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Paniqui, Tarlac, Luzon, P.I.
5 October 1945, Friday

Dear Aunty Clara,

It is pretty late again - almost eleven bells and old Joe Suiter is in the office so that means that promptly at eleven I'll have to stop the letter and leave the office. Good Ole Joe, a man after my own heart - with a butcher knife.

I'll hit the highlights of the day in one brief sentence or paragraph and then elaborate as time will allow.

I woke up at 3:15 in the morning to hear the Cubs get beat by the Tigers in the second game of the World Series. I really produced with the work during the day so that actually I had a very little backlog this evening. I received five V-mails from you dated the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th plus an airmail letter of the 25th. There was a parade today but I did not go out to it. I came up at night to do some catch up work but did not get at it. I plan to wake up for the third game of the World Series this evening but I've a feeling that no one is going to be around to wake up the crowd.

So much for the highlights, now for the details.

It wasn't a very good game to listen to this morning with the Cubs getting beat by Hank Greenberg but it was part of the game. We got a kick out of the pre-game talk when the mentioned that the game was being shortwaved to service men throughout the world and that reports had come from Manila in the Philippines that servicemen there were so enthusiastic as to listen to the early morning broadcasts beginning at 3:15. At that we had to look at each other and laugh seeing as he was referring to crazy ducks like ourselves. What a crew of fellows we have in our tent - all of us but one (Welch) woke up to hear the game plus Bob Burkholder who came in from his tent at the other end of the row.

Today I managed to work fairly steadily throughout the day and accomplished much. In fact, I accomplished a sufficient amount of work that when I came down this evening there was nothing of pressing importance to work on. And a good thing for that because as it ended up, I accomplished next to nothing on everything. Smarrito in Headquarters kept pestering me about how to type up orders releasing Captain Hanton from his organization and transferring him to the Replacement Center so he can go home. Now I knew less about it than he did but when a "junior clerk" - even though he isn't in your section - asks you a question you feel that it is your duty to help him through. It took over an hour trying to track down correct authority and procedure because this was the first case of its kind on releasing an officer on the readjustment policy.

Then there was Garriss who worked tonight and continually asked questions referring to the morning reports. He is a good lad even though it gets tiresome to have him coming up to me for verification every five minutes or so. You see, before he will attempt something new on the Morning Report remarks he will ask my okay on it and several times there have been things which were in error which I caught that way before they were typed on the reports. Actually he could go ahead and work on them without asking me and probably get it just as accurate but those conditions did not prevail - I was present and available. I don't recall myself ever bothering Sackett very much with the Morning Reports.

I'm sending this letter out as is, just to show you what kind of guy J. Blow is. He ordered me to quit typing and leave the office at eleven o'clock sharp-what a character. I called that shot in the very first paragraph. Well at least I gave you a brief resume. Ok, he's giving me dirty looks now.

Roman