Sun. morning.

Dear Folks,

Have  been trying to write for some time but all this moving has kept us all busy. I hope you really had a swell vacation, and I really enjoyed your cards and the letter from home. Did Karen and Dad get to be good friends before you had to leave or wasn’t it enough time? You were plenty lucky on your train connections. How did Karen make it with the younger generations at home? I didn’t know that Charles Easley was a bombardier. One of my buddies from N.U., ^[1]Northwestern University Robert Casey, was classified as a bombardier and will probably go to N. Mex. for his training after pre-flight here. I am glad the folks had Mrs. Perkins for dinner, Dad had told me that Cleda wasn’t much in favor of it.

Stan, I wish I could have been loafing in Greenville with you. You asked about where my pre-flight would be. We get it right here, in fact we are in pilot school now and start classes Mon. I don’t know all of our courses but some are: aircraft identification, gunnery, code, etc. We will supposedly be here 9 weeks and from what I hear the course is really condensed. After pre-flight we go to primary and it will probably be here in Cal.  The way things look now we will probably get all our training in the West Service Command.

I sent Dad a letter while we were on bivouac which was for all of you, I hope you got to see it. They kept us plenty busy while there but the last three days were the hardest. Wed. morning we had a 7 mi. tactical march,

In the afternoon we were suppose to have a lecture but a P38 that was spraying tear gas on another bunch set fire to a hill and all three squadrons got in on the fighting. It burned off the side of a hill before it was stopped. Really a lot of excitement.

Thurs. we had a 15 mi. march with full pack and K rations. I don’t think I will ever make a mountain climber. Fri. morning we marched back to SAAAB which is about 15 mi. and made it in 3 hours and 15 min. We had one 10 min. rest. llThe worse thing about that was that we didn’t have a thing to drink. As soon as we got back we ate lunch and moved into pre-flight school.

I saw Sam ^[2]Tom’s former roommate from College Training Program in Arizona State College, Tempe and he didn’t make it on his eye test, he couldn’t cross his eyes. ^[3]There is some irony that Sam Ashcroft couldn’t pass his eye exam. After the War, Sam devoted his entire career to teaching and research on behalf of blind and visually impaired children. It is funny at the number that wash ^[4]wash out on that. I think he will go to Scott Field for radio and gunners training which means he will probably see action before the rest of us. In a talk we had by the Col. yesterday it seems that if everything goes well we will be on our way inside of a year. From the time we start pre-flight till we finish training it takes 36 weeks but the way they keep knocking off a week here and a week there on your training it probably won’t be that long. I don’t mind them shortening the course as long as we get in our full number of flying hours.

We have our usuall Sun. afternoon parade. I wish you folks could see one they are really very spectacular. It is almost time for lunch. Give Karen a kiss for me.

Love, Tom

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