Don't Send Anymore Letters After You Get This One

Marvin Dale Miller to his mother, 24 November 1971 — written from the field (FSB Jeffries) the day he headed back to Bien Hoa to out-process, about eight days before he would leave Vietnam. A short-timer's note: the cold snap that had everyone shivering under a single blanket, his gear nearly ready, and a request — stop writing, because he'll be home before any more letters could reach him. This is the first of two letters he wrote that day; the companion (…-19711124b), written that evening from Bien Hoa, is the last surviving letter of his tour.

Nov 24

Dear Mom,

Well here I am again. Sorry it took so long for me to write again. It seems I have to kick myself to get anything done. I guess I got that short timer's attitude.

The dry season is pretty well on here. It's been pretty nice the last couple of weeks. One night it got real cold. Nobody could sleep because we only carry one blanket and couldn't keep warm. It must have gone down to 60° at least. Ha ha.

I'll be getting my stuff ready in 10 days or so. I don't think I'll have any problems processing out. I won't have much to carry so that I'll be one less worry. I'm going back to Bien Hoa today to see what I have to do.

I better finish this up. I got about 45 min. to get ready.

Love Marvin

P.S. Don't send anymore letters after you get this one.

Transcription Notes

• The scans of both pages arrived rotated; transcribed after rotating upright (page two was inverted relative to page one). Blue ballpoint, two pages, clearly legible.
• Dated only "Nov 24" with no year; placed in 1971 by content — the out-processing and short-timer references put it in his final weeks before departure.
• A struck/retraced word appears on page two ("I'm going [—] back to Bien Hoa") — a minor self-correction; final reading clear.
• "anymore" written as one word, in keeping with Marvin's habitual run-together spellings ("alot," etc.).

Archivist Notes

The short-timer winding down — and a companion letter: "I guess I got that short timer's attitude… I'll be getting my stuff ready in 10 days or so." This corroborates the profile timeline's 24 November 1971 entry point for point: the "short-timer's attitude," the gear coming together, and the cold snap. With departure set for early December (he was discharged at the Oakland Army Terminal on 2 December 1971), "10 days or so" lines up almost exactly. It is not, however, his final letter: he wrote a second one the same day, that evening from Bien Hoa (…-19711124b), which is the last surviving letter of the tour. This one is the morning/field half of the day; the trip to Bien Hoa he announces here ("I'm going back to Bien Hoa today") is the trip he reports completing in the companion ("I'm back in Bien Hoa right now").

The cold that closed the tour: "One night it got real cold. Nobody could sleep because we only carry one blanket and couldn't keep warm. It must have gone down to 60° at least. Ha ha." The "Ha ha" is the whole joke — after a year in the tropics, a night in the low 60s felt freezing. It's a small, human sign-off to twelve months in country.

Out-processing through Bien Hoa — the bookend: "I'm going back to Bien Hoa today to see what I have to do." Marvin came into the war through Bien Hoa (see the 15 Dec 70 arrival letter — "I flew into Cam Ranh Bay and then into Bien Hoa") and now leaves through it, out-processing where he in-processed almost exactly a year earlier. A clean bracket on the tour.

The end of his field service — winding down through Bien Hoa: Howard McGrew's 1971 field calendar places Delta Company at FSB Jeffries on 24 November 1971 — the day of this letter, and the base Marvin was writing from when he says "I'm going back to Bien Hoa today." That trip begins his out-processing: with his DEROS on 2 December 1971, his final stretch was spent largely in the rear, roughly 24 November through 2 December. The companion evening letter (…-19711124b) complicates the "in the rear from here on" reading, though: writing from Bien Hoa that night, he says he means to "go back out to the fire base tomorrow so I can say 'so long' to my buddies" — so he likely returned to the field at least once more, on Thanksgiving (25 November 1971), for a goodbye rather than for duty. Either way, when McGrew's calendar records the unit moving to FSB Makowski on 28 November 1971, Marvin was almost certainly already out-processing and not with them for the move — he is not associated with FSB Makowski, the firebase named for Bill Makowski (Range 71, killed 21 October 1971).

"Don't send anymore letters after you get this one": The practical, quietly final P.S. — mail would no longer catch him. After roughly a year of asking his mother to write, the thing he tells her here is to stop, because he is coming home. (It is the last line of this letter; the companion he wrote that evening adds a few more words — the genuinely final ones in the collection.)

Cross-references:

• 24 Nov 71 (companion, …-19711124b) — the evening letter from Bien Hoa; the actual last letter of the tour
• 24 Oct 71 — previous letter
• 15 Dec 70 — first in-country letter; the Bien Hoa in/out bookend
• McGrew field calendar — unit at FSB Jeffries 24 Nov 1971, then FSB Makowski 28 Nov 1971 (Marvin out-processing by then)
• 2 Dec 1971 — return home and honorable discharge (profile timeline)