As I write this the people of Ukraine are bravely fighting against the Russian invasion. My heart goes out to all Ukrainians and the brave journalists who are covering this from various locations around the country.
“Dear Mom, dad, Sue, How goes the battle! Since just about everybody else knows it, I might as well tell you. A chance for R & R came up, so I jumped at it and will be on my way to Hong Kong next month. It will be my first chance to call you from Viet Nam, but there’s one hitch. I have to call collect. What I think would be the best bet is to pay for that call out of my allotment check. How does that sound to you? I may also call Susan and do it the same way so let me know as soon as possible what you think. Price from Viet Nam I believe is $9 for the first 3 minutes and $3 for every minute after that. Please don’t try to discourage me from calling Susan. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve heard an American girl’s voice? Too long. I chose Susan instead of Peni because Susan is much better at writing.” Please be aware that Susan is in Texas and my sister Sue is in Massachusetts. “If I can’t call from Viet Nam, I’ll try to call from Hong Kong, but I expect it will be more expensive to do so. The dates on my R & R are from May 11 to May 16. However, I will leave the field several days earlier in order to process out, pick up a uniform, go to finance, etc. I’ll try to call when it will be convenient for you – allowing for time difference. We’re 13 hours ahead of you.” Whew! Hows that for a long paragraph? I have absolutely no memory of making a call home or to Susan. I hope I made them.
“Not too much else happening at present. We’re supposed to go into Tay Ninh for a 48 hour R & R in a few days, but it may not come true. I told you I was RTO (radio telephone operator) for the platoon. But our platoon leader left the field for an operation and several others in the platoon also left. So they split the remainder of us among the other 2 platoons, but as soon as we get a leader out here, we’ll go back to being third platoon again. But, I still carry the radio. I won’t let them take that away from me.” Nor do I remember our platoon being split up. When you get right down to it, I have huge memory gaps from my year in Viet Nam. “Thanks for the pictures. They’re really good and I enjoyed them. I managed to keep all the pictures and they’re still dry. The ‘hippies’ look pretty happy and Dale looks good, but those sun glasses don’t do much for him. Debbie looked fine. Sometimes I really feel sorry that I let her get away, but I suppose there is not much I could have done about it.” Debbie was a friend then girlfriend when I was still in high school. She remained a friend for many years. I don’t know what happened to her since my mom died. Dale was kind of spooky. I was led to believe that he was a special ops guy in Viet Nam, Air Force no less. I had no idea that the Air Force even had special ops guys or assassination teams at all. Maybe they didn’t and he was just bullshitting me.
This last paragraph shows a dark side of me that I’m not fond of. “Terry is a brainless fool. I have no sympathy for him whatsoever. Anybody that enlists deserves to be pushed around. He can cry all he wants and I’ll just laugh and laugh. Cruel, aren’t I? At least he’s not over here. But they have at least 3 years to play with him. Guess that’s it for this letter. Take care, love to all, Dave.” I have no idea where that venom against Terry came from. From what I remember, Terry was initially a friend of my brother Steve, but he became a friend of the family as well, particularly mom. So I don’t understand or remember what upset me about his enlistment. Also, the pictures that I received from home never made it out of Viet Nam. That story will come much later. The next letter, April 16th, was a short one so I’ll try to throw in a couple of pictures from this time period. See ya next Monday.