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Letter to Terrie, c. summer 1970 — '5th day out... violent campus'
A late-page fragment of a Charlie-to-Terrie letter, c. summer 1970, written from the field on the fifth straight day of monsoon rain. Notable for two threads: a direct reference to an uncle reaching out to Terrie to 'have around if you need anything or get arrested at that violent campus' — the Eesley family's protective response to the post-Kent State protests at the University of Maryland — and brief field details about enemy bunkers where the unit found evidence women were fighting alongside the NVA. Page 2 only; page 1 not yet located. Date inferred from the post-Kent-State context and the monsoon-rain pattern.
What the letter is
This is page 2 of a multi-page Charlie letter, c. summer 1970. The page is dense — three short paragraphs that each open a thread the corpus mostly keeps closed. Page 1 with the date and opening is in the family archive but not paired to this scan yet.
Three threads in three paragraphs
The uncle and the “violent campus.” The opening paragraph of this page closes a thread about money and adds:
“My uncle wrote and he wants you to get in touch. Also he said to have around if you need anything or get arrested at that violent campus.”
The unnamed uncle is almost certainly Don McMaster — Peggy’s older brother, the AT&T engineer who lived in the Washington, DC suburbs through much of his career. The “violent campus” is the University of Maryland, College Park, which had seen significant protests in the post-Kent State spring of 1970. Don’s offer to be there if Terrie needed help — including bail if arrested — is the Eesley family’s protective response, mirroring Peggy’s later congressional-channel work and Charlie’s own vote-for-immediate-pull-out letter in October 1970. Three generations of Eesley adults were working different angles to protect both Charlie and Terrie through the war.
The enemy bunkers and the women. The middle paragraph is the field detail:
“I’m horny as hell. Some of the enemy bunkers we have come across there is evidence they have women with them. Some people know how to fight in style.”
The juxtaposition is Charlie’s. The NVA and Viet Cong did have women combatants and support personnel embedded in their bunker complexes; the “evidence” Charlie’s unit found is unspecified — possibly clothing, personal items, or remains. The line is one of the few in the corpus where the immediate physical reality of the operation he is on enters the letter.
The monsoon and the rain. The closing paragraph is the field condition:
“This is the 5th day out and it hasn’t been dry yet. It is terrible. It rained last night and I got very little sleep.”
Five days out on patrol in continuous rain places the letter in the southwest monsoon season in northern I Corps — May through September. Combined with the post-Kent-State campus reference, the most likely window is late May to August 1970, with mid-June as the median guess.
He signs off “Love Charles.”
What this letter records
A single page that crystallizes the Eesley family’s wartime structure: an uncle in the Washington suburbs offering bail money to the girlfriend at the protesting campus, an exhausted son on the fifth day of monsoon patrol describing what his unit found in an enemy bunker, the small inappropriate aside that lets the soldier sound like a soldier in his early twenties writing his fiancée. Three layers of war in three paragraphs.
Privacy note: only page 2 is in the scan paired to this document. Page 1 with the opening and date is held in the family archive and may be added later.
Scans
