USO

Sheppard Field
Texas (Ahh!! Texas)
Jan. 2, 1946

Dear Miss Thompson 

Or should I, like certain (other) brash characters I know, trample on your dignity and say Dear Nancy? In either case, thanks for the Christmas card, which I was able, inspite of the best efforts of the Santa Fe and N.Y. Central Railroads, to read at home. That was the final coal, which penetrated through my callowed conscience and finally brought me to the point of writing to you after so many months.

I cant plead that Ive been too busy, because Army life, as Ive seen it, has been anything but rigorous. Basic training, at the time I took it, was merely a matter of going through the motions  that is, when someone was looking. Otherwise, they hardly bothered with even the motions. I have actually heard instructors say, Now fellows, I dont expect you to learn anything, but please try to keep awake, and dont look too comfortable, in case an officer should look in on us. Thats the general theme of what what we went through. No wonder the other branches call the Air Corps basic training Boy Scout stuff.

The only hard part of the whole deal was having some 18 year-old twerp call me Pop. I really ran him ragged for that. Adter all, there is still life in the old boy, even at the advanced age of 30.

Since finishing my quote basic training unquote, Ive been working for Special Services here, as instructor in the Plexiglas (yes thats right, one s) Hobby Shop, and learning quite a bit about the stuff too. I had a tough time getting the job. Someone discovered I could pick and punch a typewriter and add 2+2, so they classified me as a Finance Clerk  Typist. To escape that horrible fate, I grabbed a job sorting mail, and finally managed to get transferred to Special Services. At one stage of this rather complicated, (and?) but typically Army, process, I was  all at one time too  listed as A.W.O.L. for 3 weeks, listed as working for Finance, the Postal Department and Special Services, and requested for assignment to the Education & Information Office. I lived through it, and am still some pretty touchy moments.