On this episode of Our American Stories, our next story come to us from a veteran of the U.S. Army. He served with the 82nd Airborne Division in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Here’s Fernando Arroyo.
Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people who search for the American Stories podcasts go to
the iHeartRadio app, to Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts. Our next story comes to us from a
veteran of the US Army. He served with the eighty
(00:30):
second Airborne Division in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Here's Fernando Arroyo.
I remember it was nineteen ninety one and I was
five or six years old. I was sitting in my
kindergarten class when the school principal walked in and Miss
Bonsa and my Bandini Elementary School kindergarten teacher. She said, okay, kids,
(00:55):
stop playing, sit in front of the class. And then
the principal stood up in front of us and he's
you know, you can be whatever you want when you
grow up. And all the kids are like, wow, that's cool.
And I've always been quiet. I kind of just looked
at the kids, like why are you so amazed at this?
But whatever, and then the class got quiet and I
(01:16):
look up and everyone's looking at me, and the school
principle is looking at me, and I thought I was
in trouble, and then he looks at me and he
kind of he put his hands on his lap and
he bent down and he says, what's your name. I said,
my name's Fernando. He said, what do you want to
be when you grow up? I said, I want to
be a police officer, a soldier, and a pastor. And
(01:38):
he's like, he made a face like WHOA, that's weird,
and he said, why do you want to be a
soldier and a police officer? I said, because I want
to shoot guns and fight bad guys. He's like, okay,
why do you want to be a pastor? I said,
because I believe in Jesus Christ. So, at a young
(01:59):
age of five years old, I remember watching Desert Storm
on TV. And the coolest thing for me wasn't the
stealth bombers or all the cool missiles and all the
images of explosions. It was the guys on the ground.
Those were the real heroes. Those were the guys that
I thought, man, like, I'm watching G I. Joe cartoons
and stuff, but like, they're the real deal. They're charging
(02:21):
towards the gunfire, They're putting their life on the line. Well,
as time went on. Ten years later, I'm a senior
at Bell Gardens High School. It's September eleven, two thousand
and one. I was late for class and I remember
walking into my first period Spanish class, which you know,
(02:41):
Spanish was my first language. I just wanted an easy
I didn't even get an A. I got like a B.
That was terrible. But then when that class was over,
the bell rang, and now I had to go to
my government class, second period Government. And when I walked in,
all the students, you know, the bell had ranged. The
should have been the class should have been empty for
the next class, they were all still there, and the
(03:02):
teacher had his TV out and everyone's glued to the television.
I looked at the screen and I could see smoke
coming out of one of the towers. And then I
saw another airplane hit the second tower and this big
ball of fire, and one girl shouted, who would do this?
And some kids were crying, and then I heard on
the news America is under attack. Then I watched live
(03:25):
on TV as people were jumping out of windows to
their death because they would rather commit suicide than burn alive.
And I felt this deep pain inside me where something
has to be done, and it's going to be me.
So on September twenty nine, two thousand and one, I
(03:47):
was enlisted in the army. I remember going to the
recruiter and he said, what do you want to do
in my army? And I said, I want to be
a paratrooper. He said, do you know what that is?
I'm like, yeah, you know, you jump out of planes
and shoot guns. And he says, dude, it's not nice.
You're gonna be jumping at night in full combat gear.
You're gonna be the first ones in combat. You're gonna
(04:09):
get shot at. You're gonna be out in the rain
and the snow, in the mud. It's gonna be dirty.
Like you don't want to do that. I said, no,
that's what I want to do. He said, look, we
have this contract right now because the army needs cooks,
so we can pay you twenty thousand dollars to be
a cook in the army sign up bonus of twenty thousand.
(04:31):
I said, no, I don't want to be a cook.
I want to be an airborne paratrooper. And he's like,
all right, but don't come back to me later and
say that I didn't try to warn you or talk
you out of it, or that I lied to you.
And then at one point he says, look, have you
ever been on an airplane? And I grew a poor
I never traveled. I said, no, I've never been on
an airplane. And he's like, and you're gonna volunteer to
(04:54):
parachute out of a perfectly good aircraft into battle. I'm like, yeah,
that sounds cool, all right. He pulled out the piece
of paper. He says, this is the contract Airborne Infantry
Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I graduated in June of two
thousand and two, and then in August twenty first, two
(05:15):
thousand and two, I was on an airplane for the
first time in my life, on an airplane on my
way to Fort Benning, Georgia. And I remember when that
airplane took off, man like, I had never experienced that before.
First time flying. I'm eighteen years old, and there's you know,
the plane's shaking, and I'm like, whoa, whoa, what's going on? Man? Like?
Is this normal? And then once we were in the sky,
(05:36):
I looked out the window. I thought, oh, I'm an idiot.
The recruiter was right. I should have never volunteered for this,
this is dumb, he tried. He was being honest. He
actually tried to save me. And I remember on that
airplane next to me, this guy could tell that I
was nervous, and he says, what's wrong. I said, I've
never been on an airplane before and I'm on my
(05:56):
way to train a parachute out of airplanes in the Army.
And he asked me, are you a Christian? I said, yeah,
I'm a Christian. He says, did you pray about this?
I said yeah. Do you believe that this is God's
calling for you? I said yes. He's like, then you're
gonna be fine, and I felt peace. But all that
peace ended when, you know, after checking in and getting
(06:20):
my uniforms and equipment and it was time to meet
the drill sergeants. And these three drill sergeants their mission
was to train me to shoot, move, communicate, and kill.
We trained as a team. It was brutal physical training.
I remember being a skinny kid, you know, never having
left the state of California, and now I'm surrounded by
(06:43):
people from every state, from all walks of life, and
we're in this together. And that created a brotherhood. It
created a bond we had to rely on each other
to watch each other's backs. We went through the suffering together,
and suffering builds brotherhood, It builds a team. You have
to suffer together, and that's exactly what infantry school does.
You suffer together, train together, and then you're taught you're
(07:05):
only as strong as your weakest link. So all those
things were instilled in me. And you've been listening to
Fernando arroyos story. He discovers nine to eleven in his government.
Cless is a high school senior and immediately knows what
he wants to do, jump out of airplanes. When we
come back more or Fernando Arroyo's story here on our
(07:26):
American Stories. Here are our American Stories. We bring you
inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith and love. Stories
from a great and beautiful country that need to be told.
But we can't do it without you. Our stories are
free to listen to, but they're not free to make.
If you love our stories in America like we do,
(07:48):
please go to our American Stories dot com and click
the donate button. Give a little, give a lot, help
us keep the great American stories coming. That's our American
Stories dot Com and we continue with our American stories
(08:13):
and Fernando Arroyo's story. His book The Shadow of Death
From My Battles in Fallujah to the Battle from My
Soul is available wherever you get your books. Let's pick
up when we last left off. I graduated from infantry
school and then it was time for me to go
to airborne school. And it's just down the road. Somehow
(08:38):
we made it to the hangar on the airstrip and
the airplanes are waiting for us, and we put on
our gear. We get inspected, and once everyone's inspected, all right,
stand up, and we loaded up on this C one
thirty aircraft and we're packed in there like sardines. And
then when the doors closed, the thought came, I'm not
(09:00):
going to be in this airplane when it lands. And
then the command ten minutes and then command by command
to stand up, hook up, check equipment, sound off for equipment. Check.
The doors open, the side doors on both sides of
the C one thirty. The air just hits us. The
plane is shaky. I look out the door. I can
(09:21):
see tiny little houses and trees. I'm like, oh no,
this is oh, this is gonna be terrible. Then I
hear stand by like, oh, no, okay, the first jumper's ready.
I'm like jumper number ten, and I'm just I don't
even want to look at this guy that's about to jump.
I'm looking at the boots of the guy in front
of me as the wind is making his pants move
(09:43):
side to side, you know, violently. And then I hear
green light go, and then one by one, everyone's jumping
out of the airplane. And I'm walking forward with my
static line, just following the boots of the guy in
front of me. And then I watch him just disappear
into this door, like out into the sky, get sucked
out of this airplane. And I'm next. I just hand
(10:04):
off my static line, I make a right face turn,
and I just run out this store, just thrust myself
out of this plane. I feel the one hundred thirty
knot wins just smack me. And I'm flying in this
and I could see the airplane passing me as I'm
jumping out, and I count one thousand, two thousand, three thousand,
four thousand, and then I feel a tug and it's
(10:25):
my parachute opening. Oh thank god, man, it was. I
felt a sense of relief, you know, like That was
the fear of wondering whether my parachute was going to
open or not. That was the scary part. But I
did that five times, and that included nighttime jumps, and
I made it into the Airborne. Then after a short
(10:47):
ceremony of getting my airborne wings pinned on my chest,
I loaded on a bus with my gear and I
went to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. At Fort Bragg, North
Carolina is the home of the Airborn and Special Operations Forces.
You have the eighty second Airborne, you have the Army
Green Berets, and you have the Army's Special Missions Unit,
(11:09):
a counter terrorism unit. There. Very elite, the most elite
unit in the world. I was with the eighty second
Airborne and I remember arriving at my battalion and I'm
the new guy. I had to prove myself. I just
had to be on my best and weird enough. I
actually I was offered a position, for a very privileged position,
(11:30):
for a platoon to be in a reconnaissance team that night,
the Scalp platoon. It's the battalion Reconnaissance platoon. And all
these guys go to ranger school. They're snipers. They have
the best training, and you know they're the strongest and fastest.
That's you know, they're the best. We were trained to
be ghosts. We wore gilly suits, we dressed like trees.
We were invisible. That was our job to go ahead
(11:54):
of the twelve hundred man battalion and teams as small
as two two to six man teams and be unseen, undetected,
and gather intelligence about the enemy to give to the
battalion commander so that he could plan his attacks. That's
that's what I was trying to do. A few months later,
it was time for my first combat deployment, and my
(12:17):
first deployment was to Fallujah, Iraq after the invasion of Iraq.
In It was August of two thousand and three, and
we landed in the Baghdad International Airport. We did some
missions in the Baghdad International Airport, hunting some of Saddam
Hussein's captains and Bath Party Saddam loyalists. But then we
(12:38):
were giving orders that we were going to go into
the city that would later become known as the most
dangerous city in the world, Fallujah. I remember my first
combat mission. It was in Fallujah. It was at nighttime
and our mission was called a movement to contact mission,
which basically means search and destroy. And I'm sitting in
back of a cargo Humby and I'm looking towards the
(13:01):
city at nighttime with night vision, and I could see
these glowing green and red trace arounds coming up from
the city. The insurgents were in the city, shooting their
Ak forty sevens and machine guns in the air, and
they were challenging us to a fight. We had a
military intelligence team intercepting their radios and cell phones, and
(13:21):
they were saying that when the Americans come in the
city tonight, we're going to kill them, and you know,
bring it on their cowards and all this stuff. And
I remember Captain Kirkpatrick. He said, tell them hold on,
We're going to be right there. And the chaplain said
a prayer, Chaplain Knight. He said, all right, man, gather
around now. Chaplain Knight former Army Delta, the Special Missions
(13:46):
unit that I said, you know, the most elite unit
in the world. And he felt a calling to be
a chaplain, so he left the unit to be a chaplain.
And he was our chaplain. A Texas guy, big bald,
white guy, I just muscular. He was just everybody feared him,
and he says, let's pray man. And he says, Lord,
(14:08):
protect us against these savages as we go into combat
and guide our bullets that they may hit them and
take them to the depths of Hell in your name, Amen,
Like okay. So then we get on this dirt road.
All of a sudden, all the bullets stopped flying. We knew, okay,
we're being watched. They know we're coming. So we go
(14:29):
into the city and we're driving up and down the
streets looking for a fight, and there's no one. It's
like these guys like cockroaches. When the lights turn on,
they just disappeared. And we're driving up and down the city.
I have my night vision on. I could see every
you know, my infrared laser and everybody's infrared lasers were
aiming at windows and watching rooftops and like, where are
these guys? And then I caught a glimpse of a
(14:51):
guy in an alley with a cell phone, hiding behind
behind a dumpster in the alley and he's on his
cell phone. And then that's when I heard over the radio,
we're being washed. It's coming. And then I heard two
explosions boom boom, and I felt the blast wave in
(15:12):
my chest and I saw two RPGs glowing red. They
flew over my head, like five feet over my head.
These rockets were meant for me and my friends. And
then it was just an eruption of gunfire and I
you see these green and red trace around, these bullets
whizzing past me. And I could hear the sonic boom
(15:32):
of the explosions as the bullets are flying by me,
and it was like an out of body experience. I
just did what I was trained to do. The training
kicked in. I'm shooting at a muzzle flash from ak's,
I'm shooting at windows. We're taking fire from a two
story house. I mean, there's machine guns going off, and
we're driving out of there, trying to get out of
(15:54):
what's called the kill zone. And then I hear maguire
yell and he says, there's the guy running. As he's
reloading his grenade launcher, he says, there's a guy running.
And I see this guy running and I aimed right
for his chest. I put my infrared laser on his chest,
tracking him, and I must have shot him five times,
and I watched my bullets enter and exit his body,
(16:14):
and he fell into the swamp and disappeared. And then
I heard click, I'm changing mags, I reload, I come
back up to shoot. Ceasefire, ceasefire. It was over. This
was so fast. There was something bothering me, and I
was thinking, like what bothered me? And I remembered shooting
(16:34):
that guy, and I thought, well, you know, I mean,
if he hadn't shot at me, I wouldn't have shot him.
So it wasn't bothering me that, you know, I killed
a guy, I killed a human being. What scared me, rather,
I think it was it scared me was how easy
it was for me to do it. It kind of
made me wonder who I am? You know, I just
(16:55):
kind of like the thoughts of who I am? What
kind of person am I? You know, I'm nineteen years old,
fresh out of this small city, grew up in Bell Garden,
sleeping on the leaving room floor. This is my first
time leaving the country. I'm learning who I am and
I'm learning things about myself I didn't know. And you're
listening to Fernando Arroyo tell his story and what a
(17:19):
story it is. From high school watching nine to eleven
and the towers fall to joining while joining the eighty
second Airborne and within months finds himself in Fallujah, indeed
one of the most dangerous places in the world, and
in battle, and he has his first kill, and now
he's got to live with himself, and he's wondering what
(17:40):
kind of a man he is and what kind of
a man he'll become as more of this comes his way.
When we come back more of Fernando Arroyo's story here
on our American Stories. And we returned to our American stories,
(18:11):
we last learned about US Army paratrooper Fernando Arroyo, the
nineteen year old Bell Gardens, California native, having to shoot
an Iraqi insurgeon well out on his first mission. Let's
return to Fernando that deployment, I would get in several
more gunfights, and I would experience several IDs and near
(18:32):
death encounters and see the horrors of war. I made
it through that deployment. I came back from Fallujah and
I got home for the two week vacation and I'm
sitting in my living room watching TV. And it was
garbage day and behind my house was an alley and
(18:54):
there's a dumpster in the alley and I'm sitting with
my mom and my brother. I don't I don't think
my dad was there, and we're just enjoying family time
together watching TV. So the garbage truck picks a dumpster
up and then it shakes it once it gets up
top right to get all the trash out. Well, when
it shook, it was like an explosion, right, boom, boom boom.
(19:16):
I yelled in coming, get down, and I dove to
my living room floor and I said, get down, get down,
and my family's looking at me, and I started laughing.
I said, oh, my bad. Yeah, I'm back. No, no problems, hahaha,
It's funny. And I got up, sat down and my
mom's crying. She's like, mikho, are you okay. I said, yeah, Mom,
(19:39):
I'm okay, I'm okay. Two weeks past, I'm back in
North Carolina and I'm doing training. And it was between
Iraq and Afghanistan for me during those that time that
I went to Army Ranger School. So first, before you
go to that hill, you gotta go to pre Hell,
(20:00):
which is pre Ranger. Out of the fifty guys that went,
fifteen of us made it then I went to Ranger
School the big leagues, and I made it past the
first phase. I passed the land navigation part. I made
it past the derby phase the first phase. Then I
went to the Mountain phase of Ranger School in de Laonaga, Georgia,
(20:21):
and I failed to Laonaga, Georgia, so I was a recycle.
So I had to wait a week for the next class.
And during that week, we eat three meals a day.
But we're so hungry because we've been eating only one
meal a day for so long that three meals a
day is not enough. So at night we would sneak
out and go dumpster diving and we'd eat out of
dumpsters and man, like, you can find some good stuff
(20:43):
in those dumpsters, especially the one behind the Chawa Hall.
It's like, wow, they're throwing out perfectly good cake. So
I finally I breedid the mountain phase. Then I went
to Florida for the Jungle phase. I passed, and yeah,
all right, I earned my Ranger tap. I felt so good,
and then I got hit with a letter saying that
(21:04):
I've been stop loss. The Army said anyone getting out
after June of six is not getting out of the army.
You are here by stop loss. Stop loss. The army
cannot afford to lose you. We need enough soldiers to
be combat effective, So you're going to Iraq for a year.
(21:25):
I told us to my girlfriend, who thought, you know,
I was going to get out and we were going
to be together, and she was upset just as I was.
But then she said, you know what, I can't wait
for you. I can't do this, and she broke my heart.
So by this point I started off my army service
(21:47):
praying to God, going to church, and I hadn't done
that in a while. Like I just God wasn't on
the top of my list of things of people I
wanted to talk to or have a relationship with. And
I remember I had no one else to be angry
at but God. I just blamed God, like this is
your fault. If God is in control of all things,
then then you're the one that's keeping me in the army.
(22:09):
You're the reason my girlfriend just dumped me. You know.
I was just mad, and I remember going to war
and thinking I'm gonna die. So that when year deployment
was to Beiji Iraq and it turned into it a
fifteen month deployment and I lost a lot of friends.
I remember my buddies Miller and Gerrard. One night they
went out on a counter ied mission. We were living
(22:32):
at an oil refinery for days at a time and
carrying out missions from the Beiji Oil Refinery. Missions to
conduct counter ied missions, kill or capture missions where we
would go into people's houses at night, you know these
bad guys. We use cell phones and other intelligence means
of finding bad guys and snatching them out of their
beds at night, which was really fun. And yeah, going
(22:56):
into a house at night and they like, there you
are the guy. We have a picture of him, this
is his name. He's making bombs, And there he is,
sound asleep, and I just zip tie him slowly, turn
him around on his stomach, zip tie his hands behind
his back, and then I would shake him wake up
and they'd wake up and oh, no, America's here, like hey,
(23:17):
we got you, you know. So that was fun. War
is fun until somebody gets hurt. And that night Miller
and Garrard were blown up. Before we went out on missions,
we always said, I love you, stay safe because you
just never knew what was going to happen, and I
(23:39):
had told them that that night before they went out
and I said, I love you, stay safe. And now
they were being loaded on a helicopter and I didn't
know if they were going to live because they lost
so much blood. Miller did end up flatlining, but the
medics brought him back. Garrard he was fine, so they
both survived. But I didn't know the right like I
(24:00):
didn't know. They got on the helicopter and left, and
that was it, and I was filled with rage and anger,
and again I blamed God that deployment. I lost several friends.
We even had a chechen in sniper hunting US and
he was getting headshots. We were hunting bad guys, but
they were hunting us. Fifteen months in combat. I come
(24:25):
back about a month and a half later. I'm a
college student at Cerrito's Community College. My body was here,
my mind was in Iraq. I couldn't go anywhere without
a gun. Going shopping at the mall was hell. I
would plan my visits. What do I need? I need
pants and shirts? Cool. I'm gonna like I had a
(24:45):
map of the mall. This is where the store is.
I'm gonna come in this way, park here, I'm gonna
go in this door, make a rite. I'm gonna pick
two pairs of pants, two shorts, and I gotta get
out of there. I remember being in like the dressing room,
you know, trying on clothes and sweating because I'm just
like I'm taking too long, like if the enemy's gonna
(25:06):
find me here, and like, you know, I need to
hurry up and get out of there. That's like my
I don't know. It was weird, you know. About three
years after I got out, it got at its all
time worse. I finished my bachelor's degree at UC Irvine
and criminology, hoping that I would be in law enforcement.
No law enforcement agency hired me. I applied for several
(25:28):
government jobs, all of them rejected me. The only job
I would get was working at a wholesale a warehouse.
I don't know if I should say their name, but
I'm a shopping cart collector. That's what I was doing.
I had combat experienced leadership skills, Army Rangers school under
my bell, a bachelor's degree from one of the top
(25:50):
universities in the country, and I'm collecting shopping carts in
the army. I had a mission. I had a brother
hood I lost that I was going to church, but
I was like sitting in the back of church with
a hangover. I had no purpose. I felt like I
filled it life. I thought, you know what, I'm twenty
(26:14):
six years old at the time, twenty six, twenty seven.
I lived a good life. Twenty two veterans commit suicide
every day, and that's the statistic. I was about to
become one of them. And you're listening to Fernando Arroyo
share his darkest days with you, with all of us.
(26:35):
He comes back from Iraq. He's in junior college and
even a trip to a mall, well, he can't do
it like the rest of us can. He's left Iraq,
but Iraq it hasn't left him. He finishes at Calivine.
It can't get that job as a cup It ends
up collecting shopping carts. He's lost his mission. He's a
(26:56):
man without a purpose, and twenty two vets commit suicide
every day, and he's thinking, well, he just might be
the next. When we come back, more of the story
of Fernando Arroyo's service and his life after service here
on our American Stories, and we continue with our American
(27:39):
stories and with Fernando Arroyo's story. After years of combat
experience in the US Army, graduating from both Rangers School
and the University of California, Irvine with a criminology degree,
Fernando Arroyo failed to get a job of a police
agency or with the federal government. Instead, he was collecting
shopping carts at a local grocery store. Let's return to
(28:03):
Fernando's story. One day, I just had a miserable day.
You know, I'm collecting shopping carts in the sun, Like
what am I doing. I remember going home and just
(28:24):
going to my studio apartment, and I was just drinking
and drinking close the blinds. I'm in the dark. I
passed out and I had another nightmare. By this point,
I was so afraid. I didn't want to sleep because
the nightmares were so real. I wake up and like
just soaked and sweat with a gun in my hand.
(28:46):
I went to the fridge. I grabbed a beer and
then I closed my eyes as tears are rolling down
my cheeks. My hands are shaking, and I hear the click.
I took the safety off, and I remember my mind
with a pistol in my mouth. I said God, if
you're there, saved me. There was no response. And when
(29:11):
I put my thumb on the trigger and I slow
he started to squeeze. I heard a boom and I
opened my eyes and I dropped a gun and I
checked my head. There's no hole. There's no blood. I
looked around, there's no blood. In my studio. I had
a desk to the right of my couch and on
(29:32):
that desk was my Bible. That Bible just flew off
and hit the floor. And that's the explosion. I heard
the bang that I heard, and I remember I just
fell on my knees and I said, I need help.
I need help. I pray to God. I said, I
need help. I'm tired of living like this. And then
(29:57):
the next day, my buddy Louise I knew him from
high school. He also served in the army and now
he's working for the VA and his job was to
get veterans connected to help. And he kept calling me
like months ago, like every yeah, he was just he
was starting to piss me off. He was bothering me,
like why you keep calling me. He's like, dude, you
need to go to the VA. You need to talk
(30:17):
to a psychologist. I said no, I don't, no, I don't.
He's like, look, man, I know what you did. You're
not right, Like I know you're not. I'm fine, I'm fine.
You know I didn't share this with anyone. I didn't
tell anyone was having nightmares. I didn't, you know, not
even at church. I didn't tell anyone about this. So
finally he's like, he calls me. He says, come on,
(30:40):
I want to I'll pick you up. I'll buy you breakfast.
I said, you know what you had me at breakfast.
So so next thing I know, I'm at a mental
health clinic in East LA and they give me a
packet to fill out. I'm going to talk to a
clinical social worker named Bob. So I felt, you know
this sheet, this questionnaire. It's like, have you been a
(31:03):
combat have you shot anyone? Did any of your friends die?
You know, all these questions and I lied no, no, no, no, no.
Are you having nightmares? Nope? Do you drink alcohol? Yeah?
About how many drinks do you have just a couple
on the weekend. So I submit this packet and then
(31:24):
outcomes Bob with the packet and he's like, Fernando, Hi,
I'm Bob, Like, come on, let's go to my office.
Like okay, and he says, well, look, according to your answers,
you don't need us. You're good. I said, great, Can
I leave? He's like, no, no, no, this is the
thing I don't understand, Fernando. And he pulls out my
(31:46):
military records and he says, you went to Iraq twice,
Afghanistan once you were a paratrooper, airborne infantry. You graduated
Army Army Ranger School. You earned the Combat Infantryman's badge,
which means you are engaged in combat with the enemy.
Your military history does not match your answers. Bottom line.
(32:09):
I think you're full of it, he said, Fernando. I'm
here to help you. I'm here to help you, he said,
I remember, he said, even if you've committed murder, what
you say stays between us. I'm here to help you.
And he's looking at me and it's just this awkward silence.
He can tell that the hamster was running in my brain,
(32:31):
like what do I do? Do I leave or do
I stay? And I looked at him and I said,
what do you want to know? And then he said,
how many times did you go to war? I said
three times? Did you ever shoot anyone? Yes? Were you
ever shot at yes? Or any of your friends killed? Yes?
(32:54):
Are you having nightmares? Yes? About how many hours asleep
do you get each night? Two to three? Do you
drink alcohol? Yes? How many drinks did you have Friday night?
About thirty six? Who were you with alone? How many
(33:16):
drinks did you have Saturday? The same? Who were you
with alone? He said, you need help, and I broke down.
For the next year, I met with Bob every week
and I would have just share everything I was struggling with,
(33:39):
and he gave me perspective. I was holding myself to
the American standard, I call it where what I did
in war was horrible, and what I saw was horrible,
but it was a necessary evil. What I believe we
did as American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is keep
(33:59):
terrorist out of our country. We fought them out of
here so that everyone here would be safe. We kept
America free of another ninety eleven for over twenty some years.
That's what we've done. But when I came here, I
was applying the moral standards of this country and living
here to what I did in war. And I thought
(34:22):
that if I shared what I did in combat. People
would think that I am an animal. People would reject me.
My church would reject me. So I didn't share with anyone.
But it turned out that was a lie. It was
a lie. And as I started to share with Bob,
then I started to share with others and I found
(34:42):
how accepted I was and how I'm not the only
one who's suffering. So I thought, Okay, this law enforcement
thing didn't work. God, you know what I'm going through,
you know what I'm how I'm suffering. Heal me, Lord,
help me to heal. And he did. He got me
(35:02):
into a nice church community, and well, at my church,
the pastor he kept getting sick and I had a
cover for him. It was a small church, like fifty people,
and everyone just you know, they looked at me to
cover to start preaching. I'm like, I'm going to preach
like what So I would preach and I mean it
was more complicated than that. But I thought, you know what,
(35:23):
maybe I should go to seminary. The trauma I went
through and the care that I received, now I wanted
to turn around and offer that care to others. So
I went to seminary at Biola University Forum to earn
my Master in Divinity in pastoral care and counseling, and
I found a veteran community there and we would talk
(35:43):
and and and you know, just we bonded as vets
and shared our struggles. And I found myself with veterans
helping veterans, and I felt like that was my calling.
When I graduated from seminary, my buddy was working at
the Orange County Rescue Mission and he said, hey, we
need a veterans case manager, which is a pastoral counselor
(36:03):
for veterans coming out of homelessness. So I was doing
that for a few years and then recently I started
working at Step Forward Academy where I work with veterans
at the Step Forward Academy and I say, look, you're
a veteran. You have a job, but let's get you
a career. Maybe the job you have, you're working it
and you're you know, it's a nine to five. It
(36:25):
pays the bills, but you can be doing something that
pays you even more and is more in line with
your skills and abilities. And that's awesome to be able
to help veterans better their lives, to find their calling
and their career and to provide for their families. That's
what I do now. I'm also involved at Mariners Church
in the city of Tustin, and I've met veterans there
(36:49):
and I lead to men's groups. I'm really big on community.
I'm really big on mentorship and coaching, and that's what
I do now. I got out of the army. I
kind of had an idea of what I wanted to do,
but of course God had a plan and his plan
superseded mine, and he brought me to my lowest point,
(37:09):
the lowest point in my life, and he saved me
so that now he can use me to save others.
And that's what I do. And a great job on
the storytelling and production by Greig Engler, and a special
thanks to Fernando Arroyo whose book The Shadow of Death
from My Battles in Fallujah to the Battle from My
(37:30):
Soul It's available wherever you get your books. And what
a scene he set in that room, afraid to sleep,
and the nightmares were so real. A large loud sound
that he thought was the gun going off, but it
was a Bible dropping on the floor. Incomes an angel
and that's a buddy of his who kept telling him
(37:50):
he needed help, and then another angel batman in the
intake center who told Fernando he was full of it.
In the end, began a new life. As Fernando put it,
God saved me so I could save others. The story
or Fernando ar Royo here on our American stories.
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people who search for the American Stories podcasts go to
the iHeartRadio app, to Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts. Our next story comes to us from a
veteran of the US Army. He served with the eighty
(00:30):
second Airborne Division in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Here's Fernando Arroyo.
I remember it was nineteen ninety one and I was
five or six years old. I was sitting in my
kindergarten class when the school principal walked in and Miss
Bonsa and my Bandini Elementary School kindergarten teacher. She said, okay, kids,
(00:55):
stop playing, sit in front of the class. And then
the principal stood up in front of us and he's
you know, you can be whatever you want when you
grow up. And all the kids are like, wow, that's cool.
And I've always been quiet. I kind of just looked
at the kids, like why are you so amazed at this?
But whatever, and then the class got quiet and I
(01:16):
look up and everyone's looking at me, and the school
principle is looking at me, and I thought I was
in trouble, and then he looks at me and he
kind of he put his hands on his lap and
he bent down and he says, what's your name. I said,
my name's Fernando. He said, what do you want to
be when you grow up? I said, I want to
be a police officer, a soldier, and a pastor. And
(01:38):
he's like, he made a face like WHOA, that's weird,
and he said, why do you want to be a
soldier and a police officer? I said, because I want
to shoot guns and fight bad guys. He's like, okay,
why do you want to be a pastor? I said,
because I believe in Jesus Christ. So, at a young
(01:59):
age of five years old, I remember watching Desert Storm
on TV. And the coolest thing for me wasn't the
stealth bombers or all the cool missiles and all the
images of explosions. It was the guys on the ground.
Those were the real heroes. Those were the guys that
I thought, man, like, I'm watching G I. Joe cartoons
and stuff, but like, they're the real deal. They're charging
(02:21):
towards the gunfire, They're putting their life on the line. Well,
as time went on. Ten years later, I'm a senior
at Bell Gardens High School. It's September eleven, two thousand
and one. I was late for class and I remember
walking into my first period Spanish class, which you know,
(02:41):
Spanish was my first language. I just wanted an easy
I didn't even get an A. I got like a B.
That was terrible. But then when that class was over,
the bell rang, and now I had to go to
my government class, second period Government. And when I walked in,
all the students, you know, the bell had ranged. The
should have been the class should have been empty for
the next class, they were all still there, and the
(03:02):
teacher had his TV out and everyone's glued to the television.
I looked at the screen and I could see smoke
coming out of one of the towers. And then I
saw another airplane hit the second tower and this big
ball of fire, and one girl shouted, who would do this?
And some kids were crying, and then I heard on
the news America is under attack. Then I watched live
(03:25):
on TV as people were jumping out of windows to
their death because they would rather commit suicide than burn alive.
And I felt this deep pain inside me where something
has to be done, and it's going to be me.
So on September twenty nine, two thousand and one, I
(03:47):
was enlisted in the army. I remember going to the
recruiter and he said, what do you want to do
in my army? And I said, I want to be
a paratrooper. He said, do you know what that is?
I'm like, yeah, you know, you jump out of planes
and shoot guns. And he says, dude, it's not nice.
You're gonna be jumping at night in full combat gear.
You're gonna be the first ones in combat. You're gonna
(04:09):
get shot at. You're gonna be out in the rain
and the snow, in the mud. It's gonna be dirty.
Like you don't want to do that. I said, no,
that's what I want to do. He said, look, we
have this contract right now because the army needs cooks,
so we can pay you twenty thousand dollars to be
a cook in the army sign up bonus of twenty thousand.
(04:31):
I said, no, I don't want to be a cook.
I want to be an airborne paratrooper. And he's like,
all right, but don't come back to me later and
say that I didn't try to warn you or talk
you out of it, or that I lied to you.
And then at one point he says, look, have you
ever been on an airplane? And I grew a poor
I never traveled. I said, no, I've never been on
an airplane. And he's like, and you're gonna volunteer to
(04:54):
parachute out of a perfectly good aircraft into battle. I'm like, yeah,
that sounds cool, all right. He pulled out the piece
of paper. He says, this is the contract Airborne Infantry
Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I graduated in June of two
thousand and two, and then in August twenty first, two
(05:15):
thousand and two, I was on an airplane for the
first time in my life, on an airplane on my
way to Fort Benning, Georgia. And I remember when that
airplane took off, man like, I had never experienced that before.
First time flying. I'm eighteen years old, and there's you know,
the plane's shaking, and I'm like, whoa, whoa, what's going on? Man? Like?
Is this normal? And then once we were in the sky,
(05:36):
I looked out the window. I thought, oh, I'm an idiot.
The recruiter was right. I should have never volunteered for this,
this is dumb, he tried. He was being honest. He
actually tried to save me. And I remember on that
airplane next to me, this guy could tell that I
was nervous, and he says, what's wrong. I said, I've
never been on an airplane before and I'm on my
(05:56):
way to train a parachute out of airplanes in the Army.
And he asked me, are you a Christian? I said, yeah,
I'm a Christian. He says, did you pray about this?
I said yeah. Do you believe that this is God's
calling for you? I said yes. He's like, then you're
gonna be fine, and I felt peace. But all that
peace ended when, you know, after checking in and getting
(06:20):
my uniforms and equipment and it was time to meet
the drill sergeants. And these three drill sergeants their mission
was to train me to shoot, move, communicate, and kill.
We trained as a team. It was brutal physical training.
I remember being a skinny kid, you know, never having
left the state of California, and now I'm surrounded by
(06:43):
people from every state, from all walks of life, and
we're in this together. And that created a brotherhood. It
created a bond we had to rely on each other
to watch each other's backs. We went through the suffering together,
and suffering builds brotherhood, It builds a team. You have
to suffer together, and that's exactly what infantry school does.
You suffer together, train together, and then you're taught you're
(07:05):
only as strong as your weakest link. So all those
things were instilled in me. And you've been listening to
Fernando arroyos story. He discovers nine to eleven in his government.
Cless is a high school senior and immediately knows what
he wants to do, jump out of airplanes. When we
come back more or Fernando Arroyo's story here on our
(07:26):
American Stories. Here are our American Stories. We bring you
inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith and love. Stories
from a great and beautiful country that need to be told.
But we can't do it without you. Our stories are
free to listen to, but they're not free to make.
If you love our stories in America like we do,
(07:48):
please go to our American Stories dot com and click
the donate button. Give a little, give a lot, help
us keep the great American stories coming. That's our American
Stories dot Com and we continue with our American stories
(08:13):
and Fernando Arroyo's story. His book The Shadow of Death
From My Battles in Fallujah to the Battle from My
Soul is available wherever you get your books. Let's pick
up when we last left off. I graduated from infantry
school and then it was time for me to go
to airborne school. And it's just down the road. Somehow
(08:38):
we made it to the hangar on the airstrip and
the airplanes are waiting for us, and we put on
our gear. We get inspected, and once everyone's inspected, all right,
stand up, and we loaded up on this C one
thirty aircraft and we're packed in there like sardines. And
then when the doors closed, the thought came, I'm not
(09:00):
going to be in this airplane when it lands. And
then the command ten minutes and then command by command
to stand up, hook up, check equipment, sound off for equipment. Check.
The doors open, the side doors on both sides of
the C one thirty. The air just hits us. The
plane is shaky. I look out the door. I can
(09:21):
see tiny little houses and trees. I'm like, oh no,
this is oh, this is gonna be terrible. Then I
hear stand by like, oh, no, okay, the first jumper's ready.
I'm like jumper number ten, and I'm just I don't
even want to look at this guy that's about to jump.
I'm looking at the boots of the guy in front
of me as the wind is making his pants move
(09:43):
side to side, you know, violently. And then I hear
green light go, and then one by one, everyone's jumping
out of the airplane. And I'm walking forward with my
static line, just following the boots of the guy in
front of me. And then I watch him just disappear
into this door, like out into the sky, get sucked
out of this airplane. And I'm next. I just hand
(10:04):
off my static line, I make a right face turn,
and I just run out this store, just thrust myself
out of this plane. I feel the one hundred thirty
knot wins just smack me. And I'm flying in this
and I could see the airplane passing me as I'm
jumping out, and I count one thousand, two thousand, three thousand,
four thousand, and then I feel a tug and it's
(10:25):
my parachute opening. Oh thank god, man, it was. I
felt a sense of relief, you know, like That was
the fear of wondering whether my parachute was going to
open or not. That was the scary part. But I
did that five times, and that included nighttime jumps, and
I made it into the Airborne. Then after a short
(10:47):
ceremony of getting my airborne wings pinned on my chest,
I loaded on a bus with my gear and I
went to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. At Fort Bragg, North
Carolina is the home of the Airborn and Special Operations Forces.
You have the eighty second Airborne, you have the Army
Green Berets, and you have the Army's Special Missions Unit,
(11:09):
a counter terrorism unit. There. Very elite, the most elite
unit in the world. I was with the eighty second
Airborne and I remember arriving at my battalion and I'm
the new guy. I had to prove myself. I just
had to be on my best and weird enough. I
actually I was offered a position, for a very privileged position,
(11:30):
for a platoon to be in a reconnaissance team that night,
the Scalp platoon. It's the battalion Reconnaissance platoon. And all
these guys go to ranger school. They're snipers. They have
the best training, and you know they're the strongest and fastest.
That's you know, they're the best. We were trained to
be ghosts. We wore gilly suits, we dressed like trees.
We were invisible. That was our job to go ahead
(11:54):
of the twelve hundred man battalion and teams as small
as two two to six man teams and be unseen, undetected,
and gather intelligence about the enemy to give to the
battalion commander so that he could plan his attacks. That's
that's what I was trying to do. A few months later,
it was time for my first combat deployment, and my
(12:17):
first deployment was to Fallujah, Iraq after the invasion of Iraq.
In It was August of two thousand and three, and
we landed in the Baghdad International Airport. We did some
missions in the Baghdad International Airport, hunting some of Saddam
Hussein's captains and Bath Party Saddam loyalists. But then we
(12:38):
were giving orders that we were going to go into
the city that would later become known as the most
dangerous city in the world, Fallujah. I remember my first
combat mission. It was in Fallujah. It was at nighttime
and our mission was called a movement to contact mission,
which basically means search and destroy. And I'm sitting in
back of a cargo Humby and I'm looking towards the
(13:01):
city at nighttime with night vision, and I could see
these glowing green and red trace arounds coming up from
the city. The insurgents were in the city, shooting their
Ak forty sevens and machine guns in the air, and
they were challenging us to a fight. We had a
military intelligence team intercepting their radios and cell phones, and
(13:21):
they were saying that when the Americans come in the
city tonight, we're going to kill them, and you know,
bring it on their cowards and all this stuff. And
I remember Captain Kirkpatrick. He said, tell them hold on,
We're going to be right there. And the chaplain said
a prayer, Chaplain Knight. He said, all right, man, gather
around now. Chaplain Knight former Army Delta, the Special Missions
(13:46):
unit that I said, you know, the most elite unit
in the world. And he felt a calling to be
a chaplain, so he left the unit to be a chaplain.
And he was our chaplain. A Texas guy, big bald,
white guy, I just muscular. He was just everybody feared him,
and he says, let's pray man. And he says, Lord,
(14:08):
protect us against these savages as we go into combat
and guide our bullets that they may hit them and
take them to the depths of Hell in your name, Amen,
Like okay. So then we get on this dirt road.
All of a sudden, all the bullets stopped flying. We knew, okay,
we're being watched. They know we're coming. So we go
(14:29):
into the city and we're driving up and down the
streets looking for a fight, and there's no one. It's
like these guys like cockroaches. When the lights turn on,
they just disappeared. And we're driving up and down the city.
I have my night vision on. I could see every
you know, my infrared laser and everybody's infrared lasers were
aiming at windows and watching rooftops and like, where are
these guys? And then I caught a glimpse of a
(14:51):
guy in an alley with a cell phone, hiding behind
behind a dumpster in the alley and he's on his
cell phone. And then that's when I heard over the radio,
we're being washed. It's coming. And then I heard two
explosions boom boom, and I felt the blast wave in
(15:12):
my chest and I saw two RPGs glowing red. They
flew over my head, like five feet over my head.
These rockets were meant for me and my friends. And
then it was just an eruption of gunfire and I
you see these green and red trace around, these bullets
whizzing past me. And I could hear the sonic boom
(15:32):
of the explosions as the bullets are flying by me,
and it was like an out of body experience. I
just did what I was trained to do. The training
kicked in. I'm shooting at a muzzle flash from ak's,
I'm shooting at windows. We're taking fire from a two
story house. I mean, there's machine guns going off, and
we're driving out of there, trying to get out of
(15:54):
what's called the kill zone. And then I hear maguire
yell and he says, there's the guy running. As he's
reloading his grenade launcher, he says, there's a guy running.
And I see this guy running and I aimed right
for his chest. I put my infrared laser on his chest,
tracking him, and I must have shot him five times,
and I watched my bullets enter and exit his body,
(16:14):
and he fell into the swamp and disappeared. And then
I heard click, I'm changing mags, I reload, I come
back up to shoot. Ceasefire, ceasefire. It was over. This
was so fast. There was something bothering me, and I
was thinking, like what bothered me? And I remembered shooting
(16:34):
that guy, and I thought, well, you know, I mean,
if he hadn't shot at me, I wouldn't have shot him.
So it wasn't bothering me that, you know, I killed
a guy, I killed a human being. What scared me, rather,
I think it was it scared me was how easy
it was for me to do it. It kind of
made me wonder who I am? You know, I just
(16:55):
kind of like the thoughts of who I am? What
kind of person am I? You know, I'm nineteen years old,
fresh out of this small city, grew up in Bell Garden,
sleeping on the leaving room floor. This is my first
time leaving the country. I'm learning who I am and
I'm learning things about myself I didn't know. And you're
listening to Fernando Arroyo tell his story and what a
(17:19):
story it is. From high school watching nine to eleven
and the towers fall to joining while joining the eighty
second Airborne and within months finds himself in Fallujah, indeed
one of the most dangerous places in the world, and
in battle, and he has his first kill, and now
he's got to live with himself, and he's wondering what
(17:40):
kind of a man he is and what kind of
a man he'll become as more of this comes his way.
When we come back more of Fernando Arroyo's story here
on our American Stories. And we returned to our American stories,
(18:11):
we last learned about US Army paratrooper Fernando Arroyo, the
nineteen year old Bell Gardens, California native, having to shoot
an Iraqi insurgeon well out on his first mission. Let's
return to Fernando that deployment, I would get in several
more gunfights, and I would experience several IDs and near
(18:32):
death encounters and see the horrors of war. I made
it through that deployment. I came back from Fallujah and
I got home for the two week vacation and I'm
sitting in my living room watching TV. And it was
garbage day and behind my house was an alley and
(18:54):
there's a dumpster in the alley and I'm sitting with
my mom and my brother. I don't I don't think
my dad was there, and we're just enjoying family time
together watching TV. So the garbage truck picks a dumpster
up and then it shakes it once it gets up
top right to get all the trash out. Well, when
it shook, it was like an explosion, right, boom, boom boom.
(19:16):
I yelled in coming, get down, and I dove to
my living room floor and I said, get down, get down,
and my family's looking at me, and I started laughing.
I said, oh, my bad. Yeah, I'm back. No, no problems, hahaha,
It's funny. And I got up, sat down and my
mom's crying. She's like, mikho, are you okay. I said, yeah, Mom,
(19:39):
I'm okay, I'm okay. Two weeks past, I'm back in
North Carolina and I'm doing training. And it was between
Iraq and Afghanistan for me during those that time that
I went to Army Ranger School. So first, before you
go to that hill, you gotta go to pre Hell,
(20:00):
which is pre Ranger. Out of the fifty guys that went,
fifteen of us made it then I went to Ranger
School the big leagues, and I made it past the
first phase. I passed the land navigation part. I made
it past the derby phase the first phase. Then I
went to the Mountain phase of Ranger School in de Laonaga, Georgia,
(20:21):
and I failed to Laonaga, Georgia, so I was a recycle.
So I had to wait a week for the next class.
And during that week, we eat three meals a day.
But we're so hungry because we've been eating only one
meal a day for so long that three meals a
day is not enough. So at night we would sneak
out and go dumpster diving and we'd eat out of
dumpsters and man, like, you can find some good stuff
(20:43):
in those dumpsters, especially the one behind the Chawa Hall.
It's like, wow, they're throwing out perfectly good cake. So
I finally I breedid the mountain phase. Then I went
to Florida for the Jungle phase. I passed, and yeah,
all right, I earned my Ranger tap. I felt so good,
and then I got hit with a letter saying that
(21:04):
I've been stop loss. The Army said anyone getting out
after June of six is not getting out of the army.
You are here by stop loss. Stop loss. The army
cannot afford to lose you. We need enough soldiers to
be combat effective, So you're going to Iraq for a year.
(21:25):
I told us to my girlfriend, who thought, you know,
I was going to get out and we were going
to be together, and she was upset just as I was.
But then she said, you know what, I can't wait
for you. I can't do this, and she broke my heart.
So by this point I started off my army service
(21:47):
praying to God, going to church, and I hadn't done
that in a while. Like I just God wasn't on
the top of my list of things of people I
wanted to talk to or have a relationship with. And
I remember I had no one else to be angry
at but God. I just blamed God, like this is
your fault. If God is in control of all things,
then then you're the one that's keeping me in the army.
(22:09):
You're the reason my girlfriend just dumped me. You know.
I was just mad, and I remember going to war
and thinking I'm gonna die. So that when year deployment
was to Beiji Iraq and it turned into it a
fifteen month deployment and I lost a lot of friends.
I remember my buddies Miller and Gerrard. One night they
went out on a counter ied mission. We were living
(22:32):
at an oil refinery for days at a time and
carrying out missions from the Beiji Oil Refinery. Missions to
conduct counter ied missions, kill or capture missions where we
would go into people's houses at night, you know these
bad guys. We use cell phones and other intelligence means
of finding bad guys and snatching them out of their
beds at night, which was really fun. And yeah, going
(22:56):
into a house at night and they like, there you
are the guy. We have a picture of him, this
is his name. He's making bombs, And there he is,
sound asleep, and I just zip tie him slowly, turn
him around on his stomach, zip tie his hands behind
his back, and then I would shake him wake up
and they'd wake up and oh, no, America's here, like hey,
(23:17):
we got you, you know. So that was fun. War
is fun until somebody gets hurt. And that night Miller
and Garrard were blown up. Before we went out on missions,
we always said, I love you, stay safe because you
just never knew what was going to happen, and I
(23:39):
had told them that that night before they went out
and I said, I love you, stay safe. And now
they were being loaded on a helicopter and I didn't
know if they were going to live because they lost
so much blood. Miller did end up flatlining, but the
medics brought him back. Garrard he was fine, so they
both survived. But I didn't know the right like I
(24:00):
didn't know. They got on the helicopter and left, and
that was it, and I was filled with rage and anger,
and again I blamed God that deployment. I lost several friends.
We even had a chechen in sniper hunting US and
he was getting headshots. We were hunting bad guys, but
they were hunting us. Fifteen months in combat. I come
(24:25):
back about a month and a half later. I'm a
college student at Cerrito's Community College. My body was here,
my mind was in Iraq. I couldn't go anywhere without
a gun. Going shopping at the mall was hell. I
would plan my visits. What do I need? I need
pants and shirts? Cool. I'm gonna like I had a
(24:45):
map of the mall. This is where the store is.
I'm gonna come in this way, park here, I'm gonna
go in this door, make a rite. I'm gonna pick
two pairs of pants, two shorts, and I gotta get
out of there. I remember being in like the dressing room,
you know, trying on clothes and sweating because I'm just
like I'm taking too long, like if the enemy's gonna
(25:06):
find me here, and like, you know, I need to
hurry up and get out of there. That's like my
I don't know. It was weird, you know. About three
years after I got out, it got at its all
time worse. I finished my bachelor's degree at UC Irvine
and criminology, hoping that I would be in law enforcement.
No law enforcement agency hired me. I applied for several
(25:28):
government jobs, all of them rejected me. The only job
I would get was working at a wholesale a warehouse.
I don't know if I should say their name, but
I'm a shopping cart collector. That's what I was doing.
I had combat experienced leadership skills, Army Rangers school under
my bell, a bachelor's degree from one of the top
(25:50):
universities in the country, and I'm collecting shopping carts in
the army. I had a mission. I had a brother
hood I lost that I was going to church, but
I was like sitting in the back of church with
a hangover. I had no purpose. I felt like I
filled it life. I thought, you know what, I'm twenty
(26:14):
six years old at the time, twenty six, twenty seven.
I lived a good life. Twenty two veterans commit suicide
every day, and that's the statistic. I was about to
become one of them. And you're listening to Fernando Arroyo
share his darkest days with you, with all of us.
(26:35):
He comes back from Iraq. He's in junior college and
even a trip to a mall, well, he can't do
it like the rest of us can. He's left Iraq,
but Iraq it hasn't left him. He finishes at Calivine.
It can't get that job as a cup It ends
up collecting shopping carts. He's lost his mission. He's a
(26:56):
man without a purpose, and twenty two vets commit suicide
every day, and he's thinking, well, he just might be
the next. When we come back, more of the story
of Fernando Arroyo's service and his life after service here
on our American Stories, and we continue with our American
(27:39):
stories and with Fernando Arroyo's story. After years of combat
experience in the US Army, graduating from both Rangers School
and the University of California, Irvine with a criminology degree,
Fernando Arroyo failed to get a job of a police
agency or with the federal government. Instead, he was collecting
shopping carts at a local grocery store. Let's return to
(28:03):
Fernando's story. One day, I just had a miserable day.
You know, I'm collecting shopping carts in the sun, Like
what am I doing. I remember going home and just
(28:24):
going to my studio apartment, and I was just drinking
and drinking close the blinds. I'm in the dark. I
passed out and I had another nightmare. By this point,
I was so afraid. I didn't want to sleep because
the nightmares were so real. I wake up and like
just soaked and sweat with a gun in my hand.
(28:46):
I went to the fridge. I grabbed a beer and
then I closed my eyes as tears are rolling down
my cheeks. My hands are shaking, and I hear the click.
I took the safety off, and I remember my mind
with a pistol in my mouth. I said God, if
you're there, saved me. There was no response. And when
(29:11):
I put my thumb on the trigger and I slow
he started to squeeze. I heard a boom and I
opened my eyes and I dropped a gun and I
checked my head. There's no hole. There's no blood. I
looked around, there's no blood. In my studio. I had
a desk to the right of my couch and on
(29:32):
that desk was my Bible. That Bible just flew off
and hit the floor. And that's the explosion. I heard
the bang that I heard, and I remember I just
fell on my knees and I said, I need help.
I need help. I pray to God. I said, I
need help. I'm tired of living like this. And then
(29:57):
the next day, my buddy Louise I knew him from
high school. He also served in the army and now
he's working for the VA and his job was to
get veterans connected to help. And he kept calling me
like months ago, like every yeah, he was just he
was starting to piss me off. He was bothering me,
like why you keep calling me. He's like, dude, you
need to go to the VA. You need to talk
(30:17):
to a psychologist. I said no, I don't, no, I don't.
He's like, look, man, I know what you did. You're
not right, Like I know you're not. I'm fine, I'm fine.
You know I didn't share this with anyone. I didn't
tell anyone was having nightmares. I didn't, you know, not
even at church. I didn't tell anyone about this. So
finally he's like, he calls me. He says, come on,
(30:40):
I want to I'll pick you up. I'll buy you breakfast.
I said, you know what you had me at breakfast.
So so next thing I know, I'm at a mental
health clinic in East LA and they give me a
packet to fill out. I'm going to talk to a
clinical social worker named Bob. So I felt, you know
this sheet, this questionnaire. It's like, have you been a
(31:03):
combat have you shot anyone? Did any of your friends die?
You know, all these questions and I lied no, no, no, no, no.
Are you having nightmares? Nope? Do you drink alcohol? Yeah?
About how many drinks do you have just a couple
on the weekend. So I submit this packet and then
(31:24):
outcomes Bob with the packet and he's like, Fernando, Hi,
I'm Bob, Like, come on, let's go to my office.
Like okay, and he says, well, look, according to your answers,
you don't need us. You're good. I said, great, Can
I leave? He's like, no, no, no, this is the
thing I don't understand, Fernando. And he pulls out my
(31:46):
military records and he says, you went to Iraq twice,
Afghanistan once you were a paratrooper, airborne infantry. You graduated
Army Army Ranger School. You earned the Combat Infantryman's badge,
which means you are engaged in combat with the enemy.
Your military history does not match your answers. Bottom line.
(32:09):
I think you're full of it, he said, Fernando. I'm
here to help you. I'm here to help you, he said,
I remember, he said, even if you've committed murder, what
you say stays between us. I'm here to help you.
And he's looking at me and it's just this awkward silence.
He can tell that the hamster was running in my brain,
(32:31):
like what do I do? Do I leave or do
I stay? And I looked at him and I said,
what do you want to know? And then he said,
how many times did you go to war? I said
three times? Did you ever shoot anyone? Yes? Were you
ever shot at yes? Or any of your friends killed? Yes?
(32:54):
Are you having nightmares? Yes? About how many hours asleep
do you get each night? Two to three? Do you
drink alcohol? Yes? How many drinks did you have Friday night?
About thirty six? Who were you with alone? How many
(33:16):
drinks did you have Saturday? The same? Who were you
with alone? He said, you need help, and I broke down.
For the next year, I met with Bob every week
and I would have just share everything I was struggling with,
(33:39):
and he gave me perspective. I was holding myself to
the American standard, I call it where what I did
in war was horrible, and what I saw was horrible,
but it was a necessary evil. What I believe we
did as American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is keep
(33:59):
terrorist out of our country. We fought them out of
here so that everyone here would be safe. We kept
America free of another ninety eleven for over twenty some years.
That's what we've done. But when I came here, I
was applying the moral standards of this country and living
here to what I did in war. And I thought
(34:22):
that if I shared what I did in combat. People
would think that I am an animal. People would reject me.
My church would reject me. So I didn't share with anyone.
But it turned out that was a lie. It was
a lie. And as I started to share with Bob,
then I started to share with others and I found
(34:42):
how accepted I was and how I'm not the only
one who's suffering. So I thought, Okay, this law enforcement
thing didn't work. God, you know what I'm going through,
you know what I'm how I'm suffering. Heal me, Lord,
help me to heal. And he did. He got me
(35:02):
into a nice church community, and well, at my church,
the pastor he kept getting sick and I had a
cover for him. It was a small church, like fifty people,
and everyone just you know, they looked at me to
cover to start preaching. I'm like, I'm going to preach
like what So I would preach and I mean it
was more complicated than that. But I thought, you know what,
(35:23):
maybe I should go to seminary. The trauma I went
through and the care that I received, now I wanted
to turn around and offer that care to others. So
I went to seminary at Biola University Forum to earn
my Master in Divinity in pastoral care and counseling, and
I found a veteran community there and we would talk
(35:43):
and and and you know, just we bonded as vets
and shared our struggles. And I found myself with veterans
helping veterans, and I felt like that was my calling.
When I graduated from seminary, my buddy was working at
the Orange County Rescue Mission and he said, hey, we
need a veterans case manager, which is a pastoral counselor
(36:03):
for veterans coming out of homelessness. So I was doing
that for a few years and then recently I started
working at Step Forward Academy where I work with veterans
at the Step Forward Academy and I say, look, you're
a veteran. You have a job, but let's get you
a career. Maybe the job you have, you're working it
and you're you know, it's a nine to five. It
(36:25):
pays the bills, but you can be doing something that
pays you even more and is more in line with
your skills and abilities. And that's awesome to be able
to help veterans better their lives, to find their calling
and their career and to provide for their families. That's
what I do now. I'm also involved at Mariners Church
in the city of Tustin, and I've met veterans there
(36:49):
and I lead to men's groups. I'm really big on community.
I'm really big on mentorship and coaching, and that's what
I do now. I got out of the army. I
kind of had an idea of what I wanted to do,
but of course God had a plan and his plan
superseded mine, and he brought me to my lowest point,
(37:09):
the lowest point in my life, and he saved me
so that now he can use me to save others.
And that's what I do. And a great job on
the storytelling and production by Greig Engler, and a special
thanks to Fernando Arroyo whose book The Shadow of Death
from My Battles in Fallujah to the Battle from My
(37:30):
Soul It's available wherever you get your books. And what
a scene he set in that room, afraid to sleep,
and the nightmares were so real. A large loud sound
that he thought was the gun going off, but it
was a Bible dropping on the floor. Incomes an angel
and that's a buddy of his who kept telling him
(37:50):
he needed help, and then another angel batman in the
intake center who told Fernando he was full of it.
In the end, began a new life. As Fernando put it,
God saved me so I could save others. The story
or Fernando ar Royo here on our American stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!