Cpl Roman F. Klick 36620923
Co "A", 353rd Engr Regt
A.P.O. #502, c/o Postmaster
San Francisco, California
September 3, 1943

I've actually wasted this evening. The T/Sgt at the other outfit called up right after I finished this afternoon's letter and said that they could not get the electricity in shape for this evening's show so it wouldn't be any use in coming out. At first I thought we might be able to show a movie here tonight but Lt Yantis said no to that. I then had the evening open. I wasn't going to play chess because I wasted last night on that. I decided to write letters. There are so many and all hard ones to answer that I became discouraged and in typical style I do none of them because there are so many to do.

I walked over to the office with Larry right after supper and up to this time haven't done a thing besides reading some of the magazines which the PX received today and my own 'Reader's Digest" which came in today's mail. It takes an entire evening to read one of those magazines so when I saw I was well into it and the hour was growing late, I figured I had better stop wasting time and begin writing before it would be too late.

Mail call this evening was extra big but there was no V-mail. That means there was no mail for me with the exception of the magazine. Most of the mail was air mail and had been mailed out away back in the last week of July. Can you imagine that? I still don't get it why people should persist in such a heavy use of air mail. Our V-mail correspondence is going and coming in good order but were we to use ordinary mail it wouldn't come for thirty or forty days and when it would come there would be a bunch all at one time.

It's nine-thirty right now and I would like to be in bed by ten. There is only one trouble and that is when I get to my tent, I may find several of the things disarranged by one T/5 Mersing. You see, Edie and I figured it was time for Mersing to have his nickname published in the paper so, sure enough, in today's issue of the "Bulldozer" there was an item about him, "Little Driscoll" Mersing. He said that I am not going to have a moment's peace from now on until he has exacted his revenge. Ordinarily I wouldn't mind it but I'm dead tired tonight and hope he postpones the devilment until tomorrow.

Poor Lt Podelwitz, the censoring officer for Headquarters Platoon. It is bad enough that he has to wade through my typed letters but now Larry just tells me he forgot to mail the letters he has written in the past few days and now has a full dozen to be mailed.

Tomorrow being Saturday and the next day Sunday and the day after that being Monday means that I will not be busy any of those evenings running the movie machine and I am going to make a determined effort to answer the complete backlog of eight letters now holding fire. This letter I mentioned about Dolores has never materialized and I feel distinctly out of the mood to write one.

When Dolores used to write letters down at work and sign off with a kiss imprinted on the letter itself, I thought she was nutty. I'm wrong because Larry's wife does the same thing and that lipstick smell is still retained and it seems to make him a whole lot happier for some reason or another.

The things which you might add to the ever growing Christmas list are: a strawberry sundae, a chocolate milk shake, a cherry-flavored lime rickey, a home made sunshine cake or a home made chocolate cake, a prune whip dessert, a box of mallow delights, a watermelon, a cold glass of milk, a box of those chocolate and vanilla cookies you squeeze out of the squeezer, one of those weekly specials of ice cream, and a banana split. Of course, you will have to radio them to get them here in good condition.

Yes, there are a lot of things which I would like but which are impossible to have at this end of the globe.

So-long,
/s/ Roman
Roman