From Solitary Confinement to Golden Gloves and Opera

Transcript

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The views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast host and guest and do not necessarily represent those of our distribution partners, supporting business relationships or supported audience.

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Welcome to Transacting Value, where we talk about practical applications for instigating self-worth when dealing with each other and even within ourselves, when we foster a podcast listening experience that lets you hear the power of a value system for managing burnout, establishing boundaries, fostering community and finding identity.

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My name is Josh Porthouse, I'm your host and we are redefining sovereignty of character.

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This is why values still hold value.

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This is Transacting Value.

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I was so happy I ran.

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I was waiting years, pacing like a lion in my cell, just to come out and do something good.

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Today on Transacting Value.

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What do you do when you're alone with your thoughts?

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Who do you become in your head, in your fantasy, in the real world?

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Today's conversation talks all about solitude, specifically solitary confinement, and what it's done for our newest ambassador, robert Vega Jr, in crafting his career, his identity and all of his successes despite the setbacks that have come his way.

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So, without further ado, I'm Porter, I'm your host, and this is Transacting Value.

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Robert.

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What's up, man?

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How you doing.

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Very, very good, very honored to be here with you.

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I've heard some of your prior shows and, man, you have some stellar people sharing what they bring to the table to uplift others and contribute to the world.

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Well, that's sort of the point I think you know in any relationship, whether it's with ourselves or with other people, is to try to find a point where we can recognize and maybe even instigate self-worth for other people, and without some degree of awareness or purpose or clarity in our strengths and skill sets, nothing else really seems to matter, at least in my experience.

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Is that something that you've tended to notice as well?

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Well, I mean comes a point in life that I think everybody should realize that they're worth something and can work to enhance it, develop it and use it for greater good beyond oneself.

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I know like in my situation years back, I was floating in life for a long time with no purpose and no.

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I had so much that I didn't even know I was able to do.

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I didn't even know I had talents that you know.

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I never recognized them, much less used them for a greater good.

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But you know that's part of the story there.

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Well, I mean, yeah, that's sort of part of the journey too, I suppose is everybody tends to realize more in hindsight than in the present moment, whatever their strengths are, whatever they can contribute.

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But you know what?

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Let's just start there, I think you're right.

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For everybody who's new to the show, you included anybody that may be unfamiliar with your story, you know.

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Just an abridged sort of version for right now, but take a couple minutes.

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Who are you, where are you from and what sort of things have shaped your perspective on life?

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I come from a military family.

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My grandfather was in World War II from Puerto Rico.

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He sailed in Brooklyn york after serving and um my father was born and raised in brooklyn, new york, my mother uh in el paso, texas.

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They both joined the service very young and met in spain early 70s.

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You know they fell in love and I was made in Spain and born in Maine in a naval air station so I grew up around.

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My dad was an aviation supply officer, so I grew up around aircrafts and helicopters and all that.

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It was cool.

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But I missed my dad a lot, you know, because he was a sailor overseas on aircraft carriers and serving his country yeah and as a, you don't really realize that, you know.

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So, man, I developed, you know, anger issues because I missed my dad.

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I was extremely GT as a kid, academically just very advanced.

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I was always bored in school.

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My mom worked so I buried myself in books in the library.

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I was reading novels by the first grade, oh wow, and I saw some of your podcasts.

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Like the guy that moved so many times and you know he's a military brat and I was I moved a lot so I didn't have a home.

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I lost friends and I was always that outsider, always going to all these schools from coast to coast.

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You know they didn't Corpus Christi, uh, maine and Paso, san Diego.

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My dad was in SeaTac and Alameda, you know a military child.

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So there was some family issues too that I had to deal with as a child.

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So my dad had, uh, three brothers and they all died in their 20s tragically because they stayed in the slums of new york, and one was a veteran, but my dad was the only one that made it out, did something with his life by staying in the military for 30 years, and so when I came to el paso, I was coming from san diego, the beach scene and I always had two titles.

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In grade school I was the smartest but the worst behaved because I was always bored, you know, and I guess in those times they didn't accommodate where you were academically Like.

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So when I came here I tried to get it right and, ok, I'll do good behave.

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And so I had report cards straight 100s in the seventh grade and I was like all right, I did it.

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At that age I was thinking I'm done with school.

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Like I, I didn't have the maturity to understand, to just maximize it and do something good in life.

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I just missed my dad a lot.

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Um, he had to finish off his military career, so so we came back because, you know, um, during that childhood my dad took to drinking because he missed his brothers and he didn't know how to deal with the pain.

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You know, one was tragically shot, one and murdered in brooklyn, another one died of disease, another one overdose.

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So it's like my dad to me was a pillar of strength, and when was a child I remember hearing a sobbing in the living room and he was drunk and crying.

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He missed his brothers, he didn't know how to channel that pain and so he took to drinking and my mom had a note saying you know, I'm going back home and it all passed away.

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He finished his career.

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He sobered up.

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Really yeah, he did.

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He left the alcohol.

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And I feel horrible because by the time he retired and I was here from age 12 to 17, in an era of a crazy time here which was gangsterism I was talking about 89 to mid-90s and I came here to el paso and I was the only kid in school I didn't know spanish.

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You know you had here in the lower valley and the borders, literally an eighth of a mile from where I'm at right now.

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I live right here on the border.

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You can see mexico right here, and so the local high middle school here I mean like everybody, like everybody speaks Spanish.

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The neighborhood smelled like chiles and tortillas and so everyone in school spoke Spanish.

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I was the only kid that didn't.

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There was like maybe two white kids and one black kid and they spoke fluent Spanish because they were from this neighborhood.

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So I got in fights and you know it was a strange culture, but it was drastic change from the beach scene of San Diego to you're either, in that era, a gangster rocker or a dancer or something like that, and I was a skateboarder from California.

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I was like it was weird.

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And I remember I was skating with some skater friends you know, you're talking 1989.

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And I was 12, 13.

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And the gang was there with bats and chains and we're like they saw us skaters and they were like pray, you know, like they started.

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And so I remember this was new to me, I thought I was gonna get killed.

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And so, you know, kid, you know, and and I rode my skateboard as fast as I could two miles to my grandma's house and and I ran those gangsters and it was like maybe 20 of them and they just looked like they wanted to slaughter us and I was like, oh, you know, I remember it's significant because it was, I guess, a pivotal time where, you know, a boy becomes a man sometimes.

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And so this was I was coming.

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I saw an older skater friend.

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He was like a senior in high school, I was probably seventh grade and he's like, hey, what's the matter?

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He's like all these gangsters, they're chasing us and our friends, you know, skateboarders, what, where are they?

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They're at the high school.

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And I saw his look like he did, like a look of determination I'm going to go help him.

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And he just bolted out.

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At that moment that guy became my hero and he made me feel so ashamed to be scared, like man.

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This got one dude's gonna go help them against like 20 gangsters.

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He just ran into the fire to help his friends.

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That guy became my hero and then, oh, I felt so ashamed to to be cowardly.

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I was 12, I was a kid, yeah, and I never allowed that feeling again.

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I said you know what?

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Never again.

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I wanted to feel like that.

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I felt so ashamed and I guess I started caring less and less because I missed my dad and my mom was working all the time.

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A woman can't teach a boy how to be a man.

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She tried very hard to keep me out of trouble.

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She tried very hard to do me out of trouble.

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She tried very hard to do everything a mother can, but you need a man to straighten a boy's head.

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And I made poor choices.

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I joined a gang, started drinking.

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I was an alcoholic at age 14.

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I was crossing the border into waters at age 14, dating grown women hanging out with gangsters with guns, and you know, I embraced that life and I got to a point where I didn't care if I lived or died.

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I became like a tough guy and I guess with a Puerto Rican father, mexican mother, I never really noticed that genetics kind of plays into life and music and fighting were just in the DNA.

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And so I was probably 14 when high school a little thuggish gangster already carrying guns and being drunk and high, all the drugs you can get a hold of every day.

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And I befriended a guy who was also born in Maine, by the way, which is strange.

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I've only gotten older.

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He ended up being a Marine and he has a suicide network with hundreds of thousand people right now and I can connect you to him.

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His name's Herb Anderson and he was the one at I was 14.

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He was probably 15.

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Well, when he was in a juvenile detention center, a local professor of kung fu would go and do outreach to troubled youth and she touched him and he changed his life and I was still the bag, but we were friends and he taught me kung fu and I met his mentor and that was 32 years ago when I started martial arts formally challenging Shaolin Kung Fu, and I was just always fascinated by it.

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I mean, as kids we loved Bruce Lee and all the Kung Fu flicks and I was like I always wanted to do boxing, I always wanted to do karate or something, but mom was overprotective no, no, you're going to get hurt.

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You know, it would probably have been more for me.

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It probably would have been positive for me to allow that, for me, it probably would have been positive for me to allow that, but she didn't see it at the time, which is okay.

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I mean, she tried her best, but, um, I ran the ball with it and we were practicing for hours every day at his house and I got good, I didn't have the maturity yet to know how to apply it properly.

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So there was tons of gangs around, so a lot, lot of punching bags, you know.

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So I was the crazy kid that would call out five, six gangsters.

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Hey, you know, start a fight.

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I got good enough.

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I was known to beat up groups of dudes, probably started an unofficial fight club network in high school with rousers and we were doing it in the backyards and I was a champion and no weight categories and I was a skinny, scrappy kid fighting six foot five 250 pound men and guys and it was fun, I loved it and I, you know, I.

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It got escalated, you know.

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Uh, there was a lot of craziness, um, a lot of urban warfare.

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You know, it's a little different dimension from, you know, overseas war, but like, there was still firearms and killings and shootings and moments of truth where you have a gun in your face.

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You're going to die a man or you're going to die a coward.

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Yeah, you got to make a decision Right and I faced those situations a lot of times and did things I'm not proud of, you know, but I did live it.

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Um, I guess I dared the world to kill me.

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I wouldn't have done it myself.

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I was suicidally bold, where I did a lot of crazy things that I'm not proud to say in my book, which eventually see uh, I'm sure there'll be a few of them, but I'll probably share the details.

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Long, long story short, it was wild man.

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I did all the drugs and they killed my friend at a local taco cabana restaurant and that really hit me because he had changed his life.

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He had got married, had a little girl and his gang killed him and I was like I was the one trying to die.

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Why did you kill him?

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He left him, his daughter, without a dad, and so I took it personally and had a personal vendetta against that gang and just bombarded them with shootings, beatings, all kinds of stuff.

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And you're talking, you know, over a quarter century ago.

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Years later, I was lost.

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I finally caught up with that gang at a party and I was by myself and it was probably seven or eight people and I was like, hey, you guys, who is this guy?

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, look, you feel my fear.

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I'm going to take all your asses right now.

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Say that what they hadn't heard of me, they didn't know about me and side of the matter was I was probably likely able to do it, but the guy was acting like he had a gun.

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He's like, oh what?

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He's trying to pull a gun.

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I'm like, oh, gun.

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Thought I wanted to fight.

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So I pulled out a tech knife with a 30-round clip hollow points, and talked to him and there was this girl making eyes at me.

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She held my hand and and saved their lives and probably my life, because I probably were at life stations or something and said don't do it, don't do it.

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I looked at their.

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I looked at them while they were jumping over fences, ducking under cars, running away, and I was like.

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In my mind she saved, like, but in my mind I was thinking they didn't leave my friend's daughter with her dad, shook her off and I started to believe it too.

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Thank God, we didn't kill anybody, but I didn't see nobody else around.

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They all disappeared.

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I walked to my car, drove home.

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I lived two blocks away.

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Within minutes, helicopters were going wild, police sirens were going on.

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I rolled a joint into my backyard and I knew it my mom, robert, what did you do?

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What are all these sirens going on?

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I was like just because there's sirens, why do you think it's going to be Mom's no, mom's no.

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All right, folks, sit tight and we'll be right back on Transacting Value.

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If you have a disability rating, you can apply for a rating increase.

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Learn more at vagov slash disability.

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Robert, what did you do?

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What are all these sirens going on?

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I was like, just because they're sirens, why do you think it's going on?

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Mom's no, mom's no, yeah.

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And I was like, yeah, so gang task force raids my house a month later and I go to jail.

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That time I was just sick of it.

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I was 20 years old.

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I was just sick of it.

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So I was, you know, from 14 to 20, all I did was gangbang and drink and party, and you know it was just a wild thing.

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I was tired of it.

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All the death, people dying, being killed, overdose, being in jail.

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I was just tired of it.

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I was sick of it and I was like I'm done.

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I made a decision to change my life.

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I was 20.

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So it was strange to go transitioning from from I don't give a F gangster to alright, I'm going to try to be a decent person in society.

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So I had to let go of old friends and old habits and tendencies.

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It's always like, hey, let's go find enemies, let's go get messed up.

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Instead of like that.

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I started working, going to school, had two jobs and I was floating in life.

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I didn't have a purpose.

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You know I didn't.

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I would go to church.

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It was my only hour of peace, like I always loved God, but I couldn't relate him to my life, like, look at all this, like I didn't understand at the time.

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And one day a friend got married.

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I knew him and his wife for years and we went to a wedding and he was from our gang, so there's a lot of like ogs, he would say.

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And I remember, you know, wearing the suspenders and the nice winter shoes, and we went to a wedding and we had some drinks, but nothing crazy, and we went to his mom's house no, his grandma's house to eat for a couple hours.

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And I remember a friend who had changed his life he was part of the incident.

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Hey, bud, you know Jesus, I was thinking, oh, I don't want to hear about it.

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Yeah, I know Jesus, I kept trying to tell him I didn't want to hear about it.

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I was like kind of God telling me hey, this is why I was like kind of God telling me, hey, this is what I was trying to reach out to you.

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And there it is.

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And after that I told my friend, hey, I'm tired, I'm going to take you home.

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I think he made a wife.

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You know my truck, I hear a couple blocks away from where we're at now and it was a dark street and maybe what a drunk takes his life by jumping in front of my truck.

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It turns out he was trying to do that for a while, laying down on the road waiting for a car to run him over.

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There was witnesses about this, police reports about this and a couple almost killed him because they didn't see him, thought it was part of the road and his wife screamed like hey, stop in.

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The husband and my inches didn't kill the guy.

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Pumped, whistled, yelled.

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Guy refused to move, had to back up and go around the guy.

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Right minutes later that's when I'm coming by with my friends and I guess he saw it didn't work and he waited in the dark and jumped right in the truck.

00:19:02.125 --> 00:19:04.842
I didn't stop but I didn't try to get away, I just couldn't.

00:19:04.842 --> 00:19:06.547
It was too dark to know what it was.

00:19:06.547 --> 00:19:10.525
I thought it was like a cardboard box, but I I said no, a person couldn't do that.

00:19:10.525 --> 00:19:11.666
I was just like in shock.

00:19:11.666 --> 00:19:15.954
Yeah, and that got me pretty quick because I didn't try to get away.

00:19:15.954 --> 00:19:19.500
If I was wasn't in shock, I probably would have stopped doing something.

00:19:19.500 --> 00:19:21.445
I felt horrible about it.

00:19:21.840 --> 00:19:34.049
I didn't choose for him to do that and my life flashed before my eyes and I was on probation for the shooting, an intense like gangster probation.

00:19:34.049 --> 00:19:39.048
I wasn't even supposed to be out in you know any kind of mess if you're going to prison.

00:19:39.048 --> 00:19:42.446
And so I already know I was going to prison but I knew I didn't cause an accident.

00:19:42.446 --> 00:19:52.810
And so I went to the DA and they were like ooh man, three pages rap sheet, beating up cops, shootings, carjackings.

00:19:52.810 --> 00:19:54.865
Oh, we got you, buddy.

00:19:54.865 --> 00:19:57.022
They really wanted to hang me, man.

00:19:57.022 --> 00:19:58.248
They wanted to hang me.

00:19:58.248 --> 00:20:07.884
I was like you know what, at this point in my life I'm going to sign up for anything I've done and I'll accept what I need to.

00:20:08.366 --> 00:20:10.046
But I did not cause that accident.

00:20:10.046 --> 00:20:16.345
I had a public defender that was willing to fight for it and he believed me.

00:20:16.345 --> 00:20:29.846
And I guess when I was in jail I got in a fight and they put me in solitary for a bit and my mom kind of panicked and hired a money attorney, which generally you would think you'd have more favor.

00:20:29.846 --> 00:20:41.166
But that guy ended up being snagged because he lied to my mom, lied to me for me to pay bargain it was a whole other thing and I ended up getting hit in the head with a 20-year sentence.

00:20:41.166 --> 00:20:42.150
Whoa?

00:20:42.150 --> 00:20:48.153
He said oh, I went to your friend's house and talked to him and his wife and they're not going to back you up.

00:20:48.153 --> 00:20:49.280
They're the only witnesses we have.

00:20:49.280 --> 00:20:51.486
Without them we can't win this case.

00:20:51.486 --> 00:20:59.682
He withheld the sculptural evidence because there was that couple that almost killed him, wrote a police report because they heard it in the morning.

00:20:59.682 --> 00:21:00.625
Oh, this guy died.

00:21:00.625 --> 00:21:03.583
They said, hey, they called the radio station, it wasn't that kid's fault.

00:21:03.583 --> 00:21:04.025
What do we do?

00:21:04.025 --> 00:21:04.627
Write a police report.

00:21:04.627 --> 00:21:05.351
And they did.

00:21:05.351 --> 00:21:08.082
And my lawyer never told me about that.

00:21:08.082 --> 00:21:10.325
He just wanted to take the money and go on vacation.

00:21:10.325 --> 00:21:13.290
So she did, sent me up to River Twine.

00:21:13.730 --> 00:21:22.140
So I was 22 years old and I had been in and out of jail 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 32 with a bunch of old school guys.

00:21:22.140 --> 00:21:30.088
I knew the ways of that world and I wasn't scared and I said, god, I don't understand.

00:21:30.088 --> 00:21:37.973
But I will not allow it to be said that these years were a waste of my life.

00:21:37.973 --> 00:21:43.152
Every single day I will work on self-improvement, mentally, physically, spiritually.

00:21:43.152 --> 00:21:48.829
Mentally, you know, finding good thoughts, educating myself, reading, contemplating.

00:21:48.829 --> 00:21:50.513
Physically, working out.

00:21:50.513 --> 00:21:54.232
Because you've got killers in there, rapists in there, you've got seven foot, 300 pound muscle bound monsters in there, rapists in there.

00:21:54.232 --> 00:21:57.989
You've got seven foot three hundred pound muscle bound monsters in the middle, raped in a second.

00:21:57.989 --> 00:22:00.305
And that's the reality of that existence.

00:22:00.305 --> 00:22:02.184
They've got people with licenses.

00:22:02.184 --> 00:22:03.087
They've got nothing to lose.

00:22:03.087 --> 00:22:04.124
They dare you to kill them.

00:22:04.124 --> 00:22:05.541
You have to survive.

00:22:05.541 --> 00:22:06.807
Everybody's working out.

00:22:06.807 --> 00:22:08.467
If you're not, you're fodder.

00:22:08.467 --> 00:22:10.263
Everybody's working out.

00:22:10.263 --> 00:22:11.540
You have to work out.

00:22:11.560 --> 00:22:25.622
So, physically and spiritually, praying, I I wanted to eliminate ego, hide, anything that prevented me from growing and that's been pursued over 25 years now.

00:22:25.622 --> 00:22:36.336
I had no idea how strong that would transform me and and I embraced that, which was definitely not the norm in that environment.

00:22:36.336 --> 00:22:40.666
And Texas is the worst place to do time.

00:22:40.666 --> 00:22:41.809
They enslave you.

00:22:41.809 --> 00:22:43.011
You're going to be enslaved.

00:22:43.011 --> 00:22:43.993
You're physically able to.

00:22:43.993 --> 00:22:54.842
The same Constitutional Amendment that abolished slavery, legalizes it as a full-on crime, and that was put in to still have people to work the crops which Texas embraced and that's why they built prisons.

00:22:54.842 --> 00:22:55.845
That's part of the history.

00:22:55.845 --> 00:22:59.011
They have a multi-million dollar workforce free.

00:22:59.011 --> 00:23:01.625
They own most more land than anybody in texas.

00:23:01.625 --> 00:23:08.182
So, anyways, a changed man trying to get it right, going into that environment.

00:23:08.182 --> 00:23:10.625
They treat you like the worst animal on earth.

00:23:10.625 --> 00:23:13.131
The system is just horrible.

00:23:13.811 --> 00:23:30.210
So this is kind of like the roots of why I do activism and suicide prevention intervention professionally, and also prison activism, and I'd like to be connected to those that do that because I have an insight that's very making helpful.

00:23:31.040 --> 00:23:40.291
So like I wrote an essay on the reformation of the American injustice system, if anybody was to take the time to read it it would be very beneficial.

00:23:40.291 --> 00:23:41.987
That can help these systems.

00:23:41.987 --> 00:23:43.967
But I'm listening to a little old media.

00:23:43.967 --> 00:23:48.751
You know I provide specific problems and solutions.

00:23:48.751 --> 00:23:50.826
I mean you have a captive audience.

00:23:50.826 --> 00:23:53.107
How can you not dictate their agenda?

00:23:53.107 --> 00:23:58.568
They don't care about where you have the rotation, it's all about punishment and abuse.

00:23:58.568 --> 00:24:21.103
Like first thing you do when you get to Texas Penitentiary is they shave your head and get you butt naked and you have about 30 guards come in here just yelling on top of their heads, insulting you, your mother, mother and everything like cursing at you to goad you into getting pissed off, to turn around, take a swing at them just so they can kick your ass in front of everybody and say welcome as well.

00:24:21.123 --> 00:24:23.268
Is that how you want to teach people how to behave?

00:24:23.268 --> 00:24:25.500
Is that getting off on the right foot?

00:24:25.500 --> 00:24:34.515
No, there is nothing in the system to determine true disposition of a person.

00:24:34.515 --> 00:24:43.810
You have all these doctors, you have all these psychologists, you have all these trying to stuff pills down people's faces to fuel pharmaceutical coffers.

00:24:43.810 --> 00:24:50.669
There's no good intention in any of it and there are people that are trying to.

00:24:50.669 --> 00:24:53.608
There are people that maybe made a mistake.

00:24:53.608 --> 00:25:00.086
Some are innocent, some are not, but they're not the same person and all they ask is for another chance to get it right.

00:25:00.086 --> 00:25:01.349
And I was one of them.

00:25:01.349 --> 00:25:05.156
Like I did not allow them to corrupt me Because a lot.

00:25:05.156 --> 00:25:07.107
Most people are like why do I even try for it?

00:25:07.107 --> 00:25:09.801
I'm trying to get it and they still treat me like this or they get worse.

00:25:09.801 --> 00:25:12.185
It's positive abuse.

00:25:12.185 --> 00:25:16.193
They humiliate you, they starve you, they even beat you.

00:25:16.193 --> 00:25:23.366
I've been beaten by guards horribly and it's easy to go on another tangent.

00:25:23.366 --> 00:25:29.226
So most in prison are angry, bitter, hateful and you can't blame them?

00:25:29.740 --> 00:25:33.411
Yeah, but you don't strike me as that now, not at all Not at all.

00:25:34.720 --> 00:25:37.201
I refuse to allow that to happen to me because I prayed and I would just already.

00:25:37.201 --> 00:25:42.185
I refuse to allow them to corrupt the good in me, like I had that good and I was just.

00:25:42.185 --> 00:25:50.781
That's a testament to prayer and prayer life and just you know sheer grit to not allow them to corrupt that light in me.

00:25:51.142 --> 00:25:53.765
Well, yeah, but you've turned it into all sorts of things now.

00:25:53.765 --> 00:25:59.249
I mean you sing, you coach, you train, you still work out, you teach.

00:25:59.249 --> 00:26:01.230
How do you go from one?

00:26:01.230 --> 00:26:06.694
Don't get me wrong 20 years changes people in the best of circumstances.

00:26:06.694 --> 00:26:17.871
But to then say I think I can be the catalyst for change is a very big leap when you're digging yourself back up at the same time.

00:26:18.480 --> 00:26:19.565
Yes, it's huge.

00:26:19.565 --> 00:26:29.630
So I realized that, hey, whatever time I had to do there, I was there for a reason and I realized, hey, this is part of God's vineyard too.

00:26:29.630 --> 00:26:34.470
If I'm supposed to be a light in this darkness and that's what I'll be it was not the norm.

00:26:34.470 --> 00:26:41.519
I lifted people up, I encouraged people and, being a martial artist, I taught people how to defend themselves.

00:26:41.519 --> 00:26:47.949
Because you have entities in there In Texas, like you have entities that are like countries in the world and you have ambassadors.

00:26:47.949 --> 00:26:48.601
I mean in prison.

00:26:48.601 --> 00:26:51.026
You have every profession in the world.

00:26:51.026 --> 00:26:55.493
You have legitimate lawyers, doctors, engineers, army captains.

00:26:55.493 --> 00:26:56.928
You have everybody in there.

00:26:56.928 --> 00:27:06.234
So these entities have like even ambassadors and armistices, like legal documents signed between these entities and stuff.

00:27:06.234 --> 00:27:18.709
And so El Paso and Juarez is in the same valley and it's always been one thing, so that's an entity in there, and I shared my knowledge in martial arts to empower people.

00:27:18.709 --> 00:27:24.430
I was like, look, dude, I'm gonna teach you how to survive because, you never know, you guys have knives, I'm gonna rape you.

00:27:24.430 --> 00:27:25.412
I was doing that.

00:27:25.412 --> 00:27:32.521
So I guess for that reason they threw me in solitary confinement after three years in population risk.

00:27:32.942 --> 00:27:36.192
I was in a major penitentiary and I wanted to get out.

00:27:36.192 --> 00:27:40.592
I was young and I had brains, but I never really used it or applied it.

00:27:40.592 --> 00:27:45.192
So I did an exam and I aced it and they put me to prison.

00:27:45.192 --> 00:27:57.599
They had college credits in prison and I worked hard and the faculty or the guards, knowing that you had a lot to to lose, would go out of their way to make your life miserable.

00:27:57.599 --> 00:27:59.064
They were evil.

00:27:59.064 --> 00:28:02.079
They were somewhat evil Not everybody's hard to categorize, you know.

00:28:02.119 --> 00:28:04.424
Usually it was the veterans that were hey, you know what?

00:28:04.424 --> 00:28:08.933
This is my job, I get to go home, I know you stay here, so respect me, I respect you.

00:28:08.933 --> 00:28:19.433
But it was those youngsters that maybe were bullied on in school or didn't have the aptitude to make it to the police academy or something.

00:28:19.433 --> 00:28:24.569
So they're there is really taking it out on on the inmates and that is totally encouraged.

00:28:24.569 --> 00:28:27.560
They go out of their way to really make their life miserable.

00:28:27.560 --> 00:28:31.465
Well, and this is evil and you have to swallow so much.

00:28:31.465 --> 00:28:33.648
Because I just wanted to go home.

00:28:33.648 --> 00:28:37.674
I didn't want any problems, I wanted to go to college, I just wanted to do right.

00:28:37.674 --> 00:28:44.007
And man, it was so tempting to try to teach someone a lesson when I just wanted to go home.

00:28:45.532 --> 00:28:48.060
All right, folks sit tight, we'll be right back on Transacting Value.

00:28:48.060 --> 00:29:05.103
Join us for Transacting Value, where we discuss practical applications of personal values, every Monday at 9 am on our website, transactingvaluepodcastcom, wednesdays at 5 pm and Sundays at noon on reedsacrossamericaorg slash radio.

00:29:07.651 --> 00:29:10.680
Man, it was so tempting to try to teach someone a lesson.

00:29:10.680 --> 00:29:14.675
I just want to go home, you know, I just want to go home and get it right.

00:29:14.675 --> 00:29:18.778
I did not want to get in fights, I didn't want any problems, you know.

00:29:18.778 --> 00:29:20.817
But sometimes you have to do what you got to do.

00:29:20.817 --> 00:29:26.352
And there's a story I'll tell you sometime about Rambo, the real-life Rambo man.

00:29:26.352 --> 00:29:28.632
That's another story I have to tell you about.

00:29:28.652 --> 00:29:31.559
Maybe 30, 34 years in prison innocence.

00:29:31.559 --> 00:29:33.031
Oh wow, 31 years.

00:29:33.031 --> 00:29:37.179
31 years in the whole Army veteran served his country honorably.

00:29:37.179 --> 00:29:39.076
His brother did an armed robbery.

00:29:39.076 --> 00:29:42.840
He looked like his brother, so they got him and he didn't write his brother out.

00:29:42.840 --> 00:29:48.771
His brother didn't have the balls to be Frank to say, hey, he didn't do it, it was me.

00:29:48.771 --> 00:29:59.356
He let him rot in prison for 34 years and he was in the Army during the Vietnam era where you know, it was like the movie Ravel You're trained to survive, you're sharpening your knife to sleep in one eye open.

00:29:59.356 --> 00:30:01.435
He was like that, so little bitty dude.

00:30:01.435 --> 00:30:08.675
But I heard about him even before I ever met him and he became one of my best friends and he became one of my best friends and so there's a story.

00:30:08.695 --> 00:30:10.578
There's a story how he got to solitary.

00:30:10.578 --> 00:30:22.339
Because you know, you're in a day room and they're watching a movie and this 300 pound giant starts changing the channel because he's so damn big nobody could do anything.

00:30:22.339 --> 00:30:32.519
So everybody left like the whole 20 people that rambled, stayed there, just waited for him to sit down and then he unplugged at the end I was watching it and he punked that guy out in front of everybody and that guy didn't know what the hell to do Little badger, you know.

00:30:32.519 --> 00:30:35.579
And so he sent some guys to try to kill him in his sleep.

00:30:35.579 --> 00:30:38.419
Three guys with shanks and Rambo took him out.

00:30:38.419 --> 00:30:52.897
Like he took him out in three days, and because you either have a choice to die or protect yourself one or the other, he chose to protect himself and he got more time on top of his time, and that's he had such a big chance.

00:30:52.897 --> 00:30:59.955
He had got cancer and that's why they gave him a mercy parole, because the state don't want meditation.

00:31:00.938 --> 00:31:12.155
So he got out on easter sunday 2020 and this guy, when I met him, because, um, they put me in solitary, they just handcuffed me out the blue and just, hey, you're going to solitary.

00:31:12.155 --> 00:31:12.436
What?

00:31:12.436 --> 00:31:13.855
I haven't done anything?

00:31:13.855 --> 00:31:15.594
No, you're teaching these guys how to fight.

00:31:15.594 --> 00:31:16.818
You're going to beat up our guards?

00:31:16.818 --> 00:31:17.936
I don't know.

00:31:17.936 --> 00:31:19.713
It's not going to beat up your guards.

00:31:19.713 --> 00:31:24.115
They just found a way to get me out of population and open up a bed to put someone else in.

00:31:24.115 --> 00:31:31.691
They did that.

00:31:31.691 --> 00:31:32.192
It's just so corrupt.

00:31:32.211 --> 00:31:33.414
So I ended up in solitary for almost six years.

00:31:33.414 --> 00:31:33.655
And who did?

00:31:33.655 --> 00:31:36.544
I end up being the neighbor to rambo next door and he ended up being one of my best friends.

00:31:36.544 --> 00:31:41.871
When I first got there, he was the most angry, the bitterest, cantankerous yosemite sam badger that you'd ever know.

00:31:41.871 --> 00:31:49.284
And man, I mean, we had 22 cells, four tiers tears, 88 people.

00:31:50.569 --> 00:31:54.653
Something like Rambo was solitary for 31 years and that's inhumane.

00:31:54.653 --> 00:31:56.134
You got people.

00:31:56.134 --> 00:31:58.558
They pull bodies out every week.

00:31:58.558 --> 00:32:02.305
Every week there's a body that, oh, another one Felt like how can it be worse?

00:32:02.305 --> 00:32:04.417
And it was an existence there.

00:32:05.432 --> 00:32:09.616
And I talked to Rambo through love and patience and prayer.

00:32:09.616 --> 00:32:18.182
So after a few years he became a praying man and he finally said he hadn't had in decades.

00:32:18.182 --> 00:32:21.638
And right now he's in Alaska.

00:32:21.638 --> 00:32:25.772
They gave him permission to go there with his sister who has a business and man.

00:32:25.772 --> 00:32:26.736
He brings me to tears.

00:32:26.736 --> 00:32:29.875
His faith and prayer, like his change, his transformation.

00:32:29.875 --> 00:32:33.336
He's an inspiration to me and I love him very much.

00:32:33.336 --> 00:32:35.116
Is he in remission now?

00:32:35.116 --> 00:32:37.416
He's in stage four cancer.

00:32:37.416 --> 00:32:42.141
Va is taking care of him as best as he can because he's a veteran.

00:32:42.141 --> 00:32:45.814
So the VA is taking care of him and he's getting better care Because in prison they want you to die.

00:32:46.276 --> 00:32:46.919
They'll let you die.

00:32:46.919 --> 00:32:49.734
I have a nice story about charlie brown and this would be another time.

00:32:49.734 --> 00:32:56.064
But charlie brown died at 32 because they didn't want to do a blood test, because all he knew was a blood test and he would have lived.

00:32:56.064 --> 00:32:58.010
They wanted you to die, so he died at 32.

00:32:58.010 --> 00:32:58.992
That's another story.

00:32:58.992 --> 00:33:00.938
Wow, that was the reality.

00:33:00.938 --> 00:33:04.211
I mean, in solitary they wouldn't bathe you for months.

00:33:04.211 --> 00:33:06.196
You're always starving.

00:33:06.196 --> 00:33:09.365
They gave you a little bit of food at 3.30 in the morning.

00:33:09.365 --> 00:33:22.175
So I still wake up at 3.30 in the morning, hungry, because that's when they gave you breakfast and it was like a little kindergarten milk with a burnt egg and a little serving of fruit cocktail and a slab of oatmeal Just enough to keep you alive, man.

00:33:22.175 --> 00:33:23.415
And then you're starving.

00:33:23.415 --> 00:33:27.195
And so by 9.30 was lunch and the food smelled so bad.

00:33:29.650 --> 00:33:41.061
You don't want to smell it or look at it, but you hold your nose and scarf it down because it's all the substance yeah, yeah, yeah, dinner's at 3 30 and they own probably the biggest pig farms in el paso, but they'll never do bacon.

00:33:41.061 --> 00:33:45.884
They just put all the pig in the grinder and links yeah, hot links, sausage steam links.

00:33:45.884 --> 00:33:47.771
It looked like something that kind of.

00:33:47.771 --> 00:33:48.394
It was horrible.

00:33:48.394 --> 00:33:49.117
It smelled bad.

00:33:49.117 --> 00:33:50.290