41 years later, Whittier residents receive GI's mail from Vietnam

A Whittier family got an unexpected surprise in the mail when letters from a soldier in Vietnam, sent in 1969, arrived at their home, it was reported Saturday.

The letters detail the day-to-day experiences of Rod Severson, who was on active duty in Vietnam in 1969, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported.

The letters were written to his sister by Severson, then a 23-year-old sergeant with the 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta. In them, he dreamed of returning home, described standing guard at night and watching rice farmers at work on a warm day.

Severson is now 64, and married with three sons in Roseburg, Ore. He told the newspaper the new occupants of the house in Whittier returned the letters to him recently.

His sister, Janet, now lives in Hawaii. But she used to live in a house on Chambray Drive in Whittier, where the letters mysteriously turned up last year.

"It's kind of funny because it's like a time of return going on here,'' Severson said. "I could almost picture it, the mortar attacks, people picking rice and the kids putting it in the bags.''

Maria Rios, who received the letters, felt a similar connection after reading Severson's letters.

"We felt excited and surprised,'' Rios told the San Gabriel Valley News. "How did these letters get to us after so many years?''

Officials from the U.S. Postal Service told the newspaper that such instances of mail arriving years later is highly unusual.

"When military people write mail overseas it goes through the Army postal system to the U.S. Postal Service and we deliver it,'' USPS spokesperson Richard Maher said. "It's hard to determine what had occurred.''

Maher told the Tribune that occasionally pieces of mail get lodged in equipment like storage containers or delivery sacks. Mail from soldiers serving overseas gets handled by the Army first.

Still, Kopcho said he was happy the letters were found and delivered, even if it was 41 years later.

"I just think it's really cool that we've got some folks looking at this stuff,'' he told the Valley Tribune. "I'm just kind of amazed.''