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

Dear Aunty Clara,

Wednesday

I received five letters today and am now four up on Jack for the week. We've been doing that for the last few weeks and lately he has been getting more letters but this week looks as if it is going to be mine. Four of the letters were from you and one was from Mrs. Boyer.

Mrs. Boyer's letter was dated Armistice Day and was sent airmail. One of the reasons it was so delayed was because she had placed insufficient postage on it (long envelope, four pages). There was a notice stamped on it that airmail rates to this address required 6 cents for every half ounce. That was news to me.

She wrote one of the best letters she has ever written and even had some of Clarence's humorous style. Muriel is working in a bank and Bob has a permanent post on the East Coast. He works eight hours a day for three days and then has three days off. The government pays eight other fellows besides himself $83 per month each as added expenses besides their pay in order to live and board in a private home while on their job. That way it is possible for him to get into Chicago if he wants to. His boyfriend was home on an alert furlough and he merely came home to see him. What a life, eh? But after the tragic end to Clarence's army career, Mrs. Boyer deserves to have Bob get those breaks and more power to Bob if he can keep it.

Hurrah, I drove a jeep not less than a half an hour ago. It wasn't far though just from the Personnel Section over to the H&S Orderly Room. Although I have driven the other type vehicles that is the first time I had the opportunity to sit behind the stirring wheel of one of those little roustabouts. They drive swell and you can't feel the bumps at all. The mechanism or controls are a bit different than the other cars too.

Today was payday and the band played for a spell in the morning at Reveille. As usual, I got the small change of $12.60 and will now proceed to wait out another month. I spent the entire morning working on my payroll system but have it only half completed. I have a complaint to register with the fellows who compute the payrolls because they change the rules on making remarks and never tell the unit clerks. As a result, three fellows in my company did not get extra money coming to them. Not only are they disappointed but we have to go thru the trouble of trying to get it all over again the following month.

My fatigues (my only set because the others are in the wash), were in horrible shape because I was laying in the ditch by the side of the road to watch the movie last night. The reddish mud smeared them up something terrible and as a result, I'm wearing my khakis today. It created quite a sensation when Burkard, Mersing and myself all came out in our Sunday best this morning. The fellows were wondering what the occasion was.

John says his dad is the jolliest conductor on the Madison Street run and that you can recognize him by his stomach. Some description, eh?

Yes, Aunty Clara, it is a good thing that fellows can start gabbing about the old home town, their plans and their friends. It gets their mind off the Army life which they never chose as a career in the first place. I imagine that if a fellow kept to himself all the time and kept thinking over all the little unnice things that happen through the course of the day without every getting together with others to let off steam, he could get himself down in the dumps rather easily. People just have to have that resiliency which enables them to take the little knocks and the harder knocks of life in stride so that they can enjoy the other times.

Tonight is a free night as far as I know now; so I should have the opportunity to answer a few more letters. By the way the Milwaukee nuts are all gone and if those other two packages are every going to come, now is the time for them.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman