Sunday March 28, 1943
Hi Mary,
How’s my little girl, still as pretty as ever? Gee kido I really enjoyed myself today. I’ll bet you can’t guess what I did, well, this morning when I got up, I had “chow” which was exceptionally good except for the coffee which was terrible, anyway after chow my buddies and myself went to church, hee they had a swell mass, I’m getting so I understand it more now after mass, I had a talk with our chaplain, you know Mary I’m not catholic, although I’ve always gone to a catholic church. I made an appointment with him for tomorrow night, and we are going to talk over me becoming a catholic. Mary, when I was on the dairy in Livermore, remember? I wanted to become one, but they put me in a class with a lot of little kids, and I felt so out of place, that was for catechism. Coming home from church we stopped and had a coke at our P.X. “Post Exchange” by that time it was noon, and I had “chow” again, which was “very good”. My buddy and I got an inspiration, guess what? We took our blankets, funny papers and math books and went up in the hills for an enjoyable afternoon, gee Mary if was swell up there, it was a beautiful day, we could see our whole camp from that point and boy is this ever a camp, it sure is big. These math books we have are on aviation so when I take my test again for the “Flying Cadet” the problems will a lot easier for me. Gee Mary I couldn’t help but thinking of you, it’s just one of those things you know when you’re out alone like that, and it’s really a beautiful day and everything is going swell, well you know me, I mean about explaining things.
I received a letter from my Mom today, and she really had a lot to say, especially about you she thinks you are just it, although you’ve never met each other, I wrote and told her about you Mary, and those pictures, she said I had better send you a picture of me. Speaking of pictures, my buddy, went into town last night and brought back the proofs of the pictures I took, well I’m not saying, you can judge for yourself Mary, although I won’t be able to get the picture for about three weeks, because there are so many boys waiting for them. So as soon as I get them I’ll send them, I look like a sour-puss in one, and the other is a smile. I guess broke the camera in that pose – ha ha.
Tomorrow we have 4 hours on Chemical Warfare, which consist of learning different gases, how to give First Aid to a person who is gassed, last week we had to go through a camouflage of screening smoke, and while we were in the smoke, they set off a charge of tear gas, gee the whole Battery was crying, boy that was a site, we didn’t have brains enough to put on our gas masks next time we’ll know better, anyway it is a good think to know. I drew a picture of a 155 howitzer that’s the name of the gun we fire, I drew it for our firing section so we could learn the parts to it and our Battery Commander happened to see it one day, so now he’s got me pretty busy drawing equipment, then I could really go to town.
I have to learn all about the sights on our guns, you see Mary being a gunner corporal you take your orders from the observation point, and we gunners, elevate, and depress, the gun as ordered, there is a lot more to it than I expected, so far we have a darn good firing section, there are seven men to a section, and we really have to team work, gee it’s really exciting Mary, although I don’t think it’s my line, but I’m doing my best while I’m here, you know how I want the Air Corp.
Well little girl I guess I’ll sign off for now, and do write soon huh.
Say hello to your folks and brother for me.
Love,
Bob