Germany
Feb. 23, 1945
Dear Folks,
I don’t know what I’m going to say and maybe I’ll have to wait till after the mail comes to see if I get a letter. It always helps to have a letter to answer but, of course, it isn’t necessary. Maybe if I’d looked through all my pockets I could find a letter that needs answering that I have forgot about. I sure have been lazy on getting my writing done. I’ve got several or rather a few letters written to you guys but that is certainly all. I write anybody else so seldom that I forget who I wrote to last and then I wonder if I am forgetting somebody altogether. I think this is the first time since the first few days in France that I’ve had a chance to do any reading. I have all but finished the last Reader’s Digest I got and have even read a few stories in the Sunday School papers. I really should get down to business on my letter writing while I still have a chance.
I sure do wonder what is going on back there. I hope Richard’s luck hasn’t been too bad on his enlistment. It’s really rotten to even have to think about such a thing but since it is necessary we might as well make the best of it.
How is school going? I haven’t heard much about it recently except basketball. Not that I mind hearing about the basketball games. How I sure would like to be home seeing one of them! The last basketball game I saw was the state final in 1943 at the Coliseum. That seems like a good while ago. Or does it? The last two months are really all that seem long but they seem like so many years. The days go by pretty swiftly too, but it does seem like a long time since the 11th of Dec. We were fighting down in the Saar Valley then. Then if you read about the “Bulge” in Belgium; we came up to help reduce that. The little town mentioned in my Silver Star citation was almost on the top of the bulge. After we took that town the whole thing began to collapse almost immediately. That just seemed to be the turning point in the Battle of the Bulge.
Well I guess I’ll sign off until this evening after the mail comes. It sure is good to be where we can get mail every day again. I hope you have received all the letters I’ve written the last few days.
Feb 24 AM
I didn’t quite accomplish as much as I wanted to yesterday, but maybe you won’t mind too much getting this a day later. Yesterday afternoon there was a church service announced for 6PM. I attended that and it sort of consumed the time I would otherwise have used for writing. I am sure glad I went though. It was a communion service and I felt much better for having gone. A couple days ago I wrote that it had been a good while since I had got a chance to go to services. Well since then I have attended two. I hope we are still here tomorrow because I’m sure Sunday services will be held. I am glad the chaplain takes advantage of a time like this to hold a few extra get-togethers.
Last night besides communion there was also a baptismal service for two fellows who had accepted Christ. One of them was one of the best buddies I have left in the company. Incidentally, I signed his baptismal certificate. The baptism itself was only a sprinkling but since that was the best that could be done under the circumstances and since any kind we could have is only symbolic anyway, I feel that the boys have really been baptized. I wonder whether or not sprinkling is the customary form of baptism in their home churches. I sort of hope it is so that they won’t feel that they missed anything by being baptized over here.
Yesterday afternoon I got a letter from Grandma Carver dated Feb 13 so I am expecting your letters between 8 and 13 to catch up with me soon. I may finish this letter up before the mail comes today though.
Noon
If I’m going to get this out today I’m going to have to get it finished in the next few minutes. If I hear from you this evening I’ll start another letter. God bless you all.
Love, Donald