Don't Worry If I'm Not Able To Write For A While

August 18, 1974, small town that no-one will tell me the name of...

I know you're laughing as I write this, because I can hear you giggling behind the postcard rack.

I admit it's strange to be writing a letter in the post office, when I could walk two steps and talk to you directly, but this way I can write down the return address without breaking any regulations.

I don't know whether you chose the postcard at random, or if you picked a place you want to go someday. Gander, Newfoundland, where planes stop to refuel on their way across the Atlantic. A place that people from all over the world stop, but know nothing about, perhaps with a few thousand locals too stubborn to leave.

Sounds like this town here, but the difference is that I can look forward to you telling me all about this town.

I'm running out of space, so I'll end this here.

Your soldier,

John Carrick.

*

August 21st, 1974, Havre, Montana,

Dear John,

I hope you arrives safely at the training camp in California. A register of Army bases in the library says that it was created in its current form in the 1940s, but dates back to Spanish Settlement. Havre has nearly six thousand people; if you want a small town, you should try Browning, or any of the towns that are too small to put on a map.

What is the weather like there? In Havre, the leaves are starting to change. I think you would like it here in Fall, with the air just turning crisp, and everyone busy with the harvest, even if it's just their own garden that they're harvesting. Momma says that she was responsible for the Victory Garden during World War II, and she's not giving it up now. She was too young, then, to have a soldier sweetheart like so many of her friends did, but helping her gather the produce makes me think of you, and how many women must have tilled their gardens with dreams of the future, and hopes that their love would come back.

I hope you don't mind, but you said you had no family to write to, so I added you to the list of local soldiers, so I'll get the news of you even if you can't write to me yourself, or letters get lost.

That happened to Betty down the road. Her Pop never had the best handwriting, and the letter was delayed until they managed to decipher the address, by which time she'd worked herself up into a right state before the next letter arrived, wondering why they hadn't written to him.

It's a silly anecdote, but I hope it keeps your spirits up. Must go, customers never are willing to wait for their assigned waitress...

Your small-town girl,

Sarah Edwards

*

September 1st, 1974, Fort Hunter Liggett, Jolon, California...

Dear Sarah,

For a training camp in one of the most populated states in the country, there is a surprising lack of things to do here. We aren't allowed into most of San Bernadino, and Los Angeles is just far enough away that you'd spend all your leave travelling there and back. It's a shame that they closed down the old WWII base near Riverside; we might have had more options for entertainment in our off-duty hours.

We have half an hour to write letters every third day - apparently, getting us all up to speed on writing reports is more important - but the letters are collected and sent out only once a fortnight. They have to be censored before they're sent out, too, so if there are a lot of letters, not all of them are ready to be sent out in time, and have to wait until the next run. I tell you this so that if time passes without a letter from me, like poor Betty, you won't worry too much.

I like your descriptions, it reminds me that there exists a world away from this infernal heat and humidity. Thank you for listing me, its nice to be local to somewhere, even if that somewhere wasn't where I was born.

My parents were both the only survivours of their families after World War II. My mother's people were Jewish; they sent her to live with an Aunt who decided that Europe wasn't enough distance between her and the Russian Pograms, but the rest of her family got caught before they could follow. My grandfather, uncles and an aunt were all military, and made the ultimate sacrifice in one conflict or another.

My brother was five years older than me; he already came back from Vietnam in a box, three years ago. That turned my parents into activists, and then into casualties when a protest rally turned violent. I don't know why I signed up to follow in their footsteps, except that it's all I know, and if you volunteer to fight, you get choices that conscripts don't.

The other boys here - I say boys, better than half of them are no such thing - ask me if I'm writing to a sister or a girlfriend. As if those are the only two options. I told them yes, mostly to shut them up, but if you're willing, I'd like it to be the truth.

We've been informed that we'll be shipping out in another four weeks, so I will miss the bulk of the Fall Festivities. I don't know if we get embarkation leave, but if we do, I'll call you and see if we can't make arrangements of some kind.

Yours,

John Carrick

*

October 2nd, 1974, Train from California to Montana, not entirely sure of location...

Dear John,

I write this on the train, so please forgive the handwriting. We're passing through the Midwest, from all the fields and plains stretching as far as the eye can see, and it is very different from my mountainous Montana.

It's an odd feeling, looking at my left hand and seeing a band there. I look forward to getting used to it in time.

I miss you already, and as I told you on the pier, I'll wait as long as it takes to marry you. I admit, I wished all those jokes had come true, and the war ended before you were sent overseas, but we can't have everything in life, and for now, I'll settle for having you in my heart, and your ring on my finger.

Love, Sarah.

*

October 17th, 1974, [Redacted] Camp, [Redacted], Vietnam...

Dear Sarah,

Happy birthday, you can tell anyone who asks that you're no longer too young for me!

That's a joke, but I made sure to write this letter on your birthday, and I'm sending it with some silk pyjamas I bought on my last leave. I don't think you'd get much use out of anything else they have to sell here, or it would be confiscated in Customs and Quarentine when I tried to send it back to you.

I'd always known that War isn't the glorious adventure they try to sell wide-eyed teenagers during recruiting drives, but being in the middle of it really drives things home.

Vietnam often seems to be one big jungle, at least what I've seen of it. There are villages and the occasional town, and the constant thrum of helicopter rotors overhead, punctuated by the sound of gunfire and explosions.

At night, when I try to sleep, I imagine your face, the two of us sitting at the cafe, or down on the pier. I close my eyes to the memory of your smile, and the hope that I'll see it in person again soon.

Love, John.

*

October 29th, 1974, Hevre, Montana...

Dear John,

I've spent all weekend crying, ever since they read your name on the list of dead.

I went to the Town Hall, this morning. They said that your patrol ran afoul of a mine, and with all the enemy encounters, I shouldn't hold out hope for anything large enough to identify. That technically, you're only missing, presumed dead. I think the Captain was trying to be comforting.

I know you're beyond replying to this, the last letter I'll write to you, but I want you to know, anyway...

I promised that I'd wait as long as it takes to marry you, even if it has to be in Heaven.

I love you, John, and I always will. I hope you knew that, and that it gave you comfort in that tropical Hell. Even if your name is all that is left of you, I'll carry it always.

Forever yours,

Sarah Edwards-Carrick

*

May 2nd, 1975, USS [Redacted], en route back to America from Vietnam.

My beloved Sarah,

I can't imagine how terrible the past six months have been for you.

My Patrol did encounter a mine, and the noise alerted an enemy patrol to our location. The rest of my squad was killed in the resulting skirmish, but for some reason they took me prisoner. Perhaps they thought I had information.

With the war officially over, prisoner exchanges were facilitated, and I am being sent home to you while the Army figures out how to declare me un-dead. They hope that since I was only presumed KIA, the official declaration has not yet been made.

I'm told I'll recieve an honourable discharge once we set foot on American shores. The pension won't be much, but I'll work out something to make ends meet, so I can marry you properly, like I promised. Marrying in Heaven might have spared us any bickering over whether an Army Chaplin or a local one gets to perform the ceremony, but I don't care, as long as I'm your husband at the end of it.

I'll see you soon, but I couldn't bear to leave you waiting for news. You've waited quite long enough.

All my love,

Your husband (If you'll still have this wounded warrior)

John Carrick.

Vietnam was a costly war in terms of not just money, but lives lost and injured. Those who survived suffered damage from Agent Orange and other chemical weapons, and even those who returned home whole in body suffered from PTSD.

The song this story is based off, "Travelling Soldier" by The Chicks, obviously has a tragic ending, but I wanted to give my story a slightly more hopeful one.