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Sgt Roman F. Klick 36620923
HS 1393 Engr APO 709
c/o PM SF Cal
12 Aug 44

Dear Uncle Jack,

Saturday

I received your two V-mails of the last of July but have been unable to answer for several days. Maybe my letters pile up for you during the days in which you do not happen to come around the house, but I really don't see where I am doing so much writing for this is about the first time in two weeks that I am doing any writing to speak of. That is last night, this evening and possibly tomorrow morning. To prove that I have been letting my correspondence slip, I can quote you some twelve unanswered letters from various friends which need attending to. I don't know just what it is that keeps me from writing these days. Goodness only knows that it's not the terrific pace of Army life because we have been free from four o'clock each afternoon until seven o'clock the next morning for quite some time now. One of the main causes for slowing down is seeing so many movies. We have four shows a week in our own theater area and then on the other nights we usually take a ride down to another outfits theater area and see a picture there. At other times it is just plain fatigue which keeps a person from accomplishing anything at all. It is not fatigue from work but more or less a mental (wishful) tiredness which makes a person want to lay down and sleep the war away and not wake up until it is peacetime once again. Then, and this happens quite often, instead of spending an evening in reading, I mean writing, a person will spend it in reading either the latest Time magazines which now come in about a week's time from Hawaii, or the latest Daily Newses which still arrive approximately a month later or some book such as the one I just finished the other week --- "The Song of Bernadette". A soldier just can't seem to stay away from those movies which are the greatest drain on the leisure hours. In civilian life where a person can spend a quiet evening at home listening to the radio, reading the newspapers and a good book while munching on some food from the icebox, the movie is less likely to be the attraction that it is. Also in civilian life a person can go roller skating, dancing, bowling or a million and one other things which just aren't possible in places like these so that the movies assume an all important place in the morale of a GI. Everyone goes to the show and the psychological impact of being away from the crowd and remaining alone for two or three hours is enough to get a fellow going to the show in spite of resolutions to the contrary. A fellow in the army doesn't like the lack of privacy, he doesn't like the way everyone has to do the same things and all that, yet he finds himself following the crowd in what they do even when it is left to his own volition. That is quite a lengthy talk about nothing in particular and I hope that if it bored you, you just skipped it because I intend to talk about other things in the next page.

The Chicago Cubs managed to climb into the select 1st division boys after their nice winning streak of some eleven games and then what do they do but begin losing them again and fall down to the 2nd division. I still have confidence in them, though, and feel certain that the end of the pennant race will find the Cubs either in third or fourth place. Speaking about all the unfamiliar faces on the Cubs ball team, the only ones which I would probably recognize if I should see a game today would be Charley Grimm and Phil Caveretta.

Bob Elson will probably be able to come back to his job without much trouble even if this new fellow is substituting as an announcer very well. He, Bob Elson, is just about one of the nation's top sports announcers; for when it comes to national hook ups of big sporting events broadcast by other announcers from various parts of the country, they very seldom sound as good as Bob. Bob Elson received a commission or something if I remember correctly but there are quite a few good announcers in the service as Privates and Corporals for they are the boys who run these American Expeditionary Stations which are planted on all these islands in the Pacific which are being manned in this war.

From all, the reports coming in over the radio these days and in the Island News, the temperature at home I soaring higher and higher. I don't imagine that the collection job was so very good during those "dog days". I may have told you this before but I can't seem to get tired of repeating it. This Island of Guadalcanal is in the tropics, we have our jungles and it isn't so very far off of the Equator, yet the weather which is continually warm, is never scorching as it is in the city. Working directly in the sun may be rather bad, but the thermometer, I dare say, very rarely reaches the 90 mark in the shade. Of course, there is something which I should take into consideration, but which I have no idea as to what extent it affects my conclusions, and that is the fact that after fifteen months from the States, our systems have become acclimatized to the tropics and we may not notice it as much as a person just arriving in this area. One thing I do know is that when this battalion was formed, quite a few of the boys had just come from the States and they were always working up a sweat while us "oldsters" remained fresh in spite of the heat.

We hope to go for an auto ride tomorrow as has become our Sunday custom although a lot depends upon whether transportation will be available or not.

Good health, wealth and collecting.

So-long,
Roman