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Sgt Roman F. Klick 36620923
HS 1393 Engr APO 75
c/p SF Cal
13 Jun 45

Dear Aunty Clara,

Wednesday

This was the day which I was supposed to have off but which I didn't have off. Thinking of not being able to go into Manila previous to this day made me feel worse than actually living and working thru the day when I could and should have been taking life easy. The reason I figured I didn't feel too bad about it is that I put in a good day's productivity. Mostly in the afternoon as I finished up the officer's pay vouchers. This evening I must still knock out the Medical Detachment payroll for Lt Suiter wants all the vouchers and pay rolls in by tomorrow morning. Also this evening I must remain in the office to get the officers signed up on the payroll as they come in. There is a show called "Pan-American" but I will not go there to see it. The only show I intend going to see is the one about the tree in Brooklyn where all the boys and gals are good looklyn.

Also instrumental in keeping up my morals and making the day okay as far as I personally was concerned were the two v-mails this morning and the follow up this afternoon by another two v-mails. The dates were the 30th of May, the 1st and 2nd for your letters and one from Uncle Jack of the 30th. Those were mighty interesting letters from you especially since they had so much to do with the buying of the roses for Pat.

Gee whiz, it is too bad that the middle initial of her name was blurred because I don't know it. My hunch is that it was an R and that the R stands for Ruth. She seems to fit my picture of what a girl by the name of Ruth should look like and before I knew her name I halfway thought her name should be Ruth. It would be extremely coincidental now if that actually was it.

Say, it is also a good thing that the Life published that list because after all neither you nor I had anything definite to go on that she was really graduating this June. Even though she is a A-1 student she might have elected to switch around her program so that graduation wouldn't have occurred just now etcetera.

I guess you hit it on the nose about you, Aunty Florence (and myself) being more excited about the roses than Pat probably will be. She may be very blaze about the entire affair and just put them along side ten dozen other bouquets from the other admirers a girl like her must certainly have. That just about sums it up - to us it is "the" bouquet; while to her it is one of the bouquets.

But, to continue on the same subject, I guess you are about the best purchasing agent a fellow could have for your description of the roses and the added white vase which was all your idea surpasses even my dreams of what it might be like. Thank you a whole lot, Aunty Clara, for taking such pains in getting everything just perfect - even to the white forgery.

And then again, in a way I'm frightened (not really but figuratively) that I don't know what I'm letting myself in for. Am I being foolish to be concerned with her? Three things can happen. - No, four different outcomes can result from this tame courtship by correspondence; (1) I'll come home, like her as much as I dream of liking her but she won't give two hoots for me. I put that first because that is one of the two most likely to happen results. (2) I come home and find myself indifferent to her after knowing her better than the acquaintance relationship we were on when I left and she also is indifferent. That is in a tie for the number one position for what might happen. (3) Again I come home but this time I am indifferent whereas she built up a dream during the years and actually is not disillusioned by my actual presence and she likes me. This I class in the realm of the improbably and the less likely to happen. (4) Of course, the last one in the most pleasant of all to contemplate but is like number 3, probably not likely to occur. That is that both she and I find that it was fate that brought us together and that we both like each other and want to continue on that way.

In any event, one of the above four situations is bound to occur if I come back and I have spent considerable amount of time day dreaming as to my reactions to each. By virtue of contemplating those various possibilities, I am building up a sort of insurance against possible heartbreak should I wish for a certain one. Supposing I like her and she doesn't like me. What then? Will I just accept it as one of those things or will I be persistent and try to make her change her mind? I think now I will relegate her to the back of my mind as one of the pleasanter events of my lifetime and on rare occasions upon seeing her again, I would have sort of a sad tinge of reminiscence of what might have been. Now, number two, the mutual indifference is quite probably since it has occurred once previous during my furlough when we just said so-long to each other right in the middle of it and I didn't bother trying to see her again. In the eventuality of its re-occurrence there would be no reaction because that is what indifference implies. Number three with me being indifferent to her attentions seems the most fantastic to two reasons. One being that I just can't imagine Pat becoming that emotional nor can I imagine myself not reacting to that condition favorable. The last one is pleasant in the fact that not only has this waiting period turned out to be beneficial but also in the fact that it would be a fulfillment of one's normal life pattern. Yet, is that what I want out of this life? I've said before that sometimes I believe I was made to be a bachelor and under plan number four that would hardly be probable. One thing is certain and that is if I can be so coldly analytic about the situation, I am in no immediate danger of anything.

Quite a long discussion over one woman, eh? Well, every so often I go off on a tangent and have to talk the situation over with you and then forget it for another little while.

From what we hear at this end concerning soldiers who get sick towards the end of their furloughs whether it be intentionally or otherwise, they are sent back over to their stations. If that policy is correct, I should imagine that Charles will be sent back by hospital train and sick bay on boat in order to meet his returning date. However, since the war in Europe is long over and since furloughs and rotation are now a thing of the past, perhaps they will not be so very stringent and might even surprise everybody by discharging him. You never can tell what the army is going to do.

Since you mentioned the picture with the three of us on as being the best one, I presumed it was the one in which Bill, Rocky and I are standing and leaning against the jeep. I haven't received the letter telling me you received the pictures but merely the other letters commenting on them and also telling me of other people's comments on them. Therefore, I asked Rocky if he has the negative for that pic and he is going to send home for it so I can get more printed. Andy Mathis has received most of his extra prints and in a few days I'll have them all on hand. I'll send you the ones of him for safekeeping and the others of me I will begin to send out indiscriminately to my correspondents as I answer their letter (which I hope will be forthcoming within the next week or two).

Say, Aunty Florence can keep on lining up the girlfriends for me and I can say that she didn't do a bad job at all (a very good job in fact) with Frances. Insurance against plans number one, two and three with Pat. Just so that there is no misunderstanding over Aunty Florence's letters this time, I will state that as yet I have not received it although in the v-mail you wrote on the 2nd, you said she had written to me on the previous day.

You sure do have your troubles at that meat line, don't you? If all these women get up so early to get a number at the butcher shop, what does the butcher do, just stay up all night so he can issue out the ticket numbers when the first shoppers wake up? All I have to do is wait in the chow line and mess kit wash line daily and although I thought the ten minutes in each of them was bad before, I can see now that they are child's play compared to your all morning waits in the meat line. Why even the Guadalcanal Service Club Ice Cream Line at it worst was not as bad as the Cicero meat line. It used to be a joke about the Army men always falling in at the end whenever they saw a line but now it is turned about with the civilians on the end of those jokes.

You never mentioned to me that it is hard to get eggs. Or don't you just have them because you don't want them - or is the price too high? Maybe I was having eggs more often than you were on the Canal and I never knew it.

There isn't very much local news today except that there has been a change of administration in our kitchen. Our former mess sergeant, Varge Halcomb, the cousin of one of the first cooks, Claude Halcomb, is no longer the head man. In his place has been substituted a fairly new man, Lyman Ellis, a Tec 4 first cook. He is something on the order of Uncle Joe, a hale and hearty fellow who works hard and will fix up a little extra "for the boys." I hope he can bring our kitchen up on par with the others in the Battalion. I'm sorry, though, that Bob Tiffany didn't get it for I have always pictured him as a mess sergeant and he was one of the old boys from Camp White and a good cook to boot. Pop Vogt, the old man from New York who used to run his own hash house also quit the kitchen. He is over forty but doesn't want a discharge just yet. At first I thought he was crazy but after talking the situation over with him, I discovered he had his reasons. The Chaplain's assistant, Donald Ericksen, has asked and received removal from his job. You can see that even though they are in the army the fellows have a pretty fair freedom in choice of occupation. A contented soldier will put out more than one who doesn't like his job.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman