Letter to Terrie, 14 October 1970 — 'Out of the field May 1, 1971 because all combat troops are being withdrawn'

What the letter is

14 October 1970. Charlie writes Terrie a substantial letter from the I Corps lowlands — “I’m still in the lowlands but still don’t know for how long” — with two pieces of news that materially shape the rest of his tour and the archive’s reading of it.

This is, by date, the earliest letter in the corpus where Charlie writes about the Vietnamization combat-troop withdrawal as a specific scheduled event. By October 1970 the Army’s drawdown timetable had landed at battalion-and-division level and individual soldiers were learning their personal pull-out dates. Charlie’s date was 1 May 1971.

The letter also carries the first written R&R proposal in the corpus — not the spring 1971 Hawaii-with-Terrie thread the archive had built out from the March-April 1971 letters, but an earlier January-or-February 1971 window Charlie was floating in October 1970.

Transcription

Oct 14

Dear Terrie,

It rains now every day and is sort of like spring showers. They last long enough to get us wet and then move on. I’m still in the lowlands but still don’t know for how long.

Well, now that papers are out I don’t know when I’ll go. Do you want to meet in Hawaii in Jan or Feb? I don’t really think it would be too good an idea but if it could be arranged it might be a possibility. They are queuing troops like crazy over here. I may get home in March but would still have 8 months in the army. I would probably go to school in that case. At any rate, if I come home in June at least I’ll be out of the field May 1, 1971 because all combat troops are being withdrawn. Of the 240 days left over here …

What the letter records

The May 1, 1971 combat-withdrawal date. “If I come home in June at least I’ll be out of the field May 1, 1971 because all combat troops are being withdrawn.” This is the first explicit reference in the corpus to the Vietnamization-era combat-troop pull-out schedule, expressed at the level of an individual soldier’s personal calendar. By October 1970 the I Corps drawdown timetable had been distributed down to company-level rosters, and Charlie knew that whatever else happened with his tour-end date, he would be out of the field as a combat soldier by 1 May 1971. The remaining time after that would be rear-area duty — eventually the Da Nang office the corpus carries through January-March 1971.

The 1 May 1971 date held. The 3 February 1971 Da Nang-extension letter reports Charlie staying in Da Nang through 5 March 1971 with the implicit expectation of staying longer; the 1 March 1971 Lam Son 719 letter reports him still in the Da Nang office with most of his unit at Quang Tri supporting the operation. By the date the Lam Son 719 letter went home, the Army had Charlie at one remove from combat for what would be the rest of his tour, exactly as the October 14 letter had predicted seven months earlier.

The January-February R&R proposal — the window that didn’t happen. “Do you want to meet in Hawaii in Jan or Feb? I don’t really think it would be too good an idea but if it could be arranged it might be a possibility.” This is the earliest written R&R proposal in the corpus — six months before the April 12-19 1971 trip that actually went forward. Charlie was proposing a Jan/Feb 1971 window because the U.S. combat-withdrawal schedule was, in his read, going to disrupt R&R availability through the spring (which it eventually did, via Lam Son 719).

Charlie’s own hedge “I don’t really think it would be too good an idea but if it could be arranged it might be a possibility” is the small piece of soldier-realism: he was floating the possibility but not yet committing. The Jan/Feb window didn’t happen — by January 1971 the extension strategy had become the priority, and the R&R got pushed to April.

The Hawaii-meet-up framing here is the first explicit articulation in the corpus that the R&R would be in Hawaii. The March-April 1971 letters refer to Hawaii as the established destination; this October 14 letter shows where the destination was first proposed.

The ‘home in March, but 8 months in the army’ calculation. “I may get home in March but would still have 8 months in the army. I would probably go to school in that case.” The math here is the 10-month early-drop calculation Charlie was running in October 1970: shipping home in March 1971 would leave 8 months on his Army contract before discharge, almost all of it stateside garrison duty — which he was already trying to avoid. The school plan — “I would probably go to school in that case” — is one of the small forward-projections in the corpus: by October 1970 Charlie was already thinking about the Marietta College graduate school he would eventually attend, using the Army’s tuition-assistance program. The school plan was a Plan B if the ETS-extension didn’t land him a clean discharge.

The decision-tree shape of the letter is significant. Charlie is laying out the three possible futures:

1. Come home March 1971 (10-month drop) + 8 months stateside + school
2. Come home June 1971 (ETS-extension, the path he eventually took)
3. Hawaii R&R in Jan/Feb 1971 (the path that didn’t happen)

The Jan 19 1971 ETS-extension letter records the choice between (1) and (2). The March 29 1971 R&R booking records the resolution of (3), pushed three months later than Charlie’s October proposal.

240 days left. “Of the 240 days left over here…” 240 days from 14 October 1970 puts the projected ETS at 11 June 1971 — three days off the 14 June 1971 ETS Charlie eventually targeted with his extension. The 240-day count is consistent with the ETS-extension target he would settle on three months later, which suggests the extension calculation was already in his head as a likely choice in October — he just hadn’t formally written it as the decision yet.

What this letter changes for the archive

It places the Hawaii R&R proposal four months earlier than the archive had been carrying it. The current framing has the R&R becoming a planning thread in March-April 1971 with parental conflict and Peggy’s marriage-bypass proposal. This October 14 1970 letter shows the Hawaii idea was already on the table six months earlier, originally for a Jan/Feb 1971 window that the combat withdrawal and ETS-extension considerations pushed forward to April.

It also surfaces, for the first time, the personal-calendar combat-withdrawal date in Charlie’s own voice. The Vietnam letter corpus has carried the war’s strategic context through the Lam Son 719 thread; this letter shows Charlie reading the drawdown at the level of his own scheduled day off the rifle line. The 1 May 1971 date held.

Sequence with surrounding letters

Source: grandmaE1.pdf page 240 (gitignored locally; transcribed content surfaced here).