I Still Don’t Run The Army

26 September 1945

Luzon

 

Dear folks,

Another afternoon. According to the boss’ figuring this is my afternoon “on” so here I am doing just as little as I can get away with. Yesterday afternoon I was off for an hour or so, so he decided to take off today. From now on we are going to try to arrange it so only one of us is at work all the time. That way we get half of the time off. It reminds me of the setup I had back in Maxey when I took off those two times last fall and went home. The only trouble here is there is no place to go anyway.

The mail last night was nothing much to speak of. Just a few v-mails and a very few letters. The air mails that did come in though were postmarked Sep 17 so they made it in a week. That is really good. One of these days we should hit a heavy mail again as we surely are due for one.

I was off for a couple hours this morning and spent most of the time trying to get my rifle clean. I guess the CO must have gone through the tents looking at them this morning as we have an inspection scheduled for 6:00 tonight. I wasn’t sure that I could find a way of skipping it so I gave it the once over. It hasn’t had much care since I have been here but was in pretty good shape. This damp climate would rust anything. Everything is soaked in the morning when we get up. Our clothes are damp and any metal surface is wet. That black outside covering on my camera has come unstuck believe it or not and is just about off. Envelopes in our desks just stick shut of their own accord. Oh it’s a great country. But they can give it back to MacArthur so far as I am concerned. All I want to do is get out of here and maybe it won’t be too long. If I can ever get anything that is halfway definite I intend to cancel my allotment the end of October but I’ll let you know if I do and I won’t do it unless it is pretty sure that I am going to lose that 20% overseas pay. If we should hit the states someday I want to have a little money on me for anything I might want. They are going to do one big business in ice cream when we get back to Frisco I can bet them that. Can you get stuff like that again now. From what we hear most of the rationings is just about over. Another thing we were wondering about was shoe rationing as we want to get some low ones as soon as we can. I can’t see wearing a pair of GI’s all across the country. If it is winter then the boots would be all right but they are pretty hot in summer. I have a nearly new pair. I haven’t decided just what I am saving them for yet. You can’t put a shine on them unless you work so long that it isn’t worth it as they are rough leather.

We have all of our junk yet and from the looks of things we will keep it. I can’t see dragging the gas mask and a lot of this stuff around anymore but I still don’t run the army. I have carried it on and off of two ships so one more won’t make much difference but I’ll bet one thing – I won’t have the junk when we leave here that I carried from France. When we left New York we had practically nothing but our minimum GI stuff. By the time we hit France we were all loaded down again. How does it accumulate? We turned in our overcoats and all but one set of OD’s in Marseilles but got 3 sets of suntans, an extra set of fatigues, mosquito bars, mattress covers and a variety of smaller items so we were just as loaded or more so when we took off. I have one set of woolens left and they are just a little small as some of those European laundries shrank them particularly the one in Gloucester. Oh well one of these days they’ll all be put off for the last time I keep telling myself.

We can’t get any dope on things here but it still looks pretty good.

Well that’s about the size of things here for today. Maybe I can get a new crop of rumors by tomorrow. Something must have cooled them off as there haven’t been any today. So long again until next time.

Arlington

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