Somewhere in Vietnam

3 June 1967

Dear Jim,

      I hope you will keep this letter between just you and me Jim cuz I don't want Mom & Dad to worry anymore than they do now.

      We are in the field again on Operation Union II.  It has been a bitch since the day we landed.  We got off the choppers on the 26th and really caught some shit.  We are fighting North Vietnamese Regulars now and they have all the weapons we do.  Three companies lost lots of men that day, 19 killed and many wounded.  The Battalion commander lost an eye in a mortar attack.  I was about 50 meters from him.  I got hit in the ass with schrapnel but it only stung like hell.

      Yesterday, a chopper hit the ground to pick up the wounded and the NVA blew it away with a 57 mm recoiless rifle.  Wish I could of gotten a pic of the chopper.  Killed one (1) and seriously wounded (10) ten others.  We received machine gun fine all nite and were mortared also.  "Mike" Co. and "Charlie" Co. 1/5 took many casualties.  We are set in around a small village now.  We been pulling dead bodies of NVA's out of tunnels and caves and burying them.  I guess we will be here three days to rest and regroup.  I look for us to go to Okinawa before the summer is over to regroup and training.  I sure hope so cuz when we got back, I'd be really short.

      Jim, you can't begin to imagine how I long to come home and eat some of Mom's cooking and be myself again and not an animal!

      There isn't a day goes by I don't think of all of you and how much I miss you.  I never knew my love for my family was so deep.

      I tell you Jim, I won't see Joe or Jerry come over here.  I'll come back first.  This is living hell!  It has been between 100 and 110 degrees everyday and when we are in the mountains it gets cold at nite.  Yesterday was the first time I shit a hard turd since the 26th of April.  There for a couple of days I was shitting blood.  Had me pretty shook up.  I have lost around twnety pounds at least.  My legs and waste really show it.  My trowsers just hang on me.

      One thing I have no laundry bills or that stuff.  When the clothes you have on stinks bad enough you order new ones on resupply.  The cigs and candy we get are free too so you see I am definitely saving some coins.

      I hope Beverly is fine! Give her & my Rose my love.

Love, your brother

Alan

Had to stop and go on patrol!  Routine one tho!
Remember this is between you and me!

Yazzi