Letter to Terrie, 15 March 1971 — six catch-up letters arriving at Danang, R&R finances and hotel plans

What the letter is

15 March 1971. Charlie is at the Da Nang rear in his eleventh month in country. Six of Terrie’s letters — written from her University of Maryland life in Maryland and addressed to the Danang address — have just caught up to him together, consistent with the mail-handling backlog at I Corps APOs during the Lam Son 719 operation. The framing of “a few days in country” in this letter’s original draft was an artifact of an earlier dating analysis — Charlie had been deployed since mid-1970 and had been in the Da Nang rear through the Laos operation, now in its withdrawal phase as he wrote.

Transcription

Mar 15

Dear Terrie,

I got 6 “catch-up” letters which you had sent to Danang today. Not much new except that at least you got an incomplete on your final grade. I hope you get through everything all right this semester. I hope Hawaii won’t interfere with your study habits.

I was able to check on my finances today and apparently it is all on record in Indianapolis and I’ll get it all 90 days after I’m back in the states. After R&R it should still be around $2,000.

I’ll send you $100 Mar 1 or so. I should be able to bring $400 or so with me which should be enough.

I hope everything is fine with you.

I haven’t made any arrangements in Hawaii for a hotel but I then think no problem. Maybe if you get there [on the] 12th you could get it. I guess reservations would [continue on next page]…

What the letter records

Six catch-up letters at Danang. The mail-routing detail places Charlie in his early-tour transition period — in country, but the address Terrie had been using was the Danang in-processing one rather than the unit assignment that would come a few days later. By the 22 March letter, his mail address had stabilized; the six letters that arrived together on 15 March are the small archive of Terrie’s life from the weeks Charlie spent crossing from the Stateside training cycle of the 18 February letter to the in-country tour.

Terrie’s incomplete on a fall grade. “At least you got an incomplete on your final grade.” The reference is to Terrie’s University of Maryland fall 1970 semester finals, the result of which she would have only just received in early 1970. An “incomplete” was the standard university designation for a student who had not finished a course’s required work in time — it left the grade open until she completed the missing assignment, at which point a real letter grade would be entered. Charlie’s “at least” is the dry hedge: better an incomplete than a failing grade. The fall 1970 semester would have been the most disrupted period of her undergraduate years — Charlie’s deployment was imminent, the political climate on campuses was intense, and Robert Earl’s Air Force career was about to end with his May 1970 retirement.

Charlie’s army-pay finances. “I was able to check on my finances today and apparently it is all on record in Indianapolis and I’ll get it all 90 days after I’m back in the states. After R&R it should still be around $2,000.” The 1970 dollar figure is meaningful — $2,000 in 1970 is about $16,000 in 2026 dollars. The post-Vietnam tour-end balance that Charlie was building was the practical capital that would later let him return to civilian life. “Apparently it is all on record in Indianapolis” — the Defense Finance and Accounting Service center in Indianapolis was the Army’s central pay record holder; soldiers’ tour pay accumulated there and was paid out on return.

The Hawaii hotel. “I haven’t made any arrangements in Hawaii for a hotel but I then think no problem. Maybe if you get there 12th you could get it.” Three months before the trip, the hotel was not yet booked. Charlie was leaving the booking to Terrie on her arrival date. The R&R-week would happen at whatever Honolulu hotel they could secure on Terrie’s day of arrival, the standard arrangement for late-1960s soldiers and their R&R partners in Hawaii.

$100 a month. “I’ll send you $100 Mar 1 or so.” The standard pattern of Vietnam-tour soldiers sending money to family or fiancées back home, often via Treasury allotment or direct money order, runs through the rest of the corpus. By the 29 May ‘seventeen days left’ letter Charlie would be discussing the $260 check Terrie had had trouble cashing; by the late January 1971 letter, the stereo-purchase math. The Vietnam-tour finance thread that runs through the whole corpus starts visibly here.

Sequence with surrounding letters

The Danang-address mail-routing detail places this letter in the Lam Son 719 mail-handling backlog window. By the end of March, with the operation closing and the unit’s mail system stabilising, his mail flow returned to normal; the six catch-up letters of 15 March are the small archive of the days when his address had been moving through the Da Nang rear during the operation.