‘Dear America’
Character profile chart

Letter writer: George Olsen
Military Rank: Ranger with company G, 75th infantry, operating in the area around Chu Lai
KIA/survivor: KIA on 3rd March 1970 aged 23.

EXPERIENCES: went on missions in the jungle during the monsoon season and was caught in a tropical storm; his team could not be relieved until the storm had passed over and they were cut off from resupply, left low on food and almost out of water. ‘I’m sitting here cold, wet, and unbelievably dirty after eight days up here, fairly miserable – yet strangely content’.

First hunter-killer operation with two teams of 12 men stationed two miles inland and slightly north of Chu Lai about an hour off the choppers. During their mission they tried for a POW, but he panicked and took off in a rain of gun fire. ‘I had him in my sights, threw three slugs at him and he just disappeared. No Hollywood theatrics – one minute he’s a living, running human being, the next second he’s down, just a red lump of clay’.

FEELINGS AND POINT OF VIEW: George volunteered to go to war; it’s where he wanted to be. ‘I’m where I want to be; quite voluntarily doing what I think is right and am far from being homesick’.

RELATIONSHIPS: writes all his letters to Rosemary Dresch, who he calls Red. She is a college friend of his.

MAKES THE READER THINK, FEEL, UNDERSTAND, LEARN, CONSIDER: George says some things in his letters that make you wonder about what was like to fight over in Vietnam every day, killing people and having blood on your hands. He gives you sense of what it is like to kill someone in war. ‘The frightening thing about it all is it’s so very easy to kill in war. There is no remorse, no theatrical “washing of the hands” to get rid of nonexistent blood, not even any regrets’.

By Kim