Edward Romero: Pushing Beyond Your Limits and Remembering Your Battles
Profilers: Stuart Allison, Luke Donahoe, Travis Gazarian, Lilly Jiang, Aryan Nehru
Life Before, During, and After the War, and Lessons Learned
Transcript
Question
[00:22] Travis:
Can you give me an intro about yourself? Where you’re born? And we’ll go from there.
[00:28] Mr. Romero:
Alright yeah. I was born in 1950 and I was born in Los Angeles. Lived here born and raised, lived here. Went to school in um what would that have been my dad lived in San Gabriel Valley which is the eastside of Los Angeles when it was a brand new community. Went to the schools there. I graduated from high school at El Rancho at Pico Rivera, and immediately out of high school I went into the marine corps so that was a given for me. I tried to get my dad to sign when I was 17 so I could get in and out earlier. He refused to sign because of the Vietnam War. And he said even though he himself was Marine Corps in the second World War stationed in the Pacific, he said to me that he would not sign for me because he did not want to be responsible if happened to me and I came back in a body bag and his signature was on that paper so he said no. I said okay well I’ll just do it when I turn 18 and on my birthday I went down to the recruiter and signed up.
Question
[01:45] Travis:
Can you explain the public sentiment at the time of why your father was so against it?
Mr. Romero:
Yeah, yeah. Well my father was not against the war per se and let me just make a little comment on this that and hindsight it’s 2020. Okay so anything you ask politically if you want me to tell you what it was like then as it was unfolding it would be a different story than now as we look back so I just want to put that little caveat out there. But my father was not against the war per se. He just didn’t want to be responsible for me coming back in a body bag. And I understood that. We didn’t have a fight about that and I said “Pop I turn 18 in July so I’m going to do it,” and he says “You do it. I’m okay with you doing it. I’m not going to do it.” So I when I turned 18. So it really wasn’t a settlement about the war itself but it was rather his own personal consciousness inside of him.
Question
[03:06] Travis:
Now with all of that knowledge about the 30% and what was going on in the world how did you guys feel during the training? Were you guys angry towards the North Vietnamese? What was the mindset towards that situation?
[03:25] Mr. Romero:
That kind of mindset about facing the Vietnamese during that really didnt come in until we started training for our MOS. During bootcamp it’s pure survival. You don’t think beyond the guy next to you. It’s pure survival. Whether you’re running, whether you’re going up a mountain, you’re doing PT forever, you know it’s pure survival. They have you totally focused right now, right now. Once we got done after graduation then the focus shifted when we went to Camp Pendleton when we started training for MOS and doing other kinds of things. And we start now focusing on the enemy. And that’s when it was … you had a mindset it’s either us or them, you know. We’re here and it’s either going to be us or them. So you gotta be faster, smarter, stronger, quicker, everything had to be depended upon it.
Question
[04:33] Travis:
Now at this point you received your orders. What were your orders to and how did that transition take place and then was there a saying goodbye to family?
[04:44] Mr. Romero:
Yes it was. You had to leave. You had to say goodbye to families. I had a girlfriend. By the way, my girlfriend is my wife today. So I got to say goodbye to my girlfriend, hang out with my friends, you know have some fun, some last parties, stuff like that. And then uh went back. And to check in and from Camp Pendleton main side they put us all on buses and they took us to El Toro. El Toro was the Marine Corps Air Station. It doesn’t exist anymore. I think there’s a big housing unit and malls but anyway El Toro was there. We all bussed there and we were in our utilities, that’s what we called them back then, and uh they had TWA planes there. Airlines. Commercial Airlines. And you know the sergeants and everyone else got us in there. Lietenants got us in there packed the plane. And there was the attendance. Back then everyone smoked so we’re all smoking on the plane and then it takes which was my very first plane ride in my life. So my first plane ride in my life was going to Vietnam. So as we took off it was just absolutely unintelligible, I got the uniform and I got these guys around me and we’re going to Vietnam. And there wasn’t fear, at least I didn’t sense any fear. It was just the adventure of war and doing our duty and there’s a whole all mixed together. You felt like you were at the right place at the right time doing the right thing kind of. And then we landed in Okinawa and then they took us to barracks and they did our final briefing and cultural training as well as our last vaccinations and they got us our jungles and we got different stuff now. No weapons yet the weapons haven’t been given to us yet. And they put us back on the TWA, you know and that took about a week to happen, then they took us back on the TWA airlines. You know back then we had hostesses, they had attendance okay? And you know you had these beautiful women who were hosting Marines. It was wild. But everybody was … it was good natured. There wasn’t anybody who was thrown off the plane. You know we had sergeants and you had everybody to keep us under control, we were animals. Just excited, now we’re going to Vietnam, its in the middle of the night. I don’t know what time of night it is. It’s in the middle of the night and, remember I’m new at this flying stuff okay so I’m thinking okay this is pretty cool. It’s all lit up in the cabin and all of a sudden they tell us that we were going to be headed towards Da Nang International Airport, wherever that’s at. Every light outside and inside goes out. They’re yelling at us to put cigarettes out, nobody light a match, and we’re hurling through the sky in black. I’m thinking, “is this right? This doesn’t feel right.” Is this right? Now I’m getting a little scared and then the guy goes into a dive. He dives down. And I’m thinking no, no, no this can’t be right. This can’t be right. When we got to Okinawa it wasn’t like that. Lights were on and everybody was … you know? But know it dived down and now were headed into De Nang. We land in De Nang. Everybody is pushing and shoving and getting out of there so we got that plane cleared in probably under five minutes. And the guy took right off. And I’m thinking, “welcome to Vietnam” gee look at that. And then they took you and they started to they took you for the night. I dont think we ate anything that night. And then you wake up the next morning. Then they started to … then again its this hurry up and wait I think I was going to De Nang waiting for where I was going to be exactly and they’re giving us our weapons now. So we’re carrying our stuff, our magazines, our boots are green into Vietnam. Anybody that was there could tell that we just landed. And then finally we get us into the unit. We finally got into our unit. I was in a place called An Hoa which is about 25 miles west of Da Nang in the Quang Nam Province and they finally got us to the secure area. We didn’t have, in Vietnam we didn’t have front lines, you know? It wasn’t like the old wars where they have front lines and they battle across each other, no that wasn’t the way it was. It was Guerrilla Warfare. In other words, we had to play by the rules, they didn’t, which really ticked us off. But we went to the secured area, we were in the secured area and that’s when we actually got connected with our platoon and who we are and what we are. The first guy I met was a sergeant in our platoon and he had these two bare stripes in his head, that was kind of weird. Must have been a birth defect. He had just come back from NSA (The Naval Aid Station) in Da Nang because those two things were .50 caliber bullets that skinned his head. Sergeant Wright. I’ll never forget him, Sergeant Wright. And he looks at me and says, he’s a big muscular black guy you know and I’m a short little Mexican kid and I’m looking at this guy and he just takes me under his wing. That was pretty cool.
Question
[11:35] Travis:
Now how was the Jungle? What was your experience when you saw the terrain? Was it surreal to you?
[11:44] Mr. Romero:
Well it was because the Jungle is what you see in like pictures. It’s Jungle. But what was not in the pictures was 120F degrees. And you were purposely sweating the whole time. So you had to try and minimize that, keep yourself as cool as possible, drink your water in a regulated way so you don’t run out of it because we’re out in the bush. We’re not going to sub. We’re not getting choppered back and having lunch. That’s not how it worked in the Marine Corps. You would go out 3 months at a time and you’d go out with everything you got. Okay and they would chopper into us food, they would drop water to us, they would drop food to us, and mail you know which was pretty cool. But other than that, we’re in the bush, we’re all by ourselves. In our company or our platoon if we were going to be doing some kind of maneuver. And you create your own perimeter. You know you set out our claymores, and we dig holes your foxholes, you’d tell stories with the guys, we call it chuckin-and-jivin you know thats what we would do and it was us. It was out there and that’s pretty much the way it was. I didn’t expect that especially the heat okay, but it was pretty amazing when I got there. It was all the jungle and everything else, but add the heat to it. Now you got 110F, 115F, 120F degrees and then during the monsoons you have 110F, 115F except now you’ve got rain. It doesn’t cool down. The rain doesn’t cool anything down, it’s a monsoon.
Question
[13:44] Travis:
So at that point you felt that you didn’t know what you guys were really doing there?
[13:54] Mr. Romero:
Our mission was called policing. But you can’t shoot until you get shot at and oftentimes that was often too late. They were able, the Viet Cong and the NVA, were able to set booby traps for us, thats what they were called back then. I think they’re called improvised … IEDs, but they’re booby traps. And we were trained don’t walk on the road, walk on the side of the road, because everything we did we humped. That’s what we did. And we’d walk on the side of the road. Then they started getting smarter and they started to booby traps the side of the roads. And you would see people there one second and not there the next second.
Question
[14:44] Travis:
Can you explain a little bit more about that?
[14:46] Mr. Romero:
Yeah there was a particular one where there was … we were on a patrol. We were doing a staggered column. In fact in one of the pictures we show what a staggered column looks like. We’re in a staggered column, everybody’s got their stuff, everybody’s got their equipment. We’re doing a patrol with all of our stuff. In other words, we’re not just going out and going back into a secured … to a perimeter. We’re actually moving out. And there’s this road there and we’re walking on the side of the road. I’m about the third or fourth guy in that my Lieutenant is across the other side. Next to him is the radio man and behind him is the corpsman. Okay, and the rest of our platoon is there. …
Little rice patties, okay? The tree line all around and you feel so exposed the only thing that would save you at that point if you get shot at is going to be overwhelming force. Everybody opens up. So we’re there and I remember having uh having … I don’t remember if I had the tube or they made that obsolete when I was there and they did light anti-armor weapons. LAWS I think I have LAWS, which are fiberglass with rounds in them. And I carried seven of them. 3 on this side (right), 3 on this side (left), and they were strapped over me, and I had one cocked open. And I had a .45 pistol. I’m 18 years old man. That’s a lot of stuff for an 18 year old guy. And our Lieutenant steps on a booby trap. And we’re standing there and he steps on this booby trap. The thing blows. And I’m from here to that corner right there. I could hear the shrapnel metal just *woo* passing right by me I mean it was like clear it was like *woo.* I turned and I see and his body is tumbling in the air. At least maybe 20 feet in the air. He’s flipping around. Now that’s surreal. The radio man goes down. The corpsman goes down. And his body hits. Instantly, I drop my stuff. I run over to the Lieutenant and when I get to the Lieutenant I see him and he is bad. He is really bad. He’s got shrapnel in him and his legs are in this contorted position, just not natural. That’s not going to work. And I’m there and I get to him, our radio man … if I get this correctly … our radio man’s eye was blown out. So he’s down on the ground wailing. I’m on the Lieutenant, the other guys begin working on him. The corpsman who we need, this is the guy with all of the stuff, his shoulder is blasted off. He just doesn’t have a shoulder anymore.
Question
[18:15] Travis:
This is from the booby trap right?
[18:17] Mr. Romero:
Yeah the booby trap. What they do is that they take our stuff which goes dud you know and they use it. We believe that theirs either a 250 lb bomb or an 80 millimeter mortar, which is the bigger one, not the smaller one that they got and they set up the booby trap. They usually do it with pressure, so that you step on something okay and once it lifts off it’s blown. And you know we’re walking along the side and there’s trash and they hit the button on that, and the Lieutenant stepped on that. It was chaotic, everybody took position. Everybody is covering the treeline. Nobody is shooting at this point because we don’t know what to shoot at, it’s a booby trap. This is one of those things. They don’t have to play by the rules. We can’t do that. We can’t set booby traps. We could we could do ambushes, but we can’t set booby traps according to Geneva Convention. So that’s one of those things that frustrated us. I get to him. He is delirious. He’s still alive. And and as I’m there, I see that there’s just just blood is just squirting out from his legs. And so the only thing I know to do is do a tourniquet, you know. And so I get I get bandages. Everybody has to carry their own bandages, by the way. Plus you have to carry a smoke grenade, plus your regular grenades, you know. So we carry a lot of stuff. And there I get the bandages, I get them and I tie tie it as tight as I could do, tighten it up and try to stop the bleeding. Now this is under this is the this is the chaos, you know, the fog of war. Okay? You’re there. There’s people yelling, screaming, moaning. It’s it’s bad. And we’re out in the open, off of rice paddies, tree lines are around us and thinking and then at this where all of this is happening, the point guy, our point man, was was was there with a Kit Carson scout. A Kit Carson scout was a guy who was with the NVA, got captured usually or surrendered and came over to the Arvin side, the army of Vietnam, the Arvin side.
[20:49] Mr. Romero:
And they would then be assigned to us because they speak Vietnamese and they’re familiar with the territory. He gets hit but we he’s down on the ground and his body’s flailing. We can’t find a drop of blood on the guy. And we don’t get it. You know, you something happens like when I’m with a lieutenant. But this guy’s flailing. They’re trying to get somebody to get to him, but our corpsman’s down. We have no one with medical expertise. The corpsman’s down. And there’s yelling and screaming and an appointment. I remember Jimenez, he was yelling and screaming that the guy’s down and he doesn’t know why he’s down. There’s no blood. There’s no hole. There’s no nothing. And and we come to find this out afterwards. Okay? And the guy died right there. The Kit Carson Scott, died right there. And we finally found what was wrong. Shrap metal hit him in his throat. Right here. And there was a hole and he couldn’t breathe and he died. No blood. No blood. And that was like crazy. My lieutenant’s dying here. Okay? He’s dying here. We already called Medevac. You know, the c h forty sevens. Our Medevac choppers. They’re out in some base somewhere in Da Nang. Okay? We’re way out in in Guangdong province. And, you know, we don’t have a whole lot of air. There’s no trucks. There’s no there’s no cars. There’s no anything. That’s not what we did in the marine corps.
[22:25] Mr. Romero:
You know, the only thing you get is a medevac chopper. We called for medevacs and they said they were gonna have a medevac out there in thirty minutes. And thinking this guy’s not gonna last. You know, this guy’s not gonna last thirty. And some of the guys I was actually tending to him. The guys that were standing around, a couple of corporals and stuff like that would say, hey, lieutenant. Don’t worry about it. You just broke your leg. It’s no big thing. This guy’s gasping for air. I mean, I know it’s not broken legs. Okay? And I and I’m thinking, okay. I guess that’s what you tell guys. You know? When, you you know so you you the lieutenant is just kinda looking up looking at me, which here’s the irony. Because I thought this lieutenant never liked me. You know? Here I am tending to him, and he’s looking at me. And he’s you can see he’s coming in and out. And so I’m taking care of him as much as upon. Forty five minute passes. We still don’t have a medevac out there. And now the the son the gunny is on is on the line with with another radio. And the he is cursing and yelling at these guys to get out of here. We got a guy who’s still alive, but he’s barely hanging on. And, you know, he’s giving and we’re getting these ideas and we start to actually talk about that.
[23:48] Mr. Romero:
Like, I’ll bet you some of these pilots are probably drinking their last coffee or taking their last bite of dessert before they jump in this thing. Do they understand? We’re in a war. This is happening now and we can’t wait. We’re grunts. That’s all we are, you know. And these guys are fly boys, you know. So you start to get a little resentment over their luxuries, you know. And and what delayed them, why, you know. That kind of thing. So I remember finally, it was over an hour over an hour and we started to do heart massage. Okay? And mouth to mouth. That was really scary. Then finally, the chopper comes. I think the lieutenant’s dead. He completely pale. His lips are blue. His his blood is coagulating. And we finally get a stretcher to get him. The chopper’s there. And when we picked him up, his legs almost came off. And I picked up his legs, put him on the rack. And I think, man, for what? For what? And that’s the way it was for us. They didn’t play by the rules. We had to play by the rules. It was micromanaged war. It wasn’t what marines do. And we just felt helpless. It’s like, screw it. I’m just gonna survive. I’m gonna wait my time till I’m a three digit midget, then a two digit midget, then a one digit midget, and I’m out of here in the freedom bird and going back to the world.
Question
[25:30] Travis:
And what was your guys’ perspective on Ho Chi Minh and and and all that? What was the your internal Yeah. Dialogue like?
[25:39] Mr. Romero:
Well, it was again, what frustrated us the most is they played they didn’t play by the rules. We had to play by the rules. That’s the way it was. It the war was micromanaged.
Question
[25:53] Travis:
So you guys thought you could wrap this thing up?
[25:56] Mr. Romero:
Oh, if you gave us thirty days, we could do this thing. If you want us to eradicate. Now, you it’s it’s gonna get a little hard. You know what mean? But we’re not gonna let this stuff get pulled on us, you know. You know, let us hit back. Let us hit back. It was just frustrating. And the lieutenants wanted to go. The captain, the COs, they wanted to go. They say, you know, they just let us go. Just let us go. Let us do our thing. Tell us what you want and we’ll get it done marine corps style. You know? And you just felt your hands were always handcuffed. They were always tied. And that was a frustrating thing is you realize you can’t do anything about it. You said, well, I’m just gonna do my time and get out of here. And so we started counting down our days. Like, you’re three digit midget midget, you’re a hundred plus days. You know, ninety nine days and under, you’re a two digit midget. Then when you were nine when you hit nine and you’re a one digit midget, that means you’re gonna be out on the freedom bird going back to the country. You know? Back going back to the world. And she just waited your time and that’s all we did is just wait our time after a while. Yeah. You do your things. You you do what you’re told. But there is no real sense of purpose anymore. Other than we keep each other alive. We we do each other good.
Question
[27:27] Travis:
How did you feel when you found out that you were going home?
[27:30] Mr. Romero:
Oh, man. I knew I knew they did tell you when you’re gonna go home, you know, because your days are numbered. One of the things that kind of got us excited is that we were on this little hill and all of us were gathered together and we were listening to a transistor radio that was wrapped up with one of the big batteries. We’re listening and we’re listening I don’t think it was the state of the union, but it was a special speech that Nixon was doing. And then we’re all gathered around this little radio smoking up on it and just going with, you know, what the heck is he gonna say? The commander in chief, what’s he gonna say? And and he tell he tells the public that he’s gonna start to draw down troops. And we’re thinking, does that mean us? You know, we’re on the hill. We’re we’re does that mean us? How are they gonna draw it down? Well, the you know, so there was this kind of excitement like, maybe we’re gonna be headed home. There was this this and and, you know, the the lieutenants and the captain said, hey, you don’t get too excited. Alright? They’re politicians. It’s like, you know, don’t get too excited. And finally, they did. They they they cut off because a tour of duty is a solid thirteen months.
[28:44] Mr. Romero:
You don’t go anywhere except for r and r. That’s two weeks. But you’re serving you’re in the bush almost a solid thirteen months, you know. It’s not like they’re don’t know what the tours are today. They’re I think they’re much shorter, then they get to re reenlist or whatever they do. But for us, was thirteen months, you know. Richard Nixon reduced it to twelve months for everybody in the first marine division. But they took the new guys from the third marine division which was on the DMZ. They were on the DMZ. They took the new guys and sent them down to the first marine division. So we got a whole influx of new guys. They were third marine division. We’re first marine division. Third marine division, then the old guys were all shipped home and we were covering the whole thing. And, you know, so that that was that was really exciting to get a month cut off of this thing. Thirty days, I’ll take it, you know. And but we had guys that were, you know, either getting too sick, hospitalized or dying or wounded, you know, in the most bizarre ways. And it was just man. I hope some bullets some bullets didn’t have my name on it.
[30:05] Mr. Romero:
Yeah. Even to the last day at when I was out in the bush, we even though it was a secured area, we were in a bunker. There was myself and another guy. I have something like twenty four hours left. And they put me on go on watch. It’s like, dude, I got just twenty four hours left. And they’re gonna ship me to Da Nang. And from Da Nang, I’m gonna be flying out. And they put me on watch. I couldn’t believe it. I was so angry. Anyway, I took some drug. It was called Moo Juice. Moo Juice is speed. And I’m saying, I am not gonna close my eyes in twenty four. That is not gonna happen. They put me on watch. I got Moo Juice. I downed the Moo Juice which is like it tastes like cough syrup. But it’s speed. You you just get wired up. There’s no way you’re gonna go to sleep. I’m there and I’m and I’m wired up. And I’m so wired up that as I’m on this bunker, and this is on hindsight, a rat passes before me. A big rat. I think it’s the top of somebody’s head. They’re they got through the wire and they’re at my bunker.
[31:18] Mr. Romero:
Okay? Which was not impossible. K? That has happened before. What we call sappers. Sappers could get through the wire. Nobody knows that they’re doing it. And I thought I saw a head pass before me. I pick up my 16 and I’m saying, halt. Who goes there? Halt. Who goes there? And and I’m looking at this and I’m holding down. I am shaking. Okay? I am shaking with fear. Halt. Who goes there? Halt. Who goes there? The guy who was sleeping we were going one man up, one man down. The guy who was sleeping jumps out of bed and I turn on him. And I’m and I’m so wired up, and I have my finger on the trigger. And I and I and I’m and I’m halfway between crying and yelling. Halt! Who are you? And the guy says, I’m with you. I’m with you, man. I’m with you. There’s no there’s no call sign or I’m with you, man. And I was just just I after that, I I it kinda went blank for me. But I I I remember that moment just waiting for daybreak, then I’m gonna get my stuff, get on the chopper, get to Da Nang, get on the plane, and get out of here. So that’s the way it was for me.
Question
[32:40] Travis:
So when you returned home yeah. Did how was that when you got back with the because the way the public depicts it and we we kinda hear about when you guys returned home. You guys weren’t treated very well. Mhmm. Now was that the case for you when you came back?
[33:00] Mr. Romero:
Generally speaking, no. That was not the case for me, but here’s the reason why. It’s because you were already told don’t wear your uniform in public. You know, you don’t wear your uniform in public unless you’re gonna you’re gonna get stuff from people. And I just accepted that. I said, okay. Yeah. I get that. And so I I never wore my uniform in public except for special occasions or a wedding or something like that. By this time, I’m a sergeant. I’ve been in the corps. I’m 19 years old. I’ve been in the corps something like when I by the time I got back, eighteen months or whatever it was. I’m a sergeant. I’m the youngest sergeant in the battalion, 18 19 years old. And so I I would have my stripes and everything else and but you didn’t wear that. You really didn’t talk about it unless people talk to you about it, you know. I remember, you know, it wasn’t that we we didn’t have a happy reunion except with the ones that you love. But all your old friends and stuff like that, they were, you know, they were ambiguous about everything that you do.
[34:14] Mr. Romero:
And I think out of courtesy, they said, how was it? And then I remember so clearly more than once, they would ask, I think out of courtesy, how was it? You know? And then I would begin to tell them something and I could tell they’re not really interested. They’re just being courteous. And so that was the biggest offense I got. It’s like, you have no clue what I just went through. You know? You’re asking, but I think you’re just being courteous. It’s not real. Mhmm. And so all I I do and I would test myself. I would say, I would start in a story, then there’d be a disruption, then I I would not bring it back up. And they wouldn’t ask me to bring it back up. So I knew that they were really interested, you know, because I stopped storing and waiting and so it was no big deal. And that’s that’s just the way it was. That’s just the way it was. So I didn’t get any hostility. Nobody was yelling at me or anything like that. I didn’t get that part.
Question
[35:16] Travis:
Now do you feel like the events that happened over there changed you for the better or for the worse? In some cases, both.
[35:25] Mr. Romero:
Yeah. I think in some cases, both. Having gone through all this stuff, boot camp and training, Vietnam, the whole host of experience and the brotherhood, everything that that we went through, I don’t regret that at all. Not for a second. I don’t regret it at all. It was an amazing life. Okay? I learned that I could do far more and go further than I ever could imagine. Whether that’s humping one foot in front of another with all my gear going up a mountain, you know, with little bit of water. We at one time, we were actually licking leaves. We ran out of water. And the dew on the leaves, we were licking them in order to to get and they were sending a chopper to us. You know? So, I mean, the strain and everything you go through, you think about that. If I could do that, I could do whatever I want. And that really was ingrained in me. I could do whatever I want at that point. Now the bad part was seeing that I had no guidance coming out of the core. I had no guidance coming out of the core. Then I went I got into drugs. I got heavy into drugs. Yeah.
Question
[36:47] Travis:
That that leads me, like, right into this next question. I was wondering You know, was it difficult for you adjusting back into civilian life?
[36:55] Mr. Romero:
That’s a yes and a no. I was so glad to be back. Didn’t matter what I what I had to do. I was just so glad to be back. I missed my guys, but once you separated, there was never any real contact after that. And you just really have memories of of the guys that were with you. But going forward, we were already into weed. It was, like, unbroken. Then I became kind of a long haired freaky dude. You know? Rode a motorcycle, played guitar, you know, did stuff like that. And what I would say to those who are out there now, you know, if you go in, it really depends on who’s in charge, you know. And I would say, find out who’s in charge. You want to go in? That’s one of the reasons. Even though there’s been a shift of administrations just recently, the recruitment has gone sky high because they believe in the guy that’s there, the commander in chief. I can’t believe in a commander in chief that is wishy washy or half steps or anything else or thinks they have to micromanage everything. That’s what you got military for. I’m not saying let them go wild, but don’t micromanage them. And that to me gets people killed. And for that, I find that I’m very skeptical about my own government. So there you have it.
[38:30] Travis:
Alright. Thank you so much.
[38:31] Mr. Romero:
Okay.
[38:32] Travis:
Appreciate your time.
[38:32] Mr. Romero:
Alright.