Scraping The Bottom Of The Barrel
COMPANY C
1268TH ENGINEER C BATTALION
Camp Maxey, Texas
29 September 1944
SUBJECT: Gossip and Stuff.
To : The Forist Family, 1010 Beech Street, Lansing 12, Michigan.
In compliance with letter your Headquarters dated Tuesday 26 September 1944, the following report is hereby submitted:
Hi everybody. Just thought I’d start this out like an official letter just for the heck of it and see what you would say. Time 7:20 p m. Place the personnel office as usual it seems. I came over and did a little work and now I’m going to write a few letters. I have been doing pretty well with my correspondence lately. I’ve been averaging about 1 letter a night besides the one to you folks. After I finished that one last night I went back to the barracks and shaved and got to bed at about 10:30 I guess. I was really sleepy and slept on through until the lights came on this morning at 6:15. I got up and dressed and laid back down until time to fall out for reveille. It rained quite a bit yesterday and last night and it has been really muddy around here again today. After reveille I ate breakfast—french toast, butter, syrup, corn flakes, milk and apples. Then I went back and fixed up my bed and swept and mopped the floor. I came to work at about the usual time and got my report out in a hurry this morning as there were no changes yesterday. Then we worked correlating the service records with the medical records to get all the shots recorded and when the mail man went after his mail we went up to the finance office and transcribed our payrolls for September. We didn’t get back until about 10:30 and by then the inspectors were in my records so there was very little that I could do the rest of the morning. They finished with the inspection about dinner time and gave us a little talk about the errors they found. All in all they said our records were by far the best they have run into in a long time. That made us all feel pretty good about the situation. The man who checked the service records said mine were the best of the 4 companies which was what we expected but it was a nice thing to hear anyway. All in all our work has been pretty doggone good. Now all we have to do is to iron out the few things they found wrong and get set for the I G inspections which comes 23 October. That’s the real one that shows how good they are. We have a bale of forms to prepare by the first of next week so there will be work for me here Sunday if I have the ambition to do it. The 1st Sgt got gigged a little on his duty roster which made me feel good. He needs a little gigging to make him see he isn’t always right. I quit at about noon for dinner –potatoes, beets, tomatoes, relish, bread, butter, and lemonade. After eating I got my usual milk for dessert. If it would stay about this temperature all the time I might gain a little weight again. This afternoon I came back and got to work typing furloughs. I had about 16 to do and then after I get them all done they tell me some of them may be held back until their teeth are fixed up to POM standards. Whenever I seem to get ahead of things a little something seems to come up to gum me up. Maybe I should be slow all the time. I quit for supper at about the usual time—macaroni, string beans, salad, bread, butter, and jello. After eating I came back here and got the records ready for a man who is transferring out tomorrow and then here I am. It seems as if I am Working all the time yet there is always that much more to be done. Today I got Gram’s long letter and your Tuesday letter. It went down to the 1267th by mistake but I got it this afternoon. Glad you got my letter on a Tues. for a change. I’d like to get some of that chili sauce. Yes the summer has gone fast but No it isn’t a short time since I was home. I’m CQ next weekend Oct 7 & 8 too. Time has gone fast since I was on last time Jul 28. Judging by the men we have here they must have really scraped the bottom of the barrel in the past few months. The one’s who have come in since last fall are all out of place except the young kids. The one’s outside aren’t worth much physically I’m thinking. But then I’m probably wrong. The cooler weather is slowing down the mosquitoes a little here. There is still the LS on the old records. The new ones just tell what is wrong with a person. I should answer Ferd’s letter pretty soon. I still owe about a half dozen letters to people. I guess I could get along without butter if I could get home. Some mornings I feel pretty tired or sleepy or something. Someday I’ll be back on a real schedule and then I should feel more on the ball. It’s funny in a way because I wasn’t getting too much sleep when I was going to school what with working at the store and doing my work yet I usually seemed wide enough awake to get along all right. I know back at Arkansas I quite often found myself falling asleep in a lecture which is something I never did at MSC. I guess this whole thing has just got us all tired and it will take a few months of real relaxation to get everybody all set to go in a normal way again. I can’t give much of a good word from here when there doesn’t seem to be any. They have the crating crew working full time now and the stuff starts going into grease and cosmolene pretty soon. They got a big load of clothes and stuff yesterday and there is more on the way. They are going to take our duffle bags when they get them and fill them up with new stuff all the way through and then just issue them to us when the time comes. That way all of us will have new clothes. I got a new set of fatigues today to replace the set I turned in to get the class X suntans last summer. I just had a little trouble with the ribbon on this writer and my hands are pretty black now. I guess I have answered your letter and covered the day so I will be signing off. I have to go back and clean up and fix up my laundry to go out in the morning and also straighten up my foot locker a little. So for tonight I’ll be seeing you.
Love
Arlington
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