Cpl Roman F. Klick 36620923
Co "A", 353rd Engr Regt
A.P.O. #502, c/o Postmaster
San Francisco, California
August 21, 1943

Dear Aunty Clara,

Well, I did get some letters after all. They were both from you and were dated August 10 and 11. You know, for being at the opposite end of the globe during war time, that mail service is exceptionally good. It only takes twenty days for a question to be answered. That really isn't so very long when you stop to think of it.

I'm afraid that I have left both you and Aunt-Aunt down. Somehow I never could get into the writing mood after those two letters to my Dad and Mrs. Reed. If I am not mistaken, the only letter I have written since then is the one to the Bernatskys. I owe Aunt-Aunt two letters and besides a birthday card so I will have to make up for it with a good letter.

Something seems to have happened to the delivery service on magazines for we haven't had a new magazine come in for the last two weeks. When they do come, they come in bunches and it is almost impossible to keep up with them all. I probably told you that our company has subscribed to just about every well know magazine but all of them haven't come in. Incidentally, speaking of magazines, I ran across a copy of the Chicago Daily News "This Week" magazine section. I didn't have a chance to read it at the time and when I went back later on it was gone. I wonder if you could mail that section to me each week. It shouldn't take more than a 1½¢ stamp to send it out.

This business of writing and typing four long addresses on the V-mail letters is quite a task so away back in June or July I addressed the letters to you all the way up to and including August 27. It saved a lot of time when I was in a rush and just could manage to fill a page up before the lights went out or before our meal was being served. That is one of the reasons you have received one letter each day with our addresses still printed in all capitol letters such as this one. It seemed to be so fantastically far away when I first typed them up but now in a few days that date will have been reached. I also had others with my return address placed on the V-mail form both inside and out which I used when writing to other people than you.

O yes, there is going to be another home edition of the Bulldozer coming out this next week and we are starting a big drive already to make it a big one. Our home edition is usually a big splurge of three long sheets while our ordinary edition has been reduced to one short sheet. We are just fooling the public by that one big paper a month.

We have had a new telephone put in the office and this time it is a single party line and will only ring when someone wants to speak to the Personnel Section. That other one was a laugh because any ring all along the line would sound on our phone. Many were the times we would pick up the receiver and hear other parties talking.

I am surprised that I have not had any answers to the batch of letters I sent out to the gals down at the office and from Jerry. In a way I think I can understand, particularly in Jerry's case. They work all day and then at night they go out and stay out late. After all summer nights are not like winter nights when you feel like sitting home by a nice warm fire and writing letters. Jerry is probably up one end of 22nd St and down the other end on his bike after suppertime. I wonder if his mother still makes him hold to a 9:30 curfew time or since he is practically a young man, has she forgotten about trying to get him home early.

Do you ever see Mrs. Kotek or Mrs. Nemec to find out how Jimmy and Harold are getting along? By this time I imagine Jimmy has been changed to another station and it would be just like a Nemec to have Harold still stationed in Fort Sheridan.

I don't hear anyone at the piano right now so I guess I will amble over to the big tent.

So-long,
/s/ Roman
Roman