Sgt Roman F. Klick 36620923
HS 1393 Engr APO 75
c/p SF Cal
27 June 1945

Dear Aunty Clara,

Wednesday



All the fellows talk about time passing fast when you are located in a spot where there are other diversions besides just the Army as was the situation on Guadalcanal; but as for me, it seems to go by much slower. Although it is hard to realize that it is June 1945, the month itself is passing by at a terribly dragged out rate.

I've dipped my typewriter ribbon into the inkwell early tonight so that I can get your letters off to you as well as write a few others besides. After that I'll do my work which is on the fire. The reason I have to come in this evening to do work is that my conscience would bother me if I didn't for I did not do a single thing all morning long. In fact, it was a near miracle that I managed to get all the work connected with the Morning Reports done by twelve noon. The fact of the matter is that I was excessively sleeping and tired out. I just couldn't keep my eyes open and when I would go to write something down my pen wouldn't write what my mind was directing it to do so I merely sat at my chair and did practically nothing, walked around the office and when the mail came in (and a lot of it did - old newspapers and packages from Guadalcanal) I helped Lynd sort it out. This afternoon, however, I woke up and at least accomplished half a day's work. It is very strange but as they day goes on I become progressively more awake and better able to work. I do my best at night, the later the better. I imagine that the whole system stems from the fact that I trained myself in those night tactics by doing my Morton Junior College home work in the wee hours of the morning even going so far as to remain awake to four bells to get those particular mathematics problems in analytic geometry when we were studying various curves. Then too, even when I was going to the Y I would do a bit of reading and studying after that eleven o'clock meal. I suppose that once started on such a life of nighttime activity there is not let up until the nervous system breaks down. Someday that is going to happen too for I never receive the correct amount of sleep and all I am doing is drawing on the reserve powers of my body and when they are gone my physical being will be akin to a person without money in the bank --- he lives from day to day on his current resources.

So much for analysis. Now for the sensational news of the day. I received a birthday card. Well, maybe that wasn't so sensational after all but it is about the only thing that happened today that is anything new. The card was from my Dad, Rose and Rosana with a five dollar money order enclosed with the card. At first I thought he had made a mistake and figured my birthday was in June and not July. But that was not the case for on the inside of the card he had written July 24, 1945. He mailed it out June 18 thinking, no doubt, that from my earlier letters about the poor mail service we are getting, it would take ages to arrive. For some reason it is the fastest bit of mail I have received since Guadalcanal onely nine days (only).

The verse was very nice and appropiate/appropriate but also sad. Here it is, "All that you are planning on and all you hope to do, All that you are counting on and looking forward to, All that means the most to you. Son, in every way, All that leads to dreams come true This wishes you today."

Say, I got hold of a ten guiler Jap invasion note which I will send to u under separate enclosure. This note must have been used by the Japs in the Dutch East Indies and is really a beautiful bill and does not look like the Philippine Jap invasion money at all. The Filipinos call the Jap notes "Mickey Mouse Money."

Also in today's mail I received some six Daily Newses which I am trying to read but do not seem to have time to. And in addition to that and my Dad's card, I received two letters from Blumenfeld but they weren't really letters. Mainly enclosures of the CCCR and that paper he gets called In Fact. All his note said was that he knew where I was and he also knew I had left the Canal and hadn't written until he heard from me. He says he is going to write in a few days. I am going to have to write to him this evening and inform him as to the details of Charles Matcha's furlough and the result of it although he must have some idea as to what occurred by this time.

We have a new man from Company C working in the office as a file clerk and a general typist assistant to Norona. Norona really is getting to have more work than anyone in this office and for the amount of hard work he puts in per day he really should have a better rating than merely a Tec 4. However, the Army does not allot ratings according to the amount of work done but according to what the job is. The company clerks are the boys that are really getting the short end of the deal. Ever since 1942 when there was a stink about the Company Clerk being only a Cpl. They have been receiving additional duties to their already burdensome and responsible job --- but nary a word or an effort in their direction except for the 353d giving their company clerks T/4's right after we left the outfit. O yes, Bert Jolley, who used to be Jack's assistant when he went to a Spare Parts Platoon became corporal and then was promoted above the T/O to T/4.

I have not as yet worked on the cards for the three birthdays which are coming up on the 14th of July but I haven't really had the time. I feel fairly sure that if I do get them done and in the mails by the 3d of July, they will arrive on time.

Also during the course of the afternoon and during the course of this evening I have and will be busy typing up these Public Relation forms for news items back home. It doesn't take very long or too much effort to type up one of them but when you begin typing five, ten and twenty of them it becomes as immense job.

This living in the thriving and teeming metropolis they call the Pearl of the Orient is going to be expensive for most people. Whereas on the Canal everyone saved their money to a point of it becoming a mania, here it is just the opposite conditions that prevail and it looks as if no one is going to have enough money to spend. One thing which makes it go twice as fast as the high war time prices in Manila.

Lewis says that the concert was not so especially wonderful since the music was a bit too heavy for one who is not a lover of the deeply classical type and I figure my reaction would be quite similar and will not go Friday night.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman