April 14, 1956 (Saturday)
Hi,
We have all just come back from breakfast. It is 6:00.
Well here I am again; now it is 3:00. We arrived here about midnite last night. By the time we got our bedding and got assigned to our barracks, it was 2:00, and they got us up at 4:00 this morning.
We have been pretty busy doing a lot of nothing and don't get much time to write. We haven't got our uniforms yet. They are pretty rough on us and most of us don't like this place very well. We have heard that some of us are going to Colorado about Tuesday or Wednesday for basic in the 8th infantry division. I guess I'm in that bunch. It's all right with me. Everybody wants to go. I think all that go there will get sent to Germany.
My address is:
Pvt. Herbert F. Brehmer
Co B and G 4071st SU
Reception Center
Camp Chaffee, AK
Don't write me now as we'll be leaving right away. The B&G stands for Baker and George Company.
We sure haven't been getting much sleep the last two nites. There are about 100 guys in our company from all over the states.
We just came back from the PX. I got Hank Mueller a card and looked around.
Boy there sure is a lot of different kinds of guys here. Some play poker, some play dice, and some just run around trying to act smart.
We had a good trip here from Minneapolis. It took us about 17 hours to get here. It sure got tiresome riding the bus. The guy that bunks beside me is from Missouri and can't read or write.
Well I better close for now. I think they're going to call us out again.
So long,
Pvt Bigfoot
PS Tell the girls and Cactus that I haven't had much time to write lately.
How different times were then! The postage was 6 cents for airmail; nowadays you can't even buy a gumball for 6 cents. There was no street address or even a zip code, just the name and city/state information. Wow!
Another reason the song I heard triggered a response is because we have a nephew who is deploying overseas soon. I realize that most communication these days is electronic, but I really want to send an old fashioned hand-written letter (or two or five or twenty) to him while he is deployed. Maybe he'll roll his eyes at his out-of-touch aunt, but I don't really care. He's going to get the letters anyway. Then someday when his daughter has a blog, she can pull them out and splash them all over cyberspace for everybody to read!
I also have to rat out Big Brother for not writing home while he was stationed in Germany. We didn't hear from him for so long that Mom contacted the Red Cross to check up on him. It wasn't 24 hours later, and there was a telegram delivered to our door:
Soldier okay. Soldier sorry mother worried. Soldier will write soon.
Within a week we got a multiple-page written letter from PFC J. G. Brehmer, and I got a vision in my head of his Sargent standing over him in the mess hall just screaming at him to keep writing. I kind of felt sorry for him but kind of not because I'd been worried too.
Where has the art of letter writing gone? If I get a handwritten card, note, letter...anything in the mail it gets stuck to our bulletin board where it stays for at least six months. On the other hand, I shouldn't be Judgey McJudgemuffin because a friend of ours had back surgery recently, and I have meant to get a card in the mail to him--even asked Captain several times to remind me--and I haven't done it yet.
The song also reminded me, again, of what sacrifices our soldiers make and how grateful we need to be to them for their service. Don't ever let an opportunity slip away to thank a soldier for his or her contribution to our country. Ever.
Pick up a pen. Write a note to someone and mail it. I guarantee you will make their day!!
Images used:
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/avatars/b9/b943aa968b4b1d254518d476ecf3b8a94ac18e86_full.jpg
No comments:
Post a Comment