April 26, 1944 Wednesday

Dear Bunny,

Made a few sage observations today and got to fire 125 rounds of cal. 30 machine gun at a radio controlled airplane. Fired them all in one long burst. Also saw a spectacular air demonstration. They had planes of all types come flying by us at about shoulder height, for identification. Then they demonstrated tactical air force methods of attack. You would have been thrilled at seeing the fighters zoom down right at you.

Got in a little late, but to start an evening off at 6:30 is a big thing to me. A lot of the men hurry right in to camp, but I’d rather take it easy here at the club. Tom and I usually have a good talk and a beer or two. Generally a great life, and we are making the most of it.

By the way, what is our financial status? I will get paid on May 1st for about 10 days as an officer. That should be close to $50. That is all we’ll get between now and the leave. After that tho, we shall be fairly well off. An officer gets about $100 more a month if he has a wife. That, of course, is the main reason I want to marry you. Until that starts coming in we’ll have to use what we have saved. I’ll look up the travel costs from here by train this weekend. Then we can start to plan on how much to spend and where.

What would you like to do on our honeymoon? I still prefer a hotel and a life of ease for a few days. Where? Capitol Hotel again? That’s O.K. with me. We can write for reservations again if things work out. Perhaps we could come back to Louisville together from there, depending how much time you could get off. I’m working on the assumption that that is possible until I find out otherwise. I realize that all this is just thinking now – but we always have liked to plan and if you can get off, this could be reality much more easily than many of our plans.

If we want to conserve on travel time we could go to Boston. But I don’t know as that would save much – New York isn’t too far out of the line to Fort Knox. And we could drop in on Laura before we left New York and see her smart children. She sent me another fine picture of them. We won’t need to plan much beyond hotel reservations, tho.

Bridge rivals even poker and black jack as a popular game here. No doubt you could teach them a trick or two, with all the practice you are getting. I have learned the fundamentals of bridge a couple of times, and have now forgotten them again. I would be scared to play with you now. I’m afraid I could never become an expert at it.

It’s raining tonite, so I’m glad again that I’m not with a Battalion. One of the boys who is got a commendation today for the way he handles his mortar platoon. That’s fine, but things like that don’t mean much any more, and I’m glad they don’t. I am glad to have things let down for a while. I’m really getting back into pretty good condition and am starting to think like a human being again. Things were pretty stiff back at O.C.S. for a time. Now it’s easy, and as soon as the two weeks of battalion work is passed by, we’ll be together again. Then I’ll really feel good. It’ll be so good to see you again. For both of us, I hope. I appreciate more than before how much I love you and how much I want to be with you. You and I can do anything, you know that?

I love you like everything always,
Wallace