30 December 1942
Camp White, Oregon
Dear Aunty Clara:
I did work after all this evening. And I really slammed out the work to say the least. I worked from 1900 to 2200 so you see I haven't much time left. This is one more evening when my correspondence begins to pile up once more. This evening I received a letter from Ulysses Reder and a little book about the Chicago Cubs from the Daily News. I strongly suspect Uncle Joe of having sent it to me so will you thank him for it?
Well, the watch didn't stop once since 0800. And do you know why? I decided that something was wrong with the mechanism's ability to function while the watch itself was in movement. I therefore placed it in the top drawer of our field trunk. This top drawer is about an inch and a half deep and is cut out at the center so the watch, which I set at an angle, is seen from the outside. I am still undecided at this writing whether I should take the thing back to the barracks with me or lock it up overnight. I might as well leave it locked up here. It is safe and it would only stop when I carry it to and from the office.
The winter rains have at last arrived. It has been raining steadily and there seems to be no let up in sight.
The boys in the barracks came in completely soaked twice during the day. They were out building bridges in the river. The bridges they built today were capable of supporting 10 ton trucks, so they tell me. The other platoon was issued rifles and will soon begin that type of training.
My student clerk may turn out good in the end but right now his work is on par with what Dolores used to turn out when she first began to work at Rathborne. I think that when I have more than two errors on any piece of typewritten work, it is just about worthless and I usually do the entire job over again. However, I had Harvey type up a roster of the Company and he xd out his errors like this XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX and then would put in the correction. Then again he would fail to keep the serial numbers in line and would have an entire serial number off by itself and not in the regular column. He does not seem to realize that the Company Commander sees all our work and it should be as perfect as possible.
I think I am going to get tough and make him do the whole thing over again. That is the only way he will realize that it must be perfect. One time I typed up an entire laundry list with perfect typing but I made minor corrections in the alphabetical listing. If a man whose last name began with H was listed in with the Js, I would list him correctly. Censky told me that if the first list of the month is made incorrectly, the rest of the lists drawn up during the entire month must duplicate those same errors. I had to retype the entire laundry list of 185 men. (I have not let out a military figure). That little incident brought that fact home to me more than any other thing could. I will try that system on Private James Andrew Harvey tomorrow.
I have been pretty tired all day because I went to sleep late last night and woke up early this morning; so I'll just end this letter on the first page. I am having difficulty trying to write it and that is unusual.
So long,
/s/ Roman
Roman
P.S. I am going to send home my diploma. You can begin to expect it sometime within the next two weeks.
I also have another tin tube. This one is still half full of shaving cream. The fellow broke or punctured a hole in the side and threw it away. Do you want it?
Ro