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

Dear Aunty Clara,

Tuesday

For a short spell I thought I was going to have to type tonight's letter on plain ordinary stationery instead of V-mail for my supply was gone and we couldn't find any around the office. That is, we couldn't find any until we did.

The mail situation from the States has assumed a stern aspect again and we suffered a drought of it once again. Lynd came back in the morning with less than nothing but promised that in the afternoon there would be quite a bit. So, in the afternoon, he came back with about fifteen letters. Can you imagine that?

By the way, the time is late at night once again and I went to the show this evening. There is an involved story behind that going to show this evening. The picture was lousy --- a Technicolor musical comedy with Dick Powell, Dorothy Lamour and Cass Daley and I'm sorry I went after all. After a hard day at the office (meaning I worked the full eight hours at a typewriter), I was in no mood to work on my own time at night if I could help it; therefore, when I heard of some work bobbing up for this evening, I figured I would enjoy myself (supposedly) at the show rather than sit up here during the show working on something or another. As it turned out I believe I would have much rather done some work although it turned out that there was none to be done.

The morning reports turned out smoothly this morning and several other jobs needed straightening out before I could clear my desk for action on the January pay vouchers which I thought I might as well begin on. However, complications soon arose and I decided to refrain from that bit of work for the day as I straightened the complications out. Then, when I came back to work in the afternoon, Lewis wanted something typed up concerning this getting out of the Army when the European war is over. We are running off all information concerning that happy time and action on stencils so that every man in the battalion can have a copy of this notice to satisfy his curiosity etcetera. It was a huge job of typing and between Norona and myself we typed out 26 stencils this afternoon. That sort of typing I did not mind so very much for it was straight copy work and the errors made on a stencil are very quickly, conveniently and efficiently removed with a paper clip and correction fluid.

When a person types for about three hours without a let-up, he gets to do it automatically and I was fairly flying across the keys by just looking at a word and having it transform itself into print. With a good typewriter and simple copy like that to work on all day long, I can see how it would be easy to build up a high speed on the machine. The general routine typing up of forms, cards, military letters, indorsements, etcetera, however, precludes any buildup of speed for it is all stop and go typing with no sustained performance.

The boys are going to be able to get themselves all pie-eyed when Christmas day comes around for from the looks of things each man is going to be rationed a case of beer apiece. In fact, the ration for December thus far seems to have been higher than for any other month yet. Sackett is getting the last half of my ration this time while Pop Vogt received the first half. Bill Grauel has been saving his beer right along and hopes to get feeling happy when the holidays come along. How anyone can deliberately plan on getting stinko is beyond me. I'm going to have to find someplace to go that day or else I'll be playing nursemaid to a whole barracks of men.

We had to undergo an hour long lecture again today on speeding. Every time there is a speeding violation by any one in the company, the entire roster of fellows with GI driver's licenses have to meet in the mess hall while two or three lieutenants and sergeants give a lecture. It doesn't seem fair that so many men should have to suffer for the crime of one yet who knows but that those lectures might have cut down some potential speeding violation. Anyhow, the next lecture (and human nature dictates that there will almost certainly be more speeding violations) is going to be two hours long. Captain Hanton said he is going to make up a roster of the company and only those men who must have a license will retain them. I've thought of turning mine in long ago when lectures began eating up an evening hour every once in a while but since I'm one of the assistant mail clerks I find it necessary to drive down to the post office and then again those Morning Reports get out late on occasion and I have to drive them down. Other than that and the convenience it is to have a license for emergencies and keeping in practice at driving a vehicle, I wouldn't need one. That is one thing I have watched very scrupulously and that is to keep within the maximum speed limits at all times so that part of it never bothers me any --- only the lectures.

Last Christmas our package days were over about the first week of December but this one seems to be holding a few surprises for us. Here it is Christmas week and the package which you and Aunty Florence sent has not yet arrived. And I am not alone in waiting for packages that were never delivered. And then there is the matter of Christmas cards. I can not believe that the handful I received this year is all that I am going to get. There again others are in the same boat. It would be swell if all these missing items arrive just before Christmas --- say on Saturday or Sunday.

The boys of the H&S basketball team have been down on the basketball court for nearly two hours now practicing their different plays. They have never been able to get together during the daytime so they made it for after the show and then on into the night until they wear themselves to a frazzle. Lewis and Grauel are down there now. I looked out at them for a bit and it was sort of funny to watch that lighted court away down there in the field while all the rest of the world was pitch black. And from where I stood the sounds they made were also blotted out so that it made it all seem so unreal.

It is another funny thing how many fellows come up to a person and ask him to loan them an airmail envelope and when you tell them you don't have any and don't use them, they look at you with a queer look in their eyes. They do not realize a person could use V-mail exclusively to all the other forms.

The basketball players have just come up from the hill or up the hill from the bottom and are now trying to cool off with ice water. Lewis is about the only fellow who worries about the sudden chill. Sometimes I wonder whether there is any truth to that business about falling over dead from drinking a cold drink on a heated body. I've never known anyone to keel over yet nor have I ever felt bad when I had been careless about it.

Norona is a funny lad. He has spent days upon days in copying words and definitions out of the dictionary and now he is typing them on sheets of paper. I've asked him if he is remodeling Dr Johnson's Dictionary and he says no, that he is writing Norona's Dictionary.

Holy smoke, I'm wondering if this letter will ever be completed. I mentioned soccer to Moreno as being a tough sport --- just as tough as basketball and now he has been telling me the athletic history of his brother through his high school and college days and now how he sent his brother thru college. The other night as I typed a letter thru he told me all about some R. Sabatini story, "Bardley's Magnificent" or some such thing. Oh, oh, I had to ask him what the name of it so I could type it down and now I'm getting a dissertation on how Sabatini writes his books --- emphasis, coherence and unity.

Moreno likes to talk more than anything else I guess for one night I was leaving him alone about ten-thirty in the evening and he insisted I stay so that he could have someone to talk to.

Happy New Year once again.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman