Sgt Roman F. Klick 36620923
HS 1393 Engr APO 709
c/p SF Cal
10 December 1944
Dear Aunty Clara,
Sunday
Hi there, and what's cooking? For some unknown reason I feel almost good today. In spite of the fact that I am in the Army and that my teeth hurt me intermittently throughout the day. It is a perfect day --- Sunday's usually are, yet, I suppose that when two-thirty this afternoon rolls around I'll just hike down to the barracks and snore out a few hours.
Two letters came in the mail this AM. One was from you dated the 3d of December and the other one was from Robbin in New Caledonia. He received the advanced Christmas card I sent to him in lieu of a letter and made a reply kind of quick like. In the letter to me he sent two pictures of his wife, Anne, for me to keep. She seems to be a very small girl, has a nice face and a good figure. One picture is taken on a tennis court and the other is just a posed picture with some of those tall Northshore buildings as a background. He wants my comments.
In today's letter you ask me or rather tell me about Charley Matcha not knowing what to ask for furlough or rotation. Well, Robbin asked me the same question too but he seems to think that it will be more of a three year proposition. You know, maybe --- (had to answer two telephone calls just now and by that time lost track of what I began to say). When the time comes for me to put in my bid for rotation or furlough, I believe the best thing to do will be to say furlough --- with it I'll have more chance of getting home by July than if I'd choose rotation just as Charley says there is a difference of over a half a year between the two. Then too, there is no assurance that when you are rotated, you will stay in the States. What good would it be to come home in the dead of winter 1945 for twenty-one days, take some basic training all over again in some cold and freezing camp during January and February 1946 and then go out to the South Pacific again to wind up who knows where? With furlough a fellow gets thirty days with the possibility that it will be in the summer time and then he has no worries as to where he is going to be sent to --- it will be right back to his old job and the people he knows. Other people say that they wouldn't take coming back to an island like this or even enjoy a furlough knowing that they would be returning here. With a long furlough like that under one's belt, a person could take it another nineteen months very easily. Although the ideal situation would be to have the European war end and then be sent home to be demobilized, as excess personnel from this theater. Incidentally, they don't call our section the Southwest Pacific Area anymore but part of the Pacific Ocean Area.
O Yes, I remember what I was going to say at the time of the phone calls. Instead of saying a guy is Island Happy the question could be changed to being Island Unhappy.
And another thing is that the Pussyfoot doesn't come up to the office anymore since she has grown beyond the sleeping-all-the-time stage and now is a bit too frisky to be left wandering around where the trucks might run over her. Because so many fellows tease her all day long. she is getting a little more than playful and wants to bite a person's hand off whenever she can sink her teeth into one. That comes from Lewis feeding her GI meat, no doubt.
Come to think of it, maybe I'll do a little basketball shooting if the court is still empty at two-thirty. I need the sunlight and exercise since ping-pong has been cut out and the afternoon sunbaths are no longer possible under the eight hour day. That is about the only thing a person loses by working eight hours a day and that is the suntan.
So-long for now,
/s/ Roman
Roman