Camp White, Oregon
18 March 1943

Dear Aunty Clara:

This letter is being typed by yours truly at the hour of eight in the morning. We have a lot of work ahead of us in Company A this morning after a day layoff; but if I do not write this little bit now, you would most probably not hear from me again until Friday evening as the bivouac is scheduled for today.

It is too bad that I did not write yesterday because there were so many little items of interest that I had to relate and now I will have neither the time to relate nor will I have time to tell you in detail all that has happened since I last wrote to you on Tuesday evening at 11:00.

In brief I may say that on my off day I stayed in bed until noon as usual but I did manage to do a little studying since I lay in bed with the Army Institute course. I won't tell you anything about the course at this time because that item can always wait.

In the afternoon, Larry and I walked out of camp and then got rides over to the airport. What we were after was the cost of a ride to Los Angeles. It is exorbitant. $42.64 for one way and double that for a round trip. Of course there are army bombers at $1 for the rental of the parachute. We inquired about them and the fellow says you just have to wait until a bomber comes in with an extra parachute. Since the Medford air base is only a stop over, there is no guarantee that you can always get a ride when you want it. If this was a large airport and they carried a supply of parachutes, they would have no trouble placing you on the very first bomber which came along.

As we were walking to the airport a big Douglas B-17 came in and it was a giant. A United Airlines transport came in just a few minutes after the bomber and guess what the name of it was? Can't guess it, eh? Well it was "The City of Chicago". How we would have liked to been on that one.

There is a great deal more to that airport business than I have time to tell you of right now so all I can do is hope that next time when I type up more than one page, I will remember to tell you about it.

Last night I went to the show with John (Tommy) Edie and Lawrence (Larry) Isaacson. We saw "Forever and a Day". There wasn't an extra player in the thing. Every player was either a star in his own right or a strong supporting player. For example there was C. Aubrey Smith, Ida Lupino, Merle Oberon, Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, Claude Raines, Ian Keith, Edward Everett Horton, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Herbert Marshall, Nigel Bruce, Victor McLaughlin, Robert Cummings, Roland Young, Brian Aherne, Donald Crisp and millions of others. It is worth seeing for the stars alone for the story itself was neither gripping nor dramatic.

Well, it looks as if my letter is going to be shorter than even I expected it would be.

Solong,
/s/ Roman
Roman