Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam Page #5

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It's what's happening,

or to put it another way,

who needs it?

"Dear Mom and Dad,

on Christmas

the whole company was loaded

onto a two and a half ton truck

and carted off to Bien Hoa

to see Bob Hope.

Imagine! I've looked

at Bob Hope for years

entertaining the troops,

and never once thought

that he'd someday

be entertaining me!"

This is Miss World,

from India.

- He missed his cue.

- This is Miss World from India.

How.

"Dear family,

Christmas out there

was really something.

At midnight

on Christmas Eve,

the mortars

and tracks and tanks

and all of the

1st Cavalry Artillery

sent up an absolutely

thunderous barrage

of high-altitude

flares.

It was quite a show.

I believe few people

have seen fireworks like these.

Then, when all had

quieted down

and the flares

had gone out,

the whole area calmed and hushed

and we could just hear

one of the fire bases

start singing

'Silent Night.'

Then it was picked up

by the other positions

around us and by everyone.

It echoed through

the valley for a long time

and died out slowly.

I'm positive

it has seldom been sung

with more gut-feeling

and pure homesick emotion...

a strange

and beautiful thing

in this terribly

death-ridden land.

It is something

I will always remember.

Love, Peter."

For the average frontline

infantry soldier in Vietnam,

war is a bore,

interrupted only

by moments of sheer terror

when men die.

Contact with the enemy

seems to be more infrequent

than ever before.

The soldiers like that.

They sense,

rightly or not,

that the war

is almost over.

I'd rather go out myself

and not find anything...

come back in

empty-handed.

Why is that?

The object of the war

is usually to find

people and kill 'em.

Yeah, but that's not my...

I just don't care

too much about that.

"Dear Tom,

about morale?

Americans do have

many things to be proud of.

Among these is the ability to create

a means of survival

in an absurd situation.

Because the tour here

is one year long,

you're able to count

the days until 'DEROS'...

'Date Eligible

to Return from Overseas.'

You're able to say

'This time next year,

I will be home.'

After careful consideration

with my senior civilian

and military advisors,

and in full consultation

with the government of Vietnam,

I have decided to reduce

the authorized troop

ceiling in Vietnam

to 484,000 by December 15.

Defense Secretary

Melvin Laird

said the U.S.

3rd Marine Division

will be one of the units involved

in President Nixon's

most recent

redeployment order.

This afternoon,

the U.S. Command announced

departing units

will include:

supporting elements

of the 1st Marine Airwing

plus the 3rd Brigade

of the 82nd Airborne.

"Dear civilians, friends,

draft-dodgers, et cetera,

in the very near future,

the undersigned will

once more be in your midst,

dehydrated and demoralized

to take his place again

as a human being

with the well-known forms

of freedom and justice for all,

engage in life, liberty,

and the somewhat delayed

pursuit of happiness.

In making your

joyous preparations

to welcome him back

into organized society,

you might take

certain steps

to make allowances

for the past 12 months.

Abstain from saying anything

about powdered eggs,

dehydrated potatoes,

fried rice, fresh milk

or ice cream.

Do not be alarmed if he should jump up

from the dinner table

and rush to the garbage can

to wash his dish with a toilet brush.

Also, if it should

start raining,

pay no attention to him

if he pulls off his clothes,

grabs a bar of soap and a towel,

and runs outside for a shower.

Pretend not to notice if,

at a restaurant, he calls the waitress

'number one girl,'

and uses his hat

as an ashtray.

Be watchful if he is

in the presence of women,

especially

a beautiful woman.

Last, but not least,

send no more mail

to the A.P.O.,

fill the icebox with beer,

get the civvies out of the mothballs,

fill that car with gas

and get the women and children

off the street, baby,

because the kid

is coming home!"

Come to see me 'cause I will

be looking out for you.

- Yeah.

- I'll be lookin' for you.

- No sweat, man. Take it easy.

- Take care.

I feel that the 9th Marine...

they have been

doing a good job

for quite a while now.

It is about time

for them to go home,

but I would also like for

the rest of the men in Vietnam

to go home just as much

as the 9th Marines.

I would like to see

all this end.

My friend,

he would've, uh,

been pulled out

of the bush here

two days

after his death.

And it just seems

kind of a shame

that he died needlessly.

Get down, come on.

"Hey, brother,

this place is sort of

getting to me.

I've been seeing

too many guys getting messed up

and I still can't

understand it.

It's not that I can't

understand this war.

It's just that I can't

understand war, period."

"You just sort of sit back

and ask yourself

'Why?

What the hell is this

going to prove?'

And, man, I'm still looking

for the answer."

"It's a real b*tch."

"I just can't believe

half of the sh*t I've seen

here so far."

- How many bodies...

- How many did you see killed?

Myself, I saw

approximately 100 bodies... dead bodies.

That's a conservative

estimate now.

I know one group

specifically,

they had rounded up

about 20, maybe 30 people

and most of 'em were

women and children.

There might have been

a few old men in the group.

But they'd rounded them up

right over a ditch bank

and shot 'em all

with a machine-gun

and left 'em in the ditch.

"Dear John,

the physical and human damage

done over the last few years

is much greater

than I realized,

not just the dead,

but the G.I.s who can't talk

in coherent sentences

anymore.

Bomb and artillery craters,

the ruined villages,

these things you can understand

as the byproduct of war.

But I can't accept the fact

of the human damage.

I feel like I'm at the bottom

of a great sewer."

"Dear Mrs. Perko,

what can I say to fill

the void?

I know flowers and letters

are appropriate,

but it's hardly enough.

I'm Johnny Boy.

And I'm sick both physically

and mentally.

I smoke too much.

I'm constantly coughing, never eat,

always sit around

in a daze.

All of us are

in this general condition.

We're all afraid to die,

and all we do is count

the days till we go home.

When we go to Saigon we spend

all our money on women and beer.

We're all in desperate need

of love."

"Some nights I don't sleep.

I can't stand being alone at night.

The guns don't bother me.

I can't hear them anymore.

I want to hold my head

between my hands,

run screaming away

from here."

"I'm hollow, Mrs. Perko.

I'm a shell.

When I'm scared I rattle.

I'm no one to tell you about your son.

I can't, I'm sorry.

Johnny Boy."

Come, say it.

"Hi all,

Christmas came and went...

marked only by tragedy.

Christmas morning

I got off duty

and opened

all my packages alone.

I missed you all so much.

I cried myself to sleep.

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