Cpl Stanley W Safford
5th
Auxiliary Surgical Group
Dodd
Field
Ft
Sam Houston
Texas
July 26, 1943
My dear Mother:
Here
I am tonight only not in the office as usual since it is so hot and stuffy in
there, so here I am sitting on my cot in the tent here on a little table which
comes in quite handy as a catch all and a place on which to write when the
occasion arises. They have sent out the
hurricane warnings this evening again so quite a few of the tents have been
laced up but not ours and it won’t be until it actually begins to pour down
good and hard as it does once in a great while.
The
last rain which we had has brought out a very pretty little white bulb flower
of some kind which I am going to get a few of and send them home for you to
plant for me.
I
went into town this evening to get some more cleaning and I will have enough to
do me for another day or so now. I went
through one of those cheap shirts that they gave me, the other day, while I
went up to the Service School to show one of the dumb bells here how to make a
bed.
Also
while showing him I showed a couple majors and a couple other officers who
certainly knew nothing about making a bed of any kind. I never thought that I would ever be back at
the Service School but we are going
to be up there eight days teaching some of the boys from here or rather try and
teach them something. Sgt Elkins was
quite surprised to see me arriving at the school again with the majors,
captains etc. And he really thought that
they were a big bunch of dumbbells from some of the questions that they asked
him.
 |
| San Antonio Express, July 31,1943 |
Well
we are really having quite a time here with all the officers here are just
taking every chance to cut the other person’s throat and they seem to thrive
better every day and they all seem to be quite content with all the mess that
they have here and they are all too much interested in the gold leaf that they
are or may get. And a very good price of
news is that the other day Captain Skinner became Major Skinner so he will return quite much better off.
Here it is the next day and we did
have the hurricane and as you have
very likely read the papers by now about all the damage done in Houston and Galveston about 1:30 the wind came up and blew things all over the
tent so we had to get up and let the curtains down and it still continued to
blow and the floor shook and the sealing moved.
I expected the tent to tear but it survived it as the others did. It did although tear the siding off the big
ward tent when it fell over. After a
short while it began to rain and it came down in sheets and just pound off the
tent, And in the meantime practically
everybody left their tent and went down to the latrine and stayed there until
it was over, which I was asleep when that time came I was asleep. Most of the boys here had never seen anything
of that type before and were certainly scared stiff of it. We got up this morning and it was all clear
again and it has turned out quite warm or shall I say hot again which it has
been ever everyday for several weeks. I
long so much for the nice cool weather in California.
Well
the officers have again changes their minds as to when the next bivouac is to
be and they have set it ahead to leave next Sunday evening and return the
following Wednesday. So all of a sudden
I have had all the work of making up all the schedules and all the other things
that go along with it and have been putting in a lot of overtime on it and
consequently have been very tired in the evenings.
We
went up to the Service School today and it was quite confusing, the first day or
so will very likely be that way. All
the confusion connected with the affair: getting out the supplies etc. and when
I sent back the boys I told the transportation corporal to send me back a car
to come back to the field in and due to the confusion here they did not send
one until after lunch and they had to fix a special lunch and all that mess.
If
all my other ideas do not work on getting out of this place, I am going to
pursue another avenue that is that they have a large green house here that I
understand wants some help so I may get myself requested in some way or another
and I am quite sure that I would enjoy
that very much. What do you think? I am hearing at present the radio in the
distance with “Rosy" (see Fireside Chats with Franklin D Roosevelt)[1]
telling all and yet nothing. He has told
although that the rationing of coffee is to be stopped. I guess that they are beginning to realize
that people are getting tired of that mess.
But they are still going to take more gasoline away, I guess. And he tells of after war peace etc. That is to keep the people looking forward to
something which he knows he is unable to foretell. Last Saturday I saw “Gentleman Jim[2]”,
starring Errol Flynn, and I, in a
way, liked it. That is, as far as his
pictures go, but I am not too fond of that type of boxing picture but it
certainly was some good enjoyment and of course that does a person good once in
awhile.
I
have had to change desk so that I could write a little more plainly. The other desk was so high that it was very
hard writing as well as uncomfortable. I
shall have to practice my penmanship and try and make it more like yours if at
all possible. Everyone that sees your
handwriting always remarks upon how nice and plain it is and how straight the
lines are. There are so many of the boys here that are lucky to be able to
spell their own name much less write a legible letter.
It
has begin to rain outside this evening and it has turned cool and is quite
comfortable now. The rain sounds so very
nice on the roof of the tent. I always
think of home when the rain sounds that way upon the roof. But as usual in the evening someone somewhere
ruins the evening by turning on some of this rotten Texas music. I never heard so much terrible music until I
came down here.
I
had better begin thinking of drawing this letter to a close and I will write
again a couple times before bivouac for I am not going to be as busy from now
on for awhile.
Lots of love from your Son
Stanley
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