In April 1996 I was deployed to Thailand to support this annual military joint exercise named “Cobra Gold.”  If I would give a ‘guesstimate,’ I would say around 2,000 U.S. soldiers from all military branches were also deployed. Thailand was a beautiful place to live. The people were friendly, the food was delicious, and there was so much to explore.  Unfortunately, the country is a public health nightmare. There is an incredible amount of disease and germs in Thailand. It was so bad, the military’s Public Health Department prescribed everyone Doxycycline as a preventative medicine. I am not totally sure about how I got the H. pylori germ. It is a toss-up between the ice that was in my glass of soda or the “sampler plate” that had ten different types of meat. I am not a gambling man, but I would probably put $100 on the sampler plate, from which I accidently ate frog, snake and dog meat.  Let’s just say that dog meat tastes like a tough steak.

I started feeling the symptoms somewhere around the tail end of my deployment in June. I remembered asking my friend Pic, “Does my neck looks swollen to you?” to which he replied, “Hell yeah!” At first, I felt fatigued. The fatigue was so extreme that I drank Pepsi nearly all day, for the caffeine. This chronic fatigue lasted weeks, until I returned from Thailand, sometime in late June 1996.  

The symptoms got worse every week after I returned from Thailand.  I had stabbing pains in my stomach, a constant burning pain in my throat, and I would poop this strange orange jelly-like material. I know, too much information. I drank Maalox like coffee. I would carry the small Maalox bottle in my back pocket like a flask of liquor. I even sipped on it like Hennessey. Eventually, I started going to the military doctor every two weeks, for three months. He would give me the same spill, “Your body is fighting something.  Let’s wait a little longer to see what manifests.”  

Finally, he told me, “Look! The next time I see you, you’d better be in the emergency room!”

After hearing the same speech, I stopped going.  I guess his words finally got to me. Therefore, I waited for a huge symptom, like an alien to pop out of my stomach.

As time passed, my symptoms became more severe.  I started having some breathing issues, like wheezing and nasal flaring. I remember sitting in a college English classroom on the base, gasping for air. It felt like I was breathing through a straw. I looked at my other classmates to see if they were having breathing issues.  After class was over, I went home, laid on the bed and fell into a deep sleep.

The next day was October 25th, my “Happy Birthday Eve day,” since my birthday was the following day, on the 26th. I remember feeling fatigued and wheezing that day. I remember thinking, “Why am I focusing on inhaling and exhaling today?” I remember clutching my chest, due to breathing issues. I laid in bed and immediately passed out while clutching my chest.  Immediately after I lay down, I felt my body levitate from the bed. I did not think anything of it because my body still felt “heavy,” as if I still weighed 210 lbs.  As I reached the ceiling of the bedroom, my body flipped around to a birds-eye view. That’s when I saw my real motionless body on the bed, still clutching its chest. My spiritual body came back down from the ceiling and stood in front of the bed. The television was behind me on the dresser and the volume was very loud.  

“Am I really out of my body?”  “Let me analyze this TV.” I looked at the vents that were on the side of the TV.  I put my ear to both side speakers and stood again in front of the TV to hear the different sound levels. Since I was a straight O.G. Sinner who was drinking and partying, I was more fascinated with being in another dimension than seeing heavenly beings. Therefore, I applied my critical thinking and deductive reasoning skills to help draw a conclusion on whether or not this was real.

What I did know at that point was that I didn’t have any more pain.

After analyzing the TV, I looked up at the ceiling and was blown away!  The ceiling in the bedroom was completely gone. The ceiling was replaced with outer space, with small bright stars.  It was as if the entire universe was condensed to what looked like a star map on my ceiling! This outer space, it was so dark that it seemed to glow.    I had never seen any object so dark. The closest thing that I could compare it to is the top of a black oven/stove or a flat screen TV. The stars where tiny but bright, similar to white Christmas tree lights.  However, the darkness from this space overshadowed the lights. I stared at this for at least five minutes. I remember saying, “I must be in another dimension,” because at that point I realized that no elements from the Periodic Table mattered.

After gazing at the ceiling and analyzing my television, I turned completely around. That’s when I saw him! Standing at the corner of the room was an angel who was around 7 ½ feet tall. He didn’t shine or have a glow like I would have imagined, nor did he have wings. However, I knew he was an angel because of his height and because he wore a Greek-like white robe. He was a tall and slender elderly man with a neatly trimmed beard that was perfectly edged. I would say that he looked like the actor Christopher Lee when he played Count Dooku, minus the light saber.

Immediately after I saw him, I mumbled, “This ain’t gonna be pretty!” because I knew I was going straight to hell.  Afterwards, we had a long discussion, but our mouths did not move. We conversed telepathically. Even though I was in spiritual form, I had all of my five senses. While I was talking to him in front of the television, I kept thinking, “Man, this TV is loud!”  Another interesting fact is that you are still the same person, even in the spiritual world. Since I get easily distracted, or what I call my “squirrel events,” I kept looking at the ceiling while I was talking telepathically with the angel.  I even wanted to jump up and touch one of the stars, which I would have done in real life.

I cannot remember our conversation, but it had to do with me being on the wrong trajectory to Heaven. Around this time, I realized that this angel was more of a “guide.”  

After our conversation, I hovered over the house, far enough to see that my house didn’t have a roof!  It looked like a doll house or a house on a movie set. Only the side walls existed. I looked at my living room which was well lit. My wife was in the kitchen cooking. Six feet from her was another ball of light. That’s when I noticed that this wasn’t a ball of light, but another angel in the kitchen with my wife.

After hovering over my house, I remember flying through the air. If I had to guess the altitude, I would say I was at an altitude of about 50,000 feet!  I remember flying over the Pacific Ocean at night and how the waves had small reflections of light, similar to how the moon shines on the ocean. Boy, was I flying!  I felt afraid because I wasn’t in control of where I was going. It felt like my spirit was thrown across the ocean. I went from Guam to Los Angeles, 6000 miles, in probably 10 seconds. I also felt homesick because I knew that I was far away from my body. I thought, “I need to get back into my body and start living right!”

After I arrived in Los Angeles, that’s when my whole “dimensional” thinking became spiritual.  I finally accepted that I was either dead or near death. I remember being in a bright orange/yellowish room.   The light wasn’t super bright; however, it illuminated the entire room. I knew instantly that this wasn’t any ordinary light, but the presence of God in the room.  It was as if the light was alive.  

There was a glass pane across the room, which separated the dimension I was in and life on Earth.  Even to this day, it’s hard for me to discuss this event because I was being judged on my past and future actions. I was shown how powerful your words or actions are. If you called someone fat 20 years ago, when you are judged, you will see and feel the “behind the scenes” of how your words affected them throughout their life. My past words made someone depressed in the future, to the point that it changed their life’s “trajectory.”   

Just dwell on this. Think about all of the kids that you probably teased or bullied in elementary school. Think about later in their life, that you were the person responsible for that kid eventually abusing drugs or hurting him or herself. Sorry, I know this was dark and too much, but I wanted to illustrate how Judgment Day will be.  

After watching this judgment event, I felt horrible and ashamed.  I didn’t break down and cry, but I wanted to distance myself from that room and the “Light.”  I even said to it, “Just take me straight to Hell.”  Afterwards, feeling ashamed I went walking down this path, thinking that it would lead me to Hell. Halfway down that path, I turned around and mumbled, “. . . and all I wanted to see was my birthday,” which was the very next day.  Suddenly, I was thrown back over the Pacific Ocean and into my body. I wish I had a camera in my bedroom because it felt like my body bounced up off the bed.  When I woke up, I was disoriented. I didn’t know where I was. I assumed that I had been judged somewhere else.  Seconds later, my wife came in the room singing “Happy Birthday” and holding a cake. I looked at the clock and it was exactly 12:00 AM, October 26, 1996, my 26th birthday!

After about a day or so, I went back to the hospital.  God blessed me with another doctor, fresh out of medical school. I could tell he was a Second Lieutenant. He said, “Let me run some labs to see what’s in your blood.” That is when Helicobacter Pylori came back positive. He prescribed me Tagamet and around three months of antibiotics, and it took around that time to totally eradicate it.  

After my experience, I started attending church and reading the Bible.  Most of all, I transitioned into a loving being who loved everyone, regardless of their race or economic status.