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Cpl Roman F. Klick 36620923
HS 1393 Engr APO 709
c/o PM San Francisco, California
27 May 44

Dear Aunty Clara,

Saturday Nite

I'm having one tough time trying to get letters out to you today. At noon hour I believe that I must have begun at least three or four handwritten letters but with all the interruptions, I never did finish any of them. I believe that there is one that I can send out for there are one or two pages of writing there. After four o'clock we went up to the barracks and began talking over what we were going to have up in the Canteen this evening. The menu consisted of boned chicken, bread, coffee and milk. We were definitely not going near the mess hall for they had salmon patties once again. Well, along about five o'clock Lewis and Sackett began getting ready to go and they asked me to start coming but I gave them that historic remark "I'll be along in just a minute, I won't fall asleep". So I turned over on my other ear and didn't wake up until now --- after ten o'clock. At least when I did wake up, I had enough presence of mind to bring along the two shirts and the two sets of stripes that Mathis said he would sew on for me tomorrow. It was lucky I did for he had been up to the office earlier in the evening looking for them and had left a note for me on my calendar which said on one page "Move it over". On the next page it said "Roman: Where the hell are the shirts? I'll be in around 1000, please have the things ready for sewing. Mathis". You see, it seems that although he was the bugler today, he had made an agreement with Jerry Angert, the H&S Bugler, so that he (Mathis) could take off in the evening to go to the CB show. He has them now and that will save me quite a bit of work and it will be well worth it.

The boy, Milligan, has started off his first day as clerk in S-3 and is doing all right it seems. We haven't gone wrong on thinking he would make a good office worker for the fellows in S-3 have taken to him and have even put him on CQ the very first day. He has applied for membership in the Canteen and Lewis, Sackett and I were very willing to have him come along so we typed up a humorous application for membership to the Canteen which we made him fill out. I can't remember all the things we asked him but if it is still around tomorrow, I will send it to you. Whether he came or not is something I do not know for when I came into the office just a few minutes ago, I glanced over in the direction of the Canteen and saw quite a few faces there but did not see him among the fellows sitting on George Myer's bed. If Milligan becomes a member of the joint, he will be the first non-353rd man to do so.

I'm afraid I didn't accomplish very much work at all today and am pretty disgusted in that fact. Tomorrow is Sunday and you know that we have gone back to that American custom of having Sunday off (sometimes, if you don't sleep too long and get caught for a detail). So, instead of just laying around doing nothing tomorrow, I believe that I will come down to the office and straighten things up a bit so that we will be all set to go on the Monday of the new week. The thing is that I've caught up with my own work and that now it is just a matter of getting ahead of the game so I can pay more attention to the coming payroll which Leishman will have to type up.

Leishman is not panning out so good as a clerk for he continues to repeat certain errors continually even though he has been instructed in the proper procedure on several occasions. Then, to top it off today, he lost (temporarily) the two service records of Holmes and Hudson. There are other small things like that which he should have a little systemized by now but which he hasn't so that when you want any information from him it takes longer to get than from the other clerks. I don't know just what is the trouble. Only time can tell whether he is just late in getting started or whether he isn't going to make the grade.

I received no letters today unless you call getting a letter for the Holy Name Society of the St Valentine Church a letter. They enclosed a mimeographed sheet all about Mother's Day and that I should say a mass on that day for my mother or for someone else if I wanted to. Then they enclosed two of those little cards with religious pictures on the side and a prayer-letter to your mother on the other side. I have given those cards to Jack and thrown the letter away.

For the time being it looks as if Cooley wants out from the Orderly Room and from the job as first sergeant. He has been going out every opportunity he has to work on the heavy equipment and stays away from the Orderly Room as much as possible. In his place is a new fellow called Spinella or something like that. Anyhow we haven't seen Cooley to ask him about putting Jack Molyneaux and Bill Grauel in our same barracks so instead of moving in with us they have been assigned a barracks to our rear.

Speaking of barracks, it seems as if we will have to sleep in mosquito bars once again for it has been found that mosquitoes can get into the buildings despite the protective screening and the closely fitted floors. That is too bad although it has seemed too good to be true that we didn't have to have them. Now that means that extra trouble of having that thing hanging over your bed once again and also of taking the time to tuck it in around you at night before going to bed. It also makes the bed more difficult to make up, I have since discovered. For without the mosquito netting in your way, you can easily fling the blankets and the mattress covers over the bed but with the bar in the way, you can only spread it out from end to end.

My letter writing program for tonight is going to bog down and stop with these two letters alone, I believe, for I'm in no mood to write anyone else any letters. Maybe I can catch them tomorrow. By the way, last night after finishing the letters to you, I did manage to get in two other letters, one being to Mrs Reed and the other being to Tommy Mashos. It was his birthday yesterday so it was appropriate that I should have taken that day to at least answer his letter I received shortly upon coming to the island. I wonder if he ever got my letter which I mailed to his cadet training center in Nashville?

It was a difficult job concentrating on those letters for Gideon Conover Holmes the Third came into the office and wanted to know what the story was on his transfer into B Company. There wasn't any story for me to tell him but that didn't satisfy the boy and he didn't particularly care very much for the idea. However, it isn't as bad as it seems for several other fellows went over with him besides there being quite a few fellows from the old A Company already in B Company from the time the companies reorganized back in New Caledonia.

Then Solomon came in and we chewed the fat still some more and finally decided to take in the midnight movies of Frances Langford in Cowboy from Manhattan. However, there wasn't any transportation available outside of the jeep belonging to Captain Hanton. Cooley wouldn't let us take that to where the show was being held but said we could ride over to the Motor Pool and get ourselves some transportation over there. Unfortunately the truck had already left for the show and we came back without getting outside our camp's area. Then Cooley was sort of giving in and would have let us have the car but by that time we said the show would have been half over anyhow so it wasn't much use in going. They seem to have better shows over there than we do and they also have 35mm films with two cameras so synchronized that it is a continuous showing just as in the real theaters back home. That is one thing which will be a relief yet sort of funny getting used to and that is to see a show straight thru without an interruption. I'll bet that for the longest time, I will be expecting the machine to continually break down.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman