Letter to Terrie, 12 December 1970 — settled into the rear, a friend killed back home, and the March 12 drop

What the letter is

12 December 1970, written from the rear in the settled, almost-guilty register of a man who has come off the line: “I can’t really believe how good I have it especially compared to the field.” Two things cut across the calm. The mail brings word, through Bob Hartz, that a friend named Gary Self has been killed in California, the war’s grim irony delivered in reverse, a death back home while Charlie sits safe in country. And the end-of-tour arithmetic shifts again: a “10-month tour” drop rumor that would put him home March 12, set against his fallback of taking R&R and doing everything in his power to stay out of the field. Either way, he tells her, he will not be coming home on leave.

Transcription

Dec 12

Dear Terrie,

Well things have settled pretty much into a routine around here. Everything is fine and I can’t really believe how good I have it especially compared to the field.

I got a letter from Bob Hartz yesterday and bad news too. Somehow Gary Self got killed in California. He didn’t say how but I think it was a car accident.

I just hope things would quiet down completely over here. If I get out and come home Mar 12 I doubt if I will have time to take R&R so don’t count on going to Hawaii. It is still just a rumor on the 10-month [page 2:] tour so if it doesn’t happen I’ll be taking my R&R and leave and do everything in my power to stay out of the field. I’ll let you know if I hear of anything definite. I will not be coming home on leave.

Well I’ll try to write more often and let you know what is going on. The next letter I’ll probably send to your home in Florida.

Love Charles

What the letter records

A death back home. “Somehow Gary Self got killed in California. He didn’t say how but I think it was a car accident.” The note carries the particular dissonance of the rear-area tour: Charlie is safe enough to write about how good he has it, and the casualty in this letter is a friend who died stateside, not in the war. Relayed secondhand through Bob Hartz, with the cause guessed at, it is the kind of incomplete, sidelong loss that reached soldiers through the mail.

The 10-month drop, and the March 12 date. The end-of-tour calculation keeps moving. The 5 November letter had laid out a June 13 out-date with a possible mid-May early-out; the 16 December letter names a 60-day drop. Here it’s a “10-month tour” rumor that would put him home March 12. None of the early drops came; the 19 January 1971 letter is where he settles on the extension path that fixes the real out-date at June 14.

“I will not be coming home on leave.” The 2-week leave home that the 15 and 18 November letters had weighed is now decided against, for good. The reunion, if it happens, will be R&R, the plan that becomes the booked April 1971 Hawaii trip.

The home in Florida. “The next letter I’ll probably send to your home in Florida” — Terrie was at the University of Maryland during term and her family’s home was in Florida, where she would be over the Christmas break. The small routing note is one of the few direct markers in the corpus of where Terrie’s people lived.