War is a Drug: Life Lessons from Army Ranger - Angel Cortez - Hector Bravo UNHINGED

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hector Bravo, unhinged chaos is now in session
.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Welcome back to our channel, warriors, we are still
growing.
Today, another banger for youguys.
Man, I have none other thanAngel Cortez.
You guys might have seen him onEd Calderon's podcast, ed
manifesto's podcast, formerranger, business owner, skater,
father man and, most best of all, he's from southern california.

(00:31):
So here he is.
What up, angel, what's up mydude?
Thank you for having me here.
Thanks for coming, bro.
I gotta give you that shout outfor socal man no, yeah, yeah,
definitely.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Um, I don't know how the connection happened, but but
I'm glad it happened and that'sthe power, the power of the
internet and social media ingeneral.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, bro, the networking, yeah, and with
like-minded individuals.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yep, yes, and earlier we were talking I was already
having a good time and, bro,it's something about SoCal,
something about sharedexperiences.
It just makes the connectionbetter.
Sometimes I go do a podcast andI know they want to hear the
story and a lot of the stuffthat I'm saying that maybe
they've never even heard it orthey don't understand it, and
it's like, okay, finally I gotsomebody here who oh, bro, I got

(01:14):
.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
We speak the same language, dude.
Yes, sir, so where did you growup at?

Speaker 1 (01:18):
uh, here in southern california.
So my family came my family'sfrom Puebla.
They came here and I'm thefirst one in my family to be
born in the US.
So when we first got here wewere in Westminster, so Orange
County.
Yeah, OC and then after a whilewe moved to like Garden Grove
and then Garden Grove to Delano,delano back to Garden Grove,

(01:41):
and then my parents split andthen I was either spending a lot
of time in Santa Ana anabecause for people that don't
know santa ana's uh, verymexican, you know people say
little mexico and and soobviously you spend a lot of
time in santa ana and gardengrove, but all in general,
orange county how old were youwhen your parents split?

Speaker 2 (01:59):
oh man, young um in elementary, maybe five, six,
seven I asked that because mywife and I currently split, not
too long ago, so I want to makesure my daughter is going to be
all right and clearly you turnedout all right.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah, it's um, you know, uh, so I'm the second
oldest.
And then, um, you know, uh.
Growing up you always hear, hey, we're here to better have.
You know, this is the bestcountry ever, right, we came
here to, you can live a betterlife than us.
And and you're hearing all thisgrowing up the entire time.
And then you know you're like,oh my, I get it, mom is a dinner

(02:32):
.
You tell me again for the time.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Nah, that's good bro.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
That's is in Spanish Novelas or what yeah a bunch of
novelas freaking TelemundoPrimero Impacto, all that you
know they have the hot assfucking weather.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
ladies, bro, yeah they do See.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
and the thing is, the Americans are barely catching
up to that, because now you gotFox.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Fox News has all those little you know short
skirt news reporters but theydon't know that that freaking
mexicans were on that game along time ago, 80s or some shit,
yeah, and ultimately, where yousaid santa ana or the oc is
where you, yeah, resided, yep,and what?
When did you get intoskateboarding, dude?

Speaker 1 (03:18):
um, I got into skateboarding because, uh, like
the x games, right.
So when I had, when I go to mycousin's house, um, they had
cable and I would see, you know,espn x games.
I'd be like, oh shit, you guysare skating.
And then you would see theskaters around and so I always
wanted to skate.
But I actually didn't startskating until I was 12, uh,
because, you know, we were poor,we didn't have fucking
skateboards, yeah.

(03:38):
And then my first actual boardswere actually hand-me-downs for
my cousins right, right.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
What did you like watching the vert skating the
half pipes or the street skatingthe street On the X?

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Games, but the thing is they wouldn't show too much
street Like nowadays.
You got the Olympics and theyhave the street setups, right,
but back in the day everythingwas Tony Hawk, tony Hawk did.
You had Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1,2.
And every now and then theyshowed uh, skate stuff, and then

(04:07):
, and then people these youngfolks don't know, but back in
the day if you missed the, thestreet skating, you can never
see it again correct.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Oh, because there's no dvr, no, dvr, no yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
So you're like oh fuck, I missed it.
And then you're like okay well,I guess I'm watching vert um
what are you?
Regular goofy sense goofy, noway dude you fucking push
mongrel too no no, no, no, Idon't do that, I did.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Don't trip no.
So all you skaters willunderstand what this lingo is.
Yeah, so skating at 12, growingup there in that location, were
you observing shit going onlike gangs?

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, yeah, because we were poor.
So in low income communitiescomes crime, drugs, violence and
all that, you know, alcoholismand all that, and so I would see
the gang members and and yourkids.
So you don't, you don't mind,you know, you're like, they're
like, oh, whatever, every nowand then, yeah, you see them if
they were fighting each other orblasting music, or some of them

(05:03):
had nice cars, but like youdon't pay attention to them and
they don't really pay attentionto you yeah, they kind of let
you wiggle and you're doingtheir thing, you're doing your
thing.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yep, was it a big group of friends or a tight
group of skating that you wouldskate with?

Speaker 1 (05:16):
um, no, man, because we moved.
We kind of moved a lot, um, butwithin it's funny.
Within we moved a lot, butwithin the same general area.
So it wasn't like, oh, I wouldhang out, I would make friends
right away with some apartmentcomplex and then we'd move and
and then.
But you would find the skaterseventually.
So that's one thing I likeabout skateboarding is that you
can hear somebody skate and thenyou'll skate, and then,

(05:38):
especially when you're kids, andall of a sudden you're like,
hey man yeah you want to skateand you're like boom, boom done.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, it's a community man and we'll fast
forward to the military later on.
It's the same tight-knit groupof camaraderie.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Yeah, not to mention back then, skateboarding wasn't
how it was looked now.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Oh, now it's mainstream dude.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, it's mainstream , it's on the Olympics.
But back then, bro, you used tobe you know a piece of shit you
were.
You were getting tickets,whether you were getting
harassed, you know you were acriminal.
Bro, skateboarding is not acrime.
Yeah, yeah, there was thatshirt and I had that shirt.
Skateboarding is not a crimebecause, bro, they would treat
you like a fucking criminal soearlier we were talking you said
your mother was very religious,yeah, and you wanted to get a

(06:19):
skateboard that had a knight onthere and she believed it was
devil it was a devil, yeah,because, um, so that was a santa
fe swami, where, where you know, there's a, some skateboards
and I'm like, oh man, I want adark star skateboard because
dark star is my favorite companyand they had these knights that
were slaying these demons.
But the knights didn't looknice and friendly, they looked
hardcore and tough and likefreaking, you know, um strong

(06:41):
and all that, and my mom's likeno, the diablo.
And then, and then it was azero board with the cross.
Yeah, and she goes, I'll getyou that one.
And I was like fuck yeah wherewere you when 9-11 happened?
bro.
Um, so my mom even though wemoved a lot, my mom tried her
best to, uh, keep us in the sameschool and my grandparents

(07:04):
basically lived in the sameapartment complex for a long
long time.
So we had this routine we wouldwake up around five, get ready,
walk to the nearest main streetthat we can take the bus
directly to my grandma'sapartment, walk a little bit and

(07:25):
then my mom would go to workand then we would stay there
until school started, and so thefirst plane hit around like
8.50,.
Right, so most people aren'tawake in the West Coast if
you're a kid, right, but we were.
Because of that routine, and atthat I remember that day.

(07:48):
Um, my mom had a van that sheborrowed, so, but we still just
stayed, woke up, that same time.
So I remember, as we're drivingin this van, when there's no
seats, there's no seats in thevan there's no seats in the van
dude, no, so we were all.
It was a little ford, astro van,the little mini one, no seats
in the back, and then therewasn't even a stereo.
So she had a radio that you putbatteries in and I remember

(08:11):
hearing it on the on the radioand I was like I was like oh man
, that sounds like a cool movie.
Because what people don't knowis that back in the day they
used to do radio promos.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
You know, like you know this summer, yeah, uh, you
know, like you know, this summercoming, you know, and and so I
was like, oh, this is like, oh,this is like a promo to a movie.
It sounds kind of cool.
And then she like turned it up.
And then, when the way sheturned it up, I was like is this
?
I don't think this is a fuckingyeah uh, promo.
I think this might be real.
And then she hur hurried us upto my grandma's apartment and

(08:46):
then they were already allaround the TV and that's when I
realized like, oh, this is forreal.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
What were you in junior high?
No, sixth grade.
Sixth grade, dude, yeah, sixthgrade.
Do you remember if you feltanything?

Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah, man, I remember feeling like a little nervous,
a little scared, but I rememberI felt like, even though it was
early, I was a really young ageand based on my upbringing I'd
matured and seen a lot of thingsmore than your sixth grader at
that time.
I remember that meant we weregoing to go to war.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
You remember thinking that.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Yeah, I was like we were going to go to war.
You remember thinking that,yeah, I was like we're going to
war and I remember being like Ifelt bad because I felt like I
was going to miss the war.
So you remember feeling that atsix years old, well, sixth
grade or sixth grade, yeah, yeah, because growing up, you know,
my mom was my mom.
We were poor.
So she, you know, signed up forevery federal and state program
that we ever could to get food.

(09:45):
So I was born and raised on foodstamps yeah so being told that,
hey, this is the best countryever, this has helped us look
what they do, and all this andthat, and, and so you know the
way I saw it was like man, thiscountry that's been taking care
of my, my brothers and sistersand I, is in trouble and I can't
do shit about it we weretalking about this type of stuff
like calling, like the feelingthat call for duty, yeah, and

(10:06):
all obligation, that moralobligation, and I'm I'm gonna
try to like pry it out of youbecause this I'm learning, bro.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
I'm like damn, I didn't realize that that sense
of of a man or selfless servicestarts at that young age, dude
yeah, I mean, well, to be honest, this, this country, overall,
we're, we're coddled.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
You go to other countries, those who are junior
high age kids.
You know they're already,that's already implemented in
their heads, right?
Yeah, you got, you got kids whowho are already shooting, who
are already probably even fought, or they're fighting, right or?

Speaker 2 (10:48):
their dad was a fighter and their dad tells them
about the war because there maynot be any wars here, but
there's always been wars allover the world, do you?

Speaker 1 (10:53):
believe, for with all of your experience, that wars
are necessary.
Um, it's not that they'renecessary, it's just you can
call it human nature.
But I don't know any moment, uh, on that, and this planet's
been around that there's notbeen war, correct, whether here
in europe and asia, middle east,you name it, there's always
been something, even if it's notwith countries, the, the, the

(11:17):
indians were slaughtering eachother.
Um, you go to, you know, latinamerica, those people were
slaughtering each other.
So it's like I don't, I don'tif it were, look, I got kids,
man, if it were up to me, um,all the nukes will go away, all
the, the, the missiles and therifles will go away.
But that's not reality.

(11:38):
And because that's not reality,I now, I now prepare myself, my
family, my kids, for the world,what it is you mentioned you
have kids.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, do you, and I'm sure I know the answer to this.
Would you rather fight warsinstead of your children?
I would.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
I would fight a war instead of my child.
Like I got a boy right, a boyand two girls, and it's like the
fact that even I, it's apossibility that my son might
fucking fight.
I'm like, fuck man, I wastelling my wife and alia, I was
telling alia, I was like, if, if, if aj joins, I'm gonna join
back up.
I'm like I can't sit around andwatch my son go fucking fight

(12:19):
when I still have the ability toto go fight, because there's
that meme that's going aroundthat it was born too late or
born born too early or not borntoo late to fight in the middle
east.
Born at the right, at the, atthe, born just in time to fight
the middle east, uh, born toolate to fight.

(12:40):
So basically, every single timeyou're fighting the middle east
which is kind of true becauseyou got the gulf war, you got
iraq, um, and then and then nowyou have the situation now so
it's like afghanistan,afghanistan, syria and so syria.
So you, you're like, yeah, Imean, we've always been fighting
.
You got grandpa stuff I canwent to the middle east.

(13:02):
I went to the middle east.
Now you're telling me my sonmight fucking go.
What year did you enlist intothe army?
Uh, 2008.
And then I was in from 2008 to2016.
How old were you when you?

Speaker 2 (13:12):
enlisted 17.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
Holy shit, bro, you're like the little brother I
never had man, and I mean thatin a good way yeah, fucking, you
know, because I I by that pointyou know I was already causing
trouble, I, I was already a gangmember.
Um, I, I've gone out gangmember.
Yeah, that's news to me, dudeyeah, man, I was a gang member,
um, and and and, but.
But I already gone out of thegang and and and I was like you

(13:35):
know what, um, I've alwayswanted to freaking because I?
I became a gang member becauseI was seeking something.
Obviously, at the time I didn'tknow, but I was seeking
brotherhood, I was seeking love,I was seeking a community Right
.
And they weren't it, man.
And growing up I'd alwaysadmired military dudes.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
And you said they're not it.
It's not because they're badpeople, it's because they're
misguided or uneducated andmisguided yeah, 100.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
Some of them are cool , but some of them weren't, um,
and, and I was.
And then that's when I realizedwhat I was really seeking is
what the military had to offer,because and that's why I had
such attraction to militarymovies growing up, but I always
watch, I would be in my friend'shouse and any national
geographic documentary on the,on anything, whether it was old,
current, I was, I would justwatch and it was like because

(14:27):
that's what I wanted, becausethese dudes were protecting each
other, right, they loved eachother.
They would, fucking, you know,die for you and and and I'm like
and I didn't have that in my,in my life I think that's
hardwired in men, bro, not likelooking for that.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah, what you just explained yeah did you join the
delayed entry program, like didyou join in high school and then
you signed the contract andthen you had to wait?

Speaker 1 (14:50):
no, I, um, I was like man, I want to join, I'm 17, um
, and I went to the recruitingstation and and at that point
I'd already seen that ieds werelike the number one thing,
killing soldiers oh, let me backthat shit up, bro.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
So I was in iraq in 04.
Yeah, what?
What from your vantage point?
What were you observing on thenews um?

Speaker 1 (15:11):
well, none.
Well, you or what were youaware of?
Well, not really the news.
It was a national geographichad a few documentaries and I
would watch those over and over.
It was one with special forcesguys, one of the like invasion
right of iraq, and then, um, Ican't remember what the other
ones, but they were just showingall these ieds, ieds, ieds.
Yes, there was gunfights, butthese ieds just demolishing.

(15:33):
And then and then I would go onyoutube, or, um, what was it?
Ron tomato, not ron tomatoes,what is it?

Speaker 2 (15:39):
roncom.
Yeah, orgrish also live leak.
It was a good live leaks.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yes, live leaks, that's.
That's what it was.
I would go LiveLeaks and justwatch all these firefights and
these trucks getting blown upand I'm like, okay, well, these
fucking IEDs are fucking dudesup.
So I walked into the recruitingstation and I was like, look,
my name is Angel Cortez.
I see the IEDs kill servicemembers, soldiers.
I was like, um, you know, Iwant to do something about it.

(16:04):
I want to go after the guys tomake the ids or go after the
things or find them or whatever.
And then that's when they were,they both looked at me like I
was fucking crazy.
You're a recruiter's wet dream,bro.
Yeah, bro, they.
Because I just I was nervous,so I talked real fast, you know,
in front of them and they'relike both their jaws just
dropped and they were like ohyeah, like you can either be eod

(16:24):
or a combat engineer.
And they told me all theschooling that eod you needed.
And at the time, bro, I failedeverything in high school, minus
math and pe.
I failed everything else.
And I was like, man, I'm notgonna, I can't make eod.
So I was like yo, I'll be acombat engineer.
And and then I was like but I'mnot 18.
And they're like oh, actuallyyou don't have to be 18, with
the parent signature you canjoin.

(16:45):
So I went to.
By that time I'd already beenkicked out of my house, and so,
oh you were kicked out.
Yeah, okay, so I went to find mymom where I heard she would
live in with my brothers andsisters, and when I showed up
and they knocked big ass youknow army recruiter she started
crying.
I remember.
I remember I was like I wassurprised because, bro, I wasn't

(17:09):
raised properly, right, so I'veseen some type of emotion
coming out of her was fucking,to be honest, kind of like I
think she knew what time it was.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Dude, like by seeing the recruiter and like knowing,
like fuck is, and you know it.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
It made me uncomfortable being around her
like that.
And she's like, are you sure?
And I was like, yeah, I waslike I've always watched all
these war movies.
You know, when I was a littlekid I would always play with the
plastic soldiers.
You know, like the night, go tothe 98 cent store, you get the
plastic green ones and the grayones and I would have little
trenches on the dirt and I wouldmake them fight.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
And I was like like I was always interested in all
that stuff and I was like soyeah, of course.
And then so she signed and Ifucking bounced so you went in
as a combat engineer.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah, where did you go to basic at missouri?
How was that, bro?
That was a culture shock,because one uh, you were around
people from all over the world,right, I mean sorry, not over
the world all over the country,and I'm not sure if they did it
on purpose, but it was justfunny.
It's like they put all thetroublemakers into my fucking
bootcamp, like all the hooddudes from the East Coast, from

(18:16):
Miami, from Texas.
That's where bootcamp is, whereI found out there was even
fucking, like you know, fromdudes from like Little Rock
white boys that were gangmembers and they were gang
members yeah, that was the infrom arkansas and all this and
I'm like so it was funny.
It was almost like prison.
Immediately, every all themexicans started hanging out,
all the blacks, all the whites.

(18:37):
Uh, the samoans were kind oflike you know, kind of cool with
everybody yeah um, and it wasfunny at first.
You know, everyone's like tryingto be tough or whatever.
But, like bro, we're at bootcamp, we're all gonna get our
ass kicked and then, little bylittle, we all get broken down
and then all of a sudden,everyone's friends by the end of
it and, um, you know, you learna lot.
You learn a lot by yourself inthe world, or right then and

(18:58):
there did your ait roll in rightafterwards?

Speaker 2 (19:00):
yeah, is it the same?
Yeah, same location.
Yep, how was that for you, thechange?

Speaker 1 (19:06):
up.
What were you?
Learning in ait well, first, uh, first, how to use a mind
detector.
Right, look for landmines, lookfor metals.
Understand the differencebetween if you're sweeping
something and it's like, it'sjust like it'll, your mind
detector will make a noise, butit's nothing, and understanding
the difference between like ohshit, I got something, to where,
like no, this is nothing.

(19:27):
And then to dig, dig, dig, digto see if you know that nothing
becomes something um.
And then about explosives, likeyou know the um.
And then how to set up chargesto blow things up like crater
charges crater chargesbangalores because, yeah, we
have um g watt but the but the gwatt when you, when you blow

(19:50):
things up like a door, a lot oror an id, that's not the role of
a combat engineer.
What cabinet combat engineerswould do is um, something like
you see on sam prime ryan, whenthere's all these opticals on
the beach and someone's got tofucking blow them up to make it
the way.
And that's got to fucking blowthem up to make it the way.
Did you guys use?

Speaker 2 (20:06):
Miklix, yeah, we did Really.
Yeah, I always thought thatshit looked cool as fuck bro.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Yeah, it takes a long time to fucking do it, but yeah
.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
So how long was that duration?
Basic AIT.
And then where did you go getshipped to?

Speaker 1 (20:20):
It.
It was like six months, I think.
God damn dude.
Yeah, well, because it's alltogether, right Six months.
And then I got stationed toWashington State.
And then when I got there, Iremember, as I'm walking to my
company, everyone's out thereand they're all, like you know,
yelling at us.
It's almost like prison.
When new inmates come, bro,they're all yelling at us and

(20:43):
calling us cherries and all thisshit.
And then they're like hey, newguy, fucking, get ready.
Tomorrow we go day and nightshooting, day and night demo.
Have all your shit ready,because we're going to Iraq in
six months.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
They told you that initially.
When you got there Fuck yeah,my first day they told us the
same thing.
So what feelings went throughyour head when you heard that?

Speaker 1 (21:01):
Well, I went through your head when you heard that.
Well, I was like you know.
Well, first I wanted to provemyself, because these are now
I'm amongst the dudes that Ilook up to, the people that I
was, that I looked up to, youknow, on all these shows.
Did they have previousdeployments?
Yeah, man, it's.
You can tell me, becauseeveryone had that patch, their
combat patch, right that theydidn't change over from their,
their deployment.
So you saw this, these patches.
So you had I can't rememberwhat is it your left or right,

(21:24):
but one shoulder was like yourcleanish patch that you just
wear around base, and then theother one was your deployment
patch and like that shit wasdirty, probably still had the
dirt from iraq or afghanistanwhere the fuck that came from?

Speaker 2 (21:36):
and then they just looked different and you're like
bro, like this dude's beenthrough some shit hey, hey guys,
consider becoming a patron,where you will get first
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So that's also another way tosupport the channel.

(21:56):
Thank you, guys.
Appreciate all of you.
Keep pushing forward.
Make sure you hit that link inthe description below so you
trained how long before youdeployed yeah, like six months
six months, bro, that's fuckingbrand, that's.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
That's not that long time, it's not it flew, it flew
and we, and so we went to iraq.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
My first deployment was iraq were your, did you have
good leadership at your unit?

Speaker 1 (22:17):
oh man no no no, no, no, not at all, man, man,
terrible, terrible leadership.
I was lucky enough that therewas good dudes around it, but
like it was very toxic and atthe time I didn't know, I just
thought that's how it was Right.
But you know, you had a lot ofdudes that they were either
divorced or they're on the wayto get divorced or they fucking

(22:39):
wish they were divorced.
A lot of them were alcoholics.
A lot of them werecomfortableics.
Um, a lot of them werecomfortable with with I didn't
like that, oh I, I, I did this.
So then, and then it's justlike they never really seeked
improvement they were likeliving out their history, their
past, yeah but it's like yeah,but what do you do now, bro?
like that's not saying that yourpast doesn't count, homie, but

(23:02):
like yeah, what are you doingnow?

Speaker 2 (23:05):
And would they hold that over?
You Like, hey, bitch, I didthis, I did that, yeah all the
time, all the time.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
And they had me there , they had me where, like, yes,
I did not go to war I don't knowwhat that means, like I can
train for it, but there'ssomething to say that when you
go and do the thing right, right.
So I was like, all right, yougot me there and and so.
But I just took it because Ihonestly think my upbringing
helped me deal with a lot ofstuff in the military.

(23:31):
Because, bro, when I joined inthe game in my room, well, first
of all I didn't even know youjoined, I didn't even know you
got paid when you were in themilitary.
I, I, yeah, so when?
So?
you were balling huh.
No well, we're more recruited.
Was like trying to explain tome how pay works.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
I remember two grand a month.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
I think, yeah, I remember thinking like what is
this?
And he goes oh, this, this isyour, your pay grade.
And I was like you get paid forthis.
And he goes yeah, how did youthink it worked?
I was like I thought they gaveclothes and somewhere to live
and that was boom, that was itright.
So now we're even, you're right.

(24:07):
So when I joined bro, I, thatwas my first time ever having my
own bed, even though I shared aroom.
That was my first time I everhad like a room, right, um?
So all that shit was easy to me.
When they're treating me likeshit, I'm like same shit, same
shit.
I was treated like shit growingup.
My dad would beat me, my momwould telling us that you, we
ruined her fucking life and noone loves us, and all this, and
that I was like now I get paidand I'm here, so whatever.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yeah, and you're doing what you enjoy doing or
what you want to do.
Yep, you said you deployed toIraq.
Yeah, in what year?

Speaker 1 (24:39):
2009 and 10.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
What area?
What area?
Dayala Dayala, dayala Dayala,was that by?
Balad Dayala Dayala, it's it'sno, what's what?

Speaker 1 (24:52):
is it Barbuka Bakuza?
It's north of what I'm tryingto say.
Was it north of Baghdad Bakuza?
Wherever that is?

Speaker 2 (25:04):
And what was your day-to-day operations like when
you touched down?

Speaker 1 (25:08):
So we lived in a cop and a cop is so you have like
big airfield bases that you landthe military planes and then
from there you have a FOB whichis it's a little bit smaller
than the big airfield base, andthen after that you got a cop
right and the cop is like thesmallest fucking base.
Little outpost thing is a call,it stands for a combat outpost,

(25:30):
right, and that's where we live.
We lived in cop cobra and andyou know there was no running
water, uh, you know noelectricity.
Um, everything was like mres orlike these fucking shitty ass
meals that at some point youwere like, bro, I would rather
fucking eat an mre at this point, um, and and so we would clear

(25:54):
in the day or in the night,which meant we were in these
armored vehicles, and then thevehicle I was in was the buffalo
and I was, and I was, uh, and Iwas just um on in the Buffalo
looking for IEDs.
So if we did find an IED, we hadbasically like a claw thing
that would then go investigatewhen you're looking.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
are you looking with your eyes or is there some type
of no, we're looking through.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
But you basically have these big-ass windows I
mean they're not really that big, but big windows that you're
looking through and you'retrying to see signs.
And then you know we train upon these little things that, hey
, there might be something here.
One of the strikers that had arobot we rarely use the robot,
but it was mostly in the Buffalocause it's really beefy and

(26:37):
then, and then you have somedistance with that claw to like
poke around and see what's up.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
Did you guys have air force, a EOD?

Speaker 1 (26:46):
No, like poke around and see what's up.
Did you guys have air force a?
Uh, eod?
Um, no, we.
We had the capability ofcalling eod if something was too
crazy, but, like, our job wasto blow things up.
So it's like you know, eod gets, gets a lot of credit, as you
should, but people don't knowthat combat engineers are
actually the ones that you don'thave enough eod guys to do the
mission did you guys ever findieds before they blew up?

Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yeah, really yeah, and then we would just blow them
up.
Could you give us like anexample?

Speaker 1 (27:10):
So, like I remember one time, so the bad guys, even
though they don't know what afucking iPad is or what a
fucking DoorDash is, thatdoesn't mean they're stupid.
These are intelligent peopleLike I don't like it when people
are like, oh, you guys fightfarmers and it's like, has a
farmer picked up an ak and shotat us?
Yes, but um, we would fightfucking well-trained,

(27:33):
well-seasoned fighters andsometimes even foreigners.
Because these people see, um,you know the ukraine situation
and people going to ukraine intohelping them out, and they
think, oh, that's the first timethat's ever happened, that's
the first time a foreigner hasever gone to a conflict.
No, that shit happened in Iraq,it should happen in Afghanistan
.

(27:54):
So, you know, there's thesecheckpoints, or choke points, I
mean.
So there's like a bend or abridge.
If you have to cross thatbridge, they know like, hey, you
have to cross it.
So that's a bridge.
If you have to cross thatbridge, they know like, hey, you
, you have to cross it.
So that's a perfect place forthem to place an ied.
I remember one of the ones thatwe found was uh, and you lose
trash all over the country.
Right, there was a, a tire, andthey had and and they're not

(28:16):
dumb, so they would set thesetires all around the road and
then you drive by it one day,two days, three days, maybe a
week, and next you know youdrive by in that same tire.
That didn't have shit.
Now there was two artilleryrounds in there.
So, um, it seemed a littlesuspicious and we checked it out
.
We're like, oh shit, like yeah,man, there's a fucking two

(28:36):
artillery rounds now you're in abuffalo or you're in a vehicle.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
Do you fucking, do you dismount?

Speaker 1 (28:42):
no, no, no.
So we got that arm on thebuffalo, okay, and then you
would open up one of the hatches, put some C4, and then swing
the arm to place it.
What the hell?
Go back and set it off.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
What's the time frame for that?
It takes a long time, man.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
Yeah, unless that thing is remote donated, you
know, they can set it offwhenever the fuck they want.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
Which IED?
Um, you know they can.
They can set it off wheneverthe fuck they want.
Which ieds were you guysencountering the wired ones a?

Speaker 1 (29:09):
command or the, a little bit of both, a little bit
of both.
So so, um, um, in iraq you hadthe command or the like little
radio or the, whatever they use,just a signal, right, um, that
that was for iraq.
And then we would find thelittle trillier rounds.
And then one time we found, um,a efp, which is those nasty

(29:30):
ones that would go througharmored vehicles like fucking
hot knife through butter yeah,fuck dude, did you guys ever get
hit by the ids?
not me no no, but your platoonbut we've had we've had people
within the company that did gethit and, you know, survived, and
so I was lucky on that aspect.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
What was the landscape around?
Was it like agriculture or likecity?

Speaker 1 (29:56):
We were towards like the end.
So like we would, it would be alittle bit of city and then
nothing, right?
So it wasn't like hardcore,we're deep in the city.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
Or it wasn't like, hey, we're out there in bumfuck
nowhere so while you were therefucking finding ids the hard way
, man, did you ever reminisceand think like, okay, I'm here,
this is what I wanted to do?
Did you feel like you weremaking a difference?

Speaker 1 (30:17):
uh, I felt like this is what I'm doing, like this is
what I'm doing right now.
Uh, I need to be the best thatI can be.
So, like I would work out, Iwould read books.
You know, try to be the bestsoldier and the best at my job.
Right that that I could be andand just do my part, and, and.

(30:39):
And.
I never felt like, oh, you know, what am I doing here?
I never felt that.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Did you feel like you can get killed at any time?
Oh, for sure.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
For sure, like.
But you know, one thing is thatyou have that fear, but it's
like what you do with that fear.
You know, like the first time Ijumped out of the plane, I was
scared.
The first time I, you know,went to in a gunfight, I was
scared.
Or the first time I went to gofight in Muay Thai, I was scared
.
But it's like what you doduring that time.
So you know, yeah, I'm nervous,but like I'm right here, I

(31:11):
don't got time.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
What was your take on the type of guerrilla warfare
IED war that you were fighting?
Were you discouraged becausethere wasn't an enemy to see,
and shoot and kill?

Speaker 1 (31:21):
No, you know, I mean an enemy to see and shoot and
kill.
No, um, you know, I mean I, I,because I, I know there's more
of us out there doing something.
So like, that's my part, rightthere, right, my part is the
ieds.
That's cool, and I know there'sdudes out there doing missions,
I know there's out dudesfucking giving to them, so so I
mean, but did I want to be theguy?
Well, fuck yeah, I did.
Of course, I did, um, butthat's if that's our job.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
That's our job, right ?
No, that's good dude.
When did you catch wind of therangers and when did you want to
become one?

Speaker 1 (31:49):
um, well, that, uh, so, because I was stationed in
washington state, uh, uh, nowit's called joint base lewis
mccord.
Back then it was just calledfor lewis right, um, and you,
you had second ranger battalionthere and you had first uh group
special forces there and youwould see them all the time.
Uh, those guys look different,they had different gear and they
just you, just besides thedifferent cool guy gear and all

(32:10):
that you can just they justlooked different.
They carried themselvesdifferently.
And so from day one when I wasstationed there, I would notice
them, but not until I came backfrom that deployment and and and
I, and I was, you know,building myself like as a
soldier, I was like you knowwhat, maybe, maybe I got what it
takes to to to go and try thatand be like them, but I, I

(32:35):
didn't until we, I came backfrom my deployment from
Afghanistan with third specialforces group.
So my next deployment wasattached to third third group
special forces in Afghanistanand we were doing the whole
village stability operations.
What is that?
Which was special forces?
Major Jim Gant, veryintelligent guy.

(32:55):
The thing with Afghanistan isthat in some areas the concept
of a country is kind of.
I want to say maybe not foreign, but it doesn't make sense to
them because they're tribal,they know about their tribe,
their area and that's it.
To say that they're a country.
It's like no, I'm with mypeople, these are my people,
this is my tribe.
So they're not going to respectyou if you live and operate out

(33:18):
of these big bases.
You go out there, you fight, youcome back.
They don't respect that.
But if you live with them andyou fight alongside with them,
they'll respect that and thenthey'll help you push out the
Taliban, because some of thesepeople don't like the Taliban.
But they can't push them out ifwe are leaving every single
night, because then the Talibanjust comes, or we don't patrol

(33:41):
every day.
The Taliban would just stop orgo away for the day or two and
then they'd come back.
So what Special Forces MajorJim Gantz said is how about we
put a Special Forces group inone valley?
They live and operate out ofthis house.
They live and fight out of thishouse and obviously you can
imagine a valley is pretty big.

(34:03):
An ODA or a Special Forcesgroup team isn't that big.
So instead of putting two teamsin one area, just put one team
and then supplement it withinfantrymen.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
Oh shit.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
And then that's where we came in, because me, being a
combat engineer, a 12 Bravo,you know they will the, the, the
infantry guys were like hey toto our engineer company.
They're like, hey, give us yourbest nine, uh, engineers.
And then that's how I gotattached to them.
And then that's how I gotattached to third um group
special forces.
So we lived and operated out ofa fucking house in this valley

(34:37):
and we fought every singlefucking day so you mentioned uh,
those people were tribal.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
Yeah, I understand residents.
Yeah, with your experience andknowledge, what is your take?
Do you think the country ofAmerica, the USA, would ever be
successful in going to any othercountry and trying to change
their ideology or their culture?

Speaker 1 (35:01):
It's not that the Us can't do it, it is the
politicians that are in charge.
Um are not going to allow it tohappen because they, they fight
amongst each other.
They, they don't want to dothings the right way, like, for
example, to we're not fightingthe uniform, we're fighting an
ideology.
And to fight that ideology, ifyou truly want to get it out of

(35:24):
the country or that specificspot, let's not talk about the
world, let's just talk aboutthat country.
Well, you need education, yes,you need to fight those guys,
but then you got to educateeverybody else and to give them
an alternate.
It's really hard to tell ateenager to go blow himself up
when he knows I can go to school, there's a mall or I can go

(35:46):
have a date with the girl.
You give them these westernoptions, or maybe not even
western, but like, hey, there'sa fucking courtyard or a fucking
town center, we all hang out orwhatever, but they have none of
that, so that they haveabsolutely nothing.
So when someone and they're noteven educated, so when someone
comes and they tell them aboutthis and that and the evil

(36:10):
Westerners and you have to dothis, and then they're like,
yeah, yeah, I'll do it.
Fuck, yeah, I'll blow myself up.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
With your experience, dude, do you blame the people
of Afghanistan and the people ofIraq for taking up arms against
the USA invaders?
Quote unquote.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
No, man.
No, because some of them, um,did not like, they don't like,
americans, right.
So so and they?
This is hard for some people towrap their heads around.
It's like I've never doneanything to them.
They'll leave me alone.
No, just because you're not aMuslim, they fucking hate you.
All right, because you're not.
You know, you don't, you don'tpractice their, their, their

(36:53):
religion, you, they hate you.
So those people, I'm notsurprised.
But then there's the othergroup that look, man, they all
they know is somebody came in,and if you're trying to kill the
Taliban, but along the way youkill a cousin and a nephew or
whatever they're on, they're by,they're people of like honor

(37:16):
and all this stuff.
So you're like, oh, you killedmy uncle, so now I gotta go kill
you.
And and if you didn't kill thatuncle, accidentally or
purposely, that dude wouldn'thave ever picked up a rifle
against you.
So even though obviously Idon't like that because I'm on
the opposite end, I canunderstand that.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
Right, yeah, that's what I was kind of getting at.
Yeah, like, do you see war forwhat it really is?

Speaker 1 (37:40):
Yeah, yeah, you know, there's a lot of reasons why
people fight, you know, thenthere's a lot of people, a lot
of different reasons why theyjoined the us military right,
and there's a lot of differentreasons why people in
afghanistan were shooting at us.
Some of them were taliban, someof them were al-qaeda and some
of them were just these tribalpeople that they're like, bro,
you're fucking our shit up,right get the fuck out of here.

(38:02):
Get the fuck out of here, yeahyou mentioned that house, bro.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
What was it like?
A mansion size house or regularsize?

Speaker 1 (38:09):
no, bro.
So the people in afghanistanand other places have been at
war for years, so over therethere's no such thing as like a
regular house.
Each, each house is almost likea compound and they have these
gigantic mud walls all aroundeach of their compounds.
Right, and you might think, oh,the mud wall is nothing, but
these are like well-constructed,thick-ass mud walls that like

(38:35):
stop 50-kilograms.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
Right, why do the people?
Because now that you mentionedit, I got a visual.
Every fucking house had that.
Why do they do that?
Why do they locals do that?
To keep livestock in, to keepbad guys out.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
Well, a little bit, yeah, a little bit, of both Keep
their livestock in and thenfrom them not to get killed
through all the war that's goingon, because if it's not us,
before that it was the Russians,and before that it was whoever
fucking was there.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
Right, yeah, that's fucking smart dude.
So would you guys operate outand patrol out yeah?
Man Like how far out of sectorDid you have an area of
responsibility?
The whole fucking valley.

Speaker 1 (39:10):
No way bro.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Yes, the whole valley and walking or vehicles.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
We would walk.
We had razors.
So those Polaris razors, we hadthose.
Holy shit, dude, we mountmachine guns on the side of them
.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
And so we had the two seaters, and sometimes we would
just go out just two razorsalone.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
So that's four guys we'll go out.
What was your rank at that time?
Uh, I was a sergeant.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
So oh, fuck, you were a sergeant, bro.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
Bro, I was a sergeant before I was 21, fuck, yeah,
yeah, um.
So I already couldn't, you know, have my own little team.
And so it was this normallooking house with the with the
little, with the wall around it,and then we, we put hest codes
to put the vehicles in, becausethen there was not enough room
and we would, literally we wouldhave to have security 24 7, so
we're the security, like thespecial forces guys.

(39:56):
They would even pull securityshifts, like, um, because we
kind of had a good amount ofguys, so it was, you had like 12
hours, and then after a whilewe put it down to what was it?
Not 12.
It was like eight hours, yeah,eight hours, like every other

(40:17):
day or every day, which is itwas just chill, right, and then
we would fight out of there andthey would try to fucking
overrun us, bro, like we would.
I, I, afghanistan was where itwas heavy with me.
We, we had a deal with not one,but two suicide bombers we,
they had, they tried to overrunus a few times and one of them
they even got as close as tobeing the other side of the wall

(40:37):
and grenades had to start beingthrown.
Um, there were dudes who wouldget multiple purple hearts.
Uh, they're like.
There were dudes who would getmultiple Purple Hearts.
They would get blown up, go tothe local hospital, get cleared
out, get their Purple Heart,come back and then get shot.
So a lot of the dudes who Ideployed with some of our dudes
did die.

(40:58):
Some of the dudes, yes, gotPurple Hearts and never came
back because they were prettyfucked up, but we had more than
one than one.
Two, three dudes get two purplehearts in one deployment out of
that house.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
Yes, sir, we're out with them.
That whole deployment were youbased out of that house?

Speaker 1 (41:13):
yeah, no fucking way so we would go to this little
cop to get resupplied and that'swhere we spent the whole
fucking time, bro, like we, we.
So they would wake us up andand so you'd be sleeping, and
then you would hear fucking rpgs, machine gun fire, and they
were just trying to fucking getat you and you and I don't know

(41:34):
how many times I've been walkingup like that, um, you know, and
we would do all these missionslike what distance were?

Speaker 2 (41:40):
these taliban shooting at you guys from you're
talking.
Were they in an elevatedposition at all with their
mountains?
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (41:48):
So we were in Wardak, which is the eastern part of
Afghanistan.
There's mountains everywhere,so sometimes, depending on where
you're at, if you got behindsomething and if they were to
the left and right of you noteven 360, just left and right,
you'd be like it doesn't evenmatter where I fucking go.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
Oh, that's horrible dude, right, you'd be like.
It doesn't even matter where Ifucking go horrible dude bro.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
Yeah, so it wasn't like oh watch, you know, front
side and back.

Speaker 2 (42:08):
It was like 3d 360 degree fucking battlefield yep,
also up.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
Um, and it was crazy man.
We had to deal with fuckingsnipers like we.
I have footage of of one of ourdudes against the wall and the
sniper barely fucking missed hisface and the dust cloud just.
Or there have been firefightswhere where my friends were like
they're like, bro cortez,because everyone's causing
trouble by the last thing.
They're like, cortez, I thoughtyou got, I thought you were,
you died.
Yeah, they're like, because allI know was is there was dust

(42:37):
cloud all over you and youdisappeared.
And then you know, I went to godo this or I went to go do that
.
So I was like fuck, he'sfucking, he's dead.
And I'm like no man.
I was like I didn't get shot.
I was like it was kind of close.
I don't know it was that close.
They were like, bro, youcouldn't see your legs and I was
like, oh, like I thought it waslike in front of me.
I didn't know it was on aroundme on you and then there's been

(42:59):
times where bro there's, wewould get shot at.
And I know the sound of whenthe bullets are over your head.
I know the sound and thefeeling when the boots are, our
bullets are near your head and Iknow the feeling and the sound
when the bullets graze yourfucking face, yeah, and you're
like, oh shit, like that'sdifferent.

(43:19):
And and then I, I have my shirtright here.
It's called war is a drug,right, because bro it was.
I've never felt so many highsand lows Because you can imagine
, you get in a gunfight, yousurvive, so you feel a little
way about yourself, invincible,almost, yeah.
And then you have gunfightafter gunfight after gunfight,
month after month.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
So like, things that used to like give me an
adrenaline dump were kind oflike eh, Well, that used to like
give me an adrenaline dump werekind of like eh well, uh, let
me take a piss break real quick,bro, and then we'll fucking
elaborate on that yes, sir,thank you.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
So what do you do for fun?
My dude Me, video games.
Honestly, what do you play?
Right now I'm playing CSGO.
Oh, okay, I used to play a lotof video games too, before my
kids were born Like a crazyamount.
I remember you ever playBattlefield.

(44:52):
No, I was more into Call ofDuty.
Oh, I played Call of Duty, butI remember Battlefield 2.
I was playing Battlefield 2 andI didn't know how much I'd
played.
And I remember one time myfriend was like, hey, let me
look you up.
And he goes, bro, you knowyou're in the top 4% of the
world.
And I was like I knew I playeda lot, but I didn't know I
played that much.

(45:14):
I used to wake up before my wifewoke up.
I would play.
She would make breakfast, feedme while I was playing.
I would play all the way tolunch, like this is on the
weekends Play all the way up tolunch, she would, and then she
would feed me and then we'd takea break and watch Netflix for
like one or two hours and then Iwould do that and then play

(45:37):
again all the way till pastdinner.
She would go to bed and then onSunday I would wake up and do
the exact same thing over again.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
Fuck, I.
Till past dinner she would goto bed and then on sunday I
would wake up and do the exactsame thing over again.
It's bad, bro, all right, cool.
Yes, sir, you ready.
Uh, leo, yeah, we're good, cool.
So you're operating out of thishouse.
Dude, what is special forcesmission versus the infantry?
And you guys, were you guysrunning this?

Speaker 1 (46:01):
no, we were running same mission, same exact same
mission yeah, same mission, man,and that's.
And that's where I felt reallylike you know what man?
I think I can join the specialoperations community because,
because, if you're operating outof somewhere between 8 000 and
10 000 feet elevation, you haveall this gear and you're fucking
.
It's, it's game time, this isfor real, there's no response,

(46:22):
right, and you have, uh, and Ihad the team sergeant to be like
, hey, cortez is with me, andyou know what.
Then maybe I got somethinggoing on with me, you know.
So you know.
And then you know, some of thespecial forces guys were like,
hey, man, you should probablydrop your pocket too when you
get out, because I was tellingthem, uh, not get out.
But when you come back, and Iwas like you know what man, I, I
want to do that, I, I.

(46:43):
And then I remember one of thedudes who stopped by, used to be
a ranger and then, but now hewas a, you know sf guy and he
told me about, you know, beingin rain on regiment and I was
like you know what man, I think.
I think that's that's more forme, and I think what it was is
that it was more um, the.
The layout was kind of likeconventional units as in the uf,

(47:05):
platoons, teams and all thatand odas.
What people don't know is likeI've worked with an od8 that you
have a you know a group ofeight all the way to like a
group of 14, yeah, um.
So I was like you know what Iwant to do that.
So when I came back from thatdeployment, um you know, there
was no fucking way I was goingto be conventional army anymore
man, there wasn't because youhad already a fucking experience

(47:26):
yeah, and and man, we made, wemade national headlines that
time, that deployment, threetimes from that deployment we
have there's dudes giving outted talks being on fox writing
books.
So I come back home and I'm likeyou know what, I'm dropping my
packet from incidents that hadhappened.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
Yeah, like Like those suicide bombers you were
talking about.
Yeah, what did they do?
They fucking clacked off a vest.

Speaker 1 (47:47):
So you know how I was saying there was a cop that we
would go and get resupplied andthat's where we get mail.
I remember one time we werethere, and this is like five
something in the morning and andI remember I'm putting uh gear
on top of these fucking umcontainers in the and there's an

(48:08):
explosion right at one of theentrances.
And I remember and I caught itin my corner of my eye, I just
happened to be looking in thatgeneral direction.
So I remember seeing the dustcloud and there was a black hawk
that I was flying over and thethe dust cloud almost touched
the Blackhawk because it wasjust taken off.
And I remember thinking like,oh shit, it almost touched the
Blackhawk.
And I'm like and then afterthat, quickly I was like wait,

(48:30):
that's at the fucking gate.
And as I yell, hey, that's atthe fucking gate, I feel the
biggest explosion I ever felt inmy life and what it was is the
first explosion was a suicidebomber at the gate which allowed
a dump truck to go in.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
No fucking way dude To blow itself up.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
Yeah.
So next thing, you know, myface is in the dirt.
I don't know what the fuckhappened.
I look and there's a mushroomnuke, looking fucking cloud
right in front of me.
And then the special forcescompound was on the base, was
kind of like at a slope.
So we were at the top and I seemy two buddies already running

(49:11):
up and I I'm running up to grabmy gear and during during that
deployment I had my, my gopro,and so I have a lot of footage
from that deployment.
And then I turn on my deployment, I'm my deployment, I turn on
my camera as I'm running down tothe hole, because before,
earlier that year, they hadblown somebody up at the gate at
this other base and thenTaliban fighters went in.
Who was manning the gates?
Afghans, okay, and then afterthat it'd be US guys.

(49:35):
So we all knew there was afucking hole now and there's
probably Taliban fighters goingto start running in.
So I turn on my fucking cameraas we're running down and the
dust cloud is still hasn't evensettled, so so we're running
into dust and when we get there,man, that day there was like 94
, 96 americans got, got wounded,a bunch of civilians, uh, got

(49:58):
killed because our base wasconnected to a um a bazaar, so
like a little shopping centerfor the Afghans.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
And when we went down there, bro, I mean I didn't
know at the time, but I'mstepping over hands, feet, bunch
of body parts, Right, you knowpeople are dying.
And then so the people thataren't dead right away like
ripped into pieces, they'redying slowly because the blast
Right, you know it made theirinternals fucking mush and you
just hear a bunch of people likemoaning slowly because they're

(50:27):
just dying slowly, right?

Speaker 2 (50:29):
what location of the base did it hit dude?
Is it?
Was there like a vehicleentrance or did it make it into
what?

Speaker 1 (50:35):
yeah, so so it hit the gate and there used to be a
road that was like basically runalongside and and and.
Um, there they closed itbecause it was funny like two
years before they had fuckingblown themselves up by the on
the road or whatever.
Yeah, so they closed it.
So he blew himself at the gateand he just tried to make entry
into the base and then he blewhimself almost immediately at

(50:58):
the entrance.
But the explosion was fuckingrocked the whole fucking base.
Fuck, yeah, did they follow upwith an attack after that.
Um, it was funny.
Uh, we were.
So we, when we went down there,it was me, the special forces
guy, two other infantrymen andand for you.
So we were the first ones toclose that hole down.
We were waiting for them.

(51:18):
And what?
What happened was we're waitingfor the guys, we're waiting for
those taliban fighters to comeand they don't come.
And what happened was they had asecond truck coming no fucking
way and our combat controllersaw it because, um, the locals
had heard how many afghans haddied, so they were stopping this
vehicle.
And then the passenger startedshooting in the air with an ak,

(51:41):
which the guys on the birds thatwas an obvious like what the
fuck is going on there?
And then they realized, youknow, oh shit, this is probably
another vehicle.
And then, and then they justfucking lit it up lit it up did
they?

Speaker 2 (51:54):
how much were there?

Speaker 1 (51:55):
a lot of explosives packed into that dump truck, the
first one, the one that blew upat the oh yeah yeah, I got
video from that from theaftermath, because after
reinforcements came and we gotrelieved, I stopped by the
fucking hole and you couldn'teven tell the base, like where
it ended and where it fuckingstopped.
Bro, you know when it started,so you're like.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
When you're seeing these pieces on the ground,
because I've experienced thesame thing what's going through
your mind?

Speaker 1 (52:25):
like the pieces of like body flesh yeah well, well,
it was funny because it's sodusty and so you know chaos,
that I didn't even notice theones that I was stepping on and
and being around.
I only noticed the big ones.
So you had like a body here, anarm there, so you notice that,

(52:45):
but meanwhile it's not likethese things break off perfectly
, so you only have the arm, youonly got the body.
It's like there's tiny littleshit everywhere, and so when I
went back into my fucking, intoour portion of the base man, uh,
I was like man, I gotta take ashower.
And I remember I looked down andthere's like flesh stuck in
between my shoelaces and Iremember just staring at it,

(53:06):
like well, I didn't know at thetime, but obviously we all got
TBI from that.
You know, you can't fuckingtake a suicide bomber dump truck
to the face, right, um, and Ijust did.
I just stood there minutes andI'm just staring at it and I was

(53:29):
like bro, this is real, becauseat that point so much shit had
happened that you feelunstoppable, right, and then
that happens and then, eventhough you still survive it,
you're like pro, like you can'tforget, like this is real.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
that's fucking crazy that you mentioned that, because
your body and mind does developalmost a callous.
It gets callous as you, as yousee, a person get shot, okay,
yeah.
Person get blown up with aroadside bomb okay.
But now you get dealt with afucking car bomb, a V-Bid, and
it's like you said, bro, it'slike, oh fuck, bro, it just
elevated to a whole nother level.

(53:53):
Yes, sir, did that instill fearinto you?
No, no, no.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
It just made me be more like oh, this is real.
All that stuff doesn't really.
It never for me.
It never came until later,until when you don't have
anything to do.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
How far along later did it hit you?

Speaker 1 (54:15):
Um, like the next day when there was nothing to do,
like during that moment you'reall hyped up, but then, the next
day when you have nothing to do, and then you're like, oh shit,
like this, this isn't over, bythe way.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
You, you gotta go, I still have some time yeah, you
got some time.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
So that's why, when there was any downtime, bro, I I
did not like it, because that'sthat's the downtime, at least
for me.
That's when it was shit willstart creeping into my head and
I'd be like yo, I don't got timefor this shit.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
I feel you, dude, that's normal, though it's
normal.
Yeah, um fuck, I can't believewe almost skipped over that
whole entire incident, bro.
I didn't fucking realize thatyou hadn't experienced that
fucking carb bomb at the baselike that.
Oh, yeah yeah, that shit's nojoke, dude, I'm not, definitely.
That's not normal.
Carb bombs are not fuckingnormal.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
And it was funny because to me it was normal,
because that's how mydeployments were.
So I'm like oh yeah, that'snormal, fuck dude.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
So then you get back to stateside and did you do a
pre-ranger.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
No so, because by that time I was already E-5, a
sergeant.
They're like hey, man, your,your, your pipeline is going to
be a little bit longer.
Why so?
Because I have to keep so.
When you're a certain rank, yousure already have some schools,
if you for this specific jobthat you're doing, right.

(55:37):
So they're like hey, and Iwasn't airborne qualified.
So from october to October,right, I graduated.
I went to pre-RASP, which isRASP is Ranger, assessment and
Selection.
I was there for a month andthen I did RASP and then after
that I did airborne school andthen after that I did Master

(55:58):
Breacher the Regimental MasterBreacher, not the conventional
Master Breacher course, cert,which is small unit ranger
tactics, and then ranger school.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
So october to october you're just fucking grinding
these schools away, grindingthem out and and through each
single one.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
You know they were like hey, man, you know, because
we've had some problems withsome imports kind of quitting on
us yeah they're like right nowyou're kind of like leasing to
own, so you don't have a spotuntil you graduate everything.
So even though I was graduatingall these things, I was like
fuck yeah, but I was like Istill don't, and by then you had
your own combat patches and youwere already a combat veteran
yeah were you getting newcherries to the unit 100?

Speaker 2 (56:37):
yes, were you utilizing the same?
Were you talking down to themlike your leaders were talking
down to you?

Speaker 1 (56:44):
No, no, because, because they.
So when I get, when I got toregiment, you know, they don't
know any of this.
All they, they don't know whatI've been through, they just
know, hey, this fool's got afucking weird ass patch.
What the fuck is it?
And you know.
And then the way I always havealways been in my life is like I

(57:04):
just assumed oh, you know whatI, they probably done something
that I haven't.
I can probably learn somethingfrom them.
Um, you know, I just assumed.
They all had dozens and dozensof firefights.
They all dealt with suicidebombers.
They all, bro, I, I didn't eventalk about this part.
I would, me, being the combatengineer, I would.
Then, when afghanistan, I wouldgo up to the bombs.
And I didn't even talk aboutthis part.
I would, me being the combatengineer, I would then, when
afghanistan, I would go up tothe bombs and we didn't have a

(57:27):
robot, I would walk up to them.
I have videos of me placing c4on the bombs.
I would pull them out of thefucking roads with my bare hands
.
So I just assumed yeah, allthese rangers did this shit and
and I just kind of sat quiet and, you know, took all the remarks
of me being a cherry or animport where did uh?

Speaker 2 (57:46):
where was your ranger school at?

Speaker 1 (57:48):
uh well, georgia everything most of the schools
are georgia.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
Yeah, benny and how long is that school for?

Speaker 1 (57:54):
well, if you don't recycle?

Speaker 2 (57:56):
yeah, did you recycle , yeah, I had every time you did
florida phase yes okay, so howmany phases are there?

Speaker 1 (58:01):
so you have you have, uh, you have, darby, which is
the first phase.
Uh, mountains um, and thenflorida, or swamp, however
people how would you complete?

Speaker 2 (58:09):
compare darby mountain phase in ranger school
to afghanistan mountain warfareoh um.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
I was like they take your sleep and your food away in
ranger school, so like ofcourse it's tough, but it was
tough at the moment because theytake your sleep and fucking
food away.
But for me I was always likeI've done worse.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
How detrimental is food and sleep to a human body?

Speaker 1 (58:35):
Bro, it's so funny, Simple tasks are just hard.
Simple tasks Like you tellsomebody hey, go run a mile.
You're like, oh, no problem,and then you take a little bit
of the food, a little bit ofsleep.
Hey, go run a mile.
They're like, okay, no problem.
Then you really take their foodand you really take their sleep
, and then you tell them to gorun a mile and then do it again.

(58:55):
And then go do it again andthen go do it again, and then
you're like, okay, go do itagain.
Then you're like, fuck, thismile mile all of a sudden is not
as easy as it looks when you'refresh, well-rested, yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
Yeah, Now what do you think goes into that, bro?
More mental strength or morephysical strength?

Speaker 1 (59:11):
Mental, mental.
Yes, you have to meet thephysical requirements which, in
reality, I feel like a lot ofpeople underestimate their
capabilities.
It's more mental than anything,because, bro, on a good day I'm
fucking five, six, okay, youknow.
And and when I joined in, um,when I joined the military, I
think I was like 130, and thenwhen I was in a ranger.

(59:32):
I was in more than 150 155, soyou don't have to be a fucking
giant monster.
Obviously it probably wouldhave been easier on me if I was
a giant monster, but if I canfucking do it, uh, that's where
I really found out.
Like man, it's more mental thananything where is that florida
stage?

Speaker 2 (59:49):
in the middle or the end, at the end?
Holy shit, it's at the end.
And what happened there thatcaused you to get recycled?

Speaker 1 (59:55):
well.
So you, you are put in yourleadership position, right, and
it's called the look.
You get your look, and then youget a no-go or a go.
If you get a go, you're good togo right, and then you might
get different looks.
You might get one, two or three.
Um, I got my go, so I was goodto go.
And then, and then obviously,uh, um, you know you're sleep

(01:00:16):
deprived, you're hungry,everyone's in the mood.
And there was this one incidentwhere where he happened to be a
ranger from a differentbattalion he said some shit.
I didn't like it.
And then we got arguing andthen I was like you know what,
bro, and this is like one, twoin the morning in the patrol
base.
Obviously, if I was fuckingwell rested, I weren't a fucking
actor like that, but I was likeyo, bro, take your shit off,

(01:00:37):
I'm gonna fuck you up.
Um, and the.
The thing that people don't knowabout ranger school is you have
everything tied down to you,like everything, your compass,
your everything, your rifle,everything, dummy corded, so
yeah, so it's attached to you by550 cord, which is basically
fucking you know a little rope,whatever.
So I'm over there talking shit.
You have any idea how stupid.
I looked at 2 in the morninguntying a bunch of shit, talking

(01:01:02):
shit, being like, which takesyou like 10 minutes, and he
didn't want to fight.
So after I took all my shit off, he didn't want to fight.
But it got word, got back to thecadre that I was.
You know that I acted like thatand then so they put me in the
board afterwards and thenthey're like hey, you either
have one option you can eitherstart day one bro, that's

(01:01:23):
disheartening dude.
Well, yeah, they're like youcan start day one or fucking go
back to regiment without yourranger tab and see how long you
last which, by the way, you'renot going to last long if you
don't show up with your rangertab at to arrangement.
So then I was like bro, whatthe fuck?

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
that's disheartening, bro, because, like I, like, I'm
not saying that you know,fights in the military are kind
of a common thing or were acommon thing.
No, they are.
They still are.
Okay, they still are.
But I mean, did this dude tellon you?

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Well, I can't prove it, but they found out.
I know.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
I know he told on you bro.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Well, I know there's other people, officers around
right that were going to rangerschool.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
I know for sure one of them told them fucking a bro
can't even fight in the rangerreggie in the ranger fuck your
school ranger school.
Bro.
What the fuck man?
What is this america turn to?

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
but luckily for me, they were like hey, you know
what um they after?
After I said I'll start day one, they brought me back in.
They're like, okay, you won'tstart day one, you just have to
redo florida.
And I was like I'll do it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
Oh, they looked out for you.
Yeah, too easy.
Hell, yeah, yeah, so holy shit,okay Damn.
That's the first time I everheard that somebody got into an
altercation and got fuckingrecycled.
Bro.
I thought maybe you liketwisted ankle or some shit.
Holy shit, bro.
It adds more badass to thestory, bro.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
So then you get your tab.
Yep, how was that feeling?
It felt great, man, becausebeing a ranger, like you go
through the selection processand you get your scroll and then
you get your tab.
And then that's when people,some people say like, oh, you
know, now you're a real ranger,and then now you got deployed as
a ranger.
So I was, I was stoked, I waslike, fuck, yeah, man, I, I did
all this stuff.
Now, you know, maybe I'll get adeployment, because I missed
one deployment.
Because by the time I got therethey were like hey, you know,

(01:03:09):
well, they were already inAfghanistan.
They're like hey, it's alreadyhalfway through the deployment,
just stay here.
And I was like no, no, likesend me, even if nothing is
happening because, at the timethere was a lot of restraints or
restrictions.
At that time, there was a lot ofrestraints or restrictions.
Even if a lot of stuff isn'thappening, I just want to
fucking go and be there, butthey didn't.
And then and then another one.
Again, there's a lot ofrestraints and restrictions.

Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
And I was like.
So I was like, look man.
I was like like one of mybuddies came back from the
deployment.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
He goes, bro shit well, it was during that
political time frame we weretalking about it beforehand how
the world went to shit in 2012,13, 2014 yeah so and then.

Speaker 1 (01:03:47):
So then I just thought I got out, I got out
after eight years.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
How did you like um or how did it differ?
How did regiment differ from uh, the conventional unit?

Speaker 1 (01:03:56):
oh bro, there is exactly what I had in
afghanistan, maybe not that theyweren't the same unit as sf,
but like there were a muchhigher caliber of not just
soldier but individual Right andyou know it felt great to be
amongst them.
You know, these dudes arefucking studs.
Like you go to a conventionalunit and you have some studs you

(01:04:17):
do, but you also have some shitbags.
But you also have some shitbags.
But then you go to regiment andthey're all studs Right.
You have to be a freak to standout.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
Not just PT studs, though You're saying the way
these men carried themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
And I like that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:31):
I like that.
I was like you know what.
I'm in the right spot, man, I'mnot number one here.

Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
I got to fight to keep my earn.
My spot here like this is thisis where I need to be now.
Do you get designated a job ora position in the ranger unit?
Uh, so I was the assistantbattalion master, breacher, holy
shit.
Yeah, now going from aconventional unit to ranger, a
special forces unit, do you getdifferent tactics?
Uh, yes, different tactics yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
So the tactics were so when I went in 08, like if
you entered a room you had theold school, like people seeing
sw old SWAT movies, like youenter everything's at the low
ready and then you go up, youknow present, and it was a much
more aggressive, much moreaggressive way of going things,

(01:05:28):
because I remember so forRegimental Master Breacher
course, at the end there's atest, right, there's a test
where you have to blow up walls,doors, double doors and you
have to clear the rooms.
Do you have hearing loss?
Yeah, oh fuck yeah, yeah, andyou have to clear the room.

(01:05:49):
So I got you know and you'reall.
You do it in under night vision, you know.
So, right off the bat I waslike, oh, these dudes clear
rooms differently, you know,very aggressive, like which is?

Speaker 2 (01:05:59):
good.
How was their room clearingdifferent?
The temple.
Was the temple higher?

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
no, like so.
So they were just more in sync,like sometimes more flowing,
they would flow like fuckingthey would just flow a lot
better.
And they wouldn't even talk,and you would.
You were like oh, these dudesare well fucking trained, well
trained, they don't they're?
They're already.
Boom, cleared door.
Right there, stack go.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
You're like bro well, because you learn how to read
people.
Yeah, read bodies read youalready and you learn your
teammates.
So you see, when they lean thisway, you're like all right,
we're going 100, and you know.
So I was like bro, these do letme ask you this because now I'm
curious to know and I told youbeforehand we were going to talk
about tactics in 08 or whateverwe're taught the fatal funnel
right the doorway and shit likethat and um, something that I

(01:06:47):
observed watching these youtubevideos or whatever a new tactic
that they now use is likethey'll pie a fucking doorway or
something.
Did you encounter that?

Speaker 1 (01:06:56):
yeah, so, yeah, so you can pie, right, you pie.
And then, because I've workedwith a bunch of people,
different people, um, and anddifferent SWAT teams now that we
have the training company and,and, and so you can pie a door
which you can plug, the company,which defense strategies group,
uh, we're based out of, la, wehave a training facility in in
um, beverly hills.

(01:07:16):
Come check it out for sure.
Um, we you can pie, um, and Ithink it just comes from years
and years of of of tactics Imean not tactics of experience
when you're like, damn bro, like, should I fucking charge on the
other side of this wall orshould I fucking pie it?
Should I pie this entry of theroom or should I pie the
courtyard to this compound inAfghanistan, or should I just

(01:07:39):
run in there?
You know so.
Is there a right or a wrong way?
Or should I just run in there?
You know so.
Is there a right or a wrong way?
It depends on, like, on thesituation, right, like if my
buddy's fucking hurt, right, I'mnot going to pie anything
because it's a little bit slowand more deliberate, right?

Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
I'm probably going to go fucking fast and mean and
just fucking.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):
Yeah, violence of action.

Speaker 1 (01:08:00):
Yeah, no-transcript.
So you ended up leaving themilitary after eight years.

(01:08:23):
Like I've known my wife sincewe were seven years old, and I
was like you know what herfamily's here in socal that's?
You know, my family's here insocal, it's time to come home.
And, uh, and me being the firstone born here, being the first
one in military, I was anexample to a lot of my, my
family members.
Yeah, and you know, we all workhard in our family, um, but

(01:08:46):
it's all labor jobs for the mostpart at the time.
And I was like, look, I'm gonna, I need to show my brothers and
my sisters, my cousins, mynieces, my nephews like, hey, we
can work hard, but we can alsouse our brain right.
So I was like you know what?
I'm gonna go to college.
I didn't want to go to college,but I was like I need to show
them that, like, hey, we can geta fucking degree too, we're
smart.
So I went to school to be aregistered dietitian and I was.

(01:09:07):
While I was going to school tobe a registered dietitian, I met
, uh, my friend Michael Dowd wasa former Navy SEAL and at that
point I he was working foranother shooting company that
that had since then has beendisbanded.
Um, and I remember I went tothe to go shoot and I came back,
man, and I sounded like alittle kid to my wife.
I was like there was this guyand this guy.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
We did this and that's probably because you had
experienced something similar tomilitary.
Yeah, as a civilian.

Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
Yeah, because I missed it and I had no idea how
much I missed it.
And and then I was like youknow what?
Um, I like doing this and thatby that time I was just going to
school and doing veteran eventsand low income events and using
the money from my rash guardand t-shirt hat company OG
Pumpkin to do that.
And I was doing all that and Ilike doing that.

(01:09:55):
But once that company Mikeworked for broke apart and then
he was like you know what?
I'm going to start my owncompany.
And he called and he's he'slike hey, you want to be part of
it?
I was like, fuck, yes.
So literally on my fourth year,on my last semester, I just
needed seven credits to earn mybachelor's.
And then, you know, and then Iwould be on my way to be a

(01:10:17):
registered dietitian.
I quit.
I was like Eagles, let's startthis company.
And it was funny, all the stuffthat he had told me, like day,
month, one we're at.
He said that we were going todo this, we're going to do that,
we're going to do this, andthen now we're doing it.
Man, I travel all over theworld to teach people survival

(01:10:38):
skills and shooting combatives.
We have a training facility inBeverly Hills.
I've gone to work beyondprojects on National Geographic
because of DSG.
I've, you know, we trained theStallone family.
We were on their reality show,we were episode one of season
two of their reality show.
I've got to train a lot of lawenforcement, which I love

(01:10:59):
because I tell those guys likelook man, I did a bunch of cool
things but I'm out.
You guys are the ones in.
You guys are the ones doing thewarrants for all these like
hardcore criminals.
So if I can help you in any way, that makes me feel great
because someone's got to goafter the murderers and the
rapists.
I'm not doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:18):
Right Before we jump into the tactical training.
While you were in college, dude, how were you?
How were you feeling?
Did you feel content beingsurrounded by other college
students that more than likelydid not have the same life
experiences as you?

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
No, at first, like I don't, like I would go to the
Veterans Center and I would hearthese veterans bitch complain
about the students and that theydon't.
Oh, they don't know shit.
You know know, they don't evenfucking all this and that.
And I'm like, bro, like you,joined to fight for your country
, they're part of your country,and now you're upset that they

(01:11:53):
don't.
They don't have your sharedexperiences, correct?
Not everyone in the world isgoing to have your shared
experiences, so I was like youknow what?
I'm going to learn as much as Ican from each one.

Speaker 2 (01:12:04):
Damn bro.
That's a good attitude and agood mindset you have.

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
And, bro, I learned a lot in the military, but I
learned just as much with eachsemester, with those professors,
those students, and learnedabout myself, man, because you
know I was taking, you know,human anatomy classes, organic
chemistry, biochemistry, a lotof psychology classes, because
you have to be able to talk topeople Right and you're trying

(01:12:29):
to tell them on how to eat, anda lot of it's psychological and
intercommunication classes, sohow to communicate with people.
So I'm learning about myself.
And I was never like, oh, thesepeople, fuck these people.
I did almost right away noticelike man, some of these people

(01:12:49):
don't even know we're stillthere, cause I remember, bro, I
remember I remember I was like,hey, I said something like, oh,
yeah, you know, I was in, I wasin the army, and then they were
like, oh, you, like I was there,like damn, you didn't go to war
, did you?
And I was like, damn, youdidn't go to war, did you?
And I was like what?
Yeah, I was like I went to Iraqand Afghanistan.

Speaker 2 (01:13:06):
They're like and one of them was like, oh, I didn't
know we were still there and Iwas like, yeah, that's a trip
dude.
When it comes to dietitian, doyou think America has an obesity
problem?

Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
100%, man, I mean you got 50% and or above of adults
are either overweight or obese.
Uh, now it's.
Uh, unless I'm mistaken, thenumbers are around similar when
it comes to children.
Um, and you know, americans, uh, they underestimate the amount
of calories they consume andthey overestimate the amount of

(01:13:35):
calories they burn.
Like, oh, I went to the gym andI ran for like 20 minutes,
you're like, and because I kindof know the math already, I'm
like, bro, that's not even halfa bag of hot Cheetos dog.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
You can't out-train a bad diet.

Speaker 1 (01:13:46):
You know you can't, unless you're like some crazy
ultra marathon runner who'srunning David Goggins, like
David Goggins, david Goggins canprobably, and I follow some of
these people.
One of them is this lady andher fucking.
She's like I like to eat nachosand skittles but she doesn't
fucking look like it becauseshe's running ultra hundreds of

(01:14:07):
miles, you know.
So, yeah, man, it's, it's, it'swe.

Speaker 2 (01:14:09):
we eat too much processed food like crazy amount
sugar what's your take onamericans as far as where we
have come from being cavemen,hunting, hunters and gatherers
to where we are at now?

Speaker 1 (01:14:21):
uh, we're slowly losing our way.
We are getting too comfortable,too soft.
Um, you know, guys, uh are notlearned.
They don't even know basicfucking skills like, uh, I don't
know a lot of these skills, butI didn't have some of the
skills like, hey, man, like mydad growing up he was, so they

(01:14:42):
had to learn all this shit.
Like anything plumbing, I'llfix it.
Electrical, I got it the car,let me work on it.
Oh, I can't work on that,someone else is going to work on
it.
And they knew all these skills.
Right, he didn't go to war.
He doesn't know shit aboutcombat.
Right, I trained in competingmartial arts.
I know, uh, I know about guns,training and all that.

(01:15:05):
So we have to know something.

Speaker 2 (01:15:06):
I'm not saying know everything, but you got to know
something.
No, you bring up a good point,bro.
Not everybody has to be afucking warfighter, yeah, but at
least have a fucking skill set.
Yeah, I don't give a fuck whatyou do, right?
Yeah, fucking work on cars,agriculture, whatever the fuck.

Speaker 1 (01:15:19):
Be good at it, something yeah and teach others
and teach other your craft yeah,and technology is great, but,
but it's making everything tooeasy, man.
And look, this is why I saythis is the best country in the
world, because in othercountries this is not an option.
Why is it not an option?
Because one they don't have it.
They don't have technology, theresources, and also because
guess, guess what they have tofucking work hard for their food

(01:15:41):
still, or guess what, they haveto pick up a fucking rifle to
go fight, or you know?
Because, like, that is thereality somewhere In 2025, that
is happening right now.
Some fucking kid doesn't havetime to fuck around and get fat
and be lazy and watch TV all daybecause, guess what, he has to
fucking work to eat, or he's gotto fight because someone's

(01:16:02):
trying to kill his people.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
Do you encourage Americans to be prepared?

Speaker 1 (01:16:06):
Yeah, but there's a fine line, because I'm not some
crazy fucking maniac with my gunpointed at the door ready for
somebody to come to my house,I'm not somebody fucking storing
a bunch of fucking food and and, but you got to be prepared.
You got to life, you know, fuckaround here and there, but you

(01:16:27):
got to be prepared.
Like when covid happened,people were like, um, oh, are
you stockpiling?
I was like no, um, they're like, why not?
You're not scared?
I was like, look, let me tellyou something.
If it really is that bad, if itreally is to the point where,
if you stockpile is the only wayyou're going to survive, guess
what, for years and my friendsand I have these skills and if

(01:16:51):
it is that bad, guess what,we're gonna take it.
Absolutely, bro, I fucking feelthe same way yeah and then, and
if not, guess what?
a lot of my friends guess what.
They know how to fish.
Right, we know how to fish.
We know how to hunt.
Oh, you don't know how to dothat.
Why not?
What are you doing with yourtime?
You don't know how to defendyourself.
Oh, or, at least you don't havethe financial resources to
stockpile or pay somebody to dothat.

(01:17:13):
I prepare my kids.
I, I my kids compete and trainin jujitsu, especially my girls.
Cause I tell my girls, like,look, I love you, but the
reality is you're not going tobe with me every day in your
life, so later I have to leaveyou to go out in the world and I
have to get you prepared asmuch as I can.

(01:17:35):
So if something does happen, youhave a fighting stance or
chance or something hopefullydoesn't happen, because you're
not going to be a victim, you'regoing to be someone who's
prepared.
Um, same with my son and thensame with their education.
I prepare them as much as I can.
I don't fucking instill fearinto them, and that's where I
don't like people in ourcommunity.

(01:17:55):
Sometimes, when I see them howthey interact with their kids,
I'm like, bro, you're puttingfear into your fucking kids and
then you yourself, how you carryyourself Like bro, enjoy life.
You're going to get old one dayand you're going to be like man
.
Probably I should have enjoyedlife a little bit more.
I shouldn't have been thisprepared, extreme, stockpiling,

(01:18:15):
fucking maniac.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
Well, because it's almost like fluff, like they're
doing just the fluff on theoutside without actually
developing any fucking skillsets.
Bro, it's it's.
Do you perceive the world to bea dangerous place?
I think it always has been.

Speaker 1 (01:18:29):
I think, I think, I think the world has always been
somewhat of a dangerous place.
I don't, I don't.
The world isn't a Disney moviewhere every day it's fucking
nice and smiles and the animalsare talking to you and they're
fluffy.
But the reality is somethingcan happen and if you train or
prepare yourself, not all thetime, but just enough that if

(01:18:51):
something does happen, thenyou're not fucking caught off
guard.
Like, for example, I ask peopleokay, in your car?
We spend a lot of time in ourcars.
A lot of people are overweight.
They don't, they don't haveexercise.
Let's say here we're incalifornia or northgate happens
and you're 30 miles away fromyour house.
Do you have a gold bag at leastin your car?

(01:19:13):
Nothing crazy, just some waterbottle and some snacks.
If you work um in in the officeand you have dress shoes, you
want to be 20 miles away fromyour house and the roads are
blocked and you have to walk indress shoes into the ladies high
heels, right.
Or you're in sandals, like somedude wears sandals all day.

Speaker 2 (01:19:33):
He's like okay, so then what if they say to you oh,
we'll just call an uber we'relike homie, the earthquakes
happened and all the fucking,what are you gonna?

Speaker 1 (01:19:42):
is that what you're gonna do?
And then you, we, when we trainpeople, we talk to them about
this stuff, when we teach themsurvival skills, and then people
tell us like, oh, like.
Sometimes I see people and I'mlike, damn bro, how much weight
did you lose?
You're like, yeah, I lost 15pounds.
That's what's up, dude.
You know now, now I in our carfor my kids and I I like your

(01:20:05):
parenting style, bro, when wewere talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:20:08):
When we see youth today, sometimes we can say like
, oh, their parents failed them,right?
That's not always the case,right?
Yeah, do you think the majorityof parents in America today are
doing a great job of raisingtheir children?

Speaker 1 (01:20:25):
No, and I don't have to be inside every single house
in America to note that, overall, american parents right now are
failing their kids Becauselet's go over some facts uh, the

(01:20:47):
you got 50 or more of of adultsor overweight, which means 50
or more of parents or overweight.
A lot of the kids areoverweight or obese, right, um,
which means they're failing themin that way of teaching them
what you know nutrient densefood is.
You know, yeah, you got to eatfoods.
You got to eat your vegetables.
Chicken, yes, hey, let's eatsome ice cream every now and
then.
Let's eat some pizza every nowand then, for sure, it's hey,
birthday cake, hell yeah, but wecan't be eating like this every

(01:21:11):
single day.
You know you have a lot ofmental health issues and people
aren't playing as much Like.
Back in the day it was hard tokeep your kids in the fucking
house.
Right Now it's like I hear itso many times.
I can't get the kid to get thefuck out of the house and I hear
all this stuff like, oh, mykid's a picky eater.
They're a picky eater and I'mlike, no, you feed them.

(01:21:34):
You know what my five-year-old?
Two of her favorite snacks areSeaweed and peas Like edamame.

Speaker 2 (01:21:45):
Now people might think that sounds crazy.
But I totally understand it,bro.
Because my daughter eatshealthy as fuck dude, I'll offer
her a soda.
She will not drink soda.
I offer her candy, she won'teat it, because she's like I'm
good, my kids don't drink sodawe've offered them after a while
, like, hey, you want to trysoda and they try it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:58):
They're like I don't like this.
This morning you know what wedid as a family, because I
believe that kids learn morefrom what they see the parents
do than what the parents yell atthem constantly about.
This morning we woke up at 5 am.
Um, today is a is a weekday.
My kids have school.
We drove to our strengthconditioning coach's house um,

(01:22:19):
he has a little gym set up inhis garage, uh, and we trained
strength and conditioning familystrength and conditioning.
We woke up at five, went to godo that, gave the kids breakfast
, took them off school and I'msure they enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:32):
Yeah right, because I don't want the public to think,
oh, this guy is forcing hiskids to live his lifestyle.
That's not the fucking case,bro, because I do not force my
daughter to do shit nope, you,you have to, you know, build
them up to it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:47):
I didn't do that one day.
People always ask me all thetime like, hey, how did you get
your kids to wake up so early?
I was like I didn't go fromnothing to one day be like, hey,
you, 5 am or waking up.
It was like we go on familyhikes Right, they do jujitsu.
I do the adult jujitsu classafterwards, we do strength and
conditioning on the weekends at10 am or whatever.

(01:23:08):
And then, guess what, I wakethem up at 5, but my kids are in
bed by 8.

Speaker 2 (01:23:12):
That's another thing.
Your kids are in bed by 8.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:23:16):
This whole like oh, they're up late every single day
, that's not a thing in my house.
Like they had already brushedtheir teeth.
They already took a shower tomy five-year-old, we already
read her a book and they're infucking bed.

Speaker 2 (01:23:28):
And you know what the problem is, man?
It's like, well, what do yougive a fuck how I raise my kids?

Speaker 1 (01:23:32):
like well, yeah, until they end up in fucking
prison, then I gotta watch theirfucking ass yeah, until guess
what, until they link up with myfucking kids, and then and then
and then I have to hear it frommy kids or I have to see it
like this fucking shit bag.
You know how many times I'veseen shit situations at my
school because my, my son, uhplays, he plays the violin.
He's always either my all mykids, student of the month,

(01:23:55):
student of the year, their artgoes into the district art show,
uh, they do all this stuff.
So they're a little bit morenot a little bit a lot more
mature physically and mentallythan regular fucking kids.
And I see the shit that theyhave to deal with and I'm just
like God damn it.
And I'm like okay, it's not thekid's fault, it's the fucking
dad, you know how many timesI've had daydreams of like I'm

(01:24:18):
going to see this dad and I'mgoing to have to tell him like
hey, man, I'm not attacking youor anything, but like how your
kid is, I'm going to be likethat with you.

Speaker 2 (01:24:31):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:24:31):
And then if all of a sudden that's assault, then
maybe you should teach your kidnot to do shit.
Just because they can doesn'tmean they should.
If somebody cuts me off in thefreeway just because I can and I
have the skills to raid theirhouse at two in the morning
Doesn't mean I should.
And just because your son isthis overweight piece of shit
and wants to pick on my son, youneed to teach him that he

(01:24:54):
probably shouldn't.
Cause, guess what?
Now I'm going to be in yourface Right and now and now let's
play how they play.
I'm going to play that with you.

Speaker 2 (01:25:01):
Damn dude, let's play how they play.
I'm gonna play that with youdamn dude, have you experienced
that?

Speaker 1 (01:25:04):
like well, yeah, well , one time I had to go into into
my the school to talk to theprincipal and the principal was
like look, it's not either yourson that they're picking on it's
.
They pick on everybody.
Like these kids are fucking,they pick on everybody.
And I had to tell my son likemy son is a sweet boy and he
wants everybody to be his friendand he wants to be friends with
everybody, I told aj.

(01:25:24):
I was like, look, man, noteveryone's gonna want to be your
friend.
This has nothing to do with you, it's just.
This is just how they are.
And I was like, look, aj, I yousee what I do right and and I
you don't, I'm not a violentperson or anything like that,
but but I put you in jujitsu andstriking because to defend
yourself.
No, I was told.

(01:25:44):
I was like, look, I don't likeit when, if I have to do
something, I don't like thatfeeling.
But I understand that I have todo it right.
And I'm like, aj, you have tostand up for yourself and that's
why you, you, I put you inthese programs.
And then one day I was pickinghim up and and my son's walking
really fast and he goes, he goes.
I need to talk, to need to talkto you in the car, and the way
I am, I was like no fuck thatwe're talking right now he goes.

(01:26:05):
Oh, we were playing soccer andI took the ball, fair and square
, from this kid named Jordan,and then I was going to go make
a score on the opposite side andJordan came up to me, punched
me in the stomach and took theball away from me and and he
goes.
So then I ran up and then, uh,he goes.
I snapped him down to theground and then a snap down is

(01:26:27):
like a jujitsu wrestling yousnap them and he goes.
I snapped them down and I saidI hope you had enough.
And then, and then I was likeand then what happened?
He, this just happened rightnow.
And he goes, yeah.
And so this was Thursday.
The next day I had to go to therange to do a private training
to teach somebody, um, someshooting things and and and I

(01:26:52):
was like fuck, I'm signals Notthat great.
At the range I was like fuck.
And I was like so I talked toAJ, cause AJ was like dad, what,
what do I do the next day if hewants to fight me?
And I was like, look, you haveyour personal space If he, if he
, crosses this barrier, you haveto understand look, you don't
want to, but he's going to hityou.

(01:27:12):
So you need to hit him or youneed to take him down and then
control him and then have ateacher come.
But you, aj, there's thisbarrier that if he crosses you,
you, there's this barrier thatif he crosses you, you have to
hit him or you have to dosomething.
And I was like, look, you mightget trouble at school.
And I was like, no, you willget in trouble at school, right,
but you're not gonna get introuble with me, right?
He goes, I'm not gonna groundyou, I'm not gonna do you

(01:27:33):
anything.
So then, uh, as soon as I getsignal, I call my wife and I'm
like hey, what are you guysdoing?
yeah and she goes oh, nothing.
So and so, and I was like,how's everybody in the good?
They're just doing theirhomework?
And I was like, okay, so I gethome and I tell my son.
I was like, hey, what happened?
And he's like, oh, he goes.
Oh, jordan wasn't there.
And I was like, okay, so thenmonday comes, and then I had to

(01:27:55):
be at the range again.
So when I come home.
Um, I was like hey, jill, whathappened?
He goes, oh, he goes.
I think jordan forgot, becausewhen he saw me he even said hi.
I was like no, no, he didn'tforget.
Correct.
What happened was now he.
Now he knows that he can't fuckwith you and he's going to keep
fucking with other kids, right,but he knows that you'll stand
up for yourself and he doesn'tlike that I want you to

(01:28:17):
elaborate the differencesbetween, like a bully and
somebody who uses force toself-defense, as you just stated
yeah, so you know, and this iswhat I don't like, and we see,
we even see grown men, right?
absolutely and and they're, andthey're bullies.
They're bullies online, they'rebullies maybe even in person,
but the difference between someof these guys are strong.

(01:28:38):
Yeah, the you know.
Sometimes people say, oh, thebully's the weak guy inside, and
so on.
But once they get to adults, uh, some of them might be strong,
some of them might be trainingor whatever.
But just because you can dosomething like pick on somebody
or do something or do this, andthat, that doesn't necessarily
mean that you should, but thosebullies won't understand that.
And then that's where somebodywith with honor and some type of

(01:29:03):
values and a certain mindset islike you know what?
I'm going to stand up to thembecause I have to do it for all
the other people that can't doit for themselves, or I have to
do it for myself, so you won'tfuck with me.
So that right there is.
I think what most men should belike is train, do all this, be

(01:29:24):
able to do all this stuff, butdon't do it at all unless you
have to, unless there is amoment that you truly have to.

Speaker 2 (01:29:32):
You never worked in a jail or a prison, right?
Nope, what have I told you?
That correctional officerstoday not all of them, not all
of them, a good majority arescared, tim, timid and do not
stand up to the inmates whenbeing confronted I'm not
surprised.

Speaker 1 (01:29:49):
I am not surprised based on how the us has men
overall.
And then you got some dude whojoins and then, and then I'm not
surprised to see that, becauseyou see that in cops I train a
lot of cops, I train a lot ofSWAT teams, sheriffs and they
tell us, like yo, some of thesefucking dudes who are signing up
, not just we don't only I'm notsaying just we have problem

(01:30:11):
with the women, becausesometimes we have problem with
the women too but even some ofthese dudes are scared to pull
the gun out or or scared to puthands on, or they're not even
prepared physically, mentally,to put hands on, or they're not
even prepared physically,mentally, to put hands on.
And I'm like, bro, you decidedto, you want to do this job to
protect people, and I'm not sureif you knew what the fuck this
entitled.

(01:30:31):
It means you.
It means you're dealing withthe garbage of our population
and you have to deal with that.
And you're telling me you'renot ready, like you're going to,
you're going to get yourselfkilled, you're going to get
someone else killed, you'regoing to get yourself hurt or
someone else hurt.

Speaker 2 (01:30:47):
Now what if they told you hey, man, it's because
we're afraid to get firedbecause of the policies and the
law and the politics.

Speaker 1 (01:30:53):
Well, that might be true.
And if that is true, I've seenit and I agree Politicians have
put a you know, not just one,but both hands tied behind the
back of law enforcement, becauseI remember we had this
reelection dinner up in BeverlyHills for that LA sheriff.

(01:31:14):
He didn't win, but Villanova.
I remember I walked up to himand I shook his hand and I told
him I was like hi, my name isAndrew Cortez, I'm a former, I'm
a former uh army ranger.
Before I was a former army,before I was a ranger, I was a
gang member and I told him rightnow, based on the policies that

(01:31:34):
are in place, I will call thisthe golden age of crime, because
back then, when we had to dothings in the dark or be secret
or sneaky about it, these guyscan do it in broad daylight and
they're not even fucking scaredof their repercussions.

Speaker 2 (01:31:50):
At all.
There are no repercussions.

Speaker 1 (01:31:52):
And there are no repercussions.
And I was like this is thegolden age for crime and I said
that back in during his beforehis reelection.

Speaker 2 (01:32:01):
When it comes to consequences and rewards and you
being a father.
How do you incorporate thatinto your children?

Speaker 1 (01:32:08):
So everything is earned.
Everything is earned, Like, forexample, and it's got to be at
a certain time and, as much as Ihate it, the consequences have
to come.
But I talk to them every singletime.
I've talked to my kids likeadults since they were day one
and they're not going tounderstand it that first day,
second day, first year, thirdyear, but you will be talking to
them a certain way that by thetime they're like 9, 10, 11, 12,

(01:32:31):
they know exactly what you meanand you know some of the
rewards, like, for example, myson and my daughter brought me
grades, excellent grades.
They're such good teacher Imean students that sometimes we
don't even have parent teacherconferences oh, dude, that's
crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:32:47):
I would just want to have one, just to have him hear
him tell me that my grade wellas a matter of fact, this is
funny.

Speaker 1 (01:32:52):
This past year we had one for our daughter and I
remember, as we were driving, Iwas like remember thinking like
man, we fucked up, like whathappened?
And bro, finding parking,parking, walking and doing the
small talk with the teacherlasted longer than us talking
about our child.
Damn dude.
They were like, oh, she's great, she's great, she's a great

(01:33:13):
helper, this and that.

Speaker 2 (01:33:14):
That's awesome, dude.
That's a reflection of you.

Speaker 1 (01:33:16):
And my wife too.

Speaker 2 (01:33:17):
And my wife Correct correct the parents.

Speaker 1 (01:33:20):
But that's hard work and that's every single day
Saturday, sunday, monday.
Sometimes we get days off asparents cause we go out or
whatever, but we have put ourenergy.
Our main focus is the kids andso the how I do, how I work, the
rewards, it's okay, you gotgood grades, all right.
Um, what do you want?
My son for a while had Legosets or whatever.

(01:33:41):
Um, my, my daughter wanted toplay softball.
So we're like, all right, let'sgo play softball.
And we say, because I'm like itcosts money and let them know
the amount that something costs,like, hey, not just like, oh,
we got all the money in theworld, we can do whatever yeah
and then consequences.
You know, I as much as I hate it, um, I grew up getting hit, so
that was the consequence.

(01:34:02):
And I remember, I remember, oh,but there's a difference
between abuse and then maybegiving them a spanking.
And then I remember one time myson was younger and I raised my
hand to him and I saw this lookof fear in his face and I
remember thinking like, fuck man, you know what?
That's probably how I was everysingle day growing fucking up
and I'm like I don't want thatfor my kids, right?

(01:34:23):
So then I would talk to them.
I was like, look, you're doingthis, you're going to get
yourself in trouble and I'mgoing to take things away.
And then I'm going to, I'mgoing to like in the army, the
military is a great way ofpunishing you, which in doing
like the most silly things.
So sometimes I'd be you not todo that.
Go, go, stand and go stare atthe wall.
And then I'll just keep themthere.

(01:34:44):
And then, or I'll take thingsaway, because now they have
xboxes, now they got phones,right, and I'll be like I'm
gonna take it away, like for how?
And then I'll tell them twodays, you can, you can't have
this.
Or when they get to jujitsu, allthe kids usually play yeah and
I'll be like no, you sit downhere and then everyone's playing
.
They're like oh, oh, hey, jakeor whatever, ari, come and play.
They're like.
No, they're like, why not Tellthem?

(01:35:05):
Tell them why you can't play.
Yeah bro, I'm holding themaccountable.

Speaker 2 (01:35:10):
Fuck yeah, Accountability, dude yeah.
Do you believe Americans lackaccountability?

Speaker 1 (01:35:14):
100%, yeah, I mean, and not just Americans.
I think this is a problem thatI've seen is extreme.
Accountability is very hard,because you have to then admit
to yourself oh fuck, I'm fuckingup or I'm being lazy or you

(01:35:35):
know, cause I tell people youhave to hold yourself
accountable for all the thingsyou fail to do and all the
things you do accomplish.
So when you accomplishsomething, be happy, admire your
work and then move on, causethe last thing you want to do is
be the things you do accomplish, correct.
So when you accomplishsomething, be happy, admire your
work and then move on, becausethe last thing you want to do is
be that high school footballstar who's 50, talking about
high school days.
I know I've done a lot of coolthings, but what is next?
Right.

(01:35:55):
And then if I fuck up, you knowI'll be like damn it, man, I
messed up, I fucked up, and toadmit that to yourself is hard,
and people don't do that.
And then, and then you knowwhat's even harder than that to
admit it out loud.

Speaker 2 (01:36:07):
Do you have a problem doing that?
Nope.
Admitting your mistakes?
Nope I.

Speaker 1 (01:36:11):
As a matter of fact, I'll give you one.
That happened yesterday.
Um, my daughter, myfive-year-old daughter, put put,
uh, we were eating, uh, chiliin the living room and she
spilled on her shirt and my wifewas just like, yeah, just take
off your shirt and so it doesn'tget any more dirty, because
it's hard to get chili off.
And then our cat was opened upby the blinds and I was like,

(01:36:34):
hey, the blinds are open and wehave our five-year-old with no
shirt on, you know.
And I raised my voice andAaliyah was in front of our kids
.
She was like you know, she goes, he goes, yeah, I, she goes.
I didn't know that the windowsweren't open like that.
You know, I wouldn't have hadher like that.
Right, people can walk by bysidewalk and she goes, it's the
way you said it.

(01:36:54):
And I was like, well, I don'tdid say it in the not the nicest
tone.
And and if I communicate likethat in front of my kids to me,
that tells my son, that's howyou speak to your wife and then
to my daughters, that's mesaying that's how men speak to
you, or that's how it should be,that's how they should be

(01:37:16):
allowed to, and I don't want totell her like, showing her like
though that's acceptable, andthen in front of everybody,
because the next episode Of theoffice was going to be next.
So there was that like law ofno talking, yeah, and I was like
.
I was like you know what, babe?
Yeah, I did say my tone was bad.
I'm sorry I shouldn't have saidthat like that.
And you know what she did.
She came around the table, gaveme a kiss and we went back to

(01:37:38):
watching tv.

Speaker 2 (01:37:38):
That's awesome dude.

Speaker 1 (01:37:39):
I commend you for doing that, bro and but before,
before all that, you know,before years and years ago, like
that, it wasn't like thatcorrect.
What helped me was certainpeople, certain mentorship um,
fucking therapy and psychedelictherapy psychedelic.
Yeah, the micro dosing uh, no,there's, yeah, there's micro
dosing and there's like heavyextreme doses, and that's what I

(01:38:01):
did in a professional settingand that really, really helped
me a lot.
Was it like?
A?
One time I did four sessions ofof high doses of ketamine in a
in a professional setting, andthen I've also done micro dosing
of mushrooms and I've also doneDMT.

Speaker 2 (01:38:14):
Now, that was all part of therapy.

Speaker 1 (01:38:16):
Um the ketamine.
It was in a professionalsetting.
Right, the DMT was on.
It was in a professionalsetting.

Speaker 2 (01:38:22):
Right.
The DMT was on my own.
What are the medical results ofthat?

Speaker 1 (01:38:28):
Like, how does it help?
Like, for example, the highdoses of my first experience.
I remember I thought I died.
I remember, you know, I thoughtabout my family.
I remember thinking like, man,I haven't, I didn't get to tell
my family how much I reallyloved them.
And then, when you get out ofyour experience, I remember I

(01:38:50):
was waking up and I feltsomething going down my face and
then I realized it was tearsand at some point I had started
crying.
And when I went home after theexperience, I remember I was so
mentally tired I went to bed andthe next day I woke up and I,
my wife, was cooking and I and Ishe was cooking eggs and I told
her, um, I was like, hey.

(01:39:10):
I was like, hey, stop.
I was like I was like, comeover here, let me talk to you,
yeah, and and um, I remember Itold her I was like, because
this was during the start of me,trying to be a better version
of myself, the best version ofmyself, right, and and I had
done therapy before and I try to, you know, manage my, get good

(01:39:30):
amount of sleep, because we needsleep, nutrition, fitness and
all that communication.
And then I told her I was like,look, I realized that the
version that you've gone throughall my entire military career
and stuff like that was not thebest version of myself.
I realized that I put you last.
Uh, throughout my entiremilitary career and even,

(01:39:52):
sometimes even post my militarycareer, you weren't even second,
third or fourth, you were deadlast.
Um, you know, I'm sorry, uh, Iwish, uh, I, you know I had not
done that, you know, and, and Iwant to be the best version of
myself, you know.
And then, and then that shockedher, you know, because she's,

(01:40:14):
she was like, she was in shockand she was like she was like
there was things I wanted totell you, but I just didn't want
to tell you.
When you hear them, I wantedyou to feel them.
And then to my son my son wasborn when I was in Afghanistan
and my daughter was born when Iwas away too.
So, my son, I had told him Iwas like this was happening
right during summer and I toldAJ, my daughter, and my

(01:40:34):
five-year-old was already bornby that.
She wasn't five, but I was likeAJ and Ari, I was like mostly
AJ, I was like mostly aj.
I was like, look, I realize Idon't really know you guys.
I realize I don't know, likeyou, you're deep who you really
are and I want to.
I want to take this summer toreally get to know you.
And my son has started cryingand he goes, he goes, he goes.

(01:40:55):
That makes me happy to say that.
And I knew there was adisconnect between him and I.
I knew it.
Yeah, we would be sitting downwatching movies and if I was
close to him on his shoulder andhe would kind of like go to the
side and I'd be like look andtell my wife, he's like no, he's
just trying to give you yourspace.
But then after that, him and Iwere like this that's good, dude
, because I, you know, overseasor I was training or something.

(01:41:23):
By the time I got out he wasfive and I had done the math I'd
been almost three years awayfrom him and only been two years
with him.

Speaker 2 (01:41:28):
Damn dude, you know so, but now you're very present
in his life A hundred percent,that's good.

Speaker 1 (01:41:33):
And, like I said, psychedelics helped me with that
Cause it just confirmed what Iwas already feeling.
At that point.
I was already like, hey, I wantto get to to know my kids, but
I didn't know how to do it.
It's kind of weird, right torealize, hey, I have a
seven-year-old.
I don't really know how do I,how do I do this, how do I do
that?
And then, guess what, just talkto them and tell them that,
tell them that.

(01:41:53):
So that's what I did.
I told him that and then, youknow, he understood.
And then I what do you want todo?
You want to build legos?
Let's build legos.
You, what do you want?

Speaker 2 (01:42:00):
to do?
You want to build.

Speaker 1 (01:42:01):
Legos, let's build Legos.
What do you want to do?
You want to go watch this movie, let's watch this movie.
And then what I like to do is Itake them on hikes and then not
, not after, not until likeafter the first 45 minutes.
Then I just ask them questionsand by that time you've already
been hiking for a while.
And then you're like, hey, know, what do you want to do when
you grow up?
Or you know, hey, what do youthink about teachers?

(01:42:24):
Or or your teachers, or school,and sometimes, bro, I even ask
them for like a progress report.
Be like, hey, how do you thinkI am as a dad?
oh shit, that's such a good idea, man, and then they'll tell me
you know and sometimes I have toclarify some things that are
right that because you don'tknow how they see you, and
sometimes they'll be like, oh,dad, you, sometimes you're like
really strict, and I'll be likelike how, and I don't get mad at

(01:42:45):
what they say, I always saylike how he goes.
Well, you know, we don't wantto eat the vegetables and you
make us eat the vegetables andI'm like and, and I tell them
that, oh, I'm like well, becausethey're good for you.
I don't tell them go eat yourvegetables.
I'm like you have to eat thevegetables because they're good
for you.
They have these nutrients.
So, yeah, they may not tastethat well, but I have to make

(01:43:06):
you do that Right, or they'll belike oh, sometimes you yell you
know a lot and like really loud, and I'm like, and I have this
bad habit of yelling instead ofgoing to go get them.
So if they're in the room, Iyell, and Aaliyah didn't grow up
like that, so I did.

(01:43:26):
Your parents would always yellat you.
So then I'm getting in thehabit of walking to their room
and be like hey, aj, hey Ari, orsomething.
And they'd be like you know what?
That's right.
I never thought about it Like,oh, they're taking it as me
fucking yelling at them and Iwouldn't have known that if I
didn't ask him.

Speaker 2 (01:43:44):
That makes sense, dude.
So now you train out of beverlyhills as a facility yeah, so we
have our training facility iscalled training center.

Speaker 1 (01:43:51):
La, we have um, we do our.
We have gi, who john johnmachado teaches that course.
So if people don't know whojohn john machado is, he's the
one.
He's a very famous people don'tknow who John John Machado is.
He's the one.
He's a very famous jujitsupractitioner.
He's the one who gave Joe Roganhis black belt.
Um, we have Muay Thai, um, nogi grappling.

(01:44:12):
And we also have ourgunsmithing um, um and partner
Arlie arms.
So they're the ones who makeour guns and we shoot.
So you can, you can give themsomething like a basic lock and
he can can make it the bestGlock ever.

Speaker 2 (01:44:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:44:23):
Or you know you can manufacture your own rifle and
we do.
We have a VR training system.
We have those unit solutionhardcore airsoft guns that we do
, room clearing, home defensefirearms, fundamental classes,
because we have training classesfor the basic beginner to
advance.

Speaker 2 (01:44:44):
Can anybody attend those classes?

Speaker 1 (01:44:46):
anybody, yes so anybody can walk into our
facility and ask about a classor just walk around.
We have public training.
So that's all non-live fireright but we also have a
membership at this privateindoor range where we can do
some shooting there, but we can.
We also have um a membership atthese private indoor range
where we can do some shootingthere, but we can.
We also have access to anoutdoor range Um, that's a

(01:45:08):
private outdoor range that wecan do more dynamic stuff.
And you also train military, uh,law enforcement agencies, yeah,
so we actually train like kidssingle moms who've never owned a
gun, but now they want to, youknow, be their own protector.
Who've never owned a gun, butnow they want to, you know, be
their own protector.
The, your average two wayindividual veterans, you know,

(01:45:29):
movie stars, sheriffs, swatteams and then sometimes even
triple letter agencies Damn bro,and we're all.
We're all either former oractive duty special operation
guys.
So, yeah, either Navy SEALs orArmy Rangers.

Speaker 2 (01:45:45):
What's your favorite weapon of choice?
Dude.
Well, now a Glock, a Glock,yeah, any Glock, or do you have
a specific?

Speaker 1 (01:45:53):
favorite.
Well, my Glock, your Glock.
Yeah, it's all souped up.
It's not your standard.
Nine millimeter.

Speaker 2 (01:45:58):
Yeah, and that's your favorite.
Yeah, sir, and it's anextension of your body.

Speaker 1 (01:46:04):
Yep, and then obviously your rifle.
But what I'm really gettinginto is my shotgun.
Really, yeah, benelli man,because a shotgun when I was
active duty, it was just aboring breaching tool.
Everybody wanted to goexplosive, right, fuck yeah,
blow the door up.

(01:46:25):
Blow the door up, right, whyshoot it?
But now you know, I'm gettingreal quick with my, with my dual
loads, quads, even my singleloads, and, and it's a very
versatile tool, man like I'vehit things up to 90 meters with
a slug, no problem.
And and and when you, becauseit has so many specialty rounds,
right, right, you can dobuckshot slug.
So you have it's got differentcapabilities.

Speaker 2 (01:46:49):
What weapon system would you advise a regular home
owner to own for home defense?

Speaker 1 (01:46:57):
For home defense.
Man, that's a tricky oneBecause people, you always go
for the shotgun, for the shotgun, shotgun, I think, just a
pistol man, a, a, you don't evenhave to get crazy, you can just
get a pistol train on it.
Um, you know, because you needsomething that when something
goes bump at night you can justgrab, and that's easy.

(01:47:19):
You don't.
For ladies, a rifle or shotgunmight be too heavy.
Or for dudes, sometimes theymight forget to manipulate and
make sure to rack it or send thebull forward or whatever.
A pistol, especially if youhave your night sights, you just
line up those three dots atnight.
Who knows your house betterthan you do?

Speaker 2 (01:47:38):
right, cool dude.
So where can they find?
Uh, you have a website for thatDSG, or yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:47:44):
Yeah, so if you Google defense strategies group,
we'll pop up um training centerLA uh, it's in Beverly Hills.
We we run courses, uh, mostlyin LA.
Sometimes we do go um outside,and that's usually when agencies
or departments call us to go toum Texas.

Speaker 2 (01:48:04):
And that's usually when agencies or departments
call us to go to Texas, New York.
What about OG Pumpkin?

Speaker 1 (01:48:05):
Instagram.
Yeah, so OG Pumpkin is theunderscore OG, underscore,
pumpkin, or if you just GoogleOG Pumpkin, a bunch of stuff
comes up.
I didn't talk too much about it, but I do a lot of veteran and
low-income community workbecause that's where my heart is
at, even though we have atraining facility in Beverly
Hills, doing that stuff isactually where my heart is at,
even though we have a trainingfacility in beverly hills, doing
that stuff is what actually iswhere my heart is.

(01:48:27):
Um, so a come support, come toan event or buy something, and a
lot of the proceeds just go todoing events for the community,
which I'm gonna start working ondoing my um a non-profit to
become a non-profit on the side,because people are like bro,
this is my wife.
Even if you ask her, she's likeyo, og pumpkin is basically a
non-profit.
You give all the money away.
Um, so I'm gonna start anon-profit because sometimes

(01:48:50):
people or um businesses want togive me money to do more events
or help my cause, but once theyfind out that I'm not a
non-profit, they, oh shit, Ididn't know that.
Yeah, well, I didn't know thateither.
Well, now I do so cool dude.

Speaker 2 (01:49:05):
Well, I want to thank you for coming on the show, bro
.
I respect you as a man, bro, asa father of the vet dude, and
it was a fucking pleasuregetting to know you, dude thank
you, man.

Speaker 1 (01:49:13):
This was fun.
This was fun.
We should do it again later onfor sure, bro.

Speaker 2 (01:49:17):
Round two, yes, sir.
Well, there you guys have it,folks.
Man, we talked a lot about.
We talked a lot about a lot ofdifferent things, man, most
importantly, parenting.
Parenting is what the biggesttakeaway I took, man, why?
Because our future depends onit.
So if you guys like what yousaw, make sure you hit that
subscribe button.
Love you guys, keep pushingforward.

Speaker 1 (01:49:44):
Unhinged line Hector's legend engraved.

Speaker 2 (01:49:46):
Living life raw.
Never been tamed From the hoodto the pen.
Truth entails pen.
Hector Bravo unhinged Storynever ends.

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War is a Drug: Life Lessons from Army Ranger - Angel Cortez

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