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Camp White, Oregon
1 April 1943
12:30

Dear Aunty Clara:

I did not write any letters to you yesterday. As I suspected, since I was on my morning off and not near a typewriter, I could get none written. Then when I came back in the afternoon, I had to work for a change with the consequent result that I did not type any letter then. After show it was talk-talk over in the barracks again. Say, did you notice the way I just let that "after the show" slip out? As if it were the perfectly natural thing in the evening to go to the show.

The afternoon is going to be plenty busy just as this morning was because those war bond changes which take effect this month have turned out to be a bigger job than even I had expected them to be. On top of that difficulty has come added woe visited onto us by the Finance Department here in Camp White. It seems they have been re-staffed and the new officers are old timers in the game and are here hep to all the short-cuts which clerks use in order to cut some of the red tape connected with payroll remarks. The outcome was that in company A alone 34 men did not receive extra pay which was due to them from the previous month. The reason that they were not paid was that the remarks said "S/Sgt from Cpl" where technically it should read "S/Sgt 0 years service from Cpl 0 years service."

All that work (which was a headache last month) now has to be done over again on this month's payroll along with the usual monthly changes plus all the war bond remarks which must be made. It is going to be a lulu of a payroll.

It seemed funny that Molyneaux was the only clerk who did not have any (how in the world do you spell S-Q-U-A-C-K?) on his payroll. Just to be the good neighbor, I asked to see his copy and quick as a flash noticed one and then another and still another. It ended up that his company had been no exception except that not one of his bright soldier boys had noticed that the government had short changed them.

The show last night was a technicolor picture about the West with Claire Trevor, Anna Keyes, Randolph Scott and Glenn Ford. It wasn't so hot. Just before the show I bought a book of tickets (ten for 12 cents a piece) but I sold the whole shootin' match today when I went on my budget. But more about the budget later.

The letter with the picture of the National Tea Store came yesterday during my morning off. George, the manager, is the only person on the picture that I can recognize. It looked good to see a part of 22nd Street again. Isn't that funny that I can get a kick out of just seeing pictures of the home town?

The meat situation sure is a mess, isn't it? As far as I'm concerned, however, you can take all the meat in the world and dump it in the ocean.

Except for the fact that the people on the end of the company picture look a bit blurred (including me), I think the whole thing turned out pretty good myself. Lt. Small in the picture is now a first lieutenant too in case I haven't told you in a previous letter.

Ulysses is too sure of himself that he won't pass the draft board exam. Compared to some of the fellows in the army, he would be a pretty good specimen.

Tell Aunty Florence that I'm glad she got out of her hibernation and went to a dance. Amusement of any sort is sure to get a person's mind off of the dismal and sordid side of life and make one feel a lot better for it, too.

Because of an inspection which we had yesterday in the barracks, I was not able to rummage thru my locker straightening things up here and there and starting on my Army Institute as I had planned. However, that does not mean I wasted the morning. Instead of doing those things, I finished reading the Reader's Digest which is now in the mail going to Cicero, Illinois. I've read more articles this time than on any other occasion. One of the best was the condensed form of the book in the back of the magazine. It was all about those Flying Fortresses which held off the Japs for a while during the opening days and weeks of the war with Japan. It was similar in story to the picture "Air Force" of which I told you something about the other day.

And believe it or not, on page 46 one of the writers admits that his home was one time in Medford, Oregon.

I have more to say but will continue it in another letter which I will begin writing immediately. However, I do want this one to get out in the 1:00 mail, so

Solong,
/s/ Roman
Roman