Document Type
Personal Letter
Transcription
[Translation begins]
UNITED STATES ARMY AIR FORCES
Thursday
My darling husband-
Well, at last it’s Thursday and you’re supposed to call tonight. I’ve been keeping my fingers crossed that you’ll be able to get off this weekend. Golly, darling, it’s been so darned long since I saw you last. Seems like a few years instead of eight days. Lord this time has gone slowly since you left last Wednesday.
Nest Sunday we’ll have been married for two weeks. Yeh, married for two weeks + been together less than three days! That’s a great way to start!
Everytime [sic] I wait for a call from you I’m a nervous wreck! Lord, honey, I’m all shaky + I’ve got butterflies during a rumba + golly, honey, I’m really bad off.
Just wrote Mother + Daddy a letter. Send them the list of announcements. They’ll never be able to read it.
Golly, darling, it’ll probably be about an hour no two hours before you call. My butterflies are really cutting up tonight. Golly, darling, it really is an emergency. We just got married + everything. He should understand. Maybe he’s not married though. This suspense.
Time passing
Well, honey, it’s seven o’clock now. Then after to be exact + I’m just about going crazy. That fool phone hasn’t even tingled. Why doesn’t it ring. I’ve tried to read + to eat + everything but, golly, honey, I just can’t do anything except wait.
Golly, honey, I hope you’ll be able to get off this weekend. This suspense is awful. Washed my hair at Alice’s today. Her husband thinks I’m crazy.
Mrs. Moseley just brought in a salad to me- she’s so nice. I was sure lucky to get a nice landlady. Most of them are awful stinkers from what the girls have told me. They go through their things + - oh listen to their conversations and are just about as agreeable as a zombie.
Golly, won’t that phone ever ring – Wonder if it’s out of order or something- It’s seven fifteen now my nerves are really shot.
If you can get off, honey, I have to leave here on a bus at 5:50. What an hour. All I’ve done since we’ve been married is get up at horrible hours of the night but if you were going to be there I’d get up at anytimes.
Golly, I hope you got that pass I’m so excited about seeing you again. Golly, darling I hope it’s going to be all right.
Can’t write any more. I’ll wait until after you call, honey. Nothing I say will be intelligent (no remarks) now. I love you so, Judd + hope we can be together this weekend.
Here’s an example of what you’ll be up against when-
“Crouched beneath a palm (tree) I heard a voice yell, “Hey, Lieutenant, what’ll I do with these prisoners?” Down the path sauntered a tall G.I. shepherding two disheveled Tojos.
I was furious- “Listen” I hissed. “Don’t you know these woods are lousy with Jap snipers just laying for Officers? Call me Joe. Call me anything but don’t call me ‘Lieutenant’!”
“Okay, Stupid, what’ll I do with these prisoners?”
The Alabama jokes are even cornier than the ones from Pelham.
A salesgirl was explaining the merits of a shaving kit to a prospective customer around Christmastime. (These were for overseas servicemen- “It consists of a pig skin case, military brushes, tooth brush holder, soap dish, gold plated razor, and a handy folding carton for him to send it all back home in.”
Well, I’m still waiting, honey.
Darling you finally called an golly, honey, I’m so sorry that we can’t be together this weekend. It would have been wonderful though.
Gee, honey, this certainly has been some marriage. It will be two weeks this Sunday and we’ve only been together two and a half days. Christmas, honey, we can’t go on much longer like this. I’m just about going crazy, honey. It’s awful. I’m so awfully lonesome + no matter how many people I meet it still doesn’t help any because you’re the only one who will make me happy.
Good lord, honey, this is awful. I don’t think I can take much more of this. When you go overseas, darling, I really will go crazy. Hope it won’t be for a good long time though, honey.
There isn’t any chance of your being made an instructor, honey. Darn it. I would like it but I guess that would be too easy. Lord, I wish this war would end. Golly, honey, I never minded being alone before but now I really dread it. I mean without you- as long as I know you’re coming home every night it’s all right. But I’ve developed the worst fear of being alone without you. Ever since the night we were married.
Gee, honey, you think it’s bad for you- at least you have planes to keep you happy but it really hasn’t been so awfully bad. I just like to gripe about it. That was some conversation we had. All we both did was complain about how tough everything was.
But, gee, honey, it certainly isn’t fair to have everything happen to us. Don’t know what I’ll do if you can’t live off the Post. That will be too much.
So you think we’ll be heading for Lincoln, huh. Oh, well, I like traveling. How long will we be there? It will probably be over for you after that, won’t it, honey.
What happened to this old pool they’ve had here for so long. Darn it. Everyone was here for at least a month after they graduated- usually three or four. Why does everything happen to us.
Christmas, honey, what are they trying to do to us. I’ve definitely decided the Army doesn’t like wives. In fact I think they dislike them intensely.
We must have the same weather here that you do because it poured here Tuesday, too. Yesterday + today were real nice. As I told you I’ve been trying to get a tan but all I got was freckles on my nose- they look horrid!
Golly, honey, I love you so. Why can’t we be together- and listen, stop opening my mail. And after you finish reading it how about sending it to me- it’s a fine thing! Golly, honey, you’d better find those cards!
And another thing- what was that remark you made about me doing some cooking because we’d get sick of eating out. You know as well as I do that we’d be a lot sicker if I cooked. Besides Mrs. Moseley won’t let me cook. She just lets me keep a few things in the ice box. Like milk + peanut butter. Going to get some fruit tomorrow, honey. Very exciting thought.
Wish I had something to throw! I’m in a horrible mood. Besides I’m mad at the Army. They’re ruining our married life and they can’t do that to you.
Golly, another thing I don’t like the way they don’t send your mail to you. Here I write + write + write and they don’t bother to send it down to you.
That movin’ pitchers they have down there must be great. Eglin must really be a wonderful place. They certainly don’t run things right. Let’s you and I change things. Golly you’ve been down there over a week now and have only fired 600 rounds out of 3,000. That’s really great. I’m just so happy. Why couldn’t they wait until the weather was going to be nice before they sent you down. What are weather observers, or whatever they have, for- Golly. I don’t like the way the Army runs things. Especially our lives.
Why don’t you tell them how they should change that program. It sounds pretty dumb to me, too, honey. After all the trouble they take to train you to fly there to rush you through some course in 17 days that will be your life when you’re in combat.
Ah, yes, the efficient little Army. They’re really doing great. Just great.
Don’t tell me we’re going to get a leave. They’ll probably decide against it the day before we’re ready to leave. Did you know that everyone who graduated from Craig got 15 days! Why didn’t you to Craig. Golly, darling, we sure get all the breaks. (There are cadets who get the 15 days).
By the way darling, how is your stiff neck? And how pray tell did you get it? Thought there were no women around there.
My family are going to think its mighty queer when they receive my letters and none of them say very much about you. But, golly, I don’t want to lie to them.
Well, honey, this certain has been a novel way to spend a honeymoon. You down at Eglin + me here at Selma. Nothing like a few hundred miles between a couple on their honeymoon. DO you think we will ever have one, honey?
Honey, what do they put in that Florida sunshine or is it the PX that makes you write such crazy letters. You’re really getting crazier by the day.
Gee, honey, it was so good to hear your voice. I’m sorry you couldn’t hear me very well but it was just as well because I didn’t have much to say. I am very discusted [sic]. I want a husband with me + a honeymoon + oh, honey, I just miss you so darned much. Guess, I’d better be getting to bed now. It’s getting kinda late now. Maybe I’ll feel better in the morning. There’s not much hope of that, at least not until Easter morning, anyway. Gee, darling, we’ll have to begin all over again. I don’t even feel married any more.
Maybe I can get me a tan by the time you get back. I certainly will have enough time anyway.
Why can’t they send you back Saturday night instead of Sunday morning? That would be the nicest thing to do. But no- They have to keep you down in that hole another night. Well, maybe we can be together on our third anniversary.
Everyone around here thinks it’s a big joke. Hah, hah, hah- does that sound bitter. Well, at this point it certainly should. Everyone practically has hystories [sic] over the way things happened. We sure get all the breaks- Oh, well, it can’t go on like this- can it?
Well, darling it won’t be much longer now. You should be home Sunday. I’ll be hoping anyway.
Took $35 out of the bank today + in the mood I’m in I’d better hurry and get it back before I go out + spend it all. I’d take a fiendish delight in doing something like that right now. Good thing all the stores are closed.
Gee, darling, I wish these 17 days would hurry. I love you so much. Honey, I really need you. You’re so essential to me. They should know better than to try to separate us. I’m just lost without you, darling.
Well, maybe in about ten more days you’ll be back. Golly, darling, that’s a heck of a long time. There’s nothing we can do about it though, except wait.
Tomorrow I won’t get a letter from you, honey, because you said you didn’t write last night. Oh well. Hope that you start receiving mine, honey, not that they’re anything to read but I know how much I look forward to your letters, honey. It’s just awful not to get one.
Well, sweetheart, it’s not getting any earlier. That’s a brilliant statement. So I guess it’s way past my bedtime.
Say hello to Tom + D.A. for me. If you get a stack of letters all at once you’re going to spend quite a while saying hello to Tom + D.A. for me. Oh, Julie + Betty Joe said hello from then (to you.) They’re sorry that we couldn’t be together, too. Not half as sorry as I am.
Well, darling, only about ten more nights. I hope less and we’ll be together. Do you think you’ll be able to be together? It would really be awful if you had to go back every night.
Well, again, goodnite [sic], honey. I miss you so. I love you so, Judd + hope we can be together again.
You’ll always have all my love and devotion + I love you so.
Your devoted wife
(who is slightly lonesome)
Dottie
[Translation ends]
