Wed. evening.

Dear Dad,

I received the letter that you sent me from S. Louis Mon. while I was on K.P. That is one thing that is a good two days work done in one. They get you up at 3:AM. and you work till 8:00 P.M. that evening with 30 min. off for each meal. The one good thing about it is that you get plenty to eat. I have gained about 7 or 8 lbs. so far, so I guess the food isn’t too bad and although you don’t get very much sleep the hours are regular and that means alot. Everyone likes it pretty good but everyone is anxious to get into flying and you can’t blame them for this because thats what they enlisted for.

I have really been enjoying your letters and I am doing my best to keep them coming to you.

I couldn’t have asked for a better dad and the uppermost thought in my mind is that you will be satisfied and proud of me. If I can accomplish this I won’t worry about a thing that the future brings.

These G.I. shoes that we have, have about 1/2 inch soles and all of us have holes worn through one pr. You can see that we haven’t been riding very much. Yesterday we had review at 5:00 P.M. in which about 1/4 of the post marched in. Our flight had only had 2 days of rifle drill and were choosen as the color guard. The whole thing was very colorfull and plenty big.

I received a letter from Cleda Mon. also which she wrote from St. Louis. If I have time I am going to write her tonight. We were suppose to go out on the range with the sub-machine guns today but it rained so we go Fri. I am afraid I will have to learn to shoot all over again because I will have to learn right handed. ^[1]Tom is left-handed. I probably won’t be able to hit a thing.

There isn’t a thing I need and I can get things cheap at the P.X. (post exchange). We haven’t got paid a thing yet but my money is holding out O.K. I still have about $5.00 and I haven’t used any travelers checks yet. When we start getting paid I think I will cash several of them and send the money home and you can put it on my account. There isn’t much sense in carrying $80.00 of them around. If you think this is O.K. let me know. If I ever need any money I can write home for it. One other thing I wondered about – does the insurance I have have a war clause in it?

Tell Mrs. Erickson I received her letter and the Times. Thank her for me and I will try to write her soon. If you see Uncle Leslie also tell him I got his 2nd letter. It is too bad G.H.S.^[2]Greenville High School lost to Woodriver but they didn’t get walked over.

Will close –

With love,

Tom