Hell on Earth w/ Combat Vet Hector Bravo!

Summary

Podcast Summary: Hell on Earth w/ Combat Vet Hector Bravo

DOPE AS USUAL Podcast
Hosts: Marty O'Neill & Thomas Araujo
Guest: Hector Bravo
Release Date: August 12, 2025
Episode Title: Hell on Earth w/ Combat Vet Hector Bravo!

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Introduction

In this intense and revealing episode of DOPE AS USUAL Podcast, hosts Marty O'Neill and Thomas Araujo engage in a profound conversation with Hector Bravo, a combat veteran and former correctional officer. The discussion delves deep into Hector's multifaceted experiences in the military and the California Department of Corrections, his personal battles with addiction, and his mission to shed light on systemic corruption and violence within the prison system.

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Hector Bravo’s Background and Military Experience

Hector Bravo begins by introducing himself as a combat veteran who served in Iraq. Joining the military straight out of high school at 17, Hector was thrust into the harsh realities of war, facing constant threats from roadside bombs and guerrilla warfare.

[04:07] Hector Bravo: "One month after high school. 17 years old, dude."

Hector recounts the grueling training in Germany and the abrupt transition to the volatile environment in Iraq during the early insurgency period. The relentless attacks and the unpredictability of guerrilla tactics left a lasting impact on him.

[07:21] Hector Bravo: "You can't, bro. And that was sketchy because in my head I imagined war."

He shares a harrowing account of being hit by a roadside bomb just months into his deployment, which resulted in him being deaf in his right ear.

[07:56] Thomas Dopas: "Oh, your first year out there, you got smacked with one."

[07:58] Hector Bravo: "I was deaf out of my right ear."

Hector emphasizes the desensitization that comes with prolonged exposure to combat, describing how witnessing death and destruction daily changes one's perception of life and morality.

[17:44] Hector Bravo: "The desensitization is a quick process or a slow process, but it's definitely. It definitely happens."

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Transition to Correctional System and Experiences as a Correctional Officer

After 16 years in the military, Hector transitioned to becoming a correctional officer in California. He describes the stark differences between military life and the prison system, highlighting the unique challenges faced within California's correctional environment.

[02:17] Hector Bravo: "I was in the military, went to Iraq, got out, became a prison guard here in California."

Hector details his rise through the ranks to become a lieutenant and SWAT team commander, where he was exposed to extensive corruption and systemic issues within the California Department of Corrections.

[02:17] Hector Bravo: "As a lieutenant, SWAT team commander, got exposed to a lot... I saw the corruption, I bounced."

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Witnessing Corruption and Violence in the California Department of Corrections

Hector boldly discusses the rampant corruption and violence within the California prison system. He laments the high number of murders, suicides, and overdoses that occur without public awareness.

[56:40] Marmit O'Neal: "86 murders within the California Department of Correction and rehabilitation since December 2022."

He criticizes policy changes that have made it difficult for correctional officers to use necessary force, leading to increased vulnerability among officers and inmates alike.

[58:53] Hector Bravo: "They keep changing little rules... But the rules never changed. The rules never changed."

Hector also touches upon the racial segregation within prisons, arguing that while it may serve as a security measure, it exacerbates tensions and fosters a hostile environment.

[48:25] Hector Bravo: "Racial segregation is not a bad thing, bro. It's not a bad thing in prison, probably in the streets it is."

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Personal Struggles with Addiction and Path to Recovery

Hector opens up about his personal battles with addiction, revealing a tumultuous period marked by alcoholism and methamphetamine use following his return from combat. His struggles were compounded by untreated PTSD and lack of support.

[21:08] Hector Bravo: "I'm an alcoholic. That's what I am. By birth, I believe hereditary."

Despite initial resistance and deepening addiction, Hector eventually sought help after a life-threatening truck wreck in 2010 forced him to confront his demons.

[31:00] Hector Bravo: "I wrecked my truck in 2010... I had to seek help because I should have died."

His journey to sobriety involved a 28-day inpatient rehab program, where he learned crucial coping mechanisms and began to rebuild his life.

[31:14] Hector Bravo: "They have AA meetings every evening... I had to learn how to be a human."

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Writing the Book "Operation Yard Recall" and Whistleblowing

Motivated by his experiences, Hector authored a book titled "Operation Yard Recall," which serves as a guide for correctional officers while simultaneously exposing the corruption he witnessed. The book includes documented evidence such as emails, memos, and screenshots to substantiate his claims.

[82:30] Hector Bravo: "The book idea came for that. I started typing away... that's what I did."

Hector's whistleblowing efforts have led to significant pushback from the California Department of Corrections, including illegal search warrants and attempts to access his personal information. Despite these challenges, Hector remains steadfast in his mission to inform the public.

[82:48] Hector Bravo: "They put my personal email address, which is lying. That's perjury... They want me gone, bro."

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Insights on the Prison System and Gangs

Throughout the episode, Hector provides an insider’s perspective on the dynamics within California prisons. He discusses the prevalent gang activities, sexual violence, and the complex racial hierarchies that govern inmate interactions.

[50:24] Hector Bravo: "Imagine being a man making love to another man... that's on an SNY yard."

He also highlights the inefficacy of certain prison reforms, arguing that policies like non-designated integration have only exacerbated violence and unrest.

[56:10] Hector Bravo: "Non-designated integration that was started in 2019... I didn't want no part of it."

Hector underscores the futility of attempting to implement harsher punishments or segregation as solutions, emphasizing instead the need for systemic reform.

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Impact on Personal Life and Relationships

Hector candidly shares the personal toll his career and struggles have taken on his relationships. His addiction and subsequent recovery led to the dissolution of his partnership, a sacrifice he made for the well-being of his young daughter.

[85:15] Hector Bravo: "My baby mama and I did not stay together after I left the department."

He reflects on the challenges of maintaining healthy relationships amidst the chaos of his professional and personal battles.

[86:34] Thomas Dopas: "More rob. You go to prison for, like, I wanted to get tits, so I shot a guy."

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Views on Mental Health for Veterans and Inmates

Hector emphasizes the critical need for mental health support for both veterans and inmates. He advocates for greater awareness and resources to address PTSD and other mental health issues resulting from traumatic experiences.

[28:29] Hector Bravo: "Now in 2025, a lot more people reach out for help... you can have PTSD without being a veteran."

Hector uses his platforms on YouTube and Instagram to provide support and resources, aiming to help others navigate similar struggles.

[29:03] Hector Bravo: "I'm on YouTube... tell people to reach out, and they reach out."

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Challenges and Changes in the Prison System

The conversation also delves into recent changes within the California prison system, including the introduction of programs like the "gay pride parade" and the use of technology such as Narcan by inmates. Hector critiques these initiatives, arguing that they often fail to address the root causes of violence and addiction.

[118:33] Hector Bravo: "They had the gay pride parade at prison last June... it's in 2025."

He laments the shift towards more permissive environments, suggesting that these changes may inadvertently facilitate increased violence and unrest.

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Closing and How to Support Hector Bravo

As the episode concludes, Hector shares resources for listeners to support his ongoing efforts. He invites audiences to engage with his YouTube channels—Prison Guard and Hector Bravo Unhinged—and to purchase his book, Operation Yard Recall, available on Amazon.

[120:00] Hector Bravo: "I would say my YouTube channels... check out Operation Yard Recall on Amazon."

Hector encourages continued dialogue and awareness to foster systemic change within the military and correctional systems.

[121:51] Thomas Dopas: "Hector Bravo Unhinged on YouTube and your book, Operation Yard Recall."

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Notable Quotes

• Hector Bravo [02:17]: "Once I saw the corruption, I bounced... it’s free freaking corrupt."
• Hector Bravo [07:58]: "I was deaf out of my right ear."
• Hector Bravo [31:14]: "I had to learn how to be a human."
• Hector Bravo [56:10]: "Non-designated integration that was started in 2019... I didn't want no part of it."
• Hector Bravo [82:48]: "They put my personal email address, which is lying. That's perjury... They want me gone, bro."
• Hector Bravo [118:33]: "They had the gay pride parade at prison last June... that's what we're looking at in 2025."

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Conclusion

This episode of DOPE AS USUAL Podcast provides an unfiltered and raw account of Hector Bravo’s experiences in both the military and the correctional system. His insights into systemic corruption, the challenges of maintaining mental health, and the personal sacrifices made for truth and integrity offer listeners a compelling narrative that bridges the gap between institutional realities and personal resilience. Hector's commitment to exposing the "hell on earth" within prisons underscores the urgent need for reform and broader societal support for those affected by war and incarceration.

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Support Hector Bravo:

• YouTube Channels:

  • Prison Guard
  • Hector Bravo Unhinged

• Instagram: @Hector_Bravo

• Book on Amazon: Operation Yard Recall

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For more engaging and eye-opening discussions, subscribe to DOPE AS USUAL Podcast on your preferred platform.

Transcript

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, you can. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Yo, what's up everybody? Welcome back to the Dope as Usual podcast. My name is Thomas Dopas. Yolo, whatever you want to call me. This is my co host, Marty o'. Neal.

[Marty O'Neal]

What's up, guys?

[Thomas Dopas]

What's up, guys? Today we have a, a different kind of guest. A guest that I'm very excited to talk to and I hope we can open up your guys's brains on a different world that you might not know exists. Please welcome Hector Bravo. Thank you for being here.

[Hector Bravo]

Thanks for having me.

[Thomas Dopas]

Appreciate you.

[Hector Bravo]

Appreciate it.

[Thomas Dopas]

Dude, I walk into an elevator, somebody says, what do you do? In a nutshell, what is it that you do?

[Hector Bravo]

What do I do? Now I'm on the Internet, giving positive like motivation and real life experience. Trying to help people. That's what I do. Fulfilling my purpose, my passion.

[Thomas Dopas]

Love it. That was a great answer.

[Hector Bravo]

I mean, that's it, dude, in a nutshell. I'm the father. You have a seven year old daughter as well, so most of me too. Seven as well.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

Youngster. Cool. It's great, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

You guys are on it. Yeah, I'm good. Oh, your hat says dad. Okay.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah.

[Marty O'Neal]

You're here.

[Hector Bravo]

No, I didn't even notice, but yeah. Oh, dude, that's. Yeah, I love it, man.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna say the way Tommy talked about you and then you tell me if that's accurate. He says, I have a friend, real, real cool guy, tough guy. He's used to be a correction officer. Now he's whistleblowing on the cdc. Is that pretty accurate, what you're doing?

[Hector Bravo]

Yes.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, pretty accurate. I mean, that's what people like may seem. I was in the military, went to Iraq, got out, became a prison guard here in California, man, California moves different, as you know. LA is different. And 16 years of that dude promoting up the chain, officer sergeant, lieutenant, SWAT team commander, got exposed to a lot and no different than government entities and establishments. And once I saw the corruption, I bounced, dude, 16 years. 16? Yeah, I don't know if you want to call it like whistleblowing, but I pretty much just bounced, bro. And just kind of letting the world know, like, hey, you should see what they're doing over here, man. It's free freaking corrupt.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay, so before we get into that, like I've. My mom married us some a certain guy. So we were. I went to the prison visiting rooms every weekend.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

And I watched a little thing, said you worked at Corcoran.

[Hector Bravo]

I never did work at Corcoran. I worked at.

[Thomas Dopas]

Worked at Corcoran.

[Hector Bravo]

I worked at Centinella State Prison, which is in El Centro down south. And then the second prison I worked at is at Donovan in San Diego.

[Thomas Dopas]

I must have mixed it up. You said you were. Oh, you must have said, dude, somebody that was at Cork.

[Hector Bravo]

And you're talking about a certain person prisoner in me. Correct?

[Thomas Dopas]

That's exactly what it was. Okay, never mind. Never mind.

[Hector Bravo]

I never worked at Corcoran.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, that place sucks, I bet.

[Hector Bravo]

Oh, you went to visit that one?

[Thomas Dopas]

Constantly.

[Hector Bravo]

Okay.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, constantly. So when it comes, like, ready? The average person's, you know, they're. They're an account. They're hanging out. They know a guy went to prison, he's doing his time. When we see these. These movies and we see all this crazy stuff, like, is this real? Is this really what's going on? You see American me like, do people get stabbed? Does this stuff happen? Is there politics? Is there gang? All this stuff is real. All these things are real. But I think it's way more to the extent that we don't understand. And you understand firsthand. My cousin says sergeant, and I won't say where.

[Hector Bravo]

Cool.

[Thomas Dopas]

He's NorCal.

[Hector Bravo]

Okay.

[Thomas Dopas]

Right. He's. Yeah, he's been doing for 25 years. He's about to retire this year. So I shouldn't say where he works, but.

[Hector Bravo]

No, you already have the smarts enough not to even mention where he works, bro. And that's, like, part of the politics.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, it's scary, dude. Especially if you just work there, because I have two more friends that are right in the Central Valley that are doing it. Exactly. This is. The women are scary as hell. Like, he works at the women prison.

[Hector Bravo]

And, like, those are the bloodiest prisons in the state.

[Thomas Dopas]

The scariest ones, man.

[Hector Bravo]

Come on.

[Thomas Dopas]

Can you please explain? That was good. That was good. Damn it.

[Marty O'Neal]

Like Danny slinging jokes.

[Thomas Dopas]

Well, okay, let's. Let's backtrack real quick. You're in high school. You're like, you know what? Let's go to the military. You go to the military, right? And you go to Iraq and Afghanistan.

[Hector Bravo]

No, just Iraq.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay. It just straight off the bat, right out of high school.

[Hector Bravo]

Correct. One month after high school. 17 years old, dude.

[Thomas Dopas]

17. Wait, you can go at 17?

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah. Your parents got to sign a permission slip, waiver.

[Thomas Dopas]

Did you have to convince? They're like, hell, yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

Did I have to convince even though I wasn't living at home because I kind of got the boot.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, so you were on your own.

[Hector Bravo]

Still at, like, 16 drinking alcohol because I got 14 years of sobriety, bro. So that's kind of like part of my story as well. But at that time, I was wilding out. I. They didn't. I didn't necessarily got to convince him because they already saw that I was drinking heavily. So, hey, anything will save our son, like if he wants to go to the army. But my dad did discourage me and say, hey, if you want to go to college, I'll pay for your college. I'm like, dad, I don't even like high school. Why would I go to college? And so they signed. I mean, they couldn't stop me. I would have went when I was 18 anyways, for sure if. If I had to.

[Thomas Dopas]

Are you a single child?

[Hector Bravo]

I have a younger sister. Yeah. I'll just leave it at that. I have a younger sister. Three years younger than me.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay, so you're the only boy. They're like, we're not sending your ass to war. That's how I would see it. Like, my son wants to go.

[Hector Bravo]

I am his only son, and I'm actually the only one that can carry on my last name, dude. That's why, like, I need a boy. I need a son. Any. Any ladies out there? Any. Because I do have a daughter. But yeah, once I die, bro, the last name goes, and I can't have that.

[Marty O'Neal]

Were you fired up and like, motivated by 9, 11 or. Just in general, bro.

[Hector Bravo]

That was all part of the propaganda. As far as government, I'm not a conspiracy theorist or a right wing nut or anything like that. Right. I just have life experience of going through it. What happened? 911 happened in 2001. I enlisted. I enlisted in 01 02. We were soldiers was a movie that came out around that time frame.

[Thomas Dopas]

I don't remember that one.

[Hector Bravo]

Blackhawk down. And I want to say Saving Private Ryan. So you had like Hollywood P. Pumping out like the war machine. You had the mainstream media news saying, hey, Saddam Hussein's evil.

[Thomas Dopas]

That influenced you.

[Hector Bravo]

It was all the machine, man. It was all. It was all the machine branding of it. Yeah. You know, the not brainwashing. Technically, it is brainwashing, huh? Yeah. And just motivating the youth. Probably similar to Pearl Harbor. Right. Like, hey, they attacked us. Let's go get our get backs. Wow.

[Thomas Dopas]

I never took that in consideration. That could sway you.

[Hector Bravo]

But I always had this drive inside of me, and I don't know where it came from. I don't know if it's like a manly thing or a American thing or cultural thing, but Like I always feel like I have to sacrifice and, and, and, and give.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, wow.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah. I don't know where that comes from or what that's about, dude.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay, so you jumped and it was what, what branch?

[Hector Bravo]

Army.

[Thomas Dopas]

Army. Went straight to the army.

[Hector Bravo]

Army.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay, so when you get in there, it's month one. You're going straight overseas.

[Hector Bravo]

I went to Germany. Straight overseas. Germany. And I was hanging out in training. Not hanging out, bro. We were training hard and partying hard, but we were Training hard, dude. 22 hour days. We were training literally, bro. And then we would go to Iraq in 2004, early 2004, the beginning of the insurgency, the guerrilla warfare.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, so you were there when? It's when it popped off.

[Hector Bravo]

The car bombs, the roadside bombs, the mortars, the rockets, the ambushes.

[Thomas Dopas]

There's no way to prevent the scar. The side bomb, the side road.

[Hector Bravo]

You can't, bro. And that was sketchy because in my head I imagined war. Like, I see the enemy in front of me, I get to shoot him, he can shoot back at me. Roadside bombs, there is no enemy. You could see they're hiding.

[Marty O'Neal]

You're deaf because in one year, right?

[Hector Bravo]

Because I'm deaf out of my right ear, bro. Yeah, from that, yes. But I'm also, I'm right handed, so like firing my weapon, I would assume. Well, right hand, you know, without head, air protection. But from a roadside bomb. I did get hit by a roadside bomb in May 12, 2004.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, your first year out there, you got smacked with one.

[Hector Bravo]

Oh, bro. It was 13 months of getting blown up. Blown up. It wasn't a matter of, of if you were gonna get hit, it was when for sure.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay, so you're in a car, you're driving and these hum go. You're in a Humvee, they drive. How are you?

[Hector Bravo]

Okay, so you're in a Humvee, you're driving. And luckily if they bury the bomb too deep, then the blast is going to go up, right.

[Thomas Dopas]

Instead of out.

[Hector Bravo]

Instead of out. But they did do some that were out which were effective and killed my friends or wounded. And they did put some directly underneath the road as opposed to the side of the road, which were also effective. So it varied, right, like luck of the draw. They. Well, the insurgents got smarter as the, as the war progressed. Where to place them.

[Marty O'Neal]

Can you detect them? Like, can you see if they're there?

[Hector Bravo]

You can detect them when they blow up. But like they, early on in the war, bro, they didn't have what they have. Like now, I mean, they had robots, the Air Force eod, Explosive Ordnance Disposal. They had those robots, they look like Johnny Number Five. Those things would get blown up too. I actually seen a dude wearing the bomb suit. Like if you've seen the bomb suit from the movie Hurt Locker. Yes, I seen a guy get blown up wearing that. But he survived. And he was standing over the bomb. And I seen that for sure.

[Thomas Dopas]

Question, like when we're in the movies, like, he barely got shot. He's dead. That guy blew up. How he's alive.

[Hector Bravo]

I don't know. I don't know how that dude survived. I don't know if in no shrapnel hit him directly. I don't know, bro. He believe me when I tell you he was hovering over the bomb, about to put C4 because he was. He was going to detonate it. They found that one before it blew up and the insurgents detonated it. And it was in the evening time. This was on MSR Tampa. There was headlights of a Humvee on him. So all you see is a cloud of smoke to dust. And I look at my sergeant, I'm like, hey, was that supposed to happen? And he's like, no, they detonated on him. And then you see this dude just running out of a cloud of like dirt, dust. And he's like, I can't hear, I can't hear. He takes his freaking big ass helmet off. I'm like, bro, bro, you got blown up. Yeah. That's a freaking true story, bro. It was. You see all kinds of wild stuff.

[Thomas Dopas]

So you're saying when they set it off, were they watching?

[Hector Bravo]

Man, they were watching. That's what they do. That's what they were watching. And they're patient.

[Thomas Dopas]

They got nothing else to do.

[Hector Bravo]

They're patient. They watch. They can either blow it up by putting a cell phone, like hooking it up to the bomb and then being like a mile down the road and just by calling that cell phone will detonate it.

[Marty O'Neal]

Oh.

[Hector Bravo]

Or another way was thin copper wire and a 9 volt battery, bro. So you can be like 100 meters out and just touch the 9 volt battery and it. And it blows up. That was 04, bro. You're taking me back.

[Marty O'Neal]

Oh, man, they're just like mountains and hills that they're hiding in like Camelot.

[Hector Bravo]

It was agricultural where I was at. It's called Balad. And it's like right in the middle of The Sunni Triangle, 50 miles north of Baghdad.

[Thomas Dopas]

So my uncle was in, was in the army. He was, he was like, I just sat of an Oil field with a gun for four years. That's what he did. He was like, I was just watching this field for years, never did anything. He's like. And some people are out there shooting, getting shot at. He's. But he didn't. He was like, I'm just watching an oil field.

[Hector Bravo]

It varies.

[Thomas Dopas]

And you have to drive high ranking people through the city because I'm not allowed to stop. I'm not allowed to stop or anything. And he has to fly. So that's a real job.

[Hector Bravo]

Which part?

[Thomas Dopas]

The part where you just. He's like, well, I'm not allowed to stop. I have to go at least 50 through this town.

[Hector Bravo]

It varies. So not only is it a real job, but like the duties change per person, permission per, like area. Yeah, all of that is reasonable. Well, not reasonable, but, you know, feasible.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yes. So when you're over there, you're what now? 20, 21 these guys.

[Hector Bravo]

19.

[Thomas Dopas]

19. And these guys are trying to kill you. You have to. You're at war. Have you ever. Do you speak any languages from over there?

[Hector Bravo]

The basics. Genta. Genta means trunk. Genta open genta. Right? And then, you know, it kind of helps when you're pointing an M16 at somebody, they kind of like figure it out real quick. Yeah, everybody, M16. What else? Chism. Cheesemic, I think means chmick means like, dude, I already forgot if it means like, get out of here. Chismick. Oh, cheese make is what's your name? Right, but I know like, what's your name? Open the trunk, get out of here and stuff like that. Okay, so shukran. Thank you.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay, so you know the basics, how.

[Hector Bravo]

To get through this? Yeah, Correct.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay, so what is your opinion? Does everyone over there just look at it like, why are you Americans here?

[Hector Bravo]

Correct.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay, that's, that's why they're so pissed off because we just invaded them, essentially.

[Hector Bravo]

But that's not the pipe dream that they sold us. You know, they told us that we were going to go liberate the people and they would be very glad and help and happy that we were there to free them. They weren't, man. There's no different. And I'm not knocking them, bro. I totally have an understanding of culture and, you know, different ethnicities. But imagine if people came, invaders came and invaded us. We wouldn't be cool with them. And especially when people start dying, because people do start dying, you're really going to hold a grudge against the.

[Thomas Dopas]

I could see that. Somebody I can't even speak to has a gun Pointed at me, telling me where I can go.

[Hector Bravo]

And we were killing people, dude. For a fact.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay, so you're. No matter where you're at, you're a constant because you don't know who is going to bust out with a gun or try to do something to you, Right?

[Hector Bravo]

Correct.

[Thomas Dopas]

At all times.

[Hector Bravo]

The guys that were shaking your hands and smiling at you in the daytime were the guys that were trying to kill you at night time. That's guerrilla warfare. And I mean, you got a time to fight us, you gotta fight kind of, gotta, kind of gotta fight a big military like that. Because we out equip them out weaponize them.

[Thomas Dopas]

So, so you're saying like in the day, like they're just normal Townsville. Hey, what's up, man? How you doing? And at night, they're masked up or something.

[Hector Bravo]

So it's shady, it's sketchy, right? It's real shady. It's real sketchy. And I tell you that a lot of people got killed. Like, there's a lot of guilty by association. And now it's like the way we looked at it is like, hey, if you knew there was a bomb down your street or in front of your house and you didn't tell us and we got blown up and one of us got killed, you're just as guilty. And we would wreak hell on those people.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, got you.

[Hector Bravo]

But if I really wanted to be truthful, they were kind of in a. Put in a bad position. It's like they're not going to tell on their people because they're going to get killed. They're definitely not going to side with us. So it's kind of asked out all the way around.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay. So being a civilian in a country where war is going on is just exactly what I would imagine Horrible wants you at. Yeah, if I saw a bunch of Iraqi people walking around with their guns, I'd go get my gun right. In a heartbeat. So I understand.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, dude, you know, being young, you don't see it how we see it here. Older sitting, you know, calm. You, you get post traumatic stress disorder, you get survivors, guilt, you get rage, you get prejudice, stereotyp. So you get.

[Marty O'Neal]

You're still a kid, you're not old enough to buy a beer.

[Hector Bravo]

Exactly, bro. So it. I had a hard time unpacking all of that. You know, that's why a lot of veterans themselves, because it's a lot. It's a lot to process.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, I can't imagine, like, you know, oh, I was in the drive by, like, I was in Drive by 40 times this month. It's, it's different. And they hate my, everything about me. Yeah, you know, that's, that's the other thing because I mean, there's some.

[Hector Bravo]

They're brown.

[Thomas Dopas]

Like we're brown, you're brown. We're just from different parts of the world and we, we despise each other.

[Hector Bravo]

So like imagine like you would feel a 19 year old kid, like, right, we're 19. We go over there, we'll be like, try to tell them, hey guys, like, let's build a Starbucks here. Let's get a Walmart going. They don't want that. They do not want. They will kill you over that. Just to, just to keep whatever culture, you know, basic. Chickens, goats. Yeah, it's basic. Maybe, maybe their religion teaches it. Like that's the devil, like all this. We don't want all your electronics. We don't want all your. Maybe that's what. I haven't really took a deep dive into the Muslim, you know, religion, but that's probably what they view it as. Hey, those are your guys's culture. Not. Don't bring that to us.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

So how the, the way you see the corruption in the California Department of Corrections, did you see any of that in the army? Do you see anything?

[Hector Bravo]

No. No, because I was too young, too, too low on the totem pole. I was just a grump, bro. I was just a foot soldier. So like, I'm not seeing corruption. I'm dealing with a fight. Was there, was there corruption? Technically the whole war was a corruption. If you really want to talk about our US invading Iraq.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah. So how long were you there?

[Hector Bravo]

13 months total. February of 2004 to like March of 2005. I was there for the new Year. I was there for the first election in Iraq. That was a crazy freaking day, bro. Because the insurgents did not want to. They didn't want that. They didn't want them to have a democratic voting system. So that whole entire day was on and cracking, man. We had to put a curfew on. They couldn't drive around past a certain hour. Oh, they kept, they kept bombing us, bombing our camp. It was mortars, right? Mortars, rockets, mortars. It was on and cracking.

[Thomas Dopas]

You get desensitized really quick, obviously, because you. There's like, there's bombs going off constantly, but oh, another one. Like you said, the guy blew up. Was that supposed to happen? And not a sense of, I don't know.

[Hector Bravo]

The desensitization is a quick process or a slow process, but it's definitely. It definitely happens. Yeah, for sure.

[Thomas Dopas]

Because you're getting more than bombs. You just chuckled at it, you know, because you're like, huh? They're trying again.

[Hector Bravo]

Not just that, bro. One of the most stoked is like, the gruesome stuff you see. Like, that was very. You never. I would hope a human would never become desensitized to all the gruesome things. But, you know, like, myself and others have become desensitized. It's nothing to us. But that's not a good. That's not a good place to be.

[Thomas Dopas]

Do you remember the moment that I had or something you saw where you're like, well, this is just common to me now.

[Hector Bravo]

In 2003, myself and my best man were in the barracks in Germany, and on the news was the capture of Saddam Hussein. They captured him in Tikri, December 15. I believe in. In 2003. And me and my best man were drunk, mad. We're like, man, we missed the war.

[Thomas Dopas]

Look at.

[Hector Bravo]

They already caught Saddam Hussein. The war's over. Because this is us. Prior to going there. We signed up for the infantry. This is like, we. I wish we were there. Well, fast forward. We eventually would find ourselves there, right? So after a whole entire year of seeing a lot of carnage. To answer your question, do I remember a time. It was January. January. We had been there a year. So you could just imagine what we've seen in a year times frame. And we roll up on a car that had gotten shot up by other Iraqis. So there's a lot of tribal war and Sequarian sectarian violence between the civil war between the Sunni and the Shiite, right? There's a hole in this dude's head. He's like this. His brains are like, right here. The car's shot up. The car is in a canal bed. Bed with no water. And my friend's over there taking pictures of the body. I mean, I got the pictures, I got the videos, and he's taking pictures. The dude's family members show up and they see him. They see. I think it was the dude's son that saw the father like that. And I'm just like, oh, so, like, you know, to keep it real on your show. Like, my best man started laughing. And then I started laughing like a sympathetic nerve laugh, like. And I've. I've dealt with a lot of trauma. And, like, that does, like, to me, one of the coping mechanisms, I guess. And people think, like, oh, what a weirdo. He's laughing, but, like, I think it's your body trying to fight it.

[Marty O'Neal]

This is so messed up. It's almost.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, it's so messed up that your body can't, like, process it. So we're like. So we're sitting down on the edge of the. The canal road, and I tell my best man, dude, you remember we were sitting in the barracks when they captured Saddam, and we wanted this, and now we just can't wait to get out of here. He's like, yeah, bro, I can't. I want to get out of here. And then he tells me, hey, do you think that when we go back home, we're gonna have issues like Vietnam veterans, golf, war? And I'm like, nah, bro, we're good. Look at this dude's brains right here. And all we can think about is going back to the chow hall and eating breakfast. And now we're like, yeah, I hope it's still open by the time we get back. But we didn't realize it had already started. It already began. Because that conversation seemed totally normal.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah. In real time.

[Hector Bravo]

In real time, it seemed totally cool. The dude's brains were there, and we were hungry. Oh, but that's a year of BS.

[Thomas Dopas]

Of being out there.

[Marty O'Neal]

So what do you do to, like, what's effective in dealing with ptsd?

[Hector Bravo]

Not methamphetamines, I'll tell you that much.

[Thomas Dopas]

So that's what you chose?

[Hector Bravo]

When I got back in 2005.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay, let's talk about this. All right. So I grew up in Merced, California. Meth capital.

[Hector Bravo]

I thought you were gonna say Metica. No.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, Mantika. They got the water park. It got shut down, but they did have a water park better than us.

[Hector Bravo]

I grew up in Merced. Well, I grew up in Brawley, so it's probably similar for real.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh.

[Hector Bravo]

Oh.

[Thomas Dopas]

I was like, why Merced at you? Yeah, it's like meth capital. Right?

[Hector Bravo]

Right.

[Thomas Dopas]

So, I mean, throw a rock and you gotta. You got someone that's on something.

[Hector Bravo]

Facts.

[Thomas Dopas]

Right. So I know what that's like. I grew up with that. I grew. I did it myself in high school. My dad's a tweaker. I get it.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

So dealing with that, why did you go, that's what I want to do? Because that's not a fun drug. It's not a fun. It doesn't feel good. It. But you're like, you're right off the war. You're straight off of all these crazy things you saw. I could see how that kind of, like, I could see a one in a million person It'd be you to go, you know, meth is the way to go on this one because that's a crazy. That's a crazy choice to pick.

[Hector Bravo]

So I'm an alcoholic. Like, like, for the record, I'm an alcoholic. Like, that's what I am. Like by birth, I believe hereditary. Like, I cannot drink, bro. Trust me. I can't even have one or you'll be done. I'm done. Yeah, it's been proven so at that time in O5. So you got to understand, not only did I go to the military right after high school, but I also came home as a civilian right after Iraq. So it was bam, bam. Like there was no break. It was straight from war to. I got out of the army, my contract was up timing and I was self medicating with alcohol. A fifth of vodka a night, plus a 12 pack of Coronas. It was only weighing 100, and at the time, 165, maybe 170, drowning in it. And then you asked me why meth and why you can throw it like a stone away. My. Well, my neighbor to my left does meth. My neighbor to the right sells heroin.

[Thomas Dopas]

There it is.

[Hector Bravo]

Back in my back at. In Brawley, I had parties because I was like a popular guy. So I'm always having house parties, especially at that time. And I had a lot of money saved up from the war and a lot of my friends from the army and the Marine Corps had money saved up from the war.

[Thomas Dopas]

Young.

[Hector Bravo]

We all could. We all deployed at the same time. So we all had $20,000 in our bank accounts at the age of 20. And I tell my friend that I knew had something, hey, dude, I get me something. And what he tells me, do you want to stay up for days or do you want to stay up for hours? I was already faded. I'm like, I don't. Doesn't matter, bro Days. Because I guess the concept was that I wanted to stay up longer to drink more.

[Marty O'Neal]

Oh, yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

That's why sobers you a little bit too.

[Hector Bravo]

I have no.

[Thomas Dopas]

You don't remember.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, so. So what I did, technically, dude, yeah, I'll be honest. I snorted meth for the first time and that was that. And then technically, it's kind of one of those things where once you've already done something once, what different does it make if you do it 100 times?

[Thomas Dopas]

So the first time, how bad did it hurt?

[Hector Bravo]

Did it hurt? Burn your nose? Yeah. I mean, down here I've snowed it. Like, I mean, I'm not. I'M not here to glorify drug usage, but I've snorted, like, coke and meth and the. The meth burns.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's like putting alcohol in a cut. It's like. Oh, it's just. Yeah, it's just not a normal feeling, a human should feel.

[Hector Bravo]

But as far as, like, feeling. Oh, I hated it, dude. I hated it.

[Thomas Dopas]

Right?

[Hector Bravo]

Like, I hated the feeling. It was the worst feeling.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay. But you chose to keep doing it.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

It's got to hold you.

[Hector Bravo]

That's it. Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah. Well, if you like alcohol, you probably have addictive personality.

[Hector Bravo]

I do have an addictive personality.

[Thomas Dopas]

That's all it really takes. And you don't like the drug? Like, it's a drug.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, I didn't like the drugs. None of them. And I just did them. And especially towards the end, alcohol, it was not serving me at all, and it was getting me in trouble, and I couldn't stop.

[Thomas Dopas]

And you think you were an alcoholic before you left? You said.

[Hector Bravo]

Correct.

[Thomas Dopas]

But do you think all the war stuff, you're trying to drown it out?

[Hector Bravo]

It was like pouring gasoline on a fire.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh.

[Hector Bravo]

So if I would have had just either one of those two, I would have been screwed, but I had both going on.

[Thomas Dopas]

How long did that last?

[Hector Bravo]

And youth, you know?

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah. You're young, you're in. You're invincible, and you're probably just huge from the war still. You think you're Superman.

[Hector Bravo]

That went on all the way up until the year 2010. I was 26. Now, I did stop drugs prior to me becoming a correctional officer, because I know, hey, if you're an officer, you can't do drugs. Right? So. So I was able to just stop that again. I had no. I didn't really like doing them. I just did them because. Yeah.

[Marty O'Neal]

Just a reason to stop.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

It's like, I get it. You're at that night, you're drinking, your homie's like, bust that bag. I'm like, everybody.

[Hector Bravo]

Everybody had it, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah. No, I get it. It's. It's like a. It's a community thing when you're with your homies.

[Hector Bravo]

Everybody, let's go.

[Thomas Dopas]

Let's go. I get. I've been there, but years of it. Yeah. I'll take a toll on you. So, 26, you're like, I'm done. Let's go. The opposite of what I'm doing. Let's go. Let's go. Be a guard at a prison.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

And I saw. I read something that your dad was also a correctional officer.

[Hector Bravo]

Well, that was like the pushing force, you know, He. He joined in 1993. I was nine years old at the time. I remember when he got the letter to go to go to the academy. I remember we're missing him while he was at the academy. At that time, it was only six weeks for him. And they make bank, or they made bank now 20, 25, everything sucks everywhere, bro. But at the time, they were making bank, bro. To be a CEO is. You were. You were doing it really? Oh, bro. They had the. The girlfriend, the wife, and the truck. Girlfriend, the wife, the. The truck, the jet skis, the big house. They were doing it a good job in 19.

[Thomas Dopas]

In 2005.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, yeah, 2005.

[Marty O'Neal]

Was he aware that you were, like, doing meth and shot?

[Hector Bravo]

Well, parents are parents, you know, And I'm a parent now, dude. I don't. They didn't have the knowledge and experience, which I don't blame them because neither did I. To deal with me. Right. They probably just thought their son lost his mind. But I was actually suffering post traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism. They would always give me about my drinking. Always. And I was getting tired of it. I was getting sick of it. And one. One day I was drunk, and they're like, hey, you need to stop drinking. It's an issue. And I said, you know what? You think I drink a lot. You should see how much coke I do. And I can see the look on both of their eyes. And I go, there. That's why you shut the up about my drinking. It's a lot worse than what you guys complaining about. And then, you know, they did kick me out. They did kick me out.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

But they knew.

[Thomas Dopas]

I'm assuming both parents are Mexican.

[Hector Bravo]

Yes.

[Thomas Dopas]

Damn surprised they kept you around that long doing drugs and drinking like that.

[Hector Bravo]

They didn't, though. Like, I was on my own a lot, living in my truck in 2005.

[Thomas Dopas]

Ah, dude, you've been through. You. Okay, so you're. You.

[Hector Bravo]

You.

[Thomas Dopas]

You're an alcoholic. If it's getting that bad to where you're the worst thing in the world.

[Hector Bravo]

I was at a tweaker. I was living at a tweaker pad in Westmoreland, and then I got arrested. We did a beer run. I got arrested. So, yeah, everything was crumbling, dude, as a result of my behavior. Right. I take full accountability, but my behavior, my addictions, my untreated mental health.

[Marty O'Neal]

Do you feel like they should have rolled something out for you coming back, like, from a war in terms of your mental health?

[Hector Bravo]

Well, so now in 2025, bro. It's well known, right? Like, a lot of people know. Hey, what PTSD is probably. Don't call people crazy. Hey, they experience something. And a lot more people reach out for help now, so there's more knowledge. But in 2005, dude, I was alone. So earlier when you asked me, how can you know? What do you do, Hector? What do you do? This is what I do, bro. I feel like I'm giving back because I want to be there for the people that are going through it. Going through what I went through. It was dark, dude.

[Marty O'Neal]

How do you do that?

[Hector Bravo]

How do I do that? Well, I'm on YouTube, so, like, I tell people. I'm also on Instagram, so I tell people to reach out, and they reach out. Not only, like, military veterans, this is what I let people know that you don't have to be a war veteran to suffer from post traumatic stress disorder.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yes.

[Hector Bravo]

You could have been a sex victim, a car accident victim, burglary, theft. You know, something traumatic.

[Thomas Dopas]

It's true. I know a couple people got home invasions.

[Hector Bravo]

Now they're just prison, bro. Prison. You know, a lot of my following are former inmates because, you know, I get it. And that creates Post Traumatic stress disorder. And it's. Could you imagine being locked up for 10, 20, 30 years, dude? It's. No, It'll screw your mind up.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

You know, I mean, humans aren't supposed to be confined like that, so it's gonna mess up your chemistry in your brain.

[Hector Bravo]

I learned about, you know, how the brain operates. It's very, like, smart, dude. It's very cool to learn.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

When you're talking about learning about what.

[Thomas Dopas]

You'Re learning about with the thing you're learning about, that's just like, what the.

[Hector Bravo]

It's cool, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, it is cool.

[Hector Bravo]

Because then you realize you're not crazy and your brain just got rewired and it's.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yes.

[Hector Bravo]

Natural.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah. Or when you talk to people, you go, oh, you think that way too? I thought I was insane. Yeah, you talk to yourself 24, 7.

[Hector Bravo]

Okay, me too, right?

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah. Okay. So you're out, you're back. And you're like, you know what? Let me get clean. At age 26, I'm gonna go be a correctional officer and get my career started.

[Hector Bravo]

So I actually joined Corrections in 2006. So I was still drinking alcohol for three years until I got sober. So even though I was had the career, the girl, the house, and the car, I was still an alcoholic who was still drinking alcohol. And ultimately, I would Wreck my truck in 2010. And then I had to seek help because I should have died, dude. I should have died. I should have done being dead, bro, so many times. But I didn't even die in that accident. And I was pissed, dude. I was pissed that I didn't die.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, yeah, Dark spot if you're thinking like that.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, bro. So like, I. I really didn't have a choice to reach out for help. I mean, I guess I did. I. I hit my bottom, dude. So I went to the VA hospital in San Diego.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, wow, that's the emergency room decided to go to.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah. Then I went into a rehab, 28 day inpatient rehab for alcoholism. Now if you would ask me if I needed rehab, I would have said, nah, you, like, I don't need that. That's for old people or that's for drunks. But let me tell you, I needed rehab and it worked. Oh, yeah. I've been sober ever since, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

It really, what can I ask? What did they do for you?

[Hector Bravo]

So it's like, well, you're in a hospital so you can give your hospital bracelet. You got a bed there, you got a food, which I was finally getting some sleep and some good food. They have AA meetings every evening, so that's that. And then in the beginning you're doing these classes, bro. So you got like former, like addicts, alcoholics coming in and giving classes and you're just learning about meditation and breathing techniques and coping skills. Coping skills are huge, bro, because if you don't know how to cope, then you're going to revert back to what you know is self medication. I had to learn how to be a human.

[Thomas Dopas]

28 days, that was it. How to take care of yourself.

[Hector Bravo]

I had to learn how to be a human, how to identify my emotions, happiness, sadness, anger. I had to learn about resentments. I had to learn how to be grateful. Oh, I was not grateful, bro. I was not grateful. I had to learn how to be selfless. How do I help others? Because I was a selfish individual, man. I was a manipulator. Always, like lying at chicks and I would marry them just to get what I wanted. I had no intentions on marrying them. You know what I mean? But how much? How? Like I was a big piece of crap for. For how long?

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

So I had to unlearn all that.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, wow. Okay. I'm asking because rehab, I've never met anybody that went to rehab. Never alcoholism. Everybody I know, still on drugs, you know, it was.

[Hector Bravo]

Well, it's not like a perfect Formula. Because you had individuals that were in there that were still using for sure.

[Thomas Dopas]

I'm asking is. My dad's a super, super bad alcoholic.

[Hector Bravo]

Okay?

[Thomas Dopas]

Stops. He snorts cray like he's a drug addict.

[Hector Bravo]

Okay?

[Thomas Dopas]

He won't stop. He was sober for 14 years and stopped last year. Like, I'm dealing with this again, and.

[Hector Bravo]

He'S not gonna stop until he's willing to stop.

[Thomas Dopas]

I don't know what it is.

[Hector Bravo]

So, like, that's another thing that people got to realize, especially people that have family members that are addicts or alcoholics. They. There is not me being one. There is nothing that will stop me, change me, want me to stop until I was ready.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, I know that for a fact.

[Hector Bravo]

I don't give a who it was. And I've always said this, like, God could. Like, it was the judge, anybody. My dad a priest. I'm not doing it right until I was. Till I came to the conclusion that, hey, this is wrong. This is bad.

[Marty O'Neal]

Was it gradual or did something happen?

[Hector Bravo]

Well, my crash in 2010, but it was gradual, bro. That was the cherry on top.

[Thomas Dopas]

I'm seeing so many similarities. My dad's been trying to be a correctional officer for, like, 15 years. He was trying to get clean when he got clean. Same exact thing. You're. So when you're talking like, that's exactly. You're my dad.

[Marty O'Neal]

What's his attitude about it?

[Thomas Dopas]

Is he like, my dad wants to do it so bad? He really wants to. He's a truck driver. He keeps being on the road. He's been driving for 45 years. 40 years.

[Hector Bravo]

It's a long time.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, since he was 15. You know, he's by himself all day. So he's like, I hate. He's a social dude. He's happy. He's funny as hell. Yeah, but he's just an addict, man.

[Hector Bravo]

Well, that's the thing. They're not, like, bad people. They're sick.

[Thomas Dopas]

Not at all.

[Hector Bravo]

We are not bad people. We're sick people, you know? But you could get better. You know what's funny about rehab is, like, of course you're gonna have former felons, former inmates in the rehab, right? Because it's just. Well, there was one dude, a white dude, and we were sitting in a circle, group circle, and he's like, hey, Hector, don't you feel bad that you're a law enforcement officer? You're over out here breaking the law, and you can't stop drinking. I, like, laughed. And look, the instructor, the female, she kind of got, like, like, offended. And I go, nah. I was like, hey, man. Like, alcohol doesn't. Alcoholism doesn't pick who and choose who it's gonna get. Like, let's get anybody.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

So nobody's examined.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah. Does it ever get better? Like, the addictions, like, you're 14 years clean. Is it still as hard as it was when you started?

[Hector Bravo]

This is what I've heard in the rooms, and this is what I can say. It is easier to stay stopped than to get stopped.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

Did that make sense?

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

Now, if you're asking me if I'm 100 cured, I am not, bro. And the reason why I know this is through other people doing their own experiments of going back out, drinking every time, they'll say, oh, I picked up right where I left off, and. Or worse immediately. So I cannot afford to drink again, dude, because I will die, bro. I will that or even the worst thing, I'll kill somebody by drinking and driving. And then I won't remember because I was drinking and driving a lot, dude. Unwilling. Like people always say, oh, get an Uber, bro. When I was under the influence, I was not making any sound decisions.

[Thomas Dopas]

Like you said. Doesn't. It picks. It doesn't pick. And it just happens into whoever it happens to. It's got to hold you for some reason. What you just said. Right now, all I'm seeing is in hearing is my. Is my dad talk. The second he's drunk, he'll drive his diesel, right. He does not care. I can take it away. And, like, you have a spare. You had a spare. Then we gotta chase. It's. It's a constant, right? I've been speaking to his face, going like, you're not even here. This is right. Nothing in the world can make him give a at all. When he's faded. It does not matter. Nothing matters. He'll pull his gun out. He does not care.

[Hector Bravo]

Right? And my. And my dad would try to have those conversations with me like you try to have with your father, and it just wasn't. It wasn't. I remember one time my dad said, like, well, what do you want to do, Hector? My response was, I just want to party.

[Thomas Dopas]

Was my dad, I just want to drink until I can't.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah. And then my mind, my process at the time was, hey, I'm drinking. I'm not hurting anybody else other than myself. Just let me be. Let me drink and die. But in reality now, being a father, that's not realistic. That's not ideal. Ain't nobody want to see your loved one go out that way when they don't have to.

[Thomas Dopas]

It's exactly what it says to.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, yeah. Because that's the process. It's. It's an illness, bro. It's a disease. It's a disease. It should be treated as such. And it's not willpower. Like, oh, that person should have the willpower to quit drinking. Because it wasn't willpower that made me stop drinking. It was turning my will over to a higher power, which was all part of a process spiritual journey.

[Thomas Dopas]

God, this sucks.

[Hector Bravo]

Bro. Hey, everything happens for a reason. Like, as we're conversing now, it makes sense now why Tommy G, like, hooked us up.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, for sure. The second he said four word, I'm like, yes, that's everything. Because my dad's a drug addict, right? My other stepdad, my mom married. We'll get into it. My mom is a Jewish woman, half Mexican, right? She looks white as it gets.

[Hector Bravo]

So are you half Jewish?

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, yeah. My whole family. My other side's Mexican, right? My mom married a white supremacist when I was 7, 8. Like, we would do Corcoran constantly. He was constantly in that prison. You're gonna. You're gonna understand because you see this stuff, you're like, how the is that possible? Like, I'd walk in, my sister, dark as night with this Aryan in the. In the. In the, you know, the concrete room where you visit people. And like, there's a little walkway and there's the vending machines and. And I never understood, like, why it was so bad, like, why it was so evil. Because he's such a cool dude. He's my dad, basically.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

But like, I even told him, like, there'd be times where you see the little square where the window where they're walking down to come to the visit, right? And he just has this death look. And as soon as he sees us, he's like, oh, it's my dad. But to see the chain, oh, I'm getting all like the little shakes and like, you know, the change of, like, you see it, you see these guys with their kids and they go back and they're just back to who they were. It's just. It's always like a switch. I saw that, like, made me feel sick.

[Hector Bravo]

But it's. It's which wolf you feed? The good wolf or the bad wolf? Man. I have a 7 year old daughter and she's seen me flip, right? I can flip. Like, I have that two sides to me from all the violence that I partook in in Iraq. From all the violence I partook in, in the prison system, like, I became an expert at that. And it's. It's a switch, dude. So I mean, if you want to go back to like the prehistoric times, like, yeah, cavemen and, and, and Spartans and the warrior mentality, like, yeah, you need that, you do need that for survival, but you need to be able to control it, not be a loose cannon.

[Thomas Dopas]

No, for sure. I just thought it was. It was frightening.

[Hector Bravo]

It's not. Yeah, it's not pleasant, bro. It's not. It's. It's scary.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah. Especially as a kid. Like, that's. I know you as the other guy. I've never seen that guy before.

[Hector Bravo]

It's scary. My dog, I've. I've seen the look on my daughter face when she sees that part. That quick, brief. Brief. Right. I don't always flip out or. When she sees that glimpse, I see that. That look on her face, that reaction.

[Thomas Dopas]

Did you have that with. Did your dad used to freak out too when you're a kid or like, was he controlled ass?

[Hector Bravo]

My dad's like a old school OG Mexican. Old school. Nah, the dude, he. He could control his anger. I say the dude, my dad, he can control his anger. Right. That's something I cannot do or could not do in the past. Woody. What? My ass was a belt. 100%.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, my mom was. My dad's never. My dad just hit me once. My mom would beat the.

[Hector Bravo]

Out of meat. Me too, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, that was a different. It's a different, different world. But just. I was just hearing these comparisons. So we're jumping into you. You're 26 now. You're going into correction. So the reason I brought that up is because I've seen so many different, you know, going to these prisons and seeing, oh, this guy. Now he's got a face tat. Damn. I haven't seen him in a year. Yeah, or you know, you know, the guards, you know, their names, stuff like that. So growing up in that, I always thought it was just like. No, it's just. It's just a place. And then until I got older and when he started telling me when my mom and him got divorced, he started like. Because we walk around town and fools would hit him up constantly. And it was. Yeah, it was weird. Like he had all these crazy bolts and tattoos and white is right all over him. And so it was weird. Walking the storm. Fools look at me like, what the you doing with him? Yeah, it was a weird. Like he spoke fluent Spanish. It's A different. We talked about it before. Oh, dude. Every time I talk about this, get this little like little kid shaking.

[Hector Bravo]

I hate that.

[Thomas Dopas]

Guns on me and then talking about.

[Hector Bravo]

This, I get this little like guns on you. I don't think anybody likes guns on them.

[Thomas Dopas]

I'm saying there's something about it just makes my chest won't.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, having guns on you is. Drink some water, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, I think I might.

[Hector Bravo]

Oh, damn.

[Thomas Dopas]

I haven't watched. I haven't thought about this in so long. What's up, guys? Take a moment from this pretty intense episode to talk about one of our sponsors. Today's sponsor for this episode is my bookie. If you're gonna bet on anything, anytime, anywhere, make sure it's with my bookie. And if you're gonna do it, use code dope as usual to get a deal. And that deal is a ten dollar casino chip. Ten bucks could be a thousand depending on how you do it with that casino chip. They're gonna bet you in your first bet up to a thousand. For example, you want to bet on the next UFC with Du Plessis versus Chimab. Probably said it wrong. You can bet. Say you want to bet 30 bucks. Bet 30 bucks. Use our code and a second you use our code, my bookie is going to bet a $30 on top of yours. Listen to what I'm saying. You want to bet 100, they're going to bet 100. So now you just bet $200 versus your 100. My bookie is doubling up your bets and matching them up to a thousand. Also for you, all you tech wizards out there, they also accept bitcoin. If you sign up and you use bitcoin, you want to bet with bitcoin, you, you get $1,000 signing bonus. You can get bigger bonuses, faster payouts, and the most importantly, higher deposit limits. So once again, use code dope as usual when you check out, when you sign up and get up to $1,000 matching bonus and the $10 casino chip just by using our code Dope as usual. Thank you for supporting the brands that support us. Back to the episode. But yeah, just growing up in that, like that environment, seeing that and then, you know, talking. My best friend's dad was a. The sergeant of our police force. And here I am. My stepdad is this Aryan terrible dude. So like the juxtaposition of everything and like the. I don't know, I just thought it was always so odd growing up. And I've never talked to a guard before ever, because why would I You know, especially grow up with that as my. As my dad. Like, why would I know one? So. And then my dad tried to become. It's all been a weird. A weird. Yeah. Cycle with growing up. So with you, you're seeing the ins. The ins and outs. You know these. These gang names. You know the. Certainly. You see this. You're at work every day, right? I talked to my cousin the other day. He's like, that wasn't on the news. Like, it's not going to be on the news.

[Hector Bravo]

Correct.

[Thomas Dopas]

Like, cut his head off. He's like, yeah, we found him in the morning with no head. Like how. It's not even the news.

[Hector Bravo]

How.

[Thomas Dopas]

What's the percentage of things that are going down that nobody ever finds out?

[Hector Bravo]

Well, like people getting their heads cut off. That would make a news type of something. But stabbings. Stabbings occur daily. Stabbings occur daily. That's a fact. Attempted murders occur daily. Then they will not be in the news. The ones, the only things that make the news in reality are homicides and escapes. Everything else is free game, man. Overdoses, suicides, riots. Unless it's a riot on a large magnitude, then it will make the news.

[Marty O'Neal]

How do you. How did the nine inmates or whatever in New Orleans get out?

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, because they had assistance, I believe. I didn't really look too much into it, but I believe they had assistance.

[Marty O'Neal]

Gotcha.

[Thomas Dopas]

That's kind of the only way you get out, right? Someone unlocking the door for you or.

[Hector Bravo]

Giving you tools because you can't get over those fences. It's electrified fence. I.

[Thomas Dopas]

And I.

[Hector Bravo]

And I never speak about the electrified fence because it. It is confidential. Right. All the information regarding it. But if you touch it, you're gonna die. I was the op sergeant, so I would see the rabbits hit it and they would fry. It would smell like chicken. Burnt chicken. They hit it.

[Thomas Dopas]

I never thought about wild.

[Hector Bravo]

Oh, bro, I've seen that. Possums, raccoons, rabbits, all the time hitting that fence.

[Thomas Dopas]

The inmates know this though, right?

[Hector Bravo]

Correct.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay, so no one tries because it's impossible.

[Hector Bravo]

Oh, there's other ways, right? Like, there's other. You don't have to go through the fence. I mean, there's other ways and they'll try. Expl. We just had an escape not too long ago of the inmate was getting transferred to a courthouse in Delano. The inmate's name is Caesar Hernandez. And he took off running.

[Thomas Dopas]

I saw that clip.

[Hector Bravo]

But he made it to TJ Tijuana and killed a cop. And then they caught him in Tijuana.

[Thomas Dopas]

He made it all the way.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, but he had assistance as well.

[Thomas Dopas]

Somebody picked him up outside or something.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, but imagine how bad that sucks for that person, because I heard that person is now in custody that helped him. Bro, you're probably gonna get charged with them in Mexico. I don't know how that's gonna work, but you're. You're screwed.

[Marty O'Neal]

Oh, man.

[Thomas Dopas]

I could only imagine. Yeah, I saw that. I saw the clip. I can't believe he got out. I just saw him running.

[Hector Bravo]

Took a risk, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

I mean, you know, if, you know, you're. You're done. I'm jumping on the window. I get it. I understand.

[Marty O'Neal]

So let's say you're just a regular, regular white dude in California, like Andy Dufresne style, and you, like, just make a mistake and end up in prison. What's your best game plan?

[Hector Bravo]

It's a good movie shot. Shank Redemption.

[Marty O'Neal]

One of my favorite movies.

[Hector Bravo]

Mine, too. So you go in there. The thing is, you're gonna have to run with the whites because everything is racially segregated here in California. You got the blacks, the whites, the Mexicans, and then the others, which consist of, like, Native Americans, Asians, Pacific Islanders, Samoans.

[Marty O'Neal]

So there's no. I'm just chilling over here.

[Hector Bravo]

Sometimes the Native American will fall under, like, Soreno, Like, Mexican. It all varies, right?

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, but you got to be down with something.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, you can't.

[Thomas Dopas]

You can't. You can't be by yourself, right?

[Hector Bravo]

Correct. Depends. If you fall in like an sny. Sensitive knee jard. But everything is so messed up right now. Your best bet, bro, is to stay with the whites. I mean, you don't really have a choice. And you are going to be told to do what you're told to do. They tell you, hey, man, stick this in your butt. You're gonna stick it in your butt. That's what you're gonna do. Take this knife to the yard. You're gonna take the knife to this yard. Hit, stab this guy right here. You, and you are gonna stab this guy. You're gonna stab that guy. And if people don't understand why. Because if you say no, you're gonna get stabbed. Like, there's no ifsander.

[Thomas Dopas]

If you don't die from saying say. You say no, and they stab you. Like, are you still in our gang?

[Hector Bravo]

No, dude, you're done. Once you say no, they kind of. You're done. They're just going to continue to try to stab you till they kill you. Killing people, to them is nothing.

[Thomas Dopas]

No, for sure. Nothing to lose.

[Hector Bravo]

We're up to 86. 86 murders within the California Department of Correction and rehabilitation since December 2022. That's a lot.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

And that's one of the reasons why I bounced, because I foresaw the carnage coming.

[Marty O'Neal]

I want to know, really, is all gangs so racial, or is that mainly, like, a California thing? There's all prisons.

[Hector Bravo]

Like, California is different than the other states, especially with the racial segregation. But racial segregation is not a bad thing, bro. It's not a bad thing in prison, probably in the streets it is. Right. I don't want the viewers to get the wrong idea.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

I don't want people to have different drinking fountains. But in prison, that actually adds to their security. For instance, like, if this is the white area, there should be no reason why a black or a Mexican is walking through this area. If he is, there is. There's a problem. So it's kind of an alert system, and it prevents victimization. So you can't have five black guys, a white guy, because he. That is not going to fly. All the whites are going to go off or whatever. Race, vice versa.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

Maybe there's protection.

[Thomas Dopas]

So when it comes to that, I have homies that done time in so many areas. I feel like that sexual isn't in California as much. I feel like it's, like, more common in the South.

[Hector Bravo]

So you're correct. Yeah, you're correct. When it comes to the sexual stuff, what it will look like is in the cell. In the cell. If you have a older or bigger suspect victimizing, maybe a younger and smaller victim that's new to the prison system. It's like, hey, man, you know, trying to take his manhood or get him drunk and then try to take his manhood.

[Marty O'Neal]

Will the kids try to come to the CEO and let you know what's going on?

[Hector Bravo]

Or like, in those instances when they were victims and they actually got victimized. Nah, bro. It's just. I want you to imagine a real sexual victim where they have been victimized. There's a whole process for it. I'm talking about the legit ones. The legit ones, right, because there's a lot of, like, fakers or people that like to milk the system. But the real ones, like, they'll. They'll approach the cop afterwards and say, hey, I got this happened to me, dude. You got to go through the whole process, bro. You go out to the hospital, you're getting examined. We gotta arrest a suspect, send them away. It's like. And sometimes those victims they kill themselves because of the guilt or the embarrassment. Shame. That has to be one of the worst acts to be done upon you for sure.

[Thomas Dopas]

Especially by. You're just supposed to be doing your time.

[Hector Bravo]

And yeah, it's not like it's not rampant in CD in California, but it does happen from time to time.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, right now, like you said. Because like I said, I was talking to my cousin and I asked him like, so what happens if someone comes up? He goes like, you don't have no guilt inside. Like, yo, this kid's small and that guy's gonna do some crazy to him. Leave him in the cell. When you go home, you're like, damn, I hope he's good. Nothing. I could never do it, man.

[Hector Bravo]

Nothing, bro. I mean, it ain't my problem. You know what I mean? Not to be rude, not to be like callist. But I mean, no, bro, nothing. Like you, you, you. What are you gonna do? Get emotionally invested in somebody else?

[Thomas Dopas]

No, it's by. Hey, switch him out of cell.

[Hector Bravo]

That guy's crazy, okay?

[Thomas Dopas]

Because it doesn't take nothing.

[Hector Bravo]

You end up.

[Thomas Dopas]

Switch them.

[Hector Bravo]

Well, that's if that's. That's if you knew that that was gonna happen.

[Thomas Dopas]

That's all I'm saying. Like, yo, this guy's a weirdo. This kid's a 110, brand new.

[Marty O'Neal]

But it's like the next guy's probably a weirdo too though.

[Hector Bravo]

Correct? Correct.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, I get it.

[Hector Bravo]

Any case that I had ever seen like that, you wouldn't have. I wouldn't have been able to foresee it. You know what I mean?

[Thomas Dopas]

Gotcha.

[Hector Bravo]

But in the past, the would call him the Booty Bandit. Now in the past, if you had a. From what I heard, I'm talking about like 1990s, if you had a young inmate that was acting up and acting wild. I heard they used to purposely house them with the Booty Bandit to teach him a lesson. Right? Now that's the past. That's a long time ago. I don't have any knowledge of that.

[Thomas Dopas]

But so right there, ready? We know that guy is a. Is a bandit. Let's go stomp him to death. Who's going to say anything? Wouldn't you take out the trash yourself a little bit at that point?

[Hector Bravo]

I mean, who is he trash, though? He's just racing other inmates.

[Thomas Dopas]

That's what I'm saying. What, he's a rapist? When my brain works different, I. I guess.

[Hector Bravo]

No, it doesn't work like that. No, no. It all depends on what race. What race, right? Because there's different rules per race. Like, the Mexican will not allow it does not fly. The whites will not allow it. So it kind of like narrows it down and it's kind of one of those common knowledge where, like, that's what, you know, it's, it's. It's okay by. They're okay to stay on the yard, so. Yeah, for sure, bro. I'm freaking. When I was a lieutenant recently, two and a half years ago, on the general population yard, there was a dude, and that dude would always be like, hey, what's up, lt? Damn, you're looking like you're getting big, right? Like, telling me he was a big guy too. And I would look up his. Oh, he had that. He had that in his file. He had that in his file. And after I read it, I'm like, I better not say what's up to this dude. Like. Like, that might get the wrong impression of me. This food checking me out as I'm walking by, you know, But I'm not going to smash on the dude. I'm just going to avoid him.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, but, but like, but that right there, like, say, you do know, like, you.

[Hector Bravo]

He had it from the past, though. Like, it was in his previous history. I don't know if he's doing it.

[Thomas Dopas]

But, like, say this is a question, you know, prisoners go in there like, yo, what is your. What are your charge? Oh, nah, you're done. Like, against a woman, you're done. Or against a kid, it's over. But if you're being a raper weirdo in jail, shouldn't you be smashed out in there, too?

[Hector Bravo]

No, that's crazy. No, like, that varies. Now you're. Let me break it down since you brought that up. If it's on the streets against a woman and a child, you're done.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, you're done. Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

Unless it's a certain race, then they. It's okay.

[Thomas Dopas]

Black folks let that happen, you know.

[Hector Bravo]

And I'm gonna get a lot of controversy for this because there's prison. There's some Black people on YouTube or former inmates that are like, nah, where I was at, we didn't let them stay there.

[Thomas Dopas]

It's certain. It's only certain areas.

[Hector Bravo]

But where I've been, yes, there's been sex offenders on general population. It was normal program. Like, everybody kind of. It was just common knowledge. Like, yeah, that dude has an R in his jacket. That's what they call it. So like now if they're in there doing that, bro, because you got to understand prison Is so weird that you could be a man making love to another man and in love with him, and the other guys are not even looking him weird. That's on an SNY yard, though. So if everybody's okay with weird like on an SNY yard. And typically that's where the majority of those incidents would end up. Now, they can and have happened on a general population yard, but, you know, that's frequent.

[Marty O'Neal]

The. The wilder, I think I heard you say in the one interview was like, if the prison starts getting overpopulated, they'll start letting the gangs, like the different races, like basically take each other out. Like, we need to thin the hurt out a little bit. We're basically gonna let.

[Hector Bravo]

No. When I. So I joined in 2006, there was an overcrowding problem within the California Department Corrections. You had every cell filled with two inmates, and then you had bunk beds on the day room that were not even supposed to be there. I didn't even know. So you had 240 inmates per building with only three officers on the floor. No.

[Thomas Dopas]

Thank you.

[Hector Bravo]

Oh, it was bad, but it was sketchy. So I came in at that time, I thought that was normal, but once they went away, it was not, bro. I've gotten surrounded numerous times by inmates were ap. Oh, sketchy. It was sketchy. But that's when the laws, they released a lot of these guys to the streets. I think what maybe you heard was that we were purposely mixing inmates so they can freaking kill each other. And then that's when I bounced because I didn't want no part of it. That's called the. The non designated integration that was started in 2019.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, this is new.

[Hector Bravo]

New.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, this?

[Hector Bravo]

I bounced. I bounced. They were making us mix like child molesters. And like, not that I got love for child just because I don't, but with like gp, general population inmates, and of course they're gonna die. But it's also up for the GP because it's like, hey, you're adding on more time because we did this.

[Thomas Dopas]

You have to do it.

[Hector Bravo]

Correct.

[Thomas Dopas]

Someone's gonna take these years.

[Hector Bravo]

Correct. Oh, so it was all bad, bro, all the way around. And then that's when I left the system.

[Marty O'Neal]

Jesus Christ.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay, so you said 86 murders since 2022. Right?

[Hector Bravo]

As a result of all this.

[Thomas Dopas]

So what about the ones that aren't being. What about the stuff that's not being?

[Hector Bravo]

Overdoses and suicides non stop, bro, They're. I can. I can assure you from my experience that is double the numbers. The overdoses for sure, bro. We were getting overdosed inmates daily. They even have Narcan now. The inmates.

[Thomas Dopas]

Jail.

[Hector Bravo]

The inmates are in possession of their own Narcan now, which is wild because.

[Marty O'Neal]

They know they're on drugs. That, like.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah. Oh, bro, you can't stop. You realize how many chests we pump on blue. Blue. Dudes that are, like, dead. That are dead. Like, no poles. Blue throw up, pee, poop. We, the cops get there, they drag them out of the cell, start pumping on their chest, and then bring them back to life.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh.

[Hector Bravo]

This is daily, dude. This is plaguing the department. And, you know, the officers give me props for, like, speaking on this. Like, yeah, thank you, Hector. Like, we do do this every day. The AED defibrillator, we got that. So the nurses got that. You just, like, put the pads and it'll say, stand by. Initiating shock. I mean, it's not like the movies where the dude bounces. I think it's like an internal shot and then hit him with an arcan, so. Oh, bro, they come too.

[Thomas Dopas]

You're a babysitter at this point.

[Hector Bravo]

Well, sometimes they die, right? Sometimes they die. They do die. I've seen. I've seen plenty of death in prison, but sometimes we bring them back.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

And you know what they do the following day?

[Thomas Dopas]

Do it again.

[Hector Bravo]

But I would have conversations with them, like, hey, guys. And I'll straight up like, hey, dude, you died, bro. Like, need to stop. You need to stop. Right? Because I would talk to them. Hey, you need to knock that off, dude. You need to stop using. You're going to die, dude. And I would try to, like, talk some sense into them. They would always be like, oh, I know, I know.

[Thomas Dopas]

How hopeless.

[Hector Bravo]

It's hopeless, bro.

[Marty O'Neal]

And then one of the big things you speak about is, like, the power kind of being taken away from the cos and, like, it being so, like, politically correct that it makes it hard.

[Hector Bravo]

To do your job, dude. When I came in in 2006, I pretty much had the freedom to do whatever I wanted. Right. In retrospect, and of course, I was. I was not going to abuse that authority or power. But from then on, they kept changing little rules. Not. And it wasn't the laws, bro. The laws and the rules were not changing. It's that the higher ups and the politics were spinning a narrative and holding you accountable for doing what you used to do in the past because they didn't want you to do that no more. But the rules never changed. The rules never changed.

[Marty O'Neal]

Are they trying to avoid getting sued? Is There, like they're getting lawsuits from the inmates constantly.

[Hector Bravo]

That could have been one of the motivating factors. I don't know what pushed the. I mean, you saw it on the police, on the streets, man, when you guys would turn on the tv. It was the whole George Floyd thing, the whole defund the police thing. It was a whole get rid of all cops thing that was going on inside of the prison. They didn't want us. They. They don't want the correctional officers to use force. So even if you're like getting attacked and we're supposed to, and you punch the guy back to defend yourself, you're going to go under investigation. You're going to have some idiot captain that's going to try to burn you and try to get you in trouble. The thing is, me, I knew policy and procedure in the law and penal code very well. And I have common sense, bro. If I have a choice between getting killed or getting fired, I'm going to get killed. I mean, I'm going to get. I'm going to get fired all day long. I'm not going to risk.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, of course.

[Hector Bravo]

I'm not going to risk my life for some dummy that doesn't. That wants to push an agenda. But these younger kids, and there's another reason why I left, they don't know no better. So if they're listening to a captain tell them, like, hey, you can't do that. Well, actually you can do that because it's in the freaking rules that you could do that, but they're just going to follow. They're so scared, bro. These cops are so scared to do their job.

[Thomas Dopas]

I've never.

[Hector Bravo]

They're terrified. They're 20, 25. It is the worst that it has ever been coming from people from both sides of the fence, CEOs and inmates that had started in the 70s, they've never seen it like this. I bounced.

[Thomas Dopas]

Too dangerous. I saw something saying if a prisoner does want to be handcuffed, he doesn't have to be.

[Hector Bravo]

That's one of the reasons why I left too. That was probably the camel. We had an associate director sit right here next to me table just like this. He came down from Sacramento. He's like, hey, if an inmate tells you guys he no longer wants to be put in handcuffs, you can't put him in handcuffs. I'm like, yeah, okay. We had like laughed at him. And then he's like, no, I'm serious. You guys are gonna get in trouble. Whatever, dude. He was serious.

[Thomas Dopas]

What are you supposed to do?

[Marty O'Neal]

It's like the most fundamental thing of prison, the bars and the handcuffs.

[Hector Bravo]

Like, so in the scenario that he's speaking, it's like you have an out of control inmate. Out of control, right? And you're like, hey, dude, turn around. I'm gonna put you in handcuffs. Well, hopefully the inmate turns around, puts his hand behind the back, and you put him in handcuffs, right? And that's that. But if he doesn't, then you could be like, hey, dude, I'm gonna put you in handcuffs right now. If you resist me in any way, I'm gonna use force. Of course they're gonna resist, bro. They're already wilding out. So when you grab them and they. As soon as they do this, you have the green light to pick them up and slam them, bro. They used, they resisted. Per the use of force policy, you can gain compliance, overcome resistance, affect custody, or subdue an attacker. Not so much gain compliance anymore. They took that out. But you can use force for a person resisting. And I guess that's what they didn't want to see anymore. So what they want is if a guy says, no, don't cuff me up, they want you to just stand back and call the sergeant. And you guys all kind of like, just surround them.

[Thomas Dopas]

And security guards.

[Hector Bravo]

At that point, surround them, bro. Because I have like a kumbaya moment. And then whatever he's asking for, if he says, like, hey, I demand a cookie. Sergeant's like, I'll go get him a cookie.

[Marty O'Neal]

You gotta go through this like 10.

[Hector Bravo]

Times a day, 100 times a day, bro. It's bad, dude. I couldn't stomach it anymore.

[Marty O'Neal]

Exhausting. And they got nothing to do but just.

[Hector Bravo]

And you can just imagine that type of behavior. So they see their friend doing it and they're getting a reward at the end of that. It's non stop, bro.

[Marty O'Neal]

How real is it? Like, I heard you saying, like, a prisoner can. And not to say anything about, like, transgender stuff, but a prisoner can decide that they want to be female. And now you got a male prisoner in a. In the female population or whatever.

[Hector Bravo]

That push happened in like 2017, 2016, 2017, 28. Same when it was happening out here in the streets. And then they pass that law where if you identify as whatever you identify, you get to be housed at that prison. So probably dating back to 2017, 2018, you have men, biological men in female institutions now. I don't got to tell you how that ended. Rapes, pregnancies, oh, lawsuits. I had the women inmates reaching out to me like, Begging for help. And former women inmates like, hey, Hector, like, bring this to light for us. Like, this is bad. They're not. They're not. Imagine you're a man. You're. You're. You're a woman. And they throw a man in your cell.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

And you can't complain. And you. And. And they punish you for complaining. Some of those dudes had a rape on their jacket, bro. Some of those dudes were sexual predators. Is manipulating the system. So to me, that's more unethical.

[Marty O'Neal]

It's still like that. Like, that's how it is.

[Hector Bravo]

I don't know what has transpired lately, but the world now knows about it. And I think they have made some moves, like, maybe move some people around, But I'm sure you probably still have one or two dudes hanging around.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, man. Because I remember I said it, talking about, there's, like, there's girls in my prison. Like, oh, there's. They're guys that.

[Hector Bravo]

But you. When you go into that topic, bro, and you want to talk about taxpayer money. I'm talking about breast implants on taxpayer money in prison. In prison. I'm talking about, like, sex realignment surgery in prison on taxpayer money. That's a fact.

[Thomas Dopas]

So you just go to jail and get it done for free.

[Hector Bravo]

Facts.

[Thomas Dopas]

This is.

[Hector Bravo]

That's a fact. That's a fact.

[Thomas Dopas]

I've never felt more angry, more robbed. Yeah. More rob. You go to prison for, like, I wanted to get tits, so I shot a guy.

[Hector Bravo]

I mean, they got them, bro. They got tips. They got tits, bro. Like, they're dudes. I mean, they're. They're in love, bro. It's a thing. It's a thing. It's prison.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, yeah. No, for sure. And that prisoner is like, I scored. At least it looks like a chick.

[Hector Bravo]

Oh, bro, they fall in love. So, like, I've seen male inmates, like, in tears, bawling over, like, if one of the transgender got in trouble and had to go to the hole and get. And get separated. Oh, I love you, baby. I heard that. I love you, baby. And I remember there was an officer, because I was a lieutenant. Oh, the supervisor. The officer next to me. I'm like, hey, bro, you remember your first piece of ass?

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, man, it must be so wild. Just the.

[Hector Bravo]

That said he's in love, bro. It's like.

[Thomas Dopas]

I mean, you know what? Some of those fools. Hey, man, they love each other. I get it.

[Hector Bravo]

But, yeah, love is love, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

It's crazy that you can do that on taxpayer money.

[Marty O'Neal]

That should be the next reality show, like.

[Thomas Dopas]

Like, locked up 60 days in. Like, I got my dick cut off.

[Hector Bravo]

I'm not volunteering to be the host, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

Just a narrator. I'm home narrating the scene.

[Marty O'Neal]

Exactly. Voiceover.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay, so I have a question, and you tell me. I know it's true, obviously, but you tell me how deep this goes. You know, I grew up with my stepdad. I grew up with him in and out constantly. And he's a monster. Like, he. I. I've seen him do horrible things. And he can fight. I don't know how people learn how to fight like that. Obviously, in jail, it's disgusting. You'll bite your face or do whatever you need. He told me. He's like, I went in there at 18, or he was in YA from 14 to 18 and then went in 18 to 25 or something. But he said, YA is 10 times worse than any prison he's ever been. Like, the boys, homes.

[Hector Bravo]

I would imagine it is. I have zero experience, okay, so. But I would imagine it is, especially from what I heard, and it makes sense, bro. Juveniles. Yeah. Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay. So I just want to. I've never been able to ask anybody else that. Okay, so for. From that experience, he's in jail, he's in prison, and he's. He's like, yeah, guardian set of fights. We have fights. We have fights in certain parts where there's no Camrys. Like, and then sometimes we have those death matches where one. One person's dead, someone's gonna die, or maybe. All right, this one's Knives. Is that real?

[Hector Bravo]

So I came out on Vlad TV not too long ago, and I said that I allowed fights to happen, right? But then when I reheard it, I'm like, oh, that just sounds bad. But it's one of those things where, like, hey, it's prison's prison. I can't stop a dude from doing drugs, right? They're gonna do drugs regardless. They're gonna fight regardless. They're gonna kill each other regardless. And it's one of those things, like, if I don't know about it, then it doesn't matter. Like, if they. They have problems, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

They got. If.

[Hector Bravo]

If an inmate steals from another inmate, that inmate's going to get dealt with by his own people. I can't stop it. Right? But am I aware that that dude's going to get his ass kicked? It's kind of common knowledge. The dude's going to get his ass kicked for stealing. So it's one of those things. Do fights happen? Yeah. Are There some officers that allow fights. One thing I would never do is partake, assist. I'll never assist in allowing inmates to fight each other.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, he said they were betting.

[Hector Bravo]

Well, there was a whole alleged gladiator fights in. In Corcoran. Well, that's where he was at. Corcoran, you said that was back in the day. Yeah, that's what it was. Said that it was betting.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, he's like, they were betting on us.

[Hector Bravo]

That was. That is.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, so he was. He's not lying to me. Okay. Yeah, he was, yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

Corcoran. That was that big ass allegation crime, a big ass scandal, whatever it was. But if. Do people do. Do viewers or your audience still think that that's how prison is? Do you have CEOs in 2025 betting on fights? Where I was at as a former lieutenant, I didn't see that. I don't see that happening. Only because the different breed of youngsters, the CEOs, they're like baristas from Starbucks, bro. No, seriously, seriously, like, you know the type of baristas. And it's not a shot at baristas because I want to be one right now. No, I was seriously considering like applying, but they don't got it in them. Like they're not killers, they're not heavy hitters. They're just youngsters. They're not going to be Betty, bro. They're scared. They're scared to talk to girls, let alone bet on a fight. You know what I mean?

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

That's just the reality of it.

[Thomas Dopas]

Different generation.

[Hector Bravo]

Correct.

[Thomas Dopas]

I've seen some young guys that are like Daniel Wildmoke, but it's not like it used to be.

[Hector Bravo]

Like, yeah, yeah, bro. You're gonna have your youngsters that know how to handle themselves, know how to conduct themselves. Right? But I'm talking about like the whole.

[Marty O'Neal]

It's a tick tock generation for the first time.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, bro. So. And it varies, man, from location to location. There's 33 prisons in California, approximately.

[Marty O'Neal]

Speaking of California, what was your thoughts when you saw the military going into LA during the riots recently?

[Hector Bravo]

The National Guard, like, what was my thoughts on the National Guard going into LA or the ICE doing their thing in la?

[Thomas Dopas]

Like both, dude.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, like them, you know, from. It was for us. It's weird because it's like the military, the National Guard, whoever, being used against the people.

[Hector Bravo]

So when it comes to like ice, the way I view it, right, Even though I am Mexican, the way I view it as this was a result of the previous Administrations just having an open free floodgate that now it took this administration to kind of like do what they're doing. Right. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing. What. I'm just stating how I see it. And then as far as National Guard, I don't know, I don't watch the news, bro. But I can only assume that Trump wanted to assist local law enforcement by utilizing them. And also like I'm not an emotional person to the point where I can see things for as they are. That's a double edged sword. And, and numerous like military veterans that have experience can tell you that's a double edged sword because at what point can the government be turn on you? Yeah, right. And it's very true that we're paying.

[Thomas Dopas]

For them to come do to us.

[Hector Bravo]

It's very. Yeah, they make movies like that. Yeah, it's very true.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yes.

[Hector Bravo]

You gotta be watchful. You got to control them. The American people have to control their government. They have to be checked. Let me tell you that. I'm not encouraging any buy into anything. What I'm saying is monitor them, observe them and if they do something wrong, call it out. Hold them accountable. Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

You and Tommy G, your friends. Why the same. Different wording he did dead on. Same thing about our government, dude. He's the same, he's on the same, same wave. Like.

[Hector Bravo]

But you got to understand, bro, I was a pawn in the game for 20 years as a soldier and as a CO. I did their dirty work until I saw. I'm like wait a minute man. Hell no. Don't get me out of here.

[Thomas Dopas]

Which most people won't do because like my career.

[Hector Bravo]

But I'm not knocking the ones that stay in because. Because I saw an opportunity. Right. God bless me with a handsome face and be able to tell and, and a sense of humor to be able to like tell the story.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah. What do you think about like so like military people that become famous afterwards like Jocko, like David Goggins, I don't know if you follow a lot of.

[Thomas Dopas]

Or Tim Kennedy, he's getting on right now bad. Is that real? Is, is. I mean I've seen like the pages make talk.

[Hector Bravo]

They say, they say that Tim Kennedy is like a pathological liar, bro. And that's what I'm starting to observe and witness. Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

Like stolen valor.

[Hector Bravo]

Stolen valor. And there is recordings of him saying he had a bronze star or, or awards with valor when he technically did not. Also being wounded in war like a purple Heart recipient type when that is not the case. Basically when it comes to Tim Kennedy, man. He. He. I'm not a bash. I don't hate the guy. Right? I'm. But if you. If you lie, you lie, you're a liar. There was no need to, like, embellish your stories.

[Thomas Dopas]

Never.

[Hector Bravo]

Because, like, look at what I'm doing right now. I came out on scene on the YouTube 2 and a half years ago, and I have yet to tell a lie, and I don't plan on telling a lie, but I'm going to continue to tell the truth. Nobody could ever say, like, hey, dude, this dude is a liar. Once you do that, you lose all credibility, and.

[Thomas Dopas]

And you're.

[Hector Bravo]

You're done.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, it sucks because, like, I know I. Not that I looked up to him, but, like, this dude's a UFC star, is a war hero. Like, we watched his videos on here. Like, he was over the top, but.

[Hector Bravo]

It'S like, that's what some people say. They're like, bro, you didn't have to lie, dude. You're already a UFC fighter. You're already a sniper. You're already a Green Beret. Like, that's in itself just makes me.

[Marty O'Neal]

Wonder, like, what else you know?

[Thomas Dopas]

Or, like, see, that's what opens it up. Like, now your credibility is tainted forever. I can't even trust your opinion. That sucks.

[Marty O'Neal]

We didn't care about those medals. You already had us.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, the medals didn't matter. Like, it doesn't, bro. Yeah, he. What? Ego. Ego, narcissism. Narcissistic people. Right? Like, I've it. So I know you said you had family members, like, in prison. One thing I learned through my experience is it doesn't matter whether you're a law enforcement officer, an inmate, a special forces soldier, a warden. I've. I've noticed personalities. Some people are just, like, pathologic. Some people are just narcissists, like, egotistical maniacs. You met him, right? Me, too. Me, too. So, like, that's another reason why I left the prison system, bro. The ones leading. Leading. Oh, God. Bro, They'll. They'll sell their own mother for a promotion, dude. Literally, like, they'll do the scandalous. I sometimes have fear for my safety because I've come out and blow the whistle, and I'm like, I wouldn't put it past him to. To attempt physical harm on me, dude. They want me gone, bro.

[Marty O'Neal]

Who is it? Like, I know you hear private prisons. Like, who owns California prisons?

[Hector Bravo]

No. So in California, you have state prisons run by the state of California. You have federal prisons, I believe Victorville that's the federal government. Then you have private prisons that could be like CCA private prisons. And those can hold like ICE detainees. Oh, so you got private state and federal private meaning just like a cca. Well, I don't know what CCA stands for but like California Correctional association, they hire, they hire guards. They're guards or correctional officers, but it's through their company. Private, like private security, private prison. But yeah, gotcha.

[Thomas Dopas]

And then, okay, so somebody just money off people. Well, if it's isis, that's a government.

[Marty O'Neal]

Because then they get money per inmate basically, then the government has like overflow or whatever.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, bro. Yeah. And that's the whole like. Well, like Alcatraz island or whatever they call it Alcatraz Alligator Alcatraz. I would go as far as to say that that would be a private prison detention center.

[Thomas Dopas]

He's not talking about Al in San Francisco.

[Hector Bravo]

No, I'm talking about the one that Trump did in Florida.

[Thomas Dopas]

The news at all.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, something new. It's something new.

[Thomas Dopas]

He made a new prison. Yeah, we have hell of them.

[Hector Bravo]

This is Florida. This is. They did it on an old air base too, I guess to scare the detain. To scare the illegal aliens here in the United States. Like hey, well you going to end up in here if you don't take your ass back home on your own.

[Marty O'Neal]

Gotcha.

[Hector Bravo]

There's a lot of like scare tactics going on at the moment.

[Thomas Dopas]

I'm scared the out of me. I get it, I get it.

[Marty O'Neal]

And especially after that we, we wanted to talk about too the Salvador prison videos.

[Thomas Dopas]

Have you seen that?

[Hector Bravo]

Well, yes, I have.

[Thomas Dopas]

That is over the top. But it's also like it, it, it houses the worst people in the country. So but it's like you're never, you're going to die just from your brain not shutting it down.

[Hector Bravo]

So two things. A lot of people here in the United States say we should have El Salvador's prison system here in California. That's what these inmates need. Realistically, I do not believe that the gang members of LA California will allow that even to happen. Right. They will some up. They're gonna fight back. So I don't think that that will last here or even be effective. Another thing is like I remember I asked my dad, we were watching that documentary on that prison, I'm like, hey dad, you think they have staff assaults at that prison like you to attack those guards? He's like, no, no, no.

[Marty O'Neal]

Doesn't seem like they even could.

[Thomas Dopas]

They're like, no, you can't, you're, you're you might as well be like this. On your knees at all times.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, it was like a movie. It looked like a movie. Looks like.

[Thomas Dopas]

They keep the lights on 247 so your brain cannot shut down.

[Hector Bravo]

You have like eight bunks high. No blanket, no pillow. You shower when they. It's a trough of water.

[Thomas Dopas]

Or they. They give you a certain amount of protein so everyone can't gain muscle. You notice everybody was the same size. They're the same build. Same build, same build over and over. Skinny Mexican dude.

[Hector Bravo]

They're not Mexican, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

Again, over and over for sure.

[Hector Bravo]

They don't look happy. No, they don't look happy.

[Thomas Dopas]

And some of. I watched another one on saying some of those people are. Are still trying to get trial because they're not even gang bangers. Some of those dudes are stuck in there.

[Hector Bravo]

I don't mean to laugh, bro. What a up situation, man. World horrible, horrible.

[Thomas Dopas]

Right outside the city. Like you can see life if you look out.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, I don't know statistics, but I heard that the Cl. The crime got cleaned up in.

[Thomas Dopas]

In crime dropped. Like was it 80 something percent? That means there was only like 5,000 bad dudes.

[Hector Bravo]

That's one way to do it.

[Marty O'Neal]

When people stop fear in prison is when it's like cool to.

[Hector Bravo]

Oh, bro, I've seen it, man. It's wild right now. Dude, you're seeing. They just had a parole agent get killed in Oakland. A pro agent Bird, rest in peace. He was killed by a parolee like July 17th, bro. Like last week he was killed by a parolee in the office.

[Thomas Dopas]

He's going to his appointment.

[Hector Bravo]

No. Well, apparently this is, you know, I wasn't there. I don't have facts, but apparently that agent went to utilize the restroom at which point in time the suspect shot him. Just walking out to the restroom just shot him three times.

[Thomas Dopas]

Damn.

[Hector Bravo]

So like, dude, the, the crime is off the hook here in California. Like that's another motivating factor why I want to speak out to let the public know, like, hey, you guys are in trouble. Like this is what's out here.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, scary.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay, so you said El Salvador will never. The LA gamers will never let it. I mean, once you're in cuffs, you kind of gotta. You can't really do anything.

[Hector Bravo]

That's not true. No, you can. They can pick cuffs, bro. Cuffs are. Cuffs are, you know, you can manipulate them with a homemade handcuff key. They break them. They could assault somebody with cuffs on.

[Thomas Dopas]

System though, like of your 247 eyes on, like, do you don't think that could happen. Like a smaller spot. I mean, because they're doing. They're doing it.

[Hector Bravo]

They did have the shoe, the security housing unit. Nah, bro, it's not feasible anymore. The whole system has changed. The whole culture has changed. You got the youngster, the new generation, the. The like again, the rules didn't change, bro. The rules have stayed the same that. From when I first started. That's why I have no problem going there and be able to handle myself accordingly. It's that the whole system is rigged against you now.

[Thomas Dopas]

Damn. I feel like they could do that.

[Hector Bravo]

Nah.

[Thomas Dopas]

At least one spot. Try it out on the.

[Hector Bravo]

You would have to. You would have to start from the top down, bro, and have to rebuild the whole thing.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, no, for sure. It would never happen. Because the way it's set up, I'm saying if they did implement it, I think it. I mean, it would eventually.

[Hector Bravo]

But then lawsuits, bro, because I don't think they have lawsuits in El Salvador. Right. Who are you going to sue in El Salvador? Probably nobody.

[Thomas Dopas]

Nobody here.

[Hector Bravo]

You got rights.

[Marty O'Neal]

That's the difference.

[Hector Bravo]

Which is not necessarily a bad thing. We do need rights here in America. Right? So, like. Yeah.

[Marty O'Neal]

Is that why you put out your book? Like, is your book, like, letting. I know. It's like a. It's like a guide for CEOs, right?

[Hector Bravo]

So the book idea came for that. I only told one person I was going to quit the prison system because I didn't want to get sabotaged before I quit the prison system. He's a friend from work lieutenant as well. He's like, hey, dude, if you're really considering quitting, you should write a book and put all the stuff that you teach us, like, all the lessons, all the, like, tips that you give us, and leave it for. For the youngsters. I'm like, all right, cool. And that's what I did. I got on the computer, started typing away, and that's all the lessons I learned that were even taught to me by former cosos or ogcos on how to conduct yourself.

[Thomas Dopas]

So keep the old ways alive, basically.

[Hector Bravo]

Well, because the old ways will keep you alive. It's funny you said that.

[Thomas Dopas]

All right, so it's Operation Yard Recall.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

So it's a guidebook.

[Hector Bravo]

It's a guidebook. But I also blew the whistle in there, too, because I attached emails of the corruption and memorandums and text screenshots in the book. Oh, bro, I got receipts. I got receipts, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

You put them in the book.

[Hector Bravo]

I should have brought two.

[Thomas Dopas]

You put them in the book. That's incredible.

[Hector Bravo]

They're in the book, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

Damn. They must have been pissed opening that one, bro.

[Hector Bravo]

They don't know what to do with me. Like, I've been doing this for three years. They've have. They've put two illegal search warrants on me already. As a civilian. As a civilian.

[Thomas Dopas]

Whoa.

[Marty O'Neal]

On your house.

[Hector Bravo]

On my email address. On my personal email address. Oh. They. Last year, CDCR reached out to Google YouTube to get it and said, one of our current employees is violating our policy. We need access to all his email accounts, his bank statements, his phone numbers. And they put my personal email address, which is lying. That's perjury. Because I'm not a current employee. I fucking quit two and a half years ago.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh.

[Hector Bravo]

So what they're trying to do, they're trying to go after the cosos that are. They think are in contact with me and that they think are giving me information. So it's like Nazi German, Gestapo tactics. Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

It's dictatorship.

[Hector Bravo]

It's a machine. It's a machine, bro. And what the funny thing is, like, the people that follow me are getting a real kick out of it. Meanwhile, I'm over here going through the gauntlet, you know, and so are the ones that I talk to. We're going through it. It's real.

[Marty O'Neal]

That's why people would be scared to speak out on the things you're talking about.

[Hector Bravo]

It's difficult, bro. They're scared. The seals are scared, bro. It's not a. There's nothing to be ashamed about. It's a reality. I'm not scared because I'm kind of wild with it. Is whatever the. But is it a scary thing? 100%.

[Thomas Dopas]

Whatever.

[Hector Bravo]

You guys seen that movie? You've seen that movie with, like, Enemy of the State with Will Smith. These. This is real. Eric Snowden. I just never thought I'd be the one to do this with CDCR like, that. I would love to have just retired like a normal old man, bro. But I believe in a higher power. I believe in God, and I believe that everything transpired the way it did.

[Thomas Dopas]

You do more good than yourself just getting your pensions, quietly hanging out with your life. You're doing more.

[Hector Bravo]

Yes, because the guilt would have ate at me, bro. And I've told. I've said it before. Like, imagine if I would have shut up the whole time, collected my pension, and then came out 20 years later saying, hey, guys, look what they're doing.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

Or they did this. Nobody wants to hear that. It's like, hey, dude, why didn't you say something? Why didn't you do something?

[Marty O'Neal]

You had to start your life over. You quit your career basically.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, that was scary, bro. Without a four year old, four year old daughter at the time. My baby mama and I did not stay together after I left the department. One year after I left the department, we split.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh really? Does it have to do something to do with it?

[Hector Bravo]

I think so. I think so. I think I didn't. I failed to communicate and tell her like what my plans were and how serious it was and, and she just kept like, I mean all wives nag, but she just kept nagging like, oh, you're making a new this another stupid video again. But this is how I was making. Yeah, but this is how I'm making money now. You know, like, hey, what the. Like now you're, now you're impacting me how I'm trying to provide for us. So ultimately I made the decision. I even told my wife, I said, hey, it's gonna be a lot easier to leave you then. It was my job. I, I'd check, I'd watch out if I were damn. I told her straight up I'd watch out. I told her, I kept warning her, bro, and she wouldn't heed my advice. I said, you know, I'm out. So I ended up leaving because it was affecting our daughter. Our daughter was watching an unhealthy relationship and she was 5 years old at the time. I didn't want my daughter growing up in life with that experience. She now knows, like even we don't live together, but my daughter is way better off like us separated, you know, she knows I, she knows I love her, you know, and I tell her I still love her mom even though I don't know how the mom feels. But like she knows what healthy is.

[Marty O'Neal]

As opposed to chaos.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, bro, you want. I can become a, I can become a monster, bro. Especially like if you're nagging at me or picking at me, bro, like I can lose it quick. Yeah, I know you were talking about this earlier, so. Yeah. And then my daughter has seen me flip out a few times and I'm like, nah, no, I'm out. For the greater cause and the greater sake of everyone. I'm out.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, well, it seems like, you know, when, when, when times time, you know, when you leave your career doing in your marriage, you know, you know when, when, when things are done.

[Hector Bravo]

But you know what sucks is always like the closest people to you. Like let's say my parents because they're old School or set in their ways. They don't want you to quit your job. They're like, no, stay there forever. They don't want you to leave a relationship. But, like, you're right. When you know it's time to go, something has to change. Man, it was broken. Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

You can't fix it. Or unless you want to become a zombie life because you hate. You hate what you're doing. Like, that's not the way to do it.

[Hector Bravo]

Right.

[Thomas Dopas]

And I don't think you're the type to waste your life. You left your career because of morals. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, there's always a different path, especially if, you know, this isn't yours anymore.

[Hector Bravo]

Well, now, like, it was scary initially, dude. It was scary, but now I feel like I grab. I got a grasp on it. Like, now I'm confident and comfortable. Like, and. And I love taking Ls, bro. Like, I'm very good at going through hardships. I look forward to the hardships, which. Not that many people fear them.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah. I think it's just because they have to deal with it.

[Hector Bravo]

I love hardships. Or not love them, but I don't.

[Thomas Dopas]

Shy away from them.

[Hector Bravo]

Correct.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah. I mean, it's a challenge for every. No matter what. No matter what it is.

[Hector Bravo]

And I try to embed that in my daughter, too. Like, even if she'll spill the cereal all over my ottoman, she'll give me her big eyes. Right. I'm like, that's okay, baby. Like, let's get some napkins. Let's just clean it up.

[Marty O'Neal]

Seems so simple, but that's real.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah.

[Marty O'Neal]

Versus acting like it's a huge, big deal. I'm like.

[Hector Bravo]

Like, she sees a lot of me like that. Like, I don't flip out over what I consider minor things.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah. The one Jocko video is, like, it's like, kind of infamous now. The good video.

[Hector Bravo]

Good.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah. That. That, like, I don't know, that kind of clicked something in my mind when I first heard it.

[Hector Bravo]

I was at the hostage negotiator course when I heard that. Jocko Good. They actually played it for us there.

[Thomas Dopas]

Hostage negotiator course.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah. I'm a HOSTA negotiator, bro. Certified.

[Thomas Dopas]

So essentially, you're real good at convincing people. That's what that is. Harshest negotiator.

[Hector Bravo]

Now, because don't get the misconception that, like, hostage negotiations, it's like, basically you're an act. You learn good active listening skills.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

And you're not a problem solver. It's like you got to literally listen to what the other person is saying and feeling, and they're in a crisis mode, and you got to bring them back to their norm. So if you.

[Thomas Dopas]

You know, I've done that my whole life. Okay, I get it.

[Hector Bravo]

I understand. And you just learn without flipping people out.

[Thomas Dopas]

It's like an E. It's like trying to bring the Hulk back to Bruce Banner.

[Hector Bravo]

Peaceful resolution.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, wow. Is it courses for that?

[Hector Bravo]

Oh, the FBI course, bro. Like, yeah, it's an FBI level course.

[Thomas Dopas]

Do you just do this because of your background or your.

[Hector Bravo]

No, this was part of the crisis response team. So, like, while I was employed with cdcr, I became part of the SWAT team. Initially, I was a tactical operator, so the guy that kicks indoors. And then I got as a CRT operator. I got. I was in a raid. Not. Not a raid. I was in a riot where we mixed the GP and the SNY where we mixed the enemy. And I shot a dude five times, four times up the leg with a 40 millimeter LE. But I didn't even feel cool about that. Like, I didn't get in any satisfaction of shooting a guy that we purposely mixed with his enemy.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

So, you know, and I apologize to the dude later. I saw him later, I said, yeah, dude, that was up. Because that was initially in the beginning, we didn't know what we were doing. Honestly, we didn't know what we were doing, bro. The higher ups, like, just threw that on our lap. We did it and we're like, oh, no. Like. And then shortly afterwards, I quit. Yeah, but tactical operator, Hostin negotiator. And then I became the commander of the team.

[Marty O'Neal]

Do you do, like, a pistol skills training and stuff?

[Hector Bravo]

Pistol, bro. That pistol qualification course is hard, dude. It is hard, bro. And you got like, you have to shoot like. Like from the ears up, like. And you. You cannot get outside of the line. And you're moving, you're moving, you're move. Shoot. Moving and shooting is part of the qualification course. And then as far back is 25 yards with the pistol.

[Thomas Dopas]

Damn. 75ft.

[Hector Bravo]

No, 20. 25 yards. 25 yards with the handgun. Yeah, yeah, it's part of the qualification course.

[Thomas Dopas]

Let's hear it. Past the car.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, Like, a normal. A normal gun range is like 7ft.

[Hector Bravo]

7Ft, 15 max. This is 25 yards.

[Marty O'Neal]

Do you teach that? Like, are you an instructor?

[Hector Bravo]

That, Like, I'm not an instructor.

[Marty O'Neal]

Oh, okay.

[Hector Bravo]

Do I have instructing capabilities? Yeah, I can show you how to shoot a freaking gun accurately.

[Marty O'Neal]

You do, like, competitions and, like, I.

[Hector Bravo]

Never did a competition.

[Marty O'Neal]

That's a whole world.

[Thomas Dopas]

I don't.

[Hector Bravo]

Correct, correct. You know, the three gun.

[Thomas Dopas]

It's kind of awesome to see it. I watched online. It's pretty.

[Hector Bravo]

But I. My weapons handling and experience has changed from, like, the military. That was more, like, brute. Like, just hit the. Just hit the guy. Yeah, I hit the enemy center, man. Hit him. But when I joined the CRT team, it's like, hit him right there. Like, hit him right here. And you're gonna hit him right there. It was more surgical precision shooting.

[Thomas Dopas]

So movie stuff, right? So you. You have both sides. You have this prison side that you see. You have the. The military side, like, you brought up. I just saw Blackhawk down, right. Getting hyped up. What movies have you seen that you're like, this is the most accurate war movie I've seen. Oh.

[Hector Bravo]

Risk. Well, Restrepo. But Restrepo was a documentary. Was a documentary.

[Thomas Dopas]

Let's see that.

[Hector Bravo]

That was the most accurate. That's the documentary.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, it was documentary.

[Hector Bravo]

So you want, like, movie.

[Thomas Dopas]

Movie.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

Like, what's the most accurate?

[Hector Bravo]

The Hurt Locker was the most inaccurate. And that pissed me off. It pissed me off, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

And it came out, like, to rally fools like that.

[Hector Bravo]

Oh, it pissed me. The Hurt Locker that could so inaccur hearing about it. Oh, bro, the motherfuckers, like, approaching car bombs, like, getting a thing. Yeah, we would approach bombs, but not that nonchalant. I mean, it varied. The guy, the soldier going off on his own to save a little kid. Iraqi kid. Ain't nobody going out on their own, bro. Especially to save a little kid. So the whole movie was fake. This one guy that was proficient in all weapon systems. Like the sniper rifle, like the. The hand. No, dude. Like, it was ridiculous. But the most realistic movie. I mean, Blackhawk down, right? I was. I was not in the Blackhawk down type scenario where. Not like that.

[Thomas Dopas]

There's so many.

[Hector Bravo]

Dude, it varies, man, because it's not. War is not like the movies.

[Thomas Dopas]

No.

[Hector Bravo]

Nobody wins. It's a lot more gray. Not. It's not black and white, that's for damn sure. You know, you actually get to hear the. The sound, smell the smells. And then the loss, bro. The loss movies do not document the per of loss. Losing a loved one or losing a brother in combat, that is. That'll rip you. That'll. That'll tear, like, at your soul. One of my good friends got killed on my mom's birthday. September 10, 2004.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh.

[Hector Bravo]

From Torrance, California.

[Thomas Dopas]

Filipino from out here.

[Hector Bravo]

Yep. Wow. Edgar Daclon and.

[Thomas Dopas]

And you guys are out of mission, I'm assuming.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah. Patrol. Our camp had got mortared and it was our job to go out there and try to find the area. Well, we had the location and they set us up. There was a bomb right there.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, here, they're coming here. Drop it.

[Hector Bravo]

Yep, it was. They planned it. And it was just a matter of time before they planned that. They caught on to our tactics.

[Marty O'Neal]

I heard you say that that was like a regular thing. Like they bomb you and then you use the tech to figure out where the bomb came from. Then you go and, I don't know.

[Hector Bravo]

It was just a matter of time before they put a bomb there and set us up. And on that day that happened, it was up.

[Marty O'Neal]

So you're just approaching this building and just some explosion goes off.

[Hector Bravo]

It wasn't a building. You had the Tigris river to the left, or depending on which way you look at it, but to the left it was a hardball asphalt street in a, like a country back road. And then you had some little houses, little villages. But it was on that hardball, hardball road. There was a mound of dirt, and the roadside bomb was in that mound of dirt. So it was surface level. So when it blew it all blue, blue to him. It wounded my lieutenant, it wounded my friend o' Neill in the back of the head, and then it killed my friend Doc.

[Marty O'Neal]

When, when you, when you like land there, this is like a weird question, but, like, is it considered when, when you land in a foreign country and it's like it's a war situation, is it considered like martial law on the, on the citizens of the place? Are you guys the authority, no matter what, who the existing authority is to the people there?

[Hector Bravo]

Yes and no. I guess it depends on what stage of the war you're in. In 2004, we were pretty much the cowboys, right? We can run over your car with a tank. And that was happening on accident, but it did happen. And I was kicking their doors in. Now, this isn't too bright.

[Thomas Dopas]

Million doors.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, like, I mean, I've kicked. Yeah, like, I. We will kick. We'll go on a raid and I'll kick the door off the hinge. Boom, door will go flying. The Iraqi. I mean, I probably sound like an saying this, but this is the truth of the matter. The Iraqis be like, hey, our door, the door. Right after we go in there and zip tie everybody and throw everybody to the ground. The door, the door. And I will say, oh, go to the camp Tomorrow, right? Go to the camp tomorrow. They'll pay you. And then the following day, I'll be doing guard at the camp, and they'll show up. But, hey, get the out of here. That's like a. I'm glad you found that amusing, bro, because that's the truth of the matter.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

So in reality, at that point in time, yeah, we were calling the shots. Who the hell else was going to tell us different?

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, man, I see why. They're like, Americans. Americans. Like, oh, and they're big.

[Marty O'Neal]

Did you ever hear about the Lackawanna.

[Hector Bravo]

Six with the what?

[Marty O'Neal]

The part. I'm from Buffalo, and there's a part of Buffalo called Lackawanna. We have, like, the biggest Yemeni population outside of Dearborn. So when 911 happened, they came and did a whole raid in my. In this little town. Because there was six people that were connected. Six New Yorkers that were connected to, like.

[Hector Bravo]

No, I never heard about that.

[Marty O'Neal]

That was a huge deal.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, I never heard about that.

[Thomas Dopas]

That's scary.

[Marty O'Neal]

But, like, growing up, like, we talk about it all the time.

[Hector Bravo]

How long you been out in Cali?

[Marty O'Neal]

14 years.

[Hector Bravo]

Oh, me too. Well, yeah, that's good. We're pretty much from Cali, bro.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, like, it was weird because it was like, that deep Muslim culture. Like, the real deal. Like, we were bro.

[Hector Bravo]

2004. We were, bro. Over there. They mean, we're kids. We're breaking, we're destroying. They tell us not to, but, you know, kids and, like. Yeah, we were some.

[Thomas Dopas]

I'll shoot that. I'll shoot that. I get it, man. And it's your first time on your own. You just got a high school.

[Marty O'Neal]

Because we're all juiced up and. Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

Monsters do not get faded. Like, all right, cool.

[Hector Bravo]

Well, we were still getting faded. Like, that's what I'm saying. Alcohol was.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, yeah. I had friends back. They would. It's not. You're not supposed to have it.

[Hector Bravo]

You're not supposed to have it, but it's like prison.

[Thomas Dopas]

Like, hey, we're gonna send this packaging.

[Hector Bravo]

Right.

[Thomas Dopas]

But inside of this package is alcohol. Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

The Listerine. Yep.

[Thomas Dopas]

There you go. Or the little juices that you do the twisting. Just glue them back on. Yeah. It's like sneaking into jail, man. Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

Was.

[Marty O'Neal]

Was everybody doing something, or was it, like, just. You were. You were the oddball. If you were, like, sneaking liquor and.

[Hector Bravo]

No. So I wasn't even drinking that much in Iraq, probably. I probably drank less than a handful of times in Iraq. One. One for sure. On my birthday. I really didn't care for it at the time. You're busy fighting. Yeah. You got to be on it one for sure. On. On my birthday. Got two tall cans. And then on New Year's Eve, I got up bad, bro. Smashed. I got pictures. I almost shot a203 grenade in the FOB because I was a grenadier for a little period of time. And I thought I was putting a flare in. I was faded. I was blacked out again. Back to the stupid I was doing. I thought I was putting a flare in there, but it was actually a high explosive HE round. My friends go over there, tackle me down, take it out. They're like, put a HE round in there. I got faded, dude. Faded.

[Thomas Dopas]

Damn. You almost killed yourself.

[Hector Bravo]

Well, I would have probably shot it over the fence, but.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, I thought it was a grenade. You were. You're putting in your.

[Hector Bravo]

So you seen the movie Scarface where it says, say hello to my little friend? Of course that's a tool. 3. You're putting it in the gun.

[Marty O'Neal]

Grenade launcher.

[Hector Bravo]

It was a grenade launcher. I thought it was a parachute flare, like a star cluster, like lights. I was gonna. It was New Year's, like fireworks. Turned out to be a bomb, a grenade. But they stopped me beforehand.

[Marty O'Neal]

What's like a Average day? Like what.

[Hector Bravo]

What is it long, bro? Average day in Iraq and at 2004 as a grunt.

[Thomas Dopas]

And it's hot as it gets.

[Hector Bravo]

145 degrees outside. That didn't include. You didn't include your helmet, your van.

[Marty O'Neal]

145.

[Hector Bravo]

45.

[Thomas Dopas]

It's crazy, dude.

[Hector Bravo]

You're. You go outside the wire, meaning you leave the camp in your. In your vehicles. You're out there. You're out there, you're driving around. What do you.

[Thomas Dopas]

What's your goal?

[Hector Bravo]

Drive around and get hit by a bomb.

[Thomas Dopas]

But why are you even leaving then? To show presence.

[Hector Bravo]

Show up. Present.

[Thomas Dopas]

Ah, that.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah.

[Marty O'Neal]

Just know you're there.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, bro. It was the. The stupidest thing we did.

[Thomas Dopas]

A.

[Hector Bravo]

The reason why I think it's a young man's game is because there's no way I would be able to do this now as a reasonable, logical man. They had us walking on the side of the road looking for bombs while we were driving, like in the Humvees in the back. But they literally had us walking. It's like, dude, in reality, that's stupid as.

[Thomas Dopas]

Where's our one RC car?

[Hector Bravo]

It's just really stupid as.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, that's just risky.

[Hector Bravo]

I remember one time there was a Camp Anaconda was a big air force base. We were about 15 miles south at FOB Palota. And in between that 15 mile or 15 minute drive, you're gonna get hit by a roadside bomb. So there was an engineer platoon, the Red Platoon. They got ambushed three nights in a row at the same location at the same time of the evening. As they were driving the route, they got ambushed by insurgents with, with AK47 RPG. They got, they were not up, but they got attacked, right? So on the fourth night they told us, second platoon, white platoon. We were the grunts. Hey, you guys are gonna drive with your lights on very slowly until you get attacked and then you're gonna kill them. We're like, what the fake bait, bro? Because in reality you always drive at night with your night visions on and no lights on. You're driving in the dark. Blackout, blackout. Every night we drove, we drove in blackout, which is nice with night vision. Yeah, every night. So they told us you're gonna drive with the white lights until you get hit. I was 19. My sergeant goes, hey, how would your parents feel if they found out they were using you as bait? And I'm like, I don't really think about that, bro. I remember I was driving like in my Humvee. I was so low, like, thank God they didn't hit us, right? I mean, it didn't matter. We were gonna do what we're gonna do anyways. But they didn't hit us that night.

[Marty O'Neal]

I mean, it's completely bulletproof, right?

[Hector Bravo]

No, no, dude, that's why he's ducking down. I was in, they had, we had, we had two up armored Humvees which were bulletproof, which I was not driving. I was driving the M9, whatever the supply Humvee was, was not bulletproof. At one point in time. It didn't even have a windshield, bro, because it got blown out of a bomb. I actually, I actually drove from the middle of Iraq, Balad, all the way up to Mosul up north without a windshield. Without a windshield, bro. With bomb ridden roads.

[Marty O'Neal]

I would think the would be so like teched out and like kevlar'd up and like.

[Hector Bravo]

But why the old school, bro send.

[Marty O'Neal]

You as even they've invested so much into making you like a soldier.

[Hector Bravo]

Why though?

[Thomas Dopas]

I mean, I would imagine really though, you're right, huh?

[Hector Bravo]

I mean, they're feeding you like, they're feeding you bare minimum, just telling you.

[Thomas Dopas]

To do push ups 20 bands.

[Marty O'Neal]

So you're not, in my mind, you're like a UFC fighter to Them like, you're.

[Thomas Dopas]

Like, you're.

[Hector Bravo]

No, you're expendable, bro. Metallica song Expendable. Oh, you're pawn. They know that, so they're sending you.

[Thomas Dopas]

Out going, hey, man, do you. Do you mind almost dying?

[Hector Bravo]

I don't think you realize, like, the care for. It was nothing, bro. It was nothing. To approach roadside bombs, to not to stop caring. Like, when you come so close to death so many times is really what's next.

[Thomas Dopas]

I mean, I feel like this is like a soldier's mentality.

[Hector Bravo]

What's next, though? I mean, reality. If you're. If somebody's afraid of dying, okay. And then you get so close, so close. So close. So close, you're no longer afraid. Now what's next?

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

Oh, now are you. Do you want it to happen? Preferably not, right? Of course you don't want it to happen, but it's kind of. When you get so close, you don't have that normal. Like, you're touching it, bro. You're touching and then you're inflicting it. It's all around. Not daily, but enough where it was happening daily. We were getting attacked for sure.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah. One of my friends, he was. He was getting bombed.

[Hector Bravo]

Mortar fire, Mort Rock.

[Thomas Dopas]

But he was on the phone like, oh, we're getting bomb. Like, are you good? We're good. He has his headset on.

[Hector Bravo]

Like, you're. I was in. At the Internet cafe. My friend was a marine in Calu with the Marines. And I'm like, oh, bro, we're getting bombed right now. And I said, do you guys even take cover anymore? He's like, nah. Like, yeah, neither do we. It's like, whatever.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah. He's like, we'll walk in. I'll get in the building. That's it, my friend. I mean, I'm telling you, he was playing games. Like, they're mortaring us again. Like, oh. I mean, one did hit his bunk when he wasn't there and blew his whole room up. So it is real.

[Hector Bravo]

It's kind of weird to be talking about it now because it's, like, making me remember. Like, that's not. That's pretty serious stuff. That's not normal, right?

[Thomas Dopas]

It's bombs out the sky. It's just like, I hope it doesn't hit us. Yeah, that's really what it is.

[Marty O'Neal]

Do you feel like. Like, do you feel like it was all for nothing.

[Hector Bravo]

Dude? Yeah, yeah. All for nothing. Yes. That. Do I feel like the war in Iraq was all for nothing? Yes. Do I feel that my experiences were all for nothing.

[Thomas Dopas]

No good separation there. Yeah. It's your. It's your life experience. And now you are who you are because of it.

[Hector Bravo]

And, you know, a lot of people say, oh, you. You lost friends be over a war of oil. Like, I don't give a. I don't take it personal because, like, I don't give a. What we were fighting for. We could have been fighting over a stick of bubblegum and we still would have died for each other. Like, it was that, like, brotherhood. It doesn't matter what the. In, you know, politics doesn't matter at that point in time.

[Thomas Dopas]

I guess that's what gives you, like, I'll go up to a car bomb. I'd rather be meeting him.

[Hector Bravo]

There's a lot that you can do with a brotherhood then you wouldn't do by yourself. And there's a lot that you would do for somebody else rather than for you.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

Like. Which is why I was always kicking indoors and I was always the number one man. Like, when you rate a room, you know, the number one man's in the front of the stack. Because I did not have a wife and I did not have kids. Other my friends did. So I figured if I get killed, who cares, right? That's why I always wanted to be the number one man.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, that makes a lot of sense, though. Like, I don't have a kid or nothing to miss me like that.

[Hector Bravo]

Correct.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah. That's a big sacrifice to go through, man. That's a. That's a. That's a. That's a. That's a big thing to jump into to knowing, like, yeah, it could end. Yeah.

[Marty O'Neal]

Tip of the spear. Jesus.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, tip of the spear for sure.

[Marty O'Neal]

Can you tell us about your documentary, the movie on Amazon?

[Hector Bravo]

So when I came out on scene for. Well, when I left the department two and a half years ago, I saw that this producer had put out a film called Ranger. And I had messaged him on Instagram. I said, hey, bro, like, I got a story. I don't know if you would be interested in, like, hearing about it or. He's like, sure, what is it? And then I started sharing. He's like, holy, dude. He's from out South Carolina. North Carolina area. And I told him and he was all. All on board, bro. So he was kind of up and coming producer. And I'm up and coming, you know, leaving the prison. And dude, we filmed for like a whole year. The documentary is called Grunt. And I included all my video footage from before Iraq when I'm in high school, when I'm in basic training. You can see some video footage when I'm in Germany training and then when I'm in Iraq. So you actually see like my change of me being a boy to like after and the struggles that I endured when I got back with the self medication and the untreated ptsd. And that's on Amazon.

[Thomas Dopas]

Amazon called Grunt.

[Hector Bravo]

Grunt.

[Thomas Dopas]

No, I'm more watch Sounds wild. Damn. You had your own phone footage, bro?

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, because we had disposable cameras. I had a camcorder. Some people ask me like, bro, did you plan on doing this documentary while you beef? And I'm like, nah, I just filmed everything, like all the time. I was a skater too, so I filmed myself skating as a kid. You know what I mean?

[Thomas Dopas]

Wide lens.

[Hector Bravo]

I've always just filmed like, cool, man.

[Thomas Dopas]

I mean, good, good. You have it now for sure. Like I said, the universe works very odd. Like these tapes are worth something now. Yes. They'll make a movie. Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's sick. I had one more question, kind of like a topic. I know a lot of people ask about it because I'm like, I'm on the Internet. I read it. When it comes to prison systems and when it comes to celebrities going to prison, I sold meth. I'm now in jail. I'm Danny Masterson from that 70 show. And he just got a 30 year sentence. What are these going in? Because he's famous. He did some wild, heinous. What's the process like? He's not going into the regular general population. Right.

[Hector Bravo]

The same, same, the same process. You're a inmate.

[Thomas Dopas]

At that point I just thought, I always, I always thought like, oh, he's a celebrity guy.

[Hector Bravo]

Some people think that. Some people think they're more special than others. Like the Menendez brothers.

[Thomas Dopas]

They think they're dope.

[Hector Bravo]

They think they're special.

[Thomas Dopas]

They kill their parents.

[Hector Bravo]

Exactly the. So, yeah, they were at the prison that I was at and they, they know that I. When people ask me about them, I'm just like, I thought they were entitled. I avoided them like the plague. Now they think I hate them. But I could care less. I just call for like, it is. They're inmates.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, I, I get that. But they became so popular because of.

[Hector Bravo]

That trial D. They got a big fan following those guys.

[Thomas Dopas]

It's so weird.

[Hector Bravo]

It is weird.

[Thomas Dopas]

So like Scott Peterson though, he has hella ladies meeting him.

[Hector Bravo]

These get like Rich Ramirez, Charles Manson.

[Thomas Dopas]

There's like a dude, Charles Madison. Well, he's dead, but he was in Corcoran. I mean, is it true, like, ready, Charles Manson's in jail, right? Like, the families of the Sharon, whoever did it.

[Hector Bravo]

My.

[Thomas Dopas]

I've heard from some people, like, hey, if you can stab his ass, his family will pay you some money. Is there certain things, like the people.

[Hector Bravo]

That can't be touched, man, Like.

[Thomas Dopas]

Or, like, would a guard know about it, or is it more like a prisoner kind of thing?

[Hector Bravo]

I don't foresee a person on the outside paying somebody on the inside to have them. Anybody stabbed?

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, I would do that in a heartbeat if it was serious.

[Hector Bravo]

But who would it would be willing to do it? Like, would they actually even be willing to do it?

[Thomas Dopas]

Hell, yeah. You so many. He's like, they're stabbings every day. Like, let me get paid for one.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, but then you're going to lose your privileges for a short period of time. They probably. I would assume that they isolated Charles Manson a lot.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah. He said he was by himself.

[Hector Bravo]

Correct. You're not allowed to walk. You wouldn't even have the opportunity to.

[Thomas Dopas]

Because physically, when I asked him, he's like, well, you can't get to him. So if you can get to him, you're the man.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, I don't think nobody could get.

[Thomas Dopas]

No, you can't even get close. That's what he was saying. He's like, nobody's even in the hall when he's in the hall.

[Hector Bravo]

Right.

[Thomas Dopas]

Isn't that crazy? So, all right, R. Kelly's famous as hell. Is he going straight into regular general population? He's going to have to be segregated.

[Hector Bravo]

So people with, like, sex crimes go no matter what. No matter what.

[Marty O'Neal]

Oh, so he's saying you're not a celebrity. As soon as you cross that, you're like a sex offender or not. Doesn't matter if you're a celebrity.

[Hector Bravo]

That makes sense. You don't get no special treatment if you're a celebrity.

[Thomas Dopas]

Well, you know when politicians go to jail, like, you know what kind of jail he's in? He's at a resort. I mean, I've seen, like, certain private prisons where they're. They're like resorts.

[Hector Bravo]

Like Martha Stewart.

[Thomas Dopas]

I didn't see that when I saw.

[Hector Bravo]

When she did, like, the white collar crime or whatever.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah. When she went to prison. I'm assuming she's not like, hey, well.

[Hector Bravo]

That would be nice. That would be federal, right? Maybe they have nice camps. Federal.

[Thomas Dopas]

I've seen one.

[Hector Bravo]

Maybe they have nice federal facilities. Okay, you're talking about in California. No, California, man. You're gonna get what you're gonna get.

[Thomas Dopas]

When he got arrested, I think he got here, he got beat down.

[Hector Bravo]

Like, let's change, though, bro. Like, don't. They got so much stuff now. And I'm not knocking it. It's just not for me. They got the inmates now. Have anything you can think of?

[Thomas Dopas]

IPad, too.

[Hector Bravo]

IPad, tablets, VR, Oculus Quest, foosballs, pickleball. Like, to me, like, I'm cool, man. I. I didn't want to go into punish inmates, but I also didn't want to go in there to pamper them, and I did. Supposed to be just keeping it real, bro. Like, I just wanted to be a neutral dude. Don't make me do anything I don't want to do. Right?

[Thomas Dopas]

Like, it's a good way to go through life, though.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

Well, I'll you up if you ask, but I won't do nothing if you don't.

[Hector Bravo]

Make sense.

[Thomas Dopas]

It's good slogan to live by, though. For sure.

[Hector Bravo]

Makes sense, dude.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay, so that was a question. I always wondered about that. Like, celebrities going into prison. Like, are they just whisked away like, no, you got a great. No, you watch Goodfellas?

[Hector Bravo]

Like, they're there, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

We had our own.

[Hector Bravo]

Let me see. Look it. You know Suge Knight. I always bring up Suge Knight in every interview I do, man. I always say he was this respectful guy because he was. He knows how to do his time. He's a big dude, and he's amongst other inmates. There's no. There's not enough prison. There's not enough space to isolate these individuals.

[Thomas Dopas]

Gotcha. I always wondered about that, man.

[Marty O'Neal]

I would just feel like they'd be in more.

[Hector Bravo]

Kane Velasquez. You know Kane Velasquez from California. This is from your girl. So he's from Salinas. Cain Velasquez is with. Mixed with. Actually should not even be. That's for general population. I can't even. It doesn't really matter where he's at because I can't think. But he's amongst other inmates. The UFC fighter.

[Thomas Dopas]

That's what I'm saying. Like, he. He's a killer. He'll kill you. So don't with him. He beat Brock Lesnar's ass. I'm not fighting that guy.

[Hector Bravo]

101 in jail, right?

[Thomas Dopas]

With no ref to stop me if I tap. No way.

[Hector Bravo]

I don't think anybody messed with him anyways.

[Thomas Dopas]

No.

[Hector Bravo]

Plus, his crime was honorable.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yes, it was. I suppose he shouldn't even be there, dude. He got released, right?

[Hector Bravo]

Who is he?

[Thomas Dopas]

Game last get released?

[Hector Bravo]

No, I don't think. No, he's in prison, bro. He's a. He's a CTA of solid dead.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, I'm have to look it up again. I could have swore. They said they were reviewing his thing.

[Marty O'Neal]

I think he got like. I think he got a sentence. It was like a couple years.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, no, I saw the video of him chasing the fool. That's what it was. Never mind. There's a video of him chasing that man. He almost beat to death on the freeway in his truck. Until he gets.

[Hector Bravo]

He shots the dad or something.

[Thomas Dopas]

I thought he. I thought he. Damn, the news is not good.

[Hector Bravo]

No, he shot the stepdad.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, I got a thing where he. Where it was like, pictures of the guy beat down.

[Hector Bravo]

No, he shot the stepdad in the arm.

[Thomas Dopas]

Oh, that's it.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah. It was a game, like, attempted murder charge.

[Marty O'Neal]

Whatever shot into the truck that the dude was in.

[Thomas Dopas]

I saw. I just saw the video of that. Of him chasing him. And they're getting off on ramp.

[Hector Bravo]

I mean, you got. Who the other guy, Tory Lanez, recently got stabbed into Hatchet. Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

Damn.

[Hector Bravo]

So, like. Yeah, bro, they're. They're gonna get. They're there. They're gonna get. God, like, they're there like normal people. Normal people, bro. They're not special. They're not special.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah. That's crazy that. That blew my mind, though, see, from somebody that's just got more knowledge on this than the normal civilian even. I'm like, he got stabbed. Why is he there? Why is he by himself? I always thought that, like, yo, you're too known. You have to be by yourself. Nah, I had no idea.

[Hector Bravo]

No, my sky. The crazy thing is, even if you were a former police officer or a former correctional officer and you got sentenced to state prison, guess where you're going? Amongst the other inmates, there's so many. Well, not so many. Yeah, there's enough former COs that are inmates, former CEOs. There was like, a baisa that had killed his. Killed, like his wife and the mistress or the. The Sancho. Like, he caught his wife cheating, so he offed both of them. And he was. He was in my yard. He was a former CEO.

[Thomas Dopas]

Damn. What a change of life.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah. That's horrible, bro. I couldn't. I'll hang myself. Yeah. First night.

[Thomas Dopas]

No, I get it.

[Hector Bravo]

That's. I don't know. I know how cozy and comfy California prisons are now that I might be able to wing it. I might be able to milk the system and get what I Want.

[Thomas Dopas]

I'm a chick.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, exactly.

[Thomas Dopas]

Broc cups for me, remember?

[Hector Bravo]

Like, hey, you can't put handcuffs on me. I know the rules.

[Thomas Dopas]

That's. You know, every coat. You know you're physically not allowed to touch me.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, he's just vring and live streaming.

[Hector Bravo]

Dropping YouTube videos, doing podcast from in there, right? Yeah, dude. The first prison podcast tablet.

[Thomas Dopas]

No, that's it. You got the time, right? You got. Doing anything else? Start a podcast from inside of jail and interview inmates. I will watch the out of that. That is the most authentic talk you're gonna get.

[Hector Bravo]

I want to say San Quentin has started their own inmate podcast.

[Thomas Dopas]

That's.

[Hector Bravo]

I want to say awesome.

[Thomas Dopas]

I can't. I can't lie.

[Hector Bravo]

I don't want to burst your bubble, bro. You're not gonna have solid dudes talking.

[Thomas Dopas]

No, it's gonna be a bunch of.

[Hector Bravo]

Right.

[Thomas Dopas]

I've met my stepdad's friends. None of what they say is true. I know you live at your mom's house.

[Hector Bravo]

You're not gonna have, like, the prison gang leaders, like, never see.

[Thomas Dopas]

No, they're not like, you want me on camera.

[Hector Bravo]

Correct.

[Thomas Dopas]

I'm good, dog. I got life, but I ain't doing that. Okay. All right, so we have grunt. We have a yard was yard recall.

[Hector Bravo]

I gotta let you know this. They had the gay pride parade at prison last June. Every parade, every prison had the drag queens come in with wigs. Like, that's the thing. Wigs you cannot have in prison because it's escape paraphernalia. But, yeah, they did it. So it's like, bro, that's what we're looking at in 2025.

[Thomas Dopas]

Wait, I thought the whole woke died, and now the prison's like, we'll take it.

[Hector Bravo]

They just had a pride one. It went up. Pride parade, bro. Inside prison, on all the yards. Every person got to come out, indulge in the festivities. And again, it's not whether I'm against it or not, it's what imagine it's a fact.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah, it's like. It's prison. This supposed to be the worst place.

[Thomas Dopas]

Farmers market Sundays.

[Hector Bravo]

No, bro, they have farmers market in San Quentin. I'm telling you right now, you will never be able to recognize what the has happened.

[Thomas Dopas]

I'm glad you guys are having fun, but that's.

[Marty O'Neal]

It sounds like living in Irvine or some.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

These folks can pirate. They're not going to go to jail for pirating. They have a farmer's yoga. You sure there is, dude?

[Hector Bravo]

For sure, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, for sure there is. Remember, Tommy Chong. We talked to Tommy Chong. He's like, when I was in jail, he's like, we had a.

[Hector Bravo]

A regimen to the defense of the hardcore inmates that are still hanging on by a thread.

[Thomas Dopas]

Not everyone's doing yoga.

[Hector Bravo]

Not everybody.

[Thomas Dopas]

Some of your backs are stiff and I get it.

[Hector Bravo]

Do I recommend yoga? Absolutely, bro. It's good.

[Thomas Dopas]

Okay. We've learned a lot today. I feel like we just scratched the surface.

[Marty O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Hector Bravo]

Oh, yeah.

[Marty O'Neal]

What's the best way for people to support what you have going on?

[Hector Bravo]

I would say my YouTube channels. One is that Prison Guard and the other one is Hector Bravo. Unhinged.

[Thomas Dopas]

Hector Bravo.

[Hector Bravo]

Unhinged. Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

And Prison Guard.

[Hector Bravo]

That Love the Prison Guard.

[Thomas Dopas]

That Prison Guard.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah. Then I'm on Instagram. Hector Underscore. Bravo.

[Thomas Dopas]

Hector Bravo.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

Did you do anything live?

[Hector Bravo]

I do live on the YouTube.

[Thomas Dopas]

I mean, from time to time in.

[Hector Bravo]

Person, like, oh, I just did a book signing. I do book signing events, and I just did one in Sacramento. I usually put a flyer out there on my Instagram, let people know, and then they meet up with me. I don't disclose a location until, like, right before. Unless you hit me up in a dm, I ain't trying to get killed by anybody.

[Thomas Dopas]

Damn.

[Hector Bravo]

You know, I kind of piss people off with what I do.

[Thomas Dopas]

People like the truth.

[Hector Bravo]

Exactly.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah. They don't want to see it. They like to cover it up a lot and forget. Do enough stuff in your time. Enough bad. You forget the bad you did a long time ago.

[Hector Bravo]

Correct.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, I don't know about that, but I know that that's got to be.

[Marty O'Neal]

A way you want a. Reminding you.

[Thomas Dopas]

Yeah, for sure. You don't want to go doing a YouTube video on you.

[Hector Bravo]

Oh, bro, I'm ruthless, bro. I gotta do. I gotta. I do it with passion, too. So I got a lot of.

[Thomas Dopas]

Do you care? So that's the whole point, right? I want to watch anybody that gives a. I don't care what topic it is. But you're passionate about it and you're serious.

[Marty O'Neal]

You're an expert and you live this.

[Thomas Dopas]

That's what we liked. Tim Kennedy.

[Hector Bravo]

Jerk.

[Thomas Dopas]

You could just left it there, man. It's a lie. It's like him. Like, yeah, in Iraq, I strangled a giant. Like, why did you lie about that?

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

You're doing so much.

[Hector Bravo]

I didn't say any lies on this podcast and I haven't. I tell the viewers, too. Like, I don't lie.

[Thomas Dopas]

What's the point of it?

[Marty O'Neal]

It's the best way to life. Having a clear conscious and then you.

[Thomas Dopas]

Have to remember your lies. And then you're like. Then your world just crumbles. I can only imagine having to remember what I lied about.

[Hector Bravo]

It's up, dude. It's horrible. Hell on earth, dude. It's draining.

[Thomas Dopas]

Draining. It's a good way to put it. It is draining. So Hector Bravo, under underscore Bravo on Instagram.

[Hector Bravo]

Yes.

[Thomas Dopas]

Hector Bravo. Unhinged.

[Hector Bravo]

Yes.

[Thomas Dopas]

On YouTube. And that prison guard on YouTube.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

Amazon grunt.

[Hector Bravo]

Yep.

[Thomas Dopas]

Where can we get your book?

[Hector Bravo]

Amazon is called Operation Yard Recall.

[Thomas Dopas]

It's on Amazon.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

So everything's on Amazon, guys. Here we go.

[Hector Bravo]

Appreciate you plugging all of that.

[Thomas Dopas]

We'll link it, dude. We'll link everything. Yeah, when Tommy brought you up, like, for sure.

[Hector Bravo]

I'm glad, dude.

[Thomas Dopas]

For sure. Because, I mean, we've talked about it many times, like, yo, the prison system is insane.

[Hector Bravo]

Have you ever had anybody from the prison system?

[Marty O'Neal]

Not this side of it.

[Hector Bravo]

Not this side of it. Yeah.

[Thomas Dopas]

Not the side.

[Hector Bravo]

Not this. Not at all.

[Thomas Dopas]

Know enough people and.

[Hector Bravo]

Right.

[Thomas Dopas]

It's like, dude, how was it? It sucked.

[Hector Bravo]

Yeah, gotcha. Suck. Food sucks.

[Thomas Dopas]

Everything sucks. We got money. You're fine. Like, that's cool. That helps, I guess. But, yeah, I just want to see the other side. Like I said, we probably just scratched the surface. There's a lot more. I just want to. I don't want to come out here and ask you crazy. And what if you're like, damn, I'm.

[Hector Bravo]

An open book, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

But, you know, I mean, like, there's. There's so many more questions.

[Marty O'Neal]

Like, could be a part two.

[Thomas Dopas]

The fans are 100.

[Hector Bravo]

Like, I say, like, get me and Tommy in here at the same time.

[Thomas Dopas]

But, yeah, you guys end up arm wrestling at the end of it. You think you're strong. Yeah, that would be great. Tommy's the man. Shout out to Tommy G. For. For connecting us, but, yeah, for everyone out there, Amazon grunt. Operation Yard Recall. Check it out. All the YouTube channels. Every single thing you can possibly check out. If you want to learn more, it's right here. We're not smoking. We're not doing drugs. Everyone can see this on YouTube. All right? We're okay. This is information. Are you supposed to know?

[Marty O'Neal]

Yes.

[Thomas Dopas]

All right.

[Marty O'Neal]

We appreciate you guys.

[Thomas Dopas]

Appreciate you. But the reason I said I don't want to, like, go crazy and ask you all this part. We'll come back.

[Hector Bravo]

Exactly, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

Come back, dude, and we'll. Now that I know you're not gonna like, what the. You asked me. And grab my. By the shirt, you know, what I mean?

[Hector Bravo]

I'm calm, bro.

[Thomas Dopas]

You never know. Like, I brought up to a USC fire. I was like, oh, damn, dog. My bad. Wrong gang. My bad. Jesus. But, you know, I just like to. I wouldn't do it in person in public, so why would I do it on camera? So we appreciate you. Thank you for your time. This has been awesome.

[Hector Bravo]

For sure, dude. Thank you, guys.

[Thomas Dopas]

Anything else?

[Marty O'Neal]

Appreciate you, sir.

[Hector Bravo]

Thank you. Awesome.

[Thomas Dopas]

So, guys, this has been the Hector Bravo episode. Like I said, go check out everything on Amazon and YouTube from Marty. Hector and I have a dope ass day. Perfect.