Tuesday Evening,

November 30, 1943

Dear Folks:

I am taking a night off from my worries to drop you a few lines. I haven’t been a good correspondent at all since I hit California but you see it is pretty difficult to write out here. It is dark at 6:30 or so and that leaves little time for letter writing. Later on I’ll probable become a little better at writing.

Dad’s letter came today and Ma’s(written on Friday evening) came yesterday. I enjoyed both of them as your letters are always interesting. Did I tell you that two boxes of candy have arrived since I got home? Now I am swamped with Walnettoes and have enough to do me for quite some time. Don’t be sending more as I have a month’s supply at least. Tom sent me a nice letter telling me about his various duties in his new job-he really is getting up in the world-being on a Court Marshal Board is a very responsible position in the army and only the most capable officers are picked for that work. I’m very proud of that big brother of mine.

Things here are just the same as always- I’m still in headquarters, acting like a big shot with all my maps, rulers and manuals. The last two days I was in charge of a detail building a miniature firing range for the officers. It was a scale model of a battle area and had roads, factories, tombs, gun positions, airports and even two towns. You see each officer has to fine a problem every day to keep in practice. I had a lot of fun with it-it was just like building a toy town to put around a Christmas tree. You never do get enough johns in this array.

Did I tell you we had turkey and trimmings for Thanksgiving? Each of us got all the turkey we wanted, together with candy, cakes, dressings etc. You should have seen all the white meat! I was thinking about Dad and how he would like all that white meat. I had a nice fat leg myself and got a lot of white meat when I went for seconds. We will probably have the same sort of a meal for Christmas - all we will look will be snow and ice. There is none of that out here. Speaking of the weather it is just cool here in the evenings and warm enough to work around in your shirt sleeve in the day time. It is nothing like what it was in the summer.

Since I got here I’ve had mail from a lot of my pals, Johnson, Simpson, J.O. Brien, Walton, Charle Morel, Gete Colucio and a few others. I understand the old battery is about to go overseas- It looks as though I was transferred just in time. Although I wouldn’t have minded going with them as they were all pretty swell fellows. That is all for now people, God bless all of you.

Joe

P.S. I have about 40 air mail envelopes – The Saturday Evening Port subscription is all I wanted Don’t get me too many.