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Camp White, Oregon
20 January 1943

Dear Aunty Clara:

As I repeated once before and I say once again. The best laid plans are often led astray. It was my intention to answer the letters from Mrs. Boyer and Mrs. Lejcar (Dolores to you) this evening and then probably pound out another one to Bobbie or Eddie etcetera but that was not to be. This Army must lay awake nights devising means and methods of keeping its soldiers stepping during their free moments.

Here is what we did this evening. We had a clothing and equipment check. They had to make sure that we had all our government issued clothing and equipment and they are also putting on the screws. They told us that any civilian clothes which is still in our hands, or for that matter, any extra clothes above the allowance even though it is G.I. should be sent home.

Remember back a few days I was telling you how it was rather cold and the ground was hardened? Well, now that the snow has all but melted under the all day rain we have one grand mess. In otherwords it looks like a miniature flood in most places.

By the way, I am beginning to wonder now if I want you to return my watch to me after you get it fixed. What do you suggest?

I am supposed to be getting rifle instruction but it seems I can not find the instructors during my free moments and they can't find me during their's. This isn't going to be so pleasant when I go out on the range --- green.

Here is something funny. Last night I typed up the promotions for quite a few of the men. One is a PFC just recently made and now he is to be a corporal. Now this evening I saw him sewing on his PFC stripes on his blouse. First of all it is a lot of work to sew them on the blouse and in a day he will be a corporal and will have to take them off; so I asked him why he started on that particular item. I finally advised him not to sew them on his blouse in a rather serious tone and thus saved him some trouble. Then what does the guy do but grab his overcoat and starts sewing PFC stripes on it. This time I asks him when does he ever use that overcoat to which he didn't have much answer and I steered him away from it. Finally to keep him from guessing what was up I said it would be a very good idea to sew the stripe on his work clothes first because that is what he is seen in most. Perhaps he doesn't mind sewing but I just couldn't see all that time and labor wasted.

I better be quitting this here and now so

so long,

Roman

P.S. Save the copy of my promotion because it was the one given to me officially . It has Daniel J. Driscoll's initials and William G. Hanton's initials.