June 2, 1943
Dear Howard:
I guess I should have written you before now but I’ve had so many letters to write and they also keep us pretty busy. It takes all of our spare time just keeping our equipment clean etc.
I’ll only be here for four more weeks or so but I can’t say I’ll miss leaving this joint. I’ve seen it but nothing like it is here. We take 2 salt pills at breakfast, one at ten P.M., two at dinner time, one at 3 P.M. and two again for supper but we sure need them. The food was awful at first but we have a new mess sgt and we get a lot of milk, peanut-butter and larger flat fulls of hash. We still have fish on Fridays (being I’m next to Irish I shouldn’t complain) and that’s about all you can smell & taste for the week end. Our barracks are old ones and not very well kept up. The bed bugs are really thick in but we have to fight our way into bed with G.I. Boots. I told Ray that there was so many of them that they shake the bed almost as bad as a chevrolet car does at 70MPH. Those little devils can bite enough too.
Our training here is in 4 stages or periods. A stage which we finished today is mostly physical training and is to see just how much a man can take before giving up. They sure know how to make a guy get down on his knees and wish the Christ he’d never joined this outfit. We run five miles non-stop, do two hours of push-ups, back bending, etc. climb a 45 foot rope; do and learn a lot of Jujitsu every day, and jumps off platforms learning how to tumble. No matter if we’re just going from one barrack to the next, to chow, to the B-X or anyplace we have to do it on the double (run). I’m plenty tired when night comes but it’s so damn hot that we can’t get what you’d call a good rest next week we get B-stage which is only a week long. In the morning we run before breakfast (5 miles), and then practice free jumps off the 16 feet platforms. In the afternoons we learn to pack our own chutes. Each guy has to pack his own chute and jump with it. Except for the movies this should be a pretty good week. Then we go into C-stage which is also a week long. We keep up our running and jump from the 25 foot towers. This should be fun and very easy. Boy the next two weeks (starting August 9th) is where we get the real McCoy. We make seven jumps the first five days (our last one coming on Friday 13th) and if we make good we get our wings. But if not we have to make seven jumps the following week. If we’re no good at the end of the 14th jump we’re kicked the hell out of this outfit. I sure hope I can get mine the first week. Then we are sent for our advanced training which is only 13 weeks long. It’s hard to tell just where I’ll be sent but I hope it’s up North someplace. I’ll have a seven day furlough at that time. We wear boots, an Airborne Arm insignia, and a hat which has the insignia of a parachute on it. We also get jump uniforms and a 30 Cali. machine gun to play with (Some fun).
How are you getting along? How’s the resturant girl? I heard Ellsworth made out his exams for the Air Corps and is supposed to leave soon. Any rainy days?
Boy these five miles almost kill me. It’s a good thing we run 2 1/2 miles two days, 4 miles two days and then the 5 miles every morning after that or I’d never have made it.
Well Pat I’ve got to get some sleep so I’d better sign off. We can’t have any mail for four whole weeks so maybe I’ll get to write again.
Your Friend,
Orthelle
Should be overseas duty in 17 weeks. Robert W.
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