January 1963. He has just arrived in Fort Lee, VA. Ten pages outlining the new place and his place in it. He is a clerk/typist. The Cuban missile crisis was in October of '61, but he mentions the possibility of his unit being transferred temporarily to Florida in support of something or other there. I don't think they went.

This letter holds clues as to why Vietnam - and even now, Iraq - was and is now such a problem for the U.S. military. Every thing he tells me about the organization, his job and what is expected of him - all of it - speaks to the war of W.W.II - and even Korea. It posits enemy forces and front lines, armies opposing each other. There is not a single mention of the possibility of guerilla or insurgent warfare. I'm not certain that the army that rolled into Iraq in 2003 was any more prepared for that possibility than was the army of 1963.