12 April 1945

Dear Mom,

Your March 31^st V-mail came the other day. I am so glad to hear that our little rose bush in the front yard is growing and that you can take it to the farm when you go. I do hope that you will be able to make a very good start to a really nice flower garden on the farm with what I have in my own small way been able to help you with. Will it be a rock garden or just a scattering of flowers around the door yard? I bet planning it all out just the way you’d like to have it will be half the fun of having one. Gosh, but I wish that I could be there to help you all and watch the flowers grow and smell and enjoy them with you and take pride with you when our guests compliment you on the lovely flowers. But, I bet it will be something really wonderful to come home to, Mother.

Yes, I will be 21 the end of this month, but somehow I don’t feel quite as anxious for this birthday to come as I have for the rest of them. I can’t think of anything that I would like to have this time, unless it is a nice big kiss from you but I imagine that they are kind of hard to wrap up in the 8-ounce packages. Oh yes, here’s something that you could send me, I sure would make eyes at a nice snappy belt, military style, big enough to go around a 36” waist (yeah, this army chow agrees with me, or else I have not been doing enough work.) I hope you don’t wonder if it could be a beer belly, because that is probably the case with quite a few of my buddies. I’m just a full-fledged “show hound”, that’s all. And, if you could find a nice pair of suspenders somewhere and it wouldn’t be too much to send them along, too. Well, that should be all your soldier boy will need to make this a very, very happy 21^st birthday. I don’t want to be caught with my pants down, you know. This will make you laugh, but it’s true. I had a belt that fitted me when I came over here, G.I. one. But, somehow it won’t quite reach around me now. I wonder why. Maybe I am just a growing kid. I only weigh about 210 pounds now. All my fellows say they can understand why my Dad was glad when the Army took over and started to feed me. (Gosh – but this typewriter goes too fast to get all the words in).

Say mom, can’t it be arranged to find someone to help Dad with the heavy work up on the farm? I don’t want to think that there he will be wishing that I were there and trying to go ahead and do it without me when he could hire someone. But, on the other hand, I guess it is pretty hard to find help these days. Right about this time, I could wring my brother’s neck for ever going away and joining the Navy. But there is no sense in crying over spilled milk. In his last letter he said that he guessed that I would have to do most of the heavy cement work on the farm, but God knows I hope that the concrete work doesn’t have to be done very soon. Much as I hate to say it, if it does, I am afraid you will have to find a suitable substitute for your wandering boy. Damn this old war anyhow, but if I could be sure that by staying over here for God knows how long, that none of my children or anyone else’s would ever have to come over here again, and then I would gladly stay over here as long as they want me to. But on the other hand, when the ball starts rolling on this demobilization plan, or whatever they’re planning in Washington, everybody is going to be cutting everybody else’s throat to get a chance to go home, and I may as well try to cut a few myself. A fellow learns quickly in the Army that the only one who is going to look out for his interest is himself and he has to fight a tough battle, usually a losing one, to promote his own interest and gain. So if I can convince them that I am needed at home as much as the next fellow is---- well anyhow, I guess it isn’t quite the right policy to cross those bridges until I come to them. Let’s pray that it will all work out for the best anyhow. I’m sure that it will. Aren’t you, Mother? At any rate, if I were my father, I know darn well that I would be able to see it all through with a wife like you by my side. By the way, Mother, I am open to any suggestions for Mother’s Day. Maybe another little contribution for the flower garden or the record library would be in order? I have another little surprise in store for you, too. Oh, shucks, I wasn’t supposed to tell you about that one.

Guess what I found in a bike shop the other day? A real honest to goodness dynamo set for a good light on the front of my bike. And, if you have any imagine as to how pitch black it can get over here, well you will understand why I am quite delighted that I found this lighting set. And, they are quite scarce since the war too. I have yet to christen it, but one of my buddies is riding my bike tonight and I hope he will find it to be a great help in the dark. In fact, if this is half the rig it should be for the price, I might consider sending it home when I dispose of my bike. That is if someone doesn’t like me enough to stab me in the back and lift it. It is complete with tail light and head light and tail light and when the back wheel isn’t generating the lights run off a battery in the head light. But, I guess it wouldn’t pay to send it home except for a curiosity or souvenir because it was “Made in England” and takes standard English parts. Besides, I may want to have anything around that will ever remind me of this place.

Do you know just what branch of the service Chas Fieglestok is in? somehow I have to laugh when I think of fellows like Fred Wynne and Ray Watts in the infantry. I guess it must be my moronic sense of humor, but look at the size of them and then think of me over here. A great big guy like me at the typewriter (I do manual labor in the Warehouse now) and Fred and Ray in the infantry. Sure, I know why it is but if I had fine eyes, I wonder if I could exploit the truth in the old slogan, “The bigger they are, the harder they fall!” Nevertheless, I’ll take my hat off to fellows like Fred and Ray any day.

Give Dad and everyone my love, wont you. I hope this letter has arrive not too long after you reach our new home, because I want it to make you feel in a small little way that even though I can’t be with you on the farm that is where my heart will always be and no grass will grow under my feet till I get there once I have that paper that says “honorable Discharge” in my hand. I’ll be seeing you all then, and keep praying for the day and I write often. I am always thinking of you and hoping and praying that everything will turn out for the best.

Your Loving Son,

Chuck