February 15, 1943

February 15, 1943

My Dear Mother:

I suppose you have been wondering just what has happened to me, well I have been just too busy trying to work and try to get sleep during the day which is just an impossible feat to try and do here. I had the awful hours of eleven to seven last week and then tried to sleep during the day. At noon the gunny comes in with all the noise that comes with them and then I could not go back to sleep until perhaps towards evening.
We would do nothing except clean down the tile walls which run seven feet up and then mop the floors. The four operating rooms are just simply beautiful in their way. The tile is all green with a very nice design in the floor. They would make very nice kitchens. Then after that we would treat the rubber gloves, the two of us. After which we would just sit around and try and sleep sitting on stools the balance of the time, about 5 hours.
So Saturday night the Corporal in charge said they were short of help on ward four and asked me if I would volunteer for the night. So down I went and I think I learned more the one night there than I learned all week in the operating room. I gave a hypodermic to one of the boys who has a tumor on the brain. He was surely thankful. I took temperatures, respiration and pulse in the morning. They have our Chinese boy in one of the rooms and he was sure no joy to wait on and there were a couple others that would run a person to death if they were given a chance. In fact I really enjoyed it.
I went up town this morning and mailed the pictures there are three of them: one I had left out of the folder for you so that you may have it framed if you wish or take one of the others out and put it in. You can charge the framing to me. I would have had it done here only the frame may have gotten broken in mailing.
I am not so terribly satisfied with them. I should have gotten smaller ones and they make me look about twelve years old. I will know better next time.
I am working from 3-11 this week and I am in the library writing and I will soon have to go to work. I have no idea what I will do today. Maybe get a chance to see an operation.
Yesterday I went out to the zoo with the boy from Washington. It was my second time out and got some very good pictures I hope, which I will send home in a box which I will send one of these days. It will have two pink grapefruit in it. They will not ship them to California because of the inspection on citrus fruit.
So I will see that you get at least a couple of them and I am going to send also the cards I mentioned previously.
I shall also attempt to answer the questions of your last two letters another day when I have more time than I have today.
I am going to start complaining my soon about my show they gave me eight and a half as you can imagine the condition my feet get at times, they sure get tired. They should certainly know better.
How are the cymbidiums coming along?
I gave a fellow named Des Saurins(?) dad’s phone number and told him if he in L.A. ever needed any help to call up. You do not have to extend any special courtesy to him on my part. I just thought if he needed direction etc. he may call. Also a man named Ellard may call you. He lives not far from us there and he got his discharge papers the other day (over 38). He came all the way from L.A with me. I had better be closing now for it is getting near starting out time. I will write sooner next time.

Love,
Stanley

January 30, 42

January 30, 42

My Dear Mother:

Well I am quite homeless this evening. That is, from our regular barracks. This evening I have my belongings in one of the other barracks across the court. This morning after inspection the Major told us to go in and get our belongings such as shaving articles etc., which we were supposed to have packed and that we did not need much – only 24 hours, and to fall out and we would sleep in the Assembly Hall tonight. Well, that was the first we had heard of it and we had nothing prepared. We had heard that they were going to fumigate but not this soon. So pandemonium broke out and we had to hurry and get our things out and the boys had already left for the hospital some 150 of them from our section and they had no way of getting into their lockers when they came in this evening so some of us took a few of their things for them. I took one of my friends shaving things for him but I could not get into his locker for his coat. And I grabbed my case which I keep packed all the time and out I flew. We had to tear our beds apart etc and before I out they already had the windows and doors partly taped and believe me did the entire barracks look a mess. Like the evacuation of Atlanta. And after being shoved around for a couple hours we were found beds but there is still a few going to sleep in the Assembly Hall tonight without even a mattress, only a sheet and blanket. Some of the boys at the hospital returned to find they had nothing to their name for twenty four hours except what they had on. Some of them had money left in their lockers and other food stuff which of course will be ruined. They are using cyanide and they have a monthly fumigation for cockroaches and bed bugs. The barracks sure need it too. The cockroaches are thick here in Texas.
Well the old bunch has left and we have taken their places in the hospital and believe it or not I have been assigned to the operating room whether I will be able to take it or not I do not know because I have been exceptionally lucky to be able to have the practice ward the first week of the four weeks actual training.
We had quite an experience the other evening that is the evening or night or really morning the other boys left someone or some people came in in the night and went through about 6 of the barracks and stole pants including the money in them of about four on our floor and three of four below or downstairs and the pants they took they left some of them laying on the stairway and around the building. Some of the boys have not found their trousers as yet. And the next morning when it was reported to the First Sgt he made the reply of. A person should know better than to have their money in trousers lay around and that the army would assume no responsibility for it. But I think someone has turned it in to the FBI and they are investigating it because they have been to see a couple of the victims. The belief is that it was one or two of those who were going to leave so decided to make a haul before going.
As for me I leave nothing laying around and put my wallet inside my pillow case so I suffered no loss.
We also had the experience of having a general from the Surgeon General office make an inspection this week and when he arrived he was being chauffeured around by a WAAC and had two or three aides and our colonel showed him the school and sis we go over the place with a fine tooth comb. And when he left our majors and captains told us he approved of the state of the school very much, but today we heard a different story. The colonel and top major called the sergeants in and told them the general disapproved of the conditions of the barracks and that they were the worst he had seen as far as cleanliness goes and that if the sgts didn’t see that they were cleaned up they would have their stripes ripped off them. If you ask me the barracks are in very good order and we have sure worked hard enough to keep them clean, but those generals don’t seem to realize that for what we have that they are doing quite well. The barracks are about five years old and are in good condition and therefore they shouldn’t be run down as he says they are and if they need repair he should see that they are fixed. I wonder what he will think of Barkeley when he sees the mess that exists there. And then let him rave.
I am writing in the library which is upstairs in the service club and they are having a show downstairs and when ever I think that it will be something good I go out onto the balcony. Nigel Bruce was just out and they had some very good acrobatics, some of the best I have ever seen and one very beautiful violin solo otherwise nothing of importance.
I received your letter today and was glad to hear you had been to see the doctor, you had not mentioned it before. But do not let things of your health go too long. Maybe someday I will be the doctor or surgeon of the family. Who knows?
To give you something amusing and an idea of some of the well trained technicians wonderful tricks they pull.
A major about three months ago had a 10 day leave. He had ingrown toenails so he decided to have them taken care of over here and they told him it would take about six days so he entered and the toes were getting along well until a nurse told one of the well trained technicians to put two hot water bottles on his legs so the technician did and he put water which was much hotter than 120F and then to top it he didn’t wrap them well. So the next day the doctor in making the rounds noticed the major’s legs were seriously burned. Well anyway the major was in the hospital three months getting skin grafts etc. I can just hear him raving about the wonderful nurse. Another of the patients asked this friend of mine to hold his cigarette while he was not smoking it. He was only a Sgt, some nerve. Believe me some of the stories that come from there are both of the stories that come from there are both amusing and very interesting.
The civilians that are in the hospital are the ones that are in some way connected with a soldier. And believe me there are enough of them over there.
The teaching I spoke of merely consists of staying here from one to three months teaching in the practice ward or in class.
No. a gang does not mob me when I get a package and on top of that I am the mail clerk for the barracks which merely consists of going over and getting the mail and calling it out and of reading all other notices etc.
The reason I believe Marshall may have written in such a way me be they have gotten word that they might return home after duration. Any way I shall write him a letter and mail it in San Antonio with the house address on it.
Yes Joe is always complaining that his things do not belong there etc.
The sights I speak of in San Antonio I hope you will soon see some of them via post card. The Alamo I speak of and I always thought along with everybody else was a fort is only a church which was built in the early 1700s and the settlers took refuge there when Santa Ana advanced on them and after a while he finally broke in and only three people remained alive to tell the story of the Alamo. It is in a good state of repair in fact a little too much so. It is right in the center of town at Houston street and North Alamo, the town has been built around it and the Alamo river runs through town and the WPA has made a very good and attractive job out of what I suppose was a mess before large retaining walls and nice stairways leading down to the river and boating on it in the evening. I suppose it is quite a resemblance of Venice. You shall also see some pictures of that also and of some Spanish moss hanging over the water from trees in Breckenridge Park which I took while there.
Muriel has never mentioned nelson in any of her letters to me. Only once she mentioned going to the park with him. And her letters are quite short but I do enjoy her sending me letters and shall have to write now that I have more time.
I want you to call up Frank Wiggins and ask them where my diploma is and just give them the devil if they don’t seem to know and if they don’t get in touch with Mrs. Vosberg or have them to do. They are not too busy their student roll has decreased. SO don’t let them tell you they have been too busy.
Joseph has not as yet answered my letter. I am beginning to wonder if he ever received packages from home that were sent and also letters and more yet have sent letters which never seemed to reach their destination. There was quite a rumpus at Barkeley about some of the letters laying around somewhere or other I will write him again today and ask him about it.
I see where Rosy has had his nose over in Africa seeing all and telling how we are going to win the war. I am writing in pencil for the library is not open as yet and I left my ink in my foot locker and my writing is awful along with it also my letter is getting heavy also. So I shall close and will write again soon. The pictures are being made I think but they are slow. I am going in tomorrow to see about them. Perhaps too many soldiers pictures.

Lots of love

Your son

26 January 1943

Hope you don’t have to pay extra postage on this letter. If you do let me know and I will cut it down next time or add postage.

Jan 26, 1943

Dear Mother
You mentioning how the days slip by, well they do here also, our days here go by very fast and my time after class goes much faster and before I know it, it is nine o’clock and bed time and I have so much study after class that it seems I hardly have any time at all and I am looking forward very expectantly to not having any after next Thursday or rather this week Thursday for we are due to finish our classes then and we will more than likely have our first day in the hospital Friday and I am wondering just what kind of ward I am going to fall here to. I hope it is a nice ward with some very interesting patients or it may even be the operating room.
I went last week over to the practice ward to try my best in draping the operating room and patient and I got into the gown without contaminating it and got my hands into the rubber gloves quite easily after the technician in the act very carefully poured powder on them and held my hands above my waist all but once. And I look quite funny in a gown and gloves, you would not recognize me. The gown hangs within 6 inches of the floor and I had to put in on without it getting against tables, floor or my clothes that is the front of the gown can not come into contact with anything and the technician finishes putting it on and tying the belt. In all it is quite an interesting and tedious art called Surgical technique.
I received a letter from Edward Pfare and he is the same old Ed, rattle bearned(?) as ever and upbraided me for not writing him. I am going to write him back and tell him he was so good at writing me and giving me his address.

Well now for the surprise of surprises. Yesterday was payday and they gave me the huge amount of $5.00. How or why I do not know for I can not see how they figure that amount as two thirds the amount of pay I am supposed to receive but most of us from Barkeley received that amount and am I burned up. I am almost tempted to cancel that bond affair right now. But I do not necessarily need the money for I have been conserving for just such an occasion so I don’t need any. Of course next month I shall get more yet and when I leave I will get the entire amount due me.
I believe that I will make out the Income Tax blank and I think that if you will do it for me if it is properly made out etc.
The weather here has been very cold and rather foggy and a very cold wind and we have had a severe frost or two lately because quite a few of the plants around here are all black.
Sunday I went into town early and went to the famous Buckhorn Saloon, and talk of horns etc.

They really have them there. I am going to send home something and amongst them shall be some post cards folders etc which you can look at and I will send you cards from time to time so you perhaps can enjoy them with me.
I also went by the old Spanish governor’s palace but it wasn’t open as yet so we went to a show which I was not too fond of doing but went along with the others.
As for the cymbidium you can give Mrs. Miner perhaps one of the flowers and if you want to you can give Aunt Nina the balance or keep some for yourself but I think Nina would like a couple. You may have to stake up the spike and if it rains you may take it into back porch for the mud will do them no good. It stains the flowers. Clear water won’t bother them much. And I don’t think I would have any use for it here although I would like to see it.
As for a leave it will probably not be now until I am stationed somewhere. If it wasn’t for this school it would have been sooner.

Yes cameras were contraband. They ordered them all turned in but their orders were not followed so they issued another order the other day stating that all that turned them in to come and get them and go to the Provost Marshall’s office and register them and then they would be alright. I kept mine wrapped up and took it into town once.

As for a needle for the phonograph you might get one of the $1.00 ones which will play 1000 times or you might get two or three cheaper ones for they may become extinct also. What do you think I wrote Mrs. Scheltima in my first week here and Joe 2 or 3 days later but as slow as the mail goes in and out of here. No wonder he has not heard from me and I mailed him a couple of cards also. I may be mail clerk here in this barracks this coming month. The boys that are leaving here this month are leaving Thursday and I am going to get rid of the half wit that sleep across from me. He is just plain crazy.

Yes one of the surprises is a photo. The photographs were very good although Nelson looks quite old. Joseph wrote me quite a descriptive letter of your calling at their house.
Miss Mosher sent me a camellia flower and for some reason they opened it here at the Fort and did they mutilate it in rewrapping it.

At Barkeley they had a habit in some company offices of opening some outgoing and incoming mail and then call the person in and give it to them opened. It never happened to me if it had they would have heard of it for they have no right to because they are not censors. And then some people wonder why they tell us any complaints to congressmen etc must go through their offices or it will go hard with the person who violates it. Big bluff some more of the dictation they try and put once at Barkeley. They should oust that Gen in charge. He gets more silly every day.
Did you know that the Argonaut runs directly between here and L A in fact I watch it go by down in the little valley from here. I can also see some horses grazing in a pasture down there and it is quite useful to look down there.

Will you call up Mr. Matson and ask him if he would be able to mail the roses for me to Miss Mosher for me if I was to send him an order that is if he has time if not I want you to order them elsewhere for me. If I don’t get them soon it will be too late to get them bare roots. Did you show them the pictures of the antiques if so what did they think of them.
I received a nice letter from Aunt Mai Belle and Thelma the other day.
Ray Coates sent me a short note telling me of a play he was in last Friday and wanted me to come in but I was unable to. I shall wait for him to write again and I shall have to write Marshall very soon also but I did send him a card with the picture of the hospital on it because he told me how he liked this type of work. I sure feel sorry for him.

We sure have a lot of pineapple here. They had a very delicious mixture the other day canned peaches and pineapple cobbler, last evening they had cherry pie only made in a large baking pan, for they feed 300. At Barkeley they made 50 pies at a time. If I remember correctly I think. I think the cook told me it took about $4000 per week to feed the company. So you can imagine what it costs here with a few more and better food also. So them you see why when through here we are a very expensive piece of property of the government.

I had better be closing now for I have some study and a lot of it. So good bye for now and I will write sooner next time. Lots of luck and take care of yourself and get your arm taken care of. Thank Muriel for her letter and I will write her also.

Love,
Stanley

19 - 20 January 1943

January 19, 43

Dear Mother:
What do you think of this stationary. I thought it rather pretty and I think you like the emblem of the Medical Department. I will probably only be able to write you a period of five minutes for they are having one of those shows this evening that they request our presence and they usually have a roll call, quite amusing perhaps my writing will be better later on for I am writing sitting on the floor writing on my footlocker.
Well it is now after the show and I am back. The movies were on the spy problem. One of them was a film which was made by the British Government and showed what I think were some actual photos taken in the Dieppe raid, they were too real to be acted. We have seen some very interesting films since my coming into the army. We had a very gruesome but very interesting. They were sponsored by Billie Burke and taken in the Good Samaritan and Cedars of Lebanon hospitals there in L.A. And believe me they surely did not have a thing unseen. It showed them with seven needles in a person’s back giving them a spinal anesthetic and each of the needles believe me were about 3 or 4 inches long and later they showed the doctors hand probing for something in the abdomen and the picture showed finger, neck and other abdominal operations quite a picture.
Did I mention to you of maybe getting a chance for a three months advanced nursing or surgical course. Well the group I am in was called over to the practice ward where a nurse (a 2nd Lieutenant) and a sergeant put on a show of surgical technique of the proper way of putting on gown, gloves and draping the tables and patient preparatory to operating with out contaminating them in any way, quite a procedure and to climax it she told us she would take half the group tomorrow and the other half the next day and we are going to go through the same procedure and even today she watched us each and every one very carefully so it is going to be our first test and I am sure going to try my best, even though I wonder if I will ever make a surgeon’s assistant. What do you think?
I shall close or this evening and take some time for study. Some more tomorrow. Good night.

January 20,
Well we have had another day and they sure go fast here and it seems months since I have been in the army. Does it seem that way to you?
Today ten of us were called into Captain Rosembaum’s office and had another interview and he seemed to ask me a few more questions and he seemed to ask most of us different questions and the questions he asked me mostly questions regarding tracking if I had ever done any and if I liked it and if I would care to track all the time talking in his very fast way but they ceased to scare me a long time ago, that is most of the officers’ favorite trick. Of course what will come of it I do not know. They ask so many foolish or seemingly so. Personally I think our path is all laid out for us without the questions.
I have observed that in everything the Army does, they just pick out a bunch and send them here and there regardless of qualifications whether they are fitted for the position. For instance they brought down here with us a man who never has been very good, so as soon as he got here where he could get whiskey he simply got on one big drunk and the amusing thing was he brought out his bottle and carried it around in a briefcase and was he careful with his case. Well anyhow they finally caught up with him and gave him 30 day detail and are sending him out at the end of the month. And then they tell us that they are spending more on the Medical Department technicians than on any other branch of the Army. They say that it costs them $300 to put one of us through the school here for two months and when we are finally through with our training we are some of the most expensive and costly property of the government. Then they waste time and money sending bums here.

I was quite amused this morning in the kitchen seeing the negro Pfc giving orders to the privates (negroes) and the noise that was going on.

We have one colored boy here going to school taking Dentistry. He sleeps alone and eats at one long table by himself which only he eats at. Rather funny to see him sitting there alone. His name is Washington.
Did I ever tell you they gave us a Dental inspection at Barkeley and they gave me number 4 which is the best.
Well they gave me another No 4 here but they called me in yesterday and put me in the chair and had me open my mouth and he asked where I had my teeth cleaned and said that they needed nothing and seemed quite surprised. They had quite a fuss at Barkeley about them pulling teeth instead of filling them, and in a few cases they pulled all of them and due to the regular army tie ups they went without fake teeth for a month or so.

Miss Mosher has been very kind to me of late. The other day she sent me one of those #1 boxes of chocolate covered cherries and you know how much I like them and she has also sent me the garden section every week.
I am sure going to try my best and send here those roses for she certainly deserves them.
My latest grades have been very satisfactory. None below ninety and that I think is very good, but I shall still continue to study and I am afraid I shall have to draw this letter to a close.
Have you heard from Joe? Did you know or had I told you that there is a huge Texaco Oil refinery a short distance from here and the smoke is settling around it now. I shall write very soon again.

Your son,
Stanley