Cpl Roman F. Klick 36620923
Co "A", 353rd Engr Regt
A.P.O. #502, c/o Postmaster
San Francisco, California
July 28, 1943

Dear Aunty Clara,

This is still a continuation to the answering of your letters. There is nothing like a letter to provide enough interest and enthusiasm to really put your thoughts down in print. I am very surprised to hear that a part of my letter was blacked out. During the first few weeks of censorship when the censors were learning what to censor and the soldiers were learning what to write about and what not to write about, there were many items blacked out or cut out. But I thought I had never once gone over the line into the restricted material. As a general rule it is something which between ourselves wouldn't be so important anyway whether it was in the letter or not in it.

Well, the PX has received a shipment of Tootsie Rolls and Welch's grape fruit juice and the boy's are satisfying their sweet tooth once again. My lack of finances this month turned out rather well since there weren't any candy bars or boxes of candy to be bought for love nor money for almost the whole of it.

Here is how come I received so much money in my pay. Two months pay was due, plus foreign service pay from the day we left the United States. Out of the pay was taken the $15 in part payments, two $6.60 deductions for insurance and here is where the extra dough comes in, one $50 allotment and one $60 allotment was taken out. You probably were under the impression that two $60 allotments had been taken out.

Evidently all that talk Jack Molyneaux heard about Company Clerks was just talk. Under certain conditions, it is probably true that they are advanced but these aren't the conditions. After the war is over, I will be able to tell you the full dope and politics which are connected with that. There were some articles in the "Yank" and "Liberty" on it.

Well that just about concludes the answers to your letters. It sure is swell to read page after page of letters.

One more thing, when those V-mails are postmarked New York, they must have been flown across the continent and then printed. At first I thought that trains must take the mail from the coast to Chicago, but since there is only a one day delay between Frisco mail and New York mail, they must deliver it air-mail within the country also.

The show this evening is to be something about Commandos and anything in that line is usually exciting and interesting. It is just before supper time as I write this and about an hour after that the pictures begin.

Whoopee, Chick Schneider just sent us the latest news flash that Turkey is in the war on our side. That is unconfirmed but if it's true, that means the island of Crete and the Italian islands just off the coast of Turkey will soon be in Allied hands thus making the stepping stones to an invasion of the continent via the Balkans. It has been so long now since our side has had any bad news that I wonder how we would take it if it did come. Just think, for more than three-quarters of a year the tide has been running our way!

Nyalka knows that I write a letter to you at least once a day and he also has seen me receive two and three at a time from you. What he can't see to figure out is what we have to talk about; therefore, I let him read ones which I had censored myself before giving it to him. You see, most fellows can understand a husband writing to a wife but they can't see a nephew writing to an aunt. They just don't know what the situation is. What has surprised me, though, is that Harvey Beaumont writes only one letter every two or three days to his wife in Medford. And then he double spaces them occasionally. Even if the letter said "Hello, there isn't anything to write about, Goodbye" that would be better than nothing. I know you'll agree to that because you've said so yourself.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman