I'll Be Glad When My R&R Gets Here

Marvin Dale Miller to his mother, 16 May 1971 — a temporary firebase and another move coming soon, the Hong Kong R&R he is counting down to, and the running thread of the rebuilt house back in Kittanning: the stairs, the attic floor, plywood for the living room.

16 May 71

Dear Mom,

What's new back home? There's not much happening over here. We're supposed to move to another base pretty soon. The one we're on now is just temporary. The new base won't be very far from the one we're on now I don't think. It hasn't rained in the last couple of days which is pretty unusual. Other than that there just isn't much.

I imagine it should be pretty warm back home by now. The kids should just about be through with school for the summer. I remember writing about the same thing last year at this time.

I'll be glad when my R&R gets here. I'm looking forward to go to Hong Kong. Most of the guys go to Sydney but I think one place is as good as another. Hong Kong's alot cheaper if you want to buy stuff. It will be nice to take a break from all this rain too.

Did Dan ever finish the stairs? It would be nice if they could get the stairs and the attic floor in. I wonder how much it would cost to put 1/2 plywood on the living room floor. Is Buss still going to put a porch on his trailer?

I'm going to try and get caught up on my letter writing. When you don't write people they don't write you which is fair enough I guess. Well if I'm going to, I better get at it.

Bye bye, Love Marvin

Transcription Notes

• Written on light-blue stationery in blue ballpoint; the scans arrived rotated 90° and low-contrast. Transcribed after rotating upright and increasing contrast. All text resolved clearly.
• "Hong Kong's alot cheaper if you want to buy stuff" — reading of "alot cheaper" confirmed against the original by Michael; "alot" is Marvin's habitual one-word spelling (cf. "it gets alot hotter," 15 Dec 70).
• "1/2 plywood" — written as the fraction "½".
• "isn't much" / "going to" — Marvin's usual informal spellings throughout.

Archivist Notes

The temporary base and the coming move: "We're supposed to move to another base pretty soon. The one we're on now is just temporary. The new base won't be very far from the one we're on now." This fits the FSB King period in the profile timeline: King was a temporary base the company held while a new firebase was being built, before tearing it down and moving back to FSB Fanning (cf. the 30 May 71 chapel-service entry). The letter does not name the base, so the identification is by context rather than Marvin's own words — but the "just temporary… move soon… not far" description lines up closely with King in mid-to-late May 1971.

Counting down to Hong Kong R&R: "I'll be glad when my R&R gets here. I'm looking forward to go to Hong Kong." His aside — "Most of the guys go to Sydney but I think one place is as good as another. Hong Kong's alot cheaper if you want to buy stuff" — is a nice period detail: Sydney (Australia) and Hong Kong were both standard out-of-country R&R destinations for U.S. troops, and Hong Kong was the well-known bargain-shopping stop of the two. He did go to Hong Kong — the leaning he shows here held — and is recorded returning from R&R there on 19 June 1971 (profile timeline; confirmed by the family), about a month after this letter.

The rebuilt house — the home-improvement thread at its fullest: "Did Dan ever finish the stairs?… the attic floor… ½ plywood on the living room floor… Is Buss still going to put a porch on his trailer?" This is the most detailed single instance of the long house-rebuild thread that runs through the collection. The Miller home had burned in 1960 and was rebuilt incrementally over the decade (see the 26 Dec 70 furnace note); the stairs recur in the 9 Mar 71 and 18 Apr 71 letters (the income-tax refund earmarked for them), and the living-room floor and attic return in the 20 Aug 71 letter. Marvin tracks all of it by mail from Vietnam.

Letter-writing reciprocity: "When you don't write people they don't write you which is fair enough I guess." The same observation about correspondence that he expands in the 24 Aug 71 letter ("Mothers Are About the Only Really Consistent Writers").

Cross-references:

• 18 Apr 71 / 27 Apr 71 — preceding letters
• 22 May 71 — next letter ("There Isn't Much Going On Over Here" — the same quiet note)
• 30 May 71, 19 Jun 71 — the FSB King period and the Hong Kong R&R return (profile timeline)
• 9 Mar 71, 18 Apr 71, 20 Aug 71 — the stairs / living-room-floor / attic rebuild thread