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letter
Letter to Terrie, 8 December 1970 — the phone call he's planning, and the good life in the rear
Charlie's letter to Terrie dated 8 December 1970 (dad244), from the rear. He hopes to call her the following Monday night, 13 December — if he doesn't get through, at least he'll have tried; it will be expensive on her end, so she shouldn't be stubborn and should use the money he gave her. He hopes she's eating enough. (A short family-health passage is held private at the family's discretion.) The rear is comfortable: PX prices are really good, the mess hall is great, they even have Vietnamese girls to clear the tables so he doesn't have to carry his tray after eating, there are tennis, basketball, and handball courts plus a movie that changes every day, and booze is a little over two dollars a bottle — so he's happy. He'll close for now and try to write again in a day or so. Signed 'Love, Charles.'
What the letter is
8 December 1970, from the comfortable rear. The letter’s spine is a plan: he hopes to place a phone call to Terrie the following Monday, 13 December — the call the 14 December letter confirms he made (“As you know I called you today”). Around the plan is the good life of the rear-area posting, the PX, the mess hall, the courts, the daily movie, the cheap booze, set down with a short-timer’s satisfaction: “so I’m happy.” It is the Camp Eagle rear at its most livable, weeks before the field would call again.
Transcription
Dec 8
Dear Terrie,
As you probably know by now, I hope to call you next Monday night, on Dec 13. If I don’t get through, at least I will have tried. It will be expensive for you, so don’t be stubborn and use the money I gave you. I hope you are eating enough anyway.
[A short family-health passage is held private at the family’s discretion.]
The PX prices here are really good. The mess hall is great. They even have Vietnamese girls to clear the tables so I don’t even have to carry my tray anymore after I’m through eating. There are tennis, basketball and handball courts plus a movie which changes pictures every day. [Booze] is just a little over $2.00 a bottle so I’m happy.
Well I guess I’ll close for now. I hope everything is alright with you and I’ll try to write in a day or so.
Love Charles
What the letter records
The phone call, planned. “I hope to call you next Monday night, on Dec 13… don’t be stubborn and use the money I gave you.” The MARS radio-telephone call from Vietnam to the U.S. that the 14 December letter reports he made two days later, billed to the recipient at long-distance rates — here anticipated, and pre-paid out of the money he’d sent her, over her likely objection to the cost.
The rear-area good life. “The PX prices here are really good. The mess hall is great… tennis, basketball and handball courts plus a movie which changes pictures every day.” The rear cantonment amenities the 16 December enlisted-men’s-club letter also describes — the comfortable counterweight to the field months, listed with the small pleasures of a soldier who had been in the mountains and was, for now, not.
“Vietnamese girls to clear the tables.” The Vietnamese-civilian labor around American bases, the same base-economy the em-club letter’s hostesses belong to — here the mess-hall staff who cleared the trays.
Scans
