War Stories From The Surge

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hector Bravo.
Unhinged chaos is now insession welcome back to our
channels, warriors.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
We are still growing.
Today, another banger for youguys.
Man, I love it when I interviewguys that were in the army,
specifically the infantry man,because I can relate so much.
So today we have a guy that wasin 126th Infantry, also known
as the Blue Spaders, stationedout of Germany, multiple combat
deployments was born inNicaragua, raised in Oakland, by

(00:35):
the name of Juan.
What's up, dude?

Speaker 1 (00:37):
It's great to be here .
It's finally, finally, finallygood to hook up after seeing you
following your content for solong.
Thank you, I appreciate thatdude.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
So what did you notice?
Right away?
The army talk that I wastalking about.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Well, I started just being bored watching YouTube
channels and I fell somehow intothe prison genre and then I
started seeing guys in theprison genre and then I saw you
jump on there and give adifferent side of kind of like
the same world Right and Ithought it was interesting.
And then when I saw you talkabout your history, of how you

(01:10):
were in the army, where you were, it was very interesting
because I was like, hey, I knowwho he's talking about, I know
where, I know the places.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
It's very similar, not too many people know about
that day and age man orlocations.
So you were born in nicaragua.
Yes, yes, how big is thatcountry and where?
What city or how does that work.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
So I was born in the capital.
It's in Central America.
It's north of Costa Rica, okay,south of Honduras.
There you go.
It's the largest country inCentral America and it's not too
big.
It's like maybe South Carolinasize, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
How long were you there before you came to the
United States?
I was there for about two years, wow.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
So basically I was born there but I don't really
didn't know much at that time ofmuch there.
But I was there two years andthen we moved to California.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Was that by sheer luck or was that by design?
The California part.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
So my father is from the United States and he's
Mexican and my mother's fromNicaragua.
So my dad was down there, I wasborn there, and they were just
like the country was goingthrough some political stuff.
So he was like time to go.
Let's go back to California.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Was he doing work down there?

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah, so he was working down there.
He was working at a radiostation.
They're doing fine.
But then the instabilitystarted coming in the country
and they thought it was betterto go back Smart and East
Oakland.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Instability started coming in the country and they
thought it was better to go back.
Smart um, and east oakland, oroakland, was where you guys
touched down yeah, I don't knowhow we landed there.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
I think my pops had friends there or something,
because we didn't have no family, because most of my family's
from central or southerncalifornia.
Yeah, but I think my dad wantedto start fresh for and I guess
he chose east oakland, of allplaces, because we knew some
people there.
So that's where my firstintroduction into the United
States was.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
I'm sure it was normal to you, right?
Did it seem abnormal, or was itlike it seemed like they get
hyphy there?
Yeah, so it was like theeighties, okay.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
So it was like crack era, crack cocaine yeah, crack
era was everything.
And the first place we lived,which like apparently very, very
bad neighborhood.
But I was a little kid so Ididn't even know anything.
I was just like, hey, this isnormal, right, this is what it
is.
And then we moved to anotherplace that wasn't as bad, but it
was still oakland.

(03:19):
Oakland's still going to beoakland.
So when you were growing up,was there anything that?

Speaker 2 (03:22):
stands out to you, Oakland.
So when you were growing up,was there anything that stands
out to you Like?
I mean, were you seeing crackedout dudes yelling on the corner
or chasing people down orbeatings or prostitution or I
think what I saw was like normalis.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
We had a crack house, the apartment complex, that was
just like a dope house, yeah.
And we had a tunnel like acreek that used to run under
through a park, and every timewe see people come up through
the creek it's like, oh, they'rebusting the crack house again,
okay, and that was just likenormal stuff like that.
There'd be dudes high on pcpthat would damage every car down
the block.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
There'd be like homicides and they're just like,
oh, that happened the house Igrew up next to in brawley sold
heroin out there and and yeah,the cops would raid it every
once in a while.
So I could relate in growing upnext to dope houses.
Yeah, and it just seems normalafter a while.
It is kind of normal to seeingthe syringes on the ground in
the parks and the dirt parkinglots.
Were you getting yourself intotrouble at that time frame?

Speaker 1 (04:20):
So I guess I was, but I kind of didn't realize it
because my mother didn't want meto go to school there.
So for her she's from Nicaraguaand she came here when her
biggest thing was education Okay.
So she made the effort to makeme go to school in not that
neighborhood.
So I went to school in thehills.
How would you get there?

(04:40):
So she would take me on the busbecause she started, she
enrolled in community college,okay, and she would take me and
she somehow talked to them intoletting me go into those schools
.
So when I was going to schoolin the hills, the only thing is
I was a little ghetto kid fromthe, you know, from the east
side.
So when I went there the hillswere all the rich kids that were
, and like I almost got expelledwhen I was in third grade.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Did you perceive that they were treating you
different or looking at youdifferent?
I just or.
Did you feel like an?

Speaker 1 (05:09):
outcaster?
Yes, you did, definitelybecause I was Latino.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Why?
Because they had nice shit.
On what race Were they?
White?

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah, there was a lot of white people up there in the
hills, and then there was oneblack dude.
I'm like hey, hey, we'refriends.
He was like a third grader witha mustache, though you know
what I'm saying?
Oh yeah, he had been held backa bunch of times six, five, 200
pounds, dude yeah, yeah, I waslike that's a man right there,
what's?

Speaker 2 (05:30):
he doing what's?
Up yeah, so when you saytrouble, I mean what kind of?
There's various degrees totrouble, where you're breaking
windows, tagging, stealing shit,uh, just ditching school.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
So at that point I just had an attitude, I had a
problem with authority and then,like I'd like to tell people
off all the time and I'd be like, right, yeah, I was just like,
I don't know, just like a littlebad kid, I get it rebellious.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yeah, rebellious, that'd probably be the best word
for him not so much atroublemaker, just probably
rebellious, as to like it's thisfucking stupid authority yes
yeah, definitely.
When did the light bulb comeoff?

Speaker 1 (06:08):
come on that you were going to join the united states
army so, oh, what happened waswe were there for a while and
then, as my parents saw me growup, they're like, oh, this, this
kid's gonna get killed, likehe's not gonna make it very far
if I continue in my troublemakerlifestyle like that.
So then we moved to the suburbsafter that, okay, and we moved

(06:29):
to vacaville, okay, and that'sbetween oakland and sacramento,
right kind of between that.
So when that happened it waskind of like a huge culture
shock to me Because it wasmoving from inner city.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
Were you involved in gangs or who the hell were you
hanging around?

Speaker 1 (06:51):
with At that point.
No, at that point it was justneighborhood stuff and stuff
like that.
But they saw the trajectorythat I was on and they saw the
environment and they were justlike what were you doing?

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Staying out late?

Speaker 1 (07:09):
Yeah, just hanging out doing stuff and like not
listening, and then the peoplethere, of course, the, the drugs
, the violence, things like thatand at a young age it's kind of
like, okay, this is going toget a little crazy if we stay
here, right, because it's a verybad area.
And then when we moved there itwas just like a culture shock
because it was just sodrastically different, life was
so slow did that make you feeluncomfortable in your own skin?

(07:29):
absolutely it felt like you wereout of your element absolutely.
I felt like I was an outsiderin this place and I actually got
into more fights in the suburbs, I could imagine, than I did in
the city, because this in thecity it's more dangerous if you,
if you play around, it's real,but when you go to the suburbs
they think you could just talkand yeah, so, right.

(07:50):
So that was a culture shockwhen I moved there.
So when I thought about joiningthe Army was when I moved to
the suburbs.
I kept on getting in trouble.
So that's when I started kindof elevating stealing cars.
Stealing cars, yeah, yeah, sothat's what we used to do, like

(08:10):
for fun, just like go steal somecars, random civilians cars
yeah, because it was, it was the90s, so honda's toyota, camry
how I'll just pop with thescrewdriver it was.
It was way easy back then whatwas it?

Speaker 2 (08:16):
what was the end goal ?

Speaker 1 (08:18):
just just spin, take it around for a joyride yeah,
well, like we weren't makingmoney, we're like I don't know,
we were taking risks for boredom, just excitement, adrenaline.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
At the end of this joyride, where does the car end
up at?

Speaker 1 (08:30):
Some random park or some side of the road.
We'd try to steal the radio, gosell the radio or something
like that.
Like, if anything, but we woulddo it.
We'd go pick up girls becausewe were like young, oh, okay, go
pick up girls.
Be like go pick up girls.

(08:52):
Be like, hey, I got a car, itwas a means to an end.
Yeah, well, that's how Ilearned how to drive.
Damn why you'd be drivingaround all these nice cars.
They were doing that nice.
But so what?
When that ended up happeningonce again, my parents were like
, okay, this, this is going downa bad path.
I'm getting locked up as ajuvenile.
You did yeah, as a yeah,because I ended up getting
caught eventually, you know, andI ended up getting locked up as
juvenile, and it was.
I think my mother changed mylife at that point because I was

(09:12):
looking at I had been arrestedmultiple times.
So when I was arrested multipletimes, she talked to like the
probation or a DA or somethinglike that.
And I think on one of the bigcharges was like GTA, hit and
run.
They didn't really have mebecause I was a passenger, so
they were like we don't know,but they say the trajectory and

(09:32):
how many times he's beenarrested.
They say he's going to end upin CYA.
He's going to yeah, they'relike he's going down this path
and it's going to end up in abad place.
And I think it was like asix-month sentence that I had
and my mom cut a deal, said he'sfrom Nicaragua, his grandfather
lives in Nicaragua, on avolcano.

(09:53):
He will not get in troublethere.
Let me send him there insteadof having him incarcerated,
because if he gets incarceratedhe's just going to get deeper
into gangs, deeper into trouble.
It's not going to help him.
He's just going to get moreinvolved in that life.
And I ended up living on avolcano in Nicaragua.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
Bro, looking back in hindsight, do you realize how
much your parents did for you?
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
Because I was horrible.
I was a horrible kid Dude.
I mean, yeah, just from whatyou've told me so far, like your
parents really made a massiveeffort to keep you in line, dude
like, and it's succeeded and assuch a young person and such a
young like I have kids so, likeright, letting your young kid go
to a different country, right,where you don't have contact,

(10:38):
and trusting them that, hey,this is better for my child.
You were on a volcano.
Well, I only lasted there forlike a month because it was just
too rough.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Was it an actual volcano?
No, actually Was it like amountainside.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Active, volcano Active.
You could look inside and seelava.
No, yeah, yeah, no way bro,absolutely, it's Volcán Telica.
How do you say it, telica?

Speaker 2 (11:00):
Telica.
Yeah, wait, does it look likethe hole in the top?
And what?
Do you stand over the crater?

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah, yeah, it's like a wide, wide, how many miles up
, or I don't know.
I don't know how high it is.
Like a good hike.
Yeah, it's a couple hours Okay.
But you know how you have somevolcanoes that have a small cone
up top.
This one's like a wide cone,okay.
So that, yeah, I still go backthere visit my family.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
I take pictures on the edge of the volcano so what
does the scenery look like onthe surrounding the volcano?
Greenery yeah, it's green,beautiful it's beautiful, it's
awesome.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
Wow, dude.
Yeah, we go up there, we takepictures, we camp out, damn yeah
, so it's um, it's awesome.
So I didn't last that longbecause I'm city boy.
I can't live like they had norunning water, they had no
electricity, that's the gruntlife.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
Bro, it was preparing you for the grunt life.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
I guess so.
I guess so because like it wasbad, and then I had to work in
the fields.
What did that consist?

Speaker 2 (11:52):
of uh picking beans and your fucking hands and knees
and breaking, bending your backand yeah, yeah, yeah, you're
sore and shit, I didn't lastdoing that.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, I didn't last.
And they're like oh, this guy's, this guy can't hack.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
So if you're from california, man, you have dainty
hands.
Yeah, built for the volcanolife.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
Yeah, they had me swing an axe one time.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah, yeah, like I swung it twice and just my whole
hand was there yeah, so then Iended up living in a in a
smaller town fun fact once onetime I was a kid breaking rocks
with a hammer and I fuckingclawed myself in the back of the
head man right in front of mydad.
He just looked at me and shookhis head.
I started bleeding, dude, so Icould relate.
Dude, so after volcano land,where do you go?

Speaker 1 (12:36):
To one of my tias in a small city In Nicaragua.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yeah, that was for you a step up in civilization.
Yeah, like running water, RightElectricity.
Where would you take a shit inthe volcano town At that?

Speaker 1 (12:51):
point.
There was nothing.
Where would you take a shit?
So, behind the house, on alittle hill, you would just go
there.
Okay, there's like nothing,there's like absolutely nothing.
Any wild animals?
No, they would eat them all.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Damn, but no like what's over there Cheetahs,
coyotes, fucking wolves panthers.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
Well, it's a third world country, so people,
anything they see, that's wild,they kill it and they eat it.
Okay, but they do havesometimes jaguars.
They have like bobcats, iguanas, Snakes yes, snakes, but
they're not as common because weeat those too.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
Okay, so you've eaten just all kinds of random stuff.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Yeah, if you don't have meat if you just eat rice
and beans and cheese, gettingsome protein is like yeah,
however you get it.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
So you go and live with your aunt in a better
little civilization.
How old are you at this time?
I am 15.
Holy shit, dude, you wererunning amok.
Yeah, at such a young age Iguess I started fast Right.
And I just kept going fast mywhole life.

(13:59):
Oh, I can relate.
So when you were 15, did youhave any knowledge of the united
states military might?
Were you watching marinecommercials with the chessboard
and the dragon slaying?
I?

Speaker 1 (14:12):
was watching novellas in nicaragua but, um, I didn't
really know much about it, butwhat happened down there
nicaragua is, I think whatyou're talking about is when
that light bulb correct momentwhere things change yeah, I
ended up getting a girl pregnantdown there.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Down there?
Yeah, okay, but how doesgetting a girl pregnant relate
to joining the military?
Are you thinking you now haveto financially support her?

Speaker 1 (14:34):
Correct.
So I got a girl pregnant, I hada daughter, and I stayed there
for a year, came back to theUnited States and I was like,
okay, now I haveresponsibilities Right, the
United States.
And I was like, okay, now Ihave responsibilities, I have to
think about what to do with myfuture.
Did they stay down there orthey came with you Initially?
They stayed down there.
So when I did that, I came backand I still had to finish high

(14:56):
school, and when I had to finishhigh school, I was thinking
what's my future?
How do I support a family?
How do I support a child?
How do I support this woman too?
Was she your girlfriend at thetime?
No, no, I had a girlfriend.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
You had a girlfriend and this one wasn't your
girlfriend that you knocked up.
Yes, how did the girlfriendhandle that?
Oh, badly, badly.
She wasn't happy, right.
So did you break it off withyour girlfriend and you stayed
with the baby mama.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
Initially.
No, okay, I just broke up withmy girlfriend.
I was like, well, we're notdating, so Right.
But when the baby was born, Idid the super Latino thing and I
was like, hey, let's give it ashot.
Yeah, you know two young16-year-olds Like hey, let's
give it a go, see if we can givethe family course.

(15:51):
You know how that probablyworked out.
Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, I meanbut I don't knock you for trying
, bro.
I mean you're trying to do thehonorable thing.
Yeah, yeah, and I guess that'skind of like inculcated in right
and latinos like you have to bea man, you have to take care of
your family and things likethat.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yeah, did you come across a recruiter so?

Speaker 1 (16:04):
I was lied to by my family members, so I'm one of
the younger cousins, my oldercousins they joined the National
Guard.
I had a lot of family membersthat were in the service and
they used to tell me that theywere grunts.
I was like what do you do?
Like it's awesome, Like we'regrunts, we do this, we kick in

(16:25):
doors, it's awesome, and thisand that.
And I was like, wow, thatsounds interesting.
Later on I found out that noneof them were infantry.
They all were like tankersengineers and they were like,
yeah, we're pounding the groundand doing that, so no, I yeah,

(16:46):
so no.
I went to the recruiter officeand I was just like I want to
join in oakland.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
No, this one was in in vacaville once I, because I
went back there.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, you relocated to vacaville, yeah, which is
better off yeah, because I don'tknow how my life would end up
if I stayed there.
Oh correct, so no, you wouldhave been an inmate bro.
No, I would have that or beenkilled.
Yeah, one of the two.
So, um, yeah.
So I ended up going there and Iwas like, well, I saw the war
happening on tv hold on when?

Speaker 2 (17:12):
where did 9-11 happen ?
What did you think when you sawthat?

Speaker 1 (17:17):
okay, yeah, that makes more sense.
Um, 9-11 happened.
I had moved back to nicaraguaat that point because in my
youth I I thought it would be agreat idea that if I just
dropped out of my senior year ofhigh school and went and worked
and did the family thing inNicaragua.
So I was in a sweatshop inNicaragua working when 9-11
happened and when I saw that Iwas like, oh, it's wartime.

(17:40):
I was like I should probably goback to the United States and
go to war then.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
Did you feel something inside of you like
patriotism?

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Absolutely.
I felt like somebody attackedthe country we're at war.
I got to go fight.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Let me dive more.
I want you to describe thatmore to us, because you were
born in Nicaragua, but you wereraised in California.
Did you feel that you're?
Because?
I want you to explain it, bro.
Where did you feel your loyaltylied?
Which country?

Speaker 1 (18:12):
The United States, absolutely.
But I also felt loyalty toNicaragua, but it wasn't the
same, because this is where Iwas raised and this is the
country that I've known and thatseemed like a echo from the
past that I still have love for,correct, but the united states
is my home, I'm an american andyou know, if the country is
attacked, I'm a young man, fuckyeah dude.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah, bro, so the wheels are already spinning.
The fucking war drums arebeating.
You're probably watching blackhawk down.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
We were soldiers I think the one movie that got me
was the.
I forget which one it was.
It was the one with um.
It was a marine movie, marinemovie with oh, what's his name
around that time frame jarheadno, because Jarhead came out in
05.
No, it wasn't Jarhead, it wasWindtalkers, windtalkers.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Really dude.
Yeah, windtalkers, I hated thatmovie bro.
I haven't really seen itbesides that one time.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, I saw it and I was in class.
I had a little fun lunch break,yeah, and I came back and I
went to a continuation highschool.
Fun lunch break, yeah, and Icame back and I went to a
continuation high school.
So that's where I graduatedfrom.
And when I graduated,continuation, they was just like
watch TV, watch a movie thishistory here's some credits, you
know, yeah.
So when I went there, I wasjust watching and I was just

(19:35):
stuck.
Everybody was talking.
I was just looking at it.
I was like man, that looksawesome.
There's a war right now.
I want to do that, let's go.
And the only thing thatactually stopped me from going
was that I had a daughter and atthat time they were having
issues with single parentsjoining the military.
So what I did was I graduatedhigh school, went straight down

(19:55):
to Nicaragua, got married 18years old as a smart person
should do and said I got married, brought my daughter back.
That's a lot of traveling broyeah, I love to travel, travel
since I was a kid, so we used togo back to nicaragua all the
time.
Yeah, just go visit family inmexico, so yeah.
So once I did that, I said letme go square myself away, go get

(20:16):
get married, live with you know, my wife at that time, my
daughter, bring them back to thestates, get myself right, and
then I could go join the army.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
So by this time, the war in Afghanistan kicked off in
2001.
The war in Iraq kicked off in2003.
What year are we looking at?
04, 05?

Speaker 1 (20:37):
04, like kind of end up, but what ended up happening?
I started getting in troubleagain.
God damn dude.
Yeah, so I ended up in countyjail God damn bro.
And then you couldn up incounty jail God damn bro.
And then Couldn't help yourself, huh, well, I think it was one
of the things that were.
It was a point in life where Iwas like, trying to find my way,
yeah, and it was, do I fallback into old habits or do I

(20:58):
break the cycle and do somethingwith myself?
And it was kind of like thestruggle and I was waiting and
what ended up happening is therecruiter showed up to court,
wow, and the case got dismissedand he talked to the judge and
the judge was like hey, I heardyou're going to go join the army
.
And they're like, yep, I'mready to go.
And as soon as you go, they'relike hey, if you ever see you

(21:21):
again in this courtroom, it'sgoing to be bad for you If I
don't thank you for serving yourcountry and I hope it goes well
.
Hell yeah.
And I didn't look back fromthen.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
So you go to Fort Banning Absolutely, which has
been renamed back to FortBanning, rightfully so.
Do you remember what battalionyou were in?

Speaker 1 (21:39):
119, Bravo 119.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
Bravo 119.
Yep.
When you were in basic trainingin Bravo 119, fort Benning,
georgia, home of the infantry,what stuff were your drill
sergeants telling you, and hadany of them already served in
war?

Speaker 1 (21:55):
So the majority had, because at that time it was 2005
.
Correct, so they were in OF1 orF2.
Or Afghanistan or Afghanistan.
I don't think I had anAfghanistan one, I think it was
more of those.
Okay, and as I got experienceas an adult and as an
infantryman, I understood kindof what was going on.

(22:17):
They took these guys straightoff of deployment.
Three months later you had togo to drill sergeant school.
Three months later you're infront of a bunch of people that
you don't care about, when yourbattle buddies are overseas
again fighting, doing the warand you're sitting here having
to train the next generation.

(22:37):
Could you sense that from them?
They would tell us they wouldtell you, guys, absolutely we'd
be like well, thank you forbeing here.
And they're like we didn't wantto be here.
I'd rather be out there downrange killing people, like you
know, but this is what the armytold me to do, so I totally, uh,
see their point of view.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah, you ain't trying to be, you know I mean
with yeah, but it's a job thatneeds to be done absolutely, and
no better to train the futurethan the ones that have already
experienced it, especially withfresh knowledge, oh fresh bro,
so fucking fresh dude.
But I want to know what kind oflife lessons were they
embedding in you like, hey, whenyou get over there, it's game

(23:14):
time.
It's not for the faint of heart.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
Motherfuckers are gonna die, I think I think one
of the what I talked to friendsthat were pre-war in basic
training and when I was there in05, when the war had already
kicked off, I saw Fallujah on TV.
I saw the Battle of Fallujah onTV and I was like, wow, I want
to do that.
So a lot of the people thatwere in there knew what they

(23:39):
were getting into.
Well, they didn't know.
Of course, you don't know untilyou go to war, right, but they
had somewhat of an idea becausethey saw the news, they saw this
.
So I think the personality ofthe people who joined were like
we know, we're going to warright away, that's all we want
to do.
We're joining infantry, we wantto be front lines and we want
to go down range.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
So that's the difference with my generation,
which was right before yourgeneration, with my generation,
which was right before yourgeneration.
We didn't observe it.
Yeah, we, we didn't know whatthe fuck we were going to get
into, absolutely, but we knew,hey, this is going to be like
well, like the movie.
So we thought, yeah, yeah,definitely, definitely wow, dude
, so did you guys do?
Well, you guys did the bayonet25 mile road march at the end.

(24:20):
All that you remember, yourturning blue ceremony yeah, I
remember it was horrible.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
Why?
Because I'm tall and back thenthey liked to give the smallest
guy the 240.
So the smallest guy was infront of me and I said I'm going
to go next to you so I can helpyou out if you need it.
The dude carried it for onemile.
I carried it for like20-something.
But when we get to change socksright before on our hill, he

(24:48):
they look at me and they say hey, everybody returned to their
original weapons.
So I lugged the 240 for 20something miles and then we go
back.
This little guy is just sittingthere and I'm a big, tall guy
and going up on our hill wherethey have all the other other
privates, you know, yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah clapping you in there
, like that.
Everybody just talked shit to me.
What were they saying?
Like look at this little dude?

(25:08):
Because I was like smoked.
Like look at this little dude,he has so much heart, he's
carrying a 240, you're carryingan m4.
Who was saying that?
The the other privates thatwere supposed to be cheering us
on?

Speaker 2 (25:19):
why were they talking shit, bro?
That's weird.
I never wouldn't imagine themtalking shit, because there in
no place to talk shit.
They're privates.
That's what we do.
Try private stock shit.
Yeah, but you got to earn yourplace.
Yeah, because I think those hadalready graduated, oh okay yeah,
they had already graduated yeah, I thought they were like fresh
talking shit to you guys, yoand I was sucking too, yeah,
yeah.
So I mean, in your head you'reprobably like, oh, these

(25:41):
motherfuckers, I carried it thewhole time right.
Head, you're probably like, oh,these motherfuckers, I carried
it the whole time right.
So then you turn blue, you getyour blue cord, you get your
blue discs.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
How did how did that make you feel I don't even know,
because I didn't know anythingabout the army, you didn't?

Speaker 2 (25:55):
I just watched the movies.
I'm like all right, you knowanything about combat patches on
the right shoulder or a cib orairborne absolutely nothing
correct, yeah, I get it.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
Yeah, they're like what.
They're like what's a blue cord, like what's a CIB, and they're
just like you don't know what aCIB is.
I'm like no clue.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
So you had already had orders to Europe, right,
correct.
You were 11 X-ray, you went 11,bravo, yep.
And you touched down inprobably Frankfurt, yep and Yep.
And then is that when you findout you're going to 126 Infantry
.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
I think I had already had orders for it, but I didn't
know anything what it meant,right?

Speaker 2 (26:32):
Did you know what the big red one was?
The 1st Infantry Division?
No clue, no Nothing.
So then you arrive on LedwardBarracks, schweinfurt, germany.
What was your incoming receivelike?

Speaker 1 (26:46):
So my reception was kind of different because I'd
landed I left Georgia December25th 2005, christmas day.
Okay, I landed December 26th.
Everyone was on block leave, sono one was there to receive me.

(27:07):
Everybody was on block leavefrom OIF too.
No, just Christmas block leave,so no one was there to receive
me.
Everybody was on block leavefrom oif2 uh, no, just christmas
block leave, christmas blockleave, yeah, because it was
christmas time.
So everybody went from germanyback to the states wait a minute
.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Was 126 actively in iraq at that time no, no, no, no
, they were, they were.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
They had come back from yf2, from samara, yes, from
samara but we had a companywith us in balad.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
we had had a company of one, two, six infantry with
us in Balad.
Okay yeah, so they're on blockleave.
They had already went to OIF2.
Now tell us how you went.
Dove right into Graf andHolofels.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah.
So that was as soon as blockleave came over.
They told me hey, we're goingto go to Graf and Holofel, gonna
go to graff and holofilm.
I'm like what's that?
Like no clue what's going on.
And then they say just getready.
Then when everybody comes back,it's just, I just get hazed,
just crazy hazed.
And um, beautiful thing, bro,it builds character.
It definitely does.
It makes you, uh, not careabout a lot and not take

(27:59):
everything.
So not be a sensitive.
So many things, things Right.
So, um, did that go straightinto a 45 day field problem?
And it was the.
It was a bad winter.
That winter too.
Did Nicaragua get cold?

Speaker 2 (28:12):
No, no, like 70 is cold, no, what was your thoughts
of the German cold?

Speaker 1 (28:21):
I thought it was miserable.
I thought there was.
It couldn't be like that.
So in Germany, in the barracksthat we had, they have these gas
heaters where you turn the knob.
I had never seen a gas heater.
You know, I don't have thatwhere I'm from California,
northern California so when Iwent there I didn't have any
sheets.
I didn't know what toCalifornia.
So when I went there I didn'thave any sheets.
I didn't know what to do.

(28:41):
So I had like a whoopee and theroom was ice cold.
And when I was civilian I wasalways used to sleeping with the
window open because I need somefresh air.
If not, I feel stuffy thingslike that.
So I cracked the window butit's like 20 degrees outside so
I was like, let me turn on theheater, this is really warm.
So I like leaned up against theheater.
But the heaters have a littletimer thing on them so if you

(29:04):
don't stick the timer, it coolsdown.
So my first three nights inGermany were just miserable,
because the heater would turn onfor like 30 minutes, the window
would be open and it'd be 20degrees inside and I wouldn't
sleep and it that was a dumbprivate.
So it took me like three daysto be, like my heater's broken,
for me to figure out how to usea heater.

(29:25):
But yeah, no, the cold wasmiserable, it was absolutely
miserable.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
You didn't have a roommate at that time, or he was
on leave.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
So the way our barracks were set up, we had
individual rooms cause we hadrefurbished barracks.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
I don't remember that bro.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
So our building Alpha Company was the only one that
had them.
Okay, so HAC had the big likefour-man rooms, bravo and
Charlie split rooms, and theyhad also the same thing.
They had the big wall lockers,yeah, wall lockers.
So we had the only refurbishedbarracks.
Oh, you're lucky as fuck bro.
Yeah, so I had one room overhere, my roommate had a room
over there.
Did you guys share bathrooms?

(29:58):
Share bathroom, share kitchen,all right.
So we didn't have the bathroomsat the end of the hall where
everybody showered together andstuff like that, so I lucked out
on there.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
So, hohenfels Graf, you're sleeping in the snow, in
the mud, in the frozen ground.
Yeah, 30 days at a time.
What was that experience like?
It was fun.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
Live fire ranges yeah , Live fire.
Uh, the box, all that stuff.
So we did live fire.
Um, it was like the first timeI shot live rounds.
Bradley, were you a dismount?
I was dismount, yes, Um, it was.
It was awesome.
It was like it was the coolstuff.
I felt the camaraderie andeverything was very serious and
everybody took everything veryserious because all my NCOs had

(30:40):
deployed to OF2.
So all the sergeants havealready came from OF2.
It's in the final buildup toramp up to go to the next
deployment and I think it takeseverything serious because they
tell you you have to learn this.
This is very serious becauselives are on the line,
Absolutely.
So I think that mentality, whenyou take it on, you take more

(31:04):
importance to what they'reteaching and they take more
importance of what they're, whythey're teaching it.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
Can you explain to the crowd what the difference
between dismounted and mountedare when it comes to the Bradley
?

Speaker 1 (31:13):
So Bradley's are armored personnel carriers, so
they're just like a vehicle withtracks on it and they have a
big main gun on it, so they havea crew that mans the vehicle
and in the back they have abunch of angry infantrymen that
once they stop, they have to goout and do drop the ramp and
just start killing shit.
Yeah, go do infantry stuff.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
Right, and it's uh, it's always fun because you
don't know where you're at,because you can't see anything
did it amaze you at how youngthese individuals were in your
unit, but yet they were actingso much older and mature?

Speaker 1 (31:45):
Absolutely.
I had a staff sergeant that waslike 21 years old or 22 years
old and he was like a staffsergeant and it was just.
I held them on a pedestalbecause of their professionalism
, their maturity and what theyhow they would be leaders at
such a young age, right.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Have you experienced leadership like that since then?

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Yes, I've had, like throughout the military.
I've had good and bad leaders.
I've had people that are careerpeople.
I have people that are justshady and they just slip through
the cracks, and I've had peoplethat actually care about people
.
I have people that are justshady and they just slip through
the cracks, and I've had peoplethat actually care about people
and care about teaching, careabout leading, care about things
like that I think those makethe best leaders, the ones that

(32:29):
actually give a fuck.
Yeah, and you could tell.
You could tell if somebodyactually cares.
And I think I'd lucked out withhaving such good leadership
early in my career because Imade so many mistakes early in
my career because I was aknucklehead yeah, that
knucklehead mentality.
It took me a while to break, togrow up, to mature and I had

(32:50):
enough leaders that sawpotential in me, that saw that,
hey, this guy can learn, givehim a chance so after graph,
after hohenfeld, you guys getorders to go to iraq yes, we get
orders to go iraq.
Uh, the way it worked.
It was weird, though, becausewe got orders to be qrf in

(33:11):
kuwait, but then it changed.
They said you're gonna be qrfin germany, like if you were in
Kuwait.
So what happened is we shippedall our stuff out Okay,
railheaded and everything,railhead everything.
We had nothing, but then weended up staying three extra
months in Germany with nothingto do, what the and no equipment

(33:32):
.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
So we just partied for three months straight.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
No way, dude, because they're like you're about to
deploy, what about PT tests Form?
Like you're about to deploy.
They put, like what about pttests formations?
No, we did pt twice a day, okay, so that's all we did.
We woke up, did pt.
Like what do we train on?
Like we have nothing.
We already did our training.
All right, I mean, go over somefirst aid, cool.
Come back 1300, pt again, ptagain.
Get in the best shape.
You can.
All right, cool, go to 1700formation, play video games and

(33:56):
then we just party all night didyou party in schweinfurt or did
you go to wurtzburg, bamberg?

Speaker 2 (34:02):
did you travel?

Speaker 1 (34:03):
everywhere, everywhere during that time.
Not as much because I was young.
I didn't have a car.
Yeah, you could take the trainthough everywhere.
Yeah, but I was young, I wasjust like the schweinfurt was so
awesome.
Did you ever get fucked up attabasco's uh name a place?

Speaker 2 (34:18):
I haven't the long island iced teas at tabasco's
Name, a place I haven't the LongIsland iced teas at Tabasco's
the Rock.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
Fabrique, oh yeah, there was many memorable nights
at the Rock Fabrique.
Yeah, the Russian Club, I don'teven remember Megadrome yeah,
the Megadrome.
What are the other ones?
The East Side, that was the NCOClub.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
I don't even remember so much because, like right,
were you aware that there waswhorehouses in Schweinfurt.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
Absolutely, absolutely.
I heard Somebody handed me alighter and it said something on
it.
I was like what's this mean?
House 31, house 8.
Yeah, yeah, from what I'veheard, 20.
Yeah, house 14.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
20, yeah, 14, um, something like it's legal, yeah,
yeah, it's, it's a profession,correct, yeah, uh, so you get
the orders.
You ain't doing your fuckingpart in your ass off for three
fucking months, bro now did thathinder your your physical
fitness?
We're young, we, oh yeah, weget we machines dude.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
yeah, we're just like machines.
We'd get smashed right and thenwe'd go run five miles in the
morning, absolutely like.
And because our first r and cowere old school, they're like I
don't care, we'd get smashedRight and then we'd go run five
miles in the morning, absolutely.
And because our first R&CO wereold school, they're like I
don't care what you do, right,but if you fall out of this
five-mile run at a six-minute ora 630-mile pace, you're going
to get sent down to the MPstation, absolutely.
So it was just like, well, Ican't fall out of this run.

(35:36):
It would give you incentive,right.
So yeah, and what the greatthing that happened during that
time.
The world cup happened ingermany.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
the world cup you had , uh, you also walked um
octoberfest.
Did you ever make it down tooctoberfest in munich?
I I ended up making there onetime.
Okay, yeah, I did in 05 2005.
So when you, when did you findout you're going to Baghdad?

Speaker 1 (36:03):
I don't even remember , cause I was so young and I
didn't really understandanything.
Did you land in Kuwait first?
Yeah, so we went to Kuwait.
Um so, cause we're on likethree day orders, we're like,
hey, at any moment we can getorders, and then Charlie company
left first.
They went, we left like twodays later and they landed in.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Aramia.
No, they landed in Kuwait,correct, but they were stationed
in Aramia, yeah, absolutely.
And then, when you were inKuwait, how did you guys get
north Driving?
Oh, and we flew in.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Holy shit.
So we were, since we were on aQRF thing, usually like what
they, what my NCOs told mebefore, do this.
We were there for a week.
So we were partying in germany,drinking every day.
Um, there was dudes goingthrough alcohol withdrawal in
the tents I hear you, manbecause they had already

(36:49):
deployed.
So they're like I'm just gonnadrink, I have all the time to
party, right, like I thinkeverybody deployed with like
five cents in their bank accountjust fucking party because like
think about it, you're young,right?

Speaker 2 (37:00):
you don't know if you're gonna die or you.
Party hard, you train hard,party hard.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
You're like, let me just enjoy life right before I
go to war.
So what does money matter?
I'll just save up money whenI'm deployed, correct?

Speaker 2 (37:12):
so yeah, dudes, we deployed with like 50 cents in
our bank accounts do youremember the date or the month
and year that you got to baghdad?

Speaker 1 (37:22):
it was august god damn, it's hot as fuck.
Yeah, it was hot like dudeswere going through alcohol
withdrawal.
Was that the surge?
Yes, that was already thesearch, that's pre-surge like
pre-surge right before those, itwas august 06, right before the
surge was starting to happenwhere?

Speaker 2 (37:36):
what were you on A FOB?
What were you on?

Speaker 1 (37:39):
So my company was weird because we were attached
to a tank company and then itwas like a tank platoon, a
mortar platoon and an infantryplatoon all together.
No engineers in that one.
No we didn't have any engineersin that one.
So it was like those were thethree platoons, but we were the
biggest one because we're theinfantry one, correct?

(38:01):
And I think.
I think it was crazy becausewe're kuwait for a week.
Then we go to baghdad, to biop,and they're like, hey, you're
gonna fly in, so biops, theinternational airport, and then
we go there.
We stay there for a little bit,maybe a day, I'm not sure and
then we fly on chinooks tosouthern baghdad, to fab
rastamaya, fab rastamaya, yeah,fab rastamaya.

(38:22):
So when we went there, I thinkthat's when I kind of started to
understand, like what did I getinto why?
Because we got on chinooks andthey gave us a very specific
order.
They said the fob you're goingto gets rocketed all the time
whenever they see chinooks comein.
They knew, they know new troopsare going in.
So everybody, you have tolisten, because the last time

(38:44):
they dropped troops off, acouple dudes got killed.
So when you land they're likejust grab whatever bag, you can
throw it in the back of the fiveton, jump in the back and lay
down in the fetal position.
And I was like what kind ofthought we're supposed to fight
wars and stuff like what is this?
And they're like where welanded?
It was on the iraqi side of thefob, the iraqi army which we
shared, and it was all dark itwas nighttime it was night, yeah

(39:08):
, because we couldn't do it tothe day because we get shot down
.
So when that happened, we'regoing.
I'm just.
I got a 240 because I was 240gunner.
I got an m4, I got a pistol onme, I got all my bags.
I weigh like 300 pounds.
Um, all I see is the guy on theback of the chinook just start
lighting people up no way hejust starts lighting people up.

(39:28):
All you see is like the roundsflying down and just flashes and
I'm just like what's going on?
and then my team leader, he'slike yeah, get some, get some.
I'm like what are we going into?
Yeah, yeah, and it just so,fuck, dude.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
So you guys did what you were told jump in the back
of the five ton.
And then where did you go?
To your your little barracksyour little billets.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
It's the standard uh three mile rucksack carry, where
somebody leads you to whereyou're going and you have to
walk with all your bags and likepeople are falling out because
they have all your gear.
We used to fly at that timewith full combat load.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Correct.
So you're going from thelanding zone to wherever you
sleep.
Yes, and that was about threemiles.
It felt like it Hoofing it,yeah, and I had full combat
Shiver legs.
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(40:26):
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(40:48):
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Make sure you hit that link inthe description below I had
combat load of 240.
Below I had combat load of 240.
Oh, I totally understand bro Itotally freaking.
Understand, bro?
That was a javelin gunner, so Ilike the javelin, the clue.
Yeah, uh, dude.
So when you get there, when doyou start experiencing indirect

(41:12):
fire?

Speaker 1 (41:13):
so I fought bruce amaya.
It was at breakfast and atdinner.
That's when they would hit youguys Every day, and when they
felt happy they would hit us atlunch.
So it was, yeah, every day.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
Now that one did it have bunkers, or were you guys
just take it?
So they had bunkers but nobodyused them?

Speaker 1 (41:29):
Well, we started, just like everyone, you know, as
soon as you get there, likeokay, let me get the bunker.
But then they started targetingbunkers.
Really, was it accurate?
Yeah, absolutely, they hit thedefect.
They hit really x.
They hit because it wasn't abig fob and it was a decent size
fob, but it was in the middleof nowhere.
Were the rockets and mortars?
Mostly rockets, mostly rockets.

(41:50):
Yeah, it was mostly rockets.
So, um, yeah, it was like atfirst we run into the bunkers
and then we ended up realizingwe live in a 10 two-story house.
Right, if it happens, ithappens.
Right, there's no point to rundown there.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
So, as this is transpiring man, you were in
Fort Benning, georgia.
You're getting schooled by somecombat veterans.
You had seen the moviesWindtalkers.
You were in Germany, grafHohenfels.
Now you're receiving, nowyou're earning I mean, you're
earning your CIB, your combatinfantry badge.
What is going through yourbrain so?

Speaker 1 (42:25):
I think my first 45 days in a combat zone were like
very critical to what shaped meas a person and as a soldier,
and it took me a while torealize it, because I didn't
leave the FOB, like we didn't doa patrol for like two weeks,
three weeks maybe.
Do any left seat, right seatrights?
I was a private.
They did left seat, right seatrights.

(42:47):
I didn't do anything, okay.
So during one of the left seat,right seat rights um with
another unit, um, I think twolieutenant colonels got killed
because they drove in the samevehicle.
Fuck.
So they ended up getting smokedand it was just like, okay,
let's hold on a little bitbefore we step out the wire.
And my first patrol out of thewire, two dudes got killed.

(43:10):
Your first patrol.
Yeah, so the first first time Ileft the wire I'm like half
asleep from staying up all allnight things like that first
patrol.
They were in our sister companybut it happened right outside
the fob because they kept onputting efps or ids right
outside the fob.
So they started, we startedusing the back door.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
Then they put efps on the back door so those efps
didn't come to your time framedude yeah, that was a little
different thing that happenedwhen we were there.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
That sounds like a fucking nightmare, dude.
Yeah, because the oaf2 guyswould be like oh, I've been
blown up 30 times, I've beenblown up.
You know, I was like, okay,that's interesting, I guess I'm
gonna get blown up a lot.
Then come the fps like you getblown up once, twice, maybe you
know so.
My first patrol was out there.
Uh, one of the dudes gets, twodudes get, get, get killed.

(43:59):
And I'm just like my firstpatrol.
And I think it changed myconcept of what I got into,
because we had up armoredhumvees at the time and you know
, all the rf2 guys are like,yeah, we're up armored, we're
safe in here.
It's not the the stupid stuff.
I saw that up armored humveeburned down to rims because of
the efp.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Yeah, can you?
Uh, can you explain what thedifference is between an IED and
an EFP?

Speaker 1 (44:23):
So an IED is just basically like a bomb, like it's
an artillery shell or somethingor some kind of explosive, and
it just makes a big boom.
The EFP what it is?
It's like an armor-piercinground.
So what it would?
It basically essentially isit's something really small that
pierces and what they would dois they put four, five, six or
eight arrays up and it would belike a bullet about the 50 cal

(44:48):
size that just chops through anyarmor that we had.
It's like molten lava.

Speaker 2 (44:53):
Yeah, copper.
What was the copper?
Huh, it's molten copper.
It'd go right through an M1Abrams.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
Yep, it would go through any type of armor we had
at that time.
Were those through an able uhm1 abrams?
Yep, it would go through anytype of armor we had at that
time.
Were those effective?
They were very effective.
They, they, um, I think one ofthe things that I found out
about war that I see some peopletalk about, especially vets is
I don't know about their timeframe, but I believe by the time
I got there we had killed allthe dumb ones.

(45:18):
So all the videos that I sawbefore about a guy running down
to the street and just shootingat a tank with an AK yeah, that
guy's dead.
Like those guys are dead.
The ones that were left at thattime were higher trained, higher
skilled, more experiencedfighters and they would do
things.
When they would put the IEDs orEFPs down, they would target

(45:39):
the gunner and the TC.
Oh, that is pretty smart dude.
So I don't know.
I can't remember how manypeople I saw with their legs cut
off because the EFPs would aimfor this exact spot on the truck
.
And I saw a couple gunners withtheir heads chopped off because
they would aim at the head andthey would aim them.

(46:00):
So they would aim them and theywould.
They would aim at the head andthey would aim them.
So they would aim them and theywould time them.
And the dudes are smart whatwas detonating them?

Speaker 2 (46:07):
okay, you got to aim it right, but what?
What are they using to set itoff?
Is it command?
So it's a cat and mouse game.
Is it uh sensors?
Motion sensors from a garagedoor opener?
It's a cell phone, so this iswhat how are they so fucking
accurate?

Speaker 1 (46:22):
So the accurate is just how they aim it and
practice in time.
But how are they timing it?
Um, they did it a lot.
There was a lot of EFPs.
They we had like outside theFOB, within 300 meters.
They said within the last liketwo weeks, there was 30 EFPs
that they found.
They were trained militants,like were they foreign fighters?

(46:42):
Yeah, there were a lot ofiranians at that time that came
in.
Okay, so it was iranian specialforces that came in, trained,
regular guys and things likethat.
But, um, so basically that thattime frame in the war was at
first wire detonation we'relooking looking for people, we
can find them, shoot them right.
Then it turned into RFID, solike garage door sensors, so

(47:09):
whoever passed through this one?
So there was no bad guy nearby.
Nope, there was no bad guy insight.
But then they started doingsomething else where they would
do a command wire set up to acell phone, but the cell phone
would be like 150 meters away,so somebody could be 300 meters
away or they could be on theother side of the road, call

(47:30):
this cell phone and it goes thisway, so smart.
So basically they would dosomething.
They would kill us, we wouldcounteract it and they would
counteract it back.
So smart dude, do something.
They would kill us, we wouldcounteract it and they would
counteract it back.
So smart dude.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
So this time frame right here that we're talking
about was the surge.
The beginning of the surge wasthe iranians crossing over,
bringing efps.
And how about the um, thecultural war between the sunni
and the shiites?

Speaker 1 (47:55):
that was at we we would see firefights between a
shia in a sunni neighborhood andwe're like, oh, let's get it on
, let's go.
And they're shooting rpgs,they're shooting machine guns at
each other.
And then we we'd roll downthere and be like, let's go,
let's get it.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
And then we just stop shooting you know that the time
you served at a very, like,peculiar time in history man, I
think we're talking about this alittle bit.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
Yeah, I think I think that it took me a while to
realize it that eastern baghdadduring the surge was the worst
place during the war, except forhigh intensity battles like
city clearing and things likethat.
The intensity that was therefor a prolonged time and it's
just the amount of death thatthere was is just kind of

(48:44):
different, because on top of alot of our guys dying, they were
killing each other.
What about ING?
Were they getting killed?
I don't think there was ING atthat time anymore.
Iraqi police yeah, so I was IP.
The Iraqi police was with theShia.
No-transcript.

(49:22):
People tortured, peopledecapitated.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
So I read about that book.
We Fought for Each Other.
I told you my friend Wood, ryanWood, was killed in Adamea,
baghdad.
That time frame I went to basictraining with him.
In that book they talk abouthow they find dead bodies in the
morning.
What was your guys's role asunited states infantryman when
you see the dead bodies?
When we saw them.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
We're like, hey, it's a dead body, kind of leaders
call.
They're like, hey, let's go getthem, let's take them to the ip
station, let's turn them in sowe don't have like a random dead
body on the street.
But then they started puttingids on them oh fuck dude yeah
that's wild dude.
Yeah, so they started puttingids on them.
So we're like, hey, we'll just,you know, call it up, have them

(50:08):
come get it.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
But that's actually the first time I ever heard that
man I I've always known thatthey put ids and dead dogs and
donkeys right in their ass orwhatever, but this is the first
time I hear that they wereputting ids in dead bodies yeah,
because they saw they.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
They look at us, everything we do.
They're like how do we killthese guys?
Absolutely yeah, it's a cat andmouse game.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Imagine that dude you would.
I mean, it sucks to get hit byan id, but imagine getting hit
by a dead body, dead body, id.
You're gonna get all kinds ofnasty shit on you.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
Yeah, a lot worse than a lot worse than you would
regularly get.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
Wow, dude, holy fuck, Is this affecting you at all,
or are you just embracing it andyou're just experiencing it?
Did you feel like you were inyour element?

Speaker 1 (50:52):
It was interesting because during that first
deployment it was a trying timeand, like I said, the first 45
days, my first patrol I saw twoguys get killed.
Like as soon as they get out,boom, these two guys get killed.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
We get their bodies um but there's more to them
getting killed.
You have to bring the bodiesback or put them on a medevac,
the phones shut down for 72hours.
You have to do the ceremony.
Then the ramp ceremony is likeis all of this affecting you?

Speaker 1 (51:24):
I mean I don't think I had time right, because within
the first 45 days, um, I sawfour people, five people get
killed, americans yeah, five areguys, and I was next to two of
them.
So and it's just likeeverything just happened so
quickly.
Back to back those first 45days.
It just it was kind of shockingand the thing that affected me

(51:48):
too was that a lot of the OF2guys that had been in Fallujah,
that had been in different wars,they were just like, yeah, this
is not supposed to happen.
They were like this isdifferent.
So we're at that time where itwas a sniper the Juba sniper,
the Baghdad sniper was big and Iwas a gunner and they were
killing gunners nonstop.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
So at the FOB we were at Did that motherfucker ever
take shots at you?

Speaker 1 (52:09):
Yeah, yeah, I actually come out in the video
where he shoots the guy next tome.
Really, yeah, that that.
So what was that dude shootingout of the back of a trunk Yep,
back of the trunk, like the DCsniper?
Did they ever kill him?
Yeah, they got him Good.
I think the SEALs got him Good.
So so that happened.
And then we end up snatchingthe dudes up that are selling
the video, the DVDs.

(52:30):
They're putting it out aspropaganda, right.
And one of my buddies is like,hey, juan Carlos, look at you,
You're in that video, that's theplace.
I was like, no way.
Then I look at pictures that Ihad from that day and it's the
exact same place and I don'tknow what it was.
I watched that video everynight for three months straight.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
You were in a Gunner, in a Bradley or Humvee Humvee.
Did you guys have Bradleys?

Speaker 1 (52:51):
Yeah, and you guys used Bradleys on patrol we would
roll bradley sometimes and thething is is, since it was
baghdad and like we had a carbomb go off, cnn was there in
five minutes.
By the time we went back to thefob we were already on the news
car bombs, roadside bombs, efps, rockets, mortars, snipers and

(53:14):
grenades.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
Talk to me about the grenades bro.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
So they would in certain mostly in Ottomia they
would.
It was a very tight, narrowarea and they would throw
grenades at the gunners.
It'd be kids too, huh yeah,it'd be like 15 year old kids.
They would throw grenades there.
And one of our guys actuallyended up getting a medal of
honor for jumping on a grenadeMcGinnis yeah, ross McGinnis,
honor for jumping on a grenade.

(53:37):
Mcginnis yeah, ross McGinnis.
Mcginnis got a medal of honorbecause he jumped on a grenade
to save his battle buddies inthere.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
So earlier I asked you if you knew Lyle Bueller,
bueller.
I went to basic training withBueller.
He was in that Humvee, okay, soI know who he is now.
When McGinnis sacrificed hislife for everybody in there.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
I definitely there.
Yeah, I definitely know who heis now.
Yeah, yeah, there's a smallworld, bro, it is infantry 126,
118.
And then were you in countrywhen mcginnis did that?
Yeah, we were deployed.
How did word spread about that?
Or did you guys hear about theso?

Speaker 1 (54:12):
I was.
Yeah, we actually heard aboutit, and then I was a gunner.
They're like, hey, starttraining to slap away ied or
grenades, because they'rethrowing grenades at us.
So I'd be in there as a kid,you know, messing around.
I'd be like, ah, smacking,pretending like I'm a smack, a
hand grenade thrown at me, what?

Speaker 2 (54:29):
did you guys?
Did you guys put up any defensemechanism around the turret?

Speaker 1 (54:44):
So we ended up putting HESCO, cutting a HESCO,
which is kind of like a net thatgoes over a metal frame that
went over the turrets, and youguys just improvised that.
Yeah, somebody came up with itin our unit and they just
improvised it and it actuallybecame sop everywhere, and then
now they of course made into ametal turret.
Okay, so now they have metalturrets and now they don't even
have gunners anymore when, whenyou were gunning, were you
sitting on the strap.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
What were you guys directed to do?
Sit on the strap or stand up?
Uh, both.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
But it just.
It just depends because, likearea on the fob, a static
bradley with about this muchopening, uh, we had three guys
get killed there.
You know, say that again.
So on the bradley you have thehatch where you can open up like
this.
The first guy that got killedwas standing up straight name
tape, defilate as they call it.

(55:26):
It's a name tape here.
Yeah, yeah, he got shot in theface by a sniper, by a sniper,
fuck.
So the next guy sat a littlelower.
Okay, he got shot in the faceby the juba snipers because they
came out on the videos and then, um, were they more than one?
Yeah, it was a group, but theymade it.
They made it seem the propagandawas like it's one guy like one
fucking ghost.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
Yeah, yeah, fucking like a horror, but it was a cell
.
I didn't know it was a cell.
That's why I like you puttingout the history bro yeah, yeah,
so it was a cell.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
I ended up finding out that later on.
But yeah, it was a cell ofwell-trained individuals, but
ended up the iraqis uh, syrianson of a bitch, I think syrian
and jordanians one of thesomething like that fucking geek
in their jihad on dude.
Yeah, so this is one thing Ilike about old school army
leadership right?
So two guys get killed on thegate.

(56:15):
Sergeant major says people areterrified.
Sart major says I got this.
Sart major goes out there,opens and just looking out this
much at the time.
He gets shot in the face too.
He gets killed, killed.
Yep, but that was whatleadership was.
It's like you're from the front.
Yeah, follow me follow me.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
You guys are getting fucked up, or it sounds like you
guys are getting fucked up.
What was your guys's roe or sop, for instance, when, 2004, when
we got hit by an ied, our sopwas to open up in 360 degree
fire everywhere and anything.
Was that the same with you?

Speaker 1 (56:55):
so we couldn't do that at the time.
We had to get positiveidentification.
Positive identification, butthere were some certain things
that weren't necessarily threatrelated.
So, since we had so manygrenades being thrown on us from
the rooftops, we had a new SOPand then we put out flyers and

(57:16):
said if you're on a rooftop whenwe're going around, we are
authorized to shoot you.
So we're authorized to shootanyone we saw on a rooftop.
Another thing that we had iscurfew.
So if anybody was out afterthis time we handed out flyers
we were allowed to shoot them.
Another thing if you're diggingany type of digging, digging

(57:39):
Bro.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
digging in Iraq just sounds like a horrible fucking
idea bro.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
Yeah.
So anybody like if you'redigging you were a lawful target
.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
Sounds about right, man.
I can't really think of anyother reason to dig in Iraq
other than to plant a fuckingbomb.
Yeah well.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
Do you guys have body bags?
So towards the end of thedeployment we started carrying
our own body bags.
Right, because we ran out ofbody bags like we had to order
more, so I just carried mine inmy left cargo pocket at the
bottom how much death did yousee in that deployment?
um, I, I saw a lot and I didn'trealize how much it was because

(58:23):
it was new to me.
So it's kind of like the firstexperience is what you base
everything else off.
So the if2 guys were just likethis is different, this is
different.
And me, as a new guy, I'm likeI thought this was how it always
was so staff serge SergeantGolson.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
He was in OIF-1, the invasion with 1st AD, 1st
Armored Division, okay, and inJanuary of 2005, there was a car
bomb that killed 22 people.
Those charred pieces of peoplewere everywhere and I remember
he looked at me and he said thisis too much.
I've seen too much.
I got to get help.
When I get back and like you'reright, dude, for us being our

(59:02):
first time around, it's likeokay, well, this to us is normal
.
Yeah, this guy is saying it'stoo much.
What the fuck did that mean forme, bro?
Yeah definitely, definitely,right.
Is that what you were thinkingLike?

Speaker 1 (59:15):
it's clearly there's something wrong here yeah, this
guy like I had dudes that werein if2 and they were like in
baton rouge and fallujah.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
I was in baton rouge.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I heard everything about
banroo.
All my ncos were like what doyou know about baton rouge?
they're private I'm like I don'tknow it's in louisiana, but
yeah, no.
So, like it kind of startedthinking when these dudes were
like hardcore and they were justlike oh no, this is, this is
different, it wasn't like thisbefore.
This is a whole new level ofcrazy.

(59:44):
And then, like in baghdad, likein eastern baghdad, they used
to have like 80, 90, 100, 150people get killed in bag in
markets with car bombs.
They used to drive drum trucksinto there and then, like used
to go see like a river of bloodin the street and then they used
to pile up body partseverywhere and just be like what
are you supposed to do?
Did you experience fear?

(01:00:05):
I think this is something I'vetalked to with my friends,
because my friends like to say Iwasn't scared and I'm like no,
you were, you absolutely werescared.
And I think that's one of thethings that we're taught and
we're trained to do is toconquer fear and live with it,

(01:00:25):
like you're going to dosomething scary.
Yeah, you're scared, you'rescared to death.
It's a life and death situation.
But doing what you have to doin the face of fear is what kind
of bravery is?
Yes, it's dangerous.
Yes, you're scared, but youcan't let that dominate what you
want to do to accomplish yourmission.
Did you experience rage?
I think once.

(01:00:48):
I think once I kind of brokebecause we saw some guys up a
road and we were shooting atthem.
We weren't sure if we hit themor not, and then I wanted to go
in there and smash them andleadership was like no, I

(01:01:09):
flipped out, I started banging,I was driving, I was like
banging on the window, I waslike I don't know, just like one
of those points where I justfelt like just crazy.
But for the most time, no, itwasn't, it was, it was kind of
what I say.
It was the most honed in I'vebeen in my life, because it was

(01:01:30):
life or death.
And you better focus on whatyou're doing because it's
serious, it's not, it's not,it's not a game, it's, it's
serious.
You have to focus on whatyou're doing, not just that.
Focus on everything andsomething at once at the same
time there's nothing else likeit.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Man, yeah, it's, it's different.
Did you experience sorrow orloss in the sense of emotion?

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
well, yeah, when friends died, it was, it was.
It was strange, though, becauseit was like, okay, I'm sad but
I can't be sad, and it's justlike since, since, like I said,
since from the beginning it justkicked off and someone died.
Every 10 days someone waskilled.
So every 10 days we're goingand hearing taps and doing

(01:02:19):
ceremonies and things like thisit became kind of like you
became numb to it, because guesswhat, we got to go on patrol
tomorrow and guess what?
It's life or death tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
Did you ever experience child casualties?

Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
Yeah, like that, that that happens and I don't know.
It's one of those things thatwere you like we had kids shoot
at us too.
You know, I'm saying I had akid throw a molotov cocktail at
me.
I mean, I think in certainplaces, when you reach war and

(01:02:56):
what I realized that firstdeployment to is that a lot of
societal rules don't matter Likesociety rules of what?
No, none of that matters.
Like when we used to drive downthe freeway at night to get to
our sector 60 miles per hour inHumvees, which is like a space

(01:03:17):
shuttle because they they makeso much noise at that speed,
with nods on Lights out yeah,lights out down the wrong way of
a freeway into oncoming traffic, absolutely, and it's just like
we used to drive againsttraffic as fast as we could to
try to beat the timing of theIEDs.
And when we wanted to gosomewhere we used to actually
different from OF2, we used togo within traffic, because if we

(01:03:40):
went with traffic they wouldn'tdetonate the IEDs because they
didn't want civilian casualties.
So from the OF2 guys they'relike nobody get close to us,
we're going to shoot them Right.
For us it was like we ratherhave them close.
Oh, I hear what you're sayingBecause.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
That's a pretty good idea.
Yeah, because if they're close,they're not going to want to
blow up their own.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
Yeah, and then if we looked like it was a person,
we'd shoot warning shots orfollow our procedures, but it
was a big city so there's alwaysa lot of traffic, so it was
different.
But yeah, I mean it happens andit's kind of one of those
things like war has so manythings to it and sadly it's one

(01:04:22):
of the things that happens.
Kids get killed because bulletskeep going wherever If they
don't hit where you want them tohit they keep going.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
Do you think war is necessary?

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
That's an interesting question.
I don't think I've been askedthat before You're on the
fucking Hector.

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
Bravo, I don't fuck around over here, man.

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
Where's Nesser?
I think I don't, well, I think.
I think, yeah, it's necessary.
I think it's part of humannature and it just it just bound
to happen.
Conflict, and it's the ultimatelevel of conflict, and I don't
think it'll be something thatgoes away, It'll be something

(01:05:03):
that evolved.
But I think human conflict isneeded because we fight over
stuff, over materials, over land, over all kinds of stuff, oil,
oil.
You know, we need oil to liveas a country, we need to survive
, we need minerals, we need allthese things.
So people don't want to give itup, and I think it's needed

(01:05:28):
sometimes would you fight foryour country regardless of what
the political agenda was?

Speaker 2 (01:05:38):
Well, I think I did.
Now, after the fact, knowingwhat you know would you do it
all over again.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
I would, absolutely.
I know I talk to my friendsabout that too and they're just
like I don't know.
I'm like, no, absolutely Iwould, Because I couldn't live
with myself being an Americancitizen born here, not, you know
, raised here, Absolutely.
And then I look at some peoplethat are like our age and
they're like, well, I'm apatriot.
We're like, hey, buddy, therewas a 20-year war, why didn't
you put your money where yourmouth was?
You're an able-bodied young man.

(01:06:07):
Your country needs you.
Regardless of what the reasonis, somebody's going to go.

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
Have you ever had people approach you and tell you
like, hey, man, I served, but Idid not serve in a time of war
and I regret not going to war?

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
Yeah, I hear a lot of people say that what's your
take on that?
So as the wars winded down andI've had, you know, I stayed in
longer and people don't haveCIBs anymore you go into an
infantry company, you see barelyany CIBs Correct.
And then you see some combatpatches.
But they're not from war,they're from combat zones and

(01:06:44):
they're good dudes.
They're solid dudes, they'reready.
I'm sure they would be great inthe fight, but it's just timing
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
But I tell them you're better off.
You're better off that youdidn't experience.
You know what we did, becauseto me, I mean, I still carry
that, you know.
I don't know if those memoriesor thoughts, if you still carry
that, I'm sure you do.

Speaker 1 (01:07:04):
Yeah, yeah, I get nightmares like every other
night.
Right, yeah, but no, I wouldn'tchange it because it made me
the person I am today Correct,and I couldn't look at myself in
the mirror me personally, I'mnot taking shots at anybody or
anything like that but me and mymind frame and my person.
I couldn't be like there was awar.
I could have gone, and when Iget old, I don't want my

(01:07:27):
grandkids to be like, hey, popPop, I just heard about you know
, I heard about the war.
What happened to the war?
What'd you do?

Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
I was like I was out there getting it you were
literally out there getting it,man, before you were telling me
that you responded to an iedthat destroyed a bradley, yeah,
and you had to recover.
Can you, are you willing totalk about that incident?

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
um, yeah, so that happened actually twice shit.
And um, yeah, one to our sistercompany and one to ours.
And um, like I talked about,when I see the up armored humvee
, I saw it burn to rims and Isaid that's a bulletproof
vehicle, right, we're supposedto be able to survive that.
So by that time in the point itwas much later the bradley's

(01:08:12):
were our safety blanket.
We're like, okay, this isindestructible, they can do what
they want.
Maybe if P hits it or whateverreactive armor, we got a little
bit of extra going there.
Then I see that one flippedupside down.
What was it?
An IED that pushed it over.
So they changed to differentones.
They used homemade explosive,which became the big thing later

(01:08:33):
.
So they call it HME, homemadeexplosives.
So, and they use like the waythey did it is they made it in a
sewer, so the sewer kind ofmade it like a barrel, so it
intensified.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
They did it in the sewer, but what was it placed in
?
Had you guys ever found onethat had not been detonated?
So you guys know what it lookedlike?
No, it was just explosive downhere, just a bunch of fucking
explosive shit, and it wentstraight in a sewer.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
Yeah, timed perfectly in the bottom of a bradley and
what kind of screwed us up atthat time is that we were used
to other explosives because ourbradley's would get hit with, uh
, normal artillery, shell idsand, um, they put armor on the
bottom.
So what ended up happening isthe pressure went from the
bottom and it basically smashedthe whole bottom up.

(01:09:22):
That's fucking horrible, dude.
And Bradley's what?
35 tons, yeah, flippedcompletely upside down into like
a gigantic crater.
Any survivors?
Oh, no, so that I think that.
And you were QRF.
Yeah, so when that happened,there was a contact.

(01:09:44):
They got it and then the unitwhose it was, they got out of
there and basically it was likeoh, everybody, come here now,
it's a big deal for thebattalion.
And that day was crazy becausethe dudes are good, like the
enemy's good, and I think ifsomebody doesn't give credit to

(01:10:04):
the enemies of america that havefought, I don't think you guys
fought the good day team, youknow, because there's I'm sure
there's better, but we we foughtsome good.
They planted three ambushes, socoming out of where the QRF
would go, there was another ID.
Where another was another ID.
Yeah, they're not dummies byany means, yeah.
So like I think, and there waslike the three entrances, all

(01:10:27):
had ambushes.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
Were they able to successfully initiate each
ambush?

Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
Yeah, I think an MP got killed.
Fuck, who else got killed?
There was some other peoplethat got killed too, it was, and
then somebody broke their legs,or so what we ended up doing is
we ended up zigzagging becausethey're like, hey, this is going
on, it's gone, but like, we gotto get there, we got to get
there, yeah.
So we get there, we relieve theunit that's there and then
we're in charge of cleanup andpicking picking up body parts,

(01:10:54):
essentially was there iraqicivilians, or out and about, or
were they?
fucking cleared out.
They were gone.
Yeah, they were gone.
There was nobody looking aroundanything, um, but yeah, so we
had to like recover pieces.
We found, um, the top of thehatch.
We found it on a rooftop, like300 meters away.

(01:11:16):
Holy shit, dude.
So from the pressure that likejust finding it was massive and
it was the first time we'd everseen something like that and I
mean it was traumatizing.
It was like very traumatizingand by that time we had already
been there and it was a big loss.
And the other thing that wastraumatizing is, aside from a

(01:11:37):
new tactic that they brought out, that they already bring out a
new tactic, it was we're notsafe in anything.

Speaker 2 (01:11:44):
That's what I was just about to ask you what type
of psychological effect did ithave?
You see a fucking bradley crushlike a soda can it was just
like well, devastating,devastating.

Speaker 1 (01:11:54):
and then, one month later, we saw, saw it again how
much months later, a month, noway.

Speaker 2 (01:11:58):
Dude Yep, same area of operations Yep no way bro.

Speaker 1 (01:12:02):
Yeah, same tactic, same tactic, holy fuck.
Yeah, and that was our companythat got killed there.
And that's old schoolleadership too, because that was
there was a little bit ofissues, because one of our
missions was hey, go confirm anIED.
Every time we confirm an IED weget blown up Like, yeah,

(01:12:24):
there's an IED there.

Speaker 2 (01:12:26):
Got it.
Typical job of a fucking grumpbro.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
Yeah.
So you know, some guys weretold to go out there and do it.
And then they were like, hey,this is confirmed, this is an
IED.
You know, some guys told theunit that was going to go out
there like yo, there's a big IEDthere, just like the last one.
They're like well, we're goingto go.
The platoon sergeant saidfollow me, because they're like

(01:12:55):
who's going to take lead?
Platoon sergeant said got you,follow me?
And he got killed.
But he was leading his men likeyou're supposed to, like we're
taught to.
Is something's that dangerous?
I go first, you follow me, Ilead the way he got killed as a
result of that ied.

Speaker 2 (01:13:09):
Yeah, I don't know any other leadership style
besides leading like that fromthe front, bro, because that's
the way we were taught at such ayoung age that's crazy, though,
too, because now, as thingschange uh, that's how I was
schooled up.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
Like the first time I started kicking in doors,
absolutely, team leader was likefollow me.
I'm like thank you, because Idon't know, after doing it for a
while, like I'll kick in doorsby myself.
Let's go.
You know, I'm saying like it's,it's how much?

Speaker 2 (01:13:35):
how much raids were you guys doing room clearing um
an ungodly amount?
Or you're looking for targetsin the nighttime.

Speaker 1 (01:13:41):
You get intel um, so every time someone would get
killed, which was often we woulddo battalion raids.
So italian raids, battalionraids.
So we, that's huge bro, like 10, 10, 15 blocks, city blocks.
That's huge dude.
And they're like 12 hours agoand we were just kicking every
door, starting at nighttime,early morning hours, early
morning, all day.

(01:14:01):
Go kicking doors for 12 hoursand it's tiring, what kind of
stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
Were you guys encountering, uh squatters?
Fuck, I had another friend getkilled, hector lejo on haifa
street.

Speaker 1 (01:14:12):
What were you guys encountering, uh weapons caches
anything we're gonna fightweapons, uh, id materials, uh
propaganda, um, bad guys really,yeah, so it just, it just
depends.
But when we did like these hugeoperations, they know, and it
was kind of like a message like,hey, if you mess with us, we're
gonna destroy everything.
Breaking shit, it's breaking,smashing, I mean looking for

(01:14:35):
stuff and you know things getdamaged in the process, and like
, if we're going to look indrawers, we just empty them all
on the ground.
Correct, look behind, you knowthings like that, right?
So, yeah, it'd be things likethat.
So, and like we would do it,and we'd be like, okay,
mission's on hold, let'sbattalion raids and battalion

(01:14:57):
raids.
And we would just be like, hey,your platoon has these three
blocks and we would hit everythree-story house on that block.

Speaker 2 (01:14:59):
Now, I know you mentioned you were attached to a
tanker unit, which so were we,so I understand the misery of
that.
No disrespect, but were youguys being used and abused as
infantry, since you guys werethe go-to guys?
Well, we were.

Speaker 1 (01:15:10):
We were the well, yes and no right, so we got to do
the cool stuff.
They didn't get to do the coolstuff, so we got to do the raids
.
They sat in their tanks andcordon and they just like
probably fell asleep or whateverright, but we were getting the
action right.
Um details, of course we had todo extra stuff and it was just

(01:15:30):
like a manpower thing.
It sucked but at the same timehad her pros and cons what were
you guys being told?

Speaker 2 (01:15:38):
as far as the reason you guys were there, your
mission, our mission was to killbad guys.

Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
You know, like our mission was to go find bad guys,
snatch them up and kill them.
Were you guys effective?
I think yeah, we were prettyeffective.
We got a lot of HVTs, a lot ofhigh-value targets.
We ended up using a lot of HVTs, a lot of high-value targets.
We ended up using a lot oftechnology and I think the
write-up said we killed a lot ofpeople too.

Speaker 2 (01:16:04):
Were you guys able to identify the insurgents?
Meaning it was a lot ofhit-and-run tactics.
Were you guys able ever to geteyes on so?

Speaker 1 (01:16:14):
well, during that time, what they would do is
because they were smart, theyknow, they knew they couldn't
fight us head to head, correct?
So what they would do is theyinitiate with the ied or an rpg,
depending what they had, shootat us as much as they could see
if they could kill any of us,but once we gained fire piracy
priority, they would justdisappear, right, and then it
was it was frustrating.

Speaker 2 (01:16:35):
I was just about to ask you did you find that
frustrating it was?

Speaker 1 (01:16:38):
frustrating.
It was not like afghanistan,where those dudes will, they'll
let you kill them you went toafghanistan also?

Speaker 2 (01:16:43):
yeah, so as the tour winds down in baghdad.
You said your initial contractwas three years, correct?
God damn, you got a thirtythousand dollar bonus for three
years.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
Uh, and three hundred dollars a month for three years
for Boeing 2.
After that, people were getting$45,000 bonuses.

Speaker 2 (01:17:01):
Man, they screwed my boy.
He got six years in theinfantry for fucking about that
same much.
That's six years.
When did you reenlist?

Speaker 1 (01:17:11):
We got orders before we left.

Speaker 2 (01:17:14):
So before we left you guys got orders to go to
Afghanistan before you left.
No, Iraq.

Speaker 1 (01:17:17):
Okay, before we left about seven months, eight months
, into a tour, they were likehey, we got orders to come back.
No way, bro.
How did that feel?
I mean, halfway through, firstwe got orders that, hey, you get
extended 15 months instead of12.
And we're like what's that mean?
They're like what's that mean?

(01:17:38):
They're like I guess we'restaying here, yeah.
And then after that they'relike hey, we already got orders
for your next deployment.
You're gonna be back home for12 months and then you're gonna
go back to iraq for another 12months was your first deployment
.

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
What you had anticipated combat being like?

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):
absolutely not in what way?
I think combat is like sex.
You can describe it to somebody, but when you feel it it's just
different and you expect it tobe a certain way.
But it's different especiallyin the type of fight we were.
We were basically waiting toget killed the majority of the

(01:18:14):
time.
We, less often than not, got tobe the aggressors.
So when you got to beaggressive, we were aggressive
because we were like finally,I'm not just driving around
waiting to get killed andambushed.
So when we got to be aggressive, we're like finally, I get to
go, be aggressive and get outthere and get it.
So I thought it would be likefront lines, using the tactics,

(01:18:39):
fight to fight.
So did I bro.

Speaker 2 (01:18:41):
Yeah, I thought you know we line up on one side and
bang, bang, we shoot it out.
Yeah, no, Because we're hidingbro.

Speaker 1 (01:18:50):
Well, and that's one of the things when I train
people I talk to them about andlogically it makes sense, but it
doesn't click in your head whenyou're training.
Oh, target range, boom, peopledon't want to die, yeah, so
people will do the most.
So you can't kill them.
They will be hard to kill,right, and it makes sense when

(01:19:12):
you think about it, but youdon't think about it when you
see big, man-sized targets thatyou have to shoot down.

Speaker 2 (01:19:19):
Speaking of big man-sized targets that you have
to shoot down, what did youthink of the 5.56 round, the
green tip?
Do you find it to be effective,ineffective, discouraging?
I'm sure you guys were shootinga bunch of motherfuckers with
green tips.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):
Yeah, it was a bunch of green tips.
I haven't shot anybody with thenew bronze tip, but, um, I'm
not that much of a gun guy tounderstand.
Yeah, I mean, were theydropping dead?
Were they running away?
Uh, it depends, because a lotof them are on drugs, right.
So we shoot some of them andlike I yeah, I know I got that
dude because you'd see him trailup like that and they just keep
running, you see a blood trail,but then the bodies would be

(01:19:54):
gone.
So we like shoot dudes and likewe see blood trails and then
they wouldn't be there.
So I'm not sure of theeffectiveness, I'm not sure
about the drugs, I'm not sure.
But hey, if the army says thisround's better, I'm gonna shoot
it right so did you end up goingback, back to back to, to To

(01:20:16):
back?

Speaker 2 (01:20:16):
yeah, you did, yeah, and you re-enlisted in between.

Speaker 1 (01:20:20):
So I knew I was going to get stop-lossed because of
my timeframe and what they endedup doing is you'd come back
Within six months.
They'd put up a fence Anybodythat's not ETS within the first
six months.
You're getting stop-loss andyou're going again.
So my first deployment my teamleader was stop loss 22 months.

(01:20:42):
So he did OF2.
He was supposed to get out.
He did three-year contract.
He ended up doing like afive-year contract.
And then I knew I was going toget stop loss but I waited to
reenlist until we were downrange so I could get the
tax-free money for the bonus.
So until we were downrange so Icould get the tax-free money
for the bonus.
So I waited all the way up tothe end because I was like I'm
going to reenlist.

(01:21:02):
And then I was talking to theretention guy and he said, yeah,
just wait, because you're goingto get it tax-free as soon as
we hit Kuwait.
As soon as we hit Kuwait, healready had the contract signed,
the papers got it tax-free.
When did you make thatdetermination that you were
going to reenlist?
I think one of the relationsthat I said is that I came back
and I got in a lot of troublestill, and this time it was I

(01:21:22):
wasn't right and I knew I wasn'tright and I knew I couldn't
reintegrate in society andtalking to other people in the
Army with my deployment, wecould only relate to that level
of craziness that we wentthrough.
So I could talk to them aboutit and we could be okay.

(01:21:42):
I was like I don't want to gosomewhere where I can't relate
to somebody and talk to them onthis level.
So I didn't think I couldfunction in normal society and I
wanted to stay with my people.
So I was like I'm just going tostay because kind of like the
conversations we're having rightnow, you talk to somebody that
hasn't been through things likethat about it.

(01:22:03):
They're going to look at youdifferent, they might judge you,
they might not understand andthey can't relate with you on
that level.
So I was like I need to be aplace where I am normal, not
where I'm abnormal.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
What kind of stuff were you experiencing where you
realized you did not fit backinto society when you came back?
Anger, anger issues, road ragethoughts.

Speaker 1 (01:22:32):
I think, the level of violence.
When I came back back, I wasactually happy.
I was actually very happybecause I was like I made it
right, I'm happy.
But I was actually reallydepressed and great.
But I used to drink a lot,party a lot, but I was all about

(01:22:53):
having fun drink a lot as inself-medicating, or drink a lot
as in drink a lot, so I used toparty because I know my friends
would be sitting there in thebarracks drinking and I'm like I
don't want to drink.
if I do that the only time Iwant to drink is I want to go
out meet some ladies that Ihaven't been around for a long
time and fall in love everynight, and that's what I used to
do, but my friends used to justlike to go out and drink.

(01:23:15):
I'm like I don't know.
I'm like I drink enough already, but like I saw a lot of
friends self-medicating.
I think one of the things thatI saw that I look back now as an
adult or as like more of anadult right that changes how
somebody looks at how they reactwhen they come back from combat

(01:23:35):
.

Speaker 2 (01:23:36):
Now are you talking about coming back to Schweinfurt
, germany, or stateside?

Speaker 1 (01:23:40):
so I went stateside for two weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:23:44):
So you're experiencing this in Schweinfurt
, germany, and you were stillfeeling some things, even though
you were surrounded by themilitary presence yeah, we were.

Speaker 1 (01:23:53):
Just it was wild Cause, like you can't take 15
months of intense trauma.
Well, actually I had 45 days ofleave.
I went to Nicaragua and thatwas an adventure.
And, um, yeah, then we cameback and we had to come back to
work.
But it was like, okay, let'swork, but let's go out and have
fun, party Cause.
Guess what?
We already got orders for thenext appointment.

(01:24:14):
So it's you touch down, seeyour family, cool.
But what happens is you can't.
You can't unload, you can'twind yourself down, because you
come back and it's like no, wegot to get ramped up.
We got a bunch of new guyscoming in.
We're leadership.
Now we have to show them thisis life or death.

(01:24:34):
We have to train them upbecause they're going to be
watching our backs when we godown range.

Speaker 2 (01:24:38):
But at that time, were you guys finally
experiencing the mourning ofyour brothers that were killed
in Iraq?
No, no, because they didn'thave the time.

Speaker 1 (01:24:46):
Still, we couldn't wind down because like, hey, if
I get sad over here, I'm notgoing to be able to do my job.
Mission focus Right, focus onthe mission I don't know, worry
about that some other time.

Speaker 2 (01:24:57):
I can't turn into an emotional wreck because I know
it'll be an emotional wreck now,in that time frame, when you
guys got back from the surge,was there talk about
post-traumatic stress disorderor was there any emphasis on
mental health from from the bigarmy um?

Speaker 1 (01:25:11):
we did our first tbi test so, but they didn't take a
baseline.
So we had all been blown up.
A bunch of times we were likemy baseline's already whacked
out.
True, they talked a little bitabout it, but at that time they
were just handing outantidepressants.
That's not good either, yeah.
So all they did was like, oh,you don't feel good, here you go
, and they were just handing outantidepressants like candy.

(01:25:34):
And with a lot of drinking, anantidepressant doesn't go for a
good mix.
So it's either you drink andself-medicate or you get on
strong antidepressants.
So most everybody just woulddrink when was your second

(01:25:55):
deployment to Iraq, and how didthat differ from your first
deployment?
My second deployment was tosouth of Baghdad, hila, the Hila
province.

Speaker 2 (01:26:01):
How paced.
How was that slower pace inBaghdad?

Speaker 1 (01:26:05):
Uh, there's, yeah, absolutely, it was completely
different.
It was, um, I think it wasdifferent for me because at that
time I had gotten in troubleand they moved me companies.
So then, like I bounced aroundto another company and then,
like I bounced around to anothercompany and then when I bounced
around to another company, Ididn't have that shared
experience anymore, because Iwas with the company of guys
that were in ramadi during thatdeployment and I was like the

(01:26:27):
only one over here from baghdadand then we were close to
baghdad, so they had theirexperiences but yeah, ramadi was
off the fucking hook too atthat time yeah.
So from what those guys told methat they said, at the initial
there was it was strong, it wasintense, but then it kind of
curtailed and it was kind ofchill and they were bored.
And you know those are soliddudes and they were like we.

(01:26:47):
They wanted to come reinforceus because we were losing so
many people to injuries and todeaths.
They were like we wanted to gohelp you guys, but we couldn't.
They didn't let us.
Were they a bravo 126?
okay, they were attached to 177okay, I was attached to 177 yeah
, so they're attached to 177that went over there, 118 went

(01:27:08):
south baghdad, 177 ramadi andthen we went to east baghdad
interesting, man so yeah, solike Second Dagger Brigade, yep.
So I was around them and I justI felt like I couldn't relate
Because they had never beenaround EFPs.
And there was EFPs in the area.
I was like, just drive fast,like whatever, like just get
over like Just drive fast.

(01:27:31):
That's what we used to do,because what we used to do is we
used up getting SOPs and whatwe used to do is military
organization.
Everybody like, hey, 50-meterinterval between vehicle.
What ended up happening is likeno, we can't be ordered,
because the naked time wasbetter.
How close did you come to death?
I'm not sure.
Did you embrace it?
So I think that's one of thethings that changed my point of

(01:27:54):
view in life is, during thatdeployment, in the first 45 days
, I saw so many people getkilled and I just continued to
see people get killed, eitherour units, other units that were
going through our sector, and Isaw a lot of Iraqis get killed,
but that didn't affect me thesame as Americans, Correct.
And then, basically, it came tothe point where I saw dudes

(01:28:19):
that were better men than me,better shape, better prepared,
smarter, braver, betterinfantrymen, did everything
right, got killed.
That kind of made me take theperspective of like no, that
dude's like.
That dude's a man, you know,that is the man that I wish to
be one day and he got killed.

(01:28:40):
Where does that leave me Right?
So it came to the point where,when I was talking about
mentality, when you get backlike you have to embrace it.
So, like a lot of us not all ofus made the decision I'm
probably going to die here.
It is what it is.
I can either kill as many ofthem as I can and go out

(01:29:03):
fighting, or I can do everythingI can to get home in one piece,
and there's a difference.
There's a difference and Ipersonally believe that showed
when they got back fromdeployment what part, that part,
what choice they madeinternally.
Are you serious, absolutely?

(01:29:24):
I think it's a confidence thingwhen you make that choice that
you're gonna fight to the death,absolutely, and you're gonna
embrace it and face death andyou're okay with dying but
you're going to take out as manyof them as you can.
Or, in the back of your mind,like I'm going to kind of just
do enough.
But In what ways could you seeit when you got back?

(01:29:45):
Confidence, women with womenright, because it was all male
units at that time.
Right, I knew guys that wouldgo out and women, like confident
men, just like men, likeconfident women, their
confidence was gone Cause, likea little voice inside of their
head was like you didn't step upto the plate when you needed to
, when it counted.
You were just trying to gethome.

Speaker 2 (01:30:07):
That's an interesting theory, but yeah, I made the
decision that I was going to dieover there.

Speaker 1 (01:30:14):
Yeah, and people do that.
They come back and they'reconfident.
You could feel the confidence.

Speaker 2 (01:30:20):
I mean, we carried an extra round in our pocket in
case we were going to getcaptured.
We were going to fucking killourselves, man.

Speaker 1 (01:30:25):
Yeah, I wouldn't do that, I'd just fight with my
hands.
No, I didn't want to end up onthe internet.

Speaker 2 (01:30:30):
We didn't want to end up on the internet getting our.

Speaker 1 (01:30:32):
We're just fucking off ourselves if it came down to
that yeah, I don't know if yousaw it, but like you could tell,
like guys that used to get alot of girls and used to like
ladies men, when they came backthey weren't the same.
You know, I'm saying theyweren't the same because they
don't have that self-confidenceof hey, when it gets, when it
gets down on the line.
That's an interesting theory,dude.
Yeah, that's that's kind oftheory that I saw.

(01:30:53):
Saw, yeah, that I was just likeoh, like that person doesn't
exude confidence Because theydeep down know that they shied
away at the moment of truth.

Speaker 2 (01:31:08):
Do you think every man should experience combat?

Speaker 1 (01:31:12):
No, I don't.
I think it's okay if they don't.
I think it's not for everyone.
I think the infantry is notthey don't.
I think it's not for everyone.
I think the infantry is not foreveryone.

Speaker 2 (01:31:20):
I think war is not for everyone but earlier you
made the uh statement ofeverybody should serve their
country.
Were you saying just in anycapacity, whether you're a pog,
no disrespect or just any mosabsolutely, I think.

Speaker 1 (01:31:33):
I think that's.
That's a thing.
So during that first deployment, I saw people that weren't
infantry or support units.
I saw them do amazing things,right, because they saw what we
were going through and theystepped their game up Right,
right right and they were like—Mechanics.
The mechanics would be sleepingthe whole night.
We'd come back.
They're like I don't care, Iwas asleep.

(01:31:54):
They'd come over there, let mefix your stuff, because you guys
are fighting the war and ourjob is to make sure you guys are
ready fuelers yeah, yeah, shoutout to all the mos's.
I mean, it's all part of thefucking military machine yeah,
and they stepped it up becausethey saw what we were doing
right.
So the whole unit was betterbecause everybody knew their
part.
That was integral.
We didn't talk bad to them,correct?
We're just like no, you'rehelping us, thank you.

(01:32:16):
And they'd be like yo go take ashower, you know, because we
hadn't showered in a week, andthey're like yo, go take a
shower, I got you.
Did you guys have air supportin baghdad?
Uh, well, we had more, becauseit was the city.
We had helicopters, I was, oruh, oh, no, uh, apaches, okay,
so they would.
Let us have apaches sometimesfor big missions.
We'd have, would you guys talkwith them through cons yeah,

(01:32:38):
well, I wouldn't because I wasprivate, correct, yeah, but yeah
, yeah, when they would, theywould just fly around and they'd
be like hey, we'd get in afirefight.
I'm like, hey, that buildingright there.
I'm like cool, yeah.
So, but we didn't get the coolstuff.
Like in ramadi, they would cartan arty, they were shooting
main guns.
We didn't get to shoot mainguns from the tanks in the city
what about charlie company?

Speaker 2 (01:32:59):
were they shooting main guns in the well?

Speaker 1 (01:33:00):
they didn't have no tanks huh, no, well, they had
two sectors, and one of thesectors it was too small, right
for tanks.
The other one, but, um, werolled tanks there.
But when they rolled tanks theydidn't want nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:33:12):
I want to say that they were shooting main guns in
samara, Baton Rouge.

Speaker 1 (01:33:16):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Back then and even during thattime frame, in different parts
of the country they wereshooting main gun Right.
But since we were high vis anda tank round is going to go
through a couple houses,Collateral damage man.
Yeah, yeah, and it was big.

Speaker 2 (01:33:34):
So, ultimately, what life lessons did you take away
from being a combat veteran?

Speaker 1 (01:33:42):
It's a broad question that I hadn't thought about
either.
Do you value life more?
Yes, I think, with trauma andPTSD and things like that, I've
had so many friends killthemselves.
I've had so many friends killthemselves.
I've had so many friends die.
One of the big things I see withhere is I value how I'm going

(01:34:04):
to die.
What I mean by that is how's itgoing to seem like, hey, juan
Carlos, you went to war so manytimes, you faced death so many
times for so many years and thenyou died in a car accident
because you didn't wear yourseatbelt or because you weren't
paying attention.
I don't want to die like that.

(01:34:24):
I want to die an old man.
You know what I'm saying.
I value how.
I want to die more.
I don't take risks that I don'tneed to, and people are like I
remember I get friends.
You know homies back in Cali.
They're like you wear yourseatbelt.
I don't drink and drive.
I'm like why am I going todrink and drive?
Like, no, like.
Do I want to die drinking anddriving Like I'm a combat vet?

Speaker 2 (01:34:48):
Either I'm going to die in some kind of fight
figured I was going to go out ina blaze of glory man.
I don't want to.
Well, I kind of do.
I mean, if I got to pick youknow, that's kind of the way I
want to go, I want to die oldand happy.
Do you Absolutely Old and happyYep, you're already on the path
, man.

Speaker 1 (01:35:07):
So I am old, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:35:11):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (01:35:11):
a good head on your shoulders, bro, for experiencing
everything that you experienced, dude yeah, it's a rough path
and, um, I remember getting tothe age that I talked to friends
, you know, and it's just like Ijust turned 40 and I'm just
like, hey, it's a blessing forpeople in our profession, it's,
it's an accomplishment to reacholder, older age true.

Speaker 2 (01:35:32):
What's that saying?
That they say be aware of oldmen.
That in uh be aware of old menin a profession where men die
young yeah, yeah, definitely sowhat is it that you do now?

Speaker 1 (01:35:42):
I know you mentioned you're gonna go do some business
back in nicaragua, so um,basically the first 14 years I
was in the army, it wasback-to-back deployments and
then it was peacetime tours andit was things like that.
So for 14 years I was on and itwas training, it was doing this

(01:36:04):
and it was just like 14 yearsof being burnt out.
And what ended up happening isI got an instructor position in
a non-combat role and I starteddealing with some stuff and I
was like, okay, I don't have tobe wound up and turned on,
started dealing with someanxiety, some issues like that.

(01:36:24):
So I was like, let me go getsome help.
When he got some help, I thinkit changed my life dramatically.
And then I was like what do Iwant to do with my life?
Because I was looking at thetail end of my career that was
coming and I was like, okay,your combat days are done,
there's no war, right, what'swhat's next?
So I started going to school Ihad the time because of that and

(01:36:45):
before I didn't have time to dothat.
So I started going to college,started getting educated,
started reading more, starteddoing more things like that.
I initially wanted to work afterI got out of the army to get a
job.
I didn't really know what Iwant to do, but I just know I
want to start school.
Then what ended up happening isthe army, and it's amazing ways

(01:37:06):
.
Right before I get to ready toretire, they give me drill
sergeant orders.
Okay, drill sergeant orders.
You got to turn it back on.
It's not the same Right, it'snot life or death, but you're
getting up at.

Speaker 2 (01:37:18):
I used to get up at 3 45 every morning kind of is
like life or death when you'reteaching the new privates
recruits well, I didn't feellike it because I'm not gonna
die.

Speaker 1 (01:37:28):
Right, I want to teach them to do as much as they
can get a good base, of course,but it wasn't like I'm sending
these, these young men and women, out to war right now, correct,
it's the possibility.
You want to train them withthat mindset, but you don't want
to overkill them and think like, if you don't learn this, you
die, because that's what theytold us in base training.

(01:37:49):
They were like, if you don'tlearn this, somebody's gonna die
.
Well, they weren't lying.
Yeah, it was the truth, thatwas the mentality, right?
But you can't convince a youngperson, correct?
You don't learn this, you die.
Like where, where's the war?

Speaker 2 (01:38:03):
you know you can you're fucking smart for their
own good man.

Speaker 1 (01:38:06):
Well, that's honesty you know, and I think that's the
best way to work with honesty,yeah, like this is not, but you
need to have some kind of baseright.
So I did that two years.
It was 10 weeks, three days offfrom four.
We had to be there at five inthe morning, get off at like
seven, eight, nine, hell, no man, miserable, yeah, hell, no dude

(01:38:28):
.
So, doing that kind of steppedoff college a little bit started
business.
Uh, business opportunity cameup with immigration stuff.
You ever see, privates do dumbshit.
That's all they do, that's allthey do.
So what ended up happening wasone of the things we were doing

(01:38:48):
there was helping soldiers withimmigration stuff become
citizens.
So I have had foreign wivesGerman of course and I've gone
through that process, so I washelping them through that.
Then I was talking to them andthey were telling me, like hey,
drill Sergeant, you know peoplecharge like 5,000, $10,000 to do

(01:39:09):
this.
I said, excuse me, I did it inlike 15 minutes with you.
Light bulb popped, starteddoing that.
Started doing that.
Started helping peopleimmigrate legally, fix their
status, doing things like that,charging much less but a lot
more than people would expect.
Right, that became well while Iwas a drill sergeant.

(01:39:32):
With the new administration,immigration changed.
I saw that coming and I pivotedbecause I knew this was going
to change.
I pivoted into land developmentin Nicaragua because I saw
people working here.
What do they want to do?
The people that I helped.
Come here legally.
They said I want to buy a housein Nicaragua, I want to buy a

(01:39:55):
pile of land.
Come here legally.
They said I want to buy a housein nicaragua, I want to buy a
pile of land.
So I invested in some land downthere and then I was like I
don't want to be the seller, Iwant to be the buyer.
I want to be the seller yeahbecause I saw how much money
people were making like no, no,I'd rather sell than buy.
So I started working on thatproject and that's what step I'm
on now and that's going toevolve into something else,

(01:40:15):
because I always want to seesomething, seek opportunity,
have enough capital, seize itand exploit it.

Speaker 2 (01:40:23):
That's awesome, dude.
You definitely got the rightstate of mind, bro, especially
with all your experiences.
You're attacking thisentrepreneur's business with the
same mindset from the militaryexperience.

Speaker 1 (01:40:32):
And I think a lot of people want to do it and I think
one of the mistakes people makeis they don't go through the
academic portion of it, becausepeople can be successful in
business but having thatacademic backing makes things
different, not just academic.

Speaker 2 (01:40:50):
I think it's a fear of failure.

Speaker 1 (01:40:59):
Also you got to yes, because the way I tell people
the higher the risk.

Speaker 2 (01:41:00):
The more money you make, the higher the risk, the
greater the reward.
Is what some people say yeah,higher the risk had reward, but
it's also a higher failure yeah,and you're gonna fail more, but
we made the decision, we werewilling to die at one point, so
anything else in between is fairgame.

Speaker 1 (01:41:15):
Yeah, I'd never thought about it like that, yet
I think that that mentality Imean really, what matters
nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:41:21):
Yeah, it's like I could be broke.
I'll be okay, exactly, dude.
Well, I wanted to thank you forcoming on the show, bro.
I really enjoyed thisconversation, dude, like taking
a trip down memory lane,absolutely, and I know one of
the biggest takeaways you wantedwas to document history.
Absolutely, yes, I think youdid that a good job of that man
yeah, and I've been followingyou and I.

Speaker 1 (01:41:42):
I don't actually agree on everything with you,
but you know what it's okay, Irespect it and I I respect you
as a person.
I respect your story.
I think it's great that you getto tell it and share it with
people.
Cool, thank you for that dude.

Speaker 2 (01:41:55):
Well, there you guys have it folks.
Another banger.
Man of uh, honorable militaryveteran bringing you another
banger.
If you haven't alreadysubscribed, make sure you hit
that subscribe button.
Love you guys, keep pushingforward.

Speaker 1 (01:42:13):
Unhinged line, hector's legend engraved Living
life raw never been tamed Fromthe hood to the pen.

Speaker 2 (01:42:20):
Truth entails pen.
Hector Bravo, unhinged storynever ends you, Thank you.

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