September 2, 2025 • 32 mins
Marc endures the increasing stress of Shock Incarceration as he inches closer and closer to completing the grueling program. A Drill Instructor informs him of a new position that adds more responsibility - and pressure - to his daily routine. Meanwhile, Ed attempts to avoid numerous obstacles that could prevent him from graduating.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
So occasionally you would have a brief moment of time
where you could streen out your differences with a fellow inmate,
with the drill instructors turning away when it does happen,
just to let the steam out, the animosity out, the
anger out, and was settled. Every turn the showers. Nobody's
(00:23):
seen it, nobody knows about it. So there's one inmate
having an issue with another inmate, the drill instructor could
see the tension, would send them in there to clean
the showers. Fifteen minutes later, one of the inmates walked
out missing a tooth. Both inmates that he fell in
the shower, and the drill instructor goes great answer.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
From iHeartRadio and doghouse pictures. This is shock incarceration. I'm
Jeff Keating. Since Mark received his green hat, expectations increased
(01:30):
and the pressure of staying high and tight loomed over
the entire platoon.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
The expectation and I used the analogy of high school, right,
so your brown was your freshman hat, and the green
was sophomore year, the red wish junior year.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
And then the goldest senior year for graduation.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
But the expectations of the d's was that you were
gonna be high and tight, you were going to be
on point, you were gonna just do better every day,
even though it was the same thing every day. You
were going to find out ways to become more efficient.
You're going to find out ways to become more of
a team player. You were going to find out ways
(02:08):
to understand why you're here and what you need to
do to just be in a better place once you
get outside of here and ultimately take on the world
and take on a full time job. So that thought
process was indebted in your brain, and every day they
(02:29):
quite honestly just.
Speaker 6 (02:32):
Beat it into you.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Drill Instructor Stack explains the relationship between the ds and
the inmates.
Speaker 7 (02:42):
Your drill instructor should not be approachable. If he's approachable
to you.
Speaker 8 (02:46):
He's probably not doing each job that could.
Speaker 7 (02:49):
Like I said, it's almost like acting. It really is,
and it's not personal to us. There's a point behind everything.
We're not doing it.
Speaker 8 (02:56):
To be jerks.
Speaker 7 (02:57):
We're doing it because this is the program. So there's
going to be downs and then you have to bring
them back up.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Throughout the Shock incarceration program. Letters to and from home
were a great way for Mark or indianmate to communicate
with family and friends. It was also a way to
get news about what else was going on in the
world outside the prison.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
In Shock, mail time was about eight point fifty at
night we were getting ready for lights out.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Drill Instructor composed he would always do mail call.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
It's all right, mail call, Lombardo, sure, yes, sir, and
then you'd run up, you'd go over, you'd get the letter,
do about face all military kind of steps back to
your locker, and I mean, you couldn't wait to look
down and see who was you know, was it from
my mom? Was it from my buddy in California? You
know who was it from? You had to wait until
all the mail was passed out. You're chopping at the bit.
(03:49):
You want to see what's going on? Two seconds later
Lombarro sir, Yes, sir, come up here. What I'm getting
at is I received a lot of mail to the
point where they called me mailman. And drill Instructor Caposi
every night that he did mail call, he would call
me up to the desk to stand there before he
(04:10):
did mail call, because he didn't want to wait for
me to come back and forth back and forth, back
and forth six times. I can't even tell I've received
hundreds and hundreds of letters.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
We were allowed to write with pens.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
It's just the ink insert nothing else because the hard
plastic coating of a pen could be used as a weapon.
I have the worst handwriting in the world to begin with.
Now you give me that thing and try and maneuver.
That's another reason I didn't write that long either. My
mom would kind of give me an update of just
family members in general. But every single letter I received
(04:45):
was motivation, every single one. I remember get a letter
that James Gamdelfini died. Wow, my god, James Gamblfini died,
current events, whatever the case was going.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
On in the world. That's how I got up to
speed on everything.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Mark's mom, Linda, kept all the letters he wrote home.
While in shock incarceration.
Speaker 9 (05:05):
One guy on my platoon got smacked up and down
and then again. I was truly scared at the moment
as I thought something bad was going to happen. The
inmate just took it like a man and didn't say
or do anything negative. Out of everyone in the dorm,
I had the best looking bed aka rack. If anyone
(05:28):
wants to see what a rack should look like. Come
see Lombardo's in forty two bottom. Small compliment, but it
felt great. I'm taking pride in what I do here.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
People in the.
Speaker 9 (05:42):
Beds next to me and in the immediate areas always
ask me questions. A couple of guys have honestly said,
I'm following your lead, Lombardo, you always know what's going on.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Feels good.
Speaker 9 (05:56):
It makes me feel positive. Not a day goes but
I don't think of you all and wish you all
the best. I miss you all and love you all
very much.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
The letters and encouraging words from his family and friends
lifted Mark spirits, but after a long day of physical
training and work detail, he still went to bed exhausted.
Here's drill instructor Paul Stack.
Speaker 7 (06:24):
Keep in mind, these guys are sore as can be.
We putting them in bed at nine thirty at night.
They're getting from nine thirty to five point thirty in
the morning to sleep, which seems like a reasonable amount
of time. But now when your day physically and mentally
is extremely draining, well, we wake them up with a
fox forty whistle, the plastic referee whistles.
Speaker 8 (06:46):
They're extremely loud.
Speaker 7 (06:48):
I've probably got hearing issues because of doing it for
so long. As soon as I get them up, I'm
doing what was called a side straddle hop. So can
you imagine being woken up out of bad and the
only thing you can do is jump up as fast
as you can and then somebody's going to.
Speaker 8 (07:04):
Tell you to start doing exercises. So from there we'll
do a count.
Speaker 7 (07:09):
And when they do the count, they have to be
at the position of attention. They head and eyes have
to be straightforward, and they'll turn their head to the
side as I walk past them, and I'll either have
them do their account by their name as I'm counting them,
or I'll actually have them count as i'm counting them.
Speaker 8 (07:23):
So I'll come by and they'll go sir, one, sir.
Speaker 7 (07:26):
And by the way, everything that comes out of their mouth,
whether it's a female or a male instructor, it's going
to be mam or sir before and after everything they say.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Sometimes the drill instructors would switch things up without notice
to throw the platoon off balance.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
Every morning, how you do the count, sir? One, sir,
sir two, s three sir. They would move us around
every couple of weeks into a different bed, so would
screw your head up with your number. And there was
one morning, I want to say it was the end
of April, and he had just gotten some snow and
we started doing the count at five point thirty in
(08:05):
the morning, and it was like number fifteen or number
sixteen said the wrong number.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
He said, let's start again, sir.
Speaker 5 (08:12):
Two sir got to that same fucking guy and he
said the wrong number again, and he made us all
go outside in our boxers, nothing else on, line up
outside in the snow and do it outside. And then
as he's going down, there was one guy that put
his fucking boots on. I couldn't believe this guy had
the audacity to put his boots on before we went outside.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
So we were all standing.
Speaker 5 (08:35):
There, barefoot and just boxers in snow doing this count,
and he realized that a guy had his goddamn boots on,
so he stopped the count and he made us everybody
that was in barefoot do probably fifty or one hundred
jumping jacks and then thirty to fifty pushups while the
(08:58):
guy in the boots just stood there.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
And watched us.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
Again, just another example of how you have to pay
for other people's punishments. Pitch yourself doing one hundred jumping
jacks in the snow barefoot and thirty forty or fifty
push ups at five thirty in the morning after you've
been awake for maybe three minutes.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Not a good way to start your fucking day.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
And all day, every day, the inmates were being watched
by the drill instructors to see if they could follow
orders and maintain discipline. Here's drill instructor Clark.
Speaker 10 (09:35):
And everything they did was evaluated.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
So at the end of the day they.
Speaker 10 (09:39):
Got a report card that every drill instructor had to
fill out, and that's what kept them in the program
or kicked them out of the program. So if they
talked talking to the mess off, that was what we
called it hit, and they'd read it under evaluations. That's
really how we maintained the discipline in the program, really,
which through the evaluation and the power of the pen.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
The evaluations were an important part of the shock incarceration program,
not only for the inmates individually, but for the squad
and platoon leaders. Mark was surprised to hear his name
called out by one of the drill instructors.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Maybe it was because I was the oldest.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
Maybe it was because I, quite honestly, I kept my
rack very clean. My corners were nice and tight, and
these are the things that the drill instructors when we're
out at work, they're walking around our dorm when nobody's
in there. They're looking for detail. So he called four people,
and I happen to be one of them. Drill instructor Eggleston.
(10:33):
He said, Lombardo, you're going to be the squad leader,
but I'm going to monitor you, and you have to
help your teammates out. You're responsible for everybody in your squad.
They fuck up, that's on you. So every week you
would get an evaluation on how you didn't work, on
how you did on cleanliness, how you did in the dorm.
(10:53):
And I was responsible for the fourteen people in my section,
and based on the ranking or the better score of
your evals of your entire team, determined who got a
shower first.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
And that was big.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
So the people in shower first, you come back out,
you only have the same amount of time to shower
three minutes, okay, But when you come back you have
a little bit more time to get dressed because the
other people still have to go in and shower. So
you wanted to fight every week to have the highest
evaluation in your dorm out of the four groups. And
that really gave you about another fifteen minutes to maybe
(11:29):
write a letter to polish your shoes. Take a look
at my locker.
Speaker 7 (11:33):
As a drill instructor, who have to always keep that
in mind. As these guys are broken, they come to
us broken. You can't expect them to do everything.
Speaker 8 (11:43):
Perfect as soon as they get there. It's just not practical.
Speaker 7 (11:47):
So in the beginning you're writing everything down. Going from
one color cap.
Speaker 8 (11:51):
To the next is about progress.
Speaker 7 (11:54):
And their achievements and things that they have achieved in between.
In the beginning, there's always something to write on their evaluation.
Speaker 8 (12:04):
Everybody's going to do something wrong.
Speaker 7 (12:05):
They don't like seeing that because these evaluations can catch
up to.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Them, because bad evaluations could get you recycled or thrown
out of the program, so could fighting, stealing, and several
other disciplinary actions. Mark saw his fellow platoon members getting
tossed out week after week, and he knew that any
day he could be next. Mark and his platoon moved
(12:49):
closer to getting their red hats as they endured physical training,
work detail, drug and alcohol classes, and confrontations every single day.
Mark was desperate to finish shot incarceration and not be recycled,
and one incident tested his resolve.
Speaker 5 (13:08):
When I was at work with drilling truck to Clark,
there was a big old dirt pile that needed to
be removed. So we were shoveling it and putting it
into a back of one of those DPW type kind
of trucks. And we were really hustle, I mean shoveling quickly.
And I still feel bad to this day. So I
went in, grabbed the shovel, turned around and went to
(13:30):
throw it, and I broke a guy's arm. I broke
his arm with the shovel. The poor bastard. Now I'm paranoid,
I'm am I fucked. What's going on? Like, what's gonna this?
He dropped, He dropped, He was in pain. I think
he was in a lot of shock too, you know
sometimes you get in so much pain in shock. But
I literally snapped his arm. I was nervous. I was
(13:52):
waiting for answers, and we were in the drug and
alcohol rehabilitation with missus Rose. A day or later and
drill instructor Clark and Stack walked in and they said,
excuse me, counsel the Rose, we need to speak to
Lombardo please, And my heart dropped.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Holy fuck, what's going on?
Speaker 5 (14:12):
So, sir, yes, sir, follow us a big gulp, you know.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
I go out into the hallway.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
They're standing there, and drill instructor Clark broke my balls.
He said, you know what you did to him?
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Right?
Speaker 5 (14:24):
I said, sir, Sir, it was a complete accident, Sir.
I believe you saw it, sir. He said, you broke
his arm. I said, sir, I feel so bad.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Sir. You know, is he going to be able to
finish the program? Sir?
Speaker 5 (14:35):
Yes, he's going to be able to finish it. I said,
am I And he stopped and he looked at me.
He said, yeah, you are.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
And I said, Sir, am I in trouble? Sir? He says,
not at all. We know it was an accident. I
was right there. I just wanted to let you know.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
I know you were worried about this, and I mean,
you want to talk about oh my god, relief. Wow,
But that was an embarrassing moment for me. You know
that I actually broke this guy's arm and I could
have ruined his opportunity of getting out, and.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
My own ed had to run in with another inmate
that scared the hell out of him as well.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Myself and this individual. We got into it on a run.
I was always in front of him and he would
run and always step on the back of my sneakers.
So I told him to back off, and he did,
and he did it again, so of course I stopped
and we got into it. We threw a few punches
and drill instructor stopped us and we continue running. The
(15:34):
following day we had to go see a disciplinary officer.
Just sitting there. He questions what happens. Then he comes
out with a recommendation. And his recommendation was, you two
have to learn how to live together, so carry a
log with you. For it was like a week or
two weeks, so no matter where he went or I went,
(15:56):
we had to carry a log together. And this wasn't
like a branch, was a log. So on our runs
we had to carry a lock on pt going to
the mess hall, we had to carry a lock. But
walking into that disciplinary actions, everyone has seen people leave
in handcuffs and you get sent out to Elmira, get
(16:17):
sent wherever or be sent back weird lucky enough that
well they shouldn't say lucky. We're carrying probably a two
hundred pounds log all day.
Speaker 8 (16:27):
Was not fun.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Shock incarceration was physically and emotionally draining on all of
the inmates, and they needed a safe space to share
their feelings and let some steam off without being disciplined.
Counselor Rose helped them express themselves.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
It was relationships, it was families, it was feelings just overall.
You might sit in a class and just go around
the room for an hour and everybody would have three
minutes to talk about how they're feeling this week, or
did you get any letters this week that maybe you
got some negative or positive news from.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Home and you would share it with the group and
you would.
Speaker 5 (17:05):
Just get your feelings out, or whether it was a
great week because you felt good about yourself and you
did peaky without hurting yourself, or you got through another
safe week of not getting in trouble.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Mark vividly remembers the day he received his red hat
and how he felt knowing only the gold hat was left.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
And I remember specifically because now you're full two months
in on the green. So you're into the early spring
when the red hat was coming. And I do recall
very very vividly, it was a pretty warm weekend, and
you know the little yellow.
Speaker 6 (17:41):
Dandelions that you see in the grass.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
Each dorm probably had a maybe a thirty by forty
grass field in front of it, and I could picture
myself even seeing the whole scene. But you would go
outside and you would see four, five, six, seven, eight
hundred thousand, what do I know, the thousands of them?
And one Saturday, he says, all right, let's go, and
(18:06):
he grabbed a bunch of garbage bags.
Speaker 6 (18:08):
And we went outside and he says, you see the.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
Yellow dandelions all over the prison. We're gonna pick them
today as a family. And I remember everybody's hands were yellow,
and my platoon picked every single dandelion that was in
the grass in the entire prison. Then it was thousands
of them, thousands of them into the garbage bags. We
came back and there was a huge log pile. Okay,
(18:34):
take this log pile and we're gonna put her over here.
Then take that rock pile and then we're gonna put
her over here. And it doesn't sound that hard but
it really is. It's a lot of manual labor, back
and forth. He probably worked us for about four and
a half five hours outside sweat and then you're not
in shorts, you're in your pants, you're in your work boots,
so you're sweating.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
And then when we went in to.
Speaker 6 (18:57):
Our dorm, we broke down for showers.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
We went and ate, we came back, we did the
normal a sat we came back. And the one thing
that I do remember is it was a Sunday night.
Because everything happens at church. The priest would call people out.
If he saw people talking in the back of the room,
he'd call him up. He'd have him come up front.
(19:20):
He said, hold on, we're going to interrupt this service
right now. Those two gentlemen at back, please come up.
They'd come up, he says, give me fifty push ups,
fifty sit ups before I go on, and they would
do it. So if there was a lot of commotion
going on, every drill instructor would know about it. So
by the time you got back to your dorm, they
might have you do something. And in this case, drill
instructor composed he said, heard there was a lot of
(19:41):
church tonight. And again it better not have been of
anybody from this platoon, but maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't.
Speaker 6 (19:48):
So you know what, everybody's going to pay for it.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
So he says, everybody, get up, get into a white
T shirt, white boxers, and your work boots. And we
were like, you gotta be fucking kidneyed because you had
us doing all this bullshit all weekend with the dandelions
and the rock pile and this, and that you really
wanted to go to bed because you were going to
get up Monday morning, do your normal pte, go to work.
And he says to us, take your pillows, put them
(20:11):
on the locker. So everybody did that, and then he said,
I want you to start rolling up your mattress from
your pillows side and start.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
Rolling it up.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
And these mattresses, just to pink the pitcher. It's not
a six seven eight inch mattress fall mattress. These are
something you put in a lounge chair outside in your backyard,
so they're very easy to roll up thirty inches wide.
So we're rolling it up with the blanket and the
sheet because it's very easy and very small. He says,
we're going to go outside and run because you guys
want to fuck around and disrespect the church and the priests.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
And we were just like, you gotta be fucking kidd me.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
But then as we rolled it up, the red hat
was on the bottom, and it was like the emotions right,
because you're saying to yourself, I can't believe I'm going
to have to go outside right now and run around
at nine talk with my mattress on my head. And
as you're rolling it again, I saw it and you
almost look around right You're like, shit, did they see it?
Speaker 6 (21:07):
You had? Did anybody else see it?
Speaker 5 (21:08):
And then everybody's seeing it, and we're looking around at
each other and it's putting a smile on your face instantly,
and then Jeryl and Shrektor composed. He says, I think
by now everybody sees what was under there. He said,
put it on your head, make your racks, and go
to bed. Sleep with the hat on your red hat.
I felt like a kid in a candy store. I
(21:30):
felt like Christmas morning, I really did. I fell asleep
probably with a smile on my face, and so.
Speaker 11 (21:37):
Did just about everybody I would have to imagine in
that room, because again, now you knew you were at
the next stage, and again you're closer to home, You're
closer to the gold hat.
Speaker 6 (21:48):
And I'll tell you what, it was a great feeling.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
It was a better.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
Feeling than getting the green and made you want to
strive to get the gold.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Now Mark could see the light at the end of
(22:16):
the tunnel of the shock incarceration program now that he
had received his red hat, with only the gold to go.
But Ed had a different feeling once he received his
red hat.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
What happened was the second day that I got my
red cap, a drill instructor pulled me right out over
to the side and asked me, what's the seventh general Order?
And I froze and I couldn't think of it. I
drew a blank. So he flipped off my red hat
and said, this is why he should be a shipbird.
He ran over and took a brown cap off someone
(22:50):
else stuck it on my head. And then I realized
I'm a target. Now I really need to know every
thing because they will pull you out, they will test you.
And now all of a sudden, I felt pressure. This
just got real. There's added expectations of you finishing. And
(23:12):
then that fear really kicked in where I was just
trying to stay off the radar as much as possible.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
One of Mark's recurring fears was missing important family celebrations
or the thought of someone close to him passing away
while he was inside shock. This became amplified when he
heard a story from another inmate during counseling.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
A lot of the guys talked about it was my
baby daughter's birthday and I couldn't be there.
Speaker 6 (23:40):
There was multiple people who lost family.
Speaker 12 (23:42):
Members while they were in there, and some got passes
to go to the funeral service. I remember this one
guy gave his father passed away and he was completely upset,
and they actually allowed him to do it. So they
took him out in his greens in the New York
State in shackles. They drove him on a bus to
(24:04):
the funeral home. They walked him in there, they didn't
even unshackle him, and he was able to pay his
respects to his father, see his family members, and then
put him back on a bus and brought him back
all within like an eight hour time period. And I
remember actually asking him if you have a little closure,
and he's like, it sucked. I mean, if you think
(24:25):
about it, you can't even hug a family member, and
you're going through one of the worst times of your
life where your father passed away and you're standing next
to on the casket and.
Speaker 6 (24:35):
You're in a New York state prison outfit in handcuffs.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
And Mark started to think that even if he graduated,
what was his life going to be on the outside.
How would he be perceived by his family, his friends,
and the average citizen, knowing that he'd be an ex
con and Ed received some terrible news that even if
he made it through the program, he might not be
(25:01):
eligible for parole.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
So when you're going through, you hear from the counselors,
you hear from your drill instructors, and they'll tell you
only about three out of ten people at dwi's are
going to get paroled or get to go home. Half
of our platoon or close to half, was all just dwi's.
So you're thinking, well, shit, that means only three of
(25:25):
us are going to get paroleed. The rest of us
are going to go wherever. So that's a first thought,
is you're doing all this for what.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Mark had several more weeks to successfully complete shock incarceration,
but the PT in Marching didn't let off one bit.
Neither did the work detail. However, drill Instructor Clark seemed
to recognize something in Mark, and that lifted his spirits.
Speaker 10 (25:52):
So if I put somebody on something large, like a tractor,
they could really start getting away from me.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
Well that's the job Mark up.
Speaker 10 (25:59):
And I just remember the stories him talking so much
about his family. His mother is cooking. So I didn't
know him as Mark. I know him his inmate Lombardo,
and he stuck out to me because you're looking at
him like, you know, this kid's got potential. Why are
you wasting your life in jail?
Speaker 5 (26:16):
Drilli Structor Clark kind of maybe sounds cliche, but he
was like a father figure up there to me. I
looked up to him, I really did. He was a
very sharp dressed even though in a correctional officer, but
his outfits or uniform fit the best. His creases were
the best, his boots were the shiniest. The man was
(26:37):
in the United States Army. He's a lieutenant colonel. This
guy knows stuff. He's been places I was interested in
just learning about him. Could be extremely strict. I think
that Army military can come out of him in a heartpeat.
He was actually a funny guy. He would pick on
a lot of the inmates. He would pick on a
lot of the other correctional officers, and that to us
was funny good man, and I really enjoyed working with them.
Speaker 10 (27:01):
I put over two thousand some inmates through the program.
I did some math the other day. You know, if
I'm doing fifty four at least plus recycles per a
tune that I had, but yet Mark stuck out. When
you remember one like Mark, you remember them because it's
the kid that comes out and you're like, what the
heck are you doing here?
Speaker 4 (27:17):
You know better?
Speaker 2 (27:18):
And Mark could have known better through his good family relationships,
but the party life led him to prison and shock incarceration,
and there were a few more hurdles to make it
through to graduation, and an inmate could be expelled for
the slightest of infractions.
Speaker 10 (27:35):
We have very few problems because it's very disciplined and
we're making sure they do the exercise. There's two drill
in structures on an elevated deck doing it with them.
So everything we do that they have to do, and
then we culminate it with a run. And I like
the run I'm not gonna lie, but we try to
get two miles a morning and before even going to work,
(27:56):
so it's pretty intense, and you start out slow that
you have to build him for it. But by the
end these guys are marathon and it's just phenomenal when
you run every day for six months. I mean there
were no days off from PT go left, got goff
left left left.
Speaker 6 (28:14):
Me and Superman got in a fight.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
Me and Superman got in.
Speaker 6 (28:19):
I had him with the left, I hit him with
the right.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
I hit him with the left, him with the right.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I said.
Speaker 8 (28:25):
Me and Superman got in a fight.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
I said, Superman got I had.
Speaker 10 (28:31):
Him in the head with subcrypted knight head.
Speaker 6 (28:36):
I had him so hard I broke his brain.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
I hit him so hard I broke his brain.
Speaker 10 (28:41):
And now I'm Dad in Lois Lane.
Speaker 5 (28:44):
Now it's stamina for sure, and cadence and singing and
jogging information and staying up with your peers and looking professional.
Quite honestly, you want to look like a professional sports team,
like I'm military, walking through and jogging.
Speaker 6 (29:02):
It's pretty core.
Speaker 10 (29:03):
I mean, you Mike platoons would pride themselves on being
in shape and discipline. They might get to sleep a
half hour later, so they get up at five thirty
on weekends six holidays. But there is no such thing
as no PT today, so these kids were in great
shape at the end.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
The Captain's Run was the ultimate success to finish out
the two months of the Red Hats or Phase two.
The ten mile run, the biggest run that I've ever
had to do there and we represented the Gold Hats
when we got back to the dorm under the pillar.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
Yeah it was extradition.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yes, that was an accomplishment. We came back from PT
once and there was a gold cap the di left,
so we're all cheering. We were really happy we got
gold cabs.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Both Mark and Ed's platoons made it to the final
two months of their programs, the Gold Hat.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Phase, and you're out on a campus. Other inmates would
be like, hey, how is it being a gold cap?
What should I be looking for? And you had to
tell them the truth, like, yeah, it sucks, dude, it's tough.
They don't tell you how tough it is. Sore having
a gold cap with an accomplishment, it also met the
(30:15):
end is near. We have a graduation day, so we
had fifty days left.
Speaker 6 (30:22):
With a gold cap.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
So it was scary because you're walking around fifty days
with this being gold cap. It was rough, but it's
also like you could feel proud I made it this
far and all the crazy stuff of inmates having them
to hug each other and sing in the Barney song
(30:44):
carrying logs.
Speaker 13 (30:45):
You made it through that. So it was a big
accomplishment when we wore that gold had they wore probably,
and they know they earned it. But they get a
little cocky too when they finally make it to that point.
They start out not understanding fighting, rebelling. By the end
they wanted and that's what we're teaching them. It's a
better way to live. There's no shortcuts in Shock was
one of our models. It was something you wrote in
(31:07):
your letter. It's like that was the one thing you
couldn't wait to write a letter about. Hey, I got
my gold hat today.
Speaker 5 (31:13):
Now everything close? Does that sound? But it was amazing.
It was an amazing feeling, and I knew two months
I was out of there. Two months that's all I
had left. Holy shit, this journey is coming to an end.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
That is until Mark Hurd that some inmates from the
past have been recycled out of the program on graduation
day and had to start it all over again.
Speaker 14 (31:48):
Shock Incarceration is a joint production from iHeartRadio and Doghouse Pictures,
produced and hosted by Jeff Keating. Executive producers are Mark Lombardo,
Tommy James, Noel Brown, and Jeff Keaty. Written by Jim Roberts,
Tommy James, Chris Regazzo and Jeff Keating. Story edit by
Jim Roberts, Edit mix and sound design by Lane Krauss.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
From Herd's Creek Productions.
Speaker 14 (32:11):
Music composed by Diamond Street Productions, accompanied by Kyler Greenwell,
Danny Wattanas, Sean Thompson and Spencer Garne. Special thanks to
Trinity Investigative Group and Mark Lombardo's family and friends who
contributed to the podcast.
So occasionally you would have a brief moment of time
where you could streen out your differences with a fellow inmate,
with the drill instructors turning away when it does happen,
just to let the steam out, the animosity out, the
anger out, and was settled. Every turn the showers. Nobody's
(00:23):
seen it, nobody knows about it. So there's one inmate
having an issue with another inmate, the drill instructor could
see the tension, would send them in there to clean
the showers. Fifteen minutes later, one of the inmates walked
out missing a tooth. Both inmates that he fell in
the shower, and the drill instructor goes great answer.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
From iHeartRadio and doghouse pictures. This is shock incarceration. I'm
Jeff Keating. Since Mark received his green hat, expectations increased
(01:30):
and the pressure of staying high and tight loomed over
the entire platoon.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
The expectation and I used the analogy of high school, right,
so your brown was your freshman hat, and the green
was sophomore year, the red wish junior year.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
And then the goldest senior year for graduation.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
But the expectations of the d's was that you were
gonna be high and tight, you were going to be
on point, you were gonna just do better every day,
even though it was the same thing every day. You
were going to find out ways to become more efficient.
You're going to find out ways to become more of
a team player. You were going to find out ways
(02:08):
to understand why you're here and what you need to
do to just be in a better place once you
get outside of here and ultimately take on the world
and take on a full time job. So that thought
process was indebted in your brain, and every day they
(02:29):
quite honestly just.
Speaker 6 (02:32):
Beat it into you.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Drill Instructor Stack explains the relationship between the ds and
the inmates.
Speaker 7 (02:42):
Your drill instructor should not be approachable. If he's approachable
to you.
Speaker 8 (02:46):
He's probably not doing each job that could.
Speaker 7 (02:49):
Like I said, it's almost like acting. It really is,
and it's not personal to us. There's a point behind everything.
We're not doing it.
Speaker 8 (02:56):
To be jerks.
Speaker 7 (02:57):
We're doing it because this is the program. So there's
going to be downs and then you have to bring
them back up.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Throughout the Shock incarceration program. Letters to and from home
were a great way for Mark or indianmate to communicate
with family and friends. It was also a way to
get news about what else was going on in the
world outside the prison.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
In Shock, mail time was about eight point fifty at
night we were getting ready for lights out.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Drill Instructor composed he would always do mail call.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
It's all right, mail call, Lombardo, sure, yes, sir, and
then you'd run up, you'd go over, you'd get the letter,
do about face all military kind of steps back to
your locker, and I mean, you couldn't wait to look
down and see who was you know, was it from
my mom? Was it from my buddy in California? You
know who was it from? You had to wait until
all the mail was passed out. You're chopping at the bit.
(03:49):
You want to see what's going on? Two seconds later
Lombarro sir, Yes, sir, come up here. What I'm getting
at is I received a lot of mail to the
point where they called me mailman. And drill Instructor Caposi
every night that he did mail call, he would call
me up to the desk to stand there before he
(04:10):
did mail call, because he didn't want to wait for
me to come back and forth back and forth, back
and forth six times. I can't even tell I've received
hundreds and hundreds of letters.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
We were allowed to write with pens.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
It's just the ink insert nothing else because the hard
plastic coating of a pen could be used as a weapon.
I have the worst handwriting in the world to begin with.
Now you give me that thing and try and maneuver.
That's another reason I didn't write that long either. My
mom would kind of give me an update of just
family members in general. But every single letter I received
(04:45):
was motivation, every single one. I remember get a letter
that James Gamdelfini died. Wow, my god, James Gamblfini died,
current events, whatever the case was going.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
On in the world. That's how I got up to
speed on everything.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Mark's mom, Linda, kept all the letters he wrote home.
While in shock incarceration.
Speaker 9 (05:05):
One guy on my platoon got smacked up and down
and then again. I was truly scared at the moment
as I thought something bad was going to happen. The
inmate just took it like a man and didn't say
or do anything negative. Out of everyone in the dorm,
I had the best looking bed aka rack. If anyone
(05:28):
wants to see what a rack should look like. Come
see Lombardo's in forty two bottom. Small compliment, but it
felt great. I'm taking pride in what I do here.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
People in the.
Speaker 9 (05:42):
Beds next to me and in the immediate areas always
ask me questions. A couple of guys have honestly said,
I'm following your lead, Lombardo, you always know what's going on.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Feels good.
Speaker 9 (05:56):
It makes me feel positive. Not a day goes but
I don't think of you all and wish you all
the best. I miss you all and love you all
very much.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
The letters and encouraging words from his family and friends
lifted Mark spirits, but after a long day of physical
training and work detail, he still went to bed exhausted.
Here's drill instructor Paul Stack.
Speaker 7 (06:24):
Keep in mind, these guys are sore as can be.
We putting them in bed at nine thirty at night.
They're getting from nine thirty to five point thirty in
the morning to sleep, which seems like a reasonable amount
of time. But now when your day physically and mentally
is extremely draining, well, we wake them up with a
fox forty whistle, the plastic referee whistles.
Speaker 8 (06:46):
They're extremely loud.
Speaker 7 (06:48):
I've probably got hearing issues because of doing it for
so long. As soon as I get them up, I'm
doing what was called a side straddle hop. So can
you imagine being woken up out of bad and the
only thing you can do is jump up as fast
as you can and then somebody's going to.
Speaker 8 (07:04):
Tell you to start doing exercises. So from there we'll
do a count.
Speaker 7 (07:09):
And when they do the count, they have to be
at the position of attention. They head and eyes have
to be straightforward, and they'll turn their head to the
side as I walk past them, and I'll either have
them do their account by their name as I'm counting them,
or I'll actually have them count as i'm counting them.
Speaker 8 (07:23):
So I'll come by and they'll go sir, one, sir.
Speaker 7 (07:26):
And by the way, everything that comes out of their mouth,
whether it's a female or a male instructor, it's going
to be mam or sir before and after everything they say.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Sometimes the drill instructors would switch things up without notice
to throw the platoon off balance.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
Every morning, how you do the count, sir? One, sir,
sir two, s three sir. They would move us around
every couple of weeks into a different bed, so would
screw your head up with your number. And there was
one morning, I want to say it was the end
of April, and he had just gotten some snow and
we started doing the count at five point thirty in
(08:05):
the morning, and it was like number fifteen or number
sixteen said the wrong number.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
He said, let's start again, sir.
Speaker 5 (08:12):
Two sir got to that same fucking guy and he
said the wrong number again, and he made us all
go outside in our boxers, nothing else on, line up
outside in the snow and do it outside. And then
as he's going down, there was one guy that put
his fucking boots on. I couldn't believe this guy had
the audacity to put his boots on before we went outside.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
So we were all standing.
Speaker 5 (08:35):
There, barefoot and just boxers in snow doing this count,
and he realized that a guy had his goddamn boots on,
so he stopped the count and he made us everybody
that was in barefoot do probably fifty or one hundred
jumping jacks and then thirty to fifty pushups while the
(08:58):
guy in the boots just stood there.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
And watched us.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
Again, just another example of how you have to pay
for other people's punishments. Pitch yourself doing one hundred jumping
jacks in the snow barefoot and thirty forty or fifty
push ups at five thirty in the morning after you've
been awake for maybe three minutes.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Not a good way to start your fucking day.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
And all day, every day, the inmates were being watched
by the drill instructors to see if they could follow
orders and maintain discipline. Here's drill instructor Clark.
Speaker 10 (09:35):
And everything they did was evaluated.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
So at the end of the day they.
Speaker 10 (09:39):
Got a report card that every drill instructor had to
fill out, and that's what kept them in the program
or kicked them out of the program. So if they
talked talking to the mess off, that was what we
called it hit, and they'd read it under evaluations. That's
really how we maintained the discipline in the program, really,
which through the evaluation and the power of the pen.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
The evaluations were an important part of the shock incarceration program,
not only for the inmates individually, but for the squad
and platoon leaders. Mark was surprised to hear his name
called out by one of the drill instructors.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Maybe it was because I was the oldest.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
Maybe it was because I, quite honestly, I kept my
rack very clean. My corners were nice and tight, and
these are the things that the drill instructors when we're
out at work, they're walking around our dorm when nobody's
in there. They're looking for detail. So he called four people,
and I happen to be one of them. Drill instructor Eggleston.
(10:33):
He said, Lombardo, you're going to be the squad leader,
but I'm going to monitor you, and you have to
help your teammates out. You're responsible for everybody in your squad.
They fuck up, that's on you. So every week you
would get an evaluation on how you didn't work, on
how you did on cleanliness, how you did in the dorm.
(10:53):
And I was responsible for the fourteen people in my section,
and based on the ranking or the better score of
your evals of your entire team, determined who got a
shower first.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
And that was big.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
So the people in shower first, you come back out,
you only have the same amount of time to shower
three minutes, okay, But when you come back you have
a little bit more time to get dressed because the
other people still have to go in and shower. So
you wanted to fight every week to have the highest
evaluation in your dorm out of the four groups. And
that really gave you about another fifteen minutes to maybe
(11:29):
write a letter to polish your shoes. Take a look
at my locker.
Speaker 7 (11:33):
As a drill instructor, who have to always keep that
in mind. As these guys are broken, they come to
us broken. You can't expect them to do everything.
Speaker 8 (11:43):
Perfect as soon as they get there. It's just not practical.
Speaker 7 (11:47):
So in the beginning you're writing everything down. Going from
one color cap.
Speaker 8 (11:51):
To the next is about progress.
Speaker 7 (11:54):
And their achievements and things that they have achieved in between.
In the beginning, there's always something to write on their evaluation.
Speaker 8 (12:04):
Everybody's going to do something wrong.
Speaker 7 (12:05):
They don't like seeing that because these evaluations can catch
up to.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Them, because bad evaluations could get you recycled or thrown
out of the program, so could fighting, stealing, and several
other disciplinary actions. Mark saw his fellow platoon members getting
tossed out week after week, and he knew that any
day he could be next. Mark and his platoon moved
(12:49):
closer to getting their red hats as they endured physical training,
work detail, drug and alcohol classes, and confrontations every single day.
Mark was desperate to finish shot incarceration and not be recycled,
and one incident tested his resolve.
Speaker 5 (13:08):
When I was at work with drilling truck to Clark,
there was a big old dirt pile that needed to
be removed. So we were shoveling it and putting it
into a back of one of those DPW type kind
of trucks. And we were really hustle, I mean shoveling quickly.
And I still feel bad to this day. So I
went in, grabbed the shovel, turned around and went to
(13:30):
throw it, and I broke a guy's arm. I broke
his arm with the shovel. The poor bastard. Now I'm paranoid,
I'm am I fucked. What's going on? Like, what's gonna this?
He dropped, He dropped, He was in pain. I think
he was in a lot of shock too, you know
sometimes you get in so much pain in shock. But
I literally snapped his arm. I was nervous. I was
(13:52):
waiting for answers, and we were in the drug and
alcohol rehabilitation with missus Rose. A day or later and
drill instructor Clark and Stack walked in and they said,
excuse me, counsel the Rose, we need to speak to
Lombardo please, And my heart dropped.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Holy fuck, what's going on?
Speaker 5 (14:12):
So, sir, yes, sir, follow us a big gulp, you know.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
I go out into the hallway.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
They're standing there, and drill instructor Clark broke my balls.
He said, you know what you did to him?
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Right?
Speaker 5 (14:24):
I said, sir, Sir, it was a complete accident, Sir.
I believe you saw it, sir. He said, you broke
his arm. I said, sir, I feel so bad.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Sir. You know, is he going to be able to
finish the program? Sir?
Speaker 5 (14:35):
Yes, he's going to be able to finish it. I said,
am I And he stopped and he looked at me.
He said, yeah, you are.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
And I said, Sir, am I in trouble? Sir? He says,
not at all. We know it was an accident. I
was right there. I just wanted to let you know.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
I know you were worried about this, and I mean,
you want to talk about oh my god, relief. Wow,
But that was an embarrassing moment for me. You know
that I actually broke this guy's arm and I could
have ruined his opportunity of getting out, and.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
My own ed had to run in with another inmate
that scared the hell out of him as well.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Myself and this individual. We got into it on a run.
I was always in front of him and he would
run and always step on the back of my sneakers.
So I told him to back off, and he did,
and he did it again, so of course I stopped
and we got into it. We threw a few punches
and drill instructor stopped us and we continue running. The
(15:34):
following day we had to go see a disciplinary officer.
Just sitting there. He questions what happens. Then he comes
out with a recommendation. And his recommendation was, you two
have to learn how to live together, so carry a
log with you. For it was like a week or
two weeks, so no matter where he went or I went,
(15:56):
we had to carry a log together. And this wasn't
like a branch, was a log. So on our runs
we had to carry a lock on pt going to
the mess hall, we had to carry a lock. But
walking into that disciplinary actions, everyone has seen people leave
in handcuffs and you get sent out to Elmira, get
(16:17):
sent wherever or be sent back weird lucky enough that
well they shouldn't say lucky. We're carrying probably a two
hundred pounds log all day.
Speaker 8 (16:27):
Was not fun.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Shock incarceration was physically and emotionally draining on all of
the inmates, and they needed a safe space to share
their feelings and let some steam off without being disciplined.
Counselor Rose helped them express themselves.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
It was relationships, it was families, it was feelings just overall.
You might sit in a class and just go around
the room for an hour and everybody would have three
minutes to talk about how they're feeling this week, or
did you get any letters this week that maybe you
got some negative or positive news from.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Home and you would share it with the group and
you would.
Speaker 5 (17:05):
Just get your feelings out, or whether it was a
great week because you felt good about yourself and you
did peaky without hurting yourself, or you got through another
safe week of not getting in trouble.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Mark vividly remembers the day he received his red hat
and how he felt knowing only the gold hat was left.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
And I remember specifically because now you're full two months
in on the green. So you're into the early spring
when the red hat was coming. And I do recall
very very vividly, it was a pretty warm weekend, and
you know the little yellow.
Speaker 6 (17:41):
Dandelions that you see in the grass.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
Each dorm probably had a maybe a thirty by forty
grass field in front of it, and I could picture
myself even seeing the whole scene. But you would go
outside and you would see four, five, six, seven, eight
hundred thousand, what do I know, the thousands of them?
And one Saturday, he says, all right, let's go, and
(18:06):
he grabbed a bunch of garbage bags.
Speaker 6 (18:08):
And we went outside and he says, you see the.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
Yellow dandelions all over the prison. We're gonna pick them
today as a family. And I remember everybody's hands were yellow,
and my platoon picked every single dandelion that was in
the grass in the entire prison. Then it was thousands
of them, thousands of them into the garbage bags. We
came back and there was a huge log pile. Okay,
(18:34):
take this log pile and we're gonna put her over here.
Then take that rock pile and then we're gonna put
her over here. And it doesn't sound that hard but
it really is. It's a lot of manual labor, back
and forth. He probably worked us for about four and
a half five hours outside sweat and then you're not
in shorts, you're in your pants, you're in your work boots,
so you're sweating.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
And then when we went in to.
Speaker 6 (18:57):
Our dorm, we broke down for showers.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
We went and ate, we came back, we did the
normal a sat we came back. And the one thing
that I do remember is it was a Sunday night.
Because everything happens at church. The priest would call people out.
If he saw people talking in the back of the room,
he'd call him up. He'd have him come up front.
(19:20):
He said, hold on, we're going to interrupt this service
right now. Those two gentlemen at back, please come up.
They'd come up, he says, give me fifty push ups,
fifty sit ups before I go on, and they would
do it. So if there was a lot of commotion
going on, every drill instructor would know about it. So
by the time you got back to your dorm, they
might have you do something. And in this case, drill
instructor composed he said, heard there was a lot of
(19:41):
church tonight. And again it better not have been of
anybody from this platoon, but maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't.
Speaker 6 (19:48):
So you know what, everybody's going to pay for it.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
So he says, everybody, get up, get into a white
T shirt, white boxers, and your work boots. And we
were like, you gotta be fucking kidneyed because you had
us doing all this bullshit all weekend with the dandelions
and the rock pile and this, and that you really
wanted to go to bed because you were going to
get up Monday morning, do your normal pte, go to work.
And he says to us, take your pillows, put them
(20:11):
on the locker. So everybody did that, and then he said,
I want you to start rolling up your mattress from
your pillows side and start.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
Rolling it up.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
And these mattresses, just to pink the pitcher. It's not
a six seven eight inch mattress fall mattress. These are
something you put in a lounge chair outside in your backyard,
so they're very easy to roll up thirty inches wide.
So we're rolling it up with the blanket and the
sheet because it's very easy and very small. He says,
we're going to go outside and run because you guys
want to fuck around and disrespect the church and the priests.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
And we were just like, you gotta be fucking kidd me.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
But then as we rolled it up, the red hat
was on the bottom, and it was like the emotions right,
because you're saying to yourself, I can't believe I'm going
to have to go outside right now and run around
at nine talk with my mattress on my head. And
as you're rolling it again, I saw it and you
almost look around right You're like, shit, did they see it?
Speaker 6 (21:07):
You had? Did anybody else see it?
Speaker 5 (21:08):
And then everybody's seeing it, and we're looking around at
each other and it's putting a smile on your face instantly,
and then Jeryl and Shrektor composed. He says, I think
by now everybody sees what was under there. He said,
put it on your head, make your racks, and go
to bed. Sleep with the hat on your red hat.
I felt like a kid in a candy store. I
(21:30):
felt like Christmas morning, I really did. I fell asleep
probably with a smile on my face, and so.
Speaker 11 (21:37):
Did just about everybody I would have to imagine in
that room, because again, now you knew you were at
the next stage, and again you're closer to home, You're
closer to the gold hat.
Speaker 6 (21:48):
And I'll tell you what, it was a great feeling.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
It was a better.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
Feeling than getting the green and made you want to
strive to get the gold.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Now Mark could see the light at the end of
(22:16):
the tunnel of the shock incarceration program now that he
had received his red hat, with only the gold to go.
But Ed had a different feeling once he received his
red hat.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
What happened was the second day that I got my
red cap, a drill instructor pulled me right out over
to the side and asked me, what's the seventh general Order?
And I froze and I couldn't think of it. I
drew a blank. So he flipped off my red hat
and said, this is why he should be a shipbird.
He ran over and took a brown cap off someone
(22:50):
else stuck it on my head. And then I realized
I'm a target. Now I really need to know every
thing because they will pull you out, they will test you.
And now all of a sudden, I felt pressure. This
just got real. There's added expectations of you finishing. And
(23:12):
then that fear really kicked in where I was just
trying to stay off the radar as much as possible.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
One of Mark's recurring fears was missing important family celebrations
or the thought of someone close to him passing away
while he was inside shock. This became amplified when he
heard a story from another inmate during counseling.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
A lot of the guys talked about it was my
baby daughter's birthday and I couldn't be there.
Speaker 6 (23:40):
There was multiple people who lost family.
Speaker 12 (23:42):
Members while they were in there, and some got passes
to go to the funeral service. I remember this one
guy gave his father passed away and he was completely upset,
and they actually allowed him to do it. So they
took him out in his greens in the New York
State in shackles. They drove him on a bus to
(24:04):
the funeral home. They walked him in there, they didn't
even unshackle him, and he was able to pay his
respects to his father, see his family members, and then
put him back on a bus and brought him back
all within like an eight hour time period. And I
remember actually asking him if you have a little closure,
and he's like, it sucked. I mean, if you think
(24:25):
about it, you can't even hug a family member, and
you're going through one of the worst times of your
life where your father passed away and you're standing next
to on the casket and.
Speaker 6 (24:35):
You're in a New York state prison outfit in handcuffs.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
And Mark started to think that even if he graduated,
what was his life going to be on the outside.
How would he be perceived by his family, his friends,
and the average citizen, knowing that he'd be an ex
con and Ed received some terrible news that even if
he made it through the program, he might not be
(25:01):
eligible for parole.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
So when you're going through, you hear from the counselors,
you hear from your drill instructors, and they'll tell you
only about three out of ten people at dwi's are
going to get paroled or get to go home. Half
of our platoon or close to half, was all just dwi's.
So you're thinking, well, shit, that means only three of
(25:25):
us are going to get paroleed. The rest of us
are going to go wherever. So that's a first thought,
is you're doing all this for what.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Mark had several more weeks to successfully complete shock incarceration,
but the PT in Marching didn't let off one bit.
Neither did the work detail. However, drill Instructor Clark seemed
to recognize something in Mark, and that lifted his spirits.
Speaker 10 (25:52):
So if I put somebody on something large, like a tractor,
they could really start getting away from me.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
Well that's the job Mark up.
Speaker 10 (25:59):
And I just remember the stories him talking so much
about his family. His mother is cooking. So I didn't
know him as Mark. I know him his inmate Lombardo,
and he stuck out to me because you're looking at
him like, you know, this kid's got potential. Why are
you wasting your life in jail?
Speaker 5 (26:16):
Drilli Structor Clark kind of maybe sounds cliche, but he
was like a father figure up there to me. I
looked up to him, I really did. He was a
very sharp dressed even though in a correctional officer, but
his outfits or uniform fit the best. His creases were
the best, his boots were the shiniest. The man was
(26:37):
in the United States Army. He's a lieutenant colonel. This
guy knows stuff. He's been places I was interested in
just learning about him. Could be extremely strict. I think
that Army military can come out of him in a heartpeat.
He was actually a funny guy. He would pick on
a lot of the inmates. He would pick on a
lot of the other correctional officers, and that to us
was funny good man, and I really enjoyed working with them.
Speaker 10 (27:01):
I put over two thousand some inmates through the program.
I did some math the other day. You know, if
I'm doing fifty four at least plus recycles per a
tune that I had, but yet Mark stuck out. When
you remember one like Mark, you remember them because it's
the kid that comes out and you're like, what the
heck are you doing here?
Speaker 4 (27:17):
You know better?
Speaker 2 (27:18):
And Mark could have known better through his good family relationships,
but the party life led him to prison and shock incarceration,
and there were a few more hurdles to make it
through to graduation, and an inmate could be expelled for
the slightest of infractions.
Speaker 10 (27:35):
We have very few problems because it's very disciplined and
we're making sure they do the exercise. There's two drill
in structures on an elevated deck doing it with them.
So everything we do that they have to do, and
then we culminate it with a run. And I like
the run I'm not gonna lie, but we try to
get two miles a morning and before even going to work,
(27:56):
so it's pretty intense, and you start out slow that
you have to build him for it. But by the
end these guys are marathon and it's just phenomenal when
you run every day for six months. I mean there
were no days off from PT go left, got goff
left left left.
Speaker 6 (28:14):
Me and Superman got in a fight.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
Me and Superman got in.
Speaker 6 (28:19):
I had him with the left, I hit him with
the right.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
I hit him with the left, him with the right.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I said.
Speaker 8 (28:25):
Me and Superman got in a fight.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
I said, Superman got I had.
Speaker 10 (28:31):
Him in the head with subcrypted knight head.
Speaker 6 (28:36):
I had him so hard I broke his brain.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
I hit him so hard I broke his brain.
Speaker 10 (28:41):
And now I'm Dad in Lois Lane.
Speaker 5 (28:44):
Now it's stamina for sure, and cadence and singing and
jogging information and staying up with your peers and looking professional.
Quite honestly, you want to look like a professional sports team,
like I'm military, walking through and jogging.
Speaker 6 (29:02):
It's pretty core.
Speaker 10 (29:03):
I mean, you Mike platoons would pride themselves on being
in shape and discipline. They might get to sleep a
half hour later, so they get up at five thirty
on weekends six holidays. But there is no such thing
as no PT today, so these kids were in great
shape at the end.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
The Captain's Run was the ultimate success to finish out
the two months of the Red Hats or Phase two.
The ten mile run, the biggest run that I've ever
had to do there and we represented the Gold Hats
when we got back to the dorm under the pillar.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
Yeah it was extradition.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yes, that was an accomplishment. We came back from PT
once and there was a gold cap the di left,
so we're all cheering. We were really happy we got
gold cabs.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Both Mark and Ed's platoons made it to the final
two months of their programs, the Gold Hat.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Phase, and you're out on a campus. Other inmates would
be like, hey, how is it being a gold cap?
What should I be looking for? And you had to
tell them the truth, like, yeah, it sucks, dude, it's tough.
They don't tell you how tough it is. Sore having
a gold cap with an accomplishment, it also met the
(30:15):
end is near. We have a graduation day, so we
had fifty days left.
Speaker 6 (30:22):
With a gold cap.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
So it was scary because you're walking around fifty days
with this being gold cap. It was rough, but it's
also like you could feel proud I made it this
far and all the crazy stuff of inmates having them
to hug each other and sing in the Barney song
(30:44):
carrying logs.
Speaker 13 (30:45):
You made it through that. So it was a big
accomplishment when we wore that gold had they wore probably,
and they know they earned it. But they get a
little cocky too when they finally make it to that point.
They start out not understanding fighting, rebelling. By the end
they wanted and that's what we're teaching them. It's a
better way to live. There's no shortcuts in Shock was
one of our models. It was something you wrote in
(31:07):
your letter. It's like that was the one thing you
couldn't wait to write a letter about. Hey, I got
my gold hat today.
Speaker 5 (31:13):
Now everything close? Does that sound? But it was amazing.
It was an amazing feeling, and I knew two months
I was out of there. Two months that's all I
had left. Holy shit, this journey is coming to an end.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
That is until Mark Hurd that some inmates from the
past have been recycled out of the program on graduation
day and had to start it all over again.
Speaker 14 (31:48):
Shock Incarceration is a joint production from iHeartRadio and Doghouse Pictures,
produced and hosted by Jeff Keating. Executive producers are Mark Lombardo,
Tommy James, Noel Brown, and Jeff Keaty. Written by Jim Roberts,
Tommy James, Chris Regazzo and Jeff Keating. Story edit by
Jim Roberts, Edit mix and sound design by Lane Krauss.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
From Herd's Creek Productions.
Speaker 14 (32:11):
Music composed by Diamond Street Productions, accompanied by Kyler Greenwell,
Danny Wattanas, Sean Thompson and Spencer Garne. Special thanks to
Trinity Investigative Group and Mark Lombardo's family and friends who
contributed to the podcast.
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