Saturday evening,

Dear Folks:

I am a little late in answering your many letters, but you will have to forgive me. We are kept pretty busy out here, and I haven’t much time to write. After we rookies become more settled we will have more leisure time. But now we really are moving.

We all get a great kick out of hearing our names called out at mail time and mine has been sounded plenty. It gives me a great thrill and I sure appreciate it. Thanks to all of you, especially Karne(?). She must have a sore arm by now between Tom and myself. Helen, Tom, and I are sure lucky to have such a swell mother.

Yesterday and today I received about 8 letters. Most of them were sent to me at Fort Dix and were just sent here. Included in one of them, Ma was saying that she thought I would be in the sunny south by now. They sure fooled us, didn’t they, Ma? Don’t think by that last sentence that the weather up here is bitter cold. Today we had a bit of a cold snap but for the rest of the week, the weather was fine. They say that the climate out here is normally damp and not very cold. That is how it has been so far and I guess they are right. So don’t think we are cold because we are away up on the top of the country. We are quite warm and comfortable.

I received all of the money you sent me, five from Dad and two singles. I thought I would mention this so you will know it has gone through all right. But let me say again that I really don’t need any at the time. Thanks loads for your help. One thing I neglected before leaving was to have my account in the bank changed over to Ma. I know occasions will arise when you might have some need for some cash. In that case I would want to help out, if I can. Now I don’t know whether or not it can be done. Do you think somebody could drop in the bank sometime and inquire about that? If it cannot be done, you could send me some withdrawal slips and I could fill them out if the need arose.

We had rounds of arms drill today for the first time with rifles and it was pretty funny. We sure did look like a gang of rookies once we started to swing those guns around. You would be surprised how clumsy everybody is with the rifle. I suppose after a while we will become pretty good but now we are pretty sad. We were also practicing with gas masks again today and pitching tents. You should see me putting up a tent-just like a veteran boy scout. The tents are the tow-man affairs such as you can see in Tom’s old soldier handbook.

I will close now and start writing to Tom and Charlie. Hi Aunt Nell, take care of Karne(?).

Love to all,

Joe

P.S. About a picture, we will be in quarantine for another week yet, and so are confined to our barracks. You can’t forget what I look like, just look on the piano and there I am.

P.S. No.2. I showed the picture of the draft band gang to some of the fellows, and they got a great kick out of it. They are about 10 fellows from Bond, 15 out here with me so I am far from being lonesome.