Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 056 - Vincent Vargas

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

Join us for a discussion with Vincent Vargas, entrepreneur, actor, writer, author and producer. Vargas is most recognized for his recent portrayal on Mayans MC. In this podcast Cam and Vargas cover private prisons, border control and more! Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com Connect with Vincent: https://www.instagram.com/vincent.rocco.vargas https://www.youtube.com/@Vinnyroc  Thank you to our sponsors: MUD\WTR: https://mudwtr.com/cam use code Cam for 15% off  Ketone IQ: https://hvmn.com/CAM use code CAM for 20% Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first order Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com/  MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping Leupold: https://www.leupold.com/ Timestamps: 0:00:00 Book Publishing, Jocko, & ORIGIN: Book Publishing 0:05:38 Vargas’s Military Background 0:07:57 Drill Sergeant & Lower Class Kids 0:11:51 Sons in the Military  0:14:06 Cadence of the Military 0:15:16 Working for a Private Prison 0:22:27 Cam’s Prison Visit & Inmate Conversations 0:27:15 Vincent’s Tattoos 0:32:17 Lessons From the Military 0:34:29 The Border, Immigration Law & Homeland Security  0:40:09 The Immigration Trafficking Business 0:42:29 Politics & Immigration  0:49:31 Are Immigrants Getting Veteran Housing? 0:51:22 FL National Guard Help on Border Control 0:57:36 Padding Democratic Voters 01:04:30 Veterans & The Drinking Culture 01:09:47 PTSD, EMDR & Counseling  01:14:08 How Quitting Drinking Has Helped Vargas 01:18:46 Light Diffuse - Accountability Group 01:20:23 How Vargas Got Into Acting 01:24:47 Is There Money in Acting? 01:27:17 What’s Next For Vincent 01:30:15 Vargas’s Book: Borderline 01:32:54 Jon Bernthal’s Interview with Vargas 01:36:16 Outro

Every step I take, I move my truth. Every time they tell me stop, I use. Every comment hate that makes my feel, gather up my energy, and boom. I hear them talking, saying the way that I'm moving so reckless. That is a part of my mind I've been blessed with. Giving my blood so I am relentless. Well, here we are. It's the Keep Hammering Collective with Vincent Rocco Vargas.

So what do you go by? Anything, really. Vince, Vince, Vinny, it doesn't matter. Everyone kind of falls into something, but Rocco or Vince is probably the thing. Where's Rocco from? A buddy of mine. One of the guys in Black Rifle. J.T.

He's the one who created that. Oh, yeah. Me, Matt, and J.T. So me and Matt were in Rangertown together. Okay. And we were kind of the beginnings of Article 15 clothing before Black Rifle. We go out and do like meet and greets with Matt. Like a lot of people wanted to meet Matt.

And one night I was kind of a, the bouncer. People were like trying to get him to drink shots. I'm like, nope, stop. Be alone. Giving them space. Kind of making sure everyone stayed together. and it was safe. I kind of take that father role a lot.

And so at the end of the night, he was like, damn, you were like a bouncer, like Rocco the bouncer. And then the next day they posted on social media, meet Rocco. And then boom, it just kind of took off. There you go. Coincidentally, my great-grandfather's name is Roque, Rock. Oh, okay. So my mom thought that's where the nickname came from.

No. Unrelated, but hey, it works. Right. Well, it's great to have you here. I mean, I've been following along on your journey for a, while. I like what you do. I've seen, I don't know, you're making an impact out there. And you just, with your new book out, borderline, and plus this timing is crazy with what's going on at the border right now. So yeah, it couldn't have been better timing. When I wrote it, I wrote like five

chapters and I sent it to Jocko. And I was like, hey man, what do you think? He goes, you you got an agent? I was like, no, he goes, you got one now. Oh, nice. And so he connected me with his agent. Right. And we just went through the process, man.

And so he's, you know, he did the same thing for me. Really? Yeah, because I didn't know how this whole book thing worked, right? And it's like, I don't know shit about anything. So they're like, well, you got to meet with these, there's four publishers in New York, and then they kind of make this pitch type thing.

But then he had went through McMillan before for his book. Yeah. So he was just like, and he wasn't just talking about any, any publisher in particular, but he just said, he goes, hey, he was just know that this is a business. And he's like, no matter who you go with, they're not your, he goes, I'm your friend. He goes, if you call me and say, hey, I need some help, bring, bring like black plastic and some duct tape. Right. He goes, I'll be on a plane and no questions asked.

I'll come there and help you. He goes, they won't. Yeah, no. They're not friends like that. It's a business. It's a business. But anyway, he gave me some good advice, and I ended up going with McMillan, who I know you went with too for your audio book at least.

And yeah, so he's a great resource. No, he's great. And he's helped me a lot along the way. You know, he's been kind of a part of my life just kind of accidentally, obviously the veteran space and stuff. But he grew up with one of the co-creators of Mayans. Oh, okay. And so who is one of my mentors and good friends now is Elgin James,

who eventually took over the whole show. And so one day Elgin comes up to me and goes, hey, they call each other brothers, right? Because they grew up since they were little together. He goes, hey, you might know my brother. And I was like, everyone does it. You know, you're like, oh, your buddy's in the military? You know, John? You know one of those?

And I was like, fuck, here we go. You know? And he goes, this name's Jaco. I was like, there's only one Jaco. I was like, Jocko. He was, yeah. I was like, oh, fuck. Yeah, I know him, dude.

Yeah. So I was, we were doing a premiere of our, or we had a documentary called Not a War Story. And I said, hey, I would love to invite him. And he came. So that's where we first met. And we've kind of just had this cool relationship ever since. Turned out to him publishing my book under his, uh, they call it an imprint, uh,

Jocco publishing, I think it was. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, I didn't realize that. Yeah, yeah. So it was the first one under that imprint under the, yeah the whole new publishing that he's doing so pretty cool he's got a whole empire going yeah yeah it was cool i went down to his place and did a podcast and i was this is all rad dude i mean

oh yeah origin i know and they just signed with ufc too and i was like god dang bro i know and then one of the that big actor too i don't know Chris Pratt Chris Pratt I know such have you met him no dude i would love to i feel like that dude is like one of the realest dudes in hollywood he seems to be nice guy you met him you met him you've met him you've been you Yeah, yeah, nicest guy. I've been trying to, he was actually in hunting camp that I was in. I didn't, we didn't run into each other. I think I left and he came in and he ended up killing a bull.

But, yeah, I mean, Hunter, nicest guy. He's got a little farm, I think, up in Washington somewhere. Really? Yeah, yeah. And he's a patriot and just watching. And on the acting side of my world, watching his growth as an actor, it's been freaking phenomenal to see him just kind of be that guy you just hire for comedy and then all of a sudden, just main character and just a badass all around.

Yeah, and he stands up for, you know, he's, he is a believer. Yeah, God and Country. Yeah, God Country family. He says it. He's not afraid to say it like, you know, Hollywood is. I mean, you would know more than anyone. But, I mean, so we just hit on a lot of different things, but I can't believe everything you're doing. How have, from going how you grew up and your life, did you ever envision?

you would be like an actor, not only serving in the military, that's usually like, I mean, that's a pinnacle for a lot of people because that's a huge honor. Right. And our country relies on, you know, men and women serving. But did you ever think this would happen this whole journey? I don't think my kids are all texting me. They were getting out of school right now, so I'm just going to turn that off. No worries.

But no, I don't think I could have ever imagined this. I thought it was going to be a baseball player, dude. Baseball. Yeah, I thought it was going to be a professional baseball. player. Were you good? I thought it was pretty damn good, bro. You know what I thought it was pretty good, you know?

Yeah, it's all right. I think I've seen guys. Pitcher. Pitcher was probably my, where I stood out in the sense of being left-handed and throwing decently hard, but I can hit really well as well. And so when I got into college, that was the big fight where they wanted me to focus on left-handed pitching. I would love playing the outfield.

I feel like I could read the ball really well and as well as I can hit. And so I was pretty athletic, too. So I didn't want to take away the athleticism and put me as the only. as a pitcher. And so I fought with a couple college coaches about that. And eventually I got a full ride to a Kentucky school in NAA school in Owensboro, Kentucky. And I lost my full ride from academics. And so I tried to play other places, never worked out, kind of watching the war on TV. And I was like, well, I have a daughter that's trying to find a way to pay for some diapers and formula. And so I joined the military. But, you know, I joined trying to do like,

fucking infantry. Like, if I'm going to do this, I want to see it. I want to be a part of that world and I want to do special operations. I scored a 110 on my GT school. Excuse me a 108. And so to do special forces, I had to get a 110 and they didn't have a two-point waiver at the time. And so I had to do Ranger. And again, no fucking clue what Ranger was besides the movie Black Hawk Down.

And I was like, fuck yeah. And I was like, I don't know if I had the balls to take the fights in the enemy like to think these dudes. But it was an intense movie. dude that's what I was like but I would love to fucking see if I got it in me you know and so that's what I decided to try and do and what when were you uh you were a drill sergeant too right yeah so after you do your active duty I did my four years active duty with range of town um and then kind of figuring out what I want to do I kept my foot in the door doing reserves and as a reservist I joined as a drill sergeant so I had to become a drill sergeant I had to go to drill

sergeant school do all that thing and so the reserve side of being a drill sergeant is slightly different In active duty, they get DA selected. Essentially, you get forced to do that as your downtime. If you're super busy going overseas a lot, they kind of give you this, hey, you're forced to go be a drill sergeant. It's kind of your relaxing time. There ain't no relaxing of a fucking drill sergeant. But that's what they did. It was the best.

I tell people, being an Army Ranger was the most exciting part of my career because, you know, going to war and it's fucking dope, right? But rewarding being a drill sergeant is like being a father to a lot of kids. and watching them grow and watching them be curious and giving them insight that they've never had. I've had kids who never knew how to shave because they didn't have a father. You know what I mean? And so I was teaching them how to shave.

I was the father figure during that time. And I also was teaching them and knowing they were probably going to war within the next few months. You know, this is in the middle of, I was a drill starting in 2010 to 2011 at Fort Sill. And so the war's still hopping and popping. You know, these kids are going.

one of the guys in my first cycles within 30 days of leaving and graduating going overseas, he was killed in IED. So it was a very real job knowing that a lot of them will be going overseas. But two, man, these young kids, it's really incredible to see coming from these areas of the country

you never heard of who have no experiences with people. Like, I've never seen a black age storm, how to act? Fucking normal, dog. But like, they've never been able to talk to anyone that looked like me and to ask how do I act around them? Like, man, that's crazy, dude.

Yeah. There's still that. You know what I mean? I grew in L.A. Every race. Right. People that don't have that. There's people who, one kid, man, it was a four-hour break, right?

They have a four-hour leave to go eat somewhere. And he goes, Drill-Sahn. I said, what are you all going to eat? You know? And he's like, Drill-Sont. And he was a little soft in the bridges, you know what I'm saying? He was like, Drew-San, I'm going to get me a steak. I was like, all right, private?

Where are you going to get that steak at? You know, and there was a Texas Roadhouse. there's a couple other spots he goes i'm gonna go to steak and shake and i was like probably if they don't have steaks their dog they have steak burgers yeah he's like well why they call it steak and shake this kid his whole life has driven past a steak and shake and always wanted to but couldn't afford it could never go there wow and it just like broke my heart dude yeah and that's the kind of like innocence you see these kids are serving they're more poor middle class and just needed it right just like I needed it at the time.

I didn't have another option. I wasn't paying for college. My parents couldn't afford it. These kids are serving because they need the opportunity of what the military presents to them. Yeah. And that made it very beautiful yet emotional, man. Like, God, these kids, they're only coming here to get dental and, like, just basic money. Yeah.

You know what I mean? And it was just, it was cool. It was a really cool thing to be a part of. Yeah. Because it is, you know, they see it as like, where am I going to get a job? Like, oh, I could join the army, but then they're being sent overseas to war. Yeah. I mean.

Yeah. And all they wanted was that possibility of paying college. They never would have had the opportunity to it. That's the truth of it, though. Like our poor middle class serve our military, you know? Yeah. Crazy. That's intense.

Yeah. Yeah, it is. Because, you know, as a dad of somebody who served too, my son, it's like, there's no, you don't know. You're here wondering what's going on over there. It's, yeah. My son, we've talked recently, he's a freshman. And we're thinking about trying to get him into West Point, right? Because he wants to go to college, but I was like, well, let's get college paid for.

Let's go to a cadet program. Let's do it. We're going to become an officer. And I was like, you ever thought about West Point? He goes, I just saw a video. I think I want to try. I was like, oh, shit, you know? And then I'm like, what kind of job would you want to do?

I don't know. I was like, don't do infantry. And the dad of me was like trying to protect. him from that world, you know, but he's my son. I imagine he wants to try and do this similar to what I did. Yeah, that's a scary fucking thing, dude. I know. Well, I...

How did it feel for you with your son? Man, you're just so invested because, you know, when he's in Rasp and going through things, I remember stories of the drill sergeants and the different ones, some were harder than others. You hope like you're doing the push-ups and like, you got to get this many or whatever. and like this one guy counts, you know, pretty strict. So it's like you hear, it feels like you're there because then you're like waiting for the update, right?

How did it go? And yeah, and then, you know, the land nav that was always, you know, you hear stories. To me it sounded like, God, that sounds fun. Yeah, it's stressful. But for us it's stressful a shit because you don't make one of those. You go home, right? I know. To me, I heard all the stories and I'm like, God, that sounds like a pretty damn good time.

But I'm old. I've done, you know, whatever. I don't have expectations weighing on me, right? So I just have a lot of respect for, you know, the men and women who, well, for Rangers, that's men. I don't know if there's been any women. So, I mean, you know, women deserve respect. And I'm not trying to take it away.

But for those guys, it's usually like badass men. Yeah. It's all there is to it. It's fucking hard. And so I got nothing but respect. And so when my son became one and you too, it's like, man, I just really look up to, to people who serve that for our country and fill that role and go overseas and fight because that's what they signed up to do. Yeah.

A lot of so much respect. Yeah. Thank you. It's, uh, I think I was too young to even know the gravity of it. Yeah. I was just like, fuck it, pay these bills, dog. I know. I think when I got there, I started to like, fuck, this is some real shit. Did they ask you why you want to be a Ranger? Uh, I don't know if they did. Uh, but the answer was, like the reason why I felt I was like, I want to surround myself with dudes who want to be the best as well. Kind of felt like I was safer in that sense of like surrounded by dudes who want to continue to push themselves to be the best.

Right. That's how I felt the most secure. Like if I'm going to do infantry, I want to do like with the best of the best. Yeah. And yeah. And if they ever asked me, that's probably the answer I would have given them.

Well, yeah. I mean, when you walk down the street, if you're with a couple other, like, if you're with some badass guys, you feel safe.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's probably similar to that. Yeah. And it was crazy. to see how the regular army looked up to us. Like the first time going to the PX, you're someone know exactly, he puts on a tan beret, right?

I mean, you stand out and you see the looks. And people would be like, are you a Ranger? Yeah. Yeah. Like, you get a goddamn run out of him, kid, you know? You need me on that wall. It feels good, man. I bet, I bet. I can't imagine.

I didn't serve, but I, you know, through my son. I could imagine what that feel like. And yeah, pretty amazing. So you went from there and then drill sergeant and then what did you do? It was a prison guard the same time as a drill sergeant because I was going, the reserve time was drill and then a prison guard. But immediately I applied for the Border Patrol.

So I was going through the Border Patrol hiring process, which took about. What prison was it? It's a private prison. It was called CCA, a corrections corporation of America. And so first time I ever heard of a private prison, I just knew that. Yeah, I don't know what that is. Really? No.

This is going to blow your fucking mind. Okay. Because back then it wasn't as controversial as it is now. Private prisons, what happens is, so think of the state of California. At one point, all of their prisons were overfilled. Right? There were max capacity. And so when I get to max capacity, you start having issues with food, with the dangers of that and everything else.

And so what these private prisons showed up, they started to build a prison. and charge the state cheap for housing their inmates. And so if it normally costs about $15 a day to have an inmate, I guess the cost of what it is to feed them housing everything, well they were offering it for cheaper. So hey, you can house them with us for $10 a day. And so that's what they were doing.

So these private prisons are all over the nation now. And so it becomes a weird thing when you make a business out of imprisoning people. Yeah, definitely. Because then you're like, wait a minute. Are we just starting to put motherfuckers in here for business? Because that's a little shady. And making a little money.

Right. And so that's the weird thing. And then for us as corrections officers who work for that, you know, we're the liability because as soon as we start, you know, you put hands on a dude because he puts hands on you, and you try and protect yourself,

as soon as he throws a kite, a complaint, we're the one who are potentially disrupting the money flow. And so it doesn't feel safe for us, either like we're against the machine. Right. Yeah. So it's a really weird space.

And you're not hiring these dudes who go through the academy. You're hiring people who are just kind of like looking to do corrections. So I was like a monster compared to like 80% of the people there. There was a few of us that were like in shape and wanting to do this job and hopefully getting to the next level of this, meaning finding a state or a federal job of it. So you have a retirement. The state doesn't have retirement.

You have just your 401k. I mean, excuse me, the private president doesn't have that. So you have a small group of guys who are like in good shape. The rest, they're just trying to knock out another paycheck. And so, fuck. Tough situation. Yeah. So there would be fights and they're like, Vargas.

I'm like, fuck. here we go God they had a we had to do a cell extraction one time and they said hey grab the best team and I'm only there 30 days

right but they knew my background right I'm like yeah legit yeah good enough to figure this out right and so they're like hey grab the best team you can these two dudes are fucking drinking and they're destroying

one of their cell how are they drinking so in prison they're able to change their diet and they make it right so if you change your diet to it could be a whatever diet

There's certain diets that offer oranges and fruits, right? And so I think it was called a kosher diet at the time. And so they're saving their fruits and they're able to ferment it and make it. So they make it, right? They make some prison hoot. Man, that shit smells good, dude. It smells like some good bourbon. Yeah.

The ingenuity in prisons. Yeah, I bet. Yeah. And so they were drinking. They were celebrating something. One was in there for murder. One was in there for attempted murder. They're both natives at one of the local, you know, in the surrounding Indian reservations.

And I read up on. the dude who committed murder and I was like damn this dude is gruesome like how he did it was pretty pretty heavy so I was already like my my sense of like stress was like okay we're in for a fight yeah these dudes are in there forever so they got nothing to lose right exactly and now they're drinking and so um I got the best dudes I could but at the time I was only one dude I was really like I know this guy can fight he's a big dude he was an 80 second airborne guy in the past did some of Iraq time so I said lor dude you're my dude bro you know and I got whoever else was there and it was like this guy named Stogner who was like a 350 pound just dude I was like hold the shield right so everyone had

their job um we opened the food trap and I was surprised but they had a porcelain toilet and so they broke the toilet they threw it out the door and it hit me in the leg and I was like what was that and the captain was like the toilet they broke the toilet I was like oh shit so we threw gas in there it was a it's a OCCS mix we put it in there and usually that kind of calms them down but they threw it out the back window so they busted the back window too So now we have no means of like, you know, kind of slowing them down. Right. Everything we've tried.

Yeah, exactly. And so my captain just looked at me and he goes, well, they got nothing else. You ready? I was like, oh, fuck. When I looked in there, dude, they were wrapped in in blankets like ninjas, like white ninjas, dude, like for padding on the ribs, their elbows. For protection, yeah. They had sandals, chancelos, right? They had them cut for elbow pads and knee pads.

They had their face covered. I mean, when I looked in there, I was like, What the fuck am I doing, dad? Oh, man. You're like, what am I doing? They opened up the door. The first two dudes went in. They both slipped because they were soap all over the floors.

This was part of their trick. One of the tricks they do. And then it was me and the big dude, the dude who committed murder. And everything slowed down. I've told the story before. It's just crazy how it goes. But everything slowed down. And I see his arm doing kind of a wave.

And I'm like, what the fuck is he doing? Like, what's his hand doing that? And then it kind of sped back up, and he's hitting me with a sock with some of the porcelain toilet. Oh. And that's when I was like, oh shit, this dude's trying to fuck me up. Yeah. I grabbed them. We started kind of like close-hand fist, punching him in the face.

And we both slipped and fell. And when we did that, he dislocated his shoulder. And I just kind of kept hitting him until they pulled me off him. And I was like, what the fuck? And then they're fighting with these other dude. So eventually we got control of the room. Whoa. 30 days into this fucking job that's paying me $21 an hour, right?

No retirement. And I'm sitting, I drove home thinking like, what the fuck am I doing? They make that at McDonald's now. I mean, $21. I know. And it probably only pays 23 right now, right? And it's like, I couldn't believe. I was like, what am I?

It took me the whole drive home thing, I'm like, I feel like I'm going to quit. I want to quit. Like I wanted to be like, I have three kids at the house. Yeah. You know, I'm going to school full time just to make do of what I used to make in the military. So I had to hold on to this motherfucker. And I was like, fuck this job, dude. This is crazy.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's pretty much how my prison experience went until I finally got on with the Border Patrol. And that's, you say there's a bunch of private prisons so that's going on everywhere that's a do so there's cca which in arizona at the time had one two three six different prison facilities all had different contracts i'm talking alaska contract a federal contract a california contract i mean the list goes on california contracts are the crazies because those are like california rules so like that's even that's what you have the big

gang problems right we had i had to do i had to do um cell extractions at the california one for for a big riot they had you know what i mean and then why end up going into the special operations of and was just on a call to a SOAR team, special operations response team, and you get activated to go help with these riots all over this, this little area of Arizona. Wow. And then you have another company that was across the street called Geo, another private prison company.

But these are all over the nation. You can Google them. They're all, it's a, it's a different thing. Wow. I, you know, last week I went to a prison for the first time. Went and talked to the inmates. I had never been, didn't know anything about it. And it's like, it was weird because,

I mean, your experience is way different. You worked there, but it sounds weird to say, but the guys I met seemed like great guys. I mean, I was like, and then I heard the stories about what they did, and I was just like, holy shit. But on a human level, they're human, dude. They were, you know, and so I said this on a, I did a podcast other day, but it's like, you know, they made a mistake. Some of them made many mistakes, but it could have just been one. and then there they are. It's a weird thing because there was, you know, I had,

I didn't have the hand tattoos yet, but I still had the full sleeves and guys would always ask me questions. What are you from? You know, and so I started gaining kind of a reputation. They called me Street Marine. They didn't understand military. The new was, I was, they'd come here, Street Marine. And so I'd get issues with dudes and jack them up.

They'd be like, Street Marine, that was him. He did it. Right. So to do a thing. But you start to kind of build some reports. war with these guys. And I could have a good conversation with someone who was in there for kidnapping. You know, there was a guy who was part of a, one of the Mexican Mafias out there. And he was a, one of the guys who used to hold people ransom for them. And he's in there for a long time, dude,

but we can have serious discussions. And he'd say, hey, bro, you know why no one fucks with you? I was like, why? It was like, one, because I was ready to fight everybody. I just got out, I just got back from Afghanistan dog. You know what I was like, so I was already pumped. But he said, you're the only one in my shift that would come with creased pants, nicely ironed. clothes and shiny boots. You take yourself serious. And it was crazy to me that he observed that. Yeah.

That he, they saw that and they're like, that guy takes this job serious. Wow. And so for them, they knew like, all right, that's someone we probably won't fuck with

unless we had to kind of thing. Right. But then I also learned that one dude in that whole pot controls the whole thing. So something knuckold was fuck on me. I could just go to the big dog, but tell the guy to quit fuck me before I fucking close this whole place down. He goes,

next time you come in there, that guy comes and goes, hey see you all I want to say I'm sorry like yeah and it's a really interesting place of respect I saw me the other day was like uh like a you know a gang member for that's in prison for life and a serial killer bumped into each other in prison and they both said sorry you know because there's so much man who's in prison yeah yeah it's an interesting thing that that is yeah I mean I a whole different world but it's still like that that creed amongst man I guess is that are probably always there's a it's always there's always

always going to be something to it. Yeah, in that environment is no one fucks around. Like, we don't, we need something like that and, like, day to day. Yeah. Because right now people can talk shit online and no repercussion. You know what I mean? Yeah. But in prison, everyone knows everyone in there for something serious.

So the repercussion of being rude is getting fucking killed. Right. So then it's like, we'll just be a good person. And if you make a mistake, just own it, you know? Right. And that's cool. Everyone does that. Yeah.

In real life, there's dudes, I want to smack dudes all the time. Yeah. I understand. interesting. I mean, so I mean, there are lessons to learn in prison. Absolutely. I mean, I think we can learn some lessons anywhere. Some people might think, what could you learn from a murder, right? Or a criminal, but you can. Yeah, and it's, it's, it sucks to see someone lose control of their life and make one mistake that probably keeps them in prison for the rest of their life. Yeah. You know, because some of those guys, then they have to defend themselves in prison

their whole life and they get stuck there. It's one guy to talk to this big black guy. there. He's been in 31 years. Seemed like he had on a gold chain. He's like, seemed nice guy. He said he'd done 225, 34 times. I was like, God dang, freaking beast. And he seemed, I don't know. I don't know.

I'm not sure what he did, but, and to me he was good. I don't know. It's a whole different word. I enjoyed going in there and if I could be a distraction or they could think about something else because I was telling bow hunting stories. Yeah. Good. Yeah, man, it's, it's, it's, I don't look down upon anyone in prison like that.

You know, there's certain people who've done things that are kind of unforgivable. Yeah, those are like, okay, definitely. But then there's people that grew up in the same neighborhood I did and either got into drugs, you know, got into gangs. And they felt, they fell in love with the community of that gang and did things for that gang because it was their family. You got to feel for that, man, because their own upbringing didn't have that for them and so they went looking for it.

Like, I don't know. I feel for, I have the empathetic views on all that shit, right? Yeah. The human experience is crazy, man. Yeah. It's sometimes, some people are a victim of circumstance or environment for sure. So what, when did you get all your tattoos? Was that before or have you, have you still been getting them?

Yeah. What do you got? Yeah, I kind of keep going. You know, I think right now I'm pretty full besides some areas of my ribs and I need to finish a stomach tattoo that I started from my boy Will XX. He's just really good. I just haven't had time to finish it. And then my legs, I need to start finishing too.

But I grew up, my father had tattoos my whole life. I've been going to tattoo conventions. So I was like 10 and 11. Really? And it's just kind of part of me and my dad, my dad's culture, but he brought me along. I'm kind of one of the kids that he brought me everywhere with him. And it was really cool. He was an L.A. city firefighter.

And, you know, he had to change a few of his tattoos. So that for the L.A. fire department. But he just kept getting tattoos and tattoos. And so he's got his full back chest, legs. every sleeves he's probably going to get his hands done soon now that he's retired and it's for me growing up was kind of how we connected so I'd come back from like Afghanistan boom I get I get another tattoo meaning we'd go to get tattoos together come back from my racket tattoos together and it's kind of turned into a thing now we have several tattoos that

are similar praying hands on my stomach me and him both have it the lady Guaralupe on my back is something that he has I just have a different version of it we both have Viva la Vargas on our biceps so I don't know I just respected my dad for so many years and it became thing and so we've continued to kind of get tattoos and you know i met my wife because she posted a tattoo and i liked it and i was like oh and so me and my wife go and get tattoos all the time too that's awesome and so it became a thing what so from your deployments would you get a tattoo based on the deployment or no you know i was i was i'm sure your son seems to be very similar to me in the sense of like there's the ranger culture that was fun for war but soon as i was able to kind of step

outside of that i was back to being myself i had my own identity and you know i i I just saw the world slightly different. At the time, I was kind of questioning my faith and going through my trials and tribulations of that. And so I started getting kind of like demons on this side and eventually it goes all the way up to salvation on my shoulder and all represented kind of like what I personally was going through and trying to figure that out.

You know, and then I just kind of just keep filling space. And at one point, I just, you know, I got Jesus on my hand and one of the sayings here is Psalms 1832 to 45. And this was told to us before a mission by Jeff Strueger, a well-known chaplain, but also he was one of the gentlemen who was in Blackhawk Down. Oh. And so he became my chaplain, and we were going on a mission. And it was a mission that was supposed to be pretty hot and heavy.

And so he said the prayer, which was an honor for us to have him there at the time. And when he said it, I was like, I've never heard words like that in the Bible. Where is that? So I asked him later. And so I got a tattooed my hands. And it talks about, you know, giving the strength to bend bows of brass and giving your hands to strength for war. And so it was this really cool version of the Bible that I never heard that in the United States. then in that moment kind of stuck with me.

And so continue to get tattoos that mean something. And then some that don't, man. I got some dumb ones, dude. I think I got the rock on the side of my leg that's not very nice looking. I got Dady Trey-Hole on my leg. I got Taco Life. You know what I mean? My mom hated that one.

Eventually you just start liking the way your skin looks with the color on it, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Well, I don't think tattoos need to make sense to anybody else, but the person getting them, right? Absolutely. And as long as you got a story there, or maybe no story. Maybe it's just for fun.

Yeah. And that's okay too. I mean, you're living with it. What did you learn from your deployments? What do you learn? What do you take or bring back from those experiences? You know, it's what I, two sides. I learned a lot about myself and like what we're able to accomplish in that team effort of like the range of town.

It was cool to train, but it was really cool to see it come in action, like come together in real life. Mm-hmm. building the camaraderie and in the closeness you get with people when you when you go to war together is different like I thought I was close to my baseball friends like now the war friends are different and and I've since tried to find a lot of myself and in that kind of lost connection to some of my buddies because I think we're all on different paths of growing or trying to accepting or at least I am but there's a lot of things in war that I also kind of kind of kind of come to terms with of, I guess, the other side.

I started to see how the other side of the people and how they experience war, the families, you know, the innocent people in just the countries that kind of see the aftermath of what we leave behind. And it kind of just changed perspective a little bit. Not that I wouldn't do it again. Yeah. But I think, I guess I wasn't prepared to see that. I think that's the side of it.

And it's kind of what makes the border conversation. it makes me more empathetic towards that too. Yeah. It kind of leads me into, we have to see, and not saying like, look, I'd go to war, kicking doors and do the same thing, because I know the connection to some of the people that we've killed or captured overseas,

had connections to terrorist acts in America, so which makes it justifiable and makes you feel like, fuck yeah, I'm doing something good. But to also see the screaming face to the family members and watch their husband get killed, is something that sticks with me. Yeah, I'm mad. I think not everyone feels that.

I did, and I kind of hid that for many years. Yeah. So now I'm kind of accepting of it. Yeah, that's intense. How do you, so what parallels do you see from that to the border? I think a lot of people see the border situation as one conversation, and I think it's actually two conversations that have to happen at once. and if both sides of this conversation actually communicated better,

they would both see that the answer is more in the middle, and there's kind of a middle ground to it. You know, this conversation with the border, it's two things happening at once. You have immigration law, and you have Homeland Security. The protection of our nation that happened after the 9-11 incident. We had to introduce Homeland Security measures to protect our nation from outside, you're right, outliers who want to do harm upon us.

Right. And then you have immigration law, something that we've had, immigration for the existence of this great nation. And immigration is a part of this country. But now we have to answer both of those without losing too much of one of the other. If we do too much homeland security, well, then we become similar to like a North Korea, and then we don't allow immigration. And that becomes we lose the dignity of what this nation kind of stands for. if we do too much immigration and not have home and security well now we open the door to potential threats and we've risked the people who live here

and who have always gained sanctuary of this nation and so that conversation is right in the middle there and what most people probably don't know is I think it was last year the number is 1.5 million people were allowed to immigrate to America legally the legal process that sounds like a really good number and that's cool

but how long did it take for that? them to get that could have been 12 years. Could have been seven years. And so that process, like when you say one answer, what's the deeper to that? We're not having those discussions. And when we don't have those discussions, we're not doing our due diligence and really understanding this whole immigration system and situation. Yeah, because, you know, you mentioned the 1.5 and it made it take in 12 years.

Well, who knows what the truth is with the news, but they say that, what, 10 million have come over? And yeah, I mean, that's an estimated number, but but it's not far off. So you have, you have, um, what they call is godaways. And so the only way you, it's not a definite science and how to market got away. You know the ranch is down at Eagle Pass. Yeah. If I'm tracking someone from the river and I say, hey, I got it. So what happens is again, that's not a perfect science either is like I say, I say I got footprints of about 10. Someone who's hunted before you know what that looks like. And you're like, okay, I got about 10. Why do I say 10? Well, this footprint looks different. This placement. here and also different souls. So I'm going to give around 10. So if I call 10 here and we continue to track us all the way up to the poloom and we see it get to a road and it doesn't go over, that's a godway. And that's marked as 10 gotaways. I don't know.

Could have been nine. It could have been 15. Right. Around there. Correct. So the number we give the best estimate. And so that is what gets marked as a godaway. And those are the ones we mark as godaways.

And so there's times where guys hit the river boom right into a vehicle and gone. Yeah. So it just depends the traffic, you know, the issue down in Shelby Park right now is like, that's fast traffic that could be out of the boat ramp, boom, right into a vehicle within seconds. And so we can't determine all that. But, yeah, the number currently right now people are throwing around the 10 mil, you know, and I don't think it's far off. And they say that it's like war age fighting men is what, that's what the news says too. Yeah. So are these coming from Central America?

Yeah, I don't use that term because I think it's thrown around too lightly. if you think of it in this sense. Like, I'm not saying it's not, but I'm also saying who are the guys who usually work for the families is the working age males. Right, yeah. So it's like...

Could be, but maybe it's... Yeah, maybe it's just working. I don't know. I don't discount that that's the age who goes to war. Yeah. But I also don't discount. That's also the age

that usually works hard and sends the money back to family. So I think when you use that term is a form of fear-mongering. Yeah. And it's leading towards one viewpoint. And so I don't use that. I'm just saying, yeah,

There's a lot of males coming. Right. One thing that makes me more nervous is the exotic. And we call them exotics in the sense of like, people come from Mexico is not uncommon just by the location. It's right on the border. Yeah. People coming from South America, not uncommon. Right.

They're coming up north. People coming from Africa. People coming from China. People coming from Russia, right? Those countries in Middle East, damn, that's a long trip. Yeah. And who's paying for that trip? Right.

So that becomes a concern of like those are countries that we know we have enemies, right, people who don't want to see good upon our great nation. We know that if they're able to make that trip, someone's financially backing it, even if it's them. Like, how do they get that money? Right. And so there's a lot. That starts to pose the question of like the special operations tactical side of me goes, huh, that makes me a little uncomfortable. And so immigration as a whole, we might have a massive influx right now because they know right now they're getting in. And so that's just causing more.

So it's a really good word of mouth system they have. And the trafficking organizations are really good at capitalizing on our little snafus, our little kind of like immigration loopholes. Right. As soon as they find out that, cool, this is the area. Boom. Because every state sometimes has different policies, whatever those policies are. Like you start to see it as a body comes in, like as a person comes in, as a migrant comes in

and maybe gets arrested and they go back home, say three days later, four days. whatever it is. It depends. Like the old system, when I used to work, they'd get housed for 30 days and get to return back to their country. So they go back and tell them that. And so then they go, okay, cool.

So in this area right now, they're being held for 30 days. That area is one, this area is 30. Let's start putting them that way. So that becomes like the business model for the trafficking organizations. So they learn how to fluctuate their movement. Also, there's multiple different trafficking organizations

working at borders. So some in different San Diego, to Tucson to Texas, all different organizations, all trying to do the same thing. How do they facilitate more movement and make more money? So they get paid for getting people into the United States, basically? Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Oh, this is a business. Yeah. And this business is so deep-rooted. I don't know, and I can't say I can speak on it, like as an expert testimony, but all the way down south, there's massive buses that, very brand new charter buses that are assisting in the efforts of this. Wow.

It's a lucrative business. Yeah. And they, so the people that want to come in, they pay thousands or who knows how much. And then they get delivered to the border. There you go. Here's your ride once you get over. Yeah. And it's not an exact science as well.

And it's also not a guarantee. You know, there's things where like if the organization needs to pass drugs at the same time, they'll create the diversion of 30 bodies here, drugs here. And so they get paid for the attempts, not necessarily the success. Right. And as well as if you have a coyote, which is kind of the trafficker on boots on ground trafficker, if the coyote gets them across into America and maybe gets them to a safe house, they could extort them for even more money at that point.

I see. So the business is very, it's a strange and unfortunate business. And so like, why would people, why would people do that? Well, it's because they heard it takes 12 years. It's in seven years. Right. Right. And so when they hear that and then they have kind of a slap campaign happening on the other side of saying, go with us.

We'll get you in there faster. In a week. Yeah. And, you know, uneducated on the legal system. Also, the legal system is very challenging. So all the things are working against them to do it the legal way. It's all working for them to do it the illegal way. How much is politics at play?

Because the last election cycle, it was kids in cages. right and so Trump was keeping kids in cages or or separating kids from families now it's like everybody's coming across whenever they want tens of millions of people how what's the truth there's a lot of people coming across right now but they are all still put through a system and what happens after the board patrol apprehends them is whatever policy is in place and so if you go to Obama is known for the president that was the most strict on immigration, on illegal immigration. And so at the time during Obama, excuse me, during, that was my time of being an agent.

In some places, they were being arrested for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. It just depended how many times they've attempted to come across illegally. What determines someone coming across illegally? That means they're coming across outside of a port of entry. You know the port of entries if you're gone to Mexico? Yeah. Yeah. So those are ports of entries.

If you want to come in, you should use that. And even if it's just like, hey, I'm just going to go grab food. There's a process to get authorization to do that if you come into America anywhere outside of that port of entry You have now broken the law. That's called Title VIII. It's USC 1325 is entering the country illegally outside of a port of entry the first time So anyone who did that during the Obama era was going to jail for 30 60 90 days And so what happens is a border agent apprehends them We apprehend that means that we just obviously we've apprehended them but we're going to jail for 30 60 90 days and so what happens is a border agent apprehends them. We apprehended them. But we're We're also making sure we're safeguarding human life.

A big part of the Border Patrol mission is to save lives if needed. We wear a lot of hats. We save lives. We do crisis response. We do medical interventions. And then we bring them into, to process them. When it gets to the Border Patrol agent and he takes him into the processing center, what happens there, it's not our duty to determine whether their claim of asylum is legit.

It's not, it's not in my capabilities. I say, oh, you're claiming asylum. Okay. Well, then here's the asylum paperwork. Boom. Can they say that from Mexico or is that only from like? Certain countries can say asylum. Okay.

Only certain ones on a certain list. And that rotation's their list changes so on and so forth. The political kind of climate changes. Right. Mexico, no. But if there's, I don't know if there is now, right? Because I don't do that now. So I don't even know.

But there's different things that Mexico can do. You couldn't ask for. Okay. Right. And so it's very different. But in our time, what we would do is, okay, cool, process. And we're talking about 2009, 2015 time frame. We would process them, hand them off to ICE, Yaro, and then they decide housing until they can see an immigration judge.

And the immigration judge makes the determination of their case. And they're locked up till then? Yeah. Yeah. In private prisons. Oh, I see. Yeah. Full circle of this motherfucker from me.

I'm like, oh, shit. shit, this is crazy. Yeah. Because at the time, that was the only way you can house them. We don't have, the system doesn't have

anything for illegal immigration housing. There's nothing set up for that. And so the only other place is put them in prison. And so the whole, now you get to the Trump thing when they say kids in cages, well, imagine if you have the system

that doesn't have a place to put anyone, all we can do is put them in prison. What do you do when you overrun that system? Well, the system was so overrun, we didn't, they didn't have a capability to house families. They had to start building these tents.

They had to start building school. They had to start creating things for it because there was no system in place for that. And like I said, Obama administration was more strict, but so was Trump. Trump was pretty strict. Trump was more vocal about that and I think that's what caused a lot of the new stuff.

Because I didn't know Obama was that strict. He was the man on that. He was a dog on it. It was like, because you'd think that, oh, Democrat, they're liberal that everybody's in like or asylum, you know, we're a nation that will accept anybody. It's kind of the narrative.

Yeah, but they were very good about, like, if you're seeking asylum, we're going to take care of that, right? But the thing is, but if you're coming in illegally, it was a Homeland Security issue. Okay. He was serious about it. And you can watch the speech. And I'm not like pro, I try and take a position of,

I'm not left or right on any of this right now. I'm just trying to, let me give you the information because there's not enough people that are actually trying to explain this in a way that's not a fight. Right. And the only way we would get further down this path is having good discourse. Yeah, definitely. And so when the whole Trump in cages, it became a political stunt to make Trump look bad. But the truth of the matter, it's the system that was in place even before Trump. We had to separate them from the parents to identify whether they're being trafficked or not. Okay. Once we discern that they're being trafficked or not, well, the father is still, the father of the household is still probably going to say jail time because it's illegal to cross. And if the policy is in place, you do 30 days, well, he's going to do 30 days. You don't do 30 days with your kids in jail. And so they had to create a system.

All the lost kids was confusing. And I know the system, everyone put a lot of that on Border Patrol. But what happens is after we process, the Border Patrol doesn't have their hands on it no more. It hands off to ICE. And ICE does the determination of their case waiting for an immigration judge and housing or deportation. So a lot of the media was using all these things and saying Border Patrol, border control, all these things. And that's why I was like, what? You know what you're talking about?

is a multi-layered system here that happens. And the border control is one part of this big system. And I'm not shooting on ERO or the ICE. I'm saying, well, that was their job and that was what they had in place. And there was no system in place to make it any better. And so we had to fix that, right? And is that where we are now? It still needs to be fixed.

Yeah. Now it's in the news every day. Correct. Your book, you know, is even more meaningful borderline. And it's like, to me, I'm empathetic to the guy, working on the border. Absolutely. Because it's like,

it feels like a no-win situation. You've got people saying that you're letting too many in. You're like, you know, oh, we're worried about the Ukraine border, not our own southern border. It's like, man, that's a tough spot to be in. Yeah.

So the way I kind of, what I always try and correct people, they're like, oh, the border rules just lend them in. No. The border patrol is doing their job. They're actually apprehending them, processing them.

Whatever policy in place after that, it's not our job. We hand off the ice and they do whatever they have to do with it. if they're letting them go in four days with a notice to appear, well, that's the policy that they have to follow. We still did our job. You see what I'm saying?

Yeah. In the past, we'd give them to ICE and they detain them. Now we're giving them to ICE and some people are getting notice to appears, right? That means, so you at a later date and immigration would determine because we're so overwhelmed that there's no one house you. Yeah. Well, aren't they sending them, well, New York now is saying we don't want any more? And I don't know if this is true or not, but like kicking veterans out of care facilities and putting immigrants in there.

Is that true? So there's a truth to it. Yeah, there's some truth to those. It's just when it happens one time, it turns into it's happening all over. And I want to make sure I don't do that. There was people getting kicked out of a school. Right. There is kids getting displaced from schools so they can house them there.

So in those kids, yes, that is one. school that did it in the state of New York who was very, you know, they're very sanctuary state oriented. So they do things like that. You don't see that in Texas, right? You don't see that in certain states. So really depending on what kind of political kind of balance the state has and what their views on it, it's kind of you'll start to see things like that.

There was some people getting kicked out of a hotel veterans to house. Yes, New York, right? So certain states will do certain things to accommodate the immigration situation. That's going to happen. Yeah. that's the state, right? And every state makes their own choice and the same thing is what's happening right now

with Texas, right? And so it's just really interesting thing that every state is kind of making a stance on how they see it and how they'll further pursue it. Yeah. And that's what's been interesting to watch, right? Because when you say, hey, we'll welcome them. And then two months later, we can't anymore.

It's like, it really depletes resources. We're in a position. We're like a country that wants to welcome immigration is at a point right now where we are tapped out And we're starting to have to see you, how do you fix this? It's a hard thing. And like I sit from the position of like, well, let me at least tell the border patrol story. So that answer, that question is answered because that one seems to be get shit on all the time and I don't like it.

Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like to me the border patrol guys are just doing their job. What happens after that is that's the administration or that's. So what's happening now? because Texas and Abbott say we're stopping people coming over. And now DeSantis is sending National Guard troops from Florida to help. Is that?

Yeah. How do you see that? So personally from like, if I was giving expert testimony on this, the state of Texas is doing what Texas believes is right. But it will lose this fight in the Supreme Court a lot of the time because the state can't uphold federal law. Mm-hmm. And so when Arizona tried to do something like this,

they said, Arizona, the sheriffs can, can deport veterans or whatever, or deport, excuse me, immigrants. Mm-hmm. They fought it, and eventually the Supreme Court decided with the side of the federal, federal government. And so this is a really interesting time. I, the position I see is this, the Border Patrol is going to continue to do the Border Patrol job, whatever is asked.

them to do by federal law. And the state can do exactly what they want to do because it's their state as well. And the National Guard can do exactly what they're told because the state is asked them to do their mission. And all of those three, it's essentially what it is. You have the National Guard, you have the DPS and you have the Federal Government of the Border Patrol. All of them are going to continue to do their job. And there's no tension between them boots on ground. The media wants to make that happen. And that's what I don't like. I think it's unfair because you start to cultivate the idea that this is going to be some civil war. This war happening on the ground. It's not really happening. Everyone wants to see the best for this nation. We all abide by a certain

code or a certain law or a certain leader who's teaching to who's giving you the commands, right? The federal border patrol continues to do with the border patrol job. Yeah. And so boots on ground, everyone's just trying to do their job. Right. When it comes higher up, it's kind of a posturing position. The media's taking them saying, oh, now Governor Abbott's. Yeah. And like, the governor is doing exactly what he believes he should do to protect the state. Mm-hmm. He's allowed to. And he's going to have his damn court fighting with this.

And that's what's going to happen. This is this way this happens. The only bad part is your average citizen starts to feel compelled to go support. And that becomes scary when you have, you know, a lot of these gung-ho dudes who believe in America, which rightfully so. And they're loading up their trucks with guns and like, let's go. Right. My fear is they're going to go down there and they don't understand the position. posturing that's happening down there and that it's not an aggressive posture still.

Even with barbed wire, it's not the aggressive posture that the world wants to think it is. They're still just, so barbed wire and all that is deterrence. That's what it is. It's like, we're going to deter you for coming because you don't want to get stuck in that. And that's the posturing that's happening. And it's a good posturing. I get it. But it can be dangerous as well.

And that's why the Border Patrol kind of took the position like, well, we're not going to cut it unless we have to do our job. and their job is safeguarding human life and I just don't like how the media is kind of turning it into this fight down on the down on the you know Shelby Park like no if you go down there and talk to all them everyone's like hey man you're good you good you're good you good everyone's good moral they're like a morale

they're all just waiting for the orders from the top yeah and so it's if the world if the nation would see it's yeah there's Texas is putting his foot down and they're allowed to it's going to see its way in court again, Supreme Court, and the decision will be made. And in the end, I believe the federal government will win

because, like I said, the state can't uphold federal law. Yeah, that's how our system set up. That's how the system set up. And so in the end, if for the next 10 years, Texas decides they want to activate their national guard to the border and create a defensive posture of deterrence, he can do that, right? And that's going to be fine.

And the Border Patrol is going to work with them and figure out how to do their job. Genuinely, the Border Patrol is the one agency that saves more lives on the border than any other agency because we work on the border where people drown, where people get the heat conditions and all that. So the Border Patrol is going to continue to save as many lives as possible and do their job. And that's just that. Here's the crazy part. When a Border Patrol apprehends you and they run your fingerpins, they put you through several systems that will identify whether you have criminal history or connection with any kind of terrorist organization, right? terrorist watch list or whatnot.

And if they determine those people are, well, then they deport them. They deport them immediately. You might not see it, right? But they deport them immediately. The DPS, I don't know necessarily they have the same system. And so there's a concern. Are they running them for the same systems we have?

Right. Well, they don't have, they don't have the same system. And then once they're done doing their, I think it's 15 to 30 days is what they're holding them for, when the DPS gets them. Then what? Well, they give them back to the Border Patrol. So it's a posturing position.

Yeah. And I get the sentiment of it. If you create deterrence, then maybe they'll go somewhere else. Right. And Texas is cool with that. Yeah. But while all the attention is on Shelby Park, the highest numbers of illegal immigration are happening in fucking Tucson.

Really? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I don't see that at all on the media. No one does. No one does. But if you can look on it.

So if you guys were listening to this now, the border patrol sectors all have social. media and they're doing their best to use the social media to give you the information that they have so every week you'll probably see any kind of significant busts any kind of significant um you know people that came across that we caught them on you know prior history and as well as the numbers transparent they're showing it not enough people are seeing it you know and not enough people in the media are using that to their advantage no there's ignoring that and saying well this has all the attention let's attack this. Yeah. I mean, I even saw a little, you know, from the white, the press secretary today saying

there's immigration laws and something, Republicans haven't done anything. You know, I mean, so it's no comment. No, it's a shell game of responsibility. It feels like. So, so what do you think, you know, there's another theory out there that while they're trying to pad Democratic voters. Yeah, I hear that But how do you see that? Adding tens of millions, potentially, who knows if they even will vote? I mean, what, half Americans don't even vote? Or regular, you know, just, you know, long-time citizens. Just like from a position of someone who's seen a lot of shit overseas and who's

seen some bad shit in America, the concern, what concerns me is that, you know, the people who come in that don't want good upon the country. So that's my biggest concern. My biggest concern is Homeland Security, the side of the Homeland Security that we're kind of leaned too far immigration, where we're allowed, we don't have our own-man security goggles on as much. Right. So that probably scares me.

All the other people coming in, I don't like in the sense of like we're a sovereign nation, right? We have laws. And if these laws aren't being effective and it's kind of a bypass of the laws, it's a concern because, you know, I think Andy Fasilla said something to me was, I think it was the first time I ever thought of it. It was like, you start to kind of dilute the waters of what America's cultural foundation is in the sense of like the patriotism of America. And then you start to lose that if you kind of dilute the water, if you will. Right.

And it was the first time I ever thought like, oh man, that might be a concern to me because my grandkids might not have the same beliefs of what America stands for. It's like those people who have taken the American flag and turned it into a weapon of like racism It's like no don't do that Right don't do that because that flag actually represents you too It represents all of that all the struggle all the oppression All of that is what that flag should still remain And when someone uses it and kind of almost defaces it digitally

Right in a sense where they call it racist Well then it loses the culture and the foundation of what mean your son have fought for And the people before us And so when you're not, And people are coming in in America, and the way it is now, it's kind of a crazy situation where I don't know how to voice my feelings more than I'm more concerned about the home and security position of our country. And in the next few years, what that's going to look like.

I'm more concerned about that and then the votes. The vote thing is like, I hear you. I'll tell you what, if I just, you know, if I just robbed a bank, you're not going to see me come out and show my face, right? So if someone come here legally, I just don't know how many of them are willing to show up and vote. I don't know how many of them are going to be showing loyalties to the president

because I don't think they really think that deep into it. They're more like, man, I got smuggling than I'm laying low. So I think more realistically than the fact that I don't, a lot of people are using that as well. Like they're using fighting age males. Same way they're using the votes. I think it's more than that. I think this is like a, I think this is a,

this is something that we have to pay attention to in the next few years. And kind of like my Glover and all those other guys, I always kind of stay at a position of readiness. And now I'm kind of even more like, okay, we really got to be just pay attention to it and see what that looks like. Yeah. But yeah, it's a hard on the word as well as not get myself in trouble. I understand. It's like a lot of it is a posture in and the political game games.

You know, I mean, I agree with what you're saying about if you come in here legally, you're not going to be showing up. Okay, I'm on a vote now. Yeah. I get that. It's just, I just don't like how the media is just twist. everything and it pits us versus them. That's what the problem. Right.

That's why I said the two arguments are happening simultaneously and maybe both are kind of right. Yeah. You know what I mean? And the media doesn't give us that. The media says, you know, conservatives is this and the liberals this. And then they go, you know, Trump and Biden. And it's creating such a division in this nation.

Yeah. That it makes me feel compelled to be like, well, it's really in the middle there, guys. And we should try and see it in a more human aspect. Right. I don't like people breaking the law to come into this country. At the same time, I also don't like that it takes 12 years for a good person really wanted to come to this country and work their ass off. I get that. So there's something that has to be said about that too, right?

There's multiple layers of this immigration system that we need to look at. You know that there's, I think that right now is like 630 something deported combat veterans. Veterans who come to America, they come to serve our country. And they're promised that they're going to become citizens. But then right before they get their citizen paper done, they have an alcohol issue, a DUI. And they get deported. or there are many different little things. I'm just saying generally.

And because the way the system is built and they didn't think about maybe they have post-traumatic stress from combat, maybe they're struggling with something. No, they have a DUI, boom, they're sending them right back to a country. They don't even know. Yeah.

So there's a lot of little issues in this immigration thing that needs to kind of be addressed. And I think for many years, our political position has just been like, scrape the top of it off, put a new face to it, things are good. And I think right now it's probably the most important time of like, no, we really need a thing.

see the bigger picture of immigration. And we really got to kind of start addressing these little things that we've been ignoring for way too long. Well, I mean, we've been talking about it here and it doesn't seem like it's that crazy of problems to solve. Right. To me. Well, it seems like it'll never stop if we don't, if we don't control the system.

Right. It's down south. Well, yeah, but it seems like the challenges you've mentioned and maybe the disconnect, man, And if we can talk about here and kind of identify those, why couldn't somebody solve them? I agree. I think it seems because we have this political fight always going on in the past, like, you know, 10 years have been more like politically, like, dividing people. Yeah. It's not working together.

Yes. Yeah. Because you have the parties not working together either. Right. You know what I mean? Like at one point, there was a bipartisan group trying to make it happen. It was like, since Democrats, six Republicans really trying to work on like, you know, common sense immigration. and it never happened, never panned out.

And so why? Like, why aren't we really trying to find the answer to that? It's a tough thing. It's weird that this is the biggest. It's one of the biggest issues we're going to face in our voting in the coming to presidency, and how you're going to vote is really going to determine what the future looks like in that.

And that's crazy. It's, like, scary that we're looking for sides only for the fact that we need them to go to the immigration side that we want. And when both parties should be really looking at Homeland Security and immigration. Same issue. Who you loaned for? Just kidding.

You don't have to tell me. It's a canceled. I know. You can't even say the right answer. Any answer I say I'm done. No, you're crucified no matter which way. I'm going to do a right-in ballot and it's going to be for myself. I know.

Isn't it? Oh, it's just a crazy time. It is, man. So I, you know, you just kind of mentioned just in passing just with the DUI and the veterans. It's just like, I heard you on a clip talk. about drinking. Yeah. And tell me about that because I know that veterans, that's a challenge. I mean, it's a challenge for everybody. Yeah. But specifically for people coming back from serving and yeah, it's it's a cultural thing in the military. I mean, I'm sure your son was he was he 21 when he

joined or younger? He was older. He was a deputy here at the jail for a while. He worked at Cabellas for a And then thank you went in and he's about 25, right? 24. I was 23, 24, so it's about the same. So, like, the interesting thing about the culture of the military is that we created a drinking culture, you know, and it's not just a military. Like I said, college baseball, it was a drinking culture. Growing up Latino, it's a drinking culture. Yeah.

If I didn't drink on my dad at a young age, you know what I'm saying? Like, was I even Mexican dog? I hear you. So it's a really interesting thing that, like, we conform to the culture because it's what we do. what everyone's done. And then adding combat to that, it really made it coming back from combat. Like, fuck it, why don't I drink?

Because the next six months I'm training and I go right back overseas, so I might get killed anyway, so fucking enjoy it. And that turned into not really, it wasn't an era of wellness. It wasn't an era of counseling and trying to betterment of ourselves. It wasn't about that. It was about being really good at our job. That means drinking, fucking fighting.

Army Ranger. Going hard. All the time. Right. And so you start to believe that and it becomes a part of you. And if that's not you, then you're not really the Ranger, are you?

You know, and that didn't leave me for a while. I got out of the military and continued to drink because it's what I did. And you start to really fall into that system. And it was no different than, yeah, but also I go to kid parties as a Hispanic man. I have a cooler in the back of my car drinking too.

And so a lot of my world was just revolved around this drinking and drinking and drinking until I realized. I was like, fuck man, this thing's got a hold of me, dude. Like there was no out for me. It was, I found an excuse to drink for the death of my buddy this day and the anniversary of this day and another death of this day. And I found myself on the anniversary. I lost two guys overseas while I was in my graduate range school, got injured.

I couldn't go deploy with themselves in the rear in the reachback, excuse me, in the rear D, they called it. And they were killed in combat about probably a week to two weeks before they redeployed. And one of those guys was someone who was a mentor of mine. They were both mentors of my, but one of them I really looked up to another big Hispanic guy. And you don't see a guy, a guy like big Hispanic in a leadership role too often in my world. And I thought, like, fuck, this guy is the man. And so when he died, it was like, fuck me up.

So every anniversary date of his death, I would find myself drinking so much that I, in my head, I thought, and I know a lot of guys, I'm putting to words for these guys is that I felt that if I showed him how much I was in pain, it would mean that he would see how much I loved him and I missed him. And so I would drink to the point of like, fuck man, like passed out trying to go for more. You know what I mean? And then I'd hear my buddy the same night get drunk and get arrested for DUI and another buddy gets the same night getting a fight with the cops and we were destroying our fucking selves in the memory of this guy to show them how much we loved him.

And at one point I'm like, what the fuck is that? Like you started to think about like heaven. If there's a heaven if they're looking down. on us or if they're just watching and like in our heads we're thinking like yeah I love you watch me suffer and then the other turn is like there's no way he's saying yeah waste a fucking perfectly good life on drinking dumb ass yeah because if he had the chance he'd be doing hugging his kid right his wife you know and so that was the first part of me like I'm not drinking on the anniversary day no more like let me just stop that day because that day was the day

that probably got out of hand the most and then it turned into more and I started I did counseling I found myself I was on the border one night wearing same gloves I had in Iraq because I just kept buying a newer version of them knuckled gloves you know what I mean because we go in Iraq and we kick a door and you backhand a dude and fucking snatch him up and shit you know what I mean and so I kept wearing those gloves and I kept my merrils from Iraq too and I wore those in the field um I had an M4 had night and I was chasing a dude one night and in the the scent coming off his body someone who's walking in the in the desert for seven 12 days smells very similar to someone in Afghanistan And so the smell was like, oh, fuck.

Took you back. Everything. My hands, everything was in my, the feeling of my hand, the smell, the vision of the green and the night vision. And then burnt trash. Some reason that night was like burnt trash. And it reminded me all of like fucking Afghanistan. As I'm chasing this dude, I'm thinking like, oh, I can shoot him. He's a squatter.

Right. Or are we overseas? Squatter you could shoot him in the back. No issue because he's leaving an objective. On the border, it's just a dude trying to get away from a big, scary looking motherfucker. Chase him. Yeah. And I about shot this dude

in the back of the fucking head. And when I finally, my partner got in there and boom, I popped everything off and I was like, whoa, dude,

what the fuck is going on? And I knew I've had several moments of this in different times. And I'm like, okay, well, this is the whole thing

that people talk about. This is the post-traumatic stress. And eventually I saw a counselor because I kind of forced to in a sentence where a buddy said, hey, this guy fucking is talking to you. Yeah.

And she took me down the path of EMDR, which is the first step into the counseling direction I went. And so I have dreams. What does that stand for? EMDR, it's, I don't know the exact name for it, but what it is is recreating rapid eye movement

with their eyes and it helps process trauma back into memory. And so the trauma gets stored in our frontal cortex because of like all the hormone dumps, you know, cortisol and everything else. And when when that trauma doesn't get to process like a memory, like goes through your brain, it kind of goes to the process of,

of I guess acceptance of something it gets stored up there and so these post-traumatic stress moments you keep reliving and your body feels the same you know the same feelings of the breathing of the moment of the moment of that's stored you keep reoccurring and that's like this fucking shitty thing and so I was having this nightly almost I'd come around a corner is a dream I come around a corner in this this woman um older woman was looking at me in almost looking for help and I looked down at her feet was her husband who was killed and I was like damn and I couldn't help her and I'd wake up feeling like fuck felt guilty felt terrible felt really bad and then the next side I'd have the same exact dream same corner seemed like a corner in like Afghanistan or something like that and now she's looking at me like how could you and now in this scenario I killed her husband and so that same fucking scenario I couldn't sleep for days it was like it was it was a weird haunting feeling and uncomfortableness of like blah I don't want to do that again, so I'm going to stay up. Or I got a drink so I can go to sleep. And when I did my EMDR session, I never had that dream again. Visually, I've never seen it. I've woke up feeling, but I've never seen it again. From one session?

One session. We did two sessions, but yeah, one session. But it was really crazy because, like, she's talking to you and she's putting you through it. And she said, was it smell like? And so she's really making you process that moment. And that was like, well, that can do that. what else is there? And so slowly I've kind of gone down the path of learning more

and going through different versions of wellness. I've done stem cell treatments. I've done TBI clinics. I've done different forms of counseling. I've done sweat lodge with Dakota Indians in L.A. with one of my fellow Mayan brothers on the show actor. He put me through a whole sweat lodge ceremony. I do it probably a few times with him.

Really? I bet that's intense. Bro. That's so hot. You feel like your ear's going to melt off. And the only salvation you have is the mud on the floor from the sweat of everyone had. And dude, it's wild. Wow.

So I've done all these different things. And it got me to a point of like, okay, I've done all this, but I haven't stopped drinking. And my wife is like, hey, we decided we're going to have kids together. And we're going to in vitro. And she goes, I need your body, like, healthy. Right. And so it means you can't drink. And at the time, I lost another range of buddy to suicide.

And his story was weird to me. I was like, I just saw this motherfucker. And we're just hanging out. You know what I mean? And I started like, kind of like, what the hell? And I find out more that he was drinking that night. I'm like, you know what? And, you know, I'm going to college again.

I'm trying to get my degree. So I got my degree. But in the middle of getting my degree, I'm learning a lot of psychology and understanding, like the brain, understanding drinking and understanding post-traumatic stress. And there was a study I read. It was called, it created suicide ideation from,

if you have TBI, post-traumatic stress, and excessive drinking. It creates chemicals in your brain that creates suicide ideation. So essentially every fucking ranger who's ever fucking done the job has all those. And you're essentially a ticking time bomb for your own

suicide because you're giving yourself the last serum that you needed to kind of close up that gap. And so my friends are losing their lives to their own selves and all of them been drinking. So when my wife said that, I said, you know what? It's probably a good time.

So I stopped. And I haven't continued. How long goes that? It's about almost five, five years now. Really? Four years, four years, nine months. Yeah.

Dude, and it's been, I was the type of guy that would say, I don't trust the man who doesn't drink. I was that guy, you know? Yeah, I was that guy. You know, and I was like, why wouldn't you fucking drink? I don't get it. And then now I'm like, fuck, I was so, like, culturally, but not even that.

Like, I was manipulated to really believe that that was kind of the man I was. And my father didn't like that. I went sober the first time he was pissed. He was like, you can't drink a beer with me. It was offensive to him to our culture. Right. Yeah, it was like a bonding thing.

Yeah. Exactly. For me and my father, it was what we did. Yeah. And for me to stop, it offended him in a sense. But now he's like on board.

He's like, no, Vinny, don't ever go back. I'm like, because he sees like the growth that's happening from that. I'm like, fuck if I could stop this, what else can I do?

You know what I mean? Because that had a hold of me, bro. Yeah. And now I've realized like when I say it publicly, veterans are like, bro, fuck, that's me. I'm like, I know, dude, it's all of us. We're all the fucking same, but we didn't realize we're creating this monster that we're all trying to run from by drinking, adding to our own issues and not healing these fucking traumas that we've had from the military, from childhood. And so I learned healing a lot of that stuff from my past, from the military, and then also not incorporating alcohol.

I've learned to kind of really love myself and be like, man, I can, there's a lot more I can do with this. you know and I started trying to help others do the same. Well, I don't know how you were before, but right now you seem smart, funny, happy, like big personality. How were you different when you were drinking, do you think? I mean, from the outside in, if somebody would see you, would they see this exact same person I see? I feel like it. I feel like I used to think I needed to be funny when I needed to drink to be funny, but I feel like there's no change. I don't know what I don't know what I thought.

I think... Were you more moody when you drank? No, man. I would get in fights if I needed to get in a fight. Just like I would get in a fight right now if I needed to get in a fight. You know what I mean? Let's not get in a fight. No.

Not you. We're different weight class. Yeah, but you got way more cardio, bro. Trust me. Just run around for a little bit. You got me. Okay. But the point is like, people used to think like, are you an aggressive drunk?

Like, no, dude. I only fought when I was drinking because I felt the need to fight. Just like I would now. I was very coherent person. The one thing I noticed, I forgot a lot of good memories. my daughter was like dad do you remember teach me how to ride a bike i'm like nope i'm wrong i was drinking i don't remember a lot of my kids stuff and that bothers me still to this day that like they had a dad that would cope and kind of try and be comfortable with his existence by drinking and so they didn't

have a really good coherent dad they just had a dude a shell of a dude in the room right and that's unfortunate because i think more now they're learning who i am and what makes me tick and i think they're kind of fascinated by me now like oh you're kind of cool i can't believe all the shit you do i mean i it's it's incredible what you've you know i don't know it's just like you've excelled in so many different areas um did did you used to drink every night when you drank uh i was a really good weekend binge drink oh okay yeah like i mean i'd have a beer here and there two beers whatever yeah especially if you go some like texas road else they had great beers you know things like that it's hard to not have chips and salts and beer or margaritas you know right I don't drink either but uh and it's mostly

just because I'm a fuck up when I drink and it's like drinking never helped me be good at anything I cared about yeah so I don't but when I did man chips and salts and cold beer were pretty good oh I could not watch a fight without drinking I could I mean this is what I did and you know it's funny is like I was the type of guy when I started I didn't want an end yeah you know and that's where it gets like right then you start mixing like oh let me get what's what bottles of I have in the cabinet now, you know? It was tough because, you know, Vegas, how do you go to Vegas and not drink? You know, so we, I'd go to Shot Show.

I'd do all that for years and just be, couldn't wait to get out of there because I just made a fool of myself or I, well, now I haven't drank in Vegas in a long time. Yeah. There's an environment where I'm like, my mouth would water still sometimes when I see like a Michalala. Yeah. I love the Michelada in my mouth of water, but I've learned to make those on my own now without alcohol, but there's moments I still, I still have moments where I'm like, oh,

fuck but yeah i even think like i hate when i do this but i was like i think i can go back to it and like no dude don't do it dude don't fucking do it you can get away with it maybe a couple times but you know it's going to go back to say more shit yeah i mean i at least i know i feel like i feel like one bad night and it's a bad memory then all of a sudden yeah you just go down that hole mm-hmm have uh veterans reach out for guidance from you because of your story yeah i i have a men's group I manage. It's really like an accountability circle of dudes. We have a thing called Light the Fuse and a lot of those guys are pull them into the circle

of that and it's just kind of what are your five goals for the year and let's get them done, you know, and kind of keeping in a lot of these guys see the drinking thing that I've done and it kind of motivates them to try the same. Not everyone does too. Like some people, some people are still where I was where like they don't even want to hear it. Like, yeah, bro, no, I'm good. I can, everything's good. I can handle my drinking.

You're like, okay, bro. Some people can. Some people can't. Yeah. I think it's like the same whole thing with mental health and wellness. Like everybody has their path to it and everyone's kind of on their own, their own phase of it, you know, and some people further than others in that. It's like faith. Yeah.

You know, right. People are on their own journey and they get to the end, whatever different points at different times. Yeah. And so I'm always there like, I post that video the other day and you had a ton of messages. I was like, well, join us, join our group and we'll just, you know, find a different approach than using drinking. I have a guy that's addicted to Coke So it's not cocaine, Cokes.

Oh, really? Yeah. And so we're like, okay, so we're all trying to water sugar. That's what it is. And he struggles his weight his whole life. And he says, you know, he goes,

I drink by like, soda. That's what I'm like, fuck, bro. That's crazy. So we're trying to help him with that. Yeah. And I have like contacts in the addiction space a lot. We have,

we have beds if I need to send guys. So as anyone listening here, like really needs, you know, an impatient clinic. Like, we have connections to all of that. Yeah, that's useful, I'm sure. So how'd the acting thing come to happen? I mean, I don't know.

These dudes, bro. Yeah, black rifle? I was a part of that whole circle of friends, dude. And I just focused on acting. They went towards the black rifle coffee. So we produced a movie called Range 15. And when we did that, I was like, yeah. So I did theater in college two years because it was easy A's, right?

Like, you know, good grade, that's easy. How many, like, four credits per class. Exactly. Yeah. And for me, it was like, well, I need to have good grades for baseball. So let me just take these classes. That was the first time I was like, I was kind of cool. And the teacher even said, he goes, hey, you kind of natural with this.

You should try and you just think about it. I'm like, yeah, baseball, you know, baseball, you know. Then fast forward, I started doing YouTube videos with Matt and JT. And those were doing really well. And I kind of thought already, I was like, ah, how do you even do the acting thing? I wonder if I would even do that. So we had a business did really well. resigned from from I used to be one of the owners of article 15 clothing that's a four black

rifle and so then I resigned from the border patrol to pursue acting we did range 15 I produced another movie uh it's kind of a poem I wrote that was like a emotional kind of emotional journey of a veteran kind of film and then I did some dads and parks there's another YouTube series that did really well and I was in L.A. and um I knew my ins was auditioning I knew they're still looking I text a good buddy of mine and said hey I don't I have a reel I have my headshots kind of what you need is an actual real and headshots yeah I said I have my things I just don't know what to do with him he goes I know the casting director let me send your picture and she was like he looks great because like I look the part of a mine yeah yeah um and then uh she said can he act and sent my reel

and she was we'd love to see him tomorrow so so I'm supposed to go to this audition the next day I've never done a real audition in my fucking life right so I'm like what the fuck he meets me and my wife for breakfast and he's like you've done harder shit in your fucking life going there go in there and own the motherfucking place and get get out of there yeah okay so he said shave my head looked apart i said cool i shaved my head and fucking looked like a big scary cholo looking dude yeah did the part they liked it they asked me to come back what did you have to do that first day did you know the lines or they tell you the lines yeah so they send you the lines in the mail the email the day before okay and the goal for us actors is to be off book i had like two auditions

today later today to how funny is that thinking about it but today yeah they sent me him i got to get them done by wednesday but this is the life of acting they just sent you an audition you got to get it done but exactly they sent the audition uh it had about five six lines this character was more of a stern angry character and uh the scene was something about a funeral and so i memorized it which was a tough like scary and tough but i figured that out i audited it my wife audited it i listened to it overnight, woke up, studied it. What was it? What was a line?

Give me a line. Oh, I don't even know. I was like seven, six years ago. Oh. Okay. But it was something to the fact of like talking about like we lost someone and like, are we going to get revenge kind of thing. Okay.

Yeah. Kind of that vibe. And the lady, her name is Wendy O'Brien. She's the casting director. Really well known Wendy, really well known casting director. And it threw me off as they turned the camera on. She was me and her. And she goes, hey, home boy, how you feeling?

I was like, oh, she was in character, bro. Oh. And I'm like, oh. That's what the other character said? Yeah. Okay. And so then I'm acting off her and we're going back and forth. And then it's done.

She goes, oh, you did a great job. I was like, okay. And I hugged her. And I was like, what the fuck was that? We fly home at the time we're living in El Paso. That's the last place I lived when I was working for Border Patrol. And right away, I got an email. They want to see me back.

So I bought a ticket right back. My dad took me this time. and now I have two characters the serious character and a comedy character and so we did the serious character again same lines no big deal boom boom then we did the comedy character and he was talking about

like something I'm like shitting on a gnome on the grass or something weird but I remember I fucking added something to it accidentally and you're not supposed to but I was like kind of in the zone of it yeah and I added it and I said something to it and they laughed I laughed and I remembered

like I kind of came to it was like oh shit that was good everyone laughed And so I shook their hands and I left. And I got an email saying, I got the job. Nice. So, like, do those pay well? I don't have no idea what an actor makes.

You know, the first three years, we were putting ourselves in debt just trying to uphold the dream. Yeah. Like, really, chasing it. I think the first three years I made 60K, you know, but like in the border patrol at the time, I was making 120K. Yeah. You know what I mean?

The business at the time was probably, at the time before it kind of all went down. was probably making 100K You know what I mean? So like, I had better jobs. Yeah, yeah. And so we had... But you got your sag card.

Right. Right. So I'm in the middle of like, I'm in the best show at the time, one of the biggest followings because it was following sons of anarchy. Yeah. And it's like one of the most well-known Latino TV shows on TV.

So I was in like the best spot I could possibly be. So I was like, I'm going to sit here for a minute and see what happens. Right. And so when I was done filming, I'd go ahead, get a job. You know, one time I was picking up urine and addiction. clinics.

Yeah. I was fucking, I was doing back to doing some security stuff for a contract and company. Like I was just doing these hodgepodge jobs on the season ended

just to kind of keep the lights on. Right. And when the season came back, boom, we did it again. And so about season three, I was like, we might need to change our career path because we're fucking,

I'm just, I'm going off credit cards here now. Yeah, and that's struggling. Yeah, exactly. At one point, I had two jobs, picking up piss and do something.

You're like, I'm doing all kinds of weird shit. And, and then I even told, the Elgin, who's Giacos brother, I said, look, man, either, I'd love to get an opportunity to show you.

I can really do this. You know, I just really want a chance. He goes, yeah, man, we're going to give you a chance. I'm going to trust you, I'm going to give you a chance. I'm like, oh, thank God. And so going into the next season, we were able to negotiate a better contract. And I was like, oh, okay.

Okay. And then boom, I got to do a lot of acting, like, like, not just like one line. Like, hey, here comes the cops. You know, like, legit fucking acting story arc. You know what I mean? that and I was like oh fuck this is this is dope dude that's awesome started getting a lot of good feedback um at one point uh internally so it's kind of levels to it but I was I was put in for

an Emmy but it's like the lowest level that it never really got to the Emmys but just the notoriety of that through internally felt good just the mention yeah the mention internally was just like oh fuck yeah that feels good to know yeah and so I was doing good work we're getting paid pretty good we're pulling ourselves out of that fucking hole and then they killed the show oh so now any now what anymore well you said you got two two auditions you know you get auditions you know i've i've landed to i've made you know it's an impossible job it's a really really hard job uh i became a writer on the show the last season and so i still have a couple writing things happening we're producing a movie here soon one of my scripts from back back in the day is

getting picked up. We're trying to pitch other shows as a writer. So the writing side is getting a little bit of attention. There's a possibility of getting more work there. Acting, it's a really big hustle. It's a hard, hard place. I imagine. You take all the auditions and you might land one, you know.

And so it's kind of the name of the game. Well, I don't know if you're making any money podcasting, but you could. You're great. You are great at it. I mean. Well, we do have one. I'll mention it now, you know. I don't know if they're going to get mad at me, but we have ironclad.

We have a podcast coming out called Borderlands, and we're going to be really discussing in detail some of the perspectives of the border, the left, the right perspective, everything, immigration lawyers. We have a lot of different people's versions of their truth of the border, and we want to allow them to say their peace. And it's going to be interesting, and I think it's important to have some kind of dialogue like that at a time right now that's so it's divided. And it shouldn't be as much as it is.

Right. Yeah. No, I agree. I think it'll be super interesting. But I just know that with your personality and your presence, I mean, you can have sponsors and guests. And like, you can, I mean, you're good at this. I appreciate it, man. Yeah.

I mean, you could definitely blow up as a podcaster. And I would love to. I don't know if we can make money like Rogan, but I mean, some people are making pretty good money. There's some good ones out there. I think Sean Ryan's doing really well. Yeah, he is. He's good, dude. I've been listening to Joe Rogan's the back of the day

So it's really cool to watch the growth of him And like that's an impossible chase The dude's the best way he does And it's so intelligent And so it's just fun to watch What he's done with it And how the podcast space is growing You know I have my little podcast

But you really have to commit to this thing Pretty seriously to like make it grow To what he did And it's hard to do that But you know we're all trying I think Yeah I mean it's it's If you have interesting people or you have something that, you know, a perspective, people enjoy listening to,

man, those downloads, that's all it amounts to. It's like you say, hey, you want to sponsor the show? Okay, pay this much per download. Then it's up to you. If people listen, you're making great money. Yeah. If nobody listens, well, you're picking up urine. I mean, you know, I'll be back at my, you know, I worked over here at the local utility

until last year. Yeah. So, I mean, I'll be back there if this doesn't work. I always have, yeah, I always have a job waiting for me. Yeah, I'm sure. We can always figure out something to hustle, right? How did your book, how did borderline do? It did good, you know.

I would think everyone who writes a book wants to get that New Yorktown bestselling book. Yeah. You know, it's kind of solidifies you to write another few books. It's political, though. I mean, that's not like a bestseller. Right. They call it a bestseller. It's sold well.

It did what it. it was intended to do. The goal was to have a book out there that explained the Border Patrol career field in a way that's just kind of like non-biased as much as possible, non-political, just like, let me tell you how the career is and how beautiful it is to do that job because it is the first line of defense against any terrorist acts, and it is also the first line of potential to save lives. And so it's a really, really respectable, beautiful career field

that doesn't get the respected deserves. and, you know, I've had plenty of bold trades just tell me thank you, and I'm happy. If it sells one more book and another guy says he loved, thank you. Yeah. You know, it's not, I don't really chase too much. I try not just be a guy that chases these accolades too much. Yeah. I wrote it. I'm happy with it.

We like to win, though. Right. And so it's not, I'm doing your podcast, bro. That's a win for me, dog. You know what I've been a guy that's observing from the back of you in your career for a long time, So it's been really cool. So when I got the call, I was like, fuck. I told him why I'm like, I'm kind of pumped about this. Oh, no, I'm pumped because not only, I mean, I have a lot of respect for border

border patrol agents. I remember a couple guys gave me a coin, you know, a challenge coin. And I just, but I'm, I'm a patriot. I love military cops, border. I love all those guys that don't get the credit they deserve. Yeah. I feel like those are the guys that I want to fight for. or represent or help tell their story.

So having you on here and knowing your book and knowing you and also the invitation to go to the border, I would love it. Because that story, it's so critical right now. And it is, you're right, that's a first line of defense, but also it's just, I mean, it's the border of our country. Yeah. You know, we love America, right?

So I mean, I wanna see just the challenges that are involved down there and the men and women who are working there. Yeah, and I think it's, I think everyone's fair to have their opinion on it. Like, but we have to be more educated on. I think a lot of people weren't educated enough on it, and that's why we're so divided on this subject. And so we have to do our part to educate people on exactly what, how it works so that I

think we can have better discourse. Yeah, exactly. That, that's exactly right. You know, I do want to mention, too, I watched another interview you did with John Berknoll. John Berthel. Oh, man. You know, we've been talking. I've been trying to take him on his first.

hunt, right? He has a son. He wanted to bring up, take on a hunt. But anyway, I saw you guys walking around. It was L.A., right? Yeah, dude. He's the man. Oh, I love that guy. I've never met him. Have you talked to him? You've talked to him? I've texted him. Okay, cool. I think we talked on the phone, but I've never met him. Why don't we plan a boarder ship together, all of us? Oh, that'd be sweet. That's my boy, dude. You guys are pretty tight. Yeah, dude. I just, you know, I first, I knew from movies, you know, whatever, Fury and in all those movies, but then when he had Shaya on and that that interview was incredible and so then I was like god dang this guy's freaking good he's great dude he's a great he's real yes he's real

you can tell but you're real yeah so it's you're no different but that's john berthall dude no he's he's he's one of the great ones and he's in his acting is it's so good it as an actor when you watch someone who you know is better than you and a competitor I'm a competitor fucking sucks because I'm like I need a chance I need something to show I can do just as good right like I want to compete with him because I respect him that much but watching do his job is like he's good dude yeah and for me I'm like I want the chance to compete with that how how how how do you think he's so good I mean when people are very connected to the human condition when they're very connected to knowing the big spectrums of emotions and they know how to convey those yeah it's the best there's not

So he's lived life. Not all actors have lived life. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. That dude is like, he's done the dirt. He's been around. He's been around. And when I think you're going to see a big influx of people who are very human in the sense of they've experienced life.

Because then coming into acting is like, now learn how to harness that. And he's really good at harnessing that. He's really good at it. And he owns his characters and he creates these worlds that, like, you just believe every character. Even though it's still him. He has nuances, right? Yeah. He does his thing, but every time he does it, it's like, fuck, yeah, dude.

Have you watched the show The Bear on FX? No. Oh, my God, dude. He's like a couple pieces, and it's the best. Really? The show is great. The show is great. But even his little pieces when he's in there, I'm like, God, man, I don't know how he does it,

but he steals the show every time he's on scene, dude. To me, and I don't know if I'm biased because I'm just some redneck dumb fuck from small town Oregon, but I like the real gritty life has kicked you in the nuts type actors that have come up over the professionally trained. Yeah, I get it. You know, I can't say too much on that because I work in the space of all those dudes. I think they're all very good, but for some reason, I'm drawn to those characters too. I'm drawn to those guys too. There's some beautiful actors.

The guy that used to be Marine, he got hurt and he went to acting. He went to Juilliard. He's a well-trained actor. He's brilliant. But he's great. But John Berthal is rugged great, dude. Like he's, for some reason, I just love that. Yeah, I know.

I'm drawn to those guys, too. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Well, yeah, I mean, that would be a pretty epic border trip. I mean, I'm down there. I'm going to me and Rogan and Steve Renneler are going hunting on the 8th of February. Really?

Yeah. So I'll be down in Texas. Okay, let me see what's up. But yeah, just whenever, but let me know. I'll be there for a few days then. Anytime you're down there, let me know, because like I said, I'm just north of that. I could just drive down and try and connect you guys down there if you wanted to. Anything we can make it work.

Yeah, make it work. Yeah, well, I'll be there. And yeah, I don't know what Joe's schedule is, but I'll mention it. Yeah, I've never hunted either, bro. We're pig hunting. Oh, that's fun out there. So we've done that accidentally. just when you're when you're on the field you just you hunt them down accidentally anyways yeah did you

ever have you ever eaten any uh no you know wild boar or good is it oh man so so good i i haven't eat like man i grew up in l-a i don't know the hunting space very well i've had friends bring me like an elk and i eat some of the elk yeah bring me deer but i've never i don't know the world of it i one of my buddies gutted a uh a deer in front of me i was like damn that shit's intense yeah you've been you've been to war but that's a whole different thing Yeah, the killing the animal and, you know, I'm not trying to compare the two or whatever, but yeah, killing it, it can be intense. Like you're splitting open that hide, pulling out those guts.

Yeah. It's real. I would love my sons to know what that's like, but as well as show them the respect of the animal deserves after as well. Yes. Eat everything you possibly can. Yeah. Praise this bad boy because he's feeding the family. That's right.

Show all the love and gratitude to that. You know what I mean? Like that's the side of that's kind of like the circle of life. I want them to experience and know. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds dope. Yeah.

Well, we're going to make something happen. Well, I thank you so much. I mean, I'll just, I just want to tell you. It's like, I mean, I have so much respect for you. And it's, it means a lot that you, you came to the show. You came to my home here. You're in the studio. It's like, and I feel, I feel enriched by,

the experience. Thank you. I appreciate the invite and seriously I've been following you for a long time so this is kind of surreal for me as well. Well thanks for the talk I learned a lot I appreciate you. Absolutely thank you. All right.