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 meFour Soldiers July 1944
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.

Jerry's photo Back

 

 

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.

The Occult - Eddie Answers Stanley

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