By Paul Churchill
Purgatory(Viet Nam)
July 3rd 1966
The following poem was sent to me by my cousin Valerie. I copied it in this letter. She was 10 or 12 years old at the time.
The Army and the Navy
They both want men
But I do not know why
It’s like putting them in a pen (of war that is)
So to you and all the guys you know
I hope the war just goes and you get out
Out of the pen
Out of the war
And home again.
Glad to hear you are finally getting some good weather. It was sure great here yesterday. It was so nice and cool (about so) and there was a breeze. It was too good to believe and today makes it even harder.
Things are going fairly well here. The same old patrols and ambushes all the time. About the only excitement we had this week was when we got hit again yesterday. We went out after them and caught a couple of the rascals. (they have been called a few other names too but that will do for here)
Well, it’s time to eat and I have to go out (got a date) after lunch, ick.
Maybe we’ll get a few more gooks today. I have to get going now. Be careful and God Bless you all.
Love,
Paul
Sometimes the boredom of routine could make some of the guys careless. This was extremely dangerous as there was no good time to let your guard down. The situations were rarely as casual as letters might make them seem but you did not want to add to the worries already faced in what we called THE WORLD….. HOME. We often talked about what we missed about or wanted to do when we got back to THE WORLD. Not using the word home seemed to make it easier to cope with our part of the world.
