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letter
Letter to Terrie, 30 September 1970 — dreading 20 inches of October rain, and pulled for guard instead
Charlie's single-page letter to Terrie dated 30 September 1970, reassembled from its scan (dad320). Still recovering from malaria — not in the hills, but probably will be within a week or less — he's glad to have avoided two weeks in the field before September ended. He expects to be kept in the hills once he's back, dreading the forecast 20 inches of October rain. Her letters were forwarded and he's glad the $130 check arrived; she can use it if she needs to. He notes that a planned R&R destination (rendered on the page as something close to 'Jaya,' possibly Japan) is off the R&R lists after 1 October 1970. He's sorry to hear she won't graduate in June after all and asks how many hours short she'll be for the fall term — frustrated, but relieved to finally have real numbers to plan around. He closes reporting he's been put on guard duty for the night, which he still prefers to the field, and promises to write again before he's sent back.
What the letter is
30 September 1970, a single page written near the end of his malaria convalescence — two days after the 28 September Cam Ranh Bay letter. Charlie is still recovering but expects to be back in the field within the week, and the letter’s real subject is dread of what’s coming: a forecast of 20 inches of October rain in the mountains he’s about to return to. Money and school logistics follow, and the letter ends on an ironic note — pulled onto guard duty the very night he’s writing about missing the field.
Transcription
Sept 30
Dear Terrie,
I’m still recovering but I feel all right, at least I’m not in the hills but probably will be in a week or less. At least I’ve beaten them out of two weeks in the field and Sept is over. It seems they are going to keep me in the hills, so things are going to be plenty miserable when I get back. Oct is supposed to have 20 inches of rain where I am. I dread it.
They forwarded two letters of yours, and I’m glad you got the $130. You can use it if you need to. Also, [Japan?] is out since it is off the R&R lists after Oct 1, 1970. I guess that is the way it goes.
Sorry to hear you aren’t going to make it in June. You talked about the next fall term. How many hours short are you going to fall? My goodness, that is terrible. At least I’ll finally get some answers to plan on.
The bastards put me on guard tonight so I have to go eat now and get ready. At least it is better than the field though. I’ll write again before I get to the field, or til then.
Love Charles
What the letter records
Twenty inches of rain, dreaded in advance. The letter is written from relative safety, and the dread is entirely anticipatory — a forecast, not yet an experience. It’s a small window into how much of the tour’s misery was carried in advance, worried over before it even started.
A vanishing R&R option. Whatever destination Charlie names here — most likely Japan — dropping off the R&R rotation lists on 1 October 1970 is noted and shrugged off in the same breath: “I guess that is the way it goes.” The Army’s R&R city list changed over the course of the war as policy and demand shifted; a soldier’s plans had to bend around it.
“At least I’ll finally get some answers to plan on.” Real, if disappointing, information — that Terrie won’t graduate in June — is treated as a relief simply for being definite. It’s the same preference for certainty over hope that shows up throughout the corpus’s wedding-planning threads, most explicitly in the 29 August letter’s “we will work things out as they happen.”
Guard duty, the same night. The letter’s closing irony writes itself: complaining about being sent back to the field, then immediately reporting he’s been pulled onto guard duty instead — “at least it is better than the field though.” Even the rear-area convalescence came with its own smaller impositions.
Scans
