Letter 81- March 16, 1944

March 16, 1944
(Camp Crowder, Missouri)

Dearest Folks,

Well, I’m just about getting into the swing of things here at Camp Crowder. I’ve had about a day and a half of radio and if one of these days they drag me home in a straight jacket, don’t be surprised. This is the kind of stuff that can actually drive a man screwy. If I don’t have a nervous breakdown I should make a good operator. I’m slower than most, as usual; but I’m a lot surer of myself than most. Code is very simple and surprisingly enough for this reason it’s pretty tough. One’s mind has a tendency to rebel against that constant repetition. It’ll be a cinch if I can get into the rhythm of the thing, but meanwhile it’s certainly no nerve tonic.

As I’ve told you before this is really a nice camp, but it’s still just an Army camp and therefore—phhht! As Engineers we rate around this joint. We’re combat troops and the Signal Corps boys aren’t. For some reason the cadre around here seems to respect us. In fact I think they must be afraid of us. Of course, maybe that’s because “rough, tough and robust”. In the Engineers if you don’t agree with a non-com you tell them so—not disrespectfully mind you, but the important thing out at Abbot was to get the job done and if we had a better way to do a thing we were free to say so. Well, we can do that here and these boys go into a spin. They don’t know whether we really know out oats or (are) just tough. We don’t try to act tough but compared to this bunch we do know our oats.

Closing now. Be sure to address letter exactly as below.


Pvt. William W. Taylor, Jr. 19203811
Co. B-37
Camp Crowder, Mo.


Bestus Love,

Bill