Capt. T.G. Leske
633 T.D. BN.
APO304
Fort Lewis, Wash.
10-23-43 (Postmarked Oct. 28 1943, Tacoma, Wash. No stamp, just "Free" written where the stamp would be.)
Miss Jane Axtell
538 S. Normandie
Los Angeles, #5 California
Hello Puss!
Well, here I am – what ya gonna do about it.
Hooray, hooray! Maneuvers are over for us and tomorrow we will start on our way home. Our last problem ended Wednesday noon as we were surrounded and theoretically would have been wiped out. Sorry?
We traveled about sixty miles to the area where we are now, the railway siding at La Pine, and had a huge snow within a couple of hours after arriving, soaking my bedding roll. As we have had typical Oregon weather since, my bedding is still wet and gee whiz it ain’t no fun crawling into a cold, damp roll alone. In fact it never is no fun.
What is this business of you not being able to take a drink lately? Ya tell Casey that if she hasn’t been following my rules and taking care of you that the day will come when she will have to answer to me. Of course, taking care of you probably entails hitting you over the head and making ya behave.
Your wrote, when ya were home with a cold (that’s silly, staying home just to have a cold to be with) that all ya needed was me holding your handand sympathizing with ya. Methinks, that you would need sympathy all right but that you would be holding my hands.
Ya ask if I don’t (or haven’t) lie (or laid) in my bedding roll, gazing up at the stars and have romantic thoughts? I don’t know if they could exactly be termed romantic thoughts but I sure have had a lot of thoughts. Seems strange, after your maidenly modest behavior in Salem, that you popped up so often at these times out under the open skies. Wishful thinking!
So ya think I was "soupy" when I wrote about scenery once while in Washington. I can recall exactly when and where it was – a lodge on the Peninsula, Pysht, and there you were on a little carved wood balcony, looking down on me as I was sitting in front of a huge fireplace, building castles and weaving dreams of affection.
Soupy or not, girl, I still think that scenery and so forth has its good points and is stimulating. One night is brought to mind – it was on overnight bivouac, between problems and the locale was a valley some fifteen miles square. My outfit was on a little knoll commanding the whole valley. Although the weather had been terrific it was the first night we had been allowed to have fires.
Our Tank Destroyer Group was around us with scores of fires blazing, each with a knot of men around the flames, their voices carrying through the stillness of the desert. On the other side of the valley, about twelve miles away, a whole division of infantry was bivouacked, with countless fires which were pinpricks of red, from our position. No lights of any kind were allowed.
If you can picture all of the above capped by a brisk chill breeze, a bright full moon drenching the whole scene and silhouetting the surrounding mountains , and a fire of your own forming a screen forr ones dreams, you too probably would get soupy, or haven’t I put the idea across?
Its afer nine now and we must up and about a 4:30 AM so "Finis" for the time being.
Good Luck
Teddy
P.S. – Signing my name the way I have might surprise you but I did it [word unreadable], not coyly. Ya see, I used the name for years and have alway been called the above.
This time –
Ted