November 7, 2023 • 54 mins
After growing up in an extremely strict church in remote California, Joaquin Romero was sent to a boarding school in Mexico. In this episode, he shares his journey from Mexico to the Marine Corps, deployment and coming home to find himself.
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Twitter: @SgtRome
LinkedIn: @Joaquin Romero
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to the Good Stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm Jacob Shick and I'm joined by my co host
and wife, Ashley Shick.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Jake is a third generation combat Marine and I'm a
gold Star granddaughter, and we work together to serve military veterans,
first responders, frontline healthcare workers, and their families with mental
and emotional wellness through traditional and non traditional therapy.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
At One Tribe Foundation, we.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Believe everyone has a sword itself, not only about the peaks,
but also the valleys they've been through to get them where.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
They are today.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Each week, we invite a guest to tell us their story,
to share with us the lessons they've learned that shape
who they are and what they're doing to pay it
forward and give back.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Our mission with this show is dig deep into our
guest's journey so we can celebrate the hope and inspiration
their story.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Has to offer.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
We're thrilled you're joining us again.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Welcome to the Good Stuff. Our guests today is my brother,
Joaquin Ramiro. He's not only a fellow Marine, but he's
a father, husband, and avid gamer. His work as a
Chief operating Officer of One Tribe Foundation puts him squarely
in the trenches regularly of helping a multitude of people
not die by suicide.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Yes, and his journey provides us so much inspiration on
the daily as we have the privilege of working alongside him.
He's here to tell us his story about how being
raised in a strict religious household and getting sent to
a boarding school in Mexico helped shape him to be
the marine and executive that he is today.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
We're so proud to bring this conversation to you because
I know for a fact he dug deep and there
were no boundaries to his vulnerability. And this is the
first time I've known him to open up in a
public form.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Yes, it definitely felt like a family affair.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
We're actually here in the One Tribe offices today, which
is exciting because this is where the magic happens.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Happy to be here. It's honor I have you here. No,
are you a marine's marine, but you're you're a leader
of humans. And just saying I love he is not
enough like it's not enough justice. Oh, I appreciate it.
It's an honor to be here. As you guys know,
I love you too.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Marine Corps was part is a part of your story,
but it's by no means.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
The whole story, the whole story.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
It's one thing to say, you know what, I want
to serve my country, I want to don the cloth
of my nation. But then what makes you go the
extra mile and say, but I'm not just going to
join the armed forces. I'm actually going to join the
Marine Corps.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
So Marine Corps. It was all about the uniform. I
mean honest, the first thing I saw was the dress blues,
and I was like, all right. I didn't have really
a background on any of the branches to say that
one was harder than the other. All I knew was
that my grandfather was a marine. As a matter of fact,
I walked into the wrong door because I wanted to
be in the branch that flew airplanes, air Force marines.
(03:00):
That's exactly what my recruiter told me. But yeah, no,
I went in with zero knowledge of any branch. I
just knew that I was going to serve. Walked into
the first door, the red one with the ego globe
and anchor, and I was like, all right, well, I'm
here to join. And my recruiter, well, I told my
recruiter was like, hey, I want to join the branch
that flies jets.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
He's like, well we have jets, Well sign me up.
Speaker 5 (03:25):
That's how I ended up in the Marine Corps recruiting office.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
We'll find jets.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
They have them. They do, they have jets.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I don't know about you, but it sounds like your
recruiter probably didn't have the same integrity as my recruiter,
which is kind of the mo for recruiters, right. I mean,
my recruiter was great. He was got me out of
jail like he was awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
I mean he tried talking to me out.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
To go on the infantry. He's like, Jake, you don't
do that. Living conditions are gonna suck, like you don't
eat great. And I was like, exactly, need too mature
to be in college. I need to grow mentally, physically, emotionally.
Marines were a great, great place for that. And I
(04:11):
don't know about you, but my Marine Corps boot camp
experience was there's a reason they say they have more
mind games in Milton Bradley.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah, yeah, that's a fact. Mine was different. Though.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
My boot camp experience didn't feel as rough as I've
heard a lot of people talk about it, and I
think a lot of it had to do with my upbringing.
You think maybe I just felt like it was and
I'm not going to say easy. It was by no
means easy, but looking around at all the other recruits
in my platoon, some were struggling, they were on the
(04:42):
struggle bus, and I just felt like, you listen to
your orders, you do what you're told, and this is
going to be good.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Love fast, loved faster, and with purpose. That's right.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Yeah, being a United States Marine it is one of
the most challenging things that you can sign up for.
Everything from going through boot camp and then and you're
both your experiences, you know, deploying and seeing the things
that you saw, experiencing what you experienced, and then coming
home and then the transition of getting out of the
Marine Corps. Transitioning back to civilian life not an easy thing.
(05:13):
It's something that we focus on every day here at
One Tribe Foundation and trying to help our fellow veterans,
first responders, law enforcement officers, frontline healthcare workers, and their families,
you know, transition from going and doing what they do
on a daily basis and service to living a quote
normal life, whatever that might look like. But most Marines
(05:33):
begin their relationship, you know with that struggle in training.
Your story is different. You had some things in your
toolbox already that kind of helped you prepare for that experience.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
Tell us a little bit about your story so.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
Early on, I mean young teenager. I have a twin brother.
We were raised out in the middle of nowhere. I
think that's originally where everything just started for us as
far as our resibuilding braziliency. We lived out in California
in the mountains. It was caretaking some three thousand acres
of property for some rich old guy. We lived way
(06:10):
off of like the highway, like it was out there.
There was no electricity, no lights. We lived in a
fourteen foot trailer. We took bats in buckets of water.
We were homeschooled and we were allowed free rain to
this three thousand acres of property where we would leave
in the morning go exploring in the mountains, hunt rattlesnakes,
maybe not find rattlesnakes and strike that I'm kidding. And
(06:35):
there was like he had this man made lake out there,
so we'd like build little boats out of like inner
tubes and stuff. My mom probably would have had no
clue if one of us drowned that lake just putting
it out there. That's how that's how we were raised.
We loved it. We didn't know anything different. We didn't
know that we were.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
What people would call poor.
Speaker 5 (06:54):
It was just part of our life to be able
to have complete full rain of acres and acres of mountains.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
It was just fun for us.
Speaker 5 (07:01):
It was that's initially where you'd go a big boulder,
rolls over on your foot. Nobody knows one of us
could run back and get some help. Maybe, but I still,
you know, look back at it back on it today,
and I'm like, that's kind of nuts. Like if it
was my daughter, I don't know that she would have
been given that much freedom.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
But because it sounds like little house on the Prayer,
like or like Texas in the eighteen eighties, like no electricity,
no running water, you're taking baths and buckets.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
I mean, what year was.
Speaker 5 (07:30):
This, So this was what early nineties. Yeah, we were
probably thirteen fourteen years old at the time. Obviously home studied.
We didn't, you know. I want to give some praise
to my mom. She did a pretty good job educating us,
keeping us educated because we were able to transition into
public school at the time. But we didn't go to
(07:51):
public school until we were in the eighth grade. And
this is where it became problematic because you know, my brother,
he was born without an ear, not very used to
interacting with kids or people our age, so he got
bullied a lot for it, ended up doing this surgery
and they messed it up even worse than what it
was before. He ended up leaving the school. I stayed there,
(08:14):
so we've always had a really close connection. So it
was difficult for me to not have my brother at.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
School, especially because y'all are identical twins.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
We are what they say is true about twins, right,
you have that crazy strong bond.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
It's very difficult for us to be not especially identical twins, right, yeah,
more so than fraternal.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Yeah. And you and Francisco or your type, Yeah, very close.
Speaker 5 (08:40):
And so that was a difficult time because we'd never
been raised around kiddos. We were very you know, kept
in a bubble most of our lives. So having that
interaction bullying, we weren't used to what bullying was at
the time. That was also something that just I want
to say, looking back on it now, just built on
that resiliency. And then after graduating school, eighth grade or whatever.
(09:01):
Our parents decided our home. Stepparent and parent decided that
they would wanted us to go to school in Mexico.
And I think that was an extremely rough transition, at
least it was for me.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
How did that come about?
Speaker 5 (09:14):
That came about from the religion that we practiced at
the time, or that they practiced at the time. It
was they were very conservative, I guess. I guess I
could say we were all conservative Christian not by choice.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
As far as kids, he just you raised how you raised.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
Stepdad at the time, he was extremely conservative Seventh day Amtist.
My mom in her prior life was very much into
gangs and very violent and things like that. When they met, however,
they met, she converted over to this religion from Catholic.
We used to live in the Bay Area, moved down
to San Diego with this guy stepfather, I guess at
(09:52):
the time, knowing no one all of our family was
up in the Bay Area, so we didn't have anybody.
I think that also serves as a lot of the
connection between and my brothers. We had each other our
whole lives, like through everything. In any case, it was
this religion. I didn't really have a problem with the
religion until we got to our teen years and myself
and my brother were appointed as the bad kids of church.
(10:15):
And this is something also that I look back and
I was like, well, what is a bad kid? Because
we wore baggy jeans and went to the movies and
I think the first movie we went to was a
Titanic and somebody from church saw us and they're like,
all these sinners are at the movie theaters. And so
that was really what labeled us as bad kids in
the church, right, so, you know, in order to get
(10:36):
us on the right path. I don't know if a
recruiter was going around to all the churches in the
area or what, but my parents caught wind of this
school down in Mexico that, you know, was great at
transforming the lives of bad kids or something. I don't know,
because that's how we ended up down in a boarding
school in Mexico.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
What are the beliefs of this church?
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Like, because you going to see the Titanic at the
movie theater? And I grew up in a very conservative
church environment as well, where we weren't allowed to listen
to secular music and you know, you couldn't wear revealing
clothes and couldn't celebrate holidays and all of that same thing.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
No secular music.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
I mean we listened to hymns, and I mean that
was the music that we grew up with, not Metallica
or led Zeppelin or anything. The other thing that I've
talked about a lot. We weren't allowed to do any
kind of intramural sports. I consider myself fairly athletic. I
think we probably could have done well in any sport,
but we were never given the opportunity because games fell
on Saturdays, and Saturdays are the day of rest.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
You don't do anything. You don't watch TV.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
From the time the sun goes down Friday evening to
the time the sun goes down Saturday.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
You don't do anything.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
No TV, no video games, no sports, no nothing. So
that was one of those roles. Movie theaters off limits
to a certain extent. Meat eaters were also looked at
as like, oh, you know, you guys are kind of bad,
like you should be vegetarian. Yeah, no makeup for the
women jeweler. Jewelry was pretty much one of those things
that you're not a medic center and this specific church
(12:06):
because they're not all the same. This specific church was
very conservative in its ways.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
So how did you feel that even at that age,
you know, you're early teens, you're one of those people
that you're very intuitive anyway, you're a good read on energy.
And did you even know then, like, yeah, this is
this is a little crazy.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
No, it was at that point when, you know, because
most of the other churches that we had gone to
was hitting mess. It was like, you know, but this
specific place, the people in it were very judgmental individuals
and this.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Is on its face hypocritical. Yeah, you know, absolutely, I
agree with that. It was. There was a lot of hypocrisy.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
And I'm not going to call anyone out here by name,
but there were other other teenagers that were far I
don't want to use the word worse, but let's just
call it worse. At the time that nobody was saying
anything because you know, their father was a head deacon
and maybe they kept it hidden how to do senority.
So it was it was definitely identified as what is
(13:05):
this like this place?
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Do I even want to be here? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (13:11):
And we went Wednesday evenings and Saturday all day long time.
You have your friends in church, and I think that's
really what kept us. There is that we get to
interact with our buddies, but for the most part, it
was like, I'm not I don't want to sit through
a sermon like especially these moments.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
And I do think for some people, this environment, the
structure works. For some people, they're so desperate or they're
longing for the belief, for the atmosphere, for the family,
and this is what they cling to. And in my experience, again,
because you know I share this, I understand exactly what
(13:48):
you're talking about, because it's very similar to a period
of my childhood where we went to a church that
was very similar. It's almost like they want that to
be your whole world.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
This is your.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Family, this is your world, this is your environment, and
we've got to make sure so as you're when you're
a child, if it's your parents seeking out that environment,
seeking out that religion, you know, as a child, it's
like that's just what you grow up in. It's almost
the norm. It's well, this isn't weird, this isn't odd,
this is just my environment.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
And you don't know until you get labeled.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
And I do agree with you.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
Religion and especially church, one of the positives is the
fellowship right people getting together.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I absolutely agree with that.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
How was that when you got the call like, hey,
we're going to this boarding school in Mexico?
Speaker 4 (14:31):
What was going through your head?
Speaker 5 (14:32):
We didn't have a choice, so I wouldn't be able
to tell you how I felt about it at the time,
because it was like, this is what this is what
you're doing.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah, and you were probably pretty accustomed to that at
that point.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
This is what we do, how we do it, when
we do it, and you don't question. We obeyed the rules.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
If you didn't, then you get your ass whooped and
a lot of weird punishment too. It used to be
that we'd get spank that we used to live out
by an orange grove. I remember this in our stepfather
whenever we did something bad. Some were some justifiably we were.
We weren't always angels. You'd take us out and you know,
(15:08):
ten trees in and you'd hold our hands above our
head by our wrists and hit us with the belt
and just depending on the severity of the of what
we did, it was anywhere from three to ten that
we'd get I have to sit there and watch my
brother get spanked, and then it was my turn, and
my brother would sit there and watch me get spanked.
So I remember there was one time when we started
(15:30):
getting too old for getting hit, we had to dig
a hole like three feet deep, drop this fifty pounds
rock down in it, take it back out, fill the hole.
And it just random discipline that that sounds.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Like a marine corps. You see all those big rocks,
go make them a little rock.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
Yeah, So tell us about when you went down to Mexico.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
So Mexico was interesting. It was one of those things too,
where the way we were brought up, it was just
like you just do what is ahead of you. So
if they say you're going to school in Mexico, just
go to school in Mexico. It's not necessarily that I
wanted to be there, but at the time it was
just like make best of a shitty situation kind of deal.
(16:13):
And it was an interesting time. We graduated because in
Mexico you graduate in the ninth grade. So we graduated,
stayed the next year. That's where things started getting rough.
I started getting into what they say would call trouble.
I guess being a smart elect to the teacher if
they didn't like you anything that you said, and so
they give it's called then monastasion, but it's I guess
(16:36):
the equivalent to like a demerit or something here. I
guess you get so many of those. They pull you
out of school and they make you work. I remember
there was a time where this was when I was
actually pulled out of class and made the new manual labor.
All day they were redoing the whole basketball court concrete,
and so my job was to handmake bricks. Well it
was a machine, but we'd like hand mix the contry.
(16:59):
I remember they drove us out way out to the coast.
This is in Baja California. So we went out to
close to some Philippe, which is on the inside of
the Baja California, to this gravel pit. And it was
like three three of us guys. We were all in trouble,
so we were, you know, serving out our sentences in
manual labor. They take us to this gravel pit. We
(17:19):
loaded up on this dump truck. Very safe procedure, by
the way, driving one hundred and fifty miles on the
back of a truck full of gravel. I remember, we
loaded up, bring it back, and our job was to
make concrete and bricks and then we had to lay
out all this concrete on a new basketball court. So
you have that that work, and then you know you
you then go to your dorm and finish out, and
(17:42):
on top of that, you do your you do your
school work, you go to school, and then you work
at this at this school, so in order to stay
in the dorm and all.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Of that, pay in your own way.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
But through many Yeah, they had a labor piece of
it and then the school the education piece of it.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
So if you get enough.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
Of these demerits, you just do manual labor all day
long while everybody else goes to school.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
And I got to that point. I got enough of
those where I got to that point.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
So I think it was like seven after ten you
get kicked out of school completely. And I remember this
time it was on me. I'll admit it. There's a
girl's dorm that's a couple of football fields away from
the guy's dorm. Keep them separate, right, One night, I
snuck out with my girlfriend at the time, and a
couple other buddies went with their girlfriends too. Keep in
mind the way I was brought up, I had not
(18:31):
kissed a girl before. Holding hands was you know, saying yes. So,
you know, me and this girl were hanging out in
the South Alfa field by this water pump. I remember,
we didn't do anything. We went out there, we were
talking all night, you know, and these two other couples,
who knows what they were doing. I mean obviously by sound,
maybe you know what they were doing, but I was
very oblivious. So, you know, somebody ritted us out.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
But it was completely innocent.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
And what adult are you going to tell that we
didn't do anything and they're going to believe you exactly,
So somebody dined us out. The group of us that
had gone out there, we were all from the United States,
and so six of us got suspended. Five of us
went back to our homes in the United States. The
one that had the opportunity to stay back in Mexico
was me. My parents. I think their mindset was that
(19:17):
it was going to be a more of a reward
than a punishment if they allowed me to come back
home on a suspension. So they decided they were going
to send me to an orphanage, which was quite a
distance away from where we were at at the boarding
school that hadn't been started yet. It was his family
that you know American family that started this orphanage down
in Mexico. They were trying to build it. It wasn't
(19:37):
up and running, but I guess I was their first
orphan because that's where I got sent for a week
week or two weeks or something like that to serve
out my suspension for sneaking out my girlfriend.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
So where was Francisco at this time?
Speaker 5 (19:51):
He was still in school here, He's still the boarding,
had not been in trouble.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
So was he staying out of trouble for the most part.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
There was a time where my brother, I don't know
what he had done, but he had a a heart
this heart thing, and the principle of the school in
our dormitory punched him in the chest and I found
out about it, and I immediately went in there. And
this guy could tell that he was going to have
a rough go at it. My brothers obviously, you know,
(20:17):
he was wheezing, he was in pain, and I had
some choice words for the principle of this school to
the point where he got he was you could tell
he was visibly scared, like he knows he probably should
not have done that, especially to one of the American
students that like actually paid for their schooling, to the
point where he told me go ahead and just I'll
give you a you can go ahead and punch me.
(20:38):
I was like, I'm not going to hit you, you know,
but I just want you to know that it's not cool.
And you know, so obviously it didn't come out in
physical violence. It just I was extremely defensive of my
brother at that time, and he.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Could tell.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
I know, you said that they would make you do
manual labor if you got in trouble. But where the
kids subjected the violence, See.
Speaker 5 (20:57):
That was not that I was aware of, but he
had and that was what struck me as you know,
very very different and odd for us being the American
kids in Mexico school. Yeah, we certainly always looked down
upon as like the pocho, so the you know, the
that's what they called this year of poltr like a
you know, we we weren't Mexican. And then I still.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Want to know what that means, Like I don't know
that mean, what's.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
Like it's an American Mexican but like less than really
so growing up too, that was another thing. And here
in America, a lot of people look at you as
a Mexican kid, right, some illegal alien. I was born
in the United States. I was raised in the United States.
Proud to be an American.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Grandfather served for the United States.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
Yeah, and so you get looked at like that here
in America and then you go to Mexico and you
get looked at the same way by Mexicans and who
are these American little American kids? So yeah, we were
treated differently, for sure. But that that punch when he
decided he wants to physically assault my brother, I don't
know what. I don't I'd have to I have to
double check my brother. I don't remember what he did,
(22:05):
but yeah, I was It was.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Certainly one of those things.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
I was like, no, no, Actually, now that I think
about it, that was the first time that I felt real, true,
like anger to the point that I wanted to get.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Physical gum starts any one, all of it.
Speaker 5 (22:20):
You know, your face is burning, you can't see anything
but the anger that you have, and you just want
to do something extremely hurtful to someone. I want to
say that was probably one of the first times where
I actually experienced that much anger.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
So when did your time in Mexico come to a close?
Speaker 5 (22:35):
I think I got kicked out. I was looking at
my files the other day and I think I got
kicked out, But I know I didn't want to be there.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
My brother stayed there.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
Longer, and I want to say it's because he had
a girlfriend, but I came back.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
I couldn't stay there anymore.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
So how do you feel like your childhood prepared you
for this Marine Corps boot camp experience?
Speaker 5 (22:56):
So that's where I can, you know, give a little
you know, pat on the back to the how conservative
Christian religious we were raised. I think a lot of
that discipline had a lot to do with it, because
we did we were disciplined. We got our asses whooped
if we did something wrong. We were always obeying. If
we didn't obey, we knew we were going to get something.
(23:17):
The resiliency piece came from just the outdoor living. You
know how we'd go hiking. Even when we moved away
from that place, you know, we still I've always enjoyed
just being outdoors in the mountains. The mountains for me
are where it's at. Yeah, we had the beach half
an hour way, but for me, it was like, let
me go up to Palmer Observatory up in the mountains,
So I think that was the resiliency piece there that
(23:38):
like for me crawling through mud, artillery stuff going off
in the shooting.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
That training they put.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
You where you're going through the barbed wire and they
have this sound system with a you know, it was
more of an adventure. Yeah, it sucked, but it was
just like I'm going to do this. You know, I'm
low crawling through there, through the mud, getting dirty. I
didn't care. It wasn't anything I wasn't used to running. Yeah,
you know, suck, but like, just get it over with.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
You're a lot more aerodynamic than I was.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It had to translate though, for you had to have
regard good batter and different from your childhood. You were
able to translate so much of the way you were
raised into that environment because it's so much the same.
Speaker 5 (24:18):
Yeah, and that's that's why I don't know that I've
ever been resentful to a certain extent with certain things
I do question, like the religious piece, but as far
as how I was raised, it made me who I
am today. So for me to come down on my
mom or my stepdad or anything like that, you know,
I wouldn't do. I have questions for them, and some
sort of explanation, yes, but more so to have an
(24:41):
understanding as opposed to creating like this hostile like, Oh,
I'm so pissed at you guys for raising me this way.
It's at the point where I met in my life.
It doesn't have anything to do with that. Just that
is I'm here now because of the way that I
was raised. That's really what it comes down to, regardless
of all this.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
So you get through boot camp and then experience combat
through two deployments in Iraq. Tell us about your first deployment.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
We flew into Kuwait. We are artillery, so we have
to tow our stuff everywhere. So we had to tow
our guns from Kuwait all the way up to Fallujah
and that was that was a joy. It was a
multi day convoy. There was one point where, you know,
we stopped and we were fueling up and providing security.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
They made a group of us go up on this.
Speaker 5 (25:25):
Berm and I remember the sergeant that was in charge
of our team. He did not like me at all.
He was an asshole to me. And you're telling me
to do so, I'm going to do it, like I'm
not going to backlip you or anything. We go up,
we do the security call us back and as we're
coming down this berm, it's long filled before MSR mobile or.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Whatever it was.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
He gets a call over the colms and he's everybody stop,
you know, stop, they're telling him whatever.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
He's like, Romero commune.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
So I go over there and he's like, walk up
to the trucks, watch your feet right, Like okay, you know,
I'm thinking this guy's being an asshole. And to this day,
maybe maybe this whole thing was.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (26:06):
I still don't know if it was true or not.
But in any case, they said there was mins lamb
mines in this open field because of the way that
he treated me. I was not looking at my feet.
I was dragging my feet through that and I heard
him everybody following Romero's footsteps, don't step anywhere he doesn't step,
And I did walk right through it up to the trucks,
get there. The CEO comes over, you know, with the
(26:28):
battery gunny and they're like, hey, thank you Merrinaah okay,
and I'm like, yeah, you know, and I don't remember
how it came up, but something about my daughter and
my wife and battery gun He's like, you know, Sergeant
x y Z. You know, he's like the last time
that you have a married marine, do that, right. So
I don't know if it was a huge prank or what,
(26:49):
but I remember being extremely pissed about it after, not
even at the time, after, I was like, out there.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
What an asshole.
Speaker 5 (26:57):
It just made me hate him so much that I
could care less about like him telling me like I
thought he was messing with me. Like I seriously thought
this guy was just being an asshole to me. I
still to this day don't know if it was a
massive prank or not, but it just it was one
of those things where I.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Was like, okay, just go with it.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
But do you think looking back now, knowing how many
I mean in the minds you're talking about that they
were probably Russian minds. I mean they were all over
the place, They're everywhere. Well, I mean it was just
stay in the tracks. It was one of the things
you always heard every single day. Stay in the tracks,
Stay in the tracks, Stay in the tracks, to the
point to where like you you were nervous without trying
(27:34):
to be nervous because of how much it was, like
it's such a big deal, and it's like, look at
some point you just get so tired, hungry, and there's
see an exhaustedge. You're like, I look, I don't care
if I deviate from the tracks for a little bit.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Oh well, like, who cares?
Speaker 2 (27:49):
It's gonna And then I mean they weren't even talking
about the improvised explosive devices. These were Russian minds left
over by Russia that are all over that country.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (28:01):
Again, it was one of those things where it's like
I didn't take them seriously, so I just trudged it
right through.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
That's one of those things where you know this why
the saying goes ignorance is bliss.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Well, I'm glad that you didn't trigger one, you didn't
trip one like that, being an MPT and that cool.
Yeah I believe that. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (28:22):
Well, we are artillery, so as far as like us
being tight, I guess you could say it was a
different dynamic because in artillery you have your own guns.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
So we have used six gun.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Paws, right Hautzer, Yeah, one, nine or eight at the
time she got switched out to a triple seven. But
your gun, your section, your gun section was extremely tight.
That group of seven, six people very very closely connected
with one another, everybody else will You don't really have
time to interact because you're on your own guns. I
(28:51):
think we were the first Alpha battery first pause, like
static pause in Fallujah to get set up and dug
in that we shot out of. So we provided security
sixty security around the camp Fallujah, and so yeah, I
was really close with with my my section, with the
exception of our section chief. He didn't like me or Sanchez.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Either a different battles.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
You know, I didn't care it just at the time,
it was like do this, do that, I'm going to
do it. What I do remember is in that static
pause we took income in mortar fire all the time,
not close, but over the months that we were there,
they were walking it closer and closer to us.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
You could tell.
Speaker 5 (29:31):
One rocket did hit in front of our gun, gun six,
but it didn't. It was a dut It didn't blow up,
big tang. It was all twisted up in front of
but it didn't. It didn't blow up. But there was
time when we first got there, I'm talking fresh, we
had just planted. We just got our the one nine
erra planted. All the other guns were set up. We
had the three sixty going. So we were setting up
(29:53):
our space, you know. So we were digging our foxhole,
and I remember me and and my buddy. We were
standing and we were digging our foxhol This evening now
was pretty dark. Mortar had hit a fuel bladder in Camphallujah.
Because it just started getting really bright. We both stood
up and there's more mortar fire. It's like exploding. This
(30:14):
was a distance off. It wasn't like like danger near
or close. But the corporal comes and grabs both of us,
throws us in our house.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
What are you guys doing? Get in your hole and.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
We're like, you know, we're watching it like the fourth
of July. We had no clue. So yeah, that was interesting.
One of those other other things. It's like kind of
I guess ignorance. At the time, we're just like, well,
it doesn't register that we're in a combat zone kind
of like it did, but at that time it didn't.
It was weird, and I would consider us our first deployment.
(30:43):
We had it semi easy. Really, we were on a
static pause. They started moving us over a month's in
because obviously we had we were providing initial security when
we got there, all six guns. But then they moved
it to two guns at a time, so they put
us back on in the like they had little houses
like trailer kind of set up, so we had to
(31:05):
stay in these things. We get to go to the cafeteria,
the PX and stuff. So probably more like an O
three eleven job, like where you guys are constantly out there.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
We sometimes had it easy.
Speaker 5 (31:15):
We would be able to shower and stuff, but it
was still sucked, you know, with fire, and then we'd
have to go out and you know, do recon on whatever,
you know, whatever we did, and then they put us
on security for Fallujah, this little like little base that
they had before you went into Fallujah. Interestingly enough, I
believe it's where the army was doing their thing out
(31:38):
of there, and it's where people who probably got their
stuff destroyed by us would come and get money to
repair their stuff. So we were providing security there, which
is interesting.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Tell me about your second deployment and what it was
like transitioning back into civilian sector after those experiences.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
Yeah, so the second deployment was a lot more difficult
because we went as provisional rifle. We were no longer artillery.
We weren't doing our jobs. They give us the training
to do provisional rifle, but we were infantry at that point.
We were providing security for the border on Jordan and Syria.
So our platoon got split up, so a lot of
(32:16):
us were really close. You know, half of us ended
up on the Jordan side, half of us ended up
on the Syria and all on the Iraq side.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
But like Georgia, I was about to say, like you
need to probably clarify that right now, the Iraq side,
but we were split up.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Be good.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I just want to, you know, because I mean that
just two Avoulden International incident.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
Yeah, no, no, yeah, we were on on Iraq side.
We're doing border security for those borders there people coming
in from Syria, people coming in from Jordan, so that
was a lot more difficult. That was where you know, I.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Think those boarders were very active. Yeah, we saw.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
That's where I saw a lot of like the more
you know, things that we didn't see in our prior
But we were just shooting ship far away here.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Now we were in it.
Speaker 5 (32:57):
You know, we were pulling people out of their houses,
doing sword searches, cording and searches, closing off highways, doing
searches on cars.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
You're grunt, You're stuck in deployment, You're a grunt.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
Yeah, so that I think was a little more tense.
But that's when after coming back from that second deployment
more so did I remember in you know, conversing with
my buddies, I started to really feel the effect of
you know, didn't call it trauma at the time, or
PTS or anything at the time.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
It was just I knew there.
Speaker 5 (33:25):
Was something different about me to cope with that. I
was the only marine in our group that lived off base.
Every single weekend, everybody was at my house. Probably not
good for my marriage. I'm pretty sure that's probably why
we ended up splitting.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
You get that close with people.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
At least for me, it was very difficult to not
be with them anymore once you get back. In order
to continue having that, we'd all be at my house
and drinking, having a good time. You know, never really
did anything crazy on lawful or anything like that, but
it was just really us, you know, in the camaraderie
that we had. We just always wanted to be close.
(34:02):
Of course, your spouse doesn't understand that, so they want
to understand that you're back with them and their family
unit I had a daughter at the time, and I
remember I have I have pictures of everything, like every
she got along with all of my buddies. She was
always there until she had to go down to bed.
I'd be making hot dogs. She'd come and just kind
of everybody just we'd goof around and so she wasn't
(34:24):
part of it. Like the drinking part that came usually after,
but that happened a lot, almost every weekend. It was
almost every single weekend, I remember, and I think that
led more into the drinking on my own, you know
where It wasn't just the weekend drinking with the buddies
until you puke. It was every evening you have to
drink something in order to feel okay.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
It continued.
Speaker 5 (34:44):
I went through a whole program in the Marine Corps.
I don't know if you know, but they offer a
program for people drinking. You go meet with the staff sergeant.
He makes you, he gives you, assigns you these tasks.
You have to go to AA They give you a
certificate after saying that you're no longer an alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
I did.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I knew that they offered something, but I didn't I
know that like three quarters of my company should have
done whatever program is.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yeah, I went through it.
Speaker 5 (35:08):
I don't know that it helped, but I did it
more so because they had made me a section chief.
I had picking up a meritorious corporal in my first deployment,
meritorious sergeant in the second deployment, and so now the
next step was section chief. I was an excellent marine.
I excelled at being a marine. I worked really hard.
But there was that drinking thing that was for me,
and you know it was I did it on my own.
(35:30):
Nobody told me I had to go do this. I
was like, hey, I think I have a problem with drinking.
I'm going to go do this was a section chief.
We went out, we did a training shooting and they
called a ceasefire.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
To the rear.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
The peace fall in on my gun and I was like, okay,
well we shot out. And when they called that, you
can't touch your knobs on the guns or anything. They
send people to investigate to see what angle and what.
You know, we're all, you know, have my gun up front,
and and I'm already a wreck mentally, you know, not
enough that I would make some disastrous mistake. But you're
(36:01):
in Camp Penalton, you're like, our guns can certainly reach
to the surrounding cities.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Now, what's the max Just to give the audience an idea,
what's the max effective range?
Speaker 5 (36:12):
Thirty kilometers I think on a nature round. Okay, so
fifteen sixteen miles long. Yeah, and so you know, they
go check it out. And at that point I checked
out in my brain, Like I checked out. I was like, Okay,
turns out I didn't shoot out. It was another another
battery up over some other hill. They ended up they
were the ones that shot out, and I was kicking
(36:33):
myself in the ass about it, but it was still
some mental thing that checked out for me. After that
training being out in the field that got back. I
went in and I told battery gun. I was like,
I can't continue doing this. I don't want to be
Section chief anymore. I'm you know, I'm not being a pussy.
I guess you could say, right, because that's the stigma.
If there's something wrong with your mind, you're a little
(36:55):
bitch yep. But I was very honest about it. I
was like, there's something going on. I don't know what
it is. And they were to a certain extent understanding
about it. Really now that I think about it.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
You know.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
I went and I talked with the psychologist, but they
were going to put me on a very low dosage
of something right, and so an opportunity to go out
to Horno on the range presented itself. Go figure this
guy that thinks he may have a mental issue, it.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Was, find another spot for him.
Speaker 5 (37:23):
Yeah, at the range with a one hundred target man
front and you're going to be one of the range
person all over there. Any case, it wasn't. It wasn't
to that extent. I didn't feel psychotic or anything like that.
It was just something different about me was happening. But
I really loved working at the range.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
It was. It was an awesome job.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
That was close to the point where I was due
for reenlistment or time to get out.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
I had gotten my paperwork.
Speaker 5 (37:48):
I was in line to be promoted for staffsh sergeant
if I stayed in. But my spouse at the time
was willing to work on the relationship if I got out.
I don't think she was now I think about it,
and I'm to blame too. There was, you know, some
infidelity stuff that we were working through, but I did.
I got out to save my relationship. Mostly because I
(38:09):
didn't want to lose my daughter. And it all happened anyways,
I got out, and you know, it wasn't long after
that we ended up separating and divorcing, and so my
daughter I got to see her often at the beginning,
but the individual that she met, this guy she was with,
they ended up getting married and moving very far away
(38:29):
with good three hour drive, and so that was extremely
difficult for me because I no longer had my daughter
and felt like a lot of this was my fault
because of you know, stupid decisions that I had.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Made during this time. What was your relationship like with
your twin brother, Francisco.
Speaker 5 (38:47):
So this is a difficult period in my life, and
I'm sure it was difficult for him to see his
brother in the state that he was. Wasn't the same happy,
go lucky guy that he was before he joined them course,
so I know it was a difficult transition for him
for my family. I remember there was one night I
had been extremely intoxicated. I want to say I don't
(39:09):
I don't know that he was drinking, but I was
for sure, and I was down in the kitchen and
it all blew up that night. I think as a
matter of fact, now I think about it, I think
my mom was living with us at the time too,
and so there was the clan match. You know, she
was there, he was there. They were blaming me for
some stuff that was happening, and you know, I was
extremely frustrated and visibly angry. I remember to the point
(39:33):
where my brother was frightened and he pulled a knife
out of a carving block knife thing, and I don't
know if it was the Marine Corps instinct, but it
automatically kicked in and I slapped it out of his hand,
and I remember his face. He was extremely surprised that
that had happened so quickly, that he had drawn a
weapon and it had been you know, had and I
think a lot of it had to do it, like
(39:54):
he was scared that, like I had injured myself or
cut myself on this blade. So I remember that it
wasn't a fun night, you know. After the healing and
all of that, you know, there was a lot of friction,
I guess the best way to say it, for a
while because of the whole family dynamic thing. It didn't
last long, of course, but there was a point where
my mental health had really affected my relationship with my brother,
and so I had to live with that, and the
(40:17):
drinking just kept getting worse and worse. Ended up meeting,
you know, in a couple of relationships, but ended up
meeting one girl a lot younger than me as far
as maturity too, and we ended up getting married. She
had her things as far as being young and wanting
to still live. Whereas I was, you know, in my thirties,
she was mid younger twenties, twenty two twenty three at
(40:39):
the time, I think, And so I don't know that
she would have not cheated on me if I had,
you know, because there was a lot going on with me,
just a lot with the drinking, the depression. What I
didn't know was PTS at the time, but was you know,
certainly presenting itself. We'd bought a house together, but the
drinking was really bad. Our relationship Chip was very a
(41:02):
lot of turmoil. Never any physical abuse, but a lot
of you know, mental psychological stude soxic. Yeah, and I
know it was hard for her for sure. This is
when I hit rock bottom.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Was this whole.
Speaker 5 (41:13):
I wasn't really aware of her cheating at the time,
but I was a mess. And then we had separated.
She said, well, I just need my space. I'll stay
in the house. Okay, I'll go find something else. I
ended up coming back to my house and caught her
with this guy in my house. That was really like
the rock bottom for me. I had gone out on
a motorcycle ride up in Pelamar Mountain, very curvey roads
(41:37):
back there. We were headed up the back route to Julian.
I was lead coming around a really tight corner that
I completely figured out about.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
I'd been up this way before.
Speaker 5 (41:45):
Ended up, you know, trying to figure out how to correct,
ended up in the wrong side of the road, and
there was a car coming and head on with this
vehicle threw me off my bike. My buddy in back
of me was filming it on go Bro. He won't
show he'd never showed me the video. He wouldn't showed
me the video, he says it's too graphic. And I
was in the hospital and this was a god moment
(42:05):
for me. One more foot to the left, I would
have been inside the car for sure, Like I hit
the front driver's side corner and got launched out into
the road.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
But it could have been a lot worse. Are you so? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (42:17):
I was sober. I was sober, but I was I was.
I think I was probably being reckless. I would probably
going too too fast, if you know, thinking back on it,
I don't. Suicidal ideation is hard to to identify in
the past, right. I can identify it now, you know,
as a as a thing. When I'm talking to individuals
(42:38):
and experiencing, you know, suicidal ideation or thoughts, you can
identify it. I can't look back on my life and
think that, like, oh, maybe that was you know, intentional
as far as you know, some form of ideation of
not being around anymore. Right, the recklessness driving on your
bike too fast, there was probably some of that going
on in my mind. I can't pinpoint it. But it
(43:00):
was a god moment. I was in the hospital. I
had ready known that my wife was cheating on me.
She didn't come see me, her sister and her mom
came out, and so after I got out, they told
me I had to spend a month in bed, and
I did. And this was really my time to connect
with God. It's when I started seeking help, mental health,
(43:23):
professional help, and really started getting things on track. But
I stopped drinking cult turking like nothing, and that lasted
quite a long time, and things just started connecting for me.
At that point, I had been working this job. They
were actually very gracious about giving me the time off
for my accident.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
But I hated it. I hated the job it was.
Speaker 5 (43:43):
It was fine because it paid the bills. I didn't
mind like working, right. It just took me a really
long time to realize that finance like banking was not
my world. I don't mean I hate like, I just
it wasn't my world. So it took a really long
to eight eight years or something like that. And so
after the divorce and all of that is when I
started talking to my now wife, Yay, who was living
(44:07):
in Texas. We had, as I had mentioned before, we
had gone to school together, and as a matter of fact,
before that ninth tenth, eleventh grade, we actually had gone
to middle school, like second or third grade together years ago,
and so known each other for a very long time.
We started talking, and you know, she had always had
a huge crush and she'd admitted, but she wasn't wanting
(44:32):
to come back. She had come out to Texas when
she was like eighteen, she'd been here forever. I wasn't
really enjoying my job, and so obviously the right move
was going to be me coming out to Texas, not
her coming to Californ. We talked about it, but she
was a school teacher. She was very you know, she
had her shit together, you know, good head on her shoulders.
She'd fly over here, I'd fly over you know, or
(44:53):
vice versa. Right, And so I came out here with
no clue what I was going to do. I had
a lot of my credits already, and I was studying
for international business. I needed one more class to graduate
with my international business degree. But I went in and
I talked to the veteran counselor or whatever the at TCC,
this community college, and I was like, here's the deal.
This is what I want to do. I want to
(45:13):
help people. How can I help people? And she and
I told her, I said, I think I'd love I'd
love to do, you know, teach. I would love to
be a teacher. Not the younger grades, maybe high school
or something, you know, where the minds are a little
more mouldible. And she's like, well, have you ever thought
of social work? And I was like, oh, the guys
that work in hospitals, right, I get so much more
than that. There's so many different things that you can
(45:35):
do with a social work degree. Started talking and she
brought up veterans working with veterans, and I was like,
I'm in I tell this people all the time. Yeah,
it sounds cliche, but I'm I'm working my dream job.
It's not easy, it's challenging, af but it's rewarding to
know that you're working for something that's saving lives.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
I think that's.
Speaker 5 (45:53):
Really what it boils down to.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
At the end of the day.
Speaker 5 (45:56):
There's going to be challenges, but that resiliency that we've
built and built over our lives, it's really coming into
play because it's not easy leading.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
I think it's to a certain extent, it.
Speaker 5 (46:07):
Does take a toll. It's taxing, but is it worth it.
Absolutely it is. To be able to be a part of,
you know, making a change in mental health and breaking
stigmas and helping our first responders and our heroes out there,
it's just an amazing feeling.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
It's one of the reasons that I believe you're exactly
where you're supposed to be. I believe that you're a
gift to humanity, and it has everything to do with
the scars you can't see, you know. I mean that's
why I think, even though you're a self proclaimed introvert
and that you're a gamer and you build your oll
computers and crap like it's you're exactly where you're supposed
(46:46):
to be. And everything's happened is and we've talked at
length about this. Everything's happened exactly the way it's supposed
to happen. And you know, I'm just I'm honored to
do this alongside you. Thank you so so actually, and
our fortunate not to get to work with you and
Francisco and we see it. But for the people listening,
(47:09):
what's your relationship with your with your brother and your mom?
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Now, it's good.
Speaker 5 (47:14):
With my brother. I don't know that there's a day
that we don't talk to each other, not just because
he works here, even outside of work, but we're always
texting back and forth. You know, we we're tight, We're
really close. As a matter of fact, it didn't take
him but a year and a half maybe two years
to leave California and come to Texas after I came
to Texas. So just see, you know, to explain the
(47:35):
gravity of our relationship and how close we are.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
That's that's what happened.
Speaker 5 (47:39):
Is his spouse now jokes about it and she's like,
I knew it, Like I knew that as soon as
as soon as Lucky in Mo he's gonna leave, He's
gonna leave too, So to be expected, we're really close.
I me and my brother have an amazing relationship.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
He's helped out a lot.
Speaker 5 (47:52):
Yeah, my mom's always been an amazing woman. Granted, I
think she was pulled into something a lot further into
something because of her past and what she needed out
of this religion that I don't know that it was
ever in a vindictive type way, sending us down to
Mexico or I think it was really what she knew
at the time was going to be the best for us.
She's always taken care of us and still that working
(48:14):
spirit in us. So she's an amazing woman. We're close.
She's still back in California. I haven't I need to
go visit her, but you know, we're close because of
some of the stuff that she'd been through. I know
there's been some challenges that she's faced and struggles that
she had, but we talk often as well. As a
matter of fact, I think she's talking about a move
out to Texas, which would be great. I'd love to
(48:36):
have her here. But we're good, weird good, Okay.
Speaker 4 (48:39):
So why can we ask every guest three questions? The
first being.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
Looking back on your life's journey, is there a person
or an organization that's really made an impact on you?
Speaker 5 (48:53):
That's a tough question. I don't know how to answer that, honestly.
If we're calling it an organization, the Marine Corps, for sure,
that's at one of the biggest impacts of my life.
I don't think it defines my life being a marine,
it's certainly a big part of it. An old pastor
that I had, ironically, was very supportive, I guess you
could say, of everything, because he married me, he did
(49:15):
our wedding, and then he was who I went to
when I was talking about our divorce. So I think
when I associate that religion, he was a pastor of
this religion. To his complete non judgmental attitude about everything
in my life, I think he was probably pretty pivotal
as far as that's concerned, ironically, because religion. Yeah, so yeah,
(49:37):
my daughter, for sure. I think if there's anything that
I can draw a ton of inspiration from it's just
the love that I have for her and what i'd
like to say, and that the love that she has
for me, because we have a really good relationship.
Speaker 4 (49:49):
So it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
What do you do?
Speaker 2 (49:53):
I already know it's not enough of and I'm guilty
as charge as well. You know I've been on each
other boat for quite some time. But the second question,
I just I'm going to own the accountability.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
You got to own it. What do you do to
recharge and relax?
Speaker 5 (50:12):
What do I do to recharge or what do I
wish I could do to charge and relax? Are two
different things? Yeah, either or So for me, it's nature.
I really love being out in the mountains. Of course
in Texas, you don't see many of those out here,
so that part's difficult, so hiking or whatever I can
do here. The other big one is gaming. Of course,
should be no joke to anyone out there. I'm a
huge gamer. That's really something that I can do. That
(50:34):
is kind of a way for me to get out
of my mind sometimes get myself into another world or
whatever the case is. I'm a huge rem player World
of Warcraft, Final Fantasy Online and first time ever in
my life. This past weekend, I actually was able to
enjoy my first Dungeon and Dragon session with the group
that we finally were able to get together for this.
(50:55):
So I'd been wanting to get into it for a while.
I just we've never had the people that do it.
I met somebody not too long ago via my wife
who was a big fan of the game, and he
was like, oh, we should totally. I built this whole
game table around it. I'll show you a picture later,
but we actually got to play on it last night
for our first ever Dungeons and Dragon session.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
Was amazing.
Speaker 5 (51:16):
I had a whole bunch of fun.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
And you've opened up my eyes, our eyes, yes to
there's even a therapeutic element that comes into play with it,
so much so that we're developing a gaming program.
Speaker 4 (51:28):
That's right with one tri foundation.
Speaker 5 (51:30):
Surely I believe that strongly in it, that yeah, that
there is a therapeutic component to gaming and not just
sitting in front of a computer, but you know, getting
around a table with your friends and with your family.
It's part of that holistic mental health care that people
need out there. That maybe it's tailored to you so right,
and I know it's tailored to me.
Speaker 4 (51:47):
So our final question is what feeds your soul?
Speaker 5 (51:53):
Good people feed my soul. Being around people who are
as passionate as I am feeds my soul. Being able
to help people and being able to watch the transition
in people is amazing for me. And on top of everything,
my relationship with God. I'm not going to bring up
the whole religious piece. It is the spiritual relationship that
(52:13):
I have with a non judgmental God that knows that
I mess up on the daily but still you know,
understanding that I do my best to be a good
person and he knows that if it's not enough and
I don't, you know, get to be with him, well
maybe God isn't for me then, But I choose to
not believe that.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
I choose to believe.
Speaker 5 (52:33):
That my relationship with God is really something that is
important for me. I maybe it's not for everybody, but
it is for me. It helps me wake up in
the morning and it helps me sleep at ease at night.
Speaker 3 (52:42):
So well, Keene Rameira, thank you so much for being
on the good stuff. You truly inspire us on the
daily basis, and we're just we're grateful to call you
brother and friend.
Speaker 1 (52:52):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
I know that you know because I've told you, but
so the listeners know you've been there for me in
a way that most people can't. And I'm very, very
grateful for that, appreciated and it's something that you know
and that you know I don't take lightly. You truly,
in every sense of the phrase, have.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Made me a better human.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
So thank you, bro, and thanks for taking time out
of our work schedule for you to do this.
Speaker 4 (53:20):
Absolutely, absolutely, that's the good stuff.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
Because of the scars of this man in the victory,
he finds in his vulnerability he is able to empower
people to live healthy, well lived lives.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
Absolutely from his rough beginnings too, now he is just
leading the charge and helping people on the daily basis.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
He's absolutely channeled his pain into power and now it's
affecting in a great way in the best way. Pop
School the borders well outside this great state of Texas.
Speaker 4 (54:04):
Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 3 (54:05):
If this episode touched you today, please share it and
be part of making someone else's day better.
Speaker 1 (54:10):
Put on your bad ass caves and go be great today.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
And remember you can't do epic stuff without epic people.
Thank you for listening. To the good Stuff. The Good
Stuff is executive produced by Ashley Schick, Jacob Schick, Leah
Pictures and q Code Media, Hosted.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
By Ashley Shick and Jacob Shick, Produced by Nick.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
Cassolini and Ryan Countzouse Post production Supervisor Will Tindy. Music
editing by Will Haywood Smith, edited by Mike Robinson.
Welcome to the Good Stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm Jacob Shick and I'm joined by my co host
and wife, Ashley Shick.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Jake is a third generation combat Marine and I'm a
gold Star granddaughter, and we work together to serve military veterans,
first responders, frontline healthcare workers, and their families with mental
and emotional wellness through traditional and non traditional therapy.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
At One Tribe Foundation, we.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Believe everyone has a sword itself, not only about the peaks,
but also the valleys they've been through to get them where.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
They are today.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Each week, we invite a guest to tell us their story,
to share with us the lessons they've learned that shape
who they are and what they're doing to pay it
forward and give back.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Our mission with this show is dig deep into our
guest's journey so we can celebrate the hope and inspiration
their story.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Has to offer.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
We're thrilled you're joining us again.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Welcome to the Good Stuff. Our guests today is my brother,
Joaquin Ramiro. He's not only a fellow Marine, but he's
a father, husband, and avid gamer. His work as a
Chief operating Officer of One Tribe Foundation puts him squarely
in the trenches regularly of helping a multitude of people
not die by suicide.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Yes, and his journey provides us so much inspiration on
the daily as we have the privilege of working alongside him.
He's here to tell us his story about how being
raised in a strict religious household and getting sent to
a boarding school in Mexico helped shape him to be
the marine and executive that he is today.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
We're so proud to bring this conversation to you because
I know for a fact he dug deep and there
were no boundaries to his vulnerability. And this is the
first time I've known him to open up in a
public form.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Yes, it definitely felt like a family affair.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
We're actually here in the One Tribe offices today, which
is exciting because this is where the magic happens.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Happy to be here. It's honor I have you here. No,
are you a marine's marine, but you're you're a leader
of humans. And just saying I love he is not
enough like it's not enough justice. Oh, I appreciate it.
It's an honor to be here. As you guys know,
I love you too.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Marine Corps was part is a part of your story,
but it's by no means.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
The whole story, the whole story.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
It's one thing to say, you know what, I want
to serve my country, I want to don the cloth
of my nation. But then what makes you go the
extra mile and say, but I'm not just going to
join the armed forces. I'm actually going to join the
Marine Corps.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
So Marine Corps. It was all about the uniform. I
mean honest, the first thing I saw was the dress blues,
and I was like, all right. I didn't have really
a background on any of the branches to say that
one was harder than the other. All I knew was
that my grandfather was a marine. As a matter of fact,
I walked into the wrong door because I wanted to
be in the branch that flew airplanes, air Force marines.
(03:00):
That's exactly what my recruiter told me. But yeah, no,
I went in with zero knowledge of any branch. I
just knew that I was going to serve. Walked into
the first door, the red one with the ego globe
and anchor, and I was like, all right, well, I'm
here to join. And my recruiter, well, I told my
recruiter was like, hey, I want to join the branch
that flies jets.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
He's like, well we have jets, Well sign me up.
Speaker 5 (03:25):
That's how I ended up in the Marine Corps recruiting office.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
We'll find jets.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
They have them. They do, they have jets.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I don't know about you, but it sounds like your
recruiter probably didn't have the same integrity as my recruiter,
which is kind of the mo for recruiters, right. I mean,
my recruiter was great. He was got me out of
jail like he was awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
I mean he tried talking to me out.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
To go on the infantry. He's like, Jake, you don't
do that. Living conditions are gonna suck, like you don't
eat great. And I was like, exactly, need too mature
to be in college. I need to grow mentally, physically, emotionally.
Marines were a great, great place for that. And I
(04:11):
don't know about you, but my Marine Corps boot camp
experience was there's a reason they say they have more
mind games in Milton Bradley.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah, yeah, that's a fact. Mine was different. Though.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
My boot camp experience didn't feel as rough as I've
heard a lot of people talk about it, and I
think a lot of it had to do with my upbringing.
You think maybe I just felt like it was and
I'm not going to say easy. It was by no
means easy, but looking around at all the other recruits
in my platoon, some were struggling, they were on the
(04:42):
struggle bus, and I just felt like, you listen to
your orders, you do what you're told, and this is
going to be good.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Love fast, loved faster, and with purpose. That's right.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Yeah, being a United States Marine it is one of
the most challenging things that you can sign up for.
Everything from going through boot camp and then and you're
both your experiences, you know, deploying and seeing the things
that you saw, experiencing what you experienced, and then coming
home and then the transition of getting out of the
Marine Corps. Transitioning back to civilian life not an easy thing.
(05:13):
It's something that we focus on every day here at
One Tribe Foundation and trying to help our fellow veterans,
first responders, law enforcement officers, frontline healthcare workers, and their families,
you know, transition from going and doing what they do
on a daily basis and service to living a quote
normal life, whatever that might look like. But most Marines
(05:33):
begin their relationship, you know with that struggle in training.
Your story is different. You had some things in your
toolbox already that kind of helped you prepare for that experience.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
Tell us a little bit about your story so.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
Early on, I mean young teenager. I have a twin brother.
We were raised out in the middle of nowhere. I
think that's originally where everything just started for us as
far as our resibuilding braziliency. We lived out in California
in the mountains. It was caretaking some three thousand acres
of property for some rich old guy. We lived way
(06:10):
off of like the highway, like it was out there.
There was no electricity, no lights. We lived in a
fourteen foot trailer. We took bats in buckets of water.
We were homeschooled and we were allowed free rain to
this three thousand acres of property where we would leave
in the morning go exploring in the mountains, hunt rattlesnakes,
maybe not find rattlesnakes and strike that I'm kidding. And
(06:35):
there was like he had this man made lake out there,
so we'd like build little boats out of like inner
tubes and stuff. My mom probably would have had no
clue if one of us drowned that lake just putting
it out there. That's how that's how we were raised.
We loved it. We didn't know anything different. We didn't
know that we were.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
What people would call poor.
Speaker 5 (06:54):
It was just part of our life to be able
to have complete full rain of acres and acres of mountains.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
It was just fun for us.
Speaker 5 (07:01):
It was that's initially where you'd go a big boulder,
rolls over on your foot. Nobody knows one of us
could run back and get some help. Maybe, but I still,
you know, look back at it back on it today,
and I'm like, that's kind of nuts. Like if it
was my daughter, I don't know that she would have
been given that much freedom.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
But because it sounds like little house on the Prayer,
like or like Texas in the eighteen eighties, like no electricity,
no running water, you're taking baths and buckets.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
I mean, what year was.
Speaker 5 (07:30):
This, So this was what early nineties. Yeah, we were
probably thirteen fourteen years old at the time. Obviously home studied.
We didn't, you know. I want to give some praise
to my mom. She did a pretty good job educating us,
keeping us educated because we were able to transition into
public school at the time. But we didn't go to
(07:51):
public school until we were in the eighth grade. And
this is where it became problematic because you know, my brother,
he was born without an ear, not very used to
interacting with kids or people our age, so he got
bullied a lot for it, ended up doing this surgery
and they messed it up even worse than what it
was before. He ended up leaving the school. I stayed there,
(08:14):
so we've always had a really close connection. So it
was difficult for me to not have my brother at.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
School, especially because y'all are identical twins.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
We are what they say is true about twins, right,
you have that crazy strong bond.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
It's very difficult for us to be not especially identical twins, right, yeah,
more so than fraternal.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Yeah. And you and Francisco or your type, Yeah, very close.
Speaker 5 (08:40):
And so that was a difficult time because we'd never
been raised around kiddos. We were very you know, kept
in a bubble most of our lives. So having that
interaction bullying, we weren't used to what bullying was at
the time. That was also something that just I want
to say, looking back on it now, just built on
that resiliency. And then after graduating school, eighth grade or whatever.
(09:01):
Our parents decided our home. Stepparent and parent decided that
they would wanted us to go to school in Mexico.
And I think that was an extremely rough transition, at
least it was for me.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
How did that come about?
Speaker 5 (09:14):
That came about from the religion that we practiced at
the time, or that they practiced at the time. It
was they were very conservative, I guess. I guess I
could say we were all conservative Christian not by choice.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
As far as kids, he just you raised how you raised.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
Stepdad at the time, he was extremely conservative Seventh day Amtist.
My mom in her prior life was very much into
gangs and very violent and things like that. When they met, however,
they met, she converted over to this religion from Catholic.
We used to live in the Bay Area, moved down
to San Diego with this guy stepfather, I guess at
(09:52):
the time, knowing no one all of our family was
up in the Bay Area, so we didn't have anybody.
I think that also serves as a lot of the
connection between and my brothers. We had each other our
whole lives, like through everything. In any case, it was
this religion. I didn't really have a problem with the
religion until we got to our teen years and myself
and my brother were appointed as the bad kids of church.
(10:15):
And this is something also that I look back and
I was like, well, what is a bad kid? Because
we wore baggy jeans and went to the movies and
I think the first movie we went to was a
Titanic and somebody from church saw us and they're like,
all these sinners are at the movie theaters. And so
that was really what labeled us as bad kids in
the church, right, so, you know, in order to get
(10:36):
us on the right path. I don't know if a
recruiter was going around to all the churches in the
area or what, but my parents caught wind of this
school down in Mexico that, you know, was great at
transforming the lives of bad kids or something. I don't know,
because that's how we ended up down in a boarding
school in Mexico.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
What are the beliefs of this church?
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Like, because you going to see the Titanic at the
movie theater? And I grew up in a very conservative
church environment as well, where we weren't allowed to listen
to secular music and you know, you couldn't wear revealing
clothes and couldn't celebrate holidays and all of that same thing.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
No secular music.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
I mean we listened to hymns, and I mean that
was the music that we grew up with, not Metallica
or led Zeppelin or anything. The other thing that I've
talked about a lot. We weren't allowed to do any
kind of intramural sports. I consider myself fairly athletic. I
think we probably could have done well in any sport,
but we were never given the opportunity because games fell
on Saturdays, and Saturdays are the day of rest.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
You don't do anything. You don't watch TV.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
From the time the sun goes down Friday evening to
the time the sun goes down Saturday.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
You don't do anything.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
No TV, no video games, no sports, no nothing. So
that was one of those roles. Movie theaters off limits
to a certain extent. Meat eaters were also looked at
as like, oh, you know, you guys are kind of bad,
like you should be vegetarian. Yeah, no makeup for the
women jeweler. Jewelry was pretty much one of those things
that you're not a medic center and this specific church
(12:06):
because they're not all the same. This specific church was
very conservative in its ways.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
So how did you feel that even at that age,
you know, you're early teens, you're one of those people
that you're very intuitive anyway, you're a good read on energy.
And did you even know then, like, yeah, this is
this is a little crazy.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
No, it was at that point when, you know, because
most of the other churches that we had gone to
was hitting mess. It was like, you know, but this
specific place, the people in it were very judgmental individuals
and this.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Is on its face hypocritical. Yeah, you know, absolutely, I
agree with that. It was. There was a lot of hypocrisy.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
And I'm not going to call anyone out here by name,
but there were other other teenagers that were far I
don't want to use the word worse, but let's just
call it worse. At the time that nobody was saying
anything because you know, their father was a head deacon
and maybe they kept it hidden how to do senority.
So it was it was definitely identified as what is
(13:05):
this like this place?
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Do I even want to be here? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (13:11):
And we went Wednesday evenings and Saturday all day long time.
You have your friends in church, and I think that's
really what kept us. There is that we get to
interact with our buddies, but for the most part, it
was like, I'm not I don't want to sit through
a sermon like especially these moments.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
And I do think for some people, this environment, the
structure works. For some people, they're so desperate or they're
longing for the belief, for the atmosphere, for the family,
and this is what they cling to. And in my experience, again,
because you know I share this, I understand exactly what
(13:48):
you're talking about, because it's very similar to a period
of my childhood where we went to a church that
was very similar. It's almost like they want that to
be your whole world.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
This is your.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Family, this is your world, this is your environment, and
we've got to make sure so as you're when you're
a child, if it's your parents seeking out that environment,
seeking out that religion, you know, as a child, it's
like that's just what you grow up in. It's almost
the norm. It's well, this isn't weird, this isn't odd,
this is just my environment.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
And you don't know until you get labeled.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
And I do agree with you.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
Religion and especially church, one of the positives is the
fellowship right people getting together.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I absolutely agree with that.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
How was that when you got the call like, hey,
we're going to this boarding school in Mexico?
Speaker 4 (14:31):
What was going through your head?
Speaker 5 (14:32):
We didn't have a choice, so I wouldn't be able
to tell you how I felt about it at the time,
because it was like, this is what this is what
you're doing.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah, and you were probably pretty accustomed to that at
that point.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
This is what we do, how we do it, when
we do it, and you don't question. We obeyed the rules.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
If you didn't, then you get your ass whooped and
a lot of weird punishment too. It used to be
that we'd get spank that we used to live out
by an orange grove. I remember this in our stepfather
whenever we did something bad. Some were some justifiably we were.
We weren't always angels. You'd take us out and you know,
(15:08):
ten trees in and you'd hold our hands above our
head by our wrists and hit us with the belt
and just depending on the severity of the of what
we did, it was anywhere from three to ten that
we'd get I have to sit there and watch my
brother get spanked, and then it was my turn, and
my brother would sit there and watch me get spanked.
So I remember there was one time when we started
(15:30):
getting too old for getting hit, we had to dig
a hole like three feet deep, drop this fifty pounds
rock down in it, take it back out, fill the hole.
And it just random discipline that that sounds.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Like a marine corps. You see all those big rocks,
go make them a little rock.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
Yeah, So tell us about when you went down to Mexico.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
So Mexico was interesting. It was one of those things too,
where the way we were brought up, it was just
like you just do what is ahead of you. So
if they say you're going to school in Mexico, just
go to school in Mexico. It's not necessarily that I
wanted to be there, but at the time it was
just like make best of a shitty situation kind of deal.
(16:13):
And it was an interesting time. We graduated because in
Mexico you graduate in the ninth grade. So we graduated,
stayed the next year. That's where things started getting rough.
I started getting into what they say would call trouble.
I guess being a smart elect to the teacher if
they didn't like you anything that you said, and so
they give it's called then monastasion, but it's I guess
(16:36):
the equivalent to like a demerit or something here. I
guess you get so many of those. They pull you
out of school and they make you work. I remember
there was a time where this was when I was
actually pulled out of class and made the new manual labor.
All day they were redoing the whole basketball court concrete,
and so my job was to handmake bricks. Well it
was a machine, but we'd like hand mix the contry.
(16:59):
I remember they drove us out way out to the coast.
This is in Baja California. So we went out to
close to some Philippe, which is on the inside of
the Baja California, to this gravel pit. And it was
like three three of us guys. We were all in trouble,
so we were, you know, serving out our sentences in
manual labor. They take us to this gravel pit. We
(17:19):
loaded up on this dump truck. Very safe procedure, by
the way, driving one hundred and fifty miles on the
back of a truck full of gravel. I remember, we
loaded up, bring it back, and our job was to
make concrete and bricks and then we had to lay
out all this concrete on a new basketball court. So
you have that that work, and then you know you
you then go to your dorm and finish out, and
(17:42):
on top of that, you do your you do your
school work, you go to school, and then you work
at this at this school, so in order to stay
in the dorm and all.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Of that, pay in your own way.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
But through many Yeah, they had a labor piece of
it and then the school the education piece of it.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
So if you get enough.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
Of these demerits, you just do manual labor all day
long while everybody else goes to school.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
And I got to that point. I got enough of
those where I got to that point.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
So I think it was like seven after ten you
get kicked out of school completely. And I remember this
time it was on me. I'll admit it. There's a
girl's dorm that's a couple of football fields away from
the guy's dorm. Keep them separate, right, One night, I
snuck out with my girlfriend at the time, and a
couple other buddies went with their girlfriends too. Keep in
mind the way I was brought up, I had not
(18:31):
kissed a girl before. Holding hands was you know, saying yes. So,
you know, me and this girl were hanging out in
the South Alfa field by this water pump. I remember,
we didn't do anything. We went out there, we were
talking all night, you know, and these two other couples,
who knows what they were doing. I mean obviously by sound,
maybe you know what they were doing, but I was
very oblivious. So, you know, somebody ritted us out.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
But it was completely innocent.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
And what adult are you going to tell that we
didn't do anything and they're going to believe you exactly,
So somebody dined us out. The group of us that
had gone out there, we were all from the United States,
and so six of us got suspended. Five of us
went back to our homes in the United States. The
one that had the opportunity to stay back in Mexico
was me. My parents. I think their mindset was that
(19:17):
it was going to be a more of a reward
than a punishment if they allowed me to come back
home on a suspension. So they decided they were going
to send me to an orphanage, which was quite a
distance away from where we were at at the boarding
school that hadn't been started yet. It was his family
that you know American family that started this orphanage down
in Mexico. They were trying to build it. It wasn't
(19:37):
up and running, but I guess I was their first
orphan because that's where I got sent for a week
week or two weeks or something like that to serve
out my suspension for sneaking out my girlfriend.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
So where was Francisco at this time?
Speaker 5 (19:51):
He was still in school here, He's still the boarding,
had not been in trouble.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
So was he staying out of trouble for the most part.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
There was a time where my brother, I don't know
what he had done, but he had a a heart
this heart thing, and the principle of the school in
our dormitory punched him in the chest and I found
out about it, and I immediately went in there. And
this guy could tell that he was going to have
a rough go at it. My brothers obviously, you know,
(20:17):
he was wheezing, he was in pain, and I had
some choice words for the principle of this school to
the point where he got he was you could tell
he was visibly scared, like he knows he probably should
not have done that, especially to one of the American
students that like actually paid for their schooling, to the
point where he told me go ahead and just I'll
give you a you can go ahead and punch me.
(20:38):
I was like, I'm not going to hit you, you know,
but I just want you to know that it's not cool.
And you know, so obviously it didn't come out in
physical violence. It just I was extremely defensive of my
brother at that time, and he.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Could tell.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
I know, you said that they would make you do
manual labor if you got in trouble. But where the
kids subjected the violence, See.
Speaker 5 (20:57):
That was not that I was aware of, but he
had and that was what struck me as you know,
very very different and odd for us being the American
kids in Mexico school. Yeah, we certainly always looked down
upon as like the pocho, so the you know, the
that's what they called this year of poltr like a
you know, we we weren't Mexican. And then I still.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Want to know what that means, Like I don't know
that mean, what's.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
Like it's an American Mexican but like less than really
so growing up too, that was another thing. And here
in America, a lot of people look at you as
a Mexican kid, right, some illegal alien. I was born
in the United States. I was raised in the United States.
Proud to be an American.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Grandfather served for the United States.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
Yeah, and so you get looked at like that here
in America and then you go to Mexico and you
get looked at the same way by Mexicans and who
are these American little American kids? So yeah, we were
treated differently, for sure. But that that punch when he
decided he wants to physically assault my brother, I don't
know what. I don't I'd have to I have to
double check my brother. I don't remember what he did,
(22:05):
but yeah, I was It was.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Certainly one of those things.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
I was like, no, no, Actually, now that I think
about it, that was the first time that I felt real, true,
like anger to the point that I wanted to get.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Physical gum starts any one, all of it.
Speaker 5 (22:20):
You know, your face is burning, you can't see anything
but the anger that you have, and you just want
to do something extremely hurtful to someone. I want to
say that was probably one of the first times where
I actually experienced that much anger.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
So when did your time in Mexico come to a close?
Speaker 5 (22:35):
I think I got kicked out. I was looking at
my files the other day and I think I got
kicked out, But I know I didn't want to be there.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
My brother stayed there.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
Longer, and I want to say it's because he had
a girlfriend, but I came back.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
I couldn't stay there anymore.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
So how do you feel like your childhood prepared you
for this Marine Corps boot camp experience?
Speaker 5 (22:56):
So that's where I can, you know, give a little
you know, pat on the back to the how conservative
Christian religious we were raised. I think a lot of
that discipline had a lot to do with it, because
we did we were disciplined. We got our asses whooped
if we did something wrong. We were always obeying. If
we didn't obey, we knew we were going to get something.
(23:17):
The resiliency piece came from just the outdoor living. You
know how we'd go hiking. Even when we moved away
from that place, you know, we still I've always enjoyed
just being outdoors in the mountains. The mountains for me
are where it's at. Yeah, we had the beach half
an hour way, but for me, it was like, let
me go up to Palmer Observatory up in the mountains,
So I think that was the resiliency piece there that
(23:38):
like for me crawling through mud, artillery stuff going off
in the shooting.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
That training they put.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
You where you're going through the barbed wire and they
have this sound system with a you know, it was
more of an adventure. Yeah, it sucked, but it was
just like I'm going to do this. You know, I'm
low crawling through there, through the mud, getting dirty. I
didn't care. It wasn't anything I wasn't used to running. Yeah,
you know, suck, but like, just get it over with.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
You're a lot more aerodynamic than I was.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It had to translate though, for you had to have
regard good batter and different from your childhood. You were
able to translate so much of the way you were
raised into that environment because it's so much the same.
Speaker 5 (24:18):
Yeah, and that's that's why I don't know that I've
ever been resentful to a certain extent with certain things
I do question, like the religious piece, but as far
as how I was raised, it made me who I
am today. So for me to come down on my
mom or my stepdad or anything like that, you know,
I wouldn't do. I have questions for them, and some
sort of explanation, yes, but more so to have an
(24:41):
understanding as opposed to creating like this hostile like, Oh,
I'm so pissed at you guys for raising me this way.
It's at the point where I met in my life.
It doesn't have anything to do with that. Just that
is I'm here now because of the way that I
was raised. That's really what it comes down to, regardless
of all this.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
So you get through boot camp and then experience combat
through two deployments in Iraq. Tell us about your first deployment.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
We flew into Kuwait. We are artillery, so we have
to tow our stuff everywhere. So we had to tow
our guns from Kuwait all the way up to Fallujah
and that was that was a joy. It was a
multi day convoy. There was one point where, you know,
we stopped and we were fueling up and providing security.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
They made a group of us go up on this.
Speaker 5 (25:25):
Berm and I remember the sergeant that was in charge
of our team. He did not like me at all.
He was an asshole to me. And you're telling me
to do so, I'm going to do it, like I'm
not going to backlip you or anything. We go up,
we do the security call us back and as we're
coming down this berm, it's long filled before MSR mobile or.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Whatever it was.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
He gets a call over the colms and he's everybody stop,
you know, stop, they're telling him whatever.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
He's like, Romero commune.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
So I go over there and he's like, walk up
to the trucks, watch your feet right, Like okay, you know,
I'm thinking this guy's being an asshole. And to this day,
maybe maybe this whole thing was.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (26:06):
I still don't know if it was true or not.
But in any case, they said there was mins lamb
mines in this open field because of the way that
he treated me. I was not looking at my feet.
I was dragging my feet through that and I heard
him everybody following Romero's footsteps, don't step anywhere he doesn't step,
And I did walk right through it up to the trucks,
get there. The CEO comes over, you know, with the
(26:28):
battery gunny and they're like, hey, thank you Merrinaah okay,
and I'm like, yeah, you know, and I don't remember
how it came up, but something about my daughter and
my wife and battery gun He's like, you know, Sergeant
x y Z. You know, he's like the last time
that you have a married marine, do that, right. So
I don't know if it was a huge prank or what,
(26:49):
but I remember being extremely pissed about it after, not
even at the time, after, I was like, out there.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
What an asshole.
Speaker 5 (26:57):
It just made me hate him so much that I
could care less about like him telling me like I
thought he was messing with me. Like I seriously thought
this guy was just being an asshole to me. I
still to this day don't know if it was a
massive prank or not, but it just it was one
of those things where I.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Was like, okay, just go with it.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
But do you think looking back now, knowing how many
I mean in the minds you're talking about that they
were probably Russian minds. I mean they were all over
the place, They're everywhere. Well, I mean it was just
stay in the tracks. It was one of the things
you always heard every single day. Stay in the tracks,
Stay in the tracks, Stay in the tracks, to the
point to where like you you were nervous without trying
(27:34):
to be nervous because of how much it was, like
it's such a big deal, and it's like, look at
some point you just get so tired, hungry, and there's
see an exhaustedge. You're like, I look, I don't care
if I deviate from the tracks for a little bit.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Oh well, like, who cares?
Speaker 2 (27:49):
It's gonna And then I mean they weren't even talking
about the improvised explosive devices. These were Russian minds left
over by Russia that are all over that country.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (28:01):
Again, it was one of those things where it's like
I didn't take them seriously, so I just trudged it
right through.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
That's one of those things where you know this why
the saying goes ignorance is bliss.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Well, I'm glad that you didn't trigger one, you didn't
trip one like that, being an MPT and that cool.
Yeah I believe that. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (28:22):
Well, we are artillery, so as far as like us
being tight, I guess you could say it was a
different dynamic because in artillery you have your own guns.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
So we have used six gun.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Paws, right Hautzer, Yeah, one, nine or eight at the
time she got switched out to a triple seven. But
your gun, your section, your gun section was extremely tight.
That group of seven, six people very very closely connected
with one another, everybody else will You don't really have
time to interact because you're on your own guns. I
(28:51):
think we were the first Alpha battery first pause, like
static pause in Fallujah to get set up and dug
in that we shot out of. So we provided security
sixty security around the camp Fallujah, and so yeah, I
was really close with with my my section, with the
exception of our section chief. He didn't like me or Sanchez.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Either a different battles.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
You know, I didn't care it just at the time,
it was like do this, do that, I'm going to
do it. What I do remember is in that static
pause we took income in mortar fire all the time,
not close, but over the months that we were there,
they were walking it closer and closer to us.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
You could tell.
Speaker 5 (29:31):
One rocket did hit in front of our gun, gun six,
but it didn't. It was a dut It didn't blow up,
big tang. It was all twisted up in front of
but it didn't. It didn't blow up. But there was
time when we first got there, I'm talking fresh, we
had just planted. We just got our the one nine
erra planted. All the other guns were set up. We
had the three sixty going. So we were setting up
(29:53):
our space, you know. So we were digging our foxhole,
and I remember me and and my buddy. We were
standing and we were digging our foxhol This evening now
was pretty dark. Mortar had hit a fuel bladder in Camphallujah.
Because it just started getting really bright. We both stood
up and there's more mortar fire. It's like exploding. This
(30:14):
was a distance off. It wasn't like like danger near
or close. But the corporal comes and grabs both of us,
throws us in our house.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
What are you guys doing? Get in your hole and.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
We're like, you know, we're watching it like the fourth
of July. We had no clue. So yeah, that was interesting.
One of those other other things. It's like kind of
I guess ignorance. At the time, we're just like, well,
it doesn't register that we're in a combat zone kind
of like it did, but at that time it didn't.
It was weird, and I would consider us our first deployment.
(30:43):
We had it semi easy. Really, we were on a
static pause. They started moving us over a month's in
because obviously we had we were providing initial security when
we got there, all six guns. But then they moved
it to two guns at a time, so they put
us back on in the like they had little houses
like trailer kind of set up, so we had to
(31:05):
stay in these things. We get to go to the cafeteria,
the PX and stuff. So probably more like an O
three eleven job, like where you guys are constantly out there.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
We sometimes had it easy.
Speaker 5 (31:15):
We would be able to shower and stuff, but it
was still sucked, you know, with fire, and then we'd
have to go out and you know, do recon on whatever,
you know, whatever we did, and then they put us
on security for Fallujah, this little like little base that
they had before you went into Fallujah. Interestingly enough, I
believe it's where the army was doing their thing out
(31:38):
of there, and it's where people who probably got their
stuff destroyed by us would come and get money to
repair their stuff. So we were providing security there, which
is interesting.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Tell me about your second deployment and what it was
like transitioning back into civilian sector after those experiences.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
Yeah, so the second deployment was a lot more difficult
because we went as provisional rifle. We were no longer artillery.
We weren't doing our jobs. They give us the training
to do provisional rifle, but we were infantry at that point.
We were providing security for the border on Jordan and Syria.
So our platoon got split up, so a lot of
(32:16):
us were really close. You know, half of us ended
up on the Jordan side, half of us ended up
on the Syria and all on the Iraq side.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
But like Georgia, I was about to say, like you
need to probably clarify that right now, the Iraq side,
but we were split up.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Be good.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I just want to, you know, because I mean that
just two Avoulden International incident.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
Yeah, no, no, yeah, we were on on Iraq side.
We're doing border security for those borders there people coming
in from Syria, people coming in from Jordan, so that
was a lot more difficult. That was where you know, I.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Think those boarders were very active. Yeah, we saw.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
That's where I saw a lot of like the more
you know, things that we didn't see in our prior
But we were just shooting ship far away here.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Now we were in it.
Speaker 5 (32:57):
You know, we were pulling people out of their houses,
doing sword searches, cording and searches, closing off highways, doing
searches on cars.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
You're grunt, You're stuck in deployment, You're a grunt.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
Yeah, so that I think was a little more tense.
But that's when after coming back from that second deployment
more so did I remember in you know, conversing with
my buddies, I started to really feel the effect of
you know, didn't call it trauma at the time, or
PTS or anything at the time.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
It was just I knew there.
Speaker 5 (33:25):
Was something different about me to cope with that. I
was the only marine in our group that lived off base.
Every single weekend, everybody was at my house. Probably not
good for my marriage. I'm pretty sure that's probably why
we ended up splitting.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
You get that close with people.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
At least for me, it was very difficult to not
be with them anymore once you get back. In order
to continue having that, we'd all be at my house
and drinking, having a good time. You know, never really
did anything crazy on lawful or anything like that, but
it was just really us, you know, in the camaraderie
that we had. We just always wanted to be close.
(34:02):
Of course, your spouse doesn't understand that, so they want
to understand that you're back with them and their family
unit I had a daughter at the time, and I
remember I have I have pictures of everything, like every
she got along with all of my buddies. She was
always there until she had to go down to bed.
I'd be making hot dogs. She'd come and just kind
of everybody just we'd goof around and so she wasn't
(34:24):
part of it. Like the drinking part that came usually after,
but that happened a lot, almost every weekend. It was
almost every single weekend, I remember, and I think that
led more into the drinking on my own, you know
where It wasn't just the weekend drinking with the buddies
until you puke. It was every evening you have to
drink something in order to feel okay.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
It continued.
Speaker 5 (34:44):
I went through a whole program in the Marine Corps.
I don't know if you know, but they offer a
program for people drinking. You go meet with the staff sergeant.
He makes you, he gives you, assigns you these tasks.
You have to go to AA They give you a
certificate after saying that you're no longer an alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
I did.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I knew that they offered something, but I didn't I
know that like three quarters of my company should have
done whatever program is.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yeah, I went through it.
Speaker 5 (35:08):
I don't know that it helped, but I did it
more so because they had made me a section chief.
I had picking up a meritorious corporal in my first deployment,
meritorious sergeant in the second deployment, and so now the
next step was section chief. I was an excellent marine.
I excelled at being a marine. I worked really hard.
But there was that drinking thing that was for me,
and you know it was I did it on my own.
(35:30):
Nobody told me I had to go do this. I
was like, hey, I think I have a problem with drinking.
I'm going to go do this was a section chief.
We went out, we did a training shooting and they
called a ceasefire.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
To the rear.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
The peace fall in on my gun and I was like, okay,
well we shot out. And when they called that, you
can't touch your knobs on the guns or anything. They
send people to investigate to see what angle and what.
You know, we're all, you know, have my gun up front,
and and I'm already a wreck mentally, you know, not
enough that I would make some disastrous mistake. But you're
(36:01):
in Camp Penalton, you're like, our guns can certainly reach
to the surrounding cities.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Now, what's the max Just to give the audience an idea,
what's the max effective range?
Speaker 5 (36:12):
Thirty kilometers I think on a nature round. Okay, so
fifteen sixteen miles long. Yeah, and so you know, they
go check it out. And at that point I checked
out in my brain, Like I checked out. I was like, Okay,
turns out I didn't shoot out. It was another another
battery up over some other hill. They ended up they
were the ones that shot out, and I was kicking
(36:33):
myself in the ass about it, but it was still
some mental thing that checked out for me. After that
training being out in the field that got back. I
went in and I told battery gun. I was like,
I can't continue doing this. I don't want to be
Section chief anymore. I'm you know, I'm not being a pussy.
I guess you could say, right, because that's the stigma.
If there's something wrong with your mind, you're a little
(36:55):
bitch yep. But I was very honest about it. I
was like, there's something going on. I don't know what
it is. And they were to a certain extent understanding
about it. Really now that I think about it.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
You know.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
I went and I talked with the psychologist, but they
were going to put me on a very low dosage
of something right, and so an opportunity to go out
to Horno on the range presented itself. Go figure this
guy that thinks he may have a mental issue, it.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Was, find another spot for him.
Speaker 5 (37:23):
Yeah, at the range with a one hundred target man
front and you're going to be one of the range
person all over there. Any case, it wasn't. It wasn't
to that extent. I didn't feel psychotic or anything like that.
It was just something different about me was happening. But
I really loved working at the range.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
It was. It was an awesome job.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
That was close to the point where I was due
for reenlistment or time to get out.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
I had gotten my paperwork.
Speaker 5 (37:48):
I was in line to be promoted for staffsh sergeant
if I stayed in. But my spouse at the time
was willing to work on the relationship if I got out.
I don't think she was now I think about it,
and I'm to blame too. There was, you know, some
infidelity stuff that we were working through, but I did.
I got out to save my relationship. Mostly because I
(38:09):
didn't want to lose my daughter. And it all happened anyways,
I got out, and you know, it wasn't long after
that we ended up separating and divorcing, and so my
daughter I got to see her often at the beginning,
but the individual that she met, this guy she was with,
they ended up getting married and moving very far away
(38:29):
with good three hour drive, and so that was extremely
difficult for me because I no longer had my daughter
and felt like a lot of this was my fault
because of you know, stupid decisions that I had.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Made during this time. What was your relationship like with
your twin brother, Francisco.
Speaker 5 (38:47):
So this is a difficult period in my life, and
I'm sure it was difficult for him to see his
brother in the state that he was. Wasn't the same happy,
go lucky guy that he was before he joined them course,
so I know it was a difficult transition for him
for my family. I remember there was one night I
had been extremely intoxicated. I want to say I don't
(39:09):
I don't know that he was drinking, but I was
for sure, and I was down in the kitchen and
it all blew up that night. I think as a
matter of fact, now I think about it, I think
my mom was living with us at the time too,
and so there was the clan match. You know, she
was there, he was there. They were blaming me for
some stuff that was happening, and you know, I was
extremely frustrated and visibly angry. I remember to the point
(39:33):
where my brother was frightened and he pulled a knife
out of a carving block knife thing, and I don't
know if it was the Marine Corps instinct, but it
automatically kicked in and I slapped it out of his hand,
and I remember his face. He was extremely surprised that
that had happened so quickly, that he had drawn a
weapon and it had been you know, had and I
think a lot of it had to do it, like
(39:54):
he was scared that, like I had injured myself or
cut myself on this blade. So I remember that it
wasn't a fun night, you know. After the healing and
all of that, you know, there was a lot of friction,
I guess the best way to say it, for a
while because of the whole family dynamic thing. It didn't
last long, of course, but there was a point where
my mental health had really affected my relationship with my brother,
and so I had to live with that, and the
(40:17):
drinking just kept getting worse and worse. Ended up meeting,
you know, in a couple of relationships, but ended up
meeting one girl a lot younger than me as far
as maturity too, and we ended up getting married. She
had her things as far as being young and wanting
to still live. Whereas I was, you know, in my thirties,
she was mid younger twenties, twenty two twenty three at
(40:39):
the time, I think, And so I don't know that
she would have not cheated on me if I had,
you know, because there was a lot going on with me,
just a lot with the drinking, the depression. What I
didn't know was PTS at the time, but was you know,
certainly presenting itself. We'd bought a house together, but the
drinking was really bad. Our relationship Chip was very a
(41:02):
lot of turmoil. Never any physical abuse, but a lot
of you know, mental psychological stude soxic. Yeah, and I
know it was hard for her for sure. This is
when I hit rock bottom.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Was this whole.
Speaker 5 (41:13):
I wasn't really aware of her cheating at the time,
but I was a mess. And then we had separated.
She said, well, I just need my space. I'll stay
in the house. Okay, I'll go find something else. I
ended up coming back to my house and caught her
with this guy in my house. That was really like
the rock bottom for me. I had gone out on
a motorcycle ride up in Pelamar Mountain, very curvey roads
(41:37):
back there. We were headed up the back route to Julian.
I was lead coming around a really tight corner that
I completely figured out about.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
I'd been up this way before.
Speaker 5 (41:45):
Ended up, you know, trying to figure out how to correct,
ended up in the wrong side of the road, and
there was a car coming and head on with this
vehicle threw me off my bike. My buddy in back
of me was filming it on go Bro. He won't
show he'd never showed me the video. He wouldn't showed
me the video, he says it's too graphic. And I
was in the hospital and this was a god moment
(42:05):
for me. One more foot to the left, I would
have been inside the car for sure, Like I hit
the front driver's side corner and got launched out into
the road.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
But it could have been a lot worse. Are you so? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (42:17):
I was sober. I was sober, but I was I was.
I think I was probably being reckless. I would probably
going too too fast, if you know, thinking back on it,
I don't. Suicidal ideation is hard to to identify in
the past, right. I can identify it now, you know,
as a as a thing. When I'm talking to individuals
(42:38):
and experiencing, you know, suicidal ideation or thoughts, you can
identify it. I can't look back on my life and
think that, like, oh, maybe that was you know, intentional
as far as you know, some form of ideation of
not being around anymore. Right, the recklessness driving on your
bike too fast, there was probably some of that going
on in my mind. I can't pinpoint it. But it
(43:00):
was a god moment. I was in the hospital. I
had ready known that my wife was cheating on me.
She didn't come see me, her sister and her mom
came out, and so after I got out, they told
me I had to spend a month in bed, and
I did. And this was really my time to connect
with God. It's when I started seeking help, mental health,
(43:23):
professional help, and really started getting things on track. But
I stopped drinking cult turking like nothing, and that lasted
quite a long time, and things just started connecting for me.
At that point, I had been working this job. They
were actually very gracious about giving me the time off
for my accident.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
But I hated it. I hated the job it was.
Speaker 5 (43:43):
It was fine because it paid the bills. I didn't
mind like working, right. It just took me a really
long time to realize that finance like banking was not
my world. I don't mean I hate like, I just
it wasn't my world. So it took a really long
to eight eight years or something like that. And so
after the divorce and all of that is when I
started talking to my now wife, Yay, who was living
(44:07):
in Texas. We had, as I had mentioned before, we
had gone to school together, and as a matter of fact,
before that ninth tenth, eleventh grade, we actually had gone
to middle school, like second or third grade together years ago,
and so known each other for a very long time.
We started talking, and you know, she had always had
a huge crush and she'd admitted, but she wasn't wanting
(44:32):
to come back. She had come out to Texas when
she was like eighteen, she'd been here forever. I wasn't
really enjoying my job, and so obviously the right move
was going to be me coming out to Texas, not
her coming to Californ. We talked about it, but she
was a school teacher. She was very you know, she
had her shit together, you know, good head on her shoulders.
She'd fly over here, I'd fly over you know, or
(44:53):
vice versa. Right, And so I came out here with
no clue what I was going to do. I had
a lot of my credits already, and I was studying
for international business. I needed one more class to graduate
with my international business degree. But I went in and
I talked to the veteran counselor or whatever the at TCC,
this community college, and I was like, here's the deal.
This is what I want to do. I want to
(45:13):
help people. How can I help people? And she and
I told her, I said, I think I'd love I'd
love to do, you know, teach. I would love to
be a teacher. Not the younger grades, maybe high school
or something, you know, where the minds are a little
more mouldible. And she's like, well, have you ever thought
of social work? And I was like, oh, the guys
that work in hospitals, right, I get so much more
than that. There's so many different things that you can
(45:35):
do with a social work degree. Started talking and she
brought up veterans working with veterans, and I was like,
I'm in I tell this people all the time. Yeah,
it sounds cliche, but I'm I'm working my dream job.
It's not easy, it's challenging, af but it's rewarding to
know that you're working for something that's saving lives.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
I think that's.
Speaker 5 (45:53):
Really what it boils down to.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
At the end of the day.
Speaker 5 (45:56):
There's going to be challenges, but that resiliency that we've
built and built over our lives, it's really coming into
play because it's not easy leading.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
I think it's to a certain extent, it.
Speaker 5 (46:07):
Does take a toll. It's taxing, but is it worth it.
Absolutely it is. To be able to be a part of,
you know, making a change in mental health and breaking
stigmas and helping our first responders and our heroes out there,
it's just an amazing feeling.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
It's one of the reasons that I believe you're exactly
where you're supposed to be. I believe that you're a
gift to humanity, and it has everything to do with
the scars you can't see, you know. I mean that's
why I think, even though you're a self proclaimed introvert
and that you're a gamer and you build your oll
computers and crap like it's you're exactly where you're supposed
(46:46):
to be. And everything's happened is and we've talked at
length about this. Everything's happened exactly the way it's supposed
to happen. And you know, I'm just I'm honored to
do this alongside you. Thank you so so actually, and
our fortunate not to get to work with you and
Francisco and we see it. But for the people listening,
(47:09):
what's your relationship with your with your brother and your mom?
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Now, it's good.
Speaker 5 (47:14):
With my brother. I don't know that there's a day
that we don't talk to each other, not just because
he works here, even outside of work, but we're always
texting back and forth. You know, we we're tight, We're
really close. As a matter of fact, it didn't take
him but a year and a half maybe two years
to leave California and come to Texas after I came
to Texas. So just see, you know, to explain the
(47:35):
gravity of our relationship and how close we are.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
That's that's what happened.
Speaker 5 (47:39):
Is his spouse now jokes about it and she's like,
I knew it, Like I knew that as soon as
as soon as Lucky in Mo he's gonna leave, He's
gonna leave too, So to be expected, we're really close.
I me and my brother have an amazing relationship.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
He's helped out a lot.
Speaker 5 (47:52):
Yeah, my mom's always been an amazing woman. Granted, I
think she was pulled into something a lot further into
something because of her past and what she needed out
of this religion that I don't know that it was
ever in a vindictive type way, sending us down to
Mexico or I think it was really what she knew
at the time was going to be the best for us.
She's always taken care of us and still that working
(48:14):
spirit in us. So she's an amazing woman. We're close.
She's still back in California. I haven't I need to
go visit her, but you know, we're close because of
some of the stuff that she'd been through. I know
there's been some challenges that she's faced and struggles that
she had, but we talk often as well. As a
matter of fact, I think she's talking about a move
out to Texas, which would be great. I'd love to
(48:36):
have her here. But we're good, weird good, Okay.
Speaker 4 (48:39):
So why can we ask every guest three questions? The
first being.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
Looking back on your life's journey, is there a person
or an organization that's really made an impact on you?
Speaker 5 (48:53):
That's a tough question. I don't know how to answer that, honestly.
If we're calling it an organization, the Marine Corps, for sure,
that's at one of the biggest impacts of my life.
I don't think it defines my life being a marine,
it's certainly a big part of it. An old pastor
that I had, ironically, was very supportive, I guess you
could say, of everything, because he married me, he did
(49:15):
our wedding, and then he was who I went to
when I was talking about our divorce. So I think
when I associate that religion, he was a pastor of
this religion. To his complete non judgmental attitude about everything
in my life, I think he was probably pretty pivotal
as far as that's concerned, ironically, because religion. Yeah, so yeah,
(49:37):
my daughter, for sure. I think if there's anything that
I can draw a ton of inspiration from it's just
the love that I have for her and what i'd
like to say, and that the love that she has
for me, because we have a really good relationship.
Speaker 4 (49:49):
So it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
What do you do?
Speaker 2 (49:53):
I already know it's not enough of and I'm guilty
as charge as well. You know I've been on each
other boat for quite some time. But the second question,
I just I'm going to own the accountability.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
You got to own it. What do you do to
recharge and relax?
Speaker 5 (50:12):
What do I do to recharge or what do I
wish I could do to charge and relax? Are two
different things? Yeah, either or So for me, it's nature.
I really love being out in the mountains. Of course
in Texas, you don't see many of those out here,
so that part's difficult, so hiking or whatever I can
do here. The other big one is gaming. Of course,
should be no joke to anyone out there. I'm a
huge gamer. That's really something that I can do. That
(50:34):
is kind of a way for me to get out
of my mind sometimes get myself into another world or
whatever the case is. I'm a huge rem player World
of Warcraft, Final Fantasy Online and first time ever in
my life. This past weekend, I actually was able to
enjoy my first Dungeon and Dragon session with the group
that we finally were able to get together for this.
(50:55):
So I'd been wanting to get into it for a while.
I just we've never had the people that do it.
I met somebody not too long ago via my wife
who was a big fan of the game, and he
was like, oh, we should totally. I built this whole
game table around it. I'll show you a picture later,
but we actually got to play on it last night
for our first ever Dungeons and Dragon session.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
Was amazing.
Speaker 5 (51:16):
I had a whole bunch of fun.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
And you've opened up my eyes, our eyes, yes to
there's even a therapeutic element that comes into play with it,
so much so that we're developing a gaming program.
Speaker 4 (51:28):
That's right with one tri foundation.
Speaker 5 (51:30):
Surely I believe that strongly in it, that yeah, that
there is a therapeutic component to gaming and not just
sitting in front of a computer, but you know, getting
around a table with your friends and with your family.
It's part of that holistic mental health care that people
need out there. That maybe it's tailored to you so right,
and I know it's tailored to me.
Speaker 4 (51:47):
So our final question is what feeds your soul?
Speaker 5 (51:53):
Good people feed my soul. Being around people who are
as passionate as I am feeds my soul. Being able
to help people and being able to watch the transition
in people is amazing for me. And on top of everything,
my relationship with God. I'm not going to bring up
the whole religious piece. It is the spiritual relationship that
(52:13):
I have with a non judgmental God that knows that
I mess up on the daily but still you know,
understanding that I do my best to be a good
person and he knows that if it's not enough and
I don't, you know, get to be with him, well
maybe God isn't for me then, But I choose to
not believe that.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
I choose to believe.
Speaker 5 (52:33):
That my relationship with God is really something that is
important for me. I maybe it's not for everybody, but
it is for me. It helps me wake up in
the morning and it helps me sleep at ease at night.
Speaker 3 (52:42):
So well, Keene Rameira, thank you so much for being
on the good stuff. You truly inspire us on the
daily basis, and we're just we're grateful to call you
brother and friend.
Speaker 1 (52:52):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
I know that you know because I've told you, but
so the listeners know you've been there for me in
a way that most people can't. And I'm very, very
grateful for that, appreciated and it's something that you know
and that you know I don't take lightly. You truly,
in every sense of the phrase, have.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Made me a better human.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
So thank you, bro, and thanks for taking time out
of our work schedule for you to do this.
Speaker 4 (53:20):
Absolutely, absolutely, that's the good stuff.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
Because of the scars of this man in the victory,
he finds in his vulnerability he is able to empower
people to live healthy, well lived lives.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
Absolutely from his rough beginnings too, now he is just
leading the charge and helping people on the daily basis.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
He's absolutely channeled his pain into power and now it's
affecting in a great way in the best way. Pop
School the borders well outside this great state of Texas.
Speaker 4 (54:04):
Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 3 (54:05):
If this episode touched you today, please share it and
be part of making someone else's day better.
Speaker 1 (54:10):
Put on your bad ass caves and go be great today.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
And remember you can't do epic stuff without epic people.
Thank you for listening. To the good Stuff. The Good
Stuff is executive produced by Ashley Schick, Jacob Schick, Leah
Pictures and q Code Media, Hosted.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
By Ashley Shick and Jacob Shick, Produced by Nick.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
Cassolini and Ryan Countzouse Post production Supervisor Will Tindy. Music
editing by Will Haywood Smith, edited by Mike Robinson.
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