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

I have just come back from helping Mersing carry the mail from the Regimental Mail Tent to our Orderly Room. Then he and I looked thru the mail but it was a pretty sad case as far as that went because there just weren't any V-mails today. However, the Daily Newses saved the day once again and I received the ones of October 25, November 11th and November 19th.

Last night was about the closest I have ever come to taking a three-day pass but I didn't. Our company was again offering three-day passes to anyone that wanted them and hadn't had them previously. Well, I looked for Mike Nyalka and then for Lt. Yantis but the two of them had seemingly disappeared for the night and I had to call the whole thing off. You see, I not only have to get the okay to go on it from the company but also from the Personnel Section. Perhaps next week this time.

Major Shubat gave his little talk today and it was a detailed discussion of just how we got the Japs off Guadalcanal. He isn't a good of a speaker as the Colonel and made a few errors after which he stole a look at the Colonel, who was seated on the stage, thinking that perhaps the Colonel would frown or maybe laugh. The Colonel looked as if he was sleeping.

They told us last night that we were supposed to dress up in khakis without leggings and arms and then march up to the theater area. However, our tent was the only tent in the company that fell out in khakis for Reveille and we had to change back to the normal dress of fatigues and campaign hat. The orders had been changed late last night.

That picture, "Submarine Base", was a bit fantastic and second rate. John Litel and Alan Baxter played the male leads with Eric Blore as a supporting player. The girl of the picture was Fifi D'Orsay and her French accent. The star, Alan Baxter, is strictly a ham and sounds if he is actually reading his lines (and not very good either).

The PX distributed watches out to the companies once again for sale to the men. This time we received ten watches which sold for $25.00 and for $19.00. Every so often they sell those things like watches and moccasins and it seems as if they have sold about forty watches already so that everyone who was without one should have one by now. The trouble is that fellows who already own watches go ahead and buy these too so they have two of them.

The Sopac says that the Washington Redskins won the Eastern Division of the National Football League and will, therefore, meet the Chicago Bears again for the World' Championship. Last year both my teams, the Yankees and the Bears, lost to their rivals but so far this year the Yanks redeemed themselves and I hope the Bears will do the same by trouncing the life out of the Redskins something like they did two years back. Remember that 75 to 0 game?

The boys in the 2nd Battalion Headquarters have this Army made. The officers do not use these headquarters but have set up another headquarters tent right out there on the job. Therefore, these fellows, two or three of them, sleep and live in this pyramidal tent with the wire and celluscreening all about with the canvas sides and walls six feet high, electric lights and all the other things which make it about the best living quarters of any enlisted man in this regiment. They even have a little oven which they can make coffee for themselves during the daytime and before they go to bed at night.

We had to fix up the news for the Home Edition of the Bulldozer today but all I could seem to scrape together was six measly little articles. Mersing and I cooked us a good one for John Edie about his giving his girlfriend a $300 ring by having his mother buy it for him at Peacocks. He claims it is a secret but a miniature paper for all his relations is in the service mentions it so it is a pretty open secret.

So-long,
/s/ Roman
Roman