.Ng.MTQ

no 2 nov 19

dear mother, dad and sis

received another note from sister before she left for Indiana --- and a letter from home posted nov 4.

I'm supposed to seal my letters even though they are subsequently censored -- that's proper procedure. However, the presumption is that my mail is only spot checked from time to time. If they re reading all of it I'm probably being investigated by the FBI. You see, one of my tentmates was indiscreet enough to voice his intentions of voting Republican in the next presidential elections so I suppose we're all on the hot list now.

I finally have some pictures for you. They just arrived from Gruber and were taken in Muskogee last July. One of them is rather satisfactory don't you think. Don't expect many more from this locality. The process of taking them, having them censored and finally mailed on, is very long and complicated.

In the classic manner of army life -- there's still nothing doing. Today for the first time I enjoyed the distinction of a morning's service in the camp dispensary. The camp's rightful medical officer is ill --- thereby my heritage. The usual succession of negligable nonsense of course -- but it took my superficial wits out of the suffocating bondage of doing nothing day after day.

For the rest I've been reading - voluminously -- everything I can lay hands on, spending most of the day lying in cramped comfort -- belly up -- across my cot. There are too, I suppose, moments of deep and philosophical meditation -- known in the vernacular as talking to yourself -- but they' re not worth mentioning.

These various staging areas - -such as we are in now - are very poorly furnished with recreational facilities. There are only the free outdoor movies each night ---- and we have to go them of course in as much as one old fashioned kerosine lantern per tent doesn't dispel enough tight for anything but undressing. It's a standing joke out here -- whenever one asks why there isn't better food or more reactional facilities, -etc., etc., -- to answer, "don't be a hog, now -- you know all those things are reserved for the boys overseas" . The neighboring town has as little to offer .. the restaurants are hardly conducive, there are no attractive dance spots or supper clubs -- liquor is very difficultly obtainable and sports of any sort are very few. Finally there are far too few women for the vast soldiery quartered hereabouts -- and our nurses-- a rather unsavoury lot -- are camped separately about twenty-five or more miles away from us. However, celibacy is no new diet for me - - and although it occasionally produces some reactive agitation in the deeper tissues -- I manage to get along fairly well --- amusingly better, in fact, than most of my long married confreres so recently and abruptly torn from the indulgent luxuries of the connubial couch. They give me many a roaring laugh.

My tentmates are worth a note or two. I selected them quite carefully out of a group -- and I say this for your ears and your alone --- which didn't have too much to offer. There are four of us in the tent, and we hope to be able to stick together wen we finally reach our final