Cpl Roman F. Klick 36620923
Co "A", 353rd Engr Regt
A.P.O. #502, c/o Postmaster
San Francisco, California
10 December 1943
Dear Aunty Clara,
Friday
Well and double well, the Colonel walked thru the tents throughout the Regimental Area and made a surprise inspection. Naturally, fault is found with any and all things during inspections and our office proved to be no exception. In fact, his few sharp words as he looked the joint over brought about an entire afternoon of feverish activity as we fixed up the joint in preparation for his possible review this coming Monday.
For one thing, he disliked the way the clerks have kept papers and whatnots piled high on their desks. And in particular he pointed to my assortment of tin cans (mementoes of Christmas presents, Whitman chocolates and Planter's Peanuts) and said that it didn't look very office like. A few suggestions (orders) were that we ought to have the place fixed up with more shelves and make it look more like an office (probably meaning it looked like a pig pen by insinuation).
Nevertheless, the desks are now cleared of all extraneous materials, they are also washed and Welling has busied himself the entire afternoon in constructing an enclosed rack of shelves. I tossed away the smaller tin cans but the one you sent which still has some hard candy in it is in my desk while the one the Millers sent and the other one that Aunt-Aunt sent are stowed away in my footlocker. (That just shows how big my footlocker is now even though it appears small because I didn't have to take anything out of it to fit those big tins stacked one on the other.)
The Colonel also asked how busy we were, noted that we don't have student clerks working with us anymore and that that we shouldn't be as busy as we were at Camp White. He also wanted to know if we had any chess or checker games around to play in our spare times. The answer to that one was no and would have been even if it was yes because not five minutes before that he bawled Regimental Headquarters out severely for playing checkers at work and they had to throw the set out. Anyway we didn't lose anything on that score because we never did anything like that.
No letters came today but another Daily News did. That Daily News has been a boon in covering up days that otherwise would have been letterless or mail-less. The date was Nov 3.
The greater part of this morning was spent in making entries in the Service Records and typing up various rosters. In what time we spent working this afternoon, I revised another roster and fixed up various allotments for the fellows which I will have to get signed by them this evening.
The Bulldozer came out today in its regular Friday edition and it seemed to have a lot of news about Company A for a change. Maybe that is because the reporter/clerk handed more news in for a change.
By having two separate boxes of Mallow Delights I have been able to hold on to them longer than most candies to date. There is a psychological barrier in opening the second box too soon plus the fact that they are too precious to be eaten with abandon but must be hoarded for a while.
There are still a few hard candies left also. I started out by eating those Mrs Snyder ball candies and ended up finishing off all those other candies which you wrapped up yourself.
Tom Campbell received a letter from Harvey today and it seems that he and Driscoll aren't doing much of anything right now but take life easy. It also appears that he is glad to be in another outfit although the heat is beginning to get him . Mersing or somebody in the Company should be hearing from Driscoll any day now.
So-long,
/s/ Roman
Roman