Episodios

  • All Episodes, July 1965

    All Episodes, July 1965
    Jul 31 2025
    In this compilation episode of Dearest Suzie, we revisit the letters of July 1965—a month of unbearable heat, long missions, and mounting exhaustion as Popi enters the final stretch of his tour. Stationed between Da Nang and Quang Ngai, he writes of 36-hour shifts, bad food, absent mail, and growing uncertainty about where he’ll be sent next. Amid the routine, he dreams of home, R&R, and board games with Suzie, even as a Viet Cong sapper attack and the arrival of the 1st Air Cavalry remind him that nothing is guaranteed. But July isn’t just about what happened in-country. This episode moves between 1965 and decades later, when a Fourth of July evening in Georgia stirs memories Popi thought he’d left behind. From monkey troubles and heatstroke to reflections on faith and trauma, these letters reveal the quiet toll of war on both sides of the world—and the ways Popi kept loving, writing, and holding on. 🔔 If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe! I’ll be posting new episodes regularly, sharing letters and stories from exactly 60 years ago, as written by my grandfather. Follow Dearest Suzie on social media: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1GwqPyO061k0iaQRKwfjoQ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dearestsuziepodcast/ X: https://x.com/DearestSuziePod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dearestsuziepodcast 📧 Have a story to share or want to reach out? Email me at dearestsuziepodcast@gmail.com — I’d love to hear from you! VietnamWar #WarLetters #MilitaryHistory #DearestSuzie #BillLowieLetters #InheritTheStories #FamilyHistory #July1965 #VietnamVeterans #MemoryAndMyth #HelicopterPilot #AirCav #Flashbacks #TraumaAndService #QuangNgai #DaNang #Homefront #WarAndFaith #PTSD #VietnamHomecomings
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    44 m
  • Episode 115: 1965-07-24 | Not in the Movie

    Episode 115: 1965-07-24 | Not in the Movie
    Jul 24 2025
    In this episode of Dearest Suzie, Popi writes on July 24, 1965, during a rare day off. He’s not sure where Suzie is, in Florida or still in New Jersey, so he’s sending his letters home and hoping they find her. There’s still no word on his orders, but he’s hoping to leave Quang Ngai by August 8. The delay matters not just for him, but for Charlie, the monkey he hopes to send home before the weather turns cold. Popi also mentions a big change: the 11th Air Assault Division is coming to Vietnam, newly renamed the 1st Air Cavalry Division. This episode explores the arrival of the 1st Air Cav and how it transformed the war. Built from the 11th Air Assault Division, the 1st Cavalry was the first full-scale airmobile force. Its rapid deployment in July 1965 marked a turning point. With helicopters at its core, the unit brought unprecedented speed and reach to combat, but also new risks. Their first major test came at Ia Drang, a brutal battle that revealed both the strengths and limits of air mobility. For soldiers like Popi, their arrival signaled a shift: the war was changing, growing, and coming closer to what aviation crews had already been living through. What’s Covered: - Bill’s reflections on Suzie’s travel, his day off, and hopes to return to Vinh Long - The arrival of the 1st Air Cavalry Division and the airmobile revolution - The Battle of Ia Drang and its impact on U.S. strategy in Vietnam - Family myths about military service and why we cling to them 📷 Featured Photo: A row of Huey helicopters lined up on a worn tarmac, the pavement pitted and scarred. Each chopper bears the white star of the U.S. Army—ready to move, ready to fight. 🔔 If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe! I’ll be posting new episodes regularly, sharing letters and stories from exactly 60 years ago, as written by my grandfather. Follow Dearest Suzie on social media: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1GwqPyO061k0iaQRKwfjoQ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dearestsuziepodcast/ X: https://x.com/DearestSuziePod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dearestsuziepodcast 📧 Have a story to share or want to reach out? Email me at dearestsuziepodcast@gmail.com — I’d love to hear from you! VietnamWar #1stAirCavalry #IaDrang #MilitaryHistory #WarLetters #InheritTheStories #DearestSuzie #FamilyHistory #OralHistory
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    7 m
  • Episode 114: 1965-07-22 | Your World In A Bag

    Episode 114: 1965-07-22 | Your World In A Bag
    Jul 22 2025
    In this episode of Dearest Suzie, Popi writes on July 22, 1965. He’s still living out of a duffle bag, waiting for orders, and counting down the days—just 62 left in-country. Suzie’s letter has arrived, and he’s glad to hear she’s enjoying her vacation despite everything. Things have been quiet for the moment but there’s a big operation planned for the next morning. The uncertainty is wearing thin, but he’s keeping his sense of humor. This episode explores the duffle bag as more than just gear—it was a soldier’s portable world. From Civil War haversacks to the barrel-style bags of Vietnam, military packs have long carried not just equipment but connection: letters, photos, comforts from home. For Popi, that bag was home base. With most of his belongings already on their way back to the States, the duffle held what mattered: toothbrush, socks, and letters from Suzie. What’s Covered: - Popi’s reflections on living out of a bag and counting down to home - The military history of duffle bags and what soldiers carried - How small items became emotional lifelines for deployed troops - What the duffle bag reveals about mobility, survival, and memory in wartime 📷 Featured Photo: Popi stands with three friends on a wet tarmac, bags between them. The location is uncertain—possibly stateside—but the moment is clear: they’re about to move. 🔔 If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe! I’ll be posting new episodes regularly, sharing letters and stories from exactly 60 years ago, as written by my grandfather. Follow Dearest Suzie on social media: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1GwqPyO061k0iaQRKwfjoQ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dearestsuziepodcast/ X: https://x.com/DearestSuziePod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dearestsuziepodcast 📧 Have a story to share or want to reach out? Email me at dearestsuziepodcast@gmail.com — I’d love to hear from you! VietnamWar #DuffleBagHistory #SoldierLife #MilitaryHistory #WarLetters #InheritTheStories #DearestSuzie #FamilyHistory #OralHistory
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    6 m
  • Episode 113: 1965-07-19 | Faith in War

    Episode 113: 1965-07-19 | Faith in War
    Jul 19 2025
    In this episode of Dearest Suzie, Popi writes on July 19, 1965. The Viet Cong have been active, and he’s running on little rest. He’s relieved to hear Suzie is feeling better and jokes about the boys going to Baptist Bible school, a light moment that reflects the mix of his Southern Baptist background and Suzie’s Northern, Catholic roots. With 60 days left, he’s still waiting on official orders, and rumors are swirling about the 11th Air Assault Division. This episode explores the quiet presence of faith during the war. At Vinh Long, Irish Catholic nuns ran an orphanage and school despite constant danger. Religious communities like theirs supported both locals and soldiers. For many troops, faith was a personal anchor. Chaplains offered guidance, while church groups back home kept families connected through prayer and care packages. Mema is Catholic, Popi was Baptist, and their marriage bridged that cultural divide. His teasing comment about Bible school is playful but also reveals how faith, like love, endured across distance. What’s Covered: - Bill’s reflections on Suzie’s health, Bible school, and 60 days left in-country - The role of Catholic nuns and chaplains during the Vietnam War - How faith sustained both soldiers and their families during wartime - Cultural differences in religious tradition and how they shaped Popi and Suzie’s relationship 📷 Featured Photo: An aerial shot of a large church or cathedral—possibly the same building that appears in Popi’s other photos under construction. A quiet reminder of the spiritual architecture that stood amid the ruins of war. 🔔 If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe! I’ll be posting new episodes regularly, sharing letters and stories from exactly 60 years ago, as written by my grandfather. Follow Dearest Suzie on social media: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1GwqPyO061k0iaQRKwfjoQ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dearestsuziepodcast/ X: https://x.com/DearestSuziePod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dearestsuziepodcast 📧 Have a story to share or want to reach out? Email me at dearestsuziepodcast@gmail.com — I’d love to hear from you! VietnamWar #FaithInWar #Chaplains #CatholicNuns #MilitaryHistory #WarLetters #InheritTheStories #DearestSuzie #FamilyHistory #OralHistory
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    6 m
  • Episode 112: 1965-07-13 | The Long Way Home

    Episode 112: 1965-07-13 | The Long Way Home
    Jul 13 2025
    In this episode of Dearest Suzie, Bill writes from Quang Ngai on July 13, 1965, reflecting on the grind of daily missions and the long shadow of homecoming. He’s finally received mail and it comes as a massive relief. He’s been worried about Suzie's health and the boys and he’s already thinking ahead to a real vacation together. He still has no official orders and there are rumors about the dissolution of the 11th as well as delayed paperwork which leaves him in limbo. Still, he marks a date: September 27. If nothing else changes, that’s the day he’ll walk back through the front door. Today’s episode explores what “going home” really meant for soldiers in Vietnam. The process wasn’t simple. It revolved around a number, DEROS, or Date Eligible for Return from Overseas, which governed when a soldier could leave the war behind. Once a man got “short,” everything shifted. He wasn’t just a soldier anymore, he was a countdown. That sense of being nearly done came with both hope and danger. Unlike earlier wars, Vietnam operated on an individual rotation system, meaning Bill wouldn’t go home with his unit. He’d likely be replaced by someone just arriving, and if time allowed, he’d pass on what he could. After orders came, the journey out involved transit stops in places like Okinawa or Guam, health checks, and long flights to bases like Travis AFB in California or Fort Benning in Georgia. What waited there was paperwork, maybe discharge, and often, emotional whiplash. Because reentry wasn’t easy. Some returned to warm reunions. Others found themselves disoriented by silence, grocery stores, and a country ready to move on. What’s Covered: - Popi’s letter about home, health, and the hope of a September return - How DEROS and the “short-timer” mentality shaped soldier experiences - The logistics of coming home: orders, layovers, base transitions, and out-processing - The emotional weight of returning to a country that didn’t always welcome them back 📷 Featured Photo: Little girls buy produce from an older woman on the street—a quiet moment of everyday life that may have reminded Popi of home, and the simple connections that wove his two worlds together. 🔔 If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe! I’ll be posting new episodes regularly, sharing letters and stories from exactly 60 years ago, as written by my grandfather. Follow Dearest Suzie on social media: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1GwqPyO061k0iaQRKwfjoQ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dearestsuziepodcast/ X: https://x.com/DearestSuziePod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dearestsuziepodcast 📧 Have a story to share or want to reach out? Email me at dearestsuziepodcast@gmail.com — I’d love to hear from you! VietnamWar #ComingHome #DEROS #MilitaryHistory #VietnamLetters #Veterans #ShortTimer #InheritTheStories #DearestSuzie #OralHistory
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    7 m
  • Episode 111: 1965-07-08 | Little Games

    Episode 111: 1965-07-08 | Little Games
    Jul 8 2025
    In this episode of Dearest Suzie, Bill writes from Quang Ngai on July 8, 1965. He’s recently been relocated and is settling in for what he assumes will be a 30-day extension. Still no mail has arrived, and the heat is nearly unbearable, so intense he nearly collapsed from heat exhaustion. But despite all that, this letter carries a more playful tone. Bill daydreams about sitting on the front porch with Suzie, feeling the ocean breeze, and coming up with “little games” to keep themselves entertained at night. He jokes about his buddy’s flirtatious back-and-forth with his wife and imagines his own return home. With fewer than 50 days left, the countdown is on, and the distance between longing and laughter is razor-thin. This episode opens the door to a larger conversation about sex, desire, and intimacy during wartime. For many soldiers, flirtation and humor were essential lifelines, ways to remember there was still something waiting for them beyond the war. But intimacy in Vietnam was complicated. It didn’t always wait back home. It was present in-country, too, often in ways that blurred the line between comfort and coercion. From brothels in Saigon to myths that would be passed down through generations, sex became part of the war’s fabric, visible, unspoken, transactional, and sometimes profoundly sad. Through that lens, Bill’s longing for Suzie feels all the more human. Not just romantic, but physical and real, a tether to something that feels like home. What’s Covered: - Popi’s relocation to Quang Ngai and his struggle with the extreme heat - Flirtation, humor, and the countdown to going home - The emotional and physical dimensions of wartime intimacy - Reflections on sex and power in the Vietnam War era 📷 Featured Photo: A nighttime scene inside the officer’s club. Vietnamese women in sparkling dresses dance as American soldiers clap along. It's a snapshot of the off-duty world and the quiet tensions it carried. 🔔 If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe! I’ll be posting new episodes regularly, sharing letters and stories from exactly 60 years ago, as written by my grandfather. Follow Dearest Suzie on social media: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1GwqPyO061k0iaQRKwfjoQ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dearestsuziepodcast/ X: https://x.com/DearestSuziePod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dearestsuziepodcast 📧 Have a story to share or want to reach out? Email me at dearestsuziepodcast@gmail.com — I’d love to hear from you! VietnamWar #QuangNgai #LettersHome #MilitaryLoveLetters #InheritTheStories #HelicopterPilot #WarAndDesire #OralHistory #DearestSuzie
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    7 m
  • Shooting an Elephant in Vietnam: Full Piece

    Shooting an Elephant in Vietnam: Full Piece
    Jul 7 2025
    In this extended episode of Dearest Suzie, we take a deep dive into one of the most unsettling intersections of memory, military routine, and moral reckoning. Sparked by a real Stars and Stripes article from August 1965 and shaped by Popi’s letters and postwar reflections, “Shooting an Elephant in Vietnam” uses fiction to get closer to a kind of truth that memory alone can’t always reach. What begins as a simple report about a helicopter crew hunting an elephant under military orders becomes a layered meditation on power, performance, and complicity. In the spirit of George Orwell’s iconic essay, this fictionalized account places Popi at the center of an all-too-real absurdity: a gunner eager for action, a pilot torn between duty and doubt, and a dead elephant used as propaganda and protein. The piece unfolds across the airbase, the rice paddies, and the village square, interrogating the roles soldiers are expected to play, and how easily moral lines are redrawn in war. Written in the first person, but drawn from archival materials, the story captures the hollowness of imperial rituals and the disturbing ease with which violence can be justified. In the final moments, a blue stuffed elephant brings it all home, quietly closing the loop between war and family, blood and memory. 🔔 If this episode moved you, please like, share, and subscribe. I’ll be posting new episodes regularly, sharing letters, memories, and the stories we inherit—whether written, remembered, or imagined. Follow Dearest Suzie on social media: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1GwqPyO061k0iaQRKwfjoQ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dearestsuziepodcast/ X: https://x.com/DearestSuziePod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dearestsuziepodcast 📧 Have a story to share or want to reach out? Email me at dearestsuziepodcast@gmail.com — I’d love to hear from you. VietnamWar #DearestSuzie #InheritTheStories #GeorgeOrwell #ShootingAnElephant #StarsAndStripes #WarLetters #MoralInjury #HelicopterPilot #MilitaryHistory #HistoricalPodcast #NarrativeNonfiction #AmericanImperialism #MemoryAndMyth #CombatNarrative #Vietnam1965 #ElephantHunting #FictionInspiredByTruth #VeteranVoices #LegacyOfWar #IntergenerationalTrauma
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    17 m
  • Episode 110: 1965-07-06 | Thirty-Six Hours and Counting

    Episode 110: 1965-07-06 | Thirty-Six Hours and Counting
    Jul 6 2025
    In this episode of Dearest Suzie, Bill writes on July 6, 1965, after completing a brutal 36-hour stretch of non-stop duty. He’s exhausted, running on fumes, and facing a major disappointment, what should have been a return to Vinh Long has turned into another 30-day extension. Instead of heading home, he’s being sent to Quang Ngai, an even more remote and dangerous assignment. His tone is weary but resigned. There's no mail, no answers, and no relief in sight, just a war that keeps getting longer. As Popi’s personal timeline gets stretched, so too does the timeline of the war. With mortar attacks on Da Nang, devastating losses in ARVN operations, growing U.S. involvement, and even Soviet escalation, the idea that this was a limited or advisory war was quickly vanishing. In this episode, we zoom out to explore that crucial week: from George Ball’s internal dissent in Washington to the MiG shootdowns in North Vietnam, from Australia’s draft mobilization to the tragedy of young soldiers like Olympian Ronald Zinn. The war was speeding up, and Bill, like many others, was caught in its momentum. What’s Covered: - A 36-hour duty shift and the disappointment of delayed rotation - Bill’s relocation from Da Nang to Quang Ngai - Rising VC attacks, ARVN casualties, and escalating combat - International involvement: Soviet missile trainers and Australian conscription - The first confirmed U.S. jet victories of the war - Reflections on the political, personal, and global shifts of early July 1965 📷 Featured Photo: Possibly taken in Quang Ngai, this photo shows a mountainous setting with landing pad tiles, oil barrels, and a crane—hinting at the transition Bill writes about in his letter. 🔔 If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe! I’ll be posting new episodes regularly, sharing letters and stories from exactly 60 years ago, as written by my grandfather. Follow Dearest Suzie on social media: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1GwqPyO061k0iaQRKwfjoQ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dearestsuziepodcast/ X: https://x.com/DearestSuziePod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dearestsuziepodcast 📧 Have a story to share or want to reach out? Email me at dearestsuziepodcast@gmail.com — I’d love to hear from you! VietnamWar #QuangNgai #CombatFatigue #HistoricalContext #HelicopterPilot #MilitaryHistory #WarLetters #InheritTheStories #MemoryAndMyth #DearestSuzie
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    7 m