April 19, 1944
Wed. Noon
Hello Folks,
Perhaps I can get this started before we have to fall out again, I hope. I wanted to write last night but we had so many extra weapons to clean that it was time to go to bed before I got anything else done.
It has been a pretty wet week so that makes it all the harder to keep the guns clean. It is raining some now so I suppose it will be damp this afternoon.
Yesterday and this morning we fired the BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle). We fired part of our record fire with it this morning and we will finish either this afternoon or tomorrow. I’m pretty sure that I’ll be able to qualify with it but don’t know how good a score I will have.
The other day when we finished firing the carbine I wound up with a score that qualified me as a sharpshooter. That seems to be about my standing with most weapons. – Well that’s enough of that.
I was sure glad to get that roll of papers the other day. I don’t know how you are still getting the Baptist paper since you aren’t attending Lilly Creek but I sure like to get it. Even when you send both kinds of S.S. papers the Young Peoples’ are about all I get to read in my limited time. Of course, I always read them first and that might partly explain it.
Mother wanted to know if May 1 was something special because of what I said about my clothes. I said that I traded a pair of khaki pants for some that would fit me on May 1. You must understand that we call our summer uniforms khakis and our winter one O.D.’s. The significance of May 1 is that we are changing to our summer uniforms on that day.
If Mary thinks that she might want to go to college I say go right ahead and take a college entrance course. With a little planning it should be worked out so that she wouldn’t have to load up much heavier than she already is. The only question in my mind is about a foreign language but since they are not so strict on this any more she might even be able to substitute her home ec. for this. Even if she later decides not to go to school there will be no harm done that I can see. This is only my opinion of course.
I am not prepared as yet to even express myself on Richard’s problem about college. By the way, I wonder how he likes chemistry by this time.
I didn’t get all this written at noon but some place back there I started again this evening. We didn’t finish the BAR but fired a little more with the carbine this afternoon.
Hope you are coming along OK.
Love
Donald