May 3, 1944 Wednesday

Dear Bunny,

I’m improving. Tonite I have my pen with me, only it is empty. Soon I will get pen, ink, and paper all together at once. Can you read this? If you can, I admire you more than ever.

Moved to another new point today and instructed on the tactics of tanks crossing a defended ford. We have a groups of non-coms out here getting ready to ship out, and I did feel erudite lecturing to 30- and 40-year-old staff sergeants and such. They work the problem, then I push the model tanks around on a sand table, showing where they should go. You get a cross-section of the country taking basic, all right. A good way to wake them up is to ask a question and then ask for a man from, say, Minnesota to answer it. You’d be surprised how often you find a man from the state you mention. He seems pleased to think of his home state and everybody gets a kick out of it. Pretty soon they start volunteering in order to get their state into the discussion. Works very well, and is interesting to people from Florida, Maine, California, and Joisey all in the same outfit. Everything from Ph.D.s to kids that are still hoping for a high school diploma, too. They try very hard, too, and are easy to talk to. Far from dumb.

A New York City tailor now working at driving a medium tank looks homesick as hell and tells how his wife wants to know if he really sleeps on the ground. “If she only knew” he says breaking into his C rations.

A kid from Virginia wants to know if graduating from high school wasn’t just about the biggest moment in my life. I told him it was.

There’s the operator who says “Lieutenant, we’ve learned more here than at any other point. It must be a difficult one to teach. Would you want to swap your sandwiches for a C ration?” No.

Also the slick 35-year-old Florida man who goofs up his problem and like a well oiled lawyer talks his way out of it at the critique – “I assumed that your emplacement was meant to be at a greater range than it actually is, so I used H.E.”

And nationalities – accents are everywhere – Mexican, Swede (very thick accent, so I had him talk a lot, wonderful to hear), Italian, English, and all the U.S. accents. “I’m from Texas. We declared war the same time the U.S. did.” An Austrian smuggled some food in and comes out with black bread, figs, and salami instead of C rations!

I get a tremendous lift out of it. Then I feel like a heel again and leave at 4:30. They get ready to pitch pup tents and I come back and have cold beer with Tom, and shower and get my mail. Then I’m so comfortable I almost forget about what a racket this officer business is. About the filthy rifle I fired all day that I left for some enlisted man to clean, for example. May be silly, but it makes you wonder if you’re doing anything to rate such a preference. These men are almost thru basic, and will ship out soon. Consequently, I do try to show them some things they must know. Lot of practical things they don’t know.

Well, anyway, the next couple of weeks I won’t get anything the men on bivouac don’t get. Then I can complain about how uncomfortable it is. That’s always fun.

It’s rumored that Battle Training will close down in three weeks – that’s when I leave, of course, but I don’t mean to intimate the two are connected. They will use this area for maneuvers, and the regular A.R.T.C. officers will come out with the men they have been with for 15 weeks. Personalize training – that’s a good thing. Maybe basic won’t make the trainee feel he’s being run thru a mill.

Lt. Sayre has the location before mine. Every now and then he sends a message by a trainee, telling me to stop thinking about getting married and get on the ball. This burns me up, because he’s getting married, too, and I don’t get a chance to return the messages. All the trainees work in the other direction. When a problem goes wrong, tho, I blame it on him because he orients the men on my problem.

Found out today that in all probability I will get Sat. p.m. off to get a blood test in. Aren’t I wonderful? How are you doing with the minister, church, gown, invitation, test, etc., etc. – I’m sorry, Bunny, that I can’t do my share of the work now. Did get my train reservations for May 20th.

I love you out of all reason, Hon, and look forward to our week together more than anything I ever have,

All yours, always,
Wallace