MilColl_WWII_118_ODonnell_John_B_Papers_B2F2_Corr_Apr_May_1944_008

Friday
14 April, 1944

My darling:

You should see my new quarters - same place but a large
"Villa" (Nissen Hut), "hard wood floors" (concrete), "four poster bed" (British
steel cot, folding), "central heat" (good old USA [gas?] "Pot bellied," sheet
metal, burn anything, even English coal of poorer grade, coke, roots, etc ^(stove)
enough to serve the purpose.

The feeling of the "empty school room" has gone and we are again
settled among new but good friends. One of the little things that
happen when in Army fashion you are suddenly aware that the old
have gone and the new will arrive occures when a British Corporal
who is attached to our Camp woke me in my tent early one morning
with the excuse that he just had to have someone to talk to. My
wonder was was it the odds and ends such as cigarettes that he
was looking for. Something is always left behind, you know. And
the "yanks" have all the tobacco they want.

Your "continued" V" letter came today and I enjoyed it so much
you have so many interesting things to say and I have such a
feeling of your own adorable self being nearby when I read your
letters. You just don't know, Sweets, how I love you and what it
means to have this thing of war keep me away so long. You and home
hardly seem a reality and yet I can sit for hours and let picture
after picture of place, and time, and incident pass through my mind
as vividly as if I were there remembering the same thing and liveing
others at the same time. So I guess I am not liveing in a