Joel Struthers
Appearances
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
um initially on the 206 just doing like seismic oil and gas stuff and then i got surveying you mean yeah and then uh um then what happened is uh obviously in the winter times there's not a lot of flying so uh there was a company called armor group in london that would take on ex-legionnaires anglophone with english and french and they had the relationship with halliburton oil in algeria
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So I had two friends that had gotten out earlier and they said, you know, if you're looking for money, because obviously pay flying helicopters, the beginning is fuck all. So I went over to Algeria and sat on a oil rig for three months. Pay was good. And in fact, that's where I wrote Pell, the book.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
No, I wasn't flying. It was just... Oh, gotcha, gotcha. The position was called Operations Liaison Coordinator, OLC. And Halliburton was down there drilling. Essentially, they were teaching Sonotrek, which is the Algerian oil and gas national company, how to do things. And Algeria had a terrorism issue.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So they had hired an OLC who would sit on the rig, which were protected by the Algerian army or the police. And you were the liaison between the drillers. It was easy money. You hardly left the rig. You sat around. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Well, yeah, exactly. So I'd do that. And then I'd come back. And then at 800 hours, he gave me the endorsement on the A-Star, the flat B, with a mountain course in Penticton. And then in Canada, you need a minimum of 500 hours PIC to fight fires. So I started fighting fires with the A-Star. And then 2003, Iraq kicks off. I'm up in Fort Nelson doing seismic or something at the end.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
It was coming towards the end of the season. And our group says, would you be interested in going over to Iraq? And this was early October. So I think you guys rolled into Baghdad. March. March, April? Yeah. OK. And because of the relationship they had with Iraq, Hallie Burton, and Hallie Burton was Kellogg Brown Route at one point. Yeah. They split pre the war.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
KBR was given the DOD log cap contract to build all the bases or the camps.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So initially, they reached out to Armour Group, Kellogg Brown Route, and it was to... man up a couple PSD teams using Iraqi nationals so that when their executives flew into country, they could go from A to B and check out these sites. So it was an ex-SAS guy, Britt Intel, because Armour Group's ex-Britt Mill officers that created it. Two RMPs, which is our British Royal Military Police.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And they had all the, they had the course from, I think it was the Ronan course that they did pre going into back in the Ireland days. The SAS were doing a lot of the close protection and stuff. Anyway, I was a lone legionnaire. I think the reason she had asked, I dealt with a nice, Caroline Ruett was her name. She was the operations manager for Armour Group. I had a crush on her.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
She was her, her twin sister used to model with Kate Moss. So I thought, I get it. Do you remember? Yeah. Anyway, so I always had, I'm of the era where I can remember Kate Moss. Yes. She called, I remember he said, my boss, we're in the crew house and my boss, it's like early in the morning. He's like, Joel, someone, the lady, a lady on the phone from London.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And she, she gave me the whole spiel, but all I remember hearing is, you know, Iraq, would you like to go? I was like, I love you. Yes. Let me go, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, so this is the season's over. Oh, okay. Again, you know, I'm getting experience, but, you know, not a ton of money. Yeah. Having spent, so my interests are kind of truncated in that I'm learning my trade as a pilot, but having spent those six years in the military, in the Legion, albeit, you know, we had our overseas experiences up, but I didn't really get the,
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
the experience of a soldier that I was looking for and the opportunity to go and see what was happening elsewhere interests me. So, yeah, so I went over, we flew over, and KBR had two floor levels at the Sheraton Hotel. Remember, it's just outside the green zone, south side across the river. And we flew in initially into Kuwait. We sat at that base in Kuwait, and then it was a U.S.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Melhurk into the Biap. And that was October. So we flew in, you know, the old straight down. And I remember we sat on the tarmac with, you know, the big green machine was doing its thing. I know you were there at the time.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But, you know, for me coming from the Legion, which is, you know, part of the French Army, which is quite small in comparison, it was interesting just to see the big machine working. It is huge. Yeah. And I remember, so we had our kit. I think there was five of us at the time. And, uh, we were just on the tarmac.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
There's going to be a couple hours delay before we had our ride to the, uh, the hotel. And there was all the, uh, it was the army at the time, just all their sections. And I just remember watching and listening to the, the army way, right? Just that, uh, you know, Hey corporal, get the fuck out, you know, whatever, you know, that kind of, you know, and just the similarities, uh,
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
That it's like controlled chaos and anxiety or whatever the word is, you know, you just, you can get the, the private writing or yes, RJ, you know, and just what the fuck you doing? It was just interesting to see the, it's impossible to be right. Whatever you're doing is wrong, but it was more like, you know, it was the similarities, but you know, the differences, but so it was neat.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And then, um, so we, We started training between ourselves. You know, this is a long time ago, so I don't remember the duration, but the SBS and the SAS guys taught us the techniques that were needed, and we were issued right off the bat when we got to the Sheraton was the Iraqi-built MP5.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, so they had, yep. So these were all taken. You guys had obviously cleared some of these bunkers, and there was these Iraqi-stamped MP5s, so they had the ability to, I guess, make them themselves, but they were not your HK-built MP5s. Still nine mil though? Yes. So anyway.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So we, I just remember we're up on the third floor. We got there or whatever the second floor that we had and we're cleaning them, stripping them. And the head SAS guy, his name was Taff while he was a Welsh, right? Big fucker. And in fact, he was, he wrote, he wrote a book. It wasn't, he was in the other detachment, not Bravo 2-0, but he's the one that they went on wheels over the border.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Nice guy, big guy, gentle giant. But I could just see him watching us, right? Trying to figure out who these, and I'm sure me, because you know, the CVs would have come through, right? And they're all expert males. So he understands that they have a level of training. But he was like watching Joel, right? Because the Legionnaire, what does that mean? And then we, we went downstairs and,
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
The KBR security was run, they had their own little security run, and it was a gentleman named John Jones, he was ex-Delta, had been on the failed Iranian rescue attempt.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And I'll certainly have, I'm interested in your experience with them in Iraq, you know, being attached to the, that's a, anyway, so we got them all cleaned up. We go downstairs, they had a barrel of, you know, full of dirt, just do a shot to just make sure that they, it worked. And we went around into the, into the bucket or wherever, and they were fine. So then a week later.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
We had a soft skin for excursion. So we'd go to the green zone to get our admin work done because they were getting issued the DOD badges. And this is obviously early days. So, I mean, the east side was that Assassin's Gate would become Assassin's Gate.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
It's been a piece since I've been there. It was just an American soldier checking, you know. Yeah. It was pretty, pretty laid back. You know, V-Bots hadn't, IEDs hadn't really. No, it was a couple years later. Yeah. And then we go up to the, you know, the lakes up by Fallujah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And we use that as like a training area, the ranges. And so our very first shot, double tap, and the second round actually fell out of the front of the barrel. Yeah. So there we are. Yes. There we are with, because obviously they had issued us the nine mil, which was like in these fucking cases, in these bunkers, probably for fucking years, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
What I get out of that story is you better make the first round count. Yes, exactly. So it was a nervous drive, albeit things really hadn't kicked off and we had, you know, but the Americans issued us the M4s after, but they were the single shot automatic.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, same diff, but anyway, these are early, early days. Yeah. So anyway, I did that. And, you know, we got these Iraqis that were apparently vetted by the green zone. And, you know, before you know it, it's time to go back to flying. I went back to flying. Started doing fires, enjoying the job itself. But also it was that... So break was always a challenge.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And I think when I fly into Calgary airport all the time, I still get this feeling of anxiety because it'd be like, fucking, you're coming back, you haven't flown for a while. And it's like, you know, check flight, you're like, fuck, can I have her still, you know, after a couple months. But, you know, it is what it is, right? That was the time.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I was, yeah. I was married and didn't have a son yet. And my wife at the time was supportive of the whole idea. She knew that, you know, flying's not easy. She knew that I was interested in seeing these areas. But obviously the time away and the environment had its, we get into that. But yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, and then I went back, and so 2004, things are a little more aggressive, and we were doing a low-profile PSD. So we had a little compound, what was the Westgate that goes up to the Biap, Irish? Just on the wall, Armour Group had bought, I think, five or six villas. And, uh, we would, uh, we bought, that was kind of when the boys started going off the PST teams.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Cause there was a lot of people out there that were fucking around. That was disgusting in my, in my memory. In other words, a lot of these guys that were working for these PST teams had not experienced much in the military. And I got the impression that they felt they had free reigns to... You know, to make certain choices that were, in my regards, questionable.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And, you know, I can say for Arm Group, and this is early days Arm Group, previously they were called DSL. Like London, there was Control Risk Group and DSL Arm Group. My boss at that time in Iraq, he was the ex-CEO of the New Zealand SAS. Nice man. There was good vetting. The legionnaires that had supported Armour Group in Algeria that were capable and able and willing.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I had obviously, because I did, we can come back to it, but I did in my six years with the Legion, I did four with the GCP, which is the Group Commando Parachutiste. So it's similar to the Pathfinders in the British system or the Canadian system. But each regiment in the French military, there's nine right now. One of them is Legion. The rest is regular French. Each regiment has a GCP team or two.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And combined, they form the GCP group, which are attached to the French CUS, which is their Special Operations Command. So you can act as Pathfinders for your regiment, or you can work as the group and be second tier attached to the CUS. Gotcha. So at least I had a bit of, you know, that side of stuff. We can come to it. But anyway... We started doing low-profile PSDs.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So we bought, well, we, Armour Group, bought, you know, used Mercedes Armour. We put the run flats on them. Two vehicle moves. And the idea was to just fly under the radar. We were not over or, you know, low-profile. And it would be two expats, myself and Iraqis. And we had AKs at that point. PKM. We had the, I think we had the Sig at that, or not, or we still had the Russian, what was it, Makarov?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
What's the fucking shit? Anyway. So we would, the Americans let us use the range. Remember when you came into the biop, just off to the left there, there's a range, I think. So we go there and we train the Iraqis up on, Firearm safety was the big one for me. And I was too icy initially.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So the TL would be in the front, Racky driver, two shooters, or no, sorry, the guest in the back and one shooter. And what we were doing is we were driving around, you know, the Bechtel guys that were looking at, you know, FLIR, USAID. So they're going to these different areas trying to look at, you know, the electrical grid or the water system, trying to repair the stuff.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So they'd have their appointments and we just take them from A to B. So we trained our guys up, and then, you know, we didn't have a lot of time, but we'd do the best we could so that they were safe, efficient, contact drills, debussing, embossing, all that kind of stuff.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But then you just go out there and you learn your trade. And in time, we learned that, you know, they were playing both sides. Initially... And the setup was interesting because we had... I remember the armor was ex-Para Reg, British Para Reg. So the Iraqis would show up in the morning. They would go home at night, obviously. They'd show up in the morning. We would do a quick briefing.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
The vehicles would be... fueled the night before, but checked that they were fueled. We'd go to the armor. They'd get their weapons, their grab bags, their mags, comms, med kit. We'd load up the vehicles, and we had on top of the vehicles, we had like, it was like a dish. It was basically a contact pad on the dash. We were in a contact.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
We hit it, and we had an armor group had a signaler in with the QRF in the green zone. So if we did get hit, and the QRF were able from the mill, they would come to our, to our assistance. If not other armed group call signs could, if they're in the area, but that was the idea. So we do a comms check with, uh, our comms guy, check the old red button and off we go. And, uh,
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Almost as if they were waiting for you. Pretty quick. Yeah. Learning curve. So then we changed it up. And then one day, you know, Mohammed doesn't, my driver doesn't show up. So I'm going to say to the guys, Hey, where's Mohammed? Oh, we don't know. And about three days later, the mill, a mill call sign shows up with his DOD badge saying we shot him in a, in an ambush or what have you. Right.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So they, so then I'm like, fuck you guys, man. You guys are. you know, a handful, I don't trust you. And that was my concern. And yeah, I mean, I just remember, you know, our concern too was, so you're trying to teach these Iraqis how to drive two vehicle moves efficiently, tactically, you know, not jamming right up behind the next car in front of you. So if something happens, you're fucked.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
If you come up, God forbid, on an American checkpoint that has stopped the road and they're checking whatever that you, you know, you're like, stop, right? And they don't, you get that 50 Cal over there. And you'd be like, what the fuck are you doing? And they'd be like, no, no, fuck, fuck. And I just remember these arguments back. I was like, God, what am I doing? No, fuck, fuck. No, fuck, fuck.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Well, anyway, so one day, you know, at the end of the tasking, you get back to our compound, make sure that the drivers fill up the vehicles. You get the med pack, the weapons, you go down to the armor. He inspects them. A lot of times he's like, nope, go do it again. You know, it's fucking shit, whatever. You know, they have their standards, but we hand everything in.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And I come out and there's both vehicles, you know, one vehicle parked where we had gotten out, doors open. I'm like, where the fuck's, you know, Ishmael, the driver, whatever. Oh, he went home. So I'm like, mother, you know, at this point I'm getting short, you know? And he came in the morning and I made a comment. He got lippy and I ended up filling him in.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Not full on, but I gave him a pretty good dig, right? And then I said to my boss, you know, I'm done working with Iraqis. And then not short after I got an email from London saying, looks like Joel needs some time off, right? Yeah. I was like, indeed, I do. So then I went up to Crete, and we were supporting the U.S. Corps of Engineers looking for weapons of mass destruction. Did they find any?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I'm surprised. Yeah, we... Yeah, I was TL, it was all expat team, and we were mobile PSD. So the idea was that when these Corps of Engineering guys, we were just outside, it was Camp Buckmaster, not far from Striker. Okay. It was the F-18 pilot that was shot down. I believe so, yeah. I think you guys went looking for the, or one of your teams, the Navy went looking for his remains.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So I think when they took over the second Gulf, when they took over one of the camps in one of the cells, they found his initials or his name. Something like that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Interesting. So anyways, you know, and this team was all Brits, Kiwis, Aussies. I was a lone Legionnaire. And it was just, you know, it was, yeah, it was just easy, right? The guys were all switched on. But we got – they were hitting us quite a bit. And at that point, I was like, you know, I've had my share of this shit show. Your cup of war hit.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And then at that point, to answer your question, my son was born. And I was like, yeah, I'm fucking pushing it, you know. I've seen what I need to see. But that being said, I do have some fond memories. You know, there's some good guys. Armour Group lost, I think, because they also got – at the same time, they got the – the contract to move all the fuel up and down the MSRs.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And so all their big convoy teams were ramped. I want nothing to do with that. But I think between, you know, they lost almost 90 guys just on, you know. And I remember back to Port Caroline because, you know, I thought she was a nice lady. Her HR department, that was kind of vamped up for like, hey, you know, here's your ticket to whatever. They became...
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
calling families and advising, you know, I can't imagine, right. I'm not, I've never had to, but anyway, so things, yeah. Um, so did you just dive back into flying? Yeah. So I would, I'll go back every, you know, I'd fly. Um, and then I'm flying.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And at that point, armor group had gotten the, uh, foreign Commonwealth office, uh, British foreign Commonwealth office contract to support the, uh, their efforts down in helmet in Afghanistan. And that was, um, initially they were looking after the, uh, Brit police that were doing the mentorship for the counter-narcotic stuff. And then they had the efforts down in Lashkarga, the capital.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And I had been interested in it. Because, you know, being a soldier, I'd read all the books and watched some of the docs on the Russians in Afghanistan. So I was keen on seeing that. But initially, they would only take Brits. But then it opened up to the Commonwealth. So Caroline called again and said, would you like to go? But you have to commit for a year.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I think, you know, my... Yeah. I get along with my wife. We have obviously two kids. We co-parent well. We're divorced, but I think we did well in divorce.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But to that point, you know, I think knowing, thinking back to a relationship, the communication was pretty open. But the shit show was actually the aviation, not the security work for Armour Group. Really? Because at least with Armour Group, you knew you're two months on, one month off. The money was fair, maybe not worth the risk or reward.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But at the time, it was certainly a lot better than flying. Flying, it was like I'm going up north for, you know, I don't know, and the money's shit, right? So... You know, Vancouver's not cheap. Obviously, it was a lot cheaper back then. But I think the monetary side of stuff helped. The time away, she was used to it. It obviously had its results.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But, you know, it was actually... And even for myself, it was like I was more comfortable knowing, hey, okay, I'm gone for two months. At least I know I'm coming home. I got a month off where I can chill. It's not aviation where I don't know when I'm coming home. When I do, it's like they call me halfway through. Oh, we got a fastball.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Can you... You know, it's like... And that is hard on families when they have... This idea of your home for a certain amount of time, they have planned things or holiday or what have you.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Birthdays. And yeah, as you know, in your business, obviously the divorce rate is staggering. And AIDS, right? Aviation-induced divorce syndrome. It's a real thing.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, yeah. So I go over to Afghanistan, and it was nice because it was an MC contract, Foreign Commonwealth. We had the nicest kit. We had the HK360. We had the Minimis. We had SIGs. We had brand new Toyota...
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
armoureds with the latest ECM because it was a civilian contract they could go onto the market and basically the ECM was like a disco ball that put out a dip jammer yeah exactly but it was the latest and greatest not you know the military is always 10 years behind with and they had I don't remember if you you were what this is 2006 2007 were you
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Because without it, I don't know how we would have linked up. And I suck at social media, so I'm glad to know there's some positives that have come from it, yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I was wondering if you remember, there was a Herc that was in white and blue colors. It looked UN, but it wasn't. It was a South African company. I definitely never saw one of those.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And that was the embassy. They hired it. And we put the armoureds in there with the police. And we fly it up to, what are some of the, it's up north. I'm trying to think of the place.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
No, the... Fuck. Anyway, I just remember all the runways off the old Russian aircraft off the side of the runway. They'll come to you. There's an SF base, American SF base there, up by the pass. Anyway, it doesn't matter. But we fly up there with the armoureds. We put the armoureds in the back of the Herk.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And we'd fly there, and the guys would go out and train up the Afghan police on checkpoints outside the city looking for narcotics. And it was mind-boggling stuff. It was interesting to see the countryside, certainly from the hurricane, and driving around, and then getting to see the American efforts and what the guys are doing. I just remember being, to a certain extent, envious.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
You know, I didn't have that opportunity as a soldier to kind of do what these guys were doing. But at the same time, what we were doing was new and interesting. But then they're looking for guys to go down to Lashkaga. And that's the capital of the Helmand province. And the governor had an FCO advisor, and his name was Tom Crumb.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So... True, yeah. And... Nice proper ball of French red, considering I'd be, I believe, the first ex-former Legionnaire.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And he was obviously a foreign commonwealth officer, but he was an ex-reservist SBS officer, politician now. But in fact, he was, in the previous election, he was one of the guys that was up for the prime minister. A smart man. But anyway, he brought up in proper British schools. His mom was Parisian French. So he spoke posh British. His French, because he'd speak to me in French sometimes.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
It was better than my French. And he spoke Italian. Jesus. I know. And that's when I kind of thought, you know, we're not all born equal. Clearly, you know, there's the, the, uh, anyway. Um, so we were down, we were embedded with the, um, so I was volunteer. So I had, there was two teams and then three teams later on, but, uh, it was TL for team two.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And I had, uh, a young British officer just came out of the Brit, uh, uh, infantry. Uh, he's a doctor now. Nice guy, smart guy switched on, but he was tired of, he had done Iraq and, uh,
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
was looking at other things the money was the attraction i had two ex-royal marine guys that were switched on as fuck uh one guy that was para reg um and then you know as tl it was okay i had you know i had that responsibility but we just it was a four-man team um we all we all got a job but our job was typically to uh we were embedded with the para reg for six months and then the royal marines for six months and they had the little um the bridge system was the brts right in the center of town that little
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
reconstruction teams. And it was basically, you know, this compound, but maybe the size of a football field, American football field. And we would drive Tom, the governor to Hellman had a compound just outside of town. And most of the time we would, you know, throw him in the armoured. We'd drive to their facility and they had a two-story building.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Tom had enough office downstairs and the governor had his office upstairs. At times, we'd jump in with them, and we'd jump in the Chinooks, and we'd go to Musakala, Goresk, Sangin, and this is full-on when the Brits were struggling.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I think they eventually, one of the teams went out into the middle of nowhere where the FCO, the Brit two-star, and the boys had a little parlay, and it was agreed that the Brits would give, I think it was Goresk or Sangin. They retreated.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah. And they hired, because I remember they hired all these local, they didn't have enough vehicles to get the pair of guys out. So it was an interesting time. And again, you know, flying into some of these fire bases, man, I would, oh, 2007, I'm, you know, 52 now. So whatever the math is, I can't do that quick on a flight, but I was, yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So a little mid. Early thirties, early. Yeah. I just remember seeing these, we land and, you know, some of the guys, they would do the switches out a couple of times. They would bring a body bag on and, I just, you look at the face in these guys and they just fucking, you know, had their asses handed to them or they've been up all night. And I just thought, fuck, good on you, man.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Like these are young. Yeah. Like, you know, respect. So that was. Interesting and a good experience that I got to see that. But I also saw the struggles that the West were having. And I wasn't questioning it, but I thought, fuck, why didn't you guys hire some of these ex-Russian generals that spent 10 years there and ask them some questions?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And a perfect example is, and I made reference to the Russian aircraft at the end of the runways. The Mujahideen would drive trucks in front of vehicles all the time or mine them. And in Lashkaga... They had a dirt runway outside of town. And the idea was that anytime they heard, they had this beautiful brand new J model C-130.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And whenever he was supposed to come in, the boys would go out, they would clear the runway, try to demine it, secure the perimeter, and she would come in. And one day, sure enough, there was a nice little mine there and it hit the wheel. And that thing was off at the end of the runway, emergency stop. I think within two minutes, there's just a tail left. Everyone got out, but she, she burnt.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And that was like, I don't know what a J model goes for, but fuck the taxpayer. You know what I mean?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, and this is 2007, but... What do you got, Michael? C-130. Let's see.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So anyway, one day we were sitting. I've been there about a year. And we also had a house on the outside of the governor's compound. It was like a four-story typical Afghan house. And we had the HESCO around it and we hired a local Afghan company to guard it. And the Brit mill gave us a signaler, one of their GPMGs, so we could have a little more. And we lived in that sometimes. And two teams.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And it was neat times. And I remember... And the back of that hurt that burnt was millions of dollars. And that was being given to the cash money, which was going to the warlords to just do their thing, grow their opium, don't get involved in the war. Because some of these guys had...
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
you know serious serious stuff after the uh the soviets had uh pulled out you know and i always i found that strange and that was the juxtaposition it's kind of watching the news and seeing what was happening i don't want to get into that but um yeah it was just interesting that you know it seemed like the war wasn't really going well at that time and that's 2007 and result look what happened right i don't know if it ever actually went yeah yeah it went but i don't know if it went well
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And I remember one day we were told, you know, the signal or the message came in from the PRT is no movement today. And we had built this little half-assed gym up on the roof, which is like an open floor. We'd stolen some shit from the camp. And all of a sudden we heard this rhyme.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Well, currently I'm Canadian until you guys roll into our part of the world. We'll see what happens, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
We weren't far from the main avenue, and it was like a dozen tractors, trailers, tarped up with the black turban guys on top of their AKs, and that was opium going to the market. And off it's going to go, right? And I thought, you know, well, that's us. You know, whatever. But it was just an interesting, like, what the fuck, you know, what's going on?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Anyway, a week later or so, we're sitting outside the armors. And we, as I said, we'd take Tom to his office most of the time. And it's two armors. It was a building, two-story, typical, you know, Soviet built thing. And it was glass windows. And we'd sit like this outside the building. the BG would sit in Tom's office just at the front door, just to make sure people come in.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
There was a cement stairway. And on the other side was, uh, the Afghans, Afghan army, uh, security team with their like Toyota Hilux is that kind of stuff. And, uh,
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
the brit mill intel after it laid a snow but it was a 17 year old pakistani boy they had brought him in from pakistan got him an afghan army suit the vest did the whole thing and he got himself through two checkpoints and he'd walked up the stairs he was trying to get to the the governor the guard at the door said you know fuck off you don't you don't need to be here i don't know you and so he just walked down walked into the uh the afghan guys that were doing the thing and
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Anyway, that blast, obviously the stairway protected our vehicles, but it blew the ECM off. All the windows fucking, you know, everyone was monging it, you know, watching movies. I remember just like, what? Anyway. hit the old fucking panic button. We pull up. I know the BG comes on the radio. I was like, what the fuck? You know, I was like, we're out front.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And cause I'm lead vehicle, I pull forward. And then so that the vehicle would be right at the stairs. So I'm basically right where the guy did his thing, you know? And I just remember, I could smell like burnt hair. The fucking vehicles were like basically crumpled in and there was anyway.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And I just thought, learning after that I was a 17-year-old boy, I just thought, man, when I was 17, all I thought about was Stephanie Constable's boobs, you know, not doing yourself in, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I know, but how do you fight that? That was my thing, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
It's like radicalization 101. Yeah. So after that, I was like, you know what? Maybe I've had my time. Let's go back to, I want to go back to flying.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
um i love how flying is all you're like fuck this let's go yeah exactly it might not pay as much but this is this guy just uh exploded from top to bottom maybe let's go back and fight fires a little bit and i certainly don't want to sound jade i enjoyed my time as i said i got to see the young men and women that were doing their thing i saw you know the big army doing its thing it's interesting seeing the germans there all the different militaries you know kind of looking around and seeing what uh what was out there so it was a good experience but then went back to flying and then um
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I mean, clearly Canada's not for sale. You can imagine. I would agree. Now, could we do anything if you rolled in? No. No. You know, and annexed us. I'd get to, I could go Red Dawn finally and go into the hills.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, I've been, you know, I moved up to the mediums, got into heli skiing and- What's considered a medium? So it's a Bell 205.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But yeah, it's- I just want to make sure I know what I'm looking at. Yep. So 205 is your Huey. Oh, okay. So basically, you know, Vietnam. Yep. Nice ship.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Because it looks exactly the same. It's the same body. But if you go Bell 212... That is your, so that's your twin engine. It's got the pointy nose. That is the 412 with the four bladed system. Gotcha. Different transmission. And then today I'm flying the Bell 214.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And that is, so there's McDermott on the left. That's a company of Fly Force. So that was built for the Shah of Iran. So before the- Is that what the dude crashed in? No, it was a 212. Okay. Yeah. But before the revolution, it was a Shaw, you know, so before the Ayatollah came in, their military needed a machine that could fly high and hot.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So they, Bell agreed to design this and then the ST, which is one just to the right of it. That's the twin engine version.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah. I'm doing my training on that when I go back to Australia.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Remember the—which was the Bell 22, 222, right? Which was Airwolf, I think? Did you watch that show? Yeah, of course. Because it was fucking awesome. I think there was some stuff taken from it. I might be talking about my ass, but— Do you even know what Airwolf is, Michael?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
No, it doesn't, yeah. At all. And especially with, yeah, consistent, considering it's not the Russians, it's you guys. You know, I think the rhetoric, I think I appreciate what Trump's doing. Canada certainly has its issues, and he's thrown us into a bit of a melee. Unfortunately, politically... Talk closer to that mic.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But if you look at the size of the blades on the fucking thing, they're massive. They are not far from the size of your table. I would say probably right there. Really?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
so there's so it was built so so bell agreed to build it for the um the shah and they were going to build a plant in iran so that they could manufacture themselves and then the revolution happened i think they had taken position or possession of a certain amount but they had the the the factory set up and built and that's why you see the iranian air force which is down there on the right yeah that's an iranian 214 uh just to the left there down scroll down right down yeah right there you're on it that's iranian air force right there so they have
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
They're still flying them because they can build them. And then they got the ST2 and the 212, which the president crashed in not too long ago.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, it's a pretty small, small industry. So McDermott, in fact, that machine, that picture used to be a Mustang machine. That's the one I actually flew, did my training on here just not too long ago. The one on the left? Yeah, on the left. So that's Mustang owned to 214. There are 70 built originally by Bell. I think there's... I should know the number. Less than 20 left.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
They abuse the shit on there. There's just a torque machine, right? And they've crashed a lot of them. McDermott owns all of them. I think there's three in Canada right now, one in the US, and I think South Korea has two. But anyway, Mustang owned that one and sold it to McDermott. And that was kind of...
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I didn't have the experience or the ability to get to it yet, but when I did, I was, yeah, you know, I reached out to McDermott. And a lot of Canadians do fly for the Australians because at a certain point, and it's relevant right now, there's a lack of experience.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yes. It's a tricky industry because it's a lot of investment in money and time. Oh, yeah. It's not cheap. And then it's a catch-22. When you come out of your flight school, it's not like you get into a flying position. It's companies will take advantage of that. They'll bring you on as sweeping the hangars, driving fuel.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
They'll make sure that you're not a nitwit and you're going to ruin their vehicles before they let you get in the machine. But the problem these days is there's a lot of minimums.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
attached to certain tasking especially oil and gas back in the day that was a bread and butter seismic exploration but now that it's all hse based they have you know safety factors you need a minimum 1500 hours 2000 how do you get there right and back in the day when the economy was good there was lots of flying for these these kids to
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
get there right so um yeah it's tough and then you know she's it's the it's the biggest it's considered a heavy it's got the same it's got the t-55 so that's the same turbine as a chinook okay um and it's damn it's the the most powerful single engine uh twin bladed uh helicopter and we we we tank that's got the tank on there 3 000 liters so that's a firefighter yeah so yeah we're tanking yeah
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I think politically, Canada has its issues currently, and it's working in my, or in our favor, I think. The fact that we have a... Canada's gone through a period of eight years of...
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah. And I was on the 212 before. And it's basically, it's the exact same size. The tail boom's a bit thicker because obviously the size of the tail rotor. The tank is bigger, more robust. But when you're in there, and on the 214, I fly left seat tanking. You're by yourself. I got the bubble window. 212 was on the right. But that doesn't, yeah, it doesn't really affect anything.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But you're always at limits anyway. So, you know. It's either you're full water or full fuel. It's a give and take. So the machine's always at its fullest. And you actually kind of don't notice the difference after a while. But yeah, she's a neat fucking machine. And that's why I went to Australia, because I wanted the 214. But that being said, have you been to Australia?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, flying down, I'm based out of Perth, so we have four machines right downtown Perth, and we're attached basically to the fire department. So we can find ourselves, if there's a fire downtown Perth... No way. Yeah, we're tanking. Canada, you never knew. Now, the tricky part is that you're right, there's the big international airport, so you're inside the control zone.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
They treat us like aircraft. In Canada, you're always, you're fucking on your own, right? So then they're talking to you like an aircraft. You have your eye fire and your fixed wing, so it'd probably be... easier for you to understand that. But when you're not used to it and they start talking to you like airplane, you're like, what, base? Or like fucking what? Like, you know, clear to approach.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Can I just go land at my fucking, anyway. So that was the biggest challenge for me. It was just getting used to that side of stuff. And then their accents, man, because they'll come up on the radio with their, you know, Australian accent. They're like, excuse me. Some of it's a little thick. But yeah, it's neat. Now.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And you said it right yourself, right? It's always pilot error. There's how good you think you are, and then there's how good you are. And that's the beauty of the Bellas. They've been around so long. Those machines are dull when it comes to the engineer. They'll start to tell you if there's a problem. So usually if you're going to scare yourself or kill yourself, it's you fucked up.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, I've had, you know, touch wood, a lot of fuck me, holy fuck moments, but which you learn from, obviously. And I think attitude matters. Is a huge part. And a lot of, a lot of like, especially for low time guys coming into like flight programs or companies taking you on, you're putting a lot of responsibility in someone's hand.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
It's kind of crazy to be honest with you, the lack of time and experience that they let somebody fly people around. Right. So I think they like to see a bit of life experience, a little bit of maturity because you're being, you'll be less, less pushy.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And the old thing was that 500 hours, you know, you're probably the most dangerous because you think you know the machine or you know how to fly, but you don't necessarily have the skills to get yourself out of trouble when you do. Once you hit 1,500 hours and you haven't killed yourself, you're probably okay because you've done it where you're like, holy fuck, I'm not doing that again, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
My thing early on, It's weird. And the struggle for me, and obviously I didn't fly in the military, but in the military, and you could equate to this more than I, but there's strict rules and regulations and there's training and it's not rushed. It's done properly for a good reason. Civil world, it's not taxpayers paying for the cost. So everything's...
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
somewhat rushed and you're kind of thrown to the wolves and like off you go, you know, and that will vet or call the herd pretty quickly. But then at a certain point it's whether or not you fucking kill yourself or wreck a machine because the next company is not going to give you a chance if you've wrecked a machine, you know, and then you just kind of learn.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And the big one is, um, you know, weather. Um, I think that was my early, um, experiences i slinging that's a big one in county we're on the long line a lot right that's a big part of bread and butter and i flew into uh into fog slinging once and uh yeah scared the shit out of me that was my first fuck me inadvertent imc yeah yeah which is as you know a killer yeah um
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah. An IFR guy might be able to get that 180 done and not descend. We don't do that. We're not scanning. It'd be a fight.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And that's heli-skiing in a nutshell. So up until recently, I was at Mustang for eight years. And then we had the heli-ski tenure up in Revelstoke with Selkirk Tangiers up until last year. And it was four B2 A-stars and four 205s. And typically, what they do is within the company, they'll have guys that they say, hey, are you interested in heli-skiing?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Or you'll have guys that are interested in it. And their respect to them, the way they set up their system is we'd go up early season, late November when the snow starts to kind of pack. And you'd have your guys that had been doing it, but everyone has to go through recurrent training. So, yeah, I think you needed a minimum an hour.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Obviously, every year you're doing your recurrent training, your PPC, or your check rides. But for heli-skiing, it was a minimum of hour of recurrent. And then the new guys, they'd go out with a training pilot. And it's interesting because you'd get experienced guys, low-time guys, and really, as I'm sure you can imagine, Typically, those guys around 3,000 hours would kind of show up to try it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But a guy with 6,000 hours could be, you know, shittier than a 3,000-hour guy, right? It's not really a variant. But it was interesting that you'd have guys that you would think they go out for the first day and they go for an hour training and they come back. They're like, I'm good. I don't want to do this, you know? Respectable, right? You can respect that if a guy calls it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Or you've had the other guys that will go out and the training pilots find it's like, dude, man, this, you know, you're not... You're not dialed. You're not getting it right. Not what we're looking for here. And that might be, you know, a guy that's experienced. He's been, I don't know, logging, doing other stuff. And the ego, it's hard on the ego. But it's done for a good reason, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And the environment itself is, you know, I mean, those big alpines can be fucking, what's the word? You know, it's... Not scary, but, you know, if you're... Intimidating? Intimidating, yeah, exactly. So a lot of guys that have experience, you know, we've had guys that did, you know, search and rescue type stuff, like singing guys off the side of the hill.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
A lot of ex-skiers, guys that have been in the mountains before. I think my time in the mountains and the Alps with the rep, you know, doing our stuff was helpful just for understanding avalanche winds and stuff. But so what they do is you go out, and the big thing I'm sure you'll be interested in is for the flying side of it, they're really focused on the approach.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And any time you're heli-skiing up there, certainly in our company and in Canada, it's pretty much across the board the same, is you have a minimum of two flags. And those are stuck in the snow or into the rocks or whatever. So for your visual? Yeah. So it's got a flag on it. And initially, that will give you your wind direction.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Because as you know, obviously, in the Alpine, it could be changing, as long as you're not frozen in one direction from a storm that came through. But you've kind of judged. You've flown over your spot. You see the flags are flying. You've kind of figured out on your own what downwind is. You set up.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And that's why they start you off in the B2, the S-stars, because you're a little more less committed. You have that power, and you can kind of abort closer. And the 205 and the medium, you're committed way back. And if something goes wrong, you're just fucking going for those flags. So the flags are there as your reference. But the snowball is what can be your, you know, to your detriment.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And we get some big snowfalls in that part of the world. And if, let's say, you know, it's been snowing all day, you come into that first fucking landing, a lot of times you'll fly over it slow the first time if you can, but you come in, there's a fucking massive snowball, right? So if you stick to those two flags, the idea is that first one's there, you get an idea of your rate of closure.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
It's like a walking pace as you get close. And then when you land... that flag is right beside you. So when it whites out, you're just like fucking looking right at it, right? Yeah. Or if you lose, and that's where the focus is on that approach.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
If you lose those flags because, you know, let's say you've been a bit too slow or you were downwind or you were in a wind that changed and that snowball now is in front of you because that's what it would do. The wind will push it. You lost it. As long as you don't change anything, theoretically, you should come to your spot.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So yeah, theoretically so they go out there and they just like to see the guys just fucking consistent. Yeah, you know and then It's a massive tenure too. So you get out there and then these kind of again throw you to the wolves so you you know, once the the training pilots like happy with your Your abilities you do a check ride with another guy and then you're skiing and
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And like they say, they just say, take it slow. And the interesting part of heli-skiing is it's obviously the heli-skiing company is the one that's trying to make a buck. So you're out there, everyone's got a mountain course, but you do not fly skiing like you do in a mountain course, right? You'd go broke or they'd kick you out.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So it's efficient and safe, right? And every year that you fly, you get better because you have that gut feel, right? And that first year, and I remember, I slept well. We were done, I'd be back with it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
hotel like fucking out you know from the stress right but you don't have that you don't have that gut feel to say this is fucking and we have some fucking super experienced guides and they're looking at you and they're they're good enough where they'll say yeah no this is and flat lights we can come back to it flat light is the fucking killer man yeah depth perception oh it's just a nightmare right
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And they'll be quick to say, hey, this is not good for me. They don't like it. But you might get the guy that doesn't. He's pushing it. He's trying to get good snow. And a lot of times, if his clients are happy, he's getting a nice bonus, a nice tip at the end of the day. And you don't have that experience to say, yeah, this is fucking shit, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
It's East Coast majority have the voting power in Canada. Obviously, we don't have the same political system as you when it comes to, you know, electoral college and such. But the Canadian, like if you look at the... The numbers right now, Canadians want to change. Trudeau's out. Unfortunately, he's pro not to bore the listeners on Canadian politics because it is boring.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Whereas you get those seasons behind you, you're like, fuck that, man. I'm getting paid. This is not worth it. We'll go somewhere else. So some guys will make the cut. At the end of every day, the guys have their meeting. And they'll come back and say, hey, you know, fucking, and we had a couple landings there with, you know, Joel that were spicy, you know, like fucking.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And then, you know what I mean? For example, which is good, right? And so they should, and as a group of pilots, if there's an incident or concern, the lead pilot would say, hey, Joel, like fucking, this is what the guys were saying, you know, do you agree? You got any concerns? You want to go out?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And then the environment I liked, because on the fires, every pilot's a fucking hero and no one's going to say, oh, I fucked up today or I missed that drop. Everyone's like...
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
the skiing environment it was like we got some experienced guys we got some new guys and if you come back and they say how was your day and the guy says oh it was fucking it was easy you're like what you're fucking full of shit man because it's not easy right and you'd have you could listen to an experienced guy come back and say hey man I lost my ass on that fucking landing today and it was it was close you know and young guys can soak that up and then they're not afraid to fucking come back and say hey man I fucking had a hard time because there's certain landings
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
That are conducive to fucking challenging landings. And it is going to catch you at some point, right? And then, yeah, as you get used to the terrain, because we're flying in shitty weather, man.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And the Bluebird, it's, as you say, it's Bluebird, but then you're going high and that machine's at limits anyway. So you're... And certainly in the company I was skiing with, we have a Jenkins box. So if you have an exceedance, basically, if you over torque, over temp, NG or RPM, an email goes straight to the office, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So, well, yeah, exactly. And we have a sat phone. There's been many times where I've landed after I dropped my guests off and I'm waiting and I call my boss on the sat phone. I was like, Hey, uh, you know, did you get an email? And they're like, no, why? I was like, disregard.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
You're just like, oops. Yeah. But it keeps you, it keeps you honest. And those, you know, the guys haven't been using, but yeah. So you got the bluebird days, you're, you're high and heavy and you're always. maximizing fuel for cost, right? Cause we have like in our 10 years, it's fucking huge. I think, you know, there's a massive at the time. It was like, they could, there's a choice.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
There's obviously not 500 runs that are flagged, but they have that, that option. And we have little fuel caches everywhere. And you're working with your guide to maximize a day. So for example, I don't know if you're interested in how it works, but in the morning and we show up at the, at the hangar, all the pilots are there.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
we'll get a text from dispatch with the group weights and your lead, uh, guide. And then he'll text you and say, Hey, Joel, my fuck, what's going on? So I'm thinking of going to this run first. And this is my plan for the day. I was like, all right, cool. I look at my weights, you know, I fucking, I get my org chart or my, um, um,
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
You have a chart for like the 205 where you can put in the numbers and it gives you the parameters. So I got this first runs up at fucking 8,000. My group weighs, you know, 2,200 pounds. I can take, you know, 70% fuel. And the charts say that the helicopter should land at that altitude. Exactly. As long as you got the wind on the nose and you didn't fuck it up. Oh, the old chart.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So then you, yeah, you plan accordingly, right? And then he's, and it, that communication, I mean, it's dual, it's crew resource management, a hundred percent, right? He's not saying you just come back full of fuel and say, oh, I want to go on this run now up at fucking nine. You're like, fuck, we ain't, we ain't doing that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But we're waiting for them to get their shit dialed, find a new leader. So we would, in theory, have a new prime minister that wasn't chosen for by the population. And the problem is there's no one right now to deal with Trump and these potential trade and tariff that are coming in, right? And the issue... He's going hard on that. The thing for me is, you know, I mean...
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And then you work the program around so they can have lunch somewhere nice. And then you can go for fuel and it's just efficient, right? So you learn to be, you know, efficient that way. And your flying gets more aggressive, but, but safe because you understand that, the terrain and the machine and the hills. Right.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So it's, it's nice to get those, those, those years behind you, but you always have those days where you're fucking, you're committed. You're just going for those flags and it's like beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. And you're just like, And the people in the back are just fucking, you know, like, woo, having a great time. I had, it's interesting. We have some interesting guests.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And there's always the briefs, you know, beforehand because they show up. And Selkirk had this program where you have everything. I had SpaceX guys that fucking, right before they launched the rocket program, I think the first time where it was, they had like a group where they go out and fucking ski together and have a good time. They bought this.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
There's a ski chalet right on the hill at Revelstoke. It's got a nice helipad. And these guys, you know, they're mostly Brits, a lot of them. They've just built like the most advanced rocket in the world, you know. And I land in front of them in this clapped out 205 with rivets and steam fucking gauges. And I could just see him just like, what the, you know what I mean?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Like looking at it, they couldn't ski worse shit. One guy had to pick up about 200 meters down the hill, you know, from, anyway. But they have another program where it's day skiers, right? Where people are saved up. It's about 1500 bucks a day to see how cheap it is, you know? And this gentleman comes over after the brief and he's got a heavy set and he was ex-Marine, US Marine, Cobra pilot.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I think he did the Jolly Greens and he flew for, I think Air Force One for Obama of the White House. He's like, oh, I'm trying to talk my wife into fucking, I'd love to come up and do heli skiing. And, you know, I was like, fuck, I was like, good on you, man. Well, I hope you have a good day. And it was a flat light day, you know?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And he was in the penalty box, which is the side one there where the, you know, designed for the M60 gunner back in the day. And we went flying and that flat light stuff, like he would be sitting facing, you know, some of the landings would be like right on the side of a mountain, right? Yeah. So you'd have rock going like this.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Then you'd hear the, and then me fucking me powering up and then coming into the flag and then snow. You didn't even see anything. The end of the day, he just came over to the window and he was like, I'm out. You know what I mean? Stay in the back. I will get out of this thing.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And that's not to say that he couldn't, it was just, it's a, it's a different, I don't think people kind of realize the, um, most of the accidents happen on landing. Yeah, and that's, yeah, whiteout rolling machines. Every year, typically, we- Oh, hitting and then dynamic- Yeah, yeah. That is- The dynamic world's a big one. Last year, they had a koala went and killed, I think, three guys.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Not ours, it was up in Terrace, but typically, every year, there's a machine that's wrecked.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Trump mentioned there's a, you know, you guys are subsidizing Canada. Now, the fact is, it's kind of the wrong word. We're a tenth of your economy. I believe you guys are at, what, 350 million? We're 41?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
It's, uh, yeah, it's challenging flying. Uh, but it makes you a better pilot. Like if you have bad habits, they get nipped in the butt real quick. Um, and then come fire season, it's like you're, you're dialed, right? You're fucking good to go. And that's, that's what I liked about the skiing is that it made you, and it was, you know, the people in the back are great.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And the tenure, it's beautiful. You have some good days where it's like, holy fuck, man, you look up and like, Jesus, you know, there's other days you're like, what the fuck?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So I go back on the seventh year. Um, and I'll do the ST and then that's the end of their fire season. Then I'm grease for their fire season and grease next.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah. So what do you, enough about me on the flying stuff. What are your thoughts? I mean, I think I texted once asking you, I'd be keen to know your thoughts. Coming from the fixed-wing background, what you thought once you could jump in a helicopter, the difference?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So, I mean, we can't afford to buy the same amount of products from you as you do from us. And I think, I don't know the numbers, they can fact check, but I think about 60% of that is crude oil and electricity. And I know for a fact that all your refineries are designed to take either crude oil from Canada or Venezuelan, I believe. If not, they'd have to refurbish them all.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, they're humbling. I mean, helicopters are humbling as fuck, man.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I don't think I'll ever stop. But it's too late, right? Now you're chasing the dragon. That's the thing. You'll never master the trade, but you're, yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
My kids actually came up to one of the – I was in Cache Creek this summer on a fire, and I was like, fuck, come up. You know, it might be a – and 212, you know, tank, and we went flying. And I'll admit I was happy when we were on the ground. I think, I think it would be the scenario where if something went wrong today, flying helicopter, it's self-preservation.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I'm, I'm saving my own ass before the people in the back. Okay. But as soon as I have.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So it's kind of unfair for him to say that you guys are subsidizing Canada. It's just we're not at the same level. We can't afford to buy what you guys buy from us.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
but if you had your, God forbid, you know, you're fucking, I'm not religious, but yeah, you'd be the word.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
No, you know, like, yeah, a lot of times is I've honestly, I've never had a, um, Never had an engine failure. Governor failure, which is tricky on the, you know, it's manageable, but it depends where you are. And for people listening, it makes it really hard to control the RPMs of the engine. Yeah. And you can switch out to the automatic mode, but it's, yeah. Honestly, I've been fucking lucky.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's a neat, they're neat machines, but they have to be. You got to respect them. Yeah. And, you know, we work with firefighters all the time. We got the smoke jumpers in the, in BC. In fact, I got a, you know, a nice black rifle coffee story I could share just to shout out to them.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I know you're sponsoring stuff, but they're, they certainly helped us out with some coffee for the,
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Exactly. So I wouldn't mind. A lot of times, you know, the last, you know, we're typically on a fire, you're, you know, you're flying crews to the fire in the morning and bring them back at night. And then during the day you're slinging gear or slinging water, you know, or tanking, whatever.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But they're always like, let's do the, you know, Northern, Northern Canada, especially a lot of times it's up in Fort Nelson where the fire is starting the season. And some of those valleys are like the Nayshaw Valley in Vietnam, you know, and they're, I'm getting flashbacks, you know, I'm like, am I, am I Huey, right? but they're in the back.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And so every once in a while you take a river low and you're banking and they're like, let's, can we take the, the river back? You're like, you know, it's fun, but that engine quits. I mean, at 212, you got two, but it's, it's just, you know, you're, you're pushing your easy. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And I kind of, I actually goes back to the rack stuff when you're driving around, especially the ID days, man is, you know, if you're cutting corners, And going close to the where, you know, they've dug under the road, you know, the culverts and stuff. At a certain point, if you're pushing things, your luck's going to catch up to you, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So if you're flying like a fucking hot dog or one day, Murphy's Law, you're going to be in the wrong place.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah. So it's, I think that comes with, you know, as you get older too, you're a little more less willing to push the limits. You got more to think about, but it's, it's, it's fucking tempting for sure. Yeah. No, I, uh, I have a love, love, hate relationship with helicopters, but love wins. Um,
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
your way a lot, you know, it's, it has its pros and cons, but at the end of the day, when you're your own boss in the cockpit and yeah, it's, it's good stuff, man. Yeah. Yeah. I like it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
No, fair, fair question. Um, that's why I wrote a pill. Yeah. I answered all the questions. Okay. But, you know, um, yeah, I don't know for sure. Um, cause I suck at explaining things. That's why I, but, um, so my, as I said, you know, military background, my family is, is pretty, uh, pretty in depth. And, um, I remember being around the Airborne. I was always kind of enamored with the jumpers.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Remember Hamburger Hill? I had that in VHS. Anyway, I watched the shit out of that. I don't know if they were, what, 82nd, 101st? One of the two. Yeah. So I was playing hockey. It came to an end. I wanted to join the military. I wanted to jump. This would have been early 90s. I went to the recruiter in Vancouver, and there was no reg force infantry positions available.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
You could go Navy and all that kind of stuff. I was like, fuck that shit. But what they did suggest is, and the military was starting to go through a change where Canada was kind of, they're going to make a third of their force primary reserve. So they had reserve regiments where you would go through the courses that were designed to be similar to the reg force courses.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And if there's any overseas tours, like Bosnia, that kind of stuff, a third of the men and women would be reservists. So I joined a regiment, the Royal Westminster Regiment, just outside of Vancouver, and they were attached to the PPCLI. So they were jump tasks. So you do your basic, your battle school in Wainwright, and then you go to Edmonton and do your jump course.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And I was in Wainwright doing my battle school, and word came down that the Canadian military was being restructured. This would have been 92. And that we were no longer going to be jump tasks, we were going to be anti-tank tow.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And so one of our NCOs on the, on the. the course said, hey, there's a guy, and he knew that I was keen on jumping, right? He said, one of these guys that just came back from France and he'd jumped with the rep in the Legion. I was like, what the fuck? I didn't know anything about that. So I looked into it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, yeah. He's effective at what he does. And I think he does it purposely, right? He throws a spanner into the wrench. I do too. And then when it comes to negotiations, he gets, you know, half of what he'd been talking about, but that's what he wanted in the first place.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I actually called, I think I called the operator and they gave me a, I said, I would like to talk to the US Army. Do you have a number over the border? And she gave me, but it was Marine Corps. So I talked to the Marine Corps and they had said, it would take you a couple of years to get a green card that I don't have any family that's American. So I looked at that option. I wrote the Legion.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
They wrote me back with a breakdown of the different regiments, the recruiting depots, pay grade. At this point, I'm 21. And I said, ah, fuck it. I'm out, you know. I'd gotten myself into some trouble. I was kind of lacking direction. As a young man. As you do, yeah. And that's, you know, and we can get it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I've had quite a few Americans reach out to me asking me questions about the Legion based on the, because I, you know.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Well, how did you even know? So I'll continue. How did you even know what address to write a letter to? I went to the French consulate in Vancouver. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because this is pre, you know, this is pre-internet kind of stuff. So it was, yeah. It's just not a well-advertised organization. I went to the library.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I found, you know, there's some old pictures, history books of the rep in Indochina. Because obviously, you know, the French lost the battle of Dien Bien Phu. That was kind of where the Americans got drawn into the war. And then Algeria. So they wrote me back and I read the book by Simon Murray called Legionnaire, which is kind of the staple book on Legionnaires.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And he had served, he was a British gentleman, served in the Franco-Algerian War with the rep. That would have been the late 60s. And I was like, you know what, I'm going. At the time, my dad was flying for an airline called Canada 3000. The jump seat to Dusseldorf, got on a train, went to Strasbourg, and I knocked on the door.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
No, in that letter, there was a different depot at the time. I think now it's only Paris and the Fort de Nogent. But back in the day, there was... quite a few. Um, and all you needed was a valid passport from any country. Yeah. Any country.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So I knock, they take your passport and, uh, they ask you, you know, it's, it's, you know, this is going back a long time, but, uh, um, some basic questions, you know, why you're here, what are you interested in? Why do you want to join the Legion? They look at your passport, take yourself. And then you're kind of held there for, they do a
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
a rudimentary medical exam with a doctor within a couple of days. And then they just put you to work sweeping, cleaning toilets, that kind of shit. And then once enough people show up, they put you on a train and you go down to Aubagne, which is just outside of Marseille, Southern France. And that's where the Legion headquarters is, the Premier. And there you're thrown into the recruiting depot.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
My issue is, as a Canadian, it's embarrassing to watch how we're reacting. And we don't have a leader that has the mandate for the next four years to deal with it effectively. That's what's embarrassing. Alberta, their minister has gone down, Mrs. Smith. She's gone and talked to them. I think she's the sole, you know, One to do so.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And typically you're there for about a month. And they... It all depends on the geopolitical situation in the world, but they can take about one in 15. So they have the ability to pick and choose what they like. And I have a buddy that's... We did selection together as corporals. He's now a captain. He's French, but he's still in the Legion.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
He's got to be fucked, man, after almost 30 years now, because I left 25 years ago. But anyway, he keeps me up to speed on how the Legion has changed, like all militaries in today's day and age. But they pick and choose what they want. Typically, they... They like a young man in his early 20s. So you have a bit of a life experience. You're not too young.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
They want you to understand what you're getting into because they got you initially for five years. You can have, you know, what we were talking about, you can have some issues with the law previously, but they will do a... Interpol background check. They're pretty effective. They have a department called the B2. And they will grill you.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
In this day and age, they'll go into your phones and all kinds of stuff and social media. But if you had fights, DOI or whatever, fine. But no, like the sexual type stuff, no drugs, no web. They're not interested in that. And they'll pick and choose the guys they want. Prior military history is not necessarily something to look for because their system's very different.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So they don't want to teach a little dog new tricks. And then once you're chosen, they have some, now, because I was actually back at the training arrangement two years ago and visited. Now, right away, you go into computers. They have a classroom full of computers and it's IQ tests and psychological evaluation. Right there, they can- Really?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And it was interesting because right away, they picked up on two guys that were lying and they were- They got nabbed a year later in France for the terrorism attacks on one of the military bases. No shit. And they do have, you know, French JAS are trying to get in and learn their skills, right? Because obviously, as you know, France had their issues there not too long ago.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So, yeah, by no means a historian. So I know, and typically in my experience, you know, I stick to things that I find interesting, but initially it was designed back in the 1800s by the King for, it would allow them to use foreigners or Frenchmen that were supposed to go to prison to have a chance to,
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
pay their penance, but also they wouldn't have to send Frenchmen to do their, through the war, do their battles, you know? So it was, it was like a penal.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
For, so all the officer corps are French, French officer corps, I would say this year. Typically about a third of the ranks are Frenchmen, but the rest are foreigners.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Everything's done in French. So then. That had to have been a benefit to you. Yeah, I was lucky. Parlez-vous français. Yeah, exactly. And that's the one thing I say to guys when they ask is, you know, know some French before you go. So, yeah, you go to basic and it's four months in Castel, which is just not far from Toulouse where they build the Airbus. And that first month you go to a farm.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Meanwhile, the others just kind of argue between themselves on how we're going to react. But I think it looks poorly in the way I say things. Canada can do better. I don't know. I don't think, you know, I think Trump gets kind of said that his big push is obviously for the cost of living for Americans, right? To improve things.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So you got to there's about 50 guys. And, you know, during my time, the wall would come down. So in my section, there was a lot of Russians, Polacks, Czechs, Slavs, you know, that kind of stuff. There were some Brits, Kiwis, Spaniards, Belge. That changes, obviously, as the world changes, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But you go to a farm, and basically there's four training regiments in the training company, or sorry, four training companies in the regiment, and they all have an old farm that they've bought, re-firmers, to make it, you know, like a...
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
barracks i guess and you spend a month there and you get beasted um and that's where you kind of learn you actually spend most your time learning how to fucking sing as a collective it's insane but it's infective so they they they keep you up all night you do the ruck marches it's a lack of food there's a lot of you know discipline and it's just a quit whenever you want to type affairs no you can desert and we had deserters but at the end of basic training yeah yeah
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
At the end of your four months, you have a chance to go civilian or stick it out for the five years. So they give you a chance to, yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So it really weeds out because they're aware, you know, they've been doing this a long time. They're aware of there's certain people that join for the right reasons and the wrong. And it'd be like for yourself, guys that go and come to Bud's, right? It's a mental thing, right? They might have a vision of what they're getting into, but then they realize this is not for me.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah. Yeah, fair enough. So we'll let you quit minute one if you want to. And to my point is where they're effective is after a month, you march back into the regiment with your white cap because you issued that at the end, singing the regiment song in tune. And the legion march is the slowest marching military in the world. It's 88 steps per minute. I don't know what the...
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I think the Canadians are 120 or something. I might be wrong, but it's like, it's slow, right? And the song is slow like it. And it's actually pretty impressive, that low, deep kind of- What do they call this? Because we're pulling this shit up right now. I know. You could probably- What would you- Legion Marching singing. It drove me nuts, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Coming from my small experience with the Canadian military, that's just the band. But if you put Legion Marching, yeah. But the fact that they're able to do that in a month, we had Koreans- No, that's the band.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
The Hellmarch? Keep going. First of all, French Foreign Legion marching. There you go. That one there. Now down? Down. Yep. Yeah, that's in Corsica. And that's where the regiment's based in Calvi, Corsica.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Throwing terrorists on is going to cost, you know, a lot of the products come from Canada. So that's going to cost your average consumer more money anyway. So I don't think he'd like to start his mandate that way. I'm hoping, you know, for our sake. And I mean, we're going to take. All his points are valid, especially our spending on defense.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But, you know, after four weeks, that's pretty impressive. You can take, you know, individuals from every different background. Like the Russians, their alphabet's different.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, it's impressive. I mean, it's, and they don't change it because if it ain't broke, why fix it, you know? What does the black hat mean? So those would be sergeants. Okay. They're NCOs, so you have a black, as with the officers, but their ranks, those are probably sergeants.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Because in that case, I think I would... No, I mean, if they catch you, they're throwing you in jail for... At the end of the day, if you don't want to be there, they don't want you. And there's the administrative ways of getting it, right? It's effective, right? They're doing it for a reason, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So, I mean... Yeah, it's very different, and I found that challenging, but there's a reason for it. Okay, so you do the march after a month, then what comes?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Then you have your three months, you're back at the regiment, and then they get into the firearms, the exercises, and you learn basically, the idea is that every legionnaire that departs the training regiment, when it gets to their differing regiments, they have the base of a legion, like the Marine Corps.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Actually, the legion is probably, if anything, it's similar to any arm, the military, it's probably the Marines. You know, everyone's a rifleman, and then they. And then based on the four months, there's how you finish in your course. The top ones, they let you choose. And then obviously towards the bottom, they start to send you where you want to go.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
You have to be a volunteer to go to the rep, which is the airborne regiment. And then off you go. And every regiment differs. Anyway, so I went to the rep, and I joined the first company, which is fighting in Phibia. There's five regiments, or sorry, five companies. And one's amphibious. There's the mountain. There's the first, which is fighting in built-up areas.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And then the other one, the fourth, which was, I mean, they had mortars, snipers, all that kind of stuff. And so I got there in, what was it? I did six years. So I was in the GCP for four years. So that was 94. And then I did selection for the GCP.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So, and that's where, you know, I think I sent you that, uh, that clip once, but, uh, the difference in, in their system is, um, it's not necessarily that you volunteer. They'll say, Hey, Joel, are you interested in going GCP? Because you need to be signed. So that's the group. So that's like the pathfinders for the, uh, for the, for the regiment.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Um, guys can be volunteer, but you need to be signed off by your, your lieutenant and then the company captain, um, Typically, you know, it's a small regiments 1500 strong So it's a captain that runs the GCB team and they're all obviously a small community their talk So they're gonna say to their comrades or the company captains. Don't send me fucking retards.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I think as a NATO member, I think it's minimum 2%, if I'm not mistaken. GDP, right? Yeah, and we're at 1.3.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
You know, just send me So that being said if there's problem childs in a company they might say alright off you go, right? Because as you know, sometimes problem childs make good good soldiers, too, right? But anyway, so I did the selection for the GCP. And you had to be a minimum of a corporal. And I was a private, probably first class at the time. And yeah, the process is somewhat different.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
It was a three-week selection process. And it was a group of, I think we were 20-odd from the different companies, a mix of corporals and first class. They put you through the original, you know, the typical selection.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
The big staple for the French military, especially in the Legion, is you do a 1,500-meter ruck run in a certain amount of time, and then you get, I think, five minutes, and then you do 8K run. That's the big one. Then there's the assault, common assault course. And then for the GCP, it's a 35K run. Okay.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
so they do that in the first week and then they have their, you know, you go to the range, they do their assessment and it, it depends on what they have different cells.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So if they're looking for a signal or they're going to be kind of pinpointing towards if they're looking for sniper guys, but in the end, they, um, you go out and you spend a couple of weeks working with the, in, in the, the Raptors, two GCP teams, um, So they introduce you into the teams and you'll go do exercise with them.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And the big one for them is they're looking to see, and it would be similar to your background in the SEAL team, is a guy that's able to fit within a team environment and willing to learn. Because at the end of the day, they're going to teach you how to do your thing. So they want to see that guys, they're a good mix. They fit and they have the right attitude.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So you might not be the best runner or whatever, but you fit there. So I was... as I said, I remember they took us to an old prison up in the back of Calvi. There's an old Spanish fort that day.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
It was a prison back in the day, but we were out there and then the captain showed up in his Jeep and he said, all right, put together a plan how you would assault this and you could use, you know, any weapons that the regiment has and you could, you know, put together your plan and I'll go over it. And so we all did.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And I, you know, I get, I mean, obviously there's the, you know, each country has its debt. The United States has been the, you know, the police force of the world for a long time. But, you know, at a certain point that costs money and you see the results run away.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I was thinking about this actually driving up and I think I was like fucking old school. I was like, France trenches, you know, the whistle will go. We're just going to fucking, you know, over the breaches, you know, I bet you some of the guys were like, well, we'll halo in and, you know, we'll use all. But anyway, so at the end of it, we'd have to sit in front of the captain.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
You look at your plan and he probably just shook his head. But I remember he said to me, you know, how do you feel you're doing Joel? And I was like, ah, you know, here we go.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I said, well, you know, sir, um, you know, I'm, I'm giving it all I can. I'm doing my best. Obviously there's a lot to learn, but, uh, you know, I can honestly say no regrets. I don't feel like we'll, uh, you know, we'll, we'll take you on, but we had a slot for you in the corporate course. You're, you're gonna have to go tomorrow.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And then, so I missed the rest of, so I was, I was fortunate to get on. And I think that had a big part to do with, uh, I'm Canadian, so there's that historical connection between France and I had a decent level of French. And then I was young, I was fit, I was driven, and I think I was lucky.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But the reason I say that is not to blow smoke up my ass, is that I was fortunate in my time in the Legion. So I went off, I did my corporal's course. It's a fucking shit show. And I remember you go back to Castell where you do your basic and it's a three month course. And we had an adjutant, which would be like a Sergeant Major, I guess, who was running the course.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
He was known for, he was a Portuguese. He'd done the commanding course down in Mount House in Brazil. Anyway. when you showed up to the course, you had to, you're in uniform and you had to knock on the door, going to his office, it was him. And then the two senior NCOs, I would have the two different platoons and you had to do your typical presentation.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And I fucked up my first, it was like, you know, your rank and all that stuff and fucked it up and did it fucked up again. And I remember he kind of looked at his, the two beside me, he looked at me and said, you know, in French, he's like, are you retarded? And I was like, good, good, good start.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, exactly. Anyway, so, I did my, uh, my Corpus course and, uh, I came back to the, uh, the regiment. And when I got to the company and checked in with the, uh, duty sergeant, he said, you're back your bags, you're going to Central Africa.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
If Canada can pull up their socks and be a, you know, a better member to NATO, our military has been decimated for the last eight years, that's for sure. You know, obviously, we have the borders with Russia. There's nothing we could do. So we count on you guys. And he's correct in that. You know, if something happens, we're counting on Big Brother to help.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And the, um, the team, this is 1996, Albin II, the team had gone to, uh, Bungie, Central Africa, where there was civil war going on, but they're a short one guy. So when you get into the GCPD, you have to do your, uh, commando course, which is on Mont Louis in the Pyrenees mountains. Um, And then you go to Poe, which is the French para-base just outside of Toulouse.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And then that's where you do your Halo free fall course. And then once you've completed those, you know, once you wait for your spots, it could take over a year, year and a half. And then you typically, you wouldn't join the team. You'd just be, you know, to the side waiting for your courses. And then once you're done,
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
You know, you had the wings, the free-fall wings in your command course, and you would join the team. But they're short, so they sent me, and I flew into, I was on a DC-9 a couple days later via Chad, and we landed at Bungie, Central Africa, and my captain came in the front. Everyone else in the plane, they're all French military, they were going to... I don't know where they were going.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But anyway, he said, Joel. I got out and that night I was kitted up with my FAMAS. And it was the first time I left the gates with a weapon off on, you know, loaded on safe. And it was, for me, you know, that was less than, that was about two years in the Legion.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So, you know, being an officer's kid, Canadian from a world where we're pretty fortunate to all of a sudden hear I'm downtown Mungy, you know, with the GCP and I'm not yet a team, you know, I'm not fully qualified yet. I'm just like head on a swivel, man. It was a neat, and as I said, a lucky introduction into the Legion and the regiment itself. So then I did that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
You know, obviously did my commander course offer, did my free fall course. And then the free fall course, it was, I was the only legionnaire in the course. They broke it up into three branches, but you'd go, they'd teach you how to jump. We had the big old GQ rigs. I think the Brits use them too, the SAS, big blue square.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
The French came out with their G9 later on, but they would teach you with the platys how to, how to jump. And then you'd move to the Herc or the TransL, which was the smaller. And then you'd work up on that and you'd have one instructor and you'd obviously, your background's in that. make sure there was no lateral movement. You can do all your stuff. And then once they're happy with your control.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
They say, go get some. Yeah, yeah. And then they would try, they would add you up. And the idea was to get those 10 men and then you did the night jumps. And I was there for three months, but I had one guy, he actually taught the course. He was ex-JGEN, so the French anti-terrorist team. And interestingly enough, he was switched on guy.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
He had joined the JGN as a young gendarme, as you do to join that. And in their system, they attach a new guy to a more experienced guy. And he was, remember when they raided the Airbus in Marseille? Yes. He was, I think, number four in the door. Because- You want to talk about a mission I would never want to do?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Ballsy, man. We actually visited their compound and I saw the helmet where the mask, they got those thick fucking helmets. He took the round, the AK round in the- Knocked him out, but it saved his life. But anyway, he was switched on. And I remember one of the entry exams was you had to do laps in the pool, a certain amount of laps in time.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So I think your average Canadian would like to see better. I certainly would, coming from a military background. It's disappointing. So we should see. It'll sort itself.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So here's a Zhejiang guy, and then you got the legionnaire, Joel. And he's supposed to stop you when you're done. And you just let me go. And I'm like, like, you know, like, it's funny to think fucking Legionnaires, man. What the fuck, you know?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I'd have the white kepi. Okay. So you always wore that? Yes. Okay. Well, no, we had the green beret. Okay. So that's more parade wear. But, um, yeah, when we would be in comments and like jumping, it would be green beret. But when I would like leave garrison and I'm traveling back forth, it would be the white kepi. So visually distinct. Okay. Yeah. Um, Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And I remember we finally, uh, you know, and I enjoyed, I liked my big thing. I couldn't wait to get out of the Herc and going out the side door, the ramp cool at night, whatever. But it was, you know, that side where you, you pull yourself into the, I just, for whatever reason, that's what I wanted. Right. And I'm not, I wasn't into the civilian skydive.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I was more like, I, what interests me is the operational side of it. But, um, Yeah, I enjoyed it. I think I was lucky. You know, I got the long arms, long legs. And so I was able to, you know, I was a stable, stable jumper and did okay. But I remember at the end, there was two, we had two teams of 10. And they, the final jump in the ceremony to get our wings was on Wright Field.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And that's where the Wright brothers had flown the planes to introduce them to the French. And the regiment CO was there and all these guests. And we landed about a mile short. We had to walk back with our rugs, you know, our rigs on and our gens on our shoulders, like fucking, I thought that was pretty fucking funny. But yeah, you know, it was, you know, but again, I'm the only Legionnaire.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
The other ones were, we had the French equivalent to the SEAL programs. We had a couple Air Force Marines. you know, the, uh, JTAC types. They had the, um, other GCP, obviously regiment had their guys friends. So I was, I was the sole legionnaire. So it was interesting to kind of see the, um, the French army for what it was.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And then I think it was interesting them for them to see, to see, uh, you know, what a legionnaire was all about. It was a good time. And at the end I went back to, um, I drove back down to, uh, Toulon where the, um, the guys had their base there. The, um, Hubert is the name of the guys. And one of your US submarines was there. And the SEAL team was there across training. Interesting. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And that's Toulon. That's their big naval base. And at that point, that's when I was kind of like, fuck, man. And then I just remember the thinking is I got to go back to Calvi and the regiment and the legion. It's old school and just Gato, which is a French translation for Gato is cake, but it's just like very like hardheaded and strict.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So I had to get my hair, I had to let my hair go and I was having this, you know, good time. And I think it wasn't, albeit I was new, but I could kind of see that, you know, this is kind of what the real military experience should be where you have a life. Whereas the legion, it's very kind of, And for the first five years, you can't wear civilian clothes, you know?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
They've changed that rule since, but it's just the way, I don't know why, a discipline thing. It's just, but they did it. And it's, you know, it's, I used to hate that. You go out in town, Calvary's in the summer, of course, because, you know, it's beautiful and you got a lot of tourists, but you have to walk around. The MPs would be trolling around.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
My dad was ex-Air Force. So born out east, grew up in Germany. And then I finished high school up in Coal Lake, Alberta.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And if you're out of sorts, you know, if you got a stain on your uniform or your kepi's dirty or it's, you know, it's the end of the back of the Jeep and you're in jail. So it was tough that way. But whatever. It is what it is, right? I was fortunate. And then, yeah, after six years, I just decided it was time to do something different. I was young enough where I could make a change, you know?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
That's changed. So in my time, after five years, as long as you had a good service record, typically you would get it. I didn't go after it. Retrospect, I wish I had. But as I said, I was always a proud Canadian. I just felt like I was a guest. They were giving me this opportunity. Unfortunately, the Canadian military wasn't. But I always had plans to go home. It's changed since.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Now you have to, I think, do more time. And it's a case-by-case basis. Unless you're injured. If you're injured, they give you the passport.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
It's more a protection for yourself and the Legion. So a lot of countries, especially the Eastern Bloc countries, it's illegal to serve in a foreign military. So what they do is they would give you a false name. And if someone calls saying, we're looking for, you know, Andy Stumpf, you don't exist anymore. You're Bob, whatever, you know, they use the, yeah, exactly. Pierre. Pierre Le Pew. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And you can go through a system, uh, it's called rectification where you can get your name back and your passport. But, uh, Yeah. You know, for me, as I said, I had a good experience. I respect France and the Legion for what they did. And that's why I think I, my efforts, you know, writing the book at Bell and then at least talking about where I can is, it's not my place necessarily.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I'm not a recruiter and I'm not, you know, done, but there is a lot of misconceptions and bullshit out there. Oh, there's a ton. Yeah. And it's, I find it frustrating.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So, actually, yeah, good question. It depends how you're speaking about it. Yeah. So, for example, Appel, and that's where I kind of ran into you as I was the guest on Jocko 209 podcast, and you had me on because I wrote Appel, which- In his interrogation chamber studio? Yeah, my very first podcast.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, so I spent six years in the Airborne with the Legion. Okay. With the Deuxième Régiment Étranger Parachutiste. I got it in 2000.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I think I was as bad as I am now, but this will be my third. Anyway, third and last. But- Yeah, so Appel to date is, I sent a copy of the final draft to, as I said, my buddy Dimitri was working and I sent it and he sent it up to the general. Not that the general would read it, but I said, this is what I'm planning to publish.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
You know, if you have any concerns or issues and basically a no response is a positive response, right? They didn't say cease and desist, they didn't say. And then my captain, Damuna at the time,
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
At GCP he went on to be the CEO of the regiment and he'd actually jumped with a regiment in to go in Mali Went on to take over the French airborne division and now he's a general at the NATO headquarters in in Brussels. Damn, so he wrote the Ford and then Wilfred Laurier, which is that you know, it's a university press, but they're somewhat reputable They published it. So that was
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
you know, three things that I wanted. The narrative was approved by the Legion. There was a Ford from an acting officer and then a reputable publisher. So, you know, the story doesn't have, you know, spelling mistakes and fuck. Yeah. And then it's legit, right? It's, it's factual. So they've appreciated that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I think that's why they invited me to the regiment and we sat down and they've, they, they used it on some of their social media stuff. It's a positive betrayal by no means. Is it, you know, as you know, in the military, it's not all action and it's, it's, you know, it's almost, yeah, it's almost never action.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
No. Okay. Exactly, exactly. But to answer your question, yeah, fair.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And it's, it's, you know, it's a different, it's a different type of a military and it's be careful what you, what you expect. You know, I was fortunate, but it's, it can be tough, especially if you're there for the wrong reasons. Now, unfortunately, a lot of times that people that talk about Legion are deserters and I'll be straight up
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Any current Legion or certainly any previous Legion, I can talk for them. The one thing we dislike the most is deserters that talk about the Legion, if it has any disparaging side to it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, you left. You didn't come back. Now, whatever you, you make your call, you do what you want to do. But if you start shit talking Legion or sharing your narrative, why you left, you're full of shit. You know, the fact is you left. So it's, it is what it is, right? Just, just take it on the chin and leave it be. Um,
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
You know, you'll, some people will call bullshit, others will just let it be because it's transparent as it is. On my side, you know, it's been, I haven't, to be honest, I haven't had any negative feedback, but you know, my story isn't, it's a positive portrayal.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I think it was that. I certainly never envisioned writing a book. I'm not a writer. It's not something I thought I was doing.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Well, you know. It's not something I. Not a writer by trade. Yeah, yeah. When I came back from the Legion, my mom's father retired as a two-star. And he was doing his, he actually was awarded the DSO by Montgomery on the field. So he was my hero as a young man. And he had his reservations when I said I was going to the Legion. He had run into them.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So we were always in the back of the Pumas. Okay. And the Super Freelance.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
He actually flew into Dien Bien Phu in Indochina 10 days after the French capitulated with the UN. It was the early days of the UN, but he was the 2IC. Because the UN was there to watch the gradual, which were all the French. And he had some concerns about the Legion, albeit it's changed dramatically. So I would write to him when I was in the Legion. I'd say, hey, this is what we're doing.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And I think he kind of learned that it wasn't necessarily what he thought it was. And then when I came back, he would talk to me a lot more open about certain things that he experienced, obviously, the Second World War.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Not that I experienced anything, but I think you can attest to this, is people that have experienced maybe a small bit of comment or a lot, they'll be more open to talking to it about someone that has than another person. They won't necessarily...
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And by no means did I have anywhere near what, but I think he gave me that respect, I guess would be the word. It's a common connection point. He was doing his degree at university at the time, at 80, whatever it was. And he hadn't kept a journal during the war. So he was writing his memoirs and he regretted it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So he said, hey, Joel, if I have any advice for you, if you didn't write it all down now, because when you're my age, you'll regret it, you know? So on that rig in Algeria, that first time I put, you know, 150,000 words of fucking exclamation marks, fucking no, like caps and... And it sat for 10 years. Wow. And then no books kind of came out.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
You know, there's one that's, there's, there's a couple that are, there's one in particular guy's always referenced called a mouthful of rocks. And it's a British guy from the rep, but he was a deserter and, you know, result his narrative, you know? So after a certain amount of time, I was like, you know what?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And then I, I enjoyed reading those, that genre, you know, I'd probably two zero kind of stuff. I was always just interested in, And a lot of times I'd read them and I think, you know, I can tell that guy was a ghostwriter because I don't think a soldier would explain something that way or use that wordage, you know.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And then you'd read some that was, I'm not saying Bravo 2-0, but you read, actually, I didn't even have to do a good job. It sounded like a soldier would say that. So at a certain point in time, I was like, you know, maybe it's on me. You know, I was fortunate to hit the GCP, which is kind of the tip of the spear for a legionnaire in that system. There's that historical coincidences.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
The fact that I learned that, and I learned in my research and just in time talking to my family that I had a lot of French connections. And that kind of led to the two books that followed. So anyway, I did what I could. I had some friends kind of fucking go through it because you lose your memories and they might have some memories.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Then I hired a lady and she was an editor and we worked on it for a year and a half. And the deal with her was we can't change the way I say something. We'll make it grammatically correct and not a run-on sentence and dispelling me, right? But you can say, hey, you got to tell me. You can't write a book as a sociopath, right? You got to tell me a little bit more about yourself, Joel.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Well, appell, you know. I'm trying to. Anyway, so we did that and spent a year and a half. And then I was lucky. I knew nothing about fucking writing, about publishing. One of my dad's friends from the 104 days was working at the Canadian Military College. And he had written a book on the fighter pilots during the Second War. And he said, hey, you know,
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
my dad had mentioned to him that I was working. I said, asked, he said to my dad, I asked Joel if I can read it. So I sent him a copy and say, Joel, I think he got something here. If you're interested, I'll show it to my publisher. And, um, I was like, fuck it, man. I don't know what, what to do next. Right.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
332, sorry. Okay, I've seen those. Okay, I've seen those. And then the Super Pumos coming into effect when I left. So we would do the Halos out of those. And then they had the Super Fraylon. How do you spell that? Yeah, so Super is Super. And the Fraylon was Fox, Romeo, Echo. F-R-E-M-O-N. Yeah, F-R-E-L-O-N. I understood what you were saying. Michael's over there in vapor locks. And I think...
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And they were, they actually were, they were, it wasn't typically the type of stuff that they would, um, publish, but they put them on, put me on to a Wilford Laurie and they, They took it on, and they took it for a year. And they do the editing. They didn't change anything at all, actually. But they just make sure that everything's done right, like the rank structure's done, dates and everything.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And they came up with the name, actually, the title, and then the cover page.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Appel. So that's a roll call. Okay. So every morning the Legion, the whistle goes off and you count out and they're looking for deserters, right? They want the effect of... So it's kind of a double play on the word. It's Appel, but it's also, you know, I'm showing... factual story of the county.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
If you're interested in Legion, well, here's a shout out, you know, it's maybe it's for you, but, um, so they, they published it and, um, yeah, result. And then the Jocko thing, one of my engineers actually was heli skiing. Um, he's a mechanic, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
He was a fan of Jocko. He said, hey, you should send your book to... I was like, what? So anyway, I did. Hail Mary. And then in the mail, there was a nice little card a couple months later saying I would come down. And that led to... me learning about, you know, running, you know, to your side of stuff and that whole kind of, yeah, side of the book world and the ex-military stuff.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Anyway, so that's, that's that. And then the feedback was, you know, pretty good. I mean, it's not, you know, I haven't had anybody come back, say bullshit. I don't think they can because that was taken care of in my efforts. I've had a lot of Americans, young men reach out, say, hey, I can't, I can't, more so soon after the podcast.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Um, but, uh, I would give them respect and a lot of them, you know, it was on Instagram back at the time. I deleted that one a long time ago, but, um, I would typically say, Hey, listen, you know, I mean, if you're interested in, fuck yeah, just be careful.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
It's not necessarily think if you think you're jumping into an African country and saving gold mines and you know, it's, it's not that it's, you know, and then learn some fucking French before you go. It's huge, huge difference. Enjoy running and just be prepared for fucking shit. You know, it's not, it's not fun.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And then the big one was typically guys don't ask questions about, they just say, I'm fucking going. And they deal with it. You know, it's, but in this day and age, the Legion has a website. Yeah. It's pretty intuitive and they will answer questions. It takes a bit of time, but they're pretty, they're pretty, they've come a long way too. They have their social media side of stuff.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
When I went in, I actually sat with the officer that was in charge of recruiting. Because they were new to that kind of side of the world. And they really do push a narrative where it's a second chance. And it kind of bugs me.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Wasn't there for a second chance I was there for a first chance and I like the fact to know that the guys beside me the guys in the GCB were all I don't think any of them there were for a second chance a lot of them were a handful and were Ex French para and they were like fuck I want to join, you know, yeah the rep and You know, that's the guy you want beside you, not the second chance.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But I thought also, like, why are you trying to attract, not fuck-ups, but second chances to say, hey, if your country... That was my point. If your country, unfortunately, won't give you the opportunity to soldier and you're interested in soldiering, you know, we will. It might be a different way of doing it, but you have... I thought that would work, but they can do what they want to do. But...
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, it's just, so my answer always with the guys is, hey, you know, just be careful what you wish for. I actually had a, it was a young Navy officer. He had come out of the academy. And I think, obviously you could tell me you're wrong, but I think before they send them to the SEALS program, they do like a pre-course to vet. Is that right, Bill?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I think he's a rugby player. Anyway, he went through, he got injured, I think first phase. Is that first phase?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah. And then, so he injured himself. Yeah. obviously recovered, came back. And then in the diving phase where he said he got through quite a bit and they were doing dive training, whatever. And he had an incident where something happened and blood work was done and they noted a elevated level of testosterone. And he admitted to taking TRT at the time. Yeah, so he was out. So he reached out.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I think one of the original, um, uh, Rambo movies, they use that as a, uh, a hind. I actually could see why that, that has, but it's, uh, it's like a single, single rotor system. Chinook really size wise. It's got the ramp in the back. They don't use them anymore. I think the French are the only ones or sort of the Chinese are the only ones that still fly them.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
He's actually the only guy I talked to on the phone. Not that I wouldn't, but I was like, dude, I feel for you. That sucks. And he said, listen, I'm young. I'm keen. I want to fight. And this is when the Ukraine was kicking off. He said, I'm considering going over there. I was like, oh, fuck, man. It's not my place to say anything. Do you really want to put your ass on the line for that?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But I said, listen, you know, the Legion... sure. And then he, you know, he kind of had some questions about, um, the lifestyle. And I was like, honestly, dude, I think if you're asking about those kinds of questions, you're, you're in the wrong place. Cause don't, you don't have a life for, for a long time, you know?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But again, back to the old point is like, here, you got a young king guy, like, fuck, come on, man. But whatever. It's not my, it's not my system.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I think you mentioned those to help him recover, but whatever. I don't know. I didn't spend too much time.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So yeah, those kind of dug up. A couple of guys actually got in. One of the guys, I think I sent Jocko a picture. One of the guys got to the rep and he said, you know, I'd listened to the Jocko episode and he's not the rep. I sent that to Jocko and I said, that's pretty fucking cool. I mean, you're doing your part. But whatever.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
If anything, my only thing is if people are thinking about it, just be careful. It's not necessarily, it's an option, but it's not... it's not a fun one for a while.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And the language thing is huge. You know, it's different food. You're not, you're not going home for Christmas. You don't have your, the girlfriend thing is tough. I mean, you're, you're locked down for a while. So you just got to mentally, you got to just push through it and get her done. But, um, Yeah. Um, you know, it's, it's, uh, it is what it is. Um, yeah, I have no regrets.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Would I want my, you know, my son who he met to, that's not something I wish on anyone to be honest with you.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah. Um, so that, you know, being in the back, watching the guys all the time, um, Yeah, I just, it was neat. And then I came after six years, I was 29. And it was either in the Legion, you can do eight years or you can do 15 and get a small pension at 15.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
They certainly asked- Did they know it was pointless? Just based on knowing you as their son?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
They watched Das Boot at an age that's way too young to be watching Das Boot. Yeah. We still talk about it. I traumatize him trying to get him to watch Band of Brothers with me when he was like, Dad, this is boring.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But anyway, he's more, he's just actually applied to an aviation program. Oh, nice. Fixed or rotary? Fixed wing, fixed wing. Oh, yeah, I wouldn't. Fixed? He might as well go lifestyle, right? Lifestyle. Yeah, he's got the solid girlfriend.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah. No. And they are so different, right? Yeah. I, uh, it's a different type of person too that gets into the, yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah. No, but I think, I don't, have you noticed that like from your experience in the fixed wing to the rotary, like it seems like a different, different type of person.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And you're a lot more involved on the helicopter side stuff. I mean, those landings, I mean, there's a lot more. Decision-making? Yeah. Short bursts of, yeah. Fear? Yes.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
At eight, you get, you actually get everything back that you put into the social system, like your taxes. So you get a chunk of change back. Interesting. Yeah. Because you're not going to be using it, right? So they got back to it. And the Legion, we can come back to it later on, but Legion is a part of the French military. So you're paying into the French military. tax system.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Exactly. Am I doing the right thing? But yeah, he's going, he's going that route. So I didn't, I didn't even come up, but, um. What do you think you would have done though? Um, I mean, at the end of the day, I would respect his choice. I would, uh, Yeah, that's a good question. I actually don't have a good answer for you. It'd be a tough one.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I would have toiled with his appearance as well. Yeah. Now, that being said, if he did, he went over, I know he's being looked after. It's not a shit show, man. It's a legit, well-oiled machine. It's been done the same way for a long time because it's effective.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Or if you got that letter or email saying, I'm... I'm in hell. Be like, fuck, it's too late. You're in like, you know, and he can't do anything about it. Yeah. It would be a heartbreaking. Yeah. No, luckily, uh, you know, I don't, I don't have to worry about that. Um, yeah. And my daughter, it's not going to happen for her. Maybe she can't join the Legion as a Legionist male only.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
It is. I got, here's the story. I'm not sure if I should share this, but I don't have to mention the name, but there was any story that starts with that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
After the Jocko podcast, there was, um, this marketing company that had a podcast and they definitely lean left. I looked at the website and they'd supported, you know, the Biden foundation, all that kind of stuff, but whatever. I didn't, I'm not, but they, they said they'd seen the app, the episode. Would it be interested in doing their, their podcast, but it was virtual, whatever, you know?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So I had to do a pre-screening, and it was these four nice ladies, and I think they were just vetting me, and they were kind of asking some questions and trying to get a feel of how it would go. And then the day the podcast came, and it was the CEO and the CFO, male and female, and I think they were probably in their early 60s.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And I could tell from the get-go that he wasn't really aware of what the book was, and some of the questions were, like, this is not a Jocko podcast by any means. Yeah, not well-researched. But it came up, the subject came up about, you know, it's only... males in the Legion. And she said, why? And I hadn't prepared my answer for that. And I said, that's a good question. I paused, ummed.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And I said, you know, not that a female couldn't, but I said, you know, the Legion is very old school. It would take a lot to change things so that women could be introduced. I mean, all the obvious things. And I said, that being said, if you got sent over with a combat company from the rep into Central Africa for four months with some Polacks, Czechs, Russians, it wouldn't go well.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So at 29, I was kind of looking at my peers, seeing what was happening. This is all pre-9-11, so the global war on terror was not happening yet. And things were becoming somewhat repetitive. And I was always a guest in their army. I was always Canadian. I didn't get my French citizenship. I could have. And I decided to come home. Knew nothing about helicopters, especially on the commercial side.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And I said, if you get my drift. And her facial expression was like, she could tell what I was trying to get through. Like that poor lady would... Yeah. You don't have to say it, right? Which is the truth. Yeah. And that they never, they never aired it. That was, they never aired. Yeah. And I think that was, that was wild. Yeah. So I don't have that. I never thought of it, but I think.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
to answer your question is just, there's no, there's no, there's no need. So, uh, you know, um, and that, yeah, that's not a, that's a tough pill for some people to swallow.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And I know you guys are dealing with that right now in your Senate hearings for, uh, That's kind of something that he's brought up and kind of all over that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I think the Israelis did some pretty in-depth research into it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But also how it affects a small unit team if she's injured. It can ruin the dynamic.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Women are a lot better than us males at a lot of things. So it's not a sexist thing, but anyways, it's just, you know, it's a time and place. Yeah. Before I forget, when you went over to Iraq and you were attached to the CAG there, what was that? Were you the only SEAL?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I had saved up enough money, sent it home and invested it over those six years that I had enough to pay for my license, which was, I think it wasn't far off of 70 grand at the time.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Because that's early days where you guys are learning your trade.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
No, I mean, you got to be proud of your past. I mean, it's pretty neat, man.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And you were like, oh, and he was like, you got shot, didn't you?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Did someone say you were writing a book? I did write a book. You did? I did write a book. Interesting. And how did you find that?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Well, you mentioned it, but not in depth. I don't think you've told the full story.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
What about, was there any struggle in being honest? No. Because you can easily change an area where like, I'm embarrassed about my- Nope.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
No, neat. That's a, and then you got the perfect platform. That's where I, I mean, if you're going to write a book, you got to market it. That's where I struggled. I am not going to be great at that part either. Well, I mean, you have, you got the platform.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But that's, you know, I, I hear you. That's something I wasn't prepared for and didn't really realize, but you know, with publisher, it's all on the author to get out there. And then, yeah, I struggled with that for sure. It's not something I'm, I think it depends on the individual too.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah. Now coming to that point, I can't take all the credit for that. I'd help people said, Hey, you got money, you'll invest for me. That was actually my family.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I mean, if you're comfortable with certain things, but if you're putting yourself out there sometimes, I'm more introvert than the opposite. So I delete shit all the fucking time, you know, just for that. I'll post something and I'm like, ah, delete. Don't want it out there. Yeah, but that's the beauty of that delete button.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Well, that's cool. Good for you. I mean, it's, yeah, it's, it's certainly been something that's, uh, been, uh, yeah, a different experience doing it. Um, I did like a pal, they did the, uh, the pod or the, uh, the audio book and they reached out and said, Hey, we're going to do the audio book. And I said, okay, you know, typically in that genre, they like to hear the, the author, you know?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Um, but if you don't, you know, just if you could use it anyway, they, they, they use a professional and I did a good job. I reached out and, um, you know, there's some things, but whatever, nothing's perfect. But when I wrote the second one, we did it on our own terms and, And we had budgeted a certain amount of money. I reached out to a studio. I said, listen, 60,000 words.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And they were like, typically I'll take this long and cost this much. And I went in and I fucking... busted the budget out because it's, you mumble, you don't say it properly. You stutter. And yeah, I think we have to sell a million books to audio books to pay for it. It was, it was, it's not easy.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And that's, and that's why they, that's why they, I'm being facetious, but that's why they use professional a lot of times. Cause they, they roll in, they got, they just knock it out of the park, but yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah. I could see myself fighting fire till I'm 65. All going well. We have to do- Is that like a hard stop age? Well, I think at that point, you don't want to be rolling barrels or working like that. In Canada, you have to- Actually, the machines in Australia are N-registered. So it's every year. But in Canada, for your license, over 40, it's every six months, your medical.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
So as long as you keep your medical- 65 would be a nice number. I seriously see myself finding a nice old farmhouse in Northern France and fixing that up and the barn too. And then the kids have a place to stay when they come visit. I like it. Some nice red wine cheese and baguettes and just chill out.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But the difference, I think, when we come back to it, the Legion, the style of life, we didn't really have a lot of free time to spend that money on. Yeah, that makes more sense. Yeah, so you kind of ended up with this chunk of change. But anyway, so I knew nothing about it, but I got into the flight school with Vancouver Island Helicopters on the island.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
My lady friends, my lady friends, a French speaker, do croissant, pain chocolat, a little cognac. But yeah, I think I could fix it up, get some help, but keep yourself busy. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah. And then, yeah, we'll see. Nothing ever pans out the way you planned, does it?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, no, good for you guys. Jumping out of the DC-3 would be, they use them for their smoke jumpers. I can see why. It's a cool platform. In fact, that's where a couple years ago, I was up in Fort Nelson, DC-3 comes in, the jumpers get out.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Okay. No, it's northern BC. It's halfway up the Alaska Highway. Gotcha. So you're going up. And so I go over and I was taking, I know we're on the jumpers. Hey, you want to look inside? So we go inside and he's showing me the door and the cable stuff. And I look out on the tarmac and there's this guy looking into space with like the way the world is on his shoulders.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And I say to Axel, the guy, and I was like, fuck man, your teammate is a spitting image of David Goggins. And he laughs and he's like, well, it's because it's him. I was like, what? Fuck off. He's like, yeah. So he says, do you want to meet him? I said, sure, if that doesn't bug him, whatever. So we went over and met David Goggins. I was like, dude, what the fuck are you doing here?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, what was he doing there? He just said he likes, you know, I think he used to smoke jump in Florida. Do they even have smoke jumpers in Florida? Yeah, I believe so. They used to. They do in Boise because they're the ones that came up two years ago.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah. But I, you know, it was short and sweet. I just said, Hey man, I appreciate you guys coming up with a little wine. He said, Oh, I just like the low key side of it. You know, I think his knees are, are fucked.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Yeah, no doubt. Right. Yeah. I'm not a doctor. Yeah. So, uh, but yeah, that's a neat job. You know, those guys do a, do a neat job. And, uh, as I said, you know, black rifle sent them because the guys, the smoke jumpers from Boise came up and we used to, uh, we used to stay in the same hotel and we'd be drinking shit seven 11 coffee. And I reached out and, uh, No Timmy's?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
No, there's not in, uh, it was in McKenzie. Okay. There might've been, but I don't see Timmy's as fucking, just as bad. Timmy's is the Canadian Starbucks. So I emailed Evan. I said, you know, if you're willing, sir, um, cause we're busy and we're drinking shit coffee, would you, would Black Rifle send up a couple hundred bucks worth of coffee?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
It was funny because I submitted my application, told the Legion, my commanding officer, that I wasn't going to re-sign. I was heading off. And they understood, but I had my interview from the phone booth on the parade square. The parade square in our company, there was a phone booth in the corner. And so I was talking to the guy, the chief pilot at the training school.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I'll pay, you know, and anyway, he's, he responded with his, you know, one of his colleagues attached saying action, you know, and then I got a PO invoice, whatever. And there was like 2,500 bucks worth of coffee, tumblers, and, I was like, Oh, but then it said owing zero, you know?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And, uh, it showed up in the guys, the guys fucking appreciate it. So shout out to a buck rifle. And I went for that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Uh, so the book there, well, legionengineer.com is the website. They're all there, but they're all on Amazon. Okay. Um, yeah. Audible, whatever. Um, I'm on Instagram. That's really my only social media, Joely Struthers. Um, that's about it, man. What do you want to leave people with?
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
Uh, yeah. Appreciate the opportunity. Thank you for reaching out. Hopefully it wasn't too, uh, Too frustrating. As I said, I think this is kind of the end. I've written the three books. You know, they're all mostly family history, military history. The last two are about, you know, guys out there, people that have done some things that I find super, super humbling and respectful.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And that's the end of my writing project. For now. You never know. No, it's fine. it's good to stay focused on, on certain things. And yeah, I've, I've hit the limit, you know, there's, um, as I said, this would, you know, this, I think this is a fitting, this would be my third kind of sit down podcast with three books. This is a nice, I appreciate your platform.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I like your style of, you know, I wouldn't do this if it was all up to me to have the conversation. Cause it would be pretty quiet. Um, I like the guests you had. And I think it's cool that you, you know, you gave an opportunity to a Legionnaire because hopefully we, we answered some, our former Legionnaire, some questions, um, And if people do have questions, by all means, they could ask.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But as I said, there's a website that has more up-to-date. My experience is period. And if you dig the books and you appreciate them, let me know. That's about it. Cool.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
And there was a bit of a delay. And he's like, where are you calling from? And I remember saying, well, actually, the parade square in the French Foreign Legion in the island of Corsica. You know, he was like, there's a... A noticeable pause. An additional pause. So got out in 2000, straight into school within a month or two. It was a six month program.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
I think there was a dozen of us and it was 90 hours on the 22 and then 10 hours on the 206.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
That's your Kiowa, but not souped up yet. So it's your built Vietnam for the training, pre-205, 204, yeah. Bell. And a nice machine, you know. The R-22, as you know, it's a bit finicky.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
It's small. You're not putting rocket punch. I struggled. I did not trust the R-22. It took me a long time. I didn't come out of there with flying colors by any means. You know, I was not a natural. I could say that. The VIH program, VIH is a big company. And the idea was that they could offer positions to those that shined. I did not get offered a position.
Cleared Hot
Episode 375 - Joel Struthers
But hey, sometimes they say that those that don't really shine early on, they can long-term become a better pilot than the ones that are. I'm not saying that I did, but yeah, I wasn't a natural. And then I started for a company up in Northern BC.