Letter #24 May 8, 1943

May 8, 1943
St Aft. 4:00
Hi you sweet old devil,
Didn't get time to write last night, always have to get barracks and everything ready for Saturday inspection, and we didn't get off so early today, nearly 3:30. I went over to the P.X. to get some cigaretts and met Wayne Good, first time I had seen him for several weeks, and we are only four barracks apart. So you see how much we get around. He spoke of his wife coming down, not this week but maybe next and when I told him I knew she was planning on it he was some surprised. He also thought Kenny's wife was coming. When I told him of the meeting of Medina boys for Sunday he was tickled, because he wanted to talk to Kennny and hadn't been able to find him. So we will go to the Service Club tomorrow and have a reunion. He wondered if I wasn't going to have you come down, and I told him I wasn't unless I saw I wasn't going to have a chance to get home before we are shipped. Costs too much for what little I could see of you.
They have these guest houses here, where guests can stay for 3 days, but we are not allowed to be there with you so what the hell. I want to see you alone and not out on the street you devil. I love you and when I see you I want to be able to show you in my own way. I bet you can't imagine what I mean can you. If you can't let me know and I'll explain. I'd much rather demonstrate and believe I could do a fairly good job of it about now. From the sound of your letters you might even like to have me do a little demonsrating. Just keep wanting me to and one of these days I will be home and do just that. Be better than our honeymoon.
Maybe as you say the shell is cracked or else I was always that way underneath and wouldn't admit it even to myself. I know I miss you more than I thought possible to miss anyone. I sure do love you a lot regardless of what my past actions might have implied. Just you wait and maybe I will develope into the kind of husband you always wanted me to be. I was sweet though.
The trip to Port Arthur was called off this week so I won't miss a thing by going to the Medina reunion. Leo Marks wanted me to get a pass and go to Lake Charles on the bus but I couldn't see any reason to go, so he and another fellow took off and won't come back until late Sunday night. If I had been a young sprout and looking for an easy virtue girl there might have been some reason to go, but you've got me tied up so darn tight I don't even have a desire to look for that and beside I wouldn't have had any time to write to you.
Now don't fret about my writing to you when I might be doing something else. I am still hard shell enough that if I didn't want to write, I probably wouldn't. I find it a lot of fun. It's the only way I have of talking to you and I like to do that now that I can't see you whenever I want to. You're sweet. But you are also a very nice kind of devil because you made yourself so necessary to me. I love you anyhow.
You said something about sending a pie to me, joking I think, but in case you weren't, for gosh sakes, don't, it would be scattered all the way from Ohio to here. As well as you and John have been wrapping up the packages they are nearly apart by the time they get to us. The army is rough on anything.
Well honey, five weeks of basic training over and I am still going strong, right up in the front ranks. If they keep on sending men to the hospital with physical defects and sickness, I will soon have a record of being the only one not having been in the hospital. Nearly every day or so there is one or two more given limited service certificates or in a few cases medical discharges. By the time basic is over they will have them all weeded out and what are left will be able to take anything that comes. I feel swell and getting tougher every day so don't worry about them killing me. I can take it.
They are feeding us better all the time. We have had very good meat for at least two meals a day all week. If Kenny is getting the same maybe he is better satisfied now. I have never gone back for seconds so you know I must not be hungry.
I hear that we only have two more weeks of real basic. That is if enough of us pass our examination at the end of the time. Some of the Majors and other brass hats were circulating around among our classes this week, picking out 8 or 10 men at random and giving us gun tests on the material we had covered to see if we were learning anything.
For some reason I was on 5 of these tests and only missed two questions. They told us the answeres if we missed them. There wasn't anything personal about it, they didn't even have our names, it was just a check to see if we were learning enough at the fast pace we are going or if they would have to slow down. At least that is what I think.
I also hear that we may be out for three or four days this week, so if the letters get thin and far between that is the reason. They may take mail in but I don't know.
I like that business of being out, just like a camping trip on a big scale. Of course I would a lot rather be on a camping trip with you and have you rather than Curtis as a bed partner. That would be swell but maybe I couldn't get up the next morning. Someday we will go on a camping trip if you get in shape to take it. I mean the camping trip.
Well I guess I'll quit for now. It's nearly chow time and after that I guess I'll look around for awhile and maybe have a beer or something.
Did I ever tell you how much I thought of you? If I haven't I don't think I will because I don't know the words to express it properly. Enough today. I think of you a lot and love you more and more each day. Everyday brings us closer together again, when I can do something to show my feelings when I run out of words. I always could use my hands better than my mouth. Till I'll be feeling you again. I love you a lot old Tootsie Wuggles, and not all sexually as you used to think.
your loving husband
Norm