Escape From Cuba! | The Amazing True Story of Armando Gonzalez | Untold History Channel

Told History Channel. My name is Ron Partain. Welcome. It is Independence Day, July 4, 2024. It’s a hell of a day today to talk about what we’re going to be talking about. I have the pleasure of being joined by Armando Gonzalez. If you’ve been watching my channel anytime over the past couple of weeks, you’ve seen Armando on there. A couple of times, actually. I met Armando through Ghost, and we’ve actually become fast friends. We have a lot in common. And he was telling me a little bit about his story, and I’m like, dude, we got to do this online.

We got to do this on camera. This is like, this is. This is good stuff, especially with, you know, from the perspective of that, this is a, you know, that, you know, it’s Independence Day and, you know, flight from Cuba and all that other stuff. So, uh, Armando, how are you today, brother? I’m doing wonderful, man. Thank you for having me on the honors. All the honors. All mine, by the way, seriously, I’m stoked to be here with a fellow sailor. Yes. Okay. Which I need to ask you a question right off the bat. Fire away your green screen, dude.

I’m just, like, in awe looking at this thing, and. And I’m like, he’s got tomcats up there on the shelf. You know, you got the hats up there. You got the flag. I’m like, yeah. And I’m staring at the Tomcat. And I’ll tell you why. Because, you know, when I was in, you know, I was. I was at Nas North island in San Diego, and you being California, you know, we. We have that in common as well, folks. You know, we. The music and when were you in and all that? I got in. I went in in 80, and I.

God, when was. I left in. I left in 86, actually. Okay, so you got out a little bit before I went in. I went in. No, I went in November. I literally, the day before Thanksgiving in 1988, I flew to. I flew to. I flew to great mistakes on November 24, the day. Wednesday, November 24, the day before thanksgiving. So, yeah, that was. Yeah, that was when I went in. And so. And I was in boot camp there, you know, waiting for, like, Monday to show up, and it was just. It was. It was interesting. I remember.

I remember great mistakes. Well, I never went to great mistakes. I went to the devil’s doorknob, which was NTC Orlando in Florida, which is no longer. No longer a thing because I think it was. Clinton got rid of that back in the day. Yeah, they consolidated the bases because they actually. Because there was three. There was three boot camps in the navy. You had San Diego, Orlando, and Chicago. And they consolidated everything. And everything went up to Chicago. Correct. Everything went there. Great Lakes, cold. I mean, it didn’t matter. It was just. I know. I lived.

I lived in Chicago for a little while myself. You know, I lived all over the country. Really, my. My entire family. We all got military backgrounds. Story for another day, though, on that one. But, dude, I can’t. I was staring at that. At that Tomcat sitting up on your shelf. You know, I’m assuming it’s your shelf. And I’m wondering, is that VF one? Is that VF two? Because I was just, you know, Miramar Top Gun was just right up the road from. Yep. From North island. Right. And I. When I used to go see family up in Los Angeles, I used to drive up 405 the whole time.

And it was either vF one or vf two. It was either the wolfpack or, God, that VF one was the wolfback, was the wolf pack, and VF two. What the hell was VF two? I’m not. I can’t believe I’m having a brain fart right now. I don’t remember the squadron names. I only remember the squad. I know the squadron that you’re asking about. The. The Tomcat in there is VF 84, the Jolly Rogers, and. Okay, so now. And. And what really made the Jolly Rogers famous was the movie. It was the movie. I’m drawing a blank.

It’s going to come to me. The officer and the gentleman. No, the final countdown. Final. Okay, final countdown. Because what they did was they showed. I mean, it was like, that was when the aircraft carrier went back in time to meet. You know, they were gonna. They got there on December 6, and they were gonna go attack the Japanese before they attacked Pearl harbor, and then the storm came back and took them back into the present day. So it was actually a really good movie. Uh, very, very thought provoking. And as I understand it, there’s a.

I. I don’t know this for a fact, but the. There’s scuttle. But out there that there’s a lot more truth in that movie than people want to. Oh. Oh, God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People want to acknowledge bf two was actually the bounty hunters. Now I remember. Okay. Yeah. But I just. I just couldn’t take my eyes off of that man. I’m like, this guy’s the real deal, I’m thinking. Okay, so I’ll tell you. I’ll explain to you. So, obviously, I have my unit us Navy flag. And then behind it, I’m sure you can. All you can see is just the kind of little.

The little inn right at the tail of the Tomcat. You see there’s a yellow field there right behind the books or. So that’s another navy flag, which is like. It’s like the Naval Academy flag. A buddy of mine got it for me one day. On the top of the shelf above, like, right up here, that’s an f 18 in the blue inks paint scheme. Then I have those two hats. The two hats that are right here and right here, the USS New Jersey and USS Palu. Those were the ships that I was on. I was an aerographer’s mate, or AG.

And then weather guesser. Yes. Weather guesser. And then that’s f 14 in 132 scale. And then it’s an f four u of. I don’t remember the squadron, but it was a navy f four U in the world war two paint scheme, so. And the f four U, the corsair was. You know, I was one of my favorite aircraft. I’ve. I’ve always. I’m always partial to navy aircraft because I was in the navy. And so, you know, I tend trend towards the f four U and the f five, or, I’m sorry, the f six f. And then.

But I’m, you know, I’m a sucker for mustangs, too, so. Oh, God. Yeah. Are you kidding me? Love that birdhouse. Loved it. Yeah. But I’m just telling you. Yeah. The navy insignia. The navy. The yellow. And for the goat that was technically the mascot was the goat. Yeah, exactly. And then the books that you see there, those are my books. Those are actually my books. That’s a picture of my room, and, I mean, that’s like a. That’s like, maybe a fifth of the books that I have, many of which I’ve never read, but I collect them because I don’t.

I want to make sure that the information. I know a lot of the information that’s in them, even if I haven’t read all of them, I’ve perused through most of them and, you know, read bits and pieces of stuff, but, I mean, there’s. There’s so much material. It’s like I could just. I could never hope to read it all in a lifetime. But I had a retinal detachment about a year ago, and my left eye and I monovision. So my right eye is for distance, and my left eye is for up close, and the retinal detachment actually impacted the center of my vision, so my left eye, which is what I normally use for reading up close.

It’s. It’s, uh, it’s. It makes it very difficult to read now. Wow. Wow. I didn’t know about that, man. I never knew that. Yeah, it’s kind of a. It’s. It’s a drag because I’m not able to read nearly. I. When I. When I read stuff online, I did it. I did a video yesterday where I read the, um. I read an article done by James Perloff where he was talking about the attack on Pearl harbor and how essentially it was Roosevelt’s 911 moment and talked about all the corruption that was done, how they manipulated the Japanese into doing it, basically twisting their arms, saying, look, essentially what they said to the Japanese.

The Japanese were in China because they saw Russia coming down and influencing China to be communist. And the Japanese were like, no, hell, no. We don’t want to be. Communists went in over there, and then what they. So what the United States basically did was they twisted their arm, they cut off all their oil and all their natural resources and said, either leave China or. And we’ll give you back your ability to transit the Panama Canal and oil. Sell oil to you and everything like that, or. Or you’re not going to get anything. So you can stay in China, but we’re not going to give you anything.

So it was either. It was either die by communism slowly, or be annihilated by the United States militarily. It was one of the other. And so they decided. They decided to fight as opposed to. That is kind of the crux of the argument. But, I mean, there’s. If that’s your. I would not just rely on that. I mean, go, like, either read the article for yourself or, you know, watch the video. It’s. It’s very, very impactful. So, yeah, this is one of the reasons why, before we even started talking or anything like that, believe it or not, I used to be the fly on the wall who used to come over here because, you know, ghost was telling me, yeah, you got to go check out Ron.

You got to go see his channel. He does a lot of history stuff. And I love history, man. I’m a history freaking geek, especially when it comes to my background, especially that. And drawing contrast over to the constitution in this country, because my dad. My dad and I did not have the best of relationships growing up when I was a kid, because the system. The system really screwed my dad up in the head really, really bad. And as a result of that, he got very. He took to the bottle that was watching got really abusive. He was just angry all the time.

But when. When things were cool, I could probably relate. My dad, if you ever saw the movie with, I think it was Duvalle, uh, I think it was Deval. I could be wrong with, uh, the great Santini. I’m familiar with that movie, yes. Okay. That was dad. Okay. It was bed sheets, hospital corners, you know, bouncing the quarter off of the top. Uh, very structured. He. That was his background. He was militant, former military as well. Very, very regimental. Okay. Uh, until the system, uh, basically took care of him upstairs and he just became somebody else.

But before that, he was a. He was an english major. Believe it or not, that was his thing. My dad could read and write English just like any other person could. And he knew the constitution of this country inside and out. Ups, you know, ups. He just knew it a to z, completely. I learned more from him when it came to that, especially drawing contrast to ours in Cuba back in the day. And I got an education on that, and that was here, because when I left the island, I was eight going on nine going on 19.

Because you grew up quick under that system. But anyway, not to jump ahead of anything, but go ahead, continue. Oh, no, I really didn’t have anything else. I, you know, I. I really want to hear your story. So I guess the. No time, no time like the present. Let’s dive in. Yeah, you start where you are. I mean, well, so how old were you when you left the island? I was just short of going on nine. Nine years old. So you were. You were old enough to know. You were old enough to, like, have memories, but still young enough that you really didn’t truly understand kind of what was going on.

But, like, as you said, you grew up fast. So even though you didn’t know what was going on, you still kind of knew what was going on. I knew very, very well what was going on. Like I said, um, and I’m only. Listen, I’m only speaking from experience. I can’t. I can’t, you know, comment on anybody else’s experience here in the audience. Because if that type of system, unless you’ve lived under it, you might have been told about it, you might have heard about it, you might have read about it or studied about it, but you cannot draw any kind of distinction unless you’ve been under it or real, and you grew up very, very fast under.

Under that system, you basically have assistance and help from your family, your parents or aunt, uncle, whatever it may be. Cousins, for that matter, maybe even a neighbor or a good friend. But at the end of the day, you have to fend for yourself. You really, you got to figure it out. And it’s a very fast, very abrupt education. So when I say nine going on 19, I literally mean going on 19. I had the mind of a 19 year old when I was nine years old because I just had to figure it out. Everything from school to just everyday life going outside, you know, it’s like keep your head on a swivel, looking around, making sure not to talk too much because everything has ears.

Everything has ears. Do you resent that at all? Uh, yes and no. Uh, I, I do resent it to the point because I don’t know what a childhood or youth or my early youth uh, would be like, you know, kids here growing up. Well, because I got kids and you know, that whole, hey, let’s go ride a skateboard or let’s go, you know, fly a kite or let’s go, uh, I don’t know, just do what kids do. I, I missed all that. I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t have that. You know, I grew up without that.

I grew up glued next to my dad, I grew up glued next to my mom. And then when I started going to school, you know, that was, that was another one that was different. It was just different. Was not the same like going to school here. Hmm. The, alright, so now you were nine. What was the precipitating event? I mean, how did that come up? Because you were there and I’m assuming that if you’re living in Cuba at the time under the communist regime, you are. Everything is, everything is fine for a time. Well, what was, I mean, kind of, what was the catalyzing event that was like all of it.

Because if I remember correctly, you said it was a hasty departure. Yeah, it was really, everything was cool to every, like I need to get the fuck out of dodge immediately. Like, like, I mean, it was like, it was just a matter of like hours or days. Correct. It was, it was actually, it was actually 24 hours. We were given 24 hours to get the hell out. And, and I’ll, but I’ll have to backtrack before we get to that. So basically, just, just to break it down, it basically goes like this. And, and I’m going to draw a lot of contrast to where I see America today based on the, what I went through.

And I’ve said this before, we’ve actually talked offline about this. You know, it’s like me hitting, I look at what’s going on in this country today in just everyday life, everyday interactions. Listen a little bit to the media, not too much. And it’s like me hitting rewind in my skull and just hit and play again and watching the same movie over and over again. Okay. If that makes any sense. Why? Because it. At the end of the day, in colleges, especially in the educational system here in this country and around the world, it’s just not here alone.

They can disguise socialism, they can disguise communism. They can give it a different color, they can give it a different outfit, if you will, and dress it up differently and make it sound differently. But at the end of the day, when you look at the foundation, it is exactly the same animal. You can put a zebra costume on a horse, but at the end of the day, it’s still a horse. Well, same thing here with this system, right? They can pitch it many different ways and. But I can smell it a mile away. Why? Because I know it.

I lived in. And one of the things was, by the time that I started realizing in the beginning, everything was great. Everything was wonderful. Because you got to understand, under Batista, Batista was another dictator. Batista was not a cool guy. And Batista was basically propped up by the american government. Correct. He was a CIA plant back in the day, which wasn’t the CIA, was. No, I was CIA back in. It was. It was more kgB than it was. Than it was ciataine. Okay, well, okay. You say tomato, I’ll say tomorrow. Yeah, technically. But I mean, yeah, I don’t know if you know my philosophy on the.

And I don’t mean to cut, cut you off. No, no, you’re good. But my philosophy on the CIA and the KGB is they were basically the same outfit at the. At the extreme high levels of them. They’re. They’re saying they take orders from the same people. It’s just the CIA happened to be the government sanctioned american office, and then the KGB was the government sanctioned russian office. But they were working, essentially, they were doing the bidding of the exact. From the same people. So. And all the agencies. All the agencies have always worked hand in hand with each other.

Mi five, mi six, Mossad, you know, is it unit 8200? But that came later on. That’s Israel’s mi six and RNSA, basically. Yeah. And. Well, anyway, so in the beginning, everything was wonderful. You know, talk of revolution, talk of change, you know, helping the elderly, helping the less fortunate, you know, with government programs and this and that and blah, blah, blah. You know, same shit here that were being fed and pitched and everything was great. But then things started changing. What do I mean by change? Uh, if you go back to, um. What are the five? My five.

Armando’s five steps to, we’re in trouble. Number one, education. Right off the top, because that’s the indoctrination center. Okay? It’s. It’s right up here. That’s what they’re gonna go with. First, you control the youth, you got the future, period. Correct. What anybody says. Number two is gonna be the media. What you hear every day, okay? That’s the media. Yep. Number three, food, health care. That’s number three. You control the food, control health care, you control the people. Number four is gonna be small business. If you control how people make their money, via what avenues they use it by.

Okay? You’re in control of that as well, with what regulations, sanctions, you know, taxes and stuff like that. They got you. What’s the last element that’s left? Well, you go. You got healthcare, you got. Go through. Go through the list again. Oh, guns. Sorry. Second amendment. That’s the fifth element. That’s the fifth element. What do I know that well, after they had the first four, and I’m going really fast here, after they had the first four. Now I’ll circle back. I’ll go back to where I was going to lift off. After they have the first four, the last one.

The last one is the most critical one. And that’s where we’re at here in America, in my opinion. Okay? Because the second amendment here is being assaulted every other day. You know, mass shootings and all that stuff. It’s another psyop, it’s another this, it’s another that. Call it whatever you want. You know, it’s mind screwing, you know, and I’ll probably get a little vulgar here, but whatever I said, I don’t have a filter. How do I know this? Well, my dad worked. I’m telling the actual end of it. Let me back up some more. So we lived in a place.

We lived in a. In a town called Miramar, believe it or not. Miramad, which was next to Colombia air force base for the cuban military, was a big helicopter base near La Loma de Burro, which is the most recent talked about in the mainstream media. A cuban spy base. I used to see that place. It was a granite. It’s a granite mountain. I did a video on that on my other channel, and, yes, it was basically reforified. So it’s like I’m looking at the map on Google Earth here, and Miramar it looks like it’s basically just adjacent here.

Let me share my screen just so that people get an idea of what it is that you’re talking about here. So it’s. Miramar is right outside of Havana? Yes, yes, correct. Okay. So it’s kind of. You got, you got a pincushion that’s up there. That’s showing it. It’s literally right there. Okay, so that. So Miramar right there. Back then, it wasn’t that way, but today it’s literally where the regime’s elite people live. Those are the nicest. Like the rich area. The rich area, exactly. It’s the Beverly hills of Havana, I can put it. Or. Yeah, it’s the Beverly hills of Havana.

And back then, when I lived there, it wasn’t that way because we were close to Columbia air base, and. And dad worked for the postal service. He was a telegraph operator, and that’s what he did. So the government knew of him. Okay. He was also a ham radio operator and very good at it. And I’ll get back to that in a minute. So we had no choice but to live in the outskirts of Havana, if you will, which is, again, very heavily controlled because that’s where the main, the majority of the population is at. Now. There is something to be noted here.

Okay. My grandparents on my mother’s side lived in Pinal de Rio, which is on the extreme western side of the island. Okay. And it has an important strategic value also as well. Back in the sixties, when they were talking about the nukes that Castro had, and Kennedy, you know, was very concerned about the nukes that the Russians were there. There’s a gigantic. I’m not going to say it’s a mountain. I’m going to say it is a natural structure, if you will. It’s pure granite, and it is huge. It looks like three little dome or three domes.

You can see it from everywhere, even Google Earth. You can see it from. Where is it? It’s on the western side of the island near town called Pinal de Rio. Spell that for me. P I n ar space. N ar space. Del rio. Del rio, yeah. And if you fly there. If you fly there on Google Earth, okay. As soon as you get a visual of it, I’ll be able to point it out right away because it sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s a giant. It’s like a gigantic hill slash mini mountain that’s basically made out of granite.

I mean, here. So is it on the west side of. No, you can just zoom in and probably see it. I’ll see. It’s in the city. Yeah, just, just zoom in and then you’ll be able to probably see it. All right, now we can pan left or right and it should show up. Is it on the. Okay, from the city center, is it to the, is it to the north, south, east or west? To the west. Okay, so it’s going to be in here someplace, possibly. Uh, here’s a, here’s like a big lake, it looks like here.

Uh, can you do me a favor, Ron? Yeah. Type in, uh. Type in. Type in, uh. Shit, I have to, I have to write it out. Sorry. Valle, which is v a ll etainde space via Vinalis van. Yes. Vivin Ellis. Right. Vignellis. Yes. And now. And then go to images. I see it. Okay, here we are. Go to images. Is that them right there? That’s it right there, yes. Okay. That’s all granite. What you’re looking at right there, that’s actually beautiful. I’ve never even seen these pictures before. That’s all granite. Here’s the problem. Those are caverns, caves and tunnels from there all the way to Havana.

All underground. Wow. All that right there, that’s where they had the nuke set. And that is still today being, it’s still functional and not. That’s the motherfucker right there. It’s still operational and functional today in terms of. They have nukes there. Well, you don’t know. You don’t. Maybe they have hypersonics, but I can tell you that’s, that is, that is, um. What is that? What is that? Air Force base in Colorado, that’s underground. Oh, you. Are you talking about Cheyenne Mountain? Yeah, that’s their Cheyenne mountain. Gotcha, if that makes any sense. No, that makes perfect sense.

Yeah. Well, Cheyenne, Cheyenne Mountain is. It’s not called Cheyenne Mountains. Called NORAD. NORAD. There you go. It’s NORAD, which is the north, it’s a north american air defense, so. NORAD nor North American air defense, so. And it’s, and NORAD is not just actually, as I understand it, NORAd was shut down. But ultimately, I think when Trump came in, he, he turned it back on because that was, that’s kind of like their, their underground bunker. I mean, the whole place is self contained. When I, it was really interesting, I actually dated somebody in the air force back in like the mid two thousands, and she worked at Peterson Air Force Base and went up to NORAD all the time.

And she took me up to the, just to the parking lot. I couldn’t go past that, but she took me up to the parking lot, which was really kind of a treat because I’d always. I remember the movie. What was the movie with Matthew Broderick? War games. Oh, yeah. When they went to work, they went. They went to that place. So. But that was. That was a. It was interesting. But anyway. Continue, sir. Yeah. So, um, so basically what happened was, um, once they had control over all four steps, then what happened? Then food became a problem.

Why? Because when you start running out of other people’s money, okay, you got to rely on your resources, right? And when your resources are not very abundant, if you will, you’re going to suffer with that. But like I said in the beginning, I go through all five steps and I get. I think that’s how I’m going to progress with this. So, education. So when I was of age and was ready to go to school, we were already starting to feel the economic pinch, okay? I mean, ration. We had ration cards, if you remember, maybe our parents back in the day here, we had.

We all had that, uh, you guys will know a checkbook, if you remember the conventional checkbook where you would write out checks, personal checks. Okay? It was a booklet like that. And those were food ration cards. Food ration booklets. You know, you were getting. You were getting a, you know, one to two pounds of beef, you know, a whole roaster chicken, you know, your veggies, your rice, you know, every food component that you can think of that was handed out by the government along with what is known today as universal basic income. Ubi. Yeah. Okay. Which was, on average, 25.

It was equivalent to 25 american dollars a month with your food ration cards. Now, what they didn’t tell you was that those food ration cards, they were only good for 15 days if you had three squares a day. So it’s kind of like a CBDC. Yes, correct. But most Cubans did not do a three squares a day. They did in the beginning. Afterwards it went to two. It was breakfast. And then is what we called London, okay? Which is lunch, dinner combined. And that was usually around two or three in the afternoon and, you know, have a little snack later on at night if you could get your hands on it or barter for it or whatever the case may be.

And you just. And that was it. So basically we were programmed. We were. It’s not programmed. We were conditioned. We were conditioned that the very. That your priority of a Cuban’s daily life back then was one and one only when you wake up in the morning, how do you figure out breakfast for you and the family? How do you figure out London? And how do I figure out a snack later on? That was it. Nobody cared about anything else. Because when you know, little Johnny’s and Mary’s belly starts hurting, you as the parent, have to go and figure it out.

This is why I said at that age, I had to figure it out. Were you able to grow? Were you guys able to farm and do not living? I’m glad you bring that up. And this is where I was going. Not living in the city. Not living in the city. This. This is very important for everybody out there in the audience to know this. This is like. It just drives me nuts. 15 minutes cities are being propped up for a reason. Sorry about that. Yeah. 15 minutes cities are being propped up for a reason. Okay? These beautiful looking structures and architectural designs that you.

That you know, you can tell, you look at them and it’s live here, play here and work here. 15 minutes cities, right? You don’t need to drive a car anymore. Just get a bike, okay? You’re 15 minutes away from everything. You don’t need to go anywhere. You’re being controlled. You’re being corralled is all that is. Well, in the cities over there, Havana, any of the bigger, you know, metropolitan areas, that’s where the majority of the concentration of people lived at. Why? Because you had access to everything there. Stores, grocery stores, clothing stores, you know, all your government installations, banks, all that stuff.

Everything was there. You lived in the city centers, right, where they control you best. If you lived in rural areas, in the outskirts, okay, you had more liberty, you had more access to resources than you did in the city. Why? Because the government rarely went out into the countryside. Rarely went unless they wanted to go and get some cigars, which Cuba was very famous for back in the day, for its tobacco crops, its cigars and amongst other things. It still is. It still is. No, not anymore. The quality has gone to hell. It went to hell 30 years ago.

It’s not the same anymore. Everything that they sell you. Oh, this is an original cuban. And stuff like that is bullshit, okay? It tastes like crap. It’s garbage. I know, because I’m a con. I have my human door right over there in the corner. Well, you are Cuban. Yeah. And, and, uh, and all, all of the. All of those. You know, Cohiba was actually a brand that was very, very known here. But guess what? That was Castro’s favorite go to cigar line, which was constrived by that government, believe it or not. Why was it Padrone? Padrone was the cigar of the day, Padrone, which it still is today.

It’s still a brand. Now, Padrone, the actual old man Padrone, he actually passed about a year or two ago. I’ve been to his factories down in. In. In Miami when I lived there, but I never liked Pedrones. Why? Because when it left the island and he went to Nicaragua, okay? That’s where he set up shop. And he stayed in Nicaragua for decades. Nothing against Nicaragua, but the soil is not the same. And that’s the secret to a good cigar, is the soil, okay? It’s the minerals in the soil. Now, Arturo Fuentes, which was another go to Cao.

And, you know, and there’s a couple of more that don’t come to mind right now, where they go. Some went to Honduras. Very, very good. Very good Honduras. Honduras has very good cigars. Excellent cigars. One of my go to from them is the Camacho triple Maduro. Love them. And if you’re. If you’re a connoisseur, I would recommend it highly. The other one, Arturo Fuentes, he left there and went to, uh, the pinnacle of cigars. Okay, the. The cat’s meow, if you will. Which is what? Dominican Republic. Why? The soil, the mineral of the soil, the climate, everything.

The conditions are almost, if not, if, identical to Cuba. Well, that’s right next door. There you go. I mean, you have Dominican Republic and you have. And you have Haiti, you know, that share the same island. Right? So here, I’ll go back to the. Go back to the. I, um. You know, the map of the island here, and you can see. So here’s Cuba, and it’s essentially the same island chain. So you’ve got Haiti here and then the Dominican Republic and then Puerto Rico. I mean, it’s all basically the. The same islands, the same island chain here.

Exactly. So that was. That was strategic. And Arturo Fuentes today, love his stuff. It’s dominican. Cigars and Hondurans are my personal go to’s. I don’t really. I really don’t have. I really don’t care for any other ones that are out, no offense. Brazil, okay, some, but I really have no. No preference. What would you say the decline of the cigar industry in Cuba would be? You know, what was the rationale behind that? Was it because of the communism and everybody gets the same and there’s no incentive to make it any better? No, it’s neither of any of those.

It’s all about exportation and making money to come back into the regime. To the people in power. See, communism on paper. Communism on paper is a beautiful thing. It is absolutely gorgeous. But paper can hold anything that you put on it just can. Yeah. It only works for those that are in charge of it, but not for the ones on the receiving end. So just because I have a Zimbabwe note that says $10 trillion doesn’t mean that I can go get 10 trillion american dollars. There you go. So basically, all of the resources on the island, your cigars, your.

Your produce, all of that was exported. The majority of it went to Europe, right? Because we can’t give to America because they’re the enemy. So fuck America. That’s just. That was the thought process, right? The yankee imperialists, as they used to call them. So everything went to Europe. So what happened in the transition and what. What really started, uh, moving things towards a catastrophic nature. Europeans, okay, and Norwegians, for that matter, started saying, wow, they got great cigars. Oh, my God, they have excellent rum, right? They have. They have Bacardi. They have Havana club, right? Well, Bacardi.

Bacardi, okay. The correct pronunciation actually moved to the operations from Cuba to Puerto Rico, and they set up shop over there. So it’s not really. Well, yeah, it’s puerto rican rum because that’s where it’s made. But its roots are cuban because of the sugarcane. Correct. That was another thing. The majority of the exportation off that island was sugar, sugar cane, and it went to the Americas. That there was no. There was no racism in that resource because it brought in a lot of money. So the regime sent it and exported it everywhere. They didn’t care. That was their cash cow.

Cigars came behind that. What happened is the Europeans, especially your Spaniards, all right? They started. They were like, oh, my God, we’re getting all this. Why don’t we go to Cuba? And they did, and they started buying up real estate, they started setting up shop, and they started implementing companies, retail stores, all that kind of stuff. But remember, here comes the 90 ten rule, which applied to everyone on the island. 90% of what you have, what you cultivate, what you grow, what you produce, 90% of it goes to the state. You stay with 10%, period. And that applied to everything.

It then got to the point where Cubans were forbidden from eating red meat and from eating pork. Wow. So you basically couldn’t eat it. So essentially what they were trying to do was a holodomor on you guys. Yeah. And it got to the point, me, myself, I never ate actual ham until I was ten years old. I never knew what ham was. So you came. You. So tell the. Let’s take it. I don’t want to jump the ship, but because I know we’re kind of constrained with time here, I want to get to the point where how you got off the.

Well, me. It’s two questions. Number one, you got off the island when you were, like, nine. You said, what year was that? Going. Going and going on nine. So that was, uh. Shit. I think you said 68. No, no, it’s actually, it was February of 69. Now that I remember is when we, uh, is when we left. So February 69 is when you left. And then, um. So you. So when did Castro. When did the revolution take place? It was like, 5058-5858 okay, so you were there for ten years. You. You were born into the communist regime, basically, and that’s all you knew.

And by. So now you said that it was, like, from the time that, you know, everything was hunky dory, you just. I mean, well, I mean, it wasn’t hunky dory, but it was your normal. You didn’t know anything different. But then all of a sudden, something happened, and you were essentially forced to get off the island. Yes. Go lead us through that process. I mean, from, like, what started it to when you fled. So what started it is I go to school. I’m not. I’m now of age to go to school. Okay. And the rule down there was you had to go through primary school, then you had to go into your regular grammar school.

As soon as you turn 16 years old, you had to go into the military, no questions asked. At 16, everybody went to the military. Male, female, didn’t matter. You went to the military and you did your time, and you chose to stay in or you chose to get out. And how long were you forced? How long was the compulsory service? Compulsory service went a minimum of six years, and. Or unless you decided that you didn’t want anything. And then they kind of looked at you and raised an eyebrow. But mostly that was the way how people made their living.

Right. Think about it. It was easier to stay in the military, have food, clothing, and housing, and provide a little bit for your family than it was to just be a regular civilian. Okay? So you’re basically in a military state. So I go to school, and things started changing the day of school because I sat there and. And you got to understand, they started taking God out of the picture. Religion was a no bueno. Religion was like, no, no church, forget church, forget Jesus, forget all that God was. It had to be taken out of the picture.

Okay, so here’s what happened. I go to school, right? I have my lunch with me and my water, my actual water bottle, I’ll never forget. It was a big glass bottle of Pepsi Cola with a cork in it. That was my, that was my thermos. Let that sink in for a little bit. Okay. So we’re sitting there in class, right? And I have four females in olive drab uniforms. Those were the teachers, the observers, and the instructors. And you, history lesson you have. Sorry. You had four teachers in the same classroom. Four. Four women in olive drab uniforms inside the classroom.

Yes. Okay. And is that because they were like, one was party, one was. It was like. It was keeping everybody accountable so that they couldn’t, like, teach anything, that they. You had four different people to basically spy on each other. It was accountability. It was one watching the other, and then the other ones, we used to call them listeners. All they would do, they wouldn’t speak. They would just listen to what was going on, and if there were any corrections to be made, one would whisper in the ear of the other, and then the corrections were made.

Gotcha. Okay. Is how is how that unfolded. So basically they started teaching history. What’s that? That’s frightening. Yeah, well, that’s. That’s. That’s part of the, that’s part of the re education or the indoctrination process is fear. They kept you in fear the whole time? I would be sitting in my seat and I was. Because it was just here all the time. It was just in your face. I didn’t know anything. Year did you start school? Like, how old were you? And you started school like four or five? Six. No, no, no, not there. There. You started school at six.

Okay, right, so, so you got three years, basically three years of schooling under your belt. I got three years of indoctrination. No absolute mind fucking is what. Is what it was. But then I got reeducated every time I walked through the front door of my house. In other words, they had to unfuck the mind fucking that I had for the day. Sorry. It’s just the only way I can put it. And, you know, apologize. It’s the truth, which is what’s happening. And, you know, you sent. Your kids are normal when you have them here at home now.

And then you. They, you send them off to college, and then when they come home after the first or second semender, you’re like, who the fuck are you? Right? What. What happened? Same process, man. It’s the same exact damn process. And I see this. Right, because I’m in it now. Yeah. And just gonna, a side note, parents, if you have that, uh, there’s a, there’s a great book that I would suggest you get by Thomas de Lorenzo about socialism. Essentially, it’s like a little book that you can get to give to your kids or go through your.

Go through it with your kids before they go to college. Kind of like to prepare you or prepare them for what they’re going to be hearing. So if you, anybody out there, kids or grandkids, go look at the book. I’m going to look it up and find it here. But, but, you know, just so you guys can know what it is. But, but go ahead, Armando. I didn’t mean to cut you off. No, you’re good. You’re good. So then what happens is, you know, they’re the observers, the listeners, you know, they’re just walking around and says, today we’re going to learn about goddess, you know, which right off the bat, I said, this is not going to be good, because I know that they’re very anti God, and we’re gonna.

They handed out blindfolds to everybody, which were really bandanas, okay. For everybody. Every kid got a bandana on their desk, and they said, we want you to put these bandanas, you know, blindfold yourself. And we all did the same thing, blah, blah, blah. Everybody’s on there. Teachers. The observers came around to make sure you couldn’t peek, you know, that you were, eyes were actually secured. And now he said, now we’re going to ask God. We’re going to ask Jesus to give us a piece of hard candy. The hard candy had a name to it. It was called, all right, which basically was cone shaped, very hard.

It was actual hard candy, and it was rainbow multicolored. I remember, if you remember the old Tootsie pops with a little stick on the bottom. It was just a piece of hard candy. It’s just, that was the tootsie pop of the day, if you will. Um, we want you to ask Jesus for a piece of, uh, that hard candy. Okay. Focus real hard. All right? And who say, oh, Jesus, please, we want a piece of candy. Piece of candy. Okay, everybody done? Everybody asked for it? Yes. Okay. Remove your blindfolds. And we took our blindfolds off and look down at your desk.

Do you see any candy there? No. Very good. Let’s put the blindfolds back on. Put the blindfolds back on again. It says, now we want you to ask the El commandante the commander Castro, for a piece of hard candy. And we did take off your blindfolds, and lo and behold, there was the hard candy because all the people came around and put their candy on the desk, the four in the classroom. So now remember, okay, what, what was the lesson that we were told? Remember, God gives you nothing. Castro and the, and the regime. The revolution gives you everything.

Don’t ever forget that. And that was the indoctrination, the beginning of the indoctrination. And that. And that’s. And that’s true. That’s truth. And this was every day for everything. For everything. It was. God is no good. The revolution is everything. The revolution is your God. Castro is your God. Okay? Ask any chinese communist that has left the country. You know, you had to have a portrait of the leader in your house, and you will be inspected to make sure you had a portrait of the leader in the house. I want to help you if you didn’t.

I want to read something here to you real quick. This is, this is actually very apropos, and I’m not going to read the entire article, but essentially what they’re talking about is this is James Perloff, and he’s quite, he questions the kind of like, the rapture mentality of Christians as that was being. That’s something that’s actually been, you know, slipped into the consciousness of Christians so that they can believe that they will believe that they don’t have to go through any persecution or suffering, you know, of governments on the earth, around the globe, that they’re going to be taken away.

And it says, by believing they will be spared persecution, christians are preparing themselves for disappointment and even shattered faith. Fitz Springmeyer relates. Chinese believers in China prior to the Mao Red Chinese takeover were told that they would be raptured before they suffered any tribulation. The communists took over and tortured and martyred millions of chinese Christians who mistakenly thought the Bible taught I that they would be raptured before any suffering. And the Bible was widely discredited because it had been mistaught. And that very similar to kind of what you’re talking about right now. Yep, exactly. So that that ended.

And then I went home, and after a week of this, I went home and I told dad what was happening. I told mom what was happening when I was going through. And then, of course, they had to reverse engineer everything that I was being taught. And I was being told that this is actually how it is. This is actually how it works. This is actually what you need to be listening to. But you can’t say anything. You can’t talk about it, because bad things will happen to you. Prior to Batista, we had our. Our version of Trump, if you guys are into Trump, which was Herman Prio, President Prio was, like, the last good thing that ever happened to that island.

After that, we got stuck with Batista, a dictator. And then after Batista, we got stuck with Castro, and then it just never went away. Well, yeah, I mean. I mean, cat, the Castros are still in charge now. It’s a. It’s his brother Raul, right? His brother Raul works in the background. Now. He’s got a bunch of military henchmen that are basically running the show. So here’s. Here’s. Here’s where everything really, really started going south. So now, by this time, we are, uh. We have the Chinese in one of our back pockets, we have the Russians in the other back pocket, and both front pockets, they were really, really invested in the island in.

On every level that you can think of. Uh, I go to. My dad used to get 30 days worth of vacation a year. That was. That was part of our constitution back then. Every citizen that had a job, your vacation was 30 days, one month a year, period. That was across the board for everybody. Where would we go? We would go to my grandfather’s plantation on the western side of the island, Pina de Rio, which is the map you just brought up there. I loved it. I had my own horse. Not that I could ride one, but.

You know what I mean. But I did have my own horse. And, yes, his name was Poncho. Sorry. It just was. I love being there. I love being there. That’s. That was my version of remembering, like, dangerous freedom. It’s like, dangerous freedom. You know, a lot of people. A lot of people don’t. They don’t want to be free. This is tough. Sorry. No problem, brother. I just want to say that you talked about how there wasn’t a lot of resource or there was more resources out in the areas that weren’t in the cities. But life was a little bit harder from the standpoint that they.

I mean, you had. Yeah, you had resources, but you didn’t have, like, the support system like you would if you were in the cities. Is that correct? Yeah. But. But here’s the thing. On my grandfather’s plantation, all of my uncles, my aunts, cousins, everybody had their own house on the plantation, okay? They had had it for centuries. My grandparent parents were immigrants from Spain. You know, my grandpa, blonde hair, blue eyed. I mean, he was that type of spaniard. Grandma, not so much, but. And they all lived and they all worked on the plantation. Everybody had their own job, you know, some of them worked the tobacco crop, some of them did the livestock, some of them did, you know, the veggies and stuff like that.

And everybody contributed. The main house. The main house on the plantation, my grandma and grandpa’s house that had the biggest kitchen, okay. It had the biggest table. I wish I would have brought my pictures, my photographs I got from mom on that. It was just very old outdoor showers, you know, and stuff like that, you know, collecting rainwater, no electricity. Everything was, you know, lantern and kerosene lamps. You know, it was great. It was life and just pure, true freedom to do whatever you wanted. Okay, whatever you wanted. But going back to the city now, and we would stay there for 30 days.

Sorry, that’s what we would go for. 30 days worth of vacation. But going back to the city now, on my dad’s side of the family, they were four sisters. Four sisters and six brothers. Everybody had lots of kids back then. There was no tv. What else are you gonna do? Right? Right, exactly. No tv. Long story short. So two of my. Two of my uncles, two of my uncles that I actually. Well, before dad passed here in America, and his other brother, we had a huge fallout, but I might talk about that. They flipped. They flipped.

They basically sold out. Sold out my grandparents or back then? Back then, or $50,000 apiece, which was an ungodly amount of money back then. No? Who had the money? How did they get that money? I’m getting to that. Okay. Two american passports and guaranteed citizenship with Exodus to America for rolling against my grandparents. Why? Marcelino Gomez was my grandfather, very well known name on the island because of the cigars that he would cultivate and he would box and he would sell. He had a name on the island of. For exportation. Never made it that far. But on the island, everybody knew what he did.

Uh, and they are now in the position where they want to start confiscating land. Listen to me here again, very carefully. Imminent domain. We don’t want you living out in the country. We don’t want you having access to livestock. We don’t want you having access to veggies. We don’t want you having access to cigars. We don’t have it. We don’t want you having access to anything that is not in our control. This is why they don’t want you living in rural areas or living out in the country. They want to push you and merge you and move you towards city centers where they can control everything.

Okay. You have to be able to understand what I’m trying to say here. So what happened is they send a regimen out to the plantation. On the very first visit, they went out there, and they basically approached my grandfather and they. And my own, two of my uncles and a cousin, and they told them, yeah, we’re here from the government, and we are doing land acquisitions and stuff like that. So you can contribute to the revolution, so you can contribute to the cause, because you’ll be helping out not only the country, but yourselves and helping out the leadership and with.

With resources to defend us from the evil, imperious Yankees that are about to invade us any day now. Up north, they were talking about Americans. My grandfather looked at him, looked at the whole. At all of them, and told him kindly to get the fuck off his farm and never come back again. He wasn’t buying, because he knew what this was. Okay. And they. They respectfully left. Didn’t guess. Okay, well, we’ll be back. And they left. We understand. We get it. And they left. Second time, they came back. Went through the whole process again. Told them, get the fuck off.

They left. The third time, they come back. Now, it was a little bit larger, it was a little bit different, because one of the guys that came on that third regiment was Che Guevara himself. Holy shit. Yeah. And did you see Che Guevara? No, I did not. My mom. My mother was there that day. I was back in Havana with my dad. I was not there. This is my mother’s story. She was there. Wow. Um. And after, the same general, uh, basically told my grand. My grandfather, my two uncles, and my cousin that, you know, hey, this time we’re not playing you either.

Surrender your entire plantation. And the 90 ten rule applies 90% of everything that you grow. Cultivate your resources here, goes to the state, and you can keep 10%. Okay? And they left a tent. They popped up a tent and they left the AI. It’s not a regiment. It’s like a company, if you will. Smaller footprint of soldiers living in the tent that you had to feed and house every day out of your pocket. And they were just, again, observers. They monitored you, they followed you, they tracked you wherever you went. God help you if you took a hog and butchered a hog for you to eat.

That was forbidden. Cattle, same thing. Could not touch it. Those were under strict observations. Okay. So every. On Christmas Eve and on Christmas day, we celebrate something on the 24th that’s called noche buena. Okay, which is a good evening or a good night? The best of it’s. It’s. It’s a. It’s a huge meal that’s prepped. It’s our tradition. It’s a huge meal that’s prepped. And you have friends, family, everybody over, and you celebrate the. The, uh, the birth of Christ, you know, coming on the 25th, that, you know, you gotta. You know, that’s just the tradition.

Like Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve, correct. Uh, and you basically had to get a hog, and you had to go way up in the mountainous. Okay, and butcher the hog up there, and you had to sneak off the. Off. Off the land. Okay, and just go further up in the hills and butcher it over there, take it all apart, put it in a burlap sack, and. Just. How could I say this? Sneak it back in. Sneak it back in to the farm, and then cook it. Ready to say it, I don’t think. Now, here’s. Here’s the. Here’s the issue with that.

The whole system is so damn corrupted that there were a couple of soldiers that knew what was going on, and they would tell my family, hey, we know what you’re doing up there with that hog. You think we’re stupid, but, you know, we’d like to partake in the dinner also, as well. So let’s share with me and the men and, uh. Nothing. No, nothing happened. We won’t say anything. Yeah, won’t say anything. So imagine having these bastards sitting with your family at the fucking dinner table on Christmas eve dinner. And then the festivities happened after Christmas Eve dinner where the younger gals, you know, they got taken care of by the soldiers as well, and I’ll just leave it at that.

Wow. That just. That. That just sounds. That just is. That’s repulsive. That’s. That’s what. That. That’s. That’s what the system is. That’s. That’s reality. Well, it’s. You know, you. I think you said that. You said the proper word when you said terror. You know, um, one thing that comes along with virtually every system that is communist is a system of terror. Uh, to. To, uh, to essentially force compliance, because they literally keep you in a state of such an unimaginable fear that you will do whatever you can to avoid pain. And, you know, that’s. What if.

I mean. And I’m not that I want to go. I’m not that I’m attacking a religion, not by any stretch of the imagination, but, you know, the vast majority of christian churches and whatnot. What do they tell you? They’re nothing. They’re not. They’re not selling you. And I don’t mean, I hate to use that word, but they’re promoting not going to hell, as opposed to promoting eternal life, the reward of eternal life. Nobody goes. The vast majority of people don’t go to church for the reward of eternal life. They go to church out of fear that they don’t want to go to hell.

And kind of what you’re saying is very similar is that people are motivated on. People were motivated on the island to do things out of fear of being in pain or to avoid pain or whatever, as opposed to doing something that was going to be beneficial to the communist regime. Correct. So what happens next is after that passed, what happens next? They told my grandpa that the regiment was going to come back out again, and this time it wasn’t going to be very nice. And the reason, and the reason and their entire plan was they wanted to confiscate the plantation because they really wanted to put a helicopter base in there.

They just wanted the land. That’s all that was for. Why a helicopter base? Well, if you go back to the granite slabs, those little hills that I told you about, this was, again, everything was pre planned in advance, in phases, just like everything here is being pre planned and in phases. Things happened. They were planned for four or five years ago. Same scenario over there, same setup, same shit. Like I told you, at its foundation, the system is exactly the same. Nothing changes it, just its appearance and how it’s presented. I’m gonna share this. I’m gonna share this picture with you because I think you’ll understand.

This is the. This is a. A simulated reserve and corridor system to protect biodiversity as required by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and Wildlands project. And if you can see what it says here, basically any area that is red is basically little to no human use. There you go. You’ve got the buffer zone, and then the buffer zones are in yellow. So if you. If you see red and yellow on these areas, those are areas where the humans are generally not supposed to be. The only. Only places where humans can be are like the little green zones that you see here.

Anything that’s red can’t be used. And this is a map. This is a United nations map for what they want to do to the United States. It’s the same thing, population control. They want to keep you in the city center so they can control you better. 15 minutes. Cities. This is. It’s a repeat of the same perverted fucking movie. This is the point I’m trying to make here, for the audience to understand this shit, okay? What you see and what you’re hearing is bullshit. You’re being fed a fucking bunch of lies. But it’s the normal, right? So anyway, um, after that communication was done, my.

One of my uncles goes to the town center, goes to a western union, and sends a telegram to my dad in Havana. Dad gets the telegram about what’s going on and what’s happening, and dad decides to take a trip and go out to the country. Okay? I stayed behind with my aunt, okay? I did not go this time. And this is where my mom’s telling me this now. So the regiment comes back, Mister Guevara, you know, that’s the guy that college kids have all over their t shirts. Or maybe they used to, at some point in time, having no idea or recollection of who that son of a bitch actually really was.

He wasn’t even cuban. He was argentinian. Um, they just knew him as a great revolutionary. What they don’t know and what they don’t tell you. And you can look this up and read it yourself in his own personal memoirs, which are only. Yeah, there’s a lot on Amazon. Right on Amazon. $21 men’s red t shirt. Classic Alberto Corda image. Are you serious? Che Guevara store? Yeah, I mean, this is. And people freaking buy this shit. Only one left in stock order soon. Yeah. And people have. And people have no idea the true history of that. Of that asshole.

Not Cuban. Argentinian. A psychopath. I mean, a complete and utter psychopath. If you read his own personal memoirs, you can only read them in Spanish. I’m pretty sure somebody out there has got to have a translation to English. He was the biggest racist known to man, hated blacks, hated gays, and wanted to kill them all. I mean, just complete genocidal maniac. So this guy, he was a physician. And the reason that he was a physician was it made him, if I understand it correctly, he became a physician because it, it. He learned human anatomy and it made him a more efficient executioner.

Yes, that is absolutely true. And in his tower. In his tower above the execution, the firing squad pits. Okay, that they called it. He wrote one of his memoirs. I actually read him one time where he did send a message to his father back in Buenos Aires at the time, before he left, telling him the absolute euphoria that he felt every time someone faced a firing squad. And he can smell that fresh scent of blood. He said, for him, it was such a rush that he just could not get that out of his mind. He just enjoyed it so much, it wasn’t even fun.

He couldn’t satiate it. No, could not. He was. He was psychopath or sociopath or both. I don’t know. A rush. It was a rush, right? So anyway, so now the same general gets out of the. Out of the vehicles and says, hey, look, we’re here. Because this time they even showed up with construction equipment. It showed up with a couple of bulldozers and backhoes and stuff like that and says, we’re here. We are taking this today. And Grandpa said, the hell you are. So him, a couple of my uncles and some cousins and some other workers, hands that were.

That were there, all brandished machetes. Machetes. Not firearms, machetes. The people that stayed behind in the tents had already commandeered the weapons. They were already taken. Let that sink in. And this general told my grandpa, according to my mom, who was spared, miraculously, um, you’re. You’re going against. You know, you’re going up. Up against AK 47s, man, with a machete. What are you, stupid? And grandpa told him, he says, you may kill the first 20 or 30 of us, but behind us 20 or 30, there’ll be another 50, and behind them there’ll be another hundred, and then another 200.

Your revolutionary piece of idea is not going to work here. Go fuck yourself. Quote unquote. Hmm. So they managed to take away, disarmed them, and they lined them against the barn, and they fucking execute them via firing squad. Wow. They were done. Then they proceeded to go ahead and bulldoze the family plot cemetery. How many were there? How many people total? Eight. Eight in total. And these are your uncles and uncles. Your uncles, uncles, granddad, uncle, two uncles, cousins. And the other ones were regular. The other four or five were just regular ranch hands if you ran hands.

Okay. Yeah. Then they proceeded to bulldoze the family cemetery. They just bulldozed right over it. Never relocated anybody else. They tore down a few houses and they started scraping the land just to start that. That airfield, that process going. Everybody was told, you can only leave some ranch hands here, grandma. You can stay behind and continue working land and cultivating. Remember, 90 ten. Because we still need your resources. And everybody else that’s here, that is of little or no use. They’re going to be relocated to town center. So they were relocated. They were escorted out. And then one of my cousins asked that generally says, well, look, when we run out of resources, when we run out of seeds.

Who is going to help us out to continue this? And he’s like, that’s your problem. That’s for you to figure out. We don’t provide that. Right. So, again, keep seed in mind also, as well. Good to have. Um, so then that was over. It was done. Now, mind you, the communication sent to my dad, who had already been there, had already been received. Dad made it only to the town center. He could not get a mule train out to the plantation because no one came, because the ones that usually came out were already smoked. So he had to turn around and he had to go.

He figured it out. He had to turn around and go back. So. So are you saying that there was only eight people that were executed or there were more, but there was eight people executed at the time that your grandfather was executed? Yeah. So. But were there any. My mom. That my mom witnessed? There were more, but. Okay, that was that day. Gotcha. Okay, so dad goes back to Havana and conditions. Now, this is literally a month later, if I remember mom telling me, crazy, it was like a month later. It’s towards the end of the month.

We are barely getting by. Ration cards are done. They’re gone. Dad’s been out bartering black market, trading a shirt for a sacrifice or whatever he can get to eat and stuff. And don’t get caught bartering or going black market. You get caught doing that, you go away in a little russian lada, and we’ll never see you again. That was just. It was not. Did they. And I’m curious, and I genuinely do not know the answer to this, because Cuba had a good relationship with the Soviet Union. If people were dissidents on the island, were they just.

Were they dealt with on the island, or were they potentially sentence to, like, Russia, to go, like, into the gulag system? No, you. You. You either. You. You had to actually, you had three options, depending on your stature, depending on what you did and what your offense was. You either went to jail as a dissident, you went to jail, you went to a re education camp, or, uh, you went and did, uh, volunteer. Uh, we used to call it, uh, uluntaria, which means voluntary hours is what that means. Meaning you will go to the sugar cane fields and you go cut sugarcane as punishment, and you probably die there.

Or you want to go do some very heavily labor intensive. It’s like, you know, the ball and chain breaking big rocks, making, you know, big rocks into little rocks. Right. That type of. That type of labor camp. Labor camp. There you go. If you didn’t comply. So literally, like, a month later, we are, uh, just. And this is the thing that I just. I can never erase this. Um, we were sitting at the dinner table, um, and there is three glasses of water. There’s about that much sugar left in a bag. And there’s, uh, one hard boiled egg.

And there is a ball of dough that came out of a loaf about the size of a baseball. That was dinner. That was it. So I basically got, you know, a piece of dough. Everybody had some dough. I got the hard boiled egg, you know, the protein factor. And mom and dad finished off with the rest, put, you know, sugar inside of the glass of water and stirred around. And that was it. So we’re going through that, and there’s a knock at the door. And mom goes to the door, opens it up, and she turned around, and she tells my dad, hey, it’s for you.

And there were four guys, again, olive drab uniform with aks there. And I start doing this because, again, school, right? I’m like, you know, it’s the teachers. They’re here, you know, and this time they have guns. Something’s wrong. Something’s not right, right? And dad just walked up to him with a big old smile on his face. And back then, they didn’t use the word citizen. That came after the fact. They used to use comrade again, russian tactic component, which is comrade says, yeah, how are you? And they were very polite. They were very nice. They weren’t rude, aggressive, mean, or anything.

They were extremely polite, very friendly. Nothing but smiles and, you know, it was like, you know, we’re from the state, you know, obviously. And, you know, we just wanted to ask you some questions, and we needed your assistance and your help with matters of the state and. Okay, well, what’s the problem was, we understand that you’re a ham radio operator. Well, duh. There’s the fucking antenna outside. You can’t miss it, right? It’s bigger than the damn house. And we had a huge house, too, by the way. We had a. We had a ten by 15 space with a common bathroom that everybody shared.

Great living facilities, right? And we’re here to ask you to volunteer your transmitter. Back in the day, the ham radios were. You had your transmitter and you had your receiver. You know, it wasn’t an all encompassed unit as they are today. And he said, why the transmitter? He says, well, look, the Yankee imperialists up north, they kept using this phrase over and over and over and over again. They’re about to invade us any day now. And we don’t want any communication going off the island. For security purposes, you can keep the receiver, you can listen all day long.

We don’t care about that. But we just don’t want you talking. Hmm? We don’t want you talking. So we’re going to have to ask you to volunteer that piece of equipment. He’s like, well, you can’t say no, right? They got a case, right? You’ll go away. So he had to give that up. Then they proceeded to ransack, you know, our big, huge home, looking for, I don’t know what. Uh. They didn’t find anything, right? And then they turn around, they start walking, you know, towards the front door to leave, and one of them taps the other one on the shoulder, and here comes that whisper shit again.

They never spoke out loud. None of these fuckers ever spoke out loud where you can hear them, they just whispered a lot. And the guy said, oh, great. Thank you for telling me that. I’m aware. He grabs the clipboard, and he starts flipping through these papers, and he starts going, oh, Mister Gonzalez, we have. We understand that you own a couple of firearms. You have a side by side shotgun, and you have a little Winchester 22 rifle. Is that correct? Well, yes. Well, how did you know that I had those? And he says, well, you know, when Batista was here, that freighter, you know, you had.

And you purchased these at the hardware store, which. That was the only place. There were no armories, all firearms and, you know, fishing gear, tack. All that stuff was all done in the hardware store, along with everything else. You had to register those items. That was the law of the day. Listen carefully. You had to register those items. It was the law of the day. And it was for insurance purposes. If they happen to go missing. You’re right. Read between the lines, people. Okay, so what happened? Castro comes in. He already had the first four steps that I’ve covered.

Indoctrination, education, small business, food, health care, all that small bit, all that shit. What was left? The guns. That was the only thing that was left, was the guns. Castro came in and said, pull the registrations that Batista put in play, asked nicely, pitch it this way. You know, like a gun buyback program. You see the connections here? You’re starting to figure this out. Oh, yeah, 100%. You know, you don’t got to get. You. You don’t need to convince me of that stuff. Don’t go to. Don’t go door to door and forcibly take them. No, pitch it this way.

And the pitch was. And here it comes. When dad said, how did you know? And they told him, well, you registered under. Under Batista. You know, we are having a very short. We have a shortage. The word shortage. We have a shortage of firearms. And we really, really are asking all. Okay, of the. Of the people to volunteer them for the revolution, for the cause, because the yankee imperialists up north are about to invade us any day now, and we’re having a shortage. And we need as much weapons and ammunition as we can handle. Okay? You don’t need these anymore because that’s what we’re here for.

We’re here to protect you from them. Right? Yeah. Okay. And that’s the mindset that. I mean, if, you know, if you want to, you know, overlay that on the United States, that’s essentially what they are trying to do with the police. Oh, the police. You know, fund the police, the blue helmets, bring in the UN, bring in foreigners to run our streets. This is the same fucking playbook. Same thing. But. But rely on the state for your protection is the point I’m trying to make. Rely on the state for your protection. You don’t need guns. You rely on the state.

The state will protect you. The state will give you everything. And the state will take everything, too, also, as well. The state is God, okay? The state is the supreme leader. That’s all there is to it. That was. It was a Jefferson who said, I think was Jeff, was it Jefferson? The government big enough to give you everything, is big enough to also take it all away? Yeah, exactly. So what happened was they. You couldn’t. You. You couldn’t say no right to that. And dad had to go. And, well, they’re right here. He says, well, what did you have these for to begin with? And he says, well, I hunt, right? I shoot quail, right? And I hunt.

And, well, where do you hunt that? And. And he says, well, you know, my. My wife’s parents have a plantation out in Pinaldo Rio. Connect the dots, right? And that’s where I would go hunt. Another whisper in the ear. Oh, oh, oh, okay. Yeah. See ya. Comprendo? I understand. Okay. All right. Well, Gonzalez. Well, thank you very much, you know, thank you for everything. Thank you for your assistance. Viva la revolution. And don’t worry, man. You’re in good hands. We’ll take care of you. Enjoy the rest of your day. And they left, right? And what was seared into my head was when I saw dad just push the door shut.

He turned around, he looked at my mother dead in the eyes, and he told her, we just lost the country. And mom is like, what do you mean, we lost the country? He said, when they take the guns, it’s over. They already have everything else. We’re done. I’ve never fucking forgotten that. Ever, ever, ever. And in my opinion, in America right now, at this very moment, unless something happens, we’re at that stage also, as well. We’re getting. It’s, it’s. We’re at that. That moment of, you know, that, that, that precipice, if you will, because they already have everything else.

Now, I know different conditions, different things are happening. I know that there’s stuff going on. I get all that. But I think you have to understand that the most critical part of this entire conversation, this entire subject, what’s important to me, what matters here is none of that. None of that. Here’s what matters to me. The indoctrination process is the most important one. It’s your kids, what they’re being told, what they’re being fed in school, because those are tomorrow’s leaders. And if tomorrow’s leaders are mind fucked, what hope do we have for this country in its future? Right? Everything else is standard operating procedure.

It comes with that. But it has to start there. That’s the part that needs to be. That’s the part that needs to be circumvented. That’s the part that needs to be fixed, is the education of the youth. Because those are tomorrow’s terrorists. Those are tomorrow’s communists. Those are tomorrow’s socialist. Those are the ones that you need to worry about, because it’s not going to be, in my opinion, again, it’s not going to be the government. It’s not going to be the ATF. It’s not even going to be the undead. It’s not going to be any of those motherfuckers coming down your neighborhood street into your cul de sac to come and take the guns from you.

What you need to fear. Listen to me carefully. What you need to fear and look out for is your next door fucking neighbor. That’s what you really got to watch out for. Why? Well, your next door neighbor knows that you prep. Your next door neighbor moved here from a different state. He doesn’t have the same political ideology as you. Your next door neighbor says, we live in America. This can’t possibly happen here. Right? Because we’re in America. Well, shit, we thought the same thing, too. It can’t happen in Cuba. Fuck, you know, we’re the cats. Meow.

Right? Can’t happen here. When your neighbor’s kids bellies or his start hurting real bad, he may come and knock on your door and ask you for enough supplies to last him a week. Okay. And you, out of your kindness and your good heart, you’re going to say, love thy neighbor, right? Sure. You go, man. Here you go. Boom. And take care of you. After a week goes by, he’s going to come back again. And this time he’s not going to be asking so nicely. He’s just not. That’s what you need to prepare for. Well, you need to get ready for.

And the thing is, is that when he comes back, he’s going to be coming back with a mob and you’re not going to, and they’re going to overwhelm you and you’re going to be dead, and they’re going to take all your provisions. I’ve heard that, you know, you know, I’ve watched a million prepper channels, I shouldn’t say, you know, a million. Not exaggerating, but, you know, you get the gist of, and, you know, I’ve read so many books about, you know, dystopian future and whatnot, and everybody who talks about something along those lines says that the, you know, what’s going to happen is, you know, there’s so many people out there that say, I’m not going to bother prepping because whenever the shit goes down, I’m just going to come to your house and take everything that you’ve, you’ve accumulated, kill you and take all your stuff, and that’s that.

And there are people out there with that mindset and, and they, and it’s like they don’t think twice about it. The only problem with that is that now you, they, you have now, again, in my opinion, you now have a double whammy, right to the metaphor. I just said, okay, it’s not just your neighbor anymore that you need to worry about. It’s what’s coming across the southern border also as well. What, what started happening under this administration with the southern border, again is nothing new to me. It’s not. I’ve seen this before and I’ve lived it before.

There was something that was called Marielle Boatlift one and Marielle Boatlift two. When I was living in south Florida, Castro empty the insane asylums. He emptied the jails. He emptied every dissident camp that you can think of, put them on boats and send them all to Florida. When they all got to Florida, they scattered throughout the country. Then he did it a second time. What did he do? He got rid of the crime on the island. Less mouths to feed, meaning less resources I have to go and gather for. Right. I have more control over the current population because the numbers are smaller.

Right. And I just gave a big fuck you to America and the rest of the world because I don’t care, and they’re not going to do shit about it. Well, you know what? They didn’t do anything about it. They didn’t do anything about it. And, you know, I am. I am of the opinion that Castro was actually a CIA asset, and all that stuff that went on on the island was. Was by design. And if you look at. I mean, if you look at, like. I mean, I’ve heard people talk about it from Haiti, I’ve heard people talk about it from the Dominican Republic, from, you know, from many, many places, you know, in.

In, you know, Latin America, whether it be an island or, you know, Venezuela, whatever, that they let their. They let their prisoners out and basically give them safe passage to America. To flood America with all these. All these hard criminal individuals for the purpose of destroying us. Yep. Absolutely. Spot on. So to finish off the story, what happens now? All right, so if you’ve been keeping track now what. What happens is, a month later, after they took dad’s guns away, um, he was. He was very, very, uh, twitchy, if you will. Very much on edge, like.

Like. Like nervous, like something was very, very off. Uh, we get another. So, yeah, he knew, remember, that dad wasn’t in the system. He was a part of the system, because, again, he was a telegraph operator at the post office. Eyes and ears always open, listening, listening, right? Toeing the line. He knew playing the game. He knew. He was read in on what the fuck was really going on. But it gets better. We get a knock on the door. It’s my aunt, his sister Rosa comes with two pan american airline or three pan american airline tickets.

And we’re all sitting there. Comes in, mom makes some coffee and says, and she said, look, I can’t stay. I don’t have much time. I was followed here. You need to grab whatever you can grab, and you need to leave here tomorrow. And that’s like, leave? Go where? To America. I have airline tickets. I have cleared and made it for you to be able to leave, because that window of the revolution triumphed. And we’re going to lock everything down, and nobody leaves the island anymore, okay? And there’s a reason for that, and I’ll explain it here as quickly as I can.

That window is closing fast. One and two, your window, your personal window is closing even faster than that. You need to leave here tomorrow. If you don’t, I can’t help you. I can’t save you. You got to go. And he’s like, I don’t know what you’re taught. He says, you remember what happened? And points at my mom. Remember what happened at your parents house? Well, on the plantation. Yeah. They know that that communication was sent. They know that you read it and they intercepted it. They know that you know of what really happened over there, and they don’t want that getting out.

You need to leave, and you need to leave now, because the four guys that were here says, you got a visit, didn’t you? Well, yeah, about a month. I says, those four guys are coming back, and this time you’re going away. You got to leave tomorrow, like, quickly. And mom is like, gets. Get. Starts freaking the fuck out, you know? I don’t know what’s going on. You know? It’s me again, you know, because it’s. I’m trying to process, and I can’t process. And it’s the state of confusion, the fear, the stress that I’m like, I have no.

I don’t know how I. I’m still fucking mentally compliant. And so we did what we said. Dad went, stitched some money inside his belt. From the time that your aunt came to the time that the plane departed, how much time was that? One day to the next. But I understand that. So she came there in the evening, on the day before, and. And like. Like, was it 12 hours, 16 hours, eight, 8 hours? I mean, what was 15 hours to basically, from the time your world’s. Your world moved on a dime in 15 hours? Yeah, 15.

Your life, rather, your life shifted on a dime within 15 hours, 15 hours. And everything. Everything was put in play, which was. So we gathered all our stuff, right, got dressed. Dad had a small suitcase, mom had a small suitcase. I had a mochila, which was what was known back then as a backpack. And we just left. We had a car waiting on in the front. And on our way out, all of our neighbors that we had known forever knew that we were leaving because word got out and we’re calling us traitors, or calling us Gusanos, which is worms.

They all did that little symbol with their fingers spitting on us, you know, calling us traitors. So that was another mind fuck, because everybody told the party line, you had to, you had no choice, even though internally they might have had a difference of opinion, but you had to comply. It was just like watching every time Castro would do one of his infamous four to four and a half to five hour speeches. The neighborhood watch captain would come around, knock on everybody’s door and says, hey, we need to go to the, they had a little outdoor pavilion and with benches, and you would have to go and sit there and listen to his speeches, you know, for four and a half hours.

And every time that was revolutionary, positive. You had to stand up and you had to applaud and say, you know, be the Fidel and this and that and yay. Very escap. And, and then you had, and you had, you had to, you had to play along. You had to play the game. Because why, you were being the observers and the listeners, they were always around. And if you didn’t comply, uh oh, that guy might need a little bit of re education. What do you think? Yes, I think so. Good. Eight, come here and you go, nobody wanted that because everybody knew what that, what that was about.

But anyway, so we leave, we get in the car, we go to the airport. We get to the airport. Basically, they took the luggage and everything in it. Uh, they put us on the airplane, literally, with the clothes on our backs. Literally. We had no carry on, nothing. They confiscated everything. Fortunately, they did not find the money that dad had sewn inside his belt and my birth certificate, which was not allowed to leave the island at all, could not leave the island. Okay. Because that was your, and this is for a deeper, extended subject, but I’ll just drop it in here because it was, uh, your, what do they call that, your trust or the Vatican.

For those that don’t know that know me here, that have read vatican assassins, you’re going to notice in the very beginning how, uh, Ireland and Cuba are owned by the Vatican, actually. And it was the Vatican that ruled and went down to the island one time, one of the popes went down there and told fidelity, you can’t isolate religion or the church here on this island because we own you. So you need to soften your grip on that. And they did, and they more or less brought it back, but that still was, again, 90, 1090 percent will tell you what to pray and who to pray for.

And 10%, you can keep that inside here and just take it home. Anyway, we get to Miami, we get to the freedom tower in downtown Miami, um, get off the plane, and we’re at the freedom tower, standing outside, and all of a sudden, uh, there are three people, two males and one female. Uh, very nicely dressed. They look like the, your typical men in black, you know, types with the suits and the. The aviators, um, they approach us and they say, hello. Welcome to America. My name is whoever. We’re here from the state department. We’re here to offer you assistance, so on, you know, and help you out with your transition to America.

We have these forms. We have some food assistance. We have some medical, some housing, just things to get you off the ground and get you started and all that stuff. We just need to get your signature here, and we’ll provide you with that, and we’ll move on to the next group that’s coming in. And dad sitting there, just not saying a word. He’s just looking at him, you know, and then they start looking at each other, wondering, you know, oh, fuck, he doesn’t understand English, stupid. The female was the translator, and she asked in Spanish, she says, bienvenidos.

And, you know, and he goes, uh uh, stop. He said, I understood every word you said. Oh, my God, you speak English. He goes, very well, and I can write it too. And I will humbly decline what you’re offering me. And if you do want to assist us, the only thing that I want to ask you for is to point me in the nearest direction of your newsstand, which would be the Miami Herald. Dad already knew. He knew, right? And these three are looking at each other like, what the fuck? Who is this guy? He says, well, sir.

They start laughing. Oh, yeah? Well, look, sir, the newsstand is right over there. But before you even get to that, you do understand that this is free, right? You don’t have to pay for this, right? Because we get it. You. You came here with no money. And he says, no, no, no, no. I came here with money, but what you’re offering me is not free. That is not free. How do I know that? Because I just left that shit. And it doesn’t work. And it won’t work here either. I’m not interested. You want to talk about a time machine? You want to talk about a.

Oh, my God. What the fuck? Look at where we are today with entitlements. Look at where we are today with food stamps, with assistance. You know, the dole with all this. It’s the same fucking process. Then they ask, well, what do you. The newsstand says, I’d like to get a Miami Herald so I can look for a job. That’s all. Got him to the newsstand, got his paper. They left, and then were approached by then a not so, not so elderly couple. I still remember their names till today. Bern and Dolores Aspie. They were from the local Baptist church, okay.

They were from Hollywood, Florida, and they sponsored us, and they set us up in their in laws quarters in Hollywood, Florida. They had in laws quarters behind her main house. And Vern told daddy, said, you can get your kid into the school system. Dolores will homeschool him until he learns the language. Mom can stay home and just take care of the kids, do whatever, and help me out with what I need. And. And you can get yourself a job, but you have six months. You’re welcome to stay here rent free for six months, and after that, you’ll have to find your own place.

And then we’re going to bring in another family to take care of. This is what they did, okay? This was charity. This was. This was. Whatever you want to call it was always done by the church, not the government, okay? Assistance, whatever you wanted to call it. So dad found a job at a Hollywood memorial hospital working as a janitor, making a buck 25 an hour. And that’s how he got started, was mopping floors, you know, cleaning up. I went to school. I was homeschooled by Dolores until I managed to pick up the language pretty quick.

And then I went to elementary school and just got indoctrinated. And just before six months period, dad came home one day and he was like, you know, came home, he had this look on his face and he actually was weeping. I’ve never seen my old man do that for. And, and mom is like, you know, what’s wrong? Are you okay? Does something happen? Is something happening? This is. No, no, no. I’m just very happy. I’m super excited. I got great news and mom’s words. We’re going back home. Oh, my God, it’s over, right? We’re going back.

And he goes, no, no, no, no. That’s dead and gone. That will never recuperate ever again. That’s lost. It’s over. But the good news is I just enrolled us in citizenship classes and we got our work permits and our green card. We’re going to be Americans. We’re going to be citizens. That’s what he was excited about, his thing. After learning the constitution, learning the language in Cuba, without ever knowing that this was going to happen. My old man had a passion for this country. Like anybody. Take your time, brother. Like. Like nobody I’ve ever known. Um, and I just wanted to, you know, that.

That, um, that hit home, you know, even back then, I’ve never seen somebody so fired up. And what was the time to. To, uh, assimilate and just. That was his ultimate dream, was to become an american and be part of the, uh, experiment, you know what I mean? And what was the time frame from the time that you got here to the time that you had that he enrolled you in the citizens classes? How long was that? How, like a month, a year? What was, how long was that time frame? The, the entire process from learning English, learning to speak the language, which was the.

I’m not gonna say it was the toughest part, but it was difficult. Okay. And to actually, you know, being able to have a conversation and articulate properly. And mind you, he knew it already. He could read it and he could write it fluently. So it was not just only school. Uh, every time that we walked out of the front door of the house, we spoke no Spanish whatsoever. Not even with mom. When we were out in public, it was English only. And that’s, that’s just the way it was inside at home then, you know, it was a mixture of Spanish, English, which we coined later, and we called something that’s called spanglish, where you start a sentence out, the first two words are Spanish, and then you finish it in English or vice versa, or somewhere in the middle.

We butchered both languages. Anyway, you know, it’s interesting that you said, and I want to just take a side, just a side, a side bar for a second. You know, I worked as, my father was a pharmacist, and he kind of, when I got out of the navy, he grandfathered me in as a pharmacy technician. I worked, I’d worked at the pharmacy since I was like twelve years old. And so, I mean, I worked on and off all throughout my, my high school time and whatnot, before I went into the navy and then after I got out of the Navy, and that was when they, they had just begun the pharmacy technician program.

Well, and the pharmacy technician program was so that they didn’t have to have, because at that time, only pharmacists could actually touch medication. But the pharmacy technician came in and that was somebody who could basically count and pour. They were legally authorized to count and pour medication where the force of the pharmacist didn’t have to do it. He could be freed up to go talk to people. Well, in California, I want to say it was like 1994 or 95. And what they started to do was they started to make it mandatory that you had to counsel all new prescriptions to people.

And if they spoke Spanish, you had to speak to them in Spanish. And that was mandated by the state. Yeah, you know, I mean, I remember. And of course, you know, a lot of people, you know, in the eighties when, you know, when you. If there were black people or latanic, you know, latin people or, you know, Hispanic, I mean, you just call them that. You didn’t call them, uh, you know, hyphen. Hyphenated Americans, right? But I remember when they. When the whole thing of the african american thing came out, that came out. And what I want to say was like, 92 or 93, it was the early nineties, but that was, that was the control of speech.

And then, I mean, what they were doing is they were controlling speech and segregating people, resegregating people into the groups. And then, and then what they were doing is they were making it so that people did not need to assimilate who were coming here. They opened it up. You know, that was, of course, that was post the amnesty of 86. You know, on the heels of that, five, six years later, ten years later, and then as they opened up the floodgates and let people just come on in, they were, you know, you didn’t. Nobody had to assimilate anymore.

And so people could come here and they could stay in their own little, like, sections and, you know, you know, now, I mean, I just, I hate it if I go to Home Depot and it’s like, you know, every other ad is in Spanish. How do you think I feel? How do you know based on that? How do you think I feel? How do you think I feel about looking at these turds coming across the southern border, walking in here, being handed everything by the federal government? And when I started out doing this show, when I was only doing radio, I had these conversations.

And you should have seen some of the comments that I got. Your kind were the stupid ones because you did it the right way. I just walked in here and got this. It was a total waste of time. You guys are idiots. No, I’m sorry. Asshole. I am not an idiot. I was taught better than that. I was taught better than that. You don’t know what. You want to know what suffering is? Suffering is when you’re eleven fucking years old. And I walk into a grocery store in Miami called Sedanos. Look it up, okay? I walk in there with the old man and my mom and we go to the back meat counter and we’re looking at all this abundance, and my old man is crying like a fucking idiot there.

And he goes, knowing the amount of hunger that we had on the island and seeing all of this here, how can anybody go against this country? I had ham for the very first time in my life that day. I didn’t know what it looked like. I didn’t know what it tasted like, and it was fucking amazing. I was. I should have been the poster child for fucking Oscar Mayer Baloney because I ate the shit out of that. Okay, listen, you just. You don’t know what. You don’t know? No. Well, and I like to echo that because, you know, you knew.

You and I both were in the Navy, and we traveled, and we got to go see third world countries. And, you know, Americans have this concept of what it’s like to live in the third world or, you know, you know, or, you know, places that. That don’t really. Even the poorest American who’s living in a tent on the side of Los Angeles does not know poverty like, it. You would see in, like, the Philippines or, you know, Vietnam or. Or even Cuba, for that matter. Now it’s like people don’t have any concept of. Of, you know, about.

About poverty. They think they do, but they really don’t. No idea. So my dad might. I remember when I graduated. When I graduated high school, I was living in a. I was living in. I was actually living in Leisure City, Florida, which was. We lived 1 mile right outside what was homestead Air Force base down in south Florida that got taken out by Hurricane Andrew. And what was it in, like, that August. August 24 of the 2004 or. No, no, Andrew hit? I think it was in. Was it the nineties? In the nineties? I think it was 95 or 90.

I don’t remember right now. It was August 24. I know that because that was dad’s birthday, and I remember when I graduated high school, you know, dad comes to me, and he said, so now that you graduated, what are you going to do? And I said, well, I was thinking about going to Miami Dade community College. You know, I wanted to get into commercial art because that was advertising, designing, you know, doing that kind of stuff back then that no longer exists today, and. But I know that we can’t afford it. You know, dad, college was out of the question.

This is community college. And he still. He couldn’t. We couldn’t afford it. Couldn’t do it. You know, like I said, dad. Dad just did what dad did, you know, before he went this way, and. And I said. He said, so what are you going to do? I said, well, I’m going to do like the majority of my friends done. We’re going to enlist in the military. We’re going to go. Really? I said, yeah. I said, matter of fact, the Navy’s going to be here in a couple days, because I already did. Really? I says, well, why do you want to join the military? And I said, you know what? And I said, this country was so good to us to let our sorry asses in here that I want to give something back, and I don’t know how.

And this is the only way that I know to give back, okay, is by keeping this country free and safe from the shit that we just left so that others can have the same opportunities that we had. He’s fucking. He fucking teared up again, and. And it’s like. And. And I don’t know where that came from. It just. It just came out. It just flowed, you know? And. And I said, and that’s what I want to do. Then he just gave me goosebumps right there, man. You just gave me goosebumps. You know, I. You know, I know this is your story, but I just want to say, no.

I didn’t go into the Navy because I wanted to serve. I went into the Navy because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I didn’t have any direction in life. I just. I just didn’t know. And my best friend had gone into the Navy, and I’m like, no, what the hell? I. You know, I. I love area. I love aviation. I want to do something with airplanes, so. But, you know, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. But as I look back on that and that service, you know, to me, that is. It’s.

It’s like, of all the decisions that I’ve ever made in my life, I think that the one to go into the military is probably the very best decision I ever made. Well, honestly, Ronnie, hey, I’m right there with you, but I’m all right. I’m. I’m gonna. Here’s the reason why I went into the Navy. I was gonna go to the Marine Corps, right? Because all my friends went to the Marine Corps. That was the macho thing of the day to do, right, was be a Marine. So I went to the Marines recruit. I went to the recruiting office for the Marines, and as soon as I walked in the door, the two marines that were there looked at me.

They looked at each other, and they went, yeah, okay. Why? I weighed 260 pounds back then. Why? Because I fucking went hungry for a long time. So I ate everything that I could. So my middle name was Chunky. That’s hilarious. And I know what they were thinking. It says, yeah, we’re going to have to put him through the fat boy program. And, yeah, good luck with getting out of boot camp. And plus, they already had their billets already filled in for the month, so I took the AsVaB test with them. They told me I did horribly, and the Marine Corps didn’t have any opportunities for me at the time, so I said, okay, great.

No problem. Thank you very much. And I walked out one door, and I went into the next door, which happened to be what the name, and I met master chief Valdez, or senior chief Valdez and Texan, and basically went through the same old spiel, what do you want to do? I said, look, I like aviation. I don’t know. I don’t know what I want to do, but I do like aviation, and I like weapons. I always had this thing for Webshouse. Always, always. I it’s just something that just fascinated me. And I said, the second reason is, I want to go to California.

I want to travel. You laugh, but why was that? Everybody wanted to come to California, brother. I, listen, you don’t, you don’t need to convince me. I grew up here. I understand. And I’m just, I’m just a fat, snot nosed Florida kid, right? And it’s like, why do I want to go to California? Why? Well, you know, growing up, I was very much into hot rods. I was very much into the hot rod scenes. You know, the Chevelle super sports, you know, your Camaros, your mustangs. You know, it was drag racing, man. It was the car, the car bug.

I was deep into that. So I subscribed to a magazine called Hot Rod magazine. I remember that magazine. Okay. Or hot rodding. Either one of the two. Or car craft was the third one. Right? Where were all the car shows? Where were all the heavy duty cruise nights? Where were the most bitchinist cars in the world? Where were the most beautiful women? Where was the best weather? Where was everything? California. Southern California, you know? And I told my friends, im going to go there. I’m gonna go there, and I’m gonna. I don’t care how it, what it takes, I said, I will go there.

I will be part of that culture. And I did. Mm hmm. I did it. But I had to enlist in the navy, and I got to travel the world and do some pretty travel to many far distant exotic lands and many different exotic diseases, too, also, as well. And we’ll just leave it at that. Yes, I know. You know, it’s. You talk about California. I tell this story when I was in a school, the weather school was on an air force base. In Illinois, but actually about 150 miles south, Chicago. And one weekend we went over to Newport, Kentucky, which is right across the river from Cincinnati.

And on our way over, there was me and a couple, you know, me and three other guys. We were all Navy, and we, I don’t even remember what happened, but we stopped on the side of the road or if it was a gas station or whatever. I don’t know what I was. But we ran into some, we ran into some young girls and, you know, we’re all, like, 2021 to 19, 2021 years old. And it’s, oh, where are you from? Where are you from? Where are you from? And, you know, I was the last one to say I was, I’m from California.

And everybody, nobody was from California but me. And it was so funny because one of the, one of the young girls, like, screamed at the height of her fricking, like, like, California. And back in the late eighties, everybody, you know, California was still viewed as, like, I mean, everybody wanted to come to California. Everybody wanted to come to California. It was the place to be, man. I’m telling you. And I tell you what, you know what, you know, people call me crazy, but California will come back. It’s, it’s, it’s you. There’s too much positive good stuff here.

And, I mean, everybody knows that you, United States, you can’t make America great again without making California great again. And listen, period. End of story. When I lived there, when I lived there, I spent, I spent seven years of my life. And I can tell you it is not the same that it is the same thing that it is today. No, it isn’t. It is not. And I went back and we had the story. We had this conversation offline. I went back to visit two, three years ago, and I was saddened. I was. This drought. I was heartbroken.

How everything, how time had just stopped and stood still and everything looked aged and weather, the homelessness, the trash, just the overall culture that ambiance is. It is, it is a complete 180 to what I experienced when I was there. It is not the same. They let that state go to shit. The only thing that still remains, the only thing that still remains, and I was just like, just, oh, my God, look at, is its beauty. Yeah. You know, its natural beauty is insane. Let me pause you there for a second, because I think it would be a really good exercise to talk about Southern California and maybe do another, like, a follow up show to this and talk about Southern California and, you know, what it was, what its become and where its, you know, what I believe is it’s going to be in the future, because I, you know, again, you can’t keep California down.

It’s. There’s. There’s way too many positives for this here. And if you look at the. Any historical context, any place that goes communist for any certain period of time ultimately falls back to the, um, you know, to its roots of, you know, liberty or whatnot. And ultimately that’s going to happen in California. And when it does, you’re going to see a resurgence in California, the likes of which you are never going to believe. And the pendulum is going to swing so fast, so hard, and it’s going to go from what, you know, I always say that the California has been painted with this really thick veneer of blue, but the paint is beginning to crack.

And, you know, everybody says that California is this. You know, they’ve only been. They’ve been manipulating the vote in California for 70 years and to get the super majority, but it’s, you know, without that, if people’s votes actually counted in California, this state would still be hardcore red. Yeah. And I’m telling you, it used to be that way. My most memorable moments were there during that time. Now, mind you, this is having four deployments out of my. Under my belt at the time, because the rest of the time, I stayed more in country than I did overseas.

You were. You were stationed in San Diego, though? Yes, I was stationed in North island. In San Diego? Yeah, that’s right down the street from, you know where it is? Hotel Dell. And from right down the street from buds. From buds. Go train. Yeah. In Coronado. Yeah. But a lot of people don’t realize how many naval facilities there are in San Diego. You’ve got. You’ve got 32nd street, you’ve got North island. You’ve got the buds facility across. Across on Point Loma. You’ve got the sub base, you’ve got the, you’ve got the naval hospital downtown used to have Miramar.

There was two naval air stations there. And then, of course, they shut down El Toro and Tustin to bring all those aviation units down to Miramar. And then they moved top gun up to Fallon, Nevada. That was all done in the nineties. Actually. My cousin. My cousin Joe was stationed. He was in the marines at the same time I was in the Navy, and he was. He was a helicopter mechanic, and he was stationed out of Tustin because that was a big Marine Corps helo base. Yep. And of course, Nas Miramar. That’s where Top Gun was.

Okay. That’s where they filmed a lot of the first movie, Top Gun with Tom Cruise, was filmed there, a lot of it. The other one was filmed at Athens, at the naval installation on North island, in San Diego, actually, 32nd street. That was your in and out processing center. Yeah, I agree with you. And I vividly remember all of that, man. I vividly remember. I got my first ink job. I. Downtown San Diego. And you know who did this? He was from San Francisco. This is an original Ed Hardy. For those of you who know who Ed Hardy is and got ink, don’t have me.

I have no ink on me at all. So those people in the audience that know about ink know who Ed Hardy was. He was a. He was a freaking legend in my mind. So my kid recognized it, and she goes, is that an Ed Hardy? And I’m like, can I just, like, skin graft that off and put it on my wall? Because they were into it, you know? Yeah, well, yeah, I would love to actually do that, Ron. I really would. I think this was good. But, you know, I know you have a hard cutoff here coming up, and so here in like two minutes.

So, you know, there was. There was a few things in the chat. I wanted to. I wanted to share one thing real quick. The. This right here, which is the debt clock, you know, you talked about, you know, like, you look at our national debt at 34, $34 trillion, and then you come over here and you look at the very bottom where it’s got the unfunded liabilities, and that’s $216 trillion. Where’s that money going to come from? I mean, we are. Look at. Look at the most important one for all of us here. Look at Social Security net, 27 trillion.

How does that compare to the debt? Yeah. Or the Medicare liabilities, 41 trillion. So the debt is 34,876,000,000,000. Yeah. You think it’s going to be around for too much longer? No, it can’t be. There’s no way. There’s no. There’s no way. It’s just not sustainable. So this is the reason why I need for everybody out there, for Ron and me. Why not? Again, I have no filter. Right? Like, share. Subscribe to the channel and join, you know, throw us a bone if you want to hear more content, more stuff, because I have a lot of my people here.

Thank you guys for being here, by the way. I appreciate it. I put it on my discord. Give Ron a like and a follow, please. If you guys are into history, tune into his stuff. Follow him. Support him. He’s a good guy. Not just because he was in the navy and he, in California. That’s, that’s besides the point because those are all positives in my book, but. Right. Help the man out. I really. I’d appreciate that. Well, I appreciate that. I appreciate you saying that. You know, I don’t, I don’t do what I do here because of money or accolades.

I do it just because it’s something that I’m passionate about. You know, I, I love my country. You know, people, sometimes people say, think that I’m anti government. And, you know, I’m not anti government. I’m anti corruption. And there’s a difference. I’m absolutely a fan of our system of government the way that it was, you know, created with the constitution. And I just simply want to go back to that. I want to get back to those constitutional principles that made us a great country, that made everybody equal under the law, you know, a republic, not a democracy of its mob rule.

And, you know, you know, you, you, I mean, with, this is going down an enormous rabbit hole, but you go back and you look at what they did, you know, oh, if you’re, if you’re talking about the Federal Reserve or you talk too much about the constitution, then, you know, you’re, you’re a domestic terrorist. And of course, you know, that’s the, I think was the MIAC report that came out and in early, two thousands that talked about that. You know, there was a lot like, just people have no idea. It’s like they’ve been training the population to and the police to believe that people who think like we do are the enemies because we want to keep the system the way it was intended to be.

Correct. And you know what? We’re in trouble. And don’t believe for a second that we’re not. Can this be saved? Can this be turned around? Yes, it can. I believe that. But I am here to tell you today, God is my witness when I tell you that this is all we have left to keep us free. You can take that to the bank. That was all people. That’s all that’s left. And the little ones, the education of the little ones, those two items, the education of the little ones. Being the first. Being the first. You got to be careful with what your kids are watching, what your kids are learning, and what your kids are exposed to.

You need to guard them if you have them, you know, more than, more than your, more than your own life, because they will turn them. They almost turn me. They almost turn me. It’s interesting that you say that. It’s interesting that you say that, because I think that, you know, I mean, they tried to use Covid as the. As the. As a mechanism, but when they closed all the schools and they put all the kids at home where their parents were at home, and the kids, and the parents were actually sitting in and listening to the kids school curriculum, when they were at home, all of a sudden the parents got this giant wake up moment.

It’s like, what the. What the hell are you learning? What are they teaching you? And the parents are like, holy. That what, you know, that was. That was a moment that I think, really, it was kind of one of those seminal moments of, like, a backfire. Like, oops. Yep. You know, so. But anyway, Armando, I know you have a hard cutoff, so I want to be respectful of your time and thank you for your time here on Independence Day, because it is Independence Day. And you know what? We are still free guys. And do it on a certain level.

We are still free. And that doesn’t, you know, we, like, like Armando said, our country is absolutely salvageable, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not going to go through some rough periods of time between now and, you know, when we do recover it. And I tell you this, you know, you know, I don’t say this because I’m trying to be laudacious of the, of Germany, but, you know, everybody talks about how bad things are. And I like to use 1930s Germany as an example of how quickly a country can rebound. Because in 1930s Germany, prior to when the nazi party took over, it was like 35% unemployment.

The value of the currency literally went down by half every two days for 21 months, consecutively. People were getting paid daily, and the suicide rates were over through the roof. People were selling themselves for sex because that was the only thing they could do to feed themselves. Kind of like what you were talking about in terms of the only thing that people thought about was trying to feed themselves every day. That was it. That was like, that was the only goal that they had, was, you know, feed themselves. Well, then, you know, Hitler came to power, and then the next thing you know, you know, it wasn’t within.

Within four years, Germany had turned everything around. And within, by, and within six years, they were basically a number one world power. So don’t think for a second that good, solid leadership. And I do believe that Trump is the guy for that, and I don’t believe he’s a Zionist. For a lot of you people who may think that. I don’t believe he’s Zionist. I think that that’s a, you know, keep your enemies, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. I believe so. Because if, because if Trump was actually a Zionist and he was in on this, then we never had a.

To begin with. So, you know, I mean, there was no, there was no point in even trying. So. But anyway, my point that I make there is that there is historical precedent for coming back fast. And I do believe that the digital asset market, which is one of the reasons why I’m kind of big on that, I believe the digital asset market is going to be the mechanism that turns the financial system around. And I, and really makes this country, from a technological standpoint, be a world leader again and start to bring back jobs and do a lot of other things.

So I think the future is extraordinarily bright, but I still believe that we’re going to have to go through a rough patch before we get to that bright future. Absolutely. 100%. Ron, thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. I really do. This was a lot of fun, um, I think. But it just. I know I’d love to do some follow up stuff on that. Yeah. 800 pound gorilla off my shoulders, which is always helpful. But, uh, thanks, guys, for being here, for, uh, you guys, for over my channel, for coming in, uh, you know, help ron out.

Thanks for being here. And, uh, I got a run, man. I got a boogie. I got to go watch some fireworks with the family, and if I’m going to get. I’m going to get my head cut off. But, uh, really appreciate your time, brother, and happy independence Day. And we’ll be talking soon. Absolutely. I’d love to do it again. Take care, guys. God bless. Be good. See you.
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