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

Dear Aunty Clara,

Thanksgiving Day, Thursday

Well, as far as the letter situation goes, it has been a good Thanksgiving Day so far. I received the V-mails of the 14th and 15th from you. It seems strange but in the letter of the fifteenth you mention that now that Brown has the movie operator job, I wouldn't be riding around anymore. Well, it so happened that just within the hour before receiving your letter I had occasion to use a weapons carrier to drive some new men and their equipment to the orderly rooms of the various companies. Of course, Lt Yantis and the boys all ribbed me and asked the fellows if their life insurance was paid up but they were all delivered and Ralph Pfau (who came along) and I came back safe and sound.

When I told Jack Molyneaux that you had bought me an anniversary present for my first year in the Army and then added that they would think you were crazy according to you, he said that is just what he did think. The sun sure can take the color out of a thing, can't it? It would be well if you would be taking the flag down for good someday in the near future without thought of replacement either with another blue one or perhaps a gold one but I guess that will not be for another two or three years.

The Sopac printed a Thanksgiving greeting and a Christmas greeting along with the regular four pages today and I will send it along by Airmail later on this evening. The figures of girls bordering the Christmas greeting is just a lot of propaganda. South Sea Islands or no South Sea Islands, they just don't come thataway down here.

The big meal of the day is being reserved for this evening (just fifteen minutes away) and it has been the talk of the day. H&S Company is eating fifteen minutes earlier and the fellows have to dress up in khakis for the occasion. Seeing how it is Thanksgiving, it is too bad our Company A show couldn't have gone on as planned to give the fellows something extra in the line of entertainment.

I'm wondering if I can't work my office job on a new system all by myself. There are certain routine tasks which must be performed during the daytime and things which come up from time to time during the day but there are a great many things which can be done at any and all hours. I could do those things in the evening when it is cooler and not so stuffy. A person has a tendency to be wider awake and fresher during those hours than during sultry mornings and afternoons. Then, if I got all my work done in the evenings, I could use the spare hours of the day for writing my letters etcetera. It wouldn't be doing any harm and in fact make for more efficient work. The trouble is that I probably would work all night and find out that something special would come up during the day and I'd work all the day to boot.

So, you got yourself a pair of red-hot gloves, eh? I was reading a story in a magazine the other day how the color of red in clothes helps keep a woman's morale up. Is that true? It was all about a woman who would go out and buy something red every time she was down in the dumps and somehow it helped her thru until the better side of life was showing thru the clouds. Then a few days after that I read something along that same line in a newspaper or something although that was supposed to be a scientific fact.

The show for the night is "Talk of the Town". The band will play and there will be one other attraction in spite of our failure and that is a few nurses will sing a few songs. I believe that originally they were to be part of the Company A presentation.

Well, it is exactly five o'clock now and the bugle is blowing "Chow Call" but I glanced over to our Company Mess Hall and the fellows are still standing in line outside so there will be ample time to get there for the big feed.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman