August 1st, 2007, I’ve just touched down in Los Angeles, ready to see old friends, and even go to my first wedding, pretty excited. Well not really for the wedding part but for the partying afterwards. Cause back then I was all about partying and having fun, without a care in the world. Until, one uneventful night, on August 4, 2007, who would have thought that night would have changed my life forever.

But before I get to the events of that night, I need to go into details of me growing up, becoming the man I am today. January 8, 1983 was the day I was born, location Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. My pops was in the army during the time, so being in the military was somewhat in my blood from the beginning. Was only there through my early years, so most of my memories are faint. Only having pictures to really go by, but at the time seem like I was a happy kid. After doing five years in the army, my mother and father moved backed to South Carolina, since both were from the state. Things were rough when we were in Carolina, basically my moms and pops had to start all over again, this time with three kids. Lived in the projects for a while, only having one car for transportation, a lime green Chevy nova. Back then, I use to hate that car, but compared to walking miles to and from the grocery store with bags, made me look past the hatred I had towards it. But like the saying goes, from the bottom, there’s only one way to go, which is up. Seem like after 5 to 6 years we were moving, from small to small town, school to school, kind of became the norm. In elementary school, I was a pretty smart kid, honor roll, doing what a smart kid did. Middle school was the opposite, was a class clown, getting in fights, got suspended so much that I was up to be expelled from school. High School was somewhat the same story, but I was mostly concerned about females more than my education, so I had to repeat my sophomore year. Finally making it to my senior year, always got asked by teachers, my family, what I plan on doing with my life after school, never thought that far out, so never had a real answer. Had a little job at walmart getting paid almost minimum wage, then using that money to go clubbing, getting drunk or high, which ever came around first. Pretty much a vicious cycle of working, clubbing, school, working, clubbing, school. I stayed in a hole-in-a-wall club every night of the week, and I was contempt with that life.

Until one day I was home, and received a phone call, it was a navy recruiter. He asked me would I be interested in joining the navy, after a couple well and umm’s, I told him to call me in a couple weeks, I’ll think about. Not really putting thought into, only saying it to get off the phone. Cause at the time, my lifestyle had it ‘s clutches on me, and I had no ambitions of changing. Until one night of many nights of drinking and driving, me and a couple friends were going to hit a club in the next town over. The club was supposed to be jumping that night because a rapper was suppose to be performing. Can’t think of the rapper name at the time, but knew it would bring out a lot of females, so me and my crew was trying to be there. At the club early, parking lot pimpin( by the way that means just interacting with females in the parking lot before or after the club), I ran into some of my old friends from another school. We kicked it for a little bit, before one of them said that they had to go back to there town real quick to pick some weed up. Super faded, I told him that we will follow him there to make the pick up, then bounce back to the club. Racing through the back roads to avoid police, hitting dangerous curbs, I slowed down, losing the car in front of me. With my homboys in the back laughing and joking about me not being able to drive and getting left behind, I notice lights on the side of the road. As I’m driving closer to the lights I notice it was my homeboy car, upside down. In disbelief, me and the people in my car ran to the upside car, seeing four people still in the vehicle. Rushing to there aid, we kicked in the windows, the driver and one of the rear passengers crawled out. Yelling out for the other two passengers, seeing no movement, we realize they were dead. Police finally came out after someone called, I hurried up to leave the site, mainly because me and the people I was with were drunk and didn’t want to go to jail. So that crazy night, opened my eyes on how I was living, and I needed a big change. Couple days later, I get a phone call, it was that recruiter again, asked me did I think it over, I told him yes, don’t have anything going on, so what would it hurt. So a couple weeks down the road, I was prepared, only waiting to graduate to begin another chapter in my life. Graduation ceremony, I finally did it , as I’m attending my high school graduation, looking forward to party it up with my friends before I’m shipped off. July 19th, 2002, after a long day of placing my signature on multiple pages of paperwork, I’m off to boot camp. Boot camp was fun for me, different, but fun, met different people around the Us, even outside the US. No disrespect, but I never saw a Filipino person before boot camp, I thought it was cool seeing different races all together for a bigger cause. I was all in for my new adventure of being in the navy. After a couple setbacks, I finally finished boot camp, October 15th 2002, headed to Rolla, Mizzou, for my Equipment Operator Apprentice School. I hated there, didn’t really make any friends, really no liberty because some of the rules I didn’t abide by. And not to forget the weather, which sucked, as if mother nature didn’t know how to make her mind up on how the weather was going to be. One day its snowing, the next its hot, then tornado warnings, then back to snow, I was always sick. Feburary 4th, 2003, finally received my orders, Port Hueneme, California, a young man from a small country town in South Carolina is headed to Cali, I was ecstatic. Never thought I would be in Cali, nevertheless in the navy, things seem like it was going in the right direction for me.

Now I’m in Cali, the state of palm trees and pretty women, fast cars and sandy beaches, from what I was told. California was a different scenery for me, coming from the dirty south, but it didn’t take me long to adjust. Slowly met people from my command, but no one I had anything in common with. It was almost December, my command was getting prepared for deployment, so there were a lot of parties thrown in the barracks, that’s when I started meeting people who I could relate to. It’s the end of the year, I’m on my first deployment, Okinawa, Japan. Being that it was a first deployment for a lot of us at the time, it was easy making friends, and I kind of had my own clique. As the years went by, deployment after deployment, we were something like a gang, more like a band of brothers, cause we felt more like family than our blood relatives. By it being so many of us, we were always told that we look like some type of gang, but it was never nothing like that, we just had each other back no matter what. And at the time we all had things in common, just wanted to have fun, meet females, and being wasted while we doing it. It was almost like that was I common goals while being in the military. We fought together, among each other, we were like family. How things were going, we felt like we were untouchable, but a couple night, a couple incidents, proved that we wasn’t. From DUI’s, fighting, almost getting shot on the freeway, separations from the navy, the list goes on, I fortunately manage to not get caught up. Its 2007, My five years are up at my first command, wanted to be back on the east coast, close to family, so I picked orders to Jacksonville, FL, expected to leave July 15th. As the time came closer, it became harder for me to leave, I was leaving my girl at the time, my friends, I was going to be on my own again. One of my friends was getting married, and he wanted me to be there, so I made sure when I got to my next command, that it was priority to put leave in. August 1st 2007, I’ve just touched down in Los Angeles, ready to see old friends, and even go to my first wedding. Spent time with my girlfriend at the time, first, then it was onto kicking it with my homeboys, cause they knew I was in town. Saturday, August 4th 2007, a couple of us were drinking, trying to figure out what we were going to do for the night. Someone mentioned LA, or the local clubs round Oxnard/Ventura area. I remember Fiesta’s was going on in Santa Barbara, a couple of us been to it once before, so we made it our destination for that night. Before leaving, one of the guys wanted to take a picture, since it seem like some of the crew was back together. We took the picture, and made our way to the vehicles, looking forward to what the night bring us. On the way to Santa Barbara, one of my homeboys had his gun on him, it wasn’t uncommon for him to have it, a couple of guys rode with their guns, for protection, and it always stayed in the vehicle. Were on state street in Santa Barbara, amazed at how many people were out there, mainly the females, we just knew it was going to be a good night.

As the four of us walked down the street joking, trying to talk to females, one of my homeboys ran into someone that he had prior beef with, words were said, and suddenly there was a fight. The fight caught both parties off guard, so we attempted to break up the fight. By Fiestas being a big event downtown Santa Barbara there was a ridiculous amount of police there also. While we trying to break up the fight, police grabbed everyone in sight, throwing people into buildings, onto the pavement, etc. As I’m thrown against the building, I’m trying to explain that we were not fighting, but trying to break it up, I hear “GUN GUN GUN” yelled by one of the police man. I turn around to see my homeboy getting off of the ground startled, with the gun on the ground, he went to take off running, and that when the gun shots rang out. Standing like 3 feet away, I could hear the bullets ricochet as the three policeman shot him. I couldn’t believe what was happening before my eyes, felt like something out of a movie. As I’m getting thrown to the ground, handcuffed, with others who were around, all I could hear was him yelling in agony “ why did you shoot me, why did you shoot me”. Then he became silent, with my face turned to see him, see in his eyes, I knew he was lifeless. I was speechless, like someone stole my voice, all I could do was stare at him, while I was laying on the pavement. As I watch the policeman pull his shirt back, exposing the bullet wounds leaking blood, checking his pockets, they threw handcuffs on him. All I could think was why, why, and to still put handcuffs on him, I was numb, frozen, unable to move, thinking that would give them reason to just shoot me. They throw everyone in the police cars who they arrested, taking us to the police station. At the police station they threw us in separate holding rooms, to interrogate us one by one I guess. After a couple hours went by, thinking if this is real, did this really happen, a detective came in to get my side of the story. First thing they did was treat it like we were a gang, asking what gang were we in, trying to write it off as a gang fight. When I told him that we wasn’t in a gang, and that we were in the navy, his facial expression was of disbelief, and wanted to see some type of proof or ID. As I showed him my Military ID and explained to him that we wasn’t in a gang, and we were trying to break the fight up. The only people that were fighting was the two whom we were trying to separate. With a dumbfounded look on his face, he left the room and came back with pictures, asking did I know people from both parties. I said “yes, and that we were all in the navy, there was no brawl like you think”. Then he left the room for an hour before coming back to take the handcuffs off, with his whole demeanor changed, being polite, offering water. With a distasteful expression on my face while he spoke to me, I knew he felt like they were in the wrong, so he try to feed me bs. The incident took place around 1130 Saturday night, and I was let go around 8 the next morning. All I could do was cry, I lost someone close to me, a brother from a different mother. The five years I knew him, felt like a life time, not just me but everyone who was in our circle, we were family. So ever since that incident, I’m more cautious of my actions, knowing that I don’t want to leave this earth not yet, until I’ve fully lived my life. That experience made me cherish my life more, and to do more with my life, other than drama I’ve been through, only have one life to live. So hopefully the message you get from my story is that live life for what it’s worth, there’s more to life than the drama you put yourself in, you only have one life, so make the best of it.