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Sgt Roman F. Klick 36620923
HS 1393 Engr APO 73
c/p SF Cal
30 May 1945

Dear Aunty Clara,

Wednesday

Eureka! A letter arrived at last. For a while it looked as if we were beginning a permanent dearth as far as mail was concerned. It wasn't V-mail that I received but your air-mail letter of the 16th in which you enclose the snapshots of both you and Aunty Florence.

Say, even if the film wasn't any too good, those pictures were alright anyway. I liked all of them and think they are some of the best you two have had taken. The magnifying glass isn't with me at the present time for I sent it in one of the office boxes when we began moving and we haven't opened them up yet, so the observations are just with the pictures as they are. I like all three pictures of you and am having a hard job deciding which one I like the best. I believe it is the one in which you are standing on the front steps in just the dress. That coat sure is a dressy number and especially with the fancy clip. I suppose one has to take the hat along with the coat but we'll let that pass. The dress you have on underneath the coat in the picture of you standing on the sidewalk is also okay. You two sure look classy in all those new clothes.

The two pictures of Aunty Florence which I like the best are the ones in which she is sitting on the steps and standing on the steps. She looks youthful, beautiful and shapely on those and the light is the best. That too is a nice dress with those drapes going down each side from top to bottom. Of course there can't be much comment on the one with the coat in the dark. On the last two, Aunty Florence looks like a fashion model. That outfit where she is standing in the sidewalk dressed up in the coat, is (in the words of the Easter Parade announcer) simply stunning. If Aunty Florence and I were walking down the street again, I'd bet I'd have another boyfriend asking me who the girlfriend was. (I'll never forget that time she and I came home from the Spanish Club and that one fellow just wouldn't believe it was my Aunt). And the last one with her standing against the corner stone in the plainer dress looks exactly like one of those pictures taken from the Women's Page of the Daily News, doesn't it? I sure hope that you can get some film and take more pictures, but I don't think you can beat these even if you pose in the identical positions.

It rained during the night last night and the end of my bed got wet although I didn't notice it until I woke up. Or did I tell you that in the latter I wrote this afternoon?

This afternoon was a lazy dazy affair. I continued to progress on the officer pay vouchers and I am almost at a point where I can see them at completion but not quite. If the lights are on in the office this evening which they seem to have good intentions for, I'll probably continue to work on them after writing a short letter to George Prokopec whom I have not had an opportunity to answer as yet. Your letters I can write in the dark but I can't do that with other people's letters.

Today I saw the first Filipino girl who was really good looking, but, darn it, she was still a small girl. Quite a few of the girls are nice looking but not according to our standards. Eugene Burdick, the great lover, has already made headway out here and has a girlfriend by the name of "Conception" - funny name but that's it - and he has her doing his wash for him for free and her cousins bring him pineapples and bananas when he is over to her house. What a man, no matter where he is he exerts an irresistible charm over the women and they will do anything for him.

The price of bananas is soaring so we have stopped buying them. They now are asking one peso for five - that is ten cents per banana - whereas the first and second day they were approximately one or two cents apiece.

Today I also managed to obtain a purse for the price or the equivalent price of nine pesos for I am actually worth only a two peso note and that was borrowed from Sgt Sackett just in case I might need it. So far my two souvenirs - the shoes and the purse - have cost me nothing as far as cash goes and I'm glad that these people like to trade. Now for the doll and for a hat and I'll be all set. Incidentally, we can send home as souvenirs several pesos, Japanese Invasion money and the Tagalog Times (the local newspaper) so I am sending those items to you today via envelope.

This is an itemized list of what I am sending. One Philippine Two Peso Note, in Japanese money a fifty centavo note, a one peso note, a five peso note, a ten peso note and a 100 peso note, and the Tagalog Times.

We have finally gone off the 10 in one rations and are back to the mess hall's menu. And that was okay this afternoon when I not only ate the mess hall's food but also the dinner rations from our box. Both this afternoon and evening we had the ever delicious pineapple slices. I could sit and eat myself blue in the face with pineapple and there have been occasions back in the old camp when I have done just that.

O say, I just got hold of a five peso note and I believe it is the most interesting of all the Filipino currency so I am sending it to you also in the envelope with the other money. It is the one with Admiral Dewey and President McKinley both on each end of the note.

The Special Services received a few magazines and among them was one called "Amazing Stories" a pulp magazine. It has some of those fantastic imaginative stories about mad scientists and startling new scientific facts. One story was about a fellow who wanted to escape war so he invented a process to freeze his body and have it taken care of for centuries, at which time (when wars had been abolished by civilization) he would be brought back to life. And eventually a scientist and a descendant of his friend who had originally put him into the cosmic refrigerator, brings him back to life. But he tells a story that they are deep underground and "safe". He says that for two hundred years the world was at peace but now with the advance of science they have begun a war of world destruction. The cause: a difference over the leader "The Immortal One" and it turned out to be the fellow himself who hated war.

This extra page to the letter tonight has been added because just as I finished writing the last line of the second page, a fellow from B Company came up and wanted change for a 20 peso note from me so I had to give it back up and must tell you about it before you expect to find it in your letter. I will send home a five peso note after payday. The twenty peso note which we are not allowed to send home has a picture of some kind of mountain on it.

Just took time out to mix myself a drink of lemonade. As long as those dehydrated juices last it is okay. Back home again the dehydrated drinks are more bulky than this army one. It is a small flat square with scarcely a teaspoon full of powder in it and it will make two-thirds of a canteen cup full of juice.

I don't know if Pedro will come around tonight for there was no laundry for him to bring back or no laundry to collect. Last night he brought his sister's two children along to carry the laundry. The first time he carried it himself and he was sweating profusely and, being a white-collared man, that did not appeal to him so he now has his assistants shouldering the burden.

O heck, a bit of must do immediately work has come up so that will kill some of my time both from writing George's letter and doing the pay vouchers. But I'll not begin on it until I finish this letter. After all even if it is a must affair, it will not go out until tomorrow morning anyway so what matters if it is done at eight o'clock or nine o'clock this evening?

The sunsets out here are homesickening for they are just as we would see them from the back porch or from the dining room window. The same kind of clouds and even the same kind of light streaming into the tent as comes into our house just about twenty minutes before it is time to turn the lights on. All the other places had sunsets peculiar to themselves but this had our own kind.

Whew, just by accident I went to look at my socks and the bottom of my pant legs when I saw a thousand legger begin crawling up my shoe. I may be used to a lot of insects and bugs but that thing would still have given me the creeps crawling up my leg or neck. The other night they tell me a Filipino lizard was crawling on my mosquito bar. They are horrid looking things compared to the sleek, trim and quick lizards we had at the last island. These have rocky sand colored body, with a large head, great big lamps of eyes, and are slow moving and fat. They have five fingers, each with a suction cup attached to the bottom of it and they make with a noise that sounds exactly like the first beep of a klaxon horn. You know the klaxons a fellow has on his bike and has to push down with his fist to make the noise.

Say here is another unusual feature of this country. Do you remember having seen pictures of oxen yoked to carts and slowly plodding along the roads of foreign countries? Well, while they do not have many of them, there are enough to be noticeable. Big and small oxen all yoked up and just about moving.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman