11/28/44 Italy
Hello Nut:
Just got your letter of Nov 13, enclosing a couple I wrote once about furniture and finances. I have bounced yours and mine into the waste basket, where they belong.
Hey, you, listen while the OM talks. Remember the morning in Don’s living room, following a certain Labor Day in about 1938, when you cried a little and said I probably wouldn’t love you any more? Well, since that morning, the thought of you and I not getting along like a couple of good kids has never entered my mind and won’t. You’re stuck with me and all my nasty traits of personality, whether you like it or not.
As for the apartment, I like the idea a lot. I was afraid at first that you would be more lonesome in it than not. I’m not sure whether or not I could stand looking at all the things which are so dear to us without having you as well. But apparently it makes it easier for you, and that is what counts. Your first request for $1500* was pretty steep, particularly when that represented our total assets. I have set up minimum values which we will need to get back on our feet after the war, and I feel them sensible.
As for the financial poop, every time I asked for it, I get yelped at for asking. Once, about a month back, you put in a little squib at the end of a letter which gave me the poop. If you’ll do that about once a month, in the following form, I’ll not ask for it again. For example:
Checking Account $560
Ft. Sam Savings $1000
Oak Park Savings $1100
Other $500 hold out for Income Taxes
If it is right to within 10 bucks, it is close enough.
My only regret is that I can’t be there to help you get the furniture.
Your remarks on your being a failure are a laugh. As of June 22, 1940, you ceased to have the chance to be a failure alone. Before that, you must have done rather well or I wouldn’t have married you. After that, well we haven’t done too badly. We have a car, library, typewriter, sewing machines, linens and silver, some furniture—with more on the way. We have 2 rows of ribbons, a good Army record, fly damn well, and probably have a better future now that we’re back in engineering than our hot rock pilot boy-wonders have. It’s a little rough in ways, but a promotion is supposed to be somewhere in the building, going through the paper work. The next major above me got his yesterday. So, you haven’t been such a failure. If it hadn’t been for you, I should have become a dead hero a long time ago. I’m not inherently cautious for my own sake.
As for coming home, here is the story. There is work to do. By becoming a first rate liar, I could get there. But I have to live with my conscience as well as with you. I know it seems hard, but look around you. Harsh was flak happy. He’ll never erase those scars on his mind. I was able to avoid that. Bever and Mercer are yellow as all hell. You wouldn’t want that. Some of them are physically crippled for life. That’s the way it goes. I’m lucky, I like work, and I’m not a B.T.O. I think I shall be in a position in about 6 months where I can retire gracefully and not have to go back into foreign service for a while. If I left now, even if it were possible, I should have no job in the States (I mean any job) none overseas, and I would become another one of those excess field officers.
Well, honey, dry up your tears. I love you. You’re mine and always will be even if I do criticize once in a while. Crawl up in a big chair someplace tonight & just imagine I’m underneath you.
Your own Cy.
*See letter of 1/25/45 for clarification.