(where all remains quiet, so please don't worry) to do a little investigation, involving Army politics among the brass. Since I have been able to borrow a typewriter, I wanted to say hello and tell you I think of you always.
Yesterday was really a banner day, as I received four airmails and a V-mail from you. I've brought all of them with me to read a second (and third!) time. In your V-mail, dearest, you tell me of your cold--please tak e c are of yourself. If you don't feel well, stay home from school. I don't want anything happening to you--you mean too much to me, and we have too much living together in the near future for you to take any chances.
Tonight, my bed will be a cot in a tent, a reminder of how embarrassingly good life is in Nancy. Eisley and I have found new quarters with Madame Vaillot, whose husband has been carted off by the Germans to God knows where. She greets us each morning at 6:30 a . M . with strong coffee and our laundry, for which she refuses to take any money. She says in cultivated French, "We are repaid enough by your keeping the Germans out and protecting us." So what can we say? Our room is nice, but cold with the constant rains, and fuel is in short enough supply that we start a fire only if we are going to be awake in the room for a while, which we seldom are.
I've been thinking about the nest egg I'll have when the day comes that I get back. With allowances, I should be making around $350 per month when my promotion comes through (November 1, they swear). I'm going to send $300 a month to Mom, by way of a Class E allotment, to put into my savings account. (Please tell my dad to make sure Mom uses a few bucks to buy a new frock or something as a birthday gift from me.
They won't do it unless you insist on my behalf.) There will be $300 mustering-out pay plus the insurance policy of $250 I have, and fifteen or twenty war bonds. All in all, I'm thinking you're right and that I should open my own law office. There may even be enough left over to buy a jalopy. I wouldn't mind getting a little joy out of this money. Other boys have done more to earn it, but it's not a picnic being away from all of you. I still keep my house key in my wallet. Call it loony if you like, but several times a day, I'll reach to my back pocket and feel its impression against the leather, and know that I have a place to return to.
Well, I'm getting maudlin, so I'll stop. Love forever , David
Lieutenant Colonel Brunson, General Teedle's personnel officer, had said that Martin and the remainder of his Operational Group wer e q uartered at the country estate of the Comtesse de Lemolland, west and south of Bezange-la-Petite, near the skirmishing edge of the front. Brunson couldn't explain how Martin had arranged such a scenic billet, but it was clear that many of Teedle's officers, camped in tents on wet ground, had taken notice.
It was nearly noon the next day before the i8th Division's motor pool surrendered a jeep to us, and I thought for a second that Bidwell was going to get into a fistfight with the private filling the tank, who might as well have been using an eyedropper.
"That ain't but a third of the gas we come with," Biddy told him.
"Sarge," the boy said, "this here's my orders. And you'd do better to look close at that map than keep your eye on me. Krauts are two miles from where you're headed. One wrong turn, Sarge, and your war might end early."
As we drove north into the hills, the sun arrived like a blast of horns, lighting up the isolated groves of trees in full fall color. This was rolling country, principally open fields, resembling southern Wisconsin, where my parents sometimes took us for long Sunday drives in my Uncle Manny's borrowed Model A when I was a boy. After a day together, Bidwell had become more approachable and we laughed about the private who'd parceled out gasoline as if he expected us not to come back. Half an hour later, when we heard the echo of mortars and the pecking of rifle
Yesterday was really a banner day, as I received four airmails and a V-mail from you. I've brought all of them with me to read a second (and third!) time. In your V-mail, dearest, you tell me of your cold--please tak e c are of yourself. If you don't feel well, stay home from school. I don't want anything happening to you--you mean too much to me, and we have too much living together in the near future for you to take any chances.
Tonight, my bed will be a cot in a tent, a reminder of how embarrassingly good life is in Nancy. Eisley and I have found new quarters with Madame Vaillot, whose husband has been carted off by the Germans to God knows where. She greets us each morning at 6:30 a . M . with strong coffee and our laundry, for which she refuses to take any money. She says in cultivated French, "We are repaid enough by your keeping the Germans out and protecting us." So what can we say? Our room is nice, but cold with the constant rains, and fuel is in short enough supply that we start a fire only if we are going to be awake in the room for a while, which we seldom are.
I've been thinking about the nest egg I'll have when the day comes that I get back. With allowances, I should be making around $350 per month when my promotion comes through (November 1, they swear). I'm going to send $300 a month to Mom, by way of a Class E allotment, to put into my savings account. (Please tell my dad to make sure Mom uses a few bucks to buy a new frock or something as a birthday gift from me.
They won't do it unless you insist on my behalf.) There will be $300 mustering-out pay plus the insurance policy of $250 I have, and fifteen or twenty war bonds. All in all, I'm thinking you're right and that I should open my own law office. There may even be enough left over to buy a jalopy. I wouldn't mind getting a little joy out of this money. Other boys have done more to earn it, but it's not a picnic being away from all of you. I still keep my house key in my wallet. Call it loony if you like, but several times a day, I'll reach to my back pocket and feel its impression against the leather, and know that I have a place to return to.
Well, I'm getting maudlin, so I'll stop. Love forever , David
Lieutenant Colonel Brunson, General Teedle's personnel officer, had said that Martin and the remainder of his Operational Group wer e q uartered at the country estate of the Comtesse de Lemolland, west and south of Bezange-la-Petite, near the skirmishing edge of the front. Brunson couldn't explain how Martin had arranged such a scenic billet, but it was clear that many of Teedle's officers, camped in tents on wet ground, had taken notice.
It was nearly noon the next day before the i8th Division's motor pool surrendered a jeep to us, and I thought for a second that Bidwell was going to get into a fistfight with the private filling the tank, who might as well have been using an eyedropper.
"That ain't but a third of the gas we come with," Biddy told him.
"Sarge," the boy said, "this here's my orders. And you'd do better to look close at that map than keep your eye on me. Krauts are two miles from where you're headed. One wrong turn, Sarge, and your war might end early."
As we drove north into the hills, the sun arrived like a blast of horns, lighting up the isolated groves of trees in full fall color. This was rolling country, principally open fields, resembling southern Wisconsin, where my parents sometimes took us for long Sunday drives in my Uncle Manny's borrowed Model A when I was a boy. After a day together, Bidwell had become more approachable and we laughed about the private who'd parceled out gasoline as if he expected us not to come back. Half an hour later, when we heard the echo of mortars and the pecking of rifle
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