Letter to my wife Molly from Vietnam, January 22, 1968

(Below is a transcribed version of a handwritten letter from my “hootch” in the 330th Radio Research Group on a hillside some 15 miles from Pleiku in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam.  This was written just nine days before the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong launched the famous Tet Offensive, which was a huge turning point in the war. I worked as a “lingie,” that is, a translator from Vietnamese to English of encoded messages sent in Morse code that radio guys called “diddy-boppers” culled from the radio waves and other guys, called “crypies” decoded into Vietnamese words.  I’ve transcribed this letter with minor edits for clarity.)

                                                        22 Jan 68

                                                        Monday

Dear Molly,

The past few days have been worse than a nightmare.  In fact a nightmare would be welcome because it would mean I was getting some sleep.

It all started on the 18th when I was supposed to go before the promotion board at 1 o’clock in the afternoon.  I got off work early to get “stracked up” for it, only to have it called off until an indefinite “later.”  So, I went to Ops and worked for a while and waited outside the Captain’s door for a while tll he finally showed up at about 9:00.

There were ten or 15 of us waiting around and when he finally got in there, he asked us a couple of dumb questions like:  “Do you think you’re doing the job?”  “Do you think you deserve to be promoted?”  [I was up for promotion from Specialist 4th Class (E-4 pay grade) to Specialist 5th Class (E-5 pay grade)].  It was a farce.  (Another lingie Jim) Brow didn’t even know he was put up for promotion until I happened to catch his name as the Sergeant was lining us up to go in.  Anyway, I should be raking in a few more bucks if Battalion doesn’t lose the recommendation.

The next day (yet another lingie Dave) Gorman went off to brief the brass at the 4th Division and I was left alone on the job when a terrific load of work came in and kept coming in.  We ended up working till midnight – I finally got some support.  We ate midnight chow, then showered and got to sleep about 1:00 a.m. despite a wild party in the barracks.  At 1:30 a.m the sirens sounded for an alert.  We found out later that some rockets had hit Camp Schmidt – about three miles from us – but nothing in our vicinity.

Anyway, we stayed out on the line (perimeter of the unit) till about 3:00.  We got back in bed, but I couldn’t sleep because the party had resumed at a higher volume.  Then, about 4:00 there was another alert, which turned out to be a false alarm – just some plane taking aerial photos that entailed dropping flares that sounded exactly like mortars exploding.  There was another false alarm a little later for some unknown reason.  Slept about half an hour.

The next day the work wasn’t as bad, but almost.  We worked till 6:00 p.m. (since 7:00 a.m.) then had to go back and build wall lockers since a colonel was coming to inspect the barracks.  We finished one locker about midnight – they’re a bitch to put together being twice the sizae of those you saw us making at Fort Hood last summer.

Then, at 2:00 a.m. the sirens blasted us again and we went out to the line and waited.  Actually, we didn’t get out of bed until the First Sergeant came by and rousted us out, claiming that the entire hill was under attack.  We stayed on alert all night.  It was as bright as day (because) they must have released a couple hundred flares over our hill alone.  But we didn’t see any signs of an attack.

Then, we saw this helicopter to our rear – which is supposed to be friendly territory – strafing and rocketing the hell out of something.  Then, some of us were dispatched to sweep through the company area – looking for infiltrators.  The beggars were really in a sweat a sweat, and I thought sure someone was gonna get shot by some trigger-happy clown.

(That last sentence needs some explanation.  “Beggars,” if memory serves, was Army slang for our officers and NCO’s who were career soldiers, AKA: “lifers.”  They had ordered us to search a large field in our company area by forming two lines of soldiers, armed with M-14 and M-16 rifles.  The two lines were facing each other and the beggars ordered each line to march toward the other hoping the Viet Cong infiltrators, also known as “sappers,” would jump up and we would shoot them down.  Fearing that one of my own men (“clowns”) might be startled by a rat and might fire a shot that could ricochet at me, I hid in a dark hole and stayed there until this ridiculous exercise was completed.)

Anyway, we found nothing, but we stayed on alert until after breakfast.  We finally learned that some V.C. had broken through the perimeter early in the evening and had destroyed about 10-25 of the Engineer Company’s vehicles.  Fifteen of them (the V.C.) were killed and two wounded and captured – no U.S. troops were casualties.  The big sweat was that one of the V.C. was still roaming around the hill.  Sleep – about an hour in bed, about 2-1/2 hours on the cold, hard ground.

I worked that morning till 11:00 a.m. when I could no longer think in English, much less translate Vietnamese.  I slept on-and-off till 4:00 p.m. when I had to get ready for guard duty, which is two hours on and two off.  And the (total) of six hours sleep in the sleeping bag (while on guard duty) were the best I’ve had.

Besides a Montagnard village getting hit about three miles away, nothing too eventful occurred that night (last night).  This morning I pulled details till 10:30 a.m.  I could not get to sleep this afternoon – I’m too tired.  Hope we don’t have an alert tonight. (Montagnard was the French name for the indigenous hill tribal clans that roam Southeast Asia.  These mountain people are of an entirely different ethnic origin than the Vietnamese and were treated like Americans treat our Native Americans.)

Sorry I haven’t written. 

                                Love,

                                        Buddy