"Thanksgiving dinner at Fort Bliss, Texas" (date stamp NOV 25 1943)
"Me in basic training at Fort Bliss, Texas"
"Basic training at Fort Bliss, Texas"
"Paul Nickas a friend from Gloucester MA. He is outside the six-man hut in which we lived. Rattlesnakes used to congregate under the floor"
"On KP at Fort Bliss during Basic Training"
With Pet Pigeon (See *Note in Description)
MAY YOUR APPETITE BE SATED AND YOUR CHRISTMAS A MERRY ONE
Metadata
Share
Title
1943 Fort Bliss Basic Training
Date
November 25, 1943
Location
Fort Bliss, Texas
Transcription
Fort Bliss, Texas & Juarez, Mexico during Basic Training
Description
No letters from this period. He received the “Order to Report for Induction” while he was living in Washington, DC and working at the Office of War Information as a messenger boy running messages from OWI to the White House. The Order to Report was dated May 28, 1943, and said he was to report on June 8, 1943 in his home town at the Lowell District Court House in Massachusetts. There is no saved correspondence until August 1944. There was, however, included in the folder “Me and World War II” a set of materials (pictures/etc.) labeled “Fort Bliss, Texas & Juarez, Mexico during Basic Training." One is labeled as Thanksgiving dinner, November 1943 and Christmas 1943 dinner menu.
* Picture holding pigeon: My mom described that he befriended a pigeon while at Fort Bliss, kept it as a pet and had fond memories of the (dirty little) bird. This is one reason she bought him a pet bird, a cockatiel, in his retirement.
