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Today we have excerpts from a letter from soldier Harry Lowell who is in training at Fort Francis E. Warren in Wyoming for the Quartermaster Corps to his sister Eva Lowell who is finishing nursing school in San Francisco.
June 8, 1943
Dear Sister,
Well, don’t say it. My locker is stacked with unanswered mail; the reason for that may be attributed to laziness, study, athletics, KP, and other very good excuses.
I have finished my basic training and am attending school for automotive anatomy and motor operations. (How’s your generator?) They really cram stuff into us in a hurry; I have to do some studying every night. I like it very much despite my dislike for the Quartermaster Corps of which motor maintenance & operations is the best branch, I think. Still I would rather be in the infantry.
I have been very busy for the last few weeks; I am on the company boxing team and on the regimental track team which events keep me rather occupied. (In case you don’t know anything about the Army, a regiment consists of twelve companies and the whole Fort has six regiments.) There’ll be a track meet on the sixteenth amongst all the regiments of the post. The sixteenth is the 158th (or so) anniversary of the Quartermaster Corps. Last Sunday there was an inter-regimental contest to select the good men for the regimental team. I am a good man, he he. I’ll be running the mile again; but this time I have a little more practice and I am somewhat more used to the high altitude than I was before….
I guess by now you have moved from the diaper ward to a drier climate. How are you getting along? When are you going to graduate? Do you need money? I do, too.
Today started out with warm sunshine and a June atmosphere; about three in the afternoon, it began to hail like heck. We may expect some snow yet; this will give you an idea of the climate.
It would be awful punishment for me if I were to be stationed here for a while.
In this new company, student cooks prepare our meals. We are their guinea pigs, so to speak. They fed us meatballs today that were so well done that they would have served the purpose of fatally wounding someone if they were used in sling shots. We used to get excellent meals in Co C; but Co F serves us regular slop.
On Sundays a bunch of fellows & I usually go to Cheyenne’s “Hotel” and enjoy civilian steak banquets. It’s good to wipe your mouth on a napkin and eat at leisure!…
How’s everyone in S.F.? What’s the dirt, sister?
As to that picture, all the fellows agreed that it was a good one. You should have seen the other one. You know, that old dopey look.
I think I’d better close now; I gotta go to bed.
Harry
P.S. In case you have a recent picture, send me one.
P.P.S. Is there anything you want from Wyoming? (Souvenirs, etc.)
P.P.S.S. Note new address; Co F, 1st QMTR
In my June 2 post, we saw that Harry’s cousin Erich Zerzawy who died as a WWI prisoner of war, seems to want nothing better than the life of a soldier for his younger brother Robert. Harry is enthusiastic about the life of an infantryman, unhappy that he’s been relegated to the Quartermaster Corps. Erich and Harry were different generations, never met, served in different wars and armies, and yet they have the same attitude. I find this very hard to understand, but I am not a teenage boy.
I assume the portrait Harry mentions is the photo he sent to Eva for her birthday. See May 3 post.