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#183 Navy #3247 (Mil. Govt) FPO San Francisco Wednesday 28 March 7 pm My dearest darling- Thank you so much for the batch of snapshots which I received today, and for having the two with you in them enlarged to send me later. At last I can do a little by way of return. Enclosed are 3 of the prints I promised you some time ago - I have 14 of them, and will send them in several different letters, partly for safety's sake but mainly to make it more fun for you. Because it's very difficult to get extra prints here and, when it can be done, takes longer than if you had them developed for one and sent back. I'm requesting a number of prints, as indicated on the accompanying sheet. 8 or 9 of them are for Tel, in return for that many prints of some pictures he had developed at the same time and is sending home to have extra prints made. The rest are to give various people, especially the subjects of the pictures, who are often pathetically eager to have them. I know it's a little expensive, but it's worth it. There are just 3 pictures with me in them, and I am awfully sorry that they’re not better ones, as well as that the 2/3 roll of 35mm taken the other day had (I think) none of me - I was saving 3 or 4 as the end for that. However, I can definitely get ahold of a camera [pg 2] for as much 35mm film as you can send me - at least for 2 or 3 more rolls. 1) First not because I think much of it as a picture (though I suppose it's better than no picture at all) but because I'm in a hurry to get to you. This outfit, a lightweight, darkish green material, is what I wear most of the daytime, topped off (since a month or so ago) with a “dogface” - Army - cap which I prefer to the Navy's baseball style cap because it is pleated and has air space above the hair and doesn't get so oily after a time. In many ways, the convenience of these clothes is spoiling me for any other - but of course it would take no more than a touch of crisp weather to get me to listen into a comfortable tweed suit. 2) Henry Graham (social worker, here the Welfare Officer and house in the same department with Education, all under Coach Hager's relief Art Smith, but having little connection with us in fact); Alan MacQuarrie, Personnel Officer (a thankless job and one having no direct relationship to military government) - you probably remember him from that [pg 3] 7th Section party; Henry Groehn, a rather pleasant and easygoing lawyer, businesslike in his job as Food and Water Officer of supervising the 3 Korean and 9 Japanese food kitchens where meals are served twice a day, plus the one large kitchen which serves all laborers’ meals at noon - he and Graham cut up together occasionally like a couple of kids, get amusingly but not very excessively tight fairly frequently. Graham knows more dirty limericks than any other man I've come across. 3) I like this picture - all three men are very much alive and natural in it. The tent is the one in which I lived from the time I moved out of Operations until a couple of weeks before our recent move into Quonsets. (I'm currently housed with Art Smith and a pharmacist's mate who has just made warrant officer - like Bill Bull, who called you on the telephone.) The title of sign, Coach's creation, says in full - “Moved-Again-by-God Assn.” The dates are filled in up to the time this tent was hauled away [pg 4] (just as is, sliding on crossbeams under the floor) by a truck for use elsewhere. I have a chair, inherited from Thorlaksson, like the one Charlie is sitting in. They are very comfortable and are at a premium here. Am still enjoying Ernie Pyle, though I get just a little tired of lines like “I've always had a sort of yen for poor little ship's that have been neglected.” In general he achieves a maximum of accurate description with a remarkable economy of words. Please congratulate the Wurzmans for me on the birth of Andrea Gabrielle. Wait a minute, I guess I don't know them? I'm getting mixed up with so much to write you about plus the necessity of getting to bed a little earlier tonight than I have been recently. Congratulate them for me anyhow. (will return with comment) I love you making things in mother and daughter patterns already. Like both the pattern and the plaid. #193 - haven't received yet (Tues 13 March is missing) 194 - It's always good to get letters in which you [pg 5] say that I got some letters to you when you needed them most - Wendy's breakfast does astound me. It's huge! I've already applied (in advance) to your offer to go to the Sunset School to get some books for me [Haven't forgotten that form for sending an airmail package - tomorrow deshō* It isn't Colonel James, honey. He left in January and we've had an Army Colonel named Fuller since that time; also an army major as Exec. And an Army captain as adjutant. Otherwise we remain a Navy staff. 195: Please give my cordial regards to Mrs. Price. Loved the description of Wendy's way of crawling. As for her behaving beautifully - since the spanking, of course she knows what it's all about. Only “knows” isn't the right word. Your glee and excitement at receiving my special with the picture of the school on it just as you were finishing this letter delight me, darling - it was just luck that I got a copy, and I'm awfully glad I did simply because it serves so well to orient you with respect to things I wish about the school as well as *perhaps. I find myself not thinking in Japanese, but slipping convenient little Jap. expressions into my thought phraseology now and then. I wrote that almost unconsciously. [pg 6] To other snapshots taken up here. 196- Do reassure Helen for me too, darling. We both know now how tough it is, and continues to be, more sometimes than others. But, on the whole, time has done wonders for you; I am aware frequently of how lonely it must be even now, yet that excruciating and self-annihilating desolation of the first three of four months is gradually disappearing. That's awfully reassuring to me, because it means that our capacity to appreciate each other when we’re together again we'll not be marred by the persisting pain of separation - and will be heightened and sharpened by the focus into which that separation makes us redirect our sense of values. Tell Helen something like that - she may not believe it altogether now, but wanting to awfully baldy will make her cling to the idea until it does make sense of itself. (You’re welcome for the kite, Bobbie) Time goes so fast now that I don't even remember what I said in that 20-page letter - but I do remember how proud I was to have produced for you, and how pleased at the idea of your opening it - [pg 7] We really have that poor Special man coming and going, no? I was relieved, Sweetie, to learn that you’d decided to have a checkup. The date of your appointment is past now and I'll be waiting to hear the results of it. Interested to hear about Steve - my best to Dana. Life does continue to reach me, thank you. I just glance thru it for items of special interest and then bring it right up to school. (I say “bring” because I'm at my desk now writing by Coleman lamp so as not to have to run the generator, above where its’ quiet except for the wind and the flapping of tent canvas - Brownie, as tonight's duty officer, drove by in a jeep making his rounds a few minutes ago and asked if I wanted a lift back…) I'll try to write in more detail about how I'm thinking about the future, darling. Just now I don't have an awful lot of time to think about it at all, much less relay my ideas. But I have some and the thought's always in the back of my head - Am still considering both college teaching (Far Eastern history), prep or high school - with one or two new wrinkles on the subject - meanwhile I can't help but feel that this is an important experience for me. Whether I teach at all or not, [?] is worth giving all the time I do give to it. It may not come to be and I am not wishing it on Tel (who wants to stay as long as he can) but I'm secretly hoping that I get a whack at running this school myself for, say, a minimum of two months between the time the powers that be decide [pg 8] to yank him out and that when my orders arrive. But even if I were to leave tomorrow it would have been a worthwhile experience - just enough to get the feel of it. I’d forgotten Jacobziner. I’d be very pleased to know that you were in his hands. My cordial regards to him too. OK, no Navy blue. Just thought all mothers liked it on their little boys (mine did, of course) and thought that maybe that followed for husbands. But I forgot - the Navy… Hope I do get to see Chuck Mulligan. What do you mean, “That baseball glove!!!” For the last few days I've been wishing again that I had it, because none of these here fit well and it's particularly hard to play softball with one that doesn't. But I am not going to ask you to send it; I perceive that you are growing sensitive on the subject, and it's not worth the price. (Seriously, I’d rather just ask you for important things like copies of snapshots and things for the school) It's getting late, darling - I love you Warren
