C 23rd
Bn., 7th Reg.
I.R.T.C.
Fort McClellan, Ala.
Nov. 8, 1944
Dear Jim,
Yours of Oct. 23 received yesterday. It travelled my route, that is from Nichols Gen’l to Camp Breckinridge, Ky. to McClellan. Yes, I was given 6 mo. limited service by the Medical Board at Nichols, at the end of which time I will be sent back to a hospital to be examined again. Then, I can be placed back on L.S. for another 6 mo, can be given permanent L.S. or retired once and for all. I guess this answers your question. You can be placed on L.S. even now. The A.G.F. is loathe to let you go if you can do any kind of service no matter how trivial. Even this business of getting out on account of being over 38 is practically an impossibility. It’s plenty tough to get out if you’re in the infantry.
Amusingly, or ironically, enough the disposition board at Nicholas specified “no field duty.” Yet I’m writing this outside of my pup tent in the woods of Alabama. The I.R.T.C. ignores your medical status. In fact the brass here laughs at you. “Lots of us are L.S. here,” they say, “yet we all do a certain amount of field duty.”
However, this old pain in my groin, which I think is traceable to my hernia trouble that I had operated on in 1937, is more prominent than ever and I don’t know how much of this old crap I’m going to be able to take. It seems to be getting worse all the time and today I was in misery most of the time. Yet when I squawk to the M.D.’s they can’t find anything wrong and put me down either as a gold-brick or a psycho-neurotic.
This damn IRTC is the most chicken shit outfit I have ever been connected with. They’ve got ground-rules for everything and infractions of same are punishable by fines under the 104th. Gen’l Ransom is in command and he is of the old school,- petty, arbitrary and typically chicken-shit. Pray to the Lord that if you are send back to duty in a L.S. capacity you don’t draw the IRTC at McClellan.
Some news from home: Col. Turner was awarded the “Legion of Merit.” Damn nice, eh? – “Red” [W?] died as did Jimmy Huey. Did you know them? – Rothmeiler is here at the IRTC in the same Bn. with me. Same, quiet, nice guy he has always been, and tells some mighty interesting stories on his experiences with the 100th. Tanimura is still here but is now with the 6th Reg’t. (ass’t S-3, of all things). He hopes to get assigned to the A.S.F. one of these days; was disappointed to lose his job with the Post Engineers but that was the work of the A.G.F..
Write again when you can. It sure is good to hear from you. Best regards to the wife and kids.
(Signature scribbled out)
