← Part of Letters from Vietnam
letter
Letter to Terrie, 21 January 1971 — 'It seems we all will be back at Evans Feb 4'
Charlie's letter to Terrie dated 21 January 1971, two days after his ETS-extension strategy letter. He confirms that he and his unit are scheduled to return to Camp Evans on 4 February (his old combat-zone address from his 101st Airborne tour) and asks Terrie to redirect her mail about a week ahead of the move. Counting down to 145 days at the most, reading Mario Puzo's The Godfather through his malaria recovery, complaining about Army paperwork holding up his 10% savings withdrawal, and hoping a fresh sunburn fades before he comes home.
What the letter is
21 January 1971. Charlie writes a short page from the rear — the same rear-area base where he had written his ETS-extension strategy letter two days earlier. The two letters belong together: the 19 January letter is the strategic decision (extend the tour by 32–33 days to ETS from Vietnam rather than do stateside garrison duty), this one is the routine follow-up.
Transcription
Jan 21
Dear Terrie,
How is everything? Not much new here. The days just seem to keep on going. It seems we all will be back at Evans Feb 4 (my old address) so adjust your mail accordingly about 1 week in advance.
My money hasn’t arrived yet from home. I hope it comes today.
I’m once again concerned about the army and them messing up my 10% savings. I hope to take it out this pay period but I doubt if I’ll be able to. I just hope they have all the paperwork like they say.
Rumors still abound but I still know nothing for sure. Oh how I hate the army.
I was able to get a bit of sunburn today. I hope I don’t peel and maybe I’ll be all right for when I come home.
145 days at the most.
Yes I read the Godfather when I had malaria.
Love, Charles
What the letter records
The Camp Evans return on 4 February places this letter exactly in the rear-area gap between his September 1970 malaria recovery at Cam Ranh Bay and his return to combat operations in I Corps with the 101st Airborne. “My old address” is the giveaway: Camp Evans was where he had been forward-deployed before falling sick, and the unit is now reassembling there. The Army’s tour math had pulled him back to a beach base for recovery; the war is pulling him forward again.
The 145-day countdown matches the 147-day figure from the 19 January letter almost exactly — 32 of those 147 are the proposed extension, so the 145 reflects roughly the same denominator two days later. The end of the tour is now close enough to count in single-day increments.
The Godfather line is the small biographical detail that fixes the malaria episode in his reading life. Mario Puzo’s novel had been published in March 1969 and was at the height of its mass-market run through 1970; the Francis Ford Coppola film adaptation would not release until March 1972. Charlie reading it during his September 1970 hospital stay at Cam Ranh Bay puts a paperback in his hand that the rest of his cohort was reading at the same time, with the film and the cultural saturation still ahead.
The sunburn detail closes the letter on the same tropical-beach incongruity that runs through the next letter three days later. The man writing about a Feb 4 return to combat operations is, in the same letter, getting sunburned on the beach.
Scans
