PFC
Stanley W Safford
Co
“B” Med Serv Sch
Barracks
No3
Ft
Sam Houston
Texas
April
15, 1943
My
dear Mother:
Here
I am again at least starting a letter to you but will more than likely not get
it very well started before I shall have to go home to bed. I have really been quite busy the last few
days and doubt if I am going to get much of a relief until the first of next
week. Sgt Elkins is finally getting his
well earned three day pass this weekend and is going up to see his wife. He certainly earns everything he gets around
here.
Yesterday
afternoon I had the class all to myself from about 2:45 until four o’clock. The Sgt and Zit(?) were out drilling in Co”A”
and the other instructor was once in the other section teaching math and I am
able to pride myself on them to let me have the class all alone. Today I taught three two hour classes of
plastic casts, yesterday it was gowning and gloving and tomorrow it will be the
care of the eye. I have had the ear in
some of my previous weeks.
Plus
all my other doings. I am trying to
finally get my application in for OCS and I may end up in the Engineers or
something or somewhere, for the MAC OCS is practically impossible to get into
now and on the application they request four preferences. So Heaven only knows
what will happen. Of course the company
commander may still refuse and we have a new one and he is really going to turn
the entire Co “B” inside out with his new ideas, and he really has not a friend
in the entire company and he well knows it.
He is only a first lieutenant too!
He up until about three weeks ago was a second lieutenant.
April
18, 1943
This
morning I arose and got dressed and went for a nice long walk with one of the
boys down to the creek which I believe I have spoken of before. And it was truly beautiful this morning with
the sun freshly coming up and everything nice and fresh. There are as yet quite
a few wild flowers in bloom and a few which were not in bloom when I went down
last time. We had quite a downpour a
couple nights ago and believe me when I woke up and heard it raining I raised
up in bed and looked out and the rain was coming down in sheets and a very
strong wind was blowing so everybody was closing windows. And I suppose the extra rain helped to make
the stream so beautiful this morning.
Yesterday
after so long I finally got moved into one of the rooms there are only four
beds in the room, but there are only three of us in the room, and I am very
much pleased there is not the noise and disturbance although the stairway is
right outside the room. And also the
lights may be kept on until eleven where the lights in the balance of the
barracks have to turn out their light at nine o’clock. That therefore allows for me to complete a
letter or something if the occasion need be.
Our
class this last week was certainly a very good and cooperative one. And we hope the one next week is as nice.
The
time certainly does fly by and it gets to the place where I wonder if I have
said something before in my letters which I sometimes think has happened since
my last letter.
The
party at Mrs. Tedesco was certainly a success.
Victor the pianist was there and with him he brought two of his friends.
One was a Italian boy named Francis who had one of the most beautiful voices
that I have heard in a long time. He
sang four songs: one in English, two in Italian, one of which was one of my
favorites and then one remaining one in French.
Also with him was another violinist who I believe played much more
beautifully than the other boy I spoke of. He played so beautifully Mrs. Tedesco also
thought that he played better than Bruno.
In all there were fourteen of us there, also including a WAAC, one of
the boys from the school. The one who
had his picture with the model of the school, also a Warrant Officer who is a
son of the originator of Child’s restaurant chain. I myself didn’t have much to
say to him and then Gladys the lday who took us for a ride at the last party
was there also.
The clipping which you enclosed in
your letter about the Busch estate closing was rather a shock because I always
wanted to go there. But of course the
taxes would very likely eat a person out of house and home if let go long
enough. You know the oriental gardens
there outshined the Huntington’s.
You
know I have not heard from the Matsons since you said they told you they were
going to write me although I will have to get busy and send them a letter
thanking him for getting the rose bushes sent to Miss Mosher for me. Also I owe Miss Mosher a letter and I shall
have to write Marshall a letter otherwise my mail is pretty well kept up.
Had
I told you that they have made a change in the management of the Surgical
section. Capt Rosenbaum is no longer here. He left with four others and the new
ones are nothing to brag about. Two of
them are Jews, which sure get on Miss Thompson’s nerves and Sgt Elkins calls
them the little rays of sunshine.
Yes,
Madame Chiang Kai Shek was here in
San Antonio visiting the air fields and they had 60 planes go up in her honor and
fly over the city. They came back over
here on their way back to Randolph Field.
You
asking about the rabbits sore feet. You
may grease them or you may put a burlap sack in the cage for the rabbit to sit
on.
You
asking about my putting on weight. I have put one about eight pounds. But the
suit if like my shoes may not fit me when I get back. My feet have spread out
it seems to me so that they no longer look good in my dress shoes. You know we are now wearing our khakis and
they are much more comfortable although when they get wrinkled they are really
a mess. The cleaning bills on them shall
be tremendous as they are on the woolens.
Do
you have anything in mind that you would like for Easter. It seems that everything I see up town seems
to be not too much out of the ordinary and a lot of the Mexican things that I
see here are no different than you have there in California. Something which I
usually think of a person would be something that shows that it is definitely
from San Antonio and what would it be. To give something which I would like
myself. But I suppose I am very hard to please.
What do you think? You very likely know that something has to be next to
sensational to make me become over awed at it.
And they are really out to get the soldiers money here in San Antonio,
some of the prices they charge here are atrocious and hard to believe but they
get it.
I
should receive a very good sized pay check this month because of the mix up on
the bonds then after this month I will again sign up for them. Although if those that I have already paid
for do not arrive upon the scene soon I am going to be up in the headquarters
building finding out about them for there is no reason why when a person has
paid for a thing that he should not at
least have received them anyway by this time.
I am almost to the conclusion that the more a person makes himself heard
of and seen around a place the more apt he is to be thought of when they hand
out any gifts. Whether it is good or bad I have seen so many cases of that type
that even if they are in trouble most of the time the more they seem to get. So
I am going to see about it in a small way of course.
We
had a very good meal here today which consisted of ham, string beans, carrots
cut quarterly and baked somehow, a very good apple pie type of thing and ice
cream. And then as something to drink
they had ice tea, which was very good. I
do not know why but the tea they have here is usually very good but the
lemonade is good about one time out of six.
I do wish that they would have the large meal in the evening instead of
at lunch. It makes me plus the class
both sleepy in the first hour or two after lunch.
We
now have a new system in which we have to sign out when we leave camp and sign
in when we come back. Some more red tape
and another one of the new CO’s ideas and a big nuisance.
In
the pictures you sent it looked like the grass needed cutting and that awful
fence as a background and is it just the picture or is the tree (Albizia) losing
its leaves? It was quite pretty and it
would be very nice if you had a few more of them around the yard. Did the Ligustrum (Privet) which I moved
around from the front to the back fence ever come out and amount to
anything? My original idea was to make a
screen across the back fence.
Did
you ever find out what was eating the garden plants? In case you do not find out it may be
cutworms. In that case mix some crude naphthalene flakes into the soil. It very likely wouldn’t hurt anyway because
of it being new dug soil. And did you
ever realize anything from the Brussels sprouts or did the insects etc realize
more from them. Did the little jonquils
bloom this year, out by the old cypress stem in the front yard by the water
faucet and are the Impatiens still there?
I also hope the fuchsias will grow way up above the porch and provides a
type of informal hedge around the front porch.
Although I guess my dreams for that dump are entirely too much to be
expected from it. As you have said
before.
I
am going to enclose a couple pictures which you may like, also some which you
can put away for me. The camera has a
very peculiar focus and when someone else takes them they invariably come out
rather funny. Then there is another fair
one which I am going to have prints made of and send out. I gave the original one away so you will get
one very soon when I have the copies made.
The prints in order to have them made double size I believe cost a
little more but I can always have the better ones made double. I do believe that I will send them home from
now on and have you get them for me at perhaps a little less. I shall also have to get my Easter cards
addressed tomorrow and get them on their way.
I
shall also have to devote some time to study for OCS so that I may have the
good luck to get by the explaining board by answering a few questions on
current events. It will more than likely
be so that they will ask me the ones which I do not know. I am at present quite a ways behind on
current events. I am beginning to wonder
just when and where I am going to get this spare time to do all those wonderful
little things. Well I truly think I had
better be closing now and getting on my way with some more letters if I
can. I close, wanting to give you all my
love and respect.
Your
son,
Stanley
