Tejano Space Cowboy
Appearances
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
I began to put my own tourniquet on.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
So we would never take roads, never take open spaces in theory. That's what you're trained to do. And so they would submerge the IEDs in the water because they're like, these guys are going to cross and go in the worst possible terrain possible. So towards the end of the war, it was like the opposite.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Go on roads because they learned from your little tricks of like, you know, just cutting through these cornfields and like going in and out of the canal in the worst possible area. And that's where they started to put the IEDs because, you know, like you wouldn't think that when I tell people that I was – fully submerged in water. When I got hit, they're like, you know, how?
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And I'm like, yeah, they're, they're, they're really, really tricky. Not just with their IDs, but also like their tactics. Yeah. They're super. Yeah. I just get a little bit insulted when people are like, they're stupid. They're cowards. I was like, no, they're, they, they defeated, you know, I don't think they beat up, you know, we killed 600 Taliban and they killed 30 of us.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Those, when you put the number, you just quantify it like that.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, that's what people don't understand. We could have just destroyed, leveled that place. And I think that sometimes whenever I talk to people, especially internationally, they don't realize that the infantry exists because America is putting a human toll on the war. And it's like we could just level these cities, but we didn't do that.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
We put men with kids and women with families on the lines so we could mitigate casualties instead of just dropping 500-pound bombs on there.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
They're thinking I'm going to die. And I'm like yelling at them.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, their willingness – because my biggest thing is dealing with the injured civilians. Their willingness to put civilians in danger is something that it's like – Um, talking to some veterans from that area, uh, still to this day, like, cause we lost 111, there was 111 Royal Marines killed in Sangin before we got there and replaced them.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And it was just like, um, you know, you're operating under, you know, we have Geneva, NATO has their own rules or whatever. And so people don't realize that's why we took so many casualties. If we were just willing to do the things they were willing to do, it would be way less casualties.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And I think that whenever I talk about it, if there's good guys and bad guys, obviously everybody's bad in war. But there is levels to what they're willing to do versus what we're willing to do.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, I think that that's something that I like, especially now that the Taliban has taken over. I think about that because Malala – He's experienced that with that.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, it's so sad. I remember I talked to a prosecutor a couple weeks ago, the Harris County DA, a DA for Houston, and she ran a foundation where she took female legal experts and trained them as an American prosecutor about the law system. So training them to be prosecutors in Afghanistan, women specifically. She's a female prosecutor.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And she was so sad because when the Taliban took over, like she was able to get one person out, one of her female prosecutors that she trained up. But it's like people have no idea that they ripped them out of Congress. They were elected congressional members, ripped them out, and then much less – like two months ago, they ripped them out of being able to leave home without a man.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
It does get confusing when people... Because you're like, how many arms do you have? Do you have real arms? I was like, to me... I was like, this is a real arm to me. But I have two prosthetics, three prosthetics, just based on which ones actually work right now. But that one... I have it. It was decommissioned, but I don't consider it in use because it was so huge.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And so just an idea – it made me so sad. That's why I still talk positively about putting as much hurt on them as possible because people don't know what rights they took away from women and specifically that DA hearing her talk about it and getting female academics out because before they said they weren't going to take them out of Congress or whatever.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
But then they did, and then they took them out of – being able to leave their houses without a male escort.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah. Yeah. It is. It is a little bit like that. I mean, it sucks, but like, I feel like, um, I like, I'll, I'll tell people like that America's got a lot of issues, but one of the biggest things we have is like,
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
I'm a transhumeral amputee, so I'm above the elbow. A trans what was that? Transhumeral, so right at the delt. So one of the reasons that I think that I was so – I became such a big prosthetic advocate is because there's only – there's less than 400 combat-wounded upper extremity amputations from Iraq and Afghanistan total. So, um, it's crazy.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
People don't realize because it's just too high of an injury. Yeah. Yeah. So people don't typically survive higher, higher because anytime you get closer to, um, the upper body, you get closer to the heart arteries in the neck.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah. Yeah. So anytime you get closer to the neck and heart, um, it's a lower survival rate. And then, um, even in, even modern wars and, and in like the Ukraine, they have a lot more amputees because they, you know, they're at war, um, In their country, they have hospitals and ambulances that can drive to and from there.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
They still have an issue with surviving high blasts and gunshots and stuff like that. But yeah, so I was above the elbow, and I think that's why I became such a big prosthetic advocate because a lot of people are below the elbow. There's hundreds below the elbow. And a lot of them will use their elbow to do things. So you'll see them – like a lot of people bring up Leroy Petrie.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
It was really hard for me to move around with and stuff like that. If you remember, it was gigantic. It looked like something from a fucking anime because it was so big.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
He's missing his arm. He's missing his hand. And so they won't rely on their prosthetic so much because they'll use their elbow to do things. And so because I have such a high amputation, it's so – I have a useless limb because it's so short and it's so painful to do things with. So without a prosthetic, I'm kind of like – Um, very disabled.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Um, I do, I, I, I don't, it's hard to tell if I've trained or not. Cause since I was born with two arms, I do think about, I, this arm has so many injuries. I have a nerve injury on this side and I broke my wrist and I'm missing the outside two ligaments.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
So I do force myself to, cause a lot of people, uh, specific questions that I'll get is like why I do things a certain way with weightlifting and shooting and It's because I was like They think I'm like, why don't I just overuse this or more but I have to explain like you feel bad like explain all your injuries and I'm like Actually, I'm missing out these two outside ligaments.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
So stabilizing things like shooting is it's not something that I can do it's not I can't out train that I'm just missing the ligaments and So this I forced myself to use In part because the Marine Corps spent a lot of money on my recovery so one like the arms that the other arm that I brought and has this thing called targeted muscle renovation.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, it was a gigantic arm and it was like the first time that the VA in San Antonio had ever built a prosthetic, an upper extremity prosthetic. So they were terrible at it. And that's that kind of began my journey on like getting into prosthetics myself because I didn't know that not everybody could build prosthetics, upper extremity prosthetics at the level of like the best people.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And so they grafted my ulnar and medial nerves, which are the nerves that control your hand open and close to my bicep and tricep heads. So with that hand, I think hand open and close to open and close it. And it does it? Yeah, so that made it so – Fucking wild to me.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
I thought it was more widely – I thought that surgery was more widely done until I got more into the prosthetic field and traveling. And I was like, oh, okay, so that's still a very rare surgery. At the time, it was experimental. But so I think hand open and close, and it open and closes the hand. So it does make it – so I – it does feel like –
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Prosthetics aren't caught up to the level of advancedness of that surgery. It's kind of like their reasoning was to future-proof me for prosthetics.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Well, it's an expensive surgery. It's an expensive surgery. I remember whenever I got it, all of these surgeons asked to be able to watch that surgery specifically so they could teach it. And I think that one thing is survival. And then hospitals, so less than 7% of amputees are upper extremity. And so that would be specific to the trauma of losing an arm. So most amputees are leg amputees.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
So that's one of the reasons why people are like, why does his arm look so different? There's just so many more leg amputees that you're like, you know so many guys that are missing their legs. A lot of people. And it's like, I get this a lot. It's like, why is your arm metal? And I was like, well, you don't ask that to leg people because all legs are metal.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Because they're all to that level where they can be used in the Paralympics. And they're all tough. And so it's just that... Legs are more finished products. So it's just that surgery is so niche that it's like I remember talking about it in Ukraine and they have, you know, 10 times more amputees than we have from Iraq and Afghanistan.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And that's just because they have higher survival survivability because they learned from us the tourniquet thing that happened halfway through the war.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, they have quick access to hospitals. They're literally ambulatory, as in driving them to the – I was like – The casualty count, though, per day is wild for that war.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, that's what I was saying. A lot of people don't know that. And I didn't know that until I got, I didn't know that. So I didn't know that until I got there. Um, I went there specifically with the protest foundation, uh, to, to talk about this arm because they wanted to be able to use it to fucking fight the Russians.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And I thought it was like, I kind of like a sitting joke was like, cause everybody calls me the winter soldier. And I was like, uh, the, the Mexican winter soldier. And I was like, let me go to the Ukraine just to fucking rub it in. Um, yeah. And I, and I, but I, I talking about that. Yeah. I was like, they, they have,
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
um thousands of army apts which is why that's cool i went there and i'm like there's so much technology that's going to come out of that war i mean there already is yeah but to a scary degree the companies that are coming out of there um there's a couple advanced prosthetic companies that i got to uh that i got to visit there one of them's esper i'll always talk about them because they they make a metal hand and they're barely getting available in in the u.s but um
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, they have so many more amputees that I think that a lot of the prosthetic technology advancements will come out of there. Unfortunately, if Americans don't do it, just because, you know, it's a lot of necessity. Yeah, just necessity. It's just necessity. Yeah.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Well, no, I began to put my own tourniquet on. Dude, it was terrible. You know what's so funny?
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, terrible.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
My boys later on were like, my boy, my saw gunner was like, he was like, it's insane because you crawled out of this canal and you were just bleeding out, and he started yelling at us to get on the line and lay down, cover fire. And I was thinking to myself, like, That's stuff that I don't remember. That's a memory. Dude, I weigh 200 pounds now. I think I weighed 189 at the time.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And when they measured me, I weighed 165. I lost so much blood. And I was thinking to myself, I felt so weak and so cold. And I was like, you know, you don't remember until years later, like, things, and you piece together what happened from different people. And he was like, yeah, man, you were yelling at us. They're like, you're missing your arm.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
You think you're still going to be in charge of us? And I remember, like, an award coming up later in the Marine Corps about that. And I was like, that's so badass. I don't even remember that. But I do think I would be yelling at you guys, like, get on the phone.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
line like you do push-ups because you still like you're sorry you're like out of consciousness you're still a dickhead dude yeah it was like i can't believe you were yelling at us like and i'll be like we thought you were gonna they're like emotional crying and i like you know thinking they're thinking i'm gonna die and i'm like yelling at them so it's like an emotional that's wild yeah an emotional thing that i it's funny like thinking about that dude who's i was with the guy the other day and who was a singing veteran who's um
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
who's a Marine, who's trying to get into Hollywood. He's in film school right now. But he does cinematography and stuff like that out in California. And we were talking about all these crazy little things, little moments like that. But I was thinking about him, because like...
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
now i was like okay they thought i was gonna die that's why they were treating me that way they were like what are you doing giving us orders still and but i remember like i was like i don't know if i'm ever gonna tell this story but um i had i was since i was a team leader i had two or threes on my leg and i'm lucky that they didn't get they didn't blow up because people say that they need like 12.7 whatever rotations not to blow up but we that's only so that's only to arm
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
It's that training. You're like, oh.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, to arm. It's still a motherfucking explosive. There's still gunpowder in there. You're like more knowledgeable in that kind of stuff. Because I've heard that, but we did lose Marines to team leaders to them blowing up.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, so we did lose people from that. And because people said at first that wasn't a risk, but then we lost people from them getting hit, unfortunately, and them going off because the IED was big enough for that. But on all my two or three rounds, I had a different Ninja Turtle on every one of them. And whenever I got injured, I had Leo in the chamber. And it's my son.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
I remember another team leader came up, Baxter. He came up to me, and I was bleeding out. And I was like, you're trying to treat for shock. So I was thinking, how can I calm him down? Because he's thinking I'm going to die. If I'm going to die, I don't want him to.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, yeah. When you're a team leader, everybody thinks you're invincible. Yeah. So I remember telling him, like, hey, man, like, you just got to kill somebody with Leo. Because I got Leo in the chamber. And he's like, okay. Okay, man. I was like, I love you. And he was like, I'll kill somebody with Leo. And I just remember, like, later on asking him about that.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And he was, like, mentally disturbed by that question. Because it was a very rough. It was a very. He was like, yeah, I did.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
kill somebody with leo he's like i think he has lost his mind now that guy has never watched teenage youth ninja turtles to this day yeah he's like no i remember thinking about that like whenever they got back you know and he was like bringing that up and he was like so it was such a horrible deployment for them that i was just thinking like just to you know try to take them out of the fucking darkness but um i love that's how we survive a lot of the times i mean depending on your job your occupation but
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, like, I fucking... I would really love to talk about the VA at some point, but... I'm sure we'll get there, brother. I feel bad... I feel bad talking about my situation, but this arm would not have come if the VA wasn't doing such a bad job. Because this guy who built this arm heard about my story and heard about my difficulty getting prosthetics from the VA. No background in prosthetics.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Dude, I've had that happen. Are you fucking serious? George! You got shot so high up with an AK, and they roll after a certain amount. So eventually he had to lose his leg from the round. Because people were like, well, you're an IED. He's like, no, he got shot in the leg. But I remember he got one of his balls in the tourniquet. Got shot so high up.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And it's just like you have to go as high as possible. When it's above the thigh, when it's above the knee, because it's like they're going to bleed out. So fast.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, you have to do it. And it's something that it's just like, oh, fuck, it sucks to be in that situation. Now it's a joke. At the time, it wasn't a joke.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
You're like, you'll thank me later. Dude, yeah. There's some dark... Every time I hear a different story about that, I'm like, oh, man. That's good because there is good versions of that and there's bad versions of that where people are able to still use humor. And then there's the opposite where people panicked and...
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
People you know died and like it because people will die from the shock yeah So it is that humor does save lives because like um you know you've you are running the guys were like they're screaming when somebody gets hit and Then like somebody's missing their legs, and then they're you know you're gonna literally you know put them into shock I mean it because you're supposed to be calm and like we've had people scream But yeah, I remember the other day like I was doing this thing in Maine and
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
When you guys hit me up, I was like at some cabin writing a country song. And this guy was telling me about one of his guys had that situation happen and he lost one ball. And one of the guys ran up and was like talking about like, oh, he lost the ball. And you're like, dude, like – and this guy is a nurse now. And I was just like, man, what a piece of shit that he would like tell him that.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
While he's still getting Kaz back that like, because that's the first thing guys still look for is like, yeah, it's my dick there. Yeah. And then so that, you know, he did have that injury and the guy was like, and so the other guy, you know, eventually he became a nurse. He's not, he was the hundred and first. Okay.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And, and he, he was in the clearing Iraq and I'm talking about how like this guy came up and was like screaming and panicking. Oh man, your balls. And so the guy lied and was like, no, you're good. You're going to be good, bro. You're all intact and stuff like that. You have to lie.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And he built this for me from scratch. And his background was aerospace. And, uh, so yeah, the VA, like I always tell people like, uh, like, Oh, the VA guy, cause I get a lot of that. Like the VA may just like, this has nothing to do with the VA. The VA did not do this. This is not a, it's a different level of prosthetic, but, um, I'm just noticing things like the Picatinny on the thumb.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
yeah i think that the darkness like because um yeah that changed so much obviously because the military and now like i feel like i relate more to people who are like in the anime and stuff like that because um you you don't have that light because you like i think about like all my idols it's very hard to like relate to people because you're like man like if i would have been in that place i would have died you didn't mean like we're talking about um marcus aurelius and like some of his quotes and i changed some of his quotes thinking about it i was like because
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
you know even in vietnam i would have been i would have died and so like you look at anime characters and you're like oh man like these are these people that maybe they weren't real but they created this violent story that's easier to relate to oh you're good and um you know sometimes it's easier to to to communicate in those kind of terms because it's like uh you know and and if i was a spartan i would have died
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Um, you know, so I'm, I'm lucky to be alive in 2024 because, you know, the advancements of, of medical technology and stuff like that, because, um, those chances of your, I mean, DNA literally making up to that moment.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dude did not. And like now, like as a dad, I think about it, like, uh,
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
holistically like that where i'm like uh or macro i'll because my dad was army special forces and he was uh he was um in panama vietnam desert storm yeah um and yeah yeah so he served with first seventh and third group and um he actually served with master and benavides and um it's fucking just the hana warrior but i was like he was such he was more beast he was way more decorated than me
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And I think about how tough I was that I'm like – a little bit religiously, I think about it like God took care of me and that I was able to survive that because me and my boys have even talked about it. I don't know if anybody else would have been able to survive that because I saved myself. Everybody was like – You know, who saved you or whatever. I crawled out of the canal myself.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
I lost so much blood. They didn't know I was wounded because I was in the front. And so, yeah, unfortunately, the person, my squad leader passed away because, you know, they didn't recognize that he was hurt. We were both in the front. And so I think about how tough my dad was getting all through all these fucking wars unscathed.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And, you know, all the training that he spent, you know, years, he spent 20 years in the army. And for me to be able to get to where I am, okay, so some of that is just grit from my fucking family having hard lives for years.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, I put that on there. I got that from fucking people commented on TikTok for me to put a rail on there. And I was like, for a flashlight. And I had done that before lower, but I didn't do this. I never want to insult the guy who made this work. I mean, I did this. He did all this other stuff. I did this because I wanted to take a bite out of this notch right here because I'm I'm a dad.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
No, we like, I talk about like, um, now, uh, after you're like, man, there's so many more combat veterans from, uh, from, from being cops than there is from combat. Um, And so I didn't know that until working with some organizations and then family. One of my cousins, one of my primos in Houston, he's a SWAT. Now he's not SWAT. Thank God he got out of it.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
But he was SWAT, and his first call was – he was a sniper. His first call was responding to Santa Fe, and my little sister was at that school too. And his very first call was – Um, my sister was like a sister to him because they lived together. Uh, cause we're, you know, we're really poor. And, um, so he's my cousin and his first, his first call was responding to her mass shooting.
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And it was just like, you know, you know, I don't know if you remember Santa Fe, but it was like 10 shooters. And that was his very first, um, call as a SWAT officer. And like, that's insane amount of trauma to be able to deal with that. Um, as your first call, your sister's school is, you know, um, did he stick with it after that?
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Yeah, he stuck with it for like, you know, I think like seven more years. Eventually he got out. He just had a daughter. And he's like, unfortunately, I think that it's like most of you guys, like SWAT tends to be too – same thing with the military. There's just – it's too hard physically. It's just too hard physically, I think. And the smartest people don't want to stay in.
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They want to get out and be successful on the civilian side. So it's just like he stayed with it after that. But there was a –
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yeah i think that we're lucky because a lot of those people don't want to stay in because physically if you take it seriously it's very hard it's harder than majority military because the training uh physical physically side is is is like being in the infantry and and mentally this is not the thing that like we we talk about like or we've when we get together the last thing we talk about is you know fucking drama or anything like that but something i've always heard is uh
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And whenever I carry my son, this notch would dig into his, his back. So I just wanted to soften up that notch.
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It's like a vacation. You're like, I'm going to go fight the bad guys versus like – yeah, because dealing with people – my family in Texas, another one's a police officer in Houston talking about it where it's like that's your neighborhood. It's like –
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Yeah. I think that's why the attrition is so high for, for, for, for, for cops. And especially SWAT is really physical. So it's like, you see it when they want to get out of it. Cause it's like, you're just getting the worst calls and it's just, it's just fucking terrible.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
I joined the Marine Corps in 2007. Damn, you were an OG.
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Um, no, you, you made me like, uh, uh, specifically, um, wanted to mention, uh, an organization creative vets. I just, the people I wrote that, uh, we wrote a song dedicated to my unit dark horse. Um, creative vets. Yeah. Creative vets. They, they actually, um, They're huge fans of you.
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I remember when I told them that I was going on this podcast, they were so excited because they wrote in a lot of famous country music songs. My people, John and Heidi, like, you know, for Libris, Craig Wood, like Lonely Eyes is one of the songs they wrote. But they help. And it was funny because, like, you'll get this. I remember I got hit up by them.
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through a wounded warrior project hit me up on dms and i remember just seeing the thing and i'm having so many issues get prosthetics from the va that i just told them to fuck off they're like for me to help you want to come write a country music song with somebody and i was like like i just think like this is like a billion dollar organization i i you know uh
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No, no, no. Afghanistan surge. Yeah, okay. Afghanistan surge. Yeah, I think I always say Iraq was a little bit before my time. I joined the Marine Corps to go to Afghanistan and specifically the Taliban. I still tell people, you know, I still think they're terrible people.
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probably be helping people get prosthetics and stuff like that. Cause that's what people think they do. And I remember I was like, nah, fuck you guys. Like, I don't, I don't like, I don't want to give y'all any credence to what you do or whatever. And then this guy comes up to me in Nashville and he's a Marine veteran, purple heart recipient in Nashville.
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And, um, asks me about, uh, you know, helping write a song, um, to, uh, to just like to tell my story. And my song was dark horse, but it was about my unit, uh, Um, just named him on my unit, but it was about, you know, my son, my dad, my dad's journey, because like, I think my dad had demons from all, I mean, he had way more combat than me.
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And, um, and, uh, like that, I really love the idea of like creative it. So they, they take veterans, um, Vietnam veterans and, um, and, you know, um, and, and, and parts, uh, first responders and they, they get them with people to tell their stories. And I thought that was so cool because like, yeah.
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typically you know in that space it's like if somebody's asking to do something uh with special with veterans or first responders it's like a fucking ruck or uh like a spartan or something like that and that's good physically to an extent but like a lot of those people are getting out of the military or whatever you know because they so much wear and tear on their body so it's like they're not you know they're not thrilled welcome okay we're gonna pop fireworks next to your head for 20 hours yeah
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I mean, it's for real. Because I don't want it. It's like, how does that? And to me, that was really cool. They have an arts program where they teach people art and they teach them how to write songs and in theater, like screenplays and stuff like that. I was like, that's so unique versus... It takes you to a mental space.
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I think that like getting into the mental spaces is, is so much different than, um, I think a lot of people do respond to like the physical stuff, you know, like, uh, my, my, my cousin that's, uh, that was SWAT, you know, he still does, he's big into CrossFit and stuff like that.
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But I think that that's just cause he's so young and he's still in like the mentality of the fear of having to protect his family. And I have that too. You know what I mean? I do train a lot, uh, mostly probably cause I'm disabled, but I think that, um, I thought it was really cool creative. It's founded by a Marine Purple Heart recipient, Fallujah veteran.
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And you kind of have to like educate people about why they're terrible people to like explain, you know, like what they're doing to women. But yeah, I joined in 2007 specifically for the Taliban. And I was wounded in the surge in 2010 and staying in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. It was an IED blast? Yeah, yeah. Stepping into a canal.
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And I was like, I was like, you know, and he looked like you, just a really good looking guy, you know, big, strong. And I was like, I was like, oh man, like go on because it has to take Eli home. Just, just, you know, like,
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unsuspecting you wouldn't know this guy's you know you wouldn't he's not to me i have the benefit of having a fucking metal arm i said that in a speech to somebody and somebody responded to that where i was like there's a lot of veterans they don't have a metal arm you don't look like the winter soldier so like people see my trauma and that works against me a lot like because that means that people are weirdos with me and they always try to take me to like the worst day of my life um but like you know guys like that that are just going through the struggles and not having that
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that thing that, you know, tells people, you know, what they went through or whatever. So I thought it was really cool that he created that space where, you know, partners, people with country music, especially from, I'm from Texas, you know, I was born in San Antonio and I thought it was so cool that I was like, man, I danced to these songs.
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so many fucking times, and for these people to come out, and it was in Maine, and that's why I was like, whenever y'all hit me up, I was there, and, you know, in the middle of nowhere, writing a song, and I thought it was so cool, a unique take on getting veteran stories, and they're big into Vietnam veterans, which is so cool to me, because my dad, you know, didn't get to tell a story, because he was like,
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He's just super quiet. I wouldn't know until I was in the Marine Corps. I didn't know how decorated he was until I was like, oh, shit. You've seen that stack. He did all that shit. And I'm like, oh, man, I feel like such an idiot now. You have three?
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I'm like, I had no idea. You completed the tutorial. Yeah. Yeah, so you're like – I think that's really cool out there because a lot of civilians forget about that war. And he was drafted. And so it's just – I thought it was cool that one of their focus was that.
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Yeah. Talking to some of the guys that served with them later on, I was like, oh, a lot of it had to do with Panama and the groups wanting to recruit people who spoke Spanish. Because I'm from the Valley. I'm from five minutes from the border. And he's from the Valley. So he spoke Spanish. And he looked like he was from the fucking jungle.
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And, um, so I just learning from that, I was like, Oh, like seventh group had a, had a big Mexican influence just because of the wars in Latin America. And I didn't know that until later on people teaching me that, you know, cause he was, he was an instructor at the JFK, uh, JFK special warfare school for a little bit.
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And like a lot of those people don't know that that history is not taught like you it's, it's, it's only taught in that school specifically. And so if you don't have access to that, you don't get any really, it's not taught in American history. Um,
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which sucks because even if it's a little bit dark i do think that it would be cool for people to learn about all those kind of like jungle wars and that kind of shit but um yeah so it's like when i tell people that like i was like yeah man it's crazy how much more obviously like trained he was in me and stuff like that but um so many of those guys got pulled there you know what i mean and uh
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And I actually don't talk about it that much on my social media, just because I, you know, it's something that you like, um,
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In the Army, because the Marine Corps wasn't really drafting people the same way that the Army was. And then a lot of them stayed in, and they were just like, oh, fuck, I love to fight. You know what I mean? They're like, jungle? This is where I grew up.
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I love hearing those cool stories of where people came from, specifically for those Latin American wars, because it was something that I like thinking about it now. Having traveled abroad where I'm like, oh, America's got this really cool
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diverse military where you go somewhere other places and it's like they all look like one thing and i'm like this is why we're so much better than everybody else because we have people that can do well i fucking did well in the desert i'm from the valley it's nowhere there's nowhere hotter in the world than there is in south texas like everywhere like how do you do so well in fucking afghan the jungle and i'm like man where i'm from it's like way hotter than this
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meanwhile you got a guy from arizona florida alaska maine nevada like everybody in one group's like all right you got these mountain men you didn't get these vikings and you got these people that you know like it's just it's crazy thinking about it now that i think one or two florida guys you know yeah some swamp motherfuckers and it's forced together and to work together which is wild too you don't have much options on your teammates they're your teammates for better or worse and they're going to be deploying with you god
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Um, I mean, you know, like you just don't talk about it cause it's like, for me, uh, it just recently passed and, um, to commemorate, like whenever I talk about it, like, yeah, I lost, you know, I lost my squad leader and, um, it, as it gets further away, it gets easier to talk about.
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hey yeah that's crazy you notice he's wearing a berserk shirt oh dude i wrote this for him because like last time i met him well you know what uh um the time that eli didn't remember go on well i had a blue arm i had a blue arm that's right i don't i don't see skin color i see arm color
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that's not better Eli well you mentioned that you're such a huge fan and I was like all of the now I know like because of because of because of like TikTok and YouTube like all I know all the animes that people have robotic arms on And for a long time, I didn't like Berserk because it was too dark.
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But then going through shit worse and worse, and I was like, man, it's hard for me to relate to, unfortunately, happier animes. And you're like, man, because my situation wouldn't have... Fighting the VA has been such a big part of my life. And then getting prosthetics. And this wouldn't have happened if I wasn't doing crazy shit, breaking all these prosthetics.
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And then just getting into a situation where... And now I feel like I relate even more to like the darker animes.
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No, man. I feel bad. Because I feel bad telling my story sometimes as an American. Don't. I've told it so many times abroad. Because I'm working for prosthetic companies in Germany. And working with all of these...
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brits and spaniards and um ukrainians and germans and you're like you talk about how hard it is to get prosthetics from the va system and they're like like that's crazy like we have this conception of how people are treated and i'm like yeah like i sometimes i feel embarrassed to talk about it um but then you know like it i think if i didn't talk about it like um china big spotlight on that shit like we all like everyone that's why like brandon one of the biggest things he was when he was
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But like, um, you know, whenever you have that kind of thing, it's not something that I talk about just because we lost so many people there. Um, you know, um, dark horse, uh, we lost so many Marines that I feel like I don't like talking about it just because like, it's kind of like, um,
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It's embarrassing, and then as a Texan, you know it's a really weird... Because you're like, I have so much support in Texas, just not from the people that are paid to do it. And when I told people, I spent years in between. I have a leather harness that I made. And I spent years in between getting appointments for the prosthetics.
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And I never felt so scared until I became a dad that I was like, I really need prosthetics. Because being able to change diapers, bathe my son, I never had that fear of being disabled until I became a dad. Where I was like, man, I really have to figure this out. because my son doesn't really care if I'm, he doesn't know I'm disabled. He doesn't know that I can't do certain things.
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He's two and he can already do things better than me, especially when I don't wear my prosthetic. And so it comes from like a, being a Texan is weird. Cause like this arm was made because one Texan who's like, I call him Tony Stark because he's a fucking millionaire. George Schroeder. He's famous in San Antonio.
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If you've been outside to like Randolph and Lackland or downtown San Antonio, he made all of the metal structures. Or Houston, he made metal structures for Synergy. Obviously, he's done work for SpaceX. Wild. But yeah.
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Yeah, dude. He's not even in Texas right now. Dude, this guy, I'll tell the story. Right before I went to the Ukraine, I broke this arm boxing. And yeah, to lay into the veteran thing, I had a...
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to people because you don't want to take them to a dark place civilians you know what i mean yeah oh yeah a lot of my a lot of my stuff is like kids are asking questions and stuff like that and so like i'll explain to them like you know avengers and stuff like you don't take them to like i don't know they don't want to know you know all the darkness but specifically like to me you know whenever i was wounded i was a rifle team leader and stepping into a canal my squad leader took the brunt of the blast it was a submerged ied and
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You both looked up like, hold on, what? Guys.
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It's still metal behind it. As a guy, I think people like why I train so much. I was like where I grew up, like I got, you know, and this is something that I like I take with me now that I'm like, oh, it's kind of a weird thing. I grew up in the valley. So to non-Texans, it's like five minutes from the border. And I got jumped so many times that people think I have PTSD from the Marine Corps.
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And I was like, no, no, no. That comes from growing up in the valley where I have this thing where I can't let people behind me Um, and just always having an awareness, a situation of awareness is because I got jumped so many times. And so that played really well into the Marine Corps.
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And like, people don't, people didn't know that about me in the Marine Corps, but I was just like, um, where I got that from. And so I was having that mentality to train, um, especially being disabled. I never felt so disabled until I got into a couple of situations where I was like, man, like,
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People could like – if they wanted to, especially without a prosthetic, really hurt me like just holding my arm. And so after getting injured, I like – I always wanted to train with whatever prosthetics that I had. And so – but I do box with this arm and that's why one of the reasons it's so popular is because –
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nobody has prosthetics that you can fucking box with shoot with or whatever arms because they're so they're so fragile typically but i i did break this one part that he didn't make so it's a sense of pride of of him that i broke it three days before i went to the ukraine because uh he made this uh he made this part he came in and i love telling this story i told him last week because he made this other part uh right here um right before he left to fucking i think minnesota michigan or something but um what's that part dude
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There's a steel roller right here, and it's where the cable rolls. But he hand-lathed that. I remember one of his workers was like, did you just CNC that machine? And he's like, no, I actually just hand-lathed that. And I was like, that's his dedication. Because he has all these people that work for him now. He's building it for you. Yeah. That's wild.
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George Schroeder. He's like, I'm so I, cause you're, you're, you're from Texas. Like I got to talk about it at the Grand Ole Opry. You know what the Grand Ole Opry is? It's like a, it's like a country music place in Nashville. Yeah. Yeah.
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dude that would be sick i i i got to talk about this on the stage of the grand ole and i was like uh talking about how bad it was you know uh getting unfortunately uh the va issues are why i got this because i had trouble getting prosthetics he heard my story and was like i bet you i can build you something better than you've ever had before and um and i did get to talk about so now you know having traveled to talk about it i you know i climbed kilimanjaro with this and ironically
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What these things were for, this was put on there for ropes because I was like, like you, Brandon was asking about like how much I use this. This arm is so injured that I get scared to overuse it because it'll wear out if I use it too much. So here's where I put the ropes.
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And I told him, like, before I went to Kilimanjaro, I told him, like, if you build me this, like, I'm going to let you know right now. I'm going to put my life on the line. No, I told him, I was like, I'm going to rely on it. So, like, whatever you do, like, just no pressure. But I will rely on it to the point where I'll put ropes around it and trust my life with it.
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So I put the ropes here, around here, and this is steel. And so people are like, why? Because there's, like, Fallout. And people have said that it looks like the armor from Fallout.
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The... Yeah, and I was like that was specifically for Kilimanjaro and but it's so funny cuz like some of the scratches I have from here are from the obsidian on on Kilimanjaro and that shit cut right through. Oh, yeah.
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Yeah, it cuts right through that But um, this part was specifically for mountain climbing so I could put the ropes here so I could pull cuz I'm so strong in this side that that's where I would put the ropes and
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and um but that was like one of the first things that i did um i brought multiple prosthetics and i broke my bionic prosthetic like the first day because it was raining and i didn't even think about the fact that uh i tried to make it modify it to be rain proof but the bionics they're not remotely waterproof now and so i broke it i had it on my pack and i um and i left it there uh at the base camp because i broke it and i was like oh man i can't believe i broke it the first day and
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and all of the shit tied to that. Whenever I think about when I was wounded, I don't think about me. I think about a little girl who doesn't have a dad. So that's something that I think...
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But I had this arm, and I didn't know it was going to be so tough. And I finished the Kilimanjaro with it. And I feel bad sometimes talking about Kilimanjaro because we did lose half of our team. Like, half the team didn't make it. Like, didn't make it to the top or die? Yeah, no, no. Okay. Jesus Christ. I was like, this is a completely different story. Dude, who the fuck are you climbing with?
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No, we only had a couple energy there. We had a couple of APTs. This was with the organization that they help first responders specifically like law enforcement and firefighters and military, and they'll take them on trips like that. And, um, but, but, you know, like, you know, whenever you do things like that, it is teach their own, like how much training you do.
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And, uh, and obviously it wouldn't be a challenge if people weren't able to, you know, if it wasn't difficult, people would, you know, do it. So we had a double amputee that he didn't finish. And then we had, uh, uh, Noah Galloway. He's a, he's a famous, um, he was on dance with the stars. He didn't make it and it sucks. Cause it was just the prosthetic limitations. And, um, that's what's crazy.
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He had an experimental knee. He had an experimental knee that auto box sent to him. Oh, he was above, above the knee. Yeah.
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Yeah. People ask me about that all the time. And I'm like, no, I'm too, I'm too, too, too young and too active because I know so many of it's such a small niche community that, um, I was like, it wasn't worth the risk because I already had so many experimental experimental surgeries that I was like, I do have a really short amputation.
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Later on, it got easier for me to talk about, but people were like, why I didn't always talk about it was because I'm so close with all my Gold Star families that it's not something that I was like – It didn't feel appropriate to talk about?
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So they, that's why they asked me because they're like, I know you can barely use prosthetics because your amputation is so high. But I was like – I spent such a long time in the hospital that I was like, I just want to move on with my life. And I know he's had a lot of issues with it too, and it sucks, but that's the people making progress.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
They're trying because, yeah, it's like, hey, there's nowhere else to test it. Dude, like here in Texas, like that's – I'm so proud of this and some of the stuff that I've been able to do with it. Like I went to the Ukraine to talk about it because all their soldiers were hitting me up on YouTube and TikTok about it. And like, because people, I remember Logan brought up to me Neuralink.
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And I was like, nah, like before Tesla, because Tesla started getting into prosthetic space like two months ago. So before they just jumped into it, I actually moved to Austin specifically for prosthetics.
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um i was like i was like man because it sucked i didn't know such i if i would have realized earlier such a part of my life was going to be about prosthetics i would have um done things differently uh because i at first i was like if i get into prosthetics because people wanted me to get in prosthetics i was like um i won't really have recovered because then so much of my life will be dedicated to uh the the injury and then because because of where legs were i really thought
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
that arms would be that same thing. You know, like plug and play. A lot of legs are so tough that people are not... Special Forces were the first people to get the best legs. Autobach made them. And that was... I was telling Brandon before we started about... The best leg was actually from a company that I worked with before...
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I still have really, really – they hired me, and I worked for them in Berlin for an opportunity campaign and for just consultation. And the best knee in the world is metal, and it's made by them, but it was made through DARPA. as a program with DARPA. And so people are like, where did this super advanced D come from? And it's referenced a lot because we compare this to that.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, so there was like three guys. You probably know them. I think one of them was Nick. He messaged me on Instagram. It was specifically for Special Forces to return to duty.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, because to them, they're like – whenever you're first – you're inundated with family members asking you questions about their son's last moments and stuff like that. So you kind of feel like it's not just my story.
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I mean, there's such an investment, especially in the sports.
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On me?
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
yeah yeah there's such a huge investment that it's like uh now that would be because now the bottleneck's an eighty thousand dollar leg all right yeah exactly that sort of thing yeah because that that like the arm that i have that it's like it's funny the arm that i have is like two two two to two seventy uh uh hundred thousand and um they're so much more expensive than knees um but the best knee came from from darpa um working because that's what
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It's insane, especially when you... Where's the cost coming from? Yeah.
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So, I actually brought... Because a hand... A hand. Yeah, this is... This is a... I like to educate now. Just because I wish I would have known earlier that I was going to have to play such a big role in educating people. Because since I was injured such a long time ago, I would have been able to influence people to get into that field. Earlier.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
But like he was saying, I think that the cost comes from actuators and computers that are within the process. Because that has, I think, four individual actuators. And it's just that a lot of that you're paying for R&D. So you're paying for the R&D. Shit ton of money. And so I think that the knees, they're able to bring down that cost because there's so many more knee people.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And just on the civilian side, too, because a lot of leg injuries are still the survivor stateside for traumatic amputations, motorcycle accidents, car accidents. I was just at this celebrity softball thing in Dallas with an above-the-knee amputee who had just climbed a mountain in Peru.
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And she had a knee that wasn't waterproof, and we were talking about that because she can't get the X3 because it's too expensive. It's still expensive for most APTs, even military, have a hard time getting it because it was originally just created for people that were – for special forces guys. Yeah. And now they consider it – it's so tough that they consider it a specialty knee.
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So it's like – it's an insurance thing that even veterans have trouble getting it because since it's so tough, they consider it a water knee. And so like this, for example – I just got in a fight with the VA about this, about getting a new prosthetic because they didn't make this.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Dude, yeah. No, it's so funny because people call me that. People call me that.
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Yeah. I got that from, from, from, um, Tik TOK and YouTube people before I even got on social media, people were making videos about my arms. And, um, I switched that cause I used to, yeah, at the Hano space cow, but the Hano is just Mexicans from Texas. Um, like my family is from Texas before Texas was America. Um,
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and um in mexico and um and that came from people calling me that and i thought that was funny because um because like uh just because i would wear a cowboy i wore a cowboy hat with it and people were like oh like a space cowboy and i was like i love that shit it's rad and um and uh
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but just to get to the that is just like it's a fucking medicare thing like the insurance i think that um uh it's insurances and getting that cost down is like um part of it's they're not made in america and i think that um there's a bunch of young companies that there's like one is not made in america yeah that was my big point
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We're so proud of that because, and this is not to rub anything in their face because I've worked for them before. They're a $4 billion company. They are the best prosthetic manufacturers in the world still. But having worked for them overseas, I was like, hey man, if you guys made things in America, not only would, like this is broken. I don't have any working hands right now.
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that so i'm waiting on that to get a new one from overseas because they're made in austria so the turnover and getting them repaired is really is really high but um there's a couple of young companies in america that are making prosthetics to that level that are not plastic and um i think that um
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
No. Dude, everybody asks about the stranger.
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So people that are below the elbow have rubber covers, and I hear that they do try shit like that. But since I'm above the elbow, I don't have that level of control. So I feel like I would just rip it off.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Dude, I fixed this myself with just some steel cable.
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And so I was like, it's so jagged. Can you just imagine?
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We always look to Prince Salmon for... Dude, that's like the number one question on fucking... Saint Masturbate. About that, like the stranger or whatever. And I was like, I know that there's amputees that have rubber covers. This hand, it's open, and that makes it easier for me to repair. So that's why I liked it. But they're closed ones that are all rubber.
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And I know there's some dark fucking amputees out there that have tried that. Because they've told me about it, and they talk about it. And I was like, no, not me. My injury level is too high. And like...
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You know what? So that's another, that's another issue that it's funny that you say that I have, dude, I have a bunch of these, um, because the company does make them obsolete. So planned obsolescence. Yeah. Uh, so like the pro it's a software planned obsolescence, uh, obsolescence is wild.
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Yeah. For amputees. It sucks, man. It sucks because like, Having gotten into the space a little bit, traveling to – like I talked to some guys in Egypt and I want to go to Mexico to talk about this arm. I'm in the Ukraine. Some of the places that they're making tougher ones, they're making them tougher because amputees can't really afford them.
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Like in America, for instance, you get them like once every five years. Yeah. And so, uh, yeah, so I have, I have some of these, um, uh, I, I did the art just, I call it Mexican camouflage because, um, it's just, uh, I just, I just, uh, like on this one, literally just camo because my other ones are kind of colorful. And I was like, I want an arm that I can hunt with.
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Spending time with Vietnam veterans really made me feel like, oh, I'm doing okay. You know, because like, I'm like, they're like, they're like, you know, I got no POWs who were like, you know, they went to fucking prison. My dad was a Vietnam veteran.
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And I want to, whenever I was in Africa, um, I feel really bad. Um, in Tanzania, we got like chased, um, out of this village and I felt really bad because the arm was all shiny and metal. Uh, And I felt so bad for the group I was with because, like, literally, like, our security was running ahead of us. And I was like, damn, like, I spotlighted us because my arm was so shiny.
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Well, I was like, I was like, I had painted a little bit of camo on it. And then after that, I was like. I was in the jungle and I was thinking to myself, like, I saw pictures and I was like, oh, I could disappear. I could make it camo to make it, like, not... Because, like, having a super shiny arm is, like, cool.
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I mean, like, I use it so much, but I was like, I do have that mentality of, like...
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i don't know if it's ghetto mentality of like i don't like people being able to see me before i see them you know what i mean and um so like childhood trauma yeah yeah it's a getting jumped especially thing like because the the training the boxing and stuff like that the part that i broke before i went to the ukraine um like i've always trained because like um especially whenever you're traveling um overseas i see you adjusting that every now and again what what are you uh what are you locking that in and out of and why
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, so this is... It's Italian.
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Yeah, I think we should have the best prosthetics made in America. I think we do. That is a goal of mine, for them to be made in America. It would be really, really cool. America should have the best prosthetics. Maybe ever. Tiny ones of it.
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That specifically, for a long time, we were scared to talk about the inner mechanics of the elbow because we were worried about trade secrets and stuff like that. But after talking to George, the guy is like, This is so hard to build that he wanted me to the Ukraine is like, give it away, like show it to people like his goal is to is to build it better.
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So people are not dealing with broken prosthetics that they're like relying on to like feed their families. And so like open sourcing, talking about it is interesting. This is how the elbow moves up and down. So it's a pylon. And so typically, that would be all inner. That would be located in the elbow. So all my other elbows, it's inner.
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It's not accessible to somebody to work on, but it's typically plastic. It's typically a plastic gear. And so that limits it. And even sometimes the steel ones. A lot of prosthetics upper extremity are limited by the fact that they try to make them look like arms to contain all of that movement right there. But the materials are not tough enough to do something like that.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
and uh he was drafted into vietnam and like i didn't know anything about his military service and uh and and and i got one of the reasons i joined the marine corps was i resented how quiet he was he didn't speak at all and then um now you know as an adult later on in life i was like i understood like oh like you know they were spit on and and so they had this shame and stuff like that and but talking to vietnam veterans like so many of them especially the combat veterans
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
So like there's a metal elbow that whenever you try to make it steel – Over and over and over.
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So glad you brought that up.
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Yeah. So once you break or fray carbon fiber, that's why people ask about why metal. And I was like, well, there's a reason all knees are metal. So that's like that gets into a really niche thing. But this was made specifically to protect the carbon fiber socket because I've broken carbon fiber sockets.
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And carbon fiber is so uniquely fragile when it comes to, like, so when I was at Kilimanjaro, you could see the digs of the obsidian into the aluminum. Oh, yeah. And it dug right into it. And it was funny because this was originally carbon fiber, but we converted it to metal and cut this part out because we were like, only metal where it needs to be metal.
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But I broke carbon fiber wings because it's so fragile that once you drill into it, you actually, yeah, you shouldn't be drilling. The guy who made this arm was like, man, I can't believe the VA drilled into this. Just splintering into your shit. Yeah, and it's poisonous.
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People have no idea that as a material, it's really weird that prosthetics are still carbon fiber because it's dangerous and fragile, especially if somebody's using it for more than a few years.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Dude, somebody hit me up from... Oh, no, no.
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That's okay. That's okay that you brought that up because I get violated so much for the TSA that I'm like, I'm so used to it. Getting through the airport.
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I'm like... It's the beard, too. The beard and the Lebanese nose for me. Dude, whenever I'm overseas, especially with the other arms, they're like, this motherfucker. I've literally gone through, especially in Germany, this is why you guys have a reputation. But they'll send me through the airport security twice and go to the back room twice. And I'm like, listen, man.
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There's a couple of guys, German Special Forces, that served with us in NATO. They're, like, cooler, but, like, the security is, like, you get the terrorist treatment, and it's, like... But this arm specifically is actually easier to get through the airport because there's no batteries. So lithium is a real issue, man. I had an arm, the blue arm that I met you with.
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I got stuck in Germany for, like, six months because... I checked it in, and I didn't know you couldn't check it in because it's got lithium batteries. Even though they're completely encased within carbon fiber, layers of carbon fiber, it got stuck. But this one, since it's hollow, actually it doesn't go off whenever I go on the scans because they can see everything through it. Oh, fuck yeah.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
They spent time in prison, bars, fights, and stuff like that. And I know that from my own people. We have some of those people too. But yeah, it definitely is a different generation.
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Yeah. So, um, there is a setup that I have that shooting for shooting specifically that I stopped wearing through the airports because it was so hard to get through. But, um, yeah, it depends on what country I'm in. America's like the worst, um, but not, not Texas. Texas is like, people usually know who I am. They're like the guy with the metal arm. Like he's, you know what I mean?
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Yeah, but then, like, because, like, getting airports in the U.S., like, if they're, like, bumfuck nowhere, that's the worst. Because they're, like, I've never seen this before. Like, they'll want me, spread my legs. And for a long time, I hate holding people up, too, so I feel bad. So it's, like, almost better when they're, like, taking me to the pirate room. I'm, like, just ready for it.
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Yeah, I sort of got it. Yeah. it's it's it was it's useful you know i mean it's like it's useful like i i like being able to like even with a metal arm disappear a little bit because i can fit in anywhere i go um and i speak posh to a little bit still too um i'm sure tsa loves that yeah no it's not funny
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There's no joke in front of TSA anymore because it's just like, yeah, they have too much power about it. It's just really weird when you get stopped in America and you're like, of all the countries that I get stopped in, you're like, man, this is the one country they'd be like, You would think that would be easier to get through, but... Como estas, nice tribe terrorist.
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Yeah, because in Africa, like, they don't give a fuck. Like, in Africa, they're like, oh, yeah, man, like, you're, you know, you're disabled, whatever. Like, they're almost nicer to you because you're disabled. I mean, tribe... Go on, Brandon.
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They understand prosthesis. No, it's true. That's why I was there. You know what I mean? Like to talk about the amputees there. Thanks for pushing me into that, Eli.
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Yeah. Ironically, the TSA, yeah, it was like, I don't know what the goal, if the goals, it is a little bit like, you know, obviously the Marine Corps sent me to fucking language school because I looked, you know, when I was in Afghanistan, they told me to tell people I was Persian, Iranian, Mexican.
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They make up a story. As-salamu alaykum. Yeah, like I had to make up a story about being – my dad was from Iran and I had three kids. Yeah, they just go into that culture where it's like big on family. Dude, it's funny. I didn't know that that was like a –
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that's a thing that they they have people do um i thought it was just um me but no everybody who goes to language school in the marine corps and then special forces like that's all they do right they're like yeah be shady as fuck lie about everything like and um but uh but it is funny because like that is why they sent me to language school because i spoke my first language spanish and i look mexican so uh you know over there you look a little bit before i was wounded i looked middle eastern so you you don't look mexican you are yeah
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it's just as you know it's a fucking ironically that's that's some that's some uses of the diversity of the military super useful for that kind of thing and there's history to that too because like it's there's history to that because Arabs invaded Spain and so like we have some language structure that's the same but also looks so like the nose you know it could come from that because
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uh for me becoming a dad becoming a dad really really changed like because i think before i was so prideful um i was so proud i i especially talking to my gold star families like i i didn't tell them everything that happened until my son was born my son was born then i was like oh you should really know every detail about your son what was the uh what was the time gap there um my son's two two years old so about like eight uh like i mean like
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arabs invaded spain and they left like you know cognates like um mayas is is um is table in posh too like camisa shirt they left language structure uh for arabic and then also like some of the words are the same too so people are like why do so many people um in the middle east look you know mexican and it's like oh it's like that's because of spaniards and you know colonialism and stuff they are
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Yeah, same genetically. We are kind of the same.
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Yeah, that's cool. I love educating because I educated myself on it. Like I remember one of the only times I've ever talked about my story on social media was like years ago on TikTok. And today. Yeah. Well, the Aztec god arm, Quetzalcoatl, like I remember telling people that I said that I put that the arm was this is from it. That's why it's blue. His color is blue. Quetzalcoatl.
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And he's the Aztec god of the sun. And, um, and his color is blue and the asset God of the sun and war, which is a very violent God. And, um, I remember people, um, a lot of Christians getting super mad at me for saying that, um, I thought my ancestors woke me up because nobody saved me. And I just, this light wouldn't, wouldn't, um, wouldn't stop flickering in my eyes.
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And, um, you know, my family's from Nuevo Leon and they're like indigenous to Mexico, um, on one side and then indigenous to Texas on the other side. And I thought it was a cool history because I was able to, I don't think like a lot of people know that like why. And this is me. I would consider myself Christian, raised Catholic.
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You know, my middle name is Guadalupe because we didn't know Guadalupe in Mexico. But I was like, people don't know.
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Yeah, dude. People don't know. You have to educate yourself on how that history was spread. You know what I mean? That religion was spread by the sword. And so people were like, I remember all this hate that I got from Christians. I was like, well, I can't neglect one side of my history and not know how Catholicism got to Mexico specifically and all the gods. You know what I mean?
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But all that goes back to some sort of history because Christmas, you know what I mean? That was a pagan holiday. Yeah. Yeah.
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Yeah. You get in trouble whenever you don't like, cause you almost always have to like educate yourself on those kinds of things. Uh, whenever you're talking to people about that and then you have to like go from, you know, how much do they know about it? You know, enough to be offended.
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Hey, I'm so glad. Like,
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You're like, this is dope. Art is a super big, yeah, because even on my arm, the spear, I have 26 dots there. The spear is supposed to be. This is so gangster. We lost 25 Marines without attachments on that deployment. And this is an Aztec spear. And that's why I call it just Mexican camouflage, because I just did designs and camo for them.
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And this is supposed to be an obsidian-tipped lanza spear. But I did a camo rendering of that. But it's cool. The art in Mexico is super, super...
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unique and i love watching the like your anime watching it blend with like the japanese style artwork and then the mexican style yeah man dude you're just like mexico gets so love i remember when i was talking i had that arm i had the the leather arm in the ukraine and um i remember uh this ukrainian soldier wpt uh asked me about this guy on my arm and it's emiliano sabata and he was an indigenous uh freedom fighter from mexico
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
eight, 10 years. Uh, cause even in college, uh, went to UIW and I remember like taking pride in, um, my professors not knowing that I was military. Cause that arm was so, it was like, it's got a Katrina Calavera on it. It's like a Mexican sugar school. And, um, I just remember one time, um, her telling my professor that I had to like miss something for a VA appointment.
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Um, and he's famous. He's real, he's real famous Mexican warrior. And he was like a famous quote of his is like, I'd rather, um, you know, uh, die on, I'd rather, you know, die on my knees than, than, you know, uh, live, live on my feet, live on my feet. Um,
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i wanted to learn about your culture so i went to home depot i mean you can't be ashamed because that's the hardest workers in the world like now go in other places like i travel where i'm like i'm like oh man like uh where people talk about like uh me positively i'm like oh man like where i'm from like the fucking hardest workers in the world
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That's why SpaceX is in the valley, man, because it's just the hardest reputation. Mexican specifically, the work ethic is legendary all over the world now. And even like – because you talk about – And the grass is immaculate. Yeah. I mean that's why I broke my – I broke this hand mowing my lawn. And I was like – it was just something that's like a –
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a work ethic that's unique that I think that people in Texas really appreciate because they're like, oh, those motherfuckers are just... That's a cool stereotype to have where you're like the hardest... I mean, I built that harness. People were like, why I got into prosthetics? I was like, because you can't really let people feel sorry for you so long.
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Even if you have valid reasons to be depressed or whatever... Like, you know, that mentality of being like, well, fucking nobody else is going to do it. I'll do it myself. That is something that I do take a pride in, that cultural aspect where you're just like, nah, I'll work. I'll do it myself.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, like the that came that came as far as like learning how to talk negatively, but positively, because I felt like I never realized I was gonna have to educate people on the VA side of things where I was like, I was like, I don't want people to know. I don't want I never want somebody to go through what I went through with the VA fighting for prosthetics.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And she was like, VA, what's that? And I was like, oh it's like the like uh you can't get out of those and she was like what's the va and i was like it's the veterans whatever hospital and she was like i didn't even know you were a veteran you had a college professor ask you what the va is yeah i mean jesus yeah
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
I never thought I was gonna have to like beg. Because people are like, you're wounded in combat. You get everything. I was like, no, it's not that easy. It's been so difficult. And talking to other amputee veterans where now I know how hard it is fighting the VA for prosthetics.
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And it's become such an issue that I was like, I only start to tell people that I'm disabled because becoming a dad, that changed my view of things. Where I'm like, man, all of the quiet struggles at home. Especially as a guy, and you're Mexican, like a machista mentality. Like you have that thing of like my dad, super silent.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
You know, like you never heard him talk, would never complain, never talked.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
that we don't have you know you're having a heart attack dude it's great for war man we make great warriors but and then um as far as like advancing and things and not like passion passing on like generational trauma and stuff like that that's you know i i was like one of my things after my dad passed away and my son was born i was like i want to make sure that i like uh my i think it's my angela that has a quote like if you if you
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
If you don't tell people about your suffering, they'll say that you were happy. I think there's a quote about her. She used a quote like that. And I was like – so I wanted people to know that I'm like talking about this arm. They'll think you had it easy or something like that. I can't remember what it was. I feel bad talking about like – I'm like, hey, man.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
This guy privately funded this arm, built this arm because of my struggles getting prosthetics from the VA. Let's not talk about the fact that I've built my own harness. I went years without appointment. I went years without prosthetics.
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Complaining.
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So I would say two and a half years. So this is a real issue because other amputees, whenever I tell them this, they're like, it's insane. I've actually, I retired in 2015. I've only had two prosthetics built from the VA since I retired. And whenever you tell that to people who know anything about, who know amputees, they're like, that's insane. And I was like, yeah, I didn't know.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
it's a private school you know nothing uiw is a very rich rich rich rich good great education but i think that like um i you know she wasn't originally from america too um so you know i you you're i guess i'm always surprised by um like people who don't have exposure academics yeah academia academia is something you know that's um people who lived a very insulated life
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that that's why this guy made this arm for me like i feel bad because i feel like a sense of responsibility talking about it because i owe him and and and just for other amputees now and then never wanting other combat women apts to deal with that i like um it's been such an issue like for me in san antonio like my my congressman got involved twice uh and it was like such an issue where they're like i i had to break that mentality of being like because if you don't complain about it that's fine but
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But then like, you know, complain about it so hard to make things happen. And it wasn't until my son was born that I was like, I can't be disabled because my son, you know, like whenever he needs me, you know, and I'm taking care of him alone. I'm like, it just really, really sucks. I always tell a story about like changing diapers with one arm is so hard. I always...
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Whatever my son's mom's not there, I always wear my prosthetic because I need it to be able to carry him and to move him. And, like, you know, toddlers, it's so scary. Oh, God. Like, they have no idea how many times they put their lives in jeopardy. So you have to be able to grab them. They're just constantly trying to kill them. Dude, it's terrifying. Two-year-old veterans.
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Yeah, dude, it's scary. Jesus Christ. You're like, how did I make it this far? And doing that with one arm, it's like I never felt the need to be – undisabled, to mitigate my disability as much as possible until I became a dad where I was like, this is not just about me. Like I have to be able to get prosthetics so I can be able to take care of my son and be a dad.
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And it was just something that I was like, never, I would have really continued to try to do it alone myself. And, um, actually one of the guys that found me to make this arm was a, was a special forces veteran who heard my story and, um, heard my dad's story. So he was like, so, so upset by the fact that my dad served so many wars.
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Um, and, and the guy was from seventh group and, um, and then a Lieutenant Colonel for seventh group, they were like, your dad fought so hard in Panama that and for you to still be going through this. I couldn't get, okay, so one thing was I couldn't get prosthetics made at the Center for the Intrepid in San Antonio, which was built for veterans.
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And so there was a big thing there that I was like, because people were like, people had no idea.
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They really love that. I didn't know to educate myself on that where I was like, people are like, why talk about the VA negatively? Or I'm like, well, because these are taxpayer funded. People have no idea that these are million dollar facilities employing whole teams.
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And I was like, there's not that many amputees for them to be saying that they don't have the capacity to build prosthetics where I'm like, if you don't.
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Can I just get a prosthetic now? It's like, how can you dedicate, because I feel like I have a sense of responsibility to talk about it because I'm like, hey man. Civilian side, they're not as funded well as the VA. So I'm like waiting for weeks in between appointments to get it on the civilian side. This guy has nothing to do with prosthetics. He's doing it specifically to advance them.
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Heard my story. Get into it. Get into the weeds with me specifically just to better to make it arms or whatever.
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for the future but like it's so sad when you're like i tell people like why am i pushing the v2 i'm like because they have million dollar facility they have fabrication capacity that small civilian side don't have and if they're not going to use that people need to understand that then we shouldn't be spending millions of dollars on those facilities because there's not that many combat wounded apts for them to be like to because they i got turned down justify it's
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And then you're- So why do you have the facilities that are just million dollar, like Audie Murphy, the VA is huge. And people, when I tell them, like, I have the biggest, what's the biggest VA, which would have been such an issue for combat within APTs, to have such an issue getting prosthetics from what is supposed to be the biggest VA.
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Yeah, their own very... It is a private school. They're smart people.
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And I'm like, you have all of this staff that don't do anything. And if they don't want to work, I remember taking part in a study this year with the VA tech, with the army nurse who retired. And here, heard her telling- I got a part of the study to improve the VA, and she was telling me about how she was an officer in the Army, a nurse in the Army.
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And she just got out, and she had appointments canceled. And I had mentioned about me getting my appointments canceled for group meetings, like worker meetings. multiple times. And she was like, that's so weird. Like I've had my appointments counseled for the same reason, like just nonchalantly, like two weeks for an appointment that you've been waiting six months for.
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They're like, um, actually we don't have spots. Uh, we're, we're working. The doctor's not going to be in the office that day. Um, can we schedule you for this many months out? And I told her that story and she thought it was so weird. Cause you just got out of the army and she's, uh, now dealing with the VA side of things. And now, you know, I'm helping, uh, on the admin side to improve the VA.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, that's what she thought. And I was like... What?
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She's like, I'm literally an officer. I work for the VA, uh, I get out and to help, you know, improve the VAT. And I keep hearing the story about veterans getting their appointments canceled that they had to wait months for because the doctor doesn't come in. And I'm like, and when I tell people it's just a work ethic thing because this guy's a millionaire. This guy's a millionaire.
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SpaceX, private company flying all over the world to do all these different things for metal technology, shorter metal technologies. It's this company specifically for that. And I'm like, how does this guy – and then make time for me to make an arm. And then when I worked for Autobach, they're a $4 billion company. I would work for them in Berlin.
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I would fly to Germany and back before I could get an appointment for the VA. And I was like, it's so embarrassing to tell that to a tech company where you're like, I can't get an appointment at the VA in time to get my arm working on. My arm worked on, and they're doing this $10 million campaign based around me and my arm on my arms. Jesus. And I'm like, it's so embarrassing.
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$10 million campaign. And they're like, look, it's the opportunity. They just want the photo op. They literally, it's just a photo op.
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Spend your money wisely. Well, no, like I couldn't get an appointment for the VA and the auto box worked on my arm. The company who built the arms. Cause they're like, listen, we need you. We need your, we need your, we need your face. We need this to work. Private funding.
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yeah and it's like it's like on the private side of things it's like because if you don't want to work they'll fire you and that's that's a different thing i think the structurally with the va is that people when they don't want to work and they want to make excuses or they don't want to come to work there whatever um okay they they it's so hard to fire them because i've had yeah i've had so many better i mean even my congressman my congressman castro i don't want to talk negatively about him because well i will he's probably going to go to jail um
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I really do. I don't think he didn't believe my story until I was like, deal with the VA. Talk to them yourself. If I'm having these issues, if I'm lying and dealing with the VA, he's like, yeah, it's insane that it's taking so long. And I was like, yeah, I don't know why that problem is. And I was like, this is the best VA. This is Texas. I have so much support here.
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This motherfucker built me an arm down the road, and he has time to make me appointments. A billion-dollar company has time to work on my arm overseas. And I can't get an appointment at the VA in that time. I remember I waited a year for an appointment at the VA and I was like, listen, there's less than 400 combat wounded arm amputees and there's 10,000 leg amputees.
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You guys have the most money out of all the VAs. Why do you guys have such a hard time getting people appointments? And I was like, it's just that, I think it's just a cultural work ethic thing because people who don't want to do their job
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get hired at the va so if you don't like because on the civilian side of things if you don't want to do that work it's contractor stuff so it's like they get work they get paid per prosthetic so they're like as much work as i do i'll get i'll get that money right on the va like if they want to take their time they don't want to do things and it's hard for them they're like okay well like makes money i still get my paycheck yeah i still get paid every week i said that like um whenever
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Um, whenever my son's mom was pregnant, um, I was like taking care, I was going to the grocery store, working multiple jobs. And I was like, I had this arm. Thank God I had this arm. Everybody's like, why don't you do more crazy shit with this arm? Like, you know, YouTube stuff. And I'm like, because I use it to work. Like I, you know, I, I, I don't have other prosthetics.
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And, um, but I just remember, um, talking about like, they don't care. Cause they still have their two arms.
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while they're not giving me appointments and working on my prosthetic they're not disabled so they they have they don't rely on the va and it like makes me sad they don't care that like my you know that my girl's pregnant or that my my son has a disabled dad they they get to go home every day and they get to like cook and shower and bathe themselves with two arms so they're not thinking about that sense of responsibility that like
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The guy who made this arm is like, oh, man, you're using the carrier son. I'm going to make it the best. I'm not going to break it. I'm not going to let it break.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, it's a sense of pride in engineering.
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Like I look at textiles in the production and I'm like, I think a lot of it is the fact that it's not made in America. Um, because, uh, cause you're right. Like when I look at things, I like, I mean like if some of the tech, cause before I had this arm and that harness, I would work on like, I would buy tactical things and modify them to be able to use them in a prosthetic sense. Um,
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And I was like, man, if I could get fucking Nike, like the, to the shells that I had, like their ability to, to, to make shells and stuff like that. And just to produce high quality products like you, like your y'all's metal, you know, all of y'all's equipment, you know, uh, your, your mic stands, all this kind of stuff. Yeah. It's just a lot of that. It's, it's manufactured in such quantity.
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Um, and so that competition obviously makes things better. But, um, yeah, it's just that there's not, that's why I, our selling point on this arm is that, um, It's made in America and bringing that price down This is actually cheaper than the other arms because because there are any electronics in it. Oh, this is all hydraulic This is all mechanically operated and I get confused.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And yeah, it's so funny. Yeah. Yeah, this is this is the that's that's the one that has all the computers in it That one has all the computers in it.
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So this would be right, I mean, $40,000.
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Yeah, yeah. So that one, the issue with this I think is... You know, I don't really, well, I guess I can, I can be honest is that there's, there's, there's patents. Well, it's cause I've worked for this company before and they are the best, but so to give you an idea, they bought this company, they bought the company that made this hand.
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And so one of the reasons that we've been careful about, cause we have been approached about making about somebody buying this arm and, and bringing it to, to manufacturing capacity in America. And we've said no one time. And it's just because experiences in the prosthetic industry made me understand that people will sometimes buy patents just to take it off the market. Yeah.
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So they're just not competing with their product. So that's actually the most popular.
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So yeah. Can't say anything about that. Yeah.
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Yeah. So like, so this, this is the most popular arm on the market right now. Right. So, uh, they, they, they own, um, 60% of the market share. And, um, so in order for them to, it's the, the overhead is so expensive to be able to just change like little colors on that thing. And so, um, for them, uh,
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That's true, yeah.
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all of that r d that that gets done that like people are like why is it still plastic and i was like i can be critical of them because their knees are not plastic their knees they do have a knee that's waterproof water resistant this has an open circuit so this right here is an open circuit so people are like i i remember one time i was embarrassed at school uh because a veteran asked me um why i was carrying an umbrella uh with that arm at the time and i was like i got pissed because i was like man this motherfucker doesn't know he put me on the spot all these kids are like
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Surrounding me like I like I'm a freak because he asked like why I had an umbrella and it was a Navy kid and I was like, well, it's cuz like I didn't explain to him tomorrow I was like I was like just it's cuz in case it rains I just said in case it rains, you know what I mean?
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Instead of being like fuck off I was like, alright in case it rains But I've actually ruined a hundred and ten thousand dollar elbow getting caught in the rain because they're an open circuit and So this is an open circuit, so there's no battery in this, right? The battery is in the arm. And so this is exposed.
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In order to get the battery from – to move the actuators within the fingers, it's actually in the socket covered by carbon fiber. And –
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i actually covered it myself this arm i made it tougher uh that's that's another open circuit right there and that covers the charge port and that's where um i turned it on no and i did all this myself before i found this guy i was like i'm gonna i've been built all that myself yeah because it was like um i wanted to sell mexicans yeah you people you're like you're like i really like you
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I call this motherfucker because people are like, why? I am worth hundreds of dollars. Dude, I know.
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I know, I did.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
it's it's fun because you do it yourself and a fucking mexican mentality i remember like i'm in austin now this guy came up to me to uh like a bug control guy and he was mexican and i was wearing that arm and he was like asking about all of it and i was like i made it i made it specifically i worked on it and i was like if i did leather work beforehand and i was like
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No, I just wanted to be able to work. I needed it. And I had this opportunity of a lifetime to work for this company. So let me build it myself because I wasn't going to wait on the VA. Because at that time, I waited a year for the appointment. And he's Mexican. And he was like, oh, you're Mexican, huh? And I was like, what do you mean? Because you just built it yourself. And I was like...
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I was like, yeah, man, like, that's, I guess, like, my dad was the same way. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I have so many friends that are, like, they have, like, whole houses in their backyard that they built just because they're, like, old school. They're, like, I'll do it myself.
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You're like, I've watched a few animes.
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Dude, some of the straps for that specifically, I got inspiration for how to put it on from animes. Because I was like, in animes, you're like, how do you hold it on? Because it's hard, man. Give me that high five. Oh, bro. Who did I do? I accidentally punched this country singer the other day. How do you accidentally punch a country singer? You accidentally punched a country singer?
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No, because you forget. Because I'm so used to fist bumping on this side. Because it's weird being. I'm missing my right arm. And people ask that because sometimes the videos are like left or right. I switch them because of like editing. But he was like going to give me a fist bump. And like I was second nature because like everybody shakes hands with the right side.
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And so I took a swing at him because he was giving me a fist bump. And I was so excited. I was at this fucking – this softball classic. And you don't think about it because you're like – I did this to him. And I punched his hand. And he was like, oh my god. And I was like – I actually never punch with this side. I get so scared of hurting somebody. He's got some weight behind him.
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Yeah, but it's just like, because people, I do fist pump people with my right side just because it's like, it's just everybody reaches for the right side. So it's awkward if you don't. You know what I mean? Like they get that, you know, you get that weird. The turkey. That's what I always say. It's the turkey. Bro, I hate. Thumb hand.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
But what – missing my right arm, it's so weird because you're like – I get so many awkward interactions where you're like, what do I do? And I'm like, I'm confused too. I don't know what the fuck to do. But yeah.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, you just like – you go in for a kiss. You just kiss their hand. They'll never do that. Maybe I'll kiss you. Well, like sometimes – because like I get people that get weirded out. They're like, oh, I shake the claw. That's why I just bump it. And it's like – yeah, but sometimes like you get carried away that you're like – because like my best friend, he's a big old guy. He's an MMA fighter.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
He was with the 82nd. And like I'll always fist bump him because I know I'm not going to hurt him because he's like – he knows. He's a big boy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But somebody you don't know, you're just like – It's a weird thing, right? You just brace yourself or whatever. I remember I hit this guy.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, yeah. Because I do do a little bit of MMA training. And I can only train with people that are really good. This armbar is not working.
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Only good people. Only good people.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
yeah only good people because like i remember i got asked to do this boxing thing and they wouldn't let me use my arm which i thought was bullshit which is why i was like there's so many different things that are are obstacles for amputees but i remember thinking like they want me to box with one arm literally with no like cool i can't protect my entire right side versus a guy who had it who was missing his arm below the elbow and i was like well he's gonna be able to beat the out of me like what do you mean like because he's gonna be able to put up a glove on that and just hit me and i'm like here like this the whole time and i was like
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
I thought you guys asked me to do this because you saw me train with my prosthetic. Just for an exhibition, I'm not going to hurt anybody. I'm just going to point shit.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
and um but uh one my saw gunner was the somebody how i have trained with besides my best friend but because he's a really high level mma guy and so i told him like he let me he's so good he's so much better than me that like i could throw full swings at him and not worry about hurting him you know what i mean like he was just so good at like dodging and showing me technique and stuff like that punching pads um it's just like unfortunately
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
I just didn't feel, like, inclined to, you know, like, a lot of my life, I would just lie. I just, like, there's people in this world who believe, like, I was a shark attack victim, motorcycle. I would just lie just to, like, avoid the conversations for a long time.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
I felt better in the MMA space because they're so good with their bodies that they're good with avoiding things because boxing, it's like there is a lot of worry about like me hitting somebody's head. You know what I mean? But I do have an MMA hand that I train with specifically that I would – it's rubber. It would be soft that I could – I do train with to like not hurt somebody.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Does it bend? It's just like a... They call it a dragon TD. It was made specifically for martial arts. It's got spikes on it. I put it in glass. I still put it in a glove. I still put it in a glove because this right here, this is like one solid piece of aluminum. So if you miss somebody, you know what I mean? If you miss, you still hurt them.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
i went oh good yeah so i'll use you know big gloves big boxing gloves to wrap it so i don't hurt anybody right um but um it does that that is the one i train with and um i broke that's i broke that hitting a tree right before i i went to um the ukraine hidden trees for Dude, I'm just, I was just poor, man. I don't have a gym on the south side. Like, I was just, I'll have a tree.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, I was just punching the tree.
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Drinking your coconut water. Do a line work. Like you, you do line work where you're just like, you know, you're moving and ducking and yeah, like that under a line. And, um, and so, and I, I padded the tree cause everybody's like, why don't I use a glove with the tree? And I was like, because this is, this is still my arm. I don't want to break it.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
So I padded the tree, wore gloves and I would just hit the tree. And, um, Not like really, really hard, but I broke it. It was apart from a bicycle. And so like I remember like three days before I went to the Ukraine, I always tell this story about George because he's got this huge facility in San Antonio. And I went there and his secretary was like, George is not here.
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And I was like, I thought it was funny because I was like, well, he's texting me on the phone, right? He told me to come here. I'm going to the Ukraine to fix this arm. I'm going specifically to talk about this arm because these guys want to be able to use it to fight these Russians.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
So I'm like, of course, I'm going to take that opportunity because like one of the only benefits of being me and our background is that I have that. I'll fucking go to a combat zone just to sell an arm. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because these guys want to use it to, you know, fight Russians. And so his secretary is there, and she's like, well, he's not here.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And I was like, well, I'm texting him right now. And then George comes out of the back of his facility. He's like, oh, I'm sorry. My secretary, she was told not to disturb me because I was in a meeting with SpaceX.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah. I mean, because it's like, you know, it just makes it easier for not have to negotiate like all those emotions. So it's just easier to lie. I swear to God, I've told people that, you know, for the longest time, like I always say whenever I was in the hospital, I used to have an arm that I had a shark on it and I put sharkattackvictims.org on it.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And I just thought that was so funny because this motherfucker is in a meeting with SpaceX, and he's coming here to make this part in three days specifically for me to go to the Ukraine and talk to their soldiers about it. And he was so insulted by the fact that it broke. Even though he didn't make that part, we used a bike part. And he was like, man, I can't believe how you broke it.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Because that's his level of engineering. Where he's like, that sense of pride.
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Yeah, he was so mad about it. And he fucking told me, he's like...
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man um now like this this part won't wouldn't break for you know to take like 10 000 pounds and i was like george i'm not gonna break i'm i don't know what you think i'm doing but you know like if you're shadow boxing an oak tree yeah jesus 10 000 pounds that's impact yeah because i was like because people asked the limits of the strength and i was like it's limited by my strength because i've deadlifted 400 pounds with it and that's limited by that that's me like that's like in the weightlifting world that's like wow
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
yeah so that's the most i've ever put on it before but um after that i felt way safer shooting guns with and stuff like that because a crack had developed in it right so um you know shooting guns you know it does take a lot of torque um you know just the recoil it's like quick that like because it's sharp
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
People have asked about it, and that's why the Ukrainians were so interested in it because they kept breaking theirs. This is the vulnerable part in the arm right here because there's like a little bit of a spring in there. I don't know if you can tell that absorbs something. This is plastic. So this is a $40,000 hand. This is plastic. So this is super vulnerable to breaking right here.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
anytime you break it, those ball bearings fall out. It's completely useless. And it's like a huge repair. So it's super fragile right there. And the Ukrainians, for their part, they have an arm that they're making that's mostly metal. It's all metal right here on the wrist. So it doesn't break. But they built it specifically for shooting.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And it's a lot tougher than what this is because these are made for people to be able to do desk jobs and stuff like that. The Ukrainians, I think that a lot of tech is going to come out of there because to prosthetic companies, I'm like an outlier. Somebody who wants to lift weights, shoot guns, swim, do fucking triathlon, stuff like that, that's an outlier for them.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
So they're not making upper extremity prosthetics for people like that. But Ukrainians, I think they're going to have a lot of tech come out of there because they are building them to fight wars. So it's a lot like the best knees. The best knees were made from DARPA being like, we want our boys to be able to get back in combat.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And so I think that me and them got along because we shared that sense of engineering integrity. We were like, hey, how did you break this? Well, the only time I've broken that was boxing and shooting guns was – I never risked shooting guns, breaking it because it was so tough.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Boxing specifically was something – I remember I met an MMA fighter there visiting the hospitals and I gave him my cowboy hat because he was like so stoked about meeting me because he saw my videos online and I was like –
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for real until until i know and and um and that that one that one um famous surfer came by the therapy center and all of the occupational therapists and physical therapists were like trying to soul surfer yeah they try to push her my way it's like you need to talk to this one guy you see his arm and i was like i was so scared so after that i was like no they're a real shark attack victim so you can't like and i think one of them like hit me up on instagram like there's an australian shark attack victim
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was like doing training and he was like before he was wounded before Russia invaded he was you know MMA fighter and then you know you get invaded then you you become a fucking soldier and he was missing his arm above the elbow and so they made me visit him so because it was like that relation where he was like he was like I'm not gonna be able to do these things again then I was like
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Well, I, I had that same thing in me where I was like, just Mexican growing up in the Valley where I was like, you tell people were like, why do you train so much? I was like, cause I have that thing as a man where like, you want to be able to take care of yourself with or without a gun because there's places where you can't take a gun bars. And like, I'll get tried all the time.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Cause like mother fucker will be like, Oh, like a guy with a metal arm did like, you know, alcohol people, people will try me. And so I do train, I do train.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
crispy i want to fight you fuck you for your burns with this guy i think like i don't know i think that you need to move people like um yeah like i always tell a story in san antonio and this is uh we're friends now so i always talk about it but like this guy was a marine This guy was a Marine. You know how fucking Marines are.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
So this guy was at a bar and he was actually a – he was not a detective at the time. He was SAPD. He was a San Antonio police officer. This was years ago. But I remember I was like – I was all like peinado. I was all like dressed – I was real dressed nice and at the time I had an arm so good that I could fit under clothes.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And somebody told him I was a Marine or whatever, but you couldn't really tell because I only had my hand. So whenever my shirt's tucked, long sleeves, all you see is my hand. Yeah. Like you sticking out. Like this. Yeah. I could be low-key. And this guy came up to me. And –
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
yeah like it's i could be more discreet dude and again if you're buzzed or you're like afar i'm not gonna i'm gonna i might glance and not recognize yeah that one is brown for a reason so like it's more it's it's easier to um i i my my reasoning for that was breaking up the shape of the patterns the colors on it specifically are for me to be able to um whenever it's dark uh to be able to look what the fingers are because i'm tracking that with my eyes because i can't feel it i
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So when it's down here, I want to be able to see what directions the fingers are pointing. So that was a thing. But this dude got really mad at me because he was like, I heard you're a Marine. At the time, my hair was all spiked. And I was in a dress shirt. And I was like, yeah, I was. And he was like, well, you don't look like a Marine. And I was like, what?
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I was like, I was like, I was like, dude, I was like, I was like, you know, first of all, this is language. I don't even like using it anymore. But I was like, this little poke motherfucker is like, you're like that. I wasn't a Marine. And he, but he was like, yeah, but that's how Marines are like.
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bro i love that marine culture like i love that that violence to protect the culture where they're like you don't look like you're marine i was like i was like well i guess i wasn't like i if you know if you say i wasn't i wasn't i don't give a i started laughing and walking away and this guy got so mad he was like you stole a mallard motherfucker you weren't a marine
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
and at the time like dude all yeah he tried to he tried to grab me right he grabbed me and he started swinging on me bro he tried to hit me like three times and he didn't hit me every time i was laughing he got so mad at me because he was swinging on me but he couldn't hit me i trained so much i was like all i do is train and i was like i just kept laughing and all his friends tackled him they're like what the are you doing this dude's a cop and he's still a cop
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
And he's the detective now. But we talked about him the other day because I guess he's a hot-headed motherfucker. But he's a Marine. Combat veteran. Like, you understand. Like, I just thought it was so funny that it would be your own people. Mexican Marine. Like, drunk, belligerent, trying to fucking start a fight with you because you're not a Marine.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah. I was like, dude, I was like.
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Browns.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
that's right be your own people i like this drunk ass motherfucker it's like but that's who it is man it'll be like that world but like like uh like i've had people like literally stop me walking out of a bar or i'm like and it's it's the valley it's growing up where i grew up where i have that mentality of like like i'm gonna have to fucking kill this guy um where they'll say i've had like a couple things that are memorable or a guy's like um bro can i fucking punch you and i'm like
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
But so I stopped using that specific trope. Skill issue.
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I'm like, I'm outside of a bar. At least they're polite enough to ask, I guess. You know what I mean? Like multiple guys, like where I grew up, I've been jumped before. So I'm like, you know, people say they're going to do something. You have to like take their word for it.
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Just, just worse. And I'm like, I'd have no, can I punch you? Dude, it's a weird man. It's a weird, like I remember this guy's face. He was a big old, no, no, no, no, no punch.
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I think about that and I was like oh man like like usually I'll carry like fucking brass knuckles on me or something like that but I was just thinking like people are the op like people see it I think it's an arm thing they see a metal fist a metal arm they're like they want they they I've never wanted to fight somebody when they say I'm like haha yeah but you obviously you train the people who train the most are the least violent I think that people that are like my you know I don't even think you need to train you just look like wow a disabled man
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah. Yeah, because I used to tell people that.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
especially with my other arms that's wild to me um my other arms i'm way more vulnerable because they're they're they were made by the va so they're terrible so i can't move as fluidly you're like i love i am glad you're on this soapbox just how bad the va sucks because you'll get zero no no no Don't defend it. Because you see my other arm. It's so big and so gigantic. I could barely move it.
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So I'm like moving so disabled. I could barely lift it. You know what I mean? So like I was super scared, paranoid of getting in a fight with that arm because it was very hard for me to block on my right side. And that's something that I know. It's because I've been in a few scuffles since I got wounded. I know that the first thing people do whenever I get in a fight is grab my arm. Which is fine.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Now it's fine because I've trained around it. I'm like, okay, the first thing people do whenever they're going to, you know, drunken to grab me is they grab my arm.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Is it the pylon?
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The forearm. Yeah. Yeah, this forearm is like a – I just made this forearm to be able to carry things, and it's actually leather under here. There's an actual – there's a Mexican Aztec warrior. There's an Eagle warrior and a Jaguar warrior under here. But it's all leather, and I made this, and then there's metal under here. But that design, like that's just for me to be able to –
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No.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
I'll say that. I'll get hit up by random producers and stuff like that. The Discovery Channel people hit me up about making a... making a gun arm, and I was like, they're asking me why.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah. And we just, oh, you're a veteran, that's crazy.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
Yeah, that's why people are like, why haven't done more with that? And I was like, this is my arm.
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And, um, but now like having gotten to the space where I'm like, fuck man, like the things that you have to do to be able to make, uh, like, um, sadly, I'm like, now I'll be like, I wish I would have, I said no to so many things before that I, I wish I would have said yes to, if I would have known it to help me get prosthetics from the VA.
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I don't know. Middle Eastern sand shark. When there's like a Red Sea, I think there's sharks in the Red Sea somewhere or something like that. Did you just discover a new slur? Sand shark? Well, I was wounded in the water. Well, actually, all right, that's very funny. Yeah, it was just something that was a natural.
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Cause I remember I did the warrior games thinking that doing that with a DOD would like help me get a better, uh, situation with the VA. And they were like, that didn't help at all. And I was like, fuck, you don't even care about like ESPN. I was on ESPN. Um,
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Like, yeah, like they don't, I mean, there's just no, the DOD, the DOD is much better at making prosthetics than the VA because they care. Cause they're like worried about getting their people back in combat. And I've had some DOD people reach out to me to be able to, um, to, to, to fly to DC, to be able to, because they're like, Hey, we hear the VA is terrible. We'll do this shit.
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They have like, you know, black budgets where they're like, we'll do it out of pocket, whatever. We're not worried about the VA bullshit. Um,
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I just mostly TikTok Tejano Space Cowboy. T-E-J-A-N-O. Tejano. Space Cowboy. Tejano. Tejano. It's just Mexicans from Texas. That's what Tejano is. Arrivederci. Arrivederci. But... God damn it Eli.
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I left it in that fucking position, too.
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We go on, you guys. No, no. It's just on TikTok. And I started YouTube because people on YouTube kept asking me to make a YouTube. And I was like, I'll do YouTube. Donald Space Cowboy. Yeah.
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Because I did have a fear of the water when I first got injured because I was drowning. Yeah, I was drowning for like... what was like five minutes because they didn't know I was injured. Cause I was a team leader. And so everybody, you know, uh, everybody was like confused and my squad leader obviously got injured too. So everybody was confused.
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So, um, that Mexican arm, I call that it's a, it was an ode to Huitzilopochtli and Huitzilopochtli is the Aztec God of war and the sun. And so it's blue. And, um, so whenever I was wounded, uh, I was drowning and, um,
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All I could see was the Sun and it was so beautiful, you know in Afghanistan like or it's you're like some parts middle of the desert for me was all green and So I would open my eyes and it was like super beautiful water and the Sun kept poking in my eyes And so I thought it was dreaming because it was so beautiful and like I think about that still to this day think about the beauty of it and that the Sun kept flickering in my eyes and it wouldn't let me go to sleep and
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And then I realized that I was drowning because I saw blood flow and I couldn't move my – I didn't know I was missing my arm. So I was like trying to grab to try to stop drowning. But I was drowning for so long that I'm like – Even after I got out of the surgeries and stuff like that, I was in the hospital for like three years.
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After everything, my therapist told me at the time that the things that I was scared of, I was scared of the water, but I couldn't even close my eyes in the shower because I was so scared of drowning. I had no idea that was a drowning thing until a therapist explained to me. I would get bloodshot eyes from not being able to close them in the shower because I was so scared.
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I've closed my eyes in the water. Just entirely subconscious? Yeah, I had no idea it was a thing until he brought it up. And I was like, yeah, I do get blood. My eyes will go bloodshot just from refusing to close them, even in the shower. But I was born in San Antonio, so I couldn't get close to the river walk. And water was a real big issue for me. And then I conquered it later.
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I did triathlons and stuff like that.
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Yeah. Like these motherfuckers. I've never even heard of that. Yeah. They're so tricky because, you know, you know, like because you were in Afghanistan, right?
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Iraq. OK, well, because but you're like, I think that a lot of people I'll take I'll take it as an insult when people I've had people I think sometimes trying to pay a compliment to Americans. They'll insult the Taliban's fighting capacity. And I was like, no, don't do that.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
You take away from them how hard it was to fight them when you do that because they were so intelligent and complex ambushes. So they would put it in the water because they'll be like, we were dismounted everywhere and singing. And so they would put them in the water because they're like – the Marines are not like these other guys. They will cross the worst possible terrain possible to avoid IEDs.
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187 - How The VA Failed This Disabled Military Veteran ft. Tejano Space Cowboy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 187
I was with Logan because Logan was in 3-5. And I just remember it was like y'all's content house. And I had a blue arm. I had a different arm at that time. It was a really ghetto. It was a gigantic arm. So it was like really hard to like be low key in that arm. It was like fucking the size of a leg. Dude, how many arms do you have? I have one. Yeah. I have one. Technically, you know what? Jesus.