Everett Schafer's Letters
Letter #21
It Happened So Fast It’s Hard To Believe
To “Mom & All”
14 July 1945
July 14 1945
[1]
Dear Mom + all,
Here I am back in the routine of things, and there was no strain at all. It seems to me it happened so fast it’s hard to believe.
Well anyway I really enjoyed my thirty days and that’s straight dope.[2]
I arrived in {??} at eight o’clock and by the time I got squared away I was ready to go to Adeline’s by 8.20 so I called and she said grab a cab so I did. My train left at 9.20 so I had about fifteen min. there and they drove me down. Then I was told the train was leaving in 4 mins so I ran all the way to the train to find they didn’t have the Pullmans hooked up and I had to wait twelve mins anyway. But they enjoyed the short visit as well as I. I sure wish I was a civilian again.
Williamsburg is really a ‘burg. It’s a historical spot and really isn’t very much, not even for liberty. Richmond is forty miles and that’s not so bad. Wash[ington DC] about a hundred and ten, but good for a weekend.
The place here is guard duty and not bad. Everything from laundry to P.X. is right in the barracks with us, and that makes it nice. I’m fairly well squared away already but won’t do anything for a couple of days. I have to get a few teeth filled + my tonsils cut out and then I’ll finally be set.
Well I hope things at home will run smoother and believe they will if he will think about what I told him.[3] That’s about all from here so will close for now.
Your loving son
Everett
This is the final surviving wartime letter from Sergeant Everett Ellsworth Schafer. He was honorably discharged on September 28, 1945.
Footnotes
1. This letter is postmarked Marine Barracks, NSD Cheatham Annex, Williamsburg VA. Everett arrived for duty here on 13 July.
2. Everett has just had a thirty-day furlough back at home. “Straight dope” is Marine slang for “honest truth.”
3. Unknown reference, likely relating to a conversation (or confrontation) occurring during the furlough.