March 1, 1944 (Wednesday)
Dear Mother and All,
I started to write you yesterday but I only got about a half dozen lines written, before I was interrupted so I merely tore out that page and started over. I realize it has been almost a week since I wrote last but please consider the situation.
Well yesterday was the extra day of Leap Year. I don’t believe I heard it’s significance mentioned at all. It was also pay day for me. I got my usual $23.35. I am not sending any home just yet till I find out whether or not we will have any chance to go home before we start in on something else. I truly doubt if there is any chance for a furlough but I want to be prepared if the opportunity comes.
We had an eight hour night problem last night so we are off today. Right now we are doing most of our work at night and we are trying to sleep in the day time. By this time we are getting better at going through dense woods at night. Last night we didn’t have any means of guiding ourselves except our general sense of direction and our knowledge of the stars. The problem itself was to infiltrate through enemy lines (without their knowing it of course) and then attack them from the rear. We got in about 4AM and had breakfast and then slept through till noon.
On Sunday we marched back to camp and then came back out here before evening so we had barely enough time to take a bath and catch our breath a little while we were there.
Monday we had a full day of work and then a 4 hour night problem. But instead of resting yesterday morning as I should I had to go back to the dispensary and get my blood typed. They took us back in trucks but it took most of the morning. By the way it is a very uncomfortable experience to be crowded into a small 1-½ ton truck with about 20 other men and to be taken any distance at all.
I got your package and boy did those homemade cookies taste good. I don’t believe mother’s cookies ever tasted as good to me when they were freshly baked as they did this time even though they were 3 or 4 days old.
That little whetstone sure is a dilly. Where did you ever run across such a thing as that.
I sure have enjoyed that last Reader’s Digest you sent me. I have kept it with me most of the time and have read it in my spare moments. It is almost finished already. Be sure not to forget me on the March issue.
I am beginning to wonder how the sectional came out. Your last letter said that Alex had won her first game but that is the last I have heard. I’ll likely hear more about it this evening when the mail comes. I also wonder if you got moved alright.
Well the afternoon is about half gone and I want to clean up a bit and clean my rifle before our night problem tonight. We have been having almost ideal weather so our experience out here hasn’t been too trying. It has cooled up a little to what it was but even yet it is very pleasant.
The end of basic is only a week and a half away now. I sure hope I can make it (and I have very little doubt but that I can).
I forgot my lead penny the other day and now I also have a zinc nickel (or at least I believe that is what the new nickels were to be made of).
You will have to pardon my scribbling because I am writing from the prone position and my pencil is only a stub.
Lots of Love, Donald
Did you have my Gruen taken care of?