Transcript of my Talk with Steve

Alexs: All right. So today I'm pretty excited to have my friend Steve talking with us. Steve, when did we meet? It must have been two years ago. Probably.

Steve: It was December of 18.

Alexs: Yeah, it was December of 18. I was out in Nova Scotia seeing one of my best friends named Colin and his family and you dropped in out of nowhere, right? And hung out for a few days.

Steve: That was a good time.

Alexs: What did you put together? A kiln for Colin?

Steve: I think I put in put together three kilns, right? Yeah, the place is gorgeous. Like the whole pottery set up studio. It's amazing. They have top shelf liquor downstairs like Blanton's. The good stuff, you know. He's got so many projects on the go. I was going to see if he wanted to come up here for a week. restrictions got lifted for travel so I would throw him on a plane using air miles. It's a straight shot from Halifax to here.  He's got a big garden going on now.

Alexs: Colin and I met when I was in Bahrain and this whole podcast is about the book, but it doesn't talk about everything. So, after I left Bahrain, I write about how I really struggled trying to process the time I  spent over a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, you know? And when I came back from Bahrain, I was just like, I was pretty fucked up in the head, to be honest. I was trying to figure out how to live my life, and Colin and I had met and we played rugby together. We hung out together andI started going up to Nova Scotia to hang out with him and you know how it is out there, it’s so beautiful.

His house is almost in the middle of nowhere and every year I would go up there and sit in his basement, drink his beer, and sit out on his deck to look out at the water. It's just awesome. And him and his family are incredible. We'll probably I'll probably do a podcast with him, too.

Steve: It should be a shit show!

Alexs: I hope so.

Steve: They got a new dog too.  HaveYou talking with? I I talked to him like, a couple of days ago or something like that. I didn't know they had a new dog. I don't think. Yeah, he sent me a picture a couple weeks ago. Klaus, clouds, they got a new Shepard. They have three fucking shepherds.

Alexs: And how many cats? There's at least three.

Steve: Yeah, it's organized chaos…

Alexs: It's just chaos. But, you know, from the moment I first walked through the front door…

Steve: It’s like you never left. Yeah.

Alexs: Yeah, you go there and you feel like home. And it was like that from the first moment I walked in the front door.

Steve: Yeah. I was almost his neighbor.

Alexs: Really? How?

Steve: Because. Well, I had a posting message this year. I was supposed to be posted out of Goose Bay and his neighbor…what the fuck is his name?

Alexs: I … ummm

Steve: Trevor. His house came on the market right when I was being posted.

Alexs: Serious?

Steve: I shit you not. And I had my old realtor who was helping me prepare for this move and I got my walk through of the house and everything. Can you imagine?

Alexs: What? So Trevor is moving? I think he bought a piece of property…he hangs out with Collin’s other neighbor on the other side... the roofing in dude. I think he had a piece of property already bought. He was gonna build a house wherever…Once it actually went active, it was gone.

Alexs: So I was going to Nova Scotia every year, and then me, Jeremy, and the kids were supposed to be out there in a couple of weeks from now but the border is shut down. But, what were you doing there in 2018? Just traveling around being a vagabond or what?

Steve: No, I wish. I love doing that, though. I just got back from Iraq in December. So I pretty much had just gotten home. I was home for two days in Ontario and then went to Peterborough, which is a few hours south to sign the paperwork for my new Harley that I can't drive here.

Alexs: Why?

Steve: Because I'm in fucking Goose Bay. I'll explain the geography in a second, but yes, I got back from overseas, went down, signed the paperwork on the bike and then came back to my house and jumped on a plane. And was it December?

Alexs: Yeah, it must have been December.

Steve: Yeah, it was December, it was before Christmas because after Christmas I went to Cuba for a week.

Alexs: Oh, that's right. So what made you go see Colin?

Steve: Oh, he’s family. Yeah, when I go see my folks, My mom, Dad, my brother, then Halifax is a leaping point. You go there and bang… I don't even go and see anybody else.

Alexs: Really? I just go out there … have you met Caleb?

Alexs: Yeah.

Steve: We go to his camp sometimes.

Alexs: You know it’s crazy. When I met Colin, I wasn't in the military, but I was in the Navy before that. And then I spent 10 years or so working with the Marine Corps, Special forces, all that kind of stuff. But it's funny how when you meet people who are like you, especially in that military environment, it's like family, right? And it hits right away.

Steve: Yeah, I didn't know Colin in the military at all, we were in the fire hall together. I had been there for a couple of years and he joined up. I was really I was a bit torn if I would've had to leave this place so quickly, but I was pretty pumped if I would have been able to get back there and be his neighbor. That would have been fucking great.

Alexs: One of the things I talk a lot about is the camaraderie that gets developed in these environments. I played rugby and I was a fireman and in those kinds of environments you build relationships that just can't be built anywhere else.

Steve: It's weird. We're a pretty small community here as far as work-wise. And everybody knows everybody. It's gotta be the smallest base in Canada...

Alexs: So tell us, give us a little bit of Canadian geography here. You're in Goose Bay. Where the fuck is that? What's that all about? What's life like there?

Steve: It's in Labrador, which is Newfoundland, Labrador. It's a small community. Probably anybody who Wikipedias this is gonna break my balls, but it might be 7000 people all included. To get into Goose Bay from either way, there's a road that goes through Quebec. It's called Labrador Highway and it's about 400 kilometers of dirt road. And if you go the other way, there's the southern route, they call it, and there's about 250 kilometers of dirt road on that one. It hooks onto the island of Newfoundland. Then you gotta go through Newfoundland down to Nova Scotia and stuff like that and Cape Breton.

Alexs: So you don't do a lot of riding around there, huh?

Steve: Well, they call Labrador the Big Land because it is fucking huge. There's this community here and then about 500 kilometers away, there's another town called Labrador City, and they call Labrador a City because it's got a Walmart and a Canadian tire. They’ve got a McDonald's, too. And that stretch of highway just got paved over the last couple of years, and…

Alexs: It's in the middle of nowhere, huh?

Steve: Absolute middle of nowhere. I remember sending you a screenshot of where it is, and you're like, what the fuck. So I'll give you the Coles Notes. There's an A+W, a fast-food place. There's a Subway. I There's three gas stations, a liquor store. There's a car dealership, and I think there's 14 bars.

Alexs: 14?

Steve: And there's a weed story.

Alexs: Well, that's legal there, right?

Steve: It is. And to tell you the truth, the weed store is the nicest fucking store in town because…

Alexs: They got all the money or what?

Steve: I don't know why, but it’s called Tweed. And one of their investors, silent partner guys, which they allude to when you go in there, It's Snoop Dog.

Alexs: He is. Or that's just what they say?

Steve: I would believe he is. So Tweed is an actual community in Ontario outside of Ottawa. That's where Hershey’s Chocolate used to be made in Ontario, so they closed that factory down and started making weed there.

Steve: Yeah, but this whole province is like stepping into a time warp.

Alexs: How so?

Steve: It's the small things you notice like you can't do a lot of things online. You gotta be face-to-face. Technology is not there and people are set in their ways. It's different, but it's good. For example, I went to get my small game license. In Canada, you need a PAL which is a Possession Acquisition License for firearms. And you need that to get a hunting license; if you needed to carry a shotgun or rifle in the woods and you needed it to buy ammo.  So, when I first got here, I went to one of the…we got two or three gun stores here… and I didn't have…my PAL had been renewed, but they didn't send it to me here. It didn't follow me so we wanted to go bird hunting. I went and I got my license and all I needed was my driver's license. I didn't have ammo for my shotgun and my buddy got it for me. I was behind him in line and gave him the boxes. He put the boxes up there and the cashier was like, “Okay, PAL?” My buddy said, “I don't got it.” And the cashier was like, “Fuck it, I don’t care.” He said, “No, I’m joking. Here it is.” And I was like, this place gives no fucks.  This place is backwoods. It's different. It’s not big world stuff.

Alexs: Yeah, well how much more time you got in the Air Force?

Steve: I think it's January 2026, I could retire.

Alexs: Okay, and that's what makes you 20 years in?

Steve: No, at 26 I can get a full pension…but somebody's gotta pay the Harley bills.

Alexs: Yeah, you know, like I said, we were supposed to be up in Nova Scotia this month, but, with all the Covid stuff, that's not gonna happen. Whenever it happens, we'll have to make sure that you know and so we can hang out.

Steve: Where are you guys geographically?

Alexs: We're in Kansas City, Missouri and an interesting thing about Kansas City is that it's a bi-state city. It straddles Missouri and Kansas. We are basically smack dab in the middle of the U. S. The interesting thing for me is that in the book I write about how I was in D. C. working for the federal government and I had lived this life of international travel and I'm not even kidding you, when I was a kid, if you had said, where is Missouri on the map? I would have closed my eyes and pointed and had no idea.

Steve: Geography is not a thing there?

Alexs: It is a thing. But, you know, there's this bias, right? And I don't know if it's the same in Canada, but, there's an East Coast, West Coast bias. If you're from the coast, then you know the coast. So I'm from Philadelphia and I know the East Coast and the geography and all that sort of stuff. When you're in school, you learn all the states and their capitals and you learn where they are. But I never thought about Missouri or anything like that. I knew where California was, all that sort of stuff. So that's one bias.  And then you have, places like Chicago, big Cities, that are in the Midwest. But it's still a big city. So when I was in D.C. and Jeremy and I met online and he’s like, “I live in Missouri” I was like, “Oh, yeah, that's a state? I’m pretty sure it's a state.”

And so, moving here was a risk. It was a challenge. It was sort of like, every other thing I've done, you know, probably at that time, I probably thought of it in a similar way that I thought about going to Yemen, you know?

Steve: Yeah, it's crazy. You're having good luck.

Alexs: I know, right? I am. And so I moved to Kansas City; not sure what it was gonna be like. Right before I moved to Kansas City I ran into one of my best friends who I worked with in Iraq. And he said, “Oh, yeah, I've got this place in Kansas City, but I'm getting stationed overseas for work.”  And I was like, “Well, I'm just about to move to Kansas City.” He said “Well, I need somebody to watch my house while I'm gone.” And I was shocked, “I need a place to live.”

Steve: Okay, Hopefully, by talking to you today, some of that luck is gonna rub off because…

Alexs: I mean, it was unbelievable. And so he moved him and his family moved out and they moved overseas. And about a week or so later, I moved it.

Steve: Is that the place you sold?

Alexs: No, I lived there just about five years ago, so I just lived there for a couple of years while they were out of town. They came back into town and then I moved out. The good thing about Kansas City is that it was basically perfect for what I needed. I've been all over the Middle East and Europe, a little bit in Asia, and it's this small Midwestern town, right? So you know, that means it's sort of a slower pace, not as much traffic, fewer people. So that's one part of it. The other part is it's a barbecue town. It’s a beer town.

Steve: Fuck, I love me some barbecue…

Alexs: …and it's good people, right? And so on. But my buddy's house…he had this massive mansion right downtown in the middle of one of the most happening parts of town called Westport. And so me and Jeremy, we could walk to 15-20 bars, 15 restaurants or something like that. And it was the perfect mix. So I moved from D. C. where there's all sorts of traffic and there's all sorts of people; it's really expensive. And like I said, it was this period of my life where I had come back from Bahrain had gone through one of the most depressed periods of my life, and I was trying to figure out where I was going. And Kansas City was perfect, you know, because it was small, but not too small. Great food. There's good sushi places. Probably not great sushi. You know what I mean? There's good Chinese. Probably not great. Like all this stuff you wanna do and eat. But forget about the barbecue, right? It’s out of this world.

Steve: I'm not gonna have to take your word for that, I'm gonna have to fucking try it myself.

Alexs: Yeah, you're gonna have to come out, it’s so much fun.

Steve: Well, I was down in Texas for three weeks before Christmas this year on a course and I ate barbecue half the time. Yeah, all the helicopter instructors, were ex-Marines and stuff, ex-aviation Marine. It's funny how the course worked out because I was able to go on this course from Goose Bay. I sold it to my chain of command.

Alexs: Holy shit. That's crazy.
Steve: Oh, it's wild. When I started sniffing around, I was like you guys got money for training and they said yes. And my buddy in Ontario, who I was overseas with, who I was on the same crew with…I was supposed to be at his wedding. Well he was supposed to get married in the Dominican and well, obviously that trip got canceled. For now, it's pushed to October. We are really good buddies. He was on the same course, so we went down there together. We were staying at the same fucking hotel and had rental cars and would just ping the instructors: barbecue drinks. Bing, bang, boom. We're doing all this stuff. I got to go to a Cowboys game when they were losing, in a losing season; we got tickets on a steal. But they were losing. We got these fucking lower bowl seats that were on the end. Mint. And they won. I've never been in a in a room with 100,000 people before that were insane.

Alexs: You'll have to come out to Kansas City. There's just tons of stuff to do. You're not that familiar with US cities, but a lot of people would say that Kansas City is just a small town, and it is a small town, but it has so much to offer, and it's so much fun.

Steve: You got more to offer than Goose Bay.

Alexs: You know, there’s a lot that I've written in my book and one of the things is the section about Yemen and so I sent that to you just a little bit ago and you had a chance to read it.

Steve: I don't know how you put your pants on with the fucking set of balls you got. I read that today and I was having a shit week, but reading that story made me have a good day.

Alexs: Wow, that's nice.

Steve: Well, it's like a feel good story where like when you first met a dude coming off the off the bus and he was a taxi driver and his dad was the fucking chief of police. Hey hooked you up in a way. You just happened to slide into the right ...what do they call them…’fixers’. So you ran into the Chief of Police as a fixer and that couldn't have been any smoother.

And back it up to where you were talking with your original dude and he's like, ‘don't go to Yemen, but if you do, bring me some honey.’ Honestly, I was waiting until the end for you to say, I picked up the honey, but you didn't say it.

Alexs: You know, I mean, part of the problem was that at the end of the trip, when I was thinking that I was gonna have more days in Yemen, it got cut short. But, when the people at the hotel tried to keep me locked out, and said, ‘Oh, you can't get on the road’, I was like, fuck, what am I going to do?

Steve: Yeah, well, you mash the panel button and you do what you did. And so your fixer there was a general’s son!

Alexs: That was a crazy part of my life. It was after I had been in the military and before I went back to be a consultant for the military. I was running around the Middle East, like …

Steve: So That was an in-between time?

Alexs: Yeah, I was in graduate school working on my PhD. And I said, ‘I don't give a fuck. I'm going to figure out how to fix us Middle Eastern policy.’ There’s not much more to say than that.

Steve: Well, I’d say it's high hopes, but, I mean…

Alexs: … One of things I talk about in the book is how I had this passion, this desire. Like, somehow I could do it on my own. I don't care that everybody tells me it's impossible. I don't care where I have to go. I don't care what I have to do. I'll go there and I'll do it.

Steve: I read the whole book yet, but judging based on that chapter, you probably make great strides to Alexs-Middle Eastern relationships, which is pretty huge.

Alexs: Yeah, there are all sorts of stories about when I was in the Middle East, before and during my time as a consultant where there are successes, right? You know, I think anybody who spent time walking the dusty streets, whether in uniform or not, has stories of how they feel like they helped people live better lives. And I have those stories too. But I didn’t fix US-Middle East relations, right?

Steve: Well, everybody, like those fixtures and those you hung out with on the bus you rode on, those people you spoke with, they probably came out with a different point of view.

Alexs: Yeah, in that way, being on that bus in Yemen….you know, sometimes I think back and I'm like, How the hell did that all happen? How did I meet the Police Chief's son at the right moment? And the general’s nephew at the right moment? And it's like I would have been screwed otherwise

Steve: That could have turned out a lot fucking different for sure.

Alexs: It could have turned out a lot worse. And we'll keep talking about Yemen, but I think about probably the stupidest thing I almost did. I was in Egypt in 2003-2004 and I already had this bug and I don't know where it came from, but I was like, I'm going to go to Iraq. I was by myself in Egypt, studying at some fundamentalist Muslim school. And I'm not Muslim, but I was like, I'm gonna figure all this out on my own. And I was on all the travel blogs and websites, and I was like, “I'm going to Iraq, I'm gonna figure this out.” So I started trying to figure out how I can take a taxi from Egypt, through Syria and into Iraq because I wanted to be there and see what's going on.

Steve: That's wild. What are the yelp reviews for taxis in 2003 in Iraq?

Alexs: The funny thing is that it's not like it was a thought I had, and I was like, “Oh, that's really stupid.” I really started trying to make plans to do it; I just couldn't find anybody. I was reaching out and trying to…for example, Lonely planet used to have a blog called Thorn Tree. People were talking about how they got there and what not, and I just didn't make it. It's not like I was smart enough or scared enough to stop myself. It just it didn't work out.

Steve: Maybe for the best.

Alexs: Definitely for the best. I think you make a good point about Yemen. So there's always this question around, “what difference did I make?” And in the big picture, it's hard to argue that Iraq is a better place because of me, right? Or Afghanistan is a better place. But if you look at it in the micro sense, you think about the people on various buses I was on in Yemen and the fixers that I ran into…it's like they have an American brother. They got to know me in a way that they'll probably never get to know another American.

Steve: Yeah, they met an American on a bus going through Yemen for no other reason than he wanted to know more about them. And their culture, their language. And, you know, I could see the CIA questions coming for sure.

Alexs: Yeah, all over the Middle East I got this, “you must be working with CIA or the government”. But when I was in Yemen on that bus, it was the first time I thought, “this might be the end for old Alexs”.

You know, I always have to just look back and think that on that bus or just anywhere, that making that little bit of a difference can matter in some small way. You know, I don't know what big of away, but some way.

Steve: Not everybody is in a position to make a difference every day or anything like that, but I try… and this is going to sound fucking stupid, but I like just being cool to people outside. No matter what. Even just at the local grocery store. Like, I went to pick up a few things at the grocery store yesterday and it's a chore now because all the stuff going on. But I had my cart with some groceries, I probably had 15 things in there. I was pushing it up and there was a lady who had a giant cart full of stuff and she was like, “Hey, you can go ahead of me.” I said, “Wow. Thank you very much”. I was very, really appreciative. It went up, firing my stuff like, Boom, boom, boom and the lady who was doing the till, she was said, “you in a hurry?” I was like, “No, no, she just let me go ahead of her so I'm trying to fire through this and we'll get it done.” Sometimes people are cool.

Alexs: Yeah. You know we talk about the ways that we can make a difference and I know that one of the things you and I have talked about is how we support veterans and people in the military who are having a tough time adjusting to coming back.

Steve: Yeah. I've got buddies, you got buddies that have gone through and seen a lot of shit. The government systems in place are getting better, but they need to do better. But the best network they have, I think, is the buddy system where you're just gonna…I find that listening and making sure guys get the support they need. You know… I'm not a doctor… it's a medical thing...it's an injury. And you went there doing a job and you got injured. And I need to support my guys through any of that stuff. I can't believe there’s still a stigma to all this.

Alexs: You know, one of the things that I write about in the book, especially when I was in Iraq, I was assigned to the regimental level with the Marine Corps, so, there was a Colonel who ran the regiment. But I spent a lot of my time out at the squad and platoon level, going on foot patrols interacting with Iraqis. One of things I realized really early on is that you have a bunch of people who don't care; they’re there to shoot guns and get home as quickly as they can. But there's always people and I always met a bunch of junior Marines who were into it. They cared about the communities where they worked. They were trying to learn Arabic. They were trying to figure out how to actually help people and that's something that you don't hear a lot about. You hear a lot about military people, just following orders or something like that, but there's also a lot of passion and commitment. And when people have that passion and commitment, they can't just throw it off when they come home.

Steve: No. Well, if you're a good dude, you just can't turn off being a good dude.

Alexs: And so I think you're absolutely right. People need that connection, those relationships and they need somebody to listen to. It's a shame that the help that people need, they don't always feel like they can be open about asking for it.

Steve: I'm glad that… I've had a couple of buddies that have gone through some stuff and it's things that have been accumulating throughout their careers. And then they get to the point where they have a few bad days and then fucking boom. And luckily, they got the help. Guys, I know they're on the mend. All you can do is support them. I'm sure you know about the principles of leadership… And number one in my book... I don't give a fuck...is looking after your dudes. That's your job. You can make machines all day long and punch them out of the fucking factory, but you can't make more dudes. You can fix them

Alexs: So I think for me…I came to understand this when I saw… if you’re an 18 year old who just graduated high school and now you’re a squad leader who's leading engagements with Iraqis, community leaders, you're not equipped with what you need to do that successfully. But also to mentally handle it all. You’re just a kid, right? But you're a squad leader or something like that.

Steve: You're still having weird boners you don't know about. They give you a fucking a rifle and a bunch of fellas you're supposed to be leading and responsible forI can't imagine having to be put in those situations. It's gotta be overwhelming, and I don't know what the U. S military training is like, I would hope that they were prepared as best as they can…

Alexs: Like you said, the military, the government, in a lot of ways is getting better and there are tons of leadership tactics to deal with it. It's just tough, no matter what. And so, I think that was the first time I really started to understand this. When I came home, especially when I came home from Bahrain, it impacted me in a lot of ways. I was working in Bahrain and had a great job, but I was really depressed. That would have been 13 years that I had been back and forth to the Middle East, whether in Yemen or Egypt or Syria.

And like you said, it was an accumulation. After all that time, I didn't deal with a lot of things going on, and I almost went off the deep end. And the only…like we were talking about earlier… those relationships, that camaraderie that you build. That's what saved me, you know. I was able to call my buddy up and be like, “Hey, let's go out” and he would hop in his truck and we go out and t's not a whole lot of questions. If I wanted to talk, then we would talk and if I didn't want to talk and I just wanted to drink beers then we would just drink beers.

Steve: Yeah, fucking shooting a text or whatever you guys did back in those days.

Alexs: It wasn't that long ago.

Steve: Yea, A buddy check. Fucking shoot him a message. When I first started out in Ontario, I was doing some stuff with some guys for a few years and we were part of a team that was always gone.  And that was one of the times when I was living with this chick and she was always give me the gears. I was doing this stuff that I really couldn’t talk about. I couldn’t tell my family about it. That wears on you after years and years. The last four years I was there I didn't sleep in my own bed for at least two of them. Finally, right towards the end when I was leaving, I left on a good terms, which is good, and I didn't lose my fucking shit. But she started losing it on me, so I said, “Okay, you want to know? This is where I was and this is what I was doing.” And I just completely broke down. Finally I decided I need to get the fuck out of this. I need a break.

Alexs: It's hard to really appreciate, not just the toll it takes on you and me, but the toll it takes on the people in our lives. For 13 years I don't think I was in the US for a full year. I was constantly back and forth.

Another thing that we were talking about is the impact that… when people like you and I travel and are gone and can't talk about the things that we're doing…the impact it has on our family and friends. It’s a tough thing for everybody to deal with.

Steve: You know, my folks dealt with it pretty well. Obviously, everybody worries about that stuff and it's just hard to actually get into or keep relationships. Well, I'm here and this is a three-year posting and I can talk about everything I do, which is weird.

Alexs: I think the best thing, certainly the best thing for me, was having people that I could talk to. And sometimes you want to talk, and you want to describe exactly what's going on your head. And some days you don't. You just wanna act like the world's not falling apart in your head.

Steve: I understand that completely. Have you had many people say, “Thank you for your service”?

Alexs: Yeah.

Steve: What's your response to that?

Alexs: I don't know if it's the same for everybody, but my response is that I appreciate it and I understand what they're saying, but it also makes me feel uncomfortable.

Steve: I say, “Thank you for your support” and that's it. Like if you say that, well, it's like saying thank you and you're welcome. So instead of saying you're welcome, it's like “thank you for your support”. And I feel good saying that because I feel good that they said that to me and the reciprocation is there.

Honestly, I've never had such… like the U. S military…I was down in Indianapolis because we were broken down. We were stuck there for weather on our way to Texas with helicopters. Downtown Indianapolis was pretty good. It's not as big of a party city, but I found parties. Yeah, you know, you come out of the hotel downtown, and as I walked to get a coffee at Starbucks, I'm getting fucking dudes. That are sleeping on benches and they’re saluting me and stuff. I'm getting people shaking my hand and I couldn't pay for a coffee.

I was blown away by the support these cities gave to members in uniform. It was really weird. Anytime we're home, we're always in a community that has military and they're like, “Oh, yeah, Here's the military guys” and we’re like, “we're just trying to do good stuff. Chill.”

Alexs: I'm glad you had that good experience.

I'm gonna close it out here and say, thanks a lot, Steve, for joining me. It's been great. You know, one of things that I really wanted to talk with you about is how we support veterans and people in the military. Especially when they're coming back and trying to figure out how to acclimate to life. It's really hard when you're traveling all the time. You're away from your family, and if you can't really talk about what you've done, But I think you hit the nail on the head when you said you just gotta be there. Be there to listen to people and meet them where they are.