Dear Mom, Dad and All,

     I have a few minutes to spare and although I wrote Eve a long letter yesterday, I'll try and think of enough to say to make it worth writing.  It's very warm here aboard ship today and I'm really sweating this one out.  I've completely recovered from my sea sickness and lost the headache I had, so I'm feeling pretty good.
     I've just had a shower as well.  I told Eve in her letter something of the usual things we do on board and, as I imagine she read it to you, I won't repeat.  We haven't had any more movies since the one titled "The Duke of West Point", but have had a number of transcriptions of Command Performance and similar forces programs.  I hope to be able to pick these programs up direct on my new radio when we get set up at our destination.  You might send me a short wave station log if you can find one.  Send it first class mail though, as fourth class can only be sent to us by the publishers.  I guess I won't be receiving any mail until we reach our destination either, but write a letter or two anyway and it will be waiting for me when I get there and will be mighty welcome too, after not hearing from you from the time I left Kansas.  We never know where we are on the big pond.  As one fellow said, you can't tell when you get up in the morning if you've gone any place during the night or not, but can take it for granted that you're a few waves further along the line.  It looks like we'll spend Christmas at sea, something that certainly doesn't appeal to me at all, but anyway it will be unusual.  If nothing else, my thoughts will be a thousand, or two, miles away from here and I'll be trying to imagine Ray on his first Christmas.
 You have a snap of me on my first, how about getting one of him?  I bet he'll be having a big time for himself.  What did you think of the Kansas Republican we bought for him?  Incidently, if the cards I sent don't reach you, I'll take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and do make it a merry one even if Bug and I aren't there.  Were both okay so there's no reason why you shouldn't.  I hope we reach our destination in time to celebrate New Years ashore because I do have a little bottle along for that purpose.  If we're still at sea it will have to be a WCTU celebration I'm afraid, with just plain fresh water, with even that probably rationed.  I played a little cheap poker with the officers of our outfit for four hours last night and won a total of eighty-five cents.  Tonight I go on duty as duty officer in the ships Army headquarters from six to twelve.  I get this every three days.  It's supposed to be for twenty four hours, but there's always an officer there in the daytime anyway, and I let the charge of quarters know where I sleep so he can call me if anything should come up during the night.  The boys got quite a kick out of our embarkation.  The Red Cross handed out coffee and doughnuts at the pier and gave every enlisted man a sewing kit, a book, deck of cards, cigarettes, etc. and a band played while they marched up the gang plank.  So Merry Christmas & Cheerio for the present.

Love to All,

Bob