Paniqui, Tarlac, Luzon, P.I.
Thursday, 4 October 1945

Dear Aunty Clara,

It is almost ten bells at night although my work isn't anywhere near being caught up, I'm taking time out to write this letter even if it is only one page long or one page short would be better put.

FLASH: All I Corps units were "frozen" today and that means all work on impending movements ceases immediately. The reason for this order is (we think) that the bitter discontent and unrest of the troops in being forced to go to Japan with the 80 point and 35 year old men still in the outfits while the rest of the army released their men. The freeze, we believe, will enable us to screen out the high point and overage men before we move up.

FLASH: That means my telling you to send mail to APO 713 is rescinded effective immediately since we have no way of knowing now just when we will be alerted again. Do not send any more mail to APO 713 if you have done so already. I will let you know when we get the go ahead signal once more.

Enclosed with this letter you will find a picture of the headquarters platoon H&S Company with a sort of a roster of the men composing the platoon. I held my head down and it is all in the shadows so it's not so good.

No mail came today although some Tribs and Newses arrived. I haven't had a chance to read any of them for quite some time now.

There was a practice parade today but for once Personnel wasn't ordered out although the Personnel Officer, Lt Kuras was required to go out there and sub for the colonel during the practice.

At three thirty this morning the radio in our tent was on and I woke up to see Bob Burkholder and Edger Lynd squatting in front of the radio listening to the first game of the World Series. By that time the Cubs already had a four run lead and I remained awake long enough to see them safely out in front with a seven run advantage. Wow, what a shellacking the Tigers took in that first game. Even if they should beat the Cubs now, they will never live down the 9 to 0 drubbing. Why that just isn't World Series caliber of playing. The Cubs got the breaks and that helped too.

If Bob can wake up again this morning we will listen to it again. Of course, I'm hoping for continued good fortune on part of the Cubs. Even more so than last night because just as we were dropping off to sleep in my tent about midnight, we began discussing the bets and by golly if Welch and I didn't raise our wager from 5 to 40 pesos.

That means that instead of 64 pesos bet on the series, I have 99 pesos or 49.50 in American Dollars which is getting up into the big money. However, I have such a feeling of it being a sure thing that this time it doesn't really seem like betting but just a good sound investment by which I can increase my capital. Even when the Yankees were in their prime I didn't have enough confidence in them to really back them solid. Another thing, no matter how much I know to the contrary, pesos just don't seem like real money and although you know that 20 pesos means 10 bucks you just don't think of it in that way and it is more like stage money when you are handling it. Imagine what the yen are going to be like with the price running about 20 to $1.37.

Today the day went rather well in spite of the fact that Hipp and Moscowitz were both on the first day of their three day passes. We got good work out of the two substituting clerks and at least Moscow and Hipp will not get too far behind in their work.

The only clerk who has not taken a pass is Garriss and he is the one man who has had the real headache of a job and deserves it the most. With our movement being cancelled for the time being the passes may be continued and I told him that I'll tell Kuras I would like to have him go out Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Since there is no one who could step into the job of M/R Clk immediately seeing as how it is so complicated of late, I'll have to take over for those three days and I guess I'll have ten times as much work as I will be able to handle but I guess I'll manage. I always have up until now.

I spent this evening in filing and fixing up the files so that we have more room to store things and expand our filing system. I had the Flip boy (who Lt. Axtell asked me if I could use yesterday) working on getting our locator card system up to date and he is doing a bang up job of it and will be finished sometime tomorrow. Then I'm going to have him go through the files and put everything in those things in tip-top order. I don't know by what stroke of luck Personnel got hold of a Filipino worker up here but it sure helps. All I have to do, in order to keep him with us, is to keep thinking up things for him to do and so far it hasn't taken much thought.

This will be all for tonight so goombye until the next letter which I hope will be tomorrow.

So-long,
/s/ Roman
Roman