← Part of Letters from Vietnam
letter
Letter to Terrie, late 1969 — refusing NCO school, and 'beginning to hate the army'
Pre-deployment letter from Charlie's Army training stateside, almost certainly summer or fall 1969 before he shipped to Vietnam (date to be confirmed from the envelope). He's preparing for a Saturday inspection — 'a pain in the neck. Everything has to be just so which is out of tune with day to day living.' Another company just graduated: all went to Germany except their NCO's, who went to Vietnam — which he calls another good reason for refusing NCO school. If he's sent there instead of D.C. he'll definitely turn it down; he's not impressed by the NCO's the school turns out (his own sergeant is okay, but in general they aren't good leaders). Then the line that becomes the year's refrain: 'I'm really beginning to hate the army. It is all so petty.' He plans to get out of there for the weekend to calm down; tomorrow is another easy-but-constantly-busy day with a G-3 test of general items, reviewed all morning.
What the letter is
Late 1969. Charlie is in the Army training pipeline stateside, months before Vietnam, and this is the earliest layer of the voice the whole correspondence is written in: the dry observation, the contempt for petty regulation, the strategic decision to keep his own counsel about what assignment he will and will not accept. He is prepping for a Saturday inspection, watching another company ship out, and deciding, firmly, to refuse NCO school if it comes to him. The sentence that becomes the year’s refrain is here in its first form: “I’m really beginning to hate the army. It is all so petty.”
Transcription
Dear Terrie,
How are you doing? I’ve been preparing for this damn inspection on Saturday. A pain in the neck. Everything has to be just so which is out of tune with day to day living.
Another company just graduated. All went to Germany except their NCO’s. They went to Viet Nam. Another good reason for refusing NCO school. If I’m sent there instead of DC I’ll definitely turn it down for I’m not too impressed by our NCO’s, which is the only example of what I’ve seen that they turn out. Our sergeant is okay but in general they aren’t that good of leaders. Oh well. I’m really beginning to hate the army. It is all so petty. I plan to get out of here this weekend. I hope it works to calm me down. It should be another easy (kept constantly busy) day tomorrow. We have our G-3 test which are general items we should have picked up. It should be very simple. They review us all morning.
[The closing page of this letter is not confidently identified among the surviving scans.]
What the letter records
Refusing NCO school. “Another good reason for refusing NCO school. If I’m sent there instead of DC I’ll definitely turn it down.” The strategic decision that shaped the whole tour, stated plainly: he watched the NCO’s a graduating company produced get routed to Vietnam while the rest went to Germany, and wanted no part of the path that raised the odds of shipping over. The mortar-training letter works through the same arithmetic in more detail (“it would cut into my 150 days too deeply… it just isn’t worth it”).
“I’m really beginning to hate the army.” The refrain in its first appearance. “It is all so petty” is the exact register that recurs across the training letters and into Vietnam — the 30 November 1970 letter’s “disgusted completely with the army and the people in it” is the same voice, eighteen months and half a world later.
The inspection, and the weekend out. “Everything has to be just so which is out of tune with day to day living.” The petty-regulation complaint and the plan to “get out of here this weekend… to calm me down” are the texture of the training months: the endurance of a regimented, small-minded environment by a man counting down his own escape from it.
Chronology. A graduating company has shipped out ahead of his own, and Charlie still has the standing to say he’d refuse NCO placement — placing the letter at a moment when the decision was still his. By the 22 June 1970 letter he is in country with the 101st Airborne. Somewhere between this letter and that one, the choice was no longer his to make.
Scans
