Bio: Jensen, Marvin R. (Letter – Jan 1966)

Contact: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Jensen

---------Source: OWEN ENTERPRISE (Owen, Clark County, Wis.) 20 Jan 1966

Jan 14, 1966

Dear Friends of the Owen-Withee Community:

At this time I would like to thank all the wonderful people who sent packages, cards and letters. I only regret that I don’t have the time to sit down and write a letter to all of you people and answer the many questions that were asked. In this letter I’ll try to answer the majority of the questions asked.

We never really have what you call the end of a working day, cause we have a phone watch on the guns at night and shoot quite a lot at night. In fact the majority of our shooting is done between the hours of 8 p.m. and 12 midnight. Chow call goes in the morning at 7 a.m. and then we start what you would call the daily routine. Our guns go out for maintenance every day, which is really nothing more than a thorough cleaning of the main working parts. During the day sometime we also pick up more ammo to replace what we fire each night. We average 3 – 4 hours of sleep each night, which isn’t much, but everyone seems to squeeze in an hour’s nap during the day sometime.

Lots of people asked how friendly the Vietnamese people were toward us. Well, you never know from one minute to the next, cause one minute you’re talking with them and your are “number 1”, and the next minute you’re “number 10”, because of something you said that they don’t understand, but as a whole the people are very friendly.

The weather is something else, from the 5th of November until about the 10th of January it rained almost constantly. When it rains over here it rains. I saw more rain fall in 24 hours over here than Wisconsin gets in a year. Now the rainy season is over and the sun is as hot as it was before. The temp stays from 120 – 125 degrees during the day and then drops to about 85 or 90 degrees at night.

The chow we’re getting is really quite good, considering the conditions they have to prepare it in.

Mail service is pretty good. Anything sent air gets here within 5 -7 days, and regular mail take from 15 – 20 days. Mail call is the one thing everyone looks forward to each day, and it’s really a letdown when there is no mail for you. Many people at home get discouraged and quit writing to the guys over here because he doesn’t answer their letters, but believe me, we all try to answer as many letters as we can, but there just isn’t the spare time to answer every letter written to us.

Once again, I’d like to thank all of your wonderful people who helped make the holidays happy for me with your packages, letters, and cards.

Sincerely,
Marvin R. Jensen