| dc.description.transcription | 9-12-43Dear Folks,“Oh beautiful, wonderful, restful Sundays. I ought to write a poem along that theme. I heard that writing poetry is 1/10 inspiration, if that is the truth the poem is 9/10 written because I am truly inspired. The Lord had a wonderfulidea when he inaugurated this rest system every seven days, but he didn’t go quite far enough.If it were changed to one out of every threedayswe would all get along better, especially the Cadets. I told you in my first letter from here that they promised to keep us busy. I also said that I had reason to believe that they were telling us the truth, they were-enough said.Our classes include aircraft identification, Code, Math, First Aid, War Publications, Customs and Courtesies of the service, Military Sanitation, and a course in High Altitude work. They are going to take us up toainsulated 38,000 ft. in the pressure chamber Tuesday. I can hardly wait -bah.These classes last for ahoursbut we don’t go to all of them every day, and some of them we goto twice. The rest of the day we spend drilling, taking P.T. and going to parades.I might add that theP.T. is the hardest I ever had.Of courseour rooms are kept in perfect shape too. I must tell you about our rooms. They are imaginary, the walls, the doors and everything, but wehave touse the doors just as if they were really there. I have three roommates, one a sergeant, that is he was a sergeant before he joined the Cadets, like Jerome, his move in Ogden and he is from Utah. The other two are Jews.One has lived in Chicagoall ofhis life, and the other has split his time between Fort Worth, Dallas, and Omaha, Neb. All three of them arereally swellfellows.9-13-43I planned for a week so that I would have time to write this on Sunday and eventhenI didn’t get through. It is now about 5 minutes before taps on Monday. We are so rushed for time that we plan andmake arrangements2 days in advance before we can go to the toilet. If there wasn’t enough to doalreadythey have us reorganizing everything on God’s green earth. Most of the things are about honor. They encourage us to leave our valuables out, so far nothing has been stolen and I’ll bet nothing ever is.Mama I don’t want to discourageyoubut the Alabama river is undoubtedly the filthiest nastiest stream of H2Othat there ever was. The fruit isexcellenthowever.9-14-43Another day and I still haven’t finished this. It is now right before dinner on Tuesday. We just got back from the pressure chamber. Carl Hathaway and I got the bends. He got his at 36,000 ft. and I got mine at 38,000. It is nothing against us except that we will not be required to fly at high altitudes. My dreams of flying the biggest airplane that they have, are gone. They will probably make a low altitude pissant pilot out of us. Then again, the next time we go up we may feel no ill effects. The only reason Ihave towrite this now is because the pressure chamber didn’t quite take up all of the time allotted to it.Incidentally I got the bends in my leftkneebut it feels fine now.Don’t mind the choppy sentences and themixed upline of thought. I’ve been to the barber shop, and the P.X. with this letter, getting anotherhaircut, andwaiting on some friends. I’ve been writing a little but in spurtsall ofthe time. Iam back to the barracks now waiting to go to chow and then to classes.I haven’t seen Jerome yet. InfactI haven’t been anywhere except in detail. And upperclassmen don’t have much more time than underclassmen.Sohe hasn’t had time to come see me either.What in the world was so sensational about my first letter from here? It drew favorable comment from all members of the family.It was written between 1:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. andtruthfullyI don’t remember a thing that I said. Maybe I do my best writing at that time of night. I do remember mentioning the enforced, strict table manners, maybe that is whatall ofthe fuss was about. By the way, the attitude of the upper classmen and officers haven’t changed along the line of table manners. Weare allowed totalk at the table but that is all. | |
