February 6, 1944 Sunday

Dear folks,

I’m back on schedule this week with my letters. I have had this wee-end more to myself than any in a long time. Slept until nearly eleven this morning, and took a long hot shower before dinner. Feeling great now. Am writing this in the music room of the Service Club.

I got by inspections and all last week without a gig and had a lot of fun in our gunnery course. We have all our mornings devoted to gunnery, and I am very interested in it. We fired the big machine gun Cal. 50 last week and yesterday we fired a lot of new weapons. Started our course in grenades, mortars and rockets. Got right down to business and shot hand grenades yesterday, as well as rifle grenades and the new rocket gun called the “Bazooka.” It works on a very different principle than all other weapons and has a lot of power at close ranges. Will go thru almost any armor plate.

Gave my speech in military courtesy last Friday for Teacher Training. It went very well, but so do all the talks. There are no duds in this class. Every man has a lot on the ball and each one is trying his hardest all the time. Consequently, we have been here 6 weeks now and still no one stands out as being particularly better than the rest. They are all good. There a very few who for one reason or another aren’t up to the standard of the group, and they are the ones that stick out – not the good ones.

Aside from the fact that we are under pressure all the time, we have a lot of fun here. The instruction is the very best – they prepare the most elaborate demonstrations for us, and we see just the presentation of it. They have a demonstration regiment that gets them ready. We don’t get the hard work. When we go to a range, it is all set up. We just get down to firing immediately, then leave and they pick up after us. They have too much to teach us to take our time doing non-essentials. I have fired more in 6 weeks than I did all the time I was at Wheeler.

And, of course, the class is very much alive. Plenty of wits and humorous situations, as well as a lot of intelligent dicussion.

Now, how are all your colds and such coming at 23? Hope Bob’s is better. A cold that hangs on is miserable. I would advise moving to Kentucky. They do have colds here, but the weather is so mild you can get over them. We are having early May weather here lately. It is beautiful country – plenty of hills but different from New England hills in that they rise right out of flat valleys; stick up out of nothing. The woods are good clean pretty hardwoods. All in all, if New Hampshire was obliterated, I would live in this part of Kentucky.

Yours, with love,
Wallace



Dearest Honey,

Well, here’s another week-end. No gigs, no guard, no nothing. So here I am at the Service Club, waiting to get a call thru to you. I have no way of knowing whether you’ll be home or not. But then, there is no good reason for calling except that I want very much to hear what you sound like again. Felt very thrifty in that I didn’t go to Louisville this week, so I’m being good to me and calling you.

There, guess the Keene folks were some surprised! Seemed that way to me, Hon, anyway. Very, very good to hear you, and Grammy, too. You know, I love you a very great deal, Bunny? Even more than that. Every time I finish a job and relax for a minute, I think how lucky I am. Just thinking of you and pretending you are near makes me warm and comfortable inside. Makes it so I don’t worry about a thing. Course, I always think how much better it would be if we were together. But the main thing is loving you. It makes all the difference in the world between feeling depressed and lonely when things go wrong and feeling fundamentally contented and relaxed all the time. And I have felt that way since last April.

Last night Tom and I spent a typical evening that we both enjoyed. We went to a P.X., not the O.C.S. one, and drank beer and discussed things in general. We are kindred souls in a way. We can talk sincerely together about anything, and are agreed that truth is the important thing to work for. We are not agreed on many other points – but we do not argue, we discuss. Tom’s Irish-Catholic background and years spent among factory workers – he worked 10 years after high school before college – have given a different twist to his thoughts. He thinks politically and is all for labor, while my thinking is more theoretical and less tempered by experience. Some day we will go to Haverhill and visit Tom on his home ground – the “Tally-Ho.” It will be an interesting experience for us. There are so many interesting people that we will enjoy together.

Six weeks of O.C.S. are now complete. Every thing is satisfactory so far and I’m in good condition to keep going. Strange and unpredictable things happen at O.C.S., so it isn’t a good idea to plan on anything. It takes such a small slip up to break a good record. But I am more confident and more interested in getting thru than when I started. After 17 successful weeks, we graduate and are commissioned. As I understand it we then leave almost immediately for a month of practical work among replacement trainees. Then furloughs come. That should be in May sometime, or maybe June. It is possible that we could be married at the time I graduate, or if it’s only a week-end, as some get, we could be married in N.H. during the furlough. My, my, it isn’t everybody that gets a chance to plan their wedding as often as we do. It sure will be a good one when it comes. Until then, remember I love you as much as if we were married now. I look at your picture, Bunny, and tell you how I love you every day.

Always all yours,
Wallace