Back To Base and More Love Letters from My Soldier

55 Jan 86
Dearest Heather,
How is my sweet, wonderful, and beautiful fiancé. I Love You! I hope you are doing just fine. I miss you so much! I can’t wait to see you again, probably at the end of January. Today was a pretty slow day. All we did was lay around and sleep then about 3 o’clock our drill sergeant came in with a football and asked us if we wanted to play. We had a great time. It was really fun. The drill sergeant even played with us. We start back up to school tomorro. We will go to what they call the cage, that’s where we get told all the top secret information about missile. I got my top secret clearance. All we do now is play my buddies radio really loud and clown around the barracks. I hope you didn’t have too much fun at Players tonight. I remembered you said something about going on the phone today. It feels so good to hear your voice. I wish I could hear it all the time. If you notice I am out of tan envelopes and on my last 4 pieces of tan paper. It’s a good thing Gina got me some more stationary for Christmas. I will sure use it a lot.

You’ll never guess what I heard on the radio tonight…Give up. Well you probably guess it. Your right! I heard ‘Crazy For You’ twice and ‘I Miss You’ once. I had tears in my eyes while listening to these songs. I miss you so much! I’ll Always be Crazily (is that a word) in Love with You!

You are the only one I want and the only one I need. I really glad you told your parents about our future plans. I am also glad that they approve of me. I want you to know that I will always Love You no matter where I am at. Heather You are my Fiancé and someday (April 1, 1989) You will be my wife and I your Husband. Nothing will ever change my mind. I am yours forever. You are mine forever. I LOVE YOU!!

I got one of my friends with an instant camera to take some pictures of me. I have enclosed them with this letter. I want you to have these pictures to see what I do most of the time, write letters to you and lay around and think about us. If you want you can give my Mom one of the group shots of me and my two buddies. I would like you to show her all of the pictures thought so all my family can get an idea how our barracks look. If she is jealous you can give her one of me if you want. I will try to have some more taken, O.K.! All of the pictures were taken in our room. The other two guys in the pictures with me are my roommates and the other Prep School Candidates (West Point). The pictures with just me in them shows what my part of the room looks like. If you notice I need to do laundry. So what do you think of the room. Pretty nice, huh. Not Army looking. In the one picture me and Clint are showing off, being camera hams. This one was especially for you. Clint and Scott say Hi too. The red Porsche in the one picture is the car we might have someday.

I can’t wait to come home. I think I would make a good recruiter. I know a lot of people that need a steady job. I also know a guy who needs to spend some time at home with his Fiancé . Well I better get going O.K. I write more real soon. Also I’ll try to have some more pictures taken. I Miss You! LOVE YOU NOW, FOREVER & ALWAYS,

Ronnie

P.S. I can’t wait till 1989!!!

I was back at school and a bit more upbeat than I thought I would be. Ronnie was always right. Everything would work out. We had just spent two weeks together and he would come home at the end of January when he graduated from A School. Then we would find out where he was going…home to Frederick or where ever the Army sent him. If for some reason he wasn’t stationed in Frederick we would have time to get married and we now knew everything that had to be taken care of to get married in a hurry.

16 Jan 86
To My Only Love, Heather [not giving out my middle name]
How are you doing? I’m doing just fine. I finally got your pictures today. They are just fantastic! I Love them! You look so good in all of those pictures. I really like the one from the COZY, you know which one. You look really, really sexy in that picture. I LOVE YOU! I wish I could see you like that every night. Of couse, someday I will. The pictures that you took at the airport were really good too. You look especially good in those pictures. I Love your smile! It make me feel so good to see you smile and be happy. I can’t wait to see the pictures we had taken at Monkey Wards. I know you’ll look good in those too. I LOVE YOU NOW FOREVER AND ALWAYS!!

Love Ya,
Ronnie

Ha! Ha! I fooled you. I’m back. You don’t think I could say goodbye so soon do you. I got at least 2 or 3 more pages left.

Heather, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!!! [drawings of three hearts]!! I’m in a pretty good mood today after talking to you last night and finding out all of this good news. I’m really glad to most likely be going home for Recruiter Aide. I’ll be able to see you a whole lot! My two friends are going to Germany. You know, Scott and Clinton. Did you talk to SGT. Powell yet and tell him our orders came in and I’m not going to Germany. Also did you tell him to call the Battery (B) and talk to my Commander. If not tell him to call soon. It would help a lot. Thanks, my love! It would be really neat to see you come down for graduation. I would love it, but remember it is a long drive and possibly a lot of money. If you did come down for graduation and I get stationed in Frederick for Recruiter duty; there would be two things that could happen: 1. I have travel time and could drive home with you. That would be great! 2. I would have to take a plane back and therefore beat you to Frederick. That wouldn’t be so good. Well it looks like I better find out what is going on so we can hurry up and make our plans. If you come out here for graduation I would want you to take my car because it seems like it could make the long trip a lot better. It also wouldn’t take away your Moms car for a couple of days. Also if you brought my car, I could drive back.

We have a dress greens inspection on Saturday by the Colonel. Then we are authorized our off post pass. We go to the field on the 21st for 2 nights and 3 days. We will erect the missile and practice or pretend we’re firing it. We are allowed to take pictures on these field exercises. I’m going to try to take some of me and the missile and send you some, O.K. I LOVE YOU [heart] !!!!!!

I also got your other letter today. The one that you typed. I got to tell you, that was a nicely typed letter. No mistakes at all. I enjoyed reading it. You said that sometimes you find yourself being pulled in two directions. One says let go and the other says hold on. I hope that your stronger part, to hold on, takes over and eliminates the part that wants to let go. I know I love you and I know I’m going to marry you and I know I’m not going to let you go no matter what. I only have one feeling in me and that is to keep you forever! Even though it does hurt to say goodbye all the time, it would hurt more to leave you. So I just look at the future and see what is to come - A long happy life with my future wife Heather [middle and last name]!!!

That was a very interesting dream you had about us at Players. I want you to be positive sure that someone does love you. I do. I want to marry you. I will never leave you. The past that we both had will never repeat itself. I will be your last love and you will be my last love. I will love you and you only til the end of time. Please don’t worry about things changing between us. Nothing will come between us, we are bonded like the seal of super glue. We will never be parted from each other, ever. I miss you a whole lot. It would hurt me so much to leave you so I never will. I never want to. I want to marry you and have a family with you and spend the rest of my life with you. I LOVE YOU!! I so glad your parents know of our future plans. I’m glad that you might be able to visit me wherever I go. That would be great. I’ll get to bed now, wish you were here. I’ll probably most likely see ya at the end of the month. Talk to SGT Powell, O.K. I miss you so much! I Need You!!

LOVE YOUR FIANCE NOT, FOREVER, AND ALWAYS !!!!!!

April 1st 1985 & 1989?
TLA Ron Loves Heather TLA

Ronnie
X0X0X
OXOXO
XOXOX
OXOXO

Sergeant Powell was great about keeping in touch with me. I stopped by to chat with him on my way in to work as it was in the same mall as Montgomery Wards. If he didn’t see me or hear from me for a few days he called my house to check in with me. It was funny when my Dad answered the phone “She is already signed up with Naval Academy. She isn’t interested in the Army.” He was always surprised that I was so willing to talk to an Army recruiter. Each time I had to explain it was Powell, Ronnie’s Recruiter.

I remember one visit where Dizzy-D went with me on my day off. We were shopping for dresses and I had become so accustomed to being in their office it was like being in someone’s living room. I was sitting on one of the desks swinging my feet and looking down at the floor while I chattered on about the latest news from Ronnie. Sergeant Powell was filing papers a few feet away and he said “I loose more guys because of sweet little girls like you. You are the ‘All American Girl’ the ‘Girl Next Door’. If you had been one of those others…that only wants to get married, get away from their parents, well those usually drop off quick. Thank you for sticking with this. He needs you more than he is letting on.”

More than he was letting on? Well, maybe it was the fact that I only passed on some information. I didn’t pass on the mushy stuff to Sergeant Powell. I didn’t even let my friends read all the letters Ronnie sent. Aside from Ronnie’s phone calls and letters Sergeant Powell was my only other link to what was possibly going on with Ronnie in Oklahoma. Any information he could pass on or any questions he could answer were another way for me connect to Ronnie. Any link with Ronnie was greatly appreciated. I need it. I need it so much.