December 14, 1944
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310.58.1-4.2016 Transcription
Somewhere – France
With 7th Army
14 Dec 44 @ 5PM
Dearest,
Boo-hoo! Hell! Boo-Hoo! Nuts!
Today, again, for the second day in a row
(believe it or not) mail came in & I received
no letter from you. Boo-hoo! AND––
Lordy! what gaps in [between][1] those letters that
did arrive––I don’t save your
letters as you already know [JUST THOSE
SUPER-SPECIAL PARTS THAT ARE SOOO WONDERFUL][2]
& thus I can’t give you off hand
detailed dates of the missing ones, but
some gaping occurred prior to Nov 9th;
then a big gap up till Nov 18th (or 17th);
then a gap till Nov 22nd; etc; etc; ad
infuriam! 卐 ! Ü ! « ! What we gonna
do, darlin? ––Just “beat-our-gums,”
I guess. Still no package; still no
first (?) set of airmail stamps; still no
––Nuts! infact––shit!
Which brings up something I should
& must tell you, Mom & Dad. (and maybe
dozens of other people). When I come home I
will almost surely embarrass you as
well as myself by just “automatically”
saying (way too frequently) the exclamation
“shit!” Its bad––yet its “good.” Bad cuz
of reasons I need not itemize. “Good”
[2]
because it has, over the course of months,
(& will be [for] many more months) a “relieving”––
expression while all the actual
sacreligious profanity is just filling
the air around me. Boy! oh boy! do
soldiers ever swear, & I mean swear––
every 3rd sentence & sometimes every
3rd word. 99% of it is sacreligious––
“de-deifying” swearing which I don’t
like. I honestly don’t imagine I
have said “goddamn,” “Jesus Christ,” &
the like over 3 times in months––
but oh boy! do I use the word “shit!”.
Yup, dear, [horrible “confession”][3] I say it real
often. Infact, I’ve embarrassed myself
more than once when I forgot nurses
were in a room behind me or sumthin’.
As I said (above), its almost “automatic”
c̅[4] me. ––Just as “automatic” as it
is for these other guys all around me
to be saying g––d––, j––c––, g––, etc.
Soooo––––so be it––––such is
the truth. (horrible or otherwise). Guess my rationale
is this––––if I can stick to just
“shit!” while all the rest of the “de-deifying”
is literally filling the air around me
(nurses too), I’m happy & I’m sure the
good Lord is happier too. Sooo, “brace”
Mom, & Dad & yourself until I get over
- In a decent environment I imagine
[3]
I’ll just gradually loose my
exclaimatory expression of “shit!”.
Wounded German patients tell me
(my German has picked up/brushed-up remarkably)
that it will take us until August of
1945 to beat Germany. Well––––
Maybe, dear, if I stop my jumbled
writing c̅ this page I can enclosed [sic]
Fr. Kelley’s letter s̅[5] paper-weight-
violation. Guess I’ll do that. Soooo,
here’s hopin’ all your “gap[p]ed” letters
land sometime––––if not sometime
soon.
Bestest-Mostest-Allest-
Love,
Dave
P.S. Another reason for stopping, is that there
is an officer’s meeting in 14 minutes. They
say the C.O. is really going to raise “Hell” &
nobody knows why. Whumpf!
[1] Bracketed text inserted into original with a caret.
[2] Bracketed text is part of original.
[3] Bracketed text is part of original.
[4] Medical abbreviation meaning “with.”
[5] Medical abbreviation meaning “without.”