July 27, 1942  Tucson, AZ

Dear Donna,

Maybe I shouldn’t be writing quite so often as this, but there is  nothing to do, no place to go, in fact I can’t go anywhere tonight anyway cause I’m in charge of quarters. 

I guess what inspired me mostly to write was cause I went over to the PX tonight to get a coke and it is really beautiful out this evening.  The moon is as big as a dollar and a half and twice as bright.  The sky overhead is a real pale blue, blending into the lighter blue around the tops of the mountains.  The mountains themselves are a real dark purple and that really makes a contrasting color scheme with the sky.  To the west, the sky is streaked with red clouds.  It’s all over now though and maybe to someone else, the sunset wouldn’t look like that, but that is about as close as I can come to making a description of what I am seeing.

Another thing I have noticed around here tonight, there are not the sounds of airplane motors.  All ships are grounded pending a meeting that is in session at Ft. GeoWright Wm.  I am expecting a long distance call at any time in regards to it.  Only the call will not be for me, but an officer instead.  Everything being silent like this reminds a person of the show “All’s Quiet on the Western Front”.

We are still stuck here and we still don’t know any more than we did before.  We still have over 300 men to get up there and still only three planes.  So it looks like maybe the railroads will get a little more business after all.  Maybe I can swing it some way so that I can go by private conveyance after all.  I hope.  It would only be a short time, but almost every minute counts.  I’d like to take the car to Wendover with me so that I can come into Salt Lake for a day.  Then if perhaps I could induce you to also come to Salt Lake, we could both see what it looks like together. 

I’ve looked for a letter from you lately, but I have forgotten whether I told you not to write or not.  It looks like we will be here until the first, but nothing definite on that.

We went to town again last night with one of the kids from here who has his girlfriend and sister down here for a visit.  We had a few drinks and took in a dance and then he and I got a room to save the trouble of cramming into the last bus.  That runs into too much money to do as often as we have done in the past couple of weeks.  I haven’t been here long enough lately to even make up my bed, so all I do is to put the sheets on and lay on top of them.  It’s too hot even for sheets.

Well, Donna, I realize I haven’t said anything new in this letter and perhaps I really shouldn’t write quite so often, and if you do think that I shouldn’t, let me know, but I do hope you don’t mind.

That’s all for tonight, goodnight, lots of love,

Wayne