Friday, March 6, 2009

First Days in The Desert

June 13, 1943

Dear Mother,

The first day here on the desert wasn't so bad. The camp here reminds me of Camp Sutton only about twice as bad. -
Called because of darkness - continued tomorrow. -

Thursday June 14,

Another day bright and sunny. It's not quite as hot here as some have rumored it, but that sun really beats down. It's only been about 100 the past few days. The one thing that helps is being up so high here we get a nice breeze most of the time. The nights really get cool. Two or three blankets are just about right to keep you from freezing.
Boy is this a forsaken looking place no trees, grass, or anything but brush and cactus. We're sitting out here in the middle of the desert about 20 miles northeast of Needles, California. On all sides of us you can see mountains, those on the east of us are the closest. They look like they are in our back yard, but they are really about ten miles away.
We live in tents, sleep on army cots and have dirt floors. All the buildings here are tents. The post exchanges, shops and everything are in tents.
We left Kansas on Thursday night and got here Sunday afternoon. We went through Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. I never seen such barren country. The only trees are cedar and they look like they had a hard time existing, all twisted and stunted. About all we seen along the way was mostly Indians. I don't how they live. There's nothing to live on that I can see but there they are.

I hope this is our correct address at last....

Love
Kenneth

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