May 2, 1943
Sun. afternoon 4:05
Dearest Mother,
Just a few lines to let you know that I'm O.K. and hope that you are the same.
I received your letter that you wrote on Mon. I guess it was Mon. because I received it Thur.
and you didn't have no date on it.
Guess where I was when I got it mother? Well I was out in a bivouac area. The mailman brought
our mail out to us.
We went out at 6:30 A.M. Thur morning and started back at 8:30 A.M. Fri. morn. The bivouac was
7 mi. from camp. We ate our breakfast before we left and ate dinner at 12:30 out there. In the
afternoon we went on some squad tactics of chasing the enemy and stuff like that till 7:30. When
we got back to where our tents were, we just laid around till 9:00 then ate supper. We had to eat
in the dark and we weren't allowed to use any lights and after we ate it took me about 1 hr. to
find my tent. We had them covered with grass and tree limbs and in the dark they were really hard
to find.
We got up and ate breakfast at 6:30 A.M. and had to take down our tents and roll our packs in
the dark and boy, we coud hardly see to roll them. When I unwrapped it back in camp, I found
stones, grass and everything else in it.
We got back to camp at 10:30 Fri. and had off till 12:30. I took a shower and cleaned up, and
mom I never sweated as much as I did coming back. Even my pack was wet from laying on my back.
Some of the companies just carried the pack with nothing in them. They put their blankets and
other equipment in trucks to have brought back to camp. But did my co. do that? Oh no, not co. K.
Our capt. wants us to stay the toughest company in the regiment, by the way mom, co. K. came out
the best co. in the battalion in that test I told you about in one of my letters.
Coming back there was about 5 or more guys that fell out and had to come back in trucks out of the
other co.s that went on the hike with us and not one guy fell out in co. K. So you see what I mean
about co. K being the best. Our slogan is "Co. K. leads the way."
Well mother all we did yesterday was just go out on a 3 mi hike and ran the obstacle course, came
back to camp and dressed for inspection. We started to wear our summer uniforms and they are real
nice and cool and classy, boy just wait till you see me in mine.
I laid down on my bunk yesterday at 4:30 and slept straight through till 11:30, woke up and took
off my clothes and slept until 10:30 this morn. just making up for lost sleep ha ha.
Well mother, we got paid Fri. night and I received $43.50 and I'm sending you 45 dollars. Some
is from my pay and some is from what I saved from last pay. I thought mother that it's better to
send home than to keep here because when I see dice, I see black and if it's home I know it's safe
and can't be lost. I still have $20 for myself and that will last me till payday. So mother you
use the money for whatever you want to, but don't put it away for me. I'm sure that you and daddy
can use it and maybe daddy can take a few days off and not work too hard now with just the little
kids at home. Or are the little ones worse than us big ones in using money? ha ha. I hope not.
Well mother, not much more to say except, take good care of yourself mother dear, and not worry
about any thing. Will you mom? please. Because mother, there's really nothing to worry about.
Well mother, so long for now.
Your loving son
"Jimmy"