"You Can't Save Them All" — 16 Years in Canadian Search and Rescue | The Guardrail Ep. 8 ​

Mitchell Nurse joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1999 and served 16 years. He went through the Royal Military College in Kingston, trained as a pilot at 15 Wing Moose Jaw, and spent five years flying the CH-146 Griffon with 424 Squadron in Trenton on search and rescue — on call, around the clock, for five years straight. In 2010 he deployed to Haiti with Operation HESTIA after the earthquake. In 2015 he left. He moved to Langley, BC, where there is no base, no unit, and no military community. He had one kid and another on the way. Nobody handed him a phone number on the way out the door. Sach and Mitch met in basic training in 2001 and hadn't spoken in more than twenty years. In this episode they talk about what the job actually asked of him, what nobody told him it would cost, and how long it took to build a life on the other side of it. Mitch now runs Mitchell Nurse Productions, a corporate filmmaking company in Langley. ‪@LegionFoundation‬ ‪@pathfinder.project‬ CHAPTERS 0:00 Cold open 7:03 "I didn't know we had a military" 15:52 Four years of basic training: inside RMC 29:58 What search and rescue actually does 35:40 The man in the Ottawa River 44:30 Haiti: two weeks became two months 58:04 An infected toe 1:02:45 Dirty boots, and the morning he knew 1:12:21 Langley: no base, no unit, no network 1:16:35 The first call CONNECT WITH THE LEGION FOUNDATION Facebook:   / legionfoundationbcyukoncommand   Instagram:   / legionfoundationbcyukon   RESOURCES Legion Foundation — Veteran Homelessness Program https://legionbcyukonfoundation.ca/vhp/ Legion Foundation — Leave the Streets Behind Program https://legionbcyukonfoundation.ca/le... Veterans Transition Network — Military Cultural Competency Course A free, self-paced course for professionals working with Veterans https://vtncanada.org/culturalcompete... Built for Zero Canada — Veteran Homelessness Services and national statistics collected in one place https://bfzcanada.ca/veterans/ Veterans Affairs Canada — Mental Health and Wellness https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/mental-... FIND MITCH Instagram:   / mitchellnurse   Website: https://mitchellnurse.com/ The Guardrail Series is produced by Sach In Motion with the Royal Canadian Legion BC/Yukon Command and The Legion Foundation.