Jarrin Jackson, an Oklahoma Republican congressional candidate, told conservative radio host Steve Deace on Friday that his service in the Army guarding the Afghanistan-Pakistan border was like guarding the U.S.-Mexico border “except for we were allowed to shoot ‘em.”

During the interview, Jackson discussed his two tours of service in Afghanistan. “The first go-around, I was a platoon leader just a few miles away from the Pakistan border,” he said, “and really, what we were doing was shore up a porous border kind of like, imagine our southern border, except for we were allowed to shoot ‘em.”