Letters from Vietnam
(BATESVILLE, Ind.) – Like many troops, Cpl. Tom Fields used spare moments to pen letters to loved ones on the home front.
“Today marks the beginning of my eighth month here. In a way, the time has gone fairly fast but at the same time it seems as though it’s been ages since I left the States.”
The U.S. Marine was serving in Vietnam with comrades he described as, “the greatest guys a guy could be with and we’ve lived together and shared everything together from C-rations and cigarettes to letters,” Cpl. Fields wrote his parents in an August 1970 letter.
That same month, Fields received the Navy Commendation Medal for his actions on the evening of August 7 as he “raced to the side of the wounded Marine, shielded him from the hostile fire, and assisted him to a position of relative safety,” his citation stated.
The holidays we take for granted can have a toll on those serving overseas. Cpl. Fields captured the pain of separation in a letter to his father on Father’s Day 1970.
“Before I left, Dad, you told me if you could, you’d come here with me and stay with me through it. I really believed you Dad and I still do. You really told me a lot there Dad, but I am glad it is me here and not you also.”
Cpl. Fields was a member of Kilo Co., 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment of the 1st Marine Division while serving in Vietnam from January 1970 to January 1971.
One cannot underestimate the power of a handwritten letter to a soldier on the front lines.
“That’s what keeps me going at times, knowing that you and mom are always behind me. It’s funny how sometimes over here when you think you can’t walk another step or you’re so thirsty you can’t stand it, thinking about home seems to ease things.”
As anti-war protests erupted stateside, rumors of U.S. withdrawal reached the far east warzones of Da Nang and An Hao in southern Vietnam.
Cpl. Fields wrote home about these rumors while exemplifying the Marine Corps creed, such as in a letter to his parents on December 20, 1970:
“I wish we’d go get our guys who are in POW camps and then get the heck out of here. I can’t see pulling out and leaving them behind. It just wouldn’t be right.”
Cpl. Fields was wounded in action and received the Purple Heart before his honorable discharge in 1971. Cpl. Tom Fields passed away in 2016.
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