On this episode of the podcast, I sit down with former Canadian Special Operations Sniper and current rock and roll singer-songwriter, Dan Dallas. We talk about his transition from the military to the music industry, how he went about it, and what it's like going from elite sniper to rock star on tour with his family.
00:00:00.000dallas thanks for being here man i i really don't think you need an introduction i think a lot of
00:00:08.160people already know who you are and they're they're keen on checking this out um what's it like to be
00:00:12.720on tour now with your family you know what i mean doing all these playing shows and and essentially
00:00:18.800going from soldier to rock star and now you get to bring your family along what's that like
00:00:23.120i love it man um there's a ton of stuff i think that
00:00:26.240it's it's funny i always talk about it and people assume it's a very very very different job than
00:00:32.320the military and in a lot of ways it is the forward-facing side of it is social media and
00:00:36.320actually playing music but everything else around it it was like i was training for it my whole
00:00:41.920life all the logistics of touring and road moves and flights and plans and moving people and gear
00:00:47.520and equipment it's like it's almost second nature now and i think without having that
00:00:53.040it can be really overwhelming um but now that i'm i'm used to doing that kind of stuff i i love it
00:00:59.040get to bring my family around where it makes sense where the travel is good and be on the road and
00:01:04.880it's cool so there's there's a equal sort of proportion of supporters around more or less
00:01:11.520that able to sort of make it happen with all the moving the equipment and booking flights
00:01:15.760and booking hotels and road moves and everything yeah totally i've got a great team uh right now
00:01:20.720but it's still i've yet to really relinquish control of everything you know i i dream of one
00:01:27.520day being that artist where they're just like hey show up here this time and i just show up and not
00:01:32.640know what's going on but i like double and triple check everything and timings and robes i i think
00:01:38.080i think by then you'll be in like a bedazzled leather jacket yeah it's a bedazzled tour bus
00:01:42.960um yeah i mean like something that i guess i'll i'll uh parallel with myself like getting out for
00:01:51.320me as sort of messy and ugly as it was it was similar for you in a different way but was it
00:01:57.200did you have any trouble with sort of your identity you know what i mean getting out as
00:02:01.880like you'd probably identified as this elite soldier sniper you know what i mean for a long
00:02:05.180time uh you know i mean lots of deployments uh front facing you know what i mean tip of the
00:02:10.020spirit type thing and then finding a new you moving into a new career did you plan on going into music
00:02:15.480or how did that how did that uh I sort of I I went through the identity change while I was still in
00:02:20.820the unit really um on the tail end of my military like this is the last like few years really even
00:02:26.940before kind of that COVID stuff kicked in it got crazy I was starting to play music and I was
00:02:32.580playing a ton of bar shows like I would go play for like three hours at whatever local pub would
00:02:39.120me and then go to work the next day at Dwyer Hill. And I was doing that like three or four,
00:02:43.840sometimes five nights a week. And I was just, I felt like I was pulling to get away. And finally,
00:02:50.280they just like cut the chain. And so I already, I was off and running with a new identity. And I,
00:02:56.920you know, I've always appreciated my time in the military and enjoyed my time at the unit for the
00:03:01.420most part, but I was like ready to rock and roll. So when I left, I was like, oh, I'm a songwriter
00:03:07.980and i had a new identity and i was off and running so were you were you like all over ottawa sort of
00:03:12.780greely area yeah kind of anywhere i mean it was mostly west because i played country music so it
00:03:18.060would be all lanark county and up to as far as wherever i could get like and still be relatively
00:03:23.740inside our recall bubble that's where i was playing any pub or lounge or bar whatever that
00:03:28.540would hire me did you ever have a moment where you were recalled and you had to come in from a
00:03:34.380night from while i was playing no no no not well i was like halfway through his set sorry sorry
00:03:41.980sorry folks gotta cut this one short yeah um that's cool man i didn't know that you had already
00:03:47.340been doing that um that's that's really interesting that you kind of that the transition had already
00:03:53.020started for you and the identity piece was already making that shift yeah it was 20 it was in 2019
00:03:58.780that i i decided i'm going to be a songwriter so i go into open mics until i could play enough songs
00:04:03.580and then booking bars and stuff like that did you did you grow up playing in a band or
00:04:09.980so i played i didn't play anything really but i sang in a high school like alternative rock band
00:04:15.020for a little while um with some buddies and it was super fun i always loved music but it was
00:04:20.940i just like it never crossed my mind really outside of when we were young oh you could be a
00:04:25.580rock star to like oh you can actually like have a job a career in something that's cool and you
00:04:31.500could be passionate about it anywhere past high school in my adult life so i played hockey
00:04:36.460eventually joined the military i had a guitar in the house but i never really learned how to play it
00:04:41.660and then a bunch of things kind of collided in my life where i decided i wanted to be a songwriter
00:04:46.940just went about learning whatever the hell that means so how long did it take you to learn guitar
00:04:52.620like that's not an easy instrument to pick up and just uh well i just i i looked at it like
00:04:58.220learning how to shoot the pistol because i never really knew how to shoot a pistol before i got
00:05:01.740to the unit and i got pretty okay at it and it was just reps and reps and reps and around so i like
00:05:08.380just walked around my house strumming my guitar all day and all night you can ask my wife she
00:05:13.980heard all the worst versions of every song i could play um and i was just like all right i just got
00:05:19.100to get to put in put in the work put in the hours put in the work but yeah it was just every single
00:05:23.660day i still play every day um i just i still have a ton to learn there's guitar players that really
00:05:29.100really kick ass and it's an inspiring group of people to be around down in nashville just everyone
00:05:35.740you always want to be getting better so it's just the time and the repetition how how long have you
00:05:42.300been down in nashville and like how what's your what's your sort of plan or program to stay there
00:05:46.860and that's obviously the epicenter of country music in the u.s yeah and that's obviously what
00:05:51.020had brought you there yeah yeah it's uh i've been going down for like the last three years we were
00:05:57.340just trying to figure out the time stamp on this so that my first trip was when i did the sean ryan
00:06:01.160podcast and i was down there to do some co-writing um and then i kept going back you know almost
00:06:08.380if i wasn't on tour i was down there every month um just trying to build a network and meet people
00:06:13.100and then we just moved down at the beginning of last year and spent the entire year there
00:06:17.580mind you I toured a bunch too so I wasn't there nearly as much as I thought I would be
00:06:22.120um but yeah the plan is to always either be right in Nashville somewhere around there getting land
00:06:29.500in a house but we'll we'll be connected back and forth with Canada like we're back and forth a lot
00:06:34.540of touring in Canada right now we tour in the states and it's just kind of be another home
00:06:39.340away from home how do you manage the I guess residency portion of that as a did you go down
00:06:45.920as a as a e2 i think it is talented sort of visa that that's able to keep you there and you live
00:06:52.160there yeah so the all the first trips were just for songwriting i didn't we weren't playing any
00:06:57.840shows really sort of income didn't matter um and the last two years while we were touring in the
00:07:03.040states we got a p2 visa so it's an artist visa you can play uh i think they were each year long
00:07:10.160and we're we'll be on our third one this year there's some other options too that we're looking
00:07:14.320at but that one it's relatively easy and we know the process so i just keep renewing that thing and
00:07:20.560you can add shows and book shows and play as much as you want interesting because i uh i've been
00:07:27.120looking at my like i was just telling you earlier i spent most of the winter um in the us and i was
00:07:33.440kind of joking that if i'd overstayed my because it got kind of close to the wire of that 180 day
00:07:38.480limit and i was kind of joking with some people that you get iced up bro yeah yeah like i ice
00:07:43.360was gonna come looking for like a pale canadian to move them out of there um but no i i love the
00:07:49.200u.s and i i think this anti sort of u.s trump arrangement syndrome is is out of control and
00:07:54.720like i just had a bunch of conversations about that and i'm like if you just put your phone
00:07:59.040away and go visit the u.s you're going to find that it's just like here people think everyone's
00:08:04.480so crazy or divided or whatever like i tour for a living now so i talk to everyone and most people
00:08:10.560are just nice people regardless of what they believe politically all this stuff they just
00:08:14.160want to like have a good life take care of their family however they look at the world might be a
00:08:18.080little bit differently but it's the dude it's the phone that is the problem it's it's like barely
00:08:23.760even society um but yeah the us is is amazing man and i i'd say to everyone like that entire
00:08:29.920country is built on like this this kind of capitalistic view of things where you can go
00:08:36.560start a company in the u.s you can do it without without a social security number you can do it
00:08:41.040without anything and that will give you a business it'll give you a tax number you can get a phone
00:08:46.080you can have a reason to travel there's all kinds of foreign people that own corporations in the us
00:08:51.680and anyone can go start that if you're looking for some you know way to be tied in do business
00:08:57.920in a freer market there's all kinds of options yeah no i couldn't agree more my my time down
00:09:03.600there i made some great friends everybody was i got i got teased from my accent i guess i don't
00:09:08.160hear it but they they they definitely do and i agree with everything you just said and people
00:09:13.360really do need to kind of separate themselves from the rectangle of anxiety that they carry
00:09:18.320around non-stop and it just it just adds to unnecessary division and yeah man you you
00:09:23.840you articulated it quite well kind of in that same vein do you still pay attention to like what's
00:09:29.840going on in canada and the canadian military or that after you do you disassociate or is that
00:09:33.520still on your radar i have disassociated as much as possible and yet still i hear everything i
00:09:40.480don't understand it must be the group of friends that i allow to send me or something because
00:09:45.280i feel like i still know all the current events even without going to look for them or chase them
00:09:51.120up they always somehow come across um whether it's my algorithm even though i try to spend very
00:09:55.920little time on social media if i'm not actually posting for my business and for music like
00:10:01.920i have a thought in my brain where i want to like create more than i consume when it comes
00:10:06.640to social media and that's just because i have a music brand to build um but still somehow yeah i
00:10:12.560i mean i feel like i'm on top of most things unintentionally they find their way in it's um
00:10:19.840yeah i totally get i i don't do the social media thing really at all um that might change kind of
00:10:25.200where this thing is this this tpl gig has been steering and everyone's been really good and the
00:10:30.160some of the interviews have been getting really good traction um hence you know what i mean being
00:10:33.520able to talk to you right now but um the the most of the messages that i get and the conversations
00:10:40.480that i have with guys that are still in or guys that are on their way out or whatever
00:10:43.680uh is like just sort of embarrassment there's this sort of woke um social justice dei cloud
00:10:51.180now that kind of sits on top of everything whereas the guys that i tended to surround myself with were
00:10:56.620high hard charging high performing guys with ambition that wanted to go do this specialization
00:11:01.900or this deployment or whatever and now they're just like i i had a guy confide in me this is a
00:11:07.040couple years ago that he was sitting in a meeting as they were going over like a merit board or
00:11:11.280whatever for promotions and he was literally told by one of the i believe it was a colonel
00:11:16.360that like we were not going to promote the guy because he was a white guy and it's like we need
00:11:21.880this female you know what i mean buddhist vegan or whatever you know what i mean whatever insert
00:11:26.580thing and and he's just like he's like man i don't know how to compartmentalize this like i signed up
00:11:32.240here to be sort of doing this job and it just becomes sort of expectation management sort of
00:11:38.960dumpster fire for the last few years and I don't I don't know if this is going to change and I don't
00:11:43.140know if you can comment on that but guys are like really struggling the guys that I know yeah I mean
00:11:48.080I get the same from some people that are still in that I chat with or even at shows and I think
00:11:53.420right now the problem is the military in Canada like Canada has gotten what it asked for in terms
00:12:02.240of who they voted in and then obviously the people that are voted in are putting into position
00:12:07.940or putting these changes from their position into the forces to represent like the virtue signaling
00:12:14.540that they like to do all over the world so like well let's use our our armed forces as this
00:12:19.440extension of our virtue signaling and it's it's changed to the point like this is why you have
00:12:25.720commanders like crying about racism like you want to talk about putting a foot forward where like
00:12:32.860the picture you're representing is a total weakness and i'm not saying don't cry i'm not
00:12:37.480even saying don't talk about racism but don't have like the military is something different the
00:12:42.100military is a fighting force and I don't think ours is capable of fighting right now there's
00:12:45.960people within it that are capable of fighting but we do not have a capable fighting force
00:12:49.520the army the navy the air force and even the special operations have been like beaten down
00:12:56.820so much there was a gigantic weeding out process like we talked about earlier through all the
00:13:01.700COVID stuff there's like this if you don't listen to us kind of thing and you don't want to
00:13:06.840do what we say in terms of what the government is doing like people are getting kicked out
00:13:10.680we have now the fighting force that we asked for and that we meet our bed yeah um but what i keep
00:13:18.440saying to people and i get asked this thousands of times i've been asked like should i still join
00:13:24.360in my opinion service like to your community or your country is still important and it still
00:13:30.520needs good people you're just it's going to be an uphill battle for a while and will it ever change
00:13:36.360i mean i'd like to hope it does i mean at some point it's i don't know i don't think we can go
00:13:43.400down the path we're on right now and still call it a military no matter how much we increase our
00:13:47.720spending by but um i'm hopeful that it'll change it'll just we just we just need good people to
00:13:53.800keep doing it no that's man i agree with all that too it's uh i i did a i did a show not long ago
00:14:01.480that landed on the radar of some folks that are still in some that are out uh very high ranking
00:14:07.540senior officers that reached out to me to say hey like uh you're kind of wrong on this you're
00:14:12.480you're kind of right on this you don't even know how accurate you are on this and and long
00:14:16.180conversations kind of spooled into basically being confided by again very senior officers i was a
00:14:21.840junior officer my whole life like what my administrative and you know what i mean officer
00:14:26.040abilities like contained in a small brown bag and these guys are 25 years in kind of thing
00:14:31.160and they're telling me that the current cds again this is allegedly told to me the current cds
00:14:37.260kerrigan and jenny who i actually met in iraq and i can tell that story later if it's necessary but
00:14:41.900um she failed her interview like there's a vetting process for the cds that you have to you have to
00:14:48.140hit certain metrics and a checklist and you're then basically appointed you know what i mean
00:14:52.840based on your scoring merit wise compared to your peers and she and she failed but she was installed
00:14:58.120anyway because trudeau was on record sort of as saying like we we're gonna put a female in there
00:15:03.160and then i'm saying to this person on the phone like well like why did we do and and the person
00:15:09.320asked not to be identified obviously and then said there were other women in the mix for this role
00:15:13.880like the most important senior officer in the military the essentially a politician in the
00:15:18.280military yeah and other women had scored higher but i guess didn't check as many boxes like i i
00:15:23.960don't know but all that i'm saying is that it is it's exactly what you said like it's gotten to
00:15:29.320this sort of scary level where is it still a military like i'm not sure it's kind of this
00:15:34.840organized club of people who you know i mean go camping with guns it's kind of like that's in the
00:15:40.120in the reserves like we called it kind of camping with guns because you could go off for a weekend
00:15:43.640exercise and your phone wouldn't even die by the time you were i think but um yeah man no i i think
00:15:50.280think that that's an important insight that you gave and if you're okay with it i kind of want to
00:15:55.440bring it back a little bit to what we talked about earlier when you were sort of pushing back
00:15:59.320um and how many people i don't know like i'm not asking you to chuck anyone under the bus and we
00:16:03.840can we can derail this instantly if it's a no bueno but like when when you were when you were
00:16:09.400going through your stuff and i think people are curious because it seemed like you were being
00:16:14.240portrayed with all this the nonsense letter by the jag that went out that's just highly embarrassing
00:16:19.380of like a Canadian lawyer asking an American to abide by Canadian jurisdictional laws like it's
00:16:26.300pretty dumb and silly in Freedomville Tennessee yeah yeah but uh the if the the PR sort of agenda
00:16:35.020for this was that you were the outlier you were the outcast like everyone was on board with this
00:16:40.220you were the only one who wasn't but maybe that's not the case yeah it's 100% not the case uh what
00:16:46.360we were talking about earlier just I mean most of the guys I worked with every day were snipers
00:16:50.540and I would say I always go back to this cliche like I'm pulled in we have to pick a team to go
00:16:58.960do some crazy mission it's a it's a Hollywood movie and I have to hand select who I'm going
00:17:04.320with all of the people that I pick are out of the military all of the people that I pick
00:17:09.560left because of the same reason I did and they were all snipers so there's a collection of dudes
00:17:15.620all across this country right now that were the the hardest dudes i've ever worked with
00:17:19.760the the smartest the most talented snipers i've ever seen in my life far better than myself um
00:17:25.320and those would be the people that i would pick and none of them are in and they're not in because
00:17:28.940of all this shit that happened with covid um at the time the cypress group was the highest like
00:17:38.020percentage of people that were like yeah we don't believe in any of this and some people still did
00:17:43.000and some people didn't um but it was it was spread out throughout the unit that same opinion like
00:17:51.240it's easy to see that like i went to the doctor and just i just asked for medical advice i was
00:17:58.260like look here's all of the things that i've had happen in my career from brain injury to all the
00:18:03.640different things like the heavy metals in my blood and all you know my file here it is how does this
00:18:09.120medication interact with any of those issues and he's like well we don't know like then how can
00:18:15.600you tell me that it's safe he's like well it's safe and effective it's like okay i've heard that
00:18:21.400that's not what i'm asking i'm asking for medical advice i'm like tylenol is not safe for everyone
00:18:26.140peanut butter is not safe for everyone like this is not i'm just asking you because like when i
00:18:31.740look at this and these things i'm like the category i'm in is a young fit person it feels like there
00:18:36.100could be some heart issues on the side of this that might not be there if I just you know get
00:18:40.520COVID and get over it but it's like having any of these conversations with people were just like
00:18:44.700they look at you like oh was this a was this a Dwyer Hill doctor yeah someone at the unit okay
00:18:50.600and so I got a medical exemption for it but they wouldn't recognize I talked to a different doctor
00:18:55.160outside of our base and like yeah we're not recognizing that so the day I got kicked out
00:19:00.160like we were talking about this earlier I was going to a meeting for them just to tell me why
00:19:03.200they weren't recognizing my exemptions and that was just the last day I was ever allowed it to
00:19:08.380was it literally like you had this confrontation with senior leadership you were escorted out give
00:19:15.860us your badge like you're not back here ever they didn't even so I drove uh like my sergeant major
00:19:22.180my squadron brought me this meeting and this is where I had the confrontation with the RSM um and
00:19:29.280was over wearing a mask and then when i left that building my squadron sergeant major was like okay
00:19:37.520well you probably should go home i'm like all right well see you tomorrow i left and then
00:19:44.320when i came back as i said like all my gear was there like i'd been at the hill for almost 14
00:19:49.440years and i was a sniper a diver a climber surveillance troop and like a backup breacher
00:19:56.240so like the amount of gear you have is astronomical so i had like all this stuff my stall had been
00:20:02.960there for you know almost 14 years and it was like okay well i i knew i was leaving because
00:20:07.520i was on the medical leave path anyway as soon as all this stuff happened i i took the first
00:20:11.920off ramp i could find i was going through all this stuff so i went back and my past just never
00:20:16.480worked again i couldn't get in so i contacted my like true board did you like did you actually show
00:20:22.000up yeah just show up to the gate and your pass just like beep boop like you can't do it's like
00:20:27.520called and they're like yeah you're not allowed back on camp and it's like okay i guess i'll be
00:20:31.920at home then holy moly so so you didn't really even know at all that this was going on sort of
00:20:38.000in the no they were not like hey you're kicked off and you can never come back it was like
00:20:43.280they probably didn't want any more confrontation just like turn off that pass yeah yeah yeah yeah
00:20:48.480fair enough so what like what did you you just went home and then like awaited yeah it was just
00:20:53.600like via text messages on signal i like did out clearance essentially some people would visit my
00:21:00.160house like oh here's where's this piece of gear where's that we're turning all your kid in and
00:21:04.320this is like over months now and i just remember i was like i have not i know how the military
00:21:10.000works dude i have not been there to do my 100 every friday so who's been doing 100 uh well if
00:21:17.360it wasn't done how am i supposed to keep track of my equipment you have any cameras on my stall no
00:21:20.800you don't anyone could have took it anywhere so they're like where's this piece of thing on you
00:21:25.680tell me i no longer give a like that's wild man i didn't know any of that um he's so funny to him
00:21:35.360like i i sort of vaguely remember the shape of an area of the sniper cell building that was near uh
00:21:43.360son of kind of sort of near the training squadron stuff that we like i spent most of my time in
00:21:49.200can you can you talk at all about like what goes on in there is there is there an indoor range
00:21:52.960like are guys actually what's been disbanded now it's been disbanded because what does that mean
00:21:59.040like sniper troop is not a thing anymore at gtf2 it was the goal for a while so there's it's an
00:22:05.840interesting thing because it was always the envy of other units in the five eyes uh sniper groups
00:22:12.400So like every time we trained with Delta or SEAL Team 6 or the SAS guys or the Aussie or New Zealand, like they wanted to have a sniper troop like we had because it was it's basically just all the snipers have stalls and offices together.
00:22:25.380You still attach to squadrons and go do whatever tasks overseas and you're, you know, under whatever ground force commander or task force commander.
00:22:34.480Like you're still an asset, but you're you're you're not in the squadron.
00:22:38.440So every time you come back from deployment, come back from training, all that stuff, you're going to the same area with other snipers.
00:22:43.820And when you're in the area training, you can take all that information from all the different experiences you've had and different equipment you tried or you ran into or came across and just made the program better and better and better and better.
00:22:57.720And that's that was like the value in it is going back to that group of specialists and doing it.
00:23:03.780And, you know, there's specialists all over the years with climbers and divers and stuff, but they're normally spread out.
00:23:09.020So like they'll try and have, let's say, a climbing symposium once a year with all the climbing debts from the other squadrons.
00:23:17.320We were always coming back with information from the last training session or deployment and building this program that just got better and better.
00:23:27.080Am I allowed to ask, does that have anything to do with the number of people that are no longer there?
00:23:35.080I think I think it has to do with the fact that it's always been a little bit of like a outlier group of dudes, a little bit wilder, a little bit like there's there's no officer in charge of sniper troop.
00:23:53.080sniper troop so there's an admin officer but there's no like squadron well the squadron that
00:23:58.580we were in had a squadron commander but like we didn't have a what would be like a platoon commander
00:24:03.840do you know what i mean it was all there's for one i think that rubbed some officers the wrong
00:24:10.280way that there was no officer in charge of all these fucking yahoos um and it was historically
00:24:16.420the most aggressive like hard charging dudes were there and things like the opinions around
00:24:22.820covid and stuff like when most of the pushback was coming from one small cell of people
00:24:29.380i think it was more like okay let's just spread these guys out and get them under the control of
00:24:36.820some squadron commander instead of having them run their own stuff or whatever but i mean the
00:24:42.500proof is in like we had an incredible product like we we broke the world record for a reason
00:24:50.660and it wasn't just because us four guys were in that country that was a that was a sniper program
00:24:54.820that had been built for years and years um and just pushing the limit pushing the limit pushing
00:24:59.940the limit any group from our unit that would have been in that same position would have broke the
00:25:04.100world record and they would have broke it five or ten times like we did in a week um but that was
00:25:09.940because of it was because of all the guys that cared and worked hard and pushed and moved in
00:25:15.860the like the yardstick forward every time we deployed or trained so i'm glad you brought
00:25:23.460that up i didn't know if it was going to get there but it's as an outsider looking in um
00:25:28.500what's it like you know what i mean when you're you're you're firing from that distance you're
00:25:33.540doing your corrections you know what i mean you've got a guy who's i guess a relatively
00:25:37.620static target i guess it would have to be from that distance um like the the i think the the
00:25:43.060rumor was that the flight path or the flight time of the bullet was like around 10 seconds it was so
00:25:47.780far can you can you can you walk me through sort of like how that went if you don't mind yeah of
00:25:54.980course you know what i mean you spot the guy and then you're pulling the trigger like what happens
00:25:58.100in between yeah we were in this position in a hotel in downtown moses was like the top of the
00:26:04.260none of a hotel and it's like a bombed out shell of a building it's not really good there's no
00:26:09.460room service um but we were there observing for for a long time on and off on that tour for i think
00:26:15.38050 52 or 54 days but what we were waiting for is the iraqis to push into like old downtown mosul
00:26:23.460that was the last big stronghold of isis and they'd been like they're pretty dug in like they'd
00:26:28.420been there a while you're looking at like tight quarters street fighting so they're like hesitant
00:26:33.940i get it but once they started pushing that's when we started engaging with our 50s um and
00:26:40.340that particular shot is we were shooting at guys uh that were firing at the iraqis from like behind
00:26:45.940this car and they went into a building and so we called an airstrike but it was a dud which i'd
00:26:51.940never all the airstrikes we ever call i'd never seen a dud like a missile not go off so we sought
00:26:56.820land strike nothing happened and so the the first shot was a guy was climbing out of the second
00:27:04.740story because i i can't imagine what it sounded like inside that building but he was trying to
00:27:09.140get out and he like lowered his gear from the second story you see he lowered his aka he like
00:27:13.300climbed down so that gave us enough time to be like okay here's the target and send it ended
00:27:18.980being a simultaneous shot because we had two sniper teams um and we did not plan that but it
00:27:25.300was just like send it send it and they did so we actually don't know who's around it was we say it
00:27:30.900was ours they say it was of course um but it gave us enough time because by the time he climbed down
00:27:36.340and he hit the ground he reached down to pick up his gear it like hit him through the through the
00:27:40.660back and rolled down the hill and died and then from there it was just like they were all over
00:27:47.060the place so we just kept at it and the fight was perpendicular but kind of angled where it was
00:27:52.020slightly getting closer to us so i think i said this on the golf box but i bet you we broke the
00:27:56.820previous record probably five or six times like in that week with just other other dudes that didn't
00:28:04.020make the front page of yeah i was just like we never really thought anything of it because it
00:28:08.100wasn't the further furthest one anymore and then thinking back on i was like i should have kept a
00:28:13.380better log of i might even still have videos somewhere where i'm like that was number one
00:28:17.540this was number two this was number three so we so canada actually has like eight or nine of the
00:28:23.540top ten records then potentially that would be my estimation i mean let's go on record as calling
00:28:29.780that out sorry but yeah i think we're about eight of the top ten that sounds that sounds about right
00:28:34.580to me um and like i again i got sort of a very rudimentary training in uh pendems and ballistics
00:28:43.460and and that sort of stuff but from that distance uh as an expert as a subject matter expert here
00:28:49.380like is the bullet still is the bullet tumbling because it's been traveling that it's in subsonic
00:28:55.380it wouldn't necessarily be tumbling but it wouldn't be as like the flight path is not as consistent
00:29:00.660in this you can tell just by like the holds and how fast it's dropping when you're in subsonic
00:29:05.540like travel at that point so it's it's not like fully tumbling you know like head over heels as
00:29:11.540you would picture a bullet going but there's a lot more um instability in this flight path
00:29:17.700okay and you're able to see it through a spotting scope the the the path of travel is sort of i got
00:29:23.620a little bit of experience so you can't do a certain distance yeah like the swirl you can see
00:29:28.420it too yeah yeah the problem with the shot at three and a half kilometers is the culmination
00:29:32.900point of the bullet is outside of your scope so like because the part of the yeah but yeah
00:29:40.660yeah but you're essentially when you're dialing your scope what you're doing is adjusting the eye
00:29:45.780release so your gun is pointing higher and higher and higher because you're kind of lobbing the
00:29:50.740shot at this point so the culmination point of the bullet like the highest point it reaches
00:29:55.300is outside of your spotting scope field of view it's like hundreds of feet in the air
00:30:00.740that's crazy and then you're and then it's just like one mississippi two mississippi yeah and
00:30:05.460you're looking for impact and then you're like and this guy's on the ground with his rope because
00:30:10.900you you see the guy in the video in your video audios amigo you see this guy literally adios
00:30:15.460amigo at the end of this song this guy kind of rolls over and slumps over yeah and then i guess
00:30:20.980you there was like a couple high fives that went around in in the in the building well we were
00:30:25.620excited but we also didn't know that the guys in the op with us from the squadron were filming at
00:30:31.700of time so it would have just been a nice story that we had if we had not had them filming and
00:30:37.540like actually got the video from those engagements so that's where the video came from you had an op
00:30:42.500team recording a yeah sort of recce yeah and we didn't like they just had a camera going we didn't
00:30:49.780know throughout that entire thing that any of it that day or that week or that day at the end of
00:30:55.780the day is when we like realized and watched it we're like oh is is that potentially what got you
00:31:04.180in hot water was releasing that or uh no maybe a culmination of the funny thing is the hot water
00:31:10.580came before the release but they blamed it on the release which is interesting so
00:31:16.420the hot water that i got in was for one reason that was because i talked about
00:31:21.300covid and the reaction from the unit in the military and i had tons of meetings before i
00:31:27.940ever went and did a podcast with uh guys in the unit low ranking and high ranking um and the last
00:31:35.220one i met with um became a very high position in the unit we'll say uh his warning because i i
00:31:43.380wanted to make sure obviously like that there was no actual operational security breaches in the
00:31:47.940stuff that i talk about and so i talked through you know the things i was going to say when i
00:31:52.740wasn't going to say and his last point was well if you bring up the covet stuff it's like you
00:31:58.740will get hammered and i was like okay don't care but that's not the part i care about i care about
00:32:05.620there's actually something i'm talking about this operationally like still relevant as a
00:32:12.820as a breach in security um and so that was kind of
00:32:18.580where the hot water came from and then they were just kind of trying to find anything they talked
00:32:24.260about like oh there's a picture with panos oh there was this and i'm like yeah that doesn't
00:32:29.780like those are on golf commercials and before i got out of the unit i asked i don't even know
00:32:36.340how many times i said look i'm gonna i'm getting out i'm getting into music but i'm going to talk
00:32:40.740about my military career i'm going to be posting things on social media and this is at a time like
00:32:46.340i was not getting along with the unit because i was getting in a lot of trouble for not wearing
00:32:49.700a mask everywhere i went but i still was like i'm still gonna get out if you give me someone
00:32:55.540i will send every post to them before i post anything and they can tell me what they like
00:33:01.860or what they don't like and how it fits with the picture that the unit's trying to paint
00:33:05.380so i'm like i will run everything social media through this person and then and then post it on
00:33:11.300the other end uh so like you can have control of the picture of the unit that's going forward
00:33:17.780and they're like okay yeah we're gonna find something and it's like six months from retirement
00:33:22.180and then like three months i'm like i've not no one's come to me one month out two weeks out one
00:33:28.020week out and literally the night i was retiring i'm like messing my war and i'm like look i've