Feb 7, 1944, Camp Blanding, Florida

Dear sunlight,

My short enjoyable holiday ended last night and this morning the grind began again. This morning we started with dismounted drill as they call it, after that we had a lecture on grenades of all types, including fragmentation, incendiary, smoke and incendiary, with demonstrations of a few. Everything we do here and everything we train for is closely connected to actual battle and as time goes by will become even more immediate. They make no bones about our work and what it is intended for. Actual battle situations are mulled over and discussed and our part and our action in them. It is difficult for any civilian removed from all this, surrounded by civilization and a way of life that is so completely different from this to picture the life of a soldier. I know I never did. This has proved to be a marvelous opportunity for me to learn new things, experience new feelings, and to be revivified in a sense since there is nothing here which doesn't arouse my curiousity. Lt. Clift, a young Southerner, one of our platoon leaders (there are 3 of them, one for each platoon, consisting of 60 men, in the company) threw a smoke grenade about 50 yds from us. Streamers of smoke and fire rose up like a fountain and a huge cloud of smoke issued from the quart sized bottle. The heat was so intense at the point of contact that the wet grass began to burn fiercely for a distance. There is no danger though because carefulness is stressed so much and observed so widely. After that class, after our 10 min break we had a 2 hr continuation of our class on first aid with movies and visual demonstrations by the non coms. My pack which I carry for the better part of the day is becoming a part of me. I don't know I'm carrying it and feel good when it's on. I'm learning too to use my rifle or I should say handle it for we won't really use it for weeks, like a toy, learning the manual of arms and running with it. It weighs 9 lbs and has a range of miles. It is a Garand. The mechanism intricate and marvelously contrived. To think that the highest scientific achievements of man are incorporated in the instruments of destruction; instruments which are so anti-man. Everything here is a combination of the most primitive and the most advanced. I'm becoming more adept at allocating my time, although by no means must you construe that to mean that I have time in the old sense. But one learns how to snatch impossible minutes, to speed everything up and to do everything in the manner of a fireman always on the go for a perpetual fire. They even annoy us at mealtimes, when the 1st sgt. will come in and give us instructions or orders, compelling us to be at ease, which means technically laying down our implements and listening, in spite of the fact that our meal is a hurried though satisfactory one in every sense and when we use part of that time to do sundry things like cleaning rifles, bunks or a million other things that there is to do, collecting and writing mail etc. Today at our meal, I was just about to dig into a piece of pumpkin pie and was interrupted by a fire call. We were out of the mess hall, all 180 of us in 2 min flat, lined up in formation. We only have 7 or 8 formations , regular ones that is, a day. Please don't get the totally erroneous impression from all I write you of this accelerated life that I do not enjoy it. I do. I'm amazed that some of the g___heads(?), of which their are many and some of the fatboys can stand up under it. But it seems that even this tail end of the military pool is still in pretty good shape.

The questions you ask me in your letters are history by the time I get them. I think I answered most of them before you asked them. I will need money soon however since I haven't been paid as yet and probably won't get the significant am't until March. I can borrow money easily although I haven't found it necessary yet. It makes me feel good to know that you looked well the night you went to W______. Wish I was there. By the way, if you can, send a P.M.O. I can cash it easily. I'll describe mail call to you in another letter. And don't stop seeing my mother, please. It buoys her up, I know. I haven't yet made up a complete list of what I need so we'll have that suspended for a few days. As for the the cake my mother is going to send me and your cookies, the boys and I will look forward to them eagerly, darling and will make short work of them.
How long will it be before I can walk down the stairs, into the garden of K.V., walk into G building past the guard, ring the elevator bell, glide up to floor 11, open our the door to our eyrie and take my little package of smoothskin, blackhair, Gauguinnose in my muscular embrace? After the war, after the beast is laid. 
Your Joe

Friday, Feb 4, 1944, Camp Blanding, Florida

Dear Es,

For the first time, I don't know at all where to begin. I've got to make you understand in some way what is going on here in order that you may feel more secure and less agitated than your letters to me showed. I'll put it this way. I imagine a Japanese soldier, thin, wiry, trained from infancy accustomed to living on a few grains of rice a day, sleeping anywhere in the top of a tree if necessary, expert in the art of jiu jitsu and the use of his body and his weapons, disciplined and fanatical or a crack German infantryman, his mind twisted with adoration of Hitler, ready to die for Naziism, trained to a keen edge, technically proficient; imagine this and then you may glimpse something of what we have ahead of us if we are to achieve that condition that will make us able to withstand them and be superior to them. This is not exaggerated and it is the idea our officers rightly have in mind in our training. I was never so busy in my life nor would it be possible for me to be more occupied. We are driven, and drive ourselves mercilessly  with that goal in mind. This is a maelstrom, a whirligig, going at top speed. Therefore, do not expect much of me darling. I will do my best. I will only write to you and I want you to make explanations for me to my family and yours. Perhaps I will have more time later. I can't even look over your letters to answer the questions you ask. I will write to you telling you what I do need when I draw up a list of such things. However, don't get the idea from the foregoing that I am unhappy or dissatisfied. That would not be true. There are times of course when I'm mad or depressed or disgruntled but these feelings pass so quickly that they do not even matter. On the whole I'm glad to be in this, to strengthen my body and my mind. It is like being back at school. with classes, 5 or 6 of them on all subjects, Drill, Exercise, Chemical Warfare, Organization of Army, and a million other things. We do not yet use live ammunition. We will be taking apart and learning about and cleaning our rifles for wks before we begin to use bullets. The program is well planned and the courses are given at breakneck speed.
I have been separated from Vinnie as the fortunate ones were sent here. It is supposed to be much safer than the Co. I was originally in.All the guys here are well up in their marks and could easily qualify for O.C.S. if there were any openings. There is about 1 in 1000 at the present time and it's best forgotten about.  Our actual work is still a mystery and will not begin until our 6 wks basic infantry is finished with. They are attempting to give us the usual 17 wks work in 6 so you see the situation.
I received all of your letters by now and also one from Adele, in which she told me about Louie. She can consider herself lucky.
I am not afraid to tell you that we will probably be shipped overseas as soon as our 17 wks are through after we get a furlough which is guaranteed to us. I am confident that you will find the steel in yourself to look the facts in the face and even find comfort in the larger fact that we are both sacrificing our comfort for a great cause. I'm sure also that we will continue our lives in the future as little people at peace.
I am together here with a mixed (of course) group of lawyers, accountants, clerks, technicians, etc. I don't care for them as I did for the "lower classes". They're a pretty smug, complacent, and goody-goody outfit. I am making friends though and getting along well as usual with everybody. ---- I did have to laugh at your letter and your questions. No, I don't drink and have no leisure. Nobody has here. I also received a very interesting letter from Elliot White. --- Now to shave and wash socks -- I love you, brave britches - You know I do. A kiss huge
Your Joe

Wednesday

Dearest Es, 

I am trying my darndest to find keep my promise and your request to write every day. But the same old situation of trying to stretch time like a rubberband exists out here. I'll probably not finish this letter right now but come back to it after supper. At any rate you won't be any more disappointed in not hearing from me than I was in not receiving any package from you except the stationary. Food out here would be a dream so please try baby. I made every effort to write to you all 3 days but I couldn't yesterday as we are engaged every night this week until at least 10:30 PM. The first day things things were kind of snafued and the mail came late and had to be read by searchlight. And the mail bag could not possibly be found in the dark. I've just gotten back and have a few minutes to chow. I started writing again in the middle of the word possibly where I've marked an arrow. We dug foxholes with sweat and strain in the sun (better than rain which none so far!) and as soon as they were six feet deep, 2' wide and 3 1/2 ft long - 42 cubic ft of heavy clay - we were ordered to fill each up again. Great sport. C rations again tomorrow. I've almost gotten to enjoy them, you get so hungry out here in the wilds of Florida. I had a little more sleep and felt better rested today than yesterday. I'm going to end the letter now since they'll be calling us momentarily and I do want to get it off tonite before he takes the mail out. So long. Darling I love you and here it is Wednesday.
Your Joe

Saturday Feb 5, 1944, Camp Blanding, Florida

Dear Esterina,

I'm now writing from the Service Club, one of them in Camp Blanding, for the camp is huge and there are a great many scattered over a wide area. After seeing nothing but bare barracks for a wk and not leaving the company street, mind you, this place is palatial. It looks like a large dance hall with a balcony all around the room with white waxed floors and a bare mural in the process of being finished on one of the end walls. The scaffolding is still up. The chrome and black tables of imitation onyx gleam and shine and letter writers sit in the comfortable and modern leather chairs. I marvel that I am here at all for they finally lifted the restriction as a reward for the way our company, newly formed and numbering 180 men without officers, passed inspection which is held strictly in accordance with the minutest rules in the manual even to the way in which the toothbrush is placed, and which is conducted by a Lt. Colonel who reminded me of Gary Cooper because of his long, lean gauntness. He praised us for our expertness which we had acquired in such a short space of time. It took backbreaking labor to accomplish this, believe me. So after showering, washing my fatigues, socks, etc. I beat a path down here to try and get you on the phone. But a call takes from 4 to 5 hrs to get through and since it is already 9 o'clock I am doing the next best thing, writing. I walked up here with a fellow named Hoecke who is a time study man, whose appearance belies this bigsounding title because of his short haircut and his boyishness. I get along with all the fellows very well and am well liked but I've found no one like Vinnie who I sincerely miss. But the people with me now are of far higher intelligence than those back there in the rifle company. I feel as though I were back in college sometimes. Our training as you've probably grasped by now is strenuous but magnificent, equipping us well for the tasks we may be called on to perform. The only thing lacking is the affirmative faith, derived from political consciousness, which is so necessary, so vital for a great unconquerable army. I get no papers, nor could I read them if I did get them for the reason I don't have to repeat. The only news we get is that which is read to us by our platoon leader, LT. Carter who resembles Dave Bickel in features only, during breaks which are 10 minute recesses between classes or drills and which are usually condensed to 5 min or 3 min. This is a mimeographed sheet with a sketchy summation of the days news. There is a pretty little spinet here upon which some soldier is beating out some keenly appreciated notes. I do miss music and wish I could hear any damn thing. A hundred or more soldiers are sitting around, doing what soldiers mostly do, writing, drinking sodas etc. Two girls, wives or sweethearts, sit with their men causing all the rest, I'm positive, to burn with envy, just as I'm doing. Lucky bastards. But patience, desire of my heart, patience and steel. A fellow sitting next to me is telling me that of all the parts in the infantry the Message Center is the easiest. He says that after the first 6 wks the pace although plenty tough, slackens down. Personally I'd just as soon it would continue at the present pace.

I received no letter from you today. First time I think. I know it isn't you but the mails. We receive mail on Sundays and I expect I'll have a brace by then. Write often darling as you have been doing. Your letters are marvelous tonics. When you told me of the soiled stockings I got a momentary glimpse of the breathless metropolis I long for. Are you managing financially, sweet. I'm running low. I need some things but I'll wait till I get them all down. I need hangers, all my underwear, hankies, cotton army socks, etc.

When are you going to send me a picture of yourself. Don't keep me waiting, please, satinskin. Perhaps you could even send me pictures of my family and yours with all the kids that you could take yourself if you get a camera and even a shot of K.V.* on a Sunday morning about the time I'd be going down for breakfast. I'll find out as soon as I possibly can about that plan I wrote you about and how soon we can bring it to fruition.

They've just put out the lights. I'm finishing this letter out on the porch. No well so deep as my love, darling. I'm learning constantly. Things are changing values and relations. How much you mean to me and for me is becoming very clear. 

Goodnight. Sleep well

Your Joe

*ed. note: Knickerbocker Village - the large apartment complex they lived in, in New York City.