March 14, 1943
Sun 6:25 PM
Dear Folks:
Well it’s about time for me to write again. I don’t know when I last wrote.
Boy my class (43-J) is getting the worst end of the deal. I probably told you that a new system is going into effect. From now on the boys first go for about 3 months of basic training which is like being in the regular army. They then go to some college for about 3 more months. And then they start their flying. All in all it will take them 15 1/2 months.
I understand that our class is the last class to go through under the old system.
Here’s the real catch. We won’t have any underclassmen. They won’t come in until we leave. But the real catch is this. We have to finish our last half of this course in 2 wks. It is a regular 4 1/2 wk course. The upperclassmen now are having a tough time doing it in 4 1/2 wks. and we have to do it in 2 wks. Boy that’s going to be tough going. We start on the last half March 18 and finish April 3. So if you don’t get any letters in that period, you will know why.
Right now the upperclassmen are making it tough for us. Or they are for the rest of the boys. They leave me alone pretty much.
It is getting towards the end so tonight we start throwing the upperclassmen in the showers. That is the only thing we dare to do against the upperclassmen.
We will take 6 hours of classes a day. In addition to this we will have P.T. and drill. And as we will be the only ones here we will also have guard duty. So if I flunk out you will know the reason why.
Well we have to drill tonight from 7:00 until 8:00. It’s almost 7:00 now so I will close.
We have our final in math tomorrow. My average so far is 96. That’s the only thing I am very good at. Code seems to come pretty hard to me.
So long now,
Alva
P.S. I will write more in a couple of days.
P.P.S. There is a lot of rumors going around. One of them is that we will get a 2 wk furlough Mar (Apr?) 3. But that is no doubt a lot of boloney.
A.B.
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