September 26, 1943

Cpl Stanley W Safford

5^th Auxiliary Surgical Group

Dodd Field

Ft Sam Houston

Texas

September 26, 1943

My dear Mother

Received your letter yesterday and as you guessed I was quite overjoyed at receiving it.  Mail s one of the things that I always look forward to with great anxiety and then after I get it I always feel quite happy for awhile especially after a letter from you.

You mentioned the expense of my trip.  Well it did not cost me so much as I thought it would and the expense was and is a small matter when it comes to my being able to be home with you.  You will never know how much it meant to me to be able to be home with you for even so short a time.

I have me amazed to write several letters in the last couple days and have quite a few more to write and then will be caught up with my letter writing and then can start answering them.

I want you to charge me for the telephone calls which I made and I will and intend paying you for them.  You also ask if you may send anything? I can not think of anything and besides you have done so much for me right now.  You are very likely still tired from all the work you done for me when I was home.

The day after my return we went on a hike out in the country and it did not tire me at all.  Then yesterday we marched up to the main post where they had a very interesting airplane exhibit for the purpose of airplane recognition and they really had some very fast as well as pretty airplanes and some of them really had the speed.  One of them dived down from an altitude of about 7000 feet to about 50 feet off the ground and then headed straight again.  They told us that almost ten percent of our ships brought down in the Pacific area were brought down from our own guns on land due to the great resemblance of the Jap ships to our own.  That is quite a high percentage.  They are also putting a blue circle around the entire insignia on our military planes in place of the red now on them since the red resembles the Jap so closely.

One of these days soon I am going to send home the Reader’s Digest which I have accumulated here on to you where you may read them and put them away for me.  I have just received the October issue and there are a couple very good articles in it already of what I have read and it has a very pretty Autumn cover on it. 

I have not seen Mrs. Tedesco as yet but will see her tomorrow.  She went to Fort Worth on the day that I arrived.  I hope that she likes the book ends.

It has been trying to rain all day here and has finally started.  I am very glad to have the rain since things really have needed it for some time.  Everything is so dusty out in the country.  The trees here have already begun to turn then leaves blown and they have begun to fall.  Things have really changed from hot summer to cool fall here in the very short time that I was home.  But we may still have some real warm weather after this spell of rain is over.

Mrs. Tedesco’s father says that they are going to have an early winter this year and a cold one.

We have had our afternoon meal already and it consisted of potato salad which was very good for a change but nothing like yours, cold sliced meat, cheese and hot chocolate and cookies.  Rather filling but we don’t need too much where we are not doing anything on a Sunday.

In my absence they brought back all the boys from the hospital which were on detached service so our company is quite full now but they well weed out a few more bad ones and then before we leave they will take something more out in the way of excess technicians which we have a few extra.  They are also beginning to place us all in groups or Surgical Teams and I hope that we will get a chance to do some actual work together before we go into action.  Did I tell you that the First Auxiliary had already arrived in England.  Which, of course, is one more sign towards is going to the Pacific since they already have three in Europe and Sicily and none so far in the Pacific area.  They have, in London, counting the First Aux., two such groups.  Rather indicatory of the future battle trends or where they expect to need them.

We now have 33 of our total of 132 officers needed.  This is not as fast as the First Aux. was in getting theirs.  Of course they take their sweet time about things of this type and they may do with us what they have done with the one in Sicily.  They have broken it in half and made two separate groups out of it.

My clerk is going on his furlough the fifth of October so I expect to be rather busy at that time but none of this work will interfere with me letter writing which I shall do a little more of from now on. I will have more time with winter coming to do such things.

Cpl Moore is back from the hospital now and his appendectomy is or was all right so he of course is very glad to be back after such a long time in a GI Hospital and I don’t blame him there one bit for they are a mess.

Sgt Ryan went up and specialled (?) his case for a week or so after his operation and the hospital seemed quite glad to have him do it.  They are very short of help especially good help.  And yet they do not seem to make any extra effort to get good help when the occasion arises for them to do so.  They have a lot of hopes running around there with four or five stripes on their arms that I had as students at the Service School and they were sure my prize students then.

I went to church this morning and the Lt. Col. Chaplain gave an interesting type of talk sermon which was very good and he also said that this was his last Sunday here and that he was going to be transferred to the head of a large section of churches etc.  He has always been a very good chaplain and yet he is no well bred high class type of person either.  He uses words such as “ain’t” and a few other of that same type. But they all come and go and there is also politics in their branch also, and they have to be just as crud as any others in the Army elsewhere.

Well the day drags on and I am beginning to run out of things to write about so will draw this letter to a close and will write again soon.

They operated on some digs here while I was gone and Sgt Ryan has them to take care of.  And I like to tell him that he is a fine male nurse now and if only his friends could see him now.

Always lots of love from your son,

Stanley