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letter
Letter to Terrie, 9–11 August 1970 — a new captain expected, a beard restarted, and 'calm down a little' on marriage
Charlie's multi-day letter to Terrie, begun 9 August and continued 11 August 1970, reassembled from four of its surviving pages (dad330, dad333, dad336, dad331 — in that order). He reports returning to the field on the 6th, a quiet stretch (about two weeks since his last contact), a hard couple of days of work, and news that his captain will be rotating out around the 20th; he hopes the replacement prefers guarding firebases. He asks how her semester went and notes he's now three months in-country, still waiting for the monsoon. Picking up two days later, rumors have the unit moving and resupplying again, which should let him mail these accumulated pages; the week has been relatively easy, spent on short daily moves and guard shifts, and he reflects that the jungle's strange noises (lizards, birds, falling trees) unsettle some of the other men more than they unsettle him. On separate pages he covers logistics — a fresh set of clothes from the last resupply, the heat, a gentle push back on how quickly Terrie seems to want to lock in wedding plans ('it is over 10 months still before I get back'), uncertainty about where he'll be stationed stateside afterward (possibly DC, though he doesn't want too permanent a residence there), and a request for her parents' address so he can finally write them. He closes restarting a beard he'd shaved, asking for a photo of himself since he arrived (developing film takes longer over there), asking when her next term starts, and admitting it's hard to write without repeating himself — he'll try to get another letter out with this one, and signs off 'to cut the govt. money.'
What the letter is
A letter Charlie built across at least two sittings in early-to-mid August 1970 — starting 9 August, picked up again 11 August, and evidently continued past that before he finally mailed the accumulated pages together. It moves through the ordinary rhythm of a quiet week (guard shifts, short daily moves, an incoming captain change) into more personal territory: a beard restarted, a photograph requested, and — the letter’s real center of gravity — a direct, gentle request that Terrie slow down on wedding planning with ten months still standing between them.
Transcription
Aug 9
Dear Terrie,
We came back to the field the 6th and I should be able to get this letter in the mail around the 12th-13th. One of our platoons had a little action yesterday, but as far as ours is concerned it has been around 2 weeks since my last contact and I hope it goes longer. They have worked me pretty hard the last 2-3 days and I hope today all I have to do is sit around. It is boring but tolerable. I don’t know how long we will be in the jungle this time. Our captain leaves around the 20th and I hope our new captain likes to guard firebases. It is about time for us to be on a firebase, but it is hard to say if we get one or not.
School should be over for you by the time this letter reaches you, so how did you do? You better not flunk anything. I’ll have been 3 months in over here. I’m still waiting for the monsoon to begin, so I’ll be soaked when I’m up here in the jungle mountains. Right now we aren’t anywhere near the boundaries, but I don’t hear of much activity anywhere here, so maybe things are dying off a little a[nd]
[continued, 11 Aug:] we are just supposed to move every week. This last resupply they brought us cans and a change of clothes, so I won’t smell too bad. Above 90° temperature will probably seem cold when I get home; it is really hot over here.
If from some of your letters you really got psyched up to get married — [a] little, calm down a little. It is over 10 months still before I get back. I have no idea where I’ll be when I get back. Maybe DC, but I know I don’t want too permanent a residence there. I want to be able to buy something sometime and have a little space around me.
Send me your parents’ address, will you? I don’t know what I’ll say, but I’ll think of something. It’s a good thing you don’t send money, as I haven’t been paid since I’ve been back here. They owe me for jump pay now from August too. Oh well, I’ll [use] those postcards you sent — [I’ve] mailed [some] back home.
[continued:] I wrote home and asked about Japan in March for them, but I really don’t expect it, so don’t get your hopes up.
I’m starting my beard again. You keep asking for a picture of me since I got here. It seems to take more time to get things developed over here. Say, do you have any [new] pictures of yourself? I’m just kidding.
When does school begin again for you? Do you have a full-time job now for your month, or are you just taking it easy?
It is difficult to write and not repeat myself, as I really don’t know what to say. If I sit here all day maybe I can think of something else to say. I’ll try and send at least another letter with this one. I’ll close now, just to cut the govt. money.
Love Charles
What the letter records
A letter built over days, mailed as one. “I should be able to mail these letters then” — Charlie is explicit that he’s accumulating pages across a week of relatively quiet field time rather than writing and sending each day. It’s a small window into the actual mechanics of correspondence from the field: writing was constant, but mailing depended entirely on resupply logistics.
“Calm down a little.” The letter’s most direct piece of relationship management — not refusing the marriage plan, but asking Terrie to pace herself against a timeline that, from where he’s sitting, still has ten months left on it. It sits alongside the more elaborate wedding-logistics letters of September and October as one more data point in how differently the two of them were experiencing the same countdown.
The beard, restarted. A small physical detail rarely mentioned elsewhere — Charlie apparently shaved at some point and is growing it back — paired with a request for a current photo of himself, complicated by how long film took to develop in-country. It’s a quiet reminder of how little visual record either of them had of the other during the year apart.
What isn’t here. One page from this same run of the letter is not published. It carries a passage sharper and more personal than anything else that survives from Charlie in this corpus — about jealousy and Terrie’s past — and the family judged it didn’t belong in the public archive even in trimmed form. Its absence is noted for the record rather than papered over: this is one letter where the gap in the transcription is a choice, not a missing scan.
Scans
