Hi Pappy:
How are you doing these days? I hope O.K., I’m O.K. as usual and still at the old game, how long though I don’t know, things sure have been happening here since I got back from furlough, heck half my old outfit has shipped out, and before I guess the rest of us will be going too, they are sure changing this place. Things are so messed up that I have damn little time to myself, I haven’t written more than about eight or ten letters since my furlough, heck I’ve been getting hell from everyone, but I sure can’t get much done, I never quite get my work done these days.
The past two weeks I’ve been attending a special class to brush up on some things I’ve not worked with for a long time, now I’m pretty well up on my combat training just in case I’m called up for shipment. We had an accident here a few weeks ago, two of our planes collided over the field and one crashed into a barracks killing seven in the plane and three more in the barracks. It happened so fast nothing could be done, the plane just missed the school I was in at the time and crashed into the barracks a block away, it exploded and burned instantly, burning down two barracks with it.
The fellows in the other plane were luckier, they managed to keep it up long enough to parachute to safety, that plane also explored and burned, but it came down six miles from the field so none were hurt. It wasn’;t a nice thing to see, but you couldn’t do a thing about it, that aviation gasoline is hell when it goes up, all the fellows were killed instantly though. I heard plenty of that one near Harrisburg, Pa, most of the boys on that plane were from S.Dak right around Sioux Falls, the local newspaper and radio station ran big stories on it for nearly two weeks, they event sent a reporter to Harrisburg to get all the dope on it.
I sure had the blues on the trip back here from my furlough, the trip wasn’t bad, but I sure hated to leave, I’m looking around for another furlough already, have any ideas on how I can get one? Ha ha. I missed my train connections in Chicago, the train got there way late, so I had a seven hour layover, I did a little tearing around and sure saw some of the places, but I still had the blues darn it, I got into Sioux Falls at midnight just in time too, my buddy and his wife were there to meet me, so I got to camp on time O.K.
I’ve been hunting twice since I’m back here, I did pretty fair, I guess I got about eight or ten birds, I forget just how many, but I sure missed plenty too, can’t see how I do it, but I sure do, ha ha. How did you make out? And how’s the trapping going? I hope you got a nice mess of rats, but I guess the cold weather gave you a lot of trouble, I hope it didn’t cut you down too much on your catch.
Pheasant season is extended to run to the end of February out here, so I may go out this week or next after them again, some of the boys are after me to go along and since I have a few shells left I may as well use them up, hope I get a “few” birds for a change without missing so darn many, ha ha.
I saw a muskrat hunting one day out here, I could have shot him early but they were not in season then, he was swimming around a rat house in one of these prairie slews, it was the biggest rat house I’ve ever seen, five feet above the water level and about six or eight feed across, and was that slew full of rats, you could hear them in the reeds chewing or something, I’ll bet there was on every ten feet in those reeds. It was early evening and foggy, I was thinking how you would have liked to find an trap a place like that, I’ll bet you’d have had fun and quite a few there.
Well, not much else to say just now, it’s snowing today but kinda warm. It will be sloppy as heck this afternoon, and I must go in town tonight. I’ll be a mess I’ll bet. So long for now.
Very best wishes,
Red