1943.1.25

Jan 25, 1943

Dear Folks:

Well I haven’t written you for a couple days so I’ll write tonight. It rained last night and has been pretty cool today. A cold north wind has been blowing. I haven’t received any mail yet but expect to get some tomorrow. It takes a long time for mail to travel that far and back again.

This place here has so many rules and regulations it makes me sick. Our clothes must be folded in a certain way and everything must be spotless. I have to shave every day and polish my shoes and a lot of things like that. One thing though I save a lot of time because I don’t have to comb my hair any more (it’s about 1/2 inch long). I also don’t like to get up 5:15 A.M. They do let us sleep in on Sundays though. We have breakfast at 7:30 and if we don’t want our breakfast we can stay in bed as late as we want to. But I get hungry and get up in time for breakfast. I’m sick of being penned up here with these guys.

I am also tired of being told what I can do and what I can’t do. They are so particular. I see a lot of planes down here–all overhead. That’s as close as I ever get to them.

I don’t remember if I told you or not but we had some exercises Saturday. It was pretty hot that day and the exercises were pretty tough. All of a sudden one of the boys keeled over, out cold. The instructor then told anybody who felt sick to go to their barracks. About 1/3 of the boys left. Altogether I saw them carry three guys off the field and I guess there were more than that who passed out. We topped it off by running and walking around the square. I didn’t feel so bad but I’m afraid some of those boys were pretty sick. They’re either going to make us tough or kill us trying. Don’t worry about me because I can take it and I seem to be in better condition than most of these boys.

I spent a lot of time scraping paint off my belt buckle and polishing the brass under it. I got about an hours work on it yet. So I’ll have to close as it is 8:00 now.

Yours truly,
Alva

P.S. I hope Jim hasn’t tangled with any skunks yet.

Jim Bessey was just 12 years old when his big brother Alva joined the United States Army Air Force. Here is his graduation picture taken about five years later.