Letters Home: Vietnam 1968-1969

December 1968

 

 

December 7, 1968

Beginnings

 

Postcard from Kyoto Japan

 

Hi Folks,

Arrived about 20 minutes ago. It’s 1:15 PM December 7th here, 11:15 PM December 6th in New York. I sure do miss home an awful lot, especially being so far away. We’ve got about another twelve hours to fly yet. I hope you’ll be able to be proud of me by the time this year’s over. I’m gonna try my best. All my love to everyone.
 
 
 
My journey started with a cross country flight to Ft. Lewis, Washington. Due to bad weather, strong headwinds, and an unplanned stop for fuel in Billings, Montana, my plane arrived some 8 hours late in Seattle. Try finding a hotel room at 4 AM. I finally found a cab driver who pitied me, I guess, and took me to my accommodations for the next 3 hours. I was to report to Ft. Lewis at 7 AM, but I had to call home to tell them I had arrived, clean up a bit after trying to sleep in my clothes, and of course, shave. The Army frowns upon unshaven troops. Funny they didn’t apply the same standards in the jungle!
What a wasted trip!!!!! From Seattle, we flew to Anchorage Alaska to refuel for the long flight over the Pacific. The grandeur, quiet coldness and beauty of the Alaskan landscape were so wasted on a young man so caught up in confusion, uncertainty, and fear. I remember trying to find a phone to call home, half scared and half homesick, but everywhere I went the lines were hopelessly long, so I was unable to notify my family of my progress.
So it's on to the Pacific, the never ending expanse of ocean which separates freedom from captivity for we who are heading for a year in Vietnam. Mt. Fuji looms large out the window as we arrive at Kyoto, one landing away from our destiny. Again, the wonderful landscape and scenery are wasted, just another rock on the way to my final destination. I have the unfortunate pleasure of sitting next to a grisly old (probably 40 ish) E-6 who has done two tours in Vietnam. You would think he would be try to counsel and console a “rookie”, but true to the Army way, he fills my head with images of a prehistoric lifestyle that I am about to enter. His ringing words of wisdom, “take a shower when we land, because it may be the last one you'll have for a long time”, sound so ridiculously absurd that it has to be true.
Funny how something so insignificant sticks in my memory today. He was right!!!

 

 

December 8, 1968
Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam

 

I hope you got my postcard from Japan, cause right now I haven’t got too much time to write. We’ve got a formation at 1 PM, in which they’ll probably assign us some stupid detail. This morning I raked the area for 3 hours. Cam Ranh Bay is the safest place in RVN (Republic of Vietnam). It’s also the crummiest, being almost exactly like the Reception Center at Ft. Dix. All you do is pull details, including KP, while you’re here.
I don’t know how long I’ll be here, but it might be for a week or more before I’m assigned to a regular unit. There’s a lot of harassment here, just like in the good old training days, but that all ends once you get to a regular unit. So I guess I’ll just have to put up with it until I leave here. In the Army you have to keep telling yourself that whatever you’re doing will be over in time (Little did I know that I would probably set a record for staying at the Reception Center).

It’s pretty hot here. I’d say between 85 and 90 during the day, but that’s another thing you have to put up with. Running water & toilet facilities aren’t too hot, but they’ll be worse yet in the field. The barracks are crummy, too, but at least you have a place to sleep.

I don’t know whether you should write me here or not. You could always try it & I could notify you whether or not I got the letter. You can send packages (if they’re not too large) by regular mail. Just put SAM (Space Available Mail) on it & it should travel just as fast, & without the added cost of Air Mail. All this stuff I’ll know more about later.

Gotta get going now so I can slip these in the mail. Give my love to everybody, & a whole bunch goes just to you, my wonderful parents (& Spot). (our dog)

 
Even after being briefed that we should NOT give out the Reception Center address to those at home, I am already hoping that somehow, some way, miraculously a letter will appear from home, anticipating my arrival and filling me with hope and a sense that everything will be OK.
Wishful, empty headed thinking, but hey, you gotta have something to hang on to!

 

 

December 10, 1968
Cam Ranh Bay

 

Well, Here I am checking in again with the family crowd. I swear if I don’t get out of this place I’m going to go crazy. All we’ve done is pull details since I’ve been here, & Sunday from 8 PM to 7 Monday morning I had KP (Kitchen Police). They did give us most of yesterday off, but I’m still tired today.

This morning I raked sand again, the same thing I did Sunday. I suppose they’ll have something cool for us to do this afternoon, too. I guess I’ll just have to do what I can, which in this case is just grin & bear it. I said this was just like Ft. Dix at the Reception Center , but I was wrong. It’s worse than that. A lot of the time they treat you like nothing, and I’m sick of being treated like that. I didn’t go through 4 months of training just to come over here & be yelled at & put to work for 7 days. Oh, how I wish I would leave pretty soon.

I don’t want to leave just because of the work, I’d also like to get to a permanent unit so that I could get a mailing address that I could send you. If you’ve written to me here, I wouldn’t write but one letter, just in case I can’t get it here. I can always let you know whether or not I got the mail you sent here at a later date.

So far I haven’t seen many guys that I know here. There were 1 or 2 from D-1-3 (my training unit at Ft. Polk, Louisiana) that came over on the plane with me, and there’ve been a few more that came in on later flights, but there’s probably only about ten or twelve that I know. I guess a lot of guys went to Oakland to report in, & they’ll be going somewhere else for replacement. Then again, there’s probably somebody’s (excuse the grammar) that stayed at Ft. Lewis (Washington, where I began this lovely journey) for awhile for various reasons. I was pretty lucky to get out when I did, because that place is just like here, except worse. They make you do all kinds of stuff that you don’t want to.

Well, Dad, I guess you’re back from your trip by now. I hope you had better luck with your plane connections than I did with mine. I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as possible considering the circumstances, but I imagine they kept you pretty busy with meetings & tours of the factory & all that stuff.

(Originally, as I remember, Dad and I were to take the same flight to Chicago, but his got delayed and rerouted to Detroit because of weather in Syracuse. The hardest thing I ever had to do in my life is say goodbye to Dad under those circumstances) Anyway, good luck on your new job when you finally start it.

I guess it’s time for me to get going now, cause I’ve gotta mail this & go to the PX before the formation at 1PM.

Take care, & remember me to everybody back home. I’ll write again as soon as possible, & I just hope I’ll get shipped out soon. Love to everyone.
 

The wonderful, exhilarating stay at the Reception Center does anything but give anyone hope that things will eventually work out. Among the challenging “details” (Army for stuff to do) are 24 straight hours of KP (an Army travels on its stomach?), raking sand between boardwalks that connect various buildings, guard duty (I pulled this in a bunker overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Do the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong have a big Navy? Geez, I hope not!!!), and the ultimate in humiliation, the burning of human waste!!!!
After this adventure, I carefully monitored relieving myself, so as not to put the burden on some other poor soul of having to dispose of MY bodily by-products.

 

 

December 12, 1968
Cam Ranh Bay

 

Well, today marks the 5 month anniversary of your only son coming into the Army, & I’m still here at Cam Ranh, & I really don’t know how much longer I’ll be here.
I’m so depressed staying around here that it’s unbelievable. I’ve been here for almost five days now & my name hasn’t been called off for shipping yet. Every guy I came here with has left, & even those who got here after me are gone. There’s not more than 10 guys on my floor in the barracks, and they’re all new guys who either came in yesterday or the day before.

I went to formation this morning to see if maybe they might call my name, but again no luck. They usually ship to around the Cam Ranh Bay area in the morning, & the last four guys that I knew from Ft. Polk left then. So, here I am, all alone in this stupid hole just awaiting any fate that Uncle Sam might want to slap on me.

I went to the Operations...