Excerpts from Letters to Mom in italics.
11 September 1967 (San Miguel)
AG2 Stephen Fehr
NavCommStaPhil
FPO San Francisco 96656
I am still not 100% sure that I will be discharged in the P.I. The personnel (or ANTI-PERSONNEL) office is at best dragging their feet. I feel like they are sabotaging my efforts. I also need permission from the Navy to travel outside the US for one year after discharge because of my classified knowledge. This hasn't come in yet. At disbursing I found that I just can't simply withdraw my savings. They sent a letter to the Navy Finance Center in Cleveland asking for an emergency withdrawal. I was advised it may take up to two months. I gave my permanent home address, so please forward the check immediately. I hope it comes through sooner than two months (like two or three weeks).
It sure is good to get out of Vietnam! If I miss a meal I can go to the snak bar or club. I've had a couple pizza pies already. It's also good to have a bottle of beer instead of a can. I'm getting used to civilization again. I'll be so happy to be out of the Navy and back with CiCi.
It's been a change from working 12 hours every day to nothing. This forced inactivity and suspense about the discharge has made me very nervous. [He had arrived at San Miguel late at night from Vietnam, and intended to ignore reveille and sleep late. However, a routine fire siren test had the nervous vet flying out of the top bunk grabbing for his M-14, flack jacket and helmet until the realization struck, heart pounding rapidly, he was safe in San Miguel. The fire siren mimicked the dreaded Phu Bai alert siren. Mentally, he was still in Phu Bai. The next day, AG2 Fehr nearly flunked the discharge physical because his blood pressure was too high. The savvy hospital corpsman had him lie down in an adjacent, dimly lit room to fall asleep. Only then would his blood pressure drop sufficiently to pass muster.]
I'll soon be out one way or the other [i.e., discharged in San Miguel or San Francisco] and will at least know where I stand. Even if I am discharged here I will have a rough time financially. I don't know what I'll do if I am sent to San Francisco. I try not to think of it believing it may not happen if I refuse to consider it. [For some unknown reason, ignorance or laziness, the senior Navy personnel men (PNs) claimed Fehr could not be discharged overseas because he wasn't an officer. AG2 Fehr even read the pertinent sections of their own bible, the Bupers Manual, to them in English. All the senior PNs were "pineapples," a mildly derogatory term for Pilapinnos. Fehr insisted that the personnel officer be consulted. To humor him, they did. The officer was also a Filipino further feeding Fehr's now rampant paranoia. The officer concurred with Fehr and directed the PNs to discharge the AG in San Miguel.]
The next letter was postmarked with Republic of China stamps from Taipei.
26 September 1967
I wrote you a letter last week but never mailed it. Nothing has gone like I planned it. I am not going to marry CiCi. It is a long story and I don't know all the answers. I don't think I'll want to talk about it when I get home either. [CiCi, with strong traditional family ties, feared she might never see her family again. She also worried about being immersed in the foreign current of many cultural and religious differences. Maybe the possibility of encountering racial discrimination was a factor. Could she become literate in the formidable English tongue? She would need to learn to drive a car and pass the written examination. It would be an extremely difficult transition. When push came to fly bye-bye, CiCi coolly analyzed the situation and decided to remain in the familiar nest.]
I am entitled to government transportation back to the west coast, but I don't know when I can leave. The personnel office in San Miguel didn't give me enough papers and the Navy here has to wait for more information. I may be here a few days or a couple weeks or so. The commercial air rates are $438 to the west coast and $141 to Phila.
I am staying with Sumi, a friend of CiCi's, and she is taking good care of me. She provides me with home cooked food, laundry, a place to sleep and a lot of attention and sympathy. Do not send the $900 [Navy savings] check if you have not already done so. If I have already gone, Sumi will forward the check.
You might watch out for a job to hold me over till I can start college in the spring. I believe it would be better than going to nite school. I am too old and that would take too long.
Please don't ask me a lot of questions or say I told you so. I still love CiCi very much. See you again soon. Maybe in time for the World Series. My favorite season (Football) has started too.
30 September 1967 (Taipei)
The letter is hand printed in English but in Chinese style in vertical columns from top right to bottom left.
Maybe all this rice and Chinese food is beginning to affect me. I'm still not sure when I can return. The people in the P.I. did not give me a set of discharge orders, only a record of discharge. A wire has been sent to the P.I. to try and obtain the accounting data to pay for my return flight. The transportation officer says I am entitled to "space required." This is the slack season and the military is running only 3 flights a month. I may possibly get out by the 17th of October but am not certain. Don't worry.
05 October 1967 (Taipei)
Yesterday, I spoke with the transportation, personnel and administrative officers of the Navy. It seems the P.I. failed to issue me discharge orders which would contain the accounting data to pay for my return flight. A message has or is to be sent querying the P.I. about the accounting data. In the meantime, the transportation officer has tentatively booked me out on the 17th. However, past dealings with the P.I. prevents me from being optimistic.
I believe they will be too confused or incompetent to help me out without going clear back to Washington through channels. The next scheduled flight I think is on the 30th or 31st. I hope I don't have to wait that long.
I am anxious to get back and become a useful part of society. Hope I can get a good job quick. Sumi is in a hurry and wants me to finish the letter so we can mail it when she takes her sister to the doctor. So I will close now. As I said before, if a check arrives for me and I have already left for the states, Sumi will forward all my mail. Don't worry; everything else is fine.
Civilian Steve departed Taipei "space available," free of charge. After returning home to Lebanon, Pennsylvania, Steve temporarily stayed with his Aunt Mary and cousin Cheri in the Washington D.C. suburbs looking for a job. The final letter that mom saved was written from the northern Virginia suburbs.
November 6, 1967
Thanks for the college boards info. Would you open the mail from Shippensburg [State Teachers College] to see if there are any more forms to fill or any good news. If I get a letter from Sumi or any one, could you mail them here or let me know and hold them for me.
Dr. Early [family doctor] took my blood pressure and it is normal. It was high before because I was very worried about getting out and marrying CiCi, not to mention all the pressures from the tour in Vietnam. The malaria pills are quinine tablets which everybody in Vietnam takes once a week and for 7 weeks after leaving. It's only preventative medicine and I never had it. Don't worry so much.
I went in to the Civil Service Commission and got some brochures in different fields. Trouble is I got to apply for a rating and then find a job. This may take months according to those people.
Honesty is not the best policy - sometimes anyway. I had a job lined up with an insurance co. [staffed with oodles of lovely young ladies] as a claims adjuster and told them I was putting a form 57 in for a Civil Service job. I almost took another position placing encyclopedias in homes, but decided against it because of the hours and need for a car. Tomorrow I will check about a public relations clerk for $135 a week. I also got an application in for service manager in a large department store. [He also auditioned with one or two airlines that served the Far East hoping to return to the orient.] I will probably find a job this week if I am not too particular.
Yesterday we were down to Sondra's [sister] for a spaghetti dinner. They have a really nice house but I don't envy their drive to work every day in choked highways. [Welcome home to the real world and sprawl!] They sure need the subways that are being planned. Oh yes, I've taken care of my transcripts from the U. of Md. I'll write or call when I get a job. I may even come home next weekend. [The letter concluded, as did all the foregoing letters, with "Love."]