Letter # 233 March 19, 1944

Mar 19, 1944 Sun. Aft. My Sweetheart; We aren't working after all today. Brownie says "fuck 'em and all their tanks." Good enough for me. He's the boss. Everyone here is pretty much disgusted with the way things are being run and don't give a damn if they work or not. I've seen the moral rather low several different times, but never as low as it is in this outfit at the present time. It isn't only the men. It's men and officer alike. The outfit needs a change of some kind. Our good weather has gone today. Started at noon yesterday to rain and I really mean rain. It poured all afternoon and most of the night and then again today. Now it's dark and cloudy and windy as hell out. Getting a lot cooler too. I wrote all my letters last night so I've been laying on my back all morning reading the papers, looking at girl magazines, joke books, and etc. Can spend a lot of time looking at that kind of literature now. Only way I can get my female association. Pin up gals are all right, but what I wouldn't give for a real live one that close to me. Especially one pin up gal I know of. Wish I could open my billfold and you would step out of the picture and really be you. I'd love you to pieces and then love you some more. Had a small sewing job this morning. My old coveralls had been falling off me for a long time. The other day I got a chance to salvage one pair. Got the new ones today so I had patches and stripes to sew on. They aren't exactly a good fit. Big enough for you to get in with me. [boy, wouldn't that be fun? You couldn't run away either. ] but anything is better than trying to keep these old ones sewed up enough to stay on. I have also been able to salvage a couple pair of wool socks, so I guess I can keep decently covered up a while longer. Have also been packing my equipment , getting ready for the field. They are requiring us to take one dress uniform with us. Don't know if they expect us to dress for retreat every night or what. Maybe we will be near some town and they are going to turn us loose and let us howl for a night or so. I got your Wed. letter today. It's like you say, I'm a day behind regular schedule this week. It's still a lot better than three and four days like it sometimes was with air mail. Gosh, honey, you are really becoming a self sufficient gal. Even raking the gravel back in the driveway. That's quite a job even for a husky man. It's a good thing to do though. Keeps the ruts filled and your tires will last longer. Probably won't get stuck and need to put ashes under the front wheels either. Can always depend that Rex won't forget to donate some syrup. They're swell people. You can tell Marg that I'm looking forward to that reunion and am asking for a reserved seat right now. Jean may not like seeing Gus trying to get in the navy, but I can't see any difference to either branch of the service. Both risky. The opportunities are better in the navy, and the living better for the most part. The fellows going in the army from now on are going to have a harder time getting ratings than the rest of us did. So many men with service seniority. If he can get any inside pull in the navy, I'd say it was the best place for him. The mail you've been receiving has interesting possibilities. I'm like you. Have no use for that type of information at present. No one here to practice on either. At least no one very interesting. When I've got my wife to practice on I don't want any old book to read instructions from. I'm too anxious to be doing it. We may have learned from experience but it sure was fun learning. I've got plenty meat for my tiger waiting for me back home. I don't like starving him so long but from the way he acts he still has plenty of life and is only waiting for the opportunity to gorge himself. We're loving you and saving ourselves for you. We love you like hell. We'll have a perfect sex life any time we get together without the aid of any books.

I may get a chance to see Lloyd Phinney after this problem. If I do I'll see if I can suggest he write his folks a little more often. I'm a good one to be talking that way. I usually don't write my folks more than a couple times a month. My honey gets most of the letters too. If you didn't pass on the news they would be hurtin too. A fellow doesn't have time to write to everyone all the time so we pick the one we think most of to write the bulk of the letters to. You're my darling wife and sweetheart. You're nice and boy, do I love you. Bye honey. I'm hoping. your sgt. Norm.