July 16, 1942
Camp Livingston, LA

Dear Mom and All,
Well, we got back in camp, but I was too tired to write last night. I could still stand some sleep as I didn’t sleep any of the way down.
To go on from that card I wrote in Cincinnati; we left there right after eating for Nashville, Tennessee. We wanted to go down Lookout Mountain through Chattanooga, but figured that it would be night when we went through so we couldn’t see the scenery.
Leland was driving and went about 15 miles then bang, thump, thump, thump.. a blowout!
Luckily, we had the one I blew out fixed, so we changed. Red was pretty sick about it. We finally found a fairly good tire and tube for $10 and it carried us in, but we didn’t dare drive over 40 to 45 mph.
Chuck went to sleep about the time we went through Belfont and didn’t wake up for more than about an hour all the way down. They were all pretty tired and could sleep, but you know how I am, so I thought I might as well drive. Started driving Monday night above Nashville and drove to below Birmingham Alabama and the others didn’t even know when we had went through.
Margarete woke up about seven Tuesday morning and was pretty surprised to see me still driving and not tired out.
We got in Tuesday night at 8:45 and ate supper with Stuart and his wife before we went into camp.
Yesterday we went out to practice stream crossing. We were supposed to put our equipment in our shelter holder and float them across. I took the tarp off my truck and by using eight litters for skids and folding the sides around them, made a nice raft. About eight of us took it out on the lake and used it for diving. We had a good time swimming all morning.
Yesterday afternoon we (quartet) were called over to division headquarters. They wanted an interview for a newspaper article. They had a photographer take our pictures in the shower room with our heads together and singing full blast. I told them that we had been called ‘a shit house quartet’, but nobody ever got proof of it before.
They’re going to put it in the army paper and send it off to the Elmira Star. They said it would prove that we did take a bath once in a while.
I drove truck this morning on Battalion duty and was all over camp with it. This afternoon, the mechanic and I worked on it getting it ready to be inspected. It should go through OK.
We were paid yesterday but I had to pay Charlie back and the fellows that owed me were paid the first of the month and are broke now so I can’t send you the money until the end of the month.
Boy, it really is hot, about 115 but it looks like rain tonight. I hope it may cool off a little.
Please excuse the writing. My hand is awfully shaky for some reason, tired I guess. Will close now.
Love to all,
Wayne.