Letter to Grandparents Alfred and Grace Carver
February 15, 1944 (Tuesday)
Dear Folks,
I sure owe you a letter by this time but I have been so busy that you will have to excuse me. I lived out on the range in tents for the last two weeks and I could hardly even find time to write home. I am trying to get caught up on my writing this week because I will be living in the open for the next two weeks and I doubt very much if I will be able to get much writing done.
Boy you sure can’t imagine how good these old huts looked after we had been living out in the tents. The electric lights and the stove were a lot better than no heat and candles to read by.
We all slept well enough out there because we slept on cots with plenty of covers but the really hard part was getting up in the cold.
We have been having some rainy and cold weather down here but today is about as nice as you could ask for. The sun is shining brightly but the temperature is just cool enough to make you feel like working. I understand that you have been having some real winter weather in Indiana lately. I wouldn’t mind being back there getting in on some of it.
Today is Richard’s birthday and one week from today will be Jimmie’s. I guess this is one time I won’t get to be in on such fun as giving them birthday spankings, etc.
Well February is a little over half gone now so it sure won’t be long before the folks move again. I hope that they can get moved in time for Uncle Paul to get a good start on his work.
Saturday (February 19, 1944)
As you can see I got side-tracked again. I got busy and this is the first real chance I have had to get started again. I suppose that I will have news enough to make the letter a little longer at least. We had a night problem last night so we have a little time off this morning to catch up on our rest. Of course, we are all trying to get our clothes, etc. ready for next week and there are dozens of odd jobs to do so there is very little rest that we are getting.
We have been doing a lot of physical training this week and since it has been so long since I have done any of this kind of work, it has been pretty hard for me to keep up. We have also been getting considerable tactical training and also training in airplane recognition and recognition of tanks. We must be able to recognize whether the airplanes and tanks are those of our own country or an enemy country.
The last few days have been pretty rainy and wet. I sure hope that the weather clears up before next week when we get to sleeping out on the ground.
I was sure sorry to hear the news about Mr. Davis. It certainly was al lot of bad luck that they had at Rigdon.
Well this will possibly be the last letter I will get to write you till I get back from bivouac but I certainly will be thinking of you.
Love, Donald