Cute Little Rifles

THANKSGIVING 1943!

[drawing of  turkey]

 

Thurs. Nov. 25, 1943

7:10 p.m.

 

Dear folks,

Here I am in study hall. I’ll write this and then review a little Physics. We get G.I. tests tomorrow and Sat. Tomorrow morning we have Physics, in the afternoon English & Geography. Sat. morning we have math & then Chem. Sat. afternoon. It would be useless to try to cram for them but I think I will just thumb through the book a little and maybe refresh it a little. I was up at 7:30 this morning. There was no reveille so except for somebody trying to wake up the sections with early classes we were left alone to sleep. It’s sort of hard for me to get real sleep after 5:30 though. I’m in a rut I guess. I got up, made my bed, swept, dressed, and at 8 we went to Analyt. He assigned a lot of stuff for Monday. Next week is going to be pretty rough I’m afraid. At 9 we had Physics. He was in a Thanksgiving mood and let us do what we wanted so I read my English. At 10 we had Chem. and he went on answering those questions on that exam. I really messed some of them up. Even Dr. Hale didn’t agree with some of the answers. At 11 we had study. I did a little Analyt. Then at 11:35 we ate. I’ll give them credit. They really turned out a nice meal. It was the best I’ve had in the army so far. We had turkey, white and dark meat sliced nice and thin, dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, asparagus, an apple salad, biscuits, bread, butter, cranberry sauce, celery, and pumpkin pie with ice cream. After dinner I went back and slept about ½ hour before we went to History at 1. He spent most of the hour talking about the soldiers vote bill. I hear they are trying to allow all men in the army, even under 21, the right to vote. It sounds like a good argument. It’s going to look like an attempt to keep Roosevelt in for a 4^th term. I don’t care myself. I do think though that it might be unwise to change presidents now. Roosevelt knows all the plans & he’s done pretty well so far. To change pres. might easily cause the war to last 6 months or a year longer. At 2 we had P.T. We played volleyball all hour today. No calisthenics. It was O.K. with me as my legs are really lame from those tests. At 3 we had English and did some grammar work. I didn’t do too well. He read off our latest grades. I’m still on top of the class with 197 out of a possible 200. So long as I stay above 190 I get an A. At 4 we drilled for an hour with our cute little rifles. We have a parade next Thurs. as I said before I guess. At 5 we were through. We got no letters at all today. I guess the mail service took a holiday. At 5:30 we went to supper. We are always the last section (except for a bunch of former R.O.T.C. fellows who haven’t started class yet) to eat and we were robbed tonight. They started out serving turkey, next they had steak & by the time we arrived they were dishing out stew. I had beets, string beans, corn, salad, bread, butter, milk, & 2 pieces of pumpkin pie. At 7 we came over here to study hall. A new shipping list of 25 guys is in but nobody from our section goes this time. Everyone who’s left now gets his furlough although I wish we’d sign something for it pretty soon. Well that’s Thanksgiving here. This isn’t any better than usual as a letter but I’ll call it all at 7:45. You’ll get this Mon. I wouldn’t write after next Tues. if I were you as that’s the last one I’ll get before I leave.

 

Good night,

Love,

Son