March 15, 1967

Dear Lorraine,

Hi! Honey, How are you? I’m doing OK. I know I haven’t written for some time and I am very sorry. I can’t even offer a good excuse. The Vietnamese people have a rating system for GI’s, you are either a number 1 GI or a number 10 GI. I guess I’m a number 10 GI for not writing.

We have been flying a lot lately for the 4th Infantry. They have a base camp on the other side of Pleiku. A few days ago I flew a VIP mission to Qui Nhon with Major Patterson. My regular Pilot Mr. Dobbs had too many fight hours so he had two days off. It was supposed to be a one day flight but the weather in the pass closed in and we had to spend the night at Qui Nohn. I went to the PX while I was there and got some canned fruit and a few other things. They have huge PX compared to the one we have at Holloway. I never thought being able to buy a can of peaches or olives would be such a big deal.

Today’s missions were kind of bad, one of the 4th infantry division patrols made contact with the NVA and had wounded to be extracted. We flew in with a load of ammo and out with three wounded GI’s. They were in pretty bad shape, not sure if they will make it or not. After that we spent about two hours on stand-by at an artillery base just in case they need more help. I still have to do my daily inspection and help Jim clean the ship. I wish I could think of more to tell you but I just don’t have any good things to say right now.

I will try to do better with the letters, please forgive me. I Love You Very Much.

Tom
S.W.A.K.