Latest / Military Broadcast Radio | MBR Talk / Trench Talk Navy Veteran Julian Richards

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Trench Talk Navy Veteran Julian Richards · Military Broadcast Radio | MBR Talk

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  This entire military is 1 cohesive dedicated force and the
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  threats to our nations, they don't sleep.
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  They're watching our every move. Iran, Russia, China, North
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  Korea, ISIS, Al Qaeda, they may be watching this right now.
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  Our military should not be mistaken for our cable news
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  gadfest show. We don't care what you look
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  like. You don't care who you voted
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  for, who you worship, what you worship, who you love.
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  We have been honed into a machine of lethal moving parts
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  that you would be wise to avoid if you know what's good for you.
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  We will not be intimidated. We will not back down.
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  We don't want war. But if you want war in the
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  United States of America, there's one thing I can promise
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  you. So help me God, someone else
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  will raise your sons and daughters.
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  Opinions expressed in this program are those of the
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  speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions
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  of any entities they represent. Find us on the web at MB Radio
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  dot US. You are now.
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  All right, all right, Good evening and welcome to another
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  episode of Trench Talk. I'm your.
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  You can't hear me. Can you hear me?
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  Can you hear me? OK, Thank you.
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  Thank you. All right, good afternoon.
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  Work to another episode of Trench Talk.
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  This is for Rondozier, retired Army star in first class.
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  This is for Rondozier, retired Army star in first class.
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  Welcome you to another episode of Trench Talk here on MBR
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  platform. I want to say thank you for
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  tuning and listening in today. Always have a very important and
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  spectacular show for you here on the Military broadcast Radio
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  network. Make sure you go to the website
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  MBR radio dot US. Also you can download the app.
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  This station is giving veterans a voice like myself, although
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  I'm not new at this broadcasting world, but for some of us like
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  myself, I found my voice in in Internet radio back in 2009.
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  It literally didn't miss my depression and anxiety.
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  That blog talk show kept me alive because I was living into
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  those episodes at the same time thinking my life was over for my
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  experience of sickle cell trade exertion with rhabdomyolysis,
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  which ended my career. However, this platform became a
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  passion because I found that it's not just about sickle cell
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  trade or sports, but that others could come here and share their
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  stories and share their experiences.
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  And what that did for me is created this space that I could
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  stay connected to my veteran community.
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  One thing that we miss as veterans is that camaraderie.
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  And so we know that that importance of that sense of
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  belonging is, is so important, but not just for veterans.
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  We look at, we see that in athletes, we said it in, in
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  police officers, in, in sororities, fraternities, but
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  also in families. That sense of belonging is
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  something that is so important to us.
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  And sometimes there's fractures in it and that we feel
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  disconnected from our families and our loved ones and friends.
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  And what is that? Sometimes we're just dealing
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  with something inside, right? And so being able to find that
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  what's next for me was, was radio.
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  And, and this is how I get to be in front of you.
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  I have a very important guest for you today.
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  As you know that I do my shows 99% organic.
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  And so I, I don't really do research on my guest because I
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  want to be authentic and surprised.
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  And some of the conversations that I hear, well, as we're, you
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  know, designing and creating this conversation, but I can't
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  tell you, he called me before the show and he was like, this
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  is Bishop. I was like, who is this?
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  So I got a sneak peek and and that just added another
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  dimension of this conversation that I want to go in.
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  So I'm sure it was going to come out anyway.
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  But like I said, 99% of my conversations are organic.
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  And so I was very excited to hear that that that title of of
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  his background. So we're going to get into that.
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  I'm going to play some PSA's for you real quick.
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  And then we're going to come back and jump right into this
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  episode for trench talk, the frondose show right here on MBR,
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  all their platforms. If you want to go to TikTok,
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  Facebook, YouTube, Twitch X Roku TV, yes, we're live on Roku TV
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  right now as well. So you can go to any of those
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  platforms to catch the show and on your device as well again.
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  So I thank you for tuning this in so far.
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  This is the front dosa show AKA trench talk.
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  Some of us still carry the burden of battle.
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  It threatens to drown us in our everyday lives.
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  In battle, we had our weapons and combat gear to keep us safe,
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  to keep us confident, but when we returned home, we were not
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  armed with weapons and gear to cope with our own minds.
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  I was lucky to find my combat gear, my mental weapon and it's
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  called Kamago. Kamago is a drug free device
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  that allows you to achieve calm in less than 3 minutes and
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  moments of anxiety, stress, anger, panic or insomnia.
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  Not with medication, but rather by activating the
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  parasympathetic nervous system through a breathing regulation
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  and multi sensory stimulation. A recent study has shown that
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  Comago decreases PTSD and anxiety levels in Veterans,
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  helping those who are suffering and having a long lasting
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  effect. Visit comago.com to learn how
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  you can get Comago through the VA or with a special Veterans
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  discount code. Hey Mister man, how you doing?
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  I'm. Blessed my brother.
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  I'm good, man, I'm good. Hey, did you see the game last
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  night? I was your.
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  Game. But did you see the shot?
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  I lost money from that shot. Oh, man.
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  That shot was old man, but it was good.
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  Yeah. What's the name?
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  You really want to know. I do.
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  Exhaustion, muscle spasm, Asthmatic issues, unexpected
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  sickle cell trait Triton. Are.
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  You serious? When I was young I found out I
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  had sickle cell trait. My mom's told me but.
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  I didn't have no knowledge of it, but when I got older I had a
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  child and the doctor told me my daughter had sickle cell trait.
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  Do you know the fact that both parents have sickle cell trait?
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  There's a 50% chance the child may have the trait and 25%
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  chance the child may have the disease.
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  And that's what's the count. Do you know that 225,000,000
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  people in the United States have sickle cell trait?
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  300 million people globally. I didn't find out I had sickle
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  cell trait until I was in the army 10 years.
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  Next thing you know, I had a sickle cell trait exertion site.
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  Simple. Cell I.
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  Thought that was a black gene. Or something.
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  Nah man, the black community is number 21 out of 36,000.
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  Babies are being born with sickle cell disease.
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  You could be a Caucasian Mediterranean European.
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  You got to read a bloodline, man.
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  There is an inherited gene in our community that has been
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  forgotten. The name is Sickle Cell trait.
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  WDCONSCT, also known as What's the Count, is out to bring
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  awareness, education and prevention to people all over
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  the globe. Want more information?
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  Call us now at 323-215-5384 or visit WWW dot WDCON sct.org.
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  All right, welcome back to again another episode of Trench Talk
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  Frondosier show right here on MBR.
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  All right, so I hope you're ready and excited to have this
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  conversation and to hear about this conversation.
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  Ladies and gentlemen, again, I was introducing him by Lisa
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  Cooks and she just said, hey, I got someone for you to
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  interview. And we have been in
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  communication the last couple of weeks now.
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  And of course, I got to acknowledge California, Los
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  Angeles with these fires, these winds out here in the Inland
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  Empire. We were going to do this last
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  week. However, the winds were blazing
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  last week, as you know. And so we always stand in a gap
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  for those who have lost their homes and families and friends.
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  And so, you know, this week I almost pulled the plug because
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  it was windy again. But you know, sometimes you can
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  when you when you pray and ask God, hey, you could talk to the
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  winds, right? You can actually speak to those
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  winds. And so I spoke to the winds
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  like, hey, come on, man, give me a break.
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  What you got you got going on today?
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  So here we are. No, no, no issues for the
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  Internet. So we just going to get right
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  into our episode today with our special guests.
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  How you doing, Sir? Everything is well, how about
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  yourself? I'm great, I'm great.
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  Thank you for hanging out today. Absolutely.
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  I'm here. I'm locked.
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  In ready all right all right again, thank you for for taking
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  time out today. As you've heard I'm I'm very
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  excited to have you here to just share your life before, during
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  and after the military service. And so if you could do me a
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  favor and just introduce yourself and we'll get started.
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  Absolutely. Greetings everyone.
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  My name is Julian Richards, as I shared earlier in some circles
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  is Bishop Rich, and there's a lot to that title and a lot to
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  that name. Originally I hailed from Los
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  Angeles, CA, so all my family to my knowledge is safe because of
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  the fires, little little smoke damage and things like that.
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  But that's pretty much it, you know, getting on up there,
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  getting a little long in the tooth, but God good to me.
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  Thank you. Thank you opportunity for you to
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  give me a platform to be able to express things that I've been
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  through also. And I thank you for that in
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  advance. Appreciate you again.
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  Thank you so much. I'm from LA as well, so give me
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  some background. Who's Julian growing up as a
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  young child? Ah man, ah well, just a tad bit.
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  Just a plug for my book. I wrote a book and it was called
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  Just Julian. OK.
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  In that book, I detailed my upgrade, bringing in South
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  Central LA when I graduated from high school, I was at the age of
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  17. I joined the Navy right out of
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  high school, graduated June, and I was marching in San Diego in
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  July. Wow.
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  Wow. Yeah, Class of 87, Julian was, I
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  used to sell candy and that exposed me to the different
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  neighborhoods, the Westwoods, the Beverly Hills, the Santa
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  Monica's. Those were coming from South
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  Central. Those were the affluent
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  neighborhoods. And so I knew even though I saw
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  drugs and gang members and not until I got outside of my
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  community, I was like, man, if you work hard, you bust your
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  tail, you know that different things to be available for you.
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  So I was always a dreamer. And.
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  This dream and talk to God I had an aunt that was the leader of
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  our family and my aunt used to take me to church with her.
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  So I had conversations with God growing up like protect me.
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  Everybody in my neighborhood said don't join the military,
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  don't go, don't go. But I was determined at a young
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  age. And so that's the young me when
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  I was in June, I. Hold on, hold on.
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  Let's go back, let's go back, let's go back.
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  We talked, you meant, you said some key points there.
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  So I don't want to just glaze over that.
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  Of course, you know, people have their perceptions of LA and when
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  they think about LA, they think about all, like you mentioned
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  the crime, the gangsters and all that.
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  How did you know growing up in school in your school ages, like
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  how did you maintain or manage that or stay away from that?
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  Like what was going on in that part of LA that you grew up in?
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  Well, I like to believe it was like my best friend, my best
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  friends, you know, we, we came up with a clique.
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  It wasn't a gang set, but a clique, you know, a bunch of
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  boys that like playing Domino's, like playing spades and tonk and
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  stuff like that. And so, yeah, you ain't heard
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  that word in a long time. But yeah, that's what we used to
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  play. And so we got a pass on our
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  neighborhood, you know, from the the foolishness that they were
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  doing. And but we knew everybody and
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  everybody grew up, so we all knew we was from the same
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  neighborhood. And I just had this burning
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  desire inside of me to thrive at school.
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  I went to school and got perfect attendance and didn't have to
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  go. I, you know, my mom, my dad, we
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  had a lot of substance abuse in my family, but I was determined
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  real quick. I can remember going to school
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  and my neighbor putting a towel around me and, you know, because
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  my school, my pants were so wrinkled.
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  And she said they let you out the house like that, baby, I'm
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  going to teach you how to iron. And she can iron my pants.
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  And, you know, but I was just that determined to go to school.
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  And that's the young Julian. Can we go to the mother father
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  conversation? Because that's something that
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  definitely so. OK, perfect.
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  So I have this conversation that I wrote some inspirational reads
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  called Life of a Right. And so in my work that I've done
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  in my life, I've discovered 10 strongholds.
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  I can relate to the Bible with those strongholds experiences
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  that I experienced as a child that kind of really shaped my
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  perception of who I was as a person.
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  And, and so the life of a 5 year old is the story of where I
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  made-up a story about my dad, where I thought my dad didn't
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  love me at 5:00. So let's talk about that part.
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  What was your relationship from you to your dad as at that young
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  age and what you experienced? If you could share some.
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  Of that, yeah, great question. My my dad.
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  So at the end of his life, he died with the drug overdose, But
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  he wasn't a everyday junkie, if that makes sense.
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  He wasn't, but he he sampled and did things all my life, But he
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  was my hero. He was now he had a lot of
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  qualities and a lot of traits that I've learned that is
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  learned behavior. That's what I saw how I treat
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  women, how I used to talk to women and but he was my guy and
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  you know, and at the end of the day, you can't choose your
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  parents, right. So and he was a Navy man and by
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  him being a Navy man, I think first psychology on me because
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  you will never make it in the Navy.
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  You you talk back too much. I showed him.
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  That's cool, you know it did. Did his Navy experience
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  influence you or was that something that you chose on
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  your? Own because I would hear the
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  stories of going to the different places and you look at
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  it on a globe back then you like, wow, that's far.
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  He traveled and he went world and so I had that I had
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  opportunity to join all the branches after I took my ASVAB
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  test and but that it was something tugging at me saying
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  the Navy. Now the story that I write in my
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  book, I couldn't swim to save my life, but it was a but God
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  moment that got me to have a successful career in the
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  military and it almost didn't be.
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  I almost didn't make it. Yeah, I they was like, we're
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  going to process you out if you know how to swim, man.
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  I went to bed with Jesus, that in my house, in my bunk,
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  everybody out and doing what we do after night, writing letters
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  and hanging out, and I was in my bunk crying out to God.
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  And I was saying. I can't go back to South
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  centralizing failure. They can swim while I can't
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  swim, I mean. And so Jesus allowed me to
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  conquer my fear, and I swam like a Fishman.
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  That's good. That's good.
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  Thank you. Yes, Sir.
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  If, if, if there's a song, the first song that comes to mind
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  reminds you of your pops. If there's a song that the first
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  song that comes to mind that you would when you hear on the radio
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  or something that said, oh, that's my dad right there.
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  Well, you know, my dad, he liked it hip hop before I did.
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  And so he would come along and say, what's this song?
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  Right. And I like and when I hear it's
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  two and this is weird. Nobody may notice the bat
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  around. I don't know if you.
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  Heard. Oh yeah, of course I.
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  Like that one, but and then like every now and then when I'm
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  going through something, I hear Monica, I love you just because
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  that's my daddy. Me and him one day rolling.
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  I'm a new driver. We was rolling and it was
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  banging on the radio and both had our tall cans in the in the
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  car driving dirt. Right.
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  And when I hear that song, I just go back to me, him and
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  Monica and I, I have to take a pause for the 'cause sometime
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  I'm better, but that was me and him.
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  Thank you, thank you. I, I believe that we all have a
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  soundtrack to life, right? And so when those songs come on,
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  you know, it takes us to those good, bad and different moments
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  of our life, right? So I appreciate you for sharing
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  that. I want to ask you now about your
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  mom. Like what was Mom's like?
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  Yeah, well, Mom is still here. Mom is still in the land of the
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  living. She's suffering right now.
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  A little bit of some stuff that come with age.
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  Touching age, right and so. But Mom was a rock.
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  She was solid. Mom would fight gang members for
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  me. Yeah, my mom.
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  She told me when I came running home.
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  She said. We went back around and she
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  broke a bottle and I'm like Mama, you go get beat up at me.
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  It beat up but my Mama was like y'all leave because they took
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  the ground beef from me. Oh no, she sent you to the
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  store. And she sent me to the store and
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  they took it from me. So I can't back home with no
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  ground beef. Yeah, I remember that, man.
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  But my Mama, she was out there in it with me.
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  And I was like, I stopped telling because my Mama would be
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  like, who did what when we're going back over there and
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  telling my Mama nothing, no more, because that's how she
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  was. My my spiritual side come from
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  my mother's side of the family. Oh, OK, OK.
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  Deacon and him and my grandmother, they was, I'm going
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  to say, a black love story. They came here right after the
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  World War 2 and they migrated out here from Texas and they had
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  12 children, six boys and six girls.
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  Wow. One of them.
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  And they had a successful business.
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  Watts and my my grandmother worked successfully at General
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  Hospital downtown Los Angeles. She did 30 years working there.
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  So that's where I believe my work ethic comes from.
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  Values come from that side of the family.
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  I mean, you know, I always tell people my daddy's side was rough
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  and rugged, and my mother's side was more diplomatic and more,
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  you know, peaceful, peaceful people.
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  Jesus. You know, we got a comment that
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  says family and grandkids. And that's it now.
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  Life. I got my office grandkids all
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  around here. Yeah.
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  Yeah, You know, let's touch on the sibling aspect of it.
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  How, how was the relationship with your siblings growing up?
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  I, I, I've learned that in some cases, each one of us grew up
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  with a different view of mom and dad, right, Because we have our
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  different perceptions. So how was that for you and your
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  siblings? Going back in I was the oldest,
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  oh, I was the oldest of five children would have been 6, but
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  two have passed away. 2, my only sister, biological sister and my
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  brother, they passed away. My brother, I'm 55.
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  My brother would have been 54 if he would have been here.
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  But they they going on the glory.
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  But I was like a dad to them. I got a brother in Arizona and
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  one in Arkansas right now and anything they leaning on me or
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  they calling me, you know, I'm, I'm solid to them.
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  I'm like dad to them. Yeah, clean version.
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  They know we're different. We, we got, we got that far in
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  age. I'm 54 about to be 55 this year.
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  So we not we not that we not that different.
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  That's why when I said toddy T bat around you.
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  You know, I, I want to go, you know, to, to the spiritual
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  conversation of this because there's a there's a point for
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  that, that conversation. 01 more before the song that reminds you
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  of your mom. Any song that comes on the radio
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  or that you remember that. My mom I I got 2 with her too.
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  It's one the one how did I go when I think in my mom.
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  Oh, it's Tupac song, Dear Mom. Of course, Yeah, yeah.
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  One for my mother and then a little bit more old school is
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  something about the name Jesus. Something about the name Jesus.
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  I could just see my mother. My mother didn't lead me to
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  church, but her aunt, her sisters and my grandmother was
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  kind of, that's who they were, you know.
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  But my mother, when I go over to her house, she reading her
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  Bible, reading her word. I was going through
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  difficulties, always pointed me to the Word.
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  And so those are the songs that come to my mind when I think of
• 24:09
  my mother. Yeah.
• 24:10
  Thank you for that. And again, it's important for me
• 24:13
  that that mother conversation for me is the life of an 8 year
• 24:16
  old because I grew up thinking that my mom abandoned me right
• 24:20
  as a latchkey kid in 1978, right walking to school and and it was
• 24:25
  a transition. It was a transition because I
• 24:27
  grew up my grandparents from 2 to 8.
• 24:29
  And so me being moved from my grandparents house to this new
• 24:33
  apartment with nobody there, like there's a whole thing that
• 24:36
  we deal with right then. So they called us latchkey kids
• 24:39
  back then. And so I, I had made a, the
• 24:43
  story rang in my head for like it happened yesterday.
• 24:48
  And it wasn't until 40 years old that I was doing the work around
• 24:51
  that and started to discover these 10 things that was going
• 24:54
  on in my life in my past. And, and that was one of the
• 24:57
  stories of standing at that door with my mom with my backpack on.
• 25:01
  And she says, you know, here's the keys to the apartment.
• 25:04
  I'm leaving you when you get home, lock the door, don't go
• 25:07
  outside, don't turn the teeth, don't turn the oven on, don't
• 25:09
  cook, blah, blah, blah. And, and all I heard was I'm
• 25:12
  leaving you. And the pain in my gut that I
• 25:16
  felt and then that transition that we're learning about now is
• 25:22
  I made it mean that my mom, I can't trust my mom, right?
• 25:26
  And I, and now I got to be responsible for this key, right?
• 25:29
  And then I walked to school. And so not knowing, you know,
• 25:35
  any child, none of that psychological mental aspect of
• 25:38
  it, you know, we didn't have that back then.
• 25:39
  And so it wasn't until 40, so I lived 35 years that my dad
• 25:44
  didn't love me and then 32 years that my mom abandoned me.
• 25:49
  And so you can imagine, we'll talk about that later when we
• 25:53
  get into the word of how those shape our life and who we become
• 25:56
  to survive life in those mental aspects.
• 25:59
  And so being able to go back in time and unravel those stories
• 26:03
  and realize that, hey, they did the best they could with what
• 26:06
  they had. And I went to both my parents to
• 26:09
  ask him to forgive me for my behavior of how I treated them.
• 26:13
  And, and, and that led to even why I do talks now is because
• 26:18
  I'm learning getting back into church, you know, honor our
• 26:22
  father more mother, but also obey your parents.
• 26:25
  And I want to know if you could speak toward that from the
• 26:27
  spiritual aspect because I believe that the parents are the
• 26:32
  most, 2 most important people in our life.
• 26:35
  And when those disconnections are broken, we turn to our peers
• 26:38
  for love and acceptance in that elementary to middle school
• 26:41
  transition, looking for identity and all that from our peers.
• 26:46
  And when that gets broken, then who are we?
• 26:49
  And then we are susceptible to gangs and drugs and all these
• 26:53
  different things and our environment, right?
• 26:55
  So is there something that you can speak to that?
• 26:57
  Because I stand on a Malachi 4-5 and six about returning the
• 27:03
  hearts of our children back to our parents and the hearts of
• 27:05
  our parents back to our children and also in Luke 17117 as well.
• 27:11
  And I believe that if if we did that work around reconciliation
• 27:16
  and forgiveness around our parents, I believe the whole, I
• 27:21
  know for a fact my whole world opened up to get my life back
• 27:26
  and take responsibility of my behaviors and then to even begin
• 27:29
  to love myself, then the same is that I love my neighbor.
• 27:33
  So is there anything of that that I shared that you can speak
• 27:36
  to from the spiritual aspect for people to to connect with?
• 27:40
  Oh, absolutely. And and I, and I say this like
• 27:44
  as you probably heard the term pulling, pulling back the onion,
• 27:51
  so to speak, because as you're talking, I feel your pain.
• 27:57
  And so now as we're talking about your pain and I'm
• 27:59
  addressing my pain. And this is what we've learned
• 28:01
  as veterans, that we need a safe place to land, yes, safe place
• 28:06
  to be vulnerable. I mean, I probably see me as
• 28:09
  Superman able to, you know, do a whole lot of things.
• 28:13
  But the reality of it is, is that when you go back to your
• 28:17
  upbringing, a lot of all of us in so many ways have experienced
• 28:21
  a lot of traumatic, traumatic, the, the, the, the, like you
• 28:26
  said, latchkey kids, people wouldn't even think about
• 28:29
  letting the 8 year old kid. Right.
• 28:32
  You know what I mean when I and so when I certain things.
• 28:35
  But to go back to your question and I'm thinking about Galatians
• 28:40
  the 6th chapter, right, and it tells us to so this is the in my
• 28:46
  church. I I try to do like what Jesus
• 28:50
  did and Jesus gives a lot of parables or analogies or
• 28:54
  examples for us to get it. Many a years I sat in church, I
• 28:58
  see the pastor get real sweaty and I kind of go out like it was
• 29:02
  like the Charlie Brown, like the peanuts I didn't get right.
• 29:06
  And I'm like, whoa, what was that all about?
• 29:08
  So when I came along, I said, I want to be more of a teacher
• 29:12
  because it doesn't make sense if I'm doing a whole lot of
• 29:15
  screaming and you like, what's the brother screaming about?
• 29:19
  I'm like, I could have been doing 20 years in the pen, but
• 29:22
  God say to me, you know what I'm saying?
• 29:24
  So but The thing is that I get the most and you hit it on the
• 29:28
  head that and I'm going to speak for my parents.
• 29:32
  Is that well? I said like this before my dad
• 29:35
  died. The last conversation we had, my
• 29:39
  dad said I'm sorry you and what I put you through.
• 29:46
  Wow. And I said to him, man, you
• 29:49
  don't owe me no apology. You toughen me up.
• 29:52
  You made me ready. You understand what I'm saying?
• 29:54
  That gave me closure. Let me tell you what happened.
• 29:57
  It was a Memorial Day weekend. Long story short, they were
• 30:00
  drinking and I bought some company over there.
• 30:02
  It was kind of embarrassing. So I was like, let's go.
• 30:05
  My friends, the man, we need to eat the ribs.
• 30:07
  Yeah, I was like, let's go, right?
• 30:10
  But normally I get so upset at them, I keep going.
• 30:13
  But I'm going to say it was the Holy Spirit had me go back over
• 30:16
  there. So I drove back over.
• 30:18
  That pulled up. Plus I wanted a plate pulled
• 30:21
  over there and I got there and they were sitting down watching
• 30:25
  TV like they do on a movie night.
• 30:27
  And I sat in the middle of him like a little kid again.
• 30:30
  And I, I, my, that's when my daddy started saying to me, man,
• 30:34
  I, I felt bad. I used to have long hair and
• 30:37
  ponytail, all that. And he used to say, ma'am, I'm
• 30:40
  sorry, used to slam me by my hair, kick me in the butt.
• 30:43
  Do I still speak finally of him? You heard me say that in the
• 30:45
  beginning. He's still my God, either be
• 30:49
  back in the word back in the day they say a punk or a Sissy.
• 30:53
  He he, he it was a lot of things that I used to hear that all the
• 30:56
  time. And so he was apologizing to me.
• 31:02
  I was like, man, there ain't no need you toughen me up.
• 31:05
  Even though I I I took some of them same things he did and I
• 31:09
  did them for myself. That that learned behavior.
• 31:12
  I, I always wanted to do things with my hands and because that's
• 31:16
  how he did me and much bigger and stronger than me.
• 31:20
  But I kept saying, when I grow up, we're going to go toe to
• 31:22
  toe. We're going to go toe to toe.
• 31:24
  But it never happened. And then as I got bigger and
• 31:27
  stronger, he couldn't catch me anyway anymore anyway, but
• 31:31
  spiritually. So I had to forgive them in
• 31:34
  order to move on with my life because I, I've asked God to
• 31:37
  forgive me of all the things that I can remember and learn.
• 31:41
  And so I, I, I married into a blended family.
• 31:45
  And the, the main thing I used to always stress to those kids
• 31:48
  was about honoring all in the 10 commandments and all the old
• 31:53
  commandments always speak about honoring your mother and your
• 31:55
  father. Your mother could be a
• 31:57
  crackhead, a prostitute, a drug addict, but you still honored.
• 32:02
  And if you do that, you're going to go a long ways in life.
• 32:05
  And so that's the mindset that I'm constantly teaching kids,
• 32:09
  you know, don't be disrespectful to your mother.
• 32:12
  Don't be disrespectful to your father.
• 32:14
  And then as you grow up, you'll make choices in your life.
• 32:17
  Hopefully it'll be different than theirs.
• 32:19
  I've been working hard all my life just to not be who my daddy
• 32:25
  was. You see what I'm saying?
• 32:27
  That's the whole thing right there.
• 32:30
  And I I I. Thank you for saying that
• 32:33
  because that is what the ministry that God has given me
• 32:36
  again, as I, as I hit with my parents and then I was able to
• 32:39
  go to my three daughters and allow them to reconcile with me
• 32:43
  the same way that I went to my parents.
• 32:45
  And as you said, when I got that scripture, when I start speaking
• 32:48
  at church about 3 years ago, it was like the revelation that I
• 32:55
  got from the scripture was honor your father and mother is not,
• 32:58
  you're going to, you're not going to love them every day.
• 33:01
  But it's the honor is how I think about them.
• 33:04
  And that's where I want people to understand that you're not
• 33:07
  going to love your parents every day or your mom and dad every
• 33:10
  day. But it's so important on the
• 33:12
  thoughts that we have about them because those could be the
• 33:14
  things that keeps us disconnected from them.
• 33:18
  And, and, and we have no idea unless we have sat and talked to
• 33:22
  our parents like I did, was like, hey, what was going on
• 33:25
  when I was born, what was going on when y'all was little
• 33:28
  children and growing up. And I talked to my grandfather
• 33:30
  before he passed, like what was going on.
• 33:31
  And so it made sense when I did my own work to see like, Oh my
• 33:36
  goodness, like I, I people say generational curses.
• 33:41
  I look at it like a generational consequence because we keep
• 33:44
  having these conversations and we don't interrupt them or make
• 33:47
  the corrections. And so for me, it's it's it's my
• 33:50
  main mission outside my sickle cell trait work is really these
• 33:54
  conversations around family because I, I just believe that,
• 33:58
  as you said, the word is, is having people self examine
• 34:03
  themselves to reflect on that relation with their parents.
• 34:06
  That's why I asked those questions because you hear what
• 34:09
  people are dealing with out of our mouth come those issues of
• 34:12
  life right out of. And so I, I just thank you for
• 34:15
  saying that because that is something I want people to
• 34:17
  really have an opportunity to sit down and think about that
• 34:21
  because I was so grateful reconciling with my dad before
• 34:24
  he passed because I had eight years like I had my dad back for
• 34:27
  eight years. And so when he passed, there was
• 34:30
  no resentment. There was no regrets.
• 34:32
  All those negative stories was transformed into just love for
• 34:36
  my father. And, and I want people to have
• 34:39
  an opportunity, if they're willing, have an opportunity to
• 34:42
  have that relationship back with that parent.
• 34:45
  And that's that's a beautiful thing.
• 34:47
  So on a different note, there are some people that have been
• 34:50
  through now your worst is your worst, right?
• 34:53
  And there's been people been through molestation.
• 34:57
  Exactly, babe. All that kind of stuff.
• 34:59
  So I say this kind of like everybody has their I preached
• 35:05
  the message not too long ago about the boogeyman being under
• 35:07
  the bed. And now you look, finally you
• 35:11
  got courage to look and you realize that he wasn't there.
• 35:14
  But that doesn't mean you wasn't afraid, right?
• 35:16
  So some things never come to pass, right?
• 35:19
  Some things never. You know, you, you, you don't go
• 35:22
  through it. But my dad, man, and you said it
• 35:26
  a few moments ago, and my dad and my mom, they did the best
• 35:30
  they could for me. Yeah, I made some bad choices.
• 35:34
  I made some bad decisions, but that's not a fault on them.
• 35:39
  No, it's not. Because at the end of the day,
• 35:41
  every tub has to sit on his own bottom.
• 35:44
  Every man has to be I Oh, it's from the hood.
• 35:47
  I'm from. Yeah.
• 35:49
  We had raggedy books. We had teachers didn't really
• 35:52
  care about us. I could tell you probably tell
• 35:55
  you about 10 teachers, but it was one one that took it like
• 35:59
  and it told me he said, Julian, you're going to be somebody.
• 36:02
  Now you say something I rarely discuss with anybody and I
• 36:05
  haven't heard it. I had a half brother.
• 36:07
  He died of sickle cells, died of sickle cell and he came to see
• 36:12
  we've been estranged all his life.
• 36:15
  He was the child on the side right.
• 36:18
  I learned about him as a teenager so my sister who passed
• 36:22
  away she kept us got us all together.
• 36:24
  I seen him when he's little name is Trayvon.
• 36:27
  He passed away, but I have a trait now I've never but now
• 36:32
  I've seen in your PSA that in the PSA, especially professional
• 36:37
  athletes, it affect them different, but I'm.
• 36:39
  So. Determined to not let it hinder
• 36:43
  me. If you see me out on the
• 36:44
  basketball court, I mean, take my time.
• 36:47
  Outbreak, you know, and I'm a drink my Gatorade.
• 36:50
  Oh my gosh, I'm. Full of that and so I was told
• 36:53
  that at a early age what I when I courted my first wife this is
• 37:00
  my second marriage that I'm on and so my first wife I was like
• 37:04
  hey you know we making children you got sickle cell trait and
• 37:07
  she was like no, I don't have a trait you know so.
• 37:10
  Wow, this is this is This is why I don't do research because I'm
• 37:16
  I'm this is not planned. This is this is all unraveling
• 37:19
  right here live and and this conversation so.
• 37:22
  God's doing, Yes, exactly. Fires happened the, you know,
• 37:27
  Internet service and all of that.
• 37:29
  But we get to have this opportunity and I hope it's
• 37:31
  somebody that tunes in or play this back later can get
• 37:36
  something from this. The the last piece I want to
• 37:38
  touch him before we take this station identification break is
• 37:42
  that sibling love, right And and we know that the English
• 37:46
  language has a definition of love with so.
• 37:48
  Many. Oh yeah, absolutely. 10
• 37:50
  definitions underneath it, right?
• 37:52
  But what I learned also when I was reconciled with my siblings
• 37:56
  was that Storegate love, right? And so that story love comes
• 38:01
  with a sense of obligation too, right?
• 38:04
  So sometimes as, as siblings, you know, we have to be able to
• 38:09
  go past that obligation to create that friendship love,
• 38:12
  because sometimes even as siblings, we're, we, we, we were
• 38:15
  disconnected, right? And so that was something that I
• 38:18
  learned when I learned that I took responsibility to start to
• 38:21
  reconnect with my sisters because we have different dads,
• 38:24
  same mom, but it was when I learned that it was like, Oh,
• 38:28
  that's what's missing. And someone has to be that big,
• 38:31
  you know, that person to say, Hey, I'm going to be the one to
• 38:34
  to have this gathering to create this space for us to get closer.
• 38:37
  Like you grew up in the same house, but we're not, we're not
• 38:41
  that friendship experience sometimes is not there.
• 38:45
  And so is there anything you want to speak to that part of
• 38:48
  relationships with our families as far as.
• 38:50
  You know, so with my family, again, because I'm the oldest, I
• 38:55
  know I'm not going to say make people do stuff, but I do it
• 38:58
  with love. Like, come on, this is what
• 39:00
  we're doing and fall in line, you know, with that.
• 39:03
  And if I had other people here telling you, they'll say, yeah,
• 39:06
  your brothers, they have nothing but mad respect for you.
• 39:09
  But like I just because I put in the work and I do that.
• 39:13
  But there was rocky rolls. There was time.
• 39:16
  We fell out over things in the past.
• 39:19
  But as you said, now I always say it like this.
• 39:21
  I'm dark skinned, so my face been black all my life, so I'm
• 39:27
  going to take the egg on my face.
• 39:29
  He's standing. So I'm going to be the one.
• 39:31
  Because when people fall out and you notice people take it to the
• 39:35
  grave, they I'm not. No, I'm deep dead to me.
• 39:39
  I'm not dealing with that, you know?
• 39:42
  Yeah, and I often tell this story about when people
• 39:46
  reconcile back together, all that time that you miss, you
• 39:50
  don't get that back. So if I'm standing here with an
• 39:53
  egg in my face just to get y'all.
• 39:55
  Because we come from the same people, the same upbringing, and
• 39:59
  the only one that's happy that we not getting along is the
• 40:01
  devil. Yep.
• 40:03
  They at each other and mad at each other.
• 40:06
  And the biggest thing that we can learn to do on this walk is
• 40:09
  have forgiveness. Every day the sun goes up and
• 40:12
  goes down, one is a new day to for tender mercies, for God's
• 40:16
  tender mercies to come to us. So I don't care what happened
• 40:19
  1020 years ago. Now for those who've been
• 40:21
  molested and been touched, they need to get the professional
• 40:25
  help. Yes, you know, and we got to get
• 40:29
  rid of that type of the like I don't need.
• 40:37
  No one escapes it. No one escapes it.
• 40:41
  Yeah, so, but to to close out on your question, the my siblings,
• 40:46
  you know, I believe we're all in a good place.
• 40:48
  We're scattered, you know, we're not in the same place and we're
• 40:50
  all group text right now went to our mother.
• 40:55
  And so, you know, I'm just trying to do the best I can with
• 40:59
  that, but it hurts your parent declining before you.
• 41:03
  That's that's a hurtful thing. But I got to bear this cross.
• 41:06
  I have to thank you, yes. Sir, thank you.
• 41:10
  Thank you so much. I get it.
• 41:11
  I appreciate you for setting the foundation for this conversation
• 41:15
  because it's so important for people to hear these
• 41:19
  conversations and have an opportunity.
• 41:21
  A friend of mine said 10 seconds of your confidence could save
• 41:26
  somebody's life just by sharing an experience or just listening
• 41:30
  to them based off of what they could be dealing with.
• 41:32
  So again, thank you for for sharing your story with us.
• 41:36
  And we're going to take plays PSA's and come back and then
• 41:39
  we're going to get into if you played any sports and then what?
• 41:43
  And then what led you to the the signing up in the military of
• 41:46
  the Navy. So we thank you so much.
• 41:49
  Yes, Sir, you're welcome. All right, this is Frondosier
• 41:51
  right here on Trench Talk. Again, thanks for tuning this.
• 41:54
  And then we're going to come right back and get into some
• 41:56
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• 45:07
  All right welcome back to the Frondosia show, also known as
• 45:10
  trench talk US yes, you can catch me on lit live GA St. gods
• 45:17
  out hip hop on Saturdays at 7:00 PM and Sundays at 5:00 PM.
• 45:22
  This week's episode is dropping. Oh my goodness, I had a great
• 45:27
  conversation with a music artist myself and one way TK have
• 45:30
  brother Valentine on their man. He was it was not even an
• 45:33
  interview really. He was more preaching than
• 45:35
  anything. So that's where we play our
• 45:37
  Christian hip hop and we interview artists and then again
• 45:40
  to share their stories of their background and even how, you
• 45:43
  know, I asked about that walk. What was the turning point when
• 45:47
  they gave their life to Christ? And so if you want to follow
• 45:49
  that one as well, that's on lit live.
• 45:51
  Used to be dash radio. Now it's called Lit Live and
• 45:54
  it's GH3 Gods, that's hip hop and you can catch us over there.
• 45:58
  The Revolution radio show is that broadcast over there.
• 46:01
  All right, let's get back to this this conversation because
• 46:05
  you you, you this, this whole sickle cell trade talk man, the
• 46:14
  Air Force found my trade. I didn't know I was a carrier.
• 46:18
  I have a cousin Nigel with sickle cell disease on my dad's
• 46:21
  side. So I remember growing up with
• 46:22
  him being sick and, you know, hanging out like that, but I
• 46:27
  never really had any problems that I didn't realize until
• 46:31
  after I collapsed and and had some complications and like I
• 46:34
  said, retired from the military medically and doing my research.
• 46:38
  I've had pain in my left arm since I was my mom would say 2
• 46:41
  years old. I remember being 5 and waking up
• 46:44
  as a child and my arm aching real bad and my grandmother hold
• 46:47
  me over the sink and running warm water over my arm.
• 46:49
  The only thing that soothed the pain 1975, they take me to the
• 46:53
  doctor. Oh, he's 5, he's growing pains.
• 46:57
  Well, I can say I'm about to be 55 and I still have that same
• 47:00
  arm pain that I've had my whole life.
• 47:03
  And so in the research that we found that some people have
• 47:07
  sickle cell, but sickle cell trait can have pain crisis
• 47:10
  similar to sickle cell disease, fatigue, dehydration.
• 47:15
  As you mentioned playing basketball, football, it seems
• 47:18
  to exasperate more to causing athletes to have sudden death.
• 47:24
  We've had all athletes have have can be affected by that.
• 47:28
  Even people just going to the gym hanging out and exercising.
• 47:31
  We're going to Denver, Co where the air is thin.
• 47:34
  We have complications. So that is what God showed me
• 47:39
  after I was in this space of my life is over and had suicide
• 47:42
  ideation and it was like I'm out of here.
• 47:44
  I might as well just nobody cares who's who's going to miss
• 47:47
  me. God showed me that that sickle
• 47:50
  cell trade gene, he gave me my mother's womb to deliver this
• 47:53
  message. And so that's that was my what's
• 47:56
  next out of my transition out of the service, right.
• 47:59
  And then even going back to the biblical context of it, that's
• 48:03
  that we're born with these afflictions and sometimes
• 48:06
  they're they were born with those afflictions or sometimes
• 48:08
  you can watch too much CNN and TV could cause afflictions or
• 48:12
  environment can cause affliction.
• 48:14
  But learning that that my trait was something that God gave me,
• 48:19
  I knew why I was born like the military career was just the
• 48:22
  basic to get me to where I was going to be for crisis.
• 48:26
  So for you to say that is Cher that it's like I I had.
• 48:29
  I don't even know if Lisa knew that or what, but I had no idea
• 48:34
  that this conversation even was in your space like that.
• 48:37
  So, and I know the Navy test for it, the Air Force, Marines, but
• 48:42
  the Army before 2020, they were only tested for anemia.
• 48:46
  So you can join the service with us with the trait, but you can't
• 48:49
  join with the type of sickle cell disease or anemia.
• 48:53
  But so the Army was, but now I'm not saying I'm responsible for
• 48:57
  it, but we've pushed enough, a lot of conversations.
• 49:00
  So now they actually took a look at it, the Army, and now they're
• 49:03
  retesting all their soldiers and testing the renew recruits for
• 49:07
  sickle cell trait to identify them because they have been
• 49:10
  collapsing and dying and having complications.
• 49:13
  So that that isn't the reconciliation.
• 49:15
  Forgiveness is my one and then the sickle cell trait is my
• 49:20
  number 2. So I'm very I'm I'm just shocked
• 49:24
  by your knowledge of that. So thank you.
• 49:28
  Absolutely. And thank you for what you do,
• 49:31
  you know, and just what you're saying as far as other people
• 49:36
  being tested for it now that's that's a beautiful thing.
• 49:39
  So I got I got 2 message here at one.
• 49:42
  I didn't play. Yeah.
• 49:44
  You have a very large family, 18 grandbabies.
• 49:51
  Whoa. Yeah, yeah.
• 49:55
  I got, I have three, I have three.
• 49:57
  I have a grandson and two granddaughters and they're
• 49:59
  between 5:00 and and two. So there I I can't even imagine
• 50:04
  having 18. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing to
• 50:08
  have them all around you, to love on you.
• 50:11
  And I soak up every moment. I get emotional just thinking
• 50:18
  about it because I was a father. I've been a lot of things, a
• 50:23
  pastor. I've been a sailor.
• 50:27
  But I think that one paw, paw that just melts me, man.
• 50:31
  That just does something for me, man.
• 50:34
  And I've asked God to give me time to take care of myself, to
• 50:37
  eat right and all that. To see them grow up, you know, I
• 50:43
  want to be the longest living grandfather on the planet, you
• 50:46
  know? Man, you, you, you say that as
• 50:50
  as again with my whole just being delivered from all this
• 50:54
  stuff in my the past and then having my dad pass away two
• 51:00
  weeks before my grandson was born.
• 51:03
  It was like, like I even questioned God, like how much
• 51:06
  time I've got, you know, like, am I going to live long enough
• 51:09
  like this and that, and I was like, man, God, I don't want to
• 51:12
  live like this man like I so I had to find my peace, another
• 51:16
  level of peace and death for myself that give me peace.
• 51:19
  And so I just went to God with it and he just showed me that,
• 51:23
  Hey, your dad taught you how to live a sinless life, sinless,
• 51:27
  right. And so a lot of things, even
• 51:31
  though I did the grievance classes and I because of those
• 51:33
  principles, I know that I live by principles now.
• 51:35
  I understand the principles. And so I knowing that those
• 51:38
  grief principles help, you know, manage that loss of my father.
• 51:42
  But like you said, when I helped my grandson, it was like, it's
• 51:46
  all yours, man. Like the house, the money, the
• 51:48
  cars, like it's all yours. It's all your.
• 51:53
  You can have it all. Yeah, I, I didn't read a book on
• 51:56
  being a parent when I was coming up.
• 51:58
  I did, I did what they did, what I was taught right now with
• 52:04
  these grandchildren, like I'll give you a good example.
• 52:07
  I have some that came from Arizona to be here with us this
• 52:09
  past Christmas holiday about a month.
• 52:12
  They were with us in Perris, CA. And I told them, I said I sat
• 52:17
  them down. The oldest is 1110 and five or
• 52:21
  that that those that came from Arizona.
• 52:23
  I said, listen, this is paw. Paw is going to teach.
• 52:27
  There's no whoopings and we're not going to have no see this
• 52:31
  big. I used to call it bus driving
• 52:32
  belt because I drive belt, but I used to drive buses for the
• 52:35
  city. And I say, we're not going to
• 52:38
  get no weapons. And you know, they all got out
• 52:40
  of there without getting weapons because, you know, a lot of
• 52:44
  people believe in or if you spare the rod, you spoil the
• 52:48
  child. But you know, sometimes it's
• 52:51
  like it's more than beaten, you know, because I tell you now I'm
• 52:55
  here, but I'm saying almost every weapon I got, it was
• 52:58
  unjustified. But you know, some of those
• 53:04
  weapons, you know, I couldn't go out.
• 53:05
  I could see my friends on their skateboards and playing and
• 53:08
  stuff and I was on a punishment or whatever.
• 53:10
  So I things that they were trying to teach me and they
• 53:14
  didn't want me being on on in prison, on death row somewhere
• 53:18
  or dead in a grave. So I'm saying curfew, you know,
• 53:23
  I understand why we got to do what we got to do.
• 53:26
  My little grandson is five. He want to ask why to everything
• 53:31
  just stick your ATM in the machine and dude, you got to
• 53:35
  ask. You're going to hurt at this
• 53:39
  point, just take the car like my mom.
• 53:40
  Has and put it in here. And get some money out dude.
• 53:45
  It don't work. That money is to keep these
• 53:48
  lights on. That right there.
• 53:52
  You'll get that. You're going to learn.
• 53:53
  You're going to learn, you're going to learn.
• 53:56
  No, it's beautiful. You say that again.
• 53:59
  I, I teach emotional intelligence and Ella unified
• 54:01
  and, and soon to be in Palmdale. And again, it goes back to a lot
• 54:06
  of us, our parents grew up in that time where children will be
• 54:09
  seen and not heard. So you don't get no voice, you
• 54:12
  don't get you a child, you don't get no say so.
• 54:14
  But the other side of that is you want that child to be
• 54:18
  connected to you. You want that child to see you
• 54:21
  mess up. You want to go to that child
• 54:22
  because we do disappoint our children.
• 54:24
  We do make mistakes. And sometimes that child needs
• 54:27
  to really recognize that you're my dad or mom, but they're not
• 54:30
  perfect either. And allowing them to share what
• 54:34
  they're dealing with. And if they call me out on my
• 54:35
  stuff, hey, you know what, you right, I was being a jerk that
• 54:39
  day. And so I acknowledge that, But
• 54:41
  we don't realize that the what that does is that keeps that
• 54:43
  child connected to you and you may not have to whoop them
• 54:47
  because again, if you honor your father and mother, my my mentor
• 54:51
  says he never whooped his sons because they, he asked them why
• 54:55
  didn't, why didn't I have to spank you?
• 54:57
  And he said they told them dad, when my friends went to go try
• 54:59
  to do something, steal candy or whatever, I thought about what
• 55:02
  is my mom and dad going to say? And they was like, we're not,
• 55:06
  I'm not going to mess that up between you and and me.
• 55:09
  So it was like, that's that honor of how I think about my
• 55:13
  parent. And if we cultivate that, I
• 55:15
  really believe, Bishop, that that is something that if we
• 55:20
  brought attention to that and and help people discover,
• 55:22
  rediscover that our families would come together on a whole
• 55:26
  nother level and our societies would change.
• 55:28
  Oh, yeah, I believe that. I really believe that.
• 55:33
  All right. Thank you for letting me share
• 55:34
  that. Yeah, absolutely.
• 55:36
  One more comment here is he's the baller.
• 55:38
  Oh, that's. My comment.
• 55:43
  So, so what's up with the ball is that did you play sports in
• 55:45
  high school at all? I did, but because I had to
• 55:49
  work, I I tell my wife I've been taking care of family since I
• 55:53
  was a teenager. I had to take care of me, my mom
• 55:56
  and my sister when my dad wasn't there.
• 56:00
  So I believe I had a promising career in baseball.
• 56:04
  Oh. Man, and and yeah, it's a long
• 56:07
  story with that, but baseball, basketball and football and man
• 56:12
  like that guy that just commented, he's the Sergeant
• 56:16
  first class here in the United States Army.
• 56:18
  That's why I work for it now. I work in the Army.
• 56:21
  Really. Yeah.
• 56:22
  Yeah, yeah. I'm a S4.
• 56:24
  No. Yeah.
• 56:25
  I got a lot of friends. They act like they like me.
• 56:28
  I was in a quartermaster. I was in the.
• 56:30
  I did supply too. Oh, OK.
• 56:32
  Yeah, we just got two SFCS here, 92 alphas and Yankees.
• 56:38
  Yeah, I was a Yankee. Yeah, I'm a severe.
• 56:41
  I'm just civilian just riding it in with them.
• 56:44
  Just come on IG inspection, we just.
• 56:47
  Oh no, I hated those. Yeah, if I turned.
• 56:51
  That stuff I don't miss. That's what I don't.
• 56:53
  Miss I'm glad it's over. That's why I'm just sitting here
• 56:56
  chilling. I'm glad it's over.
• 56:58
  We did the back brief, everything's good.
• 57:01
  Got 100%. We knocked it out the park.
• 57:03
  Come. On but yeah, it was the teamwork
• 57:06
  that made the dream work so but even now several of us from the
• 57:11
  battalion here we meet out up at a park in Temecula and we got a
• 57:16
  little captain this ball and he fought I mean stroke can get
• 57:21
  out. They all they good got a couple
• 57:24
  55 year olds out there man. And I, I still let them know
• 57:27
  man, that jump shot ain't fading yet.
• 57:30
  I got threes. I don't know, but yeah, they
• 57:37
  keep me young. They keep me young.
• 57:39
  These boys, they're good men and they doing well in their careers
• 57:43
  and well on their way. No doubt I I picked up a a ABA
• 57:48
  basketball team and so I'm the owner of the Ventura County
• 57:51
  Orcas and soon to be coming the Riverside County Mavericks.
• 57:56
  OK so that my chaser hoop dream now because I can't exercise
• 57:59
  from my, you know, military injuries.
• 58:01
  Yeah, right, right. It is now I'm I'm connected to
• 58:03
  these these players that I picked up.
• 58:06
  And so you coaching or you just. I'm the, I'm the owner and
• 58:10
  pretty much I got, I got a coach and I got AGM.
• 58:13
  So I, you know, I'm in the mix a little bit.
• 58:15
  I'm trying to get away from it and let them do their thing.
• 58:16
  But it's the first season, so you know, I got to make sure
• 58:19
  everything is running right. Yeah, exactly.
• 58:23
  Big Three. Yeah, yeah.
• 58:24
  So the ABA got about 150 teams across the country.
• 58:28
  And so we, we, I have one active team right now and that really
• 58:33
  is a ministry because I prayed to God on how can I do this work
• 58:37
  and, and, and again, help men develop, right.
• 58:40
  And so having these, you know, 19 players, you hear all the
• 58:46
  dynamics of what's going on in their life and, and as and as
• 58:50
  veterans, as military veterans, you know, on my sports show, we
• 58:53
  talked athletes are no different.
• 58:55
  When that jersey comes off or when that uniform comes off and
• 58:59
  you're lost, It's like, who am I outside of that jersey?
• 59:03
  And so my view was who was I outside of that uniform?
• 59:06
  The relatedness is there. And so just helping them, those
• 59:11
  are willing, you know, to listen and, and help develop.
• 59:13
  But that, that's really why I purchased the team.
• 59:17
  I have beautiful development like that.
• 59:19
  So that basketball. So maybe I'll get you on my
• 59:21
  sports show one on Sunday night and have you come in and talk
• 59:24
  about the basketball days. Oh, absolutely, yeah.
• 59:29
  In my park in my neighborhood in Paris, California.
• 59:33
  Long story short, I got a little nephew.
• 59:35
  He's 21 years of age. Remember I told you my sister,
• 59:37
  she passed. Well, we had our nephew, my
• 59:41
  nephew out at our house, but the streets was calling him.
• 59:44
  So he went down to LA and got all tatted up and oh wow, that.
• 59:48
  But he's in the county jail now and he's been in there same like
• 59:53
  forever, man. But it's about a year and a
• 59:56
  half. But one of the things him and I
• 59:58
  used to do when he stayed with me in Paris.
• 1:00:01
  We played ball. I was looking at a video of us
• 1:00:04
  and he played ball and he keeps saying hunk when I get out we
• 1:00:07
  going to ball and blah but and he realizes the errors of his
• 1:00:10
  ways. Hit me a lawyer.
• 1:00:13
  I need a lawyer and I'm like just ride it out man.
• 1:00:16
  Just ride it out. What he is accused of doing is
• 1:00:19
  foolish, but we all have to learn some mistakes that are
• 1:00:25
  things that we do ain't as drastic as some people.
• 1:00:29
  You shouldn't have to go to prison to learn a lesson.
• 1:00:32
  Exactly. Bug overdose, right?
• 1:00:36
  Exactly. Or the real life like the kid
• 1:00:37
  said. I I don't steal because my
• 1:00:40
  relationship with your parent. So I keep telling him you're
• 1:00:43
  going to get out again. You know, this too was going to
• 1:00:47
  pass and it would be out of here and them choices is going to
• 1:00:50
  come up on you again. Yo, man, come make this run to
• 1:00:53
  make this move with us. And you got to remember that
• 1:00:55
  feeling being helpless in that county jail.
• 1:00:59
  You nobody can get you out. You know, you got to do the time
• 1:01:03
  and they trying to throw the book at you and it ain't even no
• 1:01:06
  dead bodies on it. You know what I mean?
• 1:01:08
  You know, you know that that that comes from me as as the
• 1:01:14
  unforeseen consequences. Like sometimes we have to be
• 1:01:17
  able to have people talk to people who have been through
• 1:01:20
  things in life so that you can check those unforeseen.
• 1:01:24
  Like when I bought this ABA team, I went to some guys who
• 1:01:26
  own teams. Like what was what was your
• 1:01:28
  experience in? So I could hear, like, do I
• 1:01:31
  really want to buy this team? But imagine we did that for
• 1:01:33
  life, you know, and like we again, we join people, join
• 1:01:38
  gangs, but don't realize unforeseen consequence that can
• 1:01:42
  happen to you or just be in the car with somebody that this is
• 1:01:45
  an unforeseen consequences. You can't go to jail, You can't
• 1:01:49
  get caught up. You can just by being in that
• 1:01:51
  environment. And and to me, those are the
• 1:01:53
  unforeseen, you know, talks that if we just had the space for
• 1:01:57
  those. So that's to me, that's the
• 1:02:00
  important all right, so, So what was going on that it was like,
• 1:02:10
  OK, I'm, I'm, I'm going to go join the service out of all the
• 1:02:12
  branches, you that you know, you picked the Navy, but what was
• 1:02:15
  going on in life that you was like, you know what, this is my
• 1:02:18
  this is my way. So my option here in my senior
• 1:02:23
  year, My senior year. Remember I told you I was part
• 1:02:26
  of a little clique? Yeah.
• 1:02:28
  Right, So everybody was smoking weed and drinking every day,
• 1:02:32
  right? That was the.
• 1:02:34
  We didn't grew up in the same environment.
• 1:02:35
  Yeah, yeah. And what were y'all was doing on
• 1:02:38
  y'all block? He was doing right.
• 1:02:40
  Wow. And one of my counselors told me
• 1:02:42
  because I was cutting class all out at Santa Monica Pier,
• 1:02:46
  hanging out, doing dumb stuff, going to people's ditch parties
• 1:02:50
  and stuff like that. And so she said, hey, you, you
• 1:02:54
  keep missing these classes, you're going to mess around and
• 1:02:56
  not graduate. And she was like, this is the
• 1:02:59
  way out for you. So the military came and they
• 1:03:01
  did the ASVAB test and let me go.
• 1:03:04
  I might pass the test. I don't know.
• 1:03:06
  I went in there and I passed the test.
• 1:03:09
  Eventually I got the results saying I passed.
• 1:03:12
  And everybody said, hey, you want to cut your hair?
• 1:03:15
  And I was like, you know what, forget this hair.
• 1:03:19
  So me and my family, we had a falling out.
• 1:03:22
  And so I end up staying with, I wrote about it in my book.
• 1:03:25
  I stayed with the family on my block down the street for me.
• 1:03:30
  And it was all of us in the house like all these brothers,
• 1:03:34
  my friends all like brothers. And we used to be having so much
• 1:03:38
  craziness as kids. But I told them I was going to
• 1:03:41
  the service and they were like you crazy and this, this and
• 1:03:46
  that. So but I had to get that diploma
• 1:03:49
  and so I had to walk across that stage because I was motivated by
• 1:03:54
  negativity. They was telling me I wasn't see
• 1:03:56
  when I went around the corner and stay.
• 1:03:57
  I didn't have to go to school. Nobody going to school.
• 1:04:01
  I don't know if my friends today got DD or nothing, but I still
• 1:04:04
  went to school. And I got that.
• 1:04:08
  And I remember and I invited my mother and her sister, my aunt
• 1:04:12
  and a couple other people that came to my graduation.
• 1:04:16
  And my daddy came, but he was loaded.
• 1:04:19
  And I heard him say my name Julie and and I saw him.
• 1:04:23
  He said, I told you I was going to make it.
• 1:04:25
  I threw my hands up. I was like, I graduated.
• 1:04:28
  I'm grown now and I'm grown grown.
• 1:04:30
  And yeah, so I got that diploma that gave me a going away
• 1:04:35
  farewell to boot camp thing for the July the 4th and July the
• 1:04:39
  5th 87. I was on the Amtrak headed to
• 1:04:42
  San Diego. Those days are etched in my
• 1:04:44
  mind. My daddy been through boot camp.
• 1:04:47
  So when I got there, he was like all you keep you off shut dollar
• 1:04:50
  dude to tell you, you know, but he was there and me and his
• 1:04:55
  relationship did a 180° change from that.
• 1:04:59
  He started respecting me like the man that I really.
• 1:05:03
  Yeah, it changed. Wow, Amen.
• 1:05:08
  Glory, glory. And so, yeah, our relationship,
• 1:05:10
  it changed and yeah, yeah, then just became better.
• 1:05:16
  We had that in common. Yeah, yeah, You had that in
• 1:05:19
  common that really. He only did three years.
• 1:05:22
  He got an honorable discharge and I was like, my first
• 1:05:25
  contract was up. I re enlisted.
• 1:05:27
  You know, I'm like whatever you do, I'm going to do.
• 1:05:31
  He got out of E4, I got out of E5, you know, and yeah, so
• 1:05:36
  let's. Let's let's talk about some of
• 1:05:38
  that that process, you know, the transition from your environment
• 1:05:45
  to that basic training. Like what was that like it was
• 1:05:51
  it a culture shock for you or, or was was your environment
• 1:05:54
  prepared you for it it? It was a culture shock for the
• 1:05:56
  simple fact that when I stayed at home, when I was at home, my
• 1:05:59
  mother did everything. I could just throw laundry on
• 1:06:02
  the ground and she'd take care of it.
• 1:06:06
  I didn't have to make up no bed. I didn't have to do nothing.
• 1:06:08
  I'm gone. Go wherever I had to go.
• 1:06:10
  So when I got to boot camp, that was like, Hey, you standing by
• 1:06:13
  this mess right here, you know, I had to tuck them sheets in,
• 1:06:17
  had to pull them blankets, right?
• 1:06:19
  Had to fold them tiles. And I was like, man, show miss
• 1:06:22
  my Mama. I just put The Dirty clothes on
• 1:06:25
  the floor. So you coming in, scoop it up.
• 1:06:27
  So that was the coach's name, you know.
• 1:06:29
  On a different note, using the restroom with 75 other men I
• 1:06:34
  never really like in junior high.
• 1:06:36
  Right. Hey, I just go funky, you know
• 1:06:41
  what I mean? Yeah.
• 1:06:44
  So that that was the main thing. And and somebody told me one of
• 1:06:49
  them recruited one of them coming to come out and say your
• 1:06:52
  Mama ain't here, boy. But I was.
• 1:06:58
  I had a fire burning inside of me like, I'm not going to quit.
• 1:07:01
  I, I can't quit and I had a hard time running.
• 1:07:05
  I, I used to play sports and stuff.
• 1:07:08
  So my senior year I signed up for cross country allowed me to
• 1:07:12
  run distance and I still got good legs today where I can run
• 1:07:16
  and I have slow pace. I ain't no, I ain't going to
• 1:07:19
  burn nothing down with no speed, but I can, you know, and just do
• 1:07:24
  it and I still do that. I did it my since this new year
• 1:07:27
  started, I started lightly jogging again.
• 1:07:29
  No kidding, lightly. I'm just doing work up, a little
• 1:07:33
  lather, little sweat and that's pretty much it.
• 1:07:36
  Just trying to be healthy. Go to the VA every six months.
• 1:07:39
  Get checked out. Make sure everything right.
• 1:07:42
  Keep pushing. What, what, what would you say
• 1:07:44
  your most memorable experience in the Navy for yourself?
• 1:07:48
  Like when you when you sit back and think about like man, that
• 1:07:53
  was. A good get my deployments, my,
• 1:07:56
  my deployments, my deployments. And, and I'll give you a good
• 1:08:01
  example. Two things.
• 1:08:03
  One, I had a stomach problem. I don't know whether cramp or
• 1:08:08
  something. It was hurting real bad.
• 1:08:10
  And we were having Bible study and prayer groups.
• 1:08:13
  And so when we went to Desert Shield, Desert Storm, that's
• 1:08:17
  when guys got serious. It wasn't no playing cards.
• 1:08:21
  None of that dudes were sick. And at night, we had this guy
• 1:08:24
  called. The religious Petty Officer
• 1:08:26
  would come on and say a prayer. That's wow now.
• 1:08:30
  And I was like, oh, this for real?
• 1:08:32
  This for. Real but my friend, he said.
• 1:08:36
  Man, you mind. I'm gonna pray for you.
• 1:08:38
  He said, I know you want to go to sick Bay.
• 1:08:40
  I said, yeah, I can't breathe. I'm having a hard time breathe.
• 1:08:43
  And he said just trust me, I'm going to pray.
• 1:08:45
  Pray over me. And he prayed over me.
• 1:08:47
  And I was like, thank you, bro. And I was sitting there and he
• 1:08:51
  said you ain't going to have to go to sick Bay.
• 1:08:53
  And I was like, yeah, I'm going to go in the morning.
• 1:08:55
  But in the morning, I don't have that pain no more.
• 1:08:57
  Wow, I got to thinking like man and I became good friends and I
• 1:09:03
  became his godfather to one of his children.
• 1:09:06
  We, you know, we lost time over the years, but I always say
• 1:09:09
  because of that and then this other dude I was hanging around
• 1:09:12
  with, he was my one and two right Everywhere you saw me, we
• 1:09:17
  just getting in the mischievous things together and he found
• 1:09:20
  Christ. So when he found Christ, I was
• 1:09:24
  like, man, what you doing right? And so finally one day I went
• 1:09:31
  down there and they all stood all these men down there.
• 1:09:34
  They started clapping. They said wow came out and we've
• 1:09:37
  been praying for you. Your friend loved you so much.
• 1:09:40
  He wants you to get saved and that they gonna in a ship store
• 1:09:45
  room. What?
• 1:09:47
  And yeah, and, and my life and literally has been different.
• 1:09:52
  Even when I tried to go back to wiling out and tried to go back
• 1:09:57
  to that, I couldn't and go there and stay there.
• 1:10:01
  Like that's why I belong. Right, right, right.
• 1:10:03
  Ice, I was the guy in the club and people was like, you don't
• 1:10:08
  belong here it you reverend. I was like, ah man, ain't no
• 1:10:13
  reverend. I'm a drunk, you know what I
• 1:10:15
  mean? But yeah.
• 1:10:18
  Wow, so that's that took place in the Navy?
• 1:10:21
  Yeah, that all took place in the Navy, man.
• 1:10:23
  Wow, you got me going down memory lane.
• 1:10:26
  Hey, that's where we going. That's where we going today,
• 1:10:32
  looking back. Yeah.
• 1:10:34
  So today, looking back at your career, what would you tell a
• 1:10:38
  young teenager or someone who's you know, that you come across
• 1:10:42
  and says, hey, I'm interested in joining the military.
• 1:10:45
  What would be your conversation to that young woman or male?
• 1:10:50
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You, you got to want it.
• 1:10:54
  And if you wanted the branches, I'm going to just say all the
• 1:10:56
  military, the military is good too.
• 1:10:58
  It's men and women now. I see it first hand here.
• 1:11:01
  I have never met so many career minded 20 year people
• 1:11:06
  automatically going to 20 in year 2.
• 1:11:09
  They're like, I'm going all the way.
• 1:11:11
  Like wow. We always talked about getting
• 1:11:13
  out. I got a EOS date I got.
• 1:11:18
  So if that's what you want to do, if this is what you want to
• 1:11:22
  do, then I, I'm a firm believer that the military is a good
• 1:11:25
  route to take. You know, I, if you put me in a
• 1:11:28
  group full of young men and women right now, because that's
• 1:11:32
  the route that I took. And I know because I, I'm seeing
• 1:11:35
  how my stepson just bought a house 10 years in living in
• 1:11:40
  Hemet, CA and I'm seeing how my other stepson is doing well
• 1:11:44
  because of the military. Now it's not for everybody,
• 1:11:47
  right? So, I mean, because somebody
• 1:11:50
  going to tell you what to do and where to go.
• 1:11:52
  Now you can get a little rank and you going to be able to tell
• 1:11:54
  people too. But it's, it's a pecking order
• 1:11:57
  to this thing. But I, I, I'm, I'm pro military.
• 1:12:01
  Yeah. I got into a little disagreement
• 1:12:03
  with someone not too long ago. It was like, how could you be
• 1:12:06
  patriotic and all this and all that?
• 1:12:08
  I said, you know what? My plight here with the African
• 1:12:11
  Americans, However I got here, I got here, you know?
• 1:12:16
  God, but the, you know what, we're going, we're going to have
• 1:12:21
  some good talks. We're going to have some good
• 1:12:22
  talks offline because I got a whole, I had a whole
• 1:12:25
  conversation that the Holy Spirit gave me about the Moses
• 1:12:29
  and the Israelites and that transition and, and how I
• 1:12:32
  believe our African community still deals with some of that
• 1:12:36
  that we carry and that I wasn't in that I wasn't in that
• 1:12:40
  environment. So I have no problem with none
• 1:12:42
  that I acknowledge it, but I don't have and my grandparents
• 1:12:46
  was in that environment. So, but for me, you know, like
• 1:12:50
  the Israelites, they, they, they, that's that 40 year walk
• 1:12:53
  that next generation came in and they were able to go into the
• 1:12:57
  promised land. But I can imagine going to the
• 1:13:01
  promised land with all that Egypt in your mind and your
• 1:13:04
  heart. When you got to go to that new
• 1:13:06
  environment and you got to create everything from scratch
• 1:13:08
  and you complaining about where you came from like that was
• 1:13:11
  like, and they made sense to me. Like.
• 1:13:13
  Why? Why God didn't allow that to
• 1:13:15
  happen because of their hearts was still, yeah, in Egypt.
• 1:13:19
  And so I believe that our conversation is still kind of
• 1:13:22
  like that today. Absolutely.
• 1:13:24
  So the biggest thing, and it's not to get too deep off into a
• 1:13:27
  Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy, right?
• 1:13:30
  Deuteronomy, yeah. This speaks blessings and
• 1:13:32
  curses. And I believe that all people
• 1:13:36
  are cursed if they do the 1st 14 scriptures, you know, they that
• 1:13:42
  because those are the curses that are on the people.
• 1:13:45
  And then he talks about the blessings and it's today you and
• 1:13:49
  I and those that are like us will live the life of a blessed
• 1:13:53
  life if things right. So I mean, it's right there in
• 1:13:58
  it's there for us. And you know, you, you just as I
• 1:14:03
  each day that I get older, you know, I believe it comes with a
• 1:14:07
  level of maturity. And just like Lord, I accept,
• 1:14:11
  you know, like I said, I I couldn't pick the Cosby.
• 1:14:14
  I wouldn't want the Cosby. I don't want him to be my dad
• 1:14:19
  anyway. But I remember I used to watch 8
• 1:14:22
  is enough stuff. Like.
• 1:14:26
  And I, you know, the biggest knock on my childhood is I used
• 1:14:30
  to see people eat at the table with the kids.
• 1:14:33
  And we never had that in my house.
• 1:14:35
  But I was the little kid. If me and you was in the same
• 1:14:37
  neighborhood, I get to be your friend, I'll be at your dinner
• 1:14:40
  table. So I saw other families do it,
• 1:14:43
  right. Well, we did.
• 1:14:45
  Yeah, we didn't. We didn't.
• 1:14:47
  We didn't do it right. Yeah.
• 1:14:49
  You know, my friend dad took me to a Dodger game and how I
• 1:14:54
  became a Dodger fan. And me and my friend used to go
• 1:14:58
  to the Dodger game and his dad would take us.
• 1:15:00
  And I try to go every year to Dodger Stadium.
• 1:15:04
  Yeah, good team or a bad team because it's childhood memories
• 1:15:07
  for. Sure.
• 1:15:08
  Yeah, I want to acknowledge my S4 who is watching right now.
• 1:15:13
  That's him right there, Douglas Landy.
• 1:15:16
  So yeah, I was, I was National Guard first, OK?
• 1:15:22
  I wanted to go active duty but my uncle who was in the Air
• 1:15:25
  Force Reserve said go part time first because if you don't like
• 1:15:28
  it and you go full time first, you stuck for the amount of
• 1:15:31
  years, right. So I went to the Guard and then
• 1:15:36
  about my 4th year went to my fifth year of the Guard.
• 1:15:38
  I was like, I think I could do this.
• 1:15:41
  And so I walked into the Army one day in Inglewood and they
• 1:15:44
  had this clipboard with all these AGR jobs on there.
• 1:15:48
  And so I asked my, my, my Brandon Cincio say, hey, are
• 1:15:53
  there any jobs available? He's like, yeah, there's some on
• 1:15:54
  the board that's they're closing like in two or three days.
• 1:15:57
  Yeah. So I looked up there and it was
• 1:15:58
  a supply clerk. Yeah.
• 1:16:00
  And I was like, I looked at it and I was like, I could do that.
• 1:16:03
  Yeah. And I gave it to him.
• 1:16:04
  He's I'm like, what do I need? He's like, dude, this is due, I
• 1:16:07
  think it was the 27th of December.
• 1:16:09
  It was due like the 30th. And he was like, you need, you
• 1:16:12
  need this, the picture, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:16:14
  And I was like, all right, cool. I went.
• 1:16:16
  I put it all together. He helped me out.
• 1:16:18
  I submitted it and lo and behold when I went to that unit for the
• 1:16:22
  interview starting first class, Landy was my S4 so he picked me
• 1:16:30
  up as the AGR as I was the HAC supply clerk as a as AE4 and he
• 1:16:36
  was the S4 and man we traveled. Oh yeah, yeah.
• 1:16:41
  We traveled doing supplies and everything, yeah.
• 1:16:44
  Yeah, I did a little travelling. I'm grateful for him.
• 1:16:47
  He's he saw something in me and one of my friends was like, you
• 1:16:51
  got to learn for the 2064 is I'm like, what is that?
• 1:16:53
  It's a hand receipt. So I go in there like I know
• 1:16:55
  what I'm talking about. He's like, do you know anything
• 1:16:57
  about supply? I'm I'm a fuel handler at the
• 1:16:59
  time, truck driver and I'm trying to act like I know about
• 1:17:03
  supply. It was he was like, do you know
• 1:17:05
  anything? I'm like, he's like, good.
• 1:17:07
  You don't have no bad habits. I could teach you what I need
• 1:17:11
  you to know. And from there we've been
• 1:17:12
  talking. Here we are in in 2025.
• 1:17:15
  And that was 1994. No, 1990.
• 1:17:17
  Yeah, 1994. Wow, wow, that's amazing.
• 1:17:22
  Yeah, 94. So I have a prayer line on
• 1:17:25
  Friday nights and some of the guys on the prayer line are
• 1:17:30
  former soldiers and blah fuck shop after prayer.
• 1:17:37
  And it is amazing people that God is putting together, you
• 1:17:41
  know, as you say in the trenches.
• 1:17:43
  That's a beautiful. Trenches, yes.
• 1:17:45
  All right, before we get out of here and wrap this this episode
• 1:17:48
  up. All right.
• 1:17:50
  We know that our brothers and sisters have a a a challenge in
• 1:17:55
  their transition out of the service.
• 1:17:57
  Yes, I've interviewed a lot of my brothers and sisters that was
• 1:18:01
  homeless when they joined the service, did their eight-year
• 1:18:04
  career, whatever amount of years they got out of the service and
• 1:18:08
  went right back to the mindset that they had before they joined
• 1:18:12
  me, back to being homeless and having all these different
• 1:18:15
  challenges. As I opened up the show, 1 of
• 1:18:18
  the main things is that camaraderie.
• 1:18:20
  Again, it's the belonging that we think we didn't get from our
• 1:18:24
  environment. We get it from the military, all
• 1:18:27
  of it. It feeds all of the positive and
• 1:18:30
  the negative, you know that that we experience.
• 1:18:33
  And then when for like for myself, when when that order
• 1:18:38
  came down that I was going to receive a medical retirement, I
• 1:18:43
  had made it mean my life is over.
• 1:18:45
  And my subconscious mind started collecting all the evidence of
• 1:18:48
  why my life is over. My my marriage failed, my car
• 1:18:52
  broke down like it was just collecting evidence of why my
• 1:18:58
  life was over and having the ideations of those anxiety and
• 1:19:04
  depression and all of that. As I shared that what's next.
• 1:19:10
  We believe that that helping that soldier define or find out
• 1:19:13
  what that what's next is for you.
• 1:19:15
  What was that transition coming out of the Navy thinking about,
• 1:19:22
  you know, what was next for you? Yeah.
• 1:19:25
  So then being transparent, right?
• 1:19:29
  Being like 100% honest, when I got out the service, I was, I
• 1:19:36
  was four O everything, high, high, high Marks and everything.
• 1:19:43
  And I originally got out the service to join LAPDI wanted to
• 1:19:49
  be a different kind of officer in my community.
• 1:19:56
  Remember I said I was a Dodger fan?
• 1:19:58
  And I remember one year the cops gave me some Dodger Ball
• 1:20:03
  baseball cards. I remember having them up on my
• 1:20:06
  wall and every time we to see the cops, we'd be like, hey, you
• 1:20:09
  got some of them cards. Did they pass out cards back
• 1:20:13
  then? Did they pass out baseball cards
• 1:20:16
  back then? When I was, I think I remember.
• 1:20:18
  That yeah, yeah. I think I remember that.
• 1:20:20
  Go ahead. Cars and put them up on my wall
• 1:20:23
  and I wanted to be a cop to help people.
• 1:20:28
  But being transparent, when I got out the service, I got
• 1:20:32
  accepted into the police Academy and I had a start date for the
• 1:20:37
  Academy and I picked up from Desert Shield, Desert Storm.
• 1:20:43
  Anger picked up anger and it cost me six months of my life
• 1:20:50
  while I had to do time. Oh my God.
• 1:20:54
  And while I was doing time and being all God's honest, a
• 1:20:58
  veteran came to me and I haven't heard about, he said, bro, I
• 1:21:03
  know you, I know you in a bad predicament right now.
• 1:21:08
  But he said keep calling her name Jesus, because I kept
• 1:21:13
  saying Jesus. Why I got to go this route, you
• 1:21:16
  know? But.
• 1:21:20
  Yeah, I got the letter. I didn't make it in.
• 1:21:23
  I didn't get to go to the Academy and my wife, the
• 1:21:27
  ex-wife, she left me. I got something better for me
• 1:21:32
  down the line. Scripture that I live by is and
• 1:21:34
  we know that all things work together for the called
• 1:21:40
  according to his purpose. I didn't want to have to go
• 1:21:43
  through what I went through, but going through it allowed me to
• 1:21:49
  on that journey to meet the beautifulest woman ever.
• 1:21:53
  That's my wife and we went over 20, three years that's.
• 1:21:59
  What she that's what she put up there.
• 1:22:03
  Three years and she saw me being feeble, she saw me in my
• 1:22:11
  victories, she saw me in my defeats, right.
• 1:22:15
  And through her own good wisdom she stayed there with me.
• 1:22:22
  And so that's the thing that how it all worked together for the
• 1:22:26
  good. Like you found your calling in
• 1:22:29
  life. My calling wasn't to be a cop.
• 1:22:34
  It was to be a gospel preacher. Preach in season, out of season,
• 1:22:43
  teach. And that's what I'm going to do
• 1:22:45
  until I don't have no more strength in my body. 2009, I
• 1:22:50
  went through cancer. I had cancer in my body.
• 1:22:54
  I ate there in that bed with tears roaming down my eyes and I
• 1:22:58
  said, God, you give me my strength that will serve you all
• 1:23:02
  the days of my life. Sir, I'm on this line today
• 1:23:05
  because somebody said, as you as a veteran, come and tell.
• 1:23:09
  I said I'll tell the story. I never get tired of telling the
• 1:23:11
  story. You understand?
• 1:23:13
  There's no cancer in my body when they check.
• 1:23:15
  No, I can't. How do I give him that?
• 1:23:18
  I give him the glory that I got to ride or die that puts up with
• 1:23:22
  me when. I'm with Rudy, right?
• 1:23:26
  Rudy right. Rudy, right?
• 1:23:29
  I I like. I need space.
• 1:23:31
  You understand what I'm saying? Wow.
• 1:23:33
  Yeah, I, I was. Just being.
• 1:23:35
  Scripture earlier I'm I'm through after this. 30 No,
• 1:23:38
  you're good. Yeah, Jeremiah was known in the
• 1:23:41
  Bible. The Bible says as the weeping
• 1:23:45
  prophet and the people that he was preaching to at that time,
• 1:23:49
  similar to Times Now, they want to do anything and everything.
• 1:23:53
  So he was saying there's consequences for this and the
• 1:23:56
  enemy did come in and take the people, but he was weeping.
• 1:24:00
  He was like I need y'all to get this and that's my job today
• 1:24:06
  because we got Teslas, we got cyber trucks, but we got none of
• 1:24:11
  that is going with us when we get.
• 1:24:13
  Up. Whether you look at Pacific
• 1:24:16
  Palisades Val $1,000,000 Homes is no different than a cardboard
• 1:24:22
  box on Skid Row. Yes, yes, yes.
• 1:24:27
  And people are angry and upset and somebody has got a carry
• 1:24:32
  bass to. Marry.
• 1:24:33
  You hear that? Yeah.
• 1:24:35
  But it's like if it wasn't no neglect or no nothing like that,
• 1:24:39
  then it's just like the earth when the earth starts shaking.
• 1:24:44
  Who are you going? To blame, blame her for that,
• 1:24:47
  Governor Newsom for that. So.
• 1:24:50
  So yeah, all that man, all myself, like all of them have
• 1:24:55
  been designed for greater comebacks, you know?
• 1:24:58
  I agree. I can't have it back.
• 1:25:01
  Even even disrespection people was running around.
• 1:25:05
  I'm like, if you know those stuff, you know your stuff.
• 1:25:10
  It's not my first rodeo, man. Yeah, you know, not my first
• 1:25:14
  rodeo. They they gave me the answers to
• 1:25:16
  the test. I got the operations right here.
• 1:25:20
  I got them. But in the moment, in the moment
• 1:25:24
  of that, it's like, oh man, yeah, some inspection was no
• 1:25:28
  good. Yeah, yeah, you know, but it you
• 1:25:31
  can't exhale once it's done. Yeah, You know, we trying to get
• 1:25:35
  the LMS right now the take us over for some some ribs or
• 1:25:40
  something. Hard work done bro.
• 1:25:44
  Let's let's celebrate. But yeah, this Bishop Richard
• 1:25:49
  said. Thank you for your time, man.
• 1:25:51
  I, I have truly shouts out the least Lisa has put has given me
• 1:25:56
  introduces on people. I I had no idea how they were.
• 1:26:00
  It was going to play out as far as the conversation.
• 1:26:02
  On God's work. Yeah, thank you.
• 1:26:05
  She is. She is.
• 1:26:07
  She is. What do you want to say?
• 1:26:14
  I want to say everybody under the sound of my voice need to
• 1:26:16
  know as they personal Savior, you need to know that if he did
• 1:26:21
  it for me, He could do it for you.
• 1:26:24
  You know what I mean? God is so good.
• 1:26:26
  I say that sometimes with tears in my eyes, sometimes pain
• 1:26:31
  breathing in my body, in my back, but God is so good.
• 1:26:35
  And so that's my life. That's the life that I'm living
• 1:26:38
  in. I would pray that something that
• 1:26:40
  was said on this time that we were online.
• 1:26:43
  They say, you know what, whether you reach out to me, reach out
• 1:26:46
  to somebody on this line or something, to have that personal
• 1:26:50
  relationship, our Lord and Savior of Jesus Christ, that's
• 1:26:56
  what. I was saying I, I have, I have
• 1:26:58
  nothing else to add to that. There's a comment from your wife
• 1:27:01
  that said that that takes a loving God and his people and
• 1:27:04
  walk in the obedience to God. That was from a conversation we
• 1:27:07
  was having earlier. Amen.
• 1:27:10
  Again, thank you for your time, Sir.
• 1:27:12
  I, like I said, I'm so honored to have you here.
• 1:27:15
  I look forward to talking to you outside of these conversations
• 1:27:18
  here on the line. But then we can do it.
• 1:27:21
  Yeah, for sure, for sure. Thank you.
• 1:27:22
  Thank you. Yes, you're more than welcome.
• 1:27:24
  God bless you. God bless you.
• 1:27:25
  I appreciate you so much. Thank you.
• 1:27:28
  Thank you. All right, this is wow, another
• 1:27:34
  episode of Trench Talk. Shout out to Douglas Landing
• 1:27:36
  man. I appreciate you for tuning in
• 1:27:38
  all the way from the ATL out that way.
• 1:27:42
  And for all those of you again, who stayed in for this 90 minute
• 1:27:46
  segment of Trench Talk, I hope that you are been able to take
• 1:27:50
  something away. If you want to be a guest,
• 1:27:52
  you're more than welcome to message me again at Faron Dozier
• 1:27:57
  on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all the social media platforms.
• 1:28:00
  You can find me there again at farond.com.
• 1:28:03
  If you want to find out more information about the stuff that
• 1:28:05
  I'm up to in the community. My sickle cell trade talk is of
• 1:28:09
  course, at wdcoandsct.org. And again, again, everything is
• 1:28:14
  pretty much there on those two websites.
• 1:28:15
  And what I'm up to, you can find me there.
• 1:28:19
  We'll be figuring out the next week's guest.
• 1:28:22
  I do my shows about week to week again.
• 1:28:25
  So I will be looking for another guest next week to have a
• 1:28:29
  conversation. Or if I end up having to just a
• 1:28:31
  discussion, I've got something to talk about on my own.
• 1:28:36
  I will do that as well. But again, I want to play this
• 1:28:39
  last piece. It's about four minutes.
• 1:28:43
  This is called what he's a Korean era veteran.
• 1:28:46
  And then April, he'll be 91 and in the ninth.
• 1:28:53
  He graduated UCLA in 1957 and was on this healing path from
• 1:29:01
  his own life, as you'll see in this video.
• 1:29:03
  And I've been working with him the last eight years, and he has
• 1:29:06
  his own curriculum. He's been teaching mindfulness
• 1:29:09
  in the 60s before there was therapy sessions and group
• 1:29:14
  therapy. He was doing these conversations
• 1:29:16
  back then. And so I just want to
• 1:29:17
  acknowledge him for allowing me to be a part of his curriculum.
• 1:29:21
  I will I have utilized it already in LA Unified School
• 1:29:25
  District. Some of these conversations I
• 1:29:26
  share here. But I want for our veterans, you
• 1:29:32
  know, my, my, my contribution and my relatedness is the
• 1:29:35
  veteran suicide and and now even you've suicide, right?
• 1:29:39
  So I just want you to listen to this PSA and then we'll get out
• 1:29:43
  of here. This is trench talk for Rondo
• 1:29:46
  Zier. Shout us out.
• 1:29:51
  The most compelling social need of humans is to belong.
• 1:30:00
  All four of my grandparents were born slaves.
• 1:30:04
  My father's father. He was seven years old and sold
• 1:30:08
  away from everything and everybody he knew.
• 1:30:13
  He never again saw any member of his family.
• 1:30:18
  My father, he's born in 1884. His mother had died in
• 1:30:24
  childbirth, and he raised himself from age 8.
• 1:30:31
  The sheriff came with his posse, took my father and my oldest
• 1:30:35
  brother and beat them. My father died with scars on his
• 1:30:39
  back from that beating. If the sheriff puts you in jail
• 1:30:44
  in a Jim Crow's South, where do you turn to seek justice?
• 1:30:52
  I love school. I it became a source of me
• 1:30:57
  finding myself when I'd graduated from Utah in 1957 and
• 1:31:02
  was never even able to get an interview.
• 1:31:04
  No Jews, no Negroes, no Hispanics, no Orientals need
• 1:31:10
  apply. Now what do I do?
• 1:31:18
  Boy, you add color to our faculty.
• 1:31:21
  That's, that's all we're interested in.
• 1:31:23
  All the other councils were instructed to give me their
• 1:31:26
  failing seniors, dopers, rebels, suicidals, listening to 12th
• 1:31:33
  graders who were not going to graduate.
• 1:31:36
  They told me what was going on in their lives.
• 1:31:38
  I discovered that I had something to offer people that I
• 1:31:42
  thought had everything. The wood was already out on the
• 1:31:46
  campus. That the Skinny black dude was
• 1:31:48
  cool. I got all these kids who want to
• 1:31:50
  talk to me and I don't have the time to see them.
• 1:31:52
  I think I might be able to see everybody if I saw them in
• 1:31:55
  groups. Individual psychotherapy on a
• 1:31:58
  couch was the only method Skinny black dude wanted to do groups.
• 1:32:03
  You can't do that because it doesn't exist.
• 1:32:07
  To hell with them. Let's do it anyway.
• 1:32:11
  Parents want to know, what are you doing to bring about this
• 1:32:14
  reaction to my kid? I've been sending my kids to the
• 1:32:16
  best psychiatrist in Southern California and this hasn't
• 1:32:18
  happened. This shit works.
• 1:32:24
  Developing adolescence without narcotics is a radical new
• 1:32:29
  national idea. Oh, you can't do that?
• 1:32:34
  I'll turn to school. That includes the sensitivity,
• 1:32:38
  the mental health needs of our students.
• 1:32:40
  This is too big for you. Would you be willing to train my
• 1:32:45
  managers? Yeah.
• 1:32:47
  Who's called Williams? He hasn't published anything. 22
• 1:32:53
  Iraq Afghan veterans committing suicide every day.
• 1:32:58
  I think I know who these young people are.
• 1:33:01
  Mr. Williams, you don't want to touch this.
• 1:33:08
  You don't know who we are, Mr. Williams.
• 1:33:11
  And I said, yes, I know who you are.
• 1:33:13
  Maybe you don't know who you are.
• 1:33:15
  Did your parents any kind of racism?
• 1:33:19
  Oh, my gosh, yes. How about your grandparents?
• 1:33:22
  Oh, my. Even worse.
• 1:33:25
  Then how did we get here? Someone persisted and prevailed
• 1:33:30
  in spite of. I would assert that no less is
• 1:33:35
  required of us. So I met Caldwell in 2018.
• 1:34:02
  I was invited to interview a World War 2 veteran and it was a
• 1:34:07
  a home in Inglewood, but it was for homeless veterans and he was
• 1:34:11
  there in the corner. And after I introduced myself, I
• 1:34:14
  interviewed the World War 2 veteran.
• 1:34:16
  He approached me and gave me his card and told me what he was up
• 1:34:20
  to now, I had already been in Landmark education and doing my
• 1:34:24
  own. This journey of where I'm at
• 1:34:26
  today, meeting him and learning his curriculum and, and spending
• 1:34:32
  time and, and, and developing and, and again, it's, it's
• 1:34:39
  really not difficult for those of us who are willing to do the
• 1:34:45
  work. You just have to be willing.
• 1:34:49
  You have to be willing to tell the truth to yourself first, if
• 1:34:51
  nobody else. You've got to be willing to tell
• 1:34:54
  the truth to yourself. It takes a level of confidence.
• 1:34:58
  It takes a level of courage. It takes a level of giving up
• 1:35:02
  your opinion about yourself. And as you watch that clip, his
• 1:35:09
  grandparents, the slave master owned his grandmother.
• 1:35:15
  That was his grandfather and for him to be 91 this year and still
• 1:35:23
  doing the best that he can to help interrupt veteran suicide,
• 1:35:27
  youth suicide. But again, as I said during the
• 1:35:30
  show, remove the the the veteran, the label of it's a
• 1:35:35
  human being flaw that we deal with.
• 1:35:40
  Some of us suffer in silence Now.
• 1:35:45
  There's all kinds of educations out there that you can take.
• 1:35:48
  But the one that that we're working on, that he's trusted
• 1:35:54
  me, that when he passes away that I can take this
• 1:35:57
  conversation and move it forward, is only because I've
• 1:36:01
  done the work myself. The sense of belonging is so
• 1:36:06
  important for human beings. As he said, we want to be
• 1:36:10
  accepted, we want to be liked, we want to be loved.
• 1:36:13
  But sometimes that doesn't happen.
• 1:36:19
  Sometimes you got to love yourself first.
• 1:36:24
  And I asked them what is the out of your whole curriculum?
• 1:36:27
  What is the most important thing?
• 1:36:29
  We talked about managing change. We talked about suicide
• 1:36:33
  ideation. We talked about just everything
• 1:36:35
  that that we know about life, but we've may be forgotten
• 1:36:39
  because we're so caught up in our mindset of being cynical and
• 1:36:43
  this is just the way it is. Mine was why bother after
• 1:36:49
  looking at hope mixed with hopelessness and despair and
• 1:36:53
  disappointment in myself, like, man, you messed up again.
• 1:36:55
  Like how far on how you do that again, like all of that.
• 1:36:59
  They can't make another decision or a choice because I don't want
• 1:37:02
  the outcome. I can't control like all of
• 1:37:04
  that. And when you get to a level of
• 1:37:06
  despair, mine was why bother? Why bother staying alive?
• 1:37:11
  Why bother? Who cares?
• 1:37:16
  But then today I asked him, what is the most important thing
• 1:37:19
  about your curriculum? And it's very simple, is
• 1:37:24
  speaking without offending and listening without defending,
• 1:37:29
  because communication is harmonious.
• 1:37:32
  Communication is not me waiting to respond to what you're saying
• 1:37:36
  because I'm already thinking about the next thing I want to
• 1:37:39
  say. No, it's me.
• 1:37:40
  Listen to you. Listen to your tone, recreating
• 1:37:43
  what you said, and if I don't say it right, then you get to
• 1:37:47
  tell me no. This is what I mean.
• 1:37:51
  But sometimes we do speak and we offend because sometimes we care
• 1:37:55
  so much about one another that we don't want to see people
• 1:37:57
  suffer. I don't want to see you suffer,
• 1:37:59
  so I might say something, but sometimes you got to ask
• 1:38:02
  permission to speak in people's life.
• 1:38:05
  Sometimes. Sometimes people just want to be
• 1:38:07
  heard and not fixed. So how do we have communication
• 1:38:14
  that's harmonious? I got to be able to remove
• 1:38:16
  myself from that conversation and then listen to you and not
• 1:38:22
  making me something about me. And sometimes when people speak
• 1:38:28
  to us on the other side of that, they're speaking to that hurt
• 1:38:32
  and that pain. And you don't have a right to
• 1:38:34
  speak to that. And so we now we get defensive.
• 1:38:36
  So now I'm defending myself from what you said to me, even though
• 1:38:39
  it might be true about me, but you don't get to point that out.
• 1:38:44
  I didn't give you permission to talk about me.
• 1:38:46
  How do you know what I'm dealing with?
• 1:38:47
  And you can't speak to that. And so now we're defensive,
• 1:38:53
  maybe because I'm living from, I'm not good enough, I'm not
• 1:38:56
  worth it, I'm not smart enough. I'm not this, whatever those I'm
• 1:38:58
  not that we carry silently, that we talk to yourself and your
• 1:39:03
  mouth is closed, but you talking to yourself, that voice is not
• 1:39:07
  you. That is not you.
• 1:39:13
  So we say everybody says thank you for your service, thank you
• 1:39:17
  for your service, thank you for your service and we appreciate
• 1:39:20
  that. I say thank you for paying your
• 1:39:21
  taxes because I'm retired. So thank you for paying your
• 1:39:25
  taxes. But if you really want to help,
• 1:39:28
  if you really are interested and you can relate to these
• 1:39:31
  transitions from elementary to middle school where you're
• 1:39:34
  looking for your identity and you're no longer really talking
• 1:39:37
  to your parents anymore and you're not talking to your dad
• 1:39:39
  anymore. Or whoever that that person is
• 1:39:41
  that's raising you, that you feel like they don't understand
• 1:39:44
  you or don't hear you. That transition from elementary
• 1:39:48
  to middle school, we all experienced it.
• 1:39:50
  We're looking for that identity. Mine became basketball.
• 1:39:54
  I made friends through basketball and my identity was
• 1:39:57
  as such. And then it transitioned to
• 1:39:59
  being a soldier. So sometimes, not for all, but
• 1:40:07
  for some of us, that emotional. Strain the fracture of
• 1:40:12
  integrity, the how we talk to ourselves, the I'm not.
• 1:40:19
  It's hard for people to honor their word to themselves, let
• 1:40:22
  alone honor my word to you. If I can't even honor my word to
• 1:40:25
  myself, why would I put the pressure onto you?
• 1:40:31
  I don't understand me, so why would I put the pressure for you
• 1:40:33
  to understand me? But if you relate to me, we can
• 1:40:38
  have a whole conversation about stuff.
• 1:40:42
  But sometimes as veterans specifically that transition out
• 1:40:46
  of the service, who am I? Why am I born?
• 1:40:48
  We all have these questions. Why am I born?
• 1:40:52
  Why am I here? What can I do?
• 1:40:54
  What am I supposed to be doing? Why am I like, where do you go
• 1:40:58
  for those answers? Where do you go for those
• 1:41:04
  answers? You can go to God, you can go to
• 1:41:08
  what you follow. You got to go somewhere.
• 1:41:15
  And so that's the work. The basketball team that I have,
• 1:41:19
  that's the work. The elementary school students
• 1:41:22
  that we teach this to, that's the work.
• 1:41:24
  The parents, that's the work. My message at church, that's the
• 1:41:28
  work. 1 every 65 minutes a veteran takes their life, one
• 1:41:37
  every 65 minutes. And we're just here to interrupt
• 1:41:41
  some of that. Those that are willing to do the
• 1:41:43
  work, you got to be willing. So again, thank you for tuning
• 1:41:48
  in today. I'm very, I mean, I'm, I'm so
• 1:41:51
  blessed by Lisa for introducing me to Bishop.
• 1:41:56
  If you want information about the ABAABA orchids, aba.com, you
• 1:42:00
  can go there and check that out. I think that's that's all of my
• 1:42:03
  that's all of my stuff there. All right, so we're going to get
• 1:42:06
  out of here. If you want to hit me up at
• 1:42:09
  Ferron Dosier on all the platforms at Ferron Dosier show
• 1:42:14
  on Instagram, more than welcome to be a guest.
• 1:42:16
  Thank you for your time today. I really appreciate you and
• 1:42:20
  we're out of here. This is trench talk, the front
• 1:42:23
  Dosier show on MBR platforms. Thank you.
• 1:42:32
  Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to Military
• 1:42:37
  Broadcast Radio. As we wrap up today's show, we
• 1:42:42
  want to remind you that the podcast of today's episode will
• 1:42:46
  be available right after we go off the air.
• 1:42:49
  So if you missed any part of the show or want to listen again, be
• 1:42:54
  sure to check it out. And remember, we're here to
• 1:42:58
  support and honor our veterans. Your stories and experiences
• 1:43:04
  matter, and we are committed to giving you a platform to share
• 1:43:09
  them. That's right, we're here to give
• 1:43:12
  our veterans a voice. So don't forget to catch the
• 1:43:16
  podcast and stay connected with us giving our veterans a voice.