Ike Sends His Sympathy

Manila

Tues. 15 Jan. ‘46

 

Dear folks,

Another day gone. Things have resumed a more peaceful appearance today although there is still more than enough work to be done. I find there is plenty to keep me busy all day. I have three morning reports plus regular work to do in the mornings. Then on the side I’m trying to get about 60 records ready so there won’t be too much to do when orders finally come in. I hope my boy comes out of the hospital pretty soon so he can take over on his job. The kid has been a co. clerk since Miller left about Dec. 10 and yesterday he made Sgt. I sweated it out as a Cpl. for 13 months. All of us except Bugs are at least 1 grade above our jobs thanks to the present situation where we have plenty of ratings and no men to fill them.

No news on points except for a lot of rumors. According to today’s paper Ike sends his sympathy to the poor G.I. overseas but says “disintegration” of the army must pause. You know they said points wouldn’t drop so much this month and I wouldn’t be surprised if the drop last week were all for this month. I hope I’m wrong but I don’t really expect to pull out until after Feb. 1 so I’ve got about three more weeks. But then again if they get a lot of shipping yet this month, who knows?

I’m eating ice cream as I write this. One of the boys got a gallon from the mess hall. I’ve had more ice cream in the last 2 months than in three years before we came here. We have it practically every day and sometimes twice. We have our own facilities for making it so there’s plenty.

The boys have been busy the last couple days putting barbed wire fences up to divide the area before the U.S.O. moves in. As near as I can tell there are 4 areas now – single men, single women, married couples and then off in a corner nobody wanted, the G.I.’s that will be left. I don’t think this is a very good area for a setup like that but the General likes it and I guess that’s all that counts.

Today I got Gram’s Jan. 6 letter and one from Edna. So Hugh is out already. Well he was overseas about 10 months sooner than I and may have gotten one or 2 more stars so he probably had a lot more points. They hope to have the 50 point men out of the ETO by the end of March I read the other day so maybe we are better off than we thought. At the present rate they’ll be near 40 by then out here.

Tonight’s movie was “First Comes Courage” with Brian Aherne and Merle Oberon. It was an old picture which I had seen but forgotten most of.

That’s about all the news so I think I shall head for bed early tonight. I overslept this morning and didn’t get to work until 8:30. I have trouble making myself crawl out mornings. So for today, so long til next time.

Be seein’ you

Arlington