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Sgt Roman F. Klick 36620923
HS 1393 Engr APO 709
c/p SF Cal
5 December 1944

Dear Aunty Clara,

Tuesday

I feel good and bad, both at the same time. For one thing, I've worked straight thru the full eight hours of the day without a let up once again, but also, on I spent a very good portion of that time on other work besides my own. I'm keeping a little tabulation of the different jobs which I have to do and then when anyone calls me to account for why certain work wasn't done, I'll just refer to these little notes and ask them just when I could squeeze it in.. Last night was a full night for we worked until after nine o'clock and then there was merely time enough to take a shower and read a few pages of a book before hitting the hay. Tonight is going to be a busy night again. Right now all the fellows except Jack, Lewis, Ebner and myself are out on some training so we have to stay here until they get back. Then there is laundry to turn in, a moving picture to run off, a rifle to clean and another page of V-mail to write. Usually I would welcome the chance to remain in the office and work rather than go outside but with the changing conditions I find it would be more beneficial to my peace of mind to leave the office for those few hours - but peace of mind or not, I've been stuck in here on one job or another all afternoon.

Then tomorrow --- thank goodness --- I'll not have to be in the office at all for a bunch of us fellows have to go down to the Island Command the first thing in the morning to take some sort of test. I don't know just what it is yet, probably some kind of survey of the soldiers. They do that once in a while and pick several men at random from a unit. Then, when I get back from that, I'll have to go out for the training which this week is practicing firing our rifles again.

O yes, Jack and I are off again and this time I'm good and sick and tired of him. I don't know whether he was ribbing me or not but I didn't take his humor in that vein but in full seriousness. He dumped quite a bit of my files and folders out of a drawer onto my desk (after I got the drawer fixed up so that he could use it to keep Sackett's orders, memos etc in it). After I saw that he wasn't putting them back in again, I asked him what the story was and he told me that they weren't going to go back in. Of all the petty little things I never saw the likes of it and told him so. And it is petty because it doesn't even make a good story telling it over again. But it got me mad that he looked out for himself, let me help him out and then told me it was tough luck for my own files --- there being no other place to put them but in the waste basket. Then, he gets mad at me, for bawling him out and calling him a petty chiseler. Sometimes I wonder just what has happened --- is it the atmosphere?

There is a little more to it than that, though, for last night Jack got out of the way and I ended up by typing up twice as many letters as he did. Then he tried to skip out and leave the rest of us with all the work. There is no doubt about it that he is always looking out for himself but when it hurts other people and makes them do his share of the work, it is unfair and I resent it. Yet Jack very illogically blows up when you call his attention to that fact and thinks that it is his perfect right to do that. And to make matters worse he will laugh in your face and say that you are a sucker for doing his work or something that he has been told to do.

Yet, even though we are "off" again, I feel no qualms of conscience, and particularly, I feel no loss.

The fellows still haven't returned as yet so maybe there is a chance for me to get started on the next page. The Officer Pay Vouchers were finally completed today and I've sent them out to all the officers to get signed.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman