Lex Fridman Podcast - #199 – Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel

Episode Date: July 11, 2021

Roger Reaves is one of the most prolific drug smugglers in history. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Noom: https://trynoom.com/lex - Allform: https://allform.com/lex to get 20% off - ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/lexpod and use code LexPod to get 3 months free - Four Sigmatic: https://foursigmatic.com/lex and use code LexPod to get up to 60% off - Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com/lex and use code LEX to get special savings EPISODE LINKS: Smuggler (book): https://amzn.to/3xydszD PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: - Check out the sponsors above, it's the best way to support this podcast - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here's the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) - Introduction (09:56) - Money (12:17) - Pablo Escobar (19:30) - Jorge Ochoa (27:05) - First time (31:51) - Landing an airplane on the highway (34:41) - Barry Seal (45:05) - Mena, Arkansas (49:58) - Assassination of Barry Seal (1:03:10) - American Made (1:07:22) - Blow (1:09:28) - Story of torture in a Mexican prison (1:14:08) - Getting shot down (1:27:51) - Prison (1:41:34) - Reflections on a life of crime (1:46:51) - Advice for young people (1:49:49) - Love (2:03:09) - Death (2:05:55) - Meaning of life (2:09:58) - Poem

The following is a conversation with Roger Rees, one of the most prolific drug smugglers in history. He worked for Pablo Escobar and Jorge Achoa, the leaders behind the Medellin Cartel. Roger was the employer and close friend of Barry Seal, the infamous drug smuggler who was the main character in the movie America Made. Roger transported countless tons of cocaine and marijuana covering six continents. He escaped prison five times, was shut down in both Mexico and Colombia, and was tortured, nearly to death, in a Mexican prison. Through all of this, his wife, Mari, the love of his life, was there with him, and when he was in prison, she waited for him. He recently got out in prison, she waited for him. He recently got out of prison, or for many years he worked on his memoir called Smuggler.

This podcast is an exploration of his story. Quick mention of our sponsors. NUME, ALL-FORM, EXPRESSIVE-PN, FORSIGMATIC, and H-LEAP. Check them out in the description to support this podcast. Let me say a few words about Roger Reeves, Pablo Escobar, and the War on Drugs. This conversation with Roger is unlike any I've ever done. In the eyes of many, including the law, Roger is a criminal, a bad man who has added to the suffering in the world. But he never directly engaged or participated in the violence, unlike his bosses, Pablo Escobar and Jorge Ochoa.

His crime was a transport of drugs. I thought about this, and about Pablo Escobar, who was at once both a brutal murderer and a Robin Hood figure who helped the poor and was loved by thousands, if not millions. We sometimes idolize murderers and destroy good on this man. We give power and money to corrupt politicians and dictators that starve and murder their own people. Given this, I think about what makes for a good man, and what makes for a bad man, and who decides. Sitting across from Roger, I saw a complicated man, but one who has kindness in his heart, a love for money and adventure, and a disdain for violence.

Again, his crime was the transport of drugs. Since 1971, the Warren drugs has cost US $1 trillion. Marijuana legalization alone would save and make $13.7 billion that could send more than 650,000 students to public universities every year. Then there's a human stories of the 500,000 human being sitting in prison for drug-related offenses and the 1.1 million on probation and parole. Their life is damaged, arruent, beyond repair due to the prohibition of drugs. There's a lot more to be said about the damage done by the war on drugs.

But when reading about Roger's story and talking to him, I couldn't escape the thought that while society wants to label him a criminal and a bad human being, there are much worse men out there who we give a pass to, even give power to, even men who hold political office or run companies. I also think about my role as an interviewer, sitting across a man like Roger in these interviews, in life, in many ways I continue to be myself. A person who like Dusty Yasky's the idiot seeks the good in all people, but is hurt by it on occasion and maybe is, but it's hurt by it on occasion

and maybe it's destroyed by it in the end. I'm not naive, but I'm also optimistic and have hope for humanity. That's who I am, and that's what these conversations are. I hope you join me, and I hope you understand that I come from a place of love. As usual, I do a few minutes of ads now, no ads in the middle, I find those to be annoying, I try to make them interesting, but I give you time stamps, so if you must skip, please still check out the sponsors in the description. I hope you don't skip, but at the very least, I hope you buy whatever stuff they're selling

were very picky with the sponsors we take on, so I hope you'll find value in it, just as I have. This episode is brought to you by Noom, a new sponsor. So please do definitely check them out and I hope they stick around. Noom is a behavior and habit changing system that helps you get fit and lose weight. Go to trynoom.com slash lux to take their short survey about yourself and it'll generate a custom program for you. This includes helping you find why you wanted to do it in the first place.

That's really a very important thing when you're trying to make a lifestyle change. Then it also provides you with small goals along the way that will help you make the habit changes and the guides you, I would say about 10 minutes a day to build those better habits. I think diets and all those kinds of things don't really work when they're framed in the context of restricting yourself. I think you have to see it as habits. Everything that seems unpleasant at first through habit building can become pleasant.

Go to trinium.com slashlex to fill out their quick survey. That's all you have to do. You don't even need to sign up, but I hope you do sign up. Go to trinum.com slash Lex. This show is sponsored by AllForm, which is a furniture company. They ship to your home quickly. Take it back for free if you don't like it in the first 100 days it's easy to assemble looks beautiful, sexy, classy, it feels amazing it's very comfortable I love it I have a love seat back in Boston I have a college here in Austin I really love their stuff like I said it's classy and it's comfortable I remember sharing a love seat with mr. Michael Males. I don't know how long ago that was, but that's when we wore the white suit to my black suit. And once more, we'll get to share that love seat. When we talk again soon, I'm not

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This is the Lex Friedman podcast, and here is my conversation with Roger Reeves. You are one of the most prolific drug smugglers in history. What would you say motivated you? Money, power, the thrill, or was it something else? Money. But isn't there a point where you've had more money than you can possibly know what to do with? Or is it always more money? You know, I had plenty of money several times. And I think it's sort of like if you was in Los Vegas and you had the slot machine handled down and the gold coins was tumbling around you

and you had sweepers bagging them up. When would you let it go? But isn't some part of that that's thrilled then? Oh, there was a lot of thrilled. Sometimes it weighed too much. You made certainly tens of millions of dollars probably much more. What my memorable experience did having that much money make possible for you

So there's one thing is the money and the other thing is what that money can buy Well, I bought everything that I could hide about seven farms. I owned the The city the land where the city of Merino Valley, California is. I had an option on that land. Did the planning and development of that, the most expensive coin in the world? Yacht ships, airplanes, galore. That bring you happiness?

No, absolutely not. In fact, I think I'm happier now. I know I'm happier now. So looking back, would you do it the same way all again? No way. Really, even the thrill of it, not even the thrill of it. It wasn't worth 33 years in prison, being away from my lovely family. So money, what about the power just Just being on top of the world where nobody can not the the governments, the police, all the big bad agencies chasing you, and you could do whatever the heck you wanted. As far as having to look over your shoulder, everywhere you went and every phone call you made,

make sure that you was naked with somebody in the ocean before you talked. It's rather uncomfortable. Yeah. I like to make phone calls the same way. What was it like meeting and working with Pablo Escobar, the leader of the Medellin cartel? He was just, just seemed like a gentleman when I met him. He's just like you and I sitting here, shook hands and I had flown one load for a fella

and it didn't work out well. The fella that I give it to got shot and it took a while to get my money and they didn't put as many kilos on the plane as I was supposed to and so I was going to work with him anymore and my contact down there introduced me to Jorge Ochoa. And we went up, and in Vigada we went up and regate opened, and we was escorted in. They must have been 50 men out in the yards, a hish and rail on an old house, and we was escorted right in. And they was a beautiful woman in there.

I mean, God, drop dead, beautiful. And she made us a cup of coffee, and then we was sure to end to see Jorge Ochoa. And he had 12 telephones on his desk, and all of them was a different color. And he shook hands, was very friendly, spoke English. And he said that each one of those telephones represented another city in the United States. This is a car going. This is New York. If I ring, I knew who was calling.

And so we had chatted a while and he asked me what type of airplanes I had and what experience I had flying across the US border. And I told him he seemed pleased with it. And he called the lady in and she went next door and came Pablo Escobar and he introduced me to Pablo Escobar and he asked the same questions again and I answered him and I said and I asked him how much he paid and they paid $5,000 a kilo to haul it and so I said how much he put on the plane he's $300 500 so I wanted to have much you put on the plane? It's $300, $500. So I said, I wanted to have $2.5 million for eight-hour trip.

It sounded pretty good to me. And we're talking about cocaine. And we're talking about Colombia. Colombia and cocaine and Medellin cartel. And Jorge Ochoa was one of the, what would you say, founding members of the... It's probably the brains behind the whole thing. The brains and spoke good English.

Yes. And there were nice people. Really nice people. I was probably the brain's behind the whole thing. The brains and spoke good English, yes. And there were nice people. Really nice people. Were you scared? Not at all. What's wrong with your mind that you weren't scared? Here's some of the most dangerous men in this world. And you weren't scared.

Well, I knew I was going to do exactly what I said I was going to do. Mario and the children were down there. They went down and they stayed in the hotel. Five-star treated royally on my first load. And they just did as security to make sure that I wasn't a DEA agent. So I did the first loading. They say they were hostages, but they really weren't. It was just an insurance.

So there was some integrity to the way they operated. Completely. I mean, straight, straight up. The money was ironed and bad, bad, banded. And just right. And the numbers would never want anything wrong with it. What would you attribute that honesty to? Within their own moral system and their own set of rules,

why weren't people crossing the line and shaving off the top and injecting chaos into the system to where it would be unpredictable and people would be dishonest and greedy and all those kinds of things? That's true. Most people are, but there's certain people at the top of the food chain that they don't need that. And if they are completely honest, then they don't have to think of, remember the lie they told. And in plus, they just honest to start with. They're, they're making plenty of money. They was making as much money as I did. I'll tell you how that, that came about.

I understand that 10,000 people were killed every year in Medigin, Columbia. And what they were doing, they didn't have any organization. And if one fellow had 10 kilos and he wanted to ship to New York, he would tell his friend, his friend say, sure, I'll ship it, I have a pilot and I'll ship it up. And then he would look in the newspapers, oh, 40 kilos was busted in your jersey. I'm so sorry, yours got busted. Bang bang, he's dead. So here comes Jorge Ochoa and the three Ochoa brothers in Pablo Escobar and Gacho and they decided that we will make an insurance company. That we will charge you $10,000 to take it to your contact in Miami.

If it gets lost anywhere between the time I put it on the airplane or the time you give it to us and the time we give it to your man, we would replace it in Colombia for you. So there was no way anybody could lose. And I understand they got a hundred tons piled up under that insurance program and I was right there the first day So I had all the work I could do I would land and they said when you want me to come back. We waiting on you senior Well, let me ask a difficult question some see Escobar as a brutal murderer and some cm as um maybe a robin head Like figure who helped the poor? How do you see the man?

Both of them. I think he started out to be honest with help the poor and then they had a war down there and they blew up and killed his people and the country was divided almost equally three ways. They had the the military. They were just as much into it as anybody and then you had the military. They were just as much into it as anybody. And then you had the fart gorillas. They had about a third of the country. And then you had the conscience. It was like the white farmers. And they are the ones that I was dealing with. And they were at war with one another. And so if one of them started killing their people, I'll kill some of yours too. So that's how it happened. And then when I heard about Pablo Escobar blowing up that airliner and killing those women and children, I was sorry I

pushed his hand. That's brutal murder. So you would say Escobar is not a good man, not at all. It's terrible. Now looking back on it, when I made him he was good You're just exactly what he said he would do Could he be a bad man and the man you can trust are those it's so you could trust him. Yes So from your perspective in terms of business He was reliable. He was honest had integrity. You could work with him. Oh, he felt safe Completely we flew up and to his ranch and he was honest, had integrity, you could work with him. He felt safe. Completely. We flew up to his ranch and he even brought out motorcycles to start with and can you ride a motorcycle?

Of course I can ride a motorcycle. So I took off the crost of grass and it was a little ditch there. In the front wheel dropped in that thing and I must have slid across that grass 20 feet before I got stopped. He almost fell off his bike waiting because they knew what it was going to do. And then we got on horses, and we went out there and pretended to have to round up some cows, and he put a Mac 10 machine gun pistol over my shoulder.

You know how to use this? Well, I never had, but it was alright. I think it was like, okay, you got 10 bodyguards, what do you need me for? So that's the kind of time we laughed and talked and drove some cows over the stumps. He said, Jorge Ochoa was perhaps the brains of the Medi and cartel. What was he like? And why do you say he was the brains? Well, he was a gentleman. And I suppose he shipped and no tell me how many more times

of cocaine than Pablo did. Just in him and his brothers, you could tell by the they had on each each allowed, there was in duffel bags and his big football shaped fluffy stuff made with ether. And they would have three horns on it or a rattlesnake or four eggs is on each bag. You kind of got to know in which was which was which and they shipped a lot. So, and he was just a gentleman. I took him to family. We went one weekend to his rancher, his palatial place out near Barron Keia. At all, he just treated the family.

His family, his younger brother, wrote, made a bullfight and we had skiing and little airplanes on floats on the water. It was really nice and he was really nice. How do you make sense of the tension that a man could be a gentleman, can have integrity, but also be a murderer? Well, murder is a strong word in killing. Can you explain the line, the gray area we're talking about?

I mean, I've just talked in with Jac'Willing. Can we talk to a lot about killing in the context of military conflict and the context of war. So there's a line between murder and killing that you can draw. What's the line that you're referring to? It's something similar. If people shoot at you and you shoot back in Killian Maldon, that's not murder whatsoever. It's trying to get away or out of the situation. But if some woman don't pay you and you send a hitman over to kill her and her children, that's murder. That's murder.

That's murder. Was Jorge involved in those kinds of things? I don't think so at all. I mean, he was just such a gentleman. He had a restaurant before and he was just smart. I understand it. The first 10 kilos he sold. He was sitting on a motorcycle in the sidelines in the parking lot.

When the DEA came in, he spared away. So he didn't come back to America. He was just smart. Some people just have a savvy. He was such a gentleman. The whole family, the mother and the father, the two brothers, their sister. I was there when she was kidnapped. Finally, he kidnapped our, I guess, 100 leaders of the FARC and said, all right, she don't come back. None of these are going to come back. So they made a deal. Is there something you can say about the power structure, the hierarchy of the median

cartel that you interacted with? Was it a dictatorship or Pablo ran everything? Was there a bunch of power centers? Was it like a company with you of C.E.O., C.T.O., kind of thing? And then there's like managers and all those kinds of things. What's the, like, how did it run from a leadership perspective? I understand that about five of them got together. It made this, I will call it an insurance company.

And now known as the Mediging Cartel. And I didn't see any difference. Each one of them had their own business and, uh, their people from the jungle of wherever made the cocaine gave it to them and they shipped it. And it didn't seem to be any power play between them at all. But my main contact was Jorge Ochoa and Pablo Escobar was right there and I saw plenty of stuff for him too. It's strange that they didn't betray each other regularly.

You know, greed makes men betray each other. How do you explain that? How much betrayal did you see? I didn't see any. Absolutely none. If they shipped his 100 kilos, he got paid for it. And the other one shipped to you, I'm sure they got paid for it. And the other one shipped his, I'm sure they got paid for it.

How did he explain that? Well, there was no need to. The money was just unbelievable. You think about 500 kilos in the plane. It's $50,000 a kilo at the time. And they paid $5,000 to ship it. And they made $5,000 without even touching it. They just had somebody to load it on through the airplane.

I gave it to their man in Miami. They gave it to whoever it belonged to by the marks on the duffle bags. So they was making just untold millions. Just no reason. But greed can blind men. It's still a strange to me that there was not more betrayal. It speaks to something else, perhaps, that's bigger than money. Maybe not. But it seems like just like in the casino like you mentioned we

Get accustomed to whatever level of money we have we get accustomed very quickly. Yes And then there's a tension that's natural between human beings and when that tension combined with money combined with power combined with like you mentioned beautiful women and a bit of violence, it seems that betrayal should become a place. But it's not. It was, not at all. This is Carlos later. I don't know if he betrayed anybody, but he started that.

He was running cocaine through their Bahamas and he had the island. I didn't go. I was offered to fly it with a DC-3 with that, but I didn't like it. So I had my route through the Old Wilson, Louisiana. So I didn't want to change, but he talked a lot, and I don't know if he betrayed, but they didn't like him. Yeah, so as you expand, there could be tensions that lead to conflict. Columbia was like you said in ultra violent place. How did you survive? Who protected you? I was a hero. They liked me. I mean, I was just treated royally. All I did, I would come over El Banco. There's a radio station at De Fork, so the Magdalena River. I believe

it was 7.20 if I remember right on the AM. And I'd fly in at 10,000 feet and I'd see below me, there'd be a sessana. And I'd wiggle my wings and hid wiggle his and I'd fold him behind him and we might go 100, 200 miles, not land on some jungle strip or some banana plantation. And they'd fuel me up. I could eat steak. And the night it was just like treated royal.

And I mean, take off the next morning, whenever I wanted to, it was just like that was protected. And I was honored guest. It wasn't anything like in that movie, putting a gun to your head and taking your sunglasses and betting. So one time I complained to Jorge Ochoa, the runway was pretty short that they were using.

And I went back down there and it looked like Los Angeles International. They had bulldozers in it, had to think five thousand feet long. Just like just the next week it was all done. The jungle was gone and Clay put up there and and all the while you were not afraid. You were treated like royalty. Yes, there was. I was afraid when I landed in the United States Well, maybe let's go back to the beginning. What was the first time you all flew an airplane with drugs on it Tell me the story the first time you smuggle drugs. All right. I I flew down to Halopavera cruise with a system 182 and

cruise with a system 182 and we landed the town. It was a lovely town and it was an old town like Bible times. People were women were washing their clothes in the streets and with stone basins and the stream running through I just was just dumb struck. It was just so pretty. And I went in the church and a Catholic church and it had the stations of the cross. All carved and magnificent. I'd never seen that. And I come home and told Murray about that. That was just, almost broke tears to my eyes. It was so beautiful.

And three o'clock the next morning, I went out to the airport and texted down to the taxiway, and there was a guard came out. And I wanted to know what I was doing, and I pulled out, I was on the fire department, I read on the beach California. So I pulled out my wallet, and it was a fire department badge. Oh, he shook my hand.

We're so glad. So I tacked it on down there and we loaded up about 400 pounds in the plane. And I came on back and I was running the head and winds more than I thought. And I landed on a little strip. You're talking about the way back? On the way back, on the way north after we loaded up early in the morning. And I just, for only time I ever got a vertigo, the mountains were coming down in a 30 or 40 degree angle and the Milky Way was overhead. And

somehow I wanted that airplane to be level with the stars. And it got me, and it's a phenomenon of politics. Vertigo, it's the only time I ever had it, was on that load. So anyway, the wind was on the nose of that system, I wasn't going to make it to the dry lake where I had fuel. So I landed on a little bitty strip and there was a little house, it was caved in and there was a little boy named Lazarus, about six to seven years old, and he was hurting some goats. So we put the marijuana in that house and the man stayed with it, so while I flew into some town and got fuel and came back and we sit down with the lunch that I brought back and the lad was sitting there and ate with us and we had a good time. We looted him back and came along.

Oh wow. I wonder where he is now. What was it like to fly, maybe describe the details of, do you have to fly low? Is there details that are unique to this experience of flying an airplane with drugs on it on board? All right, well one of the mistakes that just thousand hundred and hundreds and thousands of pilots make They don't stop at the border going down and get to permit Once you get a permit to be in Mexico you got it for six months You can go anywhere any fishing village any little town any little place show them this and you're well Once you get a permit to be in Mexico, you've got it for six months.

You can go anywhere, any fishing village, any little town, any little place, show them this and you're welcome. You don't have that, you go straight to jail. So you go down there and you think, okay, they're going to have fuel for me to come back. So, sorry, senior, that was a had a rusty leak in it. We don't have any. Well, you better be able to go to town and get it. So that's what I did.

And when I was coming back for several years, I would fly up at a Mexicali in cross-border ride at Colexico. I would act like I was landing on the Colexico side just after dark. Then I would zip across the border and I'd go to the salt and sea, and go below sea level 100 and something feet.

I'd believe 170 feet. It'd come on up and go out there and of Palm Springs and land out 29 palms in the desert and put my stuff under a Joshua tree and fly in the town to get my pickup and go back out and get it. And that was fun and then it got really dangerous. They had an operation starlight, I believe was the name of it, and they called a lot of pilots coming across the border. So I changed it, and by that time I was flying bigger planes, I was flying B-18s. And I would refuel in Mula, he, halfway down on Baja Peninsula, and then over in the middle

20 miles from the nearest road was a goat ranch where they milked goats and made cheese. And I would go there and unload the load coming up out of anywhere in southern Mexico. And I was laying there and the guy named Juan would put the marijuana under the trees and I'd fly in the mule ahead and they'd wash my plane and gas it up. I'd ease lunch and rent a room for a few hours and taking that Michelle and then go back in the afternoon and fill up and then I would go north west out of there and Fly 200 miles off the coast of the island of Guadalupe and from there I would fly on a more north western you had a gun about 300 miles out over the Pacific and Then I would come in behind the center bar Brawler's down low and then I'd come up and go out in a desert land.

And I did that for the rest of the Marijuana trips. What was the hardest part about flying those routes? The hardest part was getting good in Marijuana. So the hardest part isn't the flying. Not as the flying part. Just like driving your car down. But then I had people that would bring me on strips that were just unworthy of an airplane. Like when the, I'd land on a highway.

And then in the rainy season, I'd come back to land again and the guy wouldn't think about it and it'd have like little heels on both sides and the wings right there. Well the grass and the weeds would grow up and it sound like, I mean it sound like tearing the airplane apart when those wings hit, moving the grass down both shoulders of the airplane, the weeds grew up high in a tropics. So some of that stuff was bad and all getting bad gasoline and telling me that land here in the light and and knocked the wheels off when you land. Oh, you should have landed a little further up your senior. They ditched down.

Yeah. That's sort of thing. What was it like landing on a highway? And when did you have to land on the highway? I landed the highway most of my life, most of the times. In Mexico, first time I went down, there was a place called Pechilinki. And you had a 900-foot strip.

And I would fly it down and I'd carry gasoline with me. Marry and I would go to the grocery store and buy all kinds of little goodies and candies and toys to bring to the children. And that sand strip in the bend of a river was just too short to take over the load. So there was a young man there named Pedro, who was not going much over 100, maybe 120 pounds. And he'd get in a plane with me. And he'd direct me 20, 30, 40 miles away to a highway.

And the people, walking in, the people would pull out in a two-ton truck with a machine gun on it. But, just guys with arms were just, and they'd block the road, and then another one'd block it up about a mile away, not land right over that truck, and they'd load me up, like a bucket brigade with an airwanda coming, and I'd shake hands with all of them,

and I'd take off right over the other trucks, and sometimes maybe 20, 30, 40 cars lined up. I had one time I remember patrol car, highway patrol car, with he didn't have his lights on, took over right over him. And then when I started flying to Louisiana, the bridge over the Mississippi River, they were several contractors that went broke. And that thing was out for years. And about five miles from the river was flashing red lights and a

detour. And then they swam from both sides of it in the middle of it, we're growing up with 20 feet trees. And that was like an international run sides of it in the middle of it, we're growing up with 20 feet trees. And that was like, an international runway from anywhere in the world. So I landed on that over and over. Those red lights were just like in a runway. And then the next morning,

we'd go out there and scrub the marks off the highway where I landed before daylight. Wow. Let's go to somebody you've known while, somebody who has, who's also to somebody you've known well Somebody who is who's also a drug smuggler is Barry seal Who is Barry seal? How did you meet him Barry seal is a friend of mine?

Marry and I and the children went down in Honduras and we went up Lake Azul I believe it was and we was looking at a ranch to buy. I was looking for something central America where I'd have a half way place. It was lovely. We stayed up there for some days and our clothes got muddy and we went in the river and all kind of thing. So we got to San Pedro Sula

and we was going back to New Orleans. So we went to the cleaners to get our clothes and most of them was in there. And they got old, senior, they'll be ready tomorrow morning. We're not ready now. Well, the plane leaves at 9 o'clock or whatever. So I told Murray for her and the children to go into the airport because it'd be easier for one to understand by flight.

So I went to the laundromat for the clues and they were ready and they was a pile. When I put them on my back and got into taxi and they were taxi with driving with it and I'd given them $100 to go faster and he just blew his horn more rapid. So we got to the airport and I jumped out and ran around on the tarmac

and here's a brand new 727 taxiing out. Oh no. So I'm waving to the pilot and he's young fellow. He waves back. Then I see Murray's face in the cockpit, and the nose goes down where he puts on brakes, and he laughs and he puts some stairwell out. And I run for the stairwell and he pulls it back up

and goes like a hitchhiker, gonna pick you up and go and go and go again. Then he put it out and I got on and the whole crowd's clapped and I'm coming on with that glow to close. So I go way down in the middle and the plate planks full and mirroring my daughters about nine years old then and she was sitting in the middle and by the window was very seal. Of course I didn't know it and I sat in the middle and by the window was very sealed. Of course I didn't know it. And I sat in the middle and we took off and the wheels come up with clunk and then I got up about 5,000 feet. We had a little clink, clink.

And she said, what was that daddy? I say, he just turned on his older pilot. That fellow reached over and I didn't look at him. I said, he looks like CIA or FBI. Something man. He ain't spoke to be here. Clear blue eyes, gentlemen looking man. And he said, you fly these things. I said, I got a few hours, Mr. He said, I fly them to something

other. And he said, my name is Barry Seel. He reached over me, even shook hands. And we got to talking. And I thought there's no choice of seats on this. It's just open seating. So, well, I don't believe him one bit. And he started talking about, he just got out of jail that morning. Just got out of prison. And I said, uh-huh. And he told me he had been a pilot with TWA and this and other. And he told me what he was for. And so, we had a nice conversation with a couple hours

in New Orleans. I didn't believe him. So, he got off in front of us and what a crowd of people who would meet him. An old mother and wife and little children hanging on to him crying and hugging and kissing him. I said, he was telling the truth. So I reached over and gave him a little piece of paper. I hadn't married or write it out. When I had rest, I said, Barry, I might have some work for you. What was in jail for? He got caught with 100 kilos of cocaine and a small plane and so he's served a year. And that was from Columbia? I don't know where

he come from. He got caught in Honduras, probably refueling, but he'd been in prison now and he before for bringing explosives to the Cuban countries. And he lost his job with airlines. And then later on, I found out he was at CIA and George Bush, seniors, protégé, and had a thousand parachute jumps and was there. He was a hot shot mouth. There's a million questions I want to ask here, but maybe can we link on it a little bit longer?

What was your relationship with him like? You were a drug smuggler, he's a drug smuggler. Your friends, how often do you guys talk, how often do you work together? What was the relationship like? Well, I'll back up and just finish where I started off there. I gave him a thanks bear, I may have some work for you. I know I got some work for you.

And I said, come out Santa Barbara. And so I don't know, a week or two later, he flew out and went to our house and stayed with us a couple of days. And I had an almost brand new Arrow Commander 690B, that thing was terrible probably and it was hot, the hottest thing I'd ever had. So I said, let's go Barry, let's see what you can do. So I'm sorry I said that. We got about a thousand feet and he was like one in Blue Angel pilots, he was wrong in

that thing out. You know, that's enough and then he did a falling leaf. It's where you cut the engines and the plane fall from side to side. I saw Bob Hoover do that in the air show once. And that's the only person I ever so do it. And I was my hand was white, no, going to hang on to the fleet. You shut off the engine? Yeah, he shut off the engines and landing, flying side by side like this. How do you explain that? Was he just a wild man or was he sufficiently skilled to wear sufficiently skilled? Absolutely. He knew what he was doing. I can get a plane from one spot to another and I guess I'm known as a good pilot, but that guy was a aerobatic.

So anyway, he stayed with us a couple of days and then I told him I said, this plane needs So anyway, he stayed with us a couple of days and then I told him I said, this plane needs a tank and I got some work down the Columbia and he's come back to Louisiana. And I need 2500 mile range. He said, I got somebody in mean Arkansas to do that and keep them out shut. So I gave him $10,000 and he flew away. And in a few days, he called me and says, come to my house in Baton Rouge. So I went to his house in Baton Rouge and I stayed with him for a few days and that plane was tanked. I mean, beautiful from STEM to Stern. I could went from

Bolivia to Canada with him. So he was, then I hired him to fly and he was funny. I paid him a million dollars of trip. I've been two thousand dollars a kilo, so it's not a million dollars a trip. And I didn't get paid until the people received it. They had to ship it to Chicago and New York and then the money come back. So it was a couple of two or three weeks pipeline. Well, I was had to pay him for, for he'd go again. I mean, and he'd barely ache. Now, I mean, he had my owning room.

So one time I, I gave him a million dollars and I put it in had my owning room. So one time I gave him a million dollars and I put it in the box real nice. So how big is a box that contains a million dollars? So we're talking about $100 bills. $100, it's not very big. You can put it in a large briefcase. It weighs exactly 10 kilos. Each bill weighs a gram, so you can weigh your money and almost get it exactly. Ten, twenty-something pounds is a million dollars. Twenty-two pounds. Twenty-two pounds. A hundred dollar bills. But a hundred and one dollar bills is one ton. Two thousand two hundred pounds. We didn't even accept them. Were you the one that introduced Barry Seal to Pablo Escobar? No. I didn't introduce him at all. I he and I our deal was that you don't meet my people

I mean we just kind of crossed you worked it for me to fly the airplanes So he wanted these Panther conversions cost $400,000 each with the dorm scoop and radar I'm holding the thing he won't what's that mean? Sorry to interrupt Panther conversions Panther conversion was a these people called Panther They took everything out from the firewall and instruments and all and converted them and put Q-Tip propellers on them, full-bladed. And you, very quiet in the CIA, developed those in Southeast Asia for running behind the lines. And that's where Barry had flown the new thing. So he knew about them. So, hey, that's what he wanted and that's what we got him.

How does that connect to Pablo and so he went for you and you got those upgrades? I think he flew about 30 loads for me and then I got arrested and was about everything in the world. I got 35 years, then I just went and let me back up a little bit. Barry was our friend, was our friend, Marie and I both friend. We should pause real quick and say, Marie is your wife and we'll hopefully she'll we'll convince her to join us in a little bit. She's the love of your life and sort of she weaves in and out of many of these stories that you tell. Yes, she was there, she was behind the scenes,

but I kept her out of it completely. And then I'll see you mentioned Maryam as a your daughter. Yes. Rhett, our son was a baby. And I remember we went out to LaFestival. It was my favorite restaurant in Carl Gables. Oh God, it was good. And Barry knew about it. Anyhow, we went out to dinner. So we came back and there was no rooms. So, very well, we went in the night with us. So he goes to our hotel room with us and we got two big beds in the Omni hotel. And he lays over there and gets down to his striped undershorts and he's shirt and he

puts a baby up on his belly and gives him the bottle and says, that's good red, oh my mind. He just leaves the baby. We laugh and talk. That's how close we were, that we could always stay in a hotel room together. And we just say he's a good man. Oh, wonderful man. A gentleman, a Southern gentleman.

Just looked after his mother, his family, everybody around him, everybody loved Barry. He just had a little smile on his face always. So you got arrested, and then what happened in Berry? Well, Berry knew the people that unloaded. Of course, he sent the cars down all that. So he met the unloader guy named Lito, Lewis Carlos Bustamonte of Venice, Wailing,

and so he's just kept on flying. But he, I believe you had three of my airplanes at $400,000 a piece and they owe me some money. Well, he collected a lot of that and gave him all the money and put it in his safe and took her to his house and all that. I got a rest and sent a lawyer in. He got me the best lawyer in the country. Albert Krieger. He was the head of the Defense team for all America. Wonderful man. Can you tell the story of the months that led up to Barry's assassination? What did you know?

What did you sense? What did you think? Okay, when I got our prison, I hadn't been out long. I was watching, eating breakfast and there was Ronald Reagan's face right in the television. We have absolute proof that the communist send an East to government is in the cocaine running business. And there was that fat lady, the C-126 on the runway, would belly-dean and I thought, oh,

God, he had done it. So I had heard that Barry might have been working with him. So what mom working with the DEA, whoever he is, he was no longer on our side, you know. So can you clarify how you got that from the Reagan making a statement about we've heard? Okay, there was his plane. There was Barry's plane. And okay, on the way north, we could stop in Nicaragua and land on a military base,

are on a base that they used as crop dusters and all and refuel. And some of that short now trip would go further into the jungle and come up. And that was what Pablo Escobar and Ocho and Emma, they had to, they was associates with the people in Nicaragua. So, if that plane was there, that means Barry was feeding the DA information. He was working with him at that time. But let me back up a little bit. When I was flying and I told Barry, we would refuel train airplanes, the loads and police, where I had a spot up there. And then that's when they told me we can refuel in and Nicaragua and then you fly all the way in,

Barry couldn't believe it. He says, all right, but I wanted to land. I had a place in Louisiana for $10,000 that I could land unloading the sheriff and all of them was paid off. And he said, no, no, no. I can't get caught in me in Arkansas. I said, what do you mean. I can't get caught in mean Arkansas. I said, what do you mean?

You can't get caught in mean Arkansas. You get caught anywhere. He said, I can't. If it can't, but it's gonna cost you $50,000 every time I wheel touch the ground. Why can you explain why he can't get caught in Arkansas? He was hooked up with him at the very top and he even said, I'm gonna have dinner with the governor tonight.

That's at that time. Meena, Arkansas. Mr. Bill Clinton, undoubtedly. And it's like, did Bill Clinton, did you give me any money? And I said, no, I never did the man any money. But it was like the money that I had that went to Grand Cayman Islands,

and I told my lawyer, I said, I never touched that money. He said, you don't have to fond of it to be guilty. So there's a lot of conspiracy theories around the relationship between Paris and the Clinton. Absolutely. What evidence do we have? What would you say from your best understanding of what was the relationship between Bill Clinton and Barry still Barry said and he knew that he couldn't get Colton mean Arkansas And when that movie was gonna come out be called Mina Somebody stopped it. I mean they stopped it dead in the tracks for two or three years and the producer even quit

You mean the American maid with Tom Cruise movie it wasn't it was be called Mina. It's the name it was written and produced in Mina. And wait, wait, no one he'll read to be elected. They, they would not send that movie out. And that movie was changed drastically. But to push back on that, that doesn't mean there's truth there. That means they were worried about the power of the conspiracy theory which stuck exactly I mean some conspiracy theories just because they're popular doesn't mean they're true and ones that but it also doesn't mean they're not true and there's ones that are not very popular that could be true but that one that one really stuck. Do you, I mean, what's your sense? Well, I paid one and a half million dollars

for Barry to land at mean Arkansas. So I was pretty well assured that he couldn't get caught. And I said, well, I can't get caught in Columbia. We can't get caught in Nicaragua. I guess we got a license. So we went for it. Also, when you say I can't get caught just to clarify it, there's a there's a sense where this is a safe place to land. Yes, like completely safe. So you

don't think he was referring to some kind of, um, you know, like my grandfather who fought a World War II will talk about bullets can't hit him. So it's almost like a believing... He could have taken that $50,000 and given it to somebody. To somebody. And now Barry was honest, so he wasn't just taking it from me because he was making a million dollars. He didn't care for the $50,000.

Ah man, taking the story forward, the month leading up to his assassination. What do you understand? Why he was assassinated? Who were the players involved? Maybe could you have stopped it? Well, after I saw Reagan's face on the television, saying we have the absolute proof, the phone rang and it would bury. I hadn't heard from him in a couple years. He said,

I'm coming out tonight Roger. And oh boy. So he came out and he said, I'll meet you in this print's restaurant, I don't even know what in Santa Barbara. And I walked in, there's about 20 or 30 people in there. And there's all 30, 40 years old. Women would play the skirts and me and the blue jeans. And I looked around and Barry was at the back. He was leaned up me, gain weight. And I walked up my said, Barry, you wired. He said, no. I said, well, I'm not going to talk of these DE agents.

He said, every one of them. So I was jeans and skirts. I like it. I said, well, Barry, I almost said she, and you just talked to me, buddy, and tell me what's on your mind. And you sit there and he just went to talk, and then he told me about, he left, holding the bag. And it, what do you mean by that? Like, that nobody's supported him. No, I don't know. He. No, I don't mean that.

I'll send another. He was, and I don't know this. I mean, this is just what happened, putting it all together, that he had some CIA buddies that was pretending we go into supply all over Northwood arms. And with that, you can land cocaine back here by the time.

So, he's taking his little planes and putting some AK-47s and maybe ammunition or whatever and takes it down to the conscious against the communist party of Nicaragua where we've been landed and all of a north was involved in this. So when all that and so his CIA, but it was certainly involved, we know they were. And Barry had been in the CIA earlier when he first got out of school. So as I say, to shit hit the fan, they all fled and left Barry holding the bag, the CIA and the DA. Yeah.

And another DA, the CIA, the DA wasn't in, not the DEA, the CIA, the DEA wasn't in, the CIA was still in that cocaine, bringing it in. And just to clarify, what's Iran contrast scandal? What was the alleged involvement of the CIA in using drug trade to fund things? What do you know? What do you think is things. What do you know? What do you think is true? What should we know?

Well, I know what I know is true that Barry was taking a small amount of arms back to Central America and giving them to whoever all of a North group were. Who is all of a North was a colonel that got implemented and almost brought the government down. And so they said, all right, we're getting the guns from Iran. And we're taking cocaine to pay for. And since Congress won't give us money to fight this war, we're going to circumvent

it. So that was that was a whole thing. So it was a CIA's effort to circumvent the funding mechanisms of government by selling drugs. Yes, but it was a handful of renegade CIA agents. There were barrage friends that was making a load, load of money. Tons of it come up. If you would like to read the book, the big white lie, the CIA in the crack cocaine epidemic. The CIA put, according to this, the book and Michael Lavigne, I didn't remember his name last time I talked, wrote that book, and he was a head CIA agent, he was a head DEA agent that exposes, and the CIA tried to kill him. He says they put crack cocaine, they developed their chemist to develop crack.

And they put it in every city in the United States on one weekend. So they were bringing it up by the tones, and that's for sure. And Barry was bringing it. Okay, Casca, a small tangent question. Do you think the public should trust the CIA and the DEA? Do you think they're mostly good people

that are carrying out a good mission? Because this kind of makes it sound like there's renegade agents that are just doing whatever the hell they want and with sometimes no regard for human life. Well, that's certainly true, but that's not everybody in there. That's just sometimes you get a few policemen in the department that do these things. I

don't believe I believe that our government is is good. I think we've got some fools running it. I don't know how we get them there, but I don't think I know. Okay, so what was Barry's involvement here? So Barry Leene back in that chair and he told me that you know he got caught with one and a half tons and he belleted in the runway in Nicaragua and had cameras flashing inside and out and he flew it back to homestead with an agent there and he brought the agent over Jake Jake Jacobson, a really nice fellow. I think he was a crop duster. And we had got along who had been on the right side.

And so we set to end drink, she had this regal until I got pie-eyed and Barry told me about it. He said that he went to see Edwin Mees. He got out on bail and he flew his lear jet up to Washington and went in to see the attorney general Edwin Mies and they run him out of the office. The next day he went back and said, I have absolute proof that the CIA is bringing tons of cocaine, or they're running sons of cocaine into the United States.

Ed would Mies put him with this agent, Jacob Sonner, I believe it was. They went down and got one and a half tons. On the way back, they belleted in and Pablo Escobar and some of the other ones on general there in Nicaragua. You can see them, toaten it from one plane to the other and the book called, the big, no kings of cocaine. It's got a mention of me too. And also the other one has a mention of me in it.

So I'm in more files for the DEA than Noriega. So, who was wanted to get rid of Barry? Is that who wanted to get rid of Barry more? The cartels or the CIA, the cartel. But, so Barry leaned back in, and he told me the story. And the tears came down between his fingers and his hands over his eyes. And he said, I actually couldn't do it Roger. I just couldn't do three life sentences.

So I've told him everything. I went to Congress and I've testified before Congress. And he testified before Congress for all these things that he'd done. And he said, I told him all about you. But you're under my umbrella. You got to testify with me before a grand jury in Miami. And so the guy said, you can come down, the, the agent said, you can come down tomorrow with Mari. First class

are, I'll take you down and change. And if you don't testify with Barry, the only place you'll ever see your wife and family again is in a federal prison visiting room. Was that a difficult conversation? Oh, looking under my eyes, my gut was just like ice water. I can't testify against my friends. I just can't do it. How am I going to do it? I just, I can't work with people and they was honest with me. How am I going to testify against them?

I can't spend the rest of my life in a federal prison. What on earth, what a mess Barry, you've got me into. So, is that a kind of betrayal there? Yes, but it still, I wish you left me out of it. I understand him getting in such a mess that he told, because if the CIA and whoever else was buying him betrayed him, then he's going to tell everything. So I says, all right, I'll be in Miami. Tomorrow night I flew down first class. And I went to a lawyer, one of the biggest lawyers in Miami. And I said, man, I am in a mess.

This fellow has told everything. And I've got to say something. But I'm not a snitch, man. I mean, I can't help it. What can I do? And he said, well, being a snitch is like being pregnant. You either are or you're not. And he says, I don't represent snitches, but if you want to fight this case, I'll deal for $600,000. And boy, my face turned red. Well, I'm not a snitch. He said, well,

that's what you're talking about. And he said, let me tell you something. If you go in there and say one thing and sign that paper and you don't tell them everything you know, then they will convict you of everything you've ever done and you tell them. So you can't do it. So I said, Barry, I'm having trouble with a lawyer. Give it, I'll go to Mars. I said, all right, use my lawyer. He gave me his cards, the lawyer's card.

So, Murray and I went to the, the festival restaurant that night, and Barion Debi came in, she would dress pretty, and Barion wasn't, so we's already about finished, so we had dessert together, and I said, Barion, they're going to kill you, friend. He said, no, they're going to kill me, so and so, such and such is going, and this and the other, I said, Barion, they're going to kill you, man, they know you can't deny it. And I said, I didn't tell him I wasn't going to testify. So I hugged his neck. I really like, and we fled to Brazil.

But I took Mari and the children went to Brazil. He decided there, you're not going to stop. On you, I just know I wasn't going to stop. I didn't know what I could do. I talked to a lawyer. I mean, I just didn't, I didn't know what I could do. But the best in Miami said, what do you tell me? So I had to go. And you went to Brazil.

We went to Brazil. Did you have a conversation with anybody at the cartel? I mean, that's such an interesting moment that tests the man's character to not snitch. And did you have a conversation with anybody? Pablo was about it like, so it's just understood. and did you have a conversation with anybody? No. Pablo with about it like. So it's just understood. I just didn't do it.

But how many men like you are there? Not many. I had all my friends testify against me. I had 11 friends and everyone I put to finger up, Roger did it. Now I was facing life, continuing to my enterprise. You're still you couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it. Jera get respect from the cartels for that, from the people from the cartel.

The whole time I got back and stuff. They owe me money and I can't get it. So, that's about money. I just mean about human beings. Oh, I think so. I'll be back down there and I've been welcome. I have my contact. And when I was in Brazil, I was trying to get this money. They owe me three and a've been welcome. I have my contact and when I was in Brazil,

I was trying to get this money, they owe me three and a half million dollars. So I called up there and he was gonna pay me. Oh, I got 600,000 today and I'll get you some more tomorrow. And then the next week I called, hey, hey, got great news, great news. Barry Seale's been killed. So, oh no, and I went back to the hotel.

We was up in northern part of Brazil. And where was it, buddy? I went quite a job. Yeah, and so I went back and I told Maureen Miriam and they cried, not cried. I really cried. How is that great news from the cartel? Oh, well now there's no case against me and him and them.

Do you know who killed them? Yes, I tell you about that story. On the first load I did, I landed in a banana plantation and it was raining and it was a muddy strip clay and they put the 300 kilos of cocaine in there and the ugliest man you could imagine, named Ronaldo got in there with a Mac 10 and he was making sure I took it to Louisiana.

So this is many years before? Yeah, a couple of years before. So, anyway, we took off and the mud got up in the wheel well, so thick until the wheels wouldn't come up. Well, I'm going 200 miles an hour instead of 300 miles an hour while the wheel's coming down. Well, I can't go back there. If I do, I'm being the same situation

till the sun dries it out in a few days. And so, but in police, I had a runway that we'd been used for $10,000 used to refuel. So, I told the guy, listen, we got to land in police to refuel, no, no, no, he put the Mac 10, and I'll shoot you. Go ahead, fool, you're gonna die too. So, who's in the turf? So, he wasn't just ugly, he put the Mac Tim and I'll shoot you. Go ahead, fool. You're going to die too. So he was in a turf.

He wasn't just ugly. He was also a bad killer. So he's the one to actually kill Barry. They went up on the first load with me. And now, though, when he's in doing life, he's just a killer. Yeah. He's doing life in Louisiana. I wonder who is it known who made that decision? The younger Ochoa brother, I understand five you,

which wasn't paid for the hit. I don't know that, but that's what I've heard. And it probably sounds about right. He's done in Jessup, Georgia, doing a long, long time. I think he's about to get out. He's been in 30 years or whatever. The movie American made, what do you think that movie got right? What did he get wrong? Almost everything wrong. It was disgustingly wrong. Okay. Which parts? Well, you made a lot of very, very seal, and it just didn't even, it was nothing.

Whoever wrote it had no idea who very seal was. They sent an Arock and Cher and just tried to think of what was some baby-bashing drug dealer doing. Yeah. And just like, God, you just don't have any idea of the spirit of the man. So they wanted us to try to tell a fun story without actually studying the story. They didn't know him, they just had no idea. And Barry was such a nice person, such a really nice gentleman person.

They talked to you? No. No, the people that made the money. And I see all these people telling them about By Bear and Never Meeting. They tell them all about it. I think that's just ridiculous. Yeah. And that for one thing, the voice character coming out of our houses and all that, that was just like ugly. And then down in Columbia, putting a gun to his head, you're going to take his sunglasses and then put $25,000,000 worth of cocaine on his plane. And then they're going bet $100,000,

he don't have enough room to take off. That's just insane. I mean, just, it was the whole thing. And then he's talking to the DEA agents when he's coming up, you don't know what, frequency of the own, how he's got five planes in the old split when the DEA comes out. These are just somebody just

Fantasy, but those are like those are details of the man details of the story. Is there some big profound Things they missed about just this whole period about that something that's really important to you that was missed Yes, they just try to that was missed. Yes, they just tried to sensationalize on little things that people remember, and it's just not true. It was just like a business deal and good people and good airplanes

and good flying. It was like a good watch that was made. It just clicked and it just went on and they missed all that. They tried to make it sound like it's something very ugly. Do you think it was a story that could have been told way better and it still be a hell of a good story? Well, there's a series called Chernobyl done by HBO and because I have sort of family connected to that period. You know, they did an incredible job of being historically accurate and only not being historically accurate

when it helped the story, only in those rare cases. When they unpurpose left the story to make it easier for people to understand, but it was still somehow accurate. And even though all the actors were British actors speaking English with a British accent, it was still somehow accurate. And even though all the actors were British actors speaking English with the British accent, it was still somehow accurate. Like they captured the spirit. So historically accurate and the spirit was captured. That was one of the most incredible like series I've ever seen. It convinced me that the movie was made by non-Russians. It convinced me that if you really care about a story,

you don't have to have been brought up in it. You don't even need to speak the language. If you're truly a scholar of it, if you talk to a lot of people, if you learn, if you just pour your heart and soul into it, you can create something really special. And so your sense is you could do that with the story with this period of time.

Oh yes, it was a story that needs to be told, it need to be told in the correct way, not like we're trying to bash a certain angle. Yeah. Well, if Netflix or HBO are watching this, you need to tell the story of Roger Rees, in my opinion, there you go. This is a young picture of you Young Picture, there you go.

That's from National Geographic. Jorge Archoa, Pablo Escobar, it's you Roger and Barry. Yeah. Smuggler, a memoir. Yeah, I really do hope they make a movie of this one. There's a movie called Blow. That tells the story of George Young, Boston George. Did you

know George Young? That's one way to ask it. The other is, what do you think of the movie Blow? I didn't know George Young, but it was a wonderful movie. Absolutely. It captured it. It did. Yes, it did. That's the way it should be. So he was a little bit before your time. Exactly the same time. Exactly the same. He was using stewardesses to fly the marijuana out of Manhattan Beach. And I was on the fire department in Redondo Beach 10 miles away, flying it up, sending it back. Somebody was sending it back.

He might have been sending it back. But he didn't have near the excitement that I did. I was shot down twice. I escaped from five different prisons. I tortured almost a death in the Mexican prison. So he didn't have all that fun that I had. Funding quotes. Yeah, so yours is a heck of a fun adventure. I just did linger on a little bit.

So Johnny Depp plays George and Ray Leoto plays his father. And there's this son father kind of seen at the end. I don't know. It's heartbreaking. Like that scene paints a picture of a life that could have been had if none of this wild drug smuggling happened. I don't usually, I mean, I don't, I'm almost, I really never get, like, teary eyed in a movie, but that got me. It's almost like confronting at the end of your life, what your life could have been with your father the way you cause them Georgie It Like you fucked up Georgie. Yes, I did too. I really really did Mario waited for me all those years and the children raised him without me

Bison me in prison's all over the world. It's unbelievable. It's just nothing's worth that kind of money. Yeah It's unbelievable. Nothing's worth that kind of money. Yeah. Can you tell the story of when you were tortured, nearly to death in the Mexican prison? I sure can, and I'm smiling, but it was nothing to smile at that time. I tell you, I was in a pool, and a gentleman came over and shook hands with me and put hand cuff on me. Now, what in the world? That was not one of the nice hotels. They put me in a jail cell and I sat there and all the trunks and the thieves and stuff kept

coming in and they had a bucket, knit over run. And I said, remember, they're 18 people in a room about 12 foot square. Oh, it was hot and I thought, somebody got to come get me. This thing real. I hadn't done anything. It's like it was a pilot come to see me up in Hermesillo and he stopped and he made a mistake and went to the International Run Winstead where he was supposed to go. And he had my phony name in his pocket so they got me. So they said, I was a drug smoker. So after about three days, they got me. So they said I was a drugs mover. So after about three days they put me back into the back and it was a torture place. And they put me in a little cell like I guess it wasn't hard. It wasn't six feet, it must have been about five feet

squared and about 12 feet high. And it was June, in the June and it was hot. I mean hot. And they left me in there for, I guess a few days, you didn't know it. So everyone's while they come drag me out and first off they put my head underwater and it had celture in it or some kind. And I took one whiff of that and three or four I'm couldn't hold me down. So then I learned it just before you have to breathe tear loose like that and they'll let you up. And that was the first treatment. And then they started to beat me. And they beat me like Jack and Rubber Hoos until I was black and blue and yellow from the bottom of my feet to my head. What did they want? They wanted to sign me to sign a confession that I was a drug smoker. And they put the papers under your nose,

this is all over a few signs. Well, I knew if you signed, you got six years. I wasn't a sign. I was one of the signs. So they didn't want you to snitch on anybody. It's not like they just want me to sign that paper. And you still didn't. Yeah, about to.

Yeah. I ain't beatin' ain't that bad. So. Ha ha ha. So anyhow, he's got me into the good parts. So then they come and they take me out and I'm bug naked and they bend me over and they have things to pull you, like change it, click, click, click, click, click, and they bend me over and they put butter on my bump and they commence to put hot chili pepper up there and that stuff was bad.

I mean, it was real hot. And that was awful. And still. And just awful. Yeah, but still you didn't. I think about it. I think about it. I guess if I had known it's gonna kill me,

I wouldn't have done it, but I wouldn't about, you get hurt bad enough you pass out. but I wasn't about to, you get hurt bad enough you'll pass out, so I didn't pass out, so I was all right. So then the last thing they did was they brought a dead man in there and he was wrapped, he was frozen and he was wrapped in newspaper, little strips about a half inch wide, just like a mummy and he was frozen and they hung him on the wall with a meat hook. And you neck son of a bitch, you necked. And so he's sitting there like this.

And as he starts to fall out, which is pretty quick, it looks like he's crying. And it looks like he's peeing. And the papers start unraveling on him. And the formaldehyde puddles on the floor. Who would have smelled that rotten inside and the formaldehyde puddles on the floor, who would have smelled that rotten inside and the formaldehyde, and there was a little space, it wasn't even a half inch high under the door, and I lay on that filthy floor with my cheek and put my lips right up under that door and

was sucking that fresh air, and I went to sleep at some time, and I knew where Walt Disney gets his ideas. I saw white pink, pigs were wings on them all kind of stuff like that. So when I woke up, I didn't know which was real and which was the nightmare. It took me a minute to figure out where I was and what was going on. How did you stay mentally strong through that time?

Like what? I don't know that I did. I was, yeah, I was mentally strong. So I was just like I am now stubborn. I mean, you could be that man. They could have killed you. Yeah. So, so what gave you hope? Did you have hope? Yeah. You're just a stubborn side of a bitch. I think some of both of it. And I think they aren't going to keep you here forever. Yeah. You know, you're going to get out into the prison or they're going to let you go or something and if you sign that paper you ain't going nowhere and I want to go home. I'd got shot down a few weeks before that. I got shot from my disguise, 80 bullets all through the plane, killed a fellow on the ground,

shot the leg nearly off the man in that little place of peachy lingo. And then a shooting from the girl, yeah, yeah. All right, a little 900 foot strip there. Peachy lingo, poor village with starving donkeys. That's where they had given $17,000 for load. And I'd go from highway and load. Well, on day 13, I did a load every day for 13 days. They had a bunch of marijuana, pretty good pile up. I was going load a day.

And on day 13, I had that little warning sign going off in my stomach. Uh-oh, don't do it. But I asked this walk-in, oh, we had the federalist paid off no worry, so I spent the night. And I hammock and I walked down to the airplane just as it didn't daylight. And 10 or 12 men walked with me and Pedro got in. I brushed my teeth in the little stream was about foot deep, little river coming through there. Got near a plane and I fired her up, bam, blah, blah, and bam, I thought it tore her blue out.

I looked over and she said, and still ain't don't own me. And Pedro was yelling, please see her, please see her, right there, please see her. Well, it don't own me. And Pedro is yelling, please see him, please see him, right there, please see him. They don't own me. And I shoved it, the throttle to the firewall.

And I only had, so that was a bullet. Yeah, somebody, there's off the side, say shot, they shot just a warning, like get out, stop. We're gonna rob you. Whatever it is. That's what they do.

They're just taking the plane and me and putting me in prison, old things, but I even though I had papers. So I just shoved it a fireball, and they wasn't enough room to take off on that strip. And half of it was behind me, or some of it was behind me. And so just at the end, I think that thing

stalled at about 50 miles. Now I was just turning 50 and I just pulled it right up and put the flaps on. And as I pulled off the ground They opened up on both sides of me when machine guns and they were real that airplane. I mean the windshield came out I got hit three times you like your body. Yeah, and Where I didn't know I was hit. I mean it was just the

Gasoline just pouring it the world turned yellow. I mean it was just the gasoline. The gasoline just pouring it. The world turned yellow. I must have went into shock. So it just stopped in slow motion. And one bullet hit the strut right by my head. And it just parts of that bullet just went all over me. I just looked like I'd been peppered, which would lead. And the gasoline would just pour in it. I mean, just pouring them where they'd shut the wing up above and when she was gone, I mean, I didn't, I didn't, but I don't have any of them,

it's just like a hail storm. So I was airplane's the stall or no. It was in a stall anyway. And I didn't realize it. And I guess you wouldn't unless you trained for it. But when you in a stall, the elevator is kind of flappy. And unless you trained for it. But when you install the elevator, it's kind of flappy. And I didn't realize that the time I thought they had shot

the elevator cable into. So I thought, oh, God. So I just reached over and switched it off, switched it off, pulled the mixture, pulled everything. And in the river, there was rocks about as big as this table. And they were like the turtle back all the way up until there was a waterfall. There was quite a pretty place. I crashed straight on to it. I thought if I hit those rocks

and when I did the first time I hit the wings came off and then it bounced and the next time the nose came on and came under the plane and I'm sitting there I must have been knocked unconscious. Coupadre was shaking me, come on Roger, come on Roger. So I stepped out into the water and here comes these full federality steel shootin' at us and I bullied the two hit the airplane and I kept a nine millimeter browning high power taped to the top of the radio. In case I ever needed it. I needed it.

So because you did one of those times and didn't want it in the airplane. So I just, it was just handy, just laying there. So I took and popped a few caps at them and they ran into the rocks. So we took off up the off-running and then I looked and Pedro's foot nearly shot off. They shot him on one side of the ankle and it just blown out the other side and it wasn't even hard to bleed and it shocked of it. So I took my t-shirt off and gripped it and tied it best I could.

Yeah, it still bullets in you. So like you could still run. I shot the top of my toenail off. I shot a chop across my head and my kneecap. I was just nicked. Okay. But it was very painful later on. But right that time, it was just hot. There's a bullet stealing my foot from it,

a piece of a bullet, good-sized slug. So we went on up the mountain through the cactus and just running, Just going, I want to go down. No, no, they don't. Federalists are going this the easy way. Let's go this young fellow. And we came to an old donkey. She must have been 30 years old long and way back, long hair owner, charlotte, charlotte, and he pitted the donkey and we jumped on. And we rode for seven actual donkey, donkey. They would donkey is all all over the place any I knew that was from the village and so we rode seven miles two of us on a donkey with no bride no saddle nothing and we came to a little man plow a little horse and a little ox they both

um spotted there's the ox was the yoke was across her back this way and he's plow with a little plow amongst dumps it was like one of these people clearing a little piece of land and he had a little house there. And so he went into his house and his wife and his daughter, they put cloth over my wounds and on Pedro's it was terrible. And they put diesel all on it, keep the flies off. So I'm covered in diesel. So the man left and he was going all day and then about dark. He showed up in about 15 or 20 horses and mules showed up in the yard walking fast. And a doctor got out. He

said, I'm Dr. Benjamin Soso with Red Cross and he worked on my foot and he worked on Pedro. He gave us a shot of morphine and tetanus shots and he said, you got to get to hospital. He said, Pedro would die if he don't get to hospital. He said, they're looking for American pilots, been shot down. They think he's dead. There was a lot of blood in that airplane. And so they rode, I don't know how far we rode, but we rode miles. And we'd come to a road and there was a big truck. And it was loaded with corn and the ear.

And they dug holes in that corn, put us in it, and cover us up. And the road was rough, and every time we'd hit a dirt road, that corn would cover me up, and they'd scratch my face out again. And when it came to the highway, we went into a house, and they got me some clothes, and mine was messed up. And I wiped basin, and they must have brought 20 jugs of water different times. I kept washing and washing my foot,

to all the blood and the crud got off of me and put on those clothes. And somebody went to, they said, you can't go north of Rhodes Block, they looking for the pilot. So you gotta go south. So they found a taxi in Mozzet Line. And it was a rather new taxi

and the fellow would take me to Guadalajara, which was, I don't know, 78 hours south. So we got that taxi and they brought me up with sheets and blankets and pillows in the back seat and give me these great big white paint pills and I was quite content. Then I was shot down and shot down in Columbia also. What can you tell that story? I sure can. All right, I was, I went down for Lutum, Lutum, marijuana. And we got to the place and we got there too early. And the gorillas scream, you gotta get out of here,

you gotta get out of here. And so we went back to the place where we staged from and refueled out a beautiful DC-3, carry three tons. And so while I was waiting, I, uh, beautiful DC-3, carry three tons. So while I was waiting, I ate something for lunch, and I went around behind the house, we refueled a plane up, I had to wait to late, and they wanted me to come just at dark, so the military planes couldn't see me on their strip.

So I'm leaning to hammock asleep, and I hear this terrible roar. And I looked right up through the trees and at the end of two military jets going straight up. And they do a dive over and it came back down the strip in front of that airplane and they just carried up with 50 caliber machine guns. They just showin' out. So I run for the airplane.

I just give that guy $80,000 and he ran for the truck and all the rest of them ran for the truck. I should have ran with my money, but I didn't, I ran for the airplane. And the copilot got in and the name was Al. He got in with me and two fellas got in the back. We had drums of fuel in there to refuel when we got down to the gorillas.

So we took off. And I couldn't get the gear up because I'd taken off in such a hurry these pins in the struts of a DC3 and with big flags on them and you have to take them up so that the plant plane won't come up. So these jets swarmed on me

and they tried to get me to go. They kept telling me which way to go. And the pilot would be just as close as just right over there. I could see him. I just sailed up the old hippie piece. I didn't think they would shoot. I really didn't.

It had nobody had shot before. So I kept flying out and I kept getting slower and slower and they kept slowing down, down, down, and the black smoke rolling. And then they started shooting up under me, boom, boom, boom, with them 20-millimeter counts. And then the tracer just going up, they look like the curving up from me. And I woo, and I pushed the nose over so they couldn't get under me.

And later on, I heard they thought I tried to ram them. So, one of them went for fuel and I kept on going and the one just tore the left wing, winged, came up with a 50 caliber. And then he'd come back again and and shut tail up. He's warning me and I tell the fellow and I says you know if you bring me enough water I believe I can fly this thing my mouth got quite dry. So I went on and I landed on a big pasture and It was huge pasture and it was rough and it looked and the wings just flapped and I come to a stock and jumped out and pull those tabs out through them on the ground.

It was like a year up. And I understand that during the 1980 World Series baseball game, it was said, American DC III has just been shut down by American jets, by Columbia and Jets. You know, it's the first plane shut down on Reagan's new war on drugs. But he's up. He's up in a way, ladies and gentlemen, we keep you posted. So I took off again, and I went into a thunderstorm and they came close to the mountains. So I spiraled up, and every time I come out that jet was there, boom, boom, boom. And I, I dove back into that storm, boom, boom, boom, and there, and at 20,000 feet feet I started icing up. So I went out one last time

and he was right there waiting to get me on the radar. So I went back in and I kicked it over and put it into a spin and went straight down to 2,000 feet and come out under it and I was flying along the Gua Vierre River and there was a 20 feet above the water. It looked like a pasture. It was just grass. And I made several runs to tear the grass down and it looked like it felt hard. That'll DC three waist 30,000 pounds. And I put it down on the fifth run. I said, all right, we're gonna land now. And as I was... So you flew like close, oh, so...

I put the wheels down. Oh, you put the wheels down without landmiles. And just, so I'm making my way down. So, so you okay. So you're you're you're being tracked by a jet. He's trying to show what before that. I'm just like retelling the story how insane it is. So he's he's trying to shoot you down.

And there's a thunderstorm that you're escaping into. And then you do a spin down to what 2000 feet, whatever you said, like somehow escaping all of this, and then you try to land on a pasture, and a giant heavy plane that carries three tons by touching down five or six times to make a landing strip for yourself. Yeah, the grass is three or four feet. Okay. So it looked really good after a few times.

So then just before it stopped, I said, I'll take your feet off the brakes. He said, I don't have my feet on the brakes. Well, I knew I had broken through the crust. Nice. And I put full power on, but it didn't. That'll be plain just come on down and it just did a head. Is it came to stop? just did a head, is it

came to a stop, it did a headstand, 90 degrees to the ground. And the engines held it up and the nose and all just crushed in right on it. We fell between the two seats to keep from getting killed. And when it come to a stop, all that fuel was pouring out on those hot engines and there's a scape hatch at the top. I just stepped out to my suitcase with me. Did it uh was there fire? No fire. The plane left the plane there and the two guys it was in the back when I broke your thumb and there was with the barrels and they had to put a hose, tie gas hose together to shimmy down to get out. Yeah. So that's an incredible story. Well let me just tell you they had a little bit more to it.

I learned to fly with the idea of being a missionary aviation fellowship pilot. Fly the missionaries in and out of the jungle. Well I went 11 days through that jungle. The rest of them went on down the road and got into prison. I said, I'll crawl on my belly six months in year or a year, eating snakes for what I'm going down the road. So I went in there and I was 11 days in the jungle. And I finally came to a place and it had airplanes.

I kept asking the Indian, don't just die of the owns. I want to steal an airplane and get out of there. And when I came to the place, I asked, what is this place, lovely place? It looked like Honolulu and War War II. It was a runway there, said, you don't know. This is Lomolinda headquarters for Missionary Aviation Fellowship for the Amazon, and they flew me out. You escaped from prison five times?

So what stands out to you is the most difficult or miraculous escape in the bunch. The most black miraculous was when I was in the courtroom in Spain, I think I was on the third floor of real high and I ran across the courtroom, handcuffed, kicked the window out and I looked down and it was above the palm trees. I thought they might be a power line or something I could grab on as I went down.

They was nothing and they was a car parked, a station wagon on the, just jumped out. I jumped out from 31 feet on top of that car. And it exploded in the street. The windshield went over three or four cars. It looked like snow going up. And I looked like Donald Duck with the thing.

And handcuffs and I got out. And it's kept running. Yeah, it kept running. They ran me down doing, hit me in the back. I still got a dead spot. My back where the policeman hit me with a shotgun and they brought me back. Murray was there. They was saying, your husband is crazy. That was spectacular, but I escaped from Loubec, maximum security prison. And I cut out of there and got out. That was a miraculous escape.

And I was aware and Loubec, Germany. What was that? Escape like I was airing out. There was going to extra-dot me back to the United States where I still had all these charges and 25-year special parole. And I was cleaning the lawyer's vesting room. And only it was bars that look like a piano note, sir, this way to make it pretty. But there was a little bit, so I got a route from a guy where they made boaks in there. And I had 20 minutes. So I went in there and I wrapped it around and I put a broom handle in it.

It was cut off and wrapped it around until the pooled the bars together on that side. And then I pulled them together on the other side. But that only put me inside the prison yard where the soccer equipment was kept. But they were putting new windows on one side of the prison and they had to scaffold up to the forest floor. So there was a little recess there and there was guard towers ever, 100 feet or so. I mean they would shoot and kill you. So I got behind that and climbed up, holding to the bricks on one end and the scaffolding on the other and went to the roof

I lost my shirt and most of my clothes going through the window. I got older skin off of me I thought it was gonna die and I was trying to go sideways like this and finally I got a grip and the bars Let me through and took all the skin off of me So I got up on that roof and I have asthma and I just lay there trying to catch my breath. Didn't bring manhaler So with blood everywhere. Oh, I would bloody yes. So I got down to the end and on the end the reason I did it, they were putting a new wall again around the prison to make it larger.

They had taken all the wire off above the Sally port where they could join the two walls together and I saw that when I came up. And there was a guard, a half of like a dome sticking out of that brick building where there's a guard there with a gun and he'd kill you. Now I mean, he was made, they were surely trained to kill you. And we had some bad people in that place. So I lay up a one floor above it and I saw a garden whose wife come with a double umbrella and it was just pouring down the rain. You're having without a shirt on bloody and he had a little boy she had a little boy with him under that double umbrella and I knew him when he come and she started back from the Sally Port. I hit the top of that guard tower

bam with both feet and I jumped I guess it's three more floors, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, bam, bam, bam, bam, behind me and I looked in that full woman, was in a big old car, and she was knocking down the parking meters behind me. She was trying to run over me, and I ran behind a car, and she tore the fender off her car, trying and yelling, y-y-y, yapping at the table. He was looking face at me screaming at me, and the sirens going off in the press,

and there was a fence there, a wall, and I jumped up on it to jump over. And it had glass in bed. And I cut my hands and my arms all up, getting over that. And I hit the ground on the other side. And it was like, it was that muck, muck, where some farmer had dug it. I dug in there and Murray had to sleep me $200 into prison.

And I had that in my shoe and the lopes, my shoes and that muck. Anyway, I got out of there and got to Holland. Really heck of a story I could do death. What was prison like? Whether it's Germany or whether it's Australia. What were some of the darker moments in prison? The United States prisons are awful, awful evil places now.

And just really, there's nothing nice about them. There's the guards, the LA, which is... And everyone out, everyone I went to. It seemed like the further east I went to Oklahoma, and it was nicer, but all of them on the west coast, they was hatred there, and they got really stupid people hired, just incredibly. Oh, hatred by the guards.

And the inmates, like I speak Spanish, and I walked into the Spanish TV room and it was in your know, you can't come in here. And I walked across to the black, hey, good out of here. What boy? It's just like, what? Man, I like all you people, you know? And so I walked down to the white people and said, sure is your paperwork. You can't come in here until you show your paperwork. We don't let snitches and homosexuals and all this sort of stuff in here. So they have, so it's just like, man, I don't want to be in here. I mean, it sounds absurd, but you're saying like that the basic humanity is gone completely,

completely in the guards. It was just like, come here Reeves. And I woke up to him, you get the full gut on my face. He sticks his chin out like for me to break his jaw. Yeah. Like, what in the world, man? I love people. It's just... Yeah, you got this joy to you.

Yeah. You have a joyful nature. And it didn't seem like that broke you. Not a bit. How did you persevere? Did you know I didn't even think I persevere? but I tried to enjoy my life wherever I am every day. I do. I ran every day and like I told you, why do you run so rudder? I said, to help me suffer these foods. And I played a game of chess every day, almost of my life in there. And I read two books a week.

And I talked with people, storytellers, guys would come in and tell us another story, Roger. Give us a four. Tell us more than you never told us before. And so it was just nice. A lot of them have original boys. They did that. They picked their country music and it was all right. Red Morgan Freeman's character in the Shawshank Redemption says the following. These walls are funny. First you hate them, then you get used to them, enough time passes you get, so you depend on them. That's institutionalized. Is there true to that? 100% I didn't see the walls except whenever I was planning on escaping. In Shasha and redemption, he spent so many years in prison that he almost didn't know what to do with themselves,

with himself once he left, once he was a free man. That's the, you get so used to the system, the rituals, having to follow orders, even being treated poorly, all those kinds of things that you become dependent on. Well, down in Australia, I spent the first a little over a year in the shoe. It was like, did you see the movie, the Silence of the Lambs? Thank you, body. And he said, I had five or six guards looking at me with one way mirror. Yeah.

And that's whenever I thought I might never get out, I got a life sentence. I had all this time waiting and hearing Germany. And so they had a computer in there, but they didn't have a program on it. And I wrote, so I just started writing these little stories that still I did in my life. And I wrote one line and I wrote a million words with them looking at me. So after a year they let me out. It wasn't long before they put me in a place called self-care. And particularly I was in what they call the life first pod.

There was 268 men in self-care there and it was unbelievably good that we were left alone basically. They were there., basically they were there, or the guards were certainly there, but they had their shack and we had apartments for apartments to the building. And six men to the unit, with Joan Doherr and a key to it, and a kitchen, dining room, freezer refrigerator,

and they gave us, allowed just $360 a week to buy groceries. And I cooked for about 16 years. And learned to cook good and the people and other people have their specialties. And so that was quite, it wasn't so like being in prison. It was somewhat living with me and it was difficult. Man, I had some good fights and carry on and you don't get along with everybody. But then whenever I came back to the United States, I was laughing and talking. And when I got off the plane and LA, I had three marshals with me from Australia. I was slammed upside the wall. I made hard, put a ankle, a backside and handcuffs and handcuffs so tightly, cut them off, face forward,

face forward, lands apart. Good gracious. And walked me 50 steps and turned me over to the marshals and they took part of that off. That was a border patrol. It was over my marijuana charge from 1977. Yeah. For a miracle.

I did 11 years for parole violation. Now they want me for more violation. And they put me down in Los Angeles. They put me in the marshes, put me in there, and they put me in isolation. I thought, what in the world have got me for isolation for? I don't know anything. How long did you spend in isolation?

More than six months. So after three or four days, How long did you spend in isolation? More than six months. So I After three or four days is the little Judas Windows slide open and a man a nice looking man in the suit come there. Hello Reeves I want to just want to see what you look like. I saw your national geographic documentary And it does me pleasure to keep you in isolation And you slam the thing and I couldn't get out of there and by, the US Pro Commission is spoke to give you a hearing within 90 days. So Murray paid a lawyer, $7,500, and he never picked up the phone.

Somebody got to him. Who's that somebody you think? Christopher Kellin was his name, and I don't know who got to him, but he didn't do anything to get me out of there. I got one 15-minute phone call a month, and I couldn't get out. So then after six months, they shipped me to, put me on car and air, double shackled in black box on my hands, and I went to Oklahoma, and they let me out on the floor. I couldn't imagine. Then I could call after a couple of days

and they said, there was a man here from Washington, give you a parole here and you can only go out here at 3.30. So he left. He said, he'd be back next year. What? I've been in now over six months. So then there was a lovely little lady. She was the case manager, something she said, you can ask for parole on the record. And I said, please do. I said, I sent them an email. And the next day I got my parole. 90 days later, they sent me to terminal, I'll put me in the place there with the info, I guess, and some of my olders, I am 78 years old.

So they put me in the people in their dine and wheelchairs and legs off and arms off and cancer. So I was in there and I pushed the fellas around. They put me in the people in their dine and wheelchairs and legs, all of them arms, all of them can't start. So I was in there and I pushed the fellas around. And I went, I went to Chow hole there and I went to go to the right to get me a haircut and two Mexican guys there, looped in another one. Walked between us and he went like the boop, boop, boop. And I said, I could outrun you.

And they slammed me, put me on the ground, handcuffed me and put me in the shoe for a week. I got out and man, they put me in put me on the ground, hand cuffed me and put me in the shoe for a week. I got out and man, they put me in it back in the place. They treated me rough. So, I got in a little more trouble and they put me back in the shoe and I wouldn't come out. They had that, the virus was out killing people. So they killed eight people in that unit I was in. Oh, awesome. So I mean, I wouldn't even come out to take a shower. I had a little straw that I put in the sink and I'd take a sock that I had and scrub myself with it with some

slute and glass of water over my head and then cleaned it for the world and put it in the toilet. So that was your time during the coronavirus pandemic? I got out last April, right in the middle of it and they were dying. That and there. Coronavirus pandemic. I got out last April right in the middle of it and they were dying bad in there. So I was treated worse for that last year in America than I was for the whole 20 years in Australia, 18 years in Australia. And then you were a free man at the end of that year. They put me out and sent me home and the parole officers couldn't even come. They weren't working. They were just doing everything by video. They'd not have a drink. They couldn't even come. They weren't working. They were just doing everything by video. They said, they don't have a drink.

The only thing was I couldn't even have a drink of wine. So after a year, I had to take psychiatric treatment every week. I had to go talk to the psychiatrist, psychologist. And me and her got along great. She was a good Christian woman. We just chatted and talked. And I think they said, so I had to pee in the bottle every week. I said, I've been in 33 years.

How many pissedest you think I've had? Never been dirty. Only thing if you only want a clean one, you come get me. Before I talk to you about love, let me ask you a difficult question. You write in your book, I don't consider myself much of a criminal. I don't lie, cheat or steal, and I always take up for the underdog. Violence makes me sick. Yet I know I'm an outlaw, and those that break the law must be punished. I think many people listening to this, or some people listening to this, will see you as a criminal, as a bad man, who increased the amount of suffering in this world. What do you have to say to them?

I would like to tell them that they have been indoctrinated by the spin of news and politicians, and they don't know the truth of the situation. You lay the truth out there and an envelope, let me open it. Besides something else that the false, and it's staggering, the truth is that I was a tobacco farmer. And tobacco kills 500,000 people a year in America and six million have a debilitating diseases

because of it. Drugs, all drugs combined, kill between 10 and 15,000 people a year by overdose, and 60% of those are pharmaceutical. Now, then when I was a tobacco farmer, come sit on the front pew, Mr. Reeves. Come on up here, you're a gentleman. You just join the Masonic Lodge, and you're joined our church, and you just come on and sit down with the good people. You grow to marijuana, get out of here, you scumbag and marijuana doesn't hurt anybody. It's just that's the truth of it. And so in your career, you walked amidst violence, but you never participated in the violence.

I didn't even see it. It just didn't happen around me. In prison, it did. I showed people up. They call me Doc. I had dental floss. One time I had to get a blade and try to help keep from my patient from getting again. But I was just like, if I shot at those people,

I shot at them to keep them from killing me. I certainly didn't mean to kill them. So that's just, some people are evil and they will kill you and hurt you a lot of you. I just don't do any of that. It just, it just makes you sick. I've seen it, I was, when I was in the shoe three guys tried to kill the guy and it stabbed him so many times

but they stabbed him, it blakened it. The blood getting out the room, I was just going to kill him. You're going to kill him. And say he was alive, drug him up there with a guard, because he's seeing stuff like that. I'm just not of that nature of those people. They're just evil. There's people born evil, I believe. It is heartbreaking to hear that the basic humanity has gone in prison in the United States. That's heartbreaking because that basic humanity is actually the light at the end of the tunnel. So the thing that saves us as opposed to when it's absent is the thing that destroys us. The prisons are filled. Absolutely filled with people that have some mental problems.

feel with people that have some mental problems. Now, you see Tent City all the way up and down here. I guarantee you every one of those people have mental problems. Some degree, however little it is, but they're a little bit off. Now, then you get a DEA agent that wants to make a name for himself. He goes down there and gets two of them, one of them to sell a little two grams of methamphetamine to the other one, and he gets a conviction. And a young prosecutor, he gets a conviction. He wants to make a judge. And we got to judge, and I'm going to give a million, what is his name, Gilbert? I'm going to give him in a million years before I get off the judge. You get foos like that in charge, you're gonna feel prison's up with pitiful humanity. And those are the ones, and then the other is people

over drugs, and drugs should be a health issue. You cannot police it enough. It's just, they know like the only thing that overdoses is opioids, the heroin. And if they can give it to them, it costs about a dollar a day to give the worst addict his fix. But they'll give it methadone, which is from a pharmaceutical company, which is just as bad. Why in the world?

We tried it all over the world in Portugal and England. And when they give the girls clean up, no more stolen cars. Why? Who wants to keep this forest going? They're just perpetuating it. Like, oh, every little police place is getting all these suits and armor and machine guns. It's just like, oh, it's such a spin. It's sad. Do you think all drugs should be legalized? I don't know about that, but they certainly should be controlled if a person is an addict. He should be able to go down and get his fix.

With somebody there to help him with a clean needle and a glass of orange juice. It's so much cheaper than prison, so much cheaper than him stealing cars or prostitute having to go to work. That's sad. You've lived one heck of a life. Looking back, there's a lot of young people that listen to this high school, college students. What advice would you give them? How to live, how to have a successful career, how to have a good life, how to be a good man or woman. To be a good man or woman, if I had to do over with, I would just tell you what I had done, I would have paid attention and stood in my lesson and did the best I could in school, in school.

Yes, and went as far as I could have. I would have liked to be in a doctor. I just didn't have the stickability or anybody to tell me, hey, go over there and do that. And if you can do that at a very young age, start in a trade, learn to do something. It doesn't matter what it is. If you learn to do something good,

there is a great demand for you. And I would say that in prison, the prison system should come in and you get a thief, young fans of thief, robber. And you say, all right, we need carpenters, we need plumbers, we need electricians, we need sylps, sylps, sylps, sylps to that trade. And when you get an A plus and that, where you can go out and make E $30 or $50 an hour,

you go home. Now you can, you mess around 10 years if you want to or you can do this in two. I think that would, that's just for the prism. But anyway, I would say that they find somebody and be true to them. That we have just be honest and true in your life. You mean like relationships? Relationships? Yes.

I mean, so many, so many people, particularly our children, or from relationships where they not wanted their divorce, they'd fall asleep, they don't know who their dad relationships where they not wanted their divorce. They'd fall as left. They don't know who their dad is. They'd just in foster homes, 500,000 children in foster homes in America today. And we have our government inadvertently as in encouraging those people. My daughter is a doctor and she delivered a couple years ago a baby from a 10-year-old child. That child and she said, in the, in a baby from a 10 year old child. That

child and she said, in the, in the room, is four generations, all among welfare. Now we got one more and it reminds me of Elvis Presley's song Indigesto. So for an individual, learn a trade, become a craftsman, a swordsman, and find somebody to love and who loves you. That's right. Have a family and stick with it. It needs to be surely. You're going to get angry. You're going to get disappointed.

You're going to get all kind of stuff. But come back and make up before you go to sleep. Well, I did half of those things. I got the first one and I and working on the second one. Oh, I appreciate the advice. Well, Mari, thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell me the story of how you do that? Well, my parents every summer would go to the lake in Canada.

And the place was called Turkey Point, which is on Lake Erie. And just have a nice summer holiday there, water skiing, swimming, sunbathing. This is back in the 60s, and I was sitting on the pier with a few girlfriends and telling them my story, and then all of a sudden I looked up and I saw this figure in the distance coming onto the pier.

Now, we're all dressed in bathing suits and swimwear. I saw this figure in the distance coming onto the pier. Now, we're all dressed in bathing suits and swimwear. We're swimming in this, that and the other. And here he comes, dark trousers. In fact, they were black, white shirt and a tie and a straw kind of a Panama hat. And, you know, so he stood out. And so I invited him to come and sit down. And so he continued to talk.

And we just talked and talked and talked. And then later moved to the beach. And I think the next time I saw him, he was talking to another girl and I thought, yep, you know, I know, I was okay. Okay, next. Well, but six months later, I receive a letter. And it's a letter from Roger. And then we start this lovely correspondence and we just start writing. You know, in those days, you just wrote everything. And then the next

summer, he was coming up again. he was on his way to Alaska. And he says, I would like to come by and see you. And I said, well, I'll be in the same place that I met you last year. And so when we, when he came up this time, for some reason, Roger reached for my hand and I reached for his and man, that was it. It was like love at first touch. That was love. It was just like a silence, you know, and oh my gosh. And we didn't even look at each other. It was just, oh my goodness, what happened here? And I was the type of person I never wanted to get married, not way, way, way down the road,

never have any children. And I wanted to see the world first, and then do all that, you know. And um, but that was it. That was love. And you've been together ever since. Yeah. Well, the thing is about the love that the two you have for each other is they had to persevere through quite a heck of a journey. So how did Rogers drug smuggling change the nature of your love and your relationship? Well, Lex, that remains steadfast. It endured.

And since Rogers been home, I think we've rekindled the love that we had when we first met. But I think my faith, my steps fast faith, and also the fact that Roger and I communicated, we wrote letters. He never complained. I know there were the children there. He never had mistreated me. I love this guy. And we had a lot of experiences. It was just he was a good looking charismatic. He's pretty, you know, yeah. And he's a vent he was adventurous, you know, and I would you say that again? But, um, yes, it was just I know I you know, I missed him physically, but he was just, we were just so strong in spirit, you know, and we could talk to one another.

Yeah. Well, what was it like, Roger, when you're a free man, seeing Mary for the first time in person. Again, I cried for three days. Everything I had to look at her picture of her. I came home and she prepared a meal for me. And it was the old oak table that I redone and the chairs, the one and the green placemats and the same China that we had and the same silverware. And it just all of it just brought back the same paintings on the wall. It was just like unbelievable. Like the 35 years, she had all my clothes cleaned and my shoes shining. And I put the shoes on and I walked out on the strings on the in the soul's came off with a shirt and all fit perfect. Everything. So it's just wonderful.

And just to see her and then just to think about, so your picture of her 50th birthday or her 60th birthday or her 70th birthday, I wasn't there. And the picture of her and with the children, it was heartbreaking. And about the third day, I thought, man, up, I mean, you've got to, so I got to bring quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, thought, man, up, I'll let me. You've got to. So I got to work with the tears. It was, everything was just pulsating with life. It was just unbelievable to get out of that place. It really was. Is there, do you regret the drug smuggling that took you away from the one you love?

Oh, yes. 100%. I wouldn't have done it again if you don't think you're going to get caught. And it's just, no, I did it for money. And I had everything in the world I wanted before I did that. So the adventure, I mean, it was one heck of an adventure for the two of you, for the both of you. Yes. Were you able to enjoy, was it always danger? Was it always something that threatened your relationship, your love, your family?

Or were you able to enjoy the adventure of it? You know, we all die, life is short, and to live that kind of adventure, well, whenever I did the first loop, I got $10,000. And that was just about, that was just about two years pay on the fire department, take home, and I brought that home and I put my hand over my mouth. I said, I can't believe this. Oh my, but in the world. And the doctor said, let's go have dinner. And so we went to the restaurant that we would norm we would go to, you know, and he said, and don't you dare look on the right hand side of the menu. He said, just order anything you want. And it was just as we were in the restaurant, you know, it was just

we were giddy about it. Yeah, we were, I was giddy about it. And um, were you afraid that, I mean, did you think about the fact that it's illegal and, uh, Roger can end up in, in prison? Oh, yes. Did you guys talk about it? Well, I just I kind of thought I would prove I mean they didn't catch you I thought if they didn't catch you you was all right. It was hard to get you Hard to catch you in the air. Yeah, so you never thought I was a catch in there. I Didn't know that if your friend told on you five years later you'd still go right that was a problem I didn't know that did you did you guys ever talk about walking away? I asked Roger to walk away.

He says, I can't, Mario, just now. And then of course, the amount of people that he began to support the family and the gifts and the deals. The deals, yes, the deals. Big ones. Yes, and then you always want to do, what do you do with the money? So you want to, I guess you clean it up

or you want to invest in an enterprise or in a business. Well, it just doesn't work. They know the source of it and they take it and run. Everyone of them. Yeah. Yeah. But he was very generous, extremely generous and benevolent and. And when I started, I would ask about, I would tell Lawyer, and a good, good people,

I'm a number of people in California at that time, I wanted to legalize marijuana back in 1973. And I went to Law lawyer and I said, let's lawyer, I put $100 on to say, what would they do if I caught me bringing marijuana across the board? He said, if you have a criminal record, I said no, I've never had a speeding ticket. Nothing, not even a traffic ticket. He said, he worked for the fire department, I didn't know, I said,, yes, sir. He said, you get probation. The worst you'll do is you'll get one year

and you spend four much raking leaves on a military base. So my mother and my father died some years before. I brought mother and baby sister came out and I took him down to Disneyland and she said, what'd you do with boy? I said, I'm holding pot, mom. She said, how much you making? I said, making $40,000.

Any day I want to go. And she said, what do you think? I told her, what the law? You said for much of the most of it, Rick and Lee. That's what do you think? She said, do you need a co-pilot, son? Yeah. Money is money. Yeah. So your relationship persevered through some big challenges. Is there advice you can give about what makes for a successful relationship? Well, you know, I think the initial igniting, meeting someone, you know, that's the love. That's it. And that little fire just that fire just keeps burning and burning and burning. You can't put it out no matter what. It's the love fire. But it gets difficult. It's funny. It's funny. The

love fire. So you're saying the love fires all it takes to persevere to the difficulty? Well, no. Well, that's a huge part of it. And also, I contribute my individual situation to in order to endure what the prison years is my faith. Faith in God? Yes. and friends who are unconditionally still loved me no matter what. Yes. So she had love around you. I did. And my children, they, you know, and that was a real purpose to guide them and to love them and to help them become citizens. I will say. Or like you Roger, what advice would you give? I just don't know how to do it. I do know that you have to work on a relationship

and more and more and I've had problems. I mean, we get really good. So you guys getting fights? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yes. We're really good. But not they don't let them laugh long.

Yeah. But certainly, we're so different. We're long. But certainly you're so different. We're the same and yet we're so different. Yeah. Like little stuff. Little stuff, yeah. And it might be big, but I usually win her over. But anyhow, I just feel like Marie was always there.

It was like she was in my anchor. I was coming home. I was always coming home to her and the children. And you can see throughout my life, I'm working on getting there. You afraid for his life, by the way? Oh, yes. Oh, yeah, there were times. Yeah. But you know, I had some, I had faith in him. He was an excellent pilot. For example, I always said, Roger, if the ship's going down, I'm jumping in the lifeboat with you because I know we're going to get to shore. You will save us. And so I had that, I have that faith in him, you know, I mean, he's a man, but yet he's the one

you want to get into the lifeboat with. Definitely. But then there is, you know, Pablo Escobar, one of the most dangerous humans in history, plus the US government. Yeah. More powerful. Very difficult to get away. In terms of your faith, how has your faith helped you to be the woman you are in this relationship and seeing love the way you see it.

Well, I think my faith gives me hope. I have lots of hope. It helps me to dwell on the good side. You know, when I ever meet someone and there's some negative, I try to see why they are like that or what's the source of all that, and I try to pull out the good. I really do not that I'm a goody-goody, but that's what your faith does. You see them as God sees us. How was he changed over the years? Roger, he's still the same.

Actually, I like him better now. He's a little calmer. Oh, yes. And happy to be at home, or he'll say, Mari, I am just so happy to be with you here in this condominium. I'm content because I used to call him my homing pigeon. You know, I just have to let him fly. I couldn't I couldn't, he has to fly, but he always came home. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Do you think about the end of this ride, arm mortality? Do you think about your death?

I do. Particularly, I'm going to have a heart valve replacement in about seven days where I could not make it. You know, it's a very serious operation. And I think about that very much. And I asked for peace. I just lost my brother about 10 days ago, so unexpectedly. And that really put, you know, makes you think of your mortality. Are you afraid? Someone and some and and yet not. Yeah, the part I want to live, Lex, I want to live, you know, this life is fun. Yes. Do you think about your death, Roger? I have visions.

I have visions in the often happen very, very clear, like what I have seen in the often happen very very clear like what I have seen in the future scientists might call it wormholes or in the Old Testament they call it prophets but I see sometimes in the future around the corner. It's clear we're sitting right here. What's that look like? I was on a porch and I believe I was in like Central America place. I was an old man with khaki pants and a white shirt. And it was a chair with a wide arms and it was straight.

And there's like the beans coming out of my head and I'm on the porch. Bogun via. And I come, I have out of the body experiences also. And I came out of my body, just I just floated out of my body and went into a veil And like into a mist and I believe that's probably what happened You talk about you talk about like it's in your past. This is your new season in my future

But this is something he has seen I'm showing the patient. Yeah, I know, but it's funny. Yeah, the tense you use It happened and yet it's something that will happen. Yeah, I know, but it's funny just yeah, the tense you use it happened and yet it's something that will happen Yeah, too both are true. It's just unbelievable And I I don't know how many people have it, but I have it I won't add on my body just like just where I could come up to you and look and set up on the radio I used to be at work on the rear room. I had them there. I do explain that Is going on in this universe that's that do you explain that? I don't know, but what the heck is going on in this universe that's possible?

Oh, I don't know, but certainly, certainly a phenomenology that happened. And there's a guy, Bill Monroe, that wrote the book on the Out of the Body, he tells about it. And who was the guy that writes the alchemist? Well, those things. Well, he has them also just like that. And he tells about how it happens when he and mine happen differently. But you certainly can come out of your body.

What do you think the meaning of this life is? Maybe from your faith, but also from just the amazing adventure that you live through. How do you make sense of why the heck we're here? I don't know. It's just kind of like who you are. Even when I was a child, I was like, different from other people. You know, and just as a boy, I was like, I, I don't know, could you put into words how you were different or is just a feeling? Yeah, like my brother, I mean, he kept his hands clean and his shoe shined and here I was barefooted kitchen, a wild hog or a raffling up a horse trying to get it down, you know.

Some pictures of you climbing a tree. Yeah. What I've first got under prison, always something like that. Yeah. So I don't know. It's just that, and I noticed that something about me is sometimes in prison they'd be a knife fight. And people, you see them rough guys that turn white from it. It, I just kind of almost like smile. I mean, they come at me. I turn white but it doesn't ball those things that shouldn't bother me. I just prison didn't bother me. So you don't know what the heck the meaning is. You just know you're a bit different than the others. Yeah, it might be a little bit spooky. Well, maybe the whole point is you want to realize you want to let that

Madness flourish that uniqueness flourish. That's the whole point of life We're all different and are in like very interesting little ways. Yes, and the more different you are you want to let that You want to let that become you want to let it be its full It's like a garden, you know, all the different. Yeah, you did, you did mention, um, you weren't sure if there's a free will or not. Um, do you think it's all predetermined? Or do you think we make a decision? Make out decisions. I do say the videos. I hope that it. But I know that we make out. Yes, I agree. And I know that we're spirits that are living in this, in this flesh. That's beyond the shadow of a doubt for me.

If you walk out of your body and have out of body experience, you will know it. So the body is just the temporary. The spirit lives on eternally with no beginning and no end. It just and that's hard to fathom. Yeah, this is just a little shit. This is a shell to contain that spirit. You know, this is the way we work on earth. You know, but yeah, I know. I'm an eternal being. So are you? Do you think there's a why to it? Do you think there's a meaning to this life?

Well, I think the why is beyond my capability of understanding. It's someone greater than me. I don't understand it. But it's awesome. I just know that it's someone greater than me. I don't understand it, but it's awesome. I just know that it's awesome. And one day we will know the answers. Once we get to that cross over the other to the other side, I think we will understand clearly. It says, you know, now we see through a glass darkly, but then when we are face to face with God, we will understand. And until we know, let's just enjoy this beautiful life.

Yes. All we got in. And we're meant. And that was my gift. I love everybody and everything. I do. And I'm sorry if I put a stone in block in anybody's way, I wouldn't want to. But these are these things that I just think about,

oh, what a hypocritical world we live in though. Like most anybody out there, listen, okay, he's a drug dealer. And I would say most of them are committed to adultery. That's a cardinal sin. Yet they move through rocks at me for moving a marijuana cocaine across the road. It's just if you salt the two different things, you'd say, what a terrible difference it is. But we've come in condition, but this mad society that we have. You mentioned that your daughter, Miriam, wrote you poem, you might be reading it? I'd be glad to. I was doing 11 years up in Lombard, Pineda, Tentry, Maxim Security Prison for a parole violation for possession of marijuana in 1977.

They should have given me six months, but they gave me 11 years because they wanted me for what they call silent beef. Anyhow, while I was in that dungeon, I received a letter from my daughter, Miriam. Go, Dad, his poem. A year ago, I became a poet when I wrote your birthday prose, and here I am today ready to give it another go. First, I would like to wish you a very happy birthday to be, and to thank you so very much for without you I would not be me. Secondly, I want to say that your support has been immense. It has been true, honest, loving, and free of all pretense. Thirdly, it goes without saying, you love us surpassed all my wrongs, and you always

made me smile with one of your your country songs. I can remember on Quervo Daddy with you holding me in your arms as you sang Jim Reeve's songs and talked about the farm. I can see you walking through the door from one of your travels far and wide and the thought of you coming home, Daddy, kept a twinkle in our eyes. I can smell you as I did when I used to climb into your bed, and you would talk to me again about one of the adventures that you led. I can see me and Mario sleep in one of your airplanes extra-ordinary and remembering wondering myself why there wasn't an available chair. I remember having to meet you and worrying that you wouldn't be there,

but you would pop from behind some counter and give us all a happy scare. You gave us presents in Kibis King and hotels Pleasure Glowr and three dozen roses that we came through the airport door. I can see your face and Amsterdam with a luggage-carous sail and you look like a boy with a secret that you were just dying to tell. You taught me mathematics in the sands of faraway places, and taught me to sail, and we left without any traces. We climbed glaciers in Argentina, and saw the blue of the beautiful caves, and witnessed the majestic beauty of such a juggling maze. I learned how to change gears on the dirt roads of Brazil. We ate hot dogs in

Paraguay, a memory we smile over still. We talked about lines, elephants, and bears on a Hosse end and Uruguay, but decided it was better if the Europe we did fly. Oh, the old world in all its luxury, what a good time it was. From South America to the Crosmopolski, I think we fell in love. The European jaunt, well, it is considered a book in itself. But it's a story about beauty and knowledge, suspense and worldly wealth. We went from Holland to Sweden, we went from France to Spain, and I promised you I have no regrets. I would definitely do it all again. I would see the world with you anytime, sir, there no doubt in my mind, because being by your side, daddy, always ensures a while good time. So our past took a turn, and we're back in the U.S. of A, but life here

isn't so bad, and I'm plum content to stay. I'm happy to be near you, although I'm not as close as I was before, but because of your love and encouragement, I've been able to open your doors. I'm grateful to be in school, and I'm generally happy where I am, and I even like when you call and tell me to study for the next exam. What a life you give me, Daddy. It's a tremendous and a magical gift. We already have so many stories to tell, therefore, too many to list. But I want to thank you again this day with a very big, happy birthday to you, and to tell you just a few more things that are new

in my heart to be true. That'll love you, Daddy, with all of your wrongs and your rights, that you're ahead of our family, and you've kept us all bound tight. That you have a honest love in your heart for God and all mankind, and you truly do believe in yourself when you say it will all be fine. I know you will be there to catch me if ever I waver a slip, and I know I won't you escape on any sinking ship. I also know a new chapter is written. It's almost time to move on.

It's time to sail another sea and to witness a brand new dawn. It'll be good to see you at the helm again as you point out our destination, the laugh and dance on the upper deck as while the boat glides through. It'll be good to see you on the go as I know you like to be and to know you can open any

door without any key. But while we revel in our days together, we were no better than to hurry because as you told me many times, life is an incredible journey. Wow, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. Yeah. Roger, I'm really honored that you would take the time to visit me in Texas and to, uh, said, Donald and talk with me. Thank you so much, Roger. Thanks so much, Mike. Thank you.

It's been a real pleasure. Yes. Beautiful. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Roger Reeves. And thank you to NUME, Allform, ExpressVPN, ForSigmatic, and 8th Sleep. Check them out in the description to support this podcast. And now let me leave you with some words from Pablo Escobar. All empires are created of blood and fire. Thank you for listening. I hope to see you next time.

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