30) A swell girl to come home to---July 18, 1944

APO 920 = Base H, Biak, Dutch New Guinea
The return address on this letter indicates that Jack is now a Corporal.

July 18 (1944)

Betty honey,
This is my first chance to write in the past week.

I suppose you have gotten my last letter by this time. I just want you to know that I didn’t write that stuff about us on the spur of the moment. I honestly meant every word I said. Please believe me when you read these things. I am not just saying these things to you because you are the only girl that writes to me. There are several who write. Not as often as you do but they write. I know you may not feel as I do about these things but I hope that maybe you will realize that I am sincere when I write these things. Oh! How I wish I could be there to tell you myself, just how things stand. We have most of our lives ahead of us and that to look forward to, is what keeps me going through all this.

Every day I thank the Lord that this war didn’t come five years later. As it is people of our age suffer enough. When I think of all the people in their thirties who have children and are separated by the war I realize that if the war had come five or six years later I might have been married and had to leave all that. As is we have good prospects of living a happy & peaceful life after all this is over. Which I hope will be in the near future. But why bore you with my views on the future. The main thing is having a swell girl like you to come home to after this is over. I wish now that I had spent my time with you when I was on furlough instead of spending it with someone who obviously doesn’t care. How could I have been so blind. Why couldn’t we have been together then? Well it is one thing to see ones mistakes and another to talk about them too much. So I will drop that for ever. Need I say any more? I think I have stated my feelings completely.

I received your letter of June 24th just yesterday afternoon. The exams at U of L must have been really something. I know without asking that you passed with flying colors. Right? See I told you so. When I get back you will be a really intellectual gal. Maybe too smart for me, who knows. You are quite right in going to college. An education is the third most important thing a woman can have. First and second come kindness and understanding. I shouldn’t worry any more about acquiring those. You are already doing pretty well on those two in my estimation.

Well give my regards to your Mother and Ann and all the others.

More later.
Much love and a kiss or two,
Yours,

Jack