Machine Dreams

draftee, tho no PX privileges for anyone for three more weeks. Training classes are pretty interesting, things like map reading, CPR, marksmanship that are generally useful. Danner will be fine, don’t make a big deal of it all, shewouldn’t be on the dean’s list etc if she were “on drugs,” as you say. Not much time to write but like getting your letters. Keep them coming! Will be here until at least end of Feb. when I get reassigned for AIT (adv. indiv. training), I hope somewhere in the south. I did get south after all, so goes to show you, someone is on my side. Take care and write soon.
    love, Billy
    Feb. 20, 1970
    Dear Danner. Mitch already wrote me the case was finally dropped in Florida and you are officially a free woman—too bad, you could have dropped by to see me on your way back to trial in Naples! He took care to check and you don’t have a record. Now you can think of the whole thing as a business deal that took some suffering. I don’t know about being glad it happened (to see what jail is like? a day and a night don’t count)—that’s like me being glad I’m here. So far am keeping my head straight, only ones that get harassed real bad are the fat ones who just can’t make it. Made a good friend, Rick Singleton from Merrimac, Ky., not too far from here, so we met his girl and her friend on a weekend pass. Had several letters from Kato, sent me clippings of weddings she wrote up, pretty funny. Some of them she just talks to the mothers on the phone. You wanted to know what it’s like here—get up at three when it’s dark out and cold as hell in the barracks—gets fucking cold in Kentucky no matter what you heard. Make tight beds, 45-degree angle creases the DI measures if he wants to give us shit, sweep, mop, wax floor, line up footgear in rows. Then double time to parade ground for reveille, still dark, damp as hell, no snow but thick white frost on the ground and mist and weird, all these silent guys lined up like tenpins waiting for a giant bowling ball. Uniforms a big deal. Buttons buttoned or the DI pulls them off and hands them to you to sew on again. Later: All you swinging dicks wake up, sleep in Basic, die in Nam. That shit is the fuck of it but they don’t get to me much. Truth is I like the physicalstuff—being in top shape and passing all their tests, even the screwball shit like night infiltration, crawling around under barbed wire through ditches while they fire machine guns over our heads. Can’t see shit, only tracers. Then everyone gets up at the end and marches back to the barracks in the dark. It’s a real setup and the DIs are real assholes, but it’s hard to believe all this is really going to lead to anything later, like Nam, you know? Some guys in the platoon saw your picture and asked me if you wanted to write them or if you have any girlfriends who want to write letters. I told them your friends were a bunch of hippies and they thought that sounded fine.
    love, your bro
    FORT DIX, NEW JERSEY
    Pvt. W. Hampson/RA 11949711
Co. B, 3rd Bn, USATCA
Fort Dix, NJ

March 10, 1970
    Dear Mom. Arrived here at AIT about four days ago, assigned to Weapons Platoon. Similar barracks etc but colder now than was in Ky in Jan. Some of the same drills and phys. cond. courses but mostly training on the M-60 since my MOS is machine gunner. Got your letter about you and Danner coming up—I think that would be fine, maybe late in the month. Will apply for a pass but anyway will be able to go off base to dinner, etc. There is a Family Welcome Center that runs tours of the base and some reasonable motels nearby. Whole unit is doing well so far, so PX privileges are up. Food about the same as Fort Knox unfortunately, I’m looking forward to my May leave so I can get a good hamburger. Hope your job is going well and you are feeling good—may still be cold there but don’t be depressed, spring will be coming before you know it.
    love,
Billy
    April 2, 1970
    Dear Dad. Sorry no letters back lately, but I have been real busy. Am real familiar by now with the M-60, step up from the M-16’s at Fort Knox—gun is a 7.62 standard round with an interchangeable lock mechanism, weighs about thirty pounds, heavy sucker to lug around but have gotten used to the noise and am pretty good in practice, am developing an affection for the thing. Since it looks like I will get sent over, am getting used to the idea, have been thinking of volunteering as a chopper door gunner—carrying the M-60