Letters from Vietnam

Unit context

Charlie served in Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division — the “Currahees,” based at Camp Eagle in I Corps from late 1968 through the unit’s December 1971 departure. The unit-history context document places his mid-1970 to mid-1971 tour within the company’s operational record — FB Ripcord (summer 1970), the Vietnamization drawdown, the Camp Eagle period, the September 1970 malaria hospitalization at Cam Ranh Bay, the April 1971 Hawaii R&R, and his 14 June 1971 ETS — drawing on William Higgins’s Charlie 1-506th Infantry chronicle and the companion site charlie1-506.com.

What this collection is

In 1969 Charlie Eesley — twenty-two, with a Marietta College economics degree and a U.S. Army uniform on him — shipped to Vietnam. Most of the letters he wrote home over the next two years were to Terrie Lee Wildermuth — the woman who would become his wife and Chuck’s mother. They had already met. He wrote her, almost the whole tour. A smaller set went to his parents in Marietta — Will the architect and Peggy the mother. The letters survived. They are the primary record of the two years he spent in Saigon in his own voice, written as he was living them.

The corpus has widened in mining. As the family-archive scans have been worked through in 2026, three things have come into view that the original “Vietnam letters” framing didn’t anticipate:

• The corpus opens earlier than the tour. The earliest letter Charlie wrote to Terrie that this archive carries is now Halloween 1968 — senior year at Marietta College, a Vanilla Fudge concert review, his friend Jay Ray’s Thanksgiving-weekend plans, fifteen months before the deployment. The April 1969 Florida spring-break letter records the Cleveland Federal Reserve and Philadelphia Sears job interviews of his senior year — a pre-army career path the draft would intercept. The corpus is more accurately “the Charlie — Terrie 1968-1971 correspondence around a Vietnam tour” than just “Vietnam letters.”
• A small set of related-period family letters now sits alongside Charlie’s own. Peggy McMaster Eesley’s February 1971 congressional intervention writing the family’s congressman over Charlie’s extension; Dorothy Wildermuth’s March 1971 “utterly sick” Hawaii-R&R-objection letter; Peggy’s mid-1970s letter to Terrie about Anne Eesley’s Wisconsin hospitalization and the “I liked (and respected) my mother-in-law” line. They are not Charlie’s letters, but they are part of the same correspondence-network around him.
• The recipient list includes one outside-the-family voice. Charlie’s 1 January 1971 letter from Da Nang to Dorothy Hauser — Peggy’s friend in the Marietta Mothers for Peace chapter — carries Charlie’s only direct Nixon line in the corpus.

His son’s eulogy for him in 2015 noted that “most long conversations with dad would wind their way eventually back to what he experienced in Vietnam from 69–71.” The letters are the prior layer underneath those conversations — what he was telling Terrie and his parents in real time, before the years became the thing he had carried for four and a half decades. The pre-tour letters add the further layer: what he was telling Terrie just before any of it happened — concert reviews, job interviews, beach scenes — in the senior year at Marietta College that the draft physical was waiting on the other side of.

The biographical detail the recipient list surfaces, almost as a side effect: Charlie and Terrie were already together before he shipped. The marriage in August 1971 that produced Chuck is the resolution of a courtship that had to survive a tour first — and these letters are the record of how it did.

The curation principle

Charlie wrote often. Some of what he wrote was the news of the week. Some of it was sharper. Some of it was the kind of thing a young man writes only to his girlfriend — or only to his own parents — in a war, knowing that it might be the last letter. Not all of it belongs on a public page.

This archive treats the collection as follows:

1. A published set — which has grown, through the 2026 mining of the family-archive scans, from the handful first envisioned to most of the surviving correspondence (now 110 letters) — is reproduced here in full, chosen for the way they let his voice come through across a half-century and for the way they let his family today understand the year that shaped him most. Each published letter has its own page in the documents section, with the transcribed text and, where the original scan has been located, the handwriting itself.

2. A small number of remaining letters are catalogued here too, body withheld. Their pages carry the metadata — the date, the recipient, the place they were written from, the place they were mailed to, a one-line summary if it can be given without compromising the content. The archive’s index stays complete; the intimacy of those letters stays inside the family.

3. The letters that the family has decided should not be public in any form, including as a metadata entry, are held in the private family archive only. They are not listed here.

This is the same principle the Vietnam Veterans Memorial uses, in a way: every name belongs on the wall; not every story belongs on every wall.

On a possible eventual deposit at the Library of Congress

The family is considering, but has not committed to, depositing some of these letters with the Library of Congress Veterans History Project at some point in the future. VHP welcomes posthumous donations from family members, accepts letters specifically, and can hold materials under donor-imposed access restrictions when the family wants them on the shelf but not on the open record.

The shape that would most likely take, if it happens at all:

• The smaller set of letters to Will and Peggy — the ones that read closer to dispatches than to confessions — as a candidate for full deposit with no restrictions.
• The larger set to Terrie — the courtship-during-a-war set — kept in the family, with at most metadata sent to VHP. These are intimate enough that the family’s custody is the right custody.

No timeline. The site itself is the first round of curation; whatever happens with VHP, if anything, comes after that work is done. This note exists so the deliberation is visible — not so it’s promised.

How to read this page

Below, as the scans and transcriptions come in, the individual letter pages will appear — some as full transcriptions, some as metadata-only entries with a “Withheld at the family’s request” panel where the body would be. Both are part of the same record.

If you are a family member who has additional letters — or who knew Charlie during those years and has letters of your own that should sit alongside his — please contact Chuck.

Chronological index of published letters

The letters that are reproduced in full on this site, in date order — 110 letters as of this pass (July 2026). Letters in italics are not Charlie’s own — they are from family or family-friend correspondents writing into the same period.

Pre-army — Marietta College senior year

• 31 Oct 1968 — Vanilla Fudge concert review — the earliest letter Charlie wrote to Terrie in the archive
• c. April 1969 — Florida spring break + Federal Reserve and Sears interviews — the pre-draft career track

Stateside — NCO school, basic, and AIT

• Late 1969 — refusing NCO school, and “beginning to hate the army”
• 20 Oct 1969 — the D.C. guard interview, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
• Nov 1969 — Christmas-leave letter, “711 days left”
• 16 Dec 1969 — reception week: “Basic begins Monday”
• 22 Dec 1969 — first day of basic training, KP from 3:30 AM
• 10 Jan 1970 — mortar training, and why NCO school “just isn’t worth it”
• 20 Jan 1970 — clerk training, an E-2 not a PFC
• 1 Feb 1970 — Fort Bragg, the .45 and the hand grenades
• 1 Feb 1970 — orders, and 80 days in the army
• 18 Feb 1970 — nine weeks into stateside NCO training, rumors of Vietnam
• 5 Mar 1970 — mortar training, NCO school turned down, “at least I won’t be going overseas”
• 25 Mar 1970 — firing the M-72, the $20 ring, “I’m still willing to marry you”
• 12 Apr 1970 — “a lot depends on my orders now,” finish school, not forcing a marriage
• 12 Apr 1970 — “this may be your last letter from here”

Spring tour — in country

• 22 June 1970 — “your father’s attitude is better”
• 26 June 1970 — to Dorothy Hauser: “keep working for peace,” a company hit hard

Summer 1970 field rotation — the bush

• 1 July 1970 — “the month is over with, I have survived,” 50 days in
• 8 July 1970 — the censorship discovery + the newsmen-and-sob-story letter
• c. mid-July 1970 — the M-60 machine gun + the first Marietta-wedding-plan line
• 18 July 1970 — gung-ho captain + “screw the gov’t anyway you can”
• c. summer 1970 — “5th day out… violent campus”
• 5 Aug 1970 — Firebase Ripcord’s shelling, company losses, “just homesick”
• 5 Aug 1970 — a beach day, and what happened when some guys went to the village
• 9–11 Aug 1970 — a new captain expected, a beard restarted, “calm down a little” on marriage
• 17 Aug 1970 — beach guard, and a few things she should know
• 29 Aug 1970 — 109 days in, “we will work things out as they happen”
• 4 Sept 1970 — writing from under a poncho, a new captain’s bad call
• 7 Sept 1970 — the firebases evacuate for the monsoon, and honeymoon ideas
• 10 Sept 1970 — a helicopter crash, camera shopping, “I’d be a resident of Canada now”
• 14 Sept 1970 — the 50-day streak of no contact broken, “a terrible, cruel business”

Fall 1970 — malaria, convalescence, and the drawdown

• 21 Sept 1970 — “Guess what! Here I am in the hospital suffering from Malaria”
• 28 Sept 1970 — Cam Ranh Bay convalescence
• 30 Sept 1970 — dreading 20 inches of October rain, pulled for guard instead
• c. Oct 1970 — “I will vote for the immediate pull-out candidates”
• 3 Oct 1970 — recovering from malaria at Cam Ranh Bay, 144 days in
• 6 Oct 1970 — back to the field, booby traps, “raise hell” if the letters stop
• 8 Oct 1970 — “I leave for the damn field today”
• 10 Oct 1970 — “still alive,” in the lowlands, hoping Nixon announces a plan
• 14 Oct 1970 — “all combat troops are being withdrawn” + first Hawaii R&R proposal  and  the Hawaii idea, first floated
• 15 Oct 1970 — VIPs by helicopter, “the first enemy killed in over 3 months” in the brigade
• 17 Oct 1970 — “the only group that has contact anymore,” 240 days left
• 19 Oct 1970 — 160 days in, mailing out by chopper
• 20 Oct 1970 — the apartment question, “you still get the most letters”
• 24 Oct 1970 — a typhoon alert, a congressman’s reply, 165 days in
• 28 Oct 1970 — one year in the Army, “I do think I came back out too soon”

November–December 1970 — the drop rumors and the rear

• 5 Nov 1970 — fourteen days without mail, the congressman inquiry, the extension plan
• c. 8 Nov 1970 — the stand-down, day 180, a Sydney R&R idea
• 12 Nov 1970 — a short answer to ten letters, 213 days left
• 15 Nov 1970 — the package, Spec 4, the inquiry closed
• 18 Nov 1970 — back out to “really hairy” action, half drunk in the rear
• 21 Nov 1970 — “I love you but would prefer to send you $1000”
• 23 Nov 1970 — platoon radio operator, Thanksgiving in the rear
• 25 Nov 1970 — Thanksgiving in the field, two deaths explained
• 28 Nov 1970 — “what is your answer to the Hawaii deal?”
• 30 Nov 1970 — disgusted with the Army, the lowlands flooding
• 8 Dec 1970 — the phone call he’s planning, the good life in the rear
• 12 Dec 1970 — settled into the rear, a friend killed back home
• 14 Dec 1970 — the $3.30-per-minute phone call and the Christmas-present joke
• 16 Dec 1970 — the enlisted men’s club photo
• 17–18 Dec 1970 — a guard tower fired on, a beach day
• 18 Dec 1970 — the 50-50 odds, and the children at the fence
• 22 Dec 1970 — a bad outlook for the drop, and “Budda”
• 25 Dec 1970 — Christmas morning on guard
• 28 Dec 1970 — the 10-month-tour rumor, “maybe even get married early”
• 31 Dec 1970 — “10-month tour is definite, I should be home in March”

January-February 1971 — the extension decision and the Laos thread

• c. Jan 1971 — the Da Nang base, marijuana, and GI life
• 1 January 1971 — Charlie to Dorothy Hauser, Mothers for Peace and the Nixon line
• 1 Jan 1971 — the new year, the rumors, a picture enclosed
• 2 Jan 1971 — a booby trap, Tet rumors, and the drop
• 5 Jan 1971 — the 1st Air Cav stands down and the drops grow
• 9 Jan 1971 — a birthday letter from the general’s beach house  and  mail delays and the “Donut Dollies”
• 13 Jan 1971 — rats, the Bob Hope show, a word against poetry
• 14 Jan 1971 — 1:45 a.m., rumors and a puzzling tape
• 15 Jan 1971 — on guard, scotch, what’s actually hard about the field
• 19 January 1971 — the ETS-extension strategy
• 21 January 1971 — Camp Evans, 4 February return
• 24 January 1971 — sunburn + finals
• 29 Jan 1971 — monsoons, 136 days, dreading the field
• c. Feb 1971 — NCO school or the early-out
• 2 Feb 1971 — “a last ditch effort to win the war”
• 3 February 1971 — Da Nang stay through March 5
• 4 February 1971 — “Don’t be surprised when you hear about Laos being invaded”
• 8 Feb 1971 — “I finally got a clerk job”
• 10 February 1971 — Peggy’s congressional intervention re: Camp Eagle extension  and  Charlie’s letter the same day from Da Nang
• 14 Feb 1971 — a Valentine, and the clerk orders clear
• 17 Feb 1971 — the typing job, R&R allocation, the stereo
• 18 Feb 1971 — still in Da Nang, waiting on orders, down to 115
• 21 Feb 1971 — finally at Camp Eagle, the clerk job comes through
• 22 Feb 1971 — extended to June 14, a death from December
• 24 Feb 1971 — five days in, and the cost of R&R

Spring 1971 — Lam Son 719 through the Hawaii R&R lead-up

• 1 March 1971 — Lam Son 719 in progress, “a lot of guys are going to get killed”
• 5 Mar 1971 — “I arrived yesterday and am now at Quang Tri”
• 15 March 1971 — six catch-up letters at Danang — mail backlog
• 18 Mar 1971 — “it is up to you”
• 22 March 1971 — R&R orders
• 25 Mar 1971 — “my old company is near Khe Sanh”
• 26 March 1971 — Dorothy Wildermuth: “utterly sick about your planning to meet Charlie in Hawaii”
• 27 Mar 1971 — “I’m beginning to hate everyone around me”
• 29 March 1971 — R&R booking confirmed, “Please get your ticket under (Mrs. Eesley)”
• 31 March 1971 — R&R planning
• 2-3 April 1971 — the parental conflict over Hawaii
• 5 April 1971 — “Mom suggested that we get married in Hawaii”
• 12-19 April 1971 — the Hawaii R&R itself, no letters in the archive

Late spring 1971 — the run to ETS

• 2 May 1971 — “43 days left, or 33 working days”
• 9 May 1971 — the PACEX list
• 29 May 1971 — “17 days left” — countdown to the 14 June 1971 ETS

Later — post-tour family correspondence in the same archive

• Mid-1970s — Peggy to Terrie: Anne’s Wisconsin hospitalization + the “mother-in-law” line

This index is not exhaustive of what survives — the family-archive scans contain hundreds of additional letter pages, of which a curated subset is published here. The remaining letters are catalogued or held in the private family archive per the curation principle above.

On reading him at twenty-two

Charlie was twenty-two when he arrived in Saigon and twenty-four when he rotated out. He had already met Terrie — most of these letters are to her — but he had not yet married her, not yet had Chuck, not yet been a stockbroker, not yet sat on the church board, not yet flipped the tractor over on himself on Highland Ridge. The voice in these letters is the voice of a young man whose adult life was, in important ways, about to begin and was, in other important ways, being formed by the two years he was living through. He is recognizably himself — the dry-to-dark humor, the sense for absurdity, the moral clarity about what was and was not worth getting court-martialed for — and he is also not yet the man his son would later eulogize. Both layers matter.

Other war-letter archives, for readers who came in through the door

If you’re here because you’re interested in the letters-home genre itself — the soldier’s correspondence as a primary source — the institutions and projects below are where the larger version of this archive lives. Charlie’s letters are a single family’s small contribution to a much larger documentary effort, and they are read best alongside it.

• Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam (Bernard Edelman, ed., for the New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial Commission, 1985 / repr. Norton 2002) — the closest literary sibling to what this page is doing. Two hundred and odd Vietnam letters, curated with editorial framing, organized by the soldier’s arc through the tour. Basis for the 1987 HBO documentary of the same name (Emmy winner; letters read by Robert De Niro, Robin Williams, Sean Penn, others). If the reader picks up one book after this page, it is probably this one.
• The Virtual Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University — the largest single online collection of Vietnam War material, founded by veterans in 1989; over seven million pages scanned, with a heavy personal component (letters home, photographs, oral histories). Charlie’s letters are not in it; many like them are.
• Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress — the federal collection of veterans’ firsthand recollections from WWI forward. The Please Write Often: Wartime Correspondence feature within it is the most direct institutional analog to this page. Vietnam-specific holdings (25,000+ collections) are surveyed in their Vietnam War Veterans research guide.
• Center for American War Letters at Chapman University — the umbrella archive for American war correspondence across every conflict, Revolutionary War to Iraq and Afghanistan, founded around historian Andrew Carroll’s life-work donation; now over 240,000 letters. The framing institution for the entire letters-home genre in American history.
• Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund — the wall, and the searchable directory of the names on it.

Further reading on the war

The same list runs on his person page and on the Saigon place page:

• The Vietnam War (Ken Burns & Lynn Novick, 2017).
• Dispatches by Michael Herr — the war as it sounded.
• Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes — the war as it felt.

Companion document: Eulogy for Charles McMaster Eesley (Chuck Eesley, 2015) — what the year became, told by his son.