[Written to Alice in Frankfort, Indiana. Return addressed: Richard, Plt. 622, R.D.M.C.B., San Diego 41, Calif. Postmarked in San Diego, Calif., on 13 June 1944 at 8:30 PM.]
June 12, 1944
8 P.M.Hi Sweetheart,
I feel sure that you have my letter by now. And after tonight, I think you should stay home more than ever. I just came back from a pre-rating test in radio. I think I did fairly good on it. If I did, I should be sent to school for 10 months and come out with a rank of technical sgt. One of the many schools is in Chicago. I’ve had enough time to day-dream enough to think that I might very possibly be sent to Chi. How would that be? Pretty swell, huh? I think that if you just stay put for another 7 or 8 weeks, I’ll come to you instead of you coming to me. I wouldn’t get to see you out here anyway, so you better save that money. I’ll see you after boot-training. How’s that? OK? I hope.
I’m sorry Sweetheart but I’ve got to run now. I’ll write more as soon as possible.
Good night Sweetheart.
I love you with all my heart.
x x
Pleasant Dreams.
‘Nite xxx
x x
[And, on the back of the page:]
I love you.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Casey // Feb 27, 2010 at 8:32 PM
OK, I’m stupid. Are you writing these or are they some historical documents you have found? (But I think I’d recognize your writing…)
2 spitballarmy // Feb 28, 2010 at 1:02 AM
Hey, Casey.
I WISH I had the creative powers to conjure a series of letters like that. No, I didn’t write them. I collect and transcribe correspondence from this period. I’m interested in American cultural history of the WW2 era. I started doing this with a batch I found as a kid – you can read about that here: http://spitballarmy.com/?page_id=177. I hope you can follow this new batch (I’m only seven letters into it). I don’t read the letters until they’re transcribed and posted here, so we’re all discovering them at the same time. Please tell your interested friends about them. I keep a running narrative of the Richard/Alice letters at a main page on this website, which has links to each letter in the series in the chronological order of their appearance in the overall story: http://spitballarmy.com/?page_id=6713.
There it is, in a nutshell. Thanks for asking about it!
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