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.
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