Sgt Roman F. Klick 36620923
HS 1393 Engr APO 709
c/o PM SF Cal
12 July 1944

Did you see that picture "A Guy Called Joe"? What did you think of it if you saw it? I liked it a whole lot. Even if it didn't have a swell moral to it, it would have been a good picture for the number of stars and their good acting. Let's see, we had Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunn, Barry Nelson, Van Johnson, Esther Williams, Henry O'Neil, James Gleason, Ward Bond and Lionel Barrymore. That was an all-star cast if there ever was one. Here is what I thought about the picture: It had a wrong ending to make an extra good picture, but had the only ending possible considering the times. What I mean by that is Irene Dunne should have been killed at the end of the picture so that she could have joined the ghost of Spencer Tracy, the only man she ever loved and the one who loved her. But that would be an escape psychology and would not go well in this war time America where countless numbers of people have lost their soldiers in this conflict. With such an ending, they would be justified in pining away and spending the rest of their lives living in memories of yesteryear. By having the ending so that Irene Dunne is released by the memory of Spencer Tracy so that she is free to live anew and marry Van Johnson, it is a message to all those people to keep on living and laughing even though the persons that have been lost in this war were the ones closest to their hearts. Of course, as my good friend from Chicago (Mathis) says, "Remember, there are two sides to everything" and perhaps I have the wrong slant on it although that still is the way I think about it.

After supper I laid down on my cot for a short while and soon was fast asleep. In my daze, I heard my name called by Sackett. It was not my impulse to wake up and answer the call but in the Army a person can not always follow his impulses so I woke up and asked him what he wanted. It so happens that a Courts-martial case has come up --- remember those things? Especially those two Courts-Martials which had me working from morning to evening on the Sunday the next day after Christmas last year? --- and I had to help Leishman with it for he had not had any thing like that as yet and had to be shown how.

We went up to the office and went to work at it. Luckily, I have saved some old copies of the many Charge Sheets I had to type up for Captain Hanton in the past and I could make short work of it in typing up a draft while Leish was at my side watching how it was done. He was amazed at the alacrity which I was able to gather the information and type it down on the sheet and follow it up with a certificate concerning the man's record of trials by Courts-Martial. That is the way it always is. When a person is unfamiliar with a thing, it appears as if the other person is unusually swift but in time Leishman will bang out those Charge Sheets out with just as much ease; for I feel sure that if he remains a Company Clerk for any length of time, he too will have the extreme pleasure of watching some of his off days go up in smoke as he types, retypes and so on through the day until the powers that be are satisfied with the charges and the specifications of the charge sheet, thus become very adept at the technicalities involved in the work.

Oh, oh, it looks as if something in the form of work is even going to hit me tonight.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman