The corruption comes when you start mixing gangsters with child molesters and purposely setting them up.

We were staged inside of the visiting with the 40 millimeters while we got 20 gangsters, 10 on this side, 10 on this side, and walked them into the building knowing that they were gonna all fight.

It erupted and I start shooting the dude.

Boom, boom, boom.

I hit a dude like five times up the leg.

Boom, boom.

You ready?

Straight dude.

All right, bro.

We Hector Bravo, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

We're gonna have some interesting conversations today for multiple reasons.

One, I want to dive into your service of joining the army.

Yes, sir.

And you got deployed for overseas for a little bit.

You did a pump over there where you guys were in some quite a bit.

And so you ended up losing, I think your corpsman and.

Yeah, or medic.

Your medic.

Sorry, same thing.

Corman.

Medic.

Army is the medics.

And then after that, after you're getting out, you kind of went through your life, kind of spiraled for a little bit with.

With substance abuse and kind of led you down some.

Some bad paths.

Yep.

Before becoming a correctional officer, which that's what I want to talk the most about today is because I feel our correctional facilities are some of the most corrupt establishments in this country as far as just what goes on in them.

The money and this, everything, what it's built around.

And you ended up building yourself through two different prison systems.

You ended up getting promoted to lieutenant, sir, which you were like the SWAT team commander.

You come very highly decorated and you've gone through all the phases of the correctional facility before making it pretty close to the top.

Next in line was Captain.

That's when you discovered the corruption inside of the California correctional facilities, where you ended up quitting, ended up leaving and walking away because you didn't want to be part of that corruption.

So we got a lot to unpack, and that's what I'm looking forward to because I've had some inmates on and they talk about what goes on inside as far as the correctional facility advise and how corrupt it is.

So to hear correctional officers agreeing with

inmates, that's what's going to trip you out.

We agree on a lot of things.

Yeah.

So that's what I want to dig into.

So.

Okay, Hector.

Oh, before we get started, we're gonna send you home with a fresh baked loaf of sourdough.

We got some really cool flavors that we just dropped for the holidays.

So you get to go home and start it as a homeschool project for our kids.

Ended up Turning into a business.

And now with the support of everybody, you get a nice fresh loaf.

We ship all over the country.

It's from the Sour Bee.

Then I'm gonna send you home.

I got you a Linear.

I know you're a gym guy.

You hit the gym this morning.

Linear is an awesome veteran owned company.

He's here local.

They make some really great lifestyle fitness apparel.

And then I'm gonna send you home with a wild chaos tea.

Appreciate that, man.

Thank you.

Swag to rock down to San Diego when you get out of here.

So.

All right, Hector, let's dive into this.

Who the hell are you and where are you from?

Originally from Brawley, California.

Raleigh.

Where's that?

It's on the corner of Arizona and Mexico.

California side.

Got it.

Okay.

Like the south east, southeast corner.

Corner.

Interesting.

Literally a border town.

Okay.

From the Imperial Valley.

You got Glamis over there.

Nothing to do.

Small town.

That's what kind of drove me to join the military, was to get out.

Right?

Because I've always been adventurous and hyper and like adrenaline seeking.

Okay.

And I, when we were talking about this earlier, like, why didn't I join the Marine Corps?

So why'd you join the Army?

Not the Marine Corps.

So I had no idea about the military at all.

Right.

Besides, back in the day, there would be those Marine commercials.

Dragon.

I remember the chessboard, but I remember watching that as a kid, but I didn't realize that that was a military service branch.

You know, it just looked like really cool.

It wasn't until junior year in high school, dude, a career day Marine came in dressed sharp, and just like the light bulb went off, bro.

He's like, hey, your college is going to be paid for.

You're going to travel, your food's going to be paid for.

You get to wear this nice uniform.

I'm like, oh, that's it.

I'm out of here.

That's.

That's it.

Sold.

Yeah.

Then 911 happened.

We're actually the same age, bro.

We got to point that out, dude.

Our birthday is the same exact day, exact year, dude.

That's not a coincidence, man.

No.

So 911 happened.

I'm like, oh, I'm.

I'm definitely joining now.

Right?

Like, this is without, without a doubt.

Oh.

So I go to El Centro, which is a neighboring city, because probably does not have recruiting stations, and I walk right into the Marine Corps recruiter office and I'm like, I'm here to join the Marines.

Like, all right, sit down.

Take our practice ASVAB test.

Okay, so I take a practice ASVAB test, bro, and I fail.

And I'm like, what the heck?

I'm too dumb to be a Marine.

They're like, no one ever, bro.

Exactly.

He's like, dude, go try your luck next door with the Army.

Like, that's literally what happened.

So I go next door, I'm like, hey, guys, like, I just came from the Marine Corps recruiting station.

I failed to practice asbab.

He's like, oh, don't worry, man.

Sit down, take hours, and we'll see what happens.

I did.

And I.

And they're like, oh, you pass.

I'm like, well, there it is.

I guess I'm army.

I don't know if that was a thing.

I don't know.

They were trying to hook up the numbers for sure.

I probably failed the practice as that because my ASVAB score was not high at all.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

I've never heard anybody getting denied for the Marines.

But that.

That's exactly what happened.

That's exactly, exactly what happened, dude.

And you know, when you're 16, because I was 16, when I'm doing this, I don't know.

No difference.

But I don't even know what the ASVAB was, bro.

So then I knew what infantry was because I had already started doing my research, like, because that's what.

One thing I do is once I put my mind to something, I research the heck out of it, dude.

Whether it's reading reviews or an infantry.

I told my sister, like, hey, I'm gonna join the army.

I'm gonna join the infantry.

And she's like, oh, yeah?

Yeah, Cool.

Because my sister's three years younger than me, and she's always been my biggest cheerleader, bro.

Yeah.

And yeah, told the recruiter, like, army, infantry.

Not like I had a choice.

Like I said, dude, my.

My ASVAB test was a score.

That's besides the point.

I might have failed three times, but it doesn't matter, bro.

We're not here for that minor details.

I'm not book smart, bro.

I'm street smart.

I'll tell you that much, man.

And I have high emotional intelligence.

That's a fact, dude.

So anyhow, anywho, I ended up joining the delayed entry program my whole entire senior year.

Yeah.

I was 17 years old.

Both of my parents had to sign the permission slip waiver for me.

Oh, okay.

And they were like, my dad, dude.

I mean, God bless my parents.

Parents are parents, bro.

And, you know, we understand that.

My dad's like, I'll pay for your college.

I'll pay for a college.

Don't you want to?

And I like that.

I don't want to go to college.

I. Oh, they didn't want you to go?

No, they didn't want to go, bro.

Smart.

They didn't want me to go.

I would have been the first one from my family, like, like to do it like that or to go to college.

No, to go to the military.

Okay, Go to the military.

2001, 911 happened.

Boom.

Afghanistan, invasion of the United States forces.

The war kicked off.

And then the freaking war drums were beating on Iraq's door, bro.

So the propaganda machine, the.

The news, the newspaper, Saddam Hussein, evil dictator, weapons of mass destruction.

Like, bro, there was no doubt in my mind I was gonna end up in war.

Like, that was a.

You had.

You had.

You had Blackhawk Down.

You had.

We.

We were soldiers.

Like, all of these movies were coming out, bro.

Like, it was so.

My dad's like, go to college.

I don't want to go to college.

I don't even like high school.

Why would I go to college?

And barely made it through that.

Barely, bro.

Barely.

I'll say it on your podcast, like, for extra credit.

Since I had a below GPA, below a 2.0, they, they.

They gave me this incentive where I would go around with the girls volleyball team and record their games, bro, to earn extra credits to graduate.

I'm like, oh, this is cool, dude.

Like, I would go to San Diego in the bus with them.

Like, it's one of the girls.

This is the best extra credit ever before, bro.

Yeah,

I graduated June.

I fly out July to Fort Ben.

Yeah, bro.

So hot.

Humidity that I've never experienced.

Oh, because you're going from the southeast corner of California era desert.

Desert to the east.

Humidity, dude.

I was never.

Oh, well, I got.

I got off the plane in Atlanta, like, at 9 o' clock at night, July 23, 2002, and I was drenched in sweat, and I'm like, what is this?

Like, and I have asthma too, bro.

Which I have asthma, too.

And I'm like, like, what is this, man?

I'm true.

Like, and then when it comes to the army, we have this thing called reception that I had no idea about.

30th ag reception.

So you don't get off and people don't immediately start yelling at you, which weirded me out big time, bro.

Like, I was expecting it.

I was waiting for it.

I was prepping for it.

And, like, where they parked the bus at the Fort Banning and like the drill sergeants come off and they're not saying anything.

They're like, get off the bus.

Come right here.

I'm like, what is this?

Like is this a Setup?

But it's 30th AG reception, so it doesn't matter how long you're there, cuz it varies.

Okay?

That's where they shave your head.

That's where they issue your BDUs.

That's where they issue your boots, your.

Your 12 shots, your vaccines.

And you're not getting screamed at this

whole entire time, bro.

What?

Yes, it was very eerie, weird, but.

And you realize soon you don't want to be there long where you don't want to be there at all.

Right?

You want to get it over with.

Okay.

To the basic training.

That's when you do your sgli.

Your.

Your what is life insurance if you get killed in action.

And so luckily, thankfully, I was only there for maybe a week, dude.

Maybe a week and a half.

And then the day came where they march you down to your training area, your battalion.

Mine was Alpha 254 Hell's Kitchen.

Okay.

And it was on and cracking, bro.

How long were you there before it popped off?

A week and a half.

Okay.

Damn.

In reception.

Reception?

Yeah.

Think of it like as in processing.

See we.

This.

You know, I'm a Paris Island Marine.

The second you cross that bridge, I

expected, bro, you're done.

I would assume.

Yeah, that did that.

It's a weird surprise that in the army that did not happen in O2.

Ours actually starts in the airport.

Ours did not.

See, I remember getting off the plane and I'm like this little idiot kid and I got my little vanilla or manila envelope.

Yeah.

You just get snatched.

That's the first time I had to do nut to butt.

They're screaming and I'm some kid standing with my head on the back.

My nose on the back of a dude's face or head.

His head.

Nut to butt.

I got a guy on mine and I'm like, what the did I just sign myself up for?

But so you can see how it would be weird to not get that immediately.

Yeah.

You're like, dude is.

Why aren't you yelling at me?

Like, okay, but.

But once we got to the area, yeah, they had the 5 ton or the deuce and a half with our.

The.

The.

Those bags, the sea bags.

I don't know what the guy.

I don't know.

The big green duffel bags.

Sea bags.

Yeah.

Get them all out.

Get.

Okay.

And then that's when they Start giving you the unrealistic expectations.

Times which I've come to realize, bro, that makes you a superhuman.

That makes you superhuman, bro.

Because if you can't accomplish the impossible, then like that just sets the threshold for like perfection.

Okay, right.

Because they're like, hey, you have, you have 10 seconds to get all these duffel bags.

10, 3, 2, 1.

10, 3, 2, one.

Dude, skip like six numbers and right.

But when I was doing push ups in my head, I'm like, yes, yes.

I was scrawny, dude.

I was scrawny, bro.

I graduated weighing 121 pounds.

Yeah, that's little.

I was scrawny.

I had to eat a banana at the at MEPs to to make weight to get in 122.

So like what?

I needed discipline, bro.

I needed discipline.

I was okay.

I was already drinking alcohol at the age of 15.

I had already moved out of my parents home my whole entire senior year of high school.

I was living with my friend Jason and drinking alcohol and ditching and Okay.

I wasn't committing crimes.

Right.

But I was just off.

Off.

Yeah.

So in the military will straighten that out real quick.

Correct.

Yep.

So you get to your battalion and all just what.

Okay, so what's army boot camp like?

Okay, Basic training.

Yeah, yeah, it's called basic training for the army.

It is like, okay.

I love generations.

I love eras.

I love to be able to identify.

I. I think to me that was a unique time frame.

Our drill sergeants were Gulf War.

Yeah.

Veteran combat veterans, Panama.

Okay.

And again, bro, if you're new to the military, you don't know what the CIB Combat infantry badge is.

You don't know what a combat patch is.

You probably don't even know what airborne wings are.

So I didn't know what any of that stuff was, bro.

I'm just from Brawley, dude.

17 year old skinny kid.

But I could tell that these men were of a different caliber, dude.

Like these men were no nonsense type of dude.

Drill sergeant Furbish, bro.

He looked like Popeye.

Probably like your size, dude.

Massive older, meaner looking guy with a big old dip, bro.

The dip the size of this sourdough.

Yeah.

Just.

Yeah.

Like there is no doubt, bro, that he would beat the out of you if you just did something wrong, dude.

And they were putting hands on you back in O2 for sure.

Like sure.

Right.

Which is fine.

Which is welcomed in that community.

Wings them out.

Correct.

So like leadership.

Leadership.

They smoke the dog out of you.

And let's talk about.

Realistically people say brainwash right?

People go, oh, you go to the military, you get brainwashed.

Well, what it is, it is a breaking you down to the lowest form, like, like taking away your identity, stripping you of your identity.

That's why they shave your head, that's why you all wear the same uniform.

That's why you all march in cadence, attention to detail, the small things like a pen, right?

A pen.

And you don't know why you're learning all of this stuff then.

But it comes to make sense when you're in combat and people are getting killed left and right and, and it's like, why do I got to worry about this?

Why do I got to worry about that?

Talking back, right?

Questioning somebody.

You question somebody at the wrong time, bro, that can cost somebody their life, dude.

Like, this isn't a joke when it comes to the military, when it comes to life, when it comes to survival, when it comes to like trauma.

Like you asked me how army basic training was, that was already getting embedded in me.

As a matter of fact, 41 year old Hector right here is a result of 17 year old basic training is a result of good leaders in my unit for sure.

That, that's the only.

And my father, right, I don't give him enough credit for establishing that, that foundation and cultural like integrity and ethics and stuff like that.

But I'm talking about like what shapes you, machines you.

But then again, bro, they were telling you you're a killer.

Like, hey, you're a killer, you're a killer, you're a killer.

You're gonna go, you're gonna kill.

Like they were using those words and I had a hard time.

Like I was, I was a skater, bro.

Yeah, it was a hard time.

Like, ah, am I a killer?

I'm not really a killer.

Is that a weird transition then hearing that going from just being a skater kid?

Well, here's where I think mental, mental toughness comes in.

Or I should say adaptability.

Okay.

I was smart enough to understand in my own head, I better start liking this or pretending to like this because I'm going to have a hard time if I don't accept this.

See, I was the opposite.

Meaning what?

I fought everything.

You fought everything?

Everything?

Oh, hell no.

Everything.

I just, dude, wired.

But that was not.

I would have had a hard time.

I was miserable.

Miserable, bro.

Miserable?

Yeah, I just challenged everything from the start.

Oh no, I didn't.

Belligerent way where I knew I was gonna get away.

But like, like I just, I, I just stuck out by no way.

Absolutely.

Through my Whole.

My whole career, I challenged everything.

Not me.

And I think that's what separate.

I think that's why my story is so unique.

Yeah.

Because I was such a good follower for 20 plus years.

Like, I mastered the pawn rank, bro.

Like, I'm a good pawn, dude.

Which is.

Makes me that much more dangerous than what I do now.

Like, speak freely in the truth.

Facts, for sure, but.

So it's physical training.

You're going to get smoked, bro.

All day, every day.

Especially if you screw up, which we were screwing up.

It's mass punishment.

It's flipping the bunk beds.

It's flipping, you know, over the wall lockers.

It's.

If somebody leaves an unsecured lock, everybody.

All the locks are getting locked now.

People might call this hazing.

It's definitely not hazing.

Right.

It builds character.

Yeah.

And discipline.

Which is why you should secure your.

And accountability.

Oh, God.

Right.

Because, I mean, if we don't have accountability, then we might just leave behind humvees and helicopters for the Afghanistan Taliban to take over and like a couple years.

Huh.

So there was fights amongst the troops.

I was just gonna ask.

Yeah, for sure.

You guys check anybody?

So in Marine boot camp, you.

You screw up, like, you're gonna get

checked at night, blanket party.

Okay.

Do you guys do that in the army?

Yeah.

Well, back then.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

People got up.

I never got up.

I probably should have gotten up.

Right.

I think everybody's just trying to.

So many people from so many different places.

Chicago, Ken Hazard, Kentucky, New York, Florida.

Me from Cali's.

It's like, dude, we're young.

We're dumb.

Yeah.

People stupid as like, yeah, you're gonna fight.

I've seen some stupid.

Like, basic training in boot camp are so fascinating to me.

I. I would like to watch them now, you know, being mature.

Because I feel like the social experiment that goes on because you just saying you, you.

Your rack mate.

Like, my rack mates from Orlando, Florida.

Here I am from upstate New York.

So you got guys over all different walks of life.

You got gang bangers, you got hillbillies, you got racist.

But they're cool.

Like, towards the end, they're like, dude, I never met a Mexican before.

Like, this is me, bro.

Yeah, everybody, bro.

Everybody.

All walks of life just thrown in the one platoon and expect to, like, just.

But I love brotherhood.

That's where I learned brotherhood.

Right.

And you think back to, like, Spartans and 300, and you think about brotherhood and you think about us being primal.

Yeah.

This is why I function the way I function Bro.

And like, you operate the same way.

It's a small, small, small core group of warriors, dude.

In reality now, with every that joins a military, a warrior.

Absolutely not, bro.

But that is like the, the beginning phases for sure.

So after boot camp, where do you go?

I go to Germany, dude.

I laugh cuz it was minus 20 degrees when I landed on December 8, 2020, 2002.

I have all these dates engraved in my brain, bro.

My mom's like, hector, take a sweater, take a jacket.

I'm like, I'm not taking a sweater.

I'm not taking a jacket.

It was freezing, bro.

So you go from southeast corner of California to Atlanta, Georgia for training, straight to Germany?

Yeah, yeah.

What was that transition?

It got real.

On the airplane ride to Germany, I got that lump in my throat, dude.

Like, we're going to war.

Like, I'm going to war.

Like, dude, is this what.

And this is me completing basic training?

Yeah.

I'm like, dude, what the heck did.

Am I doing right?

Like, right?

It's like.

And then my pop's eyes got kind of watery at the airport.

My sister was bawling, like hysterically.

My mom was crying hysterically.

Like back then there was no cell phones back then.

There was no FaceTime back then.

There was barely old school email.

Definitely calling cards.

You got to use the pay for the calling cards.

So.

So there wasn't this fast form of communication or letters, Snail mail, snail mail, handwritten letters.

Of course.

That's what, what it was.

So I touched down in Germany and I run straight from the airport, bro, across the parking lot to a PX and I buy like a 300 jacket, like a cold weather jacket, winter civilian.

And I remember being so proud of myself, bro, because like, I had earned money in boot camp.

Because you're saving money in basic training.

I earned money.

I, you know, I'm a. I'm a man in my head.

I'm making a living.

And I bought myself my first big expensive, like, purchase.

Put that on, dude.

And then they bus us to Ledward Barracks in Schwein for Germany.

Yeah, right.

So like, we look on the board, we see where we're going.

1st Infantry Division says my last name.

And as soon as they bust us into this classroom, dude, we get off.

There's dad, there's like school desk.

There's a.

There's probably a. I don't know if he was like a E4, like a E5 in the front.

He's like, hey, if you guys are going to 118 infantry or 126 infantry.

You're going to Iraq.

And everybody just put their head down, dude.

Like the, like, it just got like, oh, yeah.

It just got so real, dude.

Like, like you go in Iraq and we're like the heck.

Like kind of put our heads up.

And this was December 8, 2002.

The war in Iraq did not start till March 2003.

So then we get on a van.

I remember we drove by a Popeyes.

We go to Con barracks and there was two specialists.

Specialist Stuart, a white guy, and Specialist Allen, a black guy.

He would later on get killed in Iraq.

I got his name tattooed on my back.

Allen.

They were the first two soldiers of our unit to meet us.

Okay.

And we got there at midnight.

They said, hey, at zero 400 hours being PT closed, you got PT.

We're like, the four hours, bro.

We just flew like 16 hours.

We're like, dude, we got like a alarm.

One of the buddies, one of the dudes had an alarm, an alarm clock between the four of us.

Because the four of us went to the unit.

Yeah.

We're like, dude, wake us up.

Wake us up at 4.

Cool, bro.

Dude, shorts, t shirt, negative 10, negative 15, bro.

Nipples are all hard, bro.

Chap, like freezing.

Like, dude.

And then we go on a 12 mile run.

Like, I'm not joking.

You know, people tell, like to tell war stories.

Like, oh, I ran uphill in, in like negative weather.

Like, dude, that.

The temple was hardcore.

Here's why.

There was a sergeant, I can't remember think of his name right now.

He was trying to go to Special Forces, like selection.

Okay.

Sergeant Long, white dude.

And this dude, since he was training to go to Special Forces, bro, he was like actually leading our pt.

So he was take us on these ridiculous runs.

Looking back in hindsight, yeah, these, those.

That temple was turned up, bro.

Our training was turned up, but it would pay off.

When.

Eventually when we go to Iraq for sure.

Which is hard to see at that time as a young kid.

Correct.

It's just pure chaos.

But the leadership knows the severity of it.

Hey, we got to get these troops combat effective immediately.

But they.

I don't feel the military usually does a good job of relaying that.

It's just.

I don't think it's their job to relay it that.

That portion of.

Right.

You just admit.

Yeah, it's just.

Here's the tempo.

We gotta, we gotta spin these guys up now.

Which could be absolute hell for troops.

And bravado and machismo.

Like, you want.

You don't want to look like the.

Bro, you don't want to look, you don't want to be the weakest person in the platoon.

But I was going to say something right now about leadership, man.

I had the best freaking leaders, dude.

Did you?

The.

The freaking best.

What made them good leaders?

Oh, God, bro, the.

The fact that they would eventually go on and get killed in Iraq.

Like, like even if they had not gotten that, that just shows.

That just confirmed what I already knew.

Yeah, like these solid, like what made them good leaders, bro.

Like bait, like the 101, bro.

Like if you got in trouble, like, they'll take the hit for you, but then they'll like beat your ass on the side.

If you did something good, like he'll let you take the praise, right?

If you do something bad, they'll take the hit.

Just basic leadership, bro.

Like, like standing in front of the bus for your troops instead of throwing them under the bus.

Like teaching them, mentoring them, interacting with them.

Getting to know like, hey, like, like making you feel like a person.

Yeah.

Not just like a number or not just like, like, bro, as a good leader, man, you'll go to the gates of hell with these dudes.

I don't give a. Bro, we'll outnumbered, out gunned.

Like that's a no brainer.

No brainer.

So there was Hector Leja, Staff Sergeant Hector Leha.

He would eventually get shot in the head.

I got him tattooed on my back.

It was like Douglas, Douglas.

Growth in.

He lived.

That dude's a badass mother, dude.

These dudes were badass, bro.

These were all your seniors?

Yes.

E5s E6 beckert.

Becker would eventually get killed in Iraq, dude, bro, there was so many good leaders, dude.

How long were you in Germany for?

It seemed like two years or a year and a half.

Okay.

So when I touched down in Germany to the time I deployed to Iraq, had to have been a year and a half.

Well, I'm not good at math, bro.

I'll just tell you the dates.

I landed in December 8, 2003.

I deployed to Iraq in February 2004.

What is that, a year and a couple months?

Yeah, a year and year and two months or whatever.

Now that exact time frame, we were training 20 hour days, weapons.

We would put the weapons away like at 2300 hours, bro.

11 o' clock at night and weapons draw 0304.

And we, it was just like combat drills.

I mean the, the basic move to contact reaction, ambush, live fire, ranges, mount training.

Because mount training.

We were transitioning from that time frame when I went to basic training in.

In Georgia we were learning how to fight in the woods.

Like Vietnam.

Yeah.

We had a small training of mount training military urban terrain, cqb.

Germany had a little bit more CQB training then you start to realize, dude, we're going into an urban environment.

This is again, you're young so you don't know.

But that's why it's a young man's game, bro.

Because when you're dumb and 18 years old, fall for anything, you could sleep in the snow with no problem.

You can like have 22 hour day training days, no problem.

Like get punched in your nose by your platoon sergeant.

He punched me on the nose on the range, bro.

You get punched.

We got a brand new platoon sergeant prior to deploying.

Okay.

Sergeant Gullick.

He's a good dude, right?

Psychotic.

Like he's a psychopath.

Okay.

For sure.

German descent.

Okay.

Psychopath, bro.

He had just came from being a drill sergeant at Fort Benny, Georgia.

Worse.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Anybody off the drill field is the worst.

Exactly, bro.

So we're in graphenville training in Germany and he's like, hey, what's the hand and arm signal for file?

So I go like this right middle finger.

That was the fucking hand in arm signal for file.

He walks up to me, boom.

Oh fuck, dude.

My eyes fucking watered.

Like, dude, I was crying.

I'm not gonna lie, bro.

I'm not gonna lie.

I was crying like a.

Not weeping, not bawling, but I was pissed, bro.

Fucking bleeding and everybody was kind of in shock.

Like, dude, what the did you just do that for to him, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And he's like, I think he realized that he had up, right?

And he's like, no, that's not.

No.

How can we see that at night?

We gotta change it.

Oh yeah.

He starts backpedaling.

Yeah, we gotta change it.

So I think it went to like this and I'm like, how the does that alleviate the fact that you just punched me in the nose for no good reason, bro?

It doesn't change justify any of this, right?

So like.

But I'm not a rat, bro.

Hands down, I'm not a rat and I'm not a.

So of course I would.

Telling was not even an option.

It wasn't even.

Didn't even.

You going to tell.

Plus yeah, who are you going to tell Wasn't an option.

That's what they train you in the military.

You just take, you just eat your pie and you say thank you and ask for seconds.

Thank you, man.

But I think looking back in hindsight, I think he felt bad cuz he invited me to his house for Thanksgiving with his family.

You're the only one with his family.

Well, me and Maldonado from Puerto Rico.

Okay.

I don't know if you like those Hispanics or what, bro.

But then he made me his driver in Germany, in Iraq, he made me his driver for a period of time.

I'm like, oh, this dude.

I see what he's doing.

He's buttering me up.

Yeah, exactly.

I've had to do that a few times.

Yeah.

So then we go to Kuwait prior to going to.

To Iraq.

And we stayed in Kuwait for a month training.

What time of year was it in Kuwait?

Do you remember?

February.

But I don't remember the weather being bad.

It was just.

It is what it was.

Yeah.

Sand, bro.

I bicked my head for the first time.

I shaved my head with a razor for the first time.

Horrible mistake.

Why?

Because I got razor burn and sunburn.

And then my.

My sling from my rifle kept like rubbing it.

They're like, bro, you look like Jason Voorheest from.

From Friday the 13th.

Oh, God.

Yeah, bro.

Shit's like lit up, inflamed.

Yeah, bro.

Kuwait's an interesting place.

When we were there, it.

Only way I could describe Kuwait is like a blow living in a blow dryer.

It was just the hottest air 24 7.

And how bright it was every time you'd walk out, dude, it would just.

It was blinding.

Of how bright.

I remember the sunset or sunrise were beautiful, like to a whole level I had never seen before.

Same with Afghan.

Afghan had some of the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you guys get to Kuwait.

You remember where you were in Kuwait?

Yeah.

Camp New York, which is.

Which is in the fucking middle of nowhere.

Okay.

And then we went to Camp Udari with the Marines.

Okay.

To train in their, like high tech urban.

It had cameras.

It was like a little urban terrain thingy.

We had like little paint sim rounds.

They were sim rounds, but we were shooting at plastic silhouettes.

Oh, okay.

That would pop out like around the corner like that.

Yeah.

So after Kuwait.

So you guys are already 100?

No.

You're going to Iraq.

Like, it's been.

We're there.

You're.

So you're in Kuwait.

How long were you in kuwait?

So in 2003, when they captured Saddam Hussein.

Yeah.

Me and my best man, Garcia, were drunk as in the barracks in Germany, dude.

We were drunk.

And we see on the news of the.

Saddam Hussein is on the news and we're pissed we missed our chance to go to war.

The war's over.

We signed up for the infantry.

I remember I got, like, my infantry blue cord, threw it at the screen.

There's actually a picture of me yelling at the television screen, bro, like, dude, we lost.

Right?

Because, like, that's what every kid wants.

They want war because they're stupid.

Stupid.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's what every kid thinks they want.

And, like, until you get it, correct it, and I gotta.

When we get to the end of this story, I'm gonna reflect back on this moment where I'm throwing the.

Yeah.

The blue cord of the TV and wishing that I was.

We thought we missed it.

We thought we missed it.

Come to find out, 2004, we would find ourselves in Kuwait.

We're in a classroom, and they're showing us a projector video.

And the projector video is of a Russian convoy.

And I don't know if it was Chechnya or I don't know if it was Afghanistan, but they hit an id, they hit a mine, and the whole thing exploded.

People go flying everywhere.

And I remember looking at that, like, oh, my God, dude.

How do I protect myself?

Like, I'm going up against that.

Like, how do you defend yourself against that?

I was scared, dude.

Like, that put a little bit of fear in me.

Like, what the fuck are we about to get into, dude?

Because just seeing it.

Seeing that video footage, because we had trained, like, fake IDs in Germany, but it wasn't that, like, seeing the bodies fly.

Yeah.

And then, bro, we crossed the berm north.

It took us three days to get to Balar, which is 50 miles north of Baghdad.

Oh, so you guys pushed from Kuwait into.

Yeah, you know how I got the initial push?

Huh?

No, it wasn't the initial.

Yeah, we just.

We pushed up on the MSR Tampa.

I was on a hit, which is a flatbed.

Yeah.

But on an M1.

Abrams, you're.

You're.

Okay, so we did the same.

They put our vehicles on flatbeds, on the.

On the lowboys.

But we sat in our vehicles.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you did the same.

Yeah, but, dude, I'm not a tanker.

I don't know anything about tanks at all.

But I.

That's how I got up north on a hit on a EV1 Abram.

And, like, we.

We took turns alternating.

I don't even know who I rode up with, to be honest.

We took turns alternating from the driver's seat, like, just sitting there like that, to the gun, to the gunner and yeah, bro, immediately I realized that the Iraqi people didn't want us there by like flipping us off and giving us these evil looks.

Immediately.

Immediately.

And we can dive into like not, not just, not just politics, but like propaganda and what they told us we were going to be there for sure.

They told us that the Iraqi people wanted us, Wanted us to liberate them.

It was very apparent from the start that they did not want us there from what I observed.

Yeah.

So from Kuwait you push into Iraq, how many days did you guys drive for?

Because that's not just like an overnight day.

No, no.

So I said it took us three days to push up north.

So I think we, it was either two days or three days for sure.

We stopped one time at a camp.

It was a National Guard camp, bro.

Like, I don't know where it was.

Yeah.

And I know there was girls there because there was no girls in my unit whatsoever.

Yeah.

And then they were saying like, oh, you, they said, you should have been here last night.

The girls had a oil wrestling contest in this inflatable pool.

And I'm just like, right.

Because we didn't, I didn't know anything about it.

This is army checks.

Armies, Army.

We had different experiences in the military.

But what I'm saying is like, that wasn't.

We were just.

We spent the night there and then we pushed.

Yeah.

So I don't know what they were doing there for sure, but.

And then we get.

Okay, so that's how it went.

It went one night there, then we get to Camp Anaconda.

So I didn't realize it, but we actually pushed up north past Palo, our original fob.

So like that, now it makes sense.

We spent the night, the second night in Camp Anaconda sleeping on the tanks.

And that's when I encountered indirect fire the first time.

Im.

The first night.

The second night in Iraq, you guys get mortared.

Well, but it's a big camp, so sure, it was nothing serious.

Nowhere near me, but you could hear the boom for sure.

And then I look over and I asked like one of the most veteran looking guys, like, what the was that?

Oh.

And then you could see a helicopter in the distance.

This is the first night, bro.

And then you see the, the tracers from the helicopter and they're like, oh, I guess that was incoming.

They sent the choppers out there to go.

I'm like, okay.

And then the following morning we went to our FOB, where we would remain for 13 months.

And then, and then it was on and cracking, dude.

It was on and cracking.

How long were you in Iraq before you guys got your first firefight there?

There wasn't like sustained firefights in my area at my time, bro.

It was.

Dude, it was a lot of IEDs, roadside bombs, 155 artillery rounds.

Two 155 artillery rounds.

It was shoot RPG at you and run.

Fire at you and run.

That's what was pissing us off, Rose.

These wouldn't stay and fight rockets, mortars, every single day.

And those were accurate.

Like some.

They would eventually get accurate.

Okay.

And then.

And then towards.

And then the V bits.

Vehicle born.

IEDs, bro.

So I could.

I watched the escalation of the insurgents as they progressed.

And they kept countering, they kept hitting us with secondaries.

I watched the whole.

I was there for OIF2.

So the beginning of the insurgency, what

was the rules of engagement for you guys then?

Like on paper, I mean.

Because.

Okay, I'll be honest with you, bro.

I'm gonna be honest with you.

I'm gonna be honest with you.

It was 2004.

The rules were there.

The rules were there.

One rule for sure was if you get hit by an IED, the SOP was you.

Everybody opens up in 360 degree fire.

Like that was the SOP really 100, bro.

So, yeah, so, like, not that we ever killed anybody indiscretionally or like probably people that didn't have it coming, but did people die?

People got killed, bro.

For sure.

Like, did people get up?

People got up.

Did.

Was it the people that were responsible for attacking us?

I have no idea, bro.

That place was.

They weren't fighting us heads up.

Were they investigating into, like there was a process, right?

If you shoot somebody, there was a process for that.

You gotta do the.

Whatever that form was, like the whole.

The after action for it.

Yeah, well, you got.

It's like a record thing.

Like,

So if you guys.

If you guys are getting hit with IEDs, mortars, all the.

So that was kind of your guys's scenario.

Did you ever have any close calls?

Did you almost get blown up?

I got hit by an IED, May 12, 2004.

Bomb blew up like right next to me.

It was two 155 artillery rounds.

Really?

100%.

And I was in a 998 vehicle, which is a supply Humvee.

Not the up armored 114 vehicles.

The supply one, you know, it looks like a truck and then it has the back.

Yeah, I was driving that boom detonates.

Since I was inside the blast, it.

I always describe it as this.

It was so loud that it wasn't loud.

Like that's how I describe.

It was so loud that it wasn't loud.

And it like it screwed up my hearing because of right now I can't hear out of my right ear.

And I say it's my right ear because I had Sergeant Zaragoza, former Marine, as my TC and I had my MP3 or MP3 player in my left ear listening to music, listening to Sugar Cult.

Pretty girl.

I remember, bro.

Like, pretty girl.

I'm like, look, I'm like, what the was that?

I said, did we get a flat tire?

That's what I said, did we get a flat tire?

And then, and then the whole cab starts filling up with like black smoke dust.

And then it's like.

And then, and then it's like slow motion and it's like, dude, we just got here, bro.

Cuz we had just gotten.

February, March, April, May.

I've been in country for two months, okay?

The day prior my platoon got hit.

Same exact spot.

Same exact spot.

Checkpoint 27.

Okay?

So we were out on patrol.

I say, Sergeant Z, tell me where the, where the platoon, where, where they got hit yesterday.

Boom.

Soon as he said that blue, I look to the back because Waylon, he's from, from Oregon.

He was on the 240.

I don't see Waylon.

I'm like, waylon, Waylon, I'm coasting, bro.

Because I'm driving Sergeant Z's.

I put it in park, park, park, park.

But I'm like just out of it, dude.

Like throw the in park.

And then I hear the 240 open up.

I'm like, yeah, like Waylon's alive, right?

Because that took the Whalen would eventually get hit probably by like 10 plus IEDs directly, bro.

Like he just had.

He survived all of them.

Like the was just a beast.

It was just pure luck.

Yeah.

100, bro.

He was a magnet.

We ended up killing a fat dude in front of his kids on that event.

And it was a up thing about it was this kids, they were like, they were two boys.

One was like seven, the other one was like nine.

They watched their dad bleed out like this dude had got shot in the back in the man dress, okay?

No exit wound, no blood.

So we know this dude is shot, cuz he's acting like he's shot.

Like he's like ah, saying some stuff in Arabic and then go back out unconscious, wake up, tell his kids something in Arabic, go back out unconscious.

And like he just had a little slit in his skin like the 5, 5, 6, we think it was.

We hit him with a tracer from the saw, we think.

And like, it cauterized the wound or something.

The kids were flipping out, dude.

Flipping out, flipping out.

And I'm like, that's when I told myself, there can't be a God, I thought.

I grew up religious, foundation structure, Catholic.

And I was starting to rebel against God, whatever it may be, bro.

I fell out of graces with my God.

I feel you.

And I said, there can't be a God.

Like, if he's.

If we just.

If I just got hit by an ID right now.

This brought his kids to blow me up.

And we killed him in front of his kid.

What the is this, right?

This is like a gray area, like a.

Like this isn't how I had pictured war to be.

So the dude was barefooted.

The fat guy, the dead fat guy was barefooted.

We go chase the copper wire.

We trace it, because back then they were hitting us with command and remote dated IDs.

They were string the copper wire.

We go out, there's a pair of sandals where the copper wire was at the end in the field.

My sergeant comes, puts the sandal on the dead man's foot.

And like, oh, this fit?

Yeah, 100.

They fit.

He brought his kids to blow us up, dude.

And it's like one of those things, like, why would you do that, bro?

I remember I smoked a cigarette and I remember feeling my grandmother's presence.

Like she has passed away.

I just went like, dude, was that like a guardian angel?

Like, what was that?

Right?

And you asked, like, have I ever come close to getting blown up?

The crazy thing is, is I don't even consider that one a close one.

Even though it was like, right there.

Yeah.

What I was going to tell you about, there was two sketchy ones.

We were on FOB Palo, which is a small little fob, and on one, we slept on one side.

And on the other side of the little fob was the Internet cafe where you get on the computers and get an email back home.

It was me, Sergeant Dino, my best man Garcia, and my friend Maze, who was like 18 years old, young kid, bro, the recruiter screwed him, got him for six years in the infantry.

Right off the bat, and we're walking us four across in the wide open, dude, and we hear an explosion.

Trust me, bro, we had been in country long enough to know the difference between incoming and outgoing.

Oh, for sure, for sure.

I'm like.

I'm like, incoming, right?

It was, it was.

It Was there, bro.

It was there.

And, like, I'm like, incoming.

And then my best man goes, nah, it's outgoing.

I'm like, outgoing, bro.

There's nothing there.

Like, there's no paladin.

There's no 155.

There's no 120.

And then, like, another one and it's closer.

And the guys working on the browser.

Run, run.

I'm like, dude, we take off running to nowhere.

We're just running, dude, I you not.

I. I'm making that sound because that's what it sounded like to me.

Like, the ground splashing, the hard structure splashing, dude.

We're like, oh, I don't know.

They're bracketing us.

I don't know.

They're watching, bro.

But those, like, dude, we find those, those.

Those concrete walls that keep car bombs out that are around the green zone.

Yeah, but they're stacked.

Laying down, they're stacked.

They're not like, upright.

Somehow, some way, like this little tiny hole right here, Four big ass men cram into there, dude, that's when it started.

Like, that's when it started.

Like, honest, bro, on us.

Like, these are.

What were they?

120 rockets, bro.

These were 120.

And, dude, oh, man, you could smell the black smoke.

Like, dude, I, I.

It's not that I felt like I was gonna die at that point.

Nobody gave a.

Whether they lived or they died, they didn't give a, bro.

Trust me.

And that was hard to trick your mind into accepting death.

And we start laughing, dude, we're laughing, bro, like, and it's just like.

And we're like, dude, eventually it stopped.

Yep.

Like, after.

I don't know.

I don't know.

In that barrage, there was probably between, like, between like seven and between nine.

And then they started there and it.

And then we waited.

And we waited, like, like, two, three minutes.

And like, let's go back.

Like, let's go back.

We think it stopped.

Take off, running back.

My boy hinks from Minnesota, he's like, bro, did you guys get caught in that?

We're like, yeah, dude.

It was right on top of us.

Like, I knew it, bro.

Was like, that timing, dude, that was.

That was sketchy as for sure, that was that time.

That was probably one of the times I should have got killed.

Then there was another time where, like, every time we come back from patrol, we have to top off the humvees.

Y Every time.

Mandatory with the fuelers.

Y well, we had those hesco baskets that surrounded the fuelers in like, a u We come back from patrol, I'm outside of the Humvee, gassing up my Humvee, and I just hear, dude, I dropped the.

The nozzle.

I get in the driver's seat, and I just drive again.

There's nowhere to drive, bro.

It's an open fob with nowhere to go.

Yeah.

And I just drive forward, right?

And I'm like, the.

Dude, a. Incoming.

Like, the.

Bro, we parked the Humvee, and I.

Look, dude, there was a rocket sticking out of the ground on the other side of the Hesco basket.

No.

Yeah.

I swear to God, bro.

Like, had that rocket went forward four more feet, like, had that rocket just went over the Hesco basket, it would have detonated that fuel truck, dude, for sure.

It was sticking out of the ground, like, the back half of it, right?

Like, oh, dude, those are what I.

Those are the ones that I call, like, the close calls.

Because they were just those.

They were blowing up, bro.

For sure.

For sure.

But there was other events, you know?

But, yeah, dude, me, bro.

So that's got.

That's the terrifying thing is when you're like, you're not fighting a military, you're not fighting militia.

You just.

You're just dealing with IEDs, indirect, just.

I mean, so you don't even know where it is when it's gonna happen.

And you guys are out just patrolling every day.

Basically.

You drive around till you get hit.

Yeah.

Oh, that's what they just.

That was it, huh?

One of the stupid.

We did a lot of stupid again, man.

You had to have been young to be able to get away with them doing this to us.

Oh, 100%.

One of the stupid things they had us do was us walk, dismounted, walk on the side of the road looking for IDs, while the Humvees trailed us.

And we.

We did that.

We did that.

You look at it now and you're like.

You look back and you're like, why?

Why would you do that?

Don't put us on the ground.

Why would you do that?

Another stupid thing they had us do was the other engineer platoon, Red Platoon.

They kept getting hit, like, three nights in a row.

They got hit at the same place at the same time on the route.

Yeah, they got ambushed.

Straight ambushed.

Like how you were talking about, like, a sustained fire.

They got ambushed.

Small armed fires and rpg.

So they told us we were white platoon.

Hey, you guys are going to go drive that route, and you're going to drive with your white lights on at night.

We always drove the whole night.

The whole year.

We drove with our nods and blacked out for sure.

But they told us, you're going to drive with your lights on and when you get hit, you're going to kill them.

So my sergeant's like, hey, frell, that's my last name.

The one that was a Marine.

Sergeant Daragosa.

What would your parents say if they thought if they knew they were using you as bait right now?

I'm like, ah, dude, when you put it that way, that kind of sucks.

So I'm driving the Humvee like this, bro.

Like scared as cuz they just.

Dude, that was like dumb as like, yeah, I don't like side mission.

I don't like the idea that we had to drive with the lights on, bro.

We could have just did the same thing with the lights off, bro.

Like, you know what I mean?

But I guess we were trying.

Thank God they didn't hit us, but that was just dumb that we were doing.

Yeah, bro, dumb.

You look back, it's like, why?

Why?

Like what would be the point of that?

They weren't.

Our leadership was good, bro.

They weren't.

Those dumb decisions were coming from the top.

Top.

But even then we're.

Dude, let me see, what would be a good one to tell you?

One time we drove from Balar, the middle of Iraq, all the way up to Mosul, Camp Spiker, all the way up north.

And I did not have a windshield in my front of my Humvee because it had already gotten blown out by an iv and I was driving with the first sergeant of the tankers.

I forgot to mention that as prior to deploying to Iraq, they pulled my infantry platoon and attached us to a whole entire tanker unit.

Interesting.

Okay, so what they did was they made up a unit of a platoon of infantry, a platoon of combat engineers, a platoon of National Guard, and a platoon of tankers to make up a company.

Okay?

So we were being used like the redheaded stepchild, us and the engineers.

And then they would eventually lose a soldier the first month we were in country.

And then they would.

We would lose their platoon sergeant, Sergeant First Class Joselito Villanueva, who I also have tattooed on my back.

Who was there when my friend got killed, Edgar Daklon.

So like things started to get real fast, right?

Like, like it sucked when, when the Americans, when we started to die, like other motherfuckers were getting up too.

But the way we looked at it, they're Iraqis, so it doesn't fucking matter.

Yeah, until you guys get hit.

And then it became real, bro.

I Mean, we could talk about that incident.

Oh, yeah.

You're cool with it?

You were.

My friend got killed because it's important and because that shaped me.

Who I am today, dude.

It changed me as a man.

So walk me through the day that your boy got killed.

September 10, 2004.

Okay.

Happens to fall on my mom's birthday.

Oh.

September 10, 2004.

Edgar Declan, Filipino from Torrance, was our medic that morning.

We were qrf, right?

Because we had discussed.

You're either patrolling, you're either qrf, or you're either pulling guard on the can.

It rotates every.

So every other day.

Every day it rotates.

We were qrf, so they wake up, they're like, hey, get up, get up.

We got incoming.

We got to go to the point of origin, the poo.

We had a.

We had a satellite that would track the trajectory of the incoming mortar around and give us the exact grid coordinates

for where they launched it.

Where they launched it.

We knew this was gonna happen, bro.

We knew it was just a matter of time before they set us up, because it was.

We.

We did the same every time.

Oh, so you guys are building a pattern.

The.

The pattern was built.

Oh, okay.

Pattern was built, bro.

So we.

It was.

This was going to be inevitable.

The weird thing about it is when I woke up, when they woke me up for qrf, is that I didn't hear the incoming at all.

And I'm like, that's weird.

I didn't hear at all.

Usually you'll hear it.

Not that we're gonna jump out of bed.

It's just like, oh, you can.

You can hear it, right?

That was the first weird thing that I.

It was like, six in the morning.

My friend Maldonado from Puerto Rico was pulling the front gate guard.

And normally, like you said, we're like, hey, what's up?

Hey.

Yeah, yeah.

See you when I get back, dude.

Yeah.

But it was eerie.

It was.

It was not normal.

He just looked at me.

We looked at him.

Nobody said nothing, which was abnormal, bro.

So we rol out four.

Four vehicles, two hum, three humvees, and a M113 armor personnel carrier.

Okay.

Vietnam style.

Yep.

Our area of operation runs against the Tigris river, and we get to a T intersection, the Hardball T intersection.

It's regular street.

I'm the third vehicle in line.

Comes over the radio, hey, we're the fourth vehicle.

We broke down down here, back a mile.

We're like, what the.

How did we not notice this vehicle broke down?

Yeah, the lieutenant.

Good lieutenant he also from Puerto Rico.

He says, hey Pharaoh, take your Humvee, go link up with the last vehicle.

That's what he says.

So the hardball, if you go to the right, that's where the point of origin was.

And we knew it, right, because we knew our area of operation, bro, so we knew that like, hey, we're gonna make a ride.

It's right there.

I didn't give it any thought, dude.

The two vehicles stayed there at the T. I go back with Sergeant Dean, I can't remember who else.

And then there's some Iraqis, I think they were ing tagging along in that last vehicle.

And as we're talking to this broken down vehicle on these, our friends, we hear.

Like a explosion with that eck that rumbled long.

We kind of just stop and we're like, what the was that?

And then kind of to me sounded like AK fire, but I don't think it was a fire because I wouldn't know.

Like, and then, and then you hear the.

Our weapon system.

Oh, hey, they got hit, they got hit.

They went forward.

Let's go.

Like, this is me saying it too.

I was the E4, bro.

Yeah.

Telling the sergeant like, dang, let's go, let's go.

Dude, they went right?

Because I didn't.

They went ahead.

Let's go, let's go.

So like it seemed like forever, bro, but it's probably only like 20, 10 seconds.

Like, okay, let's load on the Humvee.

Let's go.

I know a shortcut through a canal road, through a dirt to get exactly to where they're at, which I take.

And I see the Humvee parked and I put my in park and I jump out.

And as soon as I jump out, bro, Sergeant Eggert, he comes up straight to me.

They killed Doc.

And I'm like, what?

What do you mean they killed Doc?

He's like, look, he's right over there, look.

He's like, he's killed Doc.

And I look, dude, to my right.

And yeah, my friend Edgar Daklon was on his back laying there and dude, I remember my world, bro.

And this, this changed me forever, dude.

Like, people probably wondering, why am I such a grumpy son of a.

Or why do I my no nonsense type of guy.

It's cuz like I run over there, like my first of all, my world went bro, like tunnel vision.

And I run over there and I stand over the body, I got my rifle and I'm looking at him and I like start at his face and I'm like going down, I see he has dry specks of blood on his face.

And I'm looking at.

And it doesn't look like Doc, bro.

Like, I'm looking at his face and it doesn't.

It doesn't look like him.

And like I.

And not that he was disfigured, it just didn't look like Doc.

Right.

And it looked like somebody else.

And then I look at his right shin and his shin bone was exposed.

And.

And then I'm like.

And there's two ways.

There's, There's a street, there's.

So there's traffic and cars start coming down.

Both things.

So I'm like, I don't want these cars to come and see my dead friend here.

My lieutenant Torres was sitting in the passenger seat of the Humvee like this.

And I remember because I ran by him and the bottom of his boot was chewed up, bro.

It was gone.

Like, the bottom of his boot, the sole was gone.

And you could see his bottom of his feet look like ground beef.

So he took shrapnel directly to the bottom of his feet.

Like, I don't know if the blast knocked his ass over and just his shit up.

And then Hinks is bandaging up o'.

Neill.

O' Neill had his back to the ied.

It was surface leveled.

Ied.

So they just put a mound of dirt over it.

Yeah.

And o' Neill took a gnarly piece of fucking shrapnel to the back of the Kevlar which pierced his skull.

Went through the Kevlar into his skull,

pushed the Kevlar so it made like a cone, you know?

Yeah, yeah, it pushed the Kevlar in it.

That pierced his skull.

Damn, that dude had a headache.

Oh, he.

He vomited.

Because I would.

Eventually I went to his wedding in Florida years later, and I saw vomit on the floor.

And I remember thinking, who the threw up?

Right as we're loading the bodies into the medevac.

And then at the wedding, o' Neill says, I think it was me that threw up because I was so out of it.

So at the time you had Daclon dead.

The lieutenant, which is so up, bro, because that's our medic.

That's our medic.

Was he in the vehicle or is he ground mount?

So I'm gonna tell you what happened.

They went forward, they parked the Humvee right next to the ied.

Hinks was driving.

Hink said something told him to keep the window up.

He said normally he would cruise with the window down and I know normally he would cruise.

He's like, dude, something told me, keep the window up.

Like, I think it was God talking to me.

He had his window up.

Daclon opens the door.

Because he was a leader, bro.

To us, he was a grunt.

And you had a haji.

You had an insurgent in the canal, watching, watching directly.

He's.

He's watching, bro, with the copper wire and with the battery.

He's watching.

He's waiting.

And as soon as Daclon got out and stepped in front of the Humvee, he detonated it.

So that caused Daclon to fly across the road, o' Neill to get up, and then for the lieutenant to get up in the foot.

That's when we showed up.

Damn.

Like, we showed up.

Like, that's the explosion that we had heard, bro.

And I've never said it like this.

Like, I've never said it like sequence of events.

That's what everything had transpired.

And then I would talk with my friends, like, hey, what the happened, bro?

Right?

So I see the cars, dude.

I don't want them to come.

I'm pissed.

And I start shooting warning shots at one of the cars.

One of the cars turns around immediately and does a U turn of the Opal, turns around and drives away.

Then I see a white truck.

I shoot the same exact warning shots over the truck.

Truck still coming.

What the fuck?

I shoot at the ground.

Crap.

Truck is still coming.

And I'm thinking, I have to kill this motherfucker.

The thing is, I had already shot somebody a couple months back, and that was kind of weighing on me, okay.

Like, mentally, right?

And I'm like, I don't want to have to kill this motherfucker.

Like, I don't even know.

So I shoot the.

The hood of the.

I shoot the engine block with 556 not and nothing.

And I'm like, I'm gonna have to kill this dude.

I'm gonna fucking have to kill this dude, bro.

This is all happening in seconds, less than seconds.

Yeah.

And the truck's moving forward.

Yeah.

And I could see, as it's more approaching, I could see there's a driver, but no passenger.

So I start lighting up the passenger side window, putting holes in the fucking passenger side window.

The stupid asshole keeps coming.

And I could see he's kind of an older gentleman, an old man.

So I'm trying to process.

But at the same time, this is when they were hitting us with car bombs, too.

Like, the car bombs were already getting integrated.

That's what I was assuming.

Right?

For sure.

Before you know it, the fucking truck is on me.

I didn't shoot the guy.

Thank God it was not a car bomb.

We're pissed off.

We break the dude's fucking window.

He's like an 80 or 90 year old old man.

We drag him out of the fucking window and to be real with you, we beat the shit out of him, dude.

And like, this is the first time I'm saying it.

We beat the fuck out of him, dude.

And we put him back in the fucking truck and he turned around and he left.

Like the dude was blind, deaf and dumb.

Literally all three.

And he fucking goes on his merry way.

Meanwhile, you still have my friend dead on the fucking road.

O' Neal getting bandaged.

And bro, like, like, like, it seemed like we were just like out there and somehow some way, Weeks shows up fast.

Like, I don't know, Weeks was probably already there.

But Weeks links up with me and I say, like, weeks, let's go follow the wire, right?

Because like, literally this is all we have right here, right now.

Like, all right, let's go follow the wire.

So we follow the copper wire to the motherfucking end of the thing, right on the Tigris.

We look, the dude detonated it and he ran down the Tigris into the village.

We would later the.

We would drop two 500 pound bombs on that village like the following day, bro, just.

Just to fucking like, you know what I mean?

Like, say, fuck you for killing our friend.

Yeah, well, the Air Force did it, but we called it in.

Yeah, well, the Air Force handled all that shit.

I don't think we were calling in bombs like that.

So by then, me and Weeks are walking back.

The reinforcements came, dude, like I father fucking.

Because we were only 3 miles from the F.O.B.

2 miles from the F.O.b.

the tankers showed up, like the higher ranking, like, tankers.

And this is a up part, bro.

This is where Joselito vianueva, the Filipino E7 sergeant first class, the platoon sergeant for the 9E.

He was a very nice man, bro, we went to R R together, okay?

We went to R and R together.

We were in Kuwait together.

We did our laundry together.

He was older than me, but again, I looked at all these dudes like father figures.

Yeah, he went to Los Angeles, I went to San Diego.

When we drank a beer together at the airport, I was only 18, bro.

I was 19.

And somebody bought me a beer and I drank it.

I asked him if I could drink, he's like, yeah, of course.

We were in dcu Uniform because that's what they made us fly in.

The weird thing is, is that when we got back to Texas to fly back to Iraq, he straight up tells me, like, I don't want to go back.

And I looked at him, I'm like, I mean, you don't want to go back.

We have to go back.

He's like, yeah, I know.

So he had taken shrapnel in his neck when his soldier got killed in the beginning of the deployment.

Yeah, he was a Gulf War veteran.

I think this dude had, like, a sixth sense, like, something was going to happen.

He meets me in the field after I pop smoke for the helicopter.

We're waiting for the medevacs now.

We got the reinforcements.

Everybody's there.

And I'm standing straight up in shock, bro.

Like.

And I know what shock is now, looking back in hindsight.

And he grabs me, he's like, hey, take a knife.

You're doing good.

Take a knee, dude.

You're doing real good, like.

And the helicopter's coming down.

Like, I didn't even realize I was standing straight up, dude.

And, like, I take a knee.

And he calmed me, and he played that role, you know, mentor, like, just an amazing leader.

And we go and we start loading bodies into the medevac.

And I look at the pilot, and I just give him this look like.

Like, thank you.

Like, thank you.

Like, take care of them, like.

And then they fly away.

That was September 10, 2004.

We go back to the FOB and I'm like, oh, it's my mom's birthday.

I better use the phones before they shut them down.

Because they.

Every time an American soldier gets killed, they shut down the phones.

Two hours.

Yeah.

They want to be the first to notify the family.

I call my mom.

Like, hey, mom, happy birthday.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Everything's cool.

Like, yeah, don't worry.

Like, I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday.

Hope everything's okay.

I love you.

Was that a tough call?

Yeah, dude, because everything was not.

Everything was not okay.

Yeah.

But I wasn't about to up her birthday, you know?

And, like, I was like.

And I wonder if that part with me, like, I don't know what they.

What you call that part, Right?

What is that?

Guilt?

Shame.

I don't know.

That whole incident with me.

Right.

Clearly.

Loss, grief.

17 days later.

No, August 10th.

Yeah.

17 days later.

August.

17 days later.

September 27th.

I'm QRF again.

The first time, I think, again, Red Platoon is out, which is the engineers.

We hear over the radio.

Red Platoon is In contact, they're requesting qrf.

Hey, let's load up.

Let's go.

Right?

We knew what time it was.

We always have our gear ready.

Let's go, let's go, let's go.

I.

For some reason, I would always get impatient, right?

Like, let's go.

Like, they need us.

We go.

Finally leave the gate or down the route, and there's that field.

Like I told you, it's like a field.

I see Americans.

It was kind of at a.

At a distance, but not at a distance.

I see Americans loading a body, picking a body bag, picking a body, putting it into a body bag.

And I'm like, oh, please let that be Iraqi National Guard.

Please let that be ing.

Right?

And then you hear it over the radio, dude, be advised, Red 7 is Kia.

I was like, what the.

Dude, that was Jose.

Jose Lito Villanueva, who I went to R R with, who was there with me when Doc got killed.

He was the platoon sergeant for the engineers, dude.

Like, that was two major initial blows for me as a, As a man.

Yeah, As a young man, as a human, you know, they would talk about sacrifice.

I talk about sacrifice.

You know, I get so pissed off, and this is what I struggle with, dude.

I get so pissed off that I feel Americans are cowards and lack courage and spine and backbone and are afraid to say the bad wrong thing to their boss because they don't want to lose their job.

And I'm like, you, dude, you.

I knew men that would gladly give up their life for us, right?

But it's kind of a double edged sword.

Like, I don't want to, like, put the blame on them for them not serving.

But at the same time as, dude, I recognize what sacrifice is for sure, and I recognize what cowardice is.

You know what I mean?

So I'm that with me.

The crazy thing is, I mean, this whole thing is all up, right?

But September 10th, Daklon gets killed.

September 27, Joselito Viano gets killed.

October 1st, we take over the city of Samara.

Operation Baton Rouge.

So basically for you Marines, you guys took over Fallujah.

This was our version of Fallujah, smaller scale, but the city of Samara.

Samara had been taken over by insurgents.

It had definitely been taken over by insurgents.

And we had to go in there.

And that was cool as why?

Because we were on the offense.

And for the first time in our deployment, we were on the offense.

We, we went, we pushed on the edge of the city every American firepower, bro, that you had.

The AC130 gun chips that lit that up all night.

And probably the best fireworks show I've ever seen.

Dude, for sure one everything we had, we gave it to him, bro.

Artillery, 120 tank rounds, the whole nine, bro.

That was prior to us entering the city.

And then it was three days of clearing house to house, kicking in, doors smashing.

Like, dude, we knew which house the engineers had hit because they would all be on fire after we left.

They were so pissed, right, because their platoon sergeant had just gotten killed three days prior.

They.

We hit that city with a vengeance, bro.

With a vengeance.

So the briefing before we went, we were in a conference room with a table and I asked the lieutenant, hey sir, is there going to be people going about their daily business like grocery shopping, putting in gas?

He's like, hey, the lieutenant colonel says he wants to start this city from the ground up.

We have zero percent collateral damage.

They've been giving enough warning to get the out, all right.

He said, every car that you see, blow it up.

It could be a vbid.

He's like, I don't give a fuck.

At 4, 203, grenade.

And we're like, roger that, sir.

How fun was this, bro?

Bro, it's like being the best.

It's like a little boy's fucking best dream.

Yeah, yeah, you get a whole city to yourself now.

Run amok.

Now, I told you we were not indiscriminately killing people, right?

We weren't and I don't know anybody of us American troops that were, that were.

But we had a taken over a school.

Like we're operating initially and they're like, hey Pharaoh, did you kill a fucking lady yesterday?

I'm like, what?

No.

Like they asked me and I fucking kind of felt disrespected, but they would have like, no.

Why?

They're like, cuz there's a fucking dead lady over the wall.

Like there is like, I guess, I guess on the other side of the wall there was a fucking dead person.

Yeah, I didn't bother to go look.

Nor do I.

Nor did I give a fuck.

Right?

Like at that point there's nothing like, dude, it was it just.

Different time frame.

Sure.

Cars were on fire, houses were on fire, things were getting broken, people were getting up and we were finding weapon caches, we were finding bad guys.

We were, we were finding daisy chained IEDs, bro.

Which is scary because they had rigged that whole place.

That whole place was like an insurance playground.

They had like, on the rooftops, they had like special RPG stashes where they can run and shoot.

They had the daisy chain ids, I think, were the gnarly.

Where you'll find multiple IEDs linked together on a, like, dirt road on a narrow way.

We found artillery round that had that serine gas, urine serum, serum gas.

It's like that yellow gas or whatever.

Because they had started hitting us with those IEDs, but the chemical wasn't working.

Because in order for the chemicals to work, that.

That shit, that artillery round needs to rotate to activate the chemicals.

At least that's what they told us.

So the fact that it was just detonating and putting a cloud of chemicals, like it wasn't being effective.

Interesting.

Yeah.

And then we took over a mansion.

So we operated out of a school, we operated out of the mansion, and we stayed there for a month, and then we went back to Balad.

But that was that offense.

So.

Yeah, like 2004, it was just a different time frame, bro.

For sure.

I don't think that shit's ever gonna happen again.

Not like that.

Who knows?

I never thought we'd be in trench warfare, and here we are in Ukraine.

True.

So you're.

How many guys did you end up losing in your.

On that deployment?

So on that deployment, we lost one guy kia, with a few guys wounded.

Purple Hearts.

Joselito Villanueva from the next platoon over.

And then when I got out of the army, my friends kept dying.

They kept deploying.

My friends from my platoon were PCSing to other units and getting killed.

In Hector Leha, I think he went to the 25th ID, he got shot in the head by a sniper.

And that's actually on YouTube, bro.

When he got shot in the head, like, I seen that.

Like, I seen how he got killed.

And I'm like, I was at the academy to be.

To become a CEO when I saw his death in 06, 2006.

Ellen, that black dude that greeted us, he went to the 10th Mountain.

He got killed.

My friend Soto, he got out of the army, reenlisted, then went back and got killed.

Oh, God.

Becker.

Michael Becker, he was my initial team leader.

He got hit by an id, caught on fire, flown to Texas, where he would eventually die of his wounds a few days later.

You had Ryan Wood, who I went to basic training with.

He went to 126.

He died.

And by an IED.

Joseph Herndon, who I went to basic training with, he went with a 25th ID.

Jeffrey King, who got wounded by an RPG, then he would come home and commit suicide.

Like, it was a lot, bro.

And it was with me.

So I started drugs and alcohol for sure.

So when you got back from Iraq, how long did you have before you were out of the.

Of the army?

Three months.

Three months.

So in that three months, it was a blur.

Yeah, because now you're doing everything.

You're getting your.

You're doing all your checkout paperwork.

You're just distracted.

So you never.

Drinking and drinking.

A fifth of vodka a night plus a 12 pack of Coronas during that period is when I started that much consumption.

You guys never had any decompression coming back.

You went straight into checking out to get out of the military.

Well, yeah, there was that three months.

Yeah.

But during that three months, I mean, there's a process to get out, so it's not like you guys are even.

It was a process.

I was out processing.

Yeah, you're out processing.

So you never even processed any of the trauma that you dealt with overseas.

You came back and went straight into getting out mode.

But then again, 2005, bro, mental health awareness was not what mental health awareness is in 2026.

Hell no.

It was you.

You stay quiet, Nobody's suffering.

Everybody's cool.

Everybody's good.

Good.

Check.

All right.

In reality, that was not the case for me, for sure.

Meeting a lot of men later in life, that was not the case for them, for sure.

100.

That's why I'm asking, because in your era, in my early era was like, hey, you guys are all good.

Don't.

Don't say.

Because I remember.

We got.

I'm gonna tell you something.

Yeah.

Before we left Iraq, there was a nurse.

Our sergeants came in, said, hey, these nurses gonna ask you a series of questions as soon as you say no, the sooner we can get out of here.

Cool.

Same speech.

These are what she asked.

Have you ever killed anybody?

No.

Have you ever seen any Americans die?

No.

Have you ever seen any enemy die?

No.

Have you ever seen any civilians die?

No, bro.

I don't even tell you about the car bomb.

But it doesn't matter.

I don't have to tell you about the car bomb, Right?

Like, it killed 22 motherfuckers.

It was a.

It was a mess.

So we answered no when all the shit was true.

Yeah.

Before we move on forward, you remember when I told you that I had threw the stupid fucking blue cord at the tv and my best man.

We saw.

We thought I missed our war.

Well, this was a year of bullshit that we had dealt with, Right?

Yeah.

The last month we were in Iraq, bro.

What was that?

Major car bomb that killed 22 people.

There was just pieces of meat all over the place, floor, bro.

Steaming.

Steaming.

Because it was January.

So just charred, steaming meat.

22 people who were people.

There was not one complete corpse.

They were all charred.

They were all pieces.

Are these military or these?

Oh, these were ING, bro.

This was a bus full of ING 22.

They were a bus full of Iraqi National Guard.

They blew that up right in front of our fob.

A little way down the street, but right in front of our fob.

So you guys are first there.

We were qrf.

Yeah, we were the.

We were there, bro.

Like we were picking up the pieces.

How was that a nightmare?

A living nightmare.

A hell on earth, like a nightmare.

Like if you probably.

If you were having a nightmare and you were to see that, you would probably want to shake yourself awake and be like, oh God, thank God.

That was a nightmare.

But I remember specifically thinking, oh God, this is real, dude.

And there is no shaking away.

And I'm staring at everything.

It.

And I've said this story part before where I see this corpse, bro, and the corpse is mangled like this.

And there's a hole where the face is supposed to be.

And I see two Iraqis grab the body and move the body and it's just slush red just comes out.

And I remember going like, oh.

And then I hear Sergeant Dean.

Like, the sergeant, he was my team leader, bro.

So he was everywhere with me.

He's like, hey, Pharaoh, get the out of the Humvee and start picking up pieces right now.

Body, pieces, pieces, pieces, body pieces.

Chunks.

They were chunks, bro.

They were boots with feet still in them.

It was Kevlar's that were flat, like paper, flat.

Cab.

It was a car bomb, bro.

It was a.

It was a SUV that pulled up next to a bus and detonated and it just poof, blew everybody away.

I didn't want to get out of the Humvee, bro.

I didn't want to get my boots dirty.

That was January fucking a month before we were getting the fuck about to leave.

I was so tired.

I was over that place.

Yeah, I was over that place.

Sergeant Golson.

Solid, solid ass.

Big, muscular black dude.

A beast, bro.

Squared away, perfect leader.

He's like, he was in the invasion.

He was in the invasion of Iraq in 03, okay?

With the first armored division, the push.

And he's like, I've seen too much.

This is what he tells me, see, because I was seeing a lot of weird that it wasn't adding up in my head.

He tells me, like, I've seen too much.

And I'm like, what do you mean you've seen too much, right?

Like, you're an E7, bro.

He's like, I've seen too much.

I think I'm going to need to get help when I get back.

And I bro, I think to myself, and what the does this mean for me, right?

Like, what the am I.

So the thing about trauma, and this is for the viewers, is that when you're in the middle of the bro, you have no idea what transformation your mind, your soul, your heart, your gut, your body has already endured.

You have no clue, bro.

You're just changing.

You're just in the belly of the beast, dude.

So that was the car bomb.

Couple weeks later, we're QRF again.

We get a call, hey, a car got shot up.

An Iraqi car got shot up by another set of Iraqis.

A tribal war.

Go to this location.

The car's there.

There's dead people there.

Okay?

It's a canal with no water.

There's a car.

I mean, I got the pictures.

I got the videos, bro.

And I look, and there's a dude, driver's seat with a good, clean bullet hole right here.

His brains are on his shoulder.

Fingers are all shot up.

They're like bullet holes everywhere.

And it.

We.

We walk, me and my best man, we walk, and we're looking at the body, and we're like, dude, oh, man.

Tired of this.

And then we get a call on the radio.

It's my friend Weeks.

Hey, frell.

I have the dude's family here right now.

Should I let him go through?

I say, no, Weeks, don't let him go through.

Don't let him go through.

He's like, too late.

They're going through.

Oh, God.

Oh, they're walking.

Like, the dude.

The.

The son had to have been, like, probably 20 years old.

He looks in the car, he sees his dad with his brains all, like.

On the.

The kid, the.

The.

The son goes, like.

He starts screaming and crying, right?

My best man starts laughing.

He.

Which.

Another form that I found.

I.

People think we're crazy, right?

But I found that it's like a coping skill, coping mechanism.

They call it, like a sympathetic laugh.

Like, you're doing it right now, bro.

Yeah, 100.

You're doing it right now.

That's just kind of funny, though.

Like, it's just.

That's the only way you think you could do is laugh or cry.

No.

Excellently put.

So he starts laughing, and I'm like, oh, bro, stop, Stop.

Because then I want to laugh too, right?

I'm like, bro, you're such a bro.

Stop.

Because the dude's dead, his son's screaming, they're looking at us, the brains are on the shoulder.

Then the son says, do we take him to the hospital?

I said, take him to the hospital.

I said, let me know if, you know, hospital is going to bring him back because I got a couple friends I want to bring back.

He like, look, right, because we're bro, we're like callous, hardened.

Yeah.

So basically what we end up doing is we end up throwing the dude a body bag here.

Put your dad in there and do whatever you want with him.

Take them away.

I don't give a.

Right.

Like that was always awkward, like watching how you just got like a dead Iraqi.

They're like, they were dead or there all the time.

He just, what do you do with it?

Correct?

Yeah, it was one time we put one on the Humvee because of my psychotic, psychotic platoon sergeant.

He said, put them on the Humvee, put them on the hood like a deer.

And we drove him back too far.

Like, God, oh God.

Not a good look.

Yeah.

Back to this story, dude.

Me and my best man were sitting on that canal bank, tired as, right?

Exhausted.

And he tells as the.

The son is loading the dad's body into the body bag.

Me, your best man.

This is like, this is like seven in the morning, bro.

He says, hey, bro, do you think that when we go back to the United States we're gonna have issues like, like the Vietnam veterans, like the Gulf War syndrome?

And I'm like, nah, bro.

I said, I think we're good, man.

Like, we're, we're here sitting next to some brains and all I can think about right now is going back to the chow hall and I hope the chow hall is open so that we can eat some breakfast.

He's like, oh, yeah, for sure, bro.

I'm hungry.

We're like, yeah, but if you think about it, dude, that's, that's not.

It was a fuse.

It was lighting a fuse inside here.

If you look at it, dude, that's not normal.

No, no.

So like.

But at the time, we didn't.

It had already began, dude.

Yeah, it had already began.

So you come back to Germany, you lie to the mental health physician.

You come back to Germany, you start coping with alcohol, self medicating because it numbs you, because it makes you pass out, because you don't have to think, you don't have to feel, dude.

It, it was a time I was a time bomb, bro.

I was a. I was.

I'm so passionate about helping people now because how bad I got, dude.

Yeah.

In 05.

Yeah, in 05.

And then 2010 is when I would eventually get sober.

Right?

But 2005 was filled with drugs, meth, coke, alcohol.

You're still in the military during this time?

No, I ETS okay.

Okay.

I. I waited till I ETS to do all that other stupid.

And so you're just chasing it?

Chasing.

Chasing something that didn't exist.

Or running, I should say.

Oh, I was chasing.

I was chasing the high over chasing.

And I was running and chasing at the same time.

Hiding.

Like what I was doing was chasing the adrenaline that I would never feel it from combat ever again.

No matter how many women, how much alcohol, how much, how fast.

I was driving on the highway, 120 miles per hour.

105.

Getting in fights, challenging people to fight me, I never even came close to the adrenaline of combat.

I'm keeping it 100% real.

I never came.

I never even touched it.

No way.

Nothing would ever replicate.

Has replicated that.

But at the same time, I'm self medicating.

I'm drowning my trauma.

And by trauma, I mean.

What do I mean?

I mean sadness.

I mean fear.

I mean guilt.

I mean shame.

Loneliness.

Yeah, loneliness.

Because I was alone without my friends from the military.

I didn't have a weapon.

You know, yesterday we were talking about identity.

Technically, that was my identity.

I. I consumed it, bro.

Being a young soldier in the barracks, overseas in.

And then going to war like that.

That's you, bro.

You're.

I said it very clearly.

We were training 22 hours a day.

There were no days off.

There was no off time.

Like now you're off and now it's.

They have nothing.

$20,000 saved up from, from the, from the $20,000 from the deployment.

Yeah.

And then like eight of my friends joined the Marine Corps and like one or two to the air Force.

We all came back to Brawley with $20,000 in our bank accounts, which we were all 20 years old, bro.

What do you think that looked like?

Raging, party raging.

We, we.

We partied hard for the whole entire year 2005.

I was drunk the whole entire year of 2005.

My parents were done with me, bro.

They would kick me out of the house.

So that's when.

So, okay, so after you go through everything that you went through in the military, you get back from deployment, three months later, you're out.

Yep.

So no decompression, no help and especially during that time, there was.

There was not like the.

We have now had nothing, early days.

It was just like, hey, you're good.

Okay, cool.

Even Internet was MySpace.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay, you're right.

So you come back, no help, no support, and now you're just on your own.

So this is when life starts to spiral bad.

Well, you said you got in the drugs.

What are you doing for drugs?

Okay, but this might sound stupid as.

But I fucking tried methamphetamine before.

I tried cocaine.

Really?

100% fact.

How do you just try meth?

Because where I'm from, there's drugs everywhere.

And the person, the people that were there at my party, who were my friends as well, they.

I said, all I said was, I want something.

That's all I said, I want something.

He said, okay.

He said, do you want to stay up for days or do you want to stay up for hours?

I said, I don't give a, bro.

Days, right?

That's what I said.

And he comes back with something which happened to be meh.

And I want to say that I snorted at that time, right?

Because I've snorted, I've smoked it.

But that, that, like, yeah, it sucks.

Whoever has ever snorted meth knows that it sucks to snort it.

It burns and it like, you're up.

You're up for days.

You.

You.

You don't eat, you don't sleep.

You're.

You're paranoid.

Eventually you do it so many times, you're paranoid.

Anxiety.

You want to know the crazy thing about me is, like, I probably naturally have anxiety as is.

I'm act hyper as is.

I don't need methamphetamine in my system, bro.

Yeah.

Do you realize how bad that was?

I was living in hell.

And then the coke, right?

Because who gives a about trying coke if you've already tried meth?

For sure.

And then the roller coaster from hell is what I called it.

This is what every day looked like for me.

I would wake up at the nighttime to get ready to go party.

I would start consuming alcohol.

I would want to stay up more.

So I would do some cocaine.

It wouldn't put me as high as I wanted it to.

So then I would smoke meth, but then it will put me too high.

So then I would smoke weed and it would bring me down.

And I just fucking did this.

I did this.

I did this for a year, dude.

And then my parents were watching me.

They were probably thinking I was crazy.

They probably thinking like, my son, my son is no longer my son, right?

Like, he lost his damn mind.

My sister was, like, probably heartbroken.

Like, damn.

Like, my brother.

Look at my brother.

Like, what.

How can.

How can we help more?

What's going on here?

And I didn't know what the was happening, bro.

I had no idea.

And I think it's very important for me to tell the public.

Like, not knowing what was happening probably contributed it to a lot of it and made matters that much worse.

I think if somebody would have said, like, hey, Hector.

Like, hey, bro, Relax.

Stop.

You went overseas, you saw all this trauma, like, but also another thing that kept me from seeking help with the machismo.

Bravado, man.

I don't need help.

I don't need help.

My own ego.

Yeah.

I was so stubborn, I almost died

over it for sure.

So.

Until I reached out for help at the VA hospital when I had totaled my truck in 2010.

So what was.

What was your rock bottom?

Depends on what you want to call rock bottom, bro.

Because my.

My rock bottom was a psych ward, bro.

I'm not gonna lie.

I don't think you get any more slower.

Ended up in a psych ward.

Yeah.

How'd you end up in a psych ward?

Because I totaled my truck, dude.

And my dad said, I'm done with you.

You're not my son.

You're dead to me.

Don't call me.

Don't call this family ever again.

Damn.

I'm dropping you off at the VA In La Jolla.

We're not hearing from you again.

I was done, dude.

I was done, bro.

That was it.

I was like, he was not around, bro.

My dad was not around, bro.

For he me to hear my dad say that.

My dad's a very quiet, honorable, respectful man.

My fiance at the time had invited me to her friend's wedding, and I said, no, I have to work.

But I had called out sick from work, and I went to go party instead.

So when I totaled my truck, I had to explain to her why I didn't go to work, why I didn't go to the party, and how the.

I totaled my truck.

She was about to leave me.

My job was about to fire me.

Are you a correctional officer at this point in 2010?

So I stopped.

Stopped doing drugs when I got accepted into the CEO.

Okay.

Which was what year?

2006.

Oh, so you were running hard.

So you get hard, hard.

So that first year out of the army, that's when you're doing everything with drugs, you get ended up.

Yeah, 2006.

Get hired as a CEO.

But the drug stop.

And the alcohol continued.

What's kind of crazy is that I have the common self respect and dignity to not do drugs when I'm in the military.

And I have the common self disrespect dignity not to do drugs in law enforcement.

Like I have that much common sense and like ability to not do that.

Yeah, but the drinking is what alcohol is.

What did your boy in, bro?

So you.

So before the truck accident, were there other incidents?

Because that's a long stretch to be that into alcohol without getting interested.

Here's a funny story.

It's not actually funny.

2006, me and my friends are smoking meth, drinking beer and we run out of beer.

So we say let's go do a beer run.

Let's go to the fucking 7 11.

Let's go steal some beer and run out of the store, not pay for it.

Okay.

I think we had did it earlier that night and we got what we wanted, like 18 pack.

Stole 18 pack, went back to the pad.

Drink that.

So we were going to do the second beer night, beer run of the night.

My friend is driving, I'm in the backseat of the truck, my other friend, there's three of us, goes out, goes in there, runs.

Fucking takes forever.

He's fucking up.

And then when he runs out of the store with a case of beer, a CHP officer, California Highway Patrol is driving and sees the entire thing.

He sees, he saw everything.

And he turns around and flips a U immediately and pulls us over.

Pulled us over immediately, got caught and like I was a smart ass bro.

And he.

They realized like these dudes just did a beer run, then they book us into jail.

Oh, they arrested all you and you're a CEO at this point?

No, no.

So you're saying like what built up.

So this, this, this incident that I'm telling you right here was the first legal incident.

Oh.

As a result of my drinking prior to being a CEO.

Okay.

Prior to being a CEO.

Now I had the aspirations to be a CEO.

I had the goal to be a CEO.

But my own, I was, I was getting in my own way, like my trauma.

Right.

Not to make an excuse, but the, that was what it was.

Yeah.

They.

I'm thinking I'm not going to do.

I'm thinking they're going to release us.

It's a 18 pack of beer, dude.

Yeah.

They take us to Brawley Police Department.

They do the little.

They take us to Imperial County Jail.

And I'm just like, oh yeah, like anytime now.

Like anytime.

They're just Gonna open the door.

I'm gonna get the out of here, right?

This was like on a Thursday or like on a Friday, bro.

And I'm like, yeah, no big deal, right?

Whatever.

I'm homeless at this time.

I'm homeless.

I was not living at my parents house.

I was living at my cousin's house.

That's all I'm gonna say.

There's a lot of drugs around.

Yeah, yeah.

And then they put us in this damn dress out room, bro.

And they take my personal property and give me some sorry ass jail clothing, man.

Sink in, you knew you weren't gonna go anywhere.

Yeah, I was not a happy camper, bro.

Yeah, I was like, oh, what is this?

You're gonna.

You're getting booked.

Book the 18 pack of beer, dude.

You guys are tripping, right?

Again, not accepting accountability, being immature, young.

And then, bro, they opened the dorm.

Straight gang members, dude.

This is active.

Active gp, like, because there was no reason for me to be in protective custody, right?

But I'm not a gang member.

I'm not a gang member, bro.

This is a regular.

And as soon as we go in, me, my friend Jaime, the shot caller of that dorm, thankfully, was Jaime's cousin.

So he goes, I mean, what up, bro?

What are you doing here?

Hey.

Tells his friends, hey, this is my.

So we got lucky.

Well, he got lucky.

I just happened to be lucky with him.

Yeah, yeah.

And then he looks over at me.

Oh, he's with me.

All right, guys.

So they like take my.

These gangsters, like real gangsters, bro, With a tattoo in their face and their heads.

I'm not that, mind you.

I just got out of the military, dude.

I'm trying to be a co, bro.

Now you're in jail.

But I also know how to adapt to my environment.

Sure.

So this first thing I do, as dumb as it sounds and as dumb as it is, I took off my shirt and started doing push ups on the floor, bro.

Instantly, my friend looked at me like, what are you doing, bro?

Get up.

You're all trying to show everybody how tough or whatever, you didn't know what to do.

Correct.

Okay.

Correct.

Okay.

So how long did you end up spending in the week for a case of beer?

It was horrible.

Before you guys got to see a judge or something.

We did not know that the third guy bailed himself out the first night.

We didn't know that.

Okay.

We.

What we got was time served.

Well, we got was time served.

There was no judge.

And if you look at my record, that like, it's on the Record, but it was, like, dismissed.

The d. A.

Never picked it up.

Okay, so, like, dude, I mean, I don't want to talk too much about the jail stuff, but there was.

There was.

There was drugs in the jail, right?

Sure.

Weed.

I mean, I'm for sure there was weed.

I know that much for a fact.

And, like, I just followed along, like, to not create any waves.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So you get out of there.

So while I'm in jail, bro, because this is what you were asking.

There was a payphone on the wall, and I called my dad on the payphone.

I remember I was not living at home.

Yeah.

And he's like, hey, you got your letter from CDCR to go take your written examination.

He's like, I don't even think you can get in now with what situation you're in.

And I got out of jail on the.

On the.

Monday, I drove to Rancho Cucamonga on Tuesday, when I got out of jail to go take the written exam, and I passed to become a CO When I passed that written exam is when I stopped, like, all drugs, is when I tried to stop drinking.

I don't even think I tried.

When I got to my medical examination, my liver enzymes were high.

And the doctor asked me, like, hey, how much you drink?

And of course, I lied.

I'm like, I don't know.

Three beers a weekend.

Oh, well, you need to stop.

Like, your.

But before that was a background investing investigator, bro.

He's like, wait a minute, man.

It says here that you were in jail three months ago.

What's up with that?

I said, sir, I could explain everything.

He goes, please do.

Please do.

I said, hey, sir, I got out of the army.

Like, I was hanging out with some friends who I thought were my friends, and, like, they got me caught.

I kind of said, like, I didn't really throw them under the bus.

I'm just like, you know, I was hanging out with friends, and we got arrested, and I no longer hang out with those friends.

And he's like, all right, I believe you.

You look like a good kid.

I'll give you a chance.

Like, that's what the dude told me, and he let me in.

Okay, so then.

Then I become a CEO And I had stopped drinking alcohol on my own because I knew that it was a problem for me.

But when I was at the academy, I failed my first examination, and I drank at the strip club, and.

But when I drank.

I'm an alcoholic, bro.

Like, I said, like, for the viewers that understand what being an alcoholic is, there is no, just having one beer for me.

There's a chemical imbalance, like, in my brain.

I was.

I was back at it, dude.

Back at it.

Drinking, reckless behavior, untreated post traumatic stress disorder.

And for three years, I was a young CO indulging in alcohol.

I had a girlfriend, quote unquote fiance, who would eventually be my wife.

And I put her through hell those three years, bro, but she stuck through it.

In 2010 is when I totaled my truck.

And I went to the VA hospital and I went to the emergency room.

My dad was there.

Luckily, my dad didn't just drop me off and leave like he said he would.

He.

He got off the car, he waited right next.

I was so scared, bro.

I was.

I was done.

I was.

That was my bottom.

I would.

I had never asked for help before.

I adamantly refused to ask for help.

I didn't know how to ask for help.

I didn't even know that was like.

Yeah.

And there was a lady behind the counter, and I said, hey, ma', am, I need help.

She's like, what's wrong, hun?

I'm like, I don't know.

I don't know.

Every time I drink, bad things happen.

I have these thoughts, like, it's a.

It.

There's something wrong with me.

And she's like, oh, don't worry.

Like, she was very calming and like, normal, bro.

Like, soothing.

She's like, have a seat.

We'll see you right now.

Then we go into this office.

They start asking me questions.

I said, man, I have this anxiety because the CHP were looking for me.

I. I total my truck and I fled the scene.

So they called my job site.

They said, have you seen this correctional officer?

We're looking for him.

We found his truck.

His truck is totaled.

Like, is he okay?

Like, we have no idea where this dude is.

I was at the va, asked, begging for help.

Right?

Like,

so you total your truck and

fled at the scene.

Then the cops track you down and you're a correctional officer, so they call your prison.

And you meanwhile, you checked yourself into the VA 100%.

Holy shit.

Is this where they put you in a psych ward?

Yep.

You had no idea what was coming up?

It's not that they put me in the psych ward.

It's that I'm telling the lady what's wrong with me.

Right?

Or like, these are what happened.

Yeah.

And she's like, oh, hon, it sounds like you would be a great candidate to go upstairs.

And I'm like, here's this for the loony Bin.

Huh?

You had no idea?

No idea, bro.

Bro, you had.

I'm a gullible.

I'm there to get help.

You're telling me I'm gonna get help, right?

I'm all for it at this point.

She's like, you seem like you would be a great candidate to go upstairs.

Like, there's people like you there, and we.

We help them.

And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's why I'm here.

Sign me up.

Yeah.

So they're like, okay.

And they put me in a hospital gown, bro.

And they put me in a wheelchair.

Like, looking back now, you want to ask me what my bottom is, bro?

There's no reason why I should be in a hospital gown and a wheelchair getting wheeled into a psych ward, bro.

Yeah.

Like, I'm perfectly sane.

You know what I mean?

Ish.

But with untreated post traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism.

Yeah, but that's not sane.

Correct.

I'm saying right now, I'm perfectly sane.

Yeah, yeah.

But at the time, I mean, you're obviously probably also thinking that you're saying, but you don't realize what you're battling and what you're.

What's going on.

I didn't think I was saying back then, bro.

I didn't know what the.

Was going on, bro.

I thought I was a alien.

Like, I just.

What is.

Why.

Why am I so stupid?

Why can't I. I thought it was immaturity.

I thought, like, I'll grow out of this.

Yeah.

There is no growing out of that, bro.

You got to treat whatever's going on.

So they put me.

They will me, and as soon as they.

And now, mind you, this was voluntarily, right.

I was not involuntary put into a psych ward.

For the record, that's a 5150 hold or whatever.

And I get there and I'm like, oh, no, right.

There's.

There's talking to themselves or schizophrenia.

There's like, how long were you in

there before you realized it was a psych ward?

Immediately.

I don't know if I've seen it from movies.

Oh, so it looked the part.

Well, yeah, bro.

I mean, instantly, as soon as the door shut, it made you look back.

You're like, why did they just lock that door from the outside?

Yeah, yeah.

You're like, I can't get out of here.

Correct.

Okay.

I'm not a dumb.

I'm very observant.

I'm noticing that the door just shut and the motherfucker talking to himself in the corner.

The homeless looking right There.

And then a marine comes up to me, and he's like, around my age, and he says, bro, don't get on the pills.

Don't get on the pills.

Don't get on the pills.

And then he walks away.

And I'm like, don't get on the pills.

Right?

That's what he tells me.

Oh, I'm like, dude, I sit on my bed.

There's a, like a, a sketchy homeless dude doing some inappropriate things on his bed.

And I'm like, that's when I say, this is my bottom.

That's when I realize, this is where alcohol has led me.

This is where alcohol has led me.

This is, this is, this is a problem.

This is a severe problem.

There's something wrong.

This.

What the.

What's next?

Right?

So, like, bro, like.

And mind you, I'm also trying not to get fired from my job.

I'm also trying not to lose my fiance.

So I was a very selfish person.

And out of alcoholism.

And again, I don't, I'm not making excuses, bro.

I'm just telling you exactly how it was.

When I'm under the influence of alcohol, I become a very selfish person.

Manipulative, like, liar, cheater, and the thief.

Like, what can you do for me?

Right?

I hate it that way.

That's not, that's not me, who I am as a person, right?

So I'm, I'm sitting there thinking, I gotta save my job.

I gotta.

And this is gonna get out of this.

How do I get out of this?

How do I keep my wife?

And my dad kept telling me, like, don't worry about your job.

Don't worry about your job.

I, I, I'm taking care of it.

Because he was also a correctional officer at the same exact prison.

You had some poll.

He spoke to the warden on my behalf.

Okay.

God.

Okay.

That warden, at the time, gave me a chance.

Okay?

But for the people that are trying to, like, get better now, I totally understand of why you want to fix everything first and foremost instead of yourself.

It's almost like a design that you're trying to distract yourself.

But the reality was that I needed to work on myself.

I needed to look inward, and I had never in my freaking life had done that.

So what help did you get?

So they give you this card, and on the card it says, while you're in here, it's called two south, bro.

Two South.

In the VA in La Jolla, there's two north, which is the medic, the mental health wing, there's two south, which is A psych ward.

There's Two west, which was the rehab for alcohol, which I would eventually go to.2 West.

So basically it's the second floor of the VA with the hallways, and each one is designated for.

I wasn't too south, bro.

I'll never forget that.

So they give you a slip of paper, says, what do you want to take advantage of while you're in here?

And one of the little boxes said, meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I was so broken, I'm like, well, I might have a problem with alcohol.

Oh, you still didn't even realize it.

I still didn't even realize it, bro.

But I figured, like, I'm here, I'm not going anywhere.

Just check the block.

And I checked the block, dude.

Next day they say, hey, Hector, come over here, right?

They separate in the groups and I fucking go in.

The group is a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, bro.

My first one ever.

It was 2010.

There's a table, there's a man speaking.

He has 12 years of sobriety.

I didn't even think 12 years sobriety was a fucking possible, bro.

Because I couldn't even string along.

Definitely not 12 days, bro.

Like, I couldn't keep sobriety.

Like, I wouldn't even.

And he shares the story.

He says, hey, my name is so and so.

You know, when I used to drink, I used to get in fights.

When I used to, I used to be destructive.

I used to self sabotage.

And I'm like, bro, like, I used to crash cars, I used to go to jail, I used to disappoint my family.

And I'm like, yup, me, that's me, right?

Like, that's me.

And like, he's like, and Now I have 12 years of riot, like, and I'm like, whatever this is, I need it, I want it.

This is for me, like.

And I.

And I just been with the program for 15 years now, bro.

Like, currently sitting here, I have 15 years of sobriety.

Good for you.

And you got to keep your job.

I got to keep my job at.

I got to keep my wife, even though we're currently separated.

You have a beautiful seven year old daughter.

Yeah.

And I repaired the relationship with my family through what is called what I call a living amends.

Meaning, like, because I would, you know, I would just want to apologize all the time for saying I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I was a piece of, like, I'm sorry.

Like, because I also, right after rehab, right after the psych ward, I went into a 20 day inpatient rehab, okay?

For substance abuse and mental illness.

Okay.

So I learned about alcoholism and I learned about post traumatic stress disorder.

So I've actually have been working on myself since the year 2010, bro.

We're now in 2026.

I learned all about trauma, loss, grief, the brain, how it rewires, dopamine, cortisol.

Everything is scientific, bro.

Spiritual wound.

I got to keep my job.

And when I got sober, things started getting better, bro.

I promoted a sergeant.

Let's get into the corrections because we got.

We're two hours in.

I want to cover some correctional, so get to keep a job.