Thanks Irish, your Fort Dix is no joke from what I heard. There is no fascination to be had while being inside. The media and movies show a distorted view of it. I tried to talk to some of the younger guys, try to stop them from making it a revolving door for them.
You learn alot about yourself, and alot about people. I think I can read people much better now, maybe better than they can read themselves. Everyone gets challenged in life, there are no ways around it. I don’t think its the same for everyone, but everyone goes through their “prison”.
This is where you learn to oversimplify it. Stick to what is most important to you, and fuck everything else. We are what we are. We push iron… its in our DNA. We don’t have blood in our veins, we have hydraulic fluid. We don’t know anything else, just grinding through pain and soreness toward the road to glory ahead. I think that life pushes on us all, how much can we push back is the question.
[quote]Chushin wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
That was a really interesting post Maximus.
Seconded, and thank you for taking the time to answer my question.
I know that “life isn’t fair,” but it seems astoundingly unfair that your situation changed so dramatically owing to the decision to close a facility. Either you’re in need of that much supervison or you’re not. You didn’t do anything to go from “Club Fed” to that hell hole…
I hope sincerely that your life is going ok now?
Thanks again. [/quote]
He didn’t try to sell body parts or launder money, so they took him out of the country club. See, Max, you weren’t a big enough criminal. 
Good read, man!
The BOP (Bureau of Prisons) classifies you according to your background and nature of the crime. At the camp in Vegas, there wasn’t even a fence. No wall, no cameras, nothing. Just your honor to behave. Guys who sell bodyparts will never see anything lower than a Low, that would be considered beyond violent. Also the BOP will at times punish someone harsh by sending them to a known rough facility. Money laundering might yield going to a camp, I had a roommate who laundered nearly 100 million.
Only 1 time did someone screw up in the camp, an old guy named Fats who was found at the craps table at the Golden Nugget. He somehow found a ride to go play at the casino, which landed him an extra 18 months to his time, along with a 1 way ticket to the Low facility. This moron only had 7 months left to serve, add 18 to that and you have 25. That was another form of torture, you could see the Vegas strip clearly.
The best behaved among the guys, were allowed small jobs for the Air Force on the base. I was able to work construction, real basic stuff, and cleaning up the community of graffiti and trash. The military personnel were nothing but EXCEPTIONAL with courtesy and respect to us. I will always be grateful for that, not once did a military person do or say anything rude at all. I was lucky enough to paint a hangar housing F-22 fighters, and being so up close was such a joy. I was also allowed to sit in a Blackhawk Helicopter due to some very cool pilots, who out of their own pocket treated about 15 of us to Domino’s Pizza. BEST DAMN PIZZA EVER. Here you had hot shot pilots who were just beyond kind, I will always be in awe how despite a horrible situation, you find more kindness than you would on the street.
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
Thanks Irish, your Fort Dix is no joke from what I heard. There is no fascination to be had while being inside. The media and movies show a distorted view of it. I tried to talk to some of the younger guys, try to stop them from making it a revolving door for them.
You learn alot about yourself, and alot about people. I think I can read people much better now, maybe better than they can read themselves. Everyone gets challenged in life, there are no ways around it. I don’t think its the same for everyone, but everyone goes through their “prison”.
This is where you learn to oversimplify it. Stick to what is most important to you, and fuck everything else. We are what we are. We push iron… its in our DNA. We don’t have blood in our veins, we have hydraulic fluid. We don’t know anything else, just grinding through pain and soreness toward the road to glory ahead. I think that life pushes on us all, how much can we push back is the question. [/quote]
Absolutely agree. But not everyone has their “prison”- as you said, when you’re constantly concerned for your life, well, very few who haven’t been in the military or in jail have been through that.
It is not like the movies show it to be. A couple of my good friends spent some time at Passaic County, which is one of the worst county prisons in the country, and they pretty much said the same thing. They don’t get weight sets there, though, so you gotta improvise.
I think we should go back to the jails in the movie ‘Life.’ Work camps sounds like a genius idea right now. I lived next to an old one that was shut down. I say we reopen these things, they seem low cost, everyone works from sun up to sun down.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
I think we should go back to the jails in the movie ‘Life.’ Work camps sounds like a genius idea right now. I lived next to an old one that was shut down. I say we reopen these things, they seem low cost, everyone works from sun up to sun down.
It would be great but politicans and others would never support another “slave institution.”
Maximus–really fantastic posts.
Thanx guys for your nice words.
[quote]Keving14 wrote:
Brother Chris wrote:
I think we should go back to the jails in the movie ‘Life.’ Work camps sounds like a genius idea right now. I lived next to an old one that was shut down. I say we reopen these things, they seem low cost, everyone works from sun up to sun down.
It would be great but politicans and others would never support another “slave institution.”[/quote]
Well last time I checked when you were in the military and prison, you were property of the state. So, so much for that.
Work camps would be perfect, makes people not want to come back to the cozy little cement box. Keeps the prisoners minds on the work at hand and less on groups and gang violence. Plus they produce stuff that is productive to society, like either crops or irrigation ditches.