Mail Call Two or three days was the most I really got to stay anywhere before having to return to the "line". When you're in a "combat zone" all your mail to the "World" was free, all you had to do was write, "FREE" and underline it twice. For as fast as it traveled I would just as soon paid full first class postage. "Mail Call", what magic and music and lightness of mood it brought. That one great thing so craved by almost everyone. Those wonderful bright orange nylon bags! They could change a mood one way or the other in a heartbeat. No one can start to realize how much something taken for granted in the World, can do when you're trapped so far away. You never again take music, family pictures, or magazines or any simple pleasures of home for granted. Most cherished on the line was mail. Mail...So precious it seemed to be carried by angels to us waiting little people, waiting for any piece of the real world that could take us back. Mail was so much like gold it was often stolen, especially if it was a box or magazines or newspapers. I know most people will never, never, realize what one piece of mail, ONE, even the crap junk mail or a bill, would do for the spirits of a soul so far from home. Take my advice and always understand the hurt of anyone who took their time to keep your time available to you. As much as mail was valued and raised morale, no one made it possible in speeding it up for us. It took mail approximately two or three weeks to get to where we were, or had been. First the U.S. Post Office, then the Fleet P.O., then the trip to Pearl Harbor, the Philipines, then some LPH or greasy oiler or anything floating your way, on to a carrier, then to us by chopper. All of this mail processed where ever it landed each and every time. I was sitting at my parents house long after the Vietnam had ended when the postman arrived. When I retreived the mail there in my hands was a letter I had written to my mom years earlier! It was worn, torn, and probably layed in some office behind a desk or in a storage area all that time. A letter that old, can you imagine? Think...what if that had been my last? Thank heaven it wasn't! No News IS Not Necessarily Good News I remember a period while I was gone that no mail came my way. Occassionally a letter from my mom, but not a thing, not a message or note from the girl I married had come my way. I had called and called from port after port for four months. The TELEX operator always came back with the same news, "We can't get any answer from that number." That's because she had found a new game. I varied the hours that I called just hoping she would get the call in the middle of the night. Then, one night, weak and waiting, I heard the TELEX operator call my name. She had finally managed to get an answer. My body was hot from anticipation and my mind was fighting back strong emotions. I knew what was going on but didn't want to acknowledge it. The conversation was short but seemed like hours. It was quiet as church . Then the words I began to hear between the sobs on the the other end of the line were, "I want a divorce." Thirteen thousand miles from home with no one but myself to keep me going and this is what I hear! I almost fell over from disbelief. I managed to talk for awhile but cut it short. Along with that misery and pain of knowing I wanted to be where she was and not on "The LINE", I realized war is not hell, it's Hurt, the worst hurt anyone could ever imagine and live with! I lived through it! It was not anything I enjoyed but, I endured! I may be a better person, who knows? Maybe just a more experienced one.