years.

00:16:09.920 You're not doing this to me.

00:16:11.660 I've never lost one.

00:16:12.780 I'm not losing one today.

00:16:14.700 And that was always the conversation.

00:16:16.860 And he was always telling me the truth.

00:16:19.740 So I think a lot of the healing came in a lot of different ways after the deployment.

00:16:27.220 I think it was a blessing in disguise.

00:16:28.600 That's why when Constantine asked if I regret it, I said, no, I don't regret any of it.

00:16:33.500 I needed to go through those things to come out the other side and be who I am today.

00:16:37.040 And I like who I am today.

00:16:38.180 I love who I am today.

00:16:39.500 I couldn't say that before.

00:16:40.560 I couldn't say that five years ago.

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00:18:20.460 So you've pushed yourself, really, ever since you were a little kid.

00:18:23.860 Ruthlessly.

00:18:24.300 Yeah, and I got the sense when I was reading your book, too, that I don't want to say that you were trying to prove something, because that's a cliche.

00:18:33.840 But you're obviously pushing yourself up against your physical limits in your martial arts.

00:18:39.840 And then you decide to enter the service.

00:18:43.980 And so let's talk about that.

00:18:46.520 So why did you decide?

00:18:47.700 And you picked a hard route, too.

00:18:49.680 You went into the infantry, which was probably the most.

00:18:53.220 Infantry by accident.

00:18:54.580 Artillery by trade.

00:18:56.040 So it's very strange.

00:18:58.680 So in about 2000, I think it was 15, the United States started to integrate women into combat arms roles.

00:19:04.900 So I was Canadian.

00:19:06.460 And when I deployed, my unit went to an American FOB.

00:19:11.000 So we were working for the 101st.

00:19:12.740 We were working for Americans.

00:19:13.580 We were the only Canadians that were with an American set of human beings.

00:19:17.000 We were firing for them.

00:19:18.280 And that was in Afghanistan.

00:19:19.220 And that was in Afghanistan.

00:19:20.660 So that was different.

00:19:22.140 And then I ended up doing infantry because the British called.

00:19:25.020 And they didn't have a woman to do the job. 0.98

00:19:26.400 So they pulled me.

00:19:27.080 Right.

00:19:27.320 So I worked with all of them.

00:19:28.340 But before that, I joined the Army because I went to college in Ottawa.

00:19:32.240 I went to Algonquin for about a month.

00:19:34.080 I tried to get out of the town as quick as I could.

00:19:37.400 Out of the town you grew up in?

00:19:38.420 Yeah.

00:19:38.760 Well, I grew up in Coburg.

00:19:39.820 And then we moved to Campbellford.

00:19:41.260 And I went there at grade 11.

00:19:43.220 So up until that point, I'd gone to Catholic school my entire life.

00:19:46.060 And then I went into a public school for the first time.

00:19:48.800 So that's fun.

00:19:50.600 Transition point.

00:19:51.500 And I went to like this farm town of this really like, you know, really small town vibe, hockey team.

00:19:55.420 How big was Campbellford?

00:19:56.500 I don't even know this.

00:19:57.320 I don't know the number, but it was tiny.

00:19:58.660 We had one, at the time, we had one bridge and we had a Tim Hortons.

00:20:02.460 Yeah.

00:20:02.760 And we invented the toonie.

00:20:04.840 That's our claim to fame.

00:20:05.880 There you go.

00:20:06.500 It's massive toonie. 0.99

00:20:07.760 Not relevant at all, but ridiculous nonetheless. 0.89

00:20:09.780 And so, yeah, we went there and then I left and I went down to the Remembrance Day ceremonies.

00:20:17.500 I always go for Veterans Day in America.

00:20:20.720 And that was one thing my mom always taught me is we always go on Remembrance Day.

00:20:24.760 And so we went, I went and I took the bus back to Algonquin.

00:20:28.720 And there was a lady on the bus that was in an Air Force uniform with like a plethora of medals. 1.00

00:20:34.680 You don't really see that in Canada too much.

00:20:36.540 You see it a lot in the States.

00:20:38.200 They're everywhere.

00:20:39.040 They're hanging off of them, but in Canada, not so much.

00:20:41.600 So when you see that, it kind of sparks a little.

00:20:44.660 So I went over and had a conversation and just kind of like asked her about what she did.

00:20:48.980 And she was a, I think she was a pilot or she had flown one of the first females to fly, 0.99

00:20:52.780 a whole kind of thing in Canada.

00:20:54.680 So after that, I got off the bus and I just said, I think I'm going to join the army.

00:20:59.560 So I went to the recruitment office and right outside the Rideau Mall.

00:21:03.020 How old were you?

00:21:03.720 I was, I just turned 18.

00:21:05.440 I left at 17.

00:21:06.720 Yeah.

00:21:06.900 And had you graduated from high school?

00:21:08.280 I had, yeah.

00:21:09.040 I had, I went early to Algonquin to try out for the soccer team first.

00:21:13.040 And then, um, I went, so I started school in September and then I went there right around

00:21:18.220 like November 15th.

00:21:19.720 And then I got paperwork that I was accepted in December and I got sworn in in December and

00:21:24.500 I was in basic training on January 3rd.

00:21:26.600 So it was a quick, yeah.

00:21:29.660 Right.

00:21:30.100 Was it a shock?

00:21:31.960 I don't think I even had time to be shocked.

00:21:35.140 I just made the decision and we were going and that was how it was going to go.

00:21:38.100 We signed on the dotted line.

00:21:39.720 So we went.

00:21:40.560 Right.

00:21:40.780 And so tell me about your basic training.

00:21:44.000 Okay.

00:21:44.160 What was that like?

00:21:45.080 I loved basic training.

00:21:46.820 Basic training sucked, but I loved it at the same time. 0.98

00:21:49.720 There's something about collective sucking together. 0.97

00:21:52.940 There's that, that, we call it trauma bond or whatever you want to put on it.

00:21:56.200 But I liked the competition.

00:21:59.040 Because within your group, you have men and you have women.

00:22:01.660 And everyone's in a different trade and, you know, Air Force, Army, Navy, and then who's

00:22:06.020 going where?

00:22:07.200 And I, again, loved the idea of being underestimated.

00:22:11.180 It worked for me.

00:22:12.120 It's something that just drives me.

00:22:13.800 Because normally I'm the smallest or I'm the woman or I'm the whatever kind of like title

00:22:18.320 you want to put on it.

00:22:19.060 None of it matters to me at all.

00:22:20.720 And so we had a couple women. 1.00

00:22:23.440 So immediately there was a clash with that.

00:22:25.760 Because what happened was we would go down and do the 10K run in the morning and then I

00:22:29.300 would, because we weren't allowed the elevators.

00:22:30.940 And then I would sprint up the stairs.

00:22:33.440 But I was first, so I got to the shower first.

00:22:35.940 It's like, okay, you want to be first, be faster.

00:22:38.480 So they didn't like that I was just standing out.

00:22:40.520 I started to stand out a little bit.

00:22:42.560 And I mean, it was good for the most part.

00:22:45.720 It was a little rough.

00:22:46.420 I had a little bit of the same sort of stuff from elementary school kind of happened there.

00:22:49.200 And it's like, okay, if it's happening everywhere, you're the problem.

00:22:52.200 But I didn't know at the time that it was a thing that I was doing.

00:22:56.260 Turns out I'm just way too masculine and I'm way too aggressive for a lot of women. 1.00

00:23:00.020 And that rubs some women the wrong way. 1.00

00:23:03.440 And so now knowing that, I understand that.

00:23:06.960 Then I didn't.

00:23:08.380 And so we went through basic training and it went well.

00:23:11.360 Graduated on time.

00:23:12.520 Nothing went crazy.

00:23:13.740 How many women in basic training compared to, like, what was the mix? 1.00

00:23:17.000 We had like five women in our group and the rest were men. 0.93

00:23:19.500 How many men?

00:23:20.200 30.

00:23:20.820 Oh yeah, okay.

00:23:21.640 Yeah, so we had...

00:23:22.660 What did the men think of the women? 0.99

00:23:25.000 Depended on the woman. 0.99

00:23:26.520 Okay, explain that.

00:23:27.680 Some were sleeping with the women. 0.60

00:23:29.080 Some were competitive with the women. 0.65

00:23:31.320 Some other women were a lot smarter than all of these guys put together. 1.00

00:23:33.980 They were like doctors that came in.

00:23:35.800 And we're like, I'm going to join the Navy.

00:23:37.540 You know, so there was some...

00:23:38.380 We had some switched on women. 1.00

00:23:39.940 But then there was a different level of physicality.

00:23:43.480 And because we all have the same PT tests, because this is when we didn't lower standards.

00:23:47.500 We were all one standard, which we should always be.

00:23:53.520 Some women didn't pass the push-up test the first time. 1.00

00:23:56.360 I think the push-up test was five or ten push-ups. 0.99

00:23:59.720 You couldn't pass the beep test.

00:24:01.200 You couldn't...

00:24:01.640 Beep is.

00:24:02.240 Beep.

00:24:02.540 So, you know, in a gymnasium, they put, like, one of the lines over here, one of the lines over here, and it would beep.

00:24:09.400 And you would go beep, and you have to run the other side before the next beep.

00:24:11.740 And they'd go beep, and then you have to run, and it would get faster and faster.

00:24:14.260 And it was a long, drawn-out activity.

00:24:16.640 And you had to hit a certain amount of beeps to be able to qualify for the physical.

00:24:20.340 And a lot of people couldn't hit it.

00:24:22.600 People were just overweight.

00:24:24.140 And so, if you failed a certain amount of times, you went up to the 13th floor, which I believe is the 13th.

00:24:28.120 It's called Fat Camp.

00:24:28.840 And you go up there until you can do it, and then you get put back into a new group.

00:24:33.620 So, that was always a fear for some people.

00:24:36.160 I didn't struggle with that, because I came right from sports into that.

00:24:39.700 So, I was in great shape.

00:24:40.700 Right.

00:24:40.960 So, you didn't have any trouble with the physical element?

00:24:42.860 No, no, no.

00:24:43.300 Because basic training isn't the heavy stuff.

00:24:46.640 It's the cardiovascular work.

00:24:48.680 It's the ability to be yelled at and not break.

00:24:51.540 It's the ability to learn tasks on sleep deprivation.

00:24:57.220 Can you function with little sleep?

00:24:58.980 And so, for me, that was not too bad, because my dad would wake us up at some ungodly hour to go cut wood.

00:25:05.140 I was pretty used to it.

00:25:06.440 So, it worked out.

00:25:07.120 And then, after basic, we graduated, and then we all got posted to our trade-specific training.

00:25:12.960 I was an artillery gunner, so I went to Gagetown.

00:25:16.020 And Gagetown is where you do your SQ and your DP1.

00:25:18.900 Grenades, machine guns, all the major weapon systems that you get the opportunity to shoot.

00:25:23.500 You learn them there.

00:25:24.240 Once you're done that, then you go to your hyper, like, trade-trade, so artillery.

00:25:28.520 So, then I went to the 105 guns and the mortars.

00:25:31.160 Did you have any familiarity with weapons before you went?

00:25:33.220 Oh, God, no.

00:25:33.900 I'd never been exposed to guns.

00:25:35.180 My dad had a .22 for raccoons.

00:25:38.500 You know, I never hunted.

00:25:39.820 I never shot anything.

00:25:41.500 Nothing at all.

00:25:42.660 So, it wasn't like a draw to the rah-rah of the weaponry or the violence of it.

00:25:48.240 It was more of a, this looks cool.

00:25:51.080 I think I could do this.

00:25:52.320 But I think everyone knew I was either going to be a cop or I was going to go do something else.

00:25:56.280 I just didn't know at the time.

00:25:58.300 And so, we went through training there, and that was fantastic.

00:26:02.820 And how did the women do when the standards were equivalent? 1.00

00:26:06.760 Like I said, some women failed. 1.00

00:26:08.200 Yeah?

00:26:08.600 Yeah, for sure.

00:26:09.780 100%.

00:26:10.340 Just so.

00:26:10.920 I presume some men failed as well.

00:26:12.780 Oh, there was definitely a few.

00:26:14.040 We had a couple individuals, you'll find this comical, who joined because they said they

00:26:19.480 were good at, what's that?

00:26:21.600 Like, not Halo, but it's a video game.

00:26:23.960 It's like a war video game.

00:26:25.180 And I couldn't help but kind of do one of these.

00:26:28.140 And yeah, they failed out.

00:26:29.320 They were just overweight.

00:26:30.780 Because, again, depending on the floor you live on, that's how you get up and down.

00:26:35.520 Well, if you think about how many sets of stairs you had to do in a day, we're on the

00:26:38.160 ninth floor.

00:26:39.100 We have to go down for breakfast because you have to swipe that.

00:26:40.920 If you don't, you get in trouble.

00:26:42.660 Then you have to go back up, so there's two.

00:26:43.960 Then you have to go back down for PT, there's three.

00:26:45.540 You've got to go back up, there's four.

00:26:46.600 Now you're going on a 10K run, you're doing log stuff, and you're doing all this stuff.

00:26:49.320 Now you've got to go back up.

00:26:50.620 And then they would just run you just because they felt like it.

00:26:52.880 And then you would do the same thing at night.

00:26:54.780 And then if they decide to toss bunks, you do the same thing again.

00:26:57.220 So that, if you're not in shape, that's hard for anyone to do all the time.

00:27:02.080 And so when we got to Gagetown, they kicked it up a notch, right?

00:27:05.760 Because now you're dealing with real guns, real weapons.

00:27:09.620 And how do you handle them?

00:27:10.840 How do you carry them?

00:27:11.880 And I remember the first time I shot a Carl Gustav, which is just the massive big guy

00:27:16.260 here that goes on your shoulder.

00:27:18.360 And it feels like you're just getting sucker punched by Mike Tyson in the face when it goes

00:27:22.320 off.

00:27:23.420 So it's run by two people.

00:27:25.120 So one person holds it, one person loads it.

00:27:27.400 And so we went to shoot, my girlfriend and I, who was one of the tiny ones as well.

00:27:31.440 And my sergeant looked at me and went, no.

00:27:33.420 And he just went over and wrapped both of us together and did one of these.

00:27:36.620 And I remember shooting that for the first time.

00:27:38.860 And I was like, oh, okay.

00:27:40.920 Okay, I get it now.

00:27:42.360 This is not pretend.

00:27:44.220 These things are for real.

00:27:46.240 And then we switched to artillery.

00:27:47.880 And once we went to artillery, that was a whole new animal.

00:27:51.000 We were on 105, so they only have a 40-pound round.

00:27:54.020 Explain the difference between the weapons.

00:27:56.220 Yep.

00:27:56.520 So Carl Gustav is a shoulder-propelled rocket launcher.

00:28:00.840 It has an explosive head.

00:28:02.040 It does have an explosive head.

00:28:03.540 I didn't shoot any of those overseas, so I'm not hyper-familiar with them.

00:28:06.440 We just did those in training.

00:28:07.940 Then we have, for me, the things that I shot the most of was my C7, which was a long barrel.

00:28:13.460 It shoots a 5.56 or 7.62 round.

00:28:15.840 And then we had hand grenades.

00:28:18.300 They don't look like the pineapples.

00:28:19.720 They're round like a baseball.

00:28:21.260 The modern ones.

00:28:22.420 And then we had mortar rounds that shoot pretty somewhat accurately, five kilometers within.

00:28:28.760 So we had those.

00:28:29.740 And then we had the 105s, which—

00:28:31.360 How does the mortar work?

00:28:32.560 So to the best of my recollection, it's run by two people.

00:28:38.440 It's got a round plate in the ground that sits there that kind of holds it down.

00:28:41.640 And it's a long tube.

00:28:42.500 And at the bottom is a firing pin.

00:28:44.240 And then you've got a sight on it.

00:28:45.500 It just kind of looks like a metal off piece here.

00:28:47.900 And then what you do is somebody lines up the sight with the grids they're given.

00:28:52.940 And then the other individual comes with the round.

00:28:56.000 And they hold it on top of the tube.

00:28:57.740 And then they say, fire.

00:28:58.660 And you just drop it.

00:28:59.560 And you duck your head to the side of it.

00:29:01.340 And then it shoots.

00:29:01.960 It goes down.

00:29:02.700 Hits the firing pin.

00:29:03.360 And then propels out.

00:29:05.140 And so we did a lot of those because that's our job.

00:29:07.920 Artillery is also mortarmen.

00:29:09.480 And then when we went to the 105s, those are what I kind of describe to people.

00:29:13.820 Like if you've seen any war movie with like the horses or you've seen them with a boom, that's what that is.

00:29:19.460 And the 105 is a 40-pound round.

00:29:21.560 It goes about 20 kilometers.

00:29:22.620 I'm probably give or take on that.

00:29:25.700 And it's got the big brass casing that you kind of see those big round guys.

00:29:30.080 That's what that one kicks out on the back end. 0.86

00:29:32.720 That's what you train on.

00:29:34.360 But I then deployed on the 777s, which is a 155-millimeter howitzer.

00:29:39.980 Same sort of deal.

00:29:41.460 Modern sight.

00:29:43.240 GPS.

00:29:43.900 You can use GPS-guided rounds on it.

00:29:45.720 It shoots around 100 pounds.

00:29:47.340 It can go up to max 40 kilometers, I believe.

00:29:50.780 And so that thing is a different level of hurt.

00:29:53.760 I mean, it's 100 pounds of HE or lume or white phosphorus or whatever you're going to shoot.

00:29:59.280 And it's, you know, the saying is it's like the hand of God.

00:30:03.860 It'll reach out and touch you wherever you are.

00:30:06.780 And so that's what I deployed on.

00:30:09.180 And when I got posted from Gagetown, I went to a French unit.

00:30:12.200 And that only happened because another individual was struggling with some kidney problems from

00:30:17.300 heat exposure.

00:30:18.280 He was taking too much creatine and had really been one of those guys in the gym that was

00:30:22.400 not looking after himself appropriately with all of the supplements.

00:30:25.860 And so his kidneys crashed out in the heat.

00:30:28.040 And so at that point, they said, okay, he can't go to Valcarche.

00:30:32.060 And you're going to Petawawa.

00:30:33.420 And his dad's at Petawawa.

00:30:35.060 And I was like, well, I'll trade.

00:30:36.960 Like it's French. 0.98

00:30:37.700 And I'm like, yeah, we'll learn.

00:30:39.300 It's our second language, isn't it?

00:30:40.600 And so I went to Quebec.

00:30:43.940 And then I got there and no one spoke English.

00:30:47.000 And I had a female officer and that was about it. 0.99

00:30:50.120 And so I deployed with those guys.

00:30:51.720 I got there in September of 2008.

00:30:53.420 Did you learn to speak French?

00:30:55.180 Just by being around.

00:30:56.820 I don't speak it anymore because BC doesn't speak French.

00:30:59.560 Right.

00:31:00.000 Yeah.

00:31:00.500 It's every other language.

00:31:01.840 So I don't practice.

00:31:03.940 But I learned kind of as I went, my first interaction with my sergeant was, I don't want you.

00:31:09.240 And I went, nice to meet you.

00:31:11.640 And so it was a good start.

00:31:14.280 Yeah.

00:31:16.120 So you deployed to Afghanistan with a French-speaking group.

00:31:19.880 Yes.

00:31:20.020 And you couldn't speak French to speak of.

00:31:22.460 Yeah.

00:31:23.200 Yeah.

00:31:23.640 It was yes, no, toaster kind of stuff.

00:31:25.500 So I would ask him, like, use him as a human translator.

00:31:28.920 And I would be like, est-ce Jean?

00:31:30.240 Oh, glass, anglais, en français.

00:31:34.740 And then he would just translate words.

00:31:36.720 And eventually I would start to pick up little sentences here and there.

00:31:39.580 And then it was fringlish.

00:31:40.980 And then it got to a point where I could understand.

00:31:42.480 And I was the remote weapon system gunner for the T-LAV, which was a turret tank, like

00:31:47.200 a tank that we have that has a turret that shoots a, I believe it's a C6, but it's a

00:31:52.400 machine gun.

00:31:52.980 And it's a computer system.

00:31:53.880 So I learned that in French.

00:31:54.700 And then I went and learned all the 777s in French and the commands in French and the

00:31:57.980 radio commands in French and the mortar systems in French.

00:32:00.620 How did your fellow soldiers react to you on the French side?

00:32:06.640 You've been to Quebec, right?

00:32:08.200 Yes.

00:32:08.620 I lived in Montreal for a good while.

00:32:10.320 That's right.

00:32:10.900 So, you know, when you hit, like, Quebec City and you go north, they don't really like

00:32:15.120 English people as much.

00:32:16.280 Mm-hmm.

00:32:16.780 Yeah.

00:32:17.300 So it was about that.

00:32:18.480 And then when you look at the gun troop and then you get one of your gun troop members

00:32:23.580 is five foot and a hundred pounds at the time, you go, oh, great.

00:32:27.480 Now I'm going to have to do twice as much work.

00:32:29.440 Right.

00:32:30.060 And so it just, again, it's that prove yourself.

00:32:33.160 Here we go again.

00:32:34.600 And so I was fine with it and we did it and it was all good.

00:32:37.180 And once, they got a little confident once they could see I could load a round.

00:32:40.440 Once I could load a round, it's like, okay, she'll lift things at least. 0.97

00:32:42.800 Mm-hmm.

00:32:43.260 Mm-hmm.

00:32:43.660 And it was strange.

00:32:45.760 There had to have some conversations.

00:32:46.820 My sergeant now, we're friends now and we've spoken since.

00:32:49.960 And he goes, yeah, we had to have constant conversations about them leaving you alone.

00:32:53.680 Just like sexually.

00:32:55.340 Mm-hmm.

00:32:55.640 Because that stuff was just rampant.

00:32:57.760 It's still rampant.

00:32:58.740 It's just not ever prosecuted.

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00:34:10.000 Yeah.

00:34:10.960 Yeah, so, okay, let's, I want to wander into the Afghanistan territory and your experience

00:34:18.820 there, but I'm also curious about your feelings about women and men in the military.

00:34:25.480 Yeah.

00:34:25.680 So, you were, you were in early, obviously, and you were in before there were differential

00:34:32.140 standards.

00:34:33.020 Yeah.

00:34:33.320 And you made reference earlier to the fact that you think that the same standard is appropriate.

00:34:39.080 A hundred percent.

00:34:39.820 Okay, so, tell me why you think that.

00:34:42.680 Perfect example.

00:34:44.300 You and I go outside the wire, okay? 0.63

00:34:46.840 You get shot.

00:34:48.700 I'm beside you.

00:34:49.840 Who's picking you up?

00:34:51.780 Right.

00:34:53.060 It's that simple.

00:34:53.580 Okay, so, what do you think that implies for women in the military? 1.00

00:34:58.040 Like, I mean, the idea is that women can do anything men can do. 0.92

00:35:01.680 That's not true.

00:35:02.440 Yeah, I know.

00:35:03.180 I know it's not true.

00:35:04.400 And it doesn't even seem to me that it's particularly appropriate, but it isn't like I exactly know

00:35:09.640 how to deal with that.

00:35:10.500 I mean, you obviously worked yourself, you know, half to death in order to be able to

00:35:16.460 manage this, and you did manage it.

00:35:18.020 And so, it's hard to say, well, it's hard not to say, well, good for you.

00:35:22.120 Right.

00:35:22.340 But by the same token, it seems to me odd that we're insisting as a society that, especially

00:35:29.360 in, I would say, especially in direct combat, that men and women can play the same role.

00:35:34.180 And so, what do you think about all that?

00:35:35.560 I think it's really complicated, and I'll tell you why.

00:35:38.700 If we were fighting, on average, an enemy that played by the same rules or had similar

00:35:48.080 respect for women.

00:35:49.360 Yeah, well, that's also a big problem.

00:35:51.340 But that's the problem.

00:35:52.080 That's the main problem, right?

00:35:53.440 Well, okay, so we can talk about that a little bit, too.

00:35:55.840 Well, it seems to me that women are at risk if they're serving in the military in a way 0.63

00:36:01.560 that men aren't.

00:36:02.560 Not true.

00:36:03.180 Okay.

00:36:03.500 I can count on all my fingers and toes right now the amount of men who have been assaulted

00:36:08.220 by other men in their units, by, like, special operators, too.

00:36:11.520 I'm not just talking about, like, say, like, grunt people, you know. 0.96

00:36:15.160 What if you're captured?

00:36:19.360 You take that risk.

00:36:20.360 Yeah, go on.

00:36:21.280 Oh, yeah, it's hell.

00:36:22.760 We've seen it.

00:36:23.360 We've known women who have, there's videos of Israeli women who were captured, who were 0.60

00:36:30.040 tortured to death and raped to death.

00:36:31.580 Right. 0.99

00:36:31.780 And we have that on every platform.

00:36:34.500 So, I get it.

00:36:36.380 But at some point, it's, you have to make the decision.

00:36:41.000 I was willing to risk it because I genuinely, the people that I was with.

00:36:46.360 Did you know what you were risking when you were willing to risk it?

00:36:49.180 Oh, no, I don't.

00:36:49.640 That was the thing.

00:36:50.400 You know what?

00:36:50.860 That's funny that you said it.

00:36:51.700 Constantine said the same thing.

00:36:52.760 He's like, do you really know, like, what you got into?

00:36:54.720 No.

00:36:55.800 And anybody who's-

00:36:56.580 I mean, you can say that about life in general.

00:36:58.560 Of course.

00:36:58.680 But this is a very extreme situation.

00:37:00.540 And I can't imagine what would have happened to you if you would have fallen into the hands

00:37:04.640 of the wrong people in Afghanistan, let's say.

00:37:07.500 You know, I've never thought about that.

00:37:09.200 But I don't know, I don't think they would have been able to keep me very long.

00:37:14.420 I would have been a problem.

00:37:16.260 Problems get eliminated fast.

00:37:20.020 Like, honestly, I'm that person that in that time in my life, if you said, I need you to go run

00:37:28.500 and jump over that wall, and you're probably for sure going to die.

00:37:34.840 If I knew someone was on the other side of that wall that needed to get pulled over that wall,

00:37:39.240 I'm risking it.

00:37:40.520 I'm risking it every time.

00:37:42.600 I hate that about myself sometimes.

00:37:45.100 Because it's like the sacrificial-

00:37:46.400 Like, I will.

00:37:47.180 I'll risk it.

00:37:48.160 If it means getting somebody who needs something or somebody needs help, I'll risk a lot.

00:37:55.920 It's probably not a great trait.

00:37:58.500 On some levels.

00:38:00.320 But I will.

00:38:01.400 And I have.

00:38:02.220 And I'd do it again.

00:38:03.380 What about the standards?

00:38:04.900 Now, the standards were in place.

00:38:06.760 Okay.

00:38:07.140 And what's changed?

00:38:08.460 Okay.

00:38:08.800 So, standards were in place.

00:38:10.660 You know, push-ups, sit-ups, yada, yada.

00:38:12.020 The reason you need the same standards is because if we go outside the wire, 0.92

00:38:17.580 and I expect you to do something for me, you expect me to do the same damn thing.

00:38:22.180 And if a guy comes out of that building, and he's coming at me, and I'm compromised, 0.98

00:38:25.840 you better pull the trigger, or you better jump on him, or you better do whatever it takes. 0.94

00:38:30.500 Now, women become a distraction. 1.00

00:38:36.000 I don't- 0.67

00:38:37.120 They become a distraction because two reasons.

00:38:39.720 Men act different when women are around. 0.97

00:38:41.060 We know that.

00:38:42.000 We know that.

00:38:42.520 They just respond different.

00:38:44.220 If a woman's getting hurt, it doesn't matter if he likes me or not.

00:38:46.880 He's going to respond differently.

00:38:48.980 He could put himself in danger now.

00:38:50.640 He's going to react differently.

00:38:52.180 And secondly, because we have lowered the standards,

00:38:56.460 we are putting people in places that are going to get others killed.

00:38:59.800 Full stop.

00:39:00.360 We are actually making it more dangerous for people in service, on planes, in other areas,

00:39:09.460 by lowering the standards in society together.

00:39:13.260 And we're doing it.

00:39:14.640 And we're seeing the repercussions, and we're not stopping it.

00:39:18.400 So where's the line?

00:39:21.020 I've been asked, do you think women need to serve? 1.00

00:39:23.120 If you want to respect the rights of the people we are fighting,

00:39:28.260 unfortunately, I need to be there.

00:39:31.380 Women have to be there. 1.00

00:39:33.380 Because the Taliban and ISIS and God knows how many other enemies we've continued to make.

00:39:41.620 There are women on the battlefield, and they will use them if they are covered head to toe, 1.00

00:39:46.500 and they will put men in those burqas with AK-47s and suicide vests,

00:39:50.560 and they will think a woman is walking up to them who's not a threat, 0.98

00:39:53.540 and they will detonate.

00:39:55.400 And they've done that, and they did it time and time again.

00:39:58.320 The Taliban got smart and realized that we as Westerners, 0.89

00:40:03.880 to a fault, will follow the rule.

00:40:06.220 But they don't have to.

00:40:08.240 And when that started to happen, people started getting killed more.

00:40:13.160 Because they would hide themselves in women's positions. 1.00

00:40:17.460 So they're like, okay, they're not going to bring women on the front lines with them. 0.54

00:40:20.560 So the women and children would flee, and that's how it would be.

00:40:24.120 And then we started going, well, we have to do something about this.

00:40:26.680 Because they were hiding weapons, money, jewelry,

00:40:30.580 indicators that they were working with the Taliban in, like, women's hair.

00:40:34.360 And, like, under their burqas. 0.55

00:40:36.160 And under their breasts. 0.99

00:40:37.660 And, like, things like that.

00:40:39.060 So when I finally started going out there,

00:40:41.160 you're finding all kinds of things.

00:40:43.000 Because all of a sudden, there was a woman there to actually search people.

00:40:45.640 And we had never done that before.

00:40:47.520 Because a man cannot touch a woman. 1.00

00:40:49.840 And so as long as we want to fight fair,

00:40:51.660 as long as we want to fight up against the, you know,

00:40:54.360 the current individuals we're fighting,

00:40:57.260 whether that's Hamas or ISIS or the Taliban, you name it.

00:41:01.000 Speaking of the Taliban, side tangent here, two seconds. 0.55

00:41:04.480 Have you seen the new article that came out?

00:41:06.520 And they were like, oh, my God.

00:41:08.020 Did you know the Taliban have started stoning women again?

00:41:14.580 That doesn't really shock me.

00:41:16.960 When did it stop, Jordan?

00:41:19.180 I'm sorry.

00:41:20.960 And also, all of these people who have something to say about it,

00:41:24.800 where were you for 20 years when we could have done something about it?

00:41:28.480 When we were standing there watching it.

00:41:31.160 And you said we can't do anything about it.

00:41:33.900 So why do you care now?

00:41:36.240 You don't care.

00:41:37.780 Selective outrage.

00:41:38.880 I'm over it.

00:41:39.520 Sorry.

00:41:40.380 Drives me nuts.

00:41:40.920 Who are you speaking about, particularly, with the selective outrage?

00:41:44.400 Oh, you name it.

00:41:45.260 Anybody on social media with a face?

00:41:48.260 Anybody who's an influencer or a political commentator

00:41:52.700 or these people who have made their careers off of just adding more negativity to the world?

00:41:58.480 And it's constant nihilism for young people to click on

00:42:01.580 and become obsessed with the next new rage event.

00:42:04.200 It's really hard to watch.

00:42:07.820 Now, you had a particular role in Afghanistan.

00:42:09.920 Yeah.

00:42:10.100 You said, for example, that you were searching women.

00:42:12.120 I was searching women. 0.79

00:42:13.060 Right.

00:42:13.700 And that's a specific role for women. 1.00

00:42:16.440 Correct.

00:42:16.720 You believe that that's a useful role.

00:42:19.100 Well, now, what do you think has been the consequence in general of introducing women into the armed forces? 0.88

00:42:28.680 I mean, there's obviously continual sexual scandals in the armed forces in Canada.

00:42:33.940 It's always been there.

00:42:35.280 We just haven't reported it.

00:42:37.260 Okay.

00:42:37.660 Meaning it's always been there in what way?

00:42:41.180 Because there has been women in the army. 1.00

00:42:43.200 Right.

00:42:43.460 Just not in combat arms roles in other countries.

00:42:45.760 For us, there has.

00:42:47.160 So those assaults have been going on for the individual, for example, I won't say his name.

00:42:52.100 He's got a world of hurt anyway, who told me that it would have been easier if I died.

00:42:57.580 He's been charged with seven sexual assaults.

00:43:00.220 But he made it to major.

00:43:01.520 And he's not being arrested or put in jail.

00:43:06.020 And he's getting to leave with a pension.

00:43:08.400 So what does that say to everyone else below him?

00:43:11.600 Do it.

00:43:12.700 Just make sure they're quiet about it.

00:43:14.900 And that's why it keeps happening.

00:43:16.640 We don't actually take accountability for our actions.

00:43:19.600 We never have.

00:43:20.860 Because if we did, it would stop.

00:43:22.060 Okay, so I read an article in the Canadian Military Journal.

00:43:27.580 I don't remember the name of the journal.

00:43:29.260 But it was their DEI issue.

00:43:35.060 Right.

00:43:35.340 And their, what would you say, recommendation for decreasing the frequency of the sorts of things that you're talking about was a retooling of the entire culture of the Canadian military.

00:43:48.240 Well, I don't exactly understand what that means, because the culture is going to be a war culture. 0.98

00:43:54.620 Right.

00:43:54.920 And I presume that there are downsides to that as well as upsides.

00:43:59.140 Mm-hmm.

00:43:59.920 I don't know how to understand the downsides in terms of the relationship between men and women.

00:44:06.360 But if you have a lot of young men together who are single, and a lot of young women together who are single, then there's obviously going to be sexual interactions on a non-stop basis.

00:44:18.660 And I have no idea how that can be, like, reasonably regulated.

00:44:22.380 I suspect that the DEI approach is not going to work very effectively.

00:44:26.080 No.

00:44:27.380 Yeah, so DEI, that's a trip.

00:44:29.540 Canada's lost its mind.

00:44:30.700 And, okay, so I spoke to Buck Angel recently, and I was asking him his opinion on how the Canadian military has just put tampons in the men's bathrooms.

00:44:41.120 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:44:41.520 And then made it, what, a particularly punishable offense for the young men to take the tampon dispensers out of the bathrooms.

00:44:50.020 Correct.

00:44:50.160 Which is obviously exactly what they should do.

00:44:52.960 They should never have been in there in the first place.

00:44:54.280 Well, yes, that's for sure.

00:44:55.840 Yeah.

00:44:56.360 So, bad leadership, right?

00:44:58.080 You might say that already.

00:44:59.580 We can go with bad leadership.

00:45:01.280 That rolls downhill. 1.00

00:45:02.080 We have a saying in the military, shit rolls downhill. 1.00

00:45:04.600 And so, that's obvious. 1.00

00:45:05.660 So, DEI is rolling downhill.

00:45:07.180 And it's rolling down to a already crippling military.

00:45:13.800 Our military complex in Canada is shrinking astronomically.

00:45:17.940 And not only that, it's shrinking because veterans aren't being looked after.

00:45:23.500 People at Gage Town are having to rely on food banks to eat because they're not being paid enough.

00:45:28.180 No weapon systems are coming in.

00:45:30.280 People are having to pay for their own flights to come back from, where did they go?

00:45:33.160 Was it Lithuania?

00:45:34.060 They were over there.

00:45:35.340 Excuse me.

00:45:35.840 They were playing war games, i.e. they were just trying to be a show of force for Putin.

00:45:39.380 Anyway.

00:45:40.260 So, and then we bring in DEI.

00:45:43.660 So, here's what's happened since I got out.

00:45:45.740 This was a trip.

00:45:46.360 I got to go back in 2021, 22, to New Brunswick to go shoot my last round as a gunner.

00:45:53.280 I didn't know this was a thing.

00:45:54.440 But when you're like super old or something really bad happens, they bring you back to

00:45:58.420 shoot your last round.

00:45:59.120 Which are you? 0.99

00:45:59.300 Are you super old or something bad happened?

00:46:01.180 I'm going to be 35 this year, Jordan.

00:46:02.660 So, we're going to go with something bad happened.

00:46:04.400 And they really messed up and they know it.

00:46:06.680 And there was a book written about it.

00:46:08.240 They didn't like it.

00:46:08.800 So, what happened was I went and I shot my last round and it was this, you know, all

00:46:13.920 the big wigs came out and all of this.

00:46:15.880 And it was amazing because there was actually a female there that was a colonel that I actually

00:46:19.440 respected.

00:46:20.160 And so, it was a really big honor to get to shoot with her.

00:46:23.180 And so, I'm there.

00:46:24.000 But what I saw was really troubling to me.

00:46:29.320 Disheffled beards, long nails, piercings, jewelry, weird colored hair and beard.

00:46:39.620 We had lost the standard.

00:46:41.760 We stopped doing the standards of what it meant to be in the service.

00:46:44.540 Men have to be clean shaven. 0.97

00:46:45.560 Women have to have short nails. 1.00

00:46:46.640 You have to have one earring.

00:46:47.580 You can only wear a wedding band.

00:46:48.820 Like, you don't do these things.

00:46:50.400 Their hair was a mess.

00:46:51.540 They just looked a mess.

00:46:52.960 And I said, what am I looking at here?

00:46:55.440 So, this is the new standard.

00:46:57.460 So, if you start to lower the standards, people who have served, like my friend Dallas

00:47:02.380 Alexander who got slapped by the government for going on Sean Ryan, people like that leave.

00:47:09.180 Right.

00:47:09.840 The experienced people who you need to teach these DEI people.

00:47:12.300 Yeah, well, when you lower the standards, the best people leave.

00:47:14.780 Oh, 100%.

00:47:15.420 Yeah.

00:47:15.880 And so, this is what's happening.

00:47:17.260 So, now you've got DEI.

00:47:18.580 So, what happens with DEI?

00:47:19.960 Well, basics that we know.

00:47:22.180 Men now are in women's spaces. 1.00

00:47:24.620 Vulnerable spaces.

00:47:26.200 Men now are allowed around women in environments that they just shouldn't be in service in general. 0.57

00:47:31.640 Meaning, we normally get our own shower time.

00:47:33.660 Right?

00:47:34.120 And where we get our—if we have enough women, we get our own tent. 1.00

00:47:36.920 If you didn't, you just—you're with the guys and you're used to it.

00:47:39.300 It's fine.

00:47:39.960 And so, what was happening is people say that it's an assault issue.

00:47:44.120 It's a control issue.

00:47:46.420 It's a leadership who has been told time and time and time again, you can get away with it.

00:47:51.420 It doesn't matter.

00:47:52.940 You're going to get away with it.

00:47:54.000 If you're high enough rank, you've got the right people around you, you're going to get away with that.

00:47:58.160 So, what does that say to women? 1.00

00:47:59.920 It says, well, I don't really want to be in this service.

00:48:03.060 So, now you're losing women.

00:48:04.200 Or you're having women transition to men.

00:48:05.920 So, they're accepted in men's spaces and they're accepted as a male. 0.96

00:48:08.580 So, maybe they won't get raped. 0.99

00:48:10.560 Because you've got—you had a Navy ship just have to come back recently in the United States

00:48:15.360 because there was like 30 assaults in 30 days.

00:48:18.480 And women were just pimping themselves out early. 1.00

00:48:20.880 So, they didn't get raped.

00:48:22.700 They said, well, I'll just do it now because then that way I won't get assaulted.

00:48:26.300 So, it won't be like traumatic.

00:48:27.480 It'll be my choice.

00:48:29.020 And so, people are saying, well, why are we allowing women? 0.99

00:48:33.260 How about you just stop raping people, guys? 0.93

00:48:37.780 Where is the accountability on the man? 0.94

00:48:39.700 Where is the accountability on the staff?

00:48:41.500 Where is the accountability on the leadership to go, hey, if I catch you doing an assault,

00:48:45.740 this is what's happening to you.

00:48:46.600 You're out.

00:48:46.940 You're gone.

00:48:47.280 Your job is over.

00:48:49.060 And you're going to have a dishonorable discharge for sexually assaulting 0.68

00:48:52.040 someone.

00:48:52.360 Then you're going to get a criminal charge.

00:48:54.020 Why aren't we doing that?

00:48:55.020 Well, why do you think?

00:48:56.820 Because we already have no one.

00:48:58.560 And also, there's a lot of people that are old school that are still in, that are going

00:49:02.980 to cover.

00:49:04.020 Because, oh, what if a guy's like one year away from his pension, Kelsey?

00:49:07.720 Let's just let this one slide.

00:49:09.580 You don't want his family to not have any money, right?

00:49:11.420 You don't want his family to lose his pension.

00:49:12.880 You don't want them to have that name in the school, do you? 0.71

00:49:15.600 Like, it's a hypocrisy.

00:49:19.880 The service is filled with some of the best people that we have to offer.

00:49:26.260 And then it's filled also with some of the worst we have to offer.

00:49:29.300 Because it attracts A-type personality.

00:49:31.940 There's bad eggs in everything.

00:49:34.340 You know, with the police, yeah, there's some bad eggs.

00:49:36.100 But they're not all bad.

00:49:37.900 And that's kind of what's happening with the service.

00:49:39.780 Bad eggs.

00:49:40.520 Not all bad.

00:49:41.460 Removing funds.

00:49:42.540 What happens? 0.94

00:49:43.120 It's shittier people.

00:49:45.060 So it's happening in the police.

00:49:46.080 Now it's happening in the service.

00:49:47.160 And we already have one of the smallest armies.

00:49:49.980 So we're being bought and paid for by the CCP, left, right, and center,

00:49:54.000 approvable by CSIS on paper.

00:49:55.440 And then now we have weak borders, no military, no weapons,

00:50:00.900 running out of artillery rounds and giving how many billions of dollars

00:50:04.500 to somewhere else?

00:50:05.980 Why would you want to join the service?

00:50:09.340 You can be patriotic.

00:50:11.360 And I applaud that.

00:50:13.140 I have people come to me all the time.

00:50:14.120 My daughter's going to join.

00:50:15.060 Can you talk to her?

00:50:16.260 So I'm not going to talk anybody out of anything.

00:50:17.860 It's their path.

00:50:18.660 If they believe they need to go do it, they will go do it.

00:50:22.020 But at the same time, I'm sorry.

00:50:24.880 This is not the country I fought for.

00:50:28.400 So why do you think this is happening to the military in Canada?

00:50:31.740 So it's really easy to control people when they don't have somebody to stand up for them.

00:50:38.240 Look at the protest.

00:50:40.800 Okay?

00:50:41.620 So when our own police turned on people at the protest—

00:50:45.580 You mean the truckers' protest?

00:50:46.560 Yes.

00:50:46.860 So I was involved with that in BC.

00:50:48.920 Uh-huh.

00:50:49.160 And my parents are truck drivers.

00:50:51.280 Who do you think I'm going to support?

00:50:52.940 And also, my business was crashing because of them.

00:50:55.580 And I was losing everything that I had just built post-Army because of them.

00:50:58.540 You actually think that I'm going to stand for this?

00:51:00.640 And watching what I was witnessing?

00:51:02.060 Anybody in their right mind was not okay with this.

00:51:04.760 So I came out and I did a sign.

00:51:06.140 And I said, I stand with the protest.

00:51:07.820 And everything just went poof.

00:51:09.100 And I started talking to some friends.

00:51:11.760 And then next thing you know, we got like a leaked WhatsApp chat from the RCMP.

00:51:17.740 And it was like saying some really nasty stuff about how they were going to like take their jackboots to the protesters' face.

00:51:24.920 They were using Nazi comments.

00:51:26.940 They were doing some really nasty things.

00:51:28.880 And what I realized right there is, who is going to stop us when the police turn on us?

00:51:33.960 It's like, at least we have the service.

00:51:35.380 At least we have the veterans.

00:51:36.340 Like, it's not the military that's going to stop it because they're weak-minded at this point.

00:51:41.420 If you're a DEI, you know, believer in that service, I'm sorry, you're not.

00:51:46.500 If you believe in DEI for the Army or the Navy or the, maybe the Navy, but or the Air Force, I'm sorry, you've lost the plot.

00:51:56.560 You forgot why you joined.

00:51:57.940 You forgot what real war looks like. 0.58

00:51:59.580 You're delusional and you're going to cause harm.

00:52:02.260 People are not going to like that comment. 0.97

00:52:03.560 I'm going to get all the hate.

00:52:04.560 I don't care because that's the truth.

00:52:06.860 You're not a free thinker.

00:52:08.420 Your job, I get you've been told that you were supposed to follow in suit.

00:52:12.300 But there's also a point in your life when you come to a fork in a road and you go, do I believe this? 0.82

00:52:17.940 If you go, no, it's going to suck.

00:52:20.920 But you have to stick to what your truth is.

00:52:23.860 And mine is that behavior is not acceptable.

00:52:26.720 So who is going to stop us?

00:52:28.220 Well, it looks like the veterans because it's not the military.

00:52:30.060 Because the veterans are the ones that know what war is.

00:52:33.120 Because we've all been there for the past 20 plus years and now we're all rocking into it again.

00:52:37.900 The military doesn't look after its people, doesn't equip them properly, doesn't feed them properly, doesn't look after the families.

00:52:44.400 And puts you on an increasingly dangerous amount of pharmaceutical intervention instead of actually solving the problem.

00:52:52.160 So why would you serve?

00:52:53.640 I'm sorry.

00:52:55.000 Never again.

00:52:55.880 Not for Canada.

00:52:56.520 So what happened in Afghanistan?

00:53:00.720 You went to Afghanistan.

00:53:01.800 You were with the French unit.

00:53:02.880 I was with the French.

00:53:03.940 We went to FOB Ramrod.

00:53:05.480 And this was when?

00:53:06.200 So I went, so I got to Valkarchie in September.

00:53:09.940 We deployed in April of 2009.

00:53:11.820 2009.

00:53:12.180 Yes, 2009.

00:53:13.120 How old were you?

00:53:13.760 I was just turned 19.

00:53:16.300 And so we went, my Battery R Troop Alpha, we went to FOB Ramrod.

00:53:21.820 So they go two guns at a time.

00:53:23.140 So two gun troops, so we had two 777s and then two people, two, sorry, troops filled with enough people to run both those guns, the comms and the officers.

00:53:31.520 So we got dropped off there in the middle of the Maimon District.

00:53:33.940 It's just like a three kilometer FOB, really small, in the middle of nowhere.

00:53:37.780 And that was the first time I had been outside the wire and went, oh, there's people out here that want to kill me.

00:53:44.280 It was very shocking.

00:53:47.060 And immediately we transitioned with the other Canadians and we started right away.

00:53:51.540 And so we got to know some of the Americans.

00:53:55.340 The French didn't want the Americans on our side. 0.61

00:53:58.240 And the French wouldn't speak English to the Americans. 0.95

00:54:00.940 But I did.

00:54:02.580 So I wasn't chummy with everyone here because I couldn't really talk enough to have like full conversations.

00:54:09.360 So I started talking to the Americans.

00:54:10.460 And there's a lot of guys from Texas and from all over the place.

00:54:13.460 And it's wild because everyone thinks the military is racist, but it's like the most welcoming group of people I've ever met.

00:54:19.840 There's people from everywhere, all walks.

00:54:21.580 It was crazy.

00:54:23.040 And so that was great.

00:54:24.660 I loved the FOB.

00:54:25.720 When we were shooting, it's boring otherwise.

00:54:27.640 You're just working out or you're, you know.

00:54:29.540 You said love the.

00:54:30.720 The FOB.

00:54:31.520 Tell me FOB.

00:54:33.080 Ford Observation Base.

00:54:34.700 And so that's just where our little home was.

00:54:36.500 We had our tent.

00:54:37.280 That's where we slept.

00:54:38.020 That's where we shot guns.

00:54:38.720 How did you understand your mission?

00:54:41.800 Like what was it that you were getting there?

00:54:43.180 I wasn't given a mission set.

00:54:45.340 I wasn't given a mission set.

00:54:47.080 I was a gunner. 0.92

00:54:48.240 It was, you go here, you shoot the guns.

00:54:50.160 When you hear the fire mission, run to the gun. 0.79

00:54:52.900 Follow orders.

00:54:53.760 Right.

00:54:54.240 Yeah.

00:54:54.380 Right.

00:54:54.800 And the only other time is we would go up onto the OP Tower.

00:54:57.900 And that, we had a bunch of OP Towers.

00:54:59.980 And Canada's Tower was this one.

00:55:01.520 So it was our.

00:55:01.800 OP is.

00:55:03.260 It was, oh my gosh.

00:55:04.640 It was the something post.

00:55:06.600 It was observation post.

00:55:09.320 Holy brain.

00:55:09.880 Get it together.

00:55:10.540 We're going to get there.

00:55:12.080 And you would do four hour shifts with the machine guns.

00:55:15.440 And you would just watch.

00:55:17.440 That's what you did.

00:55:18.400 And then you do radio calls.

00:55:19.640 So I like to mess around with the Americans and do them in French. 1.00

00:55:22.280 Because it was just fun for me.

00:55:24.100 And then anytime there's a fire mission, you ran to the gun.

00:55:27.200 So that was like my life for a long time.

00:55:29.620 How long?

00:55:30.360 I think for that was like the first couple months.

00:55:32.560 And then after that, I got a call.

00:55:35.660 Well, a call came down to the tower and said, Kelsey, you need to come into the tent.

00:55:40.600 And I went into the tent.

00:55:41.720 And Sergeant LeBlanc was there.

00:55:42.940 And he said, hey, so there's about to be a big operation.

00:55:47.160 And the British need you to go with them. 0.99

00:55:49.480 I've told them no.

00:55:51.160 And I was like, hey, man, I want to be infantry.

00:55:53.120 Don't take my dream.

00:55:55.320 Let me go do this, Dad.

00:55:56.400 Like, I want to go do this.

00:55:57.600 Like, let me go live my life, you know?

00:55:59.380 And he goes, I don't want you going.

00:56:01.220 I said, why?

00:56:01.920 And he goes, because you don't understand.

00:56:04.600 He had deployed to Bosnia.

00:56:07.480 And he had deployed before.

00:56:09.060 And he had used his weapon in combat.

00:56:11.240 And that wasn't artillery, right?

00:56:12.680 So it was small arms.

00:56:13.660 And he's like, I don't want you going.

00:56:15.140 And I said, OK.

00:56:16.620 And he said, but they're not going to say no.

00:56:19.320 They're not letting you stay.

00:56:21.320 So what he did is he said, come with me.

00:56:22.960 And we went and got my rifle kind of sorted out.

00:56:25.400 He stripped his rifle down because he had deployed before he had all the Gucci kit.

00:56:29.480 And I just had this, like, old sight that doesn't work unless it's at, like, 400 kilometers.

00:56:34.560 It's not going to work for close combat at all.

00:56:36.960 Like, it's terrible.

00:56:38.140 And he got me, you know, the tack light and all the cool things and gave me all of his—

00:56:43.740 This is where it scared me a bit.

00:56:45.100 He emptied his vest and took all his extra mags and went, you're going to need these.

00:56:50.680 And he laid it out in front of me.

00:56:52.760 And it was a lot of magazines.

00:56:53.660 And I was like, you really think I'm going to need that?

00:56:56.000 He goes, mm-hmm.

00:56:57.680 I said, OK.

00:56:58.660 And then he took me to the little range we had there, and I zeroed my weapon.

00:57:02.300 And then he said, I'm going to come get you tomorrow.

00:57:04.320 So they were taking small arms fire on their way, and they couldn't come get me.

00:57:06.980 So they said, if they don't come tomorrow, you're not going.

00:57:09.400 So he was all happy.

00:57:11.240 They came.

00:57:11.980 They picked me up.

00:57:12.820 There was a bunch of Terps on there and a bunch of other individuals.

00:57:15.060 Terps is.

00:57:15.600 Interpreters.

00:57:16.140 Sorry.

00:57:16.540 Yeah.

00:57:17.080 And within that, there was just a bunch of random people on the Chinook.

00:57:21.100 You know, bits and pieces from all over different places of Afghanistan.

00:57:24.440 People go into the hospital, some interpreters, some of the military.

00:57:27.860 And they dropped me back off at CAF, which is the—it is essentially the massive base

00:57:32.800 within Kandahar where everyone flies in and out of.

00:57:34.820 If you hear about the Tim Hortons or the Pizza Hut, it's there.

00:57:38.240 And so that's where the British were. 0.94

00:57:40.440 And they dropped me off, and then they dropped me at the British gate.

00:57:43.320 And they said, here you go.

00:57:46.620 And I walked into the British, and I introduced myself.

00:57:48.840 I don't know how to read the ranks, so I don't know who I'm talking to.

00:57:52.320 They just have all different little, you know—we had chevrons at the time.

00:57:56.560 They had different stuff.

00:57:58.060 And so I must have been talking to someone high up.

00:58:00.540 And I think it was Commander Calhoun.

00:58:02.240 Commander?

00:58:02.780 No idea.

00:58:03.440 Didn't—just terrible.

00:58:05.420 And I said, hi, I'm going to work with you.

00:58:07.600 And they said, okay, you're going to be our female attache, so just female searcher. 1.00

00:58:10.960 You're going to come with us.

00:58:11.700 You're going to go see the RCMP here real quick.

00:58:14.720 They're going to tell you what you can and cannot do.

00:58:16.680 They're going to give you some zip ties and some gloves, and we'll come get you.

00:58:19.440 So I went to the RCMP.

00:58:20.660 They gave me a quick overview of what I could and could not do.

00:58:24.520 And what could you and could you not do?

00:58:27.560 I couldn't—so I could not put duct tape on them, but I could zip tie their hands. 0.79

00:58:33.260 I couldn't put them in certain positions.

00:58:35.160 I couldn't put a bag over, but I could tie their eyes. 0.97

00:58:38.060 If I was removing things from the women, they had to be set down in front of them, 1.00

00:58:41.280 so they could see that we weren't stealing it, that we were just removing it from them.

00:58:45.340 And then, you know, just pressure points I wasn't allowed to push.

00:58:48.320 I said, okay.

00:58:49.020 And then I got gloves and a bunch of zip ties.

00:58:51.380 And then I went back to the British, and they said, okay, we're going out tonight at

00:58:54.140 one o'clock in the morning, and this is what we're going to do.

00:58:57.080 You're going to go from house to house to house to house, and anytime there's women, 1.00

00:59:00.460 we're going to call you.

00:59:01.480 And you're going to follow that guy right there with the bomb dog.

00:59:03.700 He's got a black lab named Benji, and you're going to follow him everywhere he goes. 0.94

00:59:06.400 Don't lose him.

00:59:07.040 He's with you the whole time.

00:59:08.440 I said, okay.

00:59:09.420 And then they said, you can go sleep.

00:59:12.120 And I said, I don't think I can.

00:59:14.140 And then we set off in a little school bus over to the airfield and then hopped on a Chinook,

00:59:19.420 and I sat on the floor, which was a bad idea.

00:59:22.100 And then people stacked around me, and then we took off, and we went out.

00:59:27.020 It was the first time I used, like, NVGs, so nods to see at night and all of that,

00:59:32.400 so that was interesting.

00:59:33.860 And that was about it.

00:59:35.380 To be honest, that's all I got told.

00:59:36.720 And then we went out on foot, and we had a hot LZ, and we landed.

00:59:41.140 What's that?

00:59:41.540 Yep.

00:59:41.880 So we—I'm going to get—I'm so sorry.

00:59:43.860 No problem.

00:59:45.100 We were taking some small arms fire when we came in, and they dropped us off really quick.

00:59:48.960 Problem was, people were sitting on my legs, so I couldn't feel them.

00:59:52.780 So when they—I stood up, my legs—I went to run, they gave out.

00:59:56.020 And so a British—a Scottish guy just grabbed the back of my vest like this and did one of these 0.99

00:59:59.260 and just kicked me in the butt. 1.00

01:00:00.620 And it was like, aye, off you go. 1.00

01:00:02.520 And I was like, here we go.

01:00:04.460 And so we went out, and then we waited until morning prayer.

01:00:07.660 Because of the respect we have, we wait until they're done their morning prayers,

01:00:11.960 then we kick their door in.

01:00:13.820 And then I was told they're not going to use me.

01:00:17.280 Oh, you know, Burns, we haven't had people, women and kids around a lot.

01:00:20.880 They've been leaving.

01:00:22.000 I said, okay.

01:00:22.960 They told me we're going to be out there a week.

01:00:24.180 I was like, okay.

01:00:25.380 First house.

01:00:25.900 We need her.

01:00:28.840 And I go.

01:00:29.880 And it was my first experience of what 12 women and kids screaming and crying in a room by myself looks like.

01:00:35.160 And that was a—being a mom now, I really wrestle with some of that stuff.

01:00:41.380 I didn't then.

01:00:42.160 I had no reference point.

01:00:44.360 But being a mom now, I really wrestle with that.

01:00:46.480 Wrestle with what?

01:00:47.260 Kicking people's door in the middle of the night with your baby screaming and terrified.

01:00:53.720 The level of trauma I've left in that country and the women and kids I encountered. 1.00

01:01:00.600 What were you looking for?

01:01:02.240 All we were told is we were looking for caches.

01:01:05.100 You know, weapons, a lot of money, anything that would indicate people were working with the Taliban

01:01:09.920 or anywhere near sort of IED, which are improvised explosive devices, any of those farms.

01:01:15.160 And that's all I was told.

01:01:17.220 And so if I were to find big wads of money or I would have found cell phones and any of those things,

01:01:21.620 I would like bring them to them like, okay, this is what I found, who I found it on.

01:01:25.320 And so—

01:01:25.720 Did you?

01:01:26.340 Yeah.

01:01:27.020 Yeah, we found a lot.

01:01:28.260 They hid stuff in women because they didn't think I'd be there to search them. 1.00

01:01:31.760 And so we—

01:01:32.460 So does that help you reconcile yourself to what you did?

01:01:37.280 No.

01:01:38.020 Why not?

01:01:40.600 Because I still did the thing.

01:01:42.480 I still inflicted the trauma.

01:01:44.480 It was still a part of the pain.

01:01:45.540 It doesn't erase it.

01:01:47.880 It's there, though.

01:01:50.300 So it's an uncomfortable feeling.

01:01:51.980 Something I've definitely worked on a lot, but it's definitely there.

01:01:55.420 Like, kick my door in the middle of the night.

01:01:58.220 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:01:58.900 You know what I mean?

01:01:59.500 It's very immediate, hey?

01:02:00.580 What you're involved in is very immediate.

01:02:02.320 And it's like, bang.

01:02:03.580 It's just like screaming and madness and chaos.

01:02:08.160 And it's right after they're praying.

01:02:11.780 It's just dirty.

01:02:13.320 It feels dirty.

01:02:14.120 Like, I get why.

01:02:15.220 Like, don't get me wrong.

01:02:16.180 I'm not saying, like, we shouldn't have done it that way.

01:02:17.900 But, like, shock and awe is how you don't get killed, right?

01:02:20.300 It's like my buddy used to say to me.

01:02:21.980 I'd be like, how did you guys, like, how did we lose so many more people than the SF?

01:02:24.940 He's like, we move at night.

01:02:27.500 We're quiet.

01:02:29.120 We get the job done and we leave.

01:02:31.840 Conventional forces, we roll out at the same time every day.

01:02:34.780 We go down the same road every day.

01:02:36.820 You know, we're sitting ducks.

01:02:37.900 It's different.

01:02:38.400 So anyway, so you got to be quick and you got to be shock and awe a bit, right?

01:02:41.660 So that's the tactic.

01:02:43.440 And so we started doing that for a while.

01:02:45.880 And that was going okay.

01:02:47.700 I had a couple scuffles with men in the family thinking I was a boy going into a room.

01:02:52.720 So we dealt with that a little bit, which is always fun.

01:02:55.240 The interpreters didn't like that I was there.

01:02:56.900 There's not a lot of respect for women, especially a female soldier. 1.00

01:02:59.720 So that was an interesting relationship to kind of work around, if you will.

01:03:05.920 And then we had a couple of situations.

01:03:08.560 So situations, wow.

01:03:10.040 So that's an additional difficulty of being female in the armed forces in those countries. 1.00

01:03:16.980 Yeah, absolutely.

01:03:17.660 Because if you're fighting a country that has little to no respect for women, by and large, across the board, depending on your level of extremism.

01:03:25.440 Yeah.

01:03:25.680 You know, you're going to be dealing with a different trust issue, right?

01:03:30.900 Yes.

01:03:31.180 Well, I would imagine that you're particularly hated, too.

01:03:34.100 Oh, yeah.

01:03:34.760 You could feel it.

01:03:35.580 Oh, yeah.

01:03:35.860 It like burns through you.

01:03:37.060 Yeah, yeah, I bet.

01:03:38.340 Yeah, you can feel that.

01:03:39.380 But that's okay.

01:03:39.860 I equally hated them just as much.

01:03:41.240 And I made sure they knew it.

01:03:42.740 Mm-hmm.

01:03:43.060 So, again, this is where that masculine side switched on and there was no feminine left. 0.52

01:03:49.560 And so, within a couple days of being out on our on-foot operation, I was with—

01:03:55.360 Yeah, except you said that it bothers you now that you're a mother.

01:03:58.400 It does bother me.

01:03:59.200 I mean, I think it should bother anyone.

01:04:01.280 You're a human being.

01:04:01.400 I'm not disputing that.

01:04:02.500 Oh, no, for sure.

01:04:03.220 I just think that feels natural to me.

01:04:04.720 I feel like if I were to say, oh, I had no problem with what I did to those women and

01:04:09.180 kids.

01:04:09.580 Yeah.

01:04:10.000 I think that would be slightly sociopathic.

01:04:13.160 Yeah, right.

01:04:13.740 And I consider myself a painful empathy, like, for a lot of people, especially, you know,

01:04:22.100 post-psychedelics and really opening and doing work on myself.

01:04:25.340 That kind of shell and heaviness isn't there anymore.

01:04:27.620 That, like, need to protect my heart is not there anymore.

01:04:31.220 Now it's, like, ugh, painful all the time.

01:04:35.200 Like, right before we came here, there was a woman at lunch just yelling at her child.

01:04:38.140 And I could see that she was stressed, but it was, like, watching the child take it,

01:04:43.540 oh, I just, ugh.

01:04:46.080 I stopped eating.

01:04:46.960 I felt nauseous.

01:04:48.340 Like, I'm painfully empathetic now, and it's almost a—I almost wish it was a bit the other

01:04:52.720 way.

01:04:53.860 It's easier.

01:04:53.980 How much of that do you think is a consequence of becoming a mother? 1.00

01:04:59.480 I mean, that's a big change.

01:05:01.040 Oh, yeah.

01:05:02.320 I don't think it's as much as I thought it would be.

01:05:04.420 Because when I had my son, I wasn't well yet.

01:05:08.360 So there was still that hardened part there.

01:05:11.240 And thank God it happened so early, where he couldn't remember what I was like.

01:05:16.300 He gets to see happy mommy now.

01:05:18.400 He doesn't see mommy crying on the stairs like he did when he was two and three, right?

01:05:22.460 So how long did you search?

01:05:24.620 We only did a week.

01:05:26.340 We did a full week of just non-stop.

01:05:29.500 And because it was non-stop, I went from Alpha Bravo Charlie, and I was shifted between

01:05:35.960 every single unit.

01:05:37.960 So if they were kicking a door, there was a woman, okay, then I would go over there. 1.00

01:05:41.860 And then if they—they would kick and wait, and then they would go, okay, wait, we got

01:05:45.100 women and kids. 1.00

01:05:45.580 They'd put them in a room, and then they would wait for me to come over here.

01:05:47.540 And then I would search over here, and it'd be the same sort of thing over here.

01:05:50.520 There's not many of us.

01:05:52.460 So you're used a lot.

01:05:54.780 And so—

01:05:55.480 How did you get along with the Brits?

01:05:56.840 I love them.

01:05:57.760 How come?

01:05:58.240 They didn't question me.

01:06:01.160 They didn't make me feel like I needed to prove myself.

01:06:03.740 I was handed to them, and they said, do you know what you're doing?

01:06:08.900 And I said, probably better than some of you.

01:06:11.580 And because I immediately fired back and didn't just cower into my shell, they're like,

01:06:16.160 oh, she's lippy, is she? 0.90

01:06:18.040 And then they started calling me the C word in a good way. 1.00

01:06:20.700 And I was excited about that, because I was like, oh, I'm starting to be one of these

01:06:23.820 people.

01:06:24.360 Okay.

01:06:24.640 Okay, I can do this.

01:06:27.100 And then—

01:06:27.460 You're still only about 19 at this time?

01:06:29.400 Yeah, I was 19 the whole time.

01:06:30.920 Yeah.

01:06:32.380 Yeah.

01:06:33.320 And it was just—they respected me.

01:06:34.880 If I said stop, everyone stopped.

01:06:38.000 They weren't like, oh, why should we stop?

01:06:40.340 They were like, stop.

01:06:42.180 Burns said stop.

01:06:43.780 Something felt wrong.

01:06:45.540 And so they respected me.

01:06:46.800 And so I got on with them just fine.

01:06:49.000 And it was really lovely.

01:06:49.820 You know, I had South Africans, English, Irish, who else did it, Fijians. 1.00

01:06:56.720 And they were just this amazing, eclectic group of people.

01:06:59.740 And they all just were good with me there.

01:07:02.680 There was no questioning it at all.

01:07:04.040 No one was weird.

01:07:04.840 No one pulled any sexual stuff.

01:07:06.740 No one said anything offside that I considered offside.

01:07:10.740 It was a really respectful relationship, and I liked it.

01:07:13.660 So when they respected me, I was happy to be there.

01:07:16.040 And so we were out, and we were all on hold.

01:07:21.500 There was a road to clear.

01:07:24.120 And I had my back up against a wall, and on the right-hand side, there was a road,

01:07:29.740 and then there was another compound, and then they had a second story on that.

01:07:33.160 So we put a sniper up on the roof and a spotter over there,

01:07:35.340 and we had some guys over here waiting.

01:07:37.100 Then we had all of us up against the wall, and we had an interpreter beside me.

01:07:39.840 And then just down the road, there was a road, and it kind of went from a big open field on the

01:07:46.200 right-hand side, and then off the road was like a deep ditch, but it was like super green in that

01:07:50.560 ditch, like really tall trees.

01:07:52.620 People don't think Afghan is like really green, but it shockingly is. 1.00

01:07:56.400 And then at the end of it, there was this massive grape hut, and they're like,

01:07:58.940 okay, we want to clear that before we go down this road.

01:08:01.780 What did you call it?

01:08:02.560 A grape hut.

01:08:03.380 You watched that?

01:08:03.820 So essentially, it's like a mud hut with a bunch of holes in it.

01:08:06.500 So if you hang things through it, it aerates, so it'll dry things in there.

01:08:10.160 I see.

01:08:10.780 And so we sent two guys out, and one had a metal detector, and one was a machine gunner,

01:08:17.260 and he was just going to watch his back.

01:08:18.820 And so everyone's kind of watching this massive open area, and it got weirdly quiet.

01:08:25.060 And that's never a comfortable feeling.

01:08:28.240 And so we're just sitting there hanging out, and I actually have a photo right before it.

01:08:31.700 Somebody took a photo of me, and I'm smiling like this.

01:08:33.520 It's like one of my only photos from outside the wire.

01:08:36.560 And next thing you know, you just heard this like, boom, and the whole ground just like moved,

01:08:46.820 and I whipped my head to the left.

01:08:49.260 And you saw one of our guys, what was left of him just, boom.

01:08:57.140 And my eyes-

01:08:57.980 This was the guy with the metal detector and the machine gunner?

01:09:00.680 Yeah, the machine gunner was sitting at the door, so the blast hit him to the left side.

01:09:05.340 And it ripped his kid off, shredded his arm down his body, took his whole helmet.

01:09:10.500 I didn't understand how that happened, but everything was off of his body.

01:09:14.720 That's Velcroed on and clicked in.

01:09:16.900 And I didn't understand, like, what I just witnessed, I couldn't understand.

01:09:21.060 I can't stress to you how foreign, I didn't, there was no, like, I didn't get it.

01:09:27.320 I didn't realize what I was seeing.

01:09:28.840 And to the left of me, all you heard was the ICOM radio, which is this radio that the interpreters have. 0.66

01:09:38.400 When it's really clear, we can hear the Taliban, right? 0.95

01:09:41.260 That's how we kind of, like, wiretap the Taliban. 0.87

01:09:43.900 And so when it got really clear, they were close.

01:09:46.880 The signal was good.

01:09:48.120 And it was crystal clear.

01:09:49.400 Because they like to watch, right?

01:09:50.820 They like to watch you blow up, videotape it, and use it for propaganda.

01:09:55.140 And they're always watching, and we know that.

01:09:57.400 And so they did it, and all you hear is,

01:09:59.060 and I, like, I'll remember that to the day I die.

01:10:03.860 And, like, the level of rage that I did not know that could exist in a human being

01:10:09.640 just overtook my entire body.

01:10:11.600 And I looked over at Buchanan, and I said, we need to run.

01:10:16.660 And he goes, wait.

01:10:18.660 And they all had radios.

01:10:19.840 I didn't have radios.

01:10:20.640 So I could just hear people screaming over radios.

01:10:22.980 And the next thing you know, it just got chaotic quick.

01:10:28.020 They're like, okay, go, go, go, go, go, go.

01:10:30.560 Like, I'm not supposed to be in this position.

01:10:32.120 This is not my job.

01:10:32.980 I don't know the hell I'm doing.

01:10:34.020 I'm just being doing what I'm told.

01:10:35.820 Run, run, got it, autopilot on.

01:10:39.240 So we jump down, and we start running.

01:10:41.780 And I'm over with the medic.

01:10:43.560 And one of the guys comes, he comes, the machine gunner comes running down.

01:10:47.240 And he's like, I got him.

01:10:48.720 Like, he's taping him up.

01:10:49.760 And he's just saying, where's so-and-so?

01:10:51.600 Where's so-and-so?

01:10:52.440 And he's kind of, like, right out of it.

01:10:54.440 And he just, like, hits him with morphine.

01:10:55.800 And they get him off.

01:10:56.660 And they're like, go.

01:10:57.720 And so we start jumping into that ditch that hadn't been cleared.

01:11:00.820 And we just start running.

01:11:02.920 And the only way I can describe it is if you listen to a movie.

01:11:06.460 And it's, like, a slow motion.

01:11:08.380 And you're in that black tunnel.

01:11:09.860 And it's just, like, all you can hear is, like,

01:11:11.160 and you're running and running.

01:11:14.720 And you can't go, like, fast.

01:11:18.720 And I'm running with—I had, like, 60 pounds of kid on me at the time.

01:11:22.820 Like, a gazelle.

01:11:24.440 Like, I'm just sprinting as fast as I can.

01:11:26.480 We get to the road.

01:11:27.300 And they're, like, on three run.

01:11:28.360 And we're, like, one, two, three.

01:11:29.180 And we run across the road.

01:11:30.160 And we walk in.

01:11:32.700 And there's some other guys that are in there.

01:11:34.380 And they look around.

01:11:35.140 And I look around.

01:11:35.840 And this, it's, like, I hate that I said it.

01:11:39.720 But I was just kind of, like, where is he?

01:11:42.620 Because I literally had no idea what just happened.

01:11:45.360 And they're, like, what's left is left.

01:11:47.520 Start grabbing things.

01:11:49.900 And I didn't have gloves on at the time.

01:11:51.600 So we started with evidence bags just putting body pieces into bags.

01:11:56.120 It was over and over.

01:11:57.160 And I was grabbing the walls.

01:11:57.560 This was the man with the metal detector?

01:11:59.780 Yeah, what was left of him.

01:12:01.440 And so we're doing that.

01:12:04.520 And then there was a boot.

01:12:06.880 He must have, like, hit it with his foot or the metal detector.

01:12:09.200 But there was a big improvised explosive device at the back end of that grape hut.

01:12:13.720 And he must have hit it.

01:12:14.580 And it set it off.

01:12:15.880 And so his boot was still in there with part of his leg.

01:12:18.300 But it was laced up.

01:12:19.960 And dark humor.

01:12:23.840 Boot's okay.

01:12:27.100 And one of my buddies just tapped me on the shoulder.

01:12:29.120 And he's, like, boy, burns.

01:12:31.980 Good.

01:12:33.060 And that was, like, the moment I felt, like, a dissociation happen.

01:12:36.480 I called the light switch, which was, like, we're done now.

01:12:39.820 Bye.

01:12:42.900 And I became the version of myself I was for a decade after that.

01:12:47.120 You called that moral injury.

01:12:49.100 Yeah.

01:12:49.660 That was a good time.

01:12:50.480 And so we're collecting everything.

01:12:53.580 And next thing you know, all hell breaks loose.

01:12:55.160 So if you know anything about the Taliban or terrorists, they love a good secondary device.

01:13:01.300 And so they wait till everyone rushes in.

01:13:03.640 And then they hit you again.

01:13:05.440 And they did that.

01:13:06.220 So next thing you know, mortars are—I know how inaccurate those things can be.

01:13:09.360 So when I hear them coming down, I'm like, oh, we got problems.

01:13:13.340 And so they start just sending mortars.

01:13:15.460 And our guys are, like, sending mortars to try to deter the Taliban that are on the line coming in. 0.99

01:13:20.420 And we're getting—taking small arms fire.

01:13:22.400 And they call in the Pedro flights, which are the two Blackhawks.

01:13:25.180 One's going to come in, and it's going to pick up the dead and the hurt.

01:13:28.620 And the other's going to lay down hell.

01:13:31.080 And so they come in.

01:13:32.880 And I don't—this is just chaos.

01:13:34.860 They go, okay, you need to—whatever you have in your pocket's good.

01:13:38.940 Take your weapon, sling it.

01:13:40.380 Grab his weapon, put it on, and then take both helmets.

01:13:43.260 So I do that, and we start running.

01:13:45.980 And we're just running down this road that hadn't been cleared, just going through open fire.

01:13:49.920 And it was the first time I'd experienced, like, the whiz and the pop really close.

01:13:54.400 And then we tripped, and we dropped him what was left.

01:13:57.800 And then we had to put them all back in while this was going on.

01:14:00.060 And the next thing you know, the Blackhawks show up.

01:14:02.100 And it was—

01:14:04.860 It was—it was—I just didn't want to die.

01:14:08.280 And they came through, and one landed.

01:14:12.180 And the one guy was just like, where is he?

01:14:14.540 Where is he?

01:14:14.980 And everyone's like, oh, we got him, mate.

01:14:16.460 We got him.

01:14:17.040 We got him.

01:14:17.540 It's all good.

01:14:18.120 It's all good. 0.99

01:14:18.920 Hit him with morphine.

01:14:19.700 And meanwhile, he's covered up right beside him what's left with a tarp.

01:14:24.540 And they're just like, oh, he's on the next flight.

01:14:26.100 Like, he's good.

01:14:26.800 Like, just don't—don't get him any more stress.

01:14:30.100 And so this other one comes through and—

01:14:32.440 This was the machine gunner.

01:14:33.480 Yeah, the machine gunner.

01:14:35.000 And the other Blackhawk takes off.

01:14:36.820 And just—we get back, and I'm covered in blood.

01:14:41.400 And I'm taking off all the kit and putting it on there.

01:14:43.720 And the machine—the guy on the Blackhawk comes through and just like—

01:14:46.960 Just like lays down like living hell.

01:14:50.420 And I can't tell you how good that felt.

01:14:52.620 Like, I felt that in my bones.

01:14:53.980 I was like, more, harder, do it again.

01:14:56.560 And after that, I just lost all sense of empathy. 1.00

01:15:01.180 And I just wanted to kill them all. 1.00

01:15:03.520 And I hate that. 1.00

01:15:04.640 I say that.

01:15:05.340 But I did.

01:15:06.200 And I don't apologize for it either.

01:15:09.840 And then I started to—the medic caught on.

01:15:16.120 I'm still good friends with him.

01:15:17.100 The trauma that you experienced, to what degree do you think that was a consequence of the mayhem that you saw?

01:15:25.100 And to what degree do you think it was a consequence of that hatred?

01:15:28.080 I think it was—I think—because there was a lot of other things that happened on that one that really compounded it aggressively.

01:15:36.200 But I think it was more the shock to the system of watching someone die the way I did.

01:15:42.180 And then the hatred came in secondary to really compound, like, just the pain of it all.

01:15:47.160 Yeah, well, that's a real transformation of personality.

01:15:49.660 Yeah.

01:15:50.280 Yeah.

01:15:50.560 It was not—I got quiet.

01:15:53.440 That's how everyone caught on.

01:15:54.880 I just stopped talking.

01:15:56.300 I stopped eating.

01:15:57.180 I stopped sleeping.

01:15:58.080 But when we came back to the—when we were getting everyone out, right before we kicked off again, I started obsessively rubbing my hands.

01:16:05.700 Like, like this.

01:16:08.200 And, like, trying to get the blood off.

01:16:10.960 And until this day, it's with 2024, I still don't touch raw meat with bare hands.

01:16:16.740 I eat meat.

01:16:17.440 I eat predominantly only meat.

01:16:18.840 But I don't touch it.

01:16:21.160 I can't touch it.

01:16:22.800 I haven't gone hunting yet because of it.

01:16:24.300 I'm really bummed about it.

01:16:26.200 Yeah.

01:16:27.320 We're working on that one.

01:16:28.480 That's my last bugaboo.

01:16:31.680 Yeah.

01:16:32.520 Yeah.

01:16:32.920 Because I didn't have gloves when I was grabbing him.

01:16:37.320 So that was uncomfortable.

01:16:39.540 Yeah.

01:16:39.920 I think that's fair to say.

01:16:41.340 Yeah.

01:16:42.300 Yeah.

01:16:42.920 So I make jokes about it now because it's how I cope.

01:16:44.820 So what happened to you after that?

01:16:49.420 So we pushed off.

01:16:51.660 And we just kept going.

01:16:54.020 And then I don't know if it was the next day or that same day because everything started to become a blur after that.

01:16:58.980 But we just started getting hit.

01:17:01.660 Every time we walked somewhere, every time we moved, we were just taking it.

01:17:05.160 Small arms fire, mortar fire.

01:17:06.200 We were just getting clapped constantly.

01:17:08.020 They were everywhere.

01:17:08.780 And so I got put in a weird situation again.

01:17:13.340 I was with one of the troops.

01:17:16.000 I was with Stephen Noble's guys.

01:17:20.640 And we were walking into a smaller village.

01:17:25.180 And there was screaming up ahead in a compound.

01:17:27.500 It was like women. 1.00

01:17:29.120 And whether it was like a target or whether it was a setup or whatever that pulled us there, he says, we pushed into this compound.

01:17:37.080 Like, get on the roof. 0.98

01:17:39.160 I was like, let's fucking go. 0.96

01:17:41.760 Like, now it's my turn, right? 0.97

01:17:43.900 So they lift me up because I can't get on that roof.

01:17:46.460 They lift me up onto the roof.

01:17:47.580 And there's another guy to the right of me.

01:17:48.620 And then there's me, and then there's a sharpshooter right beside me to the left-hand side, which is like a sniper.

01:17:52.880 But the Brits call them sharpshooters, not quite snipers.

01:17:55.300 And another guy there.

01:17:56.720 And we are just laying down hell.

01:18:00.760 Like, I'm feeling nothing.

01:18:02.260 We're just laying down hell.

01:18:05.160 And the sharpshooter goes, I'm out of ammo.

01:18:08.020 I got to jump down.

01:18:09.440 His rifle, and I'll show you a picture of it, is the length of my body when I stand up.

01:18:13.820 From buttstock to end of barrel.

01:18:16.020 So I'm laying down rounds.

01:18:17.540 He jumps down.

01:18:18.740 As he jumps down on the left-hand side, we get flanked.

01:18:21.700 And three rounds go do-do-do-do. 0.86

01:18:24.380 Hit his buttstock. 0.89

01:18:26.180 Protects my hip. 0.95

01:18:27.440 And just misses me.

01:18:29.800 So after we're done the firefight, we jump down.

01:18:31.720 And he pulls out the rifle.

01:18:32.940 And he pulls out the casing.

01:18:34.180 And I was like, tell me that's mine.

01:18:36.060 He's like, no chance.

01:18:37.220 He's going to have a picture of it, though.

01:18:38.360 And I was like, that was my hip.

01:18:39.520 And he's like, yep, it was.

01:18:40.920 So if he was there, it would have went through him, would have hit the buttstock, and hopefully

01:18:45.780 would have stopped.

01:18:46.840 But because he wasn't there, it hit the buttstock, and it took enough of it that it stopped it.

01:18:50.460 So I was very fortunate in that situation.

01:18:53.240 And then after that, I started having—we started just—the next compound we went to,

01:18:59.500 I was searching a group of women. 1.00

01:19:00.740 And there was a particularly combative set of women here. 1.00

01:19:05.840 We had known at the point that this was home of the Taliban.

01:19:09.540 Like, we had—we knew somebody there.

01:19:11.140 We knew that they were Taliban.

01:19:12.040 Like, we knew that.

01:19:13.120 And so when I was searching some of the women, they chew—there's a drug they chew there, 1.00

01:19:18.040 right?

01:19:18.260 And it makes them really disoriented, and it's really hard to search them.

01:19:21.700 While I'm searching one of them, one of them comes at me with those, like, shears.

01:19:27.340 Yeah, just one of these.

01:19:29.060 And I just—I don't—I wasn't issued a small arms, like a handgun at all, which makes

01:19:36.320 no sense.

01:19:38.120 And my barrel is this long, so I'm not getting that in between us.

01:19:42.260 So I just kind of do this, and just kind of knock her down so she's down.

01:19:47.040 So at least then she's diffused, and it was fine.

01:19:49.760 But then after that, what happened was I got really just angry with all of them.

01:19:56.180 So I started—instead of taking something from them and setting it down,

01:19:58.920 it just was out the window, out the door.

01:20:01.700 There was no respect anymore.

01:20:02.860 There was like, I don't care if they're in prayer.

01:20:04.140 Kick the door in.

01:20:04.760 Let's go.

01:20:05.380 I'm not waiting for this.

01:20:06.400 We got places to be.

01:20:07.880 And you could just see it just get worse and worse and worse.

01:20:10.980 And we were just in firefight after firefight after firefight.

01:20:13.180 Then our other guys got hit.

01:20:14.320 Then we lost two interpreters.

01:20:15.800 Then we had one of the other females there. 1.00

01:20:17.580 She was a mess because she was in right behind. 1.00

01:20:19.200 So now we had to get them out.

01:20:20.460 And it was just this—it was this really, really, really terrible operation that just

01:20:26.800 didn't go well.

01:20:28.760 And all of those guys I was with, I bonded with.

01:20:32.580 And they were talking to me, checking on me, and listening to me.

01:20:37.400 Or just sitting still because they knew I was not doing great.

01:20:40.260 And then we got back to CAF.

01:20:43.860 We finished the operation.

01:20:45.120 They picked us up.

01:20:45.900 We got back to CAF.

01:20:47.500 And they said, see you later.

01:20:49.680 And I went back to the Canadians. 0.99

01:20:52.640 And I was told by a captain that—

01:20:54.880 How long was that period of time?

01:20:56.400 About a week.

01:20:57.700 I think it was—I have the exact time stamp.

01:21:00.280 It was—I believe it was the 9th at 0100.

01:21:05.000 And then we got pulled out at 2.15 a.m. on the 15th.

01:21:13.880 And I went back to the Canadians. 0.99

01:21:17.880 And I was told right away to just not talk about anything that happened because no one's

01:21:20.760 going to believe me anyway.

01:21:23.320 And then I went back out to the FOB.

01:21:25.700 And I almost pulled the trigger on a kid because when I was doing the tower, the little girl

01:21:31.660 that came outside the FOB all the time, she would wave.

01:21:34.140 But this time, I didn't see a wave.

01:21:36.520 I saw a gun.

01:21:38.840 And I racked around.

01:21:40.520 And the guy beside me was like, yes, girl.

01:21:43.060 Like, what are we doing?

01:21:46.480 And I just looked at him.

01:21:47.760 And I was like, what?

01:21:48.640 And he was like, no.

01:21:50.360 And I ran off the tower.

01:21:52.000 And I went into—and I told my sergeant, I said, something's wrong.

01:21:54.560 Something's wrong.

01:21:56.580 And they said, okay.

01:21:57.880 And then they sent me back to CAF.

01:21:59.980 And then they sent me to the doctor.

01:22:01.540 And they said, we're seeing signs of acute post-traumatic stress disorder.

01:22:08.260 We're going to put you on these pills.

01:22:10.240 Because I stopped sleeping.

01:22:11.620 I stopped eating.

01:22:12.900 I did that.

01:22:14.340 What did they put you on?

01:22:16.000 I have a list, but there's 11.

01:22:18.540 Okay.

01:22:19.220 I have a list, though.

01:22:20.040 So there's 11s.

01:22:20.920 Uppers, you know, sleep meds, antidepressants, any anxiety, you name it.

01:22:25.220 It's just those types of medication.

01:22:27.160 Got it.

01:22:27.420 Yep.

01:22:27.940 And then they said, okay, go on your HLTA, which is your holiday.

01:22:32.220 So I went to Dominican Republic with my mom for three weeks.

01:22:35.840 And in that time frame, we lost more Canadians than I was with.

01:22:38.820 And I was angry.

01:22:39.840 And I drank.

01:22:40.740 And I was not fun to be around.

01:22:43.820 And I just wanted to go back.

01:22:45.620 And I went back.

01:22:46.880 I went back out to the FOB.

01:22:50.240 Told an officer off.

01:22:51.560 And they sent me back to CAF again.

01:22:55.780 And they're like, oh, don't worry.

01:22:56.660 Don't worry about your stuff.

01:22:57.500 You're coming back.

01:22:58.120 Don't worry about it.

01:22:58.960 So I left all my stuff at the FOB.

01:23:02.080 And they brought me back to the doctor.

01:23:04.440 And they're like, this is getting worse.

01:23:05.840 And then they sent me to the QM, which is quartermasters, where you get, like, your inventory stuff.

01:23:12.100 And they made me start counting pens.

01:23:13.520 And then my braid wasn't good enough.

01:23:19.140 So an officer, a warrant officer, yelled at me.

01:23:21.380 And then I unleashed living hell.

01:23:24.440 And I was told I had to go back to the doctors.

01:23:28.800 And I did.

01:23:29.240 And they said, you're going home in three weeks.

01:23:31.000 So I went home three weeks earlier before the rest of my gun troop.

01:23:34.040 And I never saw the British again. 0.95

01:23:35.320 And I never saw my unit again.

01:23:38.220 And then I got back to my unit in Quebec before everyone else.

01:23:41.040 And they told me I was going to the hospital.

01:23:42.460 And see you later.

01:23:43.840 And then I went to the hospital in Ottawa.

01:23:46.100 And then I was there until they deemed me acceptable to try to retrain at the Connaught Range.

01:23:52.300 And it didn't go well.

01:23:54.600 Because I was working on a range.

01:23:57.700 And then they decided they were going to med board me out in 2011.

01:24:01.300 So I got med boarded out with severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

01:24:04.120 And an undiagnosed traumatic brain injury.

01:24:07.200 And what was the traumatic brain injury from?

01:24:09.860 How was that acquired?

01:24:10.660 So what we understand now about machine guns, Carl Gustav's, artillery rounds.

01:24:16.880 The concussive blast off of one round will give brain damage.

01:24:20.700 And I did a lot of that.

01:24:23.420 Right.

01:24:23.700 Because we have 11 of the same 13 symptoms, right?

01:24:29.320 So my TBI was actually a big contributing factor to why I wasn't healing.

01:24:33.460 But we weren't treating it because we didn't pay attention to it.

01:24:36.800 Right.

01:24:37.240 Because it wasn't written down.

01:24:38.660 Right.

01:24:38.900 And what kind of care did you receive when you got back to Canada?

01:24:42.540 A social worker, I found out recently.

01:24:45.960 I had a social worker at Ottawa who was trying to work with me.

01:24:48.560 They tried to do hypnosis.

01:24:49.720 They did EMDR.

01:24:50.560 They did medication.

01:24:51.480 They did exposure therapy.

01:24:53.260 We did all those things.

01:24:54.200 And it just got worse.

01:24:55.980 And then the medication increased.

01:24:58.080 And then I moved to British Columbia with my now husband.

01:25:01.140 And I was given to the Operational Stress Injury Clinic in Vancouver, which is an okay place.

01:25:05.820 But luckily, Dr. Passy was there.

01:25:08.440 And he was given.

01:25:09.680 I was given to him.

01:25:11.320 And he was the gentleman that you mentioned earlier?

01:25:13.280 Psychiatrist, yeah.

01:25:13.820 Yeah.

01:25:14.340 And he was helpful.

01:25:15.640 Yeah, I still work with him weekly.

01:25:16.800 Why was he helpful?

01:25:18.460 What did he do right?

01:25:21.880 He had walked the walk, so I know he understood.

01:25:24.700 So I didn't have to explain myself to him.

01:25:26.520 Mm-hmm.

01:25:27.440 And he gave me the space and didn't tell me I was broken.

01:25:31.320 He said, I see this all the time.

01:25:33.080 You're going to be fine, kid.

01:25:34.420 Mm-hmm.

01:25:35.360 Just give me time.

01:25:36.640 And I said, okay.

01:25:38.700 And the idea of being the only suicide he ever had would haunt.

01:25:44.540 I couldn't do that.

01:25:46.640 I didn't live because of me or wanting to be here.

01:25:50.600 I lived because I had an obligation to others.

01:25:53.400 Mm-hmm.

01:25:53.920 And so—

01:25:54.800 Who?

01:25:55.020 My now husband I've been with for 14 years.

01:25:58.100 Mm-hmm.

01:25:58.500 I met him right before deployment.

01:26:00.440 Mm-hmm.

01:26:00.840 And then I moved out to the sea.

01:26:01.380 You're right about that.

01:26:02.300 Yeah.

01:26:02.720 Yeah.

01:26:03.320 Yeah.

01:26:04.180 And I just can't let people down.

01:26:08.000 It's like the worst.

01:26:10.560 So I stuck around.

01:26:12.960 How are you doing?

01:26:14.360 Fantastic.

01:26:15.960 How come?

01:26:17.340 Psychedelics.

01:26:18.380 Community.

01:26:19.260 Purpose.

01:26:20.160 Love.

01:26:21.380 All of it in combination.

01:26:23.280 Mainly the catalyst point, though, with my husband did the best he could for as long as he could.

01:26:28.920 My psychiatrist has never failed me.

01:26:31.720 But what I had lost, and people don't really talk about this, when you transition out of anything, professional sports, military, police, going into the civilian world is not the same.

01:26:41.200 Mm-hmm.

01:26:41.480 And if you lose that community and that purpose—

01:26:43.440 Right.

01:26:43.560 So you're hurt and you don't have an identity.

01:26:45.700 Mm-hmm.

01:26:46.160 Yeah.

01:26:46.800 And I was told at 21 I'd never work again.

01:26:49.280 Mm-hmm.

01:26:49.900 So that's a great label.

01:26:51.820 So you have post-traumatic stress disorder, you're never going to work again, and you're broken.

01:26:55.240 Mm-hmm.

01:26:55.540 And we become the stories we tell ourselves.

01:26:58.060 We know that.

01:26:59.340 So I told myself, I'm the injured veteran who's never going to work or get better.

01:27:03.820 Mm-hmm.

01:27:04.140 Because that's what I was told.

01:27:05.860 So why wouldn't I believe that by the people who are trained experts in their fields?

01:27:10.240 Mm-hmm.

01:27:10.780 And it was only when my doctor said to me one day, like, we know you want to get pregnant, but you can't be on some of these pharmaceutical meds.

01:27:17.400 So what about cannabis?

01:27:19.180 And I was like, hmm, I grew up.

01:27:20.760 Like, that's a no-no.

01:27:21.920 Like, no-no.

01:27:22.860 He said, just give it a try.

01:27:24.780 And I was like, okay.

01:27:25.820 So I slowly started to integrate cannabis and remove sleep medication.

01:27:29.360 Mm-hmm.

01:27:29.740 And that worked.

01:27:30.540 Mm-hmm.

01:27:31.020 Then we got down to the last-

01:27:32.120 What did cannabis do for you?

01:27:33.300 It allowed me to get to sleep and stay asleep.

01:27:35.740 Oh, yeah.

01:27:36.180 Okay.

01:27:36.780 Yeah.

01:27:37.500 Because my problem was waking up from nightmares and the night sweats.

01:27:40.880 Mm-hmm.

01:27:41.240 I was really violent at night when I had sleep.

01:27:43.400 And so I was never sleeping, so I was never resting.

01:27:45.420 And we know that, what does it take 72 hours to break someone without sleep?

01:27:48.640 Mm-hmm.

01:27:48.820 It's not much.

01:27:49.640 Mm-hmm.

01:27:49.700 And so from there on, I said, okay, I'm going to go down this more holistic route.

01:27:56.280 And I started my art therapy.

01:27:59.840 My doctor suggested art therapy.

01:28:01.460 I started on the kitchen table in 2015.

01:28:03.480 I started building bracelets out of old spent casings that my friends would send me from the range,

01:28:09.460 which I found out really quickly was illegal when the RCMP cornered off my cul-de-sac and showed up at my door with guns.

01:28:15.100 They were like, so do you have rounds in there?

01:28:18.880 And I was like, nope.

01:28:19.940 I'm like, do you have a warrant?

01:28:20.800 They're like, nope.

01:28:21.460 I'm like, 7,050 cal rounds on the other side of that door.

01:28:26.780 They just, they weren't actual, they were just casings, but you can't take those.

01:28:30.220 So I was building jewelry out of them, and I slowly started to develop this purpose.

01:28:34.380 And I never wanted to run a nonprofit, but I wanted to impact our community, and I didn't know how.

01:28:38.800 So I was like, well, if I can make something, then that can be the vehicle that puts that money with those charities that's going to do the boots-on-the-ground work.

01:28:48.000 So then I'm impacting change, and I'm funding something.

01:28:50.740 So that was my mentality going into the business.

01:28:52.780 What did that grow into?

01:28:54.920 Brass in Unity now is, oh my gosh.

01:28:57.520 So Brass in Unity, I mean, it took off in 2016.

01:29:01.160 I met with Kevin Hart, and he gave me the best piece of advice I've ever been given, which was, at the time it was called Her Wearables.

01:29:06.680 He goes, you need to make it a unisex name.

01:29:09.540 And I was like, you're right.

01:29:12.420 So we did.

01:29:13.140 He tweeted it out, and a year later, I was on Ellen.

01:29:16.460 And it, you know, Julian Hough and Michael Bublé and all these people started wearing it for suicide prevention.

01:29:22.040 And I was like, okay, we're cooking with something.

01:29:23.920 Then next thing you know, we were nominated for—

01:29:25.640 What were you making that they were wearing?

01:29:27.060 Just these.

01:29:29.060 Uh-huh.

01:29:29.600 Just bullet jewelry, like with actual, like, casings.

01:29:33.900 That's it.

01:29:34.240 Oh, yeah.

01:29:35.340 Yeah.

01:29:36.680 Oh, yeah.

01:29:37.540 Just pull. 0.96

01:29:38.540 Use your muscles.

01:29:39.600 I believe in you.

01:29:41.380 Thank you.

01:29:41.960 Thank you.

01:29:42.560 Thank you.

01:29:43.220 Sorry, I'm a positive affirmation individual.

01:29:45.280 Mm-hmm.

01:29:45.740 Yeah, well, those are very nicely made.

01:29:47.440 Thank you.

01:29:48.300 Yeah.

01:29:48.860 So I started making these, and then we started selling them in the fashion world.

01:29:51.780 Now, let me tell you about the fashion world and bullet casings.

01:29:55.200 It doesn't mix.

01:29:56.140 Mm-hmm.

01:29:56.580 I don't know if you know that.

01:29:57.720 It seems logical.

01:29:59.740 Yes, right?

01:30:00.820 So long and short, it ended up kind of skyrocketing.

01:30:03.380 And we, by 2019, we were in Elle, Fashion Magazine, all of these things, all these stories, all these celebrities, 200 retailers.

01:30:11.380 I had hand-signed myself just hustling my way through North America, and COVID hit.

01:30:15.940 And I lost my entire business overnight.

01:30:19.400 Mm-hmm.

01:30:20.040 Talk about a lack of purpose, having your whole identity wrapped around a jewelry company.

01:30:24.060 Mm, that was a bad idea, isn't it?

01:30:25.460 Mm-hmm.

01:30:26.260 Well.

01:30:27.120 It worked.

01:30:27.620 It did its job.

01:30:28.180 It did what I needed to do.

01:30:29.120 It got me up.

01:30:29.660 It got me moving.

01:30:30.260 It got me no one to kill myself every day.

01:30:31.980 Mm-hmm.

01:30:32.040 So all in that time frame, I got married.

01:30:34.340 I had a baby, ran this business.

01:30:36.780 And then 2021 kicks over.

01:30:41.440 And I get this phone call again from the same guy who introduced me to ayahuasca.

01:30:46.160 So in that time frame, I started getting really suicidal again.

01:30:49.880 By 2019, I was drowning.

01:30:52.720 I couldn't figure out why.

01:30:53.800 I'm doing all the things.

01:30:54.920 I'm doing what I'm told.

01:30:56.160 I'm trying all the exposure therapies.

01:30:58.480 And why isn't it working?

01:31:00.140 And my buddy calls, and he said, hey, what about ayahuasca?

01:31:05.880 Griff's like, you know, do you know of Heroic Hearts?

01:31:09.040 I said, no.

01:31:09.900 They said they take veterans to do ayahuasca.

01:31:11.680 I was like, what's ayahuasca?

01:31:12.940 They're like, this tea.

01:31:14.020 And I'm like, all right, let's do it.

01:31:15.820 Last kick at the can.

01:31:17.580 Give it an honest try.

01:31:19.740 30 days later, I went and did it with a group of operators and Blackwater dudes and Army Rangers.

01:31:25.900 And I realized in that moment, it was less about the ayahuasca and more about the community.

01:31:32.620 I was welcome.

01:31:34.400 I was brought in again.

01:31:36.480 I was seen.

01:31:40.160 So we did ayahuasca for three days in the woods.

01:31:42.620 Three days.

01:31:43.320 Yeah.

01:31:44.360 And my life changed.

01:31:46.320 What did you learn?

01:31:48.860 That the way that I was taught that God exists isn't true, that God is everything.

01:31:55.900 And that I wasn't going to go to hell because I wanted tattoos.

01:32:00.280 And that there was nothing wrong with my head.

01:32:04.080 And that I was going to be okay.

01:32:06.480 If I just had faith in something bigger than myself.

01:32:10.340 And that was when?

01:32:11.260 What year was that?

01:32:11.860 2020.

01:32:12.980 2020.

01:32:13.760 Mm-hmm.

01:32:14.960 So after that, I've never been on a pharmaceutical drug again.

01:32:18.240 Is that right?

01:32:19.120 Yeah.

01:32:19.240 From that point?

01:32:20.000 From that point.

01:32:20.640 Wow.

01:32:21.120 Yeah, we're going into 2025 soon here.

01:32:23.840 How was your sleeping?

01:32:25.180 Fantastic.

01:32:25.900 Well, that's a good deal.

01:32:27.080 Well, it's a combination of that and brain treatment I did in 2022.

01:32:30.960 What did you do?

01:32:31.660 So I went down to this place called Resiliency Brain Health Center in Dallas, Texas.

01:32:36.680 They treat army rangers, delta operators, NFL dudes.

01:32:40.260 And what had happened was in 2021, from starting my podcast, I met Griff within the first four

01:32:46.420 episodes.

01:32:46.720 So I did psychedelics.

01:32:48.000 And that carried me through.

01:32:49.000 And that carried me through.

01:32:50.640 And I integrated that.

01:32:52.260 I did psychedelics.

01:32:53.140 I did ayahuasca again that October.

01:32:54.580 And then after that, I had some really popular people on the podcast.

01:32:59.620 And this organization was like, something's wrong with her eyes.

01:33:07.120 And the only reason that happened is because my husband started dying.

01:33:09.840 So all while this is happening in COVID, my husband and I were in the garage and we're

01:33:15.260 watching a Joe Rogan podcast, literally the same pattern of behavior we have every day.

01:33:20.280 And I was smoking a joint before bed.

01:33:21.940 He'd sit in the garage with me while I, we just have this like routine.

01:33:25.240 And he looks at me and he goes, Kelsey, something's wrong.

01:33:29.720 And he grabbed his right side.

01:33:31.580 And I did pick my paramedics after I got home from the army.

01:33:34.100 And I was like, wrong side, brud.

01:33:36.720 And he goes, no, something's wrong.

01:33:37.920 And he stood up and he goes, I think I'm dying.

01:33:40.500 And he dropped to the ground.

01:33:41.980 And he just was gone.

01:33:44.920 And so talk about move slow again.

01:33:48.160 I started screaming.

01:33:49.240 We called 911.

01:33:50.060 They put us on hold.

01:33:51.800 I said, I just got a new Tesla.

01:33:53.820 Let's test this thing out.

01:33:55.660 So my neighbor came and put him in the car for me.

01:33:57.720 And we drove him to the hospital in less than five minutes.

01:33:59.840 And the ambulance called.

01:34:00.640 It's like, pull over.

01:34:02.140 Beat it.

01:34:03.340 I'm going to get there faster than you.

01:34:06.660 Canada didn't help.

01:34:08.400 Canada kept telling us it was mental health.

01:34:09.900 It was not mental health.

01:34:10.840 My husband was a professional supercross racer.

01:34:12.580 He's hit his head more times than he can count.

01:34:15.220 But what we're starting to understand about TBIs is they can be delayed.

01:34:18.580 He was fine until he wasn't.

01:34:21.080 Everything started to spiral after that.

01:34:22.960 He couldn't get out of bed.

01:34:23.980 His depression, he started getting suicidal.

01:34:25.620 He was losing weight.

01:34:26.440 He wasn't functioning.

01:34:27.400 He just didn't want to live anymore.

01:34:28.680 And he couldn't figure out what was wrong.

01:34:31.040 We went to every hospital.

01:34:32.240 We did private doctors, MRIs, you name it.

01:34:34.220 They're like, it's mental health.

01:34:34.900 It's mental health.

01:34:35.380 It's not mental health.

01:34:37.940 A friend of mine was on Instagram and was like, I'm at this brain clinic.

01:34:41.340 I have too many head injuries.

01:34:42.820 So I voice messaged him.

01:34:43.740 I was a ranger.

01:34:44.780 And I was just bawling.

01:34:46.140 I said, will you help me?

01:34:46.960 I don't know what to do.

01:34:47.680 Can you get them to see my husband?

01:34:49.340 This was Wednesday.

01:34:50.480 We called them.

01:34:51.180 They said, this is no problem.

01:34:52.900 We know what it is.

01:34:54.000 He was on a flight and he was there on Sunday.

01:34:56.360 Canada, two years, nothing.

01:34:58.400 Nowhere, nothing.

01:34:59.780 One week, Texas.

01:35:01.640 Yeah.

01:35:01.800 So we went down there and he was there.

01:35:04.320 And they also treat civilians.

01:35:05.940 And this was who treats the veterans, the resiliency clinic.

01:35:08.800 And so this lovely lady named Donna Cranston, who runs Defenders of Freedom, sat down.

01:35:14.000 She goes, is your wife Kelsey Sharon?

01:35:17.460 And he goes, yes, ma'am.

01:35:20.080 He goes, we think she has a TBI.

01:35:22.100 Her eyes are all messed up on her podcast.

01:35:24.760 We'd like to treat her.

01:35:26.100 And I was like, okay.

01:35:28.660 And I'm like, you know she's Canadian.

01:35:30.040 It's like, we're going to get special permission.

01:35:31.580 Don't worry.

01:35:32.400 And they funded the whole thing.

01:35:34.220 So they flew me down to Texas for two weeks after I did the 4x4x48 with another charity

01:35:39.400 because Goggins likes to make the rest of us suffer.

01:35:43.220 And I went right there right after.

01:35:45.220 And I was there for a two-week intensive program.

01:35:47.260 And I found out that I not only had a TBI, I had dysautonomia and POTS.

01:35:50.800 And that's one of the reasons I wasn't getting better.

01:35:53.340 My vestibular system was completely awake.

01:35:55.240 My hormones were a complete nightmare.

01:35:57.260 You name it, I couldn't tilt my head backwards, my whole body thinking I was jumping upside

01:36:01.440 down.

01:36:02.060 I was cautious.

01:36:02.700 I couldn't drive a car.

01:36:03.860 I was getting nauseous all the time.

01:36:05.080 Couldn't be in a passenger seat.

01:36:07.160 So I did treatment with them.

01:36:09.480 And then I continued to use things like microdosing to help.

01:36:14.340 Not all the time.

01:36:15.260 I do regiments eight weeks at a time.

01:36:17.020 And then I go off and I integrate.

01:36:18.220 But I still definitely have a tendency.

01:36:22.020 When I get depression, I don't go as low as I did.

01:36:24.680 But I go a little.

01:36:25.660 But enough to go, okay, we need to.

01:36:27.460 Are we sleeping?

01:36:28.660 Are we eating right?

01:36:29.580 Are we moving enough?

01:36:30.520 Are we having enough water?

01:36:31.520 What was I watching?

01:36:32.340 Was it triggering?

01:36:33.060 Was it Tucker Carlson all week?

01:36:34.360 Maybe let's take a break.

01:36:35.800 Let's go into something a little lighter.

01:36:37.580 And so I start looking at all those things before I go to the next solution.

01:36:42.240 And all in that time frame, I wanted to help veterans differently.

01:36:45.700 So we donate 20% of our proceeds from Brass and Unity.

01:36:49.340 I started journaling and writing a book.

01:36:51.420 I started this podcast that was kind of taking off.

01:36:54.960 And then I was like, might as well become a psychedelic integration coach.

01:36:58.300 So then I can help these same people that helped me.

01:37:00.880 And that's what I did.

01:37:01.660 And then now cut to where we are in 2024, where the book came out last year.

01:37:06.340 And I'm healthy and I'm happy and I love myself and I know my worth and I know where I'm going and I have a direction.

01:37:14.520 And I am so goddamn grateful for the people I have around me because without them, I wouldn't have been here.

01:37:22.920 And they didn't give up on me. 0.88

01:37:23.960 Our government gives up on everyone else, but no one gave up on me.

01:37:29.280 And it's only because they didn't get a hold of me in time.

01:37:31.400 Because if they did, I wouldn't be here.

01:37:35.420 All right, ma'am.

01:37:38.440 Thank you very much for walking us through that.

01:37:40.600 So for everybody watching and listening, I'm going to continue to talk to Kelsey for another half an hour on the Daily Wire side.

01:37:49.520 I'm not exactly sure what we'll talk about.

01:37:52.080 Maybe more about the state of the military in Canada.

01:37:56.340 And maybe more about psychedelic treatment as well.

01:37:59.980 So if you'd like to join us on that side, you'd be more than welcome to do that.

01:38:03.620 Thank you very much for agreeing to talk to me today.

01:38:07.140 Thank you for having me.

01:38:08.000 Yeah, it's a pleasure.

01:38:09.000 It's a pleasure.

01:38:09.340 Thank you, everyone.

01:38:11.060 Thank you to the film crew here in Austin, Texas today.

01:38:15.740 Yeah, yeah.

01:38:16.680 Thanks a lot, guys, for making this possible.

01:38:18.920 And to the Daily Wire Plus people for making this podcast what it is.

01:38:23.360 Much appreciated.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - May 06, 2024

446. War, PTSD, & Psychedelics ｜ Kelsi Sheren

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