Letters from George

Editorial note: one or more pages of this letter appear to be missing.

Dear Marian

How are you doing. you must be getting pretty sporty getting a new car. I guess you won't be able to use it for pleasure very often though. I wish the hell we could go over and put a stop to these rations.

The way things look though we won't be going very soon. I hate to have to think of myself being stuck out here with a years training and not being able to help any. I felt good when I found out about the South Dakota. That is the ship I worked on for two years. Did you read about it. I saw it in the movies, heard about it over the radio and read about it in the papers.

I failed for the Air Corp. I passed the written test and the physical. I was sure I made it but when I went for an interview before the board it was a different story. They couldn't understand why I hadn't advanced higher than a private with a years training. I couldn't give them a good reason so my papers came back not approved.

I am a pretty good friend of a seargeant that works in the office here. He is going to write to the air base and tell them that I have a perfect record and that there were no openings for ratings here. He told me that if they let me take the test over again to get a letter of recommendation from my company commander. Mrs. Throdle?, Father Doyle, and Joe Daley all gave me big build-ups in their letters.

I didn't see Bataan. The engineers do have it pretty tough in combat. We don't have it so bad here and I don't expect to go in combat for a long while yet. Tell Nick I thank him for wishing me luck. I guess I never will amount to anything but I'm going to try once more.

It will be quite a while before I get a furlough. We are going to go up in the mountains again for a week. It won't be much fun sleeping up there this time because we can see the snow up there now. I hope it isn't too deep. After that there are two groups leaving before I get my furlough. I might be just lucky enough to get mine at Christmas.

Gary really must be a card. Tell him I still love him. I like to see a boy that is a little ornery. I'm going to write to Alice tonight. I haven't heard from her for quite a while and I usually only write when I get a letter. Sometimes I don't even answer letters right away because I can't think of much to say.