8 February

Dear Mom and Dad,

My new address is:

P.F.C. C.R. Thornton 2579640
HDQS 2D CAG, III MAF
FPO San Francisco, California
96602

This will be my address for about a month. I’ll be here at headquarters for two weeks of sentry duty and then at Da Nang for two weeks of CAP school.

When I leave CAP school I’ll be assigned to a CAP in a village so my address will change slightly.

Our compound is about 75 meters square with a dirt dike 8′ high around it. We have concertina wire in continuous layers up to 30 meters from the burm line (dirt dike).

We have 15 bunkers with M-60 machine guns and 4 towers with .50 caliber machine guns, also two truck mounted .50s. Two 81mm mortars provide our C.F.S. (Close Fire Support).

Our compound has been attacked seven times in seven months. The road I rode over yesterday (Highway 1?) has been mined 13 times in the last two weeks.

We share the compound with a Navy PBR unit. They patrol the river about ten meters from our main gate in 30′ fiberglass hulls mounted with four .50 caliber mg’s. One of these boats was blown out of the water by a contact mine ten days ago.

Theres a company of armored ARVN’s about 100 meters downriver and a company of Korean Marines about 2 kilometers past that. About 2 kliks (kilometers) downriver and one klik inland, there’s two batteries of 155mm howitzers. When they fire it sounds like four freight trains going over at 500 mph.

Our supply truck was fired on about 100 meters down the road today.

I’m enclosing 5 cents in Military Payment Certificates. We call it funny money. American money can’t be used because of its black market value. We can use it for warm beer or soda but not much else.

Gotta quit. Will write again soon.

Love

Roch

P.S. Am about 20 miles South of DaNang near An Hoi (Hoi An?).