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

Christmas still continues! I received a Christmas card from Mr. Gonzalez today with two dollars enclosed in it. He shouldn't have done that after sending two boxes of Mallow Delights. In addition to the Christmas card I received a letter from Eleanor Angsten and a Daily News from October 16th.

There were some startling revelations in Eleanor's letter and I will try to get the whole thing to you later on tonight. For the time being it will suffice to say that the office force staff was changed about considerably and Charley Russell, who worked in the Cost Department and joined the Marines as a 1st Lieutenant, was killed somewhere in this Theater. Eleanor says the Tribune had a picture of him. She says she and the others down at the office can not comprehend the fact that he is dead and tend to disbelieve it. Yet we know how true it can be. That makes the second gold star from an office force of some twenty-five in the Services.

Today was the tent moving day and by eight o'clock the operations were in progress. Sure as shooting, the very first thing Censky said this morning was that he was going to move into my spot. (Is it permissible for me to say "I told you so"?) What made his selfish attitude more evident was the fact that everyone of the five men who were to take over our tent came in singly and announced their intention of taking over that best spot in the tent, the one which I had occupied.

However, Censky was disappointed. He met no argument from me mainly because I had anticipated his demand and had schooled myself to "take it" no matter how much it went against my grain (which I can assure you it did). But when we got into the tent next door, there was T/5 Snook sitting at the favored spot and announcing adamantly that he would keep it for himself. He is bigger than Censky and would probably invite Censky out in back of the tent if he tried to pull his three stripes on him; so Censky, being a practical man in the face of such an emergency gave up his intentions. Later on in the day he tried to emphasize the fact that I was the only one who had to move into a different spot but he was dampened when I announced that I rather like the change and the new place. It has both its advantages and disadvantages. On the latter side is the fact that the rain has a tendency to blow in on the cot, the cot is wedged in so that it can not be moved away from the rain, because the cot can not be moved it makes it difficult to get into the back end of my footlocker and, finally, there is no extra room to put my chair as I had it in the old tent. The advantages are that it is more private in the corner and people are less apt to park themselves all over it, it is in the corner where I can yell up to Larry in the next row, its position is so that I will be able to read in bed at night using the light from the lamp on the table and even though I may have to pull my footlocker out to open up the back end, the floor boards run lengthwise so that the locker will slide along instead of getting caught by them. That is the new set up as it stands. It turned out much better than I had anticipated.

I wrote no letters today in spite of the fact that I have quite a few to answer once again. What I did do was to read all the accumulated Daily Newses and then trade with John Edie and read all his accumulated Daily Times. One thing that I was especially interested in was the story of the subway. Quite a few of the letters, including yours have mentioned it and the papers have been giving it a tremendous write-up. The reading job is all done now except for three This Week sections which will take a little more time.

It is after supper right now and the show will start in about an hour or so but we don't know whether it will be in the Rec Tent or the hill. The last box of Mallow Delights is beginning to go even though Larry and I are consuming them slowly and sparingly. Incidentally, I gave John a dollar for my share of the lamp.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman