00:00:00.000In a country like Canada, which is over 41 million people, the Canadian military has approximately 60,000, give or take, frontline regular force soldiers.
00:00:22.060And of that, just an elite few are members of the Tier 1 operators, JTF-2, the Canadian version of the Navy SEALs or the SAS.
00:00:31.260And one of them joins me today, a former captain of the Canadian Army, Brian Isted.
00:01:15.580Yeah, like, I have no grades to write home about.
00:01:19.100A couple attempts at college, I dropped out my first attempt, I just wasn't feeling my program.
00:01:24.900Ended up going back for a policing, a police foundations diploma at Humber, and then that segued into a bachelor's at Western University in criminology and with a minor in poli-sci.
00:01:41.840But that bachelor's enabled me to apply to the military.
00:01:45.840So I would have been 28 at that point because I had a lot of hiccups and hurdles in between in my young adult years.
00:01:53.720And so that bachelor's enabled me to apply to the military as an officer because I was either going the policing route with my police foundation's criminology degree.
00:02:03.840I had a lot of trouble getting hired in policing because of speeding tickets and kind of a misled youth there a little bit.
00:02:09.980So I did many interviews that sort of went nowhere.
00:02:14.360And then along the process of a hiring freeze with TPS, when I was somewhere in that process of being applied to a couple other police forces in the background, the military ended up coming through with their offer first.
00:02:41.720I've had some really good leaders, some really good junior guys that worked for me, but I learned way more from them than they did for me for sure.
00:02:49.180And that segued into a regular force contract offer that came through a couple years later.
00:02:54.840I think I was in the reserve for almost four years and then joined the regular force as a military police officer.
00:03:00.640And then immediately got a deployment to Iraq as a close protection team leader.
00:03:08.080So that's a fancy way of saying you're a bodyguard for high ranking.
00:03:28.600I don't remember what all the acronyms stand for, but my tour is a bit different because we worked for one general and then there was 16 colonels that worked below him for him as part of the MLT or the ministerial liaison team, which was a infrastructure rebuilding of Iraq through Operation Impact in 2018.
00:03:54.660So we worked very closely with the U.S. military, their CP guys and gals.
00:03:59.100A lot of overlap with the U.S. military, the U.S. military, a lot of overlap with Italians, French, Germans, Swedes.
00:04:06.420We worked with a bunch of different nations there, but we had probably the most mobility and responsibility amongst the colonels that were moving around to have meetings with the MOI or the Ministry of the Interior.
00:04:20.500So they were equipping, training, funding the Iraqi military, police, different government assets that were trying to rebuild Iraq, essentially, with U.S. money and U.S. training.
00:04:33.860The interesting thing about all of this, you know, I can picture you kitted out with your, you know, bulletproof vest and your sidearm and your carbine and everything that goes with it.
00:04:45.140But in 2018, so little was said or discussed in the Canadian public, Canadian media, even the House of Commons, that we had that kind of force over there, that kind of presence in Iraq at that time.
00:05:08.620There was still a pretty heavy presence there.
00:05:10.280I wouldn't say that Canada had a big presence in Iraq, but we definitely had a specialized presence there.
00:05:16.740There were still a lot of CanSoft people floating around in the background doing their thing and the support elements that make that a reality.
00:05:22.020There, again, not a lot of numbers, but with all the really, really strong performing troops that I met over my career, I'd like to think that Canadian troops in general, especially the specialized folks, act as kind of a force multiplier.
00:05:38.900So you can have one man or woman doing the job that might take multiple individuals of another force to have the same effect type of thing.
00:05:47.120So I'm just really lucky to have been around the people that I was with and the leadership that I was learning from.
00:06:02.920So I came back from the deployment in the fall of 2018.
00:06:07.060So this would have been five or six years now in the military for me at that point.
00:06:12.660And the whole reason I got the close protection training and then subsequent deployment was because I was in kind of a holding platoon when I got posted to Ottawa in 2017 because the posting was to an intelligence unit at CFNCOM.
00:06:28.340So it's the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command, which is kind of is an umbrella that houses a bunch of intelligence teams that all work under it.
00:06:38.140I know they have a facility in Halifax in the dock or it's attached to the Canadian Navy for their intelligence for all the ships out there other than NATO things.
00:06:46.280So, yeah, it's a pretty complex unit in the Canadian military.
00:06:49.480Not a lot of people in the country know about it.
00:06:51.400No, and probably for a relatively good reason, I mean, intelligence should kind of exist in the background doing its thing without needing the applause or the recognition.
00:07:02.920But I was not I didn't have the levels of top secret and above clearances that enabled me even access to the buildings I was posted to.
00:07:11.080Really. So I was kind of stuck in this holding pattern or holding platoon where you're you're literally not allowed to do the job yet because you don't have you haven't been cleared, literally cleared to see the get read in on the intelligence products and files that you're supposed to be working on and the other folks that are in the meetings that you sit around and you overhear things.
00:07:32.080So there's a whole vetting process that takes over a year, so very fortunately for me, that year was spent training in Academy in the fall and winter of 2017 and then immediately 2018 early we went to Petawawa to do our pre-deployment before Iraq, which was a couple months long and then a six month deployment that took me to the fall of 2019 or sorry, the fall of 2018.
00:07:56.280So by the fall of 2018, I had my clearances had finally come through, so I think it was very early 2019 or very late 2018 top secret showed up for me and then it was like, okay, here you hop on the treadmill on sprint and start figuring out intelligence products.
00:08:11.760Now, I'm not obviously I'm not going to ask you to divulge state secrets and Canadian secrets, but for someone as intelligent as you with your background and you've been in country in Iraq or even you surprised and were your eyes open once you got privy to some of this information.
00:08:31.280So if I can touch on a meeting that I had, it wasn't my meeting, but when I was in, when I was in Iraq, I'm going to be sort of careful about how I word this because I don't know exactly what I'm allowed to talk about.
00:08:44.280I'll be as vague, but as detailed as appropriate.
00:08:48.280So the general that I was working with, working for in Iraq, who sort of recognized that there was not a lot of other officers around, like there was lots of colonels, you know what I mean?
00:09:09.280And that's kind of how I like to compose myself, I guess.
00:09:11.280And I had a lot of folks around me that sort of wanted that kind of leadership.
00:09:16.280So it was it worked both ways, I think.
00:09:19.280But I was the general that we were protecting over there recognized the fact that I was kind of on my own in terms of officer colleague.
00:09:29.280So he said every week you're going to come and sit in on the senior, senior level meetings with the generals, like the US three star was there, the Canadian two star who I was working for.
00:09:42.280So they would give their back briefs every week of what had been accomplished within the MOI and where's the money going and what training are we getting done?
00:09:50.280Are the uniforms coming through the equipment, all that stuff?
00:09:52.280So they debrief the generals every week on what they're doing and how it's going.
00:09:58.280And I can't remember exactly which representative colonel.
00:10:19.280So at some point in one of these meetings, one of the colonels was given his opportunity to stand up and he gives his piece and he said, oh, and sort of as an aside to all the things that we're working on.
00:10:32.280And I don't remember the exact dollar figure, but it was somewhere in the neighborhood of I'll downplay it just so I'm not exaggerating the story.
00:10:41.280Hundreds of millions of dollars had evaporated in front of the literal money that was being given to the Iraqi government to figure out.
00:11:23.280And I'm just kind of in awe of what's going on around me.
00:11:26.280And I've no idea what to make of this information or if it matters in the grand scheme of things.
00:11:31.280But it just sort of this is a very long winded answer to your original question of I think was, you know what I mean, your experience there.
00:11:40.280What was that like and sort of did it light anything up for you?
00:11:43.280And this was kind of my first aha moment of there is an unbelievable amount of corruption and graft going on that I have no idea what to do with even this information.
00:11:54.280I obviously have no ability to affect it or at all or deflect it or or change anything.
00:12:01.280But at least I was sort of made aware and think I'm thinking again, I'm thanking this general for giving me the opportunity to sort of sit in on this and just become aware of what's going on, because this was this was pretty mind bending information to to absorb as a junior officer in this room.
00:12:19.280And then I sort of somehow was able to silo that, put it in my back pocket and move on.
00:12:36.280You know, and one of the, I really love the answer, Brian, and it really explains a lot.
00:12:41.280Like I hear that answer and then I see how the American involvement in Afghanistan ended with tens of billions of dollars of brand new military equipment left there with.
00:12:53.280With, oh, well, and for a lot of, not even veterans, but just average Americans, like, wait, that's our tax dollars.
00:13:01.280And we just, there's hundreds of billions of dollars we just left there.
00:13:04.280And that's the general public mind doesn't understand that there is waste that goes on in these kind of ventures in these kinds of countries.
00:13:12.280It's even something as simple if like, if that's the sort of macro looking at the waste and the unnecessary expense of what goes on in the military.
00:13:22.280If you bring it down to a very micro level, let's say you're in the field and you're on an exercise or whatever, and it's a day long, two days long, two weeks long or whatever.
00:13:31.280If you're lucky enough to have what's called a hay box meal.
00:13:33.280So you have food, warm food brought out to you.
00:13:36.280And it's like a huge kind of container, right?
00:14:43.280So it's just, I don't know what that's worth, but it's just, it's a very small example of kind of the same thing that takes place with nine and 10 figure amounts of money.
00:14:53.280Obviously you're a very fit human being and fitness and exercise and strength training is an important part of your life.
00:15:00.280How much of that was an ongoing thing before you started to do the entry level process to become JTF2?
00:15:07.280Um, well, I, I always stayed in shape because I, I played competitive hockey up until my late teens.
00:15:13.280And then I sort of stumbled into weightlifting at the, literally just went to the gym with a buddy of mine.
00:15:19.280I think when I was 18 or 19 and after the first day of just being super sore and him, um, he was really cool.
00:15:27.280He corrected all my lifts and showed me stuff and our, our abilities and knowledge at that level is very rudimentary, but it was still enough to sort of, again, ignite something inside of me.
00:15:37.280And I think I became addicted almost right away to the weightlifting side is kind of hockey had taken a back seat and now I needed something else.
00:15:46.280I became sort of super fascinated with that, read everything I could about nutrition, training, recovery for years and years and years.
00:15:52.280That was kind of all I absorbed as a, as a hobby.
00:15:55.280Um, that definitely helped me getting into the military and being my baseline level of fitness, being much, much higher than the average person getting in.
00:16:05.280And then how, and then being again in my late twenties, having sort of a better grip of myself and confidence and maturity that comes with someone that's not 18.
00:16:13.280That's, that's 20, 28, 29 kind of thing.
00:16:21.280When you start getting ready to train for, uh, to go to CanSoftCom, like yes and no, because I'm six one right now.
00:16:30.280I'm probably about 220 pounds, which is probably roughly what I was a few years ago, um, making my way to the unit.
00:16:37.280But it's like, it's not that helpful to be big and muscly and heavy because there's so much, there's so much work to do all the time and so much stuff you have to carry.
00:16:49.280In my experience, it's kind of the smaller, lighter, more nimble or agile guys that are better performers.
00:16:56.280Like they seem to be more robust and more resilient.
00:16:59.280Like if you're five, nine, five, 10, 170 pounds, like you are the perfect specimen of the guy.
00:17:05.280That's probably going to outlast everybody else because you just have less body to manage.
00:17:43.280Like you're in your week long tryout before you even get there and you watch them, uh, you're, you'll be given a task and then they'll demonstrate the task.
00:17:53.280And then they say, okay, do what I just showed you.
00:17:57.280But you watch the guy do it and you're like, okay, there's no way, there's no way I can do that.
00:18:01.280Or the speed at which he did it or the, or the whatever, you know what I mean?
00:18:06.280And you just realize that you're just trying to kind of survive, but still perform.
00:18:11.280Um, you, you know, like, you know, that way before you get there, that these guys are different and you come across them sometimes in your career, whether it's Seesaw, uh, Segyru, JTF2.
00:18:20.280Uh, I, I didn't know many 427 folks, the pilot, the helicopter pilots.
00:18:24.280Um, but yeah, like they're just, they're just quiet professionals and you, you should be aware of that before you get there, but on selection, you definitely learn it right away.
00:18:33.280So we, we, there's a myriad of things on YouTube about the physical expectations on selections.
00:18:40.280Just for people checking this out and watching you, what kind of physical, um, things test did you have running, pull-ups, push-ups?
00:18:49.280What did they make you do just to get through selection to even start the training?
00:18:52.280Yeah, you can count on doing a lot of running and pushing and push-ups and pull-ups and sit-ups.
00:19:22.280And he went through selection at that, not much weight.
00:19:24.280Yeah, the guy's a legend and he's one of the best arm wrestlers, wrestlers of all time.
00:19:28.280Um, but yeah, you can expect that you're going to be doing, you should get very good at running and very good at push-ups and sit-ups for sure.
00:19:35.280I have heard that no matter how proficient you are with a pistol or rifle, that they'll retrain you on every weapon you've ever used.
00:19:44.280Yeah, I came in with probably more weapons training than most, given the fact that I had done the close protection side, which offers you time on the SIG 226 and your C8, which a lot of infantry guys won't get time with.
00:19:57.280Even if you're part of the combat arms, you're not really touching these as much as you should, in my opinion.
00:20:02.280Uh, so I came in with more experience, but even, but potentially bad habits, like I had high level instruction, but not to that degree and not to the specifics that you're looking for there.
00:20:14.280You might be better off coming in with nothing because then you have to don't, you don't have to unlearn anything, but it's also just good to be comfortable handling some of these firearms just because your exposure to them makes you very aware of kind of how they work and what to do with them.
00:20:29.280Sense of pride, what was it like to get the sand colored beret when you graduated?
00:20:35.280I was under the impression that you made it through before and then you were part of it.
00:20:38.280So I was part of the, I was part of training.
00:20:41.280Um, so you, when you, when you get selected from select, sorry, when you pass selection and if you get picked up, you go through, uh, what's called SOAC.
00:20:50.280So that's your special operations assaulter course.
00:21:23.280And then I was about four, I was about four months into course when, um, I just, I demonstrated a bunch of different deficiencies with, uh, I had, I struggled in a shooting range or two, um, failed a couple tests.
00:21:43.280One of the things that was eating away at me the most when I was in this course was the fear of not just failing, but going back to the unit that you came from.
00:21:52.280Cause when you, oftentimes when you fail, they'll do what's called an RTU.
00:21:57.280So you go back to your original unit and stay in kind of another holding pattern for if you get to go back the next year or maybe the year after that, depending on a bunch of different things and that's up to them to decide.
00:22:09.280But I was, I had left such a toxic environment of people who were just horrific leaders in one way or another that were malicious and petty and sad in their, in their careers because of things they did or didn't do.
00:22:24.280And they made it very clear to me as I was exiting that they were sort of just being really terrible to me on my way out.
00:22:31.280Um, I was very happy to leave, but terrified to go back.
00:22:42.280And, and, and, and different years will have different success rates.
00:22:45.280So maybe it's better, maybe it's worse than some, but I was, I was like haunted by this, this fear of you fail a test and it's like, oh no, you know what I mean?
00:22:53.280Am I go, am I going back or you get a safety?
00:23:01.280Like if you get, if you get a safety in week one, you know what I mean?
00:23:04.280In week 52, like that safety is still there.
00:23:07.280So you, they, they add up and then you're gone.
00:23:09.280So I had, I just, I struggled with a bunch of things.
00:23:12.280I was my own worst enemy for a bunch of different things.
00:23:14.280And, uh, ended up experiencing so many health problems, like immediately thereafter that it just didn't, it wasn't happening for me no matter what anyway.
00:23:22.280So, uh, yeah, like didn't, wasn't successful in my attempt, but, uh, I, sorry, I must say that it's very noble and courageous of you to explain that in detail.
00:23:35.280Cause I think a lot of people in life, no matter what their profession, the, the admission that, Hey, I didn't make it.
00:23:43.280That's a, that shows a lot of maturity on your part, Brian, that you're able to explain it that way.
00:23:47.280Like, Hey, I didn't do this and this, and I didn't make it.
00:23:50.280Well, like, to be honest, I've, I've had a few appearances now, uh, with different folks.
00:23:55.280Um, and I like, I'm just gonna tell the truth.
00:23:57.280I have no reason to sugarcoat anything or to pretend something happened or that I'm something that I'm not, I'll tell you exactly what happened and how it went.
00:24:06.280And then again, it's, it's obviously my interpretation of the events.
00:24:09.280So it's, so it's gonna be biased to some degree, but I'm not gonna fabricate and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna sugarcoat things.
00:24:15.280When did you start suffering from some health issues?
00:24:20.280I know that you were experiencing health issues along the way.
00:24:24.280Um, cause you had the COVID vaccine, am I correct?
00:24:27.280And then as a result, some people have been affected by it and you were one of them.
00:24:30.280So walk us through the timeline about when you got your vaccine, when the health issues arose and what it meant to you and how it affected you.
00:24:37.280Sure. So again, in, in segue from my last statement there in the essence of transparency, I don't have proof of anything, but there's an awful lot of coincidences.
00:24:49.280You know what I mean? And sort of, um, temporal associations.
00:24:53.280So correlations of what happened and then what happens sort of immediately thereafter.
00:24:57.280So, uh, the timing of it is very suspect.
00:25:00.280So, so backtracking a little bit to the spring of 21, when you get, when you, I had completed selection.
00:25:28.280And, and by the way, you also will be fully vaccinated when you get there for force protection reasons or whatever they called it.
00:25:35.280Yeah. Because you could be sent anywhere eventually, right?
00:25:37.280Yeah. So it will, you're also going to be surrounded by these folks that you're going to live and breathe and sleep and do everything beside for the next 13 months.
00:25:45.280So in the essence of not letting anyone die from COVID or getting sick from COVID, you, you will have these things.
00:25:51.280So this was like two weeks before it was supposed to start.
00:25:55.280It may have even been less than that, um, that I had to go get these vaccinations.
00:25:59.280So I called the orderly room or sort of the administrators that support roles that handle this kind of thing for, uh, JTF two.
00:26:06.280And I said, I don't have any of these shots yet.
00:26:09.280Cause I, I had my res, I had my reservations about doing this.
00:26:12.280I wasn't screaming from the mountain tops for people not to get it, but I didn't think I needed it.
00:26:48.280So literally I think it was that day or the next day I drove to the base in Ottawa cannot ranges where they had the bed tent set up where they were just churning people through in a belt fed.
00:27:00.280And, uh, you get there and there's a, I don't know, three by four whiteboard with green Sharpie written of 25 different bullet points of like your, uh, the information that you get when you're, you're, uh, what's it, what's the word I'm looking for here?
00:27:19.280When you're sort of read in on something and you've been informed, this was your informed consent.
00:28:30.280So I sat there, I took my first shot, no issue other than a bit of a sore shoulder you get from injections, whatever, like that's just trauma to the tissue.
00:28:45.280I think it was almost exactly a month later that I was in Dwyer Hill.
00:28:49.280So we were doing our, our indoctrination still, it was about a week or two into the course and, uh, the platoon warrant stands at the front of the class in one of our break periods and said, Hey fellas, like, is there anyone here that still doesn't have a fully vaccinated like medical profile?
00:29:04.280Uh, do you not have any shots or do you not have two?
00:29:07.280And only myself and one other guy put our hand up.
00:29:10.280So in a room of dozens of people, candidates here where you and one other guy are the only ones that are not sort of towing the line, he basically looks at you and says like, go to the med tent and get it right now.
00:29:21.280Like this is your, your, this is happening or you're leaving type of thing.
00:29:26.280And I'm not, and I'm not putting any blame on the individual that said that I actually have a lot of respect for this guy and we worked together for a little bit and he's a, he's a good dude.
00:29:32.280But that was his rules of engagement he was working with at the time.
00:29:35.280Well, yeah, well, he's being told, make sure that the platoon you're managing is sorted out.
00:29:39.280So literally we walked over and I got my second shot that day.
00:29:44.280And I had, I think every conceivable side effect that night that you can have of the sweats, the shakes and all fever, chills, nausea, uh, just nonstop, like basically horrific flu symptoms that started occurring almost immediately.
00:30:00.280Cause it was kind of at the end of the day when I did it and then went back, I got no sleep that night.
00:30:05.280Uh, like I was literally shivering and sweating the whole night and then had to be at work the next morning.
00:30:10.280Um, took me a couple of days to bounce back from that just because of the sleep deprivation that I experienced.
00:30:14.280And I don't think we were on the range until the following week.
00:30:17.280So luckily I wasn't shooting that day, but man, was it, was it a rough night after that second shot?
00:30:22.280But then, um, if, if I jumped way ahead in the story to about a year or so later, when I was describing those side effects to, uh, one of the doctors, uh, hematologist, I think she was telling me that that's normal.
00:30:34.280And that's a, that's a sign of a positive immune response and that your body's your, your immune system is healthy and strong and you're supposed to react that you're not supposed to react that way, but it's not, it's not negative or something.
00:31:00.280So, so to, so that was in late July of 2021.
00:31:06.280So it was approaching August timeframe by the time I got my second shot.
00:31:10.280So fast forward two months and I'm in the field in Petawawa, we've been there for about a month and it's almost October.
00:31:18.280And I have this pain behind my right knee, like at the top of my calf that like, we, we've been going hard now for weeks and weeks and weeks.
00:31:58.280So, uh, like, I'm, I just think that I'm, I'm old and I'm, and I'm, and I'm suffering.
00:32:03.280So you just put it away and you deal with it and you go to sleep and try to recover.
00:32:07.280But I have this nagging pain in my right leg that I'm, I'm not quite limping yet, but it's every time I take a step on my right foot, I feel it.
00:32:15.280So, uh, again, comes back to the performance challenges for me, all the stress I put on myself, I met with the leadership and they sat me down and basically said, like, you're obviously struggling.
00:32:27.280Um, like we're, we're pulling you off course.
00:32:29.280Uh, I, I didn't know what my future was at that point, but I knew it wasn't continuing.
00:32:32.280So literally the next day I'm clearing out from the unit and I, and this, this pain in my right leg is, is doubled or triple what it was.
00:32:41.280So I'm not quite in agony yet, but it's like, okay, something's wrong with my right calf.
00:32:45.280I think that I pulled it or it's tweaked it or something maybe during one of the assault training things that we were doing and you, you're off, you're often running and jumping and diving and crawling.
00:34:19.280Uh, my girlfriend at the time had come and gotten me cause she wasn't sure if I had to stay there, but she, she, she came and saw me there and then we both drove back.
00:34:26.280And I was literally just like horizontal for a couple of weeks because I couldn't just standing up was, was horrific.
00:34:33.280Uh, and I'd like to think I have a relatively high pain threshold.
00:34:37.280Compared to, I think the average person I can push through certain.
00:34:40.280And Brian, let's be honest at that point with your training, just to get to JTF and through that you're probably in the elite one or 2% fitness level.
00:34:54.280It's like, I had made a very deliberate attempt to, or, or effort rather to, to be there and maintain that.
00:35:00.280So it's like part of that is like pushing through the aches and pains of the training that gets you there.
00:35:04.280So pushing all that sort of out of my mind while it was happening, I was now sort of faced with this.
00:35:09.280Potentially career ending injury, because if you, if you have something where you have to be on blood thinners forever, you're definitely not being part of a tier one assault unit where if you get nicked by something or shot, like you're just going to bleed out.
00:35:24.280So I'm, I'm dealing with this sort of, um, mental challenge of like, oh my God, failing course, failing health, uh, failing relationships at work with previous leadership.
00:35:36.280And like, there was just, there was almost nowhere to turn where it made sense for me to, um, put the pieces together of what I was dealing with at the time.
00:35:45.280It was kind of a lot to manage and, uh, it was just test.
00:35:49.280And then it was just week after week and month after month of ongoing tests and ultrasounds and blood work and hematocrit levels, which is your sort of thickness of your blood, which causes blood clotting.
00:35:59.280And eventually the clot dissolved and went away according to the ultrasounds.
00:36:03.280But then I started sort of, uh, realizing that the back pain that I was also experiencing during course was creeping up and creeping up and creeping up and kept getting worse and worse.
00:36:12.280And I wasn't, I was no longer training.
00:36:14.280Like I was basically on bed rest for a long time.
00:36:19.280It's as sore as even more sore than it was when I was doing running and gunning.
00:36:23.280Um, so I started asking the doctors questions and ask them if they can look into it.
00:36:26.280So they do more imaging, more blood work.
00:36:28.280And it turned out that I have a, I, they, this is now, I guess the summer of 2022, like it was a long time of me sort of on the downturn, um, medically.
00:36:41.280And by the summer of 22, the doctors basically confirmed to me that I had a degenerative autoimmune condition starting in my lower back.
00:37:04.280There's a, there's a few people that have talked about it openly that I started looking up and their experiences and their treatments and whatnot.
00:37:08.280So, um, again, so another issue compounded, it was around the same time that I was getting ready to be released.
00:37:17.280So now many more months go by and they, they're putting me on this pain medication, this anti-inflammatory medication, nothing's working.
00:37:23.280Um, I'm basically preparing now to get released from the military because like, they're like, I'm a, I'm a bag of hammers at this point.
00:37:37.280The medical that they give me on the, so once they sort of, once you prepare for release, they give you a release medical.
00:37:42.280So they give you an ECG, your blood pressure, your hearing, I think, vision.
00:37:49.280They, they want to see, they want to sort of compare your, cause you do all that stuff when you get in and then they want to compare it when you get out to see where you're at and what's, what's better.
00:37:57.280What's worse, probably nothing's better, but like how, what's worse and how much worse is it?
00:38:01.280So the ECG that they gave me came back with some really troubling information that I had sort of in a regular heart rate and rhythm.
00:38:09.280So like they started, so then I had to go see a cardiologist specialist and it was just one thing after another.
00:38:15.280Like it just never, I had to wear that.
00:38:17.280Um, I forget what it's called, but there's a device that's about the size of a cell phone.
00:38:21.280My wife had a little bit thicker and it's, and you wear wires, you're just totally wired up just to, and like, they're basically go through a couple of days and they want to see.
00:38:43.280Um, they couldn't find anything conclusive from this device that I wore, but I I'm still seeing this cardiologist every once in a while to make sure.
00:39:09.280I was, I was what's called three B or medically released.
00:39:12.280Um, so my, my pension activates immediately.
00:39:15.280Uh, it, it's, it just, it makes it financially.
00:39:19.280It's, it's much more beneficial for that to happen, especially if it happens to you when you're younger, cause you're no longer able to pay into your pension, but they sort of immediate annuity you anyway.
00:39:29.280But it's like, it's just been a, it's just been a battle of.
00:39:32.280Health and mental health for a long, for quite a while now.
00:39:37.280And I want to get into this with you, Brian.
00:39:39.280I, Jonathan Taves of the, now the Winnipeg Jets missed two years of playing in the NHL from long COVID.
00:39:44.280And there are all these stories about elite athletes, triathletes, marathon runners, people of elite fitness levels like yourself who were affected.
00:39:53.280From the vaccine or COVID and I'm just a regular, you know, dad, uh, who got multiple shots and I try to exercise, but not at that level.
00:40:03.280And I really had like, so there's a real correlation between elite fitness people who got affected by it and just average people who didn't.
00:40:26.280So like that long COVID in quotations really seems potentially like it could be vaccinated, vaccination related, or, or maybe a combination of you got COVID and the vaccination.
00:40:36.280Like maybe you didn't need that after you already had COVID as every other vaccination in history has gone down before this one.
00:40:45.280There was definitely some type of correlation between the more fit you were, the more, and young, the more likelihood that you would have a serious side effect.
00:40:55.280Uh, cause there was a lot of examples of that, am I correct?
00:42:02.280So Brian, I I've always wondered about this.
00:42:04.280You know, a tier one operator by its very nature, as you say, you can get the best, the best from the PPCLI, the van dues, the RCR, all these units across the military apply for JTF to barely half make it.
00:42:18.280Should there be two sets of rules for the elite tier one operators and people just in the regular military?
00:42:27.280Like you, you talk about being in country.
00:42:29.280Should you have to have one rule for every single person in the Canadian Armed Forces about?
00:42:34.280Are we talking like dress and deportment?
00:42:36.280Dress and deportment, vaccines, everything else.
00:42:39.280Dress and deportment, I can, this, this, this, this can get real slippery real quick, depending who you ask for things like dress and deportment.
00:42:50.280I think you should be clean cut all the way through your basic and sort of trades training until you're sort of professionally qualified.
00:42:58.280I don't see any harm in enforcing at least a strict standard of how you appear professionally.
00:43:06.280And then like some of the inspection stuff of making your bed and folding your shirts and cleaning your soap dish and stuff like those, those go a bit far.
00:43:14.280In my opinion, I think that's a bit, again, it's not about having a clean soap dish.
00:43:19.280It's about attention to detail and following instructions.
00:43:35.280And it's like, you're going to learn something from that.
00:43:36.280You don't really learn anything from that other than how to like, you're going to get less sleep now because you have to clean up the mess.
00:43:42.280So to answer your question, I, there should be two sets of rules for people that are untrained and people that are now trained.
00:43:49.280If someone has long hair and a beard, I don't give a shit.
00:43:53.280If you do your job, you know what I mean?
00:44:15.280What you're talking about is a reality in every place of work, every business in the world that no matter if you are a cook on one of the naval frigates or you're a tier one operator, you're part of a team in a workplace.
00:44:29.280And you know, there, there is a certain level of professionalism, no matter what your job, whether you're an accountant or an HR or whatever it is.
00:44:36.280So, uh, just to back up a little bit, like, again, on treating people the same, when you get to the more advanced teams, you have direct access to what's called a weapons tech.
00:44:47.280So this, this guy or, or, or gal is a wizard of firearms.
00:44:59.280So if you have a bigger hand, you might need a bigger grip on your pistol.
00:45:02.280You might need a different rail system to accommodate.
00:45:05.280You prefer what's called a bad lever, maybe on your C eight.
00:45:08.280So a bad lever is a battery assisted device.
00:45:11.280So it's a, it's a, it's a attachment that enables you to hit your bolt catch with your trigger finger.
00:45:20.280So instead of having to use your left hand to engage your, your bolt catch, to slide that bolt forward again, in terms of a reload.
00:45:27.280Once you put the magazine in, because that lever wraps around and touches the, your bolt catch from the trigger side, you just have to move your finger a centimeter.
00:45:37.280So as soon as you put your magazine in, hit it, it's, it's shaving fractions of seconds.
00:45:42.280So these are things you're allowed to do in can soft calm, but you're definitely not doing this in basic training because you haven't really earned and demonstrated the fact that you're proficient enough and safe enough that you can do these things.
00:46:06.280Before we get to some where you're at now in your future, I, I always think of someone like you who had your experience.
00:46:11.280And what you did in the military, if I could wave a magic wand and make you the minister of national offense, what are some of the two or three things you would do that from your experience to change things for the better?
00:46:22.280Uh, I got asked this once too, on a, on a pod earlier this year, and it's such a wild question for a junior officer with sort of limited, you know, you were in country.
00:46:35.280Um, the things that I'm aware of that still exist that are problematic is the DEI stuff like tampons in the men's bathroom or like specific recruiting drives to get minority or whatever representation in whatever trade or the forces as a whole.
00:46:51.280It's like I never met anyone in the military that ever cared about where you were from or what you looked like to a certain unless you were sloppy and lazy.
00:47:01.280Like that's that's kind of part of it.
00:47:02.280But it's if you if you can keep up and you're doing your job, I don't care where you're from or what you look like or your green, brown, purple, black.
00:47:41.280It's, I think one of, if not the most top heavy militaries in the world.
00:47:45.280So you have this, you have dozens and dozens and dozens of generals who are just quite literally padding their pensions with these postings to Europe and Australia.
00:47:54.280And it's like, yeah, like these guys have earned it.
00:48:39.280And again, I don't know if it's necessarily about numbers of recruiting about having a bigger military probably doesn't necessarily make it better.
00:48:47.280If anything, again, putting my M and D hat back on that you just gave to me, I would probably trim it down even further.
00:48:54.280Starting with the generals and then getting rid of a lot of the folks who are, I'm not sure if you're aware of this or not, but this was going back four or maybe five years, COVID era timeframe, where they eliminated the fitness testing for promotions.
00:49:07.280So I think there was always an option to sort of opt out of doing fitness testing to some degree.
00:49:15.280It would deny you a promotion and it would definitely deny you a deployment.
00:49:18.280So you could still sort of exist in the background as a as a plug who's not willing to be fit for their job and still sort of maintain your job in some capacity.
00:49:59.280It's hard to put a number on that because I really have no clue.
00:50:01.280But I think having a really specialized folks who are really motivated and want to be there, pay them more money because they've earned it and then sort of enable them the same treatment as we just talked about.
00:50:13.280Like if you want to grow your hair, I can't imagine caring.
00:50:28.280You're also going to have the attributes and you're going to be hoping to move up in your career.
00:50:32.280And then at the same time, once you get to that point in your career where it's just pension padding and what I call military tourism, you're just being posted around the world on the government's dime.
00:52:01.280You, you have a lot of good questions.
00:52:02.280So that it's sort of, I know it's being done by a state backed force, but the Ukrainian military is taking part in these, but it's, it's very sort of guerrilla style warfare where you're making the most of the least type thing.
00:52:15.280And you're using your enemy's strength almost as a weakness by crippling their supply lines or their really expensive infrastructure with the minimal amount of effort or, uh, investment.
00:52:25.280Um, how prepared is a NATO force to deal with that?
00:52:27.280I don't think anybody's really prepared to deal with that just because of how.
00:52:31.280I don't know how precise and stealth some of this new technology is.
00:52:37.280Like you can do a lot of damage with a very small, inexpensive piece of equipment.
00:52:53.280But they would also detect drones and, and each, each rocket, each artillery shell, each drone or insert, you know what I mean?
00:53:01.280Whatever incoming aerial problem has a certain signature to it.
00:53:06.280Like the, whatever, I am not a scientist.
00:53:08.280I'm not going to pretend like I understand the technology behind this.
00:53:11.280So like birds would fly freely around the base and that doesn't set it off because it knows that it's a bird, but a drone lifts up, uh, two kilometers away.
00:53:41.280Like you heard the shell land, hopefully, and you could get away from it.
00:53:44.280But the alarm will sound that there's like something's happening.
00:53:48.280There might be more coming, obviously.
00:53:49.280So sort of get inside, get away from it.
00:53:51.280But the, um, the technology does exist to identify an incoming problem via drone.
00:53:58.280But I don't know that it's obviously the examples of them using them effectively is proof that it doesn't necessarily work as well as it's supposed to.
00:54:06.280But I, I, we did have some early notification drone warnings because we were given videos of ISIS and, uh, Iraqi insurgent capabilities and what they would do, um, to disrupt or, uh, assault allied forces would be to just something as simple as a drone flying at the exact height.
00:54:27.280Known that it will have about a three or a four second fall for a grenade.
00:54:31.280Cause the fuse on a grenade is, is about three and a half, I think four seconds.
00:54:35.280So if you know what the, the, the fall time of, or drop time of a grenade is, and you fly a drone at exactly that height, you can remotely pull the pin on a grenade and then drop it.
00:54:46.280So exactly when it lands or almost immediately after it lands, it detonates cause it causes way more problems than if you flew it and dropped it.
00:54:54.280And then someone saw it and kicked it or someone saw it and was able to jump behind something.
00:54:59.280So they were like, this is a real threat.
00:55:01.280You guys need to be aware of this and there's nothing you can really do to stop it.
00:55:04.280If you're out on a road move and they decided to drop a grenade on your armored vehicle, is it going to kill you?
00:55:09.280I don't know, maybe not, but it's certainly going to ring your bell and your, your, your vehicle's probably not going to work if it lands in the right spot.
00:55:17.280So you got a whole other host of problems now.
00:55:19.280But, um, I don't, I don't think that there's any allied country that can effectively deal with that type of guerrilla style warfare, uh, because it's just proven so effective.
00:55:28.280I I've talked to, um, many different people, whether athletes and are entertainers or who had did something for a while and stopped.
00:55:36.280And over time they look back and that time gives them better perspective.
00:55:40.280You've had a bit of time now since you had to medically leave the Canadian military.
00:55:44.280Do you have a different perspective on your time in now, Brian, with a little bit of time space since then?
00:55:49.280Wow. Yeah. No, one's asked me that before.
00:55:55.280I think I was in my career to have worked not only in the opportunities that I had, but with the folks that I had as well, especially with some of the leaders I had, uh, there's probably more bad leadership that I was exposed to than good.
00:56:10.280But the good ones really leave a mark where you can kind of the bad ones you treat as kind of dead weight and you just leave them in your, leave them in the dust and, and move forward.
00:56:18.280But the good ones really stand out, but the good ones really stand out.
00:56:21.280And you try to apply the things you learn from them, not just in your, in your professional life, but in your personal life and the relationships that you develop with other seniors or, or guys that, or gals that work for you in the junior ranks.
00:56:33.280And you, one of the things I'm, I'm most proud of looking back is the professional and personal growth I witnessed of the guys that were on deployment with me and just seeing them go, the guys in their early twenties, some of them sort of not fresh off basic training.
00:56:47.280They're, they're all, they're all professional soldiers. They have been for a little while. They're still quite young, but just how well they adapted to the environment and we're looking for work and proactively solving problems.
00:56:59.280Cause I had enough headaches administratively as a, like one of the only officers there in charge of my team.
00:57:05.280So it was like, I had to handle a lot of paperwork, whereas these guys were really good at equipment and tactics and all the things that make a court, a good corporal or mass corporal sergeant.
00:57:15.280Like these guys are just switched on and it was amazing to watch them learn and grow and, and make my life so much easier.
00:57:21.280And I'm still friends with a lot of them to this day. And if I can sort of pivot a little bit and speak to what they call me and talk to me about, like they're embarrassed about the military.
00:57:32.280Like they're, they're disgusted with the leadership and you're, you're supposed to be apolitical, like you're, you're wearing the flag, you fight for the flag, you fight for the guy beside you.
00:57:44.280It doesn't matter who's in office. It doesn't matter that Trudeau is an absolute joke or Kearney, which is basically Trudeau 2.0.
00:57:51.280But like, it does kind of matter to these guys and it kind of should, like, you should have someone that isn't a complete opposite of everything that you, you kind of, the reason that you signed up or the reason that I signed up was to be amongst people that were high performers in a very challenging and dynamic environment.
00:58:12.280Um, and something that you're proud of doing, you know what I mean?
00:58:16.280These are the reasons why I left sort of the business world that I was, that I had spent time in during college and university, which was considering that career as kind of a backup.
00:58:24.280Right. And I was like, I'd rather be more of in an environment where I'm around kind of like when I played hockey, I want to be around guys who are athletes that care.
00:58:31.280You know what I mean? That take pride in this. And that's, that's the military and that's the people that I was exposed to.
00:58:36.280Now here's, you just brought up a really good point. I think most people watching this don't understand. They're probably thinking, well, what difference does it make of Trudeau or Kearney or prime minister to someone in a unit in the military?
00:58:49.280Um, it's, it's, it's a, like, it's a, it's a pride thing. It's a professionalism thing. It's an intrinsic, for lack of a better term, giving a shit about what is going on behind the scenes.
00:59:01.280Cause that stuff does matter. And I remember I sort of very briefly on my way out considered, um, moving lateral, like before my health problems completely spiraled out of control.
00:59:13.280I was thinking, okay, well, I don't really feel at home here anymore. Where else can I go and use my skill sets to be a value? And I, I had applied to the RCMP to be on the prime minister's protective detail.
00:59:24.280Oh, right on. Yeah. Cause that's who handles.
00:59:27.280Exactly. I did it city side as a bodyguard as well. Like I have a lot of experience doing this or enough anyway. And I, like, I made it, I don't know, well into the, the, the process of the application before I started having to sort of sit down and think like, would I take a bullet for this person? Because that's quite literally your job.
00:59:48.280And I, and I decided, no, like, I'm not going to take a bullet for Justin Trudeau. Like, is that a joke?
00:59:53.280And again, you're supposed to protect the office. You protect the position and this is what they tell you. And they beat it into your head and this and that. And it's okay. I get it.
01:00:02.280But at the end of the day, am I still going to sacrifice my life and never see the people again that I care about and have them deal with the loss of me or whatever.
01:00:11.280And maybe that's selfish of me and fair enough, but for Trudeau, no, I wouldn't. He's, he's a joke. And so is Carney for that matter.
01:00:20.280How, how much, um, influence can the company commanders, the, uh, Sergeant majors, the NCOs in the unit, uh, keep the people in the unit, the men and women on point and sort of shield them from maybe that like, Hey, forget about who's in office.
01:00:36.280This is our job. This is what we're going to do. And we're going to do it together. Just in spite of them.
01:00:43.280I don't know where you dug these questions. Like I'm sweating trying to figure out the best answer to these. Cause I, I've not really thought of that before, but the, but it's, it's a really good question because you're asking about top cover.
01:00:55.280Like how much top cover do you get from the RSM and your Sergeant major and all these people. So my dad was an NCO and then I, for when I grew up the, the senior non-commission officers, they make things happen.
01:01:07.280Yeah. Yeah. Everyone knows that. Like you, you learn that, especially as a junior joining, as a direct infantry officer, you learned that the warrant and the sergeant's is who runs the platoon and you're the guy who pushes papers around.
01:01:18.280But, uh, can they provide enough top cover to, I think maybe 30 years ago, but now because there's so much information and there's so much access to immediate headlines.
01:01:33.280And I'm not talking about clickbait nonsense. I'm thinking like, if you want to do a deep dive into any subject, whether it's the person in office, the policy, the corruption, like I don't think they can anymore just because they, so they can, to a certain degree, they can sort of try to protect you from the bureaucracy machine that can overtake your life and become a nightmare.
01:01:58.280Like they can definitely help with that. And I've tried to do that for guys that were getting the, uh, like a, a jerk, uh, Sergeant major breathing down their neck or their, or their OC or whoever was like, I had one guy try to, he, he was given what's called a CFTPO.
01:02:14.280So, which is your, basically your marching orders that you're going on deployment.
01:02:17.280Okay. And this outranks everyone in your chain of command.
01:02:22.280Like this is coming down from, you know what I mean? The, the army commander is sending this down saying.
01:02:29.280Yeah. Like Corporal Bloggans is going on deployment.
01:02:32.280Like he will be at pre-deployment training under the guard of, not the guard of, but the, under the command of Captain Isted, you know what I mean? As they prepare.
01:02:40.280So his chain of command was saying like, I don't care who Captain Isted is.
01:04:04.280Honestly, the vast majority of my time is spent in appointments, managing my, like many, many appointments a week, managing health and pain.
01:04:16.280So like, that's sort of my near to medium term goal is to get a firm grip of what I'm dealing with mobility wise, health wise, mental health, all that stuff.
01:04:27.280And then honestly, seriously considering, and at this point planning on an exit from Canada, because I don't, I don't think this country is trending in a good direction.
01:04:36.280Um, seeing the concurrent parallel problems happening in the UK, Australia, the US as well.
01:04:43.280Um, it's, it's a little bit shocking that we're not sort of getting a grip of this and we couldn't wait to vote back in Trudeau 2.0 with the threat of bad orange man.
01:04:53.280Um, cause that's essentially what happened and the boomers just ran to the ballot box to protect their $2 million town homes.
01:04:59.280So it's like, man, like just taking care of myself and the people close to me because, uh, the, the hurdles that I've faced in the last couple of years, health wise, have been pretty significant.
01:05:11.280You, I mean, you look fit and healthy.
01:05:13.280So what are you able to do physical fitness wise, uh, dealing with some of the health issues that made you have to leave the military?
01:05:20.280It's, it's just, it's a lot of the same things, but with heavily restricted, um, potential.
01:05:29.280I can't, the lower back pain thing goes from, it's, it's almost agonizing some days just to get out of bed because of the, the autoimmune thing is not something that anybody really knows how to understand or manage.
01:05:40.280It's one of those things that like even the biologic drugs that they try to give me are, are quite scary, uh, in terms of the side effects of those, which can make it like you either get a side effect from the drug.
01:05:49.280Or you deal with the side effect of your issues.
01:05:51.280So it's like what, which one's worse rock hard place kind of thing.
01:05:55.280Um, I, I still try to do a lot of the same things, but realistically, like I'm definitely slowing down and it takes a team of professional people.
01:06:03.280One of them in this building, actually the massage therapist, um, that sort of enables me to slow the degeneration and sort of make the most of what I have.
01:06:12.280I, I would never tell you what to do with your life and especially after what you've done to serve the country.
01:06:17.280And I, I hope I w whatever I wish you the longest life of health and happiness, Brian, but the Canada is a country.
01:06:24.280I mean, we're called true Patriot love for a reason.
01:06:26.280We, we need people like you, not like wherever you end up.
01:06:29.280Hey, I supported a thousand percent, but I hope part of Canada stays with you because for us to survive and thrive as a country, people like you are, are an important part of it.
01:06:40.280I appreciate that. And it's, it's, I, it's not like I'm writing it off as a, as a nation or as a people or whatever, but it's definitely top of mind to consider, can I afford to live here?
01:06:50.280You know what I mean? As someone who's definitely not going to inherit anything from my folks, I don't, I don't have family money.
01:06:55.280I don't have the things that a lot of people can sort of lean on. And I've talked about this in the past on a different podcast where Canada's kind of almost devolving into a caste system of families that sort of own properties and ones that don't.
01:07:07.280Um, and I'm not, I'm not taking on any responsibility or wealth from anybody.
01:07:13.280Like it's, it's things I have to build and I'm, I'm fine with that. It's not a pity party, but it's like, where can I do that the most effectively? And it's trending more and more like it's not here.
01:07:24.280Um, I wait months and months and months. Like I'm still waiting to see a specialist for my back. It's been a couple of years. There's no one in Toronto that's willing to take me on as a spine specialist.
01:07:36.280Like where can I get better health care? You know what I mean? Where can I get access to things or how far will my money go? Can I afford a home? How bad is the traffic?
01:07:46.280I heard Churchill, Manitoba is nice this time of year. It's not a lot of traffic, affordable housing. You might have a box of polar bears, Brian.
01:07:53.280Oh man. Church. Is that like way north?
01:07:55.280It's way like, that's like, like, yeah. Yeah.
01:07:58.280Yeah. I don't think I'm moving to Churchill, Manitoba anytime soon.
01:08:03.280I know that the, the true Patriot love thing in the, and the love of Canada is still there. And I would love to turn this ship around and correct it for sure. I just, I don't know how.
01:08:13.280And like my, my resources are quite limited as I'm, you know what I mean? A young single guy with, uh, only so much income to, to spread around as part of my pension. But it's like.
01:08:22.280You may not realize it, but by just having this conversation, you're helping, you're helping a lot of people. There's a lot of people, a lot of walks of life, but maybe not military, but I've had struggles and ups and downs like you and see how you deal with it. And you're, you're helping a lot of people, Brian.
01:08:38.280I like in a perfect world, people would see this and, uh, hopefully pivot, you know what I mean? And, and make a better choice or, or make a different choice or, or keep on the path that they're on. Um, yeah.
01:08:50.280Yeah. It's a bit of pleasure, my friend. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thank you. Brian.