0:00 [Music] welcome back to careful boys this morning we have with us a former special ops member Mr Angel how are you sir thank you guys for having me it's uh it's it's fun to be here I've been watching you guys' videos no way oh God I'm sorry the first one was was 2012 Asian dad say wow that long ago bro so my my wife Ania sent it to me and I was like a ████ dying cuz 2012 not everybody was on the social media game like it was still considered gay yeah like as opposed to now it's the straightest it's ever been it's gone so gay that it's actually pretty normal pretty tame yeah pretty T so tell us about special op how do you
0:50 get in what's your journey well his story is crazy so we have a mutual friend named Paul Gomez he's like a business mentor to mine and originally he was like hey have you met Angel and I was like oh I don't know who he is and he was like you have to meet him cuz he's a guy that came from the hood end up becoming an Army Ranger and like that leap is so huge cuz almost everyone I've ever met in the military that got into Special Operations their family members are usually already in the military so they can help guide so they don't get lied to by the recruiters like I did and then you just listen to anything and you're oh okay cool that's that's that's how it is um when you have like someone in your family they can guide you and then so I think your ceiling is higher and it's really rare for me to meet people that are first generation and then goes special ops Oh so I think if
1:41 you could explain that story that's pretty ████ cool um my I'm the first one to be born here in the US and then uh my my mom and dad came from from Mexico and when we first came here uh we lived in Westminster which is like hardcore you know Vietnamese Korean Asian you know and and my they my parents were were Bakers my dad specifically right so they they baked all the like that kind of stuff yeah bre bread for like uh Saigon Saigon Bakery Asian making empanadas and stuff so that's cuz that we lived in some mobile homes in Westminster that they they're still there so that's where the first place we went this this this Vietnamese family took us in and they're like hey you're going to work at our our our Vietnamese thing and you guys will
2:31 be the Bakers and that's how it worked um and then eventually we had our own like a little bit of money but you know not enough so we we live in in now like Mexican neighborhoods with you know lwi income and with that comes what drugs crime gangs and all that so I I stayed away from it for as much as possible um I skated well I still skate but like I I use skateboarding as my my way out of of just being me not necessarily doing it on purpose be away from from The Gangs but just like that's what interested me right everything in my house was Spanish TV radio food you know so everything like American was like to me was like oh ████ like X Games ████ I go to my friends I was like what the ████ is X Games and then let's Dr some monsters yeah wrestling everything hardcore like American that I wanted and my family was like no bro we barely have money for this and that so anyways I would skate a
3:22 lot but then I became of age of like you know the gang members are asking me like hey what gang are you from you know now you're not a little like little kid now you're a teenager um so I stayed away from it but eventually I I did join a gang because uh my little skate crew um they took this one gang took a skateboard from the skate crew and I was like angry and I wanted to get our board back I'm like bro you took my ████ friends skateboard but I couldn't do ████ cuz they're all gang members and most of the skaters and in our crew were like they're just skaters they're not Fighters they're not gang members so I was like man ████ like if this is this going to be my life now like getting picked on and I'm like man I don't I don't like to get picked on and um obviously I didn't understand the repercussions of my decisions until later on but with within the school I made uh some guys that were pretty cool
4:12 and they're like oh yeah you know we don't like that gang and I'm like bro I don't like that gang either let's ████ kick it and we're hanging out and next thing you know uh I joined the gang and you know it was just for protection but I didn't I didn't understand that when I joined that gang not only yes I was getting protection from this other gang at the school but I now had beef with other gang members that didn't even go to that school and they're friends friends and whatever gangs those friends went you know were part of um like all the history all the baggage is not part of yours yeah this must have been a sick skateboard dude I'm getting I'm getting it back dude I know the skateboard that started it all and uh you know so I I I it was just part of the game but then things escalated really quick you know uh like I got stabbed I I got shot at and then
5:02 um It All Happened fast and I would see some of the the gang members have money and I'm like bro I want money but I wanted money to like when I made started selling drugs I I was buying clothes and food for my brothers and sisters like I grew up on on on hand-me-downs and then if we had like brand new stuff it was knockoff so it like you know my Vans weren't like it was like a straight line Vans don't have a straight line or my Myas had like a missing stripe or an extra stripe so even when I had new stuff I would get made fun of you know then and English wasn't my first language so I would get made fun of Cu I didn't know how to speak English and and and reading and writing I sucked at so I was a terrible student um so I like you know what I'm going to make some money so started buying clothes buying food um and then when I got stabbed it kind of changed things for me because uh at the
5:53 time I where did they get stabbed so I got stabbed in my head and in my back Jesus Christ Jesus Christ that so when if I were to take my hat or even like you can see like certain bald spots I mean some of it is cuz I'm getting older but some of it is cuz is it cuz it was like a repeat stab yeah I did I didn't know I was getting stabbed it was like um like a rumble and you know I'm I'm fighting this one guy and I'm beating him up and I've been wanting to fight that one dude for a long time he's the one that took the skateboard no he was there he was he was he was ████ there from the beginning and and he was one of the instigators so I always wanted to kick his ass I'm kicking his ass and next you know I'm I'm getting hit and I was like man this guy punches hard cuz I started covering up I didn't know I was getting stabbed I just thought like damn this one dude punches hard and I hear cops cops cops and this is at uh by Rancho High School
6:45 um I'm sure you guys know where Rancho High School is at is that the OC uh yeah yeah it's near like uh like uh Anaheim Anaheim Garden Grove area is that where the wiener snitel is stupid I don't know I didn't look that's 50% chance of getting that right there's always a weener snitel it all see there is is it next to the Michaels or I don't know who eats there but there's always one never seen anyone actually go through the drivethru ever it's it's always empty yeah um but yeah so the the rumble ended and someone was yelling cops and I hear like oh my God you're bleeding and it's like this girl is she's like looking at me and I turn around and I'm like oh oh she's looking at me and that's when I put my hand on my head and then when I look at my hand I couldn't see any of my skin it was all
7:35 covered in blood Christ that's when I my um my friend's like oh ████ bro like you're stabbed and then I like oh ████ and then the pain started coming in I'm like oh damn so that that I was angry because of that happened and then because my childhood I was I was I was uh uh raised in a very abusive uh um uh household by my parents so that day I was like you know what ████ this I'm to use some of the money uh I went up to the older heads I was like yo I want guns so I got got guns bulletproof vest and then within the gang I started controlling my own crew and then I got to the point where I was the head of the crew and we were doing like 90% if not all 100% of all violent crimes that were being produced in that area was was me I was leading it um and and I but I knew
8:26 there was there was no feature in this there there just no like all all the cool movies you know scarf faces start off cool in the beginning American Gangster like all these movies Good Fellas right but sooner or later there's a downfall right and and I'm like bro we this we can't keep doing this and it was kind of like a like a perfect little storm some of the older heads did some things they went to they went to jail or prison um and I was like you know what man and I'd already been thinking like yeah we got to get out you know this is this isn't it like we can we can make money we can we don't have to be like ████ we can can protect ourselves but we this whole gang thing is is not it so I took everybody into the garage my friend's house and I was like hey man I was like I I led us in the wrong path we we we got to get out and some of them were on board some of them were kind of hesitant but eventually I made everybody
9:16 go back to school and they weren't accepted back at their high school we went to continuation school we got full-time jobs and they really trusted dud what a turn around that's crazy what a 180 and but then it was funny because like I would work this this job for 2 weeks and I would get a paycheck and I would be proud of it but I would make more money in like 30 minutes on a Saturday so you know it's kind of hard to let that money go um and then people always ask me you know like oh getting out of a gang you know is uh how you they don't let you out how do you get out and I was like well I was the muscle from the gang so I when I told the gang I was like look man you already know how I am so you can leave us alone or it's up to you you know and and so they had no choice they had the so they let us be but all the other beef that I was creating and being part of for the last 3 years and change some dudes weren't
10:06 going to let it go so that was the actually my exit was was the most violent time of of my gang little part right um because uh I told the guys like look man we're not going to do this bickering and talking it's ████ all or nothing and and that's when I did the most shootings that's when we did the most everything um and then one day we got raided all five of our houses got raided Yeah by by SWAT um and it's funny because dudes want to talk a lot of ████ and they're gang members and they're tough and all that but when something happens to them they they then they go crawling to the to law enforcement so that's what kind of what happen but every time I did something I was always I was always smart about it so for example I went to a CSI ████ classes at the community college cuz I wanted to see what they were looking for ████ so
10:59 every time every time we did something there was I'm not here to learn fool I'm here to ████ study [Laughter] D and it and we had a protocol so it was like yo from for example from head to toe we're burning it so I don't care if you have new ████ Air Force you shouldn't have wor wore that ████ pair for this we burn it any weapons and calibers that were associated with that trash I don't care how much it cost us boom trash um so you know it's it's not what you know it's what you can prove so at after they raided our houses and took a lot of ████ we all kind of got away not kind of we did get away so I was like you know what I'm like it's time to join the Army and I always wanted to join the Army the Army wasn't a a like like an like a like a backup plan like a
11:50 backup or an escape for me I I always looked up to to you know the the military and and the Army cuz what uh they had had what I didn't have growing up they they cared for each other they they they would die for each other and you know they were they were good people and and I wanted to be like that so um I always would like at my friend's house who had cable I would watch the National Geographic documentaries of like the war in Iraq or Special Forces here or um Surviving the Cut I'll would watch that over and over um so I was like you know what I'm going to join I go to the recruiting office and I'm like hey man I see that iids kill a lot of soldiers and and and I want to do something about it like can we find the IDS the you know the bombs can or do we go after the people how does this work and um they told me they're like you can be a combat engineer or or or EOD and they told me
12:41 EOD is a lot of schooling and I was like ████ dude besides math and PE I failed everything so I'm like all right it looks like I'm want to be a combat engineer so um that was kind of like my entrance into the military um and I joined at 17 and A2 wow as a combat engineer how come you Army instead of like any of the other ones a for did you not watch all the b███████ commercials for Marines and stuff well they hey hands down the the Marines did have the best commercial at the time right they they had the dude with the Dragon Sword right the dragon of the sword cool um but it it was Army cuz I mean you know you got like s p Ryan Blackhawk Down stuff like that and behind any lines you didn't see that one no I I I I saw I think but it's not that cool that's better movies H damn movies work so well man yeah damn I watch
13:32 ████ that one Red Dawn and I and I almost joined the Other Side by accident ████ I was like Dad that s███'s cool oh wait wait that's not our team okay fine it's just I saw a lot of Asians and you know oh those guys so you joined as a combat engineer yeah how did you end up becoming a ranger um so I I I became a combat engineer I went to and I didn't know like how Mal nourish or like un like in Camp well dudes were losing weight I was gaining weight you know and the drill sergeant were like dude I this is how I know who comes from the hood because you guys get stronger you gain weight your hair isn't dry anymore your your skin isn't flaky and like cuz you were actually malnourished in your regular life yeah so boot camp brought you up to stand yeah and bro I I was ████ grateful for for the military
14:22 because um because not only did I want to join for um what I said but they they they shared love with each other and then I wanted that in my life cuz I didn't have that but I mean I was born and raised on food stamp so when 9/11 happened man I the the way I saw it was the country that's been supporting through state federal or local programs you know it's in ████ trouble I got to do something so that was my way of also you know paying back everything that my family that's crazy that you think like that I don't think anybody need I don't know anyone that's benefited from food steps things like that first time I heard that too for sure yeah let just think I need more food stamps car stamps PlayStation stamps and um so yeah so you know I I I became a combat engineer and and so I
15:13 was I was like at the bottom of of everything so like I wasn't good at anything I was at the bottom and I barely passed basic um but uh my friend uh and Mentor uh Hugh of Ander wal he took me under his wing his his dad was was um you know GI dude and met his mom in Japan and so he's been in a military brat for his entire life and and the dude was ████ smart way ahead of his time man like he was a sergeant but because he wasn't married he would have his own room he didn't have to share a room with anybody in the barracks and one side was like you know young young guy PlayStation ████ energy drinks all this ████ on the other side it was a ████ Library full of books and he was he knew I didn't understand it but he would just pour all this knowledge into me about about life the work history and all that and I'm like ████ man this D's ████ he got the wisdom like a 100y
16:03 old ████ guy dude and um and then and then I'm like all right I started building myself up and one day I told him I was like you know what man I I want to I want to I want to join this special PR community and he was like bro you can do it like you can do it he had already gone to selection once uh he didn't make it but he was like I want to go again and uh but when I told my actual squad leader and and team leader uh bro they they laughed at me laugh to my face and they're like they're like you a special op it's like a movie they never going to mount to nothing yeah it was literally like that and I just had to take I just had to stand there and take it but I was like all right well I'm still going to try um but then you know we had a a best Zyer competition and I ████ and I killed it and you know um so then people
16:55 started seeing what that hey maybe Cortez ████ can do something um and then one of the squad Leaders with platoon was like dude don't leave don't leave right because now I now it wasn't the bottom of the Bottom now was ████ the the top Joe within I would probably say the company and they're like don't leave we're going to be we're going to go to Afghanistan next and we're going to be attached to to Special Forces and we're going to do uh this thing called Village stability operations or um vso which it means instead of having these big bases and going out patrolling coming back what we're going to do is we're going to go into the valley we're going to have a foothold take over a compound and fight the Taliban out of there because the Taliban the the Afghans that's what they respect they they they if you're there with them and you're fighting right next to them and living with them then then
17:45 they respect that that's that's what they you know that's for them that's honor so they're like okay let's do that so we can push the Taliban Out Create some white space as an space to operate freely um so we we did we did do that and it was it was crazy it it was crazy from my time deployed we made national that deployment we made we made national headlines three times there's two books written about it some of the dudes who I was with are now doing TED Talks they got their own book uh they're on Fox News talking about this and that and to me at the time I thought that was normal because my Iraq deployment was kind of hot but all the older dudes were like oh this is nothing this is nothing compared to to The Invasion so when we went to a Afghan and we did all this crazy stuff I thought oh oh this is normal dealing with suicide bombers is is normal uh pulling iids with my bare hands that's
18:36 normal um fighting not once or twice but like sometimes ████ five times within the day is normal then trying to overrun us is normal um so when I came back I was like that's it man I'm going to join the special op Community because my Iraq deployment I mean my yeah Iraq deployment we did some good stuff but Afghan was the deployment where I mean it was were ████ toe-to-toe with a bunch of foreign Fighters um and and and people think that oh you fight like Farmers out there like yeah there's some Farmers that probably pick up a gun and shoot at us but like we they don't know that a bunch of foreigners come and fight and you're seeing it now right in Ukraine a lot of foreigners going over there to help Ukraine you see it in in the whole is Israel um conflict right now too but that's this has been happening for ages so now people are
19:26 realizing when I say like bro we were fighting foreigners cuz and they knew how to ████ fight the the checks they knew how to fight there's foreigners on both sides huh yeah yeah and um so after that I was like we have a bigger impact in the Special Operations community and one of the Special Forces guys that that I worked with used to be a ranger so when he told me the difference between Special Forces and a ranger I was like you know what a ranger sounds more like more like for me so when I came back I ████ drop my packet um but at that point still you know I I I didn't really have anything to my name to to bank on the fact that hey I can do this because not only was I going in selection with dudes who their dad and Grandpa were in Special Operations community and and and grew up a certain way but like division one athletes who didn't get picked up by the NFL or didn't go to the Olympic team decided to
20:16 then join the special oper community so I'm standing in a formation with ████ Thor looking like ████ right and there's something to it when you see somebody when you see somebody accomplish something yeah that's cool but when you see somebody that looks like you accomplish something it gives and some people may not understand it some people do it gives other people that look like them hope so when I'm standing in a circle and there's like ████ 200 of us and there's maybe four brown dudes and all the famous Special Operation guys are ████ what tall big white guys it's kind of hard to actually believe and feel that you can actually make it but I I was not not going to ████ go for it I I was going to see if I can if I have if I have it you know and if I don't I want to I want to find out I don't want to go through life just being like Oh no that's too hard I don't I'm not going to do it just ████ do it so I was there and little by little
21:08 dudes were falling out and and and that's where I learned and that's when I learned that mental toughness goes a long way because I I I I didn't give up I I kept going and at selection you know what is that is that rasp yeah rasp Ranger assessment selection program how long is rasp 8 weeks but before you're at pre- rasp which in some um um you can be at pre for like 10 days or you can be there for ████ 4 weeks PR in some ways were was a lot harder because um one of the Cadre was getting ready for KAG selection which is also like people know it as Delta or Delta Force because of the I'm aare it is's favorite work I know a guy who couldn't hack it he never got him so he never made Delta never made Del so he was getting ready for Delta so he would make us do his ████ workouts and I was like if this is ████ pre rasp what the ████ is rasp going to look like and and he made it
22:00 because after I graduated rasp he's like oh if I don't make KAG selection I I'll go back to First Battalion and I never saw my first Battalion cuz that's where I went so so he went he made it he made it that's the closest guy ever made to Delta yeah that's the closest guy for sure you made Delta have you have you tried out for Delta no I've never tried out no oh no I thought you said like you always want to do the toughest [Laughter] ████ Dam well he got me there
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