← Part of Letters from Vietnam
letter
Letter to Terrie, 17 August 1970 — beach guard, and a few things she should know
Charlie's letter to Terrie dated 17 August 1970, written on a Wednesday morning after pulling twelve hours of beach-guard lifeguard duty. He has been drinking — partly with a friend who hadn't heard from his wife in five months, and after watching another soldier break down and cry, wanting to go home because his wife was leaving him. Against that backdrop Charlie reassures Terrie there is no comparison between her and 'the other women,' and circles the marriage question. One of the few summer-1970 letters in the corpus, filling the gap between the July 1970 letters and the September 1970 malaria letters. The surviving scan is a faint pencil original; the transcription below is a best-effort reading with gaps marked, pending verification against the cleaner master scan in grandmaE1.pdf.
What the letter is
17 August 1970 — one of the very few summer letters that survive, sitting in the gap between the July 1970 letters and the September malaria letters. Charlie writes on a Wednesday morning after twelve hours of beach-guard duty as a lifeguard, and he has been drinking. The occasion for the letter is other men’s marriages coming apart: a friend who hasn’t heard from his wife in five months, and another soldier who broke down and cried, wanting home because his wife was leaving him. Against that, Charlie writes Terrie the only thing the night seems to require — that there is no comparison, that she is the one.
Transcription
Aug 17
Dear Terrie,
[I] got your package […] yesterday. It is Wednesday morning and I have just pulled 12 hours of beach guard as a lifeguard […] to look at the children. I’m [drunk …] you didn’t know […] but before I sleep tonight I feel there are a few things you should know. My dear Terrie […]
[…] is beautiful. As yet I haven’t […] and I don’t think I will. I got drunk with a friend […] over here [who] hasn’t heard from his wife in 5 months. Also a guy broke down and cried — he wants [to go] home because his wife was going out on him. (Hope you can read this.) Now there is no comparison with you and the other women. But if you ask when we will be married — ???
[… remainder illegible …]
What the letter records
“Hope you can read this.” Charlie’s own aside, written in a pencil he clearly knew was hard to make out — a line that has only become truer with fifty years of fading. It is preserved here exactly because it is his.
The dear-John ambient dread. The friend with five months of silence and the soldier crying over a wife who left are the same fear that runs under the whole correspondence — the reason Charlie reads every mail gap as a verdict, and the reason a drunken late-night letter resolves into a reassurance that there is no comparison.
The summer gap. The corpus thins between July and September 1970; this letter is one of the few markers of those months, and the beach-guard detail is a rare glimpse of a rear-area lull before the September malaria hospitalization.
Transcription note: this is a faint pencil original and the reading above is partial. The fuller text can be recovered from the grandmaE1.pdf master scan and this entry updated.
Scans
