Ep. 213 | Eric Sauvé | Canadian Infantry Officer and Military Blogger

0:00 What do you blog about? So I've been blogging for two years. I started with more than three years. I started four years ago when the pandemic started. I just blog about what's on my mind. But I've been blogging about mental health issues recently. Are we recorded now? I can add? I may keep this in. I don't know, but yeah, it is recorded. We can go ahead and start. Okay, good, all right?

0:25 Yes, so you know I've been blogging blogging about military life. So I left the military about technical ten years ago, but I blog about my impression of the leadership right now, where things are going. I've had my own mental health issues recently, so I went through anxiety and depression, so I talk about that as well. It kind of took everyone by surprise, but I think it's it's worth, you know, publicizing it to say, you know, other people go through this sometimes, and I think you can learn lessons from others. Yeah. That's like a stigma, right, I mean, that's or that's what everyone says. I feel like it's gotten way better where people can say they have mental health issues and they need to seek

1:07 help. I think that's more accepted. But I also think unfortunately more people are like gaming the system with it as well. You know, they'll use any like little thing to say, have a mental health issue and need funding from the government. You know that it's a it's a anything like that is super tough because you always have people that come in and try to, you know, work the system at the same time. But I've also seen you know, I was when I was at second Battalion, tenth Marines. We came back from a deployment with third Battalion, six Marines and one of my fos asked to go or just came and said he was having some issues, and it was like, no. You hear a lot of these like bad stories about military chains of command that don't like allow their junior marines to get

1:57 help, or allow their soldiers or whoever to get help, and I didn't really experience that. I was like, Hey, I'm going to take him up to see chief, which is the medical chief, and then you know, he'll take him and do whatever like at that point, it's on that side, and there was no any issues with it. I thought it went pretty well, So I think it's really good though. I mean, more people need to talk about stuff rather than bottling it up. I guess I think things that have changed for the better, right, So I joined in ninety two. In ninety seven, I was an infantry officer and at the time, you know, if you had any issues, he didn't talk about it, like, he didn't mention it, you know, the chain of coman didn't want to know. And nowadays people are way more open, like

2:38 they you know, there's treatment for personal that suffer mental injuries. You're right, some people do have used the system, you know, and I was thinking that as well. But then I realized, you know, because I suffered from anxiety for about twenty two months, and I realized it's really hard to snap out of it, because that's what you think when you see people suffering. You think, you know, just snap out of it, it's going to get better. And every night I would go to bed thinking it's a nightmare that's going to end tomorrow, and I just couldn't snap out of it. The next day it was the same, you know, my level of anxiety was really high. I was depressed. I had no interest in life whatsoever, and I tried to kick myself in the butt for twenty two

3:23 months, but it really wasn't going nowhere. You know, it was a mix of medication and therapy that helped me get out of it. Now, that's why, ever since I got out of it that long ago, about two and a half months, I've been a champion for mental health for military personal, both in uniform and out of uniform, because I was out of uniform for ten years and it was still related to my time in uniform the suffering a little bit. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know what you're saying. A lot of people have issues when they get out of the military, especially people that really kind of took on that persona of the military, you know, and that's like a huge it's a huge part of your life and people on the outside can't really understand because it's like you can't really

4:10 understand where you're working, living, eating, doing recreational activities with the same people you know all the time, you know, and you just get so close to people and you have like missions laid out for you, like, hey, we got to take care of this, this is the goal, you know, this is what we were working towards. And there's not as much of that in the civilian sector, you know, so a lot of guys start running into problems with That's why I always tell people when they get out, find something that you're passionate about. You know, you got to have something that takes up your time and allows you to kind of express yourself and bond with other people, you know. Yeah, so it's funny.

4:51 I just blugged about that in my last blog. I was talking about the lack of purpose. So when I was in the military, I joined at six right, and I had a good life before. But I didn't think they would turn me into a military person at first because I was fully civilian. But then they turned me into a military guy. You know, all the camera Adrey. I really like all the purpose, you know, working for a same shared goal. And when I left, So when I left, I did around the world trip with my three kids at the time for one year. So traveling around the world gave me purpose. I felt like I was moving, I felt like I had an objective. And when I came back, my kids went back to school and my wife went back to

5:35 work, and I decided to take some time to figure out what I wanted to do. And I had a little depression at that time because I realized I thought it was because I wasn't making money anymore. But that wasn't the case. I felt like I was young. I was not even four years old. I had nowhere to go in life, no purpose, you know, And it struck me at the time, like, you know, what am I doing? I'm just enjoy life. And eventually later I became a consultant for defense, which is a good job. It pays well, but it's not the same sense of purpose, you know. I mean, I like collecting my paycheck, but I don't feel the same importance and the work that I do. I'm just an advisor basically, so I do my best to advise, give the right advice, but I don't feel like I'm part

6:24 of the team anymore. Right, I'm well regarded, you know, they listen to me, but in the end, it's another team that decides where they're gonna go. So I found that I lost a little bit that sense of purpose. I'm not in a civilian job either. I'm not in a hierarchy somewhere in an organization, so I don't get that sense of bonding with others that much. So I do that on the side with sports and other things. I find it somewhere else, right, I find it with my blog as well. The mark like connecting with people, Yeah for sure.

6:56 Yeah, I mean that's it though, you got you gotta seek it out. You know, it's not just thrown at you like it is in the military. You know, like structured everything is. You know, you know who you're gonna live with, you know where you're gonna eat, you know what you're gonna work out at, and stuff like. Yeah, you gotta grow those social circles and just get into something, you know. So when you so you joined and you said ninety two, what was did you say you were sixteen when you joined? I was sixteen. I was going to the Military college in Canada. So so I'm in the French part of Canada obviously with my accent, and I finished high school and I had to do five years at military college and then I owed five years to the military.

7:38 So I'm gonna let you ask your question. I think I know where you're going. But yeah, so I was sixteen at the time. No, I mean, I just never heard of that. I didn't know if that was like an early entry kind of deal or something like that. So it's associated with the military college then, yeah, So so really I had no military experience before I joined when I was so I went to the recruiting center when I was fifteen sixteen, and I brought my marks at school and you know my pedigree, right, and I wanted to go to military college.

8:07 I wanted to go for three reasons. One was to play football, American football, one was to get paid, and one was to have the other one was to have a good education. So I didn't feel like I was joining the military. I was going to university for five years because it's it's a different system in Quebec, so we it was five years of university and that's what I joined for. So that's why I didn't feel like I was military at that time. And I remember when I joined, they said in the first weeks, they said, you're ten percent military ninety percent civilian, and we're going to reverse that in the next five years. We're going to make you ninety percent military and ten percent. And I guess they achieved their

8:46 goal because when I finished my five years, you know, I wanted to serve at that time in the Act, but I wanted to do five years because I owed five years to the military. I just wanted to do ten years and then leave but then what you realize is then you have a sense of camaraderie, a sense of purpose. You know, you start to enjoy it. So I decided to stay for much longer. But my plan was never to do a twenty two years of service like I did. Yeah, the Military College there so like most people have heard of, like West Point, you know, in the Naval Academy, very highly regarded like engineering style schools here in the US. Is it the same there is the focus on like engineering like STEM, like science, technology and stuff like that, or

9:31 is it a more Do they have more disciplines of study? I guess so they do have more discipline. So I was not an engineer. I was not an engineering. I mean, if you did engineering at the Military College, you were highly sought after by the business because it was it's a very good school. I did history, that was my feeling. I enjoyed it.

9:50 A lot of guys started as engineers and then they failed engineering, so they joined me in social science. Right. I was still very good at it because I enjoyed it. I had the marks to go engineering, but I had no intention, no, no, no passion for it. So basically I did. I did five years of kind of the first two years are like more like so in Quebec there's another system where you need you need to do five years before you joined the university. So I did those two two years. Sorry, so two years and then three years of university, but five years at military college. And it's so there used to be three colleges at that time in ninety two. Now there's only one. So they regroup everything, so it's Army DV are forced together. There's it's not like

10:37 West Point or Anapolis or those places. And about i'd say about sorry, forty percent of the officers go through military college. Forty percent of the officers of the system. I may be wrong with the statistics, but so the majority would go to civilian university and join join after. So there's four there's four pillars at military college. There's the academic pillar, which is the most important you need to pass your university, the military pillar doing military stuff, physical fitness, and then bilingualism. So whether you join as a franc or in Anglo, you need to be valing well by the time you leave the college. So if you if you miss one of those pillars, you don't graduate at the end. Are most people in Quebec bilingual, Nope, No,

11:26 Most poll just speak French. Everybody speaks French. There are Anglophones that in Quebec as well. Some of them speak English, some times speak French, some don't. But if you meet Quebecers when you travel, ninety percent of them will will speak English because they travel. But if you come to Queedec Province and you go into villages, you'll realize about fifty percent of the people are valuing able. When I joined, I was not biling goal like I am right now, so I was looking. My father was an English teacher, so I was better off than the other kids. But I've never worked in English, never practiced really much, never studied in English. So at military college, I did my study in French. Although I got one

12:11 year of doing my study in English, just for the scholarship it gave me. I got better. But I've been working in English almost ever since because depending on the trade you have in the military in Canada, if you're in the Navy, it's mostly English. I was an infantry officer with a French battalion French Canadian battalia, so I spoke French. But then when I joined the intelligence world. I started using English all the time because our allies are the US, you know, the British, Australia and New Zealand. Yeah, five eyes. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. That's one of those interesting things about Canada, right, is that that one territory is a completely different language than everybody else. It's like its own. Yeah. You guys

12:56 really celebrate that identity in Quebec, right, Yeah. Yeah, So we're proud of our French origin. And I can be honest, I'm out of the military. But there's a there's a saying that the French and the English culture are like too loneliness. It's like it's like an old wedding, you know that they still live together, but there's not a lot of relationship between it. Seriously, that's what it is. Sorry, just the same, that's okay. Yeah, that's really interesting though. I always thought that was kind of funny. I've never been in Quebec. I've only been to what's that spot right across from Detroit. Everybody goes and parties at all, the Americans to uh windsor Windsor so. Yeah, I wasn't Windsor. We didn't

13:43 trust the Detroit because people said it's dangerous to go to Detroit. I don't know. We just drove through. We didn't we didn't hang around. I'm sure it was at the time. I mean when I went there, it was like early two thousands, so uh rough times, I guess. And around that time frame you were, you were already in the infantry. You're already with your union stuff. What was it like tell us about the infantry officer training experience for the Canadian military. Yeah, so, so, like I said, when I joined, didn't know much about the military. So I was I was tagged army. Basically, I was a landforced I didn't have a particular trade for my first year. Then after a year they said, you know, you got to decide are you going to go artillery,

14:26 infantry, armored? So most of my friends were going infantry. I didn't know better. I was, you know, I like physical fitness, I like campaigns, so I said, I'll go, I'll go infantry. So the first summer is it's just like everyone together, everyone from the military college together doing basic basic training, a Basic Officer Training Center basically basic officer training course. And then the next three summer you do what we call Phase two, Phase three, and Phase four infantry officer. So Phase two is a section commander, so you're in the field most of the time doing section attacks, you know, defense everything. Phase three is a platoon commander dismounted and Phase four is make an eye. So it's about two and a half months

15:16 in the summertime. It's in New Brunswick, so it's another province. It's one of the largest bases in NATO. Gagetown. Can enforce the base and you go there the whole summer and you get you get your as kid for the summer. So I would go there, you know, lose twenty five pounds, sleep for two hours during a week, and I hated it.

15:41 Yeah, I had the sense. I had the sense I was learning though, I mean, no one really likes the infantry phase. But I remember at the end of Phase three, you know, the attrition rate can be high. Like my Phase two we lost fifty percent of our guys and Phase three a little bit less. But I remember at the end, I was I felt like I was a warrior, like I felt like I would go to war with these guys. Phase three was the toughest one because you're you're dismounted and Phase fours make an icy you get some rest. But phase three, I remember, I felt like I was a warrior. Like things had changed, you know, I was I was becoming aggressive, you know, which was not my case. Let's say when I was younger. Although I

16:26 like, I really enjoyed American football, like you know, I'm a linebacker. I was a linebacker, so I like, you know, being rough, the violence just in sport, right, and then it kind of transferred to the infantry. At some point I felt like I was a warrior. At the end of phase three. How big? How big is rugby?

16:47 There? You said, you like, American football is rugby big in Canada, so not as big, So I didn't think it's very popular. So funny thing is, when I was fifteen in high school, we had a very success school football team in the in the fall, and they created the rugby team for the spring season for the first year. So what they did is they took the entire football team and transferred them into rugby players exactly.

17:15 But but we were thinking like football players, you know, we would try to hit the first thing we found when we had the ball, Like we were not fancy. I remember, we were not moving the ball. It was more like, you know, like runs, I think the first guy putting the ball, so I played it. I was actually good in rugby as well, so I discovered the fun of running with the ball because I was a linebacker it was. And then in rugby I could actually take the ball and carry it all the weight to the game. So I really enjoyed it to the point where I wanted to stop playing football and play rugby only.

17:47 But then I have a fairly big nose and I broke it twice and it reduced my ardor my speed in rugby. After Yeah, rugby is rough. They have a I don't know if I still have it, but I know when I was in they had a base team at campbella June and they would travel around and play some of the smaller colleges and stuff. And one of my buddies was trying to get me to play, and he was like trying to convince me at the same time that he was resting from dissocating his elbow, and I'm like, no, dude, I'm trying to go out there and get sucked up. I gotta do enough stuff over here. I don't want to. I don't want to mess up my opportunities by going out and getting hurt playing rugby. You know that's cool though, When so when

18:29 you're going through your Infantry Officers training, what kind of weapons are you guys employing? What are you learning about? So the weapon we learned mostly like the Phase one the basic officer. So it's a C seven, it's A five and it looks like an M sixteen, I think if I'm not mistaken, Okay, So we had that, We had the sang which is a section machine gun, uh five point five six. Also when we have to sea sick, which is the platoon weapon seven point sixty two, and then and then the cal G STAB at the time, that's the type of weapon we had. And then in the Mechanized Infant three when we do Phase four, we had the old M one WENT three at the time, let's all because it's Viettnam era vehicle. And now we have the LAB three. We've

19:25 had the Lab three since around ninety seven when I so when I finished my face training, then ninety nine we got the labs. That's what we have right now. We're deplaying with labs and whenever we deployed no more M one Went three or older vehicle. I wrote in the l we call them LAVs and the Marines. I wrote in the lav and the Marines, and man, that was like the most comfortable ride, you know, out of all this stuff, I wrote in it had the best like just down the street or over the trails. It was just smoothest ride compared to anything else.

19:56 I wrote in It is it is, but it it doesn't go everywhere like like the track v equill right, So I remember what because I did the We did many trainings before going to Afghanistan, before we went to Boston as well, and we were the first to use the lab, the LAED, and so we had to learn like like what to do on a on a you know, company attack, right, what do you do with your lab?

20:21 Like you know, I have a twenty five millimeter canon, you know, which is very precise compared to that point of the fifty cal and m whe went three, So so what do you do? Like all, do you get out of the vehicle when you're on the objective because you're in a in a turret at this point here, So we had to learn all this has changed since then, Like I mean I left, I left the infant three in two thousand and four. I actually left the battalion in two thousand and two, but I stayed there. Intelligence, stayed Inventry until two thousand and four. But when we deployed H to Afghanistan, like I was there in two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, we had we had the lab, we had the coyerity, the Ricky vakule, so a smaller,

21:03 smaller version of the LVMH. It is very comfortable and it's it's hugest massive. I was at a demo with the other billion. There's a new version that's even bigger. I think it's it's a big target personally on the battlefield. Well, I mean we as we've seen, you know, the last couple of years with the whole Russia, Ukraine and and different fights.

21:26 This drone warfare is it's not negating armor, but it's making armor super vulnerable, you know. And it's like it's almost like the IEDs in Afghanistan where they don't really have to spend a lot of money. The adversary doesn't have to spend a lot of money to destroy a multimillion dollar vehicle, you know, and really put a logistical hurt on whoever it is they're striking. So it's going to be interesting over the next ten years. How weird it gets with drones and everything else, and also with the watching the shifting of tactics, you know, to counter these kind of threats and stuff like that.

22:07 So you know, in Afghanistan we had air supremacy, right, so we had no danger coming from the sky whatsoever. But I happen to teach at the NATO Soft School in Belgium and we talk a lot about hwo AD NT axcess area denial, you know, like how difficult it is to get in a place and stay there with all the weaponry, all the radars. It will never be the same as Afghanistan and even in Iraq, right the future wars, like even though we're seeing it in Ukraine, as you mentioned, how big vehicles are vulnerable on the battlespace. Like, I think tactics are going to evolve a lot, and we should be paying attention to what's going on in Ukraine right now. Yeah, for sure and soon and soon those that evolution is going to continue into the air space. I mean there's already

23:00 drones and stuff like that, these anti personnel drones and there's these these s two droneses, intelligence drones and stuff. But now we're testing fighter jets that are flown by AI, flown by you know, that are basically flying drone. So at some point, you know, I don't know, it's just going to be a bunch of robots fighting each other out there. It's gonna be kind of wild. So I was at a big trade show for the military a of two weeks ago. I mentioned it when I saw the big vehicle, but I was sitting at a spot. It was the company of Ryan Mettal So the ad a fifty cold monod on a on a vehicle, but everything autonomous right, lack a robot. And I asked, you know, like cannedy engage, like what's the censor to shooter link right? And

23:45 they told me it can do everything you know with AI. It can detect the target, engage, no human in the loop in Canada. So you know, it's a big no no. No one wants to talk about that. I know in the US is different. I know in many other countries. You know, they're looking at that technology. And as you said, it's going towards robot fighting against rob Yeah, well, I mean I think I think we're exploring it because you have to write, because everyone is going anyone that has the capability is going to explore that option. I don't think that many people want that or agree with that. Where you can have a weapon system that is completely autonomous, yes, you know, and identify and take out targets on its own. I don't think that's something that a lot

24:33 of people are okay with. But we'll see how it. I mean, I don't know where do we go. You know. The other option is we continue to put people in harm's way to do these tasks. You know. So it's gonna be weird, man. That's why I said in the next ten years, it's going to be a super weird environment. We're adding in that direction. You know. It's in a bit about right, that's what you just said it And except we have to face it. We're going to face enemy ease that are you know, completely autonomous, right sensor to shooter, no human in the loop. So what do we do. Do we put someone in the arms weight because of our all our principles, or do we do the same. You know, it's it's a question that we're gonna have to answer at some point. So I know in Canada because I

25:17 was talking with the head of that the industry, and he said, no one in any anyfone wants to talk about it, but you're right, we're gonna have to discuss it at some point, because you know, the minute we lose soldiers to robots, everyone in the country will say why why aren't we using robots as well? Why or are we losing people on this when they're not on the other side. Yeah, that's the catch twenty two, right. People don't want you to do something like that. But then if you don't do it and someone else does and it's like, why were't you ready? Why weren't you prepared to counter this threat? And it's like, well, you can't have your cake and eat it too, bro. You know, you can't hate on the military industrial complex and then be mad when

25:56 the military industrial complex doesn't come up with counter because you've defunded them or whatever. Not that they're defunded. They have plenty of money right now. But oh so, so that's an issue in Canada. We we are being defunded in Canada right now. Canada is crazy. Man. I don't wanna I don't want to speak out of turn on the politics there, but there seems to be a lot of like a lot of people talk about the split and ideas in the United States and how you know, far apart we are on our thinking, you know, hard right, hard left and all that, But it seems like those ideas are way more divisive in Canada. You know what I'm saying. It feels like the politics are way more toxic right now in Canada. Yeah, so I have no issue talking about politics. I'm

26:41 not in uniform anymore. I know in my time in Unifer we're not supposed to. But uh so, the current government, the liberal government is has always been seen as defunding the military, like you know, doing more with less all the time. But the funny thing is, at the next election, it looks a lot like the Conservative will take power and they're into cutting everywhere. So the Conservative I've always been better for the military typically, and they want to reduce the cost of government. So whether we're liberal and conservative, you know, it could be like Democrats and Republicans, we're going to face cuts in the military. I think we're I think we're either thirteen thousand people short or sixteen thousand people in the uniform. Right now, I'm the

27:27 consultant, so I can fill that gap. But they're cutting on the consultant as well for optics reason. Right, So the military doesn't have enough personal to do what it wants to do because it doesn't have enough people in the uniform and cannot better on the consultant because they're being cut as well by the government. But I say, we're not going in the right direction. I can tell you what are the benefits of joining the military and Canada. I mean, in the US, we enjoy you know, once we leave the military, even after four years, you get the GI bill, you know, or education bill that covers education for thirty six months and housing as well.

28:07 You can get VA disability based off of any kind of injuries that you may have had while you were in service. Is it similar in h in Canada? I mean there's business options or opportunities as well, so it's it's not as big in Canada. So I lived in the US for three years. I was an intelligence as an officer at the US Defense Intelligence Agency, so d I in Washington, d C. And you know, some people won't like that, but there's a lot more respect for military persons in the US than in Canada. You know, I don't know how many times I was in the Canadian uniform. I would go out in d C and people would say thank you for your service. You don't get that a lot in Canada. Let's be honest. You know, everyone who's been in the state

28:56 know the difference. Yeah, Like in terms of the benefits. So when I joined, you can get a lifetime pension at twenty years of service. You needed to serve twenty years. Now it's up to twenty five. I think it makes a big difference because your value on the market always reduces as you get older. Right, Yeah, if I left when I could have left when I was thirty six, so really young, and I could be employed somewhere else. But if you join at twenty and you need to do twenty five years to get a pension, you're forty five years old, You're not thirty six, thirty eight anymore. So your value is not as big when you want to go to another company because you don't have that many years to give them. Right. So it was really good when it was a

29:47 twenty year and you could still stay and add more to your pension in terms of housing benefit and we don't have the same. Of course, if you're a veteran and you injured, you'll get you'll get stuff, but the government doesn't give a lot. I mean, it's really not the same. I'll keep it like that because I don't some of my friends won't like that.

30:11 But it's really not the same that in the US. Yeah, no, I mean as much animosity that we get sometimes in the US, the overall support of the military is still pretty high. I think a lot of people understand that it has a role and that there's so many families and stuff whose situations have improved from joining the military and taking advantage of the of Again, like the education benefits, the the VA home loan to purchase a home, you know, rather than where a lot of people have to find of their home value to put down to purchase a home, if you use the GI built or excuse me, the VA home loan, you don't have to put down a downpay, you know, they can just go straight into getting a house. You know. There's a lot of good benefits to it, and

31:07 so I think in the US it's it's not that's not surprising to hear that that you I would also say that most veterans in the US when someone thanks them for their service, they kind of cringe a little on the inside. It's like, okay, so don't don't make it weird. They do, but we're not used to it. So I really appreciated that. I mean, yeah, yeah, I felt like people that they didn't even know I was Canadian, you know, even though I flag on the side, I felt like they were taking me as one of their own, which I really enjoyed. Right. But so so you understand the military, So when I joined in ninety two, the military was in Canada was very much seen as a peacekeeping formation, right. We created the Blue Helmets in the nineteen fifty

31:53 six, if I'm not mistake, and then Canada created that. And even when I joined, you know, I wasn't thinking so much about war fighting, but more being like a peacekeeper because that's what the army was used for them. We used for a lot, even in Bosnia. You know, we deployed under United Nations. Then eventually we deployed under NATO. But things really change with Afghanistan and with us going to Kandaar because when we first deployed to Afghanistan, we were in Cabul and as you know, the situation in capital is not the same as as in the Soudid Kandar. So our chief of Defense staff at the time, he had been a Natal commander and he wanted the Canadian Army to go down to Kandar to do some war fighting.

32:42 It was quite a change for the main population to see the force as a fighting force than us as un peacekeeper, you know, like from the inside it it was great. The change was great because we were then equipped, trained, did everything for war. But it used to be a up was towards peacekeeping. Even if we were getting ready for war. Most of the mission and most of the mentality was where to be peacekeepers? Are? I'm looking I'm like looking up on my bookshelf for a book. I I bought a book from a Canadian. It was a Canadian about the Canadian military.

33:15 I believe in Kandahar. About one of the big battles that happened there, Task Force Lion or something. I can't see it upon the show. So the big battle, I think you're Lions of Candahar. I think the big battle is up Medusa maybe. So it's interesting because my boss right now, so I work for the Intelligence Command and the commander of the intelligence come in is a two star. He's an infantry officer and he's one of those war eros of the Battle of Medusa where they found the Taliban just west of kanada Ar City. So my boss, you know, is a two star, but he was a major at the time, and he was surrounded by talent.

33:58 This company was surrounded by kind of gun fighters, and he was offered the q r F, and I think he, uh, he told the Dhu not not to not just not to commit the qr F, that you didn't want to put people in trouble. He was going to get out on his own, and that's what they did. So I think that's probably the big that's the biggest battle we had in in Knada all the time. Yeah, the Canadians definitely came through, you know, over in Afghanistan and stuff that people tend to forget. It wasn't just the United States there. There's a huge NATO contingent. There's a whole a whole bunch of other you know.

34:30 I think there were like Swedes, Norwegians, there was all kinds of You run into all kinds of people out there, depending on what you were doing and stuff and reached you all command south like that. The southern portion was Australian, Canadian, Romanian. At some point the British British war in Alman Province, seeing a lot of in the west of US. So they were barely in the American and actually in my region they were barely except for stuff. Guys. I don't recall seeing that many US uniform at the time.

35:00 Yeah, we had some, uh. We had the Royal Marines connected or adjacent to us in our battle space. They were like right next to us, so we would contact them. It was funny. They would reach out to us if they saw a ied in placer somewhere along like the edge of their battle space of their uh you know, and if it was like close to our you know, close to us, they'd call out to let us know, because our rules of engagement would allow us to strike somebody in placing an ied, but it wouldn't let them. And I remember one night when that happened. I'm just sitting there in the command center and I get a call and it was like, you know, I don't want to do a British accent, but it was like, oh, you know, you

35:37 we have an idea in place over here, and I was like, oh shit, you know, I'm like, I'm getting my people all spun up. He's like, all right, we'll have a good night and then just like hangs up and I'm like, all right, let's do this. Yeah. It's always good work with those guys in the south. So in the south there was the regional commands. South. It was very multinational, so the Kennagians were kind of are the Britzebourne Ellman and eventually the Marines came back.

36:00 The Marines were in Nomandy four and came out. The Australians were in the province up north. But it was really like a multinational command. But it's funny because every nation was doing what they wanted to do and the regional command, which should have been overseeing the entire region, was playing in between in the scenes, right, because they didn't want to tell the nations what to do, so they would say, oh, we're going to use so we would get the girl cast sometimes from the bridge like the Gurk carriage event, and they would use those in districts where we never went. And to me, it was a complete waste of you know, of troops because we were just west of canadaversity like geneous Say and Panjui districts was where the Taliban

36:49 started basically, So we saw a lot of fighting and we wanted more troops there, but the regional command didn't want to get into Canada Shorts or Australia or the it was. It was something to see. Yeah, that's perfect. It's it's always a kind of a balancing act, right when you're working in the joint environment like that, because you got to like every country has their own rules of engagement and stuff like that, and you got to understand how they're being employed and how they want to be employed. So you know, it's trying to bring everybody in is all. Is a good pr move, but it does bring in a lot of concerns because logistics are different, you know, like I said, rules of engagement are different. Sometimes languages

37:30 are different. Yeah, it can be messy like that. Let's talk about real quick. We've talked a little bit about Afghanistan. You know, on your bio it said you were in Bosnia. What were you guys doing there? Yes, so so so, like I said, Canada was in Bosnia when the wars started in ninety three, I think so ninety five was when Bosnia saw a lot of fighting, you know, the Serbs and the Croats and the Muslims fighting. Yeah. So Canada, like I said, Canada at the time was very much a peace keeping nation, right, it was all about peacekeeping. So we sent our troops to uh to Bosnia and Crouche at some point to like keep keep the war the war fighting party party separate right, try to try to enforce peace more and keeping keeping the peace.

38:20 Uh it didn't go so well because the rules of engagement you know, were not very proactive. So you know, all you could do is basically standing between if you don't get fired up. Is there was not a lot of chances to just you know, reply with fire basically. Uh So eventually when I when I deployed, we went under the NATO umbrella. So uh uh, the rules of engagement we were were much more proactive, but there was no fighting anymore. But we were there like to make sure that the people this armed we were there. We called that human at the time, we were doing some human intelligence basically patrolling, talking to people, trying to d mind some areas. But it was really to enforce the peace. After because

39:12 I was there in two thousand and two, a long time after the foul that the fight was over. Even the guy the guys deploying in ninety six, even that was more quiet. But nineteen ninety five they saw heavy fighting and it was it was it was, you know, a bloodshed in Boston, like there's this Cerbernicia massacre where a lot of Muslims we got massacred, you know, And I mean there was a lot of suffering. The guys witnessed a lot of suffering. So we had guys some primum PTSD because they saw atrocity but couldn't do anything about it. While with NATO we could be more productive. Even though there was not a lot going on when I was there, Yeah I was, I was. I wasn't fatally at the time.

39:59 That was also another multinational thing. I think we had. There were marines there. I think one of the first staff sargants I met in the Marine Corps I worked with in like seven he had three Combat Action Ribbons, which in the Marine Corps at a time was a big deal and you get one for each campaign that you're in. So this guy had been in Bosnia, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and this was back in like two thousand, like I said, two thousand and seven. So to see a staff sergeant with three campaign or three combat action ribbons, you're like, holy shit, Like where was this guy at? Yeah, and that was he his platoon or something had like taken some grenades or something like that while they were there,

40:38 Like there was like some legit fighting for them. That's a you know, that's the kind of little piece of history that people don't really talk about very often. So for US, I mean for Canada, before Bosnia, you deployment the Cypress basically to keep the peace between the Greeks and the Turks in Cyprus. Cyprus was like a walk in the park, right would go there. There was not a lot going on. So I remember when I joined the army, Like in Canada, we don't get a lot of ribbons, like in the ribbons like in the US, we have very few metals.

41:10 So the guys would have there twelve years of twelve years of service, which she kept. Everyone gets after twelve years, and then and they would have Cyprus sometimes, but then when Bosnia started, they would have Bosnia. They would have you know, any valor or courageous metal, right, anything related that, and I was sub lieutenant with nothing on my chest. But then before my time there was only two, and after I finished Bosnia, I had like five, you know, and it was a big deal at the time because having five was better than most of the last thirty years before, where people had almost nothing on their just I mean, that's how it is in the military right now. You know, if you look at like some new sergeants and new staff sergeants, they're rocking a couple a handful of

42:00 ribbons because in the US there's no more National Defense award. So normally when everyone graduate, when you graduate a boot camp, you got in the Marine Corps, you at least graduated with one ribbon and that was a National Defense award and that's gone away now. And then after you were in the fleet for a certain amount of time at your unit, you got another campaign, a global war on terror or something metal. You know, all of that's gone away now, all like all the war and deployments and all that stuff is uh, from what I understand, there's a lot of people rocking almost nothing, which when you're a junior person and you don't have any any rhythms, you have like one or two, and you see other people that have

42:40 more, You're like, oh, man, you know, like it's important. So right now, like we have deployments in the Middle leagues, right, but there are fairly quiet deployments. But I work, you know, I work as a consultant with defense. I work with a captain. He's got nothing on his chest, and I'm thinking, so we don't get anything for basic training or going to a unit or whatever. So the only you can get is this twelve years metal. So he's gonna have to wait until he's done it with twelve years. Man, he's gonna get this first ribbon.

43:14 Yeah, yeah, it's It's funny because in the military, it's like one of the few places where you almost wear your resume on your chest, you know, where everyone knows. And that doesn't necessarily mean you're good or bad at whatever it is you do, because you can have a lot of campaign ribbons mean you've been to a lot of places, but if you were an asshole in all those places, you didn't do a very good job then.

43:36 But it does show like, oh, this guy's been here, he's done this, you know, like it gives you kind of an insight into what people have done before, and in the Marine Corps in the Middle where at least in the Marine Corps they started doing it. We had to wear your service uniform every Friday, so every Friday you saw everybody and you know, with their ribbons and stuff on their uniform. So yeah, I think because people people read that, right, So yeah, for sure, going to a room, so you look at you know what regiment or what trade, the rank obviously you know what is what is done before. So it's funny because I was asked to give a brief to the Joint Operational Command.

44:16 So that's kind of our compatant coment in Canada, right, deploying people everywhere. And because I go there in cities, people will be wondering, why is he briefing us? So my first slide is, you know I serve from ninety two to two thousand and four. Here's what I did. And I'm going to say, you know, you won't listen to me if you don't read that, because they'll be thinking, who's that guy? Why is he briefing us? He seems to be talking about the military. We don't we don't even know where he did. So it's funny because people expect to know by by looking at you what you've done before, and then I have to put it on a slide to say this is what I am. You know, here's my experience. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny though, because

45:01 there's you know, we get what we call a ribbon chaser, you know, people that are trying to get awards and collect them like their pokemon or something like that. Officers going out of their way to get awards and whatever. It happens, unfortunately, but it is what it is. In the Canadian and the Canadian infantry, are there units that are more highly regarded than others, like like in the Marine Corps we look at like third Battalion, fifth Marines has a pretty storied history. You know, six Marine Regiment has a pretty storied history. Is there units like that? And what units are like that in Canadian military? So I'll be careful because there's three regiments in Canada. So there's the one I come from, which is the best,

45:44 obviously the Royal Regiment. So it's the French Canadian. It's the only French Canadian regiment in the forces. You know, there are other regiments from like Armor and Artery that speak French, but We are very proud of our origin, being the first. We used to be a battalion when we were created in nineteen fourteen and it became a regiment. So there's this one in the Quebec province really like in Quebec City, and then there's the Royal Canadian Regiment, so that's the Atlantics or Ontario, and then there's the West PPC allied Princess Petiia killing in light infantry. So you can imagine there is a lot of you know, just the thumping right when it gets through two infant three, right, I think my regiment is the best. I won't say which

46:36 one I like to work with, but we tend to prefer one of the other one or the other. But they're all they're all really good. We used to have the r Born Regiment before, but that got disbanded in I think ninety three because of some fiasco. So it was it was not the soft obviously it was there born, but it was kind of the you know, the best of the infantry if you wanted at the time. I've been gunned for like almost thirty one years now, so do you guys not have airborne infantry anymore? So? We do. So what happened is when they disbanded the Airborn. In each of the regiment, the third battalion is the Airborn one. So I say airborne. It's more like a light infantry the battalion and they have one company that's always a bloos Airborne. Okay, so

47:28 one company. So when I was an infantry officer, I wanted to be in the thurd battal, like that's where you wanted to be, but you didn't get to choose when you when you finish your training, you know, they would send you where there were gaps. Right, So I had a hard time just getting my wings, getting my jump course because I was not in the the light infantry battalion. I was in the mechanized battality. Where's jump school in Canada? So when I did my course, it was in Trenton in Ontario, a small a small base on Ontario Applanes right there.

48:00 It's more like an air Force base. Nowadays, they don't qualified as many people as they did during the time of the Airborne, right, So when I was an infantry officer, it was difficult to get there. It was really difficult because the school was small and you had to be selected to go there. I don't know, like, I don't know what it is, like it's been My last jumps were in two thousand and four, right, so twenty years ago with them. Yeah, I mean how long? How long does his course last? So it said three way course. It's two weeks of practice, you know in the risers, you know how to fall all the commands in the in the airplane, and then the last week is the jump week. So you need to do seven jumps to be qualified.

48:52 And I think you'd I think you need to do sure, I think you need three in the rcue leagues, actually two by day and one by night with all all your equipment, including the winter rackets I know, like the snow shoes. Sorry yeah, winter snow shoes, the bag, the backpack, the weapon. So you need to jump at night once and then you're qualified. Most guys like me are qualified and never jumping again. Oh really yeah, unless unless you're in the light in Fincher Battan. Do you ever get do you guys ever get the opportunity to like do airborne up operations with like the US, like even in training, uh, the airborne regimented that, And I would think the Light in Fincher Petal and the third Battalan does

49:37 it. But it's not as common. No, it's not as common. It's I don't think it's been used on the battle space either. I mean when they when they disbanded the airborne, we kind of lost all the doctrine and the Noah's right, it's crazy. Sorry I said it's crazy. I know. So it got trends to the light and tent to battalion, but to a very small cadre if you want. Instead of all being in one place, it got into three different regiments. And the three different regiments, you know, although they we go through the same basic training, we tend to do things a little differently. So I'm sure on the airboard side that the finders, like my regiment, were probably different than the other ones a little bit, you know, although they came from the same training. We

50:27 tend to we have a hard time harmonizing our our doctrine sometimes. Yeah. That's not always a bad thing though, as long as it's all pretty close, you know, and you can still trust that everybody can do the job. Yeah, when you know how much being Canada, you know, the having all of that space in the Arctic area and stuff like that. How concerned is Canada with possibly future operations that happen in the Arctic space, right, because that seems like it's becoming a growing area of concern for like battlefield planners. So it's it's an ex excellent question justin it's very timely because so we had the last the big policy update for defense was twenty seventeen. We did a big update on you know, the type of units we want to

51:22 deploy, where we want to go and everything. There was a defense policy updates. I'm talking about politics a little bit, but Defense Policy Update just came out like two months ago and it's called the North Strong and Free, and it's all about the Arctic. So we're really like doing a big shift towards protecting the Arctic. Concretely, there's not a lot of changes right now.

51:49 We've been talking about the Arctic for a long time, but this Defense policy update, like that's the main document that the defense will follow, right in terms of for purement, equipment, train name. Uh. You'll find it interesting that in the infantry we did winter winter warfare. I don't know if you've tried it, if you've done it, but it's it's really winter.

52:10 It's really a survival more than warfare. I've never done I've never done a formal one, but I've done training in Alaska in the winter time. Okay, so yeah, So every year when I was in infantry, every January we have to do and in a winter exercise. So sorry, it's in celsius, but minus thirty minus thirty actually it's the same as faaraanheight.

52:35 I think around that around that number is the same. So minus thirty fair nheight, you're really survived, surviving more than fighting at that point. So we would do a week in the in the white uniform, in the white tents, with the snow shoes, you know, with all the gear that you carry. I remember thinking at that time, you know, this is just insane, like like I'm thinking about you know, the Russian Front for example, that the same World War, right mm hmm, freezing on their posts, the same the same would happen to us, and we would just be surviving, trying to do something that too. That to freeze. It's an unforgiving environment, you know, and it's something you can't just walk into.

53:16 And I don't know, it's it's interesting. I don't know how they'll crack that nut on defending you know, an area one so large, so remote, and also so hard to even exist in because of like you said, that negative. You know, we were in Alaska it was like negative twenty negative twenty five or something like that. And uh, going out into that you just feel the hair on your arms freeze immediately and stuff. It's like, uh, it's weird, man. Can you can you kind of give an overview of what the strategic concern with the Arctic is and why, you know, the Canada and the US and Russia and never body's kind of taking an eye on that. Yes, so I'm not the expert on this, but you know, basically we're concerned about the top of the globe,

54:09 right that the Russians coming over all the time, you know, the Russians poking at our our space, the Russian ships coming into the Arctic in our territory. Because you've got to real nice. Canada is the second largest country in the world, right but fifty of the population lives within fifty kilmes so thirty miles of the border. So why do we live there? Why do we why are we so close to the American Because we're so friendly because it's warmer. O. We love the Americans, but we're there because it's warmer than a being in the North. So and you've got this massive land mass where there is barely anything. Right, we have a military base of north in the Arctic, and we have the Rangers, so not the US Rangers

55:00 their first first nations. Basically they go out it snowmobile and they patrol the Arctic. But it's a tiny force for the size of this line. Right. So I'm always talking about the army, but the Air Force is very concerned. What's going on in the Navy is very concerned. I'm not sure if we do have ice breakers even to get there, like the Coast Guard as ice breakers, but we're for a northern nation. We're not so well equipped to go in sustain a fight in the Arctic. And I think this new Defense policy update, so those updates are fairly rare. The last one was in twenty seventeen. Twenty seventeen was a big change. Now it's just an update. But it's been seven years or eight years, and I get a sense that we're turning towards the Arctic as this is our biggest concern I

55:59 mean, I guess with Russia and China, and let's be honest, you know, in my mind like Afghanistan and Iraq or a side show compared to what's what may be coming. Right, we think we're taking a much larger scale in terms of warfare if we're going to fight against Russia or China and we're going to fight with the Arctic at some part. Yeah, it's my understanding that it's a big freedom of navigation and a huge I guess spot for natural resources on tap natural resources and stuff like that. And I believe we just I think the US just had another icebreaker ship just get sent out to see or something like that. I just saw something about an icebreaker the other day. Man, that'd be so wild to be on one of those.

56:52 It'd be wild to get stationed in the Arctic, you know, that would be he said, there was a small base in the Arctic area. How long if you get station to that, how are you there for? So that's a good question. So you're posted there for six months? I think it's a posting instead of the climate. So you're posted there for six months, and if you're lucky, you get there during daytime, right, six months of daylight. If you're lucky, it's six months of darkness. Basically, I've never been there, but I was told in the middle of winter it's one closed space, right, you don't really wander outside because you could get lost and die. And the guys were telling me you could get a case of twenty four beers, put it by the window, just open the

57:37 window and it's going to be frozen within minutes. Right, your beer is going to be really cold. That's crazy. So usually when you go there it is I think you get hardship payment and I think I think for the current managers, if you go there you get a choice posting after. I think it's kind of a punishment to get a reward after. Not many people go there. Mostly is communications guys like keeping the electronics on, and when others go there, it's just to do exercise in the north, like we do winter exercise. But you know, in the in that thirty mile band that I told you about, it's not the same as being up north in Quebec or in other provinces where the ground is frozen and you get to build eglues. I've never seen any glue in my life. By the way,

58:34 the snow is not the same as in the north. It's not a stereotype. Yeah, I've never seen one either. Actually, I've seen some of the documents on how to build one, you know, and the survival shelters and stuff like that. I think they build them. We have a Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, California, and they do a winter winter leaders course or something like that. And in Bridgeport it's at six thousand feet elevation and the base camp is and in the winter time that area averages like ten to twelve feet of snow, I believe, So you know, they can do that kind of thing. They do the snow caves or build a little a glue or something like that to kind of teach teach the Marines and other

59:16 you know, special operations guys that go up there for the training how to do these things if necessary. So just so you know, we we get a lot of snow were I mean, Like when I deployed to Afghanistan, I had my wife was with a three year old, a one year old, and she was pregnant with thirty one. They got twenty five feet of snow in the winter. So when I when I visited my second you know, time coming back, like there was a wall of snow in front of the house and you could barely see the house. You would walk in the street and you see a driveway and then a wall of snow and a driveway you could barely see you can see the roof of the houses. That's crazy.

1:00:00 But but it's not this, like I said, it's it's the snow that you can shovel right in the north, like the in Itit's basically you know, they'll take a songde they'll cut like a block of ice. Yeah. Here, you cannot do that here. Yeah. Yeah, it's more for me exactly. Yeah, no way, man. My dad lives in Wisconsin and they get a ton of snow and I'm like, no, I am good. I do not want that in my life. That's why I'm in San Diego. So I'm jealous. I'm jealous about what you just said right there, because I've been to San Diego. I've been to forty forty states in the US. By the way, Oh nice, Yeah, but we love winter, Okay, we are a winter nation. I think so much weird. I was just cleaning my garage recently. We have alpine skiing

1:00:52 cross country skiing, hockey, skating. You know, we love winter sports. Like our winter is a little too long. It's face it. I wish it would like three months. Yeah, it's like six or seven months. So the beginning is difficult, the end is difficult. But when you were in the little winter and you're into sports and everything, I mean, like going down hill skiing like people loved at You know, I wouldn't miss that if I did San Diego whatever. Well the problem so you know, I'm from Indiana originally and we get snow and stuff there. But I always told people like it snow's enough just to piss you off, Like if you got a snowmobile, if you got a snow machine, if you will, then you can only use it a handful of times a year. There's never

1:01:42 sustained snow. There's never like sustained ice for ice hockey. When I was in Alaska, we went ice fishing, like that wouldn't be possible in Indiana. States like Wisconsin and northern Michigan and like Montana. You know, they can do that kind of stuff because they have like that full deep winter going on. But most places, oh I just bought my wire. Most places in the US, did you. I don't know what happened there. I just hit like the wire. But yeah, most states don't have that sustained ability to do winter sports. I will say it's unique here in San Diego because we have the beach, but you also can drive two hours and be on top of about you know, six thousand plus foot mountain and go skiing in the same day. You can go out, and you can go out

1:02:30 and surf and ski in the same day. You know, I'm very jealous of California. Okay, yeah, I said so. I took long printeral leaves in Canada. You can do that. You can you can go on print to leave for months. And uh, my wife and I with the with the newborns, with it. Forty states and the place I love the most in the US like California, right San Diego, And they're super lucky, you know, with the the coast, the mountains where you can go skiing and everything. I mean, it's a country in itself. In my mount California is like a country in itself. And yeah, yeah, there's something with it. It is big enough, it has enough people, and it has enough resources. It probably could you know, and it's so very

1:03:16 it's such a large state. From the northern part of California is very much different than the southern part, the northern part, middle middle California up when you're riding the coast, it's more rocky, it's more jagged coast and stuff like that, where southern California is more beach and you know what you what you think of is California. But you go inland and there's all the farms.

1:03:39 There's massive farms and stuff like that. You have the mountains, you know, you have like Mount Whitney, we have Mount Baldy up in La. We have what Big Bear, which is not too far away. It's such a were you able to go through Tahoe. No, So so I went to uh and Diego, La San Francisco in two different trips, and I went to Yosemite National Park. I went in lands. I actually I went to twenty nine pounds on the on a a two week that was kind of kind of a waste. No, no, not for travel, you know, for work, for work. It didn't feel like it didn't feel like California. I was actually I was actually there. So I deployed and against in two thousand and seven and eight, and when I came back, I was asked to go brief to twenty nine pounds and then campulation after to

1:04:35 brief the Marines that were going back to elm and to breathe them all the situation. Because I was I was inel so I loved working with the Marines, by the way, like really like it's a force that's that's comfortable in size to what we have in Canada, right It's it's much smaller than the big, big US army. And I liked the mentality. It's like we get along really well, Kennathians and the Marines get along really well. It's kind of there's a going on with that on when I was at UH.

1:05:10 When I was at First Anglica, we sent UH a brigade team up to Canada for some exercise that they were doing. I think it was one of your winter warfare ones, because the guys that went were like, bro, they dropped us off in the middle of nowhere. And He's like, I I didn't see anybody that I knew for thirty days and I was out in the fucking bush the whole time, like just fucking dying. He's like, he's like they had tanks cruising through. It was like some big training scenario in the wintertime, and they said it was super miserable but also like really awesome training. Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure. I mean we have we have lots of land in Canada. Like I said, when I did my my infantry officer face training was in Gage tom New Brunswick. I think

1:05:56 it's one. I think it's the largest natal go in and do a lot of nick and ice infantry in there. And uh a winter exercise was more in Quebec City because you don't need a big place where we were dismounted. We're going through exercise. But like I said, I've never been up north to do like the the Arctic training that's we discussed before. Never never never got to build an igloo and learn to shoot cariboos with the with the rangers.

1:06:23 Yeah that's funny, do you. I mean, how big is hunting for the average Canadian? Obviously you have major cities. I imagine in the cities hunting is not a big deal. But if you more country people is hunting us. I mean it's got to be still pretty large, right, So so you're asking the right person, because I was born on the countryside.

1:06:45 Okay, I was not from a big city. I was what we call Quebec nordchard, so you got the Saint Lawrence River coming in Quebec. The north shore of Saint Lawrence is very isolated. So uh. When I was a kid, I had my own rifle when I was ten years old. And it may not be a big deal for the US, I know, but in Canada it's a big deal, like having your own rifle when you're young. Meydia, at the time, it wasn't such a big deal.

1:07:13 So I would go and would go hunt partridge by myself after school when I was ten eleven, and I would go with fishing as well. I moved to Kateech City when I was twelve for to go to the school in Kdech City. Never been hunting and fishing ever, so completely changed my life I could have. I mean, I've got lots of friends who do still go. But being in the countryside, it was my life. It was what I was doing. And then coming to a city it changed changed my life completely. I wasn't going anywhere hunting and fishing. And one thing that I find super frustrating is you know, I'm qualified to far twenty five millimeter.

1:07:58 I'm qualified with those you know qualify that to the weapon. I need to do a course to carry my own firearm. No, I need to do a course, a two days course. And I'm like, why why don't I get it? Why don't I get it granted by this system thing, you're qualified, you don't need to. I refuse the course because I'm just sure, what's first really with that? So I'm not allowed to go one thing by myself? Now? Oh? Really, so you can't.

1:08:26 That's not just like a concealed carry kind of thing. That's so that's just to go hunting at all. It's to go hunting. If I go hunting and I get cut, I get it. Fine, I mean they'll take my weapon and win. No, I cannot go hunting. Even if I go with friends, I'm not allowed to touch their firearms because I'm not qualified.

1:08:46 Oh what? Well? I mean we have now a lot of states in the US have a hunter safety course that youth have to do, kids have to do, and I think some of them. Adults have to do it once. You know, you do it once. If you've done it once in your life, then you're good. I don't know what the rule on. I mean, every state is different. I'm here, but I don't think you would not be man. Maybe you wouldn't be allowed to shoot either. It may not be that, you know, as crazy as it sounds, it may not be that undifferent here for strictly hunting. But like you, you can't take a rifle and just go to a rifle range either, right. Uh No, see, see, like I would have to take a course to get a hunter safety course. I'd have to do that

1:09:38 and get a hunter license to go hunting. But I don't need any kind of anything like that to just go shoot. Like if I want to go out to the range, I could just go do it. You know, that's kind of that's crazy. I'm not sure. The only times I've been to the range was when I was in La right, so I was actually a range officer over there. Sou You got to understand if you don't know, the gun culture is not the same as in the US, like nowhere near right, which is crazy to me because it's such an outdoor state.

1:10:10 It's such a like our country. Excuse me, it's like such a you know that you have such a historic like I mean the country, grew up on hunting and trapping and that outdoorsman kind of mentality and lifestyle. But you know, the population is very urbanized these days, right, So, like we were talking about Quebec before. You know, half of the population of Quebec, which is I think it's nine millions, well close to half of the population, lives in Montreal, the biggest city, right and then Quebec City is another like five hundred thousand people. So more than half of the population lives in big cities. So when I lived on the countryside when I was young, yeah, everyone at the rifle. Everyone would have this hunting

1:10:58 permit, would go hunting. But you know, when I joined the military, and like I said, I was sixteen and I was used to carry my own firearm, right, so I was I was better at shooting than most of the other kids who were coming from town. We'd never touch a life. Oh ever, so and many houses don't have a gun here in Canada, like I don't have a gun anymore. There's a reason for you.

1:11:23 So when I moved to the US, it was very complicated to do all the paperwork, to do everything. I didn't want to carry my guns and have more paperwork to fill. So I left them with my brother and I don't have them anymore with me. But I know that the gun culture, there's no gun culture. Really. There's a hunting culture maybe for people, but there's no there's very few like small firearms. You know, there's no Countya weapon and anything. You're not allowed to carry a gun on the street. It's very restricted. Yeah, man, tuck all that. It's a huge cultural differences. Nah, I get it. And to be honest, again, you know here and like again, I'm in San Diego, California is very restrictive on firearms and guns and stuff like that. So to

1:12:15 walk around here with the gun on you would be probably out of the ordinary. Whereas where I when I lived in North Carolina, I remember going to the grocery store and people would open carry. You'd see someone with a holster and a pistol, and you're like, even me, someone that has guns and likes guns, would be like okay, Like you know that's how you're rolling huh to the grocery store, like you know, take each his own though. But that's the thing too. I can look at it and go whatever, man, if that's what you want to do. You know, I don't necessarily conceal carry or anything like that, but I know a lot of people that do. And my whole thing, which I think most of them, you know, follow, is if you're gonna concealed carry, then

1:12:57 you have to be prepared to use that firearm, meaning that you have to train yourself. You know, you can't just walk around with it like you're a badass and hope that when the time comes, you're gonna be able to use it. If that, if that pistol has been sitting in the same holster for months, with the same AMMO and the same magazine, it's never even been fired. The magazine, the pistol, the rounds have never come out of the magazine. The odds of you having a malfunction or something going wrong in the time that you will have to use it is pretty high.

1:13:25 So I and I think that's the same kind of thought process a lot of pro Second Amendment, you know, pro responsible gun ownership people have is like, if you're gonna use it, use your right to carry it and stuff like that, then at least know what the fuck you're doing, so you don't become more of a harm than a good you know, what I'm saying.

1:13:45 So, so I've got four kids right then, My two sons, the older ones are nineteen eighteen. They've never touched a gun. They've never probably seen a gun except in the museum or something. So that's crazy. I mean they've seen police officers. But yeah, yeah, And I remember talking with people in Bosnia when I was deployed in Bosnia at the time, and they said when the war started, they never used a gun. They didn't know what to do with it. They didn't feel comfortable with it.

1:14:18 And it surprised me because when I was a kid, yeah, we had fire arms to go, I think, so I knew what to do with it. I was not uncomfortable with a gun. But I could see my sons, you know, if I was to bring them to arrange tomorrow and tell them about the safety and how to operate it, I would think they would get nervous a little bit. They well, yeah, and that's okay, yeah, but you know, they I want to bring them at some point, I just don't have the opportunity or it's not the same as in the US, and we know, but yeah, it's different. I mean, this blows some people's minds here in the US too, But when I was in middle school, so I think sixth, seventh, and eighth grade here in the US, I lived in Tennessee, and in my middle school,

1:15:05 when you were in it was either seventh or eighth grade. You could select some of your own classes. That's when you had a little bit of flexibility, like I want to take this class instead of this one. And one of the classes they would let you take was a hunter safety class, and everyone that passed the class, at the end of the year, they went out onto the football field and shot clay pigeons with shotguns. They brought shotguns into the school and shot clay pigeons. And I doubt that they allow that today, you know, But that's just kind of there's like a difference there because it wasn't like there's no glorification of guns or anything like that.

1:15:44 It's understanding the tool. It's like looking at it as a tool, teaching someone how to use it properly and safely, just like I'm not going to hand an air you know, a air gun, a nailer, an automatic nailer to a twelve year old without giving him some instruction on how to use it, because he'll kill himself, hurt himself. It's it's not much different than that growing up, growing up, you know, I'm surprised my parents would let me walk with my own rifle to go hunting when I was ten years old. I mean, I'm a parent now. When I if I was to tell my tenure old you can go by yourself and go hunting, I was showing the safety aspect and everything like, yeah, I don't remember my parents showing me much more than you know. This is where you load

1:16:30 the gun, and that's what you do, and make sure it's empty most of the time unless you're about to fire. And that was it. There was. There was no no more explanation than that at the time. Hey man, different experiences, you know. Different. My parents definitely wouldn't have let me. My dad's not really into guns, my mom not really.

1:16:47 They're not you know, my dad was in the army, but he wasn't necessarily into guns. You never. I don't think he really ever owned his own personal firing room or anything. So I never really even really went shooting and stuff until I was a little older and I was hanging out with my own uncles who were all hunters, you know, they'd all did different kinds of hunting, deer hunting, rabbit hunting, turkey hunting, both with shotgun, rifle, and bow hunting. So it was like learning some stuff from them about it. And you know, when I got older, when I had my son, and you know, I have guns in the home and I want him to understand the seriousness of a firearm. When he was pretty young, you know, less than ten, I got him like a Red

1:17:29 Rider BB gun and we just treated it like it was a real gun. And it was like, hey, if you want to see it, you can see it. You just have to let me know beforehand so I can get it for you. You're not allowed to go get it by yourself. And just kind of hey, you know, treat every weapon as if we're loaded, and never point you know, they'll putting those gun safety rules out there. And it became where he wasn't fascinated with ULM or anything like that.

1:17:55 You know what I'm saying. It's like, oh, he sees a gun, that's like, oh, yeah, it's a rifle whatever. You know, whereas a kid who've never seen one when they were growing up or it was, you know, they become fascinated with it because it was something that was always held away from them and not they were never allowed to experience.

1:18:09 And now they want to experience it and they don't know what the hell they're doing, and they're mishandling it and you know, yeah, yeah, I mean, like I said, you said, I'd like to teach gun to my kids, you know, and to teach them, uh what you use the weapon for rights, as you mentioned, But I just never had the opportunity. And they're not going They're going to go to university and I'll lose them soon. But yeah, man, that's what happens. The other thing too, that people should realize is there's a lot of different communities within the gun community. There are people that are hardcore hunters. There are people that are hardcore target shooters. They're the people that are just like hardcore target

1:18:47 shooters. I look like I look at those people just like I do like a dart player or something like that. They're just trying to be super accurate at that thing that they're doing. You know, there's and that's all it is. They're not they're not using the gun for anything other than trying to be super accurate on that target. And most of the time when they're really hardcore into it. Those rifles are built specifically for what they're doing, and it's not it wouldn't be really good. Like you're not going to use a hardcore like target shooting rifle for hunting necessarily. It doesn't mean you can't, but it's not really built for that, you know. Yeah, there's a lot of communities out there. Yeah, I mean within the military, do

1:19:28 you do a lot of people own Are you allowed to own your own private firearm when you're in the military, Not because you're in the military, No, there's nothing to do with the military. So but like, can you keep if you have a firearm, can you keep it with you on base or anything like that? Oh? No, No. The only reason you take a firearm out in Canada is to go on you know, and like I said, it's been a long time since I did that. But there's no there's no privilege going with the fact that you're you're qualified or anything.

1:20:00 You know. It's which is crazy, right, don't you think that's kind of crazy? I find that frustrating because I could teach a cutdown course, a two days course, and I need to go and I'm like, why isn't the government saying, you know, he did twenty two years of service. You were a rain shafety officer. You know, you can blow up the whole building with a twenty five millimeter you you can use explosive. Yeah, you're good to go, right, Yeah see that anyway, that's that's my frustration with that. Yeah, No, I get it, man, I totally understand. It's the same way out here a lot. For a long time here in San Diego County, you couldn't receive a concealed carry permit, meaning I couldn't walk around with a pistol, you know, in my

1:20:44 jacket pocket or something like that, just for personal protection or whatever. It was almost next to impossible to get one. And then I think there was some kind of ruling that happened that kind of changed it. And the first guy I personally knew that God has concealed carry permit here in San Diego was a marine who when he went to fill out the paperwork, he was required to write a statement of why he thought he should receive it, and he wrote about the ISIS. There was at the time, there was like an ISIS kill list that had come out. They had like a list of service members that had been released, and he's like, look, man, we're all targets, you know, like we could all be a target at any time, and that was his justification and he ended up getting his concealed carry

1:21:26 permit. But yeah, it's for us. It's crazy for like gun advocates, I guess, our Second Amendment rights people. It's crazy that we're even asking to be able to like carry a firearm. It's like, what are you talking about, Like, it's my right as an American citizen, as a human being to protect myself. At the same time, you know, I'll get off of firearms, I guess, but real quick. Like, my issue in the United States is the politicians and stuff want to create more and more gun laws, when at the same time they don't prosecute people that are arrested for gun crimes. You know, there's so many people that get arrested for gun crimes that are released from jail and then they go out and get another gun and do something else stupid, or they go and kill someone

1:22:09 and then everyone's like, oh, the gun, what could have been done. It's like, well, you could have locked the dude up for the first crime that he committed. Rather than just releasing the guy, you know. And I think that's the frustration that a lot of firearm users or firearm advocates and stuff like that have, is that we see that there's a ton of laws on the books, a lot that maybe we don't disagree with, some that we do obviously, but they're just not being enforced properly. Yeah, it's an interesting topic and it's going to be an ongoing topic for those that watch the news and stuff. Recently, there was a bump stock band that just got overturned by the Supreme Court because they try to define it as

1:22:49 a machine gun. For those that don't know what a bump stock is, it's an attachment on the end of the rifle. It's more of a novelty. It's not really good for any tactical purposes like that, and it causes the rifle. You hold your finger in one spot and it basically bounces the rifle against your finger, the trigger against your finger, and causing it to shoot very fast semi automatic. Still you still have to pull the trigger.

1:23:15 Yeah, you have to still pull the trigger for each round to come out. So that's why I got overturned in the Supreme Court. Because they tried to identified as an automatic machine gun, but it still requires one pull the trigger for each round to be fired. So but you know that's America, man. We a lot of us are very much on the side of the slippery slope. Like the more rules that you add to it. They never take away laws, you know, they only add them. There's never a law that got very rarely is there a law that gets enacted and then is repealed down the road. It's almost always just more and more regulation. And yeah, I don't know, I'm against a lot of regulation in the government in general and then especially with firearms, but you know, it's a US

1:23:59 thing. So yeah, I remember when we were in Afghanistan, we had the you you know, I said, we had some UK soldiers there with us, and they were talking about how even in Afghanistan there was a very high there was a very lock and key kind of way with their weapons and AMMO, like they had to keep very high accountability of like AMMO and everything else when they were in country. Uh So, yeah, I was.

1:24:28 I was on calf Can force based, you know, Can they are force base, so didn't get to go out that much. But uh, I mean, we had robust rules of engagement, right, So it was it was a war fight, a war fighting situation. So uh, we can be very picky. I know, I'm training, you know, with the califvision aboutmy and I couldn't speak for the Infant three or the combat arms at that time. I think there was any restriction, that there was any counts at the end of the day of what respect. No, yeah, I mean in the farther way you get from the flag pole, you know, a little farther out there on the patrol bases and stuff, the less of that kind of happens. Yeah, And then you know, for those that don't know, when you come back from like Afghanistan and stuff, all your

1:25:15 luggage and everything is like scanned for that kind of thing because people have tried to smuggle stuff back. I I was so mad my second time. Now it was my first time in Afghanistan and yeah, yeah, it was my first time in Afghanistan. On our way back, we we I had a pocket knife that someone gave me, a contractor had given me when I was deployed Iraq. It was the bench made automatic pocket knife and at the time to go through customs, through the military customs on your way out of Afghanistan.

1:25:48 You had to have a letter from your command saying that you were authorized to have this pocket knife. Well, I got it with a different unit, and I was with this unit and they refused to I'm the letter for this pocket knife. And I'm like, god, damn it. So I was like, well, I'm just gonna throw it in my bag and maybe i'll they won't catch it. And man, as soon as my pack went through the scanner, they pulled it off and they go pull the pocket knife out of it, and I'm like, damn it. I pulled this knife out and they're like, you have a letter, and I'm like nope, And they just throw in a bucket with all these other this fucking knife that I super I love so much. I just tossed it decide like it was nothing. And I'm like, damn it, man. And then I get

1:26:27 home and I'm empty. And I finally get home a couple days later and I'm emptying my bag out and I found two or three five five six rounds in my bag that they didn't even catch, like that it must have fallen out of my shit or something like that. But I'm like, dude, I got Amo through and you guys were so worried about my pocket knife, like very frustrating. But what are you gonna do? Man? M?

1:26:50 Yeah? What so what made you what made you decide to call it? You know, you could do up to you guys can do up to thirty years in the Canadian military, correct, Yeah, thirty five years and even more if you're a bigion at the time, or if you're a senior and sor so. You want to know why I left. My career was going well at the time, you know, I was I was going to get promoted light koernel at the time. But the thing is, my wife and I we met because we love to travel, like, we love to travel the world, and we'd always said that we were going to do around the world at some point with the kids. So my kids, so when I left, it was really to like go on a tour leave for one year.

1:27:38 My kids were ten, eight and six years old, which were good years, you know, because I was I had to be a teacher on the road, right, I had to give them schooling on the road. So we didn't want them to be in high school. We didn't want them to be too old, so it would be difficult to teach them. They would lose a lot of knowledge. So we said to ourself, we're leaving this year, or we're leaving the next year. So and there's a lot you need to do right, you need to secure the money. We wanted to sell a house we owned. We needed to rent our house. So basically we just picked that day in the summer and we said we're going to leave on six August of that year. And at some point, you know, I was calling my boss's office and I was working with can Stuff,

1:28:30 CAN and Special Perishing Forces. I was an intelligence officer. They wanted me to be posted in a unit in can Stuff And I said to the bush, you don't know what my plan is to leave this year. So I gave them, you can give them thirty days of warning. I gave them like four months of warning. And at that time, we prepare, We prepared everything so we could leave. We could leave and you know, do our one year around the world was the main reason. There's always other reasons, you know. I, like I said, when I joined, I didn't feel like I was going to do a career in the forces. All I wanted to do was get a good education, get paid and play football.

1:29:15 But then I eventually I started to enjoy it and started to stay with it. I wanted to leave at twenty years. At twenty years, I was still happy. I was in the US at the time at USDIA. Then I got posted to Special Personal Forces Command, which was one of my best posting as well. But there was always this dream of leaving, of leaving around the world trips. So I decided that was I had a pension.

1:29:42 I was scared of, you know, the amount of money that we would spend and you know, how could I gain money when I come back. Yeah, that was my biggest concern when I left. You know, we're going to spend a ton of money, and we want to have a job when we come back, like my wife and I. So I went to visit the industry that surrounds military, did some informal interviews and one of the guys said to me he wanted to hire me, and I said, I'm still a uniform. And I said that I'll be going for one year around the world trip, like I'll be gone for a year and a half before I come back to you. And he said to me, if I don't pick you, someone else Will, and that gave me the little kick in the butt I needed to say, yeah, I've got some value on

1:30:30 the market. I didn't think I had any value because I've never I've never done any interview, you know, job interview, and you used to be told where they'll get posted. But then he made me realize, yeah, I can't find a job somewhere. After that, Yeah, I needed that because it took me two years of personal reflection to say can I can I leave, you know, because I had three young kids and I don't want to be out in the street. After we did that one year trip, right, yeah, I met a lot of guys in the military that were at like ten twelve years and weren't necessarily having a good time anymore, but didn't have the confidence to get out, because you're right, you're taking a huge leap. You know, you're walking away from a guaranteed paycheck and a

1:31:18 job that you understand and you probably feel comfortable in and going in out into the real world. And I remember when I decided to get out and I started telling people like, yeah, I'm getting out. One of them I told a guy He was like, dude, how you know, aren't you concerned. You know, aren't you worried about getting out? And I was like, you know, man, I know a lot of morons that are making it back home. So if I get out and my plans fail, I'll just go back home and like work in a factory or do something, you know, like life is going to go on, you know what I'm saying. It took me a little bit to get to that mentality, but you have to kind of if you want something, you got to go get it. No one's going to give it to you, you know. And

1:32:03 you can sit around and dream about the stuff that you wish you had or you wish you you know, and all that stuff like that, but you got to get up and go do it yourself. And you got to understand that there's not always going to be a guide to lead you along the way. You know. As long as you make smart choices and you have a plan, then it'll probably work out, you know, and if it doesn't have a backup plan. A lot of people I was surprised when I started saying I'm leaving. When I told my Chin of command, a lot of guys told me in private, you know, you've got balls, like your career. I've been thinking about leaving, but I don't do it because I feel like I'm in this golden cage right that I'm getting a big paycheck and

1:32:45 my pension is getting bigger, and I don't see my value out there. And I was leaving, you know, spending hundreds one hundred thousand dollars on a trip right around the world, like losing all that money, nothing making money, you know, spending all that And yeah, I guess it took some balls at the time to do it. But when I made up my mind, uh, when we set up a date, when we said this is the date, and then we told everyone we would do it, so we put fear pressure on us, right we said, and we're going to do it. So we couldn't sell the house. We couldn't get the money for it. So I had to remore engage that house. Because I had about my plane tickets and I had things in motion. My house was rented.

1:33:30 I couldn't turn around and say it stop drop, you know what I'm so I had to figure it out by myself, like, Okay, we're going to have to go. Because we told everyone we're leaving, we about plane tickets, we did everything, and I'm super ipy happy happy I did it. Like if you know, it was it was a once in a lifetime experience. Yeah, I will never regret that. I mean, even though it costs a lot. Like the kids, you know, they it just opened the mind, right, no one man in that period of when you're leaving the military is a great period for people to you know, it's one of those forks in the road in life, right, and you really decide which direction am I going to go? You know, if I'm leaving the military and I want to stay in the military realm and become a contractor,

1:34:16 I can do that. If I want to go into law enforcement, I can probably do that. If I want to go to college, I could probably do that. You know, there's a lot of options that are there, and I think these once in a lifetime adventures like you're talking about really show their opportunity. When guys are getting out, there's that window of time before they're really committed into something else where they can do something like that.

1:34:42 I know a guy he's been on the show a couple times named Cameron Langland. He's a former recon marine and when he got out he met another dude, and they got an RV and traveled around the US. And then that dude, the other guy was in a wheelch and he stayed in the US and Cameron kept going for almost I think almost three years, and he drove all through South America, Mexico. He's been everywhere for three years.

1:35:09 He lived in an RV just and he was picking up people. He used some kind of backpacker app where he's picking up people from all over the world and they would split gas money for a week while they got a ride to whatever part of South America until he got him, you know, a job in the federal Service and stuff like that, and now he's doing like his regular job. But it was like, dude, you really took grasp of that opportunity and made the most of it, you know what I'm saying, and just went and saw because like, once you have a family and kids and responsibilities and a mortgage and all these other things, it's less likely that you can go and do something like that. Just makes it much more difficult.

1:35:47 No, you're absolutely right. I mean, I had twenty two years of service, I had a pension, I was officially retired right to release on the forces. I didn't have a job. It's the only time in my life where I could go and travel for a year. Now, you know, I've got you know, bills to pay and people expect me to work and everything. I had nothing to think about. It was just about traveling. Where are we going to go next, what are we going to eat? Or are we going to sleep? For an entire year? And we were on the move, I'm telling you. So. We were supposed to adopt slow travel at the time. We were like, we're going to take our time. The kids had traveled before. We thought we would go study. We figured out after a week we didn't like it. We wanted

1:36:36 to move. So we would move every three day for a year, three four days, sometimes one one night only and we did twenty one country sports continents. That's awesome. Yeah, we had to teach French English mathematics to the kid. It was quite something. You know that the game. Are you smarter than a fifth grader? I don't know if yeah, yeah, yeah. In fifth grade they learned stuff that you completely forgot as an adult.

1:37:03 Oh yeah, yeah. My oldest one was in fifth grade. And sometimes you would ask me a question, I'd be like, you know, let me google that one. I forgot. I forget that, No shit, Yeah, for sure. What a great experience for your kids too, man, you know, it's something for them to, especially for your oldest one, you know, like they can really look back on that and kind of you know, that's what a lot of people are lacking in a lot of societies, is having that experience other culture, see other things, how other people are doing things. That's one of the things I miss about the military is traveling and going places and seeing what other places don't do well, what they do do well, you know, and bringing some of that kind

1:37:42 of mentality back. And you know, it's just it just makes you a better person, a better, more rounded person. And I always I've said it a lot on the podcast, you know, the the the podcast started my first I think five episodes. When I decided to do the show, I did like a two week cross country road trip here in the States and I just couchsurfed on dudes couches and recorded interviews with them, you know, And that was like the first five episodes. And I always say that not enough people in the United States gets out and sees the country because a lot of people like to talk smack about the US and there's no culture here and all that stuff, which is absolutely ridiculous because of the size of the United

1:38:25 States is hard to compare. Most people can't even really understand the size of the United States. And in that huge size, all the different regions have all their own little mini cultures and dialects and food and you know, and it's just such a So that's thing. That's something I always push is that for people in the US, maybe you can't travel internationally or something like that, but at least get out and see your country some you know. Yeah, well, you know, before I did the around the world trip, like we traveled like we did forty states, right, So we're super lucky in Canada's for fraternity League maraternity league. So when I had my kids, I was allowed to go to go on leave for nine months. That's great,

1:39:10 nine of my salary, Okay, so basically making the same money that I was doing in uniform. And what I decided to do. I've never done any rving, Like, I didn't know about rvy's, so we were like, what are we going to do with the babies? We want to travel, So we decided to buy RV It was a pop up trailer at the time it was it was a small arty and we bought it in Ohio and then we traveled all the way to Florida, all the way to California and back towards Canada for three months. So we loved it. The second baby was born same RV. We crossed Canada all the way to Vancouver, went down to California and back towards the Middlewest. Right then when a third child was born, we did the East coast with a larger orgy at the

1:40:01 time. That's why I say we did forty states and and you've got to realize, for a Canadian, the USA is a block, right, It's one big culture. It's the American culture that we know. And I realize it's not that at all. Like there's an East side, there's a West side. There's yeah, there's the New Orleans culture, there's the San Francisco, there's the Midwest. I mean, it's a meltic pot, that's what they say, right, But there's there's differences. There's differences in foods and everything. So I loved I mean, I love the American people. Like traveling in the US was so easy. People were so friendly, and I'll be honest, I did not expect that because you know, the Americans had a reputation outside right what I thought everybody thought we were awesome. I thought

1:40:49 the world loved us. I think you're awesome. That's why that's why I put this most into Washington, DC. But at the time, I didn't think the US was that awesome. Like, you know, you had George George w. Bush and power, and you know, you had this reputation of being difficult on the world. They show. That was the time I visited and I fell in love with the US people. I mean like super friendly, super helpful. You know, at the time, I had no GPS. Right at a map, if I got lost, I would just ask someone and they would almost carry me to my point. Right in Canada, you lost someone else, see I go there and turn in the US, it was like, how can I help you? I'm going there, Let's just follow me, and like like from day one, it was so

1:41:38 impressive and it's awesome and and you you probably don't realize it because you lived there. But we're an rather nation. We're more like we're closer sometimes to Swedish, you know, Norwagy like more quiet people, you know. You know, we're in our home for six months or winter right now, we're not super friendly all the time. But I mean the Americans, I really enjoyed the traveling there, working there, living there. We have we have huge differences, you know, the gun culture, the health system and all that stuff. But it being an expact in the US was a fascinating experience, you know, like, yeah, yeah, I'm sure, man, did you have any favorite foods while your hair? So when I traveled, I really enjoyed the food. The food in New Orleans, like the Cajun

1:42:30 kitchen and real kitchen. I was lucky. In Washington, d C. There are some very very good restaurants. But I like because I like to travel, I like to taste food. Like when we traveled Southeast Asia was our favorite food. I think with rice and I think so I cannot think of a US diet that I find so special, you know, except for different plate maybe maybe different places. Yeah, different places. I karen here in California. Where I'm at in San Diego, it's burritos. Man, It's all like burrito Mexican food. Where I was at in Indiana, it's more like fried food, like your your your biscuits and gravy, your pork tenderloin, you know stuff like that. You're not a big fan, not a big kind of biscuits and graty. Well that's funny. Yeah, it's

1:43:24 not for everybody. Man. I traveled, uh. I remember being in Asia, in like Hong Kong and Singapore, and I just don't like seafood. And I'm like, man, some of this stuff I just cannot. I remember my buddies were eating freaking jellyfish at this restaurant we were at in like Hong Kong, and I'm like, no, dude, like there is no I am not eating a single jellyfish. You know, they're eating jellyfish and duck tongues. I was like, nope, I'll have the pork please.

1:43:53 So I am not a meat and potato kind of guy, right. So I brought a colleague to jumps. I'm lucky, you know, as a constopant that you get to travel. And I brought him in the Korean restaurant. I love Korean barbecue. Oh yeah. But then they served us kim chi and some seafood and he was looking at it. He says, man, like any algae's anything that grows in the sea I cannot touch, like, I love it. I like to try different foods traveling. Tasting food is a big part of traveling for sure. Yeah, Southeast Asia to me was my favorite. You know, it's super cheap. Also, yeah, yeah, and you got to eat local. I mean I remember us being in Hong Kong and some of the dudes went over and we're eating at like a burger place, you know, and I'm like, dude, this

1:44:40 guy over here is making like street food, Like he's making like this beef and this like fried beef on the street. I'm getting that, you know what I'm saying. Like for me, it's mostly just seafood. But outside of that, like I'm all about trying different stuff. And you know, that's like you said, you know, it's that's part of that's part of experiencing a new culture, you know, breaking breaking bread, sitting down on a meal and talking to somebody and kind of seeing how how they do that and stuff. So, man, I've really enjoyed the I've really enjoyed this conversation. Where can people find you? So I've got a blog, you know, it's it's it's a long it's a long, long word. So I'll send it to you. Maybe you can post it on your thing.

1:45:24 Yeah, I'll share it in the show description. Yeah. So, like I said that at the beginning, I've been blugging for a few years. I enjoy sharing my thoughts. I really enjoyed that when people leave comments as well. So I blog in French, but I translated already all the articles with Chat GIPT. It's it's like super easy to do it. Crazy, right, I was using Chatgypt earlier for some stuff. Yeah, it's it's like I used to use Google Translat and I had to correct maybe ten to fifteen percent of the text. Now I can put my blog in Chat GPT and I could press send without any second. Oh wow, it's that good for translation. Huh Oh, it's amazing. It's it's amazing. It will catch long expressions. What will not translate the worst, but we'll translate the

1:46:08 expressions. So I'll send you my my blog. I love when people visit. I'll see I see the statistics I'll see of the US visiting in nice Man. Are you on Instagram at all? Instagram, yes, a little bit, Eric solviet s a u V. But I'm more on Facebook. Okay, my generation. That's cool, man, that's cool. A uh hey, blogging is not a bad gig and you can definitely make money doing I don't know if you do or not, but in general, people don't realize that there are ways to make money doing that as long as you're writing about something that's compelling and people want to read it. So good luck with that. I will post a link to that in the description. People can check that out, and as always, you can check out my website,

1:46:51 jacrimographics dot com. My instagram is at Former Action Guys and at Former Action News. And that's it. I really appreciate it, man, thing, thanks for coming on today. Thanks Justin, and I did the last one. Mm hmm