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

Dear Aunty Clara,

Thursday

The time now is approximately seven bells and now it is closer to eight bells. In between the beginning and the ending of that sentence I helped Lynd sort out the mail. Can you beat it, every time I help sort the mail lately, I don't even get a smell of it but if I'm not present at the sorting, I will get one every time. This afternoon, during the parade, Lynd must have sorted out some 50 bags of mail while Jack and I were out there parading. When I came back, there was a letter I mean package from Orres, Doris and Lynne. It was two boxes of Mrs. Snyder's candies - Special Assortment of which one box is already gone. I'm going to try my will power to keep from opening the other box this evening for I know full well that should I do that, there will not be anything for tomorrow.

O yes, right now the H&S Company dinner-dance is going on --- at least the dancing part with the Band's jive five making with the music. The gals came around six-fifteen about eight of them, I guess, and they were seated in various parts of the mess hall and it was a matter of where you happened to be in the chowline whether or not they were at one of your tables. They were not at our table. Since a fellow had to wear his khakis to eat this evening and had to wear khakis if he wanted to stay down there for the party, I decided to not go and got in my fatigues. You see, we wore our khakis to the parade, then to eat and they are supposed to last me thru next Thursday for the working hours of the day and at that rate, they would be well perspired before the allotted time. Therefore, fatigues are the order of the night.

The parade was not a bad affair and is a lot better than an inspection in ranks or a barracks inspection. If that is what we could have in lieu of inspections, I would willingly endure it, even though it too is a lot of foolishness. Whoever engineered the parade did a bang up job and everything came off with clocklike precision --- or at least so it seemed. We formed in marching order in our company areas and then mounted trucks according to our places in the formation so that when we detrucked at the parade grounds, the entire battalion was fully assembled and ready for marching without so much as saying boo. We had one dry run which I believe came off better than the real thing when we did it the second time. Then back we came to the company. The parade grounds were pretty bad in that it was not smooth and a fellow did not know if he was going to step on a rock or into a gopher hole.

The morning brought no letters although I did get two newses. There remains for me the job of getting out sixteen Christmas cards yet all of which I have to write little words in --- they are the more important ones. I hope that, in spite of the late date which I am sending them, they will arrive before Christmas.

By the way, that idea of yours in marking my name and address on the boxes themselves and all over the inside is a good idea since you would be surprised at how these packages get ripped up so that a person can't tell who it is for. Some complete wrecks have been repacked in Frisco before being sent across and others have arrived here in a completely wrecked condition. Just today we received one with no names or addresses --- just stamps. Now, if the person who sent it had the forethought to include an address on the inside, the soldier will get it, but if not, it will probably just wind up as undeliverable.

Hey, from the noise that music is making down in the mess hall, I believe they have the entire band there instead of the jive five. If that is true, my Bulldozer item of yesterday is haywire. It was already gone awry in that we said the Mess Sgt had a meal rivaling that of Thanksgiving Day. It was a good meal alright with ice cream, cocoa and cake but nothing to compare with what we had then.

Say, I didn't tell you about the surprise I received yesterday. I pulled a package out of the mail and it had a return address on it from Cicero, Illinois and immediately I began to look at it with almost personal interest. Then I looked at the address and it said 1834 S. 49th Ave and it seemed that there was some mistake --- but when I looked to see who it was sent to, I almost fell over --- Edgar Lynd, the mail clerk, sorting mail right beside writes to a Yvonee Smith living at that address just a street away from my Dad's house. Lynd is from Michigan (Coldwater) and says this woman just started writing to him like that and he says he doesn't know how she got his address. It is a small world. Then today a package came in for the Major who is also from Michigan as Lynd is and it was from a few doors away from where Vi Kolar used to live. So it's altogether possible some of us might have met in civilian life instead of the Army. That is something like Rathborne where just about everyone had some outside connection where they knew common acquaintances or already knew of each other.

Tomorrow evening they have a good show at the nearby outfit and I'm going to try to go to see if even if Jack Molyneaux does try to talk me out of it again.

Dear Aunty Clara, this letter is now being finished at approximately eleven-thirty at night. Two things held me up. One was the fellows coming back from the dance and talking it over. At least three fellows from the office forces had a good time down there. They were Bill Grauel, Douglas Leishman and William Milligan. They said that very few fellows were dancing and that there was little cutting in so they all managed to have a good evening. The party ended at nine o'clock.

The second thing which was really the maininterruption and which didn't stop interrupting until just now was the latest edition of Time magazine. It was dated the 20th of Nov so you can see it is mighty fresh news. It is a South Pacific Pony Edition printed in Hawaii. To read the entire book thru from cover to cover takes easily three hours ---- less if you skim here and there but still cover the main subjects pretty thoroughly.

Now, I'm in a mess. It is very late at night. I was tired to begin with at the very start of the day. I was tired out on the drill field this afternoon and I fell asleep in my chair during the course of the evening. Yet, here I am awake as a near midnight hour without having a break or a nap. Another thing is that I didn't get around to taking my evening shower and I hate like anything to go down there at this time of the night. And another thing is that I did not get the postcard mailed as I intended to. All in all, I've frittered the evening away rather effectively.

Tomorrow is payday and I'll be in the chips once again, I hope. O yes, the first box of candy was gone and after several hours of reading, I just had to open the second one up and it is a home made assortment which has about eight or nine rows of candy in which one type of candy is all along that row. Mathis ate all the vanilla creams and I the walnut-carmels. But of course it just wouldn't be write-right to make a hog of oneself today so I'll wait until tomorrow to do that.

The barracks is a mess account of I didn't put any of my junk away yet and I'll have to take care of all those things tomorrow morning before going to work. Speaking of life in the barracks, reminds me that we received our laundry back today and gosh was it ever stinky. Remember the time I let the clothes soak in the water down in New Caledonia and how I had to use a gas mask to put them up on the line and then had to take them down because they were stinking up all the tents? Well, that is the way these clothes smelled and no one could figure out how come they soured so quickly --- one day no a day and a half. Everything had to be hung up to air out.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman