V-Mail
Thursday, July 15, 1943
My Darling Wife
I have not received any mail from you for over two weeks now. — nor have I written you for about a week. However I'm O.K. and I'm sure you have everything figured out
My work has been hot & heavy for a few days and I'm rather fagged out. In fact I feel that cold coming back.
When I get the opportunity I'm going to write a letter and blast a few people. The ignorant S of a B that writes the censorship regulations shouldn't be permitted to run loose, there is no rhyme [no?] reason to the damn rules they enforce. so I'll have to start and find ways & means of getting around their rules. I can't see how any of the rules they stress safeguard anything from the enemy — and I can prove my point. Frankly when I run up against gross stupidity I start to think of how to get out of the damn army and at the present moment I'm mad — and would like the pleasure of telling some [Chief?] B. Censor what I think of him. According to regulations in effect, I can't write about anything else
Well honey, I hope you have not worried too much. I'm O.K. as usual. I'm homesick and I'm going to start finding a way to get home or become an 8-ball. I have had enough of this baloney — Give Linda a big kiss for me — and oh honey I miss you — all my love
John.
READING CLOSELY
An original, not a print. This one survives as the red-and-white form he wrote on. Zoom in on the censor's circle: he signed it himself.
“Fagged out.” Exhausted.
“8-ball.” Army slang for a misfit or troublemaker.
Where he was. Three days after the truce at the villa near Niscemi, and four days after the heaviest tank attack of the campaign. Censorship rules kept him from mentioning either.