“I sure would like to sit down and write you all seperet letter’s but my time is small,” twenty-one-year-old Pvt. Timothy Robinson wrote in October 1967 to his family from Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Robinson struggled with dyslexia and found writing difficult, but he regularly updated his parents, his sister Ruth, and his fifteen-year-old brother Patrick back in Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota, on how he was progressing in basic training. (Robinson’s twenty-two-year-old sister Peg was in college, and his eldest sister Nancy was married and living with her husband in Minneapolis.) Although notorious in his family for being extremely self-disciplined and something of a neatnik, Robinson was also a free-spirited soul who chafed under strict conformity. “What ever you do,” he remarked a few days later,
I hope you can keep Pat out of this type of mad world of uniformity and do what you are told and not to think for yourself because this is all what this army is. We had four men go A.W.O.L. in the last week and three were back within the next day but one is still gone. One nite when I was on fire watch two of them went A.W.O.L. an I was supposda turn them in but if they won’t to go thats their bussiness I wasn’t going to turn them in.
In March 1968 Robinson was shipped to Vietnam. After landing in Bien Hoa, he sent the following:
22 March 68
Dear Mom, Dad, Ruth, Pat,
I got to my unit now and have a address
Pfc Tim Robinson US 56502427
Co. C. 2nd Bn 2nd Brg
101st ABN Div
APO 96383 S. F. Cal.
We are located some were around Phu Bai and Hue North. It sure is a durty hole here You were the same cloths untill they fall of you and then they give you a new pair. This country is not worth fighting for but the good we do for the Viet Nams is good. Theis people are so far back in the world that it sad. You just cant explain it in word’s. But I got pitchers to be devloped and maybe they can tell you better then I can.
Did you get my picther that I had taken when I was home? I whish I could see it. Writ soon now so I can see what is going on in the world Over here we don’t know even how the war is coming along. Haven’t seen rain over here yet It’s dry and hot but at night it cools off. They say that some were in Viet Nam it is raining every day.
Boy would give ever thing in the world to be home. That the place were ever one belong’s. You should see my nice tan I have already. I think some of it is durt.
“Love” your son
Tim
Only days days later Robinson was in combat. He related his first impressions on March 28.
Dear Mom, Dad, Ruth, Pat
Im in the field now in the hills. From the hill Im on now you can see Hue, so we are far north. We have a battalen of NVA traped down in the valley and have been hitting them with mortur and boms for the last 3 or 4 days. The first day they sent me out here to meet up with my platoon We moved out from the top of one hill to the next and on the way we ran in to snipers and had four men killed and four wonded.
The good Lord was with me coming down the hill because I wasn’t hit but some of the men in front of me and along side of me were hit. Death is sad over here to these young men. To see them rolled up in a poncho. I had to go out and get one guy that had got hit and then got on fire, he was still burning when we got to him. It was a sad mess. I’ve never been so scared in my life as I was that day and Iv been praying ever since that day.
Im the mechine gunner in my squad. If you think this letter is grubby that because we live that way. On top of the hills for weeks with out shaving, washing, or brushing your teeth. You cloth get so dirty they fall of then you get a new pair. At night you have to sleep with a few gernads in your pocket because you never know when you’ll get hit by something.
Get them letters rolling and say a prary for me every night and I’ll do my best.
Much love. Your son & brother
Tim
“Humping” (GI slang for marching) through the jungles, milages, mountains, and rice paddies of Vietnam, soldiers were well aware that every step could be their last. They had to be on constant alert for ambushes, as well as for land mines and booby traps, which caused over 10 percent of all U.S. casualties in the war. (Some of the most crippling were punji pits—shallow, concealed ditches embedded with knife-sharp spikes that, when stepped on, pierced right through the foot. Fecal matter often was smeared on the tips of the stakes to cause infections.) On April 7, Robinson referred to several of the potentially lethal threats they contended with daily, including one nobody had expected.
Dear Mom, Dad, Ruth & Pat,
Still at it going strong. We are down and out of the mountens now and sitting on the bech of Utah up North
We are guarding part of the perimeter and go out on patrolles and ambushes. So far all we have run into was one man step into a pungy pit and one man triped a bobee trap gernaded. Both are out of action. Yesterday A Co ran into a ambush in a village that we had swep through the day befor and the last I heard they had 10 killed and 11 wonded.
A few days ago we were standing in the chow line and bullets started flying at us. Everones was hitting the ground and crualing for cover. Half of us had are weapanes with us and started to move in the diraction of the shots
When we got up to it we found a couple of Merines that were taking target practzes at something with a 60 cal. mechine gun and a M-14. They said they didn’t know the bondres of the perimeter. They sure had me scared with bullets flying about one and two feet along side of me.
Im still waiting for my first letter from some one back home. It would be nice to get a package from home about once a week if you could because your son is starving over here. Some of the things you can send are: cans of fuirt, cokies, hard candy, caned meat, anything in cans our jars, hony or some strawbarry jam, joke book, comics book, hot rod books, paper’s, baked food’s and “kool-aid” The water over here teast like “H” apple sauce. About once a month send some stationary like Im writtin on now. Im going to try and write grandma, Nancy, and Joyce to because they always have good coked foods around but it is hard to get the time and the equip. over here.
I heat to write and ask for food like a pig, but I losing whiegt fast. Dad I would love to have that big hunting kinef with me over here Do you think you could send it to me. Dont get any cold beer or Coke any more. Maybe one or two cans a week
Haven’t seen a base camp in a mounth That’s why we can’t get any of that good stuff. Im still wearing the same cloth as when I got over here but they gave me new socks last week. We get a chance to swim in the ocean here but the water is to salt to get clean. We have a mud piled in front of our bunker to wash up and shave in. Got to go now
Love and miss ya all lots
Your loven son and brother Tim
P.S. I don’t know what good Im doing over here but I’ll keep fighting in hopes that my brother may never have to see this dam land.
One week later, Robinson wrote a nostalgic letter to his family about a certain holiday tradition his mom continued even after her grown children had left the house.
April 14, 1968
Dear Mom, Dad, Ruth & Pat,
I finally got your first letters you sent and it sure was good to here from ya. Thanks Pat for your letter I enjoy getting them from you. I would write you a seperrate letter but I just dont have the time. Hope you dont minde. Right now Im sitting in front of my bunker pulling guard and it’s 2:00 in the morning which would make it 12:00 afternoon April 13 at home. It is light out tonight so that I can see to write. I may miss the lines a few times but that’s my excues.
Here is the money you asked for Pat. We use to differont typs. The 50 P’s is what the VC. use for money They call them peasstas Im not to sure on the spelling The other money is what the American troops use They have some coins but I dont have any. I’ll try and send some more thing’s home when and if I ever get to base camp. I have some things now I would like to send. Iv got $200 dollars of last month pay that Im trying to send back to the bank. But no money orders and it’s almost pay day for this month. Just know place to spend money over here where I am. I’ll be sending about that much back every month. I should be getting Spc/4 pay next month becauce Iv been put in for the next rank.
I hope the Ester Bunny doesn’t for get me this year because the last 21 years it been real good to me and will always be so dear to my heart, “Right Mom”
Remember when we were kids on Ester The grils would be all dress up in new hats, pretty dresses and new gloves and us boys with new shoes and shirts and off to church we would go and after come home to look for our Ester baskets. What good times. I hope God will bring me back home so, that I may marry the girl I love, “Wich will be in March if things go OK.” Then I can watch my kids all dress up and head for church and live them day over again.
Today we went out on patrole today and it wasn’t to good for a Ester Sunday. One man triped off a boo bee traped 105 Round and killed himself and wonded one other. Holidays are know different then any other day. Every day is Monday in Viet Nam. Just about ever day we walk between 3 to 12 miles through rice paddy up to our knees in mud. Up and down hills. Through jungles What a drag.
Must go now, “God Be With You All”
Your fighting son & Brother
Tim
The special care packages the family had put together for Robinson were returned several weeks later. On April 19, 1968, Robinson caught his foot on the trip wire to a booby-trapped mine and, quite literally, was blown to pieces. Two days before his death, Robinson sent the last letter he ever wrote to his “second family”—his cousins, aunt, and uncle, who owned a small farm where Robinson worked during the summer. (His Aunt, Joyce, suffered from arthritis, which Robinson alludes to in the letter.)
Dear Herman, Joyce, & Kids,
Thanks much for the letter
It’s always good to here from you good people. (I sure hope the doc’s are taking good care of you Joyce so that you can get better.) I know you all would like to know what Im doing and wear I am over here. Im a mechine gunner in my squad. I hump that and about a 65 pound pack over mountens across the flate lands through the rice paddies and fight my way through the jungles. We move every were between 1 mile to about 12 a day. We dont have a base camp to work out of so they move us all over Viet Nam, Long Ben, Bien Hoa, Phan Rang, Hue, Phu Bia, Utah Beach.
Ive been shot at and had gernades flip at me, helped put dead in ponchos and seen wonded bleed. And can tell you for a fact that this war is hell and that more praying goes on over here in one day than it does in a week back in the world.
Joyce I sure could go for some of your good home made cookies if it’s not to much trouble for you. You always did make real good cookies. Thanks for the picture of the family It’s a good one. Got to go now
Write again soon and may the good Lord take care of you all as good as He been taking care of me. “Love” your old son and brother
Tim
