← Part of Letters from Vietnam
letter
Letter to Terrie, 4 September 1970 — writing from under a poncho, and a new captain's bad call
Charlie's letter to Terrie dated 4 September 1970, reassembled from its scan (dad304 page 1). Written under a poncho in a light drizzle, with frogs barking on the hillside — 'definitely part of the monsoon picture.' He doesn't know exactly when the company will head down to the lowlands, guessing a week or so, but notes the Army is disorganized enough that nothing is certain. He's uneasy about his new captain, who he judges not as good as the previous one and who has already made a questionable call: sending a six-man patrol too far out with no immediate reinforcement available. Charlie figures it won't matter once they reach the lowlands, but expects the whole stretch to be miserable regardless, and hopes only to find a few dry spots along the way.
What the letter is
4 September 1970, page 1 of a letter written literally under a poncho in the rain — the monsoon settling in as a steady presence rather than a single storm. Charlie’s real subject is a new captain whose judgment he already distrusts, laid out with the same unemotional tactical assessment he brings to every account of risk in these letters.
Page 1 only. The closing page for this letter has not yet been located in the archive; a nearby scan turned out to belong to a different letter instead. If a second page surfaces, it will be added here.
Transcription
Sept 4
Dear Terrie,
I’m writing to you from under my poncho. This rain is just a drizzle, but the frog bark[ing] on the hill is definitely part of the monsoon picture. I don’t know when we will go to the lowlands, but it should be in a week or so. The army is just messed up so I’m not really certain when we will go down.
My new captain is not as good as the other, and has done some bad things — like sending us too far out on a patrol with just 6 of us and no immediate reinforcement. It won’t matter once we get to the lowlands. It is going to be a most miserable experience any way I look at it. I just hope I find a few dry spots somewhere.
What the letter records
The monsoon as atmosphere, not event. “The frog bark on the hill is definitely part of the monsoon picture.” Charlie reaches for the sound of frogs rather than the rain itself to describe the season turning — a small, specific, almost literary detail rare in these otherwise practical letters.
A new captain, judged and filed. Charlie’s assessment of a superior officer’s tactical judgment — sending six men out too far with no backup — is delivered flatly, without editorializing beyond the bare fact. It’s the same instinct for professional critique that surfaces later and more explicitly in the 28 October letter’s plan to tell a congressional inquiry “how stupid their tactics are.”
“It won’t matter once we get to the lowlands.” A recurring piece of field logic throughout this stretch of letters — risk assessed relative to terrain, with the lowlands consistently treated as the safer condition regardless of who’s in command. The same lowlands-versus-mountains calculus anchors the 7 September letter written just three days later.
Scans
