Diary of a Mad Puerto Rican
Contributors: Maria Rivera (Contributor)
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Published: April 4, 2007
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 136
ISBN-13: 9781425980702
Subjects: Military - Vietnam War; Psychopathology - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; Psychology
Description: Review written by Bernie Weisz, Historian,Vietnam War Pembroke Pines, Florida USA Contact: BernWei1@aol.com February 10,2012 Title of Review: The Vietnam War claims another Victim !
Angel C. Rivera's book, "Diary of a Mad Puerto Rican" at first glance seemed to me to be both very intriguing and interesting. The book announces on the back dust jacket that "Diary of a Mad Puerto Rican" is the true story of Angel C. Rivera. Three parts of the life of an innocent young man who lost his soul and sanity in Vietnam as an assassin for the U.S. Army. Later, he gradually loses everything else from the unknown mental, emotional, and physical damage he has suffered". Then, the book states that Rivera was exposed to "military drug experiments" in Vietnam. There are also claims that Rivera was the victim of Government negligence in helping him with his problems. Furthermore, he was exposed to Agent Orange and was denied help. In addition, the book announces that Rivera was: "caught in the middle of the prejudice and injustice of life in America" I am sorry to say that this book did not deliver on some of these premises. First, I know that the United States, in particular, the C.I.A. conducted experiments with unwitting G.I.'s in regard to the incapacitating effects of L.S.D.  Initially thought to be the perfect incapacitating agent, L.S.D. sprayed via a covert air assault on an unwitting population was thought incorrectly to be the perfect agent to temporarily incapacitate a targeted populace while an opposing army could take over. The theory was that buildings would be left intact, and as opposed to a nuclear device, there would be none, if any casualties.

Unfortunately, the C.I.A did not count on flashbacks nor drug induced psychosis that wound up remaining with test subjects long after the drug effects wore off. I incorrectly thought that Rivera's assertion of "The Military Drug Experiments in Vietnam" that he claimed he participated in related to the aforementioned. Sadly, the only test Rivera was involved in was how much marijuana he could smoke until he was unconscious. Rivera also claimed he was "an assassin" for the U.S. Army. Once again, I though he was referring to the "Phoenix Program", which was a C.I.A. endorsed endeavor sponsored by the Rand Corporation whereupon any North Vietnamese/Viet Cong agents or representatives, i.e. tax collectors, propaganda ministers, etc. were systematically assassinated by special assassins called "spooks." It appears that the only thing Rivera assassinated in Vietnam was his brain cells with copious amounts of cannabis smoke. Where did he dream this up? Possibly it was the enemy soldiers he was in combat with and killed. Aside from numerous grammatical errors the book contains, Rivera also claimed he was exposed to Agent Orange. That could be legitimate as he was in a particular area where Dioxin was used to defoliate and deny the enemy their triple canopy jungle coverage.

Regardless of the ambiguities and grammatical mistakes, Rivera's book does indeed have historical value that does need to be acknowledged. He made a very powerful opening anti- government, anti- war stance in the initial pages when he states: "The decisions we make when we are young will mold our future! Mothers, don't let your children go off to war so that some corporation can get fat or some arms merchant can buy a new boat or island. But if they come and take our land, let us bury them so the worms can eat their carcasses. Go kill people for your government so that they can forget you when you get old and your body and mind start to fall apart.  This is not a simple task for me nor is it for anyone else who has undergone such a devastating experience. After 35 years, I feel that I have to let the world know what happened to me and what I saw was happening to others that fought and died during the year I spent in Vietnam. If some of the things I write about don't make any sense or sound a little or a lot crazy, it is probably because maybe I was or am." I would have to agree with Mr. Rivera's assessment of himself. Rivera, born Oct. 4th, 1948 in Coamo, Puerto Rico, joined the Army in October, 1968 at the age of 20.

After completing "Advanced Infantry Training" at Ft. Gordon, Ga., he signed up for the Special Forces. Shortly after beginning his SF training, he quit, giving the following dubious explanation: "I saw one guy that had made it through the Special Forces first phase training and after talking to him I decided that he sounded like a homosexual, so I figured if they let homosexuals pass the SF training, I didn't want anything to do with SF. Immediately after quitting the Special Forces, he was spurned by his girlfriend "Tata", and he wrote: "She told me that she was seeing someone else, and that we were finished. That was the last blow. I really didn't care what happened to me after that and I was going to the perfect place to end my misery". After landing at Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam, Rivera was assigned to the "173rd Infantry Brigade" a/k/a "The Herd". Rivera's first experience in Vietnam was: "One night while sitting in a tent at jungle school one of the guys offered me a smoke. I told him "I don't smoke". he said "This is not a cigarette, this is a joint". I was very surprised. I tried to smoke cigarettes when I was 14 years old and I almost choked. He told me that "this was better than cigarettes", so I tried it. I know how to inhale and after a couple of tokes I told him that I didn't feel a thing. I did notice that the tent we were in had gotten very large".

Rivera talks about seeing death, senseless destruction, and endless dope smoking. However, there was one anecdote that particularly disturbed me. Rivera recalled: "One evening we were back at the Command Post and there wasn't much to do. So a couple of us got together and went to the bottom of the hill. We all went into one of the hootches and cranked up some "Bong Son Bombers," which were marijuana cigarettes that were about 8" long and about as big around as one's middle finger. Some of the guys were smoking out of pipes. Bong Son Bombers were usually coated with opium. I guess maybe that was the reason that they were very powerful. Some of the guys were playing this game with the Vietnamese kids in which they would strangle the child until they were just about ready to pass out and then they would let them go, gasping for air. I don't remember doing this myself but I was so high that I could have been doing it and I forgot." Obviously, the usage of drugs had clouded his judgement. There are confusing pictures in the middle of this book that Rivera took while in Vietnam. They show some of his colleagues, as well as himself, higher than a kite. He also shows himself fishing with grenades, a badly wounded man, some of the airplanes and ordinance used in Vietnam, as well as pictures at different times of his life. After Vietnam, Rivera opened up a martial arts school, fought professionally and competed in the 1983 North Carolina State Championship.

The end of this book is confusing. It appears he uses the last few chapters to get a message to his ex-wife as well as an ex girlfriend. I'm not quite sure why Rivera would use a Vietnam memoir to get a message across to a former lover. Confusing to the reader, Rivera ends the book by asserting: "A man once told me that there was a food that would stop a woman's desire for sex (wedding cake). How true it is!" Apparently being hurt by his ex wife, Rivera also wrote: "When a woman starts to tell you "He's my friend! Start looking for another woman. Women, don't be stupid! If a man tells you he just wants to be your friend, he's either lying or he's gay or both!". Rivera also offered advice to the reader; "When a man or woman can't look you in the eye anymore, do yourself and them a favor and leave. If they can't kiss you the way you need to be kissed, LEAVE! Life is too short to stay with unhappy moments". To conclude, there is some historical value in this book, which Rivera writes about briefly. The rest of this book is the work of a disillusioned man who, as he stated, lost his soul and sanity in Vietnam. Unfortunately, Mr. Rivera passed away on February 5, 2012 at Fayetteville, N.C. from complications related to esophageal cancer. There is a good chance that Dioxin was the culprit, since he reported that the area he was in was all dried up and the vegetation brown and dead. When he received a letter from the Department of the Army stating he had in fact been exposed to Agent Orange, the Veterans Administration in Fayetteville said there was nothing they could do about it, ignoring him. Sadly, the Vietnam War continues to claim American casualties. Angel Rivera, R.I.P.!