August 23, 1942
Dear Kay,
I received your letter Friday, the one scolding me for not writing, so I wrote you on Saturday. Then on Monday, I got another letter from you so now, here I am, writing again. I hope you get that letter because I mailed it [sic] the old address, and I also sent a small pin to the old address. I’m pretty sure you’ll have to chase for it because your last letter is postmarked Aug 13.
Yes, I got that blank you sent me but I don’t think I’ll have any use for it.
No, there was no mention of Larry Hasllet in your last letter. I met him just before I enlisted but I don’t remember his mentioning a furlough. I’ll bet he was glad to get one.
I can hardly imagine Hisao in the little role he is playing. I hope he keeps up as he is doing. I’d really like to see the kids at home and I regret that I couldn’t see them before I left. Also, having been away from them so long, I don’t know anything of what they are doing except from what you and they tell me.
We do get the Honolulu paper here. Theres [sic] about 25 fellows who get Star Bulletins and the dayroom is just full of them. I never saw any article about boys from our outfit receiving medals and I never heard of it. I did hear something, though, about a few from the 100th getting them. The 100th are those boys who were at Camp McCoy.
From the way things seem to be going in Honolulu, we’re lucky to be here. The hottest part of the year has just about gone and its [sic] beginning to get cooler. It was 99 today about noon. In another month or so, we’ll have to wear our woolen clothing. We used to bitch like hell about the heat, but now we’ll be bitching about the cold. We bitch just for the hell of bitching, but there really is no major complaint. An officer was around lately to hear complaints on anything. There were no complaints.
As our first seargeant [sic] says, “As long as these guys have water and food they’re happy.” Sometimes when we’re off duty and they try to get us out to get paid, they practically have to chase us out of our barracks, especially if we’re in bed.
We’re lazy and all that, but when it’s time for business, we get down to business.
Today, part of the regiment was tested for physical endurance. Two more groups will be tested later this week. I went today and I passed everything, I believe. The test involves 33 push ups [sic], a 300 yard dash in 45 seconds, 12 burpees in 20 seconds, a 70 yd zig-zag course, involving creeping and crawling under barbed wire, in 30 seconds, a piggy back run for 75 yds with a man your approximate weight astride your back, and last and hardest, a four mile hike in 50 minutes with full field pack. We passed the test with the highest percentage of any outfit yet tested by the 3rd Army group that test us. By the way, we were tested by colonels and other high ranking officers, which explains why we passed. I had never made 33 consecutive pushups in all the periods of physical training, but today, it was duck soup. I guess when one’s under pressure, he can do things he ordinarily couldn’t do. I hope the next two groups that go will do all right. The colonel was so pleased with the result that he gave us all the rest of the day off. So we went to Hattiesburg and enjoyed ourselves. But I find now that I am tired from the test and must recuperate before tomorrow when we have another hike.
Don’t get the impression that the test was very hard, or that it was easy because we all passed. It’s something that an average man can do after he has trained for sometime [sic] and gotten himself into condition. But we trained for it though. During the 10 minute rest periods throughout the day, we used to practice burpees and push ups [sic].
Several officers and non-coms took the test and I’ll say that the majority of the boys did just as well, if not better, than the officers.
Thats [sic] that for that.
Well, the kids still owe me a letter and I hope to hear from them soon.
I haven’t bumped into Hal lately so I don’t know how he’s getting along. I don’t even know what score he fired on the M-1 rifle range.
It’s about 11 P.M. now and I’ll have to catch some sleep. I’m sleepy already, and you probably will notice that my handwriting has been getting from bad to worse, a clear indication of how sleepy I am.
Well so long and
Love
Stan.
