Joe & Eunice

FROM: T/4 Joseph A Schneider Co A – 69th Armd Regt. Camp Chafee, Ark TO: Miss Eunice Brooks 216 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville, Ark. POSTMARK: CAMP CHAFFEE ARK JUL 28 1:00 PM 1942

July, 1942

Dear Eunice,

This letter brings to you my thoughts, as the sun is going down. And they travel over the day’s events, just one more spent in the service of my country.

This morning started with a half-hour of double-time. Now, double time is the art of running, with a 36 inch step at 180 to a minute. It’s the boogieman of the night owls. As the sweat starts pouring out, Private Beer Baron wishes he had stayed on a water diet. And Corporal “Hold My Head” starts yelling for black coffee. And so ends another week end. A happy one too!

And now they travel to Maryland, where a lonesome old man sets smoking his pipe in a house which was once filled with the laughter & joy of four generations. But now he sits alone. And my heart aches for him. Then cross town to a young mother bathing her youngest, and keeping an eye on two more of her off-spring. She’s plenty busy, but not too busy to write to her brother in the army once a week.

Down the coast swiftly race my thoughts to Camp Lee, Virginia, where my uncle & my brother are spending their first week in the service. Then to England, Australia and Africa, where many of my army friends are “God knows where”.

And finally they drift to you. To a girl who can make me laugh. And then I can forget a lot of things. The past is dead. The future is a dream, but the present, it is here! It’s a funny one though. One day out of seven I spend in heaven with you. The rest is spent in work! So I live that short time to the fullest. And I am happy.

My eyes close with a picture of you by my side. And in my dreams I carry you off to a small farm behind the highest hill in the Ozarks, then I sleep.

Pleasant Dreams, Sweet.

PS – I’ll write you tomorrow night.

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