Cpl Roman F. Klick 36620923
Co "A", 353rd Engr Regt
A.P.O. #502, c/o Postmaster
San Francisco, California
August 6, 1943

Dear Aunty Clara,

It is really Sunday Morning, 8 August 1943, but to keep our letters straight I have dated it the 6th. This has been about the longest stretch in which I was too busy to sit down and write a letter to you. Things began clicking the evening of August 6. There was no movie picture scheduled for that night so I thought I would be able to write letter after letter and therefore I squandered the free time between four and five o'clock. It was shortly after supper that we heard there was to be a band concert at six-thirty. Rather than wait in the tent until that time, Larry and I took our portable chairs and a few magazines to the amphitheater and sat there reading them until the concert began. The concert ended early but we had become interested in the stories we had been reading and instead of writing letters we had to finish the articles. That was the third mistake. First I had wasted that afternoon hour, then I went off to hear the band, and third I had to finish the story. It wasn't long after that that I was summoned to the Orderly Room and had to do some last minute work for Lt Hanton. That last minute work took from before eleven o'clock at night to after one o'clock in the morning.

The seventh of August was busy from the very start to the very finish. I had to fill in several items in every man's Service Record, type up several reports and handle several new allotments. That was in the morning. In the afternoon Mersing and I had to go to town and return the payroll to the Finance office. Immediately after coming back from town, I went up on the hill to the Projection Room and began rewinding the five reels of "The Great Ziegfeld". Before I was finished with that job and the incidental splicing that went with it, it was time to set things up for the show. I didn't even get a chance to eat supper at the time.

If you remember "The Great Ziegfeld" was a long show and it was after nine o'clock before we were finished running it after which came the usual rewinding and splicing. Incidentally, although Lt Yantis was in the booth for the beginning of the show and at the ending of the show, I handled the entire affair for the first time. That means that except for extraordinary breakdowns I can now consider myself experienced enough to run the machine alone.

After the show was over I went over to the mess hall to see if they had anything left to eat because by that time, I was famished. And by golly, Aunty Clara, I licked that mess kit clean. Usually I am unable to eat all they give me but yesterday I was a "chowhound".

Then this morning rolled around with no Reveille and breakfast if you wanted it. No one in our tent wanted it because along around eight o'clock we woke up to find it was broad daylight. Since my sun tans were conveniently at hand (I had to wear them to town), I put them on today for the first time I had them on in all the Sundays we've been here. I've breakfasted on candy bars so far this morning and have already done some work in the office. There is a lot of work to do today but before I do anything else I am going to catch up on the letters I should have written during the last two days.

After that brief resume of the last several days you should have the highlights of my activities. Now for the elaborations and the details. You will note that I said I breakfasted on candy. Well, the PX is selling real candy bars again with no limit on how much you can buy. The result was that every fellow who could spare the 80( for a box of twenty-four bars went there and purchased them. I bought a box of Hershey's Milk Chocolate with Almonds and have been making myself sick on them ever since. In between every two or three milk chocolates I have had a double mint patty. That stomach of mine must be made if iron the way it can resist all that poison I put into it.

So-long,
/s/ Roman
Roman