October 30, 1942 – Ducking to Avoid Work

Friday Evening

Dear Mom + Dad,

Another day another letter to you. This place here is rather getting on my nerves. You have to keep ducking all the time to avoid details as K.P., guard, etc. It rather makes your life insecure and jumpy. You can never tell from one minute to the next just what they want you to do. Your rank as corporal means nothing and you can still get the lousy details that I got when I was a buck private. Oh well, that’s the army for you. I guess I can make the best of it.

It to looks rather dreary for a quick transfer to the air corps. There are quite a few boys around here for the same reason I am and they have been here for 3 months. I guess it is just the breaks you get that decide your fate. Some only stay a short while others for quite awhile. I sure hope that mine is short and I can get out of here in a hurry. I’m getting anxious to get underway on the air corps deal. As I figure I’ll be a lot happier than I am now in my present set up. I think I told you that when I do go to the air corps that I’ll probably go to Santa Anna, near L.A. Most of the boys that have left from here have gone there so I don’t think I’ll be any different. The one consolation is that it will be out of the desert and near a nicer part of California. I don’t expect to get any breaks and get near home. I’ve rather given up hope for that move east I’ve always been dreaming off since I’ve come in this mess.

I have no chance of getting a furlough while I’m here. They won’t even let us out on pass as the air cadets are liable to be called in at any time. At one time they called 25 of them and only found 5 so since then they haven’t let any of the air cadets leave at all. That doesn’t bother me as I can leave anytime. I feel like it as there is no check up on me at all. When my money arrives I’m thinking of taking a trip to L.A. for a few days. I hope it comes in soon as I have no one to borrow from around here. “Mac” is my only friend and he hasn’t very much so I’m in a predicament. I think now perhaps I can get paid on the supplementary payroll which should come around the middle of the month. I’m going to check tomorrow and make sure that my service record is here and that this is where I really belong. I’d hate by some fluke of fate to mess up this deal. It is bad enough to wait around here.

That’s it for now. I’ll write again tomorrow night.

Love
Bob