We sometimes think of war as continual all-day combat, but it isn’t. Soldiers get letters from home that break their hearts, the family’s split up and go their different directions. All of this is out of combat soldiers’ control. No phone, only letters. I, at 18, had minimal life experiences to draw from, but sometimes I recall sitting and just listening to A soldier that just had a wife leave him, me 18, him 27, most of the time out of pure grief and shock, I just listened. Some soldiers, after reading their letters, never said a word, but when you looked in their eyes, you saw pain. One officer, I believe, didn’t care anymore and got himself killed. All the pain and suffering back at home is there in the field for all.

Battles, firefights from the eyes of an 18-year old I am guessing, were much different from someone older. Men with children made you cry inside when they went down; you knew the family pain was coming. I recall one soldier that each mail call received ten letters from his mother. I asked him one day did he had read all those letters, yes he said, my mother, is my world and I hers if something happens to me she will go mad. He was killed one night in an ambush, carrying his body to the LZ. My thoughts of what his mother will feel made me very sad inside. I think she wrote letters to every soldier in the company to know how her son was killed. I forget who emptied his rucksack to get his ammo and food, but I noticed three unsealed letters; I put them in my ruck sack to mail at mail call. That night we set up an ambush and caught some NVA soldiers coming through. It was an all-night firefight into the next day. I forgot about the letters for over a week when we were resupplied. I discovered, dam, I was mad at myself they should have been mailed. Walking point through the elephant grass had cut me on both hands and face so handling the letters I got my blood all over the envelopes. I would take the bloody envelopes to change for good ones, but our choppers were landing on tok taking us back to jungles. I wrote a note on the envelope telling his mother I was sorry and mailed them. A few days later received letter from her thanking me for the letters that she would always keep close to her heart; his blood on the envelope was the only part of him she had left.

Three hundred sixty-five days is 365 stories,some good, many bad, and some soldiers found GOD before death. All that I heard speak their last words was for the love of their mother. GOD BLESS