Thursday Nite
Dear Folks,
I want to get a long night’s sleep tomorrow night since we are going on a 10 mile march Saturday so I will write tonight. Last night’s guard duty convinced me that this idea of extra duty is a matter to be expected from now until my basic is over. I walked 3 to 5 this morning. They gave us flashlights to miss all the ditches and gullies around here and it reminded me of carrying morning papers. This is the hilliest region around this area that you ever saw and you should see all the gullies that you can run into at night.
I had my first real accident today. Don’t worry about this since it is all over but I will tell you about it. On the obstacle course I was jumping over a hurdle over which you are supposed to jump using one hand. Well, my hand slipped and I hit on the side of my face. I burst open a place by my right eye and raised a nice bump. The corporal took me to the dispensary and they took 2 stitches in my head to close up the burst. It didn’t hurt much and I don’t think it is going to give me much trouble so don’t worry.
There is a couple of things I want you to send me as soon as possible. They want us to have a set of new toilet articles to use for inspection only and save them so we will always pass inspection. I can round up everything except underwear, towel and shaving brush. You can send me my shaving brush that I asked for before. For underwear I need ordinary white summer underwear. The regular army shorts are like the muselin striped shorts that are common only they are white. Get the nearest thing to this you can but regular white shorts will do. The towel should be white and the size of a face towel. If you can find another kind it would be better if it wasn’t made of that tufted cannon material. They try to call every towel made up of this material bath towels.
I would like for you to send me these as soon as possible but I can get by without them for a week or more. A couple more pairs of any kind of white underwear would be appreciated but they don’t have to be sent now.
I hope everything is coming along alright back there. I will answer your questions later but will quit tonight so I can start a letter to Grandma Carver.
Love,
Donald
I forgot to tell you that I didn’t break my glasses when I fell and that GI underwear shirts are like the ones we always wore.