I’ve had the opportunity to report on both the Canadian Forces and America’s military—including veterans issues. I wrote stories about the war against ISIS, the impact of Canada’s Afghanistan commitment, and how 9/11 heroes are remembered in Silicon Valley.

While based in Courtenay, B.C., I frequently reported on 19 Wing Comox, which featured a search-and-rescue contingent, as well as engineers who participated in the war against ISIS. While there, I interacted (on the tarmac) with a pilot who participated in the NATO campaign in Libya, and even got to ride in a WWII training plane while writing about a veteran of that war.

In California, I reported on the deployment of the National Guard to Los Angeles for my YouTube channel (garnering more than 300 hours of watch time), maintained positive relations with the local Veterans Memorial & Support Foundation as editor of the Los Gatan newspaper, and wrote about efforts to help homeless veterans in Santa Cruz County for the Scotts Valley Press Banner newspaper.

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Scope

  • Honoring embargoes
  • Source development
  • Historical research
  • Video production
  • Asking tough questions in a respectful manner
  • Mental health issues
  • Funding announcements
  • Localizing international stories

Highlights

  • Coverage of 9/11 memorial ceremony in the hometown of Todd Beamer and Mark Bingham, who were famously on Flight 93.
  • Breaking the news of the number of local service members who were heading from their Vancouver Island home to fight ISIS.
  • Shared information about mental health resources available to Canadian Forces members based at 19 Wing Comox, following a series of suicides in the ranks.
  • Reported on the first-ever joint US Air Force and US Navy flyover at a Super Bowl, in Feb. 2026 (amid anti-ICE protests), for the Los Gatan newspaper.

A few clips

Mountain community spruces up homeless housing project

New Veterans Village sign completed on Veterans Day: Improvement to housing site for past service members courtesy of Vietnam vet and brewery founder

Ben Lomond resident Rick Moran, 74, served on a U.S. Navy “fast attack” submarine in the Gulf of Tonkin. No, not during the “Incident” that caused America to become more ensnared in combat in Vietnam and the surrounding region in the middle of last century, but rather a few years later, as the war raged on.

After he got out, he became commander of the so-called “Maverick” 5888 Veterans of Foreign Wars post.

“We were the post for peace,” said Moran, recalling his advocacy against U.S. military incursions in Central America in the 1980s.

But in the lead-up to Veterans Day this year, he set out on a different mission: creating a new sign for the Veterans Village site north of Felton along Highway 9.

Moran said he was happy local organizations had come together to convert the former Jaye’s Timberlane Resort cabins into places where homeless veterans could move in.

“I was glad to see there was some kind of attempt to deal with that issue,” said Moran, adding he thought the current Veterans Village banner by the entrance was insufficient. “It just didn’t look proper.”

Hometown of “9/11 heroes” remembers

“Extraordinary acts on behalf of ordinary people,” reads the plaque at the 9/11 Memorial in Los Gatos that commemorates the actions of hometown heroes Todd Beamer and Mark Bingham. They were two of the people known as the Americans who brought down Flight 93 in the midst of the September 11, 2001 terrorism attacks.

Here is the longform video I created to go with the article I wrote about the memorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDBYLrBAiqI

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”

Alan AdamsCEO, Essential Company