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

Dear Aunty Clara,

Friday

Maybe this evening I might get to bed a bit earlier than heretofore. I can't remember the last time I went to sleep before one o'clock in the morning except for Saturday night when I came back from Manila. The time is slightly before nine o'clock and I am first beginning the evening's stint. However, I received only mail from you today (17th and 18th) so I'll not have to answer any mail tonight. My evening's run on pretty much the same pattern in that I lay resting on my cot for about an hour or so after supper (when we are not moving out tent) and then I pick myself up, take my shower and clean up any mess I've made around my area. I've got everything pretty well under control and I want to keep it that way and it only takes a little added bit of energy each day to keep things up to snuff rather than just letting it slide and having a mess accumulate.

First I'll answer your letters and comment on same if commenting is needed. Hey, Senor G sure did guess my location right about being in Manila even though he had nothing to go by but intuition. First Uncle Jack guessed I was coming to the Philippines which I did and then Senor G with his guess. Mighty smart fellows, eh wot? Say, you are not just kidding about fellows going to forget about the little women back home in favor of the Filipino girls. Just last Sunday (I may have mentioned this to you) an American soldier married a Filipino girl. And here as in every previous station you can obtain permission of the higher ups and get married. After all races have intermarried before and although the Filipino is not a white person, he is the whitest brown-skinned people on earth.

Gee, I hope nothing does happen to our refrigerator. Having all those friends of yours not having refrigerators or ones that are no longer in working condition makes one appreciate the necessity it really is in the modern day and age. As long as the war is on I guess we will have to worry about the machine's health but when the boxes are on the market again, if ours breaks down we can get a better one, right? Always better.

Hey don't go dreaming any dreams about Japs making me prisoner. From the slim chances of living through that situation, I think I would prefer dying in battle. Many times I've just wished everything was all over for me just because I was tired of life; so if just living could and can get me down, what would a nitemarish existence like that be like. Except for the fact that it would interrupt my post war plans and make you feel bad for a little while, I believe I would find great contentment in death right now as tired as I am and with no future for several years yet. Death would be that deep, pleasant, undreaming sleep free from all care and worry --- just as we used to talk about it. Long ago I lost the fear of death itself but I do not like to think of the agony which may sometime be incurred in the process of dying. Hey, what brought this one. Okay, okay, I'll snap out of it and yes, I know, it will make you feel bad for more than a little while (but don't you remember to be sorry is only to be selfish --- yet so human).

Today Lt Suiter came up to me and complimented me on the Efficiency Reports saying that it was a good job. But then about twenty minutes later he came out with one of the reports which the Colonel decided to change his mind about just as he decided to change his mind about TDR&R for me. Well, after giving him a rough draft and then typing it up, it snapped something in me and on the last three forms we had I made five consecutive errors in two lines of typing and had to throw it away. Then the only recourse was to erase the original one and correct it, I did, but even made an error on the correction and had to do it over again. That is a perfect example how this job is getting me down. You do a thing to the best of your ability but then something like that comes up and makes all your efforts seem so futile. I'm holding myself in emotional check at times and wonder just what the outcome would be if I was a hysterical type of an extreme psychoneurotic. Hey, this letter isn't turning out to be such a pleasant conversation is it? Well, best to get all the unpleasant subjects out of the way all in one night instead of having them spread out through a series of letters and spoiling a bit of every one of them.

You know, now that I have all those pictures of myself I don't know which people to send them to and I forgot what pictures I sent to what people so that I'm afraid if I sent a duplicate they would think I was going crazy ( and they would probably be right). I think I'll send one to George and o well, I just don't know who.

My day was spent mainly in morning reports, public relation news write ups, typing a stencil and filling out strength reports of one kind or another.

The chow we are getting surpasses anything yet in my own company. I've had equivalent chow elsewhere by never right in the back yard. Take for instance the meat loaf we had today. It did not have one bit of hard meat in it and mixed right up with the meat loaf was either piccalilli or sweet pickles chopped up. And then we had a delicious soup to go with it. No kidding, that Ellis is right on the beam.

We had our first heavy rain for some time today and what part of our ceiling that is up received a test. All but two strips at the very peak are completed. The only trouble is that there is one corner where they haven't fixed a drain and the water just pours into the office down the side of the wall. At the other four spots the water either drains through a window or over a lower wall into the next room. It should be completed tomorrow and it will be a snazzy job. However, I doubt if even then we will be able to take the tents out because the openings in the doorways and windows of the church. They are so large that the rain sweeping through them would get the place just a wet as if we had no roof. Quite a situation and my money is bet that running true to form, the tents will be taken out and the error discovered only after the next rain. Our new tent location was also tested for drainage today and it seems my partners will never learn. Whenever I move in I think of drainage first and dug myself a sufficient system but the others just let things go and a river of water entered through one side and went out the other side.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman