Dear Folks:

To keep my mind off the heat and look a little more ambitious I’ll write you something of what’s been cooking.  Well this is the third day we’ve been here but it seems like thirty days.  Day before yesterday it was a hundred and fifteen and yesterday one (hundred) eighteen and it seems even hotter today without any breeze at all.  The heat just seems to bounce off the ground into your face.  Yesterday I was on KP and just about cooked trying to wash dishes and wipe off the sweat at the same time.  We do get a little relief in the evening though.  Two miles across the hills is an irrigation canal and a river so we usually hike over there to cool off a bit.  Every night the bank looks like a bunch of flies on a piece of bacon.  No bathing suits of course.

The latest rumor, seemingly well founded, is that we will get furloughs in August after we get out of this hell hole.  I hope this is the straight dope and I’m inclined to think it is.  Of course I’ll let you know if we get any definite word.  That’s not very far off and will that be a treat.  Come to think of it in two months I will have been almost a year without a furlough.  We should be here in Yakima for only about four weeks if we pass our test, which this little excursion is intended for.  If we don’t pass it and have to go through another month I believe I’ll go completely berserk.  It’s almost impossible to stay out in the heat for any length of time.  I’ve dispensed with all underwear except when I get a pass and wear my cotton uniform.  If I’m not on duty Saturday or Sunday I’m going into Yakima and spend the afternoon of the fourth swimming and cooling off.  It doesn’t seem possible that the fourth is so near.  We get off from twelve noon Saturday until midnight Sunday nite, if we don’t get a damned alert, as they usually do over a holiday.  Every nite the canteen tent looks like a bunch of ants going into their hill as the boys file in for a drink of beer or pop.  Last night the battery next to us furnished free beer for the boys after they got in from the field.  We get it for a dime a bottle, but it’s pretty weak.

One thing I sleep like a baby at nights, and this morning I didn’t even hear first call, as I usually do a half before time.  The sun rises about five and most are dressed before reveille ever blows.  I slept on the top of my bag in the raw till about one when it began to get chilly.  It starts to get hot about six thirty and stays like that until nine or after.

We have good mail service here, as good as the Fort, so don’t worry about mail getting to me.  I guess this is about all.  We have good eats and a lot of fruit that appeals to me; cantaloupe, tomatoes, bananas, strawberries and a lot of salads.

Well so long for another time.

Love,