Dear Dad
Well, here it is, your birthday - wonder what you did to celabrate. I had quite a day myself. I didn't fly but we had a quite a day that started at 7:45 this morning. We put on our class A uniforms and got ready for the General. We put on a review and he awarded our group with the presidental citation. It was quite an affair and took all morning. I don't know if we'll be able to wear the ribbon cause it was supposed to be for a raid the day before we got here - but since it's a group affair I don't see why we won't be able to wear it though.
This afternoon we didn't do much - I got three letters, two from home and one from Elsie. The one from Auntie and one from you were dated the 26th of Sept. - it had the pictures of the book cases in it - they sure are sell - that rug you made ma - under the table - looks OK. The other letter from home was dated the 25th of Oct. It sure is funny getting two letters mailed a month apart. Tonight we had fried chicken and hot buns, potatoes, lettuce or something that was green, fruit cocktail with large peaches added and coffee, quite a feast. Now I'll tell you what I did yesterday. Got up about four thirty AM and went to briefing - yes we had a mission - there aren't many guys that can say the saw Vienna on the 21 birthday. When we got back we had supper then went to the show - after the show went over to the dispensary with Danny and played cards with doc until 11 PM. All we had was one bottle of champaign - didn't even get a buzz on. So Pa and Unk to Bob Shultz out and got him filled up, eh? Well, by golly they better be sure they fill me up too and I mean full up. So mom is a gambler now eh, tich tich - it's about time she got on the ball.
I can't understand it, I've told you a million times or more how many missions I have. Don't you read my letters? Now I have 15 of them. I had to laugh when you said my girlfriend Doris is going to be married. I didn't think anyone would every marry that scatter brain. I guess maybe that's what she afraid of. At the present time I still feel like remaining a bachlor for 21 more years. Well, we're all watching Budapest and the Russians over here. Vienna is only about 100 miles from there and that's our worst target. In the first five days of Nov we got credit for 5 missions and it took me about four weeks to get my first five in. Well, it's late so better close for now. I hope you had a happy birthday pop.
Love, Rae