Dear Mother,

I've finally found a little free time, so I'll knock out a few lines, even though I haven't received a letter from you for three days. However, I did receive a letter from Mary Jo and one from Dad yesterday. Every once in a while our mail down here gets all messed up, so I imagine I'll get about three letters from you tomorrow.

Friday morning Jim Rafferty, a fellow here in my barracks, and myself decided to organize a Glee Club here in our squadron - that is, Lieutenant Moore, our athletic instructor, asked us to. So we got to work. Sixteen other boys came to the rehearsal besides Jim and myself. We practiced all day Friday to enter an inter-squadron song fest the same evening. All the other squadrons had standing Glee Clubs but our squadron. So we felt that we were "just up a creek." However, we worked hard and came out on top. Our commanding officer was very pleased with us. Ours was the smallest group to sing, but evidently we were the best. The group that came in second was 100 strong and led by a former member of Fred Waring's Glee Club. So, we had to be good to beat them.

The entire area was "taken back" by our success. Most other squadrons didn't even expect "107" to enter the contest. Mother, if you can manage it, send me some of my music, my church music and also my quartet arrangements. I have at last found a use for them down here.

After I got back from the song fest it was time to start our weekly "G.I." party. A party such as this isn't exactly a party. What you do at such a party is scrub and clean the entire barracks. All the windows must be cleaned and the floors, tables and other woodwork must be scrubbed. Of course the floors and barracks are mopped every day, but on Friday, we get down on our hands and knees and scrub! It's like a spring housecleaning, only done weekly. But we enjoy it because we make ourselves enjoy it. We really pride ourselves in our clean barracks.

This afternoon Priestley and myself went to the show and saw, "The Pride of the Yankees." It was plenty good. The sunglasses arrived - thanks a lot. Also a box of candy from "Grandma."

But it didn't last long. Guess why? Seems like the boys here "sorta" like candy like that. You can send more any time you wish - the sooner the better!

Well nothing much more to write at the moment - but I'll write tomorrow.

Loads of love,
Jack

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