"And we showed each other a picture of our wife"

March 2, 1951
Wongju, Korea


Dear Sweetheart Helen,
Comes near the close of another day, a little short of perfect, but a day nonetheless. It was a cold dinger too. Sure am glad I don’t have a thermometer or I don’t think I could drag myself out of my sleeping bag mornings. To think that a few short days ago I thought spring was almost here. I wish I could stop this damned writing down hill business, guess it’s on account of the awkward position I’m writing in.

Really not much to talk about this evening seems like, cause we didn’t do much today. Started out this morning loading sand on a truck down in the river and hauling it up on a road and throwing it off. That’s the way we spent the morning. And this afternoon we built a revetment alongside a road to keep it from caving in so you can see it wasn’t much of a day for interesting experiences.

We didn’t get any news about the fighting today but I guess they’re having a pretty hard time. They’re trying to take a town by name of Hoengseong which is about fifteen miles northwest of here. The artillery has let up some today and they have slowed down on bringing in the casualties so my guess is that we’re not doing so bad right now. I wanted to get up to the P.O.W. camp today and see if they were bringing in many prisoners but we didn’t get over that way. I don’t remember if I told you about the one I saw yesterday, yes I do, I already told you. Must be I’m getting absent minded.

No mail at all today so I won’t have the disappointment of not getting a letter this evening. Or is that good? Maybe if there was any mail tonight I would have some. Guess I’ll be mad cause there wasn’t any now. Now I’m writing up hill. Just can’t seem to get on the level.

Had some fun today talking to a Korean soldier out by the job today. He was telling me about things over here even if I couldn’t understand most of it and I told him about the States and he couldn’t understand me either. And we showed each other a picture of our wife. I sure get a kick out of trying to talk to these guys just like down in Ensanada. Guess there’s some strange fascination about not being able to understand people. I don’t learn much from it anyway. Except now I know ICHO means “very cold” now.

Well little darling guess I’ve hit bottom [of the page] and I don’t think this guff will stretch to another page, so goodnight now and sweet dreams honeypot.

All my love,
Bill

p.s. What's Pontarelli's address? I want to write him a letter sometime.