December 16, 1996

Dear Lorraine,

Hi! Honey how are you? I doing fine. I have Flare standby tonight and a 6:20 flight tomorrow morning. We are supposed to have 3 CA’s tomorrow so it sounds like it could be a rough day. We also got the word that the town of Pleiku is off limits until after Christmas, and I thought we were supposed to have a cease fire during the holidays. I don’t care about the town being off limits since I have only been there once and don’t really plan on going back.

I guess I should explain Flare Standby. Each night we one ship here at Camp Holloway assigned to Flare Duty. You have to load the ship with flares and if there is an alert we have to go up and drop them around the compound. It’s just a precautionary thing in case something happens. We still get to sleep just not in our regular hooch. This will be a new experience if we have to go up.

I’m sorry about not writing the past few days. I know I could have found the time but there just wasn’t much to talk about. We have been moving quite a few troops around and also doing some re-supply. We finished off yesterday making Hot Meal and Mail runs out to the bases. I don’t mind doing that and the guys in the field seem to appreciate us for it. Sometimes I feel that they look at us and think we have it easy. I guess we do compared to what they are doing.

I wish I could write more but I have to get ready.

I Miss You Very Much!

Love
Tom
S.W.A.K.

Tom Gator 851.