Letter from Clarence Williams to Gretchen Williams, July 17, 1945

This is another of those days with nothing much of interest to write about. We did about the usual thing this afternoon, Insull and I went swimming and this morning I helped Bob again on some typing.

We had some bad news today, found out Cap’t O’Brien is leaving us and going to the Field Artillery. The boys are quite upset over the deal as he is probably the best liked (by the enlisted men) of any medical officer in the Bn. In fact that is the main reason he is transferring out, because he fought for we fellows and wouldn’t kiss the colonels’ A—. He called me in his tent last night as I was walking by and told me how he hated to leave we boys, however because of the efficiency rating he received from the Bn C.O. he couldn’t do otherwise. He said “Hell Willie, you and I are civilians just trying to be soldiers” which I agreed was exactly right. They all admit our company did the best in combat of all in the Bn so we know his rating could be only from personal feelings. One of the boys in the company prints a small daily paper just for our company and today he dedicated his paper to Cap’t O’Brien. The cap’t really appreciated it and I thought it pretty good myself so am inclosing one for you to read. We are going to have a farewell party   for him tonite which I suppose will be quite a drunken affair. I understand we are to have beer, wine, cognac, GI alcohol and Schnapp’s and I can imagine how the company will feel tomorrow. Another cheap deal the Bn pulled is that they won’t even give us vehicles to use for transportation to the party so Service Co. of the 222d Infantry are furnishing some trucks. Isn’t that a deal for some one to pull. We hear our new C.O. will be Cap’t Benton from Co “B”. We don’t know much about him but the boys there seem to like him very much and hate to loose him. That being the case he should work out okay. Cap’t O’Brien also told me the other night that he put me in for Tee 5 rating which is the same as Cpl however don’t know as yet whether it will be okayed by Bn. Time will tell.

Well darling thats all the news for today, so will close for now. All my love and kisses.