Edward J. Thomas - World War II
Thur. Aug 10 the Japanese resistance ends. America has conquered the Marianas.
Letter from PFC Ernest Jaramillo (Jerry)
HQ Co, IRTC
Cp Robinson, Ark
13 August 1944 Sunday
My dear T D & E J,
I know, I know, you are probably calling me
all kinds of names. from A to Z for not having ans
your nice letter sooner, but I don't blame you one
bit. When it wasn't because I had too much (loafing)
time on hand at Shelby, it was because they were
working my hump good and well right here at Robinson.
However today, Sunday, having a slight breathing
spell, it occurred to me to write you a short
summary of the latest around here.
To begin with we closed up shop at Shelby the 27th of Jul having sent all the men to the various Camps like Hood, Benning, McClellan, Blanding, Rucker, Croft (where Chris went) and last but not least the paradise of Robinson. The six sent here were all clerks including Kirschner and DiLeonardo whom you know. Starting out with so little competition, we thought we had it made, but to our surprise, upon our arrival here, we learned that some 300 other Cadremen had arrived the day before (all incidently vets from all the different theaters of War who have been sent here to replace those who have been at Robinson for the last two or three yrs, and who are slated for overseas very soon now).
At any rate with so many casuals at one time,
it was one whole week before we (the Shelby group)
were interviewed and informed of our duties-to-be.
All of us inxidently were ass1gned to Hq Co. Cpl
DiLeonardo, Cpl Druffel, Cpl Katz and PFC Oliver,
all of whom worked at personnel at Shelby, were
asgd for dy to S-l Personnel here. Kirschner was
asgd to S-l Classification, and I was asgd to Hq
IRTC with S-1 (Classification and Assignment Div).
My assignment came about after a rigid typing
test given to select the best two 405's, and for
competition there were three Tec 4' s and one Cpl,
and I couldn't help but to feel that I had more than
a match. However, despite the handicap of being A
PFC and given the worst typewriter of them all at that,
I am happy to inform you that a certain PFC Ml had the
honor of having the highest score with a 72 words per
minute. The three Tec 4's had scores from 53 to 55
respectively and the Cpl down to a mere 40 words per min.
All this of course made me very happy indeed, but
I soon discovered that it was not all as good as it sounded;
for the very next day the two of us chosen for the
job were informed that the practice of working from
four to eight hours over-time daily was nothing unusual
at times, and we have been doing just that too. Right
now we are under the process of shipping out thousands
of trainees who have just ccmpleted their l7 weeks'
basic tng and in turn we are receiving just as many
replactng those leaving, and believe me, our cutting
orders eighteen hours a day just isn't enough to cope
with the existing situation. In fact I find it very
difficult to shave, shower, shine and sleep on a mere
six-hour schedule. This I understand will last at
least a couple of more weeks and then there will be
another long lull until the new groups finish their
tng.
There are fourteen of us in the office, eight
of which are slated for overseas, so I might still
make a Tec 5 out of it. Candidly speaking, there
are only two good typists (Tec 3's) in the office
and the rest are only fair.
Other short items in brief: Camp is very nice
indeed (and so are the women). It looks more like
a swumer resort than it does an Army Camp (at least
around here at Hq where all these women hand around).
The weather is very hot, something like that of Shelby. The food is excellent and quarters are very cozy.
Well, boys, I must close now as it is time for chow, and you know me, I don't want to miss that.
Be good and write to me whenever possible.
Sincerely,
Jerry
(The Robinson Commando)
PS. I'll write more about camp and our recreation
in my next letter to you.
