Sunday Dec 5, 1943

Dearest Kitten:

I love you, my beautiful Kitten. The ache in my heart is due to the empty void that is always with me. The emptiness is due to my being so far away from you.

The only thing that I need, to satisfy all my desires, is to be allowed to go home to you, Sweetheart.

After writing to you last night, Sgt. St. Jean and myself went over to the P.X. and had two beers. From there we went to the show. It was Red Skelton in "Whistling in Brooklyn". It was wacky but I enjoyed it nevertheless. I needed something funny to break the monotony.

Upon arising this morning, the First Sgt. told me that with the aid of another NonCom, we were to be in charge of the men this afternoon to see that they washed the outside of the barracks and all the windows. Today is Sunday, but we do not even get a break because if it.

Do not be surprised if one of these days you have to start addressing your mail to Pvt. Lemire instead of S/Sgt. Lemire. Things are getting so bad that one of these days I am going to blow my top. When that happens I will undoubtedly lose my stripes. The way I feel right now, I do not care and would be a lot happier as a private. A man can go no lower than a private and in that capacity it would be heaven. I could then take my time about doing things and would have only myself to worry about. Our new C.O. is wacky and gives no consideration what so ever to the men. That is what gets my goat.

I got a kick out of the letter that you wanted me not to read. You sure were feeling mean when you wrote it.

You ought to buy yourself a new alarm clock. One of these days you may be sorry if you should happen to oversleep.

In last night's letter I told you that there was nothing new about the cadre. Well there isn't, but there is still a chance. Just keep hoping and praying, it may come true as yet.

It will be good for Estelle to go to work It will take up her mind and give her something to look forward to all the time.

It is probably the cold that makes the alarm clock stop. Now if I were home, we would make enough heat of our own to keep the clock warm. Of course it might stop because of the sights it will see, so there is very little advantage there.

You may be able to get a job with the U.S. Rubber, but I would not plan on it too much.

It was nice of you gals to pitch in for Helen. I hope you have a good time when you go over to her house.

Mrs. Dubuque is lucky in having a registered nurse so close and handy. I doubt if Barbara will be left with a scare on her finger if it is only the nail and a small cut. It sure must have hurt. I know what it feels like to lose a fingernail and it is no fun.

I hope that the salve does the trick for Barbara. It would be a job to put her on goat's milk. In the first place you would have to go after it, and in the second it would cost so much. Let's hope that the salve is sufficient.

I am very happy that you finally got the babies insured. It is something that I have been wanting to have done for a long time. − Later:

Sgt. St. Jean & myself just got back from Mass. We will have to go Wednesday. It is to be a 6:00 P.M. Mass. We will have to rush to make it as we usually eat around 5:45 P.M. [Feast of the Immaculate Conception.]

I hope that you have received your allotment by now. If you have not, the twenty that I sent you probably came in handy huh? Do you need some more? If you do I will send you some more.

My rifle is calling me. I have to oil it up & clean it. So I will close. If I get the chance I am going to write to Mother tonight.

Beautiful, I love you so much that there is standing room only in my heart, because it is all reserved for you. My poor attempts to write about my love for you fall short of really explaining my true feelings. What I need is the personal contact to be able to show you how much I love you.

You have all my love so, give my regards to everyone & kiss the babies for me.

Your Loving, Devoted, & Faithful Husband

Bob

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Keep count of all the kisses that we put into our letters, because when I go home for good, I am taking a week off to collect them all personally.