On my 14th birthday, I had two best friends stay over at our New Mexico farm...small, but intensively demanding workwise. That weekend, though, I had the weekend off from farm-type duties. My two guests attending were best friends: Charles Montoya from the Latin world of Espanola, and Fred Warren from the Scientific town of Los Alamos. I had left the Espanola Schools after 7th grade, and was in the last few months of my eighth grade year in Los Alamos, although our family still lived outside of Espanola.
We had a great time. My two worlds had somehow united fruitfully for one weekend. Charles and Fred got along like two old pals, and all was delightful. As months passed and I spent more and more time in extracurricular activities in Los Alamos, my parents saw that the commute to Los Alamos, 20 miles over mountain roads, was too hard to maintain. As my next birthday approached, 1967 turned into 1968, and I began my second year in Los Alamos Schools. I saw Charles at our football game that fall, and after the holidays, I began to think about who to invite for my 15th birthday party. Charles in his 9th grade year had become student body vice-president at Espanola Junior High School.
In the midst of one of our neighborhood backyard football games one Sunday in that January of 1968, my mother rapped on the window and asked me to come back inside the house. She told me that Charles Montoya had shot himself the previous morning, and had died instantly. For a minute, I didn't believe her, then it felt like someone had kicked me in the nuts. I asked for details, and she said that he and his father, F., had planned to go hunting that Saturday morning, and when he had tried to wake up Charles, he had found a huge hole in his head, having covered himself in several blankets so his parents would not hear the hunting rifle he had snuck to bed with him go off.
I could tell you more of the grisly details, but the point was that one of my best friends had destroyed himself without leaving a note as to why, and nothing f**king made sense. I had seen him three weeks prior when I went to a basketball game in Espanola, and he seemed jittery and distracted, but, hey...we all have those days. I tried to go to his funeral mass, but the grief inside me was so high that I couldn't maintain my emotional equanimity, and I had to leave.
My dad would occasionally go over to Jerry's Tavern in Espanola for a drink, and he said that he had run into Charles' father there. It was a small bar and package liquor store, the kind that had hard boiled eggs on the counter in a jar of water that patrons could buy. I had known Charles' mother and father since first grade. She was a substitute teacher in the Espanola and Santa Cruz Schools, and his father, F., was an art teacher at Espanola Elementary and Junior High Schools. I had taken Art in my last year in the Espanola Schools with Mr. Montoya, and he had been my art teacher in first through sixth grades, visiting our class once a week for an hour. F. Montoya was the epitome of laid back. He was soft spoken, fair, and supportive of clumsy art students like myself. The Montoya family was well respected by Latino and Anglo families throughout the Espanola Valley.
The unanswered question hurt like a cracked tooth. Why did Charles Montoya shoot himself?
Years would pass before the answer would come, with clues revealing their answers reluctantly, sometimes years at a time.
We had a great time. My two worlds had somehow united fruitfully for one weekend. Charles and Fred got along like two old pals, and all was delightful. As months passed and I spent more and more time in extracurricular activities in Los Alamos, my parents saw that the commute to Los Alamos, 20 miles over mountain roads, was too hard to maintain. As my next birthday approached, 1967 turned into 1968, and I began my second year in Los Alamos Schools. I saw Charles at our football game that fall, and after the holidays, I began to think about who to invite for my 15th birthday party. Charles in his 9th grade year had become student body vice-president at Espanola Junior High School.
In the midst of one of our neighborhood backyard football games one Sunday in that January of 1968, my mother rapped on the window and asked me to come back inside the house. She told me that Charles Montoya had shot himself the previous morning, and had died instantly. For a minute, I didn't believe her, then it felt like someone had kicked me in the nuts. I asked for details, and she said that he and his father, F., had planned to go hunting that Saturday morning, and when he had tried to wake up Charles, he had found a huge hole in his head, having covered himself in several blankets so his parents would not hear the hunting rifle he had snuck to bed with him go off.
Charles Montoya's "self-inflicted gunshot wound" report
courtesy of Sandra Adams Dodd (a cool former classmate of mine)
I could tell you more of the grisly details, but the point was that one of my best friends had destroyed himself without leaving a note as to why, and nothing f**king made sense. I had seen him three weeks prior when I went to a basketball game in Espanola, and he seemed jittery and distracted, but, hey...we all have those days. I tried to go to his funeral mass, but the grief inside me was so high that I couldn't maintain my emotional equanimity, and I had to leave.
My dad would occasionally go over to Jerry's Tavern in Espanola for a drink, and he said that he had run into Charles' father there. It was a small bar and package liquor store, the kind that had hard boiled eggs on the counter in a jar of water that patrons could buy. I had known Charles' mother and father since first grade. She was a substitute teacher in the Espanola and Santa Cruz Schools, and his father, F., was an art teacher at Espanola Elementary and Junior High Schools. I had taken Art in my last year in the Espanola Schools with Mr. Montoya, and he had been my art teacher in first through sixth grades, visiting our class once a week for an hour. F. Montoya was the epitome of laid back. He was soft spoken, fair, and supportive of clumsy art students like myself. The Montoya family was well respected by Latino and Anglo families throughout the Espanola Valley.
The unanswered question hurt like a cracked tooth. Why did Charles Montoya shoot himself?
Years would pass before the answer would come, with clues revealing their answers reluctantly, sometimes years at a time.
My friend's gravesite-Santa Fe National Veteran's Cemetary
In the Spring of 1968, Charles' father F. drove up our little lane driveway in his red Ford pickup. He asked to see me. I instinctively recoiled from the situation, jumping like a shocked monkey. My parents insisted that I see him, so I walked out to his truck. Mr. Montoya, my ever cool, ever mellow former Art teacher was standing in front of me, crying his eyes out. He asked me "do you have any idea why Charles would hurt himself?" I replied that I had seen him earlier in December of 1967, and that he had seemed nervous and preoccupied. He then said "Charles wouldn't commit suicide, would he?" I looked at F. Montoya and said nothing, tears rolling down my face. My mother said "Peter! Tell Mr. Montoya that Charles' death was an accident!" I remained silent. I was conflicted beyond speech. I turned and walked in my house, unable to say what the adults were wanting to hear. Something told me there was much more to this death than just an accidental shooting, or a kid who blew his head off impulsively. I just was not sure what that was.
Later in college, I began a long career in Behavioral Psychology, and I learned about operant conditioning, reinforcement schedules-negative and positive, and so much more. The school where I went to college was in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This was in the prime insanity of the Vietnam War. Fort Carson, the huge military base in town, was where the drug addicted and mentally traumatized soldiers were being directly sent post Vietnam deployment. The soldiers had what was then called "shellshock." Their were tales of Vietnam Vets diving under tables while out for pizza, screaming loudly and threatening violence for things normal people would laugh off. They were often mood altered on either alcohol, downers, or acid, and would occasionally turn up on our little college's campus, trying to pick up female students or sneak into places they were not allowed. Occasionally, something very strange would happen, like a Vet screaming at one of our students, or threatening another. I didn't know it then, but the behavior I saw there was reminiscent of other wars, especially recent ones, like Korea or World War II. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a diagnostic construct with research dollars was years away.
Going back to the first few years after my friend's suicide, my dad would shake his head and talk with me about Charles' dad, saying that people who knew him were reporting him sinking into alcohol dependence, alternately crying and threatening other drinkers, talking about his service in World War II and how he was a veteran. As the years went on, there were reports of more temper flashes, less patience, and anger displays that were truly frightening. Eventually, my father said that he could not engage with Mr. Montoya because he was scary and unpredictable.
The years advanced and I returned to graduate school after years of hawking records and bongs in the music biz. I began to work with Vets and others with disabilities, and I began to see the dynamics of how war related trauma hurt families, especially the children of these Vets with PTSD. Kids were hyper-vigilant, just like their parents who were Vets, which made no sense to me at that time. Wives reported their husbands' labile emotions: rages, tears, isolating behavior, manic episodes, violent acting-out, and most scarily, chemical dependence. The kids with psychiatric disabilities I was working with showed anger issues, violent outbursts, and screaming fits. The adult Vets coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan were dependent on alcohol, anxiety medications, and prescription pain medications. I heard one Vet after another describe horrific scenes....buddies at their shoulder being dropped by a bullet to the forehead, recurring dreams of having shot children by mistake, sending their men to a task that they would not come back from...shooting fire down the hiding places of suspected terrorists.
As I spent years doing either private therapy or chemical dependence therapy, I learned more about the impact of such terrible trauma upon not only the immediate recipient of the trauma, but his or her offspring up to three generations downline. One of the most interesting studies documenting inherited proclivity for hypervigilance is referenced here: childrens' inheritance of parents' trauma Another famous study of the offspring of Holocaust survivors and their children has an abstract found here: Holocaust survivors' children and PTSD Similar outcomes were found of children of women who experienced serious physical abuse. The study may be accessed here: Children of highly physically abused women show inherited hypervigilance
What does all of this mean for Charles Montoya you ask? Well, his father was a Sergeant deployed in the Pacific Theater, fighting the Japanese island by bloody island in World War II. F. Montoya, my mellow art teacher, apparently had a a tendency toward anger outbursts that included hitting Charles. How do I know this? After recalling some of the things he had told me during the years, I remember that he came to school with a black eye twice and a chipped front tooth another time. When I asked what happened each time, he gave the classic wife/child response to physical abuse...."I fell" or "I got hit by a neighborhood kid" or "I don't know." F. Montoya, God rest his soul, was a man tortured by his memories of the grisly island battles against dug-in Japanese soldiers who were ready to die for their Emperor. He drank on weekends to deal with too much free time. When Charles did not follow instructions, there was potential verbal or physical violence, exacerbated by Charles own hypervigilance. After Charles died, F.'s anger at himself and guilt about his eldest son's death slowly consumed him, one drink at a time. My father's own observations, Charles's own hypervigilance/jumpiness, and his efforts to hide his family's violent moments, made obvious by his chipped tooth, his blackeyes that he would not explain, betrayed him in his silence and secrecy in the end, at least to me.
But let me tell you about the real Charles Montoya. He was a funny, goofy kid with a great sense of humor that anyone could relate to. He treated everyone kindly, and never exploited a situation to tease a peer. He was a little overweight, but no one cared, because everyone liked him and his wonderful Art teacher dad, Mr. Montoya. He played a mean clarinet in the Espanola Junior High School Band, directed by the great Ray Felix. He welcomed new kids, showed kindness to others, and was able to laugh at himself. He loved football and played well. Artistically, he showed precocious skills in art, and this may be the biggest loss of all. He could see a drawing and duplicate it freehand with little thought but high competence. I would say that had he lived, he could have been a top tier Southwest Artist of national renown. But those of us whose lives touched his will remember his grace and gentleness. He never would have hit his children. He would have been a loving and kind father, the kind any man would look at and think..."I want to be like him." As for me, well, I wish he would have called me, or another friend, or a trusted relative. The pain is as acute now as 46 years ago.
This nation is at war again. No one seems to think about the long-term consequences of war upon the men and women who fight or try to save those broken by the latest reason for international violence. Hence both F. J. Montoya and Charles Edward Montoya are casualties of World War II...not during the War itself, but casualties nonetheless. Charles Edward Montoya needed to have his story told. He is more than that cross headstone in Santa Fe's National Cemetery. He is more than a punching bag for his dad, He is more than a yellow clipping in the back of someone's file. Both Charles and his father F. J. are a real New Mexico War Story.
Text copyright by Peter Reum 2014-All Rights Reserved
Going back to the first few years after my friend's suicide, my dad would shake his head and talk with me about Charles' dad, saying that people who knew him were reporting him sinking into alcohol dependence, alternately crying and threatening other drinkers, talking about his service in World War II and how he was a veteran. As the years went on, there were reports of more temper flashes, less patience, and anger displays that were truly frightening. Eventually, my father said that he could not engage with Mr. Montoya because he was scary and unpredictable.
The years advanced and I returned to graduate school after years of hawking records and bongs in the music biz. I began to work with Vets and others with disabilities, and I began to see the dynamics of how war related trauma hurt families, especially the children of these Vets with PTSD. Kids were hyper-vigilant, just like their parents who were Vets, which made no sense to me at that time. Wives reported their husbands' labile emotions: rages, tears, isolating behavior, manic episodes, violent acting-out, and most scarily, chemical dependence. The kids with psychiatric disabilities I was working with showed anger issues, violent outbursts, and screaming fits. The adult Vets coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan were dependent on alcohol, anxiety medications, and prescription pain medications. I heard one Vet after another describe horrific scenes....buddies at their shoulder being dropped by a bullet to the forehead, recurring dreams of having shot children by mistake, sending their men to a task that they would not come back from...shooting fire down the hiding places of suspected terrorists.
As I spent years doing either private therapy or chemical dependence therapy, I learned more about the impact of such terrible trauma upon not only the immediate recipient of the trauma, but his or her offspring up to three generations downline. One of the most interesting studies documenting inherited proclivity for hypervigilance is referenced here: childrens' inheritance of parents' trauma Another famous study of the offspring of Holocaust survivors and their children has an abstract found here: Holocaust survivors' children and PTSD Similar outcomes were found of children of women who experienced serious physical abuse. The study may be accessed here: Children of highly physically abused women show inherited hypervigilance
What does all of this mean for Charles Montoya you ask? Well, his father was a Sergeant deployed in the Pacific Theater, fighting the Japanese island by bloody island in World War II. F. Montoya, my mellow art teacher, apparently had a a tendency toward anger outbursts that included hitting Charles. How do I know this? After recalling some of the things he had told me during the years, I remember that he came to school with a black eye twice and a chipped front tooth another time. When I asked what happened each time, he gave the classic wife/child response to physical abuse...."I fell" or "I got hit by a neighborhood kid" or "I don't know." F. Montoya, God rest his soul, was a man tortured by his memories of the grisly island battles against dug-in Japanese soldiers who were ready to die for their Emperor. He drank on weekends to deal with too much free time. When Charles did not follow instructions, there was potential verbal or physical violence, exacerbated by Charles own hypervigilance. After Charles died, F.'s anger at himself and guilt about his eldest son's death slowly consumed him, one drink at a time. My father's own observations, Charles's own hypervigilance/jumpiness, and his efforts to hide his family's violent moments, made obvious by his chipped tooth, his blackeyes that he would not explain, betrayed him in his silence and secrecy in the end, at least to me.
But let me tell you about the real Charles Montoya. He was a funny, goofy kid with a great sense of humor that anyone could relate to. He treated everyone kindly, and never exploited a situation to tease a peer. He was a little overweight, but no one cared, because everyone liked him and his wonderful Art teacher dad, Mr. Montoya. He played a mean clarinet in the Espanola Junior High School Band, directed by the great Ray Felix. He welcomed new kids, showed kindness to others, and was able to laugh at himself. He loved football and played well. Artistically, he showed precocious skills in art, and this may be the biggest loss of all. He could see a drawing and duplicate it freehand with little thought but high competence. I would say that had he lived, he could have been a top tier Southwest Artist of national renown. But those of us whose lives touched his will remember his grace and gentleness. He never would have hit his children. He would have been a loving and kind father, the kind any man would look at and think..."I want to be like him." As for me, well, I wish he would have called me, or another friend, or a trusted relative. The pain is as acute now as 46 years ago.
This nation is at war again. No one seems to think about the long-term consequences of war upon the men and women who fight or try to save those broken by the latest reason for international violence. Hence both F. J. Montoya and Charles Edward Montoya are casualties of World War II...not during the War itself, but casualties nonetheless. Charles Edward Montoya needed to have his story told. He is more than that cross headstone in Santa Fe's National Cemetery. He is more than a punching bag for his dad, He is more than a yellow clipping in the back of someone's file. Both Charles and his father F. J. are a real New Mexico War Story.
Text copyright by Peter Reum 2014-All Rights Reserved
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