August 28, 1942 - Written from the Hospital Ward

Friday Evening Late

Dear Mom + Dad,

I didn’t receive your letter but it will probably arrive tomorrow morning. I’m assuming you are writing as per schedule you announced in your last letter. It’s gotten so that I look forward to receiving the mail as I actually out of contact with civilization. I get a real kick out of hearing from you and from my friends.

I’m now writing in the ward. Things are rather quiet as we have no real sick patients on our hands. Most of them are all asleep now and it becomes a tiresome job after while. There are five of us working here so none of us have to work hard. I manage to get a few hours sleep every night but it is just of a dozing variety. I imagine next week when maneuvers get underway again we will be fairly busy. I work in the only air conditioned ward in the whole set up. We get most of the seriously ill cases and the ones just coming out of operations. Naturally these kind of patients are the hardest to handle. So if we get a lot in I imagine I’ll be fairly busy but right now it is very easy.

The days around here are beginning to cool off. The nights are rather cold. Some of the boys in the tents have been wearing long underwear to sleep in. Of course, the days aren’t real cool but in comparison to what they were a month ago they are much nicer. It won’t be long before the weather will turn real cool here.

I don’t think I’m getting paid until Wednesday. On Monday most of the outfit will be on maneuvers. They return for a rest period on Wednesday. Thus I thing that is when we will get paid even if it is due Monday. It doesn’t make any difference to me as I still have about $20 left from the last time I got paid. I think I will be paid about $40 this month as I have a few incidentals out such as laundry, PX, books insurance etc. I’m going to send home 10 or 15 bucks anyway to be added to my bank account. I’ll see how much I can spare when payday comes around.

As I told you earlier in the day I feel a lot better. Right now I’m feeling fine. I’m all ready to go down and eat our midnight meal so I’ll close until tomorrow.

Love
Bob