With several other letters from Feb/Mar in an envelope postmarked March 6
Friday AM (probably February 25, 1944)
Dear Folks,
Again even with the morning off from training there is so much to do that I must hurry. In fact if I wasn’t afraid that I may be too busy to write at all on Sunday I would not write today. We go back Sunday to wash u but with ourselves, our clothes and our equipment in such bad shape we likely won’t have much spare time.
As you probably guessed by my being off this morning, we had another night problem last night. We were given practice in walking silently at night through woods, through bushes, up hills, through swamps, through gullies and over any other imaginable obstacle.
All in all I really had a great day yesterday. To start with I got up at midnight and pulled guard (or as we call it out here “listening post”) from 12 till 3. Boy did it rain too. It rained for the entire 3 hours and was I wet. Then from 3 till 6 I slept. We got up at 6 and since we had a night problem till midnight, I got exactly 3 hours sleep in 24 hours.
So far it hasn’t been cold out here but it rains almost continually (off and on) so our biggest problem is keeping dry.
Well I’ve got some news to tell you that isn’t so pleasant. From what we are being told now, we have about one chance out of ten of going to school. ASTP is being almost completely eliminated. Most of us will be sent to combat outfits probably infantry with the rest going to wherever they are needed.
We will just have to hope and pray that I can get into something that I can do. If it is some outfit bound for overseas I just hope that I can take it and help get this job done.
I hope you get your moving done tomorrow and have decent weather for it.
I hope all is well back there.
Your son & brother, Donald