Letters home from Vietnam saved to be shared

Meagan Mills: Resident shares family wartime letters
By Meagan Mills
October 2, 2012

Many teenagers today check in with their parents and keep in touch with friends through instantaneous forms of communication such as text messages and Skype, while others remember growing up in the era during wartime where preserving a bond with a loved one meant relying on written letters that could take weeks to arrive to their intended destinations.

Meg Amsden Folsom, 45-year resident of Winter Park, remembers sharing her active teen years with her father, Robert S. Amsden, through letters and tapes while he served as field director for the American Red Cross in the Vietnam War.

“It was total turmoil,” said Meg, who was writing letters to her father from 1968 to 1970. “It was a controversial war to begin with and tensions were high. Some of my classmates had boyfriends and brothers who were serving, since typically they draft or enlist younger ages, but no one in our community had a father involved with the war.”

Her father retired from the U.S. Air Force as a senior master sergeant in 1967 and joined the American Red Cross, training at Fort Bragg, N.C. before being assigned to a base in Cu Chui, Vietnam. Her mother, Nancy Amsden, was responsible for running a single-family home with Meg, 15, her sister Lane Amsden Lewis, 17 and her brother Bobby Amsden, 13, which was not always easy.
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