July 2, 1943

O.C.S. Faculty
Dept. of Materiel
July 2, 1943
Dear Mother, Dad, + Grandma -

Now that I've been here three months, I can begin to plan for another leave. I'll be due for one along about October 1st. But I can't quite decide what to do about it.

There are several possibilities. I can get ten days leave in October -- and by planning it correctly, I can add a weekend to it thus making it almost twelve days. But I have no particular reason for coming home in October. None of my friends are there anymore except Charlie Bond, and I'd rather save up my leave until there is something doing.

I thought of the possibility too of waiting until January and then trying to get 15 days leave at the time of the Consistory meetings. The trouble with this plan is that I'm not sure I'll be able to get 15 days even by saving it up -- and I'm not sure but what it's not best to take what one can get while the getting is good. We never know when things will change so that it might be impossible to get any leave at all. Moreover, if I take one in October -- I'll be due for another in April again. Whereas if I wait until January, then I won't be due for a leave again until July. If I should decide to wait until January, then you folks could come down to visit me in September of October.

At any rate, I have three more months to go before I can get any leave at all, so I have plenty of time to think it over. I'll be due for a silver bar along about Oct. 1st too, i.e. if the regulations are not changed. There is some discussion of making a year in grade prerequisite to proportion. In case it goes through I won't be a 1st Lt. until next April. I hope they hold off until after October before they put the new regulation into effect.

One of these days I'm going to go on a spending spree again. There are a number of things I still need, a sleeping bag, a mussette bag, a sheepskin jacket, and a val pack bag. I think I shall get the val pack and the jacket sometime before fall -- the other things can wait until I have more use for them than I have now. I'll need a few more shirts and slacks too. But before I spend anymore on things like this I'm going to build up my checking account.

Once I get my checking account up a few hundred dollars -- as a reserve -- I'm going to open an account out here. It's not as convenient to get a Penna. check cashed out here as a Lawton check. Besides it costs 10 cents. I shall use the Lawton account merely to take care of current expenses, and transfer any balance from it at the end of the month to my account at home. If the Trust Co. account gets too big -- and it probably won't for there is always something -- then I'll buy a bond or something. However, I don't want to put all my savings in bonds -- for when the war is over I want to have cash available for Law School, and Bonds are not too easy to turn in when you are in a hurry.

I have been thinking a bit about going back to Law School. Of course, I don't want to predict when the war will be over, but my guess is that it will be along sometime in the winter of'45. If that is the case, then it will probably be sometime in the summer of '46 before I am mustered out. So I can go back to Law School in the fall of '46 for the regular term. In this case I would finish and finally be on my own in '48. I certainly hope it isn't any later than that, for I'm not getting any younger!

My money orders representing June’s pay are enclosed Please deposit to my account, will you Dad? Thanks.

Love,
John