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Welcome to The Pilot Project Podcast, your premier source for stories and insights from pilots in the RCAF and mission aviation - brought to you by Skies Magazine! Whether you're an aspiring aviator, navigating flight training, or simply fascinated by the world of military and mission aviation, this podcast is your guide. We sit down with pilots and aviation professionals to hear their thrilling experiences, lessons learned, and expert advice on resilience, training, and the skills needed to succeed in this exciting field. Strap in - we’re ready for departure!
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Bryan:Alright. We're ready for departure here at the Pilot Project Podcast, the best source for stories and advice from RCAF and Mission Aviation Pilots brought to you by Sky's Magazine. I'm your host, Brian Morrison, and here with me again today to talk about flying fighters, combat operations in Libya, and teaching on the fighter lead in training in Cold Lake is lieutenant colonel Andrew Hazno Faith, the current commander of the four hundred sixty ninth Flying Training Squadron at Shepherd Air Force Base in Texas. Andrew, welcome back to the show. I'm really excited to hear about your first tours overseas, and, yeah, great to see you again.
Hazno:Thanks for having me back, Brian.
Bryan:Listeners can check out the first episode to hear about how Andrew got into the military, his experiences in flight training, and getting qualified on the Hornet and the lead up to his first deployment, which was to Libya. Today, we are going to get into that deployment as well as what it was like to come home and then his time instructing with four nineteen on fighter lead in training in Cold Lake. So when we left off, we were talking about how basically you had received very little notice to move and that basically you came home, told your wife I'm leaving in the morning. She had to take your daughter to the hospital as you were leaving, and boom, you're off. You're going overseas.
Bryan:You said when you guys landed that there was some confusion about what you were even doing there. And that happens all the time, I find, because short notice stuff, there's so many moving pieces, there's the diplomatic clearances, there's all this stuff happening. How long did it take to get that cleared up and to sort of get your feet under you for the for the squadron? I think you said that stuff basically arrived right away. Right?
Hazno:Yeah. So we landed and we got right into it. You know, finding hotels, mission planning, me and a colleague of mine, were tasked with trying to get mission materials going. I was tasked with trying to get ATOs, which didn't exist at that point.
Bryan:And just for the listeners, an ATO is a document that you review when you're flying in active airspace like an exercise or an operation. It stands for air tasking order, and it is used by the person in charge of the airspace, the Joint Forces Air Component Commander or JFAQ to coordinate all the different missions and sorties going on and make sure that there are no conflicts.
Hazno:Trying to get targeting imagery and orders done up, so we're just kind of making it up as we go. And then some of the other crew were put in a crew rest to try and adjust the time zone, get ready to fly the first, missions. And, you know, within... I think it was within even forty two or seventy two hours, we'd already launched our, after landing, had launched our first missions, which were DCA, defensive gun air missions, in the region over North Africa, Libya. You know, like the bomb...
Hazno:Like I said before the bombs and the technicians arrived in the C 17, I remember the flight doc, walking off the C 17, with a cooler and said like, hey, where's Hazno and Gogo, the CO? I think it was Gogo. He's like, you guys are behind our immunizations. Okay. And, like, on the on the ramp, we both got vaccinated or whatever.
Hazno:Okay. You're now up to date. You know? Resume combat. And so it was just kind of like interesting.
Hazno:Everybody was just dialed in and Yeah. Mission focused and making it happen and and everyone was just thrilled to be there finally, you know, doing what they trained for. So there was a flurry of activity. I feel like it... The the operations were never as efficient, as when it was only pilots and technicians there.
Hazno:We were... Everybody was doing a job. Everyone knew what to do. It was going smoothly. A month later, we had a whole bunch of others, you know, arrive.
Hazno:The the the operations became larger. There was, you know, support staff arriving. PSB tents went up, you know, then they built a a field kitchen and stuff like that. And I feel like, you know, it became harder to get on off base, you know, for a good reason. But as an operator at that point, it just became a little bit harder, I feel like, to get to the mission, because all the other checks that were put in place.
Bryan:Yeah. It's kind of funny because like when you're lean and mean in a small detachment, like, it's very simple. Right? Like, you take care of all your little needs yourself and then you do the mission and that's it. And everyone's like super focused on that.
Bryan:As the camp size grows, I'm speaking for myself, I'm not putting words in your mouth. Yeah. But we... I know we used to kind of joke and sometimes call certain portions of it a self licking ice cream cone. Like Yeah.
Bryan:There are portions that seem to exist just to exist. Yeah. I know that's not the case, but sometimes it can feel that way when you're the operator.
Hazno:Yeah.
Bryan:And slowly, the focus of the camp sometimes will feel like it's shifting from the mission to the camp. Like, I remember when I was in Op Impact, I was chatting with a bus driver. We were on the way to the dining facility, the DFAC. And I was saying, yeah. You know, we're talking about our families and wives.
Bryan:And I said, yeah. You know, when my wife married me a month ago, she definitely didn't think I'd be flying over Iraq. And he goes, Iraq? You think we're going there soon? And I was like,
Hazno:dude, like,
Bryan:where where do you think these airplanes are going every day? Like, people literally didn't know what mission they were supporting anymore.
Hazno:So Yeah.
Bryan:I I do get what you mean by that for sure.
Hazno:Well, it's funny you say off impact in 2015. I was part of off impact in 2015 as the self licking hashman cone, like you mentioned. I was there in like a task force flight safety officer role. So I very much... I've seen like the pointy end of it arriving into Libya with only pilots and maintainers and how fast and streamlined that is and then arriving into Op Impact years later as part of the larger organization.
Hazno:I I see both sides. Yeah. So
Bryan:Yeah. For sure. And, like, we used to joke on Op Impact because we were there right from the get go on RotoZero, and then more and more stuff arrives. And we used to call it new rule Monday because like there'd always be, oh, as of today, you'll no longer do this. You'll do it this way.
Bryan:You'll use this gate. You won't use that. You'll park here, whatever. And like, to us, it seems arbitrary, but I'm sure as you saw, and we'll talk about that, when you're on the other side of the ice cream cone, let's say, there's reasons for everything. Right?
Bryan:Like, need to be supported as they become a larger operation. Support is is required, that means more people. And that means managing those people and seeing to their needs and all that stuff. It's just sometimes harder to see when you're at the pointy end because you're like, well, this is the focus. But Yeah.
Bryan:You know, it takes a lot more than you think.
Hazno:For sure.
Bryan:So listeners, you know, this was 2011 that we're talking fifteen years ago already, which seems crazy to me. But there's probably some listeners out there who don't remember what this operation was all about. What was the overall goal? What was Canada being asked to do? And where did the squadron fit in?
Hazno:So Libya, a North African country led by Muammar Gaddafi, was a dictator in that region for several several years and was threatening some, his people with genocide type discussion. There was... UN was concerned with some sort of large scale, civilian casualties due to genocide from his loyalists. And so the UN said, okay. We're gonna do a no fly zone over the region.
Hazno:Nothing flies. We're gonna stop the hostilities before the fighting commences. So our initial task was to go there and enforce a no fly zone, for UN. That was for the first several weeks. And then NATO picked it up and NATO took over the mission of enforcing no fly over Libya, to stop this suspected atrocity from occurring.
Hazno:Interestingly enough, I feel like... And now, you know, afterwards thinking upon this, and I was in Australia a few years ago, attending the Australian War College and got a chance to research Libya, after the fact, and I feel like the mission changed from no fly zone, the the tenth of the resolution migrated to regime change. That's what I feel like happened. Our orders changed to, you know, no fly zone. I feel like in order to, and also to support the rebels and target, Gaddafi forces, which is, I guess, easier to execute from a military standpoint, but, I'm not too sure if that was the original intent of of the resolution.
Hazno:So that's what happened, and we were, there bombing, Gaddafi forces, that were moving eastward towards the rebels and and trying to support the rebel advance to overthrow Gaddafi and and maintain order in Libya. After the fact now, Libya is a failed state, you know, a decade or more beyond, so the the outcome was, I feel like, not not awesome, but I think the intentions were pure at the time.
Bryan:Yeah. Unfortunately, as so often it's happened, right, like, with the Western worlds, you know, we're we're straying into dangerous territory here a little bit, but regime change has typically not worked. And it's hard sometimes to look back on going to places and risking your life and, you know, doing the things we have to do and then to look back and be like, well, what was that for? Yeah. Like, I think about guys who went to Afghanistan and how hard that must have been in 2021 when the Taliban took it back in a week.
Bryan:It's tough. But like you say though, you know, sometimes all you can do is look back and say like, the intentions were pure. We were really doing our best to do a good thing. And, you know, you don't have a crystal ball. Right?
Hazno:Yeah. Yeah. In 2011, we... Nobody was telling us what it was gonna be like in 2026. So I think, you know, I think the intentions were were pure at the time.
Bryan:Yep. Yep. I agree. Pure ish. Yeah.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah. As pure as they get on a geopolitical
Hazno:stage. For sure.
Bryan:Also from the perspective of the military, like, you're asked to do a job, and you go and do it unless it's illegal. Right? So you go in, you do what you can to do the right thing and and you and you carry out your mission.
Hazno:Yeah. And I would say, like, it was pretty easy for me at the time, 2011, as a new captain on squadron. I got legal orders and executed without delay. So Yep. At that at that point, it was fine.
Hazno:I think it it gets it's actually more difficult now the longer I'm in the military and the more I see how complicated these things are. But For sure. The time is very easy.
Bryan:Yeah. I mean, I felt the same way about going to Op Impact and, fighting against ISIS. You know, cartoonishly evil people doing awful things to people in public. And, you know... But as time goes on, of course, you have more time to think.
Bryan:You think about all kinds of different aspects and time to stew on it for a decade. Right? Like, it definitely is a different experience when the mission's ten years in the past than when you're out there doing it young and excited and Yep. Carrying out your orders kind of thing.
Hazno:Yeah. For sure.
Bryan:But I think that's just the nature of combat.
Hazno:Yeah. For sure.
Bryan:So we talked about how the initial orders were essentially a no fly zone over Libya. What does enforcing that actually look like? How do you enforce a no fly zone? Is that essentially like, hey, if you take off... Let's say Gaddafi's...
Bryan:I don't know what they had for an air force, but let's say their forces attempted to take off. Like, do you... Is that like, hey, this is a shoot down situation? Or, how does that work?
Hazno:Yeah. Exactly that. And I was airborne when a helicopter from Gaddafi's forces did take off, and we ended up locking them up and attempting to shoot them down, but they ended up landing again on the highway and weren't able to do so. But as simple as that, yeah, you take off, you get shot kind of thing, and then even, you know, aircraft that were parked preparing for takeoff would be bombed on the ground. And then, you know, and then afterwards, it it became...
Hazno:Or in the meantime, it became taking out resources that were used by Gaddafi forces, you know, threatening the locals.
Bryan:And then eventually, you said that mission evolved into bombing targets. Right?
Hazno:Yeah. Pretty quick. I'd say within a week or so, we're bombing targets. My first mission, flying was to go 200 miles. It's called a feet dry, but 200 miles into Libya to take out radar sites, that were that were deep within territory.
Hazno:So within, you know, a week or two, we were already bombing radar sites and munitions factories and, intelligence compounds and all kinds of stuff. So it it very quickly became air to ground.
Bryan:Wow. So your first mission is bombing a ground target, and it's a radar site. And we've talked before with fighter pilots about the training that's involved with a strike mission. We've talked about kind of the low level ingress if you're trying to stay below radar. Like, we talking about you were taking out air to air...
Bryan:Or what would you call it, sorry, for radar that's gonna pick up a fighter, basically?
Hazno:Yeah. Ground based surveillance radars or guidance targeting systems, stuff like that. So... And no, we weren't... At the time, we weren't allowed to go low level.
Hazno:Other nations, I think Britain and France were flying ingressing low level, but we were all capped. Almost everything, it was in the blocks, so 20,000 above.
Bryan:Okay. Did you have, any moments where, like, the pucker factor goes up and you realize, like, this is this is real life now?
Hazno:Yeah. So I got shot at, frequently, triple a, which was, you know, it recurred below. So I didn't... After a while, you kinda got numb to triple a because you just didn't get close. But I did get shot at by surface air missile once, on a mission actually with, Josh Gutierk, who's now living on the International Space Station.
Hazno:But Yeah. We we went through a SAM trap together. That was a very real, real moment in in in that mission. What's a SAM trap? Well, we we were targeting some, I think there were tanks on the ground and it ended up being a trap from Gaddafi forces with SA, service air missiles nearby.
Hazno:When we flew over, we got shot at and, we actually had Yusuf, aircraft nearby that launched, HARM missiles.
Bryan:The AGM 88 HARM or high speed anti radiation missile is an air to surface missile that is designed to home in on the electronic transmissions coming from surface to air radar systems. So essentially, their purpose is to take out surface to air missile installations.
Hazno:To come over and take out the SAMs after we were targeted to destroy those SAMs and then we came back around to bomb the remaining. Wow. It was kind of like a bit of a trap for us.
Bryan:Wow. Wow. So you go in on the target, you get lit up by... Are these MANPADS or are they,
Hazno:Well, that time was in SA 6. Just one shot.
Bryan:And for the listeners, we just rattled off a couple pro words that you may not know if you haven't flown, in a combat environment. A MANPAD is a man portable air defense system. It's basically a shoulder fired rocket that you fire at an aircraft. An SA six is a Soviet missile system. It's the two k one two KUB, which in NATO is reported as the SA six gainful.
Bryan:It is a low to medium altitude surface to air missile or SAM system, and its purpose is to protect ground and armored forces from air attack. So you had a missile tracking you?
Hazno:Well, so my... In the aircraft, you have indication of, you know, missile launch and so we have jammers on board. So my jammers lit up both of them. There's two of them. One jams the teller, one jams the missile, and that...
Hazno:Those were effective. I did as best I can, you know, release... Releasing countermeasures and then very quickly, we're back out over the ocean.
Bryan:What's the feeling there? You got a missile launching at your aircraft. What's that like?
Hazno:I feel like, you know, I was already stressed, you know, like I feel like I was already already kind of scared, you know, and then you get shot at. So I think like it didn't really change the overall, awareness level at that time. And it was so fast, like, you know, it's over before you even know it. And then next thing know, they're shooting the... This HAR missile comes in to the target and then we're back over, drop our weapons off and go home.
Hazno:So it's like you do is what you're trained, you know, it kind of comes through you act. It's almost like a reaction. You do as best you can and then it's all over with. So it's so fast.
Bryan:Was it hard to go back out after that? Like, did it give you any any pause? Like, I imagine you're flying another sortie in fairly short order. So is it tough to go back out after you've had a missile shot at you?
Hazno:No. I don't... I mean, like I said, like every mission, there's the normal apprehension. And I kind of thought that, know, that was wrong, you know, like, shouldn't be scared. But I think not after the fact, like, I think that's pretty normal.
Hazno:Oh, yeah. And I think a lot of people were. And I think the point... The important thing is to do the mission despite the fear, not not the absence of fear. I think absence of fear would...
Hazno:You'd be a robot at that point or or not mentally healthy. So
Bryan:I agree.
Hazno:So we went back on it and, you know, I I didn't really delay. I mean, I was flying the next day afterwards, but again, still aware of the dangers.
Bryan:Yeah. You know, and to your point, Andrew, about fear, I think that's an important thing to realize, especially for people who are going on their first combat deployments. Before I left for Iraq, I was super scared, and that bothered me. I I thought, like, what is wrong with me here? Like, I've trained for this for years.
Bryan:I wanted to be a military pilot since I was, like, a kid, and now I'm finally going to deploy. And I wanted to deploy. I was excited to deploy, but I was scared. And I actually went and, you know, you mentioned that you're a spiritual family. We are as well.
Bryan:I went and spoke with The Padre who had served in Afghanistan. And I told him, like, what is... Like, am I a coward? What's wrong? I I don't know what to do here.
Bryan:Like, I'm leaving soon and I'm scared. And he said, yeah. Of course you are. Like, if you weren't, something would be wrong. Like, it's scary.
Bryan:And I actually had a guy who, had been infantry in Afghanistan who I I knew through a different connection. And, he sent me a message right before I left and said, hey, remember, it's okay to be scared. And I thought, wow. Okay. I guess this is normal.
Hazno:Yeah. And and I wish... We deployed with, you know, eight hours notice, so we didn't have time for anything. But I wish as part of our preparation, some of the experienced people... I mean, we left in 2011.
Hazno:The fighters hadn't deployed a long time prior to that, so maybe the experiences were limited. But I wish somebody would have told me that, like, hey. It's okay to be scared. Mhmm. I think that's important as part of your pre deployment training.
Hazno:I think... I was just like, yeah. Everything you said, I think was very similar to me. I had this kind of stoic type understanding of how I was supposed to be this, you know, this fearless fighter pilot going into harm's way, executing the mission, maybe smoking a cigar on the way back, you know. Yeah.
Hazno:All all that type of stuff. And just... That's just not real. And I I don't... I'm talking to friends and colleagues after the fact, even now, as a squadron commander, I have, people that work for me coming back from Iran and telling me about their experiences, you know, the US Air Force, you know, getting shot at and the rest and how scared they were.
Hazno:And that's just so normal. And I remember at the time thinking that just, yeah, this is not normal. Why am I why am I feeling this way? I shouldn't feel like this. But I wish we would do a better job prepping people for this To be like, yeah, courage is, with fear.
Hazno:Yeah. You know, if you weren't if you weren't scared, you wouldn't be courageous. So there's a requirement for for fear in order to to be a courageous Yep. Warrior.
Bryan:Yeah. I I tell my boys that all the time that you can't be brave without being scared. Like if you weren't scared, you're just kind of going out and doing your thing and like, it would be... You're either you're either crazy or a liar if you're not scared going to fly a combat mission, I think.
Hazno:Exactly. Yeah. No, it's good.
Bryan:So you ended up flying 17 combat missions. Can you just kind of walk us through the process from briefing to getting back on the ground in the debrief? Like, what's involved in flying a combat mission?
Hazno:Yeah. And my combat is probably a lot different than Afghanistan colleagues you were talking about, you know, at least joke war is hell. We were staying at this, pristine Sicilian hotel compound. It was an actual castle that was converted to, you know, rooms, and we had room service come pick up our laundry to try and then drop it back for us. We'd get up in the morning and walk across the road to to get our Caprese salad and sampal and greener water and and have some focaccia and and then stop at a cafe for a a nice espresso en route to get into the into...
Hazno:Onto the the base there and do mission planning. Often fly at night, but it was just such a dichotomy between, you know, flying these nighttime missions, getting shot at, you know, releasing weapons, coming back exhausted, and then you would rejoin this, you know, five star vacation life. It was just the nature of... Because we arrived there with no notice, we just had to book whatever was available right now.
Bryan:Right? Mhmm.
Hazno:So our logistics officer just booked this... Originally, we had different hotels, and then we all got into this compound together, and it just kind of made it happen despite the cost. You know, down the road, I think they had moved out of that hotel to something more reasonable, but it was just a really cool experience. So that was like, would, you know, we'd leave this hotel, we get into work, you know, four hours before we look at target imagery and do mission planning. A lot of his stuff was, you know, SCAR or armed recce.
Hazno:So... What... Sorry. What's SCAR? So SCAR would be, we take off and go find a target and kill it kind of thing.
Hazno:Right? Just hunt and kill hunt and kill or armed Iraqi. And then we had... I don't remember there... I had some AI, which is air addiction, like these pre planned missions where you go in and take out missile factories and stuff like that.
Hazno:So you'd be able to look at imagery and fly a route and plan it to it. You know, that might be... I don't know. The number's a quarter of the missions or less, maybe 50% of missions, you'd you'd fly these preplanned targets. The majority of time, you just take off and see what you find.
Hazno:Mhmm. You know? And... Or get a message. You'd be airborne over Libya, and the Kayak would call in, oh, here's the coordinates ready to copy.
Bryan:A Kayak is a combined air operations center and it's basically the headquarters for all c two or command and control, where they direct and execute allied air and space missions within a combat zone.
Hazno:Okay. Go get them kind of thing. Right? And then you go drop on that or you'd find... I think the majority of time, you just find somebody somewhere, a tank somewhere trying to hide and then you'd ask for permission and drop on it.
Hazno:So I think the good part is that there wasn't a whole bunch of that mission planning beforehand. And then when you did have these... I remember flying part of a four ship, four missions where we flew in and destroyed a a missile compound, and we had planned that they all did the prior. But, you know, it just kind of... Those missions were a lot of work.
Bryan:Yeah. Like, what's the... How long of a day is that in terms of hours?
Hazno:Every day was eleven, twelve hours. We were working really hard. When we first showed up, me and a colleague of mine, we weren't flying for the first five or six days. We're just doing mission planning, and we... Our days were maybe fifteen, sixteen hours at that point just doing nonstop mission planning, trying to get the up and running.
Hazno:But then once you got into a routine, you'd be twelve hours flying or flying type tasks. Your missions would be seven hours duration, six, seven hours of duration, and you'd have, you know, four hours or what, two or three hours before. And then afterwards, you'd have to download the imagery, give the targets to the lawyers and everything else to show the battle damage assessments. And then by that point, you'd trans... Transmit back to your hotel.
Bryan:That's a decent chunk of time in a fighter. Like, five to seven hours, like, you probably got to manage your liquid intake and all that kind of stuff and Yeah. Like, that's got to be somewhat uncomfortable.
Hazno:Oh, yeah. And we had these... They call them long range seat packs. They're supposed to make them more comfortable. But, yeah, you were strapped in.
Hazno:You were sore. It was not comfortable. You had, you know, every hour, hour and a half, had to, you know, safe your seat and relieve yourself and then, you know, collect your bags of liquid there and find a place to store them. And then, you know, every once in while, you'd have a drink when you weren't busy, have a drink of water or a snack. But I don't remember eating that much in aircraft.
Hazno:But I remember getting out of the aircraft being really sore, at that time.
Bryan:So what did you find it was like, you know, you... Before that, it was all basically training or domestic operations. You were flying as what... At this point, like, what position were you within the squadron? You're like a a wingman?
Bryan:Or what's the what's the proper term?
Hazno:So, yeah, I was a wingman. I was just about finished my ultimate lead upgrade and I finished it just after Libya. I had like one or two missions remaining, but at that time, I was a wingman. Yeah.
Bryan:So when it comes to decision making and combat and that kind of thing, like, you basically just playing follow the leader? Is there much independent, decision making going on? Or how does that work?
Hazno:Yeah. I I was at that point, you know, the lowest level at the squadron. So, yeah, I just went where my lead told me and did what he said and brought my bombs with me and dropped them where he wanted them, kind of thing. So...
Bryan:Yeah. You know, did you feel like, okay, that, wow, the training really prepared us for this? Like, was it, pretty similar to training? Or was there any big surprises?
Hazno:I feel like training is more difficult than the war that we are engaged in.
Bryan:Mhmm.
Hazno:I feel like the threat is not as high or this threat was not as high as what we had trained to, you know, during Maple Fighter exercises and stuff like that. Yeah. So I feel like it was easier.
Bryan:But that's good. Right? Like they say, train hard, fight easy?
Hazno:Yeah. Yeah. So I think it really worked out on the... On this mission. Of course, we went up against a more, complicated adversary, then maybe it would be similar.
Hazno:But, we had air supremacy pretty quick there. So
Bryan:So eventually, Gaddafi was killed. Right? They bombed his convoy and the rebels captured and killed him. Mhmm. What was that like for you guys who were who were there?
Bryan:Were you still there at that point?
Hazno:No. I was I was already at home at that point, so I was just witnessing it like everybody else and and kind of relieved that it was over and thinking, oh, this is pretty fast. And at that point, I kind of felt, you know, justified that we had done a great great thing and the humanity was going to improve and things were going to be better for the North Africans. And so, yeah, it was kind of like we celebrated a bit, I guess.
Bryan:Yeah. Well, I mean, that was the mission. Right? Like Yeah. That's that's a mission accomplished moment.
Bryan:Yeah. Hindsight's twenty twenty, but at the time, you know. Yeah. So you did come home. What was coming home like for you?
Hazno:So when I left Libya, it was as short leaving Libya as it was arriving. I think I had the eight hours notice to go to Libya. But when I was there, for some reason, the communication never passed to me that I was about to leave. So from what I remember, me and, you know, Josh Kutrik, my colleague that is... He's now on the ISS, but we were sleeping to get ready for a mission the next day.
Hazno:And I remember somebody knocking on my door at, like, 11AM, and we'd only been sleeping for, you know, three or four hours at a point saying, hey, Hazno, you're late. I'm like, late for what? And they're like, you're late to go home. And I'm like, what? Still like, yeah, pack your bags.
Hazno:You gotta get in the c 17. So I like took all my stuff and I didn't have much stuff because I only had four hours notice or eight hours notice while I'm leaving. So I just threw, you know, a backpack and some stuff in the in the jet when we originally deployed. So I didn't have much to collect. So I collected up my bag of underwear and socks.
Hazno:And then I went to the airport with Josh, and there was a c 17 there. Okay. So we got on the c 17, and I'm like, where are we going? And so we flew to Rome, spent a day there, and kind of... Josh and I told our stories and started to decompress a little bit, right, from what we've been through.
Hazno:Mhmm. And then the next day, we flew, and I think we were supposed to go to Trenton, but they ended up rerouting us to to drop us off in Baggyville. So we landed the c 17 at Baggyville, Josh and I got off. And there was my colleagues in Baggyville 45 squadrons, and they're like, hey, Hazno, you're home. I'm like, yeah.
Hazno:And they're like, can you fly tomorrow? I'm like, yeah. And so that's how it was. And then I flew the next day. And so
Bryan:Holy cow.
Hazno:You know, we're getting... Yeah. So there was no ending a week. 17 missions that dropped to over 20 bombs there, and some of these were... You know, you have the snapper pod.
Hazno:You'd be able to zoom in on what's occurring. Some of these things were quite violent. So there was no, kind of deprogramming that occurred for for whatever reasons. I mean, I think the organization was trying to catch up with how fast this was going. But because there was no, you know, decompressing, I just went right back into flying.
Hazno:This ended up being a little bit of an issue later. Had, like, had more of a moral, separation, moral injury type, event, kind of like a adjustment issue because it was so abrupt. Right? So I had to work that out over the the following years to
Bryan:Yeah. Kinda come to come
Hazno:to terms with what occurred, you know, through the support staff. But after returning to Baggettville, I just flew the next day and it's business as usual, and it's almost like in your mind, it didn't occur. Yeah. Because it's just two months that What's a different world? And then I came back and my wife knew that I was there.
Hazno:So... Because I texted her for... Or called her from, Rome. Hey. I'm gonna be home tomorrow.
Hazno:She's like, awesome. And then I remember meeting my daughter who had just turned one while I was in live... In Italy, but during the operations of Bolivia. And she started crying when she saw me, and that was kinda tough. Like, she didn't wreck...
Hazno:Like, kinda didn't recognize me, but she was one. That is hard. And so... And then that's it. Yeah.
Hazno:That's it. And then, like, I remember a weekend later, I was flying an air show in Ontario and, you know, like, just... It's like it never happened. So it's it's really, really weird.
Bryan:Wow. Yeah. Coming home is always weird.
Hazno:Like Yeah.
Bryan:It's... Especially because on these... Like, how long were you in Libya or flying over Libya?
Hazno:We were there for two, about two months.
Bryan:Yeah. So, you know, like two, three, four months. Like, my tours were four and three months. You're there for a decent chunk of time, long enough to get into the cycle of things. But it's not long enough that you get, like, a huge chunk of leave after or you get what they call HLTA, which is when you get, like, a trip home.
Bryan:So all of a sudden, you're back home and there's no, like, decompression stop. Like, you know, the guys coming back from Afghanistan, they used to stop in, I think, Cyprus for Yeah. A week or two. And they would hang out with their whole unit and they could all talk about what they went through and decompress and, like, not that that's enough time either, but it's better than nothing. And a lot of time for these air combat tours, you're there for a couple months and then you're home.
Bryan:And then it's right back into the grindstone, which can be really tough. And it's a hard adjustment for you. It's a hard adjustment for the family. And for guys like you who had... Have kids, like I remember a colleague of mine who I was very close with, we left and his boy could barely talk.
Bryan:And we came back and he ran up to him and said, hi, daddy. The car is over here. Yeah. And that was real... That was really tough.
Hazno:Wow. Yeah.
Bryan:So you talked about a moral injury. Was that mostly from, like, the the stuff you saw? You know, you're talking about bombs hitting targets, I imagine. I don't want to get too graphic, but probably talking about, you know, seeing people get hit by bombs and things. Was it that kind of thing?
Bryan:Was it the abruptness of the transition? Like, what do you think led to you having some issues?
Hazno:I think it's a combination of... Now that I can process things, I think it was a combination of two, two things that wasn't aware at the time. I was a Christian fighter pilot or still am a Christian. And just trying to combine the two things, my Christianity with the violent nature of combat, was the moral injury side of it. You know, how you put that back together when you rejoin society.
Hazno:I found that difficult. And then also the adjust... Adjustment piece of it. So going from high tempo, high end combat operations and twenty four hours later being a dad again, like, rejoining the family. I think that was two parts of it that made it difficult.
Hazno:I was able to work through all this, you know, to follow because, getting on top of things. My wife's a psychologist as well. We would be able to chat things through and
Bryan:Oh, good.
Hazno:Nice. With the podrary and just kind of, you know, unpack the bags is what they call it now. Right? Just slowly unpack it. I think that's important to do that, especially with the way we returned to Canada.
Hazno:There was, you know, no decompression period, which is really important. But just to keep working through it and consolidating what occurred with what your values are and, you know, what the the future is gonna gonna be. I mean, not everybody reintegrates well or uses unhealthy mechanisms for dealing with these difficult situations. So I think it's really important just to process these things, with professionals if required, to to get back to a healthy state. It's a...
Hazno:A lot of this stuff, as I learned, is is a normal reaction to a... Not a normal situation. Right? Like, high end combat operations are not normal. No.
Hazno:And so if you have... If you don't have normal reactions or what you consider normal reactions to that, that's fine. Mhmm. You know? And I also feel that, you know, everybody's, reaction and processing rate is different.
Hazno:So... Totally. Just follow the journey Yeah. I think would be would be the... What I learned from that.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah, man. I totally agree. And so much of what you've just said is is so important for people to hear who are going to go through these situations because like I, you know, I ended up with long lasting mental health issues from my tours. I have colleagues who were completely fine, and I've seen everything in between that.
Bryan:And and all of that's okay. Like, you just have to kind of deal with the hand that you're dealt and remember that, like, every single person, they have different experiences. They also experience the same things differently. And, however you react to it, like, that's okay. You just have to go deal with it.
Bryan:And Yeah. What, what were the warning signs for you? Like, how did you start realizing like, hey, something's off here?
Hazno:Yeah. Was hypervigilant for a while after returning. You know, waking up a few times after, it didn't last very long, but just, the hypervigilance that lingered and also just like, you know, the thoughts about how to process this through the intrusive, flooding thoughts, I guess. And I think, you know, it's important for those who are involved in service of their country that, you know, these sort of states are transitionary or can be transitionary in nature. You're not broken.
Hazno:Yeah. There's there's ways to repair these things. For sure. And and return to... And often stronger then.
Hazno:Right?
Bryan:Like, you
Hazno:know, the post traumatic growth that comes from this thing that really neat thing from whatever... Wherever you are or wherever you are in this journey, like you often return stronger. So, you know, just work through the work through the tools.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah, man. I I totally agree and I think that this is a great example. You know, you and I had somewhat similar experiences, somewhat similar reactions. I ended up stopping flying, you kept flying.
Bryan:I would still say though, for me, it's been a good path because I know for sure I'm a better person than I was ten years ago and a lot of that is through the work I've had to do since and you got to keep flying. You you grew through the experience. And I agree. Like, it is important to remember, like, you're not you're not broken. There's there's a rough road ahead sometimes, but, you know, eventually the path gets smooth again.
Hazno:Yeah.
Bryan:What was it like, for your wife when you came home? I know sometimes one of the most challenging things is that, you know, your family kind of adjust to you not being there and all of a sudden you're there again.
Hazno:I think this one was in two months in Libya. It was pretty quick. So it was almost like I was on a TD, temporary duty away, almost like an exercise. Years later, fifteen, I was in, in the operations against Iraq, but in Kuwait, and they was there for six months. And that one was a harder one to integrate because after the six months in Kuwait, she did get used to me being away.
Hazno:Right? And I was no longer part of the the family at that point. You know, she had to learn how to do everything by herself. And so coming back from Kuwait, I think it was more difficult. I had...
Hazno:There was different roles that were established and I had to reintegrate again. But Libya was pretty quick, and I think it was pretty smooth to reintegrate. Okay.
Bryan:So we're about to talk about you teaching young fighter pilots and aspiring fighter pilots. What lessons did you take home from Libya that stayed with you and that you teach to young pilots?
Hazno:Yeah. I would say we talked previously about, you know, it's okay to be scared. That's important. You know, you do the mission despite of that. That's that's required, you know, to be scared and still still act like you've been trained and and fulfill the objectives.
Hazno:And then the second thing that I learned, later on is, you know, and I learned this in Australia during the Australian War College was that war is merely a continuation of policy by other means is Klauswitz is the German story and that we learned about. And and that was, I think, evident in Libya after the fact. So I try and bring that into the students that, you know, when I'm teaching that you're you're at the operational level, you're executing mission, you do operate in accordance with your authorities and legalities, but just be aware that there's this bigger machine that's occurring interaction between the politics and military with national strategic objectives, and you're part of this larger structure.
Bryan:Mhmm. Yeah. Ultimately, the military is just a means of a country to exert political influence, essentially. When when all other methods have failed, in goes the military. Right?
Hazno:Yeah. And and the... And probably the worst tool as well. The least effective tool would be to use war. But, yeah, it's just, you know, politics bother me.
Hazno:Yeah. Yeah.
Bryan:So after this, you went from four two five to four zero nine squadron, I believe, is first. Right?
Hazno:Yep. Did a brief stop at four zero nine squadron.
Bryan:Yep. And then right over to four nineteen to instruct on FLT, on fighter lead in training. So can you walk us through that transition and, and what that was like for you?
Hazno:Yeah. So I moved from Baggyville back to Coal Lake, as if we never left. You know, it just felt like we never left. Anyway, he's going back into Coal Lake. And got a new house in Echo Lake North this time.
Hazno:We got settled. I started teaching in 04/19. And I was just kind of amazed at how fast, you know, the FA team experience had moved on and transitioned from, doing the job to teaching others to do... Be the job and kind of very much adamant that at this point now I'm supporting others to to do the the mission. So, really, really enjoyed my time at four nineteen Squadron.
Hazno:Got a chance to do some supervisory type things and courses that set me up to... For the career that I'm at now. So, great experience for sure.
Bryan:What was it like to go from like this operational mindset and setting to go back into an instructional world? Because I think the biggest distinction I always hear from people is like, operations is about getting the job done. Right? And sometimes you're not as worried about the finesse pieces. Partly because kind of like you mentioned earlier, it's assumed.
Bryan:It's assumed that you're gonna be able to do all that stuff. We're focused on the mission. You go back to instructing and now it's about the finesse. It's about all the details. So what...
Bryan:What's that like to transition back to that?
Hazno:Yeah. You're definitely back in the schoolhouse. So, you know, you're harping on students for things that, yeah, you would be assumed when you're operationally, but are very important. And you're investing in others. I think it very much became all about the student from that point afterwards, at least I tried to make it all about the student.
Hazno:So... And which was tough because I wanted to spend more time on the F-eighteen, but here I am being ordered back to instruct. So I had to, in my mind, make a transition from it's not about me anymore, it's about others, you know, and that's kind of tough when I wanted it to be about me a bit longer. Mhmm. So, but then, you know, after teaching for a while, you you realize that, hey, there's value in that.
Hazno:You're you're preparing the next generation. It's a great job. You get to fly away a lot and it's exciting. So embrace it for what it was and end up really enjoying it in four nineteen Squadron.
Bryan:What was it like to move back off of the f eighteen and be in the Hawk again? I'm sure you probably missed the f eighteen. Did you find that you were able to enjoy your time being on like a, you know, a less powerful aircraft?
Hazno:Yeah. Once you got over, you know, the initial shock of it, you know, you're back instructing, I I think you could decide to be unhappy the whole time or Oh, of course. Just... Or decide that, hey, this is, you know, big picture, really great job. So I think I made that decision pretty early and, I mean, get to fly a single engine fighter trainer two times per day and go away on the weekends, you know, if you want.
Hazno:It's all good. And, also, like, you know, didn't have the weekend QA stuff and the last minute deployment, so it was stable chance to be home with the family and take advantage of those things. So I tried to really embrace it for the positives quickly. Mhmm.
Bryan:Yeah. And it's funny because, man, so many of us... This is our dream job. Right? Like, you work for some for some of us, like, since you were a teenager.
Bryan:Right? Whether it's through air cadets or whatever, You know, you go through all this stuff. You apply. You manage to get in. Like, hopefully, the trade's not closed, whatever.
Bryan:Some people wait years. You get it. You go through all the training. You get qualified. And and then you're doing this dream job, and then it becomes a job.
Bryan:And it's becomes this thing that's, like, so easy to complain about or to not appreciate anymore. And, like, I wish something that I had realized better while I was in was that whole attitude of thankfulness and, like, the attitude of, like, this is a great job. Like, even if it's not exactly what I want it to be right now, I'm still flying some kind of crazy machine that most pilots in Canada would love to be flying. Like, there's so there's so much to be grateful for if you can just focus on that attitude of of having a good attitude.
Hazno:Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree with you, Brian, there. I think I think I think you nailed it. At some point, you do have to decide.
Hazno:Right? And that's up to you. Whatever it is. And, you know, in reality, we are the most, blessed sect of society, high paying jobs, doing what we love, doing our... Following our dreams.
Hazno:Like, what percentage of society gets to have a dream, fulfill it, and do it for a living? Like Yeah. Talk to your colleagues. It's kind of not a thing. Right?
Hazno:So you might as well smile. One thing that I'm learning now after twenty five years of service next month is... And it's almost like a cliche, you know, as we're... I feel like I was a student in Moose Jaw learning how to fly and some old guy was saying, hey. Just, you know, when you snap your fingers, it's gonna be over.
Hazno:I'm like, okay. Whatever, boomer. Right? Yes. That's that's not gonna be me.
Hazno:And here I am twenty five years of service. And my message to those listening, if you're a new pilot in the RCF is you snap your fingers and it's twenty five years on the road. And I I don't know how that occurs or what that is or maybe that's just my concept of time now is that I'm down the road twenty five years. But I think if if I could give any advice is just like really try and enjoy your, first ten years in the military for like soak that up, take a breath, take a moment, write some things down, you know, because it goes by so fast. And I think, you know, that matching of age and ability with, operational experience, you know, you're young flying fighters if that's the path you choose.
Hazno:You're 28 and flying an f 18. Like, there's there's a medical part to it. There's an aged part to it. There's an expertise part to it, and there's just like a life experience that all of it's lining up in a really unique part in your life. And at some point, you're gonna reflect back at your twenties as just really appreciative of that.
Hazno:So just try and really embrace it and enjoy those times, whatever it is.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah, man. I I agree so much with that. Like, you know, take pictures where where you can and it's allowed.
Hazno:Yeah.
Bryan:Write a journal, or or keep notes or something of the stuff you can so you can look back and reflect on it because it does go by so fast. Like Yeah. It is wild to me to think that my tours that still feel like they were recent are Yeah. Twelve and eleven years ago now. Like, that's insane.
Bryan:And and before you know it, you literally go from, like, the young guy new on the scene, like, learning and, you know, looking at... Listening to the old old salts and then, like, all of a sudden, you're the person giving out advice. Yeah. And that's... It's weird.
Bryan:It happens really fast.
Hazno:Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
Bryan:One of the benefits you mentioned about being at four nineteen was you didn't have to hold the queue anymore, the the QRA, the quick reaction alert. What was your experience like actually flying those missions? That... That's in support of NORAD that involves typically, intercepts or air sovereignty. What's that like?
Hazno:Yeah. So I did, mostly, like the classic QRA missions right at Cold Lake. You know, those missions that we'd launch, you know, late at night or midnight or one in the morning, and we'd launch heading northbound, eventually over the Arctic Coast, you know, Inuvik and north of that to try and get information on Russian bombers, bear aircraft that are inbound, just threatening Canadian sovereignty, and scare them away and or provide data to the National Intelligence Collection, metric. It's taking off and at night on goggles and then hitting tankers and doing like a two two plus hour transit to Inuvik, which is, you know, boredom interspaced with tanking every four to five minutes or so, and then, you know, just holding up a cap, running fuel calculations. So most of it is just tedious mental work about how much fuel you have and where you can go and Mhmm.
Hazno:And waiting. So most of it isn't, you know, as exciting as flying combat operations. It's more like longer missions, but, you're in that jet for a long time. I remember those missions being like eight hours plus, flying there. You're running out of snacks, running out of water pretty quickly, and, and the rest.
Hazno:They're important missions, but they're they're long kind of tedious type missions.
Bryan:How do you stay focused when it comes to like a a longer, slower mission? Because like on the Aurora, I just chat with my buddies. But obviously, I don't know. Do you guys have like a discrete frequency that you can chat back and forth on? Or what do you do?
Hazno:No. There was not a whole lot of chatting. I mean, we do have, like, at that point at, you know, different frequencies, several different radios we could talk to. But I don't remember what I did to entertain myself, look out the window. I actually can't remember what happened, but, you know, it
Bryan:ends Just go into a fugue state for five hours.
Hazno:Yeah. Exactly. Just detach with reality for a while. Yeah.
Bryan:We kind of touched on this before, but back into the instructional world, you've got this combat experience. Would you say... Was there anything other than... Like, we talked about kind of the mindset and and it... Having students understand like, hey, it's okay to be afraid.
Bryan:Was there any practical skills or things about what it is like to actually fly in combat that you wanted students to understand before they got to an operational squadron?
Hazno:Yeah. Like, tried to, when I came back to four nineteen, I tried to pass on the mess... A message like, hey, guys. Here you are about to, you know, finish four nineteen squadron and go to the f eighteen. And just so you're aware, the f eighteen is purpose is to blow stuff up.
Hazno:Right? Like, it's the violent arm of the RCF
Bryan:Mhmm.
Hazno:Mission violence. And I feel like I tried to be a bit of a gatekeeper for those that thought the f 18 was built for air shows. Mhmm. That's not true. And I think we had evidence of that in 2011 and beyond that, hey, like, when the government of Canada asks for, this very expensive platform, you know, within hours notice, you're gonna distribute violence as Canada sees fit.
Hazno:So I tried to make that clear to students and I had several students that said, you know what? This is not for me. I'm gonna call it here before 04/19 starts and I'm gonna do something different. Thanks for the message. Right?
Hazno:But I tried to convey that.
Bryan:That's important though. Like, good good for you and good for them because, I think it takes some fortitude to stand up after being with your colleagues for years and saying, I'm going Jets, I'm going Fighters, and then to say, you know what? Actually, I'm not. Like, good to realize that then than when they're about to get deployed to Iraq Yeah. Or Libya For sure.
Bryan:Or wherever. Right? And Yep. You know, that's gotta be hard to change course like that. But I think it's really easy to be disconnected in Canada from the fact that we carry out combat operations because they are kind of few and far between and we have a small military.
Bryan:So like you don't tend to know a ton of people who've kind of been there and done that. And we end... We often have these like long periods of peace. Yeah. And then all of a sudden we're in a combat operation for like a year and it's like first time every time.
Bryan:And Yeah. Then it stops and we move on. And, you know, like how many people now, guys who went to Afghanistan are the old timers telling war stories. Right? Like
Hazno:Yeah. And that's such a it's such a different experience with my current job now. It's the commander of a squadron composed of 14 nations, and two thirds of the squadron is American. And I find the American operational tempo to be, like, frequent with operation deployments and the fighter pilots that are part of my squadron have multi toured, and they're just so used to combat operations because it's just ingrained in their their national structure and and policy. And so people are coming back with multiple tours and I'd say that the norm for my US fighter pilot, people serving on my squadron is multiple tours or several tours.
Hazno:It's just it's just part of the job. And I think they're there... It's easier for them to know that, hey, when I become a fire pilot, I'm to be used for combat operations.
Bryan:For sure.
Hazno:I think just just like you say, because it's not as frequent in Canada, I think that message is not as clear.
Bryan:Well, I think also the US military is explicitly a combat military. US history is full of affecting foreign policy through combat. And Canada... You know, the Canadian military has often... Has always had kind of an identity crisis since, like, Korea almost.
Bryan:Are we a peacekeeping nation? Are we a combat nation? Is is peacekeeping real or is it just a form of, you know, ill equipped combat? Yeah. There...
Bryan:There's there's kind of a whole identity piece there that the Americans kind of... They know what they're there for. Right? Yeah. What's better or what's worse is a whole other discussion.
Bryan:Yeah. But it's definitely different mindsets.
Hazno:No.
Bryan:In 2015, you deployed to Kuwait supporting operations against ISIS in Iraq as the Air Task Force Flight Safety Officer. What did that job actually involve? Was there any flying for you? Was it purely support?
Hazno:I did some flying with the Aurora aircraft, and I did some flying in the air to air air refueling, their... Our Husky aircraft. I did some flying in both just to kind of watch the operations and investigate some safety concerns slash get off the camp for a bit. You know? We were like
Bryan:For sure.
Hazno:Stuck stuck on LL Jabber for a long time. So I did some flying of it, but I was, you know, in the cockpit, never at the controls, always a passenger.
Bryan:Mhmm. Out of curiosity, 2015, when when were you there?
Hazno:I think I arrived in May and I left in December.
Bryan:Okay. I got there in May as well in 2015 for my second tour, in Al A El Salim. So May until August, I was there. I wonder if we flew. There's a decent chance.
Bryan:Yeah.
Hazno:I did fly in a nine hour mission. So maybe you were in the... Maybe we chatted because I, on the missions, I flew in the Aurora. I was always in the cockpit chat with the Airkrugs. Oh, that's funny....
Hazno:On the same aircraft.
Bryan:We'll have to look at our log books and see if we are up on the same day. Well, I guess yours wouldn't be in your log book, but...
Hazno:I didn't log that sortie, but yeah, we could probably figure it out.
Bryan:You know what? We'll stick it in in post. We'll let them know. We'll let the audience know because I'm sure they're burning with curiosity. Yeah.
Bryan:Hey, guys. This is post edit Brian. Unfortunately, we looked it up and his flight was not during my tour. We did have many people come fly with us over Iraq, so I thought there was a pretty good chance. But we confirmed it and it was during a month I was not there.
Bryan:Those flying missions were just purely, to kinda, you know, get the lay of the land and look at things from a flight safety perspective. What did the job of air task force flight safety officer actually involve?
Hazno:Yeah. So I had flight safety officers from each of the attachment, the fighter attachment, the rod attachment, and refueling attachment, sending flight safety reports to me, and I would oversee those reports and do some investigations and also staff those reports back to Canada and then report to the task force on the safety concerns to the commander so they could take appropriate actions. I also had a cell phone on me they would call if there was safety concerns. I ended up flying into Iraq, Erbil, to investigate, some... A fighter incident there as part of my assignment.
Hazno:So that was that was pretty interesting. But to be honest, you know, you talk about being a self licking ice cream cone. I feel like in six months in Iraq, I feel like you could jam all the work I did to like... Into like three weeks, to be honest. I didn't have a whole lot to do, which was actually very stressful.
Hazno:Like, you know, it's it's hard... I find it hard to be away from home and being bored. Of course. Never really had experience with that because I was always, you know, just very busy in Fighters, but like a chance to be bored in the desert for a long time in service, was actually tough, difficult.
Bryan:Well, you had... How many kids do you have at that point?
Hazno:Two for sure. Yeah. Two. Yeah.
Bryan:I mean, you know, two two kids and a wife and you're away for six months. And if you're not feeling like you're doing a ton, like Yeah. You know, when you're away and you're busy and you're doing the mission and stuff, it's like, okay, I'm here for a purpose.
Hazno:Yep.
Bryan:It's gotta be tough if things are a little slower. I mean, the other side of that coin is that as a flight safety officer, the busier you are, that's not a good thing. Yeah. And you're there for an important role, but you're only there as needed. So it's kind of the nature of that job, I think.
Hazno:Yeah.
Bryan:Out of curiosity, did you find the different communities had a different approach or attitude towards flight safety, or did you find it was pretty uniform, like, across the RCAF?
Hazno:No. There were some differences. I'd say the fighter detachment was, you know, mission focused dropping weapons, and so they were very pragmatic about, how they're approaching things. And then, their... The refueler had like a military slash civilian interface there, so that was a bit different.
Hazno:And I think, from what I feel like, the Aurora was kind of more by the book and went through the process and with more complete reports. From... That's what I remember from that experience. Yeah.
Bryan:That sounds about right. Like the Aurora community tends to be a very systematic... What's the word? Yeah. I think by the book.
Bryan:By the book is a is a really good way of putting it in that community for sure. It's very... A very rules based society. Yeah. Funny thing, though, I do remember from my first tour when we were first getting there, flight safety wise, you know, you're getting your feet under you.
Bryan:For a lot of us, was our first combat tour. And I remember they had a big sign up on the flight safety officer's door for our debt that said sapphire, which is for the audience's surface to air fire. It said sapphire events are not flight safety because somebody filed a flight safety report the first time someone got shot.
Hazno:Yeah. Yeah.
Bryan:Yeah. It's it's it's interesting. Something we touched on before was this idea of coming home after a longer tour and how that can be challenging. How was that one for you and your wife? You had two kids at this point.
Bryan:She had to get along without you for six months. What was it like coming home?
Hazno:This one was, you know, I think is a bit tougher to reintegrate. She had... Was doing everything for the last six months and then now I'm back and I was trying to take my roles back. But, you know, not all the roles returned to me because she was used to doing it all by herself. So Mhmm.
Hazno:It took a bit longer and just be patient. We had to be patient with, you know, what the new roles were going to be like, what the... Who's... What the new lines are going be established as. So, you know, the longer you're away, I think it's the more the more difficult it is to reintegrate.
Hazno:So that one was... Like took longer than Libya.
Bryan:Yeah. I think would be counterintuitive to someone who who hasn't deployed maybe. And the reason I wanted to ask that is because you might assume like, well, a combat tour, it's going to be way harder to come home versus a support tour. But something that a lot of people don't expect, like, think they're going to come home, it's going to be this big party, everyone's overjoyed and everyone... Everything's going to be great and we'll just go back to normal.
Bryan:It just doesn't usually work that way. And Yep. Very, very common point of friction is people who come home and expect it to work that way. Yep. And that's where a lot of people run into issues, especially in marriage because they come home and they say, okay, I'm back.
Bryan:Let's go back to normal. And it just doesn't work that way.
Hazno:Yeah. For sure.
Bryan:Yeah. We've talked a lot about your operational time here, your time instructing, your time in combat. If you were to talk to a young pilot today who was about to deploy on their first combat tour, what advice would you give them?
Hazno:I'd say bring lots of socks. That would be... When I went to Libya, I didn't have enough socks, so I had to ask for that to be shipped later. I would say, like you said, take lots of pictures. I think that's kind of a weird advice.
Hazno:But, for me, 28 year old Hazno didn't care about pictures.
Bryan:Mhmm.
Hazno:Now I care about pictures. I want to remember those things. So that would be advice. Take lots of pictures, bring lots of socks, write lots of stuff down, and and enjoy the ride. I think you don't...
Hazno:I think, you know, they say... What is the expression? Youth is waste on the wasted on the young. Is that the right expression? Yeah.
Hazno:Think when you're young, you just don't care. Right? Because you're... Yeah. That's the way it is.
Hazno:Just try and think about future self, you know, when you're doing these things. What would feature... And that's hard, I think, for, like, a 20 person. But try to think about 40 you and how they wanna remember this and and just try and capture those memories, whatever that is.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah. Because, like, you're gonna wanna be able to tell your kids about that one day and to look back and be like, hey, look, there I am. I have all my hair and I'm Yeah. I'm in whatever country and, you know, like, definitely for me getting out medically, so a little earlier than I planned, when I was getting out and I was going back through my pictures, I thought, man, I wish I had more of these.
Bryan:Like, I wish I had more to look back on.
Hazno:Yep. For sure.
Bryan:I think that's really good advice. Okay, Andrew. That is gonna wrap up part two of our chat. I really appreciated you kind of getting into some of the the after effects of deploying and the challenges you faced. I think it's a really important topic and I really appreciated that.
Bryan:I'm really, really looking forward to getting into kind of the training side of things in the next couple episodes. I think we've got some really cool conversations ahead about flit and kind of the future of jet training in Canada and, and what you're doing down in The States because I think that's a really unique position as well. So thank you for your time. Thank you for being here, and we will talk to you soon.
Hazno:Thanks for having me, Brian.
Bryan:Okay. That is going to wrap up part two of our chat with lieutenant colonel Andrew Hazno Faith, the current commander of the four hundred and sixty ninth flying training squadron at Shepherd Air Force Base in Texas. Now we will be coming back to Andrew's story to talk about his time instructing as well as for a discussion on fighter lead in training or FLT and how that is currently running in Canada, how the future might look. But for the next two weeks, we're going to jump over to a series leading up to Remembrance Day. Everybody in Canada knows who the Snowbirds are, but have you ever heard of the Red Knight?
Bryan:Residents of Winnipeg will know that there is a Red Knight t 33 on a post along Portage Ave. Next week, we will be sitting down with Darwin Tex Deignan. We were put in touch with him by a listener. Tex retired from the air force back in 1980, but he has a massive volume of experience with just over 24,000 flying hours, and he's qualified on 38 aircraft types. We will be sitting down with him, going through his career, talking about what Remembrance Day means to him.
Bryan:We'll do that for two weeks, and then we will come back to Andrew Has No Faith to wrap up the series on Flit. Do you have any questions or comments about anything you've heard in this show? Would you or someone you know make a great guest, or do you have a great idea for a show? You can reach out to us at The Pilot ProjectPodcast@Gmail.com or on all social media at at pod pilot project. And be sure to check out that social media for lots of great videos of our RCAF and mission aviation aircraft.
Bryan:As always, we'd like to thank you for tuning in and ask for your help with the big three. That's like and follow us on social media, share with your friends, and follow and rate us five stars wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for now. Thanks for listening. Keep the
Hazno:blue side up. See you.
Bryan:Engineer, shut down all four. Shutting down all four engines.