Some of the Little Ones Won't Remember Me

SP4 Marvin Dale Miller to his mother, 7 March 1971 — an incomplete letter (the closing page is missing). The dry-season warmth against the cold back home, packages safely received, a swatted mosquito mid-sentence, and a tender roll-call of the nieces and nephews who may not remember him by the time he gets home.

7 Mar 71

Dear Mom,

Well how's everyone back home? I'm doing alright over here. I wonder if spring is warming things up back home yet. I imagine everyone's getting pretty tired of the cold weather. Also you won't have to worry about your heating bill. Like I said before, it really seems strange that it's cold back home when it's so warm over here.

I got a letter from you the other day. You ask if I got the packages yet. Well I did and in good shape. I sent a letter not long after I got the packages so you'll probably know I got them OK before you get this letter.

No, the mosquitos aren't very bad where I'm at. Buss was probably stationed where there was alot more. We have mosquito nets too. Oops! A mosquito just lit on me.

I imagine there will be quite a change in some of the kids when I get back. Some of the little ones probably won't remember me so well. Especially ones like Paulie and Amy, who I haven't seen that often. And little Dean surely won't, but I think Jimmie and Julie might.

I suppose the Contrails will be hoping for a boy this time. But I don't know, maybe Judy would just as soon have another girl.

I don't know if I have all I need to fill out my income tax. I haven't checked yet. If I don't, I'll send it along with the W-2 forms and you can send it in. I'll probably do that anyway. ha ha.

I wonder if Buss is going to build a porch on his trailer this summer. A porch and a nice lawn would really make his place look nice. If I was back home I'll help him out. I'm in a…

[The letter breaks off here at the foot of page two. The remaining page(s) and the signature are missing.]

Transcription Notes

• Incomplete. Only pages 1–2 survive. The text runs off the bottom of page two mid-sentence ("…I'm in a…"); the closing page(s) and signature did not survive with the scan.
• "Contrails" → Contrael. Marvin wrote the family surname as "Contrails"; the correct spelling is Contrael (per the family). Transcribed as written, corrected here.
• "Paulie" is Paul; "Jimmie" is Jimmy — Marvin's spellings of the children's names, preserved as written.
• "mosquitos," "alot," and "I'll help him out" (for "I'd help him out") are his own usages, preserved as written.
• The date is clearly written "7 Mar 71"; date_known is true — it is the ending, not the date, that is missing.

Archivist Notes

Two days before the income-tax letter: Written 7 March 1971, this sits two days before the 9 Mar 71 letter and feeds directly into it. Here he's thinking it through — "I don't know if I have all I need to fill out my income tax … I'll send it along with the W-2 forms and you can send it in" — and by the 9th he has decided: "I'm sending back my income tax papers … Dan or Buss can fill it in." This is very likely the letter the 9 Mar note refers to when Marvin writes "I just finished writing you a letter a little while ago" — though that phrasing could point to a still-closer (same-day) note.

"Some of the little ones probably won't remember me": The heart of the letter, and one of its most affecting passages — a soldier reckoning with how a year's absence reads to a small child. He runs through the family's children by name: Paulie (Paul, son of his sister Pat), Amy (daughter of his sister Evelyn), and baby Dean (Don "Buss" and Shirley's son) he expects won't remember him at all, while he hopes Jimmie (Jimmy) and Julie (daughter of Judy Contrael) might. The same awareness that the children are growing up without him runs through the 22 Feb 71 and 9 Aug 71 letters.

Judy Contrael expecting: "I suppose the Contrails [Contraels] will be hoping for a boy this time. But I don't know, maybe Judy would just as soon have another girl." Judy Contrael — Julie's mother — was pregnant in the spring of 1971, with at least one daughter already.

Mosquitoes — a half-dialogue, and a live swat: "No, the mosquitos aren't very bad where I'm at" answers an unseen, worried question from his mother. "Buss was probably stationed where there was alot more" is a glance at brother Don's own earlier service, and "Oops! A mosquito just lit on me" is narrated in real time — the same in-the-moment touch as Jojo the monkey climbing through the 26 Feb 71 letter. (His luck would turn by summer: "the mosquito's are really bad," 27 Jun 71.)

Packages safely in: "You ask if I got the packages yet. Well I did and in good shape." The packages of late February (two of them, a day apart, in the 26 Feb 71 letter) confirmed received — and a note that he'd already written to say so, the mail crossing as always.

Buss's porch — first proposed: "I wonder if Buss is going to build a porch on his trailer this summer. A porch and a nice lawn would really make his place look nice." The first appearance of a project that pays off months later: in the 18 Oct 71 letter he asks his mother to "send a picture of Buss's porch too." Built over the summer he imagined it here.

Location: Unnamed, but in this stretch he was at FSB Fontaine — the move he names in the 9 Mar 71 letter ("I moved to a new base called Fontaine").

Cross-references:

• 28 Feb 71 — previous letter in the archive
• 8 Mar 71 (to Dan) — the next day; the only letter to a brother, from the same early-March cluster
• 9 Mar 71 — next letter to his mother; the income-tax papers sent home, and likely the "letter a little while ago" it mentions
• 26 Feb 71 — the packages received; the real-time insect (Jojo the monkey)
• 18 Oct 71 — Buss's porch, proposed here, photographed by fall