Sgt. Stanley W Safford 39539976
5th Auxiliary Surgical Group
APO 339
c/o Post Master
New York New York
Marseille Area, France
August 12, 1945
My Dear Mother
A few lines today to let you know I
am still here and in the light of the present events, I may be for some time to
come. Who knows.
We here in the ETO wonder a lot about our future, but it always ends up with no
wonder or decision on our part and in fact why should we as the army eventually
gets around to us.
In regards to the present situation,
I feel that they have sent Japan a
very good answer to their question. I
certainly was not in favor of accepting them on their term. We would be establishing a God in Japan,
which I feel would some day again turn on us.
A good housecleaning is what they need there now and a few more months
on my part and the rest of us here and there, I am inclined to think would be
worth it. We have had so much grief and
discomfort, that I think they should pay dearly for it. The strange thing is that a great many of us
feel the same way about it. I could go
on for hours and perhaps a lot would not pass the cursor so I will stop here.
I feel that finally we have someone
who can deal with our allies with a little horse sense. Truman
has surprised me a great deal and I think he is more capable of driving a
hard bargain than Roosevelt around a
Peace table. He could perhaps be even a little more
stern. If we do not watch out for
ourselves now, it will be too late at another time when there are no bones to
be picked.
On another subject, the weather here,
I can say it has been very strange. The
first few weeks here the weather varied very little, but recently it has
changed. We now have a few cooler days
with clouds quite often and even rain at times, such as today.
Enclosed you will find a picture
which Olson took of me while sitting
behind a box taking care of Immunization
records which we were still at Marburg,
Germany.
Also find enclosed a newspaper
clipping[1]
from the Army newspaper here, which
came out for interviews the other day.
They certainly made a mess of it too.
My original statement was much longer and quite different. The others of our organization are
underlined.
We are going to have chicken today
and I hope it is better than it has been in the past. They have trouble of not cooking things well enough
here.
Well you can begin getting my room
ready for my arrival home a year from now.
As always,
Love,
Stanley
