Rudy (87:42)
And you know, listen to Billy. It always helps me reflect too. And you know what, we're a lot alike in this way. For the things that we were missing in our childhood and the things that we desired to get out of our environment. It shaped me. Poor family and a bastard son. So I, you know, I never really had a family and I didn't know for my first seven, maybe eight years that I was somebody else as boy. And I come from a Mexican American family, a Catholic family and I'm 53 down in the border. It's almost the culture is a hundred years in the past. So I was always beaten up and picked on by my cousins and my mom was always humiliated by the family. I didn't know, I didn't understand the dynamic. It's because she had me and my biological father was a marine and I guess a great Marine, two tours in Vietnam. He was a horseman, he was a boxer. I guess he had an amazing personality. I get some of his personality. But after a second tour in Vietnam he was not the same. And I believe he got on heroin out there and he was really never heard from it again. And he was put away medication and never Had a job again. And that family is a Spanish family from Mexico. I found them later when I became successful. I thought, I want to find out where I'm from. And my cousin is the district attorney of Austin. I have a little sister who's a doctor. My uncle is a professor at um, of both Latin and European studies and leads tours in Italy. Very high vibration people. But they were not happy to see me. They met me once, maybe because they see it as a shame or whatever. And also they hate the Marine Corps and hate the military because they believe it took their son away. Needless to say, my military is my real family. Even my other units, I mean, we had to get together yesterday. We had some Marines. We. We got freaking SAS, the Green Berets, the SEALs. All the brothers get together. It's the same family because it's the same culture. We care about each other, and we have been through a selection that we all know who's who in the zoo. You never have to trust that that man to the left, the right can handle their sector. And if you go down, they can take over, over the mission. It's an incredible sense of security, knowing you're with the best guys in the world. My Mexican family was poor, so it was gangs, drugs, prison, domestic abuse. So I rebelled and was a good boy. I rebelled and followed the rules, stayed in school, which was very hard because I went to many different schools, because I was shuffled around different families. Foster care, and then ultimately the Omaha Home for Boys. My brothers and I have two little brothers. We were very sick by then. We had worms. I had ringworm really bad, I guess because my immune system was so down, and hepatitis. I had to be hospitalized. And all my teeth had rotten so bad that I might have lost an eye because the rod had got back there. However, the fighting spirit of the human being is incredible. I was still working out. It's not like I had coaches or trainers or anything, anything. But I saw whatever freaking John Rambo was doing, whatever Rocky Balboa was doing. I was out at the park doing push ups and pull ups, and I just wanted to be a real man, you know. I excelled in sport in the boys home. The dean of boys was also an orphan. Grew up there since five. And then he got his education and he's my wrestling coach. And he was also. He did clown. Clown work, like for the Short Shriners. And we would go to elderly homes. Man, I got such education there, really. We'd go to elderly homes and do clown work and spend time with the elderly. I Learned by following the rules, training really hard and exceeding standards. I got more privileges. I graduated high school. I got an art scholarship because I used to paint and draw. But I could not take my little brothers with me. I opted out of school to then adopt my brothers at 18 because they were 16 and 15. We went to work and washing dishes and working in restaurants and then construction. And then I started doing martial art. I have always loved to do physical training because it makes me happy. The ethos of that childhood and of martial art is what led me to the military. I never thought about actually pulling triggers and dropping bombs. There was a war in Kosovo and there was ethnic cleansing and there was a lot of suffering there. And America was going to bring troops. That's why I joined. I didn't know what, what I was going to do. So I joined the Marine Corps as an infantryman to just do my part. I excelled so fast and did so well. And by the way, it's really hard. You fail at everything. You're always punished. You have none of your time is your own. You don't even look your own. Your hair's got to be a certain way. Your uniform's got to be a certain way. You are a nobody, which actually builds character. I make it through selection 300,000 Marines. There's only 300 billets for recon Marines. There was no money in the 90s. We were not part of SOCOM then. So the standards were so high because they only got 300 billets around the world. When I went through my selection, we have captains, infantry commanders, we've got staff sergeants who are already scout snipers and Rangers and had trigger time in Somalia, drill instructors, seasoned guys. And I'm just same as you know now, Mr. Smiling, happy to be there. And it was really hard. I didn't know proper soldiering yet. I was learning on the job. But I made it after a year long of selection. And then I started going to schools and started making a reputation in my little team. Nothing's given to you in the military. It's all earned. And I was in the Persian Gulf on a ship as a point man, junior guy on a five man team. My teammates are already Somalia veterans, Haiti veterans, scout snipers, Rangers. And the towers were hit and boom. That's when the world changed for this global war on terror. And the sirens were going off. Seemed like 20 minutes I was listening to it, but it was probably only one second. And we're called to our birthing, we're getting crypto for our radios, we're getting explosives, we're getting spins for our arrows because we're about to get in the helicopter, getting ourselves together, and it was just a. It was just a roller coaster, and I'm doing the job. 70 kilometer movements, Billy. Oh, I'd never driven a Humvee before. You know, we. We're cool guys. We always freaking jump from the sky or freaking dive and, you know, no, I've got to drive a Humvee in bad guy country and then dig it in before the sun comes up. So then we patrol, rucked up with our big rocks and bergens full of communications, communication equipment, optics, laser designators, and then weapons. And then hide in the mountain. And when the bad guys are coming through, hit them with the lasers, call in the close air support, shoot them with our weapons. I did my duty. It was almost a blur because I was so busy. Billy, do you remember in the old days before GPS was everything, when you had to coordinate, navigate. Yeah. And you had to navigate and coordinate with other units in zone. And then with arrows, the arrow air officers. And it was mgrs map with overlays, acetates. Because of my artistry, brother, I was always in charge of doing the overlays because they look so sharp and the marginal information. All of our work is attention to detail. It's not genius work. It's attention to detail. Come back from that. Very excited to be alive. In those old days, we never knew when we were coming home because they were expeditionary times. And shortly after being. Being home, long before you civilians knew, we knew we were going to Iraq. So we were already preparing for Iraq, and we went to Iraq. We went to Kuwait about three or four months prior, training and then doing probing missions on the. On the berm, you know, where we were going to make the breach. And then it was on. I mean, what that Iraq invasion. It was. It was us, it was Brits, it was everybody. And we hit a City in 9 Nazaria. I think my unit had 100 men altogether, and that's to include mechanics, fuel techs, everybody admin. We only had 60 fighters. And when we got to Nazaria, the infantry was being bogged down and getting hit and getting freaking tore up. Do you remember those early days, Billy? Those really early days? There was those beautiful winds and it was kind of cool and it was kind of raining those first few days, and it was like Vietnam because we're on the river, the palm trees, and it's kind of raining, and the freaking Cobras are freaking firing hellfires. And it's getting on. We're fighting too. And on the radio, they're going to chop away all the team leaders because they're paramedics. When you become a team leader, we got to go to paramedic medic school. And we've all done combat medic school, but paramedics, the higher level. And then our high end medics go to a battlefield surgery school, which is a one year program that condenses four, four years of medical school. We're gonna split up our teams. We're only five men. We're gonna split up teams into two or three to go rescue the guys. I am actually really scared because my team leader is my hero and I feel a little embarrassed that I. Because I know they're gonna die. Teams of two. Oh, no armor. In those days, we were just driving humvees that look like jeeps going out on a holiday to Malibu. Like there's no roots, there's no armor, there's no nothing. Just big, big guns. And I was embarrassed that I was scared because he's gonna die and I'm scared. How am I gonna handle this team? We've only just begun this invasion. And I'm, I'm scared because I'm a little bit. Think maybe I'm a coward. And so I said, man, Sean, this is. I'm going with you. And he says to me, and he's country as hell, Rudy, shut the upper. Go, Prudy. Are you a professional? And I was like, that's all I needed to hear. Because the mission has to continue. We chop our way through. General Mattis says, you know what? Recon, lead the way. And that's what we did. Chopped our way all the way to Baghdad to crit back and somebody wrote a book. I was still in the Marine Corps. We all came back from that invasion. I'm an instructor now. And now I'm starting to have a little time with my, my family. A little town we'd never heard of called Fallujah is popping off and Ramadi's popping off the SUNY triangle. And they called me back and it was bloody, it was heavy. I mean, one day I'll tell you all about that. But roadside bombs, suicide bombers, suicide truck bombs, and. And we had to fight. And I really, really got a lot of experience. Experience. But it's also. That was by then my second enlistment. We were standing up marsoc, so recon was now turning into Special Operations Command because we were so effective for so little money. Reminds me of early SAS, like for no money in World War II, no money, no whatever. They made it happen. I turned them down. I was mentally burned out, I think from fighting and everything. All of it, all of it was burned down. And I got out, became a boxing and kickboxing coach, making a little money, doing seven, eight hours a day, seven days a week because we're used to working all the time. Didn't talk to my wife anymore. Still couldn't sleep. Started drinking. Never drank in my life. Started drinking at 36. Go to sleep. And then I got saved by entertainment. HBO calls and says, we're making a miniseries about your invasion generation. Kill. We want you to teach and train the actors, bring production onto Camp pen, have a dog and pony, show them what you do. We're doing shoot houses, sniper work. We got freaking jumpers coming in. We're doing water survival, we're doing hand to hand. All these freaking producer peoples are like, this is freaking savage, you know, Rudy, we want you to come to Africa to teach and train. I did. They couldn't find anybody to play me because you have to be fab one. Yeah. You have to be fabulous. You have to be Latino. This is their words, not mine. Fabulous Latino.
