9:25 P.M.

Nov 24 [1942]

Dear Mother:

Well I finished a night of school and had a good nights sleep.

I will be on the night shift this week from 4 to 12 and next week one day from 8-4

We have to get up at 7:15 A.M. when we’re on the night shift. Then we go out to the drill field and do some exercise, and then we go eat. We haven’t got anything to do then until 4 o’clock. This is really a swell hotel. The bed has an innerspring mattress, and it is soft. Also [it has an] elevator service. It’s a ritzy hotel, but the soldiers got it now. Boy this is just like living in heaven.

The food is even better than at Camp Crowder. The Colored even eats there. We started our code lessons last night. It isn’t so hard for me because I had that stuff in high school. We also had a blinker light code which is pretty hard to get use to. There are about 400 Soldiers here as far as I know. The town has 28,000 people. The people are very friendly and sure glad to have us around. There are plenty of planes flying around here. Big 4 motor bombers and things like that. I guess the fields aren’t so far away.

The air and climate here are perfect, and the trees are all green yet. I soon am coming back to this state when the war is over.

Some parts of it are thickly wooded and a hunters paradise. The air and the sky is as clear as a crystal. The people around here are always taking the soldiers home to dinner, and I will probably have Thanksgiving with someone. We also had to fill out a blank on religion & hobbies etc. And I keep [putting] down hunting as one so I probably will get a chance. I hope. I hope you don’t have any trouble sending the camera.

Coming through Oklahoma and Arkansas is a very hilly and heavily wooded, and as I said there are a lot of hill billis there. There are a lot of small towns along this line with no lights or anything. Mud roads and stuff like that.

If the weather would have been clear instead of misty on the way here, and if I would have have my camera, I could have taken some pretty nice pictures. I had my first delicious apple, that I haven’t tasted in a long time, last night. They had some in the hotel lobby last night when we came in. The apple was pretty big and cost a nickle.

            That being a corporal stuff is a lot of junk. Nobody has got it yet. That’s just a lie they hand us at Camp Crowder. But this Colonel said he has asked Washington about making us corporals.

The sun is shinning nice and bright now. When the sun is out during the day it’s good and warm, but at night it gets chilly. Swell country and swell people. You’ll never find these kind of people up north. They are real honest Americans down here and not a Dago in the bunch.

                                                            Your Son,

Melvin

P.S. I also saw a flock of ducks on a lake in Arkansas some place. The lake was just black with ducks.

I also saw some hunters walking around the hills. If we have a map of Texas you can see the south we covered on this trip. A map of Texas will include a little of Missouri Oklahoma and Arkansas.

I’ll give you different towns in order so all you have to do is draw a line between each one and you will have a good idea. Start at Noel, Missouri – Gravette, Ark. – Siloam Sprs [springs], Ark. – Westville Okla. – Stilwell, Okla. – De Queen, Ark. – Texarkana – Naples, Tex. – Omaha, Tex. – Mt. Pleasant, Tex. – Pittsburg,  Silver, – Big Sandy, – Winona and Tyler.

You should have a pretty good idea now.

ID People/Relationships:

            None

Research Windows:

            Follow the path they went through the Midwest.

General Questions:

            What are the requirements for corporal?