Tuesday, March 26, 1968

March 26, 1968

Dear Mother + Dad,

By the time you get this letter I will be in Japan. We are on our way there now after stopping in Subic Bay for five hours Sunday. I got your card and the letter with the pictures then. As always I was glad to hear from you and its always nice to see pictures of those back home. David still looks the same and I can imagine the coaxing you had to go through to get him to pose for them. I am sending them to Bill and he will send them back to you.

The ship should arrive in Yokosuka about 1400 Thursday. You can't imagine how glad I'll be to get off this ship for liberty. After the 2½ months of this cruise I am well convinced this isn't the life for me. Some of the nonsense and fools you have to put up really get under your skin during these days at sea.

Since I have last wrote we have had two fires here on the ship. One was in a radar power room and yesterday a transformer burnt up. They were put out quickly and no one was hurt. Things like that can sink a ship just as well as anything else. But we have had everything go fine so far and no doubt it should continue to.

We left the Gulf of Tonkin Friday evening after 34 days up there. The chaplian came aboard and said mass that evening and we refueled from an oiler later in the night. That was one of the more active days up there.

I shaved off the mustache a week ago. I got tired of it and it was somewhat of a nuisance.

I had it figured right in regards to the amount I had in the bank. I hope to have at least twice that in there by the time I get back to the states.

Sunday I also got the package and the magazines. Thanks a lot. By reading the magazines I was reminded of some of the things that are going on in the world. There is only one thing we are concerned about over here and thats how the war is going so of course thats all you hear.

Thats all there is for now. I'll write from Japan. Bye for now.

Your son,

Mike