Thursday Evening, June 22, 1944
Dear Folks,
My week of leisure is just about over. The company is supposed to get in sometime this evening. That means that I’ll be getting up for reveille in the morning and from now on will be a soldier again. Being free from a large number of people and being able to do as you pleased except during working hours has made this week seem almost like civilian life. I guess if no other good at all comes from our being in the army, it will at least make us appreciate doing as we please when we get out. When you are doing something because you want to, you work a whole lot harder and put in longer hours than you do when you are doing something that is forced upon you. For example: I actually believe that I worked a whole lot harder in school than I am working now and I know that I was getting a lot more enjoyment out of it.
I am sort of mixed up on what to think about radio school so I can’t tell you whether I’ll be going any longer or not. For the past few days we have taken quite a number of tests and yesterday was supposed to finish us up. But almost in the same breath that they say we will quit going down there, they tell us how much we haven’t even touched upon yet and will have to know before we are through. Yesterday was supposed to be our last day but we went today and they told us to come back tomorrow so I don’t know how long I’ll be at it.
I think the trouble is that the higher ups think we should be through as soon as we have learned radio procedure. But those who actually did communications work on maneuvers know that we’ll have to know a whole lot of other things besides this and they are going to give us all they can before we go back to training with the companies.
I am sure wondering by this time how things are coming back there. I hope you are able to keep up with everything. Our mail service has been so mixed up this week that since about this time last week I have only received the short letter that you wrote last Friday. You certainly do miss the mail when it stops coming through.
Well this seems like kind of a short letter but I have said about all I know. I guess the pages are longer than those I have been used to writing on and I have written sort of close together in places so maybe I’ve said about as much as usual anyway.
Well so long with love, Donald