Dear Folks:

I’ve wandered over half of the camp since supper and couldn’t find anything I wanted to do so here I am back on my bunk writing to you, which I should have done in the first place.

The box came about three days ago and did I have a good time opening it.  The towels were just the thing and when I got around to the food I had about a dozen chow-hounds to get rid of.  Everything hit the spot.  Also got the Star Heralds and the Free Presses.  I heard over the radio that there was plane wreckage with Bob [Redding from Minatare] among the crew.  All were believed dead.

Well last Sunday we moved from the newer part of the fort over to the old section with the brick buildings.  Our battery is sleeping in the usual wooden barracks but they are swell brick buildings all around.  It was a heck of a time moving—the second Sunday in a row we worked and my morale was feeling pretty low.  So for about all we have been doing is scrubbing, cleaning windows and the like.  Everything has to be so darned perfect whenever we leave a place.

The building we eat in, and where a couple of batteries of our battalion are quartered is about the size of the Scottsbluff high school and fixed up elegantly.  Finally after hearing and reading about the army’s modern equipment in the kitchen, I’ve actually seen some.  The kitchen is a large room lined with brick tile and accessorized with Monel metal on most appliances.  We have electric dishwashers and automatic potato peelers.  And there is one machine that stands about four feet high and looks like a large drill, but is isn’t.  It has a good size paddle on an off-center shaft that whips potatoes.  Really a nice place.  Seems too good to be true and I hope to break myself of the habit of grabbing my mess kit when chow sounds.  We eat on Monel covered tables and use dishes and cups.  All this reminds me of OP tomorrow.  Report at 5:30 AM to work until eight in the evening.  I’ll be plenty sapped tomorrow evening.

I have found a number of pit passes since coming to Fort Lewis and the first made its appearance last Saturday night.  We were given eight hour passes from five until one so me and my pal decided to go to Tacoma.  Well we waited from five-fifteen until eight-thirty, almost three hours before we got on a bus. I swear the ticket line was at least two blocks long leading into a postage stamp shack with but a single clerk selling tickets.  I, and plenty others were pretty disgusted.  An eight hour pass and three were spent getting a ticket and waiting for a bus.  Finally about 9 we got into Tacoma and had a whopping supper but had to wait an hour for that.  Every little place and large too was packed with soldiers.  And repeat the above process on trying to get a bus home then getting up at seven Sunday.  Tonite I tried to go to the show but the line there was inexhaustible, and the canteens reminded me of the May Company on Saturdays or trying to play polo in a submarine.  I guess that’s about all of my peeves except the rain and KP.

The latest dope is that we will be here for at least eight weeks of intensive training.

This chilly weather here seems to have helped my appetite and am eating more than usual.

Have had a case of infantigo for the past two weeks.  It is beginning to subside and is a lot cleared up.  I looked like a guy out of a comic magazine with my face spotted up with the violet stuff the doctor puts on it.

Well I guess this finishes another issue.  Hope to take advantage of the library if it isn’t like the ticket lines.

Given this letter is about all grip, well I’ll be more cherry in the next one.

Maybe I could elaborate a little more on the corny.  In the first place you see fellows from all kinds of outfits.  There are plenty of ski troopers here all abundantly equipped for mountain warfare.  They train on Mt. Rainier.  Then the other day I saw droves of good mules that are used by the pack field artillery.  Guns [175’s] are bundled up in 250 pound pieces and packed by these mules.  Of course there are tanks, mammoth railroad guns and half tracks.  Some of the queerest names are attached to them, I mean the half tracks (lugs on the back and wheels on the front) such as “Cozy Coffin”, “Coughing Coffin”, “La Muerte” and “Chattering Coffin” etc.  Then there is the Air Corps.

Well better quit now. 5 is awful early and I’ve got to wake up myself.

Thanks so much for the box.  See you in the next letter.

Love,