August 5, 1943

Cpl Stanley W Safford

5^th Auxiliary Surgical Group

Dodd Field

Ft Sam Houston

Texas

August 5, 1943

My Dear Mother:

After a week of idleness of my pen I shall try and write you a few lines tonight and shall plan on getting this mailed tomorrow.  I am really ashamed of myself for not writing you before this but you very likely know how all things seem to pile up and happen at once.

We spent three miserable days out at Camp Bullis on bivouac at which time we went through the infiltration course under actual gunfire (machine gun) and came out with a few minor scratches and just filthy with this red dirt.  I tried several times to get a letter started to you but as always something happened and I was unable to get very far with it, so when I did get back to it, what I had already written did not make sense so I gave it all up as a bad job and decided to discontinue until after my return.  Fortunately I was able to ride the eighteen miles out and back only because they realized that I had too much to do at both ends. And I worked all day today while everybody else took the afternoon off plus the morning while they all laid in bed since they marched in after dark last night.

I was certainly glad to get in and take a bath and get my head washed and the dirt really ran off in great amounts.  And also pick off a few ticks which seem to inhabit this country the year around.  While out there I saw great quantities of deer and several rabbits.  The deer here do not get as large as our California deer get but they are certainly quite pretty and above all the fawns are exceptionally cute.  They also killed a coral snake while out there.  Otherwise there was nothing else of importance or out of the ordinary.  We did have those canned rations for one day which were in a way a great big mess with the fellows cutting themselves on the cans.  They come in two cans one with the beef and vegetable stew and the other with the five biscuits, small can of soluble coffee and three small cakes of sugar plus four or five pieces of hard candy that I am not too fond of.

And one of the things that is going to happen that I am not too fond of is that the major who is here in the Plans and Training office now is also going to have.  They all more or less get tired of the whole affair and are glad to get out. I do not as yet know just how this is going to effect my furlough, but I am afraid not too well for they all tell me that I know more than anybody about changes etc.  I am going to have a nice little talk tomorrow with a couple of people about a few things, and see just what comes of it all if anything at all and perhaps I may get something out of the deal somehow or somewhere maybe.  The entire bunch here all are dissatisfied with the entire affair and are all trying to leave or go somewhere or another and the less they have to do around here, the better they feel.

Sunday August 8, 1943

It seems that every time I start a letter to you that the interruptions seem to come twofold to hinder my completion of it. And one more thing to add to the mess here, is that the clerk that is in my office is going to leave this coming week for the ASTP (Army Specialize Training Program) which he applied for a short time ago.  I am sure going to miss him because he has been so dependable and has always done everything so well and carefully with very few mistakes.

But he shall do so much better for himself than he would ever have done here.  And I wish that I were learning at the same time with him for the same thing or OCS.

And as for my furlough. That, they tell me shall have to wait until a later date until we get settled again and perhaps get another clerk in the office.

I, in great desperation a few minutes, I decided that I was going to go over and get myself a pitcher of ice water from the mess hall where I found out a long time ago that it always paid a long time ago that it always paid to stay in good with the cooks and they are always glad to do things for me and the ice water today is certainly a great help.

I received a letter from Aunt Esther the other day and a nice letter from Joseph this morning and I shall have to answer them for I am way behind in my writing and I don’t want to get farther behind.

You asked once how it was that Comm Brett of the Navy lived here on the post.  I understand that he is more or less the representative of the Navy to the Army here or sort of a envoy or go between man.

You asked me in a previous letter if I were receiving my Reader’s Digest satisfactorily.  I wrote them a note telling them of the change in my address and I received a card telling me that the address had been changed and my last one came correctly here, so I guess that that is all straightened out by this time.

The other evening I went out to a very nice place here in San Antonio where they serve delicious seafood meals.  Mrs. Tedesco and my friend John Langstadt also went along.  I had some or shall I say half a very good lobster shrimp cocktail and a very fresh salad with some tartar sauce in all we had a very enjoyable evening.

I have come to the conclusion that I am going to send my watch home and have you keep it there after you have it cleaned.  I had trouble winding it for awhile and then it became very hard to wind after a while sometimes it could not be wound at all at times then again it would quite freely.  So when we went on bivouac I left it with Mrs. Tedesco who has a friend at one of the jewelers here.  She took it down to him and he looked at it and said that it needed cleaning because sweat had gotten in around the stem and that it was a little rusty there but he said that they were two or three months behind in repairs.  He told her that that was quite common around here even on the cheapest of watched and that there was not anything else wrong with it.  The same thing has happened to two or three others that I know of around here.  So, if you see some inexpensive stainless steel on around somewhere that is reasonable, will you get it for me because I am lost without one of some kind.

This Texas has certainly cost me enough since I have been down here: watch, cleaning and the high prices in san Antonio are a crime and a person feels worn out all the time because of the heat.

I was quite surprised to hear of the heat spell in Los Angeles and thereabouts.  I certainly do not envy those soldiers at Indio in any way.

You asked if I had heard from Marshall recently.  I have not hear from him at all and he owes me a letter since I wrote him last,  I thought that I would write again.

They do not give us salt pills but they have them here which I take a few of now and then.  My shirts now after I wear them, are all streaked white where the sweat has been.

What did Mrs. Finley do with the antique bed when she sold her furniture?  I always in a way liked the bed, but some day maybe I will find another which I will like much better.

Yesterday they made two of the first lieutenants here Captains so they should all be drunk this morning.  They always have a big party upon such occasions and then they talk and look it the next five days.

Well the day is growing warmer and I have run but of news so I will draw this to a close now and will write again soon. 

Will let you know when I am going to mail the watch home.

Always love,

Stanley