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letter
Letter to Terrie, 28 December 1970 — the 10-month-tour rumor, a scare that was a lie, and 'maybe even get married early'
Charlie's two-page letter to Terrie dated 28 December 1970, reassembled from its scans (dad259 page 1, dad260 page 2). All the rumors are now saying a 10-month tour, which would put him home in the middle of March if it's true — still nothing definite. A week ago some guy passing through said a platoon had been wiped out, and he was really scared about going back, but it seems the man lied for some reason; not too much has happened in the field since they left to come to the rear. It still rains a little there but not as much as in the field, and he hasn't been wet since he's been in the rear. He's really getting psyched about coming home even if he'd still be in the Army; if he does come back early, they'll see how things are and maybe even get married early, though it would depend on where he's stationed. He tells her to stop sending magazines — he thought he'd written that already; the rear has a library with all the magazines in it. He's on guard now, hoping to catch up on his letter-writing. Signed 'Love, Charles.'
What the letter is
28 December 1970, from the year-end rear-area “school” period, and one of the letters where the two engines of the whole tour, the drop rumor and the marriage plan, run side by side. The rumors now favor a 10-month tour (home by mid-March), and Charlie lets himself get “psyched about coming home” — and, in the same breath, floats getting “married early” if it happens. The letter also carries a small, sharp piece of how fear moved through the rear: a passing soldier’s claim that a platoon had been “wiped out,” believed, dreaded, and then quietly judged a lie.
Transcription
Dec 28
Dear Terrie,
It seems all the rumors are saying it will be a 10 month tour so I should be home in the middle of March if that is so. Still nothing definite.
A week ago some guy passing through said a platoon was wiped out so I was really scared about going back, but it seemed he lied for some reason and not too much has happened in the field since we left to come here. It still rains a little here but not as much as it still is in the field, and I haven’t been wet since I’ve been here.
[page 2:] I’m really getting psyched about coming home even if I still would be in the damn army. If I do come back early we will see how things are and maybe even get married early. It then would depend on where I am stationed I guess.
Stop sending magazines! I thought I wrote that on one of my letters. They have a library with all the magazines in it.
I’m on guard now and I hope to catch up on my letter writing so —
Love Charles
What the letter records
The 10-month tour, and “get married early.” “The rumors are saying it will be a 10 month tour so I should be home in the middle of March… maybe even get married early.” The drop rumor of the 12 December letter (the March-12 date) here hardens into the “10 month tour” the 31 December letter would treat as near-certain, and Charlie ties it directly to the marriage: an early return could mean an early wedding. It didn’t come; the drop fell through, and the marriage waited until August 1971.
The platoon that wasn’t wiped out. “Some guy passing through said a platoon was wiped out so I was really scared about going back, but it seemed he lied.” A rare, honest look at how rumor and fear traveled the rear, a secondhand horror story that spiked his dread of returning to the field, then dissolved on closer reading. The fear was real even when the report wasn’t.
“Stop sending magazines!” The small domestic reversal, and one of the corpus’s quiet callbacks: the 30 November letter had asked her to “send something like Newsweek or Playboy,” but now, in the rear with “a library with all the magazines in it,” he tells her to stop. The care-package economy adjusting to the comforts of the rear.
Not wet since the rear. “I haven’t been wet since I’ve been here.” The plainest measure of the difference between field and rear, after the months of monsoon the November letters are soaked in: dryness itself as a luxury worth reporting.
Scans
