Cpl Roman F. Klick 36620923
Co "A", 353rd Engr Regt
A.P.O. #502, c/o Postmaster
San Francisco, California
July 7, 1943

Dear Aunty Clara,

As I began to say at the end of yesterday's letter, I have a story to tell you about an incident in the lives of one of the fellows in our outfit. He was vagabonding along our west coast about three years ago going wherever he felt like sometimes crossing and recrossing his steps. And then one day he found himself in a railway depot and wondered where he was. He was in Kansas City and the last place he remembers being in was Los Angeles. Two months time had elapsed between his falling into amnesia and his awakening from it. He was noticeable thinner and since that day has never put back what he lost during that nightmare of his life. One of the strangest things about the entire incident is that at the time he lost track of things he did not have money enough to take the trip back that far across the continent let alone back home to Ohio. And when he searched himself for money he still had the same small sum on his person. He has never been able to glimpse into that dark period and it is still a mystery to him how he went out or what he had done during that time or how he got across the states on nothing. He says that he told only his wife and mother of the story and that I was the first one ever to hear it since then. The whole event is mysterious and exotic, eh?

Well, we are starting on our August payroll already. That is mighty soon to be getting on the job but after last month's rush affair in which we cramped a two month payroll which should have taken one week to do into two days and ending up with a fairly decent job after all, we are all of the unanimous opinion that this one is going to be done right and checked thru and thru as we go along.

Speaking of checking things reminds me of something which happened yesterday. I had a roster typed up which apparently was shy a man or two and when Lt Hanton tried to use it in his work it sort of messed things up a bit. And to top that off the monthly bond extract which is taken from the payroll was also messed up. The later bit of work was explainable because we took it from the fourth carbon copy which is rather dim and the figures et al are rather indistinguishable. Both those errors could have been prevented by a complete checking before turning in the work but without the check the errors slipped by. I have noticed that in the army to a great extent people begin to become too confidant and think they are infallible so that their work needn't be checked because it is naturally correct the first time. How different that is from civilian life where at work the bills etc passed thru an original check and then about a half dozen others before they were finished. Hereafter I will have to set up my own little checking bureau to see that my own work is ok.

Well, Aunty Clara, here we are at the end of another letter and another day. It has been something like 235 or 236 days since that Saturday morning of November 14, 1942 when a goodbye was said to the world we know. The days seem to be passing faster now than ever before and I hope it is the same with you. It's going to be a grand sensation when we can stop counting days and instead say "This is the last day". One thing one has to admit is that the war has made life twice as full of interesting things. It has made a startling change in the world we knew and it is leading us to remolding a new world to live in at the cessation of hostilities.

So-long,
/s/ Roman
Roman