Transmission #2-0-6-4 Addendum

Tokyo Metropolitan; Camp Basilone, US Sixth Army Base.

Intercepted Letter at Basilone Post Exchange

Status: Pending Further Review

Hey sis,

Before you even start: I know it's been a bit since my last letter - a WHOLE week.

I know, I'm the worst, right? Pretty sure mom and dad have been driving you up the wall, bugging you about when you'd last heard from me. Trust me, I would've rang if our call times on base haven't been cut in half. Lt. Col. Colton tells us it's for security concerns. Words been going around the North's been tapping phone lines again, intercepting our letters, too. Hell, talk of even stealing our packages from home to sell on their black market. Katz swears on his father's soul he saw a Jap wearing his favorite football jersey his ma sent him while on Wall duty. Personally, I doubt it; even a Northie isn't stupid enough to wear a Vikings jersey. But between you and I, I do think someone is going through our mail.

And it's not from any ninja, either.

God, word still sounds funny whenever I say it. "Ninja". Sounds like they'd belong more in one of those Spiderman comics we used to get down at Pickney's. I know I've told you a thousand times, but Eda you'd never believe half the stories some of the old timers around here spout off about. Didn't believe dad's stories, either, when he came home from the war. How could anybody? Fire breathing, the ability to change appearances, mind control, frogs the size of buses? Hell, they can even walk on water. Makes half the men joke Jesus must've been a ninja, too.

Father Stewart would be blowing a lid off his toupee if he heard all the sacrilege.

How is the old crackpot by the way? Last you said he'd been having a hard time getting over kidney stones. Hopefully, he's okay now. Send him my regards, though; would probably be better than eating one of mom's cookies. (Don't tell her I said that.)

Anyways, with all that being said, I don't want to scare you. With all the other crazy stuff happening right now, I know it's hard to believe me, but I'm fine. Trust me, Eda. Military protocol sometimes... can get a little weird. I mean, once we heard about the assassination attempt on the president, everything here went on lockdown. Still feels like it kind of. It's all top brass stuff - once one of them gets a hair across their butt, all us lower peons feel the pinch. Flint thinks this is good, says it keeps us awake and on our toes. Tells us old Roman generals used to pull this trick on their legionnaires so as to always keep them battle ready; why ol'Marius has been running double shifts on the boys ever since, forming everyone into A-teams and constantly drilling them from sun-up to sundown. You know him: "super-lifer". No shamming it when he's around.

But oddly enough, he's been in an unusually jolly mood lately.

Must be something to do with all his side-meetings with Lt. Col. Colton. Every time he comes out of those talks a fire is lit inside him. You can see it. Though, whenever I ask, he tells me not to worry. Complete with that shit-smeared grin of his, same one Mrs. Arlen used to spring whenever she decided to hit the class with a pop quiz. But Flint isn't that clever: it's no mystery. Ever since they went public about that CIA man who got killed in Saigon, everyone feels something's going down. Pretty much the entire base feels jittery, like how I felt before asking Margaret Salvo out to prom; WHICH I'll remind I didn't need any help - she said I was very comely, even before you put in a good word...

Still, if you can pass on I've been thinking about her a bit. That if she wouldn't mind, I'd like to write her maybe?

That'd be nice.

Do that, and I'll put in a good word from you with Cheech.

Don't deny it, I know you like to stare at the Christmas Party photo of me and the company at Fort Benning. The one with my goofy grin, halfway between a laugh and taking a drink; where everyone looks like they belong on the front page of Stars and Stripes, and me some blocky caveman in a formal dress-down front-and-center. Always thought you wanted the picture just so you can get a laugh. But ever since you're last visit on-base, noticeable how you spent less time with your own brother, and more with the...Oh, how did you describe him? "Charmer with the exotic name and crooked smile?"

So you know, I threatened the ginny with an Article 15, imposed latrine duty for a month, and had him run posts up and down our training field till he puked.

For the record, even after that he still asks about you. He's a good kid. (Emphasis on the "kid" part, sis - three years your junior? Mom'll have a field day with that, cradle robber.)

I like him, though. Hell, I like all of them; even with all their random quirks and nonsense.

Nicky's still a sweetheart who waxes about his mom every day. Despite our issues with mail, she's still able to get food packages in consistently every two weeks; if anyone's a ninja, it's got to be her. The number of preserved mangos and plums she gets through is insane - nearly had Wade going to the latrines for four days. Charlie's as whimsical as ever - keeps taking long walks about the base, says he feels a change in the spirit of the wind. Which is great for morale. Fats says he's a Section VIII, but I tell him that's just Charlie being Charlie; if I had a feather every time he went and said something off, I'd be Sitting Bull by the end of the week.

Marvin still is able to cook wonders in the mess, whereas his cousin Lamont is still trying to learn the ropes. Kid's a turtle; took him too long to get here from stateside, and is slow to retain. The mixed units still got him feeling some kind of awkward, as he says he'd never really felt comfortable around so many white folk before. Kid grew up in a rough spot in Chicago's inner-city, in the heart where the Red Riots happened back in '57. Parents got caught up in it, so...I don't blame him feeling the way he does. He ended up living with Marvin and his wife Gia down in Mississippi, till he was finally old enough to enlist. Tells everyone he's a legit eighteen. Ha! Sure. Good thing is, though, he's young and will get it eventually. Clayton Abernathy - the general's son - actually has taken him in under his wing. Good man. If there was ever a person better suited to teach anyone anything it'd definitely be him.

Course, suffice to say I still got my hands full corralling these knuckle-draggers.

"Be all that you can be," also means taking the "bad" in with the "good".

Some of the men still walk about like they're tall boys pushing the bush, and not really lay-abouts chilling on a base. They act like they were there on the Kanto, earned the right to mouth-off, and end up sounding like rubes. At times I get the feel they assume we all strut about "conquered" land, have a "woe to the vanquished" sort of attitude when haggling with the locals. A lot of guys still use terms like dink, slant, slope, Nip, or Jappo quite often. I don't even think it's meant to demean half the time - they simply use it as a means to refer to any average Japanese. I know dad has his own feelings regarding the people here, but I don't know...

I go to the little train station town near the base here, and I can't help but feel these folk are no different than any other walking around Lafayette Square, or Soulard, or Midtown. Families going about their business, old papa-sans with their ruffled up sweaters talking shop outside storefronts, crossing guards directing a long line of kids crossing the street to school. Feels like home.

But then I catch myself.

These people are different in how they devote themselves to a singular duty day-in, day-out. There's a quiet humility to them, like each one is their own church steeple, void of noise, and ever listening. They're patient, when they needn't be. Polite, even if it's cumbersome. Quaint, even as the lights of Tokyo Metro offer a whole new perspective than what they're used to.

I know: I sound like one of those crusaders who really drink the Kool-Aid packets. But, sis, with the way the last war ended, how dad was coming back after being deployed for two years, hearing about it from all his buddies; things around here could've been a hell of a lot worse. I been to the bomb sites at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They still leave a bad taste in my mouth, but despite all that folk around here still think nothing of smiling when they want, laughing when they can, living however able they manage.

Flint's made it a priority to insure discipline applies even when the boys go off base. He's a stickler for stuff like that. And General Abernathy and Lt. Col. Colton also have a hardline when it comes conduct, also. I'm a hard-ass when I needs be, too. Still, with all the bravado and arrogance of youth, mixed with a healthy dose of boredom, and you're bound to get issues.

Incidents occur as people get their weekend passes, decide to go and have a night in one of Metro's red light districts. Booze can do some bad things to a man. Thankfully, mom nipped that in the bud with dad soon as he came back from the service. But I don't know, even if he got bad from time-to-time, it never amounted to more than passing out on the front porch. Now? Guys get blitzed with all kinds of stuff. Weed, dope, "hero", and a fun new one now called Monkeybone; just the other day we had to fish out some some gung-ho Marine tripping out on the stuff. He took off all of his clothes, and tried craw-dad fishing in Tokyo Harbor.

Chalk it up to all the rest of the issues we've got going on. All these new faces roaming about, makes me feel more on an island than ever. Basilone has turned into a regular "League of Nations" when it comes to service branches, and not just from the US. God, I don't even know if I should be telling you this, but every day I'm clocking Marines, Air Force lieutenants, Navy SEALS, Aussie SASR, NZSAS, ROCA engineers, JSDF captains, and federal spooks. You name it. They come in and out of the base like it's a turnstile. All while Charlie looks at me with that all-knowing smirk of his, then bopping his head over to stare off into the sunset.

Listen, I don't want you overthinking yourself with worry. Which is why I want you to hear this from me before it winds up on Channel 10 news: this stuff about South Vietnam, that president being assassinated, it's set off a lot of alarm bells. The French have promised more troops by next month, to deter any involvement from Hanoi. Haven't said specifically where those reinforcements will come from, what with their own civil war going on over in Africa, but I got a hunch...

But, these things can go whichever way the wind blows. Irregardless, of what Charlie says. The Red Riots had everyone thinking the country would collapse into civil war and divide like France, but it didn't. The nukes in Cuba were scary, but they ended up petering out. People thought Dien Bien Phu was gonna be the start of World War 3, but turns out, no one really cared that much. Much like how I don't think we care so much now, either; Saigon is someone else's kiddy pool, not ours. My feelings are we're just the lifeguards meant to cool things down.

Just rest easy knowing your brother managed to scrounge up some of the worst mannered, ill-tempered, smart-alecky, lazy jackasses this side of the Pacific; and was able to turn them into a bona-fide, fierce, cohesive force of able security guards. Whatever happens, I know those fools got my back. And you can bet I got theirs, too.

All the love to Mom and Dad for me, please. Tell mom there's not a day that goes about that I'm not thinking of her, and that I appreciate the cookies she sent out a couple weeks ago - they've been pretty handy doorstops. To dad, the usual: I love you, can't wait to see you, and that I hope to make him proud. If my package gets through, along with this letter, there's a history book about Japanese mythology I think he'd get a kick out of. Some fun stories about samurai lords and nine-tailed foxes in there he might enjoy. And, of course, saving the best for last...

Give Alamo a belly scratch for me.

Hard work around the farm putting up with you crazy people all day.

But, also, sending my regards to you, Eda. You deserve a lot more than a ridiculously long letter from your burnt out, Army grunt of a brother. I promise I'll do better getting back to you guys next time, though. Hopefully, with a shorter letter.

Love,

Forever and Always your "Little" Brother,

First Sergeant Conrad S. Hauser

US Sixth Army, "B" Company; Camp Basilone, Tokyo, Japan

P.S. Seriously, don't forget about putting in a word for me with Margaret.

P.P.S. Also, what is this about mom saying she found Air Force recruiter papers addressed to you in the mail? Eda, you're not serious? This is a joke, right?