Cpl Roman F. Klick 36620923
Co "A", 353rd Engr Regt
A.P.O. #502, c/o Postmaster
San Francisco, California
24 October l945

Dear Aunty Clara,

Sunday



Today was an active day plus. For one thing I received two letters from you dated the 13th and the 16th. I hope I'm not going to have the difficulty now in getting hold of the intervening letters on the 14th and the 15th as you did with my two letters to you of the 17th and 18th of September. Besides those letters I received a V-mail from Marty and Virginia also at the noon mail call. Came the evening mail call and I fully expected to receive a package but alas and alack they have not yet come. I did not go without anything, though, because I received the "Wake of the News" book from Uncle Jack.

So much for the mail, now for the daily events. For the first I'll tell you about early this morning which I had been catching on some much needed sleep. Long about ten o'clock John Edie came along and woke me up telling me that there was some work to be done. Censky was also just getting up about that time while Mersing was busied with cleaning his shoes, John was straightening out his Sunday-go-to-meeting uniform, Burkard was cleaning his foot-locker, Joe Bauer was sitting on his bed while I had just got to the point of putting on my shoes when it happened. Captain Hanton walked into our tent on his early Sunday morning inspection tour of the tents.

For some reason or another no one called attention when he came in. That is the rule whenever an officer enters the enlisted men's quarters. I know that he was already standing in the center of the tent looking around when I first was aware of his presence and the others were also caught just as unexpectedly. Although our tent was not to be inspected this morning fate would have it that he had walked into our tent and that incident occurred for which we were verbally reprimanded. Some say it was not our duty to call attention but that of the person accompanying the officer. However, that is a technicality and the fact remains that it did not leave a good impression of us in Hanton's mind.

After that I went down to the Orderly Room to find out what I had to do and after working a while at the office on it I returned in time for the noon meal.

We have quite a company now since the one section which was working away from us is now back on the job in our camp. Some of the fellows are almost like strangers after having been away for so many months. The effect of having the full company back again is very noticeable at meal times when the place becomes jam-packed.

O yes, also in the morning, we were issued some free supplies including more mosquito lotion, soap, matches and flashlight batteries. Those are the flashlight batteries which I told you about the other day. We each were given two batteries apiece but my stock amounted to a little bit more than that because Jack Molyneaux gave me his batteries and Lt Carrozza gave me still another set. All in all, it looks like this landfall of flashlight batteries has beaten your package although I still think that there isn't much danger of the war lasting so long that I won't be able to use all of them in time.

This afternoon Larry, Medsker, Snelsire (he came back today with the rest of the boys) and myself went swimming. These Sunday swims are really the cat's meow because we can stay in the water extra long instead of the short time on a weekday. Without even having given it much thought I have begun to swim with my old time ease and free from the worry of cramping my leg as I had been earlier this year. One of the chief reasons for that, I suppose, is that the Spring air has warmed up the water from its former Winter chill.

My wind is coming back again too so that I can swim from one side of the river to the other side underwater. The section in which we now swim is a natural. There is the shallow water, the deep water, the rapids and the diving boards along with a

Editor's annotation August 2004: The end of this V-mail was cut off when being sent.