April 19, 1944 Wednesday

Hello dearest,

Here we are again with a million things I want to say. Tonite I have almost an hour in which to write so let’s see what I can cover.

First of all, I love you more than ever and am beginning to feel excited at the thought of seeing you soon. Thanks very much for the 25 dollars. It came in plenty of time. Also read and read your letters while we were in the field. We’re awful nice people, don’t you think? To be so close just thru letters.

Now let’s see, let’s get up to date on what I have been doing since Monday when I wrote. The arrowhead I found is in a little black box now, all cleaned up, and I will send it to you as soon as I can. Don’t know what you want of an arrowhead, but just as soon as I found it I knew I’d have to send it to you. It’s kind of a rough old arrowhead, but it’s real. I got a thrill out of it and I hope you will, too.

They kept us going all the time at Hayes School, night and day. Came thru without any ill effects. Three or four men had accidents or got sick, tho. Nobody hurt seriously, but they may not be able to graduate.

Tuesday we had a light tank problem with live ammo and Tuesday night a security problem. Today we saw a large scale armored infantry attack from a high observation post. They had a complete company with supporting artillery all using very real bullets. Whale of a fight! We won. The view of the OP was breathtaking – almost like an aerial photo. You would like it a lot.

We came back to civilization this afternoon and again I appreciated what a great thing civilization is. You don’t know how nice warm water, heated buildings and mattresses are until you go without them a while. We’re in heaven most of the time and don’t even realize it. By the way, this was the coldest weather I have ever bivouacked in. Tom and I rolled in together and kept well above freezing anyway.

From this short but intensive trip I learned that altho I may make a good average officer, this will always be way out of my line. Training helps immensely, but like anything else you have to have a natural leaning toward it to excel in tank work. I learn with practice, but it’s not at all like a duck taking to water. It requires you to make snap judgments and use brief language. I do better at thinking things thru and splurging all over telling about it. Am improving on the first, but it will never be my best way of thinking.

We got back to school to find ourselves now called the “graduating class” in official circles. Tomorrow we will be the reviewing body at the battalion review. We will wear our new uniforms, except for the bars. All very complimentary, we feel. Also we turned in our dog tags tonite, which is an awfully good sign that we are thru as enlisted men. They are the last thing an EM loses.

Tomorrow we have our last field work, Friday we become civilians and Saturday we graduate in Theatre No. 1 at 9:30 a.m. That’s the schedule, looks very good. I have been miserable to my folks again and not written as I should. Haven’t been able to write you as I should, even. I will try to phone them before Saturday to let Ma know “how to picture my graduation” as she says. If your 25 dollars holds up, I will call you, too, I guess, just to hear you some more. Anyway this weekend.

Saturday we are kicked out of here and taken to our home for the next four weeks, address – “Battle Training Det., A.R.T.C., Fort Knox, Ky.” Ah, Lt. Russell, not O/C Russell unless you hear otherwise. There isn’t much I particularly want to do this weekend. Don’t feel like cutting up any large capers, but since I can’t sleep here, I will probably take a room with the boys and look in on our class party at the Colonial Gardens in Louisville. My chief hope is that I can find a good place that’s quiet where I can write to you. You’d be surprised how hard it is to find both a time and a place.

At Battle Training we spend two weeks with “battalion,” so-called, where we have out own platoon of basic trainees on their last two weeks of training – it is a bivouac. Then we have two weeks of some indefinite work that is said to be chiefly observing and critiquing training problems. Either two weeks may come first.

To answer your question about leaves – if anything can be done to put it off for a short time I will do it. But I doubt very much if it can. You see, it’s not a real leave, but a 10-day delay en route to a new assignment. The new assignment will probably start on a definite date. I’ll keep my eyes open tho, and watch for a chance. I get leaves if I am an officer, and furloughs if I’m an enlisted man. Time off by any name is equally valuable to us, tho.

But now, I have to graduate first. Uniforms are the chief headache, with their transportation a second problem. The exercises themselves will be something like a regular college graduation, militaried up with a band. Probably will be a more impressive display than my scheduled UNH graduation would have been. I’d choose the less impressive one tho a thousand times sooner than this. We had an instructor the other day that I felt must be a kindred soul or some such thing – he really tried to get away from grades and nice talk and teach us something. He said, “That’s the trouble with everything. Somebody always trying to impress somebody else.” He saw a difference between how a thing looks and what it actually is.

Since he agrees with me, I think he’s a great guy.

My hour is about up. Been nice to be able to say a little tonite. Maybe we won’t be so rushed from now on. There are lots of other little things I’d like to talk to you about, Honey. Things come into my head, and I say I’ll remember to write that to you. I remember about 1/10 of them when I get to writing on paper. When we are together, tho, we won’t have to postpone the little things. Then we’ll really start to live.

I love you always,
Wallace