Things I Learned in JTF2; Canada's Elite Commando's

I spent around 16 years in the Canadian Special Forces. Beginning in the Canadian Special Operations Regiment and finishing as a Team Leader in JTF2.

Here are some things I learned or traits I tried to embody but forgot sometimes; letting my emotions or ego take over.

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There’s always someone better.

Never think you got it. Firstly, because no one does, everyone here (on earth) is just making it up as they go along. There are no adults. We’re all just children with jobs, mortgages, and a boat load of anxiety. Tier 1 Special Forces is no exception.

And if you think you got it, the second someone new waltzes in the door who ‘has it’ more than you, you’re fucked. I’ve seen it, and I’ve experienced it. Your ego starts to sound the alarm. But I was the best shooter in this team! And then it starts to rationalize itself with some lies. Well, I’m better than he is at this or that. Or, I’ve got more combat experience than he’ll ever have. This is not good; for performance, for anything.

You’re good. You’re you. That’s fine, you’re enough baby. And don’t worry… that new guy’s got a boner problem anyway. So ha.

It works the other way around too. When you don’t think you have it, or when it’s clear, you absolutely do not have it. I experienced this as a 19-year-old private in the army. In the back of my mind I always dreamed of becoming a JTF2 Assaulter, but it seemed as likely as becoming a quarterback in the NFL.

And then, one day, two guys from my squadron went to JTF2 selection. I looked up to these guys, they were both really good soldiers and were the fittest dudes in the Troop. I couldn’t beat them in lifting weights, pushups or pullups, or running, or anything. And when they came back after two or three days having failed, their sad faces carried the death of my dream. If they couldn’t do it— it was out of the question for me. It took me eight years to realize I was wrong.

But the reality is, they’re not you. They might look better on paper with a certain aspect or trait, hell, they might even be better than you with something you’re good at. But that’s okay. There’s always someone better. And we don’t get the trophy, or the girl, or our dream job with some talent or genetic gift. The thing is, the secret is, your determination, your commitment, and your consistency are how you get it.

Tom Brady was drafted 199th in the NFL draft. Thomas Edison had a hundred failed experiments before the lightbulb, and someone right now is being born in poverty to sick and disgusting parents, and they’ll rise up to be a king. You can too. Don’t worry about the others. There’s always someone better, but that doesn’t mean shit.

If it needs to be said, say it.

I struggled with this one. Usually, I would see some sort of injustice, or an officer messin’ things up, and because I knew my comments would fall on deaf ears; or because the change I knew we needed would take a herculean effort; I held my tongue. Other guys did too.

And then, because I held my tongue too long, when things were about to go off the rails, or I just couldn’t stand it anymore, I would burst out with a flare of emotion. Telling them all why they were so wrong and why I was so right. Didn’t they see their stupid ideas were stupid? Didn’t they see that there was a better way to do things? Maybe. Maybe they did, but now they didn’t care.

Once, fed up with a certain technique we used to teach CQB (close quarter battle), I ranted to the more senior instructors and explained there was a better way. My way, a far superior way. And when that didn’t really get much traction, I spent days working on an email. I had anecdotes, comparisons with other teaching methods, I pointed out that it wasn’t how the guys in the teams did it after they graduated, and I even had a little spreadsheet with green and red colours so it was easy to see their error.

Obviously, it didn’t work.

The opposite is also true. People held their tongue when things needed to be said but it was uncomfortable because the person who needed telling was of a much higher rank. Or because the person who needed to say it didn’t want to seem like a burden, this usually took place when said person was beginning to climb the ladder. Not the boys in the teams. If it’s your job to protect your subordinates from abuse or short-sided errors from the powers that be, you must be willing to have the uncomfortable conversations. If you can’t, don’t take the promotion.

If it needs to be said, say it. Don’t wait. Use tact and be polite, leave the emotion at the door— yes, even if you think it’s a matter of life or death; because usually, it isn’t. Give them time to understand it from your perspective. The insight didn’t come to you in a flash, and it won’t for them either. And if it still doesn’t fly, that’s it. Accept it and move on.

Most things you can’t do alone; some things you must do alone.

I guess it goes without saying that the old adage is true. There’s no ‘I’ in: “All you fuckers get on the bus.”

We all work as a team. And there’s no way I would have accomplished what I did in the military if it wasn’t for my friends around me. They pulled me half-starved out of swamps. They wrestled me away from three hundred pound bouncers and put me to bed when I was too drunk. And they challenged me everyday to be the best I could without ever knowing it. If I have any regrets, it was those last years, when I lost my spark. I could have tried a little harder. Not for the man, but for them, the men. My brothers.

If I was any good at being an Assaulter it was because I was striving to be good for them. My medals and my pictures in the hallways don’t say anything of me. They speak of the guys around me. None of it would exist without them.

When I came into work in the mornings, it was their faces on my mind. If I volunteered to go on a mission or a deployment, it was because I knew they were gonna be going. And if things were hard, which they often were, it was them that I’d ask for help.

Thank you boys. From the bottom of my heart. Thank you.

But here’s something that most people won’t tell you. Some things you must do on your own.

Friends, family, and therapists, will all say that they are there for you, and they bloody well might be. But no one is inside your head but you. When things are really bad, when things are bad because you caused them. It’s on you.

To truly make a change or get through those difficulties in life, you need to reframe it. You need to wake up and tell yourself how it’s going to be; day, after day, after day. And sometimes, minute to minute.

All great achievements were done alone. All great comebacks were done alone. We’re born alone and well die alone. Stop trying to find something or someone to help you. You have everything you need. Just look inside yourself and tell yourself those words. You know what to say and you know you need to say it but are avoiding it.

If you believe you need something, you will; if you believe you are something, then you will be. But the reality is— our beliefs create our reality. If you believe you need the bottle or those pills or that weed, well, the world will confirm just that. If you believe you can’t do it alone, then the universe will collapse and conspire to make it so.

Sometimes it’s foolish to look for solutions in the outside world; they’ll only confirm what sick beliefs you can’t let go of.

Meritocracy still exists, sort of.

I’m happy to report that the scourge of DEI did not infect the ready commandos that protect this country.

If you work hard and you got it, you’re in. Anyone can try, everyone gets a fair shot. And I often took solace in the fact that the men around me, the boys in my squadron, were the best. That we all earned it equally. And we kept each other honest every day. Because if someone started to slip… they would be informed, ricky tick. And the same would go for you, fair is fair.

But nothing is perfect and life isn’t fair. In all jobs and walks of life people get a leg up that they didn’t quite deserve. And great people get passed over for deeds they’ve done in silence. Humans decide which accolades to hand out and to whom. And humans are, well, human. They make mistakes too. Some of the greats work away in the shadows.

I often felt like I was one of these. I never did receive any big awards or claps from the crowd. I never got any Commander’s coins, bravery medals, or pats on the back for extra efforts. I was with my boys working away, raising my hand for the next mission, because that’s why we were there.

Watching others get what you think you deserve is hard. But like I said, life ain’t fair. And you know what you did, and you didn’t do it for that crap anyway. It only stings because your ego is playing games again.

So stand up. Give ‘em a clap. They worked hard too. It doesn’t mean you didn’t. We’re all a team and we’re all trying our best. So hold your head up high brother. You did good work, I’m proud of you.

Playing the game.

I struggled with this one too.

Don’t take things too seriously. I see many people going about their workdays stressing about things or battling colleagues like if things just don’t go the way they’re supposed to go someone will die or something will explode.

I actually worked in a life and death environment. And the vast majority of the time, no ones life was on the line. There is a lot of practice, make believe, and yeah— lot’s of emails and paperwork too. Most of it (all of it) doesn’t matter.

“Don’t fight the plan, fight the fight.” I don’t remember where this saying originated by I credit my buddy Justin for making me remember it.

Ask yourself, what’s the goal here. Keep it in mind. And you will often find most people, including yourself, are trying to fight the plan, not the fight.

I used to guide groups on week-long canoe trips. We would choose ‘a leader for the day’, and ask them to lead the pack up of camp in the morning, plan the paddling route and breaks, and otherwise just be responsible for the day.

After hearing their plan, if I thought, no— if I knew there was a better way to do it, that they only had the 75% solution instead of the 100% solution, I didn’t say a word. Who cares, literally, who cares. I’ll tell you— your ego. You just want to be right. You don’t actually want to accomplish the mission. You want to fight the plan and not the fight. Well, just shut up and let this person work. It’s how they’re going to learn anyway.

“A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.” — And if you know where that quote comes from, you’re my friend.

Okay, let’s talk about ‘them’. The bosses, the higher ups, the people with corner offices, the people with their faces framed by cheap wood and plexiglass in the front hallways and mess halls. Why are they always messing with us? Why can’t they see it our way? Why can’t they leave us alone?

I’m not sure I can give you a perfect reason why. Maybe sometimes they are just messing with us. But I’ll tell you what I came to realize and it did help a little bit. I would tell it to the younger guys when they were in some sort of lunchtime rant about ‘them’.

Everyone is just solving problems. That’s what work is; problem solving. Even if you’re just making someone’s morning coffee, you’re solving this persons energy problem, and she’s gonna give you a little tip for it.

And when it comes to JTF2, we’re solving the country’s problems. The government says, hey, we have a problem here. Then they look for people or organizations to solve said problem. And if the problem is big and dangerous enough, they call JTF2.

The CO of JTF2 receives the problem and then does the same calculations that the government did. Can I solve this? What skills, equipment, or people, are required to solve this problem? If he needs to pass it down, he does.

And so by the time you or your little team gets this problem it’s safe to say that there’s a whole bunch of people that couldn’t solve it. That’s why it’s now on you.

And here’s where it gets tricky. We start to say things like; we need this or that thing or we can’t get it done! Or, we need more time, why can’t they give us more time! Or, we don’t have enough people, we need more. We need more of something or we can’t get it done. And for some reason, we scream up the hill for these things, we think the problem should come to us with all the solutions already packaged with it.

(Don’t get me wrong, your superiors are supposed to enable you and provide you with what you need to do your job. That’s not exactly what I’m talking about and it only goes so far.)

The reality is, they don’t have those things. They don’t have those people, and they don’t have the time. If they did have those things and those people and the time— they would have fucking solved the problem themselves! They wouldn’t need to push it down to you. So there’s always going to be this push and pull, this juxtaposition between the problem solvers at the bottom and the people who pushed the problem onto them.

Get over it and get on with it.

Listen to everyone. Reject most of ‘em.

“We did it differently back in my day.”

I’m sure everyone from every walk of life has heard something like that. And while sometimes it holds some valuable lessons, mostly it does not. Things change, obviously.

I often found some itchy urge inside of me in the later war years. Iraq, etc. When newer guys would be spitballing ideas about how to do this or that. Things we did in Afghanistan ten years before. At first, I would try to school them, sometimes it worked, but mostly it didn’t.

It’s okay to reinvent the wheel sometimes. People need to come to their own conclusions on things. And what seemed to be such an amazing idea back in the day; sometimes it really wasn’t, we were just fooling ourselves. Or just making the best with what we had. Gun tape and chicken wire solutions.

When a new guy is going through his training pipeline, and generally within his first year in the stalls, he’s inundated with advice and stories from dozens of old dogs. I tell them all the same thing. Usually right before I lay down some ‘Jwat wisdom’. “Guys, listen to everyone, reject most of ‘em— including me.”

Have an open mind, suck in all the info you can. But sift through it for yourself. Make it make sense in your mind and apply it to the environment you find yourself in now. Not what the environment was a hundred years ago. A beginner’s mind, in all things.

Own your mistakes.

This is common dog in our world. It’s drilled into you and if you don’t get it, you ain’t gonna make it. And they have ways of finding out if you’re a little weasel or not. So if you’re not actually a truthful person and you’re only doing it when you think ‘people are watching’, you’ll get found out.

The civilian world might not go to these lengths or have the culture of ownership but the universe does. Karma is real and it will bite you so hard you’ll wish you were dead. You’ll cry to the heavens and not even realize it’s your karma, it’s you.

It takes balls to stand up in front of your squadron as a new guy and apologize for shooting a hostage in training. Or worse, hitting a friendly. But it happens, pretty much to us all. It even happens when you’re not a new guy anymore. Literally everyone makes mistakes, so don’t feel bad, and don’t hide them. Owning mistakes builds trust within your team and with yourself. No one gets fired for an honest mistake.

Be accountable for your shit. Don’t get so out of balance that the world needs to come crashing down on you to rebalance. And if you’re currently making a mistake in your life and you know it— stop it. Stop it right now man. You can do it.

Take the sh*t jobs.

I’m not talking about sweeping the floors and cleaning the break room.

I’m talking about those tasks or side quests that just don’t seem to line up with our career goals. Maybe it’s a new assignment. Maybe it’s a dog and pony. Maybe it’s helping the boss with a new client, or a work trip for some weird new product that you know ain’t gonna lead anywhere.

Take them. Do it. And learn it. So many times in my career did I reluctantly take on some other course or task that didn’t see to serve my main purpose— jumping out of planes and killing bad guys. But you know what? It always made me better, and it made me more employable. It made me see connections in things where others didn’t. And it made me meet the people on the sidelines, in the ops rooms, and in the mechanic bays. And having relationships like that and understanding what those people go through is a valuable lesson for whatever you’re trying to accomplish. And it’s just the right thing to do.

Our lives are a long haul. And you never know who you’re going to meet or what crazy thing you might experience. You have time. Take the shit jobs. Take things on and become a student of more things than just your little world of ‘me’.

Have fun.

Self explanatory.

I guess I would just say, don’t have so much fun that the bosses come sniffing around. I made that mistake a lot.

But boy was it fun ;)

— Jwat