WEBVTT - I Think This is Hell 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:03.680 Third Squad is a podcast about war. All episodes contain 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.600 strong language and graphic descriptions of violence that may not 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:12.040 be suitable for all listeners. I think we live in hell. 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:15.280 I think this is how and Il test through how 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:20.640 to make it to Heaven. And I guess Josh had 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:24.880 already pood that he's like a great individual. Dutcher and Nick, 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:33.200 all right, you guys could come up. I'm Elliott Woods. 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:40.640 This is Third Squad Episode eleven. I think this is hell. 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:56.279 So where are we gonna go? Now? Do you want 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:58.440 to cruise the round? Yeah? I want to see the spots. 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:03.120 I want to see the landmarks of your life. It's 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:06.160 been a long and winding road from Camp Pendleton's right 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:09.839 smack on the Pacific Coast to Atlantic City, New Jersey, 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:12.839 more than eight thousand miles in fact, plus a trip 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:16.480 to Alaska. Now, Tommy and I are out cruising down 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.560 Atlantic Avenue on a breezy and blue skied Easter Sunday 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:26.640 with Third Squad veteran Jeffrey Lopez. Right here, He's got 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:29.000 on shorts and an anime T shirt with slip on 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:32.520 sandals and socks. He's smaller than I remember with the 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:36.640 scruffy beard and sleepy eyes. We drive under the arched 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:39.520 walkway of the Tropicana Casino and into a block that 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:42.160 looks like it's stumbled into broad daylight after a hard 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:46.040 night of drinking Delilah's Den the most Beautiful show Girls. 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:53.360 I had my face up strip clubs too before or after. 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:56.960 Lopez was born here, the son of a refugee from 0:01:56.960 --> 0:01:59.680 El Salvador, and he grew up with his four brothers 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:02.280 in Nur City, just down the beach from the casinos 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:05.680 and the boardwalk of Old Atlantic City. For New Yorkers 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:08.880 and Philadelphians, Atlantic City is a weekend getaway for gambling 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:12.480 and shopping, and often enough it's a punchline. This is 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:15.920 where the Trump Plaza, the former President's spectacular failure of 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:18.560 a casino, got demolished a little over a month ago 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:22.360 with three thousand sticks of TNT, leaving a literal money 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:30.320 pit behind for Lopez. Though this place is home in 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:35.760 Atlantic Avenue is Memory Lane, have a few janks thing 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:38.440 to walk right over to head up the slab machines. 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:43.200 The last couple of decades have not been kind to 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:47.000 Atlantic City. The Greater Recession hit the casino industry so 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:49.320 hard that the state actually had to take over the 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:53.799 city's finances. Then there was Hurricane Sandy in which made 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:57.000 landfall in Atlantic City and damaged thousands of homes before 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:01.200 rampaging up the coast. And now there's COVID, which has 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:03.520 cost about one in three of the area's leisure and 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:07.919 hospitality workers their jobs. To put it mildly, the boardwalk 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:12.919 empires on the rocks, but Lopez exudes maximum chill. So 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:15.000 this is like the main strip on when we were younger. 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:16.880 We used to come here to get like our haircuts, 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:19.359 by all our gear, but not a lot of the stories. 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:24.000 I plowed down and there's a lot of jug selling 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:27.360 us to the dudes who hang on the corners now 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:29.959 are not the kind of people you mess with. But 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:32.240 Lopez says there was a time when he and his 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:35.080 brothers and their crew from the neighborhood owned this strip, 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:39.000 and their favorite after school activity was going out looking 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:42.320 for trouble. So where did the fights happen? Where were 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:46.440 the brawls? We've had some here up here by the 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:53.200 barbershop on Dover, on the boardwalk, wherever there was like 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:56.880 bus stops. We'll just meet people that are like, well, 0:03:57.320 --> 0:03:59.000 we won't be in school and we'll get a call 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:01.000 from someone like I'm on a bus with these people 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:02.800 coming us here, and we'll be at the bus not 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:06.520 waiting for them to get off. What the fun you 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:09.720 guys coordinated by cell phone? Yeah? We had like the 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:14.000 brick Nokia is back then. Oh yeah, next till with 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:19.760 the chir Wipez says the fights weren't gang related. It 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:22.760 was more like his version of Taylor Moody's Metal and Motion. 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:26.080 It's a good way to work off surplus teenage testosterone, 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:30.039 but it wasn't harmless. Were you picking fights with people 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:31.960 who didn't want anything to do with it, or were 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:34.080 you always picking fights with people who were looking for 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:37.520 I used to be a little like bully, an asshole 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.000 to people. I used to talk to everybody make it 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:44.120 feel bad about themselves. I was, but now I'm like 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:48.960 the complete opposite. How do you think that happened? How 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:53.320 do you think that transformation happened? I don't know. Do 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:55.600 you think it had anything to do with coming back 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:59.960 from the Marines? Maybe maybe being more grateful for life? 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:05.760 I question as a boy making others miserables that bring 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:09.760 like love to the tape, Lopez has a very good 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:12.920 reason to be grateful for life. He was nearly killed 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:15.599 in the June twelfth, two thousand eleven mass casualty and 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:17.960 sang in and he came home with more than a 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:21.719 changed attitude. This is like a purple heart memorial up here, 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.720 coming up there. It is right there, Purple Heart Combat Wounded, 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:28.360 dedicated to all men and women wounded in all our wars. 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:30.800 Did you used to see that when you were a kid? Yeah, 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:34.000 but I never knew a purple heart mat And now 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:40.239 it means a little more because you're one of the people. Uh, 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:46.279 you have that metal. We turned into a narrow street 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:49.039 with houses packed close together on both sides and a 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:50.719 view of the bay. At the end of the block. 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:53.839 We pull up in front of a white two story 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:57.000 with a wide porch that belongs to Lopez's mom, Rosie Bell, 0:05:57.080 --> 0:05:59.839 who we're going to meet later. Lopez has lived in 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:02.040 this house all of his life, aside from a couple 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:04.520 of semesters at college and his five years in the corps. 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:07.680 He shows us around to the backyard, which is cluttered 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:10.200 with his kids toys, and where there's a shed tucked 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:13.720 up against the fence. We duck inside this cold Man, 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.560 because your little studio here and a little getaways. But 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:20.880 Lopez's older brother, Francisco, built this hangout spot in high 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:23.560 school as a refuge from the chaos inside the house 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:27.640 home to five brothers, Lopez's mom and stepdad, and their grandmother. 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:30.960 Lopez inherited the studio when he moved back here after 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:34.120 the Marine Corps. He's got a deluxe computer set up 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:36.839 in a futon couch covered by a blanket with cartoon 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:39.960 faces of hip hop legends, and there's a window into 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:42.719 a soundproof booth with a microphone where he records the 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:46.080 raps he writes like this one inspired by his time 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.160 and sang it bandom. Brothers even leaked that you can 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:54.440 hear more in the hep fires, mud huts and the 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:59.440 hell Man. This hell Man a beautiful strands of l 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:03.599 e eds give the place a soothing, subterranean glow. It's 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:06.200 so comfortable down here. I'm tempted to take a nap, 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:09.200 but we got some talking to do, so Lopez plops 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:11.040 into his swivel chair and I take a seat on 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:15.760 the couch. This is crazy, but you actually look younger. Yeah, 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:18.320 I don't know if it's because you have hair maybe 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:21.760 Lopez has a mop of dark curls now, but back 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.360 in Sangin, he wore his hair shaved almost to the skin. 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:28.840 Just introduce yourself. My name is Jeffrey Lopez on twenty 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:32.360 two years old from Vannice City, New Jersey, Okay. So 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:34.400 when I met him in July two th eleven, he 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:37.040 still had pock marks on his deeply tanned face from 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.280 the shrapne he took on June twelve, including a nickel 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:43.320 size scab close to the tip of his nose. He 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:46.800 was pretty mellow back then too. If you couldn't describe 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.040 sanging to some of your friends back home and never 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:51.160 been here, have no idea what it's like over here, 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:55.280 what would you tell him? Sangings crazy and it looks 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.560 like a beautiful country. But as far as stepping out 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:02.640 the wire with all your gears shitty cash, right, yeah, 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:04.640 you can see whatever you want to ask, that's about 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:07.000 it can't really explain to someone you don't want to be. 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:09.760 Some of the guys in Third Squad had joined the 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:11.880 Marines to get as far away from where they grew 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:15.640 up as possible, but Lopez was homesick for his mom's 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:18.360 busy house and he'd eaten enough m R. E's to 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:21.920 last a lifetime. I'm just being abound my family, you know, 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:27.400 just sitting there talking to them. I miss McDonald's, Applebee's, 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:30.200 All you can Eat crabs and like the face type 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:33.520 of fe Lopez had gotten some college under his belt 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:36.360 before he enlisted, and he'd also been stationed in Spain 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:39.000 for seven months, where he came up with big dreams 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:41.720 for his post Marine Corps life. When I go back 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:47.520 to college, like stay studying business probably takes some like 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:50.360 cooking classes. I already know how to cook, but so 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:53.640 I could open up my restaurant one day. Is that 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:57.560 what you want to do out in Spain? In Spain? Yeah, 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:01.440 I still don't have a name for it, but signing 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:05.000 with my last name Lopez, I don't know. Do you 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:07.880 think you can hang with the Spanish on their own cuisine? Yeah? 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:13.280 And IK Lopez Restaurant never made the leap from dream 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:15.520 to reality, but he and his mom do have a 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:19.480 side biss selling her Salvadoran papusas, and Lopez did find 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:22.079 full time work in the restaurant industry as a waiter 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:24.920 at the Golden Nugget Casino, where his mom and stepdad 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:27.880 also Worklipez also has a part time gig at the 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.280 Wawa convenience store down the street. Like some of his 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:34.880 favorite rappers, he's all about the hustle. Yeah, I work 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:38.120 a lot, gotta work when you're poor. Do you consider 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:41.440 yourself poor? Yeah? I mean I would love to just 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:44.520 get paid from music into that, but you know, my 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:46.480 kids got to east, so I might have to go 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:50.040 bust out this nine to five real quick. Lopez has 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:52.640 two kids, a ten year old son named Jack's who 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:54.400 was born while he was in Sanging, and a two 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:57.400 year old daughter named Jace. They're growing up in the 0:09:57.480 --> 0:09:59.680 very same house their dad came home to as a 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:03.359 new warn, where hustle was built into the family foundation. 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:07.640 We're probably one of the few Hispanic families in this 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:10.760 neighborhood at the time that had their own house as 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:14.520 my mother's house. Lopez's mom and dad got divorced when 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:17.800 he was a little kid. Rosie Bell eventually started dating 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:21.199 a man named Nate. They met at the at the buffet, 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:24.959 the base of a buffet, and they got married quick after. 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:29.200 They're just hard workers, always been there for us, seeing 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:32.800 them like get us ready for school and then they'll 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:35.839 go to work and won't come back till the night. 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:38.640 My grandma was watching us, so you can see that 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:42.440 they had so much dedication to grind to make sure 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:45.880 their their kids were good. In high school, Rosie Bell's 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:48.440 house became the rally point for Lopez and his brother's 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.600 huge group of friends. We'd get the cops called on 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:54.680 us around here all the time since because like the 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:57.040 crowd we would hang but it was mostly like Hispanics 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:59.719 and blacks. Some people would call the cops on your 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:02.040 parents and on your family, on us, like just for 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:05.360 hanging out. Our music too loud. But it changed now 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:08.960 and all the labors neighbors love me now. It's like 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:14.040 they forgot about everything. So when you got out of 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:17.360 the Marine Corps and came back, was it like slipping 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:23.080 into a comfortable pair of old shoes. You just right back? Yeah, 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:27.120 music is love has his lifelong passion. He started keeping 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:30.000 a notebook of poems and lyrics in high school. I 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:33.880 remember the first song I wrote, I was living. Life 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:37.079 is hard depending where you're coming from, especially when you're 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:39.400 a mom with a couple of sons and a couple 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:42.000 of jobs. But we make it through. At another parting 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:44.880 less step that comes to it's just two of us, 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:48.160 but he wants another son and another one. That makes 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:50.520 four of us. Growing up in the struggle broke as 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:53.280 fuck might be different, but we still know what's love. 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:55.480 Give each other's pounds and hugs, throw it up if 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:57.720 you knew what it was, So us love even though 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:00.560 there's no clue up above, and don't realize what's happened 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:03.320 then because your fans make more money than the average man, 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:06.280 but we bumm me with our pay lists. Temps, hatred, grin. 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.520 Can't trust most studies. Maybe friends look for y'alls? What 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:12.280 made me sin? So I don't be great? Ship got 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:18.880 the made me did? Wow? That was cool. That was 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:21.480 like the first thing I ever wrote. And it's funny 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:24.160 because I remember that, But anything new that I write down, 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:26.960 it's hard to memorize, Like I have bad memory. Now, 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:29.520 what do you think happened to your memory? Probably all 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:33.599 the explosions. I can remember stuff like from before or 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:36.679 anything like from that and like till now. It's kind 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:40.080 of like it could be the smoke into smoke a lot. 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:43.400 How much do you smoke? Like two grams a day? Maybe, 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:46.960 Lopez says the weed helps with his war related anxiety 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:50.720 and PTSD symptoms, but he says he smoked even more 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:53.920 before he joined the military, until I would get off 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:57.240 a word, make like fifty bucks and tips and go 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:01.720 by like an eighth of weed. Smoke at all? Probably yeah, most, 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:04.120 because there's a few of us, would get battles, We 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:08.120 go to sleep, do it again the next day. The 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:10.960 Ganja fest ended when Lopez had to get clean for 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:14.160 boot camp in Sangin. He snuck a few hits of 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.760 hashish with the Afghan National Army soldiers at peb fires, 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:20.480 but his pot smoking career didn't begin again in earnest 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:22.840 until he got out of the core. What do you 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:25.720 remember about the first time you got high after five years? 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:30.280 Do you remember having a low tolerance or anything. It 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:33.040 was a way different high from what I remember in 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:36.760 high school. It was more like kind of being stuck. 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:39.240 When I was in high school, it was just like 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:43.319 giggles and munchy and stuff. You're seeing movies. But then 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:46.880 all the weed now is just completely different. There's a 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:49.040 lot more potent. I mean, I could be stuck in 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.600 his chair all day. I'll be productive in his chair, 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:54.240 like I'll be fighting or something. It doesn't like stop 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:56.439 me from doing anything. Like I go to work, smoke 0:13:56.520 --> 0:14:00.760 a b lion still performed the same way without it. 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:05.280 If I smoked even ten percent of a blunt, you'd 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:08.160 have to take me to the hospital. I have a 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:12.000 psychotic break, all right, He's gonna take some deep breaths. No, 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:16.640 you'd have to put me in a straight jacket. I've 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:19.280 always remembered that Lopez was one of the only guys 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:21.480 in third Squad who seemed to have a clear motive 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:24.160 for joining the military, And even though he grew up 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:26.360 just down the coast from New York City, it had 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:30.840 nothing to do with September eleven, one of our childhood 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:34.880 friends he got killed in in Iraq, So I felt like, oh, 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:38.240 now I had to go and do something about it. 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:41.080 That's that was my mindsets, like young mind stick. Then 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:43.520 I asked my mother to like sign the papers for me, 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:46.760 but she wouldn't let me. I was seventeen, so then 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:49.280 I had to wait like another year and I want finally, 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:52.400 most app was a team that I joined. What was 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:58.200 your friend's name? He was Eric a Eric Plasios And 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:01.920 that may do you feel like you had to join? Yeah, 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:05.640 it was more like I gotta go avenge or something 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:10.440 like that. And you see stuff in movies, like somebody's 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:12.920 brother gets beat up, it's like, all right, we gotta 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:16.360 go get him now. It's kind of like that. When 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:17.960 you were growing up. Did a lot of people go 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:19.960 and join the military. A lot of people did. U, 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:23.440 My brother did, my younger brother. I had one of 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:26.880 my cousins all marines. Most of our friends, a lot 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:30.280 of them are veterans. Lopez was attracted to the military 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:32.880 for reasons beyond the desire to avenge the death of 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:36.280 Eric Pelacios in the Rock. In high school, he and 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:39.320 a bunch of his friends did junior r OTC. It's 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:42.200 kind of like boy Scouts, but you wear military uniforms 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:44.440 and learn basic stuff like how to march and how 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:48.200 do identify the enlisted in officer ranks. The chief that 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:50.680 was in charge of us, he was real cool. Looking 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.520 at his stack, everything he had that could have been 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:56.360 part of it. Tell people what a stack is. What 0:15:56.400 --> 0:16:00.280 do you mean A stack is all your ribbons or 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:04.200 awards from the military. The stack of ribbons and things 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:08.960 that go on the chest, all those colorful ribbons, the 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:11.800 cool looking stuff. So that was impressive. To you when 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:14.280 you were a high school kid. All that shiny stuff, 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:23.240 I know what it meant. Lopez was only seventeen when 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:26.480 he first attempted to join the military, but his mom, 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:31.040 Rosie Bell, absolutely refused to sign the papers for him. 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:33.920 So Lopez went off to college instead, about two and 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:36.960 a half hours away near the Poconos, but his heart 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:39.440 wasn't in it. He came home at the end of 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:43.320 the school year and never went back. He tried community 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:46.920 college too, but he didn't like that either. By then, 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:50.960 Lopez was eighteen, and against his mother's wishes, he made 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:55.960 a rash decision. I was driving down Ventnor and I 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:58.880 was just thinking, like, you know, school wasn't for me. 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:01.920 I knew it from the always hated school. I was like, 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:04.440 I'm sired of the school. I was like, you know what, 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:07.120 it's time to finally go, and I just drove straight there. 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:10.879 I was on a flight A few weeks after, like 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:22.840 a month later, Just like his former squad leader Jerick Fry, 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:25.760 Lopez had had an epiphany that carried him straight to 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:29.119 a Marine Corps recruiting office. This one was nestled in 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:31.720 a strip mall in a nearby town. What did you 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.199 say to the recruiter, I just want to join, like 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:38.040 what are my options? And he took me through everything. 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:40.359 I think I did some pull ups, like the first 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:43.000 day I was there, probably had when he did like 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:47.280 two or something, you did the paperwork. I went on 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:50.240 a run with him and the next thing I know, 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:54.480 I was on the yellow footprints. Now would I tell 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:57.320 you you're gonna get all your crap jet up and 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:01.160 get up my bus? Geno, My yellow flippridge stops done? 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:05.280 Do you understand the yellow footprints are a hallmark of 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:08.879 Marine Corps bootcamp. Recruits fresh off the bus have to 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:12.359 stand on the footprints and shuffle through processing stations, getting 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:15.800 screamed at by drill instructors and flat brimmed campaign hats 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:22.280 the whole time. Get off my bus. Lopez hit the 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.400 yellow footprints at Parris Island, South Carolina, in April two. 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:31.400 Did you feel like joining the Marines was something that 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:33.159 would make you more of a man at all? Did 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:34.960 you do you ever feel anything like that? Did you 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:38.120 feel like you wanted to be like a fighting man? 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:41.160 Did that part of the recruiting speak to you at all? 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:45.119 I don't think so. I felt like I was a 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:47.040 man before that as a kid, I've always thought I 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.600 was a man. This is nonsense and a kid's head. 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:53.439 I'm a man, I'm grown. It did make me mature 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:56.960 a lot quicker. Lopez signed up to spend his first 0:18:57.000 --> 0:18:59.760 two years as part of the Marine Security Force Regiment, 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:03.120 the group that Michael Dutcher also served in that protects 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:07.160 critical US assets around the world like embassies and nuclear weapons, 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:09.960 but Lopez says he didn't really know what he was 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:14.199 getting into. When I went to the recruiting station. He 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:16.520 told me that I would be like on the front 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:20.000 line where it all went down, like he'll be in 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:21.880 the red zone this and now I was like, oh, 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:24.719 that sounds so cool. So I was like, all right, 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:28.520 put me in Security Forces in and then I was 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:31.199 in freaking Spain on vacation. I was like, this is 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:34.160 nothing that I asked for. So that was not what 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:36.920 you thought you were signing up for. The recruiter lied 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:42.560 to me, asshole. Wait, hold on, a recruiter lied to you. Ye, 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:46.200 never you would expect that. Yeah, he'll say you're gonna 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:49.040 be in the ship. I was like, you up. But 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:52.159 then what happened because eventually things changed and you were 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:55.760 not in security forces anymore. So what what happened? I 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:58.640 had the security forces. They asked us what unit we 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:02.560 wanted to go with, and me and some other guys 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:06.320 were like, oh, wish unit deploys like the quickest, and 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:10.040 they're like one five. They send us there. Then Lopezants 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:12.280 and Marine buddies who were also going to Won five 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.600 took a road trip from Jersey out to California. They 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:19.720 arrived at Camp Pendleton in October two. I was just ready. 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:22.239 I just wanted to guard, you know, And what did 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:23.760 you want to do? What were you what were you 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:27.040 ready to do? What do you think I wanted to fight? 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:33.760 Shoot stuff, but not just stuff, shoot bad guys, shoot 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:37.120 their stuff, their hard and stuff, shoot their hearts, their 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:40.280 horse and stuff. Why do you think you were so 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:47.080 eager to go shoot people? You know, their label these terrorists, 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:50.800 so when people fight them, they're bad guys, you know, 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:54.159 doing bad stuff. But what what was the bad stuff 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:55.800 that they were doing in your mind at the time? 0:20:55.840 --> 0:20:57.720 What did you think that they were doing that made 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:01.080 you want to go shoot them? Person shooting at us? 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:03.359 That's the best time. I didn't know anything else. I 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:05.639 don't know why we were there. I didn't know what 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:10.320 they were defending, um their reason for fighting. I just 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:12.840 wanted to fight, go to war, just what I've been 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:21.160 changing to do. Six months after Lopez got to Camp Pendleton, 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:25.200 his wish came true. He deployed to sang In, where 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:27.479 he got to shoot at people and get shot at. 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:31.800 But for the mother, whose wishes he denied, it was 0:21:31.880 --> 0:22:15.520 seven months of NonStop torment. We'll be back after the break, Chile. 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:22.320 This has red tillie green pepper, onion, garlic, and lots 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:25.480 of celery. It goes in here with the teas, which 0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:30.560 is hot. Lopez told me about his mom's legendary papusas, 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:32.560 and I called to set up this visit months ago, 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:35.200 and now I'm lucky enough to see the magic unfold 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:38.520 right in your kitchen. Rosa Belt is not only preparing 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:41.760 her native El Salvador's national dish, she's also kind enough 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:46.040 to teach me how to make it. And this is right. 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:51.800 Some means caamiento, which means Marriott's. She's got the slaw already. 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:55.080 And now we're folding period pork shoulder. We fried beans 0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:58.639 and cheese into the papoosa dough manos and la massa 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:03.240 in there we used to sell these during the pandemic 0:23:03.280 --> 0:23:06.520 when we weren't working. There were days when we sold 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:10.399 the thousand alls worth of pupusas at the end of 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:16.080 Jeffrey is very good at selling. Rose Bell is a machine. 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:19.359 She's flipping papusas and stuffing new ones at the same time, 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:21.399 shuttling him into the dining room as soon as they 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:24.400 come off the griddle. She's got a big family to feed. 0:23:24.760 --> 0:23:27.800 There's her husband, Nate, plus two of Lopez's younger brothers 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:31.000 who live at home. Then Lopez, his girlfriend and his 0:23:31.119 --> 0:23:35.359 two kids from his previous relationship. Some parents dream of 0:23:35.400 --> 0:23:37.920 the day their kids will fly the nest, but Rose 0:23:38.040 --> 0:23:40.560 Belt loves having as many of her kids as possible 0:23:40.640 --> 0:23:48.720 under one roof, and her grandkids too. They say children 0:23:48.800 --> 0:23:53.480 are loved, but grandchildren are adored. If dabies behave you 0:23:53.600 --> 0:23:56.480 just give them back to their dad. We have had 0:23:56.680 --> 0:24:01.280