Dearest,

I hope I am not writing to a married woman but I guess I can take that chance. There is just one question I would like to ask. How can you sign your letters to me “I love you, Zoe” when you also love John? Are his signed another special way or do you use the same method on all of us.” I am not being “catty” so don’t take it that way, I would just like to know.

I don’t think hell could be any hotter than this place has been for the past week. I don’t know if you have ever experienced the sensation of going to bed hot and getting up feeling the same way after having gotten very little if any sleep. Thank God we are leaving here Sat. night. That reminds me, send any letters to the new address. It is the one they gave us today, it doesn’t look very complete but I guess we will get our mail after so many weeks.

So far this week they have been keeping us busy at calesthenics, drill and swimming, the last of which isn’t hard to take.

I guess I am not mad at you for saying that you through you believed in free love^[1]Her use of the term “free love” does not have the same meaning as was applied to it in the 1960s and 70s counterculture. Rather, it is more likely a reference to the “Free … Continue reading  but it just reminded me again of what Ben Brown told me along time ago about you. I have told it to you several times. I guess you are right that we wouldn’t exactly be holding hands if I were there, but honey I would be satisfied with that if I could see you.

Everyone is anxious to get to Santa Ana^[2]This is his first letter in which Santa Ana was correctly spelled. This is also possibly the first time he’s seen it in print and he didn’t need to rely on a phonetic spelling. even though there is about a 30% washout there. The physical we get there takes about a week to complete, it is the 6-4, you might have heard of it. The one I had in Chicago was the 6-3.

I got a pretty good recomendation(sic) in my flying here. In case they want to make me a navigator maybe I can use that with alittle influence.

Hope to hear some better news from Urbana in the future.

All my love,

Tom