← Part of Letters from Vietnam
letter
Letter to Terrie, 3 October 1970 — recovering from malaria at Cam Ranh Bay, and 144 days in
Charlie's five-page letter to Terrie dated 3 October 1970, reassembled from its scans (dad263 page 1, dad265 page 2, dad266 page 3, dad267 page 4, dad268 page 5), written while convalescing from malaria at Cam Ranh Bay. The doctor told him there was no damage to any of his bodily systems, because they now have the medicine to cure malaria that they didn't have back in WWII; he says he didn't have it that bad. Mostly he is trying to avoid going back to his company — the doctor let him stay an extra five days because he said he didn't want to go back — and he is loafing, pulling a few minor details, and staying dry. It isn't raining too much where he is, but he knows it is where his company is, up in the mountains; there seems to be little contact with the enemy anywhere, Firebase Kathryn is closed down and the South Vietnamese are the only ones around O'Reilly, doing a good job, and even the action there has slowed down — but still 70-100 GIs die every week, so he doesn't know; things could be a lot better. He got a lot of letters from her and from home; he is disappointed she won't graduate in June or the summer session but hopes she keeps going after 'that damn diploma like there was no tomorrow,' and could always do something like Vicki even if she can't teach. On the army: rumors of drops, and with the cutback he is privately hoping for a bigger drop than 150 days — in California he saw troops coming home on 179-day early outs. He has 252 days left, only 144 in so far, and figures at least 100 in the rear and 150 in the field: 'God how I dread it.' There's no hurry for china and silver; they can still be married next summer, but it depends more on him and the service than anything else. He closes 'Love, Charles' and adds a line telling her to ignore the offensive parts of the letter. (A short intimate/teasing passage on page 2 is held private at the family's discretion — the passage Charlie himself flags in his closing line.)
What the letter is
3 October 1970, written over five pages while Charlie convalesced from malaria at Cam Ranh Bay — the large coastal base far from the mountains where his company was. It is the one letter in the corpus that catches him genuinely out of the war for a stretch, and the register is telling: not relief so much as dread of going back. The doctor gave him an extra five days “because I said I didn’t want to go back,” and Charlie spends the letter loafing, staying dry, and turning over the two long arguments the whole tour runs on — her degree, and when the Army will let him come home. He ends by telling Terrie to “ignore the offensive parts of this letter,” his own apology for a teasing passage held private here.
Transcription
Oct 3
Dear Terrie,
I’m still at Cam Ranh Bay recovering. Actually I’m all right and when I saw the doctor yesterday he said there was no damage to any of my bodily systems, and that was because they now had the medicine to cure Malaria where they didn’t back in W.W.II. Actually I didn’t have it that bad. Now I’m just trying to avoid going back to my company. The doctor let me stay here an extra 5 days because I said I didn’t want to go back. I’m just loafing around, pulling a few minor details and staying dry. It isn’t raining too much here but I know it is where my company is. Although they are in the mountains there seems to be little contact with the enemy anywhere. [Firebase] Kathryn is closed down and the S. Vietnamese are the only
[page 2:] ones around O’Reilly. They seem to be doing a good job and even the action there has slowed down. Still 70-100 GI’s die every week so I don’t know. Things could still be a lot better here.
I got a lot of letters from you and home today. Yes, you’re botching things up by not graduating in June or the summer session. I don’t know what I’ll do now. I guess I have 250 days to think about it.
[A short intimate/teasing passage is held private at the family’s discretion — the passage Charlie himself flags in his closing line.]
[page 3:] You mean if I write your parents I can’t mention all the money I’ve given you and I can’t slam the military a little? What else is there to talk about?
In all seriousness I do hope you aren’t too disappointed and will try your best this year. You ought to be able to do at least as well as a 2.6. I see no sense in your getting a job in Marietta next summer because even if I’m out of the army I probably won’t be there much more than two weeks after I get back. Rumors being what they are I don’t know exactly when that will be. With the cut back in the army I’m privately hoping for an even bigger drop than 150 days. When I was in California there were some troops coming back with 179 day early outs. I can’t really count
[page 4:] on that but it is something for me to dream about. Then I wouldn’t even have to extend. First things being first, I just dream of the day I get out of here and the army.
Although I am disappointed you won’t graduate in June I still hope you keep going after that damn diploma like there was no tomorrow. Even if you can’t teach you could always do something like Vicki. It’s just extra influence for you.
I believe I told you papers is out for me as of Oct 1 [and] it was removed from the [R&R] lists in the world. Fair is over. I like you saying though, there’s no hurry for china, silver etc. We can still be married next summer, but [it] depends more on me and the service than anything else right now. If they give a large drop from Viet Nam
[page 5:] in order to get the combat troops out, I would be back in the states with time still left to serve. I would hate that too and probably would not want to get married while I was still in the service. I would try for a 90 day early out for school and go to school then though. It all depends how things work out. I’ll let you know if & when I hear anything definite.
Right now I have 252 days left in the army and over here. I figure at least 100 of them to be spent in the rear and 150 in the field. God how I dread it. I have only been here 144 days now.
Love Charles
Ignore the offensive parts of this letter
What the letter records
Out of the war, dreading the way back. “Now I’m just trying to avoid going back to my company… the doctor let me stay here an extra 5 days because I said I didn’t want to go back.” The malaria that put him in Cam Ranh Bay bought him a stretch out of the mountains, and the letter’s honest note is how badly he did not want it to end. The dread is quantified at the close — “at least 100 [days] in the rear and 150 in the field. God how I dread it” — the same arithmetic of endurance that runs through every field letter.
“Still 70-100 GI’s die every week.” Set flatly against the good news of Vietnamization — Kathryn closed, the ARVN holding O’Reilly, the action slowed — is the number he won’t let go unstated. It is the corpus’s recurring refusal to let the drawdown story stand alone: the war was winding down and men were still dying weekly.
The degree, again. “Keep going after that damn diploma like there was no tomorrow.” Terrie won’t graduate in June, and Charlie — disappointed, but pushing — repeats the education argument he makes from training onward. It is the same insistence on schooling that Terrie would carry into raising Chuck, the family thread running a generation forward.
The drop, the marriage, and the order between them. “We can still be married next summer, but [it] depends more on me and the service than anything else.” Here the whole engine of the late 1970 letters is stated plainly: an early drop from Vietnam might mean coming home with Army time still to serve, which he’d hate — and might delay the marriage rather than hasten it. It’s the mirror image of the 28 December letter’s hope to “get married early,” the same variables solved a different way.
“Ignore the offensive parts of this letter.” The closing line is Charlie flagging his own teasing — the passage held private above — and it is characteristic: blunt on the page, then embarrassed by it, apologizing on his way out the door. The same self-editing impulse the orders-decide-everything letter names outright (“I’m not going to edit these and can’t”).
Scans
