I know my parents worried and prayed that I would not come home in a body bag when the USS Trippe sailed along the coast of Viet Nam in 1972. They listened to the news every day and prayed that I would come home safe.
After I returned home from my first tour of duty along the Vietnamese coast, my mother confessed that she hadn't read my letters. "I would hear the mail slot open," she said. "and when I saw your purple letter fall through, I would cry. I knew you were still alive, but I couldn't bear to read your accounts of the war. They only made me worry more."
Many years later, I worried for our sons when they were in their late teens and early twenties. I worried about them going to war. I feared, not only for their lives, I also feared for their sanity and their souls.
I cried for our first son when his unit received orders for Desert Storm. His unit's helicopters crashed in training and his unit was disbanded. He was the only one in his unit not to go. I was grateful.
Little did I know that he would die while on a training weekend at the reserve center.
This book deals with my own awakening to the reality of war and the moral questions that war raises. Fighting in war is a messy and bloody business. We face a moral dilemma with our first kill. We are all taught that hurting people and certainly killing people is wrong. When we are put into a position where killing is "necessary", our moral compass goes haywire and we have to deal with it, not only in that moment, but for the rest of our lives.
Author's Bio.
- MUSHROOM MONTOYA
- Mushroom Montoya circumnavigated the globe aboard the USS Trippe DE1075 after killing soldiers, woman and children in Viet Nam. Now, as a shaman, he heals the planet one person at a time. Mushroom Montoya has an active shamanic healing practice in Long Beach, California and he teaches at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Cal State Univ. Long Beach.
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