Jocko Podcast - 408: "Borderline". Lessons from The "Border". Chasing and Catching Dreams. With Vincent "Rocco" Vargas

Episode Date: October 18, 2023

>Join Jocko Underground<Vincent "Rocco" Vargas was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, California. Vargas enlisted in the United States Army (2003–2015) and went on to serve 3 combat deployments with the 2nd Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment. Vargas also served as an infantry Drill Sergeant. He then left active duty and entered the reserves with the rank of Sergeant First Class. After leaving active duty, Vargas worked in special operations as a medic with the Arizona Department of Corrections and then the U.S. Border Patrol but left in 2013 to pursue his career as an entertainer.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko Podcast number 408 with Echo Charles and me Jocker Willink. Good evening. Good evening. I dropped my gilly blanket and started heading toward the road right after they passed my location. My partner motioned on the radio that he had pulled out on the road and was pulling up behind the vehicle. Once I got to the road, I saw them put their vehicle in reverse and ram my partner's vehicle. Now it was game on. and we knew we were in for a fight with kids.

Just then, and unbelievably, they put their Jeep into drive and sped directly for me. When they were about 100 yards away, I lifted my rifle and started to pie off to the right to make sure that if I had to engage, I would not be shooting through the vehicle and accidentally hit my partner. I did not want to engage juveniles,

but they were speeding up, and I thought I might have to. I also knew that if I shot the driver, I then had to find a place where I could jump to safety and not get run over. As I was taking my weapon off safe and getting ready to engage, the driver and the passenger both jumped out of the Jeep and tumbled from the vehicle while it was still in motion. Thank God. My partner was able to grab the female and I was able to snatch the mail. We called for backups and the cavalry. Came so that right there is an excerpt from a new book that is out called borderline

Defending the Homefront written by Vincent Rocco Vargas book that I had the honor of Publishing and writing the forward to Vince was a Border Patrol agent he was a member of Borstar which is the part of Border Patrol special operations that's their Search and Rescue Unit and he served at the Border Patrol Special Operations Group and also as a medic on the Bortak team and before any of that He was a Ranger by God and the US Army the 75th Ranger Regiment where he fought in both Iraq and Afghanistan He's a father with seven kids and now he's also a writer an actor a producer a music a business owner, and it's an honor to have him with us here tonight to talk about his experiences and lessons learned.

Rocco. Hello. What's up, man? Pretty epic run you've been on in life. Yeah, yeah, I keep hearing that. It's kind of crazy. Like, as I started, you know, I read the, well, I've known you for, I don't know how many years, but maybe six or seven years, something like that?

Seven years at least, yeah. So I've known you and like, oh, go, Ranger, oh, cool. Oh, Border Patrol for a little bit. You know, you just, you know, hear little things. But man, when I got done wrapping this up and I started to kind of assemble in my head your life, like the pathway of your life, it's been a wild ride, man. It's been a wild ride. Yeah. a best-selling author, which is pretty cool too.

I'm shooting for it. You've got to check that one off the list, right? Let's just jump into this, start, I guess, start from the beginning of your life. And you say here in the book, my father, this is like literally the beginning of the book. My father, Carlos Vargas, was a former Marine. He came from nothing living in the Bronx and then moved to Echo Park in Los Angeles when he was 14. My father made some of what he would call knucklehead choices that ultimately resulted in him joining the military He turned his life around from a street kid to a jarhead eventually translating what he learned in the service into a career in the Los Angeles fire department his work ethic and fierce love for his family

Intimidated but also inspired me I had much to live up to and failure was never an option Yeah, so your dad your dad Dad's Puerto Rican, right? Yeah. Is that right? So he's like an old school Bronx Puerto Rican. Yeah, he's a... Yeah, yeah.

He seriously, tough dude. He actually, when he moved to L.A., what I'll explain that, because I didn't want to explain too much about, like, back... I don't know. I wasn't sure... I wanted the book to be, like, a Bortral book, so I was kind of skimming over life. But my father moved to L.A.

at a young age of 14 because they were kind of, one, running away from the abusive father he had. He was kind of a grandfather was a drunk kind of abusive man. As my grandmother would try and get away, they keep going further, further west. Eventually they end up in L.A. And he's in the streets of Echle Park. And, you know, his friends were Mexican kids because there was no Puerto Ricans at the time in L.A., right? There were very few.

It was them, right? His whole family. And he got involved in kind of the gang world. And the gangs back then, it wasn't gang banging. It was more like territorial. You know, if they got in fights, it was with, you know, belts or pipes. and one day he was going to go kind of visit or go on the wrong side of the tracks kind of thing

and they almost got jumped and he pulled out of pipe and he hit a couple of dudes with it he dropped the pipe and ran the cops came he got arrested and he had a choice to join the Marines or go to jail. What year was he in the Marine Corps? It was just the ending of the Vietnam era so he joined, he said in basic training they made the announcement that the Vietnam War is over

so he received the Vietnam campaign for joining at the time But he never went to Vietnam. There was a conversation we just had the other day. He was, yeah, Vinny. Yeah, Vinny, I just missed it. I was like, damn, dad. I guess I would know how he feels.

He feels, you know, he wanted to see it. So, yeah, that was my dad's arrow. Yeah, you always got to be thankful because you never know. You never know. Like, he might have shipped off and that's that. Yeah. No, Vinny.

A couple. Yeah, I remember a couple of calls, and he was like, Vinny, can I go to Iraq with you? You think I can get on a plane? I'm like, what are you talking about, dude? Yeah, he just, he was a, he's in for the fight, but just a good dad. And then your mom's Mexican, right?

She is. Yeah, she is. She's born in Cano, Texas, which is like a small corner of El Paso right before you get into New Mexico for Anthony, New Mexico. And where she was, you know, where she was born in that little city, it's like everyone kind of stays there. It almost seems like the world has passed it up 20 years, you know, where when my grandmother passed away, the cousins all dug the whole.

hole and when when we buried her we carried from from the from the place of the church to the final resting place the grave site you know we lowered her into the to the to the hole and then I was the first one to dig the dirt and put it back and the family sits there watching the grandkids fill the hole and it's just kind of old-school tradition thing that like you don't see anymore I remember remember hearing the the sand fall to her like it's a tin casket and I was just like Jesus this is fucking crazy And so, yeah, man, we covered her up with dirt

and to a fine resting spot next to my grandfather and my uncle who were buried in the same spot. So, yeah, it's just kind of this old school area. And then at 18, she decided to move to L.A. and try and do something different, get out of the kind of the monotony of the city of what everyone kind of went to a cannery or they picked fruit or, you know,

the same kind of kind of, the Mexican kind of thing. And so then your dad ends up in the fire department. Yeah, he became an L.A. City firefighter. He was a construction worker for a little while. It was a heavy range season, and he went to go file for unemployment, and then he saw the sign that said, you know, hiring L.A.C. Firefighters.

And my dad was like, well, let's do it. And so my mom and him stayed up late studying for the test. And, you know, she helped him study for every single test, and he got through it. And he always gang tattoos, right? So we had a couple, cover a couple of them. And they called him tattoo. That was like his whole nickname

because back then it wasn't a lot of people with tattoos. You know what I mean? So they called him tattoo, and yeah, he made it through. And I remember the change in our life. I remember going from this, we had a two-bedroom house in this small area. and LA, kind of like the Recita area. And then I remember we bought this house

that was like in a kind of like an urban area. It looked like we moved up, right? We moved up in the world. And now we had a three-bedroom house, right? And my brother, we shared room. Before it was four kids in one room. It was two bunk beds. You know what I mean?

The boys bunk bed, the girl's bunk bed. Now it was like me and my brother, we shared a room. And eventually my dad remodeled the house and we all had our own room. And it's actually the same house I stayed in the whole time I was filming mine. was in my room.

Damn. Yeah, we were having our fourth kid, and so we needed another room. So I took my son's house, or my son's room, which was a converted garage. I converted the garage into a room for him, because we had the two girls living in one room, my wife and I had a room, and then we had this other kid,

my son, we're like, all right, we need a room for him, so we made the garage into a room, and then we have a daughter, another daughter coming, so I just cut that room in half. So it was like two prison cells. Like it was my son could touch both sides. Like when he would lay down, he could touch both sides if he put his hands out. So hey man, you got to kind of do what you got to do.

You got to get through it. So you remember the days when your dad was working construction? I remember the change of lifestyles. Yeah. I remember, you know, we had this small little house. I remember just little glimpses of it. And then I remember the kind of the move up. You're like big time.

I felt it. I felt the difference. Now, I mean, I remember the struggle from the, that point on until my parents started to manage money better or just kind of figured out, I guess. But I remember, yeah, man, I remember the whole change. Yeah, you're going to be digging out of like debt too, right? Like you buy a house like you're in debt. You're just, you spend all your money every last dollar.

And it takes like a couple of years to recover from that. Yeah, I remember in high school when I noticed like, oh, we're doing all right. And I remember, I remember the change. It's like, oh, I can tell my parents you're doing good. You know what I mean? They're both worked. Right. My mother was a, she worked as a, like, a, a,

secretary for the L.E. Unified School District, you know, so it was one of those things where they both parents worked. They were doing their thing. We played sports and we kind of were on autopilot at a certain age. And I remember like, oh man, the parents are doing pretty good with money right now. And were you attracted to trouble at all? No, man, I saw a lot of it. I was always a fighter. I was always willing to fight, but I honestly stayed so involved in sports. My dad had me so involved in sports. There was no excuse for anything. I didn't have time. I played year-round sports no matter what I remember telling my dad like at 12 and like dad I'm done I want to play sports he goes well then you're gonna come home you're gonna clean this you can do

this you know I'm like fuck that list of shit I'm going back to sports and so you know my brother got and got involved in some some kind of the street stuff the street life when you grew up in LA in the 90s it was you were either involved in gangs or you were some kind of sports and I took the athlete route and I had a lot of like old-timer dudes in my world that were just like keep doing it you know I felt like I had the blessing of a couple people that were big gang members in the area just like keep doing it, man, we're proud of you.

I'm like, oh shit, shit, well, keep staying out of trouble, stay out of the bullshit and keep playing sports. And how good were you at sports? It's good enough. I wasn't great. Like, I didn't get, you know, I was bad at education, right?

I was bad at reading. So I was going to go as far as that can take me, you know? I went to junior college to play baseball because it was the only opportunity I had because I didn't take the... I failed the PSATs. I'm telling you, I probably got my name right. It was probably the only thing I got, you know what I mean?

So once I failed that one, I was like, well, there's no fucking point wasting money on the actual SATs. So let's just go to junior college. And junior college, you had an opportunity where if you did really well in junior college, you can go to pro anyways. So I was like, was it a good chance. It's just trying to figure that out. I got in trouble a little bit. And I ended up finding myself going to Northern California to Chico to play some summer ball out there with some friends. And that got me a full ride to Kentucky to a school in Kentucky called Bresher University.

and I became academically ineligible there and just joined the military. Sort of be kicked. You know, yeah. Yeah, I did some, tried to independent pro. I tried all kinds of weird stuff and, yeah, the military called. So hold on. So you get to college, you're playing ball in college. Yeah.

So you got freaking skills. Yeah. And yet you just academically ineligible. You're just not going to classes or what? I couldn't read, man. I graduated high school with like a fifth grade reading level. I was dyslexic, but we never, it was no one ever told us that. You know what I mean?

and my mom hired a reading coach for a while and just couldn't get couldn't figure it out um reading coach was like hey ma'am your son's dumb i'm sorry that's all that's too like back of the day it was like i would not be able to focus long enough to get it done it was high school time where like if you were good at sports and you show up every day you'd get a C you know what I mean and so like i was good at sport my sister was my twin sister i have a twin sister right we're in the same class together i just sat there and read baseball books or tried to like do whatever i could to kill the time she did everything she got to be i got a C and she's He was like, what the fuck?

Yeah. Yeah, I was just good enough, you know. They mentioned your name. You're like, oh, Vince had, you know, there's three hits and two stolen bases in the mornings, you know. So like, you're the man. Yeah, I was good enough to. People knew that. So then how long was it before you get?

Well, you're in college. When was September 11th? I was in junior, I was in junior college at Glendale Community College at the time. And I was waking up to get ready for class. And my mom said, I heard her kind of a screech of like Vinny, like scared screech. I was like, so I came out in my room, I was like, what's up, ma? And she's watching the TV just frozen, and the first plane already hit, and it's live, and I see the second plane hit.

And I was like, what's that? Like, what happened? And my head was like, it was just a plane accident, right? And we're just watching. She goes, I think we're being attacked. And I was like, what? It was like the first thought. Like, it's when you really didn't know what the fuck was going on.

And the first thought was like, someone's attacking us. I'm like, I'm confused as fuck. My dad's the L.A. City firefighter. So he's already at work. And he's like, Vinny, I don't know if you should go to school. But I think I had like a baseball game or something. I was like, I was like, I'm going to go to school. You know what I mean?

And I think when I got to school, I saw everyone else's kind of expressions about it and thoughts. And that's when I really just started seeing how, like, heavy that was. And that's when I was like, fuck, dude, am I going to have to join the military? And that's what I thought. I thought we were all going to have to just join. But the dream of like baseball is like, we'll keep doing this. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens.

And I remember it was like the second day, the day after America was like super like patriotic and like nice. You're in L.A. and people are like usually not nice about driving. Everyone's like, oh yeah, you can cut it. Like who gets a fuck? You know what I'm like? We're all Americans, you know? And I was down in Ventura Boulevard and we used to just go there to hang out. And it was like a makeshift fucking parade.

Like people with flags and honking their horns and everyone's like patriotic. And all of a sudden fucking like Oprah's there interviewing people and all this. Like it was crazy and I was that I remember me and my buddy were dumbass college we spray painted our body's red white and blue and we're just like I felt it man I felt like the I felt every the energy of like everyone kind of coming together and it was like a really beautiful beautiful moment and I've never been this like gung ho patriotic person it wasn't something like my dad he's military we love America I never thought anything more than that and that was probably the first time I was like damn this is heavy it was heavy man I remember I'll never forget that day it's just like fuck should I join and I didn't yet not yet so you so now you get at going to this college in Kentucky yeah and there you don't you don't your grades aren't good I guess yeah long are you go there for for a year but I failed that of ceramics is what got me dude what is ceramics is that like making pottery and stuff yeah yeah I kept bro everything I said about you being awesome I don't, I know.

I'm trying not to tell you everything. This dude failed potter. You're going to lose all respect soon. Don't worry. Yeah, dude. I kept the transcript because I'm like, fuck, it's going to be a story one day, I'm sure. But, you know, every other grade was like a C, a C, a C.

So I was like doing good enough. And then I didn't drop out of, I didn't drop the class in time. And so I was trying to drop the class in time. I overslept one day. I missed the drop deadline. Boom, that affects your grade. Didn't even need the fucking class, right? It was just like an extra class,

but it put me under a 2.0, which made me ineligible and lose my full ride. Dang. Yeah, dude. Yeah. So I got a job at Texas Roadhouse, and I was like, well, fuck, what's next? And then I had a baby, dude.

I forgot. I had my baby at the same, like around the same time. And I was like, fuck, what the fuck? Who's paying for the baby? I mean, so. The baby's mom.

My ex, who eventually became my ex-wife with the baby's mom. She was doing everything. I was asking my mom, like, can you just drop off some diapers? Can you get him some... Where was she in L.A.? L.A.?

Yeah. Yeah. So my mom would like drop off some money. Yeah. And dude, I was raised by cool parents. And to say cool parents, like I was raised knowing I wanted to be a parent, right? Like it was a cool environment, man. We had four of us, right?

Kids and we play, we'd be competitive with each other. So I'd never had a doubt in my mind. I wanted to be a dad. But like, the way it happened was not unexpected so much, but like, of when you're 21 years old, you're like, shit, dog, now what? You know, I got no money for me. You know, I'm putting myself. I didn't need the money for college,

but I still took out of loan just I could pay for beers, like dumb shit like that. Yeah. And so then I knew, I tried to figure out what was next. I applied for some, like, opportunities to go try out for some independent pro teams. Those never panned out because I was just a party animal kid. I got an opportunity to play.

It was professional in Germany for, like, I think it was a rock for, Rockman, Richmond Roosters or something. But they said it couldn't take my daughter at the time. And so I didn't want that. Like that didn't feel right. I was at Buffalo Wild Wings, sitting next to a Navy vet who would tell me stories about the military. And we were watching the news.

And it was that time where that Marine was putting the flag over Saddam Statue. And they pulled it down. They were interviewing his family, man. And his family was like crying and all happy and proud of him, dude. And I was like, fuck, I don't think my family's ever. looked at me like that you know what I've just always been like a just kind of the I've always felt like my mom is always like oh Vinnie don't get in trouble my Vinnie don't get hurt oh Vinny you know I've always been like the fear of my mom is like I'm gonna fuck

something up you know what I mean because I was just some mischievous dude and that's when that's when I kind of knew I was like all right everything's fucking not going the right way my brother said he gave me he's like maybe maybe you should join the military helped dad maybe so I went to recruiting office and I went to the Marines first because I thought my dad would be proud if I joined the Marines and he was like fuck no don't join the Marines I was like I think it was his way he knew the war was was happening he was scared for me he's just like don't join the Marines dude and my mom's like don't join the Navy I think she had a family member or a cousin or something that joined the

Navy and it was sexually molested raped or whatever and so she was like don't do that and I'm like let that happen mom gonna fight but either way I remember so those two are out for me and And I even went to the Navy just be like, I would do Navy SEALs, but do they even have contracts? Because I was like, no, you can be an underwater welder and we could put in your contract. And I was like, no, that don't sound cool at all.

Fuck that. So. That's a good move. You didn't want to listen to that. He was lying to you. So then I was actually waiting for my ride to pick me up in the Army recruiter. Say, what are you doing here? I was like, I was just thinking about you on the military.

He's going to my office. God, you look like a steak to him. He sees like a lost 21-year-old kid, bro, he's like, yo, what are you doing here, my friend? In decent shape, just sitting there, no ride. He's like, you fucking got you, bro. Pulled me right in. He said, you know, we got a $20,000 bonus.

I was like, oh, bro. He's like, I'm down. I was like, what's the hardest thing you have? He said, Army Ranger are Special Forces. And, like, Special Force is the only thing I ever heard, right? I knew Army Ranger, I don't know much about any of these. I just knew Special Forces sounded really dope. And I was like, well, I'd love to do that.

So I took the tests, and I got a 108 G-T. score which put me two points below what was mandatory for SF and they didn't have a two-point waiver at the time later they did when I was in basic training I'm like fuck dog but um so I said yeah I'll do armor Ranger and so they found me in option 40 contract and uh I had no idea what I was going into I just knew like ranger cool I watched black hawk down I was like fuck yeah this is red let's let's check this out you know then I watch band of brothers and I was like dude I got to go I'm ready man so I got excited about it. How long was it before between signing the dotted line and shipping out? Six months. Okay. So I got two credit cards maxed them out just because it's just a dumbass.

I'm like, I'm going to die in Iraq anyway. Let's just do this. I started drinking like a mother buying everyone drinks at the fucking bars and shit. Went home to see my daughter. And yeah, man, just waited for that ship out date. How was boot camp and all that? It was cool. Never in my life did anything like that, never expected it. My dad was pretty tough dude. And so, none of it intimidated me. They couldn't put their hands on me. So I was like, I don't give a fuck, dude. Like, this is whatever.

I was kind of older, 23 years old. So I'm kind of babysitting a lot of these fucking young knuckleheads on how to do it. Like, quit fucking get me in trouble, dude. You know what I mean? Like, there was a lot of- Teaching them how to max out their credit cards. There was a lot of threatening going on in the barracks between several of us older dudes and the young ones. And, uh, yeah, it was like a group of older dudes.

Like, one was a, you know, there was an older dude who was like fucking 32 or something like that. And he was a, he was a, he was a, firefighter and Dave Cahill and I remember the drill song I was like he's like why did you join you goes because he was from New York and he's like because those motherfuckers killed some my fucking friends and he goes what fuck it took you so long and I was like damn yeah yeah we were all like this motherfucker's rowdy dude and he she he had comments about all of us that were older you know what the fuck took you so long you know and uh it was an experience man it wasn't as hard as I imagined I actually learned a lot about myself didn't know I'd be able to run as well

as I did I never was like this distance runner anyways and it turned into like oh I could and run pretty good. I got in really good shape. I started filling out like bigger. I didn't realize like I would be gaining weight and basic training essentially kind of filling out some muscles. And then I found it that everyone had a ranger contract. The whole fuck a platoon had a range of contract. I was like oh fuck I thought it was just like one and I got it. You know, they're like, no it's all of us. And so started learning asking those guys questions and they were telling me like, yeah dude you got to go through this. Then you got to go to airborne. You got to go rip and they're going to try to make you quit. I'm like oh fuck no way. Well fuck let's do it.

you know and you know got the airborne and that was that was just airborne it's not that challenging airborne yeah it's such a jump out of a plane but like in the same time like well if this was gonna get to Rangers fine and then Rip was cool man Rip was a fucking kicking the nuts but

all in all like I just kept looking for like what's gonna fucking make me quit I don't know and I didn't want to quit because like I have a daughter and like I want to see her I want to see her proud of me and I want I think of her watching me cross some kind of stage and her being real proud of her dad receiving an award, whatever it was.

It was just in my vision I had, I carried with me everywhere. And then my dad, I couldn't say I quit because I feel like my dad would be like, what fuck? Like, you know what I mean? Like, you know? And so like those are the two people that really motivated me

to keep going and it just continued throughout my career. It was those two and my kids, you know, my kids multiplied. And how long is Rip? Rips, not that long, right? I think it's three weeks. Okay. I think it's only three weeks.

And the biggest part of RIP was called Coal Range. And it's like they take you out into the field. You do some. land navigation and then when you're when you're when you're if you pass land navigation at night they just fuck you up until you fucking try and make you quit and um it's just over and over and over and then that's usually where you lose the most people you get your PT test you got a five-mile run and then like just all the smoke sessions in between but cold range is where you lose a lot of people and they do the whole thing we're like pays to be a winner you know and you run a mile and they fucking they fuck you

you don't you're not first well then you fucking keep going and I mean this lasts all night and that's when people quit and then you know you have a poncho and you're cold as fuck and people are like afraid to cuddle so you're like all right dude, fuck you, I'll cuddle up, you know? And so people just quit, and that's where you lose a lot of guys from that. It's weird. I always, when I figured this out, when I learned this, that in, well, to go to Ranger Regiment and be a Ranger at Ranger Regiment, you don't have to go to Ranger school.

A lot of people don't know that. You have to go through Rip, which is three weeks long. So you're like a, well, at this point you were 23, but some kids in Rangers, they're like 18 years old. Oh, yeah. At Ranger Battalion. Yeah. I had a lot of dudes, man.

I had a lot of dudes who showed up in their 18-year-old. knuckleheads, but they were willing to fucking endure that suck fest. We're like, cool. They're one of us now. I think that's the cool thing about Ranger Regiment, too, is that we get to raise our privates. We get to raise those soldiers, and we raise them exactly how we want them. And the same thing, I showed up as a 23-year-old. I've still treated like nobody, and they train you to be the type of Ranger that they want you to be. Shoot where I shoot, go where I go, do what I do. And don't fucking question it, or else you get fucked up. And that's what we raised dudes who do that. And that's what makes Range

and regiment what it is. Yeah. And Rangers, like most people don't stay in Ranger for a long time because it's a tough, like Spartan life. Yeah, it's hard to find dudes who've done the full four and been successful. I'm going to say it's hard. I said it's those guys, you give a little bit more of a tilt of the cap too. Like, oh, fuck yeah, the dude did his four and he got his Ranger tab and he became a team leader.

Because a lot of dudes that do too and they get kicked out for drinking reasons for RFS, release for standards, right? We have a certain standards you have to meet. And so there's guys who get kicked out in one year, two years, three years, It doesn't matter because it's a fucking challenging lifestyle. It's a challenging lifestyle for families. A lot of guys have drinking issues and fight, you know, whatever it is. It's not easy to run that pace and still try and be a normal person outside of that with a marriage or a relationship,

as well as trying to manage your drinking because it's kind of the culture as well in our little world. So we fight, we fucking, we drink. Yeah. It's madness, dude. I met a dude one time and he had been at like Ranger Regiment for like 19 years or something. And this is when I was younger. but this dude looked like he had nothing else. He was literally in the, I was on the Army base,

and he was in the like PX or whatever, and he's wearing like Ranger panties, a Ranger T-shirt and like running shoes and like high and tight. And he looks like just there's nothing in his life except for just Ranger. And I was like, yep, this dude's, this is a hard dude, you know, if you,

and I ended up talking to him, he was like, I've been at Ranger Ranger, Ranger Man for 19 years or something crazy like that. And I was like this dude's because you know in the seal teams like dude it's a hard job and then you get like cool stuff and you hang out and you have a lot of autonomy right Rangers like if you're an 18 year old. If you're a 20 year old seal you're you got all kinds of autonomy. You know you they're like just make sure you're in shape. You know make sure you show up. They're not like this what we're like in the in the Rangers like show up. We're going to jump at whatever six o'clock. in the morning show up at two o'clock in the morning so we can start inspecting and check and everything don't play around no no dude they don't play around well because we're raising

knucklehead kids that don't know shit so you have to be like very precise with everything but you'll show up on a money be like all right we're gonna go for a five mile run we're gonna swim across the lake and we're gonna come back and go home you're like what the fuck for it doesn't matter we're just trying to yeah it's just what we do yeah respect dude rangers don't play around um so you get through all that stuff I'm gonna jump to the book here real quickly say once arriving to my unit I had learned so much about myself already I was 23 year old private first class and I was becoming a well-rounded professional soldier more than just a baseball player within 45 days of joining ranger

battalion I was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan while in Afghanistan I was if I wasn't on a mission eating chow or in the gym I had nothing to do but think fast forward a little bit while one day while sitting in a squad room in Afghanistan a few of us started talking about what we wanted to do after we got out of the army I mentioned the fire department everyone had their normal copper firefighter career aspirations and no one said anything out of the ordinary until staff sergeant ricardo barraza i said that right barraza spoke up and simply said border patrol he told us they had special operations units and a huge budget for training it's the closest thing to being an army ranger but doing

it in the civilian world he said with a flourish so this is on your first deployment uh staff sergeant barraza is the first person that makes you think about border patrol how's that first appointment to Afghanistan. I was nervous, man. I didn't know what the fucking expect. I think that's what the fear was like, what the fuck? What's going to happen? And what I don't mention in the book is that I just got to battalion when Pat Tillman

was killed. So I'm dealing with that as a fucking brand new private and like seeing the chaos of that motherfucker dude. Dude's coming back fucked up from that. The whole backlash from fucking Pat Tillman. He's in my company. The platoon is second platoon. I'm in first platoon.

So like it was so close to us. As new guys, we were like, Jesus, fuck, dude. And they're like, hey, get your stuff ready. We'll go overseas. What was the, how long did it take for you to start hearing like that that was a fratricide? Within five days. We're showing them to battalion. We're in formation.

They're like, hey, we're going to be guarding the gates. We had our DCUs to go back to meet him. So we're supposed to be the reach to meet that, meet that platoon, meet those guys. And when that went down, it was just like, shut it down. We're just, you guys just pulling security and answering phones. And it was like, we started hearing what happened. and then boom the news and then we had a we had a formation we're in the rear D right in rear detachment and they talked about like hey this is what you're

going to say to anyone that calls here's the you know we have a thing and that's when we all started talking like what the fuck went down dude and then that's you know I had to pick up um you know Pat Tome's brother and we just kind of started escorting dudes around and helping get their stuff and some guys were getting RFS and just fucking it was just like not enough was said because we're just kind of new because we're nobody's but like you started hearing everyone else talking it was like this is crazy I don't know the fuck and I started learning everything for the news I was like these dudes ain't

talking to me because I'm nobody you know what I mean all they would do is fuck us up because we were new and I guess they were angry and when they got back they we got fucked up even more it was crazy it's crazy and then we get deployed and no one still talks to us because we're private train train shut the fuck up let's go and you're like this is fucking nuts dude Yeah, and you got to be thinking, like, if this can happen to Pat Tillman, like, who am I? It was crazy. Vinny over here, getting ready to get.

Vinny, nobody. Yeah, damn. Vinny, Big Chin. And, yeah, dude, I remember, I remember talking to one of the Patoonson's arms, and he's like, you're nervous? I'm like, yeah, yes, sir. And he was like, well, don't worry about it, you know, 90% of the time you're just going over there, you know, you might not see combat, you know, 10% of him ever engaged with it.

And he's giving me these numbers. I'm like, okay, this town's not. good and I remember one of the first appointments were like fast roping in and fucking there's there's like they're getting fire on the helicopter and you're like oh fuck dude to the fucking odds dude I saw a dude's crawling dude and I was like oh everyone's getting shot and we roped in and it was just like no dude people are breaking their ankles on the fast rope and it's just like yeah it's like oh shit bro the fast rope's fucking take and do that but my thought I was like I don't want to go dude dude's getting fucking in me and I'm carrying three goose off rounds in the

back of you. I'm like, don't hit me. Yeah, man. Yeah. And so what was your, what was your mission on that? Like, what was your kind of standard mission set on that first deployment to Afghanistan? It was the same as kind of the rest of them, but it wasn't as active as, so I'll explain it. Like, our job has always been like kind of raids and like, how do you gather that Intel is just however we get it. And obviously me being a nobody was just like, hey, there's Intel in this area. we're going to go try and kill or capture this individual. Same kind of thing, like TSD targets or whatever the case. And so we go into these missions, but they were not as often as they eventually became

because Intel got better, but as well as how we gathered the Intel. You know, my first appointment in 2004, the only thing that you would kind of secure from an objective was like an embitter phone. And that was like rare. If you found them, you're like, dope, dude, we got an embitter. By 2005 in Iraq, there was a cell phone towers every one. Everyone had a cell phone. So then the missions came like, dude,

as soon as you scrub someone's fucking cell phone, you had like 20 other dudes you need to go hit. You didn't mean? So that changed, the whole opt-nable change when technology changed for them. It helped us. And so 2004, you know, we just had a few missions here and there,

more, a lot of training going on, a lot of like getting ready for the thing. But, you know, just a few missions here and there, but it wasn't like Iraq. And you guys are doing four-month deployments? Yes.

Okay. Yeah. Any major, like, lesson learned about that from that deployment where you're like, dude, I'm never doing that again. The whole thing was like, there was one mission where we went to a high point and I was using just binoculars.

I'm a nobody AG guy for the Gustav. I'm like the A-B-A-G guy, right? So I'm just like staying out of the fucking way. And I remember just like scanning the objective area and I'm like, hey, sir, I think we got dudes on a roof. And he's like, let me see here. He had a big ass dip in. Let me see you.

And he goes, shit, yeah, we did. So he calls, I remember he calls on the radio. He calls to the, we had a fister on the ground, but he also had a fist that was flying with spectre gunship. And they see it. They're like, yeah. And they were like, sir, what do you want to do? It's like, load a round.

So I loaded a fucking round, dude. And I'm like, fucking they about to goost all this motherfuckers dog. I've already fired like 15 in practice and training. And so I'm like, this is dope and it's going to be scary. Let's go. I close it. I close it. I close it.

I'm just sitting there. Like, to be fired? Like, what do we do? You know what's sitting right and he's going on the radio and it supposedly they called fire but the radio communication was fucked so then by the time it came back to us it's like whole fire whole fire and a team started pushing in on them and we didn't find it until after I was like sorry what happened he was like oh they told us not to fire then we have to take it out and that's you to me it's like you'd be scared it got to take this fucking round back out but right back into my

fucking rucksack and then uh the cool moment was like the PL was like there's people kind of approaching from the back from the rear It's like one of the houses woke up and people were kind of He's like give me one and I just jumped up. I was like let's go and I started running with him and we're lazing in and seeing all these people come out and eventually the turf came in and kind of calmed it all down But I was like fuck dude, we're really doing this shit dog That's like really in the middle of this like fucking foreign-ass country People know who the fuck we are and we're fucking fascia it was just that was the first like Damn dude I'm actually doing this shit. Yeah, what's crazy to me is like you probably been in the army for a year maybe?

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. So you're like boot camp, airborne school, rip. Yeah. Some training with your company. And then boom, you're on deployment. Yeah. I think I learned really how to be an A, B, an AG for the fucking goose off in deployment. Like, that was like the moment of really learning because we trained so often. And then same like, I was doing a lot of readyups and deployment, dude. Just like, nothing going on today. Let's go. Boom. They put X's on the one. We're just ready up, ready. It's like 90% of my skill sets was built in combat there, not in combat.

just training it was like fucking nuts yeah check and did you like the job I did I did I think like in the book I said a lot of thinking I thought like well fuck if I applied myself I could have done so many different things like not that I hated what I was doing but I was ready for it to be done like let me do my four years to go out because I'm like now motivated to fucking face the world like I could do I thought I was a baseball player and that's all I didn't think there was more outside of my life so when I lost baseball I was like I was ready kind of give up. I was like, fuck all this. I've been playing baseball. It's all years old. Year round since seven.

Like, it's all I fucking knew. Like, when people struggle transitioning out of the military, I struggled transitioning out of baseball. So when I found the military, yeah, dude, it's like, you're professional athletes. Dude, Echle feels it over here. It's transitioning out of football for Ego Charles. Yeah, dude, because you're like, what the fuck am I? You know? And then when I got to the military, I found like, oh,

I'm kind of good at this too. That's when I was like, all right, this is cool, but shit, if I could be good at this, what else can I be good at? So, like, yeah, I was sitting in my room thinking, like, Fuck what could I have done what else could I what could I what could I do and so that's what like the conversation brazzed when he said a Border Patrol I was like the fuck is he talking about never heard of these I've heard of him but I didn't know it was even a thing That anyone want I'm gonna fast forward a little bit of the book book obviously I'm just reading highlights just get the book so much details and stories This is a freaking great book

On December 16th 2004 I lost a close friend whom I I had spent a significant amount of time with in the pipeline on the way to Ranger Battalion. Devin Poguero died while participating in a live fire exercise. Yeah. So this is like another reality check, you know? Yeah, I came back from that deployment. And so Devin was with me in basic training and then Airborne.

Airborne was so like laid back that we thought our PT was not gonna be good enough for Ranger selection. for a rip. So we were like intentionally fucking around so they would make us do pushups. And we'd be like, Ranger, Ranger. We were pissing people off. But for us was like, fuck it, get smoked all day. Let's get ready for Ranger, you know. We got to Rip and they gave us a weekend before the PT test on the Monday. And we went out to Columbus like idiots, you know, and we're drinking beers and we're bullshitting. And we're all talking to, like, I was talking to my baby's mom. He was talking to his girl. And one of our knuckleheads from basic training,

He goes, I hear him tell a girl, yeah, yeah, we're all me ranges, you know? And I was like, who the fuck is he talking to? And another dude turned around and goes, oh, really? What company? He said, we're Delta company. He goes, we don't have a Delta company. And boom, the fight broke out, dude. And I'm like, I got to go.

And boom, trying to pull this dude out of there. But they had my card on tab. Like, all kinds of shit went wrong. So we ran. The fucking, you know, the MPs were fucking chasing. We jumped into the back of a truck and we just lay there. Like, hope the fucking God, they don't get us. That Monday morning, we didn't realize this, but Devin's like, Doug,

and Devin Pagero, right? He's like, dog, I can't find my ID card. I said, what? And he goes, I think we lost, I think I lost it during the fight. I was like, what the fuck, bro? They call him to the front of the formation. And he goes, I lost my ID card. He goes, yeah, okay, you're recycled.

Boom, they kicked him out of the course. And I was like, so I didn't know if we were going to see him ever again. That's my boy, you know what I mean? So I come back from this deployment and I fucking run into him at the child. I'm like, Devin. He goes, yeah, dude, I fucking made. I was like, holy shit. He got recycled again because he failed the fucking five mile and then the next one he finally made it.

Boom, he's in Radio Battalion with us, right? He's in Charlie Company. And so we're trying to connect again about like, dude, I'm like, I'm watching to meet my daughter. She's here now. You know what I mean? I got married. Like, let's, like, let's have it. He was supposed to come over for dinner.

But, you know, I had my life fire. Alpha Company did their life fire. And then his next day was Charlie coming to do their life fire. The next day he was supposed to come up for dinner. So they're live fired. They gave us a call. You know, they notified all of us that someone was killed during training.

But in the call, they said Figueroa. And I was like, Figueroa from Charlie Cumm. I was like, I don't know who that is. I'll figure it out in the morning. I remember they woke me up. And I was like, hey, they were calling about someone, an incident. I was like, oh.

And I was like, I don't know the Figueroa. Okay. When I got to, when I got to Alpha Company, my buddy Solomon Kim, he comes up to me. He comes up to me. He's like, bro, did you hear? I was like, yeah, Figuro, I don't know who that. He goes, no, dude, it was Devin.

And I was like, oh, dude, he said it was figure. I was like, no, dude, it was Devin. And fuck, we hugged it out. It was like, what the fuck happened? And so people started to tell us what was going on. And that was the first time, like, as a man, as a grown man, like my emotions, I wasn't sure how to handle that. You know what I mean? I was raised obviously by a tough dude that crying would be weak in his world, you know?

And as I was getting home from the day and trying to still piece it together, as I was putting the keys into the door, I remember kind of like shaking and it all kind of overwhelm me and and I just busted out crying like holy fuck and I told my wife like you know that my friend was supposed to come up for dinner tomorrow he was the one who was killed and it was just like a shock to us like Jesus fuck how do you get killed what happened so a lot of people got RFS for that right they got released for standards for this um you know we're doing a it's like a paralleled live shoot and so you you go clear and you go clear and you continue, right? There's a big gap between the two buildings, and sometimes you only use one building. And you have these targets that every time you engage, it were kind of falling over, and so you reset them.

And I guess the range safety officer wasn't paying attention or whoever it was, wasn't paying attention to, as they kept resetting them, they kept shifting, and it got to a point where it reset in a spot where when it shot, it engaged, and went through the wall, through the target, through the wall, and hit him in a throat while he's pulling security in the other room.

And so they provided all the medical, possibly could on the in the van on the way to the hospital they said they felt the release of his hands and that's when he died on the way there yeah and that one was a that one was heavy for me because i was like you know i've lost friends into gang violence you know and i and it's kind of like when you grow up in all it's it's okay but that one was like damn he didn't die in combat he died training for it like he wanted it and it fucking sucked man that one that one hurt So you go through that, but you're still going to work up, and that's the thing, everybody. Six months later we're going on.

You're still doing your job, and you go to Iraq, the second one. So what year is this? That's 2005 now. 2005 you were on to Iraq. What were you in Iraq? Mosul. Okay. Yeah, we did the whole Mosul thing.

That was one of our most successful deployments as a battalion. You show up there with, like, the one dude in the middle of the circle that you want to get, and then everyone else is kind of like who can lead you to them. That was Mosul 2005, and we captured the top dog. And it was like kind of a weird how it worked. So the Rangers would go on a mission that day, and we're like TST targets, right? Time sensitive target missions,

waiting for certain intel to drop, and boom, we're on it. So all of our kit was right by our, it was when we first started using strikers. And so all of our kit was by the strikers and we're just sitting there doing our thing, getting ready, hashing it out, getting ready for it. Boom, you get a call, we're gone. And you can do one mission, you can do six missions a day.

It doesn't matter. It was just kind of this crazy, crazy. thing but the days were off we were we're QRF and we're QRF for Delta dudes right the cag dudes and so it was kind of like we're switching days and then there was times we're like hey we had a heavy date last night can you guys do do TST today and then we'll just pick up yeah whatever and so as we started getting close and close to this dude you know they're they're wanting the mission they want the big one you know what I mean so I remember one day they'd give us a day off like hey you guys are back on QRF we're gonna this was good intel we're probably going to try and cash this dude and as we're all kind of

trying to get this dude by chance one day, we had dudes lay up in the house, and we were going to pick him up. As we were going to pick him up, this dude shows up to the house next door. And so, boom, we hit the house. I remember we hit the house, boom, going in, I walked right by. Someone snatched this dude already. They grabbed them up, you know,

put him on his knees and start cuffing them, putting the sandbag over the, we used something different at that one point. I remember going right past him. I'm like, that's a big ass motherfucker. I kept going, and room clear, boom. And then you start hearing the radio track, we're like, hey, we caught the fat guy. And we were like, fuck, holly, we got up.

And then phones went off and then more intel gathered. And I mean, that night, I think we did six missions. It was like, boom, boom, boom, boom. Because just shit started popping off, right? Like everyone was like, I guess they were in panic mode. So they started messing each other and then we were able to pull all that data and boom. And you're a straight up assaulter. Yeah, I'm a saw gunner at this time.

I'm a sawgunner on a team. Oh, you're sawgunner and just getting after. Yeah, yeah. Sawgunner, like, it was the best job in the world, bro. It's like, everybody wants you in the room quick. You know, it's like, go. I'm like, let's go. And yeah, man, it was a good time.

Moseul was pretty busy for us. We had a lot of engagements. We had, you know, the truck in front of us took an ID. At one point, we had a hand grenade hit and hit a couple of my dudes on the first squad. But we were kind of like, oh, shit, we ran over there and seen the chaos of that madness. We had one of our little birds on a mission got engaged on, and the pilot, luckily, the co-pilot helped him pull it back up and got out of there. So we had a lot of, like, a little interesting, you know. know just combat shit man war shit and it was a it was a good experience it was uh there was definitely

that i tell people like that's when i i kind of mended my relationship with god you know as i as i grew up i was kind of wasn't sure i was raised catholic and then kind of converted to christianian when i was in kentucky and then from there i was kind of like ah man my life is going to go to shit so you start blaming god you know like i lost my scholarship you know i can't read my kid all this thing so i started getting angry with god and then i was there i was like yo dude i won to be in my kids lives man I might do my wife is pregnant at the time was like I want to see her be born and and and I want to be a dad and like get me out of this dude no I'll fuck whatever you know what I actually I promised I'd wear suit to church I still haven't done this shit dog but um yeah man

I might want to straighten that out I know I know every time I say that I get I got to get my suit in the cleaners but um yeah it was like the moment where there was enough action happening enough shit was going down enough dudes who were earning their purple heart where I was like man it's a numbers game now dude and um I started getting trying to be right with God and and before every mission I was kind of had my my peace we we talked and and we do our mission and so that was like my favorite deployment because the most experience it was just really we had a lot of action going on at the time um fast forward a little bit here you say in april 2005 after returning from a deployment in iraq I was preparing to be sent to Ranger School.

The day before we left, we played a football game with the platoon. Barazza's team versus mine. Because of my competitive nature, I wanted to win so damn bad. But Barraza's competitive nature matched mine. And his team won. After I was walking off, pissed, he stopped me.

Come here, he said in his deep, cocky tone. I hesitated in my frustration. Vargas, come here, he repeated. What's up, Sergeant? He snagged a Ranger tab off his cover, handed it to me, and said, Come back with your shit or don't come back at all. We hugged, and I walked it off still fuming, but also shocked by the gesture. He caught off his own tab from his cover and gave it to me.

This wasn't something I'd ever seen anyone do. It was powerful. I didn't want to let this man down, just like I'd never wanted to let my father down. That's freaking legit. Like someone giving you their Ranger tab Before you even go to Ranger school That's when they used to sew it on So he had to cut it

Rip it off Just the gesture alone was like They call it a drive-on tab in Ranger Baton And I didn't know about this Never heard of it, you know It was just drive-on tab is like You look at that motherfucker And you remember why you want this so bad

And you fucking come back with it Or don't come back at all And in Ranger Baton If you don't pass Ranger school You're gone anyway So it's like get the fuck out of you then you know and um so that's actually a thing a drive on ranger tab is when you give your tab to someone else i don't know if it's necessarily giving it but i know there's versions of that and there's

sometimes you have one people sew it into their hat is like if they look at it right to drive on tabs like motivates you do it you do it you want that someone's like i guess someone would do with a trident or something i don't know but i it wasn't the it was the first time i've ever heard of it but by the time i got my ranger tab i've done it to someone as well because i kind of continue that tradition but i've heard it's not uncommon for it but for me i've never seen that shit And then for it to be that guy Braza for me was like It was like the leader that

When I showed up to Ranger Town I thought everyone was an athlete You know what I mean And then I showed up and I was like fuck they're not athletes They're just dudes that are willing to do the job And so that kind of was like man I thought it was to be like fucking badass Rambo dudes And fuck they could all fight

They could all fucking run they could all play sports And no it wasn't the case He was though He was an athlete He was a big bad motherfucker He was highly respected And he was a dude that I looked at I was like yeah I want to be like that

That's the dude and so for him to to take his own tab off his hat and give it to me It was pretty special But I fucking wanted to beat his ass so goddamn bad dude That's fucking mad that he won again Yeah, that's a and you've got more about about Braza in here so I'm obviously not reading the whole book But it's freaking legit and that that definitely was the powerful section Ranger school any major challenges at ranger school Yeah one but but um for the The most part, you know, it's pretty lucky, you know.

I was distinguished on a graduate of the fucking school, so I never got really in trouble. The one time they gave everyone major, no, I was taking a piss, and so they missed me. You know what I mean? Like weird circumstances, I show up to fucking mountains phases. My same platoon star from Afghanistan who told me those statistics.

And he goes, hey, he got our fest for some shit. So he's like, hey, Vargas, what the fuck? This guy's a stud, this kid's a stud, you know? And so, like, all of a sudden, everyone was like, hey, you told me about your deployments, man. said I'm like okay that's cool so like I by chance I ran into different things that kind of like I guess kind of helped help me through the way and just luck and shit you know I was older so I can manage myself really well I learned to fucking just manage the suck mountains phase I fell pretty hard

and I severed up I did a brachial plexus nerve damage so the arm the right arm was dead and so I wasn't going to say shit I got through fucking Florida phase and you know I took a swim in the fucking in the swamp with one armor and struggled for a little bit. Had some Ranger buddies helped me out, you know? But no, man, I got through it, you know, Lord Willan, and as well as I graduated the same day, the anniversary date to Devin's death, and that was kind of the motivation for just trying to go straight through.

Going to the book, I graduated from Ranger School right on time, December 16th, and I was the distinguished honor graduate. The downside was that I had severed my nerve, as you just said. Staff Sergeant Barraza was killed in Iraq from wounds he sustained on a mission. Yeah. He and Sergeant Dale Brem died while clearing a building in Ramadi, Iraq, when they came under enemy fire. We lost two of the most influential and well-respected individuals in our battalion, and I was angry about it. Staff Sergeant Barraza's death hit me hard, perhaps more so because I wasn't there in country with him when it happened.

And that's because you're of your shoulder, so you didn't get to go on deployment. I believed he was a better man than me. I would have gladly traded places with him. Would he have died if I had been there? Like most men and women in the military, I had survivors guilt. If those bullets had hit me instead, maybe Staff Sergeant Barraza would still be alive. When his body was flown home,

I was one of the soldiers detailed to work his funeral. That was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, but it was an honor I treasured to this day. men like Barraza were heroes and the fact that they were killed solidified my decision to leave the army he was a badass dude

always mad that I was upset with him and that was the last conversation we had I was I was frustrated you know and I never got a chance to tell him how much of an impact he's made in my life how influential as a leader he was and I'm no superhero

I don't know if I would I was even going to be in the same room as him during that time but the shit of could have what has um ate me alive and it he wanted to get out and he wanted to go do other things and so did dale and i felt like fuck this number of games starting to hit really close to home and so uh i wanted to kind of get out as well and so i was ready to leave but you still had another deployment to do right yeah how's that psychologically when you're on deployment and you don't like be there. Yeah, that was hard.

That was, I, my wife asked me before when we first met, like, you ever smoke cigarettes? I'm like, no. I was like, well, yeah, I smoked five in my last appointment. Because every time there was a mission, I was like, thank God. Because I kept thinking, like, it's my last mission. It's no different than Dale and Rick, how they were waiting to get out and they were going to come home and get out of the military. And now I'm sitting here doing the same thing.

I was getting out three months after this deployment. So I'm like, get through this fucking deployment and start packing your shit you know what I mean and so every mission I was like motherfucker and I'm a team leader I'm a team leader and sometimes acting squad later because we had this where our squad leader got injured and so we're just managing this team and every deploy every mission I'm like fuck dude like please and that's like the worst way it's the worst it's the worst because like I don't want to be like that I want to be like fucking excited about this shit but every every time we went out I was like nervous and I hated that feeling and I knew it was like it's time dude shut it down because my mind was too wrapped up

And dude, the first mission coming back from Rick and Dale's death was five dudes on the roof waiting for us. And they fucking actually engaged on us, right? And it was just like, and I had fucking two, I think three new guys, 17 years old, like 18, 19 year old dudes. And I'm like, fuck. And I'm telling them, like, be ready, be ready, be ready. We're the main effort. And they went to go breach the door, the gate. And they started engaging us in the alleyway.

And as much as I was comfortable with it, it was like, oh, yeah, they're firing us. I'm like, boom, boom, boom. And our gun team's firing up there. My sawgunner's firing up there. And we're just kind of organizing traffic here and trying to see what's going out the back end. And the whole time, like, motherfucker, dude. This is like the one thing I don't need, but like, let's figure it out. You know what I mean?

And, you know, we were able to engage on some dudes. We were able to take out that building. We drop some bombs on it, this and that. Then you come back. I'm like, fuck, give me that cigarette. Boom, a smoke cigarette. I'm like, cough. You know what?

I'm like it was just like I needed something that I can just say like all right that's out of the way You know what I mean and when that deployment fine fucking ended I knew I was like Fuck this yeah, I'm getting the fuck out of it Yeah, I never had that experience, but I was always worried about guys that were nervous Guys that were like scared because then all of a sudden Sometimes that affects the way they act and it and in my opinion if you're more aggressive You're gonna have better chance of survival. Yeah, you're gonna help the team more like if you're scared you're nervous it's gonna you're gonna hesitate,

you're not gonna wanna do something and it can really fuck things up bad if you're that guy. And like I said, luckily for me, like I never had to feel like that, but I can't honestly, if I try and think about that, what that must be like

to be like, I don't want to be doing this because it's one thing to be like, oh, I don't want to be cold or I don't want to be freaking tired. I want to go to sleep and I want to be warm. But it's another thing to be like, I don't want to die

and I'm going towards a building with bad guys in it that want to kill me. That's gotta be rough on the freaking psyche. Yeah, dude. And I'm like, I'm all about like doing my job right. And I have these fucking three kids that I'm like, I'm responsible for.

So I couldn't be a fucking bitch about it. I had to like, that was the hardest thing. I was like, these fucks depend on me. You know what I mean? And so like the whole time, like, I don't even think I called home the whole deployment because then like my grandfather died, my uncle died and I was like,

let's just get through the shit. Like this focus here, just get done. And once that was done, I was like, I'm out. So you get out, you say two options in your head, firefighter go to border patrol. You applied for 30 jobs. Yeah. And those were just random jobs.

Just anything. Anything. I was like an indeed or I think at the time of some other thing. But like, yeah, just like, yeah, that works. That works. That works. You look like, it looks like you're going to get picked up for Tucson Fire Department. Yeah.

Which would have been, you know, obviously a big, badass fire department. Awesome. And right as you're thinking you're going to get picked up, they go on a hiring freeze. Yeah. And meanwhile, how many kids you got now? Two kids? I had three at the time.

So three kids, you got bills to pay. Yeah, dude. I mean, hey, everybody, just if you don't know, if you just get out of the army after, what was it, four years stint? Four years? If you get out of the army after four years, you don't get anything. Yep. There's no retirement.

I guess you can still go to the VA if you want to wait for a long time to get like your broken arm looked at or something, but you're out, dude. And that's got to be, well, that's why you say in the book, like, you were just like, I need a freaking. job yeah that's what i played yeah i was like dude i gotta pay these bills i ended going to full to school full time and worked full time just to cover my fucking bills because you get comfortable living at it as the e5 jump pay and nCO pay in the special operations right so you got paid pretty decent and then you're like oh fuck we got to somehow cover that big gap of money that not a one job is not going to

cover yeah so i got a job at the prison pretty fast and then i was going to school full time to for firefighting just to get my fire one and two my EMT and all that shit just so I can survive um you end up eventually at a small department in Coolidge Arizona you get hired there and you say soon after joining I was called to fight a fire that occurred on the tour bus of a musician called Kenna yeah I've never heard of Kenna echo they were they're they're they're small but I remember they're on they're on MTV because I went home right away and Google this like who the fuck is dude you know what I mean uh you say I was the lead on the hose but as I was fighting the fire I help but feel disappointment.

I had spent the last four years of my life doing some of the crazy stuff imaginable trying to fill that void by fighting fires while wasn't working for me. So you got that off to the first one, huh? Bro, see, it was the first one where I was actually laid on the hose. The first one we went to the house was just fully engulfed and I just watched it. I remember my father coming home smelling like smoke. And I'm like, damn, dope, right? You know what I mean?

I used to love when I hugged him and I could smell it. I was like, it was fucking badass, dude. And then the movie Backdraft came out. And then you're like, dude, this is fire. I forgot about that. Yeah, so then you're like, this is dope career. And so it was the first time I was finally done with all the training, and I went into this, like, this crazy-ass little small fire department.

I'm going to lead on the hose, and, you know, this thing is fucking engulfed, and I'm hitting it, and it's hot in there, and I'm just spraying, and I'm like, yeah, fuck that. This is for me. And it wasn't just, wasn't scary, wasn't intimidating. It was the first fire call out of, like, everything's an EMS at this time. So it's kind of, the things have shifted in the fire world, and I was, my mind, wasn't I wanted excitement I wanted fear I wanted I wanted something more something more and I remember getting out of the tour bus the fire's done it was a battery that just leaked and caused

the fire whatever the fuck I remember taking off my gear and I actually left it there I told the chiefs like hey I'm I'm done damn thank you and my wife at times like you just wasted two years schooling for firefighting I said yeah yeah but nah my heart's not in this shit I'm out today yeah She's like, cool, what's for dinner? Who's paying for groceries? Well, I was working at the, I was working at the prison stuff. And so it was like a volunteer thing and I was trying to transition into it. Oh, that was a volunteer firefighter?

Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, yeah. No, no, I didn't, yeah, I kept the family's still have food. So then now you decide, and fast forward, you decide now it's time to go Border Patrol. You got to go through the testing process, the application process, the written portion of oral exam, physical exam, background check, lie detector. How was the lie detector test? I didn't have to do it.

How'd you get around that? I had a top seat of clearance. Oh, nice. I still held my T.S. clearance with SCI. And so they were like, hey, you know, we saw you had a little drug history. I'm like, yeah, that's, that was a high school. I was just kidding. Yeah.

Because you have the T.S. clearance, we're just not going to give you the, the, the light checkers. I was like, oh, good. Oh, good. Yeah, man. I've heard some good stories about that lie detector test. Apparently, that thing is good to go. Although, I got two stories.

One of my friends went to the agency and one of them went to the FBI. And the one that went to the agency was a guy that kind of like, you have friends that like lie sometimes. Yeah. And actually it's kind of habitual and they kind of lie a lot. But everyone kind of knows it. So it's like, dude, he just lies. He was one of those guys.

He was just lied like about random shit. Like he'd say, you know, you'd go out and he'd be like, oh, I got that girl's number. And you didn't get any girl's number. He didn't talk to a girl. But he'd be like, you always telling you like these lies. but they're just little lies and it's all good we all get it and then I had another friend that was like kind of a wild man but it was like pretty honest dude and so the liar went to the agency and he's like he comes back and he's like I said did you have to do the lie detector test and he's like yeah I flatlined it and I was like what do you mean he's like I just flatlined the whole thing he's like anything they asked me it didn't it didn't affect me and so A that could have been a lie yeah he could have been lying about that right so we don't know but also If you just lie all the time, maybe your heart rate's just fine

and your sweat's just fine and it's just no factor. The other dude that did the FBI, I was like, oh, did you do the lie to? He goes, bro, that thing. Like, he couldn't lie about anything. He said it was going off the rails. Like, anytime they asked him anything remotely suspicious, the thing was, he goes,

I just had to just come clean on everything. I was like, yeah, cool. So you didn't have to take it. Good for you. Lucky you. Dude, I have another friend that failed, like a lie detector to test for a police department. And they were like, have you ever been with a prostitute?

And he was like, no. And like, but in his mind, he had like gone on a date with a girl. And she was like, I'm only going to go with you if you buy me dinner. And he was like, okay. And he bothered it. Yeah. And that's what happens. People overthink everything.

And they start digging into stuff like, well, is that considered that idea? Yeah. Yeah. The Border Patrol lie detector is known for being hard. I'm known some really, really good dudes. He was like, one kid told me he goes, yeah, dude, I stole some, some, candy for my mom when I was like seven. I'm like, you fucking kidding me?

They pinged you for that one? You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. But like, I think they ask a question and you start digging deep for all this fucking weird shit. And then they're like, yeah. There's a TV show where they put just normal people on my detector tests. And I can't see how that's good.

Like they're asking the husband. The husband and the wife are there. They're both on lie detectors tests. Oh, Jesus. And they ask the, you know, look, the wife will be like, do you ever think about other men? I'm like, what are you doing? This dude doesn't want to know this.

This dude does not want to know this. This is a lose-lose situation. Who's signing up for this? It's crazy that they still use the lie detector test when like, you know, it can't be admitted in court, all these things. Like, you know, like, I guess it's a valid question and answer thing. But like, I feel like we lose a lot of really good dudes who are just kind of knuckleheads. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And it should be like, yeah, like, hey, if you did something stupid, you'd be like, yeah, I did this.

It was really stupid. And I guess maybe some of the stupid things that you do might be disqualifying. So maybe you're in a position where you kind of got to lie about them. But, yeah, it's, yeah. So anyways, you didn't have to take it. Thank God. Because then you made it to the Border Patrol. And then the whole process takes like two years again,

just for people that are listening to us that might be interested in Border Patrol. The whole process took a long time. Yeah. To get in there. Finally, you go to the Academy. And Academy is a really good curriculum. You talk about it in here. The whole thing is in the federal law enforcement training center in Artisia, New Mexico.

Yeah, yeah. Fletsey. 3,500 acres. It's massive. Yeah, it's a good training facility. Is it all, is that just Border Patrol? Or is it everybody? No, I think they have, it's pretty much a lot of custom stuff.

So you have ice, you have, I saw some marshals there. You have different agencies. You even have some federal native law enforcement training there. But for the most part, you got border patrol. Got it, got it. And while you're out there, you got to learn all kinds of stuff. I mean, it's crazy. You got a list of stuff in here, radios and radiation detection and freight train treks

and fraudulent documentation, processing, detention, physical techniques, defensive tactics, less than lethal training, just it's firearms, obviously, tactics, communications, critical thinking, risk management, interdictions, active threat residents, and you talk about all the stuff in here, I'm just going through it. Tactical light, low light operations, basic ATV familiarization, Spanish language training. And then you go on to say that like the places, the way that they train you guys is very hands-on, dynamic, lots of scenario-based training. It's, and again, you got a huge section in here about this stuff, but you got this part that says, I remember my first day in basic training when the drill sergeant yelled to me, tucked that chin in. That was all it took us.

No longer a gray man. For those of you aren't watching on YouTube, we could say that you've been well-endowed in the chin department. Once a drill sergeant calls you out, you're a forever target. Additionally, I had two full sleeves of random tattoos that I've been hiding, which was very common for the special operations community. I knew they were discovered once we put on our PT gear also, whether I liked it or not, I just looked like a former military guy. When we were directly told to raise our hands,

if we had prior military background, I raised my hand as instructed as I did not want to risk an integrity violation. When one of the training cadre asked me about my military service, I did not volunteer much, just that I was an infantryman in the Army, sure enough my worst fears will realize the cadre pulled me out to the front of the formation divided us into two different sections there were 60 trainees in total making 30 trainees in each section suddenly I was in charge of 29 new friends so this is like your academy experience you can put in

in charge of course um you don't want to be in like you want to show up to these things to just be a gray man and it's like they ask who's military and then you're like fuck okay and then what did you would you do like one guy was a cook they was like all right you cook you're gonna go Take over there and then you go over here and yeah dudes now I'm in charge of all these fucking dudes and I'm scared as fuck for my own self I'm like I got to worry about these fucking dudes how long was the school in total? I think I spent six months total and that included my I did the Spanish portion I don't speak fluent Spanish at all So I had to do that too but it was pretty long it was pretty long It was pretty long

Paramilitary environment you know what I mean they did the whole thing it talked about the book how they do their version of a shark attack Which for the average civilian it was probably pretty intimidating trying to get us to you're like oh fuck but uh I was a drill sarned already at the time right I very bit bit a drill sarmint so because you were in the army reserves yeah yeah so I watched the whole thing and it was like I was pretty cool but uh yeah it's paramilitary environment and crazy amount of training PT was tough the cadre there was pretty it was a solid solid crew and the instructors were great instructing so you were there almost like college it was almost like like a law enforcement college you'd show up you do your PT and then you go to your classes and you study

and you have tests and so on and so forth. And so the crazy part about it was like weekends, like you're off. And so you're like, oh, what do you do? It was like, well, you just drink, really. And so it kind of turns into this, like, you either study or you drink and, you know, you either fall into one or the other. And, you know, sometimes I fell into both and it was just a fucking mess. And I barely got out of that motherfucker alive, dude.

So, yeah, it was cool. I like, one of the cool parts about it is some of the scenario-based training. They would hire, you know, some real authentic, like Hispanics, right? Like, these are, they spoke fluent Spanish. they portrayed as like an illegal immigrant and they would make it challenging to just interview right to ask them questions you pull them over and they'd be they'd either fucking run on you or they would talk shit to you and you'd have to try and manage a scenario you do you'd have to investigate the scenario and ask people you know and so it's pretty cool it was a siopper for a while too and the the training for that was very similar where they had a full like city and it wasn't no different there at fletsey they had a full like kind of the environment was real and it made it it it made it good it made him more realistic. You didn't speak Spanish growing up. Yeah, no.

And so you get thrown in, what is it, a three month course to learn it? Yeah. Dude, I went to college and I had to take a language and I took Spanish and I had a seal buddy who was Mexican. And we were in, so he grew up speaking Spanish. And I got an A in the class because it was like reading and like the grammar. And I was an English major, just like the grammar.

And he got like a B, right? Yeah. Maybe even, no, he didn't get a C. but, you know, he would be so mad, you know, because he could speak Spanish. But, like, I can't understand one single word that, like, a Mexican person says to me. Like, even when I was getting an A in the class,

like, right in the class, if I went to a Mexican restaurant and ordered some food, like, and they, if I ordered something in Spanish, and I'm sure they're messing with me, too. Like, Gringo shows up and trying to throw some Esbeniole at us. I'm like, yo, all right, bro, you got me. You got me, dude. Yeah, I order food really well

until they ask a question, then you're like, yeah, just being a cheese burrito, please, that's all. Thank you. Sorry. Like, I try and, like, put up a front that I got this, and then as soon as they ask some question, like, you know, flour, corn and Spanish, I'm like, shit, I can't remember that one. You know, Vic? Victor. Yeah. Yeah.

Like, he, well, he worked construction and, like, had a construction company. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, Vic. And he, he's, you know, a Mexican dude, and he didn't speak Spanish. And he like went full bore studying and training because he said when he would go on to a construction site and like want to talk to the Mexican dudes and have to speak English to him.

He said he just felt like just total disrespect. They just look at him like bro, what is wrong with you? My whole life is that dude. I talk about a part in the book where it says like, you know, in some friend groups, I'm the beaner, the white friend groups, right? To my Mexican friends on the white guy. You know what I mean?

And you're like, fuck, I don't fit in anywhere, dude. You know what I mean? Like I don't, I'm the coconut to them. and the other guy's on the beiner. And it's just this crazy world of like, it was no different being in the Border Patrol. You know, they see your last night and they're like, Vodga, skip also.

And I'm like, I don't fucking know, bro. Okay, like I learned enough to work. But the crazy part was like the military, the Ranger Battalion sent me to go do Pashto. So I did nine months of Pashto. Damn. I did six months in the concurrent training for the next three, right? And so I could actually hold my own in Pashto

when I was in Afghanistan because you used it so fucking much. And I talked to someone about that, like some intellectual person. They said, I believe the language is used two different sides of your brain. So that's why Spanish just never, I don't fucking know Spanish still. My parents spoke Spanish to each other. Damn.

Yeah, I just was, I was around it my whole life. I still can't grasp it as well as others, right? My wife, she can understand Spanish, but Puerto Rican Spanish is slightly different, right? It's like super fast as fuck. And so I'm like, I don't fucking know shit. There's way more attitude.

Yeah, a lot more, yeah, a lot more anger. Hostility, son. Hostility. We go to Puerto Rico and people speak to me in Spanish. And I'm like, hey, what the fuck? I don't know shit. But the Spanish became, you know enough to work the job, you know enough to interview, you know enough.

But if you don't have fluent Spanish, it can be challenging at times because, you know, there's conversations you really need to understand. It's happening. You know what I mean? The discussions are going between people. And yeah, it made the job challenging, man. Did your parents purposely not teach you Spanish?

Yeah, it's kind of common for like, you know, the first generation, second generation, to try and assimilate to people, you know. I had a buddy in the SEAL teams, and he, he, His dad, his dad kind of barely spoke English. Yeah. And his dad would not speak Spanish to him.

Yeah, he won. Because he wanted his son to speak English. Yeah, and it's the same. Yeah. My mom and dad were trying to teach my brother both, and he became a late speaker. And they scared them. They're like, well, fuck, maybe that's too much.

Let's just keep English. And then we'll teach him Spanish. And eventually they go from speaking Spanish to each other to. By the time I'm 16, I don't even hear them speak Spanish until they're speaking to someone else. Our household became like an American, just English. You know what I mean? And so, yeah, man.

I still does say wish I spoke Spanish. And me and my wife have dual lingo and shit. You know, we're trying, bro. But like, it's just tough, man. Wait, does she speak Spanish? No, she doesn't. She speaks Spanish to her mom. She can't.

But she doesn't have the confidence to speak in a conversation to a random stranger. Right, right. All right. Fast forward through a bunch of stuff here. And again, get the book for all the good details and information here. But just before I left the Academy Border Patrol agent Robert Rosas. Roses? Rosas.

Rosas. Was murdered. on July 23rd, 2009, while performing his duties in a remote border area near Campo, California. Agent Rosas was responding to suspicious activity in an area notorious for alien and drug smuggling when he was shot and killed by unidentified assailants. This was the first line of duty death

I'd experienced in my Border Patrol career, and I hadn't even started as an agent yet. It remains one of the most vivid memories of my time at the Academy. It was a rude awakening to the potential hazards of the job Reading the information of the agent's murder was chilling. He was shot and killed with his own service pistol I imagined the struggle and fight that happened and eventually led to his murder and it frustrated me I hated hearing about it but inspired me to take my training even more seriously and challenge myself to be the best prepared agent ever to take

to the field to defend our nation's borders. You got like a rude awakenings in both you know with Pat Tillman and and Agent Rosas here getting killed like that's yeah when we heard about the details we're like fuck and you you haven't I haven't done the job yet I'm just practicing the job you know and and then to hear that it gets even more intimidating and like well why is he alone well like well because he had to be because there's so fucking few of us on the border you know what I mean and he just went to go cover his area and go check a bug that went off and and um When he did that, he got pretty much ambushed.

And whether he was killed with a service pistol or not, I still don't know the full details with the rumors that were told. But, like, it's just fucking terrifying. It's so opposite of what you do in the military, of, like, having a group of dudes with you. You know what I mean? Everyone's got guns and ready for the fight. Now you're just alone.

And the approach for a border patrol agent is not aggressive by nature. It's more of a passive kind of interdiction. most people come across don't have the intentions to fight. They have the intentions to come across illegally so they can pursue whether it may be work or whatnot. And so we don't go to a known area or censor that goes off with our guns drawn and walk in slowly. Even if it's late at night, you don't do that because that's not the posture. It would be almost too intimidating like, what are you doing that for? They would look at you like, what's wrong with you, dude?

It's just probably illegals. You know what I mean? You just stop and say, hey, part of it. You know, so you come out with it, you get your pistol and you get your flashlight, you're just kind of like looking around. And then you're confirming if it's real. Like, oh, yeah, hey, I do got, I got footsteps. And then you call for backup.

You know, he said, that's kind of the process. And so I imagine he was going out there doing that. And before he gave him a call for backup, you know, got jumped. So that's how you graduate. That's what happens. You end up getting stationed at Eagle Pass North Station in the Del Rio sector. Does like different AOs have different reputations? Yeah, absolutely.

So is Eagle Pass like a hot A.O? No, at the time it wasn't. At the time, it was considered to be very mild. It was just known for like fast traffic. I mean, because from where the border is to the street, the main highway and some areas, it would take 10 minutes. It would take like no time. They get boots on ground, boom, boom, they're gone. You know what I mean?

And then there's other areas that are used. If they pass that street and continue moving forward, most of the objective that that area was to get past the checkpoint and then get picked up. And so that would be probably more like a, a seven, eight mile walk. And then if they decided to miss that, they can even keep going charged to San Antonio, which is impossible, but they all think it's fucking close as fuck, right?

And so it's like 20 miles of walking and then like, fuck, I'm not San Antonio yet. Like, no, bro, you got to fuck another, you know, 50 miles. So it's really interesting the traffic there, but it wasn't, it was like you'd have, I don't know, a good day you'd catch 10 to 15. You're like, damn, that's a good, we're busy. We'd say like, that's busy.

Now, like, Del Rio sector is the busiest sector in the nation, And it's not uncommon for it. The other day, I think they had 9,000 come over in a day. Yeah. Yeah, so times have changed. And again, policies have changed. And just real quick to get into that was that the policy at the time, Obama was the president in my area was called Operation Streamlining. So anyone who entered illegally into America went to jail immediately for, whether it was six days, 30 days, for their first time.

right the second time would be close to a year and then so on so it keep gaining gaining time right and so it was it was a way to deter and prevent people from just like thinking they could just come across and just get dropped off right because before then people would come across you you process them and then you just drop them back off into Mexico or deport them back to their country of origin so in this time it was like now now you go to jail fuck you kind of thing right and that made people like well don't go there well let's just go towards Arizona because Arizona you're just taking a trip back and forth. They'll just drop you off and you have three attempts in Arizona before they even give a shit.

So it was different depending on where you crossed? Yeah. Every sector kind of has a different policy. Each state too as well. So it just depends on where that is. And our area at the time, I believe it was from Big Ben all the way down to Laredo was all streamlined, operation streamlined. So like no matter what, you came across again, you can put into jail.

And then Arizona, you'd have guys that entered three, four, five, six times. and there was no jail time. It was just expedited removal. So basically if you're in that situation, you just keep going until you make it across. Right, exactly. Well, in that scenario is like, well, why cross here?

Go over there. And so then you'd see a massive influx in that direction. It's just the communication is like top notch. It's like it's crazy to say, but that's really what it was. As soon as they know, like, hey, don't come here. You're going to go to jail.

Okay. Where else? Back to the book here. Once you arrive at your duty station, you must complete two years of training before you can be considered a journeyman. The journeyman is a level of competency one can reach, and the Border Patrol recognizes journeyman status by considering that person for a permanent position. Until you reach

journeyman status, you can be released from the agency for anything that doesn't represent them in a good light. In those two years, you go through several levels of field training, which is basically what most people would call OJT on the job training. You're also simultaneously participating in computer-based training and testing to ensure you are still proficient in all the subject you learned at the academy. So this is the situation that you're in right now. or at this point in the book, you're not even a full-time employee when you make it through the academy?

You're a full-time, but you're not consummate a permanent position. So meaning you can get fired. It's the two years of them just saying, let's just see how he does. You know what I mean? If you turn out to be a complete turd, they could just release you.

You know, and so our job is, as soon as you become a permanent position, now you know, like, this job is legit. Now you're a permanent federal position. You can apply for any federal position to that point, laterally over. So this is what you want. This is the status you want,

but you've got to get there. And you can't just be a complete shithead. Sure. Fast forward a little bit. I had been working the line for less than a week when things heated up. The line refers to the term holding the line a common title for the border boundary and what the job of a border patrol agent entails. While our FTO was driving us back to the station to wrap up our day, we saw a group of what looked like to be runners straight from the sign you see on the San Diego border highways. This is a familiar sign seen with borders.

on the border indicating the potential of border crossers, a big yellow diamond-shaped sign with silhouettes depicting a family of three. Three individuals flashed past us and hopped the short fence to try and get away. My heart was pounding. I was confused yet excited. A huge deluge of thoughts and emotions went through my mind. Here we go, I said to myself. I had just landed the job I had been fighting for so long to attain. I've been training for months and now for the first time in my new career I was about to apprehend a group of people crossing the border illegally. The adrenaline screamed through my veins. We jumped out of the vehicle and gave chase.

We easily hopped the short fence that the runners had crossed. I teamed up with another agent and went one way. And my other two partners who were both trainees went another. Bad luck. I picked the wrong way. However, the other team approached the runners with so much energy that the three individuals gave up quickly. As I walked up to support my fellow agents, I noticed that the three people apprehended were a four.

40-year-old male, 40-year-old female, and a female child around 8 years old. I don't know why, but this moment hit me like a ton of bricks. For some reason or another, I looked at the adult female and thought of my grandmother. And I looked at the little girl and thought of my mother. As I stood there over the three illegals and helped with the field interview, the moment came and became bittersweet for me. I am half Mexican and half Puerto Rican. My grandmother on my mother's side was born in Chihuahua, Mexico. and crossed the border illegally when she was 18 years old.

The story that was told to me, and I believe to be true, was that her sister, Francisco, was born in the United States and thus an American citizen, had died at a young age due to an illness. As far as my mother can remember, my grandmother's name was Francisco as well. To make a long story short, my grandmother stole the identity of her sister in order to become an American citizen. My mother was raised in a small town near El Paso and the Mexican, border. I think you can, I think that you can now understand how, knowing this story about my

heritage, I have always been conflicted regarding illegal immigration and border security. I'm extremely proud to be an American of Mexican descent, and I will continue to uphold the same values and beliefs that my grandmother had in her desire to become an American. But there I was, a third generation Mexican American whose grandmother crossed in the United States illegally, who was about to apprehend some individuals doing a second. essentially the same thing for the same reason to have a chance at a better life. The feeling was surreal, and my entire time as a Border Patrol agent, I wrestled with doing my duty and my empathy for the people we apprehended.

That's a huge part of the kind of underlying theme of the book, you know, that you've got going on in your head. Yeah. Well, I've just, I don't know, I'm empathetic, man. I get it. I get why people would want to come to America. this place is fucking dope. You know what I mean?

It's dope. The opportunities you can get, how hard you work and the opportunities you can present for yourself. So like in that first apprehension, I was just like, fuck, this is crazy.

Because I know my grandmother came here illegally. You know what I know? She stole the identity of her sister just so she can be here in America. And I don't, it's not lost on me how important that was for her.

You know what I mean? And how important it was for her kids to be in American citizens and for them to have the same opportunities. And that, That for me was like she wanted it so bad. She would steal the identity of her sister. And she was so patriotic about it.

Her kids joined the military. My uncle served. My grandfather served. Like they were a patriotic family. And for them to have so much love and respect for the United States of America. Like who was I to turn my back on that same dream? And to not want to continue to uphold that. But damn, that shit's wild to see it.

Yeah, I think you do a great job here. You break this down. a little bit further in the book, you say, consider border security in the context of your own personal home. Here are a few questions to frame the discussion. Do you care who enters your personal home? Why? What actions or investments do you make to ensure you can control who and what enters your personal home?

Do you believe that you have the right to determine who enters and stays in your personal home? When someone comes to your home, where do you expect them to go? What do you expect them to do? and it's commonly accepted and in most states codified into law that if someone attempts to enter your home without your permission you have do you have a right to see them as a threat and prevent their entry so these are like questions that pertains to the border as well pertains to the border you got to see it that way right you got to see this situation as this is our home and we should have the right to know who exactly is coming into our home and how long we want them to stay

and how we determine who's allowed to come into our home you know and if someone is forcing their way into our home how do we deem that a threat and how do you handle that threat and uh it's this interesting thing where when you have this conversation with most people like it's an emotionally investing in conversation it completely it's so divisive people are either one way or the other because they feel like they have to be. They feel like they have to be because I feel most people are forced to feel one or the other extreme because those are the agendas that are being pushed, those the ideas that are publicly announced.

Their lack of information of the subject doesn't matter. It's just the fact that they have to choose one side of the other, right? And when you start to really understand this, it's not so cut and dry. You have Homeland Security, which is established after 9-11. You have immigration, which has always been part of our country. and you can't be the one guy that says close the border, that's not fair. Like close the border, no one can come in. Well, that's not America, right?

Our country is, we have dignity, right? That's not America. So you can't say that. And then you can't the other way to say, well, we'll open the border and let everyone in. Well, then you don't have a fucking country. This country that we're all so fruitful in, we're also the opportunities we've all presented ourselves, we can't say that either. So there's a mental space here, but both of these have to be met.

You have to have a strong immigration policy that allows people to enter our country, allows it to continue to be this country of immigrants and they have to thrive and bring value to this country. But in that same immigration side, they have to also want the future of America to be fruitful, right? They can't sit here and say, I want to take everything in America has, but then I want to leave. Like, no, you have to invest into this country because you want this opportunity for your kids too. You have to maintain this. And then the other side of security is like, no, but we also have to know who the fuck is coming in here and who we can say no to because of our own risk, our own safety of our families and our kids.

And so finding the balance of that, but you can't shut it off so much that we don't even allow good people to come and prosper because this is what America stands on. And so the conversation is actually more in the middle than we think. I think what we're doing is fighting both arguments like open the border, close the border, like, there's more there. It's actually both. You know, we need to open the border to the right people and we have to see who's coming in. And we also have to close the board to the people that don't deserve to be here.

And so it's this middle answer that we're all going to agree on, right? Everyone's going to say, do you want to secure the border? Everyone's going to say yes. Okay, but what you see is security and what you see security and what I see security, it could be starkly different. And so we have to find out what that answer is instead of just speaking in just a surface level communication. And that's why I wrote the book is like,

well, first I believe we need to understand what the career field of Border Patrol is and what it entails for you to start really understanding and breaking down the seven-layer cake of information. Yeah, there's so much knowledge that's not common knowledge. Right. And yet everyone has their opinion. You know what I mean?

I just saw one the other day. A meme. Echo Charles. It was like, well, I'm done being an expert on Ukraine-Russia war. I've now moved on to being an expert into the Israeli Gaza War. So true. Palestinian war. It's like then everyone's an expert about it now because it's been in the news and they went

and read two articles and now they know everything. That's what I found as I read the book. I was like, there's a lot of things that people don't know about. There's a lot of things going on that need to be considered. And the other question, like with your house, like how many guests can you have in your house? Like at a certain point, you're like, full capacity. The party's over. Like I can't, no one else.

We're out of like the septic tank won't hold any more activity, you know. So you got to consider that as well. Right. And, you know, and the resources of people that want to come here and bust their ass and work. Yeah. And we need those people. Yeah. So if you shut down the border completely and there's no one coming in, we're going to be,

we're going to have people that we're going to need people to do jobs that they're not there. We don't have the people to do the job. So a lot to consider, man. That's for sure. Fast forward a little bit. Law and immigration enforcement agencies operate in the United States

to ensure that legal immigration and trade are facilitated. Illegal immigration is prevented and mitigated at the border and immigration enforcement takes place inside the United States. These agencies include customs and border protection, which is the Border Patrol, Air and Marine, Office of Field Operations, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is ICE.

I don't think people can, they don't know how to differentiate it, right? So they'll call us border control, and you're like, okay, that's the lack of knowledge, right? They call it border control. They see guys in blue uniforms and think that's Border Patrol, some guy hits me, and she goes, they fucking harassed me at the POE. I'm like, Border Patrol doesn't work to POE, right? Not, they don't. They might make some extreme circumstance, but that's customs, okay, so don't blame them. the border patrol for that right that's that's ignorant right then they're like well why are they

housing them this way well like well we don't house them we we actually have a small facility for very few because we don't expect a thousand people to come into so who houses most most of the time that you'll see the pictures and everyone's argument it's not border patrol that's ice right and like so people don't know the difference between each of these organizations so they blame it all on the border patrol because they have the scope on them right for some reason like the news what focuses on the easy target right but like the best target you have is the border patrol like They are the valuable tool and asset on the border. They stop more drugs and they help more people on the border than any other organization.

It's the best humanitarian mission that's happening currently. It's also the best apprehension of drugs, drug interdiction across the nation. But they get the shitty end of the argument all the time. They get blamed for it. And so it's the weirdest thing. Yeah, they're like the highest visibility, I guess. And even the name, right? Yeah.

When you think of like, oh, there's someone across the border, that's border patrol. Yeah. You don't think like, what is it, immigration and customs enforcement? Like everyone kind of knows ice, but I don't know if they don't know why ice does. It's just easier to just say Border Patrol. Everybody's just Border Patrol. Right, right. That's all it is.

Then you go on here to talk about the just some of the basics of like the concept of citizenship. And what's the difference between birth and naturalization and right of soil? Yeah. And like, you know, that explains it. Yeah, that whole part is my goal is to explain to people for sure how to become a citizen or how people even begin. come citizens through birth and it was just like I felt like this book is like there's a lot of layers to this book intentionally because my goal is like if this someone picks up this book to read my story of Border Patrol they'll learn the

career but they'll also now learn how the fuck immigration even is a thing in in America and they'll also learn a little bit of the history like they're gonna learn a lot from the book because like I feel like if you're gonna pick it up you might as learn as much like fucking possibly can and that's a big one people don't know how to become a citizen or how like why is if a Mexican pregnant woman comes cross and she gives birth to that baby that baby is considered a U.S. citizen, right? There's arguments to that, right, but that's what it is in policy. That's what it is.

Yeah, the way you've woven in knowledge to the stories, like this is what a book should be. A book should be like, I'm getting cool stories. I'm following a thread of like the arc of a good story. And I know you're a writer anyway, so that's why he did it. But then it's also you're getting information. So this is like even a, even like someone like you, that didn't want to read growing up. Like you would be interested in this

because there's a cool story to it, but then you're getting the information as well. So you talk through all that stuff, legal immigration, how that process works, illegal immigration, which, you know, there's two different types of that, right?

You've got people that are coming across, running across the border down here in Tijuana, and then you've got people that come here on a tourist visa and they never leave. Yes. Right? The term immigrant applies to anyone who intends to abandon residency

in their native country and permanently immigrate to the United States. You've got like teaching the normal person what these things are. So at least we can raise our level of discussion a little bit and have a little bit more of a whatever intelligent conversation about it and consider more than what you've heard in like three talking points on mainstream media. Yeah. Which is going to leave you with like just some basically an extreme idea of one way or the other. Yeah. Close the border or open the border.

That's like the two options. It's the crazy thing. Like what I get in most interviews is. so how would you fix it? And it's like, there's not a one answer to this. This is like layers of shit that we really have to focus on. That's not one thing because that's the simplest question you can ask me. Because that's how much the lack of information is about Border Patrol immigration and the policies and everything else.

Is that, well, what's the answer? Well, it's more than just an answer. There's not a one plus one equals two answers. It's not how this works, right? This is like a recipe of a cake and you either have fucked this up or fix it. You know what I mean? and like a little too much of anything can fuck things up on a massive scale.

This is having intelligent conversations about it, but also educating other countries on how our immigration works, right? Explain to them like, this is how it actually works. And also, let's remember, most of these people are probably being manipulated by smuggling, smuggling, you know, operations, right? That's a thing. That's a very big thing.

So how about we teach them what the right thing is, right? We don't have counter operations on education. We should, right? How about why are they fling that country? how can us as a diplomatic approach to like, how do we help that country be better, be more successful, right? A lot of things we can do instead of like close or open the border. That's like such a minute thing.

It's like surface level. The wall, the building a bigger wall does help in some areas because it helps funnel traffic specific ways. It's just like it's any kind of like tactical operation, right? But the problem is like there is no one answer. There's nothing that's going to be like this fixes it. No, because then you had to talk about who's here in the country illegally, right? who's had kids here that are illegally

and those kids are now here in the country and those kids are now 15 years old and have no idea that they're illegal. There's a lot of levels to this that no one wants to address. They just want to do the closed border, open the border. And that's why part of this whole book,

the intention of it is like, if this is just a start to educating people, I think there's a lot more conversation that need to be had, but a lot more books than need to be written about this concept. And this is just one, here's the border patrol's side of it.

Yeah. So this time you're working at Eagle Pass And that's pretty much like your mission day to days. You're going out and looking for people that are crossing. And going through the procedures to process them once they've been caught. Yep. You go into a big section here about Border Patrol culture. And pretty cool.

And culture is such a huge part of any organization that you're going to be in. And I thought that this was cool because you're given an, idea of what it's like. You start off with one is none and two is one, which is the reverse of what I learned in the military, which is two is one and one is none. You say one is none first, but hey, it's all good. Border Patrol is going to do a little bit differently. Yeah, one is none and two is one.

Yeah. And the reason is because of batteries. Really, it's like the first thing is like if you have one flashlight, you're fucked because in the middle of a 20 mile walk, like the thing shuts off. You're like, okay, now what? Yeah. You talk about the terrain being that lends to the culture inside the Border Patrol because the train's got to deal with it all the time The community who lives in that on the border

You've got like you say this it's not uncommon for an oil rigor or a politician to become a part-time drug smuggler The corruption is potentially everywhere right? That's like wildness. Oh, it's crazy Yeah, and you I forget if I call it out or not but you break down like financially what someone's going to be making in whatever career they're in and then how much they're going to make if they do a little bit of smuggling on the side. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and it's like some people look at that and they go, you know what? Yeah. I would like a new car over the next few months. I think the average income on a border and a border town was somewhere around for like the average person somewhere around 25, 35K. That's not a lot, man. You know what I mean? Even the law enforcement. Some of those border, those border town law

officers are making 35 to 45, 65 maybe. Border agents come out the gate swinging at 65. You know what I mean? So we make a good amount of money compared to, comparable to any kind of border border like a job but like you're surrounded by you're surrounded I you go to a bar and at night and here's your border trades on one corner there's definitely drug smugglers you know hanging out in another corner and you know you got the oil riggers over here you it's like the craziest thing and like it's like all right well we're just going to hang out for that drink and then tomorrow we'll be back at it again you know it's like this cat and mouse game of it all but you know who's fucking shady as fuck you it's like part of your job to understand that but where else you're going to hang out

you live on the border dude you got to go to the same you got to have a drink for your boy you got to go dinner and so you're just intermingled with this wild world of it man yeah um cut and sign so you guys do you guys do a lot of tracking that's mainly our job that's why boartak and boar star or boartack specifically when boarstar agents attached to him get called on a lot of like trafficking uh excuse me tracking calls a lot of escape convict kind of calls because our job day and in doubt is tracking that's what it is so we're cut and sign all day long as soon as you see footprints you get tracking you start you start walking And that's how we catch people.

Like, that's the job. And their job is to try and, you know, screw that up, right? Whether they wear things under feet or whatever the cases. But, yeah, we cut sign day in and day out. That's the job of a border trade. And he's tracking. How good did you get at it? Good, but not great.

I had dudes who could fucking almost do a full sprint and catch sign on concrete. You know, like, shut the fuck up. And then boom. Oh, shit. You found it again. It's like, it's crazy. Like, the guys who've been doing it for 15 years can do a slow jog and see everything. Bro, I was...

Wait, wait, real quick. What is it cut sign? What do you call it? Yeah, it's what we call. It's called cutting sign. And sign is the imprint of a foot, right, on the ground. So we're looking for sign. And so we do a lot of cutting, which means we're in our vehicle.

We're driving really slow with a flash at an angle or just looking at the ground. And we're cutting. We're making a, just a, it's like a cut. I don't know. Oblique lighting. Yeah, just kind of walk, just... So in every border, there's the wall or a border, right? The border itself.

And then there's usually some kind of dirt. dirt path and that dirt path is dragged daily multiple times a day and that's just to clean it to get a clean slate and then to turn around and start driving it and see if your footprints are on it like a golf course kind of a scenario kind of the sand yeah exactly and so once you see the footprints it's like boom it's on it's on it's cutting sign for us we just look for the sign of footprints then you'll be like oh shit I got a group of five oh shit I got a group of five I got a group of five I got a group of five yeah yeah You got all the different designs you give them and then they're looking for that same sign up ahead and hopefully five miles away or whatever. And then you're like, boom, now you just jumped them five miles closer. And so that's how it.

Okay, all right. It's dope. Hunting and like shooting elk and tracking elk. Like I've been out tracking elk and I was with my buddy, John Dudley and our guide and like, dude, I'm not kidding. We would be no sign for like 20 yards. and all of a sudden, like, Dudley would like on it, got one.

And there would be, I'm not kidding, through like the bushes, like through, there would be one, one speck of blood that is literally smaller than a pinhead. Smaller than a pinhead. It's unbelievable. Echo's looking at me like, that doesn't make sense. I'm telling you, you're on a trail. And you can kind of like the direction, you're like, you can tell which way the thing is moving, right? You can tell that the elk, you know, you found a sign here. And then you find signs somewhere else.

So you got like a direction that they're likely heading in. And then all of a sudden like got one. And you be the tiniest, tiniest speck of blood. It is impressive. And then like guides will be, oh, here's like you can tell he's limping or you can tell he's tired or you can tell this.

So yeah, it's pretty badass how good guys can get. You can do it for 20 miles and when you catch someone at 20 miles. That's got to feel good. Fuck. Because you're like, hope I'm not following some old ass shit,

dog. You know what I mean? Yeah, there's guys that can tell you like hey they walked backwards this is good traffic you're like how the fuck what are they healed day oh you know a toe dig or a heel this or that and then you can see when people wear a carpet right it's just like oh this is good sign they're wearing carpet you're like how it's like well just the imprint slightly different you like these motherfuckers are good they put carpet on their feet

to like oh they do all kinds of different stuff yeah yeah carpet's a very common one you know the smuggling organizations they they offer them like hey we can give you carpet for 20 more dollars you did so they outline their feet they wear the carpet and it's hard to see that imprint yeah damn You talk about the duty bag, tricky bag, which is where you carry all your gear. You talk about carrying a slingshot. No, it's not common.

I did it. It's not common. No, I'm talking about you carried a slingshot. Yeah, yeah. One of the missions in Mosul with St. Braza, we were on an alley and the snipers trying to take out the lights as we go, and he kind of did kind of a curve

where the sniper couldn't hit the light. And it was the older nods, right? So it whited out of nods pretty good. So we were like, fuck, we got to fucking do something. I threw a rock by chance and fucking hit it. And we were like, laugh. Like, fuck out, right? Baseball.

Yeah, exactly, like one good strike in me still. We went back to the room. We were kind of an AAR and the whole thing, and we were thinking about things that we can do because we also had dogs that would approach us at night and kind of compromise us. And so the guys started talking about bringing BB guns or pellet guns.

And I thought about a slingshot because I've had one since I was when I was a kid until they fucking started cancer. So I brought one with me in the Border Patrol, dude. And, yeah, man, I'd fucking use that one a couple times. Buddy system, you talk about that. Obviously landmarks, you know,

just how you guys are navigating And everyone knows the landmarks in the area. Group is the term that you all use for the group of people that are coming in. GPS. GPS is just part of your gig. And then people just being patriotic people that are part of the Border Patrol.

It's like the one big biggest bond everyone has. Yeah, man, they know the mission. The mission is to protect America, right? And I think that's, look at most of the Border Patrol is Hispanics, right? And that's a crazy part too, because it's like people would think, oh, why would you turn your back on people?

No, it's not that. They're protecting their country. They believe in America, right? And it is genuinely probably the most patriotic law enforcement in America. Just their job day in a doubt is to protect our soil. Going back to the book here, to emphasize the sheer variety of what you can encounter on any given day working as a Border Patrol agent is breathtaking.

It can include routine patrol operations, tracking and hunting smugglers, capturing and processing large groups of undocumented. persons participating in car chases to apprehend fleeing suspects and much more the point is that while holding the line might sound like something static every day is dynamic you get all kinds of stuff going on um just just freaking mayhem all the time a little more specificity here the board of patrol's main job is to apprehend persons who cross our borders illegally while ice is responsible for everything else that happens to that person once he or she is allowed to stay in the united

or deported to their country of origin. ICE houses these illegal immigrants in holding facilities, sometimes for months on end, as immigration judges have overwhelming caseloads. In the majority of cases, those holding facilities are jails. Immigration judges are typically backed up for about six months or more. During this time of holding, the apprehended persons will receive food, medical treatment, and housing while they await their hearing. Depending on the area of illegal crossing, the immigration judge can make a determination of

deportation or a longer jail sentence. Sometimes during this process, a judge can allow entry into the country if the court can find evidence of the need for political asylum due to a country of origin hardships. And I mean, right now, like in San Diego, they put people in hotel rooms. And they're doing that. Where is that? New York, right? Yeah.

New York. It's gone crazy. It's crazy. You know, we're not, this is, we don't have anything in our, repertoire as a country to house these many individuals. That's even like remotely like humane, right? Like for the average dude back in the day when I was in, you know, just a regular dude 20, 30, 40 years old coming across. They used to put them in, they used to put them in private prisons.

And the private prison is a crazy part about that is a private prison with guys who were in there for real shit, real prison shit. You know what I mean? And so, you know, you got the, they call them the Baisas. And the prison, they're labeled as Baisas, right? Which is like a Mexican national. but anyone from any demographic down in South America, they'd house with Paisas. And then anyone from America who was like a Mexican who was in prison

would be, you know, Uso-Sreno or North Daniel, right? So they're different. But the Paisas have ran to prisons pretty strong because there's the vast numbers of them could like overwhelm any. So they weren't a prison gang, but they had to kind of come together in the prisons. And all of those dudes are there for either smuggling or illegal entry.

It was wild, dude. And that's when I was working at the prison. I saw that before I even joined the Border Patrol. I was like, this is fucking crazy. what's up with all these Mexican dudes? You know what I mean? And you learn why they're in there. And yeah, they're just waiting for an immigration judge

to make a determination on their case. And like where you're talking about 9,000 a day, just an Eagle Pass right now? Like that's insane. Yeah, it's not every day, but just recently it was. That's what happened. Yeah, no. So they have, yeah, an Eagle Pass recently,

they built a processing center. So part of the Border Patrol job, right, someone comes in illegally, whether it's illegally just because they wanted to work and got caught or seeking asylum illegally. They still entered illegally, right? They still have to be put through the process. And once we do is we process them.

In the processing, we roll their fingerprints. We identify the country of origin. We identify what their identification is, right? So we have this data on them. And then from there, like, okay, the package is done. They're either seeking asylum or they're a family unit or whatever the case is. That's where the packet will be done for, like the legal documentation. Then it's like we put them back into housing until ICE picks them up.

Ice will pick them up and then take them wherever ICE does. It's none of our business. I don't even fucking know what it is. But what's happening, I know is that ICE has given NTAs, notice to a peers, right? And that means here's your time to come back and talk to an immigration judge about your case, and he'll make a determination on it. But until then, you're in America. We found an address that you claimed his family or friends,

and they're going to be bringing you in or whatever, and so go. What happened recently is like these government organizations, these nonprofits, have been giving them money, phones, and plane tickets to go wherever they need to and just kind of go and exist into America until their immigration process, or they don't, or they never show up again. There's a good percentage that don't ever show up again, and that's just been proven. And so that's what's happening now. We have no system in place for this massive influx.

Why? I don't know. That's above my pay grade. Well, because it'd be freaking hard, and it would take, like, a massive amount of effort to get. Can you imagine trying to process this many? people like that's it's so with the process center alone in Eagle Pass is I forget what they call it either way it processes about 1,500 people a day it can at max capacity you can process 1,500 people a day and it calls and it has about five contracting companies that are

working that together the some for the kids some for just security some for food right whatever it is there's just a lot of personnel work in that location and I think there's multiple here in San Diego off look into that but that one caused It costs us 24 million a day. It's gotta be, it's a day or a month, but I'm almost positive it's a day. It's something crazy. It's something to the point where I was like,

I'm sorry, what? Yeah. And so then I started trying to do the math, like, well, what if we just deported them, right? It was just, I don't understand, I don't understand what's going on, man. Yeah, one thing is we talk about, like, all these different approaches that you'd have to take

to get this under some kind of control. Like, one of them is you've got to let people know that this isn't a good move for you. You know what I mean? Because the whole idea of people that want to come here hearing that like, hey, now's the time. Right. You know, now's the time. Like, it's a go.

Hey, Echo Charles here in San Diego used to be really, really hard to get a concealed carry permit in San Diego. Yeah. In San Diego County. Like, it was damn near impossible. And there was some kind of a legal thing that happened. and it wasn't even like a legal call. It was like just the pressure turned and all of a sudden it got really easy.

And now, now like a lot of people have concealed carry because you can just go and get it pretty relatively easy compared to what it used to be. Well, when it was really hard, people wouldn't even try. They wouldn't even try because it wasn't going to happen. And as soon as it got easy, everyone's just like, oh, cool, it's easy now. I'm going down there to the sheriff's. I'm going to get my concealed carry.

No factor. So I think that kind of thing has happened. with America right now where people are like in other countries. Oh, yeah, if you go to America right now, you can get through and you can get in and you can get it. You can get in. Now's the time. And just that right there. And then you see it on the news.

Like if I was a foreign and national, I wanted to come to America and I'm watching the news and I'd be like, wait a second. Run across there. If I get caught, they're going to put me in a hotel and give me a phone and give me a notice to appear. Wait, hey, am I translating this correctly? You're telling me you're going to let me go in America and ask me to come back six months later to a court. That's what's going to happen. Cool, I'm in. I'm going.

Now's the time to go. Exactly. And now it's totally overwhelming. It's the weirdest thing because. So what was really weird was during Title 42, Title 42 was an executive order that was implemented during the COVID time. Right. Because they were like, well, let's just shut the border down so then people can't bring more COVID into America. So we're going to implement this executive order that that Mexico at the time was in agreements like we could just send them right back to Mexico and at some point

It stopped at some point we started letting them in like late when it's when it's when I think it was like only like four months ago It's transition back to to to to two two two two two twenty five or something and what is that one said 13 20 35 that is if you enter into America outside of a port of entry you know you're here illegally and you will be press charges or whatnot, right? So it's whatever it, whatever it is. So right now it's, they're coming across, they're getting charged with 1325. That's what it is. But does that mean they have to get put into prison here? No, it's just, that's the problem. There's no. Because there's not enough prisons. Yeah, there's no. So all we're doing

is processing them the way we do. If you have a history of record, of negative record, right, some kind of background history, sex offender or whatever, they'll send them back to the country. That's, that's going to happen. If you don't have anything on record, whether you're going to be welcomed in for, for a notice, to NTA and the process will go as such. The problem is that is because everyone is claiming political asylum. So the same thing, the conversation goes, claim political asylum.

And it's up to them to determine if it is or not. And that's gonna take a long fucking time. And so they know the loophole, right? And I guess there's like people that give them the scripts of this is what you have to say. Absolutely. It's like, here's the script. I'm a blah, blah, blah, blah.

And they have a little script to say it and it's like, okay. You know, it's not the determination of either ICE or the Border Patrol to say, yeah, well, that sounds, It's like, nope, you're not a lot. You get told, yep, nope. Yeah, that's not the Border Patrol job to investigate that. It's like, okay, that's what you say. Here's the asylum package.

I'll put you in this pile over here. Boom. Yeah, and that's what happens. This is jacked. It's wild, dude. It's a wild, wild time. Then you have three groups that you talk about in here that they get processed as Mexican, other than Mexican and exotic.

Yeah. Right? So Mexican, obviously someone's Mexican. Other than Mexican, obviously, that's someone that's not Mexican. but that's like El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala. But then you get to this exotic category considers anyone from places like Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. So now we have like people that are coming in.

And when you start coming here from these further away places, well now there's more things to be concerned about. Absolutely. Because why the hell are you coming here all the way from the Middle East? Right. What's up, bro? Yeah. And using the Mexican border to do it.

Right. So we and how are you making that happen? Right. There's a lot of money that gets involved to do that. How much does it cost to smuggle someone across the border? It just depends on what organization is managing it. I mean, it could be $5,000. It could be $10,000.

It just depends. It just kind of fluctuates. Like right now they're doing something like they're giving them a wristband. It's kind of like three tries. You know, you get three tries to make it, you know, the first try, second try, third try. Oh, you're saying the smugglers have that. Yeah.

It's like a hierarchy of like attempts. Like you got three attempts with this amount of money. Like getting your Starbucks card punch. Like first try, like, oh, you're back again. cool, punch it, you get three tries. It's a weird, I don't know the exact number on how much it costs, but they're spending a lot more money than they ever have just to save for that. Now, the caveat to that that I'll say is it is extremely expensive to do it the legal way as well.

Hiring a lawyer who does immigration, right, who helps you process your paperwork the right way and the time it takes is a long time. And I think that's, it's not an excuse, but it is a reason why people say, you know what, why wait as long as it's going to take me i can just do this now and that's that's something that needs to be addressed on our side as well of a kind of a streamlined approach for people that are deserving of that streamlined approach but that's the big reason i've seen a friend of mine whose wife was from the ukk it took her 12 years to get a citizenship from the uk female where did he live where did they live in south carolina my wife is a brett and it was like every meeting that

she had when in san diego would like take months to schedule and then we moved to virginia and She had like a meeting like two weeks later. No way. Because they're just overwhelmed here. Yeah. And in Virginia, there's no one coming across the border like to Virginia, right? So it was just a lot easier once you got there. Yeah.

But how much did it cost you guys? I don't remember. It wasn't crazy. I mean, because I mean, I was whatever, an 01 at the time. Yeah. But it wasn't some crazy amount of money. It was like in the hundreds of dollars. Like we didn't get a lawyer.

Just process. I mean, she was my wife. Yeah. So maybe that makes it. We were in the military. Yeah. So maybe that makes it easier. But it wasn't.

I don't remember. remember the expense being any sort of barrier at all. So it was probably like a hundred bucks. A couple hundred bucks, you know. I mean, we got married at the courthouse for 50 bucks. So, you know, that's how we're rolling back in the day. Cool. Here you say, while Border Patrol agents face many dangers when apprehending undocumented

immigrants, those dangers increase in intensity when it comes to tracking, finding, and arresting drug smugglers. Border Patrol agents must sort undocumented immigrants from drug smugglers. This is one of the most important. things we do because drug smugglers are often armed and if cornered they might try and take out border patrol agents when we try and apprehend them so this is a whole other gig yeah it's the part of uh it's probably the most exciting thing you do as a regular border patrol agent is apprehending dope but it's also the one that carries probably the most threat level right um people who transport dope for for a good

for sure right they have they carry they carry firearms or they know that they're going to go to jail for a long time so someone puts up a fight it's going to be those guys uh and so you know that you know when there's dope, it's like, oh shit, you're in for a potential fight. There's very little times that you see an actual engagement on the border, and there's a reason for that, right? Because as much as there's a threat, they would be hard-pressed to pull that trigger because the repercussions of causing any kind of violence on the border, they still have to face the cartel. The cartel keeps a balance. As crazy as that is, they will keep a balance because as we secure our borders the best we possibly can, they're still getting enough across.

You know what I mean? Just the name of the game. And so when their side decides to engage on one of us and maybe injures one of us or creates enough buzz that it's a national news, the influx of agents that we bring just to protect, I mean, every special operations unit and the Border Patrol gets activated, our MRTs, everyone,

and now that border is shut the fuck down. Oh, yeah. So then you fucked with money from the cartel, and they're like, well, fuck you, right? And so they don't fuck with us. They fuck with the people who stirred the pot. And so it is not uncommon for them to show a sign of like, well, don't worry, we kill them. And you're like, Jesus, what a fucking game.

This is the wildest game ever, right? But knowing that, there is guys who go off the hinges, right? There's guys who still carry. And so it's a fear that we have is someone who's carrying a 100-pound bundle might potentially be willing to fight. And so you just know that your pucker factors up there. You're like, okay, this might get real. What about like a 14-year-old boys? Oh, they do it all time.

Because to me, that's like a free, you know, free hall pass, right? Right, exactly. It's very common for them to use 14, 15, 16-year-old boys to smuggle dope. And those guys don't give a shit. They'll run their dope. And if they get caught, they get caught and they roll their, they roll their fingers for you. Like that's how they're like, yeah, there's like, they ask, like, can I get my burrito on my drink?

They know the process. And you're like, this motherfucker. Roll their fingers, sits there and waits. They get sent back to Mexico and to go do it again. Yeah, that's very common. Texas started a law note if they got caught over I think it was four times and they were at 16 we could start charging as adults so that started changing things because like obviously this motherfucker is just smuggling dope and so there's things that are putting into play to try and mitigate that but yeah for the most part they use them young dudes I talk about it in there as well like yeah the juveniles get yeah that was the opening thing that I read was like you're that was a couple younger you know 14 15 year old kids that you're about to have to take a shot at yeah yeah that was an that was an intimidating moment where I was like this is a that was a fucking crazy. You got in here,

I mean, you got the freaking crazy story about here. You jump in and save a dude that's drowning in the river, in the Rio Grande. I mean, and it's kind of crazy. You're like, hey, I'm a strong story. You're telling you're a senior guy there. You're like, hey, I'm a good swimmer. I can get him.

He's like, it's up to you, man. And boom, you go for it. And then it's kind of weird. I won't read the whole thing. But like, you eventually get, washed up or you say as I got closer I could see the panic in the man's face this guy's drowning in the Rio Grande each time I saw his head drop a little water I was worried that he wouldn't come back up the current was pushing us down river as much as I was gaining on his location I was about

four free from him when we both washed up in a shallow part of the river he stood up with the water now just above his knees and I could see he was grateful to be alive I stood up not sure what to do next it was an awkward moment with me being in my boxers and a green undershirt with his with a shirt cuff around my wrist because you'd ripped off your shirt and ripped it. We were in the middle of the river and it was shallow all the way to the Mexican side. I looked at him and he looked at me almost as if we both didn't know what the next move was. I knew there was nothing I could do so I started turning back to the American side. He gave me a sheepish look and then headed back to Mexico. I swam back to the U.S. side of the river and was met by a group of agents who had been watching the entire event.

Some thought I was the biggest idiot for risking my life. Some commend me on the attempt. I was just grateful I didn't watch that man die without trying to rescue. Yeah. When I was in the academy, man, we had this crazy fucking swim instructor. He was a Bortak. Back when Bortak was going down to Columbia doing some fucking dope-ass shit, right? This dude was like old school post-traumatic stress fucking psycho-ass motherfucker, right? And he'd be like, yeah, he's like, come here, get over here.

And he was like, fucking intense, like scary dude, right? And I was like, this dude's wild, bro. He showed us his video. He's like, watch. And he's like, we're watching these two guys. drowned the attempt to come across and they started to drown and one jumped into trying to save the other and then they both started to drown and then they're doing this thing where they're pulling each other under because they're panicking and I'm watching and anytime we're like we're trying to look away he'd say like watch keep watching you know and he's like wants like pay attention motherfucker like he wanted to feel the gravity of this fucking shit and I felt the dude I watched those two drowned and I was like Jesus fuck a lot of people who come across the real grand river don't understand the dangers of it a lot of them don't know how to fucking swim they weren't raised with the swimming pool, you know what I mean? It wasn't common.

And they'd still make the attempt to come across no matter what. Some of them have things like floaties or whatever the case. And some don't. Some think it's shallow. And when they take one step, boom, they're sucked under, right? They're fucking pulled under. And so in that moment, man, I told me, it's like, I don't, I've always known, like, I'm willing to fucking risk my life to save people.

You know what I mean? Even if it's in the legal way, I just my heart couldn't sit there and just watch. And so when I saw the shit happening, I was like, get the fuck out of here. Like, this is my first, like, 30 days on the job, dog. You know what I mean? And I told the. I told my seniors like I dude I got to go dude so when I ripped my shirt off so fast the cuff came fucking So I had my fucking little green cuff is a tattoo it was a tattoo thing I had to wear long sleeves

So I had this green cuff my fucking underwear my shirt and I just jumped in this bitch and I handed my gun like dude hold this And yeah we both got washed up and we just looked at each other and I was like this what the fuck dog Didn't even get to rescue the dude you know what I mean like we just stood there but uh the rumors from that for the next few years was like like, bro, I can't believe you jumped in to save a doper. I can't believe you did this. It just turned into this rumor mill of like shit. And it was funny, but I had to tell them all like, no, man, we both got washed up on flat. And it was the weirdest moment ever, dude.

And I just saw one of the supervisors. She goes, I remember that. I should have let you fucking drowned. Because it was just like, she was like, be dumbassy new guy. But I felt I did the right thing. You know, it just turned out the way it was. Yeah. Going back to book here, Godaways is a term we use.

use when we track a group as long as we can and the trail ends at a point where we assume they have been loaded into a truck or a vehicle. We determine this by tracking the footprints to a road at which point the sign ceases without crossing the road. This is a sign that the group is loaded and we would then report the group as gotaways. Yeah, often. Yeah, it's often. That's pretty normal. Yeah, man, as as as, as shitty as that sounds, even at top performance, you're going to find, you're going to have gottaways. You know, hey, I got a sign a three at the point. Boom, boom, boom, boom. We track and we see the same sign and go up to the top of then right there at the road like fuck they were picked up at a location where like no cameras there nothing it's it's it's common

frustrating fuck yeah it's frustrating because you don't know who the fuck that was that for me is like the tactical mind of mind who the fuck was that who was that was it the next dude is gonna do some kind of terrorist that you know act on america was the next dude carrying some fucking biological fucking warfare i don't fucking know dude and that frustrates the fuck out of me uh speaking of spanish you got this in here. I walked over to this guy and asked him as calmly as I could. Como me yamo?

He didn't reply. I was using the motivation to ask, tell, make method that I learned in the military. I got a little louder. Como me yamo? Again, nothing. The man had just a confused look

in his face. Now I was getting pissed. The dude was stonewalling me. I have one job to do and it's to ask the guy what his name was. Como me yamo. I screamed as loud as I could.

My partner ran over and asked, bro, what the fuck are you doing? He doesn't know your name. It was only then that I realized I was asking him, what's my name? You can imagine the good nature abuse I got from my fellow agents. Even today, I still get calls about this. Fuck, dude. I thought that was pretty good.

Yeah, shit was embarrassing. It's fuck, dude. The dude, trying to look for my name deck, too. He kept looking and he's like trying to figure it out. Fuck, dude. Yeah, dude, they always, you know, people would, you know, they would teach us in Iraq, like how to say all these different things. And you know, get down and show me your hands

and all the stuff and like 95% of the time, people were just like, they have no idea that you're even trying to speak your legs because you're just a big white dude, or at least me, I'm a big white dude like saying whatever. Shuf me ad deik! And they think I'm saying something in English that they don't know, even though I'm supposed to be saying,

like, show me your hands and they're just looking at you like, oh yeah. It didn't take me very long to figure out that I was not a linguist. And this wasn't gonna, you know, We're gonna figure this out another way. For Border Patrol agents, dope is the name of the game. Catching dope was like a stalking,

it's like stalking a prize deer and taking a hero shot once you're close enough to do so. Trouble was at that time, everyone in my unit had had their photo taken with C's dope, but me. Anytime I was involved in a dope bust, I was always part of a group effort and I never really had that feeling

that I was instrumental in the outcome. That might not make complete sense to all of you reading this, but for me, that, photo was a right of passage. Yeah. And this is the story that I actually started the podcast with. That was your first big drug bus

that you actually felt like, yo, this is mine. Yeah. Yeah. And you got that picture that they've always put in the news, right? That always put that in the news. They do. We have a ton of them. We just don't post them and stuff. But yeah, it's something that, you know, you get commended by your brother's and sisters who work with you. They're like, hey, good job on that one. You know, like an 800 pound bus is pretty cool for us.

Like, it's a significant one, you know. And so, yeah, we chase that. It's kind of, it feels good. Those kids, they had pot. Yeah, right? Yeah. How do you feel about that now? Like pot's just full on legal.

Yeah, it's the weirdest thing. Yeah, it's one, like, I'm not removed from that. And, you know, I sit there and be like, well, that's fucking weird as shit now. Like, like, they're just carrying a thousand pounds of fucking weed. It's just weed. Do they do that now? And like, there's no, you don't get in trouble for smuggling weed across the border? No, you still do.

You still, I just still. I don't know the rules of it completely, but you're still not a lot of transport dope that way. It's still illegal. It's weird that you can go down to the store, like down the street from where we are right now and just bi-pop, you know, but someone's getting rolled up coming across the border.

Like, has the whole world gone crazy? Yeah, it's fucking weird, right? And the other part is like, I know that drug smuggling is slowed down a lot for marijuana, but, you know, obviously the influx of meth and fentanyl and all those other shit, cocaine still. Yeah. Um, fast forward a little bit here.

You say, I want to highlight the death of Brian Terry in the line of duty. I have to tell a story in a way that sheds light on the true nature of events. What follows is the story I've been able to compile over almost seven years of research during my career. Agent Terry's death occurred during Operation Huckleberry, which was intended to disrupt local rip crews. Rip crew is a term used for a group that steals drugs from other and other contraband. These groups have been popping up more recently over the years. years in effort to steal the dope loads that come across the borders or goods from unsuspecting illegal immigrant groups.

These small pocket gangs have found the vulnerabilities in the uninhabited deserts along the border. And so basically this group that he's working with gets an intel report about a certain area where there was a lot of these rip crews had a high possibility of working. He says the original, you say the original plan was to have an interdiction team. and full early warning teams on both sides of this valley, north and south of the X, and for the operation to last a month.

After two weeks of long days and longer nights, the teams became exhausted. They thought it was best to cut some manpower to give the teams more adequate work-to-rest ratios. And I'm going to fast forward a little bit. The unfortunate thing about this decision to reduce manpower, because that's what they ended up doing. Like, hey, this is, you know, guys are getting tired.

It's just smoking everybody. Is that it proved to be a costly and the most devastating way on December 15th 2010 a rip crew had approached the designated objective location that Bortak was focused on This is exactly the situation this operation was developed for as the as the four rip crew criminals advanced closer to Bortak Bortak was able to determine that the rip crew is heavily armed the Bortak team identified themselves and engaged with less than lethal force It is important to understand that up until this point, the Bortac SOP or Rowe was to initiate with less than lethal force and escalate to force if necessary. As the Bortac team engaged, the RIP crews returned fire. From what I was told, it didn't take long for Bortak to transition to lethal force after the initial engagement.

But in the chaos of the volley of fire, Brian Terry was hit. Agent Terry was struck in the pelvis by a round, fired by one of the suspects armed with an AK-14. He was flown to the hospital where he succumbed early the next morning. Brian Terry's loss was the first line of duty death in Bortac history. Agent Terry was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and it served with the U.S. Border Patrol for three and a half years. He had previously served as a police officer in Lincoln Park, Michigan. He left behind his parents, one brother, two sisters, five nieces, and one nephew. I need to relate these stories in order to make the dangers of guarding America's borders real for you

by telling you about a person, not a statistic. It's important to show how the Border Patrol has had to evolve and come up with better SOPs to enable agents to do their job proactively, even aggressively when needed, without putting themselves at extreme risk. A final reason and an intensely personal one to tell Brian Terry's story is to explain how his death influenced my career trajectory, leading me to apply for Borstar and eventually serve alongside Boratak. these were major career decisions that were hugely influenced by the death of a single agent.

Yeah. So this is the introduction here of Bortak and BORSTAR. What do you got? The special operations of the Border Patrol has evolved into this fucking incredible fighting force and protective force, but as well as medical force. I was on the fence of whether I wanted to go Bortac when I first joined because I did the Ranger thing. And part of me was like, you know, losing my friends. I've always questioned like, man, what if I was a medic? I could have helped.

You know, for some reason I was always in the back of my head. My father was an EMT. I've always, I did EMT when I got out of high school. When I was left to Border Patrol, went back to EMT again. And so I kind of always had this medical foundation. And thinking like that, I just felt like, well, maybe I'll just be a good, medic maybe I'll give you a good shooting medic for the for the tactical teams at the time Bortec and Borsar weren't really fully integrated it was kind of a it was kind of still in the air

there was a lot of animosity between both groups the Brian Terry incident just an example they didn't have a medic on hand with them it wasn't their SOP right for them it was like oh just wait and we'll call you when we need you kind of concept and even if a medic was there just to be straight it was one of those shots that was just going to it wasn't you He was going to die from the incident anyways. But it always made me like, why the fuck not have a medic? You know? And so when I read that, I was activated.

I was a drill sword. I got activated for the military for a year. And I read about it. And I started calling my friends about it. I'm like, dude, what the fuck? Where was the medic? And I kept asking that. And they didn't have a medic assigned to him.

It just wasn't a thing. And so that was like, well, fuck that. I want to be a medic. I'm going to be the best fucking shooting medic I could possibly be. And that's really what pushed me. me to become a Borstoy agent was that maybe I can implement things or help trust I'd help BorTac hopefully trust their medics to be to be on target with them right and it was weird to me that Boratac didn't didn't think like we did in the military like military like military had years

and years of proving why we do what we do why not fucking take their training they put a medic on yeah that's like crazy it's weird as fuck and then what they do they'd be like hey we're going to teach them just blood you know stop the bleeding shit and so yeah but all these Boratackers don't want to be medics. It's like, okay, cool, I did the course. Now, you know, I have my med pack, but like no one really gives a fuck about medical until you fucking need medical.

And so when I was going through Boar Star Selection, I remember a guy, so just by through a cousin of mine, told a friend, and then they got to him and goes, hey, you're a ranger? I was like, I was, sir. They're like, we can use you. I know, sir.

Like, I'm trying, you know. I got to get through this fucking selection. He's like, all right. keep going. I'm like, I'm going. And so I knew that they already knew that there was a ranger going through Boar Star. And I knew that there was a potential future in really helping hopefully bridge that gap. And just so everybody knows, so Bortak, and we have friends that are on Bortak, but Bortak, what's the mission of Bortak?

They're, like, they're assaulters. They're going to hit targets. They're going to do warrants. They're the SWAT team of the Border Patrol. And we, you know, I was attached to them as a medic. but what they did was any kind of, so if the U.S. Marshals had a warrant, you know, they don't have the manpower, we would be the manpower, right? The Bortec would take that mission. Any kind of like escape convicts that had a potential of heading towards any border, Bortec would get activated for that.

When they're just sitting there looking for new missions, it's usually to disrupt drug trafficking organizations. And so we gather intel and do operations to disrupt. And so they're just the tactical fighting force of the border. They have sniper qualification guys They have dog teams, bite teams They have everything you can fucking think of That a special operation, Tier 1 element would have And they are the Tier 1 element of the Border Patrol

And then Boar Star Is trauma search and rescue? Yeah, search trauma and rescue Essentially what a Boar Star agent is Is a civilian version of a Par rescue jumper. We do long line rescues, we do swift water rescues, we're proficient in shooting

Not as much as a Boar tacker would be but we do care for our shooting proficiencies as well. We do medical interventions. We're all EMTs sometimes. We're EMT with the capability of innovation, right? So airways because we're usually two hours from definitive care. And so we have a high level of medical proficiency as well as we have osteo-medics, paramedics, and so on and so forth. And so we are kind of the best medical practitioners on the border you can think of.

If there's a car accident, civilians doesn't matter. engage. We work. If we're out there and we hear there's a group that got scattered and we're nervous about the heat, potentially them dying because of the heat exposure, we're out there doing search and rescue. If we get a 911 call of an illegal immigrant that gets lost, we're the ones who do the triangulate that location and we go find him. There's a long list of what we do. In the book, I talk about SWIFWR rescues. I've done it all as a medic and eventually, you know, that's what we do. So there's BorTAC is your tactical team. Borr Star is your medical team. A Originally, Borchstar was implemented to help for the issues that you see with illegal immigration

as well as agents in the field. And then they slowly kind of came together and created like a really strong tactical team with a medic attached. Like now medics are attached with them and that is the SOP and it'll continue to stay that way. As it should be. I don't want to detour this too bad, but it's sort of a detour in your life. You mentioned it real quickly.

So you were activated as a reservist to go be a drill sergeant in the Army during this whole thing yeah for a year for a year where were you a drill for still and this was boot camp yeah I pushed fucking I pushed five cycles in one year one of those cycles the first cycle was called WTC warrior transition center it was people who got out of the military and wanted to come back and finish and so they did like a like a dumb down version of basic training a lot of them like 34 year old dudes were just like I just need my five years and I get my retirement you know what I do either drill sergeant and some of those guys are still my friends today now they're like hey you're my drill sergeant I'm like oh fuck but yeah then I pushed you my first year

troops for for it was a first of the four 15th um and those are 95th division yeah recruits that come in yeah like you you if someone joins the army you can go to fort sale and that's where you're going through boot camp yeah it's not all in benning no no benning is all infantry got benning is now it's not all entry there's other MOSs but it's specific to infantry got it for still is is mixed MOSs and sometimes you're going to get like I had every MOS you can think of besides infantry no it was I don't think I had a combat arms person I think I had all you know four two hours whatever

Just men and women. It was like fully integrated. It was fucking nuts. Oh, it's integrated. Yes, it was. Men and women together in boot camp. Yeah, dude.

How was that? It was tough. We had a lot of cameras in every different area because these dudes, they just, they're stupid fucking kids. You know what I mean? They're just mayhem. It's fucking nuts. My whole platoon at one time was all women and it was like you had to have a female

drill storm with you at all times because just protect yourself from just shit. Yeah. I mean. Yeah, dude. It was crazy. It was cool, though. I actually really loved being a dress. How long was a cycle?

How long was a boot camp? What was it? Was it eight weeks or nine weeks I think it was? Because it's not Osset, right? Osset was like the full basic training and AIT. It wasn't that. It was just they're just based training, boom, they shoot off their AIT.

And so I believe it was nine weeks or eight weeks. Did you just like, it seems like in that situation, you just see everything. People breaking down, people freaking out, people trying to kill themselves, people trying to like just mayhem. Yeah, I had a kid in another company while I was there doing CQ,

jump off the second floor. and take his own life. We had a bus of soldiers who rolled over because the drill sarn at the time of driving was just reckless and rolled it over and just permanently hurt several kids. You had some really good kids who went out there and did good shit, right?

It was just everything. It was cool because being a fathered, this was being a dad, right? You showed him to these young knuckleheads. I taught a kid had a shave and he never had a dad. I had a girl who, when she graduated, she said, Dros Sorn, I look up to you like, you were like a dad to me.

I'm like, fuck, what a crazy experience. So it was a beautiful experience, but it was so like compartmentalized in my world. Like cool. Get back to work. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's wild. It's just a wild. Like I said, you barely mention it in the book. It's literally like one line or maybe two sentences in the book.

Like by this time I was, you know, in Fort Sill and I was working as drill and drill sergeant. I was like, damn, that's a whole thing, man, being a drill sergeant. Like I always have an interest in people that worked at Bud's like Bud's instructors because I never did it. And I never really even paid attention to it, dude. like honestly like my I went through it and like that was it was done with buds and I just was in the teams I never really thought about it again but then I when I got out and I started like paying attention and talking to my buddies that worked it like it's you learn a lot about human beings yeah yeah and what's going through their little heads yeah so like when I sat

and wrote this book I was like all right is this going to be my life story yeah no this is just one part because I have I want to write that story I want to write my leadership book and a lot of it is focused on being an NCO in Rangetown and a drill shard and the dichotomy to use one in words that you've made fucking massive is like what an interesting difference between those two but as well as the values that both of my learned from and so I definitely want to write my leadership book eventually but I decided to compartmentalize my life so that I have more stories to tell but I give them more credit when you know give more time well that's what's funny is as you read this book it's like one lot actually I don't I think you have like no lines

about Ranger School. It's just like, on this day I graduated. I'm like, dude, you know, like Ranger School's a big deal, man.

That's one of the hardest schools in the U.S. military. That's a thing that people, you know, wear with a badge of honor is having a Ranger tab. Yeah.

And like, you're like, graduate on this day, you know. Oh, and by the way, one of your deployments to,

to Iraq is like, you just said it was your best deployment. It's highly kinetic. Guys got wounded. In the, in the book, you just say, I got back from a deployment.

Yeah. You don't even talk about it. So you got a lot of material left in you, bro. Yeah, the intention was to give all the folks I can to the Border Patrol. Yeah. And also to hopefully not like, look how cool I am. Well, that's another cool thing is honestly, like, even though I'm into like hearing about Ranger School and whatever and your deployments, this book is about Border Patrol. And there's a whole, this is a, this is worthy of its own book.

You know what I mean? Like, I'm glad it's like this. Let's face it, there's a lot of books about, I mean, we've covered hundreds of books on this. this podcast going back to freaking you know 1800s and you know all from a soldier's perspective I don't I've never I don't need is there another book that's first person account of Border Patrol not like this there's a few like independent people just you know self-published stuff but like there's nothing like this yeah so this is really nailing an area that people just don't know much about so especially the special

operations the first time really yeah yeah you say this my mind was made up it was clear to me that medics need to be part of potentially all potentially dangerous missions that border patrol and agents undertook or border patrol agents undertook, I wanted to be part of that solution and help rectify the situation. I knew that Bortak agents and BoreStar agents didn't often didn't always appreciate each other. I also knew there would be a bridge. There would need to be a bridge to bring the two together. All the evidence and experience that I had suggested that Bortak agents were reluctant. to fully embrace Borstar agents as important players in the tactical world of Bortak. I also knew they were absolutely incorrect. I thought that I could provide that bridge by taking my experience of being an Army Ranger infantry men with a wealth of knowledge of combat operations and tactics and transitioning that skill set into becoming a trusted tactical medic in the Border Patrol. That was my new mission. But first, I had to apply for Borr Star and pass their rigorous selection.

process. The seven of us headed to the selection site in San Diego, California. We were going to a small island called Coronado. Most might be familiar with this place, some more than others, as it is the location of Naval Special Warfare Command where Navy SEALs go through their training. We moved into the same barracks as the SEAL candidates going through buds. Looking back on that aspect of our training years later, it's a bit of a blur. What I do remember was getting on a bus and heading to a place called Gloria to Bay. Once there, we checked our gear and waited for everyone to get there. It was the calm before the storm.

I remember getting our number identifier. That was the participant number based on alphabetic sequence. My number was 83. Once we received our numbers, they took us back to the seal barracks and all hell broke loose. The cadre was dumping our gear, looking for contraband. They found so much stuff that I couldn't help, but believe they planted it just to make us pay. This cadre was worse than a new, Army drill sergeant who had just graduated from the academy.

They smoked us for hours and hours as if they didn't give a damn that we had a PT test the next day. Once the smoke job was done, they gave us so many impossible tasks that I knew we were in for a long night. From cleaning the barracks to lining up our gearbacks to delegating fireguards to assigning bunks, it was meant to kill any time we were thought we might get for sleep. This was a common thing to do in selections. If you don't introduce real-time stressors, you have to create them by taking away common comforts like phones, families, sleep. food basically all those items we've grown accustomed to having easy access but of all the stressors lack of sleep was the crippler that could make the strongest man

question everything it was maybe zero 300 we decided to bed down and deal with the consequences in the morning the room was trashed the tasks unfinished and I was making every effort to be a gray man for as long as I could getting through this next day meant everything I needed to get through the PT test swim literary the next day after that It was all about having the intestinal fortitude to keep pushing. I closed my eyes and tried to be ready for what was to come. It didn't take long.

At 4 in the morning, we heard wake up. The instructor cadre came crashing in with a vengeance. I woke up to what felt like deja vu. I jumped off my bunk to get dressed. But before that, I was so disoriented that I grabbed the guy next to me and yelled at him, what course is this? He yelled back, four star selection. Now is all making sense.

I had been to so many courses in my career, especially ones with rude awakenings in the military barracks, that I was confused as to what course I had just time traveled to. I told you that lack of sleep was a stressor and I was living it. You go through, so, you know, you go through awesome details on the book of what this selection is like. Really tough selection. You have a PT test the next morning. Third of the class freaking fails it. Next night, similar thing.

They got something called Rescue Randy, which is like litter carrying. Yeah. Like in seal training, you're carrying boats on your head. Right. This you guys are carrying a litter around with the freaking dummy on it. Funny part of all this, funny in retrospect, not so much while it was happening, was that while we were getting dusted off by our cadre, so was the next Bud's training class. It was one big pissing contest between cadres of opposing forces.

I realized how this was a huge disadvantage for our class. The cadre just wouldn't just copy what the Bud's instructors were doing. They would try and top them all to make our lives as miserable as possible. I can see that going down all that. Oh, it was fucking nuts. I was looking at it like, this is fucked, dude. Fast forward a little bit. I have never been in a situation in my military career that would have made me quit.

The hardest thing I had done before joining the military was Hell Week in football. Hell Week was a week long physical fitness and football simulated exercise that would push most high school kids to the brink of quitting. During Army basic training and beyond, I had never let the idea of quitting cross my mind. Even when I when pushed to my limits, I had always continued to push forward and find a way to power through. That is until day seven of Borstar selection. My knee was starting to swell. It was painful to bend and agonizing to run on, but it was still working. As I started to fall out of the morning PT session, run on a beach, the cadre started to punish everyone for my lack of ability to keep up.

They would yell, say thank you to 83. And how does 83, how does it feel 83 to know you are the weakest, Blink those words on any other day of training would fall upon death deaf ears but on that day at that moment it was the excuse that I needed just to stop the pain Yeah I was feeling defeated and for the first time in my life I contemplated quitting It was an emotionally painful thought I kept wondering what my kids would think of me What would my father how would my father react to me? What would he say or would he say that I wasn't tough enough? How would it feel to face everyone back in my unit who up until then? I

believed in me. A cadre instructor named McCardell was in my ear the whole time. He was playing good cop, bad cop, and was going all psycho on me. As bad cop, he yelled things like, quit 83. You aren't good enough. Go home 83. We don't want you. Then he switched to the nice guy persona and said things like, it's okay, 83. You don't want to permanently hurt yourself. It'll ruin your future. The van's there, man. Just quit. It's cool. I admit that I was about to quit. My eyes were watering. I was breaking down and the voice in my head said, fuck, I might actually quit. I can't tell you what it was,

God or ego, but just as fast as this desire to quit penetrated my brain, the anger followed. Without breaking stride, I turned to McArdle and said, with all due respect, sir, you can keep yelling all you want, but I won't quit. I was able to close the gap and get back with the group and thank God the run ended. Yeah. I was like,

you're a danger close, bro. Dude, I felt like I was embarrassed. Like I've never been in that position, dude. I was embarrassed because they're all getting fucked up. Dude, I see them getting just, you know, they're in the sand getting fucked up and they're making sugar cookies, all the things you can think of. And they're like, catch up to them 83.

If you don't catch up, we're going to keep fucking them up. You know, and you just feel like shit. I'm like, dude, maybe I'm just old. Maybe I'm just old. You know, and I'm looking for everything because I'm like, and the one thing I was like, I can't quit and then show up and two days later, my knee's fine. You know what I couldn't?

I kept thinking like, dude, do I need, what ended up happening, I told myself, like, let the motherfucking break. Like, if the knee fucking gives up, that's the best excuse. Because then I'm like, yeah, I need surgery. Just die. Yeah, like, just let it fucking fall off. So I just kept going. And thank God, man.

I needed, I needed that run to end because I was fucking breaking down, dude. Fuck, I felt, man, I've never felt like that. Yeah. It's interesting, too. Like, I've heard people talk about buds and that there's like, look, there's, 10% of the class, they're not going to quit. Like, you can literally kill them. Yeah.

And they're just like, whatever, kill me then. And then there's like 10% of the class, they're going to quit no matter what. Like, they're just not for it. Maybe 20%, maybe even 30%. And then there's like people that are on that border, you know? They're like, they're thinking about it. Yeah. And then depending on what happens next, they're making a determination on like what their whole life.

Is like get back in the water. Like, I mean, I saw that. You're like, all right, get back in the water. And you see someone just like, that was. gonna stay with us, hey, get back in the water. And you see the guy just turned around, walk away. One of my best friends, like, they're doing the same thing, cold water treatment, right? Like, just cold as fuck.

Get back in. Go in the car, warm up. Get back in. About four times, the fourth one, he's like, no, I'm not doing it. I'm like, bro, we gotta go. Let's go. Like, I had to, like, if I didn't, but the same way around, if something didn't tick me, like, I would have done, I'd been gone.

I would have been back to Border Patrol. But, yeah, dude, there's those weird moments where you watch them just break. And you're like, fuck. Yeah. Yeah, you say in Ranger indoctrination program, we ran a hard five miles fast and furious. We knew the route. So I knew when we were getting close to the end, we started to slow down near the finish line. We turned around and went for another mile.

So like you had a five mile run and you guys were on the five mile run and you start to slow down at the end. And then you just, nope, we're going. And you said, guys, we're dropping like flies. It was the most effective way to break someone in selection process. I told myself to never get excited or expect any kind of relief in any selection from that day forward. And here we were many years later. And I got just excited because you guys were doing this wheel of misfortune. The wheel of misfortune.

I don't know if they got that from seal training. Did you guys do that? Yeah, we had wheel of misfortune. And like there's, it's like wheel of fortune echo. And like one little tiny sliver says easy day on it. And all of other ones are just like hellacious exercises. And they actually had a weight on that. Like we couldn't, you could not hit easy day like ever for us.

But you guys spun it. And it says easy day. It lands on easy day Would you're like no way And my student was like Yes Like fuck yeah We got to fuck it

It was the first day We were dry We never went into the sand And I was like dude We're gonna finally have Decent dry boots in the morning Yeah fuck no dude The instructor's like

You want an easy day I got your easy day follow me That dude right there And you said I knew it was about to get Medieval That dude right there is Aaron Rogers No sorry Alan Rogers Not Aaron Rogers

Not the quarterback But Rogers was We became friends Because I became a cadre instructor later Right During that I looked at him like Who is this fucking dude?

What's his background? Because he was like Every special operations dude I've ever seen Like the fucking stud He did this thing where he'd uncuff his sleeve slowly And he'd take his top off And when you did that you're like Fuck here we go

And when we rolled easy day He put the The back of his truck down the tailgate, and he started warming up by doing box jump on the top of that thing. This dude is probably a 250-pound monster. He looked like a, dude, he looked like a fucking, like a superhero. And he's doing these box jumps, and he's saying, under his breath, easy day. Easy day.

And he's jumping on this truck and the truck going to bottoming out, right? You're like, God damn it, dude. And I'm like getting emotional, dog. Like, oh, fuck, we're about to fucking. Damn it, man, this is the day. I got excited and I fucking forgot my own rule. And he fucked us up, dude. He fucked us up so bad.

I later talked to him about it. And I was like, why didn't you join the seals or something? Do you go, I don't know, man. I was training for it. And I just never did it. My God, he would have been a scary dude, bro. But it made that selection that much more respectable for me, but also like memorable, like, man.

It wouldn't have been as great if it wasn't for that dude being there and just completely fucking us up every day. I had a guy we mustered out for like first phase. got out there for a conditioning run called the conditioning run it so it's not timed it's not a timed so conditioning run you're like oh we're gonna get in shape now but there's this warn officer and he will and we're like staying in in ranks right and he comes out he's smoking a cigarette like cigarettes in his mouth just like it's cool like marlborough man shit going down and he comes out and he's like bring it in gents so he didn't want to yell at us right he's like gents i'm 42 years

old i smoke two packs of cigarettes a day i've been doing that for 20 three years we're gonna go on a run all I'm asking is that you keep up with me and I was like same thing I was like oh dude we're for this is gonna be a fucking disaster dude this is gonna be a disaster and sure enough it was any other big challenges are cut going through that that again you detail it in the book get the book get the book people um but what were any other thing that you want to highlight no the selection was like so good and I was so happy to when I graduated it was like I don't even have like an army Ranger tattoo but I thought like man I need a borisar tattoo that's how much like at the age of my age at

the time you 31 I think I was somewhere on there I don't even know where I was I think I was like 31 yeah and I was just like God this was it was tough and I respected it and I was super proud of it and it felt just as good as graduating from Ranger school to getting through rip it was I I highly recommend like that is no fucking joke if you think you come out of the military special operation you're going to show it's going to be a cakewalk fuck no it was tough check My very first day on the job as Borr-Star agent was dedicated to finding a group of scattered migrants in the night.

Smilo and I, this is one of your partners, Smilo and I were riding together in our new special operations uniforms. It felt just as good as putting on the tan ranger bray or the tan beret and ranger battalion. We were pumped because just like combat medics in the U.S. military, we could save lives. We were digging deep into a ranch cutting and cutting a drag road. We noticed some footprints that looked clean and very recent. We knew from the time frame that this could be the part of the group that had scattered earlier that night and this is previous in the buck We parked the truck and proceeded on foot in the direction of travel

What we discovered was that this group of people was asleep during the middle of the day just trying to get out of the heat That day the temperature was in the high 90s. It is completely possible with some of them could have died from heat exhaustion if we hadn't spotted them We started pulling them out of the bushes and lining them up and this is what you're doing man now you got a whole new skill set yeah that you're your using out there in the job and you know this is what this is what you end up doing yeah yeah Borstar Borstar's job when not doing any kind of rescue is to find where groups have been scattered and try and rescue them before the the temperatures get them and so like what we do is we show up to work we already have our all of our certifications we're already EMTs everything else and we look at all the Intel

and say a group got scattered at two in the morning you already know by seven o'clock in the morning when the sun's coming up it's starting to get high and you got to start trying to find these people. And so we go try and round them up. And sometimes you're fortunate enough to save them. And sometimes, you know, you're unfortunate. You're just a little too late. And that's the sad part about it.

Just Del Rio sector last year, they lost, I think it was 247 illegal migrants who were attempting to come across and got scattered at night. And during the day, you know, the heat exposure or drownings. So that's just a lot of death on the border, man. And that's exactly the Border Patrol, the Borough agent's job is to do everything can to mitigate that. Yeah. And you mentioned this.

earlier that you also do search and rescue for anybody. Not just migrants, but anybody that any emergency situation is going down. And then you've got a whole section in here about some of those rescues. You're a huge, there's a situation that you talk about in the book where you rescue like eight people that are Swiff Water rescue. Yeah, it's like Swift Rock. So you got all kinds of stuff going on in here. Again, get the book, get those, get those stories, learn those lessons.

And then you finally, you get assigned as a. medic with Bortac, right? And this is kind of what your goal was. As you stated earlier, I read that little section. But so here you are on Bortec. I'm going to go to the book here. One day, as we were going through a lengthy pre-mission briefing, when it was my time to talk about the emergency medical plan for operations, I recommended attaching a Borestar medic to the team directly on the X, which is a term we use for the objective location. One of the Bortac agents replied, it's not safe to have a medic with us just in case there's contact. Contact on the border isn't likely, but it's definitely a possible. It's definitely possible. Contacting the attack reward isn't literal

terms such as touch and feel. It's referred to troops in contact. I stood up out of frustration that had been building inside me for the past few months. I asked how many guys on the team have combat experience? The room was quiet. One Bortak agent raised his hands, raised his hand. I had more combat experience as a trigger puller than the whole team. I wasn't trying to be a but I had to get it through their thick Bortak brains that I was an asset, not a liability. They all knew my background and I didn't have to explain my point of view any further. They finally supported my recommendation and placed me on the X with the rest of the team. Yeah.

It was very odd for them to hear that a medic wanted to be on the X with them because it wasn't their SOP. They just were raised to think that's odd. And for me it was like, I wasn't trying to be a dick or anything, but I was like, dude, why the fuck wouldn't you want me on the X one because I can shoot two. like I'm your medic like put me in the fucking game dog and you know there's a couple guys who weren't even military so they were just board attackers with no military experience so they didn't even understand the the the teamwork between medics and shooters right and so his that guy who mentioned

his just disconnect from the from how it should be was just what how he was raised into the team and so he didn't know and so eventually they all started to get more comfortable like oh dude I think this is probably the best way we should be running yeah and it worked out like delriel started using a lot of us. It was me and Smiloh really helped integrate the Del Rio sector. Yeah, freaking legit. And it's just cool that you were able to come in and slowly change their mind and let them see a much better way of doing things. You got this section here in 2007, the U.S. Border Patrol joined together two units, the border, their Border Patrol tactical unit Bortak and the Border Patrol search trauma and rescue unit Borstar to form the U.S. Border Patrol's Special Operations Group, headquartered in El Paso, Texas. And then you go into this section here by this time in 2013. I was training to try out for Bortak.

Unfortunately, there was a rough time in my life. I was going through a difficult divorce. And to add to it, I became the custodial parent for my four kids. Nonetheless, I was able to maintain enough focus to be good at my job and be good at my job enough to still try and find a way to get to SOG. And then you end up, I spent a better year, better part of two years. running the Boar Star selection process and training at the mobile response teams across the border. So you end up being an instructor.

Yeah, I became one of the Boar Star selection instructors. I helped integrate the tactical medicine program into Bortac. I just helped grow that whole tactical medicine side of it. What happened was you teach tactical medicine, but you don't understand tactics, you kind of miss a part of it. And so I started teaching a lot of the BorrStar guys. So anyone who came through selection during my time, they were taught tactical medicine and entering clearing rooms. The SOPs will Bortac uses so that when they did become a Bortac, Bortac would be more comfortable using them as a medic.

Because actually they know the SOPs. They understand patrolet. They understand all the things that you should know as a TACMed medic. And so that's what I implemented. I know things have changed slightly since then, but still the TACMetic program has continued to grow and continue to integrate. But yeah, so because I was a custodial father for my four kids, I had to take on our training. side of training role or else I couldn't do the fucking 24-hour call-out stuff because how was it going to find someone to watch the kids. And so eventually I just stayed the medic

for a while. And eventually I ended up meeting someone and she ended up helping with the kids. And that's when I eventually got attached to Boretec as their medic. So you ran the selection that you went through. Is that the one you're talking about? How often would that selection go down? It was once a year. Yeah, once a year. Yeah. So we would. And would you do it in Coronado? Is that the normal place? No, we did. I think they did two classes in Coronado. and eventually just funding what made sense, we ended up moving it to White Sands, New Mexico.

Okay. And so since SOG is in El Paso, White Sands was just a drive, and so we started using that facility as our training location. And so for the next three that I ran, we're all in white sands. Isn't it weird to be in Coronado getting your ass handed to you? Bro, I never wanted anything to do with fucking seals, homie. And then I mean, all of a sudden I'm sitting there watching these kids,

dude, getting their ass kicked, and I'm like, oh, and I see, you know, we're all chained up in the beach because we see them getting chained up on the beach, and hit by waves, and then they go, you guys get in there. You're like, you fuckers, dude. You know, so now we're getting chained up in the fucking. It was, it was cool, though, man. It kind of, again, it kind of checked the box from me of like, this is a legit selection, and I'm proud to have been through it.

You know what I mean? You also bring in Matt Larson, who's the guy that kind of, the father of Army, Army Combatives Program. Yeah. I always, like, this podcast has come out, and I'll hear from him, like he'll hit me up. And I got to get him on the podcast. He's my boy, man, and he's a great dude. Oh, for sure.

He's been a mentor of mine for a long time. He's someone I could bounce ideas off. He's very intelligent. But, you know, I was a combatant instructor in the Army, and he was the godfather for that for us. And so when I got to actually become friends with him, it was dope. And so what we did was we created a modern Army combatters program for the Special Operations Group.

Eventually, the Border Patrol and the Special Operator didn't move forward with the program, but we were able to teach four classes, five classes, no injuries, teach guys how to fucking manage themselves, teach them how to when to use actually, like, jujillo. to and not to use it, you know what I mean? Really focused on weapons retention is really the focus in creating distance and then being able to punch out, right? Hey, when you, when, when the officer got killed and they engaged, they started by engaging with less than lethal, what were they using? I think they had the PLS systems. It was just kind of like a, it's like a pepperball system, but as well as we have the, I think it's called the F and 304, something like that, which is kind of like

a hard plastic, you know, projectop. It just wasn't in their SOPs to start with like, it was, that'd be crazy for them. In that point, in that time, it was really fucking far-fetched. They were like, why would we need to engage lethally? But what happened in the time is, like, those rip crews were not just fucking, those were like, those were like, hey, we can make a quick buck by stealing their dope and fucking using it for ourselves to sell. And so those dudes were like, they had no other job but to fucking make sure they got the dope to the fucking group. And so their intentions were definitely, they were worse than any kind of drug smuggler because drug smuggers were just dropped.

and run. These dudes are like we need this fucking dope and so it became a fucking you know a deadly engagement Um so you you mentioned that you were getting into Bortak Um you say this if I was going to jump on a Bortak team as a medic I would only be willing to work for Chris Voss Chris Voss was a dual tabber Bore star and Bortak he had extensive background as a combat experience Ranger and many years on the teams so this is the guy that sort of you work together yeah You meet him. You know, Ranger Ranger kind of thing. We met.

You guys just broke out. Yeah, we just, dude. We broed out. Exactly. And we became pretty good buds. I wasn't sure if I wanted to get attached to a tactical team at all because I'm like, I want to be a good medic. But I don't know.

My life was, that was kind of crazy. I talked to Voss. I said, if I was going to join a team, I'd join a Ranger, right? You're the dude. I would follow. And he said, we'd love to have you as a medic. So, to be clear, I never was a, I never became a boretacker. I talked about it on the thing.

I never had the time to try out because. My life just with the divorce and the kids, it got a little crazy. But the next best thing was what I got was what I wanted. I was attached to one of the number one Bortac teams in the nation, the SOG, which is our tier one element compared to what you would identify them as a tier one element. I was their medic. And that was like, for me, like I fucking got to where I wanted to. Yeah, yeah.

Legit. And it's cool. You talk about going to the kill house with these guys for the first time. And you're like, yeah, hell yeah. Dude, I haven't shot live rounds in a fucking in a training environment in so long. Like it was probably like four years or something like that three years and so like I had no idea of what I was gonna be able to do and then yeah by chance the dude in front me his his web went cold And he got he had a malfunction I stepped across boom to engage the target boom kept flowing into the room And the the you know the range safety officer on top was like later was like what's your background? I was like oh

It was a ranger. He goes yeah thoughts out and it was cool. It's kind of like the all right you're good you're on the team you know what I mean? That's like the years ago when I went to the concealed carry school did you go to that school? Yeah And, like, of course, I just sat there, you know, took the notes or whatever. It's like a two-day thing. First day's classroom. Second day, you go to the range. So I went to the range, and the guy comes up to me, like, looks at my target.

He's like, what's your background? I was in the team. So he's like, check. Yeah. Because everyone else looks like shocked. I'm freaking trailing this thing. This is, I'm going to fast forward a little bit. We get to New York State here.

Two inmates. Richard Matt and David Squam. both incarcerated for murder were discovered missing during an early morning bed check in prison Matt was serving 25 years to life and sweat was serving life without parole the two prisoners had dug a tunnel out of the prison with tools obtained from a prison employee so this is what's going on there's high alert there's a bunch of false alarms and again this this story is like it this story I think is what you're you open the book.

Yeah. You open the book with the beginning of this story. And so now you've kind of built this story arc where we got to like, we're now going to get some payoff and stuff. And so you guys show up there. They fight like you mentioned earlier. If there's tracking that needs to be done. Yeah.

Bortak's going to get the call. You're attached to Bortak. You're the medic. So you're going on these operations. You guys go up to New York. And this is like what everybody dreams about. Right. This is like, this is the shit.

Yeah. We've been training for so long now. And you're like, man, when we can get one? You know what I mean? And we just got back from a training mission that was with, you know, several three-letter agencies. And we showed ourselves to be fucking dope, right? We kicked ass on that engagement.

And we were like, oh, man. And I felt good as a team. I felt like the team. I understood the team. The team understood me. We had our SOPs down. I'm clearing rooms. Second dude, it didn't fucking matter.

I'm just, I'm the dude, right? And so it was dope. We got back and I'm preparing for my daughter's birthday. I haven't been her birthday in fucking forever, right? Because that's kind of our world is like you're just gone, gone, gone, gone. And yeah, dude. I saw the news and I was like oh shit maybe they'll call us maybe not it's been a few days boom get the call from Voss it's like hey back it up we're going you guys roll up there and like

start running ops man like you guys run out and again there's details on the book at the book but you guys take boats out to like a little island there's a cabin out there you guys hit this cabin freaking dry hole what's cool about this up like next day or a couple days later you're out in helicopters you're going to hit another target this one was like a school a big school or they thought these guys were hiding, also a dry hole. And then in the book here you say it was frustrating at times. It felt like we were on their tail. And at others, they seemed to be, at other times they seemed to be long gone.

We tracked for several more days looking for signs of where these two inmites might have been. We searched many abandoned structures. But by the end of the week, I felt like we might not catch these guys. We were running long hours and days for almost a week before we were even given a night off. I was bum because it was a Friday and my daughter's birthday was on Saturday and I was stuck in New York. I asked Chris Loss how he felt about me going home

for the weekend to catch my daughter's birthday and then head back on Monday. He was completely comfortable and I got the idea approved. So you're like, it doesn't seem like this shit's going down. I'm going to catch this guy. Well, they told me that we were going to redeploy on Sunday. I was like, look, for some reason, we're not, I'll come back.

I just got it. Like, I want to catch this. Yeah. And, you know, like everybody that is in any kind of service. You've missed so many freaking birthdays, and here you were, you had everything set up, and she's anticipating.

It's just like a, just like you gotta do what you gotta do. So you decide you're gonna fly home. So I'll go to the book here. I flew home Saturday to enjoy my daughter's birthday. I watched the news and started to set up the bouncy castle when I saw on the report that Richard Matt was killed by U.S. Border Patrol agents.

I looked over at my father and asked him to turn up the violence. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. My team was scheduled to come back a few days after me, but they were called in because of some new intelligence. They had walked in on Matt's final position, and one of the members of my team was able to engage the threat as Matt elevated his shotgun on him.

My father asked if I was okay, as tears trickled down my face. I had to explain to him that I was on that mission the night before and I'd come home for the party. You end up getting a phone call, you find out. Chris Vaugh. Was the person who had made the engagement and I was hurt that I couldn't be there for him. This was the first time in my career That I had chosen my family over work. I was extremely conflicted. I chose to be with my daughter for her birthday and not with my team for the mission

I left them without a designated Bore star medic and I was at my daughter's party with my heart torn by whether or not it was the right decision After the party was over and the friends and family left, I was left alone with my thoughts. I have lived a life dedicated to serving a greater purpose. I believed in the mission and the men, even though I knew how much my kids have missed during my life when I was away on missions and how much I had missed theirs. The mission and my path had started to blur. The whole ordeal had left me confused. The last thing my team deserved was a half-invested medic. My priorities had changed and I decided it was best to resign and shift gears in life.

It was time to put this chapter behind me and start a new career. Oh, the heavy one for me. Yeah, that's like, that's kind of, I mean, what about like just the logistics side of your now, however far ranking you are, you have retirement at least somewhere in the future? You know what I'm saying? Like there's... Yeah. I walked away from like everything. Everything.

Yeah. Yeah, that's... It was tough. It was like I never thought it would happen. And then when it happened, I said I fucking knew this would happen. You know what I mean? Did you have any idea what you'd be doing next? Had you...

Because, you know, you end up in a totally different career. Had you... No. Broached that at all? No, it was like... I did have a couple of businesses that were doing decent, and I didn't know where they were going to go, but I knew it wasn't what I wanted either.

I just knew I needed it. I needed something different. I needed to do something that would put me more in my kids' lives than it was. And I was just tired of like, I wasn't tired of it, but I just knew I needed, they needed me, and that to me is more important than anything. And it wasn't for so long. I never thought, I thought, like, well, I'm paying the bills.

So that's the most important thing I can do. And at that time, they've already gone through one divorce. They were going through now their second divorce that they're seeing. And it's just dad trying to figure it out. And I felt it was, I had it to do my duty as a father to just give them more of me. And so it was just, and not be a half-ass medic for a team. It just fucking wasn't fair for anyone. How many kids did you have at this point?

At four. That was my original four for my first marriage. And yeah. And look, that's not the end of the book at all. Um, there, there's, the, the, the stories continue. Um, there's a bunch of information you go through like history. Uh, it's stuff that you really, not, number one, it's interesting, but on number two, if you're going to have an opinion about this stuff, have an educated opinion. No, not just what the theories are, but like what people that have lived it go through. So from that perspective, uh, it's just a great book. And, and you do talk about like thoughts and ideas on how to prove, improve safety and security. So it, it really, you, it, it really, you, it, it, it, it really, you. Get the book. You know, get the book. And really, I mean, I think just to give a little bit of the book, an idea of the book,

I'm just going to go to the forward written by me. Borderline gives us a look into border security and Border Patrol through the eyes of a dedicated professional. He not only explains daily Border Patrol life and culture, but also shares his approach and attitude while on duty. Similar to specialized in military schools, the Border Patrol has a dynamic, challenging, Training curriculum that teaches agents to survey the border lands and then track apprehend and process migrants who have crossed illegally This requires that agents learn how to care for Children for scared children traveling alone and in the same night perhaps even at the same time contend with dangerous criminals looking to smuggle steal exploit and kill this dichotomy of being combative while remaining empathetic often puts agents lives at risk the harsh environment of the arid deserts

the desperation of people seeking a new life and the cruelty of smugglers and criminals make for a grim and bleak environment one with many moral dilemmas Vince has seen all aspects of this convoluted chaos the perspective he gives in this book is insightful and informative and it should be mandatory reading for anyone that wants to understand the border challenge we confront as a country So that'll give you an overall look that's part of the forward that I wrote for the book. So fantastic job on the book, man. It's like I said, it's a great read, not only from a storyline, not only from what you learn, but just the whole arc of the whole thing is awesome. I appreciate it. So let's get to you, though.

Let's talk about after you leave the border control. So you've got some business, what are the business you got going on? I have veteran. That's just, it's just T-shirts, right? No, I'm talking about when you got out. Like,

so what's your next move when you get out? Where are you getting a paycheck from? Oh, we had, I had Article 15 clothing with Matt J.T., right? We were growing that.

We had Led Singer's whiskey. And those were, and then we had a drinking bro's podcast. And so those three were kind of paying me. And then slowly, I started transitioning into, we produced a movie called Range 15. You saw the documentary.

You came to the premiere for the documentary. Yeah, I came, that's where I met you for the first time, right? That's it. Yep. So you came to the premiere for the, it's called Not a War Story. It's a documentary that shows kind of what we did. It was like, you know, six veterans raised enough money to do a film. And we used a lot of the community to help film that, right?

We use them as zombies or whatnot. It was kind of a cool, crazy story. Yeah. And I think it was kind of beautiful. But that, doing that film is what inspired me to kind of like, okay, I want to pursue acting. I want to write and I want to act. but how? Dude, does this come out of left field?

No, man. So I'll tell you where it fits into my life. I grew up in L.A. And it's not uncommon to see an actor. You know, I worked at, you know, I worked at fucking champ sports and sold hats to fucking Mark Wahlberg and shit like that.

And so you see actors and all that. The world, you have friends who, their dad's a producer of this or whatever the case. And so it was not uncommon to be in my world. When I was in junior college for me to kind of get good grades, I did theater classes. So I did like an improv comedy and, you know, like an improv comedy.

class and another in other classes and I knew that I had a natural knack for it I wasn't embarrassed I was completely comfortable doing it and my acting coach at the time of the teacher was like hey I think you should look further into pursuing this I'm like and baseball is more important you know what I mean she wasn't like pottery's not your game yeah and so you know as I started doing the YouTube videos with my boys I was like damn how do I pursue the real thing like I don't want to do YouTube forever I want to fucking do the real thing so when we produced the movie I knew I looked at Nick Palma Shano the owner of Ranger up at the time and I said this is what I'm gonna do for the rest of my fucking life and after we were done filming that I produced a short

film about Postchemyx Stress and that based off a poem I wrote and then that introduced me to another actor veteran that is in Hollywood and he said come out and do some improv comedy with us called Dads and Parks right and this is a YouTube series that we did and so I helped I helped write a couple episodes and we ended up getting another contract with AMC to do more and that was so we can be the preview before the previews. So we would do these jokes about films or whatever the case. And while I was in LA filming those, I had a buddy say, hey, Mayans is still like auditioning. I was like, well, how the fuck do I do that?

And so Mayans had it started yet? No, they just started auditioning for the first pilot. Okay. And I was like, well, I feel like I looked at it. I feel like I looked apart. I feel like I can hold myself in acting pretty decent. How do I get an audition? You're like, do they have to speak Spanish?

That was a question they asked me. I'm like, yo, I don't know. So I hit my buddy, Steve Howie, who was a pretty big actor at the time, and we became French just through the Range 15 movie, and he came out and supported us. And I say, man, I don't know, what's the next step here? But, you know, I have a reel. I have an acting role.

I have a resume. I have some head shots. I would love to audition for this mind. He'd go, dude, you be perfect for it? And, you know, by chance, I know, the casting director. Let me send you from headshot and just see if she's interested. Send my headshot, boom, we got an email audition the next day. Damn. And we're there for spring break. Me and my wife are like, we're doing, we're doing

Disneyland, we're doing, you know, we're doing all that. And I was like, uh, how do you know, because getting an audition like that like that is like crazy. It's almost impossible. It's like everything lined up right for that even to happen. Yeah, man. Yeah, it's, it's almost impossible. The, the, why it happened the way it did was they're so deep into their casting and about to start filming in like a week and a half they're still missing two people it's everyone's the same dude they have they've seen everyone else and i think they were looking for something that was just different and then i showed up and i showed up like a dumb ass i brought my wife to the fucking audition because i don't know any better i'm just like hey baby let's go check this out right

and then john berthal later he's just like you brought her to your fucking audition i was like i didn't know any better dog i just like sit down babe let me go knock this out you know and so we did the first audition the casting director Wendy O'Brien she gave me a big old hug and a kiss and on the cheek and was like that was great and I'm like she what did you have to do in the audition did you read lines or something read lines right they just gave me like one character and it was probably like four different lines right and and I and I memorized them off book just because off the of what my friend Steve told me he said dude just do it off book just memorize it I'm like cool and and I was terrified because I don't memorize shit very well so I I could barely read

yeah exactly dude so I I read it I recorded it I I had my wife check it. It was like, are these the right words? She goes, yes, I'm like, cool. And I listened to it all night. So by the morning, I was like ready. And then I had to like, yacked it too, you know? So do you remember the lines right now?

No, but I have the tape. I'll send it to you, dude. We'll post that up. Yeah, yeah, dude. Put you on, put you on trial out here. It was, it was funny. So then I got done with it. Like I said, she kissed me on the cheek very friendly.

And I was like, I don't know if she's just really friendly or she really liked it. I don't know. So we flew home. Back to El Paso where we're living. That's where I left the border control in El Paso. I was still living there. And right before I landed, we already got an email saying they want to see a second run.

And they want to see two different characters now. The same guy and then a funny one. I think I had like 700 bucks my account at the time. I walked away from like my businesses and it's just me trying to figure it out. I bought that like $400 ticket or something like that. I knew it took a lot out of the account. And we went there. I had my dad drive me.

I had my dad drive me. I can't afford an Uber. Yeah, dad, get your ass over here. So he drove me and he was all excited about it. He's like, Vinny, maybe they have a roll for me. I'm like, oh, I'm like, can I get the job? You know my father's Cup Band Carlos, right? This is well-known Cut Man in boxing and so he's just always into everything.

Hell yeah. And so we get there and I took my dad to the next audition. Then there's Kurt Sutter, Elgin James and Wendy O'Brien in the room. And they say start. And so I do my first one with a serious one. And then we do the second one. It's the funny one. They said, do you want to sit down?

I'll sit down. I don't know any better. So I just sat down. I do the lines. And at that time, I don't know, I blacked out. Like, I don't remember it. I remember coming to and everyone laughing and I'm laughing. And I'm like, all right, shook their hands and I left.

And eventually I got the tape and saw what I did. It was like, I fucked up the line, but I added something to it. I didn't fuck it up. I added more to it for some reason, which is usually you shouldn't do. But whatever the case, it worked enough where like by the time I got, got home again, boom, I had the job. And so we flew back to LA and started filming, the first pilot. So oddly enough, I mean, this is just weird the way the world works.

This is my brother's Elgin's show, you know what I mean? And he had told me, like, that's what I'm doing next. He's telling it to me for the first time, you know, and he's like, I'm making a show. And he never, well, you know him. So he never, like, says that anything is going to be good or big or successful or anything. He just says it matter of fact of like what's going on. You know like yeah, it looks like I'm and it's always there's always like a almost like an out of like, like yeah, I'm working on this show right now. It's have you heard of Sons of Anaker?

Yeah. It's going to be like kind of something like that. Like that was like the information that you know. That's funny. He's not like bro, you let him get this thing. You know, he never says anything like that because he's too like humble to to brag. And especially to me because me and. him we always like understate whatever's going on like whatever's going on it'll be like oh yeah

did this and you know whatever so I I knew about the show as it was coming out obviously as it was even getting before it was even getting made but that's like wild that oh dude so I'm eating lunch and I don't know any better I didn't know there's a place to eat so I grabbed my plate and I just go sit on like a tire he goes hey uh Rocco you can go eat inside and I'm like oh okay cool And so then he started talking about when he goes, you're a military, right? He goes, you know, my brother, he's kind of well known in the military.

I was like, yeah, cool, me too, kind of. You know, I was like, so what's his name? Jaco, I was like, shut the fuck up. I was like, shut the fuck up, Jocko? I fucking know exactly your brother, like, what? And I was completely blown away by it, but like I was like, all right. And then I didn't even know the gravity

of who he was. You know what I just knew? He was a really cool dude, really nice guy, and he's just there. And I, because I don't know film very well. I'm learning like, oh, he's the co-show runner. Yeah, you don't really know what that means. Yeah, what the fuck is that?

Oh, that must be the guy that runs around and gets stuff. Yeah, crazy me. Again, I brought my wife to one of the day the filming. And I just had her sitting there. Right, again, no fucking clue. And he goes, hey, Christy, come sit down. And he puts her in his chair. And I'm like, cool, wonder.

And then she's sitting next to fucking Kurt Sutter. She looks and she goes, I was like, I don't fucking know what to do. Like, I'm about to get fired, I feel like, because you're sitting next to the fucking guy, the main guy here, right? And eventually it was just super cool. and he was one of the dudes who would just welcome me in and we became really close and still he's one of the guys that you know I go to for a lot of things he's just a really good all-around guy

and it's just kind of while it's all connected yeah it's freaking crazy that runs for five C just the ended yeah and well again is it spoiler alert nah enough people seen it by okay but like well there's two two good stories about spoiler alerts so did you ever see little birds I didn't yet. I got to see it. Well, then spoiler alert.

So, I guess I don't know. So Elgin and I are driving to the screening. It's not totally done movie. So just to catch everyone up, Elgin made a movie called Little Birds after he got out of prison and he made this movie. And he's like, hey, man, my movies, it's getting a screening site, which means they actually get feedback from an audience before it gets released to make sure they understood it to make sure that made sense make sure so that's what I'm going to so I go up to LA and I'm at his house we're chilling and then he's like I we got to go so we get in his car and we're driving down there and I go so what's this thing about and he's like oh he again like total like

understated he goes yeah it's just about like these girls he goes it's kind of about like us like going up and getting crazy and like just wild things happening and I go cool he's six but in this case it's two girls and I was like okay well that's a different take and he goes and um he goes and they They run away from Nileland, which is, again, the weird how everything's so connected, but that's like desert training for the SEAL teams. He's like, yeah, they run away from there, and they end up in L.A. and he goes, and he goes and shit goes sideways. And I go, like, what kind of shit goes sideways?

And he goes, you'll see like that. And I was honestly never been mad at him. And I was like, dude, like, it seemed like a punk move to be like, you'll find out type thing. Like, oh, you'll see. I was kind of like, I didn't say anything when I was like, bro, I was like, oh, he is Hollywood now like in my mind like I like some and then sure enough I get in there and I'm watching it and the movie like what the part where you're like it is it is it is it is uh it's shocking right like it goes from it just takes a turn where you're just like holy fuck what is going on and it's

awesome and I was so happy that he didn't give me a heads up as to what went down but yeah so So that was going on. And then he eventually got into this thing. Yeah. And yeah. Ends up doing five seasons of this thing. Oh. And so that's the other thing was when the finale was coming for Mayans.

And again, this is spoiler alert, kind of. But he's like, yeah, everyone's fucking dying. And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, he said to me, he goes, you know, a lot of these stories about crime and about gangs and stuff, they spin it in a way where everything kind of turns out kind of good, you know, and like people make it and people give, blah, blah.

And he's like, and that's just not realistic. It's not true. And he knows. So she's like, it's going to be a realistic ending. And then I was tracking it on Twitter. And people were just like, holy shit. Like, oh my God, yeah. Yeah, dude.

So I was a writer this last season, you know, and I was there in the writing room for all of this, just being able to kind of, one, learn from Elgin how he does things and to just helping conceptualize. Because I was there from the beginning to the end. So I was able to kind of like, oh, this story. I was helping out with a lot of kind of story details. And when I heard like the plan, I was like, oh my God.

And it's like, I'm holding on this. And like my wife's like, she's a fan of the show too. So she's like, what is that? Like I can't even tell you. That's like, that's how fucking wild this is. But like the way Elgin sees the world in writing was, inspiring for me because I would be if I'm seeing this way he'd say but that's what everyone expects see it this way and it was just it just made me that much

better of a writer in the sense of like how to construct the story and it just proved like the way minds was how many people were hurt the millions that were hurt good it's like what the purpose was was if you don't want to show and you don't have an emotional response to it it's like did it really like was it that good of a show for you Everyone who was emotionally invested into the show was heartbroken and as it should be. Yeah. Yeah.

Then that's the real scenario that you end up with. Yeah. If you're doing shit, it's going to catch up with you over time. That's the way things work in the world. Yeah. You know, there's no fairy tale endings. Yeah, it's freaking dope. So you wrote one of those and then that leads you to be able to write more opportunities to writing.

Hopefully, you know, the goal is to continue down the road of the Hollywood site, the Hollywood scene as a writer and an actor. I like writing more than, I like acting. I love acting. I think it's fucking dope. But a guy with tattoos on his hands and neck doesn't get too many opportunities to do specific roles that I think would be fun.

So I'm not oblivious to that. But I can continue to construct my own world and tell the stories that I want to be told. And so that's my goal. And I knew writing this book would potentially lead to hopefully, I'm hoping, a Border Patrol series as well and all the beautiful nuances

of the things that could happen on the border could be told visually. That's what my goal would be. But there's a long thing, a lot of things in my life that I've experienced, I want to turn into stories. And so, you know, with everything going on in Hollywood right now, with kind of the writing strike

that finally ended and then the acting strike that's still currently happening right now, I'm hoping to come out on the other end of that and be able to continue to work in the space, continue to work with people that I've worked with in relationships like Elgin and so on and so forth. And so, yeah, we're trying. We have a lot of projects out there that are getting looked at now and hopefully something gets picked up. You know, I've still, I got a lot of stories from my life that I'm able to turn into little scripts and I guess like compartmentalize them as well and turn them into something special, hopefully.

And so, yeah, we're trying to make a run at it, man. Yeah. So you got the writing stuff. And then what else you got going on? You got, you got veteran, right? Yeah, veteran. Tell us about veterans. Yeah, veterans, a company that we started is just kind of a positive outlook on the veteran community that just I felt like it needed to be done.

There's so much negativity. There's so much focus on the negative sides of veterans that the word veteran to me was a better approach to trying to hopefully motivate and inspire veterans to do more, to be more, right, that they can do more. And so, you know, when I did that, then I'm like, okay, well, what can I bring on with that? Well, for me and my life, I've kind of gone through a big wellness push. You know, I'm sober for four and a half years now, just under four and a half. a half years now. I've done many different modalities of healing, different from therapies and stuff like that. And so I became kind of a guinea pig for other veterans to just see, even men, just to see that we can heal our past. We can heal our past traumas from childhood as well as military and law

enforcement. And we can strive to be better. And in the same aspects of better, and we created light-the-fuse wellness. And so it's a kind of a, I have accountability group where people can join and we just kind of hold people accountable, but as well as the mentorship side, excuse me, the wellness aside is we did a men's retreat and we introduced different modalities of healing. We introduced some stuff that was like plant medicine, non-psychedelic. But we also did things. What's a plant medicine that's non-psychedelic? Campo.

We did a thing called compo. What's that? It's the venom of a frog, you know, of an Amazonian frog. Is this like the toad? Yeah, the toad. Right, right. What Mike Tyson and Joe Rogan were talking about? There's different ones.

There's different ones. There's a toad. Yeah, this one, you. But it's not psychedelic? Non-psychadelic, right. This one, this one for this trip, for this retreat was we chose to go non-psychedelic, but still plant medicine. And so they introduced the venom to your, I think it's the saliva. So what do you feel when you do it?

Just overwhelming heat, but everyone's experiences slightly different. Everyone's experiences. Overwhelming heat? It's like a, yeah, yeah, it's like a very, very heat therapeutic kind of, it's almost like a internal sauna. But everyone has a different effect of it, right? And introduced with that, there's, we did. did two other ones. One was introduced to the nose.

It was like a tobacco. And then one was eye drops into the eyes and three different versions of plant medicine that was not psychedelic, but they all had some kind of effect. And guys left their feeling clarity, right? They felt they were able to, I guess, manifest some emotions that they've been harboring for a long time.

But also in that same weekend, they did Wimhoff. They learned how to do Wimhoff sessions of breathing. They learned things about Matt Larson came out and taught about moral injury. We had an EMD, EMDR counselors there to talk about that and hopefully introduce that. EMDR is like the lights in the face. Yep, yep, that helps with kind of the frontal cortex and processing trauma. We had a long list of different things as well as community, right?

The goal is to introduce, I guess, to dip the toe in the water of wellness and for them to kind of continue to pursue it on their own. It's a place where like men can feel like they can be one vulnerable if need be, but to open expression of some of their own traumas and being a part of a community that that welcomes it as well. And so yoga, breathing, all these different things. How many dudes were there? That was 30 participants. And how long is it? It was three days. And I'm telling you, it was life-changing.

A guy like my brother, who's a battalion chief in a fire department and Chandler, he would never be open to any of the stuff. He's kind of stoic. And he left there like, when's the next one? Like I got to try it. Where do you do it? We did this one in Dallas. We're scheduling one in California here soon. We're scheduling another one in Dallas in April.

It really just depends if we can find the facility to host it. You know, I have a long list of the wellness leaders that I've, you know, been introduced to myself going through different programs. And so now I brought them all under my little umbrella and I bring them in to teach their portion. It's dope, dude. So you've done one so far. We've done one so far. But we have a continued. you, so we have like the, the, it's the, the accountability group.

Those guys are still in that world too. So as these guys, I can introduce them singing so like we have guys going to do ayahuasca, right? We have guys connected to the Heroic Arts Foundation to do ayahuasca. We have guys who are doing sessions with the same healers that did the compo. We have American yogi, ex-SF dude who does yoga. He's the one doing breathing and stuff like that. Also, all these guys are still introduced into the same world.

So, yeah, we're just kind of bridging that gap for the guys. Okay. And then you also have a podcast. Yeah, the Vinny Rock podcast. Vinny Rock podcast. Yeah, the Vinny Rock podcast. Yeah, the Vinny Rock podcast. And what's going on with that?

I did it for about four years and then Mayans got really kind of took over and I wasn't able to. So now we just, I bought all the cameras and I have a producer coming in to help us. And so now, again, we're just bringing dudes in and interviewing them. A lot of focuses on wellness. A lot of focuses on just successful careers. I hope to inspire, motivation. and entertain.

So it's just kind of a cool spot to hear me interview people and also have my opinions on it. When you're working at Mayans, when you're on TV doing these shows, did you know what it was like? Well, I guess you kind of knew from Article 15 of like what was going down and that you have to do the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. Yeah, no. When you do YouTube, it's not like that. Oh.

Yeah. When you do YouTube, it's just like turn the camera on and go. You know what I mean? And even if we fucked up, we kind of used it. Yeah. Yeah. And acting was crazy. The acting, real Hollywood style acting was like the military instance of hurry up and wait,

but also like, holy fuck, this monotonous. Yeah. It's like, you do the scene. If it was a scene of us three, right, you do your takes, you do your takes, you do my takes, you do the wide takes, and then you'd go in and clean up. And you're like, what the fuck? So how many hours, seven hours for one fucking scene, like our scene we did when you were, it was just like over and over and over.

And you're like, what the first? I was on billions. and I didn't know any of this, right? I didn't even think you had to actually memorize the words, right? So they sent me a script. And I was like, cool, whatever, dude. Like, I'm gonna say what I want? Like, what up, you know?

I'm fucking jaka, what? And so I get there and I probably only had, I don't know how many lines I had, but it wasn't like a lot. But I'm watching like the scene before me. And I'm like, oh, God, they're doing the same thing over and over again. Oh, that means I got to say the same thing. That means other people got to respond in the way. And I didn't know that at all,

so I'm sitting there trying to memorize the lines in my whatever, seven lines like. And then we, you know, same thing. We have a scene in billions and it's like, I'm on the opening, like, running scene or whatever, but it took like seven hours. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, dude, this is crazy.

Yeah. And then I went back again, which I knew what to expect. But yeah, it's weird that you, that actors in those shows, man, you're doing the same thing. like 20 times. It's emotionally exhausting.

Like not emotionally in the sense of like crying, but it's just like you have to think and process and you know you have to emote whatever emotion they're asking for and you have to do it over and over and over and then they say cut and you go hang out with your guys and you're talking and bullshit and then you go right back to back on Target. And you don't realize how it's tiring that shit is for your body until you're done with it.

And the day's over and you're driving in your car and you're like, God, I'm fucking smoke, dude. I didn't do nothing. I sat on like the truck bed of a car and said the same lines for like seven hours, I'm smoked. It's so weird. So, J.D., the star of Mayans, right? So that's when I was on Mayans.

It was us and a few other guys, but he was kind of the main guy. He and I were talking, right? Ezekiel. And as we're standing there, right? So he and I have a lot of FaceTime where they're not filming, but we're just standing there. We end up just talking a bunch. And so I'm kind of getting his life story and stuff.

And great, dude. Dude, super cool. But then he's like, yeah, you know, I was getting in trouble. And I think his dad was a Marine. His dad was in the Marine. And so he had like that going in his life, but then he was kind of getting in trouble, you know, just being a kid. And then he's like, yeah, you know, he says when I was in, I think it was in high school.

And like I got put into this acting class. And like the first time I like got on stage, man, I knew that like this was for me. And I look back at him, I was like, that's how I felt. when I first got a machine gun in my hands. Dude, he laughed so hard because it was just such a contrast of bullshit. But, yeah, he's a freaking good dude. He's a great dude.

It's weird, though, like when you think of what an actor does, man, they're just doing the same thing over and over again. You've got to be a patient person. Well, dude, imagine an emotional scene. That's a hard. It's hard because you have 30 people in this room. And they're watching you go take after take after take. get to take and you have to keep giving a best performance of pop to game.

Because for me, every time you have a chance to do a performance, you're like, give it your all. Because you don't know who the fucking, the next casting director is like, we want him for the next movie. You know what I mean? Like, so it's always a tryout. It's always an interview. It's always an audition.

You know what I mean? So every scene you get, it's like, give it, dude, give it everything. Because then the other side of it, which one do they take? Yeah. We don't know which one they edit in and it might not be your best take. And you're like, fuck. You know, whatever that is. So every time you get the chance, you're trying to give it everything.

And fuck, dude. It's like this is fucking impossible and how long so I've done like I said like I did billions. I did N-C-I-S and I did Mayans that that's four days on set right and but how long like when you start filming Mayans yeah it's about five months is it five months are you in how many scenes are you in like how many date it all depends on the writing that's the hard part for like so me being the family man like I would fly home every weekend because we don't film on weekends but I would be there sometimes on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, sometimes be Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, sometimes it'd be just be Wednesday, sometimes I don't even have nothing that whole week. Okay. It all depends on my character and how much is written. But I know for a fact, we're filming for five to six months. So those five to six months is like it's dedicated to Mayans. And for the most part, I was in like almost every episode, every season, that I was there almost one or two days every week. What about for JD?

Is he just, he's like five days a week? No, he's the same. He's the same. He might have more, but for the most part, like, if we, if we, It might be a heavy week where it's the cartel focused. Well, JD's not any cartel stuff, right? It might be. Oh, and they stack it that way.

So they're going to have all the cartel guys. They're all going to do a bunch of scenes all in the same time. My scenes were with this actress named Erica, Erica, and she, you know, our scenes were our scenes. And so we'd have two days in a row just our scenes. And no one else was even working those two days. It was just me, her, and, you know, our CM Punk. Right. And so we would have two days dedicated just for our stuff.

and that would happen often. So if it was like a JD heavy week where he was doing his own stuff, like, yeah. But damn, that must be like... Dude, five, six months of work. I'm excited the last day. Actually, I'm not good at saying goodbye.

So like, even on the last day of filming, I was there from day one, all this to the last one. He said, cut, boom, grab myself and start driving home. Like, I'm out. I'm tired. Like, six months of this shit,

playing a character, emotionally invested into the character and my character having a lot of emotion. Like, you're like, I'm over it, dude. Like, I'm tired. I need the break. I need the break. And now we don't even have it no more.

I'm like, fuck, dude. I miss it. I miss it. All right. So you get done with that. You got light the fuse. You got veteran Vinny Rock. You got music, too.

Did you think I was going to find this? Yeah, I don't talk about that often. Hey, this dude over here making music. Hell yeah. I'm actually going home after this to go work on another song. I got a producer coming to town. So what, do you play an instrument? I don't.

I just, I write. I write it. You write it. And then you sing it. You sing it. it. Yeah. You got a song called Leftovers.

You got a song called Keys. You got a song called Lonely Road. So you write this, the lyrics, right? And then for leftovers, for example. So who's the dude that's going to come and make the music? How's that work? That's my producer. His name is Jay Denton.

He just owns Indoor. He's just a really cool dude that we got connected with. And he develops all the music for it and helps put it into music. I write the concept of the song and sometimes we just co-write and finish it up but it all comes from something. All the songs mean something, right? I just write whatever I'm dealing with

or something I want, like if I want to write something for my wife. And so he comes in and helps me finish it up. So we're a good team. And then is he playing the instruments? Yeah, he plays all the instruments, yeah. And then you roll in there and throw down the vocal track. It's embarrassing, dude. I hate that on my bio and people, and music.

I'm like, no, dude, don't even mention that. Because I originally did it for myself. It was like my own, like... Oh, that's why you put it on YouTube? No, eventually, he was like, it's really good. I'm like, uh, all right, fuck it. I'll put... There's one song on YouTube.

Well, they're on... No, there's more than one song on YouTube. I was watching them last night. Were they on YouTube? Yeah. They're good, man. I was... It was interesting to me

because there's no... There's a very limited thread of the musical style. It's like one song sounds like this. One song sounds like something else. The other song sounds like... sounds like something else. And you, you know,

your voice is obviously the same through all of them. Yeah. But it's pretty interesting that you're able to go this mode and go that mode and go that southern mode. Your voice, again,

no offense. You don't have like a ton of range, right? You're doing what you're doing. Yeah. And this is coming from someone that has zero range. Yeah.

Yeah, I stay in my pocket. Yeah. But it's cool that you can take what you do. Yeah. And you can put it in this kind of song and that kind of song. It works out pretty good, man. You got me sweating,

bro. I'm nervous. Credit, I'm embarrassed. Um, So you got that going on. And what else? What am I missing?

I don't even know. Yeah, I don't know. The book. I just, I like to write. You know, that's, we just talked about the book

for a couple hours of hours. No, I just like to write, and I just found a lot of, like, therapeutic value in the writing, and then it's just kind of turned it into a career, and it's been kind of cool.

What's your process for writing? I'll ask a Tim Ferriss question. Yeah. So for writing the book, I first established which chapters I want to write or kind of like the broad strokes of chapters, and then I'll knock out one chapter at a time, and I just write my heart out to all of it,

and then I'll go back and say, this doesn't fit, so I'll save that in the extra file in my computer, and I just keep writing, and then I'll read over it, and I don't really read as much as I do. I highlight and speak, and I hear it, and I hear the flow of it, and if it feels like it doesn't flow well, I know there's something in there I need to change,

and so I go back and change it, but I try and write from the heart, man, and it's kind of everything, all the songs, even the scripts I write, I try and write something that's near and dear to my heart of some kind of empathy or emotion. And do you write at the same time every day when you're writing a script? Yeah, it's either early in the morning before the kids wake up or late at night when they're all sleep. That's kind of like my time to focus.

And what's the kid count at this time? We're at eight. Yeah, we're done. We have eight kids. We're done. We're done. Quitting, huh? I don't know if that's quitting or good.

Or trying to be sensible about the whole thing. Jesus. What else? So anything else? Did we miss anything else? I mean, I know I got your music. We know we got light the fuse LTF Wellness.com

Got better. And by the way, everything can be found on the interweb at Vincent Rocko Vargas.com. Yeah. So that's where, but did I miss anything else? No, I don't think so.

Well, if whatever I miss, we'll come back and do it. It'd be, you know, we could do five more podcasts about little things that I would dig into from the book and from your life. So the book is borderline, defending the home front and where can people find you they got

Instagram at Vincent Rocco and by the way you spell Rocco wrong R-O-C-C-O not like J-O-C-O-C-O I know if I felt like it was too close to the way you spell it Vincent Rocco Vargas you're on Facebook Vincent Rocco Vargas and your YouTube channel that's where you got not only can you watch your Vinny Rock podcast but you can also listen to the smooth tones and comforting music of What do you call your band? It's called Rocco Vargas music. I don't know.

Rock of Vargas music. It's good stuff, man. It's good stuff. Echo Charles. You got any questions? Plenty, but I'm going to keep it kind of simple. So you ever, do you explore AI tools, like for the creative process at all? No, not as much.

I've used AI to, like, construct some kind of, like, if you're going to post a photo and I use the AI to help create that sometimes. But for, like, the business side of things. but not my personal stuff. Yeah, because like, you know, like songwriting, for example, it's becoming more and more where you can, you know, like if you like writing, right, you can be like, hey, if you know how to talk to the AI, like, you know,

to do the prompts or whatever, you can be like, okay, you can creatively write your song and then ask the AI to kind of do everything else. And those tools are becoming more and more robust. Yeah, I've used AI to help edit a paper, you know what I mean? Like a college paper before because I'm like, God, I had to clean this up. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

The tools are getting more and more, like, there's a lot more. I do find, though, especially if you're like a, if you've been a creative person for a long time, you kind of, you really notice the lack of the human element in the creation. That's what I've heard is the big difference right now. It's like, it's like, I guess a lot of the writing strike was because of AI. Yeah. If you were using that in script writing and suppose we, but, but yeah, I tried that out for a script. I wrote a script about like a dad

and spanking their kids something that I'm working on is kind of like this short to kind of like display the change of the things have changed right and I went to AI to have them write it too just to see and it was close it definitely lacked a lot of the like

the empathy and the heart and emotion but it was fucking close and I'm like damn there's some things that they put on that script that was just exactly what mine would have been pretty crazy I've run some tests with like leadership questions and what's interesting for me is since I have so much content out there from books and podcasts and interviews that it can get a really good assessment of the way that I think, right? And I would

ask it, I've asked it just like the fundamental leadership questions. And what's interesting, it kind of like you said, it'll give a really, it'll give a good answer. And not only does it give a good answer, it also always gives like these really good well-crafted caveats, things like, and we have to remember that all leadership situations are different. So you have to consider that when you are applying these tools. And it'll do that for everything. Like you ask it for an exercise program. You also have to consider that everyone's different biologically.

So it's really good at covering its ass. But on top of like the good answer and the good caveat, it always misses like a critical component where you're like, yep, this isn't, you're not there, bro. You're not there. AI robot. You're not quite there. You're close. You're in the ballpark.

Yeah, yeah. And I'll tell you why, because usually like, you know how you get a real creative person that's like an anomaly? Yeah. Right. Where it's like, you know, these guys who stand out, Elgin James, like there's something about them that's really unique. AI doesn't work like that. AI works the opposite. It's like it aggregates everything, everything all recorded and analyze and be like, okay, now to answer your question,

given everything that the AI knows and has learned and is going to continue to learn with all the information out. there. So it's the opposite of anomalous, really. It's like, let me, just like how you said, it gives caveats. It's for a reason because it has all the information. Yeah, you know. You know, it would be interesting is could you come up with a prompt not to go freaking full, freaking Lex Friedman where you at, nerd out on this stuff? But can you give it a prompt? Yeah. Where it's like in a leadership situation, what would you do here based on Jocka Willing's principles narrow down to eliminate obvious answers and give a unique scenario for this answer. Like could you prompt it hard enough that it figures it out?

AI does well if you're really good at knowing how to prompt it. Yeah. And then the more people get good at prompting, the more it can learn for itself. So and that goes for any kind of computer thing. Like think of CGI, right? We got like all the simple stuff is like figured out. It's like super easy. like mechanical stuff.

Even water is actually more complex than like a steel kettlebell. And then you got a machine or something like this, right? Like a refrigerator or something like that. An alien robot. Alien robots. Yeah, they can do them good. But when you try to do really highly specifically evolved stuff, like a human face talking and getting sad and mad and stuff,

stuff where like however many years of evolution like tuned us to understand and recognize or whatever, the AI is like fumbling. even now. It's really hard. But it's going to get close. Of course, it's going to get closer and closer and closer and closer for sure. Yes. But that's my whole point where now if you're like, hey, I can't really play many instruments, really.

You know, I know a couple guys you can, you know, whatever. But I can write real good and that's really my passion. So when I make music, the writing is really what's going to kind of spearhead my whole creative endeavor. I'm going to use AI for all the other stuff because really, I mean, you know, I just need a guy who can play guitar. I don't need freaking Jimmy Hendricks over here. I just need a guy who can play guitar because the writing is the front running element, right? So you go AI, play a guitar in this style

and just the best you can, right? And then you finally tune it with the AI, but the thing you have control over creatively is the writing and it can kind of build from there, you know? You ever listen to the band The White Stripes? Yeah. Yeah. So I was listening to Jack White

talk about the White stripes, right? And basically he's saying, Listen, you go to a regular, like a modern studio for music to make an album if you're a person. And for instance, they take a snare drum and they like hit the snare drum a hundred times and they find the one that like whatever on the computer showed like the most rounded resonance and all this other stuff. And that's the one that they use for the whole drum track. The perfect drum hit on the snare and they do that for the symbol. I do that for the crash and they do that for the keyboard and then they do that with a person's voice. And so what you end up with is a thing that is perfect. It's a thing that's perfect.

And when you hear it, look, a normal person, when they hear it, they go, oh, yep, sounds great. That's why pop Britney Spears, every one of those snares, everything in her voice, everything is perfectly done. And you know what that kind of makes me think of? A cubic zarkonia. Do you know what a cubic zarkonia is? It's a fake diamond. And you know how they can tell it's fake? Too perfect.

Because it's too perfect. And so there's a certain, for me, I get a feeling when I listen to like really, highly produced music, I'm like, this isn't a human and this doesn't have any emotion to it. And that sort of was Jack White's point of like, you can, you can feel it, man. Like even Meg White, she's going to hit the drum a little different on that verse than the other verse. And it makes a difference. And the way he's playing guitar and the way he's singing it and his voice is breaking.

It's like all those things are going on. And that's why Led Zeppelin sounds like Led Zeppelin. A Black Sabbath, you're like Black Sabbath sounds like Black Sabbath. if they cut their first album in one shot in eight hours. By the end of their careers, they were doing like nine months to record an album and like everything had. So just things change and you get more away from the raw

and more into the highly produced, highly refined. And for me, it loses value. Absolutely. Especially from an artistic standpoint. And that's my whole point with the AI where, sure, it's going to get better and better and better and better. But it's almost like it gets better, but at the same time can never get.

perfect ever. It's like if I get halfway to you every single step like halfway if I get halfway to you then another halfway to I never really get to you. That's what it seems that's what it feels like in the creative stuff. Because like I said like a real talented artists in one way is very individual. When AI works on everything it's learned from everything else you know and then so it's like doing a big insight study to see who's like the most creative. Yeah there's also going to be a point where that AI is going to generate things that are its own and that are going to be unique. They're doing that with art right now.

Like, you know, like, remember when everyone was posting pictures of their freaking cells? AI generated self. Hell yeah. That was just like the ultimate in, uh, hey, yeah, I guess so. Look at the perfect version of me. That's what it is. Decided to get in the game with the AI pictures of myself in case anyone was wondering what I look like if I was freaking, it's fucking Terminator.

140 pounds of you know blue twisted steel yeah but they're pretty cool though yeah yeah that's what I'm saying there's a uniqueness to them there's a uniqueness that you're talking about a lack of uniqueness there's a uniqueness that's for real that's coming in when you randomly generate what about freaking artists that throw paint at the freaking wall yeah but it's it's something like it actually has meaning because yeah because it's coming from a person yeah yeah but that that's it is true so the the computer generated stuff it's like it's cool and it's fun and okay so the whole I'm going to do an AI generated version of myself, right? The thing that's fun about that is because it's yourself still, you know,

and this is the AI's kind of translation. It's fun to see the little translation. And then, of course, the perfect version of yourself. I get that part too. But like I said, it's like a person is imperfect. And so there's a difference between a perfect. That's what I said too, right? Exactly.

Exactly. Exactly right. In fact, you can be technically better, but the imperfection is part of a greater perfection. So, so you can't, okay, if I want to be a highly individualized person, it comes with a bunch of imperfections. Yeah. All over, like almost on an infinite level where the computer's just trying to replicate those imperfections and you can tell. Guess what?

I almost cut you off. I had to restrain myself because I really wanted to. Restrain. But when you were talking about Elgin writing, right? Elgin, when he's writing, when he's directing the direction of the story, the AI generated solution would be that thing that you're talking about that kind of like yep this is the standard story we know what's going to happen we know this is going to move the emotions this way and move the emotions that way it's going to set up this ending the blah blah blah blah and he's like no don't

do that thing he has a look on it that's not a cube the cubic zarkonia no one's watching it yeah or let me rephrase that because there's the thing man plenty of people watch yeah cubic zirconians like uh remember those tv shows back in the day that that that were like uh hallmark specials remember those right yeah you know my mother-in-law yeah like moms moms are watching but it's like it's like a story that everybody knows the whole story and hey do you ever watch do you ever get on on facebook on the algorithm you'll get like watch these like six-minute movies about like i don't know they'll be about like i i watched one of them one time and i was like okay i see what this is it was like a guy and he's like sweeping up and a guy like dropped something and he

the guy's the janitor, but then he ends up being actually the owner. Oh, yeah, it's like that kind of thing. Kids have that. Anyway, yeah. But that's like,

those are just generic. Those are like AI generated stories. Like, write a story about a lesson from someone. And it's like an AI generated story. And people still watch them. A lot of people watch those. But there's,

there's the lacking element. Like, you can go to the club and you can dance to Brittany Spears or one of these pop people. But then you go to a white stripe show. It's different. Yeah, it's different. Bro, the cubic zirconia things or whatever, they're still shiny.

They're super shiny. Yeah, and people buy them and wear. Oh, yeah, they're shiny. They look, they sparkle on their, they do all that stuff for sure. But if you care, like, you know, you're a creative person. You care about other stuff than how much it shines. Just like you care about music more so than how many albums it sold or how many plays it got on the freaking radio station at the club or whatever.

See what I'm saying? And that's what I, anyway, at the end of the day, I think that's going to be a massive challenge for AI to replicate. Yeah, I think it's going to be interesting. Well, because it seems like if it takes enough cracks at it, it's going to figure some shit out. Well, it's a freaking one of the, I mean, it's probably the best, well, one of the best tools ever created,

even for a creative person. Because it's like a little helper. Yeah. You know, like any, like, creative, like, project when it, when it has a bunch of people, some people are better than others. Sometimes you just need somebody to go run and grab that coffee and bring it back, you know? So the AI can kind of take care of a lot of jobs.

Meanwhile, as long as you have creative control, it's like, hey, it can be a good tool. Yeah. We'll see where it goes. That's my only question, by the way. I have a lot of border patrol. We'll do another one. Yeah. Hell yeah.

Meanwhile, you can see Rocco's got a lot of stuff going on. Some other stuff going on, jacofuel. Joccofuel. We got all kinds of stuff going on at joccofuel.com. We got energy drinks. We got hydrate. We got greens, by the way. Do you take greens?

I don't, but I will. Well, yeah, we're going to hook you up. We'll get you on some greens. I know why you don't take greens because they freaking suck most of the time. Yeah, because most of the time they taste like crap. Yeah, I'd rather eat all the vegetables required than take most greens for real. But not this one for them. Not this one.

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Dash stores, Wakefern, ShopRite, H.E.B. Down in Texas, we're there. And we appreciate our people in Texas. We also appreciate our people up in the Midwest, going to Meyer, killing it, by the way. So thanks to all of you. Harris Teeter, Lifetime Fitness Shields, small gyms out there. If you're training in Jiu-Jitsu and you have a Jitoo Academy, or you got a CrossFit gym or you got a powerlifting gym and you want to sell some of the goods or you got a bodybuilding gym Hell yeah there you go

Speaking of which the pre-workout Oh this is important to mention if people don't know the pre-workout is not like the old school freaking FEDRA you know risk your life for the pump kind of pre-workout It's like it's good it's not risk your life for the no It's get the pump get the pump all day sometimes though like let's face it sometimes you need it you know I My daughter the other day, she'd been training kind of a lot. And she's, you know, look, just because you're training in jih Tzu doesn't mean you're not lifting. It doesn't mean you're not getting your pull-ups in.

But she told me yesterday. She was like, I was tired yesterday. I was like, oh, that's a bummer. And she goes, I had to take the pre-work out. I was like, oh. She goes, how to work? She was like freaking awesome. So you can be like that.

And you can still get your shit done. Oh, yeah. Get in there. It's like a slippery slope in a good way, by the way, where it's like, okay, let me just take. This pre-workout when I'm like just kind of tired. Then it's like, oh, damn, that was kind of a solid little boost. And then the day you're not really that tired, but you're like, I could kind of. Is this how people get addicted to crystal methamphetamine kind of?

It seems like a similar pathway. Yes, for sure. But at least we're lifting, you know. I mean, you can and, and at least it's healthy. Yeah, I was going to say, and you won't end up dead. Dead. Yeah. With no teeth.

Well, you know. And sores, open sores on your face. Well, yeah. Right. You know, hey, you took pre-work out before, right? Yeah. Yeah, you say, you know, Jack 3D, you know, that shit. Okay, so when pre-workout freaking exploded onto the scene, it was like, bro, wild, wild west.

Hey, let's put some meth in there. Yeah. Freaking a fedger. They had to ban a bunch of stuff. Say, hey, you can't put that in there anymore because guys are dying. You want to order the shit that was banned because you had to like, that shit's good. Yeah. That must be the good shit.

If it's illegal, it's good. Bro, yeah, it's crazy. So, like, taking pre-workouts still, I think even now still has kind of that stigma where it's like. Yeah, I stopped messing with him because I was nervous about because the hard thing. Same exact thing. That's why I stopped. I was like, brother. If you say you got some good shit.

I could use some good shit. Do you like, it's got 200 milligrams of caffeine. So that's two cups of coffee. Maybe two and a half cups of coffee. It's not crazy. You know, some of these things, they're freaking out of control. And you got to be careful.

But even for me, like I don't take pre-workout normally. So I don't need to take a whole scoop. I can take a half a scoop. And all of a sudden I feel like I'm on cocaine and I've never even done cocaine. Like, I feel like that must be what it feels like. I heard somebody asking Theo Vaughn the other day like what's your favorite what do you say what's your favorite kind of pot or something like that and he's like probably cocaine I was like yeah he'll be keeping it real bro that guy's freaking awesome I met him at a UFC event man he's freaking hilarious uh okay also origin USA dot com Hey you guys just picked up a UFC deal yes we did

I like that shit it's freaking outstanding so pumped so cool to see um if you didn't catch this news, we partnered with the UFC. We partnered with the ultimate fighting championship. That's freaking wild, right? I watch every single weekend, man. I love it, and I'm glad you guys are part of that. And let me tell you straight up, Dana White, the team at UFC,

they wanted to partner with us. Not saying, like, I'm not trying to make it sound out of balance, but they could partner with anybody, right? They get to decide who they partner with. It's not. So the fact that they looked at our company, they love what we're doing. They're patriotic. They support America.

I mean, Dana obviously supports American companies and things being made in America. So it was just awesome that it all came together. And yeah, super stoked. Origin USA.com. I forgot. We used origin shirts for better and for the life fuse ones. Hell yeah. Every end.

Hell yeah. For the same reason. Yeah. Just got us. Freaking Made in America. Gies. You said you're starting to change you to. to again? Yeah, I just signed up again. Yeah. So we need to get you a ghee. Uh-oh.

Maybe a couple of geese. Or you a no-gee guy. No, no, I need to learn the ghee, dude. I've done enough no-gee that I've been hiding from ghee. I need to get in the key. It definitely, when you, if you don't do it or if you haven't done it, it's really, really annoying. Yeah. No. You can see, you train with a wrestler that's never worn a ghee before. Their whole life is frustrating. Yeah. I need it. I've been avoiding the ghee for so long. I need it. Um, so we got everything at origin. What else did the origin, George and USA.com. Jeans, boots.

Jeans boots all day. All day, geese, workout gear. The whole nine yards, man, all made 100% in America, bringing manufacturing back to America. So that's awesome. The hoodies are nice. The hoodies are deluxe. The hoodies are deluxe.

We're freaking good to go. Made right here. What else? It's true. Jocko store. Chaco store called Jocko store. This one equals freedom. Good. Deaf core, all this. It's, you know, it has a, what do you

staying power. You know what I'm saying? It's for real. Oh, yeah. But yeah, you want to represent discipline equals freedom. That's where you get it. Also, we have the shirt locker.

Rock, I don't know if you know about this. Shirt Lockers. The new shirt every month. I saw that. Different designs. Anytime you see like something like discipline equals freedom-y kind of, but not quite as serious

or maybe a little bit more creative, if you will. By the way, not AI generated. Not AI generated. Because it was AI generated, we know what it would do. We would do. It's actually interesting. People will like give.

that's a term I use now. Like if someone answers a question or someone makes a statement about me, I'm like, oh, that's an AI-generated, like, opinion of me. Yeah. Like, it's like AI-generated

opinions of what to do at the border. Like, oh, this is the talking points that they read and, like, here you go. Here's the, here's the, you know, answer. And then there's a caveat that says, of course,

there are some details on that. Right. So don't get an AI-generated t-shirt. It is not AI-generated, no. Get an Echo Charles-generated T-shirt up in this piece. I'd say it's generated by

the community, I would say, the people that are on the path. You know, they all have their own influence on these specific designs. Every month, by the way. So there you go. Boom, that's the Jocco Store. It's called the Shirt Locker, but it's at Jocco Store. dot. Now that name, Shirt Locker, S-H-U-R-T Locker.

That came from the people. Came from the community. Exactly. What do we call this thing? Someone's like Shirtlocker. Dude, nailed it. Send it. Yeah, exactly.

And, yeah, so there you go. JococcoSore.com. Primal beef. Get yourself some grass-fed. and fruit and grain finished. Yeah. Got that, I had, I had, so normally I'm a rib-eye guy. What about you?

Rivie. Yeah, ribby, 100%, right? I would say, but I did get the New York strip. That's what I had, bro, and how's this to, and I text Sean Glass, as this is happening. So I got the, I got the New York strip, I had three of them. I only had one left from the primal, and then the other two from a different company, I'm not going to say. But I was like, okay, let me put Sean Glass to the test here. Look, I'm not gonna go tell everyone if he loses or whatever. So I do them. I prepare him literally exact same way

Literally the exact same way and I can already see before I cook him. I'm like I already see the difference already But whatever, you know, that's that's no proof the proof is afterwards you're saying Cook them up exactly the same way by far too By far prime will be better So I normally look. I'm not like a Okay, I'm a snake snob Like you give me a rib-eye bro. That's what I'm talking about. I'm But, you know, had that New York, which normally New York doesn't do it for me.

Yeah, it's kind of like whatever's cool. Yeah. Dude, this New York was money. Bro, I agree. Money. Tastes good. So there you go. Primalbeef.

Primalbeef.com. Get yourself some meat. Also check out Colorado craft beef. Dot com. Those things freaking tasty. So we got options for you. Look, you can't live on mulk alone. Well, maybe you can.

Probably can. But you may need to supplement your supplements with steak. So go to primalbeef.com. Go to Colorado Craftbeef.com. Awesome people make an awesome steak for us out here. Subscribe to the podcast. We got jocco underground.com. Check that out, $8.18 a month.

If you can't afford it, it's okay. We got you. We want you to be here with us on the underground. So go to jaco underground.com. Check out that little alternative podcast that we do. Got a YouTube channel Jaco podcast. Is that it?

Yep. Official. Jock podcast official. You know, you're gonna see it. We got jacofuel.com. They're putting their own spin on things,

putting a bunch of really cool. They got Danielle Kelly. Yeah, yeah. Dude, Danielle Kelly, the girl tried a can opener her in one. You know what I'm talking about? I know what a can opener is. Yeah, so a girl's trying to can open her,

Danielle Kelly. And Daniel Kelly just like maneuvers and gets the girls back. and chokes her. Salute to Daniel Kelly. They got stuff with her. Bo Nickel, by the way. Dope.

Yeah, dude. Dope. I'm watching his whole college career. Yeah. Yeah, he's freaking legit. And he's, that's good work. Let's just come and take over the book.

But, you know, he's Jock Fuel. Go. And so he's getting after. He's also sponsored by Junko podcast, by the way. You know that? I did know that, yeah. Okay. Just making sure you do what goes up.

I'm in the know. So, yeah, check out those. You do it. Origin USA has the YouTube thing. And don't forget. you got you got viny rock YouTube channel you can check that out

how often are you posting something on there we're trying to go four four times a month four episodes we're still we're still getting in all all the guests going on I got a brain I went to a brain clinic for TBI and Dr. G she's going to be on

on the 20th I'm excited about that and then Flo Grover the Medal of Honor receiving Oh damn right on. He's gonna be on soon I'll connect you with him dude 100% he's He's just dope dude Really good dude for sure Yeah

Bro, remember I said, like, when you went into the recruiter, and the recruiter saw you, and he sees you like, I'm just waiting for my ride. He's like, you look like a steak. Imagine when dudes like you and me walk into like the TBI clinic. They're like, oh, let me see your background. You're like, oh, I did this, this, and this is like, you look like a steak, bro.

They don't want to get their hands on you and figure out what the hell is going on. What's rattled up in there. So check out those YouTube things. We've got psychological warfare. We've got flipside canvas, Dakota Meyer, speaking of metal of honor recipients. He's got cool stuff to hang on. your wall flipside canvas.com check that out books we got a bunch of books number one of course

borderline defending the home front by vincent Rocco Vargas get that it's coming out on jaco press by the way it's kind of a new thing that's going down this is the first book on jaco press different from jaco publishing yeah how is it different because we're in league with st. Martin's press oh so we're we're helping them and they're helping us in order to get mass distribution and help on it's it's it's a coordination of efforts so I have a great relationship with say Martin's press and eventually you know some of the books and some of the people that I talk to and know I know that I couldn't deliver what they might need for a book and this is one of those books I mean this book is everyone should be reading this

book if you live in America you should be reading this book if you live overseas you can still get information from it as well because you actually actually you actually have content in there. You have Spanish content in there. Like a whole section about how to actually legally become a citizen. So you've got all kinds of stuff. So that's what Jocko Press is. It's sort of an imprint of St. Martin's Press.

So that's a new thing. We got a few more books coming out in the near future on that that I think people are going to be excited about. But this is the first one, dude, number one. Yeah. I was excited about that. Honored. Let's rock and roll, man.

Honor is all mine. So that book, then, you know, I've written a bunch of books. You can get those books. You can check out those books. You know what they are. Check out those warrior kid books. I'm just saying. I'm just saying.

Ashlandfront, we solve problems through leadership. Go to Ashlandfront.com for details if you want to come. Next up is Dallas. I'm leaving for Dallas. That event will be over by the time this comes out. But it's been sold out for months. We crammed in. We reorganized seats.

We did everything we could, but it's sold out. So if you want to come to one of our events, go to ashlamfront.com, get some details. If you need help inside your organization, we work with companies, we work with the largest companies in the world, and we work with a lot of very small businesses and everything in between.

So if you need help inside your organization with leadership, go to ashlandfront.com. We also have an online training academy. Leadership is the most important factor in business, in life, in family. Everything that you're doing is leadership. So learn how to lead if you want to improve every aspect of your life. Go to Extremeownership.com.

We have a curriculum that has been developed over the past 17 years that will help you learn how to lead in all situations. Also, if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families. Check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got an incredible charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved in that, go to America's Mighty Warriors.org.

Also check out Heroes and Horses.org. Micah Fink, my brother, I don't know what he's doing right now, but you know that there is big sky Montana activities happen. Dude, the last time I talked to me, he's like, yeah, I just got, I had to go down to Wyoming and brand 1,200 freaking cows on the ranch or on the, yeah, I mean, he's just getting after it, dude. I want to go next time, let him know. Hey, if you really want to go to his thing.

I would love to. Do you know what his thing is? It's 41 days. They go out into the mountains. like living off of horses. Yeah. I would love to. I want to do it.

I want to do it when I'm like, I want to be older though because I it takes a 41 days, bro. You know, that's a lot. That's a lot. I don't know by that time. 41 days and not on the calendar right now. But at some point, yeah,

so check that out. Heroes and Horses.org. Also, Jimmy May has got that beyond the brotherhood. Dot org helping guys transition out of the military. If you want to connect with us on the interwebs, Well, you can do that. Vincent Roccovargas.com.

Instagram, Vincent Rocco Vargas. Facebook, Vincent Rocco Vargas. YouTube, Vinny Rock. And Echo, is that Echo Charles? I am at, what am I at? I am at Jocka Willink. Just watch out because the algorithm's there, and you know what that algorithm's going to try and do.

It's going to try and crush you. So there you go. Rocco, you got any closing thoughts? Anything else? No, man. I just excited for people to kind of check out this book. I think it's going to be one of the biggest book for military who transitioned out of the military looking for a new career.

I think it's going to be good for the retention of the Border Patrol as well as the recruitment for the Border Patrol. And just for the average person, why I really understand what the Border Patrol career field is so they have a better foundation of what immigration entails. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you wrote the book. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for sharing your lessons.

Thanks for all the things you're bringing in the world today, you know, the, the art, the books, the movies, the music, the podcasts, everything you're bringing in the world. Thank you. And, of course, thanks for your service to our great nation in the Army and the Rangers. Thanks for protecting our freedom overseas. And thanks for protecting our borders here at home. And thanks to everybody out there in the Army, Navy, Air Force. Marines and a special appreciation today for the Rangers living that life that Spartan life Rangers lead the way and we salute you all also thanks to our police law enforcement

firefighters paramedics EMTs dispatchers correctional officers secret service and all first responders thank you all for your service here at home with a distinct salute to our Border Patrol thank you for what you all do every day to protect our border and our way of life and everyone else out there, you don't really know what you're capable of. You don't know. You don't know what your limits are. And you know what?

You don't always end up on the right path. You don't. Sometimes you have to shift gears. Sometimes you have to change directions. And that takes courage and that takes commitment. It takes courage to walk away from what you know and commitment. commitment to succeed in the unknown but like Rocco like Vinnie if you work hard if you push yourself if you give it everything you got you can not only chase your dreams

but you can catch them and make them a reality so if you have something that you want to do go out there and get after it and until next time this is Rocco and Echo and Jocko out