Letter to Terrie, 15 January 1971 — on guard, scotch, and what's actually hard about the field

What the letter is

Friday, 15 January 1971, 12:15 a.m., on guard with six hours still to pull. The first page is loose and a little drunk — scotch at a floor-show, a connoisseur’s ranking of whisky brands, a bad band with worse go-go dancers, and a laugh at his own expense (the guys call him a virgin for not going “over the fence”). Then page two turns, and Charlie writes the single clearest sentence in the whole correspondence about what the war actually cost: not the moments of being shot at, but the grinding ones — the long company humps in all weather, the endless guard. It is the closest he comes to telling Terrie what the field was really like.

Transcription

Fri 15

Dear Terrie,

Here I am on guard again at about 12:15 AM with 6:30 [as] the final hour of this blasted guard. You should have been receiving quite a few letters recently even though they don’t say too much. How are you doing anyway? I had a few drinks tonight as they had a floor[-show] band tonight. I was drinking scotch for a change. As far as the best brand I really couldn’t tell you. Johnnie Walker Red is one of the best. Chivas Regal and Cutty Sark are also good brands. I’ve never heard of your “white” label, only red & black although I believe they may be a white label too. The band was horrible as usual. They usually bring along several girls who act as “go-go” dancers while the band is playing and these girls were about the worst I’ve seen.

Well I won’t tell you I’ve been a good boy — I’ll just say that the guys have accused me of being a virgin of late because I haven’t gone over the fence with the others and paid my $5. I thought you should get a laugh out of that.

Not much happening now thank heavens. Several of the rear-area guys have said they are really bored here and wish they were out in the bush. If only there were a way to trade places with them. They must think it is a game. Actually it isn’t the being fired at that is so bad, it is the long company trips in all kinds of weather and constantly being on guard that are so bad. They just don’t seem to realize.

If my mother sends me my $700 I’ll begin purchasing my stereo over here. I should be able to get most of it except my tape recorder. I’ll see. I haven’t even picked it out yet. They have a beach here so I’m going to try to get out to it since the weather has broken here.

I love you.

Love Charles

What the letter records

The thesis sentence of the corpus. “It isn’t the being fired at that is so bad, it is the long company trips in all kinds of weather and constantly being on guard that are so bad.” Across dozens of letters Charlie rarely describes combat directly; here he explains why — because combat wasn’t the worst of it. The worst was the unglamorous, unending physical grind, and he says so to correct rear-area men who had started to miss a war they pictured as action.

“They must think it is a game.” His contempt is reserved not for the enemy or even the lifers here but for soldiers who romanticize the field from the safety of the rear. Having done the field, he knows what they’re missing, and it isn’t glory.

The good-boy joke. Charlie turns the base sex economy into a self-deprecating story — teased as a “virgin” for not joining the others “over the fence” — and hands it to Terrie as a laugh and a reassurance at once. The fidelity is the point; the joke is the delivery.

The stereo, again. The $700 from home, the set he hasn’t even picked out yet: the patient assembly of a civilian future, item by item, from a guard post at midnight.