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351 Tuesday 23 Oct. 10:30 pm Sweetie- I'm just back from a two hour talk (half of it questions and answers) on M.G. to the most appreciative and intelligent audience I've met on the island, the members of a Tinian branch of the A.V.C. - American Veteran Committee. There were mostly enlisted men, a few young officers - sergeants predominated in the group's leadership. The tone was serious but not academic, and it was the first time that I felt that my talk had been really worth making. If you should come across articles on the A.V.C. I’d like to get them or hear about them. It's late and I've only time for a brief letter; at the same time, I have an important idea to get across to you and I do so wish I could talk to you, if only on the telephone. It's just this, Sweetie: in your letter today (as in previous recent ones) you show signs of being under considerably heightened strain because of the race (in your mind) between [pg 2] me and Christmas. Under the circumstances, darling, perhaps it's best for me to emphasize not the slim hope, but what I actually feel to be the probabilities of the case - that I will not be home for Christmas, and probably not till late January or early February. I've no way of knowing, darling, but this I do know - there's no air of rush or hurry right here; no one else is sweating to get out (tho nearly everyone wants to as soon as he can) because there's no use bumping your head against a stone wall. It all takes time, even with eligibility, and I'm not even eligible! Please, please, darling, make up your mind that I won't be home for Christmas, because it's going to be so hard for you to accept otherwise right up until the last minute - and then you'll be left all unstrung, unhappy and in bad shape to manage Wendy. Darling, hasn't it been long enough already that you've accepted the rigors of war bravely and as a grown woman so that you can [pg 3] stand even another 3 or 4 months? Because it could be that long, even tho I continue to do everything in my power to get out immediately. I don't think it will be; but on the other hand, you must realize that even if I got word tomorrow that I was free to be detached upon arrival of a relief it could easily be 2 months before I left this island, and would almost certainly be a month. And the way things are now I’d be very lucky to get home by 3 weeks after that. So you see, darling, there just isn't a chance worth reckoning on when the cost in terms of your physical discomfort and my anxiety over you is so high. Another thing, darling - I'm not going to appear suddenly; if you get a cable in connection with my detachment or impending detachment it will still be six weeks or so before I get home. I'll send you one, because I'll want [pg 4] you to have any specific assurance that I can give. I know, sweetie, that most of all it's not even Christmas, as important as that is, but just the uncertainty. But look at what is certain that wasn't 3 months ago: the war is over! I won't have to go out again after 18 months! And I'll probably be home for good in less than 18 months! Goodness, sweetie, by some people's standards we've got everything. This period must be for you the second crisis of our separation: a period only slightly less trying than the first few months. But darling, pull yourself together for a moment, think of the difference between the future prospect of those two times, look me hard in the eye with determination to hold out just as long as you've got to - it won't be long if only you can thrust aside the temptation to kid yourself and ask for special favors - and then [pg 5] relax, darling, and picture me looking back at you and loving you and knowing (as I do know) that you've got what it takes, and that that's just one more reason why I love you as much as I do. It hurts me, Sweetie, to write a stern letter. I don't blame you for hoping, and for writing about it; it's just that the constant repetition of an ideé fixe makes me afraid, from this distance, that you'll dwell on my homecoming to the point where you could go into an uncontrollable hysteria at some slight provocation, or on being disappointed. I wouldn't blame you for that, either, but of course I don't want it to happen. That's what I'm for, darling, to sit on you when you need it. And you know that that goes vice versa. [pg 6] From now on I'll report any news that I have, but I shall not dwell on it or draw too many speculative inferences. I love surprises under ordinary circumstances, but this situation is too fraught with tension on both sides for surprises to be just pleasant and easy. I'll keep you informed, and the best advice I can give you - and I beg you to try to accept it - is to keep as sober and matter-of-fact an attitude toward my homecoming until I am actually on the way - best of all, until I have cleared the last port before S.F. Then you may get as excited and happy as you wish. I love you so much that even way out here the thought of any suffering on your part hurts me deeply. I want to come to you, but more important even than that is what I can stand for to you yourself, and both of us to each other, in terms of permanent values - the values that Wendy is osmosing from us this very minute. Now cry a little while, and [?] up fresh and clear! Warren
