Year: 1945

                                              Saturday Evening
Dear Family,
    If I wait till tomorrow evening or Monday morning to mail this I might have some definite news  to tell you. In fact there are supposed to be some orders come down this afternoon. There have been no passes given out for this weekend yet just as a precaution against any shipping orders for tomorrow. It would be sort of bad for someone to be gone on Sunday and be supposed to leave that day.  Things seem to be pretty definite that most of us will be gone before the end of next week. But there is a little catch in it now just as you might expect. Someone tried to make us believe at first that we’d be sent to camps close to home. But from what I hear now it’ll be somewhere in the states. Anywhere on this side will be better than it might have been so I’m going to be thankful. The good Lord hasn’t forgotten me yet so whatever happens will be OK.
    It usually happens that I get your letters on the days that I don’t write to you. Then by the time the next day rolls around about half of what I thought of to say when I read the letter has slipped my mind. That’s one reason why I wanted to be sure to get this one started today. I certainly wasn’t unhappy to get your letter of the sixth at noon.
    I am very well pleased with the way my Evershop writes and thank you for writing a letter with it to give me a sample. This one is plenty good enough for now but it always has had a tendency to let to let the ink drip out (there’s a sample of this on the other side of this page). I ought to be fixed pretty well now for pens.
    I don’t think that you can complain at all about the way your potato crop turned out. As far as I can remember that’s about the best potatoes that have ever been raised there.
    I was afraid that you were getting into another all week job when you were talking about painting the benches at school. But if that’s over, it’s done now  and it makes one more thing that won’t have to be worried about later. How does the teacher situation look at this stage of the game?
    Now since my money order has arrived OK I don’t want you to forget to spend $18.75 of it as I told you to. Thanks a whole lot for the clippings that you enclosed in the letter. I get a bunch a lot of enjoyment from them and that’s one thing that you don’t have to write yourself. I suppose that by the time I get settled for good my subscription to the Tribune will be expired. Don’t subscribe to it until I think about it some more. I hardly think it is worth the price. How much would it cost for postage for you to send it to me a couple times a week?
    Well so long for now. I’ll write more later.
Sunday Noon
    I got a letter written to Richard this morning after I returned from church - then before I could get a start on this I dropped off to sleep. It doesn’t make much difference anyway, though, because I haven’t anything special to do this afternoon. In fact I sort of wish that I had something to do instead of just wasting the whole afternoon. I feel better off with a little to do then just nothing at all. Since we’re leaving they won’t lend any more books from the library so I can’t even read a book. I did get a couple of books read, though, since I’ve been down here. I’ve been thinking seriously of signing up for one of those government sponsored correspondence courses when I get to the next camp. That would depend, of course, on how much free time I would have and what sort of job I get. With all the free time I’ve had in the last two weeks down here I could have done quite a bit of studying.
    I wasn’t wrong about orders coming out last evening but it just happened that I wasn’t on them. There’s nothing to do but wait and maybe I’ll know something yet before I get this finished. If I do I’ll let you know - otherwise I can’t think of anything else that I want to say. Hope everything is coming OK in Orestes and that school gets off to a good start tomorrow. I’ll bet there’s a lot of school talk flying around today and it wouldn’t surprise me if Dad didn’t spend some time down there this afternoon. Be good and luck to you, 
                                            Donald
Mon. Morn
    No news yet. I’ll inform you as soon as possible when I learn anything.

                                              Thursday Eve
                                              The 6th I think
Hello Family,
    My address is still Ft. Benning and you know the rest of the story. I know just one little fact about my moving though than I did before. We were told that we would ship between the 8th and the 14th. So by this time next week I’ll possibly be on my way. Maybe in a few more days I’ll know some of the details.
    Of course you’ve seen in the paper that people with more than 45 points on May 12 will stay in the states. Well that just about does me up right. I only made it by a margin of two points. But on something like that I guess a miss is as good as a mile. Maybe I’ll get a break yet.
    Before I forget it I want to tell you about something that you may be getting through the mail one of these days. There is a book containing the history of our regiment being made and I ordered one. It could either be payed for now or after it is published. That may be several months in the future and so  many things might happen that I decided to pay for it when they are finished. But I had to give an address and the only permanent one I have is Orestes. When the bill comes send in the four dollars. If I haven’t provided for it before it happens, don’t forget to remind me of it. That’s a good bit to pay for something like that but I hope it will be worth it.
    It made me happy to get a letter from you yesterday. And since it was one of your longer weekend letters, there was a little extra reading and it made me just a little happier. After Labor Day I’ll bet that the garage looks a little more like the finished product. If you get the coal moved then it won’t be very long before you can put the car inside. 
    I think I finally got my books straightened up the other day. At least I hope so anyway. Since most of it would go into bonds anyway, it made little difference to me how they fixed it. There was less changing to be done to make it one $18.75 and one $7.5 bond. So that’s the way it stands now. If they keep coming as they have in the past, everything will be alright.   
    Well I think when I started I had at least one more thing to say to you but I can’t think of it now. If I don’t think of it before I mail this in the morning, I don’t suppose it was very important anyway.
                       So long, 
                             Donald
Fri. Morn.
    I know now what one more thing I wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you. I wanted to inform you about my sawed thumb. There’s no scab at all on it now and only a little area about half the size of the end of a lead pencil even looks unnatural. I think all of that will come off eventually and then you’ll have to look close to see that anything happened. Even the notch in the nail will be grown out in another couple of weeks.

                                                    September 2,‘45
                                                    Ft. Benning
                                                    VJ Day
Dear Family,
    I just got back from church service and perhaps I’ll be able to get a letter written to you before dinner time. I haven’t heard from you yet but I did get a letter from Richard on Friday. I’m hoping that the mail today or tomorrow will bring me news from Orestes. Since this is the Sunday before Labor Day, I am wondering about the reunion this year. I expect the crowd will be pretty thin although there might be more than you’d expect. I just wonder if Richard got to come home over Labor Day.
    Well I’ve been down here for over a week now and I know very little more about how long I’ll be here than I did this time last week. Everyday you hear something else but it can’t be depended upon any more than the story (stories) you heard the day before. Even though there are no visible signs of it, I suppose that every day brings us just one day closer to leaving here. I’ve even gone so far as to hear that most of us will be sent to camps near home to await our discharges. But that’s far too much to expect and I’ll be satisfied with a good bit less than that. 
    I guess that added to our almost complete vacation that we’ve had since we’ve been here, tomorrow will be a holiday. Of course I had to get CQ (Charge of Quarters) tonight and tomorrow but I don’t feel too hurt about it. If it weren’t for missing the day off, getting it tomorrow would be quite a break. To explain the job, it’s just a duty that non-coms pull instead of KP. It consists of taking charge of the office after the officers leave, making out passes, getting the guys up in the morning, doing any odd jobs that need to be done, and just being general run-about for the office during the day. There won’t be anything going on tomorrow so I expect I’ll have the orderly room (GI for company office) to myself most of the day. I’ll be able to get some reading or writing or something done. I’ve been sort of hesitant to write everybody because I wanted people to have a more or less permanent address. But I guess that I’ll just “shut my eyes” and write and take a chance on how long I’ll be here.
    I wonder what’s been going on back there the last few days. I’ll bet that school looks pretty near now. And by the time that this gets there it’ll be less than a week away.
    Just in case I do hear from you this afternoon, I’m going to sign off now and finish this evening. I’ll be seeing you.
6PM
    Well I’m on my job now but that’s just about all the news I know. Sitting here a little while ago I had sort of a funny feeling come over me. I think it was a slight touch of homesickness. I suppose the reason that it’s kinda’ easy to get homesick even in times like these is because it’s hard to keep from hoping - especially when you hear - a good rumor once in a while.
    Hope you’re getting along OK. I’ll be looking for word from you tomorrow.
                  Good luck and God bless you,   
                                   Donald

                                                      August 30, 1945
Hello Folks,
    I actually don’t suppose I’ll be able to think of enough to make this look like a letter but I’ll try anyway. I don’t know a bit more than I did the first day about how long I’ll be here. We’re not doing enough though to make any difference. I’ve been spending most of my time working on the mail but there has been very little time spent in training. The company drilled yesterday morning and as far as I know that’s the only work of that type that’s been done since we’ve been here. If the higher-ups don't start pushing it I expect it’ll continue this way. After next week when the number begins to diminish there’ll be less incentive than ever to try to look busy.
    Now just a little explanation about the money order. We were paid our ration money and for the month of July when we got back to the reception center. I got $19.80cents for furlough ration money and since you guys fed me I want you to have a $25 bond out of it. I don’t care whether Mother’s or Dad’s name or both is put on it. I also want a report on the matter so I’ll be sure you did it. Of course, if you have a real need to spend it otherwise it’ll be alright. The check will be about $1.25 short in buying me a 37.50 and the 18.75 bonds but there should be enough left from the money I left in the bank to finish it. The post office wouldn’t cash the check they paid me with at Camp Atterbury1this would have been where he was sent prior to the 30 day furlough or I’d have sent the whole thing.
    Well I wonder if the garage looks any different than it did this time last week. I know you’ve been doing something whether you’ve got much done on that or not. It shouldn’t be very long before I’ll start getting mail now - I hope.
                         God bless you,   
                                   Donald