← Part of Letters from Vietnam
letter
Letter to Terrie, 30 January 1971 — pay day, the field he dreads, and an $850 stereo
Charlie's short letter to Terrie dated 30 January 1971, from the Da Nang rear. Pay day has gone wrong again — the clerks messed it up and he never got a chance to see anyone about 'my problem,' which makes him mad; he hopes to get in to see someone before he is sent back to the field. He dreads the weather waiting for him in the field and there is still no mail from Terrie. The one bright note is the stereo: tomorrow he will buy the rest of the equipment, bringing it to $850 of gear they will own — the most he has ever spent on a luxury item, and 'it better last.' Written the day Operation Dewey Canyon II opened the road toward Khe Sanh, ten days before the Camp Eagle clerk job took the field off the table for good.
What the letter is
30 January 1971. A short, sour note in the same grey key as the 29 January letter written the day before — the pay clerks have fouled up again, the mail hasn’t come, and the field is still waiting somewhere on the other side of the bad weather. Charlie is plainly irritated, and the only thing in the letter that lifts is the stereo: tomorrow he finishes buying it, and for a private who counts every dollar toward the wedding, the $850 of Japanese gear is a small, defiant indulgence.
Transcription
Jan 30
Dear Terrie,
We got paid today and they messed things up again. I didn’t get a chance to even see anybody about my problem and it really makes me mad. I hope when we go back I’ll have an opportunity to see someone before I’m sent back to the field.
The weather is really going to be something when we go back I’m afraid. I really dread it.
Still no mail from you today.
I will buy the rest of my stereo equipment tomorrow. That will be $850 worth of stuff that we will have. That is the most I’ve spent on a luxury item in my life — it better last.
Not much else to say. Love Charles
What the letter records
“My problem.” The letter never says what it is — an administrative matter (the ETS/“drop” paperwork he was chasing through January) or something medical (he was only weeks past the malaria that had pulled him out of the field). Either way the frustration is the same recurring one of the late tour: the Army’s clerks and their own pace standing between him and what he needs.
The stereo. The $850 of gear is the running purchase that surfaces across the winter letters and comes together in the 17 February letter — the TEAC tape deck, the Pioneer speakers and receiver, bought piece by piece through the PACEX mail-order catalog. “Stuff that we will have” is the tell: everything he buys in these months is already furnishing the married life he is counting the days toward.
Still expecting the field. “When we go back… before I’m sent back to the field” is the assumption that the clerk job would shortly overturn. Read next to the 14 February valentine, the relief of that reprieve is easier to feel.
Scans
