Monday
Dec- 1942
Dear Joe,
I don’t suppose I’ll have the chance to see you before you go down to Dix so I’ll drop you a few lines.
I don’t want to sound like I’m giving you a lot of advice but I’d like to tell you what you can expect in the army.
You’re going to go into a tough life in a lot of ways but also it’ll be a let-up to you in other ways. For one thing sure you’ll have to really get up early and then when you do get up you’ll wonder why they rushed you to get up. They get you up early and then they don’t seem to have much for you to do anyway. You have to expect that for one thing, I don’t say you’ll get used to but others are doing it and you can do it too. You’ll miss hanging around in bed if you don’t feel like getting up right away. They get you up early and generally make you do a lot of cleaning up such as you’ve never had to do at home. You’ll have to make up your own bed and be and you probably haven’t had to do much of that have you? Don’t be afraid to ask one of your roomates to help you make your bed if you get stuck once in a while.
As I said before you’ll have to do things that aren’t very sanitary such as “policeing up” which means picking up old cigarette butts etc. Then you may have to work in the latrine which isn’t such a pleasant job either.
About the hardest thing to do is the manual of arms which you can brush up on in the soldiers book you have. That is the port arms, order arms, present arms, right shoulder arms etc. I didn’t know what they were talking about when I first started. I’m sorry I didn’t help you out in these things when I was home, but I never really expected you to go. You can get a broom and practice in the house. Don’t break any windows.
Don’t
forget to take it calmly during the I Q test which they generally give on the 2nd
day. When you get interviewed let them know that you were leader at that boys camp etc. Pour it on to them. You might tell them you
were captain of the old