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Paniqui, Tarlac, Luzon, P.I.
Sunday, 16th September 1945.

Dear Aunty Clara,

Well, here I am writing past the witching hour and still stuck at the job. I've thought it all over again, slept on it etcetera and finally decided that no matter how tough it gets I just can't bring myself to quit. Not because of myself but because of you and all the other people who have confidence in me. To quit the job no matter how tough it would be, no matter how long the hours, it would still appear to others as a failure. In civilian life a person can quit one job and get another and no one thinks twice about it; but in the army people look at the reduction in rank as something awful. I don't know how other individuals operate but I know that the only thing that keeps me in line is having you and, secondary in importance, having my friends. Without those things, l'd have no fight nor pride in me. While some people have ambition in themselves and for themselves alone, I haven't got that. My ambition is limited to the extent of its reflection on those in my sphere. No sphere; no reflection; no ambition. Maybe everybody is fundamentally the same but you'd never get them to admit it.

Last night I just got so tired that I hit the hay without finishing the work and got up early in the morning so I could get right in at it. And oh brother, what a mess those reports were in. The clerks turned in incomplete reports, erroneous reports etcetera and although I caught quite a few, quite a few more slipped by me and were brought to my attention by Lt Kuras. Maybe I'm a bum administrative man, but I can't see how I can control the clerk's mind as he does his work. The inaccuracy can not be caught at the time it is made and just saying not to make mistakes doesn't necessarily mean that no mistakes will be made.

After I finished the morning's work I decided to take off until evening. I did. I took a shower, rode around the great big metropolis of Paniqui for a half an hour, ate chow, walked down the road past the thatched roof cottages, the women pounding out their washing, thousands of caribous, past the native cartillos with their small horses and then came back to camp where I hit the hay until awakened in the afternoon (late). The good Captain Cook has me awakened and summoned to the office to do some work but by the time I had gotten up there (in a very bad frame of mind) Lt Kuras had already arrived and put the Charge of Quarters to work (Jack) and told me that they didn't need me.

So I knocked off for chow, took another shower and then came back down to work to complete the five reports which have to be ready at 0800 tomorrow morning. And believe you me, it has been all night in being prepared --- more than five hours. And, as usual, the work is still back-logged enough for me to work at it night and day for a long time to come. Perhaps, someday it will all come to a sudden halt just as it has so suddenly become so rushed. That will be the day I will wait for when the mere routine work is handled with ease and I can sit around chewing the fat for a couple hours in the afternoon and after leaving work at four o'clock, I can forget about it completely until the next morning. Maybe I ought to do a little wishful thinking In that direction and it will happen that way.

One of the things that has been hanging fire for some time now is Lt Vandivier's promotion to 1st Lieutenant. (I can name names now that no other officer is reading my letters). Back in Guadalupe I had to type up his recommendation and then in typical army style, George J. Shubat wants to add something that the promotion form does not call for. We try to tell him that it is no longer necessary but he insists on having it put in. That is a paragraph of recommendation and he has the CO of Co C write it up. Captain Nix, the CO, is a slow guy and it is almost a week before he turns in the necessary information and by that time we are ready to move up here to Paniqui. Now, since we are under a different command, there is an entirely new form to be made out and that is what I've been trying to get at for the last week or so without much success. Garrlss is not yet experienced enough to make up an original form by himself so I thought I would make it up in draft and then let him cut the stencil and fill it out. But I've never gotten the time to do that in as yet.

Over the radio this evening they announced that the Sixth Army was preparing to move into Japan with its advanced elements today and that all the troops presently being staged In the Lingayen area (that's us) will be in Japan before November.

No mail came from you today but I did get some mail from the Cunningham Drug stores about getting a free four year college education in pharmacy at one or the other of two Detroit colleges and that they guarantee a job in the Cunningham system upon graduation and also while going to school. It is a good deal for it seems that the pharmacists become assistant mangers of their stores; BUT and it is the big but alright, no Cunningham Drug stores are located in Chicago according to their folder so that is no soap even for consideration. I may not like Chicago's weather and all that but I'm not leaving it again unless in connection with RH&R and their southern plants.

I have your last letter of the 29th of August here in front of me now and I'm hoping that Aunty Florence and Uncle Joe don't get laid off now that the war is over because that would make things rather tough for a while. Yet the news over the radio is black and they say that all the war centers are going to feel a sharp increase in unemployment.

Goombye for now
/s/ Roman
Roman