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Sgt Roman F. Klick 36620923
HS 1393 Engr APO 709
c/o PM SF Cal
14 August 1944

Dear Aunty Clara,

Monday

In spite of the prodigious amount of letter writing which I did yesterday, I failed to attain one of my most important aims and that was to send one to Pat. It isn't that I didn't try for I did so for over an hour yet the results were so disappointing that I called the whole thing off until another day. After a series of mediocre letters to her, I want to write one that is worthy of the cause and that wasn't it. I've got an idea for writing a very good letter to her but I'm very leery of attempting it because I don't know just how it will go over. I don't want to say what it is just now but if I actually write it, I am most likely going to send it to you for censoring. It is that important that I am afraid of my own judgment and would like you to read it and then, if you say it is in bad taste, that will be all there is to it. I'm not trying to be mysterious or anything, it is just that I may not even write the thing and so nothing further may ever be said on the subject.

This morning's mail brought two Newses and two V-mails. The one was from you dated the 7th of August and the other one was from Mrs Reed which means some more letter writing tonight. One of the Daily Newses dated away back to the 8th of April with the other one being more recent history, June 30th.

I hope that I can see Buffalo Bill when and if it ever comes around these parts. How come Aunty Florence doesn't choose to go to the shows? She isn't working at Ackermann's anymore so she should be a whole lot more peppy.

You must be getting a GI mind, Aunty Clara, in matters concerning these inspections we have been having. Most of them are trivial and don't mean a thing although sometimes there are important ones. However, your ideas are right and wrong; for instance, there are mess kit inspections held in the barracks with our mess kits on the bed, there are other mess kit inspections with the equipment being checked as we enter the mess hall. There are checks to see if foot lockers are neat, shoes dubbed, blankets folded, buttons buttoned, floors swept and mopped, whether we have all of our equipment and clothes, whether our rifles are rusty or not, whether we brushed our teeth at noon and cleaned the dirt from underneath the nails of our little fingers. You can easily see for yourself that all those come under the category of the severe type of inspection and the punishment for not passing one of them is to dig a hole in the ground --- the kind they later build houses and seats over.

We had a Praying Mantis in the office this morning and all of us fellows had an interesting time watching him eat a moth which he caught. He began eating it alive starting at the wing tips and the end of the body and working or eating up to the head. It is very savage and cannibal to witness one body eating another one which is still kicking in desperation but I guess that is life in the insect world.

I suppose that Dolores will send you a note of thanks rather promptly for sending her the films. She is very good about that sort of thing and has that knack of understanding the feelings of other people. It is funny how some people are just the opposite in that respect. One person can tell by instinct just what the right thing to do is while another person will flounder around and end up by doing the wrong thing anyway. Did I guess correctly, and did she send you a note of thanks immediately? After all that talking and raving about her little baby, I'm really expecting to see something special in the line of infants. Up to now, I haven't been able to tell much difference between one child and another but if Do can say "I'm not bragging, but -" and if El can say "The baby really is cute" there must be some grounds for those superlatives.

So-long,
/s/ Roman
Roman