Silvercore Podcast 150 Jody Mitic

https://www.instagram.com/jodymitic https://x.com/jodymitic1977

https://www.legion.ca/advocating-for-veterans/advocating-for-change/veterans-wellbeing-act

https://ncva-cnaac.ca/en/ncva-update/ncvas-action-plan-for-veterans-legislative-reform-2024-25 _____

[00:00:00] Travis Bader: Join today by a decorated Canadian Armed Forces sniper, a man who overcame life altering injuries with incredible resiliency. And he was a passionate advocate for veterans from competing in the amazing race Canada to serving as a city councilor, inspiring countless people through his bestselling books, unflinching and everyday heroes and founding green army coffee.

[00:00:34] Travis Bader: He has dedicated his life to making a difference. Welcome to the Silvercore podcast. Jody Middick. Travis, 

[00:00:41] Jody Mitic: what a terrific introduction, sir. I'm just having a little, a little tea out of my green army coffee mug. Thank you for that. Uh, First I want to say thanks for having me on the show. It's an honor. I've, uh, I've seen some of your stuff online.

[00:00:55] Jody Mitic: I love your, like, you have a terrific podcast voice and, uh, your, your chosen subjects tend to be things I'm interested in. And, um, you know, we were talking on the phone a little bit earlier, just, uh, just to, so I could warm up with you and, you know, my life, despite everything you said, that's. You know, that's barely the tip of the iceberg when, you know, like, those are the things I'm known for it, but there's a lot of things, you know, professionally that I was doing in my job that haven't been fully, uh, unpacked.

[00:01:30] Jody Mitic: Yeah. And then, uh, you know, as you said, I became a city counselor and you want to know, I did that because. In Ontario, there's no, uh, party affiliation technically at that level, even though we all know who we vote for. And so I thought that might give me some room from, cause I wasn't necessarily sure which side of, you know, I grew up in an NDP house, um, you know, think conservative, but lean liberal in a lot of ways.

[00:02:00] Jody Mitic: Um, yeah. And you know, the politics thing has had an incredible impact on my life overall. And, you know, it's, uh, it's one of those things that Looking back on it, uh, I'm getting back into politics, no doubt. But, uh, you know, looking back on the impact it had on my life on top of all the other things that, you know, I'm known for, um, it certainly wasn't as neutral.

[00:02:29] Jody Mitic: As I thought it would be, you know, even though I tried to stay out of everybody's way for the most part. 

[00:02:34] Travis Bader: Yeah. 

[00:02:34] Jody Mitic: It can't be a 

[00:02:35] Travis Bader: politics to stay out of people's way. Can you? 

[00:02:37] Jody Mitic: Hell no. That's like trying to be the neutral guy in a gunfight. Yeah. Hey, no, somebody's going to shoot you just to, just to make sure you're not a threat.

[00:02:45] Jody Mitic: Well, you took a step back from politics, right? I had to. Yeah. Massive. Yeah. So I had, I don't know if you, if you heard of this thing called cocaine. Uh, I've heard of it. Yeah. So unfortunately, uh, you know, Part of the recovery, you know, I had dabbled in it a little bit prior to being wounded, but, uh, you know, I had, I had a therapist tell me once, you know, you have an anti addictive personality, you know, this and that, but, you know, I do have thrill seeking tendencies, especially as a younger individual, you know, I'm 48 now, as of January 3rd, and, um, but anyway, so yeah, the cocaine, uh, became a real issue, Uh, back in, you know, 2016, 2017, and, you know, as well with that comes a little bit of, uh, alcohol abuse.

[00:03:38] Jody Mitic: Um, so, I realized that I couldn't do the job I was elected to do under, in the condition I was in. Um, and, you know, my personal life was far from optimal. Um, you know, that still need to be debated today. Uh, but that aside. You know, uh, the politics was such an eye opener, you know, because the reason I, you know, ultimately the reason I didn't do it.

[00:04:06] Jody Mitic: was because the new veterans charter, which was introduced right before I got wounded. Um, and you know, even today, you know, nevermind what we talked about on the phone, my, my resistance to this legislation from day one as a wounded master corporal laying there in a hospital bed being told, no, we're not going to give you some such and such dollar amount.

[00:04:32] Jody Mitic: Per month, because we're going to give you this lump sum amount at the time, 250 grand, if you do the math to today, I'm down a million bucks on that deal. So, so let's back up, 

[00:04:44] Travis Bader: let's back 

[00:04:44] Jody Mitic: up a little 

[00:04:45] Travis Bader: bit. So, so, um, just so people get a bit of a flavor for who you are, where you came from, those who don't know, or haven't read the book and as well, those injuries that we kind of glossed over are absolutely life altering and you have.

[00:05:02] Travis Bader: Man, the things you've done since those injuries, a lot of people haven't done with both of their legs, but let's, let's back up and, uh, get a little bit of insight into you. So, uh, uh, what, what was life like growing up? What, uh, got you in, in, uh, interested in joining the army? I've got my theories from reading the book, but, uh, I want to hear it straight from the story.

[00:05:22] Jody Mitic: Yeah. Um. I mean, one of my uncles was in the Royal Canadian Regiment, my mom's younger brother. Um, my grandfathers were both veterans. My, my mom's dad and mom both died when she was 10. And then my dad's dad was a, I think he was a Chetnik with the Yugoslavia, he's Serbian. The story is at some point he got captured by the Germans, repatriated by the British.

[00:05:53] Jody Mitic: Became a British, uh, translator, like worked with the British or however that worked out. This is the thing, like the, the less detail there is, the more you want to ask. Was grandpa, you know, uh, you know, SSF or something, he's just hiding it, which is totally believable. So regardless, lots of. Military lore.

[00:06:14] Jody Mitic: We had like old machine gun belts from like the original machine guns made a cloth in the house as a kid. Oh yeah. It was really dope. So we'd, we'd like strap them to hockey sticks. It'd be like, you know, in the basic. And I can totally see that. Oh yeah, me and my cousins and my, my, you know, my siblings that joined in.

[00:06:33] Jody Mitic: Yeah, lots of, lots of blood spilled in grandma's basement. Uh, but anyway, so grandpa was a war veteran. Um, and then, you know, they moved to Canada from Germany, you know, uh, however that worked out a Serb Slav marrying a German blue eyed German girl, uh, from the coast, which is grandma. Grandma's German.

[00:07:00] Jody Mitic: Anyway, so she passed, actually she passed on the tour where I got wounded. Uh, but regardless, so in my family though, there's just always talk about war, war, war, I guess, you know, it's always in the background. And then, uh, at grandma's house, the black and white reels from World War II and World War I would always play when we were there on whatever channel, A& E back then when I was a little guy, maybe.

[00:07:24] Jody Mitic: Um, and I just always had this desire to serve and be in the military and be, you know, Back then you read the comic book Sgt. Rock, and then there's movies like The Longest Day, The, uh, Bridge Too Far, uh, just You're inundated with it as a young guy, especially back then, you know, we had the beta max machine.

[00:07:49] Jody Mitic: So we were always writing movies and of course, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger commando. Yeah, that's the guy I wanted because, you know, all these one man shows, right. Uh, you know, uh, rigs and lethal weapon. Oh, remind me later to talk about my theory on the fact that rigs and, uh, Murtagh are actually bad guys in the overall scheme of Los Angeles.

[00:08:12] Jody Mitic: Yeah. But anyway, back to me, um,

[00:08:19] Jody Mitic: uh, you know, even as a little guy I'd play game, we played soldier, right? We'd go with the pellet guns and do target shooting. Um, yeah. So eventually, uh, I grew up and at 17, I joined the Lawrence Scots, which is a reserve infantry unit in Brampton where we had moved from Winnipeg. Uh, when I was, we moved there, we moved from Winnipeg.

[00:08:42] Jody Mitic: To Brampton when I was nine, but I was born in Kitchener. Uh, so joined the Lawrence Scots, uh, in managed to get into the infantry in the 90 and 94, right in the middle of what was called force reduction plan. And it was the post cold war, just reduction of forces, right. As quickly as they could chop it.

[00:09:02] Jody Mitic: Just like post World War ii. Mm. You know, as quickly as they could cut it off and get rid of it, the better. You know, I wasn't really aware of the politics at the time. Um, I just wanted to serve my country because, you know, uh, even movies like, uh, I know I keep talking about movies, but you know, is 2025.

[00:09:21] Jody Mitic: Dig, look at this rod. Yeah. This is magic. Totally is great. So. What is the one where they invade? Oh, Red Dawn. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you're sitting there with your cousins, right? Yeah. It's like, fuck, well, which one are you? Which one of what, like, you know, never mind the Sex and the City girls, like, you know, which, which guy are you in Red Dawn with all your cousins and friends?

[00:09:41] Jody Mitic: Mm. And that's the world we grew up in, man, and, um, Now I'm 17. Now I know how to shoot machine guns. I'm learning how, you know, they teach me how to use the C7, which I qualified as marksman first time, uh, a little hand to hand combat. And now you're an infant here. Yeah. You know, and the first thing I wanted to do is quit high school and join the reg force because, uh, one of the guys on my course had done that and he went into the regiment.

[00:10:09] Jody Mitic: And then, you know, you get talked into things by your parents. And when it was time to go to college, suddenly there was no money. Right. So, uh, and then, you know, it was. You know, my dad being a union guy is like, Hey, why don't you go work in a factory? 

[00:10:25] Travis Bader: Um, that didn't appeal to you. 

[00:10:28] Jody Mitic: It was okay. Money. Like, frankly, it was great money at 1918, but I'm like, my goal in my mind was always, you know, I remember being younger and them being like, well, what do you want to do with your life?

[00:10:40] Jody Mitic: I'm like, well, just be in the army. And they're like, what are you going to achieve? And like, I don't know, sergeant, like, you know, I didn't know the rank structure for real, but you know, um, you know, it was always kind of downplayed, you know, and then, you know, uh, you, you look at the, in the force reduction plan, uh, salaries were frozen and stuff.

[00:11:00] Jody Mitic: So basically it's, yeah, do you want to make a thousand bucks a week or a 500 bucks every two weeks? Um, and I worked in the factory for a couple of years and it was brutal, not brutal, like heart, like it wasn't hard. It was great work. A lot of the attitude there sucked. Uh, you know, I'm, I'm a young guy. I was 19 and, uh, you know, just a lot of the older workers.

[00:11:23] Jody Mitic: I just, man, I was, I was just, I didn't like the energy, you know, I 

[00:11:27] Travis Bader: can see that. I can. 

[00:11:28] Jody Mitic: And, um, 'cause Well 'cause they, you get a target from the company. Hey, we need a thousand because I, so I put together the, remember the Chrysler Intrepid? Yeah. Yeah. So I put that together 'cause it was built in Brampton.

[00:11:40] Jody Mitic: Okay. And then I graduated to, uh, the Lear seed plant and they built the seeds for, uh, we built the seeds for the pickup trucks and the minivans coming outta Oakville. Mm. Got my first scars actually from that plant. Not combat . You had an injury there too, did you? Oh, just a little nick on the elbow, but I laughed as my first stitches of my whole life.

[00:12:01] Jody Mitic: Okay. You know, I'm like, Oh, from a little metal piece from the seat. But, um, yeah, the money was great, but, uh, I just couldn't deal with the attitude. And then, um, I just couldn't get rid of the, the more I didn't parade at the unit because of being at this job, the more I hated the job anyway. So I just, eventually I flipped.

[00:12:24] Jody Mitic: I did the application and I got accepted into the first battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment, uh, in 97, fall of 97. And that wasn't exactly a smooth transition. Um, you've read the book, right? Um, so yeah, I fell in with a unsavory crowd, you know, as I did as a younger man, uh, when I ran away and stole my mom's car before I had a license.

[00:12:51] Jody Mitic: But you know, we'll save that for another time. Um, who doesn't do that? Come on. You know, frankly, uh, most people are driving by 12 back then, uh, you know, especially if they have a farm. So, yeah, you know, I, I still remember when I was driving, cause I had a bunch of these kids I hung out with at high school with me and a cop, we cut, I cut off a cop.

[00:13:12] Jody Mitic: And he was an older guy and you could see he looked at this and he just like rolled his eyes and did that to me. And I'm like, whoo, cause I was like six foot tall at 14. So I always kind of like could get away with looking a little bit more like an adult. Uh, but then they look at my face and they're just like, nah, there's no way you're 21.

[00:13:31] Jody Mitic: Um. But, uh, you know, one thing when I, so what school was a disaster, you know, my parents didn't exactly get along and stuff. And, uh, regardless, once I joined the reserves at 17 and, you know, I'm a couple of years into high school, hating it, uh, and stuff, uh, you know, I was able to get my life in order and I was craving that.

[00:13:54] Jody Mitic: So when I got to battalion, um, in 97, it was a whole new start to life for me because the army, despite my trouble, transitioning from the reserve force to the regular force, which was a transition of its own, just an attitude and application of justice. And, uh, just, it's a, it's the same, but different. It's kind of like, you know, it must be this, what it's like going from the, uh, triple A to NHL or something, you know, like it's just, it's just, that's.

[00:14:24] Jody Mitic: You know, that's the job now, this is a professional area. There's no more of this civilian bullshit. 

[00:14:29] Travis Bader: You 

[00:14:29] Jody Mitic: know, we cut our hair, you know, we shine our boots and, you know, of course, like you think, of course, but reserve training, you know, uh, my first barrack was a mod tent, if you ever used a military, are you in the army or anything?

[00:14:42] Jody Mitic: By the way, sorry. 

[00:14:43] Travis Bader: No, no, I wasn't. That's when I was younger. So, uh, let's see the extent of my, uh, Experience. I 

[00:14:49] Jody Mitic: didn't want to tell you anything you already knew. So it's good for the audience 

[00:14:52] Travis Bader: too. Right. Not everyone knows what a mod tent is. 

[00:14:55] Jody Mitic: So army tent, just picture a big canvas tent with a bunch of like folding cots in there.

[00:15:00] Jody Mitic: That was like the reserve barracks. Cause it's the reserves. And then, you know, you get to the reg force and you know, you're expected to have an actual barracks room. And it was just the culture change there was, was like, Oh, it's not like my room at home. I can't. Leave my bed unmade because you just can't, uh, and that's just the way it is.

[00:15:21] Jody Mitic: So once I got my feet under me though, um, cause you meet some of the best people, uh, in the military from all walks of life and we're all coming from the same spot and that's the one thing I always appreciated about the military. Well, the infantry more than the military, um, you know, you're recognized for your ability to do the job regardless of anything else.

[00:15:48] Jody Mitic: And the right people will pay the right kind of attention to you. If you put out. The right energy and the right attitude. And, you know, I did, I, I remember I had a shitty attitude at one point because of just the, you know, the way I was treated when I got the battalion and the way I treated back, you know, I'm only half of any situation, right.

[00:16:09] Jody Mitic: Sure. Um, and it's a tough guy. Attitude, uh, environment, you know, you kind of got to be, and so, you know, I was able to come back from a pretty significant, um, you know, incident when I got arrested with a buddy who had a bunch of drugs on him, uh, and that was able to be pushed aside. And I was able to go from that to, you know, a master sniper within a decade, which is a pretty big accomplishment back then it was, um, certainly I think because I've.

[00:16:41] Jody Mitic: We didn't have, like, uh, if anyone who knows structure of the CAF, Canadian Armed Forces, currently the Canadian Special Operations Regiment is what they call our Tier 2, but there's a lot of blurry lines in between all the tiers, right? And the Airborne had been disbanded right as I was going Regforce, or just before I went Regforce, which was my goal, was to go Airborne Regiment.

[00:17:06] Jody Mitic: Uh, and then, so once that was disbanded, there was technically no tier two. And when I had first joined, you know, I remember JTF was stood up, right. As I joined the reserves. So all that to say, to become a sniper, a reconnaissance pathfinder, uh, back then, those were the big ones and you had to have recce to get sniper or pathfinder, right?

[00:17:30] Jody Mitic: So these were our tier two, so to speak within the battalions, right? Cause there was no. Um, tier two regiment, the each battalion had a component of these capabilities and a lot of things got pushed down even from, you know, the regiment, the airborne regiment that just got pushed down to the battalions, all of them.

[00:17:53] Jody Mitic: Uh, and then the snipe, the wreck, the recce, and then the snipers, and then there was combat support company, uh, which had mortars and pioneers. And like, so these were the fillings to that space, you know, and so to be qualified, any of these was a big deal. Um, and then every now and then some guy would vanish and you heard, he went to the hill.

[00:18:15] Jody Mitic: He's with the unit and you're like, Oh, what's the unit. Um, so yeah, you know, I almost got out, uh, because of some of that. shenanigans I got into, and then the snipers became a thing because of the, you know, the, the extra money was there, the extra time that used to go to the airborne went down to the battalion.

[00:18:35] Jody Mitic: So we developed, uh, great sniper programs in the reg force, Canadian army reg force, and I just happened to be coming along at the right time with, you know, the right people were paying attention and, uh, because you had to be reconnaissance qualified. You had to have good standing within the regiment or the battalion, at least.

[00:18:55] Jody Mitic: And you know, all that for a while was questionable. Like they, you know, uh, cause the military discipline is serious. 

[00:19:03] Travis Bader: Well, how did, how did you, how did that work? How did you come with that mark on your record? And I'm going to. Chip on your shoulder. Cause you're like, you're saying a little bit more oppositional defiant sort of, uh, mentality.

[00:19:16] Jody Mitic: Well, cause yeah, I had three years in the reserve. So I was like, okay, I get it. We're in the army. I get it. Right. Yeah. And so I'm just redoing training now when I'm sent back to the regimental battle school, because, you know, I, I remember back, it was like, regardless of what it was, right. It was something I had to overcome.

[00:19:34] Jody Mitic: Uh, and you did the politics, right. Cause the politics of the time was that. This is what it was. The regiment was mad. It's the Royal Canadian Regiment, because our reg, it's reg force soldiers were being replaced by a lot of reservists at that time, because they were ordered to take like 30 percent reservists, which had never been done.

[00:19:54] Jody Mitic: So their buddies weren't getting to go over and get the bonus pay and get all the good goes, right? So this is the thing, this is the internal politics to the situation. Um, the biggest thing One of the biggest things that happened is that for me, I was there to be a professional anyway, regardless of all the side, side show stuff, you know, I like sports, but I, you know, I was never any that good at ice hockey anyway, so like that's out the window for politics is, you know, playing ice hockey gets you the good goes.

[00:20:25] Jody Mitic: But to me, a good go was more time on the range. More time learning actual functional modalities of training that will make my body more fit. Like I used to do CrossFit and all that, like before it was called CrossFit, we just called it circuit training. We focused on our, you know, our spine, our mobility, like, cause you know, I got, you know, you do the workout thing, but, uh, sorry, I feel like I was getting off track.

[00:20:53] Jody Mitic: No, no, it's Where was I going? Well, you, you, so you went to Sniper School Oh, so, I focus, yeah. Well, I focus How did I get there from such a poor beginning? Was I just shifted my whole focus? You know, I almost went samurai with it. Right? Like I just felt like the job is not all that other stuff. And when I focused on the job, I got really great results and I'm a quirky guy, you know, uh, you know, I'm, I'm being a sniper already.

[00:21:22] Jody Mitic: You're in quirky company. Um, and so, you know, quirky how, I don't know. Like, I just, uh, you know, I look at things maybe a little differently sometimes, uh, you know, you know, there's not a sniper you'll meet that'll think the same way about anything except, you know, ballistics or ballistics, um, just to get into that line of work, you know, nevermind the first, like, one of the things I was trying to get at earlier is the Canadian regular force infantry is right there.

[00:21:52] Jody Mitic: You're like, we're dealing with a serious organization, you know? Um, and so. You know, now you want to be one of like one of the baddest motherfuckers in the regiment, which is, you know, snipers, master snipers, uh, pathfind, you know, there's all these other qualifications within the infantry that help you work with a group of more and more professional legs, even if you don't get.

[00:22:17] Jody Mitic: A bigger paycheck. Um, you might get a few extra days off, so to speak, because you could, uh, you know, pick and choose some of your timings, but you know, you spend eight months of the year gone when you don't have to for the same money, right. In the same promotional opportunities. Um, because that's, you know, that's the kind of career I wanted.

[00:22:38] Jody Mitic: I wanted to keep progressing. Um, And then, you know, also once I was in the military culture from the reserves to the regular, I realized what a smorgasbord of opportunity 

[00:22:51] Travis Bader: it was. 

[00:22:51] Jody Mitic: And I still consider it, uh, personally haven't been through it. I wish I'd never gotten out. Yeah. 

[00:23:00] Travis Bader: Yeah. I, I hear that, you know, in the transitioning program from being in military and, uh, getting out, I think is, uh, something that could use some work.

[00:23:10] Travis Bader: It's, uh, 

[00:23:12] Jody Mitic: it's a challenge. Certainly. Um, You know, but they get to, you know, we, we have to take ownership of our outcomes, you know, and one thing that got me through my troubles back then. And my recent ones was knowing that I knew where I wanted to go. And, you know, in the last few, you know, not I'm over it now, but, you know, like five.

[00:23:37] Jody Mitic: 2019, yeah, five, six years ago, you know, I'm, I knew I didn't want to be this raging coke head, angry, losing control of my life, but that's where I was, you know, and I wanted to get out of that and get, you know, get to the places that I, that I wanted to be. Um, so, 

[00:23:56] Travis Bader: so how can you talk us through how you were injured, what that.

[00:24:00] Travis Bader: Uh, what that was like, the support you received and your mental process of dealing with that. How, how you, uh, worked your way through that. 

[00:24:11] Jody Mitic: Oof. Okay. Well, so I was wounded January 11th, 2007. So 18 years ago, the other day, uh, at the time I was a sniper team leader. Uh, I was one of three master snipers with the regiment, with the battalion, sorry, one RCR.

[00:24:29] Jody Mitic: We went out on a. What we thought was a pretty routine patrol, uh, And unfortunately, in the math of the battlefield, three of my buddies stepped over a landmine with a mortar bomb strapped to it, which is technically an IED. And when I turned to follow, because I was, uh, in S Patrol, I was the second in command because my sergeant was with us for this, even though it was my team.

[00:24:56] Jody Mitic: So anyway. Uh, I turned to follow and, uh, I detonated the device, so immediately lost my right foot. Somehow survived that for an hour until they got me to the Roll 3 Hospital. Um, and by somehow, I mean, like, my friends did first aid. Reccy Platoon came and rescued me, brought more first aid. But, you know, like, you know, our government hadn't sent any helicopters, right?

[00:25:23] Jody Mitic: So there was no helicopter. And the one helicopter that could have come to us was American and had I've been deployed already. So, you know, there is a lot of, a lot of hard, you know, you know, I have a lot of heroes from that night, um, but ultimately like somehow I lived through something that in the moment most people thought I was going to die from, you know, I just, I kind of joke about it.

[00:25:48] Jody Mitic: I just knew I just had a lot to do. You know, that I, I, I had a lot, I didn't want to, a lot of unfinished business. I felt, Oh yeah, yeah, man. Uh, I never, like, I didn't lose consciousness until they, uh, like put me out for surgery, like about an hour and probably maybe two hours later. Um, I almost lost consciousness right before they plugged an IV into me.

[00:26:20] Jody Mitic: Um, which was at about an, an hour post in, cause it was just me and three other guys, right? Like, uh, it's not like there was a platoon there or a company cause we're doing sniper stuff. Yeah. They just, you know, they had to like get me out of there. So they had to like drive in and have wheeled ambulance down a plowed road that they literally plowed themselves with a combat bulldozer, like in the moment.

[00:26:44] Jody Mitic: Wow. Um, yeah, like heroic work for like all for me, you know, I kind of, I remember when they put me on the stretcher, I made a joke like, whoa, because there's, you know, a lot of soldiers, uh, there for me, you know, I said, Oh, look at the party and everybody came, you know, and nobody laughed, nobody laughed. It's like, shut up, that 

[00:27:04] Travis Bader: awkward moment.

[00:27:05] Travis Bader: Nobody knows what to do or say. 

[00:27:07] Jody Mitic: Yeah. You know, what do you, I don't know. That's a long time ago now though, you know, uh, 18 years. Well, and then so part of your question was how do you get through it, you know, not to, you know, not to gloss over it, but

[00:27:27] Jody Mitic: getting wounded was part. Of the job description, if that makes sense. I understand. And I'm not, you know, not that I'm pro, pro, uh, prolific or what's it, what do you call it, prophetic? Where you Yeah. Prophesize or whatever. Sure. Uh, I speak English , um, heat card. We good? Yeah. . But, um, you know, if you're, if they're gonna get you, they're gonna get you.

[00:27:51] Jody Mitic: Um, it's not like I didn't give them a lot of chances. 

[00:27:55] Travis Bader: Did you have that in the back of your head that you're gonna get injured prior to it happening? 

[00:27:59] Jody Mitic: It occurred like it's I wrote in the book at one point, actually, I think about I was standing on top of spur one as we do, and I was just me at that moment.

[00:28:10] Jody Mitic: There was nobody else up there for whatever reason is trying to remember is right before we went out and did the big long assault. With the green berets for days and days, we were gone, but I had this feeling, just this feeling, and I didn't want to be weird, you know, I didn't want to be like, uh, like, you know, what do you mean a feeling?

[00:28:30] Jody Mitic: I kept it to myself. Like, like, uh, like you're supposed to. I just, yeah, it just seemed like it was. It felt like, you know, get ready, get ready. Cause it's coming. Interesting. Uh, it was like not almost a premonition in my opinion. 

[00:28:45] Travis Bader: I find that interesting. Yeah. I always wonder if it's something that we pick up on, if there's an energy, if somehow we manifest that.

[00:28:54] Travis Bader: Our destiny by thinking about it or, or if it's something that our brain does after the fact where it kind of rewires everything and it's like, yeah, you know, I had an upset stomach and that was probably my premonition and it doesn't change whatever the outcome is, but I've, I always wonder about that.

[00:29:12] Travis Bader: And if it is the former, if it's something that we're picking up on that vibe, uh, are we able to tune into that faster? Are we able to. Well, 

[00:29:25] Jody Mitic: I think it certainly helps grease the wheels of acceptance, you know, uh, I knew this was going to happen. I, you know, you hear that people say that you say that, um, you know, we say that to ourselves all the time and that doesn't change, you know.

[00:29:43] Jody Mitic: Well, the next corner, we, because of the village we were patrolling through, might have vaporized 

[00:29:48] Travis Bader: all 

[00:29:48] Jody Mitic: of us. 

[00:29:49] Travis Bader: Sure, totally. Um, The universe unfolds as it should, is it saying that I, I say quite often? I think it's from, 

[00:29:55] Jody Mitic: I believe so. 

[00:29:56] Travis Bader: It does, yeah. Um. It, and I think it's a much healthier way for people to look back on things as well, man, if it wasn't for that IED, if, if man, everything would be great, well, maybe it's because of the IED that it's now put you in a position to be that advocate for others that, that you are now, maybe it's because.

[00:30:18] Jody Mitic: Yeah, 

[00:30:18] Travis Bader: it was almost seemed 

[00:30:19] Jody Mitic: inevitable. Yeah. Now that you put it that way, you know, like, uh, when, cause when I'm, when I was still in battalion, after I got back to the battalion, after I got wounded and I was trying to tell everyone about the new veterans charter and what, like how terrible it is and how much money we were going to lose as combat soldiers.

[00:30:40] Jody Mitic: Uh, you know, right there, you're told, well, you can't talk about that. You know, you're not allowed to do that, just accept it. Just shut up. You know, like, who are you? You're just a master corporal. And it's, well, yeah, but who, who's going to lose out on literally today's date over a million dollars. 

[00:30:58] Travis Bader: Yeah. And if not you, then who?

[00:31:01] Jody Mitic: Yeah. Like, you know, my dad was a union guy. We might not get along, but what he, what he told me and, or showed me was if you advocate, you know, you get results and, you know, my results. Thus far, I've been a little suboptimal with, you know, the stuff we talked about through the political stuff and the, you know, but that's.

[00:31:23] Jody Mitic: Just like that's combat, man. Like the enemy gets to say, um, just because I have intention or thought I was going somewhere, you know, people think that what I hate, what like it, cause it applies directly to me, this, this charter thing that I advocate so strongly against, which is why the political. Um, stuff is, is, it's to save my own pension in the biggest way.

[00:31:52] Jody Mitic: Um, but also every other combat individual who's wounded from ever since they passed this legislation has been just shorted, literally millions of dollars per person. The way, the way these governments spend money. And even today I'm being disputed by veterans affairs. I'm not getting, uh, like half the money I'm supposed to because they want a piece of paper to, because they want to deduct anything I make off my books or off my talks or, you know, the coffee from the money that the, that the, this charter allows me, and it's just a total violation of the agreement.

[00:32:34] Jody Mitic: I thought when I raised my hand and took a oath, I thought this was the deal. Cause my uncle told me, don't worry if you get hurt, it's a decent, it's not a ton of money. Like it's not even 80 grand a year, but it's for life. But 

[00:32:47] Travis Bader: you'll be looked after. They'll make sure we don't leave one behind. It's 

[00:32:51] Jody Mitic: money, dude, money in your pocket, because this is what they do.

[00:32:55] Jody Mitic: They say, no, no, we'll keep that money and we'll spend it on stuff for you. It's kind of how they've explained it. And I'm like. So it's 18 years in, I've almost gone homeless. I can't get any action out of these people. And yeah, like I said, I, the homeless thing was, uh, there was a lot to that, but regardless, I shouldn't have the money issues I have right now.

[00:33:17] Travis Bader: I just shouldn't. So they're looking at book sales and saying that they want to offset what they're providing you because you're generating income or I'm going to put one more question in there, uh, because I've seen this one used before, uh, because of us. , because of the role we played in your injury, you are now able to profit off of it.

[00:33:38] Travis Bader: Has that ever come up? No. 

[00:33:41] Jody Mitic: But could you imagine if, I don't have to imagine that's something, is that something that's been said to a service member? 

[00:33:46] Travis Bader: Uh, it's, it's something 

[00:33:48] Jody Mitic: I've that I've, I've heard that is, that is psycho talk. It is psycho talk. Listen to that. 

[00:33:54] Travis Bader: Yeah. No, that, that's something I've seen in civil actions.

[00:33:57] Travis Bader: Uh. I've, I've personally seen that afterwards. They say, well, look at, look at where you are now. If not for us, you wouldn't be in this position. So, um, all your hard work you've put in, we, we helped you. We helped you do that hard work. 

[00:34:11] Jody Mitic: Boy, that's a, can you imagine having the balls to put that on paper? I've seen it.

[00:34:16] Jody Mitic: I, I believe you that's the, that's the mentalities that, uh, that we seem to be up against, you know, no matter how much you talk to these and they're all bureaucrats who are of unions or, you know, long careers behind them, great pensions. And you know, they'll say, Oh, you don't have the time in, or you don't like when he, when I stepped on the high explosives, the meter started and the meter at the time was 6, 400 after taxes per month in my bank account every month for life.

[00:34:46] Jody Mitic: And they were like, no, no, here's two 50 and we're good for anything else. You need, well, guess what? They're not, I've worked for veterans affairs, man. I was, uh, transparent with them from the beginning. Cause the 10 check was working there. General, the 10 

[00:35:01] Travis Bader: check, 

[00:35:02] Jody Mitic: uh, Aaron O'Toole was the minister of veterans affairs for a bit.

[00:35:06] Jody Mitic: He gave me a 

[00:35:07] Travis Bader: commendation 

[00:35:09] Jody Mitic: on behalf of the, my advocacy, but they've never listened. Right. And they don't want to hear that they're failing. I am exactly who they're supposed to look after and they don't. Well, the money's a big one. Um, like I said, just for like, let's say, so I was wounded at 30 and just the rough math right now, it's one to 1.

[00:35:36] Jody Mitic: 2 million that I'm still owed just by that math, nevermind any indexing or whatever that might've happened in the last 18 years. So. For me, if you look at my lifespan, cause I plan to live for at least 200 years, you know, we're looking at, you know, four or five, 6 million bucks. I'm not sure, but let's say it's an average lifespan of 80, whatever.

[00:35:59] Jody Mitic: By the time we're 80, it'll be like a hundred by then. So let's say I live to be a hundred. That's at least another one to 1. 7 ish million. And that's, but that's just, that's just money I feel I earned and I'm, Oh, this thing, it's, they put all these labels on this stuff, like the income replacement benefit or the, uh, diminished earnings capacity.

[00:36:24] Jody Mitic: I earned a combat injury pension upon injury. It's literally blood money that you owe me, you being them, not you, uh, to, to compensate me for my, what I lost doing the job you asked me to do, which at the time, by the way, you know, I was one of few snipers in theater and, you know, just to get to that point was a, was a slog, all that, just like, regardless of anything in my mind.

[00:36:57] Jody Mitic: If I got wounded, I was supposed to get paid for the rest of my life money. I could use to raise kids and have just a life, you know, and thus far all successive, uh, liberal and conservative governments have done is take money from me and starting with the conservatives who passed this piece of junk, you know, 

[00:37:18] Travis Bader: pretty sure 

[00:37:18] Jody Mitic: Mr.

[00:37:18] Jody Mitic: Polia was there. Yeah. It's a real problem because he's not going to want to address it. Because he voted for it, you know, 

[00:37:29] Travis Bader: uh, interesting, you mentioned something about being swatted. Is that something we can talk about? Yes. 

[00:37:37] Jody Mitic: Perfect. Yeah, for sure. So. There's a thing called politically exposed. So if you don't know what it is, Google it, look it up.

[00:37:45] Jody Mitic: Uh, basically in a nutshell who I am at the time of this definition being, uh, figured out, which was mostly by the American intelligence, uh, system, a politically exposed individual somehow has a voice like that is out, uh, what does a bigger proportion than it should be in their opinion, right? Then. They, you know, went on to label things like, you know, basically you're a far alt right, you know, cause I own guns and, uh, you know, I, if I have interests and like, if you read it, it's, you know, anything Jody does, it's bad a lot of ways and therefore.

[00:38:28] Jody Mitic: Um, you know, you might be involved, I may have been involved in a lot of like crime, so to speak, and I can't, I can't counter government activity of which I wasn't, uh, yeah, I was told after the SWAT. So, you know, here's the fun thing about the SWAT is the cops put their hands up for me, you know, uh. I thought, you know, the SWAT team chased me down the highway here in Ottawa.

[00:38:58] Jody Mitic: It was after I tweeted, Hey veterans, this is a top of my head. I have a screenshot of it, but it was, Hey veterans, let's get together on Parliament Hill. And I, I, I put like, it was the Sunday before the election 

[00:39:11] Travis Bader: of 

[00:39:12] Jody Mitic: 2019, that was it. They weren't going to put up with any more. 

[00:39:17] Travis Bader: No, no, let's get together and take action.

[00:39:20] Travis Bader: No tweets before that about doing violence or anything like this. 

[00:39:23] Jody Mitic: Oh, no, no, nothing. Well, I had been, here's the thing. I was being surveilled and I knew it and it was driving me nuts. So I was trying to like figure out where it was coming from. And you know, you find out, how did you know you're being surveilled?

[00:39:42] Jody Mitic: Cause you can, you know, you see it, you feel it, uh, uh, uh, certain coincidences that happened, you know, I just saw it anyway. Maybe I made it all up, Travis. I mean, I did do a lot of drugs at the time. I don't think I made, here's the thing. It's in the police report. Is how I know, 

[00:40:00] Travis Bader: fair enough, but, but again, you had that feeling ahead of time and sure enough.

[00:40:07] Jody Mitic: Yeah, well, that's what I mean. Like, oh, so I was right. I'm not hypervigilant. Oh yeah. I guess not, but you know, yeah. Cause that's when you're, you know, that's the tactical, that's my world. Right. You know, I can see that's what I set my adult goal to be. I would look. I loved running the, the races, the amazing race, but ultimately my life's passion and goal was to be a motherfucker, like, you know, a Canadian version of Rambo, so to speak, and I wasn't too keen on jumping out of planes, but I figured if I got good enough, they'd get me there if they needed me there, but otherwise, Hey, four wheelers, you know, uh, trucks, you know, the combat's combat, you get there, how you get there.

[00:40:52] Travis Bader: So you were viewed as a threat. If there's a hundred percent, they're surveilling you. They looked at you as some sort of a threat. And if they said 

[00:41:00] Jody Mitic: that I was capable of assassinating the PMO because of what I'm capable of, and then they, I, uh, I'm not, I keep trying to use bigger words than I should, but, uh, they try, they basically gave me shit.

[00:41:14] Jody Mitic: For months and months through friends and family and just random messages. Like you don't know the impact of your voice, which is one of the things that the politically exposed have and what it and what it's doing. And but that's the definition of a government looking for something. Anyone who knows me or knew me knew like, yeah, I had political goals.

[00:41:37] Jody Mitic: I have political goals, especially after all this bullshit that, you know, I wasn't trying to compete with that guy, that guy being our current PM. I'd met him a few times. I'd been offered minister of national defense as long as I kept my mouth shut. 

[00:41:53] Travis Bader: And then 

[00:41:54] Jody Mitic: when I didn't and Andrew Leslie got kicked out and he was my, you know, the guy I was supposed to fall in place after I was still offered a senatorship.

[00:42:05] Jody Mitic: From Aaron O'Toole through the PMO, just, just, you know, shut up, right. But nothing for the troops and nothing for Mike, you know, like, and there was nothing on pay, you know, like what's in it for me. And what's in it for the troops. So essentially it was, it was just leave prime minister Trudeau. 

[00:42:25] Travis Bader: Yeah. So they recognize you have a voice and they want to try and control that voice.

[00:42:29] Travis Bader: Either shut down that voice or control how that voice talks. 

[00:42:32] Jody Mitic: Basically. And the, and the thing that upsets me the most about that particular part of like, this is politics. That's life, right? I got, I got kicked in the dick. I got shown my place. I get it. I was on a card carrying member of the current party, right?

[00:42:49] Jody Mitic: All they had to do is talk to me and I probably would have done things a little different, but they treated me like an enemy from day one, just because of something I didn't even know I had. Right. And it was through all this action that I've realized, you know, what they were talking about the whole time and has made me twice as determined to achieve a goal that will allow me to rewrite this ridiculous legislation that has.

[00:43:14] Jody Mitic: To this date shorted me millions of dollars or a million plus dollars and also been used to diminish me and keep me in my place and put a foot on my, on my neck administratively. Uh, you know, the, cause they control, you know, I'm, I'm entitled to certain, uh, medical stuff and they, you know, they control it to a point where, you know, like literally don't tweet or you won't get your veterans affairs therapy.

[00:43:43] Jody Mitic: Paid for it, 

[00:43:44] Travis Bader: which is crazy. And you've been, and they deleted my verified Twitter account. Sorry to interrupt. Well, that was kind of where I'm going. I mean, you've experienced this throttling essentially in however you want to interpret that word. It sounds like from a few different ways. Um, and you can speak firsthand about it, but it's not like it isn't happening to other people.

[00:44:10] Travis Bader: I mean, didn't we just have Zuckerberg come out recently and talk about the, uh, influence that government was having on, uh, dissenting voices and how he's now going to have Meta operate in a different way where they're, uh, going to allow a bit more free speech. But that was very American oriented, uh, So, Canada's got a, 

[00:44:31] Jody Mitic: uh Well, here's the thing.

[00:44:34] Jody Mitic: Politically, META has a deal with every sitting government, right? I remember when the Twitter people came through City Hall in Ottawa, when they bought, when they opened the Canadian Twitter office. So Whatever agreement the Trudeau government has with Twitter or Facebook or whatever, I'm on the blacklist of politically exposed individuals.

[00:44:58] Jody Mitic: I think what saved my entire platform from getting taken down, uh, was that Meta did, if you listen to the interview, uh, they did kind of push back more than Twitter, whereas Twitter was a complete Uh, partner in it and you know, the Twitter files Canada hasn't happened, right? So until Trudeau's out of office and even then if the Liberals don't get voted out We I don't even I don't even know perhaps Mr.

[00:45:26] Jody Mitic: Pualia agrees with this type of stuff. I don't know. We don't know that yet um You know, I'm hoping if there's a change in government, South and North might, you know, I'll be set free again because I did have a pretty significant social media presence without monetizing it or using it as a, as a way to, you know, feed my kids because I didn't think I had to.

[00:45:47] Jody Mitic: You're 

[00:45:47] Travis Bader: mentioning that there's a, uh, sort of a, a clever way that they were throttling an account through using. Oh 

[00:45:55] Jody Mitic: yeah. So you know, the, the like sex, sexy girl bots where it's like zero followers, zero posts, but it's like a girl's butt and I would just get a ton of those like hundreds a day. Uh, and my followers would go down and down and down.

[00:46:11] Jody Mitic: But there's this core group of thousands of people that have followed me cause I have OG. I had an OG Twitter account. From Oh eight, you know, it's probably one of the first million people to sign up maybe, you know, and then same with Instagram. Cause I was bored, you know, I'd had my feet blown off back then I just got an iPhone.

[00:46:28] Jody Mitic: So I was learning how to use it. And you know, it wasn't something you made money with until the teens really, uh, unless you're on YouTube, I guess, but I wasn't, you know, I was doing other stuff. And now, you know, I look at what it is and what it's become and, you know, shows like yours. And there was a time when like, I was one of the podcasts on Canada, I think like there was, yeah, I looked it up.

[00:46:49] Jody Mitic: So. There is so few of them. They're not very good. If you find it, it's a Jody medic podcast. Don't hold those ones against me. I was on a lot of drugs back then, but the point is we all, you know, we have a message now and we are in this age where you and I can do a show like this from my living room and we can expand our voices and we can get a larger footprint.

[00:47:14] Jody Mitic: So that our views and how we see the world can get out there because there's two versions of what happened, right? There's what they say and what I say You know and thus far i've had law fair And all that used against me and all these other backdoor tricks and you know in a in platforms that you know They're personal there's something you think are yours and then when you go back and it's gone uh, like my twitter was you you know, like whoa, geez, you know, I thought I was a

[00:47:46] Travis Bader: So you're using Twitter, you put out a tweet, you say, Hey, let's get together, veterans, let's get together, nothing about violence, nothing before or after that tweet saying, it's threatening. It 

[00:47:57] Jody Mitic: says in, 

[00:47:58] Travis Bader: yeah, 

[00:47:59] Jody Mitic: it's sorry. It says right in the report, he never said anything. He never threatened anyone, but, but, but someone interpret at the prime minister's office, interpreted everything as threats.

[00:48:11] Jody Mitic: They said I was going to do a coup if people showed up. I don't know who, that's the thing. Nobody's willing to have a conversation about this, right? They were just willing to, it was just redacted information. You had little bits and parts. Well, nothing I challenged. So like, if I talk about, you know, the whole PMO being involved, that's just ignored, right.

[00:48:31] Jody Mitic: When, you know, when I was on the stand with the crown, when they took my license for my firearms, uh, you know, I said, well, Well, they said I was, uh, ultimately the judge said, regardless of anything, you're a threat if you, cause you might hold a grudge. 

[00:48:49] Travis Bader: Okay. 

[00:48:49] Jody Mitic: I can, that's kind of a, that's kind of a flex, but no, but that's the thing.

[00:48:53] Jody Mitic: Like what it, so what I'm like, I'm a decommissioned weapon that might go off at any time. Or am I a hero? Like he also called me a hero. It's like, it's one of those like a bait and switch type. You know, uh, decisions that they give, you know, they call you a good guy and then they call you, you know, nuts and a threat and they call you a hero at the end.

[00:49:13] Jody Mitic: Um, I get it. It is what it is. If it's, it's all politically motivated. Even this reduction in my veteran's affairs pay is through the liberals, you know, because I don't shut up about this stuff. So I'll take his keep take his money. And they, they know my personal life. They know what I'm really going through and they still do this stuff to me.

[00:49:34] Jody Mitic: And, you know, So I'm at the point where they've. You know, they've cut off my income. So I'm trying to challenge and get a audience up at the top and get this legislation changed. You know, luckily there's an election coming. I don't think I could run, but I can certainly try to make it an issue. You know, yeah, that's what I'm hoping by getting on the show here with you today.

[00:49:56] Jody Mitic: And I know I'm a, it's been an interesting chat, but, uh, and I've been all over the place, but you've been very patient with me. 

[00:50:02] Travis Bader: Why don't you tell me where things are moving forward to where's. Jody Middick, moving forward to in the future. And, uh, and how, how do you see that happening? I'm trying to get, 

[00:50:16] Jody Mitic: so, uh, lots of things happen, right?

[00:50:18] Jody Mitic: So I'm still in the process of getting my personal life completely sorted. Um, you know, when you let things go, it's amazing how fast things pile up behind you. And so as that's being sorted, though, I'm trying to take steps forward in advocating for myself. And my kids and my, and my community and get back on the positive path, you know, I, I have this, you know, I do, I know I have this ability to, to be quite positive about outcomes because in my opinion.

[00:50:54] Jody Mitic: You know, and just how, you know, how we're trained and how we look at things as, you know, as the, the snipers and, you know, you have to be successful in whatever mission you're going out on, or, you know, or you die trying literally, and, you know, that's, that's special forces one on one, that's combat one on one, like the mission is your goal and your strategy is how you achieve it.

[00:51:19] Jody Mitic: So, you know, my strategy is to, you know, get my voice back, you know, As many, uh, people that will listen to the situation, not, and I have to focus on myself here because it's about me and my kids, you know, and like I said, I'm only 48 and I want to live at least a hundred more years and I want to be sure that I'm going to be okay, you know, and the last thing I want to be is this pauper, uh, living off a pension or a payment or whatever they want to call it.

[00:51:51] Jody Mitic: Uh from the government that gets smaller and smaller as you get older and older Um, you know, i'm 108 disabled Missing both feet and you know in the meat wagon has you know, that's the hardest hit it took but you know I i'm kind of like a truck that had a bent frame once, you know, and you bend it back but it's never the same my long term Uh, quality of life, my long term stable stability of life just isn't guaranteed.

[00:52:20] Jody Mitic: Um, with the new veterans charter or whatever, they've renamed it. Uh, and so my ultimate goal is to get into a position where I can correct this for myself first and then for others. 

[00:52:34] Travis Bader: So after the injury, I'm sure there is a lot of physical rehabilitation and what was the psychological rehabilitation?

[00:52:44] Travis Bader: What did that look like? 

[00:52:47] Jody Mitic: It's ongoing, uh But first and foremost, like I like I said earlier I tried to focus on Treating like the re so the rehab immediately in toronto at the recovery center Uh, you know you go in you do some yeah to me the exercises weren't that hard But that wasn't the point you go there you do exercise you you get the medical care, you know I treated it like uh, like a course just another like military Uh, course I'm like a sampling, you know, when you go for, for, for job training for a three month course, then at the time they had all these, you know, the wounded warrior charity came up and there was all the talk about PTSD and OSI being a thing.

[00:53:31] Jody Mitic: And, you know, as the patient, as the, as the casualty, as the soldier, you know, it's as much in my interest to recover. As it is in the militaries. Now, again, I didn't know at the beginning that, you know, even so to go with that, there was this universality of service thing that the army had just, or the military had just adopted, which, you know, even that was, that punished me as well, financially and career wise, you know, I didn't get out.

[00:54:05] Jody Mitic: I only got out because the career wasn't going to progress in a manner that I thought seemed fair to the situation. And then especially with their, they were going to try and stop me from trying to correct the new veterans charter. So,

[00:54:25] Jody Mitic: so, you know, regardless of all that, though, it's still, it's my life, you know, I can't. I can't let what happened define, like as much as it defines me today, it's not going to define me forever, you know, and there's so much to do and you, you know, my mindset was always to get beyond what's in front of me now and what are my problems now?

[00:54:49] Jody Mitic: Okay, well then. That's a challenge to overcome. You know, it's like every new mission was, you know, a new challenge. And it was exciting. So when you go, when you challenge your therapy or you challenge your recovery, you achieve the things they say you wouldn't, Oh, you know, nobody goes running on two prosthetic legs and then you go and run a half marathon.

[00:55:08] Jody Mitic: Oh, you know, and it hurts really a lot actually. But, uh, you know, you, you put these goals in front of you or I did and you, and then I achieved them. And, you know, and, you know, same problem I had in politics. I was having in the military back then they were monitoring all our social media, uh, but mine was becoming a bit of a problem, right?

[00:55:33] Jody Mitic: And you don't know that, right? They didn't know. It's not like anyone said to me, like, Hey, you got to stop doing it. Cause I was a little careful on my social media back then. But, um, you know. You're just not getting any favors within the forces, uh, or I wasn't. And so to me, it was the next challenge had to come from outside the military.

[00:55:54] Jody Mitic: If they were, if they were going to like, you know, if I was gonna be a master corporal forever, what's the point, you know? Um, so, you know, I'm still a young man. I still had. I still have lots of ambition, you know, I just, um, you know, I had to also in the last, you know, 10 years really had to accept being wounded too, to like the full extent I had thought, just.

[00:56:28] Jody Mitic: You know, I talked about the drugs earlier, you know, and my first narcotic really that I was addicted to is the prescription pain stuff Right not to diminish that I became an addict to cocaine is actually a pharmaceutical, but it's from the 1800s. But anyway um, uh when I was getting blown up it's not an excuse right like, uh, You know, despite you know, cocaine's a good pain management like I my legs never hurt.

[00:56:57] Jody Mitic: Uh, well when I was on Originally,

[00:57:03] Jody Mitic: you know, like that's not an excuse dude, you know, I had to have these I have these conversations with myself. It just, you know, you know, you're not doing the right thing. Yes. You can handle it. You can get one more bump. Not going to kill you or it might. You got little kids. Uh, you got, you know, you have this, you know, like if you google my name and I know it sounds conceited, but it's true for a long time, like my name appeared in a lot of different places on a lot of different platforms.

[00:57:32] Jody Mitic: And so, you know, this book came out that sold, it was one of the best selling books of the, of its time, never got any best seller list because it was considered, I was considered a tourist in the literary world, right? So. What are you going to leave this as your legacy like, you know, like Elvis or something like you found dead on the toilet and, uh, you know, people think that your base drivers were like sex, drugs and like fast cars and stuff as great as all those things might be in a, you know, in a moment, you got kids to raise, you got a country to, You know, to, to be a part of, you know, like the, the mind shift because I had gone so far one way that to bring myself back to an acceptable mindset, it's just except you had your legs blown off.

[00:58:25] Jody Mitic: That's it. I smoke a ton of weed as you in your. Viewers can probably tell with this discussion. Uh, but you know, the most I take now is Tylenol and aspirin. Um, you know, I don't take any other pain meds, uh, not yet, maybe in the future, but, um, you know, you know, that might, 

[00:58:49] Travis Bader: 18 years ago now, you were medically pulled from the fight, right?

[00:58:55] Travis Bader: Well, yeah, but you're still fighting your enemies just changed. 

[00:58:59] Jody Mitic: Indeed. Yeah. You know, and, but that's, and that's, again, when you transition out of the military, like you said, like you have to, you know, the world is now your. Uh, AOR, your area of, or area of responsibility, you know, my, like I am, I'm a whole homeowner.

[00:59:16] Jody Mitic: So this is my perimeter. This is my fortification, you know, like you have to be happy with that, you know, yeah, you're not out chasing bad guys or jumping out of planes or testing the latest firearms or driving cars, you know, like breakneck speeds. 

[00:59:33] Travis Bader: You know, but now your, your enemy is a little bit more nebulous.

[00:59:39] Travis Bader: It's not somebody that's right in front of you that you can see it's a policy. 

[00:59:44] Jody Mitic: Yeah. Well, I thought I, this, I found myself looking for enemies at some time. Now, again, I have lots of them, but not, not that kind of enemy, you know? And, you know, it's. You know, it's a, it was a mindset thing that I thought I had under control, but again, accepting that I had been wounded and I've been taken out of the fight, you know, and, and all that was just a big part of, of getting off the drugs and getting back, even to do this show today with you, uh, you know, I'm happy that I've made this kind of progress with myself and I'm, I'm, I'm happy with happier with, uh, time.

[01:00:32] Jody Mitic: What does that mean?

[01:00:36] Jody Mitic: As much as it's as it's finite, it's ours to own in the moment, so to speak. One of the things I loved about sniping was he didn't talk a lot. If you did, it was to the point. And you spent all your time just looking and looking and looking and trying to find a target, right? And, but in your mind, you're allowed an internal dialogue.

[01:01:00] Jody Mitic: And so I kind of lost my train of thought. Where was I going with that time? So time becomes different when it's just you and a buddy, maybe out there and you're just can't talk for three days. I had to kind of just sit back here on my porch and realize like it's the same situation and I, I, I'm putting time in for myself right now.

[01:01:25] Jody Mitic: And I know this sounds woo woo and stuff, but uh, when you get to be a certain age and I, I, maybe I just didn't get it when I was younger. Cause I was, you know, I was, we were action, uh, Action movie heroes back then, you know, as they'd be in a pro football player. So you gotta have a certain aspect on things and then, you know, when you get past it, you're like, ah, maybe I didn't have to tackle that guy so hard or I didn't have to break that guy's leg, you know, Or, you know, maybe I didn't have to sacrifice my own body.

[01:01:54] Jody Mitic: So much to do, but you just learn how to be a little, you know, that veteran mentality sets in, you know, and just be happy with the time you have to, to do as, as you please. Even if you're not doing exactly what you want, you know, if that makes sense for me, like this is my internal. internal voice, uh, just focusing on the kids being healthy, me being healthy, uh, you know, getting back to a mental state where I can be a contributing member again, you know, maybe get back into politics, as I've said, 

[01:02:31] Travis Bader: write 

[01:02:31] Jody Mitic: another book again, uh, get the podcast back up, you know, start generating some, uh, income for myself.

[01:02:39] Jody Mitic: And, uh, Get a life, you know, basically , basically, you know, uh, appreciate the time you have to, to get a, to give a life, give a lot of guys, get into woodworking, uh, all that stuff for me, you know, I'm good at gun fighting, uh, and talking shit and politics and , you know? Um, and so I, you know, I might as well stick to what I'm good at.

[01:03:03] Jody Mitic: I enjoy it. Um, you know, does it bring 

[01:03:07] Travis Bader: you happiness? 

[01:03:08] Jody Mitic: It does. I think so. Like, tell me you started a show, you feel like a better person because of it and you know, right. It's the, it's so 

[01:03:18] Travis Bader: rewarding. I specifically started this show to try and bring some positivity into an industry where I was seeing a lot of negativity.

[01:03:26] Travis Bader: So from my own, yeah, from my own selfish standpoint, I thought I can try and look at a different area or. This is the area that I know, is there a way that I can bring some positivity into it? I, as much as I can shit talk and I can probably shit talk with the best of them out there. I, it's a very conscious effort for me to try and be very solution oriented in my approach or.

[01:03:54] Travis Bader: Uh, if I'm going to talk about issues that are difficult, uh, try and find a way that I can approach it or offer suggestions that there might be a layer of positivity because I need to have those sorts of people around me. And I'm hoping that through the podcast, we can help create other people who have a sense of personal agency and use that personal agency in a way that's positive and productive for themselves, which will bleed off into others.

[01:04:22] Travis Bader: So that's. Really the crux of why I started the podcast. 

[01:04:26] Jody Mitic: Yeah. Yeah. And that's, and what, what a great way to put it. It's, it's a way to give back to the community while learning yourself and exposing yourself to like higher level people, you know, I didn't go where I wanted with my show a few, like, you know, a long time ago now, and, you know, I want to do a different one, a different format.

[01:04:46] Jody Mitic: But my goals are the same to, you know, try and bring voices into the, into the atmosphere or get my own out there into places where they, where it isn't. And because I realized like as a soldier, as an infant here, as a combat guy, like that alone puts me in a small group in this country. And for us to have a larger voice, you know, we need our own advocates as well.

[01:05:08] Jody Mitic: You know, most of our advocacy comes through the people of. Canada through the, you know, through the taxpayer. So, you know, as, as much as we're the silent profession, you know, that's changed since I got wounded. Now it seems if you don't have a GoPro on as a SF guy, you're not doing it right. Um, well, but that's the thing.

[01:05:30] Jody Mitic: Like I I'm adaptable. I, I just, I'm trying to embrace it. Like I did 10 years ago when I started, you know, my first podcast that never quit. radio show. Um, and then I had the Jody Middick podcast and cause I, you know, got hurt and I was listening to Rogan and I said, okay, that's interesting. And what a great way to like spend time was listening to, you know, the, the new iPhone with the podcast.

[01:05:55] Jody Mitic: And it's, it's dirt cheap. You can just record it on your phone and put it out there. And somebody will listen to it. Probably. 

[01:06:03] Travis Bader: As long as you're bringing value to others, like, like we talked about ahead of time, what do you want to talk about? It says my goal on every episode is to bring maximum value to the audience and to the guest.

[01:06:14] Travis Bader: How do we achieve that? 

[01:06:16] Jody Mitic: Yeah, beautiful. 

[01:06:18] Travis Bader: Jody, 

[01:06:19] Jody Mitic: is there any closing thoughts? I want to just say that I appreciate you reaching out and being so patient and giving me a chance to try and talk to you about a lot of this stuff, cause it is a little convoluted, it's a little bit inside baseball, but if. If you can help me try to advocate for myself and for others, uh, I, I can't miss that opportunity.

[01:06:46] Jody Mitic: And you know, uh, it's such a difficult thing to try to get through that, uh, again, I just want to thank you for your patience. 

[01:06:55] Travis Bader: Well, I'm going to have links to your social media in the, in the bio so people can see you. And follow you and see what you have to say. A big message on here that I really wanted to make sure that was put out was, you know, on the new veterans charter.

[01:07:12] Travis Bader: Where can people learn more about that? 

[01:07:15] Jody Mitic: Well, if you Google, 

[01:07:16] Travis Bader: I 

[01:07:17] Jody Mitic: hate, you know, right. Use Google. I just Googled new veterans charter Canada. It's been renamed to the veterans wellness act, I believe. Um, but within it, you'll find a lot of talk about what's best for the veteran, but, uh, very little to back it up.

[01:07:33] Jody Mitic: Uh, a lot of, uh, uh, excuses why money can't be given to veterans. Uh, a lot of money that goes to tons and tons and tons of studies and study groups and conventions and events. Like they spend a lot of money. On a lot of other stuff, except giving it to the actual veterans with this legislation. And it's not dissimilar to what they did with regular healthcare and what, you know, got that guy assassinated.

[01:08:04] Jody Mitic: Right? They use magic smoke and mirrors and googly gook talk to confuse the situation. Make you feel like a victim of your own service. Make you feel like you don't have enough, uh, personal, um, uh, what do you call it? Sorry, your own personal agency to make decisions for yourself, blah, blah, blah. And they give all the money to a bunch of experts that never solve anything.

[01:08:37] Jody Mitic: And, you know, there's just, it's a, it's like I said, just myself, I'm out over a million bucks already, you know, and that's ridiculous. That's just cold, hard cash. Anyone can use to live their life. And I earned it stepping on high explosives for the crown of Canada and our, my own government, governments of which parties I was a member of.

[01:08:59] Jody Mitic: I was a card carrying member of the conservatives too. None of them want to fix this and they, this is, this is the message I want to leave. Nevermind me. Every injured soldier since the new veterans charter was put in in 2006 has been literally robbed. By their own government that they were serving when they had their bodies damaged overseas, even at home, if it's at home, but like, you know, there's more guys like me, you know, there's, and girls, it is an absolute fast.

[01:09:39] Jody Mitic: Of literally money out of our pockets 

[01:09:42] Travis Bader: jody. Thanks so much for taking the time to be on the silver core podcast Appreciate it