Dear Dad + the folks at 828,^[1]“the folks at 828” means his sister, Elaine, her husband Stanley, and their daughter, Karen, who lived at 828 Lakeside Place in Chicago.

I am going to have to combine this letter because I won’t have time to write two. We arrived yesterday about noon and we were kept going till 9:00 P.M. and then they got us up at 4:30 A.M. They haven’t wasted much time. We go to ground school in a few minutes and then get another 6-4 physical exam this afternoon, it is the same as we got at Santa Ana. Start flying tomorrow, the way they have it arranged now I am in a standard squadron, which means if I stay in this I’ll probably end up as an instructor or in air transport command. I am going to try to get out of it but you can’t do an awful lot.

From all reports these AT6’s are plenty nice planes and really a pilots plane, but I’ll know more about that in a few days. They washed several of the fellows in C class out because they had trouble landing them so I imagine I’ll do some worrying over that. They have just about every kind of a plane there is here on the field, P40’s, P51’s, P38’s, A20’s, P70’s, AT17’s, etc.

Our barracks bags were suppose to have been on the train with us but when we arrived there weren’t any bags. From the latest reports they went to La Juanta, Colo., therefore we haven’t any clothes or anything with us.

I am going to have to close, will let you know more later. So long –

With love,

Tom