Training in the USA

U.S. Army
[Thursday]
12/2/43

Dear Mom & Lou,

I should have written before but didn’t get around to it - last night I spent, first drinking beer with Lt. Botman and second, trying vainly to figure out a plan for the holiday furloughs. We’ll have to work on it again later on.

Lt. Bernard H. Mason

Today we went thru the gas chamber for the 3rd time - this time we had a taste of the real stuff as well as the ordinary tear gas. Our clothes are full of the stuff so we’ve been having a crying good time.

Lt. Mason got back from Mine school today & found himself a 1st Lieutenant - we were all tickled to death about it. And Captain Raynor now, instead of Lt.

Perhaps you didn’t get it, but I am certain I wrote you from Ft. Dupont not 10 minutes after Ed Milburn and I finished off that wonderful bird you sent. It really was a grand treat to say the very least.

I am enclosing a couple of “Flat-tops” that contain articles of interest. The Booby Trap Area I have not seen since it was completed, but I was loaned to the 3rd Platoon while it was being planned & had a lot to do with the ideas that were used.

This week-end [12/4/43] I am going down to spend a penurious week-end in Washington. Have no date there but will see Betty who is a hostess at the Canteen on Saturday and I always go there for a free supper. I think I’ll spend the afternoon at the National Press Club & try to get a free ticket to the Symphony on Sunday. [12/5/43]

We have a 5 mile hike every day now, plus the obstacle course which has become duck soup for me. Today we had our physical exams for overseas service - of course I passed - and you should see the way my weight compares with what it was when I enlisted! Before 137 lbs - after 160, a gain of 23 pounds!

Well - there isn’t much more to say except that I saw Deanna Durbin tonight in “His Butler’s Sister” - It, or rather, she, was swell.

Love
Harold