Author's Bio.

My photo
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.

Monday, July 15, 2024

Class Leader

Excerpt from Viet Nam Body Count, Chapter 9

“I wonder if Chief Jaffe knows that we call him the Hulk,” I said while holding on to the repair locker’s steel door with one hand and looking down at Barry. I stood in the white interior passageway at our battle station adjacent to the forward repair locker. I balanced myself by spreading my legs apart as the ship slithered over the ocean’s swells.

“Sit down,” Barry said. “You can bet your ass that the chief knows that he’s called the Hulk. There’s a lot of power in a name.” He waited for me to sit down before he continued. “A nickname has more power in defining who you are than a military title. General Patton was called, Old Blood and Guts. What does that tell ya?”

“It tells me that the Hulk could be my worst nightmare,” I said.

“You got that right,” Barry said. He squirmed in his pants as he sat next to me on the shiny white and green checkered linoleum deck. He wrinkled his face, stood up, and scratched his crotch. “Right now, my crotch is killing me. That ointment the doc gave me ain't stopping this crotch rot from itching like crazy.”

“Maybe you ought to consider changing your underwear more often.” I said.     

“Hell, I'm changing my shorts twice a day as it is,” he said as he unzipped his pants and pulled his white cotton Navy issue boxer shorts down his pant leg as far as they would go. “It's so fucking humid out here.” He re-zipped his pants and sat back down next to me.

“How long have you had crotch rot?”

“The first time I got it I was on the riverboats,” Barry said. “I thought the ointment they gave me cured it. But, shit. It's back. The doc told me to use lots of powder and to sleep naked. It'd be more fun sleeping naked with a girl instead you fuckers.”

“I'm just glad you aren't sleeping next to me,” I said.

Barry rolled his eyes. “What are you talking about? It’s so humid that half the crew sleeps naked already.” He poked me in the ribs. “Even you.”

“The Hulk and I are not the only ones with nicknames,” I said. “I heard Bruce call you, tóc đ me or something like that,” I said.” What's that all about?”

“That’s a nickname I got on the riverboats,” Barry said. “It's Vietnamese for windy redhead or some shit like that.”

“Why did they give you that name?”

Pulling the crotch of his pants out to a point, he said, “cause of this big pecker.”

“That little thing?”

“Actually, it was because I have red hair and because I was the communications guy.” Barry said as he scratched his crotch again and then sat with his legs spread wide apart. “Ya know, I never really thought about it that much. Maybe I just liked the sound of it.” He closed his eyes and said, Tóc đ me e, accentuating the second e sound. His eyes sprang wide open. “Now I remember. It doesn’t mean windy redhead; it means American redhead.” He looked up at the overhead. “How could I forget that?” He put the soles of his feet together and moved them back to keep his crotch spread out. He wiggled his butt on the deck maneuvering himself to face me. “How about you?” he asked, “How’d ya get named Mushroom?”

“I got it when I was in “A” school,” I said.

“Really?” he asked with a taunt in his voice. He held out his thumb and index finger in front of his squinting eyes as if he were measuring something very small. “Did the school give you that name because your teensy weensy pecker is like a teensy weensy mushroom?”

A hint of irritation joined my response, “Do you want to know or not?”

“What “A” school did ya’ll go to?”

“Since the Navy merged Damage Control rate and the Shipfitter rate to make the Hull Maintenance Technician rate, a school didn’t exist yet. The Navy sent me to Damage Control school in Treasure Island, in the San Francisco Bay. I arrived there, with shoulder length hair, wearing my uniform.”

“With long hair, in uniform? Were you crazy?”

“I must’ve been, but not as crazy as they were,” I said. “They made me get four haircuts before they processed me in.”

“That doesn’t sound so crazy,” Barry said.

“That’s not the crazy part. On the first day of school, we all met in a large classroom in Austin Hall, the Damage Control school. The officer in charge, a lieutenant, called role alphabetically, but he skipped my name until the end. He asked me to come to the front of the classroom.”

“I bet you were going to get your ass whipped.”

“That's what I thought, Barry. I was nervous as hell. I figured that the lieutenant was going to punish me and use me as an example to warn the rest of the sailors not to show up with long hair while wearing a Navy uniform.”

“So, what did he do to ya’ll.”

“To my surprise the lieutenant shook my hand and said, ‘You’re the senior ranking enlisted man here. That makes you the class leader. These 35 sailors are your responsibility. Make sure that they perform well.’ Now that’s crazy.”

“Get outta here! No shit?” Barry said. “Hell, if I had shown up in uniform, with shoulder length hair, they would have had me swabbing the fuckin decks for the whole time I was in school.”

I told Barry that the lieutenant told me to march my guys to the mess decks for breakfast and get them back to Austin Hall by 07:30. I hadn't marched for nearly 3 years.

“While I was preoccupied trying to remember any marching commands, the lieutenant asked me who I had picked for an assistant. He caught me off guard. I had only met a few of the recruits the night before. I had no idea who to choose. Rick, a guy who shared my room, looked at me with eyes that said, ‘Pick me, pick me.’ So, I did.”

“Was he any good?” Barry asked.

“Not really. Rick did a good job as an assistant, as long as I didn’t leave him in charge of the other students. No one would listen to him. He didn't have enough personal power.”

“Ya, I’ve known some officers like that,” Barry said.

“BAM!” My stomach tensed when our five inch gun shot off its first of several 75 pound rounds, one level above us. The repeated rounds made the deck under our butts feel as if we were sitting in the bed of a pickup truck driving over some bumps on a dirt road.

“For as much as hated being on the river boats,” Barry said. “I prefer being able to see what we’re shooting rather than being stuck down here in this passageway.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” I said. I wanted to get my mind off the bombing. “Let me get back to my story.”

“When the lieutenant finished with the orientation and walked out the door, I stood up and looked at the 35 young men that were now my responsibility. ‘Let's go eat breakfast.’ I said. They walked out of the classroom and assembled themselves, in formation, facing the entrance of the Austin Hall. They stood there waiting for me to call out the marching orders. I couldn't recall any marching commands.”

“None?” Barry asked, his eyebrows arching up. “Ya’ll must've looked like a fuckin idiot.”

“I felt like one,” I said. “I looked over at Rick and unfortunately asked a little too loudly, ‘How do I get them started?’ A big grin emerged on Rick's face. I can tell you now, I didn’t like that grin. When I looked back at my crew they all had that same big grin. My own embarrassment kept me from remembering any of the marching commands.”

Barry slapped his thigh and laughed. “I wish I could’ve seen your face.”

“I’m sure it was beet red,” I said. “I tried to stand up straight. I looked at the group. ‘Alright, you guys. I'm getting hungry,’ I said. ‘We have to march to the mess hall. So you will have to bear with me until I get a hang of this marching thing.’”

“If I’d been there, I would’ve given you shit,” Barry said.

“Your double must’ve been there, Barry. He yelled from the middle of the group, ‘But you’re our leader. You’re supposed to know how to march.’ ”

“I explained that I had just re-enlisted after having been out of the Navy for two and a half years. Rick still had his shit eating grin when he suggested, ‘Try, forward march.’

“I did. The entire class took about three steps toward me. ‘Stop!’ I yelled and laughed. ‘OK, OK, let's try this again.’ I turned to Rick. ‘How do I get them to turn?’

“‘Say, About face. Then say 'Forward march' to get them moving.’

“‘About face. Forward march!’ They moved in unison. I started feeling better until we came to the next street. I needed them to turn left, so I yelled ‘Turn left!’ The kept on marching and giggling. ‘Stop!’ I yelled. They kept on marching. I felt like Lucille Ball in the candy factory episode.”

Barry turned to look at me with a big grin, “Ya’ll have got to be making this up.”

“Believe me, this stupid war and the noise from our guns have killed any ability I might have to make anything up.

“My buttocks started to tingle. I stood up and stretched. Barry stood up and adjusted his boxers once again. We sat across the passageway from each other on the polished green and white checkered deck. Barry nodded his head from me to continue.

“My guys were still marching down the road laughing,” I said. “If my new assistant's grin were any wider, his tonsils would have been showing. Rick told me to yell, “halt.” Which I did. And thank God they stopped. Then he said, ‘Then say “About face.” Follow that with “Forward march.” When we get to the street, say “Right Face.” One more thing, whenever you see a bollard, a trash can or any anything in our way, call out, ‘Dempsey Dumpster, hut! They’ll march to the left or right avoiding whatever is in the way. That's not an official marching command, but it works.’ I managed to march them to the mess hall, with a lot of laughing and giggling. Rick gave me the rundown on marching commands while we ate our breakfast. It was a whole lot easier marching them back to Austin Hall.”

“What did ya’ll learn in HT school, besides marching orders?” Barry asked.

“We spent the first week learning how to put out all kinds of fires: oil fires, electrical fires and wood fires. One day, while I was holding the nozzle, the hose sprung a big leak and collapsed. A loud voice behind me yelled, ‘Hold on tight!’ And they dragged me out of the smoke filled room on my butt.”

“Was that a real fire?” Barry asked.

“Hell yeah! And it scared the hell out of us. That fire burned hot. The instructor had placed me right in front, holding the fire nozzle. After that first week's fire training, we had earned liberty. We went into San Francisco after class on Friday.”

“Did ya’ll go into town to get laid?” Barry asked, “When I was there, I sure did, Hoo! Wee!” He pursed his lips. “This is a nice story and all, but what does it have to do with how you got your name?”

“Let me finish my story and you’ll see,” I said. “Before we could go on liberty we had to stand inspection. When the officer got to one of the guys, he said, ‘You look like you’re wearing mascara, son, do a better job of washing your eyes after firefighting class.’ It was hard not to laugh. The day before, we were practicing putting out oil fires. The soot clung to our skin like shoe polish adhered to our shoes. It refused to leave without a lot of soap and hard scrubbing. Eliminating the mascara look was as difficult as giving a cat a bath and almost as painful.”

“I can only imagine,” Barry said.

“I marched my men back to the barracks after our last class,” I said. “After we arrived at the barracks, I asked everyone to meet me in the lobby at 16:00 so that I could give them last minute instructions before we went into town. While we waited for the rest of the class to assemble, a few were already drinking beer from the beer machine in the lobby. When the whole crew got to the lobby, I gave them safety guidelines to follow while in San Francisco. I reminded them that they were not allowed to go more than 25 miles beyond the base or get drunk. I told them that we were only given “Cinderella liberty” and they had to be back in the barracks no later than midnight.

“‘Why midnight?’ one of them sarcastically asked. ‘Will we turn into pumpkins?’

“‘No, but you’ll feel like Cinderella when you lose your liberty next weekend and have to spend your time cleaning Austin Hall,’ I said.

“I turned and began walking away. One of my men wanted to ask me a question but he’d forgotten my name. He yelled the two words written on the back of my tee-shirt, ‘Magic Mushroom! Wait! I need to ask you question.’

I gave Barry a toothy smile and said, “That's how I got my name.”

Barry grinned and said, “That's a good story. But I just can't help thinking that ya’ll made the whole damn thing up.”

“Truth is stranger than fiction,” I said. “It’s a name that fits me like skin. I like it.”

“Like I said, there’s a lot of power in a name,” Barry said. “And I don’t rightly know what kind of shit your name is going to do for you. Magic is one name that, by itself, might not be too bad. But when you combine it with Mushroom, I can guarantee that the Hulk ain’t gonna like it.”

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

The End of the Viet Nam War Is a Lie

by Mushroom Montoya


29 March is the anniversary
of the "official",  
not the real,
end of the Viet Nam war.

 

I stirred my coffee
this morning
with a U.S. Navy spoon,


that overflowed
with angry cubes
of bitterness.


Each one bore the label:
Viet Nam War
Brought to you
By the Military Industrial Complex


Each sip of my bitter coffee
bled memories
that I didn’t want to open.

 

We were still firing rockets
from our ship
That December,
nine months after,


After the fucking war
was “officially” declared
over.


It was a damn lie.

Each sip of my bitter coffee
cut slits in my gut
setting my mood for the day: 

Capital P
for PISSED.

 

But it is far more than just pissed.
My cousin died over there.
My shipmate died over there.
Hundreds of thousands of mothers
And fathers grieve for their dead children,

 

Who died over there,

 

Dead children whose deaths
and suffering succeeded in NOTHING
but making the Military Industrial Complex
richer,

While the whole world
became poisoned with Agent Orange
And a misdirected hatred
of those who were sent to serve.

While those of us
Who served there
still grieve
For the parts of us
that got killed there.

Wednesday, March 8, 2023

The Day We Sent Armed Forces to Yugoslavia

 I am a Viet Nam combat veteran. As I was packing for a trip I found an old journal entry (of sorts. It was a letter I wrote to myself). I wrote it the day that we sent armed forces to the Gulf War. I had been at work in the Los Angeles GSA office when I heard the news. Jeremy, my firstborn son, was a Hospital Corpsman (medic) in the Naval Reserves and I knew that he would probably be deployed to fight with the Marines.


I ran and hid in Patsy's (a coworker's) cubicle. My eyes were burning - my heart was pounding. The news report shot pangs of terror into me, shooting fear that my firstborn son would be deployed, sent to war, and be killed. Norm and Greg (coworkers) tried to comfort me. When I regained my composure, I returned to my cubicle.

When I saw Patsy, I remarked, "Those are really big, are they heavy." I was referring to her earrings. She replied, "Oh, my boobs? They are big and heavy." It made my smile come forward and lighten my heart again. I Told Patsy and Wanda that I had hoped that the Viet Nam vets would be the last veterans and that the VA hospitals would be turned into Public health facilities. Someday, someday.

I heard an announcer on the radio give a short discourse on pornography. He said that we have it all backward. "Why," He asked, "do we prevent children from viewing nudes and photos of sexual acts, saying those items harm children?" He said that nudes do little harm when compared to the REAL pornography - Visual Violence. The violence on the TV and movie screen, the violence in comic books, and Soldier of Fortune magazines. American society has perverted morals. Our society even praises violence. When will we wake up? When will we learn that the arms for peace are HUGS, not guns?

Monday, December 26, 2022

Is It Just a Dream?

 

Sadness weighed heavy on my gut, pressing my diaphragm, shortening my breathing when I read ...first firefight...1969...from an excerpt from Chuck Matheson’s book, The War Still Rages, sent to me by a friend.

We patrolled up and down the Guld of Tonkin. Invisible choppers roared over the jungle across the water. Narrow death rays glowed reddish yellow lines against the black night. All the while a constant rat tat that of the chopper's machine guns insulted my ears. A perpetual knot kept residence in my stomach. I waited, knowing our soldiers would give us coordinates, and then we'd fire our five-inch gun (22-foot-long cannon, with a 5 in diameter barrel).

Five-inch made it sound less lethal, but it was deadly accurate, up to 8 miles away.

Sure enough, the turret turned toward the shore and gut-wrenching blasts shot out of the five-inch gun.

Sometimes a white flare exploded on the land and manufactured daylight exposed everything underneath, as it floated slowly down on its little parachute.


Boys, we were all just boys, scattered on all directions, running for cover under trees and bushes.

My gut continued its slow twist as my jaw clenched tighter and the machine guns’ rat tat tatted death to unseen Viet Cong and US soldiers on the ground.

No escape.

So, all I could do was pray. I prayed, "Please dear God, let this be a nightmare.  Please let me wake up back in my own bed on Long Beach."

I said that prayer over and over every single night. God wasn't listening to me or anyone fighting this war. He was busy tending to the grieving mothers of the Vietnamese boys we killed.

My hands gripped the ship's safety line, as the sea breeze ruffled my hair. Gun smoke and diesel fuel fumes mixed with the salt air as I stared across the water, hoping we were out of range, hoping we didn't run aground.

 

4 years after I left Viet Nam I sat on a bluff above Pat Hurley Park in Albuquerque watching the 4th of July fireworks. In a lull between fireworks someone shot off a white parachute flare, like the ones in Viet Nam.

Boom. I was no longer watching fireworks. My whole body tensed. My mind blasted back onto the ship, off the shore of Viet Nam.

Denise asked me what was wrong. I told her I had to leave. I was terrified to go to sleep that night and for many nights after. I was afraid that my prayer had turned into a curse, a punishment for my going to war. I was afraid that if I went to sleep, I would wake up back in Viet Nam and that Albuquerque, Denise, and my boys were just a dream.  Even now, 50 years later, that feeling stops my breathing. Rationally I know it is 2022. But when that feeling hits, my body worries that the last 50 years were just a dream.

Thursday, April 28, 2022

I Still Keep a Letter

 To The Parents of the Young Men That We Killed in Vietnam

by Mushroom Montoya
December 11, 1996

I still keep a letter that I wrote to my brother, John on his 17th birthday under my keyboard as a "memento" of my loss of innocence. I wrote to him on my first day on the gun line. On our first strike and our first of too many "targets" too high a body count. The letter starts off innocently enough, "Happy Birthday, John! Your being 17 makes me feel old. The USS Trippe killed her first VC today. Somebody's mother's child is dead and, unfortunately, I was part of that. It makes me sick just to think about it.  ... I can't tell you much though 'cause Mom's ears and eyes would hurt ...  Take care of yourself, Mushroom"

What I couldn't let my mother's eyes read is that on our very first strike, our very first shot, I watched three young men running on the beach carrying a wooden box. We fired! Screams, blood, body parts! Two of the young men got up and started running. Bam! Shot number two. No screams, just body parts. I was looking through the Big Eyes (huge binoculars).

The gunner jumped down from the gun ecstatic over the news of his "better than perfect" score. I stood there, still in shock over what I had just witnessed. I looked him in the eye, and yelled, "How can you be happy? You just killed three guys! and you don't know for sure who they really were. You just killed THREE guys!"

His eyes went wild as he screamed back, "Damn you, Mushroom! They are NOT people! They are just targets! If they were people, I couldn't do my job? Fuck You! Why did you have to go and spoil a perfect hit on a moving target?"

Too many "targets", too high a body count. Now my first-born son is dead. "And somebody's father's child is dead." He died in uniform, returning from lunch to the reserve center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I wonder if those three boys were returning from lunch so many years ago on the shores of Vietnam. Now I have a glimpse of the pain we caused to the mothers and fathers of those young boys that we killed in Vietnam.

Every night, in Vietnam, I used to pray and ask God to let me wake up from this nightmare and be back home. This HAD to be a nightmare, it couldn't possibly be real. But each time I woke up, the "nightmare" was still going on. Later, in 1978, while watching the fireworks, someone shot off white flares. For a small eternity, I was back in Vietnam. I was terrified that night. I was afraid that 1978 was a dream and that I would wake up on the ship and it would still be 1972.

Too many "targets" too high a body count. I was unable to watch and enjoy fireworks without the weight and fear associated with the war until I went to the Vietnam Memorial in 1992. The Memorial caused a healing through many tears. I had my younger son take a photo of me pointing at the place where my name should have been. Part of me died in Vietnam. Part of all of us who were there died.

We lost our innocence. We lost our sanity. We are plagued with ghosts that haunt us. We are all wounded too deeply from too many "targets" too high a body count. Mushroom Montoya HTFN USS Trippe DE1075 Rdiv.

After my second tour in Vietnam, I was granted a 6 month early out as a conscientious objector. War is not healthy for children, parents, and other living things. 

***          ***          ***

I submitted this to PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) in response to my visit to the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington DC in summer 1992:

http://archive.pov.org/stories/vietnam/stories4/thewall1.html

Friday, April 22, 2022

My Eyes Screamed, STOP

By Mushroom Montoya


My eyes screamed STOP!

As I stood my battle station watch

Aboard my ship on the Viet Nam gunline,

Bearing guilt-riddled witness

To teenage bodies we're blasting apart.

 

God have mercy on our souls!

 

Our five-inch gun turning mothers,

 And the few surviving fathers

Into forever grievers.

The Vietnamese farmers and fishermen

Are God's children Too

 

God have mercy on our souls.

 

I cry for those mothers and fathers

And can't help but wonder

Is my dead son the price I pay

Because "Thou shalt not kill"

I felt duty-bound to disobey?

 

God have mercy on our souls.


Even though more than 50 years have passed

A maleficent thought continues to slash

My sense of time and where I am,

Sending me back to Viet Nam.

 

God have mercy on our souls.


I have learned that war is hate,

And I will no longer take the bait

Into believing that anyone is less

Than God's child too.

 

But I am haunted by those teenage boys

Who should have been playing with their toys

But instead, I witnessed them being blown apart,

And forevermore breaking their parent's hearts.

 

God have mercy on our souls.

 

Thursday, March 31, 2022

My Navy Badges, unofficial


 I served aboard the USS Trippe (1972) and the USS Truxtun (1973)

With a "tour" to Viet Nam on each one. Tour sounds like such a nice term, but it wasn't nice.

It has taken me 50 years to put these badges together and "feel" 
almost OK about it.

The experiences did their part in making me who I am. And for that, 
I am grateful.